Category: NASCAR Cup PR

Toyota Racing – Erik Jones
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

LAS VEGAS (February 21, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Erik Jones was made available to media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:

ERIK JONES, No. 20 Irwin SPEEDBOR Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

How did your Camry feel in practice?

“It was different. This year we got a new tire, a new construction and I thought we were overall generally a little freer and struggled with the bumps a little more than we did last year here. I have to work on that, get the bumps better and get the car secure, more tightened up a little bit. I think we’ll get to where we need to be from there. Need a little bit more speed in general. I think the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.) found some there at the end, so maybe we’re going to go that way a little bit. Learned a lot. Thirty-five minutes is pretty short, but we did learn what we needed to.”

What has been different this year compared to last year?

“You come in with a different mentality. Last year, we just weren’t sure what to expect here and what our trim level needed to be, how much downforce we needed to build into the car and what we were going to fight through the race. Now we have a good notebook to look back on. We kind of know where our trim level needs to be at, especially for a cool weekend like it’s going to be here on Sunday. You learn on those notes and try to look back on them and improve on what you have. I feel like in the Fall race, we had a really good car here, which would be similar conditions, we just had a mechanical issue. Hopefully we can use some of that data and apply some to this weekend. I feel like it’s definitely a different mentality. You didn’t know last year what you’re really going to have and this year we have a good baseline.”

Do you have a favorite Ryan Newman moment?

“Watching him win the 500 when I was a kid was pretty cool. I remember that race pretty well, it was 2008. He was still with Penske then, so that was a cool race. I remember watching Kurt (Busch) pushing him to the win. That’s what kind of pops to my mind for Ryan (Newman). It’s been fun to get to know him. I’m glad he’s alright, obviously and hope to see him back here soon.”

Do you feel like Denny Hamlin has become a great restrictor plate racer?

“He’s a good superspeedway racer, obviously won two 500s in a row and is really good at Daytona. (Denny Hamlin) obviously knows what he needs to do, how he needs to position himself and how he needs to be there at the end of the race. He’s been able to stay out of trouble and just be in the right spot at the end. You don’t always get lucky, it’s just not always luck making it to the end of those races. There’s a little bit involved making it through the wrecks, but Denny has obviously done a better job than the others of making it to the end.”

What are your thoughts heading to Fontana next week?

I think it’s going to be different. Going into there last year, no one really knew what we needed car-wise, balance-wise and this year we have a whole notebook to look back on to try to get better. I think it’s going to be a different race than last year. I think there will be a lot more lifting, the cars will be faster. Everybody has just gotten their cars better and more efficient and faster on the straightaways and that makes for more lifting in the corners. It will probably be a little different race, but Fontana is always a good show. I really like going there. It’s cool you can pretty much run anywhere on the track. It will be exciting, but a little bit different from what we had.”

How will the new package you’re taking to Phoenix perform?

“Back to two years ago, that’s all the notes we have from it. I drove it a little bit in the simulator last week just trying to get a feel for where we’re going to be. You’re going to have a lot more degradation, a lot more falloff through the run than what we had last year. It’s just going to be a different race. I think it will be better – the racing will be improved quite a bit. Last year, we couldn’t even really get close to anybody and passing was a huge challenge – it wasn’t the most fun in the seat. Hopefully it makes it better and we’ll get closer to people to make more passes. You need to have it where you can get on the left rear cars and get them free so you can make a pass if you’re better than them and I think that’s what this package brings us back to.”

How did you digest everything that happened at the end of Daytona with Ryan Newman?

“It’s shocking at first when it all happens. You’re hoping for the best and then when you hear the news that he’s awake and alert and non-life-threatening injuries, that’s obviously a huge relief. You care about your competitors even though we race each other each week pretty hard. You don’t want anybody to get hurt. You just don’t see it much anymore. The cars are as safe as they’ve ever been by far and you don’t really see that. Huge relief to see he was okay. Walking out of the hospital two days later was pretty crazy. Happy he’s home and getting better so we can see him back at the track soon.”

Do you feel safer in the car after seeing what happened and how he walks away?

“I don’t know if it makes me feel more safe. You always know that risk is there for that freak accident. You can’t really have a worse impact than that, I don’t think than what he just went through. It is a testament to the cars, and everything works, and everything was in place to do what they did and kept him safe. I don’t know if it makes you feel more safe, it makes you feel the risk is always there. You tend to forget about it, especially as a driver. When you go years and don’t see anybody get hurt and don’t see those kinds of wrecks, you kind of push it to the side and forget that risk is even part of it. When that happens, it reminds you and puts you back in your head that what we’re doing is dangerous. Even as safe as we’ve got the cars, there’s still an opportunity for a freak accident.”

What’s the last race you were in that someone was injured?

“The last one would have been the Truck race at Vegas when Austin Theriault got hurt here (at Las Vegas). That was the last one I was in.”

How hard do you look at what Kyle Busch does to get a track figured out?

“Quite a bit. I’ve raced with him quite a bit. When I was racing Xfinity at Phoenix, he was still racing all the races. A lot of laps around there with him trying to beat him. I think we all look at what he does there, even beyond my teammates. That whole field tries to emulate what he does. It gives you a bar – a high bar to strive for. The last two or three years there, he’s been pretty strong. With a different package, it will be interesting to see what happens. I think he’s still going to be the guy to beat.”

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About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 40 million cars and trucks in North America, where we have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the U.S.), and directly employ more than 47,000 people (over 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold nearly 2.8 million cars and trucks (nearly 2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2019.

Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 21, 2020

KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE Media Breakout Session Highlights:

CAN YOU MATCH UP AGAINST YOUR BROTHER (KYLE BUSCH) HERE AT THIS RACE TRACK, YOUR HOME TRACK?
“This race track has had both of our numbers. Neither one of us have had comparable success here to other 1.5-mile tracks. I don’t know if it’s the hometown pressure or the feel that we have in the car not matching up with the end of the race. That’s what I need to do better; make sure our setup peaks at the end and not in the beginning where we usually qualify good here.”

WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM BEING BACK HERE AT YOUR HOME TRACK AND WHAT IT WOULD MEAN IF YOU WERE ABLE TO GET THIS WIN?
“It’s special. This is a fun town to represent as one’s hometown. With all of the different racers that have followed Kyle (Busch) and I, it’s amazing. But the greats that we looked up to when we were starting out racing before the west coast was really known for producing talent: Dick Cobb was a multiple-time track champion; Phil Hayes was the one that taught me some of the tricks of the trade; a guy named Mike Ray was the national champion in late models out of Vegas at one point. There are plenty of cool names, even with the off-road greats, Brendan Gaughan, the whole group here in Vegas, has a big passion for motorsports. And Richie Clyne when he built Las Vegas Motor Speedway, helped put us all on the map.”

WOULD IT BE HUGE IF YOU WON HERE?
“It would be one of those big-time moments, for sure. To have a Daytona win is special, to have won the Bristol night race, the All-Star and Coke 600, this one ranks right up there for me and Kyle (Busch). It’s one of those top-five type wins that I want to try and get. He has one win here, I think in 2008 or 2009.”

WHAT ARE YOUR INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CHEVY?
“The car felt good in practice. I think we were fifth on the speed chart. We got a nice draft behind the 88 (Alex Bowman), who is a Chevy as well. When Chevy’s can produce good lap times together, that’s a good sign. The big thing, though, will be how the car reacts in all of the dirt air on Sunday. I think from where I was a couple years ago in a Ford, the Camaro last year seemed to struggle in dirty air. It seemed to struggle in traffic, more than what I would have expected it too. So, I’m hopeful this Camaro is more efficient in the dirty air situations.”

“We were able to go wide open for quite a few laps. When the handling comes into play, that’s what we have to work on. Our cars drivability with different throttle inputs and steering inputs, that’s what we have to make more comfortable when we’re out there in the pack.”

IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE A NEW CAR AND A NEW PACKAGE ONCE WE GET TO PHOENIX. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT WILL BE LIKE?
“That will be a steeper learning curve for us on the No. 1 car because we don’t have notes together in 2018. They have notes from Jamie McMurray’s patterns, but of course with (Kyle) Larson and the way that we can see the overlays from the sim data, that will be our best gauge to start with. I’m looking forward to the short tracks with all that horsepower and all the downforce taken away as much as it possibly can be, it will be a dramatic difference. So, Phoenix will be where the drivers will definitely earn their dollar again.”

FANS WERE WISHING YOU WERE RACING YOUR BROTHER AT THE BULL RING. DID YOU EVEN CONTEMPLATE THAT?
“His budget for a super late model team is off the charts; it shouldn’t be allowed (laughs). It’s like stacking the field for the Kentucky Derby when my little brother rolls in with his 18-wheeler rig, a backup car and looking all professional. Which he is and he’s doing, and he’s doing an incredible job to promote Grassroots Racing. That’s his main objective with that, and it’s also a tool to utilize for up-and-coming talent to drive his cars.”

“For me, I’m more about having fun, taking my crew guys out to the Golden Knights game and enjoying the comradery with my guys and building towards that team aspect of having everything set forth and being better at the race track on the Cup car.”

INAUDIBLE
“This is an amazing town, it’s a fun place. To grow up racing here, it was so special. We have a lot of people to thank over the years. I do need to mention today that Star Nursery bought all the race tires for the No. 1 car this weekend. That’s a pretty hefty bill to buy the tires for a full Cup weekend and I have to thank Star Nursery for doing that.”

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE DEPTHS IN WHICH NASCAR HAS GONE TO IMPROVE SAFETY OVER THE YEARS?
“It’s been an incredible two decades of improvements from all directions: the teams working together with NASCAR, the technology that’s coming from third-party sources, the cars, the safer barriers, the seats. I remember vividly when a guy was a salesman that came through the garage in Daytona with a device called the HANS device. He goes, ‘here try this on’. I tried it on as a rookie and I thought to myself, ‘it’s a bit bulky, a bit awkward, but I plan on being around for a long time and I think I can bring this into my safety equipment regimen’ and I never looked back. I’m proud of NASCAR and everybody working together. There are still little things that we’re always going to find. I had a car that I donated to Barrett Jackson; it was a 2007 Miller Lite car. The individual donated it back to me. I got that car in my garage and when you’re looking at it, you think this thing is a dinosaur with the safety that’s sitting in that car in 2007. Imagine where we’re going to be in 2030.”

HAS NASCAR COME TO VETERAN DRIVERS, LIKE YOURSELF, WHEN IT COMES TO THE DESIGN OF THE NEXT-GEN CAR AND WHEN WE’RE ON THE SAFETY TOPIC?
“Yeah, I think each driver as a veteran or even a rookie, has had input. It’s important for everybody to communicate and collaborate on the build of the car. Nobody has really just stood up, I think it’s more of just a group effort.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

LAS VEGAS (February 21, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Have you had a chance to reflect on being one of just a few drivers who have won the Daytona 500 three times and could you have ever imagined you’d accomplish this?

“No, definitely not. Not in my wildest dreams for sure. I was 10 or 11 years into my career and I hadn’t won any, so I would’ve been happy with one if you would have told me at that time before my career was over. I just really got kind of a roll going in the 500. That race in particular, I’ve found my way in good positions at the right time and made the best of what moves I could make at the right time. It’s all just kind of worked out really over the last five years and really over the last eight. I don’t know. I know that it’s significant. I’ll need time to kind of think about it all, but when it kind of hit for me was right as I’m leaving for Vegas. They brought the trophy home and I got to put them all together and it was just overwhelming to just see all three trophies sitting there and it happened in such a short amount of time. It’s not something – I’ve got to like really let even the first one sink in. It’s just so fresh. It’s pretty crazy.”

What is your goal for the season? You’ve told people you’d like double-digit wins, is there more to it than that?

“I’d be satisfied with that and then beyond that would be nice. I think that the championship is an easy goal that anyone just throws out – win a championship, but that comes down to one race. If you can win a significant amount of races, it shows a bigger picture of your full year. If you make it to the Final Four, that’s a bigger picture of your entire year. I think the championship – a successful year is making the Final Four. Anything after that is just whatever it is. Certainly we set lofty goals. I think everyone sets huge and lofty goals, but certainly we’re going to push ourselves to better what we did last year and it starts with Daytona and we’re able to repeat there so then let’s get a win now before we get to Texas to keep ourselves on pace or better from last year.”

How do you balance it out when you’ve won but had a situation like that with Ryan Newman? Do you think about you both being fathers?

“Right away, I think we both have two daughters and what not, so you put all that in perspective and certainly you’re just kind of shook more than anything. You don’t know whether to grieve or do you celebrate with your team because you just won the biggest race. It was just a really tough place to really be in to be honest with you, but certainly I thought that our team handled it really well once we were all informed of what was going on. There’s plenty of time for us to celebrate. We don’t have to do it on that particular day.”

What was your first reaction to the crash when you finally had a chance to really take a hard look?

“I saw it for the first time in Victory Lane, which, what a lot of people don’t understand is that once he (Ryan Newman) crossed in front of me, I never saw his car again, so I don’t know what happened. I didn’t even know he was upside down or anything. I didn’t know that anything had happened really significant until I saw it – I believe that Jamie (Little) was there. We were kind of waiting to get out and I saw them doing a replay and so they had – right next to the camera man they have a monitor, so I told him to come up to the window so I could watch and at that point I saw how significant it was. That was when I knew this is a major crash and something that we needed to be kind of really, really aware of and then she came over and told me they were going directly to the hospital. That was kind of my chain of events of kind of knowing the significance because as I finished, I never saw him car again. Didn’t see anything. His car ended up past the kink in the tri-oval, so still blocked off from anywhere where I could see. Tough circumstances for surer, but glad it ended up on the good side and not the worse.”

What did you do in the closing laps of the Daytona 500 and did your superspeedway-style of racing change in this generation car?

“I think it did. I think that’s about when we started really having good results on the superspeedways is when this car came out. That’s probably a good timeline for it. I think 2014 we were second and then maybe the year before that is when it kind of started. I don’t know what it is. I think I started studying a little bit more around that time about superspeedway racing because I had been so unsuccessful for a very long time. You kind of look at my rookie season. Yeah, we won the Shootout, but that’s kind of a unique circumstance, but then we went a long time. I’d won a lot of the Clashes and Duel races, but still not many speedway wins – Talladega I think I’ve got one there. It seems like it’s that seven or eight year mark, years ago where this car came around that seems like whatever techniques I use or I’ve adapted to this car has seemed to work. The last lap just kind of worked out nicely for me as it could. I knew that I was – I thought I was okay in Turn 1. I pulled the block on him (Ryan Newman) coming into the white and I stayed in front and I knew that he was going to back up to the 12 (Ryan Blaney), so I was trying to back up myself, but he was going to get attached. Once he got attached, I knew they were going to come with a run that I could not stop. When they had a run, I just kind of held my line because I didn’t want – if I start going sideways, then next thing you know, the 6 (Ryan Newman) starts moving sideways and then the 12 is already hooked to him, so he’s probably going to push him sideways into me. I just wanted to hold a straight line to let them know that like, hey, pass this way and so when they did, I was able to get back to the 12 to slow him and unattach him from the 6. When I slowed his momentum, that allowed me to really kind of tuck in behind him. I don’t know if he checked up or not to keep us attached, but once we got attached, I knew that we were going to have a run back on the 6. I knew he was going to get there. I didn’t know what was going to happen when he did get there, but certainly it worked out in my favor. I thought I was going to get back around the 12 at the line if there was no crash, but I wasn’t sure I was going to get all the way back to the 6. I knew that those two were going to jostle and I was just hoping to kind of be in the right place when it happened, and I was.”

Do your children ever have any questions about this?

“The oldest one, she hasn’t really asked. The only time she was wondering was when we had the rain delay, she was awake when I came back to the motorhome and she saw the race on TV from last year and she said, “Did you crash out?” I said, “No, no, that was last year honey. It’s raining outside.” She’s always there any time I do crash out. She’s the first one that comes to me in the bus. It makes you think. It really makes you think about the bigger picture of everything.”

Have you been able to relax and celebrate the win more now that Ryan Newman has been released and as the week goes on?

“Just a little. I had one day at home honestly. It was just an all-nighter. By the time I got home in Charlotte, I literally could – I got to drive home, change and then go back to the airport at 4 something to go to New York. I was so tired that I didn’t have time to kind of reflect on anything and like I said, when I was about to leave for the airport and had all three trophies together was when I was like, this is really super significant. I remember just putting the second one next to the first thinking, I just can’t believe this and then one year later you’ve got another one. Yeah, it’s still surreal. I still have to kind of put it all together and process it. A lot of it is talking to people either within this sport or friends about how amazed they were about the run that we’ve been in. That kind of wakes me up to the significance of it and what it means to not only me, but to other people and history itself.”

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About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 40 million cars and trucks in North America, where we have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the U.S.), and directly employ more than 47,000 people (over 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold nearly 2.8 million cars and trucks (nearly 2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2019.

Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 21, 2020

TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 TAME THE BEAST CAMARO ZL1 1LE Media Breakout Session Highlights:

WHAT ARE YOUR EARLY IMPRESSIONS ABOUT THE NEW CHEVROLET?
“With where we’re at, I probably wouldn’t have anything good to go off of yet. But the car handles good, we’ve got to adjust on it some more to find where we want to be for the race on Sunday. It’s kind of a guessing game. You’ll probably be able to make something work here on Friday that won’t work on Sunday, and you just have to try to think ahead to find things that you like out of your car to apply to that. So, that’s kind of where we’re at. It’s kind of a guessing game, but so far so good. The car drives really good in dirty air. But I think that’s where we are at too with our setup.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT QUALIFYING ON SATURDAY?
“If we qualify first, then we’re probably going to suck on Sunday (laughs). So, we want to qualify 20th probably.”

WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF PRACTICE?
“We know where we’re at. We came in here wanting to be one way and we were definitely that way. We’re just going to try and work on it during the second practice, and see if we can come up with something that we can compare between and, from that, form a game plan for Sunday.”

HOW TOUGH IS QUALIFYING HERE?
“Qualifying isn’t necessarily tough, it’s just what your strategy is and what you think is going to work in the race on Sunday. Or are you just trying to get a good pit stall, I don’t know. For us, qualifying isn’t really as important. If we qualify15th, we’re happy. If we qualify first, we’re going to be a little worried come Sunday.”

INAUDIBLE
“We didn’t really have time to work on them. We just loaded them up as fast as we could to get here and we’ll just have to reevaluate once we leave the west coast. We have this track, Fontana, where handling is kind of important too, and we’re obviously going to have Phoenix, which is kind of the new short track, smaller splitter package. So, we’ll see.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING A NEW DAD?
“You just have to roll with the punches. If you have nice things, you tend to not care about them anymore. You’re just trying to get the diaper cleaned up, get them happy and onto the next thing. It’s just a perspective changer; game changer.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THIS WEST COAST SWING?
“It will give us an indication of where we’re at after the off season, how we worked really hard to get the cars better. I’d say everyone else here is doing the same thing. It will be an indicator of that, for sure. We’ll know once we leave Phoenix what we need to work on, where we feel like we’re good. It will just get us caught up to speed on where we need to be going into Atlanta.”

LAST YEAR RCR HAD A LOT OF SPEED IN QUALIFYING, BUT STRUGGLED DURING THE RACE. HAS THERE BEEN A LITTLE BIT OF A CHANGE IN PHILOSOPHY?
“I think so. It could have been anyone’s guess on how these cars were going to race. On paper where these cars were last year, it made sense if you could maintain that track position. But you catch a car at the wrong time on the race track or have an issue on pit road, it’s hard to recover. We’ve seen guys that have been able to make it work in the past, but you just can’t make any mistakes and you have to stay up front the entire race. It just makes it a little more challenging. We’re just going to try what we think is going to be the best for us. It may not be the right answer and we might have to make some tweaks. We’re going to make some tweaks right now after first practice going into the second to see if we can make it a little better.”

“Some of my most fun races are when I have to start 30th or 35th. So, starting 20th and having to pass some cars isn’t a bad thing. I think it’s great, I love it.”

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE RYAN NEWMAN MOMENT OR MEMORY?
“He’s always raced hard. I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a memory, but when I think of Ryan Newman, I think of him always racing hard every single lap. That’s kind of the way I like to race, too. That’s just how tough he is. Obviously, that was a pretty wild incident he had. But we all race like we’re bullet proof out there. The ones that say we don’t are lying because these cars are really safe. NASCAR has done a really good job focusing on that. In recent memory, ever since I came into it, it’s been the number one goal to make these cars safe and it allows us to go out there and put on a really good show. I was really glad to see non- life threatening, then the next day taking pictures with his kids and then walking out of the place. He didn’t even need shoes, he was ready to head back home. So that was really cool to see.”

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU FIRST SAW THE REPLAY OF NEWMAN’S WRECK?
“It’s violent. Things happen fast out there on the race track. Whether it was the Truck finish last Friday night when Grant Enfinger and Jordan Anderson were banging doors coming to the start-finish line. In real time, it didn’t look that violent or aggressive. When you slow it down, the splitters are bouncing off the ground and stuff. So, every time you slow things down, it really shows you how much more is going on, what’s deflecting and what’s happening. Every time you slow it down, it looks more violent. It’s just part of it. None the less, it was a crazy crash and I was just glad to hear a couple hours later that he was doing good.”

JOEY LOGANO MENTIONED HE REACHED OUT TO RYAN BLANEY AND COREY LAJOIE TO TELL THEM IT’S JUST RACING. BUT HE KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO BE CARRYING SOME KIND OF EMOTIONS FROM IT. HOW DO YOU GET OVER A BAD WRECK THAT YOU WALK AWAY OK AND SOMEBODY ELSE DOESN’T?
“It is difficult. It’s just something you have to find within yourself. Having people around can be helpful, but at the end of the day, at some point you just have to come to terms with it on your own and move on from it. NASCAR is a family, I’ve learned that as I’ve been in it more and more. I thought about reaching out to Ryan (Blaney) and Corey (LaJoie), but I know they have a lot of other guys that they race with much more frequently on Sunday’s and this is my first year. So, I knew there were going to be a lot of guys around to cheer them back up, tell them it’s just part of it and move onto the next week. It was a crazy deal, but I’m glad to see he’s doing OK.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Friday, February 21, 2020
EVENT: Pennzoil 400 Media Availability

JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK, No. 38 Berry’s Bullets Ford Mustang – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GETTING BACK TO THE MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACKS? “I definitely think for myself and Front Row, we were excited to get through Daytona with a decent finish and get back to a mile-and-a-half. Having run two mile-and-a-half races last year, we kind of knew the equipment that we had initially from last year, and over the offseason we downsized from three cars to two cars and we’re trying to make our program better. We want to continue to grow the Front Row Motorsports organization and get it to where it can be a contender each and every week that we’re at the race track. I feel like our speed from first practice definitely shows some improvements that we’ve made over the offseason. We still have a little ways to go, but I feel good about where we’re at currently and I’m looking forward to continuing the progress that we’ve made so far. I definitely don’t think that this weekend we’ll stop working our equipment by making it better every lap that we turn.”

HOW MUCH HAS YOUR DAD HELPED YOU AT THIS LEVEL? “For myself transitioning from one manufacturer to another this year I lost the availability to be able to work with Josh Wise, who was pretty much my driver coach the last two years. I was kind of his little prodigy two years ago, so definitely kind of know the basics that we were working on and the things that we would look at on a weekly basis and being able to have dad here at the race track this weekend and at Daytona last weekend and being able to look over data and have him kind of do the same thing that Josh was and me kind of teach him that way it’s definitely sort of been a long process, but just having him here and he has so much experience. He’s been there and done it, so I’m able to lean on him quite a bit with questions and different things that I’m feeling. I know that whole practice session he had his headset on in the garage listening and he was actually a part of the debrief when I got out of the car post-practice, so he’s been a huge part of my career and he continues to be a big part of it as well.”

HOW HAS MICHAEL MCDOWELL HELPED YOU? “Michael has been really good to be able to talk to and ask questions as well as David Ragan. David last weekend in Daytona was a big help to me and I was able to reach out to him and ask him questions about different practice sessions. The long weekend schedules, not so much here or most of the race tracks that we go to in the Cup Series now, but to kick off the year at Daytona there are so many practice sessions, you have a qualifying session, you have the Duels and you’re there for a week-and-a-half, so it’s easy for a rookie to kind of get lost in what your focus is each practice session, so being able to lean on him quite a bit and just ask questions. Experience is everything in this sport and I’m able to take something away from each one of my teammates and it’s definitely gonna help me as a driver and continue to help me grow.”

JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK CONTINUED — DO YOU HAVE A RYAN NEWMAN STORY? “Ryan has been a really good friend of mine for a long time. Being able to grow up at MRO I used to take him and Krissie chapel bulletins every single weekend, so they’ve kind of seen me grow up in their eyes and when I had turned 16 and was able to start our truck team and run all the short tracks, I wasn’t allowed to run the mile-and-a-halves quite yet, so Ryan ran a couple races for us in our Nemco Motorsports 8 truck and I was able to kind of listen to him and talk to him and gain some valuable knowledge and still be able to ask him questions, being able to text him and call him and still have that relationship is pretty special in my mind. I’m just glad it’s a miracle he was able to walk out of the hospital 48 hours afterwards and seeing him with his two girls being able to walk out made me smile that’s for sure. I’m glad that he’s OK.”

WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF YOUR FIRST DAYTONA 500? “My first Daytona 500 was a very amazing experience. One of the things that a lot of Cup drivers and my dad have told me about the Daytona 500 is make sure that you take time for yourself to take it all in and it’s very hard to do that with all the hype and everything going on. To run my first Daytona 500 when it’s Jimmie Johnson’s last full-time season and his last Daytona 500, maybe, to have the President of the United States there was really special. There was so much hype around the race. I mean, there’s so much history there, but to be able to be a part of all that. I think the coolest part for me was being able to go through driver intros. It’s something I’ve never experienced like that before, so being able to take that moment in and be there with my fiancé and family and friends and sponsors and the whole team and everyone that has helped get me it was a very special moment for myself and my family.”

THAT WAS PROBABLY THE LONGEST RACE YOU’VE BEEN IN. “Yeah, definitely the longest 48-hour race I’ve been a part of, but the whole race was very special to me. I think the longest race before that I had been a part of was my Cup debut last year at Texas, another 500-mile race, so luckily I was able to experience that last year rather than jumping right in and having to go into a 500-mile race, but it was a lot of fun. There are definitely times where you want to get up there and race and lead laps, but at the same time you’re there for the end goal of having a shot to win it. You must first finish to be able to contend for the win, but it was a pretty special day.”

HOW WAS IT TO BE THE TOP FINISHING ROOKIE? “There was a lot of hype coming into it about the big three from the XFINITY Series. Well, I feel like it’s the big three and what about me? I feel like it’s gonna be a battle down to the end for Cup rookie of the year. It’s whoever makes the least amount of mistakes and has the best runs through the year and I definitely feel we can be a contender for that. Given different teams and different organizations we all kind of have our own goals as a team for what we expect for the year, but you never know what can happen. Hard work and never give up attitude sometimes outweighs other things.”

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS WITH FRONT ROW THIS SEASON? “I think the biggest goals for this team is to continue to grow over the year. We want to make this organization a contending organization and with different changes coming in the future who knows how that’s gonna happen, but at the same time we downsized from three cars to two cars over the offseason and trying to put our race horses in the right places to make our cars faster each weekend that we go to the race track and having the right personnel in place. Luckily, the personnel that we have in place I was able to work with for three races last year to kind of get my feet wet, so we’re not kicking off the year trying to get communication flowing. That communication has already been established and it continues to grow, so a lot of growing on our end, a lot of learning for myself and our team, but we feel like we’re in a good position to continue to make everything happen at Front Row Motorsports and continue to have goals to try and win races and finish the best that we can each and every week. You’ve got to run all the laps and gain as much experience for myself as a driver to make myself better as well.”

Toyota Racing – Kyle Busch
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

LAS VEGAS (February 21 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was made available to media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway:

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Snickers White Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

What did it mean to win last night’s Super Late Model race at the Bullring and be in Las Vegas?

“It was certainly fun to get back behind the wheel of a Super Late Model. It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to do that. I always enjoy that kind of stuff. Always told the speedway out here that if they ever had the Late Model races going during NASCAR weekend that I would bring my stuff out here and run in it and there you have it. Typically, it’s always been at the dirt track with the World of Outlaws, but I was able to run the pavement track over there last night, had some fun and it was a good race I felt with Derek Thorn. I think he’s one of the best guys on the west coast or certainly there are some others that are really good as well too. It was cool to have a good show and win with our first race out with Rowdy Energy being on the car and having a shot with that too. Good to be back in Vegas and looking forward to a great race weekend here too at the big track and getting into our Cessna Tundra tonight as well as our Snickers Camry on Sunday.”

How did you process the crash with Ryan Newman earlier this week?

“It’s kind of for me, just not knowing everything that went on or what happened in the scenarios and the situation to the extent of everything. I have absolutely no information besides what I saw in the crash at the end and then him getting taken out of the car in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and then the announcements that came out through the media, through Roush Fenway and what they were talking about. That was the extent of it for me. Then seeing him walk out of the hospital was kind of a shock just two days later really. Not knowing again the severity of everything that went on or what he was going through. I’m very limited on the situation.”

When you saw the replay for the first time, did you fear the outcome would be much worse?

“I think anybody would, right? When there’s a guy that’s getting extricated from a car that you always fear the worst, right. You’ve always got to hope for the best. That’s kind of what my situation was after seeing the impact.”

How does a driver get back in a race car after injury?

“It was tough for me. I was out for a while, I guess 11 weeks or whatever it was. Having the injuries that I had and being in the hospital and being laid up being in a hospital bed for a few weeks was challenging in that respect and then getting back in the car for me, I don’t know if you’re asking if I have a different sense of fear or am I scared or what all is going on there. You certainly have some of that in the back of your mind to start with and to get back in. ‘Man, if I get back in and crash right away, is that going to end it all over again.’ It’s kind of the Rowdy Burns aspect of it. He was out with a head injury and they said you can never race again and if you ever race again, you’ll probably die. I guess that’s worst case. You kind of think of those situations, but you try to put it out of the back of your mind as much as possible and just get out there and do your job. It took me I guess five weeks to get back into the circle of things and be able to win again.”

What does it mean to your family to race in Las Vegas again?

“It’s cool to be able to come back home and to have the notoriety I guess that we have now. When we came out here years ago, there were many other drivers that were way bigger than us and way more popular than us. Now that we’ve been here for a while and those other drivers aren’t here anymore, we’ve kind of upped ourselves up the ladder of that and it’s cool. One of these days hopefully there might be a road out here named after us or a grandstand or something of that nature. Don’t get too far ahead of yourselves, that just means I get closer to retirement if they start doing that too early.”

Have people stopped thinking drivers can get hurt in race cars?

“I think sometimes you take it for granted. What we’re doing, the severity of what we’re doing, the course of action of what injury can happen – it can happen in any instance, we’re not invincible. Safety is always an evolution. There’s going to be something else that happens that we have to go through and figure out the circumstances as to why it happened, how can we prevent it from happening again. Not sure what all the instances are in the (Ryan) Newman crash, but there still will be something else down the road I’m sure. We saw it with, I think it was Austin Theriault here who broke his back in a truck crash years ago. Denny (Hamlin), obviously his back as well as (Aric) Almirola’s. There’s a lot of things that will still come of the evolution of safety for all of us. My wreck, we made a lot of changes and advancements, let’s call it, to the race cars and hopefully that can help prevent those such injuries happening again.”

Does there need to be any modifications or other bars installed after the Newman accident?

“I have no idea. I haven’t seen the car. I just saw what we all saw on television. To get an up close look at it would certainly show a whole different perspective of it than just what I saw on TV.”

Does it matter that you’re losing 15 minutes in first practice today?

“I don’t know, practice is what 50 minutes? It certainly isn’t going to be helpful or beneficial, but with time of day and everything being what it is, probably the first 15 minutes isn’t that big of a deal.”

How hard was it on your family awaiting news on Ryan Newman’s condition?

“I would sense that all of us are kind of wanting to know as soon as possible to know for ourselves, not necessarily because we want to get it out and leak any sort of news, it’s just a matter of self-assurance that those that you’re racing against are okay. It could be any of us in that situation at any particular time especially with restrictor plate racing and those places you race so fast and so close together the whole time that those crashes tend to happen a lot. The families certainly go through a lot. I know Samantha (Busch) was quite concerned and she had her mind on my crash and then Ryan’s (Newman) crash and asking me some questions about other crashes over time to try to understand the whole perspective and like I said, you can’t. They’re all their own instance and have their own consequences and severity and things like that around them.”

Do you think we’ll see a better race at Las Vegas with this package the third time around?

“You know, I don’t know. Typically, the more time you give these engineers and the guys to figure out a package, the more they screw it up and make the racing worse for the fans. It can certainly go the other way here with us getting a better understanding of how to make the cars feel better and drive better in traffic. When you can do that, you can have a better feel and a better race because you can work your way around the traffic a little bit more. Last year, I think this race in the fall time too, I remember we were really, really loose to start and we kind of worked on our car, got better and we were way better at the end of the race. Last year, I coulda, shoulda, woulda won the spring race if it hadn’t been for me speeding on pit road. We came back and I think ran third anyways. It’s something that sometimes it’s easy to pass and sometimes it’s not. When you’re really on and your car is really hooked up, it’s just like the old package, you could pass guys and you could move your way up through the field. When you’re just that least little bit of off, it seems like you’re really far off with this package right now.”

Is there an ‘aero-war’ between drivers?

“It’s the same for everybody, you’re trying to shut the guy off behind you. You’re trying to shut his air off. That’s why the blocking is so bad, even at some of these places. The guys out front, they’ll mirror drive wherever the hell you’re going to make sure they shut your air off so you have to get out of the gas and be out of the gas and lose momentum and they can get a gap on you so they don’t have to deal with you again. As soon as you sort of lose that lead draft, if you’re not fast enough to catch back up to that guy in front of you, then you just continually seem to lose ground. That’s a big part of what we’re all doing and it’s an aero-war of just shutting the guy off behind you.”

Is there a part of your car you try to protect?

“Getting close enough to you, once they get close enough to you and they get on your right-rear, when they’re first there on your outside, it makes you really, really, really tight. Then as they start to go by you, it sucks you around and makes you really, really loose. The closer they are to your right side is not good. That’s one that you’d like to protect, but you can’t always do that.”

When did Denny Hamlin get so good at superspeedway racing?

“Denny (Hamlin) I think has really gotten way better ever since this car. He was always an aggressive plate racer, one that would make moves that you’re kind of like, ‘Man, if you would just stay in line, I think this would turn out better.’ He still does that today, but he’s making it work for himself. Not staying in line is better for Denny. I think that ever since this car has come, whatever car you want to call it – Gen6 – he’s been a really good plate racer. He’s been fantastic at the game, he’s understood it and he’s made moves that I sometimes wouldn’t make that work and he’s able to pass a guy and get in line. How he got passed down the back straightaway and fell to third to then how he got attached to the 12 (Ryan Blaney) and then was able to push the 12 back up to the 6 (Ryan Newman). I don’t know how all that happened so fast within three and four to the middle of the frontstretch. I don’t know if the 12 backed up to Denny or how all that went down. That’s how I would imagine it went down, but I haven’t seen any of the data. It was just interesting how he’s very knowledgeable and skillful in his moves and his attempts at making passes.”

# # #

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Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Friday, February 21, 2020
EVENT: Pennzoil 400 Media Availability

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang – WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS WEEKEND? “It’s getting rolling. A lot of changes you guys all know about at Team Penske, so it’s kind of been a fun experience through Daytona. Daytona is a unique best as you guys know and we’re kind of glad to get out of there and get out here to Vegas and start working on our cars in a different way than what you do in Daytona, and as we go through this west coast swing a lot of things will change pretty quickly. Paul and I and all of us just try to keep linking up on what means the most on the race track and what we need to focus on and how to race, so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, but I’m excited about it. It’s been a fun challenge so far.”

HOW DO YOU PROCESS WHAT YOU SAW WITH NEWMAN? Oh, man. It’s hard to process it because immediately, and I think we all kind of probably thought the same thing, is you kind of think the worst and you really hope for the best. Just by the looks of it and what happened, you’re just like, ‘this is bad.’ Obviously, it was, but what a miracle to see him walking out with his kids the other day. Who’d have seen that coming? That’s amazing to be able to do that so quickly. It says a lot about the medical team that goes to the race tracks with us. Obviously, that’s a tough situation to figure out how to get someone out of the car in a safe way, get to the hospital and treat and care the way we need to. Obviously, the crash itself was probably the worst spot possible coming to a checkered flag like that. Nobody lifts, unfortunately. Everyone just drives to the start-finish line and that’s why you sometimes see crashes like that at the superspeedways at the end of a race, and it couldn’t have been in a worse spot of the car, but to kind of see that he’s gonna be OK from what I hear, it’s awesome. That’s amazing. It says a lot about what our race cars are and I think even this NextGen car in some of those areas where the impact was seems to be, from at least my non-engineering degree perspective, looks like it should be stronger in that spot. So I’m glad to see that NASCAR is already looking at it, even before this in that area, and I look forward to getting in that car and have something even safer to drive. You have a lot of huge impacts down there. Even my impact was maybe the hardest one I’ve taken as well, being in the door like that and having no give. You end up absorbing a lot of it, but everything did its job and we all walked away. I texted Newman, you guys will get a kick out of this. I texted him and said, “I knew it wasn’t your neck that broke. I don’t think you could do that.” We have a neck joke going back and forth because I’ve got a long one and he’s got none. We had a good joke about that at least, so his sense of humor still seems to be there.”

AS ONE OF THE TALLER GUYS IN THE GARAGE HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR HEIGHT WITH THE NEXTGEN CAR? “Better. It’s no secret. There’s zero advantage of being tall as a race car driver. From the weight aspect or even the safety aspect you’re higher in the car, your legs are cramped up more. Obviously, you need all the space that’s in the cockpit. One of the things when I was in the meetings about the NextGen car that I brought up is that we need to make sure we have enough room in the cockpit for a taller driver. Obviously, it’s important to me and when I drove that thing at Phoenix just initially sitting in it I sit quite a bit lower in that car. I have more headroom to the rollcage, which is really important. Obviously, we see why from last week why it’s important to have some room up there. I was able to see plenty fine. I’m one of the taller drivers.

“That may be the advantage is that I can see a little bit more being taller, but if you’re shorter you just raise the seat up and you can see as well. Visually, no issues. I think we’re sitting a little bit more toward the center of the car, which is a good thing, and then also being lower your head is being lowered to what the rollcage is is also a huge positive, so those are all good things.”

DID YOU TALK TO BRAD AFTER THE 500? “Yeah, we talk. We all talk. We’re not in high school. We can all talk about things. It’s OK.”

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS PLACE THAT CLICKS? “I don’t know. Honestly, it’s been one of those race tracks that I think early in my career, I think one of my first top 10s is actually here when we didn’t run good anywhere. There was something about Vegas that kind of clicked for me right off the bat. It’s been a really good race track for us. We finally won here. It took a while, but our average finish and the consistency has been there for a long time, so that’s a great thing, but I don’t know. Something about it just fits my style. I think that you can move around. It’s fast. You’ve got two corners that are completely different. You’ve got a lot of bumps you’ve got to deal with. It takes a lot to make it work, but I think if you look at Team Penske as a whole, obviously Brad has been very good here, and this 22 car has been good as well. So I think just putting the Penske deal together and also with the driver pairings I think it just ends up being a pretty good match for us.”

DOES HAVING PAUL ON THE BOX NOW GIVE YOU EVEN MORE CONFIDENCE HERE? “It’s kind of been fun conversations because it’s like ‘what was different between your car and what I ran here last year?’ There are a lot of similarities at this race track from what we both ran, but you kind of just talk those parts out. I was kind of open to it. I said, ‘Listen, you guys ran good. I ran good here last year, kind of go with what you feel is the best and we’ll kind of deal with it as we get through practice and tune the balance in or makes adjustments from there.’ So that’s kind of how it’s gonna be for the most part at the beginning part of the season is ‘don’t change it to me quite yet, do what works for you and then we’ll kind of adjust as we go along.’”

AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY IS UP NEXT. HOW DO YOU THINK THE CARS WILL REACT? “Auto Club to me is maybe one of the coolest race tracks we go to. It definitely is one of the coolest. There are a lot of great things about it, being able to move around the race track, tire wear, the draft, you really have a good mix of the Daytona-type of big draft going on, and then the mix with a mile-and-a-half type handling and needing to find room on the corners and those type of things. It makes for a really, really fun race. I enjoy it. I love going out there and I really want to win there because they have a really, really cool trophy. It’s a surfboard in the old Woody Wagon and all and it looks really cool.”

WHO WOULD PLAY JIMMIE JOHNSON IN A MOVIE? “I don’t watch enough movies to know any actors to know who would play Jimmie Johnson. I don’t know any names. I’m a horrible person to ask, I’m sorry. I can’t sit down in front of a TV long enough.”

DID RYAN TEXT BACK? “Yeah, we joked about it and laughed back and forth about it. Like I said it’s good to see him walking, obviously, but also being Ryan still – that nothing has really changed. I think that’s something we’re all so happy about. I just felt for everyone in this situation. I think of Blaney, I think of LaJoie all in the crash and then that happening. Although it wasn’t any of their faults, obviously, you’re involved in it and you’re gonna relive that in your mind and I know that situation, so I reached out to them as well. I just felt like that’s hard. I think everyone kind of forgets about that situation as well, and it should. All attention should be on Newman, but those guys that were so close to what it was. Anybody here besides drivers that can understand the situation they’re put in and had to kind of get through for the next couple of days until they hear Ryan is OK, that’s a very tough spot as well.”

IF ANOTHER BAR NEEDED TO GO IN WOULD IT BE WHERE THE WINDOW NET IS? IS THERE A WAY TO DO IT WHERE IT WOULD BE REMOVEABLE SO IF YOU DO NEED TO GET OUT OF THE CAR QUICKLY THAT YOU CAN? “You’re talking to someone who just has an RCD – Race Car Driver Diploma – which is not enough to have a structural engineering degree that can tell you what I need as far as a rollcage and all that. Earning your RCD is not easy either. It takes a lot of years. You just don’t hand those out either.”

IS THERE LESS FIELD OF VISION IN THESE CARS? “Our field of vision has been pretty much the same as far as I can remember being in this sport. When I drove the NextGen car it wasn’t any different. You’re still able to see quite a bit of the car. We can’t turn our heads and check out blind spots, but we have spotters for that, that should help along with that. When you’re going this fast you can feel them. You know when somebody is at a certain point of your car. You can feel the air working off your car, so you know. Sometimes if they’re further away or things like that, that’s where it’s harder to see if there’s more separation. That’s more challenging to see, but it’s been like that for a long, long time. We try to adjust our mirrors to where we can see everything around us, but there’s always ggnna be a little, small spot that we’re challenged to see or our perception might be a little bit off.”

CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE PULL ON YOUR CAR AND THEN THE SUDDEN AMOUNT OF DOWNFORCE YOU GET WHEN YOU PULL OUT? “That’s a tough question to put into words of what it’s like, but if you get in the draft you can feel the acceleration in the car, you know especially now with this 550 package and as much wide-open as you are, when you get a tow from someone you feel a little bit more speed, RPMs come up, depending on if you’re getting a car from behind or you’re getting a push from behind you or you’re getting towed ahead of you, you can feel that. You’re getting side drafted it’s like putting the brakes on. You can really feel that and dirty air it’s unpredictable. It’s kind of a situation that is very turbulent as you can imagine driving down the road behind a tractor-trailer. Sometimes if you’re driving a bigger car you can feel the turbulence, well you’re only going 70 miles an hour when that happens.

“Now you’re going 180 or whatever we’re doing and obviously a pretty big hole in the air and we’re relying on every bit of it we can, then when a car goes to a different lane that you weren’t expecting them to, and takes your air after you’ve committed to driving into the corner at a certain speed, that’s where you see it in re-watching some of the races I’ve seen it happen here in the spring, where you expect a car to go to the bottom and you’ve been running the top and someone runs the top and, boom, you’re in the wall. It happens that quick. That’s why you see restarts and stuff are just kind of crazy trying to figure out where everyone is gonna go because if you can find a spot where there is some clean air, great, you can move forward, and then you’ve got to try to find the draft down the straightaway because, if not, you’ll see the outside lane tag right by you. It’s quite the thought process you’ve got to go through at a really quick rate to figure out what’s the right moves to try to get ahead of somebody.”

DO YOU FEEL THE CLEAN AIR AS QUICKLY AS YOU FEEL THE DIRTY AIR? “Yep, and clean air – it’s not like the car is locked down. It’s not like you put it on a rail and it just goes. You’re still sliding your tires at the limit of the potential of the car, it’s just way more than what it would be when you don’t have clean air on it. Understanding this aero, I always call it an aero war out there because you’re always just trying to figure out, ‘how do you get clean air and how do you get the person behind you dirty air?’ Moving to the left side of the car, it’s no secret, moving to the left side of the car is way better than moving to the right side of a car with the way the weight comes off these things. Understanding all that is a lot and you really have to know who you’re racing and the moves that they tend to make.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 21, 2020

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS / TRACKER OFFROADD CAMARO ZL1 1LE, met with media to discuss his thoughts coming off of the Daytona 500, going into the first 1.5-mile track of the season, working with a new teammate, and more. Full Transcript:

KICK IT OFF WITH YOUR GENERAL THOUGHTS COMING OFF OF THE DAYTONA 500. IT’S THE FIRST 1.5-MILE TRACK OF THE SEASON HERE AT LAS VEGAS.
“I’m really excited. This time of the year is always fun; leaving Daytona with a solid finish and get to the west coast to see where you really stack up. There are a lot of 1.5-mile tracks in our series, so this is pretty important. This is a good measurement or tool because this place is a little bit of everything: it’s a little rough, it has one corner that is a little smoother than the other, and the grip level fades as you run so it kind of wears tires. It’s a good mixture, right in the middle of all the 1.5-mile tracks that we go to. I’m excited to get on the track with our Camaro ZL1 1LE and see what we got.”

THERE WERE SEVERAL INSTANCES LAST SEASON IN THESE 1.5-MILE TRACKS WHERE YOU SHOWED A LOT OF SPEED, PARTICULARLY IN QUALIYFING. I KNOW YOU WORKED ON THAT THROUGHOUT THE SEASON TO TRY TO TRANSFER THAT TO RACE DAY. YOU DON’T GET TRACK TESTING DURING THE OFF SEASON, BUT WITH THE NEW CAMARO AND ANY SIMULATION STUFF THAT YOU’VE DONE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN A BETTER POSITION TO START THIS SEASON?
“That was a direction that some of the people at RCR thought that was the way to go. Obviously, it showed speed in qualifying, but didn’t race well. We were trying our hardest to make it race well and it just never really worked out for us last year. I would say our best race of the year was our last race of the year at Homestead, where we consistently ran inside the top-10 the whole race, drove from 22nd to the top-10 by the first segment and was able to maintain there. We’ve based most of our stuff this off season off of that car and that design, and just trying to make it better. I, personally, feel like at these 1.5-mile tracks, there’s a very good happy-medium place that you have to find in qualifying to make yourself feel good going into the race. I don’t want to be the pole guy most of the time. It worked in Michigan, I think by Joey Logano. I don’t know how many pole-sitters actually won last year, maybe Kevin Harvick was one of them. But I think with the direction we go, we aren’t really focused on qualifying as much and I think that’s a good thing. If we qualify on the pole, we weren’t trying to. But that would be nice that if that happens.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER YOU SAW RYAN NEWMAN’S CRASH LAST WEEK? YOU’VE HAD OBVIOUSLY A CRASH THAT WAS EVERY BIT AS BAD AS THAT AT DAYTONA.
“Obviously, it was definitely weird leaving the track, getting on the plane and everyone on the plane I was on, my grandfather and family, sat and we said a prayer before we took off for Ryan (Newman). Just the eeriness of the whole situation, with the tarps coming out and not knowing was definitely eye-opening as a driver. After I tore down the fence and walked out immediately with nothing, I definitely feel like these cars are the safest things out there. But it just goes to show you that you can be impacted in the wrong way and it can be compromised. We’re going 200 mph around each other and sometimes force just overtakes what we know is safe. I’m very happy that Ryan walked away and walked out of the hospital like he did with his two girls. Man, it definitely makes you stop and think about it a little bit. I’m definitely still proud of what NASCAR has been able to do for the safety of our sport because that’s probably the worst place you could possibly get hit, where he got hit. For him to be recovering already, it’s just a really good sign.”

HOW DO YOU GET BACK INTO A RACE CAR? HOW DID YOU GET OVER HAVING SUCH A WRECK LIKE THAT AND HAVING TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN?
“For me, I would go awhile without wrecking and every now and again, it was a good thing when you wrecked because you’re like ‘alright, it’s not that bad’. You get back in and you have more confidence the next time you’re back in the car. When you have one like that, I don’t know it might take easing into it a little bit. We’re race car drivers; he’s wrecked probably as hard or harder in a midget in his lifetime I’m sure. It’s just part of what we do. We put ourselves in that situation knowing what we’re getting ourselves into. I know that when I went to Kentucky the next week, I just got in there and ran. I wasn’t sore, I was ready. The only thing I had done during the week was talk more about it. It’s part of what we do as race car drivers and I think that’s why people come watch us. We do put our lives on the line for this stuff. It’s engaging for the fans to see. It’s dangerous and that’s a part of it; it’s a part of the sport.”

YOU HAD JUMPED OUT OF YOUR CAR AFTER YOUR WRECK AND CARL EDWARDS JUMPED OUT OF HIS CAR, KYLE LARSON JUMPED OUT OF HIS CAR. DO YOU THINK THE SPORT HAD GONE SO LONG WITH BAD ACCIDENTS AND GUYS GETTING OUT OF THEIR CARS THAT THERE WAS MAYBE A LITTLE BIT OF DE-SENSITIVITY TO IT?
“For sure, I think that’s a good way to put it. You get numb to it a little bit because people just jump out of the cars. A really bad one of (Kyle) Larson’s last year like we were talking about, we’ve watched it in the safety meetings before the 500. You just watch it and you still hear the ‘that looks like it hurt’. You just kind of say it’s safe enough, you’re just going to be a little sore the next day. Then, you watch how long it took Ryan (Newman) to get out, the amount of people it took to get him out and the safety workers doing their job, it definitely makes you think differently about it, for sure.”

“The ‘it can happen’, I guess is the next thing that’s part of it. You never think about that, but it’s like man, you can actually get hurt.”

HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO TEXT OR TALK TO RYAN (NEWMAN)?
“Yeah, I shot him a text. I said ‘I’ve never been so glad to see a picture of you’ (laughs). I’m going to call him probably this week. I’m sure he’s been super busy. Luke Lambert, his crew chief, I saw him getting on the plane and Luke told me that he had talked to him. He said he’s the same ole’ Ryan, he’s good to go (laughs). He’s being his normal self when he’s talking.”

DOES THERE NEED TO BE ANY KIND OF BAR ADDED TO POTENTIALLY PREVENT ANYTHING CATASTROPHIC IN A WRECK LIKE THAT?
“I think we could add a lot of bars and different structural things. Truthfully, I don’t know because I haven’t seen the chassis. I haven’t seen the chassis, I haven’t looked at the chassis and I’m not the engineers that NASCAR has hired to do that. But they’ve done a really good job, even after my wreck. In my wreck, my feet were exposed after that wreck and that’s why they put that whole steel box in the bottom. I was kind of bummed when they didn’t name it the ‘AD Box’, the ‘Dillon Box’; the AD Box because I made a heck of a wreck. NASCAR does a good job of seeing the crash, going over it and making sure that they add bars that don’t make the car any more rigid, but just help the structure of the chassis. If there is a way to make it better, they will. They’re quick enough that we could do it before the next speedway, if there is something that needs to be done.”

WHAT HAPPENED LEFT EVERYONE SHAKEN, BUT THE END RESULT NOW, DO YOU THINK IT WILL LEAVE DRIVERS ULTIMATELY EVEN MORE BOLD AND FEELING INVINCIBLE AFTER SEEING HE COULD WALK AWAY FROM THAT?
“I don’t think any bolder. I feel like speedway racing is as wild as it can get, you know what I mean, because you know what’s on the line when you get down to the end of the race. You literally just shut everything off. Denny Hamlin does a really good job of putting himself in great situations. That’s probably the best book to read to figure out how to win and not get crashed, but he’s crashed in them too before. Everybody does; you have streaks. Before the race, (Kyle) Larson came up to me and was like ‘well, I guess you used up all your luck in the Clash and the Duel’. I was like, ‘easy man, come on I hope I have a little more for the 500’. But it’s part of what speedway racing is and I think there’s a group of fans that love the speedway racing because of that. To answer your question, I don’t think it will change the way we drive to make us any bolder. I think we’re already as bold as we can get when we wreck half the field.”

YOU MENTIONED A MOMENT AGO ABOUT ADDING A BAR, BUT DIDN’T WANT TO MAKE IT ANY MORE RIGID. IS THAT A POTENTIAL PROBLEM THAT YOU DON’T WANT THESE CARS TO HAVE?
“Yeah, I think that’s what NASCAR is good at. They’ve recorded a lot of data over time and the box that we have in the car that records the amount of force that we hit and discussing that with the drivers. That’s why they hire the people they do to make these cars safe. You don’t just slap a bar in there because you see one side of it compromised. You have to figure out why it was compromised and go about it the right way to make it better. It takes time, but they’re good enough that by the time we get to another one of those places where we have to go 200 mph, if there’s an update to make better, we would.”

YOU GUYS HAVE DECIDED ON A NAME FOR YOUR UPCOMING CHILD?
“Yeah, we got a name. It’s Ace RC Dillon. I’m pumped about it. ‘RC’ obviously is for my grandfather. My logo has always been the Ace of Spades and my grandfather always said ‘ace in the hole’. So, I was like this is a good time to make my kid the ace in the hole and hopefully he’s better than me.”

YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE RACE UNDER YOUR BELT WITH A NEW TEAMMATE. WHAT HAS TYLER REDDICK BROUGHT TO THE CUP SERIES?
“I really like his mentality. I feel like Tyler (Reddick) doesn’t let things bother him at all. It’s nice to see someone that is very positive. If he hits the wall, he’s like ‘OK, come in to fix it and we’ll go fast again’. I’ve seen him do it multiple times in the Xfinity Series, where he isn’t flustered or bothered. He takes on the chin and keeps moving. As a rookie coming into the Cup Series, you’re going to have growing pains and you’ll be able to handle them well. I think you’ll see it over the season. He’s a strong competitor, we workout together. It’s nice; we worked out this week and watched the race while we were working out, so that was pretty cool. Hearing what he thinks of certain thoughts and he’s just really talented at getting up to the top of the track and finding grip. I think some of these places where you see the top come in, he’ll be one of those guys that does well with that.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
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Roush Fenway Weekly Advance | Las Vegas I

Roush Fenway Racing – coming off an emotional Daytona 500 and following week – heads to Las Vegas to kick off the West Coast swing this weekend as the NASCAR Cup Series battles for 400 miles Sunday afternoon at the 1.5-mile track. RFR boasts 16 wins all-time in the Entertainment Capital of the World, having finished in the top-10 at more than half of the races it has competed in at the track.

Pennzoil 400
Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020 | 3:30 p.m. ET
FOX, PRN, SiriusXM Channel 90
·         Ross Chastain, No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Mustang
·         Chris Buescher, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang

Early JACKpot

Roush Fenway hit the Vegas jackpot right off the bat, winning the inaugural Cup event at Las Vegas in 1998. Mark Martin led 82 laps in the victory that served as a banner day for Roush Fenway.

Inaugural Sweep

Roush Fenway placed all five of its Cup entries inside the top 10 of that inaugural Las Vegas Cup race in 1998, including three inside the top five, four inside the top six, one in the winners circle and the runner up  (6 – 1st, 99 – 2nd, 26 – 4th, 16 – 6th and 97 – 10th).

Continued Success

Roush Fenway Racing won the first three Cup races at LVMS from ‘98-’00, with Jeff Burton winning back-to-back events in ’99 and ’00. Roush Fenway also took three of the first nine Xfinity Series events at LVMS.

Victory Lane at Vegas

In addition to the first three Cup races at LVMS, Roush Fenway again found the winners’ circle in 2003 and 2004 at the 1.5-mile track with Matt Kenseth. Carl Edwards took the checkered flag at the 2008 and 2011 events to give RFR seven Cup wins at Las Vegas with four different drivers.

Back to Back at Vegas

Roush Fenway has won back-to-back Cup races at LVMS on two separate occasions in ’99-’00 and ’03-04’ and once in the Xfinity Series in ‘99 and ‘00.

Roush Fenway Las Vegas Wins
1998       Martin  Cup
1999       Burton  Cup
2000       Burton  Cup
2003       Kenseth Cup
2004       Kenseth Cup
2008       Edwards Cup
2011      Edwards Cup
1999       Martin  NXS
2000       Burton  NXS
2002       Burton  NXS
2005       Martin  NXS
2009       Biffle     NXS
2012       Stenhouse NXS
1997       Ruttman  NGOTS
1999       Biffle        NGOTS
2007       Kvapil       NGOTS

Chris Buescher – Las Vegas I Advance
Team:                   No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang
Crew Chief:         Luke Lambert
Twitter:                @17RoushTeam, @RoushFenway and @Chris_Buescher

Pennzoil 400 – Sunday, Feb. 23 at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM Channel 90

ADVANCE NOTES

Buescher at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

·         Buescher makes his seventh career NCS start at Las Vegas this weekend.
·         His best Cup finish at the 1.5-mile track is 15th – which he accomplished twice in the 2018 season after starting 28th in each race.
·         Buescher also has two Xfinity Series starts in Vegas with a best finish of ninth under crew chief Scott Graves. He finished 14th with Graves in the 2015 Xfinity Series event.

Luke Lambert at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

·         Lambert will call his 10th Las Vegas Cup race from atop the pit box this weekend. In his nine previous starts, he has a best finish of third with Ryan Newman back in 2015.
·         Overall Lambert has an average finish of 14th with two additional top-10s – seventh in 2014 and ninth in the 2018 fall race.
·         He and Daniel Hemric most recently posted two top-10 qualifying efforts in the 2019 races, lining up fifth last spring and sixth in the fall.
·         Lambert called one Xfinity Series race for Elliott Sadler at Las Vegas back in 2012, finishing third after starting on the pole.

On the Car
Fastenal celebrates its 10th season with Roush Fenway Racing in 2020. The Minnesota company spent three years on the No. 99 before jumping to the No. 17 Cup Series entry, and were the primary partner on the No. 60 Xfinity team that captured the owner’s championship in 2011.

About Fastenal
Fastenal [Nasdaq: FAST] is North America’s largest fastener distributor and a ‘one-stop’ source for hundreds of thousands of OEM, MRO and Construction products. With more than 2,600 stores worldwide, the company supports B2B customers with tailored local inventory and dedicated personnel, who visit regularly, quickly respond to emergency needs, and provide efficient inventory management solutions. Fastenal’s service-oriented business network includes the world’s largest industrial vending program, 14 regional distribution centers, 8 custom manufacturing facilities, thousands of delivery vehicles, and industry-leading sourcing, quality and engineering resources.