NASCAR CUP SERIES: AUTOTRADER 400

February 22, 2026

Ross Chastain

Pit Lane Interview

Q. Looked like maybe as you were coming off of turn two that you guys might be able to get a run to materialize into turn three. What more did you need for that to happen?

ROSS CHASTAIN: Yeah, it all I think kind of went wrong. That last run I was committed to the 77. On the restart we didn't quite have the push from the 7 behind us or maybe behind him, and so they got clear.

But I pushed the 77 -- pushed caution like through middle, down the back, to the lead, and sacrificed myself tight. It was kind of over for us then.

Then down the back 45, Tyler had another gear. It was no fender, and he pulled us so fast. The 19 was tandem to me I felt like off of two.

We never had anything, so I felt like the 19, whether he meant to or not, backed up to me. No chance at that point.

The rest of the night for our Wendy's Chevy, we were just too tight. Just need to do have a little more front turn. There was times I was too loose, though, so we were right on the edge. Need a little more forgiveness in our Trackhouse Chevy.

Q. You have a night like tonight where you have a good result. Second week working with a new crew chief, Brandon McSwain. How nice is that to be able to build off as we go into COTA next weekend?

ROSS CHASTAIN: It's great. We cleaned up our fuel stuff that we had some issues with just in our -- how we were describing it to each other at Daytona. We're on the same page definitely all night tonight. Not that we ever got to the end of a fuel window, but we were very aware throughout the race.

Yeah, we toyed with early in the race of stopping, working on the car, taking our time and coming out last, and maybe we should have, but we kept cycling forward. It's really hard to give up track position.

Fresh tires meant something, so thank you to Goodyear for continuing to evolve these Cup tires. This place, we've talked off air. I was wrong. I think you'll agree. We were wrong about the reconfiguration. Hats off to SMI for EchoPark Speedway.