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NASCAR CUP SERIES: CONSUMERS ENERGY 400August 9, 2020Rodney ChildersBrooklyn, Michigan THE MODERATOR: Rodney, thank you for joining us. Congratulations on sweeping the Michigan weekend. We'll get right into questions for you. Q. Kevin said he doesn't think you guys will ever use this car again. Even though it's three for three, is it possible this is the last we've seen of it or... RODNEY CHILDERS: I don't know. That's kind of up to me to decide. It's top secret. Q. Will you let us know or is it just going to be a surprise? RODNEY CHILDERS: It's going to be a surprise. Q. Where does this season rank for you so far? RODNEY CHILDERS: I mean, it's definitely one of the best ones we've had as a group. 2018 was a special year with winning. Winning eight points races, the All‑Star Race, to have nine total was a great year for us and a great year for our company, too. I think that year Stewart‑Haas had won 11 races. This year ranks right up there. It's been a great year for us. There's still a lot of races to go, a lot of races that we can win. Your goal is always to go and try to win all of them. That's probably not going to happen, but that's what we try to do, put our best foot forward. Q. You have two wins at Michigan this weekend, but does anything transfer moving forward? RODNEY CHILDERS: No, not really. This place is kind of unique. Kind of what works here is what works at Michigan. You just got to keep that in your notebook and plan on using that stuff for next year. Q. How do these races this week and even the next couple weeks help prepare a team for the Playoffs? How does a team prepare for the Playoffs if the tracks don't correlate well? RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, I mean, you're more or less working on that stuff. Try to be prepared as best you can, try to figure out what kind of cars you're going to take, what kind of bodies, how much downforce, all that stuff. Just try to do the best you can with it. Right now, every racetrack is a little bit different coming up. You just kind of got to roll with it and do your best. Hopefully you're prepared when it comes. Q. Certainly with the doubleheader weekends, we've seen other races where the race length is shortened from years past. How does that change things from a crew chief's perspective if maybe this becomes more of a trend? RODNEY CHILDERS: Yeah, I mean, the shorter races, seems like it's been a good thing. Keeps things exciting. Everybody is racing harder the whole time, shorter stages. Not much for people riding around or waiting till the end, any of that kind of thing. I think the doubleheaders so far have been good. I think putting two of them in the same weekend has been something that probably saves a lot of money for the teams, you're able to put on a good show two days in a row. We'll just have to see how that plays outgoing forward. Q. How does a doubleheader weekend impact a crew? RODNEY CHILDERS: I mean, I think all of us learn a little bit every time we do it. I think doing it at Pocono the first time was maybe a little bit of a shock just because none of us had ever done it before. Doing it this weekend, it kind of seemed fairly normal and not much of a problem at all. It seemed like the guys that even with the backup cars had time to get their stuff ready to go and be ready for today's race. All of us keep learning through all of it, communicating, working through it best we can. Q. (Question about Chris Gabehart.) RODNEY CHILDERS: Both teams are doing a great job. Obviously both drivers are doing a great job. Everybody is bringing great cars to the racetrack. It's been a fun little battle all year. To have a past relationship with Chris from the karting days and stuff, we've always got along good, we respect each other a lot. I just went and told him and his guys good job. They said the same thing back. They're a bunch of classy guys. We just try to keep it fun and keep each other motivated, keep pushing as hard as we can. Q. In past cars that have been very dominant got a nickname. This one is three for three, shows no signs of not winning any time soon. Have you thought of a nickname you want to attach? RODNEY CHILDERS: No. I mean, we don't really talk about that kind of stuff. We've had some good cars over the years with the 4 team. Some of them have won a lot of races. We call it 081 and we keep it going through the system just like any other car. Just have to figure out our car schedule, where we're going to run it again, keep moving forward with it. Q. What are your thoughts on not racing at Watkins Glen this year? RODNEY CHILDERS: Watkins Glen always has been a great racetrack for the series. Every time I go up there I make sure I hop on a golf cart and take a tour of the infield there, just look around and appreciate how many fans are there, how many people are in the infield. Just the support that we get from that area for our sport, that part has been just fantastic up there, especially the last few years. If I had to pick one racetrack that I felt we had the most support at, it would be that one. I hate all those folks aren't going to be able to come watch us race. Hopefully they're keeping up with us on the TVs at home, and we can get back there next year and put on a good show for them. Q. As solid as Joe Gibbs Racing was last year, was that like a challenge for your team and for Ford to come back even stronger in 2020 to try to thwart what they were trying to do? RODNEY CHILDERS: I don't know. I mean, we don't normally concentrate on them. We just concentrate on us. We had some things that we needed to do better as a team. We've been able to accomplish some of those this year. Our pit crew guys have really stepped up and made a huge difference with what we're doing on the racetrack. That's a huge deal. The other side of it is having better racecars, unloading better racecars. I think every year it kind of swings each way, who has their stuff together from a race team standpoint. Stewart‑Haas Racing has done a great job over the years. Whether we've been absolutely perfect or not, sometimes we're not. On the other side of it, we're always competitive, we're always working hard to try to win races whether we're the best at that particular time. We've just been working hard over the off‑season, trying to build great racecars, just doing all those details right. THE MODERATOR: Rodney, thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations on the weekend sweep. We'll see you at the Daytona road course. RODNEY CHILDERS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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