KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang — DO YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU AND YOUR TEAM HAVE GRINDED THROUGH THE REGULAR SEASON THAT IT’S MADE YOU STRONGER FOR THE PLAYOFFS? “I feel good about our team. I think our team has done a great job with the circumstances we’ve been presented with and I think the last four or five weeks our cars have run a lot better. We’ve still got some work to do with some things on the balance side of the car to start these races, but, in the end, our team has done a great job and those numbers could have been a lot better if it weren’t for three or four ill-timed accidents at the end of a few of the races. You obviously want to win, but some years just don’t go exactly how you want them to go and I think those are the years that you’ve got to dig down and do the things that our guys have done this year, so gotta be in it to win it and we’ve given ourselves a chance and see where it all falls in the end.”
HOW MUCH HAS THE DELTA VARIANT IMPACTED PRECAUTIONS YOU’RE TAKING? AND ARE YOU COMFORTABLE SHARING IF YOU’VE BEEN VACCINATED OR NOT? “I don’t really think any of that stuff is meant to be talked about on these types of situations, but I think as we’ve gone through the world over the last couple years I think we’ve changed with the world, and I think as you go through each week and you go through each different scenario you realize things that you should and shouldn’t do certain ways. I think compared to last year at this time I think our family and the things that we’re doing look a lot different than what they were two years ago at this time, so I think anybody who tells you that things are back to normal or doing things the same that’s not us. I think you have to be able to still live your life and we are doing that and trying to do it as safely as possible and be smart about the things that we do.”
DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU PUT ON A HANS DEVICE AND WHAT HAS IT MEANT TO THE SPORT? “Our sport has done a great job in safety over the last 20 years. Obviously, for me, I was on a different side of things with safety and the progression of it. Being in the car that Earnhardt drove there was obviously a lot of things that went along with that and that progression came from that particular scenario with Dale and I think our sport took a stance at that particular time and said ‘we’ve got to do things differently.’ So the first thing that happened was the open-face helmet was outlawed. The next year the HANS device came in and the head-and-neck restraints became mandatory. The seats have changed a tremendous amount, so the HANS, for me, I used the Hutchens device in the beginning. A HANS device is obviously a much better device and that has gone a long ways to the safety of our sport, so now it’s just a part of what you do, along with all the seats and head restraints and seat belts and walls and so many things have changed in such a great way through the years. It’s been quite the progression. It’s still something that NASCAR puts a really heavy emphasis on in making sure that they progress with the accidents and problems that they see and holding the safety equipment companies accountable to keep progressing and doing things better, so it’s been quite the progression for sure.”
DO YOU REMEMBER HOW THE HANS FELT WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED USING IT? “At that particular time none of us wanted to use any of it. They were forcing us to change, thank God. It took a lot of time to get your car and your seats and everything comfortable because the way you sat in the seat the HANS device at that particular time didn’t have many options with the different angles of the device and the way that it sat on your shoulders. Now there are still several different devices, but it’s pretty hard to beat the HANS device and now that the padding is sewn into the seat belts and you don’t have to wear big pads on the device itself, but it’s definitely the best head-and-neck restraint device that you can use.”
HOW DID IT GO PUTTING YOUR DAUGHTER IN A RACE CAR AND HOW IMPORTANT IS THE BALANCE BETWEEN RACING AND FAMILY? “Doing this for 20 years you figure out the balance that you want when it’s time to get away, you know when it’s time to press, you know when it’s time to do things differently — whatever the scenario is. I think, for me, our racing life pretty much revolves around our normal life as well, so they kind of go hand-in-hand with my racing and Keelan’s racing and Piper is definitely in the driveway here making laps as Keelan did four or five years ago. We’re a racing family. That’s what we do and you kind of plan everything that you do around the race schedule. Our kids are at school at home still. I think that gives us a little more leeway with home schooling and the things that we do with them, so it’s interesting how life has changed over the last couple of years. I think our life has migrated into something totally different than what we could have imagined it two years ago, but I would say it’s probably in a better spot than it was two years ago, so having all that right at home definitely makes managing the busy race life a lot easier because you have some flexibility of things and also understand what you like and don’t like.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang — IS YOUR COMFORT LEVEL WITH PAUL THE SAME IT WAS WITH TODD? “Yeah, I think so. Paul and I have been able to work together the last few years now and be able to kind of grow in this COVID environment, which has been a lot more challenging I think than any of us expected when we made the crew chief change — without practice and limitation on seeing each other or not, all of those are evolving day by day, but I do feel like our ability to connect at this point and have some history from the notebook behind us and how to be better every week. I feel like we’ve grown a lot and I feel ready to go. I feel better this year than I did last year.”
WOULD A TALENTED iRACER GET A LOOK FROM TEAM OWNERS COMPARED TO A SHORT TRACK OR DIRT TRACK RACER? “I don’t think so, in my opinion. You’ve got to be in a real race car. You can take some things from simulation racing, for sure. I think it can make you a better driver in certain ways, but Cup racing is in a real race car and you have to be in the car at some point. Maybe William Byron would have something different to say, but at some point he had to perform in real life and it’s a different feel and a different environment and different emotions you can imagine inside a real race car. I think there are definitely areas to gain and grow from that, but I also think as a team looking to hire somebody they’re probably going to look more at what you do in a real race car.”
YOU HAVE A NEW SPOTTER NOW. HOW HAS IT GONE THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS AND YOUR COMFORT LEVEL GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS? “Paul and I were able to work together last year as well, so we have some experience together there, and Coleman Pressley and myself have been the best of friends since we were kids racing against each other, so the connection we have there away from the racetrack and on the racetrack actually came pretty seamless over the last couple of weeks to where I feel like we’ve been able to go over the races, go over restarts, go over choose rules, all that stuff and we went to probably two of the hardest racetracks to spot right off the bat at Michigan and Daytona. It was kind of getting thrown to the wolves there, but I felt like we were able to adapt fairly quickly, so that change I think has gone smooth and is going to make our team stronger.”
HOW IMPORTANT HAS MENTAL HEALTH OPTIMIZATION BEEN FOR YOU? “I think that’s the name of the game. All of us have talent. All of us are physically fit. The difference is how you mentally engage with yourself, your team and how you handle the pressure that is the playoffs, and that’s different for everyone, and you have to find your own way. Any advice I give or say doesn’t mean it’s the right way for you, it’s just what I’ve found that works for me. The only way you kind of find it is to put yourself in those positions. That’s the best part about experience. That’s what experience means is that you’ve been put in those spots before and you know how to handle it. You’ve become stronger because of it and that’s what makes the playoffs so exciting is that you either win or you become stronger. There’s really no losing that’s there. As an individual and as a team, you’re gonna be stronger because you’ve gone through a high-pressure moment.”
IS THERE ONE OR TWO RULES TO LIVE BY IN THE PLAYOFFS THAT HELP YOU GET THROUGH IT AND HOPEFULLY MAKE THE CHAMPIONSHIP 4? “I think I just said one there, but I think the other thing is just understanding that every point is gonna matter, every detail is gonna matter. Those things as you go through each race — 10 weeks is a long time, it’s a long playoffs if you think about it. You’re gonna have to go through some serious adversity. At some point you’re gonna have to overcome something and that’s part of it. I guess if you’re ready for it and you have that mindset that that’s gonna happen, and you can overcome that, those are probably the biggest things to have on your side.”
HOW DIFFERENT WILL BRISTOL BE THIS TIME AROUND ON THE CONCRETE? “I just don’t understand how they cleaned it up. That’s incredible that they can do that. I’m looking forward to seeing the track. The concrete is what we’re used to. The dirt was a whole new game, so it’ll be interesting to see how they’ve cleaned it up, but also how they’ve reapplied the PJ1, and what the affect of that is gonna be because you’re kind of resetting the racetrack quite a bit after you threw all that dirt on it, so we’ll be interested to see how that plays out.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT JUST TO HAVE A SOLID DAY AT DARLINGTON? “I think it’s pretty important. You bring up a solid point is we’ve had a few races that have been pretty tough on the finishing side, but if you look at the race as they’ve gone, they’ve been races where we can run in the top five in every single one of them. The confidence and what we can bring to the racetrack is up pretty high. I think the speed is there. Our pit crew is there. I feel like I’m firing on all eight as well. We’ve just run into everything you can possibly imagine. It’s just the craziest things have happened and it is what it is and that just happens sometimes. Darlington would be great to just have a normal day, but a win would be even better and that’s still our goal.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang — WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP LIKE WITH ALEX? “I’ve got a good relationship with Alex. I feel like, not just because he’s from Arizona, but I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with him and appreciate his journey too of driving for underfunded teams and Tommy Baldwin and losing his ride last minute and then getting an opportunity to fill-in, so him being successful I felt like was a really neat story, but also an eye-opener to a lot of the owners that just because you’re driving a car that doesn’t run up front every weekend doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability, so I’ve always been a fan and pulling for him, and being from Arizona, I mean, if we count Tucson as part of Arizona (laughing). He’s got a great opportunity this year with those Hendrick cars being so fast. Obviously, he’s got two wins and a really good spot to contend for the championship this year, so that’s good for him. He did run me off the road there at Sonoma for a top 10, so I won’t be getting him back in the near future here in the playoffs, but if you see him, you just let him know.”
WHO HAVE YOU SOUGHT OUT FOR PLAYOFF ADVICE AND WHAT HAS STUCK OUT? “Even though we locked in, so to speak, early, there’s always that chance that there are more than 16 winners, so I didn’t really feel locked in. I never really allowed myself to get super excited about that until two or three weeks ago when it was finally official that we’d be locked in. As far as advice and things like that, it’s a little bit challenging because the drivers that are current right now aren’t gonna give you much advice, but I spent a little bit of time with Clint Bowyer last week at a Ford event, a Ford promotion that we were doing and talked about the playoffs and talked about Richmond coming up and just how he approached things, so everybody’s got a different style and a different philosophy. I feel like for our team and where we’re at we sort of know what we have to do and how we have to do it, and so we kind of have our own approach to it.”
DO YOU FIND YOU’RE HAVING TO CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS AT ALL WITH THIS BEING YOUR FIRST TIME IN THE PLAYOFFS? “Today has been fun and just talking about being in the playoffs and what it means. It kind of makes you appreciate and just enjoy the process, but more than anything for me is I’ve just been pretty laser focused on what I need to do and what we need to do. I haven’t really allowed myself to get too far ahead of where we’re at. Right now, we have Darlington and Darlington is the most important race in my life, and after Darlington it’ll be Richmond, so I haven’t thought about a lot of those extra things. I’m just trying to make sure we’re as prepared as we can for what’s in front of us, but at the same time, like I said, I’m extremely thankful to have the opportunity to race for a championship and to be a part of one of 16 drivers to do that in NASCAR. But I’m also trying not to let myself overthink things too much.”
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE PLACES TO EAT AT IN THE PHOENIX AREA? “Being from Phoenix and Glendale and having great Mexican restaurants, that’s probably the thing I miss most in North Carolina. We don’t have the same quality or the same style of Mexican food, so I’m always loading up my crew guys and taking them to different places. My favorite place, Pedro’s in Glendale, actually shut down in the last year or two, so, unfortunately, that ones not there anymore. Macayo’s and POPO’S, those are places that we typically go to. Carlos O’Briens is a place I went to growing up, so there are a lot of great restaurants that we try to hit.”
IS THERE ANY RELIGIOUS ANECDOTE OR LESSON THAT APPLIES TO YOUR SEASON? “I think there’s always a story to the journey and something to take from it. For me, it’s all just about perseverance and endurance and obviously being in this sport a really long time and not having success until this year — a lot of losses, a lot of years where it’s been a grind and a struggle, so that’s probably the thing that resonates the most with me this year is just perseverance and endurance and then also just how it’s paid off. It would have been very easy to give up several years ago and not see it through, but by staying faithful to what I feel like I was supposed to do and grinding through times that weren’t that fun, now I’m getting to enjoy something awesome and experience it. It’s humbling, too. I didn’t have to win the race to feel like I’ve accomplished something, but it has been a moment of joy to take it all in and appreciate it.”
HOW DO YOU EVALUATE THE CHANGES THAT PHOENIX RACEWAY HAS UNDERGONE? “It’s amazing how much has changed there. I mean, I think I’ve been through three different track configurations and moving the start-finish line and now obviously with everything for the fans in the infield and the experience you can have. The garages and the pavilions, I think it’s one of the cooler racetracks that fans can go to and really see the inner workings of the garage and the teams and just how it all functions. It makes me proud to be from Phoenix and from the area and the race fans are extremely loyal and have been for a long time. So many families and so many campers and motorhomes out there. It truly is a family sport and to be able to have a facility that sort of matches the dedication of our fans is really cool.”
YOUR AVERAGE FINISH HAS BEEN OUTSIDE THE TOP 20 AT THE ROUND OF 16 TRACKS. IS THERE ANYTHING TO GAIN OR LOSE? DO YOU NEED LUCK ON YOUR SIDE TO GET TO THESE NEXT ROUNDS? “Two things with that. This is the best season that I’ve ever had and the best that we’ve performed as a race team, and so statistically it might not look that great but I think if you look back to this year at just our top finishes for me over my career have been this year at a lot of racetracks. I feel like we have the speed and the momentum to surprise some people in the playoffs, but we’re also realistic of where we’re at. I have to have three incredible races in order to advance in the next round and I know that, we know that, we’re not naive to it. We know where we’re at as a race team and what we need to do, so we’ve got to hit home runs here the next three races and if we don’t, we won’t advance. We all know that and we’re ready to see what happens.”
HOW MUCH OF A RESET ARE THE PLAYOFFS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM AFTER THE LAST NINE RACES? “The last handful of races have not been fun. It hasn’t been from a lack of performance. We’ve actually had speed. You go to the Indy road course, running in the top seven there and hit the curb and finish in the thirties. You look at Michigan, where we ran in the top 12 or 13 all day and get tore up on that last restart and finished 20th. It hasn’t been fun the last four or five weeks. Daytona, a DNF with an engine failure, so the reset is nice. It’s nice to reset the points. It’s nice to be able to start 15th this weekend at Darlington and just kind of hit that reset. You can’t always control the ebbs and flows of racing. You look at those first five races and were crushing it, not just with the win but top 10, top 10, top 10, and then you hit this funk that we got into now where DNF, a crash, just things not always in your control. So it is nice to hit that reset button and have a fresh outlook going to Darlington, and that’s how motorsports is. The momentum can swing at any point. We have to have the momentum swing our way the next three weeks and we know that. We wish we were heading into the playoffs with a lot of momentum and not a DNF and all the things that have, but the reality is that’s where we’re at and we can start fresh this weekend.”
