Ford Performance NASCAR: Live Fast Motorsports To Run 2021 Cup Season with Ford

MATT TIFFT, No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Ford Mustang – HOW DID THIS ALL COME TOGETHER?  “Actually, B.J. and I have been good friends for a long time and we started talking about this a few months before the announcement was made and we never thought in our wildest dreams that something like this would come to fruition, but lo and behold this situation with Archie came about to where he was wanting to exit the sport and still stay involved part-time.  I talked about in previous years many years down the road before my health problems came up that I’d love to be an owner in this sport.  I love NASCAR and I saw the pattern of what was happening between the other new owners and the things going on in the sport and just always thought I’d love to be a part of that side post-driving.  I didn’t think the post-driving was gonna come as quick as it did, but B.J. has been a great team owner in this sport from every level, so when he and I got together – we were at dinner one night—and started talking about, ‘Hey, maybe this is something we’d like to do in the future,’ we didn’t think it was gonna come as quick as it did.  I’m just so excited to be a team owner in the NASCAR Cup Series and I wouldn’t be wanting to do it with anybody else.  B.J. is a great guy, but also more than that a great businessman and knows how to run a team.  I just can’t wait to get this venture started.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD, No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Ford Mustang – HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO GET THIS STARTED FOR 2021?  “I’d actually say there probably aren’t words to explain that.  It’s literally decades of dreaming, decades of work, decades of being focused, just a lot of relationships being built to get us to this point.  You can’t sum it up in one or two or three words even.  I guess the biggest thing to say is just really looking forward to continuing to work the way that I have the last couple of decades to get to where I’m at now and see what we can make with this deal together  Matt is gonna make me stronger.  He’s got some really good qualities about him that I’m excited about helping some of the weaknesses that I might have and just what we can do together.  I just can’t wait to get going like he said.  We just want to see and run into the goods and the bads and work together and just make this thing successful for several years to come.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUED – WHY COME IN NOW WHEN THESE CARS WILL BE OBSOLETE AND HOW MUCH DOES THE SHR PARTNERSHIP CORRELATE WITH THAT?  “When we first started talking about this, obviously the plan before the pandemic was that the Next Gen car was gonna come in 2021, but at the same time what kind of ended up happening there was that when we talked to Go FAS and what was happening over there it was really an opportunity where if we didn’t take at that point, we never knew if we would get a charter, if that opportunity would present itself again, so, yeah, we have one more year with the Gen 6 car and kind of an intermediate year where we’re transitioning from the current car to the Next Gen car, but at the same time buying a charter is so valuable in this sport – to be part of that ownership group and the new ownership groups coming into the sport – it was really something we couldn’t pass up doing.  So even though we have a transition year, it’ll help us be able to build our systems, build the chemistry within our team and really get ready for 2022.  Like you mentioned, the SHR piece with the strategic partnership with them, having those guys over there is such a huge help to us as a new team – to be able to learn the nuances in the sport – what we need to do from a parts standpoint, especially when we get to the Next Gen car.  We’re all gonna be learning and starting from ground zero, so to have that partnership for this next year, to be able to transition into 2022 and for many years beyond that, having that SHR alliance and the start-up we have with them is gonna be a huge help.  I think that’s gonna be something to learn from them.  You always learn from people who have more experience than you do, and certainly these guys have been around for a long time in this sport and we’re so thankful to be able to be a part of that SHR strategic alliance.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUED – IS HAVING A CHARTER THE ONLY WAY YOU COULD MAKE IT TO THE TRACK NEXT YEAR OR COULD YOU HAVE TRIED TO DO IT AS AN OPEN TEAM AGAIN?  “The goal is to be secure in the sport and have a good platform to bring marketing partners.  This year we ran 35th, 32nd, I think we have a couple of top 30’s with our open team, but you have to get the correct marketing partners to be able to ever dream of getting into that top 20 bracket.  With that being said, the first way to speed that up is to own a charter, so that was a goal of Matt and I’s.  Honestly, it’s been over a year we’ve been dreaming of making this happen and really working on it, and, like Matt said, the opportunity presented itself.  We were gonna do it either way.  As soon as the opportunity popped up, we were going for this, so it may have been two months ago like it was or it may have been four years from now, but that was our plan to work that direction.”

 

WAS THERE ANY QUESTION THAT YOU WERE GOING TO HANDLE THE DRIVING DUTIES?  DID YOU EXPLORE HAVING SOMEONE ELSE IN THE CAR AT ALL?  “That’s always an open-ended story there, in my opinion.  Yes, I own part of the team.  Matt would work with me and let me probably do what I want to do because we’re just really good partners together, but I want the team to be successful, number one.  So even if I was the full-time driver for the next seven years, it’s not secure.  You have to earn that spot, whether I own it or I don’t own it.  We want the team to be successful, number one, and that is always my goal is to make sure.  My new dream, something I’ve never had before, I’ve definitely thought about it a couple times, my new dream is to be an RCR, a Gibbs, a Hendrick or whoever.  In 20-25 years I hope we’re here and we’re racing at that level, and hopefully sooner, but that’s my new dream and that’s the number one important part to this puzzle. I am always open to any situation that helps the team.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUEDHOW IMPORTANT WAS IT FOR YOU TO STAY INVOLVED AFTER YOUR HEALTH ISSUES?  “That’s my biggest worry to be honest with you after the dust settled from Martinsville and going from post-Christmas into the new season of 2020 was how in the world do I get back involved?  I explored all kinds of avenues, whether that was being involved from a PR standpoint or sponsor standpoint.  I looked at some driver coaching stuff.  I couldn’t drive, so when you spend your entire life being a driver, it’s pretty hard.  When you’re 23 years old, you’re not thinking in your head, ‘Okay, this is it.  I’m gonna retire after this year.’  But the situation was thrown in there to where I’m not cleared to drive.  I couldn’t drive, so I went through several months in there, one, I was dealing with the health problems, but, two, kind of a dark space of I’ve worked my entire life to get here and all of a sudden it’s gone.  So, I really worried about it because I wanted to be a part of NASCAR.  NASCAR is my work life and I love everything about racing, so my full investment in this sport is seeing the sport grow, seeing our team grow and to have that opportunity as a team owner is so rewarding.  I mean, this is as big of a deal to me, if not bigger, than being a driver in the Cup Series, being with RCR, Gibbs, whoever.  This is so big because, like B.J. said, this is not a one-year deal, it’s not a two-year deal.  When you’re a driver, you worry about every single season.  ‘What does that contract look like?  What does my funding look like for the next year?’  With this, you get to plan for one, two, three, five years, 10 years, 20 years, and you have a business plan set in there.  That’s what’s so cool about this and what makes it such a bigger deal.  When I’m 50, 55, 60, I can’t drive at a high level even before the health stuff, so being a team owner that’s a possibility, so as long as NASCAR is around we’re trying to be around.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUED – ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE TO BE MORE CORPORATE NOW AS YOU SELL WHAT YOU’VE GOT?  “If any marketing partner comes along and asks me to look a little bit different or cut my hair maybe or not wear a skull here and there, I would be more than happy to.  More importantly, like I said earlier, we just want to the team to be successful.  That’s number one and I’ve just always done my own thing because it worked for where we were at, but this is definitely taking a step up and any opportunity that comes along I’m willing to shift however I have to shift to make this team successful.  That’s the goal.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUEDCAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE STRENGTHS BOTH OF YOU BRING TO THIS TEAM?  “What’s funny about that part is I’ve known B.J. longer than I’ve known my wife.  B.J. is honestly like an older brother to me.  I met him with I was 12 years old.  I went down to the New Smyrna Speedway for a driving school they had down there and that was the first time I met B.J. and I’ll be honest, the first time I saw him – when you’re 12 years old, I mean, he’s intimidating.  The funny thing about B.J. is he is so, and I love your question because when you talk to B.J. he is one of the most articulate, smartest guys in the industry.  He’s one of the few guys that’s actually ran a successful Xfinity team – been there for years.  You see a lot of people that come and go.  That’s the thing about B.J. is so genuine and so smart and he’s one of the few guys that has made it in this sport and climbed every single ladder.  I’ve been with him since the late model days.  I was his first Truck Series owner being at Martinsville and getting a top 10 there with him, which really launched my career.  He was a groomsman in my wedding, so we’ve been together for a long time.  When we were racing he was my Friday night movie buddy.  We’d always go out to the movies and go watch something, so when the other guys were in their motorhomes, I was at the hotel and he’d come pick me up and we’d go watch the Avengers or whatever was out.  What’s so cool about it is we have a great relationship.  Our families are very tied in together and that’s what’s so fun about it because we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we can bounce that off each other.  I’ve been with big teams.  He’s ran his own team, so there are a lot of elements that really balance each other out, so it makes it so exciting and fun because we know how to work with each other and which buttons to press, which ones not to press and I think it’s something that’s gonna be going for a long time.  It’s really a cool partnership and, like I said, he and I are family, so it feels like a family-run team because of how close the people involved are still.”

 

WHAT IS THE REALITY OF THIS FIRST YEAR?  WHAT KIND OF TASK IS THIS?  “I think the biggest thing is when you’re looking towards 2022, it is the Next Gen car.  There is a lot of investment into that car in the future of this sport.  It’s no small endeavor to start a brand new platform, chassis, all that kind of stuff going into that year, so what we’re trying to do is establish ourselves in this sport as a team that is showing up competitively each week with a good pit crew, buying tires, do the right things in there, but, really, the other part of it too is creating those relationships with the OEM and going to Ford and seeing what we can do with them.  Go FAS Racing, I think, is a great example of a team that we’re trying to be and emulate over next year and going into future years, and hopefully growing from there.  But we’re not gonna sit here and say that we’re running for a top 10 or I’m going to the playoffs.  We’re not gonna be doing that, but what we do want to do is show up and do a great job for our marketing partners and our sponsors in this deal and try to grow it slowly in a place that’s going to be within our budget and a place that makes sense but also be able to do all the little right things and be able to be a competitive car on the track.  And, hey, if we get lucky and there’s some attrition, we have great finishes out of it, but I think we have to be realistic and we’re not setting the expectations to be a playoff car or a winning car every week because we’re not gonna be that, but we will be showing up at the track being competitive, being there as a legit team in the Cup Series and that’s a great place to start.  But, like I said, going into 2022 and beyond it’s a whole new deal.  Nobody knows what’s coming in that, so we just want to be ready for when that time comes.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUED — IS THERE ANY SIGNIFICANCE TO THE 78?  “I’ve basically had that number since I was three years old.  We were just very fortunate, and I’m actually friends with Barney Visser and Joe Garone and when we did the open team and I was gonna use the 78, I talked to Joe because I try not to bother Barney because he’s extremely busy, but I talked to Joe and Joe said, ‘Yeah, he’d be happy with it.’  I asked NASCAR first.  I was like, “Make sure Barney and Joe are good with us using this number and let them know that if they ever need it, that we’ll work it out where they can have it or whatever we need to do because they did win a championship with it.’  I’m extremely proud of what those guys were able to do and it’s one thing that allows Matt and I to dream and think we can one day pull that off, so that’s where we’re at with that.  Literally, the number, like I said, my first race two-and-a-half years old I’m number 78, so it’s just very, very fortunate to be able to have my Cup number be 78, and I also had it in Xfinity too, but it’s just cool to run it at the highest level.”

 

HOW DOES THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AFFECT YOUR XFINITY TEAM?  “What we’ve done is Matt and I have formed Live Fast Motorsports to be completely separate from the Xfinity team or teams.  It’s its own separate entity completely, so as far as work or schedule or people or any of the logistics, there’s no hinderance.  I’d say there is help actually.  There’s definitely no hinderance to either team, but there is some advantages to having both and we’re looking forward to that, but it’s definitely 100 percent its own deal and I’d say the biggest thing as far as the Xfinity teams I think it’ll just help having the Cup team presence and marketing partners on that side and having both platforms to kind of connect together if we want to, and they’re completely separate when they need to be.  So, that’s where I think right now that I would say it’s definitely not a negative in any way, shape or form and looking forward to hopefully a couple of positives.”

 

ARE YOU STILL GOING TO DO THREE FULL-TIME NXS CARS?  “Absolutely, we’re gonna run three full-time cars next year and my goal with that team is I think we got seven top 15s this year, led a couple laps at Road America with Josh Bilicki, really competitive at the speedways.  I think we got mostly top 15s and some 10th-place finishes, but that team I want to keep growing it.  We’re rolling into our sixth full-time year and I think I’ll be really upset if we don’t run in the top 20 probably 15-20 percent more than we did this year and keep moving that up the ladder and hopefully inside of five years competing for wins over there.  That’s the plan and it’ll always at least be a two-car structure, I can tell you that.  I enjoy the multiple numbers.  I don’t see a scenario where I drop down from there, even in the future, but I like the multi-car scenario because we’ve seen a lot of advantages from it.  It’s actually helped.  Some people think you might be spreading the budget too thin trying to run three, but it’s actually helped dollar figures come in to help all three teams and elevate them having that big a platform, and now having the Cup team as a separate entity, but having that kind of in the same realm where we can work stuff together I believe is gonna elevate the Xfinity side too.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUED – HOW IS YOUR HEALTH?  “It’s about as good as it can be for having what happened there, so it’s a battle.  I just kind of go day-to-day on things, trying to get through the mental health side of things and understand the changes that I have to make in my everyday life to deal with having seizures in the past.  It’s an ever-evolving thing.  It’s not something that is off the table completely of what happened, so that’s just the thing with time that we’ll figure out, but as far as the racing part of it for myself I would love to get back in a race car, but the facts of it is right now I’m not ready to mentally and because my focus right now is on this race team and making it as good as it can be.  Right now, my entire focus is on the race team and hopefully there is some day where I step back in the seat of a race car and make that happen, but right now this is in its infancy very much so and I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna get back in a race car.’  Right now, honestly, I don’t care about that side.  My complete goal is to get this team to the Daytona 500, see what we can do through 2021, get this thing to ’22 with the Next Gen car and we’ll see down the road what happens.  If I hop in a late model in a few years or something like that, or sooner, be that what it is, but I’m so excited and focused on this deal that, really, that has taken a back seat to this because this has so much more growth and opportunity within it that I don’t really need to worry about being kind of selfish with the driver part because I have a driver in B.J. right now that I get to see pretty much every day and I can always hop in iRacing and get the same thrill out of it right now, so we’ll see what happens, but the team is such a big deal to me.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUED — HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO HAVE A GUY LIKE JOE FALK AROUND YOUR ENTITY?  “The reason we are where we are right now is being willing to accept any kind of help we can get along the way, and this goes back for as long as I can remember as the way I’ve treated my life and tried to get around people, whether it was racing or construction work or building a house or anything that we’ve done in the past we’ve always leaned on people to learn and get stronger and get better because you never even know half of all of it, like not even close to all, and having somebody like Joe that literally he’s been around for a long time.  He’s been around as long as Matt and I hope to be around, so to have him to lean on and to call and work with, now I will say through this whole thing he’s been nothing but really positive and definitely put the pressure on Matt and I.  He’ll give you his opinion, but then he says, ‘You know what?  It’s yours and Matt’s problem.  You guys have to make it work.’  So we respect that and look forward to him giving us input and teaching us from mistakes he’s made in the past or experience he has in life in general and trying to get further with what we’re doing, so it definitely is a big help having him there and I have to say it’s been fun trying to just work through these first bits these last couple months.  It’s been a cool relationship.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUED – WHAT CAN YOU BRING TO NASCAR AS AN OWNER AND BEING ONLY 24 YEARS OLD?  “We advertise and try to market to my age group.  I’ve been a NASCAR driver, but to take on the ownership role I know in a lot of ways I’m older than 24 as far as just things I’ve been through, things I’ve learned in my life that are above what a normal 24-year-old goes through, so I’m still very young as far as the ownership side, of course.  You look at our sport and we’ve had so many fantastic owners, but you look at them too and a lot of those guys started when they were younger, it was just in a different capacity and they eventually got to the Cup Series.  I think the difference here is that I’ve been with some of the larger organizations.  I’ve been with Front Row Motorsports and seen how they do things.  I have a great relationship with a lot of team owners, so being able to have that relationship and have the time to be able to build upon this program, like B.J. said, we’re all for listening to people who have experience, who have the know-how in this sport and the good thing is we have time on our side to build and develop a great program over decades.  We keep on saying it, but we want to be here for decades and the long-term of NASCAR, so I think the biggest thing is I have a little bit younger demo of a following that can help bring new fans into this sport.  Beyond that, I have time to learn the tricks to the trade, so what B.J. has done with his teams and I think when we first met I believe B.J. was 29 years old when he was doing the late model deal and him being a team owner in the years he has to where he is now, you don’t see too many people nowadays grow from a late model team owner to being a NASCAR Cup Series team owner, so to be with someone like that who has learned all those things I kind of have a jump-start of what a lot of people have as far as ownership in there, so I’m just excited to learn as much as I can.  And as cool as that is to be one of the youngest owners in NASCAR, I still respect so much what the other owners do and I’m just here to listen and learn and see what we can do with this team.”

 

WILL FRANK KERR BE YOUR CREW CHIEF?  “We haven’t announced the crew chief yet, but we’ll have some more things coming out over this next week to confirm everything else on the team side.  Between that and partners we’ll have a lot more that will be rolling out soon.”

 

IF YOU GO THAT DIRECTION WITH FRANK, HOW BENEFICIAL WOULD IT BE TOWARD HELPING YOUR DIRT PROGRAM?  “I don’t know as far as a dirt program.  It’s an interesting way to put it.  I know if you would have asked any of the truck guys back in 2013 if they had a dirt program going into Eldora, so that’s an interesting one.  I think we’d probably rely on our SHR partnership there to see what they’re gonna do for what springs and shocks and what setups we put on those things because we just don’t know.  I’ve watched that World of Outlaws race at Bristol a bunch of times to kind of learn what that deal is, but you hit on guys like Joe Falk that’s involved in our deal and, again, he’s just been around in so many different situations.  I wish we had Joe on this thing because he might have been around when it was all dirt back then.  Joe is such a great guy to learn from experiences, but because of him we can go to other teams and other people in NASCAR and learn what we need to do.  We’re going to a lot of road course races, so shifting to those types of deals, going to a dirt track.  We’re doing so many different things in NASCAR right now you have to be able to adapt and pivot quickly.  Again, we rely on our relationships and partnerships and have those because we are a young team that needs to rely on those things because we don’t have all the data for five, 10 years in the past to lean off of, so we’re gonna see what we do, but we’ll talk to some of the truck guys as well to see what they did on the dirt stuff and see what we’ll be able to do when it comes time for Bristol.

 

WHAT KIND OF DIFFICULTY DID YOU HAVE GETTING A CHARTER?  “The biggest thing was when we were going through it, it became at first it was an interest of ours and then it became an interest of everybody’s.  We got in at a very good time of going through the process before you had Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin and having Justin Marks in there and all these people bidding for teams.  This is what’s so cool about the charter system what we’re doing is because NASCAR has invested so much time into that system to where you’re seeing now those 36 teams have such a value for the future.  I think NASCAR had that idea in mind when they put the charter system there, so really the biggest thing was we were in a bidding interest war with these charters.  That’s where our relationship with Joe really came into play because we had such a great time working with him and he wanted to work with us, but there is so much going on because everybody wanted a piece of the pie and there’s not very many slices in the pie that were available there, so that was the hardest part – just competing.  To be honest with you, being Matt Tifft and B.J. McLeod and we’re two drivers.  I know B.J. has the Xfinity teams, but you’re going up against people with a ton of money and clout and power and we were just blown away that we were able to be a part of this deal and so thankful.  I always say everything happens for a reason and me being out of the car, maybe this is what I was supposed to do.  Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at those things and go, ‘Wow.  This is really something.’  I mean, we’re sitting here today on November 20th with a NASCAR charter.  That’s pretty unbelievable for us to be able to say that we have that accomplishment.”

 

DID YOU LOSE OUT OR WERE YOU OUTBID ON OTHER CHARTERS?  “This was actually the only one that we really had a full deal into, so there was other ones that we were looking at, but a lot of those came a bit later, so we were further in our talks with this one before we even knew some of the other ones were on the table.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUEDCAN YOU OUTLINE WHAT THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH SHR ENTAILS?  “The biggest thing is there’s no particular one thing.  We definitely have a relationship there that we see how our team plays out and the things we need and we reach out and see what we can get help with.  We have an open door there and we’ve obviously already got their cars, their parts, their spindles, their hubs, their trailing arms, truck arms.  I mean, we’ve got a good platform already to start with, so it’s basically like it reads, I guess.  We’re gonna need help.  Stewart-Haas is successful.  They were up there to win a championship with two races to go, so it’s like nine or 10 wins this year in Cup alone.  That’s just crazy the success that they show and we’re just thankful that they’re willing to give us the chance that we want to do good for the sport and work hard and show progression.  That’s the biggest thing.  So let’s say we do run 28th on average this next year, which is a hard feat.  It’s nothing easy to do, but we would like to see progression to 27th or 26th the year after or if our budget stays the same, then honestly you have to prep to run the same until you up your budget and work on your stuff and make it better.  We just want to prove that we’re here to be better and in the long run we do have goals of being, it’s fun with Cup you say, ‘Well, I want to win a race.’  Well, with Cup if you’re running top 15 you have a chance to win a race, so it’s really realistic that you shoot to get the top 15 over the next 10 years with this team and then sooner or later you win a race and you’re running 15th to 10th every week.  It’s crazy how competitive the Cup Series is and I know it from a driver and from an owner both.  It’s unreal how hard it is and that relationship is gonna speed up a lot for Matt and I and give us resources that we could really only dream of having, so just looking forward to getting rolling and seeing where it goes to.”

 

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CARS YOU’LL HAVE TO START 2021?  “We actually bought 12 cars total.”

 

MATT TIFFT CONTINUEDARE YOU FULLY RECOVERED PHYSICALLY?  “I’ve got a Cup team.  I’m doing great (laughing).  On the serious side, it’s been a work in progress.  What I mean by that is this summer we did a big study up in Cleveland at University Hospitals to learn more about what was happening inside my brain.  They had a general idea, but to be honest, we don’t completely know what was happening or why things are happening, so, like I said earlier, I have to err on the side of caution.  To say I’m fully healed, typically you have to go through a period of being a year or two years of being seizure-free before they say, ‘Hey, this is a really low chance this would happen again.’  So it’s an interesting thing in there because, really, a seizure is basically a surge protector.  When it trips that, you think of a computer, when it trips the surge protector it’s doing it so your house doesn’t burn down and doesn’t blow the electrical fuses in there, and that’s something that I didn’t know before.  So, it’s actually a protective mechanism, but in that it’s electrical activity that wasn’t going right, so we don’t know exactly what caused it or why it happened, but I’m feeling good.  I’m able to wake up every day knowing that I have a fantastic life and a great partner here with B.J. and an awesome wife and lots of dogs and cats that I have to keep on muting because they like to bark here, but I’m very thankful for where I am and, yeah, I might not be Matt the race car driver right now, but to be in a place where health-wise I can be running a NASCAR team alongside B.J. here, I’d say everything is all right.”

 

B.J. MCLEOD CONTINUED — HOW MUCH INVESTMENT ARE YOU PUTTING IN AND DO YOU FEEL YOU’LL BE ABLE TO BREAK EVEN NEXT YEAR?  WE’VE SEEN OWNERS PUT IN AS MUCH AS $5 MILLION A YEAR TO BE SUCCESSFUL.  DO YOU FEEL THE NASCAR ECONOMIC MODEL WILL HELP YOU GET TO AN OPERATIONAL BREAKEVEN POINT RELATIVELY SOON?  “NASCAR has done an incredible job of getting, every year they work to get the teams better and better spots – everything.  They work to get everything better.  It’s a never-ending changing story that they’re writing and I can tell you from what we’ve looked at business plan wise with what we’re able to do marketing and what we’re able to do with winnings and the structure of the new car, which there’s still some questions, but we have the majority of it pretty well understood, that we have no problem feeling like we can sustain his team for, like we said, several years.  Let’s leave it at that.  You have to work every single year to make it happen and this is the highest level of stock car racing in the world.  It’s not meant to be easy in my mind.  It’s up to us to make it happen and NASCAR has definitely put a platform out there that if you’re willing to work and willing to try to make stuff happen and be really, really careful with how quick you make changes to how early you want to run better, you have to be careful and do that at the right time because you can spend too much money and be a little bit on the aggressive side and then if things don’t play right, you may leave the sport.  But if we can take a very systematic approach to it with what we’ve written down on paper and what NASCAR has worked really hard to put out there for people like Matt and I that want to come in this sport and be here for several years, I truly believe that they’ve got a really good position to have teams sustaining themselves and moving further in the future.”

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