NASCAR CUP SERIES
COOK OUT SOUTHERN 500
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY PLAYOFFS MEDIA DAY
SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

KURT BUSCH, NO.1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – ROTATION TRANSCRIPT:
“Yes, of course we want to win; but we want to advance through all the rounds to give ourselves a shot at the championship. So, consistency has been good for us this year. We just need to continue to do that and execute as a team to get through each of these rounds.”

COMING INTO THE PLAYOFFS, YOU AND (BROTHER) KYLE (BUSCH) HAVE BEEN SORT OF NECK-AND-NECK IN POINTS THIS WHOLE SEASON. HAVE YOU GUYS TALKED ABOUT THIS PLAYOFF RUN SORT OF BEING LIKE A RE-SET FOR YOU AND KYLE, TOO? HOW ARE YOU LOOKING AT THESE NEXT 10 RACES?
“I’m looking at it one race at a time. We put ourselves in this position to be Playoff-eligible and to have a shot at the championship. And so we know this is an opportunity to do something great. So, just one week at a time. I love Darlington. It’s one of my favorite race tracks, with Richmond and Bristol, two short tracks in this first round, we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves but if we execute as a team, we’ve got a great shot at all this. I know my little brother, though. He’s putting a little extra stress on himself because he wants to win a race and continue his streak of winning seasons. And so, he’s thrown a little extra pressure on himself that way. And so maybe that’ll be a distraction for him.”

THIS IS YOUR 14th TIME IN THE PLAYOFFS. YOU’VE BEEN THROUGH ALL THE DIFFERENT FORMATS WITH DIFFERENT TEAMS. WHAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE THING YOU’VE LEARNED THROUGH ALL THAT TIME THAT YOU FEEL WILL BENEFIT YOU THE MOST IN THIS PLAYOFF?
“I still think it comes down to consistency, and to know how to execute through each of the stages in the races, through each of the rounds. That consistency that we built on this year, with the Ganassi team, that’s our strength. And that’s what we have to use when we go through these different races and different rounds. And so, just staying calm and cool and collected around our consistency, is probably our biggest thing that I’ve taken through all these years.”

WITH BRISTOL BEING A CUTOFF RACE, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO THE FINISH OF THE RACE AT BRISTOL?
“It’s going to be big. It’s going to be exciting. It’s going to be a cool challenge to have that as a cutoff race. The biggest thing is that like Darlington and Richmond, anytime a yellow comes out, mostly likely you’re going to be pitting for tires. At Bristol you can stay out and change the sequence. And so that’s where the variable of that pit strategy call is going to be a huge difference-maker. So if we make it simple we just win at Darlington and that way we don’t have to stress that round.”

YOU KEEP MENTIONING CONSISTENCY. YOU’VE GOT FOUR TOP 5’S AND 14 TOP 10’S THIS YEAR. HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS WHERE THE NO. 1 TEAM IS GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS?
“I think we’re in a good spot, you know. We’re in that underdog-type position that also, with the tracks that are coming up with Darlington and Richmond and Bristol, those are all my favorites. And the team has run really well at those tracks. And so we just have to go execute as a team and not get too far ahead of ourselves and just execute. That’s really what we’ve got to do these first few races to get to the next round.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO EXPLAIN OVER THE NEXT 10 WEEKS? YOU’VE DONE THIS MANY TIMES. BUT WHAT IS THE EMOTIONAL ROLLER-COASTER AND TRYING TO REMAIN CALM AND COOL GOING TO BE LIKE?
“It’s a Playoff mindset. It’s a Playoff atmosphere. And you can’t get too far ahead of yourself. Each and every week it’s just that laser focus on what it takes to execute and to put ourselves in good position at Darlington. Once Darlington is over, then its laser focus on Richmond. And again, just that Playoff mindset and going and attacking it peacefully and strategically because 10 weeks is a long run, but you’ve got to stay on it.”

DO YOU GUYS FEEL LIKE YOU’RE MISSING IT MORE SO BECAUSE CHEVROLET IS AT A DISADVANTAGE RIGHT NOW OR DO YOU THINK IT’S GANASSI RACING?
“I feel like we’ve done a good job as a group at Chevrolet to work together on superspeedway racing as well as tire data and strategic pit sequences and strategies. I really think Chevy has done a good job in connecting everybody. Yes, the Fords seem to be a little bit more powerful at like the 1.5-miles with their horsepower that they have. The Toyotas, they seem like they are downforce is a bit more than what we have right now. But hey, it’s what we have. It’s right now and it’s 2020 and I’m looking at our strengths with consistency is what we have to go through. It’s what we have to take with us as we go through each of these rounds.”

YOU ARE ONE OF TWO DRIVERS IN THIS PLAYOFF BRACKET THAT RAN WITHOUT A PLAYOFF SYSTEM. THE OTHER IS KEVIN HARVICK. HOW MUCH HAVE THE PLAYOFFS MEANT TO YOU, AND HOW MUCH AS IT MEANT TO NASCAR AS A WHOLE AND HOW IT’S CHANGED THE SPORT OVER THE YEARS IN THIS, OUR 17th YEAR OF THE POST-SEASON?
“What I think it’s done is it gave it a strong comparison to other sports. There’s that Playoff atmosphere. There’s that championship race, where four guys are eligible to win the championship and it’s an even playing ground. When it was a long marathon process of going through all 36 races, that was a different sequence. That was maybe not as intense when it got down to the final rounds. And so, with these 10 weeks, the Playoff atmosphere is there, and it relates well to other sports. And that’s where it draws in more fans that might not have been NASCAR fans before.”

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DARLINGTON THAT WORKS SO WELL FOR YOU AND DOES THAT GIVE YOU AN ADVANTAGE GOING INTO THE WEEKEND?
“I really enjoy running at Darlington and the way you have to race the race track and somewhat ignore the other cars out there while you’re racing. It’s that old school mentality at this great race track. Stay patient and find the right set-up changes to adapt to the track’s changing conditions. And so, it’s one of those crown jewel races, too. The Southern 500 kicks-off our Playoffs. I love the atmosphere right now and so we’re going after it strong.”

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN AT DARLINGTON?
“It would mean the world to me. A track that I really enjoy running, I feel like I’m competitive every time I go there. But I haven’t won. So, it’s one of those challenges of you love it but you hate it, but at Darlington you have to respect the race track. And you have to do your job as a driver to communicate to the crew on what changes we need to adjust to. The pit crew has a large responsibility at Darlington just because of the abrasive surface and how much the tires wear out. So, it’s that whole team effort. But, for me, I definitely want this crown jewel race. I want to put this trophy up on the mantle right alongside my Daytona win and alongside a 600 win.”

THERE ARE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT WHO IS GOING TO BE IN THE NO. 42 CAR NEXT YEAR. HAVE YOU OFFERED YOUR INPUT AND WHAT YOU’D LIKE TO SEE AS A TEAMMATE IN THAT CAR NEXT YEAR?
“Yeah, I’ve given my input to Chip Ganassi and to our management. I think it’s important to find the right combination of a driver that can add to the program right away, but also will have years ahead of him or her, on what they can bring to the program. It’s all about that team work effort right now. It seems like every year that I come back to race, there’s more and more that you have to rely on through different departments. And so, a driver what comes into our program is going to have to be able to adapt to all those departments and sequences. And so we’ll see how things play out. I don’t know where Chip is right now, but I know we have about 10 weeks ahead of us with a Playoff run and that’s my focus on the No. 1 car.”

FOR THE 2021 SCHEDULE AND BEYOND, THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT MAYBE SHORTENING RACES AND BEING MORE SELECTIVE AS TO WHICH RACES ARE 500-MILE RACES. RIGHT NOW, THERE ARE 10 RACES ON THE SCHEDULE THAT ARE EITHER 500 MILES OR 500 LAPS. DO YOU THINK THAT 500-MILE MARK SHOULD BE RESERVED FOR SPECIAL RACES LIKE DARLINGTON AND DAYTONA AND THE COKE 600 AT CHARLOTTE? WHERE DO YOU THINK THE SPORT IS GOING AS FAR AS THAT IS CONCERNED?
“I think you’re headed down the right path. I mean if I had a magic wand and could wave it over our schedule and adjust race lengths, yes, I think that the Daytona 500 is 500 miles, right? The Coke 600, leave that one. Darlington, it should be a 500-miler. And then maybe one more and that’s it. Just maybe have four races on the schedule that would be of that length, and that makes those races that much more of a marque-type win. And then the other races can be 400 or 300’s.”

WITH THE POINTS BEING AS TIGHT AS THEY ARE, HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT DARLINGTON, RICHMOND, AND BRISTOL ARE THE FIRST THREE TRACKS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM AND YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL TO CONTINUE IN THE ROUNDS?
“Yeah, I feel like, at this point, it’s a reset. Everybody is basically even in points. Yes, there’s a top-five. I would say that (Kevin) Harvick and (Denny) Hamlin and (Joey) Logano and (Brad) Keselowski and Chase (Elliott) are a little bit further ahead. But if we have one good stage, we can jump up to eighth in points before the halfway break at Darlington. So, points are basically even right now. It’s a matter of just staying calm and cool and being patient and finding the right points through the different stages and through these first three races.”

AS YOUR BROTHER, KYLE, FAMOUSLY SAID, ‘IT’S 2020’. BUT COULD YOU HAVE IMAGINED A SCENARIO WHERE BOTH OF YOU WOULD BE WINLESS ENTERING THIS YEAR’S PLAYOFFS? HOW MUCH HAVE YOU TALKED AND/OR JOKED ABOUT WHO IS GOING TO GET THE FIRST WIN OF 2020 BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU?
“I never would have guessed. I felt like the way our season started, was strong and consistent; and then we had a shot to win the first race back, after our delay, at Darlington. And then, it just seemed like these opportunities here or there just like slipped through our fingers and we didn’t execute to get those wins. And so, my little brother, same thing. I feel like his luck has been challenged in many different ways and it just hasn’t unfolded for him to get those wins. But hey, we’re both championship eligible. We’re in the Playoffs and here’s the reset. So, here we go.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang — ARE YOU PLAYING WITH HOUSE MONEY RIGHT NOW? “The way I look at it is I was pumped that we made it in and wanted it bad for the whole team because we know that we could be a playoff contender, not just making it and being there. I would say the most stressful part was making it in the playoffs. Now I feel like we are the most put together as a team and most prepared and ready to go and execute to make some hay and pick some guys off and try to make it through and do a really good job. I would say it is less stressful now and more exciting that it is a clean slate where we are all grouped together in points and can show the strength of our team now.”

NOW THAT YOU HAVE MADE THE PLAYOFFS AND DONE WHAT YOU EXPECTED TO DO, DO YOU START BUGGING PENSKE TO GET NEXT YEAR DONE? “Yeah, it is funny, we have talked about that. I hadn’t even brought it up or talked about it because the focus was so much of just making the playoffs which I am so glad we did for the team. Obviously I love driving for the Wood Brothers and our alliance with Team Penske is incredible and a place I want to call home for many years to come. I am sure we will get to that. My contract has options built in for multiple years and they expressed that they wanted this to be a relationship for many years to come so I would expect to have those talks here pretty soon to hopefully do what I assume should be continuing to drive this 21 car.”

ASIDE FROM YOURSELF, WHO DO YOU THINK IS A DARKHORSE OR POSSIBLE SURPRISE THAT COULD MAKE A RUN IN THE PLAYOFFS? “I think there are a lot of tough contenders but if I was picking somebody — we were talking last night and I was watching some of the picks that NBC and FOX and everyone was making for the Championship 4 and I thought that my pick might be Chase Elliott. I think he could be a good contender that might make his way into that final four and have a shot to win a championship. There are a lot of good contenders, so it is tough to pick.”

YOU CAME EXTREMELY CLOSE TO WINNING BRISTOL LAST FALL AND NOW BRISTOL IS THE FINAL RACE IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS. HOW DO YOU VIEW BRISTOL GOING INTO THE PLAYOFF RACE? DO YOU THINK IT MAY BE YOUR BEST SHOT FOR A VICTORY IN THE FIRST ROUND? “Yeah, I love Bristol, everybody knows that. Our team is strong there. We haven’t gotten to show it. We had some unfortunate circumstances both times we raced there but we had fast cars. I would say that would be one that is circled as a great opportunity for us to get a win. I don’t put too much emphasis on winning because there are a lot of things that have to work out for you to win a race on top of being really good throughout the day. But that is one we definitely have circled off. Really this whole first round is great race tracks. Darlington is a lot of fun. Richmond could be a great track for us. I love short tracks and our cars seem to be really fast on them. There and Bristol as the cutoff race is pretty exciting.”

WHAT IS IT LIKE RACING FOR THE WOOD BROTHERS RIGHT NOW AND WHAT WAS IT LIKE PUNCHING THAT TICKET TO GET THAT TEAM INTO THE PLAYOFFS? “It made it extra special making the playoffs driving the 21 car and doing it for the Wood Brothers because they have so much passion for what they do and it was so special too because to give it a glimpse of what it is like driving for the Wood Brothers, during that week last week it was one of the most stressful weeks ever. My wife was crying and I got a phone call from Len Wood, Eddie Wood, Jon Wood, Nancy is texting me, the whole family. It is just so special driving for that family. They are so supportive and have your back. They just told me to do my job and that either way they were happy and had my back either way, that it wasn’t the end of the world if we don’t make it, but if we do they would be really excited but I should worry about it, just go do my thing and have fun. Things like that are so special. That is the kind of family that I am lucky enough to drive for wheeling this 21 car. That is one of the dynamics that makes it so special driving for the Wood Brothers. It is really heartwarming and it really makes a bigger impact than they think and even Nancy was texting my wife to help calm her down. Things that really make a big impact and are special to us.”

DO YOU VISUALIZE YOURSELF WINNING AS PART OF YOUR PREPARATION? “You know, I think the reason that I say I don’t put too much emphasis on winning is that my goal is absolutely that we want to win. That is a given. I know we can win, for sure and we will. That has been my goal my entire career. As far as execution, the reason I say it is that I feel like you can get too caught up in focusing your race on how to win. It isn’t always the best car that wins. My focus is on how to make the most of our race car and the most of that day and not get too caught up in guys pulling away or how to get to them but focusing on yourself, your car and your team. Make the most of it. Maximize your day. Hopefully that puts you in position to have a shot at winning at the end of the race. Everyone prepares differently mentally but that is how I prepare to go into a race and I have learned over time, and even this year, to make sure I stay focused on this because it makes us better as a team.”

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE RUNNING AT DARLINGTON? “I would say Darlington is a little unique in the sense that you have to focus on racing the track and not quite as much racing other people. You focus on minimizing your mistakes and racing the track and making good adjustments. It is a long race to keep up with and get your car handling well. You are focused on yourself and your team and not smacking the wall and things like that.”

WHAT DOES A SUCCESSFUL PLAYOFFS LOOK LIKE FOR YOU? “Clicking off a win would be great. That is a great goal. When I say that I don’t focus too much on winning that is more when I am on the track and in the car. From a goal standpoint we would absolutely love to get that 100th win for the Wood Brothers. That would be an amazing goal to accomplish. I would say that now that we are in the playoffs we are focusing on executing and making the most of what we have and make it through a round or a couple rounds. We are competing for a championship. This is the time to shine and hopefully make it down to the end. I would say if I come out of it knowing that we made the most of our race cars and executed well and continue to grow as a team, win a race, that would be an amazing end of the season. To really pick off a lot of positions and points, this is a great opportunity for us to capitalize on now that we are closed in points wise and are the most prepared as a team to go out there and pick off a lot of guys. That is the most exciting thing that I could check off the rest of the season and what we would call a success.”

HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO REFLECT ON HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME TO THIS POINT IN YOUR CAREER? “Yeah, that is what contributes to a lot of the emotion and appreciation that people see when I say things like my wife crying because we made the playoffs and all the accomplishments that goes back to. It is because of my past and my path to get here. I have gone so far and gotten so lucky. To fight and claw from start and parking a car to being in underfunded equipment and trying to show that I can make the most of a race car to fastforwarding to now and being in way beyond my dream opportunity of driving the 21 car and making the playoffs driving for the Wood Brothers. It is pretty surreal to have that opportunity to drive. All those things make me and my whole entire family appreciate it on a completely different level that we wouldn’t be able to without those experiences.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT THIS WEEK HAS BEEN LIKE AS A VETERAN DRIVER IN THE PLAYOFFS FOR THE FIRST TIME? “I would say that this week has been a release. It was so stressful and kept getting more stressful leading up to Daytona and the points closed in and we lost the gap that we had and all that. I would call this week exciting and we got to celebrate with some friends out on the lake Sunday and have a good time but come Monday it was time to shift focus and we still have a lot of racing left and a lot to accomplish. It was a relief and exciting moving forward now instead of stressful. Exciting knowing that we have an opportunity to really put a good end to our season and cap it off and have a lot more success. I am pretty pumped up about that and I am appreciative to be doing it for the Wood Brothers.”

YOU HAD A GREAT START TO THE YEAR BUT HAVE BEEN ON A BIT OF A SLIDE THROUGH THE SUMMER, WHAT CAN YOU AND THE 21 TEAM DO TO CORRECT THOSE INCONSISTENCIES? “Yeah, that is a good question because I feel like we started the year – to summarize our season, we started the year and we had fast cars but we didn’t execute well. We had a lot to work on. We were a new group working together so we didn’t maximize our races and that is frustrating if you don’t maximize what you have to make the best of your day. We got to work communicating and figuring out what we needed to do. During 2020 it is crazy times, but we really worked on communicating. In the mid stretch we got to the point we were running up front weekly and we got stage points like eight stages in a row and we were running top-five and top-10 and right up front. That was great. Then we got into a bit of a slump where not all of them were execution. We went to Texas and we were running fourth and got wiped out by a lap car. That hurt us really bad points wise. At Kansas we got our car really good and thought we could run top-five or top-10 at worst but got wiped out on the restart. Bristol we got wiped out from a crash. Then we went to Dover and just flat out struggled. Some of the circumstances were just not really great luck. Some of the things we can improve on as a team. Now, we are in the playoffs thank goodness and have a lot of race tracks that are big strengths for us and we are prepared as a team to go out and execute.”

HOW DO YOU ANTICIPATE THINGS WILL ELEVATE ON THE TRACK IN THE PLAYOFFS? AS A PLAYOFF ROOKIE, WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE IT MIGHT BE LIKE AND HOW WILL YOU HAVE TO REACT OR CHANGE? “I think there is just a little bit more desperation in the playoffs because there is so much on the line and every race matters so much. You just don’t have margin for error. During the regular season you have a little more margin for error and it is a long season and you are trying to rack up stage points and things like that. Now, there is just really no margin for error. As far as how I would approach it in the playoffs. I have been doing this awhile, my sixth year full time, but as a playoff rookie. From the experiences I have had I have learned to only focus on what is in my control and to drive the race car and approach the race just like I would any other race which is to make the most of what we have for that day. I really don’t change my approach personally. That takes discipline to do with so much on the line. I am lucky that as I have gotten older, I am 29 now and been doing this awhile, that I feel more disciplined and mentally mature and ready than ever on those things that really affect my execution of my race with my team.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
COOK OUT SOUTHERN 500
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY PLAYOFFS MEDIA DAY
SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY THROWBACK CAMARO ZL1 1LE – ROTATION TRANSCRIPT:

OTHER THAN YOURSELF, WHO DO YOU THINK IS A DARK HORSE TEAM OR A SUPRRISE TO MAKE A RUN THAT PEOPLE SHOULD WATCH IN THE PLAYOFFS?
“That’s a good question. I think honestly, I’d say Aric Almirola. I just think they’re consistent, they’ve been consistently fast at a lot of these tracks. The only thing with that is I feel like a lot of the tracks are going to be much different in the Playoffs than the ones we ran in the summertime. Typically, summertime is a lot of 2-mile tracks and big, fast, open racetracks, and that’s not really the case in the playoffs. But I’d say they perform pretty well throughout.”

CONGRATS ON LAST WEEKEND – I KNOW THAT WAS BIG FOR YOU. YOU JUST DEALT WITH A STRESSFUL, PRESSURE-PACKED SITUATION IN TRYING TO ADVANCE INTO THE PLAYOFFS. TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE MINDSET NOW FOR YOUR TEAM GOING FORWARD. YOU’VE GOT THESE NEXT THREE WEEKS. OBVIOUSLY, YOU’D LOVE TO GET ANOTHER CHECKERED FLAG, BUT TAKE ME THROUGH THE MINDSET RIGHT NOW THAT YOU GUYS ARE GOING THROUGH.
“Honestly, for us, I think that now having that first win of the season and first win for me and this team, I feel like we’re more focused on just executing the details of each race. Obviously, our goal going into this year was to make it further than we did last year in the playoffs, which was the Round of 12 last year. So, if we can make it to the Round of 8 this year, it would be a success, for sure. We just have to take it one race at a time. A lot of these tracks are good for us. I think the first round is probably the weakest of the tracks for us, so we just have to try to focus on that, try to just compete in every race and hopefully get out of this first round with a great race at Darlington. Richmond is definitely our toughest of the three, so we’re going to have to really work hard at that race to have a good run.”

CONGRATS ON THE WIN AND THE NEW CONTRACT. HOW DID ALL OF THAT COME INTO PLAY AND WERE YOU ALREADY NEGOTIATING PRIOR TO THE WIN?
“Honestly for us, we were already kind of negotiating that. I had one year left after this one, so it wasn’t super urgent to get it done or anything. But when Hendrick came to me and wanted to sign for a couple more years, I was thrilled and I think it’s worked out well for both of us. The fact that they have confidence in me is a great thing and I can just go out there and race as hard as I can and try to do the best that I can for them. They’ve made that known that they just want to focus on the race track and I’m going to try to do that throughout the playoffs, for sure.”

AS YOU LOOK AHEAD AT THIS FIRST ROUND, BRISTOL BEING THE CUTOFF RACE – DAYTONA WAS AN UNPREDICTABLE RACE, IT’S A SUPERSPEEDWAY. IS BRISTOL GOING TO BE THE SAME TYPE OF WILD CARD, WHERE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN AND A SURPRISE COULD POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE AS WELL?
“I think the surprise will just be some of the guys that maybe have issues with their cars or get caught up in a wreck. But I think you’re going to have to run well and perform well to win that race. There’s really not a fluke, per say. For us, we’re just going to focus on running well at Bristol. It’s a track where things happen really fast. You can’t have mistakes on pit road and you can’t have mistakes on the track. So, that’s our focus – to just have a mistake-free race there. We had a fast car there in the first race of the year back in June. The All-Star race was OK for us – I think we finished somewhere in the top-10. We just have to try to improve and see what we can do.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS HAVING THAT STABILITY THROUGH 2022, ESPECIALLY WHENEVER A COMPANY CHANGES LEADERSHIP, THERE’S ALWAYS QUESTIONS ABOUT STABILITY OF THE SPONSORSHIPS. TO KNOW THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE THERE FOR A COUPLE MORE YEARS, HOW MUCH DOES THAT IMPACT YOU?
“Well, it’s huge. I think for me, the confidence comes from knowing that Mr. Hendrick and Jeff (Gordon) have confidence in me no matter what sponsor or whoever is on my car. They’ve made that known since I’ve been there, is that my deal is separate from anything like that and I can go out there and compete hard, drive their car and they’re going to make sure that I can be on the race track each and every week. So, I think that’s where my confidence comes from – just knowing that I’m going to be in that car. Definitely with this deal, I can focus on the playoffs and focus on trying to win more races.”

YOU’RE IN A GREAT STARTING SPOT FOR THE UPCOMING RACE AT DARLINGTON. YOU’RE LINED UP RIGHT NEXT TO ALEX (BOWMAN). IS THERE ANY TALK ABOUT YOU GUYS MAYBE KIND OF GETTING A STRATEGY TOGETHER TO RACE TO THE FRONT OF THE PACK OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?
“I mean not really, just because Darlington is not like a speedway race or somewhere where you can really work together. But I think that for us all starting up towards the front, the three of us, I think that’s going to be great. It’s going to be an advantage to have three cars up there competing for stage wins and things of that nature. I think it’s all going to elevate our game and just gives us that advantage. Starting up front is just huge at any race track. Darlington is luckily a long race, so even if you start towards the back, you’ve got plenty of time to get towards the front. It’s going to help having a great pit stall selection – that’s what really comes to mind for me is having that great pit stall.”

YOU’RE ONLY THE SECOND DRIVER TO WIN BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE NO. 24 CAR – THE OTHER OF COURSE BEING JEFF GORDON. YOUR WIN LAST SATURDAY, YOU ACCOMPLISHED YOUR FIRST VICTORY AT A YOUNGER AGE THAN JEFF GORDON. I JUST WONDERED, WHAT WERE YOUR EMOTIONS FOLLOWING THE RACE TAKING THAT CHECKERED FLAG AND DID JEFF GORDON REACH OUT TO YOU AFTERWARDS?
“Definitely. It was cool to talk to Jeff (Gordon) on Sunday, just get his thoughts on it and just the excitement there between the two of us. We’ve really worked well together in the past of just trying to understand how to get better and improve. He’s given me some nuggets and some things that I can improve on. It’s been great to talk to him about the team aspect and things that we can do to just continue to elevate our performance. It’s just been a great couple of days. I was super excited when we finished that race like we did – it was really fun.”

YOU AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHAD KNAUS A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO WAS BROADCASTED OVER THE AIR WAVES – YOU KIND OF HAD A STRUGGLE THERE. BUT SINCE THEN, YOU GUYS HAVE REBOUNDED. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT GOING TO BE GOING INTO THE FIRST ROUND, WHERE YOU SAY YOU’VE STRUGGLED AT THE THREE RACE TRACKS COMING UP? HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH JIMMIE (JOHNSON) AND WINNING THE SEVEN CHAMPIONSHIPS, HOW DOES THAT HELP YOU GOING INTO THIS FIRST ROUND?
“I think it helps a lot. I mean obviously, a couple weeks ago, we were struggling there at Dover. But we really turned it around. Since that second race, we’ve really been on it. I think honestly for us, we’ve gotten past those hurdles and we’ve been able to handle the pressure really well. So, just knowing that the two of us together can handle the pressure, go out there and do what we need to do – I have confidence in him and we know that we have the same goals. We both want to win and we’ll do whatever it takes to do that.”

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DARLINGTON THAT MAKES IT A CHALLENGING TRACK?
“Gosh, everything. I think just the fact that it’s two lanes wide. The fact that you have to run against the wall to make speed. These cars are super sensitive to hitting the wall to begin with – you can’t even really touch the wall nowadays and get away with it. So, you have to factor all that stuff in when you go to race at Darlington. It’s a tough track. Restarts are tough there because there’s definitely a dominant lane on the outside. Having the choose cone in effect is going to make that a challenge, as well. You can kind of name everything – the playoffs, it’s not going to be easy.”

THIS IS YOUR SECOND-CONSECUTIVE YEAR IN THE PLAYOFFS. YOU’RE A YEAR OLDER, YOU’VE GOT A WIN UNDER YOUR BELT. HOW DOES YOUR APPROACH TO THE 2020 PLAYOFFS DIFFER FROM YEARS PAST?
“I think honestly for me, just having that comfort in knowing what the playoffs are like. The first race last year in the playoffs was kind of action-packed and intense for me. I learned a lot through that and you have to handle adversity well. I feel like we’ve been through a lot of adversity this year. We’ve had a lot of tire issues, we’ve had some issues with just random things that have happened. So, now we’ve been through that stuff so we can go into the playoffs and know that we are able to handle that adversity well.”

YOU MENTIONED RICHMOND AS BEING A CHALLENGING TRACK. ONE THING THAT’S INTERESTING ABOUT THIS YEAR IS THAT THE SPRING RICHMOND RACE WASN’T HELD, SO THIS WILL BE THE FIRST TIME AT RICHMOND THIS YEAR. OBVIOUSLY, THERE ARE SOME OTHER TRACKS THAT CAN MAYBE CORRELATE. WHAT WILL THE CHALLENGE BE, ESPECIALLY WITH IT BEING A PLAYOFF RACE, FIRST TIME THIS SEASON FOR YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE?
“That’s a good point – we haven’t raced there this year. It’s not one of my favorite tracks, but I think that for us, we’ll lean on our notes and information from New Hampshire. I think we had a good run there. We also finished OK at Phoenix, as well. I think we finished 11th at New Hampshire and 10th at Phoenix. So, right around the top-10, which is kind of our goal going into Richmond. I think if we can finish in the top-10, it’ll give us an opportunity to try and win at a couple other tracks. I think it’s one of those tracks where you kind of lower your expectations a little bit for us and try to just get out of there with a solid finish. One that we can kind of gather the points we need to going into the next couple.”

WE TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT CHAD KNAUS – WE SAW THE TURNAROUND AT DOVER AND WHAT LED TO AT DAYTONA. CHAD’S BEEN VERY VOCAL IN SAYING THAT HE WANTED TO WIN WITH THE NO. 24 CAR. HAVE YOU GUYS TALKED AT ALL OR CAN YOU GIVE US ANY INSIGHT ON WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS, IF YOU AND CHAD HAVE TALKED ABOUT NEXT YEAR OR WHAT HE’S DOING?
“I don’t really handle all those talks and stuff with what’s going on there. But I love working with Chad (Knaus, crew chief). I think he’s been great for my career. He’s elevated me from where I was in my rookie year – where this team was in my rookie year, which was not something we were proud of – and elevated us into a playoff-contending team. A lot of that is thanks to him. It’s not just be as a driver – it’s our engineers, it’s our team, pit crew, mechanics, it’s everybody that he’s elevated their game for us to get into the playoffs two years in a row. I think it’s been a great thing for me and I look forward to what’s ahead in these next ten races with him.”

I KNOW JIMMIE JOHNSON HAS MEANT A LOT TO YOU EVER SINCE YOU JOINED THE HENDRICK SQUAD BACK IN 2017 I THINK IT WAS. THIS WEEKEND, WHAT’S IT GOING TO MEAN TO HONOR HIM THROWBACK STYLE IN HIS 2013 ALL-STAR SCHEME FOR THE 24?
“It’s going to be really cool. Honestly for me, I’m excited about running that scheme and I feel like looking at his car on the race track, as well, is going to be really cool. I’m excited to see all those throwback schemes, particularly Jimmie’s and just look forward to seeing what that’s like. I think Darlington has a great tradition going there.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

DARLINGTON RACEWAY (1.366-MILE OVAL)
LOCATION: DARLINGTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
EVENT: NASCAR CUP SERIES (RACE 27 OF 36)
TUNE IN: 6 P.M. ET, SUNDAY, SEPT. 6 (NBCSN/MRN/SIRIUSXM)

Chase Elliott
No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Camaro ZL1 1LE
Driver Chase Elliott Hometown Dawsonville, Georgia
Age 24 Resides Dawsonville, Georgia

2020 Season
5th in standings
26 starts
2 wins
1 pole position
10 top-five finishes
15 top-10 finishes
530 laps led

Career
175 starts
8 wins
9 pole positions
54 top-five finishes
89 top-10 finishes
2,374 laps led

Track Career
7 starts
0 wins
3 pole positions
2 top-five finishes
3 top-10 finishes
37 laps led

Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, will be available to members of the media via video conference on Thursday, Sept. 3, as part of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Media Day. Visit NASCARmedia.com for details.

LET THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN: The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs kick off this weekend at historic Darlington Raceway. For the fifth consecutive year, Chase Elliott is officially part of the playoff contenders. In 2016, he became the youngest driver to make his first playoff start at 20 years, 9 months, 21 days, and last season he advanced all the way to the Round of 8 for the third consecutive year. Elliott’s average finish in the playoffs (13.0) is the second highest of the 2020 field of drivers, behind only Kevin Harvick. In his 40 playoff starts, he has garnered three wins (Dover 2018, Kansas 2018 and Charlotte 2019), 15 top-five finishes, 22 top-10s and 746 laps led.

THROUGH 26: As the regular season came to a close, Elliott continued to stack up career bests in runner-up results (three), top-five finishes (10), top-10s (15) stage points (200) and stage wins (six). Through 26 races, his two wins are tied for a personal best and his 530 laps led are his second most.

NAPA THROWBACK: NAPA AUTO PARTS will serve as the primary sponsor for Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington. In February, it was announced that NAPA AUTO PARTS and Hendrick Motorsports will continue their partnership for another two seasons. NAPA will remain a primary sponsor of Elliott and the No. 9 team through 2022. Click here to read the full release.

FOR 7X: In August, it was revealed that Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman would pay homage to seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson with special paint schemes at Darlington Raceway. Elliott’s No. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE is a throwback to Johnson’s championship-winning 2009 season. Check out the scheme here.

UNDER THE LIGHTS: Elliott continued his night race success on Saturday, collecting a second-place finish at the NASCAR Cup Series regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. The Dawsonville, Georgia, native has one win (Charlotte), three runner-up finishes and five top-fives in the last six points-paying night races. Elliott also collected a victory under the lights in the 2020 NASCAR All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway in July.

LOOKING BACK: Elliott and the NAPA AUTO PARTS team overcame a mid-race speeding penalty to finish fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series return at Darlington Raceway on May 17. It marked a career-best finish for the driver at the track dubbed “Too Tough to Tame.” In the May 20 race at the track, Elliott led 28 laps and was in position to win during the closing laps but was spun late by Kyle Busch and relegated to a 38th-place finish.

‘TOO TOUGH TO TAME’ STATS: Elliott is set to make his eighth NASCAR Cup Series start at Darlington Raceway this weekend. In his previous races at the 1.366-mile track, he has two top-five finishes and three top-10s. Elliott also has three NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at the South Carolina venue, where he won in his 2014 track debut. He is one of only four drivers to win at Darlington in their first race there.

GUSTAFSON AT DARLINGTON: No. 9 team crew chief Alan Gustafson has called 17 Cup Series races at Darlington. Leading five different drivers, he’s collected one win, four top-five results and seven top-10s. Gustafson’s Darlington win came in 2009 with veteran Mark Martin, the second-oldest driver (50 years, 4 months) to win at the track “Too Tough To Tame.”

GUSTAFSON’S PLAYOFF RECORD: Gustafson has the second-most playoff appearances by a crew chief (13), behind only fellow Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus (17). The 45-year-old race caller is also tied for the second-most wins in playoff races with nine.

PIT POWER: As the NASCAR Cup Series kicks off its 2020 playoffs, the No. 9 team owns the third-best average time for four-tire pit stops at 13.96 seconds through 26 races. The team is comprised of jackman T.J. Semke, gasman John Gianninoto, tire carrier Jared Erspamer and tire changers Chad Avrit and Nick O’Dell.

​
​ ​ ​
​

William Byron
No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE
Driver William Byron Hometown Charlotte, North Carolina
Age 22 Resides Charlotte, North Carolina

2020 Season
9th in standings
26 starts
1 win
0 pole positions
2 top-five finishes
9 top-10 finishes
97 laps led

Career
98 starts
1 win
5 pole positions
7 top-five finishes
26 top-10 finishes
391 laps led

Track Career
4 starts
0 wins
1 pole position
0 top-five finishes
0 top-10 finishes
3 laps led

HERE TO STAY: Coming off his first NASCAR Cup win and heading into his second series playoff appearance, William Byron confirmed Tuesday that he will continue to bring home the hardware behind the wheel of the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for the 2021 and 2022 seasons. While his contract extension was signed in early August prior to Saturday’s win, Byron’s success in the national ranks of NASCAR speaks for itself. Signing with Hendrick Motorsports in August 2016, he climbed the ladder to the Xfinity Series in 2017, winning the circuit championship before making his way to the Cup level in 2018. With a combined 12 NASCAR national series race wins, Byron is the fifth-youngest driver to score a victory in all three major touring levels and is one of only two drivers to be crowned rookie of the year in three consecutive seasons.

WINNER WINNER: With Saturday night’s event at Daytona International Speedway signaling the final race of the 2020 regular season, Byron rolled off from the sixth position in the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE but quickly took the lead early on. The Charlotte, North Carolina, native continued to show speed throughout the night and narrowly avoided multiple incidents to position himself on the front row for the final restart heading into overtime. Jumping out to the lead just before taking the white flag, Byron got help from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, who gave him the push he needed to maintain the lead and capture the checkered flag for his first career Cup Series win.

THE NUMBER IS 24: The “24” car number, made famous by four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, has an extensive history in NASCAR. Byron can now add his name to the legacy. En route to his Daytona win, Byron led 24 laps, including the final two in overtime, before capturing the checkered flag – the first time the No. 24 has been to victory lane with someone other than Gordon behind the wheel. Gordon’s first Cup Series win came at the age of 22 years, 9 months and 25 days, while Byron’s first victory came at 22 years, 9 months and 1 day – a difference of exactly 24 days. In fact, Saturday marked the first summer Cup race at Daytona not held on the Fourth of July weekend since 1998 when the event was held in October. The winner was Gordon in the No. 24.

LOCKED IT UP: Not only did his Daytona win signal the first of his Cup career but it also solidified Byron’s position in the 2020 NASCAR playoffs. Making his second appearance during his three-year Cup Series career, Byron is now seeded ninth, three points above the cutline heading into the first of three races in the Round of 16.

NIGHT VISION: While racing under the lights seems to bring a different level of intensity, it also brings success for Byron. In the last four races run at night, including Saturday’s Daytona win, the Charlotte, North Carolina, native has finished in the top 10 – a streak he plans to continue Sunday at Darlington.

DARLINGTON DEETS: With four previous Cup Series starts at Darlington, Byron is looking to capitalize on his strong showings at the track this Sunday and is hoping to find a little luck along the way. Despite running well early in races, Byron only has a track-best finish of 12th, which came earlier this year in the second race of the Darlington doubleheader. Last year in a “Days of Thunder” throwback paint scheme, Byron channeled his inner Cole Trickle and captured the pole for the prestigious Southern 500, becoming the youngest-ever pole sitter at Darlington Raceway at 21 years, 9 months and 2 days.

PLAYOFF MASTER: When the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team solidified its spot in the battle for the championship Saturday night, veteran crew chief Chad Knaus made history of his own. This year’s post-season berth continued his streak of 17 consecutive playoff appearances. Not only does that stat rank first among all crew chiefs – with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alan Gustafson second with 13 appearances – but Knaus has yet to miss the playoffs since the format’s inception in 2004. Through his 17 trips, Knaus has gone on to win an incredible 29 races and seven championships, which are both records in the playoff format.

KNAUS DIGS DARLINGTON: Making his 25th start at Darlington Raceway atop the pit box, Knaus is optimistic that his previous success at the 1.366-mile oval will continue Sunday. With three crown jewel wins at “The Lady in Black,” all with Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team, Knaus also has one pole award at Darlington, which came last year with Byron and the No. 24 team for the Southern 500.

LIBERTY HONORS JOHNSON: On board for his win at Daytona, Liberty University will remain on Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Sunday’s race at Darlington – but with a different look. Embodying this year’s theme of “past champions” for the Southern 500, Liberty University is honoring seven-time champion Johnson by running his 2013 NASCAR All-Star Race paint scheme. Featuring a red, white and blue design with stars and stripes, the throwback scheme represents Johnson’s fourth and final All-Star Race win – the most of any driver – at Byron’s hometown track of Charlotte Motor Speedway. To see Byron’s No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Sunday’s race, click here.

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE OF MIND: While the fueler on the No. 24 team hails from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Landon Walker has significant ties to the southernmost Carolina state. The former college football player earned a scholarship to Clemson University in 2007 after being named an All-American offensive lineman in his hometown at East Wilkes High School. While playing at Clemson, Walker recorded 3,131 snaps with 49 starts at tackle through four seasons. In 2011, he was named team captain, the same year Clemson went on to win the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. The college football standout was then recruited by Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 and earned a position as a starting fueler for crew chief Gustafson in 2015.

​
​ ​ ​
​

Jimmie Johnson
No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE
Driver Jimmie Johnson Hometown El Cajon, California
Age 44 Resides Charlotte, North Carolina

2020 Season
17th in standings
25 starts
0 wins
0 pole positions
4 top-five finishes
9 top-10 finishes
102 laps led

Career
676 starts
83 wins
36 pole positions
231 top-five finishes
373 top-10 finishes
18,936 laps led

Track Career
23 starts
3 wins
0 pole positions
9 top-five finishes
13 top-10 finishes
563 laps led

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: After teammate William Byron won Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway to clinch a NASCAR Cup Series playoff berth, Jimmie Johnson was one of the first to congratulate him in victory lane. Johnson ran strong all race until a late incident collected his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE and ended his chances to earn a playoff spot, which he missed by just six points. Two regular season misfortunes proved especially costly to Johnson’s post-season hopes. The team was disqualified after a second-place finish at Charlotte, wiping out 46 points. Then Johnson was forced to watch from the sidelines for the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis due to a positive COVID-19 test, collecting no points for the event. If Johnson had retained the Charlotte points and earned 26 more at Indianapolis (his season average), he would have clinched a playoff position following the Dover doubleheader in August. Additional points were lost when Johnson had an accident while leading Darlington in May at the end of Stage 1. Those 10 points would have been enough to advance him into the playoffs

THROWBACK FOR THE AGES: Johnson and primary sponsor Ally recently announced their championship-caliber throwback scheme on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s popular “Dale Jr. Download” podcast. The hood, roof and decklid of Johnson’s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE are a tribute to Richard Petty’s iconic “Petty Blue” No. 43 car, while the design on the sides pays homage to Dale Earnhardt’s infamous black No. 3. Johnson also will carry a “7x7x7x” badge on the car that represents the three-way tie of the only drivers in history – Petty, Earnhardt and Johnson – with seven NASCAR Cup Series championships. Click here for more.

PETTY AND CHILDRESS RESPOND: In addition to Johnson unveiling the throwback No. 48 Ally Chevy for Sunday’s Darlington race on the “Dale Jr. Download,” the podcast featured No. 3 car owner Richard Childress and seven-time Cup champion Petty reacting to the tribute. Click here to listen to the podcast titled “Jimmie Johnson: 7×3 Perfection” in its entirety.

INTIMIDATING COMPARISON: While there will never be another driver like “The Intimidator,” a statistical look at Earnhardt and Johnson makes for an interesting comparison. Earnhardt made 676 career NASCAR Cup Series starts, which is where Johnson currently stands following Saturday’s race at Daytona. Johnson has recorded seven more wins and 14 more pole positions than the driver of the No. 3. But in the same number of races, Earnhardt recorded 55 more top-10 finishes, 50 more top-fives and more than 6,700 more laps led than Johnson.

200TH WIN: Fitting for a throwback weekend, Johnson won the milestone 200th win for Hendrick Motorsports at Darlington Raceway more than eight years ago. Starting the May 12, 2012, event on the outside pole, Johnson led 134 of 368 laps, including the final 44, en route to the victory.

ALL HAIL: Johnson revealed his Darlington throwback paint scheme honoring Earnhardt and Petty, and then the rest of the Hendrick Motorsports stable revealed their schemes. The Chevrolet Camaros of Chase Elliott, Byron and Alex Bowman all will pay tribute to their teammate and seven-time champion for his final time racing at Darlington in the NASCAR Cup Series. All four cars can be seen here.

NOT DONE YET: Of Johnson’s 83 wins, 41% have come in the months of September, October and November. He has accumulated 34 victories during those months over the course of his 19 seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series. Presently, there are still big milestones on the horizon. The next time he crosses the finish line first he will have scored his 84th points-paying Cup Series win to tie Hall of Famers Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison for fourth all-time. Johnson has the most wins of all active drivers.

​
​ ​ ​
​

Alex Bowman
No. 88 ChevyGoods/Truck Hero Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE ​
Driver Alex Bowman Hometown Tucson, Arizona
Age 27 Resides Concord, North Carolina

2020 Season
8th in standings
26 starts
1 win
0 pole positions
3 top-five finishes
8 top-10 finishes
388 laps led

Career
179 starts
2 wins
2 pole positions
13 top-five finishes
34 top-10 finishes
862 laps led

Track Career
6 starts
0 wins
0 pole positions
1 top-five finish
1 top-10 finish
41 laps led

Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 88 ChevyGoods.com/Truck Hero Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, will be available to members of the media via video conference on Thursday, Sept. 3, as part of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Media Day. Visit NASCARmedia.com for details.

WELCOME, TRUCK HERO: This weekend marks the first event of the 2020 season in which the Truck Hero brand will adorn the No. 88 ChevyGoods.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Truck Hero offers customers a full range of branded automotive accessories for vehicles with market-leading functionality, engineering, quality and design. Hendrick Motorsports announced its partnership with ChevyGoods.com earlier this season, which includes branding on Alex Bowman’s Camaro for 26 events. Associate brands featured are Adam’s Polishes, NOCO and Truck Hero.

HONORING A SEVEN-TIME CHAMP: On Sunday night, the No. 88 Chevy will honor teammate Jimmie Johnson during the throwback event at Darlington Raceway. Bowman will pilot a special Truck Hero Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE paying homage to Johnson’s 2006 NASCAR Cup Series championship. Not only is the scheme honoring the seven-time champ’s first title, it represents crew chief Greg Ives’ first championship with the No. 48 team. The 2006 season marked the first of five titles Ives earned as an engineer on Johnson’s team.

IT’S PLAYOFF TIME: Bowman is set to make his third appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs beginning this weekend at Darlington Raceway. The No. 88 team clinched a spot in the 2020 playoffs following its March win at Auto Club Speedway. The 27-year-old driver raced his way into the Round of 12 the last two years, and this is the second season where he clinched a spot based on a victory. The team is currently sitting eighth in the playoff standings, just 48 markers behind the leader. This also marks Ives’ fourth Cup Series playoff appearance. He has three with Bowman and one with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

DARLINGTON STATS: Bowman, a Tucson, Arizona, native, has six previous starts in the NASCAR Cup Series at Darlington Raceway. His best finish of second came in May in the first race back after a two-month break due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bowman led for 41 laps after rolling off second, earning the second-most points in the event.

UNDER THE LIGHTS: Bowman has finished inside the top 10 in three of the last four night races this season. He finished sixth at Martinsville Speedway on June 10, eighth at Kansas Speedway on July 23 and most recently seventh at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday.

ALL ABOUT STAGE POINTS: The No. 88 team has four stage wins this season, which is tied for third overall in the NASCAR Cup Series. Bowman has captured 167 stage points in 2020, the eighth-most of all drivers. The sixth-year driver earned 27 stage points in the two Darlington events earlier this season, the second-most stage points earned in those two races. He is also running much better than his finishing positions show with an average running position of 12.85 and an average finish of 17.0 – a difference of 4.15.

IVES IS ‘TOO TOUGH’: For the eighth time in his career in the NASCAR Cup Series, Ives will call the shots at Darlington for the No. 88 team. The Bark River, Michigan, native’s best finish at the venue came in May after Bowman crossed the line in second after leading 41 laps. Ives’ drivers have completed 99.7% of the total laps and have one top-five finish and two top-10s at the facility. He was also the crew chief for Chase Elliott in the NASCAR Xfinity Series when the team captured the victory after leading 52 laps back in 2014. From 2006-2012, Ives was a race engineer for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team. During that time, he was a part of one Cup Series win (2012) and four top-five finishes at Darlington.

NEW MONTH, NEW DEALS: During the month of September, No. 88 team sponsor ChevyGoods.com is providing discounts on various accessories on its website. Customers can receive 10% below MSRP on all Adam’s Polishes, NOCO and Truck Hero accessories purchased online. Use code CHEVYGOODS to receive the discount at ChevyGoods.com.

PIT ROAD KNACK: The No. 88 pit crew ranks seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series with an average four-tire stop time of 14.13 seconds after 26 events this season. The team includes fueler Jacob Conley, tire carrier Rowdy Harrell, jackman Dustin Lineback and tire changers Scott Brzozowski and Devin DelRicco.

​
​ ​ ​
​

Hendrick Motorsports

MILESTONE WIN: William Byron’s clutch performance Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway was the 260th points-paying NASCAR Cup Series victory for Hendrick Motorsports, putting the team just eight wins from tying Petty Enterprises’ all-time record of 268. At Daytona, Byron also led the 70,000th Cup Series lap for car owner Rick Hendrick, extending Hendrick Motorsports’ record in the category.

WINNERS’ CIRCLE: With 22-year-old Byron added to the list, Hendrick Motorsports has now won points-paying NASCAR Cup Series races with 19 different drivers, including 11 who notched their first career victory with the team. Byron’s Daytona accomplishment made Hendrick Motorsports the first organization in NASCAR history to win with three different drivers under the age of 27 in a single season. Alex Bowman, then 26, won Auto Club Speedway in March, and Chase Elliott, 24, won at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May and the DAYTONA Road Course in August. Including 2020, Hendrick Motorsports has gone to victory lane with three or more drivers in 12 different seasons, the most ever.

POST-SZN STATS: Since the inception of the system, Hendrick Motorsports has won 44 races in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, which represent 28% of all playoff events and is 16 more victories than second-place Joe Gibbs Racing (28). Hendrick Motorsports has won at least one playoff race in a record 15 different seasons. The 2020 campaign is the 15th consecutive year the team has placed at least two drivers in the playoffs and the 13th different season with at least three.

PLAYOFF MO’: Hendrick Motorsports has built strong momentum going into the first race of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs at Darlington Raceway. In the four events leading up to the playoffs, the team won twice and notched eight top-five finishes, including one runner-up result. It has scored 11 top-10s and recorded an average finish of 10.25 – statistics that lead all Cup Series organizations in the last four races.

DARLINGTON DARLINGS: At Darlington Raceway, Hendrick Motorsports holds the track records for NASCAR Cup Series wins (14), top-five finishes (47), top-10s (78) and laps led (3,268). The team’s 14 victories there have come with six different drivers: Jeff Gordon (seven), Jimmie Johnson (three), Terry Labonte, Mark Martin, Tim Richmond and Ricky Rudd. Johnson led 124 laps and went to victory lane the only time a playoff race has been held at Darlington (November 2004).

STATS RUNDOWN: Since its inception in 1984, Hendrick Motorsports has earned 260 race victories and holds the all-time records for championships (12), pole positions (226), top-five finishes (1,090), top-10s (1,880) and laps led (70,006) in points-paying NASCAR Cup Series competition. Including 2020, the organization has won at least one race in 35 consecutive seasons, the longest-ever streak. Hendrick Motorsports is eight wins away from tying Petty Enterprises’ all-time Cup record of 268.

​
​ ​ ​
​

QUOTABLE /
Driver Chase Elliott on heading back to the playoffs:
“I am looking forward to the playoffs. I think these last 10 races are going to be super interesting and I look forward to the challenges myself and the NAPA team have ahead of us. It’s going to be a tough 10 for sure. We will have to bring our best to compete and I think we can do that. We just have to be consistent and be up front every week.”

Elliott on the throwback schemes for Darlington:
“I’m really excited about Darlington this year. It’s a really cool deal that we can honor Jimmie (Johnson) this weekend. He has had such an unreal career and been successful for so long. I am proud to call Jimmie a friend. He really is a hero of mine and had a tremendous impact on me. I am really looking forward to getting to the track and showing off our NAPA throwback to his 2009 championship season.”

Driver William Byron winning the final race before the playoffs:
“Fortunately, we have pretty long weeks now with no practice or qualifying. We get two extra days, essentially. So we have had a couple days to take everything in and enjoy the win before turning on to Darlington. Darlington is a track that we’ve traditionally run well at and had a decent car in the spring this year. We’ll make some changes off of our previous setup and I think we’ll be in a good place.”

Byron on his feelings of getting his first Cup win:
“It was honestly just a big relief. I’ve been driving the No. 24 car for the last couple years and it was a relief to win that race in that car. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with that and the legacy of the car. These last couple years I’ve been really trying to work on being comfortable in the car and make it my own. I don’t remember much from crossing the finish line, but watching it back it just makes me smile. I’m still on Cloud 9. It’s been pretty special.”

Byron on racing at Darlington:
“Hopefully, we can have a good race and execute really well. Darlington is a really tough racetrack but luckily we’ve been there twice already this year. I have a pretty good idea of what the track is going to feel like and how it’s going to drive and handle. It definitely is a very temperature-sensitive track and it’s going to be warmer than when we were there in May. It rubbers up a lot, especially up by the wall. You have to move your line around and try to avoid the rubber at times until it covers the full track. Once it does, you can run wherever your car handles the best. It’s a balancing act of trying to chase clean track and trying to find good racetrack to run on.”

Crew chief Chad Knaus on the pressure of winning and the playoffs:
“The intensity was way higher and the pressure we felt was high, really high in Daytona. Quite honestly, I love it. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we compete. If it was easy no one would want to do it. It felt really good after the race to get that checkered flag. Going into the playoffs now, it’s all in the details and we have to make sure that we execute properly. Going to Darlington now, it’s a great racetrack for us. We’ve ran well there. We sat on the pole last year, we ran up front in the first spring race until we had a loose wheel, and we were decent in the second May race. If we look at the details this week, I think we have an opportunity to be really competitive this weekend and run up towards the front.”

Driver Jimmie Johnson on keeping a winning attitude entering the playoffs:
“We won’t have the chance to go for eight championships, but I am pretty damn proud of the seven we won. We do have 10 more chances and there are plenty of trophies up for grabs with nothing to lose. Darlington owes me one and we plan to finish this season strong. I’m proud to honor these two legends (Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty) and what they’ve meant to me and the sport with this seven-time scheme at Darlington.”

Driver Alex Bowman on the start of the 2020 playoffs:
“Everything resets this weekend. As a team, we have to regroup and use the momentum from the last two races to start the playoffs strong. We have shown that we are capable of wins and we have shown we can move on in the playoffs. This No. 88 team and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports has been preparing for the playoffs since our win in California, so I am ready to get underway this weekend in Darlington.”

Bowman on capitalizing at Darlington:
“Earlier this year we had some good runs at Darlington. The first race back from the brief pause was really good for us as a team. We finished second and really capitalized on stage points. Our goal for Sunday is to do the same thing. We need to have a solid race, earn stage points and get a good finish at the end of the night to start these playoffs off right.”

COLE CUSTER, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang — HOW DO YOU SEE THE CUP PLAYOFFS BEING DIFFERENT FROM LAST YEAR AND YOUR APPROACH TO THEM? “I think the biggest thing is that there’s just more competition. In the XFINITY Series you have probably five to six guys that can probably make it to Miami, where here there are probably 10-12 guys that could. It’s tough. You’ve got to be really competitive and you’ve got to beat a lot of good guys, but at the same time you don’t want to put yourself in a hole either, so there’s a lot to balance.”

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS WITHOUT ANY EXPERTS HAVING YOU IN DURING THE PRESEASON? “It’s huge. I mean, I think we can go in there and prove some people wrong is the biggest thing, but at the end of the day it’s about being consistent and it’s about being competitive. I think we’ve had a lot of peaks and valleys at times this year, but at the same time we just need to try and level it out more going into these playoffs. If we can be consistent and we can put it all together and put all the pieces together for these last 10 races, I think we’ve shown that we can compete with anybody it’s just trying to put those pieces together every single race.”

ASIDE FROM YOU, WHO DO YOU THINK IS A DARKHORSE? “I think you can look at my teammate, Aric Almirola. They’ve been knocking on the door all year pretty much being consistent and it only takes one thing to go right and I think they can win some races, so I can definitely say that you can probably look at them a little bit.”

YOU ARE THE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR. DO YOU READ ANY OF THE STUFF ON TWITTER WHO FEEL YOU DON’T DESERVE IT? “I don’t know. I don’t make the rules (laughing). At the end of the day I guess we won, but I don’t know. I’m not the most confident guy out there that’s gonna say I’m better than all those guys. I know that all of us have been pretty competitive this year and I think we’ve all made big strides. It’s just a matter of we won at Kentucky. I don’t know what to tell you, so we were Rookie of the Year. It’s tough to swallow, I guess, for some people, but it is what it is. I’m gonna be proud of it and I think our team should be proud of it. I think we’ve shown that we can compete and we can have good finishes, so it’s just a matter of being consistent and putting it all together.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN THAT AWARD? “It’s huge to be able to race against those guys. Tyler, Christopher, John Hunter, I think we all made huge strides this year and were all fairly competitive. It was definitely cool to be able to race these guys for the last 5-10 years and to move up to the Cup level together and have that battle still kind of going on was really cool.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GET AN AWARD OVER CHRISTOPHER OR TYLER, WHO WON CHAMPIONSHIPS IN OTHER SERIES? “It’s cool to win that. It’s one of those things you’re gonna look back in 5-10 years and say that was pretty cool to win because it was a really good rookie class and I think it’s cool. I don’t know what else to say about it, but it’s one of those things where it was competitive and I think for us to come out on top of it is definitely something to be proud of.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON LAYING THE BUMPER TO SOMEBODY, IF NECESSARY, DURING THE PLAYOFFS? “I think he put it about right. You’re not gonna do it every single lap and every single time in the race. You’ve got to do it at the right time, but if it’s gonna move you to the next round or it’s what you need to do to make your team move forward, it’s what you’ve got to do. I don’t want to be wrecking people. I think, for me, you want to move them out of the way cleanly. I don’t think you want to just start wrecking people, but it’s something where you’ve got to do what’s best for your team.”

HOW OFTEN WILL YOU LEAN ON YOUR TEAMMATES, ESPECIALLY KEVIN, IN THE PLAYOFFS? “Kevin has been a huge help to me this year. I’ve tried to talk with him pretty much every single weekend to try to get an idea of what to expect going into the races. He’s definitely been a huge help. At the same time, I think you’ve got to make your own path at times and you have to have your own ideas because sometimes you’re just gonna confuse yourself having a lot of different people talking in your ear. I have some great teammates at Stewart-Haas Racing and we all obviously made the playoffs and that’s a huge deal for our organization. I think we have a great team that can work great together and share info and it’s just a dream come true, I guess, to have those kinds of teammates.”

IS YOUR CONFIDENCE HIGH IN THIS FIRST ROUND SINCE THERE ARE SOME TRACKS YOU’VE WON AT BEFORE IN XFINITY? “I think so, for sure, but at the same time you’ve got to make sure you’re doing your homework before the races and going in there 100 percent. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the playoffs. I think we’ve seen that in the past, so it’s a matter of trying to make sure you don’t put yourself in a hole is one of the biggest things. You’ve got to run competitively, that’s for sure, but you don’t want to be one of those guys that has to be desperate going into the final race.”

WHO HAS GIVEN YOU THE BEST ADVICE OUTSIDE OF SHR IN THIS PLAYOFF PROCESS? “I think I lean on my crew chief, Mike Shiplett, a lot. He’s been a huge help over the past two years of being a really calm guy that can give you a lot of advice on a lot of different things. He’s definitely pointed me in the right direction a lot of times. I think going in these playoffs it’s just a matter of taking it one step at a time and you do enough things right, you’re gonna find yourself in a good position.”

HAS TONY STEWART GIVEN YOU ANY ADVICE? “Tony is definitely probably every driver’s dream come true to have as a boss. I mean, somebody I’ve watched since I was a little kid on TV and one of the legends of our sport is pretty amazing and he’s definitely one of those guys to have somebody give you support going into different things and going into races and into the playoffs means the world. We had a team pep rally this week and he was on it, and on the Zoom call obviously since we can’t do it in person, but to have that kind of support from him and seeing how we’re doing means a lot for me. I’ve watched him since I was a little kid.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE MISSED OUT ON ANYTHING THIS ROOKIE SEASON BECAUSE OF COVID? “I think all the races with the fans before the race is probably the biggest thing. It was cool going to Daytona and still having it be a normal race because you have all the pre-race stuff going on and it’s really cool. I think that’s one of the biggest things is just the atmosphere before the race with the fans is probably the biggest thing that we missed out on.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU’RE AT A DISADVANTAGE IN THE PLAYOFFS BEING A ROOKIE AND NO PRACTICE? “You can go back and forth on it for sure. I think I would definitely like some practice. It’s one of those things that even though we’ve been to tracks like Darlington before, some of these guys have been there for 10-15 years. There’s stuff as a rookie that we’d just like to try in our car to see if it was better or worse, but we don’t really have that opportunity, so we make our best educated guess on what we brought there last time and what our teammates did and what we’ve compiled through this whole year of what works and what doesn’t work, but it’s just a matter of adapting as fast as you can and try and use your notebook as best you can.”

WHAT WILL BE YOUR MINDSET FOR THIS SOUTHERN 500 WEEKEND COMPARED TO THE OTHER TWO DARLINGTON RACES THIS YEAR? WILL THERE BE MORE NERVES? “I think so, for sure. One of the biggest things is how you manage your car for that long of race in a playoff race. A lot of times sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit conservative at the start of a race to make sure you don’t knock the fence down and ruin your day, where now you might have to be aggressive from lap one, so you might see a lot more guys hitting the fence throughout the race, so that’s probably the biggest thing is how you’re gonna manage your car throughout that long of a race.”

HOW DOES THIS TRACK SUIT YOUR STYLE? “I think for me it’s a fun track to go and move around at and you do what’s best for you. You can kind of figure out your own kind of path of what works and what doesn’t for your line and how you work the throttle and how you want to save your tires. I think everybody kind of has their unique thing and own style in how they attack that racetrack.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO RELY ON YOUR NOTES FROM PREVIOUS RACES THIS YEAR? “It’s huge. That’s all we have to really lean on is what we brought there last time because you don’t have any practice to kind of work through things. Keeping good notes and making sure you’re staying on top of things and coming to the racetrack prepared and crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s is very important right now. I think we’ve kept good notes. We’ve gotten better throughout the year and it’s just a matter of trying to put all the pieces to the puzzle together.”

WHICH WILDCARD TRACK IS YOUR BEST OPPORTUNITY OF MOVING UP THE STANDINGS? “Whatever one is next, I guess. You just look forward to the next one and you take it one step at a time. I don’t know how else to answer your question, really. I think all of the cutoff races are gonna be tough ones because they’re very unpredictable and they’re tracks where a lot of things can go wrong at, so I think they’re all gonna be pretty exciting.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINE-TUNE YOUR NOTES FOR PHOENIX? “I think we’ve been good at the flat short tracks this year. It’s tough, like I said, there’s no practice to work through things, but at the same time we’ve had a good notebook and we make our best educated guess going into the race and I think we’ve done good at that. It’s just trying to use all your notes and trying to make sure you cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s going into every single race.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2020
PLAYOFF MEDIA DAY 1

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Maytag Ford Mustang — WHAT DO YOU THINK BRISTOL WILL BE LIKE AS AN ELIMINATION RACE? “I think it’s exciting. It’s the first time Bristol has even been in the playoffs, so that’ll be neat and then making it a cutoff race too, that’ll be even more exciting. That place gets very rowdy. I look at it as just like having Martinsville as a cutoff race short track where everyone will be beating and banging. I personally would like to have a win or be really good on points before we get there, but I think it’s great. They’ve implemented a new format with some new tracks in the playoffs this year and I think it’s good, but I’m looking forward to that one and it will definitely be an exciting cutoff race for sure.”

ARE THE KEYS TO ADVANCE ANY DIFFERENT WITH NO PRACTICE AND NO QUALIFYING? “Yeah, I mean it definitely is different, but it’s what we’ve been doing all year. Teams have been preparing as much as they can before going to the tracks every single week. It’s not like now when the playoffs start, we’ve got to start preparing little bit more. I feel like if you’re not doing that throughout the regular season, I feel like you should be doing that throughout the regular season, but it’s key. It’s been key every single weekend. Now I think the biggest point is not being off at the start of these races and not getting stage points. That’s a really big thing. You look at stage points of being very critical when you’re running against 15 other guys throughout the first round and then it gets cut throughout the rounds, so stage points are huge. So you definitely want to be starting off good and have a good previous race with the way the lineups are set now with that algorythm they’ve got on previous week finishing and fast lap and points position, all that stuff. You definitely don’t want to be back in the playoff grid, so preparation is huge and just to set you up for that first stage. That’s very important.”

WILL STAGE POINTS BE MORE DIFFICULT TO GET SINCE ALL 16 START IN THE TOP 16? “Yeah. They were difficult to get before, but you’ve got some cars outside the playoffs that are really good as well that didn’t get in, so you’re gonna have to race them anyway. You’ve been racing those guys all year, whether you’re top 12 in points or 13-24. Luckily, fortunately, we were top 12 a lot, really all year, so we never really started terrible and that sets you up for the first stage, but with all the playoff guys being right there, they’re definitely gonna be hard to get. It’s really good competition and you’ve got to make sure you’re on your game from the first lap.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL YOUR MOMENTUM IS THIS YEAR COMPARED TO PREVIOUS YEARS? “Obviously, we’d like to have some more wins in the regular season. That’s what’s kind of hurt us in the last few years in the playoffs and throughout the rounds. We made it to the round of eight a couple of times, but just don’t have playoff points. You’ve got to win pretty much and you have these years to where every year it seems like there are a couple guys that have tons of wins in the regular season and they have massive bonus points and that really pays off when you get in the round of eight and makes it hard for those guys who don’t have them like we don’t. But I feel like our team has had more capability this year to win more races and be more competitive, it’s just a shame it hasn’t happened. Some of that was our doing and some of that you can’t control, but our whole group feels really good. I think our cars are pretty decent right now. You obviously have the 4 and the 11 who are really strong. Everyone is gonna be strong in the playoffs, so you really have to be on top of your game, but I like our momentum. It’s just a matter of putting races together and take them one race at a time. I think this team can do that, but it’s gonna be important for us to win in the rounds. That’s what it’s gonna take for us, I feel like, to advance or have really, really good point days, but I feel really good about this team. Todd Gordon and I worked well together this year, it’s just a matter of, like I said, keep building with each other and not making any mistakes, not having any blowups in the rounds. You can’t really have a mulligan, I feel like. I’m not saying we’re in the worst position. There are guys in worse positions than us, but we’re not in the best position, so we just have to have a solid 10 races.”

IS IT AN ADVANTAGE TO HAVING THIS BE THE THIRD RACE AT DARLINGTON THIS SEASON? “Yeah. I know we ran there twice already this year, but you go back and look at those two races. You go back and look at the Darlington race from last year and see how that plays out. The pit strategy side is a little bit different this weekend than the previous two races. They were way shorter. This 500-mile race is super-long and the way the stages are set and your pit strategy is set and how you pit in the stages are way different, so that’s something you can’t quite look at from the previous races this year, but you can go back and look at your notes about ‘how is the track, how are we set up?’ Things like that. Todd and I talked about that a lot this week. I feel confident. I thought we actually had a really good car in the second race and we had a penalty and we went in the back and got in the fence that kind of ruined our day, but you just go back and look at all your notes. That’s really important nowadays too. I mean, with no practice you’re relying on previous race notes and we rely on those heavily here going back to these tracks that we’ve already been to this year.”

DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE SPEED TO GO HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH THE 4 AND THE 11? “I think so. I’m not gonna sit here and say, ‘No, we don’t have the speed.’ You’d like to think so. There are some races I feel like we’ve been better than those guys and brought it to them and other races they’ve had really good cars and they’ve obviously shown up like they have all year. They’ve done a great job. Those two teams and drivers are doing really good right now and they’re super-strong and you go to the racetrack every week knowing those guys are gonna be strong, but the best you can do is just worry about your own team, worry about what you need to do as a driver to do the best that you can and figure out what you need to do with your race cars to be as competitive as possible. So I think our team can it’s just a matter of playing to our strengths and not making mistakes. That’s a big thing. Speedwise this year, I think we’ve been close it’s just a matter of execution and I think, hopefully, we can pull all of that stuff together here and just take it one race at a time. I think we can do it, it’s just a matter of putting everything together.”

DO YOU FEEL IT’S BEEN MORE IN YOUR TEAM’S CONTROL OR HAS IT BEEN THINGS OUTSIDE OF YOUR CONTROL? “A little bit of both. There are obviously things I can do better, some unlucky things but those things happen in racing. There are some you can control, so I think it’s half and half. You’re gonna have rough weekends where things don’t go your way and you’re gonna have rough weekends where I mess up, whether you damage your car or you don’t ask for the right things. There were sometimes where calls can go the wrong way — pit calls and things like that, but that’s just part of it. We just need to learn from those things, so I think to answer your question I feel like it’s about half and half, but I can’t sit here and complain about unlucky unfortunate situations because everybody has those, it’s just a matter of having fewer than others, I guess. The best that I can do is do my best and our team do our best and whatever else happens after that happens.”

HOW MUCH WORRY DO YOU HAVE ABOUT GETTING A POSITIVE COVID TEST? “Right now, it’s gonna really put you in a bad hole. Do we sit around and talk about that? Drivers? No, not really. You just be as smart as you can and be as safe as you can, not going out, not doing anything that you wouldn’t normally do. There have been a couple tests, a couple positives throughout the year with some drivers, but I’ve been fortunate to not be in that situation. I plan on not doing anything different. You just stay smart. If you’re gonna go somewhere with people, go with people that you know, that are doing the same things as you and being smart and safe about what they’re doing — not going out to crowded gatherings of people that you have no idea who they are and what they’re doing. If it does happen, it happens, but the best I can do is just be smart and not try to put yourself in that position where I might catch something.”

WHERE DO YOU FEEL YOU AND TODD ARE FROM A COMMUNICATION STANDPOINT AND HOW HAS IT GONE? “Working with Jeremy for a long time from XFINITY to Cup and transitioning to Todd, the first month was awesome. You get to work with them full weekends. He and I had to work together. John Miles, my engineer, I got to see them every single weekend and throughout the week also and we really get to learn each other — and crew guys you get to know them and what they’re like. Now it’s just been so limited with no practice. You can talk so much throughout the week on the phone and things like that, but it’s just different than being able to go through a couple practices and the whole weekend with them and talking to them. But I think we’ve gotten the best that we can. Todd and I get along really well. He’s an amazing crew chief and a championship crew chief and has won a ton of races, so I think it’s been going well. It’s a shame, but everyone is in the same boat. Joey and Brad have new crew chiefs also and a handful of other guys have new teams this year, but I think we’re doing the best that we can. I’d like to spend three days out of the weekend with them and a couple days during the week with them just talking to them, but we talk as much as we can and try to figure out what we need to do week in and week out to be better, but I think it’s been going really good it’s just a matter of continuing that and knowing each other more.”

IS THERE ANY CONCERN THAT KYLE BUSCH COULD GET GOING AND RUN AWAY WITH THE PLAYOFFS, AND IS IT POSSIBLE? “Yeah, we know it can happen. Obviously, Kyle has not had the best of years, but it’s Kyle Busch and that team can turn it around any given weekend. You don’t count anybody out even if they’ve been having a little bit of an off year and not what they’re used to. You don’t count anybody out. People can go on playoff runs. Look at Tony Stewart in 2011 and the playoff run he went on winning five of those races and winning the championship. Before the playoffs you never really thought they would be a contender and then people find stuff and they turn it on and things go their way and you saw what happened. Yeah, I’m worried about 15 other teams. You never know who can turn it on, what time. They’re all great teams and great drivers, so you have to be worried about everybody but at the same time you can’t be thinking about everybody all the time you have to think about yourself and think about your own team and what you have to do. You can’t control what everyone else is doing, but to answer your question, any one of these guys can turn it on at any time and it wouldn’t surprise me because teams can do that often.”

IS THERE ONE DARKHORSE TEAM PEOPLE SHOULD WATCH? “I don’t know, maybe you’d consider the 18. Those guys on that team, the Gibbs organization has been really strong. I’m gonna be selfish and say I think our group has been check boxed as a darkhorse team by a lot of people. Anybody can do it. The 11 and 4 have been good all year, but there are a bunch of other teams that can step up and have really good rounds and I guess you could say upset what those guys have been doing all year. I think anybody can.”

HOW SCARY IS THE SECOND ROUND? “There’s are kind of some funky races in there with the Roval and Talladega, like you said. You never know what’s gonna happen in those rounds. You have one kind of normal race at Vegas there, and then you have the Roval and Talladega, so I don’t know. I don’t know what can happen in those rounds. You just try to go to the Roval and try to run a solid race and then Talladega is just try to stay out of wrecks. That’s the biggest thing and with the way that Talladega ends that second round, it’ll be like at Daytona so it’ll be interesting. It would be nice to be really to the good or locked in before that. I’d love to win Vegas and not have to worry about the Roval or Talladega, but you just hope that you put solid races together, but that is a funky round for sure. All of the rounds have their wildcards with Bristol being in the first one and then you have the Roval and Talladega in the second round and then Martinsville to end the round of eight, so there are a lot of interesting races in each round. I think NASCAR did a pretty good job of splitting them up in certain ways, but hopefully my mind says ‘go try to win Vegas so we don’t have to worry about them two.’”

WHAT DOES TODD BRING TO YOUR TEAM THAT JEREMY DIDN’T? “Todd has a little bit more experience than Jeremy. He’s been around the Cup Series for a little bit longer. I love Jeremy to death. He and I will always be really good friends for what we’ve been through for many years. We won our first race together in 2017 with the Wood Brothers. That was special, but I think it’s neat when you switch crew chiefs for the first time because when I was with Jeremy you kind of get locked into one mode. You guys kind of have your own language with each other. I know what he likes to change and he knows what I like as a driver and you can kind of get in a certain mode, whether it’s good or bad, and maybe not be open to new things. But the biggest thing I learned when I switched to Todd was everyone approaches things differently from a driver to a crew chief side and it just opened my mind up to just different things to try, and maybe certain things that I like that Todd does I like a little bit better than Jeremy or vice versa. But it’s just knowledge, it’s just knowledge of two different minds from those two guys and you kind of personally, for me, you kind of combine those two and it just opens your eyes a little bit on different possibilities and capabilities out there of what you can learn as a driver and learn about other people. So that has been nice to kind of combine Todd and Jeremy’s minds and working with both of them, so that was a big thing I’ve taken away from it. As a young driver it’s nice to have that. I think it just helps you learn.”

WHERE DO YOU NEED TO IMPROVE IN THE PLAYOFFS? IS THERE A CERTAIN STYLE OF TRACK? “You look at Richmond, the second race there, is a place we’ve struggled at over the years. It’s nice that it’s in the round of 16, but you still have to put a good race together. You can’t just run in the back all race and have a poor race like we’ve had there the last handful of years, so I would say on the Richmond side if we can only keep getting better there. Todd and I have worked a lot on that racetrack here because even at the start of the year we looked at the playoffs and how we’ve got to go to Richmond. That’s one of the biggest outliers to me as far as places where we need to really show up and do well at, a place where we’ve struggled in the past, but all the other tracks I feel really confident in. We’ve run really well at other tracks — the Roval, obviously we’ve run pretty decent at, Talladega, we’ve won two races at Talladega, but you never know what could happen. You can get jumbled up in someone else’s mess and end your day, so you never know. Richmond, to me, is the biggest one that we’ve really talked about on just having to put a solid race together.”

DOES THAT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON THIS WEEKEND? “To be honest with you, I haven’t even thought about it. I’m focused on Darlington and then we’ll move on.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang — DO THE KEYS TO PERFORMING WELL IN THE CHASE CHANGE WITH NO PRACTICE AND NO QUALIFYING AND ALL THE PLAYOFF DRIVERS STARTING UP FRONT? “I don’t know if it changes, really. The dynamics are just as important to win as ever during the playoffs. That part doesn’t change. No practice always makes it questionable, but I don’t know, we’re almost used to it at this point with no practice and not knowing what’s coming around the corner next and not knowing who is fast changes the dynamics of the race a little bit, but we’ve kind of gotten used to it. Kind of what you’ve seen here the last few races since we got back going will probably be more of that to continue, where there may be some teams that hit it really fast and others that need to make big swings on their adjustments and it’s how you get to that point as quickly as possible. I don’t think the playoffs change what we’ve been doing here the last few weeks.”

THOUGHTS ON BRISTOL AS A CUTOFF RACE? “I’m cool with it. I think it’s definitely gonna add some drama. We all kind of saw what kind of drama Daytona brought last week with it being the last race of the regular season and how exciting that is, so for the sport it’s great. For the teams, a little stressful because anything can happen. We’ve strategy work in a lot of different ways at Bristol. We’ve seen contact at Bristol, so a lot of things can happen, but, for the most part, we’ve just got to do our thing. The fact that the cutoff races are stressful already and they’re at tracks that anything can happen definitely adds a lot to it and for the sport that’s a great thing.”

STEVE PHELPS SAID THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE TO THE COVID RULE. WHAT PRECAUTIONS WILL YOU TAKE AND WOULD YOU BE HESITANT TO GO GET TESTED? “No, I think it’s important for us to, number one, our safety needs to be the utmost concern, just for everybody — not just for ourselves, not in a selfish way but in a selfless way we need to be smart about testing. Now, also, we need to be smart about who we see and how we do things and all that as much as ever. As the world is starting to open up slowly and things like that, I think for these 10 weeks I probably still need to be smart about it because my season is on the line. I think we just keep doing the same things we’ve been doing. You wash your hands. You wear your mask. You social distance. Those are the things that you can do. It’s also important that we need to win this thing, too. As you guys know, sometimes going and doing everything through this Zoom isn’t as effective as you want it to be, and it’s the same when you’re trying to lead a team. So just trying to do things the smartest way possible, trying to lead a team from a distance, but in times where it’s important to see people or do things, those are the moments you just have to make the most of, but, also, be careful about the way we do it.”

ARE YOU LESS OF A LEADER THIS YEAR DUE TO THIS SITUATION BECAUSE OF A LESS CONNECTION? “In ways I have to agree with that. I don’t want to agree with that. I want to be the leader with Paul, but my hands are tied. There’s only so much we can do. Penske has done a good job at trying to keep everyone separated to where if there was an outbreak it didn’t shut down the whole (interruption at this point). In general, we’re trying to be as smart as we can. It’s hard to throw everyone up on a Zoom call and speak directly to somebody. It’s been a little harder for me this year, too, because it’s a new team. I’m typically the guy that’s in the garage until the garage closes. The way I led was by being present and building relationships. It’s been a little harder to do that this year, for sure, but we have to find unique ways of trying to gather the team together and rally the troops. It’s a little bit different, but it’s different for everybody and we have to be creative and find new ways. Is it as good as I want to be? No, it’s definitely not as good as I want it to be, but I feel like we’ve done a good job at being creative and trying to find ways to keep everyone together as a team.”

THOUGHTS ON PIT ENTRY AT DARLINGTON AND HAVING THE FIRST ONE UPON ENTRY? “It’s funny you bring that up because that’s been the running joke here at Team Penske for a little bit is that Todd will always go furthest forward possible and Paul will be the guy that kind of goes back and forth on just trying to figure out what’s best for that particular weekend. So, the first few weeks was a little bit odd because I’m used to being all the way down at the other end and I didn’t want to drive by the stall, but now I’ve kind of gotten used to it and Paul has done a good job at some pit selections. That was one of the things we went through at the beginning of the year is what works for me with pit stalls, and what direction can we get the best rolling times with and each racetrack is different. Some narrow pit roads are different than the wide ones and pit openings are bigger than others and timing lines, there’s a lot that goes into that game. It’s not a random selection sometimes as much as some people think. There’s a lot that goes into that and I don’t know if there’s one more challenging than the other being in the front or the back, it’s just more or less a strategy of how do we have the best rolling time at the end of pit road.”

IS THERE A DARKHORSE TEAM YOU HAVE YOUR EYE ON? “I would say probably the 10. I’m looking at a darkhorse team that’s maybe not everyone is talking about. I think there are obvious ones that are gonna be fast, you’ve got Kevin, Denny, I think we’re in that mix, Brad is in that mix, Chase will be in that mix some, but the 10 has been kind of sneaky and just consistent — nothing flashy, but just kind of doing his thing — so I would say that’s one car that can probably get pretty far through. They’ve got pretty good speed, they don’t make many mistakes and they just kind of get through. The first couple of rounds that’s one of the things that this playoff system rewards the first couple rounds is being consistent.”

HOW MUCH OF A SUCCESS WAS THE FIRST WEEK BACK AT DARLINGTON? HOW MUCH PRIDE IS THERE? “One hundred percent, and I don’t think it’s the pride that the drivers take it’s the pride that the whole industry should take. The drivers sometimes just show up and we do what they tell us to do, but when I think of the collaboration that it took from everybody in our sport — media, race teams, NASCAR, everybody, drivers as well had to come together to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity of being the first sport back without completely blowing it and having a COVID outbreak and being the first sport to come back and be shut right back down, and we look like a bunch of fools. We didn’t want to do that either, so everyone did an amazing job, and that starts from the leadership at NASCAR and trying to find a way to be first back and do it in a safe way and continue going. Other sports learned from and watched us because we were the first back. They had nothing else to watch, so they had to see it and that was the opportunity ahead of us is that there wasn’t any other content out there at the time from a sporting perspective. I love the term when people say when there’s a crisis there’s an opportunity and we took advantage of that opportunity, so, yeah, there’s pride in that and we should be proud of that.”

WHAT WILL IT MEAN TO WIN THE TITLE IN 2020 WITH EVERYTHING GOING ON? “Nothing less than it would have if it was a normal year and nothing more. It’s a championship and that’s all that matters is the trophy on the little thing back here, and it’s reminding me how badly we want it. No matter what the rules are they’re the same for everybody. There’s gonna be a winner and there’s gonna be a loser and we just approach it the same way. Yes, we have to do things differently to achieve that trophy than we would have if it was a normal year, but the cards are dealt and we know what we’ve got and we’ve just got to play them the best that we can.”

HOW DOES DARLINGTON SUIT YOUR STYLE? “I think it fits really well. It’s been a good racetrack for us. I don’t have a win there, but it’s been a racetrack that we’ve consistently been able to run in the top five and lead laps and be close. We just need a couple of things to go our way to be able to win there. It’s one of my favorite racetrack to go to. I like that the tires wear out and you can’t go hard every lap and you’ve got to be smart on how you’re using your tires, and yet there’s still some aggression that you need to have on how close you run to the wall and moving around and finding places where there’s more grip as the run goes. It’s a very enjoyable race for a driver. It’s grueling. It’s very tiring. At the end of 500 miles there you’re more exhausted than any other racetrack we go to. It’s a long, long race, where you can’t afford to make a mistake, especially in the playoffs — tapping the fence and getting a flat tire or whatever it may be, so you just gotta be smart. It’s long and it’s mentally and physically very tiring.”

HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU AFTER A CONSISTENT REGULAR SEASON? “We just need to continue the confidence and consistency we’ve had over the last few weeks. If you take Daytona out, we’ve been able to string together quite a few top 10 finishes and put ourselves in position to possibly win with some things going our way. So no need to come off of that. We need to continue to slowly build and become stronger as a team. You’re not gonna find one thing that’s gonna be a light switch that’s gonna put us all the way to where the 4 and the 11 are, but we’re not far off. We’re two or three little things away from that and this year is just reminding me of 2018, which is a great season for me, where we had some growing pains and some things we had to learn throughout the regular season and we slowly built the speed back up for the playoffs and the next thing you know we won two of the most important races and we win the championship. It just has that feeling to me throughout the regular season, so I feel like for those reasons I’m as confident as anybody rolling into this thing in our race team and myself because we’ve been here before. We’ve done this before, so we’re ready to rock.”

DO STAGE POINTS TAKE ON AN ADDED IMPORTANCE IN THE PLAYOFFS AND HOW WILL THAT AFFECT YOUR TEAM’S STRATEGY? “It does. Every point is gonna matter. We’ve seen plenty of times where a team makes it or not make it by one point. Sometimes it’s tied and it goes to your best finish. That happens a lot, so every point matters and you just need to race that way because you don’t know what that point is gonna be worth at the end of the day. That part is probably where the intensity piece comes up a little bit. I don’t think it changes much for me because I’ve already raced that way. I look at that as the regular season points how it just turned into playoff points at the end of the regular season came around. I look at that the same way, where we have seven or eight more regular season points that could have been one more playoff point, and that’s over the course of 26 races, so we’ve just got to continue to have that mindset to where every point matters at every point of the race.”

WILL TEAM PENSKE WORK TOGETHER AT A PLACE LIKE TALLADEGA OR DOES THAT END IN THE PLAYOFFS? “No, I think we all still need to work together when you go to the superspeedways. The game has changed at the superspeedways the last few years with teamwork. As you see not only the teams themselves working together as Penske or Hendrick or Stewart-Haas or whoever work together on the racetrack, but you see the manufacturers really work together. You see the Fords, you see the Chevy’s, the Toyotas kind of on their own little island sometimes, whether it’s strategy or even within the group trying to position themselves to take control of the race, so I don’t see that changing because we’re in the playoffs. You might even see that building.”

DO THOSE TWO WINS SEEM LIKE A LONG TIME AGO SINCE THAT WAS BEFORE THE BREAK AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU WERE MOMENTUM-WISE BACK THEN TO WHERE YOU ARE NOW? “It feels like a long time ago to answer your first question. Way too long. We’re ready to win again, but I do feel like we’re getting close back to that same point as we were. To me, there’s no doubt when we went back racing we weren’t where we wanted to be. I even said it a few times, almost like a lost puppy not knowing what road to go down to get back to where we need to be, and it’s hard to find that direction without practice. Going to a different racetrack every week it’s hard to grow. It took longer than we wanted it to, longer than we expected it to, but I feel like we’re getting really close back to where we were at the beginning of the year. We can get ourselves in position to win again and I feel like we’re right at it, so I do feel pretty good about where we’re at again.”

WHAT WAS YOUR MESSAGE TO ERIK JONES? THE FACT YOU’VE BEEN THERE? “I reached out because I feel like I’ve been there before and I just wanted to. I watched his interview before the race at Michigan. I was sitting in my bus and he was with Marty Snider and the question was asked about next year and what it was and I said, ‘Oh, my God. I remember this.’ It just came rushing back and I was like, ‘Oh, this poor kid.’ So I texted him on the way home on the airplane and said, ‘Hey, man. I’ve been where you’ve been before. If you need someone to talk to about it, there aren’t many people who can understand exactly what you’re going through right now. I’m here. If you want to talk about it, that’s great. If not, that’s fine, too.’ He reached back and said he wanted to go to lunch and I said, ‘Sure, we’ll go to lunch.’ His question was, ‘What changed from Gibbs to Penske in my career?’ Hearing his whole story is scary how similar it is, like it is almost identical the way he was brought up racing, the way he was at Gibbs. It was almost identical. That being said, you can’t tell the future and know where he’s gonna go next and that it’s all gonna be great and it be the best thing that ever happened to him, but I did say that God put you in these positions a lot of times to make you stronger and grow you and direct you in the place He wants you to be. In the moment, you don’t know that. In the moment, it’s the worst. It’s awful. The stress and I remember thinking so many times that, ‘Oh my gosh, all I ever wanted to be was a race car driver. I put all my eggs in this basket and it’s coming to an end. What am I gonna do with my life?’ Those thoughts run through my mind and it’s kind of scary, it’s really scary if we’re being honest. It’s kind of hard to explain to some people because you’re still driving a race car for a living and it’s not that bad in comparison to what a lot of people have to go through, but it’s still something that’s challenging and doing that without your dad there for him, because that’s the guy he grew up racing with his family and his dad and I just couldn’t imagine doing that without him, so I just tried to speak some life into my situation and what can be for his. It doesn’t mean that he’s gonna win the championship three years from now like we were able to do. Who knows what’s gonna happen, but I do know that it’s steering him down a direction that God is pointing him to be in. Like I said, it felt so similar that I had to say something and after talking to him it was crazy how close it was, so the whole situation all the way through was like, ‘Yep. I’ve been there.’ So it was kind of fun to talk to him and I hope something works out for him, I really do. He seems to be a really good kid. I say kid, I sound like an old guy when I say that, but, young man, I guess. But he’s grown a lot already in a lot of the same ways that I have. I came in as a cocky, arrogant little kid that was gonna come in and beat everybody and then I realized that I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me to do and him showing his humbleness to talk to me about that shows a lot of growth as well.”