After the latest in a series of on-track incidents involving Ross Chastain at Darlington, Trackhouse co-owner Justin Marks admitted that he and the team were more actively addressing Chastain's aggressive driving that has angered several others throughout the NASCAR Cup Series garage. Marks was prompted to speak about his concerns after Chastain collided with Kyle Larson while racing for the win at Darlington, spoiling what could have been Trackhouse's first win of the 2023 season.
After consecutive weeks of run-ins with other drivers, including one that led to a post-race fistfight between he and Noah Gragson at Kansas, Chastain led 93 laps at Darlington and was leading on a restart with six laps to go when he erred in trying to run Larson tight to the wall, pushing up the track and wrecking both himself and Larson.
While Marks otherwise praised how Chastain managed the first two stages of the race, he stressed that the outcome was a bad one for everyone involved.
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"We have addressed it. We've had many conversations with different people today -- some difficult conversations -- and I think the important message here is that we are a believer in Ross' talent," Marks told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "That's obvious. He's very fast. But he's got some things he's got to clean up, I'll just be totally honest with you. And we today started the process of more aggressively handling that with our partners, with Ross, and with our team.
"Not because necessarily that we're mad at him, but because there's so much opportunity here. We're addressing it. I'm gonna take a more active role in it. I love the kid, and I love the opportunity that he's giving every single person that works at Trackhouse to be able to put a championship run together. But there's just stuff that needs to be cleaned up, and it's a process he's gonna have to start going through sooner rather than later."
Darlington marked the fourth week in a row that Chastain has been involved in some sort of on-track incident, three of which have involved Larson either directly or residually. Following Sunday's race, Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick -- Larson's car owner -- spoke sternly and candidly about Chastain's driving, saying that he doesn't need to be as aggressive as he is.
"You just don't run people up in the fence," Hendrick told reporters. "He's gonna make a lot of enemies, and it's hard to win a championship when you've got a lot of paybacks out there. He's got so much talent. I think if he just calms down ... Dale Earnhardt Sr. told me one time, I won't name the driver who drove for me, but he said 'He's got all the talent, he just doesn't know how to race.' Meaning he just knows when to race, when to push it.
"He's got a lot of talent, but he's making a lot of enemies out here. Kyle now, this one and Dover, Talladega. It's really getting old with these guys."
Speaking to Racing America at North Wilkesboro, Chastain acknowledged Tuesday that he had "tough" conversations with Marks and with Trackhouse concerning his driving following Darlington, expressing that they were impactful and that he would grow from the controversy he has created.
"I get to live with my decisions I make and I get to live with that for the rest of time," Chastain said. "I'll learn from it. I'm human. I'm going to make mistakes -- I don't want to make them on that stage or that manner, but I'm going to be better for it."
Despite his driving style getting on the wrong side of his competitors, Chastain remains the Cup Series points leader by 27 points over Christopher Bell. Chastain has five top fives and six top 10s this season, with his 347 laps led being the fourth-most among all drivers in Cup.
