By: Mitchell Breuer

This week has proven to be one of the biggest for Ross Chastain in his NASCAR career.

On Monday, it was announced the 27-year-old will be reuniting with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 to drive the No. 42 full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, giving him his best chance to be competitive at the sport’s highest level.

In addition toeverything going on, Chastain will also begin his playoff run this week in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, with his best chance to win that title.

Despite the hype, he is not letting this change the way he approaches his upcoming slate of races.

“I hope I never change because of having a job or not having a job,” Chastain said Tuesday. “I feel like I can only drive at 100%. Can’t drive at 101, 110, and I am not going to drive at 95%. So, I hope that never changes with age or with life. I hope I don’t lose that because I think I will be honest with myself and if I do, I’ll probably step back from racing because it takes 100% effort, focus.”

Chastain will enter the playoffsas the eighth seed, with just 10 points to his name. Despite this though, it has still been a strong season for his No. 10 Kaulig Racing team.

The Florida-native has complied a solid stat sheet, with 23 top-10’s in 26 starts and 13 top-five’s.

“For us, we just have to keep doing what we are doing and keep being fast, not take ourselves out, put ourselves in positions to win,” Chastain said.

Winning however has been a glaring problem for his team though. While his Kaulig Racing teammates, AJ Allmendinger and Justin Haley have both went to victory lane, Chastain has not.

Despite this, he still believes it is a matter of when they will win.

“We all know this is the second-level of our sport, is one of the highest levels of motorsports,” Chastain said. “It’s hard. It’s hard to win, it’s hard to be in this sport for any amount of time let alone win races year after year. It’s tough but, we are putting together a very consistent year. We have speed week in and week out, as long as we do that, the wins will come.”

To his credit, it has appeared in recent weeks the team is getting closer to winning. In the last four races, Chastain has led over 30 laps in each, including a week ago at Bristol Motor Speedway where he was in first for 117 laps.

The No. 10 will hope this continues this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where they finished tenth earlier this season.