CHASE BRISCOE
Richmond Advance
No. 14 Cummins/Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview
● Event: Federated Auto Parts 400 (Round 28 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 11
● Location: Richmond (Va.) Raceway
● Layout: .75-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 400 laps/300 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 155 laps / Final Stage: 165 laps
● TV/Radio: NBCSN / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Richmond (Va.) Raceway for the second event of the 10-race playoff stretch, but Chase Briscoe, driver of No. 14 Cummins/Rush Truck Centers team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), looks to add to his lead in the Rookie of the Year standings following a 19th-place finish Sunday night at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. With 27 races complete in the Cup Series season, Briscoe is 23rd in the driver championship and leads the Rookie of the Year battle by 223 points over Anthony Alfredo.
● In Briscoe’s first Cup Series start at the .75-mile oval at Richmond in April, he started 26th and finished 22nd. In five NASCAR Xfinity Series starts there, he has one top-five finish and two top-10s. His best result was a fifth-place finish in September 2019.
● Briscoe made 15 short-track starts in the Xfinity Series, scoring two wins – last September at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and July 2019 at Iowa Speedway in Newton – among his 10 top-10s.
● Briscoe’s No. 14 Ford Mustang will carry the colors of Cummins and Rush Truck Centers at Richmond, along with a reminder to #ThankATrucker during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, which runs Sept. 12-18. National Truck Driver Appreciation week takes on a special significance considering the crucial role truck drivers have played during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rush Truck Centers encourages fans to use #ThankATrucker to show their appreciation for the 3.6 million professional men and women who deliver our goods safely, securely, and on time.
● Indiana-based Cummins, from car owner Tony Stewart’s hometown of Columbus, is a corporation of complementary business segments that design, manufacture, distribute and service a broad portfolio of power solutions. It is best known for its diesel truck engines. Since its founding in 1919, Cummins now employs approximately 61,600 people and serves customers in about 190 countries and territories through a network of some 8,000 wholly owned and independent dealer and distributor locations.
● The No. 14 Cummins/Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang and all the SHR cars travel from race to race in haulers from Rush Truck Centers, the premier service solutions provider to the commercial vehicle industry. And those haulers are supported by RushCare, which helps customers find the nearest Rush Truck Centers location, provides service concierge and technical support, schedules mobile service, dispatches roadside assistance and more. Rush Truck Centers is the largest network of commercial vehicle dealerships in the United States with more than 100 locations, and takes pride in its integrated approach to customer needs – from vehicle sales to aftermarket parts, service and body shop operations, plus financing, insurance, leasing and rental, as well as alternate fuel systems and other vehicle technologies.

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Cummins/Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Do you feel more confident heading into Richmond this time around?

“I think so. I’m a different driver. I’ve learned a lot since April and I feel like as a team we’ve come a long way. We saw in the first race that overcoming a starting position in the back is a really tough thing to do at a place like Richmond and I think, after how things went at Darlington, we’re going to be in just about the same position. Hopefully, we’ve got something that we won’t have to adjust on too much and we can get ahead of that early on. I think we’ll for sure see some differences between racing at night versus the day, but I know Johnny (Klausmeier, crew chief) will have a good plan for how we attack that. I’m just focused on using this as a chance to learn that track more for when we go back next year and see if I can finally figure something out.”

No. 14 Cummins/Rush Truck Centers Team Roster

Primary Team Members

Driver: Chase Briscoe
Hometown: Mitchell, Indiana

Crew Chief: John Klausmeier
Hometown: Perry Hall, Maryland

Car Chief: Chad Haney
Hometown: Fairmont, West Virginia

Engineer: Mike Cook
Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland

Engineer: Marc Hendricksen
Hometown: Clinton, New Jersey

Spotter: Joe White
Hometown: Windsor, Virginia

Over-The-Wall Members

Front Tire Changer: Daniel Coffey
Hometown: Granite Falls, North Carolina

Rear Tire Changer: Chris Jackson
Hometown: Rock Hill, South Carolina

Tire Carrier: Jon Bernal
Hometown: Shelby, North Carolina

Jack Man: Brandon Banks
Hometown: High Point, North Carolina

Fuel Man: Justin Wilson
Hometown: Wise, Virginia

Road Crew Members

Underneath Mechanic: Stephen Gonzalez
Hometown: Mooresville, North Carolina

Front End Mechanic: J.D. Frey
Hometown: Ferndale, California

Interior Mechanic: Trevor Adams
Hometown: Naples, Florida

Tire Specialist: Keith Eads
Hometown: Arlington, Virginia

Engine Tuner: Jon Phillips
Hometown: Jefferson City, Missouri

Transporter Co-Driver: Todd Cable
Hometown: Shelby, North Carolina

Transporter Co-Driver: Glenn Funderburk
Hometown: Mint Hill, North Carolina

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Media Zoom | Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang, is making his first appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. He goes into this weekend’s race at Richmond Raceway 20 points below the final transfer position for the Round of 12. He spoke about his situation as part of a NASCAR Zoom call earlier today.

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang — HOW MUCH OF YOUR STRATEGY IS NOW GOING FOR WINS VERSUS WHERE YOU FINISH IN THE OVERALL STANDINGS AND NOT WANTING TO RISK TOO MUCH? “I think that we are just gonna continue to try to be as aggressive as we can. Obviously, Darlington didn’t go how we wanted it, which doesn’t make us back down anymore. It actually, if anything, we have to be more aggressive. We want to finish up as high as we can in the points, but we also feel like we’re in a spot where we want to be aggressive and see if we can’t get through to the next round.”

DO YOU STILL SEE A PATH TO GET TO THE NEXT ROUND BY POINTS? “Yeah, for sure. I think at the beginning of Darlington it didn’t look that promising with us being the first car out, but then beyond that a lot of those cars had issues and the point gap isn’t that big and Richmond and Bristol both can be races where you have a lot of attrition and a lot of issues, so it’s definitely not that far out of reach. At first I thought it was gonna be impossible, but after the race played out I feel like there’s still a chance.”

HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED? “I have had the opportunity to go back and look at data and watch it and kind of replay it all. Yeah, definitely that section was tricky just because you’re going from old asphalt to new asphalt, but that’s not really the cause. The cause was I was being pretty aggressive trying to get around the 43 because he was on old tires and I just gassed it up to try to clear him going into two and just was carrying too much speed and got loose. It’s just a mistake and it’s unfortunate, but there’s nowhere to place blame but myself. I was just trying to get around the 43 as quick as possible and not lose momentum and time. We had a good run going. We had a fast car. We felt like track position was gonna be important, so you don’t want to give anything up. If you can hit the rewind and do it all over, I would do it differently but you don’t get the rewind button so you just have to keep moving on and get ready for this weekend.”

WHY DO YOU THINK SO MANY PLAYOFF DRIVERS HAD TROUBLE AT DARLINGTON? “I don’t think that there’s any real reason other than Darlington is tough and it’s a tough racetrack. You get in the wall a little bit and you’ve got a fender rub and you cut down a tire. Just so much can happen there, and so I think it’s just one of those racetracks that it definitely can cause that type of race, but you just never know because you watch Kyle Larson those last 10 laps and he’s bouncing off the wall and never cut a tire until the end there, so you never know. It’s a tough track. It’s just the way that it all played out, but we’ve seen races like Bristol and races like that kind of be that way too, so having these tough tracks in these first three it is gonna create some opportunity to maybe get some points back.”

DO YOU REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE ON 9/11? “I was in Chandler, Arizona on my way to work at the Bob Bondurant School. That’s where I worked at the time. I would have to do the math, but I was 17, 18 years old and when I got to work everybody was kind of just sitting around. You could tell something was going on and all kind of sitting around a small TV watching what was happening and about the time I got to work the second plane had crashed into the building, so it was one of those moments that you never forget — just not understanding what was happening and what was going on and seeing it. It was just kind of an overwhelming thing. I think everybody was very somber and overwhelmed with what’s happening and not knowing what the future would hold, and what was going on. And then you hear rumblings of other planes and the Pentagon and all these things happening. You’re trying to figure out what’s happening. It all seems like it’s happening at once, so as a young adult, teenage at the time, the thing that stands out to me was the next few days after and watching TV and watching first responders go into the building day after day after day after day and going through the rubble and pulling people out. There was a sense of unity and bond, I feel like, across every American and as tragic of an event as it was, it was this really incredible time where you felt like everybody was on the same team and everybody was focused on the right things, so it’s something that stands out to me for sure.”

HOW DO YOU APPROACH RICHMOND? “Richmond has definitely been a tough track for us as an organization and as a group, so we’ve been working really hard the last few months on the simulator and trying to come up with a new package there because what we’ve had hasn’t been working and so we’re just relying on our tools and relying on past experiences and trying to come up with a new package. We know it’s a big question mark race for us, but at the same time we went into Darlington with not knowing how we would stack up speed-wise and even though the result doesn’t show it, we actually brought a really fast race car and had a lot of speed, so I feel like we have the potential to do that again at Richmond and I know for sure we can do it Bristol because Bristol has actually been a strong track for us in the past. You don’t know until you unload. Unfortunately, without practice and all that, you don’t get a lot of opportunities to work on it, so you just have to trust your tools and your people and we’re all working hard and hopefully we hit it.”

DOES IT PLAY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE WITH THE 750 PACKAGE THESE NEXT TWO RACES? “No. I mean, the 750 package hasn’t been our strength. In our group, the 550 tracks have been better for us, so it’s not a strength for us, but, like I said, Darlington was a good example of what we could do as far as speed and performance, so I feel like we’re in a good direction and hopefully we’ll be able to have that same kind of speed at Richmond.”

THE SAME TIRE BEING USED AT RICHMOND WILL BE USED AT PHOENIX. HOW MUCH CARRIES OVER WITH THIS PACKAGE? “Not a lot. I mean, Richmond is kind of that old wore out surface. You have tire fall off, a lot of tire fall off, and you go to Phoenix and it’s fast and it’s smooth and you don’t have a ton of fall off, so I think that you’re always learning a few things, but I don’t feel like Richmond is an indicator of what you’ll have at Phoenix or there’s a whole lot to take from it.”

WE’VE SEEN COMMITMENT LINE VIOLATIONS AT RICHMOND. IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THAT MAKES THAT LINE MORE CHALLENGING AT RICHMOND? “No, it’s definitely a challenge I think just because the tires are worn out so much and a lot of green flag stops. I think Darlington and Richmond both are tough tracks as far as green flag stops and green flag cycles and not making mistakes. The pit roads are also curved, so that makes it tricky for us, the drives and the teams, as far as pit road speed and I think that’s why you see so many penalties too because you run different lights at the beginning and the end and that can get tricky as you’re accelerating and slowing down at different spots, so Richmond and Darlington are both tough racetracks to get onto pit road without making a mistake, and I think it’s more than anything the tire wear and you’re slip sliding around. When you’re coming to pit road you’re braking hard, you lock up the tire, it’s very easy to slide over that box for sure.”

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO GET OVER SUNDAY NIGHT? “I wish it was that easy. For me, there is always that internal wrestle and battle that you have, especially when it’s 100 percent your fault. I mean, there’s certain circumstances that are out of my control, out of my team’s control, and those are easier to stomach than when you just make a mistake, and then to add onto that we had a fast race car. The guys did a great job of preparing it and spent a lot of time as the playoffs were ramping up. Obviously these first three races we knew how important they would be, so there was a lot of emphasis on these race cars and so you feel like you let everybody down and that’s hard. It’s a hard thing to kind of navigate through, but you’ve got to get ready for next week and you’ve got to move on. I’ve got a great team around me. I think that’s part of what makes Front Row special is we have a really tight group, especially the 34 car. We’re all really tight on the 34 car and obviously everybody is disappointed and it’s a tough thing to do and to walk back to the hauler and see a wrecked race car and all those things, but my guys have been really supportive. We have a good team, so it took me up until about yesterday. As far as watching the end of the race and seeing all the other guys have trouble, it was a mix. The mix was it does create the opportunity for us not to be so far back, but the other side of it was it was one of those races where if you played it cool and didn’t hit anything you were gonna run 15th pretty easy and we would be in a much different spot. Like I said, you can’t hit rewind, but if you would have known that going into it, I would have probably approached things a little bit differently, but if I approached it differently maybe it wouldn’t have worked out that way either. You can’t overthink it. I think I’ve definitely analyzed a lot of things, analyzed a lot of data, looked at what I can do and can’t do. Sometimes that’s good and bad. It’s good because I’m always learning and growing and figuring out how I could be better, but it’s bad because I can’t necessarily shut it off and just be OK with, ‘I got loose. It’s over. That’s done.’ I tend to look at those things pretty in-depth.”

DID YOU WATCH THE END OF THE RACE OR DID YOU DRIVE HOME, AND WHEN THE OTHER GUYS HAD TROUBLE WERE YOU HAPPY? I’M SURE YOU DON’T WISH ILL WILL ON ANYONE, BUT IT WORKED OUT BETTER FOR YOU IN THE END. “I think as I was watching the race I wasn’t really thinking about it too much like that until I got to the end and saw the points and all that. Like I said, it’s a little bit of a mix for me. Being in that so many guys had trouble it keeps us in the fight, but it also is a little bit of a kick because you just know that those were points and probably positions that would have been hard to get otherwise, and so they were kind of free to take if we didn’t make that mistake. But I did watch it and watched the race, but as far as feelings when people fall out, I don’t get excited when people have trouble. But when you get to the end and you see how the points laid out I felt like we still had a chance, and without those guys having trouble we’d be pretty far back.”

WHY DID YOU WATCH? WAS IT SOMETHING TO LEARN OR JUST TO WATCH? “I watched because I’m into it. I want to see who is running well, what they’re doing, what line they were running. It’s hard for me to turn that off even if you have a night like we had when we were out, so you’re paying attention on who is doing what and how the pit cycles are going and all those things. I still can’t stop thinking about, ‘I wonder if we would have pitted early here or pittled later there or what would have happened if this cycled out,’ so I stayed pretty engaged with it all even after a tough day like that.”

Matt DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy team are hoping to rebound from a disappointing run in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway by posting a good finish in Saturday night’s Salute to American Heroes 400 at Richmond Raceway.

The event, which will be run on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, will honor the first responders and other heroes of that fateful day.

While the day – and the race – likely will have a somber feel, DiBenedetto and the Menards/Dutch Boy team will be working hard to turn in a performance that will live up to the name of the race.

Throughout his Cup career, DiBenedetto has had some of his best runs on the shorter tracks such as the three-quarter-mile oval at Richmond.

It was there back in April that he got the first of his seven top-10 finishes this season.

“Short tracks are ones we look forward to most,” DiBenedetto said. “You’ve got to be easy on the throttle and on the tires.”

He’s also hoping to regain the momentum he’s had in recent weeks. In the past eight races, he’s had six finishes of 11th or better followed by a strong run at Daytona that ended with a crash while battling for the lead in the closing laps. The only disappointment was a 23rd-place finish at Darlington Sunday night.

“We have been on a good roll as a team and just have to shake off Darlington,” he said.

DiBenedetto will line up 28th for Saturday night’s 400-lapper as the starting positions are based on results from the most recent race, with the 16 Playoff drivers starting up front.

The green flag is set to fly just after 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with Stage breaks at Laps 80 and 235.

NBCSN will carry the live TV broadcast.

Menards

A family-owned and run company started in 1958, Menards is recognized as the retail home center leader of the Midwest with 236 stores in 15 states. Menards is truly a one-stop shop for all of your home improvement needs featuring a full-service lumberyard and everything you need to plan a renovation or build a home, garage, cabin, shed, deck, fence or post frame building. Menards is known for friendly Customer Service and as the place to “Save Big Money” with low prices every day, and sales too! For more information, please visit Menards.com to learn about our store locations, offerings and services.

Wood Brothers Racing

Wood Brothers Racing was formed in 1950 in Stuart, Va., by Hall of Famer Glen Wood. Wood Brothers Racing is the oldest active team and one of the winningest teams in NASCAR history. Since its founding, the team won 99 races (including at least one race in every decade for the last seven decades) and 120 poles in NASCAR’s top-tier series. Fielding only Ford products for its entire history, the Wood Brothers own the longest association of any motorsports team with a single manufacturer. Glen’s brother, Leonard, is known for inventing the modern pit stop. The team currently runs the Ford Mustang driven by Matt DiBenedetto in the famous No. 21 racer.

Aric Almirola
Richmond Advance
Smithfield/Tuesday’s Children Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview
● Event: Federated Auto Parts 400 Salute to First Responders (Round 28 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 11
● Location: Richmond (Va.) Raceway
● Layout: .75-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 400 laps/300 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 155 laps / Final Stage: 165 laps
● TV/Radio: NBCSN / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● This morning, Smithfield® and the Gene Haas Foundation had the honor of recognizing Tuesday’s Children, an organization formed in the wake of 9/11 that provides a lifetime of healing for families who have been affected by terrorism, military conflict or mass violence, with a $50,000 donation at Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) headquarters in Kannapolis, North Carolina. In addition to the donation, driver Aric Almirola unveiled the special-edition No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang that he will pilot in Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The Ford Mustang will feature a commemorative 9/11 paint scheme and the Tuesday’s Children logo to honor those whose lives were forever changed by the tragedy and further spotlight the non-profit’s mission. Since Tuesday’s Children was founded nearly two decades ago, it has served more than 42,000 individuals. The organization’s goal is to ensure that families who have suffered losses due to the events of 9/11, post-9/11 military service, or other acts of mass violence and terrorism always have a comforting place to turn to for support and community. This $50,000 donation will help provide individuals and families with counseling and support, youth mentorship and career guidance, healing through service and peacebuilding, and much more.
● History at Richmond: In 18 starts, Almirola has earned seven top-10 finishes, two top-fives, and has led one lap on the .75-mile Richmond oval. In his most recent start there, Almirola finished sixth, which was his third-best finish of the year behind Nashville Superspeedway, where he finished fourth, and his win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. His sixth-place finish in April earned him back-to-back top-10 finishes at Richmond.
● Almirola and the No. 10 Ford team are bringing the same car to Richmond that piloted the team to a victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon on July 18. That win locked Almirola into the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. He led 46 laps around the flat, 1.058-mile oval en route to his third career NASCAR Cup Series win. After a year full of adversity and bad luck, the victory put the No. 10 team, which was 27th in the standings and facing a must-win situation if it was going to compete for this year’s championship, in prime position to earn one of the 16 coveted berths in the 10-race playoffs. Almirola’s award-winning YouTube series “Beyond the 10” captured his entire race day here.
● In his pursuit of his first Cup Series championship, Almirola looks to continue Tampa Bay’s recent sports successes by adding to the accomplishments of his hometown teams – back-to-back Stanley Cup championships won by the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning, last year’s World Series appearance by Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, and this year’s Super Bowl championship by the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
● Richmond is a hometown race for Smithfield Foods, whose headquarters are located just 80 miles southeast of the track. Smithfield celebrates 10 years of partnership with Almirola this season with a special campaign called Taste Victory. As one of the most active partners in NASCAR, Smithfield engages fans all year long by hosting a microsite that provides the opportunity to win when Almirola wins or finishes inside the top-10. When Almirola wins, one fan wins $10,000, and 10 fans win a gift card for each top-10 finish. The microsite also doubles as an Aric Almirola fan page and entertainment source where fans can get behind the wheel of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford with a custom racing game, and learn more about Almirola with fast facts, favorite recipes and custom content about his life on and off the track. Visit www.tastevictory.com to learn more. Thanks to Almirola’s Feb. 11 win in his Duel qualifying race for the Daytona 500 and his July 18 win at New Hampshire, two lucky fans have already won $10,000 each.
● Almirola’s 2020 season proved successful when he earned a career-high 18 top-10 finishes, six top-fives and led 305 laps. During the season, Almirola went on a five-race streak of top-five finishes and earned nine consecutive top-10s.
● Career Stats: Almirola has career totals of three wins, two poles, 26 top-five finishes, 82 top-10s and 893 laps led in 379 NASCAR Cup Series starts.
● Beyond the 10 YouTube Series:In 2021, Almirola continues to share his life beyond the No. 10 Ford with season three of his award-winning YouTube series. Fans and media can subscribe on YouTube to see Almirola’s personality on and off the track. Episodes have already featured life as a dad, a husband and an athlete, and it gives fans a unique perspective on what goes on in the life of a professional NASCAR driver. Fans can also follow Almirola’s social media channels: @Aric_Almirola on Twitter and Instagram, and @AricAlmirola on Facebook. Almirola’s latest Beyond the 10 episode addresses the question “are NASCAR drivers athletes” in honor of the Olympic break.

Playoff Standings (with two races to go before Round of 12):

1. Denny Hamlin (2,072 points) 1 win
2. Kyle Larson (2,106 points) +80 points
3. Martin Truex Jr. (2,062 points) +36 points
4. Kurt Busch (2,062 points) +26 points
5. Ryan Blaney (2,048 points) +22 points
6. Joey Logano (2,047 points) +21 points
7. Kevin Harvick (2,046 points) +20 points
8. Brad Keselowski (2,038 points) +12 points
9. Christopher Bell (2,031 points) +6 points
10. Chase Elliott (2,030 points) +4 points
11. Aric Almirola (2,029 points) +3 points
12. Alex Bowman (2,026 points) +0 points
13. Tyler Reddick (2,026 points) -0 points
14. Kyle Busch (2,024 points) -2 points
15. William Byron (2,017 points) -9 points
16. Michael McDowell (2,006 points) -20 points

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield/Tuesday’s Children Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Earlier today, you had the honor of presenting matching $25,000 checks to Tuesday’s Children on behalf of Smithfield and the Gene Haas Foundation, as well as unveil a paint scheme paying tribute to the organization’s 20th anniversary. How was that?

“With Saturday’s race in Richmond taking place on the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, we wanted to pay tribute to those who were affected by the heinous acts of 9/11. Tuesday’s Children has done an incredible job serving as a strong support system for so many individuals and families throughout the last two decades, and I am privileged to be a part of this moment to spotlight their organization through this donation and paint scheme.”

What do you expect at Richmond?

“More of the same. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be intense. There’s going to be a lot of battling and I have no doubt that you will see a playoff car or a few run into some trouble. It just happens and you just don’t want to be that guy. We’ve been fortunate going to Richmond in year’s past, especially in the playoffs, where we’ve always had good cars. We’ve run in the top-five, scored a lot of stage points and had good finishes, so that’s been one of our best racetracks and we’re taking the same car we won with at Loudon, so hopefully we can produce a similar result.”

How much has changed since the first Richmond race this year?

“It’s hard to say because I feel like Richmond doesn’t change, but everybody always seems to find a way to get better, so you can’t rest on your laurels. If you were good at Richmond last time, you can’t automatically assume that you’re going to beat the competition. Everybody is always looking to find ways to make their cars better from the last race. And you just look at Darlington – I know the patch (of new pavement in turn two) was an added difference and something new about Darlington, but you go back and look at the spring race and look at the cars that ran well, and then you look at this race and there were some different cars running up front. I think the race teams, the organizations, everybody works hard to find more speed in our cars, more downforce, all those things, so that usually equates to stiffer competition in the playoffs, so everybody brings their A-game. I have no doubt that even though we’ve run well at Richmond and we ran well there in the spring, we’re still fine-tuning and tweaking on what we had there in the past to try and make it a race-winning car instead of a top-five car.”

What clicked for you so much earlier this year at Richmond when nothing else seemed to go right?

“I do feel like going to Richmond this time around I have so much confidence because I didn’t feel like our cars were where they needed to be earlier this year, and yet we still went to Richmond and ran in the top-10 and finished seventh. So, to go there and run like we did in the spring, where I felt like our cars were still off, especially the 750 (horsepower) stuff that we’ve made significant gains on, it gives me a lot of confidence knowing that we ran well there in the spring and that we’re going back with a lot better racecar and it’s a place that we just, for whatever reason, run better at. It doesn’t matter the team or the crew chief or whatever, I always show up to Richmond and tend to run well there – very similar to Loudon. I’m excited about it. It’s a great place for us. It’s Smithfield’s backyard, so it always feels good to go up there and run well, and then this weekend in particular we’re running a really cool, special paint scheme to honor and remember 20 years ago, 9/11, so I’m pretty excited about this weekend on all fronts.”

Is it better to go for the win in round one or survive? Is there a balance?

“That’s certainly a balance, but if you look historically over the last several years, the first round is definitely a round that you’ve got to survive. Winning obviously makes it way easier, but surviving is key because on any given year you look back and at least two or three cars end up taking themselves out just from one or two bad races, wrecks, blown engines, whatever it is So when you look at the first round, it’s about surviving, but you have to be aggressive. It’s such a balancing act between not making mistakes and don’t wreck, don’t take yourself out but, at the same time, you’ve got to race for every point. Every single stage point matters. Every single point in position on the racetrack at the end of the race matters, so it really is a tough challenge and a balancing act between being aggressive to go get the spots that you need to go get, and making sure that you don’t put yourself in a bad position to get tore up and have a DNF.”

What do you make of all the attrition at Darlington last Sunday, and how did your night go?

“I honestly can’t explain the amount of attrition between the playoff drivers, but it does seem to happen when we get to the playoffs. We see it time and time again where playoff drivers end up with bad races and find themselves in a hole. I guess it’s just the way it works and it creates a lot of excitement for TV and the sport in general, seeing guys trying to dig out of holes to make it to the next round of the playoffs. As far as our race goes, we overcame some adversity, for sure. We had some things not go our way, late-race cautions and a tire going down, and several different things just popping up and happening that we had to overcome. So, for us, getting out of there with a 16th-place finish and being three points above the cutline, while not ideal, especially with a car that was capable of running anywhere from seventh to 10th most of the night, we didn’t take ourselves out. We kept fighting, kept grinding away the whole night. It’s a long race. Five hundred miles at Darlington is a long race, but to get out of there with a decent night, scoring some stage points and finding ourselves leaving Darlington three points above the cutline is a good spot to be going to these next two weeks that are good tracks for us.”

Where were you on 9/11 and what do you remember from that day?

“I remember exactly where I was that day. I was a senior in high school and I was in drafting class. I was in an architectural engineering class and I was drawing on graph paper and I remember our teacher got a phone call or got notified, I don’t remember exactly how he got notified, but he got notified and he turned on the little tube TV that was mounted up on a wall bracket in the classroom and put the news on and we all put our pencils down and just sat there in shock. We couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. I remember it being very somber in the classroom and just a lot of emotion and everybody was very quiet and glued to the TV, trying to figure out what was going on. Shortly after that, we all got dismissed from school. If you drove to school, you could leave. Otherwise, you had to wait for the buses to come or for your parents to come pick you up. I was a senior in high school. I drove, so I was able to hop in my truck and drive home. I just remember getting home as fast as I could and turning the news back on.”

No. 10 Smithfield/Tuesday’s Children Ford Team Roster

Primary Team Members

Driver: Aric Almirola
Hometown: Tampa, Florida

Crew Chief: Mike Bugarewicz
Hometown: Lehighton, Pennsylvania

Car Chief: Jerry Cook
Hometown: Toledo, Ohio

Engineer: Lee Deese
Hometown: Rockingham, North Carolina

Engineer: James Kimbrough
Hometown: Pensacola, Florida

Spotter: Joel Edmonds
Hometown: Dobson, North Carolina

Over-The-Wall Members

Front Tire Changer: Ryan Mulder
Hometown: Sioux Center, Iowa

Rear Tire Changer: Michael Johnson
Hometown: Andover, New York

Tire Carrier: Tyler Bullard
Hometown: King, North Carolina

Jack Man: Sean Cotton
Hometown: Mooresville, North Carolina

Fuel Man: James “Ace” Keener
Hometown: Fortuna, California

Road Crew Members

Mechanic: Tony Silvestri
Hometown: Sylvania, Ohio

Mechanic: Robbie Fairweather
Hometown: Westbrookville, New York

Engine Tuner: Matt Moeller
Hometown: Monroe, New York

Tire Specialist: Russel Simpson
Hometown: Medford, New York

Transporter Co-Driver: Dale Lackey
Hometown: Taylorsville, North Carolina

Transporter Co-Driver: Wayne Smith
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia

GNOG Returns to No. 38 Team Ahead of Virginia Launch

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (September 8, 2021) – Anthony Alfredo’s No. 38 Ford Mustang will once again carry the Golden Nugget Online Gaming (NASDAQ: GNOG) colors this weekend at Richmond Raceway.

Visitors to GoldenNuggetSports.com in Virginia can enjoy mobile sports betting in the state with the launch of the Golden Nugget Sportsbook app coming soon. GNOG’s online sportsbook is also the home of their Golden Lines, featuring exclusive daily odds boosts and Notorious VIG promotions.

Alfredo continues to help familiarize GNOG to the passionate NASCAR fan base through social media promotion as well as carrying the patriotic Black and Gold Stars & Stripes scheme on the track and to the millions of NASCAR fans tuning into Saturday’s race.

“It’s great to have Golden Nugget back with us at Richmond,” said Alfredo. “I know they’re getting ready to unveil GoldenNuggetSports.com in the Virginias and we’re pumped to support that roll out. We have another opportunity on Saturday to do well for them on track and hopefully turn our luck around as we head into the last nine races of the year.”

For more information about Golden Nugget Online Gaming, visit GoldenNuggetSports.com; or download the app, available on iOS, Android, and Google Play.

Saturday’s race will be televised live on NBCSN at 7:30 p.m. ET.

ABOUT GNOG
Golden Nugget Online Gaming is a leading online gaming company that is considered a market leader by its peers and was first to bring Live Dealer and Live Casino Floor Roulette to the United States online gaming market. GNOG was the past recipient of 17 eGaming Review North America Awards, including the coveted Operator of the Year award in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

ABOUT FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS
Front Row Motorsports (FRM) is a winning organization in the NASCAR Cup and Camping World Truck Series and the 2021 Daytona 500 champions. The team was founded in 2004 and is owned by successful entrepreneur, Bob Jenkins. FRM fields the No. 34 and the No. 38 NASCAR Cup Series teams along with the No. 38 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team– from its Mooresville, N.C. headquarters. Visit teamfrm.com and follow FRM on social media: Twitter at @Team_FRM, Instagram at @team_frm and Facebook at facebook.com/FrontRowMotorsports.

This Week in Motorsports: September 6-12, 2021
· NCS/NXS: Richmond Raceway – September 11
· ARCA WEST: Portland International Raceway – September 11

PLANO, Texas (September 8, 2021) – The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series are headed back to Richmond Raceway for the Salute to American Heroes Race Weekend presented by Toyota. The ARCA Menards Series West also competes this weekend at Portland International Raceway in Oregon.

NASCAR National Series – NCS| NXS

Toyota supports Tuesday’s Children… With this weekend’s race occurring on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Toyota is proud to honor the first responders and victims of that tragic day. Toyota will have a Wall of Remembrance which shows all of the names of those lost. In front of the Wall of Remembrance, Toyota will host Tuesday’s Children, a charity founded in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks which focuses on the children of victims of terrorist attacks. Fans can donate to this worthy cause and Toyota will match fan donations up to $10,000.

Hamlin clinched… After a successful year, Denny Hamlin drove his Camry to his first win of the season at Darlington Raceway – earning his third Southern 500 win and fourth Cup Series victory at the South Carolina-track. Hamlin heads to his home track this weekend, another place he has seen incredible success. Hamlin has three wins at Richmond Raceway, including Toyota’s first victory in the fall event at the track in 2009.

Truex, Busch look to add to recent Richmond success… Both Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have had recent sweeps at Richmond Raceway. Busch has six victories at Richmond Raceway with the last two occurring in a sweep of the 2018 races at the track. Truex gave Joe Gibbs Racing four straight wins at the track by winning both the Toyota Owners 400 in April 2019 and following that win with another victory in the fall event later that year.

First for Hemric… Daniel Hemric scored his first Xfinity Series pole position at Richmond in 2017. He led the first 26 laps and finished third. He added another third-place finish at the Virginia-short track in 2018.

Gibbs looking at Rookie of the Year… Despite making just 12 starts this season, Ty Gibbs is currently out front of the Rookie of the Year battle in the Xfinity Series holding a slim 12-point advantage over fellow part-time driver Josh Berry with nine races remaining. He would be the second straight Rookie of the Year winner for Joe Gibbs Racing after Harrison Burton drove to the title last season. Gibbs is back behind the wheel of the No. 54 Toyota Supra this weekend.

Nemechek makes second start of the season… John Hunter Nemechek will make his second start of the season behind the wheel of the No. 26 Toyota Supra, which is owned by Virginia-native Sam Hunt. Nemechek was impressive in his team debut at Dover earlier this season, driving from his 30th starting spot to the top-10 before encountering mechanical issues.

NASCAR Regional Series – ARCA WEST

Love looks to add to the lead… Jesse Love holds the season points lead as the ARCA Menards Series West heads into the second half of the season. After another victory at Irwindale Speedway, the 16-year-old holds an 11-point lead over his teammate Cole Moore as he searches for his second consecutive championship.

Stay Connected

https://www.toyota.com/racing @ToyotaRacing.com @ToyotaRacing

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About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands plus our 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota has created a tremendous value chain and directly employs more than 47,000 in North America. The company has contributed world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 40 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama that begins production in 2021.

Through its Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

Mooresville, NC (September 8, 2021) – Today 23XI Racing announced that veteran motorsports executive Steve Lauletta, who has served as its interim president since the team’s formation last year, has been named the team’s president.

“Steve has been invaluable to our team from day one,” said Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing. “When we launched the team last year, we needed someone with experience who could jump right in, and Lauletta was the perfect fit. He’s done a phenomenal job and we are thrilled to have him as our team president.”

Lauletta joined 23XI Racing after a 10-year tenure at Chip Ganassi Racing that ended in 2018. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Lauletta previously worked in sports marketing with Miller Brewing Company and continues to successfully run his own sports marketing consultancy company, Pigeon Sports Marketing, which was launched in 2018.

“The unique opportunity to continue to work alongside this ownership group to build a race team focused on making significant contributions both on and off the track is one I couldn’t pass up,” said Lauletta. “I am fortunate to be part of 23XI Racing and I look forward to enhancing existing relationships, adding new partners and growing the organization into one that contends for race wins each week and championships each year.”

About 23XI Racing

23XI Racing – pronounced twenty-three eleven – was founded by NBA legend Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin in 2020. Rising NASCAR star Bubba Wallace is the single car team’s driver. 23XI Racing’s No. 23 Toyota Camry made its NASCAR Cup Series debut at the Daytona 500 on February 14, 2021 at Daytona International Speedway.