NASCAR CUP SERIES: COKE ZERO SUGAR 400

August 28, 2021

Todd Gordon

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are going to get started with our post-race press conference here this evening. We are now joined by our race-winning crew chief, Todd Gordon.

Last week when Ryan won you made a comment on the radio about him getting you one more win. Now you can add this one to that tally, as well.

TODD GORDON: Yeah. I never said last one, just one more, right?

Really cool to come back to Daytona and win with Ryan here. It's been a while. Victory Lane in '15 at the 500 with Joey. Ryan and Josh did a tremendous job of again manipulating the end of the race, making the right moves, trying to take the runs from where we could. We had a car that could take pushes. Paid off in the long run.

There were some challenges through the day, just some of the raw speed we didn't have, but we could race really well. Really proud of the effort that everybody put into this, especially Josh Williams, the spotter, and Ryan working together. They're getting this communication piece of how to race these plate races down. I look forward to what we do going forward.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Todd.

Q. Are you sure you want to retire at the end of this season with the way your season is going now?

TODD GORDON: Yeah, my boss said that in Victory Lane, You sure?

Yeah, I'm still looking forward to what the next chapter brings. I'm not sure what that is. A great run. I thought it would be awesome to cap this thing off with victories through the Playoffs and on through Phoenix. That's the goal.

Q. When you consider your journey, NASCAR, Team Penske, what are some of the virtues and qualities you're going to bring with you for the rest of your life?

TODD GORDON: I think the biggest thing is, Roger leads with moral dignity and respect for people. He talks about the human capital, trying to put great people in positions that they can be successful.

There's just so much attention to detail throughout the organization. Whenever you walk into one of Roger's businesses, you'll see that. It's carried all through.

We get a coin every year, and it leads to what he's about. He says effort equals results. It's something, a motto, that is worth it, something that really speaks for what Team Penske is about: attention to details and putting great people together.

It's been a great one, one I've been blessed to be a part of.

Q. Brad has been the leader amongst of drivers at Team Penske for some time. With him on his way out, Ryan getting all these victories, the tremendous amount of respect from the other drivers, talk about the leadership role he may have moving forward.

TODD GORDON: Yeah, I think Team Penske is in a great position. I think Ryan is growing into being a championship contender. I think we've got that ability in front of us in the next 10 races. I can't wait to get going on it. I look forward taking this momentum we have going forward into the Southern 500.

I got to work with Ryan and Joey. I think both of them are great people, very good for the sport. I look for Team Penske to have a lot of influence in the Ford camp, and leadership from that standpoint for both of them.

We have Austin Cindric coming on up into Cup next year in the 2 car. I've talked a fair amount with Austin. I think he's got a great work ethic and he's a thinker. I look for this organization and these three teams to continue to push the package forward and have a lot of impact on our sport.

Q. Obviously you knew you were coming into the Playoffs before these last two weeks. After what's transpired, how does your perspective change going in as you vaulted up into the second seed?

TODD GORDON: Yeah, I didn't know we made it that far. That's part of the things that we talked about, is how do we gain more Playoff points, how do we get ourselves a couple more spots in points, take advantage of situations that are out there.

We talked today. Actually the engineer of the 17 and myself are pretty good friends. We had the conversation today about what happens if we're in this position at the end. It's kind of eerie that we had this particular conversation.

I told him, We'll work with you all we can, but we got to race for the win.

Last year we didn't have that many bonus points going into the Playoffs. We had a setback in the first race, then struggled through the second one. We didn't make it out of the first round. That's been a focus for us, not only to make momentum but to get our points position where we can start off the Playoffs where we want to.

We knew a good starting position, a good pit selection at Darlington was going to be a product of what tonight's finish is. I thought Josh and Ryan did a phenomenal job of manipulating the end of it. I thought the Ford strategy of short pitting and hoping that a caution came out before everybody else came put us in a great position. There's a little luck to that, but there's also some kind of calculated risk of knowing that cautions happen and you want to be ahead of them. We've been on the backside of that before with our long pitting strategies.

Pretty proud of everybody at Ford working together with that piece and playing into our hands, then being able to put ourselves in position to capitalize.

Q. There have been new venues and races this season; the Playoff races are pretty familiar. How do you feel you stack up?

TODD GORDON: I feel great about it. Ryan and I talked about this last year, we felt like the first round was our weakest round because he didn't have a whole lot of confidence at Darlington and Richmond. In the spring of this year we made a focus out of making those racetracks better. Finished eighth at Darlington after hitting the wall racing Denny. I felt like we could run fifth to eighth all day long. Probably could have finished fifth if I didn't get him too loose in the last run.

I look forward to building that momentum into the race this weekend, see what the pavement of turn two has done to how we race there. A lot of grip added from basically the center of one and two to the exit of two. We're going to race differently than we saw in the spring, but I felt like we made the turn there, had a great run there.

We had really good pace at Richmond. We got kind of buried back a little bit and went to trying to run a stage out, where everybody else pitted and split it, ended up burying ourselves there.

I look forward to both those races. The Bristol night race I've won a couple times. Ryan has had a ton of speed there. I feel great about that round. They get better as they go on. You look at the next round, Talladega, a place we've won here, there before. Another place that we can run well.

The Roval he's won at. I look forward to that. Last year we had good pace at the Roval. Got in the water, got spun out. It's again another great round for us.

Vegas out there is a place that we've had a lot of speed. Then you go into round three, I feel great about that one as well. I look forward to our opportunities of carrying ourselves through the Playoffs and getting to Phoenix.

Q. From your position on the pit box, what difference did you really see with the restrictor plate package compared to what we ran at Daytona and Talladega earlier this season?

TODD GORDON: That's a great question.

We took a fair amount of power away. We took some drag away with the wicker off the rear spoiler. I thought what you saw, from the pit box, the runs weren't as big as they used to be because the pace is a little slower, they were manageable.

You saw at times a car could get out front and kind of control both lines by taking the bubble pushes off both of them. It reminded me more of back when we had the 400 rear springs, the package that we had for several years through the early teens, a lot of side-by-side racing. You could still get together, push for a little bit, get a lap or so out of it, but then it would break and you'd have runs from either line, but they weren't big enough that they caused big wrecks, I didn't feel like.

Kudos to NASCAR. I think we made speedway racing manageable as a race car driver. I'd be curious to see what Ryan says about it. I felt like we slowed. The closing rate we had with big power and drag, it created some really big wrecks. I think we've got it back where we still run side-by-side and it's more manageable.

THE MODERATOR: Todd, congratulations again. Thank you for joining us. We wish you the best of luck in the Playoffs.

TODD GORDON: Thank you.