Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Chase Briscoe has the weekend off in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, but he’ll head to Road America nonetheless to compete in the PF Racing Ford Mustang GT4 with co-driver James Pesek as part of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race. That will mark the first of consecutive weekends he’ll race on the road course as the NXS cars will be there on Aug. 8.
Ryan Newman will be returning this weekend to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of his first Cup Series victory in 2002 as a member of Team Penske and Ford. Newman has 18 career Cup wins, including the 50th Daytona 500 in 2008.
Both drivers participated in today’s Ford Zoom call with members of the media. Here is a transcript of their comments:
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 40 PF Racing Ford Mustang GT4 – HOW DID THIS DEAL COME ABOUT WITH PF RACING? “It was pretty last-minute, I would say. I want to say about a week-and-a-half ago Pat DiMarco over at Ford Performance had called and asked if I had any interest in even running the Mustang and he felt like it would be a good opportunity for me just to get some laps at Road America, especially with us not getting any practice on the NASCAR side, so I felt like it would be a great opportunity. We weren’t sure if it was gonna be with Multimatic or PF Racing and obviously the opening as at PF, so I’m looking forward to going there. Any time you can go to Road America I enjoy going. I think it’s one of the nicest facilities in all of motorsports, and then just getting laps, trying to get better for the NASCAR stuff I think will certainly help.”
GETTING EXPERIENCE IN ROAD COURSES SEEMED TO HELP YOU LAST YEAR. IS THAT THE MAIN REASON TO DO IT AGAIN HERE? “Yeah, absolutely. I always enjoyed road racing. I hadn’t even done it until 2016 and I enjoyed doing it, but I wasn’t very fast at all. I was always three to three-and-a-half seconds off the fastest guy. I felt like I was going fast, but I wasn’t fast at all and then in 2018 Ford had me run, I want to say, eight out of the 11 IMSA races and then I was able actually win on a road course that year and follow that up this year winning at Indy on the road course. I feel like though my road course skills have gotten way better, I still have quite a bit to do to get better, but I’m definitely way more in the ballpark now than I ever was before I started running this IMSA stuff. Hopefully, that same experience at Road America this weekend will help for the following weekend. Obviously, with no practice just getting seat time and seeing the racetrack again I don’t think can hurt by any means.”
HOW IS THE IMSA GT4 MUSTANG DIFFERENT FROM THE XFINITY MUSTANG AND HOW DO YOU KEEP THEM SEPARATE IN YOUR MIND? “That’s the tough balance. Truthfully, I’ve ran the Daytona road course three or four times now and even though we’re going there in a stock car, I don’t feel like I’m anymore prepared than the next guy just because they are so different. These cars, the IMSA cars, have ABS, they have traction control, paddle shift. They just drive a lot easier than the stock car. The stock car, I feel like you have to hustle a lot more. They don’t want to turn left and right, where these IMSA cars are obviously built for that. When you go run the IMSA stuff you feel like you’re running a purposely-built road course car, where on the NASCAR side they don’t want to stop good, they don’t want to turn left and right quick good, so it’s just a totally different mindset in how you race, and even the racing style is quite a bit different. One of the biggest things that took me a little while to get used to on the IMSA side is they don’t run with spotters. You just have your mirrors and that’s hard for me to get used to, not having that spotter. There are sometimes I feel like I’ve got position on a guy, well, when you’re just racing with mirrors you don’t have that position. So there are definitely some differences, but I think just seeing the racetrack and a lot of the time in these cars I feel like when I go to Mid-Ohio or these other places the same things that – hitting this curb or hitting that curb that find me speed in the IMSA car typically finds me speed in the XFINITY car as well. Hopefully, that will be the same at Road America. I called Ty Majeski last week because he got to run both here last year I think it was. He said they were definitely quite a bit different. Our braking points are gonna be way off and things like that, but just seeing the racetrack and getting laps will hopefully have me up to speed for NASCAR weekend.”
THE XFINITY RACE IS SHAPING UP TO BE A GREAT BATTLE. WHAT CONCERNS YOU MOST IN THIS STRETCH RUN TO THE PLAYOFFS? “I think the biggest thing for us is these last three weeks have not been super characteristic of our team. We just haven’t necessarily had the speed. A perfect example last weekend at Kansas, we were gonna win the race there last year and got wrecked by a lapped car with 10 or 12 to go and then this year we have a hard time running in the top 10 with practically the same setup. We’ve just been off for whatever reason. I don’t know what that reason is. We had about a 35-40 point lead in the regular season championship and that all went away this past week and now we’re down four points. So trying to win that regular season championship is a huge deal and now Cindric is in the lead and we’re going to all these road course where he’s probably the favorite, but I feel like we can beat him still. Obviously, at Indy I don’t think anybody expected us to win and we were able to go there and win. Road America is gonna be a little bit different with how the pit stops are gonna be and the strategy is gonna be a little different I think. And then the Daytona road course we go there the following week and Cindric is really, really fast there in the IMSA car, so he’s gonna be hard to beat. I think we just have to get back on how we were at the beginning of the year as far as just having speed in the race cars and, like I said, I don’t know what happened these last three weeks. It’s just not been our normal team and we just have to get back to how we were at the beginning of the year.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY PREFERENCE IF THEY PUT IN A CHICANE OFF THE OVAL OF TURN FOUR AT DAYTONA? “I personally don’t think we need a chicane. I know that the speeds are gonna be really fast getting into turn one, but, to me, on the simulator the chicane that I’ve run two or three different styles now and every one just doesn’t flow good at all. You’re braking in the middle of turn four. I think it’s gonna make it harder to pass because it funnels in so tight, where if you had that long straightaway out of the bus stop all the way to the natural turn one, it creates a lot of drafting and I feel like a lot of passing opportunities. I would like to see them put bigger curbing in the bus stop to really slow us down where we can’t kind of skip through it and kind of run two tires off the racetrack. I feel like if they slowed us down out of the bus stop, maybe that would slow us down seven, eight, nine miles an hour on the big track and then we wouldn’t need that chicane. I don’t know if they’re gonna do the chicane or not. Like I said, I’ve practiced for two or three different ones and I’m not a fan typically of any of them. I just think the normal racetrack is good. Every other series in the world runs on it, I don’t see why we can’t run on that one as well. But if they feel like they need to make a chicane to make brakes last or whatever, then obviously I don’t want to be the guy to go blow a brake rotor and hit the wall really hard, so what I really think, I mean, they normally have our best interest in mind and hopefully that’s what will happen.”
IF YOU HAVE A PLAYOFF ROUND THAT HAS TALLADEGA AND THE ROVAL IN IT DOES THAT CHANGE THE DYNAMICS OF THE PLAYOFFS FOR YOU AT ALL? “Yeah, absolutely. I’m praying that we don’t go to Talladega in the playoffs just because it’s so many unknowns when you go there. You can have a 40-point lead and that could go away so quick. Typically, on these mile-and-a-half racetracks or a short track or even the road courses you’re at least gonna normally run in the top 15-20 if you have a bad day, where Talladega you can end up 30th on back and that’s a huge points swing, especially if you don’t get any stage points. So, I would be all for not going to Talladega. I understand the schedule situation that we’re in it’s gonna be tough to navigate all the schedules and making all the series work together, but if I had my choice, I would absolutely love to not go to Talladega, just because there are so many variables that are in that race and so many things that can happen. You can be in a great points situation and leave there and be outside the playoff bubble for the next round. Anything can happen at Talladega and when you throw in the Roval in that same round as well, there’s a lot of stuff that could go wrong really quick.”
CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING NO LAPS AT ROAD AMERICA AND THEN HAVING TO START THE RACE AT FULL SPEED? “I think Road America is gonna be good practice for the following week at Daytona. You throw in at least a majority of the field has laps at Road America, where there is only gonna be I think three or four guys that have any laps at Daytona. So, I think it’s gonna be a good warmup. Turn one, I think will be relatively easy, but you go into turn three or turn five in these heavy braking zones when we’re up to speed, it’s gonna be pretty chaotic I think, especially from a standpoint of the random draw. You can have a guy or two or three guys on the front row that have never seen the place before and you have guys with experience starting in eighth or ninth on back, so that part of it is I think the hardest thing – just the random draw how it can turn out and put guys that don’t even know the racetrack on the front row or whatever and the experienced guys in the back, so it will be exciting. I think the oval racing has been pretty exciting just from the standpoint of no practice and seeing guys come and go throughout the field. You do that at a road course it’s gonna be even more extreme. You go back to the Indy race this year we had practice and there were some guys four and five seconds off the pace in practice and obviously as the weekend goes on they get better and better, but you throw in those first laps of practice and that’s the first laps of the race now and they’re four or five seconds off, so it’s definitely gonna be pretty crazy.”
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT ROAD AMERICA AND WHAT’S THE TRICKIEST? “I think, first off, Road America – I can’t say it enough – it’s such a nice facility. It’s like you go to a state park and there’s a racetrack there. It’s just so beautiful. The fans are always awesome every time we go. From the racetrack standpoint, I think it’s really one of the best road courses in the country, in my opinion, just because it has so many different elements. It has the long straightaways, the heavy braking zones, it has 90-degree corners, it has sweeping corners. It’s fast. It’s slow. It has elevation. It really has everything that you look for in a road course and then on top of that it has a lot of tire falloff, which makes great racing. So, I would say my favorite corner there is probably the carousel, the really long sweeping right-hander, just because you’re kind of dirt-tracking it over there. You’re sideways. It’s just a fun corner, I feel like. My least favorite, if you’re car is not handling good is probably the kind, just because you’re so on edge through there if you car is not very good it can really make it a long day and it’s pretty hairy going through there just in general, even if your car is good. I would say those two corners are back-to-back and that first one is my favorite and the next one is my least favorite.”
WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE COMPETITION IN THE MICHELIN PILOT CHALLENGE AND SOME OF THE ELEMENTS LIKE DRIVER CHANGES AND MULTI-CLASS RACING? “I enjoy it. I think it’s what makes that racing run is you might have one guy that is really, really fast and one guy that kind of struggles a little bit. You don’t know who is in the car half the time and you come up and, for me, I wish I raced in the series more just so I knew more of the drivers and kind of their tendencies. I think that’s one of the hard things for me when I do go run IMSA is even if I knew the guy’s name that’s in the car, I don’t know their driving tendencies. Ok, does this guy always drive in too hard? Or lift early? Or whatever because I don’t race with them enough, so that makes it hard for me to take advantage of certain guys and certain situations, but I think the fun thing about IMSA for me, but also the frustrating thing is the BOP, just because you never know what you’re gonna have when you get there. It seems like guys always kind of play games until qualifying in the race. At least these last couple times I’ve ran IMSA I feel like we’ve been on the worse end of the BOP just where you don’t really have any straightaway speed. That makes it hard to race and pass guys, so I think that’s the fun part though at the same time because all the manufacturers are playing games and even the fans. It seems like they’re really big fans of the manufacturers of the cars. All the cars are always beautiful in the garage area, so it’s fun to just honestly walk around IMSA garages and see all the cars, see the Mercedes, see the McLarens and all these cars that are sports cars. They’re cars you don’t get to see very often, at least for us in the NASCAR world, so it’s pretty neat to go see.”
IS THERE ANY SPORTS CAR DRIVERS YOU’VE USED AS A MENTOR? “Obviously, Cindric is probably who I talk to the most. He’s transitioned to the NASCAR side now, but he was a sports car racer at first, so Austin is probably who I use the most. And then Billy Johnson actually came every race last year and spotted me in the XFINITY stuff and kind of driver coached me on all these road course, so Billy is another one I’ve always used. Scott Maxwell and then Ryan Eversley I’ve become friends with. I haven’t really necessarily talked to him as much about the racing stuff, but he’s a guy that I enjoy watching and following on Twitter and stuff like that.”
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO SEEING THE DAYTONA ROAD COURSE ADDED? “I like it. Obviously, we’re not going to Mid-Ohio or one of those other road courses or Watkins Glen, so we needed to replace it with another road course. Truthfully, these first-time races have worked out great for me between the Roval and Indy now, so I’m all for it. I enjoy going to places where I feel it’s a clean slate just because I don’t feel like I’m behind the eight-ball as much, where you go to a place like Mid-Ohio or Road America, where I’d never been to before, I’m trying to play catch-up to guys that have been there, where when we go to these places for the first time we’re all on an even playing field, so I’m all for it. I would rather run the road course than the superspeedway just because I feel like it puts more in the driver’s hands. So, I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s gonna be a really good race. I’m curious to see what they do with the racetrack, if they had a chicane or not, but, yeah, I think it’s gonna be really exciting. The speed difference is gonna be huge, I think, between what I’ve ran there in the past in IMSA and the stock car. On the simulator I want to say we’re like 195 into the bus stop and in the IMSA car we’re only 165 or something like that, so the speed is gonna be way different, but it’s gonna be fun.”
CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO FANS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE IN THE CAR WHEN IT’S SO HOT OUTSIDE? “I think there are two examples. If you’re getting in your street car after it’s been sitting out in the 100-degree weather all day, you obviously get in it’s hot and there’s no movement of the air whatsoever. Imagine doing that and either leaving the air off for one, where it just kind of sits there and bakes because there’s not a lot of movement of air in our cars in general, and then on top of that just adding heat to it and blasting the full heat the whole time. And then my other example would probably be go get in a sauna and put it on 130-140 degrees and go and wear sweat pants, jeans, whatever and a sweatshirt with long sleeves under that, put something over your mouth where you can hardly breathe because with a helmet you don’t have that great of an airflow anyway. It’s hot in these cars. The IMSA cars and the NASCAR stuff are both really, really hot. There is no air movement really whatsoever. Yeah, we have the little helmet blower, but that’s only seven or eight degrees cooler than what it is outside, so it’s really not doing too much when it’s 100 degrees outside. I would say those are the two easiest ways to describe how hot it is and it’s definitely brutal, for sure.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL IMSA RACES PLANNED THIS YEAR? “As far as I know this is it. Truthfully, I wasn’t even expecting to do this one. At the beginning of the year it was just run Daytona and that was it – maybe Road Atlanta – but I think it was a conflict this year, where last year it wasn’t. So, anytime that I can do it and there’s not a conflict, I would love to come do it. I know Ford likes having me to run as many as these races as I can just because it makes me a better race car driver, so I don’t know how the schedules line up, especially with the COVID stuff, but this is a race I wasn’t expected to do and I’m glad that it worked out the way it does just with NASCAR going there next week now. I think it’ll be a huge benefit and hopefully we can continue to run some more in the future.”
DO YOU LOOK AT THIS WEEKEND AS A FUN WEEKEND OR A LEARNING WEEKEND TO GET YOU PREPARED? “I think you go there and you’re just trying to make yourself better for next week. I think the good thing is there are no expectations. We go there and try to win the race, but, at the end of the day, say we run 15th or 20th, well, then there’s really nothing to be disappointed about in the big scheme of things because I’m not points racing, where last week at Kansas it was a terrible week and we lose 30-something points to the guys behind us. It just has a lot different outlook on it, so, for me, I’m going there to have fun in a sense, but I’m also trying to learn as much as I can and just get re-acclimated with the racetrack. You have to take how the car is driving with a grain of salt, I think, just because it is so different, but, at the same time, you’re still seeing the racetrack. I feel like at least next week now I’ll be up to speed. I’m not re-learning the racetrack. I was just there the week before. I know where everything is. What curbs to hit. What curbs not to hit, so I think just trying to use that and keep it in perspective. Okay, these cars aren’t gonna drive the same. My braking points are probably gonna be 300-feet different, but at least I’m seeing the racetrack and maybe I can learn something and help me the following week in the XFINITY car. If I can just pick up one thing that finds me speed, then it was all worth it.”
ANY MOVEMENT IN TERMS OF PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR? “No, not yet truthfully. I’m just trying to still focus on everything this year and how we’ve run these last couple weeks. We need to be running better and that’s been our main focus. Typically, we have our debriefs on Tuesdays and they last 45 minutes. Our debrief today lasted two hours just trying to figure out how to get better. So, that’s our main focus right now. I’m not even worried about next year. I’m trying to focus on winning this regular season championship first and then also winning the actual championship. So, we’re putting all of our eggs in those baskets and just trying to do the best that we can. Obviously, if we’re winning races week in and week out, then those Cup talks are gonna take care of themselves and you’re gonna be more valuable to more teams, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Guaranteed Rate Ford Mustang – YOU HAVE A NEW SPONSOR IN GUARANTEED RATE THIS WEEKEND. THAT MUST MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD GOING TO NEW HAMPSHIRE. “Without a doubt. One of my tracks that I declared my least favorite about 18 years ago won my first race there and now we’re going back with a new sponsor. It’s been a great racetrack for me. It’s a challenge and I’ve always said the birthplace of track position as we talk about it, but definitely a fun racetrack because it’s a finesse racetrack, flat.”
HAVE YOU FELT GOOD THROUGH THIS STRETCH OF RACING? HAVE YOU HAD TO GO BACK TO THE DOCTOR FOR ANY SORT OF CHECK-UPS? “No, I feel fine. I’ve been good, even after hitting the wall as hard as we did, which wasn’t near as hard as everybody else did it at Indy. I’ve been fine. No issues, just trying to get some more speed and balance in our Roush Fenway Ford Mustang, so that’s been really the focus. Healthwise, I feel 100 percent.”
YOU BACK TO DAYTONA TWICE MORE NOW IN THE NEXT MONTH. DO YOU EXPECT IT TO BE MORE EMOTIONAL? “I guess after February I’m pretty emotional every day. I’m just thankful for the opportunity to continue on. I get to hit the reset button in a roundabout way, not with my life, but the reality is just to continue to play on. I will probably be some sort of emotional going back to Daytona, but I don’t see it being a whole lot different than the kind of emotion I had getting in the car at Talladega or even going back to Darlington for that matter when I went and did my first test.”
WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR FIRST WIN AT NEW HAMPSHIRE IN 2002? “It was a rain-shortened race. I had virtually no brakes left. I would run down the straightaway and Kurt Busch was all over my bumper. I was trying to lap the current point leader, Sterling Marlin. So, it was a lot of things, a lot of good memories, obviously, and to get my first win and that picture with the lobster and all that stuff was really cool. We had some victories in the near-past from then if you look back to the All-Star Race and some Busch races at the time back in ’01, but the reality was that was a pretty special day and something I’ll never forget.”
IS THERE A TRACK YOU CAN COMPARE NHMS TO AND WILL THE PJ1 PLAY A ROLE THERE? “I guess just to clarify I declared it as one of my least favorite back then before I won there, and it’s been a favorite track of mine to be able to hustle the car at and, like I said, have that level of finesse that you need and that balance of hustle and finesse, but it’s a challenge to pass there. The PJ1 I would say, of all places, probably has the most advantageous at Loudon to be able to have multiple grooves and that change throughout the race. I don’t know what the application process is gonna be. From what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced this year, I don’t know if the people at the racetrack know what they’re doing with it, but the reality is it sometimes and some ways it gets put down and it is what it is for everybody at the racetrack. It’s no different than a dirt track if the guy runs a couple extra laps with the water truck. You just take it for what it’s worth and try to be the best on that day.”
DO YOU KNOW WHAT CAR YOU ARE USING FOR DAYTONA? “I assume we do. I don’t know what car or chassis number that is. I hope it’s been totally re-designed after a couple of our road course races last year. We had a good run in Sonoma, but Watkins Glen and Charlotte were pretty miserable for us. I know that they’ve re-done some things with the cars. I don’t know if it’s a new car. I don’t know if it’s a rebuilt or re-clipped car, how it works, but the reality is I’ll show up, buckle in, and do my thing.”
ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE ROAD COURSE AND HOW BAD WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN IT? “I’d obviously like to win it really bad. That’s a no-brainer, for a playoff berth and just to get in Victory Lane in any form and any fashion would be pretty spectacular for me. And then obviously some bittersweetness being in Daytona after February, but the reality is I’m probably one of a few guys that has laps even though it was back in the IROC days in an IROC car there, I don’t remember the exact year, but I’m one of the few guys that probably has laps. Obviously, Kurt Busch and some other guys that have done the 24 Hours do, and that’s gonna play to their advantage, and we’ll definitely do some sim work in trying to get a better understanding of our types of cars and that racetrack, but the reality is it’s gonna be a lot of greenness for a lot of people when the green flag drops.”
DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT BEING TWO SECONDS AWAY FROM YOUR WHOLE YEAR BEING TOTALLY DIFFERENT? “No doubt I’ve thought about it, but the reality is it’s not the truth, it’s not what happened, it’s the what could have been and everybody has that in their season. We have to do our job to go back and kind of replay those events and make corrections to whatever mistakes or whatever differences we can to try to be victorious. That doesn’t go just for Daytona, that goes for every racetrack. The season no doubt has been a challenge in so many ways for so many people and our team, I feel like we’ve struggled a little bit, but I feel like we have the things that we need to make the corrections to be better and be stronger and be successful, so we’re just gonna keep our nose to the grindstone and carry on.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE FOR FANS HOW HOT IT GETS IN THE CAR DURING THIS HEATWAVE GOING ON RIGHT NOW? “The best analogy that I have is my experience in making beef jerky and that’s something where you slice meat thin, you put it in after you marinate it for six hours at 140 degrees and it comes out as dry as dry can be and crispy, and sometimes overdone, so that’s kind of what your body is going through. You’re way thicker than that thin slice of meat, but the reality is it’s hot in there and you have to go into that race or any race for that matter prepared for the conditions.”
DO YOU LIKE DAYTONA BEING THE LAST RACE OF THE REGULAR SEASON AS OPPOSED TO JULY AND WHAT KIND OF HOPE DOES THAT GIVE GUYS ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN? “They’re just dates on the calendar and they’re all equal until they’re over and then you realize what you could have done better and what you needed to work on to be successful. We just have to do our best job to get our Roush Fenway Ford in Victory Lane. Obviously, we’re in a position where pointing our way in is probably not even rational. I don’t even know the number. What I’m trying to do is win a race and win a stage for that matter would be a start. The reality is Daytona is Daytona and we’ll just do our thing when the time comes and hopefully have some fun doing it.”
THERE IS SO MUCH UNPREDICTABILITY FOR GUYS WINNING THERE. DO YOU SEE THAT AS A GOOD WAY TO END THE REGULAR SEASON WITH THAT ELEMENT? “I don’t know. I don’t know that the end matters if it’s the regular season finish or part of the regular season. I think it’s just the day on the calendar, whether it happens in February or April or August it’s just coincidence. In the end, they all matter equally. It has potential to be super-sweet for somebody and nothing more special after what happened in February to be that team, but there are so many things that have to align and we have a lot of work to do beforehand.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE SINCE COMING BACK FROM THE BREAK – NO PRACTICE, NO QUALIYFING? WHAT? “Racetrack-wise it’s two things I guess I would say. No practice and no seat time, no experience to feel something out, which I have no problem feeling it out, and that’s not an issue for me. The issue is you don’t have the ability to adjust on it but so much, and sometimes if you don’t start off close enough, that’s a pivotal part to your day. You can’t just stop the game and put air in the ball, so that’s probably the biggest thing and then obviously the lack of fans – not that we don’t have fan support whether we’re at the racetrack or not – but the fact that the fans aren’t there and that energy level that goes along with them being there pre-race and post-race has been just so different that after doing it for 20 years now to see that part of the sport deleted is just interesting. I mean, it’s not good and the reality is we want fans there. I know why they’re not, but it’s just you can’t change that energy unless those fans are there or not. That’s completely black or white. There’s no gray in between. There’s either energy with the fans or there’s no energy with the fans. When I’m in the race car I don’t see or feel the difference. When the green flag drops until the checkered flag drops it’s all the same, but pre-race and post-race energy is just so stagnant. It’s just interesting.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THOSE FANS WHO SHOW UP AROUND THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND? “Ultimately, we appreciate their support. That’s what we’ve always said and that’s one of the strengths of NASCAR – a fan-friendly and family-friendly atmosphere we have with our sport is something that allows us to give thanks to those people that take the time to be a part of what we do. They could stay home. They could watch it on TV. They could replay it and just catch it on their phones, but we appreciate them coming out and being a part of it. I’ve always said that New Hampshire has some of the best and most loyal NASCAR fans there is.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE DIFFICULTY FOR A TEAM THAT HASN’T WON AT THIS POINT IN THE YEAR TO HAVE ENOUGH SUCCESS TO GO DEEP INTO THE PLAYOFFS? “I completely agree with you. It does become more difficult as you get to this point in the season, if you haven’t been successful, to play catch-up. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I do believe that the map is there to do what we did in 2014. Now, keep in mind, we did that with quite a bit of drama amongst the rest of our peers to get to that point. There was some crashing. There was some fighting. There was a little bit of laying low and playing it safe that helped progress us to that point where we were in the final four and, at the same time, we barely made that. We made it by one point, one spot. I think that, like I said, it’s still possible. It’s still a reality mathematically, but I would love to be that guy that’s the high point guy going into the last 10.”
HOW MUCH MORE DOES NEW HAMPSHIRE CORRELATE TO PHOENIX? OR ARE THERE TOO MANY DIFFERENCES TO SERVE AS AN INDICATOR OF WHAT THE FINAL WEEKEND COULD BE LIKE? “I guess that’s part of a question I didn’t answer earlier. Loudon is similar to Phoenix. It is similar to Richmond, so I do feel that those races are important as we get closer to that final championship race, but Phoenix is its own animal. It always kind of will be since it’s been repaved and reconfigured and things like that, that make it still quite a bit different than how we used to compare things when we had the Loudon, Richmond, Phoenix tire that you pretty much could just plug in air pressures and cambers and tires and things like that that if you were good at one, you were pretty much guaranteed to be in the top five or top 10 at another. I don’t know that that’s necessarily the case anymore.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RACING 400 MILES IN CONSECUTIVE DAYS AT MICHIGAN, AND JUST RETURNING TO THAT AREA? “It’s definitely real close to home for me, and I mean that in several different ways with lots of friends and family around there. It is the first stock car track that I ever went to as a fan, so it holds a special place in my heart and my mind. Back-to-back 400-mile races isn’t such a big deal at a place like that. Dover, more so for sure, just because he intensity and the physical part of it. But it is what it is. There’s a lot of time to relax at a place like Michigan, but there’s also a chance to hit really hard on Saturday and have to race on Sunday. You just kind of take it for what it’s worth and go as you have to and just do one step at a time.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN THERE? “No doubt it’s a big motor track and that’s not something we talk about so much anymore because everything seems so communized underneath the hood, but the impact of our aero packages and the body selection that we take to racetracks now is probably way more powerful than the engines were back in the day, so taking the right car with the right balance and the right drag and the right downforce is such a more pivotal answer, and just little things about getting your air-pressure right, and, at the same time, too, don’t forget that Michigan has always been one of the kings of gas mileage racetracks. We’ve been on the good side of that. We’ve been on the bad side of that just as the numbers would always suggest you’re going to be when it comes to 50/50 on some of that stuff. If you lose one one way, you’re gonna win one one way and vice versa, but we’re into that stretch and it’s kind of been mixed up this year – but that Pocono, Indy, Michigan stretch where fuel mileage is super-important and it will be again I can promise you at some point on that weekend.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE NASCAR NEEDS A CHICANE COMING OFF TURN FOUR FOR THE ROAD COURSE RACE AT DAYTONA TO CONTROL SPEEDS? “Controlling the speed is obviously very important no matter what racetrack we go to and as we get to this situation with different angles of impact and walls and things like that, that we’re not used to, I guess my personal opinion on safety is not necessarily the slower the better, but the slower the safer. That’s just something that definitely needs to be considered and obviously has been considered otherwise you wouldn’t be talking about it, but I feel like if you are gonna do this, you have to err towards the side of safety and that will be with lesser speeds and trying to calculate what risk is involved with, again, the angle of impacts that we could have to entertain.”
