NASCAR CUP SERIES: XFINITY 500

November 1, 2026

Jeff Andrews

Rudy Fugle

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by team president of Hendrick Motorsports, Jeff Andrews, along with winning crew chief, Rudy Fugle.

Jeff, HMS has won four of the last eight races this year. Obviously has picked up a lot of things towards the latter end of the year. What is going on? What is the vibe of the team?

JEFF ANDREWS: Obviously not the start to our season that we wanted. I think internally in Hendrick Motorsports there's a culture. Obviously winning and believing in each other and supporting each other.

For us to have ourselves in position obviously to win the race today, Kyle being in position to go to Homestead next week to win a championship. I think if you would have come to us in May or June and had us sign that note, we probably would have signed up for that at that point in time.

It's belief in each other. That obviously starts with Mr. Hendrick and the culture that he puts into our company and the belief that he puts into it.

He had a meeting with us, gosh, probably 10, 12 weeks ago. He said, Hey, guys, believe in yourselves. I believe in you. Took some pressure off of us, told us to go to work.

We're proud to be here today, have a win, headed to Homestead next week with the possibility for a championship.

THE MODERATOR: Rudy, coming back to Martinsville, clearly you all were the dominant car all day. How did y'all dial in for this event, get William his first win of the year?

RUDY FUGLE: A full year. I wouldn't have thought it. I think a lot of people wouldn't have thought it. It's been a trying year for us.

We got a heck of a race car driver that gets around this place really, really well. He's figured it out lately on what he wants and needs. Then we have a good package 'cause we have a great company that works with four great teams that all push each other.

We're able to one guy hit it, then you have a new home, you kind of work off of that, keep improving.

The fact that we have such a great history at Martinsville, Jeff teaching these guys the important things to get around here. I'm sure Jimmie was part of that too before I got there. All the drivers know what they need. We've been able to give it to them.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions.

Q. Rudy, this year has not gone the way you had wanted, but are you -- you probably are, but the 24 team has had a win all the way back to 2020. Is that something you're aware of and a point of pride to keep the streak going?

RUDY FUGLE: For sure. I've been blessed to be able to be on some really good race teams with some great race car drivers and have cars that are capable of winning, then have all the things go right to win those races.

We've had race-winning cars a couple times this year, but not enough. Just being able to capitalize on that, have things go our way... Trying to extend that streak, like you said, is part of it.

Yeah, you go through all the things, all the sayings, all the things, it's about all the work you put in, not necessarily what the result is. But it sure is nice to get a result.

Q. When you look at your season now, why have things gone the way they have gone?

RUDY FUGLE: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely lots of things to reflect on. I'll take ownership of messing up on how we approached or took some of our lack of speed and messed up our cars through the middle part of the year.

That's what I felt like was the biggest thing. I thought we came out firing pretty well, then we started recognizing our lack of speed, and we couldn't get going. Made some missteps, led by me mostly.

Jeff referenced a meeting with Mr. Hendrick right after Indy, right before that break, and I was at the lowest lows at that point. But we were able to build a lot. Most of our top 10s have come since then. If you look at our Playoffs, they're not that bad. Our Playoffs is okay. It's not championship caliber, but it's really not that bad.

I think this win just gets us some wind in our sails for the off-season to work on some right things. Our group has been really digging since Indy, doing the right things, like I said. We just got to keep going.

Q. Jeff, looked like Kyle Larson was going to finish top 10. Are you looking at the situation saying you're confident about where you're at heading into Homestead?

JEFF ANDREWS: I don't know that you're ever confident. You sure want to be. Anybody that's done this as long as we have done it, there's 267 laps left next weekend. A lot can happen, as we saw in that first stage. The points took a big swing there after that first stage, and those kind of things can happen.

I think as we've talked about this over the last few weeks, I think it's always easier said than done, to say we're just going to go in there, do our thing, keep doing what we've been doing.

At this time of year there's a lot of different pressures, situations that come up that these guys, crew chiefs, that do such an amazing job for us have to react to. There's circumstances that you can control and some that you can't control.

Next week we'll go to Homestead and we'll control what we can. We'll do our very best to go down there and put 267 laps together and get the points we need.

I would say that it's, in our minds, far from over. There's a lot of racing left, so...

Q. It seems to be strong you have to push the envelope. Kyle said he can't not push the envelope at Homestead because that's when he gets himself in trouble. How do you balance what you tell them to do when it might look like that going 9/10ths might be the best way to go when you need nine points?

JEFF ANDREWS: As Rudy said, we start off decent, then May through July there, we struggled. If you would have told us at that point in time that we really just wanted to get any of our cars, but we certainly knew that Homestead, when that came back up on the schedule, is the place we were going to race for a championship, that Kyle Larson was a guy that if we could get in there and get him close, we had a real opportunity.

He's a competitor. He's going to go out there and, to your point, drive 10/10ths. That's what it's going to take. We have a lot of competition chasing us there.

Yeah, I think there'smjjjj a point where you got to be smart, have to take care of the car there. But we're looking forward to putting our best foot forward and going there and executing and doing what Hendrick Motorsports does.

At the same point in time, I think we got three other cars where we've been with our intermediate stuff that are plenty capable of going down there and running top five and competing for a win as well.

Q. 15th and 30-lap average yesterday, did you know this was in the car? If so, what do you see that the numbers don't tell us?

RUDY FUGLE: Yeah, I mean, I got up on top of the trailer. Shout-out to our truck driver Bones for setting all that stuff up.

I knew where our times were looking at the end of practice. For 50 minutes, two sets of tires, we only got passed on track by one car. There was a lot of things, we have tire advantage, this or that.

When you go out and the first 15 laps you pass a car a lap, and good cars. We only got passed by the 60, who I think was the class today, had things go wrong. That kind of showed up a little bit.

Now, we needed to work on the car. We worked on the car overnight more than I normally would here. I'm happy that we were down on the charts because it gave me the kick in the butt to try something. That was good.

Our engineer, Michael Kellough, it's his first year as a lead, Brandon McSwain has gone to the 1. He came up with this setup overnight. We worked on it this morning up to the last minute. Super proud of him and what we did. Everybody back at the shop, too.

Q. Rudy, the final pit strategy you had, it sounded like it was built around what Chase was doing. With all the other contenders in the top five, why was he the one you were most focused on?

RUDY FUGLE: He's second mostly. If I thought third could beat us, he was six seconds back, 84 going to pay attention to where he's at.

You're trying to come out with fresher tires on the nose of the car you're racing. That's what you're really trying to pay attention to. At that point the run was going pretty long. The driver, if he doesn't know what's going on, he doesn't know why you're running long, what's going on, he thinks he is going to come out in traffic or he's not going to come out the leader, so just trying to give him information.

Gave him more information than I usually would just to keep him calm, know what was going on. Sometimes Brandon, our spotter, will start getting amped up because people are pitting. This is what's going on. We have a gap to the 9. In reality we with had a three- or four-lap gap. So just wanted to play it smart in case you have a little bit of an issue on pit road and all the things.

That's what that was about.

Q. You have worked together with you and William keeping him calm with the racetrack. On the final run you were doing the same thing, reminding him keep moving forward. How has he grown behind the wheel with that whole process?

RUDY FUGLE: Yeah, I think he does a really good job. He's also a really good duck. Sits on top of the water, very calm looking. He's kind of busy under there sometimes.

You want to give him information to make sure he's okay. I think he handles it well. He's grown. He's doing fine. But with a duck, you can't tell if they're chilling or they're working hard.

I want to make sure I'm giving him everything I can. Yeah, he can do with it what he needs.

Q. Rudy, you and William have done this for quite a while going back to Truck Series. How does a season like this and the challenges test that relationship and trust? How do you navigate a year like this?

RUDY FUGLE: Yeah, it's tough, right? I mean, thankfully build on equity over the years, trust, whatnot.

It's trying. Going through things, making mistakes on my end or his end, not getting us where we need to be.

There's 25 competitors in the field that would love to have this kind of year for us. But it's not where we want to be. It's always work. It takes more time to take care of each other and check on each other.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you have to do those things. When things go really, really well, it's super easy. The slower your car is or you have hard times, everything's harder.

This is a really hard job, and it's a really hard sport. It takes all of us together to make it happen.

Q. Jeff, still more work to be done. Not done until it's done. On the season to this point, opportunity ahead of you guys, what makes this season different or notable compared to other championship seasons that are unique?

JEFF ANDREWS: I think it's where we came from, right? I think the fact what I'm most proud of is to watch our leadership and our four crew chiefs and our race teams, the way they've locked arms and believed in each other.

We've said all along we're Hendrick Motorsports and we haven't forgotten how to win races and championships. It just wasn't at our fingertips at that point in time during the year.

I think for me, when it's all said and done next weekend, win or lose, what I'm going to be most proud of is just the team and the way the team has come together and worked together.

Rudy and I and our other crew chiefs and leadership sit in meetings on Monday mornings. Some of those have not been I want to say fun to be a part of, but some of them have not been very celebratory. What's come from that is an incredible trust and bond between our leadership group and our crew chiefs of we can do this.

As Rudy mentioned, certainly that meeting with Mr. Hendrick, which he told us just do the very best you can do, I believe in you guys, go out and take the very best race cars, keep working together and trusting each other.

We were seeing little things through July, August time frame. We were bringing better race cars to the track. Maybe not at the step that it took to take us from a 15th-place car to a top five and competing for wins. Every week we kept stacking pennies and bringing better cars to the track.

At the end of the season, this one's going to be really, really sweet just the way we've gotten ourself back in the middle of this thing. We've done it internally because of the belief and culture we have in each other internally.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, appreciate you coming in.