MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 9, 2017
2017 CHEVROLET PLAYOFF DRIVER QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
TAKE US THROUGH THAT LAST PIT STOP AND THAT LAST RESTART THAT GOT YOU TO VICTORY LANE FOR THE FOURTH TIME THIS SEASON:
“Yeah, I was surprised at how good our car was tonight. We weren’t as good at the No. 78 (Martin Truex, Jr.) which nobody really is at any race track. We kept our heads in it. Our pit crew was, oh my gosh, they were so spectacular all night. We gained spots or at least gained time on pit road. Especially that last stop, it was awesome. Can’t thank them enough, this win is all about the and this whole race team really. So, just having a blast this season. We’ve got four wins in the regular season, which is awesome, so hopefully we can go on into the Playoffs and make it through some rounds and hopefully get to Homestead if Irma doesn’t wash it away and go for a championship.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CHANCES LOOKING AT THESE NEXT 10 RACES?
“So, I guess we passed Kyle (Busch) I’m guessing in points, but yeah, those five bonus points with the win tonight are huge for us. If Martin (Truex, Jr.) was to win that it kind of wouldn’t mean anything because he is already probably going to be at Homestead, but for us, that helps us a little bit. Yeah, that win was awesome. Like I said, can’t thank my whole team enough. This has been such a fun season and I’ve got some great owners, Chip Ganassi, Felix Sabates, Rob Kauffman, can’t thank them enough for all they do and all the fans too. I hope you guys enjoyed that.”
IT WAS ALL ABOUT THAT LAST RESTART AND THAT PIT STOP AND THE TEAM. HOW DID YOU GUYS DO THAT?
“I’ve got the greatest team out here and definitely the best pit crew. That showed tonight. I can’t thank those guys enough. They were money all night long to gain spots. This win is a huge congrats to them. The Target Chevy was pretty good all night. The No. 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) was definitely the best, but I thought I was second best for most of the runs but it came down to the last restart there and I got a good start. I spun my tires pretty bad and I was a little nervous, but we cleared him (Truex Jr) into (Turn) 1 and I was pretty excited about that. So, I can’t thank Target all of our partners enough. I’m really pumped for the Playoffs. We’ve got a great shot at the championship, I feel like, this year. So, I’m looking forward to it.”
THIS IS FAN APPRECIATION WEEK HERE AT RICHMOND. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO THE FANS TONIGHT?
“I just want to thank all the fans for all your support for NASCAR, and for myself, and for all these other drovers and competitors. You’re the best. I’ve got some family here and they’re probably screaming and hanging on the fence. So, I’m pretty excited.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – Finished 3rd
HOW DID THE NIGHT GO FOR YOU?
“Yeah, I mean on the last lap we were in the best running spot we were the whole race. Good run for the Caterpillar Chevrolet. I sped on pit road the one time and put us back and then we had one bad pit stop, but other than that we had a great long run car. Struggled on the short runs and just continued to fight and the guys did a good job. It wasn’t easy.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE POSITION OF THIS RACE TEAM RIGHT NOW AS FAR AS BEING AT THE POINT WHERE YOU ARE STARTING TO PEAK INTO THE PLAYOFFS?
“Well, we are not where we need to be, but we are in a spot where we’ve got a chance. We continue to work on it and make the cars better, get out pit stops better. I’ve got to improve, qualify better and everything else. So, it takes everything, but I mean obviously finishing third and having four top 10’s in the last five races has been a good streak for us. But you’ve got to win. We’ve got to put ourselves in a position to win to get that guarantee buy to the next round.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – Finished 8th
“Normal Richmond race just a tough track. Tough to get the grip that you need to go fast. But we had a decent performance through the course of the night and was able to get a top 10 out of it and we will go to one of our better tracks next week in Chicago.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CHAMPIONSHIP ACROSS THE BOARD?
“My 10 best tracks are coming up. So, I’m excited about that. I’m excited about Fall being right here right around the corner. We will just go racing. You never know. This format really keeps things up in the air. Last year, we were able to win in each of the three segments and get ourselves to Homestead, so hopefully we can go out there and do that again and be one of the final four.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS – Finished 10th
HOW WAS YOUR RACE?
“Not very good. We really struggled tonight, but it is good to be back in the Playoffs. But we have some work to do to be contenders each week. We are not right now, so we have to be better.”
LAST YEAR AT THIS TIME EVERYBODY FELT THE SAME ABOUT HENDRICK THAT THEY DO NOW. THEN CHICAGOLAND HAPPENS AND ITS LIKE MAGIC, YOU GUYS TURNED ON THE SWITCH. CAN WE EXPECT THAT AGAIN THIS YEAR?
“Anything is possible. I know that everyone is really going to start pushing it next week and I hope our group is leading the pack when it comes to performance and the things that we need to do. Now is the time of the year to get in the right direction if we are going to do it. So, we will see.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 GREAT CLIPS CHEVROLET SS – Finished 12th
ASSESS YOUR REGULAR SEASON AND GIVE US A PREVIEW FOR THE PLAYOFFS:
“Yeah, I mean it’s a big jump for us. It’s great that we won the Brickyard. Tonight, the guys did a really nice job with our Great Clips Chevrolet. We took a little bit of a gamble on strategy to try to hope for a caution at the right time and end up in the top five. It didn’t work out and maybe we lost two spots because of it and ended up 12th. I thought we had a competitive car. We raced hard and the guys did a really nice job. It’s a good way to end the regular season and get ready for the final 10.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – Finished 14th
YOU HAVE TO BE PROUD OF THE TEAM BECAUSE THE CHIP GANASSI CARS HAVE PERFORMED EXCEPTIONALLY WELL THIS YEAR:
“Yeah, the 42 team has had an unbelievable season. Kyle (Larson) has done such a great job and that team is on a roll. Our cars have just been awesome all year long and it’s been the best season I have had, as far as the most consistent, and that just comes from them giving us really good cars.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – Finished 21st
ASSESS WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW WITH THIS RACE TEAM AND HOW YOU GUYS ARE AS A TEAM GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS:
“Well, as a team I think we’ve got a great team. I think we have a great solid group of guys and we have been working hard all year to try and get more speed in our race cars. I thought Darlington was a good place for us, Atlanta and Charlotte obviously, so we have had some good runs this year. Hopefully, the last 10 races of the year we have some more good runs. Three tracks I enjoy to go to are Chicago, New Hampshire and Dover, so that is the first round. We made the first-round last year and it kind of propelled us into the second round and we only missed the second round by a point. So, we’ve got some good tracks obviously in the Playoffs and we need to take advantage of as much as we can and put ourselves further than we did last year.”
HOW DO YOU MANAGE THIS AS A RACE CAR DRIVER?
“I mean we’ve got nothing to lose. I feel like we are on house money this year. We fought and scratched and clawed for everything we’ve got and some of these guys have won a lot of races, the No. 78, No, 42, some guys have got some bonus points, so we’ve got to go for it. We’ve got to try and win races in the Playoffs to get ourselves to the next round. We will be aggressive on plays and strategy and see what we can do with that.”
OTHER TOP TEAM CHEVY FINISHERS:
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 13th
WERE YOU PRAYING FOR A CAUTION THERE WHEN YOU WERE LEADING THE RACE?
“Yeah, we needed one. That was the only way we were going to win the race. We weren’t going to pass the top three guys. I mean we had speed, we could run up to fifth and sixth, but we weren’t going to get around those five guys running in front of us. So, we had to pull that strategy and if the caution comes out while we are leading then we’ve got that track position we need. I ran around the No. 42 and a lot of the guys tonight and I think we had the speed in the car to keep that track position once we got it. So, I think if we could have got a restart on the front row late in the race I think we would have had a shot at it. But, real proud of the guys, Greg (Ives, crew chief) did a good job preparing us going into this weekend. The guys stepped up, every one of them, were more vocal and worked really hard. We had a great car. I thought our car was really good. That is the way we should have run all year. So, apologize to our fans that we are even in this situation that we are in tonight. We believe in ourselves and we should have been locked in before we got here, but it wasn’t a great season performance wise, but we’ve got 10 to go. Tonight, showed us that we can certainly run well if we work hard and so we will see if we can get a few more good runs, maybe a win, you never know, never know, just got to keep going. Talladega is a race track that anybody can win at, but we will keep plugging away and see if we can’t have some fun before the end of the season. It was a fun night though. It was great to run with the leaders, run up front, we haven’t done that in a long time.”
YOU GUYS TOOK A SHOT AT IT, LED A COUPLE LAPS. TALK ABOUT WHY YOU HAVE TO DO THAT KIND OF THING:
“We were running about fifth or sixth at best. We were having a great night, but we weren’t going to pass those top five guys so we needed that kind of trick strategy to try and leap frog them on pit road and we needed the yellow to come out leading. We had everybody trapped down a lap and they would have ended up pitting and getting tires, and the other guys would have gotten the wave around but we would have had that track position finally. We would have come out of pit road after the stop in first or second and that might have set us up good for a run to the finish. We had a car that I think could have won the race if we had that track position. Anybody in the top five could have won with all those restarts. I felt as good about our car as anybody that we were racing around.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – Finished 22nd
“We worked on this GEICO Chevrolet SS all weekend. I thought maybe we’d learned something last night that could help us tonight, but it turned out that chassis adjustment didn’t apply tonight. The pit crew turned in some great stops tonight and we made some positive adjustments to the car, we just didn’t have the lateral grip we needed. It was a tough night, but we battled through it and this Germain Racing team will be better when we come back here next year. I have to give a shout out to the guys over at RCR. It’s great to see two RCR Chevys make the playoffs!”
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