TEAM CHEVY AT CHICAGOLAND: Ty Dillon Breakout Session Highlights

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY
CAMPING WORLD 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 29, 2019

TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO MILIARTY CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE RACE THIS WEEKEND?
“I don’t know yet. I think that the track surface is one of the most worn that we’ve been on. It seems rougher than anything we’ve been on yet. Usually here, Charlotte and Kentucky were some of the roughest places, but I’d say this is close to number one now. I think it’s going to be a good race. It seemed like it was a little tough to pass in the heat of the day. I think that the racing groove is wide enough here to have a good race.”

A FEW WEEKS AGO, YOU TALKED ABOUT A FEW THINGS THAT THE SPORT COULD DO TO IMPROVE. WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK ARE YOU STARTING TO GET?
“I haven’t gotten the ‘come work for us’ response yet, but maybe one day. NASCAR has definitely reached out since some of my comments and they seem somewhat interested. I haven’t heard anything from them recently, but before we went to Sonoma, we talked about some things and it led to us running a live 360 cam inside the car to try to get some of these things in motion. I think there are a lot of things that they just need to stay openminded and honest about in regards to where we are at as a sport and focus on what we can do to keep it rolling. I know it takes a lot of people pulling in the same direction, but there are some clear obvious things that we can do that I feel like we can enhance our sport to take it to the next level. Sometimes it just needs to be said to get the ball rolling.”

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE 360 CAM YOU RAN?
“That was something that came from my comments at Pocono. NASCAR reached out and wanted to put in a 360 camera inside of the car. We spoke the week before on ways to market that and talk about it with NASCAR. I think the idea was cool, I just don’t think we got it pushed hard enough. Obviously there were a lot of people that didn’t know about it. They left it up to me to promote it from my social, which I didn’t think was the best idea. I appreciate the honor of it, but we need to do a bigger and better job of promoting things like that so we have some fan interest to back some of these ideas. We had a great idea and we executed it, but we didn’t let enough people know about it from our platforms. The idea was to have the 360 cam throughout the race and people could send in questions from stage, to stage, to the end of the race. Then, the next Tuesday I was going to answer live on NASCAR’s Instagram page. I think the idea was great, the execution was not as solid that we wanted it to be. We need more out of everyone involved if we are going to push these things.”

WHAT OTHER IDEAS DO YOU HAVE?
“I just think the basis of that idea was to have live-streaming cameras in every single racecar. We can afford that in this sport and whoever wants to do it can do it. That way, we can maybe live stream from each driver’s personal account, team’s account or it can vary week to week. This is to drive fan engagement to certain sponsors, teams and add value that way. Drivers, owners, race teams, TV providers all have to understand the importance that we have to open our minds to the fact that between stages is just as important to the future of the sport to communicate to our fans as it is to get in the right call of information. Yes, you have to get the right information into our Crew Chief first, but we can maybe take an extra pace lap under caution for a social lap. Maybe that is something NASCAR can take a look at. Maybe have a PR Representative, a third person on the pit box, or a second radio that only they can contact you on to answer questions from fans really quick. The driver could then interact with our fans live during the race. They are looking at you and seeing live interaction. There is no other sport that can provide that. We have every means and it’s sitting right here for us to take a big step. There are a lot of other things I have ideas on in regards to making at-track experiences better. Maybe starting to do away with just sitting in the stands for five hours aspect of the race and making it more mobile for the younger generations that want to be entertained at multiple levels. I think we have to grow our mind, add more entertainment factors, even if it doesn’t correlate with racing to get people there. Once people get to our sport, all it takes is watching one lap and finding a driver that did something cool. It’s that interaction that will make them turn on the TV and watch that driver. Then they might buy their gear. Then they are definitely coming back, whether they are coming back for the race or the thing that got them there in the first place in the entertainment level. There’s so much more that we can do.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE EFFECT OF THE NUMBER OF CAUTIONS, OR LACK THERE OF, THIS SEASON?
“I think this package has done one of two things: restarts are amazing, they are great to watch. When we have those, we have some of the best races NASCAR has seen. On the other hand, we are having less cautions, so maybe we need to have talks of having a fourth stage implemented. Maybe every week, we have a caution with fifteen to go and maybe it pays extra points to win the third stage or something like that. Look at something as far as adding a fourth stage where you know there is going to be a fifteen-lap shootout. We can look at different things so that you aren’t feeling like the guy who had a car that was dominate all day, but lose points due to an extra stage. Maybe boost the third stage’s points and minimize the points in the fourth stage, or just add bonus points in the fourth stage. There is something there that we can do to make sure that every single week we have that crazy action.”