Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Bank of America Roval 400 Media Availabilities | Saturday, October 7, 2023
Ryan Blaney and Kevin Harvick visited the infield media center at Charlotte Motor Speedway before today’s practice and qualifying session to talk about this weekend’s Bank of America Roval 400. Following is a transcript of their comments.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – HOW IMPORTANT IS LAS VEGAS TO DETERMINING YOUR POSTSEASON FUTURE? “It’s huge. I mean, just having that prep time for two weeks with nothing else on your mind. Joey was able to do it with that group last year and you saw what happened, so it’s a huge advantage. I think Larson did it the year before. I think he won the first race of the Round of 8 and it just gives you so much more prep time for that race. It’s just all you’re thinking about, so that’s a big one. Obviously, everyone is gunning to do it and try to win that one and move on, but it was massive for our group last year and it would be the same big advantage for any group if a playoff car was to win next week at Vegas.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT TRACK? “I think Vegas has been a good place for us in the past. I feel like it’s been one of our best tracks as an organization. It’s something that whatever we do in general as a group kind of works for that place and hopefully applies this year.”
THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL BE IN THE BOTTOM HALF IN THE ROUND OF 8 WHEN IT STARTS BECAUSE OF YOUR FEWER STAGE POINTS. WILL THAT IMPACT DECISION-MAKING FOR THIS WEEKEND WITH STAGE BREAKS BACK? “It definitely makes it hard for us when we get to the next round by not having a ton of playoff points like the 24 group or the 19 or the 5 have. Yeah, that definitely makes it tough and it shows you that running well throughout the regular season pays dividends. We weren’t able to get very good points throughout those races through the year, but, still, at the end of the day you try to run as good as you can, try to win a race in that round and all that stuff kind of goes away, so it just puts you in a little bit worse spot than a couple guys, but you understand that even going into the playoffs, where your playoff points stand and how you stack up around the other cars that you’re racing and adjust accordingly. We don’t really dwell no that stuff too much because that stuff is what it is, but this weekend, obviously, in our spot can you win a stage? Yes, great. Stay out and win the stage, get a playoff point. If you’re gonna run second, just come in and flip it and try to set yourself up for the next stage or for the end of the race to try to win and get five playoff points. It makes calling this race a little bit easier for us and you try to take advantage of being able to call it that way to try to help your playoff points situation.”
YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT LAST YEAR’S ROUND OF 8 AND SOME OF THE MISTAKES YOU MADE. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BACK IN THAT POSITION AND NOT HAVE THE SAME ISSUES THAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR HAPPEN AGAIN? “It definitely did. Driver-related mistakes last year in the Round of 8 cost a chance to go on there and you just hope to learn from that stuff and if you’re in the same position try to just think about it a little bit differently and what can you do to alter that outcome and not put yourself in a bind like that, and hopefully running well enough to be able to, like we were last year, to be in those spots again and having a shot to win at Vegas last year like we had, trying to think about the bigger picture and not get caught up in that moment and stuff like that. When you make mistakes like that you hope you learn from them. It’s important to move on from them, but you have to learn from them first and it’s nice to be able to have another go at it here in the Round of 8 and see if we can do a little bit better job this time.”
ARE YOU GOOD WITH THIS RACE STAYING ON THE ROVAL LONG-TERM AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TWO ROAD COURSES IN THE PLAYOFFS NEXT YEAR? “This race, I think it’s our fifth year doing it, and I feel like everyone has gotten a good idea of it. It’s kind of odd now because the oval has gotten so good. A handful of years ago this was probably one of the worst mile-and–a-halves we had on the schedule just as far as the track race-ability and now I feel like it’s one of the raciest of being able to use all the lanes. However it’s aged right now it’s kind of at it’s great point and we’ve seen it the last couple of years. It puts on good shows in the 600, so I think there are some big decisions that need to be made that are above my pay grade of what you want to do with this race. Do you go back to the oval here at some point, or do you keep this one? Two road courses in the playoffs, the Glen being in there I didn’t see that one coming, personally, but it is what it is. We have two superspeedways and now we have two road courses in the playoffs, so it’s just getting a little bit more unique racetracks that they keep throwing in here.”
HOW MUCH OF THE INFORMATION AT TALLADEGA IN THE FINAL FIVE LAPS WERE YOU ABLE TO PROCESS FROM JOSH WILLIAMS? “I might be biased, but I think Josh is one of the best guys out there, especially when it comes to speedway racing as far as giving me information and not only giving a lot of information, but giving useful information and stuff that matters and that I can apply, or just lets me know what’s around me. It’s a fine line of there’s occasions where he is relaying me stuff and we’ve worked together for so long I can tell maybe in the urgency of his voice that he’s telling me to do something without telling me to do it and I can apply that, or a lot of times he just leaves it up to me and just giving me information on what’s available and what’s coming at me. That was neat to see someone put that video out there because it shows how much work spotters do and how much communication goes on, especially at those tracks and really in those moments coming down to the end of those races. He was obviously big at getting us through there and figuring out a way to try to win the race. Josh does a great job and I feel like it’s almost like at those places you don’t have time to get the information, think about it, process it, and do it. You’re just doing it as it’s coming to you and you’re making your own decisions on what to do. Sometimes they’re they right decision and sometimes they’re not, but it’s just having that information that the driver can use. It’s almost like a little guy on your shoulder and it’s your subconscious just reeling through and your actions are going off of that. There’s just no time to think about all that stuff. You’re just doing it instinctually and the spotters up there are just giving you information that’s in the back of your head that you can apply or not.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ON DAYTONA AND ATLANTA TO START THE SCHEDULE NEXT YEAR? “I don’t think Atlanta is going to lose any of that superspeedway, two-by-two drafting sense. I could be wrong, but as long as you have low horsepower and tall spoilers on them it’s gonna be superspeedway racing with drafting and stuff like that. That was interesting that they fired off the playoffs like that, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We have no say in the matter, so I guess fans wanted to see pack racing and that’s what we’re going to give them.”
WHEN A DRIVER HAS A MISTAKE LIKE YOU HAD AT TEXAS, DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT THE FOLLOWING WEEK AS MORE MOTIVATION OF TRYING TO REDEEM YOURSELF? “When it’s a driver mistake and you are the only one responsible for that mistake you feel obligated to think, ‘Hey, I’ve got to make up for it.’ You don’t want to make these mistakes and then just have it dwell on you, so, yeah, I think that’s anything. If you make a mistake with something you’re like, ‘All right, I’m gonna make up for it.’ If you make your friend upset by doing something, missing their birthday party, ‘Hey, I’m gonna throw you another one,’ because you feel bad about it and you want to make up for it and be a good friend or be a good driver for your team. Those are the best ways to make up for it, but I wouldn’t say that motivated me. That didn’t motivate me any more than I would have going into Talladega, but, personally to me, it’s like, ‘Hey, you have an opportunity to make up for this mistake, and let’s apply it,’ but I wasn’t extra motivated like, ‘We have to go win this race. I have to show what I can do.’ You want to make up for that stuff, but at the same time you just do your job.”
WAS THERE ANY COMMUNICATION WITH THE TEAM WITH YOU SAYING YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE UP FOR IT? “I think our group does a good job of just understanding the work that’s ahead of you in the spot that you’re in and going and accomplishing your goal and doing your job the best that you can. I think that’s anybody. If I make a mistake, if we make a mistake on pit road, whether it’s a slow hang, changer messes up, they own it and you support them no matter what it is. They did the same to me. They supported me and picked me up after it and accepted my apology and in their mind they said, ‘Things happen. Forget about it. Let’s go to work next week.’ That’s really all you can do, so I think that’s what makes a team well is if you all can band together like that. That’s what makes one team and I think our group does a really good job with that.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Rheem Chasing a Cure Ford Mustang – THE TRACK HAS A FAN DISPLAY FROM YOUR PERSONAL COLLECTION OUTSIDE. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT? “We wanted to do something different for the weekend and I think having my first truck that we built in our garage and the IROC car that we actually won the race championship with in the last race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We’ve got the All-Star win car out there, so just having a unique blend of vehicles and just when you look at them and you go through time you’re like, ‘Man, you really have done this for a long time.’ You look at the vehicles and they look archaic compared to what you race today, so we thought that would be a fun experience and everybody at the speedway and Marcus and really everybody has been a lot of fun to work with. We have a lot of people here this week. I think we’re entertaining 130 people and have our foundation golf tournament, so it’s kind of become a little bit of a home game for us in our events and fun to see the participation and just wanted to do something different this week.”
ARE YOU TRYING TO SAVOR EVERYTHING MORE IN THESE FINAL WEEKS? WHAT ARE YOUR EMOTIONS? ARE YOU CRYING YOURSELF TO SLEEP? “I’m excited for it to be over. I think as I go to each racetrack it’s fun to be able to celebrate and do the things that you need to do and I’m enjoying the time that I have with the guys and seeing and hearing what they’re going to do next and how things are going to shake out. It’s a very interesting process just because of going to the racetrack and competing, but everybody – a lot of the guys have been there for 10 years and some of them have been there for five years, so it’s just an interesting process to go through. I think you want to run well and do the things that you do on the racetrack and everybody is doing fine at that and it’s just a matter of getting through these next five weeks and enjoying it. That’s really, for me, what’s it’s about is enjoying each week for different reasons and we’re gonna be heavily involved in the sport and the industry for a long time to come with several different aspects of it, so you try to take the driving thing and do what you’ve done for the last however many years – 22 years at the Cup level – and enjoy that part of it, but I think in my mind there’s just a tremendous amount of stuff that’s already happening for what we do going forward, but I’m not crying myself to sleep.”
DID YOU THINK NASCAR’S DECISION TO DQ YOUR CAR AT TALLADEGA WAS JUST AND DID YOU HAVE ANY FEELINGS WHEN YOU HEARD? “Obviously, you don’t want to be in the middle of those situations, but I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other. I can see it both ways. I did my job. I don’t know any other way to say that. I did my job and the rest of it is open for debate as to who did what and the rule is good or bad, I don’t know. I don’t know all the scenarios from either side, so I hear it from both sides and can see it from both sides in some way, shape or form, but I didn’t dig deep into whether it was just or unjust. I just went home and heard the news like everybody else and I went on with my week.”
DID YOU CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP OVER IT? “I didn’t cry myself to sleep over that either (laughing).”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HAILIE DEEGAN AND THE NEWS OF HER MOVING UP TO XFINITY? “I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t paid that much attention to give a fair opinion. I pay attention to our guys and our group and there’s eight of them, so trying to keep up with late model races and truck races and Xfinity races, I have paid no attention to the details of what come with that particular situation with Hailie. I’d be a terrible judge. I can be a pretty good critic of the guys that we have in our group and the three that race on our team at SHR, but outside of that it would be an unfair opinion.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THE ROUND OF 8? ARE THERE A COUPLE DRIVERS THAT IF THEY DON’T GET TO PHOENIX THE FEELING IS GOING TO BE THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG? “I don’t think you can put it like that. You saw all the trouble that Martin got into with everything that happened to him and that can happen to anybody. I think as you go to any of these racetracks it can really go that way. It’s an interesting group of tracks in each round. It’s interesting in different ways and I think there are different guys that have different strengths at different racetracks, so, for me, that part is interesting because you go to Homestead and you look at the 5 and you’re like, ‘Well, there’s really no reason why he shouldn’t win that raced based on everything he’s done at that particular racetrack.’ That’s the only one that really sticks out to me that says, ‘OK, if there’s one racetrack and one driver that sticks out it’s Kyle Larson at Homestead.’ So, the rest of it can go a number of different ways.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THE 2024 SCHEDULE NOW THAT YOU WILL BE AN ANALYST. DO YOU SEE IT FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE NOW? “I look at it as June 9th, what am I gonna do with my time? (Laughing). I’m gonna send Bob a text and say, ‘Hey, Bob. What’s going on this weekend?’ I like the fact that they keep mixing it up. I like the fact that the rounds are different. I like the fact that the racetracks are different. I really like the fact that we’re going to Iowa. I think as you look at that adding another short track and just a unique facility that you can go and race at, I think as you go and go to some of those different places and put things in different places, I don’t like things being the same. I know the first half of the season is a little bit different at the beginning, but a lot of it is the same, except for California Speedway not being in there and Atlanta being second. When you look at the playoffs and see another superspeedway race, what I would call as superspeedway race at Atlanta, and I think that’s interesting with the number – two of the 10 superspeedway races being in the playoffs, and the Roval still being in the playoffs and having two road courses. To me, you have four of the 10 races that are on non-traditional ovals or short tracks, so I think that’s a pretty high number, in my opinion. So, it’ll be fun to watch and see how it all plays out, but I love the fact that they keep mixing it up. I like that. I like change.”
WHAT TYPE OF ANALYST DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO BE? “I think a lot of the guys and gals that drive the cars and work in the garage know that I’m gonna give my opinion and I’m gonna tell them what I think and then if they want to talk about it, I have no problem talking about it either because I’m always open to hearing what somebody else sees because the way I see it is what I’m gonna say. I think as you listen and especially now sitting with some of the drivers and people they see it differently and I think that’s great to be able to listen to that, but it just comes out of my mouth with what I see and how it plays out. Sometimes that might be wrong, but I ‘m not gonna be afraid to say that. It just has to be sitting on the couch with your friends and watching a race and telling it like it is and I think that’s the best way to go about it and be honest about it, but I think that part will be interesting because I think as you watch it and see it and talk about it and watch it evolve and change and I think, to me, that part will be fun, but right is right and wrong is wrong, so there’s no reason to beat around the bush. I’m not smart enough to remember what I’m trying to cover up, so we’ll just get right to it.”
STAGE BREAKS ARE BACK AND THE RESTART ZONE HAS MOVED. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? “I think the restart stuff has helped the pile-ups in turn one on the restart, so I think that’s worked good at the places that we’ve been able to do that. I think with as much green flag racing as we had in all the previous events, I think the stages coming back, obviously, puts some cautions back into the race and not having the races get so strung out. I think all of that has worked out well and, once again, it’s not being shy about making changes when it’s not working for the fans. It has to be appealing to watch. That’s the bottom line.”
