Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Clash at Bowman Gray Media Availability | Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Rick Ware Racing announced last month that Tim Brown, the Bowman Gray Stadium record holder with 101 career wins and 12 championships, will race the team’s No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in the upcoming Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. Brown and team owner Rick Ware answered questions today from the media about how this opportunity came about and the special personal bond they’ve shared for decades.
TIM BROWN, No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT HAS THE REACTION BEEN LIKE SINCE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE A FEW WEEKS AGO? “It’s honestly been overwhelming. When Rick and I talked about it a month or so ago it was like, ‘Man, you’ve got be cool,’ but now that it’s actually coming to fruition it’s mind blowing. Anybody that knows me it’s very seldom that I’m ever speechless, but this has kind of made me speechless. I was talking to Mike Arning a few minutes ago that I never knew this would blow up to be such a big story and how cool it is for myself and my family and here for everybody at RWR and everyone in the short track racing world. It’s pretty cool news.”
HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HITTING YOU UP FOR ADVICE AT THIS TRACK? “Actually, it’s the opposite. A lot of the Cup drivers that I’m buddies with like, ‘Man, I was gonna get you to be my driver coach or something,’ so now I don’t even talk with those guys because we want to go run as good as we can and not help those guys out at all.”
WHAT’S THE PROCESS BEEN LIKE AT THE SHOP WITH ALL OF THE DIFFERENT THINGS LIKE SEATS? “We’re actually working on the seat stuff today, but it’s actually really cool with the guys that we have here. We’re a tightknit little family here at RWR and everybody has really taken a lot of pride in the car that we’re building for myself to go run up there. It’s a really neat deal to be able to get to work on the car that you’re gonna drive with a bunch of your closest friends and co-workers. It’s a pretty cool deal.”
IF THIS IS A SUCCESS, COULD IT LEAD TO OTHER OPPORTUNITIES AT OTHER SHORT TRACKS AND RACES IN THE FUTURE? “That would be a better question for Rick. I’m a racer. I’d race anytime, anywhere that I could, so you’d probably have to ask Rick that one.”
YOU’VE TESTED CUP CARS BEFORE, SO IS THERE A COMFORT LEVEL IN MAKING THIS TRANSITION? “For sure. I’ve done a lot of testing in the Cup cars over the years, but just not this particular car, but as far as the weight and the power and all that, I’m definitely used to that from years and years of testing. This new car is definitely different, so there will be a learning curve there, but we’ll go do our best and hopefully we’re competitive and have a shot at winning this thing.”
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE BOWMAN GRAY TO SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER SEEN IT? “They call it the Madhouse for a reason. That place is super exciting because it’s the pinnacle of short track racing. When you’re driving a modified there, the thing is turning 8500 rpm’s and really loud, but you can hear the fans cheering you or booing you when you’re actually racing, and I don’t know that there’s any Cup track that you could hear that, so it’s definitely different. The fans there are super passionate. Just the history of the place. It’s gonna be an awesome show, I believe.”
DO YOU FEEL THE HISTORY WHEN YOU GET THERE AND WALK THROUGH THE GATE? “Absolutely, and one cool thing about racing there is just about every Saturday night a family will come through there and they may be from Florida or California or Texas and they’re like, ‘Hey, we took our family vacation to come here and see this place,’ and then go up to the Blue Ridge Mountains or go do some cool stuff around North Carolina, but they actually spend their family vacation just to come and witness the stadium. That’s how historical the place is and that’s pretty neat, and now the Cup Series is coming there. That’s gonna just boost it even more, I believe.”
WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE LIKE AND SEE THE TRACK IN A NEW LIGHT WITH SAFER BARRIERS AND FRESH PAINT? “It is. I’ve actually seen a couple photos floating around and it doesn’t even look like the same place. You see an aerial view of it and the track looks similar, but as far as the new walls and the SAFER barrier and new catchfence and lighting, it’s like a brand new place. How cool is that, too, that it’s something we and the people that race their weekly and the fans that come there weekly will be able to enjoy that also for a long time to come, not just for one weekend here.”
HOW DO YOU THINK THE CUP CARS WILL RACE THERE? WHAT WILL THE RACE BE LIKE? “Man, I’m hoping it’s gonna be a really good race. The fear that I have is the cold. If it’s really, really cold – like 30 degrees and the track is cold and the tires are cold – that we’ll be slipping and sliding quite a bit. Racing at the stadium is hard. I think it’s gonna be more difficult than even racing at the Coliseum in L.A., just because of the asphalt difference and the weather, the temperature difference, but it’s gonna be the same for everybody. I think the bottom will definitely be dominant and you just have to have your car turning really good in the center and have plenty of forward drive and you’ll be fine.”
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WORKING WITH CALE YARBOROUGH’S TEAM IN HIGH SCHOOL? “I was right out of high school, but my grandfather, Eb Clifton, he owned race cars that raced at the stadium since the beginning of the stadium, and he was buddies with Junior Johnson and Cale and all those guys because he had some Grand National cars they called them back in the day that ran the circuit. I was actually gonna go to college and be a design engineer because my grandpa thought that would be the best thing to do. Well, he had some conversations with some people and Ken Glenn was the crew chief for Cale Yarborough at the time and Ken was like, ‘Hey, man. I really need a guy now and we’ll pay you pretty decent,’ so that’s how that started and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
HOW MANY FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS DO YOU ANTICIPATE COMING TO WATCH YOU AT THE CLASH? “As many as I can have there, for sure. My son, Cam, and my daughter, Marley, she’s only three but she’s already a racer. Everything that she and Cam do is a competition, so I definitely have to have them there and my wife, Megan, to support us. My brothers been my right-hand man my entire racing career, so I’ve got to have him there. My mom, hopefully, and just anybody and everybody that’s had a part to do with Tim Brown from 1992 when I started racing to today. I’d love to have them be there and have a part in it.”
DOES CAM FULLY UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MOMENT IS? “Yes. He’s eight years old and he absolutely, 100 percent understands the importance of it and how big it is because that’s all he talks about. Since I was able to show him the first rendering of the car that Rick shared with me and Robby, I took it home and showed Cam and told him he can’t tell anybody and he teared up and was like, ‘Dad, this is so cool. I can’t believe it,’ and then once we made the announcement, Cam was going to school and telling all his seven and eight year old buddies that his dad is gonna be a Cup driver. Marley is talking about it and Cam. It’s so cool. It makes me proud just for that side of it all alone. That makes it feel like to myself that all of the work I’ve put in and sacrifices I’ve made for 33 years of doing this is coming to fruition.”
WHAT ARE THE THINGS YOU’RE PERSONALLY WORKING ON WITH THE CAR THAT YOU WILL DRIVE? “Pretty much, I’d say 60 percent of the car. I definitely have a big part in all of the suspension parts, the racks, the steering, even help install the motor, the seat interior, rear suspension – all of it, basically. I don’t have anything to do with the body hanging and things like that, but all of the mechanical stuff I’ll have a part in.”
I’M ASSUMING YOU’VE SAT IN THE CAR AT SOME POINT. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO DO THAT FOR THE FIRST TIME AND HAS ANYTHING HIT YOU DURING THIS PROCESS? “Here at RWR, I drive our race cars on the chassis dyno every Friday, so I sit in them quite a bit, but this one is a little bit different because I know this is actually a race car I’m going into battle with. It’s pretty cool from that side of it to just sit in it and realize in the moment that, ‘Hey, I’m gonna actually get to race this one.’”
HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU THINK THE RACING WILL BE AND HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THE ADVANTAGE WILL GO TO THOSE WHO HAVE MORE EXPERIENCE THERE? “Those are great questions and I think you’re gonna have to be super aggressive just to get the tires to fire to make lap times. I also think that any driver that’s had any laps around the stadium is gonna have an advantage over any driver that hasn’t just simply for the fact that the grip level there is totally different. The line is different. The place is just unique. It’s completely flat. There’s no banking at all and that’s a unique place all on its own. As far as being aggressive, we hope our car is fast enough that you really don’t have to be that aggressive, but you’ll have to go into each circumstance and do what you have to do to get in the show and run as well as you can. If that means putting the bumper to somebody and moving them to get by, that’s what we’ll have to do.”
WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND WORKING AT RICK WARE RACING? “A little tidbit of information there is that myself and Rick and my brother, we’ve been friends that goes back thirty years, I would say – 25 at least. When Rick was racing himself years and years ago, me and my brother were young and just trying to work on race cars and do things that we could to race our cars, so we would help Rick out and actually worked for Rick some, and then when I departed from RFK, Rick and Robby offered me a job here at RWR to work full-time and it’s like home to me. It’s really a good place to work. Rick and Robby and Craig, Ken, everybody here, Tommy, all the people are super. They’ve got a great group of guys here working on race cars. It’s a bunch of racers here building race cars to go compete and that’s what I am, so I fit right in here. I’m right at home and it’s really been a blessing to me to be part of RWR and just to get the opportunity to drive for Rick and Lisa and the whole Ware family, it is just unbelievable to me, honestly.”
CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH HOW THIS CAME ABOUT AND DID YOU EVER THINK AN OPPORTUNITY TO RUN A CUP CAR, LET ALONE AT BOWMAN GRAY, WOULD BE POSSIBLE? “I didn’t. I’ll be honest with you, once I turned about 30 years old, I kind of gave up on my lifelong dream of being a Cup driver, just because I had seen that transition to where, one, you either had to be 12 or 13 years old and get signed or, two, you had to have big money to pay an owner to let you drive, so I had already given up on that dream, but I actually think it was a text that Rick sent me. He was like, ‘Hey, man. Did you hear the Clash might go to Bowman Gray next year?’ I was like, ‘What?’ And then Rick was something like, ‘Man, if that happens, we’ll see what we can do to get you in the car.’ And I was like, ‘Heck, yeah. How cool would that be?’ When finally the announcement was made that the Clash was coming to the stadium, I think Rick and Robby were the first ones to call or text me that night and were like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna make this happen.’ I was like, ‘Heck, yeah.’ So, naturally, I want to go tell everybody, but you can’t, so it’s been tough. I tell you the hardest part of this for me has been keeping, because I’ve known about it for awhile. Rick and Robby and everybody has been working so hard behind the scenes to put this together for me and we’ve had a bunch of conversations, but keeping it from my wife and my kids and my brother and my race team – influential people in my life that I really care about – that’s the hardest part of it because you love these people so much and you want to be able to share everything with them, and when it came out I’ve had people come up to me and were like, ‘Man, I thought we were tight. Why didn’t you tell me this?’ I was like, ‘I couldn’t.’ So, it’s been a really cool experience so far and I can’t thank Rick and Lisa and everybody at RWR enough for this opportunity.”
WERE YOU SEEING ANY OF THE REACTION TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT OR HAVE PEOPLE BEEN INFORMING YOU? “Mike Arning and his staff have been awesome because I don’t do social media. I try to stay away from it just because as a racer there’s probably more people out there that don’t like you than do like you, and I’m a pretty passionate guy, so it’s best if I just stay off of Facebook and social media, but Mike has been great about sharing all of the posts and things like that. When other Cup drivers and owners are reaching out to you it’s like, ‘Man, this is cool. This is really awesome. Good job. Congrats.’ That’s when you realize that this is a really big deal, so I’m just very blessed and fortunate to have this opportunity. It’s just so cool.”
HOW IS THE BALANCING ACT BETWEEN WORKING FULL TIME AT RWR AND THEN YOUR OWN RACING TEAM ON THE WEEKENDS? “I hope my wife is listening because the balancing act falls on her because basically Megan has to run our entire household as far as getting the kids to school and home and feeding them and putting them to bed because my day starts at 3:30-4:00 o’clock in the morning and it ends about 10 o’clock at night. I live an hour-and-a-half from work and then my shop is 15 minutes from the house, so I’ve dedicated my whole life to it. She knew that going in. When we dated I was a racer, so we got married and she kind of understood it, but it’s just what I do. That’s what racers do. We do what we have to do to go compete at the highest level that we can and it’s tough. I really don’t have a balancing act. It’s a hard conversation to have every now and then of like, in my world, and I hate to say this, I can’t really prioritize anything because working for a Cup team or even on my race car, you never know what that day has in store for you. If NASCAR makes a rule change or someone comes out with a part that’s better that will make us faster, like for my deal, then you’ve got to stay and get it done. So, it’s very important as a racer to have a wife that understands and doesn’t complain and fuss about it too much. Megan is how I survive, basically.”
WHAT ABOUT THE LOCAL FANS WHO COME TO BOWMAN GRAY EVERY WEEK AND SIT IN THE SAME PLACE? HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE THEM AND THEIR PASSION WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT? “It’s really, really cool because I’ve done it long enough now that I’ve seen fans of mine that have kids and have grown up to be fans, so I’ve raced long enough not to see a couple generations of fans come through there, and it’s really cool how they all sit in the same place every week and they have for 25 or 30 years. That’s really cool. I tell this story a lot, but I grew up there watching racing and sitting in the stands and I knew that I was gonna race the following year and I was telling the family I was sitting with, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be out there racing next year in a modified,’ and they were like, ‘Man, you’re crazy. There ain’t no way.’ Because here I am just a little kid that’s been watching races there for a long time and then, sure enough, I wound up racing. They’re older now, but they still come by and it’s like, ‘Man, we can’t believe we sat in the stands with you thirty some years ago and you told us you’d race and now you’ve won 101 races and 12 championships here.’ That’s really cool just to have that kind of following and they’re there every Saturday night that place is open. And not only them. There are thousands of families that are like that and are there religiously every Saturday night.”
RICK WARE, Owner, No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT WENT INTO PUTTING TIM IN THE CAR FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY? “I listened and Tim was a little short on some of the fill of the information because there’s so much back story to him and his family and the stuff in the past. This really started back in the Gen 6 car when the modifieds had been gone from Martinsville for I think 10 years or so, and then the modifieds were gonna come back and I said, ‘Man, we need to figure out a way to maybe get you there for that race’ because he was gonna be looking forward to running that race with the modifieds. I actually talked to Burt Myers as well. This was when we were running a couple of full-time cars in Gen 6 and so the idea was to sell that idea to NASCAR to get them both approved to be at Martinsville, which we did. Anybody that follows Bowman Gray and those guys knows that we’ve got an inherent storyline immediately, so that almost happened. For a variety of different reasons it just didn’t. Tim was talking about going to work for Yarborough back in 1994 and actually Tim was already working for me part-time with my career and Ken Glenn, who was a neighbor of mine in Greensboro, was the crew chief for him and he introduced me to Tim probably in ‘92 or ‘93, so we’ve been friends ever since and just a great guy, and then we got involved with him, I think it was 2008, which I think is the first year of the Madhouse that we kind of teamed up with him there and had the Circle K Thirstbuster car and he won the championship and it was just a great scenario. So, we’ve since worked with him on all kinds of different projects and done some different racing with his backup car at different times and different drivers, so he’s just a fantastic guy. He’s an extremely hard worker and just a great race driver. In my opinion, race drivers to a certain degree, given the tools, they can compete with a wide variety of people on certain tracks. If we were to take him to a road course, he’s probably going to struggle, and maybe even some different size ovals, but he’s run modifieds at three-quarter miles and half-miles and Bowman Gray, so he’s a racer and it really wasn’t much of a stretch. It was just a little bit unique to make your debut at something like the Clash as opposed to someplace like say Martinsville that we’re talking about it.”
WAS IT A NO BRAINER TO PUT TIM IN THE CAR ONCE IT WAS DECIDED BOWMAN GRAY WOULD BE THE SITE? “When they started talking about it, immediately me and Tim started scratching our head and the thought process was, ‘Hey, let’s go see the feasibility of it.’ It was gonna depend a lot on whether or not we were running – was it gonna be a third entry as an open or was it gonna be the second car as an open. There are a lot of different scenarios, but we were pretty adamant that we were gonna do all that we could do to take him there. It would have been different if it would have been cross country because there’s a lot more involved, but being that it’s local and he had a huge following, it just kind of made sense to finalize what we actually started three or four years ago. He was talking about working on the car and if anybody knows Tim he’s extremely anal. He’ll push people out of the way. He’s gonna touch every piece of that car, so he selfishly has an agenda to touch every piece, make it as good as he feels he can make it and that’s the way he is with his modified as well. He’s hands-on, so it’s cool that he can work on something that’s gonna be his car. He takes a lot of pride in that and, frankly, me and Lisa take some pride in being able to offer that opportunity to Tim because we’ve known him and his wife and his family forever. When me and Robby started talking about it I was like, ‘Man, we’ve got to figure it out and make it happen.’”
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE 15 CAR AND DO YOU HAVE A TIMETABLE TO NAME A DRIVER FOR THE 51? “We’re working really hard on that. Every day we’re getting closer and putting pieces together. That’s a big 800-pound gorilla that we’re piecing together bit by bit and we’ll be making some announcements soon on that, but it has given us the opportunity to do this deal with Tim, which is what we’re extremely excited about right now.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RWR AND WHAT DO YOU SEE IN TIM THAT HE DOESN’T SEE IN HIMSELF? “Again, I view him as a race driver first. Now, Bowman Gray is truly unique in that when we went to the Clash, they laid down fresh asphalt and it was amazing. I couldn’t believe the asphalt stayed in good shape and it was smooth and there was a lot of grip. If I’m not mistaken, they tore it up and re-laid it again. The difference with this is that it is extremely porous. It’s very wore out. I’m not so sure that you’re not trying to hook up on pieces of the stone in between the asphalt that’s gone away. If you’ve gone there a fair amount and watched those guys qualifying on evenings when it has been cold more so than normal, you have to have a lot of patience. It’s so easy to overdrive those corners, which it is at any quarter mile, but especially there. The exiting is gonna be even more narrow because you’re losing approximately just shy of three feet on each side because of the SAFER barriers, but there is a value to having, I don’t know, a million laps around a place. There is an advantage. These are the best guys in the world racing these cars, so they have good cars and they’re good drivers. We’re putting our best foot forward. I think he’s putting a lot of expectations on himself just because that’s the kind of person he is. He’s one of those guys who isn’t gonna go somewhere unless he thinks he can win. That’s a little bit tougher attitude to have at the Cup level because there’s a lot of other guys that have the same attitude, just like the short track, but we’re trying to give him all that anybody could. I think he’s gonna do really well. I think if you look at some of the great drivers that haven’t even made the main events the last two years, it’s not so much a function of they are not driving, it’s a function of the whole oval package just couldn’t get that last thousandth of a second. The field is so tight. What I like about having him there is, it was mentioned earlier, normally half the crowd that’s sold out hates and boos for Tim. The other half immediately love him, but I feel like even the people that hate him at Bowman Gray are happy for him because they respect what he’s done. They respect the tenure and the fact that he’s a good race driver and sometimes you hate good race drivers, so that portion I like. I think it’s good for the overall sport. It so cool that NASCAR has taken over this track. They’re giving it a coat of paint, but it still has an old-school feel and if people haven’t been there, it’s like the first time going to Bristol, if you haven’t been there it’s hard to explain it to somebody. It’s just gonna be a win-win for everybody. I’m just really excited about it.”
DO YOU LIKE THAT IT’S UNPREDICTABLE AND HARD AND WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN? “One hundred percent. Again, just mentioning some of the people that are outstanding short track racers that didn’t make it in the Clash and some that did that were a surprise. If we were going to a mile-and-a-half or back at Daytona, I think you could probably pick 10 cars that you would expect to be qualified up front, and then teams would team up, but here, if you happen to get the car and get some forward bite to get the car turning and not overdrive the corner, I think you can have some really good championship drivers that may just overdrive the corner because they had to go out early or it was just colder than they thought. So, yes, I think from start to finish, from practice all the way to the checkered flag, I think the whole world is gonna be watching, literally around the world because there is no other racing going on at that time of the year.”
WHAT ELSE ARE YOU HOPING HE’LL GET FROM THIS EXPERIENCE BY BEING ABLE TO RUN THIS RACE? “Racers are inherently always looking forward, so there’s talk of ‘what if we could put together something and maybe run the second Martinsville later on in the year.’ That’s what racers do. We’re adding, so we’re trying to find a way to go do something cool. I think there’s a lot of opportunity, potentially, for that. Is this a scenario that we can build a base of local support and he does this for the next 10 years if it’s there? I’m not sure, but I want him to get out of it is obviously as a former driver that didn’t make it and is a team owner now, I understand what it’s like to go do something that you’ve dreamed about doing. Running a Cup car for anybody that’s grown up around here, I mean, it’s like the holy grail of motorsports. I’m just glad to be able to be part of being able to give that to him and the fact that he has his kids there. I brought my kids there at a young age when he was still racing and winning championships, and for him to be able to have his son there, his family, and for him to be able to be at a place that’s kind of his house, I hope he can just absorb it. I hope the weather is fantastic and the place is off the hook. It may lead to a whole lot more things. That’s definitely a possibility, but, for sure, I want him just to absorb it and enjoy it because as racers we’re here today and before we got on this call we’re talking about two weeks later at Daytona. Then we’ve got to go straight to Atlanta. You’re burning through the moments and the memories, so I just hope he can absorb it and I hope he just has a fantastic run.”
WHAT HAS THIS MEANT FOR YOU TO BE INVOLVED IN GIVING HIM THIS OPPORTUNITY AND ALSO SEE SUCH A POSITIVE REACTION FOR YOU AND YOUR PROGRAM TO DO THIS? “I think from a marketing standpoint it worked out really well and sometimes that’s part of what you have to do as a business and a race team, but I can promise you it started with doing something really cool for a really good friend. The byproduct is that it has garnered a whole lot of attention and the reason being is he’s that outstanding of an individual. I’m thankful that we could be able to do it. Lisa has been around and Lisa was excited about doing it. There have been many a nights that we’ve been there late with our boys and him. He’s been instrumental with helping my family through the development and driver approval process throughout the years, so we are like a family and we see each other on a regular basis, but we work really hard. It’s one of those things that it’s hard to have win-wins, especially where we are in the Cup Series, trying to claw up both performance-wise and stature and acceptability. We’ve worked really, really hard in Robby and Tommy Baldwin have really been a part of that. Of course, you’ve got Tommy who is knee-deep in modifieds as well, so over here at RWR it’s kind of the modifieds against the world, but it’s just cool. I’m very thankful and part of how it’s grown too is Tim mentioned earlier that you’ve got to give a hand out to Mike Arning of True Speed because he’s helped educate the whole country about what’s happening. I think it’s gonna be good for the sport and good for television and good for the Cup Series.”
WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL MEMORIES AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU TO HAVE GOTTEN THAT ONE CUP START IN 1990 AT WATKINS GLEN? “For me, using that particular race as an example, I won’t say that I raced against the greatest names in racing, but I got to compete with the greatest names in racing. That’s part of it – the people that you look up to and what it took to even make that happen. It was insurmountable, especially at that time with where I was and to be able to do that, and even that was a bizarre scenario because I subbed for Rick Mast, who was running a race, I think, at either Orange County or South Boston and there was a conflict and he really wasn’t a road course racer and I had road course experience, so we filled in for Bobby Jones and the 22 car that Rick Mast normally drove, so it was a bizarre set of circumstances, but I was on Cloud Nine. But it comes and goes and all you think about is trying to get to that next scenario. Me and Lisa like the fact that, I want to say in a 10-year period, I’m pretty confident that statistically we’ve probably given more drivers their first Cup start than I’m gonna say the top 10 teams combined. Maybe those stats are a little off, but it’s pretty significant and part of that is just the opportunity. I’m a racer and there’s a soft spot there, and I do see things through the eyes of people when they’ve had good weekends, bad weekends and this got announced relatively early in that I’m happy that it’s been a month-and-a-half or two month process for him as opposed to, ‘hey, somebody got hurt, you fit in the seat, do you want to drive?’ And you’ve got 24 hours. He’s being able to really absorb it and that’s important to me, just as a friend and seeing things and being a family in racing. It’s important to me and Lisa to be able to do those things.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO SEE THIS EXPERIENCE THROUGH HIS EYES AS SOMEBODY WHO HAD THAT SHORTER WINDOW? For him, I think he had probably a little bit longer ramp up for it and it’s cool just being at the shop. As you mentioned, we have Tim Brown and we have a young guy named Andre that has run at Bowman Gray in a mini stock car, I think. Chad Blount’s run an Xfinity car. Billy Plourde has run late models up north. We have a lot of racers here, so it’s great because we have a lot of ribbing and joking around and everybody is expecting him to sit on the first couple of rows because if he’s not in the first couple of rows every Saturday night, he’s pissed off and throwing something. So, it’s good to see how the interaction is in your work place and just to have the support, and he’s actually been able to share it with a group of people that normally you wouldn’t be able to because these are his peers and there’s a lot of camaraderie and there’s just a whole lot of respect, so it’s really cool from that standpoint.”
DO YOU THINK YOU GUYS COULD BE PUTTING MORE INTO THIS SINCE IT’S A LOCAL RACE AS OPPOSED TO ACROSS THE COUNTRY, AND COULD OTHER TEAMS BE LOOKING AHEAD TO DAYTONA? “I think because the first race of the year and there’s a fair amount of time, and the race is kind of a get out of jail free card in that if you piss people off in points races, somebody may be putting you on a list. I saw at the Clash last year, if you’re standing down in the middle of the track – I mean, you could just see the cars. It’s just like being at Bowman Gray or a short track. You can’t stand in the middle at Bowman, but you can really see what goes on and there’s a lot of roughing up because you don’t have any choice. You have to move somebody pretty much to get by and that’s the way it is at Bowman Gray on a regular basis, so I think a lot of people put a lot of effort into it because, first off, they’re racers and they want to win. I don’t know what it pays to win, but it’s decent. It’s a cool trophy. It’s the Clash. It’s the first race of the year. It’s an inaugural event and for people who put those in their trophy case it’s really cool. Are we putting more than normal? I wouldn’t say we are, but we’re trying to go to every track right now as prepared as we can, but going back to Tim Brown personally, he’s the kind of guy that will triple check something just because of his OCD. He wants it to be perfect, so he’s gonna prepare like it’s a million dollar to win modified race that if he doesn’t win he’s expected to. But it’s one of those races where a lot of different people can win, so we are preparing for it from that standpoint.”
