In 2026, Ross Chastain will have a new crew chief atop the pit box for the No. 1 Chevrolet. This comes after five seasons with Phil Surgen, who led Chastain to each of his six wins as a NASCAR Cup Series driver.
The duo nearly won the 2022 Cup Series championship together, ending that season as the first runner-up in points. Their final race win together was the 2025 Coca-Cola 600, prevailing in NASCAR’s longest race in a historic last-to-first driver after the team was up most of the night before preparing a backup car due to a practice crash.
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In a recent podcast appearance with host Jon Cain and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Surgen called that victory the ‘most gratifying’ moment from his time as a crew chief. He is an alumni of WPI, graduating in 2004.
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet after 2025 Coca-Cola 600 win
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet after 2025 Coca-Cola 600 win
But what is the former crew chief up to these days? Trackhouse kept him in-house after the switch, and has since been appointed the experienced engineer to the role of Director of Technology.
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“We kind of set this in motion about a year ago,” said Surgen when asked about his new role on the WPI podcast. “Personally, I had a desire to travel less. You know, 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. On the day-to-day, I’ll be looking after a group of performance engineers, which is kind of made up of race engineers, and some software engineer types. The goal of the performance group is to support the teams, the race engineers specifically, and help elevate the performance of the company.
“As the director of technology, it’ll be a little bit different not being at the track, and that’ll be something I’ll have to adapt to. But it exists in every element of the company. Everything we do here is very calculated, and very pointed at improving the performance of the cars, improving the performance of the drivers, and the pit crews. Making better strategic calls, and being in a role where I can help facilitate some of the people and the tool development to make faster race cars is what motivates me.”
AI and NASCAR
Phil Surgen, 2022 at COTA
Phil Surgen, 2022 at COTA
Technology is ever-advancing in NASCAR and the motorsports world in general, and it’s something teams like Trackhouse are working hard to stay ahead of the curve on.
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“Technology in NASCAR is developing as fast as it is in the world, so any new technologies that exist in the world, the NASCAR industry is on top of, trying to apply and utilizing immediately. In the 20 years I’ve been doing this, things have changed dramatically. And in a lot of cases, they don’t look anything like they used to today.”
Among those advancements in technology is the continued growth of Artificial Intelligence and its many uses in the modern world. That’s not something Trackhouse is ignoring, either, and as the Director of Technology, Surgen will be at the forefront of implemented it.
“We’ve been pretty heavily invested in databasing information to integrate with AI agents for, I don’t know, a year and a half now,” explained Surgen. “We have a few programmers that are solely dedicated to that project. We’re at the point where we got the infrastructure built, we got some of the UI, some of the agents built, and we’re starting to be able to get useful information, useful optimization out of the systems. Man, when I think about the power that’ll exist in those systems in about, I don’t know, a year or two — It’s gonna be incredible.”
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“Right now, we’ve laid the foundation and the house is mostly built, but we got to trim the house out and put the shingles on the roof. It’s gonna play a pretty major role in NASCAR racing. I think we’re maybe a little ahead of the curve compared to other teams, and we’re just starting to, to reap the benefit of that, but there’s a lot more available for us in the near, near future.”
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