MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
OVERTON’S 400
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 1, 2018
TOP TEAM CHEVY FINISHERS:
POS. DRIVER
2nd KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1
10th ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1
12th JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S/CESSNA CAMARO ZL1
14th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S FOR PROS CAMARO ZL1
15th RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 OKUMA CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE FINISHERS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Kyle Busch (Toyota)
2nd Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
3rd Kevin Harvick (Ford)
4th Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota)
5th Clint Bowyer (Ford)
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Daytona International Speedway with the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Sunday, July 7 at 7:00 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 2nd
I KNOW YOU MIGHT BE UPSET, BUT YOU SAID IT WAS FUN:
“Oh man, I’m not upset. I had an opportunity there to slide in front of him and I figured I wouldn’t clear him or I would allow him to drive back underneath me. So, I tried to get to his door and you know I opened the door for him to retaliate into (Turn) 3. I thought it was free game. I ran into him first, he got me after that, maybe a little bit worse than I got him, but that is alright. I love racing Kyle (Busch). I know all these fans are probably mad at him, but hey we put on a hell of a show for you guys and that was a blast. I had the top rolling there. I ran the right front off of it a little bit trying to run those guys down and (seeing the replay) yeah, that has got to be one of the best NASCAR finishes of all time. I know I’m on the short end of the stick again, but you know it was fun. Our Credit One Bank Chevy was amazing. Not great on the short runs, but man, on the long runs I could really get the top going and was able to get the top of (Turns) 3 and 4 figured out and really made up some time there. Just a lot of fun. My team did a great job, the pit crew was on it again, so thanks to them. Thanks to all you fans for coming out, it was a hot weekend, really hot, but we put on a good show for you.”
THE FANS CAN HEAR YOU, THEY WERE BOOING WHEN KYLE BUSCH CAME OUT OF THE CAR YOU WANT TO SAY ANYTHING TO THEM?
“I just want to thank all you guys for being fans of the sport, fans for all of us drivers, we really appreciate it. That was a fun race. We both got our elbows up there, we ran into each other a couple of times and he came out the winner. So, I think if roles were reversed I would have done the same thing if he got into me off (Turn) 2. So, I probably would have ran into him into (Turn) 3, so, can’t fault him for that. That was just hard racing.”
WHAT A BATTLE WITH KYLE BUSCH. DISCUSS THE BATTLE AND WHAT MORE YOU NEEDED TO GET THE VICTORY:
“Yeah, I was fighting hard to catch them and had a really good car especially on the long runs. We were able to get the top going and finally run them down. Yeah, the lappers bottled him up pretty bad there and I was able to get a run on him. He changed his line up there for a couple of laps in a row and I got a big run and went to throw the slider on him and got really tight. My plan was pretty much to run into the side of him to try and slow his momentum down and was able to do that and get clear of him. I didn’t really want to be clear of him in (Turn) 3 though because I knew he would get to my back bumper and move me out of the way, which he did. So, I mean, I know the fans probably already don’t like Kyle Busch, but that was just kind of hard racing there I thought.”
IT’S BEEN ALL THE TALK ABOUT THE ‘BIG THREE’ THIS YEAR, BUT YOUR NAME HAS BEEN THROWN IN AND OUT OF THE MIX. HOW SOON BEFORE IT’S THE ‘BIG FOUR’?
“Yeah, it’s close. I think we showed today that we were right there with them. I think the track kind of played into my favor. If I wasn’t able to run the wall I wouldn’t have been as fast as them, but I was still comparable. I was happy about that. Proud of my team. They have been working really hard all year bringing better and better cars every week. Can’t thank them enough, can’t thank everybody at the shop enough, today was just a lot of fun.”
ON THE BATTLE WITH KYLE BUSCH AT THE END
“Yeah, I moved him first. So, I can’t be too upset about the move into (Turn) 3. I opened the door. I waved the green flag to run into each other. So, that was just a fun finish. I got really tight as I was catching him and I honestly didn’t think I’d even have an opportunity to race him for the win, but he got bottled up there in traffic and I was able to get a run and do what I could.”
DID YOU EXECUTE THAT MOVE THE WAY YOU WANTED TO, OR DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE HIT HIM MAYBE A LITTLE BIT HARDER SO THAT MAYBE HE COULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN BACK TO YOU?
“I guess I wanted to slide in front of him but I knew I would be too tight and have to slow down too much to where he’d probably just cross over and drive away from me. So, yeah, I did plan to go in there and get into the side of him and slow him down, which I did. But I really didn’t want to get clear of him before (Turn) 3 because I knew that would give him the opportunity to do that into 3; so I wanted him to hang on my right side and we would just drag race and who know if I could have nailed the bottom I maybe could have won.
That was an awesome finish. I hope the fans, even though they might be upset with him, enjoyed it.”
THERE WAS A LOT OF TRAFFIC RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. CARS WERE EVERYWHERE. HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH THERE? DO YOU THINK IF THEY WEREN’T IN YOUR WAY YOU WOULD HAVE CAUGHT HIM A LITTLE BIT SOONER?
“Well, it pays to have friends out there. I felt like (Ricky) Stenhouse and (Ryan) Newman did a good job of holding him up for me and I was very thankful of that. So, first off, thanks to those two. And yeah, it just broke his momentum up enough for the last three laps there for him to change up what he was doing and I was able to just keep committing to the wall and I got that run on him. The traffic really played in my favor there.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 10th
“It was a good day for us for sure. Another top 10 is something for our team to continue building on. We battled some loose conditions off and on, but Greg (Ives, crew chief) made some great changes to the car. Our Axalta pit crew was on it today. I am pretty sure we gained two or more positions on each stop. This is definitely good momentum going into next week’s race.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 19th
“Unfortunately, we didn’t finish like we started. We tried a couple things and they just didn’t work out in our favor. There just was no pace on the top there at the end.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 20th
“Yeah, just fought tight the whole day and felt like we got a little bit on the other side of it but didn’t really help us out much. But, good pit stops and a couple of good things to hang on to. So, go to Daytona.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 28th
“We still have some work to do on our intermediate track program. Our team has certainly had some good moments this year, like our 13th-place finish at Texas, but today was a struggle for our GEICO Camaro ZL1 team. It’s so hard to take notes from one mile-and-half to another because a lot of them are in different stages of a repave from recent years. We are going to keep working at it though. Continuing to build and improve takes hard work, and this team certainly isn’t scared of putting in that time and effort.”
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