ELLIOTT SADLER, No. 11 OneMain Financial Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What does it mean to drive a pink race car this weekend?
“It’s October, it’s breast cancer awareness month and as a family that has been dealing with breast cancer awareness for the last seven years, I can’t thank all the teams, the owners, the sponsors, the race track and everybody for what they do. I think it means a lot to a lot of the people that area affected by breast cancer and also their families that are affected by it. I know it means a lot to my family, especially my Mom. It’s by far her favorite race of the season. It’s by far her favorite race car I’ve ever driven — the pink car. It’s emotional, but it’s very special to be able to drive a pink car. I still remember the day that Steve Byrnes’ wife Karen Byrnes brought the people over from the Susan G. Komen Foundation when my Mom found out that she was going to start chemo. It was here at Charlotte on my bus and they answered a lot of questions. Kind of got my Mom’s mind right for the road that she was getting ready to go down and it’s neat that we’re able to run a pink car here at Charlotte. It just really ties it all together for me and my family.”
Is your Mom at the track this weekend?
“My Mom might be coming. She is going to make that decision tomorrow. My Dad has been a little tired lately and I don’t know if they are able to make the trip down. We’ll see. They’re going to see how they feel in the morning when they get up and hopefully they will come down. It’s by far her favorite race so I want her to be here. My brother Hermie is staying at home right now to see if they feel like coming and if they do then he will bring them down tomorrow for this race.”
How strong is the car for this weekend?
“We feel pretty good. We had a good car last week until we ran out of gas and I think that hurt our chances at Kansas. We’re bringing the same stuff here this weekend and Charlotte is not just like Kansas, but it’s pretty close to the same concept of setup and stuff that you run. We always have pretty high hopes here at Charlotte.”
How much pride do you take in the visibility you bring to breast cancer awareness?
“It means a lot to me to be honest with you. NASCAR sets us up on such a huge platform that we can reach so many different people. Anytime that you can raise any kind of awareness on this platform feels good to me. I’ve seen it happen firsthand. I’ve seen how it affected my Mom to get her ready for her challenge and the road she was going down. That really made me want to give all the extra effort I can to create some type of breast cancer awareness — not only here in Charlotte, but anywhere that we visit. That’s why I choose to wear pink shoes every single race — it gets a little bit of attention here and there and that’s all we ask for is just a little bit. A lady sent me a tweet the other night, she was doing a speech in Wisconsin about sports and how they use their platforms for charities. When she brought up breast cancer, a lady raised her hand in Wisconsin and said, ‘Hey, Elliott Sadler does a lot for breast cancer awareness through racing.’ That was way up in Wisconsin. To know that we’re reaching somebody like that means everything to me. It’s neat that we’re able to sit up here and talk about it and create it and you guys (media) do a good job getting it out as well. It works good, but to see all the pink cars this weekend and the walls and everything that Charlotte Motor Speedway and all the teams is pretty special.”
Are there any changes with your team for 2015?
“I think everything is fine as far as moving ahead. I know there’s a lot of stuff going on with the Cup side, but that doesn’t affect anything that we have going on with the Nationwide side. They haven’t let us know of any changes that are going on with our side really. They do a really good job of keeping those two things separate.”
What was the turning point in your career?
“Honestly, I’ve felt like I’ve had two careers. I had the beginning part of my career when I drove the 21 for the Wood Brothers and the 38 for Robert Yates and then when Robert was kind of getting out of racing and was going to kind of sell his stuff to Roush and Dale Jarrett was going to Michael Waltrip Racing and I kind of moved to the 19 — was tough part of my career. Honestly I felt like my career started over again when Kevin Harvick and Delana Harvick gave me an opportunity to drive their truck. We went to Pocono and sat on the pole and I won that race and then that prompted him into giving me some more opportunities in his truck and his Nationwide cars and I felt like I was almost reborn and ever since then we’ve been very competitive in the Nationwide Series. I don’t know any other Nationwide regular that has as many wins or as many poles as I do in the last three or four years — that’s something to be proud of. I feel like I kind of got a second chance and I owe it all really to Kevin Harvick for giving me that chance and we’re trying to make the most of it. I feel like I’ve had two separate careers to be honest with you.”
Are you surprised to make it to 40 along with Dale Earnhardt Jr.?
“We were 20 and there was no way in hell we could make it to 40 back when we used to be pretty tight back in the day. I think it’s neat to see — I read stuff all the time and look at what people say about age in our sport. We always have young guys coming up, which we do have a lot of young guns coming up. We’ve got a lot of guys that are around the age of 40 that are still in my opinion, right damn fast. Matt Kenseth in great, Jimmie Johnson — how many championships has he won here lately. Tony Stewart is always fast, Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. is having a resurgence of a year, Kevin Harvick is sitting the world on fire with the most poles this year — you have a good group of guys. I think now there’s more knowledge of how to take care of ourselves, how to stay in shape mentally and physically than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I think you see a lot of guys now that are 40 and are still going to be around racing for a pretty long time to be honest with you. Everybody seems to be showing a lot of speed at a lot of different race tracks and that’s usually a pretty good tell tale sign that everything is still going in the right direction. Some mornings you’re a little more sore than when you were when you were 20.”
Where can fans get involved with your foundation?
“We go to SadlerFoundation.org is where people can see this stuff. We have monthly auctions all the time that fans can get involved with. We offer stuff that you cannot buy. Whether it’s some type of pit passes, team involvement, pit crew stuff, suits, shoes, gloves — we always try to do some off the mark that you can’t go to a store and buy. You go to ElliottSadler.com or SadlerFoundation.org, call our fan club. We try to have as many outlets as we can just like any other driver does. At the end of the day, it’s all for a great cause and it’s neat to see people when you can affect them in a positive way like that.”
Where does Charlotte rank on importance for you to win?
“Very high because it’s everybody’s backyard. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s pretty special to me to hold a track record here for 10 years or however long it was — eight or nine years that I had it. This is everybody’s backyard and everybody brings their best stuff here. When we were able to hold the track record here and sit on the pole and lead some laps, it feels good. I would love to win at this race track. I would like to win this race a lot because of everything that’s wrapped around breast cancer awareness for this particular race. Charlotte is definitely high on everybody’s list.”
