When Ross Chastain joined JD Motorsports last year, he never imagined the team would have enough money to compete weekly for top 10s – let alone buy a show car. After earning four top 10s last year, the watermelon spokesman is attracting more sponsors as the small team gains momentum.

How would you evaluate how the year has gone thus far?

“We haven’t gotten the finishes we probably wanted or sometimes deserved. We’ve had more speed than where we’ve been finishing, which is a good problem to have.”

What do you feel like you need to do to get those better finishes?

“It’s just racing luck. I need to clean up some stuff on my end. It’s the little things that you don’t think are big at the time. When you look back after the weekend, you realize that cost us two spots, another three spots or five. Then, you’re outside the top 10 and outside the top 15. It’s hard to finish in the top 10 in this series, especially when you finish 17^th when you should’ve been 10^th, 11^th or 12^th.”

Given you’re the elder driver on the team, how much do your teammates pick your brain?

“I ask them more questions probably than they ask me. I ask for a reference point for when they lift, and I ask a lot of people that. It’s funny because I don’t really pay attention to what I asked them, and I just lift where I feel like I should lift. It’s weird to hear that I’m the one with more laps, but they’re both good racecar drivers.”