Ross Chastain is still writing the early chapters of his NASCAR career.

Chastain heads into his third season with Trackhouse Racing with some momentum. He was the last person to win a NASCAR race in 2023.

Chastain wasn’t one of the four drivers with a chance to win the Cup championship, making the 30-year-old the first driver to win the season finale while not racing for the championship since Denny Hamlin in 2013, one year before this current elimination format began.

In 2024, Chastain will be sporting a car with a new sponsor.

And he’ll be looking to build on his career win total, which reached four after taking two races in 2023.

When all was said and done in 2023, Chastain finished ninth in the NASCAR points standings.

In the weeks leading up to the 2024 Daytona 500, Chastain’s already made some headlines after wrecking Tyler Reddick following the checkered flag in the Busch Clash.

He admitted to wrecking Reddick, which raised the eyebrows of a lot of people.

Despite his mild-mannered demeanor, there’s a fire that burns deep inside Chastain.

Whether it be Denny Hamlin, Noah Gragson or Reddick, Chastain isn’t afraid to make waves.

Chastain returns to “The *State* of Florida Sports Podcast,” powered by the USA Today Network, to talk about the upcoming season and how he plans to handle the challenges of the 2024 campaign.

He’ll also discusses how he’s preparing for the Daytona 500, which will be run Feb. 18.

"This race stands out," he says during the podcast. "It just holds so much value and in my heart and mind, for what that speedway did for this sport when the France family and NASCAR built it so long ago, I view it as a real catalyst for the sports and it's a part of the foundation that we stand on today and it's still relevant. … The nerves are real. It's really hard to go to sleep, but it's so awesome to wake up on Sunday morning of the Daytona 500."

Aside from Phoenix, Chastain won at Nashville in 2023.

He also had two wins the year before.

During the podcast, he talks about the 2024 NASCAR season and how he handles setting goals.

"There's so much that goes on that's out of my control," he said. "I can only control me. Not any number based expectations or, you know, goals. Just wake up and go to work and and see where we stack up."

Of course, Chastain was prominently featured recently on the Netflix series, "NASCAR: Full Speed." He discusses this, as well as the subject he gets asked about most — watermelons.

We'll find out if the one awaiting him if he wins the Daytona 500 will be from his family's farm near Fort Myers, in Alva.

As I said earlier, his is a story with a long way to go.

"I have no idea what 20 years from now will hold," he said. "What's so cool is that I get to go try to write that story now and the journey of writing that is gonna be really fun."

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: NASCAR's Ross Chastain talks Daytona 500, Netflix, Tyler Reddick on podcast