NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES: CHAMPIONSHIP

November 8, 2024

Joe Shear

Allison Thorson

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: Now we're joined by the first members of our championship winning team, the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion, crew chief Joe Shear Jr., and representing ThorSport, Allison Thorson, 2024 champion owner.

Congratulations, you two. Maybe just open up by talking about how this feels, back-to-back championships for the longest running team in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

JOE SHEAR JR.: It feels good. Probably the best feeling in the world. I don't even know what to say. I'm just overwhelmed. I've got great people around me, great family that owns the stuff, great sponsors.

Ford, you know. I'm proud to be here. This is hard to do, and I got two of them now, and it's really hard to do.

We had a really good truck tonight.

THE MODERATOR: You sure did.

Allison, what about you?

ALLISON THORSON: Yeah, we're happy to be here. ThorSport, thank you for noting, we were in the Truck Series for a long time. We love the Truck Series. It's very relatable. It's wonderful.

A truck is -- you see it on the road, and working with Ford, it's super nice to have the fun part of this horsepower, but, you know, it's really fun and relatable with our sponsors. We have a great group of sponsors, like Joe said. A great group of people underneath our roof.

As the daughter of Duke and Rhonda Thorson, I've seen a lot of guys around the shop since I've been in diapers, and it's kind of cool to -- we all grow. We've gone through the highs and lows together. We all stick together. When you keep at it and stay consistent and you're passionate about it and we have a great group of people, results happen.

It's super nice to have now six championships in the Truck Series in 11 years.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Questions, please.

Q. Joe, for you, you and Ty have been exceptional on the short tracks and tracks like this. Why? Obviously Ty's background would suggest that his history makes him good here, but to have a truck as dominant as he had tonight, you guys have been successful at Richmond, and at IRP as well, what has allowed that sort of success between the two of you?

JOE SHEAR JR.: Well, we're both short track aces, if you want to say. We come from that background.

We really run pretty good everywhere, but short tracks are our forte. I take it personal. I really love short track races. So I take it personal to make 'em handle good and give everything to Ty that he wants.

He gives great feedback to us. He knows what he wants. So I try to give it to him. The combination works very well.

Q. I have two questions: First off, how was the shoey?

ALLISON THORSON: Great. So fun side fact. Ben Rhodes, he's obviously an entertaining guy in our family of racing. He's done some great press conferences here.

He's kind of started the shoey with his crew chief, Rich. I thought we should keep it going. Tonight was a golden shoey. The reason behind it is -- the reason why Ty is a champion is because he puts in the work days in, days out and doesn't give up, and he's a familiar face in the shop. He's gotten a nickname of "Golden Shoes" because he just does everything right. You can't find anything you don't like about him. So it's been a nickname.

Like with my dad, Duke, if you don't have a nickname, you probably aren't on his favorite list. Even though he doesn't do favorites. He's kind of a hard-core guy. But his nickname is "Golden Shoes." The reason why he has golden shoes.

JOE SHEAR JR.: Yeah.

ALLISON THORSON: And he's awesome.

Q. I'm glad that you mentioned that part because with the journey that Ty has had, you know, just the stuff at Roush and then Niece and then coming to work as an engineer and graduating to a driver, I mean, what has that process been like from your perspective watching him just kind of slog through that?

ALLISON THORSON: Yeah, at ThorSport a common question is why aren't you guys in the Cup Series? Do you not have any ambition for that? For us, again, we have a lot of other businesses under our roof besides ThorSport Racing, and the business interactions that we have with our sponsors is valuable.

We also sponsor other racing series, NRHA, IMSA, and stuff like that. We know what it's like to be a sponsor. Again, we have to have a good experience for us.

In our group we have a mix of veteran drivers. You can see Matt Crafton. He's been with us for a long time. Menards, ThorSport, and Matt have been together for 24 years. That's remarkable because, like a lot of sports, like a lot of business, sometimes there's a lot of high turnover rate.

For us, we definitely -- we have a group of people that go for the highs and lows, and Ty came to us, and we definitely said, why not?

We love the underdog. I won't say he was an underdog because he has just wonderful talent. He wins all the time in late models. Look at his record. Why not piece that together.

It's hard for a lot of teams to make that happen, but I say with the experience of the business leadership from my family, we're able to give guys the option. You know, if you want to further your career in other series, go ahead. We're right there patting your back. If you want to make a home here, we'll help you, and we'll help -- and we want to win. I think that's with Ty too. He's a champion day in and day out.

Q. Joe, you have seen the best laid plans get screwed up at the end of a race with a caution. How hard are you in that box praying, stay green, stay green?

JOE SHEAR JR.: I was praying a lot. Some of the cautions helped us because we had to go a long time on tires there, but as long as we got that long run in at the end, I was pretty happy. Our stuff was pretty good on the long run.

So I was pretty happy with that, and I definitely was praying at the end not to have a caution because it puts you in a box. Especially with these short races in the Truck Series because you don't have a lot of time to come back with tires.

Q. I have a few for Allison. What is it about Ty that you like to keep him there? What's he do well? Because I don't think he brings a ton of funding with him.

ALLISON THORSON: Again, ThorSport, we like to work with drivers, and Ty is one of those drivers, I mean, he has a nickname of "Golden Shoes." You can't -- he is a good person. I think there's a quote: You keep doing the right thing, and things will pay off. That's kind of the picture for Ty.

We have a lot of good sponsorship partners with him. For example, Curb Records, they've been with us for a long time, and we're grateful to work with them. Road Ranger, they're an exciting group, they're a happy group, and they're super excited tonight to be a part of us.

So definitely I think, again, it goes to my business leadership of my family making pieces work to put together and not making the performance side of it worried because we've got their back, and we've got them covered.

Ty is one of those racers, like there's many in the field tonight, you know, that would love to be in his shoes because we're a strong core, and we support them very much, and we don't let them do the worry. We make sure they're taken care of.

Q. Along those lines, he said that he talked to you guys about missing the media stuff on Tuesday. I don't have any reason to not believe him, but did you talk to him about it and give the okay?

ALLISON THORSON: So Ty -- we're in Sandusky, Ohio, and a lot of our drivers come to the shop. They're very hands-on involved, in particular Ty. He's a familiar face. We have a good relationship with our drivers, with our team members.

That's something between him and my dad, but again, I think let's focus on, first of all, we are all lucky to live in the United States of America, and we get the right to vote. If it wasn't that we didn't live in America, there's a reason why everybody is coming here. There's a reason why there are so many fans of NASCAR.

So, first, we're going to respect his right to be a U.S. citizen. It's unfortunate that there was media on the same day as election day, but election days don't happen every day. I think if I were NASCAR, I'd harness that our champion tonight is a proud American. He's a great guy. He's happy to be here. And, of course, any other time, Ty, I know, he also did media via Zoom, phone calls that day. If you look at you are on record with all of our other drivers, we're definitely present, and we agree about being present and being a united force with all of our organizations.

Again, we support him being an American citizen too.

Q. And I just want to ask because you talked about support of drivers. Conner Jones had his issues the last few weeks. I'm curious kind of where does he sit as far as -- and where you stand as far as him running for you next year?

ALLISON THORSON: Again, if we looked at the record of any of our drivers, any other teams with other drivers, of course, there's always learning curves. Sometimes it's a hard knock. Sometimes we agree with, hey, you shouldn't have done that. Sometimes it's like, oh, you know, there was some wiggle room.

That's what we like about our team is we have veteran drivers to kind of shepherd and teach those younger drivers, and we have personnel and great guys to say, Hey, buddy, that wasn't a smart thing to do, or say, Hey, next time I would do this.

Joe's phone is going off the hook because he's a champion tonight. Definitely we're a very strong force on yes or no. We're very black-and-white people. I think that is why we have results of like winning six championships in 11 years is just because people know where they stand.

Again, you've got to face it. Like, for example, Conner's situation, and you have to move on from it. You either learn from it or you don't, and that's when people succeed if they learn from it or not.

Q. One for Joe and then one for Joe and Allison. Why is this one so emotional? You've done it before. You did it with Johnny. I'm curious what makes this one even more sentimental?

JOE SHEAR JR.: Because they're really hard to do. I don't know if I'm really emotional. It's just really hard to do, and you've got to put -- you've got to be perfect. Everything has got to be perfect to do this.

It takes a lot of effort and a lot of hours and a lot of time, and it's rewarding when you do it after you do it.

Q. Then another question on just the natural fit that is ThorSport and Ty. Obviously the Wisconsin -- you can make a parallel to Johnny from that standpoint too. The Upper Midwest connection, the work ethic, the blue collar nature of Ty. What was the genesis of that relationship? Who reached out to who first? Just, again, what makes that a thing that you guys want to, you know, make work?

JOE SHEAR JR.: Well, Allison hit on it really perfect. Basically I was in place there, and Ty was coming along. We have similar backgrounds. Duke and the family decided that that's kind of how we needed to put stuff together.

We've talked, and basically that's how it got put together because people got to gel.

Q. Did you know Ty very well before? I imagine you did, right?

JOE SHEAR JR.: I didn't know him very well, but I knew of him, and I have talked to him before. Obviously I follow the short track racing in Wisconsin or even across the country, basically. When you have a talented driver, you want to be paired up with him.

I've been lucky pretty much all my career. I've had pretty good drivers. With a good team and good drivers and good people around you, championships like this are won.

Q. Joe, a lot of the brilliant drivers overthink things. He's just short of an engineering degree, and I think of Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman, those guys that have that kind of mind. How do you kind of have to reel them in and just kind of have them use more common sense and intellect sometimes behind the wheel?

JOE SHEAR JR.: Ty is pretty good at that. He's a very humble guy. He's very smart. He knows what he wants. Not very outspoken.

So basically he tells me kind of what he's feeling and what he wants to do, and then I use my experience to put the pieces together and kind of get him in the right direction.

Q. Joe, you spoke about how it's just really hard to do this. It's hard to get here. I'm curious how this season's journey to get to this point is different from your one with Johnny. And I know it's early, but the emotions having sunk in as much as they have at this point, how do they compare as well?

JOE SHEAR JR.: Yeah, you know, every year that I do this, I feel like it gets tougher and tougher, and the competition gets closer and closer. That's a lot of good teams being put together. NASCAR basically making the rules where basically everybody almost has the same stuff.

So it's not easy to win a bunch of races like this. It all comes down to manufacturing and people and putting stuff together. You don't go out there and just win a bunch of races like you do. You have to really earn them now. You have to get going like what we did. We got going at the right time at the end of the year and put it all together.

Q. Specifically, who gave him the golden shoes? Because he said the only two races he didn't have the golden shoes, he had mechanical failures or screw-ups. Can you tell the backstory on that?

ALLISON THORSON: I can't remember who bought them, but I know -- I won't name names, but it started with my dad because him and dad have a good relationship, like other crew chiefs, drivers, guys that work with us. Even other businesses.

We always go out to eat. I show horses. They're in the barn mucking stalls, sweeping. We're going out to dinner. It's one big family. They call because Ty was always there. Golden Shoes was there again.

I think someone bought them. I want to say --

JOE SHEAR JR.: Your dad.

ALLISON THORSON: Yeah, Dad might have done that. My dad is sneaky. He won't tell anybody because he doesn't want that sticker like he bought them, but he definitely ran with the golden shoes.

Ty, as Joe says, he's super humble. He's the best person to have that nickname, but, I mean, I think he sports it pretty well.

JOE SHEAR JR.: Yeah.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on another championship.