NASCAR Cup Series Championship-Winning Manufacturer Chevrolet, Jim Campbell Press Conference

But... say, by Kyle today he wins the race, wins the championship. Incredible. It's the 33rd time a Chevy driver has won the championship. Couldn't be prouder of that. We put two goals up every year at the beginning of the season: one's a manufacturer's championship, and side by side is to get a Chevrolet driver to the drivers championship. And last weekend we clinched the manufacturer's championship. It was Chevrolet's 40th manufacturer's championship. And now Kyle brings home the 33rd Chevrolet driver's championship. So two objectives that were at the top of the list, and both of them accomplished here coming out the other end of this race here today.

Yeah, good question. You know, clearly Kyle did a lot of work off the track while he was out of the sport. We know Kyle well. As you probably are aware, starting in 2017 through our association with Urban Youth Racing School, we took Kyle to the school to interface with the students in one of their classes, and he kept that association up even beyond the formal introduction from our standpoint. And Kyle did a lot of work off the track during that time with Urban Youth Racing School. Michelle and Anthony Martin, they're here today along with members of their chairman and board. They did a lot of work with Kyle off the track. He met with the students, and he also did work with the Tony Stewart Foundation, a lot of work that we observed. And when you reviewed all the work he did off the track, we decided that it was worth supporting Rick's request to sign him on to the team. And what I will tell you is what he's doing off the track doesn't get as much focus as what he's doing on the track, whether you're talking about here in NASCAR or in the dirt track series. But I am really pleased with what he's doing off the track as well as his performance on the track. That combination has been a real positive. And the work he's doing even today with the Hendrick Harris Foundation, his own foundation which he launched, the Sena Foundation, and then obviously Urban Youth Racing School. He was scheduled to go early December to take part in one of the classes where the students are kicking off another class, and he'll be there. I'll tell you one thing: because I join a lot of the Urban Youth Racing School sessions, especially when they've been virtual, I've been joining them on Saturday mornings, and very often Kyle Larson would be on those same sessions to say hello to the students and answer questions. So what he's done on the track has been incredible. Obviously he got his 10th win and brought home the championship. The other thing I would say is that the pit crew did an amazing job in the last pit stop, but when you really reflect on it, that team did that all year long. It was really an example of what they did all season long. So proud of the number five Chevrolet team and what they did this year.

Yeah, certainly. You know, when you think about this format with four, and we had obviously last weekend Chase Elliott locked in at the end of the second stage on points, so we knew we had two in the final four. And then you say, what other drivers do you want to compete against? The list is long, and you don't want to compete against any of them; they're that tough. And Truex Jr. showed exactly how good he is. He was really tough in the long runs. But I just love how the five team responded, how they pulled off that last pit stop, got to the front, Kyle drove it to the front and kept it there, and just hit his marks all the way through. At any point if you make one mistake, a guy like Truex Jr., who's a champion and a great driver, will take advantage of it. And Kyle and Cliff Daniels kind of kept their heads about them, hit their marks, and delivered the win and the championship. So what I'd say: this format, the other two that are non-Chevys, look at all the people who are competing for those two spots. You don't want to race against any of them; they're that good.

Well, Jerry, thanks for the question. You know, winning a race at the professional level is difficult, period. To win in this case 19 races for Chevrolet, Kyle does 10 race wins and brings the championship home. Regardless of the format and the rules, it's difficult to do, and I'm really proud of what Kyle and the Hendrick team did. And Chevrolet, as you know, competes in all kinds of racing series in the US and across the world. So when they change the rules, you get to change and be ready to race. So that's what we'll do, but that's for next year. Tonight is for the celebration of Kyle Larson and Cliff Daniels and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports and the Chevrolet engineers. That's what our focus is tonight. And just a big shout out to everybody at Hendrick: Rick Hendrick, Marshall Carlson, Jeff Andrews, Chad Knaus, Jeff Gordon, the list goes on. And then from the Chevrolet side, we picked up a real talented guy named Eric Warren, Dr. Eric Warren. He was at Richard Childress Racing, super talented engineer, and he leads our NASCAR programs from an engineering standpoint. So proud of the job he's done along with Pat Sui and Adam Goldenbeski. And then I've got a counterpart, Jim Danne, he was a vice president of engineering, and we're all in on motorsports at Chevrolet, as you know. So I'm really happy for those guys too. Thanks, sure.

Thanks for the question. And I, just at a very broad level, if you think about the Chevy driver lineup that we've had over the past years, many of these amazing drivers and champions retired. Tony Stewart retired, he won three championships with us. Jeff Gordon retired. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was obviously an Xfinity champion but also won so many races at the Cup level, retired. Kevin Harvick moved on to the Ford side. And along the way, we brought in so many young amazing drivers, and they were young drivers who in many cases were in the Cup in their first year, they hadn't really been to many of these tracks at that level. And what I love about what's happening right now: Chevy has the youngest average age of drivers across all of our teams. And so what I love about them is they're getting better and better every race, every year. So I'm excited about what that means for the future. Certainly talented drivers at Hendrick, but there are also talented drivers across all the Chevrolet teams. Super proud of that and excited.

Yeah, well, you know the test schedule, we'll be in Charlotte, we'll be back here. There's a whole list of tests that are in front of us. In the automobile business, you do two things: you sell what you have in the showroom today while you prepare the next model for the showroom tomorrow. We're doing the same thing. We're racing today with the car we have while we've been preparing the Next Gen Camaro for next year. So it's something in the auto industry, it's what we do. You got to be able to do those two things at the same time. So our team is definitely preparing on that side, but obviously that preparation and development continues in the coming weeks and months as we prepare for the Next Gen next year. But for tonight, just a huge focus on what Hendrick Motorsports accomplished tonight with Kyle and Cliff and the whole team. Really proud of them.

Yeah, I was thinking about the weekend. We had obviously Zane in the championship race on Friday. We didn't... Zane actually did a nice shot, he had a shot at it, but we didn't really get to winner's circle there. Yesterday we had two drivers between Noah and AJ, didn't get to winner's circle. And today focus was we gotta get to the winner's circle on the third race, and it's the big one. Certainly we would have loved to win in all of those categories, but today at the Cup level, at the top level, to get the win and the championship, so very special. Thanks, Dan.

Thank you.