NASCAR XFINITY SERIES
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2020
UNOH 188 – DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
FORD PERFORMANCE DRIVER – POST RACE QUOTES

FORD FINISHING RESULTS:
1st — Austin Cindric
29th — Chase Briscoe

CINDRIC AND FORD CONTINUE TO ROLL WITH DAYTONA ROAD COURSE VICTORY

Austin Cindric registered his fifth win of the season and fifth in the last six events overall with today’s win at Daytona International Speedway.

Since returning to action on May 17 at Darlington Raceway, Ford has dominated in the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR XFINITY Series, winning a combined 20 times in 33 starts. Ford has registered 11 wins in Cup in 18 races, which includes a current three-race winning streak, while the NXS duo of Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric have combined to win nine times in 15 events, including seven of the last eight.

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang — VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW — HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE DAY? “I’m not sure anyone was really happy with their race car. Unfortunately, I have a tough perspective of driving really fast high-grip race cars at this track, but great credit to my team — the MoneyLion guys — and everyone that puts this together — Ford Performance, Roush Yates Engines, obviously everyone at Team Penske for workig hard. That’s five wins on the year and back-to-back now. I’m really proud of that. I didn’t feel like I drove my best today, but we executed there at the end where it counts and that’s what makes these races so difficult to win.”

FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE YOU WERE BORN SAM ARD WON 5 OUT OF 6 XFINITY RACES AND NOW YOU’VE DONE THAT. “Yeah, it’s incredible and takes great race cars and executing races. I’m proud to be driving this 22 car and contending for wins week to week. There’s still a lot of work to do, but this is great for the points for sure.”

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE DAY AND WHAT YOU HAD TO DEAL WITH? “I think we dug ourselves two holes there. Staying out got us a good stage point there. That’s important and then I probably grabbed a shovel and dug us a little bit bigger of a hole there on the restart in trying to win that second stage. That put us behind a little bit and maybe I wasn’t able to be as ahead of my adjustments, but, overall, I’m super-excited for five wins on the year so far and adding to the points. To get MoneyLion in VIctory Lane again at Daytona of all places, I wish there were fans here to see this race because it was a thriller.”

THE END OF STAGE TWO WAS PHYSICAL BETWEEN YOU AND CHASE. “Yeah, I think there was give-and-take available on both ends. I probably could have been a bit more patient judging that second stage and I think he could have been a little less aggressive on his defense, but, overall, it’s two brothers fighting and then they go yell at mom saying it was his fault. It’s easy for me to say because I was the winner of the race, but he drove a great race and obviously wasn’t able to survive that turn one carnage.”

TAKE US THROUGH GOING INTO TURN ONE ON THAT ONE RESTART? “A lot of the restarts I kind of learned by my own mistakes as far as trying to drive it in deep three-wide. There was less and less grip it seemed like there as the race went on, or maybe patience went out the window. I saw guys lock up tires and I was fortunate enough to be on the inside and not get collected and was able to get a good restart and come away with it.”

THE PASS FOR THE WIN WASN’T EASY. “I probably scared him. I got a whole ton of wheel-hop in turn six. I thought I was gonna clean us both out, but he did a great job driving smart there. It was fun. He was driving hard and came up with a good finish, so good job to those guys. Hopefully, we can have more fun in Dover.”

POST-RACE WINNER’S PRESS CONFERENCE

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang — “It was a lot of survival there at the end. That’s what makes these races as difficult as they are is to make it to the finish. We were a contender all day and tried to get our race car a little bit better. We had to fight through in that second stage to try and regain some track position, but it was just a solid day up until that point. Obviously, being on the bottom of that restart I felt like I had made enough mistakes trying to come through the field, diving three-wide to the outside knowing that there was pretty big grip limitation trying to do that, so I saw it coming, but I was surprised that I did it too, to be 100 percent honest. That was kind of the catalyst for us today and put us in a great spot to be able to execute on the restart and come up with the win.”

WHAT ARE YOUR EMOTIONS WINNING ON THE ROAD COURSE TODAY? “I probably need to give myself a day or so to calm down. I’m not 100 percent proud of my race, so it makes me apprehensive about being super-excited. I’m pretty hard on myself and usually don’t need too many people to tell me what I’ve done wrong because I’ve probably already thought about it or at least beat myself up over it. There were plenty of things I could have cleaned up today, but if I took a step back and rewind a couple a couple months ago, I worked really hard as I do every year to try to get a ride for the Daytona 24 and it was the first time in three years I hadn’t gotten a ride for the Daytona 24. I ended up staying and spotting the race, which was a great motivator to get a ride the next year, so that was kind of a low point for me early in the year not to get that to go together. It doesn’t play your way. It’s hard to do in a series where you don’t run full-time, but that was a bummer for me. So, to be able to come to this track and be able to do that is a big check in the box for me — something that would make this year really special and my time at Daytona really special is if we were to come back here in a couple week’s time to be able to win on the superspeedway. That would be special because that would mean I would have won on the road course, the superspeedway and in a rallycross car here when they ran rallycross. I think that would be really cool for me as far as driving different things at Daytona and kind of add to my versatility, if you will. I think that’s probably what makes today special.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK BACK AT THROWING THE WATER BOTTLE AT BRISCOE BETWEEN THE TWO STAGES? “That’s a double-downer because I didn’t even make it in the window. I didn’t even execute on that. It’s tough. I got pretty heated there and I probably should have reeled myself in. That’s probably the biggest thing I’m not very happy about with myself today. I let that get to me and obviously it showed. I’m very passionate about what I do. I’m very passionate about driving and it’s been a while since I’ve had a heart on my sleeve moment like that. It’s probably a good lesson for me halfway through the year to know that I’ve still got some work to do up here and that’s where it counts, so I’ll reel that in and use it as a learning experience and hopefully the two of us can learn a little better from that end of stage two.”

IS WINNING GETTING OLD SO OFTEN LIKE THIS? “Those guys work extremely hard. I was way more excited after Kentucky than I was after today, but I feel like it’s very, very difficult in all three series to win these races. For me right now, I’m already thinking about Dover. I’m thinking about things I could have done better today. That’s what makes racing in NASCAR so exciting and so challenging is you have to prepare immediately for the next week — or at least to be the best you have to. That’s what I’m focused on. Like I said, I’m not extremely impressed with everything that I did today, but I don’t think that should take away from — we got the fastest lap of the race. We should be able to start on pole at Dover, somewhere I really love going to race, so I’m really motivated to make that a great weekend as well. Having some stats this year to be compared to Richard Petty and compared to Sam Ard, that’s pretty cool and it’s pretty cool for the guys that get to work on my cars. I wouldn’t be here without them and it makes me very motivated whenever I show up to the track that I know those guys have done their best and they know that I’m doing my best.”

ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO TALK TO YOUR CUP TEAMMATES AND GIVE THEM ADVICE ON HOW TO NAVIGATE THIS ROAD COURSE? “Yeah, I think there’s a lot to be learned as far as with the setup of the cars, learn from the things we did right today, learn from things we didn’t do right today. Hopefully, that’s able to transfer over and help those guys. I’ve been a pretty open book to whatever I can do to help that group, whether if it’s this weekend or any other weekend. I talked to Joey for a good bit last week about things that I feel about this racetrack and I feel like you see a lot of those guys doing their homework for this weekend because it is a big challenge for teams and drivers and crews alike.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD TELL THEM ABOUT THE TRACK AFTER EXPERIENCING IT TODAY? “I was surprised, honestly, I’ve got bad perspective because I’ve driven some really incredible race cars here as far as prototype machinery and top tier GT cars. This thing drove terrible in comparison between being able to navigate the infield. It was a lot of fun to go through the bus stop. I was fully expecting the bus stop to be the most fun portion of the racetrack for me because, talking to Noah he said his watch was on recording the race for almost three or four hours. That’s the longest stint that I’ve ever done at the Daytona 24, so your stint length is probably about the same length as what I’ve done here, but you don’t have to worry about saving brakes, saving fuel, saving your splitter, saving your equipment. You can go all-out in the bus stop and that’s somewhere where you have to be pretty conservative in the 24 hours, so that was really fun for me to do today and kind of feel the limits of that and drive these big, heavy cars and try to make them work.”

DO YOU LIKE RACING ON A COURSE LIKE THIS THAT NOT MANY GUYS HAVE EXPERIENCED BEFORE? “I definitely think it’s a challenge. There’s a little bit that you feel like you want to develop things a little better because you can get in the scenario where you can have a simple issue that completely ruins your day. That’s what makes starting these races with no practice or qualifying or really any hot laps very challenging, so it’s a big burden on the teams and, fingers crossed, my guys have done an incredible job at doing that. Most of the field really has across all three series, but it’s a fun challenge. I’ve never been a stranger to doing that. I look back, I’ve obviously run a lot of laps here, so I could say that I kind of knew what I was getting into maybe a little bit more than some of the regulars, but when I raced rallycross back in 2015, I was the points leader heading into the Detroit race and I had just come from Limerock, where I was racing Mustangs. I missed practice. I missed qualifying and they had a problem with the jump in qualifying. They had a big wooden ramp. It was all screwed up and they had to cancel qualifying, so they started on owner’s points and I was on the pole. I showed up right before my heat race and there were no sighting laps or whatever, so it’s literally just a standing start and you go. That was probably one of the most intense moments of my life, getting a standing start and just figuring the track out when you can, so I’ll always remember that about that race and it can always be more difficult. At least you get some pace laps to figure it out, but it’s a fun challenge and I think it shows the talent of the drivers in NASCAR.”

WHAT’S GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THAT BRISCOE IS DONE AND ALLMENDINGER IS DAMAGED? IS IT EASIER TO SEE THE FINISH LINE AT THAT POINT? “That was probably the first thought that crossed my mind was, ‘Man, those guys are out. This should be smooth sailing,’ but nothing is guaranteed. These races are so hard to win. You saw Brandon Jones be able to put in a great drive the last couple laps to finish second there, so you have to push 100 percent. You’ve got to remind yourself of that constantly to never underestimate your competition. You can get yourself in a real hole if you don’t respect the guys that you’re racing and I have a great deal of respect for the guys that I’ve been racing because a lot of them I’ve been racing a lot of my career and I know what they’re capable of and it’s fun to be in a series that way. I wish between the 98, the 16 and myself we would have been able to race that one out for the win because I want to beat the best. I want to beat the best because if you can beat the best, you are the best. Obviously, those guys were the best today and I felt like them getting involved in that wreck impeded probably a greater finish than what we had.”

DO YOU EVER REGRET GIVING CHASE BRISCOE SO MUCH ADVICE ON ROAD COURSES? “It’s tough because I feel like my approach as a teammate or a friend or whatever it may be — a co-driver — is that I have to have the confidence in myself that if you know everything that I know, I can still go do a better job of it. Now with saying that, I’m not gonna tell him what springs I’m running and what setup we’ve got in and so on, but you’ve got to have that confidence and I took that approach at a very early age and I think in some ways it’s paid a lot of benefits because it makes me push myself with very talented people that I’m racing against. He’s come a long way in this stuff from the first time we ran together, I believe it was 2018. He was seconds off the pace and when we came here earlier this year with the GT4 cars, he was all over the same pace that I had, so I talked to his crew chief from ARCA earlier this week and we were laughing about that because I really feel like the progression that I’ve made running the high line, running up against the wall, is equal to the same progression that he’s made in road racing and it’s been fun to push ourselves in that regard. I think that’s what we’re constantly doing. I feel like we can’t ger ourselves in the trap of ruining it for both of us, pushing ourselves that hard because there was some emotion today just for a stage win. So, I feel like that needs to be reeled in on my end and his end. I don’t think there are any innocent parties there. I said in my MRN interview it’s like getting in an argument with your brother where he got to the Playstation first or whatever and you go yell at mom and ask her to pick a side, but, at the end of the day, we both lose if we’re not moving forward. We’ve had the tie with Ford Performance for a while and I’ve really tried to use that as a friendship. We went to lunch today before the race and just watching IndyCar qualifying and he and I have a good relationship, but today was probably a bump in that road.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE MENTAL ASPECT OF ALL THIS? “It’s everything. Racing is mental. It’s very mechanical, but it’s very mental. I don’t think it really hurt my race, but I showed vulnerability and as a race car driver you can’t show that. You can’t show your weaknesses. You’ve got to execute on your strengths and go back to the shop on your weaknesses. Today, I did something I probably hadn’t done in a while which is raise my voice on the radio, so there’s some sort of pride that it’s been a while since that’s happened, but you get heated and you get excited and you want it really, really bad, and I think that played into it today and I’ll be pretty open and honest about it because I’m a pretty open and honest guy. So everything I’ve done in NASCAR has been on the surface and that’s no exception. I think it’s a good reminder for me at this middle stage of the year that you’ve got to keep locked down.”

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT TODAY THAT MADE YOU UPSET? YOU MENTIONED BLOCKING IN A BRAKING ZONE. “So blocking and blocking under brakes are two different things and I’m pretty passionate about blocking. That’s why there are blocking rules in other series is because it’s very dangerous. I haven’t seen a replay and I probably may have been a bit preemptive on my complaints because it’s something that he did a lot at Indy in the long brake zones and I really didn’t like it a lot because what you’re doing there is you’re asking the car behind you to not hit you. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way and it creates contact. That was what I felt was the instance there, but, like I said, I never saw a replay and I probably could have been a bit more passive about it, but, yeah, blocking under brakes and blocking on the straight are two different things because that’s after you’ve committed to a brake zone, that’s after you’ve committed to a line and you’ve committed to the corner. If you’re usually blocking someone under brakes it means they’re going faster than you and you’re putting yourself in harm’s way doing so. Hopefully, we can learn from it, but I don’t think that’s the best way to approach at least halfway through the race, but it’s aggressive, it’s hard racing and those playoff points mean a lot, so I’m not gonna fault him for driving aggressive, but, like I said, I think we could have given ourselves a couple favors and avoided some of the contact.”

BRIAN WILSON, Crew Chief — No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang — “That was an eventful day. Obviously, staying out there to try to win the first stage, that was not what I wanted to see, but we we’ve definitely been focused on trying to get as many playoff points as we can get, so I’m glad that worked out. Things got mixed up a little in the second stage. I don’t feel like once Briscoe got up front, I don’t feel like we had the best car. He was pretty strong today. Obviously, it was a good battle, but he was able to pull away from us, so we’ve still got some work to do, but I do think it’s a good statement from our team that we can win even on days when we don’t have the best car. I do feel like we probably had the second-best — the two of us were able to pull away over a longer run — so we’re not far off, but I feel like as a group we’ve got some work to do to make the car better for here.”

YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE 74 AND 47 STAYING OUT ON THAT ONE RESTART? “I’m all for it. I’ve been on plenty of teams where we’ve called different strategies. We obviously did it at the end of stage 1 to try to get the playoff point. Everyone’s got to weigh out what their situations are and what they’re willing to do. Obviously, those guys thought it was a good move to stay up there. In that situation, all you can do as a team is try to react to it and make your situation as good as you can. You’ve got to think that’s gonna happen at some point in the race, where you’re gonna be on a different strategy. I think that’s part of what stage racing does and the number of tires we have in this series. That adds to a lot of the strategy and I like the fact that we have those options, so I can’t really get mad when somebody else takes a different option.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE DOVER DOUBLEHEADER NEXT WEEKEND? “I’m excited about it. If my math is right, I think we should have the number one stall and should start up front. We’ve been using these doubleheaders as a way to try and learn something when we don’t have practice, so we’ll try to build off of our setup from last year for the first race, and then we’ll have a package ready to go for the second race to try to learn something to make our team better.”

HOW DO YOU WORK WITH A YOUNG DRIVER IN TRYING TO MAINTAIN THEIR EMOTIONS? “I don’t ever think that emotion is a bad thing. We’re all heavily invested in this. It’s an emotional sport and we all want to win. Right now, we’re going head-to-head with our Ford teammate week in and week out and I think that’s gonna continue through the year. Austin and Chase have raced really hard for a lot of years. Austin has called him like a brother and they raced like brothers, so it’s okay to get mad and upset like that. Austin reigned it in really quick. I think he did a good job of that. If there’s anything that as a team we need to work on we’ll talk about that behind closed doors, but I liked the fact he was able to bring it back in really quick and execute at the end of the race.”

WHAT DOES THIS TEAM NEED TO DO TO MAINTAIN ITS MOMENTUM? “It’s tough. That’s what you worry about when you go on a streak like this where we’ve been winning so much. Are the other guys gonna catch up? What do we have to do to keep the hammer down and try to keep the momentum for the playoffs. The playoff points help a lot. We’re at a point now where I feel like if we’re able to close out this regular season, we should have plenty of points to carry us through. It’s almost gonna be a race worth of points that we have going into the playoffs, so that’s gonna be huge. The biggest thing is, like I said about the Dover weekend, we’ve got to try to keep learning as much as we can with limited practice, so using those weekends to move the program forward is big for us right now.”

Team Penske NASCAR Xfinity Series Race Report
Track: Daytona International Speedway Road Course
Race: UNOH 188
Date: August 15, 2020
__________________________________________________
No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang – Austin Cindric
Start: 1st
Stage 1: 1st (Eighth stage win of 2020)
Stage 2: 2nd
Finish: 1st (Seventh career NXS victory)
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 52/52
Laps Led: 21
Point Standings (ahead of second): 1st (+48)

Notes:

Austin Cindric and the No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang team were victorious in the inaugural race at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course Saturday, winning the UNOH 188. The Mooresville, N.C. native led a total of 21 laps, en route to his fifth victory in the last six races of the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) season, tying the record of Sam Ard. Cindric won for the fourth time on a road course and has finished second or better in the last six races. He leads the NXS driver standings by 48 markers ahead of second place Chase Briscoe.

Cindric started the weather-delayed event from the first position after the field was per the new lineup formula which uses three performance metrics of the finishing position from the previous race (weighted 50%), the ranking in team owner points standings (35%), and the fastest lap from the previous race (15%) to determine lineup and pit selection order.

During pace laps, NASCAR decided the track was damp, allowing teams to pit and choose between slick and rain tires. Cindric started the 52-lap race on slicks once the green flag dropped. He took turn-1 wide, losing the first position but quickly regained the lead from Noah Gragson. He extended his lead before the first caution was displayed with three-laps remaining in the first stage. Cindric remained on track during the caution while most of the field came to pit road. Stage 1 restarted with a one-lap sprint and Cindric capturing his eighth stage win of the 2020 season.

Crew chief Brian Wilson made the call to pit during the stage caution for tires, fuel and adjustments. Cindric restarted 17th after a mixture of pit strategy shuffled the running order. Cindric raced his way to the 12th position before the caution waved for the third time on lap 17. With a series of cautions throughout the 15-lap stage, Cindric was able to battle his way to the second position at the conclusion of Stage 2. During the caution, Cindric came to pit road for fuel and tires and restarted the final stage in fourth.

Cindric quickly regained the runner-up position to race leader Chase Briscoe, where he ran until the caution was displayed on lap 42. The driver of the No. 22 MoneyLion Ford came to pit road for four fresh tires and fuel and would hold his position leaving pit road. With three cars remaining on track, Cindric would restart fifth with seven laps remaining. As the field entered turn 1, chaos struck as most of the field missed the turn and the caution was displayed once more with Cindric lining up second. He reclaimed the race lead with five laps remaining and never looked back to capture his seventh career NXS victory.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series is back in action with the Dover International Speedway double header. The first race will take place on Saturday, August 22 at 12:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio followed by race two on Sunday, August 23 at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

Quote: “I’m not sure anyone was really happy with their race car. Unfortunately, I have a tough perspective of driving really fast high-grip race cars at this track, but great credit to my team — the MoneyLion guys — and everyone that puts this together — Ford Performance, Roush Yates Engines, obviously everyone at Team Penske for working hard. That’s five wins on the year and back-to-back now. I’m really proud of that. I didn’t feel like I drove my best today, but we executed there at the end where it counts and that’s what makes these races so difficult to win.”

JONES TAKES SECOND AT HISTORIC DAYTONA ROAD COURSE CIRCUIT
Brandon Jones wheels Supra to runner-up result

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (August 15, 2020) – Brandon Jones (second) drove to a career-best road course finish to lead Toyota in the UNOH 188 at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course on Saturday afternoon.

Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS)
Daytona International Speedway Road Course
Race 19 of 33 – 187.7 miles, 52 laps

TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Austin Cindric*
2nd, BRANDON JONES
3rd, Noah Gragson*
4th, AJ Allmendinger*
5th, Andy Lally*
7th, RILEY HERBST
8th, HARRISON BURTON
12th, JOSH BILICKI
19th, SCOTT HECKERT
21st, STEPHEN LEICHT
28th, BRANDON GDOVIC
30th, BOBBY REUSE
35th, HAROLD CROOMS
*non-Toyota driver

TOYOTA QUOTES

BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Menards/Inspire Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 2nd

What was your perspective of today’s race?

“I had a flashback to Kansas there when they all pushed up into turn one. I hate there was a caution because I know (Austin) Cindric was lights out fast, but I think we could have at least gotten pretty close there the end to possibly winning this thing. It wouldn’t be possible without everyone at JGR, Menards, Inspire was a new sponsor for us – Special Forces Foundation. It’s been a good day here. Did not come here thinking I was going to have a shot to win the race. I stayed in the game, never locked the wheels up, stayed on track and it paid off.”

How was your run overall today and what was it like racing on the Daytona Road Course?

“We started the day off and had the weather. It was our call to put the tires on, the wet tires. So I kind of went around the race track and assessed it. Saw a lot of it drying up, but I saw a lot of it also damp with a couple puddles so I wasn’t really sure what we should do so they made the call to put on the wet tires. Obviously, it dried up way quicker than we thought so we came pretty quick and got those off of it. Started running really good lap times once we got stickers on the race car. We started about sixth to fourth-place lap times. Kind of maintained that all day too really. Just kind of stayed on track all day and made sure that we made no mistakes. A couple times I had some wheel hop, but never had any front lock up and never once went off the track. All those things eventually pay off. Obviously, you need some speed too, you can’t just ease around the race track all day and expect to finish good. You still need the speed so that was pretty good to see there. We have the Roval too, obviously that’s a similar race track so that gives me a lot of insight and kind of pumped up to go there now. This was a really big day for us. I think we needed this for road courses, confidence-wise. The last restart, I thought about Kansas all over again when they all pushed up and I thought this could possibly be a chance. I looked up the mirror and I had a pretty big gap, but it was just too many people spinning out there. It was fun racing (Austin) Cindric there. Me and him are finally racing really clean I feel like and having a good time doing it. All that was really good. I think just a solid day. Pit crew did what they needed to do. Crew chief did his job and I feel like I did mine. We’ll go back to the drawing board and figure out where the 22 (Cindric) is a little bit better. It’s every corner, he’s just able to attack harder I feel like. If that’s brakes or just experience, I don’t know. I’ll have to figure that out.”

How much do you feel lack of practice impacted the race?

“Honestly, I don’t think the outcome would have been much different. Maybe some guys would have fine-tuned their brakes, and some wouldn’t have locked them up as much. I feel like everybody that came here competitively this weekend ran simulators. I guarantee it, for weeks on end at this track. I know we did anyways just to prepare for it. I know lots of these guys are going to go-kart tracks and we’re doing the same thing. Everyone’s prepping really, really hard so I think we would have showed up and if anything, we all would have been a little faster to get going, that’s the only difference.”

Did you think you had anything for Austin Cindric at the end?

“At first, I kind of did in a way. Then, every corner, it’s just a little bit here and there and the next thing you know, you’ve got 14 corners and if it’s a tenth in each corner, you guys can do the math there. That’s a lot. I was really happy to see that for a few corners at least, we hung with him. Then we were able to maintain second.”

Did you feel what you learned in the simulator carried over to the actual race track?

“The biggest thing in the simulator is that you’re not scared at all. You go off the race track, you smash into the wall, you hit reset and you go again. Here, you don’t have that opportunity so you’re just more timid the whole time I feel like. That’s the difference between going there and here. I think it is really close. I don’t know exactly what the lap time difference was, but grip-wise it was really similar and all that. I would say the biggest thing that surprised me here today was how well our car held on. Sometimes you come to these road courses and start strong and really fade quick. I feel like today we didn’t really have a ton of fade. That was really good to see there.”

Are you planning to debrief with your Cup teammates?

“We haven’t really planned on it. We obviously do it between our drivers in the Xfinity race afterwards, but I don’t know. If they reach out to us, I guess we’ll share some info. I feel like that’s the way it is with the Cup guys, the Xfinity guys have to ask them to get information so I assume it would be the same way for us. I would say the biggest thing is that you need to make sure your exit speeds are really good and that you slowly apply throttle to get grip. The guys that were somewhat beating us would drive in deep, but then they had no grip on exit to where we would kind of power off there. I thought that was our strong suit in the race and I thought that’s what kind of made us hang on there.”

How did you prepare for this race?

“Going back to simulators, TRD obviously has one. I know pretty much every manufacturer has one as well. We used that a bunch. We were probably three or four weeks in advance on that, running laps and trying to get used to the race track. They threw that chicane in there so we didn’t have that for a couple weeks and then we got that added in. That was pretty good to be able to practice everything there. I used iRacing a little bit, but not much. That was more working on passes there, that’s kind of what that tool was really good for, not so much learning the race track. Then go-kart track locally, doing that kind of stuff. That’s at least weeks in advance doing that and that was prep for Road America as well. Everything that went into that. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing the last couple weeks.”

What do you and the team need to work on for Playoffs and what track are you looking forward to within the Playoffs?

“I really want to start working on trying to get stage points again and trying to get stage wins even. I think those are really big when you start getting to the Playoffs. The first round obviously we’ve got some wins, but I think even without some wins, it wasn’t going to be a big deal to try to get to that one, but as we go down the line here and as we get smaller and smaller, it’s really going to come down to winning these races and even some stage wins carrying over to the next round. All that stuff is going to be very big and I think that’s the area we need to work the most on is maintaining track position all day and not sneaking in here on these restarts at the end to try to win them, which is still good, but I just think that’s an area we can improve on a little bit. I’m looking forward to the final round if we get there, that’s Kansas and Phoenix and we’ve won both of those this year with really good race cars so if we get there, they’re going to be ready for it.”

Why did so many drivers miss turn one on the second-to-last restart?

“I think once one guy drives in a little too deep, the guy behind him thinks that it’s okay to go in a little bit deeper just judging off the car in front of you. Then the one car goes in too deep, locks up and then everyone is going to start locking up. At that point, you really can’t control what the car is going to do if you get wheel hop, you get front lock up – you’re kind of just along for the ride. There’s a few ways to defend against it and try to improve it, but when you’re that deep into the corner, it’s really tough. I think it’s just a domino effect that you saw there at the end. A couple guys over shot the corner maybe and it applied to a lot of people.”

RILEY HERBST, No. 18 Monster Energy Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 7th

Talk about a crazy day at Daytona International Speedway.

“We had a fast Monster Energy Supra. We drove up to fourth, and then I wasn’t using my head and spun out in the bus stop. We got back on the strategy because we came down and put tires on. One of the restarts, it got hectic there and I had to drive through the grass and had grass on my tires. I started wheel hopping into (turn) three. Yeah, it was crazy. Luckily, we came back to seventh, but it sucks that we finished seventh. We should have been top-three to be honest.”

Talk about your preparation for this race. As a rookie, you have had several races where you were racing at the track for the first time. Did you feel like it was more of an even playing field today?

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything different for me. I’ve been to multiple tracks that I’ve never seen and had to fire off for the race with no practice. I thought I had a leg up because I kind of know what to expect in that nature. I prepared a lot for this track, hoping to get a good finish and I was in a position to have a good finish, my team put me in a good position to have a good finish and I’d didn’t capitalize on it.”

Next up, a doubleheader at Dover, where you earned a solid top-15 finish last season in just your third career start. Are you looking forward to the Monster Mile?

“Yeah, I’m excited to get back to Dover and get back on an oval. I know we will have a really fast Monster Energy Supra. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully, we can steal a Miles up in Delaware one of those days.”

HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 DEX Imaging Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 8th

A very solid race, and you made a great rebound after a couple wild final restarts. Talk about your finish today in Daytona.

“It was a tough race for sure. Everyone firing off on the first lap in halfway wet, halfway dry race track, sounds like a pretty good recipe for disaster for me but I feel like everyone in the series did a pretty good job not wadding us up there in the first few laps. I was learning the track, and I feel like once I got the hang of it, we were not quick enough to win, but we were quick enough to finish third or fourth. We ran third for quite a bit of the day. That was good for us. That’s improvement for me on a road course, especially in a road course at a Roval. I’ve struggled at those in the past. Good to kind of run a little better. Still need to get a lot more speed to be faster than (Austin) Cindric, (Chase) Briscoe and (AJ) Allmendinger, but we made a step in the right direction. We didn’t get the finish we deserved, I don’t think, but we were able to recover and salvage a decent points day from it.”

How did you prepare for a race like this?

“The biggest thing about preparing is just trying to learn the race track as much as you can. We don’t get any laps here. That’s a big disadvantage to guys that have had laps here. It’s just a tough deal. It’s all about watching as much film as you can, and taking as much notes as you can from people that you know did a good job in the ARCA race or have done a good job here in the past in sports cars, or whatever that might be. It’s just a tough, tough deal. It was a lot fun. It’s a fun challenge to kind of prepare for something you don’t even know what to expect. Obviously, not the run I wanted. I made some mistakes, but able to recover and finish not terribly and we will move on from there.’

What do you think you learned today that you can apply to the Playoff race at the Charlotte Roval?

“I think it helped for sure. Just getting laps at a similar race track. I’ve been to the Roval before, so that’s nice to kind of know that ‘Hey, I’ve been here before and I know what to expect a little bit here.’ So, that’s a good thing. We are able to move on from this and get a notebook. It’s nice to be locked in the Playoffs, so this is something that if you don’t win or get a stage win, it’s not going to kill you. For us, it’s all about learning and being the best team we can be come Playoff time. It seems like we always have speed; it’s just putting the whole race together.”

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