RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Peak Blue DEF Ford Mustang – HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED GOLF THE SAME DAY THAT YOU QUALIFY FOR THE DAYTONA 500? “Yeah, I think I played last year. You’ve only got to make one lap tonight. That will limber you up for tonight, for the hard work I’ve got to do at 8 o’clock tonight.”

ERIK JONES SAID YOU HADN’T REACHED OUT TO HIM. IS THERE ANYTHING TO RESOLVE? “No, I haven’t talked to Erik. I don’t have anything to really talk to him about. I’m over it. It’s funny, he thought I was supposed to apologize after I got fenced, but two people are gonna think differently. I haven’t talked to him, but I’m over it. It’s in the past and we’ll move on from it.”

TOP OF THE SPEED CHART LAST NIGHT. DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION WITH LACK OF INVENTORY? “It’s kind of hard to look at speeds in practice. We just had a big draft in that second practice and put a big lap up there, but I kind of looked at how our car drove in that little pack we had with four cars and how it took a push, how it reacted to get to someone else’s bumper. Single car speed, I would have liked to been a little bit quicker, but I’ve always kind of put a bigger emphasis on, ‘OK, how does my car handle in the draft?’ Can it take a big push because you’re gonna be getting bounced around out there all day. I mean, if your car can’t take a push, and it’s unstable, no one is gonna want to push you if they see that, so we’ve always put a big emphasis on driveability of our race cars and I thought I had that last night. I’ll get a better idea for that in the Duels, but to an extent you don’t want to go out there and wreck your 500 car in the Duels. It’s a fine line of seeing what you’ve got and what you maybe need to work on, but not putting yourself in a bad spot. I liked our car last night and we’ll see how it transfers over to tomorrow night.”

YOU WON THE LAST RACE AT DAYTONA BUT EXITED THE 500 ON LAP 14. HOW DO YOU APPROACH THIS WEEK? “Yeah, definitely very different results between the races here. It was no fun watching the end of the 500 last year on my couch at home, but coming to these tracks you have to understand that sometimes you don’t control your own destiny and that’s just what it is here, or at Talladega or any other speedway. The only thing that you can do is control the things that you and your team can control, and try to put yourself in the best spots to try to be there at the end of these things. So, you never know how it’s gonna go. I never planned on getting wiped out on lap 14, but someone makes a mistake and you find yourself in the middle of someone’s mess and your day is done. But then in the August race we missed two or three of the big wrecks and put ourselves in a spot to win the race, so you never know how it’s gonna go. You just try to do your best job and your team’s best job of staying in there all day and you hope to find yourself still running at the end of these things and you usually have a pretty good shot to win if you are still running towards the end of these races.”

DO YOU HAVE A BACKUP CAR THIS WEEKEND? “We have a couple for the four of us. It is a tough thing. Our inventory is not very big currently – no one’s is. It’s been difficult to get parts and pieces, honestly, for the teams to kind of put full things together. We used to come down here with one or two backups for each team just in case things happened and now we’re sitting on a couple for your whole organization, so that’s been difficult. You have to have that in the back of your head. From practice last night, ‘OK, how hard do I push my teammate to see what my car will do and what his car will do without possibly wrecking him?’ And the Duels tomorrow night it’s gonna be the same thing. I feel like guys are gonna be pretty smart on how they race, you would hope so because everyone is kind of sitting in the same boat. But, at the same time, you have teams that need to get in the 500 too that are gonna be racing pretty hard at the end of the Duels to try to get in, so you just have to be aware and observant, but you don’t ever want to wreck your 500 car, let alone when we don’t have many things to spare.”

HOW MANY TIMES HAS ‘AT THE PUMP’ BEEN YELLED AT YOUR THE LAST TWO WEEKS? “Yeah, more on social media. Somebody yelled ‘at the pump’ yesterday from the fan walk above the garage, so maybe they saved at the pump. I hope they did. I know I am. Are you?”

HOW WAS THE COMMERCIAL PITCHED TO YOU AND WHAT MAKES YOU AGREE TO AN IDEA? “I thought that was a great idea and a great partnership between Advance Auto Parts and Shell and Pennzoil to kind of come up with that. I mean, you have all these amazing partners that are a part of your organization and why not combine them to have these promotional things and promote not only their brands, but the team as well and yourself and help other people save money. That was a great idea because I loved the tie-in it had between Advance and Shell, and, honestly, if a sponsor comes to me with an idea on how to have a commercial or a spot or a social media thing on how to promote their company, I’m gonna be all for it because I love that they support me, so I’m gonna support them when I can as well. I don’t really say no if a partner has an idea on a spot they want, but I always just try to help them out as much because on the back end they help us out so much, and it’s not taking too much time out of my day to go film a little something for their company, but that was a good spot. That was one of the better ones I did, the Advance and Shell. That was a pretty funny one and it’s a cool promotion they’re doing.”

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A RACE FAVORITE WHEN YOU COME TO THE 500? “I don’t really ever think, and I don’t sit around and be like, ‘Man, I’m a race favorite.’ But, you have confidence in yourself. It builds confidence when you are successful at speedways. We won the August race here, so you build confidence and I think I have a decent idea of what to do to try to get to victory lane here, so I don’t know. I think a lot of people can be favorites. I mean, a lot of teams and drivers that have great opportunities to win this race, so, like I said, I just think you’ve got to do the things you can to the best of your ability and try to put yourself in a really good spot. You always see the same people usually up front at the end of these things. Denny has done a great job and he’s won three of these things and Joey’s a great plate race, Brad, you always kind of see the same guys up at the front at the end of these things, if they make it, and that’s for a reason – it’s because they’re really smart at what they do and they kind of understand it. I’ve learned a lot from Joey and Brad and I try to apply it and it’s worked out for us a little bit, but it’s nice they say I’m a race favorite, but you’ve just got to make it to the end and anyone can be.”

HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU WITH JONATHAN BEING YOUR CREW CHIEF NOW? “It’s been going really good. Jonathan has been part of the Penske group for a long time and I was really excited to see him get a crew chief role with the 21 the summer of last year, and he did a great job. At that time, I knew Todd was retiring and kind of started figuring who we wanted and luckily it worked out that Jonathan wanted to do it and we get along really well. He and Todd have kind of the same demeanor and personality and he and I have the same pretty much personality, too. It’s been nice to get some testing in with Jonathan in the offseason to just kind of learn each other and talk to each other on the radio and see how we both go about things. That just gives you such a better jump start to the season, but I’m looking forward to working with him. He’s very smart and well deserving and I’m lucky to have him.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL BUBBA HAS HANDLED EVERYTHING THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS AND DO YOU THINK IT WOULD BE FATIGUING TO BE IN HIS POSITION? “I think he’s handled it great. I’ve been very proud of the job that he’s done, whether it’s standing up for himself or standing up for the sport. When that deal happened a couple of years ago, the stand that he took behind it and not shying away from it, I think he faced it head-on, which was the right thing to do in my opinion. I look at his schedule and the things he does, I’d be exhausted if I was him. He’s off doing all these kinds of things that are fun for him, but I would be exhausted. He does so many things, but it’s really great and it’s grown the sport to a new level. Yes, it has to be exhausting on him, but I’m proud of the job he has done of not just rolling over on these things and wanting to do them. He’s embraced them and been wanting to do these things because it not only helps him, but it helps the sport and it helps everyone around it. It’s been cool to watch that kind of grow.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO WIN A RACE LIKE ATLANTA WHERE YOU WEREN’T EXPECTED TO? IS THERE SOME SPECIAL SATISFACTION IN DOING THAT? “Yeah, it is, especially when I re-watch the race and heard how much everyone was writing us off, like Gordon and Bowyer, so, yeah, it made me feel a lot better to win that race after I re-watched the commentary, but that race is special because Atlanta was such a hard racetrack. You put in so much work there and 500 miles is a long time around that place and you’re driving your tail off. In that case, we were second-best car most of the day and we just kept working on it and working on it and getting it a little better and a little better. We had a long run at the end and we saved our stuff and was able to go up and pass the 5 car. It does make it better when you continuously work on your car all day and just get a little bit better and able to run the dominant car of the day down on a long green flag run and pass him. I don’t know about a thief in the night, but I guess you could call it that. I don’t think we stole one, we just did a good job of working our way up to compete with the best car and we were the best car when it counted.”

WAS YESTERDAY’S PRACTICE BY DESIGN IN TERMS OF DRAFTING THE WAY YOU GUYS DID? “Really, our plan was to just go out there with our four cars and go draft, and then we got to see what our cars were capable of. Can you connect? Can you push? What do you have to do to lay back to get to the lead car to push him? So, I think you have to learn all those things. You have to understand that stuff in those moments to kind of see what you have to work on or just what your car can do, and it is different from the Gen 6 car. It might look similar on TV or watching it, but in the draft it feels way different. The lead car feels a lot different. It feels like you’re draggier. It’s harder to block runs. Your timing is off. I say that as your timing is gonna be off from the driver and the spotter perspective of when you have to move up to get in a lane and block a lane. I feel like the runs come faster with this car than the previous car, so you have to make those decisions quicker than you would, and I feel like it’s gonna take drivers and spotters a little bit of time to get used to that. You have to understand that the rear bumpers of these cars have a lot more curve in them. They’re not nearly as flat as our other cars. You see the Gen 6 car take huge shots in the rear bumper to get a lane going. You’re not gonna be able to do that in this car. If you do, you’re gonna wreck somebody, so that’s gonna be interesting to see how people approach that on making late blocks and not being able to take a shot in the bumper as hard as before, and these cars are gonna get turned to the right easier. Learning all that stuff is really important and we’ve learned that in the test and some practices and you’ll learn it in the Duels and the 500, but it is a good bit different and takes everyone a little while to kind of get comfortable and just understand what the limits are.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF WINNIE HARLOW WEARING YOUR SHIRT TO THE SUPER BOWL? “A friend of mine sent that to me and that was pretty cool. I thought she kind of made it her own – crop top, tank top kind of thing. I don’t think she knows who I am, she just liked the colors of the PPG shirt, so I can’t blame her. It’s cool colors, but that was neat. It’s one of those things that you see someone wearing it, whether it’s an athlete or celebrity and they wear your stuff. It’s like, ‘That’s cool.’ It’s just something you never know. There was an Alabama basketball player that was wearing my shirt in warm ups the other day. That’s so cool. Like you would never think that someone would maybe be a fan of you or just like your shirt and wear your shirt, but it’s still cool to see and makes you feel good because it’s like you would never think that they would care about it, but you turn around and you see them wearing that stuff and it makes you feel good as a driver.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE RACE CAR BEING PRETTY WELL STOCK AND THE FLEXIBILITY IT GIVES YOU? “I have mixed feelings about that, just as far as the mass production of these parts and pieces that all these teams are required to run. I say that from a perspective of someone who has seen the amazing work that the engineers that we have at Penske, who build these parts that we used to manufacture ourselves in-house, incredible designs that they come up of lighter pieces, different way it bolts on. We had a whole department of people doing that, that were incredibly talented men and women, and then we go machine shop it in-house and run it, and that’s gone. All the talent of those people, that’s a big part that isn’t used anymore. But on the other side of it, you’ll have smaller teams that don’t have that resource that will be running the same thing that the bigger teams run, and make them closer, but that’s good for the sport. It’s a weird mixture of emotions that I feel on that side, of talented people not being able to do their jobs anymore like they used to be able to, but at the same time it seems like it helps the sport as far as smaller teams being able to run what the bigger teams run. It’s just a matter of getting all those parts and pieces from whoever is making them in time.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang – THE FORDS WERE PRETTY AGGRESSIVE IN PRACTICE YESTERDAY. WHAT DID YOU LEARN? AND HOW DO THESE CARS REACT DIFFERENTLY WITH THE CURVED BACK BUMPER? “Blaney is 100% right. That was something that we went out there and tried to mess around and see what we can and can’t do and what the balance of the car is like when we get pushed and how we can improve that. The round bumpers is probably the biggest difference with this thing. Obviously, the air around the cars and how you draft is very different but the round bumpers – I don’t know why we put round bumpers on a race car but we did. It is like pushing two marbles against each other. You don’t know which way it is going to go. It really can upset the cars. My thought is that at the end of this thing when everyone starts pushing each other like normal and nobody lifts and is shoving each other through the next car, those round bumpers are going to send the car to the left or the right pretty big and probably door the next car and cause a big crash. That is going to be in our minds. We are trying to understand that and trying to get our cars to accept a push as best as possible so that we can work on that. Really the whole industry probably can. That will definitely be a lot different and that will change things up as much as a lot of other things will. There are still plenty of other questions we have, whether it is pit stops and strategy or mileage and how the draft works in general without thinking of the pushing part. Lots of questions still.”

WITH SPORTS GAMBLING BECOMING SO PREVALENT, THE VEGAS ODDS ON YOU GUYS ARE AT THE FOREFRONT WITH FANS. YOU ARE A 12 TO 1 FAVORITE TO WIN THIS RACE. DOES THAT PLAY INTO ANYTHING WHEN YOU ARE INTERACTING WITH YOUR FANS AND WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE NEW PARTNERSHIPS THAT WERE ONCE TABOO? “I can’t honestly say I have been submersed into it on knowing all the things about it. I did the thing for our industry and know that I don’t touch any of it. That is the one thing I do know. I do believe whether it is fantasy sports or sports betting, it is good for sports. It puts some skin in the game and makes you want to watch for a different reason. You look at football, there are a lot of people who watch football games that don’t even cheer for that team but they have that player lined up that day and it gives them something that tunes them into it. Where our sport has the ability to do the same thing and give someone a vested interest into what is going on out on the track. I think it is great and super healthy for our sport to have those avenues to try to accomplish those goals. That is a good step for us. I think there are so many good steps that are happening right now in our sport and so much momentum in our sport right now. It is great. Look what we did last week. We proved we can race in the city. We can race in a stadium. I never thought we could do that but it is great. We can go to the fans. That is a huge win. Having 70% new fans at the racetrack last week and having a sellout here for the 500, we have so much momentum behind us and so many great things going on in our sport right now coming out of COVID here and everything we have done is really starting to really show up and starting to reap those rewards.”

WILL THE CLASH CREATE MOMENTUM FOR FONTANA AND THAT MARKET? AND HOW DO YOU THINK THIS CAR WILL REACT TO A TRACK THAT IS WORN OUT AND BUMPY? “I would definitely think that the Clash had to have generated some kind of hype in the LA market. There were a lot of new fans there and you might have had some that were already planning to go to Fontana that didn’t go to LA but maybe some new fans loved the Coliseum so much that they feel they have to go see another one of these things and it is right up the road. I gotta think it is gonna help. I don’t see any way it can hurt. It should be good. I look at the Fontana market and the camping is what always stands out to me when we race there. Everyone is on bikes and it is very family-oriented out there. It is really cool. I think that is probably a different crowd than what was at LA but I think that all kind of plays together which will be great. How the Next Gen cars will be there, I don’t know. We won’t know until we get there and we will have 15-minutes to figure it out. We don’t really have any time. There is no time, by the way. We will have to kind of figure it out as we are racing out there. Where the track goes, top or bottom, it still should be pretty open to moving around the race track. I don’t see that part changing. Having the independent rear suspension may absorb some of the bumps a little smoother and those types of things that we have seen so far.”

CONSIDERING THE INVENTORY ISSUES AND WHERE YOU FINISH IN THE DUEL RACES DOESN’T MEAN A WHOLE LOT, DO YOU EXPECT GUYS TO SHOW THEIR FULL HAND OR WILL THAT NOT COME UNTIL SUNDAY? “I can’t speak for the whole field on what they are thinking but I don’t see myself racing any different in the Duel than I will in the 500. I am planning to go race. I think as soon as you get scared of crashing and those type of things you are never going to win. So, I am going to go race and if we crash, so be it, we will figure it out. I feel like going out there to race to win and try to get those points. There are still points out there to try to get. It is one step at a time. The Duels are typically a little more tame and it is usually not that crazy. But there have been crashes in them before and I think with the new car there could — like we said with the round bumper it could cause more crashes. At the same time you may have some drivers and teams that are telling them to chill out because we don’t have a whole bunch of inventory. I don’t really know exactly how the Duels are going to look. All I can control is what I am going to do.”

HOW DO YOU THINK THE SPORT CAN CAPITALIZE ON THE MOMENTUM AND CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD? “Obviously there have been a lot of changes, great changes, and I think that is due to a lot of different things. You guys can imagine where that all comes from. I think the way the teams are working with NASCAR and the owners and their group and the driver alliance group can help a lot with some of the stuff moving forward as well. I think change is probably the biggest thing. If you sit still, you get passed. It is like that on the race track and in life. If you get comfortable because it worked in the past, someone is figuring out how to get better. On top of that, society is just changing and everything is moving along and technology changes and if you don’t try to keep up with it you get old and slow. We can’t let that happen. We have to keep moving forward and finding the next thing. I think we have done that over the last few years. Honestly, since COVID started. We were the first sport back. That was a huge risk but a huge reward. It world well and we changed a lot of things because of it. We didn’t know we could race without practice. We didn’t know we can race with less people. We didn’t know all these things we can do and now we take what we learned there and now we add the people back, finally, which is my favorite part. Having a sold out grandstands and we try different things. We have this whole new car that lord knows what that will bring for us with what we can do with that and having an open mind there. I think honestly that NASCAR has done a great job at recognizing weaknesses and doing something about it. The whole industry has really jumped on board with that. Like I said earlier, now we are finally reaping the rewards of a lot of the work that happened behind the doors during COVID and now you see it all coming back and doing good. Like you said, one of the biggest things is going to new venues. We saw what Road America was, what Nashville was, whas COTA was, what the Coliseum was. There was so much hype around the unknown and bringing the race to the race fans. We are going to them now and that is pretty special. We have to keep doing that.”

HOW DO YOU COUNTERBALANCE THE NEW CAR WITH THE FACT THAT IT MAY HINDER YOU BECAUSE PENSKE RACING WAS SEEMINGLY ALWAYS ABLE TO COME UP WITH A WAY TO MAKE A BETTER PART OF THE CARS? “That is a great question. Yeah, it definitely is different. There are probably pros and cons to that. The question I would ask back was did any of that make the racing better? Did it make the product on the race track better? Probably not. The average race fan probably doesn’t care that much about how we build the race car, they just want to watch a good race. That is the kind of race fan I am. I just want to see cars running side by side and racing. I don’t care how you get there. Don’t tell me how you built the clock, just tell me the time. That is what this kind of is. As much as all of the parts are the same now and you can buy the same parts as Roger Penske does, that part feels a little different because it isn’t just the fact it is Roger Penske it is the fact he has been in the sport 50 years and someone can come in as a new team and compete against somebody like that. But the people and the infrastructure is something that will set us apart. People win races, not parts. The way you put these cars together there is still a lot of adjustment in it. I even look at the Clash last week. We were 26th on the board in practice and we made adjustments and became the fastest car. There is a lot to how you put these things together still that will make an adjustment. There is still a lot of garage racing or whatever you want to call it. Behind closed doors racing as you develop these cars. There is no doubt that the field will be closer than it was in the past.”

ARE YOUR WIFE AND NEW BABY TRAVELING WITH YOU THIS WEEK? “No, they stayed back. I took little man with me, Hudson, he is my big man now. He came along with me to try to help momma out. It has been an adjustment for us. We are doing good. Going from two to three is a change but I felt like going from one to two was a big change. We are trying to get our heads wrapped around it. It hasn’t even been a week yet so give us a chance. Everything went great. It was a pretty special 36 hours when you think about winning the Clash and then coming home and going to the hospital Monday night and then Tuesday morning we have our first little girl. It is a pretty special few hours. An exhausting few hours but pretty special and fun. I thought everything was going to go wrong. I thought I was going to go to LA and she would have the baby Sunday morning and I would miss that or if I tried to go home I would miss the race and the baby. All those things were going through my mind but everything went perfectly as planned. God has a way so it was pretty special.”

AS NOW THE SENIOR ON TRACK MEMBER OF TEAM PENSKE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT HAS ADDED AN EXTRA WEIGHT TO YOUR SHOULDERS? “I don’t know that it has added any extra weight but it has helped me prioritize time in different ways. I have this whole motto this year to do less better. It is just something that came to my mind. Try to do less things but do better at the things you do and try to prioritize my time better. Part of that is being a better leader at Team Penske and taking that ball and running with it. That is a piece of it. Blaney has stepped up a lot already too. Nothing against our two other teammates in Austin and Harrison but they are rookies and are new to it and we have to help get them going so that we can really share information back and forth, not just one way. That takes time. It took time for me as a rookie to get my head wrapped around things and it took time for Blaney. It takes time for everyone to understand how things work and why we want to do certain things a certain way. I think they both have a great talent and are willing to put the work in. Austin works really hard. He was in the garage last night until 10 o’clock. He is willing to put the time in. Harrison is an amazing listener and his ears are open. Jeff has done a good job with him for sure. I always say you have to be patient with rookies. It isn’t fair to have huge expectations. I have been through it. It is not fair. It takes too long. I think we can really help them along with their progression quicker and ultimately make Team Penske stronger and eventually be able to learn from them. That is what I want. I want a teammate that will push me and I can learn from and they will get there for sure.”

YOU, KURT BUSCH AND DENNY HAMLIN WERE PARTICULARLY RACEY DURING THE TEST IN JANUARY. WHAT DID YOU LEARN? ARE YOU CONFIDENT THAT IT IS TRANSLATING TO WHAT YOU ARE SEEING THIS WEEK? “I think so. We didn’t really draft a whole bunch yesterday. That was the biggest pack and most aggressive racing we have seen with the Next Gen car on a superspeedway, Daytona particularly. I assume a lot of that stuff will transfer over into the Duel but that was us trying to figure out what we can do with this thing. A lot of the moves we used to pull off it was like, ‘Nope, that ain’t it!’ You have to adjust and try something different. We were having fun out there. There were a few close calls especially during the test on the first day of the test. But that is just – that is what happens when you put racers in what we thought was a race that paid nothing at all. You put more than one car on the race track and it becomes a race and we started going at it. I kinda thought it was funny. There were moments in my mind I was saying, ‘What are we doing? Why are we doing this?’ but you can’t get yourself to stop. You want to win it. I won that one by the way.”

FEW PEOPLE HAVE EVER WON THE DAYTONA 500 AND EVEN FEWER HAVE WON IT MULTIPLE TIMES. WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE FOR YOU TO WIN IT AGAIN? “It would mean a lot. I don’t really know how to answer that. It is the Daytona 500. It is everything. You come down here and it is a sold-out grandstand and everyone is here. So many key decision-makers are here. You want to be the one hoisting the Harley J Earl and when you don’t it hurts. It hurts a lot. It feels special to win it for sure. Being so close the last few years and ending up in a ball of fire at the end of it hurts. Hopefully, we can get past that point and be in victory lane again this time. Like you said, we are fast, we have been close. We have been making the right moves and doing the right things, it just hasn’t quite worked out yet.”

HOW MANY TIMES HAS ‘AT THE PUMP’ BEEN YELLED AT YOU THE LAST TWO WEEKS? “Quite a bit. That is a great partnership with Shell Fuel Rewards and they do a lot of great things and we have done a lot of great partnership whether it is with Advance Auto or Planet Fitness. It is a huge piece to our business to get the B2B relationships and getting businesses to work with others. That is a big piece for race teams that we do. Nobody does it better than Roger Penske because of his businesses outside of it. Everyone can really work together. YOu think about the amount of trucks that Penske Truck Leasing has and the hundred other companies that guy has got. Everyone can work together really well and Fuel Rewards fits right into that and everyone kind of fits there. It is a great partnership and pretty cool to see it. I went to Advance the other day and my picture was everywhere. It was kind of funny. Think about walking into a store and your picture is there and then the person working behind the desk is looking at you trying to put it all together. It was funny.”

HOW HAS THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN THE COMPANIES THAT SPONSOR YOU AND WHERE AND WHEN THEY WANT TO UTILIZE YOU AWAY FROM THE RACE TRACK IN THEIR MARKETING AND COMMERCIALS CHANGED OVER YOUR TIME IN THE SERIES? “The industry has changed a lot from when I first started and was with Home Depot and we did national spots. There were a lot of them. I think a lot of businesses have realized since then that social media has become a thing. Social media wasn’t anything when I started. There wasn’t Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or keep going, there are a million of them. There wasn’t those platforms to advertise on. Now, it has changed the landscape of media too for you guys and how people consume what we are talking about here today. So it is definitely been an adjustment. Part of that is why we started Clutch Studios in Charlotte. We saw the opportunity here to do different types of shoots. I would say I probably do more shoots now than I used to, they are just different scale and different things we are doing with them. It has definitely changed. There are not as many national spots but there are far more videos for social media that people want to grow their following, whether it is a driver or team or the sponsors trying to get their initiatives out. It has changed a lot in that way. To the point of keeping up with the times or you will get slow and old, you have to keep finding the next thing and social media changed the game for everybody.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 16, 2022

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS CAMARO ZL1, Daytona 500 Media Availability Transcript:

WINNING THE POLE AT DAYTONA IS SORT OF A HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS TRADITION AND EVEN MORE SO FOR CHEVROLET, WHICH I THINK GOES BACK TO 2013 AND DANICA PATRICK’S POLE. IT LOOKED LIKE YOU GUYS HAD REALLY GOOD SINGLE-CAR SPEED YESTERDAY, AS WELL. IS THAT A REALLY IMPORTANT ASPECT OF YOUR TRIP TO DAYTONA – THE EMPHASIS ON THE POLE?
“I would much rather win on Sunday, personally. I think anybody on our team would tell you the same. I feel like we’ve always had fast cars down here. Speedway racing has never been overlooked at HMS; and Alan (Gustafson, Crew Chief) does a really good job of massaging and really paying attention to all the details that I feel like it takes to be good here. I feel like that’s shown over the course of my time with him and even going back before me. There’s been a lot of success there. I do think it’s an area where they put a lot of emphasis and put a lot of work into the cars, but we all want to win on Sunday more than anything.”

TOMORROW NIGHT IS GOING TO BE THE FIRST REAL, HIGH-SPEED COMPETITION FOR THIS CAR. HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT IN THAT CONTEXT AND WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THAT WE HAVEN’T SEEN YET, IF ANYTHING?
“Yeah to me, that’s probably the question that hasn’t really been answered and until we get into that environment, it probably won’t be. The little bit of drafting that has gone on, there’s just not really been enough – at least of what I’ve been a part of – there hasn’t been enough cars to really create the energy, the things that are real and that you’re going to see on Sunday. I have even often – in my experience – have noticed that in the Duels, there’s really not enough cars in that event and enough sense of urgency in the runs that happen on Thursday night as they do on Sunday. Until we get in that environment, it’s really honestly hard to say.”

I ASKED SOMEBODY EARLIER IF THE NEW CAR – I DON’T WANT TO SAY LEVEL THE FIELD – BUT MAYBE BRINGS THE GAP CLOSER TOGETHER. OR DO YOU SEE THAT IT’S STILL THE GOOD TEAMS ARE STILL GOING TO BE THE GOOD TEAMS AND WILL ALWAYS HAVE AN EDGE.
“That’s my opinion. I think that’s going to be tough to ever debunk that, in my opinion. Hopefully it opens the opportunity for people to come in and get up to speed a little quicker. But I definitely think that the teams that have the experience and have the resources to study, R&D and do all the things that you need to do are likely going to have the edge.”

YOU WON THE RACE AT COTA LAST YEAR. HOW GRATEFUL WERE YOU THAT IT WAS OVER AND YOU HAD WON? JUST TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAD TO DO TO SURVIVE THAT RACE.
“Yeah, that was a crazy race. Definitely the hardest rain that I’ve ever raced in. I actually thought it was kind of fun. You couldn’t see much. That back straightaway, it was pretty crazy how little you could see. But I thought it was good. It was different. Why not? I enjoyed it.”

“Obviously, we got fortunate with them calling the race early. We were in a situation where we probably weren’t going to make it on fuel. We had plenty enough pace, I feel like, to compete with those guys. But just the way our strategy worked out; we were probably going to be in trouble. So, kind of just took a gamble at staying out as long as we could. Fortunately, it went in our favor. I can’t complain.”

ANY CLOSE CALLS? ONE OF THE DRIVERS THAT WERE IN HERE EARLIER SAID HE BLEW BY A GUY THAT WAS LITERALLY GETTING OUT OF HIS CAR. HE HAD WRECKED AND NEVER EVEN SAW HIM. DID YOU HAVE ANY SCENARIOS WHERE YOU FLASHED BY SOMETHING AND DIDN’T SEE IT?
“That’s scary. Fortunately, I didn’t have one like that.”

A LOT OF TIMES, QUALIFYING ISN’T A BIG DEAL HERE. WE WERE TALKING TO CHRISTOPHER BELL AND HE SAID A LOT OF THE TIMES, IT DOESN’T MEAN A WHOLE LOT, BUT TEAMS LIKE HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS PUT A LOT OF ATTENTION INTO QUALIFYING. YOU’VE DONE REALLY WELL AT QUALIFYING HERE. WITH THE NEW CAR, IS THERE THE SAME AMOUNT OF ATTENTION ON QUALIFYING? HOW DO YOU LOOK AT QUALIFYING? HOW WILL IT BE DIFFERENT WITH THE NEW CAR?
“I don’t think qualifying will likely be a ton different. And it probably doesn’t matter any more this week than it does typically. I don’t think you have to qualify well to be really good on Sunday or even to have a shot to win. But like I said earlier, HMS has always done a really nice job on putting emphasis on qualifying.”

“I think it’s easy to kind of overlook the speedways, just because there’s so few of them. I think across the garage, that probably does happen some amongst some of the other teams. But I think for us, it’s been a great opportunity to give our sponsors some great exposure and to me, that’s probably the biggest piece of value of qualifying well here. For NAPA, they’ve had the chance twice now to be on the front page of the paper down here and kind of be the headline leading into the Daytona 500, which I think has value and I don’t see how they couldn’t see that as value, too. So our team does a good job of putting themselves in a position where our partners can take advantage of the start of our year.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE WITH THIS BEING A NEW CAR AND EVERYBODY SO FOCUSED ON THE ATTENTION THAT TAKES, THE PARTS, ETC. – SAME AMOUNT OF ENERY AND EMPHASIS ON QUALIFYING HERE FOR YOU GUYS AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS?
“Yeah, I feel like a lot of emphasis has been put into our speedway cars for this race and we want to race the car that we unloaded with on Sunday, too. We’re excited and prepared. I feel like we’ve put as much effort and energy into it as we always have.”

WE’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT DRIVERS LOOKING OUTSIDE THEIR COMFORT ZONE. WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT ON YOUR ‘WISH LIST’?
“Yeah, I enjoyed all the stuff I did over the winter. I enjoyed the rally cross thing. I enjoyed the Chili Bowl. I know it didn’t go well, but enjoyed the Chili Bowl. I feel like I made gains on that stuff through the winter, which I was excited about. I don’t know what I’m going to do this year just yet. We’ll see how it kind of unfolds, but I don’t really have anything locked down right now to go and run. Just currently focused on this deal – wanting to get into a good place here and try to have a really strong season. We’ll see – I’m certainly not ruling anything out. If something comes along that I like and feel like is a good opportunity, I’ll likely take it.”

JEFF GORDON HAD SOME QUOTES THIS WEEK ABOUT PUSHING YOU TO GET OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN AND WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?
“I think Jeff (Gordon) wants us to broaden our horizons. And, like I said a second ago about getting sponsors exposure and things, I think that’s really the root of what he was probably getting at. And he wants us to grow – grow not only ourselves individually, but our sport as a whole. If the drivers are growing their following, then likely the sport is benefiting from it too. I think he’s just trying to help everybody win. At the end of the day, if we’re all gaining a following or popularity in a different area that we typically wouldn’t be in, you’re likely going to benefit. And likely, we’re all going to benefit.”

DO YOU HAVE A COMFORT ZONE? DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S OUTSIDE OF IT?
“Yeah, I mean we all have a comfort zone, for sure. I think for me, I don’t mind stepping outside my comfort zone. Where I sometimes struggle with wanting to go do things is I want to feel like those people want me there too. You want to feel like somebody cares about having you as a part of their show or whatever it may be; not just to check a box for them. When I feel appreciated and respect, I’m all in and I’ll go as far outside of my comfort zone as they want to get.”

WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT THE DUELS AS A PLACEMENT RACE OF THE DAYTONA 500 AND WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT PROTECTING THAT CAR BECAUSE YOU CAN’T WRECK YOUR CAR IN THE DUELS. BUT THE FANS ALSO WANT TO SEE A RACE. HAS THERE BEEN A LOT OF TALK AMONG THE DRIVERS ON HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF, BUT ALSO GIVE THE FANS A RACE?
“Yeah, well that is the race. That’s part of racing somedays and you either like that or you don’t. I hate to be that way; but at the end of the day, we’re going to do what we feel like is going to give us the best shot to win at the end of the day on Sunday. What that looks like sometimes might not be what people want to see all the time. But that’s just the way it unfolds. Would I love to mix it up for 500 miles? Absolutely I would love to put on the most exciting thing ever for four hours. But I also want to win; I want to win worse than I want to just make sure it’s super entertaining. That keeps integrity in our sport and as long as we have integrity in what we do and we all want to win, then I think the fans and the people are going to appreciate it. I think that’s an important piece; just keeping the integrity in what we have going on and making sure everybody still wants to win and make all of those right decisions to put themselves in the right position to do that.”

THE LAST TIME A HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS DRIVER MADE IT TO VICTORY LANE DURING THE DAYTONA 500 WAS DALE EARNHARDT JR. BACK IN 2014. YOU GUYS HAVE WON EVERY SINGLE POLE SINCE THEN, EXCEPT FOR 2020. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YU GUYS ARE FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON QUALIFYING DAY AND NOT SO MUCH ON RACE DAY? HOW DO YOU GUYS GO ABOUT TRYING TO FIX THAT FOR THIS YEAR’S DAYTONA 500?
“No – I don’t think we’ve put too much emphasis on that. Qualifying day is really just kind of a testament of how much speed your car has. I would rather have that than not. I feel like we have – on more than one occasion down here – I’ve probably crashed one of the fastest cars during the Daytona 500 and I was driving it. I think we’ve had plenty of opportunities, we just have to be smart about our decisions and do better jobs behind the wheel.”

BEFORE THIS EVENT TWO YEARS, THERE WASN’T A DIRT RACE ON THE SCHEDULE. THERE WEREN’T SOME OF THE ROAD COURSES ON THE SCHEDULE. WE’VE SEEN CHANGES TO THE SCHEDULE, THE CAR AND THINGS LIKE THAT. CAN YOU GIVE ME A SENSE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE HOW MUCH YOU’VE SEEN THE SPORT EVOLVE JUST IN THE LAST TWO YEARS? BUT ALSO WITH ALL THESE BIG CHANGES, HOW MUCH MORE CAN THINGS HANDLE? IS IT GOOD TO STILL CONTINUE TO BE AGGRESSIVE OR WHERE IS THAT LINE FROM WHAT YOU’VE EXPERIENCED?
“Yeah, that’s tough. I don’t make those decisions, so I don’t have to worry about it too much. I’ve been supportive of the leadership group at NASCAR here currently. I feel like they’ve changed more in the past two or three years than they’ve changed in the prior 25 the way it feels; just kind of looking back at history. But I don’t know where that line is. We have a sold out crowd on Sunday for the Daytona 500 and this place is expected to be packed in the infield and out there. So, I guess they’re doing it right. It seemed like everyone liked the Clash, which was definitely outside the norm. It seems fine to me from my end, but it’s hard to know where that line is. I’m not sure. That’s a great question.”

WHEN IT COMES TO SPONSORS AND STUFF, HAS THERE BEEN ANYTHING IN THE LAST FEW YEARS IN YOUR CUP CAREER WHERE A SPONSOR CAME TO YOU WITH AN IDEA FOR HOW TO UTILIZE YOU THAT MAYBE YOU SAID ‘NO’ TO BECAUSE IT CLASHED WITH YOUR PERSONALITY OR WHAT YOU WANT. ARE THERE ANY BOXES YOU CHECK OFF BEFORE YOU SAY ‘YES’ TO SOMETHING?
“Yeah, I’m sure there have been things I’ve said ‘no’ to at some point. But it doesn’t just mean it doesn’t happen; there might just be a little different way of getting there or achieving what the partner wanted. I feel like we typically try to make it work. If they have an idea of something that’s going to give you some exposure or whatever it may be, I feel like nine times out of ten, I find a way to make that happen. I don’t know how to answer that, but we pretty much do what we can to please our partners. And also too, it is sometimes super useful on our end too. When a partner activates with you, it’s not just them that’s benefiting. If you’re being activated on a national level, you’re benefiting too just by being there. It goes both ways. Also, I’m appreciative of the opportunities that I’ve had – to get on that stage and be able to do that; and that’s all because of a partner likely.”

WE’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT MERCHANDISING AND MARKETING TODAY. DO YOU HAVE ANY MEMORIES AS A CHILD, OR HAVE YOU DISCUSSED WITH YOUR DAD, HOW DIFFERENT A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A NASCAR DRIVER IS NOW COMPARED TO HIS DAYS OF MORE HANDS-ON IN THE SHOP?
“Yeah, a little bit. His days of racing in the 80’s was much different than his days of racing were in the early-2000’s. 2002 was 20 years ago, right? So, that’s still a long time ago, if you think about it. And at that point, I feel like the model of how things work is really similar from jobs being more individualized at the shop. Guys starting to be hired to do specific things and then the drivers being hired to do their specific things too; as it pertains to driving, taking care of partners and making sure we’re doing the things we need to be doing. I feel like the model has been pretty similar for a number of years now. I think people will think about the heyday; what they think is the heyday. And yeah, it was different in the 80’s and 90’s. But I feel like when we got to the early to mid-2000’s, I feel like we were well on the path to what we have now and not far from it.”

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About Chevrolet
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Louisiana Hot Sauce to sponsor No. 47 Camaro ZL1 in multiple races, and kicks off the NASCAR Cup Series season with “Drive a Winner” Sweepstakes at DRIVELIKEAWINNER.COM

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 16, 2022) – – Hot off the press The ORIGINAL “Louisiana” Brand Hot Sauce™ is returning to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 47 Kroger Racing Camaro ZL1 at both Martinsville Speedway (4/9 and 10/30) races and Kansas Speedway (5/15). Today, they kicked off the “Drive a Winner” sweepstakes and will have visibility inside Stenhouse’s race car thanks to an in-car camera for the Daytona 500 on FOX and more.

“Louisiana Hot Sauce is a longstanding partner and it’s neat they’ll have visibility inside our No. 47 Kroger/Irish Spring Camaro for our biggest race of the year,” Stenhouse said. “I was able to spend some quality time with their Vice President of Marketing Brad Olsen and their pro golfer James Hahn at Cabarrus Golf Club when we shot videos for the ‘Drive a Winner’ sweepstakes promotion during the offseason. I do enjoy it when our brands get the most out of the partnership because we all win.”

Louisiana Hot Sauce is indeed taking advantage of their partnership with the race team to engage with NASCAR consumers. Today, they launched the “Drive a Winner Sweepstakes.” Fans can visit DRIVELIKEAWINNER.com to enter now for a chance to win a fiery Louisiana Hot Sauce E-Z-GO golf cart and a round of golf with Stenhouse and professional golfer James Hahn along with other fun prizes.

“NASCAR has positive momentum with 70MM excited, engaged, brand loyal fans and we have the opportunity to continue activating in the sport to grow our relationship with our consumers while adding new Louisiana Hot Sauce fans,” said Brad Olsen, Vice President of Marketing at Summit Hill Foods. “We announced the ‘Drive A Winner’ sweepstakes today that we’re promoting with Louisiana Hot Sauce pro golfer James Hahn and NASCAR Cup Series driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which made it the perfect time to announce our continued sponsorship plans with JTG Daugherty Racing. We’re always looking for interesting ways to connect with our consumers that leads to incremental opportunities and drive sales for our retail partners. We’re excited to have increased visibility for the Daytona 500 and launch “Drive a Winner” sweepstakes today.”

To spotlight “Drive a Winner” and drive fans to DRIVELIKEAWINNER.com, Stenhouse will have an in-car camera aboard his No. 47 Kroger/Irish Spring Camaro ZL1 featuring the sweepstakes, and two-time Daytona 500 Champion Michael Waltrip (MW) will have something to say about it during the FOX broadcast.

“The Louisiana Hot Sauce E-Z-GO golf cart is fire, and you will get to see it when FOX features it with MW,” Stenhouse said. “If you are at Daytona International Speedway, you’ll be able to see the golf cart on display in Daytona’s infield at the Boardwalk Club on Lake Lloyd. I’d like to have it for myself to be honest. Also, it will be fun to golf with James and our sweepstakes winner.”

Qualifying for the Daytona 500 takes place tonight at 8:15 PM ET on FS1. Then on Thursday catch the Bluegreen Vacations Duels starting at 7 PM ET on FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM Satellite Radio (Ch. 90). The Daytona 500 airs Sunday, February 20th on FOX, FOX Deportes, MRN Radio and SiriusXM Satellite NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) at 2:30 PM ET.

About Summit Hill Foods

Summit Hill Foods is a fourth-generation, family-owned food company headquartered in Rome, Georgia. Founded in 1941, the company’s core strength is the development and manufacture of ingredient systems used to deliver texture and superior flavor. Summit Hill Foods is an ingredient supplier to food service manufacturers and restaurants. The company also markets nationally distributed brands including Better Than Bouillon®, Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce™, Southeastern Mills®, Shore Lunch® and Better Than Gravy®. Southeastern Mills operates six manufacturing facilities located in Rome, Georgia; New Iberia, Louisiana; and Salt Lake City, Utah. To learn more, visit www.SHFoods.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 16, 2022

ERIK JONES, NO. 43 PETTY GMS MOTORSPORTS CAMARO ZL1, Daytona 500 Media Availability Transcript:

AFTER WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CLASH, HAS RYAN BLANEY REACHED OUT TO YOU?
“No, he hasn’t reached out to me. So I guess it’s resolved. I don’t know… if I had a problem with someone I would talk to them. So I guess it’s over.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE LAST YEAR NOT HAVING A TEAMMATE AND HOW HAS THAT CHANGED THIS YEAR?
“It’s good. Last year was a totally different year for me, going from a four-car team to a single-car team; plus with a new organization, a new manufacturer and everything. We kind of worked through that and learned every side of it. Working through the year on our own was a good experience. I felt like we learned a lot. We had some good runs, but we just didn’t have the consistency. We went to Las Vegas early in the year and ran ninth or 10th; then we went back to Vegas later in the year and ran 20th or whatever. We just struggled with that consistency and keeping things where they needed to be.”

“GMS coming on board is going to be good for us. So far it’s been good; merging with them. Ty (Dillon) coming on board on that side, it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. For me, it’s nice in some ways being a single-car team. You can kind of do what you want and lead your own direction, but there’s no one there to have a stop-check for you. You can go down the wrong path pretty easily. Having someone there, especially with a new car, to try different stuff and see what works and what doesn’t work – and maybe you can go in a different direction – is pretty helpful. Hopefully it pays off.”

LOOKING DOWN THE ROAD TO PHOENIX WITH THE NEXT GEN CAR, SOME DRIVERS SAID THE CAR IS MORE NIMBLE AND MORE SHORT-TRACK FRIENDLY. DO YOU SEE THAT, AND WILL IT CHANGE THE RACE AT PHOENIX?
“I see it, for sure. I look at the Coliseum specifically – and obviously that is the shortest of short tracks we’ve been to – and I think about what the old car would have been like there. I don’t think the race would have been nearly as entertaining as what it was. Number one, it wouldn’t have raced very well in general around that track. Number two, the durability and body and stuff, it wouldn’t have held up nearly as well through that track. I think the short-track stuff is going to change a lot. You’re going to be able to push the car way harder. Drivers are going to be able to drive a lot harder and get there around a lot quicker. I watched the Phoenix test – I didn’t get out there to run it but watched it from afar – and I was encouraged. I think it’s fun. I enjoyed the way the car drove the way at the Coliseum. If it drives anything at Phoenix like it did there, it’s going to be a fun race.”

YOU AND TY HAD GOOD RUNS AT L.A. IS THAT A RESULT OF A LITTLE MORE FREEDOM WITH A NEW OWNERSHIP GROUP, AND ARE YOU ABLE TO APPROACH THINGS A LITTLE MORE AGGRESSIVELY?
“I don’t think so. There was nothing last year that was holding me back or saying I couldn’t be aggressive. I think it was the nature of the track – the quarter-mile Coliseum and the way the track was laid out. Tempers were high, guys were getting frustrated and things were happening quick. It reminded me a lot of growing up racing. I did a lot of Super Late Model racing growing up, and a lot of those were quarter-miles or three-eighths miles. The racing we saw at the Clash at the Coliseum, I immediately thought of all those nights of that racing… jack handles flying after the race and angry people. That’s what I thought of. I thought it was great. When I think of short-track racing, that’s what I think of and that’s how I remember it growing up. I think that’s kind of what it was.”

HOW DO YOU ANTICIPATING THE DUELS BEING? YOU’RE BALANCING KEEPING THE CAR IN ONE PIECE BUT GETTING A GOOD STARTING SPOT. DO YOU EXPECT THINGS TO BE A LITTLE MORE CHILL THAN PAST YEARS?
“I hope so. I feel like we’re in a spot where we need to race this car in the 500. I think most people are in that spot, but I think we’re a little more than some with the parts and pieces and the cars we have lined up going forward from here onto Fontana and on from there. We’ll have to race a little bit in the (Duels). From what we’ve talked about, we’re not too concerned where we start in the 500. You can race your way to the front in the 500 if you need to, especially with seeing how these cars draft, the way you can move through the field and things you can do to pick up a lot of speed. I honestly don’t know totally what my approach is going to be yet. It’s going to depend on where we start and where we qualify. There are some pretty fast guys in single-car runs that are going to have a shot for the pole. I don’t know if we’re quite in that mix. We’ll see where we stack up. I think we’re going to be timid for sure.”

YOU’VE RACED WITH TY A LOT OVER THE YEARS AS A COMPETITOR. AS A TEAMMATE, WHAT’S THAT RELATIONSHIP LIKE?
“I didn’t really know Ty. I knew Ty as a competitor but I never talked to him too much or worked with him obviously on the competition side of things. We came up at a similar time and raced together a lot. We just never worked together. I’m kind of learning him right now… going into the simulator and seeing what his driving style is like and him going in and vice-versa. That’s a big thing as teammates – seeing what each guy needs out of the car, respectful of each other and working through that. That helps too with feedback and the comments on the racecar of what you’re looking for. If the driving styles are a bit different, guys are going to want different stuff. So that helps working through the competition side of things. That’s a big thing now that I’m trying to learn. I’ve been talking with him a lot about what he’s looking for in his racecar and how he’s looking to approach the year.”

DOES HAVING PARTNERSHIPS WITH TEAMS ON THE RCR CAMPUS GET A LOT OF FEEDBACK FROM A LOT OF DIFFERENT TEAMS RATHER THAN BEING OUT ON ISLAND?
“It does. This year, we’ve actually moved off campus. We’re in the GMS shop now but we still have our alliance with RCR. That communication always helps, right? We just don’t have the engineering power that a team like that does. We don’t have the people working consistently on one piece of the car at a time to try and develop it to make it better. That’s where the alliance with RCR is just huge for us. It’s important. I don’t think without it that we could do nearly the things we could do so far with the racecar and learn about the Next Gen car as much as we have. We have great people at GMS. Dave (Elenz) our new crew chief and Danny (Efland) our engineer do a really good job, but they still need the information to put the pieces together. Having that to go back on and look at is pretty big for us.”

WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT RYAN BLANEY GOT TICKED OFF ENOUGH TO THROW HIS HANS DEVICE AT YOU?
“I don’t know. The way I look at it, if I’m racing somebody and I brake-checked them then I guess I’d expect to get wrecked. It’s not like I meant to take the guy out of the race. I didn’t just intentionally right-rear him into the wall. Moving up the track, he got into the wall and broke a piece unfortunately that took him further out of the race. He was probably upset about that, for sure. He was having a solid run and we were moving forward together. I wasn’t shocked to see it at all. I knew he’d probably be mad about it. I was just kind of waiting on it.”

YOU’VE GONE FROM HAVING MULTIPLE TEAMMATES TO NO TEAMMATES AND NOW TO ONE TEAMMATE. HOW DOES THAT ROUTINE PREPARING FOR A RACE CHANGE?
“It changes it. Last year, we kind of had our own program. It was just us so I’d go into the shop Mondays or Tuesdays and meet with the guys, then go up and run the simulator and go through our week-long preparation with what we were looking for on the racecar. We’d run through our setup and run through some changes and figure it out. It’s changed a bit now. Ty and I both have to split the sim time and get on there to run different packages and different stuff. It’s like I said earlier about learning each other’s styles and what we want from the racecar. Eventually it would be great to get to the points where we could run setups for each other and know either he’s going to like that or he’s not going to like that change. That’s the goal to get to. It’s nice having two people working out what we need from a racecar. Every driver wants something different, right? Even something that I don’t think I need in a racecar that Ty is calling for could probably help me at the end of the day. That’s the nice part about it. You can work through a lot of different stuff and probably end up with a stronger racecar than you would have with one person working on it or developing it while asking for changes. I’m excited about it. Ty’s a good driver. He’s shown that and he’s worked through a lot of different organizations through his career. I think this is one of the better opportunities he’s had at the Cup level.”

WHAT’S BEEN THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE RCR DRIVERS AND THE ENGINES YOU HAVE WITH THIS ALLIANCE?
“We’ve talked about and what our plan is for the 500… not so much the Duels or just practice. I think you’ll see us probably trying to work together in the 500. It’s always tough. I’ve done it with two different manufacturers trying to work together in the race and what you do there and what the plan is. It’s hard. It’s never easy to actually work together once you get in the heat of the battle, trying to stay connected and stay with each other and work your way to the front. If it does work, then it works great. I’ve seen it work great and been part of it working great. It’s just hard to get everyone together. We have talked about it and what we want to do for the 500.”

HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT SOME OF THE OPEN TEAMS IN THE RCR ALLIANCE AND HELPING THEM MAKE THEIR WAY INTO THE 500 ON THURSDAY NIGHT?
“We haven’t specifically talked about that in our group. For us, we’re just really focusing on racing this car in the 500. Unfortunately we’re in a spot where we cannot wreck this car before the 500. We have to get it into the race and start it. As much as it would be nice to help those guys out and get some more help in the 500 from those guys – because obviously they would be on our side – I don’t think we’re going to be able to do much for them.”

WITH ALL THAT SAID FOR THE DUELS, DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO RIDE IN THE BACK? WHERE’S THE LINE BETWEEN BEING SAFE BUT PICKING UP AND LEARNING THINGS FOR SUNDAY?
“It’s a fine balance. From what we’ve talked about, you obviously have to race in the Duels a bit. You like to learn, like you said. We just haven’t been in a big enough pack even at the test to know what these cars are going to do and how they’re going to drive in the draft. There is going to be some point where we have to race in the Duel, learn about the car and go from there. It’ll be an eyes-wide-open type of deal. If anything gets really dicey or out of hand, we’re going to have to be extra cautious. I don’t think us riding around by ourselves is going to be an option just because we do have to learn a little bit. But we definitely are going to err on the heavy side of caution.”

YOU HAVE SOMETHING LIKE HALF THE FIELD IN CHEVROLETS THAT YOU COULD WORK WITH. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOU AS A DRIVER KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE MORE POSSIBILITIES WHEN IT COMES TO LATE IN THE RACE?
“When it was only a few cars, we’d always complain that we didn’t have enough people. That was always the issue of pitting by ourselves or doing that kind of thing where we don’t have enough cars and we couldn’t maintain the speed we need to. Now over here it’s almost the opposite issue. You’ve got so many cars, how is everyone going to work together? It’s just not possible. It’s a struggle either way. You have to find the right balance and settle in with the group you’re going to really work with and what you’re going to do to make that work. There’s just no way you can have that many cars working together. You have to keep your eyes open. If there’s a time where you can help a guy out that’s with your manufacturer, you kind of have to do that depending on the point in the race. It just goes both ways. It’s funny when you’re on both sides of it that there is such a different mentality each way. You have to do what you can do help out.”

SEVERAL DRIVERS HAVE TALKED ABOUT THE LACK OF PARTS FOR THE CAR. IF THERE ARE A COUPLE THAT ARE WRECKED, CAN YOU SEE A TEAM LENDING PARTS OVER TO ANOTHER OPERATION TO HELP GET THEM PUT BACK TOGETHER?
“Depending on what it is, yes. Some parts and pieces are harder to get than others right now. I’d say we have a good chunk of parts and pieces here to put a bit of a car back together. If we were to completely destroy a car, it’s not possible. We’d have to go back home, get a car and bring it back down, which would be very unfortunate. I could probably see that in an alliance situation depending on the part and piece. I don’t think the chassis is necessarily the struggle as much. It’s the parts and pieces to put it together. Depending on what it is, you could probably see that happen.”

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Toyota Racing – Kurt Busch
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

DAYTONA BEACH (February 16, 2022) – 23XI Racing driver Kurt Busch was made available to media prior to the Daytona 500 this Wednesday:

KURT BUSCH, No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD, 23XI Racing

How do you feel in this stage of your career and the things you have been able to overcome?

“As far as being able to juggle it all and digest it all, compartmentalization is key on being able to learn what to do and each situation as a driver, as a mentor. Even yesterday, we have this new engineering kid and he’s all excited and he’s like, ‘Can you jack up the car after tech inspection and get gear temp in it?’ And everyone is laughing at him, but yet he said something very smart and sharp. He goes, ‘Well, this is my first day. It’s the Next Gen car. I’m not jaded by the Gen 6 car, and I have a clean slate to move forward with.’ And I was real proud of him for saying that. It’s like, you’re going to be a sharp kid. Just give it 10 years buddy. You’re not going to know it all in one weekend. It’s just being that extra person and that extra set of eyeballs to help everybody get better on this 23XI team. A lot of that is because of the things that Chip Ganassi did for me, Roger Penske, Jack Roush, James Finch and Barney Visser was really a great owner that I learned a lot from spiritually. It’s been a good journey. It’s been a good ride. With our group that’s now settled at 23XI. Yesterday, Billy Scott, my crew chief, I gave him a big hug like, ‘Dude. You finally put the crew chief hat on. Now it’s going to be this crew chief, driver stuff. Let’s go.’ Just knowing when to balance it all. Even with Jeff Burton and the driver advisory council, there’s things that I hope to do there to put in place so the younger drivers and the next generation can benefit from as well as help out our past guys. I’m just in a good spot. Just wanting to give back to the sport that’s given me so much.”

How much change do you think there will be with so many new stock parts with the new car?

“I see a few different directions that this can lead us. Some of that is lack of parts and pieces since everything is apples to apples all through the garage. And, then there’s the fine-tuning and taking it to the next level. One thing at 23XI that I’m really excited about and the information from TRD and Toyota is all of these different channels of information. There’s this app, there’s this drawing, there’s this graph. There was an 82-page wind tunnel report on drafting with this car and this final rule package. It’s endless with the amount of information that you dig through and you have to pick the right things to stack on top of each other now to just find that one-tenth of a second. But that’s Daytona. We’re going to get to Fontana, Vegas, Phoenix, and I hope the old school handling comes in to play where tire wear and tire management could come back into play. I have felt that twice during testing. As an old school guy, I’m out there at Charlotte lap 20 and I’m just getting looser and looser and looser and I’m like, man, is this thing is that loose and I look in the mirror and (Tyler) Reddick is back there spinning out. At Phoenix, it gave me memories of running my Late Model there in the late 90s and the Cup cars in the early 2000s. I hope that’s what the Next Gen car does, is it makes you really get into details with certain things and then still brings back old school put in it in the driver’s hands and put it into the race strategist hands on do you pit now or stay out? I’m hopeful for all of that excitement at all of the tracks.”

What do you think of the goal to have both 23XI cars in the Playoffs?

“We’ve set our expectations very high, and we have every ambition and every bit of focus and intensity to achieve those goals. Winning races, both cars in the Playoffs and for us making a run through the Playoffs to have a shot at the final four, that’s what we want to do on the 45 car. There’s no reason to think that we can’t with the information sharing and the technology that we have with Toyota. The notebook that nobody has right now. It’s a clean slate and we build from ground zero. Right now, we’re tied for the lead in points, and we intend to work all the way through the first couple months with a points-building frame of mind. It reminds me of 2019 when I switched to Ganassi. My goal was to get as many points early in the year and it gave you this free mindset of relaxness in the summer months because we knew we were pretty much guaranteed a spot in the Playoffs. Dave Rogers has been a huge addition as a Performance Director for 23XI. (Mike) Wheels (Wheeler) has found his role as the Competition Director. Between those two guys and the two crew chiefs, with Billy Scott and Bootie Barker. I’m not just name dropping. We’ve got the right guys in the right places to gather the information from JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) and work with them and Toyota to make a good run at this in 2022.”

What have you learned about Bubba Wallace as a teammate versus a competitor?

“As a teammate he’s a listener and he’s eager to learn. That’s what any young driver should be doing. It’s funny on how the information is being thrown at him and he goes, ‘Hey man. Is this something that’s serious that I need to look at? Or is this something that Denny (Hamlin) is going overload on for data information?” And, I said that’s a perfect question because Denny is such an analytical numbers guy. He will eat, sleep and chew on them until it turns into a pole. Bubba (Wallace) and his level and my level, we’re all working together to find that right stream. This weekend is a great weekend to let everybody use their talent with feeling the air, seeing the air and then digesting the information and reporting back on how each session went. It’s just putting in that next level effort and Bubba is ready to do that and I see it within him.”

Do you think there is going to be better reception to this Driver’s Advisory Council and what is your role in working with the younger drivers as part of this?

“I think the biggest difference now is the line of communication. We started in the underground four or five months ago and Jeff Burton has volunteered his time. A lawyer, administration group has volunteered their time. Everybody is in a sense of volunteering right now. It’s, I guess, like a non-profit. Our goals that we have are long term and it’s similar to a Formula 1 driver advisory council when they’re working with the FIA or they’re working with specific tracks or if they’re working with specific TV contracts. It’s all a collaborative effort within everybody in the industry. It’s the right timing, and for my role I guess each driver that is on the board of directors has a specific role, but the main thing is communicating to the other groups of drivers such as the Hendrick guys, the Penske guys, the Trackhouse guys. It doesn’t matter. We need to communicate to everybody and just like getting 40 drivers to give a thumbs up that we’re going to announce this, I ended up Secretary of State for a couple days trying to round everybody up, but to get that 100 percent. That’s what we’re after and that’s the same thing we do when we’re in the driver’s seat. Jeff Burton has done a great job to work with NASCAR, the track and all of our other partners that we’re starting to move forward with and you’ll start to see some things pop up here or there. A simple thing is, I tested Atlanta along with (Ross) Chastain and (Chris) Buescher and they widened the front straightaway to five lanes wide and the back straightaway is three lanes wide and we asked why did we do this? They’re like, ‘Well, we wanted the front straightaway wider for other events.’ Other things that they’re doing with Super Cross and such. I was like, well now we have more of an angle and trajectory that we’ve learned from all of our NASCAR data and the crash results that we’ve got to tweak the wall and add safer barrier to this spot on the race track. Similar to the dogleg out in Phoenix on how we changed that front straightaway there and they adjusted that with better curved angles and the safer barrier and the foam behind it. SMI didn’t hesitate one bit and it was okay, this is great. This is good traction. We just need to get good at spending other people’s money. But SMI really helped us absorb just our first issue as a group together.”

As a driver who didn’t make the main event in the Clash, would you be okay with that format at other points races?

“Oh, hell no. We have to have all of our cars out there. I was devastated by not making the A-Main. In all reality, we had to go and qualify first as a brand-new team with no points. The track was, I’m not making excuses, the track was soup. That’s a term I use when it’s another four-letter word. And the first three cars that went out qualified as the last three cars. Then the track started to burn in and then lap times started to go down. It was just unlucky that they went off points and then this weekend is off a random draw. So, we just need to get a bit more consistent on how we’re going to set qualifying procedures. The LCQ that I was in was the roughest race and it was due to not counting yellow flag laps. There was no reason to have a 50-lap LCQ and not count yellow flag laps. I survived three restarts as the leader and on the fourth one the train and the chain of events, the bumper cars started and unfortunately, we didn’t make it through. And, then it looked like the A-Main could have had more cars in it. There wasn’t as much action, so I don’t know why they cut the number to 23 cars. Twenty-three seemed very random. So, I gave my little list to NASCAR and hopefully we can polish up on things that need to happen for certain events, but yet still follow a nice trajectory that makes it to where it fits in a column everywhere. When you have sponsors and big organizations and you’re not in the race that’s not a good thing.”

What do you say to the younger drivers that may not be with the top teams yet?

“It’s similar to a question I get on what would you teach a young Kurt Busch to do? And I’m like what age are you talking about? I was a rookie when I was 22 years old and wanted to set the world on fire and win every race. And I bumped into Alex Bowman a few years back, it was Dover, I don’t remember what year it was. And he got to the mothership I’m assuming it was just after Dale Jr. retired and he’s driving in Cup cars and he’s like, ‘Man, I got here and I’m at the best team.’ And it was a year that Hendrick was off and he’s like, ‘Man, I’m just so deflated.’ I’m just like, hey buddy, patting him on the shoulder, I said ‘In a couple years you’re not even going to remember this moment of me trying to pick you up.’ And just said, ‘Just throw some patience down, and step on it and stand right there.’ And that’s what I would’ve taught my young self to do. Making it to the top, having a ride like Harrison Burton with the Wood Brothers. Yeah, you’re not at Penske, but it’s as good as you’re going to have and as good as you’re going to make it right now. Find the right things that make the puzzle pieces work for your puzzle to find success. You’re not going to win every race, you’re going to have a battle just to make the Playoffs, but find things that make it to where you’re able to find your goals realistically and then to continue to advance. It’s similar to the kid in Formula 1 who is driving for Williams, and he’s got the Mercedes connection in the background. You’ve just got to stay the course and hope that it all plays out.”

Have you met Michael Jordan yet?

“Yeah. I met (Michael) Jordan last summer. It was right when my window opened to contract negotiations. It was an awesome moment of seeing him in a board room and walking up to him to shake his hand. He stood up and then he sits down and he’s in charge of the room. It was within two minutes he says, ‘We will win together.’ That was the easiest conversation I’ve ever had with a team owner to know that we’re on the same page on day one.”

What differences have you seen at 23XI compared to other teams?

“Our team president Steve Lauletta has done an incredible job of assembling a really strong team on the marketing side, on the social side, the management of the accounts and here we are. We’ve announced with Monster Energy close to 30 races on my race car. McDonalds will be on my race car later this year. MoneyLion, SiriusXM, it just continues to build. And, to have these blue-chip companies and brands being announced to be with our team at 23XI, it helps all of these crew members know that they made the right decision to jump on board and be a part of this program. The buzz, the energy, it’s all there and just like I said at the beginning of this conference, it was great to just give Billy Scott (crew chief) a hug and say, ‘Hey, man. Put your crew chief hat on. We’re going to do this driver, crew chief stuff now.’ Everything is in place and I’m really happy with the way our season is going to look in the next few weeks.”

What was the meeting like for you at Toyota Performance Center with the younger drivers who are a part of the TRD Driver Development program?

“That was my first setting in speaking to a group of young drivers that are part of the same system that I’m in with the TRD Development program. I’m a new guy to Toyota, I love putting on the rookie hat every now and then like I did for the Indy 500 a few years ago. And it’s to show this group of kids, these young drivers, that I’ve been through ups, I’ve been through downs. It was to give them a sense of my heart and my sole and my commitment level on – it’s not just eat, sleep and race. It’s beyond that. And it was to give that motivation to the kids. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to say to them. I wouldn’t have known what role to really find, but now I’m not afraid to speak my mind and to be a mentor with a little bit of sarcasm to have a little fun with it. To really teach them you can win the race before the green flag even drops with your preparation, your mental preparation, working out, PR, social, your whole team. There’s ways to win without even grabbing that checkered flag, and so that helps them build up other categories that they need to do to become a successful driver and get their neck stuck out just a little bit further ahead than the next guy.”

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