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NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 2, 2020Wally BrownChris GabehartTHE MODERATOR: We know it's a very busy week, so we appreciate your time. We'll go ahead and roll straight into questions. Q. Can you both talk about the match you think you see in the four teams that will compete for the championship at Phoenix. CHRIS GABEHART: I guess I can go first from my perspective. Certainly there's a lot of different storylines. You got two guys who have already won a championship, both over at Penske, who have been really hot on this style of racetrack this year. Certainly looking to continue from that experience and momentum. Then you got Chase Elliott, who in my mind is one of the brightest young drivers in our sport, a ton of talent, watched him race for a number of years. Coming out of a clutch win at Martinsville. I had some experience with that. We had to do that last year at Phoenix. They're going to be hot and ready to roll. Denny has been there, done that a lot. A tremendously good season. A lot of momentum from that. When you look at it from this point of view, every team has something to offer and it will be interesting to see how it prevails. WALLY BROWN: You look at the first race this year, all the guys that are fast are the guys in this championship. It's going to be a great race. Q. Chris, do you have any reaction to all the hubbub over the radio call telling Erik Jones not to pass Denny? What are your thoughts on that? CHRIS GABEHART: Yeah, I think it's racing. I think you can look back to one week prior at Texas where the stakes were honestly just as high or higher for Martin Truex, and Kyle Busch won the race. Really didn't cut him any slack obviously. If you look in that very same race, there was a situation where the 20 car was the Lucky Dog and the 11 was the car one lap down. There were no team orders there. The 20 ended up getting the Lucky Dog. We had to wave around and try to get on a lead lap another way. Each one of these teams and drivers and sponsors have a lot that goes into this, are expected to perform at their top level. I can certainly tell you where Martinsville was concerned, Erik was doing plenty of what he was needed to do to the 11's back bumper to try to get by him. If there were some sort of team orders on, he wouldn't have been beating our back bumper. I think Denny was very determined to not get passed, he knew how important it was, he was very difficult to pass, and that's how it played out. Q. Wally, since NASCAR did say they were going to look at the 20's radio today, I was curious if they've had any conversations with you yet? WALLY BROWN: Nope, we haven't had any discussions really about that. To be honest with you, we came in this morning, we've been focused on Phoenix. We haven't really spent any energy on that. Q. Chris, what happened prerace, not getting the travel washer, whatever, pulled out, is that a concern, is that your biggest worry that you guys are going to do something that you know you usually do but you forget to do on Sunday? CHRIS GABEHART: No, it's not really. Certainly this is an environment where those types of mistakes are more prone to happen. We've seen them in all three series this year. This was a very innocent one. It didn't affect how the car performed in any way. It was easy to fix at the first stop to make sure we were in compliance. I'm not worried about that. Certainly this format demands the very best out of every member of the race team. These types of things highlight that. That's definitely not my focus this week. Q. Wally, the 20 thing briefly. There was radio communication where there was one comment made, Don't pass him, Jones. How do you look at that? Some people look at that as a team order per se even with Jones beating on the back bumper of Denny's car there. WALLY BROWN: Like Chris said, we don't have team orders. It's just not the way we race. Obviously if you listen to that whole transcript, there was a lot of talk about point implications across the board from multiple teams. Let's face it, I mean, at that point in time, Denny was not going to let him around. They probably would have crashed if they would have tried to. If he would have tried to make a pass, he probably would have crashed both of them, no different than the last lap effort on the 4 car. The stakes are high. You're not going to give up those spots, you're going to do everything you can. That's the way I look at it. Q. Obviously having a car in the championship, how do you address it or do you need to address it with your other three teams on how they race the competitors out there racing for a championship? WALLY BROWN: From our perspective, we tell our drivers to race each other and respect them. We are teammates. We want to show respect out there. I've been in a lot of meetings where we've had all our guys, teammates, wreck each other for a win. I've been in a lot more meetings that way than the other way, so... Q. Wally, what was your reaction in seeing that last desperate move by Kevin Harvick on the 18 on the final laps at Martinsville? WALLY BROWN: My reaction? Obviously everything was happening so fast at that point. Again, like I said, you have to do what you have to do to get to the final round. I have no problem with what happened personally. Everyone's going for it. That's the structure, the way we've set it up now. That's the way you've got to race. Q. Chris, how nervous were you the final laps, knowing how close the points were? CHRIS GABEHART: Well, it's NASCAR racing, right? That's why you have to tune in and watch all 500 laps. If you would have tuned out after the first two stages, I would have told you you couldn't go possibly better than the 11, collecting 18 stage points, the 4 not getting any, us extending our cushion to the 2. Realistically it was a fantastic two stages for us. We had an issue on pit road. We started making our way back, then kind of plateaued. 4 got back on the lead lap. He starts racing it in. The 2 is fast. Next thing you know I was thinking we were going to be out. We had lost momentum and they had gained it, just like any heavyweight fight would go. I think that's what's great about our sport: you just never know. That's why you got to tune in until the final lap. Q. Chris, what makes you and Denny Hamlin work so well together? CHRIS GABEHART: It's a lot of things. It's really about this whole race team. Joe Gibbs Racing, FedEx, Toyota, all the members of the 11 team, all the guys back here at the shop. It takes all of that for that foundation to allow us to work together the way we do. The bottom line is it's trust. He trusts that he's getting the very best out of his race team each and every week. I trust he's giving us his very best each and every week. That trust builds upon success. We've been fortunate to have that. It does nothing but continue to grow roots, hopefully for years to come. Q. Chris, not specifically about the tape and last year's finale, but any concerns or efforts to not overthink things on Sunday? CHRIS GABEHART: You certainly got to learn from your mistakes and your successes, right? That's part of getting better. It's definitely not in my mind. I'm not concerned of making those same issues again. I can tell you we've learned from them. For better or worse, we're going to put our best foot forward, give Denny the best platform we can as a race team to go out and perform, then we're going to let him perform. I'm looking forward to that opportunity. I think we'll have a great shot at it. Q. Denny has had some shots at a title before, come up short for a variety of different reasons. What does it feel like in trying to help him get that quest to a first title? CHRIS GABEHART: We just got to win another race. We've won 13 of them together. I think he's won 44 of them. We got to get him to 45 and me to 14. That's the way this format works. It's got four rounds, three races per round, then one race to decide it all. It's like Harvick said yesterday, it's a very different world in how we crown our champions today, full of a lot of exciting racing, no doubt about it. You got to tune into the very last lap of the NASCAR season to know how it's all going to play out. The reality is we have to go out and run another race. It's really that simple. It just is that the championship is at the end of this one. Q. How important is this championship to Denny? CHRIS GABEHART: I think it certainly means a lot. I think that's a better question for him. Certainly that's the pinnacle, the crown jewel of the sport as a driver, is to be a champion one day, the sport's top level. It would mean a lot to him, myself, the 11 team, all of Joe Gibbs Racing for sure. Q. Chris, you're the only crew chief back in the Championship 4 from last year. How is preparation different this week knowing you don't have any practice? Does it make you more anxious? CHRIS GABEHART: That's a good question. Yeah, a little bit because this is a very unique circumstance even within this year in that it's the longest we've been from the previous race at any track. Phoenix was way back in whatever it was, race two or three, right? It was a long time ago. A lot has changed in the game. A lot of development, a lot of learning about this new short track aero package. Now you've got to show up and try to apply all that without any practice. You got to do it lap one, turn one of the race. There's a lot of work to be done in trying to get all the math just right. But I'm looking forward to the challenge. Q. Chris, one of the first things Denny said when he got out of the car last night was he was concerned about improving the short track package for Phoenix. What do you feel you need to improve to win the championship? Is it speed? Handling? Keeping up with the track conditions during the course of the race? CHRIS GABEHART: Well, I mean, yes it's all of those things. But that's no different any week. It doesn't matter if it's a road course, a 550 race, a speedway race, you have to have all those things. That's part of it. To be honest with you, I think we've shown this entire year we have that capability. You look at both Bristols, a tremendously fast car. Look at Louden, us and Keselowski duked it out all day long. Richmond, we had a very strong first stage showing, then had some trouble and just weren't able to recover. In Martinsville, doesn't apply. We're running top three with the top three cars, just get caught up in a restart wreck. We have to execute, execute to our full potential. If we do that, we'll have a shot to win. Q. You somewhat already did this at Phoenix next year to get to Homestead. Do you use that as a rallying cry for the team? CHRIS GABEHART: Absolutely. I can't think of a more favorable position to be in. There's certainly a more pressure‑packed situation to be in than we were last year, way more than Richmond. For us making the Championship 4 is the goal. Winning the championship is gravy. Last year, like Chase, when we were in a do‑or‑die situation, we were able to pull it off at that racetrack, at the track where the championship is decided this year, is something that no other team can say. We have won a clutch race at Phoenix. I think that is a big deal for us. Hopefully we can pull it off again. Q. Chris, from the standpoint of the package, you learned so much since the first Phoenix race. Is the setup going to be similar to what we saw in March for you guys or did you learn stuff along the way to change your approach? CHRIS GABEHART: Well, the thing about this sport is if it's the same as the last time you were there, you're falling behind to somebody. That's just the reality of it. You've got to push your tools and your resources and always come up with a better mousetrap. Doesn't mean you're going to succeed every time. If you don't push and try to make your stuff better than the time you were there before, you're going to be incrementally worse than whoever does push and get it better. Absolutely it's going to be different and hopefully it will be better. THE MODERATOR: Chris and Wally, thank you guys for joining us. We appreciate your time. Best of luck this week in Phoenix. WALLY BROWN: Thank you. CHRIS GABEHART: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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