Robbie Loomis, Director of Competition for Richard Petty Motorsports,
held a Q&A session outside the No. 43 team hauler Saturday morning
before the start of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice. He addressed a
number of issues surrounding the team.
ROBBIE LOOMIS, Director of Competition, Richard Petty Motorsports –
“First of all, I want to thank Kasey. Kasey did a great job for us
and if you look at the banners in the shop, a lot of them are there
from Kasey and I really wish him well in his new deal. I think that
started a lot of the stir and speculation throughout the whole week,
but we’ve been working really hard and everyone is working hard. I
couldn’t be prouder of the job the guys have done with the Aric
Almirola seat change on Thursday at the last minute, and we’re just
looking forward to continuing into 2011 and finishing this year up
strong. I’ve heard a lot of things about our relationship with Roush
and Roush has been great to us. They’ve been a great sponsor, a great
provider and work for us in a lot of different ways to help us from
the engine shop side with Doug Yates has been amazing. If there’s
anything I have not felt good about is they had three cars make the
Chase and we didn’t. That’s up to us to get our program better, but I
think Robbie Reiser and the whole organization over there has always
done everything we’ve wanted. They work really hard to provide good
cars for us.”
IS THIS TEAM GOING TO FINISH THE SEASON? “I think it’s
our full intention to go forward. Like I said, most of the things
we’ve been working on throughout the week is, ‘What do we look like in
2011? What’s our driver lineup look like the rest of the year since
we lost Kasey?’ I told the guys yesterday, I sat back at lunch and
said, ‘Look, this is no different than running a race when you’re a
crew chief. I’ve been right here at Martinsville leading a race and
all of a sudden hit a pothole and you’ve got to figure out what to do
and how to react to it and move forward.’ That’s what we’re looking
forward to do with Richard Petty Motorsports. I think a lot of people
have their thoughts and prayers with Richard. He’s dealing with Lynda
and she’s going through some issues and Richard is with her. His
thoughts are with her. We might see Richard up here tomorrow. As you
guys know, he usually comes to Martinsville on Sunday, but right now
he’s spending a lot of time with Lynda.”
WHAT GIVES YOU CONFIDENCE
YOU CAN MOVE FORWARD THIS YEAR AND NEXT? “Like I said before, there’s
been a lot of speculation about a lot of things, there always has been
in this sport, but what gives me confidence is that we’ve always had
the ability to move forward. We do our best today. I was thinking
riding up the road this morning with Dale (Inman) and I said, ‘You
can’t look too far out in the future because today is all that we
really have,’ and many of you know that from being around this sport.”
ANY DECISION ON IF ARIC WILL REMAIN IN THE CAR PAST THIS WEEKEND?
“Most of the things we’ve been working on has been our models for 2011
and what our race teams look like moving forward. Aric is somebody we
were looking at to drive for us next year and the timing of it didn’t
work out and come together, so he got the deal with Dale Jr’s
Nationwide deal, which is a great opportunity for him and a strong
organization. For us, we had Marcos Ambrose come available and we’re
real excited about AJ and Marcos as we go into next season. All of
the drivers have really stepped up. I know AJ met with all the guys
yesterday and have really been team leaders. I called Marcos last
night and putting a good qualifying lap up there was encouraging for
that, too.”
HAVE THERE BEEN ANY CHANGES IN THE TEAM? “There hasn’t
been any change. Max Jones, our president, has been working really
hard with the Roush crowd and everybody on the plans for the future.
I think it’s been a collective effort. The only change we’ve really
had is Kasey and his spotter, Cole. I like Cole, Cole is a great
spotter for Kasey, those are the two guys that are gone.”
THE GILLETT’S STILL OWN THE TEAM? “Yes. The Gillett’s, they’ve been
through a lot obviously – everyone knows that. They’ve worked really
hard to be a four-car team last year and continue it this year, and
now we’ve got to look at what our teams are gonna look like going into
next year.”
YOU’LL BE IN TALLADEGA? “Yeah, we’ll be at Talladega. I hope we’re
all in Talladega. It’s our full intention to keep rolling right
along.”
IS IT TRUE THE KING IS TRYING TO GET A GROUP OF INVESTORS
TOGETHER AND GAIN MORE CONTROL OUT OF THE ORGANIZATION? “I don’t want
to speculate on anything like that. Like I said, there are a lot of
people working collectively together to make this thing more
successful as we go forward in the future. Like Richard said when he
came down on Thursday, he said, ‘Look guys, we’re in the same
business. We’re trying to provide winning race cars and give them to
AJ Allmendinger and Elliott Sadler and our drivers that are driving
the cars today, so the game hasn’t changed. It’s the same thing we’re
doing.’”
The Final Lap Weekly 