MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
BOJANGLES SOUTHERN 500
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 2, 2018
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
3rd KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 DC SOLAR CAMARO ZL1
5TH CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA THROWBACK CAMARO ZL1
9TH JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S 50 YEARS OF BIG MAC CAMARO ZL1
13TH CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S BEST SINCE 1908 CAMARO ZL1
16TH AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 AMERICAN ETHANOL E15 CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Brad Keselowski (Ford)
2nd Joey Logano (Ford)
3rd Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
4th Kevin Harvick (Ford)
5TH Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with The Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard on Sunday, September 9th at 2 p.m. ET on NBCSN, IMS, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 DC SOLAR CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd
YOU LED 284 LAPS BUT LOST THE LEAD ON PIT ROAD. WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT LAST RUN? IT SEEMED LIKE THE CAR WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
“It’s always important to come out the leader off pit road or be the control car on the restart. I felt like if I could have been in clean air, I would have been all right. All day when I would get in traffic I’d get loose. There on that last run I was just really loose and allowed Joey (Logano) to get by. I knew the only really weakness we would have throughout the race was a short run and that’s what it kind of came down to. On long runs, I was just really, really good all race long. That was good. Hat’s off to everybody back at our race shop. This car was extremely fast. We had the dominant car and we proved it. We just came up a little bit short. Thanks to DC Solar and everybody, like I said. It’s nice to show some dominant speed like that and a 1.5-mile like this leading up to the Playoffs.”
AS DOMINANT AS THE CAR WAS TODAY, HOW DO YOU DIGEST THIS ONE AS A TEAM?
“It stings, for sure, to not win at a prestigious race like this. I want to win every race, but I want to win a Southern 500 really bad. So, it would have been cool to win that. But, at the same time, to bring a car to the race track like we did this weekend is something to be proud of and a big confidence-booster going into the next 11 weeks.”
HOW BAD DOES IT STING WHEN YOU DON’T COME OUT ON TOP?
“Yeah, I mean it sucks. I don’t know, I mean, last week sucked we had a terrible car and ran second and that sucked, so this week we had the best car and run third. So, I mean it obviously… everybody who doesn’t win isn’t happy. But at the same time, we haven’t had a car like this all year. I was extremely happy about that and looking forward to the next couple of months.
DOES THAT GIVE YOU A LOT OF HOPE WITH A CAR THIS GOOD GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS?
“Yeah we learned some stuff at Richmond I thought and gained a lot of speed, a lot of grip and implemented that into this week’s car and it really showed.”
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE RACE THERE?
“I was definitely better on long runs. I felt like long runs is where we were really strong. Guys could stay with me for probably, I don’t know, 15 or so laps and then I would start pulling away by quite a bit. We didn’t come out the leader, so I wasn’t the control car on that restart and that is important at the end of the race. So, we lost our advantage there and then I was pretty loose there the last run.”
WHAT WAS THE MOST FRUSTRATING PART ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO PULL OFF THE WIN?
“I don’t know not winning is enough to be disappointed about. Like I have been saying, I’m still really happy about the car that we brought. We haven’t shown speed like that all year. That is probably more speed than we showed at some of the races we won last year. So, I’m happy about the car for sure, but I guess disappointed we didn’t win.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA THROWBACK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 5th
HOW MUCH DID YOU WORK ON THE CAR AND DID YOU MAKE PROGRESS ALONG THE WAY?
“I thought we got it better as the night went along and got to a pretty decent place there and we just so happened to get into a decent place when we had track position as well. Circumstances were pretty good for a course of that run when we ran second and was trying to pace Kyle (Larson) and just felt like I was probably having to work a little too hard to pace him and was really hard on my rear tires and then by the end fell off pretty bad. Have a little work to do, but mistake free night, which is nice and we just got to find the next little step to keep up with that crowd.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S 50 YEAR OF BIG MAC CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9th
A ROUGH START TO THE WEEKEND FOR YOU, BUT YOU ENDED THE WEEKEND WITH A TOP 10 FINISH THAT’S PRETTY SPORTY:
“No, I got caught… I missed the commitment line I guess on one of the green flag stops, so we had to fight to get back on the lead lap like two or three times, but had a really good car. Both of our cars were… Kyle (Larson) was really fast tonight. We had a great car too we just could never get the track position that we needed, but yeah, a really good day.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S BEST SINCE 1908 CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 13th
BEST CAREER FINISH FOR YOU HERE AT DARLINGTON, THAT’S NOT SO BAD FOR THIS TEAM:
“No, not at all. That is a good day for us there. I’m proud of this team and everyone on this Bush’s Best Since 1908 Camaro ZL1. I mean that was a good race. It’s a long race and it’s always fun when you get to run the whole thing and be there at the end. Kind of a wild one with the way it played out with everybody all over the place, but we had a good run. We had one set of tires that corded on us really early and that was strange. Got a little behind there. I think we should have had a better day. Everybody did an excellent job. Everybody with Kroger Clicklist, JTG Daugherty Racing they are putting solid efforts in and we are starting to get some results and even though Bristol didn’t end up the way we wanted to they knew we were there and we were definitely fast. We are sneaking up on it.”
WILLIAM BRYON, NO. 24 AXALTA THROWBACK CAMARO ZL1 – Sidelined on lap 329 with a mechanical issue
WHAT HAPPENED?
“Yeah, we blew up. Not really totally sure why or what happened. We started to lose oil pressure the last run or so. Everything seemed to be getting hotter and hotter and kind of accelerating higher and higher temps wise and also oil pressure was kind of flashing at me, which was odd. Yeah, just blew up, but we had a pretty solid day going. The car looked awesome and we will keep working hard.”
DID THEY INDICATE IF THIS IS AN IDENTICAL ISSUE TO WHAT YOUR TEAMMATE JIMMIE JOHNSON HAD?
“Yeah, I mean it’s hard to hear, but they don’t really know what happened yet. Overall, we were trying a couple of different strategies out there. The track was really slick. I felt like our car was capable of finishing probably 10th or 11th, which was kind of where we were running. Overall some good positives, tough race track, but wanted to definitely finish this one.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S THROWBACK CAMARO ZL1 – Sidelined on Lap 227 with mechanical issue
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED THAT HAS TAKEN YOU OUT?
“It was something about the oil pump, I believe. I’m not sure if it’s through the belt, of something else went on. But, the amount of time it takes to get the engine apart and the oil pump out to put a new one on, it just takes too long. Thankfully, the engine is okay, we think; but it just takes too long to get the oil pump out.”
YOU’VE SHOWED SOME SPEED. YOU GUYS CERTAINLY SEEM TO BE IMPROVING IN THAT DEPARTMENT. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE BAD LUCK, THE MISTAKES, AND THE MISFORTUNES THAT HAVE KEPT YOU FROM GETTING SOME OF THOSE RESULTS?
“It’s just about cleaning things up. I didn’t have a great lap in that second round of Qualifying that put us back. Unfortunately, we had a loose wheel; and then I missed the commitment line coming in. We’ve just got to clean those things up. Our cars are much better. I just have to thank everybody at Hendrick Motorsports for working so hard. We just have to minimize mistakes; and I think we can run a Top 5 pretty easily.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
“Something with the oil pump. I’m not sure if it’s the belt or the pump itself, but it would take too long to kind of pull the engine a part and fix it. I think the engine is okay, but something with oil pressure. I had zero oil pressure and the engine went into protection mode and wouldn’t run.”
ARE YOU CONCERNED FOR NEXT WEEK THE LAST WEEK OF THE REGULAR SEASON?
“Our engine shop is so rock solid, if anything I would be a little nervous for my teammates out there right now that have the same stuff. Sometimes we have material issues and things out of our control that we have seen when one engine goes a bunch go. So, fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen with my teammates. These guys are the best in the business we will be fine next week.”
IS IT UNSETTLING AT ALL TO GO INTO INDIANAPOLIS WITH A MATHEMATICAL CHANCE OF MISSING THE PLAYOFFS?
“Yeah, I mean it sucks. I don’t want to be in this position. We have been around this spot for a while. We have seen it coming. We just need to transfer and honestly, I think our cars are capable of running in the top five. If we can just start minimizing mistakes, my own included, we will be much better off and have a shot.”
WHEN WAS THE INDICATION THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG?
“It was just instant. Something with the oil pump. And then the engine has an oil protection system, so when the oil pump did its thing the engine just shut off. We think the engine is fine, but it would take too long to change the oil pump.”
HOW WILL YOU APPROACH THE RACE NEXT WEEK?
“Yeah, I don’t even know really the situation I’m in. But yeah for sure. Tonight, we were racing the No. 88 and trying to beat him to make sure we would be okay next week. We were both two laps down and kind of racing each other. I would assume that would be the same thing next weekend.”
YOU KIND OF JUST HAVE TO ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES RIGHT NOW DON’T YOU?
“Yeah, there is no need to flip out now. We have had a pretty rough year to this point. We have been working hard, unfortunately just haven’t had the results. We will keep working hard. There is no quit in myself of this team.”
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