NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
QUICKEN LOANS 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE
June 16, 2012
HARVICK LEADS TEAM CHEVY IN QUALIFYING AT MICHIGAN
BROOKLYN, Mich. – June 16, 2012 – Kevin Harvick led the way for Team Chevy at Michigan International Speedway qualifying second for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race, the Quicken Loans 400. He powered his No. 29 Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet around the 2.0-mile track with a speed of 202.037 mph in 35.637 seconds. Harvick was one of 19 drivers to break the 200 mph barrier. The run marks his fifth top-five start of 2012, and ties his best career start, at Michigan.
Team Chevy claimed five of the top-10 starting positions for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400. Second-fast for the bowtie brigade was Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 5 Famers Insurance Chevrolet who will start fourth. Ryan Newman in the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet will start fifth after a solid qualifying effort. Newman’s teammate and defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart posted the eighth quickest speed in the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevy. Jimmie Johnson drove his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevy to the 10th quickest time
Other Chevrolet qualifiers for Sunday’s race are Regan Smith, who starts 12th in his No. 78 Furniture Row Chevy, Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 17th in the No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew/The Dark Knight Rises/National Guard Chevrolet, Paul Menard in the No. 27 Menards/Duracell Chevrolet will start 18th and Jamie McMurray in the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet will start 20th. Juan Pablo Montoya placed his No. 42 Target Chevrolet in the 21st starting position while rookie Austin Dillon recorded a lap which placed him 22nd on the starting grid. Kurt Busch will begin Sunday’s race in his No. 51 Phoenix Construction Services Inc. Chevrolet from the 26th position, Jeff Gordon will pilot his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet from the 28th and Jeff Burton in the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet starts 33rd.
Marcos Ambrose (Ford) won the pole.
Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 takes the green flag at 1:00 p.m. ET and will air live on TNT.
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER FOLDS OF HONOR CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2ND
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
ON HIS LAP
“I didn’t think that was going to be a very good lap coming to the green, so we stopped and turned around and tried to get a better run at it. It worked out okay and obviously you wish now you could have been one better, but they’ve done a good job with qualifying this year. That was one of our goals going in, and everything has gone pretty well.”
DID YOU NOTICE MUCH OF AN ISSUE WITH THE TIRES AT ALL? GOODYEAR HAS MADE A CHANGE. WAS THAT AN ISSUE FOR YOU?
“We did have some issues in the first practice; the very first run. We kind of aborted and just kind of turned the scoreboard off and decided to worry about keeping the tires on the car and keeping them cool as we thought it was going to be a race of attrition at that particular point. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that was what they needed to do. With that option sitting in their bag, it was definitely probably a good choice. I think everybody was hoping as the weekend went on the race track would slow down a little bit and get some more rubber on it and get some more races on it. But after everything that happened at Indy, I’m proud that Goodyear and NASCAR have had back-up plans. This is the second time that we’ve had to use it. And there’s just almost an impossible task to repave a race track like this; come in and expect to be able to test early in the year and come back for the race and be able to be close. You can be close, but the speeds are going to be way higher when you get back and you just can’t predict how high they’re going to be.”
WE WERE TOLD EARLIER IN THE WEEKEND THAT THE SPEEDS WERE GOING TO GO DOWN AND THEY DIDN’T. AFTER YOU QUALIFIED, YOU SAID IT WAS GOING TO NOWHERE CLOSE TO THE POLE AND HERE YOU END UP BEING ONE-SHORT. IS THIS GOING TO BE A WEEKEND OF MORE UNKNOWNS?
“Yes, absolutely. It’s been one unknown after another. And that comes with repaves. You come to race tracks and just like last week when they dropped the green flag, everybody expected there to be a little bit more grip than what there was going into Turn 1. So you don’t really know what you’ve got in a pack, and you don’t really know where the race track is going to be. We’ll have a better idea of where we’re going to be at with the tires. Obviously we’ve got an hour to figure it out and make some of the guesses we need to make to get our car right. We’re tight on the amount of laps that we can practice in this practice from the engine department, which I think everybody is kind of in the same boat, but you do the best with what you can and see what we need to do tonight and hopefully make the right decisions.”
THIS TIRE IS THE ONE THEY USED AT CHARLOTTE IN ’06-’07. A LOT OF DRIVERS DIDN’T LIKE THAT TIRE AND SAID IT MADE THE CARS TOUGH TO HANDLE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT EXPERIENCE?
SECONDLY, EVERYBODY GOT ENAMORED WITH THE HIGH SPEEDS EARLIER IN THE WEEK. WITH THAT GOING AWAY, DOES THAT TEMPER SOME OF THE EXCITEMENT ABOUT SUNDAY’S RACE?
“It’s not going to go away much. I think you’re looking at probably three-quarters of a second is probably time-wise, where it’s going to go away. So it’s still going to be really fast. It doesn’t matter what we like at this particular point. It’s really all about putting on a good show and keeping the tires on the car and making sure that the race is good. We’ll adapt as drivers and teams and do the best that we can and go as fast as we can on that particular tire. It doesn’t matter what we like at this point, it’s just a matter of keeping the tires on the car.
“This isn’t Charlotte. There are a lot of options. The groove is already from the bottom to the second lane of asphalt, so you’ve already got options. When we went to Charlotte the first time, you were pinned on the bottom and you’ve got a lot more load at Charlotte on the tires than you do here, too.”
WOULD IT SURPRISE YOU AFTER ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID, THAT COMING OUT OF THE TURNS IF YOU GUYS DID 206 -208 MPH?
“I think out max speed, I don’t even know what it was. It was probably 210 or 212 in qualifying at the end of the straights. But I’d say it’s still going to be max 205-206 mph with the new tire. It won’t be average. It will be in the 190’s mph averages.”
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