Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
RFK Announcement | Tuesday, November 19, 2024
RFK Racing announced today that it will be expanding to a third team with driver Ryan Preece and sponsor Kroger joining the organization. The group hosted a press conference at Kroger Headquarters in Cincinnati, OH, to talk about the deal and answered questions from the media.
BRENT COX, Director of Health and Baby Care, Kroger – “I want to share with everybody that I’ve been a longtime partner of Kroger Racing, a longtime supporter. Kroger Racing has been around for a long time. We’ve been around for decades. We started back in the IRP days in Indianapolis, back to the mid-Atlantic. We did a lot of programs in mid-Atlantic, and in 2008 we were approached to sponsor the 50th Anniversary with the Great American Race, so in 2008 we started sponsoring the Daytona 500. In 2010, we were approached by our partners at Kimberly-Clarke and Tad and Jodi Geschickter to actually get into the race car business, and that’s what we did with our first Daytona 500 car driven by Marcos Ambrose, where we were the world’s largest florist. From there, we went from Marcos Ambrose to Bobby Labonte to AJ Allmendinger and we kept building on this Kroger racing program, and it kept getting bigger and better. Then we picked up a guy named Chris Buescher. We had Chris and AJ and then we picked up Ryan Preece, and in 2020 we picked up Ricky Stenhouse. As you might figure, we also won the Daytona 500 with Ricky Stenhouse, so that’s the history of Kroger racing, but I’m pleased to announce today our partnership for 2025 with RFK Racing. What a great day for Kroger. We’re proud to be part of the RFK team and we’re ready to get this started. We’re ready to be on three Ford Mustangs next year and I think you’re gonna see a lot coming out of us. We’re proud to be here today and introduce you. I would like to take one minute and wish the very best to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. As I said, he delivered one of our biggest racing goals, which was winning the 2023 Daytona 500, so we thank Ricky. We thank him for the great memories that he brought our team and we wish him, Madyson, and his son, Stetson, all the best in the coming years.”
ERIN SANCHEZ, VP of Grocery, Kroger – “This program is really special to us, not just as sponsors but for our associates and for our brand partners and we wanted to be here to celebrate. We have a lot of events going on to celebrate our new partnership and so I wanted to take a second to talk about why this program is unique. We at Kroger have a long history of partnering with some of our most trusted brand sponsors to reach the 80 million-plus NASCAR fans in a really different way. That’s things like what we do online to promote our brands and promote our team, in stores and out at the racetracks, so we have a 360 program across the country that we really believe in. It’s something that we’re really proud of and we can’t wait to see the next evolution of this.”
STEVE NEWMARK, President, RFK Racing – “From our perspective, it really is a privilege to be associated with the Kroger company. We believe we share a lot of synergies and there’s a lot of overlap. We obviously have midwestern roots, but when we look at what Kroger has done and how many lives Kroger touches across the country and the positive impact that Kroger has on so many communities in the United States, it’s a privilege for us to try to help support those efforts going forward. We really look at how we can amplify their program going forward, and I do want to recognize Tad and Jodi Geschickter. I think for those in the room and on the Zoom, I think there’s an awareness that they have set the gold standard for how you service your partners and how you build a motorsports program both on and off the track. Quite frankly, a lot of teams in the garage have tried to emulate Tad and Jodi over the years on how they’ve done things and how they’ve gone above and beyond for their partners, and so for us it’s really a blessing to be able to work with them hand-in-hand and learn from them going forward and see how we can bring the program to life. Now, to answer the question about what this means for the evolution of RFK. I think a lot of folks are aware that Jack Roush started our company quite some time ago in the late eighties and partnered with Mark Martin to turn it into a championship-caliber organization. The next chapter in our story was when we added the Fenway Sports Group and John Henry. Fenway obviously owned the Boston Red Sox, but they’ve expanded to a global sports empire with Liverpool, the Pittsburgh Penguins, PGA, Boston Common and LeBron James and as we’ve kind of moved forward the next chapter was when Brad Keselowski came on as kind of the successor to Jack Roush. Brad wears many hats and I know that you’ll talk a lot about that, but when Brad came on our ownership group looked at where we were in this sport and our aspirations were to grow. At the time we were a two-car team, so this is really the fulfillment of something that we’ve been looking at for many years now. Interestingly, we’ve had a number of opportunities to expand to a third car prior to this and there were really two criteria that we wanted to make sure we could check the box on before we did that. One, we wanted to make sure our two-car operation had reached the competitive level where we could compete for wins and championships on a regular basis. And then the second was we wanted to make sure that expansion was with the right partner and the right driver, and, quite frankly, the opportunities that we had previously didn’t fit into that category and when this one came around it seemed perfect for us on so many levels and it really is kind of the fruition of a vision that we’ve had and we’re really excited to have three cars and seeing, quite frankly, Kroger across all three of those platforms next year.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, Co-Owner/Driver, RFK Racing – “I like wearing hats, especially hats in Victory Lane. It’s more opportunities to do just that. Having a third team that gives us another shot at the win on any given weekend. That’s a great opportunity for us at RFK and to piggyback on what Steve was saying, our goal is to be an elite organization, I would say a world-class organization, and to do that in NASCAR you’ve got to win races and the more teams you have, the better that opportunity is to do so, the better the opportunity it is to elevate all the programs. I think we’re looking at it in just that way. It’s a shot to bolster our entire program and to be able to do that, to be a world-class organization, you’ve got to have world-class partners and when I think of Kroger I think of it as a blue chip brand, not just in our sport, but in our world, so we’re fortunate to be associated and to be partnered with Kroger. We’re bringing a lot of talent to our company. Ryan Preece is one of them, but a lot more talent to go with that with crew chiefs and race engineers and pit crew members – all of the pieces that we need to be a perennial threat to win on any given Sunday. It’s really an exciting time for me and I don’t mind wearing those hats because I know that’s what it’s gonna take for us to be successful for many years to come.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, Driver, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’m glad to be here yet again, walking through familiar doors. As we came in this morning here in Cincinnati, it really is quite a time come full circle. We’ve had so much fun racing with Kroger in the past, racing with Tad and Jodi Geschickter in the past and to be able to have those partnerships and friendships this close to home yet again truly is gonna be a blessing for us. I’m really excited to be a part of that as we head into the new year, to be driving alongside Ryan again as we had our friendship there over in the past with Kroger Racing onboard as well. There’s just a lot of really neat opportunities that this is gonna present for us. I feel like we’re gonna be able to truly take this and elevate it. We know Kroger Racing is such a massive partner in our sport. We see the branding and the buildings everywhere at our racetracks, in our infields. This is a really great opportunity for us to take what we’ve been able to do and the competitiveness that we’ve had and bring Kroger along for that ride with us, so I’m very much looking forward to this partnership yet again.”
RYAN PREECE, Driver, No. 60 Kroger Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I echo that with Chris. When we were walking through those doors it reminded me of 2019 when I first got my tour around here at Kroger and to have the opportunity to be racing with them again and with an elite organization like RFK. I’m a racer. I’m somebody that wants to win races. I want to compete for championships. My entire career has certainly been unorthodox, but I have unfinished business and I want to win really bad, so, like you said to Brad, I’m sure it adds a lot more to his busy schedule. I know we talked on the phone quite a bit over the past few weeks and I’m eager and ready to get to the Clash and get to Daytona and finish out that goal.”
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION:
RYAN PREECE – WHAT IS IT LIKE NOW WITH THIS OPPORTUNITY WHERE YOU’RE NOT GOING TO A TEAM THAT IS A REBUILD OR TRYING TO PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER? “It’s one that I’m really eager and excited for. It’s somewhere that these guys had speed last year. You look at how many weeks in a row that Brad and Chris finished top two or top three and had some extremely good stats and found Victory Lane, so, for me, it’s a great opportunity – one that’s filled with pressure, but I think if you’ve looked at my career those pressure type situations I’ve succeeded, so I’m grateful for the opportunity. Thank you to RFK, Brad, BAM, all these people because it seems like you all in NASCAR can’t get rid of me, so I’m gonna work hard to stay and succeed.”
STEVE NEWMARK – IS THE 60 TEAM GOING TO HAVE A CHARTER NEXT YEAR AND, IF SO, WHERE IS IT COMING FROM? “Just to be clear, our vision is that a third car is a permanent state and a permanent condition for RFK, but you still have to navigate the charter landscape, so what we have done at least in the short term is we’ve been fortunate that we have a partnership with Rick Ware Racing, a technical alliance where we’ve been working hand-in-hand with Rick Ware and Robby Benton over the last year to try and elevate the performance of both teams and as part of that going into next year we’ll be leasing one of the Rick Ware charters, still collaborating with that organization to try to again lift both organizations and make sure that we can continue to elevate our game. That is the charter we will have for next year and then, obviously, the future will see what that brings.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – WHAT WAS THE ‘IT’ FACTOR THAT MADE RYAN THE RIGHT CHOICE MOVING FORWARD? “It’s fortuitous timing with Joey Logano winning the championship and I had this video pop up in one of my social media feeds, but Joey Logano’s career in 2012 and some pundits maybe saying that they didn’t think he deserved a Cup ride and now to see that it seems a little bit laughable now that he’s won his third championship. I think it’s a testament to not being in the right situation. I don’t care who you are as a driver, if you’re not in the right situation – you take the best driver in Cup and put him in a situation that’s not right, it’s not gonna work. So, for me, what I look for is people that have specific talent sets, whether that be their talent behind the wheel and combine that with some work ethic. I see Ryan, I see someone who has talent. He has work ethic and probably hasn’t been in the opportunities he needs to be in to be successful, so my commitment is to taking someone like Ryan and putting him in that spot where he can win and with the right resources, with the right team around him and the right support structure and that’s what I see out of Ryan. He’s got the talent. He’s got the work ethic and that’s our commitment back to him is to put him in the right situation with the right equipment, the right people, and the right infrastructure in order to be successful and I think we can do just that.”
WILL THE CREW CHIEF ANNOUNCEMENT COME AT A LATER DATE? “Yes, that’s accurate.”
RYAN PREECE – DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD GET ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY LIKE THIS? “I don’t know, to be honest with you. There was some opportunities out there, but, at the same time, I wasn’t sure. That makes me that much more grateful for Kroger, for BAM, for RFK and to have this because it seemed like in July or August both Heather and I were looking at properties back in Connecticut because that’s where I’m from. I moved to North Carolina back in 2018 chasing opportunities, chasing the dream to win at the Cup level, to perform at the Cup level, so if this didn’t happen, I was probably gonna end up moving back and wasn’t quite sure what it was all gonna be like, but obviously we’re extremely grateful to have this opportunity.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – HOW BIG OF A LIFT IS IT TO ADD A THIRD TEAM AS FAR AS EMPLOYEES? “As a whole, it takes at least about 20 heads to be able to put this together. Of course, there is some scaling that comes with the corporate side and the manufacturing side, but when you talk about the crew chiefs and the car chiefs and the race engineers and the guys that go over the wall, that’s certainly another group of people that doesn’t scale, so we’ve done a good job of filling out that roster. I think if you look at our road map to get here, it’s been super intentional. We ran the 60 car part-time through the 2024 season with several drivers, Joey Hand, David Ragan, Cam Waters, that helped build out our ability to feel confident that we could execute this at a high level and I would say that’s been part of our road map.”
BRENT COX – WHAT WAS THE MOTIVATION FOR MOVING TO RFK? “I think, again, Kroger has been involved in racing here for a while and we really were looking to get to a bigger team and have more opportunities to frankly go out and win some races. Through that search, and Tad and Jodi were a big help as we moved over to RFK, that was really the drive and certainly once we met Brad Keselowski and saw what he and Steve were doing at RFK and longtime relationships with Chris Buescher, who is one of the finest NASCAR drivers out there, and then hearing about Ryan Preece, it just made a lot of sense and was a good fit for the Kroger company to do that.”
SOME BIG BRANDS HAVE ELECTED TO LEAVE THE SPORT. WHY STAY? WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE BRAND THAT KEEPS YOU IN NASCAR? “I tell you what, I think it’s the value of the NASCAR shopper and what we see at Kroger. I think we’ve got great brands in this program from Kimberly-Clark, to Kraft to Coca-Cola, these are all blue chip brands that we’ve got built into this program, but I think they see the value in racing. They see the value in this customer and the way we market this program on track and off track and really bringing that to life. It’s about selling cases and winning races and I think that’s what everybody sees with the Kroger Racing program.
WHAT’S THE PROCESS FOR FIGURING OUT WHAT COMPANIES GET INVOLVED WITH THIS PROGRAM? WILL THERE BE NEW ONES FOR NEXT YEAR? “I can’t divulge all the secret sauce to the Kroger Racing program and how we bring that to life, but each year we look at who is in the program and who wants to be in the program and the direction that we’re going, but I will tell you the partners that are part of this program absolutely see the value in it. We’re gonna meet with them later today and they’re very excited about what’s cooking in 2025.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI – HOW MUCH OF A GAME CHANGER IS THIS FOR RFK? “We’re really fortunate. We keep using the term blue chip and that’s because we mean it. These are serious brands that have serious marketing prowess that take their endeavors in NASCAR very seriously. That’s so important to us to be able to branch out. Of course, we want to win but we want to be bigger than our results too, for good or bad, but I think you look at the partners and you look at how Kroger’s approached the sport, it’s just a proper NASCAR program with really elite marketing that benefits us in so many different ways. We know we’ve got to go out there and win. We’re committed to doing that, but we also have to do a great job delivering off the track with how we take care of Kroger. Steve and the whole corporate team has the master plan to execute that. They’re much more versed in it than I am. I’m off trying to make sure we can win. They’re off trying to make sure we can sell those cases, so it’s a one-two punch.”
