Category: NASCAR Cup PR

NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY MEDIA DAY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 12, 2020

BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 U.S. AIR FORCE CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Daytona 500 Media Day Highlights:

ON KOBE BRYANT:
“It’s kind of bizarre because I wasn’t really a huge fan of Kobe Bryant. Obviously I’m a fan of the game, but looking back and seeing all the videos, I’m still watching videos to this day, of what he’s done in-game and post-game after he retired and seeing how big of an icon he was and how big of an impact he had on everybody, I’m sure he touched everybody in this room when he passed. To see somebody have that big of an impact, you can only hope to leave that sort of impact when it’s your time to go. Man, seeing how he was as a father and a player, it’s like all right, I want to line yourself up to follow that path and it was a huge loss for the sports world and just for the world in general. To have that impact globally speaks volumes to how he was as a person. I think I’ve got to change up a few things to have that sort of impact in my career. So, we’ll start right now.”

ON HIS CREW CHIEF, JERRY BAXTER:
“It’s good. Jerry has been one of those guys. The longest we would go without talking to each other was probably a month; whether it was picking on each other or hey man, good luck in your race day. I’m talking your boat out. That’s what he would send to me because I keep my boat at his house. So, it’s free-reign when he wants to take it. It’s cool to have that friendship off the track and be that guy that you can talk to about anything and now he’s moving into the crew chief roll again for us. And he’s doing a heck of a job so far. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve only had a handful of laps on track together, but I feel like we’re going to shape up to be a good duo and lead our team to a lot of success this year.”

HOW DO YOU NOT LET YOUR FRIENDSHIP RELATIONSHIP GET IN THE WAY OF DOING YOUR JOBS?
“At the end of the day, we all know it’s a business. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to be competitive and get the job done first. So, we won’t let this dampen our friendship or anything. It’s good having that relationship with each other to be able to attack the problems that we may have in our future together and then try to come out with a solution to give us the best possible outcome.”

IS IT GOOD TO HAVE HIM BACK ON THE TEAM?
“It is. It gives you a piece of mind, for sure. One thing that we were lacking last year was just the leadership role. Everything else, Derek (Stamets) did a great job, a tremendous job, stepping up to the plate; because that was kind of thrown on Derek last year. He’s been in the sport for a really long time, so we always got our cars super good to race with and maybe a handful of races that we didn’t. But when it came to just hey man, go out there and deliver and do the best that we can, he missed that aspect from Derek. And, so I wanted to bring Jerry in to bring that leadership role to the team.

“I tossed a bone out there and said hey man, would you ever go Cup racing? For you I would. All right. He really loves trucks and he really loves having Sunday’s off to go out on his boat. I told him like five times, hey man, no more Sunday’s off. You get like two. And it’s a long season. Are you sure? He’s like yes. All right. I texted him when we flew down here on Thursday night and said hey man, if you’re scared, don’t get on the plane (laughs).”

ON NEXT YEAR’S SCHEDULE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?
“I hear there’s a bunch of road course races. If that’s so, I’m out. I’m not very good at road courses. No, I don’t know. Whatever they have to bring is fine. More short tracks would be good.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE?
“It doesn’t matter what I like. We just get to the race track and go racing. If we’re going to a short track, all right. We’re going to a speedway, all right.”

MORE RACES OR LESS RACES?
“Maybe we should shorten-up the season. That would be good. One time at each track and get it over with. Unless it’s our best venue (laughs).”

WITH THIS BEING THE START OF JIMMIE JOHNSON’S FAREWELL TOUR, WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE JIMMIE STORY?
“Maybe partying with him after his last championship. That was pretty cool. Or, jumping in the #43 filling in for Eric and here at Daytona in the July race it was under caution and I was driving right next to the No. 48 and I’m like all right, this is pretty cool driving right next to Jimmie Johnson on track. Last year at Texas 2, we were under caution. We were having a terrible race. I looked up on the pylon and he was like fifth and I’m like hell yeah. I just happened to look over and he’s right next to me so I pulled and I get close to him and I gave him a thumbs up and he comes back and revs it up at me. So, he was pumped. I’m a huge fan of Jimmie. I said it earlier at Media Day in Charlotte. Everybody in the field wants to compete against him but all of us are pulling for him. I know I am; to get back into Victory Lane and go out and win the championship. That would be cool.”

DOES IT AMAZE YOU THAT MAYBE HE DOESN’T GET THE CREDIT OR RECOGNITION OVERALL THAT OTHER PEOPLE DO THAT HAVE DONE SUCH AMAZING THINGS?
“Oh, yeah. When they say seven time champion, they say Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. And then they’re like oh, and Jimmie Johnson. It’s like what? I’m right there with them. I guess that’s just Jimmie’s persona. He’s cool, calm, and collected and under the radar. I don’t think I’ve done anything to make him really mad like Blaney did at Watkins Glen. But, I held him up in Qualifying, I guess, at Bristol; but I got held up too. He come down to me and hey man, what’s going on. What are you talking about? That’s another story. Jimmie is an all-around great guy. He knows how to get done on the race track. I’m not sure why he doesn’t get the credit. Maybe he needs to put his foot down. I don’t know.”

WOULD YOU SAY YOU ARE NORMALLY VERY OPTIMISTIC? HAS THIS CHANGED YOU?
“No, the sport has brought me to be more realistic than optimistic in life, in general. I don’t get excited about much anymore. Its just part of it.

“I get excited in the moment. Don’t get me wrong. I get excited about racing. I had a dream, was it last night? I had a dream that we won the (Daytona) 500. That was good. I think it was last night or the night before. I still dream about that stuff. But, and then I’m like damn, that was a dream. That’s unfortunate. But, I still get excited about things. I don’t want people to think that I’m just walking around like Debbie Downer.”

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DREAM? WERE YOU IN VICTORY LANE OR WERE YOU IN THE CAR?
“I don’t know. I say I won the race and I should remember. I think we crossed the line and I’m like hell yeah….we just won! Cool! We made the Playoffs. And then I woke up and that was it.”

Toyota Racing – Erik Jones
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 12, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Erik Jones was made available to media at Daytona 500 Media Day:

ERIK JONES, No.20 DEWALT Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

How is Joe Gibbs as a boss? Were you surprised to see a guy go from NFL coaching, having the kind of success he’s had as an owner?

“I think getting to know him, no, it doesn’t surprise me, seeing how well he made the switch back when he did, how well it’s went since then. Just knowing his work ethic, kind of what he puts into it, how good he is with aligning the right people in the right places, it’s not surprising to me. It’s been cool to get to know him, hear some stories from him about his football days, past racing days. Knowing his work ethic, what he puts into it, doesn’t surprise me at all the success we have.”

Denny said earlier Joe Gibbs can intimidate you without trying to be intimidating.

“Yeah, he does. I mean, yeah, spot on. Joe is not an intimidating guy from the outside, but when you get a call from him, he wants to meet you in his office, you don’t really know what it’s about, that’s pretty intimidating. He’s your boss, right? Joe can be an intimidating figure without wanting to be. I don’t know if he does it on purpose or not. He probably does. You definitely feel that sometimes.”

Can you take any moment from winning the Clash and translate it to the 500 or was it too bizarre?

“You take that momentum. You take any win when you can, run with it. I think starting the season off with a win is great. Never been able to do that. Never won the Clash before. It’s a good feeling. Definitely an odd race. You try to run with it, carry that momentum on Sunday.”

Have you ever won a race like that?

“I’ve been part of similar races that have been pretty bizarre, but never won one that has been quite like that. That was a unique race, for sure.”

Did you doubt at any point during the Clash?

“Yeah, I mean, you start to question whether it’s still going to hang on. You run into enough stuff, hit the wall enough, you question the integrity of the parts. That last restart I was not worried but I was hoping it was going to make it around, at least get to the finish line. There are times where you question that when you get into that many wrecks.”

What stands out about Denny Hamlin as a driver, in the garage?

“I think his talent level’s not disputable, right? You look at Denny, he’s a talented guy. The way he’s developed as a driver has been impressive over the last 15 years or so of his career. He’s been able to really reinvigorate himself. Last year was a huge season winning over six races, being in the Final Four. Really put himself back on the top of his game. I think that was impressive in my eyes. Went from a winless season to that. Hopefully as a teammate, somebody to stack yourself up against. You know what you got, who you’re competing against, what you got to run like. For me, Denny has really put himself back on top of the sport.”

Have you ever golfed with Denny Hamlin?

“No, no, I’m not a good golfer. If I golf, I’m going to a course that’s 18 bucks for 18 holes. I stay there for a few hours, knock some balls around.”

If you could change one race in the schedule, which race would you change or which race would you add?

“That’s a tough question. I think a lot of the times we don’t always need to go to places two times a year. That’s probably my biggest fret maybe about the schedule. If I could add something, I mean, yeah, there’s a lot of tracks you could add easily that you’d love to in a fantasy world, some short tracks and road courses that we’d love to go to. Winchester Speedway has been one of my favorites up in Indiana. They have a great local following, a great track. Definitely the thing I wish I could change is some of these tracks I don’t think we always need to go to twice a year.”

Where do you feel you need to improve to be in contention?

“You’re learning speedway racing constantly. I think even the guys you look at as the top guys in superspeedway are learning each and every week, right? The package changes, you develop more. For me, it’s just continuing to be up front and learning about how to race up front during these races, putting yourself in a good position, learning how to work the air better, learning how to be more aggressive, when to be aggressive, when not to be aggressive. That’s a challenge. You can’t always be pushing at these races, which is counterintuitive for a driver. You got to learn when it’s time to lay back. That’s probably been my biggest thing the last couple years, just trying to figure out when to go, when not to go, not get yourself involved in that big wreck that can end your day.”

How hard is it to make a pass and set it up? How do you do that?

“It is tough. It was really tough on the short tracks and the road courses last year, which I think we’ve kind of remedied now with the other package we’re going to there. The mile‑and‑a‑half’s, it was challenging at some places. Single‑groove places, Texas, Pocono, really a challenge. The places you can move around, Kansas and places like that, the racing was pretty good. I think we all kind of enjoyed that. The restarts are crazy. If you got a good car, you can drive to the front still.”

Is it any different from last year?

“That’s a good question. I mean, maybe in some ways, maybe not in others. It’s an interesting sport today, right? There’s sponsors, so many sponsors involved in the sport. There’s not guys who have set sponsors really for the year any more. I mean, I have a lot of great sponsors, DeWalt, Sport Clips, all these guys that make my world go around. It’s maybe a little bit more different situation with more people moving around. I don’t know. Like I said, in my opinion, I’ve had such a good relationship with Coach and JGR the last three years, I want to continue it. I mean, I don’t see it ending. I think we’ve got a good thing going. As long as we can go out and win races, I think that will keep trending the way it has been.”

How do you look at this year? As an independent contractor, you have to look out for yourself. How do you look at this year and the changes that could potentially happen?

“Yeah, it’s a crazy year I had just in general. For me, I think number one I’ve had a great relationship with JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) for now the last three years, four if you want to count my year at Furniture Row (Racing). I’ve had a great time and great relationship with them. We’ve been able to win the last couple of seasons. I have no intention of leaving my role there. I’d love to continue that. But it is definitely a crazy year. There’s a lot of things happening. There’s a lot of things in motion, I guess, already probably for people, not really for me. I’m excited to see. The pressure is on myself from within, right? There’s no pressure from the outside, in my opinion. It’s pressure from me trying to perform. I want to run well. I want to win races. I think if you can do that, the rest of the things are going to come with it, what you want to do. You’ll have as many choices as you want. Hopefully that’s the case.”

Since coming to the Cup Series, you’ve won one race each season. Do you want to see that number grow?

“For us, yeah. I think we’ve been in position to win a lot of races in the last few years, have not necessarily capitalized on them every time. We’ve been able to win the last couple, which is great, but we want to win more. We want to be able to go out and win three, four races a year. That’s our goal. That’s what our teammates do. That’s what we want to do. I know we can improve. I know there’s a lot of things we can get better. Chris (Gayle, crew chief) and I have looked at what we can do better from our ends. I think we’re going to work on it, do the best we can. Hopefully we can go out and win a few this year.”

Do you hope to get your contract locked in earlier this year?

“I mean, yeah, it is what it is. I think you always kind of know in the back of your mind what’s really going to happen, whether you say it or not, right? At this point in the year, you don’t know, it’s too early. Last year, I would say by May, June, I felt pretty confident in coming back, what we had going on. You just can’t really get it out there yet. I think for me, you always kind of know what you got going. That’s the thing. Yeah, I mean, it’s nice to get it locked up, then you don’t have to worry or talk about it. For me, yeah, I mean, you do what’s right for you. I think for me, that’s staying with JGR.”

Talk about some of the races coming up after Daytona. Immediately to a West Coast swing. Do you feel like at the end of that you know what you have for the rest of the real racing season?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a little different the last few years, Atlanta, in between. Going out west will be interesting. I think you learn a lot right off the bat. Go to Vegas first. It’s going to be different. But I think you learn pretty quickly who is going to be kind of the guy, who has some work to do, who is going to be up front. I’m excited for this weekend and the 500, but definitely excited to get to Vegas and see where we stack up.”

Did the racing get better with the low horsepower, high downforce? Did more people get more competitive with it?

“Yeah, I mean, it changed a lot through the year, the way we kind of built those cars, what we worked on, what we developed continued to change through the year. I did think it got better. I think more and more guys got more competitive and more guys got running up front as the year went on. I think any time you can continue to have the same package in racing year to year, it’s going to continue to get better. You look at the Xfinity Series, the racing there hasn’t really ever been better. If you can give the guys the same package, let them keep working on it, you’re going to let the racing get better, too.”

Vegas, how do you feel that was, a good or bad race?

“I thought it was good. You can run around a lot in Vegas. You can run on the bottom, you can run against the wall, in the middle. As long as you got a track where you can move around and you’re not stuck to one groove, I think that plays right into the hand of the high‑downforce racing.”

Three potential Hall of Famers as teammates. A lot of options to learn. You’ve had a couple years. Can you see where they might be beating you, where the opportunities are for you?

“Yeah, I think for me, you always look at where you can get better. With those guys, they’re some of the best in the sport. You see where you stack up against those guys. I learn from them each and every week, what they do, how they continue to have prolonged success, right? You want to have success through the entire year, at every different kind of track. That’s not always an easy thing to do. They prove that you can each and every year. For me, yeah, I look at them and learn from them each time, ask a lot of questions, try to get better. Having just in general their data even to look at has been a big advantage. I like having them as teammates. You kind of know where you stack up, what your equipment is capable of. I’ve learned a lot from them over the last few years.”

Have you seen anything concrete, I can do better at this, Kyle is better on a restart?

“Yeah, I think for me right now is green flag pit stops, getting on and off pit road is a big one. We lose some time there. That’s the big one we’re working on so far this year. Off the bat at the start of the year, you pick one thing and try to stick to it. That’s a big one at the start of the year we’re going to try to work on.”

You were the cream of the crop in the Clash, still had a lot of interesting things happen. There are 17 different driver‑car combinations coming into the 500. How do you know who is around you, if something should happen to your teammates, who your best dancing partner might be?

“Yeah, it’s a tough balance. I mean, you kind of know who is going to work with you, who won’t want to work with you through the year, try to be keen on that. The Clash is kind of a unique race. You don’t see much manufacture action in that race, everybody is kind of racing for themselves. The 500 you’ll see the manufacturers really start to get together, pair up, try to put themselves in a position to win. I don’t know. You try to know where your teammates are, where your manufacturers are, if they’re still in the race, if you can work with them. Through the days, you kind of get guys that decide they like working with you. You’ll start working with one guy, you’ll help him, he’ll help you. They kind of stick with you through the whole day. You learn that as a day goes. I try to keep mental notes of it. (Rick) Carelli (spotter) keeps mental notes of it, of who is helping, who is not, who is going to use you, throw you off when they get to where they want to be. You can keep in tune with it pretty well.”

Do you think we’ll see two-car tandems in the Daytona 500?

“I don’t know. I think that was a unique circumstance because I had so much damage, my car was really slow. I was able to really keep Denny attached easy because I could just hold it wide open and Denny could push me wide open. I don’t know. I think I wouldn’t be surprised to see it. At the end of the race if we get a green‑white‑checkered, you’ll probably see somebody trying to stay attached. I don’t think it will be as easy if it’s two undamaged cars. I definitely think there is an advantage there if you can get it working, get it going like we did, that you’ll definitely be faster.”

After what you saw on Sunday, do you expect there to be damaged cars the last 30 laps?

“I think you’ll see a lot more guys pressing on than maybe before, after watching Sunday’s race. I think sometimes you get in a situation where you wreck on a superspeedway, it’s too damaged, we should pull it in. I think after that, I think every guy is going to take that trip down pit road to at least say, Can we patch this thing up enough to get it back out there and give ourselves a shot? A little bit of a game changer.”

# # #

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Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 12, 2020) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media at Daytona 500 Media Day:

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

Talk about your owner. You were just a kid when he decided to go from NFL coaching to owning a racecar team. Did you think it was odd?

“Yeah, I mean, it was very interesting for me because at the time I was living in Virginia, (the) Redskins were my favorite team. That’s our home team there in Virginia. So my favorite football coach starting a race team at a time where I was hooked with the racing bug right there when I was 12 years old, it was a perfect combination. It’s weird, I used to have dreams of driving the FedEx car, this is when I was a kid, before FedEx even had a race team. For me to sign with my favorite football coach, have the sponsor that I had dreams about, really weird it all played out that way. I ended up getting the same number that I grew up racing when I was a kid. I grew up racing a purple and white 11. I stayed with a purple and white 11 here in the Cup Series. I think where the dreams came from, at the time thinking of the purple and white, I thought it would be awesome to drive the purple and white FedEx car in the Cup Series.”

Did you talk to Joe, did he have the racing bug when he was coaching football?

“Yeah, I’m not sure how that came about. I think when he retired from coaching or was getting towards retirement in coaching, he was looking obviously at what he was going to do. He’s not one of those guys that sits at home, just hangs out and does chores around the house. He likes to work hard. That really is, in my opinion, the difference in him and any other team owner, is that he’s at the race shop every single day at 8 a.m. calling sponsors, walking down the shop, figuring out how we can be faster.”

How is he as a boss?

“He’s the best. He finds a way to intimidate you even though he’s not an intimidating guy. That’s what I really admire about him. You know when he’s serious about what he’s saying, and it gets your attention.”

Can you give us an example?

“Yeah, I guess it was probably 2008 or 2009 when we were going through the relationship with Toyota. We were going through some growing pains at the time that he stood up and threw his pencil down and he looked at all the engineers and said, “You guys are the ones that said this is the right move for us, now you make it work”. The drivers were all giving him, “We need better this, that”. But he had the long term plan in place. I don’t second guess Joe on anything that he has planned for us. It’s been a great relationship that I’ve had over the last 16 years with him. Continues to grow.”

What has been the key to all the success and motivation?

“I kind of mentioned, I think he’s the hardest working owner. I don’t know every owner personally. I know the big, major race teams. This is all they do. This is their business. They don’t have a lot of other side businesses they have to focus on, hundred million dollar businesses. This is where the Gibbs family has planted all their seeds for the future. When you do that, you just can concentrate on this one thing, you’re certainly going to get better results. That’s what they’re doing.”

You knew his reputation when he coached, sleeping in the office at 3:00 a.m.

“I hear stories. A lot of people that came over from the Washington Redskins staff came over with him when he came back from his stint in the 2000s. They said he had to deal with some interesting personalities. He would always tell stories about some of the guys, just really funny stories. I just got to thinking about that he’s reached the gauntlet dealing with me, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch. He loves punishment clearly. He just finds a way to deal with us all, put up with our nonsense at times, but also gets the best out of us.”

How can you match the success of 2019?

“It’s almost impossible. You never know. I don’t think anyone counted on us winning six races last year. I think there’s always someone within a season that no one saw coming winning a lot of races you weren’t counting on. I don’t see that being different this year with someone else. I think our organization is primed to have a lot of success. When you look at the short track package, as much as I was advocating for a change to get back to a lower weight, lower downforce level, we didn’t finish out of the top five in any of the short tracks last year. It’s almost careful what you wish for. I enjoy the challenge of us going out there. I like our chances any time there are changes, that our organization adapts quicker than anyone.”

You come to this place now, do you have a different attitude, a different confidence here? Is this one of your places?

“Yeah, I mean, it is. People think of us a lot of times throughout my career as a short track guy. Really, I deem myself a short track guy who has just adapted really well to superspeedway racing. A lot of that has come from watching some of the best do it. Tony Stewart I think is a great example of someone that I learned a lot from on superspeedways. Even though he didn’t win this race, he put himself in position to win a lot of them. He’s the guy that I kind of idolized, looked at the way he did things. Dale Jr. as well. Over the second half of my career, I really have been a student of the game on how can I improve, how can I put myself in a better position to finish these races.”

What is the feeling coming here as the defending Daytona 500 champion and trying to do it again?

“It’s tough, but there is more confidence. You know the things you’ve been doing have been successful. I won’t change any of that until it doesn’t work any more and I have to adapt. I think it’s been really a great run we’ve had over the last eight years in particular. We’ve been a factor to win every Daytona 500 it seems like for the last decade. I come here thinking there’s no reason that should be any different.”

How do you decide what moves to make in the race?

“I really trust my intuition and instincts. I mean, I can feel when the level of intensity starts ramping up. There’s been times where I just remove myself from that situation. I’ll just pull out of the draft, go backwards, say that there’s something about to happen here, and I know odds and statistics are going to say in this position I’m sitting in, there’s a high percentage I’m going to be in a wreck here. So I get myself out of it, get to the finish, then go from there. I am up front more, so it seems like you would think the chances of the big one starting, you’re going to be free from it. Over the last few years, the average position from the big one starting has went from sixth to third. Now you have to be even further up front to try to avoid statistically where you’re going to be in it. I think it’s always changing. You got to continue to adapt and make sure you sense and when you feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up, make sure you get out, put yourself in a position to get to the finish.”

Can you talk about the importance your spotter?

“When you look at the success when we had at the speedways, it’s right when we changed spotters. He’s good at painting me a picture where I don’t have to check up on him in my rearview mirror. Having that confidence, there’s no time to react, especially with this spoiler and how big the runs are coming, I do not have time to check to make sure what my spotter is telling me is true. He paints the picture, I put it all in my mind, and I essentially have a rearview mirror in my mind I’m seeing as I’m driving forward.”

When Joe went back to coaching, what was your thoughts?

“I thought it was great. I bought a house right next to him. I thought he wasn’t going to be home for the most part. It turns out he came back and I had to move away from being his neighbor. At the time J.D. had such a huge role within the organization, it was pretty seamless to have J.D. taking over the roles that Joe had. Certainly our benefit and our strength of having Joe is being one of the guys out there selling sponsorships. He is, in my opinion, the best salesman in the world. That’s why you see the huge companies on the side of our racecars. But having J.D. being able to take in and really come in and do a great job for those few years, it made the company kind of flow. That’s why the success never wavered. We were neighbors in North Carolina. I actually chose to buy a house next to him. Not the best choice ever.”

Who challenges you the most at the type of racing since you’ve been up front a lot of times? Who is the guy that you enjoy racing but also is the one that kind of is challenging, they push you?

“Yeah, I mean, I think Brad (Keselowski) is that person for me. I think he’s very, very fair. I think that we drive and race similar. I wouldn’t have said that early in my career, for sure. I think that we definitely have very similar styles where we manage our risk, but we find our way to keep ourselves up front in a manageable way. I mean, it just seems like we find ourselves up there. Now, the results, we don’t always win all the races, but certainly it seems like more often than not you’ll find one of the two of us if not both up front.”

You reference analytics, studying more. Everybody does it to some degree. Brad has been more of a thinking type of guy. Is it because you have gotten beat at times? How has that evolved with you? I don’t think of you doing that as much earlier in your career.

“Yeah, no, I think it really took a turn for me really six to seven to eight years ago where I really started paying attention to why is Tony Stewart and Dale Jr. continuing to be up front in these races and I’m continuing to be in the garage or at the infield care center. Like there’s something not right. We got the same equipment, what’s going on? I just started studying what they do, how they manage their risk, how they create runs, how they stay up front. I just started learning from it. Then the cars have changed, the rules packages have change, but I’ve continued to evolve how I do it from an analytic standpoint and it’s kind of worked out.”

You mentioned you saved seven and a half days last year using the plane. Dale Jr.’s scare, thoughts?

“It makes you think. Certainly makes you think and second guess your choices. Kobe and those guys have been doing it for a very long time. I have a lot of faith in the people in the aviation department, I put a lot of faith in them. You look at a lot of the crashes that have happened, most of them have been human error or bad choices that have been made. We always try to hedge on the safe side when it comes to conditions and things like that. It’s so unfortunate, but these things happen. Sometimes when it happens to a star athlete, someone that is that big and well known, it definitely makes you open your eyes a little bit.”

At the end of the Clash, you were pushing Erik. Do you expect the end of the 500 may play out with pushing, that sort of thing?

“It very well could. But the difference would be that his car was so damaged, it was pushing his car back into mine. He had such big nose damage, it kept our lock tighter than what it normally is. If you have two cars that are pretty healthy, that lock is not as strong. That’s not to say I won’t be seeking out wrecked cars when it comes down to the end of it if I’m still around. It was something special which I linked up there, I knew he was in for a ride as long as he held on.”

Is that practice for the 500?

“No, I would have made the move much, much sooner. I didn’t want to get in his checkered flag photo. I was just trying to get out of there.”

Daytona changed the date next year. Have you thought about what that means for Speedweeks, the Clash, all that?

“I don’t know when it is. I’m bad. I haven’t really seen what the updated schedule is.”

Starting a week earlier.

“I think that’s good. I don’t mind them starting a week earlier. I think they’re trying to hem up the end of the season at a certain date in the fall. I’m all for it. I think schedule changes, things like that that they’ve made have definitely made things better.”

Can this race turn into a demolition derby?

“I mean, it’s true. I talk about trying to be in the right position. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to get wrecked on the first lap. It’s just one of those things where in any other sport, right, when your competition makes a mistake, you capitalize. In our sport, the competition makes a mistake and it can cost you, as well. That’s what’s really different about it. I just try to make sure I put myself in the best position that I think is the safest position. That doesn’t mean I always make safe moves, but I feel like the moves I make are thought out and I try to manage my risk. It’s just part of it. I think the law of averages would tell you I’m due to get crashed out about the next six or seven Daytona 500s, because the last six or eight I haven’t. I’ve been a factor to be at the end. You just never know. I’ll continue to try to do the same thing. Who knows what happens.”

How frustrating is that for a driver?

“You have to think about it. If I end up crashed here by my own doing or someone else’s, I just have to realize that many other people crashed before me that it hasn’t been their fault. You have to move on to the next race. Can’t get caught up too much in it. We put a lot of emphasis on this race, how prestigious it is, what it means to do it. As long as I do the best job possible, I’ll live with the outcome no matter what it is.”

What would it mean to you to win your third Daytona 500?

“I don’t know the difference in two and three, the number of winners. I know it would mean a lot to me personally. I think you really become a part of a very, very elite class with that third one. I think of all the ones that I did not win over the last 10 years that I should have won, just made bad decisions. But I think I still got quite a few years ahead of me to get that third one. Hopefully it’s this year.”

You won the photo finish, does that tell you how hard it is to win this thing?

“It’s very hard. I don’t go into these Daytona 500s expecting to win. I go into it hoping to win, but definitely not expecting because there’s just too many moving parts and pieces for you to guarantee your success. I’m confident the things that I do that have been successful, and I’ll continue to do them here in 2020.”

# # #

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NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY MEDIA DAY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 12, 2020

RYAN PREECE, NO. 37 COTTONELLE CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Daytona 500 Media Day Highlights:

YOU ARE NOT A SURPRISE ANYMORE, ESPECIALLY AT THIS RACE. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS GOING INTO SUNDAY?
“Obviously, our team has a lot more speed than we’ve had from when I was here last year. There has been a lot of gains that have been made through the off season thanks to the new Chevrolet body that has been put into place this year. I’m really excited about it. But also because of JTG Daugherty’s hard work and guidance from everyone there. I’m really excited about going into the Daytona 500 knowing what we have and the speed that we have. It’s really exciting stuff.”

HOW BIG WAS IT FOR STENHOUSE JR. TO GO OUT AND GET THE POLE?
“It was good, that’s awesome. We knew that he had a lot of speed in practice and we felt really good about our car, too. It’s really exciting to know that you can play some offense for sure and all that hard work that went on during the off season is really paying off.”

WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR 2020?
“I have high expectations all the time, especially what we saw there. A lot of people try to manage their expectations. I think if you aim low, you’re going to finish low. If you aim high, you’re going to finish high. Last year was a learning year, for sure. I’m really excited about being on the side with Trent Owens, the guidance of Trent and everybody over there. It’s exciting, so I have high expectations.”

WHEN IT COMES TO HIGH EXPECTATIONS, IS IT WINNING? IS IT TOP-FIVES?
“What you saw in qualifying, why couldn’t you win? Your team just qualified for the pole for the Daytona 500. We made a lot of gains from where we were last year in single-car speed. So, do I feel like if everything worked out, do I think we could win? Yeah, I feel like we could. When we go into Vegas, I’m excited to see the gains at the 1.5-mile program to really know where we’re at, what we’re dealing with and the gains we need to make. I feel like we could be a team that can definitely contend to make the Playoffs and win some races.”

INAUDIBLE
“Absolutely. I think it’s important to find speed at all the intermediate tracks. If you can be solid at one or two, you’re going to pretty much make that transition to most of them.”

INAUDIBLE
“I’m somebody who wants to win at the end of the day, obviously like most people do. I want to contend for a win and I feel like we have definitely been building towards that for what I need. We’re getting there. You just have to manage your expectations and know the victories at the end of the weekend of what your making. I’m definitely really excited about going into this year.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO TAKE TO CONTINUE TO GROW THE CROWDS?
“The biggest thing I noticed at Volusia, what they do at the dirt track compared to some of the stuff they do at asphalt tracks, is that they keep the show moving. I think a lot of places can take note on how a show is done, a lot of people don’t want to be sitting at a race track at 11:00 p.m. at night; from 5:00 in the afternoon to 11:00 at night. They want to get in there at 6-6:30 p.m. and be out of there by 9-9:30 p.m. I think if that’s something we can do on that side, it will probably help the attendance a little bit. The shows are exciting, they are. That modified race, even though I wasn’t battling for the lead, the race is won in the last six laps. I think you just have to work on the show of being less than three or four hours.”

LAST YEAR YOU WERE ABLE TO DODGE THE CRASHES. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO TOP THAT THIS YEAR?
“Hopefully do the same thing as last year and maybe play out that last lap a little different. Really, all the holes were open at the right time, and hopefully we can do the same thing and have the same luck.”

RACING OVER AT VOLUSIA, DO YOU THINK THAT’S A GOOD CONNECTION FOR THE NASCAR FANS AND SHORT TRACK FANS?
“I think a lot of the people that are here, if they have nothing going on during a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday night, I think it’s a great opportunity for them to go see where some of us come from; how we grew up racing, fighting tooth-and-nail to get to where we are now. I think it’s always good if some of the fans here can go over there and enjoy that type of racing, and really see what we’ve all gone through to get here.”

HOW DOES RACING THE MODIFIED KEEP YOU SHARP ON THE NASCAR SIDE?
“When we’re winning, it’s great. Right now, we’ve just been on a struggle over there. The first night, we weren’t fantastic. We ended up fourth, probably was going to get third in a lap or two. Last night, we made a lot of changes. If it was a dirt track, it was a slick track and I was ready for a tacky track. So, it wasn’t very good. I’m hoping we can turn things around tonight and win. That’s what I really look for in racing; being competitive and winning.”

WHAT HAVE YOUR EARLY THOUGHTS BEEN ON WORKING WITH RICKY STENHOUSE JR.?
“Obviously, this is a totally different animal right now, just with how practice has been going. But the dynamic that him and Brian Pattie have, how they work together and how well they do together speed-wise, it’s great. I like Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.), I’ve known him quite a while. I haven’t really hung out with him or anything prior to this year, but I feel really excited about some of the stuff that I feel we’ve learned moving forward and the speed we have.”

AS INCREDIBLE AS HE IS AT RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS, DO YOU FEEL LIKE THERE ARE SKILLS THAT MAYBE HE CAN SHARE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU TWO TRY TO TANDEM LIKE MOST TEAMMATES DO AT DAYTONA?
“Yeah, I’ll have to talk to him about that. With our nose being a little pointier compared to others, I just don’t want to hook somebody into the fence. I don’t want to put anyone else in that position. When I go to do it, I’m going to be really smart about it. We’ll just see. I will talk to him because there are a lot of things, when it comes to the air, I get all that. I’m just a little bit not as impressive with that style of racing at the beginning or the middle of the race. I’ll tend to get more aggressive probably in the last 15 or 10-laps than most people do. There is a lot to learn.”

AFTER HAVING A YEAR UNDER YOUR BELT, DOES IT MAKE IT EASIER COMING IN HERE AND KNOWING YOU’VE BEEN THROUGH THIS, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO, WHERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO GO? DOES IT HELP YOUR CONFIDENCE?
“There are a lot of things I do different at superspeedways in the last year. Even though we had a great day here at the Daytona 500, if I could have played the air a little different, we could have been even better. Last year was certainly a learning year, for sure. But I feel really excited about knowing the gains we’ve made and being with Trent (Owens) and those guys and the notebook they have.”

DO YOU THINK SUNDAY IS GOING TO BE A REPEAT OF THE CLASH?
“As far as the blocking goes, I think you’re going to have guys that are aggressively trying to block those runs. With the tandem, it’s going to be tough to do that. I would think there’s probably going to be a little bit more wrecking than normal. Being able to accumulate those runs and if they block them and somebody doesn’t lift, you’re going to have contact. I think it’s going to be exciting.”

DO YOU THINK THERE IS GOING TO BE MORE TANDEM?
“Seeing that it’s possible without getting somebody out of shape, I think it’s possible.”

THERE IS SO MUCH ATTENTION ABOUT DIRT TRACK GUYS BRINGING ATTENTION BACK TO THE DIRT TRACK AFTER THEY MAKE IT TO THIS LEVEL. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE CARRYING THE FLAG FOR MODIFIED RACING IN THE WAY THAT IT’S GOING TO DRAW MORE EYES TO IT IN GENERAL DOWN THE ROAD?
“I’m trying. I would say that dirt racing is really lucky to have guys like Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and some others carrying that flag for them to really push it. I’m from asphalt, I didn’t quite necessarily come from sprint car racing. So, I’m doing the best I can to really bring attention to asphalt racing, asphalt short track racing and asphalt modified racing. As long as people can help me do it, I’m all for it.”

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Wednesday, February 12, 2020

DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Ford Mustang

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TO START THE SEASON? EXCITED TO GET GOING? “Yeah, definitely. It is always nice to come back down and know that it is time to go again and get back into a rhythm and swing of things. The off-season went quicker than normal this year it seemed like. But it is all good. I got one or two of my 15 or 20 projects done. Getting back down here, it is time to go back racing. Time to refocus and get going with a new team, being back at Roush Fenway but with a handful of new people there. With Luke being a new crew chief, just a lot of relationships I am trying to build and get used to everybody and get communication working as best as possible before you get on the race track and then build it from there.”

IS RACING HERE GOOD PREPARATION FOR TALLADEGA OR ARE THEY COMPLETELY DIFFERENT? “It works really well for the superspeedways. They are similar enough. The race tracks do have their own characteristics and the drafts do formulate a little differently but with this package and being able to run the same thing all season on superspeedways, we will be able to use this to get a pretty good idea of what we will have going forward. A good tool to be able to make adjustments for Talladega and the next two speedway races.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU NEVER LEFT ROUSH? “Well, that one lap we had it is hard to tell. With the practice, yeah, I get what you are saying. Yeah, it is a lot different but a lot is also the same. It is strange to say it like that. You walk through the shop and see a lot of the same people. You see a lot of the same departments and see a different energy around and more positivity around. It is a smaller group than where I was there before, which is ultimately led me going to other teams for a little while. It has taken a little bit of getting used to just looking around and seeing that. There are a lot of new people as well. I am trying to get to know them. Get to know our team. I only knew about half of them beforehand. I am trying to build those relationships and get communication as good as possible and really hit the ground running. You don’t have any test time in our sport, so to get all of that working the way you need to, you get to show up at the race track on the weekend before the biggest race of our season and figure it out. That makes it very difficult when you are starting fresh. We are handling it really well. It is going good. I need a race or two or three to really start building on a lot of things and get the little nit-pick stuff that you look for when you are working with a group of people that make sure everyone is as efficient as possible.”

LAST YEAR YOU WERE A TOP-FIVE RESTARTER IN TERMS OF ADVANCED NUMBERS. WHAT IS THE RESTART DYNAMIC WITH THIS RULE PACKAGE? HOW DOES IT JIVE WITH YOU? YOU SEEM TO TAKE TO IT: “That surprises me a little bit. I didn’t know that. There is always room for improvement. I don’t know that I have a good answer for you. The restarts at several places are complete misery when you go five-wide into turn one at Pocono, that is a very awful feeling. But it does lend itself to a lot of opportunities at times as well. For whatever reason I have always felt like I have been able to get good momentum going on the bottom, which a lot of times it seems like the top does carry momentum a lot better and the bottom will get jammed up. I think that is a lot of what helped me be able to get good restarts on a lot of occasions. I couldn’t tell you what part of it created that for me.”

THOUGHTS ON STRATEGY? IS THERE A BUY IN FOR YOU ON THINGS LIKE STAGE POINTS, LOW HANGING POSITIONS, THINGS LIKE THAT? “You gotta walk before you run, right? We all show up to the season hoping that we can win races and make it into the playoffs that way. Until you go out there and get to the point where you realize that you are going to be able to contend for wins, you need to capitalize on everything that you can. So, as Roush is on that upswing and building momentum from the last year or so, you try to look at that as if it stays steady we can be at the point where we are contending for wins again shortly. I hope that is this week and every week after, but you have to go for those wins and if that is something where we realize we aren’t quite there yet, then we definitely want to capitalize on stage points, strategy calls, and anything you can do to make sure that we can make it into the playoffs one way or another. Wins are a simpler route but by no means easier.”

HAVE YOU BEEN PLEASED SO FAR WITH FITTING INTO THE TEAM AGAIN AND COMING BACK HOME, SO TO SPEAK? “Yeah, it has been really smooth for me. I know it is hard going to new teams and trying to get to know everybody from a clean slate. I don’t really have that going back to Roush. It has been a lot easier for me to walk through the shop and if I don’t know three people in a corner, I know two of the others sitting there. I can definitely have conversations easier and get to know everybody a little quicker as well. A lot of people in the shop I know from when I was working in the shop in different departments there. It is easier to go back and fall in line. Find your place, go back to work and try to rally everybody being you and say that this is going to be a good season. We are making progress. I have been able to be on the outside looking in and see the last year and a half plus, so I know I am coming into something that has momentum. I just want to try to do all I can to help capitalize on that.”

WILL TANDEM DRAFTING COME INTO PLAY THIS WEEKEND AND THIS YEAR? “I think tandem is still possible as long as the cars are driving decent and there can be some speed made with it. That was a unique circumstance in the Clash in the fact that the 11 was not going to pull out. You had guaranteed help, it was a teammate and he was not contending for position. That is probably the biggest help you will ever see and the biggest run. But I do think that when you start looking at the end of races and risk versus reward there is something to be said about making speed by getting that tandem working well together. I think damage or no damage, it can be useful. I bet you will start to see it a little bit with teams first, with manufacturers working together, and then as you start figuring out what works and what doesn’t kind of line you up for the end of the race and what is bound to be a little bit of madness.”

DID YOU TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM WATCHING THE CLASH? “Hopefully we make it through Thursday’s Duels. It was a wild finish. Wild end of a race. I think it is a little hard to compare them because it is a race where it is just a pride thing for teams and for drivers and for manufacturers and organizations. You can go out there and be a little crazy and do some things you normally wouldn’t do and use it as a learning tool. Unfortunately in the process they tore up all the race cars. You look at it now and you are trying to figure out how to not make that our Daytona 500. I don’t think it will. I think there will be a cooler head on everyone’s shoulders when you get to the big race that says a lot of that is not going to fly. Especially now that it has happened. There is a lot of knowledge, even for every driver that wasn’t in the race, they know just as well as the ones that were in it that a lot of those moves won’t work for this weekend’s race.”

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Thursday, February 12, 2020

EVENT: Daytona 500 Media Day

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – DID YOU AND BRAD TALK AFTER SUNDAY? “We’ve talked and I think so. We’ll see. We’re gonna have different opinions on a lot of things all the time. That’s part of racing and things like that, but I think we’ll be fine.”

SO YOU DIDN’T GO TO DISNEYWORLD? “I did go to DisneyWorld. We went Monday for the day and came back. It was good.”

BUT YOU DIDN’T SEE HIM THERE? “No. We didn’t run into each other there. It’s a big place. There’s a lot of people there. Oh my God, there are people everywhere there. I figured we would run into each other at some point, but we never did. It’s a big place.”

DID YOU NEED TO TALK TO BRAD IN THE SENSE OF THERE MIGHT BE SOME CONFUSION ABOUT THIS SITUATION? “That’s all you can do is just try to explain your side of the story of what happened. There are different perspectives on the whole thing and I had no clue. I was like, ‘Hey, what are you mad about? Let’s talk about it.’ There were things that I had no idea about and I just explained my side of the story. That’s all you can really do. I think once he understands the whole side of the story, and you know how it is, you get out of the race car, you’re frustrated, you’re mad, your emotions are running high, you haven’t re-watched anything yet and they stick a microphone in your face and ask you what happened. You don’t really know until you go back and study it and figure it all out. That stuff happens, but, like I said, we’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve been able to figure stuff out before he said afterwards. I’m not really that worried about it. It’s gonna be OK. We’re gonna figure it out. Everything always blows by. Everything gets better all the time.”

IS IT COMPETITIVENESS AMONG EACH OTHER WITH THE CREW CHIEF CHANGE? “I don’t believe so. From the outside looking in you could say that. It’s easy to say that from the outside looking in, but I feel we’ve always been competitive with each other. It’s something that makes a great teammate is someone that can challenge you, someone that can make you better. We were talking about that the other day. I think Brad’s been that person for me all the time and we kind of go back and forth. One team runs better than the other for six or seven weeks and then it swaps and then it swaps. That’s good to have someone like that, that can challenge you. So that competition is always there either way, but the ability to work together also needs to be there.”

LAST YEAR OR THE YEAR BEFORE BRAD SAID SOMETHING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO BLOCK. IS THAT STILL THE CASE TODAY? “You should ask him, I guess. I still don’t understand where I did anything wrong. I made a good block to the 18 and got tagged in the left-rear. I don’t totally get it, but that’s a question for Brad.”

AS FAR AS YOU’RE CONCERNED WHAT IS THE RULE FOR DRAFTING? “Don’t make bad blocks. Don’t make a block to where someone has already broken the plane of your back bumper. That’s a bad block. That’s what causes crashes.”

HAVE YOU TALKED TO NASCAR ABOUT THE 2021 SCHEDULE? “I haven’t had much to do with that to be honest with you. I get to sit in a lot of the meetings and involved in it pretty heavily, but the schedule piece doesn’t come up much and that’s OK. I’ll race wherever you tell me to race as long as I have a place to race.”

PEOPLE WANT MORE SHORT TRACKS. REALISTICALLY, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ADDED? “The biggest thing to me is making it an event. Like the Daytona 500 is an amazing event. We need to make things like this very special, not just the Daytona 500 but we have a few of them a year. You think of the Southern 500, throwback weekend, that’s a big event. That’s a cool thing. All-Star Race feels like an event. It’s something different, something special. I think that’s what we have to look at and Pocono did a good job with this year. Pocono used to just be a race in Pocono. It wasn’t a big deal. Now it’s an event. There are two races in one weekend and that’s a cool way of turning it into a big event. We need to look at ways of doing that, whether that is like I’ve heard rumors about street courses and racing through cities or whatever it may be. That would be a really cool event We should look at things like that.”

AS A DRIVER WHEN YOU HEAR STREET COURSE DO YOU FAVOR THAT? “It sounds cool to me. I think changing it up and doing things like that is important. I think it’s no secret that a lot of times where our races are sometimes in the middle of nowhere every now and again. A lot of the younger demographic, the football type fans that don’t know much about our sport, are in the city. Let’s go to them. If you raced in the city they can’t get away from you. You’re gonna have to watch and it will be something really neat and there would be some really cool pictures and obviously just racing like that down Main Street somewhere. How cool would that be?”

WOULD YOU BE GOOD WITH GETTING THE SCHEDULE DOWN TO 30 RACES OR SO? “The same amount or races, but less weekends? I don’t really want to race less. I like this. Obviously, I’m excited about being here today. I love what I do, so I don’t want to do it less, but I could understand shortening the schedule up, not the amount of races, but the period that we’re on and off. I can see that being a good thing possibly, but this is stuff that’s kind of over my head a little bit. This is for NASCAR to figure out. There’s a lot of other players in the game than what the teams want or what the drivers want or what NASCAR wants, it’s got to be what TV wants as well. That’s a big player in this sport as well, so it’s the same thing as all the other rules changes, everyone has to collaborate together to make the right move.”

DOES TJ YOU HAVE TO BE PERFECT FOR YOU TO WIN HERE? “We all have to be perfect. Yes, he has to be perfect. I have to be perfect. The pit crew, our strategy, everything has to be perfect and perfect means that you can still get caught up in something, obviously out there, but the way you recover from it you need to be perfect. You need to control what you can’t control the best way possible, which means you’re gonna get caught up in something at some point it seems like out there and the better you can recover, look at Erik Jones the other day. Did he have a perfect day? No, but they executed the repairs,

“getting back on the track and every opportunity that was around him he used perfectly to win the race, so those are the things you have to be perfect at.”

DO YOU TELL YOUR TEAM ABOUT HOW MUCH INFORMATION YOU WANT OVER THE RADIO? “We talk about every day still. It doesn’t stop. You’re always trying to evolve. What’s the next level of this? The draft is always changing, so trying to figure that out together. We’ve got to be on the same page of that, so we constantly communicate about how to be better all the time. He’s a key player, especially more last year than ever before with the 550 rules. You’re doing this style of racing more often than before and you would say these type of tracks the spotter is the most important than other tracks.”

A LOT OF DRIVERS HAVE THEIR CONTRACTS UP AFTER THIS SEASON WITH THE 48 BEING THE MOST OBVIOUS. HOW CURIOUS ARE YOU TO SEE HOW THINGS PLAY OUT? “I agree. I was thinking about this the other day and saying I’m glad I’m not a part of this. I get to focus on driving a race car, but, boy oh boy, there are a lot of big name drivers, really talented drivers that are up for grabs this year that can move around. Interesting enough that they’re considered free agents at this point. A lot of times team don’t let it get to this point before they re-sign a driver, so interesting that some of the drivers that are free agents, if you want to call it that, I guess. They’re not yet, but they will be if nothing happens, is kind of an interesting take at this, especially with the 48 seat opening up. There is an opportunity for someone that doesn’t have a great ride to get into something like that, so it’s really interesting.”

HAVE YOU RESOLVED THINGS WITH BRAD? “Everybody gets in a scuffle with each other. Every friend has a disagreement with each other every now and again. It’s all about how you work through it and we’ll be fine.”

DID THE KOBE BRYANT ACCIDENT CAUSE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY TO RE-THINK HOW YOU TRAVEL? “It makes you think. I never liked helicopters in the first place. I’ve always been very timid about jumping on a helicopter and can honestly say I’ve probably rode on one three times. I don’t know, they feel like they go straight down, they don’t glide, but that’s my own fear I guess. But you’ve got to be smart and it’s hard to be because you’re not the one crawling underneath the airplane, but I have a great agreement with Wheels Up and I feel like they’re ability to not only have the best pilots, but be able to do the right amount of maintenance to the plane, make sure that it’s where it needs to be is very important. I also fly on the team plane and I feel like if I’m gonna drive Roger’s car, Roger’s plane should be good too. When you fly commercial, you hope that the right pilots are in there. You hope that works. There are a lot of lives on the line and the biggest thing that I see is the majority of the time when something like this happens – an air disaster – it’s usually pilot error. It’s usually a human most of the time, so that’s where you just have to make sure you have people that are doing what they want to do. That’s why I think Wheels Up is a great thing because a lot of pilots want to fly private aviation because it’s a better schedule and the pay is good as well. To me, I feel a little better about that because you’re gonna have the top echelon of pilots.”

SO YOUR PLANS WON’T CHANGE? “We’ve got to fly every week. We have to. To do this right and get home and prepare for the next race you can’t drive from place to place to place. I’m not gonna drive to Vegas next week. It takes too long.”

NEARLY HALF THE FIELD WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT DRIVER AND DIFFERENT NUMBER. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR GETTING THAT ALL STRAIGHT? “That part we don’t talk about a whole bunch. It’s more or less just how the draft works and runs and things like that. We kind of know who is in which car. It’s not that bad. Honestly, it’s not like you shut off in November and you don’t look at any social media or anything that’s going on in our sport until you get here in Daytona. You guys have been posting everything and, really, honestly, you keep up to date through that type of stuff or Race Hub shows or NBC shows. I watch that stuff, so I’m kind of up to date with it, so it’s not like a huge surprise who is in which car. I talk more about the draft itself than specific people or things like that.”

BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE DRAFTING WITH, RIGHT? “Of course you want to know, yeah. That’s what you have the mirror for. What also helps is they have the name over the back glass, so you know exactly who that is. You can read it.”

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE JIM FRANCE’S LEADERSHIP STYLE? “From what I know his leadership style and getting to know him is he’s a quiet leader. He’s more of a I want to say behind the scenes. He’s very in tune with what’s going on, but he’s not a flashy leader. You obviously see him walk around in his blue jeans and a button down shirt and he’s a normal guy, and I like that. There are people that lead from a global level and then there are people that lead from the ground floor right with you. I’m more of a ground floor type of person. I like people that will do that with you, someone that’s gonna sweep the floors with you at the end of the day. That’s the type of person that people want to work for, that they’re not intimidated by, they can talk to and be a normal human. That’s the type of leader that I see him being and being able to talk to him, he’s very open to talk to and he’s around. He’s not like someone that doesn’t show up. You see him every week and as normal as he is I don’t know if anyone has ever seen his bus. He’s parked right across from me. You would have never known it. He’s got this old, I mean an old, old bus – like old – like seventies old. So it just shows that he’s a normal guy that is running an amazing company and is doing a good job at it and making big changes at it right now.”

WHAT’S YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL WITH THINGS COMPARED TO TWO YEARS AGO? “Confidence level in the sports direction is I like it. I like that we’re doing things. We’re changing up schedules or changing up the NextGen car. Those things will change our sport in a huge, huge way. Those two along. There are other changes that will come along with this stuff, but those two alone will change the landscape of our sport quite a bit, so I’m excited to see where those go. No one has ever gotten anywhere by sitting still, so we have to make changes even if things are the highest they’ve ever been, we still have to make changes to keep up and I’m glad that they’re looking at unique ways, things to make our sport better from fan’s perspective with the schedule and the NextGen car and also from the team’s perspective on trying to make the cost of running a race season better and making the business idea for a race owner work better for them so it’s more like the NFL is, where you really want to own a team because you can make a profit. That’s what a business is about. It’s about making money at the end of the day and it’s hard for owner’s to make money right now. They don’t. This is a way that hopefully it attracts new owners into our sport because, quite frankly, we kind of need that, so this could be a good thing for our sport as well from that angle.”

COLE CUSTER, No 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – IS IT NICE HAVING THIS MANY ROOKIES IN THIS CLASS? “I think it’s nice to just kind of have everybody in the same boat. Everybody is in the same situation, but at the same time you’re racing 38 other guys out there, so it’s a matter of focusing on yourself and doing what you need to do to get better and focusing on your own plan. I can’t be focusing on those two or those three trying to figure out what they’re doing.”

HOW DID THE FIRST WEEKEND GO? “It was nice. I think everything kind of felt a lot more normal once we got in the garage because every garage area is the same. It’s guys working on the car and you’re trying to make your car as fast as you can. It was nice kind of getting that feel. I didn’t do anything perfect, I’ll say that. I want to do things better, but at the same time we had a solid weekend. We didn’t do anything wrong and I think we can carry that into this weekend and just keep building it better and better and see where we can go in the 500.”

WHAT IS THE VIBE OF THE TEAM? IS THERE SOMEONE YOU CAN GO TO? A MENTOR? “I’ve talked with Kevin a lot. I talked with Kevin a lot through my XFINITY stuff also and he’s been extremely helpful and one of the most helpful people I’ve ever talked to, for sure. But even in our post-practice meeting with Clint and Aric and ask those guys for advice they’re extremely open also, so if I can get advice from any of those guys it’s gonna be huge. You just try to be a sponge as much as you can.”

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST WORRY? “I think the thing that you would say is the most different from XFINITY cars is probably the traffic. There’s a lot more traffic. In XFINITY you’re racing against maybe 10 guys, where here you’re racing against 25, so you’re dealing with a lot more traffic, the cars are harder to drive in traffic, so it’s just managing that I think is the biggest thing.”

WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTATIONS? “I don’t know if there are any set expectations. We want to make the playoffs. I think you’ve got to take it one step at a time. You probably start out just trying to make it in the top 15 and racing there and then you try to build on it and as long as you take it one step at a time and do the little things right, you’ll probably find yourself in a pretty good situation sometimes in races because we have really fast cars and a good team around me. I think as long as we do the little things right we should be good.”

WILL WE SEE YOU COME OUT OF YOUR SHELL A LITTLE MORE LIKE WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STUFF? “I think so. Why not? I think some of that has been cool to show your personality because we’re all just normal people. It’s just a matter of showing that to the world.”

HOW WAS YOUR OFFSEASON DIFFERENT GOING TO CUP? “I think the biggest thing was just getting used to the whole team. There are a lot of new people to look at and get used to and just trying to figure out what they fought in the past with this package and stuff like that, just trying to prepare yourself is the biggest thing. On the XFINITY side I already knew what to expect. I had been doing it for three years, so I knew what I wanted to do when I got to Daytona and all the other tracks, but now it’s kind of like all these other guys have a back story of how they got to this point. I have to figure out and go backwards and figure out how to understand what’s happening and why we’re doing things and what I need to do on the race track.”

HOW DO YOU DO THAT? “It’s just looking at notes and then also looking at a lot of past races and seeing what different guys did during the races and stuff like that.”

DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF CAR YOU HAVE FOR THE 500? “We tried to focus a little bit more on handling, but honestly, I thought for qualifying our speed was pretty good. For 14th that was better than I expected, so I don’t know. I feel like everybody at the shop has worked extremely hard. They’ve put a lot of effort into all of our cars, so I think there’s no reason why we can’t be a contender late in the race, but it’s a matter of taking it one step at a time and just working up to it.”

WILL YOU RACE HARD IN THE DUELS OR BE CONSERVATIVE? “The stage points are only at the end of the race, right? So I think it’s just a matter of trying to make it through the start of the race and then at the end of the race you’re gonna go hard. Up until then, you’re gonna want to be pretty clean because it’s a matter of you don’t want to take yourself out early. I think you’ll get a little aggressive when there are points on the line though.”

MANUFACTURER ALLIANCES HAVE BEEN BIG AT PLATE RACES THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. DO YOU SEE THAT CONTINUING? “Yeah, I think so. That’s definitely another thing I’ve been trying to figure out too is how everyone works together and how that dynamic kind of works. It’s been interesting. There are so many moving parts in the draft that it’s hard to really have a set out plan of what’s gonna happen, but at the end of the day you push your teammates and you push your manufacturer and that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.”

DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE IN THE DRAFT AND IN THESE RACES? “It’s something you get better at as you go and you get more comfortable with it. Starting out there are a lot of new things going on and things are moving really fast, but as it goes you get more and more used to it, so it’s just a matter of doing that as fast as you can so you can start making aggressive moves, but Daytona and superspeedways in general have not been good to me. I think I have one top 10 in the XFINITY Series on superspeedways, but it’s just a matter of somehow avoiding the big wrecks and hopefully being there at the end of the day.”

WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR THIS TO BE A SUCCESSFUL YEAR? “I think we want to make the playoffs. I think be competitive is the biggest thing, run in the top 10, run in the top five. It’s just going out there and we have cars that can be competitive and a team that can be competitive, and it’s just a matter of getting me there and taking it one step at time and building up to it as fast we can.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY MEDIA DAY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 12, 2020

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Daytona 500 Media Day Highlights:

YOU WON 10 RACES DURING THE OFF SEASON, IS THAT CORRECT?
“Yeah, I think it was 10 out of 20. So, that was a good little average there. I didn’t expect to win that much, so it was cool to get into the double-digits in just a couple of months. It’s always fun when you can get to the double-digits.”

HAS NASCAR HAD ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH YOU ON THE 2021 SCHEDULE?
“No, I haven’t. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t really discussed much of anything with anybody. I’ve heard some exciting stuff, but I don’t really remember off the top of my head.”

IS RACING THE CUP SERIES ON DIRT FEASIBLE?
“I think everybody would expect me to be in favor of it. But I don’t think we belong on dirt. I’ve ran the truck race and it was fun. I don’t know, it’s not a sprint car on dirt. I just prefer Cup to stay on pavement.”

“I’ve ran the truck race; the tires and the stuff that we run, it’s just so slow. It just doesn’t feel like dirt to me. I think if we could use better tires and stuff like that that are built for dirt racing, not that what they run at Eldora isn’t, but I think it could be a better tire to where we have more grip and can move around. Also, the track needs to have some moisture so we aren’t worried about getting dirt on the windshield and stuff like that. I think there is a lot of stuff they could tweak to make the dirt racing better and then maybe I would be more in favor of it. As far as right now, I would hope that it would just stay on pavement.”

IS THERE A MOMENTUM THAT COMES FROM DOING THESE RACES BEFORE SPEEDWEEKS?
“It’s been a pretty not-successful Florida trip. Volusia was really bad, as far as early in the night stuff. I had a fourth and another good run before my tire went down. I expected to be a lot better there, so it was honestly pretty frustrating. It was nice to go to East Bay last night and get a win to kind of help my attitude for all this stuff. Winning definitely helps, so if I would have gone to East Bay and struggled like we did at Volusia, I would be pretty miserable right now.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE OTHER UPCOMING RACES? LAST YEAR, DID THE RACING GET BETTER AS THE YEAR WENT ON WITH THAT PACKAGE?
“I don’t know if it got better or worse, but it was better than what I expected it to be starting last season. Being used to high horsepower and all that, I was pretty negative about it, inside anyways. I thought it raced better than I thought it would and it was still fun. The restarts were more intense than I thought they would be. You could still pass. I felt like passing got easier throughout the season once everybody got their stuff a little bit better and driving better. I’m excited to get to the west coast just to see how our new bodies and stuff stack up against the rest of the field.”

SOME PEOPLE SAY THE RACING REALLY STARTS AFTER DAYTONA. DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU’RE DONE WITH THE WEST COAST SWING YOU WILL HAVE AN INDICATION WHERE YOU’RE AT?
“In previous years, you would get to Atlanta and then the west coast swing, so maybe it will be another week or two after the west coast swing until you really understand how you are. Probably through Atlanta and Homestead you’ll get a good idea of how your team is going to stack up and how much work you really need to put in to try to get better. I look forward to the Daytona 500, but I always look forward to getting through it and into the thick of our season and the tracks that we’re going to run at the majority of the year. We have a new body, so I’m just excited to try that out at intermediate tracks.”

INAUDIBLE
“I did very little of it in the Clash the other day. Everybody’s stuff was damaged, so it was kind of hard to really have an opinion on if it was better or what. I thought it was a little bit better. I thought when I pushed the 20, I think down the backstretch, it was more stable for me to push him. I got pushed at some point throughout the race. It was still a little edgy, which I think everybody is. But as far as me pushing, I felt like it was a little easier than before.”

DO YOU THINK THE TANDEM WILL PLAY MORE OF A ROLE?
“Yeah; it’s such a long race, too, that I think you need to pick and choose when you do it. You can see the Fords and Toyotas, they do it really well. I don’t think our bumpers have lined up great in the past to be able to do that, but now maybe we can join them in that kind of drafting.”

INAUDIBLE
“I feel like every year, people are always assuming stuff about my contract and all that. I don’t know, obviously dirt racing is important to me and, also, just being with a competitive organization is the number one thing. I want to be able to win races consistently, run up front consistently and battle for championships year-after-year. I feel like at Chip Ganassi Racing, we are very close to being able to contend for championships year in and year out. I feel like we’ve got a great group of people. It will be an interesting year as it plays out. I’m excited to see how it all plays out.”

WHAT POINT IN THE YEAR DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE SERIOUS ABOUT EXPLORING YOUR OPTIONS?
“I don’t know. It’s my first time going through it, so I don’t know. You guys are the professionals (laughs).”

NASCAR IS MAKING A BIG EFFORT TO GET TO THE GRASS ROOTS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY COULD DO TO GET THE GRASS ROOT FANS BACK TO NASCAR?
“They are working on it. I think it gets better each year. You can see the effort that they put in with everything, it’s not like they’re not trying. I think even with all of their lower-tier series that NASCAR and ARCA owns, I think it all benefits in getting grass root fans back involved in this. I feel like I’ve seen an improvement in it. I think myself, at least from the dirt track side of things, Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, everyone that’s involved in dirt racing and in NASCAR, bring a lot of fans and eyes to the sport. I like feeling like we’re making an impact.”

HAS YOUR STRATEGY FOR THIS RACE CHANGED?
“I don’t know. I think my strategy has probably changed year after year, I just don’t really know it. I like that whatever the strategy is, to try to get to the finish is the one you try to do. I haven’t quite figured that out, but we’ll see if this year is any different.”

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Wednesday, February 12, 2020

DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Ford Mustang

WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT, IS THERE A CERTAIN KIND OF TRACK THAT YOU WANT TO SEE ON THE SCHEDULE IN THE FUTURE? “I think there are a couple tracks that have come up over the past couple of years that I wish we could go to. The Nashville thing was unfortunate that it hasn’t gotten any more traction than it has. I know a lot of people wanted that. One or two more road courses I thought would be pretty neat. People talk about street courses and things like that. That is tough. There are plenty of really great road courses out there. Some of the tracks like short tracks, that is a given. You have to think realistically of what a NASCAR race can hold. If you go to South Boston, it is a great race track but you would have to do a lot of work to hold the NASCAR fan base there for a Cup race. It can be done, but can it be done for next year? I don’t think so. It might be years down the road. I wish the Nashville Fairgrounds would have happened. That was a really exciting one and a good fan base. I wouldn’t count that one out yet though.”

DOES YOUR SPOTTER HAVE TO BE PERFECT HERE? “Yeah. They have to be pretty on it. They are talking and sometimes they will talk for two laps straight. It is just the way it is and the way the runs are now with how big they are. You can’t have any mistakes. People make mistakes and you see what happened on Sunday. We wrecked a lot of stuff. Some of it was that and some of it was people having flat tires and not getting off the race track. Spotters are a big deal here. You have to really trust your spotter. At the end of the day we work really hard with our spotters up there on the roof to communicate well and get your own language and you work on that constantly. It is great to be a part of the Clash because you get to knock the rust off there a little bit, both for us and those guys up there. Yeah, they are a huge part of it. I would say they are bigger here than anywhere else.”

DO YOU LIKE THEM TO TALK FOR TWO LAPS STRAIGHT? “I want as much information as I can get. As much information as I can process. If things are going on, then talk all you want. If there is nothing going on and runs have kind of died down or we are just training up top, then there is not much said on the radio. Yeah, when we are three-wide or you are trying to build runs and see what is behind you to make moves, it is a constant key up of the mic on their end. I think if you ask any driver, more information is way better than too little information here.”

YOU HAVE BEEN VERY CLOSE AT THIS RACE THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS BUT CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE NOT WORKED IN YOUR FAVOR AT THE END. HOW TOUGH IS IT TO PUT THAT ENDING TOGETHER HERE? IS THERE ANY SENSE OF FEELING OR HOPING THAT THIS ISN’T ONE THAT GETS AWAY FROM YOU? “I don’t think so. We have had a couple decent runs here but honestly it is almost a luck of the draw type deal for if you are going to get to the end or not. We ran second here once and led a bunch of laps in 18 but you never know what can happen. We got tore up in this race with 10 to go last year, just being part of the mess and getting plowed into it. It is a really big toss up of the hat. Especially now. I feel like the leader can’t control the race as well as they used to. We have talked about that last year with this package, it is really hard to control the race. I think it will be even more of a difficult thing to find yourself in the right spot th is year. But, I think our car has been pretty decent and we are just trying to find ourselves to where you get to the end of the race and have a shot at it. You want to get towards the end and see the front and have a shot at the win. That is all you can ask for when you come to these.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE AN ORGANIZATION LIKE PENSKE, WHO HAS REALLY GOOD SPEEDWAY CARS, DOES THIS PACKAGE LESSEN THAT A LITTLE BIT? “Yeah. You used to be able to see a dominant car for the day that could get out front and block lanes and lead. Penske was a big part of that. I feel like when Brad and Joey won all those speedway races a handful of years ago we had great speedway cars. We still do, but it is so hard to block lanes. Runs are so big and there is no air bubble anymore. It is tougher to find a dominant car out there. There were a couple cars I saw in the Clash that were really fast but if they got to the front I don’t know if they could have held it because runs are so big. We will find out on Sunday, but it is harder to control a race.”

ANY OF THE STRATEGY FROM THE CLASH TRANSFER OVER TO SUNDAY? YOU WERE DOING A LOT OF FUEL ECONOMY STUFF: “I was interested in what the Chevy guys were doing. They had their own plan, just let we had our own plan. That is just the way the caution fell in that race. People thinking they could make it and stretch it. I didn’t think that was going to work out. We ran those guys down two-second a lap cause they had to save so much. If it would have went green I think they would have had to pit again. You always see different strategies. Manufactures pitting with manufactures, tire strategy, things like that. It kind of depends on how your car is driving. If it is really hot on Sunday and the car is handling like crap, you will want tires to be able to be aggressive and make moves. I feel like this package, it is more of a handful underneath you. They don’t handle nearly as good. It is usually pretty warm come race time and the track gets pretty slick. A lot of it will be contributed to the first run and how your can handles. There will be a lot of that.”

HAS THERE BEEN ANYTHING DIFFERENT AROUND THE SHOP SINCE ROGER BOUGHT INDYCAR? “Not at our race shop. I know they have a lot of plans for the speedway, which is really neat. Not only the road course race that they are doing there with the XFINITY guys but I think Roger has a good amount of plans for the race track in general for all different kinds of racing. Around our shop, really nothing has changed. It is really neat that Roger owns that place. It just puts more pressure on us to try to win there. Not that there wasn’t any already. Nothing really changed. Just excited to get there and excited for the future of that place and what he has in store.”

YOU WERE AT NEW SMYRNA THE OTHER NIGHT, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE TO SEE SUCH A HUGE CROWD AS NASCAR TRIES TO GET BACK TO ITS GRASS ROOTS? “It was packed. I drove in there about 6:30, an hour before the race and I couldn’t find a parking spot. I had to make my own. I had a nasty letter on my windshield afterwards. I deserved that. It was great. It really makes you feel good to see a crowd like that for that K&N race. I went out to Volusia Saturday night and it was the same, packed. More than I have ever seen it. The racing community is alive and well, especially at short tracks and our races too. The infield is probably more crowded than what I have seen early on in the week. Seeing New Smyrna and Volusia packed like that in the infield and the grandstands definitely makes you feel good and know that people really like the grass roots stuff and they put on a good show. That is good.”

WHAT IS THE ONE THING NASCAR CAN DO TO TRY TO RECONNECT WITH THOSE FANS TO BRING THEM TO OUR LEVEL HERE? “Just increase their experience. Maybe we can venture out to newer tracks, short tracks, renovate them. Things like that. Just make an experience for the fan. I wish tracks would lower ticket prices. I think hotels around here, which I know isn’t all NASCAR things, but it is tough for a family of five to come out here for a weekend and buy all the tickets. Hotels I think are the most outrageous things around race weekend. Saying that, I do think the tracks and NASCAR have helped on the ticket packages for kids and families, which is good. Just doing more of that. Make it a little more accommodating to the fan. I think we are already doing a lot better job of that. I have been in the Cup deal for five years and have seen a lot of improvements and heard comments from fans that say it is better and they are improving the experience and that it is more affordable. I Think we are trending in the right direction.”

DOES GOING TO EVENTS LIKE THAT MAKE YOU APPRECIATE WHAT YOU DO? “Yeah, for sure. I grew up doing that stuff. I was a short track asphalt and late model guy and did that for a long time. Just like going home, really. It is neat to see it. You go back to these places you used to race at as a kid and now you are an adult. They haven’t really changed much and it is cool to look back on them. You see someone doing a certain thing out there on the track and you remember doing that, or a certain line they are running, it is cool to get it from another perspective. I like to go to as many as I can, whether it is dirt of asphalt. You are a race fan. We are all racers and we are race fans as well. you want to see as many as you can.”

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN TO ELEVATE YOU TO WINNING MULTIPLE RACES A YEAR? “I think just getting smarter as the race goes on. I think that is something that has hurt me and something that I have struggled with, maybe not thinking far enough ahead of how the track is going and changing things to be better at the end of a race. I think that is where the best guys can do that. Kyle (Busch) and Harvick, those guys are really smart at figuring out what the track is doing really early, what their car is doing, and what they need it to do for the end. A lot of races we fire off really well and then don’t end the race like we fired off. That is what I am talking about, the ability to pinpoint where you think things are going and get ahead of it. If you are finally figuring out halfway through the last run, that is obviously too late. That is the biggest thing that me, personally, can do. I am excited to work with Todd Gordon. It has been really great so far. Maybe you think of things that you didn’t before because it wasn’t normal to you. It opens your mind a little bit to other areas you need to improve on.”

WHAT HAS HE OPENED YOUR MIND TO? “I worked with Jeremy Bullins since 2012 when I got to Penske from Xfinity to Cup and when you work with someone that long, you kind of get your own language going. When you work with someone new, they have their own vocabulary and maybe ask about the car differently. It is just a little different demeanor. I am different from Joey and we are both different from Brad. When you get someone new, it changes things up and then you start thinking about things different and we focus more on those things and also focus on what I know from the past. It opens you up when you work with different people. You take what you learned from the previous experience and you are learning new things. It just gives you a bigger bandwidth for knowledge, which is good.”

WHAT HAS BEEN JIMMIE JOHNSON’S BIGGEST IMPACT ON THE SPORT? “Seven championships. I mean, it is neat. I grew up watching Jimmie and I was in late models when he was winning five in a row. As a kid, how could you not be a fan of that guy and how humble he is. It has been a pleasure to race with him the last handful of years. It has been a lot of fun. I got chewed out by him last year, which was great. I look back on that and it is a fond memory of mine. I will never forget that. It is a good memory because we got over it the next week. You never see that side of Jimmie. It is unfortunate that I had to be the one to bring that side out in him. I remember standing at driver intros with my dad when I was a kid and Jimmie was standing there and now I am standing at driver intros with him. I am lucky enough to become friends with him over the years. It has actually made me pretty upset the last couple of years that people have been saying negative things about him. He has had a rough couple of years from what he is used to and people are saying he is washed up and things like that. That actually pisses me off. You see that a lot with great athletes as they get further on in their careers. People forget the great things they have done and just focus on the here and now. It is going to be weird not racing with Jimmie because I love racing with him. I don’t think people realize how good he really is until he isn’t around it anymore. You will look back and be like, ‘Man, we were experiencing a legend.’ I don’t think people give him enough credit and that is unfortunate. I talked to him right before the Clash and it was cool. He is ready to go for his final year of full time racing and it will be a lot of fun to be able to be a part of it. I have been able to be a part of Jeff’s and Tony’s. It is cool to be able to be here.”

Team: No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang
Crew Chief: Luke Lambert
Twitter: @17RoushTeam, @RoushFenway and @Chris_Buescher

Bluegreen Vacations Duel 1 – Thursday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM Channel 90
Daytona 500 – Sunday, Feb. 16 at 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM Channel 90

ADVANCE NOTES

Buescher in the Duels

· After qualifying 19th on speed in this past Sunday’s Daytona 500 qualifying, Chris Buescher will line up 10th in Duel 1 Thursday night. It will mark Buescher’s fifth Daytona 500 qualifying race all-time with a best finish of ninth last season.

· The 2015 Xfinity Champion drove to a ninth-place result in his first-ever Duel in 2016 and also finished 10th in the 2018 event.

Buescher at Daytona International Speedway

· Buescher makes his ninth NCS start at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday, and fifth Daytona 500 start.

· Overall at DIS, he has three top-10s and two top-fives with an average finish of 23.5.

· 2018 marked his best season at DIS when he finished fifth in the season opener, and followed that with another fifth-place result in the summer event.

· Buescher had better luck in his three Xfinity Series starts at Daytona, finishing runner-up in the 2015 kick-off race, and a pair of 12th-place results in the 2014 and 2015 summer races.

Luke Lambert at Daytona International Speedway

· Luke Lambert makes his Roush Fenway Racing debut with Buescher on Sunday, in what will be his eighth Daytona 500 atop the pit box.

· Overall at DIS Lambert has four top-10s – all with Ryan Newman – including three eighth-place finishes (2015 summer, both 2018 events) and a career-best fifth-place result in the 2017 summer race. Lambert also finished 11th with Newman in the 2016 opener.

· Lambert also called two Xfinity Series events at Daytona with Elliott Sadler in 2012, finishing third and sixth, respectively.

QUOTE WORTHY
Buescher on the Daytona 500:
“I’m super excited to be back in the fold at Roush Fenway where we won an Xfinity title a few years back. There are still many familiar faces in the shop and on the team, which makes the transition pretty seamless. We were pleased with our Fastenal Ford last weekend in practice and qualifying, and our goal is to keep it clean Thursday night and see what we can do come Sunday for the Daytona 500.”

On the Car
Fastenal celebrates its 10th season with Roush Fenway Racing in 2020. They 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.