NASCAR CUP SERIES
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
QUAKER STATE 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 7, 2024
William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Relay Payments Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
I know it’s been talked about extensively – you guys started off really hot and slowed during the summer, just like last year. How do you recapture the early season momentum at the start of these playoffs? How much of the summer was you guys trying things and preparing for what you need for the playoffs?
“Well I mean, yeah, we finished second two-and-a-half weeks ago at Michigan, so I feel like we’ve been pretty good; hit or miss, though. Some of those tracks during the summer aren’t as good for us as a team, but we’ve really circled all of the playoff tracks and worked really hard to have our best at the end of the year. So yeah, I think once you win two or three races early in the season, like I said this week, the goal is to try and stack playoff points. If you can’t do that, then the goal is to try and position yourself well for the fall and all the tracks in the playoffs. So, I feel good about that. We’ve had success here at Atlanta. Although it can be unpredictable, I feel like as I’ve studied and watched it back; a lot of times if you’re up in the front and making good decisions, you can kind of control your destiny here. I think that’s the goal for us.. try to have a good day today in qualifying. Not quite sure what kind of speed we’re going to have in qualifying because you want to be able to have enough pace in the pack and everything like that; enough grip. Hopefully we can make the top-10 and go from there.”
How much more do you feel like is in the driver’s hands here at Atlanta, compared to the traditional superspeedway like Daytona and Talladega?
“Yeah, it’s kind of an old school race, in a sense. But I mean, I think we’ve seen it get two and three wide here. I feel like as you get down to the end of the race, it’s going to be two and three wide, just like it is at any other plate race once everybody gets their stuff handling a little better. We just have to see what the offset is from spring to fall here with the track. It looks a little bit grayer walking in, but you never know until you get out there kind of what the handling is like. It seems like every time we watch the Xfinity race here, we get a little bit fooled because their package has less downforce. So just not completely sure what to learn from today, other than try to go out there and have a good qualifying lap.”
You’ve been in the playoffs enough times to kind of know how things go. But this year, we have Atlanta to start, another road course at Watkins Glen, and then another speedway and road course in the Round of 12. Given that change, how much more uncertainty and anxiety do you think there is among the playoff drivers, and how much validity do you think there is to the idea that we could see surprise drivers not advance through the first couple of rounds?
“Yeah, I mean it’s going to be crazy. You know, you’ve got two superspeedways and two road courses in the first two rounds, so it is crazy. It’s going to put an emphasis on being good at those places and being good at road courses, especially when there’s two of them now and not just the ROVAL anymore. You know, I think for us, it’s just race-by-race. Try to show up here; put a good effort in and see what we can get out of this weekend and then that really dictates the pace for the next weekend.
There are definitely a lot of elements of the first two rounds that are pretty unpredictable, but you’re going to see the teams that can handle the adversity and work through that really thrive.”
Projecting to 2025, Talladega is going to be in the Round of Eight next year. Do you think there’s value in having that wild card element that deep into the playoffs?
“Yeah, I mean I’m not a big fan of it, but I’m not really thinking about next year, yet. Really just thinking about Atlanta.”
A couple of weeks ago at Daytona, you said that following the 500 win, you’re more relaxed and more confident at that track. Is the mindset the same here, and has that changed at all with this now being a playoff race?
“Yeah, I mean I think we know what it takes to win here, for sure. It’s just constantly changing because the track is losing grip. It’s changing every time we come back here; the setups are evolving. We just have to continue to evolve with the ‘new’ Atlanta that it is. I don’t think until we get eight, nine, 10 years down the road, will we really know what this place takes and kind of what it evolves into. It could lose a lot of grip over the next three or four years and become spread out. It is different than Daytona, for sure. The reasons I felt relaxed there is just because we were coming back there after winning a big race.”
What was the game changer for you at Watkins Glen last year that allowed you to go on and win that race?
“I feel like it started two years before that when we had a test there. We tested in 2022 with the Next Gen car; had a really good two-day test. That really kind of contributed to a lot of the setup items for the company there and build a good baseline. Unfortunately we didn’t have a good weekend that weekend. I think we had a battery issue. We qualified fourth and had to start in the back. We didn’t quite have our balance the way we needed to get through traffic, so we didn’t have a great weekend. But I feel like that is where it started. I had the Xfinity race that year in 2022, as well. And then coming back in 2023, I just felt like I was well prepared; knew the place, knew what we needed to focus on. Fortunately the baseline setup we built had good benefits when we unloaded in 2023. We were really fast off the truck. In the race, we were a top-three car. It was just about trying to get out front and have good pit sequences under green.”
How much will the pits come into play at Watkins Glen?
“Oh, it’s going to be huge. If you pass one or two cars a run, that’s a really good run at Watkins Glen in the Next Gen car. It’s going to be huge. Strategy is going to be big. You’re just going to have to do a good job in qualifying to put yourself on the offensive side, where you’re ahead of everyone else. If you can qualify in the top five or six, you put yourself in a really good spot.”
Walk us through how you prepare mentally for a race? Is it different, mentally, coming to a track like this, as opposed to a road course race?
“Yeah, it’s a little different. The stress of what you can’t control is a little higher at a place like this, so you try to put that away; set that aside. I feel like when you go to a place like here, you’re preparing for what moves you need to make. And you’re also just making sure that you’re doing a good job executing the little things. Like when we go out here to qualifying, making sure that I’m getting through the shift points good; getting off pit road well. A lot of detail here with pit road and the change in speed under green and under caution. So, you’re thinking about how you can maximize your green flag rolling time and yellow flag rolling time.
Yeah, I mean it’s just different. There’s probably not as much for Atlanta, really. But then for Watkins Glen, there’s a lot of physical prep; a lot of mental prep. It’s a tough place. I’m running double-duty next weekend, so I’ll have a lot of laps. I’ll try to take good notes and understand the track because there’s a lot of changes at Watkins Glen with the curbing.”
Is there any advantage to staying in the back of the pack a little bit early on to see how things are developing in the race, or do you want to race up front the whole time?
“Yeah, I mean a lot of the wrecks happen in the middle. So, if you’re in the back, you’re in a bad spot. But yeah, I mean if you’re going to ride – like let’s say you’re really trying to avoid a wreck, you’re going to get way back. But no, I don’t think you will here because track position is important and handling matters. It takes a long time to get back to the front, so you’re going to spend most of your time in this race up in the front, if you can. If you can’t, you might try to save fuel and jump the strategy.”
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