What does it mean to the prestige of NASCAR Cup Series racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway now that it will be contested on the road course instead of the 2.5-mile oval? “It’s definitely not what the oval is, certainly not the Indy 500 or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that was always known for being the 2.5-mile oval and all the history that came along with that from the 500 to the Brickyard 400 over the years, as well. To me, it’s going to be the same, but it is what it is. It’s another racetrack where it’s a different racetrack at the same venue. So we have to go out there and figure it out. I saw clips of last year’s Xfinity Series race there and it looked pretty fun. We’ve been spending more time learning more about it and we are going to put the same effort into that race as any other. And we’ll try to bring home another win there, this time on the road course, with our M&M’S MIX Camry, just like we did there a few times on the oval.” How hard has it been adapting to all the changes this past year? “Obviously, it’s adapting, but last year there were guys that were good that won a lot of races and they were fast, and this year those guys aren’t winning, and now you’ve got different guys that are kind of winning. It’s just mixed up, it’s weird, it’s different. It doesn’t matter which form or fashion you come to the racetrack in, you always want to be fast, you want to be good, you want to be winning. Honestly, with as easy as everything is with just showing up and racing, it’s the perfect storm for anyone as long as you’re good. When you’re winning, it’s like it doesn’t matter, we’re good.” Is road-course racing something that comes naturally to you, or is it something you had to work on? “It’s definitely something you have to work on. With rule changes and tire changes, it’s something you work on every year. There’s always change that you have to work on to be competitive. When I was a kid back in Las Vegas in Legends cars, that’s where I was able to learn about shifting and turning left and turning right. I had the natural instincts for it and won a couple of championships in the winter series we had out there. We actually went out to Sonoma back then and ran the national championship races two years in a row and finished third both times, so I had a little bit of experience on road courses as I came up through the ranks. Certainly the game has changed as far as road course racing this year, with several more races than we used to have, so you have to adapt and adjust. We’ve run well at the majority of the road courses so far this year and I’m hoping we can keep it going this weekend in our M&M’S MIX Camry.” What is it that you like about racing on the road courses? “Just enjoy road racing. You used to only have two a year and you kind of treated them like an off weekend – come in, have fun and try to run hard and what not. Now, there’s four, five, six of them or whatever it is so there’s a bit more work involved to it, but still feel as though it’s fun. I’ve always been fast most times on the natural road courses. It’s nice when you have a shot to come up to a track that you know you can get up in the top-three or four and go shoot for a race win.” Is Indy still Indy without running on the oval track? “For my opinion and my perception, I don’t view it as Indy, no. Indy is the oval. That’s what makes the allure of Indy and that’s the prestige of the place and being around since 1900. It’s been there forever, it has a lot of history there. Spin and win with (Danny) Sullivan, and (Rick) Mears and A.J. Foyt and the Unser story and all that stuff for years. The Andretti story – all of that is IndyCar, obviously, but then it all started in 1994 with NASCAR going there and Jeff Gordon winning five times and (Dale) Earnhardt winning and Dale Jarrett winning, Bobby Labonte winning. It’s like the who’s who has won the Brickyard 400. I don’t foresee that being the same allure being on the road course. That doesn’t mean we won’t dig hard and go try to win what we have in front of us, though.” |
No comments:
Post a Comment