Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Food City 500 Media Availability
Saturday, April 12, 2025

Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse, has two career NASCAR Cup Series victories at Bristol Motor Speedway. The three-time champ visited the infield media center before today’s practice and qualifying to answer media questions, along with receiving the fourth quarter Pocono Spirit Award from the National Motorsports Press Association.

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – COMMENTS AFTER RECEIVING THE AWARD FOR HIS FOUNDATION SUPPORTING VICTIMS OF HURRICANE HELENE IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA:

“This is obviously a real special thing because I think that storm impacted so many people in this area. I think everyone in this room probably knows somebody that lives in that area or visited that area or is from that area and you see some of the devastation that was up there, and I thought maybe the most special part about that is seeing everybody band together. I’ve always heard that – one of my quotes that I like to think about a lot is ‘Don’t let a crisis go to waste.’ A crisis like that presented a huge opportunity for all of us to band together and impact some people that just got their lives wiped out, whether it’s their homes or vehicles or their family. It’s some pretty heavy stuff up there and I’m sure a lot of you guys have seen it. The great news is there’s a lot of comeback up there and obviously they’ve been dealing with fires now as well, but it’s definitely been a tough road for everyone. I can’t take full credit for something like this. I’ve got a great group at the foundation that when I put a project together and say, ‘Hey, you want to go after this. Let’s go make a big impact. Let’s go help some people. We have the ability to do it. Let’s do it now while we can.’ So finding the right ways to do it, we did a good job with that and met a lot of great people and a lot of great relationships that will help us through the years moving forward in that area. For us, the Joey Logano Foundation is all about foster care and there’s a lot of families that you think about foster families, they have committed so much, such a selfless act to take on a kid that’s been put through the ringer to say the least and then their life gets wiped out by a storm of nothing they can do about it. It was pretty special to deliver some cars back up there. That was a fun one and make some repairs as well to people’s homes. Places that we love working with already had a lot of damage, so being able to work with them some more too was really nice, so, like I said, we committed $250,000 and as soon as we committed that and started doing things, another $300,000 or so rolled in and we ended up giving way over half a million dollars to that area. That just goes to show that once you start doing it and you start telling everyone what it’s all about, there’s a lot of great people in our industry, whether it’s in this room or fans or sponsors that wanted to jump on board and help too. That was really cool.”

HOW SPECIAL IS THIS PLACE? “I feel like everyone should know that answer when they walk into this place. I feel like it’s all written right on its face. When you walk in I like to cross over the track instead of going through the tunnel because you get the full experience and it’s the wow factor, it’s the badass factor of what this place is. I think that’s what stands out, whether it’s the fans all the way around here. It’s the Last Great Colisseum, that’s what it is and then obviously the racing it puts on, it puts on great racing. Last night, the Truck race was a pretty good race to watch, lots of interesting things happening, whether it’s strategy or moving around the racetrack. I just think it’s always put on a pretty cool race.”

HOW ARE YOU FEELING AFTER DARLINGTON. YOU HAD TO GO TO THE CARE CENTER AND GET FLUIDS. “I had the stomach virus and I thought I was good, and then right before the race I realized that I was not good. I was able to get through the race, but was pretty dehydrated afterwards because for one I was throwing up and all throughout the week and then just couldn’t keep any fluids in even during the week. It was not a fun experience, but I saw the end of it. It was a long race.”

NASCAR HAS NOT RE-APPLIED THE PJ1 AFTER THE RAIN AND IT’S COOL. SO WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT WITH THOSE FACTORS? “It’s always interesting to watch these races as the weekend goes here because you don’t know exactly how it reacts. There are so many variables to PJ1, how it’s applied, what the temperature is gonna be like, how the rubber is gonna lay down. I mean, we’re one year anniversary from that crazy moment last year when everyone’s tires were wearing out in 30 laps. We don’t know that’s not gonna happen today. There’s no certainty of that as the temperatures are pretty cool, so I think we’re all curious to see what that’s gonna be like and we’ll watch the races. Last night, the top started to come in late in the run. You saw a few trucks be able to go up there and make something happen, not many, but as the Xfinity race runs today it may rubber up a lot down there, maybe it will lose a little bit of its grip. I know tomorrow it seems like it’s a question at the moment whether they’re gonna re-apply it or not, so we’ll see tonight.”

HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A RACETRACK AND A RACE WHEN YOU KNOW A TRACTION COMPOUND IS GOING TO BE APPLIED? “It’s harder because it’s a moving target. The question is like, ‘Is the track gonna apply more?’ That’s the first thing you want to ask and then, ‘What’s that gonna do? How long will it matter?’ If they re-apply, the bottom is gonna be super dominant to start the race, but at some point it’s gonna rubber up, get chunky, what’s that gonna do to your car? Are you still gonna be able to make it work down there? What do you need in your car to be able to make that happen? And then, if you can’t, then what does the top look like? You’re gonna need something different for the top to work versus the bottom to work. There’s been times in the years, and it hasn’t been recently, but it used to really over-rubber the top as well and it would get clumped up there, so there would be three or four different stages of Bristol and it was tough, and it still is today of understanding what do you need at what point in the race. It’s very different if you run 100-lap green flag run and then you stack it up with three 15-lap runs. The track changes drastically. It completely changes and then you need something else in your car and you don’t have enough pit stops to adjust it every time or know exactly where the track is gonna go, so you kind of go off of history a little bit and where you think things might go.”

YOU WENT TO THE WHITE HOUSE THIS WEEK. WHAT WAS DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS TRIP? “Both times were really special. It’s an honor to be invited to the nation’s capital. It’s a surreal experience to see your race car sitting up in front of the White House. That was really, really special. The last time we went was back in ‘18 and we didn’t have the opportunity to go in ‘22 and now we have the opportunity to go back, so it was definitely really special to do that and have a little bit of an idea of what to expect this time, although it still didn’t go the way I expected, but it was still pretty special. You walk into the oval office and you just think, ‘Gosh, all the things that have happened in that room.’ The stories that we don’t know, we’ll never know, but it all happened in that room. It’s a pretty big thing to take a moment to let it soak in, so it’s special that we had the opportunity. Our sport gives us the opportunity to experience something that not many people will ever get to do, so I cherish that memory.”

HOW MUCH DIFFERENT IS THE TRACK WITH THE FANS SO CLOSE? “You hear them better. You definitely hear the cheers and the boos. They’re much more in your face. I like that. It’s cool. It kind of brings a little bit more of the stadium environment that other sports get to enjoy a little bit more. It’s hard to get that feeling when you’re on a mile and a half racetrack. You may have more people there than other sporting events, but they’re spread out. Here, they’re right there and you’re gonna hear it all after the race, just kind of like it happens at Martinsville as well, but this place is even larger, so it becomes a pretty fun experience most of the time.”

HOW COOL IS IT THAT THIS PLACE IS HOSTING A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL GAME LATER THIS YEAR? “I think more for the facility than anything. You have this incredible facility, a ridiculous amount of seats. I think everybody wants to compete in the Last Great Colisseum. Everybody wants to do it and it presents an opportunity for something like that, and I couldn’t understand how big of a task it is to create a baseball field in the middle of a racetrack, but if anyone is gonna do it, Bristol will do it because they put dirt on a half mile and I thought that was impossible, too. Nothing will surprise me at this point.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT TALLADEGA IN TWO WEEKS? “Talladega is kind of a beast of its own. It’s really about the draft. The track is pretty wide, so it’s quite a bit different than Daytona and handling isn’t as big of a factor, at least through the corners. What ends up happening is the pushes and shoves, the draft itself becomes more aggressive so definitely a unique one, but Talladega, people show up there, too. Everyone knows it as the party track, but I will never see that. I just race there.”

YOU’VE WON THREE TIMES AT TALLADEGA. HOW IS THE DYNAMIC DIFFERENT FROM THE TWO RACES THERE? “The feeling is similar, but, to your point, the playoffs change it all depending on where you are in the playoffs. It’s definitely the racetrack when you roll in there of concern when you’re in the playoffs because there is only so much you can really control. There’s a lot you can, but you can get caught up in something from someone else’s decision, which happens a lot, and the wrecks more times than not happen towards the front of the pack and we’ve had really good cars and our team is really good at superspeedways, so we expect to be up there and then as you get down to the end of the race the most aggressive cars are gonna be the leaders because they have the most to gain. And then when you add the playoffs to it, where there’s so much more on the line than what it is in the spring, that’s really the biggest difference. Once you’re in the car and the task is going you’re focused in so much that you don’t really think a whole bunch about it. You think about the points, don’t get me wrong, about each spot and what it’s worth, but you strap in and you can race.”

WHAT DID YOU TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR VISIT TO CAMP LEJEUNE? “I’m always impressed with the commitment level of the military and it’s something that I say it every time we leave one of these Mission 600 events, and I’m so grateful that we get to do it because you get to see things up close and personal that the typical civilian, like myself but doesn’t get to see the commitment that not only the soldier is making but their family is making as well. Even the training that they go through is brutal. The training that they were going through when I was there was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ They just got there that morning, they hiked 10 miles, they were sleeping out in the woods for a few nights. It was a training piece and they’re working on different missions and working on different things to try to be ready for whatever scenario could be coming their way, so the time commitment is one thing and the effort, but then you put the life and death scenario in front of you as well. It’s unlike anything else, and they’re fighting for you and me who are complete strangers. They’ve never met us. They don’t know who they’re fighting for, but they’re fighting for their country and what they believe in and that’s a commitment that none of us can understand. I like going there and saying thank you for one, but also learning a little bit about what they do and trying to bring that back to our world because a lot of times, and we’re all probably guilty of this, is we live in our own little world and we assume everything is taken care of and we just worry about the little things in our world that maybe really don’t matter in comparison to what these men and women are doing for us, so it’s good for us to remember that more than just on Memorial Day and this time of year. We need to be thinking about that every day because we do live in a great country and we shouldn’t be the people that complain about everything. There will always be something, but we need to be more appreciative of the people that allow us to live free and safe.”

THE STATS FOR YOU THIS YEAR ARE ALL OVER THE BOARD. HOW DO YOU ASSESS WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU NEED TO GO? “Thank God for stage points at this point for us. At times last year I could almost say the opposite, where we didn’t run very good and then we were able to fabricate a finish somehow. This year has just kind of been the opposite. You name it and it has happened. We’ve had good speed. Our car has been pretty solid. To your point, our average running position is good. We’ve led some laps. We’ve scored a lot of stage points, and then some things happen. It’s a long year. We’ve only just begun. We’re in the very beginning of this thing and the fact that we have speed gives me a lot of confidence that a win will be around the corner at some point. Do we have some areas we need to clean up? Yes. I’m not gonna pin all this on luck or misfortune of some sort. I don’t believe in that stuff, so there are areas as a team we can clean up and we’ll continue to work on that.”

JESSE LOVE WILL MAKE HIS FIRST CUP START. DO YOU REMEMBER THE SENSATION OF YOUR FIRST CUP START YEARS AGO? “Yeah. I remember you start making laps and keep going, and it’s the long green flag runs that will get you. You keep going and going and you just start to wonder like, ‘Gosh, is there ever gonna be a caution? I’d love a break.’ It doesn’t happen as much for me anymore, but for probably the first eight or 10 years I came here, that first few laps of practice you would be huffing and puffing after five. You’d be in there just hanging on and thinking, ‘How in the world am I gonna make 500 laps? There’s no way.’ Now I’ve become more relaxed and understand the scenario and I’m not hanging on for my dear life in there, so it’s changed, but the first few times you come here that’s how you feel. You run the first 10 laps in practice and think, ‘There is no way in hell I’m gonna make it to the end of this thing.’ You just figure it out. That’s what makes this place special. It’s hard. It’s challenging. Five hundred laps around here, it’s a long one.”

Toyota GAZOO Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 12, 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 Bristol Motor Speedway.

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

Your next win will make you the winningest driver in the NASCAR Cup Series at Joe Gibbs Racing. What would that mean to you?

“It certainly is special. It is such a historical organization with the championship drivers. I’ve been there longer than anyone else, so that increases my odds. There has been a lot of greats that have ran through there, so it is certainly a title I would like to have.”

What is it about this place that makes a driver want to be successful here?

“I’m not sure. There is something to it, right? You have this stadium atmosphere – all of the sound is right here. It is the noises of the race track. The noises of the short track that you grew up racing when you were a kid. It is just on a much, much bigger stage. I think that is a big part of it and certainly over time, the fans are just right there on you. A lot of the tracks where the fans are super close to actual racing surface and the infield – it always feels bigger.”

What does 400 consecutive starts mean to you?

“I’m not sure. It is a number for me. I haven’t thought of it or anything like that. It is certainly very hard to do. I’ve done this for 20 some years now, and the tole that it takes on your body on the long term, it is very difficult to stay in the car at all times, and I’ve had to miss a few times because of other things. Certainly, it is great to be a part of the sport as long as I have.”

How does it mean for the sport to have venue that can have a baseball game inside of it?

“I think it is great for the facility, and they’ve hosted a few sports as well. This is a big area for sports – when you think how close Knoxville is and some other college football teams around this area, so to bring a major league baseball game is big. I don’t know that there is a lot of teams that are condensed into this area, so bringing in baseball – to me, it’s very similar to what we did in Chicago right? You are bringing the game to the people.”

How have you and your crew chief prepared for the traction compound this weekend?

“We are kind of assuming that we are going to have a very similar race to what we had in the fall last year. If it turns out to be something different, which I think is a very low possibility, then you adapt from there – just like everyone had to do last spring, but that is really important in a driver, crew chief relationship to understand – what are the things we need to work on, I’ve got the experience from last year to know that there are certain things I’m going to need out of the car if it is going to be a tire conservation type race. I think that puts you at a leg up in those situations – and one that we were successful in doing it. I have the upmost confidence that we will come here with a fast car, and contend and hopefully, find ourselves up front when it really counts.”

Can you talk about how much effort has gone into the 23XI pit crews?

“It is certainly encouraging to see because we have definitely put a lot of effort into it. Not just money, but effort. Whether that be recruiting people, getting to trust us that we have a process. A lot of the tricky things that you see on pit road these days came actually from 23XI – there is a lot of things that they are really being innovative in. It is exciting to see it kind of play out on Sundays. Knowing that your cars are contenders on the race track is one thing. Michael (Jordan, co-owner, 23XI Racing) has said for a long time – we are going to be able to sell the dream for so long. We are going to have to live it at some point. You have to be the dream. We can’t talk about how great we can be or gonna be. You have to be great. You can’t just talk about it. We really feel like we are taking the next step, and the pit crew is taking that next step to be better as an organization. We knew that we were building fast cars, but we as a team were letting our drivers down for a couple of years – that was just part of the building process. They understood when they signed on that this was something that was going to take time to get better and they were very patient with us.”

What is the challenge from a car owner’s perspective with 28 straight races and keeping people fresh? Is there a breaking point?

“There is always a breaking point. I think we’ve seen – it is harder and harder to keep people over the years. One thing that I do feel good about is our track record for keeping people at 23XI and keeping them happy. It is just generally a hard sport to be a part of because of the schedule and the task we ask our people to do, and how long we ask them to do it. It is really, really hard. It is certainly not ideal. I understand why we are doing it. We are going to cut one more week away from competing with football, but it is certainly really hard on people.”

Is it worth a conversation with NASCAR about having the PJ1 reapplied tomorrow?

“I think it’s good to apply it. I think some of the better races that we’ve had here have been when the bottom has been as good or equal to the top. The challenging races have been when it has been top dominate and you can’t move around. That is when you will see the accordion effect of – you will catch the lap cars and then no one can pass anyone. I think the PJ1 here has been a positive. I always wasn’t a huge proponent of it but after racing in it enough years, I think it is good for the competition aspect to be able to move around and have options and sometimes your car isn’t great in both options, both lanes – and that is really what makes the great cars show up when it counts at the end of this race. I don’t really have a preference whether they reapply it or not, as long as we all know ahead of time what it is going to be.”

Considering all of what you’ve accomplished, do you get value about new and different things you could accomplish?

“Yeah, but I try not to psych myself out too much about it because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those type of situations and you end up making silly mistakes. I just try to be as even keeled as I can. It is a new week. It is another great opportunity to win another race. If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and a very proud moment in my career, but it is not something that we set out to do each and every week. We don’t go into the season saying, alright, I want to win, at some point, three in a row this year. That is such a hard thing to do because all of the stars have to align perfectly like we saw last week. They did align perfectly for us. It would be fantastic – some of the greats in our sport have done it, and I haven’t. Just shows how difficult it is.”

Do you see yourself as defying the aging curve?

“I think that it has been different for everyone. Maybe, but I think people like (Kevin) Harvick were still – I think, was he 48 when he retired? He was still on top of his game. I think it is different for everyone. Some you get to 43, 44 the light switch goes off. You just never know. My drive is still there. Obviously, the performance is still there – I’m just going to keep trying to win all that I can in this window when it is still there. I think – Mark Martin, did it when he was 50. He was fantastic. There is no way I’ll ever make it that far for sure. But again, everyone’s body, everyone’s mind, everyone’s eyesight is all different and it goes away at different times.”

About Toyota

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NASCAR CUP SERIES
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
APRIL 12, 2025

 Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Media Availability Quotes:

First of all, sorry for your loss this week. Within the last hour, you posted a picture on social of you and I’m guessing your grandmother and grandparents. Can you just tell the story and the significance about that photo, and why it was important to share that with the world?

“Yeah, I mean, those were photos that I’d never seen before. They were going through my grandparents’ house and found a bunch of photos that they sent to me last night and this morning, so those were photos that I had never seen or I had forgot about. But, you know, I thought that was important for me to look at or post today. She fell when I was getting ready to qualify for Phoenix, and my grandpa called me. I didn’t know he knew how to use the phone, and my grandma fell getting the mail on the way to watch us qualify. I just know she won’t miss another qualifying session or watch another race. She was one of my biggest supporters.

But, yeah, I like to post things that mean stuff to me, obviously. I do all my own social just because, you know, it’s easy to lose things or lose photos or anything, so putting that out there, it makes it easier to know where that photo is going to be.”

So do you remember that moment from the photo?

“I remember a handful, but yeah, that one specifically, I remember always wearing my Dale Jr. shirts at that point. That was my favorite shirt to wear because it looked like his race suit. So, you know, it looks really similar to the shirts you see us wear now. You know, it looks like the suit. So that was at Disney World, which we’d go a thousand times. We stopped going there because it was either you go to Disney World or you pay for your tires when I started racing. But that was a really fun week and trip that I hadn’t seen photos of in a very long time.”

To get into racing, this will be the last race before you get a weekend off, and after that, there isn’t a weekend off the rest of the season. Drivers talk about — hey, I just as soon be in the car every day of the year. What will be the challenge after this Easter break of racing every weekend, whether it’s for you, the team, or everything in general?

“I feel like everybody’s so used to it. For us, I think it would be important to have that reset and then be able to go and hopefully we can refire really strong and get the finishes I feel like we’ve been striving for and feel like we could get or are capable of getting.

If we get on a roll, I don’t think any of us are going to want to stop or take a break and break up that momentum. So I think it’s a good time for everybody to get a reset and then hopefully have a really big push and make that be the second half of the year.”

Following up on that, you look at your recent results. Do you look at the results or do you look at performance? How would you assess this little stretch right now?

“Well, yeah, you look at the results, but then when the results aren’t good, you’ve got to look at the running average or where we’re at and wonder why. And luckily, Jeff Dickerson is the most understanding guy of all time basically and he’s the one that is just like — man, we’ve just got to finish the race because I don’t know what to tell you how to finish. You blow a tire, you blow this, you do this. It’s kind of all things out of our control-ish, right? Just kind of freak things that are just toppling on each other. But we’re running good, so I think that was the biggest thing that he said is just don’t get so caught up in the results right now because we’re not a 30th-place race car. We’re not slow. He’s like, man, right now we’re just trying to find new ways to finish 30th. So it’s just out of the get-go. We’re over this. We’ve gotten out of the way.

He reminded me there were times last year where we weren’t great and other guys had misfortune, so we finished good. So I think it’s sustainable for us long-term, for sure, to be fast and wonder what’s kind of keeping us from finishing good, rather than be slow and not sure why we’re finishing okay. Let’s keep all of us hungry and excited and keeping our group together, right? If you get five 30th-place finishes in like eight races, you start looking at crew guys, crew members and everything. Our group is so strong. We’re so good on pit road. We’re good on the racetrack throughout the race at some point that, and we know everybody on our group’s plenty capable of the potential of finishing really good. It’s just we just got to be able to, you know, take advantage of the adversity. And as my dad would remind me when I was a kid racing is they are character building moments and our No. 77 team’s going through that right now.”

You’ve had flashes here at Bristol of really good things. You’re a short track guy, came up that way. But what is the challenge here compared to, I guess, what you grew up doing and what we would call a traditional short track, so to speak?

“Yeah, I mean, you’re going so fast, right? The dirty air is a factor. You know, compared to that, the banking’s a lot. The track compound is always a confusion, right, of if it’s going to be on the bottom and what you’re going to get.

You never really 100% know when the top’s going to burn in and when it’s not. It’s a little easier to predict for the Cup races because it’s 400 or 500 laps that you can kind of guess what the pattern’s going to be just because you run enough laps. But, you know, I remember when I ran trucks here, it always was a question mark if it was going to be burned in by the end of the race or at the start, and you saw that yesterday without any practice or anything. It started to move up the racetrack at, like, the last 10 laps or something. So, yeah, it’s always a difficult deal here of just track position and balancing it out, and everybody being super, super good and moving around or trying to. I got to run here in a late model when I was about 14 or whatever, so it’s still got a little bit of feel to that when I was 14 racing here.”

Your No. 77 team really had a lot of stability over the off-season, but on the whole, when you look at what Spire Motorsports is doing and growing, how has just the influence or the leadership of guys like Rodney, Travis, Michael, even though they’re not directly working with your team, organizationally, do you feel like that’s lifted you or at least let you have some new ideas to work on your own path?

“I’m sure a little bit there. You know, for me on my craft, I’m very stubborn and like to go my own direction, do my own things, and I think that’s been healthy for us.

You know, Michael (McDowell) has his process. Justin (Haley) has his process. I have mine. But apart from the race cars, where I see a lot of impact on our program is the unsung heroes. You know, it’s the Matt McCall’s, you know, the Dax’s, and a handful of others, right, that are in the competition space.

You know, Ryan Sparks not being on a pit box and overseeing the whole program. It’s those three guys and the others that are sitting at home or sitting in the race shop right now that have really impacted the No. 77 more. Travis and Rodney, they’re working on their own stuff. They still work together, but it’s the job of Matt, Ryan, and everybody else to figure out what Rodney and Travis are doing and communicate that to the 77 car and vice versa and ultimately, you know, have all three cars be fast.”

Earlier today, Jesse Love was in here talking about his Cup debut and how he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. So I was curious, do you remember the first time you started a Cup race here? I was only your fourth start and you finished 11th. I was curious, what was that process like for you adapting to this track and 500 laps?

“Yeah, I remember I ran the truck race, and it was different, right? You know, I got to come in the fall race, and I had a Cup deal signed to go full-time the next year. We just ran third or fourth in the truck race, and I was like plus 30 to make the final four on points. So I showed up with not looking at any data, any SMT for Cup, because I was so focused on the truck deal to make that race. I remember showing up thinking, you know, I’m just going to go out here and figure it out. I don’t think I looked at one piece of information. I didn’t sleep and, you know, mainly just breezed through that whole weekend and had a really, really good time with those guys and Luke and everybody. I remember being super cool, confident and an ego at an all-time high, probably, per se. And then we ran like fifth, so that didn’t help me or help bring me back down to earth. And then we had a loose wheel and finished 11th.

But yeah, I remember being really excited with it being the Bristol night race. My first few Cup races I did — I got to do the Gateway, obviously a cool track and unique. But I got to do the Southern 500, and the Bristol night race as my second and third ever Cup start. So super cool tracks to fire off and get going. I was not pumped, but it was Luke’s favorite race, and he made me super confident that we were going to be good. I don’t think he expected us to be that good, but it was a lot of fun driving by a lot of heroes of mine and everything. I still remind Rodney that that was the race that went like six laps down on speed. So I remind him of that, and so it’s fun to rag on him a little bit.”

You’ve improved every time you’ve gone to Talladega. Is there something that you’ve worked on to get better because with that place, sometimes it’s just luck on the draw?

“They’ve wrecked more, probably. I normally just sit around.. my average running position is like 33rd, and then I finish is like 14th because they crash, and I just avoid it. That’s kind of been the superspeedway strategy I’ve gone with because it’s really difficult with the way this package is right now. Last year or sure at superspeedways, our cars, even if I could have got the lead, it was just way too draggy, and I wouldn’t be able to hold on. You’d get shuffled out really quick. So if I felt like the best we could be was the high single digits, low teens, I could bank on a crash at the end and having our car safe and being fourth or fifth in line. Maybe they crash the line, and I win the race.

We kind of did that at Daytona again as we improve our cars. At Atlanta, I was able to make a lot of moves and pace, but you can kind of draft on your own and make moves. But at Talladega and Daytona right now, it kind of just gets gridlocked, and I just feel like you’re sitting in line waiting to crash almost at times. I kind of play into the role of, even if you miss the wreck and get a flat tire, you might go a few laps down. I try to pick a strategy rather than just hope on something, so I just kind of just go with the we’re going to wait until the green-white-checkered that always seems to come and then do a race. But this time at Talladega, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll probably try and get track position more because I think our cars are improving, but we’ll just kind of see how that goes.”

Do you think guys will be chomping at the bit to get back to competition after being off for a week?

“Yeah, I mean, maybe… I don’t know. I’ve always looked at superspeedways like they’re another off week almost because you don’t really prep. The preparation and what we look at is so different than anything else. You’re not stressed for qualifying. You’re not stressed on practice. You’re not talking about your race car.

You get Friday and Saturday basically off, and Sunday is just about saving fuel and picking the right line and working with your teammates really late in the race or really late in the stages. So, yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always looked at it like it’s almost an off week, per se, compared to the amount of work that goes into the rest of the races.”

Obviously the results this year haven’t been based on your guys’ speed, but when we watch the race, we usually see you at the front of the pack. Some of your run-ins over the last few weeks have come in the mid-pack. Can you describe just how difficult it is, you know, when you’re having to race in the mid-pack in a race?

“Yeah, I mean it’s a dogfight in the middle, but it’s more so just because everybody’s really close in mid-pack or in the low teens. All cars are good and they know how close they are to getting clean air. You’re only a few spots from getting that. It reminds me of, you know, what you see in sprint car racing now is — the leader will fire off and take off, but the second you catch lap traffic, the whole pack starts to come back into it. And then, if they’re behind lap cars or anything, you start seeing them really race… throwing sliders and then all of a sudden you’re four or five cars on top of each other. It’s kind of similar to what we have right now. Aero-wise is I don’t think too far away from that type of sprint car race you’d see from High Limit or anything else. You know, the top few spread out and it starts building a little closer gap as you get to the high single digits. And then all the teens are on top of each other because they’re all on just bad air.”

People have been around for years and kind of get used to things, but the track has changed, or being a young driver and probably kind of just learning it as you go — how much during the race, during the weekend, do you even know what to expect with the track here?

“Yeah, I mean, I know last year at this time, none of us knew what we were going to have. Where this time now, you’re expecting the worst or even worse than that or somewhere in between. So, you know, for us, I know we’ve planned for all type of scenarios as you can.

Yeah, the spring race last year, I don’t think anybody expected that, but it’s been seen before. You know, I remember watching on TV, in 2008 or whatever it was, at Indy when they had this issue or times before that. But, yeah, it’s just part of it.

Now it’s in the notebook, right? Now it’s in the playbook that this could happen or something similar to that that you have to prepare for. I know when I got my pre-race notes from my spotter, Tyler Green, he almost had three races worth of notes because he had somewhere in between how it was in the spring and the fall race.”

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