Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Phoenix 1 Midweek Media Availability | Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing, met with media members Tuesday morning as part of the weekly Ford Performance Zoom media call, to look back on his successful run at COTA and look ahead to this weekends race at Phoenix.
CHRIS, LOOKING AT THE FIRST THREE RACES OF THE SEASON, YOU HAVE A COUPLE OF TOP TEN FINISHES AND A SEVENTH PLACE RUN LAST WEEK AT COTA. YOU KNOW, IF YOU KEEP DOING SO WELL ON THESE ROAD COURSES PEOPLE ARE GOING TO LABEL YOU A ROAD RACER HERE AT SOME POINT. CAN YOU RUN US THROUGH COTA NOW THAT YOU’VE HAD A COUPLE OF DAYS TO THINK ABOUT IT, MAYBE GO BACK AND LOOK AT SOME THINGS, AND THEN LOOK AHEAD TO THIS WEEKEND GOING TO PHOENIX FOR US.
“Yeah, kind of to put a bow on COTA there. You know what, for us, it’s been our hardest road course, getting there. I don’t know if it’s the first one of the year or what, but trying to knock the rust off takes a minute or two. So we didn’t qualify nearly as good as we would have liked as an organization, but the team had some really good strategy through the day. We had a good race car and it definitely stayed with us through a longer run, which was beneficial there in the first two stages, able to make a little headway. The last stage really was probably set up to be, you know, really about as good as we could ask for there. And then that caution came out and changed it up for us. I don’t know if you’d even call it a gamble or not, but I decided to come in and put tires on and hope that the couple lap deficit that the others would have would pay off for us. I think I go back and the biggest thing I wish is just that the caution would have been faster. We ate up so many laps getting the car out of the gravel and I guess repairing a tire pack seems like is the consensus on why it took the longest. So we had a couple more of those laps back. We were in a heck of a place. We were rolling there at the end. Really happy with everybody on this Fastenal team. They worked so hard to make sure we go to these road courses, and we are prepared, and we don’t have anything silly happening to us. And that’s really another solid effort for us there. Not a race-winning day at COTA. We haven’t had one of those yet, where we’ve been able to say all these other road courses I feel like we’ve had chances to win or speed that if we’d have done everything right would have had a chance to win and haven’t quite been there at COTA yet but we are inching up on it. I did like the new layout. I thought that was overall better from a driving standpoint. I know we’ve got a lot of friends out there that enjoyed it and liked it. So, it seems like it’s being well received in the small circle that I ask around about. So, that part was good. I think there’s certainly some areas that we can clean it up and make it better next time. Overall it was a pretty solid weekend.”
I’M CURIOUS IF YOU THINK THAT TEAMS WILL HAVE A DRIVER, EITHER ONE OF THEIRS OR MAYBE AN AFFILIATE DRIVER, TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT WITH THE OPTION TIRE, DIFFERENT IN YOUR STRATEGY OR DIFFERENT GO FOR A CERTAIN LENGTH JUST TO SEE WHAT COULD HAPPEN WITH IT, CONSIDERING IT MIGHT BE THE TIRE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE.
“Yes, so you ignored all the road course talking was straight to Phoenix. I like it. I would say that, we’re kind of, new again to this three car deal. We’re kind of going through everything and we actually haven’t had our big meeting pre-race for Phoenix yet on what each individual team’s planning, but I would say there probably are some opportunities to do some different things, but I don’t think it’s necessarily based on just feeling like you’re sacrificing one team or the other. I think for the 17 group, we’ve been really good there the last several races, so we have a very solid baseline, which I think gives us opportunity to try some stuff. that puts us on the option tire maybe off the truck. I don’t know if we’ll do that, but maybe try and get that longer run in on the option and kind of have trust in our standard tire being what it has been the last several times and being very competitive. Maybe that’s an opportunity for us and maybe the 60 bunch needs to get on track to get some laps in and get a baseline. I’m kind of talking for them in this way and maybe for some others that if you have a solid baseline and you feel good about it, then you probably do open up your opportunities to try out those reds a little bit longer.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT YOU WANT TO SEE CLEANED UP FOR NEXT TIME AT COTA. SO DID YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO COTA?
“I enjoy it. I think first off, when you talk about our schedule and road racing and oval, short tracks, whatever avenue you take there, I think five road course races a year is good. I’m not the guy over here raising my hand saying I want to do this eight or ten times a year just to start that out. But I do like COTA. Maybe I’m a little biased going back home, but at the same time, I think this was the single largest improvement for our racing was just shortening up the course. It seemed like it made it to where you had to be a little bit more strategic in your passes versus all the dive bombs. Now, we certainly had those in the turn one still. But overall it was a better race and I thought it was better from behind the wheel. You know what, when we talk about cleaning it up and it’s really just going to come back to track limits. We’ve run a street course a couple times now. There’s pretty solid track limits when there’s a wall on both sides. We’re capable of doing that. So how we keep having these discussions of certain corners are going to be policed and others aren’t and you know you’re out in the dirt in some corners and watching people straight up shortcut corners and the driver’s meeting video that we watched beforehand says you can’t shortcut any corner and they will all be judged just like turns 3, 4, and 5 ended up being judged. Just a lot of confusion from my side and to me, I think it’s an easy fix, it’s just to put physical barriers up is my thought process. It worked great in 6a, nobody shortcut that one. 6b was the same thing there’s a wall there nobody shortcut that one and I promise so that’s just my my two cents. I don’t know how far it’ll get but I just seemed like go back and watch some of the fast laps of the race and trying to compare our data and it’s like well yeah that was faster they cut off four feet of the apex of turn six I’m sure that was better I didn’t know that was an option. I think that’s just some of my frustrations of it are just understanding how we got to where we did.”
DO YOU THINK THE OPTION TIRE WAS NEEDED FOR PHOENIX OR IS THAT PLACE CHALLENGING ENOUGH BEHIND THE WHEEL?
“I wouldn’t say it was needed. I thought we have had some pretty good races there as of late but I thought it worked out pretty good at Richmond created some storylines. So I’m not gonna say that I’m against it, but yeah I guess I was surprised that it did come around and that it will be utilized for the end of the season. It’s just another curve thrown at us that we gotta try and get right and brings strategy back into it, which is a good thing. I think Goodyear’s done a good job at working on getting tires that have more fall for us. And I think case in point, the Glenn and COTA now, we’ve had tires that have real fall off that you can pay a penalty for overusing. So I know that we keep on that path that has big potential for short tracks without having to have an optional tire to do that now. That being said I think this just kind of opens the door to see what we can get away with. Maybe I’m speaking for Goodyear on this, but if you can get away with something softer and it works and it creates good racing then maybe that becomes the standard and we don’t have to have the option in there. So yeah, I guess I don’t think it was needed. I won’t sit here and say I’m against it necessarily.”
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE UPCOMING WEEKENDS?
“The next several weeks we have our miniature west coast swing with Phoenix and Vegas out there. I’d say they’re pretty high. For us and RFK this season, probably one of my biggest goal this season is to get the year started off right, to be more competitive these first eight races and to get a win early on. We’ve been very good at Phoenix. We’ve been very close. So just a little bit of tweaking there. I feel like we have a real opportunity heading into it. Vegas, a lot of work’s gone into our mile and a half program through the offseason and we’re really hoping that we’re better when we get around there. We weren’t bad last year. First Vegas we qualified really well and you know had some some real speed and then second Vegas wasn’t as strong so just kind of back to — I won’t say completely back to the drawing board — but trying to get that one locked in a little bit better and then all the way across the country back to Homestead, a racetrack that I really love. It’s at a way different time this season, so we’ll make that guess that call and what that’s going to affect from a weather standpoint when we get there, but another another mile and a half and one that is just extremely wore out. So we’re getting into our more typical oval season now that we’ve gotten through these first three races so this is going to be where I think we start to get a read on what our season can look like and what we’ve been able to accomplish through the offseason.”
YOU STARTED THE YEAR WITH TWO SUPER SPEEDWAYS, THEN YOU GO TO A ROAD COURSE. IS IT, I DON’T WANT TO SAY FRUSTRATING IS THE RIGHT WORD, BUT I CAN’T THINK OF A BETTER WORD. IS IT JUST MAYBE ODD THAT YOU REALLY DON’T HAVE A READ ON WHO IS STRONG AND WHO NEEDS TO PICK UP THEIR GAME THREE RACES INTO THE YEAR BECAUSE YOU’VE HAD THREE NON-TRADITIONAL TRACKS?
“Yeah, it’s not frustrating, you’re right. That’s not the word, but comical is the word I would use when I’m sitting there watching COTA weekend and they’re talking about who’s been good and who’s not and you’re showing stats from the previous two weeks and it’s two super speedways. You’re like, man, somebody’s been all over the board and this one, two top tens to start off the season. It’s like, there’s something to that, but that’s not really a stat that I feel like you can put a whole lot of weight behind. So, it was strange and I did actually get a good laugh or two through the weekend watching some of those little statistics pop up at the bottom of the screens and watching the Xfinity race. It was different, right? You’re not going to come out of these first three races and be able to tell who’s going to have a breakout season. It’s not a great representative of who’s got everything figured out. It’s going to show you who did their homework and who fired off and was smart and had speed and good decisions and good strategy, but it’s not really a way to check the pulse of the field to start off. It’s a bit strange. I didn’t think it would be that big a deal, but I don’t think I’m loving the two super seedways back-to-back. That one, man, it can mentally get to you because that part is frustrating is being a little bit out of control for two of them. It can get to you pretty quickly if you don’t take that step back and say, all right, now we’re going to get our real read on the season.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT WANTING TO COME OUT OF THE GATE STRONGER AND GET THAT WIN EARLY IN THE YEAR AND SOLIDIFY YOUR PLAYOFF SPOT, RIGHT? SO KNOWING THAT BEYOND THE OBVIOUS, WHICH IS HAVING MORE SPEED IN THE RACE CAR PERFORMANCE, ETC. LIKE THAT, HAVE YOU GUYS HAD TO MAKE A CONCENTRATED EFFORT SAYING, LISTEN, WE NEED TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE. WE NEED TO GO FOR IT WHEN THE OPPORTUNITY ARISES TO GO FOR WINS, WHETHER IT IS SOME KIND OF STRATEGY CALL OR DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, BECAUSE IF WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO GRAB A WIN THAT MAYBE IT WASN’T THERE OTHERWISE, WE NEED TO GO FOR IT TO GET OURSELVES IN THE PLAYOFFS?
“Not necessarily by making crazy moves, no. Simply by having fast race cars, right, by being in position. We were in a place to have an opportunity to win several races last year in the first half of the season, and we didn’t seal the deal. That’s the number one goal is to seal the deal. When that opportunity presents itself, we have to be ready for that. So for us that’s where I’m at. That was our biggest goal as a team is we’ve been very good as we’ve hit the summer stretch and even in the playoffs, even when we’re not in the playoffs, we’ve been able to run really, really strong. That’s great in so many different ways, but for how much weight is thrown at the playoffs in our sport nowadays, you got to be ready to set that up earlier in the year. So that means this is the time, right? We have good racetracks coming at us, tracks that we’ve been very good at in the fall when we’ve come back to them, tracks that we’ve been good at in the spring, the first time around, we just need to close the deal when we have those opportunities. For us, it’s been a goal of the entire organization. It’s been the number one goal for the 17 team to be better in these first eight. That’s been our weakness the last several years.”
YOU HAVE A 7.7 AVERAGE RACE RESULT SINCE THE NEXTGEN CAME OUT, SO I MEAN YOU’RE REALLY GOOD ON THIS TYPE OF TRACK. DO YOU HAVE ANY PRESSURE ON THESE NEXT FEW RACES WITH THE WAY YOU ARE RACING THIS YEAR?
“There’s always pressure in our sport. There’s always a weight on it. We’ve got stats because we’ve consistently done well and been consistent in these things. I wouldn’t say no, it’s not extra. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves each and every week, and it gets talked about, we kind of joke about during the week and we headed into COTA and everyone says, oh, you all have the best average finish on road courses since the new car. And it’s like, yeah, that’s a great stat. It means we’ll be fine. And we knew that. And we get there and that’s the last we talked about it. Didn’t think about it during the weekend. Didn’t think about it as we were setting up and running all our simulation leading up to the weekend. It’s just a stat that’s a product of the same hard work that we put into these things every single time we go to them. It’s not something that adds any difference to how we prep for a weekend. It doesn’t change our mindset. It’s just a stat at the end of the day that is proof to us, is concrete evidence that we are good at these things and that if we keep pushing and be a little bit better that we’ve got a real opportunity to win some of these races.”
WITH RFK ADDING THE THIRD CAR FULL TIME THIS YEAR, DOES IT CHANGE THE WAY THE TEAM IS STRUCTURED THIS WEEKEND?
“Not a whole lot. It is early in the season, and having three cars, we’re working out a little, I wouldn’t even say bugs, but we’re finding a rhythm, right? And how does that process flow through the shop? How do our meetings flow? How do we make the best opportunity at the racetrack to be competitive with all of our cars? I don’t even want to say growing pains because I don’t know if that’s necessarily the word. It’s just finding the rhythm of it. How does this flow as seamlessly as possible? And I think everyone’s done a really good job. It was a busy off season, but I haven’t really noticed much difference as we’ve gotten into the year since we hit the Clash. I may not be the right person to ask, you might ask some of our crew chiefs or mechanics back at the shop and they might say it’s chaos and maybe I’m not seeing it, but from where I’m at, it sure has been made to appear quite seamless and easy. And I think that’s probably the goal.”
AFTER YOUR PERFORMANCE AT COTA, BRAD KESELOWSKI TWEETED THAT YOU WERE THE BEST IN CUP ROAD COURSE RACING OF ALL THE DRIVERS, AND HE INCLUDED ON THE X POST #THEFACTORY. WHAT’D YOU THINK ABOUT THE FACTORY? AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU THAT BRAD GIVES YOU THAT KIND OF COMPLIMENT?
“Brad came up with the factory a few years ago. He said you keep plugging away and you just keep turning out results. I was like, well, that’s great if there are wins. if it’s just a constant win, then, I’d say maybe it holds a little bit more merit, but obviously coming from Brad and a champion of our sport and our team owner here, it’s a massive compliment. I have way too much to learn to be able to take that as the truth right now. Always trying to figure out how to be better at these things and to learn from people that I believe to be better than me at them. So you know what, there’s a lot that goes into it, but ultimately at RFK we have very good road racing cars. We have very good people that are making sure that we show up to the racetrack. Our cars are ready to go, that we’re not having mechanical errors, that we’re making good decisions and calls during races, that we’re staying out of some of these massive pileups that we’re seeing in some of these road courses, right? You think about it, one loose nut somewhere along the way, or an oil line left loose, or something like that, and one bad race and all of a sudden all these stats and these averages that look so solid, those disappear. So it’s not it’s not simply me, there’s a whole lot into this. So to lean on to Brad here, Brad also had a saying that I haven’t heard a whole lot lately but this was a big thing when he came over. I started going with him to some of these Fastenal conventions and talking in front of large crowds of people. He said you know what as drivers we probably get 80 or 90 percent of the credit for doing about 30 percent of the work, and and maybe that was even high, he might have said 20. I was like, man it’s a great point. This is not just driver versus driver, this is team versus team and organization versus organization. There’s so much more that goes into it and those ingrained within our sport, right? This is nothing new to anybody in this setting right here, but you know, to some of our more casual fans to understand how much goes into this thing and how many people touch our results at the end of the day, it starts to sink in and makes you realize this isn’t just me going to a road course and simply having a good understanding and enjoying it and running well at them. It’s our team making great decisions, and all the way through the several hundred employees that we have to ensure that we have these kind of results and these kind of stats to look back on. So, it is more fun because we do get to talk about that Watkins Glen win. We finally got that road course win last year. So that was kind of the icing there. We finally got to it. But it’s something that I surely appreciate, but I have a lot to learn yet and a lot to figure out.”
AS WE HEAD INTO THE MINI WEST COAST SWING, AND I’VE COVERED YOUR TEAM THROUGH UPS AND DOWNS AND A LOT OF CHANGES OVER THE YEARS. BRAD, WHEN HE FIRST CAME, I WONDERED IF HE WAS GOING TO BE PATIENT ENOUGH BECAUSE HE WANTED IT RIGHT AWAY, RIGHT? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ON THE PATIENCE SIDE OF IT, SEEING WHERE YOU NEED TO BE, SEEING THE CHANGES YOU’VE HAD AND ENTERING THIS YEAR AS YOU HEAD TO THE WEST COAST SWING?
“I’ve been awfully impressed by Brad’s tenacity and his attitude towards this thing and how do you approach it methodically. That it’s not always a blow-up that’s needed. And RFK has taken a huge turn and that’s due to many factors, but Brad’s been a huge part of that culture shift. And this change has gotten people excited to be a part of our group and be back winning races. Just to see Jack in Victory Lane at the Glen last year, a track that he’s been so dominant at many, many years ago, to see him smiling and cutting up, that’s incredibly rewarding knowing how the last decade plus has gone, right? And you’re right, I’m no stranger to this thing either. I signed up with Roush when I was 15 years old and I’ve watched it. I think that ink may have dried when they started to hit their wall, and to be on the upswing of it all is a whole lot more fun. I think the third car was a big goal of Jack, of Brad, and of the Fenway side. I think everybody wanted to see this thing grow back, but the patience required to make sure that we were competitive with two cars before we put that extra workload on an organization that needed to be taking that energy and using it to be better, not just good enough. I think that was a strategic play that we’ve seen play out very well for us. And I think we’ll continue to see that kind of show the fruits of that as we go through this season. I think we have a lot of good stuff coming. It’s going to be a really great year for all of us.”
A LITTLE BIT EARLIER ON THE CALL YOU MENTIONED HOMESTEAD. HOMESTEAD EARLIER IN THE SEASON THIS YEAR. DARLINGTON’S ALSO A LITTLE BIT EARLIER IN THE SEASON THIS YEAR, BOTH OF THOSE TRACKS, TYPICALLY THE FASTEST WAY TO GET AROUND THEM IS RIGHT UP AGAINST THE WALL. IF I WERE TO ASK YOU, WHO COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF WHO IS THE BEST RIGHT NOW IN THE CUP SERIES AS FAR AS RIPPING IT INCHES AWAY FROM THE WALL?
“I guess the joke at practice is always who’s in your group, right? And we talk about, we need to run the fence and that’s where we need to practice. And usually it’s probably Reddick that you’re looking for to go rip the fence and see if it works. So that’s something that shows up at those racetracks, right? And you have to be good at it. You have to be calculated in how you approach it. And there’s speed there. There has been for a long time. You know, the difference has been in the last several years, without steel bodied cars, the risk is much lower than it was. For a long period of time, if you got up there on the fence and you were three inches off and you made a mistake and you pushed a fender in on a tire, then you hit pit road three laps later with a flat. We just, we don’t have that anymore. You just don’t get flats from that kind of contact. So it’s changed how aggressive you’re able to be when you go up to the fence. And I think it’s taken people that were really aggressive back with the old car and paid penalties for it at times, had great speed but paid big penalties, it took away most of the penalties where now they’re ahead of everybody else when it comes to that. So what we’re working towards is trying to understand how aggressive you can get with it and how do you balance taking care of equipment versus the understanding that it’s just not really going to tear stuff up. It’s changing in our series and the Xfinity series, right? When they went to the composite body, it did the same thing. It made heroes out of a lot of drivers that otherwise were tearing stuff up pretty regularly over there. It made it to where you’re able to get away with a lot more. So it’s just a different approach to it now and just constantly trying to figure out how to get better at it because there’s a skill to it and it’s hard.”
AS GOODYEAR AND THE SPORT HAS WORKED TO SOFTEN THESE TIRES AND KIND OF CHANGE THE HANDLING OF THE CARS. HOW MUCH IS THAT IMPACTING WHAT DRIVERS ARE ABLE TO DO? HAS THERE BEEN ENOUGH CHANGE THAT IT’S CHANGING HOW YOU HAVE TO DRIVE THE CAR AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO BE SUCCESSFUL IS DIFFERENT THAN FOUR OR FIVE YEARS AGO?
“Yeah, it’s a good question. It seems pretty rare right now that from behind the wheel you can make a big difference in how that tire is going to wear out or fall off on you. I think the bigger differences are coming from how you show up to the racetrack from a setup standpoint. I think that it’s directionally right and in the past you were able to — many, many years ago — there were races you go to and I remember from the ARCA series, if you push for 10 laps you better be ready to give up 20 to recover that tire. And that wasn’t Goodyear, but it was the same way talking to a lot of, I’ll just say my elders because that makes me feel better but talking to my elders throughout the the Cup Series when they were on Goodyears as well that it was just different back around 2010. Yes as they’ve gotten softer we’re definitely seeing more fall-off and more movement in the field and it’s creating some different strategies which is great, right? I don’t think we’re quite to the point where from where I am sitting I can make a huge difference in how that looks throughout a run. It’s getting there, but maybe if you think about the most extreme case, Bristol, right? Bristol one last year, once we figured out we had issues like, all right, we just need to take care of this thing. I want you to run 75%, no harder. And we went from a run that we ran 100 to 75. And I think we made two laps longer before we had issues. That’s not really making a difference. So with that, it’s on the right path. And I think the option tire has been a way for us to have an understanding of what is, is feasible and it is creating different strategy. And I think we’re starting to see the tire from this weekend, from COTA, a lot of marbling and a lot of just rubber out of the groove that is showing that we are getting wear. It’s just a matter of how do we take that last little step, well, take one little step in being able to feel like I can make a difference from behind the wheel would be a big change as well as the fact simply that they are wearing out and creating better strategies.”
THE LAST THREE TIMES AT PHOENIX IN PRACTICE, YOU’VE BEEN NO FASTER THAN 19TH ON THE SPEED CHART, BUT BY THE END OF THE WEEKEND, YOU’VE GOT TOP 10S. I DON’T KNOW IF THAT GOES BACK TO WHAT YOU REFERENCED EARLIER, YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE GOT A GOOD SETUP AND YOU CAN TRY SOME DIFFERENT THINGS IN PRACTICE, OR CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME JUST THE PROGRESSION OF YOUR GROUP FROM PRACTICE WHERE IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE, AT LEAST ON SPEED CHART WISE, THAT MAYBE AT LEAST FOR ONE LAP YOU’RE AS STRONG, AND YET BY THE END OF THE WEEKEND YOU’RE A TOP FIVE, TOP TEN CAR?
“Yeah, we’re really just trying to give people good picks for Draft Kings so that they can cash in at the end of the day. For us, our strengths have come from mid-run to long-run pace. Our fire-off speed is what we’re trying to get better at, and that’s showed up for those races that you don’t see it in practice. N one looks for that pace at that point of run. They look for the top 10 best laps or, you look for that fast lap, whatever it may be, but it doesn’t really measure everybody at lap 10 and at lap 20 in practice. And, you don’t get everybody making those long runs either because everyone’s wanting to make changes still, us involved with that as well. The long run pace has been very strong for us. Fire-off is something as our bigger goal this time around is how do we be better and look better on that speed chart and be able to be more aggressive on restarts and feel like we’re not on defense as much as we are on offense, and ready to roll forward. We’re well aware of a lot of those numbers right there and how it plays into our overall weekend and it always gets us towards the front and we’ve been really good there. But we want to be better for fire-off speed, so that one, you qualify better, get a better spot from the get-go and get that track position. Two, is to guard against late race restarts, which with different tires out there, there’s a slightly larger opportunity that we might see a shorter run at the end versus the last couple races.”
ON SUNDAY, CHRISTOPHER BELL BROKE THE STREAK OF BACK-TO-BACK WINNERS IN THE CUP SERIES, WHICH WAS THE LONGEST DROUGHT IN SERIES HISTORY. YOU WERE THE LAST ONE TO DO IT. SO DO YOU BELIEVE THAT’S BECAUSE THE PARITY OF THE CAR, THE CURRENT FIELD OF COMPETITORS, OR THE SCHEDULE?
“I would say mostly due to the parity of the race cars. We’ve seen this over and over, right, is you look at the number of winners we have as we head into the year, towards the end of the year, and who makes playoffs that didn’t have a win, and it’s one or two cars. We’re just having more winners, it’s more sporadic. You don’t have as clear of an idea when you go to certain racetracks. It’s not quite as clear that this is the car that’s going to be great when we come to Martinsville, you know, it’s just it’s harder to consistently keep an advantage over the field and I think that that’s a lot of why you see that. The fact that the schedule is as crazy as it was at the beginning of this season. One was a race last week where they were really good the entire race and then I think of Atlanta, we were back there struggling to make laps at the beginning of that race with the 20 car, trying to get a handle on all of our hot rods back there. It ended up being able to get that win there for them as well, right? So obviously made good calls and good plays at it and got it better. So it is just the pair is for it seems like if you gain an advantage, it’s not a very large advantage to where it works at all different styles of racetracks. And two, it just doesn’t last long. It just doesn’t seem to last long.”
