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.

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

 KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 VALVOLINE CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice session at Phoenix Raceway.

Media Availability Quotes:

With the INDYCAR season starting this weekend, will you be paying attention to St. Pete and what’s going on there?

“It’s hard to.. like it’s really hard to pay attention when a lot of our on-track stuff, typically on a normal weekend, is the same as them. So yeah, when I look at results and stuff, I don’t know how well it translates to if I could look and watch every lap of the race live.

But yeah, I’ll for sure try and pay more attention to what’s going on this year, obviously with the Indianapolis 500 coming up. Again, it’s difficult to follow along as closely as even a race fan probably can.”

You did an INDYCAR test here, so when you come back in here, are you thinking NASCAR? Does any of your mind go to that INDYCAR test? What was that test like for you?

“No.. honestly driving here today, I almost forget that test even happened, just because I’m not coming here to run an INDYCAR right now. My mind has just been about the fall weekend and what I felt then. And even the NASCAR test that we had here and what I felt then.

But yeah, obviously it was really cool to run an INDYCAR around this track. It was really fast. It didn’t feel way different than the Next Gen car here either, so that was good, but you’re just going faster. We’ll see.. I mean I haven’t been on-track since then, so maybe it’ll be weird at first, but I doubt it because I race so many different types of cars all the time.”

You touched on this a little bit last week about how although the Chevy’s have dominated in terms of winning the races, the gap between Chevy, Toyota and Ford isn’t as big as it might seem. What will it take for the Chevy’s to continue to hold that dominance over Ford and Toyota?

“Yeah, I’m not sure. I think just continuing to evolve, and get your setups and stuff better. I’m not a car guy, so I don’t really know how much room there is to make the cars and stuff itself better. But there’s always stuff to be learned from every event; every wind tunnel test and anything like that. Just trying to do a good job with the data that you receive, and try to tweak and make things better, just like every team does.”

How do you plan on keeping your momentum going following last week’s win in Las Vegas?

“Yeah, I don’t know. Phoenix (Raceway) has been a pretty decent track for our team the last few years since I’ve been with Hendrick Motorsports. We qualify well, so hopefully that all goes good tomorrow – get a good start upfront, get good stage points and just keep executing. Our team has done a really good job this year of executing with the race cars that we bring. Our pit crew has been doing a great job. It takes everything to be upfront, and I think that’s how we can continue our momentum. Just continue to do what we’ve been doing and just keep ourselves in the hunt.”

You referred to the Championship race here last year. It’s going to be pretty warm here this weekend. How similar are you expecting the track conditions to be, and what are you looking for in practice?

“I’m sure the track conditions will be similar to kind of how they always are here. I think you’ll see the groove kind of move around, like it typically does. But we have a different aero package, so not sure yet how that will effect things.. if that changes the racing much or not. We’ll see.

I’m excited to just get on track here in a little while and see what it’s like with more cars out there. I did the test in December and helped, I guess as a part of the group, to come to this decision for an aero package and all that. It’s tough to judge off the six cars or whatever it was then. Now we have the full field, and we’ll get a real understanding of how it is in traffic and such.”

Looking back to the championship race, it was like ‘oh whoever is going to come off pit road on that last pit stop, it’s going to be over’. You had that and (Ryan) Blaney tracked you down.. your car just didn’t have the handling in that situation. From that sense, looking back, how do you get better or what do you tell your team and your crew chief to make sure that can’t happen again?

“Yeah, I mean the competitor in me knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.. (Ryan) Blaney had passed me every run that race. But yeah, I don’t know – our balance wasn’t where it needed to be and all that. William (Byron) and I.. I felt like we were the third and fourth-best cars in the Final Four. (Christopher) Bell had his misfortunate and all that.

But yeah, not getting too into the weeds of the balance of what my car was and what I think the balance of Blaney’s was.. I don’t know, I just felt like we needed more grip, I guess. My entry.. I remember being a little bit unstable and that didn’t allow me to kind of shape the corner how I needed to. I was just a little bit behind where I needed to be with my angle, speed and all that in the middle of the corner. I need to be better from entry to center, with balance or whatever that may be, and then that will kind of fix the exit, as well.

It was nice to do that test here in December. Bell was a part of it. Blaney was a part of it. Everyone has different things going on at a test, but it was good to come here quickly after and get to work on things. We’ll see. I know we’ve changed a few things from what we had in the fall, and hopefully it will translate to grip and speed. We’ll see.. we’ll see here soon.”

So if your car is better, how do you determine if it’s because you guys just did a better job at setup as opposed to the package fitting you? You talk about wanting grip.. there’s several ways to find it, so are you going to tell how well this is? And in this practice session.. typically I know you guys don’t often run up in traffic, but do you want to run in traffic or spend the whole time by yourself so you can figure out the car?

“I don’t think you’re really necessarily going to see anyone searching for traffic in practice, so I don’t plan on searching for traffic. But you’ll always see it.. somebody will blend up in front of you, or you’ll catch somebody that’s struggling and they’ll pull off. So you get sniffs of dirtier air. I think the way to judge how you are compared to how you were is just off of feel. You can feel when something handles a lot better. You can shape your corner differently. And then the obvious of looking at timing and scoring – seeing if you’re up on the sheet or if you’re not where you need to be. Hopefully we’re fast and hopefully we’re up there. Again, it was kind of hard to tell at the test. We were pretty bad at the test, but I don’t think we’ll be bad in real life. We’ll see when we get out there.”

When you have a performance that you had last week, do you find it difficult to maybe temper expectations going into a track like Phoenix that’s so difficult, or the expectation to replicate what you did last week?

“Yeah, I mean I think for me and probably for most drivers and teams, you quickly move on from that, so I’ve really like forgotten about it. I would say come Monday afternoon, once my meetings were done, my mind is switched to Phoenix. Sure, I’d rather win than run 20th because I would probably feel better now than I would have if I ran 20th, but I’m not thinking about Vegas of like how to replicate anything.”

As stout as your pit crew was last weekend, do you see any weaknesses right now with your team?

“No, I mean I think based off how we’ve executed the first handful of weeks, I’m happy with where all of our team is at. The race cars have been really fast. Our pit crew has been performing. I feel like the solid race I was able to put together last week.. like all that was great.

Sure, you want to get all areas better, if you can. I feel like Cliff (Daniels) does a really good job of leading our team; coaching, prepping and all that. I’m not surprised that we’re executing well right now, but I just hope that we keep it going.”

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.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Phoenix 1 Media Availability | Friday, March 8, 2024

Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 34 Horizon Hobby Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Front Row Motorsports, and Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Team Penske met with media members at Phoenix Raceway ahead of Cup Series opening practice. For McDowell, it marks a return to his hometown track where he seeks victory while Blaney returns to the site of his 2023 NASCAR Cup Series championship-clinching win last November.

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Horizon Hobby Ford Mustang Dark Horse — WHAT DO YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF THIS WEEKEND? WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS WEEKEND SUCCESSFUL FOR YOU? “A win. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the generic answer, right? But I mean, realistically that’s what it’s all about. You know the beginning of the season these first 10 to 15 races you’re just hyper-focused on on trying to get a win and trying to get yourself locked into the playoffs. So obviously that’s not going to happen every weekend. It’s not going to present the opportunity every weekend. So maximizing the points and making the most of every race these first five to six races are really critical and we’ve had an okay start but not a great start so I feel like we need to come out of here feeling pretty good about where we’re at.”

WITH THREE POLES FOR THE FORD TEAMS COMING IN TO THIS WEEKEND AND THE PRACTICE TIME THAT IS AVAILABLE TO THE CUP DRIVERS TODAY, IS THAT GOING TO HELP YOU GUYS DIAL IN THE CAR AND TRY TO GET THAT FIRST WIN FOR FORD THIS WEEK? “I think that this weekend obviously having this new aero package on the short track downforce levels it is good that we have a little bit of time to work through it. Obviously there was a test here in early December right? Sometime in December, but we weren’t a part of that at Front Row. We get manufacturer notes and things like that, but they’re trying different tires and different downforce settings and all different kind of situations. I think it’s important that we have a little bit of practice just to kind of learn, what this car is going to behave like with this diffuser and splitter and everything. So I’m glad that we have practice. Anytime that you have an opportunity to dial it in is good. I’ve seen it go both ways I feel like one of the things that our team does well is unload pretty close. When you have practice, the really good teams seem to dial all their cars towards the front, so it’s not always a help. But this weekend we definitely could use the practice.”

THIS PRACTICE SESSION YOU HAVE TODAY, THE ALLIANCE WITH TEAM PENSKE, ARE THERE PUNCH LIST THINGS? ARE YOU GUYS TIED INTO THEM DURING THIS? HOW DOES THIS NEW PARTNERSHIP WORK WHEN WE LOOK AT THIS 50 MINUTE PRACTICE YOU HAVE TODAY? “Yeah, definitely we’re tied in information wise and sharing that information of what we could possibly learn and try different things. But I think everyone’s pretty much on their own agenda, if that makes sense, because each team kind of has their own punch list of things that they want to try, whether it be different setups or different packages. But obviously, the more data and the more data points that you have helps you make a better decision come Sunday. But this practice is tricky because we don’t get a lot of them. And so my crew chief, he’s like, I want to try these three packages. And I’m like, I just want to tune on one and make it good. But I understand we don’t get a lot of opportunity to try different things. So we’ve got to take the opportunities when we get them. But tonight is going to be one of those difficult nights where you go through all that information, decide which direction you want to go.”

WITH THE NEW ALLIANCE WITH PENSKE, ARE YOU GUYS WORKING WITH THEM ON AS FAR AS LIKE, HEY WHAT’S IN YOUR CAR, WHAT’S IN OUR CARS, TO DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT DURING THIS PRACTICE? “Yes, I mean yes and no. We can see what they’re doing, they can see what we’re doing. We had a meeting prior to getting here on, you know, directionally what everybody’s thinking, but at the same time it wasn’t like you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this, and we’ll come together and we’ll make one package after that. I think everybody individually, each car number individually, is kind of trying what they want to try and we’ll take the notes when we’re done.”

AND WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO SEE ON SUNDAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOU SAY, OKAY, THE CHANGE TO THIS PACKAGE IS SUCCESSFUL? “Well, that’s a really difficult question because I think the championship weekend, the fall race was pretty good. I don’t know what the overall consensus was, but it was good racing and seemed like a decent amount of passing. So if it was better, that would be great. If you could run closer to cars and run like we see in Xfinity where you can run in their tracks and not lose so much. You’re always going to be at a disadvantage when you’re that trailing car, but maybe not quite as much. But I feel like the fall race was pretty good when they didn’t treat the track, when they didn’t put the sticky stuff down. I felt like we could move around and pass. So yeah, I’ll be curious to see how it drives.”

CAN YOU GIVE ME A QUICK ASSESSMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE OF THE NUMBER 34 TEAM SO FAR IN 2024? “Yeah, I think the speed has been great. I think our execution just hasn’t been very good. And that’s on me. And last week we didn’t execute well, less on me last week. But the good news is we have speed and speed makes up for a lot of things. We’ve just got to keep that speed up throughout the year and then clean up some of the things that we’ve had troubles with and I think we’ll be in a good spot to contend for wins. We’re not there today, but we might be there tonight. I’ll let you know after this practice, you know? And I think that that’s the good thing is we’re pretty close with everything. So we just have a few little areas to clean up and I think we’ll be able to put ourselves in a better position, especially as we get into the summer months.”

YOU HAVE TO BE EXCITED ABOUT GOING TO COTA. THOUGHTS ON COTA AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THEM MOVING THE RESTART LINE? “I am excited about COTA. Just in general, it’s our first opportunity back at a road course and felt like we had one of the strongest packages at the road courses. Obviously, updates for that as well as far as rules go. So there will be a few things to jump through, but I don’t think it will be anything terribly different. Moving the restart and giving ourselves a little bit more opportunity to not be nine wide going into turn one, I’ve been on the good side of that and I’ve been on the bad side of it. And what’s tough is for a competitor, you just want the fastest car and the fastest driver and the fastest team to win a race, right? As a fan and as probably for y’all, you want to see action and excitement and cautions and crashes. So the package and what we see, I feel like there had to be a little bit of a compromise and I think that this is a good compromise, that you’ll still have action but not nine wide going down in there and you know making a mess of a day so I hope that it all gets a little bit tidier but these end of the races restarts are always wild so it’s a part of it.”

SO FOR YOU COMING BACK TO PHOENIX, PERSONALLY, HOW MUCH DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO HAVE A GOOD FINISH AT YOUR HOME TRACK? “Yeah, it’s obviously really important. I mean, every weekend’s important, but it’s nice when you run good in front of your hometown. This hasn’t been a strong track for me and for us in the past, but I feel like we turned that corner last year, especially with our short track program. And we were able to get a top 10 here, which for us was a big day, because this had been one of those tracks that we’d struggled at. So we made good gains last year, and we want to keep that up this year and put ourselves in contention. So it’s fun. It’s good to have a strong day. I probably don’t think about it too much as far as the hometown thing, because I’m thinking about points and trying to get a win, and every week counts. But it’s nice when you have a good day.”

AS THE ORGANIZATION HAS GROWN AND DEVELOPED, OBVIOUSLY YOU’VE HAD SITUATIONS WHERE YOU’VE WON AND SITUATIONS HAVE TOP FIVES AND TOP TENS, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE MAYBE THE NEXT STEP, AND MAYBE PART OF THIS IS THIS RELATIONSHIP WITH TEAM PENSKE, IS THE CONSISTENCY OF TOP 15 FINISHES. AND I THINK THAT’S PROBABLY LIKE ONE OF THE NEXT STEPS FOR THIS TEAM. IS THAT HOW YOU SEE IT AND HOW YOU GET THERE? OR IS THAT TAKING TOO BIG OF A LOOK AND IT HAS TO BE MORE RACE BY RACE AND LET IT BUILD UPON ITSELF? “I think that I’d probably look at it a little different. If you look at, and don’t quote my stats, you’ll have to look them up. But 2022, we had 12 or 13 or 14 top 10s, right? So that’s a decent number of top 10s as far as being there consistently. And the next year, I think we had 12. And then last year, we had a little bit less than that, but last year we had more speed. So speed is what puts you in contention to win races, but that consistency that you talked about is really important too. I think that if you look at, we’ll just use Joey Logano as an example, even last year when they didn’t have all the speed, somehow at the end of the races they’d still be fourth, fifth, sixth, they just do an incredible job of executing and getting top ten. So I feel like the next logical step for us is having more top five speed because even if it’s not every weekend, if you have ten or fifteen weekends that you have top five speed, you’re going to win a race somewhere. Somewhere you’re going to get it right, you’re going to execute, get it all right, and you’re going to win a race. And winning a race, there’s such an emphasis on that in our series because it gets you in the playoffs and all the things it does. So for me, it’s more about having those days of top five speed than it is having top 15 speed throughout the entire year, if that makes sense. I think they go together for sure, but I think just having more of that top five speed is what’s going to allow us to contend for more wins.

SINCE YOU MENTIONED LOGANO, OBVIOUSLY YOU’VE BEEN FORD TEAMMATES FOR A LONG TIME SO I’M SURE THERE’S INFORMATION SHARING OR AT LEAST SOME CONVERSATIONS HAVE TAKEN PLACE OVER TIME, BUT AS YOU KNOW THE ABILITY TO BE A BIT STRONGER AS THE RACE GOES ON, THIS RELATIONSHIP NOW, HOW CAN THAT HELP YOU GUYS TO GO THROUGH THAT? IS IT MORE OPEN DOOR AND KIND OF TAPPING HOW THEY DO IT? “There’s so much that goes on as far as just data analysts and engineers going through who did this well and who does this well and the adjustments and how the track changes, and how the car changes versus track changes versus traffic, and so much of that information, we can see it and we can get it, we just don’t have people to process it all. So being able to lean on them a little bit more for that engineering support of processing that data will help us have a better understanding of trends, of how the track’s trending, how the race is trending, and so that part of it for sure will help when you talk about getting better throughout the races and making the right adjustments and how the track changed and how the rubber went down and all those things. We know it, we watch it, we see it, but there’s teams of people that analyze just those types of things. So being able to lean on them more on that technical side for sure will help us to make better game day decisions and changes. But all that, like I’ve been talking about, is going to take a process of being able to go through the information, understand it, and then apply it, obviously. And so it’s still early, but I feel like even this week, this week we made really big gains at home, at the shop, on how well we were able to utilize the information. So we’re making gains, and I think it’ll get better and better every week.”

LAST YEAR ON ROAD COURSES YOU WERE AMONGST YOU KNOW ONE OF THE BEST AND IN PARTICULAR WHEN WE DIDN’T HAVE STAGE BRAKES, AS A DRIVER WHO IS GOOD AT ROAD COURSES, WOULD YOU PREFER TO NOT HAVE THE STAGE BRAKES AS OPPOSED TO HAVING THEM AND DO YOU THINK THAT BENEFITS THE BETTER DRIVERS AND THE FASTER CARS? “I think last year was a perfect storm for us as far as the no stage breaks and the amount of speed that we had because the fastest car won those races. And this year that’ll look different. It’ll look different because if you want to win a stage, you absolutely have to sacrifice your race finish. I mean, you do. That’s not really even up for conversation anymore. You’re not going to drive back through the field. And so you have to make a decision before you ever get to COTA. Are we going to go for stage wins or are we going to try to win the race? Obviously we’re going to try to go win the race. So we know we’re giving up potentially 10 to 20 points on the table to make sure that we have a shot at winning those race. Then you get spun with three to go and you leave the day 30th with one or two points. So you absolutely compromise your race with those stage breaks on real courses. I understand it’ll probably create more excitement for the fans and for the people that are watching and we’re trying to entertain. But for me, selfishly, stage breaks are awful. I really dislike them. I’d rather just qualify up front and lead every lap and there not be any caution. But I don’t think the fans like that as a show.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang Dark Horse — WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO WITH THIS PRACTICE SESSION TODAY WITH THE NEW PACKAGE? “I was able to be a part of the test with this package in December and I learned a little bit from that but I think mainly right it’s nice we have 50 minutes and a few sets of tires. I think what you’re looking for just all right how’s what’s the balance shift you know single car maybe try to get in a little bit of traffic kind of see how the balance of your car shifts compared to the old package. I mean honestly in December there were little things here and there that I think it did better. It wasn’t light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t the save-all, but hopefully it’s in the right direction. But yeah, just seeing what balance is from the fall to now, I think teams are looking forward to that. If you can get around some traffic too, I think that’s going to be what you’re going to see some guys doing, especially probably at the end of practice when they kind of start fine-tuning their stuff.”

YOU WERE HERE IN DECEMBER, BUT COMING BACK HERE TO PHOENIX AFTER WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR, DO ANY SPECIAL EMOTIONS KIND OF SPARK ON YOUR WAY BACK IN HERE? “Not really. Not now, anyways. It was nice coming here in December because it was very soon after the championship, so that kind of sparked a little bit of memories for me, but not right now. Just another race, new year.”

SO, WITH THE NEW PACKAGE AND PRACTICE, DO YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THAT’S IN, LIKE, JOEY’S CAR? DO YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THAT’S IN AUSTIN’S CAR, AND DO YOU EVEN KNOW STUFF ABOUT WHAT’S IN THE FRONT ROW CARS, NOW THAT THEY HAVE AN ALLIANCE WITH YOU? “We have decent ideas about what’s in Joey and Austin’s and Harrison’s car and mine, how we compare the two. As far as the Front Row cars, I don’t know. I mean, that’s outside of my pay grade, really. I’ve always tried to have an idea of kind of where our three or four cars are at just so you can compare because that’s the drivers we meet with. So that’s something I’ve always tried to pay attention to. The Front Row cars, it’s nice to learn from them. It’s been nice kind of playing off each other. But yeah, I don’t know about their stuff.”

YOUR LAST SEVEN STARTS IN PHOENIX HAVE RESULTED IN THE TOP 10 FINISHES, OBVIOUSLY 2023 IS THE CUP SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP. WHAT ABOUT PHOENIX AND THIS RACEWAY HAS ALLOWED YOU TO KIND OF ACCOMPLISH THIS? “I don’t know, for whatever reason, I’ve always enjoyed this place and it fits whatever we do as a company. It’s funny, like certain tracks drivers talk about, well, it kind of fits our mindset as a company of how we set up our race cars and what’s successful for us. And it’s really weird how those things just kind of work. You see it with the 5, it’s been great at Vegas for a few years, and that’s a track that works for what they do. It is kind of in the same way for our group. Like, it’s just kind of worked with how we prepare our race cars, our mindset on setups. Me as a driver, I like it. So hopefully that continues. Hopefully we can be as strong as we’ve been here the last couple of years. You never know how you’re going to unload compared to everybody else or what everyone else has found or if you’ve done your homework enough to improve. It just kind of works for us and hopefully that trend continues.”

YOU KIND OF ALLUDED TO THE FACT THAT THE CHANGE IN THE PACKAGE IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION BUT MAYBE NOT SIGNIFICANT. AS A COMPETITOR, ARE YOU COMING INTO THIS WEEKEND AND EXPECTING THE SAME PLAYERS FROM THE FALL RACE TO BE GUYS THAT YOU’RE RACING AGAINST UP AT THE FRONT? “No, I never really try to go in the weekends expecting who’s gonna be good. I think it can be a toss-up any week, right? So I really try not to get too focused on that. I try to just focus on my deal and how we can be our best. Then whoever’s fast in practice fast in practice and then you kind of focus on those guys and looking at their data seeing what they’re doing and where are they good. I never really come into a weekend like I think these are the five drivers that are gonna be good just because you never know. I mean it could be — there’s 25 teams at least out here that can be up towards the front and especially with the new rules package, you don’t know, even though it’s not wildly different, you never know who’s going to be going to be good.”

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO GET OUT OF THIS PACKAGE THIS WEEKEND? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO FEEL? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE? THE NEW TIRE AND THE AERO SHOULD GIVE YOU MORE GRIP. BUT WHAT IN ADDITION TO THAT DO YOU WANT? “I think the biggest thing that when we mess with rules packages like this, and the goal for this package was being better in traffic. That’s the whole thing. The cars are going to drive how they drive by themselves, and we’ll deal with it and adjust for that, but how do they do in traffic? That’s the biggest thing. That’s the only gripe that you hear of drivers is, oh, they’re terrible in traffic. We’ve got to get that better. So hopefully, just we end this weekend and everyone kind of agrees that it’s a step in the right direction. You just hope to improve little by little on that side of it. So hopefully this one is a little better from the driver’s standpoint when we get in the race. If the trailing car can be a little bit closer to the car in front of them and just not get as tight and just lose so much ground. So that’s the goal. Hopefully, it’s achieved.”

THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK THIS WEEK. YOU’RE ONE OF OBVIOUSLY THREE FORD’S TOP 20 IN POINTS. DO YOU FEEL AFTER LAST WEEK THAT THERE’S A BIG COMPETITIVE GAP BETWEEN YOU GUYS AND THE CHEVYS AND THE TOYOTAS OR IS IT JUST A PRODUCT OF THE FIRST TWO DRAFTING RACES? “It’s kind of hard to tell. I thought all the Fords were really strong in Atlanta and Daytona. Even though one of us didn’t win, I thought we were all really strong. But then last week, Joey sat on the pole, which was encouraging. We didn’t qualify great, but we raced okay. I didn’t think we had a winning car at all last week. I thought we maximized our day running third. Whereas the fall race at Vegas, there was like one or two runs in the race. I was like, I think I have a car that can win if we can kind of just get up there. So I think we just got our work to do, you know, with the new car and hopefully we can fine tune it to where it needs to be. I obviously would have liked to be, have been a little bit more competitive last week as far as racing for the lead. But not many guys race the five for the lead. Hopefully, as we get running this car, this week will be a big test to say, okay, where’s our short track program at with this new car, and if we really need to get to work or if we’re a little bit closer than what we think. It’s early to tell. You’ll get a really good idea here in the next month or so of where you stand and if you’re in trouble or you’re not.”

THIS TRACK STATISTICALLY IS ONE WHERE SPEED AND QUALIFYING TENDS TO BE A GOOD PREDICTOR OF PERFORMANCE IN THE RACE. DO YOU PAY ANY PARTICULAR MORE ATTENTION TO QUALIFYING HERE THAN SAY ANOTHER TRACK WHERE IT’S NOT THAT IMPORTANT? “I agree with you that qualifying is pretty important here. It’s kind of hard to make some ground up. We pay attention to it a lot and qualifying hasn’t been our strong suit the last year or so, at least in our camp, at least in the 12 group. But we’ve always raced pretty well. I always would prefer a car that races forward, but you always want to start better. You never want to start 15th. But we started 15th here last year in the fall and we were able to race up towards the front, so you just never know. I always feel like it’s easier, you can tell more from qualifying to the race here of who’s going to be good or not. Like other places, mile and a half, you never really know. You’ve seen cars qualify really good at mile and a half and then struggle in the race really bad. Martinsville is kind of the same way. I always look at Martinsville. I feel like the cars who qualify in the top couple rows of Martinsville, they never raced very good. Here I feel like it’s a lot more consistent with qualifying in the race. So we’ll see, we’ve tried some new stuff this weekend to try to get one lap speed out of it and hopefully we can tune it up for qualifying because it’s not fun starting 15th here you have your work cut out for it just makes it harder to start your day off and pit stalls are not as good so that is something we really pay attention to.”