Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports; Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang; and Doug Yates, CEO, Roush Yates Engines were guest on today’s Ford Performance Zoom conference call. Here is a transcript of their appearance:
MARK RUSHBROOK, Global Director, Ford Performance Motorsports – HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE SEASON SO FAR? “The season is going really well so far. Certainly the four races before the break that we had with our two wins out of those four races and just continuing that momentum even a little bit better for our win percentage since we’ve returned from that break. I want to commend NASCAR with everything that they have done with their leadership and partnership, including the OEMs and the other stakeholders in the sport that they’ve come back the right way in terms of what they have done with the schedule, with the way that they’re going back racing safely, taking care of people inside of the sport, taking care of the fans, and I think adjustments to the show with no practice, no qualifying other than the qualifying session for the Coke 600, other than that with no practice and no qualifying I think the racing has been fantastic. It’s a real test of the teams and they’re analytical capabilities and what we’re able to give them as tools to be able to go racing, and those races have been really good, including yesterday at Talladega. Throughout the race there was really good racing. I know I was on the edge of my seat that entire time. I loved seeing the Fords work together, especially the three Penske cars, but at the end with the Stewart-Haas cars up there, the Front Row cars and Roush Fenway, and you can’t ask for anything better than what we saw on that last restart and that last lap. That is NASCAR racing. Exciting. I’m very happy that Ryan Blaney and a Penske Ford came out on top, but fantastic for the sport to see that level of racing and passion in the racing. I’m just so excited.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MIDWEEK RACES GOING FORWARD? “It’s something that we’ve talked about as a sport with the stakeholders in the sport and NASCAR for a couple years now. Does a midweek race make sense? Is it something we want to see in the sport? We’ve always held the position that it does, that there is great potential there. As unfortunate as the situation has been this year to be in this situation that we are, that is part of what NASCAR is taking advantage of – the opportunity to try these midweek races and see how they’re working, especially a Wednesday night race at a short track like Martinsville. To me, that’s part of what the sport is all about in getting back to grassroots and really resonating with the people and putting on some great racing. I think we’re learning a lot as we go through that and looking to see how that comes across on TV and what the TV ratings are for a Wednesday night relative to a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon race. So we’re learning from that. It’s good data for us to make some decisions going forward. I am looking forward to continued discussions with NASCAR and the other OEMs of what do we think makes sense for middle of the week races like that, but, to me it looks promising so far from what we’re seeing — maybe there is a home for it in the schedule. The enabler to do it part of what we’re seeing now with the no practice, no qualifying it means fewer days at the racetrack for the weekend and the turnaround to get to that midweek race and then to turnaround again and get another weekend race – no practice, no qualifying or maybe no practice and only qualifying and the race is part of what enables the schedule to permit those midweek races like that. So, we’re learning. We’ll talk about it and see what makes sense going forward.”
HOW HAVE YOU SEEN NO PRACTICE GOING? DO YOU FEEL IT’S IMPACTED SOME TEAMS MORE THAN OTHERS? “I think we’ve seen a mix, honestly, between the different teams and between the different tracks. We’ve certainly seen an increase in the number of hours and number of trips that the teams are making to the simulator at our Tech Center in Concord to prepare for those races and that has been made available to all of our teams to get time in there. I like what it’s done to the racing, actually. You see a lot of cars that are showing up and they’re really fast as soon as they unload from lap one. We also saw at Martinsville especially, where even within the same team we saw the Penske cars at Martinsville where Joey was fast from the first lap and through the entire race and Brad and Ryan went backwards in the first session and lost a lap and fell into the mid-twenties position, but then made their adjustments led by their analytical tools and what they had seen in that first run and came back up onto the lead lap and finished in the top five. So I think it is making the racing really interesting without the practice and qualifying sessions and it’s just forcing our tools and stressing our tools to be even better than they have been in the past.”
HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC AFFECTED WHAT YOU ARE ABLE TO DO AS AN OEM? “The pandemic has affected everybody in this world, both individually, personally and in whatever their profession may be. Certainly, with automakers when all of our production plants around the world basically get turned off on the same day or within a couple days of each other, that is our cash flow to the company. If we’re not making cars and trucks and shipping them to dealers and selling them, then we don’t have cash coming in the door. So, the company has been prepared in case something like this happens and certainly took very quick actions to address that. I’m very, very proud of our leadership with Bill Ford and Jim Hackett with the actions that they have taken with their senior management team to protect the interests of the company and the employees of the company and applaud all the steps that they have taken. We’re a family company and we reached out to our partners in racing, all of our racing teams and Doug Yates and Roush Yates as our engine builder to work through, ‘How do we get through this situation together?’ And then work with the sport so even beyond the Ford teams, ‘How do we as a NASCAR family get through this together?’ There have been a lot of discussions just with us and the Ford teams and also with NASCAR and the other OEMs to make some of these changes like the one-day shows, the no practice, no qualifying, no backup cars to enable a schedule to come back and get all the races in and to help save money for the sport where it makes sense, where there is spend that we may not be getting a good return and still the highest level of principle from NASCAR was to put on great racing for the fans, and I think we’re seeing that. So, we’re just a part of this NASCAR family and doing what we can to take care of the fans and everybody in the sport and have great racing in front of everybody.”
AS YOU LOOK AT NEXT YEAR, WHAT DECISIONS ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE? WILL FORD BE AS INVOLVED IN ALL FORMS OF MOTORSPORTS? HOW WILL YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER IN HOW YOU SUPPORT ALL OF THE PLATFORMS UNDER YOUR UMBRELLA? “I think we’ve been pretty disciplined, at least for the last five years or more, where we are always looking at our motorsports cycle plan. Where do we race today? Where do we want to be racing two years from now, three years from now, five years from now and always looking forward to that and how do we get a maximum return out of our motorsports in terms of reaching fans to tell the story that we want to – to make sure it’s relevant to our road car cycle plan, and an opportunity for us to have the innovation and tech transfer and learning from that. So that part of it is no different today, other than the scrutiny to make sure we’re getting the return from every dollar is probably higher than it ever has been before, or at least in the last five years, so that is part of the discussions that we have internally with our motorsports steering team and governance board that we have with our racing partners, but Ford is a company founded based on motorsports with Henry Ford and Sweepstakes and their win and ultimately forming the company over 100 years ago. It’s part of who we are today, so we’re here to be in motorsports. We’re committed to motorsports and getting that learning and being able to tell our story about it. I think the OEMs and NASCAR in some sense have been taking the right steps even before the pandemic started with taking care of the fans, working to improve the racing and the project for the NextGen car, I think, is an important part of that because it’s gonna make the car even more relevant and make the racing even better, and then some cost-savings that come along with that as a benefit that’s realized at the same time and it’s coming into the sport at a time when we probably need it. So kudos to NASCAR and the other OEMs for working together as partners to deliver that car into the sport, to keep the racing great and to make it affordable in a way that we can keep doing this.”
WHAT KIND OF A CHALLENGE IS IT TO BRIDGE THE GAP OVER THE NEXT YEAR BEFORE GOING TO THE NEXTGEN CAR? “I think that NASCAR was very quick to make that decision, again, with input from the stakeholders that with this situation the development of a car in preparation to have it racing and racing successfully could not be contained for 2021, so we fully support that decision to delay it to 2022. In some ways, it actually gives us and the teams more time to do that car properly, not that it was gonna be done improperly before, but we just had that extra time so we can finish our body design, make it look great, make it perform great to pass through the aero submission. It gives the teams some extra time to reduce their inventory that they have this year and plan it out a little bit better into next year, and to make sure that it’s a smoother transition planned out a little bit more. I was certainly disappointed initially with the decision to go to ’22, but it is the right decision. We’ve got great racing and great cars in ’20 that will continue in ’21 and then get that new car on the track for ’22 and I’m looking forward to that.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PARITY WITH THE CARS NOW AND MOVING FORWARD? “I think the racing has been great and certainly different manufacturers or different teams have been faster at different tracks. I don’t know that anybody has a clear advantage, for sure, across all the different tracks and conditions that we’ve seen. There have been some really great races involving different teams and different manufacturers, so I think it’s pretty close right now and expect that will continue through this season to the championship in Phoenix and into next season with these same cars.”
IS THERE A DANGER THAT YOU MAY NOT COME OUT OF THE BOX WITH THE NEXTGEN CAR HAVING THE SAME KIND OF COMPETITION THAT’S HAPPENING NOW? “Anytime you change anything there’s a risk, no matter what it is. That’s part of what comes with change and we believe we’re doing it for the benefit of the sport, that a lot of things are gonna get better in terms of what it does specifically to the racing, from what I’ve seen in these last six-and-a-half years, we as a sport, as a manufacturer, as partners with NASCAR, we’ve learned a lot about what makes good racing and what doesn’t make good racing and you’re seeing that come together this year, that those learnings are being applied to the NextGen car as well. So our expectation is that in ’22 with the new car, the racing is gonna be just as good. If it’s not, then we’ll get together as a sport and make adjustments to it. I wouldn’t expect any big adjustments. I would expect, if anything is gonna be needed, it would be small, fine-tuning and we’d work together to make sure that happens.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK THROUGH THE LAST LAP WHEN YOU WERE RUNNING SECOND TO HARVICK AND PUSHING HIM ON THE WHITE FLAG LAP? “Obviously, now I wish I had it to do all over again, but at the end of the day it was a really solid run for our Fastenal Mustang group. We were able to survive the thing and be in position. I haven’t gone back and watched the race. I’ve seen some of the highlights at this point and I feel like we put ourselves out there a little bit too far and from where I was sitting I was just thinking we were under heavy pressure the entire time and just pushed as hard as I could. I went up to Harvick after the race and I told him, ‘I was gonna commit to you all the way off of turn four.’ I wasn’t gonna make any promises past that point, but we didn’t quite get to that point before we ended two, three-wide and bouncing off about everybody at that point. It was a pretty wild finish. From turn three entry all the way to the checkered flag we hit more than we did the entire time, so pretty wild finish. I was happy with it. It was good for us. I want more. We want to win, but happy that we were able to get another Ford into Victory Lane with it all said and done.”
HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR RETURN TO RFR HAS GONE SO FAR? “From kind of an overall look at it, I think it’s progressing really well. I think when you try and get into specifics, we definitely hoped to fire off a little bit better and be a little bit closer just based off of where the 6 car was able to run last season and make it into the playoffs, with the 17 showing a lot of speed at time, and knew that was hopeful and that it was gonna be very difficult to start up coming back to a new team with a new crew chief and not having the ability to do any testing, and then after just four races taking away all of our practice. That’s made it extremely difficult for us as a team trying to build chemistry and come together, so we’ve been put at a pretty serious disadvantage and I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do in the last several weeks. We’ve made some huge gains that are really helping us be able to be more competitive. Martinsville was good for us. Homestead was a pretty decent day for us, and then Talladega, obviously, if you can keep it clean you can have a good day. We had a good plan from start to finish and it all worked out. There’s been a lot of good lately and I’ve just been trying to emphasize to everybody how difficult that is to build right now without any practice. The teams that have been together for several years it’s not that big a deal. They have notebooks. They have a feel or communication that’s understood between everybody in the group. You don’t have to go through this learning process, so, with that it’s made it very difficult for us, but we’ve made a lot of progress in recent weeks and I’m really proud of that and really looking forward to what we can do once we get practice back in our game plan and in our weekend schedule se we can fine-tune and start these races closer.”
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGERS OF THE POCONO DOUBLEHEADER? ARE YOU READY FOR IT AS A DRIVER? “I don’t think it’s gonna be that big a deal for us. You see so many drivers that will do the XFINITY race followed by a Cup race. With the length of the two races at Pocono that’s basically what we’re gonna be looking at, so it’s not something that’s gonna be completely new to a lot of people. When I ran my first Cup race I ran sixth that year with Front Row. I was running XFINITY full-time, so doing those doubleheaders on those weekends were different for me, but they were not something that just blew me out of the water. We train really hard to be in good shape and be ready for this. The hardest part about it is that training has become very difficult when I rely on Roush’s group to be able to go in and be able to stay in shape with everything that’s going on. We just haven’t been allowed to do that in the typical way, so trying to do workouts over this app and trying to do it at home has been pretty difficult from that standpoint, but now that we’re starting to get back in the shop a little bit and back in the gym I don’t feel like I’m unprepared for it whatsoever. I think it’s gonna be almost a completely non-issue.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO INDIANAPOLIS. WHEN YOU LOOK AT THAT FACILITY WITH THE IDEA OF NO FANS BEING THERE WHAT COMES TO MIND? “From what I understand, I’ve been in a different mindset than most on the no fans predicament that we’ve been in. I notice it a lot. It’s amazing what you can hear inside the race car when we have grandstands that are packed full of people that are passionate and care about what’s going around the racetrack. It’s amazing what you can hear when their favorite driver takes the lead, or we have a big moment, or, hopefully not, big crashes. It’s amazing the energy you get from that. When you go to something as silly as rain delays, we’re well aware of what they’re like here lately, we’ve had more than we haven’t, when they come over the PA system and say, ‘Drivers back to cars,’ it’s silent now. That’s not normal. There is always that massive uproar of people that are excited that we’re going back to racing, and just all of that is gone and taken away from us. It’s unfortunate because it’s a big part of what we do. It was okay for a week or two to come in and say, ‘Man, it’s just like a big test session. There’s nobody here. We’re gonna come in. We’re gonna race and we’re gonna roll out.’ But it’s not normal. It’s not what we want. We need people here enjoying their trip to a racetrack as a vacation and a time to come out and have fun with everybody, their friends and family. It’s something that I felt has had a bigger impact on me than I guess what I’ve heard many others say.”
WHAT HAVE THE LAST FEW WEEKS OF INTROSPECTION BEEN LIKE FOR YOU WITH WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD THESE DAYS? “A lot is changing very drastically and very quickly so we’re trying to keep up with that and try and be aware and try to learn from it so we can do better. I think NASCAR has responded in a lot of big ways that have been for the better and trying to do better as a whole. I think the biggest thing I want to say and just want to keep pushing from our entire NASCAR family is that we just want this to be a place where everybody can come out and enjoy it together. The moment that we had after the terrible events at Talladega, but what we were able to do on pit road and come together and make a very powerful statement at the end of pit road that we are all in this together and that we are not going to take this. We’re better as human beings than what’s going on with all that and we just have to stay together. What is really unfortunate is with the very limited amount of fans more people could not see in person what that looks like. More people could not hear the amount of fans that were there and that were in grandstands cheering and screaming as we were rolling that car down the end of pit road with Bubba driving. I mean, it made you proud of our sport at the same time those few individuals have really tarnished it. It made us really proud as we rolled down the end of pit road that that many people were in support of trying to be better, of making sure that this is a place where everyone feels welcome and we can come race and put on a show and be a sport that people can enjoy and just get behind and have fun with and spend time with friends and family. I guess that’s the thing that I hate. When I was walking down I hated that more people were not there in person to see the positive reaction out of every single person at the racetrack yesterday. It was really amazing and made you proud that that many people can come together and do right, so we’re gonna keep working on that trying to make sure that our message is very clear as we move forward.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON ABOUT YOUR PLAYOFF CHANCES? “I had no clue we were halfway through our regular season right now. That’s a little shock. It’s going quick and that’s another thing is everything just feels strange. You really don’t have a sense of time with how everything is going right now, but, nonetheless, we’re getting to race and getting to put on a show, so that’s good. For us and our team, we still have a shot at making the playoffs and we definitely know that. We have to do better and like I was saying a little earlier we’ve had it rough, and several teams are in a similar situation, but there are tons of others that are extremely competitive every week that have been together for a long period of time and are not having the same struggles. For us, I feel like we should be stepping our game up every week going forward right now. I think we’ve gotten a lot of the elementary stuff behind us that we had to learn as a group and being new with Luke Lambert leading the charge for the 17 group, for me not being able to go into the shop and be a lot more hands-on with everything has been very difficult. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed and pride myself in being able to know exactly what’s underneath our race cars, what’s going into it and how we’re gonna be better. With this distance it’s just made it difficult, so where we’re at we definitely have a chance to make it still. We just have to clean up. We have to keep progressing in what we’ve been able to do the last couple of weeks. If we can keep on that roll, we should have a very legitimate shot at making the playoffs. Hopefully, we take the I’ll call it the easy way out and go get a win and then it will be real easy, but we’ve got some work to do yet and we’re gonna keep chugging along here and do everything we can to make it.”
IT LOOKS LIKE A DOGFIGHT FOR THOSE LAST COUPLE OF SPOTS. IS THAT HOW YOU SEE IT? “Yeah, absolutely. It’s pretty much built its way up in that regard the entire season to date. There’s that group that’s kind of separated itself out front and then there’s a lot of cars that are very tight together, so you’re absolutely right. It’s gonna be a very difficult battle all the way to the end to try to make it into those two spots and then we always run into the predicament where somebody sneaks in and gets a win that you wouldn’t expect and shakes it all up and then you’re sitting there trying to figure out how to gain another spot when you thought you were safe. So there’s a lot that’s gonna happen between now and the cutoff. We’ve got a lot of work to try and get to the point where we feel safe, and I don’t know that we ever will without a win. You’re gonna be trying to get all you can get every week until then.”
YOU WERE A TEAMMATE TO BUBBA IN THE XFINITY DAYS. COULD YOU SEE HAVE SEEN HIM TAKING THIS ROLE BACK THEN? “Not really. Not knowing much about him or much of his career before. I guess not really at the time, but definitely been taking it and trying to do good with his place in our sport here lately. We weren’t teammates that saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. It was kind of funny yesterday. We go down to the end of pit road and he turned around and he thanked everybody for participating and supporting him and everybody in trying to do better, followed by a swift, ‘I know half you all don’t like me and I don’t like you,’ but he appreciates regardless. That was kind of a funny moment out of all that was going on, but I guess back then I didn’t really see it or didn’t expect anything like this.
DOUG YATES, CEO, Roush Yates Engines – SEVEN WINS THIS SEASON. YOUR THOUGHTS ON HOW THINGS HAVE GONE SO FAR THIS SEASON? “I think we’re obviously off to a great start through a very strange and difficult time for everybody, but our teams have come out of the gate really strong. Team Penske made a lot of changes over the winter that are well-documented with crew chiefs and teams moving around, and that looks like it’s really paying off for them. All three of their cars have won now with Joey, Brad and now Ryan winning yesterday. And then winning at Darlington with Kevin Harvick for his 50th win was something that was really special to me and everybody at Roush Yates and Ford Performance. To be part of a milestone win like that was really great, so I think it’s been very good. I’ve been proud of all the hard work that everybody here at Roush Yates has put in through this time and everything we’ve gone through. It’s been trying. There have been a lot of late nights turning these engines around and it’s all the behind the scenes things that we don’t really get the chance to see or talk about, but there’s a lot of work here in the shop just to meet the schedule and there’s been a lot of long Friday nights – 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 o’clock Friday nights just trying to get prepared to go to the next race, but I like this schedule. I like the midweek races and without practice and qualifying it definitely makes for a different race. In my opinion, Martinsville was probably the most impacted by no practice. If you’re off a little bit there you’re lapped in a fuel run, so that was kind of interesting to see how that played out, but, so far, I’m really proud of all the work that everybody has done here at Roush Yates and all the work that Ford Performance has done and all the things we’ve done together. I think I really like our chances for the season. We’re halfway through the regular season and we’re starting to think about the playoffs and what our new specs will be when we get into the playoffs and going back to Darlington and ultimately ending up in Phoenix. So it’s a different year this year for us and those are the strategic things that we think about, I think about as an engine builder. How do we give our teams advantages to go win races and that’s what we’re working on.”
WHAT HAVE MIDWEEK RACES BEEN LIKE FOR YOU AND IF THAT CONTINUES IN 2021 IS THERE A WAY YOU’D LIKE TO SEE THEM BALANCE IT OUT SO THERE’S NOT AS MUCH STRAIN ON YOU GUYS? “For us, now that we run the races two races, so the long block basically runs two events. A lot of times when we come back and we were gonna use that, say we just raced a fresh engine on a Wednesday night race, we’ll come back and take the valvetrain apart off the engine. We’ll do inspections and get it cleaned up and ready for new valve springs and dyno and dressed for the next event, just depending on whether that’s a 750 engine or a 550 engine – basically a short track engine or an intermediate track. One of the challenges we have with the ever-changing schedule, NASCAR has done a great job – Steve O’Donnell, Steve Phelps, they’re team working together with us. They have done an excellent job of reaching out, holding meetings. The one thing for us is when they change the schedule and they have taper 550 races, a lot of intermediate track races and only a couple short track races and all of those are together, it affects our engine rotations. So, basically we have six race engines for each team, primary race engines, and those are a mix of 550-horsepower specs and 750 specs. When we get that mix kind of mixed up a little bit and it’s not spaced out it provides a little bit of a challenge just from turning those engines around to get them back to their teams to be able to get prepared to go to the next race. So the spacing of those is important and knowing the calendar ahead of that you can plan for it, but everything is changing and has been changing – for the good of course to get back to the track. I’m proud of NASCAR for getting back to the track, but the mix of those races – short tracks and intermediates – is something that’s important to an engine builder.”
675 MILES IF THERE’S NO OVERTIME THIS WEEKEND. IS THAT A BIG TEST OR WITH NO PRACTICE WOULD YOU BE CLOSE TO THAT AT POCONO ANYWAY? “When the Pocono was originally laid out we were gonna have practice and qualifying, and then two 350-mile races, which would have put us over 700, so all of our durability testing is now two races, but on the valvetrain we change valve springs after 700 miles. So if we were to go over 700 miles, we would need to change springs after Race 1 before the second race. Now that we’re not gonna have practice or qualifying, we’re gonna run both races without changing valve springs. We’ve made a pretty extensive checklist, so we’ll probably end up changing oil and checking the filters, going back through some things that you would normally do after a race event. Our team here has worked really hard and we pass that along, but at the track as you know we only have two people. We’ll have Mike Messick, who handles all 15 cars from a mechanical standpoint, and we have a calibrator that is there to help with any challenges with the EFI system, so we’re trying to limit that and all the other engine builders we’ve been talking and they have a very similar approach, but not having practice has allowed us not to have to change springs in-between the two races. So we’ll do our normal checklist and we feel pretty confident going to Pocono.”
HOW MANY BACKUP ENGINES WILL YOU BRING? “Normally, before this all happened, we would take one spare engine, one trailer spare per car. Some of the teams, if you have a four-car team, maybe we’d only take three. But, still, we would have several trailers there at the track just in case something happened during practice or qualifying, but now with no practice or qualifying we’ll take one spare per organization and some people were even questioning why we would need to do that, but if you’ve been around long enough you see strange things could happen or hopefully nothing strange like that happens, but we take one trailer spare per organization just in case something happens. It’s been a big relief for us as an engine-builder not to have to worry about practice and qualifying and all the things that could cause you to have to use a trailer spare.”
HAVE YOU BEEN TO A RACE SINCE THINGS RESTARTED? “I haven’t been to the track. Back when my dad had his team, Robert Yates Racing, I went to every race. I was the trackside tuner. I carried tires. I changed tires and all those things, and that was a lot of fun. Through the years I’ve kind of been pulling back some and last year I went to 20 races and Daytona. I don’t think I’ve missed a Talladega. I can’t remember when I missed a Talladega race and obviously Michigan, which is a huge race for us. I told my wife Saturday morning, I woke up and I said, ‘Man, this just does not feel right. I really miss being at Talladega.’ I love that track. There are a lot of special memories for myself and my family. I actually texted Mike Helton. I said, ‘Man, I didn’t miss going to a couple of these tracks, but I really miss going to Talladega.’ So it felt really strange this weekend. For me, my dad’s first win as a car owner was there in 1989 with Davey Allison. Davey’s first win in ’87. My dad’s last win as a car owner was there with Dale Jarrett in October 2005. Now we’ve won nine of the last 10 races. I take a lot of pride in that. I know everybody here at Roush Yates does and I know Ford Motor Company loves racing there and all of our teams want to go there and win races. It’s a special place and another thing that makes it special is I want to say congratulations to Red Farmer. I think that’s so awesome that Red is in the Hall of Fame. Red used to test our car when Davey didn’t test. Red would test for us and we would go to Talladega and just run and run and run. When we tested at Talladega it was usually for three days. It was a bit like an Allison family reunion, so I consider myself an extended member of the Alabama Gang and I was really happy for Red and just proud of him. That’s a long-winded answer, but, yes, I did miss going to Talladega and I can’t wait to get back to the track and see our success. My wife and I, we left work and ran home and we were watching the race. We’re obviously a big racing family and she said, ‘Ricky won.’ I said, ‘Oh, no. Blaney won. Blaney won.’ I almost jumped. That whole last green-white-checkered I was sitting on the couch and I got up and I was going just like if I was at the racetrack. My dad had a thing when we were on the pit wall if you were looking back the other way he would come and say, ‘Hey, buddy. The race is out there.’ And made sure you were paying attention, but what a race and what a finish and what a really special weekend – a tough weekend, but I’m just proud of NASCAR and proud to be part of it.”
SPECULATING HERE BUT WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES ARE PRESENTED IF THERE ARE DOUBLEHEADERS AT MICHIGAN AND DOVER? “Michigan is probably similar to Pocono in some ways. It’s the same engine spec. We’ve raced these engines multiple races. It’s a 550-horsepower event, so we feel pretty good about going to Michigan, but Dover presents a challenge because it’s a 750-horsepower engine and to run that two consecutive races — the valvetrain is totally different, the cam design is different. Obviously, you’re making more power, so that’s gonna be a little bit tougher for us. I’m a little bit more nervous about a doubleheader at Dover than the other tracks. Dover is a long race no matter what and it’s also a race where on a green track you turn a lot of RPM and as the lap times fall off the RPM comes way down, so when we go there to qualify or when we used to qualify we would turn 9500 RPM on Friday in qualifying, but during the race you’re about 9000 RPM, so it’s a big swing. Conditions change a lot, so I think Dover is the one that makes me nervous and obviously we’ll do our homework and prepare, but just something to look out for and it is a different track.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ENGINES? “I think when all this happened our world obviously changed, everybody is adjusting to a new normal. There was a discussion of perhaps a new engine on the table. That’s about a 36-month timeline to go from a clean sheet of paper to a completely new engine, so that has been pushed back. But the biggest thing on the horizon for engines is hybrid. Hybrid powertrains. So basically implementing an electric motor, recovering energy from braking and putting that back into the driveline to be a power adder. I know that Ford is very interesting in that technology. It’s in a lot of production car we build and it’s something that racing has always been a platform to prove out OEM products. First it was engines, cars, now even more advanced powertrains – all the things we do with simulation and simulators – so the next thing in our world that’s coming in the next probably two to three years is hybrid powertrains. It’s something that I’m excited about as an engine-builder. It’s something that I believe if you are an engine-builder, an engine supplier, almost every series we race sometime in the near future is gonna have a hybrid component. I think that’s exciting because whether you deploy it for push-to-pass, whether you use it save fuel, whether you use it to go down pit road, I think all those things are to be determined, but other series are looking into this. The IMSA Series, or course led by Jim France and his crew there are looking at it. I think that will be a component in NASCAR in years to come. It will be something we’ll be talking about and it should be exciting and relevant and I think it’s the right thing to do.”
BUT WE’LL ALWAYS NEED THE ROAR OF AN ENGINE, RIGHT? “Exactly. Ford challenged us to do social media posts and me being an engine-builder and not a superstar driver, I got the most attention when I went to the place where all of my dad’s trophies and pictures are. Hopefully some of you guys saw this, but I took a car that Jack Roush ran at Phoenix. It was a Robert Yates Tribute car. Ricky Stenhouse ran it. I took it outside. Jack gave it to me. We put an engine in it. I took it outside, cranked it up, revved it up. Man, that was the best feeling and the best sound ever, so, absolutely. I love the sound of it. I think the fans love the sound of it. When you go to Talladega and you hear those cars and you hear them coming, I mean 40 of those cars together is something really special. I think what we’ve got to make sure that we’re really careful, and I know all of you guys have responsibility of how you report things and how you say things, but when you say hybrid that is still today’s internal combustion engine coupled with electrification. It’s not full electric. This is a combination of the two, which you get the best of both worlds. It’s something where there are a lot of unknowns. It’s still new technology. How are we gonna race with that? It’s not new to street cars. Some of you probably own hybrids today. Some of you may own the other things, but hopefully you own a Ford whatever you do. Everybody knows that Ford stands for First On Race Day. Edsel would say, ‘Just win.’ And that’s his famous thing that his dad, Henry II, started back when they won Le Mans, but we want to be production relevant. We’ve got to keep these manufacturers involved. Thank you for all you do to support that and I appreciate your questions.”
