NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SAVE MART 350
INFINEON RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 24, 2011
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Infineon Raceway and discussed racing at Infineon, what are the toughest corners at Infineon and what his strategy coming into Sunday’s race is. Full transcript.
TALK A LITTLE ABOUT COMING TO INFINEON RACEWAY WITH THE ROAD COURSE: “I always look forward to it. I really enjoy hustling the race cars. Just working on being smooth and being fast all at the same time doing the whole left and right thing. Happy after Michigan to come off a good finish and gain a couple of spots in the points even though they were narrow gaps. To move forward and have a nice top-10 finish was something we needed to replicate from Pocono. We did that so just looking forward to the race here and getting a good qualifying effort in.”
IF THERE WAS ONE CORNER THAT YOU COULD SHAVE A 10TH OF A SECOND OFF AND THAT LAP WOULD BE PERFECT, WHAT CORNER WOULD THAT BE? “The two toughest corners I think from our standpoint with our cars is seven and 11. I think seven is a little tougher than 11 but you can make a little more happen in turn 11 as far as passing. So seven I think is the most challenging corner for us here with our cars. The hard right, switching back to the left and getting the power down. That’s where you can really make or break a lot of time mostly because of the lack of speed there.”
INFINEON HAS LOTS OF CRASHES, SPINS AND PLENTY OF BUMPING AND GRINDING, WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY GOING IN AND IS QUALIFYING THE KEY? “Qualifying is no different than the race, keeping it on the race track. Clipping off that one really good lap and getting yourself a good starting spot which is very, very important here and also the pit selection even though you only pit twice, it’s important to get everything you can because it’s a fairly long pit road. Just being smooth and hitting your marks and having a good car and having something there at the end. It’s real easy to get frustrated here and use your race car up. Then you look at the end of the race and you’re like running 15th and that guy running 14th ends up finishing sixth and you’re like how did that happen. Well he was just a little more patient than you were. So that’s one of the things I always remember here.”
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