NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 11, 2012
CONCORD, NC. – Oct. 11, 2012 – Ryan Newman posted the third fastest qualifying lap for Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in his No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet with a lap of 27.943 seconds, 193.251 mph. It marks his 17th top-10 start at Charlotte Motor Speedway; and his 18th in 31 races this season.
Greg Biffle (Ford) was the pole winner, Mark Martin (Toyota) qualified second, Clint Bowyer (Toyota) will start 4th and five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson qualified his No. 48 MyLowe’s Chevy fifth to round out the top five starting positions.
Team Chevy’s Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet and Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevy will start from the 10th and 11th positions, respectively. Jeff Gordon will start his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevy in the 13th spot, giving Team Chevy five of the top-13 starters on Saturday’s grid.
Making his first qualifying run in the No. 78 Furniture Row/Farm American Chevy, Kurt Busch will roll off 21st. Temporarily substituting for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is sitting out two races due to a concussion, Regan Smith drove the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevy to a 26th starting spot.
Defending champion Tony Stewart will start from the 32nd position in his No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet. In all, there will be 16 Team Chevys in the field for Saturday night’s race, which gets underway at 7:30 p.m. ET and will be aired live on ABC-TV.
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 3RD
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
YOU ARE ONE OF THE BEST QUALIFIERS IN THE BUSINESS RIGHT NOT AND CERTAINLY TURNED IN ANOTHER FAST LAP OUT THERE TONIGHT. PLEASE TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE CAR AND YOUR OUTLOOK FOR SATURDAY NIGHT.
“Just mostly I’m proud of my guys. We came from 15th and made the right adjustments on the race car to bring it up to third. The pace picked up a good bit. We picked up a half a second from what we practiced. But, it was a good run for our Quicken Loans Chevrolet and a good start for the race, obviously, but a good start to the weekend for us, which is important here at home.”
WHY WAS TONIGHT A TRACK RECORD NIGHT? ARE YOU MORALLY OPPOSED TO THE 50TH POLE OR ARE YOU JUST POSTPONING GETTING THAT?
“Well, I waited 70-some races for my next win and it was the 50th running of the Daytona 500, so I guess I’m waiting for something special I don’t know about yet (laughs). But it was so fast. The track was fast. I think a part of it is obviously we made adjustments to our race cars to make them better, but the track itself never really got hot. It hasn’t gotten hot for the last three or four days. And the track is so temperature-sensitive and I think when we were practicing today, the track was 91 degrees or something like that; which for asphalt is not very hot. So when it came time to cooling off, it didn’t have to cool off much to pick-up the grip versus some other times when it was cooling off from 120 (degrees) down to 85 (degrees). Tonight was like 91 to 71 or something like that.”
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 140 countries and selling more than 4 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature spirited performance, expressive design and high quality. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
