MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FOOD CITY 500
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
APRIL 24, 2017
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
IT TOOK SEVEN YEARS FOR YOU TO GET A SECOND WIN AT BRISTOL. YOU WERE THE GUY ON THAT FINAL RUN THAT FOUND THE BOTTOM FIRST AND BEST
“Yeah, it was kind of interesting because when the No. 42 (Kyle Larson) was there, it just created an environment to run the top and I wasn’t as good on the top. The No. 42, not being up there and that first couple of cars; the bottom was really where it was at for the short run. This Lowe’s Chevrolet was flying!
“I’m so happy to give everybody at A.O. Smith a good ride on the quarter panel this weekend. We wouldn’t be here without a ton of support from Valvoline, Gatorade, the fans, Lowe’s, and Chevrolet. This track has been difficult over the years and we really hit on something Saturday afternoon in that last practice session around the bottom and honestly, it’s what I’ve been looking for here for 16 years and we finally figured it out. So, I’m very, very happy.”
WHEN YOU SCORED YOUR 7TH CHAMPIONSHIP AND TIED RICHARD PETTY AND DALE EARNHARDT, YOU WERE VERY HUMBLE ABOUT BEING INCLUDED INTO THEIR CLASS. NOW YOU ARE ONE WIN AWAY FROM HALL OF FAMER, CALE YARBOROUGH; AND TWO AWAY FROM DARRELL WALTRIP AND BOBBY ALLISON.
“That’s just mind-blowing. I wouldn’t be here without Mr. Hendrick’s support. Thanks to him and to Jeff Gordon for believing in me. For Hendrick Motorsports to make this job kind of a family environment for all of us to thrive in has been a perfect environment for me and (crew chief) Chad Knaus and for the consistent group of guys behind me through all these years has led to the environment to win 82 races, or whatever it is, which is just insane. I’m truly humbled. I’m excited to win back-to-back races. I’m excited to win at Bristol. I guess we’ll be at Indy testing for the next two days and we’ll show up at Richmond and try again.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE CAREER WIN NUMBER TWO AT BRISTOL?
“This track has been really difficult for me over the years. To be able to find what we did Saturday afternoon it’s honestly what I’ve been looking for, for 16 years up here. Really 18 years when I look at my two years in Xfinity, but huge credit to Mr. Hendrick and the environment and the place he lets us work. Huge thanks to Lowe’s and A.O. Smith for being on the quarter panel this weekend. My guys nailed their pit stops all day long. Great team effort, just a ton of fun out there racing. This track has always been very racy, but now that we can hunt the bottom and we can run two and three wide and put on a heck of a show for the fans.”
WHAT DOES THIS WIN SAY TO EVERYBODY?
“When you are in the garage area you know, what is going on. I feel like and plus I’ve always been very honest with everyone, we have been close, we have just been making too many mistakes. Today was another flawless day of execution and a great race car and we got it done.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 6TH
YOU LED 203 LAPS TODAY. YOU HAD A SPEEDING PENALTY AND HAD TO GO TO THE BACK, BUT YOU ENDED UP SIXTH. WHAT’S YOUR TAKEAWAY FROM TODAY?
“I don’t know if we had the car to beat. I thought early on in the race before all the rubber got laid down we were really good. In the middle part of the race, I didn’t think we were very good. And then there at the end, I got the top going really good. So, and then I got that speeding penalty and set us back. We had to gamble there for that last stop and take two lefts and we hadn’t don’t that all day. The balance honestly wasn’t that bad with our Credit One Bank Chevy, on two tires. Four tires just had a little more grip around the bottom for a little bit longer than we did. And I had to get to the top early and was just following Kevin (Harvick) hoping that he’d make a mistake because I knew I couldn’t go down to the bottom and get by him. So, I had to kind of ride. But, it was another good run for us; another top 10. I would have liked to have a top 5 but it was a good points day for us and we’ll go on to Richmond next and try to do better than we’ve done there in the past and extend our point lead there.”
WERE YOU HAVING FUN?
“Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Bristol is such an exciting race track. It was really good today. It changed a lot. Each run, I thought, was a little bit different line wise. I thought it was good. I hope the fans enjoyed it. I know we were two, three wide for the lead there a couple of times it seemed like. I don’t know what more fans and other drivers could ask for than that. I just hope they don’t touch anymore. I think they have got something good with the VHT on the bottom. I just hope they don’t do anything more to mess the top up any.”
AS LONG AS THEY PUT THAT AMOUNT OF VHT ON THE BOTTOM IT AND GIVES YOU A CHANCE FOR YOU TO WORK IN THE TOP TO BE ABOUT EQUAL YOU LIKE THAT?
“Yeah, I thought today they added about three foot of VHT, which is about half as less as they did earlier this week. I thought that was a good width. It allows you to get your left sides in it, but if you miss it you lose lap time, which I think is fun for us. It makes the racing a little bit more competitive and I think it just makes the racing exciting.”
ON HIS CONFIDENCE RIGHT NOW:
“It’s a lot of fun to be contending each and every week. I thought we were sitting really good there after that last pit stop, but it seemed like four tires were just better. That was the first time we had put two tires on all day. It drove fine, it just had less speed it seemed like than four tires. It seemed like those guys, Jimmie (Johnson) and Clint (Bowyer) could work the bottom, where I couldn’t. I had to go to the top and commit up there early. I think we finished sixth, which I was hoping to finish top five, but I got a little too high off of (Turn) 4 and got messed up in traffic and Matt (Kenseth) and Joey (Logano) got by.”
ON THE RACE TRACK:
“The racing was really good, I thought. We were two, three wide at times. I thought the track changed a lot. The line did throughout the race. I thought it was exciting from my seat. I don’t know what the fans at home thought. Honestly, I don’t think it gets much better than that. We keep trying to make it one lane around the bottom each and every time we come back, but I think this is the most exciting place we have on the circuit by far and I just hope we don’t mess it up.”
HOW DISAPPOINTED ARE YOU?
“I’m a little disappointed, but not bad. I’m more disappointed in myself from getting that speeding penalty with 80 (laps) or so to go. I was just pushing it down pit road and pushed it a little too far. I had a shot there still at the end, but four tires were better than ours.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 15TH
“It was definitely a battle for our No. 13 GEICO Chevy team today. We got damage to the right rear at the end of the first stage that really hurt our speed through the rest of the day. So, our race really became about getting track position any way that we could. My spotter did great getting me through traffic, and Crew Chief Bootie Barker and my guys on pit road did everything that could to keep us where we needed to be. We had to fight for all that we could, and I gave it everything that I had. It was a good day to come out of Bristol with a 15th-place finish.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 MOUNTAIN DEW/LITTLE CAESARS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
ON HIS RACE AT BRISTOL:
“It was alright we just kind of got behind through those mid stages and fought back a little bit, just not enough.”
THOUGHTS ON TRACK SURFACE:
“We had options for sure. The top was the place to be after a while, but it was good.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET – Incident on Lap 218
THEY ARE TRYING TO ADDRESS WHAT DAMAGE WAS DONE BEFORE THE INCIDENT AND WHAT DAMAGE WAS DONE AFTER YOU HIT THE WALL, BUT DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA AT ALL THAT THERE WAS A PROBLEM?
“We came out of the pits and there’s some oil in the pit stall I noticed when I was getting lined-up for double file, is smoking. I don’t know why. But it’s got oil all over the engine compartment. So, in the corner, it just went straight in the wall. I don’t know what’s broke, but I think that’s the end of the day.”
ACCORDING TO NASCAR RULES, YOU HAVE TO DO TO THE MEDICAL CENTER. DO YOU FEEL OKAY?
“I feel good. We’ll get in here and find out.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
“I don’t know we broke something in the oil system under caution. The guys said there was some oil in the pit stall after our pit stop. I noticed when I was getting lined up double file for the restart the car was smoking. I just thought maybe we had a tire rub for some reason, but I couldn’t remember what might have caused that. And went into Turn 1 on the restart and the car went straight into the wall with oil all over the tires. Came into the garage there and they are working on where the hole in the system is. Just something is messed up, but that is going to be the finish for us. It’s unfortunate. We weren’t running that great, but we were working on our car and trying to figure out how to get it to run better. And get something out of today, but we are going to have another bad finish. We have had a lot of them this year. It’s going to be tough.”
ON THE TRACK SURFACE:
“I hate to really make any comment one way or the other because our car wasn’t driving well enough to give the track a good recommendation. I like the fact… one of the things I noticed in the race is that the leader doesn’t seem to be trapped by the lap cars and he has an option to get around these guys and they were lapping up to where I was around 20th in these little green-flag runs we are having. As a guy that is running toward the front you’ve got to like that. The way it was before, you were kind of stuck behind guys up on the high line and if… even a guy that is three tenths slower than you he could hold you up if he wanted to, but now you’ve got options. You can run the top in (Turns) 3 and 4 would get going and would become a good line and the bottom of (Turn) 1 and 2 was always good throughout the whole run. As a driver, you like to have those options. I like it.”
WERE YOU A LITTLE SURPRISED YOU WEREN’T BETTER THAN YOU WERE?
“Yeah I was because we practiced well. But we ran into some issues at the end of the last practice with the car and they were still there today. I don’t know what in our set-up is creating that. It’s not like I’m feeling something that I wasn’t familiar with. We did have some good practices and felt pretty confident, but apparently, whatever we got into the car late in the last practice we didn’t tune it back out. We were really tight in the center and tight in the throttle and guys beating me really bad back to the gas. That ain’t no way to run anywhere really.”
ARE YOU OKAY AFTER HITTING THE WALL?
“Yeah, it wasn’t that bad. I feel pretty good. Obviously, it wasn’t a real hard lick. I got the car slowed down a little bit and it really didn’t damage the car too badly. Had we not had something terminal with the oil system we would have slapped tires on it and kept going.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S BAKED BEANS CHEVROLET SS – Involved in a multi-car accident on lap 56
YOU STARTED FROM THE REAR IN A BACK-UP CAR, BUT NOW YOUR DAY IS DONE. WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM WITHIN THE CAR?
“I guess I didn’t realize there was a wreck before that. I know everybody was slowing up and the caution was out. I tried to get on the brakes and it just wheel-hopped. It’s just a pretty big shame for our Bush’s Baked Beans Chevrolet. Like you said, we started last in our back-up and were rolling through there pretty good. We were fighting to be in the spot for the Lucky Dog there, and we were right there at it. And Ty (Dillon) was right there. We had found something after (Kyle) Larson passed me on the high side and kind of found something doing the same thing. And we were just starting to pick up a little bit of momentum there. I hate it. I hate it for this team and how hard they’ve worked this whole weekend and on a Monday for our race to be cut that short. I feel like a large part of that’s on me. We’ve got to do better than that on my side. And we’ll go to Richmond and see if we can have a good day.”
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“We started at the back and we were making really good head way with our Bush’s Baked Beans Chevy. And was really happy with the balance of it and it was looking to be a good start to a race. I am honestly not really sure what happened. Came off (Turn) four there and fighting for the lucky dog and trying to get in that spot. Everybody starts checking up and I locked the brakes up and just couldn’t get slowed down in time. I think I ended up tearing the radiator out of the car and pretty much it just ends our day now.”
I KNOW YOU WERE NOT OUT THERE LONG BUT IS THE BOTTOM STILL THE PREFERRED GROOVE?
“Yeah, definitely right now. The top was just starting to come in to an extent to be able to be something useable for passing. We were able to get by a couple there at the end doing just that. Just a shame we don’t get to use it more now.”
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