MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
GOBOWLING AT THE GLEN
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 3, 2019
DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:
YOU’VE HAD THE SPEED AND YOU’VE QUALIFIED WELL, BUT THE FINISHES JUST AREN’T THERE YET. IS THAT FRUSTRATING?
“its twofold. You look at it like man, it’s so frustrating to unload and have fast race cars and not have the balance in the race to use the speed. But the only thing worse than that is not having speed at all and not having a balance. So, I’m happy with that side of it. As the last couple of weeks have gone, we’ve shown that we’re capable of putting the balance in the cars and we’ve done a way better job of narrowing down what it takes to do that. But, it’s for sure, frustrating. We have do many great supporters that allow us to be at the race track week in and week out, we want to give them results and we haven’t done that. It’s just up to us to keep working harder and have weekends like we had last week as a company and as a whole. We’ve got to do that more consistently. And as the year goes, the frustration level will diminish some as we can get closer to narrowing-in on those goals.”
HOW WAS FIRST PRACTICE?
“I was fairly happy with the balance when we unloaded. We never made a qualifying run or anything like that. There is a lot of speed to be had for our Caterpillar No. 8 team from Turn 2 through esses. We just don’t have quite the balance I need there to run as much throttle as need be. But, the majority of the race track, I feel pretty comfortable. Its road course racing. I always want more front turn and more rear grip. Luke Lambert (crew chief) is going to work to try to give me that.”
DO THE ENGINEERS GIVE YOU DATA AND STUFF TO STUDY? IS IT MORE TO LIKE TAKE-IN AT THIS LEVEL?
“Oh, without a doubt. When I made the transition, especially the first five or six weeks of the year, and even preparing for the beginning of the season. There’s probably more information than you need. It can be overbearing. You can study things that really aren’t going to move the needle. But, then there’s a lot of quality information that will move the needed if you study and study it correctly. It’s been, I think, over the last five or six week, really narrowing-in on what makes sense and what you really need to focus on. I’m probably guilty as charged the other way around. You ask about the engineers giving me the homework, I’m more or less the hey, you’ve got to look at this and look at that because you don’t know unless you ask the question. And I have all the resources at the tip of my fingers. All I’ve got to do is pull the stuff up and look at data and look at past races and the things that they’ve done in the past. I’m probably guilty of diving into that stuff a bit too much. But, on the flip side of that, there’s a lot of information to digest.”
WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT’S EFFECTIVE TO STUDY AND LEARN FROM?
“For me, it’s just basic SMT….throttle, brake pressures, steering-wheel movements. You can look through the field and analyze yourself to the best guys week in and week out. Obviously the sport knows who the top 6 or 7 cars are, so really diving into things they do differently than others and trying to apply that, but also in the grand scheme of things, as close as everybody’s race cars are now with this package, there is only so much on the edge you can run to. It’s easy to overstep that boundary. So, you’ve got to be adamant on being the leader of okay, I want to do this. My car is not capable because of this. And then directing the direction for changes to make sure you get your car where you can take it.”
ON THE UPCOMING RACE AT MICHIGAN
“The last Michigan race was probably a turning point for us as a company and we thought we had all the potential there to have a weekend there like we had at Pocono. Now knowing how far our cars have come in the weeks since, I’m excited to get there. I know where our cars did good and didn’t do so good and the direction we took to make all that stuff better. So, I’m looking forward to having a good weekend there.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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