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NASCAR XFINITY SERIES MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2017

Justin Allgaier

Q. Have you talked to Elliott about what it's going to be like racing without your crew chief?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Yeah, we've had a lot of conversation, not necessarily just Elliott and I, but just our group in general. Obviously, they felt like last year there were things that they did well and there were things that they did poorly. We somewhat have the benefit, I guess, of knowing how they did things last year.
One of the things I really like is Jason Burdett has been an amazing leader to our guys this year, not necessarily just at the track, but outside of the racetrack and what he does on a regular basis. So even though I'm disappointed he's not here‑‑ probably not as disappointed as he is that he's not here, but as disappointed as we are that he's not going to be at the racetrack this weekend, I do feel really good that the procedures and things that we have in place are pretty spectacular.
And who has a former successful crew chief as a car chief all season long that it just works out that he can step in and fill the shoes? So I feel good about where we're at going into Homestead this week.

Q. How important is it to have Wilburn in the sense that he has had significant experience atop the box?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Oh, absolutely. There's no replacement for experience, being in that moment, making those calls at the last possible second. I think that was one of the challenges last year that we had a great crew chief for Elliott last year with Bummy, but they were trying to figure out who was going to make that final decision, who was going to be that guy that was going to make that call. I think that some of these changes and some of these pit calls have to happen so quickly that you can't rely on multiple people. It's got to be one person.
So for that, I feel like having experience in that situation and knowing that role is super important. So I think, for us, we got a great guy on top of the box. As much as I want Jason to be there, and I think he would be an easy shoe‑in as a guy that could lead us through a championship, I know that we got‑‑ in the circumstances, we got the best options that are available.

Q. How do you balance two teammates in the playoff with the fact that only one of you can win?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: That's the hard part. At the end of the day, last year it came down to Elliott and I, not necessarily‑‑ not going for‑‑ we were all going for the championship, but Elliott and I raced each other really well, and this year it's been equally the same. We've had four race teams that were successful all season, and we race each other with the utmost respect. We race each other hard. We race each other clean.
And Daniel fits right in on that. Daniel is an extremely clean race car driver. So I feel like, even though we're teammates and even though we race each other probably a little bit differently than we would other competitors, I feel like the four guys we have going for the championship have an equal and mutual respect for each other. It's going to be a clean but hard battle all the way to the checkered flag.

Q. Until the checkered flag or until maybe last lap?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Even in that circumstance, I don't‑‑ we can all talk a big game, right? But knowing my teammates and knowing Daniel, I think that it's going to be a hard battle, I have no doubt. If we're running 1, 2, 3, 4 coming to the checkered, it's going to be a dogfight, but I think it's going to be the cleanest dogfight you've seen in a number of years.
I'm hoping that's the scenario, right? For our fans. I'd love to see it ‑‑ last year we had all four of us in the top four at one point near the end of the race. I don't see that being any different this year. I think we've got four good competitors and four great race teams.

Q. Justin, you've led the most laps in your career. You won a couple of races. How disappointing would it be to not win the championship this year?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: There's three of us that are going to think that and one that's going to be super excited. I think, from my standpoint, this has been the best season of my career, regardless of laps led or races won. This has been the most fun. This has been the most fun I've had. I feel like personally I'm in the best place.
Race car‑wise, I feel like we've had an amazing season with guys just doing what they needed to do and things working the way that they needed to work. I got to get my daughter to victory lane for the first time this year. That was a surreal moment for me.
But I can tell you, if I can stand there and hoist that championship trophy and she can be standing there right next to me, that's a lot of motivation. That's a lot of motivation to go win a championship and to win at Homestead. We talk about it, there's no easier way to win a championship than to go win this race. That's the easiest plan, and I think we've got the car that can do it.

Q. Justin, are you racing the field, or are you racing the three competitors in the championship four?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I mean, if you go off the fact that the right way to do it is win, you're racing the field. But I think that you have to be aware of your competitors that you're racing against the championship for.
You have to understand what people have at stake. There's a lot of guys that are trying to find rides next year. There's a lot of guys that feel like they've had a more successful season than what they've shown and they're wanting to win a race. There's a lot on the line for everybody.
This is the unique situation we're in with this sport of NASCAR is that, when you go to the Super Bowl or you go to the World Series, it's two teams. That's it. That's all you've got. For us, we've got 40 teams that are all fighting for something different, that all have a different agenda, and there's four of us that are going for a championship. And I think that dynamic is what makes this sport so much fun to be a part of.
You've got to know‑‑ you've got to know what you're racing for, and you've got to know where your other competitors are at. If they wanted to all crash at the beginning of the race and make my life easier, I'd be okay with that part of it, I won't lie to you. But I know that our fans deserve the situation where we all go down to the checkered flag as 1, 2, 3, 4. That would be incredible.

Q. Justin, how did you get past how last year ended? Basically, you never‑‑ after a whole season of working and a whole race of working, you didn't have a shot at the championship because of somebody else's decision. How does somebody get over that?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: You know, I'll be honest with you, that final three laps or five laps, whatever it ended up being, has been the best thing that's ever happened to me in my racing career.

Q. Why?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Because I think a lot of times we get caught up in the fact in this sport that we can control situations we really can't control. I think for us, I look at 2017 as we have done everything we can do up to this point. We've had the best race cars I've ever had. We've had great pit stops. We've got guys that work together on the race team that are incredible. I feel like for me personally I'm in the best shape of my life, on and off the track. I'm in the best place mentally.
And at the end of the day, no matter what happens on Saturday night, I know that we have the best product on the racetrack and we're in the best position we can be. And if it doesn't work, it's not because we weren't in the right spot or because we didn't do things right. It's because circumstances are out of our control. And that's taken so much pressure off of me this year.
I feel like last year I came into this race and I was stressed out to the max, and I was worried about controlling my own destiny when in all reality, I'm looking at it as the plan's already written. God's already got a plan for what's going to happen, and I just hope that I'm a major part of that plan and I can go out there and do my job and do it well and we ultimately take home a championship.

Q. How long did it take to get to that point?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: About a week.

Q. Really?
JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Yeah, I spent a week where, I'll be honest with you, if I could have locked myself in a dark room and not talk to anyone, I'd have been perfectly okay with that.
Probably one of the best parts to me is I talked to Cole not long after the race, and we had a long conversation. I'll be honest with you, I watched the replay from last year again on the plane ride out here, and it still bugs me that we didn't have a shot because of somebody else's decision, but on the flip side of it, knowing the circumstances, knowing how this sport works‑‑ I mean let's be honest, what if I had broken a transmission or run into the wall a little bit too hard on one of those times that I got the wall like 37 times in the race last year and cut a tire? What if a meteor fell out of the sky? Like, I mean, there's so many things that, when you have 40 competitors on the racetrack every week, there's so many things that can happen that are out of your control.
Yeah, I was disappointed, but if I hadn't run into the fence as many times as I had, maybe we wouldn't have had as long a pit stop on the last stop and I beat two guys out of the pits, and now all of a sudden, we're not talking about the same outcome.
So I put a lot of that on myself. I screwed up a lot last year, and I think that, as much as anybody can be mad at somebody else, this sport is all about what you do. If you do everything right, that's all you can do, and you've just got to deal with it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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