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[/media-credit]NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FOOD CITY 500
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 16, 2012
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET met with members of the media at Bristol Motor Speedway and discussed racing at Bristol, racing at California Speedway and other topics. Full transcript:
WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK COMING INTO BRISTOL? “It’s obviously been a race track where we’ve had a lot of good results. We didn’t run great the last race here. We ran great at the very first race here last year. Looking forward to getting on the track and seeing exactly where we are speed-wise and how the car feels and all that. Just a fun place to come to. Close to home and has a lot of history. We enjoy racing here.”
IS IT LESS STRESSFUL NOT BEING A TEAM OWNER OR DO YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENCE? “It’s a lot less stressful for sure. There’s a lot of things that I don’t even think I realized that came with it until you’re out from underneath it, you don’t realize. It’s been a good year. It’s been very relaxing. You get to spend a lot more time concentrating on the little things that it takes to make the car go around and help your team. That part has been really good for me.”
DO YOU THINK NASCAR SHOULD PROVIDE DRIVERS WITH EFI DATA? “I had enough problems myself for the Vegas race. We as a team didn’t do very good and I hadn’t even watched the race and don’t know what they’re talking about so I couldn’t really answer. There is so much information that you have for yourself that it’s hard to pour through all the information from a weekend on your own. I couldn’t even comment because I don’t even know what they’re commenting about as far as the information. I know that we have between my car and the other three or four cars that we have access to, it’s a boat load of information. There’s a lot there. We have throttle traces, fuel mileage, fuel consumption. There is so much information on there that there’s a lot of new tools you can use for sure.”
HOW BIG OF A DEAL IS IT THAT NASCAR HAS ADDED MORE SPEED LINES ON PIT ROAD? “I didn’t know that, but thank you for telling me. Bob’s (Pockrass, SceneDaily.com) a wealth of information. Obviously, there were some big zones that you were able to gas-up in the middle of zones if you got the right pit stall and you could gain a lot of ground. I think when they see something that’s unfair, they try to address it and I think it was Brad (Keselowski) that took advantage of it pretty heavily the last race. It’s something that should even everything up. Less holes.”
IS THERE ANYTHING THIS SEASON THAT HAS SURPRISED YOU AND ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR INTERMEDIATE PROGRAM? “No, we ran really well last week, we just made a ton of mistakes. We got up and qualified well, the speed in the car was really good. We got ourselves buried in tack position. I had terrible restarts last week. Nothing really went right, but the speed of the car was there. That’s notoriously not a place that we run well. Paul (Menard) ran well so I think obviously you want to win every week, but the meeting was pretty good Tuesday morning and everybody knew we needed to work, but we weren’t scrambling all week. We knew what we had in our car and we know we always have to keep working to get better. Some years we’ve come out of there and just been in a total panic trying to figure out how we were going to gain a half-a-second. That’s not the case.”
CAN YOU TAKE US THROUGH WINNING ON THE LAST LAP AT CALIFORNIA LAST YEAR? “The last two years, the race has pretty much come down to us and the 48 (Jimmie Johnson). The year before I ran into the wall and last year we won. That was good to come back and rebound from the mistake from 2010 and being able to race with Jimmie was a lot of fun. Especially at the California race track. That’s been a great race track for us over the last several years and looking forward to going back next week. Glad I’m not the truck driver, he has a long ways to go.”
WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY? “It’s one of those race tracks that the tires just wear out a lot. You can move around the race track and you have to kind of search for grip so that comes with a lot of throttle control and momentum to go along with that. It’s a race track that fits our cars and our engine package and our driving styles. Really, as a company we run well there. It’s a good race track for RCR (Richard Childress Racing).”
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 140 countries and selling more than 4 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature spirited performance, expressive design and high quality. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
