Toyota Racing – Ben Rhodes
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Quotes
DARLINGTON, S.C. (May 5, 2021) – ThorSport Racing driver Ben Rhodes was made available to media via videoconference prior to the Darlington race earlier today:
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Bombardier Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing
What is your experience with PJ1 at Texas Motor Speedway?
“I guess it all comes down to activation for them. For us – the Truck Series teams – it’s like ice for the first several laps, when it’s not hot and activated and rolled in, but once we rubber it in, roll it in and get it activated – it’s fine. We see it become the primary groove. They are right. It’s like ice the first time you are on it, so if nobody ran it and nobody rolled it in because the risk is too much for the reward in INDYCAR maybe, and nobody rolls it in, then yeah, I would think it would be ice for the whole race. I didn’t get to watch the race, so I don’t know if they ever did, but it’s ice for sure to start out.”
How exciting of a day is this for NASCAR?
“The most overused word I think for the day is going to be excited, because what else are we, right? This is huge. This is monumental for NASCAR. They are taking a step in the right direction I think with incorporating the manufacturers even further into the design and the build, making it more like our stock car roots, but I think the key is they are trying to go back but take a step forward. They are looking into the future at the technology that they are implementing – the new belly pan, the diffuser – trying to make it better when you are in dirty air. I know they are working on getting camera packages in all of the cars, so that it is easier for the fans to be more involved. They can have a more in-depth view and can be their kind of riding along with their drivers. I think they are making all of the right decisions here. I’m a big fan of manufacturers being involved in the series and having as much involvement as we can. I think that is what NASCAR is built on, so to see kind of a return to that at the same time focusing on lowering the cost, just containing a lot of the problems and struggles that teams have, I think that is a great idea. I’m young, I don’t know a lot but to me it seems like a good idea. We will all find out together.”
How much does the track change when it comes to a night race at Darlington?
“I could probably tell you afterwards, but before I don’t know. My crew chief is looking into a crystal ball right now – he’s been starring at it all week, and once he gets done with that crystal ball, I’ll take a gander at it and see what I can see. I don’t know. When tracks get rubbered up, they get tighter. When the sun goes down, the track cools down and it gains grip, so we have some sort of mixture there of the elements to deal with. It’s going to be very green to start. I’m expecting it to be loose, on top of the track, but high speed. I think we are going to turn some pretty fast laps off of the bat, but it’s going to be treacherous to start. Once it gains grip, you’ll see people kind of start to move around and widen out and get a little racier, but at the same time I think we are going to get tighter. That’s me pulling off of experience, but I’ll look into that crystal ball and let you know later.”
What is your mother’s influence on your career?
“I think every driver has a similar story, where their parents are the whole reason that they are racing. Racing at the base level, at the roots, is such a family sport. We would load up and go to the nearest racetrack and that is what we did every weekend. People always ask what you do with your free time – we raced. That’s what we do. We never went to a lake. I never played football or baseball. I never played anything else. All I did was race. I have my parents to thank for that. My mom specifically was like the team manager. She was not only like team chef, feeding us all at the track, but she also changed motors, she changed gears, she managed our tires. She was the tire scraper on asphalt tracks. She was the tire cleaner and prepper at dirt tracks that we went to. She really had a lot of hats. I was so young at the time. I was trying to help where I can. They taught me everything I know. My dad was kind of the guy that was setting them up and my mom was like the truck chief really. She juggled a lot of hats. I for sure wouldn’t be here without them, and my mom especially for the way she kept our family together and made sure we got to the racetracks.”
What has been the difference for you rejoining Toyota this year?
“I think the big difference for us just has been Toyota’s engineering platform. They’ve got so much engineering support and so much knowledge and data and information available to us that it really makes it night and day, not only strategy during the race, but when you are going to a place and you don’t have practice – what do you pull from? We can pull from notebooks, but you are not really looking forward to getting better. They have a lot of stuff in the works to develop and get better. We can pull from their simulator, and all of their engineering support. We are just not pulling from the same stuff that we have been doing. We’ve got one leg over here and one leg over here trying to get better. I think that’s the biggest difference is the fact they’ve got this wealth of knowledge and they’ve got this army of people, and together we are working towards the future, not just looking over our shoulder the whole time at what we did in the past.”
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands plus our 1,800 dealerships.
Toyota has created a tremendous value chain and directly employs more than 47,000 in North America. The company has contributed world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 40 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama that begins production in 2021.
Through its Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.
