NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 8, 2012
THE FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400 WAS RED-FLAGGED ON LAP 152 DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER. TEAM CHEVY DRIVER COMMENTS:
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET HOW IS YOUR CAR? “It’s been a handful. We are working on it. We will just keep going until the race is over and get everything we can out of it. We missed it. It’s unfortunate, but a lot of racing left to go.”
WHERE DO YOU NEED IT TO BE BETTER RIGHT NOW? “(laughs) On that track out there. We just missed it. It happens.”
“So optimistic with the way practice went. Everything we go through with our data with the engineers to get the setup right, we knew we were going to be probably a little bit loose. Trying to make sure we got the middle turning good. We’re just real, real loose off the corner. Not much drive off. We made a bunch of adjustments, and we’ve had to give up a lot of track position. But, we are still optimistic. A lot of laps to go. Certainly not to go down without a fight on this thing. We’ll just if this last adjustment that we made, which was pretty big one, if it goes in the right direction”
WE REPORTED THAT ONE OF THE GUYS CUT THE CHAIN ON THE SWAY BAR, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? “When you are in the position that we are in, we have to get up there and try to win this race, and you are this far off, you don’t make small changes. That’s not going to get us where we need. So, we’re just looking at all the data. Looking at our teammates and everything else. We decided we wanted to disconnect the rear bar, and so they cut the chain on that. That is the easiest way to do it. We’re hoping help that really helps our drive off. I mean I was spinning the tires at the start/finish line and we wore the rear tires off on that last run. So we’re just hoping that will connect the car to the race track a little better even though it might make us a little tighter in the center. We’ll see what happens.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: ON HIS RACE: “Our car started out really good when the track was green. Then we got really loose the second run. So this will probably help us temporarily, but the car definitely freed up.”
HOW AWARE ARE YOU OF THE GUYS BATTLING FOR THE CHASE? “I think you are one of the guys get in on the outside, you feel like everybody is paying attention to you. When you are guys on the outside, and you’re really not, I think those guys have earned the respect to get raced a little differently tonight. They put themselves in that position, so I think you give them a little bit more room.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET
HOW DO YOU COMPARE THE CARS?
“It looks like the top four cars are pretty equal for about 20 or 30 laps. And then I think the No. 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.; I know we started to fall off and then the No. 15 (Clint Bowyer) feel off some but seemed to kind of hang on and we fell off more. But it looked like the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin) and the No. 88 (Earnhardt Jr.) are pretty even. We’ve got to get a little bit better to hang on with those guys.”
HOW ABOUT HANDLING CHARACTERISTICS ON THE LOWE’S CHEVY?
“It’s so tough here because in entry it loosens up and on the exit, the forward drive goes away so fast that you try to tighten your car up to make it comfortable in those areas and you kill the center of the turn. So I don’t dare ask them to tighten me up because I don’t want to hurt the center but I need something to get the drive up off the corner. So, we’re slipping’ and sliding and lot out there.”
ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT OUR CHANCES OF GETTING THIS RACE IN TONIGHT? “I don’t know. I think we have gotten pretty far already. I was shocked to see us get this far. I certainly hope so. I hate it for the fans watching it at home on television and also in the stands. Everybody wants to get this race in to know whose going to be in the Chase and head on to Chicago. Our Lowe’s Chevy is running good. We’ve had a good night so far and whenever we go back racing I think we will be in good shape.”
WHAT’S THE BEST THING YOUR CAR IS DOING TONIGHT HANDLING WISE? “Right now my strength is really on the short run. The longer the run goes I start to fade some and loose rear grip. The No. 5, we were just joking before you walked up, the No. 5 has the long run car. He comes on at the end. I think (Dale) Junior is real strong early. I feel relatively strong early and then the No. 5 car comes on hard at the end.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET: IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR CAR HAS GOTTEN MUCH BETTER SINCE YESTERDAY: “It is kind of falling in line from the spring race here. It takes us about 30 laps to get going; then we start running the leaders down. I wasn’t looking for this rain. The fans don’t deserve this tonight. Appreciate them all hanging in there. We’ll get this thing in for you.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR. NO. 88 DIET MOUNTAIN DEW/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET: ON HIS RACE SO FAR: “Denny’s (Hamlin) is a little bit better on forward bite, and a little tighter in. He can arc in there pretty late. Just watching his car just trying to figure out how I can improve mine. We’ve got some ideas. He’s been great all weekend, so we kind of knew I think he had the car to beat in practice yesterday. We’re real happy though that we are running well. I’m sure there will be some other guys that can get up through there and challenge us and challenge Denny for sure. It’s a long ways to go. We are just trying to stick with it.”
HOW ABOUT THE HANDLING ON YOUR RACE CAR, HOW IS IT? “It’s really loose. Real loose in, and real lose off. I took the lead and Denny came by me, then we passed him back. I was just trying to save the rear tires, he had a little bit better car. I just got behind there, just trying to keep the rear tires under me on the long run.”
YOU SEEM TO BE HAVING A PRETTY GOOD NIGHT SO FAR: “Well we have had track position all night I don’t really know who is back there that could come up and make a race of it. We have just had good track position. We have been able to maintain it. The No. 11 car is super strong. He has been strong all weekend so we kind of knew that, but we can get better.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE A LITTLE BIT OF THE ‘POSITIVE’ CONDITION IN THE RACE CAR AS IT IS TURNING. IS THAT TOO LOOSE FOR YOU? “The front is real positive like we have a lot of camber in the right front, a little too much camber or something. I really hate to tighten the car up because it rolls the center so well. I’m not really going backwards because I’m loose. I kind of want to stay loose. I know it’s going to be tight at the end of the race if we can get it in.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 QUAKER STATE CHEVROLET: ON HOW IS RACE HAS BEEN SO FAR: “It seems to really not change a whole lot; it stays about the same. I think some of the guys might be getting looser or tighter throughout a run. I don’t take off that great, but we can go pretty good throughout a whole run. I was starting to be able to see some of those guys in front of me. We were up to fifth. I feel really good about our Quaker State Chevrolet if we can have some longer runs and get this in tonight, I think we have a pretty good car.”
I HEARD YOU HAD THE LONG RUN CAR IS THAT WHAT WE ARE SAYING SO YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO AT THE END OF THE RACE RIGHT? “Well as long as it’s a 100 lap run at the end. We fall back a little bit early with our Quaker State Chevrolet and then after probably 20 or 30 laps my car doesn’t really change. It’s not like it gets better or anything it just doesn’t get any worse than how I start. We can come back through there pretty good. I could see a lot of those guys. I started to see them so that means your catching them. I feel like we are in good shape. I hope we get to run a lot more tonight.”
REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET
HOW HAS YOUR CAR BEEN TONIGHT?
“We’ve been real loose in and tight in the middle with the Furniture Row Chevy. It’s kind of a common problem for Richmond. We need to take a pretty big swing at it but we can’t do that right now until we get back on the lead lap. We’ll get this thing back going. I think the track is looking decent right now. Hopefully we can get some more racing in.”
ON TODD BARRIER BECOMING HIS CREW CHIEF RECENTLY
“The change has been real good. We saw an immediate performance increase and that was the whole idea behind it and we’re happy to have Todd. He’s got a lot of experience and has been around for a long time. Right now our priority is getting this thing better for tonight and then outside of that, we’ve been making a lot of gains with our Furniture Row car.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET:
YOU STRUGGLED IN PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING, BUT HERE YOU ARE 150 LAPS INTO THE RACE AND YOU’RE IN THE TOP-10.
“That’s the thing… on the practice sheets it only shows the fastest lap, and the longest run we made was 11 laps. This car is really getting good about lap 25. It’s falling right in line with what we did in the spring (qualified 22nd, finished third). I would rather have a little speed on the front of a run, but it’s really good midway to the end of the run. So, we just need this rain to quit and we need to get long, long runs.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET HOW IS YOUR NIGHT SO FAR: “It hasn’t been bad. I think we are a little better than where we are right now. I think from the first run to the second run Gil (Martin, crew chief) made some great adjustments and got our car going a little bit better. We made some of those same adjustments for this run. Hopefully we can keep going in the right direction and put ourselves around whenever we get to race.”
YOU KNOW THE FEEL YOU NEED TO WIN HERE TO GET YOUR CAR HANDLING ARE YOU GETTING CLOSE TO GETTING THAT FEEL THAT YOU NEED TO WIN THIS RACE? “Well you’ve got to be able to turn the center decent and be able to put the gas pedal down and not blow the tires off in the first 15 or 20 laps. For us the first run we were really loose up off the corner. As we got to the second run we got that drive back up off the corner better well we still needed more. Hopefully we can keep putting some more drive in the car and be able to just get in that rhythm. If you can get in the rhythm and not spin the tires you can make progress.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE AS SIDEWAYS AS YOU WERE THERE? “Yeah, I was watching it; it was a little bit of luck. I have to thank (Greg) Biffle for not turning me around because he could have. I heard clear and I knew I had the line at one point and I think he closed up a little quicker than I expected. I’m happy to be back on the lead lap now with the Quicken Loans Chevrolet. We got a little bit behind there made some adjustments to the car we need the caution when we did. Obviously to get the lucky dog, but then to work on our race car. We will see what Mother Nature brings us for an opportunity next.”
MY NOTES SAID A LITTLE TOO TIGHT IN THE CENTER IS THAT WHAT THE BIGGEST ISSUE WAS? “You have no idea how tight I was in the center (laughs). It was really tight in the center then that made it really loose off. We made an adjustment actually that put us back to where we were in practice yesterday. We kind of anticipated the track being a good bit slicker. We will see if that helps.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO WORK WITH IF WE GET IT GOING HERE? “We do now we are back on the lead lap.”
WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE WITH YOU AND GREG BIFFLE? “I think Greg Biffle had a good run on me. I basically kind of closed the door him, and he turned me sideways a little bit. I have to thank him for not turning us around. He did back off, I see that on the video. We finally got back on the lead lap with the Quicken Loans Chevrolet, and we struggled with really tight in the center and getting loose off because of being tight in the center. I see a lot of other guys struggling too, so we’ll see. We made some adjustments here, so hopefully we get an opportunity to go back and try them. It would be really interesting to see how the competition would change if we did come back here tomorrow because of the weather.”
DO YOU EXPECT THE INTENSITY LEVEL TO PICK UP AS THE RACE GOES ON? “You have some guys that are a lap down that don’t want to be, and can be but shouldn’t be. We were lucky enough to get back on the lead lap with the Lucky Dog. I see Stewart is having a pretty good run there up to the front, and our cars are pretty similar. So, I think if we get our car right, we will have a
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET TALK ABOUT THE TURN AROUND THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS FOR RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING (RCR) AND WHERE YOUR CAR IS HEADED TONIGHT: “I think Kevin (Harvick) and I have the same issue. We are loose on entry, but we are too tight in the middle. So, we get hampered, our center of the corner speed isn’t what we need it to be and our exit speed isn’t great. But then as the run goes on we both get too loose. We are both struggling with a little bit of the same thing. I think this rain is going to change it again. We are going to have to rubber back up again. It will be interesting to see who gets good here and who can stay good for the rest of the race.”
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