CARL EDWARDS, No. 19 Stanley Tools Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What does the $1 million dollar donation opportunity to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals mean to you?
“I just want to personally thank you guys so much, this is a huge opportunity. Growing up racing Saturday nights at my local track, to be able to come here to Texas and have a shot to win the race and to be able to do something like participate in a million dollars to the Children’s Miracle Network – it’s huge. I want to thank the kids – thank you for inspiring me. Yesterday was neat – more than neat, it was inspiring and gave me a lot of perspective in being there at the hospital and seeing what you guys deal with. Thank you for letting me be a part of this.”
How much is the donation this weekend?
“The $100,000, that’s the Ace Hardware Foundation saying we’re going to contribute to the cause, period. The local Ace Hardware stores, we talked with them yesterday, they rounded up over $35,000 here just in the local area to contribute and then if we were to win the race the foundation will write a check for $1 million to Children’s Miracle Network (CMN). The $1 million actually comes from Stanley given to Ace Hardware Foundation to be given to CMN. The cool part to me, this is a track where I’ve ran very well at, Joe Gibbs has run really well at – Stanley and everyone that put this together they picked a track they think we can win at, so they want this to happen. I think that’s huge – it’s $1 million. That’s unbelievable.”
How would you assess the first six races of the season?
“I’m not really sure. I would have said a couple weeks ago you can really tell where everyone was at, but in our case we ran really well at California as a group – we didn’t because I tore up a good car in practice – but we ran really well as a group and then we went to Martinsville and Denny (Hamlin) got the win and we all ran well. Our program kind of shifted. I think this week will be a test for us on the mile-and-a-halfs. I can’t speak for the whole field, but I think a lot of people are really innovating and I think you’re going to see some shifts and speed and advantage throughout the field. I can’t speak for the whole field, but the simplest way to put it is there’s a lot of people working on a lot of things, but I believe it will look a little differently here in the next few months. I think they’ll be a lot of change.”
How will the added SAFER barrier at Bristol affect the racing?
“I don’t know. When they first did the SAFER barrier, that affected things quite a bit or at least we thought it would. Really the race gets going and everybody finds the line and it wasn’t that big of a factor. I’m not even sure where they added them. So now they just go down the straightaways on the bottom and top? That’s great, so now it will just be narrower. That place is so fast and so narrow already. I don’t think it will make much of a difference. I do applaud them, all the track owners in NASCAR for doing that. Really there should be no place that there isn’t a SAFER barrier if they can afford it and it sounds like that’s what we’re moving to.”
Have you ever had an injury where you’ve had to sit out like Kyle Busch has had to this season?
“No, I’m real fortunate because I’ve had only a few minor injuries, but they’ve never kept me from being in the car. I think Kyle (Busch) is dealing with it, from my perspective, he’s dealing with it really well. I’ve seen him at the shop and he’s just the same guy and he sent a picture to us last night of his RC car that he’s working on and going racing that. I can tell, I think Kyle will be the first to tell you, it’s really eating him up to not be racing. As a competitor of his, I’m worried when he comes back because I think he’s going to be stronger than ever.”
How has the medical issues that J.D. Gibbs is experiencing affected the JGR organization?
“For me, it showed me how tough everyone at JGR is. Coach Gibbs and J.D. (Gibbs), for them to be dealing with something like this and to do it with such strength is such amazing and so, yeah, I think for all of us it’s a moment of perspective and something that can rally us to do the best we can to best represent our team and to give Coach something really positive. I think it was really cool for Denny (Hamlin) to pull off that win that week (at Martinsville).”
What is your impression of the substitute drivers this year?
“They’ve been doing great. David Ragan has been doing a great job. It’s so tough – I can speak from my personal experience just to get into a new car and deal with new people – all that stuff is tough. I think they’ve been doing a great job. It’s amazing how those guys, even like Regan Smith, getting into a car like that and doing so well. It’s difficult. I’ve been impressed with that.”
How different are the various short tracks?
“We talked a little bit about it at the shop, the tracks really are different. Martinsville and Bristol are basically – those are one-of-a-kind race tracks. The brakes and CG and the ability to tune the cars, that all carries over and I had a blast at Martinsville. It was fun. I don’t know if it was all that or the hot dog that Darian (Grubb, crew chief) made me eat, either way it went well and I do look forward to Bristol and the other short tracks, especially as we develop some of these things that Darian and the guys are working on.”
How important is your engine if the horsepower has to be reduced to compete?
“I think overall the engine power goes down, it makes the engine more important because there is more time at wide-open throttle making max power. The folks at TRD (Toyota Racing Development) are amazing. I had the chance to go out there in Costa Mesa (California) and look at everything. They gave me a tour of the facility. It’s unreal, we should be at the top of the game with the power and developing the engine and TRD is working very hard on that. I don’t know how it’s going to develop. I just hope that NASCAR continues to take away downforce to make the cars a little harder to drive and a little more off-throttle time and slide around a little bit. Hopefully they can continue that way.”
DARIAN GRUBB, Crew Chief, No. 19 Stanley Tools Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What does the $ 1 million dollar donation opportunity to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals mean to you?
“I just want to second what Carl (Edwards) said, thanking Ace Hardware and Stanley and the Children’s Miracle Network – these guys here they fight for their life. We’re just going to fight for a race. You have to keep that in perspective and we’re going to go race for a million bucks. That’s a little bit of an extra incentive for us to go out there – it’s more than just a trophy. It’s something we can do to really help out this entire organization and program.”
What type of planning and preparation has Joe Gibbs Racing been doing?
“We have a lot of development going on within Joe Gibbs Racing ourselves. Everybody is in the same boat where now we’ve ran a few races. We have two mile-and-a-halfs under our belt and we know what we think we have learned, so we’re going to apply a lot of those lessons and carry them into the future races.”
How has the medical issues that J.D. Gibbs is experiencing affected the Joe Gibbs Racing organization?
“It is just a testament to how strong of a person J.D. (Gibbs, JGR president) is and how big a part of the organization he is. Everybody is going to keep pulling together on their weight to push harder and harder to get wins and get Joe Gibbs Racing to where it should be.”
How is the Joe Gibbs Racing intermediate racing program and horsepower?
“The horsepower comparisons are really close. TRD (Toyota Racing Development) has done a great job developing that program for us and making great strides from the middle of last season on. I feel like we’re right there in contention. We definitely had a little bit of speed and searched for it. I think at California and the other tracks, we showed some of that speed. We just didn’t get the finishes the 19 team itself wanted to have. We’re going to go out there and hopefully today the conditions will be quite a bit different at Texas than what they are at other tracks. It’s going to be fun to see what we have stacked up to those other guys.”
