TOYOTA RACING – Christopher Bell
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.

CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

Can you win a championship without winning a race?

“Can we do this? Can we win a championship? Yes. Without winning, right? Can we win a championship without winning a race? No. That’s my answer. I don’t believe so. “

Does it feel like a tall task or does it feel like we can win on any given Sunday?

“Yeah, it feels it does not feel like it’s all task at all. I think I think we’re going to win. I think we’re gonna win.”

Do you feel like your strongest competition comes from within Joe Gibbs Racing?

“Yes. I believe that the champion will be a Toyota.”

Do you have the confidence to win a championship?

“I don’t know. I feel really good about where we’re at. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that we’re gonna be the champion in 10 weeks, but I think that we’re certainly capable of it. I do believe that the champion will be a Toyota. And, I think the champion will come from the top six seeds. I am pretty confident in those statements. So, we’ll see if they turn out right or wrong. I am confident in those statements.”

When you look at the next 10 weeks are you confident in all of the races or are there certain races that you can capitalize on?

“Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve been kind of making a small joke that if I am going to be the champion, then I better have a points gap on the field going into Talladega, the final three. So, yeah, certainly our strength is the beginning of it. The first seven are all really good tracks for me. So, I think my best hope is that I have a points gap going into the final three.”

You’ve had a lot of second place finishes – what’s been your best second place finish and what’s been the worst?

“Worst one was Nashville for sure. That one. Or Charlotte. Nashville or Charlotte, those two definitely hurt the most — or Iowa. I don’t know. The list keeps on going. Best second place finish was probably Indy. Yeah, that was that was a great second place finish. I qualified bad, we ran bad all day. I shouldn’t say we ran bad. We improved all day, but certainly second was the best we were all day, so that was awesome. Indy was by far our best second place finish. And then, I don’t know, man. The worst one is hard. I would say Nashville probably or Phoenix. I completely forgot about Phoenix. Oh, my goodness. We’ve got a lot of bad ones. Phoenix, I had the race in control all the way until the yellow flag. That was too tough to answer.”

Where can you stand on the idea of luck and racing?

“I don’t know. I use the word luck a lot, but I don’t know that I believe in luck a lot. We’ve had a lot of unfortunate races. Looking at Texas, Todd Gilliland spun out and I got clipped whenever I went by. Was it bad luck? I don’t know. I mean, it certainly wasn’t good fortune, but me and Denny (Hamlin) were side by side, and he chose to hit the brakes hard, and he made it through, and I chose to not hit the brakes hard and I got clipped. I say luck a lot, but I don’t know that I truly believe in luck.”

Have you gotten better at letting that stuff kind of slide away as you’ve gotten to be more of a veteran in the sport?

“I think so. I would hope that my crew chief Adam (Stevens) would say the same thing. Adam, he’s been on me hard about that. He thought that was a really big detriment of mine early on in my career. It was just letting the bad days fester and translate into the next week. I feel like now I move on to the races pretty good.”

Have you looked at the old Chase format and how are you planning out these last 10 races?

“I don’t know. I would say that I’m just focused on week to week and ultimately, just gotta have a strong performance at Darlington if I’m going to be the champion. And then after Darlington, got to have a strong performance at Gateway, if I’m going to be the champion. And so, I’m looking at it much more week to week than as a whole of what races are grouped up together or what’s coming. Just taking a week by week.”

Did you look at it differently last year with the different format?

“Last year was a lot different, for sure. Last year, having the cutoff and only being focused, less about the cutoff and more about the reset. The previous format and system, it was just three races at a time. And if you had a bad race, it’s just like survive. Just gotta get above the cut line, Got to get above the cut line. Once you get above the cut line, okay, we’re in great shape now if you have a lot of bonus points or whatever. Where now, there are no freebies. You can’t have a bad race and get a reset in three weeks. So, you’re going to have to perform every week.”

Is there a lot more pressure on you for this type of format?

“100%. Absolutely. Yeah, I think this format is going to be way more pressure.”

How do you handle the pressure?

“I don’t know, I live for it. Like, I love those moments of the pressure being at its most. I’ve always said that or believed and felt that I performed best whenever the pressure is the highest. I’m excited about it. I love it. I eat it up.”

Do you think it helps that Adam Stevens has been through both playoff formats?

“I haven’t really thought about that, but it’s probably good that he has experience with it. But honestly, there’s no there’s no gimmicks. There’s no games, it’s just literally 10 races. Go out there and perform well every single week or perform as good as you can every week. Before there were kind of these – if you have a bad race or a bad track, it’s like, okay, just survive this track and make your points up at this other track, and then we’re gonna get a reset where we don’t have that anymore.”

Are you happy the final race is back at Homestead?

“I am very happy that Homestead is not a winner take all event. Trust me on that, for sure. But I do believe that we can go to Homestead and compete for the win. Obviously, (Kyle) Larson and (Tyler) Reddick are two great drivers at that track, and they’re probably better than me at that track. But I have won there before, and I don’t have to win the race at Homestead to be the champion now. So, going back to my running joke, I better have a points buffer whenever I get there. But you never know. You never know.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

TOYOTA RACING – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

How are you guys feeling about the way you performed throughout the regular season. Is there expectation or pressure on you guys to seal the deal?

“I wouldn’t say there’s like any higher expectation. I think the expectations are already there internally of our stuff is really, really good right now and it’s never guaranteed tomorrow. So even these next 10 weeks, it’s not guaranteed by any means. But a year from now, who knows what it’ll look like. You want to strike while the iron’s hot. And for us, I think we all know that we’re all racing each other kind of for the championship. I mean, there’s five of us right in the top six. I definitely would say that pressure’s there, but I don’t think the expectation’s been put on us. We just all kind of internally know it.”

What about going to Darlington has been so favorable to you?

“I definitely am excited to start with the Southern 500. You know, that’s something that we won’t get to do next year, and that’s for me at least, with just how the tracks line out in this year’s Chase. If you just look statistically this year the tracks are way better for me than what they would be next year. Excited though to start at the Southern 500. I don’t feel like there’s really a weakness out of any of the Chase races for us. To hopefully go to, Darlington, the goal is a 76-point day, win both stages, win the race and have the fastest lap. And we were able to do that last year, so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again. If we do that the 45 points to Denny, even if he runs second in all the stages, it’s cut in half already. That’s the goal and hopefully we can do that.”

What do you think suits your driving style better, 10 straight races like this for the title championship, or a bunch of three races bunched together with elimination and restarts?

“I think for us, the 10-race thing. Just our consistency as a manufacturer for one, like we have all really good racetracks for us. I like the 10-race thing. You still have to be really, really good over the course of 10 weeks, but I do like the 10-week thing a little bit more. You could be the best points guy and you have one bad race in that three race deal and you could be in really bad, bad territory really, really quickly, where a 10 race you can make up for it a little bit better, I feel like. So yeah, I definitely am a fan of the 10-race thing.”

Have you looked back at how the Chase worked or how it kind of unfolded in 2004 to 2013 to see if there’s anything at all to learn from that going around?

“Not really. Because back then, I don’t think it awarded more points to win either. So it’s just so different now. I mean, you think about Tony, right? Like in 2011, if you could win five out of the 10 races this year, I mean, you’re going to clinch before Homestead. You’re going to clinch at four Homestead as long as you don’t DNF the other four races up till Homestead. So yeah, it’s different now with the added points for winning. And even the stages, it just changes a lot, I feel like from what it used to be. Maybe there’s something to learn from the consistency standpoint, but it’s so different I feel like now with the winning bonus and in the stages.”

How about the mentality where you don’t have kind of like the pressure relief of if you win a race in a round, you advance automatically?

“It definitely changes I think because I was a perfect example of that last year where twice really you win, you win Darlington and now the next two weeks really didn’t mean anything. If you could win, great, you would just add more points for the next couple rounds. But if you didn’t win, there was just no pressure. If you were running 15th that day, it’s like you’re just kind of out there cruising. And then same with when you won Talladega, the next week you didn’t care about Martinsville. You were just all in on Phoenix. Now it makes it every single race matters. Every single day matters from your prep work. I think that’s way better. I’m looking forward to that part of it and definitely you’re not going to have a single weekend off. It’s going to be absolutely cutthroat every stage. Where in the past, if you won a race, even stages truthfully didn’t really matter. So, it’ll be way different now.

So how do you mentally prepare yourself?

“I think it’s definitely going to be different. I think we’re in a good spot on our team at least just because we’ve really been treating these last five to six weeks as the Chase because we were trying to get to that fifth place in points. That was everything for us. We are kind of in that Chase mindset a little bit already of, we’ve been points racing super, super heavily where, the guy like Denny for example, he’s not really been point racing at all. I feel good about where we’re at, but it is going to be extremely pressure packed every single weekend, but even every weekend you’re still trying to win. So the pressure’s still there, it’s just the consistency piece has to be way higher now.”

In the original Chase you had Chicagoland lead off at a time, then half the Chase was mile and a halve tracks, was that a good predictor of how guys will do? Is Darlington a outlier to that?

“I don’t think you can take a whole lot from Darlington. I mean, the points are obviously going to carry over, but if somebody has a bad run at Darlington, obviously it sets them back points wise, but I don’t think that’s going to dictate how they run the rest of the Chase because it is such a unique racetrack and really Gateway is kind of that same way. There’s nothing else like Gateway. I mean, Phoenix a little bit, but there’s nothing like Gateway or nothing like Darlington that would relate to any of the mile and a halves that we go to. I don’t think there’s a whole lot you can take away from really the first two weeks. After that I think you’re going to really have an idea of who’s going to be there and picking up the pace.”

What does Talladega mean being so late in the Chase with three races to go in the season, as opposed to where it was in the past?

“Talladega is going to be that one where that’s where everything’s going to change. There’s just so many points that can be lost there. You know, you really don’t have a mulligan in the Chase, but if you’re going to use one, it’s going to have to be at Talladega, and that’s just where it makes it the other nine weeks so hard because if you have a bad race at one of those other nine, you have to go to Talladega and have a good solid day, and that’s where the points are really going to get flipped upside down. It will be really interesting just to kind of see how Talladega plays out because that’s going to be where the biggest swings happen in the points. The other races are going to be pretty traditional, I feel like.”

How much does this year feel like copy and paste from last year? Your stats wise pretty similar and the last 10 laps year were so great for you and your team.

“I feel like they feel completely opposite truthfully. The stats at the end of the day look very, very similar, but I feel like the two years could not feel any more different. Just from a standpoint of where we’re at as a team and this year our results look the same but we’ve been way faster this year every single weekend, where last year was a little more sporadic I felt like. So yeah, it definitely feels way different this year than what it did last year.”

Does your opportunity to win the championship feel better than this year than maybe last year?

“Yeah, I think so. Last year up until the Chase we weren’t really that strong dominant team. Once the playoff started, we were arguably the one of the best teams. So yeah, last year, you know, when we started when we did this last year, I felt good about it, but I didn’t really know what our true potential was. Where now I feel like we are more than capable of going and winning the championship. It definitely feels different from that standpoint. Like just internally, I would say myself, James (Small, crew chief), the entire team, we feel way better about this year than we did last year just because we kind of know what to expect and we also know what the expectation is now for ourselves just because we kind of do it week in, week out.”

The expectation of like knowing what to expect, even though the format is different, was that a big takeaway from last year of getting that under your belt of having gone all the way?

“I think so. I think especially if you get down to Homestead very much could be a who finishes better in the race. Like it could come down to that between two or three or even four guys. So I think just experiencing the highest pressure that you’re ever going to get to experience in the sport, you could have that game seven moment but you got it every single year with the playoffs, where just getting to experience that one time, I think will hopefully pay dividends in this format.”

What was it like to have Tom Cruise come out and talk to you guys and hang out and be cultural for a little bit at Daytona?

“It was really neat. It actually started earlier in that day. We were doing our driver council meeting and that kind of door opened off to the side and there was like two Suburbans there. All of a sudden, Tom Cruise walked in and none of us knew that was happening, and he’s just sitting there and talked with us for like 20, 25 minutes about his goal of what to do with the movie and how he wants to paint us out to be. And it was really interesting just hearing the parallels between Top Gun and how he feels like Days of Thunder could be. So yeah, it was cool. He was super nice. I thought it was really cool how he went to every single owner basically in the garage and spent time with them and he just felt like one of the guys truthfully. You never know how those, you know, I guess superstars are going to be, and Tom, he could be hanging out in here and just be chilling with us. He was super nice.

Where do you stand on the idea of luck in racing, good or bad?

“I definitely think there’s a level of luck or just circumstance, right? Richmond’s a great example. If you pit and you know you do what’s naturally right from a strategy standpoint, and then somebody spins out and the caution comes out and you’re trapped two or three laps down, like that’s just unlucky or the circumstance or whatever it may be. And, there is a level of things have to go your way in these races. I mean, Darlington this weekend will be the same thing. When you start pitting under green, one thing can happen and you can be the dominant car and you can pit and an unfortunate caution comes out and now your whole day is completely changed. So there is a level of luck for sure. If you want to call it luck or just circumstance or whatever, but there is definitely a level of that.”

Is there an example of something that comes to mind, either good or bad, that you caught something and was like, “That was luck”?

“One that stands out was 2020, I guess it was my rookie year at the Indy Road Course race. I’d ran up front a lot of the day. I’d had a ton of brake issues. We were running 34th and just kind of over it and we pitted, put tires on, and then the caution came out and the whole field had to pit, and now I’m on the front row for the restart. So yeah, that’s one that comes to mind. Even last week at Daytona, I’m running 36th with five to go and was not going to finish fifth in points. Caution comes out and I’m able to start up there and get Christopher (Bell) for fifth. So yeah, there’s a lot of things that happen that end up working out for you and on the other end don’t work out for you. But I would say every driver in the field has had some sort of circumstance like that.”

I know athletes in some stick and ball sports kind of talk about how they can separate the regular season from the postseason. Feels like a new season. There’s a reset. Does it feel that way at all in NASCAR, especially with the new format where there is a points reset?

“I think so. Maybe not for other guys, but for our team just how we started the season, the hole that we dug ourselves in, there was no chance I could ever have gotten to the lead in the regular season points unless I won 10 races. It just wasn’t going to happen. And Denny’s been 200 points ahead of me from week four, just from how our season started. To now only be 45 points behind him, like it’s a huge reset and I’m excited to start on an even playing field.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

TOYOTA RACING – Bubba Wallace
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.

BUBBA WALLACE, No. 23 Xfinity Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing

What did the peptalk mean to you and the team?

“It was just nice to hear the feedback from a guy who has been through the Chase. He’s been doing it for a long time, and he’s giving his expertise and guidance on that, so it helps us shape up the next 10 weeks.”

Where do you think 23XI is right now?

“I think we are in a pretty good spot. Our 23 group is hungry for more, none of us are satisfied with being the 14th seed going into the Chase. We have a lot of work to do, but with that means a lot of excitement.”

What is like going into the first race of the Postseason as a driver?

“When you are in the Chase, it is like alright, that flow of nerves kind of settles in, whether it is a lot or a little, it settles in. You can’t ignore the fact that the nerves are there. Then yeah, it is time to go. You’ve worked hard all season long to put yourself in this position. Some are in better positions than others. For me, it is exciting for us on the 23 team. Really looking forward to Darlington and the next 10 weeks, but really trying to not get too far out ahead of ourselves. One step at a time. Base hits. Our Toyotas are stupid fast. We’ve recognized that many months ago, and so to just continue to build on that and just have fun and enjoy the moment. I think that is another aspect that we often forget is to enjoy the moment. It is always business as usual and super intense, but you have to have that pressure release valve kind of right there in your hip pocket to keep the emotions in check.”

What do you think of the Chase format with no resets or no win and you advance?

“I think for us, we looked at, Darlington is good for us. We looked at that is a good opportunity to win and get ourselves locked into the next round, and when you didn’t win that was a little bit of a frustration, because you are like okay, we still have to dig ourselves out of a hole. Gateway is a decent track for us, and Bristol is kind of hit or miss. As for now, it’s just go execute. Have a good, clean race at Darlington. Re-rack them, and go do the same thing for nine weeks after that. You never know where you could set yourself up to be at.”

With no win and you advance mulligan, do you feel like its 10 straight weeks of pressure?

“I say no. Just 10 weeks of great opportunity. Only track that I have circled is Martinsville. We weren’t that good in the Spring. We’ve felt like we’ve made some holistic changes to our set-up format for short tracks. Yeah, I just look at it as exciting.”

How easy or difficult will it be to return to your early season form?

“Get back on the horse and continue to ride, really. Our cars have only gotten faster since the beginning of the season. We just haven’t done a good job on capitalizing on that. I think for us, it is get to Darlington, a track we have all grown to love and be super successful at, and appreciate that aspect.”

With the way Toyotas are performing throughout the regular season, are there expectations that come with that?

“I think it is expectations on both parties. On the drivers and the manufacturers. We do our best to give the best feedback to Toyota to build a race car that is the way that it is on track, and then the pressure of delivering in the race car that we want falls back on the drivers. Toyota has done so much for the sport, and so much for our teams in the Cup Series to give us absolute bullets to go out and drive each and every week, so it has been a lot of fun to be the manufacturer to chase and having that brand on your chest each and every weekend and driving that car. It goes hand in hand with each other.”

The narrative has been that you need to be in the top-six to have a shot at this. Do you believe that?

“The same people that say that say you can’t really chase numbers because you get lost in translation. If you put together the best 10 weeks for us and you do that better than the rest – who knows if that propels us to a championship, because we are 90 points behind, but if you outperform the rest of the group, then who knows. I think anybody has a shot. Now if the points didn’t reset, I think we were 300 or so points out from Denny (Hamlin), we had no shot. But we are 90 out, and if you win a race, it’s up to 75 points. Especially if he gets one point off of that, so we will see how it goes.”

Have you looked how the Chase unfolded when it was in this type of format?

“No, just because it’s so different. The cars are different; the driver pool is different.”

How will Talladega impact things?

“I don’t know. I think that could be a momentum ender, because it is later, if things don’t go your way. Look at the Spring – we were leading and got crashed. I look at Talladega as one as a momentum ender, but also as a great opportunity to capitalize on other’s mistakes and pitfalls.”

Where do you feel like the team’s strength is right now?

“I would say mile-and-a-halves are probably our bread and butter right now, but who knows, what amount of work the other manufacturers have put in to catch up. With all of that being said, we can’t get complacent. It may seem like a shoo-in for Toyota to win the mile-and-a-halves, but this is the Cup Series. It is freaking hard. All of these guys are good. We are in the Chase for a reason.”

How will your ability to earn stage points help you during the Chase?

“It is just clean, green races. That is it. Just capitalizing on the opportunities in front of you, not try to get too much when you are running sixth or seventh – take that, it is a good day. You can’t get caught up in what everybody else is doing. I find myself doing that a lot – where are we points wise – just run your race, and everything will work out how it is supposed to work out. You can’t make up the hundreds of points that we’ve given up at the beginning of the season. That is done, that is over with. All you can do is focus on what it ahead of you and what you can do in the moment.”

How long does it take to reach that mental standpoint?

“I think you realize your potential, for me, early on in a race, but it doesn’t mean you settle for sixth in stage one. It’s like okay; we are only good enough for sixth right now, let’s see how stage two goes. If you are still sixth, maybe it is a sixth-place day, instead of trying to turn a sixth-place day into a first-place day and hitting the wall or running in the back of somebody and making it a 12th-place day. I think just understanding that and not being okay with being a winning car.”

What has this year been like for you?

“For me, part of it has been the same old shit, different day kind of mentality, but being able to manage it a little bit better has made it less of a roller-coaster ride as you mention. Still the frustrations of having fast cars with crap results – that is still there. Falling tremendously in the points, getting back on the cut line. All of that stuff kind of hit the replay button, but kind of how you went through it has changed. I think this year, where we are at – 14th seed – it was like we are good enough to be top-seven, so the stress of, am I going to be in or am I not, no we are good enough. If we go out and execute, and finish second like we did in Loudon, all of that stuff – if we do our things right, it should happen.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

NASCAR Cup Series
Chase Media Day
Team Chevy Driver Quotes
September 2, 2026

Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase Media Day Quotes

Inaudible…

“Yeah, I mean, good performance was rewarded. You had to be good for all ten weeks. You know, I think it’s more in line with that kind of traditional year-long format. It’s not, obviously, but it is more in line with that. Ten weeks is a long time, you know, and things can change quick. There are examples of all of those things in a lot of those different scenarios. I look at, certainly, the dominance of Jimmie (Johnson) from 2006 to 2010. They just executed at a high level. They went to tracks where they were just far superior at and were able to piece together 10 really good weeks. But each one of those years were a little different. You know, they had battles right down to the wire some years. They had battles some years that were pretty well done come Homestead. So there was a little bit of everything.

You look at the year that Tony (Stewart) won in 2011, if I’m not mistaken. He ran like a pile for the majority of the year. He had a couple good races right there at the end and started to get things going in the right direction. I think he won Chicago, if I’m not mistaken, the first week. And then, he ended up winning five of the 10 races. Who had him picked to win it that year? So, again, I remember them all very well.”

How important is it to get off to a good start? You got those three tracks that are pretty different…

“Yeah, I think it is really important to get off to a good start, if you can. For sure, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. You know, I think through those years of watching it from the outside, it seemed like a guy that was a true contender could probably have a bad week, maybe two, and maybe climb his way out of it. But the more bad weeks you have, you’re going to have to be pretty darn good to make up for it.

So, yeah, if you have a slip-up this weekend, you better be able to win. You better have the ability to win and do it often to climb out of a bad race or two.”

Inaudible…

“No, I mean, really all four of our crew chief and driver pairings have been doing it for a little while, at least. Fortunately, we have some experience of our own to look at. It is great to be able to lean on those guys that have that type of success, and certainly, I think the door is always open in that regard. But I do think we all are a little different in our own ways and, you know, might go about it a little differently.

But I think for us this year, if I was going to touch on anything being a little different, is just that obviously the year hasn’t gone like we wanted it to go from a company standpoint, but no one’s discouraged by that. No one’s not ready to go. No one’s not going to turn up every last thing we can turn up from a mentality standpoint, from a prep standpoint, just all the little things that are in our control. We’re going to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward, and wherever that takes us, it takes us. And I think for us, we just really don’t have a lot to lose right now with the way we’ve been running, you know, over the last few months. There’s nothing to defend. There’s nothing to prove. We just need to go and be our best selves, do what we know how to do best and just put our best foot forward. Wherever that takes us, it takes us, and I think we’ll all be better for it somehow, some way, as this thing progresses along.”

Talk about the intensity of the postseason…

“I think for us it’s just we’ve all been doing it long enough. We understand, you know, kind of the ups and downs of the sport, and this thing definitely goes in waves and goes in cycles. Hopefully, we can just get some base hits; get some base hits somewhere and start somewhere, start building some good momentum. You know, I thought that we were going to – I forget. It’s been a month or two back. You know, we would have one good run. I’m like, okay, maybe this will get the train back on the tracks. And then, you’d have two more bad weeks. And then, you might have another mediocre run and you’re like, all right, let’s build a little momentum off of this. And then, you’ll have another really bad week.

We went to Richmond and had a really solid top-five night. You know, nothing crazy happened, just had a good night. And then go to – I don’t even know where we went after that, but it went really bad. You’re just trying to put those pieces of the puzzle together. But in all of that, it’s not like you’re not preparing. It’s not like you’re not looking and trying to uncover every stone that you can to find some performance, myself included within our team, all of the above.

So, you know, that part has not stopped, and it’s not going to stop, no matter what the results are until somebody tells me to, at least. We just keep our heads down and keep going to work.”

Which postseason format has more pressure?

“I think it depends on where you’re sitting in it, you know? Like, if you went to – I don’t know. I’m just thinking – I haven’t raced under this format, you know? I’ve watched it a lot, but I’ve not raced in it, so I don’t really know. But, I mean, those cutoff weeks could definitely be intense, depending upon where you were on the line. But to me, the vibe I kind of get going into this is it’s just going to be that way the whole time. Like, every week is going to kind of have that sense of urgency to it, which I think is really a good thing. I mean, I know I’ve been vocal about how much I appreciate and I’m glad that they’ve swapped to this. Which, again, I’ll say it again, this is a great thing. For those that don’t believe that, in 20 years, you’re going to look back and be like, man, that was a really good decision. In large and part just because we don’t need to fabricate stuff to make our racing and our story compelling to watch or want to see. It can do that on its own. Are you going to have that every year? No, you’re not. And that’s okay because it makes you appreciate the years that you do have it.”

On winning the Southern 500:

“Yeah, man, I would just love to check that box. It’s one of the — I would say, not that I don’t respect every week, but just the Southern 500, Darlington as a racetrack and the challenge that that is; it just has a lot of my respect. I think that’s a really cool event and just one of those races that you want to check off, if you can. I would love to do that.”

Inaudible…

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t necessarily have that answer right now, but I do know that you’re never as far off as you probably think you are or can think you are at different moments. I think our performance early in the year is really a good reminder of that, right? Like, you know, we had a great start, I thought, to the season. We had a lot of performance in the opening month, month-and-a-half. You know, we were super pumped about that and just excited that we were getting the season started off that way. We kind of had a summer stretch that we didn’t want to have to see. But we did, and we’ve seen both sides of the coin.

So, again, as bad as things may be or as bad as you can run some days, a lot of the time, you’re just not as far off as you think. You just have to start stacking some of those good days; the feels and the things that you’ve encountered behind the wheel or with setups and piece the good stuff together and start eliminating the bad. That can be hard to do sometimes, but I think we’ve made some progress. We just have to keep chipping away.

Man, listen, we’ve got our heads down. We’re digging. We’re working really, really hard, and fine-tuning everything that we can possibly do. I have a lot of confidence in our team to be able to perform at our best when it’s required the most. I think that we certainly enjoy this time of year a lot individually, and we’re just excited to give it a go and we’ll see where it takes us.”

Inaudible…

“I mean, yes. Like are there moments where just something didn’t work out in your favor? Sure, yes. I can name a lot of them. You know, Daytona last weekend, right? Like you go to one lane and right when you get into a lane that you thought was fixing to move forward, somebody bobbles and the whole lane checks up, it falls apart and now your move is now trash. Like that would be bad luck, I guess.

But I think, on the flip side of that, I look at other situations where you get involved in a crash or I’m trying to think back — like Indy, you can look at the result and be like, oh, you know, got in a crash, bad luck. Well, no, that was my fault, right? I messed up and we were running like a bucket. You’re reaching and you’re trying to get more than what’s there. You start stacking those things against yourself, and when you really sit back and look in the mirror at the end of the day, you’re like, well, there’s nobody to blame but me. You know, I had us in that spot. I was trying to do more than I needed to be doing and got a bad result from it.

So I think there’s definitely examples of both. But I think in most cases, I think you create a lot of it in motorsports. If you’re doing your job, you are eventually going to be rewarded for running well and putting yourself in good positions more often. That makes those bad luck moments talked about less, I guess.”

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Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Chase Media Day — Charlotte Convention Center
Wednesday, September 2, 2026

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PIT CREW CHANGES ANNOUNCED EARLIER THIS WEEK? “Leadership called me earlier this week and kind of discussed the change and why the team felt like it made it. I completely understand the team’s perspective for why that is and obviously the opportunity for us moving forward, so I think that’s really all it boils down to. Back to work for the next 10 weeks.”

DO YOU SPEND ANY TIME GETTING OUT AND DOING PIT STOP PRACTICE WITH THE NEW GROUP TO GET ACCLIMATED TO EACH OTHER? “I find that question funny because I would be there right now if I wasn’t having to sit here and do media.”

IS THERE ANY FEEDBACK ON THE CHANGE OR THE OPPORTUNITY TO SAY YOU DIDN’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN? “It’s not my race team, so no.”

WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DID YOU HAVE WITH YOUR CREW? “I think anyone that knows me, racing is all I do. It’s all I care about, all I put my time and effort into, so, naturally, I’m pretty close with the guys I work with and, yeah, I think the main level of frustration is I don’t get to see through the season with the guys that I feel like were responsible for me getting there, but, at the same point in time, it’s not completely unprecedented to make changes to give the team the best chance. That’s what the team thinks and that’s what they decided. As far as the guys that are coming on board the 2 car for the rest of the year, there are several veteran guys that have I’ve won races with in Xfinity, and I know most of these guys. I’ve worked out in the same gym and hang out, so I’m not unfamiliar with anyone that is joining the team and looking forward to see what we can do for the next 10 weeks.”

HOW DID YOU INTERACT WITH THEM, AT ALL? “I divide a NASCAR Cup Series team into three different groups. You have your road crew. You’ve kind of got the people for car performance. I’d put that on my side, and you’ve got the people that obviously go over the wall changing tires. Those three groups feed off of one another, the energy and from a culture standpoint when one is down the other one is gonna pick each other up. I feel like we’ve got great culture on our race team on the 2 car and whether if that’s welcoming in new people on to our team or obviously trying to understand how to improve performance or maintain processes that we feel like are going to make us excel. All of those things factor in to the people you have on your team and how you want to go about leading them, and I think when it comes to personnel changes, I think that’s a lot more in Brian’s wheelhouse from that standpoint, but if I can be there to help drive that or direct that, even something as simple as having to start a new group chat and sending a few memes to help break the ice, I think leadership in my role can be defined in so many different ways. So, I go about it the way I want to and I feel like I try to be as available as possible.”

CAN YOU BOTTLE THAT FEELING FROM DAYTONA LAST WEEK AND CARRY IT THROUGH THE CHASE? “Yes and no. I feel like our postseason is 100 percent a swap in mentality. I feel like we can be free and go be aggressive for the next 10 weeks, whereas I feel like for the last three months we’ve been points racing, so I’m looking forward to that opportunity.”

WOULD YOU EVER TAKE THE ATTITUDE THAT THIS CHANGE ISN’T FAIR? “I don’t think it’s productive, especially having the conversation with you if I’m being honest. It’s a change and I feel like as far as the guys that we have on our car for the rest of the year, they’re obviously super capable and, for me, I think it’s a great opportunity for the whole group to go out and have a good 10 weeks.”

WHAT WAS THE RATIONALE YOU WERE GIVEN FOR THE CHANGE? “It’s giving the team the best chance to win the championship. I think that’s fully understandable and it’s a pretty understandable motivation given the time of year. I talked with leadership. I talked with Roger and I understand why that was changed and, like I said, for us it’s business as usual past having personnel changes and being able to welcome our new group in and be able to give them the best chance to succeed, but also for them to give us the best chance to succeed. I think those groups and those different divisions as I talked about on the race team, they feed off of each other and I think it’s important to start that culture in the right way.”

WHERE DO YOU FEEL THE CEILING IS FOR THIS TEAM? “I’m not sure. I feel like I wanted to find what that is after the next 10 weeks. I think there’s several tracks that, for me, I would consider as tracks that I really know what I want out of my race car, whether if that’s a Gateway or a Talladega, but nonetheless I think there’s enough of a variety in the schedule. It’s obviously pretty heavy on intermediates, which I think is also great room for us to improve, but, otherwise, I think one of the things that really makes us different versus last year’s playoffs too is that I’m not expecting many tire changes or package changes or anything else, whereas last year’s playoffs had a new tire every single week. So I feel like we’ve got a good notebook and we have no reason why we can’t continue to improve.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS THIS SEASON? “I would say that the early part of the summer definitely raised urgency for those types of tracks and it’s given us time to evaluate how to improve.”

HOW IS THE POSTSEASON DIFFERENT FROM THE REGULAR SEASON? “I think it’s no different than the rest of the year. Each week is an opportunity to improve or regress, so I think you have to continue to just approach that week to week, race to race mentality. It is what makes our sport easier, I think, than other forms of motorsports just because most of them don’t race week to week and have the opportunity to bounce back each week, or at least have the opportunity to. I’ve always approached it that way, no different than it’s every lap. You have all these small little checkpoints you go through throughout the day and you hyperfixate on those enough to where you don’t think about anything else.”

CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE HERE? “It’s nice, but I told you all at the beginning of the year we would be here. The Chase format fits how we go about things and had this been the case the last couple of years, we’d be sitting here as well. It’s not the case and that’s largely of our own doing as well and the format and we didn’t hit it right. We didn’t win the races when we needed to, but this is good to be back. This is something we knew was gonna be achievable. Really, until the last month, I thought we were gonna roll in here fifth or sixth in seeding, but we had a little bit of a fall back the last little bit. That being said, we’ve got a lot of really good racetracks coming up. I’m excited to get this thing fired off. Darlington is one of my favorite tracks. We’ve run extremely well there. We have lots of good ones coming and there’s still time to win races.”

WHAT IS THE 17 TEAM’S CEILING FOR THE CHASE? “It remains to be seen how this format is gonna work out and with everything being reset it’s a whole lot closer than it was a week ago, so the potential is there. We have a lot of good racetracks coming, so if we can go out here and put up two or three really strong days to start, then there really is no ceiling.”

WHAT DOES IT DO FOR THE TEAM WHEN RYAN WINS LIKE HE DID AND THE MOTIVATION IT PROVIDES? “That was big to drive your way into the Chase in a one-way scenario. It was a big weekend, so I’m proud of that team and proud of Ryan and everybody. That’s big and to be in the Chase now and be looking ahead at the next 10 races we have and the opportunities we have as an organization, we’ve been really good at a lot of these tracks. There was a lot of celebration this week, which is strong for everybody. It gives everybody that little bit of bump of confidence that maybe you need in the shop. It’s been a while since our Watkins Glen win, so it’s good to get everybody fired back up and pumped up to realize that we’re very capable of winning races every year. That’s what they were able to do and it gets us set in a really nice spot as we go to Darlington.”

YOUR 17 TEAM HAS BEEN GOOD AT SCORING POINTS AND BEING CONSISTENT. IS THAT AN ADVANTAGE GOING INTO THIS FORMAT? “It was until now. Will it be in the next 10? I don’t know, but we work hard to go to the racetrack and have chances to be competitive and run up front. If we have a day that we can run eighth and that’s it, then we’re gonna figure out how to run sixth. That doesn’t mean taking a wild shot from out of nowhere and crashing and finishing 35th. I think that’s what has helped get us to this point. It’s why we said at the beginning of the year that making the Chase was not gonna be the hard part for our team, it’s getting in the Chase and being a competitor for the championship. We haven’t been quite there this season. We’ve been able to run in the top 10 really consistently and just be right there at the end of a top five, but we’ve got to get through that still. We’ve got work to do before we can sit here and honestly feel like we’re in the hunt for a championship, but we will have the consistency to be right up there with the best of them throughout this 10-race stretch.”

HOW DO YOU BALANCE THE HOPE OF COMPETING FOR A TITLE AND THE REALITY OF WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW? “We’re optimistic that we can do great things here and simply being a part of this thing that if we hit everything right, and we can have a run at a championship. We have a lot of good tracks for us, but we’re also realistic in the fact knowing that it hasn’t been our season to this date, that we’ve been able to go to these places and hunt for the wins at all of them. We’ve had a couple of shining moments in a lot of race weekends that were just sitting in like the sixth, seventh or eighth window. We need to be better than that, so we’re optimistic about it, but we’re gonna be real at the same time that we can’t sit still. Blind optimism would just have us hoping for the best and it’s not gonna be hope that gets there, it’s gonna be a lot of work and getting better and really executing at the highest level.”

DOES IT FEEL WEIRD TO BE HERE AT MEDIA DAY AND BRAD ISN’T HERE? “The first half of your question is no, it doesn’t feel weird to be here. But the year that we had with all of RFK with the summer stretch, the same stretch that we hit a little bit of a slump. Our organization hit a bit of a slump and caught a lot of bad luck with the 60 and the 6, so, that being said, I think that it’s kind of the way the summer went – not from a lack of effort on anybody’s part or anything like that, it’s just a really unfortunate stretch for the 6 bunch especially. The 60 powered through and got in here. We had three cars in the Chase for a lot of the season and just lost a little bit of a hold there for a while.”

PREECE’S RECENT RALLY COINCIDED WITH YOUR PRANK ON HIS TRUCK. DID THAT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT? “If so, I’m gonna have him come and wrap mine. We’ll return the favor. I think that it’s important to cut up and have a little fun along the way. We talk about this sport, and our sport knows that it’s a very high-pressure environment. We have a lot on our shoulders. It’s not racing for you or your family, you are racing for 200-and-something employees back at the shop and their families as well. Everything does matter, so you have to have that focus and that drive to make every week the best we can possibly be. Does that mean that you can’t goof off a little bit and have some fun along the way? Absolutely, not. So we try to do it and within reason. As we got to the last handful of weeks, I’m proud to see Ryan owning it and driving that thing around everywhere. That’s making me very happy inside, so I’m glad to see it’s still giving. But also the last couple of weeks we haven’t been at each other because we’ve known what’s at stake and we’ve known it was gonna take a little bit more to make sure we found ourselves solidly in the Chase.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED HE’S STILL RUNNING AROUND IN IT? “I am. I really am. My hope was that he would be forced to do it, that being we were able to get his daughter to help do the wrap and apply probably a good majority of the flower power down the side that she would have ownership of it and if her dad tried to rip it off, it would just be a heartbreaking thing to do as a parent, so he would be forced into it. I guess that worked because he’s in it now. You love to see it. It’s fun getting texts from people saying, ‘I just saw Ryan Preece riding around.’ It’s like, ‘Yep, that’s handy work that keeps giving.’ I’ve had a lot of fun with that one.”

RYAN PREECE, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW HAS THE MINDSET CHANGED ON THE 60 TEAM AFTER LAST WEEKEND? “It hasn’t. If anything, that same mentality has carried over and I think that’s what we’ve been missing. I’ve been missing. We’ve all been missing. I feel confident. At the end of the day, we’ve won two races this year – one points paying and one non-points paying – but why not? There’s only one place for us to go and that’s forward.”

HOW SPECIAL WAS IT TO GET IN THE WAY YOU DID? “It was nice to not possibly have the owner’s in and not the driver’s, so to erase that penalty was nice, even though I did see that the 60 owner’s points is five points ahead of the driver’s. So, it’s just really cool. It’s cool to be here. I’ve never been a part of this. I’ve never been in a situation or things just never worked out and to be here in September doing a media day it’s not so bad.”

WHAT ABOUT YOUR SON’S PACIFIER? CAN YOU TELL THAT STORY? “Heather was the one that pointed it out that night. I’m not a big attention to detail person. I would have never noticed, but she showed me that and that was pretty cool. I don’t want to say that night was like a movie, but it was like a movie. That was cool.”

HOW MUCH OF GETTING IN THE CHASE IS SOAKING EVERYTHING IN VERSUS PUTTING IT ON KILL MODE? “I’m soaking it in. Sunday was a time to I guess be surrounded by a bunch of neighbors and friends and family and enjoy it, but much like that saying the clock resets at midnight and the job and the way you’re gonna attack everything, that’s what we’re focused on.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR TEAM AND HOW THEY BELIEVE? “Oh, yeah. I think Saturday was a great example of what our team is capable of and I love that I have my own personal photographer standing behind you all (Bubba Wallace). It’s all about peaking at the right time. Anything is possible and I feel like Derrick’s attitude, my attitude, it wasn’t just Derrick and it wasn’t just me, it was the entire team. Anything is possible.”

EVERYBODY ELSE IS NEW TO THE CHASE BECAUSE IT’S A NEW FORMAT. “Yeah, but I’m talking about being in the position to even have an opportunity to race after it. I’ve never been a part of the reset, so to speak. That’s the difference. I’m saying I love the fact that I’m a part of it. This is cool.”

BUT YOU’RE ALSO PART OF IT AT A TIME WHEN IT’S TOTALLY CHANGED FROM THE LAST 12 SEASONS. YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IS GOING IN COLD TOGETHER. “Yeah, but I guess the experience of it all. Like, being in this sport and racing for JTG and then racing for SHR and not winning a race, so I wasn’t qualifying in and having that opportunity to be here. That’s what I mean, so I like the way it rewards consistency, so it gave us the opportunity to be 17th and still qualify in by not just winning a race. Winning the race is what got us in, but winning the race isn’t what got us to that point. We gave ourselves a shot going into Daytona by being 31 points back and then executing a great race.”

SO YOU DON’T FEEL DISADVANTAGED EITHER WAY THAT IT’S YOUR FIRST TIME? “No, and I think the way this point system goes as long as the aggressiveness and the will to win is there like it was on Saturday. We need some luck, but we needed luck on Saturday so I think if we do everything right, I’ve won one points paying race, sure, but my confidence is higher than anybody in this building right now.”

A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK YOU HAVE TO BE IN THE TOP SIX TO HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN THE TITLE. DO YOU AGREE? “No. I don’t believe that. Not at all because I think those guys are gonna race the hell out of each other and if they have a couple of bad races, there’s no win and you’re in to get to the next round. It’s gonna be tough to make up those points, so if you’re a team that puts 10 great weeks together and wins races and gets stage points, the fact that you’re in the top 16, I hate to tell you just because you’re 16th in points doesn’t mean you didn’t execute a great season. We didn’t luck into that win on Saturday. We ran up front. We executed. We did everything we needed to do as a Cup-winning caliber team. If we show that for the next 10 weeks at tracks that RFK is strong at, we can do it. It’s not easy, but we can do it.”

HAS ANYONE ON YOUR TEAM TRIED TO BREAK DOWN HOW MANY POINTS YOU NEED TO GAIN? “No. I’m sure people that break down points and all of that in analytics will, but I’m gonna look at it as I want to freakin’ win. I want to go out and qualify well. I want to execute stages. I want to be aggressive. And if you do all those things right, don’t make any dumb decisions, don’t second-guess your decisions, you’ll give yourself a shot.”

YOU’RE VERY SURE ABOUT THAT. “I’m pretty damn sure about that, yep.”

YOU LOOK AT OTHER SPORTS LIKE MARCH MADNESS AND THE FEELING THERE. “How many times has the underdog gone and won the NCAA Tournament, or a wild card went and won the World Series or the Super Bowl? How many times has somebody been trailing after halftime and come back? It’s not over til it’s over.”

THE POINT A LOT OF COACHES OR TEAMS MAKE IS THAT THEY JUST WORRY ABOUT THEMSELVES. IS THAT THE MENTALITY OF WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW? “Yeah, absolutely. I think if you worry about your team, you make good decisions, you’ll give yourself a shot.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN WINNING THAT FIRST POINTS RACE? “What it means is that we now have an opportunity to chase after a championship and I think the expectations of what I expect, what the team expects out of me is there. I want to go execute. I want to go win. I want to feel like I felt on Saturday, so I think that’s where my head space is at.”

YOU WERE ABLE TO ERASE A 50-POINT DEFICIT TO MAKE THE CHASE. YOU ARE NOW 100 POINTS BACK AND HAVE SEEN DEFICITS LIKE THAT CUT THROUGH THE YEAR. HOW BIG IS 100 POINTS? “It depends on where you are on your car performance, your driving performance, your qualifying. Doing what Denny did takes a great level of execution. Qualifying well, stage points, all of that adds up. If you’re not getting stage points, if you’re not contending for stage wins, you’re not gonna win the championship. So I’m not in denial, but what I felt like with Richmond, with New Hampshire, with Daytona, those were three solid weeks of showing, outside of an untimely caution, that we have potential. I love that. Not everybody sees it or sees it that way, and I enjoy being the underdog, so bet against me.”

TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

As someone who’s sort of lived through this format before, does it give you more of an advantage compared to some of the other drivers who don’t have that experience?

“I’m not really sure. It is a little different this time around because we have stages and we have more points for winning than the last time we had the Chase. I do think that there’s an opportunity for drivers to make up more points than we had in the past. So, generally, I don’t know that my tenure and experience is necessarily an advantage other than when we see when we go from track to track. I’ve just got a lot of starts at each one of these tracks.

Where do you stand on the idea of there being luck in racing, either for good or bad?

“I’ve always said I don’t believe in luck, but I don’t know. After 20 years I definitely believe that it’s part of motorsports. I would say, though, generally speaking, there’s going to be less luck involved with whoever wins this championship because the sample size is bigger. It’s no different than analytics in baseball. One at bat, analytics just doesn’t matter. But over the course of a season, you can start to draw a picture. I think that luck is a thing because in racing usually in a one versus one sport, your competition makes a mistake, you capitalize on you’re opposing team. In NASCAR, your competition makes a mistake, and it can end up costing you your day. So, there’s absolutely an element of luck in our sport.”

Is your confidence as high as it was when you won Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono back-to-back?

“I think so. But you need the results to get fully back to a three-in-a-row type of confidence. So, that was a good part of the schedule for us, and then we went to tracks that we knew that, like, you know, I think it was San Diego or something that was right after. I was like, “Okay, well, it’s going to end now.” I just think that confidence is still high because even on our mediocre days, we’re still doing a really good job of running in the top five.”

You’re like the poster child for not getting older but getting better. How much goes into competing against these 20-somethings on a weekly basis?

“It’s tough because they’re all fast. They all have tremendous amount of speed. Even the young guys now have enough experience to contend. I would’ve said early on in the career, like William Byron, man, he has all the things but he’s just not experienced enough. But now he’s got that and there’s several guys that have just got enough pedigree and enough experience. Even though I’ve got 40 starts at a track, their 15 to 20 is enough. I don’t know that my age is that big of an advantage as it used to be.”

At the start of the year you mentioned that you injured your shoulder again and that you were just going to have to put off surgery and kind of deal with it. How is your shoulder, and how confident are you that it’s not going to be an issue here the last 10 weeks?

“It’s bothered me a little bit more over the last month or so, and we’ll look at it in a month to kind of see where it’s at. Buy obviously need to get it worked on and get it fixed for sure. But inside the car it doesn’t really bother me. It’s more afterwards and for the next few days after that.”

Do you have a date set for surgery in the off season?

“No date yet.”

Do you see the other Toyotas as your steepest competition for the next 10 weeks?

“If you would use numbers, you would say yes. But there are drivers that I believe step up in these scenarios in the playoffs, in the Chase. So I don’t believe that the advantage is quite as steep as maybe as what it was.”

In general, do you like this Chase format? And from talking to other drivers, do you get a sense that they do as well?

“I certainly think that all of them would tell you it’s a more fair way to do it. It’s not the 36 races that some of the old guys were really pushing for. I certainly would’ve loved the 36 races as it stood now, but we could’ve not predicted this, predicted the future. But, I’m fine with it. We got a great schedule ahead of us and I think that this is certainly such a giant leap forward in crowning a champion from what we’ve had.”

Last year you put your heart into the preparation for that final race, and it went according to plan until fate intervened. Now that you’ve got a 10-race body of work coming up, how is the approach different, and is it actually harder or easier to prepare for this?

“I think it’s harder, I really do It’s simply because there not going to be any opportunity for me to take two weeks and study for one racetrack. It’s not physically possible. Now, there’s an opportunity for me to spend a little bit more time on these last 10, which I will do, but it will never reach the depths in which I worked for Phoenix last year. It’s just simply because there’s no weekends to take off. Maybe Talladega because there’s not really much setting that goes into that one. That’s why I said I never could imagine going through that process again that I went through preparing for that one race.

How do you size up the ride that Tyler’s been on from the early season highs to kind of where they are now and his preparedness for the Chase?

It’s NASCAR racing at its finest. It’s the ups and downs and the peaks and the valleys that you have. I do think that they feel this is a great reset for them. They were bleeding points heavily over the last couple of months. And so if you’re them, you’re like, “Man, we’re right back in this thing. We’re, we’re less than 50 behind.” think that they feel like the schedule’s going to be very good for them. They’re going to probably Tyler’s best racetrack here in Darlington to kick off the Chase. I think that their confidence is bounced back due to nothing more than the schedule.”

Right before you won the Michigan race, it seemed like when they had that last restart, instead of charging in there, you waited to see what one and two did and then make your move. Are you a more calculating driver now than previously?

“For sure. It’s all about down and distance. I manage the races in the sense of understanding, how much time is left in this race and do I have enough time to get to the front? Now, that doesn’t bode well for leading laps, but it does bode well for getting the best possible finishing result that you can each Sunday. I’ve certainly been more methodical with how I approach races and how I manage them.”

Ryan Blaney has amassed a ton of stage points by winning stages. How do you expand your 25-point advantage?

“It’s going come down to first qualifying, then, then it’s the stages, right? So,there for a while during the summer when we had a lot of stage points, it’s ’cause we were qualifying really well. And I do think that we just went through what I believe was our roughest patch of tracks and we still have been really, really, good. So, if we can just keep our good finishes going, we’re going to continue to be good on the metric. We’re going to continue to qualify well. So I think it’s going to be all about the execution that happens the day before the race that’s going to lead to stage points.”

You said the last couple years that you didn’t feel like you needed a championship really to have left your mark at NASCAR. Going in this as the favorite, knowing this is probably going to be your best chance, do you still feel that way? What does a championship mean to you at this point?

“It would mean a lot personally, but it also if I quit today I’m still really happy with the stats we were able to put on the stat sheet and the wins that we’ve been able to get. It certainly would be very gratifying, but what matters to me is my dad saw me when I was at my absolute best, and that was at Phoenix last year.”

Knowing that you’ve been through the Chase in this format when anybody else, does that give you any sort of experience advantage?

I wish. Because the format’s just different. We have stages and more bonus points for winning now. It is different. The number probably half the guys that’ve been in the actual Chase, maybe less?

What is it like to have 70 straight days of pressure?

“I talked to 23XI about that and I addressed it in their meeting on Monday that this is a long way. You cannot get caught up in one bad week or one bad stage. This is a marathon. It’s almost a third of the season, so there’s plenty of time. I wanted the more. I want every race to matter, absolutely.”

Why could this year be different?

“I think that being a favorite in years past, you always know this thing is going to come down to a freaking green-white-checkered in the final race, and that’s how they’re going to decide a championship. I think now it’s like the bigger body of work typically bodes well for Denny Hamlin. It just always has. You give me more of a sample size, and we’re going to prove that we’re the best over a long period of time. I think that that’s what our fans need to focus on is that just this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Is this your best chance?

“Uh, probably. There’s been years where we’ve been really fast versus the field, things like that, but I’ve always known it’s about that one race, and are you good at that one racetrack on a green-white-checkered finish, right? I think that it’s a little different this time around, so I’m starting a little bit ahead, not as much ahead as I should be. But I’m a little bit ahead and I’ve got enough races to prove that we’re the best.”

Do you remember the previous version of the Chase and the intensity of it?

“I do. I remember very early on there was only 10 of us on the stage and then it got bigger, and the family got bigger. I remember it and I certainly remember how we approached it as a race team. How you apply that to today’s format in terms of stages and stuff like that is a little bit different. But certainly, there’s some experience to be had there with myself and (Joey) Logano is the only one that’s been through it, to know that this is a long, long journey we’re about to go on.”

How competitive do you think the Chase this time time?

“I’m looking forward to seeing where we’re at five races in. And to think that five races in, that’s over a month from now, and we’re still just going to be halfway. I think everyone’s going to realize pretty quickly this is a lot different format than what we’ve had in the past. We’re going to see a lot of things that we think are huge moments, and they might be in retrospect when you look back. But we won’t know them until the season’s done in Homestead.”

Days of Thunder just announced that sequel. I’m just curious how much did you watch the movie? And are you going to be bucking for a cameo in any of the talks?

Well, like everyone else probably in this industry, if you hit the TV Guide and it’s on, you usually click on it. I thought it was the first kind of racing movie I got introduced to that actually depicted the lifestyle of racing. And it felt real to me back then. A lot of it was dramatized, of course, but it still was NASCAR. I’m really looking forward to kind of seeing how they depict that and the conversations and the things that Tom (Cruise) and Jerry Bruckheimer have said, you know, that they want to tell the story of NASCAR here in the second one. So I’m excited to see how it all turns out.”

About Toyota

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Event: Cook Out Southern 500
Date/Time: Sunday, September 6, 2026, 5 p.m. ET
Location: Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina
Layout: 1.366-Mile Oval
TV/Radio: USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Josh Berry and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane team will look to extend their streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to six in Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Berry and the Wood Brothers team have been one of the most consistent performers in the NASCAR Cup Series over the past five races, a stretch that began with a seventh-place finish in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They followed that with finishes of fourth at Iowa, eighth at Richmond and third at New Hampshire before navigating the unpredictability of Daytona to finish ninth last weekend.

“We’ve been able to go to a bunch of different race tracks and find a way to come away with solid finishes, and that’s been encouraging,” Berry said. “Daytona is always a little bit of a wild card, so it was good to get through everything at the end and bring home another top-10.”

This weekend presents an entirely different test as the Cup Series heads to Darlington, the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile oval known as both the Lady in Black and the Track Too Tough To Tame.

At 500 miles, the Southern 500 is one of the longest and most demanding races on the schedule, with changing track conditions and Darlington’s abrasive surface adding to the challenge over the course of the evening.

“The Southern 500 is obviously a completely different challenge,” Berry said. “It’s a long, grueling race at a place that demands a lot out of you, and you have to stay on top of the race track as it changes throughout the evening.”

Darlington has historically been a strong track for Wood Brothers Racing. The team leads the Ford camp with eight victories at the historic South Carolina track, seven of which came with Mercury. The Wood Brothers also have recorded 22 top-five finishes, 34 top-10s and 12 poles at Darlington.

The team’s most recent Darlington top-10 came in 2023, when Harrison Burton finished sixth. Berry has also enjoyed success at the track, highlighted by a career-best Darlington finish of third in 2024.

Practice for the Cook Out Southern 500 is scheduled for Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 6 p.m. Coverage of both sessions will be available on truTV and HBO Max.

Sunday’s 367-lap, 500-mile race is scheduled to take the green flag shortly after 5 p.m. ET, with television coverage on USA Sports.

Stage breaks are scheduled for Laps 115 and 230.

Josh Berry

Age: 35 (Oct. 22, 1990)

Hometown: Hendersonville, Tennessee

Crew Chief: Miles Stanley

IG: @joshberry88

X: @joshberry

About Motorcraft®
Motorcraft offers a complete line of replacement parts that are recommended by Ford Motor Company. From routine maintenance to under hood repairs, Motorcraft parts offer value with high quality and the right fit at competitive prices. Motorcraft parts are available nationwide at Ford Dealers and Lincoln Retailers, independent distributors and automotive-parts retailers, and are backed by the Service Parts Limited Warranty* of Ford Motor Company. For more information, visit www.motorcraft.com. *See your dealer for limited-warranty details.

About Quick Lane® Tire & Auto Center
Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center offers extraordinary service for routine maintenance, serving all vehicle makes and models. Quick Lane provides a full menu of automotive services, including tires, oil change and maintenance, brakes, batteries, alternator and electrical system, air conditioning system, cooling system, transmission service, suspension and steering, wheel alignment, belts and hoses, lamps and bulbs and wiper blades plus a thorough vehicle checkup report. Service is performed by expert technicians while you wait at any of nearly 800 locations in the U.S., with evening and weekend hours available and no appointment necessary. For more information about Quick Lane, please visit www.quicklane.com. *See your dealer for limited-warranty details.