Say What?!

"Michigan is the fastest track we go to. It’s really hard to hold your foot down going into turn one. Your brain is telling you that you need to start lifting, but usually the car can take a bit more. It’s super, super fast and the commitment level is very high. And the groove is not really wide, which is different than, say, Fontana, where you can go really fast but the groove is very wide. You miss it by a few inches there you will be OK. At Michigan, not so much, especially when the traction compound is live, it’s very sketchy and on edge. We’ve been very consistent there in my time with JGR, but James (Small, crew chief) and the guys have been bringing fast cars. Hoping Michigan is another place we add to the win list this weekend with our Auto-Owners Insurance Camry. Really would love to get Auto-Owners a win at their home track. They’ll have a lot of people at the track cheering us on Sunday and hope we can make them proud." - Martin Truex Jr.

"There are some unknowns going into Michigan because we only go there once a year. I’ve been there virtually this week with the simulator and we see a lot of speed. This is our third trip there with this car and last year we led some laps there early and were in the mix so we hope that we take more steps forward. We’ve had two at-bats at Michigan with this version of the car and we hope to continue to make our cars faster.

"We are always evolving. A lot will depend on the weather. The cooler the temperatures, the more on throttle time we will have and high speeds. We basically want to end the race almost out of fuel and tires about as old as you can stand and still compete for the win. When you lose grip at Michigan there’s no catching it. There’s no sliding – it’s either all grip and going fast or sliding somewhere you don’t want to be." - Ross Chastain
 

"I think you can take a little bit from those races, but Michigan is kind of different than all the other ones. It’s not got a lot of tire falloff, it’s extremely fast, it’s smoother through the corners, and the banking and things are different, so Michigan is kind of its own racetrack that stands out among the rest. You can apply some of the stuff you’ve learned at mile-and-a-half racetracks from an aero standpoint, but when you go to Michigan, all that stuff is amplified, so you’ve got to be really on your game from an aero standpoint and an engine standpoint. It has been a while since we’ve run a mile-and-a-half-style track. I feel like it’s always a fresh reset when we get to Michigan and try to figure out who’s going to be good." - Chase Briscoe