Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Charlotte Media Tour
Tuesday, January 23, 2017
LANDON CASSILL – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – IT’S BEEN A LONG JOURNEY TO CUP. WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACED? “Probably discipline, learning how to be a real professional race car driver. That’s the biggest challenge. When we spoke, I was probably 15 or 16 and I was in high school, so I had high school responsibilities. Working on my race car was something fun to do. I used to get up before school to work on my car and then I’d go to school, and then I’d go to the shop after school and I would work on my race car until 11 or 12 o’clock at night, or whatever, as long as I wanted. But when I became a professional race car driver and then even as kind of as life has gone on the last couple years I’ve got a family, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got kids. You kind of have to turn that passion and hobby into a job has been a challenge, and prioritizing what it takes for me to be a successful race car driver and then implementing that into a real-life schedule and then balancing my career with my family life. That’s been my biggest challenge.”
HOW DO THE POINT CHANGES AFFECT YOU? WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES YOU SEE? “I think you still have to be determined. To me, that’s the beauty in it. I think this is a big change. I think that the way our crew chiefs and race engineers strategize a 500-mile race is gonna change as we know it, and I think you’re gonna see the field flip multiple times in these races over the course of the year. I would be willing to bet that our first impression of this new format in Daytona you’re gonna see a huge group of cars taking a risk and pitting on their own on lap 43, and getting off-sequence. And I think you’re gonna see the field off-sequence a lot this season, and it’s gonna be really interesting. I think you’re gonna see teams like myself, where we’re constantly trying to fight our way inside that top 20, I think you’re gonna see us caught in the middle of some of that action over the course of the year. The teams that have to fight, we’re always gonna have to fight. We’re not magically gonna be top 10 teams. We have to work to get there. We have to work very hard to get to the top 10, but I think you’re gonna see us in the crossfire of this strategy a lot.”
HOW HARD IS IT TO MAINTAIN CONFIDENCE WHEN YOU’RE NOT RUNNING UP FRONT? “I feel like, for me, I try not to let that become what drives my daily or weekly mood or confidence level. For me, what I try to allow that dictates my confidence level is my plan and my agenda and my schedule and my goals and knowing that I’m doing everything I can to be the best professional race car driver I can be for my car owner, who hired me to do this job, my sponsors who essentially hired me to do this job, and my family who is relying on me to provide for them. I wake up every morning and have to think about exactly what it is I’m doing and if it’s contributing to my goal of being the best race car driver. I think as long as I stick to that on a day-in and day-out basis, I’ve found that produces the best result of having a consistent high confidence level regardless of how the car is running or how the team is performing or just sheer luck of what’s going on at the race track.”
YOU HAVE A GOOD TEAMMATE ON RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS THIS YEAR. DO YOU GO TO DAYTONA WITH BUTTERFLIES KNOWING YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN OR RUN UP FRONT? “Absolutely, especially with David. Man, I’m so excited to race with David, I can’t even tell you, at superspeedways. He knows how to push. He knows where to be. I’m excited about my spotter this year. He spotted for Biffle last year and I think we’re gonna be a good team. My car is gonna be bright and yellow at Daytona and it’s gonna look good, and hopefully I can see you guys for breakfast the day after. I’m gonna tweet that today because yesterday it was 34 days until Daytona, so I’m gonna tweet that it’s 34 days until I see you for breakfast. How about that? (laughter)”
YOU HAD 15 TOP 25 FINISHES LAST SEASON. WHAT CAN WE EXPECT THIS YEAR? “Hopefully, and this might sound super-modest, but it will take hard work. Hopefully, it’s 15 top-20 finishes. If those 15 top 25s can turn into 15 top-20 finishes, then a few of those are gonna be top 10s. Hopefully, we can have some stage top 10s as well, and I think it will be interesting to be an outlier in this new format, where our points position is higher than maybe our average finish – where we can kind of leapfrog some guys because we use strategy midway through these races to collect six or eight or 10 points at a time.”
YOU’VE RACED SINCE YOU WERE THREE. WHAT OTHER DREAMS HAVE YOU MADE COME TRUE FOR YOURSELF? “I’ve got a beautiful family. I’m a homeowner, that’s cool. I’m still racing for a living and I’m really proud that I get to do that and I’m proud that I get to be here, and, honestly, I’m excited for the rest of my career and then whatever my second career may be, whether it’s selling used cars with my dad or playing a role in the NASCAR industry somehow. I feel like being a NASCAR driver is stage one of my life.”
YOU’RE ENTERING YOUR EIGHTH SEASON IN CUP. DO YOU FEEL LIKE AN EIGHT-YEAR VETERAN OF THIS SERIES? “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been around awhile. I’ve been driving Cup cars for a long time. My first job in NASCAR was with Hendrick Motorsports and they didn’t put me in an ARCA car, I didn’t drive a K&N car, I didn’t drive anything like that. I drove a Cup car at Greenville-Pickens. It was Jeff Gordon’s first COT car, so I drove one of his COT cars before he ever drove one out of the 24 shop. That was my job the first couple of years down here in North Carolina when I moved from Iowa, so I’ve been driving these cars for a long time and to kind of put that eight years in perspective in the Cup Series, my first couple years I was start and parking. I didn’t run a lot of races. I was trying to qualify into races. I didn’t really have a deal. You couldn’t even say that I was signed to a team because I was picking up jobs, so I still feel pretty young in my career I would say even though I’ve been around for a while. I feel like that’s a tremendous asset and that’s one thing I think is very unique in my situation is that I’ve got a lot of experience and I’m just kind of cresting that edge of, ‘OK, we’re gonna figure out how to win races,’ because for the first few years of my Cup career it wasn’t really how are we gonna win races, it was how am I gonna get myself onto the race track and who am I gonna be doing it with.”
COLE CUSTER – No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang – WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTATIONS THIS YEAR? “I’m running the XFINITY Series this year and I think it’s definitely gonna be different. Coming from the Truck Series there are a lot of Cup guys that you’re racing against and it’s just a new competition level. You’re gonna have to step up a little bit and it’s gonna be a little bit of a different challenge, but I think we can do it and we have a great team.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS NEW FORMAT AND HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOUR RACING? “We’ll see. I think we’re still kind of trying to figure out if it’s gonna affect your strategy or not, but you’re definitely gonna be trying to race hard for those bonus points. I think that’s gonna be interesting. There is gonna be a lot more to talk about during the race and I think it’s gonna be a good thing for the sport.”
WHAT ARE SOME OBSTACLES OR STRUGGLES YOUR TEAM HAS FACED IN STARTING AN XFINITY TEAM FROM SCRATCH? AND WHAT KIND OF ADVICE HAVE YOU GOTTEN FROM TONY STEWART? “It’s definitely been tough. Our guys are working extremely hard getting cars together, and I can’t even stress that enough how hard they’re working. It’s definitely tough. You’re creating a fab shop and you’ve never really hung XFINITY bodies before, so you’re learning how to do that and you’re figuring out everything that goes with it. It’s not easy, but we have some awesome people that I think are really smart and can get it together, so we’re gonna have a strong team. I have some great teammates that have given me a lot of advice going into this season. I’m trying to get as much information I can from Harvick going into these different XFINITY races because he’s obviously one of the best in the XFINITY Series. I just can’t wait for this season to start.”
HOW WAS YOUR BIRTHDAY? “It was pretty good. I definitely had some stuff going on, but it was a good time and got some dinner at the end of the day. It was pretty relaxed, but nothing too big happened.”
CAN YOU COME OUT AND BE CHAMPIONSHIP MATERIAL RIGHT OFF THE BAT? “I think so. We have some great people that are smart enough and capable enough at doing it. I think at the start of the year I might start my expectations a little bit lower like maybe trying to be in the top 10 by just being solidly in there at the start of the year, but I think from what I’ve seen over the off-season, we have some awesome people that are gonna make some fast cars. I’m looking forward to it and I think we’ll have a shot at it.”
HOW MUCH TIME HAVE YOU SPENT WITH CREW CHIEF JEFF MEENDERING AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU CAN PULL IN FROM HIM? “I usually see him once a day. I try to stay around the shop a little bit and try to go in there every day, but he’s one of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met and it seems like he’s got his act together and is really smart. I think we’re gonna be a great team and I think we’ll have a good season coming up.”
HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN FROM THE HANDFUL OF XFINITY STARTS YOU MADE LAST YEAR? “It’s definitely tough, racing against Cup guys and racing against some of the guys that have been doing it for a few years now. It’s definitely something that’s hard to get used to and you have some longer races. It’s a different speed of a race and it’s interesting though because you’re learning every day.”
WHICH VOICE DO YOU SEEM TO LISTEN TO THE MOST? “I would say I’ve tried to just get most of my advice from Kevin Harvick. I feel like I’ve related to him more since he runs a lot of the Truck races and XFINITY races, so he can really help me a lot with that. It seems like he’s my go-to guy I would say right now, but there are a lot of great drivers at Stewart-Haas. If I can just get a little bit of information from any of them I think it would be a great thing.”
ANY ADVANTAGES OR DISADVANTAGES MOVING TO FORD? “No. Everything I’ve seen with Ford has been awesome. They have some really great resources at their Ford Performance Center. They have some great people and I think it’s gonna help us a lot. You’ve got thank GM for everything they did for Stewart-Haas. They had been with them forever, but I think this change is gonna be a good step for Stewart-Haas.”
WHAT MAKES SUCCESS FOR YOU THIS YEAR? “I definitely want to make the playoffs. I think that’s one of our goals starting out, and then hopefully we’ll take it one step at a time. Hopefully, we can advance through it, and then we’ll see what happens from there.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM MONSTER AS THE SERIES SPONSOR? “No pun intended, the energy level that they have is incredible. It’s really a small company and they really run a tight ship with their different departments, whether it’s the activation and the marketing field or the videography, then you can get into the stunt driving or the athletes and the different forms of motorsport that they’re in. They do a great job with the team that they have and it’s about making impressions. One of the fun things I got to do this off-season was to drive a NASCAR car down an open highway in California at 180 miles an hour through the sand dunes region while they’re taping dirt bikes jumping over and Monster Trucks and buggies and snowmobiles in the sand. You name it, they’ll create it. They have a lot of fun with what they do and that’s what they’re always doing is looking for the next fun thing and that’s what they believe NASCAR will bring to them and they will bring it to NASCAR. It’s the energy, the excitement, the fun, the entertainment side of it and it’s about making impressions for this beautiful claw that they designed years ago and now it’s become an icon itself, where it’s as infamous to the youth as a Nike swoosh that’s on your shoe. It’s really a fun brand to work for. I’ve been with them the last six years. They’ve put me in rally cars in Italy, they’ve put me in dune buggies in the sand, they’ve had me on a Moto GP bike, stationary though. I didn’t drive it. My dad said I’d live a longer life on four tires instead of two. The group though, you just never know what’s coming up next. It’s been great to work with them in the TV booth at X Games, even going to Supercross and dropping the gate with those guys. The phone rings and you’re just waiting for the excitement on the other end of the line, so I can’t wait to see what we can pull together for NASCAR and how we can continue to build their brand and the brand of NASCAR.”
YOU’RE THE LAST FORD CUP CHAMPION. HOW SPECIAL WOULD IT BE TO WIN IT AGAIN THIS YEAR? “It is a special homecoming feeling to head back to work with Ford and to have them with our power and our bodies at Stewart-Haas Racing. It really feels neat to come back to a place where I’ve seen the faces before and the way that the structure has been polished up on and the way that there’s more depth with Ford Performance. Edsel has done an incredible job over the last decade to continue to improve. Guys like Raj Nair, Dave Pericak, the whole gang is ready and willing to help in all areas and directions and the best thing that I’ve seen already come out of things is that the engineering staff at Stewart-Haas. It’s like they just opened up a whole new book of things to look at and to advance our program further from where we were with GM.”
HOW DID THE RACE OF CHAMPIONS EXPERIENCE MEASURE UP TO OTHER CARS YOU’VE RACED? “The Race of Champions is very unique and it’s a lot of fun. It reminds me of when the top 16 drivers in our playoffs get locked in and we go do media appearances together, or we’re doing a dinner or a function. It’s a chaotic, frat house feel and to race against the Europeans, the South Americans, it truly was a unique challenge and all the different vehicles that the Race of Champions puts you in and how it’s structured and how it all works, but it’s the fun, it’s the other side of it too. At night everybody is up until 2 a.m. having a good time and you go back to the track the next afternoon, shake off the cobwebs and then you’re out there competing against the world’s best. After my first race Sunday, I got beat by Hinchcliffe by only a fraction of a second and I was feeling a little down. And I said, ‘I think I’ve got the wrong mentality. I just need to go like this is a green-white-checker every time I go out there. Just grab gears, hard on the brake, hard on the gas, just attack the track and go for it.’ And then I started winning. I was able to get on the other side of the second bracket that I needed to get in and then Kyle was winning as well. He was beating guys like Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, and the next thing you know we advanced as the NASCAR group as brothers and represented the USA in the finals against Vettel. That was an incredible feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an amazing atmosphere to race in and it had that European feel though, and hopefully it will catch on here. The Race of Champions has been going on for 27 years, but this was the first time on U.S. soil. Hopefully, it will catch on and get some stronger legs for next year.”
YOU CAN’T TEST LIKE YOU USED TO IN JANUARY, SO HOW DO YOU AS A DRIVER ADJUST TO A CHANGE LIKE YOU’RE MAKING THIS SEASON? “It’s because the teams have more depth. There is more simulation. The engineering staff has gone through things at a much higher level, whereas it used to be the driver and the crew chief that would go to the track and then come back with a notebook of things. Now the notebook has been gone through by the lead engineers and they’ve prepared it as best as possible before we show up. Limited track time saves money, but at the same time you end up spending it on personnel and hiring the key guys to make the cars safer, faster, stronger and I know we’ve done a great job to transition with Ford because I’ve seen some of the drawings and the way that Doug Yates has the engine set up. We had to change a few of our suspension settings to adapt to the way he had his engine set up, so there might be a couple bugs here or there, but I’m not too worried about it. We’ve got really good, quality people at Stewart-Haas with Yates engines.”
STEVEN TYLER PLAYED AT YOUR WEDDING. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? “It was epic. I’m still on that cloud enjoying that with my wife, Ashley. We wanted it as a surprise for everybody, so we had a curtain in front of the stage area and when the curtain dropped everybody like, ‘Wow, that’s a awesome tribute band. They look great. No, no, he’s starting to sound like Steven Tyler.’ About halfway through the first song people just rushed the stage and it turned into a full-on rock concert. It was a great feeling and it all came together through some of my connections with Monster Energy. Tailgating one night after a race in Talladega on a Sunday night you meet this person, you meet that person, you make a phone call on Monday and the next thing you know Steven Tyler says, ‘Yeah, I like NASCAR. Yeah, I like the Busch brothers. I’ll come out and do it.’”
WHAT THOUGHTS DID YOU HAVE AS A YOUNG DRIVER PREPARING FOR YOUR FIRST CUP SEASON? “It was an extreme case of butterflies in the stomach and nerves that are hard to explain on just being nervous and overwhelmed and out of your element, so to speak. You try to lean back on the previous racing that you’ve done and remember those rookie moments with the other divisions that you would have raced in, and there’s nothing like going to Daytona as a rookie and starting out with the Super Bowl or the biggest race possible first. Guys that I was leaning on were my teammates at Roush Racing then and that was Mark Martin, a true champion that just got inducted into the Hall of Fame, and Jeff Burton was a veteran driver on that team. Those are the guys you go up and ask questions. Even though your questions are very juvenile, you try to lean up against those guys to calm your nerves a little bit.”
ANY FUNNY MOMENTS FROM THE RACE OF CHAMPIONS? “For some reason everybody was forgetting what gear to put their car in when they were leaving the staging area on Sunday. Scott Speed literally drove through Castroneves in the staging area and wrecked two cars. My little brother thought he was in first gear, he was in fast reverse and he backed into another car. I was like, ‘Guys, why are we all so nervous as the American team?’ And then there are guys like David Coulthard, who I think they are machines because they shouldn’t be allowed to race that fast and party that hard in the same 24 hours (laughter). Those Europeans know how to do a lot of good things in race cars, but they’re pretty good at staying up late as well. Petter Solberg, a legendary rally racer, he’s a Monster athlete, him and I hit it off really well and it’s just great to share stories, have fun and then go out there and represent your country. Again, you’re goofing off the whole time, but you’re absolutely serious and you want to beat the other guy as soon as you put your helmet on.”
DANICA PATRICK – No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AND EXPECATIONS FOR 2017 TO FINISH IN THE TOP 10, TOP 15 IN POINTS? “Those are my goals. The goal is to do better all the time and hopefully some of the things that have changed within in our team, the big one being the changeover to Ford, will open up some opportunities and possibilities and just some pure potential for the team and we can improve. Hopefully, there is more room to improve now, so that’s kind of exciting to me. I’m optimistic and hopefully it will be something that makes a difference. I think if you’re in the top 15 every weekend, then you do a little bit better and then you’re in the top 10 and then once you’re in the top 10 with good pit stops, good strategy and all the things that play into it – some of the new formats for the races can play into segment wins – so I think it’s important to be realistic, so to tell you to go out and win races and segments is not something I necessarily think is going to happen right away, but we’ll assess. We’ll assess how strong we are as a team. A few years back we were really strong and I felt like that’s where I was running by the end of the year was up in the top 15 and getting into the top 10, so hopefully we can get back to that and work from there.”
HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENT TO PREPARE FOR 2017? “I don’t think there’s a whole lot to do different for me exactly. I’ve been more proactive with what it’s gonna take to do better, so sitting down with Billy, I didn’t feel like we really ended up where we wanted to be last year. We felt like we would be better, so I asked the question, ‘What are we gonna do different because if we’re gonna do the same thing, we can only expect the same results. So what can we change that’s going to change that?’ I say all the time that if you want something you’ve never had before, you’re gonna have to do something you’ve never done. So what is that? What is that that we can do? So Billy and I sat down and thought about those things and we thought about some ideas as to what would help. Some of it is an ‘I don’t know what we could do different or better here,’ but I think ultimately the most important thing overall is that everybody shows up to work not to work, but to work great and be great. There’s a big difference when you put 20-odd people or whatever working on a car that all want to be great and exceed expectations and do whatever it takes to meet their potential versus showing up and that goes for me, Billy, every single person on the team. What can we do different? There are some answers and there are some that you don’t have answers for because if you knew the exact answer to be better, you would have done it already.”
THE PROGRAM, THE BOOK, THE EXERCISE LINE – ALL YOU HAVE GOING ON – I KNOW YOU HAVE A LOT OF HOBBIES AND YOUR BRAND IS VERY STRONG. IS IT WRONG THOUGH IF WE’RE TO PRESUME YOU’RE BUILDING SOMETHING FOR POST-RACING? “Yeah, you’re wrong in thinking that’s the purpose. The things that I have done outside of racing that all really are happening because of racing are really just hobbies and I’ve wanted a clothing line for 10 years. I felt like 10 years ago it seemed like everybody was doing it and I was like, ‘Gosh, everybody is doing it, but I really have a passion for this, so, hey, you know what, I’m in no rush. Let’s make sure it’s the right opportunity when it comes along.’ So, actually, how it ended up happening was I went to this company, G3, to figure out how I could do something within the merchandising world to make some money on t-shirt sales at the race track, and how could that look and how could I partner with somebody to create that for myself because G3 manufactured the touch products for Alyssa Milano. That’s the kind of lead-in that we got and the conversations with them and all the very important people at that company just kind of took on a life of its own and they – even more than I already knew even at that meeting or going away from it – so what comes easy is when you do things on a daily basis. The book with recipes, I mean I cook like crazy. I cook all the time. Anybody that follows me knows that I do that, and I always have, so a lot of this stuff is really just easy and second nature. It’s more about putting pen to paper on what exactly I am doing, whether it be a workout or a recipe or what kind of styles I like, and sending those pictures to the designers. That’s more what it’s about, just following through on what do I do with these ideas and things that I do and making some of my hobbies turn into something bigger. I wanted the right opportunity, to answer your question, so if it happened last year it would have been great. If it happened next year or if it happened some day when I’m done racing, that would be fine too. It’s more about I feel like with a lot of these things that I have one shot at it and it’s about being with the right people, so I just came to a situation where I felt like I was with the right people.”
IS IT FRUSTRATING OR ENCOURAGING TO SEE YOUR TEAMMATES WIN RACES AND BE CONSISTENTLY COMPETITIVE? “It’s a great thing when your teammates are fast because you know that there is potential, it’s just figuring out how you get there. That’s the question that needs an answer and figuring it out is the challenge. NASCAR is very hard and there’s definitely a great amount of experience around me, and there are some substitutes for that, but not commonly. So the more experience I get, the better I’ll be at being prepared to do well, but beyond that then I have resources, which is always a positive.”
DO YOU THINK THE POINTS CHANGE WILL BE BENEFICIAL? “I think that the new structure for the races is cool. I think that winning is something that for a fan it’s easy to understand and for a really casual fan it’s even easier to understand. I think that having a lot more winners every week and throughout the year is a cool thing, but what I have said is I feel like this is definitely gonna be a big chore for the crew chiefs. If I were them, I would already be nervous or trying to think of scenarios. I’d probably be waking up or going to bed thinking, ‘If this happened and then we were running here, but we were fast…’ You’re running through all these scenarios in your head with ‘what would you do.’ I feel like it’s gonna be challenging because as far as a driver goes, I do try and drive the fastest laps I can every single lap. I’m doing my best unless there’s a reason to slow down like fuel or tires are going off or something like that, or you want to maintain your tire life – something like that. So I think it’s gonna be exciting as long as the information of the format can be translated to the fan or average fan in a simple, understandable way, I think it will be cool.”
MATT DIBENEDETTO – No. 32 Can-Am Ford Fusion – WHAT DO YOU SEE IN TERMS OF IMPROVEMENT FOR GO FAS RACING COMPARED TO BK RACING? “In all honesty, I’ve gotten a lot of mixed reaction for my move, deciding to leave BK Racing and moving on to the opportunity here at Go Fas. Some folks are like, ‘They haven’t run well the past few years,’ and I got a little backlash from it, and then I also in some cases got a lot of support. Looking forward to this year, what I’ve been telling everybody is we’re putting ourselves in a position to overachieve. We have some really, really good people. We have some new cars and they are completely dedicated to turning that program around and running really competitive this year. I’m really excited about it because they have really invested a ton into it. You’re nothing without your people around you. It’s gonna be funny going to Daytona because I’m gonna have my familiar sounds in my ear because I’m gonna have my crew chief, Gene Nead, from last year. He came on in 2015, so he’s sticking with me. My spotter, David Pepper, so we’ve been such a great combination it’s gonna be fun to go over there and see what we can make out of it because I know we’re gonna be a lot more competitive than maybe some folks would think.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE FORMAT CHANGES FOR 2017? “If I was summing it up in one word it would be thrilling because I think it’s much needed. It’s the same deal, you’re gonna get mixed reactions, but the coolest part is it was such a collaborative effort. I think everybody was pretty much on the same page, so moving into this year it’s gonna be awesome. I think it’s gonna be so much fun, especially giving my point of view on it, being maybe a smaller team, and looking into this format it’s gonna give us some opportunities that maybe we didn’t have before. Heck, if some guys are racing at the end of the segment and we’re like, ‘Hey, we can pit,’ and then when the segment ends we could stay out and gain a bunch of track position, or if we could put ourselves in positions to do the opposite and have chances to be up front at the end of a segment or stage, I’m pretty excited about that. Much needed and I’m excited about Monster coming in. It’s gonna hopefully bring a younger group of fans to this sport. It’s cool to see how everyone has been working together and the direction NASCAR is going. I’m more excited about it than ever.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR PR REPRESENTATIVE FOR THIS YEAR? HOW DID IT COME ABOUT? “Ryan Ellis. This has been a joke for years, too. That’s the funniest part about it. I’ve always told Ryan, ‘Hey, you’re one of my best friends so I hope driving works out for you.’ We all know how tough of an industry it is though. I tell people me getting here is like winning the lottery two times in a row. But I’ve always said, ‘Hey, PR person Ryan’ because he would always just do everything for me and he’s so good at working with people and just kind of winging everything. That joke actually turned into a reality for this year. I’m excited to have Ryan working with me and doing our team’s PR for this year. He’s gonna do a really good job at it. He’s pretty much done his own PR and self-promoted himself for so many years that he’s gonna be one of the best in the industry. I mostly approached him. We joke about it all the time. This has been for years, so the joke kind of came up when we were chatting about it and he was like, ‘Man, I really don’t have any racing plans for next year, nothing solid that I feel like would be a step forward.’ Then I was like, ‘OK, all joking aside,’ and it was hard to say it without laughing, ‘but if you would like to do it, I think it would be a perfect fit and you could help the team and bring a lot to the team.’ So that’s how it worked out.”
HOW WILL YOUR CAREER ADVANCE WITH THIS CHANGE? “Moving into this year, I definitely wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t feel absolutely positive that it was a step forward. What I saw was an opportunity to go to a team and bring my ability. I’m nothing without my people, like I said, so bringing myself and my ability and then, more importantly, all the folks that surround me to turn this team around. If we can all go in there and take a team that wants and showed and told us they’re dedicated to running very competitively this year. So if we can go in and take that and run significantly better than they have and be running really competitively, I think that’s gonna reflect on all of us. I don’t think there’s any better opportunity for the position I’m in.”
WHAT POTENTIAL DO YOU SEE IN YOURSELF AND YOUR TEAM GOING INTO 2017? “It’s a lot different going into this year. Every year you feel so much more comfortable. My first year you walk in and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s Dale Jr. and Tony Stewart.’ All these guys that, heck, if I’m being honest, I still have their memorabilia up in my office at home. I just felt like a fan and you’re so nervous, but now going into my third season you’re just more comfortable and you’re able to focus on putting every bit of your race together and perfecting your pit stops and little things. Confidence is everything. When you go into a season so confident and having a working relationship with some of the guys on my team and my crew chief and my spotter, you go in there with that confidence and that makes a huge difference.”
RYAN ELLIS LEFT HIS DOG AT YOUR HOUSE FOR A DAY AND IT GOT PINK EYE. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? “I’m apparently a bad dog-sitter. I don’t know what happened because all we did was nap together all day. I did notice something in his eye and I texted him and told him right away. ‘I notice something on his eye. It wasn’t me. I’m not trying to hurt your dog,’ but Andy is my napping partner.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT ARCHIE ST. HILAIRE? “I’ve had the privilege of knowing Archie for years from when he was in the XFINITY Series and now he’s been in the Cup Series for multiple years. Archie is one of the most honest guys I know, and he keeps his word on everything he says and I’ve known that characteristic about him. He says it comes from his French heritage. He is really a man of his word, so when he told me, when I was having those discussions with him, and he told me, ‘Hey, we need to run competitively. This is what we’ve got. This is what we’re looking at. We’d like to have the combination of you and Gene,’ things like that. I knew what he says he means, so you can take it to the bank. That’s what I was really excited about was knowing that he was truly dedicated to running competitively and that’s what enticed us to come in there and talk and come up with a game plan, and it all came together really quick. I’ve never had a ride come together this fast in my life. I think it really came together in darn near a week.”
HOW DO YOU AS A SMALL TEAM COMPENSATE FOR RULES CHANGES DURING THE OFF-SEASON WITH NO ON-TRACK TESTING? “It’s definitely a lot different for us verson some of the bigger teams having, I’m guessing 400 employees or so. I think we have roughly 15, so it’s definitely a smaller group. It’s cool because we have 15 really good guys, so that makes a big difference. As far as that stuff, though, they will be running a lot of simulation. They have access to tools that we couldn’t fathom having. We’re doing it more of an old-school way, but Gene said, ‘While they’re using all the simulation we’re using the common sense theory.’ We do have to go on some older school principles. We have some of that stuff, a little bit of the basic simulation things, so we’ll know we’ll be in the ballpark obviously, they still do a great job at that, but we were discussing that the other day. We’re gonna be using some of the first couple of races as a little bit of a test for us. We’re gonna go to Atlanta and figure out, ‘OK, with this aero package we’re gonna change stuff and be like this is the attitude or platform that it likes.’ We’re gonna have stuff to figure out where other teams may be quite a few steps ahead of us there, but we always do a good job in working together and doing it the old-fashioned way.”
ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – CAN YOU CONVINCE US HOW RPM GOING FROM TWO CARS TO ONE IS A GOOD THING? “I don’t have to convince you. My job is not to convince anybody of what’s good and what’s bad, but I can just tell you the facts and the fact is it was imperative for us to get our focus and put all of our resources and all of our energy and all of our effort into one thing. Over the last couple years we have been a little bit diluted and so to be able to take this opportunity is not what we wanted as a race team by any means, but sometimes in life you get lemons and you have to make lemonade. This gives us the opportunity to do that. It gets us centrally-focused on one car and we retained a lot of employees, so now it’s all hands-on deck on that 43 car and we’re gonna make every effort to get that car back running the way it needs to run. It’s no secret that last year, 2016, was not a good season for us. It’s just the reality, but 2017 is a new year and we’ve got to take advantage of what’s ahead of us and I feel like by us scaling back to one car gives us that opportunity to do that, rather than to try and piecemeal a second car together. There were a few opportunities out there for us to put a second car on the race track, but it wasn’t gonna be at a high quality and the management at Richard Petty Motorsports thought it would be in our best interest to not do that and to really focus all of our attention on getting our performance back to where it needs to be. I commend them for that and I’m looking forward to getting our race car back up front. We have a lot of great sponsors. That’s one of the amazing things about our race team is even though our performance was not what we wanted last year, we still have sponsors that are incredibly committed to us and I’m so thankful and so fortunate for that. We owe it to them if not just ourselves to get our performance back to where it needs to be.”
WHERE ARE YOU GETTING CHASSIS FROM THIS YEAR? “We’re back in the beginning. We’re sort of in the infancy stages of that, but we’ve continued and sort of upped our ante with our technical alliance with Roush Fenway Racing. So we continue to be aligned with them and they’ve brought a lot of new people in. They’ve really heavily staffed their engineering department and their infrastructure on that side of things, and they’ve got new designs for race cars and a lot of really cool and great things going on, so it was really good timing for us coming off the year was just came off of to really focus on what we do well, and over the past several years leading up to last year, we were really good at supplementing. We took what Roush gave us and worked on it and tuned on it ourselves, fluffed and buffed it, if you will, and took it to the race track. Then we kind of went out on a limb and started doing more and more and more on our own and we almost got to a point to where we spread ourselves too thin. Our resources were limited and not just financially, but manpower, equipment and things like that. We had gotten to where we probably overstretched our boundaries. So, for us, it’s really been about coming back together, focusing. We’ve scaled back to one car, but then focusing on what we do best and we don’t have an engineering staff of 70 or 80 engineers like the race teams we race against, but Roush does. So for us to be able to pull from that resource and piggyback off of the knowledge and the people and the resources that they have, and then bring their cars into our shop and go from there and get them ready to go race, I think is gonna get us back to kind of where we were two years ago when we were really competitive.”
WHICH OF THE FORD DRIVERS DO YOU STAY IN CONTACT WITH TO HELP YOU CONTINUE TO GROW AS A DRIVER? “That’s the one really cool thing about Ford Performance and Ford Motor Company is that they have made every effort to make One Ford. We talk about that. We have dinner events with all the Ford drivers and we have team outing events and we’ve done everything from go and shoot each other with paintball guns out in Pennsylvania to going to dinner together and things like that. It’s really brought us as a whole closer together. Dave Pericak from Ford Performance has been at the head of that and then also Raj Nair, so their focus is just as much on building the connections and bonds as us drivers and with them on the personnel side as much as they are with the performance of the vehicle and the engineering of the vehicle. I think that’s gone a long way for us, so I feel really connected to all the Ford drivers. We have a lot of dinner events and then formal and informal meetings together to where I feel comfortable that I can talk to Joey, Brad. I can talk to the Roush Fenway drivers, obviously. We have a technical alliance with them, so that’s an easy connection. And then the Stewart-Haas thing is new and that’s fresh, but I think as time evolves and we get going through this year that will come pretty naturally like the Penske thing did as well.”
YOU’RE GOOD FRIENDS WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON. DO YOU WISH THE FANS KNEW HIM BETTER BECAUSE HE STILL HEARS HIS SHARE OF BOOS? “I think it’s fine. I’m under the impression that I don’t really care what anybody else thinks about Jimmie Johnson. All I care about is I have my opinion of him, right? We’re friends. I’ve built a relationship with him over the years in this sport and I consider himself a great friend. He’s an incredible guy, but it’s not my job to sell the crowd or the media or the fans on being a Jimmie Johnson fan, so from that aspect if he gets boos, I’ll laugh and carry on. It doesn’t ruin my day. The fans can think what they want. He is a great guy. He’s a fierce competitor, but out of anybody in that garage area if you were freezing cold and all you had was a t-shirt on and you needed a jacket, Jimmie Johnson would probably be the one guy from that garage area that would offer you his jacket and take it off. I think that speaks volumes about who he is.”
HOW MUCH ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING TO FLORIDA? “I always look forward to going to Florida. First of all, I don’t like the cold weather. I’ve lived in North Carolina going on 13 years now and I have yet to get accustomed to this cold weather, running the heat in the house all the time, drying your skin and your nose out. I don’t like it. I’m used to humidity, sunshine, swimming in the pool, being outside, so I look forward to going to Florida for that before anything else. And then obviously getting ready for the Daytona 500, the biggest race of the year. I love it. I love Daytona. It’s such a special place for me. I’ve gotten a win there in July in the Cup Series. I’ve won an XFINITY race there last year, so Daytona has been really good to me and it’s such a special place because as a kid that’s where I grew up going to watch NASCAR races. Every December we drove over for Daytona cart week and we raced at the little go-cart track outside of Daytona, and I would go as a kid and look at the big race track and was just in awe and dream about racing at that race track. Now I’ve got that opportunity. I’ve got two trophies from there, but I need that Harley J. Earl Trophy to kind of finish out the trophy case.”
ON FRESH FROM FLORIDA SPONSORSHIP. “Fresh From Florida is coming back as a primary sponsor for us. They’re gonna sponsor one of our Cup races for the spring Talladega race, and then they’re also gonna sponsor four or five XFINITY races, starting with the Daytona XFINITY race. I’m really looking forward to having them back as a partner. Obviously, I am fresh from Florida, so to have a sponsor like Fresh From Florida is really cool. And then growing up in Florida I understand and know first-hand what Florida agriculture means to the state. Besides the fact that their produce is amazing, they’ve grown that program over the years with our race team to selling it all over the southeast and they specifically label their stuff in the grocery stores with Fresh From Florida labels on it, so if you buy something with a Fresh From Florida logo on it, not only are you supporting me and allowing me to go drive a race car, you’re supporting the Florida agriculture and all of the farmers and growers in the state of Florida, which means a lot to me coming from the state of Florida. On top of that, they’ve just launched a program to where they’re gonna be in 40 Walmarts in Florida from now until the Daytona 500. So you can go to any Walmart in Florida and look for all the Fresh From Florida campaign around the racing program.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE OFF-SEASON CHANGES THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE AT ROUSH FENWAY? “I’m really looking forward to this change at Roush Fenway Racing, but, first of all, Greg Biffle has been a great teammate for myself and for Ricky and for the Roush Fenway organization. He’s brought a lot of wins and a lot of success to Jack, so I want to thank him for everything he’s done for us before this year. But moving into 2017, I think what it’s gonna do for our race team is just make us more nimble and able to react faster. As we all know, NASCAR is changing every weekend, every day. If you’re not making changes on your race cars, you’re not keeping up with the competition. It’s very easy in the off-season to implement all of your changes, but as the season goes on and the larger you are, the harder it is to get all of those changes into your race car quickly, so I think this will take us from being a month or six weeks out of finding some speed and actually getting it in all the race cars to a couple weeks, and that’s big for us. As you find things, you need to have them in your race car, so I look forward to that. I also look forward to Ricky and I, we’ve been friends since 2010 when I was at Diamond Waltrip Racing and he was at Roush Fenway, and then I came to Roush Fenway and we were still really close friends, but later that year we kind of started this Ricky versus Trevor campaign and it was always who is doing the best? Is it Ricky? Is it Trevor? We were always on this kind of totem pole, who is the best at Roush Fenway? But I think Ricky and I have kind of realized in the last couple of years of being teammates at the Cup level that it’s not Ricky versus Trevor anymore, it’s Roush Fenway Racing versus everybody else. We’ve come alongside each other as teammates and are really gonna push each other this season. I mean, I feel like we started doing that last season and we saw some result from it, but we’re gonna learn from each other, we’re gonna be humble through it and we’re gonna understand that you can learn from each other and we’re gonna push our team. I think that’s our role as drivers is to get in there and motivate our guys and to finish this season as strong as we start.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN BUILD ON LAST SEASON OR DID YOU LOSE MOMENTUM? “I think we can learn a lot from last season. In sports, we’re quick to look at our last performances as our evaluation of a whole season and last year I think we kind of shocked ourselves and everyone else when we came to Atlanta and got our car to qualify third, ran well. There were a lot of times early in the season when we were making it to the final round of qualifying. I remember Jamie Little would do an interview and would come by and talk about it. I’d qualify good and she would laugh and be like, ‘I’ve got to interview you next week,’ and she’d come an interview me I’d make it to the final round again. We’d crack up about it, so that performance early in the year was something that shocked us a little bit. As the season went on, I feel like we did not keep up the way that we wanted to, so what we have to learn is, I touched on it a second ago, ‘How do you stay motivated and make the gains from Michigan to Homestead that you make in the off-season, that you show up to Atlanta and Daytona with?’ That’s what we have to do as a team. We have to stay motivated. I think the guys are motivated, but we have to continue to communicate better. You’ve heard this a lot at Roush Fenway Racing in particular is a culture shift and a communication shift. I think that’s taking place. You don’t have a culture shift by replacing one or two people or by hiring new personnel. The culture shift has to be engrained into every single person in the organization, and I think we’re getting closer and closer to being to that point where everybody believes that we can do it at Roush Fenway Racing. Everybody is on board, everybody willing to work the hours, everybody is willing to endure the hard days because it’s easy to get pumped up to go to Daytona. I’m sure everybody you’ve talked to in here today has said how excited they are and how pumped up they are to go racing, but it’s those summer months that we get to when you really find out what you’re made out of and what you can accomplish throughout the rest of the season. So I’m looking forward to that this year. I’m looking forward to learning from last year and, again, I’m really pumped up about the guys I have surrounding me and just their mentality right now because they’re willing to do what it takes to win races and to get us back.”
HOW EXCITED ARE YOU ABOUT DAYTONA? “Daytona is always that bittersweet, double-edged sword. It can go and you can win the race, or you can wreck out on lap one after a rain delay. I’ve done both of those, but we do know that Daytona is a great opportunity for us to go and win a race. I’m sure again that all the other drivers think the same thing, but what I believe in is the program that Jimmy Fennig has kind of built in our superspeedway cars, that process of him being there and overseeing every car that goes to the race track at superspeedways has shown to have performance. Greg Biffle was on a pole last year. We almost made the final round in all of the races. I think we qualified 13th in almost all of them and maybe one we qualified 11th or 12th, so we were right on the cusp of that. Ricky Stenhouse had performance in his race cars. They showed up on the race track fast. We finished third at Talladega and ran well at Daytona, and I think performance does matter at those races. When you’re gonna pull out of line and make a run, you’ve got to have some speed in your car, so we had that, but what it ultimately comes down to is making the right decisions throughout the race to put yourself in the best opportunity and I hope to do that. I hope Matt Puccia and myself can be on the same strategy, Roman Pemberton, he’ll be on the same strategy as us, and just as a team we’ll be firing right when we get to Daytona. Last year at Daytona, I had a lot of unknowns. I showed up with a new crew chief, a completely new team. I hadn’t worked with any of my guys before and I felt like we started out pretty strong, but we’ve learned a lot about each other. We’ve learned a lot about our weaknesses and where we fail each other at, and we’re gonna build on that to get better.”
WHAT WOULD BE A CHANGE OR TWO THAT WOULD BE IDEAL FOR THE SPORT AND BE READILY ACCEPTABLE? “That’s a very hard question. I wish I had all the answers. I think about it all the time. As drivers we sit there, as Carl Edwards said, we wake up thinking about it, we go to lunch thinking about it, we go to sleep thinking about it and we dream about it, but I don’t have all the answers to that question. I think that they’re pursuing that, though. I don’t mean to give you a political answer, but with the format changes we’re going to, I think NASCAR is pursuing that and that comes from a culmination of the stakeholders. That comes from the drivers, the fans, the track owners and presidents, and I think that ultimately what we want at the end of the day is the best racing possible, so we want everybody motivated. We want them to drive hard. We want the crews to make risky calls and we want the cars to be able to run close to each other, so I wish I could tell you how to make the cars run closer together. Obviously, when we can accomplish that you’re gonna see the best racing possible, but there are a lot of engineers smarter than I am figuring that one out. As far as the new format changes, the benefit I think you’re gonna see there, as a driver I can’t push any harder. I race every single lap at 100 percent. A lot of drivers will tell you I go over that edge sometimes and make them mad, but we cannot push our cars to race any harder to win a stage, but what you will see and what it will culminate is strategy changes. Our crew chiefs are gonna be trying to do things throughout the race to make it more interesting to get the most points possible. If I win two stages and finish 20th, I’m gonna get as many points as the guy that finishes second. Obviously, wins, especially stage three, are invaluable, but for us it creates an opportunity to strategize, to mix it up, and to really be risky. The guy that runs 15th all day and just executes well is not gonna be rewarded as much as a guy who takes chances and gets those stage wins. The end of the race is what we’re always shooting for, so I look forward to that. I think maybe Daytona and Talladega you could maybe turn up the aggression a little bit, maybe not the intensity, but you could try some things at stage one or stage two that you normally would say it’s way too early for that, so it may change the intensity there a little bit. But ultimately, we want to put on the best race we can for our fans and I can promise you that all 40 of us are driving our guts out. Now I think beyond just winning the race our crew chiefs will have something else to work towards.”
IS IT GOING TO TAKE A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT FOR FORD TO WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP OR CAN ONE TEAM CATCH FIRE AND DO IT? “I really hope that Roush Fenway Racing can always be the team to bring the trophies home for Ford, but in reality it’s gonna take an effort of everybody being together. The more you can combine your resources, the better off you’re gonna be. I don’t know exactly what that relationship is gonna look like yet. We haven’t been to the race track yet with Stewart-Haas as a Ford team. We obviously have a good partnership with Penske, but it’s not like we’re gonna go sit down in our meetings and they’re gonna lay out their chassis blueprints or their aero sheets. I definitely hope that Ford will kind of put their stake in a little bit and say, ‘Alright guys, we’ve got to work together.’ And we hope for that at Roush Fenway Racing because I feel like we’re kind of an open book, so I would challenge the other teams to be willing to work together, but I think as far as a manufacturer’s championship it always takes every team that you’ve got, and that’s obviously what Ford wants to do. They want to hedge their bets a little bit and they felt like Stewart-Haas was a great team to partner with to do that, and Ford does a really good job with their drivers of bringing us together for events, trying to get us to have conversation. We may not share data sheets, but we can have conversation to help each other along. It’s the one little thing that you hear in a meeting that really could send your team the right direction, so I look forward to working with those guys, getting to know them better and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish this year.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. – No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion – DOES IT SEEM SPONSORSHIP IS EASIER TO COME BY? “I think for any team it’s getting harder to come by. I think as drivers it’s easier this day and age to build personal relationships with the sponsors. All of our partners on the 17 team I’ve got great relationships with off the race track. Obviously, we want to do a better job for them on the race track, but we do a ton as drivers off the race track to make their sponsorship worth it of our race team. I would definitely say I don’t know one team that would say it’s getting easier to come by, but it’s a lot of hard work put into it. I’m flying up to Fastenal tomorrow morning and there for a couple days and do the same thing with all of our other partners. It’s a lot of work put in off the race track, but it’s just something that you’ve got to do.”
HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY DIFFERENCE WITH RFR SCALING BACK TO TWO TEAMS? “I’ve been at the shop a lot with the guys and obviously I have a new crew chief with Brian Pattie and moving some of my key staples on the 17 team off the 17 team to run some key departments in our shop. I’ve seen a big benefit already in that. Mike Kelley is doing a great job at going to the windtunnel and finding the downforce that we need to find. Nick (Sandler) is going a great job on the engineering side. We have a meeting every morning at 7:30 that every department runs over a list of things that they need done that day and if it doesn’t get done that day, it gets brought up in the next meeting the next morning. It’s been pretty beneficial. I’m excited that I’ve seen progress being made in communication at our shop and everybody seems really motivated to get Jack and our partners back to running better, running up front. We don’t show up to the race track not to do that. They’ve put a lot of hard work into it and we’re trying to make up a lot of ground that we’ve lost over the last couple years, so I don’t think two cars right now has really made a whole lot of difference, but I think as we go throughout the season when Mike and the guys find aero advantages at the windtunnel, getting that stuff implemented into our race cars is gonna be a little bit easier only doing it for two cars versus three, but, then again, on the weekend you don’t learn as much either. It goes hand in hand, but I think I’ve been encouraged with what I’ve seen at the race shop this off-season.”
WHO IS THE OLD GUY ON THE TEAM NOW THAT BIFFLE IS GONE? “I’m the old guy. I’ve been at Roush Fenway the longest now, so I never really thought that would happen. Obviously, we had Matt, Carl and Greg there and they had been there for a long time. I signed with Roush in 2007, so it’s been a while. It’s been a journey that I’ve enjoyed. It’s a new chapter for me now to kind of take the reins and make sure we lay the buggy in the right direction. I feel good about that and Trevor along with me we’re gonna have to make sure that when we come back from the weekend we let them know what direction we need to go to make our cars better and better every week. I think we started last season fairly strong and we fell off. That was something that we weren’t able to maintain and that’s something we’ve got down in our notes. We’ve got to maintain and continue to get better every week.”
DOES THIS NEW FORMAT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON YOU TO TURN THINGS AROUND? “Not for me. I think the new format doesn’t really change. I’ve been in a few of coach Freeze’s pre-game locker room speeches I feel like he always says the orders remain the same. For us, I feel like the orders are the same for me and my race team and Roush Fenway. We’ve got to continue to strive to build faster race cars. We’ve got to strive to make fewer mistakes on the race track and have faster pit stops. Now the thing that’s gonna change for us is crew chiefs, the way they want to call the race and how aggressive they want to be at different points in the race. For me, it’s whatever Brian Pattie tells me he wants to do I’m good with it and I’m gonna go drive as hard as I can, whether it be trying to win segments or just get the best possible finish we can. I think scoring points in those segments is gonna be pretty beneficial.”
WHAT WILL BE YOUR LASTING MEMORY OF HAVING GREG BIFFLE AS A TEAMMATE? “Greg, he was one that I wish you could have been in some of our meetings we had. I know some people listen to him on the radio and he can flip out, but he was always very engaged on the feedback that he gave. He really cared about Roush Fenway and Jack and wanting to make it better. It was pretty frustrating for him over the last few years, going from winning races every year and contending for championships to struggling. I was hoping that he would be able to stick around for us to get it turned back in the right direction, but him as a teammate since I got in the Cup Series in 2013 he helped me when I was in the XFINITY Series, giving me pointers. So I’m definitely gonna miss him, but I think he’s put a lot of hard work in at Roush Fenway and a lot of people appreciate it.”
YOU AND TREVOR EACH RAN ONE XFINITY RACE LAST YEAR AND DID WELL. DID THAT HELP YOUR CONFIDENCE AND COULD WE SEE MORE OF THAT? “I’d love to do it. I don’t see it happening right now. That was kind of a one-off thing that Sunny Delight wanted to do, so I don’t really see it happening. I’ve requested it to happen, but I don’t see it happening. Sponsors aren’t easy to come by to do that, but I do think it helps confidence a little bit, getting back in our XFINITY cars that I feel are still capable of running strong. It gives you a little bit more confidence that if we can get our Cup cars where they need to be, we can go out and race with the same guys that are racing on Saturdays as well.”
DID YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME IN TULSA AND DO YOU HAVE ANY MIDGET PLANS THIS YEAR? “I had a great time at Tulsa. We didn’t win. I’m still looking for the first Chili Bowl win, but we competed strong and felt like we had a good showing. Our whole Clauson-Marshall Racing team was very strong and put on a good show I felt like for Bryan and all of his fans that were there that wanted to see us do well. That’s something I always look forward to in the off-season. Tim Clauson just sent me the USAC Midget schedule. I’m looking at that to see what races I can make, so I don’t have any as of yet. Right now, the first dirt thing I plan on doing is probably there’s an ASCS race at Texas Motor Speedway the same weekend that we run, so I’m looking at putting a car together to do that.”
MARTINSVILLE WILL HAVE LIGHTS. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT? “I hope the lights will help change my results at Martinsville. I haven’t completed many laps at Martinsville, so maybe the lights will help that. I’ve struggled a lot at Martinsville. That’s something I know that if we want to get better as a team, I’ve got to get better at Martinsville and we’ve got to get our cars better there. It’s never been a track for us as Roush Fenway to run very strong at, but it’s something where I like them putting lights on any race track. I think the atmosphere will be cool at Martinsville.”
CLINT BOWYER – No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – WHAT IS THE BIG THING ON YOUR MIND WITH ALL OF THIS CHANGE FOR 2017? “A lot of thought really goes into the new season with a new life, a new chance, a new crack at-bat, a new manufacturer, new sponsors, new teammates and a new organization, but what an unbelievable opportunity it is to go out and do what you love to do, not only to do that but do it in first-class equipment built by racers that only share one thing in common – the will to go out and win races. That’s all they do. It’s all they focus on. It’s all they talk about. It’s all they care about. There’s no fluff and buff. There’s no sales pitch when you walk in the door, there are just guys with their heads down working and digging on building race cars that go fast and win races. Those are the hot rides you want to be in.”
DO YOU PAY ATTENTION TO THE NEW POINTS AND SEGMENTS OR DO YOU JUST GO OUT AND RACE AND DO WHAT THEY TELL YOU? “I think as we go to the Daytona 500 you have winning the Daytona 500 on your mind for weeks, months, right? That’s all you’re thinking about is that last lap and the situation to push yourself to win that race because that’s what makes careers. That one race will make your career and solidify you in this sport forever. You’re not gonna see that. You’re not gonna see me going for broke to win that first stage. I don’t care to be the first winner of stage one. However, if I find myself in this Yates horsepower up front and running where I want to run, I just might be the first stage winner. But I think you’re really gonna see that as we progress through the year the sense of urgency as teams look over their shoulder that may or may not have been able to capitalize on those stage wins to look over at that little tally on the side of your screen and say, ‘Oh my, I’m in trouble. Starting the playoffs I’m gonna be way behind if I don’t go out and get some of these stage wins.’ That’s where I think the sparks are gonna fly and the electricity is really gonna amp up. I’m not saying that’s not gonna happen early, but I think it’s gonna really, really, show its ugly face or be a huge gain for you if you have accumulated quite a few of those over the regular season. Let me go on record, this isn’t a sales pitch, I’ve said for years I believe it’s time to look for some sort of an opportunity to break these races up. I’m not a big fan of long runs, and I know fans aren’t either. I’m really happy that NASCAR looked at that and decided to make a move, a very bold move and change that. And then also take the time to look in-depth of any kind of – if you’re gonna make that change, look into it, let’s make sure that we cover all the bases, let’s do it right. Is there any possible thing, anything else that we need to do different, and I like that protecting that team or teams that dominated the season and even dominated the Chase in years past that didn’t come out victorious in the championship because of a blown tire or something out of their control. I felt like that needed tweaked a little bit and I’m glad that they took the chance of creating these stages in the race that are gonna give us excitement and to accumulate those points and put it to good use when we get into the playoffs and the meat of our series. It isn’t a sales pitch. I think that was a much needed thing and I think they nailed it. They did a really good job of making sure they covered all the bases so we don’t have to do this again for many years to come.”
WHAT OTHER TRACK ARE YOU REALLY ANXIOUS TO GET TO NOW THAT YOU’RE IN A CAR YOU FEEL CAN WIN? “I’ve run really well at Martinsville several times where I thought we were the fastest car there even a few times, and especially like in ’12 and ’13 and I really enjoy that race track. I look forward to it every year and it’s one track that I feel like I can win at and win at if the equipment is underneath me and we make good calls and I make good decisions and take care of the car on the race track I feel like that’s a track we can win and bring one of those clocks home.”
WHAT WILL IT MEAN TO YOU IF AND WHEN YOU WIN A RACE AGAIN THIS SEASON? “Let’s face it, you’re not given anything in this series. This is extremely competitive and very challenging, very difficult situation to win these races. You’re only as good as the people around you and everybody at Stewart-Haas, Tony and Gene, have surrounded me with great people starting with Buga, my crew chief, to my teammates to the sponsors – everything at Stewart-Haas is lined up to win races and all-in to do so, to switching to Fords this year. No other manufacturer has pushed harder to have success in motorsports this year than Ford has. It’s not only a push in NASCAR, it’s a push all over motorsports, so you’ve got to associate yourself with those good people that are all-in for winning races and that gives you confidence that you can go out and win races. Will it be special? You damn right it will and I’ll embrace it, but it’s just like the last time I won a race, you head to the next race wanting to win that one. Success only makes you hungrier for more success and it’s been a while, but, more importantly, I want to get established as a consistent frontrunner, not a sporadic show-up and run good here and be bad the next week. We’ve got to get consistent week-in and week-out and perfect that and keep perfecting it and then you’ll win races.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TONY? “I think we get along really well. He’s a really good owner. That was the side of Tony that I didn’t know. He obviously is a lot of fun to be around as a race car driver and as Tony Stewart, as Smoke, but as an owner I’ve really watched him over the off-season, in particular the Christmas party. I went over to the company Christmas party and I look over and Santa Claus is there, and then I got to looking a little closer and it’s Tony. Tony is Santa Claus, which, by the way, he fit perfectly into the outfit. I mean, it was like it was tailored to him, but nonetheless, it was jolly old St. Nick, Tony Stewart, that really took the time and walked all around and embraced his employees and thanked his employees and made them feel like they’re family, like you wanted him to do and like you hoped that he would be and that was every bit the role he played and ownership at Stewart-Haas from what I saw of him as an owner and then as an owner of my car and my boss, he’s giving me a great deal of confidence of putting me in that race car as has Gene Haas. People have asked me today, ‘How do you have the confidence to get back to where you need to be?’ And that’s it. That’s all the confidence you need is you have a three-time champion of this sport and a big-time owner in motorsports that had the confidence in you to put you in the thing, so that gave me all the confidence I needed to be behind the wheel.”
HOW DID THE DALE JR. SITUATION LAST YEAR MAYBE CHANGE HOW YOU VIEWED CONCUSSIONS? “I think I have, but if you’ve ever taken a concussion test you’d swear you left there with a concussion (laughter). They’re hard, but nonetheless the serious answer is it is a very serious thing and it’s a scary thing because you really just don’t know enough about them. I grew up racing motorcycles. I’ve slapped my head on the ground. I was pretty sure I had a concussion. I’ve woke up with a guy after you went down screaming at you, ‘Are you OK?’ And it zones in and what you thought was 10 guys is actually just one big guy, but the reality is that is real, right? Dale has been doing this a long time, a lot longer than I have. He’s had a lot of bad wrecks and everybody is different. That’s the only thing I really know of it. You watch football, these football games. In the off-season I’ve really had a chance to watch some football games and things like that and I really do believe that everybody is different on how they react to them and not everybody has the same impact or the same crashes. Some people are more fortunate than others, but, for me personally, I think you’ll know when you’re not good and you don’t need to be in that race car. Certainly, talking to him there was no question in his mind he didn’t need to be in that race car, so as big and dominant of a force he is in this sport and what he means to this sport, I thought it showed just how serious a concussion can be and I’m glad that he spoke up and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem and I need to get out for all of our sakes.’”
DO YOU HAVE TO CHANGE MANUFACTURERS FOR YOUR DIRT TEAM? “Let me tell you, you want to be surrounded with people that are all-in and vested in racing and motorsports and I just said a little bit ago Ford, there is nobody, no other manufacturer that is pushing harder in 2017 to have more success on the race track than Ford. I’m very excited about that and as far as the dirt team, that’s what kicks off my racing season is down there at Speedweeks, starting at Golden Isles and then down to East Bay and then Volusia. So I’ll get a good chance to watch the dirt guys. Hopefully, they’re kicking butt. I’ve been invested and working hard in those guys’ success too, so it’s gonna be a fun year.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion – HOW ARE THINGS GOING? “Everybody is doing good. We had a great winter and enjoyed our time off. We came home January 8th and flipped that switch back on to get back in race mod. It has been fun to go to the shop and walk around and see everything that is going on. There is a lot going on with the switch to Ford and I think that is definitely a lot of motivation for the year to make that right. It has been fun so far.”
YOU RACED AGAINST TONY (STEWART) AND THEN CAME OVER TO HIS TEAM. NOW HIS IS A FULL TIME TEAM OWNER, WHAT IS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE YOU HAVE SEEN WITH TONY STEWART AS A DRIVER AS OPPOSED TO AN OWNER? “I think I came in at probably three unique years for Tony in his career. I don’t know that it was at the highest level that Tony Stewart was at in his driving career with all the things he has had going. The one thing I can say that has been very different is when you are around Tony, you know how Tony can be. You get to see him in the competitive element of what he does. For me, the couple things I have learned about Tony is how good he is with people. He may not know exactly what is going on in a situation but he is very good at gathering the information and processing it and then going out and making things happen. He can make things happen. He is very good with people and very good at sitting people down and talking to them and getting things figured out. The second thing is you would think he is going to be that guy that is going to get mad and bang his fist down but he is actually the guy that is going to sit in the room, not say a word – or if he does say something it will be little until he has his thoughts gathered and truly understands what he wants to say. He is definitely – now don’t get me wrong, he can go on a tirade if he already knows how he feels about something, and move on. But that is not going to happen, in my opinion, in a SHR environment, in a competition meeting or something like that.”
YOU HAVE KNOWN JIMMY JOHNSON QUITE AWHILE. WHAT IS HE LIKE AWAY FROM THE TRACK AS A PERSON, AS A COMPETITOR, ETC.? “Jimmy is just a good guy. He is somebody who has done a lot in our sport and has been around it for a long time and you see the accomplishments but I don’t spend a lot of time with him outside of the race car. I have known him and know he is a good person, a great dad and does a lot outside of racing with his foundation.”
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECATIONS, AND THE TEAM EXPECATIONS, WITH THE SWITCH TO FORD? “I think there is definitely a little bit of anxiousness to get on the race track next week in Phoenix. We have a new rules package and we know where we were last year from a lot of different avenues, but the hardest things to overcome will be a lot of the things that come with the technology side of things. Whether it is pulling things out of the database, putting them into the simulation programs, understanding all the tools we have. There may not be anything that you guys ever see on the race track. We may never miss a beat on the track and that is our goal. Our goal is to not miss a beat and contend to win races and progress through the year and get better. Our goals haven’t changed. We want to come out of the box strong, compete for race wins and try to run for another championship as we get to the end of the year. I think you have to try to temper that enthusiasm a little bit just for the fact that you have to be realistic about all the things we just did. In the Truex situation, that was one car, not four. It has been a massive undertaking for the company to not only turn the whole company over from a manufacturer standpoint but to bring in 70 or 80 new people and start your own chassis shop. We have done some of these things but never to this magnitude. Not because we didn’t know how to do those things before, but just we didn’t want to waste the time because we didn’t have to. There has been a lot of planning put in place but we need realistic expectations of things that could happen, where you are at, how things could go. All of us know that. If it is good we will work hard to get better. If it is not good we will work hard to get better. We just need a direction. We need to know where we stand. That is just a little bit of the unknown right now. Obviously everybody has worked a lot. That happens. As a team owner this is the worst time of year because all your road crew guys are in the shop with the shop guys that are in the shop all through the year. Those two don’t mix well when they are around each other a lot. It is an interesting time of year. It will be good to get out of the shop and get to the race track next week. It is all going to be good. We will make it that way, you just have to know where to start.”
HOW DO YOU DEFINE THE DYNAMICS OF TEAMMATES IN NASCAR AS OPPOSED TO OTHER SPORTS? “I don’t think they are any different. When I sit on the outside and look at other sports, occasionally you will see them pushing and shoving and punching each other on the bench or after the game or on the sideline. Those emotions are the same for us. Sometimes those run high and things happen and you have to work through them and not take them personal. There is a lot of emotion. There are a lot of times I will walk around the garage and someone will tell me I was a jerk yesterday. And I am like, ‘Really, what did I do?’ You get in that competitive frame of mind and can’t take that personally. For us, we can work through things and figure them out. It is not going to be any different than any other sport. You will have problems to work through and it will never be perfect.”
DOES THE CHANGE IN THE POINTS CAUSE YOU ANY CONCERN AT ALL? “No, that is the mentality Rodney has put in since day one. He is not here to finish second in practice. He wants to win practice. He wants to sit on the pole. He wants to lead every lap and win the race. That is his goal. I think as they prepare the cars during the week, that is the goal during the week. Obviously you don’t win all the races or practices but for the last three years we have won our fair share. I think the new points system has set up well for us. Really, I don’t think we will change anything as to how we race on the track. I think we will change the strategies and they will evolve and change as you go through these segments so we will have to get adapted to that. There are a lot of things that could move around as to how you work those things and when the cautions fall, how your fuel mileage is. There are a million things. There are carrots out there for you to reach and grab. That bonus point is big for the playoffs. Those points are big for your year-end total. For us, I am big on having to find things to go out and grab and motivate yourself every week. They aren’t hard to find but that is how we motivate ourselves on a week to week basis, to go out and find those things. To say we haven’t won here or we need to make up some points or whatever. There are more things to motivate yourself now than there were and we didn’t have any problem motivating ourselves for 38 weeks the past few years. I am looking forward to it.”
