THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Mike Kelley, Crew Chief of the No. 47 Chevrolet. Congratulations on your win today, Mike. Can you tell us a little bit about the race itself?
MIKE KELLEY: Well, today for us was just all about execution. We generally don’t qualify well here. I think today — or yesterday was our best qualifying effort on a speedway with a Next Gen car. We qualified 32nd. We won’t compromise our race setup, and we generally have a pretty good race car for Ricky to be able to maneuver around.
A lot of ideas on strategy, and knowing these guys are racing for a championship and who is going to get stage points. We just kind of sat in our meeting on Thursday and said that we were going to try to win all the stage points, and we were going to try and win the race.
It’s easier said than done, but we executed well in the first stage, and I think we finished second. Just put a big effort into making sure that we came out of that last green flag pit stop as close to the lead as we could and was able to get lined up with the Chevrolet key partner group and wiggle our way in amongst those guys and put ourselves in position at the end.
Then to have that last restart there I felt pretty good about our chances just knowing we had a lot of Chevrolets behind us, and I know some of those guys were racing for points, and they probably wouldn’t do anything that would put themselves in harm’s way. We got the right push when we needed it, and it looked like Keselowski didn’t get the push he needed at times. Squeaked it out right there at the end.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up to questions.
Q.Coming to these races, you know this fits Ricky’s skill set. Is there more pressure on you guys because you feel like this is your good opportunity to leave with a W?
MIKE KELLEY: I don’t look at it as more pressure. I look at it as more opportunity. We prepare the car whether we’re going to Charlotte next week or Kansas last week.
We understand where our chances lie. We always want to try and make sure that we have all our Ts crossed and our Is dotted and make sure we spend a lot of time on strategy. We spend a lot of time on understanding the fuel and the fuel mileage.
I hate to say that from an old-school racer who has been coming here for about 30 years. Now that is a different part of the game is understanding fuel mileage and how to spend the least amount of time on pit road. We had done that really well I think in the Daytona race earlier, but we got bit by a caution, and that was something we hadn’t thought about was saving fuel, saving fuel, saving fuel. Then if the caution comes out and it’s in the window, now you’re just running 25th, and you’re not going to have track position.
These places are hard to pass. So we changed that up this weekend, and we said we really have nothing to lose. Let’s not keep ourselves farther back than 10th or 12th. We executed that really well in the first stage.
I was proud of Ricky and Tab, our on spotter. I thought we were going to try and throw a big block on Buescher to win the first stage. We didn’t need to do that. We just need to finish where it was, and we finished second. I thanked them both after that. I said, We did the right thing there. We still have a car intact, and we have a shot at this thing at the end of the day. We just have to continue to execute.
I knew when we were leaving pit road, we had to make sure we were a little conservative and said put an extra half a gallon in it for one green-white-checkered. I know some of the key partners weren’t willing to do that, but I saw how fast we executed that stop.
For me I felt like it was all about beating the 9 car off pit road. He was the one that was basically closest to us. If we didn’t beat him off pit road, it would probably have been a better day. We got fortunate that we executed the stop and got off pit road and it worked out for us.
Q.It looked like you had damage on the left side of the door. One of the crew chiefs on pit road had said they thought some foam was missing from your car and that maybe you should have had to come down on pit road. I wonder if you could address that?
MIKE KELLEY: I bet they did (laughing). I didn’t see no foam missing. Yeah, we did. We took a direct shot really hard, and on this car if you want to take it somewhere, it’s definitely not in one of the wheels with the toe links. They bend for a reason, and your day would pretty much be done if you bent a toe link.
So, yeah, it did. It took a big shot. If they were going to pull us down for that, it probably would have been hard to get that car off the racetrack.
Q.You guys are going on through a bit of a transition we know. Kroger is leaving at the end of the year. Can you address where you are at for the sponsorship?
MIKE KELLEY: I’m on the competition side. I don’t know. I know I’ve got a great group of owners with Ernie and Gordon. I just resigned my deal for a couple of years, and I’m excited we resigned.
We have an alliance with Hendrick, and they help us with technical alliance and Mr. H and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Andrews and Scotty Maxim, that whole group, Chad Knaus. We’re the little team. We don’t get everything we want. They give us what we can and when they can.
But, yeah, I’m excited about the future here. We’re still a small team. There’s no getting around that. It’s not easy, but I’ve told everybody last year when I took this position over that I always felt like even though if I got 30 guys working on our race team, if I got 30 guys pulling in the same direction, I like my chances.
It’s not pretty some days. There’s days we want to forget about some of the races, but there are a lot of days that, man, we know there are other teams questioning how we do what we do when we do it.
Q.That last stop, do you have any idea how many seconds of fuel you took?
MIKE KELLEY: I know exactly how many. 4.89. We verified that. We do that for multiple reasons, Jeff. We want to make sure. You pick the lap that you believe you can go wide open from there, right, and so you pick that lap, and you say, From this lap we can go wide open plus one green-white-checkered. We knew how much time we needed, and our gas man did an incredible job of staying connected to the car.
We only wanted 4 seconds of fuel, but he did an incredible job staying connected and doing what they call riding the car out as far as he can to get that extra. So we were good to 197. So we were in solid shape there.
Q.Is that part of — because, I mean, I’m just assuming in some ways even though you know that there could be an overtime, right?
MIKE KELLEY: Yeah.
Q.But it’s also got to be somewhat tempting to be, like, if I take one less second here, it’s that many more positions. You were determined that, Hey, I have to have enough for one green-white-checkered?
MIKE KELLEY: We cut it really close on the two stages today. We tell ourselves, We’ll show for shoot for three-eighths to a half a gallon to finish, and that’s just for error, right? We believe we have this down to a science.
But the other thing we’ve also learned is that this pit stop racing at these superspeedways, there’s really about five or six things. It’s coming to pit road, making sure you’re fast enough to the line, making sure you’re hitting your targets on your pit road speed, where you pick avoiding cars coming in and out because if you lift on or off the gas too much and then blending back up.
You are trying — we’re cutting the fuel down to a half a second. So if you lose it all coming in — and we’ve seen that before. We’ve seen it before we do — we execute the pit stop side well, but we gave up too much getting in or we weren’t leading our group and we came in late on pit road. Now we’re having to dodge the cars that were already — because they’re all getting two or three seconds on fuel.
We talked about it today. I said, If you are going to run up front, then I’m going to pick down at that end of pit road because it will make it easier. I don’t have to dodge cars. We do have an incredible engineering group, and I’m very thankful for them. They make my job easy. They spend a ton of time on this stuff.
We have a strong engineering group, and they lay it all out. We spend hours upon hours looking at this stuff so that we can execute on these days.
Q.First, just there was some confusion on who is going to get towed to pit road and who wasn’t. Were you paying attention to that? Did that impact any of your decision there at the end?
MIKE KELLEY: It didn’t impact our decisions. We’ve got to get that cleaned up as a sport, right, because there are teams — be careful how I say this. There are teams with a lot on the line that are sitting out there just waiting on wreckers to get to them.
Bob, this is my 30th year doing this. I don’t think I’ve seen them turn the yellow flag on and allow guys to work on cars while other guys are just sitting there. I’m sure they’ll think about that, talk about that because if you’re a guy who is sixth in the championship hunt and you’re sitting there waiting on somebody to get to you, but the other guys are working — or maybe I’m looking at it wrong and the clock evens it all out, but I was getting confused when Ricky kept coming by saying, There’s still four cars sitting here.
I’m sure they were put in a tough situation with that many cars involved in that wreck and this many wreckers. Some of the guys — the cars look to be damaged or in the grass. They couldn’t use the airlift system. Some guys are running it; some guys are not.
It’s a tough situation, and we’ll learn from it and get better at it. But, yeah, it was a lot of new things kind of happening, but it didn’t impact ours. We were worried if they just ran a bunch of laps under caution, that would. That would have made me upset.
Q.That was kind of my follow-up. Were there a certain number of flags under caution you could go before —
MIKE KELLEY: We were good with — we wanted to see them take the green at least at 195 for me to be comfortable, and we took it well before that, but I just didn’t know when Ricky said — I think he told me there were still three or four cars down there. Then I’m listening, and he said, Oh, the 14 left pit road and just wrecked again or spun out again.
Then I heard somebody say on one of the scanners that a wheel nut fell off somebody’s car, and I just kept saying, Man, we’re just going to run all this fuel out under caution. It’s not going to make my day very good.
They good it all cleaned up, and it all worked out, and I’m thankful for that.
Q.When you see Ricky go up over the fence, what are your thoughts of just watching him do that? He climbed from the fence into the flag stand.
MIKE KELLEY: Oh, he did?
Q.What are your thoughts about all that?
MIKE KELLEY: Man, I didn’t get to see it, but for those of you that know or don’t know, me and Ricky have a long, tenured relationship. I got introduced to him in 2009, and we’ve had an up-and-down career. We’ve won some big races and won a couple of Xfinity Championships. My first race back with him, we won the Daytona 500.
Our biggest goal after that Daytona 500 was to keep this team relevant. I told him, I said, Man, we’ll make it — from this point on we’ll make it into the chase. I want to make it on points even if we didn’t win the 500, and I think we went into the Daytona in the fall, and we were 15th or 14th in points. That meant a lot to us to prove that it wasn’t a one-race deal.
This year we’ve actually had a lot of opportunities to do well, and just one thing after another. You know, I’m not the only team sitting up here telling you that they’ve had bad days, but I know that kid more than anybody. I’ve spent more time with him. We talk more than me and my family do, and I know he’s got my back, and I got his back. I know he’s going to give me 100% out there.
The trust level is through the roof, and when we get to do something like this today, I couldn’t be happier. I wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else. I will end my career with Ricky if it’s next year or two years after that. This will be it for me.
THE MODERATOR: Mike, congratulations, and thank you for your time tonight.
We are now joined by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., our race winner for tonight. Ricky, congratulations. Big week. You had a birthday. Great race tonight. Can you talk to us a little bit about the race?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: It was huge. I always obviously feel confident coming back to a place that we’ve won at before and a superspeedway where we always feel pretty confident in our race car.
So I think, for one, we did exactly what we needed to do in the first stage. You know, put ourselves in position to win that one. The 17 had a huge run there at the end. You always try and play these races out in kind of what-if scenarios, and I thought the 17 had a huge runway too early in the race to try and block it there at the end of the stage, so I settled for second knowing that if it came down to it again, I would probably try and figure out a way to block him if that was for the win.
But second stage the pit cycle didn’t work out for us. Just the way everything kind of fell in line, but I thought us as a team, we talk a lot about saving fuel, but keeping your track position. It’s a game of chess out there just trying not to need as much fuel when you come down on to that green-flag cycle.
We positioned ourselves in a great spot. Got to pit road good. They put fuel in it as quick as they could and put in the perfect amount. We came back out leading the line of Chevys and ultimately got to the front to battle the 2 there. So it was kind of Fords versus Chevys I felt like.
I felt like we were in a good position. I kind of wanted to just go green because I felt like Chase kept giving me really good pushes. I could kind of side draft and hold the bottom lane down a little bit, so I felt comfortable there.
Then the caution came out, and I was a little bummed, but then when they started telling me the line-up behind me, I felt a lot more confident with all the Chevy that is we had.
So I was pumped to see Kyle line up behind the 6, but he pushed him a lot harder than I was hoping he would push him. So, yeah, it was three-wide there at the end coming across the line. We’ve lost a couple here by inches, so it was cool to win one.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up for questions.
Q.Ricky, I wanted to isolate something that you mentioned in your comments on the start-finish line. You referenced Brad Dougherty and how he’s from the Western North Carolina area that’s been so devastated by Helene. I know that he is very close with the Pressley family as well. They’re also from there. I don’t know if Brad is here today, but have you heard from him since the checkered flag, and can you talk a little bit about what your thoughts are on that situation and what your team is trying to do to help?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah, I mean, my wife is selling a shirt on slidejobranch.com, and it’s done really well, and we’re going to match the proceeds of that. Hopefully that keeps going up.
I’ve talked to Team Rubicon with Rick Allen, a charity of veterans that go in and help clean up. I was talking to them yesterday and probably go there in a couple of weeks once they kind of get established over there in Western North Carolina.
I haven’t talked to Brad today since the win, but obviously a tremendous amount of people in our sport with ties in Asheville and up in the mountains in Boone, whether it be the cabins that they have and the communities that they go to throughout the summer.
Super devastated area. I think for us — I know Mike Kelley has been trying to get a group of road crew guys to kind of all go up there at the same time, you know, once they kind of figure out where we can help. I’m looking forward to going up there and doing that in the next few weeks.
Q.You also referenced having lost one in a photo finish here. That was in 2020. Just from a driver’s standpoint, can you talk about photo finish situation, crossing the finish line and then the couple seconds between, Man, did we get him, to either saying, Yeah, you got him or, No, you didn’t get him?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah, obviously like with the Atlanta race earlier in the year, you know, the Kansas race, the first Kansas, you know, my spotter, Tab, was pumped as soon as we crossed the line. I’m just sitting there waiting to celebrate and make sure. It was way too close for me to call from the seat.
When the 24 jumped out to the outside, it was like a parachute hit my car. I was just hoping that we would get to the start-finish line before them. It was a drag race at that point. When I got probably to the back stretch, they were pretty confident that we had won, and a big sigh of relief for sure.
Q.A lot of drivers who have had success on superspeedways over the years have kind of limited this car and said this car doesn’t fit my style of superspeedway racing. I feel like you’re the one constant, whether it’s the old car or the new car. You’re always in the mix. You’ve won in both cars now. Do you feel like you’re kind of the exception much that narrative, that you are still good, your skill set still carries over?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: I think there’s definitely things that are different and nuances of this car at every racetrack. No different than when they add a little bit taller wicker down the car and things like that. You feel things a little bit different even than the last time we were here.
So I think for the most part I think the 12, the 6, 22, myself, I feel like we always tend to work ourselves in the mix. Every time I looked up, the 22 is right there, the 6 was right there, or the 17 and the 12 and myself.
I think for me there’s little things that are still possible to do with this car with the side drafts and trying to figure out when to side draft and not to side draft. It’s still effective. It’s not as effective, I guess.
I think everybody’s cars drive almost too good. So I feel like it puts everybody really comfortable. I felt like for the longest time with our older cars and the speeds that we would run you get some laps on the tires. Depending on what setup you put in your race car was depending on how it would handle and how it would take pushes and things like that.
My guys got a really good setup that we clearly don’t qualify very fast. I think we average probably 32nd in qualifying here, a second off of the 34. But once the green flag drops, I feel like I’m at no disadvantage. I feel really comfortable with my car, and I’m able to make moves and take pushes.
When the 5 was pushing me at the end of stage one, he was shoving me hard. No different than the 24 there at the end. I just feel really comfortable with that and what I can do with it.
Q.Then you mentioned Tab earlier. Tab is the Gulf Coast native. He considers this his home track. How cool is it to win for him and then what were his contributions today to this win?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah, I think throughout the day I continued to let him know what I needed in different situations. We were three-wide for most of the race. Four-wide for a long time.
Then when we were four-wide, I was just telling him, you know, all I needed — the only information I needed was how much room the 38 had because I was trying to get our row clear of the four-wide situation. So for the most part today it was just really keeping me aware of how far I could push the car in front of me to keep our line going.
You’re trying to do that all at the same time of saving fuel. It’s very difficult, but he was constantly — heck, at one point I lost him for a second. He had to change batteries. He was talking a lot today.
I think just keeping me informed of where everybody was around me is very beneficial and talking about the lines coming. You know, when the 8 popped out there at the end, I was a little bummed because I was, like, Dang, man, he is going kind of early. Luckily, no one went with him, and we were able to keep our line and momentum going.
Q.Were you concerned when Chase got involved in that big wreck because Chase had said he felt like you and him probably were working better than anybody together.
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah. Everybody likes to race superspeedways different. I’ve always felt like being the leader of a line, I like to side draft the inside cars, and it keeps the car behind me closer. It slows them down.
But Chase came over the radio and got me to stop side drafting as much. He felt like the way his car was, he was able to just push better if we just kind of stayed in our lane.
I think it was pretty close one way or the other, but yeah, he was pushing me really, really good. I felt like he was able to latch onto me at the right times. Really that whole last run I was just trying to make sure I bet the 2 to the line every lap.
I was just trying to gauge where I needed to be down the back straightaway coming off turn four, going into the tri-oval, things like that to make sure that we beat him to the line. Like I said, I was really hoping it just went green because I didn’t feel like — the lap times that we were running at that moment were pretty fast, and I didn’t think the third lane could get momentum as fast as we were in the bottom two lanes. So I wasn’t worried about anybody jumping to the outside.
So, yeah, I would much rather have raced it out from there, but like I said, once the caution came out and I realized how many Chevys were around us, I felt even better about it I guess at the end.
Chase was working really well with me.
Q.You mentioned the 8 jumping out early. If you had to block the 8, were you concerned? Obviously you had the history earlier this year. Do you think you could have worked together, or would it have been a slugfest on the track?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Yeah, no, I was not — I think he positioned himself a lot of the race in the front. I felt like he led the middle lane a lot, and I was in the middle lane. When he jumped out, again, I felt like it was too early. So I was hoping nobody would go with him. I didn’t think that was a good move at least from where I was sitting.
Then, like I said, we were running so fast around the bottom lane that I don’t think you could have made that work. Yeah, no, I was going to block anybody. I didn’t care who it was.
It’s so tough to win these races. It’s so tough to miss the wrecks, put yourself in the right position with enough fuel. These races are kind of chaos when it comes down to the end.
I was thankful that we had a successful green-white-checkered without having another caution. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do that in the Cup Series, so that was kind of nice.
Q.I was just curious, talking about blocking and the moves, coming off of four, Brad was clear of the field on the bottom. Were you surprised he didn’t swing up and throw a block at you?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: Very surprised. Very surprised. Especially, again, if I was in the 6’s situation, I would say Kyle and I are the best friends out there you could have. Kyle wins a lot of races, and I know that he is probably going to probably help me out as much as he can.
I was really shocked. I was waiting for the block, and I was going to decide whether I was clear enough to get to his inside and get in front of the 5 or hang a right and take our momentum with the 24. Yeah, I was super shocked that he didn’t make that right-hand.
Q.The race was restarted. You guys are circling, and there’s still some cars working to be towed back. You’re passing these cars, right? Are you in your mind thinking, We’re going to be running out of fuel here? Was there a little bit of an advantage?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: There was a big concern for me. Obviously we’re not in the playoffs, but I thought it was really odd that they turned the yellow light on and let some of those cars get back to pit road and start working on them as we’re just sitting on the back stretch. I thought that was odd.
It was I guess good for the cars that needed to work on them without going a lap down. But then, yeah, we got back going. I was just relaying that info to Mike and the guys that, Man, we got two, three, four more laps of this. I was just saving as much as I could.
I have no idea how close we were on gas. I mean, I did a massive burnout, so at least I got to do that. We didn’t get to do that at the 500. We were out of gas there. We had enough to do that.
Yeah, I was concerned for sure that the caution laps were eating into the fuel because as soon as we came out from our green flag pit stop, I ran 100% throttle from there on out until that last caution. So I was concerned for sure.
Q.I spoke to 41 and Ryan Preece. He mentioned that most of you are only going at 50% until the end of the stage or end of the checkered flag. Is that indicative of Talladega or just in general in NASCAR playoffs?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: It’s just a product of everybody just learning race strategies. We’re trying to spend the least amount of time on pit road getting gas.
If you come in a second behind somebody, but you need a second less of fuel, then you can leave with them on pit road. So that was what myself and my team was trying to do. We knew we wanted to be somewhere in the top 10. Once we got there, I was saving fuel trying to run probably 50% throttle just trying to save as much as I could, but still keep my track position.
Ultimately I feel like that’s what won us the race. We kept our track position. We saved enough fuel. We got to the front when we needed to pit. So we pitted basically from the lead and then we left pit road with our group leading, and the 9 was pushing us.
If the 9 would have gotten in front of us on pit road, then I would have been pushing him, and I would have probably been exactly where the 9 was when that wreck happened. I felt like that was kind of the winning move of the race for us. But, yeah, we saved a lot of fuel.
Q.What was the best part of the celebration?
RICKY STENHOUSE JR.: FaceTiming my wife with my son. Super bummed that they didn’t come, but can’t wait to get home.
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