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LAST WEEKEND A DOUBLE CELEBRATION, DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP AND THE WIN, THIS WEEKEND THE OWNER CHAMPIONSHIP AND A WIN:
“I just have to thank everybody at KHI. We knew we needed to go out and beat Kyle (Busch). We knew (Ron) Hornaday needed to race safe and do what he needed to do to win the owners championship. Obviously, he won the drivers championship last week. Our goal was to go out and lead the most laps and win the races. They built me trucks and everything I needed to do what I needed to do on the race track. They were flawless in the pits. Just a lot of hard work from all the guys at the shop. Like I said, everybody in this program from Georgia Boot, to Chevrolet, to Rheem, Copart, VFW, Longhorn, all the people who make this program go around.”
WHEN THAT LAST CAUTION CAME WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE CALL TO COME DOWN PIT ROAD FOR FOUR TIRES?
“Well, I think you know, when we had to pit under green there and nobody put tires on, everybody was a little concerned about their tires. There was only, not very many trucks left on the lead lap so they came down and put four tires on. We knew we would have a cushion with all the lapped trucks in between. I knew the No. 17 (Timothy Peters) was going to be a sitting duck. It all worked out.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO GET THAT CHAMPIONSHIP AT A TRUCK OWNER?
“First thing I want to say is congratulations to Billy Ballew and Kyle (Busch) and all the guys that have driven the No. 51 truck. That is a lot of fun to race with those guys. Ron means a lot to me as a person. To see him in that truck and winning races and winning championships is something special personally. As a company, it is something that is a lot of fun to have raced for the last three championships. But to see what they have done is something that I am really proud of.”
YOU COULDN’T HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER SCRIPT TO END THIS SEASON.
“Yeah, I’ve just got to thank everybody at KHI. They built me two brand new trucks. A lot of different things that we wanted to do. Ernie Cope and all these guys for putting a lot of extra effort into this Georgia Boot Chevrolet. Gotta thank Rheem, Copart, Longhorn, VFW, all the people who have helped us with this program and year Hornaday has had. To close out the season like this is really what we wanted to do. We had to guard against Kyle (Busch) leading the most laps and winning the race. We accomplished that with these two trucks. Going to be a lot changed on these two teams over the next month. Danny Stockman is moving on to be Austin Dillon’s crew chief on the No. 3 truck so that makes me proud that a lot of these guys are able to move up in their careers. Really looking forward to making these things better than they were this year and I promise you we will.”
YOU WERE DRIVING AWAY TONIGHT AND THEN A LATE CAUTION MADE THINGS REALLY CONFUSING, TALK ABOUT THE CALL TO COME TO PIT ROAD.
“I just wanted to know how many guys were on the lead lap. I knew we had a big cushion with all the lap trucks in between us so we just put four tires on. I knew the No. 17 was a sitting duck there with four tires on our truck. It was a lot of fun. Just gotta thank everybody from Georgia Boot again, Chevrolet and everybody at KHI for all their hard work. There’s not a whole lot you can say about Hornaday. He’s a lot of fun to be around. He’s meant a lot to me and to race for championships three years in a row says a lot about the team. We’re going to work hard over the off season to make it better. Thank the fans for everything you guys do for us and we’ll keep racing hard.”
YOU GUYS WERE EXPECTED TO WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, TALK ABOUT HOW YOU WERE ABLE TO TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS AND WIN IT SO CONVINCINGLY.
“I think obviously the middle of the year was really good. I didn’t think we started that good. I think that the end of the year we didn’t run as good as we did in the middle of the year with the No. 33. I think there was a little bit of lost focus on that particular team with some of the things going on. The guy behind the wheel makes up for a lot of it. These guys do a great job in the shop but without Ron Hornaday none of us are racing for three championships and he’ll race for another one next year.”
YOU BUILT SOMETHING SPECIAL, CONGRATULATIONS ON ANOTHER ONE.
“Thank you guys. Thanks everybody from SPEED too and all you do for our sport.”
