NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
LENOX INDUSTRIAL TOOLS 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
JULY 15, 2011
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 U.S. ARMY CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER
“Well, it was really good. The car felt really good. It wasn’t a perfect, perfect lap, but the car has a lot of speed. And I’m just really proud of the U.S. Army Chevrolet guys and Stewart-Haas Racing and hopefully if Clint (Bowyer) doesn’t get a good lap, we can be on the front row here, which would be really cool. But we’ll see. We’ve got our fingers crossed.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2ND:
ON STEWART-HAAS RACING SWEEPING THE FRONT ROW:
“It’s awesome. We have a great group of guys at SHR. We’ve got great engines and great chassis from Henricks and I’m just really proud of our organization. We’ve been fighting hard here and we’re in the middle of making some changes internally and it’s definitely not an easy time for us at the shop. But we’ve got a group of guys there that are racers and they don’t care how bad it gets. They don’t care how much of a struggle it is. They keep focused and keep working. This is for all of our guys at the fab shop and prep shop and the job that they do to get us here. Plus, I’ve got a pretty good driver over there (Ryan Newman, pole winner); he’s gotten two poles in two nights here. So he’s doing a pretty good job.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 8TH
ON HIS LAP
“It was good. We had a really good practice. Our Target Chevy is pretty competitive. And in qualifying, it got really loose on the second lap; it was the fastest lap, but I got really loose out of (Turn) 4 and lost a ton of time there. But we have a good race car so I’m pretty positive.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 25TH
“We qualified right about where we practiced today. We worked a lot on race set up this afternoon before qualifying so there really wasn’t any surprise because the track temperatures stayed pretty consistent with earlier in the day. We have a few things that we want to try tomorrow during our two practice sessions, so hopefully we will have our Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet ready to be competitive on Sunday.”
MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 24TH
TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN. “Pretty good, pretty good second lap there. Work in progress and it was pretty good.”
YOU’VE BEEN AROUND THIS TRACK A FEW TIMES, ANYTHING DIFFERENT? “Nah, it’s the same old thing as it is every week. Trying to make the car go through the corners faster than everybody else. That’s the challenge.”
IT’S SUPER HOT HERE THIS WEEKEND, USUALLY NOT THIS HOT, DOES THAT CHANGE ANYTHING? “No, it’s all good.”
ANYTHING YOU’VE NOTICED ABOUT THE NEW TIRE? “It seems like it really hooks up a lot better than the tire we’ve had in the past. That’s well for racing but we’ll have to still wait and see but certainly seems like a great addition, it should race quite a bit better than what we’ve had for restarts and all.”
HOW ABOUT THE CHALLENGES OF THIS TRACK AND HOW SCRAPY IT GETS, IT NARROWS AND THAT SORT OF THING? “It’s a tough race track especially with the multi-angle banking, crossing those it always has been. It’s kind of what it is.”
DO YOU LIKE RACING IT? “No, not really.”
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 6TH:
WHAT ABOUT THAT LAP, NOT BAD YOU CAN USE SOME GOOD STUFF HAPPENING. “Yeah we need some good stuff. It’s been a hard year but everybody is still working hard, everybody is really focused. We’ve had a good weekend, I mean its only one day but it’s been a good weekend. Every time we’ve been on the track the car is running good. We’ve made some changes to the car that have made it better. If we can qualify in the top 10 I’ll be happy with that, but we need a good weekend.”
WHAT ABOUT THIS RACE TRACK AND THIS RACE? “It’s always a crazy race. These restarts are really, really tough here. This track is really slick on restarts and that’s our big deal. It’s really hard to have your car good late in a run and also early in a run but you have to be able to do both here.”
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