NASCAR CUP SERIES: PALA CASINO 400

February 26, 2023

Randall Burnett

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are going to go ahead and kick off media availabilities for the Pala Casino 400. We are joined by the winning crew chief of the No. 8 team, Randall Burnett.

Q. That last stop, was that more of adjustment or the clean air that Kyle seemed to pull away from Chastain on?

RANDALL BURNETT: Well, I think it was the first time we've really got clean air. Every time we got up to the front today, something would happen, caution would come out or whatever and we'd cycle back a little bit.

But I thought the car was really good when he got out there by himself. We pitted right there, the 22 came down and kind of forced a lot of people's hands. We wanted to go a couple more laps, but when we got by the 1 coming off of 2 there, I didn't want to give them the opportunity to pit a lap earlier and then jump us in that cycle and come out ahead of us.

As soon as we got the lead there, the 22 had pitted the lap before, so we just decided to come, and fortunately we cycled out in front of him and was able to keep that clean air, which certainly helped our car.

Q. You've pretty much had the best car here the last two years, different drivers. I know setups have changed drastically, but was there anything that you could lean on from what you did last year to try to at least get a baseline for what you did today?

RANDALL BURNETT: Honestly, over the course of the year, the cars, we've evolved so far with the cars. I think last year when we got here, we might have been a little ahead of the curve or a little more aggressive on things than some guys were the first race. Obviously it showed when we blew a left rear last year, so we were on the aggressive side of things, and that ended up costing us. We had a really fast car. The setup today was completely different than it was a year ago, and that just shows how much we've evolved with this car and how much we've learned in a year.

Q. How many races can you win this year with Kyle Busch?

RANDALL BURNETT: I don't know. I hope to be in here a lot more. He's a pretty incredible talent, obviously. I think everybody knows that. I'm blessed to be working with that kind of talent.

We've got a great group on that 8 crew. Those guys work their guts out, a lot of talent on that team, and to mix Kyle in with that, and he gets along with all the guys and everything has been good so far.

I think we've been -- between the Clash and the 150s and the 500 and now, I think we've led laps in every race or we're at least battling for the lead. We've been there every race so far, and hopefully we don't see an end to that anytime soon.

Q. Have you set the standard too high?

RANDALL BURNETT: Well, I don't know. I hope not. It's nice to win a race early, especially with us where really this is our first intermediate track as you would say. We still haven't really had a true short track. LA is on its own deal.

It's kind of a little breath of fresh air to be able to get a win knocked out early, and we can kind of grow this team together and try some things and learn some things with him and prepare for the Playoffs.

Q. Randall, can you address how the Chevrolets have worked together? We saw it at Daytona, we saw it today. Certain tracks it's going to behoove you to work together, but to see everybody up front like that, I think it's a testament to kind of the teamwork that's going on there right now.

RANDALL BURNETT: Well, yeah, obviously GM has put a lot of resources into this Cup program and even the Xfinity and the trucks now. They've built that new tech center over there. There's more communication between the teams. We don't share everything by any means, but there's a lot more communication across the Chevy teams than there used to be for sure, and I do think that helps.

I think it's a big part of understanding where everybody is at and trying to learn from one another, and I think that's helped our group, the Chevy group as a whole be better.

I'm really happy with what Eric Warren has got going on over there and all those things. It's helping all of us, I think.

Q. It sounded like you guys weren't the only Chevy team that was struggling to get your SMT. Did that get sorted out by the end of the race?

RANDALL BURNETT: It was a little spotty today. The beginning of the race we didn't really have anything at all, and it was close to the middle of the race before we really had much.

I don't really know what happened there or what causes that. But fortunately a lot of us have been around long enough, we were here before all that stuff was here, so we kind of went back to how we used to do things and figured it out as we went.

It makes it a little tough. Fortunately our car was really good today. Kyle was fairly happy with it. We had to make some small adjustments here and there and try and get a little better, but we didn't need it as much as say you would if you didn't have the pace.

I didn't feel like it affected us a ton today, but yeah, definitely different than what we've seen.

Q. (No microphone.)

RANDALL BURNETT: No, we had timing and scoring and all that stuff, just being able to compare ourselves to say like the 1 car when we were trying to chase him down or -- you know what I mean? All the things we look at during the race. Some of the strategy stuff we look at, all that, has kind of made it a little bit more difficult, but it's what it is. We went on with it and figured it out, and here we are.

Q. When Kyle gets a speeding penalty, do you know what you want to say to him? Is there any part of you, gosh, I don't know how he's going to react to what I'm going to say, so what do I say? Did you have any thoughts or questions in your mind --

RANDALL BURNETT: No, I just tried to -- if you look back at it, he's one of the best on pit road every year, and it's because he's aggressive at it, and he's got a way that he likes to do things, and it's on the limit. Every now and then you're going to get caught, and we're going to talk about it going forward and really weigh the risk versus the reward right there; know what I mean?

He gets everything he can all the time, and that's why he's won so many races. He does everything to the limit.

I think that shows, and he's good at that, and you're going to have that.

The best thing we did, like Derek was like, I don't know -- like that was our first real situation. Obviously we had our penalty last week, and that wasn't as big a deal because we knew we had a stage and all that coming up.

You know, this could have been a little more detrimental, obviously, but we just told him to shake it off. He was a little harder on himself more than anything because he's a perfectionist, and he wants to get it right and doesn't want to put us in that position.

We'll look at everything and make adjustments going forward if we need to.

Q. Randall, the 8 car dominated this race last year until the flat tire. Does this win feel extra sweet knowing how good of a car you had last year?

RANDALL BURNETT: Yeah, you know, that one still stings last year. Felt like we should have probably had our first win with Tyler last year, and I'll take that on my shoulders. I was the one that made the air pressure adjustment and got too aggressive and got too greedy, and it cost us a race. You live and you learn, and all my bosses today, Richard, Andy, everybody, make sure you got enough air in the tires, so we did that this week, and yeah, obviously Goodyear has worked on the tire. Didn't really see any issues today at all.

This place is pretty extreme with as rough as it is and everything that the tire and the sidewall goes through. So hats off to them to be able to bring a durable tire for us and let us test the limits on it.

Q. We've asked a lot of drivers this, so I figured I'd ask from a crew chief's perspective, but will you miss this track?

RANDALL BURNETT: Yeah, absolutely. I even said that in the middle of the race to my guys. I'm like, man, on them restarts it was great, they were four and five wide and all that and running all over the racetrack. I love the tracks where you can run the bottom, you can run the middle, you can run the top. I think it's a great racetrack, and I told my guys, I was like, man, we're going to miss this place when it's gone for sure.

Definitely sad it's going. Glad we got the last win here at this track, and I think it's extra special for Kyle because he got his first win as a Cup driver here, so to be the last one to win here at this track and in this configuration I think is a cool thing for him. I think he'll extra like that. It's a little extra special for him.

Yeah, we'll definitely miss this place. It's a great place.

Q. How much longer do you think this track would have had if not for the sale?

RANDALL BURNETT: I mean, I don't know. It's hard to tell. It's been pretty consistent when we've came back here every year. Eventually it's going to need a repave like anywhere else will after time. Fortunately the weather isn't -- with the exception of this week, of course, the weather isn't terrible here, so I think it's helped keeping the surface good and not needing a repave for as long as it has. You obviously haven't seen any problems with it. None of the sealer or anything like that came up today, so that was good. Who knows. I guess it doesn't really matter now. They're going to tear it down starting tomorrow, I think.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations.