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NASCAR CUP SERIES: COCA-COLA 600May 24, 2020Jeremy BullinsConcord, North Carolina THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by crew chief Jeremy Bullins. Walk us through your Coca‑Cola 600 victory tonight. JEREMY BULLINS: Yeah, that was obviously the longest race of the year. We had a decent qualifying effort. We found an issue after qualifying that we needed to repair. We started in the back, kind of made it harder on ourselves. We just steadily worked our way up there all day. Finally in the last stage felt like we had a shot at it if we could get out front. We felt like we were capable of leading for a while. We were a little better short run than they were long run. The 9 eventually got by us. We kind of talked through our options of what do you do if. We had already kind of made our decision if we got that late caution we were going to stay out, take a shot at it. It's so important to win a race, hard to give up the front row. It's a tough call when you're the leader. I don't envy that position. I'm not surprised that they pitted. It's a tough call. It's a hard call to make. We just committed to taking the front row and take a shot at the restart. Not many people I'd rather have in that situation than Brad. He took advantage of it. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions. Q. A lot of people talked at the beginning of the season, wondering how your relationship with Brad was going to work. You had success in the Xfinity Series. How do you feel that has grown? What was your communication during the shutdown? JEREMY BULLINS: We stayed in touch a lot actually over the break. We just tried to plan ahead, think about things that we needed to do to get better as a team, the things that we would need to work on our cars to be better. You go back to Xfinity days, yeah, we won a bunch of races and a couple of championships working together. He was a big part of everything that we did with the Xfinity program, building that program into what is still is today. There's always been a good trust and good relationship with him. I know where he's coming from. I feel like we understand each other well. We've always worked together well. It was kind of like we hit the ground running again. It took a couple races to figure out the feel that he needed in the cars, what we needed to do better for him. I feel like we've been getting a lot closer with that every week. Darlington I felt like we got really close at the end of that one and felt like we put ourselves in position again today. You keep doing that, sooner or later you hope you're going to do what we did today, be in the right spots at the right time. Q. Throughout the evening it appeared track position was going to be crucial. Did it surprise you that Chase and them decided to pit? With only two laps left, did it play out like you thought? JEREMY BULLINS: Yeah, it's tough. You never want to be the leader in that situation. It's the hardest call. You feel like you're a sitting duck if you stay out. You feel like everybody is going to do the opposite of what you do. There's times where everybody pits and surprises you and you're sitting there with no tires if you stay out. We've had a couple races already this year where we wished we would have stayed out in certain scenarios. We made a pact that we were going to be aggressive. We felt like that was the situation where we needed to be aggressive and stay out and take a shot at it. Q. On Wednesday night, do you expect a higher intensity? Do you think the strategy calls will be even more unpredictable? JEREMY BULLINS: I think a lot of that is going to depend on what happens with the PJ1, if it gets reapplied after the races we're going to see the next couple nights. To your point, the shorter races seem to have a different level of intensity because you just don't have time to give up track position or get track position. You got to be aggressive early and try to get yourself up front and stay there. Q. Was there any question as to whether or not to bring Brad down pit road during the final caution? JEREMY BULLINS: Not from us, no. Like I said, Las Vegas was a race that we pitted at the end and felt in hindsight we should have stayed out and took a shot at it. If you can be on the front row, you got a chance. We kind of talked about it going into the weekend and said, If we get that opportunity, there's no question what we're doing, we're going to take a shot at it. There was no real discussion about it. We both kind of said the same thing and went on. Q. The groove was moving up more and more as the night went on. What was the feedback Brad was giving to you? JEREMY BULLINS: The traction compound, it needs a little bit of heat to work. Obviously with the rain delay, we got later into the night, kind of getting the race started. It needs heat to make traction. It needs cars running on it, it needs track temp. That's why it seems to get better and better and better until you finally wear it out. I don't think we ever got to the point where we wore it out up there. The Wednesday race will have a lot to do with whether or not they put it back down or add to it or whatever. Obviously there's a lot of communication there. Coleman Pressley does a great job spotting, letting Brad know where he sees people running in it, how many cars are running in it, is it successful, is it not, working yet or not. There's a lot of communication on the spotter's side that keeps Brad in the loop of what's going on. Q. You've worked with Brad in the past. What have you learned about him throughout this process this year as Cup crew chief and driver that perhaps you didn't know in the past? JEREMY BULLINS: I can't say I'm really surprised about a whole lot. I think the biggest difference with Brad from when we worked together before is obviously he's married with a couple kids, has some other business interests and things like that. He's still just as passionate about winning races and still about the sport. That part hasn't changed at all. He's driven. He's hungry. He wants to do well. That's what led us to be successful back then and hopefully we can build on this. Q. What are the chances with the race on Wednesday being at night the chances of bringing the same car back? What adjustments will you need to make with the invert? JEREMY BULLINS: I don't anticipate bringing the same car back. I think we certainly could. We've already put a lot of time and effort into the car we plan on bringing Wednesday, have guys at the shop working on it today. It's almost ready to go. I feel like our cars are built close enough that we can apply some of the things we learned to that one and go race it on Wednesday. I think the starting the 20th thing, I guess that's one of the upsides of starting in the back today, we kind of had some experience of what it took to get to the front, to get up through traffic. Hopefully we can apply some of what we learned for that for Wednesday night. Q. How proud of the No. 2 team are you that you were able to make adjustments to the car, start from the back and end up in Victory Lane all dealing with the challenges of social distancing? JEREMY BULLINS: Yeah, the social distancing part, it's really strange. We're in Charlotte. This is a race where normally when you win here, you have not only the driver's wife and family, so many the team guys' wives, families, girlfriends, moms and dads, all kinds of people here with you to celebrate. Not to mention having no fans. It's a little bit of a surreal experience. I'm super proud of this team. I feel like I got one of the best teams in the garage. I'll put them up against anybody. Got the best engineers in the sport, the mechanics, the pit crew, I'll put them up against anybody. We've been building this program for a while. It's all the same folks that we worked with with Ryan. We're working with Brad now. We knew when we got paired up with Brad there was a lot of experience there to leverage, make our team better. This is a great start for us. We were already kind of trending in the right direction. To get a win this early, hopefully we can just get a few more and make a run at a championship. THE MODERATOR: Jeremy, as surreal as it seems, you are a Coca‑Cola 600 winner. Congratulations on the triumph. Good luck on Wednesday night. JEREMY BULLINS: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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