NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COCA-COLA 600
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
MAY 24, 2015
DALE EARNHARDT, JR. LEADS FIVE TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS
TO TOP 10 FINISHES AT CHARLOTTE
CONCORD, NC – (May 24, 2015) – Dale Earnhardt, Jr., driver of the No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolets SS lead the Team Chevy effort at the Coca-Cola 600, round 12 of the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit at Charlotte Motor Speedway, with a third-place finish. It was Earnhardt, Jr.’s 12th top 10 finish in 31 races at his hometown track.
Martin Truex, Jr. led a race high 131 of 400 laps in his No. 78 Furniture Row/Visser Precision Chevrolet SS, but a late race pit stop for a splash of fuel related him to a fifth-place finish.
Perseverance was the key to Ryan Newman’s sixth place finish in the No. 31 Quicken Loans Chevy SS, as he overcame a pit road speeding penalty to earn his eighth top 10 finish of the season.
Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Budweiser/Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS and Kurt Busch, in the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevy SS finished ninth and 10th, respectively.
Carl Edwards (Toyota) was the race winner. Greg Biffle (Ford) was second and Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was fourth to round out the top five finishers.
The series moves to Dover International Speedway next Sunday May 31st.
RACE NOTES & QUOTES:
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – Finished 3rd:
THE LAST 10 LAPS YOU HAD TO DEFEND MATT KENSETH AND SAVE FUEL. HOW TOUGH WAS THAT?
“We’ve got a win so it doesn’t really matter. I was just hoping that the guys in front of me would run too hard and run out of gas. We had to try to go for a win, there. We didn’t have a fast enough car to beat the No. 41 (Kurt Busch) or the No. 78 (Martin Truex, Jr.), so we had to do something different and I like to gamble. We had a pretty good car. I’m a little disappointed. Those guys have a little bit more speed than us. We’ll work on it and get better and try to get more wins.”
TALK ABOUT THE LAST 30/40 LAPS WHAT YOU GUYS HAD TO DO?
“We came in and got fuel. We could make it to the end. I don’t know why nobody else did. It seemed like once you get inside the window you come down pit road. On that restart we were on the inside of the No. 19 (Carl Edwards) those guys went around the outside and got us. As soon as that happened I knew we were racing those guys in the same situation, as far as the fuel goes. Our car didn’t work very good back there. We had a lot of trouble in the dirty air back there. I couldn’t really get the car going forward and try to make up that time. I thought we were faster than those guys most of the night, but when we got behind them, we just couldn’t catch them. We were conserving fuel there at the end, had a little bit better car than that, just sitting there in front of him trying to save all we could. Hoping them guys in front of us, the No. 19 and No. 16 (Greg Biffle) had ran too hard.”
CONGRATS ON A GOOD RUN:
“Ah, it was alright. We would like to win more races. I want to win this one. I don’t know how many more chances I will get at it.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/VISSER PRECISION CHEVROLET SS – Finished 5th:
YOU LED THE MOST LAPS TONIGHT (131) BUT YOU ONLY FINISHED IN 5TH PLACE. HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT TO NOT GET THE WIN IN A RACE WHERE YOU HAD THE DOMINANT CAR?
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do about fuel mileage races. I’ve never ever, ever, ever, ever. One time in my whole career I came out on the right end of them, so I don’t know. I guess I don’t get good fuel mileage. What can I say about my guys? The Furniture Row team and everybody back in Denver and ECR engines and RCR chassis. The guys just give me an awesome race car. I’m so proud of them. It hurts to come home fifth and run that hard. But at the same time, it’s pretty awesome to run like that, too. So, we’ve just got to keep plugging away and sooner or later we’re going to get a little bit of luck on our side. Right now, we can’t get anything to go our way.”
ANOTHER 1.5-MILE RACE WIN THAT SEEMED LIKE IT WAS IN THE BAG THAT GOES AWAY AT THE END. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE STRATEGY AT THE END AND YOUR THOUGHTS AS YOU FINISH THIS ONE UP?
“Hell, I didn’t even know guys could make it on gas. I didn’t know what was going on. Just can’t catch a break there. I’m proud of the guys for an awesome race car, everybody at ECR for the engines and the RCR chassis there. All my guys in Denver are putting a great car together. I don’t know what to do about that. We had a great car. Had a chance at it and it stinks to come up short like that on fuel mileage. I’ve never once in my whole career gained positions on a fuel mileage deal. I don’t know what I have to do to catch a break on them deals. It is what it is. Just proud of my guys for what they brought. We will get one.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER/JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
“We were a little off tonight. We fought a loose-handing car and never made it any better all night. We kept ourselves in the game on pit road and everyone did a great job.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 LIFTMASTER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 12TH
ON HIS NIGHT:
“We started a long ways back. The team did a great job we didn’t have quite the speed we wanted. I think it was tough for every car out there. The guys I followed looked just as bad as I felt. We made it better. We adjusted the entire race. The whole Liftmaster Chevrolet team did a great job. It was super tough. We need to keep working and be a little better than that. If the car that was 10 car lengths in front of me if he would run high, I could run the bottom instantly better. As soon as he would go back to the bottom, I mean he is not even in the same racetrack; it affects our cars and our front-ends. It’s a complete pain.”
DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER HAD YOU NOT HAVE HAD TO START AS DEEP IN THE FIELD? “Well, if we would have started up front, if I didn’t speed on pit road, I think we would have been better because to me it was all about track position. But I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be. If I got the lead, if I saved fuel like the No. 19, I was better than the No. 19 all night, he wins. There are many ways we could have ran better, but at the end of the day we just have to keep working on our cars. Everybody has to keep working if we want to actually be able to race these cars. Not just the teams, it’s the sanctioning body needs to work on what we’ve got.”
DO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER TEST? BRING A LOT OF CARS OUT HERE AND STAGE SOME RACES? TRY SOME DIFFERENT THINGS? “There are a lot of things we can do or should or shouldn’t. I don’t know. I don’t really control any of that stuff, but I think it’s really difficult also to make the right calls and do the right things. Our splitters being sealed off on the ground and the downforce our cars have, the less power created more downforce this year, all of those things. This was the most difficult 600 to pass that I have ever been involved in. You can take that for what you want. I’ve raced 11 or 12 of these and this was by far the most difficult 600-miler I have ever raced in to pass a lap car you are racing for 28th or a car you are racing for ninth. It’s just really tough.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S PATRIOTIC CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined on Lap 275 in single car spin & crash. The team made repairs, and Johnson returned to the competition on lap 331. Finished 40th:
WHAT WAS GOING ON OUT THERE?
“For us the car was just really loose. It was fast, but as soon as I would get close to somebody else, my car would bug out and get so edgy. Lost it twice, about had it saved both times. Once we would get in clean air and get strung out I could fly up through the field and went from last to fifth there. Then I had a lap car on the outside and a car I had been stalking on the bottom and then I tried to roll into the top behind the lap car. The thing just bugged out in the dirty air and around it went again. A tough day to try to get the balance right in the car.”
HOW SURPRISED WERE YOU THE BALANCE WAS SO OFF?
“Well I think it looked the same for a lot of people in traffic. Vegas, Atlanta, Texas, whatever was going on there the cars balance was advantage in traffic. The split from clean air to dirty air wasn’t as evil and last week at Kansas and All-Star and here I don’t know if it’s the tire versus the track. There is some other component there, at least for our car; it has been pretty wicked in traffic. Unfortunately bit us today.”
CAN YOU TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM TONIGHT THAT CAN HELP YOU MOVING FORWARD? “Yeah, we came in here tonightswinging for the fences. We are locked in the Chase. It doesn’t matter. Chad (Knaus, crew chief) told me he either wanted it on a hook or the trophy. Unfortunately we got the hook.”
ON THE TWO SPINS: “We just had a really loose racecar. We came in with an aggressive mindset to bring an aggressive set-up in the car, drive aggressively and take chances. We just don’t have anything to loose. Unfortunately we didn’t get long enough into the race for the aggressive set-up to come into play. Another 30/40 laps we would have had the car right where we wanted it. I just didn’t make it there. I could have driven a little easier and tried not work so hard through traffic, but we said we were going to come in and swing for the fences. We did and I hit the fence.”
DID THE TRANSITION FROM DAY TO NIGHT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE AT ALL? “It was slowly coming to me. That is how we went from tail end of the longest line up to fifth. We just drove through there. The car was coming around. I was trying to set the No. 88 (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) up in (Turns) 3 and 4 and rolled in behind a lap car. I had just kind of gotten lulled into a comfort zone thinking I could roll in behind someone and be fine because I made a couple of moves like that earlier. As soon as I turned off in the corner I knew I was going around. I fought it as long as I could and unfortunately caught the inside wall.”
YOU HAVE SAVED SO MANY SPINS IS IT JUST A SICK FEELING WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S NOT GOING TO BE SAVED? “Yeah, I thought I had that one saved too. I got a little occupied on pointing it down pit road and driving off. I should have just let it spin all the way out. I had that one I just lost it at the end.”
YOU HIT THE SAFER BARRIER THAT HAS BEEN ADDED SINCE OCTOBER. DID YOU KNOW THAT? HOW CLOSE DID YOU COME TO HITTING THE OPENING ON PIT ROAD? “I could see the SAFER barrier and I could see that opening and I could see the No. 2 (Brad Kieslowski) pit. I was frightened I was going to get through that hole. It wouldn’t have been pretty for me, but to have teams and stuff there that was something I was staring at sliding for a long ways. I was very thankful the SAFER barrier was there and wish we could find a way to extend a wall out and redirect the car away from that opening or close that opening up.”
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