Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Joe Gibbs & #11 Crew Chief Chris Gayle Discuss Denny Hamlin's Vegas Win | NASCAR Press Conference

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Joe Gibbs & #11 Crew Chief Chris Gayle Discuss Denny Hamlin's Vegas Win | NASCAR Press Conference · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  How did that all unfold from your vantage point?
• 0:02
  I mean, you a lot of guys took two there and they were going to
• 0:07
  need to get out pretty fast I guess and have clean air if that
• 0:11
  was going to work. And I guess probably they, some
• 0:14
  of them lost their buffer too when that first wreck happened.
• 0:17
  So that kind of hurt their cause.
• 0:19
  But how did that unfold from your perspective of what you
• 0:22
  guys were trying to do? Yeah, I knew a few would take 2,
• 0:26
  meaning I like for sure the 22, right?
• 0:28
  Like he's going to do that play. That's his.
• 0:30
  He hasn't been good enough all day to win the race any other
• 0:32
  way. So that's the throw it up there,
• 0:35
  hope that we get multiple cautions and he doesn't have to
• 0:36
  do anything more than a short step.
• 0:38
  I considered it because I probably had the freshest lefts,
• 0:40
  right, because I'd almost even split the step before.
• 0:44
  But typically here and then the fall off we had today, I'd only
• 0:47
  thought two were going to be good for at most 8 to 10 laps.
• 0:51
  Like if you've looked historically like it when guys
• 0:53
  have taken 2, you know, they've LED 5-6 laps, you know, and
• 0:57
  that's call it 2-3 guys do it. Would we have 4?
• 1:00
  I think there do it. So when we were, you know,
• 1:02
  getting ready to fire off with 2223 laps or whatever, I thought
• 1:05
  it would be fine. I thought it was just a matter
• 1:07
  of did I think we were going to necessarily have the speed to
• 1:10
  get from where we were and P8, right?
• 1:12
  They're not necessarily, but that kind of was a circumstance
• 1:15
  of the previous pit stop and how everything happened when we
• 1:18
  cycled back further. So you were kind of kind of
• 1:20
  there. I didn't think, I thought if I'd
• 1:22
  taken two, I was going to be like the 19 and was not going to
• 1:24
  win the race from that. Like it would have taken
• 1:26
  multiple cautions to do that. And I thought maybe I have the
• 1:29
  car good enough, top two, top three car maybe that I could
• 1:33
  potentially do it another way. Bob Parker's Fox Sports, He said
• 1:37
  before earlier today to me that you never been to the Champ 4,
• 1:42
  so do you have any idea what you're going to do the next
• 1:45
  three weeks? I'm not going to be at the shop
• 1:48
  tomorrow morning. I can promise you that that's
• 1:50
  not going to happen. Like, it may be I don't even
• 1:52
  know if I'll make the comp meeting at 3:00.
• 1:53
  I probably will. No.
• 1:56
  Yeah. I mean, I haven't been to the
• 1:58
  Championship 8 before this even, right?
• 1:59
  I hadn't been involved in that. I think the 12 was the furthest
• 2:02
  I went with Jones one year in 19 maybe.
• 2:06
  So no, I there's a plan in place.
• 2:09
  I know what I'll do. Like, I just wasn't sure that
• 2:12
  this was an option. Obviously you you put your plan
• 2:14
  in place and you go, OK, if I can win Vegas and I'm going to
• 2:17
  work on Phoenix right, for the next couple weeks.
• 2:19
  And that gives us the luxury of doing it.
• 2:21
  But it's not the same as what it was when you were building the
• 2:22
  cars before. You know, now we can kind of
• 2:25
  like do some more loose SIM work and then do some things to get
• 2:28
  ahead for ourselves so that that Phoenix week is a little
• 2:32
  smoother really. And what do you tell a guy who's
• 2:37
  been heartbroken so many times in this championship hunt?
• 2:40
  His first time going to the championship in the Next Gen.
• 2:43
  Car on how to handle the next three weeks and how to handle
• 2:46
  Phoenix. Well, I'm hoping he's going to
• 2:49
  help me with that a little bit, right?
• 2:50
  Like he's a mature guy, like he's been through all that,
• 2:52
  right? I, I haven't been there,
• 2:53
  obviously. What will I tell him?
• 2:55
  That we're going to do everything we can, you know, and
• 2:57
  we're going to leave it there in Phoenix and whatever happens
• 2:59
  happens. And then we're going to do
• 3:00
  everything we can on the front side to get ready.
• 3:02
  But I don't know that I have the magic formula for his heartbreak
• 3:06
  related to that, other than trying to bring the fastest car
• 3:08
  I can, which is kind of how I approached all year.
• 3:10
  You know, I haven't necessarily gotten in the mind games and
• 3:14
  what's happened before and when he sat down with me in the
• 3:16
  offseason, you know, he mentioned sixty wins.
• 3:19
  He mentioned trying to get to the championship for he never
• 3:22
  once said championship. Obviously you elevate, you know,
• 3:27
  your mind and what you think you can accomplish as you go further
• 3:29
  along into the year. And we've had such a good year
• 3:31
  that we feel like we should be a front runner for the
• 3:34
  championship. But I don't think it's going to
• 3:36
  change what we do. We're going to take it a week at
• 3:39
  a time and a few weeks ahead on Phoenix, and that's about it.
• 3:41
  Dustin Long, NBC Sports Chris, can you, I guess, talk about
• 3:47
  his, I guess, his dedication or how he's still involved?
• 3:52
  I mean, this is a sport where people after 40, it passes them
• 3:56
  up. It hasn't passed him up.
• 3:58
  And I know there was what the story about being in the SIM
• 4:00
  this week. About 7 half hours this week.
• 4:02
  Right. And that's a little, that's way
• 4:04
  more than normal. What can you give me a sense of
• 4:06
  from that perspective of like I heard all the questions he
• 4:10
  brought in, what what was his approach to that and and how
• 4:13
  might that have helped? And how is that a part of how he
• 4:16
  has the the bigger success at this age when others maybe
• 4:19
  aren't? Yeah, I mean, I think he's just
• 4:22
  aware, right? And he knows that, you know,
• 4:25
  this was the round that mattered, right, to get into the
• 4:27
  championship four and and the other ones, right.
• 4:28
  We had enough car speed. We had the points advantage.
• 4:30
  Like unless we have something get really derailed, we should
• 4:33
  do that, right. So I feel like he just came in
• 4:34
  this week, specifically in Vegas.
• 4:37
  That's a track that's been hit or miss for him and came in with
• 4:41
  like ideas that he thought what the car would and wouldn't do
• 4:45
  for him in the past and things they've done.
• 4:46
  And so, you know, it started out as a, a Monday SIM session,
• 4:49
  which we typically don't do week of stuff on Mondays.
• 4:53
  But you know, a comp meeting ended.
• 4:55
  Vegas was an early load. We needed to load and leave
• 4:58
  first thing Wednesday morning. So we wouldn't get to our normal
• 5:00
  SIM session on Wednesday before we ship the car.
• 5:02
  So we decided to just jump ahead and we got in there and one
• 5:05
  thing led to another and we started talking about that and
• 5:07
  we were running SIM stuff and it was 4 1/2 hours in or whatever,
• 5:10
  it's 7:30 and we're like, oh crap, we got to stop.
• 5:14
  And so I think that's just a just shows the level of
• 5:17
  dedication that he's got to this and how bad he wants it, right?
• 5:20
  I kind of snickered at one point we were talking about the
• 5:22
  balance of the car there and he was talking about I just needed
• 5:24
  a different driver or whatever, right during the race.
• 5:26
  But I think, you know, you saw the end of that race.
• 5:28
  I think you saw how much he really wanted it, right?
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  Like he pretty much decided to go get it those last 12 laps of
• 5:34
  that race, you know, outside around Larson.
• 5:35
  So I, I couldn't be more proud of him and his dedication to it
• 5:41
  and just, you know, believing in himself, because I think that's
• 5:44
  the first thing you could see. He was pretty emotional in
• 5:45
  Victory Lane. And then it was like the one
• 5:47
  thing I just noticed. He can do it.
• 5:48
  You know, he's just got to believe in himself.
• 5:50
  He's capable of doing it. And I think we'll just take that
• 5:52
  approach to Phoenix. And can you see talk about the
• 5:55
  last 12 light end of the race? I can see certain things, but I
• 5:59
  don't, I'm not behind the closed doors like you.
• 6:01
  So what were the things that you saw?
• 6:04
  What are the things that you see when he does those things at the
• 6:07
  end of this race? At what?
• 6:08
  What stood out to you that maybe only you or or your team members
• 6:12
  can see that I can't, or maybe most of those sitting in the
• 6:14
  stands aren't going to immediately recognize?
• 6:16
  I think just being aggressive, going to the top, right, he had
• 6:19
  committed to getting huge runs and he was obviously using a lot
• 6:22
  more of the tire than he would if it was going to be a 40 lap
• 6:24
  race, right? So you compare the previous runs
• 6:26
  early and watch where he was getting the throttle and he was
• 6:30
  definitely more aggressive than you normally, right?
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  Then he's known for being the guy who's saving tires and not
• 6:35
  doing that. But he definitely flipped the
• 6:37
  switch when he needed to there and went as hard as anybody did,
• 6:39
  right. And I think that's the that's
• 6:41
  the big thing that we saw that normally you don't see out of
• 6:43
  him, right? But once he got into third and
• 6:46
  he realized that he had a fast enough car to do it, he was able
• 6:48
  to close it out. Kelly Crandall racer.com Excuse
• 6:52
  me, Chris, First off, you've been asked many times this year,
• 6:55
  what has all this meant? The wins, the the way this team
• 6:58
  has performed this year? Can you now, I know it's still
• 7:02
  fresh, but just put into perspective all of this now and,
• 7:06
  and, and getting to the at least the championship race, which
• 7:10
  some in this sport have said that's maybe the bigger
• 7:13
  accomplishment with this format than than winning the champion.
• 7:16
  Yeah, you just being my perspective alone.
• 7:18
  What all of this means to you it.
• 7:20
  Means a lot to me like it's I don't know that I could have
• 7:22
  scripted this part of it any better.
• 7:24
  You know, I think I mentioned, you know, in the offseason we
• 7:27
  talked about sixty wins and and you know what's he had three
• 7:30
  wins or something last couple years.
• 7:31
  You know, I'm thinking to myself, man, this is a great
• 7:34
  opportunity for me, but I got to step up and win right away.
• 7:37
  I think we've talked about this earlier, right, with the
• 7:39
  Martinsville win and, you know, thinking 2, three wins, you
• 7:42
  know, like, OK, let's get that going.
• 7:43
  And then, you know, just, I think it just gets steamrolling
• 7:46
  where you realize that like you reset your expectations each
• 7:49
  time because I mean, it's been an incredible year for me.
• 7:51
  Like I you know, we've talked about this.
• 7:53
  I've been with rookies, I've been with lots of young guys and
• 7:56
  kind of watching that, you know, watching them mature, but not in
• 7:59
  the position to be able to go and have a season like this
• 8:02
  where you just capitalize on a lot of them, whether it's
• 8:05
  staying out on tires at Dover, you, you just get yourself early
• 8:08
  wins and then you can be aggressive in certain spots to
• 8:10
  where you go and, and stack those wins where maybe they were
• 8:13
  coin flips before if you'd had to play them different without a
• 8:17
  win. So for me, it's, it's just been,
• 8:18
  it's been amazing and I'm trying to enjoy it right.
• 8:22
  Like I'm, I'm 23 years into the sport, 24 years into the sport.
• 8:25
  I, I kind of laughed. I we the pit crew guys, we have
• 8:29
  a pit crew meeting on Tuesday mornings and each week they have
• 8:32
  a guy come in and tell him kind of like it's one of the pick
• 8:35
  remembers their life story, how they got to Joe Gibbs Racing,
• 8:37
  how they got to the race team. And it was my turn last week and
• 8:41
  I kind of gave them my whole transition from being a kid, you
• 8:45
  know, 12 years old all the way to Joe Gibbs Racing and where we
• 8:48
  are today. And I thought about that on the
• 8:50
  way in this morning. I thought, you know, 17 year old
• 8:53
  Chris Gayle would have killed for this moment, you know, to
• 8:57
  just be a part of it and then to kind of sit here in Victory Lane
• 9:01
  after this. I'm the one thing I've said is
• 9:02
  I'm going to enjoy it. You know, I'm going to just soak
• 9:05
  it in and enjoy the next three weeks, lay everything I can out
• 9:09
  for Phoenix and move on. Gabe Harder pre loved that story
• 9:12
  by the way, he's he mentioned that in Victory Lane.
• 9:14
  The second thing as we look to Phoenix Joe Gibbs Racing in the
• 9:17
  spring versus Joe Gibbs Racing in the fall when they've gone,
• 9:20
  they're trying to compete for a championship has been vastly
• 9:22
  different. So are you coming in with this
• 9:26
  fresh perspective? Can you change that or, or how,
• 9:28
  how, what do you take from what you experience in the spring
• 9:31
  with Denny that that you guys can carry over to the fall to to
• 9:34
  give him a better shot than what he's had there in a championship
• 9:37
  race before? Yeah, I don't know that any one
• 9:39
  person necessarily is going to change it.
• 9:41
  It takes a lot of things going on.
• 9:43
  But I think that the unique thing is the tire changing, you
• 9:45
  know, right. We had the option tire in the
• 9:47
  spring and that's how we all ended the race on the option
• 9:50
  tire. That's a softer tire and and you
• 9:52
  know, the left side's a little bit different this time, but
• 9:54
  that is the Martinsville tire that is, you know, a lot of the
• 9:57
  short track tires that we've that we've run.
• 9:59
  So I feel like that's going to be different, you know, allowing
• 10:02
  Denny to do a better job with managing that tire.
• 10:06
  So I think that's going to be what's different for us this
• 10:08
  time. Before we roll into our next
• 10:11
  question, we've now been joined by Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs
• 10:14
  Racing as well. So we'll take questions for both
• 10:16
  of them and we'll come down here to Jenna next.
• 10:18
  Hi, Jennifer IRA, Associated Press.
• 10:20
  I was going to ask Chris, but since you're here, I'll ask you
• 10:22
  both. Denny's had this weird couple
• 10:25
  weeks where he's played a pivotal role in the ending of
• 10:28
  races. It's sort of changed who's in
• 10:31
  the field in some ways. How does he, how does he
• 10:35
  maturely get through that and, and continue to perform and, and
• 10:40
  not, you know, let all of that distraction and noise just take
• 10:45
  away from it? I would say that Danny, probably
• 10:48
  nobody has more going on in their life than Danny, but he
• 10:54
  has an amazing ability, I think to kind of handle all of it.
• 10:58
  And you know, he, you know, all the stuff that's going on in his
• 11:02
  life right now, I know that one of the things he shared there
• 11:06
  was his dad. And so that was emotional for
• 11:09
  everybody. I want to say thanks to Chris
• 11:12
  and his story. I had a chance to listen when he
• 11:16
  was going through his story this week.
• 11:18
  It's great to hear somebody's background and their dreams and
• 11:22
  the fact that this is part of his dream and it's a great point
• 11:28
  in his life. And so I just really appreciate
• 11:31
  it, appreciate him. I appreciate Denny and the all
• 11:35
  that we've been through and the years that we've been together.
• 11:38
  I think we're probably close to setting some kind of record
• 11:41
  because we've been together this long.
• 11:43
  So just really appreciate him. Like you said, he's got so much
• 11:47
  going on. Some, most people, most of us
• 11:51
  would say how does he handle that?
• 11:52
  And I'm probably one of those, but just really appreciate it.
• 11:57
  And it's a thrill for us to get a chance to go to Phoenix and be
• 12:01
  in the Final four. And so just appreciate everybody
• 12:05
  on our race team. Last night was a big deal for us
• 12:08
  with Eric and Young Life. That was a huge deal for us too,
• 12:12
  because that's part of our ministry and it was awesome.
• 12:16
  So just a great weekend. Appreciate Vegas.
• 12:19
  I have more hospitalities today. So many of our partners were
• 12:23
  here. And so we love coming here, love
• 12:27
  the fan base and everybody, and just had a great day.
• 12:33
  Yeah, I think, you know, the biggest thing that I've seen is
• 12:36
  I don't care what's going on. Like if it's whatever
• 12:39
  controversy last week, if it's lawsuit related, he'll walk into
• 12:43
  SIM and he'll look at the screen and we'll talk respect and go,
• 12:46
  OK, it's time to go to work and he'll put the work hat on and I
• 12:49
  won't hear any of the other stuff.
• 12:50
  Not once Have I heard any of like, do we have conversations
• 12:53
  about all that other stuff that's going on in his life?
• 12:55
  Not once. So I think he just does a good
• 12:58
  job of focusing on what the task at hand is in front of him.
• 13:01
  I've carved out this amount of time to do this.
• 13:03
  If he has some other times where we need to talk about other
• 13:06
  stuff, then that's private. That happens there and we don't
• 13:09
  overlap the two. And I think that's just
• 13:10
  maturity, right? Zacksterniolo@nascar.com Chris,
• 13:14
  first for you. Danny's accomplished a lot in
• 13:16
  the sport, but to hit 60 this year in particular required new
• 13:19
  level compared to the past years in this car.
• 13:22
  From your perspective, why has this year been the year that
• 13:25
  everything clicked for him? You know, I really wish I knew.
• 13:28
  I think that probably things changing for him allowed a
• 13:33
  little different perspective for him, where he felt like he had
• 13:35
  to be more a part of it and help.
• 13:37
  That's just my gut. He hasn't said that to me.
• 13:40
  I'm just watching, right? And I'm watching what he does
• 13:42
  and how he tries to be a part of it.
• 13:46
  But I'm also doing that without living through the previous
• 13:49
  experience. So I don't know for sure, you
• 13:51
  know, But I know that whatever I've asked him to do, he's done
• 13:55
  it, you know, never questions it.
• 13:56
  If we want to, you know, cut something short, come back a
• 14:01
  different day and do it for a reason.
• 14:03
  He's like, Yep, I'm all in. So I, I don't know, you know, I
• 14:06
  wish I knew that magic part of it other than it just seems to
• 14:10
  be working where we focus on the car, we listen to what he talks
• 14:13
  about, what there's a little process in place and we just
• 14:16
  kind of keep whittling on that and making it a little better
• 14:18
  each time. Coach for you Denny hitting that
• 14:22
  sixty win milestone sets him into the top ten all time wins
• 14:26
  in the sport. What have you seen from, I mean
• 14:29
  it's been 2 decades of him driving your cars now from where
• 14:33
  he was entering the the Xfinity Series those 20 years ago to
• 14:38
  where he is now. What have you seen from him that
• 14:42
  has allowed this kind of growth and success?
• 14:45
  Honestly, I would say that probably one of the biggest
• 14:50
  changes in a personality is when Denny first came to us, he was
• 14:55
  so quiet. You had to try and get him to
• 14:58
  talk. And today, look at where he is
• 15:02
  today. And it's been so interesting to
• 15:04
  watch that, you know, over the years.
• 15:07
  I think part of it is maturing. I do think one of the changes to
• 15:11
  his family and everything's got going there with Jordan.
• 15:16
  But I, I think it's just one of those things where somebody
• 15:19
  matures, becomes a father and takes on a huge responsibility,
• 15:27
  has his own race team and all of that, and probably causes
• 15:32
  somebody to actually change their personality.
• 15:35
  And certainly I think Denny's gone through one of the biggest
• 15:38
  changes of almost anyone I know. Just curious, is 7 hours of SIM
• 15:43
  going to become mandatory for Denny going forward?
• 15:46
  Yeah, I don't know. They'll probably more than 7
• 15:48
  hours for Phoenix, but we'll split it up over quite a few
• 15:51
  intervals and not do it all at one session probably.
• 15:54
  It, it seemed towards the end of this race that he was, you know,
• 15:57
  he was on fire. I mean, like as Larson said out
• 16:01
  there, he he saw his line, he saw where he was going.
• 16:03
  There was just nothing he could do.
• 16:04
  He was he was overly determined to win this race.
• 16:07
  Did you get that sense over the radio and and leading in not?
• 16:11
  Necessarily over the radio, right?
• 16:12
  Denny's pretty quiet normally, you know, I'll be surprised.
• 16:14
  You can, you know, even talking to him outside of the car, you
• 16:17
  don't get a whole lot of, you know, excited reactions or at
• 16:21
  least not, you know, I don't. Anyway.
• 16:23
  So was I surprised? No, I just hadn't seen him be
• 16:26
  that aggressive, you know, and I think that's what I was proud
• 16:29
  of. Like, like that's all the talk
• 16:30
  about, you know, not being good at Vegas, needing a different
• 16:34
  driver of Vegas. Well, when the chips were down,
• 16:36
  you know, he definitely realized he had the opportunity right
• 16:39
  there and he needed to seize it and did a good job, you know, of
• 16:41
  that one sure was definitive with his moves, right?
• 16:44
  He pretty much grabbed Larson's right rear quarter panel right
• 16:46
  off the bat. And I think once he had that, he
• 16:47
  was in good shape. Jonathan failed the racing
• 16:49
  experts. For you, Coach, just what have
• 16:52
  you seen out of Denny this year compared to previous years?
• 16:55
  It seems like he's a lot more determined, a lot more folks.
• 16:57
  What have you seen out of him? Well, I actually, I think Chris
• 17:01
  will probably tell you and watching him, he's always had a
• 17:04
  great work ethic, I feel like. And so I think he's just
• 17:10
  determined and probably what comes with that is so many years
• 17:15
  and so many great wins, but also the disappointments and not
• 17:20
  being able to win a championship.
• 17:21
  I think he's really been determined and after it so and
• 17:26
  it takes so much. I always talk about our sponsors
• 17:31
  ampm on the car and certainly our keep sponsor is Toyota.
• 17:37
  For them to be with us over this period of time and for us to
• 17:42
  have a chance to go to the final four with them, just a huge deal
• 17:47
  to see the partners. Our sport is so different
• 17:50
  because we can't race without partners.
• 17:54
  I call them partners, not sponsors.
• 17:57
  And certainly we we've, we've got some great ones.
• 18:01
  And so I just appreciate all that.
• 18:04
  Everybody you go, if you go through as many years as we've
• 18:09
  been through with Toyota, you go through some good times, you go
• 18:12
  through some tough times, but that's what really tests a
• 18:15
  partnership and they've always been so good.
• 18:19
  Whatever happens, if we go through a downtime, it's just,
• 18:22
  hey, let's go to work, let's fix it.
• 18:24
  And so they've been a great partner.
• 18:26
  So I just appreciate all those. It's one thing to kind of love
• 18:31
  it and celebrate it ourselves and Chris, but it's to see all
• 18:35
  those people that go with you. That's what's really fun.
• 18:39
  I was in the winner's circle calling sponsors and thanking
• 18:43
  them, and it's just great to those guys.
• 18:46
  Gamble come with you and spend a lot of their resources to
• 18:51
  support the race team and to be able to call them from the
• 18:54
  winner's circle, it's just a huge deal.
• 18:56
  I've got one for each of you for for Chris.
• 18:59
  Can you just you guys long pitted and you pitted with like
• 19:03
  50 to go. You're the last playoff car, so
• 19:05
  it's going to give you somewhat fresher tires.
• 19:08
  Did you think that was going to be enough to get through the
• 19:10
  field or what were you trying to do there?
• 19:11
  Yeah. So we'd had cords on tires fewer
• 19:13
  and this is going to be the longest stents than anybody had
• 19:16
  run all day within a couple laps if you evenly split.
• 19:20
  We were in position I where I think we were 4th at the time
• 19:22
  and I think the 20 had just gotten around us.
• 19:24
  So there were three cars that I couldn't short pit and grab them
• 19:28
  unless I wasn't going to come that early knowing I couldn't
• 19:31
  make it on tires potentially on this back half of the run.
• 19:35
  And then once those guys had started pitting so early, I
• 19:37
  think the 19 started the cycle, maybe they had started pitting
• 19:40
  so early. At that point, they're just
• 19:42
  planning on a late caution, right?
• 19:43
  We're going to come back to pit Rd. and they're probably not
• 19:45
  going to be able to run the full 55 laps or whatever they have to
• 19:47
  do. Probably not without cords that
• 19:49
  they're going to really fall off, right?
• 19:50
  So at that point, I didn't think I had a shot to win the race by
• 19:54
  playing the same strategy as everyone else.
• 19:57
  So I was going to go closer to even split.
• 20:00
  Make both runs really even and not fall off at the end where if
• 20:04
  it went green, some of these guys were going to go 55 and
• 20:06
  hopefully tank from courting 1 tire or another tire and that
• 20:09
  was going to be the play to try to get us the win.
• 20:12
  You know, obviously we the caution came out early and then
• 20:14
  we had the bad pit stop, 12 1/2 second pit stop that moved us
• 20:17
  further back. So then we were further away
• 20:19
  from those guys when it happened.
• 20:20
  So it kind of nulled out that that potential advantage if it
• 20:23
  had gone green. These were the newer, these were
• 20:26
  the Kansas tire, I mean the newer intermediate tire that was
• 20:28
  wearing more. Same same as Kansas for sure.
• 20:32
  And then coach putting Denny with Chris had to be, I mean,
• 20:37
  not not a tough decision, but you have a veteran driver in
• 20:41
  starting over with anybody at that point in their career.
• 20:44
  It seemed like it's it's tough to build chemistry or can be.
• 20:48
  But now Denny's, you know, he's he's gotten faster on Saturdays.
• 20:52
  For one thing, it seems like they're they unload really fast.
• 20:55
  He's obviously has a bunch of wins.
• 20:57
  Is this better than you could have dreamed it working out with
• 21:00
  this pairing that you put together here?
• 21:02
  Well, you certainly would worry about that and for sure and I,
• 21:07
  that was kind of a tough time there.
• 21:10
  And Denny worked through it with us and Chris did too.
• 21:14
  Chris had opportunities there and he chose to, you know, stay
• 21:19
  with us. We really appreciate that.
• 21:21
  And so that was that was something that we kind of felt
• 21:25
  like was best for our race team, but it was also in some ways
• 21:30
  hard to go through it. So I just appreciate the way
• 21:34
  that team has fought, Chris has led him, Denny's been all in on
• 21:40
  it and they they make something special out of it.
• 21:43
  And certainly today was special Coach this one's for.
• 21:46
  You you mentioned earlier that you were in conversation with
• 21:49
  your sponsors during the winner's circle.
• 21:52
  Could they hear you above the chaos?
• 21:55
  It's hard, but I think I just scream so, so it is.
• 22:02
  It is. It's great for me to get a
• 22:04
  chance to speak with them because you know, the chief
• 22:10
  marketing officer for AMPMI said you made one of the best deals
• 22:15
  anybody's made because that thing is going to be all over
• 22:19
  the new media tomorrow. We're celebrating here, so it's
• 22:23
  great to see that happen. Something like that where
• 22:25
  somebody comes with you and just really appreciate that and every
• 22:33
  way for me is a huge deal. No, they they second race, but
• 22:42
  it is just a second race, so it's great.
• 22:45
  Parkers, Fox Sports Joe, what do you tell Denny before Phoenix,
• 22:50
  considering that he's a guy who's oh, for four in the
• 22:52
  championship and has done everything he's ever wanted to
• 22:55
  accomplish in this sport except win a championship?
• 22:58
  Yeah. What would I tell him?
• 23:01
  Yeah, yeah. Actually, to be quite truthful
• 23:06
  over here, the coaches are right there, the crew chiefs, so
• 23:11
  they'll do most of the talking and planning and all of that.
• 23:15
  Obviously, Denny knows there is a huge part of racing that is
• 23:22
  not the competitive part of it, you know what I mean?
• 23:26
  So it's sponsorship, working through things with Denny.
• 23:30
  That's kind of where I am. But I, I think when you go this
• 23:33
  long with somebody, we've gone through a lot together, you
• 23:36
  know, negotiating contracts, disappointments, all the things
• 23:40
  that's happened. And I think when that kind of
• 23:43
  happens in a partnership and a relationship, you grow stronger
• 23:49
  and stronger if you can get through it.
• 23:52
  And so I, I just think for him, there won't be a lot of talking
• 23:57
  about it because he knows everything's at stake in this.
• 24:00
  This has been his life. This is all he's wanted to do is
• 24:03
  race cars. And when JD found him, and I
• 24:08
  really thought last night with Young Life, JD was huge in Young
• 24:12
  Life. And that's part of the reason
• 24:14
  why we're working with that ministry.
• 24:18
  But when JD found him, you know, racing late models, JD gets a
• 24:23
  lot of the credit because he put Denny in a test, He put him in a
• 24:27
  truck, he put him in Xfinity car.
• 24:31
  And finally he said to me, I think we need to sign this guy.
• 24:34
  And so that's part of it too. I just really appreciate that
• 24:38
  and the fact that J DS memory and everything kind of lives on.
• 24:42
  Denny put JD over the door with his name and Denny's kid.
• 24:52
  This this, this little boy now is JD.
• 24:55
  So all of that, it gets emotional really.
• 24:59
  I think the race at Daytona after JD went to be with the
• 25:03
  Lord is probably, it is for me the greatest sporting event I
• 25:09
  was ever in for our family and everybody.
• 25:13
  And I think God's hand was on that race.
• 25:17
  And so Denny's a big part of that history with JD, too.
• 25:22
  Coach, you made it a little easy for me by bringing up JD.
• 25:26
  You have two Hall of Famers and Bobby and Tony.
• 25:30
  Dale Jarrett technically drove for you, was in the Hall of Fame
• 25:34
  when JD brought you Denny. Did you have any idea he's your,
• 25:38
  he's your winningest driver at sixty wins?
• 25:40
  I mean, did you have any idea that this late model kid from
• 25:43
  Virginia was going to turn into this what he has for you?
• 25:47
  I got to be. No, I did not be.
• 25:50
  I got to be honest. You know what I mean?
• 25:52
  And really, if you remember that year, yeah, well, we, we
• 25:58
  actually were struggling with the car, the, you know, the
• 26:01
  FedEx car. And so halfway through the he
• 26:04
  only ran 1/2 a year in Xfinity, which is amazing.
• 26:07
  And so we put him in there kind of as an experiment.
• 26:11
  And I think the third race he sat on a pole when he was gone.
• 26:15
  And so he deserves a lot of credit in that.
• 26:17
  But, you know, I appreciate you mentioning JD.
• 26:21
  There is a huge part of JD and Coy, both my boys, you know,
• 26:27
  they're a big part of our history and everything that
• 26:30
  we're going to do going forward. I got grandkids now that that
• 26:35
  just love it and a part of it. And I I got to tell you, I just
• 26:38
  we love what we get to do NASCAR and getting a chance to go
• 26:44
  compete every weekend against great owners, great teams.
• 26:50
  I, I just love it and hopefully we're always going to be in it,
• 26:54
  our family.