Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Chase Media Day
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150 – HOW FULFILLING WOULD IT BE TO WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP WITH STARTING THIS TEAM FROM SCRATCH A COUPLE YEARS AGO? “Very. It’s something I’ve been talking about all day today on media day is the fact that, to your point, yes, I am moving on next year, but I am very much attached to this group. All of these men and women that came over from different places took a gamble on Front Row Motorsports and took a gamble on me and trust the process of we’re building a new race team. This is going to take time, but trust the process and we’ll see the fruits of the labor and I think here recently with the consistently that we’ve been showing is fruits of the labor. It takes a good three years for a brand new team to be a “championship-caliber team” and I mean like through and through week in and week out championship-caliber team, and last year we won races and this year we’ve won races, but here recently we’ve really started being more consistent. We’ve started seeing the fruits of that labor, so my goal is to go and win a championship for Bob Jenkins. Bob has poured so much time and so much money into me and invested a lot into me and this Truck Series program and took a chance on me when nobody else would when I got let go at Joe Gibbs Racing. He was like, ‘Hey, buddy. You’re gonna be racing, whether it’s in a Cup car or a Truck. I’m not gonna allow you not to be racing.’ And for that security the owner has given me I have a tremendous amount of respect for Bob because of that. I want to get him a championship. I do, but, likewise, I also want to do it for my team as well, but I would like to also leave them on a good note with a good, solid foundation that whatever driver may be coming in that they are confident that what they have can go out and win races and contend for championships – that they have the notebook, they have the trucks, they have everything capable right there at their disposal to take a driver and plug and play him and go and have instant results.”
YOU’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE CONTENDING FOR A TRUCK CHAMPIONSHIP. WHAT MAKES THIS YEAR DIFFERENT? “First and foremost, the format is different. It’s the Chase format. It’s not the playoff format. I’m honestly just excited that I have been partnered with a team that has championship caliber equipment. We’ve got a good team that made it to the Chase, so to be a part of the Chase and be a part of the format that I grew up watching Jimmie Johnson just dominate and Kyle Busch dominate, Tony Stewart, those guys, to be a part of what that format looked like now is really cool for me. I grew up watching them do it and wanted to be a part of it and here I am. It’s a little bit of a dream come true. Another thing that makes it different from this year to last year is I believe we’ve got almost another whole year working as a team together. Like I said, the fruit of that labor has been showing here recently with the consistent finishes. Chemistry is big. It takes time. It takes patience and I’m proud to see that the 38 team is continually growing and getting better week in and week out.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU CAN SLIDE IN THERE AS THE THIRD SEED AND WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? “I do, for sure. We’re 35 points out and when you look at the last few races of the regular season how we started cutting that points deficit back in. We really got that points deficit from me being silly at Charlotte and then getting wrecked at San Diego. Without those two races and we finish where we needed to finish in those two races, it would have been a great regular season finale of duking it out between Layne and I, but those two races we didn’t get the points and Layne actually won both of those races, ironically enough. So, with that being said, I’m very excited about it. I think our team is in a good spot right now. We’ve got really good inventory, good products that are gonna be hitting the racetrack for the Chase. The team is in a good spot. The driver is in a good spot. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for this Chase.”
NON-CHASERS HAVE BEEN IN THE HEADLINES IN THE OTHER SERIES. HOW AWARE DO YOU HAVE TO BE OF THOSE GUYS AND NOT MAKE ENEMIES WITH THEM? “You definitely need to be aware of it, but, at the same time, I’m not the driver that goes out of my way and races like a tool bag either. I’ll continue racing people like I always have. If I make a mistake or something to a non-playoff driver or even a playoff driver, go right then and there after the race and make it right. For me, I don’t go out of my way racing people like tool bags, truthfully, so the way I race other non-playoff drivers isn’t gonna be any different. I wouldn’t consider myself an extremely overly aggressive race car driver as it is.”
YOU’RE LEAVING FRONT ROW AFTER THIS YEAR, BUT DOES IT FEEL LIKE A WEIGHT IS LIFTED OFF YOUR SHOULDERS KNOWING YOUR PLANS FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS? “Yes, 120 percent. Any driver that will come in and they don’t have a deal signed for next year and say it’s not a distraction, I’m telling you up front that’s baloney. They’re not being honest. Anybody with a right mind that can put their pride and ego to the side can all say, ‘Yes, it is a distraction.’ So, for me to be able to have my deal done this early and not only know I have my deal done, but I have a multi-year contract, I can truly focus on the task at hand. I can truly give my 110 percent to the end of this year for my race team and the No. 38 team and Bob Jenkins and Jerry Freeze. I’m looking forward to it with no distractions at all. I know what the Lord has in store for me next year and for my family and what’s to come, but, more importantly, for the task at hand I know what the opportunity that he’s blessed me with now and I’m very grateful that I don’t have any distractions that’s going to be hindering me from giving it my all and all focus.”
WHAT IS THE DYNAMIC LIKE WITH YOU AND LAYNE BOTH COMPETING FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP. HAS ANYTHING CHANGED? “No, not at all. It’s status quo. At the end of the day Layne is a mature enough race car driver that he also understands that one of us needs to get Bob Jenkins a championship, whether it’s me or Layne. Selfishly, I want it to be me. Selfishly, he wants it to be him, but we both have the common understanding that one of us needs to win this championship for Bob Jenkins. So, with that being said, we need to make sure that we’re not going out of our way screwing each other up, going out of our way – still helping each other out because at the end of the day there are eight other guys that can win the championship, so statistically speaking we still have a lower chance of winning – one of us not winning than not – so we’ve got to make sure that we’re going out and executing for our own team but, at the same time, not going out of each other’s way to screw each other up and hurt each other’s performances as well. We just need to go and race it out, race each other with respect and let the best man win.”
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150 – WHAT IS YOUR LEVEL OF CONCERN SEEING THE STRUGGLES THE POINTS LEADERS IN CUP AND O’REILLY HAVE HAD SO FAR? “I think that it shows 25 points is nothing, even though it sounds like it’s a decent lead. I feel like being passive inside the Chase is not gonna win you a championship. A lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, the winner might not even win a race inside the Chase.’ That’s not gonna happen. The winner of the championship is gonna win I’d say at least two races if he thinks he has a shot at it. Being passive and running just top five the whole time isn’t gonna win you a championship. I think that just staying on the same path we’ve been on the same way we’ve been points racing all year, we just have to stay on that exact same kind of mindset and don’t psych ourselves out about it.”
HOW DO YOU NOT BE PASSIVE AND BE AGGRESSIVE AT BRISTOL TO KICK IT OFF WITHOUT CAUSING YOURSELF MORE TROUBLE? “I feel like we’ve balanced a happy medium all year long with myself and my team. We’ve been aggressive. When we had trucks to win the race, we do. When we don’t, we just make sure we do the best we can. Statistically, out of seven races something is gonna go wrong in one of those races, either speeding on pit road, you’re gonna have a flat tire, you’re gonna get in a wreck. Something is gonna happen at some point, so it’s all about for us, how are we gonna recover on those days – not even just the next weekend, but say something happens in stage one or two, how are we gonna recover to have the best finish that we can at the end of the day because so many times I feel like just with the age of my team we’ve done a lot of compounding. We have one issue that compounds into another that compounds into another, but we’ve been getting stronger at that of keeping our minds sharper in situations that aren’t ideal for us and we’ve got to keep that same mindset rolling that we’ve been doing all year long. Like I said, this is nothing new to us. We’ve been points racing the entire year. The top two, I mean until the very end right there, me and Kaden had a pretty tight points battle and Chandler led for the first majority of the year. We’ve been swapping the lead around a lot all season long. It hasn’t been just one clear winner, so just what we’ve been doing the last two months is what we really have to focus on and keep doing it. Like I said, don’t do anything different if it’s working.”
DO YOU LIKE HAVING A TARGET ON YOUR BACK? “I do because everybody wants to be me. Who doesn’t want to be the number one guy with a target on your back. Somebody else said, ‘How do you like being hunted?’ And I’m like, I’m still the hunter. I’m hunting for a bigger points lead. I’m not on defense. I’m on just as much offense as I have been all year long and that’s not gonna change.”
YOU AND YOUR TEAM HAD GREAT MOMENTUM GOING INTO THE BREAK. IS THAT AN ADVANTAGE OR A DISADVANTAGE? DO YOU WISH YOU HADN’T HAD IT? “I like the breaks, personally, especially being the most recent winner. You’ve got four weeks of being the most recent winner, which I feel like it was a year ago, but our season is very interesting. It’s like you’ve had the regular season and then you have the Chase, which is like two separate seasons in itself, but for the Truck Series and Truck teams, it’s good to have breaks. We don’t have the personnel and the manpower to race every single weekend. Our road crew guys are the same ones that are assembling the trucks and building the trucks. It’s not like the Cup Series where the road crew guys get there and it’s already ready to go and setup to go to the racetrack. It’s a building process. For us, it’s been nice to kind of sit back and have a break, get all of our ducks in a row, get all of our bullets lined up. We’ve got the next three trucks pretty much ready to go to the racetrack, just to be able to focus a little bit ahead into the future. Like I said, I like being able to step back and make sure everything is ready before you go. I feel like time away does nothing but help me. I went to the Bahamas. I’m currently wiping dead skin off my back where I got burned. That’s a process that’s been good, and I just got to clear my mind and relax and get set on kill.”
DO YOU FEEL THERE IS A WEAKNESS WITH YOUR GROUP AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS IS YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP TO LOSE? “I think it is our championship to lose. I think anything less than a championship would be a disappointment for myself and my team just with the success we’ve had so far. I think we’re firing on all eight cylinders right now as a team. Any race that we had like a really bad result was because something happened. If we had a clean race, we’ve finished inside the top five all year long and I don’t see that changing in these seven races. Like I said, for us, I feel like in the most recent history it’s just been compounding, snowball negativity. If something goes wrong in the race that causes something else to go wrong and it just snowballs and you end up having a really poor day. A race that I look at this year is Nashville that we had the tire issue after leading the entire race. We fell to the very back, got tires and drove all the way through the field to win on the last lap. That was a championship performance and that was keeping our minds in the right spot, staying focused to the task at hand and not getting in our heads when something doesn’t go perfectly. I think that just proves right there that that was our last little weakness that we needed to clean up and we’ve proved that we got that covered.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO BE AWARE OF THE NON-CHASERS AND NOT MAKE ENEMIES WITH THEM? “I don’t see that being as much of a problem in our series. I feel like right now the consistent guys that run up front are all in the Chase, which is good. Obviously, we might have some one-offs come in. I know Sawalich is in the 62 truck this weekend and is probably gonna be pretty fast. Just staying focused on the task at hand. Hopefully, they’ve all seen that and understand what the outcome was and maybe have a little bit more respect for us. Guys that are racing in the Chase, I know it’s always been for years like, ‘Respect the guys that are racing for a championship.’ We haven’t really seen it in the other two series. I’m hoping that was a little bit of an eye opener for everybody else to try to be a little bit cleaner and smarter in that aspect, but, at the end of the day, I feel like that’s not something that I can control. I just have to race my race no matter what every weekend. It doesn’t matter who I’m next to I’m gonna race everybody the same way, just make sure my finish is the best possible. I don’t think a beef is gonna start. I don’t think it’s gonna get into that with anybody that’s not in the Chase, at least for me. I’m willing to be passive in areas like that and I feel like I have good situational awareness.”
ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH BEING IN THE TRUCK SERIES AGAIN IN 2027, AND IS A NON-ZERO PERCENT CHANCE YOU ALSO DO SOME CUP STUFF AS WELL? “Yeah, for sure. That’s all undetermined at the moment – no pens to paper. Like I said, we were kind of uncertain of Front Row’s future. That’s all been kind of lined up as of now, but my goal is to have the year that Corey Heim had two years ago or whenever. I’m gonna race full-time Trucks again next season for Front Row and I would love to sprinkle some Cup starts in there however that may work out. But my goal is to make a Cup Series start by the end of 2027 and I stay pretty firm on that no matter how that turns out or how that happens.”
DOES YOUR TEAM HAVE A BASELINE OF POINTS YOU’RE TRYING TO AVERAGE THROUGHOUT EACH RACE? “I think once you kind of get into it you can see how the first two or three go to get on that line, but I feel like you can’t go in with that mindset like, ‘I have to have the two wins.’ Really, you’re just racing the guys around you. If I’m the leader and second, third and fourth all wreck one day, that’s an automatic bonus, so I feel like that’s more for later – you kind of have to do some calculations and figure out what our goals are gonna be, but, for us right now, we’re not changing our mindset at all. We go to qualify on every pole and lead every lap and win the race. For us, there’s nothing different that we can do or should be doing right now that we’ve been doing all year long.”
SO YOU ARE RETURNING TO FRONT ROW IN THE TRUCK SERIES NEXT YEAR? “Yes. I can confirm with all the media that I am returning to Front Row next year to race in the Truck Series. They have picked up my option and I’m looking forward to it.”
WHY DID THAT MAKE SENSE FOR YOU? “They’ve been a great team for me. I’m under contract with them. They’ve done a great job of giving me trucks and gave me my first opportunity racing in the Truck Series and got me to where I’m at today and got me to the name that I’m at and the success that I’ve had. I love racing Trucks. I think it’s a lot of fun. I’m having the absolute time of my life and wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else.”
BEN RHODES, No. 99 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150 – THE SEASON HASN’T GONE THE WAY YOU GUYS WANTED, BUT HAVE THE MULTIPLE WEEKS OFF ALLOWED YOU GUYS TO RESET? “I was appreciative of the break, really. Honestly, if any of these truck teams are being honest with themselves, I would say that they would all consider it a good thing. We have eight weeks with seven races going forward. That’s a lot for the Truck Series schedule. At least from what I know in our own shop and from other race teams in the Truck Series, a lot of these road crew guys are the same ones that are putting in a lot of effort at the shop to get these things assembled and built. What that means is that they’re doing monstrous hours, just huge hours getting these things assembled and set up and pulled down. It’s just a lot of work, so in the heat of the season you don’t get as much time for R&D as you would like. You’re building the trucks and building them with your best foot forward the way you think you need to, but the two weeks we used it as a building session. I can go into the race shop right now at ThorSport Racing and I can see a fleet of trucks ready to go. So, that’s a really good, comforting sign and that allows us the time to really massage on it and start working ahead. That’s really what you need to do. You’ve got to do that right now. To your point, you said that the season hasn’t been going the best up until now, and, yeah, I would agree with that. It started out strong and we’ve tapered off a bit, but I think the Chase has some good tracks for us. Bristol, Talladega, Martinsville, Homestead are all killer race tracks for us, I think in my opinion. But the ones that are in question for me would be Kansas, Charlotte, and I could kind of toss Homestead in there maybe. I think Kansas and Charlotte, if we do well at those tracks, it’s a learning opportunity to set ourselves up for Kansas. I want to kind of stay in the same realm of setup and preparation with these race trucks for those three racetracks.”
IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE THORSPORT HAS WON A RACE. WHAT DO YOU THINK HAS BEEN MISSING AND HOW DO YOU TURN IT AROUND? “I wish I could put my finger on one solid thing and say, ‘That’s it.’ In certain instances I can say execution. There’s been some mistakes made by me or even by others and then there’s been some bad luck that has happened this year. But you can’t use that as an excuse to say that we don’t need to be searching for more speed. We always need to. That’s the name of the game. That’s racing. I wish I could say that there’s one single thing and if I could say it, I probably shouldn’t be able to say it with all of our partners involved, but I think it’s a combination of stuff. I would say that if you were to talk to Ty he would probably echo my sentiment on that. Now, going forward, we are focusing on a lot of more basic, simple things. We’re not going to go and take too much risk right now in the Chase. We know the execution is key, so we’re gonna focus in on that, and then we’re gonna kind of go with what we know. We’re focusing in for Kansas and Charlotte, pulling from a lot of Texas notes where we qualified on the pole and won the first stage. Bristol was a very strong showing for us in the spring, and if Kansas goes well, hopefully we can take a similar setup or strategy to Kansas and Homestead. Martinsville has been very good for us in the past. Phoenix, we’ve won some championships there, top five runs, so I couldn’t have really dreamed up a better schedule for us, to be honest with you, in the Chase. I’m actually really happy about it.”
WHAT MAKES 2026 DIFFERENT SO FAR FROM A PREP STANDPOINT AND WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THE 99 TEAM? “I would say 2026 will be considerably different on the strategy we use within the Chase, versus the old playoff system. The old playoff system it was every three races it cycled and it was a reset. It was a fresh page. The only fresh start that we have is right here right now. Throughout the rest of 2026 and from this point forward, big picture ahead of you at all times. In the past, we would maybe be a bit more intentional at times on the way we’d run our strategy in the race. We know at this race we need this amount of points. Well, there’s a bit more of a long game at play now, which I’m totally fine with. It’s still the Chase. The intensity is still high, but I want that intensity to be just as high as it was in the past. I find when the intensity is up, it can force some mistakes or force errors and I like that. I feel like our team is experience enough that I would like to say we won’t be baited into that too much. If we make a mistake, it’s not from nerves or pressure, it’s probably just from stupidity, so hopefully we don’t make any mistakes.”
REALISTICALLY, HOW MANY WILDCARD RACES DO WE HAVE IN THE CHASE? “Well, I mean Talladega is for sure, but apart from that, Martinsville can be that. We’ve seen it become chaos, not only in the Truck Series, but the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series it certainly seems like it’s chaos every year for the fall race, so I could toss it up to a wildcard. I’ve been in no way, shape or form putting myself in a bad position at that place and then been caught up in somebody else’s mess, just because they’re too aggressive, maybe they’ve got something to prove for next year, they’re trying to get their deal finished or they’re trying to get points. So, my best estimation would be Talladega and Martinsville.”
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF, CALE GALE? “Really good. I think that’s a great question because I’ve known Cale since 2013 when I was running for Turner Scott Motorsports in the K&N Pro Series, so I’ve known him since then. We kind of lost track of each other for awhile and then coming back together now 13 years later is just incredible. I feel close to him. I feel like he understands me. He knows me well and then we’re relying on each other pretty heavy because I’ve been in the Truck Series for all this time, so he doesn’t have that recent context of where the series is at and what we’ve been doing. But on the flip side, he’s got this absolute wealth of knowledge and understanding of vehicle dynamics and just race cars and race trucks and all these things, so I’m relying on him really heavy. It’s a really good match. We’re gonna find our stride and I think we’re gonna hit it now.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT BEING CAREFUL TO START THE CHASE IN YOUR SITUATION? “Hopefully, I didn’t cause any confusion. If I could alter what I was saying a little bit. I guess intentional would be my word. Intentional for every single race, that we’re intentional about what our goal is for this race in relation to the big picture. Now for Bristol, for me, I plan on going there and winning it. Our truck in the spring should have won that race, in my opinion. I would like to go there and make up a quarter of our points deficit to half, if possible, and then at that point we’ll reevaluate and we’ll be intentional for the next race. But every decision that we’ll make in the race is going to be in relation to the big picture. So, when the caution comes out and it’s lap 110, what are we doing for strategy? What does that mean for stage points? Can we get the 10 stage points or can we win the race and get the extra bonus points? There’s always a gamble there, but some of these guys that haven’t been in this position before, you can lose it very quickly by being aggressive as well. It’s still a lot of racing and if anything from the last couple of weeks has taught us is that you can lose points very quickly. You don’t have to be in it to experience that and understand that. You can just watch from afar and know it. I saw myself in ‘23 when Hocevar and Corey Heim were going back and forth and Corey passed me and he was so aggressive during the race that if I didn’t lift in one instance off of turn three, we both would have wrecked. That was right after a pit cycle. We both had new tires on. Go on. There are 100 laps left in the race and then 30 laps later they’re both wrecked and we win the championship. Were we the fastest truck that day? I don’t think so, but you have to be smart in your situation, understanding the big picture because anything can happen and the biggest thing is not to force any mistakes on our side.”
WHAT HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE TAUGHT YOU ABOUT BEING INTENTIONAL VERSUS BEING ON GO 100 PERCENT OF THE TIME? “The on go part I learned early on, actually. I didn’t need a championship to teach me that on go is bad all the time. I made a lot of enemies with veterans early on. Here’s a quick story. It was like my first race ever in the Trucks and we’re at Martinsville. I thought I was fast and I moved Matt Crafton out of the way. Well, he goes on to win the race and I get caught up in a mess. I was too on go. I wasn’t patient. Obviously, he was patient. He let some kind in his first race move him out of the way and then he goes on and wins it. To this day, he will still give me a hard time about it and says, ‘I owe you one for knocking me out of the way.’ I’m like, ‘You won the race, Crafton. You won the war.’ But that was a big learning point. There’s always something to learn if you’re paying attention, so I learned early on that on go can equal bad things if not well maintained and adjusted.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO BE AWARE OF NON-CHASERS AND NOT MAKE ENEMIES? “It’s very important. It’s something that I’ve focused on in year’s past, 100 percent, especially in year’s past with the playoffs where those drivers would then be bumped out. So, you’re considering guys that are racing really hard right now currently to stay in the playoffs, they get out of it and now you’re in the Championship 4. They can make your day really hard if you’re not careful. Now, things are a bit different in the Chase. We’re all in it together for the whole time, but there are still really fast race trucks that are not in the Chase right now. It all plays to an effect. We saw it last week in the O’Reilly Series and I’ve thought about that for years. I always try to race people with respect for that reason because they can make things tough on you, but in recent times maybe all the way across NASCAR, but even in the Truck Series people are just racing hard all the time. There’s really not a lot of give and take. Myself and Daniel Hemric were back here talking just now and he’s like, ‘Man, I feel like we don’t normally talk that much.’ I’m like, ‘It’s probably a good thing. You think about it, you’re probably one of the better drivers for giving and taking on the track. I like to think that I do, so if we’re not talking, it’s probably because we’re not running into each other. You’re showing respect. I’m trying to be respectful back.’ We both kind of laughed about it because it’s probably true. There’s probably a shred of truth in that. I do live in Kentucky, so that’s part of it, but that give and take there’s not a lot of that right now.”
THIS WEEKEND IS YOUR 250TH CONSECUTIVE TRUCK SERIES START. YOU HAVE TWO CHAMPIONSHIPS. DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE HAD A HALL OF FAME CAREER AND, IF NOT, WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED TO DO? “I’m gonna be honest with you, that is so far away from anything I’ve ever thought about. I just want to win races and championships. I’m pretty hungry right now based on this winless streak that we’ve had. The last thing that I won was our championship in ‘23. To go from the highest of highs to not even having a win since then has been really tough, so I’m truly just focused on that right now. I really just want to win races and win championships. I’m very hyper focused on Bristol this Thursday. I haven’t really thought about it. I would like to keep racing, though, as long as Duke Thorson and ThorSport Racing will have me. I want to keep racing as long as there are opportunities to do it in this sport, whether that’s Trucks, O’Reilly or Cup or wherever. I want to race. I’ve always wanted that, but I’ve never really thought about that. I just want to win.”
TY MAJESKI, No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150 – HOW DO YOU LOOK AT YOUR SITUATION IN REGARDS TO BEING AGGRESSIVE IN THE CHASE? “I think it’s quite interesting. I think I may have a different opinion a few weeks ago. Once we kind of saw how the Cup and the O’Reilly races, the first couple races in their playoffs have shaken out, it kind of jumbled a lot. Guys have made mistakes and either used their mulligan or have given up the buffer that they worked all season to build. I think, for us, we have tracks circled in the playoffs that we feel we can win. We circled those as the tracks that we’re gonna be aggressive at and go for the win. The tracks that maybe we aren’t as good at or they’re earlier in the playoffs, we’re gonna maybe try and go and hit a single or a double and maybe try not to take unnecessary risks and take yourself out of maybe a race that you didn’t think you had as good of a chance to win anyways. I think, for us, it’s about getting through the first three. If we can get through the first three and sort of push, still be right around that 50-point back mark, then when we get into Phoenix, a place we think we can win. Talladega is obviously a big wildcard, and then Martinsville, another place we feel like we can win, and then Homestead – we’ve won there before. I think, for us, it’s about taking maybe a little bit more of a careful approach the first three and then being aggressive in those last four at all places we feel are more in our wheelhouse and feel like we have a good chance to win. So, like I said, we’ve seen a lot of guys take themselves out of it in these first couple races and we don’t want to be one of those guys. We want to have a fighting chance once we get to the final four.”
IT’S AN INTERESTING FORMAT. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT IT WHILE WATCHING THE CUP GUYS? “I think that’s great for everybody watching and the industry as a whole. I look at Christopher Bell. He’s the sixth seed, I think, on the Cup side – 50 points back, just like we are. One win gets you there. You’re in the mix after one race, so from our perspective, if we go into Bristol, for example, and make a mistake and take ourselves out of it, we go from 50 back to 75 or 80 or even worse. Now you’re out of it before it ever really started, so, for us, it’s just about going to those first couple races and hopefully the first three races finishing in the top 10 in all nine stages and giving yourself a fighting shot at going into the races that we feel are our strongest heading into the final four. So, that’s kind of our mindset. Obviously, it doesn’t always go how you planned, but I think that’s probably the most realistic mindset that we should have and gives ourselves the best chance at making a run at this thing.”
HOW FAR IS THE GAP BETWEEN YOU GUYS AND THE GUYS AHEAD OF YOU FROM FRONT ROW AND TRICON? CAN THAT GAP CLOSE FROM A PERFORMANCE PERSPECTIVE? “We’re certainly off. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I feel like there are areas where we need to get better. I feel like our peak is there. We’ve shown race-winning speed at a handful of tracks, but a handful of tracks isn’t good enough. We have to find that consistency. We need to have our off days be fifth to seventh and right now our off days are more like 10th to 12th. We have to raise the bar and put ourselves in better positions to win. If you only put yourself in position to win five or six of these races, it’s hard to win one. You have to do it on a consistent basis in order to truly compete for championships and compete for wins. It hasn’t gone unnoticed. We’ve had an up and down season – the every other race top 10 and then a DNF, top 10 and then a DNF. We have to clean that up or it’s obviously not gonna last very long in the Chase in the new format, so we’ve got to figure out a way to be consistent throughout these seven races and we’re gonna have to figure out a way to also peak at one or maybe two of them to truly have a chance heading into Homestead.”
HAS YOUR STANCE SOFTENED IN REGARDS TO COMPETING IN THE SNOWBALL DERBY THIS YEAR? “Honestly, I don’t know yet. There are a lot of factors that go into that decision. Right now, I’m not really ready to make any changes to my original schedule that I put out at the beginning of the year. I’m not gonna rule it out, but at this point we don’t have any plans.”
HOW DO THOSE 3 DNF’S FROM THE REGULAR SEASON WEIGH ON YOUR MIND? HAS IT IMPACTED YOUR PLAN TO START CAREFULLY AND THEN BE MORE AGGRESSIVE? “I feel like I’ve had more than that, but I think I’ve just had races where I’ve limped across the start-finish line, but I feel like I’ve had five or six races where I finished in the thirties. Even though they weren’t DNFs, they might as well be. Obviously, we have to clean that up. If we have one of those in the next seven races, it’s over for us. We don’t have the luxury of a points buffer. We’re not within 20 points of the leader. We’re 50 back. That’s basically one whole race we have to make up in seven races, so there’s no room for any DNFs anymore. There’s no room for a hiccup. We have to execute on all levels. We obviously have to have faster trucks than what we’ve put out on the racetrack and the execution level team wide, it’s not just Joe or the pit crew of myself, it’s all of us. We all have to pull the rope in the same direction and up the level of execution in order to truly compete for this championship. We’ve had 20 days to reflect and figure out what went wrong and way and be honest with ourselves about what we can do in the future to not let that happen again, so I feel like we’re in a good spot from a mindset standpoint, but we just have to go put it to work here these next few races and start the Chase off on a good note.”
