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NASCAR CUP SERIES: YELLAWOOD 500October 4, 2020Chris GabehartTalladega, Alabama THE MODERATOR: We're joined by our race winning crew chief, Chris Gabehart. Talk us through what it was like on the pit box as the laps were winding down. CHRIS GABEHART: Yeah, it was a long and crazy race. I'm sure it was long and crazy to watch. We had a fast car. First 25 laps able to lead, control the race. Come off pit road there after that competition caution, didn't get in a good spot. Given our points scenario, there was really no reason to be aggressive. So we just rode around all day, kind of waited for people to wreck, take themselves out. Waited till the end. Typically these races come down to a bunch of really short runs. Just dodged a few bullets, woke up in a really good spot to win, plenty of fuel in the tank. You get Denny that close towards the front of the speedway, he's going to have a great shot. We were able to pull it out. THE MODERATOR: We'll take some questions from the media. Q. Denny talked a few times about the wins that have gotten away, how much he's bothered by that. Have you had to refocus him about what is ahead, Phoenix being the main goal, not focus on what's behind? CHRIS GABEHART: Yeah, well, you know, all of this race team, you know, has been frustrated by some of that. We've certainly been running better than the results have shown for much of these last four, five races. I just reminded him that that's the key, that's the most important part, is performing like you're capable of winning, which we have every week. Just hasn't went our way. Racing, there's a ton of variables. You can't possibly control them all. What you can control is how you perform. We've been performing really well. Race wins are the goal. Phoenix, while at the end of that race comes the championship, certainly that's the goal. Our goal is to go and win Phoenix just like our goal is to come and win all these other races. I wouldn't say refocus, but certainly got to take comfort in we've been running really well. Just haven't been getting some of the results lately. Q. When you saw them making all these yellow line calls, are you worried at all at the end of the race, are they going to call him on it, not? I don't know if it's a helpless feeling at all or not. CHRIS GABEHART: Well, I have certainly seen calls that looked questionable to me before in terms of what the driver did. Oh, probably going to call that. Honestly, when I watched it happen live, it was very clear to me that he had‑‑ his only option to not wreck was to turn left and go under the line, hope he could maintain control of his car, finish the race. Let's keep in mind here, he wasn't going below the line on the straightaways where there's not much transition and it's fairly safe to do it. This was in the middle of the turn three and four bank, where most of the time at 200 miles an hour you're going to wreck. He wouldn't have done that unless there was no choice. But in his mind he was going to wreck if he didn't do it. The only shot was trying to go beneath to avoid the wreck. It honestly never occurred to me that they would call it as anything but that. Q. I don't know how much you looked at the new rules for next year, have you seen the CFD rules, limitations of 150 runs a month? Is that a big deal? CHRIS GABEHART: What an interesting question, Bob. You slid that one in there. That has nothing to do with Talladega. Q. We don't get a chance to talk to people except after races. CHRIS GABEHART: To be honest with you, that's one that yes, I have read the rules. It's not 100% my department. Certainly I'm focused on winning races this year. So it's not been at the forefront of my mind to talk with the aero department or crew chiefs and determine just how detrimental that would or wouldn't be to us. I certainly know the technical landscape of our sport is changing. NASCAR is continuing trying to find ways to save the teams money. Certainly while CFD is not tangible testing in terms of a physical car, wind tunnel, it is something we spend time and resources on. I'm sure everybody is going to come to a responsible understanding of what that is and try to work within it. Q. Unofficially now 54 Playoff points. What kind of position do you feel this puts you in to now survive the Round of 8 to make it to Phoenix? CHRIS GABEHART: Well, second best in Playoff points. If the 4 doesn't win a race and neither do we, we'll enter into that race X amount of Playoff points behind them. Then we would be fighting out for the last point position. I'm certainly happy that we've gained more because I really look at the 2 honestly, not the 4, and say that we've earned a little bit more of a cushion over them after their win at Richmond. We kind of got our cushion back a little. I've said all along in my view the Playoff points, no matter how many you get, serve as benefit to get through the first two rounds of the Playoffs. By the time you get to the third round you're looking at eight guys turning into four guys over the course of three races. There's only one Playoff spot that will be given to points. That's too thin a margin to focus on and rest on. We'll be going into the Round of 8 fully expecting to have to win a race. Q. You mentioned you hadn't been getting the results that you felt you deserved. How difficult is that, maybe it's not, when the 4 team got off to the start that it did? CHRIS GABEHART: It's not. Racing's really hard. Again, there's a ton of variables. Some you can control, some you can't. Kevin and our whole team know that. Their group of racers understand there's a number of things that have to go right to win a race. They've been on the bad side of that, as well. I didn't feel bad about it. Certainly frustrated by it. You certainly want to have things go your way the whole time. I knew exactly this: what happened here at Talladega is the other side of how it can go. The key is the performance and running up front week in, week out, putting yourself in position to win. If you do that, you'll get your fair share. Q. After you and the 4 went back and forth so much this season, did you feel like people expected that? CHRIS GABEHART: Certainly when you look at the first round, you talk about the racetracks, Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, notoriously good tracks for JGR and Denny Hamlin. You might say that. Again, I knew how we were running. We were a top three car every race. But you don't always get top three results. That's why you show up, turn the TV on, buy a ticket, come to the race and check it out. You just can't say for sure. The key was that the performance was there. Thankfully today we had one go our way. Q. Obviously there's different ways to run this race at Talladega. With more and more of the races having crashes at the front of the field, does it make sense to run at the back? You were watching points. If this isn't a Playoff race, do you do the same thing? Do you want to be at the front to try to control it? CHRIS GABEHART: Well, if it wasn't a Playoff race, I'm not sure we would have had the patience to do it the way we did it. The goal wouldn't have been near as obvious as it was given our points position, with the Roval next week being the definite end of another round. If this is race 13, whatever it was, Talladega one, you're trying to win stage points, Playoff points because you don't know how the rest of the season is going to play out. I don't know that we would have been as patient in executing it. Certainly in the situation we were in, at the drop of every caution where a new scenario arose, there was just never a time where the reward was worth the risk. We just rolled around at the back until it was time to roll the dice, see how we turned up. Let guys beat themselves, so to speak, which fortunately for us‑‑ I don't want to say fortunately, but some of the Playoff contenders did, which made our path a little bit more obvious. You never know. You get to the end of these things, staring down the barrel of having to pass 25 cars, you could just as likely wreck passing them as not, so it's tough. Q. When did you decide you were going to come to Talladega with the strategy of being smart, cautious, riding in the back? Did you know right away after last week's race? CHRIS GABEHART: Yeah, but with Denny it's unique. This is what I really tried to coach him up on all week, was while your odds aren't great at a place like Talladega and Daytona of getting through a race unscathed, Denny's instincts produce odds that in my view are better than anyone else's at getting through the race unscathed if he simply pays attention to his instincts and doesn't let the stress of the situation alter his instincts. That won't ensure that you get through the end. Certainly in our points scenario, my message to him was to do what you normally do at these plate races and we will statistically have the best shot of getting to the end of it with a chance to perform. Lo and behold, that's what happened. Just really proud of him. He's just so smart. His consistent ability to measure risk versus reward on a second‑by‑second basis over the course of three or four hours, I really wish our sport, any sport when you're looking at pro athletes, you can't necessarily put yourself in their shoes as a fan of the sport, but it's something I think gets lost in our sport. It's happening at 200 miles an hour. There are no timeouts. You're in this little cocoon with limited information. To be able to measure risk versus reward as well as he does at these places for as long as he does is very difficult to do. Q. Were you sending him reminders this week that this is our plan? CHRIS GABEHART: I said before, that's what I love about working with Denny so much is that I've had drivers in the past that have less experience, less of a caliber, just haven't had the chance to mature yet. With those drivers you do have to make sure you stay focused on that, keeping the big picture in mind, sort of staying on task, that kind of thing. While I certainly take that role with Denny when needed, he is such a sharp professional that in this scenario this week I wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. Q. As you see this race unfold, guys in front of you are crashing out, you are in the catbird seat, are you laughing thinking that you nailed it? CHRIS GABEHART: Not really. As great of a story as that would be for me to say we knew the whole time, we didn't. The only insurance it buys is at one point towards the end, by the early to middle part of the last stage, there were 29 cars left running. Three of our Playoff contenders had been eliminated from the race while one of them was the 1, so that didn't exactly count. But you're staring down the barrel saying I'm going to either finish 28th or I'm going to drive up through there, wind up five, wind up wrecking and finishing 28th. The 18 and 88, eighth and ninth in points, their cars were beaten and battered. The way Talladega and Daytona work is if they avoid all the wrecks, stay in the draft, stay in contention, they could easily run top 10. That's what I meant when I said late in the race you can go through such wild points swings here at the drop of a hat. You never really can count your chickens until they hatch. THE MODERATOR: Chris, thank you for taking the time to join us. Congratulations on another win. CHRIS GABEHART: Thank you so much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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