NASCAR CUP SERIES
PHOENIX RACEWAY
SHRINERS CHILDREN’S 500
TEAM CHEVY POST-PRACTICE QUOTES
MARCH 8, 2024

 TEAM CHEVY’S CHASE ELLIOTT, WILLIAM BYRON AND DANIEL SUAREZ MET WITH THE MEDIA FOLLOWING THE NASCAR CUP SERIES’ PRACTICE SESSION AT PHOENIX RACEWAY.

POST-PRACTICE QUOTES:

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 KELLEY BLUE BOOK CAMARO ZL1

COULD YOU TELL A DIFFERENCE, OR WAS IT CLOSE TO WHAT YOU FELT BACK IN DECEMBER?

“Honestly, no I really didn’t. I forgot they did anything until they started talking about it afterwards. I don’t see it really changing a whole lot. I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think it’s going to change much.”

WHAT DID YOU FEEL WITH YOUR CAR SPECIFICALLY DURING THE COURSE OF PRACTICE, AND IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN TAKE AWAY FROM IT AND APPLY TO SUNDAY?

“Yeah, I definitely thought we made it better from our first run, for sure. That was encouraging. We were all out of sorts there on our first run. I thought we landed in a decent spot. We certainly have room to improve, but yeah I thought we made it better. I like some of the characteristics that we were able to adjust on, which is always encouraging anytime you start practice and you start changing things.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 RAPTORTOUGH.COM CAMARO ZL1

BYRON ON HOW HE FELT FOLLOWING THE PRACTICE SESSION:

“I was pretty tight, but when I got within a few car links, I would slow down. I couldn’t get within two or three car lengths of anyone, but I was pretty slow.”

HOW DID THE NEW TIRES FEEL TODAY ON TRACK?

“They felt fine. You could slide the car around a little bit more, I felt like. The fall-off seemed pretty quick. But yeah, unless I was on a two or three-lap tire advantage or disadvantage, there were comers and goers with that. But with equal tires, I didn’t pass anyone.”

I DON’T KNOW IF YOU PERSONALLY HAD HIGH HOPES, BUT IT FELT LIKE THERE WAS SOME SORT OF HOPE THAT THIS WAS GOING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER, AND EVERYONE THAT’S COME IN SO FAR HAS SAID IT’S EITHER THE SAME OR WORSE IN TRAFFIC. IS THAT DISAPPOINTING?

“It’s disappointing when your car is slow. That’s all I care about. I think when you’re fast, you can pass. When you’re slow, you don’t pass. That’s all I really care about.. that’s what my job is to do. But yeah, if the package races better, that’s great. I just focus on what I have to do, which is try and pass people.”

I don’t feel like I could pass. I passed one car, but there was a six or seven-lap tire difference. So yeah, once I got close to anyone, it was really hard to pass.”

FORD AND TOYOTA WERE AT THE TOP OF THE SPEEDCHARTS. IS THAT IN RELATION TO THAT, OR ARE THE ISSUES THAT YOU’RE BATTLING SPECIFIC TO THE NO. 24 TEAM?

“I don’t know.. I think it’s really just who guessed the best coming here. The aero-balance is totally different and your setup has to coincide with that. We didn’t guess correctly, but we still have time to get it right for Sunday. I think there’s a lot of changes going into it, but yeah it just has more to do with everyone’s sims said.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 FREEWAY INSURANCE CAMARO ZL1

SUAREZ ON HOW HE FELT FOLLOWING THE PRACTICE SESSION:

“Honestly, I feel like the biggest difference is that we have a little bit more speed in the front-end because the tire is softer. And it fell off a little bit more, which is good.. I think it will produce good racing. I was in traffic quite a bit the first run of tires, and the car is very wild in traffic.. probably more than before. But we’ll see.. we’ll see exactly where we stack-up. I felt like the car was extremely, extremely tight in traffic.

But we’ll see. I think the tire is the biggest deal. I think having a softer tire on the right-side and having a tire that is going to wear out more, I think it’s going to produce good racing. But when it comes to the aero stuff, I don’t know.. I don’t know exactly. We’ll have to see in the race.”

OTHER DRIVERS HAVE ALSO SAID THAT IT WAS ACTUALLY WORSE IN TRAFFIC..

“That’s what I thought, too. But again, I think Goodyear is the one that can really move the needle there big time with the softer tire, and I feel like that was a move in the right direction. We’ll see how it matches with the aero package.”

DOES IT PICKUP A LOT OF PUSH BEHIND ANOTHER CAR?

“Yeah, it does. I was in traffic pretty much my entire first run, the first time out with tires, and the car actually felt great. And as soon as I got into traffic, I was like – what the heck, what happened to my car. But I saw cars coming to me, as well, with little newer tires, and they were doing exactly the same thing. It’s going to be a challenge, but I like the fact that we’ll have to manage our tires a little bit more.”

I’M ASSUMING YOU DID SOME SIMULATOR WORK. DID IT CORRELATE?

“It did.. it did quite a bit. The only thing that I was actually surprised about in the simulator is that we were fighting a lot of moments with the back of the car on entry. The first hour I spent in the simulator, I was wrecking because I was so loose on entry. My car here is pretty solid on entry, so that’s a positive. I don’t know if that’s a simulation thing or a car thing that we improved, but whatever that may be, it felt better here than in the simulator, which is good.”

About Chevrolet

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Toyota Racing – Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr.
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

AVONDALE, Ariz. (March 8, 2024) – Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. was made available to the media after practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway on Friday.

TY GIBBS, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

How was the car?

“I was just a little too tight. We are making adjustments to fix that and be better. You know the way this car is – being lower power – sometimes when you get bogged down, you just pay for it.”

Did you notice anything different with the car from last year?

“Not really too much. I can feel the rear diffuser downforce – they pulled some stuff off that thing. I feel more over body downforce on it, but besides that, it feels pretty dang close – just a little sloppier, which is what we were expecting.”

Did you feel like you had more speed in your car than last year?

“Yeah, once we make our right adjustments for sure. Just got to get there. We are trying different stuff.”

How would you assess your season so far?
“It’s been good. Just trying to get some good finishes. Kind of hard to judge my season because, we had two speedways to start out with, but I think it’s been good so far.”

What has been the feel with the 54 team?

“It’s been really normal. We’ve been around our guys a lot. I’ve been with them since Xfinity, so it been good. We will keep working.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Brakes Plus Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

Can you talk about the speed of the Toyotas?

“We are not our normal three tenths off in practice that we are usually are. We made some big setup changes, from our car in the past over the last couple of years, just trying something different to try to get better at this track. It’s been the 11’s car by far weakest oval, so trying to get better at it. I think we’ve taken a step in the right direction, but to see other Toyotas up in the front is good, because that is where we will feel a difference, it is not going to be in how the car feels aerodynamically, because we are not that good to be able to tell that, it just matters if it shows up on the speed chart.”

So you would say the setup changes are affecting it more than the changes to the car?

“Yeah, from the 11 standpoint, for sure. I don’t know about the other guys, but I know for us, we have to do something different than what we have done in the past, and we are trying that now.”

How was it traffic wise?

“I would it say that it was probably a little bit better in traffic. Very small from what I could tell. Nothing earth shattering. If you got caught behind somebody, you would really get caught behind someone, but that is typical of what we’ve had before, but I would say – I thought my car was better than the person I was catching though, so if they are equal cars, I would say it is going to be tough to get around anyone, but it seems like package wise, maybe a slight bit of change better.”

Could you tell any change in the new diffuser?

“I couldn’t, no. I think some of the changes where it is supposed to be better, I think it’s just not supposed to be worse than what we had before. It is just a far less expensive piece.”

Could you tell a difference in the tire?

“Yeah, that is a good thing for Goodyear to continue to evolve on and try to get better at is trying to find a tire that is going to continue to drop off. I think this one is showing some signs of that, so I think that it is definitely a step in the right direction on the tire.”

When you talk about the tires, does that mean it’s more on the drivers?

“Of course. Anytime you can have lap time variability from good to bad and new to old, you are going to see more passing. The more that we can create that, the more the drivers are going to have a hand in their finish in any given weekend for sure.”

How would you prepare those who are watching at home about setting realistic expectations?

“I think it is not going to be worse than we had. What we had was really, really bad for sure. This is a 10 percent fix. If back in the old heydays, where aerodynamics didn’t matter and that is a zero and what we had is 100, this is like 90. It is going to be a very, very small change, but anything that can allow us to run closer together, cross each other’s wake without the air blocking we have seen over the last few weeks, that will be a good thing, and I certainly think that this package, this tire is heading in the right direction. It’s not all the way there, but it’s certainly heading there.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

What did you learn that you can apply to Sunday?

“Honestly, just a normal practice. You give updates on the balance of your car and what direction you need to go with it – kind of where you sit on speed. Car felt close. Need a little work to be better. We need a good chunk to be a winning car, but we will make adjustments and see, but as far as feeling different from past times here, not really.”

Was traffic the same?

“Terrible. No change.”

As terrible as it has been?

“It felt similar. I couldn’t honestly tell. The teams, engineers make the car’s as close to balanced as they can, so I felt exactly like I did here last fall. Traffic, it still sucked. Will it be worse in the race? It will be different when everyone’s out there. Maybe it will be a little better, who knows.”

With the new body on the Toyotas, were you paying any particular attention to the new parts of the body?

“No, not really. The team is just trying to figure it out the best and quickest they can and figure out how to have a car capable of winning. We’ve really started the season off strong and consistent. We’ve had really good speed every week. I think top-five speed in every race, I feel like so far, and maybe a little closer than that last week when we were at our best. We are getting where we need to be, just need to capitalize a little more, but as far as the car – when you are in them, they all feel the same. It is just the setup and the things the guys are working on can make such a difference, you can’t say wow, this body is so much better than last year. Really hard to tell a big difference right now in only a couple of races in. We have a lot more data points to put in the old notebook.”

What would you want to see to say that this package is a little bit better?

“Just the ability to turn better than somebody when you are behind them and get under them like we used to race. What I noticed in practice, I got within a car length or so, and just plowed out from behind the guy when I caught him. Doesn’t seem a whole lot different, but tomorrow a whole lot more cars on the track will be a a different data point, and we will see if it’s a whole lot different.”

The Toyotas were fast in practice. Does that mean anything?

“We’ve been working hard on it. I don’t think we’ve found the magic just yet. I feel just like I did last year so far, so hopefully, we can learn a little bit from our teammates, they seem to be a little bit different than us and hopefully, we can try some new stuff. It was nice to have a practice under our belt to be able to try a few things. We tried a few things and it made a difference for sure. We got better. We just ran out time, ran out of things to change. Hopefully we can make a few more adjustments here before tech this afternoon and get it right for tomorrow and Sunday.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for more than 65 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of nearly 45 million cars and trucks at our 13 manufacturing plants. By 2025, Toyota’s 14th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles. With more electrified vehicles on the road than any other automaker, Toyota currently offers 26 electrified options.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
PHOENIX RACEWAY
SHRINERS CHILDREN’S 500
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 8, 2024

 KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 ZONE CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice session at Phoenix Raceway.

Media Availability Quotes:

SPEAKING OF PIT CREWS, YOU’VE GOT THREE NEW GUYS THIS WEEK.. I THINK A COUPLE OF THEM COME FROM THE XFINITY SERIES. IS THAT A CONCERN AT ALL THAT THEY’RE DEALING WITH DIFFERENT LUGNUT SITUATIONS, AND HAVE THEY HAD TIME TO PRACTICE TOGETHER?

“I have no clue. I don’t have any idea of where guys are coming from, what their background is or what their experience is. But you led into that and gave me some of that, so thank you.

I always just kind of assume that the Cup guys were the Xfinity guys, so news to me. We’ll find out how good they are come around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.”

ANDY PETREE SAID HE TALKED TO YOU THIS WEEK. I WAS WONDERING TOO FROM AN ATHLETE’S POINT-OF-VIEW.. FOR HOW GOOD AS YOU ARE ON PIT ROAD, HOW MUCH DO YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT NOT TRYING TO DO TOO MUCH TO CARRY A PIT CREW WHEN THERE’S A CONCERN THAT YOU MIGHT LOSE A COUPLE OF SECONDS, SO HOW DO I MAKE IT UP? I’M GUESSING MAYBE WAS THAT A FACTOR IN SLIDING THROUGH, OR MAYBE NOT?

“Yeah, it was. Anytime I’m on pit road, I’m always thinking of the sheet; the statistics and the pieces of information that we have of what we try to gauge ourselves to the rest of the competition with. There’s probably five or six different sectors of pit road of things that you worry about to make sure you’re the best at all of those, and one of those is getting onto pit road; how you roll your pit road speed with your lights; how you get into the box and how you get out of the box; and how you exit pit road and how you get back up on the race track and blend.

All of those things, you want to be perfect every time. For me, I had come in the previous two pit stops before the one I slid through, where I came in way too light, and I was like – ‘OK, I’m coming in way too light’. If I’m giving up.. if it’s a half of a second, I don’t even know what it is, but I’m like – ‘OK, I’m going to make sure I hit it this time’. I hit the sign the way I needed to hit the sign and everything else. And so, that’s what happened on the next one – I came in as hot as I thought I needed to come in, and when it locked the rear tires with the brakes, it just slid and it slid two inches too far. One week, you’re two inches too short, and the next, you’re two inches too far. It’s kind of crazy.

All-in-all, just a frustrating day to have the disaster that we did on pit road of just being really slow. And then for me to slide through to kind of add insult to injury on my behalf, we otherwise would have been a top-10 finisher. That was the day we needed and we certainly lost a lot of points.”

WHEN YOU SAY ‘TOO LIGHT’, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? DOES THAT MEAN THAT YOU’RE NOT HITTING THE SIGN, OR NOT HITTING IT AS FORCEFULLY?

“Yeah, so you’re rolling your pit road speed, and then as you decelerate to come into your box, you want to go to the brake pedal once and just kind of slow down and get down to speed one constant down. The two times before that, I was coming in.. I was slowing down and I was having to get off the brake because I was too slow, and then reapply brake in order to stop at the spot that I needed to stop on. So I tried to hit that one trajectory of just straight down of deceleration, and I missed it.”

ON THE STOP THAT YOU WERE CALLED FOR PITTING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX, YOU CAN’T SEE WHERE YOUR SPLITTER IS, CORRECT? SO YOU HAVE TO RELY ON ONE OF THE PIT CREW GUYS? RANDALL (BURNETT) SAID HE COULDN’T SEE IT EITHER.

“Yeah, so typically in years past at JGR, we’d always have a system of – it’s the changer’s responsibility or a guy behind the wall.. like one of the pit crew support guys behind the wall just needs to start jumping up-and-down and waving.. like pushing back, pushing back. That’s what I did.. like when I’d stop, I came to a stop and I’m like – man, I feel a little long, but I don’t know. So I looked at the behind-the-wall guys, and the behind-the-wall guys were like moving the hose and ready to catch a tire, like that wasn’t even something that they were supposed to do. So we’ve talked about some of those things to put more responsibility on more players so we cannot have the penalty exist.

But to further Dustin’s point – like the ten-tenths on pit road.. like I’m really good at getting all ten. And when I feel like I’m in a downward position, where I’m behind and I’m going to try and get extra or more, yeah that’s led to my speeding penalties. That’s led to my sliding through the box because I know I have to makeup time on pit road myself to kind of compensate for what we’re losing when we’re stopped in the box.

I know everyone at RCR is busting their tails and working hard. I know that Ray and everybody in the pit crew department is, we just have what we have. We’ve got to work through it, and if that’s changing players around, then we have to change players around. We’ve got to find something that’s going to strengthen our front line, our defense, whatever it is or whatever you want to call those guys.. special teams. We’ve got to find the players that are going to make it roll.”

IS THERE A TIME OF THE YEAR WHERE YOU’RE LIKE – OK, LET’S SET A GROUP AND JUST LIVE OR DIE WITH THEM, OR NO MATTER WHAT TIME OF YEAR IT IS, WE JUST HAVE TO KEEP CHANGING AND PUTTING THE BEST GUYS WE FEEL WE HAVE IN THERE?

“Well I feel like you have to keep getting the best guys that you can get in there, and change positions as you need to change them. Honestly, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, you’re going to run out of players, you know what I mean? The depth chart is not very deep for guys on pit road that are the ‘excel’ group. I feel like there’s an ‘A’ group of people, there’s a ‘B’ group and there’s a ‘C’ group.. just like drivers. There’s an ‘A’ group, a ‘B’ group and a ‘C’ group. And so it’s hard to get any of those available guys from that ‘A’ group to come over to you because they’re under contract. You’re basically playing.. what is it in football.. the practice squad, you know what I mean? You’re pulling guys off the practice squad to see what you can find, and hopefully you hit one.”

LAST YEAR, YOUR TWO RACES HERE IN PHOENIX WERE PRETTY MUCH POLAR OPPOSITES. YOU PERFORMED PRETTY WELL IN THE SPRING, AND THEN IN THE FALL, YOU WEREN’T ONE OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP FOUR CONTENDERS. IS THERE ANYTHING FROM EITHER OF THOSE TWO RACES THAT YOU’RE REALLY LOOKING AT WHEN COMING INTO THIS WEEKEND WITH THE NEW SHORT-TRACK PACKAGE?

“So the first race, we struggled a little bit.. we weren’t that great. I think we did get an eighth-place finish out of it. So we got a finish out of it, but we weren’t very good. The second race though, I felt like we were really good.. we were passing cars, we were fast, we had speed, but pit road happens. I don’t know how many positions we lost on pit road here last fall, but it was bad. So I just kept trying to makeup the positions that we lost. I think we came down under a green-flag pit cycle.. we were in eighth, seventh or something like that, and we came out 12th. So now I’m trying to makeup for lost time, and then I end up spinning myself out in that long run. That again, everything kind of compounds itself and puts on top of on top of on top of your issues that you have and makes your day entirely worse.

But back to your question.. the fall race, I felt like we were competitive. I felt like we were fast. I felt like we had a shot. If we had maintained every time on pit road, I think we could actually move forward throughout the day and get positions. We just need to be able to do that. If you’re not going backwards, then that’s a hell of a day for us.”

OBVIOUSLY PIT CREWS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A ‘HOT TOPIC’ WHEN PEOPLE SWITCH STUFF. IS EVERYONE SO CLOSE NOW, THAT’S WHY THERE’S SUCH AN EMPHASIS ON PIT CREWS? LIKE THEY’VE NEVER MATTERED MORE THAN THEY HAVE NOW, IN TERMS OF PIT STOPS? OR IS THAT TOO MUCH OF A LEAP COMPARED TO THE PAST?

“I guess I feel like the difference between first and 20th is much closer than it used to be. When I had my heyday of pit crews at JGR, we were running.. let’s just say we were running 12-second stops, where the rest of JGR were running 12.5-second stops, and the rest of the competition were 13-second stops. Now, the whole field is.. if you’re not under 10-seconds, you’re nobody. You might as well not even play. You have to get to that threshold. There’s now guys that are flying.. like 8.8, 8.9-second stops is a good stop, a fast stop. 9.4-seconds is probably about average. Yeah, we’re all just looking for what we can because on-track, at times, the cars are so equal that it’s hard to pass on the track. The easiest place to pass somebody else is when they’re sitting still, on pit road. So we have to be better on pit road.. we can’t be going backwards, at least.”

AIR BLOCKING BECAME A BIG TOPIC LAST WEEKEND AFTER KYLE LARSON WAS DESCRIBING. CAN YOU TAKE US THROUGH THE NUANCES OF THAT, AND IF YOU’RE THE LEAD GUY, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A HUGE ADVANTAGE WITH THAT TECHNIQUE. IS THAT ACCURATE?

“Yeah, it’s way bigger with this car than it was with the old car. This car is 30 percent worse. They were supposed to make it 30 percent better, and that didn’t happen.

Who was it.. look back to the race, was it Kansas where (Joey) Logano and (Kevin) Harvick, when Harvick ran up to Logano and then Logano just air blocked him and couldn’t pass him. So there was that race, which that was the old car, wasn’t it? So it happens always, in anything. Trucks are that way. Those guys are doing it somewhat. But these Cup cars are really bad for that. You literally just go off in the corner and if you can watch your mirror and drive out front well enough, then you can just kind of let your car go where it needs to go in order to air block that guy behind you. I was doing that a little bit with (Kyle) Larson at the end of the first stage, just to try to hold him back some. I wasn’t necessarily air blocking him.. I was more so trying to confuse him of where I was running. I wouldn’t run the same line every time going back to the next end of the race track. Like I would run high one lap, I’d run middle lap. I’d run high.. I’d run low. I would say Kyle is really good at it. Joey is really good at it. Joey is really good at it running 12th, not for the lead (laughs). (Chase) Briscoe last week was an absolute disaster with guys trying to do it; pulling slide jobs and everything else. But yeah, you try to do it as much as you can when you know you have somebody to try and hold off.”

About Chevrolet

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.