ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN ASKED IF YOU GUYS ARE REALLY GOING TO BE COMPETITIVE IN THE CHASE? YOU TIRED OF HEARING THAT? “A lot. You know I am not tired of it. We should be asked that question if we are going to be competitive or not in the Chase. The reality is that I think we finished 21st in points so that is a legitimate question, however, we have won a race and it got us in the Chase and the last two weeks finishing top-10 two weeks in a row has given us a lot of momentum. We show moments of brightness. We show on occasion that we are certainly capable of competing up front but just don’t do it all the time. That is what we’ve gotta do. We have to have the best 10 weeks of our life but more importantly we need the best three weeks of our life coming up here to make it to the next round. That is where our focus is. We want to be flawless, mistake free, and get through these next three weeks with the absolute best finishes we can.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE PIT CREW CHANGES? “Between the two race teams we had average pit stops at best pretty regularly and we felt like the weak link on our team was the strong link on Marcos’ team so Sammy Johns decided to make a swap and bring some of the guys over that are a little more veteran of a group and now it makes our pit crew a lot more competitive. It certainly is going to put a veteran group together that will hopefully handle the pressure just fine and I think it will enable us to be able to race off pit road and gain spots where honestly we weren’t doing that leading up to the Chase. At this level against these other 15 teams we have to get every advantage we possibly can and do everything in our power to do everything perfect. That was just one more element.
WHICH GUYS WERE CHANGED? “I think we changed the rear changer and the jack man and the rest of the crew stayed the same”
“Honestly I think just showing up every weekend and being competitive. If we show up and are not competitive, and I know this is not the answer you are probably looking for – we haven’t set any goals on rounds. Right now we are literally just focused on three races. We could care less about – I can’t even tell you what the fourth race is because all I have in my mind is Chicago, Loudon and Dover. That is the truth. I honestly do not know what comes after Dover and I am perfectly fine with that. We have three races ahead of us and it doesn’t matter what the fourth race is if we don’t transfer through. WE have put all our eggs in one basket and tried to make a big push for these next three weeks. WE had a really good test at Chicago and I feel good about that and we took some of the stuff we learned from Chicago and took it to Atlanta and we ran ninth three and qualified quick time in the first session and finished ninth. I thought Atlanta was an improvement in our 1.5 mile program and if we can carry momentum from that to this weekend we will be in good shape. At Richmond we finished 10th. That is two top-10’s in a row at a 1.5 mile and a short track and that is exactly what we are about to do again at Chicago and Loudon. I think we have the momentum on our side from the last two weeks.”
SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID THEY ARE SAVING THEIR BEST CHASIS FOR THE CHASE. HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THAT AS WELL? “We have. We feel like some of our best cars we ran at Kansas and Kentucky earlier this year and were both top-10’s there. Kansas for sure and Kentucky we were running sixth and got in a wreck late in the race. Nonetheless that car has performed really well. We have pushed that one aside after we won Daytona and been prepping it and getting it ready for Chicago and our Loudon car is a brand new car just to try something. Every time we build a new car it is usually a little lighter and hopefully that will make a difference. I am not sure what we are taking to Dover. I think we are taking our primary car from Bristol that was the fastest car I’ve ever had there until I crashed it in qualifying. It didn’t do any frame damage so they put a new body on it and that is the car we are taking to Dover.”
IF YOU ARE RUNNING TOP FIVE SUNDAY, HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE LAST LAP? DO YOU GO FOR THE WIN? “That is certainly situational. If you are running top-five and it is 10 to go and still a green flag run and everyone is spread out then you take it home to the finish and try to finish fifth. If you are fifth and it is 10 to go and there is a restart, you try to have the restart of your life and try to win the race. At the end of the day I know everyone wants to know strategy and all that stuff but we all laugh at your questions because we talk about it and we laugh because we are all race car drivers and we show up every week. It doesn’t matter if the format for the Chase is changed, if they pay points, don’t pay points, pay money or don’t pay money, give us a trophy or whatever. We all race to try to win the race. When I am in the race car, if I am running fifth and think I have a shot to win I am going to do everything in my power to try to win the race. That is just the way every single one of us goes about it and thinks about it. At the end of the day, when you win you score max points and every single one of us needs to score max points for the next three weeks. That is the way I view it. I realize winning automatically transfers you in but until you win you have to score max points every week and that is the goal. Once you win, whoever wins Chicago, if they are a Chase contender will have a lot of pressure off them and the next two weeks they will show up laughing and giggling and happy to be there but until that happens everyone will be showing up wanting to show max points.”
WHAT IF YOU END UP WINNING CHICAGO? WILL YOU FEEL YOU HAVE THE PRESSURE OFF OF YOU? “If we win Chicago I can tell you we will go to Loudon and not really care because honestly it doesn’t matter. If you win Chicago – we are nervous about going to Loudon currently because we feel we can run top-10 at Chicago and feel we can run top-10 at Dover but Loudon is a big question mark for us. We can’t afford to go to Loudon and run 25th but if we win Chicago we can go to Loudon and run 25th and laugh about it and pick up and move on because we are automatically going to the next round.”
