MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DRYDENE 400
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 6, 2019
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Playoff Contender)
1st * KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1
3rd * ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 CINCINNATI CAMARO ZL1
8th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1
9th KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1
13th * WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Playoff Contender)
1st * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
2nd Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
3rd * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
4th Kevin Harvick (Ford)
5th Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK (Following Round 4 of 10)
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Contender)
1. * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
2. Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
3. Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
4. Kyle Busch (Toyota)
5. Kevin Harvick (Ford)
6. Brad Keselowski (Ford)
7. * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
8. * William Byron (Chevrolet)
9. Joey Logano (Ford)
10. Clint Bowyer (Ford)
11. * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
12. Ryan Blaney (Ford)
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Talladega Superspeedway with the 1000Bulbs.com 500 on Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 P.M. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBC, NBC Sports Gold, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 – Race Winner
WITH THIS WIN, YOU WILL ADVANCE TO THE ROUND OF 8 IN THE PLAYOFFS. WHAT A TIME TO END A TWO-YEAR WINLESS STREAK, HOW CRITICAL WAS THIS WIN FOR THE #42 TEAM?
“Oh, it’s really critical. Everybody in this Playoff field is going to be stressed next week at Talladega except for me. So, that’s good. The last time I was at Talladega, I was on my lid and I could still end up on my lid next week, but it doesn’t matter after this win. What a day! This Clover Chevy was really good. After the first stage, I kind of changed my driving style up and I felt like we made the car better at the same time. And, they really benefitted our long runs. That’s as good as I’ve ever been around, cutting the bottom, here. So, it was just a great combination here. To be fast in practice and then be good in the race and you get the win. I can’t thank all you fans enough for coming out. This cool weather was nice for a change. This is unbelievable. I’ve always wanted to win a Cup race here. I’ve been close a number of times, so to get a ‘Golden Monster’ (trophy) is pretty sweet.”
NO DOUBT THIS IS WELL-TIMED. BUT IS THIS MAYBE THE BIGGEST WIN OF YOUR CAREER?
“A million dollars earlier this year (at the All-Star) was pretty nice but no, to win a Playoff race, my first Playoff victory, is special. I hope there’s another one in our future, especially in the next round. So, we’ll see what we can do. I kept saying that I felt really close to winning here, or anywhere, right now. Our pit crew has been doing a better job and the team is doing a better job and I’ve been doing a better job. We just got to keep it going now.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 CINCINNATI CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd
IT SEEMED LIKE YOU GUYS GOT BETTER AS THE RACE WENT ON. IS THAT THE CASE?
“Yeah, I mean I think we had a good car there to start. It’s just really hard to pass and it took a while for the track to widen out. I made up some track position and then I had an issue on a pit stop that kind of put us back behind some of the guys we just passed. We just have to keep working at it. Obviously, the 42 and the 19 were way out there, but we had a really good race car and I’m proud of my guys.”
“I’m really proud of my race team and everyone for keeping their heads on straight. I’ll take it after last week. We got together with the 12 there off of turn two really early and I was like ‘no, not again’. I’m glad he saved it. Just two cars going for one spot on the race track, nothing happened from there. We had a clean day. The only real issue we had was that one pit stop. But, aside from that pit stop, my guys were probably the fastest on pit road. I’ll take it for how good they are.”
DO YOU THINK IF THERE WERE MORE CAUTIONS YOU COULD HAVE GOT TO THEM?
“Maybe, for sure. You never know how that’s going to work out. I felt like our car wasn’t very good on the short run. During the middle part of the run, my car was really good. I’m not sure how a late caution would have ended up, but congrats to the 42 guys. Kyle (Larson) has been working hard this year so it’s cool to see him get a win. We have two more weeks in this round to get it done.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 8th
“I felt like we had a shot. When we were in clean air, our lap times were great. Just as everyone experienced, it was really tough to pass. We had a few things that set us back and lost track position throughout the day. But we had a really fast race car. We were able to pass some, which I don’t think many could pass at all. All in all, it was a good day. We ran better than 8th for most of it, but we just couldn’t finish higher.”
IT SEEMS LIKE HMS IS TRENDING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION WITH THE SPEED THAT WAS IN THE CARS TODAY. I KNOW CHASE (ELLIOTT) HAD HIS ISSUES, BUT REGARDLESS, WHAT DOES THAT SET THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL AT GOING FORWARD?
“Talladega is kind of its own animal. I think Kansas we’re really excited for and feel like we can control our own destiny. The high downforce tracks, the Hendrick cars have been more competitive. I know we are all excited to get back to Kansas and build off of what we’ve had the last month or two.”
IT SEEMS LIKE SINCE CLIFF DANIELS (CREW CHIEF) CAME ABOARD, YOU’VE FOUND SPEED THE PAST FEW MONTHS. WITH THIS BEING ONE OF YOUR BEST TRACKS, WERE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE RUN TODAY OR DID YOU WANT A LITTLE MORE?
“No, I mean we’re here to win the race and that’s where my heart and mind is. Throughout the day, I felt like we did have pace at times to run for the lead if we could just cycle through all the pit stops to get there. Unfortunately, we had some things happen on pit road. I had to avoid cars coming out of stalls and it just set me back. Coming in 4th and coming out 9th, I think the way it all worked out with the pit box location, I lost positions during each pit stop. So, just really tough to recover from that. I’m disappointed there, but in my heart, I know we’re going the right way.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9th
“Today, we started 9th, ran 9th, and finished 9th. It was about all we had. I was on the tight side and Kyle (Larson) was a little bit on the loose side, but we made it work. I’m happy for my teammate to win and advance. It was a good step for us to just have a nice, smooth day. We just never really found anything to help the car steer.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 13th
“Yeah, we couldn’t recover from that after. We just had a miscalculation of when we could accelerate out of our pit box. I thought we were fine on pit road speed to leave the box hard. That was a bummer for sure. We had a pretty good car. We couldn’t really make many passes, but we were able to get from the back after having to start pretty close to the tail end. It just really hurt our day. But overall, the guys did a good job and got out of here with a decent points day, I guess. We’ll just have to go on strong next week.”
“The team and I all were convinced that I could go straight out and have not issues. I got a really good launch off the pit box, probably a little too good. I was kind of worried about it because I beat the 48 pretty good off pit road and it nipped us for sure. It was just a miscalculation. We probably won’t pick that pit box again for that reason. It really kind of ruined our day, but at least we got some decent stuff out of it.”
WHAT’S YOUR MINDSET GOING INTO TALLADEGA?
“Our cars are always fast at Talladega, so we’ll just have to go there, lay it out there and see what happens.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE A CAUTION WOULD HAVE HELPED?
“Yeah, I mean we ran behind the 42 in the first stage. I’m sure if we kept track position, I think we could have finished in the top-5. We drove back up to tenth place, which was Clint Bowyer, and we couldn’t really do anything with that. We tried to stay out longer to try and catch a yellow, but we could just never get back to where we lost.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HOOTERS GIVE A HOOT CAMARO ZL1- Sidelined due to mechanical failure; Finished 38th
WHAT DID YOU FEEL BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE CAR?
“Yeah I just had an engine failure of some sort. Unfortunately, we don’t really know what it was just yet. It just quit running. It didn’t really seem like anything was off. We were just kind of making laps and then obviously had a failure. It’s an unfortunate way to start this round for sure.”
WE’VE TALKED BEFORE THAT YOU HAVE WINS AT ALL THREE TRACKS OF THIS ROUND. YOU’VE WON TALLADEGA IN THE SPRING. CAN YOU LOOK AT THAT AS MORE OF AN OPPORTUNITY THAN A WILD CARD NOW FROM THIS SITUATION?
“I don’t know where we’ll stack up. I assume we’ll have to win one of these next few weeks. If you ever make it to Homestead, you’re going to have to win down there. I guess it’s a good opportunity to practice here these next few weeks.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
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