JIMMIE JOHNSON LEADS TEAM CHEVY IN QUALIFYING AT INDIANAPOLIS
EIGHT CHEVROLETS WILL START IN THE TOP-15 FOR THE SUPER WEEKEND AT THE BRICKYARD
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – July 28, 2012 – Jimmie Johnson will start in the sixth position in his quest for a fourth win in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis on Sunday in his No. 48 Kobalt Tools Chevrolet. Johnson scored wins in the Brickyard 400 in 2006, 2008, and 2009.
Paul Menard, No. 27 Menards/Nibco Chevrolet, will try and defend his 2011 win at Indy from the eighth place starting spot while Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet, will start ninth. Gordon holds the most wins of any driver in 18 previous Brickyard 400 events with victories in 1994, 1998, 2001, and 2004.
The No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet driven by Ryan Newman will start 11th, Juan Pablo Montoya will roll off in 12th position in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet, Kurt Busch in the No. 51 Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet starts 13th, Regan Smith will start 14th in the No. 78 Furniture Row/Farm American Chevrolet, and Kasey Kahne will start 15th in the No.5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet.
Denny Hamlin (Toyota) was the pole winner, Carl Edwards (Ford) was second, Joey Logano (Toyota) was third, Aric Almirola (Ford) was fourth and Greg Biffle (Ford) was fifth to round out the top five starting spots.
The green flag will wave on the Brickyard 400 on Sunday July 29th, 2012 at 1:00 PM EST on ESPN.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SUPER WEEKEND AT THE BRICKYARD
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
July 28, 2012
NOTE: RYAN NEWMAN AND TONY STEWART HELD THEIR MEDIA AVAILABILITY SESSIONS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THEIR QUALIFYING RUNS. TRANSCRIPTS ARE INCLUDED IN THE FOLLOWING QUALIFYING QUOTES:
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 11TH:
TALK US THROUGH YOUR QUALIFYING LAP. IS IT WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE?
“We were 10th after first practice, so I was hoping we could shake-up a little bit better than that, but we’re 8th right now with six or eight cars to go. It was a good effort for our Quicken Loans Chevrolet. This is a big weekend for us. Obviously, from a point standpoint it’s very critical, but we need to have a good finish. That’ll be a good starting spot. We need to have a better finishing spot.”
TONY STEWART WAS REALLY FRUSTRATED WITH HIS LAP. HE WAS REALLY TOUGH ON HIMSELF. DID YOU SEE HIS LAP
“This place is so sensitive. You’re doing twice the work on one lap as any other race track. There are four distinct corners and there is an entry, a middle and an exit for each one of them, so you’ve really got to get things right. If you miss one just a little bit; especially if you miss the even-numbered corners, two and four, they deal with the straightaways and there’s so much time to be e made or lost on a straightaway.”
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO MAKE THIS A RACE-WINNING CAR?
“We have to make our car a little bit better. The car was good in practice, but we’re lacking just a little bit of speed. I felt comfortable in the car, but we need just a little bit more speed to go with that.”
WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING FOR THE RACE ON SUNDAY?
“It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be track position. It’s a 2.5-mile track. It’s going to be fuel mileage at some point. And anything can happen. The fastest car doesn’t always win. We saw that with (Juan Pablo) Montoya; we saw a fuel mileage win last year (Paul Menard). It just all depends.”
WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE TONY STEWART IS BETTER IN RACES THAN HE IS AT QUALIFYING?
“It takes some more laps to be good. I don’t know (laughs). I don’t know. I think he’s got a good knack for feeling the race car. And the more opportunities you have at that, the better the opportunity to figure it out.”
IS IT A RUSH TO RACE THIS RACE TRACK?
“It’s such a challenge. When your car is right it gives you that rush. But if your car is not right, it can be twice as frustrating.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET INTO VICTORY LANE HERE?
“It’s a big race track. It’s flat. Track position is really important. Fuel mileage is important because of the size of it. It takes a little bit extra fuel to get back around for that last lap. But that’s racing. Anything can happen; anything can go. Still, it’s track position. That’s the biggest part of it. We’ll have a decent starting position with our Quicken Loans Chevrolet. It’s going to take some strategy. It’s going to take some luck. It’s going to take some good efforts to make it to the top.
DO YOU FEEL YOU GOT ENOUGH TRACK TIME IN WITH THE NEW WEEKEND SCHEDULE?
“We’ve been fortunate with the weather to get the track time with the schedule, and that’s good. Even if we didn’t, the strongest team is going to win.”
REGARDING DANICA PATRICK AND HER MOVE TO SPRINT CUP NEXT YEAR, WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE FOR HER TO JOIN THE MIX AT STEWART HAAS RACING?
“She’s got a definite talent. She’s got definite marketability. She’s done a good job in the Nationwide Series. The Cup Series is definitely going to be a challenge and she’s ready for that task. We’ll have fun and try to win some races together.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/OFFICE DEPOT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 28th WHAT ABOUT THAT QUALIFYING LAP? “Terrible.”
WHAT WAS TERRIBLE ABOUT IT? “I should have been on the gas on the exit and try and knock the fence down. Instead of being on the gas late exit I’m off the gas and that doesn’t work here.”
TALK ABOUT THE CONDITIONS AND WHAT IT IS DOING TO YOU GUYS: “The time of day is actually the right time of day to it. It’s pretty much the same for everybody all the way across as far as temperatures. It’s probably better than what we normally have as far as early Saturday morning qualifying. It’s a little bit of a challenge. This is the hottest part of the day that we ran in. Everybody is planning for it so it’s not that its treacherous or anything you just have to guess right.”
YOU KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN HERE, BUT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK WHAT DOES THAT ADD TO THAT CHALLENGE ON RACE DAY? “Normally if you are in the middle of the pack it’s because your car is not driving very good. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 12TH
YOU LOOKED PRETTY GOOD OUT THERE
“Yeah, we’ve got a vision as a Target team and everybody at Target and Chevrolet. We’ve been getting better. This car this year is probably one of our better cars but we’re still miles from where we need to be as a company. But we’re working hard. We’ve got a lot of good ideas and it’s just a process.”
THE SPEEDWAY IS A SPECIAL PLACE FOR YOU. OF ALL THE DIFFERENT CARS AND TIMES YOU’VE RACED HERE, WHAT DOES THIS PLACE MEAN TO YOU? “It’s pretty cool. I’ve been lucky enough to race just about anything with four wheels here and I’ve driven on two wheels as a passenger. It’s an amazing place with a lot of history and I’ve got to say I’m pretty lucky that I’ve been part of this history here, do you know what I mean? To say that I won the Indy 500 is a big deal and it’s awesome. Nobody can take that away.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 6TH
“We had a good slide off the exit there, but I have been happy with my race car since we unloaded. This Kobalt Tools Chevrolet is very fast and I think we are going to have a really good day tomorrow.
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20TH: ON HIS QUALIFYING:
“In practice the balance of the car was way off but we have a good race car though. That’s better than I thought we would qualify to be honest with you. The car is going to race good but for whatever reason in qualifying trim we didn’t get any speed out of it. “I was just real tight. The car didn’t drive good. We didn’t have good qualifying balance in practice, and didn’t have it in qualifying either. The car has good speed in race trim, which is fine. But, the car is not real comfortable in qualifying trim, and not fast. It is a bit frustrating, because we put a lot of effort into qualifying trim. We’re just not where we need to be this weekend. Just a little frustrating.”
ON WHAT HE EXPECTS FOR THE RACE: “I think it will race good. We had good speed in race trim. I think we’ll race good. I just hate even starting 20th, it is going to be hard. It is hard to pass. It gets harder and harder to pass every year. I am just a little bent out of shape right now, but, we’ll work hard in the race. The car has good speed. We will just have to do some things on pit road to pass some guys. Maybe we’ll get lucky and pass a few on the race track.”
IS STARTING 20TH GOING TO REALLY TEST YOUR PATIENCE? “No, not really. You don’t have any choice when you are starting 20th, but be patient about the guys around me, and in front of me. I just hope that we can…I think the car is capable of running in the top-five. I thought the way we had some good speeds in practice was promising. Real promising. We have been qualifying a little bit better, and that was our problem last year. I don’t just like qualifying bad. But, I guess that is good to be frustrated. We need to expect more out of ourselves that what we did today. Whether it’s practice, qualifying, whatever, I think we should do what we are capable of, and I think we fell a little short today.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 9TH: ON HIS QUALIFYING: “Not bad. Top-10. I’m happy with that. I thought it was going to be a little bit better than that. The way we practiced, I thought we had a little be more than speed than that. You never know. The sun comes out and the track temperature goes up. But, the car had good balance. Just a little bit too free on the exit of the corners, and I just couldn’t quite get the throttle down all the way as early as I wanted to. All-in-all I thought it was a pretty solid lap.”
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ON SUNDAY? “The same things. It is going to be tough to pass. All the challenges that Indianapolis brings all along with it, which I love. You’ve got four corners that are all different. You have to approach them differently. You have to communicate very well with the team to get the car balanced out and compromise it with those four corners. Our car has plenty of speed in it, so I am happy about that. Just have got to find that balance. I thought there was a couple of times in practice that we found it. Now we know we are starting ninth, we’ll tweak on that a little bit because we know the aerodynamics and being in traffic is going to change that.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 MENARDS/NIBCO CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED EIGHTH ON HIS LAP:
“It was decent. We did our mock run really early this morning. The track has lost a lot of grip. I kind of went in a little bit blind, but it was decent.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED SIXTH TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN OUT THERE TODAY: “It was a solid run for us. We were a little too loose to challenge for the pole, but a great lap. We have had a great day on track period. I feel really good about my KOBALT Tools Chevy for the race tomorrow. I would love to be a four-time winner here that’s the goal for tomorrow.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 15TH TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING LAP: “I was just tight it just didn’t turn very good. I thought it would turn a lot better than that from the adjustments we made from the end of practice and it just didn’t. I was just sitting there kind of waiting.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 51 HENDRICKCARS.COM CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 13th HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “I was real loose in (turn) one. These guys have worked so hard the crew that is over here on the Cup car is over on the Nationwide car. This car just showed up a couple of minutes before we had to qualify and it’s just because we have this small group pushing really hard. I just want to thank Hendrickcars.com for jumping on both of our cars. Today will be a great race in the Nationwide (series) and we will be better for tomorrow in this car. Just too loose, both of my runs today, just too loose in qualifying. You can’t chance it when you only have limited cars.”
REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/FARM AMERICAN CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 14th THIS HAS TO BE AN EMOTIONAL TIME FOR YOU NOT ONLY AT INDY, BUT THE AURORA COLORADO MEMORIAL ON THE CAR. TELL US ABOUT THE RUN: “The run was not what I was wanting it to be. The car was good, the car was there, I just missed my marks in turn four for some reason I couldn’t get to the bottom like I wanted to. I tried getting a little too much out of it and got tight. It is what it is. Hopefully, it will be in the top-15 somewhere. We will see how things shake out in a little bit with the Furniture Row Chevy and go on to tomorrow.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 16TH ON HIS LAP: “It was okay. We’ve had a really long day. We just haven’t had the speed and can’t find a really good balance on the car. Right at the end of Happy Hour we got pretty good balance and not very good speed and that is kind of where we are at right now. We will just have to wait and see. I don’t know I think this will come down to fuel mileage and the right track position so just do the best we can.”
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