Toyota Racing – Erik Jones
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

BROOKLYN, Mich (August 17, 2024) – LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver Erik Jones was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

ERIK JONES, No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

How do you prepare for this race with the unpredictability due to the weather?

“Yeah, it is a bummer. I’ve been here since Tuesday and the weather has been great since yesterday morning. It is tough. Going through today, I feel like we are probably going to get practice in, but I’m not sure about qualifying – that is still hit or miss. I feel like tomorrow is going to be similar – hit or miss. It is just challenging from the sense that you don’t know what the track is going to do. Really, with yourself, and getting ready to go on the track and knowing what’s going on – it’s a hassle, for everybody, for us, for the fans – I feel like we get a good crowd here over the last few years. Rain has just torn that up. It’s a bummer. It definitely makes it challenging. I would love a nice, good 78-degree sunny day, like we have had a lot of the summer. It would be nice.”

If NASCAR had not done anything to Austin Dillon, would you have done something similar to make the Playoffs?

“No. No, not a chance. I don’t race that way. I wouldn’t have done it. I can probably count – I honestly don’t know – less than five times that I’ve wrecked anyone intentionally in my entire career. Just not the way I race. Everyone’s got their own code. Everybody has different ways that they go about it. For me, that’s just not the way I raced.”

What if your team said you have to do it?

“I don’t think I could that. That’s not to say that things don’t change in the moment, and how you were raced before that changes things. Obviously, that was not the situation here, but it depends on what is going down, but it is really not in my playbook.”

How do you see racing at the Cup Series level go down to the grassroots level?

“It is funny you ask that question. I was doing some media calls earlier this week and that exact topic kind of inadvertently came up. I guess I was discussing a little bit about it and whether we like it or not, it is a trickle-down effect. What we do on Sunday trickles down and not just to Xfinity and Trucks and ARCA; it trickles down to late models, street stocks, front wheel drives, quarter midgets, go-karts – all of these guys and kids watch what we do on Sunday, and think what we do is right, so I think racing has changed a lot since 2009 – that was the first time I race a full size car, and I can vividly remember my dad and I talking about what this year was about was earning respect. Do not be out there running into people. It is not what we are doing. You have to give these guys respect – earn their respect and then when we get to that point, we will go race. That is how we did things. Things have changed a lot. Racing has gotten a lot more aggressive for a lot of different reasons – cars, it is hard to pass, and everything else. I have seen it. I was watching the CARS Tour race last night at Ace, and those guys could barely go more than 10 laps without a yellow coming out – somebody is spinning somebody, somebody is wrecking somebody. It is not what I enjoy in racing. Some bumping and banging is fine. I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve for sure moved a guy up out of the way for a win. Everybody has that has won a race at some point, but I think there is a line there. Wrecking cars and wrecking stuff out has become more and more acceptable. It just wasn’t really an option when I was younger. We just couldn’t rebuild cars over and over. Things have changed in that aspect, but it is definitely a trickle-down effect.”

Five of the last seven races at Daytona have been won by drivers who were not in the Playoffs. How is Daytona an opportunity and also a challenge?

“It is equal parts both. It is definitely an opportunity. There is no reason that we don’t go to Daytona for a chance to win for sure. How hard is it to take advantage of that opportunity? It is pretty tough. That race is probably more challenging than any of them. I think it is good working with TRD, kind of having a smaller pack. We’ve got eight cars and that is kind of easier to work with as far as pit road. Talladega, obviously, we didn’t make it look easy, but we had a good plan going. I think that helps out. A lot of in Playoff racing, and the way I look at it – it is kind of life too. Some of it is good and bad luck chips. You have to draw each one a little bit, and superspeedway racing is just that. You are going to keep drawing those bad numbers no matter how good you run or how good of a spot that you are in, but at one point, you are going to draw that right card and be in the right spot and make the right move. Some of that is on yourself, and what you do as a driver, and how fast your car is, but you do have to have a lot of things go your way to win too.”

Can you talk about how special it was to have your new deal come out the week you come home?

“It was nice. We got it done recently, and announced it here at Michigan, so I was happy to get it done. It was a pretty easy negotiation, really. I think LEGACY was wanting me back, and I was wanting to go back. Things went really smooth and really quick. I spent my two weeks off up here, so I got to do quite a bit. I went up to the UP and spent a week up there with family and chill out at home in Bryon since Tuesday night. I did to get to hit some local spots close to home that I like to go to. It’s always nice to get home when we can – see friends, see family, and do some things that we all like to do.”

Did you have to talk to some other teams before deciding to return to LEGACY MOTOR CLUB?

“I think you always take a look when this comes around. There was no advance discussions but the team encouraged that. They knew the whole time where I was at, and what I was interested in doing, but we pretty quickly came to a point to redoing a deal with LEGACY. For me, looking at the landscape and where everything was at, what was possibly available and what other opportunities were out there – none of them were enticing enough for me that made me want to make a move. It is a challenge to make a move. It is a big move to switch teams, not matter what you are doing. For me, unless it was going to be a huge leap to a currently a race winning, championship contending team, I just wasn’t interested. I think we are building that right now with LEGACY, and that is a time away right now, but unless that was an instant move that I could make, I wasn’t changing.”

What is the one thing that you see at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB that makes you know that you can grow with them?
“We are kind of getting to an important part of my career – the next stretch of my career, the next 10 years – are going to be some of my best, I would like to think. I hope that I’m in equipment that is good enough to take advantage of it. There is a lot that I still want to do in the Cup Series, and a lot of goals that I have. Looking at the landscape of LEGACY, obviously, made the move to Toyota – and it has been a challenge. It has been a big undertaking for us, but we have recently brough on more people to kind of build that gap and continue to grow that and figure out how we are going to make ourselves a race winning team. It has been a lot of emotion right. I came to the 43 and it was definitely not a race winning team, and then we got back to a race winning team, and now we are back to in the ebb and flow of not being where we want to be, so but right now, regardless of what the results are showing, I would say that we are in a better spot for the future, than it’s really ever been since I’ve been in the 43 car.”

When you made the decision to return, did you have any discussions with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB on the plan to return to competitiveness?

“I had multiple sit downs with Jimmie (Johnson), Cal (Wells), who is our president there and diving into – okay, here is where we are. We see it. We don’t ignore the fact and how are we going to get where we want to be. It was laid out to me, well enough, that I felt good about coming back. There is a plan in place. There are some people that were in the works of being hired, that weren’t quite down yet when I was redoing my deal. Some are there now, some are still coming in. There are contracts in place, and people have to finish their obligations out. There are enough people coming in that I felt confident that we would see improvement on our end, and I think what TRD has been doing on their end to start giving us what we need. At this point, we kind of have a good list of items that we feel like we need, and what we have and need to be better – to run better. There were definitely multiple conversations about that. I don’t think involved wants to run how we have. We want to be a race winning team. There is a longer road to get there currently. There are plans in place to make it work.”

Looking ahead at Darlington, what is it about Darlington that makes you so good there? Can the driver make up the difference at that track?

“A little bit. I think it is probably less than it has been ever with the Next Gen car. It is just tough because everyone is so close. There is maybe a little more that you can do there – you can save some tire, and you are moving the line around so much – there is more options there than a lot of places that we go. I’m not going to say that it is all driver. That’s not true. You can make a little bit of difference. I’ve always felt good at the track as soon as I got there for the first time in Xfinity. I really liked it. It really reminded me a lot of how I grew up racing – kind of racing the track and not necessarily racing your competitors as much. You are just kind of focusing on yourself and taking care of your equipment and your car. You are probably going to find yourself in a pretty good position if your car is good that day. I’ve definitely had some bad cars at Darlington – not like we went there and ran top-five every time, for sure in the 500, we’ve trended to run better with how things have went. I think some of it is the transition from day to night, and the spring race at Darlington, I don’t run as good at. It really is a different race with the way you have to run it. The 500 has always been the better one.”

About Toyota

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Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Firekeepers Casino 400 Media Availability | Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, August 17, 2024

Brad Keselwowki, driver of the No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing, returns to his hometown track still in search of his first win in the Irish Hills. On Saturday morning, Keselowski spoke about coming home and more.

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang Dark Horse

ANOTHER YEAR HERE AT MIS AND OBVIOUSLY BEING A MICHIGAN NATIVE YOU KNOW ALL TOO WELL THIS WEATHER CAN BE A LITTLE BIT FUNKY AT TIMES. HOW ARE YOU APPROACHING YOUR HOME RACE HERE WITH THE FACT THAT WE MIGHT NOT RACE ON TIME ON SUNDAY, AND WE MIGHT HAVE TO GO BACK TO MONDAY AGAIN?

“Yeah, maybe with a little bit of denial. I think when I grew up here it was always the same, wait five minutes, the weather will change. So if it’s a bad forecast that means it will be good on Sunday. Isn’t that right? I don’t know how that works, right? So, starting a week out it was like, oh, it’s going to monsoon all three days. And as we were kind of talking through it this morning in our briefing, it’s already changed to scattered showers, and maybe it’ll change one more time. So we’ll see what today and tomorrow brings. But the thing about it is it’s the same for all competitors and from that perspective, I think we just view it as something to work through, and in some cases, an opportunity.”

IF NASCAR HAD NOT PENALIZED AND TAKEN THE PLAYOFF BID AWAY FROM AUSTIN DILLON, WOULD YOU EXPECT RFK Racing DRIVERS TO MAKE THAT MOVE TO GET INTO THE PLAYOFFS?

“I don’t know. It’s clear that we’ll just keep moving the line, whatever that line is. If we don’t know where the line is, we’ll just keep pushing to more and more extremes. That’s not limited to Austin. That’s just the entire industry. I have some sympathies for all the parties involved, whether it be NASCAR or Austin, and certainly the guys that got wrecked last week but the way the system is set up I kind of understand it. So that has an effect that transcends not just the Cup Series but on down and it’s something that I think that NASCAR felt a lot of pressure to react on and they did. I don’t know if I have an idea whether they made the right move or wrong move, I guess time will tell. But it’s an interesting situation. I’m kind of more surprised that it didn’t happen earlier, to be honest, in the playoff format. But maybe it’s just part of a natural evolution that happens slowly over time. But with now NASCAR interjecting, I think it’s fair to say that this would just evolve to another step. I don’t know what that would be, but it will always just keep evolving until something gets stopped.”

WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT FROM YOUR DRIVER? EVERY DRIVER CAN SAY HE HAS A CODE. CHRIS BUESCHER SAID HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT, BUT HE WOULD NO MATTER WHAT. WOULD YOU BE OKAY AS AN OWNER?

“I think there are a couple of different things to unwind there, Bob. You have the culture of the driver, the culture of the garage area, the culture of the sport. Culture is not just what you practice and preach, it’s what you tolerate, whether that’s in the sport or in anything in life. I think NASCAR had to decide what could be tolerated? I think they made a good attempt at putting a line in the sand. We’ll see how that sticks. But that said, we would all adapt to it. Naturally, you have to adapt to it. If that became the norm every week, then I think actions would speak louder than words and we’d all probably fall into that reality, right? So I don’t think we have any intentions of getting to that, being the norm every week, particularly at RFK. But you race what the rules are and if the rules are something’s okay, we’re going to probably find a way to do it, right? Whether that’s on the car or on the racetrack.”

YOU SAID NASCAR MADE A GOOD ATTEMPT AT PUTTING A LINE IN THE SAND. DO YOU KNOW WHERE THAT LINE IS? ARE YOU FAIRLY SURE OF WHAT YOU CAN DO AND NOT DO IN THAT SITUATION REASONABLY?

“I think they made as good an attempt as you could make to draw a line in the sand. Humans and life evolve and we’ll find some other peace. I don’t think there’s a way to have permanent solutions for everything that happens in life and sports. I don’t know what the next thing will be. I think everybody a couple of years ago got a good kick out of Ross’ move and that was certainly an evolution of the sport, right? NASCAR made a point to make that kind of a one and done. I think they’re trying really hard to do that here. Something else I’m sure will pop up, as it always does. You know that’s part of what makes the sport fun too, is seeing what new thing is going We might not always agree with whatever it is, but I think it’s unrealistic for anyone in the industry to expect NASCAR to know everything that’s going to happen before it happens. We want them to be proactive and not reactive, but they’re outnumbered significantly by people that are always trying to find new ways to beat systems. And in some cases, they have to be reactive and this is one of those cases in my mind.”

YOU TALKED ABOUT THE LINE. NASCAR TALKED ABOUT THE LINE. DID THEY FURTHER DEFINE THAT IN THE COMPETITION MEETING THIS MORNING?

“I wasn’t there. I’m here with you. It’s still going. I wanted to talk to Lee.”

YOU’VE WON AT DAYTONA, BUT YOU’VE WON THE SUMMER RACE AND NOT THE CROWN JEWEL. IS THAT KIND OF LIKE KISSING YOUR SISTER?

“I have three sisters but I don’t kiss them much so I don’t have a great answer for that. I feel like the Daytona 500 and this race at Michigan for me feel really similar. We have been in great positions. We have let a lot of laps, we have won the stages, here in particular I have sat on the pole but for whatever reason at the end of the race it just hasn’t come together. A lot of top fives and all those other things, here in particular, a lot of second places. Those things kind of happen when they are meant to happen. For Daytona specifically, I think we will have a great shot of winning in two weeks, or a week and a half, whenever that is when we get there. It was nice to sweep the race 1-2 last year. It was really great for our company and for Chris. We plan on doing the same thing, I can tell you that. It is bittersweet to have so much success in the summer race and not be able to seem to connect the dots in the 500, but that’s life.”

CHRIS SAID HE COULDN’T HAVE WON THAT RACE WIHTOUT YOU. DO YOU BECOME MORE SELFLESS WHEN YOU’RE A DRIVER OWNER?

“I don’t know about that, I guess probably, it’s hard to say when you’re living it every day. I didn’t really feel like I had a great opportunity to pass him. So I was happy to see him win. I’m sure that favor will get returned somewhere down the road.”

I HATE TO ASK ONE MORE QUESTION ON THE DILLON SITUATION, BUT IF IT HAD JUST BEEN LOGANO AND NOT DENNY HAMLIN AND THE SPOTTER COMING OUT WITH HIS COMMENTS, DO YOU THINK DILLON WOULD HAVE SKATED ON THIS?

“I think that is probably a better question for Elton Sawyer and NASCAR. I didn’t sit in the room when they were making their decision to know exactly what was encapsulated in the decision-making process. I think it’s fair to say that adding more things to the scenario doesn’t do any favors to it. I don’t know if I could answer if you subtracted one or two elements if the reaction would have been the same. I don’t know how they looked at that.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ENDING THE REGULAR SEASON AT DARLINGTON, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE SPRING INSTEAD OF A DICEY RACE LIKE DAYTONA?

“Yeah, it’s different. I think for me, I’m really excited about ending the season at Darlington. I think we have a great shot to sweep the races. It’s been a really good track for us at RFK. We’ve got some great cars to go there with. Whether it be Daytona or Darlington, now that the 6 car is locked in or since we’ve been locked in, we’re fairly agnostic to what race it ends with. That said, we’re throwing everything we have at it for Chris Buescher to make his way into the playoffs. Right now he’s the cut-off car to make it. That’s going to be a really difficult race. 500 miles around Darlington is a tough race, but even more so knowing it’s the cutoff race to make the championship that’s going to be a very big challenge for him and for all those drivers that are trying to break through. So I think it almost is fitting in that sense because the Southern 500 is meant to be a very prestigious, very challenging race for the drivers and it will make it even that much more impactful.”

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Firekeepers Casino 400 Media Availability | Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, August 17, 2024

Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang for RFK Racing, returns to Michigan as the defending winner of the Firekeepers Casino 400. Buescher, still looking to clinch a spot in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, spoke about his team’s prospects and the events of the week with media members ahead of on-track action in the Irish Hills.

CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang

DID YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUR PLAYOFF HOPES CHANGE AT ALL WITH NASCAR’S RULING ON AUSTIN DILLON, CONSIDERING THERE SHOULD NOW BE AT LEAST ONE SPOT MORE IN THE PLAYOFFS BASED ON POINTS? AND THEN ALSO, WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE RULING IN GENERAL?

“Yeah, it’s not going to change anything for myself or our team. We knew at the beginning of the year before we ever got to Daytona that this was the only way to really be comfortable at any point before playoffs was a win. And really, there’s no way to get through the next three weeks and be comfortable without one. So no, this isn’t going to change anything for how we approach these next handful of races. For us, we’re looking at a stretch that has been very good to us. I was just laughing coming in here last time we were at this table was for all the right reasons. So, you know, I was looking forward to that for this go around at Michigan. Came up early to be a part of the Roush open house and having our autograph session there and being around Jack and Brad’s hometown. I got to experience some of Michigan and go check out the Woodward Dream Cruise, which I was pretty excited about the last couple nights. So really, it’s just about us coming up here and trying to do all the normal things and figure out how to repeat what we did last time. It’s obviously the talk of the town, right? But it’s not going to change anything for how we’re approaching these races. It’s not going to approach or change my driving style or how we’re going to look at these things. Ultimately, it’s the same thing we talked about throughout the year. If I was willing to do something different, the ending at Kansas mattered just as much as any of these next three and would have done something crazy there. But that’s not how I grew up in this thing. I want to go to these racetracks and figure out how to go put in victory lane and how to have a good, hard race on the way to the end. We had a blast here with the race last year and are really looking forward to giving that another go.”

SPEAKING OF THE ENDING OF KANSAS, THERE WAS SOME CONTACT THERE. THERE WAS A BIG DIFFERENCE SEEMINGLY BETWEEN THAT KIND OF CONTACT AND RICHMOND. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE AS A DRIVER KNOWING WHAT YOU CAN AND CAN’T DO TO GO FOR A WIN AT THIS POINT?

“Not in my head. I know what I’m here to do, what I’m willing to do, and what I’m comfortable with. Whatever the ruling — there may not be the most clarity there for if you’re trying to put it on paper, but I know. I think that we understand what’s acceptable and what you’re willing to do as a driver. So at the end of that one, we didn’t touch each other until off of four there. So it was one of those where just, you know, good clean racing. Tried to crowd what I could and without straight up trying to block an entire racetrack or crashing and I ended up being on the losing end of it. As much as I’d love to have it back and try something and would, it really wouldn’t change the style of racing that we’re going to do in our camp.”

WITH HOW TIGHT THE BUBBLE IS, HOW MUCH WILL YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOUR COMPETITORS ARE ON THE TRACK ON A GIVEN WEEK?

“I would say similar to the last couple months for us. When we go to the racetrack, we need to control what we can. We need to take these Saturdays and be good in qualifying. Figure out how to have a good race car, get into the race. If we can qualify well, then you can typically grab stage points early. That just comes with running well. It’s not that we’re chasing stage points in stage one, right? It’s a matter of just being good. For us, that’s the same way we’re going to approach these, how do we just have fast race cars and how do we get our Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang into victory lane. What we have done or paid attention to is we know the cars that are around us in this bubble. We pay attention to if they have a rough day and if we are handed a gift of sorts in how their race plays out, then to make sure that we don’t hurt ourselves somewhere else along the way. Don’t do anything too crazy and put ourselves in a bad spot. I guess it’s not about laying up any, it’s just about doing everything that we know to do and that we can control until somebody else may or may not have issues. We’ve had a couple of issues where cars will race around, blow up, crash out and it’s just that mentality that we don’t need to have a 30th place day now. We need to be really good and if we have a 10th place car don’t wreck going for 8th, but make sure you get 10th.”

ANOTHER YEAR WHERE MIS HAS LOOMING RAIN IN THE FORECAST HERE. YOU WON THE RACE HERE LAST YEAR ON THE MONDAY. HOW AS A DRIVER DO YOU APPROACH A WEEKEND LIKE THIS WITH SO MUCH UNPREDICTABILITY AND WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO RACE?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard anything about that. It’s been a year. It’s been a year for weather. We’re obviously not putting a roof over this place. We are at the mercy of Mother Nature. Last year we joked about it, this week knowing what it’s looking like. Monday wasn’t so bad last year. I don’t want to be here Monday for us, for our fans. The biggest thing I’ve talked about with everybody about the Monday win last season was simply the fact of how many people had to leave, how empty the entire facility felt, and how that can take away from a lot of the excitement. Whether that was a ton of our partners were here for a big event and had to go back to work. Our Victory Lane photos were a lot thinner than they should have been. So many of our of the Ford family and Ford execs had to go back to work as well. So that photo was a lot thinner than it should have been. I mean everything about it, the stands were a lot thinner. I know a ton of people did hang out with us and really appreciated that. But it’s just, it’s not quite as fun when it’s not a packed house, right? And we all remember just a handful of years ago going to empty racetracks and how very strange that felt. And it’s not what you want, right? So that was the biggest part for me was the win was just as important. It meant just as much to us, but the celebration is not as fun when you don’t have all your buddies there right with you. So ultimately, this weekend, we’ll obviously pay attention to it way too much. We’ll have all kinds of conversations about what-ifs, and most of those will never happen. And we’ll just go on with our normal race weekend. Seems like we have been pretty fortunate, been able to just play these things out as scheduled. Everyone keeps telling me, all the locals around here, just said, wait five minutes and it’ll change. We’ll be ready to go. We’ll just go with the locals theory there.”

WHEN YOU LOOK AT WHERE YOU’RE AT ON THE BUBBLE LINE OR ON THE CUT LINE AS FAR AS THE PLAYOFFS HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS QUALIFYING SESSION GOING TO BE TODAY TO GET SOME EARLY STAGE POINTS AND WHAT’S THE AGENDA FOR YOU GUYS IN PRACTICE IN TERMS OF DIALING IN YOUR RACE CAR AND KIND OF CHECKING ALL THE BOXES BEFORE QUALIFYING?

“Yeah, we obviously had a good notebook to go off from last time here. We’ve been excited to come back to Michigan and show the speed that we’ve had at a lot of these bigger racetracks in the last couple of months. We have not executed the races to the best extent and we don’t have the results to show for it, but we’ve been very fast at these places. Not that long ago in Indy, I was really happy with our performance through practice and maybe a little better in qualifying but got going in the first stage really well and then ended up with our issues on the day. It was a similar day at Pocono, really good there just needed to execute a little bit better overall and with that it’s gonna be important just to clean that up when we come to Michigan here, knowing how we’re going to have green flag pit stops here. We’re going to be chasing dirty air. I know that conversation sucks to have, and we’re all sick of saying it too and hearing it, but it matters when you’re running 200 miles an hour — more than anywhere. So you’re going to have those conversations. For us, it’s not changing because of our situation. We are doing the same things every week, but it’s going to become more and more important for us to execute at the highest level.”

FIVE OF THE LAST SEVEN WINNERS AT DAYTONA ARE DRIVERS THAT HAVE YET TO SECURE A PLAYOFF SPOT AT THIS POINT. WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF BEING IN THAT TYPE OF POSITION GOING INTO NEXT WEEK?

“Well it’s not the last one this year so there’s that and Darlington is obviously very good to us the first go-around as an organization, so you know there’s always one more. It’s always like that right? There’s always that level of unpredictability. Speedway racing, I’ve had an adapting relationship with through the years and really didn’t like it for a long time and ended up on the end of a lot of the big ones with some bad luck along the way and just got to a point where I really did not look forward to heading those tracks. What I’ll say is RFK builds extremely fast Mustangs to go to those tracks. That has certainly made it a lot more enjoyable, but there is a higher luck factor when we go to those. We talk about that quite a bit. You can’t make all your own luck there. There is a matter of being in the right place at the right time simply by circumstance. Mistakes get made. Everyone is a little bit more desperate as it comes down to it. That race definitely has the ability to get a lot more wild, especially as we get into the closing laps. We’ve had these conversations there through the years of how do you run hard, be smart in the stages, try and capture stage points, but ultimately know that with 10, 15 to go, it’s going to get wild. There’s probably going to be a big accident statistically, and it seems like that just keeps getting pushed farther and farther towards the finish, to the point where all the people like us in the past have said, okay, maybe we’ll just wait until we get to that wreck and then we’ll really make that big push. Well, it’s kind of the common mindset. So it just gets later and later at the end of that race. And then it turns into just pure chaos. So it produces very wild, unpredictable finishes with new winners. We’re going to do our best to not let that happen. Myself and Brad have worked really hard to work together and be able to help each other be in the best possible spot at that style of racetrack so that we can try and cover any of the chaos. But ultimately, there’s a level of unknown there. I’m glad it’s not the last one. Let’s put it that way. I’m excited that we get to go to Darlington after that and go to our cutoff race there.”

A WEEK AFTER RICHMOND. LOOKING BACK, HOW DID, FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, THE DIFFERENT TIRE OPTIONS IMPACT WHAT YOU DID OR HOW YOU DID THINGS? AND ARE YOU FINE IF THEY DO SOMETHING IN THE PLAYOFFS?

“I like the reds. I thought the fall-off was very significant. I think that was, I’d be good with running that all the time. I think that would be a lot of fun for our racing. As far as an option when we go to racetracks, I don’t know if I like that part as much, but being on the red tires there, I think that’s a lot of what we’ve been thinking we would like as drivers and as a sport too, it was not something you had to make a decision. You had to be good on fire off, but you had to try and control how hard you pushed it, or you would certainly pay a massive penalty on the backside of it. So I thought that was fun to race. I think Richmond was the right place with track surface the way it is. North Wilkesboro being new asphalt there, we all just stayed on it, right? And that’s not out of the ordinary for new paved racetracks. We go a lot and whatever tire we’re on, we just won’t change them, but it just didn’t give us the best read, whereas Richmond gave us a pretty good idea that a different compound that has some fire-off speed and fell off hard has a lot of potential. For us, through that race, we ended up on a different strategy. After the green flag stop mishap there and had to try and make some headway back, we ended up putting our reds on earlier and trying to get our laps back. Ultimately, we’ve talked about it a little bit afterward and I think if that’s something that stays around, then the teams all kind of converge on a common strategy and it ends up becoming the same old same once everybody gets it figured out. A lot was learned in that race. If we go to the racetrack and we do this several times, then I think you really will just see most of the field on the exact same strategy again. I think it takes away what the big discrepancy between people all over the map, once we have more knowledge.”

THE AUSTIN DILLON DECISION, DID NASCAR MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION, AND WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE DECISION?

“I’m in a position to where, no matter what I say on this one, you can come across as being biased. And for my sake, for our team’s sake, it’s probably best for me to not go down that road. I got asked about it during the week and the thing I said was, you know what, I know how we’re racing. The way that race played out before anything was talked about, any penalties were assessed, I said no, it’s not going to change what we do. Yes, I see that we’re going to be desperate to come into of these races and it’s going to produce some wild finishes, but it’s not going to change how we’re going to do this. I know what I want to do when I go to the racetrack, I know how I want to race, and ultimately for our team, we know what we’re capable of from a speed standpoint and how we’re going to approach them. So without diving into any of the details of all of that, again, there’s no way for me to have an opinion on it without having a bias. There’s about three of us that there’s no answer that’s the right one in this scenario, right? So we’ll just let it play out the next couple of weeks and then you can ask again. No comment.”