Why NASCAR driver Ross Chastain honored a late Army specialist: 'It was a dream ending for all of us'

Gabriela Carroll, The Philadelphia Inquirer on May 30, 2025

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PHILADELPHIA — After NASCAR driver Ross Chastain went from worst to first and won the biggest race of his life at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, N.C., he smashed a giant watermelon to honor his family’s farming history.

Then, he pulled out a photo of U.S. Army Specialist Kevin McCrea, a Philadelphia native who was disabled after a parachute jump during his army service in the 1980s and died in 2020. McCrea’s family, including his daughter, Allie, a music therapist with Jefferson Health, awaited him in victory lane.

“I went over to the car and pulled out the picture and held it up for our pictures together,” Chastain told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I wanted them to know that I didn’t forget that the picture was in there, that I put it in there. There were some, I’ll say bloodshot eyes, some teary eyes, in the family coming into victory lane, and a lot of excitement. It was a dream ending for all of us.”

The Coca-Cola 600 is held over Memorial Day weekend, and each driver honors a fallen service member and military family on his vehicle. Chastain first discovered the McCreas through their work with Folds of Honor, a nonprofit that provides scholarship money to children of fallen or disabled service members. Allie McCrea was a scholarship recipient as an undergraduate and earned a degree in music from the Catholic University.

Her father’s experience with Magee Rehabilitation inspired Allie McCrea to earn a master’s degree from Temple in music therapy, and when she started an internship there, one of her mentors was the therapist who treated her father.

“I see my dad through literally all the work I’m doing,” she said. “Everything that I’ve gone through in my life has inspired this work now and is honestly impacting the community. It’s through that hardship that it’s all transpired.”

Her dad always enjoyed NASCAR, but McCrea never watched much of it herself, until Chastain was connected with the family through Folds of Honor. McCrea is a speaker with the organization and volunteers with the Mid-Atlantic chapter, telling her father’s story and how her education helps her keep his legacy alive.

Kevin McCrea wanted to make sure his children’s childhood was as normal as possible, despite his injury, which resonated with Chastain. One time, after a late-night hospital stay, Allie recalls her father instructing her to make sure she finished all of her homework: “ ‘This is not an excuse.’ ”

“He never let us use his illness as a means to get out of something, and we always had to work hard,” she said. “We never expected a free pass for anything just because we were going through hardship.”

McCrea helped design Chastain’s car for the race. She added her father’s name to the windshield and the side walls and a few personal touches to memorialize her dad. One phrase she knew she wanted to share on the car? “Be a sponge.”

“My dad always said, especially the last 14 months of his life he spent in the hospital, the thing he always told us was, ‘Be a sponge.’ Absorb everything, and essentially just meaning, live in the moment. Don’t take anything for granted,” McCrea said. “It’s funny, the last Christmas that we spent with my dad, he wanted to get my brother, my sister, and I a really special gift. He thought, ‘Everyone needs a good pen and pencil set.’ He got us a wooden pen and pencil set, and engraved on it was our names and ‘Be a sponge.’ It was encouraging us to write down everything, take everything in, and just absorb it all.”

Sunday’s race was her first NASCAR race, and the weekend didn’t start out great for Chastain, who started in 40th in a backup car after crashing his car in practice. He led for just eight laps, including the final six, after taking the lead late over William Byron, for his first win this season.

“Everybody just had a look on their face like, this doesn’t feel real, but at the same exact time — it sounds so crazy to say — I just felt like something miraculous was going to happen that night,” McCrea said. “I just felt in my gut like something crazy was going to happen. … It literally felt like my dad was there that night.”