Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Brickyard 400 Media Availability | Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Justin Haley, an Indiana native, returns to his home track in the middle of a highly successfucl season. Haley talked about what it means to race on the oval at Indianapolis in the Brickyard 400 for the first time and more.
JUSTIN HALEY, No. 51 Fraternal Order of Eagles Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Justin, what is it like coming home to Indianapolist and running on the oval at IMS?
“Great opening question there, I really appreciate that. It’s obviously cool. Being from Indiana, me and Chase Briscoe, obviously are from here, and racing at the Brickyard for the first time is obviously cool. Yesterday in practice, it’s definitely tricky in this car. I’m just trying to get everything worked out. I spent a lot of summers here watching the Brickyard, a lot of springs in May coming here watching the Indy 500 and things like that. I have spent a lot of time here. Now I live in North Carolina but it is always good to be back home and I appreciate the fans that come out and know that you are from Indiana. I feel like there are a lot of fans that respect that too so it’s always cool.”
Justin, with your move to Rick Ware Racing this year, what are some things that have happened there that surprised you or maybe caught you off guard that you had not anticipated?
“It’s definitely been a big transition for me, probably bigger at the start of the year than what I realized it was going to be. Robbie Benton, Rick Ware, made the transition as smooth as possible. Just from the aspect of being with a new manufacturer like Ford and the transition and their their sim software and their people working with them, their engineering side of things, to Roush Yates engines, it’s completely different procedures and different engine operations than what I was used to at my previous race team. So I think we’ve surprised ourselves at some places and ran really good and in other places. I think we’ve shown some weak spots and worked hard to improve those. The truth is we’re still the smallest Cup team, right? We have no direct manufacturer support and we’re trying as hard as we can with what we have. At the end of the day, we’re racing against teams that have a lot more resources than we do and I think we’re fighting hard and when we do have good days it’s definitely rewarding.”
Do you have some kind of alliance with RFK?
“Yeah, we do have an alliance with RFK. I think probably people think that’s more than what it is. We still build the race cars ourselves. We still mount the bodies ourselves. RFK gives us general setup info. And then I personally do simulator work with RFK every once in a while to help them. But yeah, RFK with their relationship with Ford is limited to what they’re available to give us, right? We definitely get plenty, and I’m appreciative of Brad Keselowski and everyone at RFK. It’s still not like getting direct information from Ford, right? I mean, it’s still going through the processes. I feel like we do a lot with what we can, and definitely our relationship with RFK helps a lot. Without that we would have nothing, right? We wouldn’t even know where to start. So, yeah, it’s just part of the business.”
You mentioned just how it’s tricky getting back out there on the oval. How would you describe those challenges going back to the oval?
“It is difficult. The cars are kind of in between gears from fourth to fifth gear, so that’s a challenge. It’s just a tough track with our aero package and how much we’re lifting and things like that. It definitely took a lot, right? It’s not like as easy as you think it would be for how big of a track it is and how the corners seem the same. We struggled a little bit in practice yesterday but starting to get the hang of it.”
When you look over the next five races, where do you feel like over those five your team is best to have your best performance and why?
“I’m not sure. Every week I feel like we’re good at one place and bad at another. I mean honestly it’s just how close do you unload or not. Especially with the short practices, you can’t really do much with your race car. I feel like we’ll be strong at Richmond and Darlington. Obviously, we were really quick in the spring, finished ninth. So it kind of seems like the more mechanical grip, low grip racetracks are where we’ve been strongest at. We’re really strong at Iowa and Nashville and Darlington. We’re just kind of taking it week by week. The past two weeks, Pocono and the practice yesterday haven’t obviously been the greatest for us. We really struggled last week with the high-speed racetrack. This week, we seemed to struggle in practice. We’re working hard. We’re definitely in the depth of the season now and trying to pull from all our resources. So yeah we just got to take it week by week. Obviously we have two weeks off here after tomorrow and try to get ahead as much as possible.”
Some guys go in dirt race over the break, some guys go on vacation. What’s your plan for the Olympic break?
“I have no plans. I’m doing sponsor appearances the whole time so not a day off for me. No vacations, no anything planned, nothing cool. So yeah, I haven’t been dirt racing in a while, unfortunately. I’d like to get back to it. Just too busy right now on the Cup side.”
Now that you’ve looked back at what Rick Ware has done this first half the season, what are those next steps? What are those next goals, those next milestones that you’re hoping to achieve with the team the rest of this season and then even in 2025? What are you hoping to contribute? What are you hoping the team can kind of figure out to get those next steps for you guys?
“We just have to acquire more resources, more people, just keep building. At the end of the day, it’s just how many engineers you have on the pit box. I mean, that’s all it is now. I’d like to be better. Without our COTA DQ I think we’d be 26 in points, which is stellar. That’s ahead of a lot of teams that have a heck of a lot more than we do. It’s literally just giving it everything you have every week. I really appreciate the guys on the 51 team and the 15 team. They work harder than anyone. I’m sure every driver would say that but we don’t have a lot. We don’t have a lot of people at the shop right now building our cars for what would be next week if we were racing next week. My road crew is pretty much the guys that also build the car at home and they stay a long amount of hours to get prepared for the next week to even get a car to the racetrack. We’re just trying to do everything we can. Obviously when you get into the depths of the season you always feel like you’re behind and you’re trying to catch up and get to a good place. We’ve been bringing cars home in one piece, which is obviously helpful, but we’re just working hard every week trying to get our race cars to the track. I think our hauler for Pocono left Thursday evening and the garage was open Friday morning. So it’s just a lot of hard work. I don’t think people probably appreciate or realize how hard we are working to be competitive.”
You’re an Indiana native. Any memories of coming here and where did you sit and everything?
“I have one memory. My grandfather, before he passed away, had sponsored Sam Schmidt’s IndyCar with Townsend Bell, I believe, was the driver in one of the Indy 500s. That was kind of like his last hoorah. So yeah, Brown Ability sponsored Townsend Bell and Sam Schmidt’s car. My whole family was up in the Pagoda watching the Indy 500. I’m not sure what year that was, but that was probably my coolest memory of coming here. I don’t even know if I was really racing yet. I think I was doing quarter midgets or maybe mini sprints somewhere or something like that. But that is definitely my coolest Indianapolis Motor Speedway memory for sure.”
