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[/media-credit]Pit Notes #19: Kasey Kahne Wins Coca-Cola 600
KASEY KAHNE (No. 5 Quaker State Chevrolet) – “It felt really good to put the entire race together and have speed all night long. The Quaker State Chevrolet was really fast, the adjustments were great. It feels good to get a win for Hendrick Motorsports. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a year and half. We put it all together tonight to get the win. It feels pretty good. (Any motivation from the Hendrick celebration on Tuesday, not having won a race yet?) Being there Tuesday night and listening to the stories of all the drivers who had won and learning about the history that lies at Hendrick Motorsports and realizing how much Linda and Rick had done for the sport and done for so many people was pretty awesome. (How did you turn your season around?) The biggest thing for myself was just to figure out the cars and figure out how they drove. It’s been a little bit different for me. We’ve had speed – even the last five-six races we’ve been in the Top 10, but we haven’t been near as fast as say Jimmie Johnson and those guys who were the winning races. So I just knew for myself, we had to step up. Our team is solid; our cars are solid. Mr. Hendrick gives us everything we need to run up front. It’s just tough. The competition is stout. It’s hard just to move through the field and pass cars, everybody’s so fast and the cars are so competitive. Tonight we were able to put one on them. We had a car that was near perfect for about the last 150-200 laps. I never really doubted myself. I was upset at some of the things that may have happened. I made a huge mistake at Phoenix and hit the wall there, but other than that we were solid, we were faster. It was just a matter of getting past those five weeks and moving on.”
KENNY FRANCIS (Crew chief, No. 5 Quaker State Chevrolet) – “To win here at Charlotte, our home track, in front of our teammates, and a lot of people here from the shops, a lot of effort was put in. And like we said at the beginning of the season, we wrecked a bunch of cars, and they had to work really hard to put stuff back together. And they always believed in us. It’s been amazing to get the support we have gotten from the guys that bolt our car together, the chassis shop, the engine shop and the guys that hand the bodies. Just everyone has had overwhelming support for us, and pulled for us, and never got down on us. It’s pretty cool.”
RICK HENDRICK (Owner, No. 5 Quaker State Chevrolet) – “I said this back on our media tour, that I think we have the best balance and we were excited about the year, the way (crew chief) Kenny (Francis) fit in. We knew how Kasey would run. I’ve seem Kasey drive. Knowing that we gave him the equipment, and when we ran so good everywhere we’ve been, and he got in the car and did the same thing. He and Jeff (Gordon) have just had rotten luck. I don’t think I have blown a motor at Martinsville in 20 years. And we’re sitting on the pole and running second, and we lost a motor. And in Vegas, on the last lap, we were third of fourth, and got put in the fence. At Daytona, we run up in the top 10 and got swept up in a wreck. I have been doing this long enough to know if you have speed and run up front, you are going to win races. But if you are running 20th and stretch gas mileage and you end up with a couple of 10th place finishes, you are not going to win running like that. I felt like all along if the luck would turn, these guys would win races. (Has been quite a couple of weeks for Hendrick Motorsports) I never thought we would get that 200th win, and you know, you run well but you can’t close the deal. And we had a bunch of second place finishes. It’s super competitive out here. Like one mistake in the pits, or missing an adjustment, if you have a problem, these guys race so hard, but it’s been an unbelievable week for us. I think we are showing the potential of the teams. I’m really looking forward to the second half of the year.”
DENNY HAMLIN (Second place, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota) – “This was the first 2012 car that (crew chief) Darian (Grubb) had his hand in building. It’s positive. We needed a little more of everything, a little more mechanical, a little more motor, a little more handling. I was driving with everything I had the first 20 laps after the last caution and driving with my hair on fire. We had a solid car during the day. We had a solid car. During the day when Kyle was leading us, the car wasn’t as good. We just hung around in eighth to tenth. We fought a really tight condition. I don’t know how many spring rubbers and all we adjusted on the car in the race at times. As the track cooled off, it freed up, and the car got better. We didn’t take tires when we stayed out there and Kasey (Kahne) got around us there, I knew I had to stay closer to him. We tried to short pit to minimize the distance on our last run. So, we wore our front tires off trying to get around him. A proud day for our FedEx team. The team was executing there today. We made good calls getting on and off pit road. We had a very, very solid day.”
KYLE BUSCH (Third place, No. 18 M&M’s Red-White-Blue Toyota) – “Felt like we were really good. Certain small adjustments can mean so much these days. The M&M’s guys did an awesome job. We had a really good race car. We just didn’t have quite enough there at the end.
On one of the pit stops during the night, we took two tires and got a little bit behind with our adjustment. It didn’t help the car too much with the two tires. We just got ourselves too separated there from the front guys. That last pit stop, the guys were on it. They put on a really good stop and got us all the way up to fourth. Overall, a strong night. It continues our run of strong finishes to solidify our spot. We’ll take this as a learning day. I wish Denny or myself could have gotten the win, but that’s good for Kasey (Kahne). Any time you go to new team, there is pressure to win. (Car better for day or night?) I felt like we were pretty consistent all the way through. If I had to better judge it, I would say the night after the day our car was pretty fast. We just didn’t have enough grip in it in the sunshine. We were coming up through there. We had ourselves in contention early enough in the race where we could just keep up with the track on what changes we needed to make.”
GREG BIFFLE (Fourth place, No. 16 Fastenal Ford) –“The speed picked up when the track cooled down, and our car was down a little harder on the nose. Two tires just kills our car too. Unfortunately it was one stop toward the end and we just couldn’t recover. Kasey got better as the night fell and we didn’t.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON (11th place, No. 48 Lowe’s Patriotic Chevrolet) – “We had a couple little mistakes on pit road tonight. It happens. Last week things couldn’t have gone any better, and then this week we had a few little issues.”
