NASCAR CUP SERIES
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
COCA-COLA 600
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 25, 2021
JIM CAMPBELL, CHEVROLET’S U.S. VICE PRESIDENT OF PERFORMANCE AND MOTORSPORTS, met with media following Chevrolet’s milestone 800th all-time win in the NASCAR Cup Series at Circuit of The Americas. Press Conference Transcript:
MODERATOR: IT WAS GREAT SEEING YOU AT CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS THIS WEEKEND AND IT WAS FUN WATCHING THE CELEBRATION AFTER THE GREAT WIN BY CHASE ELLIOTT – CHEVROLET’S 800th WIN IN NASCAR. WHAT A TREMENDOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT, JIM. WALK US THROUGH JUST THE EMOTION GOING THROUGH YOU ON SUNDAY AND CHASE ELLIOTT PULLING OFF THAT MONUMENTAL MILESTONE FOR CHEVROLET.
“These kind of milestone wins, they mean a lot. It is a massive amount of hard work done with many, many partners in teams, drivers and crew chiefs, so it was really special. To have the chance to be in Austin, (Texas), at Circuit of The Americas, it’s a place where Chevrolet has raced a lot in our history; primarily in the SportsCar area. But it was great to see NASCAR there. When Chase (Elliott) got the victory, obviously a rain-shortened victory, but nonetheless a victory; it was very sweet. We were so excited. He obviously got the inaugural win at Circuit of The Americas. It was also his first win of the season and 12th career-Cup win overall. It was a special number for the Hendrick Motorsports organization of 268, tying the iconic Petty Enterprises in all-time Cup Series wins. For Chevrolet, it put 800 on the board and we couldn’t have been prouder. So many drivers and teams have contributed to that success, along with our Chevrolet engineering team. We couldn’t have been prouder; it was a great moment.”
WE WANTED TO SPEAK TO THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND HOW THEY’VE BEEN HAND-IN-GLOVE WITH YOU THROUGHOUT THE YEARS IN THE NASCAR CUP SERIES. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT RELATIONSHIP WITH HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND THE SUCCESS THAT CHEVROLET HAS EXPERIENCED.
“The Hendrick Organization, Rick Hendrick, along with all of his leaders; all of the drivers and crew chiefs; Marshall Carlson, Jeff Andrews, Chad Knaus, all of the team that’s there now; but it’s all that came before them, as well. They are fantastic partners. When you look at 268 wins, that is a significant number. Hendrick Motorsports had Chevrolet’s 400th win with Terry Labonte; 500th win with Jeff Gordon; 600th win with Kyle Busch at the time; 700th win with Jimmie Johnson; and now 800th with Chase Elliott.”
“Hendrick Motorsports has 268 wins for Chevrolet. Richard Childress Racing has 109 wins. Junior Johnson and his team delivered 53 wins. If you add up those three teams, they are over half of the wins for Team Chevy. We couldn’t be prouder. There is quite a list of top performing drivers, as well. Jeff Gordon had 93 wins, all with Chevrolet. Jimmie Johnson had 83 wins, all with Chevrolet. Dale Earnhardt had 73 of his 76 wins with Chevrolet. Darrell Waltrip had 59, Cale Yarborough had 48, and of course Chase Elliott added his 12th win to that list. It was an exciting way to wrap up the weekend.”
YOU’RE ONE OF THE FEW MANUFACTURERS INVOLVED IN BOTH INDYCAR AND NASCAR. IT’S A BIG WEEKEND FOR BOTH SERIES, BUT LATER THIS YEAR, THEY’LL BOTH BE RACING AT INDIANAPOLIS IN AUGUST. IT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU TO HAVE SYNERGIES BETWEEN THE TWO SERIES?
“This is a big weekend with the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (Motor Speedway). For Chevrolet, we have a long history in both series, so it’s huge for us. One thing I will say about both IndyCar and NASCAR – with NASCAR, from Jim France to Lisa, Ben, Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell and the whole team, they have been really working with us as a manufacturer and others in the industry around things they can do to strengthen the schedule and doing a dual race was on our list. We’re invested in both sports, so that’s going to be huge for us. I think it’s going to be great for the fans to see two different series at the same track. We’ve obviously done that over the years from time-to-time with an IndyCar race and a NASCAR Truck Series Race or NASCAR and IMSA. I would love to see more of that because we’re involved in all of those series and that would be great for us as a manufacturer; but more importantly, for our customers and for the fans.”
YOU WERE GOING TO EXPAND A BUILDING IN CONCORD AND THEN IT BECAME A GM DEFENSE BUILDING. ARE YOU STILL PLANNING TO BUILD SOMETHING IN CONCORD? AND IF SO, WHEN DO YOU THINK THAT COULD BE OPERATIONAL?
“We did announce that we’re going to bring Charlotte a GM Technical Center and that will happen. Last year, being so unique with the pandemic, we had to change gears a bit and our GM Defense unit won a significant contract on an infantry squad vehicle truck that is based off of the Chevrolet Colorado, obviously modified for their needs. So, they needed space to go right then and meet the requirements of the GM Defense contract for the government. We did convert that building to the GM Defense and it’s now a full-production facility building those ISV trucks for the military. We will have some news shortly on what our new plans are. We’re still committed to the area for a General Motors Technical Center. There’s more to come.”
YOU STARTED TALKING ABOUT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS; THEY’VE KIND OF BEEN ON TOP OF THE WORLD LATELY WITH EVERYTHING THAT’S BEEN GOING ON. BUT LAST YEAR WAS A LITTLE BIT OF A STRUGGLE. THEY TALKED ABOUT HOW LAST SUMMER WAS THEIR LOW POINT FOR THEM. JUST CURIOUS, DID YOU GUYS AT CHEVROLET HAVE ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH THEM OR OFFER UP ANY ADDITIONAL RESOURCES OR IS THIS TURNAROUND MORE IN-HOUSE?
“The last two or three years, we have not had the success that we’ve enjoyed previous to that. The great news is that obviously last year ended with a championship with Chase Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports in the No. 9 Camaro ZL1 1LE and we’re proud of that. The team owners and Chevrolet have come together to really rally around a consolidated engineering effort on common projects. We have commitment from Richard (Childress), Chip (Ganassi) and Rick (Hendrick) to do that, along with our affiliate teams. We’re going to put the technical center down there; we already have the work well underway. The alliance between Hendrick Motorsports and ECR engines came together and we certainly advocated and encouraged that, and have been part of that effort to bring those two entities together. That paid dividends for us wrapping up last season.”
“When you put it all together, we’re working on four or five really key focus areas to help with the performance of our Cup program, as well as Xfinity and Truck. That’s in areas, for example, deep aero work that we’re doing together; that’s been on for some time. We’re doing tire development; basically, getting good tire data together. Our simulation program, which is anchored primarily in the Driver-in-the-Loop, which we have in Charlotte and we’re going to add capacity to that. Those are three examples of areas of which we are focusing on together. It’s a huge effort by Jeff Andrews, Andy Petree and Tony Lunders to bring those organizations together with Eric Warren. Eric Warren was at Richard Childress Racing and we brought him on board last year in the fall. He’s a talented engineer and he’s leading up our NASCAR Cup Series program, as well as Xfinity and Truck. So, it’s really engineering-based. We moved our motorsports group into our engineering area last January, so that happened some time ago. I think it really fortified our efforts and it’s starting to pay dividends.”
“Believe me, in this sport, you have to be on it every second. Competition is always moving. We are in series all around the world with Chevrolet and our other brands like Cadillac and Hummer. We know you have to stay on top of it. It’s a pretty ruthless competition and the competition is always trying to get back on top. We’re seeing the improvements and we want all of our Chevy teams to enjoy the same success that we’re seeing with Hendrick Motorsports and we’re starting to see just that.”
SUNDAY MARKED THE 800TH WIN FOR CHEVROLET. LOOKING BACK THROUGH THE YEARS, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MILESTONE MOMENTS THAT STOOD OUT FOR YOU IN WATCHING CHEVROLET GET TO THIS POINT?
“I mentioned some of the milestone wins. The first win was Fonty Flock; he won in Columbia, South Carolina, in a Chevy. That was kind of the beginning of the Chevy small-block V8 era and that era really was pivotal for our company, in terms of really adding incredible performance to many of our vehicles, including the ones we race on the track. If you go all the way through, there’s just so many historic wins. I mentioned a few of them there. The 100th win was Rex White in Columbia, South Carolina. The 200th win was Benny Parsons at Riverside and our 300th win was Dale Earnhardt at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. So, there’s so many that are meaningful and important. I’ve been in racing a long time, like many of you, and when you ask team owners ‘tell me about a win’ or let’s celebrate a win we just had, they often pivot very quickly to what’s next. What about the next win? We have to keep the momentum going; how do we keep this momentum going?”
“The favorite win – I mentioned a few of the historic ones and obviously the favorite one is the next one.”
WITH HOW THE RACE PLAYED OUT SUNDAY AT COTA IN THE RAIN AND HOW DANGEROUS THAT GOT, WITH NASCAR AND GOODYEAR TRYING TO DEVELOP A TIRE WHERE THEY COULD BE POTENTIALLY RACED ON A SHORT TRACK IN SOMEWHAT DAMP CONDITIONS, HOW COMFORTABLE ARE YOU WITH HOW FAR NASCAR MIGHT BE GOING TO EMBRACE RACING IN RAIN CONDITIONS?
“That’s a great questions. It’s obviously a hot topic coming off the weekend. Chevrolet is involved in a lot of these SportsCar series, IndyCar and others, and in most of all the other series, we do race in the rain. We have worked with the sanctioning bodies, including IMSA, which is in the NASCAR family. We’ve ran our Corvette since 1999 in the SportsCar series and then more recently, we’ve added Cadillac to the prototype category called DPi. We use technologies like heated windshields, where we basically have a micromesh that’s in between the layers of the windshield that gives enough heat to the windshield to keep the condensation from building. There’re some other techniques that we use there, as well.”
“Racing in the rain – certainly we don’t want anything to be unsafe. There have been moments, even in SportsCar racing, where we’ve seen the series put the yellow out and they’ll run a lot of yellow laps or, in some cases, a red. So, I think every condition, every track, is different and it almost has to be like a game time call, if you will, on that. I think there’s a lot of experience in the NASCAR family, particularly in IMSA, in running in the rain and just making the right calls in the moment based on the conditions. I’m optimistic about it. We have to take it one step at a time. We want to keep the drivers safe; there’s no doubt about that.”
MODERATOR: JIM, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO JOIN US. GOOD LUCK THIS WEEKEND AS YOU PURSUE WIN 801 AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY.
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 79 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
