NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MYABFITSTORY.COM 400
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 51 BRAND PROFESSIONAL AGRICULTURE CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed Chicagoland Speedway as his home town track, the progress he feels he’s made during the season thus far, and more. FULL TRANSCRIPT:

TALK ABOUT YOUR HISTORY WITH THIS TRACK TRACK, SOME OF THE THINGS EARLY-ON IN YOUR CAREER THAT HELPED TO GET YOU WHERE YOU ARE NOW, AND MAYBE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW THE SEASON IS GOING FOR YOU
“Thanks for having me. This race track is obviously my home track; the closest one to Riverton for us. I have a lot of history here. I raced the ARCA Series up here for a number of years before I was able to come into the Nationwide Series. I would say, actually, this race kind of started my NASCAR career. I met Roger Penske here for the first time and that’s what started our conversations about eventually going to drive for him. So that was really cool for me.

“I really enjoy this race track. It’s a fun race track. I’ve been fortunate enough to win a Nationwide Series race here and I would love to win a Cup Series race here; not only because it’s my home track, but it’s BRANDT’s home track. They’re from the Springfield area. There’s just a lot of history here, for me, and a fun place to be at.

“As far as the season has gone, everybody at HScott Motorsports has been working really hard. We started out the season as a rookie driver and really as a rookie team, and so to be able to learn what we’ve been learning and grow as a team and as an organization I think has been really huge, not only for myself, but for Harry Scott and Steve Addington and everyone that’s been involved. We’re plugging away each and every week. We’ve had some really good runs here lately and don’t have the finishes to really show for it. But I feel like we’ve had a strong race car here of late. We’re trying to keep that momentum going.”

FOR THE REMAINING TEN RACES, HOW MUCH OF YOUR FOCUS AND EMPHASIS IS ON TRYING OUT NEW THINGS AND GETTING A PACKAGE OR PLAN TOGETHER FOR 2015?
“I think that’s a good point. Obviously not being in the Chase, there’s still a lot to go for and a lot to learn; and ten races is still a good chunk of the season. For us, we’ve really been focusing really hard on how to make the program better as a whole, whether it be on-track performance or off-track performance and trying things and trying changes that we haven’t really tried up until this point. Obviously we want to finish as best we can, so we don’t want to throw anything away.

“But as you mentioned, 2015 is just around the corner. And so we’ve definitely been trying to learn a lot. We’ve been very fortunate as a team and as an organization to have some opportunities to do that and I think as we go through the end of the season, we’ve got race tracks that we feel like suit our strengths that are still on the schedule. So, hopefully we can keep going and run really well at those places.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE RACE WHERE THE TEAM GREW THE MOST? AND, WHAT HAS BEEN THE RACE THAT PROVIDED YOU, AS A DRIVER, THE MOST SO FAR THIS SEASON?
“I would say, for me, probably where I really grew the most was the Bristol race in the spring. That one, I felt like I learned the most over the course of the whole event. I would say the fall Bristol race a couple of weeks ago is probably where we put everything together and we felt like we had learned a lot. Michigan also was a big key for the team. We learned a lot at the second Michigan race. Those two have, I feel like, catapulted us to a different level from an on-track standpoint, but really from an off-track standpoint.

“We’re finally to the point where we’re getting processes down of getting the cars to the race track the way we want them and getting through practice the way we want to and getting the adjustments we need to make from practice to qualifying and qualifying to final practice and final practice to the race. It’s hard to explain all of that if you had to sit down and explain all that. But it really is, for me, as a team, that’s been the most difficult challenge. And I feel like we’re doing a really good job of that right now.”