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[/media-credit]NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAPITAL CITY 400 PRESENTED BY VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
APRIL 28, 2012
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2nd WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU COULD HAVE DONE WITH THE NO. 18 OF KYLE BUSCH AT THE END? “No, we had some brake problems all race long. I had a great re-start and I ran really great for one lap and the pedal went back to the floor. I just had to pump it up all the way down the straightaway and I didn’t have any front brakes getting into the corner so I couldn’t get in real hard. It would just get loose locking the rears up. So even with the brakes working, I think the No. 18 was just a little bit better than us all night. But I want to thank National Guard and Diet Mountain Dew and my team; they had great stops and we gained a lot of spots on pit road. And we had a great race car. All the people at Hendricks; they do a great job, man. It’s just been fun this year.”
ON HIS RACE: “We out-ran a couple of guys there that were faster than us all night. Just got lucky on that restart being on the inside. We had some brake problems all night long. Kind of tried to overcome them best we could. We were a top, maybe a fifth place car. I’m really happy to gain a couple of spots there at the end with that caution and get some more points.”
ON HOW WILD THE RESTARTS ARE:
“You want to try and win the race, but you got to take care of everybody around you. You just try to do the best you can to win the race and be smart doing it. Make it look good. I have to thank Diet Mountain Dew and National Guard and all of our supporters; Hendrick and all those people – they built a great race car. Our team did a good job on pit road. We’re just trying to click away some good runs. We want to win a race or two here and there. If we keep running up front, that will happen.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/OFFICE DEPOT CHEVROLET – FINISHED 3RD
WHEN YOU GO TO BED TONIGHT, DO YOU DREAM OF THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY?
“Well, when the caution is for a plastic (water) bottle on the backstretch, it’s hard to feel good about losing that one, I mean. And we gave it away on pit road. So we did everything we could to throw it away; it got taken away from us. That’s the best car I’ve had a Richmond in a long time. So I’m really proud of that and (crew chief) Steve Addington and I’m proud of our guys. But we’ve got some work to do on pit stops right now. I don’t know what their malfunction was but I’m pretty ticked off about it tonight.”
CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT FINAL RESTART? “We got…we lost it on a plastic bottle on the backstretch. For a caution for a plastic bottle, so you tell me how you’d feel.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 5TH
HOW WAS YOUR RACE?
“We were just trying to get forward drive throughout the race and keep it turning in the center that was the hard part. It is always the tough at Richmond. We had a pretty good Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. It was just all about getting off pit road third there with Junior (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.). He barely beat me off and he ran second, so they had a good night. I think all the Hendrick cars were pretty good tonight.”
ON HAVING A FINISH THAT REFLECTS HOW WELL HE IS RUNNING:
“We’re definitely trying to run top-10, top-five; do the best we can. Once we get things figured out hopefully we can get a couple of wins. Right now the guys are doing a good job. We had good pit stops tonight. It was a pretty solid race for us. We made gains throughout so it was good.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET – FINISHED 6TH
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE PIT STOP PENALTY? “I think a wheel got away or something on the pit stops. Equipment leaving the pit box required us to go to the tail end of the lead lap. We had a couple of little mistakes like that today unfortunately. We had a really fast race car. I wish they would give us ‘fastest’ points because I would have got a bunch tonight. I think we were pretty equal with the leaders, the No. 18 and No. 14. We could have run third, we could have won the race. A great solid performance, we have been junk here the last two or three times. To come here and have a great night is very important for us.”
HOW MUCH OF A SET BACK WAS THAT PENALTY? HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO GET BACK UP INTO THE TOP-10? “It’s frustrating but if you race in this sport long enough you get challenged. Even when a race is going well, I’ve learned to not expect for it to continue to go well. Things happen and that is what the driver and the team need to be ready for. To capitalize on those moments and make the most of those moments, we did a decent job tonight got back to sixth.”
WITH ALL THESE GREEN FLAG LAPS RUN IS THAT SOMETHING THAT YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE OF? “It doesn’t bother me. Inside the race car you really have to manage your equipment and take care of your stuff. From the driver’s stand point I think it’s a lot of fun. There was a lot of hard racing. I know there weren’t the cautions; but a lot of really tough racing, a lot of smart racing. You see guys go a little harder at the beginning, use their stuff up, fall back. You just had to manage your tires and be really smart with things and your brakes.”
WELL YOU BROUGHT IT HOME IN 6TH PLACE, BUT A MISTAKE ON PIT ROAD MAY HAVE COST YOU A WIN TONIGHT
“Yeah, maybe. We had a couple of little instances there. But stuff happens. It’s racing. Unfortunately we had a tire get away from us and had to serve that penalty and go to the back. But the good news is we had a very fast race car. I guess last fall we were decent here; but this track has been real hit or miss. To have a car that strong and to pass that many cars all night long, I’m proud of the effort. I’m very thankful this Lowe’s car was that strong. I certainly wish we didn’t have that mistake, but when you’re in this deal long enough mistakes happen; and I just hate it when it lands on your shoulders. I don’t want to beat anybody up.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – FINISHED 12TH
TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN TONIGHT: “I’m really happy with how we raced tonight. The Target Chevy was fast and ‘Shine’ made some great calls on pit road to get the car handling right. I’m very proud of the team. We’re definitely heading in the right direction with this program.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 MENARDS/NIBCO CHEVROLET – FINISHED 13TH
HOW PLEASED WITH YOU ARE YOUR PERFORMANCE IN TONIGHT’S RACE AFTER HAVING TO START IN A BACK-UP CAR AFTER THE PROBLEMS YOU HAD IN PRACTICE? “Like Sluggar (Labbe, crew chief) said it’s a character builder. Everything that could go wrong went wrong yesterday. We had a really fast car and wrecked it. We didn’t have much time with the back-up car and qualified really terrible. Grant (Hutchins, team engineer), Sluggar (Labbe, crew chief) all the guys got together last night and came up with some changes to do to the car overnight and this morning and it worked. This is the second best car I’ve ever had here. The first we wrecked on Friday. Thirteenth isn’t something to write home about, but after the weekend that we had, it is a good finish.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET – FINISHED 14TH
AFTER STARTING DEEP IN THE FIELD, YOU COME AWAY WITH A SOLID FINISH, HOW WAS YOUR RACE? “We had to overcome a bad qualifying effort to make up some ground today, but our McDonald’s team worked hard to make solid adjustments on our car. We are glad to have another top-15 finish.”
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