MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
TICKETGUARDIAN 500
ISM RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 11, 2018
TOP TEAM CHEVY FINISHERS:
POS. DRIVER
3rd CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1
11th RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 GRAINGER CAMARO ZL1
12th WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1
13th ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1
14th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S FOR PROS CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE FINISHERS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Kevin Harvick (Ford)
2nd Kyle Busch (Toyota)
3rd Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
4th Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
5TH Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota
The next race for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) will be at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for the Auto Club 400 on Sunday, March 18th. Live coverage will begin at 3:30 ET and can be found on FOX, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd
WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE WHEN YOU WERE OUT FRONT AND KEVIN HARVICK EVENTUALLY GOT PAST YOU FOR THE LEAD?
“Yeah, we had a good car. It was solid, you know? Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) made a good call there at the end and we had a good pit stop there to get into the lead and I just felt like I needed a little bit of drive there to put the power down in front of him. I had a pretty good turn those last two runs and before that I wasn’t turning good enough and too good of forward bite. So, he was definitely the car to beat and it felt like there were a lot of laps left. I tried my best to hold him off as long as I could, but I felt like him and Kyle (Busch) had just a little bit on us. We’ll go to work and try to get better for California.”
DESCRIBE YOUR AFTERNOON HERE AT PHOENIX WAS YOUR THIRD PLACE FINISH:
“It was solid. A lot better than we have been for sure. We are just trying to gain. The guys did a good job, Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) made a good call, had a good pit stop there at the end to get us the lead. Just didn’t have what I needed to stay in front of Kevin (Harvick) for that long, there were a lot of laps left. We gave it our best effort today. I felt like we made the most of what we had and we will move on to California.”
WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED?
“I needed a little bit of forward drive there at the end. I was turning pretty good and just had a hard time putting the power down. We will go to work.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 GRAINGER CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 11th
“Our Grainger Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 had the speed today. The one thing we struggled to do last season was to lead laps and now we’ve led in two races so far. It’s great to see the RCR Chevys up front. Our biggest challenge was maintaining track position and it is pretty evident what we need to work on and I’m sure we’ll get it resolved. I’m just proud to have contended because the more laps we lead will soon convert into wins.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 12th
YOU MADE TWO TIRES LOOK GOOD ALL DAY. HOW WAS YOUR RACE OVERALL?
“I think the two tires worked for us, just the way our car was handling, we were really tight all day and we couldn’t really get that out of it. But, the middle stage of the race we started running closer to the top 10, ninth or 10th I think and that was the perfect call at the time. I was a little, I guess, not sure if it was going to work out just because we had done it already one time. But, it worked out, we could kind of keep some clean air and I think that was a net gain for sure.”
WHAT DID IT MEAN TO GET OUT AND LEAD THE FIRST LAPS OF YOUR CUP SERIES CAREER TODAY?
“I mean, I think it just showed myself that I can do it that I can do those restarts up there. I know I have the pace up there to run until our handling kind of took over, but I felt like if we can really start to hone in on what we need a little better we are going to be right there. It’s going to take a little bit of work, but it was fun to at least be up there a little bit.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 13th
YOU HAD TO GO FROM THE BACK TO THE FRONT TWICE, LONG DAY, BUT ARE YOU OKAY WITH TODAY’S RESULT?
“Yeah, it was a frustrating day. I don’t know if we had brake fans or not because we didn’t have any other fans, everything inside the car quit. My helmet blower quit, everything quit. It was hot. I burnt my feet pretty good, but the racecar wasn’t bad. Just my trackbar quit when everything else quit, so I had no adjustment all day too. We overcame a lot. I sped on pit road, when I swerved to miss some debris. Had some bad pit stops and rebounded from it. We will take 13th for as rough as today was.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S FOR PROS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 14th
NOT THE DAY YOU WANTED. WHAT WERE YOU MISSING TODAY?
“I don’t know. We certainly made the car better throughout the course of the weekend. We got up to eighth and then had some pit strategy kind of work against us and feel back into the teens again and it’s just so stinking hard to pass. I think if we could have stayed up there in that top 10 where we were, we would have finished there, but once we got mired back and had to start all over again, it was just a long grind.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 18th
ON THE SPIN EARLY IN THE RACE:
“It definitely wasn’t a tire going down. We’ve had, all weekend, like a wheel hop, tire chatter, some issue like that. It’s hard to kind of tell what it is. I feel like it just starts as soon as I get to the brakes and turn the wheel and then I just start wheel hopping. I fought it all day yesterday and was hoping that we could fix it. We still had the issue in the race. It was fairly annoying having the tires bounce around underneath you, but hopefully we will figure out what was going on all weekend with our set-up and come back later in the year better.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 95 WRL GENERAL CONTRACTORS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 24th
“I was on the loose side the whole race. So, that made it a little tough to do anything on restart, usually we would get taken advantage of, but it would actually come in alright, just kind of stalled out.”
TY DILLON, NO. GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 30th
“Our GEICO Camaro ZL1 fired off great to start the race because we were tight, and that worked well for us on the green racetrack. Once the track started to rubber up and change, we were too tight. I tagged the wall there in the middle of the first stage and had body damage to the right rear of the car that we needed to fix. We worked on the damage on every stop after that until the fender was clear, and my team kept adjusting the car to keep my balance in a good spot throughout the race. We had some good moments today in being able to muscle around the cars in front of us and using strategy at the end of Stage 2 to pick up our first stage points of the season. We know that we need to be in a position each week to get more of those points because they are so critical, and we’re going to get there. I have no doubt about this team’s ability and the fight that we’ll put up to keep growing and improving.”
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