RYAN PREECE, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW HAS THE MINDSET CHANGED ON THE 60 TEAM AFTER LAST WEEKEND?
“It hasn’t. If anything, that same mentality has carried over and I think that’s what we’ve been missing. I’ve been missing. We’ve all been missing. I feel confident. At the end of the day, we’ve won two races this year – one points paying and one non-points paying – but why not? There’s only one place for us to go and that’s forward.”
HOW SPECIAL WAS IT TO GET IN THE WAY YOU DID?
“It was nice to not possibly have the owner’s in and not the driver’s, so to erase that penalty was nice, even though I did see that the 60 owner’s points is five points ahead of the driver’s. So, it’s just really cool. It’s cool to be here. I’ve never been a part of this. I’ve never been in a situation or things just never worked out and to be here in September doing a media day it’s not so bad.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR SON’S PACIFIER? CAN YOU TELL THAT STORY?
“Heather was the one that pointed it out that night. I’m not a big attention to detail person. I would have never noticed, but she showed me that and that was pretty cool. I don’t want to say that night was like a movie, but it was like a movie. That was cool.”
HOW MUCH OF GETTING IN THE CHASE IS SOAKING EVERYTHING IN VERSUS PUTTING IT ON KILL MODE?
“I’m soaking it in. Sunday was a time to I guess be surrounded by a bunch of neighbors and friends and family and enjoy it, but much like that saying the clock resets at midnight and the job and the way you’re gonna attack everything, that’s what we’re focused on.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR TEAM AND HOW THEY BELIEVE?
“Oh, yeah. I think Saturday was a great example of what our team is capable of and I love that I have my own personal photographer standing behind you all (Bubba Wallace). It’s all about peaking at the right time. Anything is possible and I feel like Derrick’s attitude, my attitude, it wasn’t just Derrick and it wasn’t just me, it was the entire team. Anything is possible.”
EVERYBODY ELSE IS NEW TO THE CHASE BECAUSE IT’S A NEW FORMAT.
“Yeah, but I’m talking about being in the position to even have an opportunity to race after it. I’ve never been a part of the reset, so to speak. That’s the difference. I’m saying I love the fact that I’m a part of it. This is cool.”
BUT YOU’RE ALSO PART OF IT AT A TIME WHEN IT’S TOTALLY CHANGED FROM THE LAST 12 SEASONS. YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IS GOING IN COLD TOGETHER.
“Yeah, but I guess the experience of it all. Like, being in this sport and racing for JTG and then racing for SHR and not winning a race, so I wasn’t qualifying in and having that opportunity to be here. That’s what I mean, so I like the way it rewards consistency, so it gave us the opportunity to be 17th and still qualify in by not just winning a race. Winning the race is what got us in, but winning the race isn’t what got us to that point. We gave ourselves a shot going into Daytona by being 31 points back and then executing a great race.”
SO YOU DON’T FEEL DISADVANTAGED EITHER WAY THAT IT’S YOUR FIRST TIME?
“No, and I think the way this point system goes as long as the aggressiveness and the will to win is there like it was on Saturday. We need some luck, but we needed luck on Saturday so I think if we do everything right, I’ve won one points paying race, sure, but my confidence is higher than anybody in this building right now.”
A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK YOU HAVE TO BE IN THE TOP SIX TO HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN THE TITLE. DO YOU AGREE?
“No. I don’t believe that. Not at all because I think those guys are gonna race the hell out of each other and if they have a couple of bad races, there’s no win and you’re in to get to the next round. It’s gonna be tough to make up those points, so if you’re a team that puts 10 great weeks together and wins races and gets stage points, the fact that you’re in the top 16, I hate to tell you just because you’re 16th in points doesn’t mean you didn’t execute a great season. We didn’t luck into that win on Saturday. We ran up front. We executed. We did everything we needed to do as a Cup-winning caliber team. If we show that for the next 10 weeks at tracks that RFK is strong at, we can do it. It’s not easy, but we can do it.”
HAS ANYONE ON YOUR TEAM TRIED TO BREAK DOWN HOW MANY POINTS YOU NEED TO GAIN?
“No. I’m sure people that break down points and all of that in analytics will, but I’m gonna look at it as I want to freakin’ win. I want to go out and qualify well. I want to execute stages. I want to be aggressive. And if you do all those things right, don’t make any dumb decisions, don’t second-guess your decisions, you’ll give yourself a shot.”
YOU’RE VERY SURE ABOUT THAT.
“I’m pretty damn sure about that, yep.”
YOU LOOK AT OTHER SPORTS LIKE MARCH MADNESS AND THE FEELING THERE.
“How many times has the underdog gone and won the NCAA Tournament, or a wild card went and won the World Series or the Super Bowl? How many times has somebody been trailing after halftime and come back? It’s not over til it’s over.”
THE POINT A LOT OF COACHES OR TEAMS MAKE IS THAT THEY JUST WORRY ABOUT THEMSELVES. IS THAT THE MENTALITY OF WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW?
“Yeah, absolutely. I think if you worry about your team, you make good decisions, you’ll give yourself a shot.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN WINNING THAT FIRST POINTS RACE?
“What it means is that we now have an opportunity to chase after a championship and I think the expectations of what I expect, what the team expects out of me is there. I want to go execute. I want to go win. I want to feel like I felt on Saturday, so I think that’s where my head space is at.”
YOU WERE ABLE TO ERASE A 50-POINT DEFICIT TO MAKE THE CHASE. YOU ARE NOW 100 POINTS BACK AND HAVE SEEN DEFICITS LIKE THAT CUT THROUGH THE YEAR. HOW BIG IS 100 POINTS?
“It depends on where you are on your car performance, your driving performance, your qualifying. Doing what Denny did takes a great level of execution. Qualifying well, stage points, all of that adds up. If you’re not getting stage points, if you’re not contending for stage wins, you’re not gonna win the championship. So I’m not in denial, but what I felt like with Richmond, with New Hampshire, with Daytona, those were three solid weeks of showing, outside of an untimely caution, that we have potential. I love that. Not everybody sees it or sees it that way, and I enjoy being the underdog, so bet against me.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PIT CREW CHANGES ANNOUNCED EARLIER THIS WEEK?
“Leadership called me earlier this week and kind of discussed the change and why the team felt like it made it. I completely understand the team’s perspective for why that is and obviously the opportunity for us moving forward, so I think that’s really all it boils down to. Back to work for the next 10 weeks.”
DO YOU SPEND ANY TIME GETTING OUT AND DOING PIT STOP PRACTICE WITH THE NEW GROUP TO GET ACCLIMATED TO EACH OTHER?
“I find that question funny because I would be there right now if I wasn’t having to sit here and do media.”
IS THERE ANY FEEDBACK ON THE CHANGE OR THE OPPORTUNITY TO SAY YOU DIDN’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN?
“It’s not my race team, so no.”
WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DID YOU HAVE WITH YOUR CREW?
“I think anyone that knows me, racing is all I do. It’s all I care about, all I put my time and effort into, so, naturally, I’m pretty close with the guys I work with and, yeah, I think the main level of frustration is I don’t get to see through the season with the guys that I feel like were responsible for me getting there, but, at the same point in time, it’s not completely unprecedented to make changes to give the team the best chance. That’s what the team thinks and that’s what they decided. As far as the guys that are coming on board the 2 car for the rest of the year, there are several veteran guys that have I’ve won races with in Xfinity, and I know most of these guys. I’ve worked out in the same gym and hang out, so I’m not unfamiliar with anyone that is joining the team and looking forward to see what we can do for the next 10 weeks.”
HOW DID YOU INTERACT WITH THEM, AT ALL?
“I divide a NASCAR Cup Series team into three different groups. You have your road crew. You’ve kind of got the people for car performance. I’d put that on my side, and you’ve got the people that obviously go over the wall changing tires. Those three groups feed off of one another, the energy and from a culture standpoint when one is down the other one is gonna pick each other up. I feel like we’ve got great culture on our race team on the 2 car and whether if that’s welcoming in new people on to our team or obviously trying to understand how to improve performance or maintain processes that we feel like are going to make us excel. All of those things factor in to the people you have on your team and how you want to go about leading them, and I think when it comes to personnel changes, I think that’s a lot more in Brian’s wheelhouse from that standpoint, but if I can be there to help drive that or direct that, even something as simple as having to start a new group chat and sending a few memes to help break the ice, I think leadership in my role can be defined in so many different ways. So, I go about it the way I want to and I feel like I try to be as available as possible.”
CAN YOU BOTTLE THAT FEELING FROM DAYTONA LAST WEEK AND CARRY IT THROUGH THE CHASE?
“Yes and no. I feel like our postseason is 100 percent a swap in mentality. I feel like we can be free and go be aggressive for the next 10 weeks, whereas I feel like for the last three months we’ve been points racing, so I’m looking forward to that opportunity.”
WOULD YOU EVER TAKE THE ATTITUDE THAT THIS CHANGE ISN’T FAIR?
“I don’t think it’s productive, especially having the conversation with you if I’m being honest. It’s a change and I feel like as far as the guys that we have on our car for the rest of the year, they’re obviously super capable and, for me, I think it’s a great opportunity for the whole group to go out and have a good 10 weeks.”
WHAT WAS THE RATIONALE YOU WERE GIVEN FOR THE CHANGE?
“It’s giving the team the best chance to win the championship. I think that’s fully understandable and it’s a pretty understandable motivation given the time of year. I talked with leadership. I talked with Roger and I understand why that was changed and, like I said, for us it’s business as usual past having personnel changes and being able to welcome our new group in and be able to give them the best chance to succeed, but also for them to give us the best chance to succeed. I think those groups and those different divisions as I talked about on the race team, they feed off of each other and I think it’s important to start that culture in the right way.”
WHERE DO YOU FEEL THE CEILING IS FOR THIS TEAM?
“I’m not sure. I feel like I wanted to find what that is after the next 10 weeks. I think there’s several tracks that, for me, I would consider as tracks that I really know what I want out of my race car, whether if that’s a Gateway or a Talladega, but nonetheless I think there’s enough of a variety in the schedule. It’s obviously pretty heavy on intermediates, which I think is also great room for us to improve, but, otherwise, I think one of the things that really makes us different versus last year’s playoffs too is that I’m not expecting many tire changes or package changes or anything else, whereas last year’s playoffs had a new tire every single week. So I feel like we’ve got a good notebook and we have no reason why we can’t continue to improve.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS THIS SEASON?
“I would say that the early part of the summer definitely raised urgency for those types of tracks and it’s given us time to evaluate how to improve.”
HOW IS THE POSTSEASON DIFFERENT FROM THE REGULAR SEASON?
“I think it’s no different than the rest of the year. Each week is an opportunity to improve or regress, so I think you have to continue to just approach that week to week, race to race mentality. It is what makes our sport easier, I think, than other forms of motorsports just because most of them don’t race week to week and have the opportunity to bounce back each week, or at least have the opportunity to. I’ve always approached it that way, no different than it’s every lap. You have all these small little checkpoints you go through throughout the day and you hyperfixate on those enough to where you don’t think about anything else.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE HERE?
"It’s nice, but I told you all at the beginning of the year we would be here. The Chase format fits how we go about things and had this been the case the last couple of years, we’d be sitting here as well. It’s not the case and that’s largely of our own doing as well and the format and we didn’t hit it right. We didn’t win the races when we needed to, but this is good to be back. This is something we knew was gonna be achievable. Really, until the last month, I thought we were gonna roll in here fifth or sixth in seeding, but we had a little bit of a fall back the last little bit. That being said, we’ve got a lot of really good racetracks coming up. I’m excited to get this thing fired off. Darlington is one of my favorite tracks. We’ve run extremely well there. We have lots of good ones coming and there’s still time to win races.”
WHAT IS THE 17 TEAM’S CEILING FOR THE CHASE?
“It remains to be seen how this format is gonna work out and with everything being reset it’s a whole lot closer than it was a week ago, so the potential is there. We have a lot of good racetracks coming, so if we can go out here and put up two or three really strong days to start, then there really is no ceiling.”
WHAT DOES IT DO FOR THE TEAM WHEN RYAN WINS LIKE HE DID AND THE MOTIVATION IT PROVIDES?
“That was big to drive your way into the Chase in a one-way scenario. It was a big weekend, so I’m proud of that team and proud of Ryan and everybody. That’s big and to be in the Chase now and be looking ahead at the next 10 races we have and the opportunities we have as an organization, we’ve been really good at a lot of these tracks. There was a lot of celebration this week, which is strong for everybody. It gives everybody that little bit of bump of confidence that maybe you need in the shop. It’s been a while since our Watkins Glen win, so it’s good to get everybody fired back up and pumped up to realize that we’re very capable of winning races every year. That’s what they were able to do and it gets us set in a really nice spot as we go to Darlington.”
YOUR 17 TEAM HAS BEEN GOOD AT SCORING POINTS AND BEING CONSISTENT. IS THAT AN ADVANTAGE GOING INTO THIS FORMAT?
“It was until now. Will it be in the next 10? I don’t know, but we work hard to go to the racetrack and have chances to be competitive and run up front. If we have a day that we can run eighth and that’s it, then we’re gonna figure out how to run sixth. That doesn’t mean taking a wild shot from out of nowhere and crashing and finishing 35th. I think that’s what has helped get us to this point. It’s why we said at the beginning of the year that making the Chase was not gonna be the hard part for our team, it’s getting in the Chase and being a competitor for the championship. We haven’t been quite there this season. We’ve been able to run in the top 10 really consistently and just be right there at the end of a top five, but we’ve got to get through that still. We’ve got work to do before we can sit here and honestly feel like we’re in the hunt for a championship, but we will have the consistency to be right up there with the best of them throughout this 10-race stretch.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE THE HOPE OF COMPETING FOR A TITLE AND THE REALITY OF WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW?
“We’re optimistic that we can do great things here and simply being a part of this thing that if we hit everything right, and we can have a run at a championship. We have a lot of good tracks for us, but we’re also realistic in the fact knowing that it hasn’t been our season to this date, that we’ve been able to go to these places and hunt for the wins at all of them. We’ve had a couple of shining moments in a lot of race weekends that were just sitting in like the sixth, seventh or eighth window. We need to be better than that, so we’re optimistic about it, but we’re gonna be real at the same time that we can’t sit still. Blind optimism would just have us hoping for the best and it’s not gonna be hope that gets there, it’s gonna be a lot of work and getting better and really executing at the highest level.”
DOES IT FEEL WEIRD TO BE HERE AT MEDIA DAY AND BRAD ISN’T HERE?
“The first half of your question is no, it doesn’t feel weird to be here. But the year that we had with all of RFK with the summer stretch, the same stretch that we hit a little bit of a slump. Our organization hit a bit of a slump and caught a lot of bad luck with the 60 and the 6, so, that being said, I think that it’s kind of the way the summer went – not from a lack of effort on anybody’s part or anything like that, it’s just a really unfortunate stretch for the 6 bunch especially. The 60 powered through and got in here. We had three cars in the Chase for a lot of the season and just lost a little bit of a hold there for a while.”
PREECE’S RECENT RALLY COINCIDED WITH YOUR PRANK ON HIS TRUCK. DID THAT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT?
“If so, I’m gonna have him come and wrap mine. We’ll return the favor. I think that it’s important to cut up and have a little fun along the way. We talk about this sport, and our sport knows that it’s a very high-pressure environment. We have a lot on our shoulders. It’s not racing for you or your family, you are racing for 200-and-something employees back at the shop and their families as well. Everything does matter, so you have to have that focus and that drive to make every week the best we can possibly be. Does that mean that you can’t goof off a little bit and have some fun along the way? Absolutely, not. So we try to do it and within reason. As we got to the last handful of weeks, I’m proud to see Ryan owning it and driving that thing around everywhere. That’s making me very happy inside, so I’m glad to see it’s still giving. But also the last couple of weeks we haven’t been at each other because we’ve known what’s at stake and we’ve known it was gonna take a little bit more to make sure we found ourselves solidly in the Chase.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED HE’S STILL RUNNING AROUND IN IT?
“I am. I really am. My hope was that he would be forced to do it, that being we were able to get his daughter to help do the wrap and apply probably a good majority of the flower power down the side that she would have ownership of it and if her dad tried to rip it off, it would just be a heartbreaking thing to do as a parent, so he would be forced into it. I guess that worked because he’s in it now. You love to see it. It’s fun getting texts from people saying, ‘I just saw Ryan Preece riding around.’ It’s like, ‘Yep, that’s handy work that keeps giving.’ I’ve had a lot of fun with that one.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THE PIT CREW SWAP WITH THE 2 TEAM?
“I firstly want to thank the guys who were with me all year. They were with us through thick and thin. We had great times together and was able to win a few races. I appreciate the work they did and to get us where we’re at. And then this decision, Team Penske just looked at it and they figured how can we change things up to where we think it will benefit the whole company and this is what they decided. I’m thankful for what my guys did. I’m looking forward to working with the new team. I feel like they’ve been really solid on pit road all year, and a lot of them are guys I’ve worked with in the past. A couple of them are new guys to me, but I’m looking forward to it. I think it really speaks highly of Team Penske’s depth that they can shift guys around and have them be able to get plugged into other teams pretty seamlessly. I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes.”
WHEN DID YOU LEARN OF THE CHANGE?
“I learned on Monday, so only very shortly before you all did.”
DID YOU ASK FOR ANY SORT OF A CHANGE?
“I did not ask for a change. That came from above me. I wasn’t in there going into meetings wanting a change. It was just something that Team Penske, higher above me, decided to do.”
HOW VOCAL ARE YOU WHEN THERE ARE ISSUES?
“I am not the decision-maker when it comes to pit road, road guys. Really, the only thing I can do is be in those meetings with the people who have those powers – team leaders, crew chiefs, things like that. We all talk. ‘Hey, where can we improve.’ But at the end of the day, it’s not my call to say, ‘Hey, I want a change this guy or these groups of guys out.’ That’s out of my area of expertise. There are pit coaches and everyone who knows those guys better, work with those guys every single day. They are the ones making the calls. All I can do is give my opinions on a couple of things when they are asked of me, so that’s really where it’s at.”
HOW DO YOU WORK ON BRINGING THESE NEW GUYS TOGETHER AND ON THE SAME PAGE?
“The last couple of days just spending time with that group. ‘Hey, what do you like? Is there anything specific you like of me?’ Whether it’s a jackman, the gas man on fuel only stops. Tire carriers. Changers. ‘Is there anything specific that you want out of me coming into the stall?’ And a lot of them are the same. ‘Stop on the sign. Make sure the wheel is where it’s supposed to be.’ Stuff like that, but there’s a lot of little things, I feel like. Everyone has their own quirks, so just talking to those guys has been super helpful to me. If there is something that they want differently, then I for sure will adjust to that, but I think that’s the big thing is just communication and what everyone’s likes and dislikes are.”
HOW DOES THIS SET THE 12 TEAM UP FOR THE CHASE WITH HOW HIGHLY YOUR NEW PIT CREW HAS BEEN RANKED THIS YEAR?
“I felt very strongly about going into the Chase even before this because I think our team has done a good job of figuring out speed in the race car, figuring out how to get better on pit road, overcoming sometimes where we have adversity. I felt great about it before everything – even Sunday – so I still feel really good about it as well and it’s one of those things that on the personal side you create relationships with a lot of those guys. They go to battle with you every single week, so that side has its own emotions, but, at the end of the day, there’s a business side to it. ‘Hey, this is the best way we have to win Roger Penske a championship,’ so you welcome those guys in with open arms. ‘Hey, welcome to the team. You’re on the 12 group now. How do we all operate as a group?’ I feel great about it. No matter which way it went I felt really good about it.”
DO YOU THINK THIS WILL BE A MOTIVATOR FOR YOU GUYS THAT ARE NOW WITH AUSTIN?
“Yeah, for sure and those guys are still racing for a championship. They’re still in it. They’re in the Chase and they have a chance to go win it as well. That 2 team is a great team. Austin has proven himself as a great driver. Brian Wilson is a great crew chief, so I think those guys will plug in very well over there with that group, and, yeah, I think it can be a motivator. When things get moved around, I feel like you can really learn a lot about yourself and just strive to be better in areas that you want to be better. Those guys are gonna do a great job and still really race for a championship.”
IS THIS A RYAN BLANEY VERSUS TOYOTA CHAMPIONSHIP?
“I wouldn’t say that. I think there’s a lot of other guys that can go out there and do it. All 16 teams in this thing, I think, are very, very good and can really go on runs, but the Toyotas are incredibly fast. We’ve seen that all year. I think the Fords, for myself and the 22, and the 2, and the 60, and the 17, I feel like we’ve had a really good last two or three months and closed the gap there. I’m curious to see where we’re at on the mile-and-a-halves, where we have those three in a row. That’s gonna be a huge sign of seeing where we’re gonna be and how we stack up with the Toyotas. And then you know the 5 and the 9 are incredibly good, too. So, I don’t think it’s us versus the Toyotas. It’s us versus 15 other people. That’s how I look at it.”
YOU’VE HAD LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH HOMESTEAD. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT BEING THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE?
“Sometimes we’ve had some rough goes of it there. I love it. I love the place. We’ve run really good there. We blew up running really good there a year or two ago, whatever it was. I gave a race away there to Tyler a couple of years ago, but I like that it’s back in Miami. I really enjoyed Phoenix for the handful of years we had it at Phoenix. We brought it to a new area of the country, which is good, but Homestead is championship weekend to me. Growing up, I mean, that was always championship weekend, so pair it with a really unique racetrack, a lot of fun, every driver likes it, a great area of the country as well. I don’t want to call it nostalgia, but for me it kind of is because we went there every year with my dad because it was championship weekend. It’s nice that it’s back there.”
WHAT NEW PIT CREW MEMBERS HAVE YOU WORKED WITH BEFORE?
“Andrew Lackey is the gasman. He was with me in Trucks and he was with me all the way up to 2019 when Penske switched all the crews around. Jesse Mills. I was with him on that 12 car the first couple of years for a little bit. Jourdan Osinskie, the jackman, he was my jackman when we won the championship. He got moved to the 2 car this year, so back working with him. And then the final two I haven’t worked with a ton through the years, but you get to know all those guys. You go back and watch pit practice. You get to learn about them and things like that, so the few of them I have a decent amount of experience with throughout my years and a couple of them it’s nice to get to learn new guys, just hear their personalities, where they came from, how they got here, stuff like that, the great job they do. It’s a nice group.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL THESE TRACKS IN THE CHASE LINE UP FOR YOU GUYS?
“I think we have the opportunity to go perform well at every track. I said earlier the mile-and-a-halves are a place to where we know we have to continue to improve, and I feel like we’ve made steps from Chicago. Indianapolis isn’t a mile-and-a-half, but it’s a bigger track and the 22 had a heck of a run there, so that really shows me that we’ve made a step in the right direction. I’m just curious to see when we do get those – Charlotte, Vegas and Kansas – but then I think all of the other places we’ve had really good runs, but you can’t rely on that. You have to continue to try to improve, no matter if it’s your best racetracks or forms of tracks or tracks maybe you’ve struggled at. It’s all week to week type stuff, but I think we feel good about it. It’s just a matter of who can put the best 10 together and someone is gonna do that. Hopefully, we’re one of them that can do it.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FIRST THREE RACES IN THE CHASE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL DIFFERENT TYPE OF TRACKS?
“Every race is equally important. They all score the same amount of points and it averages out over 10, so it’s pretty simple at this point. It’s not like there’s a cut off race or a Round of 8 or whatever that may be. Every race means the same.”
HOW IS THIS CHASE DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL CHASE YEARS AGO?
“I don’t know if it really changes a whole bunch. Even though they call it the Chase, it’s still way different than what the Chase was then – the way the seeding is and the separation through the field. It’s pretty different and we have stages now too, so it’s quite a bit different than the old way too. It just has the same name.”
A LOT OF PEOPLE SEE THIS RUN YOU’VE BEEN ON AND ARE LIKE, ‘HERE WE GO AGAIN.’ DO YOU ENJOY THAT TYPE OF FEELING?
“Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s a reputation that we’ve earned over the years is that, unfortunately, during the regular season we seem to just be OK, and then it gets to game time and the 22 starts to show up, so I feel confident in our team that we can do it. People think that way because we have done it and we’ve done it multiple times, so I feel like we can show up again when it matters and do it in a different format.”
ON DEALING WITH THE CHASE PRESSURE:
“Maybe. At the same time, you’ve just got to focus on you. We are a tough team because we focus on ourselves and we don’t get caught up in a lot of the other garbage that’s around us. A team that just focuses on the job at hand and we don’t let pressure and outside noises get in the way of it, so I say it all the time – the more pressure you put on, the better they’re gonna be. Whether that’s myself as a driver, Paul as the crew chief, the pit crew themselves, they’re the type of team that wants the pressure and this time of year we’ve got it on us and we have it on us to start. Every team does in their own way, but for us to make up where we are in points right now, the pressure is on. We can’t have bad ones.”
AS A THIRD PARTY OBSERVER, WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE CREW SWAP BETWEEN THE 2 AND 12?
“That’s out of my jurisdiction, if you will. It didn’t involve the 22 car. I think everybody is looking for ways to be better and sometimes you make changes without reason, it just needs to have change to change sometimes and that’s really hard to explain and hard to understand, but sometimes fresh blood, fresh ideas, fresh looks does something mentally to people. I can’t speak directly to exactly why it all happened, but I do think sometimes that stuff happens.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE MADE GAINS ON THE MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACKS?
“I think we’ve made some gains, no doubt. Chicago, we ran well. Indy, we had a car that could win. So I look at the mile-and-a-halves and I don’t see that much of a weakness anymore. I think we can actually compete at those now, so I think we just made some good changes to our cars and a multiple of other things that have played into our hands, so I feel just as good at the Vegas, Charlotte, Kansas swing there as I do at any other track at the moment.”
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING A CUP DRIVER?
“Honestly, I just like competing against the best. That’s why I wanted to race in NASCAR. I wanted to compete against, at the time, my childhood heroes. Now I’ve been here longer than a majority of them, but I’ve just enjoyed the way these cars have raced. I enjoy the culture of what NASCAR is. It’s American. It’s the most American sport in our country, I believe, and you can see that every pre-race when everyone says the prayer and stands for the anthem and there’s a badass flyover. That’s what I’m talking about. Of course I want to be involved in that.”
HOW DO YOU VIEW THESE NEXT 10 RACES?
“It’s 10 weeks of hell. I heard Jimmie Johnson say that one time and it’s pretty true. It’s a grueling 10 weeks, but it’s a pretty cool trophy at the end of it. The feeling of winning the whole thing is worth the grind all day long, and so with that in mind, it’s not that hard to do. It’s not hard to motivate yourself when you know the prize and how awesome it is. You keep grinding it. Now, the agony of defeat hurts. I can tell you it hurts more, but it’s worth the price.”
HOW DOES THE PRESSURE OF THE POSTSEASON CHANGE?
“It’s the same every year. The playoffs are just as hard. It’s not like they were any easier, in my opinion. Sometimes you would say it was even harder because you had these do-or-die moments, where it wasn’t about average. It was about perform today or you’re out. We don’t have that now. Now the Chase is about consistency, so it’s about how do I score 40-plus points today? It’s not, ‘I have to win or I’m gonna be out of this whole thing.’ That pressure is much different, so, sure, maybe if you won one, you’d get to take a week off. Cool. But then pressure in the weekends when you have to win? That’s a different level.”
EVERY YEAR YOU TALK ABOUT ENJOYING THE PRESSURE OF THE PLAYOFFS.
“I just know nothing big happens in your life if you don’t put the pressure on it. If it’s easy to do, you’re probably not accomplishing anything that matters in life – most likely. The hard things are the things that move the needle in your life. It could be something to do with your job. It could be with your family. It could be having kids. It could be whatever. All of those things are hard to do, but they move the needle one way or another. I’ve yet to have pressure sitting on a couch watching at TV show, and I don’t want to do that personally. I don’t want to sit down on a couch and watch a TV show. I hate it. I don’t ever want to do that because then what am I doing with my life? I don’t know if that’s a psychopath or not. It sounds like it a little bit, but I want to do something and I have the platform to make a big move here right now and who knows how many more opportunities I have at it, so, yeah, all of those are real pressure moments because maybe I won’t have another shot at it. I don’t know, so you’ve got to make the most of it when you’ve got it because the biggest thing with pressure is you just don’t want to go to sleep at the end of the day saying you didn’t do the right things or didn’t try hard enough or didn’t see something coming. Those are the things that I don’t want to sleep with those regrets.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IN THE NEW DAYS OF THUNDER MOVIE?
“I would love to. I mean, it’s a cool movie. Are you kidding me? It would be some wicked cool dad points to be in Days of Thunder, yeah. Hopefully, that happens.”
WHERE DO YOU FEEL YOU GUYS ARE IN COMPARISON TO THE REST OF THE FIELD?
“Ninth (laughing). But I do feel like we’re much better than ninth at the moment. We’ve come from a ways back and so now if I look at the last seven, eight races, we’re the best car, so I do feel like we’re in contention to do this. Now, we haven’t completely climbed out of the hole that we’ve dug ourselves, but we’re the team that can do it and we’ve got that momentum on our side, so I feel strong about that.”
ON COMING BACK FROM A HUGE DEFICIT –
“It proves to me that you can come back from a long ways in a pretty quick time, and that’s one thing with this points format that we haven’t really explored yet. There’s been two cars that have done that. The 19 has done it and we’ve done it from a pretty long ways back and climbed their way up to where they’re in contention pretty quickly, so with that in mind, I feel optimistic about where we are in points, but there’s no reward until we get to Miami.”
