It’s been a tough NASCAR Cup Series season so far for Ross Chastain, and the Trackhouse Racing star now has revealed the true extent of his struggles.

The 33-year-old from Alva, Florida is currently languishing in 23rd position in the points standings, a massive 382 behind leader Tyler Reddick.

But the underwhelming results for the No. 1 Chevrolet tell only part of the story, with Chastain struggling to get to grips with changes made to his car during the offseason.

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Heading into this weekend’s action in Nashville, he opened up about those struggles by admitting: “Have you seen those videos online where they grease up a watermelon, throw it in the air, see if they can catch it? That's what it feels like (laughs). We're trying. We’re not where we need to be yet, but we’re working hard?”

Chastain is now 13 races into the new setup, but still finding it difficult to hit a groove with a lack of consistency really hampering his progress.

He continued: “It seems like, for me, when the car changes pitch or attitude on the track, like if it just moves, it reacts differently each time or more dramatically. I can't really feel it changing much more.

“It's not like I can feel it pull a wheelie or put the nose down on the ground, but just the balance changes corner to corner and even throughout the corner sometimes. It's just not as consistent for me driving the No. 1 car, where last year and years past, we could kind of get the car set and then I could have a consistent balance and know what I had corner to corner. I don't feel like I have that right now.”

Chastain goals for Nashville this weekend

A seventh-place finish at Talladega in late April was a rare recent bright spot for Chastain, and right now the driver has humble goals when it comes to this weekend in Nashville. He would settle just for a clean race and a finish in the Cracker Barrel 400 tonight (7pm Eastern, Prime Video).

“I'd say first, the springboard, we don't need to break it. We've been breaking it too much recently. So yeah, I think that competition-wise, are we competitive? We’ve got to be finishing these races. I've not finished in a little while here, just in general of racing.

“So yeah, I need to finish and then we want more speed. I want to race with a different group of cars than I've been racing with.”

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