Toyota NSCS Richmond Michael Waltrip Notes & Quotes

TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Michael Waltrip — Notes & Quotes
Richmond International Raceway – September 6, 2013

MICHAEL WALTRIP, team owner, Michael Waltrip Racing

What would it mean to have all three MWR teams compete for the championship?
“We’re certainly proud that our cars — all three — have a chance to race for the championship.  If Brian (Vickers) wins tomorrow night — that could do it.  We come here focused on winning the race with all three cars and it would be a really cool evening for our first one-two-three finish of Michael Waltrip Racing.  I think our drivers are confident that they have the equipment and the know-how to get it done.  We were able to win here last fall and Martin (Truex Jr.) and Clint (Bowyer) and Brian, all three really enjoy racing at Richmond — I think all the drivers like racing at Richmond.  We’re very confident and focused and we’re ready to get tomorrow night started and give ourselves a chance to get all of our cars and our sponsors into position to race for a championship.”

Are the three teams working together for tomorrow night’s race?
“That’s probably the thing that I’m most proud of Michael Waltrip Racing is the relationship between each of the teams. There’s so much support from Clint (Bowyer) to Martin (Truex Jr.) to Brian (Vickers) and they all respect each other.  They race each other like they’re teammates and they communicate like they’re teammates as well.  Obviously, everything that Clint feels and knows and does here, which is pretty special — his ability at Richmond — he shares all that with the other drivers and in this day and age of the electronic fuel ignition and being able to monitor throttle position and braking and some of the things that we are able to look at in the data that both the engineers and the teams really closely watch what makes Clint special here and what he does that the other drivers might try and might work with.  Everybody is very open. People understand that this is a really good track for Clint and try to feed off his momentum that he’s gained here.”

Do you feel like MWR is now a consistent Chase contender?
“We’ve done it this year for sure and that’s great, but we have to do it every year.  The cool thing about this year are the challenges that we’ve been faced with.  The new car was huge to get your arms around to get it to the nth degree of tuned up and ready to race these boys.  If you just look at the organizations — Mr. Hendrick and Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Penske and Mr. Roush — all those gentleman have been doing this for many more years than us.  Over those years they’ve probably accumulated more resources than Michael Waltrip Racing has so when anything changes, the more stuff you’ve got and the more people you have then the faster you can adapt to those changes.  While we’ve done a nice job the first part of the season, we were consistent, but we didn’t have the speed that we needed in order to contend for wins and then as the mid- season came along I think we kept closing that gap and just got better and better and better.  I think we’re peaking as an organization as this Chase approaches so we’re very confident about our chances to race for a championship and we’re even more confident about 2014, 2015 and beyond because we had a car that we had tuned up for five, six, seven, eight years and however long it’s been around and got it pretty good.  All of the sudden, new car, a lot of people got on it harder because — they didn’t work any harder or smarter, they just had more bullets in the gun to shoot at the wall and see which ones were the right ones to make the car better.  These cars, it’s so crazy, I come here and look at these cars and today I was just touching the rear spoiler and every part of the car is so precise and I just remember back to when back in the 90s and such that we just raced.  Now it feels a lot like Formula 1 with the way everything is tuned out.  It’s really cool to see.”

Can MWR win this year’s championship?
“It’s not going to be easy at all.  What we learned was that we had a solid plan for the Chase.  We bared down hard at tracks that we felt like were ones our drivers liked and we tried to take advantage of that and makes calls that gave us a chance to win at those tracks and then we sort of went into survival mode at a couple places — that will be the same plan this year.  I know that Clint (Bowyer) loves Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway) and Martin (Truex Jr.) loves the mile-and-a- halves so you just play to your strengths and you hope that you can take advantage of those tracks and opportunities and I think we’re going into the Chase as an organization at a very opportune time.  Last week, I think Clint showed a tremendous amount of speed and Martin showed a tremendous amount of heart.  Brian (Vickers) showed a tremendous amount of perseverance and all those things will be key in the Chase and I look forward to seeing our guys in that Chase because we learned so much and grew so much last year as an organization, hopefully we can take advantage of that this year.”

Are you concerned that TRD (Toyota Racing Development) had engine failures last week?
“Anytime something breaks you’re concerned, but Toyota Racing Development has the ability to analyze and define what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and this week has been a busy week for those folks.  A couple of engines that were new specs if you will, and there were failures.  But, I think that they’ve isolated what the problems were and we’ll react accordingly.  Over the last 10 weeks I don’t think we’ve had any trouble under the hood until Atlanta and we’ve won the most poles and most races.  So, obviously a lot of things are going right with Toyota and a lot of the support that they give Michael Waltrip Racing and the resources that Toyota allows us to share with Joe Gibbs Racing, it makes us who we are.  So, we trust them, we believe in them and when they say, ‘We’re on this.  We’ve got it figured out.’  We’re confident that that’s the case.”

Has not getting a win this season affected Clint Bowyer’s upbeat attitude?
“When I’m sitting in my office and he (Clint Bowyer) comes by — you guys know him as well as I do — there’s 100 different ways this conversation starts and where it ends.  What I gained from talking to Clint (Bowyer) after Atlanta on Monday at the shop was just a tremendous amount of positive enthusiasm over performance.  And, it’s sort of like I was talking about earlier, we didn’t have the speed to go out and lead races early in the season.  We just pushed along and was consistent and steady and our drivers did a great job of putting us in this position and now the speed is there and Clint had it at Bristol and he had it at Atlanta and I think that is what he worries more about than anything.  He’s an extremely smart racer.  An extremely focused guy when it comes to getting in the car, knowing what he needs to get out of it.  And, he now knows that he has the speed to go lead these last 10 races and win a championship.  I just see a lot of positive energy from Clint and I’ve seen some negative energy over the years from him and I like this positive energy I’m feeling now.”

Is it frustrating or ironic that Martin Truex Jr. has a win this season but isn’t locked into the Chase at this point?
“No.  I don’t find it frustrating or ironic.  I think that you look at the level of competition that is competing for that 10th, 11th or 12th spot — it’s just the world we live in.  Those are some great cars and some great teams.  Martin (Truex Jr.) has had a couple of stumbles along the way that put him in the position that he’s in, but he’s also got that huge win for us and NAPA out in Napa (Sonoma Raceway).  I’m confident in his ability to win tomorrow night.  I know you all saw it too, but just love the way he competed Sunday night in Atlanta and that type of focus and determination is why I feel so good about tomorrow night.  Our boys are all in a really good place mentally.  I think that it’s certainly a really impressive accomplishment that Brian Vickers was able to be a part-time driver and grab a win in the Aaron’s Dream Machine up at Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway) and have himself a part of the conversation here at Richmond despite the fact he’s only run a handful of races.  So, pretty good times for MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) and when I think of good times it reminds me of the bad.  I remember coming here in 2007 and we didn’t even have a garage stall.  Our cars were out on pit road because the garage was full and I don’t even know if any of us qualified.  Now we’re here and we’re talking championship, so that’s really fun.”

What did the Chase experience teach your organization last year?
“I just think that Clint’s (Bowyer) experience having raced in the Chase really added to how much our organization learned from what he had done before and how much Martin (Truex Jr.) learned from it and all of our team members.  Just how focused and how precise you have to be in order to beat Jimmie Johnson.  And, we did beat Jimmie Johnson but then one other person was in the way.  So, I think it’s just a matter of concentration and focus and understanding how precious each of those spots are.  And, I think Clint did a good job of talking about his plan, how he was going to race for a championship. Go to Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway), I think was the first race last year and we’ve got to get a top-10 here. We’ve got to race in the top-five.  We’ve got to establish ourselves as one of the teams that is going to race for this championship.  I know that’s easy said, but if you don’t have a plan like that then you don’t have a direction and I think that’s the focus and the direction that we learned from Clint and we use as we enter the Chase in 2014.”

Does the team work harder to limit issues during the Chase?
“You can’t help if something goes wrong.  I mean, that’s just part of life.  If something goes wrong in one of the first 26, they’re probably going to have a pretty good chance to overcome that and be a part of the last 10.  And, when you start the last 10 if something goes wrong you’re probably not going to be the champion.  I think just the intensity level that that group of 12 put forward as they raced to the Chase and throughout the Chase.  Even though you can’t give 110 percent, you can only give 100 — you feel like everybody is right on their game fighting for every inch of ground that they can gather.  Sports teams peak at the right time of the year.  It happens in all sports and I’m just sort of speaking of mentally getting your game peaked at the right time.”

Has there been any progress placing a new crew chief with the No. 55?
“Rodney (Childers) and I are buddies and he has been a tremendous asset at Michael Waltrip Racing, but we are going to have meetings and build cars and put processes into place that we think will help us win a championship in 2014.  When he voiced his — when he said he was going to leave MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing), that is just business.  It’s our information to protect — and we felt like that was a smart way to protect it.  I know he understands.  In this world we live in, we’ve had some very pleasant texts over the last couple weeks about where he is and where we are and how that situation was handled. No one did anything mean, it’s just business.  We’re just looking at all — I’m trying to think of all the clichés of when people don’t want to answer use they use.  We’re taking a look at all of our options and we won’t leave any corner of the garage — no.  No is the answer.  We’re working on it.  We’ll figure it out.”

What does it mean as an owner to have teams in the Chase?
“We made it last year, and I think we came out of left field for most of the public and media, because in 2011, we didn’t finish in the top-15.  Our cars didn’t finish great.  But, when we ended the ’11 season with the addition of Scott Miller (executive vice president of competition) and Clint Bowyer and Mark Martin and all these new cars and processes that we had put in place at MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing), we felt really confident about racing in 2012.  And so, we weren’t surprised that we were that much better because it was all science.  You could look at the aero numbers, you could look at the chassis numbers and we just knew we were going to be better than we were.  That’s when it all happened for me.  Off late in ’11 and ’12 when I started really being proud to be a car owner because we had made a — we had started out miserably, we had raced to mediocrity and we sort of leveled off there.  We made some changes with personnel and some additions and new drivers and it was a special feeling to see everybody’s face at MWR — a lot of those guys had been there with me since we missed races and had to park out in the parking lot.  They have a sense of ownership in what we do, and so that was huge for me.  This year, it has just been a matter of — we have to do it every year, every year has to be this way.  I’m not glowing or proud, I’m just like happy that these folks are getting to enjoy all this success and competitiveness because it wasn’t there and they learned that it’s not expected — if you work hard and you get there, by gosh you better enjoy it because it ain’t going to happen every day.”

How has releasing Mark Martin to race at Stewart-Haas Racing affected your chances at the Owner’s Chase?
“There was a lot of conversations around what to do.  Right off there was some interest from Tony (Stewart) and those guys about Mark (Martin).  We looked at the big picture for MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) and the big picture for us was winning the championship in 2014 with Brian Vickers and in order to accomplish that, we needed to get him in the system and the mile-and-a-half races that he hasn’t been in and sort of understand who we are and how we go about things.  We felt like the balance or trade-off was better for us to put Brian in the car and let Mark go drive Tony’s car.  Mark was an amazing addition to our team and helped us grow and through that 2011 and into ’12 that I talked about.  You know, I said, ‘Do you want to go do it?’  He said, ‘I’d like to help Tony.’  Then we said we’ll figure that out.  Now I think he’s going to help Tony in 2014 with maybe, I read Danica (Patrick) was going to do some testing or however that is going to work out, I’m not sure. But, I know I’m kind of old and if I got something to look forward too that’s really cool and I’m sure Mark is really pumped up that he’s getting to race Tony’s car and he gets to be around next year and have a capacity or a role.  If none of that’s correct, you all wrote it, so I’m just repeating what I read.”