NASCAR CUP SERIES: CHAMPIONSHIP

November 5, 2023

Mark Rushbrook

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: For the second consecutive night and third consecutive day, Ford is the champion. For the second consecutive day we have Mark Rushbrook with us to talk about it.

Congratulations on sweeping the week. Mark, we'll go to questions.

Q. After the struggles you had all year, to even have had a chance to be in this was nice. You swept the weekend. Are you shocked?

MARK RUSHBROOK: Thank you for phrasing it that way (smiling).

No, I mean, this is NASCAR, right? All three national series are so competitive, you've got to be on your game for every element of the program, whether it's the engine, the chassis, the setup, the aero, the driver, the pit crew, everything has got to be right.

Yeah, we did struggle for sure, especially in Cup early on certain style tracks. All of our racing teams working together, nobody gave up, they kept digging, certainly came on strong, especially with Team Penske and the 12 car through the Playoffs. Had some strength with RFK through the season.

We've had seasons where we won a lot of races and not won a championship. That's been a disappointment. We didn't win as many races as we would have liked to this year, but to win three championships just makes a statement I think about the team we have in Ford Performance, but the partnership and the family that we have racing our cars and trucks on track.

Q. Were you surprised by the end result?

MARK RUSHBROOK: No. I said this week in some of the interviews, as we were unveiling our new car, people were asking obviously about the championship, you want to always have at least one driver in the Championship 4 for every series. You'd like to have more. We had one driver in. I knew we had a good shot with all of those drivers and teams.

But so much happens during the race. Especially Friday night things could have gone any direction. Yeah, Ryan was so strong today that he was driving to the front on every run. He was racing hard against everybody. He certainly earned the championship today.

THE MODERATOR: This is the first time since 2001 a manufacturer has swept all three championships, only the sixth time in history, the first was done by Chevy.

Q. Mark, specifically on the Cup Series side, you and everyone at Ford had talked about it all year, you're trying, never giving up. When the Playoffs started, as you had Joey, Ryan, started to get whittled down, can you talk about what these last 10 weeks were like.

MARK RUSHBROOK: Well, we entered in Cup with more drivers than Chevy and Toyota to start, but then we lost more in the first round going from 16 to 12. We were on the other side of it.

That is what makes this Playoff format exciting, is those cutoffs where you're cutting every three races four of the drivers. You've got to peak at the right time and have the right finishes at the right time.

It certainly -- especially for the 12 car and Team Penske, they came on strong winning at Talladega, then really strong again at Miami-Homestead, winning at Martinsville, and strong here again today.

Q. (No microphone.)

MARK RUSHBROOK: Yeah, well, I feel like we work so hard every year. Everyone does, right? That's what NASCAR racing is.

When you do have struggles early in the season, it does make you at some level dig deeper and work harder. It stresses relationships, for sure. Ultimately you come back together as family and partners and get through it.

Q. The first time in 19 years you won back-to-back Cup titles. All been with the Gen 7 car. You've had some struggles, but what can you chalk the success up to?

MARK RUSHBROOK: Well, we have increased the emphasis on our program every single year. Certainly with the relevance we were really big at pushing for the Next Gen car back in the early days when it was first being talked about, the relevance and everything, which made it even more important for us to be successful with it.

We were working hard obviously on the Next Gen car before we were ever racing it, not just on the body but making sure we understood what the common chassis was, running it in our simulator. Really understanding it I think is what it takes to be successful.

Q. From a marketing point of view, how important is it to win with the Mustang the Cup Series? Can you market this also internationally outside of the United States?

MARK RUSHBROOK: Yeah, winning is everything for us, just as a point of pride. It's certainly going to be a celebration in Dearborn. My phone has been blowing up with Ford family members and our senior executives already so excited about it. It means a lot internally to the customer because motorsports is so important to us.

That is the basis for successful marketing programs, is success on the racetrack. So you have to win the races, you have to win championships to have that credibility, and for fans to engage with your brand and make them proud to have a Ford parked in their driveway or in their garage.

For us, NASCAR, even though we're racing a Mustang, we certainly sell Mustangs because of it, but we sell more F-150s to NASCAR fans. This is a proof point for them.

As far as the international question, Mustang is our global sports car. It is the best-selling sports car in the world. When we took the decision back in 2015 to have Mustang go global, that was an important decision for us to be able to have that.

Now with the commitment of our company for the seventh generation Mustang, to have that continue to be selling globally as a road car, but we're racing it globally not just in NASCAR and NHRA, but in Australia Supercars, Mustang GT3, Mustang GT4, Dark Horse R with a Spec Challenge.

We take the benefits from any Mustang success and market it globally. It helps all of our Mustang racing programs be more successful.

Q. Kevin Harvick comes to an end tonight. What has he meant to Ford? Will there be any continued work with him?

MARK RUSHBROOK: We love Kevin Harvick. That was a big part of bringing Stewart-Haas Racing because Kevin was there. I was talking to DeLana on pit road before the race, asking her how she felt. For her, it was suddenly the day is here. You know it's coming. We feel the same way, right? We know that Kevin was going to retire for quite some time, suddenly here we are in Phoenix.

He had a great race, was running up front as he usually does in Phoenix. He's meant a lot to our program, won 25 Cup races with us in just seven years of racing with us. We're certainly going to miss him. He's done a lot for us in terms of extra stuff away from the track that we're really going to miss.

Q. There's a list of names like Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jack Sprague, who had quite an impact in the Truck Series. When you hear those names, then hear the names now of this past weekend, Blaney and these others are going to be fantastic people to represent what a champion looks like, so what does it feel like for Ford to be able to have those names carry a championship trophy as well as the blue oval?

MARK RUSHBROOK: Yeah, as much as we're a car company and we make and sell cars and trucks, we're out here racing them, we're also a family company, a people company. It is all about the people that are racing these cars inside the shop, ultimately the drivers that get it done on track.

Those three drivers that we had win this weekend to win a championship, to have Ben Rhodes, Cole Custer and Ryan Blaney as champions for the sport, representing our brand, we're really proud of what they've done. I knew they all could do it. Really glad to see them as champions.

Q. On a day when Kevin Harvick is outgoing, Ryan Blaney wins a championship, youngest Final 4 championship field, what kind of transition do you see in terms of drivers from your perspective? What can that mean with a potential younger driver base?

MARK RUSHBROOK: Yeah, it's the future of the sport, right? We have always got to be planning for that future, whether it's from an engineering perspective, a team perspective, but certainly the drivers.

There's a lot of youth right now. That is important for the future of the sport, not just with having them be successful on track, but building those drivers to have a brand to engage with fans to keep the sport healthy with fans in the stands.

Ryan Blaney for us is somebody that certainly developed. He's got his own brand, his own person, and we love him for who he is, proud that he's representing our brand.

Q. Do you officially rename this Ford Championship Weekend now?

MARK RUSHBROOK: I've heard a few people saying that. We had a lot of pride in Miami-Homestead for a long run. Unofficially I guess we could call this weekend Ford Championship Weekend.

Q. (No microphone.)

MARK RUSHBROOK: We paid for it, but in a different way.

THE MODERATOR: Mark, congratulations on an outstanding weekend and enjoy the off-season.