By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
After taking a chance only months into the 2019 season, Ross Chastain nearly laid the path to a championship in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series.
Declaring for Truck Series points following his Xfinity Series standing since 2014, Chastain and Niece Motorsports had a fight on their hands… but plenty of speed to get it done.
Winning three times in the regular season, Chastain had what at times seemed like an unstoppable roll toward Homestead-Miami Speedway Friday night.
However, with stiff competition and a clean race, Chastain was two spots short of bringing home his first NASCAR title on home soil. Matt Crafton was the best of the Championship 4, finishing the Ford EcoBoost 200 from second spot.
Chastain could only manage fourth place after leading 36 laps in the first two stages.
“I was trying to manage to those guys, and I felt like we did a good job in those first two stages,” Chastain said. “The No. 16 [race winner Austin Hill] was by far the best truck, the No. 88 [Crafton] came on strong in that final run.”
Fading late, Chastain knew he and his No. 45 team put a full year’s effort into making a championship a reality.
“I’m a racer. I want to win,” he said. “I’m proud of the effort all year. We started out with a handful of races. A calendar year ago, I was going to run five races in Al’s [Niece, team owner] truck.”
One year ago, Niece only managed two top-10 finishes with rookie Justin Fontaine. Following impressive improvement over the offseason, driver Chastain and crew chief Phil Gould brought experience in the fresh lineup.
“We wrote a new story,” he said. “Never been done before. It’s pretty crazy that we did that and made it to Homestead and finished the best out of the Chevys.”