NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GEICO 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 1, 2016
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW- ENERGY&WATER/INTELLIFRESH CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
“My car was actually probably dragging; the No. 1 (Jamie McMurray) could stick to my back bumper and he gave me a heck of a push all the way through (Turns) 3 and 4 and when he did that, I knew we were going to have a shot at it. But as soon as I pulled out, it was kind of a parachute but I had to make a shot at it. I wanted to have a shot at the win. If I would have pushed the No. 18 (Kyle Busch), he might have beaten the No. 2 (Brad Keselowski), I don’t know. But hat’s off to these guys. They fought so hard. We pitted 15 times, they said. That’s amazing. The car was killed, and to come home with a third place finish we’ve got to thank the good Lord above.”
WITH A CAR AS BEAT UP AS YOURS, HOW DO YOU BRING IT HOME IN 3rd?
“Stay in the fuel. Never give up. My guys, man. It’s a testament to my guys. They work their butts off. They never panicked today. We’ve panicked a lot this year on certain problems and today was smooth and calm and they handled the situations that they were put through and it was a great race for us.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 4TH
A SOLD DAY FOR YOU, BUT A REALLY CRAZY RACE
“I was really fortunate. I was only caught-up in one of the wrecks. And I don’t know exactly what happened in the other two. Honestly, I don’t even know what happened in mine. I was so lucky that I got hit in the back and I spun to the bottom, but it didn’t tear-up the front-end. It didn’t tear the splitter up. And I don’t know that my car was faster afterwards, but it didn’t seem to hurt it any.”
WAS THERE MORE AGGRESSION THAN USUAL AT THIS RACE?
“As the Gibbs cars were all running around the bottom, it was a year ago that we were all riding around the top. But, the exact same rules package. The thing that’s a little bit tough about the current package is that when you get locked together, it’s hard to beat the guys that aren’t locked together. Like if you watch the Xfinity race yesterday, or when we had the taller spoilers, when you could get locked together, it was a big advantage. So I think guys get a little aggressive when you get towards the end with not necessarily locking together easy, it’s just like slamming, like maybe we used to do. And with the little amount of downforce that we have it’s so easy for the car to get out from underneath you.”
HOW HARD IS THAT? I’LL NEVER KNOW. WHAT’S THAT FEEL LIKE TO GET HIT? HOW DO YOU CONTROL THE CAR?
“Well, at the beginning of the race it’s not as big of a deal because you know that when you see the run coming, you know they’re going to lift a little bit. When we got down to the end there, I was just death-gripping the wheel and trying to hold it straight because every time you get hit, it gets turned a little bit, a different direction. And you have to be a little bit lucky there. It’s not all ability.”
WITH CARS UPSIDE DOWN, HOW CONCERNED ARE YOU WITH THAT HERE AT TALLADEGA?
“Well, it’s very concerning. Yeah. Absolutely. The whole thing is, is that NASCAR works really hard on trying to prevent that. And I think one of the issues; I saw a little bit of a replay with Kevin’s (Harvick) is when you get spun and someone then drills you, I think it’s going to be really hard to ever make that not happen. But certainly, yeah, we need to keep looking at that and trying to make it better every race.”
WAS THIS A CRAZY RACE, OR TYPICAL TALLADEGA?
“I thought it was typical. I thought we had a few more wrecks than normal. I laugh because everyone is pretty calm until we get to halfway because we all want to get to halfway. And then it got a little bit wild after that. But it’s just plate racing. And honestly, when you look back at all of these restrictor plate races, you have a lot of wrecks that just don’t happen. And today we had a lot of wrecks, and they happened.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
WHAT STOOD OUT MOST FOR YOU TODAY?
“Just trying to finish. You can’t have a good day unless you finish. Just trying to focus in on that. Obviously it got a little wild. For us, we just tried to keep that in mind and make it to the end.”
TY DILLON, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 6TH
HOW GOOD WAS YOUR CAR OUT THERE?
“We had a really strong car. Fighting from behind, it’s hard to get it up front. I felt like if we could lead a pack at any point, we would have put ourselves up front. Early one, once I first got in the car, we drove right up to into the Top 10 really quick and we had some air on the nose and was able to go. The team built an awesome race car. I just kind of got mired back. I made some mistakes being my first time here racing. But we were able to dodge crashes and survive here, which is the big thing. We made some good moves at the end to get us into to the top 6 or 7.”
SO THIS WAS YOUR FIRST TIME. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT?
“It was just wild and crazy.”
CLINT BOWYER, NO. 15 ACCUDOC CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
“Man we had a decent shot at it today. We were able to stay out of trouble all day and that’s what you have to do to be there at the end. Proud of the effort and we will take a top 10 today.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 8th
WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE?
“Just didn’t get the best final restart. It’s like a roulette wheel on restarts and how you get a run and who is there pushing and how the line is going to form and stay together. Just feel bad. My guys deserve to win. They built me a great car, the put me in position to win and I didn’t deliever for them. It was a great day with the Monster Energy colors on board, hoping to get into Victory Lane for them, we just didn’t quite get it done.”
TREVOR BAYNE SAID HE GAVE YOU A GOOD PUSH IT JUST DIDN’T WORK OUT:
“Yeah, I’m looking at different replays now and you can see he was doing all he could and the guy third that would have been (Ryan) Blaney, he didn’t have somebody behind him and they were looking to go to the high side. It’s a shame that the races just come down to a random restart, inside lane or outside lane.”
THE CONTACT WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON:
“I didn’t feel like I hit him all that much and the next thing I know he was sideways. It reminded me of the qualifying races, the 150’s down in Daytona where he got sideways getting into Turn 1.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUSCH FISHING CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 15TH
WHAT DID YOU SEE:
“Landon Cassill trying to cause a wreck for the last 40 laps and he finally got it done there at the end. It was just unfortunate for our Busch Trophy Can Chevrolet. We just got shuffled out there and in a pretty big wreck there at the end. But all-in-all it was an okay day. We led some laps and ran up front; just got shuffled out when the No. 20 and don’t remember who else. We got back there and racing where we didn’t need to be racing and got crashed. We still finished, it is just torn up.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, NO. 95 THRIVENT FINANCIAL CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 21ST
“We fought hard. We overcame adversity. We were in position there to have a top 10 and we just got caught up in a wreck. Not sure exactly what happened, just got hit from behind, ran into the No. 10 and she spun. It was just one of those chain reaction deals. I will have to go back and see. Everyone did good, the Thrivent Financial Chevrolet was up front, got some TV time, was running hard, unfortunately, we didn’t get the finish.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 22ND
HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE TODAY?
“It’s Talladega, plate racing. Handling wasn’t a big issue. We could all run in the throttle hard and it really just came down to aggression from behind the wheel from behind the wheel, from everything that I saw it created all the madness.”
MORE AGGRESSION?
“The easier they are to drive compared to Daytona the more aggressive we are going to be. The No. 41 was bump drafting me and caused that wreck and just kept hitting me and finally ended up taking me out in the process. That was aggressive there.”
HOW MUCH HITTING DOES IT TAKE TO FINALLY JUST TAKE YOU OUT?
“This aero package doesn’t respond well to it for starters, but he got me coming out of the tri-oval. He got me going in and through and I was trying to stay on top of it and finally he got me once too hard and off I went.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 ASPEN DENTAL CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 24TH
HARD IT, ARE YOU OKAY?
“I mean I’m okay. I got an X-Ray so that was a concern. Just taking a deep breath. I hit my foot pretty hard and hit my arm pretty hard. I have hit the inside wall at a superspeedway I think like four times how, and that was the hardest. You know these races are just….I get the running close and pushing. But the No. 95 was just drilling me every time. There is a high likelihood that he can take himself out. I’m all about bumping, and pushing and being close but when you hit people with a certain amount of momentum, it is a problem. I can’t quite remember exactly what started it. I know I got drilled from behind and turned sideways and hello wall.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 MOEN/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 26TH
ON THE LAST LAP CRASH:
“Yeah, we got wrecked once earlier. The No. 48 just came across our nose and then the car was pretty beat up, but we could still make some runs. Not, nothing great, but I’m not sure what happened at the end. Somebody turned the No. 43 I think, typical plate racing.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined a second time in a crash with Carl Edwards on Lap 110
WALK US THROUGH WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME?
“I don’t know. I was just riding around there at the back of the draft and I think something broke on Carl’s car. He just flew up the track into us.”
IS IT SAFE TO SAY ‘AMELIA’ IS RETIRED NOW?
‘Hell, I’m going home. I’m done. We need to park the car for a while, too.”
HOW HARD DID YOU HIT? ARE YOU FEELING OKAY?
“Yeah, I feel good. It was pretty hard. I don’t know. I think Carl (Edwards) hit harder. He had a longer way to go to get the fence than I did. That is why I was riding up there in case anything happened to our car we wouldn’t have far to go before we hit anything. I was in a pretty good spot to withstand something like that.”
ON HIS STEERING WHEEL COMING OFF DURING THE CRASH:
“Yeah, the steering wheel came off and I was trying to get it back on and the car was headed toward the wall. Well I wasn’t going to let it hit the wall so I grabbed the column and steered it with that. Tore my hands all up, but didn’t hit the wall. We have to look at something to keep that from happening anymore. We were just out there riding around and something broke on the No. 19 and he came over and got into us. We just had no luck this weekend.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS – WAS RELIEVED OF DRIVING DUTIES BY TY DILLON ON LAP 52
HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO GET OUT OF A PERFECTLY GOOD RACE CAR?
“It sucks to be honest. I know why we got to do it, but it sucks. It still sucks that you have to do it but if I hadn’t broke my back at the end of January; we wouldn’t be in this situation. Good news is this is last time we have to do it and I am back in next week. I really appreciate Ty (Dillon). He’s been a rock star through this whole thing and especially this weekend. He’s done all the heavy lifting and I just got in to ride around for 50 laps and turn it over to him. Fortunately we got the Lucky Dog and kept him on the lead lap. The change went pretty smooth – no drama there so we got him so he could go out there and race now.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 51
ON WHAT HAPPENED:
“We had a real bad problem at the first run; the splitter was on the ground real bad. I was really tight and couldn’t run anywhere, but up against the wall. We made some adjustments to help the car and the splitter was still on the ground really bad. I got in a bad area with the wind and the air and it just got loose and spun out. The same thing that happened at Daytona to us. We just got to look at what we are doing on our adjustments and try not to do that.”
‘We were real tight. The splitter was on the ground real bad the whole first run and we took some rounds out of the back and that really made the car too loose off the corner. Same thing we did at Daytona. We’ve just go to look at our adjustments a little bit different.”
WOULD FOUR TIRES ON THAT LAST STOP HAVE HELPED?
“No, I don’t know; I don’t think so. It gets loose and the car wasn’t driving very well. If was on the splitter real bad the first run. You know, the tight through the center on the splitter and it swings it back on exit and then you’re in that pack in the middle without air and no real downforce on the back of the car and it just gets loose.”
ON WHAT HAPPENED:
“Just got loose. I was in a bad spot with the wind. It pinned the nose real hard off the corner and the car was a little bit loose off the corner that run. Real, real tight the first run that is why we fell back, we were just on the splitter real bad pushing. I could only run the top, I couldn’t even run the middle or the bottom because the car just would plow across the race track. So, we missed something this morning, I don’t know, but the thing shouldn’t have been on the splitter that hard. We couldn’t fix that. You have to put packer in the front or something when it is on the splitter as bad as it was. It was still on the splitter that second run. I had a lot of wheel in the car in the middle of the corner and then the back was swinging on the exit with the adjustments we made on the pit stop. Just a bad combination.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 51
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“I couldn’t really tell what happened. I know Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) went to go left and then came back right. I’m not sure exactly why, maybe there was something in front of him that happened, I don’t know. We had a great car. We had a really good Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. I’m surprised something like that happened right then. It wasn’t like it was four-wide or anything. It was fairly simple at that point in time I thought.”
WERE GUYS BEING REALLY AGGRESSIVE DUE TO THE WEATHER?
“Guys were being aggressive and it felt like it was late in the race the whole race. That first run was as wide-open as I’ve had it. As I remember it in a while at times of the first run, probably three-quarters of that first run. It was pretty wild how all that went down, but we had a good car. It was going to be a strong race if we just stayed out of trouble.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE?
“I saw the No. 88 went left and then he came back right spinning in front of me. So, I didn’t really know exactly what happened. We didn’t have anywhere to go once he came back across the track. We were done at that point, but we had a great Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. I felt really fast. I got in with the Gibbs guys because they stick to their plan. They were doing a really good job of it. I just got in with them and we were running and something happened on the pit stop. I’m not exactly sure there. I don’t think it was our team because our guys are strong as can be on pit road. So, we got back, but we were coming back through we had a good car.”
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