MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FORD ECOBOOST 400
HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 17, 2017
TOP TEAM CHEVY QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
7TH KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CHEVY SS
13TH JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVY SS
15TH PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 RICHMOND/MENARDS CHEVY SS
18th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA CHEVY SS
21ST RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVY SS
22ND JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVY SS
TOP FIVE QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
2nd Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota)
3rd Kyle Busch (Toyota)
4th Matt Kenseth (Toyota)
5TH Brad Keselowski (Ford)
The Ford EcoBoost 400 is scheduled to begin on Sunday, November 19th at 3:00 pm, EDT. Live coverage can be found on NBC, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE/DC SOLAR CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 7th
LAST QUALIFYING SESSION OF THE SEASON, NOT THE POLE, BUT STILL A SOLID EFFORT:
“Yeah, it was by far our best qualifying effort here at Homestead, so I’m happy about that. I got really loose during the last round in Turns 1 and 2 and then nailed my (Turns) 3 and 4, so I felt like I could have ended up fourth or so if I would have gotten through (Turns) 1 and 2 better. Yeah, we will get a better pit stall selection than normal and hopefully that will help our race out.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 13th
WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED AND WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TOMORROW TO GET RACE READY?
“I think we tied with Brad (Keselowski) right there. So, a little bit unfortunate that we didn’t make it to the next round. The tires do fall off between each round and you don’t really know what to expect, but overall it wasn’t a horrible day for our McDonald’s Chevy. We missed it in the first round a little bit more. I made a mistake in the car and I think that maybe messed up our adjustments going into Round 2, but overall still pretty happy with our car. I thought we were okay in the short race trim run we did today. And look forward to the two practices tomorrow, last race of the year, I’m excited about it.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 22nd
IT LOOKED LIKE THE CAR WAS JUST A TAD LOOSE:
“Yeah, it had some of that. Unfortunate we didn’t qualify any better. This track is a lot of fun to race on, a lot of different lanes and looking forward to getting into race trim tomorrow. We tested down here and I thought our test session went well in race trim. We didn’t work on any qualifying trim stuff. We will get by today and get to work tomorrow.”
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO WORK ON TOMORROW?
“Well, the end of these races can end under caution as we’ve seen or a lot of cautions at the end. But then you have long runs leading up to that, so trying to cover both bases if you can. Last year we didn’t have the long run speed, but we had the short run speed and it won us the race and the championship, so we will see what tomorrow brings to us.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 24th
OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO MAKE AN ATTEMPT IN THE SECOND ROUND. YOU TALKED TO US ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICE EARLIER TODAY FOR TOMORROW … HAD A CHANCE TO SHAKE THE CAR DOWN AFTER HAVING TO CHANGE THE ENGINE?
“Well, we would have liked to have got more laps so we could work on the car. The car is a little bit tight in the center. I’m anxious to get in the car tomorrow so we can get some more time with it. I felt pretty good about the speed in the car, we just got to get it running a little bit better, handle a little bit better for the long run. I’m afraid it’s going to get too tight.”
WHAT WERE YOU AND GREG (IVES) DISCUSSING AFTER MAKING YOUR QUALIFYING LAP?
“We were talking about our car, what we need to do to get it better. The car’s real tight in the center of the corner. I’m trying to help Greg (Ives) understand what I think will help me and get that in his mind to get it going tonight so he can come up with some great ideas for tomorrow that we can implement there the car. We feel like we got a short hand dealt to us today because of the engine issues. I didn’t get to practice a lot, so anxious to get some time tomorrow with the car so we can really start to work on the balance. So, I think we got some things we can do to get the car running a little bit better.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KROGER/CLICKLIST CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 26th
DESCRIBE YOUR LAP, WHAT WAS MISSING?
“It was pretty evil. We are trying some new stuff for going into next year. We’ve got a lot of great ideas happening. I like where we are at as a race team moving into next year. This year has been a difficult year for sure, but really struggled today with the Kroger Clicklist Chevy. This place is slick, so you are always going to be sliding around to a certain extent, but right there the car just felt really disconnected in kind of all aspects of the corners. I think if we get the car in the race track there is speed, because that lap felt horrible and we barely missed the cutoff. But, we’ve definitely got to work on it a lot tomorrow. We never really hit on anything today, so we will go back to the drawing board and work on it tomorrow.”
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