Toyota Racing – Matt Tifft
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Playoff Media Day – Sept. 19, 2017
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Matt Tifft was made available to the media during NASCAR’s NXS Playoff Media Day:
Matt Tifft, No. 19 VisitMyrtleBeach.com / Ron Jon Shop / Surface Sunscreen Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How have you prepared for the Playoffs now that you’re the only Joe Gibbs Racing entry competing for a championship?
“I don’t think that’s changed at all. I think that we know from here on out it’s our responsibility to get our team as far as we can. Obviously where those guys still have the owner’s championship to go for, but for the driver’s championship, the one that’s important in the public eye and for my career is very much here and for the taking so we’re looking forward to it. I think we found a lot of speed in the recent months here so we’re looking forward to getting this thing rolling. I think we can make it far into the Playoffs and I think we’re going to be a contender there. We just got to keep on plugging along like we have been and just keep on chipping away and getting better.”
A year after coming back after your surgery, how have you changed how you’ve run to be ready for this opportunity?
“I think the timing of the things that happened last year – there’s so much pressure of getting back into the car and what would happen and obviously Kentucky was a great race for me stepping back into the XFINITY Series, so you know I think at this point I’ve grown in the fact that even with the Playoffs, I know that’s tons of stress but I’ve dealt with bigger stresses in my life. This means everything to me right now and I know I’m going to go out there and do everything I can to perform the best, but we have to keep our expectations realistic to the point that we need to go run inside the top five for each and every one of these weeks, especially to move on to the second round. Once you get into the second round, we’ve got to be knocking on the door of winning some races. We’ve got to be able to move up to that point, get a little bit quicker and just be a little bit more solid throughout the whole weekend. I think as long as we keep on doing that and stay out of trouble, that’s the biggest thing. As long as we stay out of trouble and run where our cars should, I think we’ll have a great playoff run.”
Who have you been talking to at Joe Gibbs Racing about what you have to do to get through the Playoffs?
“I wouldn’t say there’s any one person. Collectively as a whole, getting to know what those guys had to go through last year with Erik Jones and Daniel Suárez to get to the point that they did, and I think you can see the progression in Suárez from where he kind of was in the middle of the season to where he started the Playoffs and to where he ended it. You know obviously Erik last year had a really tough playoff run for the start of it. He got in a spot I think it was at Kentucky and maybe Kansas something like that, some wild things happened and we know that can happen. It’s just making sure we’re getting ourselves in the right spots and putting ourselves in good positions to be able to advance as far as we can.”
Does it make a big difference for you having Kyle Busch racing in the XFINITY Series and providing feedback to the team?
“There’s obviously still guys with lots of experience that are going to be in the cars, but when you have like Kyle Benjamin and Ryan Preece in there, the hard part is that you don’t have – especially for the mile and a half tracks, without them doing much of that this year, you can’t bounce a lot of things off of them. The way we unload with our setups, we’re going off of a lot of data and information we’ve had throughout the year, so we have that luxury. As a team we’re learning throughout the whole year and my setups are actually surprisingly closer to Kyle (Busch) then you would think. We all have our margins that we go off of each other depending on tendencies, but at the end of the day you’re still trying to get everyone happy with the car and get the car running toward where it should be. Obviously you want to lean on the guys with experience and sometimes it’s tougher without experience there, but they’re still around, they’ve still got their phone numbers so it’s still there.”
What tracks this first round do you see as your biggest strength?
“I think Dover. That’s the place I’ve always ran well at. I just love that place. It’s my absolute favorite track, but Kentucky, the night race, has been great for us the last couple years too. We struggled a little bit more than we would’ve liked the first race of the year, but going back to the night race, that’s where I’ve had some pretty big moments in my career, so hopefully that’ll stay true again for a third year in a row.”
Has it been frustrating for you seeing part-time drivers get wins in the No. 20 when you’re still trying to find that speed to get to the front?
“It’s a fair question. I think those races Ryan (Preece) did a great job and Ryan’s a really really talented and great race car driver and he deserves to be in that ride and I think he should – we should see him more in this series with equipment like that. I think for myself I’ve tried to keep expectations realistic and I know that I’m improving as a driver and I know that I need to get more laps and good experience, but I think we’re in a spot now being in the Playoffs we can focus our efforts into going as deep as we can and hopefully being in Miami at the end of the year. At the end of the day, yeah we’re still here trying to go win races and we’ve been close a few times this year. We just need to be doing that more consistently and we can put that kind of stuff to bed and show that we belong here. The work’s not done this year, that’s for sure.”
Do you know what your plans are for next year and will your performance help you solidify plans?
“You’re always trying to work on things for the future, but we’re trying to figure those things out now. At the same time, yeah absolutely I’m trying to prove that I belong here. That first win is still looming. Everybody knows this sport is performance driven and I understand that, so I know what we need to do, it’s just figuring out the ways of how to do that and how to get myself better. Am I a Kyle Busch? No, absolutely not. I know that I need to take the steps to get myself better to where I can go and compete with those guys and I think that’s the biggest thing right now to focus on is to just make sure I keep on getting better. As long as the progression of myself getting better, our team getting stronger, we’re going to be right where we need to be. We’ve shown that I think over the last few weeks of getting speed better, it’s just things falling or not falling into our lap the way things have gone. You’ve got to be able to have that speed to be able to go win races, so we’re improving in that way.”
When do you hope to know what you’re going to be doing next year?
“I would’ve liked to yesterday, but we’re working on that and it’ll all fall into place when it needs to. That’s not my main concern right now. My main concern is what’s coming up this weekend.”
If you do win the championship, is there anybody you particularly want to win the championship for?
“I think definitely my mom and dad for sticking with me through this whole progression of my career. They’ve stood behind – my dad’s been with me every race since I started racing when I was 12. Obviously them, they’ve helped me a lot and encouraged me to go after my dreams and do what I love to do with this. At the same time, it’s obviously well-known, my story, and I’d love to be able to go and do that to be a champion for all those who have gone through things similar to me with the brain surgery world – or brain tumor world I should say. I’d like to be able to go out and prove myself for that reason, but at the same time this is my rookie season and I’m happy to be in the Playoffs and want to go compete for wins, but hopefully we’re in this spot and even stronger again next year.”
As far as the playoff format, do you think it’s going to take wins to advance rounds?
“I think for the first round we need to be consistent and we need to be challenging up for wins for sure. That’s going to get you in the second round. The second round, well obviously three cars can get in with wins and one is going to get in with points or who knows what the scenario is going to be there, but there’s going to be somebody who consistency is going to pay off for them. We know that’s there, but also to be able to achieve that consistency you got to be up there competing for those wins and make smart decisions, not make stupid mistakes. A mistake like I made last week at Chicago, speeding on pit road, by the end of the race we came back up to sixth, but that could hurt for sure if you don’t have the cautions fall your way like it did for us last week. Minimizing those mistakes will be big especially through the first round. I’m sure a bunch of Cup drivers and crew chiefs said that before this last weekend and you saw what happened in the Cup race. Just a bunch of crazy stuff going on and it’s just the nature of the Playoffs.”
Have you ever had any particularly bad run in with a driver on track that you can laugh about now?
“I don’t know if it’s ever gotten that serious. I mean sure I’ve been angry at guys and I’ve had guys upset with me. It’s just the nature of running 40 cars together at this level. I don’t know if there’s anything really like that right now, but it’s certainly not to say that there’s not going to be in the future. This is NASCAR. We hit each other a lot.”
Do you feel a little bit like an underdog in the Playoffs?
“I guess it’s a mixed answer with that one because as an underdog, as I guess you might put it for ourselves, I mean we’re Joe Gibbs Racing – most of the time we are dominating the XFINITY Series. It’s absolutely incredible, our equipment. To say an underdog in that regard? No, we’re not an underdog. Are we an underdog in the fact that if I was able to go out there and prove what I hope and think that I can do and go win a championship? Sure. Yes, there’s the underdog story. But the equipment? No. The equipment should be – you can win championships and is right up there with people who we are competing with championships with. It’s not to say that we’re completely miles ahead either because these guys have been tough to beat this year and we know that we’re going to be up against some stiff competition and some tough situations too, so we’ll see what happens.”
