Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
South Point 400 Qualifying — Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Saturday, October 3, 2026

Following NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Chip Bowers, president, RFK Racing, came to the infield media center and addressed the news that Brad Keselowski will not be returning to the team as a driver in 2027. He also answered questions from the media. Here is the full transcript of that session?

CHIP BOWERS, President, RFK Racing – “I want to start first and foremost by just saying how much I appreciate Brad Keselowski. He has been a tremendous partner to me personally, to our ownership group of Jack Roush and Roush Enterprises and Fenway Sports Group. He is not just the consummate professional and future Hall of Fame race car driver, but he’s also an incredible person. He’s been a great friend and someone who has really helped modernize our business on the track over the last five years. I think it’s fair to say he will be an important chapter in our organization’s history and he you will not find bigger fans in the garage or in life than the people associated with our organization, so I felt it was important to start by thanking him for all that he’s done for us and I’m excited to continue to root for him over the course of the next six weeks and the rest of his career.”

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

HOW IS RFK RACING A BETTER ORGANIZATION GOING FORWARD WITH BRAD KESELOWSKI NOT A PART OF IT? “I will tell you that, one, a lot of the reasons why we are competitive today are thankfully because of Brad. If you go back before Brad’s arrival, it’s fair to say that we weren’t as competitive as a racing team as we are today. That’s largely due to Brad’s vision for what we could become as an organization. I’ll tell you that there are 150 people in our competition room that are incredibly talented and very excited about their role with our organization, so we felt like we’ve built a really good foundation. Don’t get me wrong, Brad means a lot to us as a race car driver on the track. He’s had some success with us. He’s a tremendous teammate and he’s really helped us understand what we could become on the track. That said, we feel like we’ve gone to an area where we’ve become more competitive than we’ve been historically, now it’s time to take the next step. We have a great deal of belief that we have the right people to do that and look forward to adding additional talent to help us get there.”

WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR MAKING THIS DECISION? “Like any decision like this it’s hard. These decisions are not made likely. Myself and Brad’s team worked together over the course of a number of months to figure out what the next chapter of our careers looked like together, and I say our I mean our organization as a whole and Brad. One of the things that I heard very early in the process from Brad is that he really has an interest in being a race car driver for the foreseeable future. I think a five-year plus span is what he’s got his eyes on and I applaud that. We are excited about Brad considering all the things that he’s considering and things that he wants to achieve on the track. I think that’s tremendous. We’re gonna be rooting for him the entire way. I think for us as an organization as we looked at it and looked back as we started our journey together five years ago, we had an idea of Brad taking on a very ambitious role. He’s gonna be race car driver. He’s gonna be head of competition. He’s gonna be minority owner. He’s a businessman and has interest outside of our organization. He’s a father. That is an incredible amount of things to balance and we have a lot of empathy for just how hard all of that is to achieve and to achieve at a high level. So when we looked at it, we wanted to make sure organizationally that we not only set ourselves up for near-term success, but really long-term sustainable success, So when we started looking at what the next three years look like for us and beyond, it was clear that we wanted Brad to start focusing more on his role in competition. We felt like, as you all know, you look at a Chris Gabehart or a Chad Knaus and the list goes on and on and on, these are 24/7 jobs. I mean, you have to live, breathe it constantly and if we want to be in the same conversation as Hendrick Motorsports and Penske Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, it’s gonna take that level of commitment and that’s what we’re focused on as a company. That’s what we’re focused on across the entire organization, and so, for us, we wanted that to be a natural transition over the next two to three years for Brad. I think he wants to continue to drive much longer than that and that’s fine. We applaud that. Like I said, we want to give Brad, because we have such immense respect and appreciation for Brad, every opportunity to do all the things he wants to do in his career. But that’s what makes it so hard. This is a business and we just weren’t aligned with that and that happens sometimes. We just wanted to make the competition side more of a focus and he wanted to focus more on the driving side. We get that and that’s why it took us so long to get here is that we worked so hard and so diligently to find a solution and just couldn’t get there. That happens sometimes in business. That doesn’t mean that it was acrimonious because it wasn’t. You hear a lot of things that there were arguments between Brad and Fenway Sports Group. That could not be further from the truth. There is no adversarial relationship. We are all still friends. It’s hard. That’s difficult emotionally. It’s been a tough week from that standpoint because we never thought we’d find ourselves here, but I think everybody did what they felt was in their best interest and that’s okay. We understand.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED YOU COULDN’T GET TO A POINT WHERE HE COULD STILL DRIVE AND POTENTIALLY GIVE UP SOME OF THE COMPETITION STUFF AND FIND A HAPPY MEDIUM? “Yeah, I am. I know he feels the same way. I think we’re both surprised that we just couldn’t figure it out. The reality is that when you have a relationship that was as intertwined as Brad’s was with our organization – driver, head of competition, investor – a lot of that was wrapped into one agreement, so when you start looking about what his future might hold on the track as a driver and we’re trying to figure out how best to allocate his time, we could have gone and tried to find a new head of competition. That’s challenging as you might imagine for someone to still drive for us who helped build that piece of the business, who now is going to be focused on other things. We wanted to set the next person up for success and if he is to go drive for another organization that is not a Ford Racing team, you might imagine there are a lot of concerns around that. So, there is a concern about sharing intellectual property and all the things, you simply just can’t have that dynamic. One key decision, unfortunately, creates a domino effect for all the other ones and that’s what ultimately led us to where we are.”

HOW MUCH OF YOUR SPONSORSHIP, IF ANY, IS TIED TO BRAD AND YOU MIGHT HAVE TO REPLACE WITH HIS DEPARTURE? “Zero. All of our partners are actually associated with all three of our cars for the most part, so that was part of how we planned out our partnership initiative so all of our guys can make appearances on behalf of our brands. Our partners have been extremely supportive of us. I know there was some discussion around was Kroger concerned about the fact that we may run an open car and a third car, the answer is no. Not once did they ever tell us that they had to have a chartered car. It never came up. Obviously, everyone if you’re running an open car at Daytona for the 500, there’s a little concern that you might not qualify, so, yeah, we’ve got to figure that piece out, but as it relates to the rest of the schedule, that was never a concern. So, there was no smoking gun here. There’s no other outlying issue that people want to point to for why unfortunately we weren’t able to figure it out. It was simply those issues that I’ve addressed.”

YOUR STATEMENT SAID YOU ARE COMMITTED TO RUNNING A THIRD CAR. WHY IS THAT AN IMPORTANT ASPECT FOR THE TEAM TO PURSUE? “I touched on it a little bit earlier, and I want to keep reiterating this. I’ve said this a lot since I joined the organization about a year ago, the reason I joined this organization is that Roush Enterprises, Fenway Sports Group, Brad Keselowski, collectively, our organizational focus has been on being a tier 1A organization. We had tremendous success as Roush Racing. We went through a period there where we weren’t as successful. We want to get back to that. No one wants to be a middle of the pack franchise. Not one. And we can’t do that running two cars. We know that we need three cars to achieve that. We’ve worked extremely hard in large part thanks to Brad’s leadership to run three cars, to secure more partners, to make sure that we build the right infrastructure with the right engineering talent and the right talent in the pit crew. The list is endless and now that we’ve done a really good job of building that foundation, we would be doing ourselves and our fans an incredible disservice to take a step back and go back to a two-car team. So, one, we would love to have Brad still be part of that journey. Obviously, that’s not gonna happen, but this is just a different path to the same destination. This is not a bump in the road and not one person in our organization sees it that way. We will miss Brad, no question, but the reality is we have a lot of faith in each other. We’ve got tremendous talent in our organization. We’re all committed to rowing together to get to where we want to go and the fact that we’ve got the support that we have from Roush Enterprises and Fenway Sports Group, not one individual has said slow down. It’s actually been the exact opposite, hit the gas.”

WHAT DOES THAT NEXT STEP ENTAIL FOR YOU GUYS IN TERMS OF PERFORMANCE AND IMPROVING FROM WHERE YOU ARE NOW? “I think it’s competing every single Sunday. We want to have a chance to win every single race. Hard stop. When you do that and you’re performing at a high level, then you’ve got guys in the Chase and you’ve got a chance at a Cup championship. We’re really excited that Ryan won a couple of races this year, one being a points race a few weeks ago. That’s awesome. It’s great for our organization. It’s great for our partners, but it just wants us to have more. You get a taste for it and you want more, so that’s what we’re focused on as a company. As we think about who we bring in to replace Brad’s role as head of competition, we want to make sure that person is the right strategic fit, the right cultural fit, someone who has a really good understanding of what it’s gonna take to be great, and that’s gonna be where we are hyper focused. That will be the next step in our process. As I run a parallel path to think about who our third driver is gonna be, which is gonna take some time, we are already out in the market. We’ve hired a third party search firm and CAA Sports to assist us with that process and we’re excited about the number of people that we know are gonna be interested in this role.”

WITH HIS DEPARTURE HOW DO YOU NOT LET HIS DEPARTURE FRACTURE TEAM MORALE? “Brad has had a large part given his role in helping us build the culture that we have today, but, as you know, culture is not led by one person. It’s led by many and a lot of that credit goes to all the people in our organization who see the vision of what we’re trying to accomplish. It starts at the top. I’ve got a mentor in our business who always says the best recipe for success in professional sports is three ingredients – ownership, ownership and ownership. So when you’ve got great ownership at the top, who trickle down the communication of we want to be great and this is what greatness looks like in our eyes and we want you to be a part of that, it’s hard not to get fired up and enthusiastic. Brad was a key voice in that conversation, but so are so many other people. That’s why his voice will be missed, but we know there are gonna be a lot of other people to pick up the mic and make sure that our voices are heard.”

WITH BRAD MOVING ON, WHAT IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY ON HOW YOU CAN BECOME MORE OF A FOCUS ON THE FORD INFRASTRUCTURE? “Partnership is everything and with partnership comes a lot of listening. We need to have a better appreciation from Ford and the other teams in the Ford family of how we can be additive to their process. It’s gonna take everybody for Ford to continue to race at a high level and compete against Toyota and General Motors and we get that. I will tell you that one of the things that we’ve got to do, and we talk a lot about it is our voice gets louder when we win more, so winning is the key thing. So, yes, should we do a better job of communicating effectively across the Ford group? Of course. I think every single person would tell you that, but it starts with listening and that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ll be continuing our effort along those lines and committed to that process, but the best way for us to have a bigger platform with any relationship, our partners, internally, you name it, we’ve got to do a better job of making winning the main thing and that’s what we’re gonna focus on.”

YOU KNOW THE CLUBHOUSE ATTITUDE AND THAT WHOEVER MANAGES THE TEAM MEANS A LOT. WHERE DO YOU FIND SOMEBODY TO FILL THAT CULTURE ROLE AND HOW KEY IS HAVING OWNERSHIP THAT IS ACTIVE IN THE ORGANIZATION’S SUCCESS? “I think back to the culture piece, to answer the first question, I’m a firm believer, and I’ve seen it in a lot of successful organizations, you mentioned my time working in a clubhouse. I’ll tell you that when I was with the Golden State Warriors, a lot of the culture in that organization bubbled up. It wasn’t just a trickle down, and so a lot of the bubbling up with great organizations comes from the locker room. I’ve had conversations with Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece about the opportunity that’s in front of them now. These are two really smart guys, really good racers. We have a DNA in our organization of being a racing organization. We embrace that wholeheartedly. We want to make sure that moving forward we do a better job of having group think. I want them to use their voices. They’re on the track. They recognize talent. They understand what’s going on with the car. We need to do a better job, and this is not a knock on Brad or anybody, it’s just I think as you evolve as a company and you take the next step, it takes more people leaning in and using their voice to achieve what you want to achieve. So, we’re gonna be looking for that next person to help lead that. It will not be expected of them that they are the sole beginning and end of building our culture. They’re there to be a voice in the building of that culture, but they’re really there to help us build strategy and build fast race cars. Ultimately, how we get along, how we think about what we do as an organization and what we set out to achieve, that should be a collective conversation and that includes ownership. That includes Roush Enterprises and that includes Fenway Sports Group and we’ve had a lot of conversations about that. I think they have always, but just so this group knows, they’ve been extremely supportive every single day of every week of every month of every year. They just choose to afford to give the ability of the people who are on the ground, afford them the opportunity to lead. I think moving forward they will continue to be more present, not because they feel like they need to, but also because they want to make sure that the organization believes what they’re saying. I think that’s important for them to see it optically as much as hear it, and we’re gonna do a lot more of that moving forward.”

HOW AGGRESSIVELY ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR THAT THIRD CHARTER? “Extremely. I’ve said this a number of times in different forums, there’s not a day that goes by that we’re not thinking about it, planning on it. I don’t talk about it publicly because I don’t know that it helps our process very much. We’re trying to be very strategic around what an acquisition of a third charter means. Certainly, it would be just transactional, and I get that, but if there are strategic alliances that can be created, if there’s a way that we find better ways to work with people through the addition of a charter, that we should be thinking about that. Look, just a matter of days ago our group reiterated to me we will buy a charter and we will pay for it. We just have to have one for sale and we’ve got to find the right situation for us and that’s what we’re working through. But there are a lot of conversations that will continue to happen. Patience is a virtue. Sometimes you sit back and you let things play out a little bit and the path gets a little bit more clearer.”

GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF PROPRIETY INFORMATION BRAD WOULD HAVE DUE TO HIS ROLE. IS HE SUBJECT TO ANY KIND OF NON-COMPETE THAT WOULD PREVENT HIM FROM RACING FOR ANOTHER CUP ORGANIZATION NEXT SEASON? “No. We’re not gonna hold Brad captive. We want, like I said before, this is not acrimonious. If Brad would like to go race somewhere else. If Brad would like to be an owner somewhere else. If Brad would like to lead competition somewhere else, he’s more than happy to do so. There are some things, obviously, we have to work out that we’ll do privately as it relates to his equity and that may take a little bit of time for all the reasons I talked about – just so there are no conflicts with our OEM or anything like that – but, look, Brad is an above board pro and so we have no concerns that he’s gonna take information from us or anything like that. We want Brad to be highly successful, so whatever it is he wants to do, we want him to be able to pursue it. It’s just unfortunate we couldn’t figure out a way to make it work here, but, again, it’s nobody’s fault. These things happen.”

IS THERE ANY PART OF YOU THAT IS NERVOUS ABOUT HOW THINGS COULD GO IF THERE WAS A POSSIBILITY OF NOT GETTING THAT THIRD CHARTER GOING INTO 2027? “No, and the reason being is that, one, we have the financial commitment of our ownership group to withstand any revenue loss by not having a third charter. I think a lot of times people are like, ‘Well, if you don’t have the third charter, you’re gonna make less money.’ That is correct, but back to my point about supportive ownership, they understand that sometimes things don’t happen as timely as we would like it. That doesn’t mean that our commitment to what we want to accomplish changes. It just means that we’ve got to be more patient. Our partners are tremendous. We sold out all of our sponsor deals this year. We’re growing our partnerships next year. We have a number of people coming back that are actually getting more races from us. There are a lot of great announcements that will be coming out in the coming weeks. We have wholeheartedly embraced as an organization the reality that we may have to run open next year, so with that sense of confidence that we can withstand an open year, we think we can do it for the foreseeable future if we have to. It’s not what we want to do, but we’re not gonna panic, and I think that’s the sign of real leadership as an organization when your ownership doesn’t panic and they stay the course because they believe so much in the people that work for them. That’s ultimately what we’re focused on right now, so we’re committed to our process. We’re not gonna veer off the path that we’re on and we’re excited about what our future holds.”

Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
South Point 400 Qualifying — Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Saturday, October 3, 2026

Ford Qualifying Results:

7th – Austin Cindric
12th – Ryan Preece
14th – Chris Buescher
16th – Brad Keselowski
20th – Ryan Blaney
23rd – Joey Logano
27th – Todd Gilliland
30th – Zane Smith
35th – Josh Berry
36th – Noah Gragson

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Consumer Cellular Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’ll fire us off. I know there are probably three things you probably want to ask me about. I’m gonna take the easiest one first. I just ran at Las Vegas. I don’t know where we’re gonna end up on the board, but my car is really good and I’m excited about it. We’ve had a lot of changes with the team, obviously, over the last few weeks and I feel like our cars are reasonable and this is one of the best cars I’ve had at Vegas in a while, so I’m looking forward to getting going on Sunday.

The second part, you’re gonna ask me about everything that happened this week. That’s okay. I’d ask the same questions. There’s a lot I can’t talk about at this time. It’s got to play out, but it’s been a hell of a ride. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve gotten to do with RFK and my career is not over by any means. There are a lot ot things to still work out. I can’t really go into details of how we got to where we are, at least not at this time until a few more things kind of develop, which probably brings me to the third part of where I’m going and what I’m gonna do.

I’ve had a pretty good idea that this was in the works for the last few months. I’ve had a few people reach out before then and I’m just kind of gathering all the opportunities to see what makes sense and then we’ll make a decision in the next couple of months or so. So, that’s kind of the lowdown. I obviously can’t talk too much about all things RFK, but I appreciate the interest. It’s been an interesting week to say the least, full of highs and lows. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the different fan reactions and media attention this has garnered. I did not expect that, but I appreciate it and we’ll see what it goes. With that, I’ll stop.”

HOW DID IT GET TO THIS POINT? “Again, I can’t go too much into all things RFK, at least not today.”

WHAT CAN YOU GO INTO? “Really nothing, other than what’s been put out in the statement at this point.”

WHY IS NOW THE TIME FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND TO PART WAYS? “I had a five-year contract with RFK Racing and this was the end of the contract.”

ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FUTURE? “Any athlete should be worried about their future in a sport that has churned. I wouldn’t say I’m not worried, but I like some of the things that have been thrown at me and I’m waiting at a few more things to be thrown at me and I think I’m gonna be okay.”

ANY INTEREST IN BEING A TRIPLE CROWN CHAMPION IN NASCAR? “Absolutely. I’m not ready to divulge any of that yet, but that’s something I’m absolutely interested in. That’s not my only interest, so we’ll see what plays out.”

DO YOU HAVE TO BE BOUGHT OUT OF YOUR CURRENT OWNERSHIP DEAL TO SIGN WITH A NON-FORD TEAM? “I’m still working through that, so I really don’t have an answer to that at this point.”

IS THIS THE END OF BRAD KESELOWSKI AS AN OWNER IN THIS SPORT? “Doubtful. We’ll see. I can’t answer that right now.”

DO YOU STILL WANT TO BE AN OWNER? “I still love this sport and I want to be around long after my days of driving are done, so we’ll see.”

IS THERE ANY PATHWAY WHERE YOU’RE STILL IN THE 6 CAR NEXT YEAR? “I can’t comment on that at this time.”

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OVER YOUR FIVE YEARS IN THIS ROLE? “A bunch. I hate to see the experience go through this kind of road bump. It’s part of the process and I understand that, but I’ve grown through this process. I’m super comfortable with my abilities to own and operate a team. I feel like I can do it at the highest levels. I’m bullish on the future to do it. That wouldn’t have been possible without this experience.”

WAS THAT FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT AS A DRIVER AND SEPARATE FROM BEING AN OWNER? “Yes.”

ARE YOU CONFIDENT YOU WILL BE DRIVING SOMETHING NEXT YEAR? “When I’m in a vehicle in Daytona I’ll be confident of that, but right now I think there’s enough interest where I’m not saying I’m not sweating it, that’s not true. There are things to work through, but there’s enough interest to where I’m confident that I’ll be somewhere next year.”

BUESCHER DIDN’T SEEM TO THINK YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN. “I like Chris. He’s a good guy despite my Consumer Cellular commercial. I like Chris.”

DO YOU FEEL YOU WILL BE IN CUP OR ARE YOU OPEN TO OTHER THINGS? “I’m open to everything. I’m just gonna look for the best opportunity that comes at me and then make a decision from there.”

WAS THE OWNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY EVERYTHING THAT WAS PROMISED TO YOU WHEN IT STARTED? “Again, I’m not gonna get into all things RFK – not at this time.”

ARE YOU GOING TO RACE FULL-TIME FOR SURE? “I don’t know. Like I said, the next month or two things will become a lot clearer and then I’ll cover it from there.”

DID YOU TALK TO ANYBODY LIKE ROGER BEFORE YOU MADE THIS DECISION? “No, but I’ve got a lot of phone calls over the last few days as you can imagine, but I think there were some people that were caught off guard by things that happened here over the last few days and that generated a lot of phone calls, but we’ll see what happens.”

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO WALK AWAY FROM WHAT YOU’VE BUILT THE LAST FIVE YEAR? “I’m really proud of the things that we’ve done and the people that I’ve been able to work with and see grow and develop and some of the turnaround story of the company and team. That’s been the thrill of a lifetime to be a part of. You always hate to leave that, lose that, whatever that might be, but it is part of life. It’s kind of like leaving high school, but that’s where we are.”

ARE YOU SETTLED RIGHT NOW? DO YOU FEEL OKAY ABOUT EVERYTHING? “I’m not settled in the sense of having something done, and I know that’s probably one of the questions and a lot of people this week have probably made some assumptions. No, I don’t have anything signed for next year. Like I said, I’m just gonna evaluate everything and see which one makes the most sense.”

BUT YOUR HEART, YOU ARE GOOD. “Yes, I am. I am gonna be okay.”

IS YOUR PRIORITY AT THIS POINT TO WIN RACES IN ANY SERIES VERSUS STAYING IN CUP SPECIFICALLY? “I don’t know if I’ve made that decision yet on what my priority is. Like I said, I just want to evaluate the opportunities and I’ll go where my heart takes me.”

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE EMOTIONS FOR YOU THIS WEEK? “I was really pleasantly surprised by the fan and media reaction. I didn’t expect that, particularly with everything going on related to the Chase and so forth. Probably my biggest emotion just being at the racetrack is humbled to have that level of support. That doesn’t mean that’s the only emotion through the whole process. There have probably been a few moments of anger over the last few weeks as the realities of this have become clearer, but I’m in a good spot now.”

A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE COMPANY SAID YOU CAME IN AND CHANGED THE MINDSET. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE WAYS YOU DID THAT? “Some of that is IP related, so I don’t want to get too deep into that, but I think seeing the culture transform into one that was probably more around tier three to fringe tier one. That’s everything. That’s what this sport is. It’s the people drive where you go and seeing that happen and being a part of it is really fun.”

NO HOODIE RULE? “Yeah, year. I probably got a little flack over that. I have my own quirks, but, yes, the no hoodie rule was one of them.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING WITH THE TEAM TODAY? “No. There’s been a lot of transition in the team over the last few weeks as well with different people – crew members, pit crew members, crew chiefs – and so that transition with those people has made it easier for this transition in kind of a weird way.”

HOW INVOLVED WERE YOU IN THE COMPETITION PROCESS? “My role with RFK was obviously to drive the 6 car. I had a partial ownership of the team alongside that and kind of lastly is kind of competition director of sorts, which is more of a vision role than it is a day-to-day role. I’m not in the building ordering steel on a Tuesday and there’s a lot of people that are doing the actual work. My job was more around the vision of the company and trying to lock people into who we are and what we want to be, whether that was recruiting or the other side I wish may not so pleasant, but more strategic for sure.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM JACK ROUSH? “Jack’s number one strength, without a doubt, is he is steadfast in his desire for accountability in all aspects of the business. That was great to see and great to learn from.”

HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH THE FENWAY SPORTS GROUP? “John Henry is a great guy. I’ve spent some time with him and his family and he’s always been really kind to me considering everything else he has in his portfolio, and that’s probably where I would stop.”

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE LEARNED THAT YOU WANT TO EMPLOY IN YOUR NEXT OPPORTUNITY? “There are a lot of key learnings, things that I didn’t really fully grasp until I got in the role. One of the biggest thing for me that kept me from being a Cup owner five, 10 years earlier outside of the tremendous team that I had around me at Penske was the vices that I carried from owning a truck team. On that side, the fight to generate sponsorship and to garner the support you needed to get on track was just a dogfight. It was really, really difficult and I carried that bias and that assumption into my probably hesitation to do something at the Cup level at the ownership level and once I finally got into it I was like, ‘Oh, no. This is different.’ So, it was probably my biggest key learning was to break any of the biases that I had from owning a truck team, and then on the flip side there are things that are harder. There are a lot of things that are actually easier on the Cup side than owning the truck team was, so I’m really thankful for that. There were a few things that were harder and you learn how to work through that, particularly the management of such a large group of people – 200-plus people versus 30 or 40 that runs a truck team – so I think breaking those biases was the biggest learning for me.”

WHO HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST SUPPORTER THROUGH THIS WHOLE PROCESS? “I don’t know it’s still pretty early. I’ve had a number of people reach out, friends, family. It kind of sounds sappy to say, but always my mom. God bless moms.”

WHAT ABOUT THE DRIVERS. SEVERAL CAME IN AND PRAISED YOU. WHAT KIND OF MESSAGES HAVE YOU RECEIVED AND WERE YOU EXPECTING THOSE MESSAGES? “Not necessarily. Like I said, I didn’t expect anybody to really pay as much attention. I’m just glad that people care. I’ve turned the page pretty quick into what’s next rather than where we’re at today, so I haven’t put a lot of thought into all that stuff. I’m not that sentimental.”

YOU ARE A BIG BELIEVER IN FAILING FORWARD. HOW WILL YOU FAIL FORWARD FROM THIS POINT? “We’ll see in the next 60 days, but I’m pretty confident it’s gonna be good.”

WHY WERE YOU SURPRISED ABOUT THE ATTENTION THIS GOT? “I don’t know. We all live in our own bubbles and I’m no different than anyone else. It’s so different on social media – we’ll come out with a post and we think, ‘Man, this is gonna do great.’ And nobody follows it. And then there will be one that we kind of just throw out there and it blows up. We have no idea. I don’t know what people care about and what they don’t. I live in my own bubble and you generate those understandings forward and they don’t always carry to others.”

WAS THIS YOUR DECISION OR WAS IT MADE FOR YOU? “I would say that it will become clear in time and I’ll be able to share more about that later.”

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Autotrader Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I definitely think that was our best intermediate qualifying of the year. We were in the thirties this time in the spring, so our guys did a great job. Having a good draw helps as well, going out that late gives a lot of confidence to watch other cars and know what to do. I thought we made a lot of progress in a short amount of time in our Autotrader Ford Mustang in practice and obviously it showed in qualifying trim.” DO YOU FEEL WHAT YOU LEARNED LAST WEEK IS APPLYING SO FAR THIS WEEKEND? “It’s hard to tell. With today’s temperatures being so wide-ranging, it will be interesting to see what a long run looks like. Nobody really got a long run in due to the cautions in practice, so it was pretty impressive to see some of the fire off pace of some of the other cars, at least from our sake definitely not hoping that doesn’t translate for the race because obviously qualifying well, but the qualifying trim stuff and making sure we can hang on restarts and stuff. It seemed like our long run pace was decent, but we kind of never got to see it. I’m excited for tomorrow and see what we can translate.” HOW WAS THE TEMPERATURE OUT THERE? “It honestly doesn’t feel that hot. I know I’m sweaty and stuff, but so is everybody who has been sitting outside. We’ve had worse this year. The Darlington-Gateway back-to-back stretch, that one was rough, but, otherwise, not too bad.”

Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse, was involved in an accident during practice and provided the following comments after being released from the infield care center.

JOSH BERRY, No. 21 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse – A LOT OF LEFT-REAR TIRE ISSUES IN THIS PRACTICE. WAS THAT YOUR ISSUE? “Yeah, I’m fine first of all. I wasn’t sure if it was the left-rear or the right-rear. I thought it was the left-rear, but when I got loaded up into one and two on the bottom I just felt a few vibrations and then it was gone. I definitely didn’t feel it coming otherwise I would have come in, so it was unfortunate to have that happen. The guys will work hard this evening and get us a car together and we’ll do the best we can tomorrow.” HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO YOUR TEAM ABOUT A BACKUP? “I’m sure it’ll be a backup car. It was a pretty good hit. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them yet, but they’ll put in the work and do the best they can to get us setup for tomorrow and we’ll try to make something of it.”

TOYOTA RACING – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

LAS VEGAS (October 3, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday after winning the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

A few stats on this qualifying effort:

This is the first 1-2-3-4 qualifying sweep in JGR’s history.
This is the second Toyota top-five sweep in qualifying (Indianapolis 2025)
This is the third straight Las Vegas race where Toyota has swept at least the top-three in qualifying.
This is Denny Hamlin’s second straight fall Las Vegas pole, and fifth pole this season.

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

Denny, was there anything out there on the track that surprised me after getting the car out there doing practice?

“Not really. The track was hot, and as we thought. Qualifying had quite a bit more lifting to it than what we had in the previous races. So I was a little more nervous going into this qualifying session, because I knew my job as a driver was going to be more crucial, because when this track is cool, and you can run wide open, then it’s more about executing your upper shifts and things like that, and then hitting the lines. Well, here (turns) 3 and 4 the cars were absolutely handful, which we saw, a few washed up the racetrack, and the team nailed the balance right where they needed to, and we executed as good as I could on the racetrack.”

Could you talk about the importance of this starting position?

“Yeah, it is important, and the races that we’ve really succeeded well here, we’ve started up front, and, so yeah, I mean, today was executed by the team perfectly, how we approached the week, and the adjustments we made to the car for temperature seemed to be really good changes, and I couldn’t ask for today to go a whole lot better than it did.”

How do you think your balance will be for tomorrow’s race?

“Yeah, I mean, the good news is – today wasn’t much different, and it won’t be much different from what we have tomorrow. I think that it was a good practice session with all the cars out there and you had an hour and change, it seems like. So, I think that what you had today is what you’re going to have tomorrow. It just didn’t seem like there’ll be a whole lot of difference. I like my car today, and hopefully, I’ll like it tomorrow, but obviously, the track position certainly matters, and we got to keep it.”

Do you feel like this is a race weekend where Toyotas have control?

“I don’t know about in control. I understand that I’m not blind. I can see the results of qualifying. I think that that was a good preparation by, it seemed like the Toyotas preparing for what racetrack we were going to have today. Today was really a balance type of your speed came with balance, and it seemed like we all, guessed pretty well on balance this week. So, once it gets in the race, you just never know. I mean, there was some Toyotas that were good, some that were not good in practice today. I don’t know that necessarily means that they’re all going to run one through six or whatever. That’s why they play the game for sure.”

Who else stood out from practice?

“All the normal, normal characters. I mean, nobody new that I could pay attention to, but I didn’t get to analyze anybody but kind of some Toyotas, so that was all I really looked at.”

How much of advantage is it to start on the pole here?

“It certainly is. I think we’ll be in traffic a little more at this racetrack than historically, we’re in traffic more here than Kansas. I talked about this earlier, this track is pretty narrow. The groove in (turns) one and two, is, like, two and a half cars wide. So there’s not a whole lot of escaping, the dirty air that does come from the lead car. So I just hope we’re the ones putting off that wake, but you just never know this sport is week by week, and we’re all guilty of overreacting on Mondays about what we just saw over the weekend, but, you know, the 5 (Kyle Larson) car could easily just drive right up through there and pass us and win the race again. You never know, or we could do the same thing he did last week.

We just don’t know. If we all knew, then you guys should, there’s a place with big buildings. You go place your bets and go make a lot of money.”

With 14 Chase cars up front, does that mean the racing will be tamer or does that make it crazier?

“Yeah, it seems like it’s getting like this week after week, and I’ve been part of many different playoffs and championships where – Chase guys usually make their way to the front, but, like, it seems like they’re really dominating those top 14, 16 spots week in, week out. Pretty consistently. I don’t know what everyone’s mentality is going to be. I mean, if you’re someone 140 back, you probably have a different mentality than someone that’s leading by 26. So I think everyone is a little bit different, but certainly, we’re going to find out together.”

About Toyota

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