THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the race-winning crew chief.
Cliff, a wild race for you guys and your team. Talk about the stress, especially with some of the issues you had early in the race.
CLIFF DANIELS: Certainly early in the race didn't look great for a little while. When we stayed out, our car just wasn't where it needed to be. There in the first stage, we stayed out of the comp, faded pretty hard. Knew we had some work to do on the car. I can't remember at what point we started having the voltage issue.
Obviously only a handful of things there. The guys did a great job to diagnose, and we had to come up with a plan on what to do to fix it. Had to think pretty fast on our feet. The plan changed when NASCAR called for it to be a quickie yellow instead of a regular yellow. We were actually planning to pit twice.
The guys, I couldn't be more proud. Jesse Saunders, our car chief; Steven Legendre, who's our engine tuner, they hit a home run on getting the car fixed. Our guys had to change the tires at the same time.
Super proud of them. Proud of our team.
After that we just kind of had to hang tough for the end of the race. Short pitted some of those guys. Larson did a heck of a job on restarts, drove a great race. Very, very thankful for the way it worked out.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Cliff.
Q. Do you practice that kind of stuff? That just doesn't happen. You don't do that on the fly. Do you have, like we had in the military, battle drills? Do you practice that?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, we do. Mostly in January, February before the season starts. As you practice crash repair, damage repair, changing parts and pieces on the car. We have a notebook you pull from. Obviously it's been 30 something-odd weeks since we've done that, so it can be a little dicey when you have to pull from those notes you made back in January, February.
But those guys were tough, they were ready. We've got a checklist every week we go through of parts and tools and equipment that we need to have on standby. All that was ready and available. They knew what to do and got it done, so it worked out.
Q. (No microphone.)
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, I mean, I would say every maybe month, every four or five races, we go through random scenarios from things we see on other cars on track, things that happen to our teammates. You're always trying to stay fresh on the crazy what ifs. You can't always plan for a day like this, but be somewhat prepared.
Q. During the broadcast, when you had that meeting with all the team members, you had to do that to make a battle plan. Also that was taking you out of being able to follow the race. How did you manage that, keeping the team on the same page about how you're going to fix the car and figure out how you were going to win the race?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, at that point I remember pretty clearly the two things we needed to do was have a plan if the caution came out and not burn the brakes off because he was running with no fans. Those are the only two things I was worried about at that point. Anything else strategy-wise, I knew if a caution came out, all the people on our cycle were going to stay out, and you're pitting anyways to fix your car.
Strategy at that point was gone in my mind. Don't burn the brakes off because we have no fans. I could tell kind of by lap times, I was peeking over Jesse's shoulder every now and then, looking at lap times, that we weren't trying to kill it at that point and burn the brakes off.
We had to have a plan for the caution. Once that worked out, everything kind of got reset, and then we had to start all over on what our strategy was going to look like from there.
Q. The road courses you guys have been so successful on, is that somewhere you've been focusing in particular? Do you feel you guys have been the dominant team this season? Does that change that much next season?
CLIFF DANIELS: I would start out giving credit where it's due. We're spoiled. We have Alan Gustafson and Chase and their record from road courses to pull from. They're the guys for the last two or three years that have been the toughest on road courses. If it weren't for the package that they built and all the teammates kind of get to tune on and work from, we wouldn't be as successful as we are.
Certainly it takes everybody back at the shop, from brakes and transmissions, car construction, everything, to just have a really solid piece. I know that sounds really basic, but our cars do the right things right. We have good transmissions, brakes. Drivers do a great job with it. Just the way that we get to study and prepare for these races based on good data points from the past kind of sets you that much farther ahead.
It's tough when you don't have a good race, you come back, review your notes, we know what doesn't work, how do we find what does work. Well, now we're again kind of spoiled because we know what works, we know what those guys have done, how they build their car, execute their race. We get to pick apart how Chase drives. That has really helped our whole company elevate, kind of run at a higher level.
Q. You sounded calm on the radio. Were you actually that calm internally?
CLIFF DANIELS: Probably not. The tough part is I try to operate with my gut feeling based on the information that's right in front of me, the information we had that was very well-reviewed by me and Jesse and Steven for what we had to do. The pit crew was 100% onboard like we spelled out behind the pit box what our game plan was going to be. Made sense to do it the way we did.
The curve ball was when NASCAR called for the quick yellow right in the middle of that because that totally kind of derailed our plan. Everybody thought kick on their feet, guys did a good job getting it done. Glad it paid off.
Q. You swept the races here at Charlotte. How sweet is it to accomplish this in front of Mr. H in a hometown race?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, it's really, really special to sweep Charlotte just in general. Any time you can sweet Charlotte, road course, oval, it's really cool.
To be in the backyard of Hendrick Motorsports, our company has such a legacy and history here. A lot of our teammates were either here in the infield or in the grandstand from all different areas of our company. To have that much support here, to be able to bring the trophy home tonight, them being able to see it tomorrow morning makes it that much more special.
Super happy for Mr. H and hendrickcars.com. We had a lot of Hendrick Automotive Group guests here. The really cool part about it being a home race, it's kind of a family race, we get everybody from Hendrick Motorsports and from the Hendrick Automotive Group here.
Q. Kyle worked his way through the field at a tough track. How confident were you he was able to do it with a car underneath him?
CLIFF DANIELS: I could tell at moments through the race, other than the first run, we just weren't very good the first run, but then we went to work on the car. I knew we had the pace that if we could ever get up front, we could run the top five. It's tough to know if you're not leading what you're going to be out front, vulnerable, have the pace to stay up there. We knew our car was going to be top five capable.
Once we got it up there, Larson told me he was amped up. His hand was shaking on the wheel he was so excited for the last few restarts. It doesn't matter what he's in, when you get Kyle Larson in that kind of mode, he's lights out.
Q. I know Texas Motor Speedway is next weekend. Do you have a good baseline where you feel like you need to be?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, it's going to be different for sure. The weather plays a factor. Also the package is a little different. We had smaller plate on the engine when we were there for the All-Star Race. That race is a little bit different.
To be honest, we weren't that good at the beginning of the All-Star Race. We had to make a lot of adjustments to the car. Going to sound weird to say. I'm glad to know the bad things our car was doing at the beginning of the race that we improved during that race so we can continue to build on those notes.
Obviously look back at our notes from last year, put our best guess oh for what we need.
Q. Talking about not being focused on strategy at one point. You came in and pitted. You were essentially one of the first cars to leave that cycle. Did that become a strategy play in that sense in trying to get track position?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, it was. When everything was happening, again our two objectives were to take care of the car, get the car fixed however we could. Once we got going again, I could tell the car had pace because we'd pass somebody, catch the next group really quick. Passing seemed to be kind of tough today.
I think we were 16th, somewhere around there, knew that our backwards lap was going to be in the 74 to 75 range. We chose the earlier side of that just to try to leapfrog as many as we could. I had to tell him we could have been a quarter of a lap short on fuel. Not sure how that was going to play out.
That was really our best move to try to leapfrog a chunk of cars that I thought our pace, from that point forward, even if we had older tires, could keep us ahead of those guys that could pit a couple laps later than we did.
Doesn't always work out like that. This time it did. Got a couple of cautions after that. Guys did a good job on pit road.
Q. You've worked together all year. People talk about how calm you were. But how calm Kyle was. Drivers get panicky and upset. Kyle, you can correct me on that. Seemed like Kyle was calm, was able to take that in. Kyle seems to be California cool all the time.
CLIFF DANIELS: He thinks really quick in the moment. He can process a lot of thoughts really fast. I can, too.
My objective for him and for the team is to spell it out as clear and as concise as possible so we hit the first objective, when you're done with that, you go to step two, then step three. Sounds basic and simple, but we really had no choice.
It cracks me up after the race when he said to me, his hand was shaking on the wheel, so amped up for the last couple restarts. I know that of him, but I know his maturity behind the wheel with how fast he can be.
He's at a mature point he can control it so well. He can go stupid fast, be in control, pass guys for the win, for whatever. I think he kind of trusted us to do what we had to do to get him up there. We certainly trusted in him to take care of the rest. It all worked out.
Q. I asked Rick this. He said this was one of the most nerve-wracking races he had sat through. Were you able to keep up with where you were points-wise, or you just figured you'll wait till the race plays itself out and not worry about every movement?
CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, a couple things there.
Part of, I would say, Rick's anxiety, too, is we were only one quarter of what was adding to his anxiety today. He had four cars to keep up with throughout the day.
Then for us, all year I've tried really hard not to pay attention to points. Kyle and I have had some conversations. He thinks I get mad at him when he asks about points. I try not to let that be, like, the guiding factor to what we have to do. At the end of the day, if we have damage or issues, whatever is going on, my job is to lead him and the team to what we have to do to get himself back in contention.
All week we knew we were going to kind of have points off to the side screen where we could see it. I did keep up with it throughout the day. I think at one point we were 11 points out all the way up to when we were 55 points to the good. I saw the big swing.
You can't ride the highs too high, and you can't ride the lows too low. When we were leading at the end, I was realistic, if we get a late race restart, we may not win this thing. Crazy restarts at the Roval.
When things are going terrible, I didn't know if we could get an alternator belt or a battery on the car. I wasn't convinced we were out of it either. Can't ride the waves like that. Everybody executed today. It worked out.
THE MODERATOR: We'll let you go. Congratulations.
CLIFF DANIELS: Thank you.
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