NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOBOWLING 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 6, 2016
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 DILLONS/KINGSFORD CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Kansas Speedway and discussed his Darlington Raceway paint scheme paying tribute to Bruce Hill, a Topeka Kansas native who joined during his media availability, his hit last weekend at Talladega, his thoughts on the low downforce package and many other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
WHEN YOU LEARNED OF THIS NEWS THAT YOUR PAINT SCHEME WAS GOING TO BE HONORED AT DARLINGTON THIS YEAR WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION?
BRUCE HILL: “Well, I got a phone call out of the blue and I wondered who was calling from Charlotte. I had come back in the house. I called her back and she’s been Jennifer Chapple has been great to work with.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “She is the best. Jenn is the best.”
BRUCE HILL: “I was thrilled. I have not been, I was telling her this morning, it’s been 35 years or so since I’ve even been back in the garage area. I was like a lot of guys back then that ran out of money and had to get out of it and couldn’t stand to go back without being involved in it. So, it’s been an experience. It’s been fun. It’s brought back a lot of memories. The paint scheme, I was just thrilled when I saw the car, the paint scheme on the No. 47 Kroger/Kingsford Chevrolet looks great. I was thrilled with that. It just all worked out good. I’ve watched AJ, I didn’t know AJ until this morning, but I’ve watched him run. I think he’s a good aggressive driver and of course I will be watching him more often now.”
DID YOU GET ANY TIPS FROM BRUCE ON HOW TO RUN DARLINGTON?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “I mean I will take anything I can get. It was fun to learn about Bruce and we were just talking walking in here something that is really cool, is the fact that we are both IKF (International Kart Federation) Grand National champions which I thought was pretty awesome. You don’t get a lot of that in the NASCAR series. A lot of the kids come from late models and stuff like that. To be able to meet somebody that is an IKF Grand National champion is a lot of fun. For me, I think it’s just pretty special for what NASCAR does for the ‘Throwback’ schemes. Last year it kind of happened so quickly we weren’t able to be involved in it. This year all of our partners, Kroger and Kingsford and on down the line allowed us to do this. To be able to have Bruce’s paint scheme I think is pretty awesome the way NASCAR unveiled that was really cool. We are going to go out there and try to make him proud. I was going to try to grow the mustache like he had back in the day. That thing was sweet by the way, but my baby face doesn’t grow a mustache that way. It would be a lot of fun. It’s cool and try to make Bruce proud. It’s going to be a fun event. I thought last year, just seeing all the cars was really cool just to be able for what I grew up watching and maybe some schemes that I had never seen before maybe just seen in a magazine. To be able to share that now is going to be a lot of fun and going to be really special. It is just going to be a fun weekend in Darlington.”
THE 2017 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SCHEDULE WAS RELEASED YESTERDAY DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS OR THOUGHTS ON THE SWITCH WITH KANSAS AND TALLADEGA WITH TALLADEGA NOT BEING A CHASE CUT OFF RACE AND ALSO THE LOSS OF AN OFF WEEK?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “No, I don’t. It doesn’t really matter to me honestly. It is still in the same group of races the way I look at it. You are still going to want to win either one of them to be able to make it to the next round so not really a big deal to me. In NASCAR we kind of have the same schedule. I still keep waiting for them to add the two or three extra road courses honestly. It hadn’t happened yet. We will worry about that when we get to it next year. Hopefully, we are worrying about it this year in the Chase.
A HARD HIT LAST WEEKEND IN TALLADEGA, HOW ARE YOU FEELING? IS IT EVER HARD FOR A RACE CAR DRIVER TO GET OVER A HARD HIT LIKE THAT AND GET BACK IN THE RACE CAR?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “I’m fine. I was just a little bit sore the next couple of days nothing that I haven’t experienced before after Talladega. It wasn’t a big deal. It was a tough race. We got something out of it at least, finished 14th, moved up a couple of spots in points so it could have been a lot worse. The guys did such a great job last week to repair the car twice really to keep it going. As we saw through the race a lot of people had the same issues. Getting here? No, no issue. You just shut it off. You know the risks when you get into a race car. NASCAR does a great job with all the safety aspects. We saw a lot of big hits last week and fortunately all the drivers were out and okay. Obviously, it’s not a lot of fun when you have to go through it, but we know the safety is there and NASCAR continually tries to keep working on it and making it better. Come here to Kansas and you forget all about it and see how fast your race car is.”
DO YOU THINK THE TEAMS HAVE ALREADY REGAINED THE DOWNFORCE THEY LOST WITH THIS NEW PACKAGE?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: “Well, what is great about the race teams is they always have rules made and they will always find ways to try to make those rules and use them to their advantage. I wouldn’t say that all the downforce is back. We definitely slide around. I see Kansas tomorrow night being the same. A lot of it is kind of based on what tire Goodyear brings and does it fall off, does it not wear out much, but in the end it’s definitely slicker this year, definitely sliding around a lot more. You are seeing that, look at a team like Gibbs, the organization they have probably figured it out the best so far, but it always goes in stages. You are always going to go out there and do everything that you can to get the most downforce, the most grip out of the race car. All of our teams are trying to do that, but it’s definitely a bit different than the past couple of years for sure. You are working in the race car a lot more this year. It makes it a lot of fun. I think it’s put on great racing. I see Kansas tomorrow night being the same.”
ANY FURTHER COMMENTS BRUCE?
BRUCE HILL: “Part of the experience this morning has been seeing people that I haven’t seen for about 35 years. I ran into Eddie Wood out there right before I met AJ and we talked for a long time. I just hadn’t seen these guys in a long time. It’s been a neat deal just talking about the history of the sport. Some people really follow the history and some maybe not, but there is a lot to it. A lot of people have been involved through the years that a lot of people don’t know about. This is a cool deal. I think Darlington had the foresight to do this and I’ve got to give them credit for that.”
WILL YOU COME TO DARLINGTON AND POSSIBLY JUMP IN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RACE?
BRUCE HILL: “It is actually my favorite track, but I don’t think it would work right now. I don’t think I would last very long. I might be fast.”
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE PROUD OF HOW NASCAR HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS? HAVE YOU KEPT UP WITH IT? WILL IT BE A LITTLE FUN FOR YOU TO SEE YOUR OLD SCHEME COMING AROUND THE TRACK?
BRUCE HILL: “Yeah, it will be really neat. I watched the car anyway because of the number. I didn’t know anybody involved with the team which now I do. They’ve definitely got a fan. AJ picked up a hell of a fan here. There is just a lot of history in NASCAR. As far as the way the sport has grown it’s unreal. I was telling somebody this morning that if somebody would have told me back then that there would eventually be a speedway in Kansas I would have told them they needed a straightjacket. It was just not going to happen. It was not a national sport. I came from Kansas, they called me a Yankee. I had to laugh I had never been called a Yankee, but I was pretty far North. It has changed a lot. Some good maybe, maybe some they would probably like it better. We had a big grey area on the cars back then. You could get kind of ingenious. You might get caught, but you didn’t get fined. They just made you change it. One of the neatest things about the Darlington thing and I thought of this the other day. I had pretty much the same pit crew my whole rookie year even though they were all volunteer help. We stuck together. We were in battle together and I started calling them to see if they had seen this and what have you. Some had, some hadn’t and they were thrilled. I’m trying to get them all together at the Darlington race to get a group picture with AJ’s car. They are thrilled about this. I’ve got a buddy sitting out here that was involved, Mark he came down with me today. He was involved way back then. I’ve got another buddy down in Atlanta he was the old gas man and his nickname was ‘wild man’ and there was a reason for it. I called him the other day. He said ‘well you know I’ve got this congestive heart failure and this COPD going on, but count me in. I will be there dead or alive.’ That is kind of how they feel.”
WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO NASCAR RACING? IN YOUR OPINION WHAT WAS YOUR GREATEST RACE?
BRUCE HILL: “What attracted me was what AJ was talking about earlier. I was a go-kart racer and raced all over the country and did well in it and wanted to somehow make racing a career. At the time, it was actually me and the guy sitting right there we got to looking around at the different types of racing. Going into like the IndyCar stuff was more of a fit from what I was driving than the big stock cars, but we actually kind of saw maybe where NASCAR might have a pretty good future. You could kind of see it even way back then. It was a matter of just trying to stick around until it finally happened. That is how we chose NASCAR. I went down south, rented a shop had a little bitty shop south of Atlanta. Ran a whole rookie season with one full-time employee, volunteer crew, had a lot of guys come by and help and stuck with us and one race car. The body man, he stayed busy. As far as the best race, which is kind of ironic, was my first Southern 500. I finished top five, which for that race it was… I was proud of that. Darlington was a driver’s track. You’ve got to get around Darlington. I ran well there because we were down on horsepower to the big teams at a lot of place, Darlington if you got your car working you could make that up. That is what that boiled down to.”
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