Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Jarrett

Steve Letarte

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and welcome to the NBC Sports 2021 NASCAR Championship conference call. In a moment we’re going to be joined by a few members of our NBC Sports NASCAR commentary team, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Steve Letarte and Dale Jarrett, who took home the Cup Series title in 1999.

This week, NBC Sports will be presenting the Championship races for both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series from Phoenix Raceway. Live coverage of the Xfinity Series Championship will air Saturday on NBCSN beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET; Sunday’s Cup Series Championship coverage on NBC begins at 1:30 p.m. ET, leading into the green flag shortly after 3:00 p.m. ET.

Also today you’ll be seeing shortly NBC Sports in conjunction with NASCAR is announcing its 2022 Cup and Xfinity Series schedule. That will feature nine Cup Series races on NBC. It’ll also mark the debut of USA Network as NBC Sports’ cable home of NASCAR with more than 25 live Cup and Xfinity Series races next year.

If you’ve got any questions regarding that schedule, please follow up with me directly after this call. I’m happy to assist you with that. Today we’re going to keep our focus on the desert and the Cup and Xfinity Series Championships coming up this weekend, coming off of some great races at Martinsville. We’re going to begin with opening remarks from each of our analysts. We will start with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: You know, I think it’s been a long year, but we’ve had a lot of fun with a lot of drama and a lot of great excitement throughout the season. Obviously this past weekend never really fails when you go to Martinsville with all this on the line. I just love how much action we get to see at those short tracks.

I look forward to finally being able to determine the champion and see who can do that. We had a season preview show early in the year before everything got going, and we talked about Kyle Larson, and everybody kind of wondered what season he might have or what it might be like, and I don’t know that any of us had a real great grasp of what kind of speed he might have, but we all knew that this was a real possibility for him to be able to get there and race for a championship.

I think he goes to Phoenix as the favorite to do it, and that could be an incredible thing after everything he’s been through, to see him become a champion. There’s great storylines with all the drivers, Chase trying to repeat, Denny trying to get his first. There’s a lot of things going on there.

It should be a great weekend. We get a little bit of practice, which is going to be fun. I have missed practice as a broadcaster. The practice sessions and qualifying and all those sorts of things help build storylines. We get an idea really how to handicap the field and who might have some unique pace in those sessions, and without that, it’s been a little bit more difficult to understand exactly what you expect to see in the race.

There’s good and bad in that, but I’ve missed practice, so I’m excited to be there Friday and see what’s happening on the racetrack. It’s going to be a fun weekend. Looking forward to it.

STEVE LETARTE: I’ll echo a lot of Dale’s comments, simple enough. I think every driver with an opportunity to win the championship each year, they have earned and deserve that spot in the Championship 4. But I think the fan base this year has been delivered the four best. They’re 1 through 4 in laps led, they won a lot of races, and I can make a reasonable argument how each of them could win the championship and what the weaknesses of each four of them and what their concerns should be heading into the championship race.

When you get to the culmination of a championship, I think everybody just hopes that it’s a great event, a great battle, and with these four drivers I don’t know how it can’t be. Even if someone has an issue, there would be three left to fight it out, so I expect that to be the case.

On Saturday to have four different organizations with an opportunity I think is pretty special, and all three manufacturers represented on Saturday. We don’t have that on Sunday, so I think that’s special, as well, and Phoenix has proven to be a great venue for this event, and last year they did a nice job as we started to see fans come back.

But it was so electric at Martinsville. I’m really excited to go out to Phoenix and see a full racetrack of fans, because as great as the sport is, as great as the competitors are, the fans make everything special. To have it back at full force is really going to be a special weekend.

DALE JARRETT: Dale Jr. and Steve have talked about the drivers. I will agree any one of them is going to be a great champion, and they’ve earned the right to be here. I want to go more towards the venue.

At Phoenix Raceway, there were questions, what would this be like, what would this track present, was it going to be as good as Homestead was for so many years? Were we still going to see the champion have to win the race, as that has proven out? We have seen great racing, and I expect this to be another fantastic weekend of championship-caliber racing and drivers doing whatever it’s going to take to get another championship or that first championship.

I think the thing that makes this special to me is that when I look at the Phoenix track, it takes in and incorporates every single person within that organization of these four drivers, each of the races, to make it work and make it happen. The racetrack is completely different than anything else they race on.

The ins are completely different, so you have to adapt as a driver. Pit road is very difficult. Easy to get caught speeding. It’s so long that you get a little bit anxious and want to get yourself to your pit stall and then exit and get back on the track and get going.

And then the crew chief has to understand and be willing to sometimes take some chances, but to certainly put his driver in the right spot at the right time at the end of this race to go win the championship. Really looking forward to the weekend.

Q. I’m kind of curious, it seems like this year, maybe more so than I guess the past few years, there seems to be a lot of bad blood between different drivers, kind of has that old-school feel. I was kind of curious, do you guys see this as kind of more similar to when you guys raced as far as the rivalries and the bad blood? Everybody is going to Phoenix and everybody is kind of angry at each other right now. Just curious on your thoughts on that as guys who raced back then.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think that the drama and the rivalries is great for the sport. I think everybody would agree with that. When you see the drivers in a rivalry or in a bit of a disagreement or conflict with another driver, even if they’re not really willing to be involved, we get to see a little bit deeper into their personalities. We get to see a little bit more of who they are when they handle these types of difficult situations and how they handle it tells us more about them.

In a perfect world, a driver would be entirely in control with all of the information and content that he’s displaying. He would be in control of all the narrative; he would be in control of every quote and he would never be taken out of context, right?

But in those moments he doesn’t get to choose, and in those moments we get to really learn about their instincts and the real personality behind the driver. That’s kind of fun.

We get to see a little bit different side of Chase Elliott or a different side of Kevin Harvick or Denny Hamlin. It leaves an impression on you, I guess, that’s different. I think it’s good.

The only thing is the rivalries that I remember, and DJ can talk on this a little bit, they lasted sometimes for years; whereas the rivalries that we have had over the last couple of decades tend to be shorter.

Now, the drivers don’t always become friends. They still may dislike the hell out of each other. But you don’t see the rivalry continue on the racetrack like we used to years ago. The best example, I think, would be my dad and Geoff Bodine. They spent two years, I think, running over each other needlessly, several times, doing things that was detrimental to both of them. It was awesome. Even though I would be frustrated with dad at times for doing what he would do, it still fired up the fan bases.

That’s my take on it.

DALE JARRETT: Yeah, that’s a lot of good stuff, Junior. You’re exactly right. And it does go back to the beginning of this sport with rivalries, back to my dad’s time with Junior Johnson and David Pearson and Richard Petty. Those things, as Junior pointed out, the ones that were good lasted for a long time, and that was beneficial to the sport. We enjoyed that.

The thing about now is that I think that drivers are a little more guarded because of social media and every move that they make being put out there for everyone to see. Every single thing. They’re totally under a microscope, so I think they’re a little more guarded to let that happen.

But for some reason this year in particular it seems like everybody said to heck with that, I don’t care what people might think on the negative side of it, I’ve got to show this, and this is who I am.

It’s beneficial for us to see that. Let’s just make sure that we don’t tear them down for being who they are and showing us that and willing to show that. I’ll say that I think one of the reasons is that there’s two things, two words that come to mind that bring these types of situations, and that’s competition and pressure. When you put the two together, when you have a competitive field like it is now that anybody can win — I realize Kyle Larson has won nine times, but still, you show up, you feel that there’s way more drivers that have an opportunity to go win, and you couple that with the pressure to make the playoffs and be one of the four drivers here this weekend racing for a championship.

Whether it’s their first or trying to add to their resume there’s a lot of pressure, and especially to those drivers that didn’t make it that are past champions. Because once you get to that level, nothing else makes you feel good about your season if you don’t have an opportunity to finish off a season with a championship.

This is great, and I love to see it. Fun to see it. The thing is things are going to get said and everybody is not going to agree with it, and there’s always going to be two or three sides to everything; let’s let them talk.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I’d like to add one more thing. The Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick issues and what we saw this past weekend both happened at Bristol and Martinsville, two incredible short tracks that have always produced a lot of drama and a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of rivalries.

You don’t tend to get that at the bigger mile-and-a-half tracks. The drivers aren’t going to beat and bang and run over each other on those faster racetracks.

The sport back in the ’70s and ’80s had many more short track races, and we’ve since moved kind of toward a different style, a different culture with mile-and-a-halfs and now leaning more toward road courses.

So some day we may eventually cycle back toward the short track scene a little bit, we’re likely to see a whole lot more rivalries and a whole lot more drama in the sport.

Q. Steve, what do you see that (Kyle) Larson and Cliff (Daniels) are able to do that Cliff and that team weren’t able to do with Jimmie (Johnson)?

STEVE LETARTE: I know this is an easy answer and people won’t believe it, but it just comes down to raw speed. I think that what Cliff has been able to do — first of all, I think Hendrick Motorsports in general is faster this year than they were last year, last year than they were the year before.

I think if you go over the last four years it’s been a pretty impressive upward trend of just raw speed out of the Hendrick Motorsports camp. I think that allows a driver and a crew chief to continue to work on their craft together.

I really think Cliff Daniels’ approach is not talked about enough. There’s zero doubt that Kyle Larson’s talent is unbelievable. It’s recognizable. We see it in everything he drives. That credit needs to be given to Kyle Larson. I think it is. I’m not sure if everybody sees it as that way, but I think it deserves to be seen that way.

But I don’t want to diminish what Cliff Daniels has done. At the beginning of the year, he explained to us that he goes to some of his dirt races and he talks to Kyle about his dirt cars and these things that I would have never even considered doing, and his explanation was that listening to Kyle describe any racing vehicle helped him understand kind of his vernacular and what he uses to describe a race car.

Kyle self-admittedly doesn’t understand the setups of a Cup car. Doesn’t want to. He’s not a setup guy. He doesn’t care about shocks and springs and setup items. He just gets in the car and drives it as fast as it can be driven or to whatever level Cliff expects him to operate it.

They have a very impressive working relationship, and I’m not sure if Cliff’s approach gets enough credit. He has delivered the car that Kyle Larson needs, because as good as Kyle Larson is at the Cup level, there are a lot of great race car drivers, and you must have a car that can compete. Cliff continues to do that.

When you hear him on the radio, you see why. Cliff is very matter of fact. He almost reminds me a little bit of Chad (Knaus), which there’s not a lot of emotion. He’s to the point, and he’s willing to ask his driver to do whatever it takes. Just this week we had radio, I need you to abuse the rear tires less and do this different, this different, and this different. He’s talking to a driver that has won nine times this year, yet he’s telling him how he wants him to drive differently.

I think the comfort they have to have that conversation is just one more example of why they’re so successful.

Q. Is there anything in either Cliff’s or Kyle’s demeanor or the way they approach things that you think makes them work better together than if they were with other people?

STEVE LETARTE: I think that Kyle Larson, no disrespect to Chip Ganassi Racing, but if you look at the speed of Hendrick Motorsports as a whole this year with two cars in the Championship 4 and all four teams competing up front week after week after week, I think it’s safe to say he’s sitting in the best equipment in NASCAR he’s ever sat in.

I believe that Cliff has been around long enough to see that good cars and good runs aren’t guaranteed. They had Jimmie Johnson and were unable to get him to Victory Lane as much as they had hoped.

So I think that is a lesson you learn. I know that when I was a crew chief later in my career, the last year Dale and I worked together there was zero doubt I appreciated every trip to the racetrack and every chance to have a good car more than I did five or six years earlier, and I think that comes with age.

I think regardless — or experience perhaps more than age, because I don’t think the age matters –how many chances have you got at it? I think the more Cliff Daniels — the more chances he gets at it, the more he appreciates it.

To be honest, I don’t know. The only way to answer that is to see Kyle drive for five or six different crew chiefs, but right now I don’t know why anybody would ever want to make a change. These two seem to be a very potent combination.

Q. I think that all three could probably answer this question. It’s about Chase specifically. He started this year as the reigning Cup champion, which should be a big deal and he should be celebrated all year, but also Hendrick signed the guy that went on to dominate the season and win a lot of races and sort of overshadowed Chase a little bit. It doesn’t seem like it bothers Chase, but I am wondering if you guys have ever seen instances like this and know how these relationships can go when something like that happens.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think Letarte probably knows the best because it reminds me a little bit of Jimmie and Jeff Gordon.

STEVE LETARTE: Yeah, I’ll go. It is exactly like that in my mind. I remember how frustrating it was for Chad and I when Jeff and Jimmie had their frustrations with each other. We could help mediate, but in the end, Jeff and Jimmie had to come to an understanding.

As much as I appreciated the credit the crew chief received for putting the team together or the car on track, the only people that know what happens on the racetrack are the drivers. The stars in that point were Jeff and Jimmie, and they had to come to an understanding of how they were expected to race one another, and I believe they did that. That’s why their careers both continued to blossom and they continued to win races.

Chase is a very quiet guy. He’s a great champion, but he’s pretty reserved. He lives down in Georgia, does his own thing. I think if it was bothering him, we would never know.

But when I look at kind of his approach with Alan (Gustafson), this year is a lot like last year, which is they kind of operate through the year with the goal of winning a championship, and you have to get to Phoenix to do it. They did it last year in fireworks fashion with winning Martinsville and then carried that on to winning a championship.

There’s no way when you watch a teammate as successful as Kyle Larson, it hurts, and I can speak from firsthand experience with Jimmie Johnson, because you know the equipment that that person has and you feel you have that same opportunity, so it stings more that you can’t outrun them.

Now, you wish them well and you’re excited they win, but it stings because you think you have that opportunity. But I believe that this is what Rick Hendrick is the most masterful at, is placing the right drivers with the right crew chiefs, and then he stays out of the fray in a lot of situations.

But when it comes to the leadership, which I consider the drivers kind of the top of the leadership at any organization, he makes sure that they lead appropriately.

I think that it is something worth asking about and something worth watching. I haven’t seen any examples yet, but I’m confident that they’re also not ignorant to the fact that it could happen and that Mr. Hendrick has his pulse on it, no different than Chad.

Remember, Chad and I lived that other experience together. Now Chad is basically running the place with Jeff Andrews, so I think that also allows Chad to run those meetings every day and control the narrative.

DALE JARRETT: I’ll just add that I think Jimmie and Jeff, it’s what came to my mind, too, just as Dale Jr. and Steve said. But I’ll look at this and say that there are ways to go around that and be in that situation.

I think both drivers understand they’re in a great position, and to me, I don’t think Jimmie and Jeff were ever about who had to be the top driver at Hendrick because they both won many championships and many, many races and made it work.

Every owner would like to have this difficult decision and have to deal with two very successful young drivers at this point. I think that — I wasn’t ever in that position, but I always felt like I had to work harder in other areas if I was going to ever beat Jeff Gordon, super talented Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was maybe the best ever, Bill Elliott was there, so many drivers.

But yet there are ways that you find to work around that. You don’t have to go about it. There are going to be places that Kyle Larson is going to be superior. There are also places that Chase Elliott can find that he can out-duel Larson. There’s enough wins out there for both of them.

Plus they’ve got two great teammates. William Byron has had an outstanding season, maybe not with all the wins that the rest of the guys have, but Alex Bowman just won his fourth race. That’s a potent team. They have done everything to position themselves correctly there, and it’s a good problem for Rick Hendrick to have with this.

But I don’t really see it. With the two personalities of Chase and Kyle Larson, I don’t really see this being a problem. I just think you have to figure out where you can be better than that other driver.

Q. You brought up Alex Bowman. I take it you don’t think he’s a hack then.

DALE JARRETT: If that’s what you want to call him, he’s the best damn hack I’ve ever seen drive a car.

Q. Both Steve and Dale Jarrett have both referenced Chase’s quiet personality. You don’t really get to see a lot of his personality yet. This playoffs he’s delivered two pretty money lines, with the merry off-season and happy Christmas and this week about he’s not going to lose any sleep about Denny’s thoughts on his fans. Were you surprised to see that wit come out of Chase, or maybe do you think he’s opening up a little bit more?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I wasn’t surprised to see it myself. I think Chase was not going to really be that outspoken until he felt like he had the accomplishments that allowed him to be that way, and he wasn’t going to talk the talk until he walked the walk.

I think when he won the championship last year, he checked a big box in his mind that allowed him to go and say some of these things with more comfort and not feel like he’s just running the mouth.

He was so hard on himself for years, and when he’d run second or not do something right at the end of the race that he felt he needed to do to win, he would get out and say, ‘it was my fault we didn’t win.’ Not, ‘we had a great day, we had a Top 5 finish, I would have liked to have won.’

He got out and was just real hard on himself. Any time anyone tried to compliment him, he shut it down. Didn’t want it. He never was one to speak up in a group setting like that about anything. But once he won that championship, I think that he’s like, ‘okay, I’ve checked this box. I’m absolutely more comfortable sharing my opinion,’ or he’s absolutely going to stand up for himself and not let anybody put him in his place or anything like that.

I think that — the accomplishments on the racetrack as they come and as we see more success out of him, I think he’s going to be much more comfortable standing at the podium and speaking.

STEVE LETARTE: I’ll add I agree completely with Junior’s assessment, and the other part even as NASCAR’s most popular driver he has such a workman’s blue-collar approach. He keeps his head down and he grinds. Him and Alan together have that approach. He doesn’t pick a lot of fights, but when pushed into the corner that requires a response, he has always had a relatively witty response.

It’s clear that he has been in the NASCAR garage since a young, young child. This is not new to him. To Dale’s point, now that his performance kind of defends his responses.

He also isn’t one to kind of say them unprompted, but when he gets put into a corner and has to have a response, they’re normally worth writing down for sure.

DALE JARRETT: I think his responses are ones that are different from others in the way that it makes you think for a minute. You either have to go back and listen to it again or go read it again to really get the full meaning of what he says, so it makes you think before you react and say something, and I would caution any other drivers that are going to think they’re going to get into a big sparring match with him, he has the fan base that’s going to overwhelm anyone else in this sport right now, so you’re not going to win in that situation. But you can have at it anyway.

Q. There was an interesting moment post-race Sunday in which (Jeff) Burton and Steve and Dale Jr. all were asked about their championship predictions, and Burton and Steve picked Denny Hamlin; Dale Jr. picked Chase. We didn’t hear your pick. I guess I’m curious, who is your pick, and does it surprise you or is it maybe to be expected a little bit that even though he’s got nine wins, maybe as the first-timer here in the championship race, is Kyle Larson maybe not going to be top of mind for people as the championship favorite going into Phoenix?

DALE JARRETT: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s going to be interesting how all of this plays out throughout the week as the drivers start talking more about it. But I still believe that Kyle Larson has to be considered the favorite.

I know that he hasn’t raced for a championship like this before, but he doesn’t seem to let anything bother him. He is so confident in his ability that I don’t think the moment is going to be overwhelming to him as to what he has to go do. He has fast race cars. He has a crew chief and a crew and supporting cast that he fully believes in, and he knows that his talents are at least equal to anyone else if not superior.

The fact that he hasn’t won a race here yet I put to the fact that he hasn’t been in the equipment that he’s in right now. I know that he had pit road issues here the first race this year, and I think that he’ll clean that up, and if he does that, I think that he’s the man that everybody has to beat and that he puts his name up there with a championship, too. He’s my pick to win this on Sunday.

Q. For Dale Jr., you spoke about what you’ve seen from Chase Elliott and kind of that additional swagger since winning the championship. You spoke with conviction about him being your championship pick for Phoenix; is that part of the reason why he’s your guy? Why are you picking Chase as the guy you think will repeat this year?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, I think that — I feel like he’s kind of — they’ve kind of found a little bit of pace over the last little bit here, but remember last year when they interviewed him about his feelings, his emotions coming into the weekend at Phoenix, and he said something along the lines of, ‘what an incredible opportunity for me; I can’t believe that I have this opportunity; I’m here to embrace having a shot at this.’

Human nature in most cases, I think, would be for someone to feel overwhelming pressure, anxiety, nervousness, maybe some fear, all these things would be difficult to admit, but I think everybody would feel some sense of that, and he seemed to have really none of that. He was like, oh, man, this is great. What an opportunity for me.

I thought that was so amazing. And then he went out there and won.

Some of the most elite athletes in sport can really program their brains, and they can sort of make themselves think the way they need to think and shut out all the anxieties and nervousness that I talk about doesn’t even exist. It’s not fake. It’s not a front. But some of the most elite athletes, like they realize it in their brain. They imagine success, and they will it into existence.

I feel like maybe that’s what is unique about Chase. I know Larson is the favorite and I still think he is the favorite, but I’ve never seen him in this setting, so I don’t know if I can say he goes in there and wins it because I’ve never seen him in such a win-everything kind of moment. We’ve never seen him in this situation in NASCAR. We’ve seen Denny; we’ve seen Truex. I think Truex has the same sort of mentality as Chase, but I don’t know if he has the same race car.

That will be interesting to see what kind of pace both of the Toyotas have in practice and in qualifying, but as far as the mentality and the attitude and personality, I think Chase goes in with the best approach.

Q. Steve, we’re pretty deep into this call and we haven’t heard much of Martin Truex Jr.’s name and he won the race earlier this year in Phoenix. Is he being overlooked at all or is it partially just a function of we talk about Larson being a first-timer and Truex has a first-time crew chief in the Championship Round with James Small; that may be part of it?

STEVE LETARTE: I think that this sport is a very quick news cycle, and what Martin Truex Jr. and the 19 car are going to show up because if it’s the 19 car from the first quarter to third of the season, then it’s going to be a tough battle. But if it’s the 19 car from the final third of the season, he just hasn’t — or they is better than he, because I’m not sure it’s a Truex thing — I’m not sure it’s fair to analyze what it is, but the team, the entire 19 team, has not brought equipment or races or performance that can match the other three.

It’s there. We’ve seen it. We saw it in the spring. Jeff Burton was very adamant all summer long that they’d better figure it out because they just can’t continue to assume they can go back to what they had and what they ran before.

Now, we did see some speed out of the 19 at Martinsville. It was definitely a stressful last 50 laps for the 19 car. To Dale’s point earlier in this call, I’m really excited — things I never thought I’d say in life — I’m really excited to see some practice. I can’t wait to see the overall speed, pace and demeanor of these four drivers in their office, behind the wheel.

Q. Dale Jr. and Steve, you probably know Alan Gustafson the best. What is it about Alan that makes him such a good crew chief for Chase Elliott, and just kind of overall his approach? He seems from the outside as someone that stays below the radar and doesn’t get the credit he deserves having been in this sport for a long time.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I believe that Alan was peaking as a crew chief — he had a great year or two with Mark Martin, and I think that really helped him get to the point to where he is now, but he’s like right in the prime of his career as a crew chief right along the lines that Chase comes in.

I think that they both get along really well. They sort of have personalities that connect or work well together.

I always admired Alan’s approach and his effort. He was always trying to learn, he’s always looking around in the garage trying to understand where the garage was, what the garage was doing, what other cars and teams were doing.

One of my favorite parts of the competition meeting was when we would get to hear from Alan about what some of the competition might be doing to try to improve their cars. I was always frustrated with crew chiefs that were very narrow-minded and kind of had the blinders on, and it was their way or no way, and their idea was the right idea and no other idea mattered.

I think Alan certainly has confidence and knows what he’s doing and putting under his car, but he also absorbed anything and everything on the outside of his bubble that he thought might help. So I always kind of appreciated that about him. But Steve knows him much better than I do.

STEVE LETARTE: You know, I was a better crew chief because I had the opportunity to work next to Alan. He’s not only extremely driven and just a smart, brilliant person, but he’s a natural-born leader, has the leader kind of instincts. When you look at that 9 team there’s no doubt to me that Alan leads the team and Chase drives it. I think that’s a good combination for those two.

Now you take a very, very intelligent person who’s very, very driven, who doesn’t let a lot of stuff distract him, who stays very focused on the task at hand, perhaps as focused or more focused than anyone, and then give him the ability to work with some of the most talented people to ever sit in stock cars, he was able to work with Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, it’s an impressive list. He was able to work next to people like Dale Jr., people like Jimmie Johnson. He’s a longstanding product at Hendrick Motorsports. He understands the tools he has, but yet doesn’t allow the bureaucracy of a large race team to get in his way.

Those are very great attributes, and it’s easy to say and it’s very hard to do. He will stand in the face of fire and just continue to calmly crew chief, whether that’s inspection line on a Sunday more than or his final pit call of the race, his demeanor doesn’t change. I think that makes him a very dangerous person on top of a pit box, because he knows what he knows, and more importantly, he knows what he doesn’t know, and he’s not afraid to surround himself with very intelligent, tough-to-manage people, and I think he knows how to build a great race team, and his expectation out of his driver and of himself is as high as it gets. Man, there are a lot of great attributes. He’s one of the reasons why it occurred to me maybe I’m better off to do TV because when you work next to a guy like Alan and a guy like Chad, they are some pretty intimidating fellows to call coworkers that you have to go beat week in and week out and I love the ability now to cover his performance from the TV booth, whether on Sunday or even all week and how he prepares his team for battle.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, everybody, for joining the call today. We’re looking forward to the championships this weekend from Phoenix. It starts off as everybody mentioned Friday with Cup Series practice 4:00 ET on NBCSN. Again, the Xfinity Series championship Saturday night, 8 p.m. ET on NBCSN, Cup Series championship race is Sunday on NBC at 3 p.m. ET.

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Rick Allen

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Jeff Burton

Steve Letarte

Sam Flood

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for the NBC Sports NASCAR media conference call as NBC Sports takes over the remainder of the 2021 NASCAR season beginning this weekend with the series return to Nashville.

In just a moment we’ll be joined by our lead NASCAR team of Rick Allen, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Steve Letarte, as well as by NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood.

Let’s begin our call with opening remarks from Sam Flood.

SAM FLOOD: Thank you all for joining us today. We’re really excited to get this season started. It just feels like in the last month, the world is coming back to the way it needs to be with fans in the stands and the energy of live sporting events with people at the venues.

Having been to the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500 for our shows over the last month or so, it really felt right. It felt like life was back to the way we want it to be, and for this NASCAR and NBC Sports team to be able to engage with the crowd at the racetrack, to be at the track, to be at the place these four guys and the rest of the team love more than anything else in the world is being at the racetrack, and we saw last year how special it was when they got back to the track for the last five or six races of the season and the engagement, being around the sights, the sounds, the smells, the energy of a NASCAR race. It made it special, and it’s even more special and more important now that the fans are back in the stands. It just turns a race into an event, and we love events, and no one makes big events bigger than NBC Sports and the team we have here.

This very first opening weekend in Nashville, to think that Brad Paisley and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are going to be hosting this pre-race show from an amazing venue back where it’s all going on in Nashville, a place that should have racing, and it’s finally back where it belongs in Nashville.

This group is ready to roll. The team on pit road, can’t wait to get going, pre-race show, across the board. Big time, big energy, big event, leaning into Nashville, leaning into the start of our half of the season.

Our hats go off to our friends at FOX; what a great job they did getting the first half of the season going. They had a spectacular season. The numbers looked very good. The ratings were where we like to see them heading in a positive upward direction. So we’re ready to take that mantle, carry it to the finish line, finish off this regular season and lead into the playoffs.

We can’t wait to get going. Rick, I’ll pass it off to you. Have some fun.

RICK ALLEN: Thanks, Sam. To echo what Sam was saying, a capacity crowd expected at Nashville Superspeedway. We feed off that, the crowd, the electricity, just the excitement that these events bring, and like he said, FOX I think has done a wonderful job. They’ve touted it as the best season ever.

We’re picking off where one driver has incredible momentum, Kyle Larson, what a story he has to tell from being suspended a year ago to now being the favorite for a championship. He’s really hot right now.

We’re excited to pick this up, excited about coming back to Nashville. It’s been 37 years since the Cup Series has raced there. The likes of Petty and Pearson and Waltrip were the big names when the Cup Series was there. Now you’ve got Larson and Hamlin and Harvick and Busch and all these other superstar names that want to make a name for themselves in Nashville, in Music City USA.

We’re really fired up to get going. As a team we have been chatting and texting and talking every single race throughout the entire season. We have a great line of communication that we’re able to just enjoy these races all throughout the first 16 races, and now we get to enjoy them shoulder to shoulder, side by side, in the booth and call and do what we love to do, and that’s watching NASCAR racing and enjoying it with the fans.

It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to hand off now to Jeff Burton, the Mayor.

JEFF BURTON: Hey, everybody. I think the word “excitement” may be overused today, but that’s okay because that’s how we all feel, not only to get back to the racetrack but to do it with friends, we all get along just unbelievably well, have a great time doing this together. That energy that comes from the fans that Sam and Rick just talked about, that’s real.

Going to races where we didn’t have fans, oh, my gosh, I so appreciate it now more than ever, that energy, that excitement, that enthusiasm they bring.

This town is ready for it. I was there a month ago or so doing a shoot with Mario Andretti, and the people in that town are fired up about this race, and that makes me fired up even more.

On track I’ve got to tell you, I think the drivers and the teams, they have been bringing it. It has been a really good year, a lot of on-track excitement. Clearly Kyle Larson has taken charge at this point in the year, but we know that that doesn’t always just go like that. Who can knock him off? Who can go and take that away from him? That’s going to be fun to watch.

It’s been a great year. I don’t see any reason why that’s not going to continue.

Our first race is a track that many of these drivers haven’t run on. Some drivers have in the Xfinity Series and in trucks. A lot of unknowns going into this weekend, and really in our first half of our year where we’ve got 10 races before the playoffs, there’s a lot of interesting racetracks coming up, and that uncertainty only adds to the pressure of the playoffs. That makes our broadcasts that much more fun, makes it more difficult on the teams, and as race fans and as sports fans, we all know the more difficult it is on the teams, the more fun it is to watch.

Can’t wait to get there this weekend, have a great time, feel that energy from the fans, and Jr., I’m going to turn it over to you.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I’m looking forward to getting back on the road and being back at a racetrack. When you go for a good period of time without being at a track and you come back and drive in and you hear cars running and carrying on, it feels like home, and you kind of remember — you have all these great memories that come rushing back, and you just get excited about what you’re going to see when the green flag drops.

It’s something that I need in my life, and lucky for me, I get to work with a great group of people that love to talk about racing and enjoy the same thing for the same reasons.

Yeah, it’s just a lot of fun to be able to go to the track and be a part of this broadcast. We’ve got an amazing season that’s starting to unfold. It’s kind of a good challenge and a unique challenge to pick the season up when we do. A lot of the playoff conversations are going to start happening — who can maintain not only the momentum that they have and the teams that are winning, but also where that cutoff is and who might make or miss the playoffs? All that stuff starts to really become part of the conversation. A lot of storylines start to really develop.

It’s a really fun part of the year as we close in on the playoffs. The playoffs have really brought a lot of good excitement and drama. They’ve delivered every year, and from a fan’s perspective, I guess I’m a broadcaster but I’m really just a fan to be honest with you. From a fan’s perspective, it’s been a great run here for the last several years, and we’ve got a lot of great momentum in the sport and a lot of energy in the sport. I’m excited to see how the season turns out.

Like Jeff said, we have teams that are really dominant right now, but I’ve seen this before. We see it time and time again, where there’s sort of an organization who comes out of the box strong and they have a great regular season, but then there’s someone that jumps out — comes out of nowhere and surprises — there’s a turning of the tide a little bit when the playoffs happen, and there’s a lot of reasons for that, and it’s a little bit different each year.

Some of these teams are going to change their performance a little bit and improve and bring the fight to HMS. I don’t think this is going to be an easy cakewalk for them in terms of crowning a champion in that organization like they did last year with Chase Elliott.

It’s absolutely theirs to lose, but I believe that they’re going to have plenty of competition when it comes down to it.

I’m going to pass it on to my favorite crew chief and broadcasting buddy, Steve Letarte.

STEVE LETARTE: Appreciate it, Jr. It’s been an amazing six months. I was able to be a part of the Rolex broadcast and I was able to go to Indianapolis and see my first ever Indy 500 in person, and those were both breathtaking events. There’s nothing like kind of returning home to your NASCAR family.

As you guys the three boothmates, have mentioned, we communicate and talk about racing all the time, but there’s nothing like standing above a full grandstand full of people covering the races live. I’m looking forward to that.

I would lie if I wasn’t — I really look forward to walking in the Xfinity garage on Friday and the Cup garage on Saturday. That’s a part that was taken from us through this crazy pandemic, and it’s the part of my job that I probably love the most. I appreciate the competitors’ commitment to Zooms, but I can’t wait to lean on a set of tires and see the competitors face to face and discuss their challenges, their opportunities and their approach to the weekend and then convey those storylines to the fans.

We’re also blessed to have a great summer schedule. I’ve been to Nashville Superspeedway many times. Never seen a race there in person. I’ll get to see Road America for the first time and I get to go to Indianapolis for the first time and see cars on the road course. Last year we covered that one remotely, so it’ll be good to be there.

These guys cover the storylines on the track. I think we’re very lucky to have not just storylines on the track, but like I mentioned, the track and the schedule itself is another storyline all in itself. We have a little sprint here to an Olympic break, and then when we get back from the Olympics the heat will be turned on completely for the NASCAR playoffs on who’s going to make it. And with already 11 different winners and some huge names yet to win, Harvick and Hamlin come to mind, I think that that playoff leaderboard is only going to continue to get tighter, and as the pressure increases, the entertainment increases.

It’s been a lot of fun to watch, but watching is a little bit of fun. It’s a lot more fun to cover, so I can’t wait to get there in person and do it again this weekend.

Dale, I think you’ve been heavy in the promotion for the Cup race and you’re part of the group on the INDYCAR race. Nashville is really hot right now. Everybody is talking about racing in Nashville again. I’m wondering why you think that the Nashville market will work for all this racing, and then there’s talk of the Fairgrounds, as well. How does the speedway differentiate itself from all this other racing talk and activity going on in the city?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, it’s such a unique track compared to the Fairgrounds and obviously the street course for the INDYCAR. I think the way that — physically they’re all different. They’re all going to provide a different type of entertainment, a different style of race, and I think that the town is big — there’s enough energy and enough entertainment to go around for everybody.

You know, I think a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing, and the success from each event is a plus for the rest of them. They each can learn off each other and play off each other, and so I don’t see how it can’t work.

I think it is pretty interesting how all this — everybody is going to Nashville. Yeah, INDYCAR and NASCAR, everybody is kind of coming to Nashville and focusing on Nashville, honing in on Nashville as a place to be. I think it’s a long time coming to be honest with you. It should have happened years and years ago.

Nashville is a great fit. The town does have a lot of energy. When we were doing the Burnout on the Boulevard, that was a moment for me, I was upstairs in one of those buildings looking out the window watching all that happen, and it was clear as day that this was a great relationship and a great partnership with NASCAR and the city of Nashville. It just felt normal. It didn’t even feel new. It felt like an old friend and a buddy you hadn’t hung out with in a long, long time. I like it a lot, and I love the fact that we’re celebrating our champion there.

Vegas was a great time, New York was a great time. Very long way to go, but still a lot of fun any time you can get to Vegas. But Nashville for me can provide and be that same experience to where we feel like the crowning of the champion is the most important day in the sport in my opinion — where we celebrate the year and we acknowledge all of the things that happened in our sport in that one night.

I think that the fit for the city is a good one, and we need to be racing there. We need to have our product there. So now that’s happening. All of this seems to be coming full circle. It all makes sense to me.

I think it’ll be fun to see how it all works together. Like you say, with INDYCAR and NASCAR both trying to get into Nashville and make things happen, I think it’ll be fun to see how they might work together to make things better for everybody.

Just to be clear, you’re talking about the burnouts during the awards ceremony, you watched those from up in a building?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yes.

My question is for Steve Letarte on the crew chief side. Of course you have Daytona and Talladega coming up on the schedule and just earlier this month there was the announcement that NASCAR is going to implement new safety precautions for the superspeedway, including they’ll reduce the whole spaces in the tapered spacer as well as the wicker on the spoiler being removed and the additional roof bar being mandatory, this of course coming after Joey Logano’s scary crash. I was curious, when fans watch Daytona and Talladega on NBC, what effect do you think this will have on the races and what do you think fans can expect when they watch the superspeedways?

STEVE LETARTE: So when we talk about the safety improvements to the race car, a bar was added to the car. I don’t think the fans will be able to see that. They’ll have no idea. It’s just continuing the improvement towards the safest product possible. NASCAR has done that for years and decades and they’re just continuing.

There has been an adjustment to the power, to the speed, and I will be a hundred percent honest, I’m not sure from the grandstands or on TV you’re going to see the difference in the six or eight miles an hour that it may slow them down. I think the aggression from the pack and from the second-place driver will be just as high. I think the leader will have to work just as hard to try to protect that lead.

It’s a small adjustment that’s needed just for safety. The physics of a car getting airborne has a lot to do with the speed when it turns backwards and sideways, and NASCAR obviously felt like they needed to make an adjustment, but I honestly think that the product on track is going to be just as exciting as it has looked. The plate races recently have been a great balance of aggression and strategy, and I think that’s continuing — that’s got to continue.

I will say Daytona we learned a year ago as the cutoff to the regular season has a completely different feel than I ever remember the night race at Daytona in the summer having. That last-ditch effort for everyone to find a seat at the table when the playoffs start a week later I think has a completely different energy to it. There’s a new level of desperation, and then as you go into the playoffs and you see Talladega, it’s kind of the same way. It has a different feel than the spring race at Talladega because of what’s on the line.

There are some big names protecting their playoff positions and other people looking for that win needed to continue.

I think that’s the beauty of the two speedway races you’re going to see on NBC is their position within the schedule. I think to end the regular season is great, and then being placed where it is in the playoffs, it makes Talladega even more vital.

Steve, you were saying on Nate’s podcast, don’t worry about any of the data from all those test sessions back eight or ten years ago, but Chase Briscoe did say that he watched some video before he went and did the tire test there and he felt like it helped him some. I’m kind of curious, do you feel like these races will be anything the same from what we saw in Xfinity and trucks in the past? Or do you feel like these teams should just not look at anything from 10 years ago?

STEVE LETARTE: Well, I think it’s two sides of a question. If I’m a competitor trying to prepare, I would absolutely look at the prior races. I would look at the data of the track. I would try to understand what made a good car good and a bad car bad, what point of the racetrack does your car have to perform the best. If I was a Cup driver and crew chief, I would be there on Thursday to watch Xfinity practice in person, watch cars go around the racetrack, understand as much as I can about that racetrack before going on the racetrack.

Now, flip that same question, if you’re asking me as an observer, I don’t believe that what happened over a decade ago really relates to what we’re going to see on the racetrack right now. I’m a true believer that you could race the same racetrack five times in a row and get five completely different products because every race seems to be its own kind of living, breathing thing and the way people approach it and who may be good or who may not be good.

I know that’s a two-parted answer, but I think the history of the racetrack is very important to the people competing. I don’t believe the history of the racetrack is fair in any way to have any idea what we may or may not see. I’m thankful there’s some practice and qualifying to be honest. It’s going to give me kind of a good idea by the end of practice I think what the challenge of that track is for this type of car in this realm of technology, but until we line them up there — double-file restarts, that comes to mind. 10 years ago there were no double-file restarts. There’s so many things that have changed, I don’t think we have any idea really what the product is going to be, and I think some of the unknown is a little bit of the charm. I’m looking forward to it without a big notebook full of expectations.

For Dale Jr., I’m curious, do you feel like it was important to get this race, get a Cup race in Nashville at this track just to build on that momentum on the vibe from the awards ceremony? And I think Jerry Caldwell told the Nashville politicians that he believes both tracks could coexist on a Cup schedule, that that market could certainly be a two-race market.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I think that it absolutely can exist in the same season, and there’s a lot of different ways that can happen. The fact that the tracks are so uniquely different, it really helps that argument a little bit because you won’t see the same product or the same action at either one.

You know, there’s a lot of hurdles between that becoming a reality.

I think that there’s a lot of work that’s went into bringing back the speedway. There’s so much effort going into it.

I think that it’s important for us to be in Nashville. It absolutely builds on — imagine — I guess when we celebrated the banquet in New York City, it’s the big apple, it’s New York City, yes, it’s an amazing place, but we weren’t racing there, and so it was quite different as far as the vibe for me when we went to Vegas and we had a race in town. You could see us race and then we were going to be back to crown our champion. It seemed to make sense. The town embraced it.

I feel that same thing from the city of Nashville as far as how they — you want to feel welcomed or you want to feel wanted, and I absolutely feel like Nashville is eager to have NASCAR there, whether it’s the banquet, whether it’s the race, and they’re embracing that, and it’s a good feeling.

It opens up so many possibilities, so many possibilities for the banquet to grow into the marquee event that it is and for our NASCAR event to be an entertainment event, as well.

We have the race that happens on Sunday, but there’s so many other things or possibilities or opportunities to provide fans with an amazing weekend, things that can happen on Friday and Saturday outside of the racing events of the Truck and Xfinity and Cup Series, the entertainment side of that and the opportunities there are endless, especially in a town like Nashville that provides so much entertainment. It’s a hub for the music industry, and we can take advantage and tap into that and do so many crossovers with our athletes and musicians and so forth.

It’s just a great opportunity going forward to bring a ton of energy, and really our sport can take advantage of that. So I’m pumped up about the connection to Nashville, this new sort of renewed relationship that we have with the city.

I don’t know who wants to take this. I’ve got some big personalities on the call, including a many times over most popular driver. Chase Elliott is both the most popular driver and the champion, and yet he often is not in a very good mood after a race. I’m wondering how long you guys think that the way he sort of projects himself on TV and in those situations will work and if that’s a good look for the ambassador of the sport.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I guess I can take that. I’ve seen Chase in a lot of different moods, and we often sort of criticized him about how hard he was on himself and then he started winning races and started feeling like some of the attention was deserved. He seemed more comfortable when he started having the success that he thought he should be having.

Now he’s a champion, and I think that all of this is kind of happening so fast. He’s pretty young and still has a lot to figure out, and I think that to win a championship and have success and be thrust into this position that he’s in at such a young age, I don’t expect him to have it figured out. I don’t expect him to be perfect. I don’t expect him to know exactly how his personality rubs people, whether it’s the right way or the wrong way.

It’s all kind of trial by fire, and he’s kind of learning as he goes. He’ll make mistakes. He won’t get it right every time. I know that I didn’t. I think I guess what I’m saying is I can give him a lot of leeway and a lot of time to sort of figure out who he wants to be. He’s kind of struggling, I think, with really where he fits in.

We’ve been working on this piece with him. I have been working on this piece with him to know more about him and learn more about him and understand really who he is, and when you really get to know who Chase is, the thing about him wanting to stay connected to his roots, to his hometown so he’s not lured away from there by the need to feel — the feeling of needing to be in Charlotte near the race team and all this, he does his own thing.

I think once — he just does his own thing. It’s good enough for him, and like it or you don’t like it, it doesn’t really matter. I think when he wins, he’s happy. You get great reaction, and so far I guess — he’s got a long way to go. I think a lot has happened to him in a very short time at a very young age.

JEFF BURTON: I’ll add to that. I think that Chase has a real sense inside of himself as accountability, and I think that some of his comments and some of his body language is just a way that he — it feels like to me he holds himself accountable to whatever happens: Good, bad, and especially the bad.

I think that that comes across as negative to some people, when in fact I think he’s just saying, I need to be better. Like I’m not pointing the finger at somebody else saying, they need to do it. He just seems like he’s a very self-aware, I can impact this, and some of those post-race comments come across as really negative, but I just believe that he’s holding himself accountable.

I also think — Steve and I were in this conversation this morning talking about a lot of drivers. These guys are young, and they change. We all change in life, and we’re not the same people at 20 that we are at 30 and then again at 40. I think that we put the camera on these guys and we show them — what’s great about the sport, we have this unbelievable access to them, and right out of an event when you’re hot, mad, happy, whatever that emotion is, your life revolves around that stuff, we’re right there.

Everybody handles that differently, and they change and they grow and they mature. I think he’s actually — when you sit down and get away from everybody, he’s a very positive guy. He’s a very engaging person. But I think he’s very reserved around other people, but I believe that for my view of that is that’s for good reasons, and I think it’s all about self-accountability.

RICK ALLEN: I just wanted to reiterate, 25 years old. You look at athletes that come out of college that are 22, 23 years old, they’re thrust into the NFL, it’s a hard transition. You’ve got a kid who’s 25 years old who grew up in a household where his dad is a Hall of Famer, most popular driver forever until Jr. came along, and you just have great expectations. I’m sure he has unbelievable expectations for himself, and at the age of 25 he’s still trying to figure out how do I show these emotions, what do I give to people that are asking for so many things like Jeff says, right out of the car, just out of competition.

He’s going to learn, and at 25 years old, I think he’s done a pretty impressive job of showing us what a champion looks like in NASCAR. I think he’s a pretty exceptional young man.

Sam, with INDYCAR you’ll see very limited commercial breaks and side by side instead of just full traditional breaks. Given that INDYCAR does this almost every break, why isn’t that something we could bring in with NASCAR?

SAM FLOOD: We’ve been doing that for the last six years. We have a very similar pattern. NASCAR races are longer and there are a certain number of races that are on broadcast TV that have to be full screen. They’re called station breaks, and those will always be full screen commercials. When cautions happen, we try to get in our national full-screen commercials.

But the last hour and a half to two hours of race it’s always side by side. We’ve got a great structure in place. Our advertising community has embraced the technique and the policy, and that’s what we’ve been going with for a long time.

We’re on board with you, and we’re executing that.

Steve, this is probably something you might better understand as a crew chief. Chase Briscoe during the Goodyear tire test a few months ago said that the tires were cording after 20 to 25 laps in. Given that some tracks even with older surfaces we don’t see that happening, what exactly causes tires to cord during a tire test?

STEVE LETARTE: Well, I would assume a big issue with the tire test is just a lack of track activity. When you look at any surface, asphalt or concrete, it really makes no difference, it has a certain amount of coarseness to it, kind of like a piece of sandpaper, and if you can imagine a piece of sandpaper and you rub it on a softer surface like a tire, it actually fills in some of the ridges on the surface and actually makes that piece of sandpaper less course, and that’s what laps do. The more a car runs around a racetrack, it over time fills in some of the deeper and more aggressive areas of the track, and as it does that, the next time by and the next times it wears less and less and less.

This is a major facility; it’s a huge amount of concrete, and it’s going to take more than three or four cars at a tire test to see a big shift, plus Goodyear has to bring back a tire and try to guess a little bit at these tests of what kind of car versus track, and now that they have that data, I’m sure the tire they’re going to bring back this weekend is going to give the teams a great opportunity to put on a good show, and that’s really what we’re looking for. So not a big surprise that wear was very high at the tire test.

Rick, can you talk a little bit about the atmosphere of calling the race now that the fans are back in the stands?

RICK ALLEN: Well, I think one of the greatest things that happened last year during the pandemic was when we got the call from Sam and Jeff Behnke that said we’re sending you guys back to the racetrack. We really appreciated Marcus Smith and him allowing us to call the races from Charlotte Motor Speedway, but there was just — it was really vanilla to be in a booth at a racetrack but not hear the crowd and not feel that energy and not hear the cars and smell the smells that you smell at a racetrack.

So when we were able to go back to the racetrack, it was an amazing transformation. We really appreciate being able to be right in the mix of what’s going on.

Our booth automatically has an energy because we love the sport so much, but that energy, it’s exponential when you add the crowd. When you see the crowd jumping to their feet and you hear them roar and you just feel that, we feed off of that. That’s something that we love as a broadcast team, just to feed off of that energy that the crowd gives us.

That’s why we’re so excited to go to Nashville this weekend, a sold-out crowd, capacity crowd. We’re going to feed off of that just like everybody in America is feeding off of it right now, being able to enjoy sporting events like we used to be able to. So we’re looking forward to this weekend.

Since you’ve been there before, what advice or message have you given your drivers at JRM about maybe what they can expect or what to look for coming up this weekend at the track?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, they will watch some videos of the races from the past there to be able to get an idea what the line is and where guys are making passes, how guys are setting passes up. But this track is pretty unique, and due to the concrete surface and the difference in how the tires grip the concrete versus an asphalt track, you think you can drive way deeper into Turn 1 than you can. You have to lift pretty early for that corner to have the grip you need in the middle of the corner. It’s easy to over-drive Turn 1.

That’s probably the first thing they’re going to learn, and they’ll figure that out.

And then the real challenge for a concrete track, especially a mile-and-a-half where you’re just constantly turning the wheel, is trying to get the car to rotate, getting the front to work without chattering the right rear tire because if you chatter the right rear tire or get loose at this track, you’re going to be really slow. It’s just going to be a balance of trying to get the car neutral to where you’ve got the car turning but not enough rear grip to lean on the right rear.

It’s a bit of a challenge. It’s very kind of frustrating to be honest with you. I always found the concrete surfaces to be super frustrating.

Now, I’ve had some fun and good races at Dover and Bristol, but those surfaces are aggravating as heck, and I think this one is going to throw a lot of challenges at the teams because it’s going to change so much throughout the weekend as more and more cars run on it, more laps are ran on it.

Harrison was talking about how he leaves a lot of the business stuff to you, and I’m curious when you’re trying to kind of manage or figure out what your son or driver should do, how do you do it when it seems like there’s all these talks of new owners and teams being bought out? How do you even know who to talk to and what’s going to — how to kind of try to set a path when you really don’t know potentially what teams are going to be out there in two or three years?

JEFF BURTON: I think as a sport in general, and we talk a lot about this, this new car is changing the Cup level, and I think that’s going to change Xfinity as well as Trucks. The big question is how? There’s a lot of unknowns in regard to what does next year’s Cup — how does their business affect what happens in Xfinity, Trucks, and then what opportunities get created by that.

So I think for Harrison, and I think it’s no different than for any young driver or experienced driver that’s looking for what is his opportunity next year is quite simply what’s available. What’s out there, what’s available? That all has to get sorted out.

Then does the new car create an opportunity that would not have been there? Does it take away an opportunity that would have been there?

I don’t know of a time in the sport where there’s been so many unknowns, and that’s not just for drivers, that’s for crew members, that’s for car owners, that’s for the industry in general. I think there’s a certain amount of wait and-see that has to happen. I think there’s also a certain amount of when you do see it and it looks right, I think you need to act. I think that’s going to be important, as well, because I think when things start happening, they’re going to happen rapidly.

Not just for Harrison, I look at it as a person that’s been around the sport a long time, is in many different roles, there’s just — next year I think is going to be crazy, and leading up to next year I think this silly season, as we call it, is going to be pretty intense.

I just think you have to look at what’s there. I think you have to respect the relationships that you have. I think you have to respect those relationships. I think you have to look at opportunities. It’s just eyes wide open, peek over and see what’s over there and see where you are, and that’s all you can do. I think that’s all everybody can do.

I think there’s just so much happening right now in the sport, and even though there’s so much happening, it’s hard to say right now these are all the opportunities. Some bit of patience I think is important, but at some point people are going to start to lose patience and start making decisions really quickly, but you just have to position yourself to see what’s available.

Again, I want to be clear, that’s not just for Harrison, that’s for everybody. That’s for every single person involved in the sport right now.