NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
TOYOTA OWNER’S 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
APRIL 24, 2016
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S PRO SERVICES CHEVROLET SS – Finished 3rd
A STRONG TOP 5 FINISH TODAY. WHEN YOU LOOK BACK, IT SEEMED LIKE EVERYBODY WAS HAVING FUN, BUT YET IT WAS A CHALLENGE TRYING TO CONNECT THE CORNER
“Yeah, it was. I think this tire was perfect for what we’ve been asking for. We had multiple lanes that laid the rubber in the race track and we didn’t have all those marbles build-ups on the outside, where it really limited your opportunities up high. It was fun. The cars were slipping and sliding; there was a ton of fall off. I enjoyed the long runs. I really like sizing up guys that I’m racing with and seeing how that works out. And then, at the end, we had a bunch of short runs. Thankfully we got our Lowe’s Pro Services Chevrolet tuned-up at the end. We kind of lost our way in the middle part of the race, but we had good pit stops and some great adjustments at the end got us into the top 3.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS – Finished 4th
THIS WAS YOUR FIRST TOP 5 OF THE SEASON. IT SEEMED LIKE A PRETTY SOLID DAY ALL ALONG. IS THIS A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME PERHAPS?
“Yeah, it definitely is. The Mountain Dew Chevrolet was great the whole race. The pit stops were awesome and just the communication with Keith (Rodden, crew chief) and the team all weekend long; same as last week and same as the weekend before in Texas. It’s been solid and we’re heading in the right direction. It’s been really nice. We got a good restart there at the end. I had pretty good starts all day. I screwed one up and other than that, we had good restarts. It feels good.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUSCH LIGHT CHEVROLET SS – Finished 5th
YOU LED 63 LAPS AND IT SEEMS LIKE THERE WAS A BIG SHIFT FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE RACE MAYBE TO THE SECOND HALF. HOW WAS YOUR CAR THERE?
“Well, everybody on our Busch Light/Jimmy John’s team did a good job. We started really loose to start the race and got into the wall there and we had to make some more adjustments after I self-adjusted it (laughs). And then, we had a couple of really good runs there in the middle of the race. As we started adjusting on it, we never could get the rear drive to go along with the turns. It’s kind of a balance of where the turn is good enough and you can still manage the drive, but everybody tried everything we could. We threw a lot at it and just never could find that magic balance for the car that we had there in the middle of the race.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS – Finished 13th
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END?
“We got tight at the end. I don’t know … we couldn’t keep our track position. The car wasn’t turning in the middle. I didn’t like restarting on the bottom that hurt me a little bit. We just couldn’t get the car to turn at the end. The last two runs were real tight. I’m not sure exactly what we should have done to the chassis, but we certainly didn’t keep up with the track there. We did a good job all day long. Greg (Ives, crew chief) was giving me some good adjustments to get the car better. We weren’t that good at the start of the race. We kind of finished where we started. The car was about as good at the end of the race as it was at the beginning. Right in the middle there we had it handling pretty well. All of those debris cautions hurt us. We didn’t have good short run speed. We needed the long runs and didn’t really need that. Those last several cautions kind of tightened the track up on me a little bit. I just wish it would have gone green, but it didn’t.”
TALK ABOUT THE LAST LAP BUMP BETWEEN TEAMMATES:
“It was awesome. I know Kyle (Busch) was probably disappointed, but it’s short track racing man. The fans come to see something like that. If you can reach them, if you can get to them on the last lap you better be leaning on them a little bit. He didn’t wreck him; as long as you don’t put a guy in the fence. I think the fans really enjoy it and that has always been good for the sport for 50 years. Hopefully, we have more exciting races come up in the next several weeks.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1 ADVANCED FUEL ECONOMY CHEVROLET SS – Finished 19th
A SOLID EFFORT TODAY. AT THE END OF THE DAY WHEN YOU GO BACK AND LOOK, WHAT TOOK PLACE DURING THE 400 LAPS? WHAT’S GOING TO STAND-OUT TO YOU THE MOST ABOUT YOUR COMEBACK RACE?
“How much fun I had in it (laughs). This place is so cool anyway. It’s always been my favorite race track. Like we predicted, a day race we’d be all over the race track. That’s what made it fun. The drivers got to dictate it today as far as…. You weren’t just stuck in one line. You had the ability to move around and change lines. We got in a spot there with a group of five cars racing for position once and it was fun because the five of us totally ran the track totally different. So, it made it a lot of fun. We got the lap down there. I got a lap down and almost drove back by and got my lap back. But Carl (Edwards) was strong. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hang on long, but I was going to hold on as long as I could and hope we got a caution. It just seemed like we would get really close to being able to get that Lucky Dog spot back, and something would happen and we’d miss it by one. So, magic cautions coming out at wrong times for us. But it was fun. I had a good time and I’m looking forward to running the rest of this year with these guys.”
ON HIS FIRST RACE BACK WITH A NEW CREW CHIEF:
“It didn’t feel like our first race together, mainly because just the races that we have been through together this year. I mean I’ve been to seven of the eight races that I’ve missed. Being on the radio with him and being on the pit box and communicating with him, it really shortened that learning curve up. I don’t think we really missed anything. I feel like we got off to a really good start together. I don’t think there is a communication gap that we have to worry about.”
HOW ARE YOU FEELING AFTER YOUR FIRST RACE BACK?
“Line them up again and let’s run another, hell, make it 800 laps. Line them up and I’ll run 800 laps right now and not have a problem. There will be a bunch of these guys falling out of the seat if they had to run 800 more laps, but I will not be one of them.”
YOU SEEM TO HAVE HAD A LOT OF FUN TODAY:
“That is Richmond. That is part of racing at your favorite race track and running a day race here where it gets slippery and you have to use all of the track. That is what made it fun and that’s what I miss, that is the stuff I dearly miss with this series is having days like today where you get on track and you are sliding around and the drivers get to make the difference.”
ON BEING A TEAM OWNER AND HAVING TWO CARS BATTLING FOR THE WIN:
“You pray that is the scenario that you get in. You want to be in that scenario where you’ve got two cars going for the win on the last lap. The golden rule is, don’t crash each other. You can lean on each other, you can move each other, you do what you’ve got to do, but just don’t take each other out. It’s no different than what you would do if it was anybody else. You are not going to go and wreck somebody intentionally, you might move them out of the way, but be tactful about it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. As long as the coach and the team owners can sit there and keep their drivers under control when it happens, the driver that gets the receiving end of it normally doesn’t like it as much as the guy on the delivery end. Most of the time that scenario plays out another way the opposite direction somewhere else down the road. You watch Rusty Wallace, you watch Dale Earnhardt, Sr. if you get in that scenario you know it’s coming that is part of the sport and that is part of what made it great.”
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