Ross Chastain - Allegiance 200 Race Preview
Event: Allegiance 200 (150 laps / 199.5 miles)
Round: 11 of 25 (Regular Season)
Track: Nashville Superspeedway
Location: Lebanon, TN
Date & Time: Friday, May 29 | 8:00 PM ET
Tune-In: FOX Sports 1 | NASCAR Racing Network (NRN) | SiriusXM Ch. 90
Team Stats & Notes
- Niece Motorsports Nashville Stats:
NCTS Starts: 16; Wins: 1 (Carson Hocevar, 2023) Top-Fives: 3; Top-10s: 6.
No. 45 Use Your Melon Tennessee Chevrolet Silverado RST
Driver: Ross Chastain | Crew Chief: Phil Gould
- Chastain’s Nashville Stats:
NCS Starts: 5; Wins: 1 (2023); Poles: 1 (2023); Top-Fives: 3; Top-10s: 3.
NOAPS Starts: 2; Top-Fives: 1; Top-10s: 1; Best Finish: 5th (2025).
NCTS Starts: 1; Best Finish: 21st (2021).
- Gould's Nashville Stats:
NCTS Starts: 5; Wins: 1 (2023); Top-Fives: 2; Top-10s: 3.
- On the Truck: Chastain’s No. 45 Chevrolet Silverado RST will race with support from the Tennessee Highway Safety Office and the Use Your Melon campaign, which encourages fans to drive sober every time they get behind the wheel.
- Recapping Charlotte: Ross Chastain and the Protect Your Melon team contended for the race win in Charlotte, but unfortunately were not able to finish. Chastain started mid-pack, but it did not take him long to find the leaders. Noting a tight-handling truck, the team made adjustments to free Chastain up in the second stage where he moved up to third. After contact from another competitor on the backstretch, Chastain’s right front tire deflated and prompted him to lose track position in the final stage. Through strategy, the No. 45 made it back into the top-five once again, but the battery became disconnected in the closing laps of the race. With too little time to change it out, the team was done for the day in 29th-place.
- Owner Points Outlook: Charlotte dropped the No. 45 team two positions in the owner point standings. Ahead of Nashville, the team is seeded in eighth-place overall. They are three points behind Front Row Motorsports’ No. 38 team in seventh, and 23 points ahead of Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 team in ninth. The team currently has a 30-point gap above the Chase cutline.
- Quoting Chastain: Nashville is a track that you haven’t raced a truck at in a while, and the traction compound has changed since then. How big of a difference does that make?
“This weekend will be my first time back there in a while in the truck, so I’ll be going off what Phil Gould has done there in the past. I’ve never driven for him there before, so I’ll be curious to find out how his truck drives. Nashville is a flat track that feels like it’s a mile-and-a-half, but we’re slowing down for the corners a lot. We’re off the gas way more than a bigger track, then it’s important for us to get back on the gas and get the truck pointed. I don’t really know what to expect, but I’ll learn a lot more as I run throughout the weekend.”
About Niece Motorsports: Niece Motorsports is a professional auto racing team that has competed in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series since 2016. The team is owned by Josh Morris of DQS Solutions and Staffing and the Fowler Family of J.F. Electric and Utilitra, and was founded by United States Marine Corps Veteran Al Niece. At its 80,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Salisbury, NC, Niece Motorsports is a full-service race vehicle build shop as well as a customizable fabrication shop for any manufacturing needs.
Follow the Team: To keep up to date with the latest team news, visit niecemotorsports.com or connect on Facebook and Instagram (@NieceMotorsports) as well as X (@NieceMotorsport).
About the Tennessee Highway Safety Office: The Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) is a division of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security advocating for traffic safety. The THSO works in tandem with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to implement statewide programs addressing occupant protection, impaired driving, speed enforcement, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and crash data collection and analysis. Programs administered by the THSO are 100 percent federally funded. The THSO’s mission is to effectively develop, implement, and evaluate these programs. To learn more, please visit www.tntrafficsafety.org.
