Ross Chastain

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The season was marred by two fights with fellow Xfinity drivers, one with Jeremy Clements at Bristol after Clements confronted him and one with Brendan Gaughan at Texas after heated on-track competition. Chastain, Gaughan, and crew members from both teams brawled behind Victory Lane after the night race. A crew member from JD Motorsports, teammate Garrett Smithley, was taken to the hospital with a head injury after the fight. Chastain blamed the confrontation on Gaughan, saying the Richard Childress Racing driver attacked him, but also acknowledged that he races hard and does not play favorites. Gaughan initially avoided discussing the incident with reporters but later boasted about the incident on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said that he received several text messages from fellow drivers who were happy about the incident. He did admit that he could've handled the situation later, but didn't care about it. That opinion was likely influenced by the fact that 2017 was Gaughan's final Xfinity season, as any retaliation had to happen within the next two races.

In 2017, Chastain joined Premium Motorsports' No. 15 car for his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover, an opportunity he initially resisted after being informed of the opportunity by Xfinity team owner Johnny Davis. he finished twentieth. Chastain heard from various sources that his driving style made multiple drivers mad on-track, but Chastain says it doesn't bother him. He also drove the No. 15 at the fall Dover race, finishing 38th. Chastain was originally on the entry list to drive the No. 7 car, the second car for Premium Motorsports, at the Cup series season finale at Homestead, but the team withdrew.

On the strength of a summer performance that saw him hold down the final Xfinity Series playoff spot, Chastain and Chip Ganassi Racing announced a three-race agreement for Chastain to pilot the organization's No. 42 entry for races at Darlington Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Richmond Raceway. The races came at the expense of John Hunter Nemechek, who could not sell sponsorship for the races. DC Solar was announced as a backer for Chastain's effort. Chastain had previously met the CEO of DC Solar at Auto Club Speedway in 2018, and plans materialized from there. For the first race of the trio, Chastain held top-ten spots in both practices, finishing second in first practice. He later claimed the pole over Christopher Bell, and during the race won the first two stages. During the third stage, Chastain was battling for the race lead with Kevin Harvick with thirty-five laps to go. Through turns one and two of the traditionally one-groove Darlington track, the lapped car of Chad Finchum took the top-groove racing lane, leaving Harvick and Chastain jostling for positions in the bottom lanes. After clearing Finchum, Harvick slid up into Chastain who then slid up into the wall. On the backstretch, Chastain hooked Harvick's machine into the outside wall, ending Harvick's day. Harvick later parked in Chastain's pit stall before giving a heated post-race interview calling Chastain "inexperienced" and saying that Chastain will "never get to drive many of them events again. Chip Ganassi then responded on Twitter, defending Chastain's performance and stating that he "helped himself to many future opportunities"." Chastain, for his part, finished 25th after repairs and called running up front "cool" and also saying "I don't care what Harvick says."

After running a race with JD Motorsports at Indianapolis, Chastain returned to CGR for the DC Solar 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He once again performed well throughout the weekend, securing the second-fastest time in final practice and the fifth starting spot for the race. Once again the class of the field, Chastain led all but twenty of the 200 laps in the race and prevailed over Justin Allgaier for the victory, his first in over 200 starts in NASCAR. True to his roots, Chastain smashed a watermelon on the track as a final victory celebration. In a post-race media conference, he admitted to getting emotional in the closing laps of the race due to the gravity of the win. With the win, a playoff berth was wrapped up, the first of his career. Chastain also revealed that he was not being paid to drive the car, something that he claimed was reason for ridicule within the sport. Chastain fell out of the playoffs after the opening round after Matt Tifft made a late-race rally at Dover, claiming the final spot by three points.

Towards the latter part of the 2018 season, Chastain joined Niece Motorsports for some NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races. Although some were surprised at how well Chastain ran in those races, Chastain instead said that the organization was better than the community gave it credit for.

During the spring, Chastain broke the all-time NASCAR record for most consecutive races run across all three national series to start a season through the Xfinity race in the 2019 LTi Printing 250 at Michigan International Speedway totaling 36, surpassing the mark of 22 set by Kyle Busch set in 2008.

On May 10, 2019, Chastain won his first career NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race in the 2019 Digital Ally 250 at Kansas Speedway. He nearly spun out with twenty laps to go but saved the truck, later inheriting the lead from Stewart Friesen after he ran out of fuel. In June, he announced his intention to switch to Truck Series points to compete for a championship in the series.

In June's M&M's 200 at Iowa, Chastain led 141 of 200 laps and swept the stages to score the win, but his truck failed post-race inspection and his victory was forfeited to Brett Moffitt under NASCAR's newly-introduced disqualification policy. Chastain was the first driver to have a win revoked since Dale Jarrett was disqualified from a Busch Series race in 1995, relegated to last in the official standings. Chastain's team appealed the penalty, though it was eventually upheld after a hearing with National Motorsports Appeals panelist Bryan Moss. He earned redemption the following week in Gateway's CarShield 200, however, leading 21 laps and scoring the victory after taking only fuel and no tires on his final pit stop.

Chastain won the 2019 Circle K Firecracker 250 at Daytona, driving the No. 16 Camaro for Kaulig Racing. Chastain's teammates Justin Haley and A. J. Allmendinger finished behind him, though Allmendinger was subsequently disqualified for failing post-race inspection. Chastain later won at Pocono Raceway in the Truck Series in commanding fashion, dedicating his win to Kaulig crew chief Nick Harrison, who had died the previous week. In Xfinity Series competition at Watkins Glen International, Chastain sent Justin Allgaier spinning off the track in the bus stop portion of the circuit; Allgaier, thinking the move was intentional, wrecked Chastain in the same section of the track later in the race, relegating Chastain to a 34th-place finish. Chastain chalked his side of the incidents up to mistakes while Allgaier cited instances of Daytona earlier in 2018 and Las Vegas in 2018 as further dirty racing by Chastain. Once Chastain's berth in the Truck Series playoffs was secure, CarShield announced full sponsorship of his playoff efforts.

Chastain earned his second top-five of 2019 when he finished second to Christopher Bell at Texas Motor Speedway in November, leading 29 laps.

Chastain failed to qualify for the Xfinity season opener at Daytona after mechanical issues plagued his car. However, Kaulig and RSS Racing forged an agreement that RSS driver Jeff Green would surrender his No. 38 car to Chastain for the race. In the Daytona 500, Chastain was involved in a late wreck with Ryan Preece that took him out of the race.

On February 19, 2020, Roush Fenway Racing announced Chastain as the replacement driver for an injured Ryan Newman in the team's No. 6 Ford starting with the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas. Chastain drove the No. 6 for three races before the season was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Newman returned to the No. 6 when the season resumed, while Chastain returned to Spire Motorsports part-time.

On September 21, 2020, Chip Ganassi Racing Chastain as the driver of the No. 42 Chevrolet in 2021, replacing Matt Kenseth. He finished a career-high seventh in the Xfinity standings with 27 top-tens (the most of any driver that season) and fifteen top-fives (including five runner-up finishes), despite not winning a race.

In March, Chastain rejoined Niece for the Truck race at Atlanta. In May, he reunited with SS-Green Light Racing to drive their No. 07 car in the Xfinity Series race at Circuit of the Americas, replacing its normal driver, Joe Graf Jr.

On June 30, 2021, Justin Marks, co-founder of Trackhouse Racing, announced that he had purchased Chip Ganassi Racing's entire NASCAR operations after the 2021 season, leaving Chastain as a free agent. On August 3, 2021, it was revealed that Chastain was the driver for the No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing's upcoming second Cup team, alongside the No. 99 of Daniel Suárez, in a multi-year deal beginning in 2022.

Weeks later, at Atlanta, Chastain spun Hamlin with fourteen laps to go. This caused Hamlin, who was running in the top five, to fall to the back of the pack. Hamlin said that he had "reached his peak" when referring to dealing with Chastain.

The "wall-riding" move, nicknamed "Hail Melon" as a portmanteau of the Hail Mary pass in American football and "watermelon" in allusion to Chastain's background, was widely commented upon in the media. Chastain said that the move was inspired by playing the video game on the GameCube as a kid with his brother Chad Chastain. Overtaken rival Hamlin, who was ultimately eliminated from the playoffs as a direct result of Chastain's move, described it as a "great move", adding that "when you have no other choice, it certainly is easy to do that." Although NASCAR ruled the maneuver legal, some race competitors and commentators criticized the move's safety and NASCAR banned the move the following season, indicating that all future occurrences would result in a time penalty.

Within days, footage of the move received more than 100 million views on Twitter and other social media.

In the Truck Series, Chastain returned to Niece Motorsports to drive the No. 45 truck to victory lane at Darlington.

Season still in progress

Ineligible for series points

Chastain began the 2019 season racing for Xfinity Series points but switched to Truck Series points before the SpeedyCash.com 400 at Texas.