MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
COCA-COLA 600
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
MAY 24, 2018
TOP TEAM CHEVY QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
6TH RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 LIBERTY NATIONAL CAMARO ZL1
7TH JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MACDONALD’S CAMARO ZL1
11TH KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 DC SOLAR CAMARO ZL1
12TH AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 COCA-COLA CAMARO ZL1
18TH CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 COTTONELLE WAVY CLEAN RIPPLE CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kyle Busch (Toyota)
2nd Joey Logano (Ford)
3rd Denny Hamlin (Toyota
4th Erik Jones (Toyota)
5th Brad Keselowski (Ford)
The Coca-Cola 600 is scheduled to begin on Sunday, May 27 at 6 pm, ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 LIBERTY NATIONAL CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 6th
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“It was a good run for our Liberty National Chevrolet Camaro. The guys did a good job of making it better all day today. They worked really hard on this race car back at the shop. The guys at ECR did a good job. We have still got some gap to close no doubt about that. The No. 18 (Kyle Busch) has been a very dominant car both here and other race tracks in qualifying. Huge improvement for us from where we have been and most recently our 1.5-mile test at Kentucky. Just look forward to building upon this and having a car that drives good for 600 miles because that will make my shoulders and my knees run a little bit cooler.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 7th
GREAT STARTING SPOT AND A VERY SOLID QUALIFYING SESSION FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM:
“I learned a little bit on the Xfinity side of kind of running in that substance on the race track and there was quite a bit of grip there. So, I committed the first run to that and there was obviously a lot of grip up there. And then, had a good last lap going and the No. 22 (Joey Logano) pulled out in front of me. It wasn’t that close, but enough to mess me up just a little bit. So, I gave up a little bit the last run, but overall it was a really good day for us.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 COCA-COLA CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 12th
BOTH RCR CARS IN THE TOP 12 A REALLY STRONG SHOWING FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION THIS EVENING:
“Yeah, really pumped about the effort that we put in to these Coke 600 cars. It paid off, obviously. We actually had a car faster than that and we got on the splitter. We just missed our travels. I think we were capable of being right up there where (Ryan) Newman was top five. So, that is huge for the Camaro camp. At least we’ve got a direction and we will keep working hard to get there.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 COTTONELLE WAVY CLEAN RIPPLE CAMARO ZL1- Qualified 18th
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“We are making progress on our cars. Everybody at JTG Daugherty Racing is working hard. We definitely elevated our qualifying game this year so that is good. The track was interesting there. You saw in the Xfinity practice that middle groove really started coming in showing good speed and you can see that the Cup guys that were running Xfinity this weekend they showed up in qualifying and went straight there and put laps down. So, there is speed up there and the benefit of being on track right beforehand knowing what was going to happen is big. We tried it that second round and a lot of grip there. If we could go back out and do it again we would probably make adjustments and make it work for a little more speed yet. For us to be able to adapt I was happy with that through qualifying. We are getting close to that third round. We made it a couple of times, just got to be there more consistently.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 27th
DID YOU GUYS JUST MISTIME THAT LAST LAP AND NOT GET TO TAKE A SECOND SHOT AT IT?
“Yeah, we probably shouldn’t have been in that position to begin with. Just kind of frustrated that first run, I got told that the fast guys had run the top and I tried it and it didn’t work. I mean that’s my fault, I should have stuck with what I know, but our Nationwide 88 car is not bad, we shouldn’t be the far back, but we will be okay on Sunday.”
WAS THE TRACK A LOT DIFFERENT FROM PRACTICE TO QUALIFYING?
“We just need to stick with what we know. We should have never tried to move up there. That was pretty dumb on my part. Definitely very frustrating, pretty unacceptable to qualify like that. Unacceptable to have some issues getting back out there. We should have been able to make that turn around. We will work on it. I’ve got some really good guys and really smart people working on our race cars and we will get better.”
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