Dustin Long

Asked by @Jordan_Bianchi about the mood around the 5 team, Kyle Larson says the team is extremely loose and has been "debating if a hot dog is a sandwich and if cereal is a soup." For the record, Larson says "a hot dog is not a sandwich and absolutely cereal is not a soup."

Joe Custer says of John Hunter Nemechek joining Haas Factory Team’s O’Reilly Series program: “We’re thrilled this dropped into our laps, because it’s not easy to find drivers of this caliber that come through.”

I asked O'Donnell about Fontana. Why does NASCAR keep holding onto the property if they aren't doing anything with it? "We keep holding on to it because it's an important market for us. It will be a real challenge if we could ever put a racetrack there, candidly. "But we also recognize Southern California is an important market for us. So I don't have any update beyond that. Just that it's a focus for us to make sure, in some capacity, we're there. ... We've got to make sure that we've got somewhere to race (in Southern California)."

Re: Next Gen car, Steve O'Donnell says "the facts say short track racing in comparison to metrics over the last few years is at its highest level possible from positivity from our fans. So you may have different metrics, but our metrics when we look at the Fan Council and everyone say we are trending in a very positive direction. Does that mean you know everything's great and we we've stopped doing anything? No, I think you've seen us make some significant changes. We'll continue to do that."

Steve O'Donnell indicates a Gen 8 car is not on the horizon. He defended the Next Gen and said tweaks are likely but not a new car. Because of the Next Gen, O'Donnell said, "You have many new owners that have come into the sport. You have an ownership landscape that is much healthier than it was before. You have Dodge entering the sport. You have other OEMs who are looking at it, and you have pretty good racing. "The facts, when you look at those compared to other sports, are pretty strong. So I think it's important to look at what changes can you tweak along the way. "But for us, we want a sustainable model for the industry, a Gen 8 or next gen car comes with all kinds of costs and all kinds of different things. "So I'm confident in our guys and the industry and the OEMs to tweak what we have where necessary, but also be pretty confident in our drivers going out there and having the ability to go win races and put on some pretty darn good competition."