Paul Menard, driver of the No. 98 Menards Ford Fusion, is coming off a fifth-place run at Atlanta Motor Speedway – the best non-restrictor plate finish of his career – and sits ninth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings heading into Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Menard, who also stands ninth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, spoke about his early success.

PAUL MENARD – No. 98 Menards Ford Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON HOW THIS SEASON HAS STARTED? “It’s just an accumulation of a lot of hard work the guys put in over the off-season to get the cars better. Luckily, we’ve had four trouble-free races and had fast cars, so we’re sitting pretty good in points right now.”

THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF POTENTIAL DISTRACTIONS – FROM THE MERGER TO THE SHOP PHYSICALLY MOVING FROM STATESVILLE TO CONCORD, NC. – BUT NONE OF THAT HAS SEEMED TO BE A PROBLEM FOR THE ORGANIZATION AS A WHOLE. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO OVERCOME THAT? “It worked out a lot smoother than anybody really probably thought it would because with Yates being in Concord and then merging with RPM, everything moved to Statesville for a couple of months. We all moved back to Concord during Speedweeks, so it could have been a recipe for disaster but that didn’t happen because of all the hard work everyone did within the organization. It would have been very easy to get behind and not make the improvements we needed, but everybody stepped up and made the transition pretty seamless and, in the process, improved the cars.”

HAS ANYTHING CHANGED OVER THE LAST YEAR OR SO AS FAR AS HOW YOU DRIVE OR YOUR APPROACH TO THESE RACES? “No. It’s the same deal where I go out and the biggest thing is to just make sure you’re there at the end. That’s something I’ve always tried to do because you can’t score any points if you’re sitting on jack stands in the garage. You give-and-take a lot in the early stages and then do more taking at the end.”

WHAT ARE YOUR EMOTIONS PERSONALLY WITH YOUR SUCCESS THESE FIRST FOUR RACES? “I feel like we still have work to do and it’s not gonna get any easier. I don’t sit back and think about all that stuff. I realize that it’s a tough job and we’ve got to work hard to keep it up.”

THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO ARE PROBABLY SAYING THAT YOU CAN’T KEEP THIS UP AND WON’T STAY IN THE TOP 10. WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO TRY AND PROVE THOSE PEOPLE WRONG? “I don’t want to prove anybody wrong. I’ve got nothing to prove. I just want to go out and do the best job I can, along with the race team. Everybody who support us – from the team owner to the driver to the crew chief to the mechanics – they live and breathe racing and they’re competitive people. Nobody wants to give a half-hearted effort. Everybody wants to go as hard as they can and that’s what we’re doing.”

DO YOU FEEL THIS IS A BREAKOUT YEAR FOR YOU? “I haven’t thought about it, honestly. It’s just another year and we’re working hard to do the best we can.”

IS IT TOO SIMPLE TO LOOK AT THE PERFORMANCE AND SAY THAT SLUGGER LABBE BECOMING YOUR CREW CHIEF IS THE DIFFERENCE? “It’s obviously a team effort, but it starts with the chief and that’s Slugger. He gets the guys fired up and they rally around him. He utilizes the tools that he has and makes fast race cars.”

YOU, GREG BIFFLE AND KEVIN HARVICK ARE ALL IN THE TOP 10 IN BOTH CUP AND NATIONWIDE. DOES RUNNING NATIONWIDE FULL-TIME HELP YOU IN CUP? “The race on Saturday definitely translates to Sunday. Probably the hardest part about doing both is on Friday when you have to jump back and forth between both cars. You get out of your Nationwide car and then jump in your Cup car and go qualify. That’s the hardest part, but it all pays off on Saturday when you’re racing 200 or 300 miles on a race track you’re gonna see again the next day.”

BRISTOL AND MARTINSVILLE ARE COMING UP. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THOSE SHORT TRACKS? “I’m looking forward to it. We haven’t run a short track yet this year, so I’m really eager to see how the car unloads. If it’s anything like the previous four races, it’ll be fast off the truck and then all we have to do is fine-tune it. Since it’s the first short track race there will be a lot of unknowns, but I really enjoy Bristol. Martinsville is more of a survival race, but they’re two tracks I enjoy going to every year and racing.”

YOU MENTIONED THAT THE FIRST FOUR RACES HAVE BEEN INCIDENT-FREE FOR YOU. HOW DO YOU APPROACH THESE NEXT TWO SHORT TRACKS? “It’s really no different than Atlanta or even Daytona. Daytona is probably the most comparable because you run so close and are in such tight quarters that if anybody makes a mistake, it generally collects a couple people. You have to be aware of your surroundings and put yourself in smart positions and just try to survive.”

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Bristol isn’t just one of the most challenging tracks for drivers, who have to race around the half-mile bullring 500 times, it’s also a tough one for crew chiefs, who have to make split-second decisions and alter how they communicate with their man behind the wheel. Ford Racing recently spoke with Mike Shiplett and Donnie Wingo about the adjustments they’ll make this weekend.

MIKE SHIPLETT, Crew Chief – No. 43 Insignia/Best Buy Ford Fusion – HOW MUCH OF A CHALLENGE IS BRISTOL FROM A CAR SETUP STANDPOINT? “Bristol has changed quite a bit since they repaved it. It used to be one groove and you would have to hit somebody to get by them, but now there are basically three grooves you can run now. It is more or less getting the right balance of the car so you have a good solid entry and can get the car turned in the middle, and not be too loose up off the corner. Now with the banking you have a lot more options as the driver to run different lines. It is a little bit more challenging just getting the up-and-down movement of the car exactly right, so you get entry, middle and exit the same.”

DOES BRISTOL CREATE MORE DRASTIC ISSUES FOR THE CHASSIS? “No, it isn’t as violent as it was before. It isn’t like a mile-and-a-half where you keep the splitter as close to the ground as you can all the way around the racetrack. At Bristol your splitter will be up and down the straightaways and then fall into the corner and be sealed up through the middle. Just trying to find that balance is tough because you have a lot more movement. You are going more for mechanical grip than you are for aero. Aero is out the door at Bristol. It is all about mechanical grip and getting all four tires working together and pressing into the racetrack at the same time and coming up off the corner at the same time. Controlling your entry and exit so the whole car platform moves at the same time is what you are trying to control.”

IS IT TOUGHER TO CALL THE RACE AT A PLACE LIKE BRISTOL? “What we do a lot is communicate through the spotter. Depending on if you are on the frontstretch or backstretch you can only see half the track at a time. What we do is sit down with the driver and spotter before the race and go over a lot of what-if scenarios. Then I can talk to the spotter on another radio and if I have to tell AJ [Allmendinger] something I will relay it to the spotter and he will tell AJ in between clearing him in and out of traffic. If I start talking and something happens in another corner, I know we are going to be in that corner in eight seconds, so there is not enough time for me to get off the radio before he could drive right into a wreck.”

IS THERE ONE THING THAT IS A STICKING POINT AT BRISTOL? “The biggest thing is you can enter pit road in two different places. In a yellow, everyone enters off turn two. If you have to make a green flag pit stop you have to enter off of turn four. The driver, making 500 laps around that place, can get confused very easily with what corner they are in. Some of the best drivers in this business have come down the wrong pit road and lost the race at Bristol. It is easy to do.”

MANY DRIVERS SAY BRISTOL IS THEIR FAVORITE TRACK. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? “It’s their favorite track because you take the aero completely out of it, so it is all back in the drivers hands. At other tracks, we control how fast the driver can go with the balance of the car and with aero. At Bristol, it is all mechanical grip and how far the driver wants to push it and how sideways the driver wants to get going into the corners.”

DONNIE WINGO, Crew Chief – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – WHAT CHALLENGES DOES BRISTOL PRESENT FOR YOU? “Bristol is usually all about trying to avoid the wrecks. Bristol hasn’t really changed much over the years as far as setup goes. It is all about getting in the corners, because you have trouble getting loose in there all the time.”

WHAT SPECIFIC CHALLENGES AS A CREW CHIEF DO YOU FACE WITH THE SPEED AT BRISTOL? “We have to keep the car off the racetrack. Keep it from over-traveling and bottoming out. Those issues have always been at Bristol because you have so much banking and so much speed. Getting forward bite off the corner and keeping it on the racetrack are key.”

IS COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR DRIVER MORE OF A CHALLENGE THERE? “For sure. It is loud and everything is happening so fast. I usually try to let the spotter relay the messages. That way he can talk to him when nobody is around him.”

HAVE YOU EVER FOUND YOURSELF ON THE BOX AND IN AWE OF THE CROWD? “Yeah, before the race starts and you first walk in and the place is full of fans is just amazing. Over the years it has evolved to be one of the biggest races we have.”