For nearly half a decade, Ross Chastain and his crew chief, Phil Surgen, were synonymous at Trackhouse Racing. However, that dynamic changed coming into the 2026 season, as Chastain and Surgen had to part ways, owing to different roles within the team. As Chastain is gearing up for NASCAR life past Surgen, he revealed the emotional pressure that mounted on him and the team ahead of the new partnership.

Ross Chastain’s emotional crew chief story

Chastain recently appeared for an interview with Toby Christie, where he summed up his feelings about his former crew chief. Explaining how the #1 driver wanted to race with Surgen until the end of his Cup stint, Chastain said:

“Well, for sure. I thought I was going to end my Cup career with Phil Surgen, and it just came time for him and his family to be home more. I understand that. This is a grind and he came to us with plenty of time and explained what he wanted to do, and he created his own job really at the top of Trackhouse with Darian Grubb (Director of Performance at TR) and the leadership group over the competition side and he can help Brandon, he can help Randall now, Steven on our three cars.”

Following this, Chastain opened up about how he paired up to work with his new crew chief, Brandon McSwain. Speaking about this, Chastain unraveled how he picked McSwain from a number of crew chiefs available for the position.

“So he was my vote, and that wasn’t like, it wasn’t like I slammed my fist on the table and said I got to have him, I just said I think this is the guy, and I made my case. There was great candidates out there ready, that are ready to crew chief that haven’t and also some veteran guys that are crew chief or will soon again. So I feel like I could have made it work with a few of them, but my vote was Brandon. At some point, you got to make a decision,” the Trackhouse star said.

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Notably, Brandon McSwain comes with ample experience from his stint with Hendrick Motorsports. McSwain has served as an engineer for William Byron’s #24 car since 2019, and this will be his first full-time Cup Series crew chief role.

As McSwain will replace Surgen, the former needs to live up to the occasion, as the #1 has not been the best driver at Trackhouse lately. He was overshadowed by Shane van Gisbergen last year, who picked up five wins, compared to Chastain’s one. Nevertheless, Chastain has been the most high-profile driver for Trackhouse Racing, and one can expect McSwain to face the performance pressure at the team.

Together, Ross Chastain and Phil Surgen have won six races, most recently the 2025 Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Besides this, they also qualified for the Championship 4 in 2022, but lost to Joey Logano in the final race at Phoenix.

With that said, it will be interesting to see how Chastain performs with his new crew chief, as Phil Surgen moves on to a role within Trackhouse Racing, owing to a private issue.

Why did Phil Surgen leave Ross Chastain?

Phil Surgen recently appeared on a podcast with Jon Cain and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he unraveled why he left Ross Chastain’s crew chief duty even though they were doing a decent job.

Surgen, a graduate from the 2004 batch of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said, “Personally, I had a desire to travel less. As a crew chief, I was traveling 38 weekends a year and with a young family, I just felt the need to spend more time at home with the family.  So, now I’ve transitioned to director of technology.”

In his new role, Surgen will lead a group of race engineers within Trackhouse Racing. The goal of the role is to support the three cars and their race engineers to evaluate their performance and improve it.

Ross Chastain will continue to drive the #1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 car, along with Shane van Gisbergen (he will drive the #97 car) and Connor Zilisch (who replaced Daniel Suarez and will drive the #88 car).