NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
SOUTH POINT 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 27, 2020
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE
5th ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 LLUMAR CAMARO ZL1 1LE
11th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE
18th MATT KENSETH, NO. 42 MCDONALD’S CAMARO ZL1 1LE
19th RYAN PREECE, NO. 37 SLIM JIM CAMARO ZL1 1LE
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)
2nd Matt DiBenedetto (Ford)
3rd Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
4th Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
5th Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK (Following Round 4 of 10)
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Contender)
- * Kurt Busch (Chevrolet) 1 Win
- Kevin Harvick (Ford) + 61
- Denny Hamlin (Toyota) + 58
- Brad Keselowski (Ford) + 16
- Martin Truex (Toyota) + 15
- Joey Logano (Ford) + 11
- * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet) + 10
- * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet) + 9
- Kyle Busch (Toyota) – 9
- Clint Bowyer (Ford) – 20
- Aric Almirola (Ford) – 27
- * Austin Dillon (Chevrolet) – 32
The NASCAR Cup Series seasons continues at Talladega Superspeedway with the YellaWood 500 on Sunday, October 4th,, at 2:00 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBC, the NBC Sports Gold app, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Race Winner
YOU GREW UP RACING AT THE BULLRING OUTSIDE OF THE 1.5 TRACK HERE AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY, DREAMING OF THIS MOMENT. AND NOW YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING YOU COULDN’T DO IN 21 PREVIOUS TRIES HERE IN LAS VEGAS, AND THAT IS TO WIN AT YOUR HOME TRACK. AND TO WIN DURING THE PLAYOFFS HAS GOT TO RANK RIGHT NEAR THE TOP
“This is what kids dream of when they grow up racing. You dream of winning at your hometown track. And for two decades it’s kicked my butt. And tonight, with this Monster Energy Chevy, I’m in awe. I knew the race would come to us. We needed to get to nightfall and one of those quirky Mac McCall (crew chief) pit sequences finally unfolded. We got lucky. You’ve got to be lucky. And you have to be lucky in any race, but we did it tonight with teamwork and pulling through and just not giving up.
“This is Vegas and I miss the fans. I miss them so much. My dad and my mom, they were there every day at the track pushing. And Brexton, my nephew, won last night. Those thoughts were running through my head because my hometown is special. This Vegas place is special. So, thanks to Brendan Gaughan and South Point and everybody that makes this happen at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I couldn’t be happier.”
YOU SAID YOU’VE GOT TO BE LUCKY BUT YOU ALSO HAVE TO BE GOOD. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO HOLD OFF THE NO. 21 (MATT DIBENEDETTO) AND THE NO. 11 (DENNY HAMLIN), WHO HAD FRESHER TIRES THERE AT THE END?
“Yeah, the No. 11 (Hamlin) had a ton of speed. I was wide-open. And you just have to manipulate the draft. I pulled out some old drag racing skills on the restarts. I knew that was our strong suit. We just put ourselves in position and we held off. Chip Ganassi was up in the suite somewhere and I could feel him breathing over my neck, I want to win. And we did it.”
EVERYONE HAS BEEN SORT OF DREADING THIS ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS GIVEN THE TWO TRACKS AHEAD, TALLADEGA AND THE ROVAL. YOU CAME IN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PLAYOFF STANDINGS AND YOU’RE GOING TO LEAVE AT THE TOP OF THEM. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SECURE THE WIN SO EARLY?
“That’s part of the system. It’s an incredible feeling to not have; well, it’s sinking in. No Talladega worries. No Roval worries. But we’re still going there to get points. We’re still going there to add up what we need to do to win this championship. So, thanks to Chevrolet. Thank you guys, and Jim Campbell, and everybody at the Ganassi shop. This Monster Energy Chevy was fast.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 LLUMAR CAMARO ZL1 L1E – Finished 5th
“I guess it is good to be disappointed in a fifth-place finish. We did not need that caution to come out in the middle of the pit cycle like that. I thought it was going to be ok for us, but we just couldn’t get through traffic as well as we needed to. We had a really fast LLumar Camaro. Thanks to everyone at Hendrick Motorsports, because they have been working super hard. Our program is continuing to improve and I just feel like this is another Vegas race that go away from us. At least it was a good points day, which is what we need.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 25th
“Just a bummer of a result tonight. We really had a good car. We needed to keep adjusting to keep up with the track but we were running inside the top 10 before that caution during green-flag pit stops. Then we could never rally back unfortunately. Being stuck back there, we then got caught up with two laps to go and couldn’t recover.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO MILITARY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 26th
“Our GEICO Military team battled all night long. At the start of the race, the car didn’t have enough rear grip to charge and make speed, but Matt (Borland) kept chipping away at it. Our Chevrolet continued to get better throughout the race. The caution came at the wrong time after our green flag pit stop there at the end, which trapped us a lap down. You can’t control those things though. I’m looking forward to Talladega next week. It is important to our Germain Racing team to finish these final six races strong and we will keep working hard to do that.”
BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 DOOR DASH CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 28th
“Awful. Just missed it. On to Talladega.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOWFROST CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 32nd
“We had a strong DOWFROST Chevrolet tonight at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We were doing what we needed to do. We were a solid, top-five car in Stage 1 and Stage 2 and were able to earn some points during the end of the stages. We weren’t so fortunate in Stage 3. We were issued a safety violation on pit road with less than 80 laps to go and had to restart at the tail end of the field. We shook it off because we knew that we work well under pressure. We made our way up to 20th and were in pretty good shape, actually, because we were three cars behind the No. 1 and we were probably going to run long. But then I suddenly lost all steering and the water pressure gauge pegged at 400 degrees. We made quick repairs but lost nine laps on pit road and that pretty much did us in. I’m proud of this team for continuing to fight. We’ve got two races left in the Round of 12 and we’re not giving up. It’s on to Talladega Superspeedway where anything can happen.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT MINING CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 38th
“We had a fast No. 8 Cat Mining Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE at Las Vegas, just didn’t really have any luck on our side tonight. I was a little tight to fire off, but we had good overall speed in our car. Unfortunately, after our first pit stop of the night, we had a loose right rear tire so we had to make a second stop to fix that and fell a lap down. It’s frustrating to have a car as fast as the one we had and be trapped a lap down, but as a team, we knew we still had a lot of time to get back on the lead lap and into the mix before the race was over. On the final lap of Stage 2, I got into the wall pretty hard and it ended our night early. That’s not the way our team wanted tonight to go with our Cat Mining Chevy, but we’ll look to regroup next week at Talladega Superspeedway.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
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