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But he's having one of his best years, right?
He's definitely not falling off like, you know, you might expect with drivers later in their careers.
And I think that's a good mix of kind of experience on both sides and not getting ourselves in trouble and doing what we know we need to do.
Hey, everybody, welcome into Victory Lap.
I'm Caitlin Vinci, filling in for Kevin Harvick today and so thrilled to have Chris Gale, crew chief for Denny Hamlin joining us today.
I know you're busy and we appreciate your time.
And of course, I got to start with the Las Vegas race because there was so much transpiring towards the end of that race,
bizarre on-track accidents, tire strategy.
What was the 11-day like from your vantage point on top of the box?
Yeah, it was going to be a solid day, right?
Like all of the top playoff cars were basically competing inside the top five for most of the day.
You know, we were a little bit loose most of the day and it really took us to about the middle of the second stage to get the car closer
to where Denny could run, you know, long run pace and actually have the last 20 laps of the run where the pace was good enough.
You know, we kind of got in a scenario where we're like the fourth best car, third best car and you get into that final stage
and you alluded to the strategy and what's going to happen, right?
At that point, you've got a little longer runs you're having to make.
So it was going to be like a 47, 48 lap run if you had split the stage evenly.
There had only been one caution to that point, which was basically the 12 cars tire at that point, right?
And it had gone pretty green other than the stage ends.
And I think we were trying to come up with how do we win the race, right?
And there were already three guys in front of us, some that had elected to short pit really early.
And that short pit left us where, okay, now we're not going to pass them by short pitting.
Guys had run into cords on right side tires at 40 to 42 laps and we're like, okay, we're going to split this and go long
and do a more even split and play to our strengths of being good at the end of the run.
Now we needed that race to go green to work out well for us in that situation and hopefully the last 10 laps of the stint
where we would show our speed and that didn't happen, right?
You alluded to the caution with the 24 running in the back of the 10.
So none of us counted on that and that's kind of when everything turned on its head.
And then, yeah, caution late and you knew you'd have a few guys that might take right side tires
and we felt like at that point 30 laps we're going to take four tires and, you know, see how it plays out.
Well, it was a very impressive performance.
Six wins for you guys, 60 for Denny.
You and him came together in December last year.
How do you feel like the two of you have elevated each other in your respective roles?
Yeah, I think that, you know, Denny probably knows losing his crew chief at that point, you know, from last year.
He wasn't expecting to do that.
I think that probably, you know, left a little chip on his shoulder where like, okay, I need to fill in and I need to do a little more.
Not that he said that to me.
I'm kind of, you know, just reading the tea leaves a little bit spending time with him knowing how that relationship kind of all changed.
And then from my standpoint, I'm coming into a team that's completely intact, right?
And I'm the new guy.
I think that's allowed me to kind of stand back and see how the team was operating before and fill in some holes that might have been different than the way they would have done it before.
You know, I think Denny's alluded to Martinsville.
You know, we came with a totally different setup there that they hadn't had before.
And so I think it was a nice mix of being able to, you know, here's what's worked.
Here's some flexibility with new personnel to do something different.
And I think that's what's really worked.
And I think that Denny really hasn't tried to influence or getting involved in that at all.
Like I think once we got rolling Martinsville Darlington after that, he had confidence and he kind of just let us roll with it.
And he has not tried to really change what my plan was, the team's plan overall just more.
How can he add to it and do his role?
Yeah, and you've worked in and around Denny for years, but it seems like we're kind of seeing a different version of Denny Hamlin.
I mean, he's on a tear.
So how have you seen him evolve as a competitor this season specifically?
Yeah, this season just, I mean, I would tell you the first time I really saw it was this week, right?
Like leading up into Vegas, right?
We were trying to do SEM on the front side of the week because it's an early load for Vegas.
Cars need to leave Wednesday morning.
So we kind of got ahead of ourselves and we're doing what we would normally do on Wednesday on Monday.
And that wound up turning into lots of questions and a SEM session that would normally go a couple hours went four and a half or so.
So you could tell, you know, he knew how important this was, right?
It's you get to the round of eight and then everybody's really good, right?
You kind of got to elevate your game.
What are you going to do to be better?
And he came in with lots of ideas where he hadn't been good at Vegas, different driving styles.
What could we do with the car to help some of these driving styles?
And so that kind of spiraled into a longer session of kind of us playing with the car on SEM, him trying different things.
And I think it obviously worked.
He puts in the work and so too do you.
You've been in this business a long time.
I think about your career in the Xfinity series and when you were out in Colorado at Furniture Road racing
and now you're experiencing, you know, a career defining season in a lot of ways.
You've already made it to the championship four.
How rewarding has this season been for you personally?
Yeah, really rewarding, right?
Like it's tough in the moment to enjoy it, right?
You just want to keep it rolling.
And I think for me at this point in my career, like you said, I've done this a long time.
I kind of have a process where I enjoy the weekly grind of it and don't get too far ahead and don't get too high, too low.
Early in my career, I was always pushing.
You know, you're trying to get there and what you wind up doing in my experience is you push a little too hard and get yourself in positions that you can't get out of or problems.
And I feel like I'm in a good spot in my career where I have a mix of experience, a mix of making mistakes and learning from them.
And then now kind of you pair that with Denny, who is, I mean, you hate to say peaking, but he's having one of his best years, right?
And he's definitely not falling off like, you know, you might expect with drivers later in their careers.
And I think that's a good mix of kind of experience on both sides and not getting ourselves in trouble and doing what we know we need to do.
You guys have definitely evolved into one of the strongest driver crew chief pairings this season, no questions.
So now you know you're going to Phoenix. How advantageous are these extra weeks to prepare for Phoenix?
Yeah, it's a great time right now, right? You know, you don't have to worry about points at Talladega or Martinsville.
That is huge because that's what everybody's going to be worried about that's still trying to get in.
And then, yeah, it allows you maybe not like when we had the old car and we were building cars ourselves and you would start this process really early
and it allows you to put lots of mechanics on it and people, it's kind of different now.
But it does allow us to start our weekly process of simulation, looking at tires, you know, there's a new tire going to Phoenix in the fall.
We can get ahead on all that kind of stuff. We can, you know, cut stuff back from Talladega and Martinsville that there's no gain for us at either place, right?
Like there's no more points we can gain. There's nothing that can help us at Phoenix.
So we'll definitely shift resources and get as far ahead on that. So at least we're going to be as well prepared as we possibly can be for Phoenix.
And you mentioned Talladega. You guys are the only team that gets to go in there unbothered for the weekend.
Yes, that is a talk about a stress relief for this coming weekend for sure.
So what is the agenda then for the 11 team as it pertains to Alabama race?
I mean, I think it's just go in and have a clean weekend. You know, if we can help push our teammates, we do have two Joe Gibbs teammates that are still need to get points and get in.
So I think it's just how can we help those guys and help Joe Gibbs racing as a whole if we can't help ourselves?
That makes sense. Yes. So driver crew chief, you guys obviously are excellent at your jobs.
But what about the strength of the whole team of the 11 team? What are the strengths that you believe sets your group apart from others?
Yeah, I think it starts at car chief, right? Brandon Griffiths is car chief and it's been on this car for a while, right?
And he's the experienced guy, right? He's been doing it for a long time.
He's got a group of young mechanics around him that he's been leading for a while.
I think he does a great job of mixing that experience and having those young guys step up and allowing them to step up and feel like they're a part of the team.
And then the engineering core, right? Ryan Bowers has been on this team for, gosh, I don't know, seven, eight years even before Gabe Hart came over and was a part of this team.
And then that's kind of paired with a younger engineer, Chris Minogue, whose only first year was last year with this team.
So it's kind of a nice mix of experience and youth and kind of blending all that.
And they've worked together for a while, right? To where when you come into a lot of teams, you know, I told you I was the one guy that changed this year.
A lot of times that never happens. You come into a team and there's so many changes with the team when the crew chief changes that all the processes change.
Everything starts over and it kind of fits that personnel. In this case, that really didn't happen.
So there was a good process to the weekly flow of whether it's preparing the car, whether it's meetings and engineering staff.
That was very similar feel and more me adapting to it than those guys having to adapt to me.
It's a very solid group for sure, top to bottom. So Kevin Harvick always gives marks for the burnouts.
He gave high marks to Denny Hamlin on his burnouts. Did you know he was going to do the two of those?
I didn't. The second one, I was walking in front of him and when he started the burnout, I'm like, OK, I better get out of the way here.
I'm going to get run over on the second one for sure.
That was pretty cool to see like it's concrete into there and to see the burnout strips leading into it.
I don't know if he's going to get in trouble. I would doubt it, but like that was the first somebody asked.
I was like, it's going in trouble. I'm like, probably not. The fans are loving this.
They were definitely loving a big crowd reception. Well, I appreciate your time so much.
It's been really awesome to see what you and Denny and the team have achieved this year.
Best of luck in Talladega and the rest of the way, especially in Phoenix. Thank you.
Thanks, Kaitlin. Appreciate it.
From inside the box.
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