ELLIOTT SADLER, No. 11 OneMain Financial Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How special is this race track to you?
“Richmond is always special to me — this is home for me. It was neat waking up this morning in my own bed and cooking breakfast with the family in our own house and just getting in the car and driving over here. We come over here all the time anyway whether it’s shopping or eating or anything going on. It’s just like a normal trip for us to be able to come here to the race track. It’s a neat place to race, it’s a cool race track — I’m very proud of it that it is my home track and so close to home. I want to do good tomorrow night. We have a lot of family and friends coming tomorrow night to watch the race. We want to give them something to cheer about.”
What would it mean to win at Richmond?
“I’ve said this for a long time, I would rather win here than the Daytona 500. I think coming here as a kid so many years in a row to watch the Cup cars run here and the Busch cars run here and things like that — come here as a kid and then being able to race here later is pretty special to me. Would love to win here — been close a couple times. We had a great car here in the spring and got wrecked running third and had to come back there at the end. We feel we’ve got a good package for here and we feel like we’re going to run pretty good here. Hopefully, we’ll be in position to take advantage of it. I’m not going to lie, a win here would be very, very special. This hasn’t been my best track in the world until the last couple years. I learned some stuff when I was able to drive for Kevin Harvick and he taught me a lot of things about this place and I feel like since then we run a lot better here. We have high hopes for this weekend and sure, you want to win all the races, but if you get to win here at home and know your family and friends are here to kind of see it and support you, it makes it pretty special. I think if you ask any driver if they could win at their home track or the closest NASCAR track to their hometown, they’re going to be extra pumped for that particular weekend and the chance to be able to do that.”
Are you satisfied with the consistency this season?
“We’re definitely not satisfied. We honestly, as long as I’ve been racing, have had the worst luck this year than I ever can remember having. I know you make your own luck and it’s racing luck, but running third at Bristol and getting taken out by a car that’s 20 laps down or running second at Michigan and a honey bun wrapper gets on the front of it and a flat tire at Road America running third with six laps to go. The last month has been crazy stuff that just keeps pinning us behind the eight ball. We’ve been consistent, we would like to be a little bit faster on some of the mile-and-a-halves that we go to, but we want to get some breaks to go our way. Here we are fourth in points and we’re a long ways behind the leader right now. I think he has to have of my luck the next couple weeks for us to catch up to him. At the end of the day, we have to go ahead and do our job and run our race and not really worry about what anybody else is doing. We need to stay consistent, but we need to take advantage of any kind of situations we can, especially on the mile-and-a-halves and stuff coming up. We’ll see how that starts tomorrow night here at Richmond.”
Do you expect the tires to adapt better than in the spring race?
“The first thing we did is that Goodyear has brought back a different tire. They have brought back a different compound. We have some notes on it and we have run it at this style of race track before. Our cars will handle a little bit differently than they did here in the spring. It’s a lot hotter now than what it was here in the spring so the track is going to be a little slicker and probably a little slower, which should not grind the tires up as much. Goodyear probably has taken care of that situation all on their own. Now it’s just our job as a team to adapt to this new tire configuration. We’ve got notes on it and hopefully we’re close, but we’re just going to have to fine tune the car a little bit on this new style of Goodyear tire. We knew that with the problems they had here in the spring that they were going to make adjustments before we came back and they did that. You want to put on a good show for the fans and not have to worry about any type of right-front tire damage.”
What does this track mean to the local area?
“In my opinion, when Richmond went to two night races to me was like a huge jump in publicity and what was great for this city and this town and southern Virginia. Now with it being such a critical part of the Chase format — being the last race every year, it’s just a win-win situation for everybody here in the city and everybody at RIR. Dennis (Bickmeier, track president) and his staff do a great job promoting this race and do a lot of stuff within the city and surrounding counties to promote this race the best way they can. For us to race here, it’s such a neat track. There’s a little bit of speedway and a little bit of short track. There’s no other track on the circuit like it, the only three-quarter mile track that we race and when you throw in the way that the Chase is made here — it’s a big weekend for Richmond. What’s cool about it is that every time I look at people who tweet out the TV ratings each week, Richmond is always in the top-five and Norfolk (Va.) is in there, Greensboro (N.C.) and places like that. It shows the support that you have for racing in this area and I think they come in here and support this race track especially on such a big weekend.”
What does the new Xfinity sponsorship mean for this series?
“It is so huge for Xfinity to come on with such a long term deal for our sport because we have so many great sponsors in our sport like OneMain Financial, my sponsor who has been here 11 years. Six months ago the question kept coming up, ‘Man, what are we going to do, we know Nationwide is leaving and playing a different role in our sport starting next year. What’s NASCAR going to do? Is the series going to be around? Who’s going to be the sponsor?’ Yesterday with that announcement, I think it’s not only great for NASCAR and it’s great for Xfinity to come on board, but it’s huge for the teams, the owners that support the Nationwide Series, for the sponsors that support the Nationwide Series — that means that this is going to be here a long time and it’s going to protect the sponsors that have made such a big investment in our sport. Then I saw yesterday the first thing people wanted to do was change stuff about the Nationwide Series and if they do that, fine, but honestly in my opinion they need to keep the Chase just to the Sprint Cup Series. They need to keep Eldora just to the Truck Series. I think each division should have their own unique twist to it. Whatever it may be for the Xfinity Series, I’m fine with. The Chase to me should be something for the Sprint — their company, their employees, their involvement and keep that on Sundays. That’s just my opinion. I think you water stuff down if you try to make it widespread throughout the whole circuit between all three divisions. That’s my opinion on it.”
Do you have anything special planned for October with breast cancer awareness?
“We always do stuff on ElliottSadler.org where we are always donating something pink. We’re always auctioning stuff off to people that’s pink to raise money for Susan G. Komen Foundation. Of course we’ll have a set of pink shoes by then ready to go for next month. There’s no secret that breast cancer is very close to my family and especially the awareness of it to see what my Mom has been through and a lot of close family friends. There’s not a better feeling in the world than fans coming up to you on a specific weekend thanking you for what you do for different types of involvement that you’re in as far as charity is concerned and awareness that is concerned. There are a lot of women and husbands and sons and brothers that come up to me and my brother and thank us for our help with the awareness of breast cancer. I have an amazing sponsor who always gives up their paint scheme each year at Charlotte just like a lot of sponsors do. It’s so neat to see so many pink cars when we show up at Charlotte. We always go try to paint the start-finish line pink at Charlotte and share that special time. That is my Mom’s favorite car that I’ve ever raced in my entire life. I’ve been racing 31 years now counting go-karts and her favorite paint scheme is that pink one. We’ll have that again at Charlotte as well as some other stuff going along with that and it makes me proud to be able to do that and try to give back. It’s a special month for us because we’re still able to share that with our Mom who is still here with us.”
Are you enjoying this stage of your career and what are your thoughts on Chase Elliott?
“I’m definitely enjoying it. I’m a kid living a dream. How many people get to be a fan of a sport their whole life growing up and actually get to compete in it later in life. Very thankful, very lucky, very fortunate to be in a position I’m in where I can still compete on a weekly basis and still sit on poles and still win races and still running up front in a sport that you love. I’m still having a ball. Chase (Elliott) has been remarkable — he’s been fast everywhere he’s been and those guys have done a good job giving him good equipment. He’s been very impressive. He’s going to be tough to handle and he’s going to be a good one for the future. He’s definitely come in — his learning curve has been short. He reminds me a lot of his dad because I got to race against his dad some when I first started. He takes care of equipment, he doesn’t abuse his equipment. He’s always around at the finish. Sometimes I wonder if Bill (Elliott) hasn’t slipped in there and he’s driving a little bit. Chase is definitely wise amongst his years and he’s going to be a tough competitor for a long, long time in this sport.”
What do you remember from the first race at Richmond?
“The first time I came here was 1995 and there were 76 Busch cars here to make the race — 76 cars. It used to be like that all the time. We were on a flat bed trailer and I actually was parked between Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt — everybody raced the Busch Series back then. We made the race and Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip actually missed that race. That was like the coolest thing in the world for me that we out-qualified a lot of big names at that time and were part of that first race. I qualified like 29th and finished like 22nd, but thought that was the coolest thing in the world to out-qualify some of the guys we did. A lot of big names went home that night. Back then there used to be so many drivers, especially local short track drivers that showed up to try to qualify for this race here at Richmond. If I could add a race track to the Xfinity schedule — I would go back to Martinsville because back in the day the Busch cars put on a heck of a show at that race track. I remember being a crew member and a fan there when it used to be the Late Models, modifieds and the Busch cars all in one day there. They were all these different names and to me it was some of the best racing all across the board that a fan could ask for. I would like to see that again at some of our local tracks like we used to have years ago.”
