Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

BROOKLYN, Mich (August 17, 2024) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Yahoo Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

Is there any possibility that your incident with Austin Dillon was a matter of circumstance?

“No, because Austin (Dillon) made a left-hand turn. After he made contact with the 22 (Joey Logano), he made a left hand turn to correct his course, straightened his course, and then turned left again, so there was two. If you can read the graph, there is a big left, straight, big left again.”

What do you think he’s trying to do?

“I think he’s trying to make contact. I can’t see him, because I have a big right-side headrest, but I know he is kind of coming down. He is able to see me because of the visibility of the window net. You can see when a car is passing you. More than likely, when he is getting told to come down, he is doing what he is told and then when he sees me, he’s probably just trying to make contact, but at that point, I nearly had him cleared. The right rear is just a vulnerable spot and can put you in a bad wreck position.”

How do you fix the system and is it fixed now with this penalty?

“I certainly hope so. I certainly would love to see it called in real time, going forward. I think there is going to be an opportunity, in a few weeks, for NASCAR to perhaps use the bottom series to start to set precedence for us and let people know that they are not going to put up with intentional wrecking for wins. I think there is some incidents that have happened in the past, that if this is a new precedence it could fall under those, I think for instance when I spun out Chase Elliott in 2017. I would deem that as well I know I didn’t intentionally wreck him, I tried to move him out of the way, I intentionally made contact with him. The result does matter, so I think – I watched a CARS Tour race and three times a car got put in the back for spinning. It just is an easy call. It really is an easy call, but you have to give the people in the tower the liberty to do it, and hopefully, we have created a new precedence where if you spin out the leader, and in such an egregious manner, you get to put to the last car on the lead lap or whatever it is going to be. I don’t think it will detour – we don’t really want to stop the contact – you are not going to. We are still going to push the edge to try to get the guy out of the groove to win the race. We are still going to make contact, but it is certainly going to give us pause in those situations where you saw like last weekend where it is not going to be worth it to clear somebody out that was deservingly going to win the race. Which is the fair part of sport of this. I think there is a balance of entertainment and sport that can be had here. It is just a matter of where this is really one that you need to put your foot down and we have to police the sporting aspect of this.”

Are you satisfied with NASCAR’s decision?

“I am. In the moment, you wish – well, if you just take the win, then everything fixes itself then kind of having this split decision, but as I understand it there is some iffy language in the rule book on if can you really go back and take a win at this point. I think in the future you just send whoever it is to the back, and it all fixes itself. You don’t have to worry about Playoff eligibility and stuff like that. Given how much time it took, it was probably the right call.”

So, you are comfortable if they need to add language where they can take wins away in the future?

“Yes. Well, yeah. You are just sending people to the back for rough driving. We have that ruling in the rule book, but you just actually implement the rough driving.”

Did you play basketball with Austin this week or have you spoke?

“He didn’t come. I have not.”

Do you need to?

“I just think – I don’t have anything negative to say about this with Austin (Dillon). I really don’t have anything negative to say about his character. I really stuck up for him quite about earlier in this year, when he was going through some pretty tough finishes and things like that, and talking about how I really respected his character, and I still do. He just was put in a really tough spot, where you have to make a split-second decision, and he made one that was not in the, in my opinion, best interest of the sport. People make mistakes, and I believe everyone deserves second chances.”

How is your shoulder?

“It was just more my whole right side. When you look at how these Next Gen cars take crashes, really the flat side impact is kind of the worst thing you can have because there is no crush there. There is not crush to have there. I would have been better off to nose it head on or back it in, because we have the softer bumpers now. It just happened to work that the total right side – it was very similar to how it felt from the Daytona rain crash, where I was in the lead, tank slapped it and hit it flat on the right side and it hurt my right side in that one as well. It was just a really weird circumstance, and just going 100 mph still can result in a really hard hit.”

Do you think the injury will affect your chance to win the championship?

“No, because I had some internal stuff that needed to be repaired, and now it is repaired, but even though it has been nine months since surgery, rotator cuff can take forever, and I’m not as young as I used to be, so I don’t recover quite as quick as I used to. It is one of those things where last year, I just kept making the injury worse and worse and worse, by continuing to race, this year, it is getting better each week, but weeks like last just take a little bit of week off.”

Did you go to the competition meeting this morning?

“It was not. We ran out of time.”

What do you think about Bristol being a cutoff race and do you think there is a potential for something like this to happen?

“Well, it is always possible, but I think – I’ve said this for quite some time, but if NASCAR just puts their foot down it will really scare us from doing these things in the future. When the Clash kind of got out of hand over time, at the end people were just cleaning each other out, it just takes one call – one black flag call – to, trust me, it will reset all of us to say, hmm, I can’t be as egregious as I was before. Certainly, those things could happen, people could be in a desperate situation, but they are going to have live with the result because the precedence has been set that there is a chance that will not count.”

Is the line anymore defined?

“I think that – yeah, I feel like I saw something that I’ve never seen before last week, and we saw an unprecedented penalty for it, so sometimes when you see something unprecedented, you have to respond in an unprecedented matter. I believe so. I believe that hard racing is still okay. I think if two cars are battling side-by-side and one of them hits the wall because of close racing that is going to be deemed okay. I think if you come from a long way back – you were not going to win the race until you decided to wreck someone, I think that is clear line in the sand, but sometimes balls and strikes aren’t totally clear. There is one right on the edge and you have to call it, but it is up to us to make the decision. Do we want to put ourselves in that position where it could be called one way or the other? I think that you just have to live with the result. I think if NASCAR policies it and intentional wrecks for the win going forward, there is going to be some close calls, but you put yourself in that spot, so you are going to live with the result and the ruling on it.”

Did you have any issue when NASCAR turned on the caution light?

“I don’t think so. We talked a little about it today. They are going to try to get us to the finish line as much as they can in a safe manner. If it happened right when Joey (Logano) hit the wall, then certainly, we would have been ahead. I don’t know if it would have changed what happened with the 3 (Austin Dillon). I think he was still going to be in an erratic situation. I don’t know. They are always going to try to get us to the finish line, and probably what the deemed was the 22 was up out of the groove, and not an immediate threat, and we were so close to the finish line that they were going to try to let us go as long as they did. In my mind, they did throw the caution on the secondary – when I hit the wall at a heavy rate, they threw the caution kind of right when I hit it, so they didn’t just let it go all the way to the finish line, which was good.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for more than 65 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of nearly 47 million cars and trucks at our 12 manufacturing plants. By 2025, Toyota’s 13th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles. With more electrified vehicles on the road than any other automaker, Toyota currently offers 29 electrified options.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

Toyota Racing – Bubba Wallace
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

BROOKLYN, Mich (August 17, 2024) – 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace was made available to the media on Saturday prior to practice for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

BUBBA WALLACE, No. 23 McDonald’s Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing

Were you relieved when you heard the penalty because of where you are in the Playoff battle?

“Yes. It definitely helps us out. We are still only in by three, but there are still four spots left instead of the three. Definitely a relief there, but it is still going to be a dogfight. I said that after the race – it is going to be a dogfight for the next three races. We are still not safe but there is an extra spot open now.”

What do you feel like has led to the recent consistent run for your team?

“Taking a step back, taking a deep breath and working through the problems. Accepting if it is not your day, handle it – and when it is not your day, it’s not that bad of a day. When it is a good day, we are executing on those days as well. We’ve shown up with a lot of speed the last few weeks. We’ve shown up with our heads in the game, and we’ve been close a couple of times. I said that at the beginning of the year – you have to put your name in the hat, and we went a long time not even having right size of hat on. Definitely showing up and being in the game, from the start of practice to the end of the race. It is so hard to do. Every weekend that is our main goal – just to be in the game, and you don’t know when you are not in it until the green flag falls. It could be stage one or stage two or the last stage – you never know. You just have to fight so hard with today’s car, and how the races play out – it is just so damn hard. You have one mistake, and you are killed. Passing is nearly impossible, so you want to maintain track position as much as you can, and I’ve done a lot of things to give up track position. We haven’t executed to keep track position. I think now we’ve been vibing. We’ve been jelling and moving the needle. You can’t ever get complacent. It doesn’t matter how your last five was – it doesn’t mean your next five are going to be the same. It is a new set of downs. It is a new week, and it all starts today.”

Are you comfortable on knowing where the line is during these races? How would the rest of the season have played out if this line hadn’t been done?

“I think just growing up – it takes me back to the summer shootout, and (Steve) Post is back there. Post knows how many fights I’ve been in and whatnot and wrecking people and learning from that. You learn that is not right, and you try to turn over a clean slate, and you try to race with a lot of respect. I know that homeboy is probably tired of getting talked about, but I got wrecked twice in two weeks in Legend Cars and I told him, hey, we don’t race like that. I know that I haven’t been here in five years, but we don’t do that, and he’s like the whole field does that, so learn how to do it. I’m like, holy shit that is not the right answer. And then you see stuff like that on Sundays. I know it’s like – y’all do it there, and you’ve got a point. I knew where I was at – fourth or fifth. My emotions coming off of (turn) two heading to the checkered, I was like – he may get him, but thank God Joey (Logano) is leading. I’m thinking about points here – cool, Joey is leading. Don’t know if he is safe. Oh shit, he hit him. Ok sweet, Denny (Hamlin) is going to win. Wow. That is where we are. That was my range of emotions. At the bottom line, I think you grow up racing, going through your wrecks, finally stop wrecking, start winning, start running competitive, earn respect. I said it after the race. People are going to say what does Bubba Wallace have to say about respect? And they are going to bring up shit from two years ago, because they live in the past. When you feel like you are wronged in the sport, and it is so hard, and you fight your ass off each and every race, and every minute, every hour of the race and someone just feels like they don’t respect it, you retaliate. The officials upstairs will say every incident is different. No, it is not. It is retaliation. That is all it is. Retaliation. You feel like you are wronged, and it is a knee jerk reaction. I’m not saying that is what is right. That’s just what happens. Something is ripped away from you, so you are going to rip it away from them. You want to fight, then here we go. It comes down to retaliation, and I don’t know. I didn’t read the article – but Denny’s hit was the hardest in the Next Gen car. Is that correct? (information provided) That is what it is. From those moments you grow, and you mature, and you know the line, and for me, would I have made that move? I would have tried my hardest to get to the 22 (Joey Logano) without spinning him, but then that was it. I lost. Throw in the towel, that is it.”

Did you feel like a suspension was warranted?

“Retaliation is retaliation, so if we are going to set the line there, then yeah, but myself and Chase (Elliott) were in the middle of the race. This one was different. In the same category as retaliation, so I think not being a Playoff eligible win – we go through the points and money stuff – that somewhat nets out the same. Kinda.”

Does this go back to the ‘win, and you are in?’

“It starts at media day in Daytona and what will you do to win a race?”

Who’s fault is that?

“The system’s fault. They created this system where you put it on the line, but at the same time, we always say will you wreck your mother to win? Of course, yeah. (laughter) No, you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. You do everything in your power under the respectful line to win the race. Now people want to relate (Joey) Logano and (Martin) Truex at Martinsville the same as what happened to Richmond. Who are these people? He moved him out of the way, knocked him out of the groove, and they drag raced to the line. Yeah, he may have plowed him, but he didn’t spin him out, wreck him and didn’t give him a chance to finish. He finished second. Where Truex messed up is he shouldn’t have let him get to his back bumper. Kept him on the outside. It is nuts how we can relate that to this and this to that. I don’t know. You just have to remember where you came from and what it took to get here and what you had to go through and earn respect of people. I remember getting to the Truck level and you would race harder because you are a rookie. Things change. You start to gain the respect of your peers. You move up to Xfinity. The cycle resets. Then you get to Cup, and it resets again. You have to earn and respect your way in the Cup level, because at the end of the day it is a self-policing field. If the officials don’t take care of you, we know how to take care of you.”

Is there enough time to make a decision in the last 350 feet?

“You can never walk in someone else’s shoes and relive that moment, but I would assume he went in there and obviously, he checked up to see where he was going, and his spotter is just screaming at him to hook him and wreck him. It’s like you almost forgot about the 11 (Denny Hamlin) – you are out there on an island, got him out of the way, and oh shit, I messed up, and take out the 11. It is a little bit of knowing where your surroundings are, forgetting about the car behind and reacting to that. I think that is possible.”

Do you feel good about the last three races of the regular season?

“Yeah, for sure. The last five races, I had a top-three average finish. Definitely the mojo is there, but that is the past. It’s like Chase (Elliott) said it the best a few years ago, the past success doesn’t mean future success. It is a new opportunity. It’s nice to know that we are not heading into three road course races. Although, I’m enjoying the time on road courses. It is nice to know there is three good tracks coming up. It helps the vibe, and it helps the momentum for us, but it does not slow up the work process. The workload just gets heavier for us, and we have enough great people on this team to dig all through it and capitalize on it.”

Do you think you can have another successful race weekend here in Michigan like you did a couple of years ago?

“I hope so. I remember that day vividly. I remember the car and how it drove, the temperature outside, everything about it. Hoping to replicate that – that would be awesome – one spot better. I know what I did on the last restart to give the win away, but yeah, it is a great day. It is a great start to the day. Sorry, I overslept a little bit, I was trying to catch up on the pre-baby sleep, but it is a good day. Hopefully, shaping up to be a good weekend. We always circle this place as a place that we want to come up and dominate. Last year, we did not do that. Two years ago, we were close, so it is time to reset the downs and do it again today and tomorrow.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for more than 65 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of nearly 47 million cars and trucks at our 12 manufacturing plants. By 2025, Toyota’s 13th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles. With more electrified vehicles on the road than any other automaker, Toyota currently offers 29 electrified options.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 17, 2024

Ross Chastain, Driver of the No. 1 Busch Light Peach Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Michigan International Speedway.

Media Availability Quotes:

If NASCAR did not penalize Austin Dillon, would you be willing to do what he did to make the playoffs?

“I don’t know.. I think it’s a case-by-case. I never thought I would drive into the wall in fifth gear at Martinsville (Speedway), until I did it. I think that no one knows what’s going through Austin’s (Dillon) head for that scenario. So I don’t know.. I don’t have a predetermined decision on what I’m going to do. It’s just racing at the end of these races.”

With how tight the bubble is, how are you approaching the next three races and how do you feel like they set up for the No. 1 team?

“Hopefully just getting faster. I mean you look at Christopher (Buescher) and I, we’re tied in points. We have the same average finishing position. It’s funny.. I don’t feel like we’ve raced around each other a ton. Yeah, I don’t look at anything other than trying to go fast. Coming out of the break, obviously you go to Richmond (Raceway) and run up inside the top-10; drive up there from the 20s and into 11th-ish. And then to race and go on and finish fifth, that’s better than we have been for several months. So that’s the only thing we’re focused on.. executing. I missed pit road at Richmond in Stage Two on the second green flag stop. That cost us spots when we were ahead of the No. 3 at that time. I came out several seconds behind him, the No. 23 and somebody else, and I never passed them again. So minimizing those kind of mistakes.. obviously it’s a lot bigger penalty here if you miss pit road. Or if you speed.. that’s more often going to be the case here. At Richmond, I just couldn’t even turn down.. I mean I couldn’t hit the orange box, let alone get below it. So yeah, that’s the only goal for this No. 1 team and Trackhouse.. just to go faster. That’s going to solve a lot of our problems.”

Your COTA win was hard racing contact and now people are say, ‘well wait a minute, is the line murkier now’. Are you confident that even after this decision that what happened at COTA would be allowable and viewed as ‘OK’ to win a race, or are you concerned now that if you’re in that situation again and I make contact, that I might get it taken from me? Do you know where the line is?

“Obviously I feel like COTA was fine. I got moved; I covered the bottom in (turn) 16 and AJ (Allmendinger) moved me off of that line. I think the biggest mistake there was that he didn’t move me far enough. He didn’t move me up into the rocks and into the tires. So he gave me a chance to move him back and, in my opinion, if the No. 48 isn’t there, the No. 16 just goes wide in (turn) 19 and he’s a couple car lengths back coming to the checkered and we run one-two or he finishes third. Yeah, I feel like they look at all that. We’re not in those meetings. We’re not the ones deciding, but they’re human. NASCAR is a bunch of humans making decisions and they’re looking at the total body of work.”

I don’t think you have any beef with Joey (Logano) too much that I’ve seen. Obviously you and Denny (Hamlin) have had issues in the past. This system that is setup, it has rewarded this type of activity.. rough driving is part of this system to make the playoffs. You’ll do whatever. How do you fix that, and is it fixed with this ‘line’ supposedly?

“Yeah, I think it’s good to remember that the line is not written down. There’s no words; there’s no pictures and drawings of a line. For some to say that it’s clear, it’s a total body of work. It’s a culmination of decisions that we all make, and we’re all watching each other; watching and listening to the tower and they’re watching and listening to us. We’re watching our competitors. I’m going back and watching myself after an event and I continue to evolve. Yeah, it’s not clear, but I am constantly aware of what I feel like everyone is thinking. You just can’t be too far against the grain, is my opinion.”

You’ve heard people say that whenever a driver makes a move, they’re showing it as retaliation or some sort of move more directed towards one person. The rest of the garage sees it. The rest of the garage understands it and maybe then starts to judge how they view that person. When we see something like what the No. 3 car did, do you feel like there’s an effect throughout the garage, that people start to look at you differently in certain? Is that part of the fallout, I guess, of the situation?

“I think mine and Austin’s (Dillon) are different because he’s established and has been in the sport for longer than me. When my stuff, I guess in Cup, got loud I’ll call it; I was still the new guy to be competitive in Cup. I feel like the guys that were nice to me in conversation or just passing in the garage or maybe, in my opinion, just were OK with me being a Xfinity or back-in-pack Cup, maybe win a few Truck races, maybe win a few Xfinity races; but I was never going to be direct competition. When I became competition, they suddenly had extra reasons to have a problem with me. That’s my opinion, is that they were OK with me when I was just ‘Ross the watermelon farmer’.. they didn’t have to worry too much about him. Consistently I was up there and then I made some mistakes and they did too, so it was easy for them to pile on. I think Austin is way more established; obviously with the family history, he’s been raised in the sport so they knew him long before he drove. I was still the ‘new’ guy to Cup. It wasn’t a clear path for me to get here. So I just feel like we’re too different to really compare.”

With your position in points, five of the last seven Daytona races have been won by drivers who had to win to secure a playoff spot. What are the opportunities or challenges going into Daytona needing to secure a playoff position?

“It’s home for me, so the summertime race (at Daytona) is just a bright spot in my memories of going over fourth of July weekend. Being able to win a Xfinity race there in 2019 was just a bucket list, life achievement after watching those late Busch Series races back then and Cup races Saturday night. So I just have those memories. I know right where I sat in the grandstands before Daytona rising at pit-out. I just have so many memories with friends and family there; camping outside of turn one before it was a nice campground. Yeah, it doesn’t make it easier though. I know the last two years going down there, I’ve just been able to enjoy family and the experience of racing at Daytona. A lot like the 500, where I’ve learned to just enjoy it for what it is. There’s just no way around it. If we leave here and don’t have it secured, then it’s math.. you just have to know that if you finish bad, you get less points, and if you finish good in the stags and the race, then you get more points. It’s just simple math. But we’re really excited about the next three races and changing some of those stats for who’s been winning here at Michigan.”

The simple math says that there will be one more driver in on points than before NASCAR’s decision, so were you pleased with NASCAR’s decision on Austin Dillon?

“When I read it, I didn’t really have much thoughts on like the – we’re watching it all unfold. We’re listening to people; hearing who’s loud and who’s the squeaky wheel. It looks like they got some grease there, so I feel like for me – I mean yeah, it affects us, so you look at that. You look at how it resets; kind of just note it and move on. There’s still an appeal next week, so we’ll see how that plays out. It doesn’t change how I drive here because like the math says, it doesn’t really change for us much. All of us just slid one spot. If we gain a handful of points, we’ll be ahead of all of them.”

About Chevrolet

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

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.”

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