MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
FOLDS OF HONOR QUICKTRIP 500
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
FEBRUARY 24, 2019
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
3rd Kurt Busch, No. 1 ComSurv Camaro ZL1
9th Chris Buescher, No. 37 Scott Comfort Plus Camaro ZL1
12th Kyle Larson, No. 42 McDonald’s Camaro ZL1
15th Alex Bowman, No. 88 Axalta Camaro ZL1
17th William Byron, No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Brad Keselowski (Ford)
2nd Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota)
3rd Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)
4th Kevin Harvick (Ford)
5th Clint Bowyer (Ford)
The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube is scheduled to begin on Sunday, March 3rd at 3:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 COMSURV CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd
YOU GUYS WERE THE FASTEST CAMARO’S HOW DOES THAT FEEL?
“It was great watching Larson up front I knew I needed to drive harder to catch him. Our balance was a little bit looser and then the track came to us a little bit better at the end, so it was a good day for us to carry that banner.”
FIRST TRUE RACE WITH YOUR NEW RACE TEAM THIS HAS GOT TO FEEL GOOD:
“It was really good. To find that looseness and tightness balance. We had long runs, we had short runs, we went through a lot today. So, we need to just sit down in the board room and really debrief. What we have, where the speed was in the No. 42 early on and be able to capitalize late.”
THIS WAS YOUR 650TH START AND YOU ARE AS COMPETITIVE AS EVER. A TOP-5 FINISH; HOW PROUD ARE YOU OF THIS EFFORT WHEN YOU AND CHIP GANASSI RACING JUST GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER?
“I could say that wasn’t anything fantastic or exciting, but it really was. To finish third on our second outing together and to run with the who’s-who of the sport just shows Ganassi’s got the right stuff. (Kyle) Larson had a tough break. We called a good break to get on the lead lap with (Joey) Logano and to race in the top 5 at the end; but all in all, for us to get gelled together to learn what loose and tight was, but man, I just struggled in Turns 3 and 4 and that’s where I got arm-wrestled. They took us but hey, we’re Top 5 in this kind of run. Thanks to Monster Energy and ComSurv was on our car this weekend. Chip (Ganassi) was standing right there. Thanks to everybody. That’s a good third place finish. We’ll take it.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 SCOTT COMFORT PLUS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9TH
OUTSTANDING RUN:
“Yeah, I appreciate it. I knew that 24th best finish stat and that was disappointing to me. I knew we were going to better it today about after the first stage. Everybody on this Scott Comfort Plus Camaro ZL1 did a great job. This group worked hard. We made big swings to get up there and to start 30th and be able to get a top 10 out of this thing, I’m proud of them. That was fun. That helped get us out of that hole or start to dig us out of that hole we got in with The Big One at Daytona. Just puts everyone in a good mood and Ryan (Preece) was running good too and I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I know something a little bit out of his control. I think this is a sign of good things to come. We’ve got some more work to do, but heck of a start.”
HOW MUCH MOMENTUM DOES THIS RUN GIVE YOU GOING FORWARD?
“Yeah I mean if we can go get some wins that is awesome. We’ve got a little ways to go to get there, but I sure don’t have any complaints about today. We worked hard. We made big swings, big adjustments to get into the top 10 and be able to put ourselves up there with our Scotts Comfort Plus Camaro ZL1. Just really proud of this group. It’s a lot of hard work that goes into the off-season. It’s cool to see if pay off and see all of our guys smiling afterwards.”
ANYTHING YOU CAN TAKE FROM TODAY TO USE AT VEGAS?
“Yeah, a ton. Maybe not so much Vegas, that is a smoother, higher grip race track, but you look at Fontana surface, very similar to this, bigger track, but there is something to be said about the bumps what we did to combat that, what we were doing about clean air. It was definitely something we will apply towards Fontana, a little bit towards Vegas.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 MCDONALD’S CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 12th
“…the car handled really well until we got put in traffic there, but even the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) seemed to struggle trying to get back to the front. Yeah, dirty air was much worse than I thought it was. I spent most of the day up front, so once I got back there it was pretty crazy.”
HOW DO YOU RATE THIS PACKAGE TRYING TO COME UP THROUGH THE FIELD?
“Yeah, I had a good day going until I sped. My car handled really good and then once I got where I had to restart in the back, I was just really tight. Yeah, I mean, clean air is even more important now a days than in the past I think, at least at a track like this. That was a little disappointing, but more so just upset at myself for making a big mistake like that.”
IS THERE ANYTHING DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS TRACK THAT MAKES IT EASIER TO SPEED?
“Just one of those things. I made a mistake. I knew it was going to be close. You flash some reds on your dash, you hope you come off pit road and they don’t say anything and half the time it works out in your favor, but today… I was just too fast and got in trouble.”
WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE RACING TODAY?
“Well, I was up front for most of it battling for the lead and stuff. It felt really similar to a Xfinity race until I got to the back. Once I got in the back it was just really hard to find clean air and your balance was way different toward the back of the pack.”
IS THE DIRTY AIR WAY WORSE THAN LAST YEAR HERE?
“Yeah, I would say so. I mean the big spoiler just punches such a big hole and you lose downforce behind people. I lost a lot of front grip once I went to the back. I felt like I could run really good through (Turns) 1 and 2 for a long time. I could never do that once I got in the traffic.”
DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 RED CAP/ALSCO CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 20th
“What a day. It’s kind of heartbreaking for these guys we couldn’t get a solid top five finish. I said I wanted to have an uneventful day and have a solid finish and it was good to see that we were going to be able to run top five there just had a right-front tire come apart. I made a lot of mistakes on pit road today that I’ve got to get better with, just made a lot of mistakes.”
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END?
“Just had a crazy day. I thought we were going to put ourselves in position to have a solid day. I made a lot of mistakes, way too many mistakes than what you can make at this level to even have a shot to run top five and still found ourselves in position there to do it and just had a right front tire come a part on our Alsco/Red Kap Camaro ZL1. That was the end of it, but the good thing is I feel like it put a little motivation in everybody here at RCR. That is the kind of race cars we have to have at the race track every week to give ourselves a shot. It was fun to drive, fun to pass people and look forward to next week.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 25th
“This GEICO Racing team battled all day. We didn’t fire off how we wanted to at the start. Our Camaro ZL1 was just too tight in traffic and would fall off from there. This team kept working though. My crew chief made great changes, and my team had clean stops on pit road. We really had it handling how we needed it to by the middle of Stage 2. We were running similar lap times to the leaders at the end, and I was really happy with it. There is no doubt that our team learned a lot today with this new package. I’m proud of their hustle and that we kept improving throughout the race. Now we’ll turn our focus to Las Vegas.”
RYAN PREECE, NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 – Sidelined on lap 271 due to pit road incident
THEY SAID YOU HAD GLANCED DOWN AT YOUR TACHOMETER; WHAT DID YOU SEE AFTER THAT?
“I was just trying to make sure I wasn’t speeding. And when I looked up, he (BJ McLeod, No. 52) was coming in the pits. So, it’s a mistake. What are you going to do? It’s just unfortunate for us because we were having a really good run. Like I said, we are going to have some good cars this year. So, if we can keep that, we’ll be really good at Vegas and I’m just really proud of everybody with JTG and Kroger. There’s nothing else you can do other than that. So, I’m looking forward to next week.”
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