NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
FEBRUARY 12, 2025
Justin Haley, driver of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet – DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes
Do you feel any extra pressure coming to the Daytona 500?
“Because you know it is possible and you know you can do it; you have that pressure of it’s a great opportunity and it’s a strength of ours. It’s a strength of mine and I know that. You feel that extra pressure coming here because you know you’ll be in the mix, and you’ll have a legitimate shot. So, it’s a bit of a mix. The confidence comes with it, but the pressure comes with it, too. I’m very fortunate to feel that pressure coming here. Every year is new challenges and new obstacles and new opportunities, and that’s what is exciting about kicking off the year. There are tremendous opportunities in front of us and the biggest opportunity of all being right here at the Daytona 500.”
Can you explain the mindset of not going out for practice this morning?
“It was planned. There’s not a tremendous amount that you can do to the cars, especially pre-qualifying to find more speed. You can go out there and leak check and all those things, which we would have liked to have done. But with inspection being very close to practice and the process, we took that extra time to run through LIS a few more times and just make sure we had everything where we needed it. Minimizing risk is one small variable of it, but it’s not the biggest variable of it. We felt we’ve had a process of unloading for qualifying and doing our deal and we kind of know where those targets are, so we didn’t want to confuse it much with race trim versus Q trim, draft, go bath, go forward. It was kind of a group decision, and we’ll see how it all plays out.”
What have been the differences to you with this team?
“Any time you walk into a new building, a new situation, there’s so much to take in from personnel and processes. All those things are different, but what is nice is these racecars are fairly common across the board. There are some nuances with manufacturers and how teams do things specifically. But, for the most part, all the parts and pieces are the same and you’re just trying to put them in the right location. I think the biggest thing is just getting in the routine and getting into the process because you just don’t jump in day one and everything is going smooth. And everyone does things a little differently and you’re trying to learn how everyone works, and just for me trying to learn the tools and trying to figure out some of those things I can do before hitting the racetrack. Once we get through the West Coast swing, things are going to be much more clear on what the difference are, what we need to work on, improvements we need to make, how I need to adapt, how our tools adapt. But right now, you don’t have a whole lot to go off of other than optimism and a lot of hours and hard work. But when we get back from the West Coast, we’ll know what we need do moving forward. Coming in, for me, a new team, new manufacturer, a lot of new, you add in all new personnel with that race team and it becomes very difficult because now you’re working on chemistry, you’re working on communication, you’re’ working on where everybody’s feelings are at – and I mean that not jokingly of how people communicate and how they respond and how you extract the most out of them and how they extract the most out of you. It takes time and having a lot of that core group stay with us is a big deal.”
What’s it like at this stage of your career having to make that transition?
“It’s nerve-racking and it’s exciting all at the same time. It’s a brand-new opportunity and there’s so much in front of you that is new. It feels that way and you feel that optimism and you feel that energy of we’re doing big things though we haven’t done anything yet. So that makes you nervous that we have to go perform now. It’s been fun to go through the process of how they do things and how they see things and learn people’s names and learn what they do. It takes time. You can’t walk in day one and be clicking with everyone. The good thing is that there are a lot of familiar faces at Spire that I’ve worked with over my career at some point. It wasn’t totally daunting because I had those 10 or 20 faces that are familiar, and it’s cool to reconnect with people and have another shot at doing big things.”
Is there any trepidation that you’re jumping into something new?
“I haven’t been in this exact situation, but when I got let go in the 95, we were running pretty good. Good enough to get Kasey Kahne to come drive it. And I thought to myself we were finally running good and it’s all going to come together and then that happened. I was thinking there’s no way I’m going to land anything and there’s no way I can get back to where I am now. And that wasn’t winning, that was running decent. And I landed at Front Row and you fast forward and winning the Brickyard and you wouldn’t be able to convince anyone that year that it would be a possibility that Front Row would do that. So, I’ve seen it play out and I know it’s possible, so that’s why I have so much optimism coming into this because they’re so much further ahead of where we start. And that’s not a dig at Front Row. It’s just where we were. And the people we were able to get and the people they already have, we have the recipe to be very good. But it’s all got to click and that takes time. We’ll see if that’s five weeks, 10 weeks, 38 weeks, 50 weeks. Nobody can predict that, but we have the potential and the people in the building to do it.”
What makes you excited for starting over now?
“The same thing as timing. Nobody wants to start over and rebuild. It’s only exciting if you know the potential. The excitement comes from I’m thankful. I’m thankful to have a job. I’m thankful to be one of 40 that gets to start on Sunday, and I know that’s a tremendous privilege. That also comes with the pressure and the expectation of getting everything I can out of every area to make sure I do what I was hired to do.”
What does the Daytona 500 mean to you?
“The Daytona 500 to me is so much more than just a race. It is the biggest race. I don’t want to discredit that, but to me it was more of the 358 races that it took to get there. If you look at my rookie season, not that it went bad, but my trajectory of getting fired and getting replaced by Marcus Ambrose and being sort of an unknown in this sport – I went straight from ARCA to Cup – to be here to win 357 races later was miraculous. So, when I think about that win, I think about the 16 years and 357 starts that were an absolute grind. And hanging on for dear life to stay in the sport. That’s what makes it special.”
How does that win fill your heart to cap your amazing story?
“It really is amazing. The 500, there is nothing that will top that. I wish I had a better way of phrasing it, but the Brickyard was more – meaningful is not the right word – it was more rewarding. Personally, professionally the Brickyard. The reason is because of what we did as a team. We dominated the day, we led the most laps, we executed on pit road, it’s not a superspeedway, nobody can say it’s flukey. I went head-to-head with Chase Elliott for 30 laps and, to me, that is so awesome to get a win like that. Where Daytona there is a big crash, Brad and Joey, and I don’t find it controversial at all. It doesn’t take away from how I feel about winning the 500 because a lot of those races end like that. But the reward of that race of we did something really special today the Brickyard was one of those days.”
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