RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang – WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU AND TODD CAN BUILD THE MOST IN YOUR SECOND SEASON TOGETHER? “Last year, 2020, was difficult for everybody, not only people in our sport or sports, but everybody around the world in general. So, really, you just had to have a good game plan going into the weekend. With our time being very limited at the shop, not being able to go in and see everybody and get a normal game plan in person between Todd and I, you have to do that over the phone, which is good, but it’s not ideal. So, you just work around that, but Todd and I we’ve sat down this offseason and figured out, ‘OK, what areas were we really good at and let’s continue to keep those very strong areas, but where are areas, more importantly, where we struggled and what can we do to improve those. Let’s talk about what we can do to make those better.’ Each team is a little bit different, but it’s just been nice to sit back and figure out what we need to do. I thought we had a lot of speed last year, we just didn’t capitalize on a lot of moments. Some of those things we could control and some you couldn’t, but other than our bad first round in the playoffs, the next two rounds were great. It was just a shame we were out of the playoffs. I’m looking forward to this year, the second year with the team. I think we’re gonna bring a lot of speed again and it’s just about closing out some of these races that will really, I think, put us over the top where we need to be.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang – WHERE DO YOU AND JEREMY LOOK TO BUILD FOR 2021? “Trying to of course get one more spot. I thought it was a really good year to run as competitively as we did and to win four races, just haven’t been able to hit a couple of marks that I want to hit with respect to winning another championship and winning the Daytona 500, winning in my home state of Michigan. Those are certainly some buckets I look to fill up or boxes to check off the list, but still I was really proud of winning the Coke 600. I’m one crown jewel away from having them all, which is really cool and special for me. It means a lot to me personally, so that’s definitely on the list is trying to get Daytona to come together and not get wrecked, but I think the team is pretty good and really happy with a lot of people I’m working with. Jeremy has got an incredible attitude that is really healthy for our team and it was a really fresh, new challenge for me personally last year. I’m still have hunger and eagerness to achieve more results and that opportunity is coming up real quick here in the next few weeks, so nothing is taken for granted. Everything has to be earned. That’s not a shocker to anybody listening here today, and I’m willing to put in the work and I feel like I have a team that is hungry and willing to put in the work as well. It’s really an exciting time for us.”

WHEN DID YOU GET THE CONFIDENCE TO MAKE THE RIGHT MOVES AT DAYTONA COMPARED TO A YOUNGER DRIVER? “Like anything, confidence goes up and down. Probably the biggest thing for your confidence is having a really fast race car. I’ve been on both sides of that at Daytona and Talladega. When you don’t have a fast car none of your moves work, and then your confidence just really goes down the toilet. And then when you have a really fast race car all of your moves work. All of a sudden I can pull out and just pass people and it’s like, ‘What so hard about this?’ So I think ultimately your confidence in most forms of racing somewhat starts with the speed in your car and then as you get the reps and the experience that goes with it, the two can really add up quite quickly. I think that’s where it really starts and I’ve been fortunate to have a great team and some really great cars. I’ve have some bad cars too at Daytona and Talladega and that can be frustrating, but over the last few years I’ve had really good cars at Daytona and I’m very thankful for that.”

RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – WHEN DID YOU GAIN THAT CONFIDENCE AS A DRIVER? “Brad said it really well. It can almost vary week to week. If your cars are really fast, it feels like everything you’re doing is right, but then there are some weeks where it feels like you can’t do anything right. That can eat away at people, and that’s with anything it’s not just motorsports, sports, it’s with anything. If you’re doing something right, you have all the confidence in the world, but some days it’s just not your day and your confidence kind of goes down. I feel like some of that is trying to forget the bad days very quickly and then focus on the task at hand the next week and just try to keep your confidence up to a level to where you know that you’re working hard enough and can do it from an athlete side and you have a lot of confidence in your team, too. It’s a whole group of people that needs to have their confidence up, but it definitely does take time coming into this sport when you’re really young. You might not have the confidence that guys who have been in it for a while, just because you’re new to it, and I think that does come with time. That’s something I’ve been trying to work on. I’m not the most confident person in the world, but that’s something that you need that just kind of boosts your morale. You just have to remember that and you’ve got to keep that high because when your confidence is high, your team’s confidence is high and then usually you run really well.”

WE SAW A CLIP OF THE NETFLIX SHOW “THE CREW”. WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE FILMING THAT COMPARED TO MAGNUM PI AND TAKEN IN YEARS PAST? “That’s something I went up there and filmed about this time last year up in New York – upstate New York. I thought that was a lot of fun. I’ve had some cool opportunities to go do a couple little TV shows from that Taken deal, a little action show where we’re shooting blank guns, and then the Magnum PI thing, and then The Crew. Getting to meet Kevin James. I’m a big fan of his. I love the King of Queens, really, really funny guy, just a great person. A lot of the writers on that show I got to meet and the director and they do a really good job of getting a lot of information before they started writing the show. I think they do a really good job of what I saw of kind of how interiors and like how the race shops work. They asked a lot of questions. They went to a lot of teams and they weren’t just winging it. I think they did a good job. It’s a sitcom. It’s a live audience sitcom, but I thought it was good. It’s a pretty light-hearted show that we were able to be a part of and Cole Custer is part of it too in another episode with me. But I thought it was good. I saw some people writing bad stuff about it, some reporters writing bad stuff about it, but I didn’t really agree with that. It’s supposed to be a light-hearted, funny, sitcom show in front of a live audience and I think they did good. They’re not really trying to make us look bad, they’re just doing something that is going to be, I think it’s really gonna get people watching NASCAR. I mean, how many subscribers does Netflix have and there are gonna be a lot of episodes on that, so that was a really good time meeting those people and talking to them and being able to kind of tell them what we do. It’s a shame because in 2020 they were gonna come out to the track and do some filming and then do some research as well and obviously that didn’t happen with Covid, but it was a really cool experience. I hope the show does great. I’m really looking forward to when it starts coming out and you guys can watch episodes because it’s really funny, but at the same time it does get informative about the sport and I think they do a really good mixture of the two.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO YOU FOR IT TO BE AUTHENTIC TO WHAT NASCAR IS? “I think it’s important. You’ve got to have a good mixture. There are different types of sports shows, documentaries. You have the Drive to Survive, which was great and that was reality. That’s cameras being at the racetrack interviewing the teams and such. With The Crew it is a good mixture of they’re not interviewing drivers and teams, it’s just not that kind of show at all, but they’re not making fun of NASCAR by any means. They’re not trying to make fun of us. They are having fun with a really good show that is gonna bring comedy to people and make people laugh, but at the same time they’re not making a mockery out of NASCAR. They did a good job of really doing their research and then sprinkling in details of how a little bit of shop stuff works on the sponsorship side. Yeah, they might have some jokes in there, but it’s all in good fun. I don’t get upset with it at all, so I think they did a good job of combining all those things.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED — THERE ARE A LOT OF CHANGES IN THE CUP SCHEDULE. IS THERE ONE CHANGE YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO OR ONE THAT WILL HAVE A BIGGER IMPACT ON THE SEASON? “I guess I’m looking forward to Nashville, mostly because I want to see if they’re bringing the guitar trophy back. That was always one of the coolest trophies in racing and not going back to Nashville that was the thing that probably hurt the most was not having a shot to win that guitar. So, I’m hoping they’ll bring the guitar trophy back. Of course, Sam Bass was the one who designed it and took care of it every year and we miss him an awful amount, but I’d love to see that trophy come back. That was always very, very special. Just for pure selfish reasons I’m gonna say Nashville for the guitar trophy. That’s what I’m looking forward to the most. And we want racetracks, by the way, with cool trophies. That should be the rule. You can’t get a new race unless you have a really cool trophy, not like one of these out at the dime store, it’s got to be a really cool trophy. That should be a prerequisite in my mind, but I’m very much looking forward to going back to Nashville.”

RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – “I think we’re going to some really neat and new venues with Circuit of the Americas, going up to Road America – first time the Cup cars up there, so that will be really good. Nashville, like Brad said. The Bristol Dirt Race will be very interesting. I’m not sure what to expect from that. I’m excited for it, but I’m not sure what to expect, but I think it will put on a pretty good show. I think Circuit of the Americas will be really neat. I’m looking forward to that one. That’s obviously a great area down there in Austin, Texas, a beautiful racetrack. I was able to visit it one of the first years it got operational for the X Games. I went out and watched it. I didn’t get to see the whole track, but that looks like a great venue and a good area for sure. Some of the venues we’re going to, maybe that area has never had a NASCAR race before like Austin, so it brings in a whole new kind of town of people that can come watch a NASCAR event. That and Road America I’m excited for because everyone up there in Wisconsin, they love NASCAR racing. I was there for an XFINITY race a handful of years ago and it was packed. I think that place is really deserving of a Cup race, so those are the ones I’m really looking forward to, but really all of them. You ask any driver any time you go to a new track you’re looking forward to kind of going there and seeing what the challenge is all about.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED – THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT OF SAFETY CHANGES THE LAST 20 YEARS. DO YOU WAIT FOR NASCAR TO MANDATE A CHANGE BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING AND HOW MUCH DO YOU RESEARCH ANY SORT OF PROPOSAL OF LIKE A CHANGE IN THE BELTS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “First off, there’s pretty strict rules on pretty much every piece of safety equipment, so that said, because those rules are so tight most of them require approval before you can engage them. So, there have been a number of potential new safety items have come out over the last few years that I would have liked to have been able to try out and experiment with, but, according to the rules, you’re not allowed to. That kind of puts just by the very nature of it the emphasis on NASCAR to be the ones that develop it and set out a timeline for approval. Whether that’s head and neck restraint devices, concussion devices, helmets, etc., when a new safety device comes out it’s really not even an option for me to use it until NASCAR has approved it. That said, once there is an approval we look at everything. The second they make an approval, the team gets some kind of notification, whether it’s virtual or verbal – one of the two – or document I should say is probably the better way, and we look at everything immediately. We’ve got a great guy at Team Penske, Dave Kenny that’s in charge of our safety department on driver safety and development of all those kinds of things on the NASCAR side. He’s an incredible resource. He’s probably the best in the business and I’m so thankful. That guy has probably personally saved my life at least once or twice, so he does a great job staying on top of all that stuff and it’s one of the things I’m probably most proud of at Team Penske.”

RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED — WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO WIN THE DAYTONA 500 THIS YEAR? “Our Penske cars have always been really fast on the superspeedways. I feel like Brad’s been one of the best plate racers for a long time, for sure, and we’ve been pretty decent at them here the last couple years. As the rules change, really, as the cars change on the speedways it’s not what it was a couple years ago with big spoilers on them. The runs are so much different. You don’t really see any of that air blocking going on anymore. The leader can’t really control the race as well as what they used to, so that’s made it very difficult to all of a sudden become a great plate racer and really be able to control the race. At the end of the day, if your car is really fast, I feel like myself, Brad, Joey and Matt DiBenedetto work really well together on the plate tracks. That’s what it takes is a lot of teamwork and a lot of other Fords actually working together too. We’ve been close to the 500 a couple times. We lost it by a couple feet last year and ran second in 2017 there too, so just try to make it through that whole day. That’s the biggest hurdle you have to make is just trying to get to the end and having a shot to win it. You never know what can happen. You could get involved in someone else’s mess early on and all of a sudden your hopes are ruined, so that’s the biggest hurdle. But I have confidence in our cars that we’re gonna show up to the 500 very fast and just trying to get to the end and having a shot at it is really all you can ask for.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED – “I think Ryan answered it pretty well. After the rules change, I guess in ’18 or ’19 I can’t remember what year it was, the race at Daytona specifically – the 500 – really turned into a crashfest. You had little to no ability to kind of control the race as the leader and since that’s happened I think there’s been more of an emphasis on riding in the back, surviving and we’ve seen that be very successful. So, I think survival is just really key. You have to be there at the end. I think the amazing thing, Denny has won three of the last four or something like that there, but what’s more amazing than the fact he won three out of four races is the fact he was around at three of the four races because the wrecks there have just been atrocious. Just surviving those wrecks is a statistical anomaly multiple times, so just try to go there and recognize the fact that you’re most likely going to wreck, but if you don’t wreck and you’re around at the end, you need to capitalize on it. Unfortunately, for me I think the last four years I’ve been caught up in somebody else’s wreck. I’m looking forward to the opportunity of hopefully not getting caught up in somebody else’s wreck and if that happens, capitalizing.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL THE LACK OF EXPERIENCE WITH SOME DRIVERS COULD AFFECT THE RACE AND IS IT TIME FOR NASCAR TO TOUGHEN THE STANDARDS OF WHAT IT TAKES TO DRIVE IN THE DAYTONA 500 AND CUP SERIES IN GENERAL? “There are parts that I think are good and part that I think are bad about that. I think in some ways it makes the racing more compelling and more fun to watch because it’s less predictable when you have less capable drivers to some degree. I can remember watching some of the lower levels races as I was growing up on short tracks and they were the best races because everyone was all over the racetrack and it was crazy. Then you’d watch the professional series roll out and it was kind of like, ‘Well, this is kind of boring,’ because when you’re a pro you shouldn’t have a lot of exciting moments if you’re under control. So with respect to that, there’s an argument to that, but then on the other side of it there’s something to be said for watching the best race car drivers on the planet, and I think there are on any given weekend, if you look at our fields, there are probably the bottom 10-15 drivers are probably not what you would consider the best drivers in the world. I’d like to see as a pure competitor I’d like to see that change, but ultimately that’s not my decision. That’s NASCAR’s decision. I’d love to see the hotshot guy that’s running in name your series, whether it’s dirt or Indy Car or anything else, I’d love to see those guys have a real opportunity because I think it just lends credence to the belief that the best racing and the best race car drivers are competing on that day in that series. But that’s not the format and ultimately it’s not my decision, it’s NASCAR’s.”

THIS WILL BE YOUR NINTH SEASON AS A TEAMMATE WITH JOEY. HOW HAS THAT RELATIONSHIP EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS AND HOW IMPORTANT ARE THOSE ONE-ON-ONE CONVERSATIONS IMPORTANT FOR THE SUCCESS OF NOT ONLY THE 2 TEAM BUT TEAM PENSKE OVERALL? “I think in a lot of ways Joey Logano when he came to Cup with Team Penske, he had been at Joe Gibbs Racing, he immediately made me a better driver with a number of weakness I had. I don’t think I was a very good qualifier. The things I was doing on the plate tracks some were good and some were bad, and he taught me a few good habits. He definitely made me up my game on restarts, so overall I think he’s made me better and I would hope that he would feel the same way that I challenged him to be better in other ways. So, I think that’s ultimately as a team owner that would be your goal is that you would have two teammates that make each other better, and I’m sure Roger Penske would say the same thing about the Indy Car side. Ultimately, all the drivers should make each other better. Ryan is on the phone here today, but even if he wasn’t I would say he’s made me better. He’s made me push harder on a lot of different fronts. I wish I had his talent, but with respect to that that’s a good thing, I think, ultimately for Team Penske.”

RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED — HOW DID THE IRACING PRO INVITATIONAL HELP THE SPORT AND HOW CAN THAT ATTRACT NEW FANS TO THE SPORT? “I thought the iRacing Pro Invitational deal when everything was shut down was a good way to try to get all the Cup, XFINITY, Truck drivers in a race and give something for people to watch on TV. I thought they did a really good job of putting it on television and streaming it live on the internet whenever you wanted to watch it and have us all race. I don’t really iRace that much, so I was pretty bad at it, but it was fun to do it. It gave people something to watch because that’s when no sports were going on. There were no sporting events going on, so I thought it did a good job and I think it got a lot of people into iRacing. When there was nothing to watch on TV, no sports, people would tune into that iRace and maybe they didn’t know about it were like, ‘Oh, let me check that out,’ maybe get a rig and then start watching NASCAR. I think it was good. They came out today or yesterday that they’re gonna do, I think, 10 iRacing events this year sprinkled throughout the year between Fox and NBC and I think that’s good. I think it’s a good thing to do and it just gives a little bit different perspective and something to do throughout the week. So I think it was smart, but it was a great idea that NASCAR and the teams brought up and the networks of doing it in that pandemic. That’s really what has kind of brought it to what it is now and I think they did a good job. It was nice to be a part of it and it’s nice that they’re still doing it.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED – “I don’t know that I have a ton to add to that. It’s great to see us be creative. It was good for NASCAR to be able to do those things and fulfill some of our commitments to TV and the rights holders and I’m glad some people enjoyed it along the way.”

RYAN BLANEY CONTINUED – CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW HARD IT IS TO CLOSE OUT THESE RACES AND GET A COUPLE MORE WINS ON THE BOARD? “That’s the toughest part. Leading laps is one thing, but then when it comes down to the end of these races how everyone performs the last quarter of the race and me performing on pit road and them performing it all comes together. I think there was just some things we could clean up altogether, whether it was me cleaning up some stuff, try to get pit road a little bit better, some calls maybe didn’t work out whether it was staying out or pitting. A lot of those things are just racing, but there are things you can really improve and, like I said earlier, we sat down – me and Todd Gordon sat down – and really pinpointed the things that I thought we could improve on to help close out those races when we’re in a position to win. I feel like a handful of them slipped through our fingers last year where we had the fastest car and those ones sting a lot, but you just look at those areas and really work on them super hard and try to apply them when you’re in those same situations this year and capitalize on them. That’s the biggest thing. That’s what I think will put our group over the top here this year and hopefully all the hard work in the offseason pays off.”

DO YOU FEEL IT’S YOUR TIME TO JUMP INTO NASCAR’S ELITE? “Yeah, I definitely think so. With Chase winning the championship last year, that was a great accomplishment for him. I’m selfish. I would have liked Team Penske to win it between Brad or Joey and they came close, but I’m 27. It’s time to get rolling here and winning multiple races throughout the season and try to make it to the Championship 4. That’s something I haven’t done yet, so it’s definitely time to step up and I think we have all the right tools in place to do so, it’s just about applying all of them and really capitalizing on moments like great athletes and great players do they capitalize on big moments and that’s just what we have to put in our heads and put in our minds. This team is plenty capable of doing it, it’s just about really making it happen and, like I said, just capitalizing on the opportunities. That’s the biggest thing. I think it’s a really good time in the sport right now. There are a lot of younger drivers in their twenties and then there are a lot of amazing champions that are in this sport that really make it a great mixture and it’s very competitive every single week. That’s something that I think we can break through, hopefully, in the 2021 season.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI CONTINUED – IS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO CONTINUE TO ESTABLISH YOUR DOMINANCE AMONG THE NEXT GENERATION OF DRIVERS COMING UP? “I guess that could mean different things. I don’t really think about next generations. Honestly, I think about myself and being selfish with respect to just trying to put numbers on the board and trying to not take my position in this sport for granted. I think you look at last year we were able to do that and I think that’s my mentality every step of the way.”

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Team Penske Media Day | Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Team Penske held a media day session via Zoom with all of their NASCAR Cup drivers and crew chiefs for the 2021 season. Transcripts from each of those sessions follows:

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 33 Verizon Ford Mustang (Cup) and No. 22 Verizon Ford Mustang (NXS) – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR SPONSOR NEWS TODAY? “It’s really exciting for me to be a part of Verizon coming back on a race car in Team Penske in NASCAR. That’s really cool for me because I grew up watching Will Power and Juan and Helio and those guys represent Verizon on the Indy Car side for a long time and for me to be driving a Verizon Team Penske race car is pretty cool. Obviously, the main challenge right now is to try and get ourselves into the race, being an open car, and from there have some fun with it. It’s pretty cool news. The car looks great. I think it’s gotten a lot of great response from the fans. Verizon is a company that everyone uses in their daily lives, including myself, so it’s pretty cool to be starting out that way in Cup with such a recognizable brand.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – HOW AS THE DAYTONA 500 CHANGED SINCE YOU WON IN 2015? It’s been unpredictable every year no matter what’s going on. Probably the one thing you can predict is that the end of the race is just gonna be crazy. It is the biggest race of the year. It’s the Great American Race and the only race that you would argue is bigger than that is the championship race and that’s only for four cars. This is the biggest race or 40 cars out there, so everyone is out there racing extremely hard, especially towards the end of the race. The pushing and shoving becomes very aggressive, which that has been consistent over the years, but as the rules package changes – especially with this new spoiler on the back of it – we’ve seen over the last couple of years the shoving has become really aggressive and the blocks have been harder to pull off successfully as the runs are bigger. That’s all kind of a recipe for disaster at the end of these things, so the key is to be up towards the front when it matters the most. You try to collect points while you can during the stages. I mean, it’s not just checkers or wreckers the whole race, but at the end of the race it’s kind of like the championship – no one remembers who finishes second. No one know who finished second in the Daytona 500 last year. I don’t know, and that’s just what this race is about.”

WE SAW HUDSON RUN SOME DIRT LAPS RECENTLY. MIGHT WE SEE HIM DO SOME ORGANIZED RACING IN THE FUTURE? “He’s only three (laughing). It’s up to him. I don’t want to push it on him. I think being a second-generation racer definitely adds some pressure to a young kid wanting to race for fun. So I want to balance that and make sure that it’s fun for him and something that he wants to do and not because he feels like that’s something he’s supposed to do because dad does that. But I will say he enjoys it a lot. Every minute I’m home he wants to go drive his power wheels or his go-kart. He’s got this little electric bike and he’s a maniac. It’s actually been kind of fun to watch him grow. Of course, I enjoy it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but I don’t want to push it on him, either. If he says, ‘Daddy, I want to race.’ Then we’ll go racing. But if he wants to play baseball or something, I think an organized sport is important for a kid just for growth, but whatever he wants to do, we’ll do.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC CONTINUED – WHAT RACES WILL VERIZON BE ON THE CAR AND WHAT WILL THE REST OF YOUR CUP SCHEDULE LOOK LIKE? “Both races for the Daytona 500 weekend, so it’ll be on my Cup car – the 33 car – and my XFINITY car – the 22 car – for the whole weekend. I’ll be wearing Verizon firesuits and shirts and hats all weekend and trying to do the best we can. As far as further races, to be determined. To this date I still don’t know the full schedule yet. We’re trying to shoot for doing a variety. That’s what I would like. That’s what I think would be the most beneficial heading into 2022, whether that’s short tracks, road courses, obviously the superspeedway with Daytona and mile-and-a-half tracks. So, just trying to absorb as much as I can and learn what I don’t know and hopefully build upon it.”

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – WHEN NEW SAFETY INITIATIVES COME ABOUT DO YOU DO ANY RESEARCH OR DO YOU JUST DO WHAT YOUR TEAM OR THE EXPERTS TELL YOU? “A little bit of both. You have to put some trust into the professionals that study it every day. It’s kind of like your race car driver telling the crew chief how to set up the car. I’m not in every aero meeting. I’m not in every vehicle dynamics meeting to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong. I can help guide and help steer the ship and that’s what my job is. The same thing when it comes to safety. It’s my life on the line. It’s no one else’s life but the driver that’s in there, so it is your responsibility to make sure your stuff is right – your helmet, your HANS, your belts, your seats and have an idea on that. I would say Team Penske has some really good guys that do a very good job at the safety perspective of our cars. I can’t say that’s the same for every race team, so as a driver you need to be aware of what’s going on. I do feel like I do trust NASCAR and Team Penske to make those right decisions because some of them are a bit over my head. I’m not there at the sled tests where they make a lot of these decisions on what’s better and what’s not, but I’m always open to trying something. If it’s safer, bolt it in. I’ll take it.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC CONTINUED – WHAT IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL AND WHAT WILL BE THE KEY TO HAVING THE SAME SUCCESS IN NXS? “Obviously, my main focus is having more success in the XFINITY Series, trying to go for another championship. As far as what my goals are for the year and how do I achieve that, I think you always as a race car driver, whether you have a good year, a bad year or the best year, you have to continue to better yourself whatever that level is because everyone else around you is gonna keep stepping that up, so I’ve worked very hard this offseason, whether that’s physically or trying to get myself organized. I have some great opportunities to run some Cup races and get a taste for what it means to race against the best because ultimately that’s what I want to be one day is race against the best and the best of the best. So, it’s a unique opportunity for me to kind of have the scope of what the long-term plan looks like and apply that to the short term and take what I learn from my Cup races this year and apply them to the XFINITY races. I think Saturdays had some really great shows last year and I think there’s more cars in the field this year than last that are capable of winning races, so another reason to continually step up your game. I’m excited for that challenge as always and looking forward to the year getting started. Talking to everyone, I had a meeting at Roush Yates today telling me how to work an EFI car and had a meeting yesterday about drafting with Fords at Daytona. It’s starting to get stirred up. It feels nice. I’m ready to get going.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THROWN INTO THE FIRE OF THE QUALIFYING RACES AT DAYTONA AGAINST GUYS LIKE TY DILLON, DAVID RAGAN, AND NOAH GRAGSON? “Yeah. You can add Ryan Preece into that as well. He’s running a full season in an open entry, so I started thinking about it and start thinking about all the scenarios and you start feeling a little anxious and nervous. Even when this was coming together, just knowing the format and knowing how many open cars there are this year, it’s gonna be a challenge. I’d be lying if I said we wouldn’t have as good a shot as any to qualify our way in on speed, but you can’t count on that. I’ve put a lot of prep work already into understanding the Duels and understanding the format. They take one car out of each Duel, so that’s a very small window. That’s where all my focus is right now. I think it’s a bonus if we get into the race and I think everyone understands that. I think everyone respects that, including our sponsors, so we’ll go forward and try to put our best effort in. It’s gonna happen really fast, though. Looking at the weekend schedule on Wednesday I have to figure out how to drive a Cup car and how to qualify in the Daytona 500 in a day, so it won’t be easy but I’m looking forward to it.”

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – THIS WILL BE YOUR NINTH SEASON AS TEAMMATES WITH BRAD. HOW HAS THAT RELATIONSHIP EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS AND HELPED IN BRINGING OUT SUCCESS FOR BOTH TEAMS? “I think Brad and I have had a good relationship, a healthy teammate relationship is what I’d call it, where we can be open with each other. Just like any other teammates you have more in common than any other competitor. We know what’s going on inside the company. We can actually talk about it to each other. We can’t talk about things to other competitors. We truly push each other. Brad’s a very talented race car driver and our strengths are in different areas, and that’s something I like about it. I could be stronger in certain areas and Brad is stronger in other areas and we can look at each other’s data and say, ‘You’re doing this here and you’re doing this here,’ and you can kind of figure it out over time. I know I’ve adjusted my driving style a lot since I started here at Team Penske at certain racetracks and I assume Brad would probably say the same, and that’s a healthy relationship, in my opinion. Off the track, like I said, he’s a friend of mine. We call and talk to each other and a lot of times it’s not even about racing. Like I said, we have a lot in common – the lifestyle, having a couple kids, traveling around. There are a lot of things in common there, so, like I said, it’s a healthy teammate relationship where we push each other and race each other out front and race each other for wins. That becomes a fun little battle.”

WHEN YOU SAY YOU’VE CHANGED YOUR DRIVING STYLE IS THAT IN THE SENSE OF INFORMATION AT LEAST IN PART THAT BRAD HAS SHARED WITH YOU? “Yeah. Anytime you’re not the best, you have to be a student of the sport. When you have an open notebook of what Brad’s doing at some of his best racetracks like a New Hampshire or a Richmond – short tracks in particular probably stand out the most – you have the data right there to look at. You’re an idiot if you don’t look at it, so I have the ability to look and ask questions and I try to guide myself in the right direction to try to adapt to that. If you’re getting beat, you’ve got to look at something different and that’s the best part about the relationship in general is we’re able to push each other in those ways to get better as race car drivers and ultimately as a team.”

YOU DON’T HAVE A BACKGROUND IN DIRT TRACK RACING. WILL YOU DO ANY PREP GOING INTO BRISTOL? HOW WILL YOU APPROACH THAT WEEKEND? “You’re right, I don’t have much background at all. I better start figuring it out (laughing) one way or another. I’ve got some plans to get out on a dirt track a little bit and just try to understand how the track changes. I think that’s probably the biggest thing. Obviously, the car is gonna drive different and it being very slick and all that, but understanding how the dirt moves, whether there’s a cushion or when it dries out or when it rubbers up, there’s all this lingo that I don’t really know a whole bunch about and you have to see it and you have experience it, I think, to understand that. I’ve got some plans to try to get out on a track a little bit and play around in different types of cars just to understand dirt racing a little bit. We’ll see what happens. There are so many unknowns with Bristol. You throw dirt on that place we don’t know what’s gonna happen and nobody does, but if I can be as somewhat educated on what the track looks like and where the grip is, maybe I can be close in the ballpark somewhere.”

YOU GO INTO EVERY RACE THINKING YOU GUYS CAN WIN. IS THAT A DIFFERENT MINDSET GOING INTO THIS RACE? “No. I can win it. I 100 percent think that. Why else would I show up if I think I can’t win a race. I might as well stay home. That’s no fun at all. I think we have a chance to win it. You never know what’s gonna happen. You watch the Eldora race and a lot of times the fastest car doesn’t win that thing in the trucks. The same thing can happen at Bristol. It’s 250 laps. That’s 500 corners, 500 chances for someone to screw up. Survival will be the number one thing in that race is try to have something to race with at the end. Over the course of that many laps you’re probably gonna keep getting better and better and have a shot at the end of it.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC CONTINUED – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE XFINITY SERIES THIS YEAR AND WILL YOU EMBRACE HAVING A TARGET ON YOUR BACK? “I guess I haven’t considered that, but as far as competitors the two obvious ones – I hope I’m not forgetting anyone – would be Daniel Hemric racing for Gibbs and AJ Allmendinger a full season with Kaulig. Those are two exciting opportunities for the series to see what those guys can do for a whole year, so as a competitor you’ve got to definitely embrace that because I think they’re gonna bring a lot to the table. It’ll be fun to race with those guys every weekend. As far as having a target on my back, I haven’t really considered that. Me mentally doesn’t really change a whole lot, but I think as I’ve gone through NASCAR I’ve really had somebody look for every year, whether if it was in trucks you’d get out and immediately look to see where Christopher Bell was on the time sheet and to see how fast he was, see how his long run looked. Years prior there was the big three with Custer, Reddick and Bell and you’d get out of your car and see what their 10-lap average looks like. I feel like we have a great opportunity, as we did last year, to be that guy or one of those guys, not that that’s ever my goal, but that mean’s you’re winning races, you’re bringing fast race cars to the racetrack. That means you’re a really strong team and our team on the 22 car is relatively unchanged, so I expect us to have just as much strength and hopefully continue to build on what we had last year.”

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – HOW MUCH WOULD YOU ENJOY GIVING SHELL/PENNZOIL ITS 100TH WIN? “Obviously, I would love that. It goes to show, we talked about PPG on here earlier with the amount of time at Team Penske is incredible. One hundred victories as a primary sponsor at Team Penske would be a great accomplishment, but just like any other milestone victory it’s not about the 100th win, it’s about everything that got to that point. Those are the moments you wish that everybody was there in victory lane with you – that drove the car and worked on the car and all that because it’s not just the amount of effort and work that this 22 team has done for Shell and those stats. It’s what countless others have done and also just how Team Penske has gotten to this level in the Cup department as well has gotten to this level is a lot. It’s hard to say you’ll take credit for it. Yeah, I want to be the guy that can cross the start-finish line and do that driving the Shell car. That’s what we want to do, but it would be hard for me to take credit for more than what’s really there for me.”

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE CONFIDENT MOVES AT DAYTONA OR WERE YOU BORN WITH IT? “I don’t think you’re born with it. It’s experience. Experience and making mistakes and learning from them and having a little bit of a resume behind you to prove that, ‘hey, I do know how to do it.’ Yeah, confidence in sports is everything. It’s absolutely everything to get to that point, and you can’t fake it. Yeah, you can try to train your mind to get to a certain point, but it’s got to be real. You can’t lie to yourself. Eventually, you’re gonna figure out you’re lying to yourself, so it’s really just going on there, repetitions, understanding it, having some trophies behind you, but even with that said your confidence will go up and down over time. When things are going well, that’s what momentum is. Momentum in sports is just confidence. When things are going right, you feel like you can’t do anything wrong. You just keep going out there and winning and winning and winning. Those happen. And then there are moments you get in slumps. I think of last year even for us in the 22 car through the summer months Paul and I struggled a lot, and quite honestly was lost. Yeah, your confidence takes a bit of a toll, but having the trophies behind you saying I know how to do this, knowing you will get out of a slump and will be stronger because of it does help keep your confidence up. As a younger driver or someone coming in, I went through that as well where I got my butt kicked and came in very confident thinking I was gonna be the man and then quickly realized I was not even the boy, I was in trouble and being able to kind of overcome that has really helped me a lot now. I’m glad I’ve gone through that. Those are the experiences that I absolutely love that I had because it’s made me into who I am today, but in the moment it’s hard. It’s not fun, but it makes you stronger for sure.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC CONTINUED – WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? “Everyone’s development as a driver is definitely different. I’m in a position that next season I’ll be moving up and racing against the best drivers, so I think having Joey as a teammate is a great resource because those things he just talked about are very real. I went through some of them starting out in NASCAR. I started with very little experience and I think everyone has seen the progression, but there is definitely some more difficult days than great days, that’s for sure. It’s part of sports, but I think listening to Joey talk to is that when you get out of that slump or have something that you finally figure out and get confidence in, you’re better than what you were before. You should be afraid of someone who is a great driver, has a slump and then comes out of it because they came out of it a better driver, a better competitor. I enjoy watching that in sports. I’ve loved watching football this year because you can make so many parallels between sports, just the mentality, so it’s challenging. That’s why it’s not easy otherwise everyone would be doing it and doing well.”

HOW INTEGRAL WILL YOU BE WITH THE CUP SERIES RACE GOING TO THE INDY ROAD COURSE WITH YOUR PAST EXPERIENCE? “I think having any sort of data is important. It’ll be a race weekend where we have practice in all series, so it’ll be important for the Cup guys to look back at some of the things that we’ve learned based off of racetracks that they’re familiar with, so, yeah, it definitely helps. It helps Joe Gibbs Racing, too. It helps RCR. It helps any other team that has an affiliated car from the XFINITY Series, so I wouldn’t say we have an upper hand by any means, but obviously I’m a resource just like Brian is a resource to those guys. Winning at Indianapolis driving for Roger Penske means a whole lot, so to be able to do that and be as well prepared as we can as a team is definitely important.”

JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED – YOU HAVE PRACTICE THAT WEEKEND AT INDY, BUT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE A BIT OF AN ADVANTAGE WITH DATA FROM LAST YEAR’S XFINITY RACE? “I think what Austin said is right. Other teams have run the race as well, but Austin is gonna be my guy. We call each other a lot. I remember his first year in XFINITY he’d call me maybe every race going into the weekend and then I think running the Daytona Road Course last year with no practice and who do I have to talk to? Cindric, and so he was able to repay me the favor at least and I was able to ask him a lot questions. I’m sure as we get closer to Indy and we start to wrap our heads around it, keep you phone near you, Austin. I’ll be calling.”

AS A DRIVER WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN TERMS OF THE SCHEDULE OR WHAT WILL HAVE THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON HOW THE SEASON UNFOLDS? “That’s a hard question to answer. There are so many new things. I’m sitting here at the Ford R&D Center. I was just on the simulator and working on some things and I was driving and thinking, ‘How cool is this that I get to drive so many different things.’ I always thought that Cup was one of the only series that goes to so many different tracks, the short tracks, the superspeedways, the mile-and-a-halves, the road courses. But now there are just more and more tracks, more road courses, tracks I’ve never been to, dirt racing. I have no experience at all. It’s kind of cool that I get to do that, so as a race car driver that’s attractive because you want to be able to do different things. You want to be a well-rounded race car driver, somebody that can jump into anything and go fast. That’s something I would take a lot of pride in, and I don’t have the opportunity typically to drive anything outside of a NASCAR Cup car, so this is a fun opportunity as a race car driver, and I think even as a team everyone working together to try to understand these new racetracks coming ahead of us. It’s hard for me to pinpoint and actually answer your question about which one is gonna impact the season the most. Everyone is talking about the dirt race. Every time I get in my truck and turn on SiriusXM all I hear is people talking about this dirt race. I’m like, ‘You know there are other races that are gonna happen this year. It’s not just this dirt race.’ So trying to balance that and not put too much effort into one race and forgetting about all the other ones that also pay out. It’s hard for me to pinpoint which one that is. COTA sounds exciting, that’s a new one. The Indy Road Course, I think, is gonna be a great addition to the schedule, so I’m really excited about that one. And, yeah, I’m interested at Bristol. I don’t know if I’m excited about it, but I’m interested to see how that’s gonna go, probably like everybody else that’s on this call.”

Building upon overwhelming success in 2020, star-studded virtual racing series featuring NASCAR Cup Series drivers will return to action in late March

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Jan. 26, 2021) – After a historic debut season that set the high watermark in viewership for televised esports programming, the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series is set to return in 2021.

NASCAR and iRacing jointly announced today that a new-look Pro Invitational will see NASCAR Cup Series stars compete virtually in a 10-race schedule that will complement NASCAR’s real-life racing schedule, offering fans a new mid-week competition featuring NASCAR’s top drivers. FOX Sports, which helped NASCAR and iRacing set viewership records with the inaugural Pro Invitational last season, will broadcast the first five races of the series live in primetime on FS1. NBC Sports will air the final five races of the series, with its schedule and details to be announced at a later date.

With the NASCAR Cup Series set to visit new tracks and new markets in 2021, this year’s Pro Invitational will feature a mix of tracks designed primarily to preview the upcoming weekend’s “real life” race – a feature that will be particularly beneficial in giving fans an idea of what to expect as the real-life drivers take on challenging new circuits throughout the season.

“The success of our eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series was underscored by an industry-wide effort to entertain fans during the early months of the global pandemic,” said Tim Clark, NASCAR senior vice president and chief digital officer. “This year the Pro Invitational will return with a schedule of midweek races that will bridge the gap between our real-world races each weekend.”

“After last year’s Pro Invitational success, we’re proud that our partners at NASCAR, FOX, and the race teams view the series as an integral part of their marketing and fan engagement strategies for 2021,” said Steve Myers, iRacing executive producer. “It’s even more fulfilling that the industry has rallied around our platform not only as the most authentic re-creation of the sport, but also a terrific tool to help grow NASCAR’s audience and generate revenue to strengthen the entire ecosystem.”

The first five mid-week events will air on FS1 on select Wednesday nights beginning March 24^th, featuring an exciting mix of races that include Bristol Motor Speedway’s new dirt configuration, fan-favorites such as Talladega Superspeedway and Darlington Raceway, and Austin, Texas’ famed Circuit of the Americas’ facility. NBC Sports will pick up the second half of the 10-race season once the network’s broadcast window begins in June.

“FOX Sports embraced the eNASCAR iRacing Invitational Series in the spring as a way to keep race fans entertained, but we quickly realized it was a product and collaboration that we would continue to explore,” said FOX Sports Executive Producer, EVP/Head of Operations and Production Brad Zager. “The product is best-in-class, it delivers NASCAR to an even broader audience and, let’s face it, it’s a heckuva lot of fun.” 

Details around the fifth race in the FS1 window, plus further plans for the second half of the ’21 Pro Invitational schedule, will be announced at a later date.

For more information on the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, along with other esports initiatives, visit www.eNASCAR.com.

About NASCAR

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for the No. 1 form of motorsports in the United States and owner of 16 of the nation’s major motorsports entertainment facilities. NASCAR consists of three national series (NASCAR Cup Series™, NASCAR Xfinity Series™, and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series™), four regional series (ARCA Menards Series, ARCA Menards Series East & West and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour), one local grassroots series (NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series) and three international series (NASCAR Pinty’s Series, NASCAR Peak Mexico Series, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series). The International Motor Sports Association™ (IMSA®) governs the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship™, the premier U.S. sports car series. NASCAR also owns Motor Racing Network, Racing Electronics and ONE DAYTONA. Based in Daytona Beach, Florida, with offices in eight cities across North America, NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Europe. For more information visit www.NASCAR.com and www.IMSA.com, and follow NASCAR on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (‘NASCAR’).