"I'm excited to have KFC on the car. It's going to be fun, having them at their home track for their home race, and doing a lot of promotion around it. I've got an awesome new firesuit. It's going to look like Colonel Sanders' suit. All white, so I'll have to try not to get it dirty by the end of the weekend.

"I don't think we're going to see a huge change with this new rules package. As drivers, we push our cars to the limit lap after lap after lap. So, the fact that they're going to take a little bit of downforce away isn't going to change how we drive our cars. We might have to focus more on the mechanical side of things instead of aero, but we're still going to be driving as hard as we can."

JUST THE FACTS: Whitt has one prior Sprint Cup start at Kentucky Speedway, a 28th-place finish in 2014 ... Kentucky Fried Chicken joins the No. 35 as primary sponsor for Saturday night's race ... Whitt will be on the Ford Performance stage in the Fan Zone for fan Q&A on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

FRM PR