MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 19, 2017
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 GRAINGER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
IN THE DESERT, THE DROUGHT COMES TO AN END FOR RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING AND RYAN NEWMAN. HOW GOOD DOES IT FEEL TO BE BACK HERE IN VICTORY LANE?
“I’ve lost count; that’s how long it’s been. I’ve got to thank Grainger, Caterpillar, Coca-Cola, Monster Energy for supporting our series, and Chevrolet. The list goes on and on. What a gutsy call by (crew chief) Luke (Lambert). I called for two tires and he called for none. I’ve won more races no tires than I have with four. I’m just proud of these guys. We had a good car all day. We kept it out of trouble and collected in the end.”
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, YOU USED UP KYLE LARSON TO MAKE THE CHASE. WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT THAT AT ALL AS HE WAS CHASING YOU DOWN?
“Trust me, I went into (Turn) 3 looking at my mirror. I knew he was down there; but it took my car forever to get going. I’m spent, man. I had the chills on lap 150. I’m done.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
YOU HAD A GREAT DOUG WOLFGANG MOVE GOING DOWN INTO TURN 1. DID YOU NOT KNOW HE WAS DIVE-BOMBING YOU?
“Yeah, my spotter said ‘clear’ and I started turning down. I guess I just didn’t anticipate him driving in as far as he did. Maybe I should have just run the middle lane there just to be safe. But all in all, it was a good effort for our Credit One Bank Chevy. And dang it, I wish I wouldn’t have gotten sideways there in (Turns) 1 and 2; and I would have stayed close enough to Newman and I probably would have got him down in (Turns) 3 and 4 coming to the white. You never know though. That’s how the races play out. Maybe I made a mistake there. This one stings because I feel like I was in the best spot out of anybody there to line up fourth on two tires. But, it’s really, really cool to be the point leader right now. That was a goal of mine going into today. So, thanks to everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing for all your hard work. We’ll hopefully continue to have this speed in our race cars and maybe close some of these races out.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
TALK ABOUT THE STRATEGY AT THE END TO GET TIRES:
“I don’t know. There was just a lot of chaos on the last start. No tires won, so certainly a good call on their behalf. Our own struggles we really lacked short-run speed today, but we had great long-run speed. The last restart I knew it wasn’t going to be favorable for us and it just didn’t turn out. But a decent performance, probably a top five car or top three car on the long run, just lacked too much on the short run.”
ON THE HEAT AND THE SLICK TRACK CONDITIONS:
“Definitely a hot day. Thankfully, the humidity wasn’t there, but the track had a lot of lanes to work with and I think that was because of the hot temperatures and it felt like a really good tire that Goodyear brought here. Lots of lanes, lots of racing, hard to complete a pass, but the whole field was so close on speed it’s going to be real tough to pass. All-in-all a decent day for the Lowe’s Chevy.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 12TH
“Even the really good cars had a really hard time getting to somebody, so track position was big as it always is, every week, everywhere we go and that will continue to be the case throughout the year. So, if you don’t have it at the end of the race it is going to be an uphill battle I feel like throughout this season. That is going to be a big trend. Proud of our group. We have fired off strong. We didn’t finish strong today, but I’m happy about how we started the season and the runs we’ve had. Nice to win a stage and get a point towards the champion this year, which is big. Those stage wins are going to be really important come time the playoffs start. I’m excited.”
TALK ABOUT THE MOVE TO TAKE THE LEAD EARLY IN THE RACE:
“Just momentum. Just had momentum and basically knew that if you fall back in line second you are probably not going to pass them. You have to be night and day better than somebody to get by them under green or they have to have a problem or something. That was the biggest thing was just realizing that hey you’ve got a lap, so you either get the lead then or you don’t. Fortunately, we got it then, but didn’t keep it when it counted.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 14TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We fought the balance of the car quite a bit, but we lost quite a bit of brakes there. We were on the floor on the brake pedal and had to really… just couldn’t run hard just had to wait. I was having the same problem the No. 22 (Joey Logano) was having. He popped a tire. So, we were just trying not to pop a tire. Couldn’t run hard there the last probably half of the race just kind of had to sit there and keep the brake pedal from going to the floor. You could run just hard enough to keep it from overheating the brakes, but you couldn’t really compete like you wanted to.”
ANY INDICATION DURING THE WEEKEND THAT YOU GUYS WERE GOING TO BE OFF THAT BAD?
“No, I didn’t know… I mean you can’t really get in the situation where you can see how the brakes are going to be. The first run the car was great and then the brakes started getting hot and it started getting so loose into the corner because the rears weren’t getting hot. The rears were working great, the fronts were giving up. The car just got to where I couldn’t get into the corner the way I needed it to. The last half of the race, the brake pedal was just almost to the floor. A couple of times it was on the floor going into the corner. Pretty scary, but the whole last 50 to 60 laps I was pumping the brakes on all the straightaways to keep the pedal up so I would have some brakes for the corner and lifting really early. We just had a little better car than we finished, certainly top 10, but just couldn’t run it hard enough to get up there and do anything with it.”
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