Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHICAGO (July 5, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Chicago Street Course.

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

Can you tell us what you remember from your win at Dover last year?

“I can’t tell you a whole lot. I think it was me and (Kyle) Larson at the end of that race. Yeah, I just remember we’ve been really strong at Dover (Motor Speedway) for the last, all the Next Gen races. All of them, I thought that we’ve been first or second on speed and that’s the first one that we actually executed well. We didn’t win any of the others, but it’s just one where we finally executed like a good day. I remember Larson you know kind of coming on strong there towards the end. I was trying to play defense trying not to make a mistake, trying not to give out too much time in one corner to him. Yeah, I think it was one of the six or seven times I beat him.”

Can you tell me what it takes to run successfully on a concrete surface?

“It takes a different feel, for sure. The car’s a little bit different there. It feels more rigid at concrete tracks; you can feel the air pressure in the tires quite a bit more. It’s just a little bit different feel, that’s all I can kind of explain it. Dover is a very unique, shape track anyway. It doesn’t look very unique from like an aerial view, but you drive it very unorthodox to which you would in normal oval. It’s just a fun track. I used to absolutely hate that racetrack for the first 12 years of my career, maybe more. Since then, I studied the greats – Jimmie Johnson that performed extremely well there. My style is a little bit different and have found some success (there).”

What can NASCAR take in part as they look elsewhere street racing?

“Yeah, I mean I don’t know. I think that this is certainly a well-designed street race. Obviously, you have some movement really great passing zones, that’s the most important thing. It’s one thing to try to kind of parade around the city, it’s another to actually have a race track that you can race at and pass at. While there’s parts of it on the back end of the race track where it gets very tight, yes you need to be one lane, there’s at least three-to-four heavy breaking passing zone. What I like about it is, you’re in a big city one of the biggest in the U.S. You’ve got very racy race track and you got a beautiful backdrop, so those are the things that I think are very important to building a street race and obviously, anywhere they look going forward hopefully has all the things that Chicago has brought.”

With Michael Jordan’s presence at 23XI, would the team miss this race more than any other?

“Yeah, probably. I mean, we do a lot of activation here in this city as a race team. We have our partner celebration event over the Yacht Club here later this afternoon. Jordan Brand is going to have their event the town, so we have quite a bit of activation that we do here in the city. It’s important to us and it’s important to the partners that we have. This is a big spot for McDonald’s, obviously a really big spot for the Jordan Brand and several other ones that it’s a big market for them that they like to be included. That’s why we’ve got four cars one with Corey Heim and Robinhood. This was a big market for them that they need to be in, so that’s why we got the activation that we do.”

Can you talk about boosting the sport with any rivalries and the In-Season Challenge?

“I think that’s one of the things that the In-Season Tournament was meant to do, right? To create a rivalry that maybe you wouldn’t think of. While that rivalry may only last one week, the social media content will live on for forever for it. I think that’s the key parts of why they’re doing the tournament and why it’s important, and hopefully, you have another one of those battles this weekend of you know the eight matchups that you’ve got. You’ve got some pretty compelling head-to-heads there that I think are going to be pretty close. I can’t wait to see this end up on an oval, but unfortunately by the time we get to an oval, there’s going to be so few matchups left. Maybe that’ll allow them to focus more on those, but yeah, I think it’s super compelling. I don’t know, I think it’s certainly good it’s good for people like Ty Dillon to celebrate when they knock the number one seed out. That’s good for their team, good for him and certainly, well-deserving. Regardless of the track type or the circumstances, it’s still something that that team and that driver that came in as the last seed can hang their hat on for at least for a week.”

Where would you like to see this race go if it doesn’t come on the schedule?

“I mean I personally would like to see them do everything they can to keep it here (Chicago). I’d like to see the city rally behind this race. I could just tell you that non-racing fans at the hotel I’m staying at are talking about the race. I think that it’s certainly got some sort of economic impact to the city itself. We’re certainly exposing some new fans to this. I think it’s very important. I think you try everything you can to get this thing back here in Chicago, because I believe it is an important place for us. I still would like to see, you know Chicagoland (Speedway) is not a substitute for this race. I’d like to see us run both. I don’t know where you go next, not really sure. Wild thought is, what about a street oval? What about one, all you need is just flat pavement to make a race track. We run a flat Clash, right? It’s at a flat track and we kind of make it work. I get it, though. There are so many things to put on a race so I wouldn’t know. But there’s a lot of hospitality and stuff around this track that you need miles to expand into. But I’m not sure the right place, I just know that it seems like it works here.”

How do you think a straight oval would work?

“I mean, yeah. Look at the layout of this track. If you just cut half of it off, you almost would have an Indy (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) type. It wouldn’t be an oval, but it would be four corners, right? Again, I don’t know if the race becomes that more compelling, but it certainly would become less spread out. I’m just saying, surely you can find streets similar somewhere where you’re just kind of connect the four corners. I get there’s so many different things, it’s just thought-provoking from my standpoint of like, ‘we haven’t tried that.’ ‘What about that?’”

How stressful is the qualifying lap here at Chicago given the lack of margin of error?

“You have to push it! You certainly have to be on edge of, where your apex is, the wall. You have to use it up all the way if you want to compete. It’s nerve wracking. We’ve qualified well each of the races that we’ve run here. The rain has put a damper on some of those finishes but overall, it’s just it’s pretty straightforward, other than the back half of the racetrack where then you’re running right up against the wall. Tight confines. You’re sliding it into the apexes that you can’t miss by a foot, here-and-there. It’s pretty interesting. Th good news is, you always get another shot, where at other race tracks. you get one opportunity, one lap to do it. Here, you’re going to either run multiple laps one time, or you can run multiple times, multiple laps. So, it’s not like it’s a do-or-die just in one lap. I think if you’re going to get the pole, you must do it that way. that I think you can still get it good qualifying effort with multiple tries.”

Do you get the feeling of your appetite for the Chicago Street Race is shared among drivers and teams?

“I mean, what’s the alternative? Until we know the alternative, I don’t know whether they’re ones better or worse than this. I just feel like this is a bigger event than what, you know, some of the ovals that we go through simply because of the atmosphere of where it’s at. The exposure to new fans that are here casually in the city. I can only speak from my experiences in the casual people that, you know, for instance, I go shopping yesterday. I go all these different stores, ‘what are you in town for?’ ‘Oh yeah, there’s a race.’ ‘We were talking about going to that.’ ‘We didn’t go last year because the rain, but we’re thinking about going.’ That’s kind of what. You want these are younger people that, they’re not going to travel to Chicagoland to go to race, you have to have it right here where they can walk to it. I don’t know if anyone shares the same sentiment I do, but I don’t I don’t run the series, I don’t make the decisions. But it just seems like from my standpoint, there’s more excitement around the venue itself than what a normal NASCAR race venue has.”

What is 23XI doing to bring momentum back to the No. 23 team and Bubba Wallace?

“Yeah, he’s still in the Playoffs after all those DNFs. You just can’t panic in the situation that they’re in. I think if we were struggling for speed on the No. 23 car, then there would be a more heightened sense of alertness to what’s going on. A lot of these are just circumstances. Some of them are circumstances that that we control, some of them are mechanicals we’ve controlled, some of them we have not. And others, it’s just other people making mistakes in front of him and he’s getting caught up in the middle of them. So, I think you have stay the course and not panic and hope things play out the way that they should. I think if things play out naturally, he is certainly one of the fastest cars that is on that bubble. I’m not concerned about him racing his way into the Playoffs. There’s a lot of talk about cutline moving and all that. I’m not really sure how much more it moves up. I mean, some of these races are not like super wildcards. These are these are pretty straightforward races where you know who you’re going to race, you know who’s going to be up front. And really for the most part, we’ve had pretty predictable winners this season aside from a couple. I think that if he was 50 (points) behind at this point, I still would feel okay about it. Not great, but okay about it, but him being ahead with all the bad luck he’s had, I’m not too concerned, truthfully.”

About Toyota

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NASCAR CUP SERIES
CHICAGO STREET RACE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JULY 5, 2025

 Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at the Chicago Street Course.

Media Availability Quotes:

Besides extra media, was this week different than any other week?

“No… you know, you’ve been around me and Alan (Gustafson) long enough to know that by Tuesday, really even Monday, it’s kind of back to work. I feel like we did a good job enjoying it. I try to embrace those moments, you know, as I’ve told you guys a lot and tried to slow it down as much as I could, just because that’s an important time to cherish and remember. All of those things are extremely special, but there’s another race in a week and the train keeps rolling. We got back to work and just kind of started on our Chicago prep like a normal week would have been.”

Is there anything that you saw, if you saw any sort of highlights of the celebrations or anything, that you feel like really either kind of struck you or made you think, wow, that’s what made it really cool?

“Yeah, I mean just having lived it, right? Having lived it and the experience with Rhealynn there after the race and just seeing her kind of open up and see her excitement. You know, go from this shy little girl that didn’t know anything about racing to celebrating in victory lane with us at the end of the night. It was just really, really special to kind of see that transition. To have my mom there and other family members and friends — those things just make those moments unique and I’m grateful for them. Just the whole experience was incredible. So, yeah, couldn’t really have asked for any more last week. You know, obviously, it all worked out in our favor and hopefully we can do this more often.”

Whether it’s talking about advocating for the Nashville race near the city or you were praising the L.A. Coliseum or praising here when we first started the Chicago Street Race — you’ve been one of the biggest advocates for racing near city and bringing it to the people. We don’t know if this is the last one of this race or not. But what do you think the legacy of bringing the street race has been? Was this proof of concept in drivers minds that this can work at other places?

“Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a great idea, for sure. And I’m all for that. The biggest reason I’m such a big advocate of Nashville is because it, to me, oval track racing is kind of our bread and butter, right? So we have that there. This is a great second choice to get to a city, but there’s nothing that’s going to top giving people a true short track… ‘What is NASCAR… Here it is’. You know, take an Uber from Broadway to the racetrack and go watch. Like to me, that is the biggest home run waiting to happen that we’ve had a long time. But this is a good second choice, as far as getting inside a big city market. It’s been a lot of fun from my perspective to come do it. It’s been a lot of fun for friends and family and people to come to this race, like just from my personal side, because it’s so different than what they typically see. You know, they go get nice dinners. If I’m busy at the racetrack on Saturday, they have things to go do. So all that stuff, selfishly, has been has been a lot of fun.

You know, look, I if I lived here and I wasn’t a NASCAR fan, I could totally see the frustration of roads being blocked and traffic and all that sort of thing. So look, I get it. I get it. But it’s been fun for us. I hope there’s been more positive than there has been negative for the people of Chicago. Whether this is the last year or not, I appreciate them having us, even the ones that didn’t want us. I look forward to wherever it goes next. I hope that somewhere down the line, we can take it to a different city, you know, just to switch it up… just like the championship race rotating. I think a city street course moving around would be really healthy and good. If this is last year, you know, I don’t think there’s any bridges burned. I just think maybe we move it around and, who knows, maybe come back another time.”

What lessons do you think this sport has learned from racing in downtown Chicago that could be applied maybe elsewhere?

“Well, you know, I kind of look at it more from a competition perspective when I’m thinking about your question. One thing that, which obviously I’m careful with this because I haven’t been on the track today, but I know and I can attest from last year or I’m sorry, the first year to last year, the way they repeated the track and just the measurements and the corner angles and braking zones – all the things were extremely similar. Where they had walls placed, like all that stuff was done really, really well. So I don’t know what process went into that, if it’s track scans or some sort of virtual representation or virtual model that they made up, but that’s the first thing that’s come to my mind that I’ve been most impressed by is how we’ve had the ability to recreate the track year to year. And I think if you have street courses and things from a driver’s side, it is nice to not have massive changes on the road from year to year because it can be tough to adapt to that stuff.

But that’s been fun. Obviously the marketing side is a whole other answer. But yeah, it’s been fun from a competition perspective, and I think they’ve done a good job with it.”

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
CHICAGO STREET RACE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JULY 5, 2025

 Will Brown, driver of the No. 13 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, met with the media ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at the Chicago Street Course. Making the crossover as the reigning Australian Supercars Champion, Brown will be making his second career start in NASCAR’s top division in Sunday’s Grant Park 165.

Media Availability Quotes:

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY AND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO

“Really looking forward to coming back and racing in the Cup Series. For me, I got a run last year at Sonoma and probably didn’t end up the way we wanted it to end, so we tried putting a deal together to come back this year. I was talking with Richard Childress and Austin Hill was running with them this weekend, so I was lucky enough that he was able to put me in touch with Ty (Norris) at Kaulig and put together a deal to come race here in Chicago. Obviously, a lot of us Supercar drivers after watching Shane (Van Gisbergen) in 2023 loved the look of Chicago and the event, so a lot of us wanted to come over and try this event. Very lucky to be here.”

ARE AUSTRALIAN SUPERCAR FANS WORRIED ABOUT LOSING ALL OF YOU GUYS TO NASCAR?

“There have been some comments about it, but I am not so sure from a fan point of view. I think its been great for us because it’s Monday morning and a lot of us wake up in the morning and watch Shane. Nearly everyone on our team, and definitely a lot of fans – watching NASCAR on Monday. So that has been amazing, and a lot of people will be tuning in tomorrow, but I am not sure so much. I think losing Shane from our series was a hit at the time, but there has been a lot of young guys come up through and kind of take that place and are really competitive now. So, yeah, not sure.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CIRCUIT SO FAR AND HOW DO YOU COMPARE IT TO OTHER STREET COURSES YOU HAVE BEEN ON?

“Yeah, it’s very similar to a couple of our street courses. It’s really just like a concrete jungle at the end of the day and you don’t want to make a mistake. Yeah, for us we have places like Gold Coast and the Gold Coast 600 that we race is a very similar circuit. Extremely tight, and can’t make a mistake and also Adelaide. The circuit looks great, and the surface looks a little rough where you can make a few mistakes and it will bounce you around a bit. I noticed that in the simulator and watching a bit of footage. So yeah, it’s probably just a little bit rough in places and I will be making sure to limit mistakes. For me, I just need to get through to the race and make no mistakes in practice and qualifying.”

FOR THE BUILD OF THE CIRCUIT, IS IT AS GOOD OR BETTER THAN ANY OTHER STREET COURSE YOU HAVE SEEN BEFORE?

“Yeah, its pretty much the same as how we build them in Australia. There’s very little differences. We have escape roads at the end of each high braking zone like such as turn one. You would be able to run down an escape road if you overshot one, but here, you hit tires. So, the consequences are higher here if you make a mistake. So, you might pull back that couple of a percent to make sure you don’t.”

WITH JOINING KAULIG THIS WEEKEND, WHAT INFLUENCE HAS AJ (ALLMENDINGER) BEEN FOR YOU?

“Yeah, obviously I have watched AJ a lot while I have been watching Shane. He is a very good road course racer, so it will be interesting to work with him this weekend and see if there is anything I can learn from him or vice versa. I have done a lot with Ty (Dillon) actually, mostly in the simulator sessions quite a bit heading into this weekend. It’s been good to work with these guys.”

WHEN TAILGATING WITH PEOPLE IN ATLANTA, WAS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR THAT STOOD OUT AND WHAT IMPRESSED YOU WITH THEIR TAILGATING ABILITY?

“I think the whole thing was impressive to be honest. In Australia we don’t have our fans roll in early and tailgate ahead of the event, they just come for it. I was always interested in how over here with all the sporting, everyone rolls in and has a barbecue, drinks and then heads into the event. I wanted to go and experience it, so we put a tweet out and we got some great fans to respond. We went and met a couple of them, had a few beers with them, had a few drinks and just experienced that side of it which I enjoyed. It’s just amazing how into it the fans are and love it. It was amazing to experience that before.”

WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU ATE OR DRANK THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS?

“Yeah, I had a Jello shot. And I was like ‘what is it made of? Vodka?’ and they were like, not its moonshine. So that was my first time experiencing moonshine.”

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Chicago Street Race Media Availability
Friday, July 4, 2025

Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Team Penske in the NASCAR Cup Series, stopped by the media center today at the Chicago Street Race to talk about this weekend and his recent ESPY nomination.

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – YOU ARE NOMINATED FOR AN ESPY AND YOU ARE GOING TO THE CEREMONY. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO HAVE A NIGHT WHERE SPORTS IS CELEBRATED TO THE CALIBER THAT IT IS AT THE ESPYS? “For somebody that likes watching sports and enjoys that, going to the ESPYS alone is a really cool opportunity – to see everybody and meet a lot of people. You’ve got to take advantage of that opportunity, but being nominated is really cool. I don’t know how many words you can really say to describe it. You just look at the other drivers that are in the running as well, I mean, they’re world-class drivers, so to have your name even mentioned with them is a pretty special thing, for sure. Hopefully, it goes really well. You never know how it works, but I’ll be there if we do win. I’ll be as surprised as anybody and it’ll be a fun experience either way and worth the trip, for sure.”

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE PART OF THIS CIRCUIT? “It’s probably Victory Lane, I just haven’t seen it yet (laughing). Up to this moment, it’s been the ride home. Hopefully, it’s not like that this time. This track is very challenging in its own way. When you look at turns one and six, you have no run off, so there aren’t many street courses that I know of at least, where you have long straightaways with literally no run off, so the risk is huge here. When you go to push it, you send it in there a little bit too far, and we’ve seen that where a car goes straight right into the tire barrier. You don’t have the ability to make mistakes and just turn around and get back going again. It’s a little different than other road courses, where a lot of times you’ll maybe overdrive the car to find the limits in practice and stuff like that. You can’t afford to do that here. You push it a little too hard and you’ll crash. You lock up the tires and wheel hop in there you’re gonna hit the wall. It’s a different approach for sure. That on top of the bumps and the track is just unpredictable for those reasons. You think you’re in a good spot, but if you’re off line a couple feet you hit a new bump you didn’t know was there and the next thing you know, you’re going for a ride so you look at some of these corners. They’re really tricky. They’re tight. Is there one part better than the others? I don’t know. You just have a lot of different variables that you don’t typically have even at other road courses. You think about the way the road crowns. There’s something different. Going over bridges and those bumps and different textures and all the different lines that are painted out there. There are a lot of different things going on than what we typically have. Obviously, we don’t have curbing, so you hit the wall if you get too close. The risk is very, very high when you’re trying to make speed here.”

TURN 10 HAS A NOTORIOUS BUMP BY THE FOUNTAIN. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT BUMP? “It’s sketch. You’re kind of booking around the waterfall there and then you’re switching directions and you’re going down that little chute. It’s two lanes wide and surprisingly when you watch these races back, people make passes through there, which is wild because it’s so tight. You feel like you’re going really fast, but you’re really not. It’s such a tight area that you feel like you’re booking it and the car, again, is bouncing all over the place. That’s another part of the track, too, when it rained and if it does again, that part of the track doesn’t dry very well. Just kind of being at the bottom of the hill there, it seems like the water kind of puddles up there more and takes longer to dry. I don’t know if the sun doesn’t quite get there as good. Either way, that was the part of the track that stayed the most wet throughout the whole race. It’s tricky through there, for sure, especially when it’s raining and you don’t know what your grip level is every lap. You’re like, ‘Is it gonna be slicker or is it going to be more grip?’ If it catches you off guard, you’re wrecked.”

DO YOU GET INVOLVED IN ANY OF THE DISCUSSIONS AROUND WHETHER WE SHOULD KEEP RACING HERE IN CHICAGO OR GO SOMEWHERE ELSE? “No, I do not get in the middle of that. Speaking for myself and maybe some of the driver council and those type of things, we try to help whether it’s a new venue or a venue we’ve gone to and adjustments that we think would be better. A great example of that was Mexico City. When we were there, whether it’s the tire barriers that you’ve seen in a lot of the corners through the esses, that was all through the driver council and Jeff Burton and everybody working together with NASCAR to help make sure that the race is officiated correctly and puts on the best racing possible for the fans. I feel like that’s one of the main roles for the council is, so whether that’s racing here in Chicago, there can be suggestions on what we can do better, and we’ve voiced those and wherever the next one may be, if it’s here again, if it’s somewhere else, whatever happens, we’d like to be in the middle of those discussions of some of the things we’d like to see on track and even off track for the experience, for the drivers, the teams and the fans.”

LAST WEEK WAS THE FIRST LOOK AT THE NEW DVP POLICY AS FAR AS LOTS OF CARS AND WHAT YOU CAN FIX AND WHAT YOU CAN’T. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT YOU SAW LAST WEEK? “We didn’t fix much. I didn’t get to really experience the full thing as we were just parked on pit road and it was done with the radiator knocked out of it and that’s not on the list. It’s funny watching your videos of the garage. It looked like a parking garage (laughing). It’s kind of wild to see that many cars wiped out there, but it’s part of the game. I guess it went fairly smooth. I watched on TV and from there I watched the lift system work for a couple cars. That was neat to see that actually go into effect and see a car stuck, they plugged it in and drove off. That was cool. That’s a start. I wasn’t in the middle of any DVP nor were any of our cars to speak of to know any little details and things like that, but it seems like the rules are pretty clear.”

IS THIS AN EXERCISE IN PATIENCE DRIVING ON THIS TRACK? “Yeah, it’s easy to say that until Shane is out there a second faster than you and you have to go put yourself in some uncomfortable situations. It’s easy to say that, but you’ve got to figure out how to go fast and last I checked with this car there’s no going fast in your comfort zone. You just have to be pushing outside of where you feel like you’re comfortable and this track is no exception to it. If anything, it’s just a little bit more out of your comfort zone, probably because we haven’t done it much. We’re not road racers to speak of. There’s only one out there that really is and so all of us are, in a way, playing catch-up.”

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE NASCAR BALANCE THE DIFFERENCE OF TAKING THE SPORT INTO NEW VENUES WITH ESTABLISHING A FOOTHOLD IN A MARKET LIKE DOWNTOWN CHICAGO AND BEING ABLE TO KEEP THOSE NEW FANS COMING AFTER THREE YEARS? “I can probably go a couple different directions on that. I’m always a big fan of going to new facilities because it’s worked every single time. I’ve got to go back to just thinking about early in my career when we never did anything like this. It was the same schedule every year for decades. Nothing changed. A big change would be like moving a date a couple weeks from where it was. It wasn’t changing anything. Now we’re going to new venues. You think of Road America, we’re not too far from there, and that was a huge success. The L.A. Coliseum, the first couple of years was a huge success. I think if you do it too long it gets stale. I think there are tracks that are part of our roots that we must go to, but I think there’s a handful of tracks that should be on a three-year term kind of thing that you can just move around and go to new places. Look at what happened at Bowman Gray this year – a huge success, a new track. People love going to see something new. The unknown. The uncertainty of all the teams not knowing what to do. It’s fun to watch. You have an idea now of what Chicago is gonna look like. We know what Richmond looks like. We know what Daytona is gonna look like. When you go to a new facility you don’t know. What was Bowman Gray gonna look like? We don’t really know until we get there, so I think the newness is important to keep something like that going on in our schedule. That’s just my opinion, though.”

THOUGHTS ON HAVING FOUR ROAD COURSES IN NINE RACES? “We’ve got to do them, so I’m kind of good either way. I just think in the playoffs you need to have a good mixture of racetracks throughout the 10 weeks, but the other regular season races, I mean, if we’re gonna do them, then I don’t really care. Whatever works best for the schedule and weather and fans and that type of stuff is fine with me.”

NEXT MONTH IT WILL HAVE BEEN A DECADE SINCE YOU LAST CUP WIN ON A ROAD COURSE. IS THERE ANY ADDITIONAL MOTIVATION WHEN COMING HERE TO PROVE YOU CAN NOT ONLY CONTEND BUT BEAT THESE NEW ROAD RACERS? “You just gave me one, not that I needed it (laughing). I honestly feel like I have to prove myself every day. I always say that what you did yesterday is yesterday. Tell me what you’re gonna do tomorrow. That’s the important stuff. The history books and people’s memories are short. People say, and I say too, you’re only as good as your last race and it really feels that way a lot of times. I’ve had a great career. You’re right, a lot of great accomplishments and really cool moments. Have I hit all the markers that I set out to hit? No, I haven’t, so I’ve still got plenty to go out there and want to achieve, for sure.”

IF WEATHER IS A FACTOR ON SUNDAY, IS IT MORE COMFORTING KNOWING YOU’VE EXPERIENCED THAT HERE IN PREVIOUS YEARS? MORE COMFORTING THAN THE FIRST TIME? “You know at least what you’re getting into. Comfortable? Never. I don’t think so, but since the first time here, I mean, you look at all the rain races that we’ve had and the one that stands out the most to probably everyone is the one at COTA that was like, ‘OK, that’s too far.’ Now we’ve gotten to the point where we can go out there and make laps and race. We know what the right amount of spray is so we can see and feel safe out there, and you can tell the drivers have all gotten much better at it. The first time we were rain racing we were all tip toeing around and everyone was going wicked slow. It was like, ‘What are we doing?’ Now it’s like, instead of survival is what it was to start, like just don’t crash, now they feel better about it. They’re more comfortable. They’re more aggressive. They’re out there racing now all the way through the field. You used to see maybe the top 10 cars really racing each other and feeling comfortable enough to get after it, and everyone else was like, ‘if I just don’t crash here, I’m gonna finish in the top 10.’ Now, that’s not good enough anymore. The level keeps going up, just like everything else. Everyone has just done more rain racing now to know what to expect as far as grip levels and things they cannot pull off. It’s fun to watch, though. I do think the rain racing is interesting, especially when you get to the tire strategy piece. At what point do you put slicks on versus the wet tire. It gets pretty interesting really quick.”

YOU DID A VIDEO RECENTLY ON SOCIAL MEDIA WHERE YOU WENT UNDERCOVER WITH A DISGUISE AND GAVE A FORD DEALERSHIP SALESMAN A RIDE. DO YOU ENJOY DOING STUFF LIKE THAT? “That was a blast. Backstory. This was literally the week after we won the championship at Phoenix. We went to Huntersville Ford in North Carolina. I’m friends with a lot of people there and this is Ford’s idea. They’ve done this a couple other times with other drivers and they brought this up to me and I’m like, ‘Yes. This is what I live for. I want to do that so bad.’ So, I went undercover. I was a chicken farmer from Arkansas, my wife and I. We just moved to North Caroline and we wanted to get a family vehicle. That was the story behind the whole thing and we ended up giving a salesman named Joe, great guy, we scared the hell out of him and made a lot of good jokes. Unfortunately, apparently, a lot of the things we said were not OK, so a lot of it got cut out (laughing). It’s amazing. We’ve got the raw footage, which I’m trying to put it all together so I can post some things I can. There’s more to come, I will say that. The actual video, the real thing turned out great, but we’re gonna try to get all of the outtakes and put them together and do some more cool content behind it. It was definitely a fun experience and we got him. He had no idea, which is crazy. I figured eventually he was gonna figure this out, but it definitely was a wild experience for Joe.”

Toyota GAZOO Racing – Erik Jones
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CHICAGO (July 4, 2025) – LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver Erik Jones was made available to the media on Friday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Chicago Street Course.

ERIK JONES, No. 43 AdventHealth Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

Tell us a about the July 4 parade you were a part of today.

“Yeah, we drove up to Hinsdale, (Illinois), (which is) I guess west of here and AdventHealth is our primary and they’re partnered with UChicago Medicine. They did a big parade down there, and yeah it was a huge Fourth of July parade and the whole thing I think took close to a couple hours to do, but that was great. A great turnout, handful and NASCAR fans there, excited to see the car. We were towing it through there, so it was cool to do something Fourth of July-themed and have some fun with it.”

Can you get into how solidifying the competition direction at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB has impacted your team’s performance?

“Yeah I mean we hired Jacob Cantor (director of competition, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB) and Brian Campe (technical director, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB) around July of last year and there was kind of a gap of time there where it just wasn’t a lot of leadership in those roles and we didn’t have a good engineering flow from the top, down. So there was some processes that needed to be built out and people understanding what their roles were and what they needed to be doing, what they needed to focus on, what they didn’t need to focus on. It took a solid six-to-eight months probably to break that down and then beyond that, just hiring more people, right? We were pretty short-staffed in our engineering department, even after hiring those guys. It took all that time to really get everybody in their right position and figuring out what they were going to be doing. Now, I feel like everybody’s really in the flow of it and (there’s) a lot more open communication between everybody just knowing what’s going on, who’s working on what, given enough forum for guys to come up with new ideas and figure things out. It just took some organization. There was just a stretch where we didn’t have the leadership in place and now, I feel like our leadership group is really strong.”

How has the crew chief change impacted things for your team?

“We did the last four races in 2024 together, and then obviously, all of this year. Not only was a chief change, we swapped the entire team, so engineers, mechanics, everybody. That’s not easy for a lot of reasons, right? People are used to working with who they’re used to working with, so there’s some apprehension probably just in a team swap and then you get settled in, well you have to get to know everybody and figure out what kind of makes them tick, and what’s good. With the crew chief side of things, just learning the language between us, myself and Ben (Beshore, crew chief) when I’m asking for certain things, what I’m looking for, what he’s asking for, what he kind of wants from me, what he’s most curious about after practice. So, it took up until probably April to feel like Ben and I were really on the same (page) and what was going on, and the engineers as well, just knowing kind of the cadence, not only Saturday and Sunday, but Monday-to-Thursday – what we need from each other. Felt like that’s finally, and has been for the last couple months, been on a good spot.”

Do you feel that LEGACY MOTOR CLUB is as much out on an island as they have been in the past?

“Yeah, there’s no alliance still. I would say the information that we get is (pause), we get a bit more now. There’s been some compromise on some different areas, I don’t want to dive into every bit of piece of it, but yeah, I would say there’s been some compromise on what information we get. I wouldn’t say that’s the reason that we started to run better. I think it’s helped, but to say that’s made the big difference, I wouldn’t say it’s true. Yeah, there’s been a better compromise recently.”

How does the No. 43 team approach the rest of the season with the recent surge in performance?

“Yeah, I mean we’re kind of in a tough spot, right? We’re 39 points out of the Playoffs which is kind of eight really good races. Obviously, a win would be great, but I feel like there’s a couple of tracks we really have to target hard on what places we can win at. For us, I mean, it’s just doing what we’re doing. If we keep running the way we’ve ran since Charlotte, we’ll yeah we’ll probably point our way in barring another kind of obscure winner farther back in points. So, that’s the plan right now is just to keep running well and keep racking these points up. I hope it goes well again this weekend. Kind of three strange weeks: here (Chicago), Sonoma and Dover, so it’s going to kind of make-or-break us. You know, one bad race, (pause) if we have a race where something goes wrong, we don’t score any good points, I mean it’s kind of over unless a lot of other people have bad races too. We’ve been on a great roll, tons of momentum. It’s easy to look at it right now and say it’s going to keep going, but you don’t know how things ebb and flow. Pointing our way in is the number one goal, but we’re banking hard on a couple of races that we can win too.”

What is that last little bit you feel like you guys are missing to kind of take that next big step?

“Yeah, we’re one good (pause), we’re in the magic zone, right? So, in racing, I think if you’re running 30th, like we were last year, it’s not easy to get better to run in the top-15 or top-10, but it’s a lot easier to get to that point than it is to go from top-10 to top-five, to winning. So, this is kind of where that magic starts to happen and it takes some really good people to find some really minute things in race cars, and then it comes down to the drivers as well, right? And execution, making it happen in the seat, so yeah, I wish I could just tell you what that is. I think we’re right there, a step away of being up there with the Penskes (Team Penske), JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) Hendrick (Motorsports). We’re real close to that mark, but it definitely takes some magic. And it’s like that in all levels of racing. It always has been for me at least, you can easily pick up (pause) if you’re a half-second off that first three-and-a-half, four tenths, is easy. That last tenth is pretty hard to find. So that’s kind of where we’re sitting right now, but it’s going to take both sides from the race car and from the garage.”

How do you assess where your team is at on the road courses?
“Yeah, I mean (they’re) not our strength from any sense of that, but I think it’s better. Mexico (City) went a lot better for us. It felt like we had a good car, strategy kind of derailed us, but the No. 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) had a great finish. We still earned a bunch of points running up front a lot of the day. But I think we took a big step forward there. COTA (Circuit of the Americas) earlier this year, we were legitimately a last-place car almost, so to take that step forward, I think was impressive. But it’s one sample size. Think we’ll know a lot better after Sunday and Sonoma where we really stand. As far as where I’m at on the road course, I don’t know, I felt pretty good about it in the Gen 6 car. The Next Gen car hasn’t gone great for me (at road courses). (Had) a couple of good days but you know, I feel like we’ve never hit on it with the race cars either until recently, we’ve started to make that climb. So, just keep working on both ends, but yeah, I’m way more confident right now than I was after COTA.”

What are your thoughts advancing to the second round of the In-Season Challenge and your outlook on your matchup this weekend?

“Yeah, making it out of Atlanta was a challenge for anybody. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Just to still be in it, right? I mean, half the guys are knocked out, so feel good about going up against Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.). I feel like that’s a doable one for us this weekend. Next week (is) Sonoma, (and that’ll) either be No. 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) or the No. 9 (Chase Elliott), and if it’s the No. 9, that’ll be a tough one for us. He’s probably going to run really well. So, either way, it’s fun to still be in it, have a shot. We’ll see where it goes. Like I’ve said, we’re in a long stretch of races right now and to have something other than the Playoff line to focus on I think is pretty cool for the sport. Fun to follow along and even when we fall out, if we fall out, it’ll be fun to follow until the end.”

About Toyota

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NASCAR CUP SERIES
CHICAGO STREET RACE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JULY 4, 2025

 Shane van Gisbergen, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and and the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro SS, met with the media in advance of running double duty at the Chicago Street Course. The 36-year-old Auckland, New Zealand, native is the only driver to earn victories in both divisions at the “Windy City” circuit – scoring the win in the 2023 Cup Series race and the 2024 Xfinity Series race.

Media Availability Quotes:

You’ve been on other street courses before. How do you compare the build, the layout, the configuration of this one versus what you’ve raced elsewhere?

“It’s a bit like Gold Coast in some ways… like the 90-degree corners and stuff, and Adelaide in some sections. But yeah, it’s different in its own way. The hardest part here is the no runoff… like turn one and turn five, going straight into a wall at the biggest braking zones, is pretty daunting. So yeah, normally you have runoff in the tricky corners, so that’s probably the hardest part about this place.”

Is there anything about the design, other than the braking spots, that jump out to you that you like or don’t like or that kind of thing?

“It’s just a track, yeah. I don’t know, it’s very challenging. It’s difficult, but nothing out of the ordinary, I guess.”

Since you have a win, is there anything you have asked your team to maybe experiment with here just to see if it works on a Cup car and if you like it on a road course?

“We did that at Mexico, and we’ll continue to make it better here. So yeah, it’s been good to try a few things. It’s difficult here because it’s a closed sort of practice…what you turn up with is what you’re stuck with. It wasn’t a risk at Mexico, we could change it if it wasn’t very good. But yeah, we just keep trying to make the car better. There’s some feelings I’ve struggled with in the car the last couple of years and it’s nice to try some things. But yeah, we can obviously — you know, we’re in a nice position now having won a race. And it may change our strategy. If we’re in a position to get a playoff point, we’ll probably try and get that, but that’ll put us deep in the field for the next stage. So yeah, there’s a bit of a toss-up there what we’re going to do, but it’s a nice position to be in. And yeah, you’re right, we can try some stuff now.”

When you come back to Chicago, do you feel any special connection to this city where you got your first win?

“Yeah, I do. This place is pretty cool to me every time I come back. I hate cities, so I don’t really like the place. But when you get here, it’s pretty cool. You know, I have great memories here. This place has changed my life, so I’m going to have special memories of this place forever. But yeah, not enough grass for me (laughs).”

Four playoff spots remain in the final eight races of the regular season. Even though you’re currently locked in, how safe do you feel in the spot you’re in, and is a second win a must?

“I don’t know… someone brought that up the other day, but I try not to think about those things. You know, we’re still — we won a race, which is extremely hard to do here. And yeah, we just got to focus on our own thing and it should work out. We’ll be fine.”

I know the win obviously puts you in a great position for the playoffs, but is there something to be said for building some momentum for you and your team in this stretch here? Obviously Chicago, that you’ve had a lot of success at, and then going to Sonoma, another road course, kind of building toward the playoffs?

“Yeah, and our oval stuff really was getting better and better. We had a bad week at Pocono, but again at Atlanta, I felt like we made a huge step and a huge gain from earlier in the year at Atlanta. We were running up front, even before half the field got taken out. But I was having some great times there and learning. You know, I had learned so much since the start of the year. I felt really comfortable up front, so yeah, I think we’re really still learning, getting better every week. It’s been a really fun road to be a part of this, I’m enjoying it. And then, as I’ve said before, road courses are just a bonus for us. We know we’re going to be good and we can just focus on trying to get results there.”

Joey (Logano) was up here just a minute ago and he was talking about how he still feels like the rest of the field is trying to catch up to someone like you who has so much road and street experience and skill. Do you feel like the rest of the field has made strides in the last couple of years in this race when it comes to this competition?

“Yeah, I can just flip what he says and that’s what I feel on ovals. You know, that’s the reasons why I’m doing Summer Shootout and stuff, just trying to get experience on ovals.

These guys have been doing left-handers since they were 10 years old. You know, they’re two completely different sports, and although there has been road racing in NASCAR forever, it’s not that much. So yeah, just the experience levels are different in what we do. And I feel like, yes, they’ve definitely gotten a lot better since the first one on this track, for sure.”

The odds basically have you head-to-head with Connor Zilich for the win on Saturday’s Xfinity Series race. How do you feel that battle will go with him with your fellow Red Bull racer?

“Yeah, I feel like the odds stuff is pretty cool to read… like it means that people think nice things about me. That’s cool. But yeah, Connor (Zilisch) will be very good and very tough to beat here. He’s been amazing in those cars. I haven’t driven a Xfinity car all year and it’ll be the first time in a JRM car. So yeah, I’m looking forward to that. Looking forward to driving it tomorrow and seeing what it’s like. That Xfinity race last year was one of my favorite races. I had a lot of fun in that and those cars race really well. They’re pretty awkward and clumsy, but really fun to race.”

About General Motors

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