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NASCAR CUP SERIES: QUAKER STATE 400 presented by WALMARTJuly 12, 2020Mike ShiplettSparta, Kentucky THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Mike Shiplett, our winning crew chief. Mike, take us through what you saw atop the pit box there as Cole came down to take the checkered flag. MIKE SHIPLETT: We went on the third groove up there, made some moves, got up to sixth from 12th. We were talking about it, getting everything ready to go. If you do that again, you got a real good shot at it. Worked out great. Cole did an excellent job. Pit crew did a great job all day. The Haas Tooling Ford Mustang was good all day. We played a little gamble to try to get some stage points there for the second stage. That caution coming out, it kind of put everybody in a little different position. That put us good for the longer run to try to stay out and catch a caution. Yellow came out one lap after we pitted, so we he had to take the wave around and get back. He battled all day. Everybody did a real good job. I'm very proud of this team. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Mike. Q. How much do you think the experience of winning in the Xfinity Series gave him some confidence in moves he could make today? MIKE SHIPLETT: I mean, he has a lot of confidence here. He won here a year ago at this race. We got him a car that he could drive, and he was happy with it. We had the right amount of downforce for the track conditions. We kept him in position for most of the day. He was there at the end. He knows what it takes to get out front and lead races, to put himself there. Everything just worked perfectly. He had the opportunity today to get it done. Q. It's been a challenging season for you, especially for a rookie, no practice, no qualifying, going out there blindly. How difficult has that been for Cole? How much has it helped the fact that you guys have really built your relationship up over the last couple years? MIKE SHIPLETT: I think it helped a lot with Davin, my lead engineer, myself with working with Cole, coming to the Cup side together. We kind of knew what he needed at certain places. Our simulation program is really good. We spend a lot of time in the simulator with Cole. He does a lot of stuff for the whole team. We just kept building. Our goal was just to keep building every week, just trying to put ourselves in position to get top 10, top five finishes. Today was just the perfect‑‑ everything lined up perfectly. We had our shot and took advantage of it. Q. I've known Cole ever since he started running in NASCAR. He was brutally shy when he first got into the sport. How have you seen him blossom over the last few years? MIKE SHIPLETT: I mean, he does everything he needs to do. He was shy. He talks a lot more. He's vocal in meetings. He tells us what we need in the car. Everything is just moving along great. We'll just keep moving forward. Q. The last two weeks obviously Cole has seemed to feel the most comfortable in the car. Got his two best career finishes. Can you point to anything in particular of the last two weeks that you felt has gone especially well for you guys or for Cole, maybe different than earlier in the season? MIKE SHIPLETT: I think earlier in the season, we were still trying to understand what he needed in these cars. With Pocono being back‑to‑back races, it gave us the opportunity to almost have a practice on Saturday, then we made adjustments. We had a much better car on Sunday. It's just the way the yellows fell on that race. We should have been like a 10th or 12th place car in the second Pocono. Indy, same tire, similar track, similar setups. It was just one step, the next progression. We had a good finish there. With the mile‑and‑a‑half's, we went back to Charlotte. We had tried a lot of things at Charlotte that we were going to put all together when we came to our next mile‑and‑a‑half. This is the next mile‑and‑a‑half that we came to. Everything we've been working on, our downforce, what we need for the handling of the car, we put it all together and gave it our best shot. Q. No Open for you on Wednesday, straight to the All‑Star Race. What does the opportunity mean for this team? MIKE SHIPLETT: I think it's great for the 41 team, for all our sponsors. Everybody puts in so much effort. To know we're already in the race, we're in the first round of the Playoffs, now we just got to try to get some bonus points, make it past the fourth round of the Playoffs. Q. Now that you are into the Playoffs, does your preparation change over the final couple races before the start of the Playoffs? Are you kind of just going to be looking for the stage points? What do you do as far as the car? Testing? What's the plan? MIKE SHIPLETT: Obviously there's a lot we can do. We'll have to sit down this week and make a plan on what we're going to do there. We have Kansas coming up, Texas coming up. Both those are later in the Playoffs. Our main concern will be the first three races in the Playoffs. We'll have to sit down and figure that out, see what we can learn. Maybe Loudon we can learn a little bit for Richmond. We have Bristol for the All‑Star Race. There's a lot of good things, and we're moving forward. I couldn't be more pleased right now. Q. Between Trucks and Xfinity, 25 wins as a crew chief. For you personally how much does it mean to get a victory in Cup after 138 starts? MIKE SHIPLETT: It means a lot. It's been a long time trying to get here. We finally got here. That puts me at a win in every of the three major series. I'm pretty proud of that. Q. When it came to coming into this race, a lot of people slept on you guys. What clicked with this racecar today that brought this car to Victory Lane? MIKE SHIPLETT: He had a really good feel of the car. He was able to drive it deep down into the corner. It was still able to turn. It's just a balancing. You got to get everything right between the setup, the weather, the track, the PJ1 that they put down, how long tires are going to last, not last. I mean, we put everything together. We were there to make a challenge for it at the end and it worked out. THE MODERATOR: Mike, congratulations on the win. Thanks for joining us. Have fun on Wednesday at Bristol. MIKE SHIPLETT: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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