Category: XFINITY Series

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP?  “It is unbelievable. There are a lot of people that have worked really hard for this. My family has sacrificed a lot. Jack Roush and all these guys on our team, they were with us when we were struggling and they never gave up last year. Everybody at Ford Racing, Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill, everybody has worked really hard and rallied together to be a team effort. Our cars back at the shop are phenomenal and all the guys that work hard there. Everybody at Roush Yates engines. It is a total team effort and it means the world to bring this championship to Jack and be a little bit of the history that he has in this sport. For Ford to get the manufacturers and Jack to get the owners it was for sure a huge team effort. Mike Kelley never let us down. He rallied us, even when we weren’t good and I would get a little mad out there on the race track he straightened me up and helped us keep digging.”

MIKE KELLEY, crew chief No. 6 Ford Mustang – WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE THE CREW CHIEF OF THE 2011 NATIONWIDE CHAMIPIONS?  “Just like Ricky said, it means a lot. I heard Carl say the other day that it isn’t about the trophy that you get but the journey you take to get there. I couldn’t say that anymore for working with Ricky the last 16 or 18 months together. We had tough times last year and it was documented very well. Anyone could have walked away. Jack could have turned his back on him, Ford could have and our guys could have. There were a lot of tough days and grim nights back at the shop. Nobody did though. I am so proud of my guys and Jack and Ford for sticking behind Ricky and seeing it through. To come through what we did all last year and during the off season we really put our heads down and we weren’t picked to be the favorite and that is probably what helped us the most. We were kind of overshadowed by the Elliott Sadler’s and the Allgaier’s and Sorensen’s and that kinda gave us a fight and desire back at the shop to make sure we came out strong. It was a total team effort. It wasn’t me. I have a great engineering staff and we moved our shop. Jack let us move down to the Cup shop in Concord and that was a big plus for us. The cars that we get are second to none out there and the engines are second to none. We never quit. We had bad days at the beginning of the year and we learned as a group on fuel mileage and strategy. I feel like we gave up a couple wins based on that. I am proud of the effort of this team during the hard times. We dug in there and finished off strong.”

JACK ROUSH, owner, No. 6 Ford Mustang – WE MADE HISTORY TONIGHT AS A TEAM WON THE DRIVER AND OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP WITH TWO DIFFERENT PRIMARY DRIVERS. CONGRATULATIONS JACK.  “When Carl won his Nationwide championship in 2007 I didn’t win the owners championship and I didn’t know what I did wrong. I didn’t do anything more wrong than I did right this time. It is an honor given to team owners that is really at the mercy of the efforts of the crew chiefs and drivers and the crew. I am glad to be sharing the honors with Carl and with Ricky and with Mike Beam and Mike Kelley. One thing I want to say, and I have been doing this for my 24th year and this is my third Nationwide championship that I have helped a driver win, but Ricky sits here tonight because of the sacrifice and dedication of a great family. Without his mother and father, I am looking at his mom across the room here, without their sacrifice and dedication and determination to see to it Ricky had everything he needed to develop into the driver he has become it wouldn’t happen. People like myself or Tony Stewart or other owners that have the race cars would never find a Ricky Stenhouse without the family doing all they have to do and the dark days before it really goes public. Mike Kelley did a great job this year, Mike Beam did a great job behind the scenes. Carl Edwards provided great leadership from a driver point of view. Trevor Bayne did a great job challenging Ricky in some ways and supporting him in others. It has been a great team effort that we are celebrating tonight but I am especially thankful and respectful of the sacrifice of the whole Stenhouse family that they made to get Ricky where he is.”

STENHOUSE CONTINUED – IS THE THE BIGGEST THING TO HAPPEN TO OLIVE BRANCH?  “I would say so. It is going to be cool. I plan on taking the trophy when I got to the Christmas parade as Grand Marshal December 3rd. It will be a good homecoming for sure. There are a lot of people back there that are really supportive of what we are doing. The whole school system and everybody down there. It is really cool to have a community behind you like that.”

YOU WERE IN THE TOP FIVE IN POINTS ALL YEAR BEFORE MOVING TO FIRST AND STAYING THERE. WAS THERE A MOMENTUM SHIFT AFTER YOU GOT TO FIRST?  “We look at it as one whole year. We got the lead a couple times and lost it but that last time we got it we were bound and determined not to give it back. We wanted to seal it up before coming to Homestead. We did the best job we could and it was just a whole year of total team effort and really working to not make mistake on pit road and not making mistakes as a driver and crew chief. I think at the end of the year we really limited our mistakes we made in our first half the year that gave those points leads back to other people. That was the main thing we focused on.”

WHAT WAS THE ONE BIGGEST LESSON YOU LEARNED FROM JACK DURING THE TROUBLES LAST YEAR?  “The one biggest thing I think I learned from everything Jack has done for me is that he cares about me as a person and really wanted me to succeed. If he didn’t care he wouldn’t put me in the body shop. That is one thing I learned from my dad. He was tough on my growing up but it was always for a reason. Jack has been an awesome team owner. He has done a lot of great things in NASCAR and I am glad to be a part of this one little thing. He has been doing it a long time. He has his ways of doing things and you have to look at the positives from it. I think that was the biggest thing I learned.”

JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – WHAT WAS IT YOU SAW IN RICKY THAT MADE YOU INSIST ON PUSHING HIM TO THE POINT TO SEE IF HE HAD WHAT IT TOOK? “Ricky was extraordinarily talented. Every challenge we gave him with a new race track or problem with a car as we changed the car Ricky was bright and quick and talented in meeting those challenges. The thing that was always there when you would reach a situation when it was clear that you could go down this or that path and Mike Beam or Mike Kelley or myself decided to go down a certain path Ricky always went along with it. He never called his dad for support and said we were being to hard on him, he just went along with the program. That is what a rookie needs to do. He needs to go with the program with the people looking after him and our group had his interests in mind. The other thing was that he was just driven to be competitive to the extent of self destruction to start with. It is much easier to temper that and deal with that that it is for someone that doesn’t want it as bad as those next to them. They couldn’t realize the ultimate prize. Ricky wanted it bad and he raised himself to be a race car driver. This was his opportunity and he tried to hang on to it too tight to start with and couldn’t realize the success there for him but very quickly we got over that.”

RICKY STENHOUSE CONTINUED – THIS IS THE FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP UNDER THE NEW FORMAT. YOU ARE THE CHAMPION WITH TWO WINS. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING THE FIRST CHAMPION IN THIS NEW FORMAT?  “It means just as much. We race week in and week out with those guys. We gave them a run for their money here tonight. Ultimately my goal is to go out there and win the drivers and owners championship. We finished third in the owners championship so we ran really strong all year. We beat Carl, we beat Brad, we passed those guys and raced Kyle Busch. I think as a race team and me as a driver I felt like we are just as good as those guys. I think that racing up there and beating them definitely makes this championship worth it.”

YOU FINISHED STRONG.  “This race track is one of my favorites.  I wish we came here twice at least.  Last year was the first year here.  I had a lot of fun and this is just my style of race track.  You can drive it in hard, let it slide up to the wall and get back in the gas and really hang it out, it just reminds me a lot of sprint car racing. Last year, we finished fourth and ran really strong and this year we just came up one spot short and maybe one corner short, but, man, it was fun racing those guys.  We were sideways, turning right, trying to keep it off the fence, getting into the fence every now and then, and to race up there with Carl, Brad, Denny, Clint Bowyer, Elliott Sadler, they’re some of the best in the business and to be up there racing with them is fun.”

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KNOW THE TITLE WAS YOURS AND DID IT CHANGE YOUR PHILOSOPHY? “We were going 100 percent there from the start.  It’s tough to get me to back down any.  I’m not good at riding around, so I’m not sure what lap it was, Mike Kelley came over and told me we were good to go, that we had won the championship, but we still stayed focused and I think I drove 110 percent after that, so that was the only thing that really changed.”

WAS THERE A TURNING POINT FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM THIS SEASON?  “I can think of two.  Early in the year when we led laps at Bristol, ran up there with Kyle and I was kind of playing around with him the whole time.  Talking to Kyle after he was like, ‘Man, you had the best car.’ We made a mistake on fuel mileage and we made a mistake as a race team getting lined up and we got caught two laps down, so I think we rallied together and we worked on our fuel mileage with Ford and everybody at Roush Fenway and Roush Yates, worked on our fuel mileage, and we kind of got a direction there and that really helped us.  And then Indy when we led 190 laps and we came up a couple spots short. That was pretty tough for us, but we were bound and determined to win some more races and really run up front and dig hard, and Mike was the one that kind of rallied everybody together and kept everybody digging.”

MIKE KELLEY CONTINUED – “I kind of agree with him. Early on in the year we kind of made a few mistakes and left a lot of points on the table, a lot more than we ever thought, and I really feel if we would have been a little smarter, a little better earlier in the year, we’d have been right in the middle of that owner’s championship, and that was our goal from the beginning.   But the thing that meant a lot to me is we sat down in January and we circled a bunch of dates on the calendar for Ricky’s experience level on the road course races, we kind of had a goal, we said we’d have to be 25 points in the lead coming into the last two road course race swing knowing that Elliott had a lot of experience and Ricky had never been to Watkins Glen.  We knew we’d take our lumps there, but if we could get out of there, we didn’t care if it was a one-point lead or a two-point lead, we would tell ourselves on the way home that we came out of there with the lead and now it was ours to hold on to the last 10 races of the year, kind of really laid into Ricky’s schedule – a bunch of short tracks thrown in there with some mile-and-a-halfs that the cars have been good on. When we made it through those two road course races, I don’t know if it was six, seven, eight points or something, we came out of there with the lead and I remember looking at him on the plane and I told him, ‘Picture that we came in here five points behind and we actually came out six points ahead and we’ll look at it that way, instead of saying we lost 10 today.’  We got the guys rallied back at the shop and said, ‘We’ve only got to turn left from here on in and Ricky can do that as good as anybody out there.’  Lack of experience or not, he’s as talented as anyone I’ve ever seen behind the wheel.”

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. CONTINUED – AT THE START OF THE YEAR MANY PEOPLE DIDN’T HAVE YOU IN THEIR TOP FIVE.  DID YOU USE THAT AS MOTIVATION? “We definitely used that as motivation.  We felt like at the end of last year, Mike Kelley and I were sitting down at the banquet watching Brad get the trophy, we told each other right there that as strong as we were running at the end of the year, running up in the top five with the Cup guys, that we were going for that championship and that was before they ever changed the point system.  Obviously, they changed the point system and we still weren’t in sight to do that from the media’s perspective, but we felt like as a race team we could do that, I felt like as a driver I was just as good as anybody else out there, and if we put everything together, then we knew we had a shot at this championship.  But it was just fun.  You all have been doing this a long time and I’m just getting started, so it was good to come out here and get this championship.”

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. GIVES FORD RACING THIRD NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP

•       Ricky Stenhouse Jr. registered his first NASCAR championship today in only his second full season.

•       The NASCAR Nationwide Series title is the third for Ford Racing and Roush Fenway Racing (Greg Biffle in 2002 and Carl Edwards in 2007).

•       This marks 12th driver’s championship for Ford Racing in NASCAR’s top three divisions combined (8 NSCS, 3 NNS, 1 NCWTS) and the sixth overall for Roush Fenway Racing (2 NSCS, 3NNS, 1 NCWTS).

•       Today also capped an impressive season for Mustang, which won a manufacturer and driver championships in its rookie NASCAR season.  In addition, Mustang won 13 NASCAR Nationwide Series races, which is the most for any model in 2011.

FORD CHAMPIONS

•       Greg Biffle became the first driver in NASCAR history to win a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series championship.  Biffle captured the 2002 NNS title in dominant fashion as he posted a series-best 25 top-10 and 20 top-5 finishes in 34 starts.  In addition, he tied for first with poles (5) and wins (4), but his consistency throughout led to a 264-point victory for the championship over second-place Jason Keller.

•       Carl Edwards won his first NASCAR championship in even more dominating fashion than Biffle as he claimed the championship by 618 points over runner-up David Reutimann.  Edwards led the series with 21 top-10 finishes while tying for most top-5 efforts with 15 in 35 starts.  He swept both races at Nashville for two of his four wins on the season with the other two coming at Bristol and Dover.  Edwards was in charge of the points race pretty much the entire season, taking the lead after a fourth-place finish on the Mexico City road course in the third event of the year and never giving it up.

•       Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won his first NASCAR Nationwide Series championship in only his second full season of competition through consistency.  He led the point standings for 17 weeks, including the final 14, and won the first two races of his career as he swept both events at Iowa Speedway.  Stenhouse Jr. battled Elliott Sadler the final month of the season, but came out on top by virtue of six top-5 and nine top-10 finishes over the final nine races.

FORD’S NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES CHAMPIONS

Year    Driver  Car Owner       Wins    Poles

2002    Greg Biffle     Roush Racing    4       5

2007    Carl Edwards    Roush Racing    4       0

2011    Ricky Stenhouse Jr.     Roush Fenway Racing     2       3

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES

Ford 300

November 19, 2011

Homestead-Miami Speedway

FORD FINISHING RESULTS

2nd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

3rd – Carl Edwards

11th – Trevor Bayne

21st – Timmy Hill

27th – Casey Roderick

36th – Andrew Ranger

42nd – Fain Skinner

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – WHAT ABOUT THE LAST TWO OR THREE LAPS?  “We sure tried.  That was all I had.  I was really hoping for one more lap there, but Brad did a good job.  It was fun racing Carl and those guys.  I got a little loose there coming off four or I thought we could have got him, but the Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill Mustang did its job at Ford Championship Weekend – Nationwide Insurance – this is a dream come true.”

WHAT A CINDERELLA STORY. WHAT MADE IT HAPPEN FOR YOU?  “I think first off is just relying on God.  We were down in the dumps and we relied on Him and He pulled us through.  That’s why we have to give him the praise for the nights that we’re on top.  It was just a lot of hard work by all these guys – Jack Roush, Ford Racing, everybody at Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill – this crew right here, they didn’t give up on me.  They were with us all through last year and I’m just glad to be here.”

ONE HERO IS JEFF GORDON AND THE OTHER IS YOUR DAD.  WHAT DOES THIS DAY MEAN TO YOU AND YOUR DAD?  “It means a lot.  My family sacrificed everything they had.  My sister didn’t quite get everything that she’s ever wanted.  We were racing as much as we could and to do that for them, he taught me hard work and to never give up.  I wish my granddad was here.  He helped us out a lot through the go-kart days and worked on our cars. We had a lot of fun doing that.  I wish he was here, but this is an awesome night.”

TALK ABOUT YOUR NIGHT “This is just awesome what this team has done, what Jack Roush has done and everybody at Ford Racing and Nationwide Insurance for giving us this great series to run in and all the fans that come out to watch every week. We really appreciate that, especially the ones that support us.”

HOW GOOD WAS THIS RACE CAR TONIGHT?  “Man, this race car was awesome. It was a little tight at the beginning but we worked on it. We knocked the wall down in three and four but it seemed to maybe help it a little bit. Mike Kelly did an awesome job and we had awesome pit stops. Everybody on this Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill Mustang worked their butts off. We had a late race charge there. I didn’t want to see that caution when we were leading but those always come out it seems like. That last restart I was giving it all I had. If I could have got a little better restart and not lost as much ground to Carl and Brad I think we could have had it. It was a great race, fun hopefully the fans enjoyed it. We do this for them.”

GO BACK A YEAR OR SO AGO AND JACK GIVES YOU A CALL TO DRIVE THE NATIONWIDE SERIES. YOU HAD PROBLEMS KEEPING THE CAR OFF THE WALL. HE PUT YOU TO WORK REBUILDING THE CARS. WHAT KIND OF LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM JACK ROUSH?  “The same lessons I learned from my Dad. He just helped me remember them. You have to work hard, stay focused and be patient and determined. Jack has his way of doing things and it has definitely worked out.”

JAMIE ALLISON, Director, Ford Racing – “Wow. What a great moment. Unbelievable to have this championship. It is what we all race for and is a proud moment for Ford and Ford fans everywhere. We got one championship tonight and we have one more to go tomorrow.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang – PIT ROAD INTERVIEW “First, congrats to Ricky.  That’s huge for Ricky to win the driver’s championship.  I’m so proud of my guys.  Fastenal, Ford, Valvoline, NextGen oil, Wiley X, all the fans that came out here.  It’s a great weekend for Ford.  I’m proud to be driving a Ford.  I wanted to get Brad there at the end.  We were racing hard and I got up on his bumper there and I was hoping he’d get loose, but I got tight.  He did a really good job driving.  It was just fun racing.  This is really neat and Denny raced me so clean.  That was a ton of fun.”

RICKY GOT YOU AS WELL.  “That was funny.  I thought I finished second.  Ricky got me too, but he deserves it.  He’s a great guy and it was just a fun race.  I’m excited for tomorrow.  Tomorrow in that Aflac Ford is gonna be a blast.”

TAKE US THROUGH TONIGHT.  “First, congratulations to Ricky and all the Blackwell Angus Beef folks.  Ricky has come so far and I think he’s gonna be a champion in a bunch of levels of this sport. That was huge and my guys have done a great job all year – eight wins and we’re so proud to have Fastenal on board.  Ford has been great. It’s Ford Championship Weekend and we wrapped up the drivers and the owners and that was huge.  Valvoline and NextGen, Wiley X and all these fans that are here, this is cool.  It did get pretty exciting there at the end.  I had to remember, ‘Hey, don’t screw this up,’ and Brad started blocking a little bit and I thought, ‘Well, if he’s gonna block, I’m gonna bump him,’ and then I bumped him and it helped him and hurt me.  I didn’t do a good job of that, but he did a great job racing.  I thought everybody raced as aggressively as I’ve seen in a long time and everybody was real respectful.  It was really fun.”

TREVOR BAYNE – No. 16 Ford Mustang Ford (Finished ) – “Well, we had a really fast race car, we just had one run where we missed it a little bit. Everyone moved to my lane and we were so fast at the top but everyone saw that and they all moved up in front of me and I had nowhere to gain on them. We were just average at the end there. We lost a right rear tire and it got us in the wall. I don’t know if it went down first or getting in the wall took it down. It is disappointing because I wanted to be out there with him doing so me burnouts. Next year hopefully we can be out there. I am really pumped for Ricky and Carl. To win championships is a big deal. It shows consistency and it shows you can be there all the time. They were fast. It is a tough series and for them to win is huge especially for Ricky. This is an awesome deal for him. I am really excited for him.

YOU’VE GOT THE 500, HE’S GOT THE NATIONWIDE TITLE. WHO HAS THE TRUMP CARD?  “I don’t know man. I don’t know if you can compare apples and oranges, that is kinda what that is. I am just excited for both of us to have seasons like this and I am really proud to be a part of this Roush Fenway group.”

CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE – “It was huge for us.  That 18 team, they’ve been unbelievable and for us to have closed in all the points we did the last couple of months, I think it was 50 or so points – something like that – my guys are very excited about this.  That was our mission tonight to be that 18 and to win this owner’s championship.  I just can’t say enough things about Jack Roush and Ford and everything they’ve done with this Nationwide program.  Ricky Stenhouse and Trevor Bayne have been huge helps to me as a driver. They’ve obviously been amazing on the race track and I’m so happy for Ricky for his accomplishment and for us to have won that owner’s championship makes it really neat for all the guys back at the shop and it’s something they can be proud of, so that was good.  The race was a blast.  That was just really fun. There at the end I learned a little bit about the different lines on the restarts and things like that.  Brad did a really good job.  He blocked for everything he had. I bumped him, but not hard enough, and I got tight and then Ricky got by me.  I thought Ricky might get him.  I don’t know about you guys, but coming into turn three that last lap I thought, ‘Maybe these guys will bump into each other and we’ll still win this thing,’ so I don’t know if it looked that exciting from the grandstands or TV, but it was real exciting for me and that’s a good way to spend a Saturday night before tomorrow’s race.  It was a blast.”

IS THIS BITTERSWEET FOR YOU AS A FULL-TIME NATIONWIDE DRIVER?  “Mike Beam and all the guys on this Fastenal team, I think it’s eight races we won this year, we got more poles than anyone, we led close to 2,000 laps.  It’s been a blast. It’s really fun and I’m gonna miss it a lot.  I’ll probably run some races.  There’s no telling, I might run again full-time here in a year or two, who knows?  I really do enjoy this and years like this are a lot of fun and it’s from a lot of hard work.  We were not this fast a year-and-a-half ago or so when we were really struggling.  They had to really go to work on the engines and the cars and moving the shop, so it’s been a lot of fun.  It’s been something I think has helped me in huge ways to be in the place we’re in in the Cup Series.”

DID THIS FULFILL YOU HOPE FOR A PROPER PREPARATION FOR TOMORROW?  “Yes.  This was very good practice for me.  It was really good practice, especially there was one point where the 18 was in front of us and I had to really bear down and go for it there on those restarts.  That was neat.  We also made a lot of adjustments on the car.  I got to feel adjustments and feel the track change a little bit as the sun went down, and I was reminded of all the things you have to be careful of not to mess up, so I think it’s great practice.  I didn’t hurt myself or break an arm or anything, so that was good.  I had a good time.  I actually did think about, ‘If I win this thing should I do a backflip or not?’  That would be unreal.”

WHEN RICKY DIDN’T MAKE THE RACE AT NASHVILLE LAST YEAR DID YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS ABOUT HIS ABILITY OR HIS ABILITY TO SURVIVE WHATEVER JACK HAD IN STORE FOR HIM?  “I didn’t know if he’d be able to survive Jack.  I mean, Jack was on Ricky.  He was not building Ricky up.  He was challenging Ricky every day and I think Ricky has shown everyone, myself included, how good he is.  There are guys, when I talk about Ricky with the Cup drivers, they know when he comes up there he’s gonna be a force to be reckoned with.  There is no doubt that Ricky Stenhouse will win tons of Cup races and probably championships.  He’s truly that good.”

HOW DOES A GUY GO FROM WHERE HE WAS 18 MONTHS AGO TO WHERE HE IS NOW?  “I think the cars are better, first of all, so he was not only being thrown to the wolves, I mean, Ricky is a sprint car driver and he was really thrown in this thing head first at a time when I don’t think I was winning any Nationwide races.  If I was, it was by the smallest of margins and I’ve been doing this for five years or something when he came in, so the thing about Ricky though is I’ve never personally seen a bigger example of a guy who just all he had to do was slow down a little bit and he’s as fast as anyone.  I think two things coincided, Ricky learned to get the car set up like he wanted to run these long races, and the cars got a little better and however he hung onto his job was awesome and here he is.  I can’t say enough good things about him.  He’s always been a good, solid person through the whole thing.  He’s just a good guy.”

DID YOU COME CLOSE TO GETTING CARRIED AWAY WITH BRAD?  “I thought about it a little bit, but we kept it clean.  That was just good racing.  It was really fun.  That thing could have gone any number of ways, whether we had a restart or didn’t have a restart.  He did his job and that was just a good race.  He drove his heart out.”

DO YOU THINK GOING THROUGH THAT FIRE HELPED MAKE HIM INTO A CHAMPION? “Right, all of us in this room, it’s not your successes that make you better, usually, those are nice, but it’s the tough times that make you strong and teach you the biggest lessons.  Ricky, I can’t tell you.  I wish I had some of those meetings on audio tape or video because he was getting it from all angles and he just kept getting better and kept working and turned this whole thing around.  It’s amazing.”

THE RACE STARTS LATE TOMORROW.  WHAT WILL YOU DO TOMORROW? “I’ll do normal stuff tomorrow, nothing big.  I’ll just have a regular day before the race.  Bob and I will talk a little bit tonight like we always do about what our plan is and there’s no change.  We’ve got a lot of sponsor folks coming.  Paul Amos from Aflac is gonna be here and we’re excited to have him here.  We’ve renewed our partnership for a multi-year deal, so that’s really exciting and a bunch of people from Ford are gonna be here, which is really neat.  I think it’s cool that Edsel Ford himself has been here this weekend supporting everybody, but, for me, there’s nothing different – no big appearances or anything like that.”

WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO STOP NATIONWIDE FULL-TIME?  “Because it’s been so good for me I am a little bit nervous that it might throw me off a little bit, but I think a big test for me was this year at Sonoma.  We had the road course race in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and our car was no good in Friday’s practice and we made the call and Fastenal was okay with us not going to Elkhart Lake.  I was really nervous that would throw me off.  I’d been doing that for six years or something traveling that day and not practicing at Sonoma, but it turned out to be our best Sonoma Cup race that we ever had with me staying there and focusing on the Cup car. As much as I learn from running the Nationwide Series, I believe that sometimes, at this point in my career, it takes a little extra energy and it might be better to focus on my Cup car.  But if it’s not working, I’ll be back here racing.  I’ll find something to drive I hope.”

WERE YOU AT THE MEETING WHEN RICKY CAME IN HIS WORK GOGGLES? “No, what’s the story there?”

CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED — HE SHOWED UP IN WORK GOGGLES TO WORK ON THE CARS.  “Jack’s boot camp.  No, I hadn’t heard that story.  All I heard for it seemed like months it was almost like Jack turned it into a game.  I mean, you bring up Ricky and he’s like, ‘Yep, we’re running him into the ground.  We’re not letting up on him.’  It was like Jack made it his mission that he was gonna go with Ricky to the end of the earth and it wasn’t gonna be fun for Ricky until he turned it around, so it worked out, I guess.”

DID HE EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT WITH YOU?  “Yes.  My dad came here tonight. He’s here.  Jack and my dad are a lot alike.  My dad, when I was a little kid, everything would be going well, the day would be going great, and he’d go, ‘I haven’t beaten you for a while have I?’  Just to remind me like, ‘Hey.’  I’ve been like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been pretty good.  Everything is good.  I’m gonna keep it that way.’  But Jack is the same way.  He pulled me in after one wreck that I caused and he asked me to come in and have a meeting with him.  I was under the impression this was gonna be a ‘don’t worry, everything is gonna be great, we’re working really hard and you’re a good driver’ meeting.  And he sat me down and said, ‘I just want to make sure you feel bad enough about what you’ve done,’ and he proceeded to tell me all the things I screwed up.  He’s not afraid to break you down real far and make you look at all the things you’re doing, and you have to be strong to put up with that and if you’re not, it’s been my observation that he doesn’t have much use for you.  You’ve got to be able to take what he’s able to dish out.”

WHAT ABOUT TONIGHT?  “I think tonight was really good practice for tomorrow, but I’ve been doing this Saturday-Sunday thing long enough to know that it doesn’t all transfer.  You can really feel like, ‘Oh, hey, I’ve got some things figured out,’ and all of a sudden the race will change, the track conditions will change just a little bit and those Cup cars, they’re so much faster down the straightaway and there’s a lot more accelerating and braking involved to get through the center of the corner that I always have to make sure to switch hats figuratively and make sure I’m driving a Cup car and not to rely on what we’ve done on Saturday, so I’ve only learned a couple of things that I think will be helpful tomorrow.”

Denny Hamlin (fifth) was the highest finishing Toyota driver in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Camry drivers Brian Scott (ninth) and Joey Logano (10th) also earned top-10 finishes in the 200-lap event.

Other Toyota drivers in the field included Joe Nemechek (16th), Michael Annett (19th), Kevin Conway (26th), Kenny Wallace (33rd) and Steve Wallace (34th).

Four Camry drivers finished among the top-10 in the unofficial NNS driver point standings — K. Wallace (seventh), Scott (eighth), Annett (ninth), and S. Wallace (10th).

Camry drivers earned 10 wins and five pole positions during the 2011 season.  Toyota has recorded 64 victories and 54 poles since joining the series in 2007.

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 18 Z-Line Designs Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  5th How was your race? “We struggled with our race car all day long and we had very limited practice time with the rain.  Just didn’t have it today.   It looked like all of the Roush cars were extremely strong.  We just didn’t have the car that could hang with them in the end.”

How happy were you with your pit crew in tonight’s race? “Yeah, this pit crew gave us a shot at it, no doubt about it.  They were just an amazing pit crew.  When you can gain us three spots and a clutch position like that, they deserve a lot of credit.  They’re the ones who gave us a shot at it anyway.”

How are you feeling going into the Sprint Cup race on Sunday after two races so far this weekend? “Good.  I feel like we’re making strides. We just have got to keep digging.  We’re a little off right now.  As an organization I feel like we need to be better.  Obviously, we’ve got a ways to go, but just have to thank everyone from Z- Line Designs for putting me in the car and obviously this whole 18 team for putting me in.  Jim and Monica (Sexton, Z- Line Design owners) have done a lot for this program.  FedEx, Toyota, Coca-Cola, Gillette and Wiley X. Couldn’t do it without everyone.”

Did you think you had a chance to beat the 60 car tonight to give Joe Gibbs Racing the owner’s championship? “Carl (Edwards) had an extremely strong car.  It looked like all of their cars were really good today.  We just struggled with our Z-Line Designs Toyota.  We felt like for the most part we had a fifth to seventh-place car for most of the day.  It’s kind of where we ended up.  The pit crew did an amazing job at least giving me a shot at it there at the end.  We just couldn’t hang on.  We just didn’t have the car for it today.”

Were you unhappy with the way your car handled during the race? “I wish we had some more practice time.  We were banking on that second practice.  We just didn’t get enough track time with this car this weekend.  We struggled.  We struggled all day and just could not get the speed out of it that we needed.   We ended up fifth.”

BRIAN SCOTT, No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  9th Are you happy finishing the year with a top-10? “I’ll take a top-10 to end the year.  We fought hard ever since Daytona.  We didn’t have the performance or the results that we wanted until about the middle of the year.  This team — we flipped the switch.  Kevin (Kidd, crew chief) and I really got on the same page and we started having good runs.  We were a pretty good team the second half of the year.  Definitely performed the last quarter of the year with some top-five finishes, and got a pole at Chicago.  We’re going to focus really on the last part of the year and continue to build and do the things that we started doing at the middle of the year that will make us better to come back in 2012 and be even stronger.  I don’t see any reason why this team can’t make the progress through the off-season and come back with the yellow and black Dollar General car and have a team good enough to run for the championship.  I feel like Kevin Kidd (crew chief) and I have a relationship that is on really good terms.  We’re really communicating well.  We’re going to continue to work through the off-season just as hard — if not harder — than we worked all year.  Come back and be a really strong team.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 GameStop Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position:  10th

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 97 AM/FM Energy Pellet & Wood Stoves Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position:  16th

MICHAEL ANNETT, No. 62 Pilot Flying J Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Finishing Position:  19th How would you look back at the 2011 season? “Someone asked me the grade that I’d give this season — and I’d probably say a C+ — just because we started off so slow and behind.  We made up a lot of ground throughout the summer and fell back behind it, and then made more gains.  We know there are places we can make a lot of improvement in our program — mile-and-a-half tracks especially.  So, that’s something we’re really going to work on in the off-season and come back on board with Rusty Wallace Racing and the No. 62.   Hopefully, some more partners will come on board and help Steven’s (Wallace) car a little bit and that way can have a strong two car effort after the off-season.”

KEVIN CONWAY, No. 87 Extenze Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position:  25th

KENNY WALLACE, No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Toyota Camry, RAB Racing with Brack Maggard Finishing Position:  33rd

STEVE WALLACE, No. 66 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry, Rusty Wallace Racing Finishing Position:  34th

** KESELOWSKI PRESS CONFERENCE NOTES TO FOLLOW **

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 22 Discount Tire Dodge Challenger R/T) Race Winner “You couldn’t ask for a better way to end the season.  Not being able to win the championship, it’s good to be able to finish on a high note, winning the pole and the race today at Homestead.  It’s a great exclamation point to the season for the whole Discount Tire Dodge team.”

WE HAVE A LOT OF FUN WATCHING THE RACING OUT THERE TONIGHT.  IS IT THAT MUCH FUN BEHIND THE WHEEL?  “Hell yeah, I mean, it is when you win.  It was tough, it was frustrating, it was hot here in Miami and that’s what makes it worth it.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY THAT YOU CAN APPLY TO THE CUP RACE TOMORROW? “Man, I can’t tell you that (smiles).  Just driving the hell out of it; I’m going to drive hard I guess.  And thanks to all the fans for coming out.”

SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger R/T) Finished Seventh “It was a pretty solid night for the Alliance Truck Parts Dodge Challenger.  We just didn’t have the short run that we needed late in the race to crack into the top five.  We had our ups and downs all night.  We felt that we had really good long-run speed in the car to compete all night.  We just got down to the end of the race and it became a short-run race with all the cautions.  We made a small change and it wasn’t enough to get us where we needed to be.  We got stuck on the inside on that last restart; it slowed us down a bit.  We were good.  We just needed more short-run speed.”

HAS THE LAST FOUR RACES GIVEN YOU GUYS A GOOD BUILDING BLOCK HEADING INTO THE 2012 SEASON?  “I think so.  It’s not easy when you’re not running a full-time season, but we certainly didn’t waste any of the opportunities that we had all year.  We raced to some top 10s, won at Phoenix and had another top 10 tonight.  We need to continue to work on our short run speed.  I think everyone on this team gained a lot of valuable experience and that can only be a positive thing heading into next year.  Our race changes have been improving.  Our team has become stronger in the pits.  Everything that we’ve done the last four races has helped make us a team to contend with next season.”

TRAVIS GEISLER (Director of Competition, Penske Racing)  “A great night.  The last couple of weeks have been really good.  To get Sam (Hornish) in victory lane with his Alliance Truck Parts Dodge last weekend at Phoenix and Brad (Keselowski) tonight in his Discount Tire Dodge is awesome.  This is pretty sweet.  It’s always great to go out on a high note.  Our Nationwide program did a great job all year with six wins and six poles.  To come here and beat Carl Edwards is a real testament to everyone that touches these Dodge Challengers.   This is why we go racing to be able to share in great moments like this.  It certainly makes the off-season a lot shorter.”

FORD FAST FACTS

•    Ford and Roush Fenway Racing continue to lead the NASCAR Sprint Cup (Carl Edwards) and NASCAR Nationwide Series (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) point standings with two races remaining.

•    Stenhouse brings a 41-point lead into Saturday’s Ford 300 Nationwide event.

•    Edwards has a three-point lead over Tony Stewart heading into Sunday’s Ford 400.

•    The scant advantage is shaping up to be one of the closest Chase finishes in NASCAR history which bodes well for Ford. A Ford driver has come out on top of the two closest point finishes in the sport’s history with Kurt Busch, despite losing a wheel coming off turn four, winning the first Chase format by just eight points over Jimmie Johnson in the closest finish of all-time. That eclipsed the 10-point margin Alan Kulwicki beat Bill Elliott by in 1992.

•    Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event last year here at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the second of back-to-back wins to end last season.

•    Ford has won a manufacturer-best seven NSCS races since the track began hosting the series in 1999.

•    All Ford’s victories at HMS have come since the weekend was changed to FCW in 2002, meaning a Ford driver has won the Ford 400 seven times in nine years of sponsorship. Greg Biffle won three straight (2004-05-06) while Carl Edwards found victory lane twice in the last three years (2007, ’10). Matt Kenseth (2007) and Kurt Busch (2002) have the other Ford NSCS wins.

•    The last time Ford Racing finished 1-2-3-4 in a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event was at HMS in the 2005 Ford 400.

•    Carl Edwards has a chance to become only the second driver in NASCAR history to win championships in the NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Edwards, who won his NNS title in 2007, can join Bobby Labonte on that list.

•    Ford’s Greg Biffle is the only other driver with championships in multiple series, having won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title in 2000 and NNS crown in 2002.

•    Roush Fenway Racing enters this weekend with 299 combined wins in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide Series combined.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 6 Blackwell Angus Beef Ford Mustang, brings a near insurmountable lead into the final race of the season Saturday afternoon in the quest for his first career NASCAR Nationwide Series championship. Stenhouse met with media members Friday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway to talk about the upcoming race weekend.

YOU ARE ON THE CUSP OF YOUR FIRST NASCAR NATIONAL SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP. HOW COMFORTABLE ARE YOU WITH WHERE YOU ARE?  “Yeah, first off I love coming to Homestead and Ford Championship Weekend. I can’t think of a better place to wrap up the season and being in the position we are in right now. In practice we struggled a lot actually. I wasn’t expecting to struggle that much actually. We unloaded and it is kind of unheard of that we ran our fastest lap on lap 14. Normally the tires are awful by then. I think we have the race car where it needs to be. I am looking forward to next practice and the race. Points wise I feel really comfortable about where we are. As most of you know you’ve got the start-and-parks that make that pretty comfortable. We are looking forward to the race. We are going to go out here and try to win. We ran fourth here last year and I think we are going to have a shot at the win.”

WHAT IS THE MOST COMFORTABLE THING FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?  “At this point it would be the 41 point lead that we’ve got. That is the most comfortable thing I think that we have going right now. The race cars that our guys are bringing to the race track every week are pretty solid and I have the confidence in the guys that we are going to unload with a pretty fast race car and something comfortable that I can drive really hard. That is what they have been doing every week and it has led to some of our consistency throughout the year.”

CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS THE ARRAY OF EMOTIONS YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH THE LAST 12 MONTHS?  “Obviously last year was awful. It was up and down but it ended really good last year. That kind of rolled over into this year and we had the confidence from the end of last year. Throughout this year I have tried not to get too high just because I know how lows those lows can be. I have tried to stay pretty level throughout the whole year, even to this point and after this point. Once you win a championship you still have to come back the next year and do it all over again. I am trying not to get too high on it. I definitely appreciate where we are. It is a lot of hard work that the guys put in the shot, the engine shop and everybody at Ford, Blackwell Angus Beef and Cargill. They all stood behind me when we weren’t running good. It is nice that we are here now and I can bring them to this point and we can do it as a race team. I feel great about where we are. I feel like at the beginning of the year I felt like we could be in this position. My crew chief and I talked about it and we had a team meeting at the beginning of the year and this was our goal. We set realistic goals and we felt like we could do that. We would like to have a few more race wins but I think that will come with time.”

JACK (ROUSH) STOOD BY YOU TOO. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU SAID TO HIM OR HE SAID TO YOU GOING INTO THIS RACE?  “One thing that you don’t hear Jack say too much is him talking about things being fun. He is kind of straight to the point, a hard worker. I remember when I first got here in 2008 to Roush Fenway and Jack and I were talking and he asked me about winning our first ARCA race at Kentucky and I told him, ‘Man, this is fun.’ He looked at me and told me it wasn’t supposed to be fun. I said, ‘alright,’ and I haven’t said anything about racing his cars being fun. This year he has used that word a lot. It is cool to kind of see him excited for us. I think that is the emotions coming out in him that he did stand behind us and believed in us the whole time. He is having a lot of fun I feel like this year.”

HOW HAVE YOU GROWN AS A PERSON?  “When I set my mind to something I want to do it, I want to accomplish it. This is no different than how we got to where we are. I didn’t do it alone but as a race car driver and as a person that was one of my goals, to get through last year, I said if I could get through last year then we could just about get through anything, especially as a race team. I think that is why it is so important that I have the same guys that I have right now. As a person I think that I really appreciate more of what my guys do at the shop, not just my team but our chassis shop, our body shop and the guys in the engine shop. Last year when I had to go work in the shop, I always grew up working on my race cars so I knew how much hard work went into it and I appreciate it, but after getting in there with those guys and realizing they have families at home and have to be at the shop at 6:30 in the morning. They are leaving before their family even gets up and they get home at 5:30. They have to eat dinner and to get a good night’s rest they have to be in bed by 10. The sacrifice they have I think I appreciate it now more than I did before, even though I thought I appreciated it before.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. holds a 41-point lead over second-place Elliott Sadler in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings going into Saturday’s Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and needs to finish 37th or better to clinch the championship.  Stenhouse Jr. took part in NASCAR’s championship contenders press conference on South Beach in Miami, FL, to talk about this weekend and possibly taking home the series title.

STAGE REMARKS

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – WHAT HAS THIS JOURNEY BEEN LIKE FOR YOU?  “It’s been a journey that’s obviously up-and-down, but I think one of the biggest things that makes me feel good is to be able to bring a consistent year to the guys that have stood behind me.  Our team, everybody at Ford Racing, Roush Fenway, everybody that stood behind us and to see them just as excited as I am, I think that’s been one of the key things for me to appreciate this year.  It’s definitely been a journey and I’ve learned a lot from it.”

DO YOU LET ANY BAD THOUGHTS LIKE BLOWING A TIRE ON THE FIRST LAP OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT?  “I’m not really worried too much.  We’re just gonna go out there and do the same thing we’ve been doing since Daytona at the start of the year.  We’re gonna go out and get our car as fast as we can in practice, qualify as well as we can and just race as hard as we can.  I think when you start trying to control things, I think that’s when you get in trouble, so we’re just gonna go out and do our same deal as we always do.  Homestead is one of my favorite race tracks and I think we’ll have a good shot to win this weekend.  I think that would be a good way to cap off Ford Championship Weekend.”

IS THERE ANY SMALL PART OF YOU THAT WISHES ELLIOTT WOULDN’T HAVE HAD HIS ACCIDENT LAST WEEK AND THIS WAS A CLOSER BATTLE?  “We’ve been having a great battle all year.  It was exciting.  Obviously, it took a lot of pressure off our shoulders, but, looking back, that could have happened to us.  You don’t wish that on anybody and, like I’ve told Elliott before, I really learned a lot from him coming down the homestretch running for this championship.  He’s given me a lot of room.  I don’t think we’ve touched.  We’ve raced really hard and really clean and I really respect that, and I’ve learned a lot from him.”

HOW HAS THIS SEASON GONE WITH TREVOR BAYNE AS A TEAMMATE – ANOTHER YOUNG DRIVER?  “Trevor and I, we both have obviously had different years with him having to be out of the race car for a while.  I was there to support him and back him up when he came back and started running with us.  Obviously, I was trying to keep up with him when he was running around after Daytona and showed him some support, and now he’s getting to do that for me, so it’s been a good year for both of us.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM NEXT YEAR?  “It’ll give our team confidence for sure, but we’ve got to get some sponsorship sold before we can get back out there and keep going.  Obviously, that’s been a struggle for us this year, to secure that sponsorship, and I think that’s gonna be our first goal is to get that secured, but after the championship is over, we’re gonna go back to the grind.  The guys are gonna keep working hard and you can’t ever relax.  These guys have got to work as hard as they can in the off-season and make our cars better.  It’s a business that if you’re not keeping up with it, you’ll fall behind.”

ONE-ON-ONE QUESTIONING

RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 6 Blackwell Angus/Cargill Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE?  “It’s been exciting.  It’s been an exciting race so far.  We’ve had some really good races.  The last month and a half or two Elliott and I have been battling each other in the top five, and I think that’s all you can ask for to have an exciting championship.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO POSSIBLY BE THE CHAMPION WHEN CUP GUYS AREN’T ELIGIBLE?  “It’s gonna be cool.  Nationwide Insurance has done an awesome job with our Nationwide Series and I couldn’t be more proud to win this thing and go represent them.  It is a different era now, but I think it’s a great era.  I think it’s for the good.”

HAS IT HELPED YOURSELF NOT HAVING CUP GUYS ELIGIBLE AS FAR AS GROWING A FAN BASE?  “Definitely.  I think it’s great that the Cup guys still get to come down and run with us because I think to know you’re ready for racing on Sundays, you’ve got to race with those guys at some point, so I enjoy racing with them and I learn a lot from them.  I definitely still appreciate them coming down and racing with us.”

WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN NASCAR MADE THAT RULE ABOUT DECLARING WHICH SERIES YOU WOULD COMPETE IN FOR THE TITLE?  “I felt like we were gonna contend either way.  My crew chief and I, Mike Kelley, were sitting at this banquet last year watching Brad Keselowski get the trophy on stage.  We said to ourselves then that we wanted to be there next year some how, some way.  That’s what we were working for and that was before they changed the point system.  When they changed the point system, nobody really counted us in, but we felt as a race team that gave us an even better shot to win it, and we just fought really hard all year.  We came into this season feeling like we had a shot at it.”

HOW BIG OF AN EFFECT DID THAT RULE CHANGE HAVE ON YOUR RUN TO THIS POINT?  “It would have been tough to beat the full-time guys like Carl and Brad, but we’re third in owner’s points, so I feel like we’ve done our fair share of running up front with those guys and getting a couple wins.  We beat Carl and we beat Brad, so we know we can do it. I think with everything that we learned this year, the way we start next year could be even stronger than what we ended this year with. Ultimately, I’d like to win the championship and the owner’s championship for Jack.  That would mean a lot.”

HOW DO YOU THINK THIS SYSTEM HAS WORKED?  “Looking at the point standings, knowing that you’re up there, gives you a little more confidence.  When you look at a championship and you look at the series standings, if you’ve had a bad week and you’re still leading those points, you still have the confidence and I think that’s one of the main things that it has done is just built a lot of confidence in us.”

WHAT HAS BEEN A KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS THIS YEAR?  “The key thing I would say is Ford Racing has put a lot of hard work in our Nationwide Series and everything that we do at Roush Fenway.  All the guys in the shop have worked really hard.  We’re bringing better pieces to the race tracks.  I think that’s a main point.  I feel as a race car driver I’ve had more patience and more focus over last year.  I think I started learning that about halfway through last year as far as what I needed to do as a race car driver to run up front and run consistent and we kind of just merged everything together this year.”

HOW DO YOU STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN RUNNING GOOD AND BEING AGGRESSIVE VERSUS TAKING CARE OF YOUR EQUIPMENT AND NOT WRECKING A LOT?  “I’ve run for one championship before in my life, so this is still all new to me.  I think towards the end of the year I really learned how to run for a championship, whether that be not taking as many chances on restarts or making sure I got to the end of the race.  I can think about stuff earlier in the year that at this point now I would not do on the race track.  It’s just a learning process and it’s tough to balance that act of just going out and getting all you can get and then kind of holding back.  But what I’ve learned over the last two months is you’ve got to be around for those last 50 laps.  You’ve got to turn it up those last 50 laps and you’ve got to maintain and survive until you get there.  Earlier this year, I probably got ourselves in some trouble and gave some more points away, but it’s all about learning.

WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR?  ARE YOU ALL SET?  “We’re waiting on sponsors. Right now, there hasn’t been any talk other than we’re gonna talk after Homestead.  We’ll sit down with Jack and Steve Newmark, our president, and kind of lay everything out and see what our best possibility is.  Right now, we don’t have anything secured, so, hopefully, we can secure the championship and then, hopefully, secure some sponsorship later.”

BUT YOU EXPECT TO BE BACK IN THIS SERIES?  “I expect to be back here for sure.  I would definitely enjoy it.  I think there’s a lot more to learn.  If it was up to me, I would like to run some Cup races because I still think there’s a lot to learn over there running part-time, but that’s me – that’s what I would do.  Ultimately, it’s not up to me, it’s up to Jack.”