NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SUPER WEEKEND AT THE BRICKYARD
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
July 29, 2012
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – WINNER
Al Unser Sr., your hero, Rick Mears, Michael Schumacher, Jeff Gordon and now Jimmie Johnson now four time winners at Indianapolis Motor Speedway what does that mean to you?
“Wow, man that victory lap to go around the track is something special. A big thank you to all the fans out there cheering it lets it really soak in. To come here and win is a huge honor, then to have four wins I’m at a loss for words. I can tell you this I’m so proud of my team. I’m so proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, Lowe’s, KOBALT Tools and Chevrolet. Chad Knaus gave me one heck of a race car today and pit road was awesome too. It was a total team effort and we put it on them today that was nice.”
I KNOW YOU APPRECIATE THE HISTORY OF THIS SPORT AS A KID YOUR HERO WAS RICK MEARS WHO WON HERE FOUR TIMES, YOU ALWAYS DREAMED OF RACING HERE IN AN INDY CAR MAYBE SOMEDAY WINNING THE INDY 500 AND NOW WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO JOIN RICK (MEARS) AS A FOUR TIME WINNER? “It’s wild and (Jeff) Gordon as well. I looked up to him and it’s really wild for me to get my start driving a Cup car for him. To tie both of those guys and what they’ve accomplished again I just hoped to come here and race. I had no idea this would turn out. I can remember back to watch the (Indianapolis) 500 with my grandfather and my dad sitting on the couch. My grandfather telling me stories about Indy and that he came here and was at the race track. I’m glad to have my own memories here for my family and also I must say I couldn’t do it without the support of my wife and daughter. It’s a total team effort on all fronts.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET, – FINISHED 4TH ON HIS RACE: “We were really excited about our car the first run. Happy with how it was driving. Don’t know how fast the leaders were, but I thought the car had excellent speed and drive-ability. We messed with the balance a little bit throughout the race. It wasn’t perfect at the end. I think we got the best we could with car, and the speed that we had. I’m happy with that. My teammate got the win (Jimmie Johnson). We had a good run. I would like to win here, but I’m going to have to wait until next year.”
ON THE CONSISTENCY THIS SEASON: “I’m proud of that because it says a lot about our body of work. All season of long we’ve been working hard and finishing well. That is symbolic of how well we’ve done. I’m proud of that. I have felt that way about our position in points all season long. We need to win more races. If we want to win the championship, we have to. I imagine we can win a couple races in Chase. I don’t know if finishing fourth or fifth is going to do it. We’ll just have to see. We’d like to step it up just a little bit more.”
ON HIS PATIENCE:
“I tried to remind myself to run smooth laps. It really didn’t do me much good at the end, but I was trying to get to Greg (Biffle), but I just could not do it. I just tried to be smart. Not cost myself any positions getting frustrated. I think we had a good enough car to keep it pretty calm.”
IT MUST FEEL GOOD TO GET YOUR BEST BRICKYARD FINISH:
“It does. We were looking forward to this race. Wanted to run well here. Want to win this race. Want to get a trophy here and go to Victory Lane. One of our teammates was able to do that so we are proud for the company. We’re happy with a finish. We want to win races; we want more. We are ready to start seeing a little bit more materialize for us. We’re really happy with what we are doing. Trying to keep our minds focused on what is working for us. Try to figure it out.”
DID YOU GUYS STEADILY IMPROVE TO FINISH WHERE YOU DID?
“That first run, we came from 20th to 10th. I thought the car was excellent. I didn’t know how fast the leaders were, but I thought my car was just awesome. We changed the balance a little bit throughout the race. It wasn’t perfect at the end, but we had track position and that mattered.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF JIMMIE WINNING THIS RACE, WHO HAD WON IT THREE OTHER TIMES? “Awesome. We would actually rather us two to fight for the championship at the end knowing one of us is going to get it for the company. If I could line that up right now, I would. That is how I’d have it.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET – FINISHED 5TH
ON HIS RACE:
“I don’t think we could have passed him (Jimmie Johnson). Those guys were definitely the class of the field today and had the track position. They’re a strong team. They deserve that win today. They did everything. Jimmie did his job on the track and the team did their job in the pits. And they had a good car.”
YOU CAME HERE TO WIN, BUT IS THERE ANY SATISFACTION IN FINISHING 5TH?
“I’m pretty disappointed really. It’s always nice to finish in the top five but at this point in the season, the way our season has gone with so many missed opportunities that we’ve had, I feel like it was a little bit of a missed opportunity today. We needed track position there at the end and we didn’t get it when it counted most and it cost us.”
TALK ABOUT THAT LAST PIT STOP. WAS THERE ANYTHING SPECIFICALLY THAT HAPPENED OR WAS IT JUST SLOW?
“I have no idea. I have to review it. The one thing about this pit road is that if you get a little bit behind, once you get up here, you’re way behind because they pull out in front of you and the next one pulls out in front of you and that’s what happened. We lost more than we should have but that wasn’t so bad. The worst thing was when you start on the outside lane; my car would just not go on that outside lane. And then they got all jumbled up and we lost even more spots. And then we had another caution on the outside lane again, so it just wasn’t our day.”
YOUR TEAMMATE DALE EARNHARDT JR. TOOK OVER THE POINT LEAD TODAY.
“I give them a lot of credit. It’s really awesome that they’re out front. They’ve been consistent and if they can keep that consistency up and maybe even take it up a notch when the Chase starts, they’re going to be a real threat for the championship. So, they’re running good. It’s good to see it. I’m happy to see it for Junior. I’m really happy to see it for (crew chief) Stevie (Letarte) and that whole team. They’ve put a lot of effort into it.”
WHERE DO YOU RANK YOUR CAR?
“I thought we were as good as or better than Jimmie (Johnson). We just never could get in front of him. That’s what it takes to win. You’ve got to get out front. Track position is very important here. We showed that we could run their pace, but we were always coming from behind.”
WHEN YOU FIRST MET JIMMIE JOHNSON, DID YOU THINK HE WOULD BE THIS GOOD?
“I knew he was special and talented. The type of equipment he was in was not the best equipment out there. It was good equipment, but not the best. I knew if you took a guy who had worked that hard and has raced that long with his talents, and put him with a good team, that he’d be able to do something special. I had no idea he was going to do what he has done, that’s way beyond any of our imagination, including his. He’s a great guy and a great driver. He has a great team. They deserve it.
YOU MADE UP A LOT OF SPOTS IN THE LAST HANDFUL OF LAPS. DO YOU THINK IF YOU HAD A RESTART A LITTLE CLOSER TO THE FRONT, THAT YOU WOULD HAVE AT LEAST FINISHED 2ND? “I think we were a second-place car really, all day. We could pass everybody but Jimmie. That clean are is really important. So, yeah I think we were good enough to be second, but we weren’t going to pass Jimmie under green flag conditions.”
THE FANS CHEERED REALLY LOUD FOR YOU AT THE END OF THE RACE. WERE YOU HAPPY WITH THE CAR AT THE END OF THE RACE?
“I happy with the car. Other than the first run, I was happy with the car all day. Or, maybe the second run. We were a little bit too tight. We freed it up and from that point on, I thought we had the car to beat. We just never could never quite get that track position and get close enough to that No. 48 to try to make a pass on him. But it was a good solid day for us. You know I love this place.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET – FINISHED 7TH ON HIS RACE: “We finally got good track position there towards the end and we were able to keep it. The Quicken Loans Chevrolet was good we just didn’t have quite the speed we needed to. We kind of knew that in all the practice sessions but we didn’t screw it up we actually made it a little bit better and we’ll go on.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/OFFICE DEPOT CHEVROLET – FINISHED 8TH
DID YOU HAVE ANY DISCUSSIONS WITH SOME OF THE DRIVERS YOU WERE CONCERNED ABOUT DURING THE RACE: “No, and I’m not going to either. There are guys who just forget about what we are supposed to be doing here. They are more worried about blocking the guys behind them than trying to pass the guys in front of them. You just race them how they race. We’ll just keep adapting to how they want to race.”
ON HIS RACE:
“We just didn’t start the weekend off good enough. I will say that I’m really proud of Steve Addington, Greg Zipadelli and all of our engineers and everybody who worked hard last night to make this car what it was today. It was a lot better, but this is where we should have unloaded it instead of trying to be good for the race. We just gotta be better off the truck.” (At its worst point what was it like to drive?): “We just were a little bit tight in the center of the corner, and that’s kind of what we fought all day. But yesterday we had problems with security in the right rear getting into the corner and being really loose off of it. We got that fixed. We just got too tight in the center of the corner. So I was proud of the gains they made. It was a very inconsistent car yesterday, and it was a very consistent car today.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 12TH
ON HIS RACE: “We started the race really good. I had a really fast car and came up through there. I got together with Joey Logano on pit road a little bit and that hurt my right-front fender and we never were fast the rest of the day.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET – FINISHED 13TH ON HIS RACE: “We were junk all weekend. No matter if we were turning left or going straight. That pretty much summed up today.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – FINISHED 21ST
ON HIS RACE:
“We started our day out in pretty bad shape. The handling was just off. The more laps and the more pit stops we did, the better the handling got. We just ran out of time there at the end and couldn’t get in position to make a run to the front.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER CHEVROLET – FINISHED 22ND ON HIS RACE:
We had a tough time chasing the balance on our car today. We went from one extreme to the other. The guys on this Bass Pro Shops team did a great job thrashing in the pits to get us better, just wish we could have had another pit stop to get us fixed up a little better in the closing laps.”
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