Photo Credit: Stephanie McLaughlin/OnPitRoad.com
Toyota Racing – Christopher Bell & Matt Tifft
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Charlotte Motor Speedway – May 25, 2017
Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Christopher Bell and Matt Tifft were made available to the media at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 18 SiriusXM Satellite Radio Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What are you looking forward to this weekend in your inaugural NXS start?
“So first off I have to say that I’m really thankful to be in the position I am driving for Joe Gibbs Racing with Toyota behind me – Toyota Racing Development – and obviously SiriusXM on our Camry this weekend. Toyota has done a fabulous job kind of planning my schedule for these seven races that I’ve got knowing that my first XFINITY race here was going to be a tough one at Charlotte. One of the bigger reasons they picked this race is because there was an open test a few weeks ago so I was able to get some seat time with Joe Gibbs Racing, working with my crew chief and just some seat time driving these XFINITY cars. I feel like the test went pretty well, I was able to kind of learn my limits, I spun out one time so I learned where the balance is there and where the edge is. It’s been a fun ride so far and I’m really thankful that I get to make my debut here at Charlotte.”
What did you feel in the test session regarding the difference between the cars and the trucks?
“There are a lot of similarities there and obviously differences too. I guess one of the biggest things I can relate an XFINITY car to as far as the ride quality and how they drive is it reminded me a lot of a Super Late Model on radial tires. The tires are completely different than what we run on a Super Late Model, but as far as the car, they ride on bump stops, they feel a lot more nimble, a lot more ‘racecarish’ so to speak than a truck. The tires are really similar to what we ran with the truck so that kind of relates and then the car, it really reminded me of a Super Late Model.”
Where do you feel your truck program is currently?
“I feel like my truck season has been great, I feel like its great and we haven’t finished outside the top-10 yet. We finished inside the top-five every time except for one I believe so that being said, (Johnny) Sauter has had a greater year, he’s still beating us in points. We have to do a little bit to catch up there, but I feel like it’s there. He’s just been able to execute the stage racing a little better where we’re giving up on stage points to try to win races and he has been able to get those stage points and still contend for wins as well. We have to work on our speed a little bit on like Kansas and Charlotte, I felt like we were a second-place truck at Charlotte and a third-place truck at Kansas once the green flag flew. We have practice speed, we have qualifying speed and we just have to do a better job of going faster in the race and have to figure out how to beat that 51 truck.”
How were you able to get the winning Chili Bowl car in your house?
“As a kid growing up in Oklahoma, the Chili Bowl was obviously the dream race for me. I grew up a dirt track racer and not really much pavement racing going on in Oklahoma so the Chili Bowl was my dream race and I told myself as a little kid that if I ever won the Chili Bowl, I was going to buy the car. With my situation that I’m in right now, I don’t have a shop, I have a two-car garage at my house there, but both of those spaces are filled. I had an empty room right inside the front door so I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to try to put this thing in there.’ I guess the hardest part was – I don’t know, everything went pretty smooth. Taking it apart from sitting on the ground in the garage to sitting on the ground in the house was only like three hours. Everything went pretty smooth and I’m pretty proud of it too.”
Was Keith Kunz supportive of you getting the car?
“No, he’d already been through the process a couple times. Tony (Stewart) won the Chili Bowl with Keith (Kunz) and Keith sold him his midget and then Rico (Abreu) won and Keith sold that midget as well so he’d been through it a couple times.”
What are your goals or expectations for this weekend?
“These seven races here are going to be all about building my toolbox so to speak and learning and getting all the experience I can. I just want to go out here and complete every lap that I attempt. If we can finish 200 laps on Saturday, get through practice and qualifying with no issues that will be a good day. If we can run inside the top-10, then I would say that would be a great day.”
What has the Toyota relationship as a development driver done for your career to get you to this point?
“It’s been a dream come true, everybody at Toyota and Toyota Racing Development have been a huge part of my career so whenever I joined the Toyota family was 2013, I started driving for a midget team – Keith Kunz Motorsports – that was funded by Toyota. At that time they didn’t have a driver development deal and I was able to win the driver championship, the USAC midget driver championship for Toyota. From then on, they were able to create this program that they have so now I feel like I was kind of the first driver in the mix and now I get to look back at it and see how many more kids are behind me. It’s been a great thing and hopefully I can continue to move up and those kids and continue to fill my spot.”
Where are your nerves for your XFINITY debut versus where they were for your NCWTS debut?
“Let me tell you, I was for sure more nervous for my first truck start than I was this. I didn’t get to test the truck before I raced it so the first time I was in it was at practice at Iowa and that was very nerve wracking. Toyota has done such a great job planning my career to this point and making sure that they knew that they wanted to get me a couple XFINITY starts this year and Charlotte was just the perfect race because they had that open test session where I was able to get in the car and get some laps. Thankfully I get to work with Eric Phillips so I never have driven for him in the past, but whenever I got my start at Kyle Busch Motorsports with the late model ranks, he was over there. He knows who I am, I know who he is so we already have somewhat of a relationship there and it’s just been a pretty ideal schedule for me so far.”
MATT TIFFT, No. 19 NBTS BrainTumor.org Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is your outlook for this weekend and how special is it to carry this paint scheme this weekend?
“One of the cool things for me is actually being able to come to a track that I’ve seen before and raced at multiple times. Having that open test here, that’s huge for us young drivers just to be able to learn and work with our crews. We’re only just a small part of the way into our season and we have a pretty fresh team still so we’re constantly building on our chemistry and our relationship and being able to bounce back to those notes from last year to now is pretty cool to be able to do that. We have a really special partnership with the National Brain Tumor Society on our car and they were on our car in Atlanta as well so actually did some advocating for them in Washington D.C a couple weeks ago. We were talking to different congressman and senators there for brain tumor research and awareness. That’s been really cool, but it’s a very personal message to me and the other 720,000 people that are living with brain tumors and central nervous system tumors in the United States. We’re just trying to raise more awareness for that, it’s a very special cause to me and one of the things that’s a sad thing, but we want to make aware is that it’s now the number one childhood cancer killer surpassing leukemia. We’re working hard to raise awareness for it and make a difference in the lives and the best thing we can do for that is have a great run here at Charlotte.”
How were you able to having BrainTumor.Org on the car this weekend?
“It’s sort of two different scenarios we’ve had this year, in Atlanta we were raising awareness for the Charlotte brain tumor walk and it was really cool. We raised over $135,000 for brain tumor awareness that day, but May is actually Brain Tumor Awareness month, it’s a special month for National Brain Tumor Society and the organization and all those affected with it. Just kind of made sense with the timing of it and going back to last October, that was obviously a time when I was returning to the sport and coming back in, I formed some great relationships with some people who wanted to do things with me for that. Obviously I’m on the better side of it now so trying to help out those now and the schedule sort of allowed for it.”
How nervous were you on your first XFINITY start versus your first truck start?
“I would say looking back to my first race in the Truck Series, we did it with BJ McLeod and he’s still a member of the XFINITY family here, but it was maybe a little different situation back then because I was mainly doing late model and ARCA stuff with Ken Schrader so we went to Martinsville with that truck and similar mindset thinking I just needed to complete all the laps and of course at Martinsville sometimes it’s easier said than done, but we had a great top-10 run there and it was a lot of fun. When I had my first XFINITY start, when you start to race as much as we do in these series and as much as Christopher (Bell) has in other series, you get the experience of racing and racing is racing no matter what level it is. It’s just the level of the drivers goes up and the equipment you’re going against. Obviously we both have great equipment underneath us at Joe Gibbs Racing so my first start a couple years ago at Kentucky, I was nervous, but it wasn’t as bad as my first start ever in a NASCAR series. I know he (Bell) and I have worked together as teammates before, he’s a great driver and great person so I’m looking forward to working with him this year.”
