Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
KC Masterpiece 400 Advance (Kansas Speedway; Kansas City, KS)
Friday, May 11, 2018
Ford drivers Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Aric Almirola conducted separate Q&A sessions at Kansas Speedway this morning and discussed a variety of topics. Here are transcripts of each press conference.
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Ford Fusion – YOU HAD A STATEMENT WIN LAST WEEK AT DOVER. WAS THAT A RESPONSE TO KYLE BUSCH WINNING THREE STRAIGHT AND IS HIS TEAM PUSHING YOU TO A HIGHER STANDARD? “It wasn’t a response to anything We got to the race track every week with the same approach of trying to lead laps and win the race. I feel like we’re good at pushing ourselves and trying to get better throughout the year and I feel like the experience of our team is what pushes us.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE POSSIBLE SALE OF NASCAR? “I discussed all of that on Tuesday night and I think today it’s really about racing for me and trying to focus on what I need to do with my race team and make my cars go around the race track. If I knew the specifics of it and even whether it’s true would make it easier to give you my opinion.”
YOU SAID ON TUESDAY THAT IT COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE SCHEDULE TO HAVE SOME CHANGES. DO YOU LOOK AT THE POSSIBLE SALE AS SOMETHING MORE OF AN OPPORTUNITY THAN TO BE WORRIED ABOUT? “I think if you look at sales of businesses, and NASCAR is a business, at some point there’s always going to be talk about sales and there’s always going to be talk about transition of ownership and it’s something that happens in every business. I think as you look at that the opportunities that come about when you have those situations, people don’t buy companies to make them worse. I think that there’s always opportunity if there were a sale for something to get better.”
HAVE YOU SEEN DIVERSITY WITH THE CREWS AND IS IT IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE OF NASCAR TO DIVERSIFY? “I think when you look at the NASCAR Diversity Program they’ve done a great job with that through the years. I think we’ve seen a lot of graduates come through that particular program. Obviously, on this particular side you have Darrell Wallace and Daniel Suarez who have been all the way through it. I think just like the last question in any business you want to have as much diversity as you can because in our case the audience becomes interested in different things. I think as you look at it I think everybody pushes toward that on a yearly basis, whether that’s the teams or NASCAR in general.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN IN BACK-TO-BACK WEEKS? “I feel like this has honestly been one of our best race tracks as I’ve gone through the years, and especially since I’ve come to SHR. I don’t feel like we’ve won as many races here as we probably should have – some of it of our own doing and some of it just circumstances, but we’ve always run really, really well here and, for me, I look forward to coming here for a number of different reasons. Not only do we run well at the race track, but I think when you look at this race track, I saw it when it was just the race track and the highway here. Now you look at what’s around it and everything has been built around what you’re sitting in right now. To me, that is something that’s pretty neat to see just because of the fact that the race track was here first and it’s easy to get from the airport. It’s one of the better race tracks on the schedule as far as convenience, in my opinion, because there is so much to do now. It’s so conveniently off the highway and from the airport and the airport is easy to get in and out of. There are just a number of things that I look forward to coming here and sitting in the casino watching the Truck race tonight eating dinner is not too bad either. It’s just a good place to come and, like I say, we run well here, but it’s just a good experience and I just enjoy the surroundings of everything that is outside of the race track as well. I enjoy that.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED BY MARTHA EARNHARDT’S COMMENTS THAT YOU WERE HER NOW HER FAVORITE RACE CAR DRIVER? “It did catch me a little bit off-guard, to tell you the truth. Seeing that comment from Dale Jr. and seeing the reaction from a lot of the fans is a lot of responsibility, obviously. It’s like I said on the show Tuesday night, when you look at the Earnhardt family in general, the legacy they have in our sport from start to finish – from Ralph to Dale Jr. on down to what happens next, it’s a major backbone of what has happened in this sport and when you look at that I feel like I have a small part of where that changed and took place and where it’s going, so, for me, there’s a lot of pressure but also a lot of pride in that as well to try to do right, whether it’s for the family or for those old Senior fans you want to do the right thing. I haven’t always done the right thing, but I feel as you go through the years you transition more into the right direction than what we did in the beginning, so that, to me, personally feels good.”
DO YOU THINK THE MANUFACTURER END OF THIS MATTERS AS MUCH TO FANS TODAY AS IT DID BACK THEN? “I can tell you when we first switched from Chevy to Ford it was a major topic of conversation with the fans. I think now that the fans see the cars are running fast and Ford is heavily committed. There are as many Ford fans that have jumped on board that weren’t Chevy fans and a lot of the Chevy fans have stayed on board to support the team and it’s really become not a topic of conversation now. But when we first switched it was surprising to see how much the manufacturer still mattered to the fans, which is good. That’s what you need. I mean, it would be great to see the fans stand up and boo for the guy that they don’t like. You hear so much talk about wanting the drivers to be more vocal and do this, but they should do the same thing. If you don’t like the guy, stand up and boo for him. Stand up and cheer for your guy and be supportive. Those are the types of things that the drivers like to see.”
ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT THE MUSTANG COULD STRUGGLE NEXT YEAR LIKE THE CAMARO HAS SO FAR? “I don’t think you ever really know that answer until you put it on the race track. I would put the aero side of things in this garage, our aero department up against anybody. I don’t think anybody does a better job, so I think as you look at that project, you hope that it goes better than what you’re seeing from the Chevrolet side of things, but you just never know until you get on the race track. It’s a tough project, but to have the Mustang back on the race track from a branding side of things is going to be pretty cool to be a part of, but I don’t anticipate that happening. I think that we will do a better job.”
HAVE YOU NOTICED AN IMPACT WITH THE DATA SHARING? “I feel like we do a really good job of utilizing all the information that is available to us and we utilize it. It’s heavily utilized in our trailer. How it’s utilized in everybody else’s trailer, I don’t know, but we use the tools that we have and try to maximize those tools to make sure somebody is looking at the stuff to pry all of the details out of what you can do better or what you’re doing good. There’s a lot of information and you’d be crazy not to look at it.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE MORE TOOLS NOW TOO? “We have more tools on a daily basis. As we’ve transitioned through the Ford side of things I just feel like every week we have another tool that’s being developed and utilized with the manufacturer and the teams and our guys in our trailer from an engineering standpoint and SHR in general do a good job of not saying, ‘Oh man, what is this? This is dumb.’ Let’s look at it. Let’s use it. Let’s see what the benefits are of it and then figure out how we’re gonna put that tool in our tool box as to when it’s useful because being stuck in what you’ve always done is your worst nightmare. If you get stuck in what you’ve always done, you’re in big trouble in this garage. It’s a constant evolution on a weekly basis as to what you utilize, how you utilize things, when you use them. When you get this much engineering involved in things, you better be prepared to change what you do because it changes rapidly and the way you look at things may not be the same way you look at things next week, whether it’s just a screen and how it’s laid out or how you’re utilizing it and what you use it for, but it is just a constant evolution of what you have and what you’re using and sometimes I feel like people lose sight of that and don’t really understand how engineering-based our sport is and engineering advanced. I’d put this garage up against anybody in racing across the world when you talk about the technology that lives in this garage.”
HOW DOES THE WIND AFFECT THE RACING HERE? “It depends on what direction it’s blowing, but you can get a pretty constant wind here. Usually, if I remember correctly, it’s gonna blow from turns one and two to three and four or three and four to one and two. If I remember correctly it blows straight across one straightaway or the other. It doesn’t usually have a crosswind. I’m sure it’ll have a crosswind when I walk out there, but, for the most part, it seems like it’s a headwind or a tailwind and usually what that does is it either pushes you into the corner and makes the car usually looser and if you go into the other end it’s gonna make it turn better because there is more air pushing against the side of the car. If it does wind up being a crosswind, it’s gonna make the car not want to turn up off the corner or into the corner, so it definitely affects it. Usually, it’ll blow one direction one day and then the next day it’ll blow the opposite direction, so you always have something to chase. That’s just a lot of what you put into the notebook, so that you have some idea of what does what when the wind is blowing, but usually it is blowing.”
WHAT IS YOUR SALES PITCH FOR BEING NASCAR’S MOST POPULAR DRIVER THIS YEAR? “We’re fortunate to have a great fan base, but we probably won’t win. I’d say the next guy that’s gonna take that reign is gonna be Chase Elliott. The bottom line is when you look at our sport there is only a few guys that come through this sport that have the name, the history, the heritage of that NASCAR family and carry that through their career and Chase is one of those guys and he’s done a great job of carrying himself and being competitive and doing all the things that he does, but he is the NASCAR tie to the beginning of the sport or however far back you want to look at it, but he has that family name and that history and the heritage of the hardcore NASCAR fan who are going to be the people who vote that. His dad won a few times in the Most Popular Driver and he’s the next Dale Jr. Is he gonna win enough to be the megastar? At some point. He’s a star right now, but winning takes you to that next level of being a bigger star and Chase Elliott winning is better for our sport and he’s gonna be the guy that wins the Most Popular Driver, in my opinion, for the next several years. There’s nobody else that has that tie to our sport like Chase does. I can win 20 races a year and I’m never gonna have that tie to the sport like Chase does.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Fusion – HOW SPECIAL IS IT FOR YOU TO BE BACK WITH ROUSH FENWAY? “The last few weeks have been fun. Obviously, just trying to get a little bit caught up an reacclimated there with the system and the people and what’s changed and that kind of thing, and been anxious about today and getting back in the car. I’m hoping everybody can get through tech and we can get on track in time. There’s not a lot of practice today, so I’m pretty anxious about getting in the car and seeing where we’re at and what my comfort level is, where we are on speed and what we’ve got to work on for tomorrow, that type of thing, so I’m just ready to get going.”
DOES THIS FEEL LIKE THE PERFECT PLACE FOR YOU TO COME BACK? “Yeah, actually the last time here they told me I couldn’t race anymore and we had to load up last fall, I think. The last time I was here was not a very good emotion. That was our last race in the Playoffs last year, but it is a fun track. It is fairly straightforward. It’s been a great track since the repave and the banking changing, so it’s a good track, especially for an intermediate side and I do look forward to that.”
SOMEBODY JUST ASKED ON TWITTER WHY WOULD YOU GO TO ROUSH IF YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU COULD BE COMPEITIVE AND MY RESPONSE WAS, ‘I DON’T THINK YOU WOULD HAVE COME OFF THE SIDELINES IF YOU DIDN”T THINK YOU COULD BE COMPETITIVE.’ “Somebody on Twitter reading minds again? I never said I didn’t think I could be competitive. If I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t be here. I feel good about the direction that Roush Fenway Racing has taken the last couple years. Certainly, all the Fords are very competitive this year. The 17 has shown a lot of speed on and off. You don’t see it necessarily in all the finishes, but certainly they’ve been better, so, like I said, I feel like we’re headed in the right direction. I don’t have any expectations necessarily for this weekend. I think the goals and expectations will probably continue to adjust once I get through this week and kind of see where we’re at and evaluate from there.”
FOR CLARIFICATION YOUR WYNDHAM ANNOUNCEMENT AS FAR AS WHAT RACES WYNDHAM WOULD SPONSOR CAME OUT YESTERDAY. I’VE HEARD YOU SAY YOU WERE GONNA BE IN THE NEXT FIVE RACES. WHAT DOES YOUR SCHEDULE LOOK LIKE? HAVE YOU BEEN GIVEN A NUMBER OF HOW MANY YOU WILL RUN? “I’m doing the next five in a row plus all of the Wyndham races that they announced. There’s more on top of that. They didn’t want to announce the entire schedule yet that we were running, but those are the ones that we can talk about right now and the rest of it we’re still kind of working on.”
WHAT DOES A VETERAN DRIVER LIKE YOURSELF DO FROM A ROUTINE STANDPOINT TO GET BACK ON THE TRACK? “Honestly, not much with the testing policies and all that, so I haven’t been in a car at all since Homestead last year. So, really, not much. Besides all the mental prep that you can do with notes and film and things like that, but as far as the driving, really nothing. My training has been the same or probably more than last year because I’ve had more time, so physically there’s nothing really different – just kind of getting the mental stuff ready – but didn’t get a chance to get in the car at all. I was hoping I could get in a car and at least drive one a little bit and get acclimated with their systems and kind of the way they do things, but that’s what I’m looking forward to here in about an hour or so I guess.”
WHAT ARE YOUR GENERAL EXPECTATIONS FOR THE WEEKEND? “I don’t have any expectations for the weekend, to be honest with you, because I just don’t know. I haven’t been in the car yet and I don’t know how fast we’ll get up to speed. What are the things we’re gonna fight, that type of thing, so I don’t really know. I came into this weekend pretty much with no expectations, just kind of open-minded and take it one practice at a time, one session at a time, that type of thing, and go from there.”
WHAT DID YOU MISS MOST DURING THIS HIATUS AND WHAT DID YOU APPRECIATE THE MOST? “I would say the fans and the competition. The thing you miss the most is always the competition. That’s why we all started racing on Friday and Saturday nights with a couple hundred people in the stands against all the rest of the drivers is because you like to compete. I think when you’re not competing, if there’s one thing you could pick out, that’s probably the part you miss the most. As far as how the last six months have been, they’ve been great honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better period in my life, so that’s been really good.”
SO YOU’VE BEEN RACING LOCALLY IN WISCONSIN AT LOCAL TRACKS? “No.”
I THOUGHT YOU JUST SAID THAT? “Yeah, 25-30 years ago. I was talking more like when you first started racing. That’s kind of what you started for is because you’re competitive and you want to compete. I think in your whole career, in any professional sport, I think that’s the one constant is you love to compete no matter what level it’s at, so not competing in anything in the last six months – if I had to pick one thing I missed about it, that would be it.”
WHAT’S YOUR LONG-TERM GOAL? “Professionally, I don’t know that I have a long-term goal. As far as the rest of it, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to anybody either. Short-term, I hope to help the organization. That’s kind of why Jack and I decided to do this. They needed to get their performance up. He’s hoping I can help with that. I’m hoping I can help with that. It’s yet to be seen. I haven’t been on the race track yet, so I’m not really thinking very far out at the moment to be honest with you. I’m just trying to concentrate on this and do the best we can this weekend and kind of evaluate and see where we’re at and try to do better next week and so on and so forth.”
HOW WILL YOU ENTER THIS PRACTICE? “It’s a two-day schedule, so it’s different. All you get is two 50-minute practices today, so I’m gonna assume that most people are going to work on race trim most of the time. We’re no different, but even if it was a normal Friday, Saturday, Sunday schedule, we would probably run some race laps just because I haven’t been in one of these cars for a while. I haven’t been in a Roush car for a long while, so just kind of get acclimated and hopefully get up to speed, probably take a few laps to kind of get comfortable and do all that and hopefully work on qualifying later this afternoon.”
DO YOU ANTICIPATE ANY ADJUSTMENT PERIOD? “I think most of that comes pretty natural. If you can’t tell where that is anymore, then you’re probably in a fair amount of trouble. I’m sure it’s going to take a little bit of time, but I’m talking minutes and not hours to kind of get readjusted to everything and make sure everything fits. You might have to come in a couple times to adjust a few things, but I think as far as getting up to speed of the track I’m not extremely concerned about having six months off. I remember Kyle Busch had about six months off and he came back pretty strong a few years ago. I’m not extremely concerned about that.”
YOUR PHYSICAL FITNESS HAS CONTINUED DURING THIS PERIOD. IS THAT JUST PART OF YOUR LIFESTYLE OR WAS IT IN CASE A SITUATION LIKE THIS CAME UP? “I think for me, especially as you get older, you think a little bit more about your health and staying in shape and eating and exercising. I enjoy training. I love running with Katie. I enjoyed doing that half marathon last fall. I enjoy riding my bike. It’s not quite as enjoyable when you’re doing a lot of miles by yourself, but I’ve been trying to get back in shape to the assault on Mt. Mitchell on Monday, so that was the main reason my miles have been up and trying to get ready for that. As far as trying to stay in shape for this, I don’t know that would be any different. I’ve probably been training maybe a little bit more not going to the track every week, so I’ve had a little bit extra time. I really felt like something like this was gonna happen this year and I was probably gonna do some racing this year, but I didn’t know if or when that was gonna pop up. Certainly, you try to stay in physical and mental shape and pay some attention and be ready for it just in case.”
IS IT FAIR TO SAY YOU’RE IN THE BEST SHAPE YOU’VE EVER BEEN IN? “I don’t know. Definitely the last three or four years I’ve probably been in better physical shape than I’ve ever been in, but if you would have trained like this when you’re in your twenties or thirties you’d be in better shape than you are today, but, yeah, I feel good.”
HAVE YOU WATCHED THE RACES ON TV AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MAYBE GO OUT ON YOUR OWN TERMS? “I have not been glued to the TV. Certainly the last few weeks when I knew I was doing this I’ve watched more and read more competition-related stuff than I did earlier in the year. Earlier in the year, not as much but honestly it was pretty busy at our house. The kids go to school all week and we have Saturdays and Sundays off, probably spend more time running around with them and spending time with them more so than watching the TV, but I’ve certainly paid attention and the last few weeks I’ve watched more of it than I did before that.”
WHAT ABOUT GOING OUT ON YOUR OWN TERMS? “I haven’t even given that a thought, to be honest with you. That part doesn’t really matter to me, I guess.”
WHAT ABOUT THE DIGITIAL DASH AND THINGS INSIDE THE CAR YOU’VE BEEN WORKING ON. IS THAT DIFFERENT? “I haven’t been on the race track yet, but that’s all stuff you can kind of set up at the shop and I basically went through all of that and got what I thought I was comfortable with and basically where I’ve been before with it all. Everything seems like it’s gonna fit pretty similar. You never know 100 percent for sure until you get on the track and run some laps, but that seems like it’s all pretty close and buttoned up.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ON THE DASH? “Just whatever information they want and a little bit of information I want. I’ve done it pretty much the same since they came out with it.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion – WHAT HAS YOUR WEEK BEEN LIKE HERE IN KANSAS CITY? “I’ve always enjoyed coming to Kansas City from the very beginning of working with Smithfield. This used to be headquarters for Farmland and then as they’ve transitioned and created one Smithfield, now it’s headquarters for Kansas City area for Smithfield. I love coming here. It’s always a lot of fun. I’ve got a great friend that I come and stay with and always look forward to coming to Kansas City, but yesterday getting to go to headquarters for Smithfield and get to see all of the employees. I think they have about 900 employees here in the Kansas City area, so to come and see a lot of them and sign autographs and share the new paint scheme for this weekend was fun and exciting, and then to also donate money on behalf of Stewart-Haas Racing and Smithfield to Children’s Mercy Hospital here in Kansas City, which was a lot of fun and nice to do and be able to give back. That’s one of the things that I’ve always loved about Smithfield is through all the food donations and donations to children’s hospitals around the areas, it makes it to where it’s an honor to represent their company because they do so much more than just put stickers on a race car and let me go ride around. They actually get involved with the communities in which we race at.”
IS IT DIFFICULT TO NOT THINK ABOUT LAST YEAR’S ACCIDENT HERE AND PUT IT BEHIND YOU? “I don’t think it’s difficult at all. I show up to the race track every weekend and just go and focus on trying to get my car handling the way I want it to and fast and ready to go race for that weekend. Every weekend is a different challenge because it’s a different track, but I never really let my mind drift back to that place, if you will. When I came back here in the fall, it was probably a little bit more top of mind coming back here just a few months after breaking my back here in May when we came back in October. But then to go through that weekend and we ran really well and I think we finished ninth, so to come back here and kind of get somewhat of redemption on the race track and sort of put that to bed and come here and run as well as we did and run top 10 I think it’s a non-issue. I don’t even really thing about it. I have to think about it because you guys ask about it, but I don’t think about it.”
DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOUR WIFE ON MOTHER’S DAY THIS YEAR SINCE YOU WERE IN THE HOSPITAL A YEAR AGO? “I actually brought my wife with me this time, so if I do end up not making it home at least she’s with me this year. But my mom was gracious enough to babysit the kids this weekend, so kind of having a little getaway weekend with my wife and that’s been nice.”
DOES SHE HAVE A LINE OF CREDIT AT THE CASINO? “No, we’re keeping her out of the casino, but I think she is across the street planning to do some shopping today, which could hurt.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS THE DIVERSITY PROGRAM IN NASCAR FOR NOT ONLY DRIVERS BUT CREWS AS WELL? “Yeah, and one more to add to that is Suarez. He went through the same program. I think it’s important because, in my opinion, it gives people an opportunity they otherwise probably would never get the opportunity. And as a race car driver that’s what we all ask for. That’s what we all need. You need that shot. You need that opportunity and the reality is that most people growing up racing their late model or racing their go-kart, they don’t ever get that shot. There’s probably thousands of kids out there that were more talented at racing go-karts than me. I won my share of races and state championships and national championships, but I raced against other kids that were equally talented for sure. And whether their parents could afford to take them to the next level or not was particularly an issue, and then once you get to late model stock racing your parents have to be really, really, really invested and bought in on trying to help you with a hobby because at that time it’s a hobby, and you have hopes and dreams of turning it into something. You can play any stick-and-ball sport and it costs your parents at max maybe $1000 a year between paying for league fees and jerseys and maybe a new baseball glove and baseball bat every year or new cleats, and traveling to and from games. To go racing, especially like late model racing, it cost a family between $75,000 and $150,000 a year depending on how much you want to spend. You can spend more than $150,000 if you wanted to, so it is a very expensive sport to get in to and especially for a young child or a kid that’s 15-16 years old and you don’t know where it’s ever gonna go. That’s a huge financial burden and investment on a family to basically throw that money away because everything I racing once you use it and race it, you’re gonna get 10 cents on the dollar for it. So you go out and buy a new late model and a motor and you go through the year and you spend $150,000 to go race late models and then it doesn’t work out or you can’t afford to continue to do it, you’re gonna sell all that stuff and maybe get $25,000 for it all and your kid is not gonna be a professional race car driver. That money is gone. You never get it back. So I think that’s the biggest challenge with trying to get younger kids into our sport and I think that’s where the diversity program really steps in as they help these kids with giving them that shot. NASCAR and the Drive for Diversity take on that financial initiative and investment and invest in these kids and even on the crew side they allow them and give them the space and the opportunity to come and work in a shop and work in an environment where this is probably not available to them at the local short-track ranks.”
WHERE IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL ON A SCALE OF ONE TO 10 COMPARED TO A YEAR AGO? “I’d say an eight. I think my confidence is pretty high. I’d say last year, not that I didn’t have confidence, but I was always unsure on what I was gonna get. Last year, life was like a box of chocolates. You never knew what you were gonna get from week to week. This year, I know what I’m gonna get. Every week I know I’m gonna show up with a car that I know is gonna be fast and that it’s up to Johnny and myself to do the best that we can to make it a race-winning car. We have the product. We have the potential to have a race-winning car each and every week and we can see it internally amongst our teammates. We can look at what they have and that’s just gonna take time for Johnny and myself to continue to grow together and build a notebook together. You’ve got to remember that Johnny is going on week 11 or week 12 of being a brand new crew chief. He was never crew chief in the Truck ranks and was never a crew chief in the XFINITY ranks, so having him and him being as new to it as it is, it’s gonna take him time to continue to evolve and develop. We’ve got a new lead race engineer that’s young and that’s one of the things that I think is so cool is that our team is really built for the future. We’ve got a bunch of young guys on our team and we’re all really fired up and we’re all young and ambitious and I think as we continue to build and get better and better together, the future looks bright for us and we’re off to a good start even so. Even these first 11 weeks we’re just a few points out of 10th in the points. We’ve had four Top 10s, so we’re doing things well, but we see that there’s so much more potential out there for us.”
HOW HAS IT BEEN TO HAVE TEAMMATES? “It’s been an experience, for sure. It’s been nice to be able to go and sit in a hauler after practice and debrief with three other guys and three other crew chiefs and three other race engineers, and listen to the way that they describe their car, listen to the changes that they made that helped their car. I mean, especially now with the schedule and the practices are getting more and more condensed. We’re getting less on-track time, so you really only have a chance to make three or four changes per practice to really get an idea on a feel for setup changes and stuff. So when you have three other cars in your organization that are also doing the same things and they’re making changes, you can kind of bounce ideas off of each other and learn. You get basically more data for the given time that we have to be on track and that has been nice, but then just simply to hear how Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch approach the weekend and how they go from working on their car on Saturday to knowing what they need for it to be good on Sunday. I mean, that’s experience and you gain that from 15-20 years of experience in this sport. That just helps me tremendously, just being able to learn from their experience.”
HOW HAS THE TRANSITION BEEN GOING AT SHR? “I think just the fact that I’ new to the organization and trying to figure out each and every week where we need to unload setup-wise. Every time we feel like we’re starting to understand the trend, we go to a different race track or we show up with a new car and that trend doesn’t always play out. We’ll show up on one weekend and be like, ‘We need to be a little bit tighter than where the 4 is gonna show up.’ And then we show up and we’re too tight and we’ve got to start freeing up. We’ve got to continue to build our notebook with the 10 team and I think that’s what makes those other teams so strong, and you even listen to Bowyer talking about it. He went through last year and had a lot of inconsistencies. They’d run really good one week and then go two or three weekends and just be average, and then they’d run really good for two weeks and go through another couple weeks of not being where they wanted to be. I feel like at least we’ve been consistent, but we just haven’t reached our max potential and I think that’s just gonna come with time and continuing to build our notebook to where we can go back to these tracks for a second and third and fourth time and say, ‘Hey, remember last time when we showed up we were x and we don’t definitely want to do that again. We want to be here.’ Or, ‘Remember we were really good at this race track and this is what we had. Let’s take that and massage on it and tweak it and make it better.’ So I feel like that’s kind of where we’re missing it compared to our teammates, just not having that database.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS THIS YEAR? “I think it would be huge. That’s what we expect. I think we went into the year hoping to be a team that’s capable of running for a championship and making the Playoffs and I think we’re on target for that. We knew that the beginning of the year there would be some growing pains and we’d go through some ebbs and flows, but I feel like overall as a whole our company is a championship-caliber company and all three of our other cars are showing speed and doing the things that they need to do to make the Playoffs and we need to do our part and so far we are. I feel like if we didn’t make the Playoffs it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but, by all means, we have the resources and the people at Stewart-Haas Racing and the cars capable of doing that. I keep saying it, but it’s up to Johnny and my team and myself to go out and get the job done, so I feel like currently we’re on pace to do and that we’ve just got to continue to build and get better and I hope to be peaking by the time we get to the Playoffs. I think we’ve got 15 more races until the Playoffs start, so that gives us 15 more weeks to continue to grow together and continue to build our foundation so that when we do start the Playoffs we’re firing on all eight cylinders.”
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU SAW THE REPORT ABOUT NASCAR POSSIBLY EXPLORING A SALE? “As long as there is a place for me to show up and race, I’ve got my helmet and I’m ready to go race. I just love to race cars and that’s kind of my take on it all. I’ve raced for a lot of different sanctioning bodies throughout my career, whether it was WKA – the World Karting Association – or the Florida Automobile Stock Car Racing Association in Florida or whatever the next series was or the NASCAR Late Model Series, and I just show up every single weekend excited to go race and that’s what I love. That’s what I’ve always done, so, for me, as long as there’s a platform and a ride available for me to go race, I don’t really care who owns it. That’s just the truth. I know that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but I could give a crap less.”
HOW DOES SHR STAY COLLABORATIVE AND NOT BREAK INTO YOUR SEPARATE TEAMS? “I think that’s what makes Stewart-Haas Racing so successful is that you’ve got four competitive teams and obviously there is a lot of big personalities there and a lot of fun-loving spirit, but the commonality of Stewart-Haas Racing is that everybody that shows up to work, whether it’s Kevin Harvick or Tony Stewart or Gene Haas or the people sweeping the floors, everybody just loves racing. I’ve been at a lot of organizations fortunately and unfortunately in my career, so I’ve gotten to see some of the good, bad and the ugly of each organization. I’ve been a part of Joe Gibbs Racing. I’ve been affiliated with Hendrick through Junior Motorsports and the six weeks that I spent working with Jimmie Johnson on that baby duty deal that I did there. I’ve been a part of DEI. I’ve been a part of RPM and through RPM I’ve gotten to work with Roush, so I’ve seen a lot of the garage area and the one thing that stands out to me the most at Stewart-Haas Racing is that from top to bottom the passion for just racing in general is unbelievable. The people that work at Stewart-Haas Racing wake up every morning excited to go to work for no other reason than to just figure out how to make race cars go faster, and everybody wants to just pull their weight and that’s something that’s rare in this industry because this industry is very dog eat dog world and that’s just not the case at SHR. Everybody is there to pull their own weight and to do the best that they can at their job to try and help make their part of the race car go faster, and that collective effort, I think, is what has Stewart-Haas Racing on top right now.”
TONY STEWART SAID YOU GUYS ARE COMING AND HE HAS A LOT OF FAITH IN YOU AND YOUR PROGRAM. WHAT HAS TONY BROUGHT TO YOU AND YOUR TEAM? “I think, for me, Tony is just a great calming voice because I sit back and I look at the success that all of my teammates are having and while, yes, we are running good and we are on pace to make the Playoffs, we’ve got an average finish of whatever they said, 12.5, so we’re doing good things, but human nature is greed. You always want more, so if you would have told me going into the year before the season even started at Daytona that by Kansas in May we would be 11th in points, three points out of 10th and have an average finish of 12th, I would have probably said, ‘All right. That’s awesome. I’ll take it.’ But then you go through the year and you watch the 4 car run as good as they have and you watch the 14 car win Martinsville and run up front, and you watch the 41 car run up front, and we have too, but we haven’t always been as competitive as those cars. Human nature is greed, so I get to where I want more. I want to win and we’re only 11 races in, so Tony has been just a very calming voice. He’s been like, ‘Be patient. Your time is coming. Your group is young. Your group is new. You’re new to the organization. You’re meeting our expectations and then some.’ So that’ s just reassuring and it’s a confidence-builder for me. Even though I want more and I’m greedy and I want to win and I want to run in the top five every week, they’re satisfied and they’re happy with where we’re at as a race team and that just allows me to not feel pressure and to be overly anxious and to just concentrate on continuing to build that foundation with Johnny and the 10 team and to get to where we need to be to run like Harvick and Bowyer and Kurt.”
WHAT CHANGES WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE TO THE DIVERSITY PROGRAM IN NASCAR? “That’s a tough question. It’s a slippery slope because the reality is that everybody needs a shot, everybody needs an opportunity, especially if they’ve shown that they deserve it and that they’ve proven that they deserve that opportunity. But once you get that opportunity it’s up to you, it’s up to that individual to make the most of it and to kind of carry on and continue. Not every time is the player that’s drafted in the first round of the draft going to make it, so there’s that process of evaluating where that person is at, giving them the shot and the opportunity, and then it’s up to them to go make the most if it. If they do, then they create more opportunities for themselves. You’ve seen that with Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez and Darrell Wallace and the other guys. They’ve gotten that opportunity, they’ve had success, and then that success has led to more opportunities. Unfortunately, there have been others that got the opportunity and it just hasn’t panned out. They haven’t shown the speed or had the success and they don’t make it, so I don’t know. I don’t think that anybody should be given anything and I don’t think that anybody expects to be given something that they don’t deserve, but I feel like as an athlete we all just want one shot, one opportunity, and if you get that shot and get that opportunity, then it’s up to you to go and make the most of it.”
