NASCAR Cup Series race-winner Ross Chastain will make his debut in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge with Skip Barber Racing, the well-known school’s professional racing team.
Chastain will be sharing the seat of the No. 16 Skip Barber Racing School entry with Ken Fukuda, an IMSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship winner, at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
The event is scheduled to take place the weekend of August 4, just one week before the NASCAR Cup Series returns to action at Richmond Raceway, following the conclusion of NASCAR’s two-week Olympic break.
“I am really looking forward to racing with Skip Barber at Road America,” Chastain said. “I have been a customer of Skip Barber Racing School, and to now race with their IMSA team makes total sense. Dan and Anthony DeMonte run the premier racing school in the country so hopefully I can have a good showing for them during one of our NASCAR off-weekends. I always appreciate the additional track time.”
Skip Barber has previously served as a sponsor of Chastain in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The Alva, Florida native is one of more than 20 current NASCAR Cup Series drivers that have spent time working with instructors at Skip Barker to improve their road racing skills.
Other alumni include John Hunter Nemechek, Erik Jones, Jimmie Johnson, and Michael McDowell.
“When we saw a gap in the NASCAR Cup Series schedule that lined up with our race team’s outing at Road America, we knew what we needed to do,” Skip Barber Racing School Chief Marketing Officer Dan DeMonte said. “This is an opportunity that we simply couldn’t afford to pass up and we are beyond thrilled to welcome Ross into the team at Road America.”
Chastain and Skip Barber are also closely aligned in campaigns for road safety, with Chastain’s Protect Your Melon initiative and the Skip Barber Driving Academy, a one-day defensive-driving program designed to build safer drivers on public roads.
