MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA 500 FINAL PRACTICE QUOTES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
FEBRUARY 25, 2017
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA CHEVROLET SS
WHAT IS THERE LEFT TO LEARN IF YOU DO INDEED GO OUT?
“We are done. I think we pretty well have what we have in the NAPA Chevy for this weekend. At this point I think you’ve got to be mindful of the laps you put on your motor and having a fresh one in for the (Daytona) 500 now. It feels really good. Jeff Andrews (Director of Engine Operations) and everybody in the Hendrick Engine department did a good job, I think, on our motor last weekend. To be able to run as well as it did in qualifying and in the race as well as it did those are tough things to marry together. We have our race motor in now and we will try to survive tomorrow.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS
ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE CAR?
“Yeah, I don’t know. We change the motor and went to the race engine today, took the qualifying motor out last night. I thought our car was a little better yesterday in practice. In the pack, it would develop runs a little bit better, it just seemed like I had to get a little luckier today with what was happening behind me, where yesterday the car would do somethings or develop somethings kind of on its own. The thing about that is every time you get out there you might not even change anything it just depends on what kind of pack you get in, what kind of cars are around you and your cars performance can change and kind of fool you a little bit. I’m just hoping that today was a little more laid back, not quite as many cars out there, not quite as active in the draft and maybe that is why we didn’t see our car respond like it did yesterday. We had a little vibration and you worry about that because any kind of thing that is out of balance is going to hurt that straight-line speed. We tried to work on that and were able to fix it right there on that last run. It’s just simple stuff like flipping drive shafts and things like that. You want to get all that out of there so you don’t have any doubts about anything holding your car back. Otherwise it’s been really uneventful, we haven’t had any issues or problems with the car mechanically and nothing happened on the race track, so it looks like we are going to get this thing on the grid tomorrow and ready to go.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS
PRACTICE IS OVER WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE FOR THE DAYTONA 500?
“We put our 500 motor in our GEICO Chevy and I think that motor ran even better than what we had before. We were really positive and felt good about our car. I’m excited about the 500 tomorrow. Just a matter of surviving and making the right moves and being there at the end. We’ve had good speed all weekend, so it’s a really good and encouraging start to our year. Really ready to get this Daytona 500 started.”
Connect with Team Chevy on social media. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TeamChevy, follow us on Twitter @TeamChevy, add +TeamChevy into your Google+ circles and follow us on Instagram TeamChevy.
Team Chevy racing photos are available at:
About Chevrolet:
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 115 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
