| Q. What has the first part of this experience been like so far? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: It’s been amazing. When you look at JR Motorsports as a whole, what they’ve accomplished in this sport, then to see Dale Jr. in the garage this morning at 6 a.m. with a smile on his face, I think it puts it into perspective how big of a moment this was, not only for Dale and Kelley and LW, but for our company as a whole. I think even furthermore, when I look at the men and women we’ve assembled to be here and be a part of this team, see their smiles today, most of which have never worked in a Cup Series garage or worked on a Cup Series car in their lives, get the opportunity to come here to the biggest race of the year and to have an opportunity to try to qualify, it’s a big deal. I think for me, there’s a lot of stress, a lot of pressure that goes along with that. I’ve put in a lot of sleepless nights to try to get ready for this and understand what I can do to be my best, at the same time also being very proud of what we’ve accomplished in building a beautiful race car. Chris Stapleton, Traveller Whiskey, how excited they are. Just the whole process, it’s been really, really special and surreal to even get to this point, regardless of how the rest of the weekend goes. Q. How do you approach getting into the race? You have a crew chief who is brilliant at qualifying. JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I think obviously if you can qualify in and make speed today, it makes life a lot easier. On the other side of that, the experience that I have, the experience that Greg has, my spotter Joey, what he was able to do on top of the spotter stand, those are things I think are very important. As Chevrolet, we got a lot of cars in the field that are Chevys. You cannot do this alone. There is no way to superspeedway race by yourself. We’re hopeful that that all plays into our favor, but we also know that this is arguably one of the toughest open fields of the last couple years. We picked a heck of a year to try to make this attempt. There’s a lot that goes into it. I would say that as the Next Gen car has kind of come in, you focus on things a little bit differently for qualifying than maybe what you would have in the past. I don’t know that there’s any magic, per se, but at the same time I know we’ve prepared a really, really nice race car. If that helps in any way, we’re going to qualify great this evening. But we’re going to do what we can regardless and have the best opportunity we can to lock our way into the field. Q. How have you been dealing with the stress and pressure? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I mean, I think that’s part of the sport, right? I think we wouldn’t do this if weirdly we didn’t all enjoy the stress of this a little bit. I think for me, I definitely operate on those feelings. I’m at my best when the pressure is the highest. Last year we went on this pressure makes diamonds. It’s really true. If it didn’t mean anything, there would be no pressure, right? If you could go through life, there was no meaning, you would just kind of live every day and just kind of be bland. I think sometimes the peaks and the valleys define how we feel, who we are, how we operate. I’ve been blessed to be around great people and great opportunities. This is just another addition to what I’ve been able to accomplish through my career. Knowing all of these people around me are wanting to complete this task and be a part of it, it makes me just proud to even have my name as a part of it. It’s a way bigger experience than just me driving the race car, that’s for sure. Q. (No microphone.) JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Reddit feels the same way, just so you know. Q. Did you ever anticipate making another Daytona 500 start? What are the emotions that come along with that? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Let me start by saying I don’t know that I’ve — hard to explain how I’m going to say this. I’ve never not wanted to be in the Cup Series. Still to this day, if the opportunity was there to go Cup racing at a high level, I would still have a lot of interest in that. With that being said, though, I think you have to be in the right situation, the right opportunity with the right team and the right car. I don’t want to just go to the Cup level just to go compete, right? I want to be able to go out and run good and run up front. I think last year running the 5 car for Kyle Larson and the whole team made me know how much I really enjoy the Cup side knowing we were able to go up there and be successful. Adversely, too, I have a great team, a great group of people that are around me. I have an opportunity to go win the Xfinity Series championship as we did last year and have another great shot at doing again this year. I’m at two points where both are fantastic. I love what I do. I wouldn’t change that side of it for the world. Would I love to be Cup racing again? Absolutely. You’re always fighting that internal battle. What I will say is it’s allowed me to do things being in the Xfinity Series that I never would have gotten to do had I been in the Cup Series. Right, wrong, indifferent, I know there’s a lot of difference of opinion on what that looks like. Winning a championship last year was probably one of the most meaningful moments of my career. Had I not gone back down to the Xfinity Series, I don’t know if I ever would have experienced that. I feel like it’s definitely been the right choice. I’m having a fun being able to be a part of a really cool experience with JR Motorsports that in my wildest dreams I never saw coming to fruition. Q. (Question about Dale.) JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Dale is the same Dale. I think it put a lot of things in perspective for me this morning watching his excitement, watching him be in the garage, overseeing kind of all of this. The amount of effort and time he’s put into this program, understanding the car, what it needs to do to be fast, checking in on the progress daily. I mean, we’re not talking about somebody that’s just, Hey, how’s the car doing once a week or once a month. It’s daily looking at the car, making sure that he’s understanding where we’re going with everything. Those are big steps for our race team. I also equally think it’s good for our sport. Dale is an icon of the sport. He has amassed a fan base that goes well beyond the walls of the racetrack. He’s done it because he’s Dale, right? His persona and who he is, that’s Dale, right? We all know Dale Jr. He’s the same outside the car as he was inside the car. He’s accomplished a lot of great things on the racetrack. But as a sport, to see Dale’s excitement for this, I think it makes me excited for it. Whether I’m involved in it or not, it makes my excited for it seeing his excitement. I think that’s bled through into all of our employees. It’s really bled into the garage. There’s a lot of employees from other race teams that have come over, drivers that have texted myself or Dale personally, that have been super pumped on this. That says a lot in my mind about what that truly means, how special this really is. Q. So no pressure to make it? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: None, zero (laughter). Listen, I have seen a lot of social media that I’m pretty confident that I need not to show my face ever again if we don’t make the field. I will do my best job that I possibly can. But I think that this exercise of getting here has been significant of what it takes, the time, the energy, the financial side of it. Whether this is the first and only or first of many, I couldn’t tell you. Five years ago, I would have said that this day would never come. It finally came. It’s everything that I thought it would be and then some. I think that everybody at our shop feels the same way. So I’m excited to see the speed we can have tonight, but I’m excited to see how the rest of the weekend goes. I’m very hopeful. Anything can and will happen in the Duels. We’ve seen it all time and time again. You can have the fastest race car here and it winds up in a box of parts or you can sneak your way in on the last lap. I think Jimmie got in on one of the last laps of the Duels. You never know what to expect. I’m proud of the effort just to get to this point. We’re going to do everything we can to make it into the 500. Q. Given Hendrick’s front rows, is the front row something for you? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Listen, if we qualify on the front row, I’ll do backflips. I don’t know that I can, but I’ll at least attempt it. I don’t know. I think the one thing about this is while Hendrick has had a lot of success here, when you look at the, like I said earlier, employees that are down there working on this race car, a lot of them have never been on the Cup side. Just the understanding of going through tech, getting the car into pit road, all of that, there’s all these new experiences, right? While there’s no magic, per se, just understanding the processes. Sometimes you have to focus on little things that you maybe could put that time or energy into the car that now you’re focusing on just kind of learning it and growing it. Those are efforts that probably hinder us a little bit in this qualifying effort. I wouldn’t change that. We could have assembled a group of people, got a bunch of people from another race team, had them come and be a part of it. That’s not what this has been about. This has been about JR Motorsports going Cup racing and we’ve done that. I think for me, watching their effort, regardless of what happens, I just want to lay down the best lap I can for them to see it make them happy and proud. Q. What was the challenge with practice today? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Time. Challenge at practice is getting a clean lap. We focused on a clean lap, what it would take to do that. When you have the chartered cars able to go out there and really focus, a lot of them drafted, some guys just went out and made long runs, just making sure everything got up to temperature. For us, while that would be great, we would love to do that, we needed to go out and get clean laps and understand what is our car going to do this evening, what do we have to do to go the fastest we can for a lap. I saw a bunch of open cars, I don’t know if it was working with different spotters, maybe a different thought process, but a lot of the open cars were able to go out there. I saw one was literally on the bumper on the car in front of them making laps. I don’t know if I quite understand that if you’re trying to qualify your way into the Daytona 500. There’s a lot of schools of thought when it comes to qualifying here. Greg did a great job of coming up with a game plan. If we had more time, you make more qualifying attempts. For what we needed to do, today was everything we needed to do and then some. Q. When you’ve been at place for 10 years, you’re going to bond with people. Certainly there’s been a bond with Dale. How has the relationship with him developed over the years? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: It’s funny because, again, Dale has accomplished everything you want to accomplish in the sport. He doesn’t need me, right? Let’s be honest, he doesn’t need me. But it’s been fun to watch his excitement for what I’ve accomplished on the racetrack. Look, I’ve been at JR Motorsports longer than any other part of my career of any other race team. There’s a good reason for that, right? I love where I’m at. I love the people that I’m around. Dale has been somebody that I look up to and I aspire to be, not only on the racetrack but off the racetrack, right? What he’s like as a dad, how he’s a husband. I mean, the guy is involved in everything, and he still somehow manages to handle all of it and do it well. Those are all things that I think for me are important. I’ve leaned on Dale a lot. We had a moment three years ago when we didn’t win the championship that was probably the turning point in he and I’s relationship. We couldn’t explain it. I felt like I let everybody down. We didn’t win a championship. He felt the same way on the other side of it as a team. Probably the coolest thing for me is I’ve been at JR Motorsports long enough to have watched Dale go from full-time Cup Series driver to TV personality to car owner to all these different things and facets of his career. The Dale Jr. of today is not the Dale Jr. of five years ago, especially not the Dale Jr. of 10 years ago. As he’s gotten older and has had kids, has stepped back from the driving seat, it’s been amazing to watch his sentimental side of this sport and what it means to him. I think that’s where this has been the coolest moment, is seeing him being sentimental about the sport. It’s drawn us closer together. I think regardless of how the outcome is, these are the moments that I’m enjoying, right? These are the moments that are going to go down in my mind as we go on as the coolest moments. Q. (No microphone.) JUSTIN ALLGAIER: He’s given Dale Jr. a championship in the Xfinity Series, right? Really, I mean, he’s been a guy that has done a lot for our team. That’s amazing and it’s really, really cool, but it’s a lot of pressure. Dale Jr. is not going to accomplish a lot of things more in his career. He’s done it all. He’s seen it all. He’s been a part of all of it. I wish I could explain the pressure to you because it’s a different pressure than I’ve ever felt. It’s not a harder pressure, it’s just a different pressure than I’ve ever felt. It’s not even coming from Dale. That’s the funniest part of this, it’s not directed from Dale. Dale has become family. You don’t ever want to let family down, right? That’s where this whole process has kind of come into play. You are relying on so many people in these moments. Greg feels the weight of all of this pressure. I feel the weight of all of this pressure. All the men and women that are part of this organization, they all feel the weight of this pressure. They all still are equally excited and joyful of this moment. It’s been a lot. But I’m going to tell you, if we can qualify our way into the Daytona 500, the weight of the world will be lifted off the shoulders, will be of massive proportions, right? Whether that’s in single car or in the Duels, it will be a lift of massive proportions. I’ve been in this race, qualified for this race. It’s a surreal experience. On the other side of it, I’ve also watched many, many men and women that should have had the cars, had the teams to do this, walk out of this racetrack with their heads held low because they didn’t qualify. I look at the list of cars that are attempting this year. I go, Man, there’s some guys and gals that are going to be really sad when they walk out of here. I just hope we’re not one of them. Q. How do negotiations work with it comes to running the Daytona 500? Is that you? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: No, that was me sitting in a meeting, them telling me what their plan was, and somehow me thinking that they were just telling me what their plan was. I didn’t expect them to tell me where they’re going to dinner tonight. I don’t know why they would tell me their plans without me being involved. They asked if I would drive. My only thing was being family, I said, I need to discuss this with my wife, right? I called my wife. We had the discussion on the phone. About five minutes later I called back and said, Yeah, I’m in. There really weren’t a lot of discussions. This is what we’re attempting, what we are planning, what we want to do. Are you (indiscernible)? I think the easy answer is yes. This is a big moment. This is a big play. Not only for myself, not only for Chris Stapleton, JR Motorsports, this is a big deal for what we’re trying to accomplish in this sport. It’s been really, really cool. Q. You have had the opportunity the last couple years, again this year, to take your dirt model bike down the road and race the week before Daytona. What is about that that you have continued to enjoy? How do you feel it benefits you keeping your skills sharp? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Christopher and Kyle did a lot better than I did. I got crashed, spent all week trying to chop, cut, rebuild (smiling). Dirt racing for me has and always and will always be where I grew up, how I grew up, what I grew up doing. I love this sport, right? This sport as a whole is just so cool, whether you’re at Volusia, New Smyrna, any one of the hundreds of short tracks around the country. There’s so many racers that you just go, Man, if they ever would have had the right opportunity, they could be Cup Series champions because they’re that good. Some don’t aspire to that. You know what, I can respect that wholeheartedly. For me, I do it because, number one, it keeps me sharp. It gives you that hand-eye coordination, skills. Number two, I just enjoy being around the people, the fans. I’m an extrovert. I love being around people. Going to the racetrack and being a part of it, it’s really, really cool. Volusia does a great job. It’s right down the road. If there was ever a year that I shouldn’t have gone dirt racing, it was this year because it put me behind schedule by a lot. At the same time I wouldn’t trade it. It’s pretty special. Q. Is the stress higher than you had thought last week? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Yeah, way higher. I was secretly thinking for practice, I think I was hoping we’d maybe go a second faster than the rest of the field, I wouldn’t have to worry about qualifying this evening. The pressure is high. 99.9% of that pressure that is being high is self-induced, right? It’s me wanting something that I really have no control over. I think that’s the hardest part, right? I do have control. I guess I can go out there and make a mistake qualifying, not put ourselves in position. If I go out and do my job, it’s going to be difficult, but it’s going to be rewarding when we hopefully go faster than all the rest of them. That’s just what we have to go try and accomplish. If we do that, I think we’re in great shape. Q. Dissecting single-car speed in practice, how did you feel? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: I don’t know. I mean, there’s four or five us that are really, really, really, really, really close on speed. You look at, Did that person have a tow? Maybe. Did they leave a little early on pit road to get a little extra speed? Maybe. Did they maybe not abide by the line they were supposed to run for qualifying practice? Maybe. Those are all things that you go, Man, does it account for this much or for a lot? I don’t know. This team has put a lot of effort into it. I would say as the Next Gen era has come around, everybody’s in the same box, right? Used to be with the Gen-6 car, you could manipulate the bodies around where the tolerances would allow you to have a bigger window of where things could be at. The manufacturers were probably a little bit more apart on the aero, the target box, right? There were more discrepancies there. Even without bending the rules, right, you could have a significantly driving race car from two different manufacturers or two different teams. I think there was magic there, right? Now, with the parity we have in the sport, in the cars, anybody can show up at Daytona and have pretty good speed, right? It’s just a matter of all the little details, making sure as a driver you do all the right things. As a team the air pressure is so much more important. Hendrick engine shop is a class act. They have given me everything they can give me. When you’re building multiple engines that are going to the racetrack on any given weekend, you are putting the best in all of them to make sure you have the highest probability of winning. A lot of my friends are in Chevrolets which helps significantly. That doesn’t fix anything. That doesn’t give you guarantees. We just have to go out there, manage the day the best as possible, and hopefully we do the best job of anybody. Q. Do you let your mind wander what it’s going to be like on Sunday with this team? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Yes, I have, because I have the confidence in our program to know that I have a lot of confidence that we’re going to be able to go do that. Now, if we don’t, it will be really, really disappointing because I think when you allow yourself to kind of think about what the future could hold, you sometimes make that pain even bigger and greater, right? That being said, Dale and Chris, the excitement that they’ve already had, I can’t even imagine what Sunday would be like. It would be really, really special. But at the same time I’m going to do what I got to do and go out there and race hard. My only goal is to make them proud. Sometimes making them proud doesn’t necessarily mean making the race. Making them proud means you left it all out on the table. When I walk out of here Thursday night, I will know 100% was given. If I am lucky enough to race on Sunday, I will walk out of here on Sunday night knowing that I gave 100%. That’s all you can give. Q. There’s been a lot of different broadcast partners this year. You’re at the front of it with The CW with the Xfinity Series. Are there any changes that you’ve noticed significantly from The CW so far? Stuff you want to see more as a driver? JUSTIN ALLGAIER: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s been very interesting, right? This sport has evolved over the last 10, 15 years significantly, right? We’ve had so many great broadcast partners through the years. The personalities that come through, to be part of those broadcast partners, we’re very lucky in how they promote our sport both on and off the racetrack. It becomes very unique, right? When you have a broadcast partner change a lot of times you have a talent change. We’re seeing more crossover than we’ve ever seen. I was excited last year that The CW was able to get in and really be a part of the Playoffs for us, understand the challenges that they were going to see, right? Understand the challenges our fans were going to endure. We had some. It wasn’t an easy transition, right? But what I loved about it was they put their head down and they went to work, tried to understand everything better. Look at the talent they’ve brought on for 2025 not only in the booth but at the track. I’m excited for that. I think the one thing that our sport is unique in is how difficult the sport is to live out daily. I don’t know that’s always portrayed sometimes from the broadcast side because you’re in that moment, that race, that day, how it’s going. If I could have one thing that I would love to see is just being down in the trenches of what goes on day to day and how it operates. But I’m really excited about The CW, what they’re coming in with. Basically every home that has a TV in America will have access to our Xfinity Series races. That’s a big deal, right? You look at the Cup Series side. They’ve changed that around significantly. It’s a lot of streaming-based things that are going on. There’s a lot of things that really are differing now between the different series, the Trucks, Xfinity and Cup. I’m excited to see where this lands, where it goes, what it comes into. Look, racing as a whole has a lot of momentum, INDYCAR, NASCAR, road racing, we are all doing a fantastic job of trying to be better and get better for our fans. That just means there’s more competition. We have to go out and work harder for it. I think the sport has done that. We’re going to keep pushing, trying. Whatever happens, happens. I’m proud of the effort that The CW has put in, really all of the broadcast partners, what that looks like. |
Alex Lynn: “I think we’re on the right track. There were so many times last year in the WEC we were very fast and sometimes we didn’t put the results on paper. There is so much potential in this championship for this car and it’s really coming on leaps and bounds. Team JOTA has been amazing and we’ve been enjoying it, and that usually results in fat lap times as well.”
Norman Nato: “This is the first time we’re working together in a race environment, so we don’t feel 100 percent ready yet. But step by step we’re going to create a team pushing in the same direction to have the best package. It’s a really exciting project and I’m happy to be part of it. Already, having six drivers with different driving styles you can learn from corner to corner, and set-up and strategy-wise you can try different things and arrive next week with a package that you’re thinking about the race and not trying to find the best set-up. This is a track that suits our car and it’s also important to have a clean race to learn as much as possible because you need consistency to fight for the championship.”
Will Stevens: “All of us working together for the first time generally has worked really well so far. I think we had a positive start to the week. We rolled off the truck with a good racecar and I feel quite comfortable with everything we have at the moment. It’s still early in the race week. We have a lot of things we want to cover in the Prologue and then we have time before next week starts for us to go in and analyze everything. The six of us are giving similar feedback and that’s positive point that we’re going to push in the same direction.”No. 38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R
Earl Bamber: “I think we’ve been doing our homework in the winter. I think it’s definitely helped overall with different drivers driving at Daytona, Sebring test and now coming here. I think we’re in a good window; the car is feeling really nice, and it’s been really nice to be with two cars here. We can learn and share a lot. Get twice as much done with the limited track time we have in the WEC. We also get a lot of help and support from the guys in America and vice versa. We’re working on the details on the racetrack. This one team, one dream that we’ve got at Cadillac Racing is working well.”
Sebastien Bourdais: ““It was the first time we had the 38 with Jenson, Earl and I and our engineering group together. The very first time. Is it perfect? No. Do we have work to do? Yes. But with the Prologue we have plenty of time to learn and go through the test program to be ready for next week. All it all, I’d say it’s been a positive start.”
Jenson Button: “I’m happy. You always wish there was more testing, but there is still quite a lot more before the race. I’ve watched the Cadillac racing the last couple of years, whether its’s in IMSA or WEC, and loved the way the car looks in high-speed corners, the way it rides curbs, the sound of it. It’s awesome. I think the car suits my style a little bit more than what I was driving last year. I’m enjoying the process and obviously it’s a big learning for the team to be working with the Cadillac. But I think everyone has worked so well together – all the engineers from Cadillac and JOTA. We’ll have moments, some stumbling blocks along the way, but I feel the atmosphere is really good and everyone is gelling.”