Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Charlotte Media Tour
Tuesday, January 23, 2017
LANDON CASSILL – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – IT’S BEEN A LONG JOURNEY TO CUP. WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACED? “Probably discipline, learning how to be a real professional race car driver. That’s the biggest challenge. When we spoke, I was probably 15 or 16 and I was in high school, so I had high school responsibilities. Working on my race car was something fun to do. I used to get up before school to work on my car and then I’d go to school, and then I’d go to the shop after school and I would work on my race car until 11 or 12 o’clock at night, or whatever, as long as I wanted. But when I became a professional race car driver and then even as kind of as life has gone on the last couple years I’ve got a family, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got kids. You kind of have to turn that passion and hobby into a job has been a challenge, and prioritizing what it takes for me to be a successful race car driver and then implementing that into a real-life schedule and then balancing my career with my family life. That’s been my biggest challenge.”
HOW DO THE POINT CHANGES AFFECT YOU? WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES YOU SEE? “I think you still have to be determined. To me, that’s the beauty in it. I think this is a big change. I think that the way our crew chiefs and race engineers strategize a 500-mile race is gonna change as we know it, and I think you’re gonna see the field flip multiple times in these races over the course of the year. I would be willing to bet that our first impression of this new format in Daytona you’re gonna see a huge group of cars taking a risk and pitting on their own on lap 43, and getting off-sequence. And I think you’re gonna see the field off-sequence a lot this season, and it’s gonna be really interesting. I think you’re gonna see teams like myself, where we’re constantly trying to fight our way inside that top 20, I think you’re gonna see us caught in the middle of some of that action over the course of the year. The teams that have to fight, we’re always gonna have to fight. We’re not magically gonna be top 10 teams. We have to work to get there. We have to work very hard to get to the top 10, but I think you’re gonna see us in the crossfire of this strategy a lot.”
HOW HARD IS IT TO MAINTAIN CONFIDENCE WHEN YOU’RE NOT RUNNING UP FRONT? “I feel like, for me, I try not to let that become what drives my daily or weekly mood or confidence level. For me, what I try to allow that dictates my confidence level is my plan and my agenda and my schedule and my goals and knowing that I’m doing everything I can to be the best professional race car driver I can be for my car owner, who hired me to do this job, my sponsors who essentially hired me to do this job, and my family who is relying on me to provide for them. I wake up every morning and have to think about exactly what it is I’m doing and if it’s contributing to my goal of being the best race car driver. I think as long as I stick to that on a day-in and day-out basis, I’ve found that produces the best result of having a consistent high confidence level regardless of how the car is running or how the team is performing or just sheer luck of what’s going on at the race track.”
YOU HAVE A GOOD TEAMMATE ON RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS THIS YEAR. DO YOU GO TO DAYTONA WITH BUTTERFLIES KNOWING YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN OR RUN UP FRONT? “Absolutely, especially with David. Man, I’m so excited to race with David, I can’t even tell you, at superspeedways. He knows how to push. He knows where to be. I’m excited about my spotter this year. He spotted for Biffle last year and I think we’re gonna be a good team. My car is gonna be bright and yellow at Daytona and it’s gonna look good, and hopefully I can see you guys for breakfast the day after. I’m gonna tweet that today because yesterday it was 34 days until Daytona, so I’m gonna tweet that it’s 34 days until I see you for breakfast. How about that? (laughter)”
YOU HAD 15 TOP 25 FINISHES LAST SEASON. WHAT CAN WE EXPECT THIS YEAR? “Hopefully, and this might sound super-modest, but it will take hard work. Hopefully, it’s 15 top-20 finishes. If those 15 top 25s can turn into 15 top-20 finishes, then a few of those are gonna be top 10s. Hopefully, we can have some stage top 10s as well, and I think it will be interesting to be an outlier in this new format, where our points position is higher than maybe our average finish – where we can kind of leapfrog some guys because we use strategy midway through these races to collect six or eight or 10 points at a time.”
YOU’VE RACED SINCE YOU WERE THREE. WHAT OTHER DREAMS HAVE YOU MADE COME TRUE FOR YOURSELF? “I’ve got a beautiful family. I’m a homeowner, that’s cool. I’m still racing for a living and I’m really proud that I get to do that and I’m proud that I get to be here, and, honestly, I’m excited for the rest of my career and then whatever my second career may be, whether it’s selling used cars with my dad or playing a role in the NASCAR industry somehow. I feel like being a NASCAR driver is stage one of my life.”
YOU’RE ENTERING YOUR EIGHTH SEASON IN CUP. DO YOU FEEL LIKE AN EIGHT-YEAR VETERAN OF THIS SERIES? “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been around awhile. I’ve been driving Cup cars for a long time. My first job in NASCAR was with Hendrick Motorsports and they didn’t put me in an ARCA car, I didn’t drive a K&N car, I didn’t drive anything like that. I drove a Cup car at Greenville-Pickens. It was Jeff Gordon’s first COT car, so I drove one of his COT cars before he ever drove one out of the 24 shop. That was my job the first couple of years down here in North Carolina when I moved from Iowa, so I’ve been driving these cars for a long time and to kind of put that eight years in perspective in the Cup Series, my first couple years I was start and parking. I didn’t run a lot of races. I was trying to qualify into races. I didn’t really have a deal. You couldn’t even say that I was signed to a team because I was picking up jobs, so I still feel pretty young in my career I would say even though I’ve been around for a while. I feel like that’s a tremendous asset and that’s one thing I think is very unique in my situation is that I’ve got a lot of experience and I’m just kind of cresting that edge of, ‘OK, we’re gonna figure out how to win races,’ because for the first few years of my Cup career it wasn’t really how are we gonna win races, it was how am I gonna get myself onto the race track and who am I gonna be doing it with.”
COLE CUSTER – No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang – WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTATIONS THIS YEAR? “I’m running the XFINITY Series this year and I think it’s definitely gonna be different. Coming from the Truck Series there are a lot of Cup guys that you’re racing against and it’s just a new competition level. You’re gonna have to step up a little bit and it’s gonna be a little bit of a different challenge, but I think we can do it and we have a great team.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS NEW FORMAT AND HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOUR RACING? “We’ll see. I think we’re still kind of trying to figure out if it’s gonna affect your strategy or not, but you’re definitely gonna be trying to race hard for those bonus points. I think that’s gonna be interesting. There is gonna be a lot more to talk about during the race and I think it’s gonna be a good thing for the sport.”
WHAT ARE SOME OBSTACLES OR STRUGGLES YOUR TEAM HAS FACED IN STARTING AN XFINITY TEAM FROM SCRATCH? AND WHAT KIND OF ADVICE HAVE YOU GOTTEN FROM TONY STEWART? “It’s definitely been tough. Our guys are working extremely hard getting cars together, and I can’t even stress that enough how hard they’re working. It’s definitely tough. You’re creating a fab shop and you’ve never really hung XFINITY bodies before, so you’re learning how to do that and you’re figuring out everything that goes with it. It’s not easy, but we have some awesome people that I think are really smart and can get it together, so we’re gonna have a strong team. I have some great teammates that have given me a lot of advice going into this season. I’m trying to get as much information I can from Harvick going into these different XFINITY races because he’s obviously one of the best in the XFINITY Series. I just can’t wait for this season to start.”
HOW WAS YOUR BIRTHDAY? “It was pretty good. I definitely had some stuff going on, but it was a good time and got some dinner at the end of the day. It was pretty relaxed, but nothing too big happened.”
CAN YOU COME OUT AND BE CHAMPIONSHIP MATERIAL RIGHT OFF THE BAT? “I think so. We have some great people that are smart enough and capable enough at doing it. I think at the start of the year I might start my expectations a little bit lower like maybe trying to be in the top 10 by just being solidly in there at the start of the year, but I think from what I’ve seen over the off-season, we have some awesome people that are gonna make some fast cars. I’m looking forward to it and I think we’ll have a shot at it.”
HOW MUCH TIME HAVE YOU SPENT WITH CREW CHIEF JEFF MEENDERING AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU CAN PULL IN FROM HIM? “I usually see him once a day. I try to stay around the shop a little bit and try to go in there every day, but he’s one of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met and it seems like he’s got his act together and is really smart. I think we’re gonna be a great team and I think we’ll have a good season coming up.”
HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN FROM THE HANDFUL OF XFINITY STARTS YOU MADE LAST YEAR? “It’s definitely tough, racing against Cup guys and racing against some of the guys that have been doing it for a few years now. It’s definitely something that’s hard to get used to and you have some longer races. It’s a different speed of a race and it’s interesting though because you’re learning every day.”
WHICH VOICE DO YOU SEEM TO LISTEN TO THE MOST? “I would say I’ve tried to just get most of my advice from Kevin Harvick. I feel like I’ve related to him more since he runs a lot of the Truck races and XFINITY races, so he can really help me a lot with that. It seems like he’s my go-to guy I would say right now, but there are a lot of great drivers at Stewart-Haas. If I can just get a little bit of information from any of them I think it would be a great thing.”
ANY ADVANTAGES OR DISADVANTAGES MOVING TO FORD? “No. Everything I’ve seen with Ford has been awesome. They have some really great resources at their Ford Performance Center. They have some great people and I think it’s gonna help us a lot. You’ve got thank GM for everything they did for Stewart-Haas. They had been with them forever, but I think this change is gonna be a good step for Stewart-Haas.”
WHAT MAKES SUCCESS FOR YOU THIS YEAR? “I definitely want to make the playoffs. I think that’s one of our goals starting out, and then hopefully we’ll take it one step at a time. Hopefully, we can advance through it, and then we’ll see what happens from there.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM MONSTER AS THE SERIES SPONSOR? “No pun intended, the energy level that they have is incredible. It’s really a small company and they really run a tight ship with their different departments, whether it’s the activation and the marketing field or the videography, then you can get into the stunt driving or the athletes and the different forms of motorsport that they’re in. They do a great job with the team that they have and it’s about making impressions. One of the fun things I got to do this off-season was to drive a NASCAR car down an open highway in California at 180 miles an hour through the sand dunes region while they’re taping dirt bikes jumping over and Monster Trucks and buggies and snowmobiles in the sand. You name it, they’ll create it. They have a lot of fun with what they do and that’s what they’re always doing is looking for the next fun thing and that’s what they believe NASCAR will bring to them and they will bring it to NASCAR. It’s the energy, the excitement, the fun, the entertainment side of it and it’s about making impressions for this beautiful claw that they designed years ago and now it’s become an icon itself, where it’s as infamous to the youth as a Nike swoosh that’s on your shoe. It’s really a fun brand to work for. I’ve been with them the last six years. They’ve put me in rally cars in Italy, they’ve put me in dune buggies in the sand, they’ve had me on a Moto GP bike, stationary though. I didn’t drive it. My dad said I’d live a longer life on four tires instead of two. The group though, you just never know what’s coming up next. It’s been great to work with them in the TV booth at X Games, even going to Supercross and dropping the gate with those guys. The phone rings and you’re just waiting for the excitement on the other end of the line, so I can’t wait to see what we can pull together for NASCAR and how we can continue to build their brand and the brand of NASCAR.”
YOU’RE THE LAST FORD CUP CHAMPION. HOW SPECIAL WOULD IT BE TO WIN IT AGAIN THIS YEAR? “It is a special homecoming feeling to head back to work with Ford and to have them with our power and our bodies at Stewart-Haas Racing. It really feels neat to come back to a place where I’ve seen the faces before and the way that the structure has been polished up on and the way that there’s more depth with Ford Performance. Edsel has done an incredible job over the last decade to continue to improve. Guys like Raj Nair, Dave Pericak, the whole gang is ready and willing to help in all areas and directions and the best thing that I’ve seen already come out of things is that the engineering staff at Stewart-Haas. It’s like they just opened up a whole new book of things to look at and to advance our program further from where we were with GM.”
HOW DID THE RACE OF CHAMPIONS EXPERIENCE MEASURE UP TO OTHER CARS YOU’VE RACED? “The Race of Champions is very unique and it’s a lot of fun. It reminds me of when the top 16 drivers in our playoffs get locked in and we go do media appearances together, or we’re doing a dinner or a function. It’s a chaotic, frat house feel and to race against the Europeans, the South Americans, it truly was a unique challenge and all the different vehicles that the Race of Champions puts you in and how it’s structured and how it all works, but it’s the fun, it’s the other side of it too. At night everybody is up until 2 a.m. having a good time and you go back to the track the next afternoon, shake off the cobwebs and then you’re out there competing against the world’s best. After my first race Sunday, I got beat by Hinchcliffe by only a fraction of a second and I was feeling a little down. And I said, ‘I think I’ve got the wrong mentality. I just need to go like this is a green-white-checker every time I go out there. Just grab gears, hard on the brake, hard on the gas, just attack the track and go for it.’ And then I started winning. I was able to get on the other side of the second bracket that I needed to get in and then Kyle was winning as well. He was beating guys like Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, and the next thing you know we advanced as the NASCAR group as brothers and represented the USA in the finals against Vettel. That was an incredible feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an amazing atmosphere to race in and it had that European feel though, and hopefully it will catch on here. The Race of Champions has been going on for 27 years, but this was the first time on U.S. soil. Hopefully, it will catch on and get some stronger legs for next year.”
YOU CAN’T TEST LIKE YOU USED TO IN JANUARY, SO HOW DO YOU AS A DRIVER ADJUST TO A CHANGE LIKE YOU’RE MAKING THIS SEASON? “It’s because the teams have more depth. There is more simulation. The engineering staff has gone through things at a much higher level, whereas it used to be the driver and the crew chief that would go to the track and then come back with a notebook of things. Now the notebook has been gone through by the lead engineers and they’ve prepared it as best as possible before we show up. Limited track time saves money, but at the same time you end up spending it on personnel and hiring the key guys to make the cars safer, faster, stronger and I know we’ve done a great job to transition with Ford because I’ve seen some of the drawings and the way that Doug Yates has the engine set up. We had to change a few of our suspension settings to adapt to the way he had his engine set up, so there might be a couple bugs here or there, but I’m not too worried about it. We’ve got really good, quality people at Stewart-Haas with Yates engines.”
STEVEN TYLER PLAYED AT YOUR WEDDING. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? “It was epic. I’m still on that cloud enjoying that with my wife, Ashley. We wanted it as a surprise for everybody, so we had a curtain in front of the stage area and when the curtain dropped everybody like, ‘Wow, that’s a awesome tribute band. They look great. No, no, he’s starting to sound like Steven Tyler.’ About halfway through the first song people just rushed the stage and it turned into a full-on rock concert. It was a great feeling and it all came together through some of my connections with Monster Energy. Tailgating one night after a race in Talladega on a Sunday night you meet this person, you meet that person, you make a phone call on Monday and the next thing you know Steven Tyler says, ‘Yeah, I like NASCAR. Yeah, I like the Busch brothers. I’ll come out and do it.’”
WHAT THOUGHTS DID YOU HAVE AS A YOUNG DRIVER PREPARING FOR YOUR FIRST CUP SEASON? “It was an extreme case of butterflies in the stomach and nerves that are hard to explain on just being nervous and overwhelmed and out of your element, so to speak. You try to lean back on the previous racing that you’ve done and remember those rookie moments with the other divisions that you would have raced in, and there’s nothing like going to Daytona as a rookie and starting out with the Super Bowl or the biggest race possible first. Guys that I was leaning on were my teammates at Roush Racing then and that was Mark Martin, a true champion that just got inducted into the Hall of Fame, and Jeff Burton was a veteran driver on that team. Those are the guys you go up and ask questions. Even though your questions are very juvenile, you try to lean up against those guys to calm your nerves a little bit.”
ANY FUNNY MOMENTS FROM THE RACE OF CHAMPIONS? “For some reason everybody was forgetting what gear to put their car in when they were leaving the staging area on Sunday. Scott Speed literally drove through Castroneves in the staging area and wrecked two cars. My little brother thought he was in first gear, he was in fast reverse and he backed into another car. I was like, ‘Guys, why are we all so nervous as the American team?’ And then there are guys like David Coulthard, who I think they are machines because they shouldn’t be allowed to race that fast and party that hard in the same 24 hours (laughter). Those Europeans know how to do a lot of good things in race cars, but they’re pretty good at staying up late as well. Petter Solberg, a legendary rally racer, he’s a Monster athlete, him and I hit it off really well and it’s just great to share stories, have fun and then go out there and represent your country. Again, you’re goofing off the whole time, but you’re absolutely serious and you want to beat the other guy as soon as you put your helmet on.”
DANICA PATRICK – No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AND EXPECATIONS FOR 2017 TO FINISH IN THE TOP 10, TOP 15 IN POINTS? “Those are my goals. The goal is to do better all the time and hopefully some of the things that have changed within in our team, the big one being the changeover to Ford, will open up some opportunities and possibilities and just some pure potential for the team and we can improve. Hopefully, there is more room to improve now, so that’s kind of exciting to me. I’m optimistic and hopefully it will be something that makes a difference. I think if you’re in the top 15 every weekend, then you do a little bit better and then you’re in the top 10 and then once you’re in the top 10 with good pit stops, good strategy and all the things that play into it – some of the new formats for the races can play into segment wins – so I think it’s important to be realistic, so to tell you to go out and win races and segments is not something I necessarily think is going to happen right away, but we’ll assess. We’ll assess how strong we are as a team. A few years back we were really strong and I felt like that’s where I was running by the end of the year was up in the top 15 and getting into the top 10, so hopefully we can get back to that and work from there.”
HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENT TO PREPARE FOR 2017? “I don’t think there’s a whole lot to do different for me exactly. I’ve been more proactive with what it’s gonna take to do better, so sitting down with Billy, I didn’t feel like we really ended up where we wanted to be last year. We felt like we would be better, so I asked the question, ‘What are we gonna do different because if we’re gonna do the same thing, we can only expect the same results. So what can we change that’s going to change that?’ I say all the time that if you want something you’ve never had before, you’re gonna have to do something you’ve never done. So what is that? What is that that we can do? So Billy and I sat down and thought about those things and we thought about some ideas as to what would help. Some of it is an ‘I don’t know what we could do different or better here,’ but I think ultimately the most important thing overall is that everybody shows up to work not to work, but to work great and be great. There’s a big difference when you put 20-odd people or whatever working on a car that all want to be great and exceed expectations and do whatever it takes to meet their potential versus showing up and that goes for me, Billy, every single person on the team. What can we do different? There are some answers and there are some that you don’t have answers for because if you knew the exact answer to be better, you would have done it already.”
THE PROGRAM, THE BOOK, THE EXERCISE LINE – ALL YOU HAVE GOING ON – I KNOW YOU HAVE A LOT OF HOBBIES AND YOUR BRAND IS VERY STRONG. IS IT WRONG THOUGH IF WE’RE TO PRESUME YOU’RE BUILDING SOMETHING FOR POST-RACING? “Yeah, you’re wrong in thinking that’s the purpose. The things that I have done outside of racing that all really are happening because of racing are really just hobbies and I’ve wanted a clothing line for 10 years. I felt like 10 years ago it seemed like everybody was doing it and I was like, ‘Gosh, everybody is doing it, but I really have a passion for this, so, hey, you know what, I’m in no rush. Let’s make sure it’s the right opportunity when it comes along.’ So, actually, how it ended up happening was I went to this company, G3, to figure out how I could do something within the merchandising world to make some money on t-shirt sales at the race track, and how could that look and how could I partner with somebody to create that for myself because G3 manufactured the touch products for Alyssa Milano. That’s the kind of lead-in that we got and the conversations with them and all the very important people at that company just kind of took on a life of its own and they – even more than I already knew even at that meeting or going away from it – so what comes easy is when you do things on a daily basis. The book with recipes, I mean I cook like crazy. I cook all the time. Anybody that follows me knows that I do that, and I always have, so a lot of this stuff is really just easy and second nature. It’s more about putting pen to paper on what exactly I am doing, whether it be a workout or a recipe or what kind of styles I like, and sending those pictures to the designers. That’s more what it’s about, just following through on what do I do with these ideas and things that I do and making some of my hobbies turn into something bigger. I wanted the right opportunity, to answer your question, so if it happened last year it would have been great. If it happened next year or if it happened some day when I’m done racing, that would be fine too. It’s more about I feel like with a lot of these things that I have one shot at it and it’s about being with the right people, so I just came to a situation where I felt like I was with the right people.”
IS IT FRUSTRATING OR ENCOURAGING TO SEE YOUR TEAMMATES WIN RACES AND BE CONSISTENTLY COMPETITIVE? “It’s a great thing when your teammates are fast because you know that there is potential, it’s just figuring out how you get there. That’s the question that needs an answer and figuring it out is the challenge. NASCAR is very hard and there’s definitely a great amount of experience around me, and there are some substitutes for that, but not commonly. So the more experience I get, the better I’ll be at being prepared to do well, but beyond that then I have resources, which is always a positive.”
DO YOU THINK THE POINTS CHANGE WILL BE BENEFICIAL? “I think that the new structure for the races is cool. I think that winning is something that for a fan it’s easy to understand and for a really casual fan it’s even easier to understand. I think that having a lot more winners every week and throughout the year is a cool thing, but what I have said is I feel like this is definitely gonna be a big chore for the crew chiefs. If I were them, I would already be nervous or trying to think of scenarios. I’d probably be waking up or going to bed thinking, ‘If this happened and then we were running here, but we were fast…’ You’re running through all these scenarios in your head with ‘what would you do.’ I feel like it’s gonna be challenging because as far as a driver goes, I do try and drive the fastest laps I can every single lap. I’m doing my best unless there’s a reason to slow down like fuel or tires are going off or something like that, or you want to maintain your tire life – something like that. So I think it’s gonna be exciting as long as the information of the format can be translated to the fan or average fan in a simple, understandable way, I think it will be cool.”
