NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 20, 2015
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 SCOTT PRODUCTS CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed the progress of his team, the advantages and disadvantages of being a one-car team, the West Coast Swing, and more. Full Transcript:
TALK ABOUT YOUR TEAM’S PERFORMANCE AND THE MOMENTUM YOU HAVE GOING INTO THIS WEEKEND
“I try not to get too excited about it, but I have definitely improved from where we were last year just throughout the course of the year. The first four races, two of them being on 1.5-mile tracks, and that was kind of our weakness last year. So to run as well as we have been and Phoenix last weekend. Friday and Saturday we didn’t have great days and Sunday to start from the back and move forward I thought we actually had a shot at a Top-10 finish there as well. I’m real proud of the team so far. The RCR alliance, as a whole, from the No. 78 (Martin Truex Jr), the No. 31 (Ryan Newman), and Casey Mears, the No. 13 car, as a group, all of us are running better. There is a lot of hard work that’s went into it on all sides. My guys have worked hard. We’ve got new cars this year and Brian Burns (crew chief) in his third full year as a crew chief but our second year working together, everything is coming together. It’s early. I don’t want to overstate too early, but definitely compared to last year, I think we were like 26th or 27th in points and hadn’t finished on the lead lap yet until this race. We’ve ran all the laps so far, so the reliance is there. It’s good so far. Hopefully we have another solid weekend this weekend.”
HOW ARE TIRES THIS WEEKEND?
“They go away quick. And the track changes a lot just in the first run, I was out there early, about the fifth car out there. The first couple of laps was fast and after I think it was the No. 16 car (Greg Biffle) that brought out the yellow, we went right back out there and we were a second slower right away. So, we’re a little bit off this weekend so far. We’re righting the front end right now, trying to get that to work a little bit better. But, tires are always an issue here going away, so if you can have a good car that’s easy on the tires; fortunately I think that’s where we’ve been pretty good so far this year. We haven’t had maybe the most outright speed when it comes to qualifying or putting that big lap up in practice, but we’ve had good long run cars and I think that’s what you’re going to need here this weekend. So hopefully we continue the trend.”
TWO OF THE LOCAL FAVORITES HERE, KEVIN HARVICK AND JIMMIE JOHNSON, ARE FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. IS THERE ANY SO. CAL VERSUS NO. CAL RIVALRY GOING ON?
OR, DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR SONOMA?
“No, I dislike everyone equally (teasing). It’s not from being from Southern California. It’s pretty even. Anytime you come back to Southern California, being a California guy, my parents are here; you get some family and friends. Obviously I’m a lot closer to Sonoma and Laguna Seca was always my home track growing up. I just know those guys will be fast here like always.”
IS THERE STILL A BIT OF A DISADVANTAGE IN HAVING A ONE-CAR TEAM?
“Having the alliance helps. So, I don’t truly look at us as a one-car team. When we’re back in the shop. The great thing is this year. I think it all comes together when you’re running better. The sponsors are happier. What Tad (Geschickter, owner) has done in the off-season and as we work forward this year. We’ve got Food For Less on the car this year and the hood with Scott Products this weekend. Hungry Jack was a new sponsor last year. We’ve got Hungry Jack Potatoes as part of the team now. Kroger has been really excited about what we’ve been doing, plus all of our sponsors, Clorox and Kingsford that re-signed last year. Bushes Beans has been really happy; and just all the sponsors you look at, I really take in.
“Everything is coming together. The alliance helps. Being a one-car team, we still have 35 people that work at our shop compared to Hendrick that’s got 500 people, but you just take all the brands and Tad just keeps continually adding. I’m happy with our team and where it’s going. We’ve got a lot of work to go to be one of those No. 48’s and No. 4’s and all those teams every weekend, but I can see the hard work is paying off and that’s what’s great from inside the race car and outside of it.”
WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE IT TO FOR THESE SINGLE CAR TEAMS TO BE ABLE TO HANG WITH THE BIG DOGS THIS YEAR?
“The No. 78 Team (Furniture Row) has been in business a long time. They’ve worked hard on that program and continually got better. Last year they had king of stuggled, but they’ve come back this year and have been really strong. I really look at the alliance as a whole. You look at what Ryan Newman did at the end of last year. Our race team was pretty strong the last seven races of the Chase we really kind of found a program that each race track we showed up to we were better with. And just as a whole this year, the whole alliance and the RCR team, we’re just better.
“I think we’re working well together. It’s hard when you make an alliance, trying to fit in and see where you fit in and see how much data you truly get. What are the tools we can use? I think a lot last year we were just behind because we did the alliance basically right before 2014. So we were trying to catch-up on cars and everything. We didn’t maximize the tools we had, which RCR really allowed us to have pretty much everything we needed.
“So, I think going into this year, we just looked at okay, how do we make ourselves better? As a group do we make better? We just started a lot further ahead this year than we were last year. This weekend and last weekend we have a brand new car. It’s one of the first brand new cars from top to bottom we’ve had since the team was with Toyota. Just being ahead has really helped us.”
THIS TRACK IS VERY UNIQUE IN A LOT OF WAYS. HOW IS THE CAR CHANGING IN PERFORMANCE DUE TO THE NEW DOWNFORCE RULES ETC. THIS YEAR?
“Well, the last couple of weekends I feel like you don’t really notice the downforce being gone as much. The horsepower kind of evens it out. Every year the track gets rougher and rougher. The downforce not being in the car, you could really see the cars move around. We saw Greg (Biffle) hit the wall. Carl (Edwards) spun out. The cars are sliding around a lot more. So, I feel like at least early on, this is the first race track you can feel the downforce is out of the car. The cars are moving around that much already, and that’s with the cars not even around each other. That’s by ourselves. So, on restarts and in the race I think it’s going to be even more. It will be interesting with the long straightaways and not having as much horsepower, the draft is going to be bigger.
“But at the same time, if you’re drafting somebody and you go behind him into the corner, that loss of downforce is going to be even worse than at some of the race tracks. I think it’s going to be a great show. We’re already kind of seeing how the cars move around a lot because of that. They’re using up the tires more just because you’re sliding around on them more. As a whole, this is definitely the first time I’ve really felt that lack of downforce, especially in the rear.”
WHAT’S YOUR PERCEPTION OF WHERE THIS TRACK IS NOW IN THE QUALITY OF RACING AND THE TRACK SURFACE AND THE ATTENDANCE AND HOW IT’S PICKED-UP OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS?
“I think what this race track has done and I was able to come out last week and try to help promote the race. What we saw last year to have the crowd basically sold out was unbelievable compared to the past when you kind of see some grandstands empty. But I think it all kind of correlates with the racing (being) a lot better. This used to be a race track that everybody would come to and be like there’s going to be a lot of single-file racing and it’s going to be a long race. It was a 500-mile race. It seems like it took five hours. And now, it’s 400 miles. The last couple of years we’ve seen the racing has just been unbelievable when it comes to throughout the field and racing for the win. And fans see that. And they want to see some great racing.
“The track has done a lot to really help promote the race. I was able to come out and have a fun event with the fans. There was a big group of people out there last week talking to Auto Club Speedway Officials. They said that ticket sales were even ahead compared to last year at this time. They’re just doing a great job and the racing helps that and anything we can do as drivers to get the fans out here because anytime you race in front of a packed house, it just makes it that much more exciting.”
DOES THE SHORTER RACE REALLY MAKE THAT BIG OF A DIFFERENCE?
“Yeah. It does. That extra 100 miles at some of these race tracks, Pocono’s the same way; it just seems like it adds that extra 30 or 45 minutes and it really just stretches the race out to where in the middle of the race, sometimes fans get upset because it’s like oh, there not…..we’re still driving hard, but you know if you’ve got 300 miles left and you’ve already done 200 miles, you’ve got to save something left in your race cars. And you can’t make mistakes. So, at some point you’ve got to just race the race track. And if somebody catches you, you let them go. But 100 miles, when you shorten it, you don’t have a lot of time. You still have a lot of pit stops, but it seems like for 100 miles it almost feels like it’s 200 or 300 miles that you’ve shortened the race because it makes everything that much tighter and more critical to fire-off quick because you don’t have an extra 100 miles to try to fix it.”
LAST YEAR, YOU GOT INTO THE CHASE AT WATKINS GLEN. ASSUMING YOU DON’T WANT TO RELY ON THE ROAD COURSES FOR A CHANCE TO GET INTO THE CHASE, WHICH OVAL TRACKS BETWEEN NOW AND THE CHASE HAVE YOU CIRCLED AS YOUR BEST CHANCE TO PICK-UP THAT WIN?
“Last year I would have said it was the short tracks. This year, I feel like our 1.5-mile program has gotten a lot better. It’s not quite where the No. 4 or the No. 48 is yet. If we just keep getting better, any track we can make it. We showed last year that even though it was a road course, it’s still tough to win the races. If we go out there and we’re at our best, we can run up front. Our pit crew, I hate that our jack man went down last week with a calf injury, but what he’s done to step-up the pit crew because last year there were a lot of times we were running up front and we weren’t as quick as we needed to be in the pits, ant it’s so critical. He’s worked so hard to develop our pit crew. This year the guys have just done an awesome job. So, we’re getting better as a whole. So I don’t pick one race track. I look at every weekend. I go with the same mindset. We go do our job and we give ourselves the best opportunity to go win that we can. We’ve just got to keep doing that.”
WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE WEST COAST SWING? WE KNOW YOU WERE PROMOTING THIS RACE, BUT WHAT DID YOU DO?
“I went home (laughs). I needed to go back home. Last week was fun because when I got to come out here we had a good time. Getting to Phoenix early, I just hung out with the guys. We went golfing. Had a good time. That’s something I really love about this team. We really are family. We’re so close to each other. The nature of our team being as small as it is, you’ve got to work harder than everybody to contend. I just had fun with the guys last week going into Phoenix. I try to show them as much as I can how much I appreciate them, whether we play golf or have dinner, or just hang out, how hard they work and what they sacrifice to make the job as fun as it is. So after Phoenix, I just needed to get home for a couple of days and get everything back in order. So that’s what I did. I went home and flew out here yesterday.”
LOGISTICALLY, HOW HAS THE WEST COAST SWING BEEN FOR YOUR TEAM? HAVE THEY STAYED OUT ON THE WEST COAST OR HAVE THEY GONE BACK & FORTH? HAS IT PAID OFF, FINANCIALLY, FOR YOU TO DO THIS WEST COAST SWING?
“Most of my guys have stayed out here. A couple of our guys went back to the shop in between races. But my crew chief and engineer and car chief, the guys that lead the road crew, they’ve stayed out here. Financially, I don’t know. That’s something to ask Tad (Geschickter) about and see if it really does save money for the team or not. Last year, it was just as tough traveling back & forth, I know that. But, really, it’s the preparation they did in the off-season and being ahead a little bit that allowed us to stay out there because for the most part our cars were ready to come out here. Obviously they’ve got to take the next week’s cars from the shop and get them down here and switch them out.
“But overall, those guys are troupers to be away from their families. For the most part, the wives and girlfriends aren’t out here; so they’ve really sacrificed. But I just love the chemistry because every day they were out doing something together whether I was here or not. They truly have a lot of fun together.”
EARLIER TODAY, KEVIN HARVICK SAID HE THOUGHT IT WAS A HEALTHY THING THAT THIS TRACK WENT FROM HAVING TWO RACES TO ONE. HE THOUGHT MAYBE THAT’S SOMETHING THAT NASCAR SHOULD LOOK AT FOR VARIOUS SITES. MAYBE IT’S NOT PRACTICAL FOR SOME SITES TO HOLD TWO RACES A YEAR. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?
“I agree. I’d like to see a little bit more diversity in the schedule. And they should put about eight or nine road courses in. It’s some of the best racing. I don’t see why you wouldn’t. And there’s plenty out there. We can go to Road America, Mid-Ohio, Laguna. I could name off enough that I’d like to go to. If you look at a place like Pocono, although they do get good crowds there, you go there twice in eight weeks. Michigan is kind of the same way.
“I remember talking to Roger Curtis, from Michigan, asking what is the same crowd? And it’s still, it’s 60 percent different from one race to the next. It definitely helps when you only have one race. The second race was always Labor Day and it was like 115 degrees here. We don’t want to sit in that in a race car, let alone fans sitting in a metal grandstand. The weather out here at this time, for the most part, is usually really nice and that’s helped a lot, too.
“So, there’s a lot of different reasons I think that crowds kind of go up and down. But I still go back to racing helps a lot. When you come to a race that you know is going to have great side-by-side racing, fans want to see that.”
FOR A GUY WHO HAS BASICALLY BEEN TAKEN OUT OF THE SEAT AND HAD TO FIGHT HIS WAY TO GET BACK INTO A DECENT RIDE, WHAT DO YOU THINK A GUY LIKE BRIAN VICKERS OR KYLE BUSCH OR ANY OF THESE GUYS ARE THINKING, HAVING TO SIT OUT AS MUCH AS YOU ALL DO AT THIS LEVEL? HOW TOUGH IS IT TO BE ON THE SIDELINES?
“It’s tough. As a race car driver, it’s the roughest thing to do is to see your race car going around without you in it. For Kyle, with the injury; he’s one of the best that we have in the sport and we all want him back as quick as possible. But when he comes back, he’s got a seat there. A guy like Brian right now, it’s so tough seeing what he’s going through. That’s way bigger than racing. That’s your health. And although we’d like to, we’re not very smart sometimes when it comes to substituting our health for being in the race seat. But that’s way bigger than that. And that takes precedence over anything. For me, half the time I was coming, I didn’t have a ride so I had to figure out which ride I was going to be in and if I was going to have a ride again. But it’s tough. You don’t like watching on TV. It’s really difficult to watch on TV, watch your race car go around or just watch race cars go around in general that you want to be in. It’s never easy no matter what reason that you have to go through for that.”
WITH WHAT HAPPENED TO MARCOS (AMBROSE) THIS WEEK GETTING OUT OF THE CAR, THE SUPER V-8, HOW DIFFICULT DO YOU THINK IT IS FOR HIM SINCE HE HAD A REALLY GOOD RIDE HERE. I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’VE TALKED TO HIM OR NOT OR HEARD FROM HIM, BUT HOW DIFFICULT DO YOU THINK IT IS FOR HIM HAVING GIVEN UP A RIDE OVER HERE AND NOW JUST WONDERING WHAT’S NEXT?
“You’d have to ask him that. I’m not sure. But I really didn’t read in the reason why he’s out. So, I have no clue. It’s all about me.”