NASCAR: Daytona They Said It… Round 2

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Kroger/Cottonelle Ford Mustang Dark Horse –

YOU HAVE DONE ALL THERE IS TO DO EXCEPT WIN THIS RACE. HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF IT NEVER HAPPENED? “It would be a gap, for sure, but I’m probably not looking at it from not having it, I’m looking at it from the more optimistic, positive side of having it. It’s a big race, certainly the biggest purse, the biggest media and fan attention and that makes it a race you just want to win, whether it’s once, twice, three times, it doesn’t get old.” WHAT DOES THE DAYTONA 500 MEAN TO YOU? “I just see it as a prestige race. It’s not a season performance indicator. It’s a prestige race. It’s probably the opposite of a season. The prestige is real. It’s one of those things that once you win, people remember it and it carries throughout your career.”

Ryan Preece on racing for RFK

RYAN PREECE, No. 60 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – DO YOU THINK THIS TEAM IS 100 PERCENT IN RYAN PREECE’S CORNER? “Yeah, I do feel that way. I’m not saying that we weren’t before, it’s just sometimes timing is everything. I feel like where RFK is and where they were in 2020, 2021 to where they are now, they’re a team that you look at last year I think there was a stretch of eight or 10 races where one of their cars were top two or whatever it may have been. So, I guess, to say the least as a race car driver you want to drive fast race cars and this is a great opportunity for that. Last year, they showed a lot of great speed. Chris and I have gotten along really well as soon as we were teammates at JTG and he’s always somebody when it comes to when you’re racing with that you can work with each other and help each other whenever you absolutely can, so between that and the experience that Brad has, not only as a team owner, but as well as a teammate, from what I’ve seen bringing a lot to soak up. Obviously, he brought from what I feel a lot for Chris when the two of them became teammates, especially from the superspeedway side, so I’m looking forward to all the different things and going into the 500.”

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing

Is it good to have someone like Christopher Bell on your team to measure yourself by?

“Yeah, I think so. I think Christopher (Bell) honestly is probably the guy I’ve measured myself off of more than anybody in my entire career. We’re a day apart in age. Grew up doing the same type of racing. He raced a lot more growing up than I did. But we come from the exact same background. So, what he’s been able to do on the NASCAR side certainly kind of model my results off of. Judging off somebody else that doesn’t have the same background as me is harder to do. Christopher is as close as it gets to my background with age and everything, experience level. Definitely somebody that I’ll judge myself off of a lot especially now that we’re in the same car.”

How hard is it to go to a new team?

“It’s a lot. I did not think it would be that different, truthfully. I figured it would be pretty simple to just switch, and yeah, I was definitely wrong. There’s just so much more going on. The amount of data to look at; working with James (Small, crew chief, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE). The other day, I was like 15 minutes late for this meeting that we had, and I’m not used to pre-event meetings. We’ve never done those before in my career, so there’s a lot different. Just everything that’s going on and the resources, data, analytics. There’s just so much that, honestly, has really opened my eyes up to this how vastly different is. It’s kind of crazy to think that’s what we’ve raced against my entire Cup career. I’m definitely excited to get going, I told Christopher, ‘you don’t realize how good you’ve had it your entire career. Having all this at your disposal.’ It’s definitely been very eye-opening for sure.”

Austin Cindric

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT ARE THE EMOTIONS LIKE COMING HERE AFTER WINNING A FEW YEARS AGO? “It’s clearly a special place for me for a number of reasons, but I think my emotions going into 2022 is that I thought the coolest Daytona 500 memory I was gonna have for quite a while was in my first one being pushed out to the lead tandem drafting with Joey and obviously then the next year we win it, so you kind of have to reevaluate those memories. It’s certainly a huge event for the year. It still always feels like the first day of school, kind of above everything else, but by the time that wears off as the week goes on by Sunday on race day it’s by far the biggest day in our sport.”

Joey Logano

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT IS THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL LIKE AFTER WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “Your confidence is higher, but that’s the only thing that’s different. You’re coming off a good year, so you obviously feel solid about it, but we don’t have a lead on anyone anymore. We’re back to zero. The goal is no different. Our mission is still to win the championship. That doesn’t change, so I don’t see much different.”

Kyle Busch is Realistic about this year

Is this the year for your Daytona 500 win?

“You’d certainly like to hope so. Twenty years of trying. There was another storied racer of the past that won on his 20th try and that was a pretty big deal. He was a former RCR driver as well so it’d certainly be nice to win that race and do it with RCR in the No. 8 Zone Chevrolet. So that would be pretty cool.”