CHEVROLET SWEEPS TOP-THREE AS LARSON WINS AT RICHMOND
No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1 leads strong Bowtie effort in NASCAR Cup Series
· Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Camaro ZL1, won for the 20th time in 302 career NCS starts. It was his first victory of the 2023 season.
· He is now a two-time winner at Richmond Raceway, having won in 2017.
· Chevrolet won for the fifth time in 2023 to lead all manufacturers. The Bowtie brand now has 838 all-time victories in NASCAR’s premier series.
· Team Chevy won at Richmond for the 40th time in 133 Cup Series races at Richmond.
· Six Chevrolet drivers combined to lead 246 of the 400 laps at Richmond on Sunday.
· The victory gave Chevrolet a sweep of the top-three positions and wins in all three NASCAR national series on the weekend, adding to Chandler Smith’s win at Richmond in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Carson Hocevar’s victory at Texas Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
RICHMOND, Va. (April 2, 2023) – Chevrolet and Kyle Larson drove to victory Sunday in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway as the manufacturer continued its strong early-season run in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Larson, in the No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, took the lead for good with 21 laps to go to earn his first NCS victory of the season and the 20th of his career. The result also gave Chevrolet five victories this season – the most of any manufacturer in the series.
Chevrolet drivers swept the top three positions Sunday. Josh Berry, in the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Camaro ZL1, took advantage of a caution period with 28 laps to go and gained track position en route to a career-best, runner-up finish.
Ross Chastain finished third in the No. 1 Jockey Camaro ZL1 to complete Chevrolet’s top-three sweep at Richmond, where the manufacturer has now won 40 times in 133 races at the track.
Team Chevy drivers dominated the day with six Camaro ZL1 drivers combining to lead 246 of the 400 laps on the day. William Byron led the most laps with his No. 24 RaptorTough.com Camaro ZL1 – 117 laps – followed by Larson with 93 laps led.
Byron dominated the 70-lap opening stage and claimed his season-best fifth stage win as Chevrolet drivers led the entirety of the segment. Stage Two ended with almost 130 laps of green-flag running and four Team Chevy Camaros in the top-eight for the final 170-lap run.
Following contact on pit road that sent him back in the field during the second stage, Larson moved back into the top-five on Lap 283 and kept coming forward until he controlled the field for the final 13 green-flag laps and took the checkered flag.
The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season continues at Bristol Motor Speedway with the Food City Dirt Race on Sunday, April 9, at 7 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
NASCAR Media Conference
Press Conference
Sunday, April 2, 2023
An Interview with:
Kyle Larson
THE MODERATOR: We’re now joined by tonight’s race winner, Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Once again, we’ll open it up for questions.
Q. You’ve had a couple of wins slip away this year. After you had that damage from with the contact with Suarez, did you think, oh, this is another one of those days?
KYLE LARSON: I wouldn’t say that ever crept into my mind. I was just kind of hoping and praying that the damage was the reason why it got slow.
Obviously, couldn’t see the damage. Still haven’t seen how it was dented, but I was definitely a lot slower then. So I was hoping once we got to the end of the second stage that they could fix it and then that our car would go back to normal because I was surprised at how bad I was after that.
So I felt like before that pit stop we were going to cruise to a stage two win and then I kind of fell apart there. So I was just mad at the situation and mad at just not knowing if it was the damage why I was bad or if the track had gone through transition and we were going to be average the rest of the race.
But thankfully that wasn’t the case, and we were able to get refocused there to start the third stage and inch our way forward and then have some things work out for us, cautions work out at the right time, and our pit crew executed a great pit stop at the last one.
Q. Talk about kind of that frustration, how did you overcome it, and then the impact of Hendrick Motorsports in your career.
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I feel like a lot of the races — even looking at last week. My race was going good in the beginning, and then one small mishap turned into me trying too hard, and I made a lot more mistakes and kind of hurt our day going forward.
So when I was going backwards in the second stage and mad, I just needed a caution to take a break and then tell myself just to not overreact and just we still have 170-something laps left or whatever it was. It’s plenty of time to get back to the front. So our car was good enough to do that too.
Then, yeah, the impact of Hendrick Motorsports has been amazing for my career obviously. I’ve won a lot of races with them and a championship in 2021. It’s Ricky Hendrick’s birthday today. That I learned about as well.
Just a great day all around for Hendrick Motorsports. Great week especially. So, yeah, a lot of significance to this week, and I’ll probably remember it now for a long time.
Q. Kyle, after the incident, what did the car feel like? Was it noticeably different from the damage?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah. Typically when you leave from a green flag stop, it feels different because there’s rubber on the track and all that. So I took off when the green flag stopped, and I was, like, okay, my car is driving different than it did to start this run.
I didn’t think that I hit Suarez that hard. It didn’t feel that hard from my seat. So I am, like, okay, it’s whatever. I was, like, man, I’m not good.
I was really tight loading into the corner. Snapped loose off. Lap cars were driving by me. I was just, like, man, is this the track change or — and then they told me the damage. And, yeah, there was just nothing I could do to manage what I was fighting.
I think when I was tight in the center, it just pissed off my exit and my rear tires. And I was really, really bad, really lacking traction that run. I was just shocked that the damage did that much to me.
But thankfully it was in an area where they could pop it back out, and our car drove fine after that.
Q. What about Ricky’s birthday and the paint scheme and all that? Is it an extra special thing for you to have all that come together?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, for sure. No, it definitely is. Me racing this 5 car has been special, but especially this paint scheme.
I was watching just flipping through old YouTube videos this week of my 2021 season so I could remind myself that I used to be good (smiling), but I didn’t realize after watching it that Vegas was my first win with Hendrick, and that was my first race with that paint scheme and the colors that year.
Kansas later on that year was — I think it was 17 years to the date of the accident and then now this, winning on his birthday. It’s all really special and kind of crazy kind of how things maybe work out from the power above. Things work out that way.
So pretty special for sure. There’s a couple of other birthdays on our team also. You know, my jackman, he turned 30 today. My spotter turned 30 today. So just a special day all around. Looking forward to celebrating with them.
Q. What were your thoughts about the new short track package, and what do you think we can expect when we get back on the pavement at Martinsville?
KYLE LARSON: So I thought things felt more normal to the previous model car. I felt like — last year here at Richmond you could follow somebody down to the bottom, and you would just get so tight. Even if they missed the bottom a little bit in front of you, you would get tight.
But today seemed like normal. Like you could wrap the paint. If somebody missed the bottom in front of you, you could throttle up and get to their back bumper.
So I just didn’t feel as affected behind people in traffic. I was pleased with that. It seemed like there was more passing. It seemed like there was a little more coming and going compared to last year’s races.
I’m curious what other drivers think, but I thought it was an improvement. I thought it was an improvement at Phoenix, but I thought it was even more of an improvement compared to the racing we had here last year for this race.
So, yeah, I was happy about that.
Q. So it seems like your close competition pretty much throughout the day were the JGR Toyotas. Were you kind of expecting them to be your closest competition, and how did the Hendrick Chevys compare to the JGR Toyotas throughout the race?
KYLE LARSON: Always when you come to Richmond, you know that the Gibbs cars are going to be the ones to beat. They just have a package, I guess, for this track.
So I knew — at least I thought going into the race — you know, you don’t know without practice, but I thought going into the race that they were going to be the tough ones.
When I was going backwards at the end of that second stage, a lot of the cars passing me were Gibbs cars. So I was, like, okay, they’re really good.
I could see them kind of chewing up on Williams’ lead in front of me and then ultimately passing him, too. So, yeah, they were probably still better than we were today.
But, you know, this has historically been a really bad track for Hendrick, too. So to have all of us run up front majority of the day, come away with a one-two finish, lead as many laps as we did between William and I, it was the best day I think Hendrick has had at Richmond in decades probably.
So proud of the effort and really, really proud of how we’ve been as a whole organization at every racetrack so far this season.
Q. I found it funny that you said that you watched your highlights from your championship season to prove that you were quote, unquote good or at a time…
KYLE LARSON: Remind myself. Not prove.
Q. Sorry. Remind yourself. Can you expound on that? Why did you do it? What did you learn, et cetera?
KYLE LARSON: I don’t know. Just trying to — I don’t know. I was just bored at night the other night.
But it was a great season, and just kind of listening to even post-race interviews and kind of where my mindset was at then when I was winning a lot just to kind of compare to what I think I’m like maybe right now.
The Next Gen stuff, it’s so up and down. It’s easy to — obviously 2021 was so strong. We were just riding a high kind of all season. Expectations were high. Execution was great. Results were amazing.
Whereas since we’ve gone to the Next Gen car, it’s hard to get your confidence up. Yeah, I just really wanted to look at old tape of myself and just kind of see where my mindset was and see my confidence and, yeah, just do all that.
So I don’t think it mattered for the race today, but just to, I don’t know, kind of reset your mindset a little bit.
Q. Today you talked about the odds for the most part were against a good finish here today at Richmond for Hendrick Motorsports even though you all really had a great day. But having won today and then going to a track where for the most part it fits your driving style. I heard your name mentioned in different venues today as a favorite going to Bristol. What does that do for you going to Bristol, especially going in as a favorite?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I mean, I could have ran last in every single race leading into Bristol, and the media is probably going to point to me as being the favorite anyway at Bristol just because it’s a dirt track.
So I don’t know. It does not matter to me. I know that we’re going to be good at every racetrack, so that’s promising.
But, yeah, it is so different than the dirt racing that I do during the week. These heavy stock cars drive nothing like even a dirt late model that’s 2,400 pounds.
Yes, I maybe can read a track better than people, but now this is our third year on it. So I think everybody has kind of got a good idea of what to look for.
I feel like the track prep crew does a good job of making things consistent throughout the years, but the weekend especially. So, yeah, I think it’s going to be at least in the two races that we’ve ran there, your same guys that run up front here today will probably be up front at Bristol next week, too.
So I think we’ll be — because we’ve been a lot better at all these racetracks so far this year, I think we’ll be better than what we were there last year. We weren’t great. We were good when the track had grip. Not great when it got slick. I’m sure we’ve learned from it and will hopefully be better going back.
Q. Obviously you get the points back this week. You get the victory. How does this change your outlook for the rest of the season?
KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I don’t know. It doesn’t really change my outlook for the rest of the season. I felt like, yes, we got hit with 100 points and all that, but I felt like our race car is really fast all year long.
So I knew we were going to have many opportunities to win. Yeah, we were just able to do that today, and I know we’re going to have more opportunities going forward. It really doesn’t — nothing has changed my confidence I guess going into — sorry, I saw my buddy. I was checking that out.
Yeah, I don’t know. Just try to keep executing.
Q. In those last couple of restarts you’ve raced Josh there for the win. In these last couple of weeks that he has been in the 9 car and he has been in the shop, what have you seen out of him in terms of his growth?
KYLE LARSON: Well, he’s an extremely good race car driver and a great short track racer. So I think — it’s hard for me to follow along when I’m out there racing, but I think due to their track position that they had throughout the race, they were on a totally different strategy there at the end just hoping to catch a caution. That’s ultimately what happened.
Their team did a great job on pit road, and he came out second. Me being the leader, I was nervous because I hadn’t been around him all day. I know he is a super good short track racer. So, yeah, I knew it was going to be tough.
Thankfully we got clear of him, but he has done a phenomenal job filling in. It’s been nice to have him a part of the debriefs. I feel like he describes his car really well. He seems like he is probably really easy to work with. I’m sure the 9 team probably feels he is easy to work with.
I’ve enjoyed having him a part of our team throughout Chase’s injury. I hope whenever Chase comes back that Josh gets more opportunity going forward and good equipment because he is a Cup Series caliber driver. He has proven it just in the few races that he has ran.
He is very, very deserving of being in the Cup Series, and he has worked extremely hard his whole career to get these opportunities.
Q. We’ve kind of gotten used to you being the guy over the years where you are the first to go to the wall, run the top lane. It seemed like the package or tires, something, let it kind of — the racing groove extend a little bit here, but there’s only a couple of guys really running up against the wall, and they weren’t winning. What more do you think it needed for that to be a preferable line?
KYLE LARSON: Well, I mean, if your car is good, you don’t need to go up there. The guys who are up there, it’s because their cars were really bad.
I think early in the race the 47 was going really good. It was kind of unfortunate to see him have his, I guess, brake issues because he was making the top work before that competition caution. Then after that you could tell he had brake issues.
But who knows? Maybe had he been towards the front and showing speed up there, it would have drug others up there. Usually Richmond is like that. Richmond especially after it rains and stuff that first run, you’ll just kind of — the majority of the people run around the bottom like where you should be at Richmond.
You drag and just run until the rubber gets to the wall, and then everybody comes back down. It’s just a product of this racetrack I think.
There’s only been one Richmond race — I can’t remember what year, but where I remember running the wall. Again, I don’t want to run the wall at any track. I just feel like if my car is not handling how I want it on the bottom, I have to find speed elsewhere.
But if your car is good, you just stay glued to the bottom.
Q. When you’re battling Josh Berry there on a late restart, somebody that I assume you haven’t really raced against a whole lot, is there any question in your mind that you don’t know what he is going to do?
KYLE LARSON: Sure. I mean, as far as like aggression? No, I didn’t think of that.
But, I could tell that first restart he — and myself both. That was the first time I restarted on the front row on the inside. We both kind of under-drove, one, and I got clear of him pretty easy. So we got that quick caution. I was, like, dang, now he knows how much further he can run the corner and all that. He did a much better job that second time, and I had to work a lot harder to get clear of him off of two.
So I was more just thinking about one and two, how are we going to get through there and if he is on my right side, he probably has a pretty good idea how to pass people because he has been in traffic the whole race.
Thankfully it worked out where I got clear and could kind of just manage my stuff and take care of my tires in case we had another caution.
An Interview with:
Jeff Gordon
Kevin Meendering
THE MODERATOR: We’ll go ahead and get started. We’re joined by tonight’s race winning crew chief of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Kevin Meendering and Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports. Open it up for questions.
Kevin, first, what does this mean for you on a personal level getting a win as a crew chief?
KEVIN MEENDERING: It’s a big accomplishment, but like I said before, this isn’t about me, this is about this team. They’ve got a great group of guys here. They got a great leader in Cliff, and I was just happy to kind of fill a gap and help those guys out in a tough situation.
But this is a testament to all the hard work from those guys on that team and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports.
For Jeff, this is Ricky Hendrick’s birthday, and I’m curious, what do you see in Hendrick Motorsports that still today he had an impact on?
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, I think days like today makes you wonder, you know, what Ricky’s presence would do for us if he was here with us today and what his leadership… You know, he was so passionate about Hendrick Motorsports and racing.
So it’s nice, days like today, you know, when you do something special on his birthday. And I was talking to Rick, and he was emotional and excited, and so his presence is still here.
I think that, you know, certainly our folks try to do everything they can to make Rick Hendrick proud. But when you know what Ricky’s impact could have been on our company and the people and the 5 car and that paint scheme and what that means to the whole company, it’s very rewarding to know that we’re still kind of thinking of him and paying tribute to him as often as we can. Maybe he is looking down on us as well.
I do want to say one thing. He is going to shove all the credit to… To me what I love about seeing a guy like Kevin come in and do this is the depth of our people and our company.
We’ve been put under really, really difficult circumstances with all four crew chiefs being out, and just the job that I’ve watched them do, how they’ve communicated, you know.
I mean, we’re lucky we have people that have been crew chiefs that have a lot of experience, but at the same time with this car, with no practice, no qualifying there’s so much that has to be done to tie everything in together. Great job for Kevin for all the hard work that he has put in. He is still doing his other job too in that contribution.
Kevin, with all that was going on in the last 30, 40, 50 laps with cautions and all, how are you dealing with the tire question? Was there any doubt that you would come in almost whenever you could to get new tires?
KEVIN MEENDERING: Actually, that last set of tires we put on was our last set, so we were starting to run out of tires, but the laps were running down.
We kind of planned it out, and we had a strategy going into the race, and it kind of worked out in our favor. With about 20 to go, we put our last set on, and that’s probably late enough in the race where we wouldn’t have to worry about having to put another set on.
So it just kind of fell in our favor.
How dramatic was the fall-off?
KEVIN MEENDERING: You kind of saw with the 19, he didn’t have any stickers left at the at the end, and he dropped pretty quickly. There’s definitely a lot of fall-off especially the first five, 10 laps. It’s pretty considerable.
But we were kind of on the same strategy as the majority of the field, so tire-wise we were in a good spot.
Jeff, this is for you. With Josh finishing second today, he has been in the car the last month or so in place of Chase. What’s the growth you’ve seen out of him when he has been in the 9 car?
JEFF GORDON: I feel like he has done a great job every time he has been in the car. You start to see a bit of a trend with him. Of course, we didn’t do him any favors by him starting 30th today.
We made one adjustment there early that didn’t seem to go the right direction. They got him further behind. So to see them climb up through there and the car come to life, and staying out there paid off and caught the caution.
But Josh, when you look at his lap times, he is a guy that he gets in there, he feels the car out, he doesn’t take too many risks or chances until he knows what he has. Then you just start to see the lap times come and build and the run start to come together.
And every time I’m scanning, I kept hearing by the end of the run, Hey, those lap times are really good. Hey, those lap times are similar to the leaders’.
So he clearly knows how to manage tires and manage a race well. It seems like the longer the race, the better he does. We’re really happy with the job that he has done.
Certainly everybody has known his talent watching him in other forms of racing, late models, and the Xfinity Series. You have to put him in other cars with other teams and other people to really see how far he could take it.
I think he’s got a future in the Cup Series.
That was the question I was going to ask, but Jeff, for you as a driver to driver, what’s the significance of this young man at this point to have that level of success with an organization like Hendrick Motorsports?
JEFF GORDON: Most young guys, they come in and they have to build up their experience and their knowledge and the confidence and everything else, and hope you get the chance to be in quality equipment.
Even when I came in, it was at Hendrick, but it was a whole new team and brand new people. So it took us a while to build that.
To truly measure somebody’s talent, you plug them into an existing top-caliber team, and that’s what’s taken place here. Then you say, Let’s see what you can do. Clearly he has been proving that he has the talent and the ability as well as the work ethic.
That’s what you don’t see behind the scenes. He is a quiet guy, but behind the scenes he is doing all the things that he needs to do to get prepared. And he still is running Xfinity too and trying to win a championship over there.
So, yeah, great job by him.
Jeff, given this week and how the points penalty got rescinded, you get the 10 playoff points back, and you end up winning the race. What are the emotions kind of as a team? You get three cars in the top ten. William led a bunch of laps today. It has to feel good kind of. You have four cars theoretically earning the most points this week because they got 100 back, and they had a really good day.
JEFF GORDON: Well, I’m probably looking at it a little bit different than you are because I don’t know that we should have ever had the points taken away to begin with.
But, yeah, it’s been a good week. It’s been really stressful trying to prep for an appeal and not knowing what the outcome is going to be. We’re certainly happy with what the appeals committee came to that conclusion, but at the same time we feel like we laid out enough information there that it shouldn’t have ever happened, or even the monetary side of it and the crew chief side of it.
We were really hoping we were going to get all of that back. But we’re going to move on from that. Then we come in here obviously with qualifying raining out, that paid off in more ways than one. Good track position and then fast race cars.
I mean, once the green flag dropped, it’s all about those teams execute and doing their job. But certainly quite a few smiles around campus this day. They’ve been down with what happened. So that definitely re-energized our folks this week and coming into this weekend’s race.
Certainly this win will do a lot for us as we move forward and go to Bristol.
For either of you guys or both. Have you heard from Cliff yet? Was he in contact with you throughout the day or, Jeff, with you? Have you heard from him yet?
JEFF GORDON: I’m not seen or heard from Cliff. I don’t know if Kevin has.
KEVIN MEENDERING: I haven’t either. Obviously we’ve been in contact with him throughout the weekend and remotely. So this is a big win for him as well as all of us.
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, I guarantee he is jumping up and down and excited.
I was thinking about Cliff, though, during the race when Kyle made the contact with Suarez. I was seeing Cliff throw things wherever he was. Then I could see him jumping up and down, screaming and yelling when the win happened.
You guys, you’ve got three wins for the team and five for the Chevy camp in seven races so far. Are we on the cusp of a historic season for Chevy and for Hendrick?
JEFF GORDON: Well, it’s too early to tell. I mean, certainly we’re off to a great start. Our folks at Chevy are doing an amazing job with not only the design of this car starting last year, but also some of the new things that have been brought to all the OEMs and opportunities that they’ve had. I think Chevy did an excellent job with that as well.
Then the job that the teams do collaborating together, sharing information, and trying to prepare for each and every race. They’ve done an amazing job.
You know, you could have looked a little that race today, and there were times where the Gibbs Toyotas were the best cars on the long run. You had times when I thought the 22 was really, really good, the 4 was good.
So I think there is a lot of parity out there. But right now I just like the way that I’m seeing our teams execute and our teams come prepared and the speed that are in our race cars.
It doesn’t seem like we’re the only Chevy team seeing that, so that’s good.
Jeff, you’re a guy that’s won at Richmond before. We saw you come up to Josh and congratulate him after the race. How have you seen him grow in the races he has done with Hendrick, and what did you guys talk about Richmond at all in preparation for this?
JEFF GORDON: I’ve been pretty tied up this week, I’ll be honest. That’s been with Tom Gray and with Alan Gustafson and that whole team. All I know is them bragging on him a lot about the effort that he is putting in, the things he is focused on. And even watching video from last year when maybe they didn’t even ask him to, and he just kind of took the initiative to do that.
I think every race gets his confidence up. But you go into a new track, different track every time, so it’s, Okay, what’s the car going to be like this weekend? Okay, what’s is it going to be like this weekend?
You threw Atlanta in there on him too, and that’s a pretty unique one.
It’s a much different car than what he is used to racing every weekend, and so there’s a lot of things that you have to adapt completely different to.
I’m not even sure if Saturday is not hurting him for the Sunday races because the cars are so much different. The sidewall, tires, the rear input… Just from me going from an H-pattern transmission to sequential would throw me off.
You know, big brakes. Car doesn’t have a lot of downforce. You can’t put the skew in it. There’s a lot of things that are different about what he is doing.
So I love his approach, and it’s turning into results, which I’m sure it’s turning into confidence for him as he continues to go to each track that he is going to be behind the wheel of the car.
What do you think was the reason you guys were successful with the appeal on Wednesday?
JEFF GORDON: I just think we were very transparent from the beginning of why we believed there was a miscommunication and what happened.
I said this in Atlanta. It should have never even come to that. I don’t want to give too much information because I want to respect the process, but it’s also a little frustrating that nothing gets shared from what determines whether there’s points given back or whether there’s money not given back and crew chief suspensions.
I just feel like there was enough there that it’s not clear-cut. It’s not just a black-and-white situation because there was enough communication to justify why we showed up to the racetrack in Phoenix the way we did.
I think that had it been handled in a situation more like the wheels at Daytona with RFK and Penske, I think that’s the way it should have been handled. It’s I understand it, there’s a reason why you did this, and there’s also a reason why you need to take them off the car.
But it should never to me have elevated up to the level that it did. Clearly, the panel felt very similar to that.
Jeff, you’re shuffling papers now and writing budgets and things and running the show, but how different are the emotions for you with these wins from when you were driving?
JEFF GORDON: It’s much different. I mean, when you are in the car, the adrenaline and working with these guys and seeing what they put into it, you’re a part of the effort that’s on the racetrack, and there’s an emotion that you’ll never be able to compare to.
But I can tell you when we win a championship like we did in ’20 and ’21, to me those are very, very exciting moments for me where I felt like I was driving.
Today it’s exciting, and it’s emotional. But it’s mainly just seeing these guys do their job and do it well and do it at a high level and stepping up when the pressure is on. Whether it’s a pit call or whether it’s a restart or it’s a pit stop, whatever it may be, you just feel pride. You feel pride in the organization because you see how they work throughout the week, over the offseason, and what they’re focused on and then seeing that turn into results.
I know everybody works hard in this garage area and probably deserves to have great results, but when you do did get it, you just feel extremely fortunate to work with such great people and have such great people on the race teams as well as behind the wheel.
There’s been a lot of talk earlier this season about the new Next Gen cars and more vent holes for more breathing into the car for safety. How did you feel any of that had an affect on your strategy for this year’s race versus previous races?
JEFF GORDON: You want to take that one? Not sure I completely understand the question.
There’s a lot of changes with the Next Gen cars, and how did that affect…
JEFF GORDON: For this year you mean?
Yes.
JEFF GORDON: I think it was the 15 car backed into the wall earlier, and you saw the rear of the car collapse. That’s I think what the drivers are asking, right, is to have it absorb more.
We’re still not seeing any real progress when you are at places like COTA or earlier in the year when we were at the Clash with guys just running straight into their bumpers.
So at low impacts I don’t think that there’s been significant progress there, but there’s a lot of discussions happening to fix that, and I’m happy about that.
But if that’s the changes that you are talking about, then I did at least see something good happen there.
What would be the next set of changes you would like to see for you and your team?
JEFF GORDON: Well, I think there’s a lot of technology in head support foam padding and absorption. So they have to do these drop tests where they kind of — the helmet design, inner padding, the headrest itself.
And then I think — and Kevin should be answering it because he knows about structures of cars. He is an engineer.
I just know from a race car driver I’m seeing these guys. They’re taking these small hits, and their head is whiplashing inside the car, and that’s not good.
So I think the rear bumper structure and the front bumper structure is far too stiff still. So I would like to see them find a way to make that a little bit more — it kind of gives a little bit more. I don’t know if it’s in the foam or if it’s in the metal structure because it’s all aluminum structure. That’s very, very stiff.
But today we at least saw some collapse in the chassis, which I think needs — I really think that the fuel cell needs to move further forward. That’s what’s going to probably help.
The Garage 56 car has that, so I think some of the things that we’re seeing on the Garage 56 car, we might be able to see that into the future in our cars that we’re racing as well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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