MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
BASS PRO SHOPS NRA NIGHT RACE
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 17, 2019
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
5th Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hooters Spirits Camaro ZL1
6th Kyle Larson, No. 42 Credit One Bank Camaro ZL1
9th Kurt Busch, No. 1 Monster Energy Camaro ZL1
12th Daniel Hemric, No. 8 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Off Road Camaro ZL1
14th Bubba Wallace, No. 43 United States Air Force Camaro ZL1
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
2nd Matt Dibenedetto (Toyota)
3rd Brad Keselowski (Ford)
4th Kyle Busch (Toyota)
5th Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series takes a break next weekend and resumes on Sunday, September 1 at 6 p.m. ET with the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Live coverage can be found on NBCSN, the NBC Sports Gold App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO.9 HOOTERS SPIRITS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 5th
EARLIER IN THE RACE, YOUR CAR SEEMED A LOT STRONGER. WHERE DID IT GO?
“I don’t know. I thought we were just off a little bit off all night. All weekend we just needed a little bit. I felt like we were really close. We just never got over the hill. But our Hooters Spirits team did a good job. Heck, they executed a great race. I think we gained spots on pit road every time we came; like more than one spot, too. So, they did a great job. Alan (Gustafson) called a great race. I lined-up in the top multiple times. You can’t really ask for anything else. From a driver’s standpoint, I just didn’t do a very good job with it. I seemed to be a little bit better than these guys. I felt like the past Spring race and this race, we’ve been off just a touch. We’ve got to go to work.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 6th
“It was difficult to pass. I think we could have had a good run for the win there, but we had some left front damage on the second to last stop that we made. As soon as I turned into my stall, the 20 was going to put his right front on and I clipped him. It pushed our left front fender in and then we had to come down and repair it the next pit stop. If we didn’t have to do that, we would have restarted sixth, which would have been really nice for that last big run there. I felt like my car was really good on the long runs. We could have given it a run for the win, but we ended up coming home sixth. We were probably the third-best car there at the end.”
THAT DAMAGE ON THE LEFT FRONT AND YOU HAD TO MAKE THAT EXTRA STOP. HOW MUCH DID GETTING BACK IN TRAFFIC CHANGE YOUR NIGHT?
“Well, if we didn’t have to pit there, we would have restarted sixth and that would have obviously helped us out a lot. I think I would have gotten to probably fourth or so, there. I was really good on long runs, but was loose for most of the run. At the end, I could get going and I was right behind the No. 9, the No. 18, and the No. 22 and we were better than them; just not enough to get by them. All-in-all, a really good day again. It was a solid points day and we jumped up a couple of spots in points. Hopefully we can get to 10th at least when the Playoffs get started. We’ll see. But, I’m happy with our day. The Credit One Bank Chevy was good, just not good enough early in the run.”
YOU ARE BUILDING A LOT OF CONSISTENCY AS THE PLAYOFFS ARE LOOMING
“Yeah, no doubt. We’ve been quietly building momentum and speed and have had a lot of good runs here recently. We’ve just got to keep it going here in these next couple of races and get in the Playoffs and carry it on through that.”
HOW DISAPPOINTED ARE YOU OR HOW MOTIVATED ARE YOU AFTER TONIGHT?
“You are disappointed that you didn’t win, but for Bristol, I felt like this was one was uneventful for us other than the minor fender damage. It was cool to not have to fight leaders off from going a lap down, miss wrecks and things like that. We had a good car, too. I felt like I could run the bottom really well. We were just too loose all race long to be really aggressive on the short runs. It maybe benefitted me for the long runs.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9th
IT LOOKS LIKE YOU FADED AT THE END. WHAT HAPPENED THERE?
“We just weren’t quite there all night. I think we had a nice sequence to get a stage win, but just tight center out. We just didn’t have the mojo all weekend. The first few laps in practice, I was like man I have to get this rotation to help turn center out. We just didn’t get it done.”
WERE YOU ROOTING FOR A LATE CAUTION THERE?
“It wouldn’t have helped us much.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 19th
“After the first incident, it was just too hard to make up ground after that. We just had so much damage. To come back 19th is respectable. The other part is that we had to get off strategy because we lost two laps. So, the first two-thirds of the race, we were running old tires against the field a lot of the time trying to get laps back. It was just one of those nights.”
“Qualifying put us in that spot. A better qualifying effort would have had us in a much better position. I wouldn’t have been there when the 3 blew his tire and life would be totally different.”
YOU GUYS PITTED RIGHT BEFORE THE END OF STAGE 2 AND THEN RIGHT AFTER STAGE 2. WHAT HAPPENED THERE?
“On the restart, the 21 got into the side of me and knocked the left front fender in and we had to pit again. We had just got the lucky dog, but we had to pit again because the left front was rubbing.”
YOU SEEM LIKE YOU’RE IN GOOD SPIRITS.
“For as beat up as that car is and the runs we did on old tires, we had a good night and just a lot of bad luck. I have to look at the truth inside of this team and how strong this team is, how good this team is. I know the results are coming, it’s just a series of bad luck and it all started with a bad qualifying effort. We have to clean things up for sure. This team is really starting to gel and come along.”
IS IT PRETTY MUCH WIN OR ELSE NOW?
“I’ve got one more shot. I don’t know, it’s so hard to predict. These are two great tracks for me, two places that I love. We’ll see what happens.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
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