Category: NASCAR Cup PR

No. 88 Axalta/CARSTAR Chevrolet ZL1 Set to Race at Watkins Glen International on August 4 with

Hendrick Motorsports Driver Alex Bowman to Wear Unique Helmet Design

CHARLOTTE (August 3, 2019) – CARSTAR,North America’s premier network of independently owned collision repair facilities, is ready to race at the NASCAR Cup Series event at Watkins Glen International. This opportunity is thanks to a joint promotion with paint partner Axalta Coating Systems, which sponsors Alex Bowman and the No. 88 team at Hendrick Motorsports.

The No. 88 Axalta/CARSTAR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 will race on Sunday, August 4, at Watkins Glen. The CARSTAR logo will be featured on the roof and television panel. In addition, Bowman will wear a unique helmet in the race featuring a design created through the “Accelerate the Cure” contest for cystic fibrosis chapters across North America. The winner of the contest – Mikayla Bianchin, an 18-year-old from Hamilton, ON – created a dynamic design featuring healthy lungs, the DNA helix that carries the cystic fibrosis gene and beautiful roses that reflect what a future without cystic fibrosis (CF) would look like.

“Accelerating a cure would dramatically influence my life beyond belief,” said Bianchin. “The first feeling I imagine in a world without CF is easy breathing, something many people take for granted. As someone living with CF and having a sister with CF, I am familiar with deteriorating lung x-ray images, other patients’ post-transplant lung photos and preparedness of the decline of lung function. I have illustrated here bright beautiful lungs and bronchi thriving on their own, done in blue representing the blue aura light associated with clarity and calmness after a trauma. The first breath of clear lungs is what I look forward to most. I incorporated the roses as homage to the 65 roses story, about a young boy pronouncing ‘Cystic Fibrosis’ as ‘65 roses’. I believe this story to be a grand metaphor for the disease. Behind all the pain and struggles of CF patients there lies so much beauty and strength. I put the DNA design because I feel like that would be a target of research points for a cure. The DNA makeup of the cystic fibrosis gene and disease is the root of it all that creates and progresses the disease and could be the point of change. The disease of cystic fibrosis is taking too many lives that want to be lived. Life can still be great when you are going through times that seem terrible, but a cure for cystic fibrosis would be the most beautiful event I could ever see. A phenomenon so impactful that it saves thousands of lives, that is a day so beautiful I hope and pray is in our near future.”

CARSTAR has supported the fight against cystic fibrosis for more than 20 years, and through a variety of fundraising initiatives, CARSTAR, its owners, partners and employees have raised over $3.7 million for cystic fibrosis research, care and advocacy. For the Watkins Glen race, CARSTAR worked with cystic fibrosis chapters across the U.S. and Canada to host the “Accelerate the Cure” contest to design the special scheme for Bowman’s helmet.

The winning design was selected by representatives from Axalta, Hendrick Motorsports, CARSTAR, Cystic Fibrosis Canada and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The winner is enjoying a special VIP race experience at the Watkins Glen race from August 2-4, 2019, including accommodations and suite passes for the NASCAR Cup Series race.

“We are proud to take the CARSTAR brand to one of North America’s top spectator sports with a young star like Alex Bowman, as he helps us raise awareness for our charity of choice – cystic fibrosis,” said Michael Macaluso, president of CARSTAR. “We can’t wait to see the No. 88 Axalta/CARSTAR Chevrolet on the track and share the CARSTAR story with millions of race fans. Many congratulations to Mikayla on her winning helmet design and her outreach efforts to educate people about living with cystic fibrosis.”

For more information on the No. 88 Axalta/CARSTAR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and Mikayla’s story, visit CARSTAR.com and follow CARSTAR on Facebook and twitter.

About CARSTAR

CARSTAR is North America’s largest network of independently owned and operated collision repair facilities with more than 650 locations in 35 states and 10 Canadian provinces. A part of the Driven Brands family of automotive aftermarket franchise brands, CARSTAR delivers national scale, premier vehicle repairs, repeatable outcomes and the industry’s highest customer satisfaction ratings. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, CARSTAR has maintained its commitment to give back to the communities it serves through a variety of fundraising initiatives, including raising over $3 million for Cystic Fibrosis Canada, and has made fighting cystic fibrosis its cause, North American wide. For more information visit www.carstar.com and www.carstar.ca and follow on Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. CARSTAR is actively seeking new franchise partners and interested parties should contact 844-906-9764.

About Axalta Coating Systems – Celebrating 150 Years in the Coatings Industry

Axalta is a leading global company focused solely on coatings and providing customers with innovative, colorful, beautiful and sustainable solutions. From light OEM vehicles, commercial vehicles and refinish applications to electric motors, buildings and pipelines, our coatings are designed to prevent corrosion, increase productivity and enable the materials we coat to last longer. With 150 years of experience in the coatings industry, the 12,800 people of Axalta continue to find ways to serve our more than 100,000 customers in 130 countries better every day with the finest coatings, application systems and technology. For more information visit axaltacoatingsystems.com and follow us @axalta on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019

CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 COTTONELLE CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:

DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT SUNDAY’S RACE AT THE GLEN?
“Yeah, I do. I like road racing in general. Ryan Preece does, as well. So, it’s kind of nice. I’ve always been able to come to road races and just have a good outlook on it. It’s definitely not my background. But, it’s fun. I don’t want to do it any more than we do. Three or four races per year is plenty for me. It breaks up our oval races. They are nice. This is a fast road course.

“We had a really good practice with our Cottonelle Camaro to start off the day. We’ve got another practice coming up here, quickly. So, we’ll see if we can fine-tune a couple of things there. But, this is definitely a weekend that we look at as a good opportunity to go get an another Top 10 and perhaps be able to get it win. It’s pretty wild to pace what a couple of cars are putting down here. So, we’ve got some work to do yet. But, we’re in a good place.”

YOU MENTIONED THE GOOD FINISHES AND THE BETTER POINTS POSITION. IS IT THE NEW CAR OR THE CHEMISTRY COMING TOGETHER WITH EVERYBODY ON THE TEAM?
“There are a ton of things that have probably come together. You start with going back and trying to build a second team from scratch. It was a lot of work early-on. I felt the chemistry within the team is really tough. We’ve hit on a lot there, now, that everybody works really well together. We are able to get those results, weekly, at this point. And, we’ve gotten rid of a lot of inconsistencies. We’ve been able to still take those high weekends and for the most part, capitalize on them. That’s a big part of it.

“Kroger has been more behind us than ever. With their support, and all the other brands that we have on board with Bush’s, with Clorox, and Scott products and everybody that really back us and believes in us to be able to go out there and get the job done. They’re on board in a big way. Myself and Ryan have been working with a top team, a trainer in Huntersville, that’s been good for our physical and mental health at the same time. There are just a lot of things that have all come into play. We’re starting to put all the puzzle pieces together to be able to capitalize on it. We’re not where we want to be. You want to be winning races every weekend. But when we looked at our expectations at the beginning of the season, we thought that if we could run Top 15 for the majority of the weekends that would be big for us. And, we’ve been able to get really darn good close to that and be right around that 15th spot a lot. We’ve been able to get more Top 10’s than I have been able to in a season, at this point. So, there are a lot of good things. There’s plenty to do yet, but it’s been a really good start this season and a really good last few months. We’re having fun with it and things are clicking right now.”

DO YOU MISS AJ ALLMENDINGER? HOW IMPORTANT WAS HE FOR WEEKENDS LIKE THIS?
“AJ is that ringer when we come road racing, right? And so there was always a ton that I was able to learn from him at a lot of different race tracks. But here, especially. But, I’m trying to take that into account and remember what I was able to pick-up on there. It’s probably going to be harder to squeeze any speed secrets out of him right now, but it was cool. I saw him earlier today. He’s always happy when we go road racing. It was neat to see him. I’m trying to apply some of the things I’ve learned through time. At the same time, I enjoy road racing. It’s something we’ve been able to run pretty decent at. And so, I’m trying to take that and utilize it at the same time. And then Ryan Preece enjoys road racing. It’s something that neither of us have any background in it, but I think if you enjoy something you tend to do better at it. So that’s something that definitely helps when we come to these things a couple of times a year.”

DO YOU THINK THERE COULD BE A WILDCARD RACE OVER THE NEXT FIVE WHERE YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO PULL OUT THE WIN AND WIN YOUR WAY INTO THE PLAYOFFS?
“I look at Bristol every time we go as an opportunity for us to go get a win. Earlier in the season we went to Bristol and ran really well. We were right there with Kurt (Busch) a lot of that race and he ended-up wining the thing. I definitely feel like that’s a place we look at as an opportunity to win.

“Road courses are good for us. I can’t say that we’ve been in a position to win one. We’ve been close. With a little strategy, we could pull something off and our whole group has done a terrific job this season at really planning on these races playing out and having good strategy. We have several that are opportunities for us to get something big.”

HAS THE DISCUSSION ABOUT KROGER AND WHAT THE LINE-UP WOULD LOOK LIKE FOR JTG NEXT YEAR BEEN A DISTRACTION?
“I wouldn’t say it was a distraction. Maybe on the media side of it, it’s been a talk for about a week. For us, it’s been a talk for a year. We’ve known about it. It’s something that’s been on your mind. You know that certain things have to fall into place, so it’s not something that just hit us all of a sudden and takes your mind away from things. Everything is not set in place yet. We’re working toward it and I’d say we’re getting close. And that’s nice to know, but at this time it’s what it’s been for a while. It’s not inked on paper yet. It’s not done. All we know to do is to go to the track and do our best and get the results. The rest of that stuff kings of falls into place.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019

DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:

YOU’VE HAD THE SPEED AND YOU’VE QUALIFIED WELL, BUT THE FINISHES JUST AREN’T THERE YET. IS THAT FRUSTRATING?
“its twofold. You look at it like man, it’s so frustrating to unload and have fast race cars and not have the balance in the race to use the speed. But the only thing worse than that is not having speed at all and not having a balance. So, I’m happy with that side of it. As the last couple of weeks have gone, we’ve shown that we’re capable of putting the balance in the cars and we’ve done a way better job of narrowing down what it takes to do that. But, it’s for sure, frustrating. We have do many great supporters that allow us to be at the race track week in and week out, we want to give them results and we haven’t done that. It’s just up to us to keep working harder and have weekends like we had last week as a company and as a whole. We’ve got to do that more consistently. And as the year goes, the frustration level will diminish some as we can get closer to narrowing-in on those goals.”

HOW WAS FIRST PRACTICE?
“I was fairly happy with the balance when we unloaded. We never made a qualifying run or anything like that. There is a lot of speed to be had for our Caterpillar No. 8 team from Turn 2 through esses. We just don’t have quite the balance I need there to run as much throttle as need be. But, the majority of the race track, I feel pretty comfortable. Its road course racing. I always want more front turn and more rear grip. Luke Lambert (crew chief) is going to work to try to give me that.”

DO THE ENGINEERS GIVE YOU DATA AND STUFF TO STUDY? IS IT MORE TO LIKE TAKE-IN AT THIS LEVEL?
“Oh, without a doubt. When I made the transition, especially the first five or six weeks of the year, and even preparing for the beginning of the season. There’s probably more information than you need. It can be overbearing. You can study things that really aren’t going to move the needle. But, then there’s a lot of quality information that will move the needed if you study and study it correctly. It’s been, I think, over the last five or six week, really narrowing-in on what makes sense and what you really need to focus on. I’m probably guilty as charged the other way around. You ask about the engineers giving me the homework, I’m more or less the hey, you’ve got to look at this and look at that because you don’t know unless you ask the question. And I have all the resources at the tip of my fingers. All I’ve got to do is pull the stuff up and look at data and look at past races and the things that they’ve done in the past. I’m probably guilty of diving into that stuff a bit too much. But, on the flip side of that, there’s a lot of information to digest.”

WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT’S EFFECTIVE TO STUDY AND LEARN FROM?
“For me, it’s just basic SMT….throttle, brake pressures, steering-wheel movements. You can look through the field and analyze yourself to the best guys week in and week out. Obviously the sport knows who the top 6 or 7 cars are, so really diving into things they do differently than others and trying to apply that, but also in the grand scheme of things, as close as everybody’s race cars are now with this package, there is only so much on the edge you can run to. It’s easy to overstep that boundary. So, you’ve got to be adamant on being the leader of okay, I want to do this. My car is not capable because of this. And then directing the direction for changes to make sure you get your car where you can take it.”

ON THE UPCOMING RACE AT MICHIGAN
“The last Michigan race was probably a turning point for us as a company and we thought we had all the potential there to have a weekend there like we had at Pocono. Now knowing how far our cars have come in the weeks since, I’m excited to get there. I know where our cars did good and didn’t do so good and the direction we took to make all that stuff better. So, I’m looking forward to having a good weekend there.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Saturday, August 3, 2019

EVENT: Go Bowling at The Glen, Watkins Glen, NY. (Media Availabilities)

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang – WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO WELL HERE? “A little bit of everything. You’ve got to have a well-balanced car. You have to have a car that’s durable, more than anything, something that you can beat up on and has the capabilities of staying in one piece. You’ve got to have a good braking system here, that’s probably one of the most important things. You have some braking zones that you’re going very fast and you’re slowing down quite a bit, so that’s tough on them. Having a braking system that lasts is probably key. We’re definitely carrying speed around this place with the higher downforce and all. Your marks from where you were last year, you just drive in the corners harder and you can just do more, so hustling it pays a bigger reward right now.”

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THE MOST COMING TO THIS TRACK? “Winning. That’s really it. I enjoy coming up here. It’s nice. There’s a great ice cream place down at the bottom of the hill, but I’d much rather win.”

THOUGHTS ON MICHIGAN NEXT WEEK AFTER YOU WON IN JUNE? “There’s not much time between each race there, which is always kind of interesting when you go back, but the races do seem to act a little different when you go back there the second time. Some of that rubber we laid down from the first time is still there. Whether or not they add some traction compound to the outside lane will change the race dramatically, so depending on how all that goes will definitely be interesting. I’m sure everybody, that was the first time we went there with this rules package and now we’re going back there the second time. When you go there the first time there’s a lot of questions. Do we go this direction? Do we want downforce? Do we want drag out? That’s the decision all these teams have to make, and after you race there once it becomes a little bit more clear on the direction a lot of teams want to go, so I’m sure it will be kind of interesting for me to see, at least the cars that weren’t competitive the first time if they’ve become more competitive from going a different direction.”

YOU DON’T SEE ROAD COURSE RINGERS ANYMORE. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? “I think there are a few things that go to that. One, it’s hard for anybody these days to jump into a car and a team that you don’t work with every week and try to communicate to them what you need, and for the team to understand what that means. I think the other part that’s challenging is that you’re not racing that type of car every week. You’re not comfortable in the car, you’re taking laps to figure that stuff out. A lot of drivers have raced here a lot now at this point. It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve come here. A lot of drivers have the capability to go to their manufacturers’ simulation tool and use that, which makes them better. So I think when you put all that together, I think the transmissions are much better than they used to be. The old school road racers heel-toeing and all that used to give them the advantage because they were just smoother at it and understood how to do it better. Now, you don’t have to. Transmissions are better. You don’t have to use a clutch at all, so I think those things have taken their advantage away, to where they really can’t compete with the regulars at this point. I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just being blunt that it’s too hard for them to jump in and just be successful after not racing these things every week.”

DENNY TALKED ABOUT HAVING TRACTION COMPOUND AT ISM RACEWAY. HOW MUCH OF A CHANGE WOULD THAT BE? “Yeah, I think that one would be a good idea. That’s a pretty tough track to pass. There are discussions about probably every track at this point on what to do because I think it’s pretty clear that it’s helped the racing at certain race tracks. It’s not just applying it, it’s how you apply it. NASCAR and Jerry in particular has done a great job reaching out to a lot of drivers and asking and sending pictures about ‘what do you think about this or should we put it here? How thick should we put it?’ Those type of questions because there are only 40 people that know. There are only 40 drivers that really know what it needs, so I think they’ve done a good job reaching out and asking us the questions and I think Pocono was better. I think Kentucky was a better race because of it, and I think out in Phoenix would be a great idea to try to improve the racing out there.”

PHOENIX IS THE NEXT-TO-LAST RACE. SHOULD THEY WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR OR TRY IT RIGHT AWAY? “Do it. There can obviously be negatives, but I don’t really see where it would be worse. I would say you go for it. The longer we wait to learn, the dumber we are.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT QUALIFYING TODAY? WILL ANYONE WAIT UNTIL THE END? “There’s plenty of time. Twenty-five minutes to make a lap or two, so there’s plenty of time to get out there and get a clean lap for sure.”

HOW DO YOU VIEW QUALIFYING? “It’s intense. You’re pushing yourself so hard trying to lay down the perfect lap because that’s what it’s gonna take. You know what you have to do in turn one and then you think about turn two and what you have to do there, and then you’ve got the bus stop and you’ve got a lot of time to think about the bus stop going down that straightaway, and how far can I drive in the corner, how much speed can I get in there, but you don’t want to overrun it and get loose in the center of it or get tight in the center of the bus stop. There are just so many things going on that you’re just trying to push harder than you have all day, harder than — you know you can make a clean lap consistently, you’re just pushing yourself to that edge. That’s the best part about qualifying every week is you know where you’re comfortable and you go past it.”

HOW MUCH IS THE TEAM LOOKING AT THE PLAYOFFS? “You’re thinking about the Playoffs, obviously. You have to, you have to set your team up to be strongest when the Playoffs start. With that being said, we’re still in quite the battle trying to win this regular season championship, which is 15 Playoff points. We’re still thinking about the Playoffs, but we have to think about right now because that bonus is pretty significant and we have to try and get that. So at this point we’re still trying to collect as many points as possible. We’re trying to win as many races as possible because the way NASCAR has set up the system you have to be good all the time. You can’t just, like we used to, win a race and say ‘we’re in’ and focus on the Playoffs and that’s it. Now, each race really can affect your Playoff run if you’re able to collect some points throughout those races.”

IS THERE ANYWHERE KYLE BUSCH IS VULNERABLE THE NEXT FIVE RACES? “Of course. Everyone has weaknesses. It’s my job to find them, and for me not to have any. It’s close. It’s quite the battle, so each week it’s been kind of crazy. We get done and it’s like ‘gained two points,’ ‘lost a couple points,’ ‘gained four,’ ‘lost three.’ The last 15 weeks or so has just been back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Last week we doubled our points lead, it went from three to six. It’s a tight battle. It’s definitely a scratching and clawing type of thing.”

HOW WAS PRACTICE? “It’s OK. We had a little bit more speed in our car. I thought we unloaded fairly close on speed, we just didn’t make any improvements to our car, but we learned a lot. Sometimes going the wrong way you’re also collecting data and figuring out what direction to go, so we’ll make some pretty decent changes here between practices to try and make some particular parts of the track better, which I believe we can, and then try to lay down some big laps after that.”

WE THOUGHT SPEEDS WOULD BE FASTER THAN WHAT THEY ARE THIS YEAR WHAT ABOUT YOU? “Yeah, I was surprised too. When we went to our simulator it wasn’t much faster, but you’ve got a lot of drag. You’ve got to remember that. We all talk about the downforce, but that blade also slows you down the straightaway quite a bit, so you carry more speed through the esses and the first part of that back straightaway piece, but after that you’re going slower. Maybe you can brake into the corner a little deeper, but you’re not going as fast when you get there, so of course you can drive into the corner deeper. The carousel is quicker, but once again you go down that other straightaway, the one that goes into 10, that one we’re not going as fast, so I think those things you lose a lot of the speed gained because of the longer straightaways here. I’ve seen that in XFINITY races quite a bit, where that draft comes into play the more wide-open time you have, which is quite a bit more wide-open time with the XFINITY car, that the leader doesn’t have as big of an advantage because the trailing car always drafts up and that’s what has made those races a lot of fun to be a part of and watch.”

DOES THIS TIGHT POINTS RACE FOR THE REGULAR SEASON TITLE PREPARE YOU FOR THE PLAYOFFS? “I think we’re kind of used to it and prepared for it at this point. You’re gonna have a tight battle throughout it. I will say that it’s less stressful than the poor guys trying to get into the Playoffs right now. That’s not a fun place. I’ve been there and you don’t want to be there. They’re gonna be exhausted when the Playoffs start after the battle that they’ve been going through, so, yes, we want to get the 15 points and win the regular season part of it, but we won the championship last year with hardly any Playoff points. It doesn’t make-it or break-it for you, but it definitely gives you a nice cushion.”

RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Acronis Ford Mustang – “We’re just working on trying to get the balance and the grip right in our Acronis Ford. We’re really just off mostly from being loose, but mostly in the exit of the carousel and turn 11, just not being able to push the race car. You’ve got to be able to push the car and be aggressive with the shifter handle here at the same time with the brakes, but I feel like our braking is fairly good, just need to get the car better.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT QUALIFYING? “We just need to get the car better in practice and then figure out where we’re gonna stack up. Usually qualifying here is pretty cut-and-dry as far as who is fast and who’s not and who gets a good lap. The real answer is how is it going to race and how is it going to be over multiple laps. It seems there are guys that can bust off some really quick laps, but I don’t know how well they can hang onto it, so we’ll see.”

WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE DRIVER ON THE BUBBLE FOR THE PLAYOFFS VERSUS SOMEONE LOCKED IN? “I don’t think it matters because the guys that are locked in better be thinking like they’re on the bubble because in six races they’re gonna be on the bubble again. The reality of it is just go out there and race your race.”

WHO ORIGINALLY HELPED YOU TO ROAD RACE? “My very first NASCAR experience, I guess you could say, was with Scott Pruett, but I did a bunch of testing with a guy named Ben Burrell, who is no longer with us, at Kershaw – Carolina Motorsports Park. I spent a lot of laps there, both in a Cup car and first and foremost in a two-seat late model basically, just burning tires off and teaching me how to approach the corner and run the shifter handle and all that. He taught me first, but my first at-track test was with Scott Pruett at Sonoma. We did a few laps and he did a few laps and I was I think a tenth or a tenth-and-a-half quicker than he was and he looked at my crew chief – Borland at the time – and said, ‘Just go. Just keep working on it. He’s fine.’”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BRING A NEW SPONSOR INTO THE SPORT? “We’re excited to have Acronis, the worldwide leader in cyber security, a big technology company which is obviously a big part of the world today and I’m just proud to represent them. They’re coming out here with a bang with two primary sponsors with us and Stenhouse and look forward to representing them a few more times this year and in the future.”

HOW DO YOU APPROACH MICHIGAN THIS TIME AROUND? “The most downforce you can get and the least amount of drag you can get and then figure the rest of it out from there. Realistically, there’s a lot of emphasis on that – a lot of money is getting spent, a lot of time is getting spent. It’s the first time in my career in racing stock cars that we’ve taken a car that made less downforce to the race track to be more competitive. It just tells you how much downforce the cars have on them and it’s all not necessary. You’re just spending a bunch of money for no good reason.”

WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE TO HAVE SUCH A LOSS OF HORSEPOWER AT A PLACE LIKE MICHIGAN? “It’s hard to say that because you see horsepower as under hood horsepower and the real reality of it is it’s a combination of horsepower and drag and under the hood horsepower and what we have under the hood is what it was 20 years ago and call it 550. It’s no different than what it was 20 years ago, but the cars are entirely different making way more drag. I don’t know the numbers compared to 20 years ago, but the response time from an engine horsepower versus aerodynamic drag is totally different, so the way the cars recover are a lot different and makes racing a lot different. I still say I’m not a big fan or a fan at all of the high drag, high downforce and low horsepower package. I just feel like, and we were talking about it in the truck today to give you perspective, the best road course race we ever saw, in my opinion at Watkins Glen, is when there was oil on the race track. So there was negative PJ1 and there were guys running through the grass because it stuck better than the race track did. To me, that’s what we need to be thinking about.”

WE DON’T SEE RINGERS ANYMORE. IS THAT DUE TO THE SKILL OF THE CUP GUYS HAS INCREASED? “I think it was always there. I think those guys could come in and make a few bucks and have a shot at a win. We saw them win at times, but in general it was the combination of Stewart and Gordon and a few others, and even back in the day it was Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt. And then when Fellows and Pruett and a few others, Boris, came in they ran well, but they weren’t always the guys to beat.”

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE HERE? “Just being fast. Everything changes. The cars, the braking points have changed today compared to where I’ve been used to for the last 19 years, so realistically just getting used to that because of the drag, because of the difference in braking capabilities of the cars now. You have to evolve with the changes over time and that was what first practice was for me today. The kids that don’t have any knowledge just go out there and run it hard. They might run the simulator and whatever else, but I feel like my real-life simulation over the last years is going to pay more dividends in the end.”

ANY TRACK IN THE LAST FIVE WHERE YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN? “All of them and we’re still a high-dollar team. I think we have a chance at all of them. This weekend hasn’t started off strong, but that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna be there in the end. I think we surprised a lot of people in Sonoma when we finished seventh.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN HERE TOMORROW? “I feel like anything can happen. I don’t feel like we’re exactly where we need to be yet. We are making a lot of adjustments for second practice, hopefully we can move in the right direction. I’m not very happy with my race car right now, so we’re throwing a lot of things at it. Hopefully, it reacts in the right way and see what we’ve got.”

ON A SCALE OF 1-10 HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR ROAD COURSE RACING COMPARED TO THE FIELD? “That’s a good question. I like it a lot. I feel like if you put a go-kart on myself I would tell you that I’m the best by far, but in stock cars it’s a whole different game. My road course experience is in go-karts and I know I’m very good in that, and I feel like I’ve been getting better and better in these heavy cars in road course racing. I feel like we’re competitive and we can win races. Every time we come to a road course it’s not a surprise to me that we’re running top five or top 10, but we haven’t been able to get close enough to win races, so there is one more step for me to get in road course racing and hopefully we can get it done this weekend.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU CAN STILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS? “Yeah. We’re still good. There are still five more races to go. We have made a lot of bad decisions and bad luck and mistakes in the last few weeks, but we’re still in good shape.”

IS THERE PRESSURE WITH THAT? “There is always pressure, but that’s part of racing – not just for the Playoffs but every week just to perform well. I feel like we need to keep doing our thing. We have fast race cars and actually our race cars are getting better and better. Our race cars are faster today than they were a couple months ago, so I feel more confident about that. We just have to stay calm and do our things.”

MICHIGAN IS NEXT WEEK. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “We had a good result there earlier this year and it’s always good. If you think about it after that is Bristol and now we’re at Watkins Glen, we have a lot of good races for myself – a lot of good races that I know I can perform well and I can run top five, so I feel good about it. We just have to be calm and do our thing, have fun and hopefully keep bringing fast cars to the race track.”

DO YOU LEAD THE TEAM IN SAYING THAT OR ARE OTHERS ON THE TEAM TALKING TO YOU? “I take it very seriously from the side of bringing my team up and being a leader and just making sure everyone is strong mentally and they know what we need. My job is to give them confidence that we can do this. We are going to be in good shape. The entire year so far we’ve been in different situations where we didn’t have the best race cars at the beginning of the year, but now we are heading into the point where we are getting better and better, so we just have to be smart and try to make the cut and do our thing, and I feel like we can do that. I feel like actually the second half of the year is looking way stronger than the first half.”

DO YOU EXPECT BUBBA TO KEEP FLIPPING YOU OFF? I COULDN’T TELL IF HE WAS PLAYING WITH YOU ON TWITTER OR NOT? “He won’t, I guarantee you that (laughing). We are good friends, but sometimes he drives a little bit over his head on that race track and he’s wrecked a couple times. He’s been a little bit too aggressive to myself for different situations, and I don’t get to race him very often, but when I do he’s a little bit too aggressive, which is OK. I don’t have a problem, but sometimes you can cross the line and you can get mad and things happen.”

DID YOU TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT? “We are good. I was serious about it. Where I came from you can kick someone’s butt for doing that. He said he was playing, but I’m not dumb. I know he wasn’t, but we are buddies. We move on and we focus on the next one.”

WERE YOU MORE MAD AT THE WAY HE RACED YOU? “No, actually the way that he races I know him. That’s the way he does things. I think that sometimes he’s smart and sometimes he’s not, and the way that he did things and then I got even more mad when he said that he was joking when I knew perfectly that he wasn’t. It’s good. It’s in the past. We are good. We are friends. We have known each other for a long time. There is always that extra confidence in us. We know that we can fight and be good the next day, but I get fired up pretty quick when it comes to that kind of stuff as you guys can see.”

DOES IT ESCALATE WHEN YOU HAVE SO MUCH ON THE LINE BEING ON THE BUBBLE? “A lot of people think that, ‘hey, Daniel is getting pressure and tempers are getting into his head,’ but that has nothing to do with it. I can be leading the championship and I will get fired up as good as I get fired up right now. That’s me. I’ve been like this since I can remember. That’s just myself. I play hard and I expect people to play hard to me as well, so that’s part of the game and that’s OK.”

IT DOESN’T DISTRACT YOU WHEN THAT HAPPENS? “No, Bubba and I have been friends for several years now and we know each other very well. It’s all good. We can fight several times and we know the next day we can be hanging out again, so it’s all good.”

THAT’S YOUR PASSION. “It’s all good. He’s passionate. I’m passionate. He knows what his race car is capable of and I know what my race car is capable of. I know I don’t get to race him too often, but sometimes – and it’s not me saying this – he’s like that. He drives a little bit crazy sometimes and that’s OK. He has a right to do it. He’s fighting for that spot as well, but sometimes in my opinion he crosses the line.”

SOCIAL MEDIA WAS TALKING ABOUT LAYING HANDS ON HIM. “I was trying to get him fired up, but he didn’t (laughing). It was all good. I guess I was fired up. Like I say, I was disappointed and then when he told me he was joking I got even more upset because I know he wasn’t. But it’s all good. We are friends and that’s racing. The day that something like that happens to me and I just walk to my motorhome I’m gonna be worried because that means I’m not passionate anymore, so that’s part of racing.”

HOW DO YOU CALM DOWN? “Time, just time. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we are fighting, just having a strong conversation, that’s it.”

DO YOU REEVALUATE THINGS IN YOUR TEAM MEETINGS? “Yeah, we do that, but we do it more in the way that it’s step-by-step, race-by-race. We can’t think right now about Michigan. We can’t think right now about Bristol. We can’t think right now about the off week. We have to think about Watkins Glen and that’s all that matters. We have to take it one by one and try to be smart. I know how to finish races here. I’ve done that before, so we just have to be smart and do our thing.”

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 HENDRICK AUTOGUARD CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:

EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE A BIT OF A CUSHION WITH 5 RACES REMAINING, IS THERE STILL A LOT OF PRESSURE IN KNOWING THAT OTHER GUYS HAVE FIVE SHOTS TO WIN THAT COULD PUSH YOU FURTHER DOWN THE GRID IN THE PLAYOFFS?
“Yes and now. This is always a Wild Card race. Anybody could win this one. But we’ve seen over the last couple of years the strong teams and strong drivers usually win this race. So, I’m not too worried about who’s going to win. We do have to continue to kind of stack points and try to continue to further ourselves from that conversation. I don’t know. I think we’re in a good spot. We’ve got some good tracks coming up, for sure. Darlington’s a good track. Indy is a good track for us. So, I don’t feel too worried about it.”

HAVING BEEN WITH (CREW CHIEF) CHAD KNAUS FOR HALF A YEAR, DO YOU HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE IN GOING BACK TO SOME OF THESE TRACKS FOR A SECOND TIME?
“Oh yeah, for sure. Pocono was the first time we’ve been back to a race track and we practically cut our finish in half. Finishing fourth last week was good. We’ve just got to continue to try to build on going back to these places for another time and I feel like that’s going to help us, especially with the detail notes that we have and how good we are working together.”

DO YOU ALWAYS TAPE YOUR HAND FOR ROAD COURSE RACES?
“Yeah, I usually end up taping it too late and it’s already blistered-up. So I figured I’d tape it before practice and make sure to get ahead of that. I think it’s just a personal preference thing. I don’t think it’s a big deal. Even if it does blister-up, it’s not painful during the race, but it usually lasts for a week or so. So, I figured I’d just tape it up and be done with it.”

TALK ABOUT GETTING BACK TO MICHIGAN NEXT WEEK. HAVE THE CARS EVOLVED A BIT THE EARLIER RACE THIS YEAR?
“Oh, yes. Tremendously. The last time we went to Michigan was an impound race so this time is going to be a three-day show, no impounds; so, you’re going to see a lot of different cars for qualifying and everything like that. I don’t know what to expect. It’s going to be an interesting race, for sure.”

EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T HAVE THE HORSEPOWER THERE THAT YOU’VE HAD IN THE PAST, THERE IS A LOT OF WORK BEING DONE WITH DRAG AND DOWNFORCE TO TRY TO GET SPEED BACK. WHERE DO YOU SEE THE HENDRICK CARS GOING TO MICHIGAN?
“I really don’t know. It’s honestly kind of an unknown of where you’re going to go and how fast you’re going to be and all that. I have no idea. I think the speeds will be up from the first race, probably, I would say, upwards of eight to 10 mph just in drag and straightaway speed. So, I would say we’re going to be going closer to what we were there in the past.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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Toyota Racing – Erik Jones
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Watkins Glen International – August 3, 2019

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Erik Jones was made available to the media in Watkins Glen:

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

Did you learn a lot about this track when you ran the K&N Pro Series race last season?

“I would say not as much here as I did at Sonoma. Watkins Glen has always been a better place for me as far as road courses go. We ran pretty good here in 2017 and ran real well here last year. I’ve always felt pretty comfortable here. I don’t think track time ever hurts and I didn’t have an opportunity to run the Xfinity race last year and this year as well. Just being out there and getting the fundamentals of the track down was big for me. The K&N cars are really a long stretch from what the Cup cars drive like, but you still get an idea of what the track looks like and be able to see it and get a feel for it. It’s definitely a help.”

Did you focus on the inner loop when preparing for this race and do you feel you’re good at it?

“It takes time. There’s some guys that are really good at it. I felt like last year in practice we were really good at it and then in the race all day we struggled through it for some reason. It’s kind of a balance. It’s an odd corner, it’s a timing corner and you have to really put yourself in the right position through it – take the curbs right and carry the right amount of speed on the entry or you’ll never be setup for the exit. I feel like I’m probably middle of the road. I feel like there’s times I can hit it right and get through it really well and there’s times I can miss it like anybody and really be off through there. It’s definitely a corner of focus for me. I feel like my struggles last year were through – in the race — the inner loop and through the last two corners – nine and 10 or something like that. Those are the places I was working on for this one.”

Do you have a strategy to point your way into the Playoffs if you don’t get a victory?

“We’re in a really good spot right now with points going into this weekend – 39 points, that’s almost a race up. If we can have another good weekend here at Watkins Glen, if we don’t win, getting another strong showing and getting up close and hopefully in the high 40s or low 50s in points over the gap to 16th, we’d be feeling pretty good. That’s the goal, we’re in a spot now where we have an opportunity to gain a lot of points and continue to pick-up some positions in the points standings. I think if we continue to run well until the Playoffs, we can continue to advance up close to the top-10 in points, which is a stretch and would take a lot to get there, but I think we can do it. We do feel good about getting a win here. We’ve been so close here the last few weeks, we would love to just close it out. I haven’t talked to Chris (Gayle, crew chief) about what we’re going to plan for tomorrow as far as strategy because there is a lot of opportunity like there was at Pocono to either go for stage points or set yourself up for the end of the race. It’s a fine balance and we’re really going to have to make a decision come tomorrow about what we’re going to have to shoot for. Definitely racking up points and trying to pick up more spots in the standings is going to be big for us.”

Is Michigan more stressful with friends and family nearby or less stressful because you’re home?

“Less stressful probably in some ways and in other ways it’s more stressful, you get pulled a lot of ways. Friends and family being there and more appearances and more people wanting a chance to see you or stop by. In some ways, the demands are more and stress comes with that, but in other ways it’s nice to be at home and spend time with people you don’t get to see. I’m going to be up there all week next week from Monday night on and that will be a nice feeling just being home for a minute and be able to relax for that week going into it.”

Is this a track where strategy can come into play for stage points because tires aren’t as critical?

“For sure, this is another place where tires don’t matter a ton within the first few laps and especially with this new package, I think they’re going to matter less. You have an opportunity to pit and get ahead of the strategy. It’s no different than last week at Pocono. You run Pocono like a road course and now we’re at a real road course and we’re going to run it like that. The minute you can make it to the end of the race on fuel, you’re going to pit and do it, the only thing you’re losing out on is stage points. You have to make a decision. Honestly, if we can win the first stage – if we’re in a position to do that where the guy is either leading it or the guys ahead of us are going to pit and we can win it, probably going to take an opportunity to gain those 10 point because they’re still going to be valuable to us and try to race back through the next stage and set ourselves up for the end. It’s so circumstantial and you’re making quick decisions and it’s hard to keep up with based on what everybody else is doing strategy-wise and where you’re at. It’s all circumstantial and we got some decent stage points at Pocono. Not as many as we hoped, but the way it worked out, it worked out okay.”

Is it hard to sacrifice a win to gain more stage points?

“It’s tough as a driver, especially if you’re in a spot where you feel like you have a car that can win the race and you feel you have a shot that day. If you’re taking those stage points and feel like you’re taking yourself out of the race, that’s not a great feeling, it’s just tough. It’s a fine line and a fine balance of which way do you go with it, which way do you do it and as a driver, you always want to go for the win, right, but sometimes you have to do what’s best for the long term and making the Playoffs and getting through the Playoffs is the long term goal for us.”

Are you expecting speeds to be faster this weekend?

“It will be faster. From what I’ve seen and from what we have in our simulations and stuff, it’s going to be faster. We’re slower in some spots mile-an-hour wise and top speed is down with all the drag. Our cornering speeds and entry speeds are way up so I think the speeds will definitely be a little eye-opening compared to what we’ve had here in the past and definitely some of the fastest laps we’ve had around here. I don’t know what the track record is, but I would assume we would be pretty close to it.”

Would you be in favor of celebrating second or third place on a podium?

“That’s a tough spot. You’re happy for the guy, most of the time, if you like him. Last week at Pocono, Denny (Hamlin) being a teammate, I wanted to win, but you’re still happy for the team and happy that those guys got one. As hard as it would be sometimes to stand up there and have to celebrate with that guy, I think there is a big part of motorsports that really appreciates that and it’s a big tradition for them. I know it Formula 1 and IndyCar as well so I don’t know. It’s never really been a part of our sport, but I think I could manage through it if we wanted to do that or if there was somebody out there that thought it would be of interest. I think we could do it, but it would be weird for sure for the first time.”

What do you feel you’ve done better with in recent weeks?

“The execution. Having cleaner races. Even at Pocono, where we broke the track bar and adjusted on the first stop, but we were still able to make good adjustments from where we were and come back and have a solid race and have a shot to win. It’s just cleaning it all up. Early in the year we had the speed and we would get up front and then we would have an issue whether it was loose wheels or making a mistake on restart or missing an adjustment – little things that would take us out of the race and take us out of contention that we couldn’t work back from. We just cleaned it up. The last couple of months we really had the pit crew locked down and Chris (Gayle, crew chief) has done a great job calling the races. I haven’t made any mistakes on my end, which is just as important so it’s been a whole group of things and just having clean races has managed to get us up front.”

Do you prefer four spotters or two spotters at Watkins Glen?

“I have four here so one in the main spotters stand up in the esses and down the backstretch. Then the fourth one is in the inner loop. It’s tough sometimes because you get guys that don’t spot for you every weekend and they can make odd calls or talk too much. Sometimes they don’t know how to use both radios so they’re trying to just talk to the crew chief and they’re talking on the main channel and it can be kind of a mess at times. I think it’s handy at least on the restarts to have those guys there, especially down the backstretch and in the inner loop as well just to have a secondary voice in your ear. Most of the time on a road course, you kind of know the situation and know whose around you and where the cars are positioned, but it’s still nice to have that second backup opinion telling you, ‘Hey, car right, car left.’ We’ve always aired on the side of having four guys. I think all four of our teams have four spotters. Just having the guys there just in case. They may not say more than 10 words all day, but it’s just nice to have them.”

Do you like a lot of talking or just when you need the information?

“If it’s anybody but Rick (Carelli), our main spotter, I would say just don’t talk unless there’s car left or right. Some guys get on there and they want to say, ‘Hey man, you’re doing a good job just nice and smooth through here, keep it going.’ It’s like, just don’t say that. Keep it low key – left or right, clear, that’s all we need.”

What have the last three finishes done for your confidence level?

“It’s raised it for sure. Now going to the race track the last month almost we felt like we’ve been in contention. As a driver and as a team as well, it’s a good feeling. It’s not just me, obviously it does help my confidence just going to the track, but it helps the team as well. We come off runs like that and those guys are pumped up too and they’re amped up to get back to the race track. You get in a slump in a stretch of two or three bad races and everybody gets down. As much as you want to stay positive and stay after it, it’s hard to fight through it after a couple weeks of bad runs so these weeks of good runs have been really good for us and coming at a good time when we needed them to get in the Playoffs or going into the Playoffs and hopefully finishing this deal off then it will be good momentum going into it. It’s been a big few weeks.”

Do you miss racing the trucks at Eldora?

“No. I will go back and race a dirt car, I was just never a fan of the trucks.. They were okay, I would probably have more fun now. That was my problem, I was running for points and when I raced for points, it was old points so it was huge and you can’t have a bad race. If I was there now, it would probably be more fun. We would probably be locked into the Playoffs by now and I could just go play around. It’s kind of a high pressure race and made it not very fun for me.”

Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Watkins Glen International – August 3, 2019

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media in Watkins Glen:

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

Can you talk about the cause behind the FedEx Cares paint scheme and what you’re doing to support it?

“Part of FedEx Cares initiative, we talked about four or five years ago – you’ve seen FedEx Cares on my car for at least the last three or four years at least and that was about donating 200 million to 200 different communities by 2020. As you know, we’re getting towards that and already completed that goal six months early. They’re 50th anniversary is coming up in 2023 and they’re next initiative is amongst writing a big check like they always do to different charities and worthy causes, is trying to affect 50 million people by 2023. That’s the biggest thing is that they’re trying to get to where they can affect people and amongst other great things that they’ve done in years past.”

Does the increased speed change how you drive the track?

“It will be business as usual. You’ll be able to go into the corner slightly further than what you were before simply because you have the bigger spoiler there to slow you down. I think brakes won’t be as big of an issue. I know last year they were a little bit of an issue for us. Certainly, I think it will be better this year.”

Can you benchmark at road courses who the best drivers are at this point?

“I think my teammates are kind of the benchmark is what I’ve seen and this is over the last three or four years at least. Certainly, I know that if I benchmark myself off of them in practice, I know they’re going to be in the top-five, especially on speed. They might not finish there, but they’ll be there on speed. It’s a good way for me to kind of judge where I’m at and where I need to work. The 18 (Kyle Busch) in particular has been super-fast at this particular race track, even though he hasn’t won as many times as what you would think. The 19 (Martin Truex Jr.) has just been extremely good on road course finishes as well over the last handful of years and so he hasn’t always shown lightning fast speed in practice, but he’s shown it in the race. Certainly, I’ve got teammates I’m going to be looking at for sure.”

Do you have to be good in the inner loop to win this race?

“It’s not a passing zone on the exit of it. If you’re talking about the actual bus stop or inner loop, when you’re switching back left and right there, it’s not actually a passing zone so you either need to be good getting into it or you need to be good off of turn five, the carousel there. It’s just not many passes are made on the exit of the bus stop, it’s more about being a place where you don’t want to lose a lot of time or make a lot of mistakes. If you do lose time, you’re liable to get passed by someone entering turn six. It’s a place where you can make up time, but it’s not going to be a passing zone. You’re really just setting up for a couple passing zones, which is into one, into the bus stop, into six and into seven. That’s pretty much all you got.”

What have you done personally to ensure things worked out with crew chief Chris Gabehart?

“I think that he really cut his teeth in the Xfinity Series and it’s been kind of the way JGR has grown their crew chiefs for many, many years is that they start in Cup on the engineering side, they go down to Xfinity and work for a couple years and then come back up to Cup as a crew chief. You learn team management, you learn about getting through the tech process, managing the pit crew and things like that. Things are slower paced in the Xfinity Series than what they are in the Cup Series so it gives them an opportunity and primes them for those opportunities. I think for whatever reason it’s just worked out with Chris. I think we’ve worked extremely hard on communication and information to make sure that we continue to get better as the season goes on and that’s what I’m excited about is that Pocono was the first race track we went back to twice. I trust that when we go back to race tracks for a second time, he makes proper adjustments. That’s what’s going to make him great for years and years.”

What did you learn in Michigan back in June to bring back next weekend?

“I tell you, we didn’t race well there. That was probably one of our worst mile-and-a-half or two-mile race tracks of the year. I think I qualified up front, battled for the lead early and then once I lost track position, it was over. It was just like a train of cars. Nobody wanted to make a move because you would just get freight-trained by the cars around you. Really been working hard with NASCAR over the last couple weeks or so on that race track trying to get another groove built into the third groove up top. I think if you start to widen that race track out, I think the racing starts to look a little different there. Certainly, I don’t think Michigan turned out anything like us or the fans were hoping for when we had that race. There’s no doubt, our past at that race track, even in June, has no bearing I guarantee you on how we go race there in August. I’m looking forward to it.”

How do you adjust for the lack of horsepower and where do we look for change at that track?

“You can make up for the horsepower or if you have more horsepower, you can put more downforce on your car. I think that’s the one good thing that’s come out of – not the one good thing, that sounds bad, but with the rules package being different and so much downforce, teams have had the option week in and week out to either apply more downforce if they would like or apply less drag if they would like. You haven’t seen a whole lot of infractions, body infractions and people trying to get every bit of downforce out by putting things in the car that shouldn’t be there. It’s been pretty good as far as the tech process I think this year and really if you are lacking in the engine department, you just have to make up for it by trimming your car out a little bit more on the drag side. You can balance it out. It’s crazy, you can literally make your car a pole-winning car or a 20th place car with just a few adjustments.”

Are you able to help the ISC tracks more now with the traction compound?

“It might be more coincidence than not. I think that next up on the list, when I looked at the schedule and talked with NASCAR about it is Phoenix would probably be the next candidate for it and that’s an ISC track. I think we might try something there later this year. Just trying to get it right. Obviously, it’s really, really tough for NASCAR because they’re not in the cars and even though they can kind of see the race and how it plays out, we as drivers know where the extra lane is that we can’t use. It’s kind of been up to me and some of my peers to really the sharing of picture, videos and things like that since I can’t go to each race track, it’s really been helpful to kind of set the cones out to where you think you’re going to spray and drag. Then move the cones this way or that way or further or shorter. The communication has been really, really good and it’s made for better racing. Pocono, for the first time, I would venture to say more passes were made on the outside at Pocono than the inside and that is a bottom-feeder race track and has been for many years. It wasn’t perfect, but certainly was a step in the right direction and it’s something we can now build on for next year. I’m excited about it. We found a very good Band-aid for some of these tracks that have been pretty challenging as far as one lane.”

How will the traction compound work at Phoenix?

“It is a key race and it’s going to be really key next year for sure. I think if they were looking to experiment at all, it would probably be this year. If they didn’t do it this year, I would find it hard to believe. Maybe they would do it in the spring. Maybe in the third lane and the third lane could be defined in many, many different ways, but the goal with it has been to not put it in the second lane where you have a Michigan-type effect where it becomes a total primary groove and nobody can run on the bottom because they will get freight-trained. You try to put it in the third lane to then give someone the option to run a shorter distance and maybe either slide up to the sticky stuff or use it if people are running in the lower groove, it gives them an extra lane to go up there and make passes on the outside. It’s not meant to be the primary groove, it’s just meant to be an option if you need it. One and two and three and four – I don’t think any decision has been made on it, but I think he said they were going to set some cones out and see if it matches up with what I was thinking.”

What do you look forward to most about racing at Watkins Glen and what is most challenging?

“What I look forward to the most is the atmosphere here. I think that when you drive in and you see a packed infield and so much stuff going on, I know that right after practice and before qualifying I’m going to take my daughters around just to kind of walk around and see what all is out here. It’s just a fun track when it comes to that. It’s not always about track capacity, it’s about experience. I think this track has got a great balance of that. I like the road course racing personally, I think we’ve really gotten pretty successful out of here the last few years so it’s just a track that I’m definitely comfortable with and road course racing itself, I feel like I’ve got a decent knack at it. I like it, it’s different, it’s a lot different than any other track we have on the circuit.”

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1, met with media to discuss coming back to Watkins Glen after getting his first win, the confidence it brings heading into the weekend, anticipation building for the Playoffs, and more. Full Transcript:

I WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT THE SPOTTERS YOU HAVE. A BUNCH OF PEOPLE HAVE FOUR SPOTTERS, YOU ONLY USE TWO. I’M WONDERING IF THAT’S YOUR PREFERENCE AND IF IT’S TOO MUCH IF YOU HAVE FOUR PEOPLE AROUND THE TRACK TRYING TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO AND WHAT IT’S LIKE IN THE CAR WITH ALL THAT FEEDBACK.
“I think simple is better, for sure. I think a lot of those guys that have more than 2, I’m sure 2 of them don’t say anything unless something is going on somewhere anyways. The communication is pretty standard and that’s what we’ve elected to do.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOU SEE THE 36 CAR TOTALLY ACROSS THE TRACK. CAN YOU EVEN EXPLAIN WHAT YOU DID THERE?
“No, I got really lucky for sure. I was like here we go, we are going to crash another one in practice. I saw smoke and at first, I thought somebody blew up, so I was like I’m going to get over here out of the way and hope to stay out of the oil. Then I realized somebody was spinning out and I was going to go to the right of him because I thought he was going to stay closer to the left. Joey (Logano) was stopped on the bottom and I think myself and whoever was behind me knew there was no way we were getting stopped before we got there. I had to decide last second that the left side was the only option if I could get there. Luckily, I got over there, but I don’t really know how.”

I JUST WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT THE INNER-LOOP. HOW TOUGH IS IT AND HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK IT PLAYED INTO YOUR VICTORY LAST YEAR?
“They are all important. That section is definitely a big-time rhythm section and I feel like there is a lot of time to either be gained or lost through there. It’s so one-lane, you really have to get through there right. As everybody knows, there’s one option through that section. So, if you are off line left or right, you’re just making it harder on yourself.”

LAST YEAR YOU WON YOUR FIRST RACE HERE AND YOU GOT THAT MONKEY OFF YOUR BACK. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS COMING BACK AND HAS YOUR FATHER GIVEN YOU ANY POINTERS AGAIN?
“We haven’t really talked about it much. I feel like it’s been kind of a normal week. I think it’s important to do that. Everybody wants to talk about last year and that’s great. I’m glad that last year happened, for sure. I’m proud of it, but we celebrated it when it was time to celebrate it and now is not really the time to celebrate it. We had our time to do that in between here and wherever we went after that, and we did it and had plenty of it. It’s out of my system and it’s time to come back and try to run good. I feel like we had an OK first practice, but we have some work to do. I think it’s just dialing things in and it’s tough. Everybody is really close.”

GIVEN YOUR SUCCESS HERE AND YOUR TRACK RECORD, DO YOU THINK THIS IS A CHANCE TO REGAIN SOME MOMENTUM THIS SEASON?
“I sure hope so. It’s been a rough month or so. Some things were out of our hands and some things have been in our hands. Those are the frustrating ones, the ones that you can control. Making mistakes that we shouldn’t make, I shouldn’t make and things of that nature. So, it’s about cleaning that stuff up, it happens. I can’t say I’m bogged down by it, but I certainly want to get things going on the right path. We are still in the summer stretch, so we still have time to do that. This is as good of place of any to get things going in the right direction. Anywhere will be fine. Here and now would be great.”

WHAT KIND OF RELIEF DID YOU FEEL IN NOT JUST GETTING YOUR FIRST WIN HERE, BUT WITH THE TIME REMAINING BEFORE THE PLAYOFFS TO KNOW THAT YOU WERE LOCKED IN AT THAT POINT?
“That was honestly a nice add-on to the win. Really, I didn’t think about it until I got home and it felt nice to not have to worry about points racing through Richmond, which we’ve done I guess both years leading up to that. It’s not fun, going to Richmond and knowing you’re right on the cut of blowing a tire and ending your night and you’re out. Anything could happen, so it was just nice to go and not have to worry about that. But it’s way more than just having one sticker going into the Playoffs and knowing you’re in that first round. The guys you are going to be racing probably have multiple wins by that point in the season to be really honest with you. It’s about getting those bonus points and knowing that when you get into the final ten races, that is going to help propel you to Homestead because that is what your competitors are doing.”

YOU’VE HAD A REMARKABLE RUN AT MICHIGAN. UNTIL JUNE, YOU HADN’T FINISHED OUTSIDE OF THE TOP-TEN THERE. WHAT ARE YOU ANTIPCATING GOING INTO MICHIGAN?
“I definitely agree with Denny (Hamlin), I think guys are going to have different car builds because one particular car build pretty well stomped everybody. I think everybody knows that now, so I think everybody is going to go back with a similar mindset and it’s just a matter of how far you can go down that road and your car still driving OK. I think it will be different. Michigan has been an OK place. It’s so different now; it’s really close to wide open and nothing like it used to be.”

ANY UPDATES ON DALE JR. VERSUS THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF NORTH GEORGIA?
“Yeah, I’ve had a few people this week be like ‘he was really giving this area a long time’, so he’s got his work cut out for him (laughs)”.

A LOT OF KIDS ARE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL THIS MONTH. WHEN YOU WERE IN SCHOOL AND YOU WENT TO THE TRACK A LOT DURING THE SUMMER WITH YOUR DAD, WHAT WAS IT LIKE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL AND NOT GOING TO THE TRACK?
“Devastating. I hated school really bad. Every year, I felt like it started a couple of days earlier every year when you went back. I wasn’t happy about it, for sure. It’s just one of those things, you have to do it.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE FOR YOU TO COME BACK HERE SINCE YOUR FIRST CUP WIN HERE AND WHAT CONFIDENCE THAT BRINGS YOU COMING INTO THIS WEEKEND?
“More than anything, just being fast last year was nice. I think that’s what helps more than anything, whether you had won or not. Just knowing that we had some decent pace and that’s the most important thing. If you have pace, then the rest of it can come. Hopefully we can have that again on Sunday.”

IT LOOKED LIKE HENDRICK WAS TURNING THE CORNER. OF COURSE, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE BAD RACES, IT HAPPENS. DO YOU FEEL THAT THE CARS ARE TO THE POINT WHERE YOU CAN COMPETE ONCE YOU GET INTO THE PLAYOFFS AGAIN JOE GIBBS RACING, TEAM PENSKE, ETC.?
“Yeah, I hope so for sure. Like anybody, I think there’s been certain tracks so far this year that have suited us better than others. At those places, we’ve competed and we’ve been good enough at times to win. Alex (Bowman) won at a 1.5-mile track, so yeah, I think we can compete at certain places and other places we have work to do. So, we’ll just see how it plays along. I know the results haven’t shown it, but there have been some upgrades that I think will be helpful come Playoff time and hopefully more to come. Everybody is making upgrades, so we’ll see.”

DO YOU THINK THIS YEAR THAT YOU HAVE A COMPETITIVE CAR AGAIN TO GET THE JOB DONE AND GO FOR A REPEAT?
“Until we get to this next practice, it’s kind of hard to tell. Honestly, there’s been times where I ended the day on Saturday excited and thought we had a chance, and then we were trash on Sunday. So, we’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1, met with media to discus his thoughts on road course racing, how he has prepared to race The Glen this weekend, the difference in pressure on being in the Playoffs or on the bubble, and more. Full Transcript:

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE SPECIAL HELMET FOR THIS WEEKEND
“We have a lot of different partners that we get to do really cool and meaningful things with and we have a helmet through the ‘Accelerate the Cure’ contest. It’s got to do with finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. I don’t know a lot about Cystic Fibrosis but I’ve been learning about it and hearing people’s stories throughout the course of events that have been done for this contest. I’m really excited to show everybody. I think the helmet looks great. It’s always really cool to have partners that do things to make things more meaningful and that hit home.”

WHEN YOU STARTED TO LEARN ABOUT THE GLEN AND TRYING TO PREPARE, HOW BIT A DEAL IS THE INNER LOOP AND HOW MUCH DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE MASTERED IT BY NOW, OR NONE AT ALL?
“I’ll go with not at all (laughs). This is a place that historically we’ve struggled at. We struggled last year here. I was really sick. But, road course racing has never been in my background or something that I’ve felt super confidant about. At Sonoma we were really fast throughout the weekend and then struggled in the race and lost power steering. We were really hit and miss at the road races last year. I’m going to try like hell today. Other than that it’s just watching a lot of tape. I went to the simulator this week, which I’ve only gone to once this year, just trying everything I can try. But, I think it’s just a matter of experience and getting reps here. This is only my second time here, competitively. I’m just trying to really learn about it and do the best job I can do.”\

“I think just carrying speed through the center section is really important. I felt like last year I over-slowed it compared to the guys I was racing around. So, I’ve just got to carry speed through it.”

YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE MAYBE SLIGHTLY LESS HORSEPOWER THAN LAST YEAR, BUT WAY MORE DOWNFORCE. ARE YOU EXPECTING SPEEDS TO BE UP AT A TRACK WHERE IT’S ALREADY FAST?
“I think we don’t really know how fast we’re going to go. But I think we’re going to go faster, for sure. We were trying to figure that out in the simulator of what the target lap time really is, or isn’t. When I got in there and ran the lap times that they kind of targeted to begin with, I was like man, this feels like it has way too much grip. But, who knows? Maybe we unload for practice and that’s what we really have. So, it’ll be interesting to see where we really end up and what the speeds are. I’m looking forward to it.”

THE NEW CREW CHIEF, CLIFF DANIELS, FOR THE NO. 48 (JIMMIE JOHNSON) WAS SAYING THEY FEEL CONFIDENT WITH THE STRATEGY BECAUSE THEY CAN GO OFF OF WHAT CHASE ELLIOTT DID TO WIN HERE LAST YEAR. ARE YOU AWARE OF THAT AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS? DOES EVERYBODY LOOK AT WHAT THE NO. 9 TEAM DID LAST YEAR TO EXECUTE AND SAY THAT’S A GOOD GAME PLAN?
“Yeah, they obviously executed very well. But they were really fast, as well. Chase does a really good job at these race tracks, especially here. He is able to be competitive really, regardless of what the strategy was. I think on my side of things, we’ve got to get the speed to where he was at. I definitely feel like I was more of the issue than the race car was last year. But, we’ve just got to do the best job we can.”

ARE YOU RELIEVED THAT YOU’RE ALREADY IN THE PLAYOFFS AND DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT DOING WELL HERE? IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE A LITTLE LESS CONFIDENT ABOUT THIS PLACE
“It’s just not one of my better places. I don’t think I’m less confident because I worked really hard throughout the week to try to be more prepared and to do a better job. I was really confident about Sonoma and Saturday went really well and then Sunday came, and we struggles. So, I’m just trying to figure out what the correlation is from practice to the race and how to carry speed over into the race and how to get your car where you need it throughout practice to race well. It’s just something I’ve struggled to put together at this race track.”

HOW IS THE DYNAMIC DIFFERENT BETWEEN YOU AND CHASE ELLIOTT COMPARED TO THE OTHER TWO TEAMS? YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN LOCKED-IN FOR A WHILE. WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY BEEN LOOKING TOWARD THE PLAYOFFS?
“It’s definitely allowed us to be aggressive with things and try some things throughout the last couple of weeks and just try to find things that are going to help our race car throughout the playoffs and not have to worry about if it doesn’t work. We’re definitely locked-in. But we’re here still to win every week and to see what we can make happen each week. We’re just probably a little more aggressive and we’re not necessarily worried about Stage points. We’re more worried about finishing position and stuff like that. It just kind of determines our strategy a little bit in the sense that we’re not going to go get Stage points and settle for 20th because of the Stage points. We’re trying to win races.”

LAST YEAR AT THIS TIME, YOU WERE ON THAT BUBBLE SPOT BUT THERE WAS A BIG GAP AND IT WASN’T AS TIGHT AS IT IS FOR SOME OF THE GUYS NOW. WHAT IS LIFE LIKE BEING ON THE BUBBLE? I KNOW IT’S NOT LIKE WHAT CLINT BOWYER AND RYAN NEWMAN AND JIMMIE JOHNSON ARE GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE GAP IS CLOSER
“It’s definitely tough. It’s not a lot of fun. It’s a lot of stress and a lot of pressure. It really wasn’t that bad last year until we got to Indy and we crashed pretty early and we were kind of riding around just trying to finish. And I could see that Jamie McMurray was pretty close to the front, and, I’m like trying to look past 30 cars on restarts and see where everybody’s at. So, that was really stressful. I was talking to Jimmie about it last week, actually. It’s just interesting how they approach it. I feel like Jimmie, obviously, is going to do a better job of approaching it than I would just based on experience. My question to him was if he still gets nervous and still gets butterflies in his stomach or whatever after winning seven championships. It was just interesting to talk to him about how he’s feeling versus how I felt last year and all that. It’s been really cool getting to lean on him throughout the year and learn how he approaches situations like that.”

INAUDIBLE
“I think you’ve got to ask him that. I can’t give away all the answers. He’s an open book, so it’s really cool to be able to lean on him.”

YOU’VE ONLY USED THE SIMULATOR TWICE THIS YEAR? CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THAT?
“I feel like there was a time when we were able to use it really effectively. When you’re going to a race track where you haven’t raced with this rules package, you don’t really know what the lap times are going to be. You don’t really know what the grip level is going to be. So, it’s hard to get in the simulator and perfectly correlate what you’re going to have when you get here. And sometimes you almost dial yourself out with it. I just pick and choose the places that I’d like to run it. So, I’ve run it before Sonoma and before Watkins Glen just trying to get the breaking points down and stuff like that. I think just as much as the simulator can help you it can probably hurt you in certain situations. I try to use it a little better than if I would just put 100 percent in on it every week.”

GOING TO MICHIGAN NEXT WEEK WITH THE NEW AERO PACKAGE, DO YOU HAVE A GAME PLAN FOR NEXT WEEK?
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to Michigan. We raced really well there earlier this year. We were running in the top 5. The last green-white-checkered we were stuck on the bottom and couldn’t really go anywhere. But, it’s a fun place. I think the aero package obviously changed it quite a bit. It’ll be interesting to see how everybody has learned each and every week we take that package to the race track. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like going back there versus the first time and see if guys have figured out new stuff or changed their approach. I thought our car drove really well there last time. We were a little down on single car speed, but it turned into a good race for us. So, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

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

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Saturday, August 3, 2019

EVENT: Go Bowling at The Glen, Watkins Glen, NY. (Media Availabilities)

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Go Bowling Ford Mustang – WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF THE INNER LOOP HERE? “This is a really different road course from Sonoma and most other road courses. Most road courses you go to you really just focus on setting yourself up for the next corner, and it’s very slow and technical. This road course is like a superspeedway, or a mile-and-a-half race track. It’s so fast. It’s hard to explain to people that don’t understand, but for a road course this place is so fast and momentum plays such a big factor, where most road courses we go to it’s about stop and go. Heavy braking, really slow corners and then launch off the corner, where here it’s just all about momentum, so this is definitely a tricky place. The inner loop plays a big factor in that because you can make up a ton of time in the inner loop. I remember when I first came here in an XFINITY car trying to get through the inner loop was a struggle, and then when I started coming here in the Cup car Marcos Ambrose was my teammate at Petty’s and I learned so much from Marcos just watching him and talking to him and getting feedback from him. He was very helpful in helping me get up to speed. I still wasn’t up to Marcos’ speed, but up to competitive speed.”

WILL WE SEE HIGHER SPEEDS WITH MORE DOWNFORCE, AND WHAT KIND OF IMPACT WILL THAT HAVE? “I think it’s gonna have a big impact. I’m anxious to see when we get going here in practice. I think at Sonoma we had a fair amount more grip. You couldn’t compare lap times because the course was changed at Sonoma, but I know coming down the esses at Sonoma the cars were a lot more in the race track than the used to be. It felt like we had more grip and had less tire fall off also because of the downforce, so I expect the same here. I expect we’ll have more grip. I expect going up the esses will still be a challenge, but not as challenging, but I better be careful to speak too soon. It still might be a pretty big challenge, but I think the increased downforce is going to decrease tire fall off like we saw at Sonoma, which is gonna make track position even more important than it already has been here.”

IS THERE A SENSE OF RELIEF TO HAVE THE POINTS ADVANTAGE YOU HAVE FROM THE CUTOFF? “Not at all. I’ve learned in this sport that you can never be too comfortable. Really, there are so many people hovering right around that cutoff line and right around that cutoff line that can win on any given weekend. I know it might not appear that way, it appears that the same cars typically and often win, but everybody in this sport is too good and on any given weekend things could just line up for those guys and they’re talented enough, their teams are good enough, their cars have got decent speed to where they could pull off a win and the next thing you know instead of having 90-something points that we have, the next thing you know you’re looking at a 60 or 50-point gap, and if one more guy wins, you’re looking at a 20 or 30-point gap and that can go away in one race. So I’m always mindful of that and I’ve learned never to be too comfortable.”

DOES IT CONCERN YOU THAT YOU ONLY HAVE ONE TOP 5 FINISH THIS YEAR? “Yeah, it has. Obviously, we talk about that and look at that internally at the organization, the race team and we’ve had opportunities to run top five and haven’t capitalized on them, but, quite honestly, on a consistent basis we haven’t been where we were last year. I think last year you look back a lot of the races and Kevin won nine races last year, Clint won three I think, and Kurt won around this time last year at Bristol. We were running 1-2-3-4 a lot throughout races in the summer months and you saw last weekend at Pocono at times Gibbs went 1-2-3 or 1-2-3-4. We had that dominance as an organization last year. We don’t have that right now. We just don’t, so we’re still working on it. Everybody is working really hard and still trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and I think we’re collecting more notes and more information and more data and trying to put all that to use and continue to make our program better. So I’m very hopeful that as we go into these races coming up after we leave the Glen that we’ll get on pace where we need to be going into the Playoffs.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MICHIGAN NEXT WEEK? DO YOU FEEL CONFIDENT GOING THERE KNOWING YOU GOT A TOP 10 LAST YEAR? “Yeah, Michigan is a weird place for me because, in my mind, I feel like I run good there. I won a Truck race there years ago and from that point forward I just always loved going to Michigan. My wife’s family is from Michigan, so I go to Michigan with such a great attitude and I’m so happy about going to Michigan. In my mind I really do. I feel like I run well there, but then when you look at the results or the stats they don’t back up the way I feel about it, so that’s an interesting place for me. I feel like this past race earlier this year we had a lot of speed. I think we qualified on the front row and ran in the top five a lot of it, and there at the end of the race I had a restart where I restarted third and got loose in the middle of one and two and fell back to 11th and immediately the caution came out and then the next restart I went from 11th to 14th and I think I ran the rest of the race I think I finished about there in 14th or 15th, something like that. I feel like that was just circumstantial. I feel like we had a top five car there at Michigan and didn’t execute and things didn’t go our way with the restarts and I didn’t get the result, but I’m excited about going back. I feel like we ran really well and had good speed, and going to Michigan there’s always a lot of pride for the manufacturers and stuff, so I’d love to go there and keep the trophy in Ford’s backyard.”

DO YOU FEEL SHR HAS RECOVERED FROM BEING OFF AT THE START OF THE YEAR OR ARE YOU PAST THAT? “We’re certainly more fluid with race car builds and things now. The beginning of the year is crazy tough because you have to build up your inventory before you ever leave to go to Daytona, so that is a challenge. I think now we’re in the normal routine of racing cars, taking them back, cleaning them up, cutting them up, re-preparing them and getting them ready for their next race, and I feel like we’re on track and I feel like we’re constantly learning. We’ve got a lot of smart people. We’re spending a fair amount of time in the wind tunnel and all the things that we need to do to try and get better, and it’s just about putting all those parts and pieces together and figuring out the puzzle, and that’s the hardest thing to explain about this sport to ordinary people that don’t know a lot about this sport is just how incredibly competitive it is. I think people misunderstand or underestimate how competitive it is and you see teams in this sport go in cycles. I remember it wasn’t that long ago, three or four years ago, where Gibbs only won a couple races, and then they come back from that and challenge to win championships and win a bunch of races. Last year, Stewart-Haas Racing, I don’t remember the exact number, but 14-15 races as an organization we won, and then now a new year, new car, new rules and Goodyear brings new tires to the race track – it’s just everything always changes and it’s constant evolution and you’re always, no matter if you’re the best team in the garage or you’re a little bit behind, you’re constantly working your guts out to try and find speed and find that edge, and it just makes it incredibly competitive.”

HAVE YOU HAD TO BE MORE OF A JERK ON RESTARTS THIS YEAR TO TAKE OR PROTECT POSITIONS? “I don’t even consider it being a jerk anymore, it’s just racing, right? We all know that it’s really challenging to pass when we get strung out with the increased downforce on the cars we’re making a bigger wake coming off of our cars, so the trailing car is having sometimes more of a challenge to pass when the cars get strung out, so the restarts are the most opportune time, and now that the cars have less horsepower at a lot of these race tracks we go to, momentum is such a key, so on the restarts if a couple cars get bottled up and they have to check up out of the throttle and their momentum gets killed, the next thing you see is four and five-wide, they’re splitting those guys and those guys lose a lot of spots. So you have to be aggressive and you have to try and keep your momentum up and take every hole there is. You can’t check up out of the throttle. If you check up out of the throttle, you’re going to lose multiple spots.”

SO HOW DOES A RESTART HERE WORK? “I think here at Watkins Glen will be very similar to what we always see. I think Watkins Glen and road course racing in general has been very track position sensitive and when you go back and look at past races the first few rows kind of dive off into turn one side-by-side, and from there back there are guys bonzai-ing down into turn one, trying to make a move, trying to gain spots and that will be the same. That’s no different, and we have more downforce here than we’ve had in the last few years, but the horsepower is pretty close. I mean, we have a little less horsepower than last year, but not a lot less, so I think that doesn’t really change anything.”

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF NASCAR WENT TO A PODIUM FINISH WITH THE TOP THREE FINISHERS ON STAGE? “I don’t know, that would take some getting used to. All the racing that I’ve done growing up, go-kart racing and all those things, the winner got celebrated with a trophy and that was it. Short track racing, the winner stops in victory lane, they might stop a couple of the other cars for interviews, but there’s no per se podium in all the circle track racing that I’ve done. The winner is celebrated. The winner gets to take his picture in victory lane. The winner gets the trophy and they’re the ones that celebrate and everybody else has to watch and be jealous. So I don’t know. That would take some getting used to.”

COREY LAJOIE, No. 32 Samaritan’s Feet Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS PROGRAM AND WHAT SAMARITAN’S FEET IS ALL ABOUT? “It’s been a crazy week. It’s all kind of combined. There’s like two heads to the thing. I met Manny about a month ago, right before Daytona, and I’ve always admired Samaritan’s Feet from a distance. I’ve always felt called to provide shoes for those in need. I’ve been to several mission trips to third world countries and seen first hand the overwhelming poverty that nobody in this room could ever imagine, unless you go there and see it with your own eyes. We went to Haiti last year, Kelly and I did, and we saw the need there and I’ve always kind of had this feeling that my nickname is Supershoe, so it’s a natural fit to provide shoes, right? But I’ve never really had a shoe charity that I could fully buy into that was really pulling at my heart strings until a good friend of mine, Lucas Beatty, from Thrivent Financial asked me what was near and dear to my heart and I said, ‘Man, I want to provide shoes.’ And he said, ‘Have you ever heard of Samaritan’s Feet?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t have a contact and he goes, ‘Well, I’ve got Manny right here, let me call him up.’ So he called him up and the next day what I thought was going to be a 30-minute meeting turned into probably a three-hour discussion sitting there talking about ways to use our platforms to put shoes on feet. The other charities that I’ve worked with they’re all great causes, but none of them were really God-centered, and I feel like that’s why I’m so drawn to this. God’s in the center and we’re putting shoes on feet and telling people – Manny is – I’m just a vessel here. So when I met Manny it was perfect timing for their Hope Givers yearly campaign, so they’ve had 10 people be a Hope Giver. When you sign up to be a Hope Giver you commit to try to raise $20,000 from August to November, so Kelly and I figured let’s just jump on that boat and try to do that. So we signed up for that and we were trying to figure out some very small ideas, just scraping the surface on how we could raise some awareness, whether it be designing a pair of shoes we could auction off or doing a helmet like thinking this big, and then about a week goes by and we couldn’t find a sponsor for the Watkins Glen race for the team, and I was trying to find some tire sponsors, round up $5000-$6000 here and there, and it was about midnight one night – Monday – and it wasn’t like a vision or like a dream, I just had this thought pop in my head of a Samaritan’s Feet car. I was like, ‘OK, how are you going to pay for it?’ Because it’s expensive. Racing is expensive, so then it was like clear as day I felt like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to call Archie and ask him if he would not pay your salary for a month if he would put Samaritan’s Feet on the car.’ And my salary isn’t what covers his not to go to the race track, but he’s sacrificing a lot on his end, but I’m sacrificing a lot on my end, too. So I texted him at 11:30 at night and asked if he was up and sure enough it pops right back up with a ‘yep.’ So I called him and told him what I was thinking and the charity I’m working with – Samaritan’s Feet is a great cause and I asked if he would be open to doing this. He said, ‘Sure, let’s do it.’ He was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And I said, ‘Not really, but let’s hang up before I change my mind (laughing).’ I went back to sleep and slept like a baby and it’s really been head-on since then. Kelly and I were at dinner the other night trying to figure out some ways to best push this thing and she had the idea of whoever donates to our Hope Givers Fundraiser page, no matter if it’s $1, $10 or $100 we’re writing their name on the car. I thought that was a fantastic idea, so I thought we might raise $15,000, $20,000 — $84,000 later and 1,035 names that I last saw before I walked into the media center and my hand is starting to cramp up a little bit because not only do I have to write it on the car, I’ve had to write it from the email to this little book that I’m keeping, so I didn’t physically write every name on the car because I had to bring in some extra help from Mason and Ryan and a couple other guys to help write, but I have written every single name in my book. The average spend was $80 on our page and every name on the car is gonna be putting shoes on the feet of three kids, so the 1,000 people that gave and sacrificed to be on the car, those are gonna be putting shoes on the feet of three kids that probably never had shoes in their entire life. I don’t want to keep rambling because I want to get Manny talking. This is probably the nicest guy you’ve ever met in your entire life, so I’ll let him talk.”

DR. EMMANUEL “MANNY” OHONME, Founder, President & CEO, Samaritan’s Feet – “For those that don’t know much about Samiritan’s Feet we are a global humanitarian organization that is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our vision actually was to help inspire hope among some of the world’s most impoverished and the journey started for us actually over thirty-some years ago a little boy, even as I sit here today, I just got to turn and say ‘pinch me’ because I must be dreaming. For a kid that used to sell water and soft drinks in Africa, just like a kid you’d watch on Discovery Channel, I was selling water one day and a group of missionaries came to teach African children how to play basketball. I showed up there that day never knowing what was gonna happen. I got a chance to enter into a basketball contest. They said the prize to win is gonna be a new pair of shoes. I ended up winning the contest and became the first person not just in my family but in my entire community to own a pair of tennis shoes. It changed my life eventually coming to America on a basketball scholarship and now to think I’m sitting next to Corey LaJoie. To see what he’s doing is bigger than just helping us provide awareness – that’s put shoes on the feet of kids. We serve probably over seven million children now. We work in over 108 countries, 369 U.S. communities. People don’t realize 1.5 billion people in the world are affected by diseases because they have no shoes. In the U.S. over 13 million, about 13.5 million kids struggle because their parents can’t afford a new pair of shoes. Many of them are taking shoes that are hand-me-down or have holes on their feet, but the reality that you can meet somebody that’s actually well entrenched and knows what they’re here to accomplish and say, ‘What can I do to help make a difference and use my platform to help impact and change the world.’ So it’s amazing to see what’s happen. What we do is bigger than just the shoes because when we give these kids shoes we literally have to wash every kids feet and look those children in the eye and remind them that they can help change the world, so this guy right here is a world-changer and I’m excited to see what can happen from here.”

WHAT COUNTRY DID YOU LIVE IN AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN THE U.S.? I was born in Lago, Nigeria. I came here now about 30 years ago on a basketball scholarship. It’s funny, crazy. I didn’t know much about America. I knew about New York, Los Angeles and Houston, Texas, so I said I’ll pick the school with the best-looking brochure and I ended up showing up in North Dakota and I’m still learning from that experience. That got me in the software business. When my father passed away in 1997 I had to go back to Africa to bury him and that’s when I walked into that place and saw the need. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t even use the bathroom in my house and I had to go across the street and when I saw those children with no shoes I said, ‘Somebody ought to do something about that.’ At that time I didn’t realize that somebody was gonna be me. So I came back five years later and started Samaritan’s Feet with the vision to go put shoes on the feet of 10 million kids and said, ‘We don’t want to just give them shoes, we want to create a platform that creates an opportunity for leaders to serve and then be able to inspire hope in the hearts of children.’ And now 7.1 million kids later in over 108 countries now for kids that didn’t have shoes, we now manufacturer our own line of world shoe to help eradicate food born diseases. It’s just amazing and a testimony that dreams still come true, which is an amazing thing what we’re doing here. And it’s not just overseas. Many kids in the Uniited States, I mean right now in the heart of our back to school, where we’re serving kids, we’ll probably about 60,000 kids in the next two months and many of them will be because of the generousness that comes through this. So we’re excited that today we’re gonna serve some kids here and then we’re also gonna get to serve some kids later on in the year, so this guy is truly a gem.”

WHAT IS YOUR WEBSITE? “SamaritansFeet.org, but if you want to help Corey we want to get to $100,000, so maybe somebody is listening that can do something. You can go to SamaritansFeet.org/LaJoie to help us support his Hope Giver campaign as well.”

COREY LAJOIE CONTINUED – “If you donate to that, that’s when you get your name on the car. And even after the race is over we’re trying to figure out some stuff to do – maybe the same kind of thing at Charlotte – so anybody that gives after the race, they’re still gonna be catalogued and if we can put it together for Charlotte, we’ll put their name on that car as well. So it’s not just after Sunday we’re done doing this thing. It’s from August-November, but after November it’s still a need that we can probably never reach, but it doesn’t mean we can’t stop trying. I just feel a calling to do this. What I sacrificed and what the team sacrificed was to put shoes on the race car. That was to get the race car here to physically get on the race track, but what those 1,040 people that donated to the car, they’re actually putting shoes on the feet of kids that are in need. There has been sacrifice all around, but that’s what it takes to make a difference.”

DR. OHONME CONTINUED – “The beauty is it’s bigger than shoes. I tell people all the time that we’re one of the largest footwear humanitarian organizations in the world that has very little to do with shoes. Yes, the shoes that we give them is very important to protect them from the ailment and to let them be able to go to school, but it’s actually a much powerful platform that allows them to speak hope in these kids’ lives, and the way we do it when we serve them and wash their feet and hug them and remind those kids that they are special, when they leave that place they never forget you. You’re looking at one of them in front of you today that somebody impacted their life over thirty-some years ago, now putting shoes on millions of kids. So if you’re watching this and wonder ‘can I be used to make a difference?’ Here is a perfect story that your yes can create a ripple that can help change the world.”