NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA 500 QUALIFYING
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER NOTES & QUOTES
FEBRUARY 15, 2015
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS:
ON QUALIFYING:
“I don’t know how I screwed that up because everybody else I was drafting with is in the Top 10. I took and didn’t get through the gears good enough or something and he (No. 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.) just pulled me and I lost the draft. So, I knew by the time I got off Turn 2, after we left pit road, I knew I was screwed. I don’t like this qualifying format because it doesn’t ever work out to my advantage. I’m pretty mad at myself or whatever for losing Junior. But, we still have the Duels, so we’ll be fine. I think they need to go back to single-car qualifying. I think that’s about it; for Superspeedways anyway, because this is pathetic. They just tore up a ton of cars in the first qualifying (session) and that’s probably the most smoothest we’ve run for group qualifying I guess, but I don’t see how it’s exciting. I don’t think the drivers think it’s exciting. At least for this race; this race has always been made off of how hard your team works to get the pole. I think they should go back to single car qualifying at superspeedways.”
IS YOUR MIND ALREADY TURNING TO THURSDAY AND WHAT YOU’LL DO IN THE DUELS?
“Yeah, I’m going to have fun racing my way forward like we did last night. That’s fun that we get to have a heat race to line-up for the feature event. I just wish we could figure out a better way to qualify at superspeedways.”
RON HORNADAY, NO. 30 SMOKEY MOUNTAIN HERBAL SNUFF CHEVROLET SS –
“We got with a good group and everything, we just can’t suck up right now. Them guys will go back to work. I hate see that; the Smokey Mountain Herbal Chevrolet was decent, but it still won’t suck-up. We need somebody behind us to push us, but; right spot at the right time, you can get in there.”
ON THE FIVE-MINUTE SESSIONS
“It’s safer that way. If you would have seen the last time here, some guys were going 200 mph and other guys were going 80 mph. So this is a lot safer. It gives everybody five minutes. Everybody things that driving around here is pretty scary, but the hardest thing about it is sitting down there waiting to go and your foot is shaking on the gas pedal saying can I go, can I go? So you’re just waiting for that guy to go so you can get a draft off of him.”
WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY FOR HAVING TO RACE YOUR WAY IN?
“I don’t know. If we’ve got the car to do it, we’re going to get up there and race our way in. If not, I hate to say it, but you wait for the big one and then you sneak your way in. It takes a lot of money to come down here and we’re just going to see what we’ve got to do.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KROGER/IUSO CHEVROLET SS
ON QUALIFYING
“Honestly, I could have cared less how I qualified. I just didn’t want to wreck. So, I just kind of went along with the plan and that was it. Didn’t care. You know, if you get the pole, then that’s awesome. All I wanted was a Kroger Chevy that was in one piece so we could go toThursday and actually do this for real.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO BACK TO SINGLE CAR QUALIFYING AT PLATE TRACKS?
“Restrictor-plate qualifying; it’s going to be boring or dumb, no matter what, honestly. It’s the nature of it. It’s pretty cool for a race team to win the Daytona 500 pole. That’s prestigious and that’s important. But the rest of the speedway qualifying doesn’t really matter. You could just draw out of a hat for Sunday and that would be a lot easier.”
IS THIS A NERVE-WRACKING PROCESS FOR YOU GUYS IN THE CARS?
“It’s not nerve-wracking for us. We’re just out riding along. It’s nerve-wracking for the teams and all the guys that have to replace all the damaged race cars when it goes wrong. So, for me, you just ride along and hope for the best.”
ON THE FIVE MINUTE SESSIONS
“The fastest way is to be the guys at the back. That’s the fastest. That’s the way you’re going to have the best lap time and the best speed. Nobody wants to be that first car out there because you know you’re going to be the slowest. It’s a cat & mouse game for who can wait the longest and sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US GO BACK TO THE OLD FORMAT?
“Oh, that’s hard to really answer. I don’t care. I don’t care. It really doesn’t matter to me. Like I said I think for the Daytona 500 it should be single-car qualifying, which is what the Daytona 500 has always been about. For those teams and those guys that do the best job back at the fab shop and the body shop to go out there and earn the pole; the pole has always been to me, for the 500, about the guys at the shop. For us drivers, we don’t do anything out there except hold the wheel around for two laps at these places. So, I’d like to go back for that and the rest of it I’d like to pick out of a hat.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA/MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS
ON THE ENTIRE QUALIFYING SESSION AND MAKING IT TO THE FINAL ROUND
“Well, I don’t know of any of the drivers or the teams, really, like this format. I don’t know what it’s like to watch on TV as a fan. You just have to be really lucky. The No. 24 (Jeff Gordon) and the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson); it’s great for them. But the odds of making it back, you’ve got to be really luck in order to make that work. Every round is that way. So, I’m glad we were able to make it to the final round.”
ON THE DUELS THIS THURSDAY
“The Unlimited was like really hard racing. I hope the Duels aren’t that intense because every lap was like the last lap. But I think guys will be a little more tame because they are going to try to race that car on Sunday, but I don’t know. It’s at night and everybody gets excited at night. I do.”
TY DILLON, NO. 33 CHEERIOS CHEVROLET SS
HOW WAS IT OUT THERE?
“That was awesome. Our Cheerios Chevy SS has been fast all weekend; in practice and we just hit the groups right. We didn’t wait long enough, it didn’t seem like. I’m proud of the guys. To qualify eighth in our first Daytona 500 makes me happy and to beat (brother) Austin (Dillon) is even better.”
WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY FOR THE DUELS ON THURSDAY?
“We’re not totally locked-in yet but I think we’re really close. It’s going to be patience as much as I can as far as drafting and try to keep the car clean and go for it when it really counts.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 9TH
ON HIS RUN: “I just have to thank all my guys. The Dow Chevy was fast. We had a good spot to pull out of from pit road, so that helped too, but wish we could have had something for the pole. They were yelling in my ear that we weren’t going to make it around and those guys behind us barely did. I’m proud of my guys, they timed it right. Hendrick did so we will get them back. It’s cool to see my brother I think that should help him out for getting in the race right there for a top seed. I’m really happy with the day for RCR we’ve got one more car we need to get in the No. 62 and the No. 27 so we will be working hard on Thursday to do that.”
YOUR THOUGHTS ON GOING BACK TO SINGLE CAR QUALIFYING: “Yeah, it’s ain’t right. I think we should go back to single car myself. That is all I can say.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER/JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 29TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“We stuck to our plan and just did what we had to do to try to get everybody going with our draw it was just kind of the way that it worked out. It didn’t work out.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 12TH
HIS THOUGHTS ON QUALIFYING: “My thoughts are they need to do something different. I don’t know, it’s just doesn’t seem like it’s a good show. It’s not fun. It’s kind of chaos. I don’t know, seeing cars get tore up and other stuff. I’m not a fan of it, but hey it is what it is. It’s fun at every other race track it’s just plate tracks we need to figure something else out. With that being said 12th is okay. We took a little gamble there at the last round and we missed our time calculation by about four seconds on when we had to leave pit road to be the only one to get a time. Everybody ended up getting there on time. We screwed that up a little bit, but all in all everything is good.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS
What kind of pressure does this mean for Thursday?
KURT BUSCH: I’d like to talk about all the hard work and time and effort that goes into building a Sprint Cup car to qualify at the Daytona 500.
We’re a lot of smart people here. There’s drivers, owners, NASCAR. We got to find a better system. So much hard work goes into these cars, then you have this roulette wheel for qualifying. It doesn’t seem the proper system.
But, hey, it is what it is. We could be here smiling, getting belted up, going back out for the second round.
Just want to thank all my guys for all their work, all of our sponsors. We should just take the cars as we build them in the off‑season, unload, pass tech, then go qualify one car at a time, four‑lap average. That would really give a sense of pride to putting effort towards building a car to qualify for the Daytona 500 instead of shaking up bingo balls.
RYAN NEWMAN NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS
Describe how frustrating it is trying to work yourself in?
RYAN NEWMAN: I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating. The frustrating part is dealing with this whole system which makes no sense whatsoever. It’s hard to stand behind NASCAR when everybody I talk to up and down pit road doesn’t understand why we’re doing this.
Maybe I need to be sat down and educated a little bit.
Not what we wanted for our Caterpillar Chevrolet, no doubt, but we also avoided the next two crashes that come in qualifying, which should never occur.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports
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