Kevin Harvick is 7/1 to win 2021 Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead

 

KEVIN HARVICK Homestead Advance No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event:  Homestead 400 (Round 3 of 36) ●  Time/Date:  3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 28 ●  Location:  Homestead-Miami Speedway ●  Layout:  1.5-mile oval ●  Laps/Miles:  267 laps/400 miles ●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 80 laps / Final Stage: 107 laps ●  TV/Radio:  FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, is one of only four drivers to begin the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season with top-10 finishes in the two races held thus far. The other drivers? Championship point leader Denny Hamlin, Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell and third-year Cup Series driver Ryan Preece.   ●  Despite two races having already been run, now is when the 2021 season really gets started. After beginning this year’s NASCAR Cup Series calendar with back-to-back races at Daytona – first on the mammoth 2.5-mile oval and then on the 14-turn, 3.61-mile road course – it’s time for the real Cup Series schedule to begin. Homestead-Miami Speedway is a 1.5-mile oval that is considered an intermediate-style track. Intermediate tracks make up the bulk of the Cup Series schedule – eight to be exact – making Homestead a bit of a barometer in how teams will perform at other, upcoming intermediate tracks, most notably, next week at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.   ●  That begs the question: How good is Harvick at intermediate tracks? Really good. Of his 58 career NASCAR Cup Series wins, 23 have come at intermediate tracks, and those tracks include Homestead (one win), Las Vegas (two wins), Atlanta Motor Speedway (three wins), Kansas Speedway in Kansas City (three wins), Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway (three wins), Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth (three wins), Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn (five wins), Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California (one win) and the defunct Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois (two wins).   ●  Harvick has made 20 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Homestead and only recorded one win, but it was one of his most memorable victories. When Harvick crossed the stripe first in the 2014 Ford EcoBoost 400 with a half-second margin over second-place Ryan Newman, Harvick became the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion. Harvick led four times 54 laps in that race – second only to Jeff Gordon’s 161 laps led – to take his fifth win of the season and the 28th of his career. With 58 career Cup Series wins, Harvick stands alone at ninth on the all-time Cup Series win list. Next on the all-time win list is NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time series champion Dale Earnhardt with 76 victories.   ●  Up until last year’s June race at Homestead where Harvick finished 26th, the south Florida track had been a bastion of top-10 consistency for the driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang. Harvick came into that race with six straight top-fives and 12 straight top-10s at the 1.5-mile oval. To see the last time Harvick finished outside the top-10 at Homestead meant going all the way back to the 2007 Ford 400 when George W. Bush was president and Harvick finished 19th. More than half of the 43 drivers in that race have officially retired from fulltime racing in the NASCAR Cup Series and seven have been inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame – Jeff Gordon (Class of 2019), Mark Martin (Class of 2017), Dale Jarrett (Class of 2014), Bobby Labonte (Class of 2020), Bill Elliott (Class of 2015), Tony Stewart (Class of 2020) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Class of 2021).   ●  Of the 5,346 laps available to Harvick in his 20 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Homestead, he has completed all but two of those laps. He has led 414 laps and scored 11 top-fives and 17 top-10s to earn an average finish of 7.4. When it comes to top-fives and top-10s, no other driver is even close to Harvick. His closest competitor in top-fives at Homestead is Martin Truex Jr., with six top-fives and Harvick’s nearest pursuer in top-10s is Hamlin with 11.   ●  Harvick has already won at Homestead this year. No, not Kevin Harvick. It’s his 8-year-old son, Keelan. The up-and-coming racer won twice at the 2021 Superkarts! USA (SKUSA) Winter Series Nationals Jan. 9-10 at the AMR Homestead-Miami Motorplex and then returned Feb. 13 to win again on the on the 11-turn, .7-mile circuit. Keelan competes in the Micro ROK, Micro Swift and Briggs Cadet divisions.

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

You’ve been an advocate of shaking up the schedule, and we certainly have that this year with a superspeedway, a road course and an intermediate track hosting the first three races. Now that it’s happening, what are your thoughts? “It’s about time. As I’ve said for many years, I think mixing up the schedule is something that’s very important to capture people’s attention and to really try something different. Whether that’s different markets, different racetracks, it has to be different from year to year. As we go to these new markets and new styles of racetracks and try new things, we have to constantly evolve and mix it up. You’re going to have your staple markets and events, but you have those five or six events a year, like we’re having this year, that are new, exciting and different than you had last year. As you look at this year’s schedule – going to more road courses and new markets –Bristol being on dirt – there’s just a lot of intrigue to what’s happening, and that was before the season even started. That’s a good thing.”   Last year, Homestead was one of the first races to be postponed by COVID-19 and then NASCAR was able to return to the track in June. COVID-19 changed a lot of things and forced people to adapt, and that ability to adapt remains a constant in 2021. How has it changed what you do as a racecar driver? “Look, life changed in general. I think COVID has forever changed our sport in the way that we think things through and the way that we go about things. There will be a number of things that will stick with our sport throughout the next several years just because of the things we’ve been able to try and learn. My routine has changed dramatically just because of the fact you’re just not in the car as much on the weekend. Race shape is a lot different than it was because you don’t have all those reps on Friday and Saturday. Really, as you got toward the end of the year, your body was actually fresher than it had been in the past, which allowed me to kind of mix up my workout routine during the week and actually gave me more days at home to do more things with the family. So, it definitely changed the way you prepare and put yourself in the car on Sunday.”   Last year at this time, talk of COVID-19 was just beginning, and no one really had any idea of its future impact. How did COVID-19’s impact unfold from your perspective? “Racing stopped as we headed to Atlanta. I was actually sitting in an airplane and about halfway there. I got a text to not come to the racetrack. Then it was, maybe we’ll come Sunday, we might not practice, we might qualify, and so many things changed that we wound up just flying home and never even going to the racetrack. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion, and then we sat around for a couple of months trying to figure out what we were going to do. As you look at our sport in general, we’ve all learned about the things we can and can’t do. NASCAR and all the teams did a great job of getting all of our races in in 2020, but I think the way that this sport functions will forever have been changed because of COVID. With the inefficiencies of the past, and newly created efficiencies that we found in 2020, and finding a balance of that going forward in what we can and can’t do or need to do, will be interesting.”   You mentioned more family time as a result of finding those efficiencies in the NASCAR schedule, and that family time has resulted in your son, Keelan, getting more and more involved with karting with you and your wife, DeLana, right there with him. How did it all come to be? “This would’ve all never started if it wasn’t for COVID. We were really kind of set in our plans of the things that we wanted to do and where we wanted to go and how we wanted to spend time with our kids, and Keelan had really not shown a lot of interest in going to the racetrack. When COVID started, the iRacing stuff started. We were not really in school. Everything was kind of virtual once it started back, and he looked over one day while we were sitting on our iRacing simulators and he said, ‘Why aren’t we racing?’ I’m like, ‘Well, you never asked.’ So, we started going to the racetrack some more and getting prepared for the first club race at GoPro Motorplex (in Mooresville, North Carolina) when they finally opened up and ran the first club race. He qualified on the pole and, really, the rest has kind of been history – not even a year really since that particular point. It’s really the first thing that he’s shown that amount of interest in – that he actually wants to practice, first of all. For the relationship part of it, it’s been really good for us as a family. It’s been really good for Keelan and I. It’s also very challenging to be the teacher and try to basically build a race team. I mean, to race at the level that he’s going to race at, you have to treat it like it’s an actual race team because it is, so I think there’s a number of things that have happened with our personal relationship, that bond getting stronger, that driver/mentor relationship, trying to find that balance as being dad as well was, and still is, challenging. But if it’s something he wants to do, I’m going to push him hard to do the things he wants to do. He still has to have fun, but if you want to be good at it, you have to have your boundaries pushed on a daily basis, and I feel like I do that. It’s also been really good for me to understand and remember why I love racing, and going to the racetrack and seeing all the things and the challenges that come with not only teaching him, but putting the vehicles together – it reminds me a lot of the things that we’ve done in the past and I remember why I like those things because it’s a different way of competing, and I love to compete. From that standpoint, I now remember why I love going into that shop every day and talking to the people and understanding what was going on. From an all-around racing aspect of it, it’s reminded me of why I love so many aspects of this sport, and from a family standpoint and a father-son relationship, it’s made us stronger from both ends.”

Denny Hamlin Homestead Quotes

 

Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin

NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (February 24, 2021) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media via videoconference prior to the Homestead-Miami event today: 

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Small Business Grant Contest Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Can you tell us a little bit about your paint scheme for this weekend?

“This is great, a great promotion that FedEx is doing for small businesses. They actually 12 grants for $50,000 each that you register for up until March 9th at fedex.com/grantcontest. You see Access Trax right there on the left rear. This is really cool. Kelly Twichel, who is the owner of Access Trax, was one of our winners last year. It’s great to have her on the car and it’s great that FedEx is giving back to small business.”

Can you talk a little bit about your opinion on young drivers?

“I can understand that coming from fans, because they are not prefaced to information that analysts or media are. My thing was have you not seen one article, or have you not watched one race in the last two years or seen any articles about re-signing? I don’t know. It just dumbfounds me, but it’s also not surprising.”

So, it was more about you being listed?

“Certainly. I’m not sure who I can equate it to in another sports world, but essentially someone else at the top of their game and they are like, well this guy scored 30 off of the bench, he’s coming for your starting position.”

Have you gotten more comfortable with your Twitter posts?

“Obviously, since I’m at the end of my career, why care at this point? (laughter) I’m joking by the way.”

This is the first race at Homestead with the choose rule. Is it going to make that much of a difference since there is multiple lanes?

“It will mean a little less at Homestead, but that being said, it will still be significant. Honestly, I had forgotten that we had it up until talking about the racetrack this week. I think that certainly it’s a great addition to the strategic part of making decisions on what you are going to do in these races. I like that element. It’s fun, but it will be important on the last restart if we have a green-white-checkered, but outside of five laps to go it won’t be too much of a detriment either way.”

Has the 23XI Racing team joined the Race Team Alliance?

“Yes, we are, for very simple reasons.”

Why did you tweet to Chip Ganassi that he was a legend?

“This is inside baseball. I’m sorry. I cannot go further than that.”

Do you compete better when you can show the fun side of your personality?

“I think that generally NASCAR drivers get lolled into that everyone is vanilla, everyone is boring, everything else, but you have to realize there are big companies like FedEx that you have to represent, and you have to do it in professional way. Certainly, I try my best to do that, but also, you can be yourself as well. I think that NASCAR has been less strict on censoring. I think that has helped a little bit. I think it just kind of depends. In your personal life, you can show whatever personality you want to. I just think I haven’t changed or anything like that. I always said you will get the good stuff after my career is over, but I’m going to start now.”

Do you think this race weekend will have the major teams lead the pack or can the mid-pack teams compete this weekend?

“I think it will be more status quo on where we were last year. That doesn’t mean me and Kevin (Harvick), since it’s a mile-and-a-half, that we are going to dominate. With the mid-tier teams this is where the resources that they don’t have will come into factor a little bit more. I don’t think I would call the 20 (Christopher Bell) car mid-tier, and I don’t think I would call the 34 (Michael McDowell) a shock because we are at a superspeedway. I think the winners list is like, oh wow, where is our superstars, but we are about to get into a chunk of the season where you are going to start to see some of your normal winners in the bracket.”

When you look at driver data, what are you getting out of it?

“I don’t think my data can be replicated. I think that you can try, but you are probably going to be wasting your time. It’s just something that I’ve always done. It’s probably more of a habit than it is a conscious decision to drive that way. What I get out of it is I recognize what I can analyze from other drivers, even though I’m not driving the same way there is certain things that I can identify that does help me and I apply it to my style. There are things. I don’t really want to give that stuff away information wise, but I can use the data. I think it’s harder for people to read my data.”

Can you give me a sense of what you do so different than everyone else?

“It’s just my throttle application is dramatically different than everyone else.”

How do evaluate your performance and the No. 23 team? Have you provided advice to them?

“I think that our 11 FedEx team has been very, very good the first couple of races. I think that even though my finish was a little worse than the Daytona Road Course last year, I think we second to third this time, I felt overall our performance was closer to the front. I’m pretty happy with that. Speedweeks, we obviously led the most laps, won both stages. We’ve won three of four stages so far this year, so I’m pretty happy with where we are. I’m on the pole this weekend because of our performance last weekend. All is good there. I’m happy with that. The 23 team is still just a learning in progress. I had the most painful day yesterday. I’m listening to the 23 team’s debrief in my ears while I’m at the dentist getting my teeth cleaned. It might have been the most painful hour possibly in my life. It was a learning process. I think they know what their weaknesses are. They’ve got to go work on it, but they are going to get better. I will chip in wherever I can. I try to be the best I can to be a great teammate to them, just like the other teammates at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). I dedicate a certain amount of time per week to helping out that race team and helping them get better.”

Painful because of the challenges discussed or because of the teeth cleaning?

“Both, but I think that Bubba (Wallace) recognizes he’s got a very fast car. All of the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars were up front this past weekend. He knows he’s got a lot of work to do on himself on the road courses. I think that he’s very much looking forward to going to Homestead this weekend to see how he stacks up on the mile-and-a-halves.”

Toyota has such strong pipeline of drivers and you have said in the past that you want to expand. Do you have a timeline of that?

“I would like to expand as quick as possible. I think that quicker that we expand, the more resources we will have as a race team to get better, the better people we can hire. Everything gets better the more information that you can throw into the pot. When it makes sense for us is when it makes financial sense for us. It’s about getting a sponsor, a driver and a crew chief first. Those three things all have to line-up, and then you have to try to find a charter. There’s a lot of obstacles that are in the way of it happening, but certainly, we feel like we are active in the space. We are trying to be the team that Toyota feels like they have a place for their young guys to go or maybe we go after an established veteran who’s got a great resume.”

Is Xfinity ultimately going to be a part of that plan as well?

“Ultimately, this is all around sponsorship. It costs a tremendous amount of money to put these cars on the racetrack. I wish the model was the teams could hire whomever they wanted, and they didn’t have to worry about getting a big sponsor to just breakeven or finding a driver that brought money, but that’s the climate that we live in. Unfortunately, for us, you have to make sure you have the check writer first, and then you go out and get your talent. It’s just a weird process in how it all works, but certainly, we are trying to do it as quick as we can.”

Did you learn anything from the No. 95 and No. 78 teams?

“I think those two were very different situations. The 78 had sponsorship. They were able to take what JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) had and apply more resources to it because they had money to do it through sponsorship, and they made it better. They took that product and they made it better. The 95 really COVID put a damper on their sponsorship efforts, so I think they were strapped for money at times, so they couldn’t go out and hire more people to make those cars even better and faster. I think that really shows in performance. I don’t think it was from a lack of effort by any means. There was a lot of unfortunate circumstances that hit them at the 95 that didn’t hit at the 78 until a certain time. When Barney (Visser) was done, I think that his son looked at the business files and was like I’m not taking this debt on, you can go have it and the team shut down.”

Aric Almirola is 40/1 to win 2021 Dixie Vodka 400

 

Aric Almirola Homestead Advance No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

● Event: Homestead 400 (Round 3 of 36) ● Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 28 ● Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway ● Layout: 1.5-mile oval ● Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400 miles ● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 80 laps / Final Stage: 107 laps ● TV/Radio: FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  History at Homestead-Miami Speedway: In 11 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Homestead, Almirola has earned two top-fives and four top-10s. He finished fifth in his most recent start June 14, 2020. To view the full stage-by-stage recap of last year’s race, click here.   ●  Almirola’s fifth place finish at Homestead last year was exactly what the team needed to carry momentum through the rest of the season. Until that point, the team had only three top-10 finishes in the previous 11 races with an average finish of 22.8 in the previous five races. The top-five earned at Homestead triggered a streak of five top-fives in a row and nine consecutive top-10s. It was the first time in Almirola’s career he had consecutive top-five finishes and nine consecutive top-10s.    ●  1.5-mile History: In Almirola’s last 10 starts at 1.5-mile tracks, he has one top-five, four top-10s, and has led 164 laps with an average finish of 13.4.   ●  Smithfield Foods celebrates 10 years of partnership with Almirola this season with a special campaign called Taste Victory. As one of the most active partners in NASCAR, Smithfield plans to engage fans all year long by hosting a microsite that provides the opportunity to win when Almirola wins or finishes inside the top-10. When Almirola wins, one fan will win $10,000, and 10 fans will win a gift card for each top-10 finish. The microsite also doubles as an Aric Almirola fan page and entertainment source where  fans can get behind the wheel of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford with a custom racing game, and learn more about Almirola with fast facts, favorite recipes and custom content about his life on and off the track. Visit www.tastevictory.com to learn more. Thanks to Almirola’s Feb. 11 win in the Duel qualifying race for the Daytona 500, one lucky fan has already won $10,000.   ●  Beyond the 10 YouTube Series: In 2021, Almirola continues to share his life beyond the No. 10 Smithfield Ford with season three of his award-winning YouTube series. Fans and media can subscribe on YouTube to see Almirola’s personality on and off the track. Episodes have already featured life as a dad, a husband and an athlete, and it gives fans a unique perspective on what goes on in the life of a professional NASCAR driver. Fans can also follow Almirola’s social media channels: @Aric_Almirola on Twitter and Instagram, and @AricAlmirola on Facebook.   ●  The Smithfield Ford team advanced two positions in the championship standings last weekend and sits 21st with 33 points, 71 behind leader Denny Hamlin.   ●  Before the season kicked off, Almirola and former teammate and FOX Sports analyst Clint Bower made a friendly wager via Twitter on the outcome of Super Bowl LV. If Almirola’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Bowyer’s Kansas City Chiefs, or vice versa, the losing driver would have to wear the competitor’s jersey in a live interview. The Buccaneers beat the Chiefs, but Bowyer has yet to don a Buccaneers jersey on live TV, fueling some friendly banter between Bowyer and Almirola on social media to the enjoyment of fans.   ●  Crew chief Mike Bugarewicz is in his sixth full-time season at SHR and his second with Almirola. To learn more, click here.

Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

What is your outlook heading to an intermediate-style track this weekend?   “We need to get to Homestead and get ourselves stage points and really kick off our season starting now. We wrecked early in the Daytona 500 and had a good run on the road course, but didn’t have the finish or points to prove it. This weekend is going to be so important as a momentum-starter for our season. Anything can happen at Homestead, but you don’t have as many unknowns as you do at the 500 and the road course. You can control your outcome a little more at an intermediate track, but there is still so much that goes into it to have a clean day.”   Why was a good finish at Homestead last year so important?   “Last year, we kicked off a string of five top-five finishes and nine top-10s after visiting Homestead. We needed it so badly at the time and Homestead isn’t an easy track to get a top-five. It was our first year as a team and we had bad luck strike so often in those first few races. It was in that race that our Smithfield Ford team earned a lot of confidence in ourselves. We went to each track knowing we could compete for top-fives after that and it showed.”   What have you seen in your team already this year?   “Determination and a hardworking team – we didn’t get to see much in the Daytona 500 but we knew we had a fast car after winning our Duel. The pit crew was firing on all cylinders at the road course and the guys brought us another fast car. It’s only Mike Bugarewicz and my second year together and we’re already seeing improvement on all fronts.”   What does racing at Homestead over the years mean to you?   “Homestead for me has been a great racetrack. It’s really how I got my start to go Cup racing. I filled in for Richard Petty Motorsports back in 2010 and I finished fourth after running up front. That opened some people’s eyes. Sure enough, I got my first start in the Cup Series because of it.”

Chase Briscoe is 60/1 to win at Homestead

 

CHASE BRISCOE Homestead Course Advance No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event: Dixie Vodka 400 (Round 3 of 36) ●  Time/Date: 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 28 ●  Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway ●  Layout: 1.5-mile oval ●  Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400 miles ●  Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 80 laps / Final Stage: 107 laps ●  TV/Radio: FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang, is in search of consistency in Sunday’s third race of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Following a 19th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 and a result of 32nd on the Daytona road course last weekend, Briscoe eyes Homestead as an opportunity to focus on strengthening his understanding of the Cup Series car to position the No. 14 team for success later in the season.   ●  The 1.5-mile South Florida track is where Briscoe had one of his more remarkable weekends during the 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. It was a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader in June, and he started by overcoming a mountain of adversity in the Saturday race to score a solid seventh-place finish in the Hooters 250. The 25-year-old from Mitchell, Indiana, drove from nearly last in the 37-car field, having been forced to the pits before the green flag even waved for the 167-lap race after a piece of equipment fell off his Ford Mustang on the pace laps. It put Briscoe five laps down to start the event. Briscoe drove through the field twice in the first 70 laps and used pit strategy to his advantage to get back on the lead lap for the seventh-place finish. When the No. 98 team returned to close out the doubleheader Sunday, Briscoe outdueled Brandon Jones in a two-lap dash to the finish to earn his third Xfinity Series win of the season by just .072 of a second.   ●  Briscoe adapted his dirt-racing prowess into NASCAR Xfinity Series success on intermediate tracks. Four of his 11 Xfinity Series wins came on the 1.5-mile tracks at Homestead, Las Vegas Motor Speedway (twice) and Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. He also has two ARCA Series wins on intermediate tracks at Kansas and the now-defunct Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois.   ●  Homestead is also where Briscoe earned his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory. Wheeling a Ford F-150, Briscoe led four times for a race-high 81 laps in the 2017 season finale. The effort placed him sixth in the championship standings to earn him Rookie of the Year honors to go with his series Most Popular Driver award.   ●  Just two races into his rookie Cup Series campaign, Briscoe leads the Rookie of the Year standings by three points over Anthony Alfredo. With Rookie of the Year honors in the Truck Series (2017) and Xfinity Series (2019), Briscoe would join Erik Jones and William Byron as only the third driver in history to claim the title in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series should he best Alfredo at the end of the season.

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

You got to run up front for a few laps on the Daytona road course and were hanging steady in the top-10 for a bit. Was that a good feeling to hold your own against guys who have been racing in the Cup Series for many years? “Definitely. I wish we didn’t have as much damage because I felt like we could’ve done a lot better. The road-course deal was tough but, at the same time, I felt like I was just as good as everyone else I was around. I passed a ton of cars going from the back to around 15th quite a few times and I learned a lot. Seeing a guy like Christopher Bell win that race is really encouraging because I ran against him just a few years ago in the Xfinity Series, so that helps with confidence. Starting up front later in the race was definitely a good experience that pushed me to get over the nerves pretty quickly and see how those guys race in that position and the intensity of what it’s like with a couple of laps to go. It was good experience overall and I wish it had ended differently. I felt like we could’ve run top-10, for sure, and then we all got stacked up. It was a good day and we were better than our results show. We just need to put it all together and hopefully this coming week that happens.”   We’re heading into a slate of races at tracks where you’ve picked up a few wins in the Xfinity and Truck Series. Even though you’re still learning and feeling out the Cup Series car, does your past success at tracks like Homestead and Las Vegas bolster your confidence? “There’s always more enthusiasm and confidence when you go to a place you enjoy running. Hopefully that translates over to the Cup Series as it has in the past, but this is a whole new ball game. I don’t know what to expect. I’ll do the same thing as the last few weeks and try to stay out of trouble and have a clean race. I’m focused on continuing to learn by watching the guys I race around trying to figure out what the car needs. This will be the first time I’m running on an oval in this car. Daytona’s a different bird, so this will be the first real test of where we are and where we stack up for the majority of the schedule to come.”   Homestead is one of the tracks you enjoy racing at the most because it’s worn out and it gets slick in the heat of the day, but you’re going to be starting further back in the field. When you know how to get around a place like Homestead and you’re stuck in the pack, do you have to remind yourself to take it easy and get your bearings in those first laps as opposed to being aggressive from the drop of the green flag? “The hard thing for me right now is, when you start in the back, you have to get going pretty much from the start so you don’t go down a lap early in the race. But, I’m also still trying to figure out how the car drives at these places. At Daytona, it took me probably five or six laps to figure out what I was doing. No practice really makes it hard to show up and go when you haven’t turned a lap in this specific car on that specific track. It’s a tough balance because you have to go so you don’t get behind too early, but at the same time you have to try to figure out what you’ve got and maintain position so that you can eventually gain position. Being around other cars helps but it seems like the farther back you are, the harder the racing is and the more intense these guys get. It’ll be quite the learning curve, but Homestead is a place where I at least understand what I need to go fast and hopefully that’s something that will pay dividends for us.”   Are you using this first 1.5-mile race at Homestead to learn for next weekend’s race at Las Vegas? “The biggest thing we’re looking to learn is what I need for my car to be good in traffic and dirty air. We’re probably going to be in dirty air quite a bit these next two weeks and trying to figure out how different the Cup car is in dirty air versus the Xfinity car,  and even the truck, will really help us prepare for the rest of the season. Figuring out what I need from a balance standpoint this week that could help me next week will be huge. Homestead and Las Vegas race quite a bit differently, but learning what I need in traffic and combining that with trying to figure out the race lengths and how the pace of the race plays out is top of the list. They’re both 400-mile races, so trying to see what I need to be there at the end and save equipment will also be important. I’ve learned in these first two races that, with the Cup body not being the composite body I was used to in Xfinity, any damage at all makes a big impact and that’s something to keep in mind in the opening stages to make sure we’re set up in a good position at the end.”

Cole Custer is 100/1 to win 2021 Dixie Vodka 400

 

COLE CUSTER HaasTooling.com Homestead Advance No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event:  Dixie Vodka 400 (Round 3 of 36) ●  Time/Date:  3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 28 ●  Location:  Homestead-Miami Speedway ●  Layout:  1.5-mile oval ●  Laps/Miles:  267 laps/400 miles ●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 80 laps / Final Stage: 107 laps ●  TV/Radio:  FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  After a pair of top-13 finishes in the season’s opening two NASCAR Cup Series events at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, 23-year-old Cole Custer and his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) head south on I-95 for Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 on the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway oval. On Daytona’s 2.5-mile superspeedway oval two weekends ago, Custer narrowly missed a top-10 finish in his second career Daytona 500 when he came home 11th, then returned for last weekend’s race on Daytona’s 14-turn, 3.61-mile road course to rally from 24th over the final eight laps for a 13th-place finish.     ●  Custer, the reigning Cup Series Rookie of the Year, heads to Homestead 11th in the driver standings with 54 points, 50 markers behind leader Denny Hamlin. After two events in his inaugural Cup Series season of 2020, Custer was 27th in the standings with 25 points, 60 behind leader Ryan Blaney. He went on to earn a berth in the NASCAR playoffs with his July 12 victory at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta.   ●  Sunday’s race marks Custer’s 42nd in the Cup Series and his second at Homestead. When the series last visited the South Florida oval last June, Custer and his No. 41 SHR Ford started 35th and finished 22nd, fighting tight-handling conditions most of the way.   ●  Custer enjoyed great success at Homestead in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition from 2017 through 2019. He scored his first career series win in his SHR Ford when he dominated the 2017 season finale from his front-row starting position, leading 182 of 200 laps and beating runner-up Sam Hornish Jr., across the finish line by 15.405 seconds. He qualified on the pole when he returned to Homestead in 2018 and led a race-high 95 laps en route to a runner-up finish to Tyler Reddick. He qualified on the front row for the third straight time at the 2019 season finale, led 15 laps and finished second again to Reddick.       ●  In NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competition, Custer has a lone Homestead start. He qualified second and finished 10th in a Haas Automation-sponsored entry for JR Motorsports in the 2016 season finale.   ●  Season 1 of the new Netflix series “The Crew,” the NASCAR-themed comedy starring Kevin James as an old-school crew chief, debuted this month on the streaming channel, and Custer is one of three drivers who filmed cameo appearances for the show’s inaugural season. Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon are the others, and the cameo lineup also includes FOX NASCAR pit reporter Jamie Little. There are 10 episodes now available for streaming.   ●  Returning to Custer’s No. 41 Ford Mustang for SHR is team co-owner Gene Haas’ newest holding, Haas Tooling, which was launched as a way for CNC machinists to purchase high-quality cutting tools at great prices. Haas cutting tools are sold exclusively online at HaasTooling.com and shipped directly to end users. HaasTooling.com products became available nationally last July, and the cutting tools available for purchase at HaasTooling.com have proven to be even more important during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as CNC machines have become vital to producing personal protective equipment. Haas Automation, founded by Haas in 1983, is America’s leading builder of CNC machine tools. The company manufactures a complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers and rotary tables and indexers. All Haas products are constructed in the company’s 1.1-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California, and distributed through a worldwide network of Haas Factory Outlets.

Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

You’ve had two near top-10s in the opening two races of the season. Does that give you confidence as you and the team head to Homestead this weekend? “It’s been a solid start. I think the biggest thing for us right now is just kind of keeping that consistency. I think, especially these first five races, it’s kind of something where you want to make sure that you keep yourself in the game. You don’t want to put yourself behind and then you’re kind of fighting to get yourself back up there, so it’s trying not to put yourself in a hole right now that is probably one of the biggest things, and I think we’ve done a really good job at that. It’s just a matter of building on it week by week and I think we’ll be right in the mix of it.”   This is the first race of the season on a 1.5-mile oval, which is the most prevalent type of track on the Cup Series schedule. What are you looking to learn this weekend at Homestead? “Yeah, I think this weekend is going to tell you a lot of where teams are on their 550 (horsepower) packages and their intermediate tracks. It should be a telltale sign for that type of racetrack. This is going to be a big weekend for a lot of teams, showing what they worked on in the offseason and what they’ve got for this year. But also, with how many road courses there are on the schedule this year, it was really important having competitiveness at the Daytona road course. Those road courses are going to be even more important this year.”   How different is it racing at Homestead when it’s not the championship weekend, anymore? “That’s a tough question. I guess it’s still a really fun racetrack to go to for the drivers. You’re able to move around the track and run different lanes. I think from a driver’s standpoint it’s one of our favorite places to go to, just because you’re slipping and sliding around and able to do a lot as a driver. It’s a different feel, for sure, that it’s not championship weekend anymore, but you just look at it as another weekend now and you try to go there and get as many points as you can and set yourself up for the rest of the season.”   You were 22nd in your first Cup Series race at Homestead last year. What do you need to do to be better there this year? “It’s been so long since we’ve been to Homestead. I think we’ve grown so much since then, so I don’t know if it’s even comparable, honestly. For us, it’s just going to be a matter of having a car that you can drive into the corner deep and carry a lot of throttle. That’s pretty much what the 550 package is. At Homestead, you will have to worry more about your long-run speed just because the tires do wear out a lot, but being able to be really confident with your car and move it around the track on restarts will be a huge deal.”   What is the trick to running the high line at Homestead? “I think the guys that you see who are really good at it, they’re able to enter right on the wall and be as close to it as humanly possible. The closer you get to it, the more grip you have. There is also risk with that, so it’s a matter of balancing the risk versus reward and knowing what time to do it and what time to push it. I think that’s one of the big parts of it, just managing the risk.”   How do you know how close you need to get to the wall? “I guess the biggest thing is that it’s a combination of using your eyes for how close you are to the wall, and then you have to use your feel for how the air is compacting it into the wall and how much of a feel you have of how close you are to it. Your eyes will only get you to a certain point. You kind of have to use your feel to kind of get you all the way there.”   People seem to be intrigued by your acting debut in the Netflix series “The Crew.” The big question would be, how did it come about? “It was something NASCAR kind of reached out about. If I wanted to come and be a part of it, and I definitely wanted to because whenever it’s Kevin James, I mean, you want to be a part of that experience and see what it’s going to be like. I would not give myself a good grade. I don’t know if I’m going to be called back, but I did my lines and I did my best, so I can work on it for next time, maybe. But it was fun. Just being around somebody like that, I mean, someone with a totally different profession like Kevin James. A lot of the stuff he was doing was off-script, just thinking off the top of his head, and it was amazing. I couldn’t believe how fast he could think and make up different lines and stuff like that.”

Kyle Busch is 10/1 to win 2021 Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead

 

KYLE BUSCH Success in the 'Baking'   HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (Feb. 24, 2021) – It’s race three of the 36-race NASCAR Cup Series schedule, and Kyle Busch and new crew chief Ben Beshore are just starting to learn and grow as a new driver-crew chief pairing.   Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’S Fudge Brownie Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway facing the third different type of track to start the 2021 Cup Series campaign. The first race came at the mammoth 2.5-mile oval at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, and then it was back to Daytona for a race on the road course last weekend.   This weekend, Busch and Beshore will tackle their first 1.5-mile oval of the season before another test on a different type of 1.5-mile oval to follow at Busch’s hometown Las Vegas Motor Speedway. So the next two weeks will go a long way for the driver and crew chief pairing to learn each other and see what they are capable of on the first two intermediate tracks on the docket.   Not only has he had plenty of success of intermediate tracks, Busch has been a huge part of several Cup Series championship battles at Homestead. He was one of the final four playoff drivers each of the last five seasons the championship race as held at Homestead until it was moved to Phoenix Raceway in 2020. Busch brought home titles in 2015 and 2019 at Homestead, along with a runner-up position in 2017. His worst finish in his five-year Championship 4 run was sixth place in the 2016 race.   With two wins and four top-five finishes there over the last five seasons, Busch has become a strong contender at the variable-banked oval. But the M&M’S Fudge Brownie driver hasn’t always been as strong on his visits to Homestead, as his first seven starts there yielded just one top-10 and only one other top-20 finish. But starting with his fourth-place run there in 2012, he has reeled off five top-five finishes and seven top-10s in his last eight starts at Homestead. His most impressive races at Homestead, of course, were his 2015 and 2019 championship-winning victories. The memory of celebrating multiple titles there will always provide fond memories for the Las Vegas native.   In addition to making his 17th Homestead start, Sunday’s 400-mile race in South Florida will mark the return of the M&M’S Fudge Brownie colors to the No. 18 Toyota as the scheme ran several times during the introduction of M&M’S Fudge Brownie in stores across the country during 2020. The popular M&M’S Fudge Brownie gives that home-baked brownie taste without the hassle of baking.   So, as Busch heads to Homestead on Sunday afternoon, the M&M’S Fudge Brownie driver won’t have the championship pressure to contend with, but that doesn’t mean he won’t aim to bring home his third Cup Series win at a place that has provided many great memories, while the relationship between Busch and crew chief Beshore and the many changes to the No. 18 team continue to “bake” this early part of the season.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 M&M'S Fudge Brownie Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

You are heading to the third race of the season but the first 1.5-mile track this season with new crew chief Ben Beshore. What are your expectations and challenges for the season ahead with a new crew chief and some new crew members?   “It definitely does present new challenges. Working with Ben has been great, so far. We’ve had some fast racecars and things haven’t turned out like we had hoped in those races because of circumstances. Ben and I worked together when he was the engineer on my car the first four years Adam (Stevens) was my Cup crew chief. We won the championship in 2015 and we were close in 2017, and we were there with an opportunity to win it again in 2018 and it just didn’t happen. Ben went on to the Xfinity side and he and I worked together over there and won five out of seven races, blew an engine in the sixth race while leading, and had a suspension failure while leading in the seventh race, so we could have gone seven-for-seven that year. I feel like he’s got a good knack for the car and does and good job and I’ve enjoyed working with him so far as we learn each other. This weekend is a new challenge with the first 550 (horsepower) package race, so we’ll keep learning each other and hope we can get our M&M’S Fudge Brownie Toyota running up front and challenge for a win.”   What did you learn from last year that will help you improve as an organization and driver for 2021?   “We learned a lot of what not to do, it seemed like. But later in the year I felt like we needed to try some things, most notably at Texas, and we ended up getting the win there. I felt like we needed to think about the 550-package stuff a bit differently and think about how we were building the cars, think about the setups being a bit different. We’ve gone into this season with a little bit of a different mindset, although there are fewer 550 races than there were last year. But I think the overall change in mindset is a good thing.”   From your experience, how has Homestead changed over the last several years?   “The track seems to have aged a little more in recent years, for sure. Definitely a lot of grip for the first few laps, and then it really tapers off, and then everybody is running up next to the fence. I think that’s what we saw in years past. As it got darker in the November races, the track seemed to widen out. It’s just during the day, when it’s hot out and it’s slick out, that the best you can do is run right next to the wall, so expecting some of that this weekend with it being a different time of year. It’s definitely still a racey joint, but track temperatures are very conducive to that. It was definitely different racing there last year and not having it be for a championship, but it’s always going to be a place where it would be nice to get our M&M’S Fudge Brownie Camry to victory lane.”   Has Homestead always been a fun track for you?   “Homestead is a fun racetrack, for sure. I didn’t run well there early in my career, but definitely when Adam (Stevens, former crew chief) came on board, we were able to really step up our performance there and we had some big wins there to show for it. It’s real challenging because of the way the race changes from the beginning to the end, and the way things change from the beginning to the end of your runs. You run the bottom, then you go to the top. You’re always moving around. You’re always thinking.”