NASCAR CUP SERIES: BASS PRO SHOPS NIGHT RACE

September 21, 2024

Jeff Andrews

Cliff Daniels

Kyle Larson

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We're going to kick off our post-race press conference here at Bristol Motor Speedway for tonight's Bass Pro Shops America's Night Race.

We've been joined by our race winning crew chief Cliff Daniels and Jeff Andrews who is the team president and general manager at Hendrick Motorsports.

Thank you both for joining us and congratulations on that dominating victory tonight.

Q. We get to the track today around 1:00, 1:30 and they say we're going to scrape the top and put the PJ1 down. It might kind of invalidate everything that happened the day before. How much of a challenge was that to get a game plan and get the car as good as it was?

CLIFF DANIELS: I don't know that it was that different from yesterday to today, to be honest. I think at the test back in -- you can correct me, it may have been July or August, I think there was some PJ1 that they sprayed on the track then.

Typically the PJ1 is a lot more residual than the resin, so I think some of what we saw the last two or three days were hints of the residual of PJ1, if that makes sense, on the bottom.

So the reapplication of it tonight before the race, yes, we knew it was going to be different. Thought it was going to pick the pace up on the bottom, so we thought it was probably going to work the tires a little bit harder.

And honestly, it just ended up being enough grip on the bottom to kind of let the car hook and keep going without abusing the tires a whole lot. I don't think there was really many tire issues throughout the whole day. Maybe one guy had a tire go down.

Certainly a little bit of a guess but nothing that different than what we would expect for typical Bristol, before the resin, before the tire that wore out in the spring and all that.

Q. From a momentum standpoint, you guys had such a huge playoff point margin that you can't coast ever, but you guys had less to lose, I guess. Was it important to close out this round with such a dominating performance, given that this round started kind of frustratingly?

CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, I definitely think it was important, and the way we see it is when each round resets, you really have to make sure you're batting with what everybody else is or scoring close to par, however you want to say it.

There was a lot of stage points that we missed out on the last two weeks, of course, and race wins, just with some issues that we created for ourselves.

Obviously Atlanta was kind of a fluke thing coming to the end of a stage where we could have gotten some decent stage points there.

We had it on our radar if we could perform and execute the way we needed to, at least get a stage win or two here or there, and you never know if you're going to get a win, but it was important for us to try to finish the round really strong and handle what we could on our own to leave less to chance the way it was going to come down to points and everything by the end of today.

Q. For Cliff, was your car set up for the tires from last fall or the tires from the spring, and what happened to the tires from the spring?

CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, good question. It was kind of a mix. I will highlight our sim group and our simulator group, the Hendrick Motorsports folks in conjunction with Chevrolet. We got to work a lot since last fall and since the spring on trying to do the best that we could to come up with a little bit more just a complete package, a little bit more of a well-rounded package, the balance of the car, the wear of the tires.

The best way I could answer your question would be that it was kind of a hybrid setup of what we thought could live in a high tire fall-off environment like the spring. And often I think the simple answer for what happened from last fall to the spring to again today has a lot to do just with the ambient temps and track temp.

The hotter that tire gets, it starts to have a little bit of oil that comes out of the surface and tacks it up and then that lays it down into the surface a little bit better. Plus we had two, three days of racing on the track this weekend before we got on track.

So I think all those factors kind of went into what we saw today. And if we're being honest, the race today played out very similar to what it did last fall, just the overall scope of the race and lack of cautions, a lot of green flag runs and tire wear not really being that big of a thing.

Q. (On the tire wear in the spring.)

CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, I think it would be very hard to recreate the spring again because of the element of surprise. I do think it's a real thing at the concrete tracks. A lot of folks may not remember, there was a practice at Dover a year or two ago where it was a really cool day, and the race tire at Dover that weekend really looked like what the Bristol tire looked like in the spring.

It was really powdery, dusty, to the cords right away, and that race weekend in Dover the sun came out on Sunday and the track took rubber and kind of fixed everything.

I think a lot of that is what's at play here. Everyone is certainly going to have their opinion on what you want to see, but I just find it hard to think that we could sustain or recreate the environment of what happened in the spring.

From my seat, yes, we led a lot of laps today, but there was a lot of good, hard racing today. A lot of side-by-side battles. You had multiple lanes working. I don't know, that makes for a really good race in my opinion, from a racer's standpoint. I'm okay with the way it was today. Less chaos.

Q. Cliff, the last five weeks have just produced uncharacteristic results for you guys. I know you touched on the circumstances a little bit there earlier. What does it do internally for this No. 5 team to reestablish this level of dominance? Obviously I don't think anyone is underestimating what this team is capable of, but when you have a stretch of weeks like you've had, what does a run like this do for this team?

CLIFF DANIELS: Well, I think the last five weeks where you could say we struggled or had mishaps, the couple things we look at. All of these weeks we've had a lot of really good performance sitting on the table. There's been a lot of things that have been there to take advantage of, and for one reason or another things didn't work out, we make a mistake, whatever the case may be.

Behind the scenes we've had to work really hard to just get stronger, and I think in an environment like that and with the team that we have, culture matters, the guys on the team matter. Having everybody bought in to the same direction of what our goals are, being very honest and open with each other on mistakes and challenges and areas that we need to improve, and with that, leadership matters.

I've got to be the one to help make sure to keep us positive and moving in the right direction.

We have such a great environment with the leadership from Mr. Hendrick and Jeff Andrews and a lot of folks around us to let us know that they believed in us, they know that the team can pull out of kind of hole that we dug for ourselves, and I'm so proud of the team and thankful for the culture that we have at Hendrick Motorsports to be able to be with the group of people that are so like-minded and so bought in to the collective goal.

THE MODERATOR: We've been joined by our race winner Kyle Larson. Any more questions for Jeff or Cliff?

Q. Jeff, you've seen a lot of memories over the years at Hendrick Motorsports, a lot of good drivers and a lot of great cars. Where do you rate this performance that Kyle put on tonight?

JEFF ANDREWS: It's right up there at the top, certainly a dominating performance from start to finish. It takes so much to make a night like this happen. Everything has to go right, pit stops and -- obviously didn't have a lot of cautions.

But to have a car that has that kind of pace all night long -- and Cliff talked about it earlier, about the work that's been done at Hendrick Motorsports, at Chevrolet. It takes all those things behind the scenes to put race cars on the track like we did tonight. I'm super proud of that effort.

I was in Victory Lane and saw Jeff Gordon come up to Kyle and ask him if he was going to break every one of his records before he was done. Yeah, just a great accomplishment by these two guys. Super proud, and ready to get on to Kansas with our four cars.

Q. Cliff, you and Kyle have worked together for a long time now, have a great relationship. When you have a dominating performance like this with a driver leading all these laps, how are you coaching him through that? What is the mindset as a crew chief with such a dominating performance, outside of maybe a few adjustments, there's really not much needed there?

CLIFF DANIELS: One thing I would say that's really critical to days like today for us, we've seen each other fail, and that is so important to why we succeed. So when I think about today, I don't think about what we did to succeed, I think about what we did to build ourselves to this point.

We've had the conversations of good and bad along the way. We've seen the ups and downs. We've learned really how to simplify and just stay focused on the mission. You probably heard me a lot on the radio today, hey, man, mission right now is this.

Of course a lot of times I was trying to tell him to slow down and he was going faster. But that's important to have. Certainly thankful for the relationship that we have, but we've had to build it, and we've certainly been through a lot together and hopefully have a lot more days to come.

Q. You look at the second round, the construction of it is very similar to this last round in that there's a superspeedway, a road course which has been drastically changed into something, and then a more traditional racetrack. With the narrower margins of error, is that kind of nerve-racking as this first round was?

KYLE LARSON: Sure, I guess. I mean, I like that Kansas is first rather than being the last in the round. Kind of like how this round -- ultra confident coming to Bristol, but it's the final race of the round, where the next one, it's like, okay, if I can go to Kansas and do a really good job and get good stage points, get a good finish, you have a little bit more comfort going to Talladega rather than Atlanta. You finish dead last and it's like, you're kind of stressed the whole time.

So I don't know, it's constructed similarly but different. But I don't know, it's just -- the Roval to me has been -- I've had a lot of moments of stress there throughout my playoff career. Hopefully we're in a better position once we get there and can have less stress because it's pretty stressful. It's more stressful than Talladega for sure.

CLIFF DANIELS: My answer would be we're a very oriented team, so the way we prepare for every race really is the same, Daytona 500 or Kansas in the spring, Kansas in the fall, any other race of the year. All we want to do is make our process better.

It's kind of hard to get lost in the what-ifs and all of things of Talladega and of course the Roval and Kansas because I guess my point is we're going to approach all those races the same way, the same work ethic, the same process, the same if we execute our day, we're going to have fine, and what are the steps to execute our day. Certainly a lot of variables.

All these races have had so many variables that you can get in trouble really quick, which I think is almost a good reality check because it makes you dig that much deeper into finding the ways to go execute. No matter what, that's going to be our focus.

Q. Kyle, obviously you had a great car tonight. I noticed that you were close to a lot of cars, that you had to be really patient around those cars. Did that cross your mind? Were you worried about the cars that you were trying to pass getting into you tonight?

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, I was patient. Up until the last stage, it was a lot of lapping the same guys in the way that kind of the runs would play out and all that, and it was very similar every time.

I struggled mostly with Suárez, which he was racing really hard to advance, and I'm not even sure if he did or not, so he was racing really hard, which I understood. Then a couple other guys were just fast enough, I could work the bottom and just stay inside of them.

I just felt like I just needed to be patient down there. I felt like I was doing a better job saving my tires down there. Just had to not forget that they were out there and kind of run into them and spin or anything like that.

When you have a car that good, it helps to stay focused and patient, and we were able to do that.

Q. You led 462 laps today, which I believe is the most by any driver at this track since 1977. Was there ever a point where the car didn't feel perfect, and where does this rank among the best cars you've driven in Cup?

KYLE LARSON: The only run where I got a little bit -- just where I had to think, okay, is the track changing or did I just over-run my right rear tire or what was -- the second run of the race.

Once I got to the third run, I just came to the conclusion that in the second run, I just ran too hard.

I passed Suárez and then he was able to get back kind of by me, and I pushed pretty hard for 15, 20 laps. Once I eventually got clear of him or a couple guys, then I was like, out of the racetrack, and it was just slick and loose and just less grip.

Thankfully, Cliff and them, I don't think they made any adjustment after that. I just didn't know really what to communicate to them what I was feeling about it. I just said I don't know, I just have less grip now.

Then the next run I was able to pass Daniel pretty -- or quicker and get back to kind of doing what I wanted to do and manage my tires, and my balance felt great again, and it felt great all night.

Just kind of had to manage my stuff. My car was really good. I've had lots of great race cars at Hendrick Motorsports. Sometimes they've turned into wins; a lot of times they haven't. I look at kind of one that is more recent would probably be like Iowa this year. I felt like my car was extremely good there, and just unfortunately didn't close out that one.

2021 I had a lot of great cars. If I looked at the schedule I could probably point out some great cars, but tonight was definitely one of them.

Q. Heading into this weekend, six of the last seven races ended in overtime. Especially with the laps ticking down, I think it was like 170 laps green to the end. The laps ticking down, how much thought was there, what if there's a caution, in the back of your mind?

KYLE LARSON: It's always in the back of your mind for sure, but as I was looking out my windshield, and I can't see what's going on the other side of the racetrack, but what was out my windshield, everybody was kind of spread equally apart. So I was like, okay -- as long as nobody has any tire failures, I don't think we're going to have a caution here.

Then Cliff and them, they were trying to slow me down to save our tires in case we do have a caution because I could tell our call was probably going to be to stay out. But I'm like, man, I'm trying to get to the white flag as quick as I can. I don't want to slow down and cost myself a second and then miss the start-finish line by a second before a caution comes out or something.

Thankfully everybody kept it clean and we were able to run that whole last run out, because yeah, it would have got pretty crazy at the end.

Q. Kyle, we all know you've done a lot of memorable things in a lot of different types of race cars. When you have a nice like tonight where somebody comes up to you after the race, I think Jeff came to you in Victory Lane and goes -- like Jeff Andrews was saying, are you going to break all my records, when you have a night like that where you put your name in that conversation, do nights like this surprise you or is it another day in the life of Kyle Larson?

KYLE LARSON: I don't know. I really don't know. It's not like -- when I came to Hendrick, I didn't have any goals of beating any records of any of the others, Jimmie or Jeff. Those are the two guys that probably have most all of the records I would assume. It's not something that I'm reaching for. But when it happens, it's really cool.

I was really happy and proud to surpass Jeff in laps led in a season in 2021 and then tonight I'm assuming I passed either him or Jimmie based off how much they dominated in the 2000s.

No, it's really cool. But at the same time, I think whenever I'm done racing or done being a driver at Hendrick Motorsports and those records are still there, then yeah, it'll mean a lot to me. But for right now it's like you're just trying to do a good job, and the records will take care of themselves, I guess.

Yeah, I'm sure I'll be able to kind of think about it more when I'm down the road.

Q. Give us a look inside that victory dynamic or kind of the family dynamic, because you've gotten to see a lot of Owen's racing up and coming racing the last few years, and the moments like tonight that he's been able to celebrate with you. What do these moments mean to you? And in contrast, what does it do for him as far as motivation, seeing your success and wanting to be more successful in his own right?

KYLE LARSON: I don't know. Owen? What do you think? When I win, does it motivate you to win?

No, it's cool. Obviously I love having my family here, and I don't really I feel like ever win when they're here. I guess only a quarter of them were here tonight.

But no, I got the checkered flag and we were pitted -- our pit stall was on the backstretch. I was like, I'm going to drive down to the backstretch and maybe my team is on the wall and I can celebrate with them. As I drove by I saw Owen was on pit road celebrating, and I was like, that's cool.

I knew he went to the suite or I thought you went to the suite during the race so I thought I'd meet him in Victory Lane or something by the time it took to get all the way down. When I saw him there, I said, cool, I'm going to stop right here and have him hop on and go slow so I don't hopefully get in trouble.

No, it's just cool building memories like that, and I'm hoping he will remember these moments for the rest of his life. Hopefully some day when he's winning races and has a family of his own, he'll get to find his own way to get to celebrate with his children.

Q. Kyle, what's the dynamic like, you have all four Hendrick cars now moving on to the Round of 12. They're your teammates but you're all after the same prize. You have basically the same equipment, some of the best in the business. How does that dynamic work? You want to be teammates but you also all want the big prize.

KYLE LARSON: Yeah, it's pretty simple. I think we all work really well together, and the teams throughout the week do, as well. Probably even more closer than the drivers get to work with each other just because the crew chiefs and engineers and team members, they're with each other every day.

But no, I mean, I think we just try to help each other out. We want Rick and Linda Hendrick to have the best odds going into Phoenix to win a championship in the 40th season. You don't do that by not working together.

No, it doesn't change at all. If anything, I feel like we work closer together when it gets to this point in the season.

Proud of that for sure. I think in the time that I've been there, it's been great.

But it sounded like before 2021 like they really had to build into that for a few seasons.

Yeah, it's a great thing right now at Hendrick Motorsports, and yeah, really cool to have four in the top 12 here, and all four running really, really good, too. Alex has been performing outstanding. It's been really cool to see William; he's always fast. You can never count him out. He could go on a stretch of winning all three races of this round, and you wouldn't be surprised.

Same goes with Chase. He's just sneaky good. Alan and everybody works really hard. Then you have our team that's really strong, as well. It's fun right now.

Q. Obviously we won't see another racetrack like Bristol, but is this a victory that kind of sends a message? It was so dominating, so powerful, and you put the other teams in the ground, so to speak, tonight. Is this maybe a message victory to those guys, like if they're going to win the title they're going to have to come through you?

KYLE LARSON: I don't really think a performance like tonight sent a message because I think -- I would think that a majority of the teams -- we've dominated lots of races. We've led the most laps in a number of races. I think teams already know that we're capable of doing it on any given weekend.

No, it's definitely nice to do it, but there's also so many other great teams out there. No, I don't think a performance like tonight just puts us as the sure favorite. It's just hard. Every week changes in the playoffs.

Just got to keep bringing fast race cars and keep executing like we did tonight, and hopefully more good runs will come.

Q. When did you realize that you were going to be able to go 100 laps on tires instead of 40 or 50 in the spring?

KYLE LARSON: I would say probably by lap 10 in practice. You're visually scanning the racetrack looking for marbles and stuff, and I didn't see any. I was like -- I was happy for sure.

I know you guys probably think that the race in the spring was better, but as a driver, I would way rather run 100 percent all night long for 500 laps than run 50 percent. I don't think that's much of a race. I grew up racing different stuff where you do push the whole race, but I think that version of Bristol is way more exciting.