NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
MAY 8, 2015
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 GREAT CLIPS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 2nd:
YOU ALMOST LOST IT A COUPLE TIMES IN PRACTICE, AND THAT STAYS WITH YOU BUT HOW DO YOU COME OUT HERE AND OVERCOME THAT TO PUT IT ON THE FRONT ROW?
“Well, I know we have a good team and we are making the right adjustments to get the car a little more on the race track. But in practice we were sliding around a little more than you want when you are running as much throttle as we are for qualifying runs. Either way we had a great Great Clips Chevrolet right there and kept picking up each run. Our last one was our best one, but it wasn’t enough. It was a really good lap and my best lap of the day so I feel good about that and what we are bringing tomorrow night. We had some good practices today and Keith Rodden (crew chief) and the guys are doing a really nice job and hopefully we can bring that again tomorrow night.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/VISSER PRECISION CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 4th
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT
“It was really good. The car has been good all day. I thought we had a shot at the pole there; we were first in the second round. I just couldn’t quite find the speed in the last round. So, the guys did a good job and we have a good starting spot for tomorrow night. This track has been good to me and hopefully we can do better than we’ve been doing. It’s been good.”
HOW IS THE CAR IN RACE TRIM?
“I felt like we were really good today. Of course we’re going to race at night, so that throws a little bit of a loop in the things. We’re going to have to guess right on the balance for tomorrow night’s racing under the lights, but all in all, the car has had good speed and it’s driven good. This is a brand new car for us and I feel like it’s another step as far as catching a few of those guys on speed. So, today was a good day and hopefully that will continue tomorrow.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 8TH:
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT
“We had an eventful four laps of qualifying this time around. Our Haas Automation Chevrolet was right on the brink of being eliminated in round two as the 12th-place guy. We had to make an extra lap, so we didn’t really get a chance to cool things down for that run. I don’t know, I think all in all, we survived and we learned a little bit about what we did in race trim and what that did to us in qualifying trim, so now we’ll balance that out. We always have to learn something from qualifying and bring it into the race, and I think we did that.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 9th:
YOU WALKED DOWN TO COMPARE YOUR CAR TO DALE JR’S, SO HOW WERE THEY?
“I was just asking him how fast it felt to him because its crazy the corner speeds that our cars have this year with running a little slower on the straightaways. The middle of the corner is way faster. And I was just going to see if he would lie to me. Because I don’t think you can run wide open, but it’s really close. And that was kind of where I was at. And I asked him, I said, ‘did you run wide-open?’ And he looked right at me and said, ‘I don’t know.’ (Laughs) So I said, ‘well, at least you were honest about it.’ Before we had the EFI we would just lie and say, ‘absolutely I was wide open. Wide open and no brake the whole time.’
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 19th
IN PRACTICE IT SEEMED LIKE THE CAR WAS NEVER WHERE YOU WANTED IT TO BE. WHAT WAS THE ISSUE HERE IN QUALIFYING?
“We didn’t have a bad first or second practice to be honest. We missed a little on the short run speed. We didn’t post a fast lap in the first practice but our race run stuff looked good, it really did at the end. We had some high hopes from being seventh in the final practice and then just there (in qualifying) we just didn’t have the speed. We just kind of lacked that short run speed like I mentioned. We have qualified much worse and finished pretty darn well, so directionally we are going the right way but we just wish we had the magic want to fix the short run speed. It would make our life so much easier starting up front and having a good pit stall pick. Middle of the pack……we will fire our way through there and grind it out like we always do and try and I am sure get a great finish out of it. But we know we need to get better on Fridays.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 28TH:
WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST ISSUE OUT THERE?
“I really don’t know. We were really close to wide-open right there and the car drove great. Just need some speed. It’s really frustrating because I feel like we have a really good race car. We were 14th in the second practice and 12th in the first practice and ran the same lap times every time we have been out. It’s just frustrating and the Dow Chevy guys are working on things to figure it out.”
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