MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 6, 2018
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S BEANS CAMARO Zl1, met with media and discussed getting married this past weekend, the progress of the new Camaro ZL1 at JTD Daugherty Racing, the copper paint scheme, and more. Full Transcript:
TELL US ABOUT WHAT YOU DID DURING THE OFF-WEEKEND
“We went and got married over Easter weekend, so that was really good. Emma and I started planning last year before there was a schedule out for this season, and that made it very difficult because she didn’t want a Winter wedding and we didn’t know our off-weekends yet. We knew we wouldn’t be racing on Easter. And then it threatened to rain-out Atlanta and threatened to show-out Martinsville. It seemed like Easter weekend was always the fill-in date. So it definitely had us nervous through all of that. We didn’t have to do anything crazy. We got our wedding in. We did it on Saturday because we didn’t want an April Fool’s Day wedding, which happened to be Easter this year, as well. And we didn’t want our anniversary to be a big joke every year. So, we tried to make it work out. But it was a good time. We had a lot of friends and family come into town and come out and hangout with us. Everything went really smooth and we had a good time. Now we’re back to racing. We’re done with our off-weekend, and I get to come home of all places. So, not a bad last couple of weeks.”
TALK ABOUT THE COPPER PAINT SCHEME ON YOUR CAR AND KROGER’S INCREASED INVOLVEMENT WITH THE NO. 37 TEAM
“Absolutely. So, we’ve got Bush’s Baked Beans on board our Camaro ZL1 for the next couple of weeks. This will be week number two and I believe we have two more after this. The car looks excellent. We’re trying to go after the simulated look of a can of Bush’s Baked Beans. The color really looks excellent in the sun. It really pops. It’s something different, which my mom really appreciates because she can’t see very well and she says she can find this on on-track, so that’s good. But, I think it looks really awesome. We changed it up this season and got something a little bit different. Typically the Bush’s paint schedule has been very similar for the last several years and to really shake that ups and have something different with the new Camaro, the paint scheme came out really nice. It accents bylines well and it’s just a different color. I like it. I like different. So, I’m all on board with it.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER SAID YOU HAD SOME WICKED DANCE MOVES DURING YOUR RECEPTION. IS THAT ACCURATE?
“I thought he was gone by then. I didn’t know he was still watching. We took dance lessons. We did two lessons. The woman that did it did a fantastic job. We met up with her in Uptown Charlotte and she asked want we wanted to know and first off, what you already know. I don’t know anything. I can’t sway. I can’t even do that. I can’t sit here and act like I know what I’m doing. And she’s like okay, what do you want to learn? I said, The Dirty Dancing lift at the end. And she said all right, we’re going to back that down a bit. We compromised and it actually came out really good. We were able to at least look like we had some clue of what we were doing out there. It was a good time. I got a big surprise from one of my best friends there, so that was cool. We had to dance a lot more than we intended because of that and that created a whole other thing. I don’t come from a family of dancers, for sure. My mom was terrified of the mother/son dance. She was absolutely terrified; more than I was. And I will tell you, for the months leading up, the only thing I was worried about with the whole wedding was the dancing. I was good for everything else. We’ve been together almost six years. I was ready to get married and go through that. We had everything in place but the dancing was terrifying.”
ARE THERE VIDEOS? BEING FROM TEXAS I WOULD THINK YOU’D AT LEAST BE ABLE TO TWO-STEP.
“See, you would think. But I don’t. And it’s bad when I try. Just bad.”
VIDEOS?
“I think we asked for no videos to be recorded there, but who knows. You know AJ’s got something. He hasn’t shown me anything yet, but I’m sure somebody’s got something.”
BEFORE THE SEASON STARTED, TAD GESCHICKTER (JTD DAUGHERTY RACING) SAID THAT JTD WOULD HAVE A TECHNICAL ALLIANCE WITH HENDRICK. AND AJ ALLMENDINGER SAID THAT YOU GUYS REALLY DON’T HAVE TECHNICAL PARTNERS, SO WHICH IS IT? WHERE DO YOU GUYS SIT WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW CAMARO? WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR HELP?
“AJ made this difficult then when we said that. We do have the alliance with HMS are we are going through and doing a lot of work with them. We have a lot of correlation back and forth there. I’ve been doing a little bit of the wheel force testing in the Chevy wheel force car, which is operated by HMS. We’re trying to basically make everything as seamless as possible to be able to develop our own stuff, in essence, though. We’re not trying to take a car that they are building from start to finish and plug it into our system and go race it. It is our cars based off information that we are getting from our alliance and from our program. What we’re trying to do it build up a little bit of independence at the same time we go through with this. Yes, it’s a relationship and yes we were depending on them for a lot of information, but at the same time we are building up our own program to where we control our own destiny in a lot of different ways. I guess that’s the way I see it. As far as just handing a car over and saying hey, this is what you’re getting from us, it’s a lot more information and data from the wheel force car and wind tunnel testing and whatever it may be, so that we can build our own race cars and have something we can be competitive with on track.”
ARE YOU MAKING GAINS? SINCE THIS IS THE THIRD INTERMEDIATE TRACK THIS YEAR, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’LL UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU’RE AT WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE?
“This will be a better judge. We have made gains. Our cars are better in certain areas and not as good in others. But for the most part, it’s been steps forward. And I think that’s great. The Camaro ZL1 body in general is a better body. We’re starting off from a better base product. And with the new system, the haunted house or whatever you want to call it; there’s an official name for it. I don’t know what it is.
OPTICAL SCANNING STATION
“All right, so the haunted house (laughter) has really changed the way that you can manipulate stuff, right? So, it’s something that has created challenges to try and build on the base product. But as you go, I know a lot of teams have purchased their own systems to be able to figure out how they can use it to their advantage as efficiently as possible. We do not have one of those but we do have other body scanning programs and machinery that is a pretty large investment that we made through the off-season that Tad and Jodi (Geschickter) and everybody involved has really stepped-up to do. And a lot of that has been thanks to Kroger and their involvement in our program this season and really stepping up and wanting to be a bigger part of this race team.”
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Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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