Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Atlanta 2 Qualifying | Saturday, July 8, 2023

FORD DOMINATES CUP QUALIFYING FOR SECOND TIME THIS SEASON AT ATLANTA

• For the second time this season, Ford dominated NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway with 8 of the top 10 spots.
• That matches what the Blue Oval did in the spring when the top eight qualifiers were all Ford drivers and Joey Logano sat on the pole.
• Aric Almirola captured his first pole of the season and fifth of his career with today’s top run.
• Ford swept the top six spots in qualifying, which included Harrison Burton’s career-best fifth-place effort.

Ford Qualifying Results:

1st – Aric Almirola

2nd – Ryan Blaney

3rd – Chase Briscoe

4th – Joey Logano

5th – Harrison Burton

6th – Kevin Harvick

9th – Todd Gilliland

10th – Austin Cindric

11th – Brad Keselowski

13th – Ryan Preece

15th – Chris Buescher

20th – Michael McDowell

21st – Cole Custer

24th – JJ Yeley

POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield/IHOP Ford Mustang – HOW DIFFERENT IS THIS POLE COMPARED TO THE OTHER ONE YOU WON HERE ON THE OLD SURFACE AND WITH THE OLD CAR? “Very different from the car standpoint and the way you drive it, but equally nerve racking, I can tell you that. We go to Daytona and Talladega, superspeedways, and typically as a driver it’s pretty relaxed. You’re not really concerned about making any mistakes. You try and just make sure you concentrate on doing all the things you need to do, get a good launch, hit your shift points, do all of those things. But here, with the track starting to degrade some over the winter and now we’re in the hot summer months of July in Atlanta, the cars a handful to try and run wide-open. It’s not easy to run wide-open, so a lot more nerve racking, much like it was back with the Gen 6 car when you’re absolutely flying around here and slipping and sliding on that old surface, so it was an exciting lap. I’m just really proud of Drew and all the guys on our team and everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing. We’ve been working really hard to bring more speed to the racetrack and it was great to get a pole.”

DO YOU FEEL WITH 8 RACES REMAINING AFTER THIS WEEKEND THAT YOU HAVE TO FIND A PLACE TO WIN? “it’s crunch time, absolutely. It’s go time. You’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity and you’ve got to maximize every opportunity. You’ve got to put yourself in position. You’ve got to make bold moves in the race car. You’ve got to make bold moves pit strategy-wise. You’ve got to do whatever it takes because you’re not going to get a lot of opportunities. If you were one of the cars that has a consistent chance to win, you’ve probably already locked yourselves in the playoffs or you feel pretty good about where you’re at in points, but for the guys like myself that is further down in points, we’ve got rare opportunities to win races because we just haven’t shown up with the consistent speed we need to put ourselves in position to win, so absolutely. When we show up to a place like this and we know we have fast race cars, I blew a right-rear tire leading here last year with 40-50 laps to go, so we know coming here that this is an opportunity race for us and it is absolutely go time. Bring the best race car we can. Bring as much speed as we can. Qualify as best we can. Maximize the entire race and try to put ourselves in position and go capitalize.”

DO YOU LOOK AT LOUDON AS AN OPPORTUNITY RACE AS WELL? “Yeah, I do. I look at the schedule going forward and I feel like, here is a great place for us. I look at Loudon as a great place for us. We went to Michigan and I felt like we learned a lot. We had a great tire test there a month ago, maybe two months ago. I felt really good about that. Look at Richmond, I’ve run really, really good at Richmond throughout my entire career. Our short track program is really good at Stewart-Haas Racing. No doubt, we have to continue to work on our mile-and-a-half program and our downforce type racetracks, but our short track package is really good. When I look at these few races ahead of us, here, Loudon, Michigan, Richmond and then Daytona the last race, I think those are five opportunities of the next eight races that I feel like we have a legitimate shot to go and win if we do everything right. So, yeah, to answer your question, I do feel good about where we’re at, the opportunities we have ahead of ourselves, and we can do exactly what we did in 2021, where we were scrounging back in 22nd, 24th in points – something like where we’re at now – and we went to Nashville and qualified on the pole. We ran top five all day and then a couple weeks later went to Loudon and shocked everybody and won and launched ourselves in the playoffs. I certainly feel like this year is a similar year, where we’ve had a lot of things not go our way. Even to start the year, Daytona, with such a fast race car and get crashed out, but that always happens. Go to Phoenix, running in the top 10 and have a right-front wheel come off. Leading here in the spring with 40 laps to go and blow a right-rear tire, so I think about the year we’ve had and so much bad luck, and it certainly tested our race team, tested the morale of everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing just because we’re not going to victory lane and we’re not getting the results that we want, but everybody is continuing to work hard and grind, just like in 2021 and hopefully we’ll see some of that reward and that payoff and we’ll go to victory lane.”

DO YOU LIKE THIS SURFACE BETTER OR THE OLD TRACK? “Funny you say that. I love the old track. That was one of my favorite racetracks to race at, but I was average at that racetrack if you look at my results. This racetrack has been better for me, and I guess you could say that I am a pretty decent superspeedway type racer and now that they’ve repaved this racetrack it races a lot more like a superspeedway, so I would say this new track configuration suits my style. The cars we have, the speed we have, the engines from Doug Yates and Roush Yates Engines, so I feel like all of that together as a package, this track and the new pavement certainly suits me better for having more opportunity to win. If you ask Kevin Harvick, he’ll certainly say the old one.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ATLANTA HAS MATURED AND GROWN AS A SUPERSPEEDWAY RACE? “It’s certainly aged and the track is a lot more gray, and you can see some of the aggregate coming up through the asphalt to where it’s not perfectly smooth and shiny. It’s starting to get some character and some rock starting to show through the shininess of the racetrack, so I think that at some point in the near future this racetrack is going to race like the old Daytona when Daytona was kind of old and worn out, bumpy, had a lot of fall off and guys were slipping and sliding around. I think this racetrack will start to trend that direction to where you’ll have to start bringing more downforce in your race car and those things, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. I think it still has a lot of grip – certainly, for a night race when the track temp cools off and all of that. If we raced at 1 o’clock in the afternoon I think it would be a different story, but I think coming real soon this racetrack is gonna be at a point to where handling is going to play a major factor and it’s gonna change the way that the racetrack races.”

DO YOU THINK IT WILL GO BACK TO THE WAY THE OLD TRACK WAS? “They hope that it will. Talking to Steve Swift and Marcus Smith, they paved this racetrack with basically the old style asphalt. The newer asphalt they take a lot of the aggregate and they crush it up almost into a powder and it makes it super smooth, like Michigan and Pocono. Here, they paved it and they kept a lot more coarse rock in it like they used to pave it, and so that coarse rock as the pavement starts to wear down and those rocks get exposed, that’s what chews the tires up. I mean, you go to Darlington and look at Darlington. You go drag your feet across the infield and it’s pretty coarse. You don’t want to fall because you’d skin your knee pretty easy, but you go to pit road at Michigan and you fall, you might get a little road rash and that’s it. You’re not gonna get tore up as bad because there’s not as much aggregate sticking out.”

Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano paid a visit to the Atlanta Motor Speedway infield media center before today’s qualifying session. Both drivers talked about the challenges facing them this weekend and how tomorrow night’s race will differ from the spring.

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Magical Vacation Planner Ford Mustang – BOBBY ALLISON COULD DRIVE ANYTHING, WHICH IS SORT OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR CAREER. DID YOU EVER FOLLOW HIM OR READ ABOUT HIM? “I would definitely say that he was not racing when I was growing up, but I think anybody that’s in this sport knows who Bobby Allison was and what he meant to the sport, especially just the state of Alabama, which is right next door to us here. For me, I appreciate the comparison. I don’t think I necessarily even can be in the same sentence as Bobby Allison, but from a comparison to drive all kinds of different things, Bobby and so many of those guys back in the day for sure would just go literally drive anything and everything they could. I feel like there’s definitely not as many of those guys today, which is unfortunate, but I love going and racing as many things as I possibly can. I’m going to race the sprint car next week when we’re in New Hampshire, and trying to add more dirt races – just trying to race like I love to do. I love getting to do what I get to do on Sundays, but also want to try and go run other things. For one, it makes me better, but, two, that’s what I love to do. That’s kind of my first love. I appreciate the kind words, but I think Bobby Allison is a name that will be remembered forever, not only for being able to drive all kinds of different things, but being able to drive all kinds of different things really, really fast.”

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE MENTAL GRIND OF RACING EVERY WEEK? “It’s hard. Truthfully, these past two to three months have probably been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to experience in my career just with the struggles on the racetrack, but I think that’s where you just have to stay grounded and have a support system behind you with me and my family and close friends and people that believe in me. But also your faith. I think you have to be really grounded in that and realize that your meaning is not where you finish on Sunday, so it’s definitely a challenge. When things are going good it’s not as big of a challenge, but when you’re running grind I feel like that grind is 10 times worse and 10 times harder to deal with. I feel like this sport is really hard. Your stock is always kind of based on the week before and a couple weeks before. You look at Jimmie Johnson, a guy that won seven championships, and at the end of his career he struggled and people questioned if it was him. Jimmie Johnson didn’t forget how to drive a race car. Even for me right now, knowing that I’ve been on this rough patch the last two or three months, I’ve just got to remember why I’m here and how I got here and just try to stay confident in that.”

THE FORDS IN THE SPRING WERE THE STRONGEST BY FAR. DO YOU COME HERE LOOKING AT THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE SOMETHING GOOD HAPPEN? “Yeah, I would say all year long when we’ve gone to superspeedway type races the Fords have had really good speed for whatever reason. I think it’s no secret that we’ve kind of struggled, at least for the 14 team, but even Fords as a whole a little bit more on the mile-and-a-halves than we would probably like to, so I think me and my crew chief this weekend were sitting down talking about how ‘yeah, we need to go win a race,’ but truthfully we haven’t even had the speed to do that. We need to really focus everything we have on Daytona and Atlanta because that is the equalizer, so I’ll be extremely aggressive tomorrow just knowing that, but hopefully our car can be really fast. The biggest thing for us in the spring is we had a really fast car, we just didn’t have the handling to go with it, so with the hotter temperatures and things like that, hopefully we can have the handling underneath our car. It’s definitely gonna be a wild card race and we need to try and win the race, but, for us right now with all the change that’s happened the last two or three weeks, we’re just trying to reestablish what baseline is and build that foundation. Even if we can’t win, we need to learn as much as we can in this limited amount of time we’ve got, how many weeks we’ve got left in the season, but with how all the changes happened, we’re really trying to get focused and prepare for next year, so every week is kind of a building block for that. I would love to win the race tomorrow. That’s what I’m gonna try to do, but if not, then for sure we need to try and take something away from this weekend that we can apply next weekend and going forward.”

DOES IT FEEL LIKE ANYTHING HAS BEEN DIFFERENT LATELY, JUST TRYING TO LOOK FOR SOMETHING WITHIN THE TEAM? “Yeah, for sure. I think the dynamic of our team has changed quite a bit – the communication and things like that. I know that I’ve been held way more accountable over the last two or three weeks, for sure, and I do think that even last week, just from Nashville to going to Chicago, you know Chicago I thought we ran a really good race, the strategy just didn’t really work out for us and even from a speed standpoint. In practice, were truthfully probably a 25th to 30th place car. We were able to qualify 15th and then in the race I think our average lap speed was like the sixth or seventh fastest and with the strategy and things we just weren’t fast enough to drive farther forward than where we kind of restarted, so I do think that we’ve seen that light at the other end of the tunnel and it’s just a matter of getting there. It’s not gonna be a quick process. It’s gonna take a long time. That’s where you just have to keep believing and knowing what we’re working towards, and I do think that it’s gonna be really good on the other end of it, it’s just a matter of getting to the end point.”

HOW DO YOU THINK ATLANTA HAS MATURED AS A SUPERSPEEDWAY? “I feel like it’s kind of made a name for itself, like whenever it was the old track I think all of the drivers loved it. The fans probably not so much, but I think now it’s kind of the opposite. The drivers probably don’t love coming here as much just because of what the race is and knowing that when you wake up tomorrow you’re either gonna have a good day or you’re gonna be really sore on Monday, but from a fan standpoint I think it’s been a huge change. I mean, just look at the amount of people in the infield, the people in the stands that are gonna be here tomorrow and even that were here in the spring. When we had the old track we didn’t have this many people here, so obviously it was the right direction. I don’t think we need to switch all of the mile-and-a-halves over to this, but I do think Atlanta has come into its own as what it is now, and even from the driver side it’s a huge challenge coming here. Mentally, it’s the most draining place we go to all year. It’s a Daytona, Talladega, but everything is happening twice as quick just because it’s a mile shorter, the corners are tighter and you still have handling, where when you go to Daytona and Talladega you don’t necessarily have the balance issues. Here, it’s just a hybrid racetrack that’s kind of unlike anything else on the schedule, so it’s a huge challenge, but I definitely think it has matured into this new type of racing that we see with this Next Gen car and especially at a track like this.”

YOU’VE RUN WELL AT FLATTER ONE MILE TRACKS WITH THE WIN AT PHOENIX AND FINISHED 15TH AT LOUDON LAST YEAR. HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING BACK TO LOUDON? “Personally, I feel like that’s by far my wors racetrack, so I was surprised you said that. For us, the short tracks have definitely been really, really good, but I would say statistically and just even as a driver, Loudon is the one track that just really confuses me. For whatever reason I cannot figure out what I need there, but I did feel like last year we were able to lead laps. We ran top 15, but I still have a lot to learn when I go to Loudon, so I’m really gonna rely on my teammates there next weekend. Kevin is extremely good there. Aric has obviously won a Cup race there and Ryan, it’s like his home track, so I’ll use those guys quite a bit next week just trying to figure out what I can do. Even looking back at notes and video. I’ll probably study a lot of Christopher Bell stuff going into next week. I feel like he’s incredibly good there, so I just have to get better there, but as a short track that’s definitely one where it’s circled. These are the races that if we’re gonna win before the playoffs, these are ones that we can go and compete at, so hopefully we can have a good weekend this weekend but also next week.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – HOW INSTRUMENTAL WAS THE THURSDAY THUNDER PROGRAM HERE FOR YOU? “There are always so many memories that come back here and obviously being able to make some more memories here in the spring with a win and how special that was to celebrate in victory lane with the Cup car. My dad was here, so it was a pretty special thing, but this track I always remember the first time we were all in here we were just visiting and we met Ken Ragan. We got a Bandolero and raced two nights later with it and I spent so much time, I’ve lived here for years and knowing David and Reed and everyone is still in the sport. I think that’s one of the things I noticed so much with kids racing these days is that they stay in the sport. Even if they don’t drive, they’re still around one way or another, whether it’s in Legends cars, or I have a lot of friends that started in quarter midgets in Connecticut with me and they’re still in the sport. It’s just kind of cool to kind of see all of that come around and the passion that has grown from kids that want to be around race cars. It’s really cool. I still see that a lot with my son now. He’s only five, so we’re not really racing anything yet, but we go out to the track and play around and see the other kids there. We get to talk to them and all that, so it’s pretty cool. What I realized already is that my kid doesn’t listen to me and all of the other kids do listen to me with where to go on the racetrack, so go figure. I already know nothing (laughing).”

RACING AT NIGHT HERE IN JULY. HOW RELIEVED OR GLAD ARE DRIVERS THAT IT’S AT NIGHT? “I think the fans should be just as relieved as the drivers are. I mean, it’s hot. To ask somebody to be sitting up in those grandstands in the middle of the summer with the sun baking on them, that’s just hard to ask people to do. I’m not gonna do that, I can tell you that much. Forget bringing kids out to a race or something like that where you get out there and get sunburn, so this is much better to be able to do that at night. It’s a little bit cooler. The cars always look cool at night anyway. It’s always kind of a different feel with night races and things like that, so I think it’s a great play. I’m glad we’re doing it.”

ARE YOU EXPECTING THE SAME LEVEL OF GRIP AS PREVIOUS RACES HERE? “It should have less than what we raced in the spring, even though that was the daytime it was like 40 degrees outside. It’s still gonna be 80 degrees or so when the sun is down, so the track temp is still gonna be quite a bit warmer than what we raced last time, which means there should be less grip out there. Qualifying here in a few minutes it will probably be pretty slick out there I would assume, so it’s hard to say how much the track is changing because when we got here with the Next Gen car that was the first time we were out there with these things and it was like, ‘Ah,’ and then our cars got better. DId the track get better or the cars got better? Now, we’re still making our cars better every time we come here as the track is probably giving up some grip, but I think the track temperature is gonna be the biggest difference here.”

HOW BIG WAS YOUR WIN HERE IN THE SPRING AND WHAT THAT MEANS? “Absolutely. You assume the win is big and it gets you in the playoffs and all that, but you said it – you fast forward however many races it’s been since we’ve been here and it’s bigger than what we thought it would be. Unfortunately, you hope it’s not. You wish it was the other way around, but we’re 10th in points right now and we’d have been probably in a decent spot to make the playoffs I’m sure still, but it’s a lot more comfortable when you have a win and you know that you’re in the playoffs and you can focus in on some other things and trying to grow your team and get smarter and all those things. We’re not where we need to be. That’s for sure. There’s a lot of hard work going on right now to try to close the gap and we keep hustling and trying and swinging the bat and doing everything we possibly can do. There are only so many things you can do, but work in the areas we’re allowed to and keep trying to find something.”

THE LAST THREE TRACKS WE’VE BEEN AT WEREN’T ON THE SCHEDULE OR WEREN’T THE CONFIGURATION THEY ARE TODAY. HOW CHALLENGING HAVE THINGS GOTTEN FOR DRIVERS AS THE SCHEDULE HAS EVOLVED? “It’s definitely gotten harder because you have a car that we don’t have as well developed as the old car. We’re going to tracks that are brand new and you’re not giving us any practice. Even when you have 50 minutes of practice, it’s like, ‘OK, you’re not giving us practice in comparison to what it used to be.’ It’s not even close and really to be able to tune on your car and those type of things. At Nashville, we got to tune on our cars some, but last week you don’t. You kind of got what you got for the most part, so it’s definitely a lot harder to close the gap, whether you’re off from the driver or off on the car. Either way, it’s really hard to close the gap because you just don’t get the laps or you don’t get the adjustments you want to make to your car to try to make it better or to really A-B something to see if it was better or not. You’ve got to come back 15 weeks later and change something and compare it to something that was 40 degrees outside. ‘Tell me if that was better.’ ‘Yeah, right.’ There are way too many variables, so that’s the situation all of these teams are in.”

HOW DO YOU ASSESS WHAT TEAMS ARE RUNNING GOOD AND WHO WILL BE TOUGH IN THE PLAYOFFS? “It was similar to this last year. I’d say if anything it’s easier this year to tell who is gonna be the hitters right now, and a lot of it is the same guys it’s always been. You go back and look at it and the best teams, the best drivers are usually up front. Every now and again you may have something that kind of mixes it up or you may have a team that’s fallen off the bandwagon for a little bit, but they usually figure it out. I don’t see it being much different. Last year was almost harder to tell because there were so many winners and all that. This year, it seems like it’s starting to see more common guys up front, but the thing now is that the whole team matters. Before, if you had a fast car you can get away with a slow pit stop, you can get away with a bad restart every now and again because you’re car is fast enough to make it up and the top 10 looked almost the same every time. Now, boy, if you’re a fifth-place car, but you have 15th-place pit stops all day, you’re gonna finish 12th. It’s just what it is, so it’s a lot different than it used to be. It’s not as easy to make up the spots because the field is closer.”

ARE THERE ANY TRACKS OR MARKETS YOU’D LIKE TO SEE NASCAR GO TO NEXT? “I can’t say I’ve thought about it a whole bunch. I do like that we’re branching out and that weekend, really, when you think of all the stuff that as an industry we had to go through throughout preparing for it, the track itself, the weather that came on us at the last second, there was still a ton of people there and it was a pretty good race. I guess, to me, after seeing that, let’s go anywhere. It seems to be fine. We have a system that works pretty well. Yes, are there things we could adjust to the racetrack to make it a little better and a little safer? Yes, absolutely, but I do think overall for the first time out on a street course in the rain wasn’t that bad.”

COULD AN OVERSEAS RACE TAKE PLACE AND WOULD YOU BE IN FAVOR? “I think we can. Listen, you tell racers you’re going racing somewhere, they’ll figure out how to get stuff there. Racers are a different breed. I feel like you can put these people in any industry and they’re gonna figure out ways to succeed. The deadline is here. It’s not like you’re building a house and you say it’s gonna be a done at a certain time and three months later it can be done then and it’s OK. No, you have to be racing this weekend. You have to have the car ready. They figure out a way to make it happen. It’s gonna be like that. If that’s the situation, we’ll figure out how to do it. I think it would be great to go overseas. I’d be interested in it. I think it would be kind of fun. From the few times that I have gone to other places I do know a lot of people have interest in our sport because they never get to see it. If you never get the chance to see something, when it comes to your country it’s gonna be a big deal. It’s a big event. I believe it would be a huge event if we went somewhere to a different country that was far away from here somewhere.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS PHYSICAL FITNESS TO YOU? “I think it’s important for a few reasons. One, you want to try to compete or train in the same conditions you’re competing in, so you want to be where it’s hot. It’s really hot in our race cars right now. Your heart rate is elevated at a pretty high level the whole time. You mentally have to be there. I think the more physically fit you are and ready for those situations, the more mentally engaged you can be. Just like any other sport, it’s a mental game and if you can’t physically be there, you’re mentally off in some La-La Land and you’re gonna miss the details and you’re gonna lose. I believe physically being there, being focused in and being able to really accomplish the task the whole race is important because our most important moments are at the end of the race. That’s when the pay window opens up and you have to be the most ready at that moment.”

YOU’VE WON TWICE AT YOUR HOME TRACK. IS THERE ANY BETTER FEELING THAN THAT OTHER THAN WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “Outside of Daytona, I would assume Indy and championship race or getting yourself in the Championship 4 somehow in some big moment, that is the biggest win you can have outside of those, for sure. Winning at your home track is special for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of memories there, for one, but it’s the people that are there with you more times than not. It’s like your family is there, your friends are there, people that don’t get to go to every single race and you celebrate with them in victory lane. That is just the coolest moment and it’s probably different for others, I don’t know. For me, Loudon is always going to hold a special place in my heart for that reason. Like I always say, I watched my first Cup race there. I started my first Cup race there. We won our first Cup race there. It’s a special place for me and winning there is definitely fourth or fifth on the list of tracks you want to win at. It’s probably not like that for everyone at Loudon, but for me it definitely is.”

HAS IT BECOME INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO PASS WITH THIS CAR THERE? “I don’t know if it’s a whole bunch different than the old car was. It’s hard to pass. The bottom line is it’s hard to pass. It’s racing, though. That’s what racing is, it’s challenging and as our cars just run the same speed it’s gonna be hard to pass. We used to have cars that were more separated, but now everybody is within a couple tenths of a second and dirty air is gonna be more than that. It’s gonna slow you down more than two-tenths of a second so you’re gonna get stuck. That just means qualifying and execution of the race, the good thing is tires fall off a fair amount at Loudon, so there is opportunity for strategy there with some things. We’ve seen that track get fairly wide where some cars can run on the yellow line or even below it. Some run the third lane, that third seam way up there. It’s gotten pretty racy, but it’s still a challenging place to pass, but everywhere is.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
QUAKER STATE 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JULY 8, 2023

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 CHEDDAR’S SCRATCH KITCHEN CAMARO ZL1, met with the media prior to the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Press conference transcript:

HOW DO YOU FEEL ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY HAS MATURED NOW HAS A SUPERSPEEDWAY TRACK?

“I don’t think we’ve seen its full potential yet. It still probably has a lot of grip where you’re really not fighting getting out of the throttle yet a whole lot. Old Atlanta (Motor Speedway), being as slippery as it was – if that was a zero on the grip scale, I think we’re still up in the nine or 10 right now. So it’ll take a little bit before we get to the five or six range when racing typically starts to get pretty good.”

HOW DO YOU THINK GOING 90 MPH ON THE APRON UNDER GREEN ENTERING PIT ROAD CHANGE MUCH, AS FAR AS STRATEGY?

“I don’t think it changes much on strategy. When we were here in the spring, it seemed to be about equal for a lap and a half or something like that – where you would go down about a lap and a half. You know I think this time around might be a little bit less than that, obviously, but not by much. It’s just going to be a different rate of what you have to slow down to under green because under yellow, it’s still the same 45 mph all the way around. Everybody has probably looked ahead to that and planned – at least they should have – with their lights and everything else. So we’ll just see what that looks like getting out here and going.”

WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SCHEDULE, THERE’S A LOT OF TALK ABOUT INTERNATIONAL RACES – WHETHER IN EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST, WHEREVER. DO YOU SEE THAT HAVING A PLACE IN NASCAR AT ALL IN THE FUTURE?

“I have a really funny answer, but I’m going to leave it alone (laughs).

Yeah, I do. I feel like there’s definitely the potential for that – whether it’s North America, South America, even a different continent. I think there’s some opportunities that are out there, so it will be interesting to see where we land with that. I think last week kind of showcased that you can do a street event. And we’ve also kind of proven the stadium aspect, as well, with the (Los Angeles) Coliseum. I think that opens up a huge playbook.”

NOW A WEEK REMOVED FROM CHICAGO – ANY ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON HOW THAT WEEKEND WENT WITH HAVING TIME TO PROCESS IT?

“Yeah, I thought it went well. Considering where the team hotels were, we were in walking distance and that was pretty close. There was just a lot of walking from the garage area to pit road for the teams. Where the haulers were parked was a little bit of a walk, as well. Especially with the rain because your notice that you get for ‘drivers to your cars’ is about four minutes, so it’s almost where you have to get into a trot to get out there on time. But probably the only negative was just the weather. I thought everything else about it was really good. Practice went off pretty well. There was definitely some areas of the track where you could use a tire barrier – I obviously was a tester of those, and they seemed to work really well and that our cars can continue on with little damage. But just a couple of spots that probably could use more or any to begin with.”

IT’S BEEN A YEAR NOW THAT KURT (BUSCH) HAS BEEN OUT OF THE CAR. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT AND WHAT IT’S BEEN LIKE THE LAST YEAR WITH KURT AND HIM RECOVERING?

“Yeah, I got to work with him on the sidelines last year being with the Toyota camp for the last half of the year, but really haven’t seen a whole bunch of him and haven’t talked a whole bunch with him – just not working with that group anymore. Being with Team Chevy, we’ve kind of I guess re-distanced a little bit. But you know, it was not due to what he wanted as a timeline of stepping aside and being out of the car. But the way it all went down, the way he’s handled it, the way he’s still been a part of 23XII and working with Tyler (Reddick) and Bubba (Wallace) over there – I think he’s an instrumental part to some of the success they’ve had early on. We’ll see what his choices are going forward on if he continues that.”

(NO MIC.)

“Yeah, so I was born in 1985 – I think Bobby (Allison) was done in ’88, so I never watched him race, but obviously I’ve seen the highlights and stuff like that. He was an amazing competitor. I always remember him being fast in that No. 12 Miller car. Just being a historian of the sport for the little bit that I am, it’s always really neat to just kind of see some of that. I know with Davey coming in and being here – those two guys racing with each other, running well with each other, working together and all that, was really cool as a father-son duo. Hopefully one day I can do some of that with my son, as well. He was an instrumental part of the growth of the sport during that time – stayed around a lot and kept his face in the business to just continue to elevate everything that they all were doing.”

JUST WITH THE DIFFERENT TRACKS AND HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED WITH THE SCHEDULE THE LAST FEW YEARS – HOW DOES THAT CHALLENGE YOU AS A DRIVER AND THE DIFFERENT SKILL SETS OR DEMANDS REQUIRED? AND TWO – WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR SON AND AS YOU PLOT A COURSE FOR HIM TO WORK HIS WAY UP, WITH NASCAR’S EVOLVING SCHEDULE, DOES THAT START TO CHANGE OR MAKE YOU THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WANT TO PLOT HIS DIRECTION OR THINGS YOU WANT TO INCLUDE IN HIS DEVELOPMENT?

“Yeah, obviously there’s a lot of change happening right now with different venues and things like that. Atlanta (Motor Speedway) turning into a speedway. You’ve got, I’d call it, six I guess superspeedway races, and then you’ve got seven road course races. You’ve got intermediates; you’ve got short-tracks. Now you have a street course. So there’s a lot going on with the different avenues that you can go and the training you can do with driver development.

Yeah, I’m a proponent of getting him in as much stuff that I possibly can. Some people tell me that they think that’s hurting his development or slowing his development down in particular cars. And I’m like – well, yeah, but he can go run against any kid in the country and run top-three everywhere we go in any vehicle that we run in. I feel like that’s a Kyle Larson-type thing – where we’re not just focused on quarter midgets or outlaw karts.. he only does that and he’s really good at that. But then we can’t even make an A-main in a quarter midget race at a national event. The one thing that we’re a little bit short on right now is just the road course kart stuff that Keelan has been really high on. We haven’t done as much of that and Brexton keeps asking me about doing it and why we haven’t done it. And I’m like – bro, there’s only so much time in the day (laughs).. we’re pretty slammed as it is. But hopefully being able to get out to Trackhouse Motorplex a little bit more, especially as the off-season gets there – that’s sort of the time where I always ran road course stuff was always winter races. So I’d love to take him out there and just kind of get his feet wet more in that.”

HOW MUCH IS IT CHALLENGING FOR YOU? YOU HAD THE DEVELOPMENT AND SKILL SET, AND OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE TALENTED IN A LOT OF THINGS, BUT A LOT OF THINGS ARE GETTING THROWN AT YOU. HOW IS THIS CHALLENING YOU?

“You know, the only thing that’s been challenging to me and I don’t know how to be get better at it besides just doing it more often – is the street course last week. I came out of the gate my first lap on the track and boom – I shot up to third quick on the board. And then everybody started getting braver, pushing the brake limits more and getting better and better, and I started falling back. But when you go to the Clash at The Coliseum, that reminds me of going to Star Speedway up in Epping, New Hampshire – we’re close to there next week. It’s a little, tight, three-eighths mile bullring with really tight corners. So places like that where I grew up racing late models at remind me of that. The superspeedway here is a little bit different, but it’s really close to Daytona (International Speedway). And then all the rest of the stuff that we obviously do. Traditional road courses are traditional road courses – it’s just about finding your way around those. So again, the street course stuff – not having much experience in that or racing in the rain for that matter, too – is probably my worst trait at the moment.”

WHAT’S YOUR RECOVERY PROCESS FOR ANY WRECK, IN GENERAL?

“It depends on the wreck. Last week, running into the tires at Chicago was great (laughs).. it was nice, it wasn’t really that bad. I was petrified going into that, that it was going to hurt a hell of a lot. But then the tire pack, you kind of just slowly accordion into it and it was fine. I think that was a good learning for us that we can do that at a lot more races maybe – not ovals, but road courses that don’t maybe have tire packs that have some gravel run-offs that don’t catch a car that you can still achieve the fence. I don’t think there’s a depth of tire pack that’s too thick, honestly. So I think that’s kind of a learning curve that I tested out last week.

Other than that, yeah wrecking at superspeedway races – hitting the wall, breaking my leg, foot and stuff at Daytona (International Speedway) was no fun. It’s all about the hit that you get. But being in decent shape I think allows you to come out of those a lot faster. Just talking with Scott Borchetta, who is a TA2 driver who I’ve been friends with for a long time – he was in a bad accident and hurt pretty bad. He’s healing a lot faster than the doctors expected because he was like – yeah, I was working out, I was training, I was trying to keep up with these young kids to go race with. I think it’s just all about your body composition and makeup.”

HALFWAY THROUGH YOUR FIRST SEASON AT RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING, IS THERE SOMETHING YOU CAN TELL US THAT YOU’VE LEARNED ABOUT RICHARD (CHILDRESS) AS YOUR CAR OWNER THAT MAYBE YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT HIM IN PREVIOUS YEARS?

“To me, it’s just that he’s involved. He’s involved in a lot of different ways. He’s involved at the race shop – he’s there a lot, talking with upstairs people, downstairs people, into the competition meetings, talking with the pit crew coaches. He’s also doing some other outside business stuff with the spring company that he’s got, as well as the ECR engines and things that they’ve been doing. Not since I’ve been there, but the last couple of years they were the Cadillac engine supplier for the IMSA stuff for Cadillac. It’s just really cool to see all the different stuff that they have all up at their campus, and what all he’s involved in and how much he really pays attention to all of that. He’s an instrumental part to why we want to win races and why we’ve won races. And I feel like we’ve lived up to that to this point, which has been amazing and really, really good. It’s just a matter of carrying that forward and continuing to work together. He and I – we’ve exchanged a lot of text messages, phone calls and all that stuff on areas of things that we can do. I’m trying to push on him a little bit so he can go deliver those messages and push on it from his side because he’s always told me – just come to me.. bring me anything, whatever you’ve got, come to me.”

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