THE MODERATOR: We are joined by our winning car owner Joe Gibbs and winning crew chief Adam Stevens.
We'll open it up to questions.
Q. Adam, you were 22nd after stage two. Frustrations are running high. What were you thinking at that point? Did you envision even a win was on the table?
ADAM STEVENS: No, I wasn't thinking win at that point. We were decent in the first stage. What did we finish, eighth or ninth? We had gone forward. Lost a little speed in our car, a little balance late on tires.
We tried to make a little bit bigger adjustment to help our balance. It was absolutely dead wrong. It hurt it. It doubly hurt it, both problems we were trying to fix. We really paid the price the entire second stage. Thankfully stayed on the lead lap somehow. It was bad.
The pressure was on to get that adjustment out of there at the end of stage two. Actually we did most of it on the green flag stop, got a little bit better. Kind of closed the gap at the stage three break.
He had a great restart at the start of stage three, passed 10 or 12 cars there pretty quick. You could see that we woke the car back up, so...
Still wasn't quite thinking a win yet. But, man, the more you pile on his shoulders, it seems like the better he does.
Q. You have experience dealing with drivers that can get animated on the radio. What is your reaction when you hear Christopher like that?
ADAM STEVENS: Felt like home (laughter). No.
Sometimes he lets a little bit of emotion come out. Sometimes you need it. I scream my full head off on the box sometimes, don't key the mic. You got to let it out.
He was in a bad spot. We put him in a bad spot. He was driving his pants off. I was just trying to give him information as to where the leader was so he doesn't lose sight of it. I didn't want him to be on our bumper and him be surprised by it.
Sometimes you got to tell them things they don't want to hear, and sometimes they're going to tell you things maybe you don't want to hear. Part of it.
Q. Joe, the frustration seems to be building from the outside for Martin. What do you say to the team?
JOE GIBBS: I think it shows you how hard our sport is. We had such a disappointment with the 11, Denny, cutting a tire down. I felt like he was fast. Martin qualified on the pole. I thought we had a chance with that car.
A series of circumstances, then lose the motor. Shows you how hard the sport is because those were the two cars for a while for us that were up front.
It also shows you that in sports, particularly in our sport, the 20 was an example of just never giving up, just keep fighting. I mean, it went all the way to the second stage where you don't really think that car is going to make much of a dent in things.
When we're going to Phoenix with the second year in a row with Christopher, it's exciting for us. He's a young guy. To see this promise and the way he and Adam work together. I think also going to Phoenix will be emotional for us. I think of Coy and everything last year. Also J.D. in there. Those two guys spent their entire lives building our race team.
Anyway, thrill for us to get a chance to do this. We just had real disappointments with two of our cars. The good news is they both are good at Martinsville.
Q. Adam, knowing what Bell did last year, then to win when he absolutely had to today, what does that say of the strength of the 20 team and the caliber of your driver?
ADAM STEVENS: Yeah, Bell is a generational talent in this sport. He is as good as they come. He's still learning. We're still learning each other as a team. If you get him close, he can get the job done. We've proven it time and time again.
We got to do a better job as a team and as a company keeping him in contention. When we do that, he's able to claw his way up there and make stuff happen like the great ones do.
Q. Coach, from the minute you got into NASCAR, you said the hardest thing for you to get used to, there's only one winner, 39 losers. When it's your own team and you see the highs of Bell, then Denny and Martin, being a coach, how do you pump those guys up going into the penultimate race of the season?
JOE GIBBS: Yeah, I think it's got a lot to do with character, the people you have in those positions. I think both Denny and Martin, that's why we're so fortunate. Those two guys are veteran guys. In our competition meetings, they're talking, and I think Ty and Christopher are listening to a lot of it. It's really helped us.
But I think it goes back to character and selecting people on your team. Today Adam and Christopher, they don't give up. I know Denny and Martin won't either. It's just amazing sometimes what can happen in this sport. To have the 19 do what it did in regular season, you don't luck out on that. That was 26 weeks, won it by a bunch. It shows you what can happen in sports. It's the greatest reality show in the world because we don't know.
I think as fans, that's why we all like it. We don't know. So just thrilled to be a part of it. God has blessed us with a lot of great people really.
Q. Coach, do you look at today as a good day because you won or do you look at it with mixed feelings because of the 11 and 17? If the 11 and 17 don't make it, how would you evaluate the season if the 20 is the 'only' car you have in the championship?
JOE GIBBS: I think it's hard to get in the Final 4. I'll tell you that. I don't think anything's a given. Certainly the 19, all they did in regular season, like I mentioned, as good as they are, but we've had real disappointments with everything that's happened.
I think the 11 has been pretty consistent up until the last couple of weeks. I think you're looking at it, and the great thing is we have three cars for our team that have a chance. We still got a chance. That's the way we look at it.
I think we're going to Martinsville, it's going to be a classic, I'm sure. But we do have a chance. We go there with both Denny and Martin...
Q. Coach, Bell has won three pressure-packed races in the Playoffs the last couple years. Two eliminations and one today with somebody chasing him down. What kind of mentality does it take for athletes to perform at a different level and not let the outside noise creep in?
JOE GIBBS: I think that's what we all look at and say how many guys want to drive cars, how many guys are racing late models, how many get a chance to come up here. Then it winds up being only a small number can really, really get it done when they have to get it done.
It's so hard sometimes. Like Christopher, it's only his fourth year. He got thrown in the first year, and we had no practice because of COVID. We were just throwing him into racetracks. He and Adam were able to work through all that. Then he comes back the second year, kind of gets his feet on the ground, takes off.
The great thing there is how young he is. I think Adam said it. I think Adam has done a great job of bringing him along. I think he's got great confidence in Adam. That certainly helps. I told him we'll put a saddle on Christopher and ride him for 20 years (smiling).
Q. What does it say about the resiliency of Christopher, of this 20 team as a whole, and what lessons have been learned along the way to get to this point?
ADAM STEVENS: Yeah, I think it's important. Last week stung, but by the time the plane landed, we were over it and focused on the next thing. We still had a great day, had a great weekend there. We just couldn't keep the lead on that last stop and couldn't get out of the box, spinning our tires. You have to do all those things when it comes down to it.
We were miffed that the opportunity got away, but we weren't miffed in our part of it. That just happens in professional sports.
Then it was a matter of digging in, on to the next one. I tell the guys all the time you can't look backwards. You can't dwell on it. You have to really do your best to pull the good stuff out of the weekend and leave the bad stuff.
Even on your most dismal weekend, there's something that you learned or something that was good or done well that you can remind the guys of, remind yourself of, and build off of. That's something that we all need to remind ourselves and stay focused on.
But it's critically important because if your only goal is to win, if that's the only way you appease yourself, you're going to be miserable and it's going to pile up and you're going to make bad decisions.
You have to pull those good things out of those weekends. I think we did a good job of that. The pit stops, we didn't want to lose the lead, but it wasn't the cleanest stop, only lost two, had good short run speed. Bell manned up and got it done. You have to have days like that, and I'm proud we had one of those today.
Q. Adam, can you give me a sense of perspective of another time where you were seemingly so far off and able to come back and win. 2019 comes to mind. Going into the race, everybody kind of figured you were the fourth of the four. You came out the champion. How does today compare?
ADAM STEVENS: 2019, I didn't really feel that. Maybe in practice. When the race was going, I felt like we were close, and we were. We were up there all day.
The one that comes to mind for me is Chicago, I want to say it was 2018. It was the Dale Jr. slide job race with the 5 I think. We ran around mid pack, tail end of the lead lap, most of the day. We clawed our way up to 10th or 11th. I think there were only maybe 14 on the lead lap roughly at the time.
I told him, I got no interest in running 10th or 11th. We're going to call a timeout here and make some changes. We pulled packer and added packer, adjusted shocks, and double wedge, track bar, everything. He started passing cars and drove it up there to the front and won that race.
That was a little bit like today where middle of the race we were out of it, then clawed our way back forward.
Q. Joe, you have one car at Phoenix. Still could have two. Understanding what happens on the track can't compare with what you and your family went through last year, are you looking forward to Phoenix? How do you approach the idea that Phoenix is coming up on the calendar?
JOE GIBBS: Yeah, I think that's a good question.
I would say there's going to be part of that that will be remembering things that happened, and part of it was, hey, Heather said that's the happiest she's seen Coy that night, everything that happened on the racetrack.
Obviously a big part of it will be us focused if the 20 car is there, if we were fortunate enough to get somebody else. I always talk to our team and everything about the fact that we've been 31 years, and we only have five championships on the back wall. That's how hard it is. This sport is really, really hard because there's so much to it. If you have a weak part of your race team, the Playoffs will find it.
Yeah, I think there will be some memories there, for sure.
Q. Christopher Bell has come up in the past two seasons. You talk about his ability. What is it about this part of the year that he can get it done? We hear a lot about the first bye from the winner at Las Vegas. How are you approaching Martinsville with prepping the car for Phoenix? Are you more relaxed heading into Martinsville now?
ADAM STEVENS: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. We had some setup stuff that we wanted to try there, that we got pretty low confidence in. Now we have the ability to do that. So I think we'll probably do that. Maybe we'll find something that can really help us for next year.
If we have the ability to get up there and race for the win, we'll certainly not turn it away. But if it's not our day, it's not our day. We're not going to let that bother us.
We need to go have a good, safe race on pit road, build a little bit of momentum on that side of it for Phoenix.
As far as that makes Christopher great in these pressure situations, he just loves it. He loves trading paint and racing for the win. The closer you can get him to the front, the better he does. That's just the makeup of a real racer and somebody who was born to do this.
THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you for coming.
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