MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 16, 2017
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CARS 3 TARGET CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Michigan International Speedway and discussed the first anniversary of his first career Cup Series win, preparing for Sonoma, honoring his friend Bryan Clauson this week, and many other topics. Full Transcript:
YOU GOT A HISTORIC FIRST WIN LAST YEAR AT MICHIGAN. YOU ARE DRIVING THE CARS 3 PAINT SCHEME THIS WEEKEND, IT’S FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND AND YOU WERE JUST FASTEST IN PRACTICE. CAN YOU TALK TO US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS HEADING INTO MICHIGAN THIS WEEKEND?
“I always enjoy coming to Michigan. We always seem to have a lot of speed, obviously got that first win last year, which was huge. We have had great speed all year long. So, I think it showed again here in first practice. We had some good speed. Our Cars 3 Chevy was a little bit loose there in race trim. And then we switched over to qualifying trim and was just a little bit loose and then that final run I made I was actually a little bit tight in (Turns) 1 and 2. It was nice that we got on the other side of it, so we know kind of how far to go back on it and, yeah, should be, hopefully a good weekend. A good start to the weekend, so keep going.”
DO YOU DO ANY WORK ON THE CHEVY SIMULATOR? WOULD YOU DO ANY THIS WEEK IN PREPARATION FOR SONOMA?
“No, I will be gone all week racing sprint cars. So, I won’t get to do the simulator. I don’t do the simulator a whole lot. I still feel like it’s got a lot of developing left to do. I think, I have a test in a few weeks, maybe and then I think we are going to the simulator after that to kind of get the simulator to hopefully drive similar to what it does in real life. The little bit of road course stuff I’ve done on there, I think the road course stuff is really close. I do think there is a benefit when you do that. I’m just busy this week, but I will watch a lot of film and study data to get ready for Sonoma.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ALL OF THE YOUNG GUYS WINNING RECENTLY?
“I think it’s awesome. It’s a great time for all of us young guys to start winning with some of our veterans who have been in the sport for a while starting to retire it’s a good time for fans to start picking new drivers. With a lot of fun running up front, it’s making it really exciting. It was awesome to see Ryan Blaney win last week, Austin Dillon win a few weeks ago, (Ricky) Stenhouse, myself winning earlier this year, but getting my first win last year. Chase Elliott has been close to winning, it seems like 10 races. Erik Jones is really good. There are so many young guys that are hopefully going to be the future of the sport. So, as long as we can keep continuing to run up front and we can build a bigger fan base and help the sport out, I think that would be good.”
WERE YOU ABLE TO MAKE THE GROUND-BREAKING YESTERDAY FOR THE CLAUSON SUITE TOWER? WHY WAS THAT IMPORTANT? WHAT IS YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THAT?
“It was good to be able to get some free time in my schedule to go to Knoxville yesterday with (Ricky) Stenhouse and Ryan Newman, we flew on Newman’s plane to Knoxville and got to be there for the ground-breaking on the Bryan Clauson suite towers there that they are going to start building off Turn 2 at Knoxville. For us to be there and get to honor our friend Bryan, who passed, it’s coming up on a year actually, it just doesn’t seem that long ago. Yeah, it was good. Bryan’s family was there, fiancé, Lauren, was there, so it was nice to get to see them and share some laughs and some stories again. Probably won’t notice it now, but yesterday was a very historic day for sprint car racing. I think with them extending on to the Hall of Fame and adding more suites and then honoring Bryan with putting his name on there is huge and it’s going to go a long way. I was glad to be there and glad to honor our friend.”
HOW DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE GROWN AS A DRIVER SINCE GETTING YOUR FIRST VICTORY HERE AT MICHIGAN LAST SEASON?
“I think I’ve probably grown a little bit as a driver. I feel like our race team has gotten even better. Our race cars have been a lot faster. They were pretty fast leading up to Michigan last year, but I feel like since Michigan when we got that win we have just continued to make them better and had a great off season. And started the year off really good. I think we have just kind of continued to gel and continued to build on what we currently have and it has been showing on Sunday’s a lot.”
AFTER YOUR TEAMMATE MCMURRAY HAVING HIS BRAKE ISSUE LAST WEEK DID YOU HAVE ANY CONCERNS? DO YOU GUYS TALK ABOUT THAT STUFF OR DO THEY JUST PUT IN THE BRAKES AND YOU RACE?
“Yeah, I mean I don’t worry about anything really a whole lot. Last week though for sure I was starting to, even before Jamie had wrecked, my brake pedal was getting longer, so I was starting to take care of them and lifting earlier and trying to use less brake pressure to take care of it as much as I could. But even after he had his brake issue, I wasn’t too worried because, I don’t know, I just felt like after that I could just kind of save my brakes as best as I could and hopefully wouldn’t have any issues. Nothing really, you can… it’s kind of out of your control too in a way a little bit. I don’t know if something failed on his or what, but I wasn’t too concerned with my brakes last week. I do know we were using a lot more brake pressure there than normal, I think with the less downforce. We were definitely lifting way earlier than what I had, had in the past at Pocono, which was fun.”
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