NASCAR CUP SERIES: FOOD CITY DIRT RACE

April 17, 2022

Ben Beshore

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We'll start our post race media availabilities. We have the race winning crew chief Ben Beshore.

Wild finish there. Take us through the night from your perspective on top of the box.

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, seemed like we had a decent car all night. We were able to make some passes early in the race which was encouraging. With the track conditions being such a guess all weekend, wasn't really sure what we were going to have there. It was good to see we had good speed all night.

The rain delay threw a wrench into the equation there. The subsequent rain delays there at the end really made the track super slick.

Yeah, just right place at the right time and able to get it at the end.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Ben.

Q. When you made the decision to stay out before the end of the second stage, were you aware of how the scoring would be? Once you learned Briscoe was the leader, did you think you would have to protest?

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, that was disappointing. I've been in Xfinity or Cup for 18 years. I've never seen -- we don't do the stage racing that often. It's a pretty unique circumstance. Generally that situation happens and they open the pits, we inherit the lead. We had come back around. But they're not counting cautions. That was a little confusing.

I think it just comes with never doing stage racing except for here, where they freeze the field. I guess lack of understanding on my part.

At the end of the day we thought it was going to go back green anyhow. After that ring blew through there, we would inherit the lead. 20-car buffer with the tires. It was going to work out either way. Had it rained out, I would have been pretty mad.

Q. Many teams seemed confused there. It was in the pre-race driver video. Do you watch that?

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, yeah, we watch it every week. Now that we don't have driver meetings, yeah, we definitely make sure we watch that video every week.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. Yes, I watched the video.

Q. I'm making sure you did see it. It was in there. My second question is, overall what did you think of this race? Is it worth it to be here on dirt?

BEN BESHORE: I think it's a little bit of a novelty, but it put on some great racing to be honest. They did a tremendous job with the track prep. The track didn't get super dusty. The bottom came in for a little bit, but the top was dominant most of the night. It was racy whereas last year everyone was sort of glued to the bottom groove and you couldn't do anything.

I think it was good to have it at night, helped control the moisture in the track. They did a really good job with track prep and made the show quite a bit better than what we had previously.

Q. Kyle hasn't been the happiest this season. Has it been a rough year?

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we had a shot at winning Vegas, on a pit call lost it. Other than that, times that we've kind of gotten in the top five we either got wrecked or something happened, mechanical failures. It's just been up and down. Trying to learn this new car. We haven't had the good long run speed. We're searching for stuff.

So, yeah, it's been up and down. It feels like a miracle we came out of here with a win, going into this weekend, being a dirt race, not really knowing what to expect. Yeah, super excited about this weekend. Really picks the team up from sort of the rough start we had so far this year.

Q. Did most of your guys go home to have Easter this morning? Gibbs had given the team the option.

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, I think all but two guys on my team flew back to do the Easter thing with family last night. That was amazing with the way the schedule worked out. We were home by 9:30 and didn't have to fly back till noon today. That was great.

Q. What has Kyle been like recently with the frustration early in the season? Has he continued to put pressure on you?

BEN BESHORE: Yeah, no, we have some pretty good meetings after every race, just try to figure this thing out. We're used to working with the same parts and pieces for so long, you have a pretty good idea, I should have done this, this and this, that would have helped my problem. Now it's a whole new bag of variables you got to deal with.

Us and the engineers are still trying to figure out, try to give him the feel he's looking for in this new car with the new suspension packages.

It's a work in progress, like I'm sure every team is. The learning curve is really steep right now eight or nine races into the season. I'm sure in another eight or nine we'll look back on what we did this weekend and, Why did we do that? Everyone is learning so fast right now and developing what they think is the best package for each weekend.

Kyle has been really good, giving us good feedback, really working on our cars, trying to get them better every week.

THE MODERATOR: Ben, thank you.

BEN BESHORE: Thank you.