HAND: A Big Dog Battling With Mustang

Running the NASCAR Cup race at the Chicago Street Course was not easy, but it was an experience I’ll never forget. It was awesome to drive through the field, win a stage, hold the lead and eventually finish fourth.

It was a big deal to me.

The Cup Series Mustang Dark Horse is quite different from our Mustang GT3. It has a lot more power, less downforce, and less assist. It’s a completely different style of driving with a sequential gearbox – a lever instead of paddle shifts.

I pride myself on figuring it out and adapting quickly, as I’ve driven every type of car except F1 in my career. It was all clicking.

Performances like that make you feel good as a driver and as a team. It was an empowering feeling, and it meant a lot for Ford Performance and Multimatic Motorsports to support me in this venture with NASCAR and RFK Racing. That speaks volumes.

Towards the end of the race when the track was drying out in Chicago, my crew chief asked if I wanted to finish it out on wet tires or pit for dry tires. If we had pitted, we would have gone back to like 25th position. At this point, we’re leading the race so I said, “No, let’s let the big dog eat.”

I was surprised to see social media posts of that audio from RFK Racing and NASCAR.

It took off from there, and it was surreal to see at Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsport Park). Ford had changed my name on the Mustang GT3 to “Big Dog,” and you’d be surprised by how many people in the paddock shouting, “Hey ‘Big Dog,’ nice race in Chicago!” The connection from NASCAR to IMSA was cool, and how much fun Ford had with it.

My crew said they were on the edge of their seats watching me, like my family was. The overwhelming support has meant a lot to me. You could feel the excitement, and it served as momentum we could carry into Mosport.

We continue to try new things to maximize our performance in qualifying, and we actually had a much better car than what it showed on the charts. We just got held up on our two good laps with competitors backing off in the final corner.

Both of my good laps were hampered, but we were still confident in how strong the car was heading into the race.

I made it clear from the start that I was in the mood to go forward and not to mess around. If anyone tried to defend against me, I made it known that I was going to be coming through one way or another.

We quickly passed a lot of cars at the beginning of the race, and we were right in the mix. We just missed the call on pitting before the yellow came out. We had to drive through cars again after that sequence, which we did well.

When it was all said and done, what stood out to me was that we were more “racey.” We didn’t run the fastest lap, but we passed quite a few cars, which is promising moving forward.

Mosport is a high-commitment track. You are dropping over a hill in fourth or fifth gear into Turn 1, 2, 4, 8. You really want a car you can hustle in, and this was one of the most comfortable cars I’ve driven this year. I think we can go back and truly contend next year with the data we have.

Our crew guys also did the fastest pit-stop all year of 14.8 seconds on tires. That’s a really fast pit-stop. These measurables will help us long-term.

Dirk (Müller) and I are continuing to work toward a car that suits us and the tracks ahead like Road America where we’ve won multiple times together. We call it our favorite racetrack in the world for that reason, and it’s truly the best lap in racing with the long straights and demanding drivability.

It’s a great time to be a Ford driver. Piloting a Mustang in two different series, while watching Mustang GT4 succeed globally and Cam Waters share that in Aussie Supercars, is impressive. It makes you feel proud to be a part of Ford Performance.

We have so much support from the top-down in such a large company. We all have a passion for racing – the Ford family, Jim Farley, the executives, and even those who work for Ford.

The Mustang footprint is large across the world, and everywhere I go, someone has some sort of close relationship to the brand.

It doesn’t matter the year or model, we’re giving so many fans of Ford and Mustang the opportunity to root for us around the world.