NASCAR CUP SERIES: GO BOWLING AT THE GLEN

May 10, 2026

Stephen Doran

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We'll continue our availabilities for this evening. We are now joined by our race-winning crew chief, Stephen Doran. Stephen, congratulations. Can you just talk us through the race and strategy for this afternoon?

STEPHEN DORAN: Yeah, the race played out a little differently than I think some of us thought. Tire wear was a problem yesterday. Not as much of a problem today. More normal. More like it was last year.

First half of the race went pretty standard, and then that caution that came out kind jumbled it up. The decision was just to stay on offense. Our car was so good. I didn't want to play defense and just let him go do his thing.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. We'll open it up for questions.

Q. When the kind of played out with the strategy and everything and you knew that you were going to have to pit and fall back, what is the mindset then? Are you feeling like you guys threw away the race and that you're just going to have to scramble? What was your thought process?

STEPHEN DORAN: The thought process was let him know what's going on, and the fact that he's got to pass all these guys. I knew the car had the pace. There were about ten laps where I was a little nervous. Like, are we going to get there?

But then they started to fade. Having to save, their tires were going away. With 15 to go I felt pretty good about where we were at, but when he got back out there, we just told him go like hell, you're going to have to pass all these guys.

Q. Is that a situation that's almost tailor-made for him? Almost everyone in front of him are saving and they're on old tires. You guys are good to go, and he can go all-out and attack, attack, attack?

STEPHEN DORAN: He's made it pretty clear, especially at these tracks, he likes to be on offense, so we put him there.

Q. He's on the radio, and you are in 20th place or whatever, and he comes on the radio, like, I don't care.

STEPHEN DORAN: I don't care about that. Just give me my gap to the leader. That's all he cared about.

Q. When that caution does come out, I know you say you want him to be on offense, but how tough of a call is that atop the pit box?

STEPHEN DORAN: It really wasn't that tough. Our guys were -- our engineers were telling me we're three laps short. And to save three laps at a road course was not something I was super interested in. I didn't want to get beat by somebody who was aggressive and chased us down.

Similar to what Connor did yesterday with Jesse. Like, I want to be the one on offense.

Q. I imagine that you had some engineer or somebody tell you what lap he should catch the leaders, and I'm curious was it going to be with seven to go, or was it a little bit closer to the end?

STEPHEN DORAN: It changed. Yeah, we were talking about it. In the first ten laps it looked like we might not. Then ten laps into that run, it looked like we were going to be last couple of laps, and then it kept getting better as we ran, and we caught him with eight or nine to go.

Q. Any idea why?

STEPHEN DORAN: I think their tires were just so old, they were gone. I assume they saved enough fuel. I think the 88 had saved enough to where they could run a little bit harder, but they didn't have a lot of tire left.

Q. Were you surprised that you guys were able to catch the lead as quick as you did? Because the math was mathing in a way that you might get there with a few to go, but you cleared him pretty easily? In terms of the timing, did that surprise you?

STEPHEN DORAN: Yeah, if you would have asked me with 25 to go, yeah, that would have surprised me. When we got to 15 seconds back with 15 to go, I knew we were -- we were good.

Q. Last year a win meant an automatic playoff ticket. Now you're fighting for it on points. Given the season Trackhouse has had, how much does this win and the fact that it puts you above the cut line change the team's energy heading into the second half of the regular season?

STEPHEN DORAN: Yeah, it's big. Not as big as it would have been last year, like you said, but it's still a good boost in points. We still got to work on our oval program to get better.

I think Texas was a good start in getting our program better. Yeah, we just got to keep building on it, keep pushing, and rack some points up.

Q. Stephen, can you talk about how important this win was for the organization as a whole, considering how much you guys have had to fight this year?

STEPHEN DORAN: Yeah, it's been rough for the 97 specifically. We started off fairly good. Five or six races were really good. Then the last three or four have been pretty rough for us.

It's a great boost for the organization. I think, like I said, Texas was a step in the right direction at the ovals, but we still have a long way to go. There's a lot of work happening to get there, and I feel like we can.