Ryan, with Father’s Day approaching and the special relationship you have with you father, Greg, can you explain his role in your racing career, and a special gift you got for him in Michigan in 2004?
RN: My dad spots for me, so I get listen to him and he gets to listen to me talking about the race. He’s been around my racing career the entire time, and he knows how I typically drive and he knows a lot about racing, he’s been a fan his whole life. Having him as my spotter is definitely an advantage for me. Michigan was very special. I told him, “I’m only going to try to get you one thing today and that’s a win.” I didn’t get him a card or anything else, I just went out there and drove as hard as I could and we were fortunate enough to get a win and he said that was just what he wanted. Obviously, it was no small task.
Is the Sonoma race just another race on the Cup schedule, or is it something different that you look forward to?
RN: In all reality, it is another Cup race, but it’s different like you said. It’s the first time we get to run a road course and typically there’s a different type of cream that rises to the top there. I enjoy it. I enjoy hustling the racecar around the track, and Infineon’s a good road course. Personally, I enjoy Watkins Glen (N.Y.) a bit more, but I enjoy them both and I look forward to racing out there. It’s a big track position race, and fuel mileage has become a big part of the racing there, but it’s the same for everybody.
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I know you and Tony Stewart have mentioned that your jobs are a lot easier when you have the right people around you to make the Stewart-Haas team work, but are you still surprised how quickly things have come together?
RN: Well, there’s been a lot of positive energy and people breed that positive energy and our results help built that momentum, and the mentality people have when building race cars makes a big difference. When we started the season, those guys from Haas Racing had only one or two top-10s in their whole career, so there was a lot of drive to succeed and they’ve done a really good job. We’re still looking for that first win, and we’ve been close, but it’s just been a lot of fun to do what we’ve done as a team and an organization.
Does that type of positive energy feed off itself?
RN: Once you get the ball rolling, as you long as you keep doing what you’re doing, the ball will continue to roll faster and faster, it’s a nice slope downhill. It’s a really good feeling. We always talk about it, and there are only so many analogies to describe it. Being around the people when they’re happy and smiling and things are going right, that’s what really makes the business part of it a lot of fun.
I know there was a recent town hall meeting with NASCAR to discuss the direction of the sport. Are you concerned at all about the direction NASCAR is heading?
RN: I wouldn’t’ say it’s bothering me, and anything that continues to grow, there’s always a sense of concern. We’re trying to maintain our growth rate and our expansion as far as fans and things like that. If you look at the United States as a whole, anything that’s an extracurricular activity is down based on the economy and situations that we’re in. So, we’re just trying to do what we can as drivers, team owners and sponsors to deliver to the fans what they need and being more effective and efficient in that delivery. Obviously, in the end the final result is, are we servicing the fans the way we need to? I’m glad we sat down and had that meeting. It was the first time for me and a really good meeting, I thought.
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Do you feel that it’s only the economy that’s affecting NASCAR right now?
RN: Well, The economy drives a lot of things, so there are other things at work, but the economy has been driving a lot of the situations that many sports and many businesses are in right now.
NASCAR’s been on such a growth spurt, was it bound for a plateau?
RN: Everything is. Everything cycles. Whether it’s the weather or growth spurts within different sports. NASCAR’s done a really good job at controlling that growth spurt and capitalizing on it. The idea now is to continue to grow, and control the rate in respect to how we deliver it to the fans.
Do you think we’ll see more changes to the racing itself?
RN: I wouldn’t anticipate anything. I think you can have too much change, but I think this is a good change with the restarts. I look forward to it. I think it added a little extra excitement to racing a Pocono last weekend. We’ll see how it goes in respect to road courses and short tracks.
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