NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 29, 2015
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/VISSER PRECISION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 6TH
YOU HAD ONE HECK OF A DAY:
“To say the least. That is what I was just telling him (one of his crew members) I can’t believe after losing the power steering the first run we finished sixth. It was not fun to drive for a little while there, but they did a great job getting fluid back in it and fixing the leak and everything. Just fought all day, just like we always do, fought, fought, fought.”
ON HIS TOP 10 STREAK:
“It is awesome. I can’t say enough about the team. Again to battle like we did today. We showed we never give up. We haven’t all year long. We haven’t given up on each other since I started here. It feels good to have another good run at one of my worst race tracks. Just can’t believe we were able to stay on the lead lap, fix the power steering and all that and drive back through there. It was a hell of an effort.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 TAXACT CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
HIS WAS YOUR FIRST TOP 10 THIS YEAR, AND FIRST TOP 10 WORKING WITH CREW CHIEF, DANIEL KNOST. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE SUCH A SOLID RUN?
“It feels good. I would say that we’ve had a couple of races this year that have, in general, been pretty decent. I think Atlanta could have been a pretty good finish if we wouldn’t have had some technical issues. But, it’s so much more fun here. It’s disaster to be off and struggling with the car and it’s really fun to have a good car. And we had both of them today. I don’t think I’ve really been in that situation before. And TaxAct is on the car for the first time as a full sponsor, but thanks to GoDaddy, too. This is the kind of stuff we need; a new group together, we need these ego boosts every now and again. So, it was fun racing and we have to do it more often.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER/JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 8TH
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST RUN WHERE YOU FELL BACK?
“I just got hung on the outside and couldn’t get back down. By the time I got down I was 10th or 11th. It still was a good day. Everybody did a good job, just lost track position at the wrong time.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
ON THE SPEEDING PENALTY, CAN YOU PUT THE DISAPPOINTMENT INTO WORDS?
“Oh, my gosh. I’m so disappointed in myself. I know I was pushing the limit. I didn’t think I had done anything different than I had all day long when I was behind other guys, so, we’ve got to look at that. I’m very, very disappointed. I felt like we finally got the car, got ourselves in a position to win that race. It was a struggle. We were really battling with tire wear and the car getting really loose with our AXALTA Chevrolet. I thought Denny (Hamlin) had the best car, but I thought with our track position there at the end, we had a shot at it. Oh my gosh, I’m so disappointed. I don’t even know what to say right now. Of course, then the car is the absolute best it had been all day when I drove up from the back (laughs).”
AND THEN, TALK ABOUT THE RESPECT AND TRUST BETWEEN YOU AND MATT KENSETH
“Oh, my gosh. He and I have been through so much over the years. I don’t know. That was like my ‘gift’, I guess for this year, my ‘going away gift’ (laughs). We were racing earlier and I let him go to the inside of me and he kind of body-slammed me. So on that restart, I was just pulling at straws. I really wanted the inside and said hey, ask Kenseth if he’ll let me…..this is the least he can do for body-slamming me. Somehow the message got across. So, that was way cool and it worked out pretty good for us.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 10TH
ON HIS RUN:
“We struggled in all the practices. I’m actually thrilled to finish 10th. It was a really long weekend. We didn’t qualify well. We really didn’t practice well, but we had really good pit stops. Matt (McCall, crew chief) did a nice job adjusting on the car all day long. They just did a really good job last night getting the car prepared for today. As frustrated as you are, you want to win, I’m pretty thrilled with 10th right now.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 11TH
ON HIS RACE:
“We just kind of had a car that would take off pretty good, but it would get real loose after about 20 laps, maybe 30 laps. We never got that out of it throughout the race. So we finished 11th which is about where we probably deserved to somewhere from eighth to 11th. It was just a decent day. I was hoping it was going to be better. We had a lot of speed the first 20, so I thought we were going to be much better, but just could never get the end of the run right.”
REGAN SMITH, INTERIM DRIVER, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 16TH
WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE SPIN?
“It was just a check-up, chain reaction deal. By the time it got back to me I hit the car in front of me and whoever was behind me hit me even harder. It is typical Martinsville. We saw it happening all day. Sometimes it’s such a big check-up that you can’t do anything about it. It was just a racing deal.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD A CAR THAT COULD HAVE GOTTEN TO THE TOP 10 HAD THINGS FALLEN YOUR WAY?
“Yeah, I look at the results and there were cars that we ran around that I thought we were as good, maybe a little better. We were definitely a better long run car. If we could have had a 70 lap run at the end of the race I would have felt better about things. Once I had to restart on the outside I struggled on the outside and never really got rolling. It was a good race car and for all things considered not having the seat in it as of 8:00 a.m. this morning it is not a bad day.”
TALK ABOUT A REALLY GOOD RUN SUBBING FOR KYLE LARSON:
“Yeah, the race car was fast. This is not one of my better race tracks. When they called on this I was like ‘man why does it got to be Martinsville?’ But you know it was fun to drive it all day long. Chris (Heroy) and the guys they worked hard with me and obviously no two drivers are alike so I was trying to do a few things a little different. We just dug all day.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 CHEERIOS CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined with engine issues on lap 330
WHAT PUT YOU IN THE GARAGE?
“Yeah, it is a motor issue. I think the same thing as the No. 47 (AJ Allmendinger). We just have to do a better job of going through our procedures at ECR (Earnhardt Childress Racing) right now. We have some power, but we are not finishing races.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY INDICATION SOMETHING WAS GOING BAD?
“I just started getting wicked loose and that was from the oil dropping on the right rear tire, and just had no grip because the oil was everywhere. I hate it because we were going to have a good day. We were up to 13th. We battled back; we had one bad set of tires. Got our lap back and battled back up through there and then there she went.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS – Involved in a multi-car accident on lap 228
YOU’VE HAD SOME PROBLEMS WITH THE SHIFTER. WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON THERE?
“A lot of guys I think are having some transmission or gear problems. We got some real bad vibration in the car 30 laps into the race and it just kept breaking the shifter. The vibration is so bad it breaks the shifter off. It breaks right off, right at the top of the transmission. It’s just swinging up there just like a tuning fork. We got another shifter on it, a different one finally. We didn’t know if that was going to hold up. They stopped down there in the corner. I didn’t know they were stopping. I don’t know why they stopped. Somebody got checked-up there and we didn’t see it, didn’t have time, whatever; and knocked the radiator out of it. It’s been a tough race. The car has been fast and we’ve been having fun out there; but we’re not going to be having too much fun the rest of the day.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
“Well guys got checked up into (Turn) 1 and we knocked the radiator out of our car. I didn’t have a chance at getting it stopped. Just good hard racing and we were running a little too tight getting into that corner. We had some vibrations with the drive train that were really bad and kept breaking the shifter off and had us back there in the back. The car was real fast though. I had a lot of fun driving it. I don’t know if it’s going to be too quick the rest of the day. But we will get out there run around and have some more fun. We don’t get to race next weekend so we will get all we can the rest of the day.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE OUT THERE ON THE TRACK? IS IT AS AGGRESSIVE AS IT LOOKS?
“Uh, yeah, it’s pretty aggressive, but I’m fine with that – short track racing, man. I was having a blast. I was happy our car was good. You can’t do anything about bad finishes like this you just have to learn from everything that happened to us today and come back here a little stronger next time. We will have better days and we have some good speed in our cars. We don’t need to be too worried. We don’t need to panic, just kind of get through the weekend and get back to the race track as soon as we can.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
“Just a lot of checking up getting into (Turn) 1, somebody must have got turned sideways, but they all stopped pretty hard getting into the corner. It happens here. We were in the back of it, couldn’t get slowed down and knocked the radiator out of it. It happens. You get back in the back there and get in that heavy traffic. It was good fun racing though. My car was really good except for we had a real bad vibration in the drive train that kept breaking the shifters off right on top of the transmission. It was vibrating real bad and that shifter is like a tuning fork and it just snaps it right on top of the transmission. So I can’t even – there is nothing there to use. We finally put a third shifter on it that was unlike anything else we have had in the car. I don’t know if that would have lasted the rest of the day, but the car was great. Just bad luck there being in the back.”
HOW DISAPPOINTED ARE YOU HAVING THIS HAPPEN AFTER WINNING IN THE FALL?
“I have had a lot of good cars here. You’ve got to be toward the front and out of trouble. We weren’t there we were in the back. And it’s high risk back there. It bit us today. I’m not going to second guess what we were doing. I feel like our team is strong. We won’t have any problem coming back.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined by engine issues on lap 177
WHAT PUT YOU GUYS IN THE GARAGE?
“Motor issues of some sort, I’m not sure what the exact problem is with the motor. We had a fast Bush’s Beans Chevy just trying to be patient. There were a lot of guys already starting to wreck out there, so I was just trying to keep the car clean for the first 400 laps. We needed to work on it a little bit to be up there with the top three or four guys, but I felt like the car was pretty strong. I noticed some smoke start rolling in the car and I could see it start out of the back of the car. I think when that was happening there had to be stuff starting to get on the tires and stuff. I just started losing speed and then by that point it was smoking so bad they black flagged me, which they probably should have. Nobody could see behind me. We are here (in the garage) now.”
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