Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Las Vegas Motor Speedway | Alsco 300
Friday, March 4, 2022
Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Circa Sports Ford Mustang, is racing in front of his hometown fans this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He came into the media center earlier today to talk about his hopes for getting to victory lane tomorrow afternoon.
RILEY HERBST, No. 98 Circa Sports Ford Mustang – DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE A HOME TRACK ADVANTAGE THIS WEEKEND? “I don’t think so. The last two times we’ve been here in the 98 it hasn’t been too kind to us, so we just kind of treat it as another racetrack this weekend and hopefully the good luck from being home kind of pays off later into the race and hopefully we can be there at the end.”
DID YOU SEE THE MURAL ON THE WAY IN? “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. That’s actually a local graffiti artist that paints murals all over the town, so it’s pretty cool to have a 98 circa Ford Mustang on the side of a convenience store, which we get to go take a few photos with later today, but he did a really good job.”
HAVING TO USE THE SAME CAR FROM LAST WEEK IS THAT WEIRD THING AT ALL AND IS IT GOING TO CHANGE THE DYNAMIC AT ALL? “I think it was a cool initiative. I think it was difficult on which tracks they chose – speaking about NASCAR – just because at Fontana nobody has been on the track in two years so it was really, really dirty. It destroyed a lot of the underneath of the car – crush panels and things of that nature – so 600 miles is quite a bit on components and engines and transmissions and rear end housings and things of that nature, so hopefully everything stays together for everybody who is in the same car because I know quite a few went to backups, but I think it definitely helps save the team money when it comes to the money standpoint, but definitely hard on equipment.”
A BETTER START TO THE SEASON THIS YEAR THAN LAST. HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS YOUR TEAM NOW? “Yeah, last year we had two DNFs to start the season and this year we had two top 10s to start the season, so I think that’s huge, just speaking on the fact of how deep the Xfinity competition field is this year. I really don’t want to be chasing points into the last summer like we were last year. Hopefully, we can get a win this weekend or any weekend so we don’t have to chase any points, but that’s huge to start the year off with two top 10s rather than two DNFs – way better position this year than last.”
YOU HAVE LOCAL SPONSORS ON THE CAR. HAVE THINGS WITH COVID GOING AWAY HELPED WITH SPONSORSHIP? “I would say a little bit. It’s cool to have Derek Stevens and the local sponsorship on a few race cars around here throughout the garage. It’s cool to have circa, but last year we had South Point on the car, so I wouldn’t say COVID played too much into that, but, like I said, I’m just looking forward to giving Circa a good run this weekend.”
