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[/media-credit]NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BOJANGLES’ SOUTHERN 500
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MAY 11, 2012
TEAM CHEVY EARNS SEVEN OF THE TOP-12 STARTING POSITIONS AT DARLINGTON
DARLINGTON, SC – May 11, 2011 – Jimmie Johnson led the way for Team Chevy in today’s NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying session at Darlington Raceway by putting his No. 48 Lowe’s/KOBALT Tools Chevrolet on the outside front row, in second position, missing the pole by a scant one-tenth of a second. The five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion posted a lap of 27.386 seconds and 179.566 mph.
Seven of the top 12 starters for Saturday night’s race under the lights are Team Chevy drivers: Kasey Kahne in the No. 5 Rockwell Tools Chevy starts 3rd, Ryan Newman, No. 39 WIX Filters Chevrolet starts 4th, Regan Smith, No. 78 Furniture Row Racing/CSX Play it Safe Chevrolet qualified 9th, Jeff Burton, No. 31 BB&T Chevrolet starts 10th, Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Allstate Chevrolet will take the green-flag from the 11th position and Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive To End Hunger/AARP Chevrolet rolls off 12th.
Greg Biffle (Ford) won the Coors Light Pole position and Kyle Busch (Toyota) qualified fifth, rounding out the top five starting positions.
The historic Bojangles’ Southern 500 takes the green flag on Saturday, May 12th, at 7:00 p.m. ET and will be aired live on FOX.
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2ND
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 ROCKWELL TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 3RD
MODERATOR: We are joined by our second and third-place qualifiers, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne. Congratulations. Talk to us about your qualifying lap and how practice was.
JOHNSON: ‘We’ve had a very productive day. We put up a good time off the truck. We made a couple of efforts to fine-tune the qualifying set-up and got into race trim. I learned quite a bit in race trim. We actually brought some of that into our qualifying set-up and it paid off. It’s a very comfortable race car; maybe a little too comfortable down in (Turns) 3 and 4. I knew that I left a little time on the table down there, and (pole winner) Greg (Biffle) certainly went down there and found it. I was watching. He had a blistering fast 3 and 4, and came back around and got us. But it was a productive day. We’re learning a lot. I wish it was a Hendrick front row, but it was a solid day all in all.”
KAHNE: “Our lap was good. I was just a little bit free through (Turns) 1 and 2, but got through the transitions really well and carried good speed down the backstretch and made it through (Turns) 3 and 4 pretty good. So I didn’t necessarily think it was going to be a pole at the time, and then the speeds; everybody was really close from about a .40 to a .45; there were a lot of cars right there. And then Greg (Biffle) went out at the end and beat us. But still it was a really good lap for our Rockwell Tools Chevy. The guys did a good job. We struggled in practice and we just kind of made some guesses there for qualifying and they seemed to help. I’m looking forward to tomorrow night. I think some of the things we did in qualifying that we were hitting toward the end of practice, and put them in for qualifying, and I think some of that will help for tomorrow night also.”
Q. BEING A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GUY, WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER OF (AUTOMOTIVE LEGEND) CARROLL SHELBY? DO YOU REMEMBER HIM BEING A BIG PART OF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AUTO SCENE WHEN YOU WERE COMING ALONG?
JOHNSON: “Yeah, I do. My focus was really on the dirt. But knowing the Cobra and his history in sports car racing and what history he had here in the States and know what he did at Le Mans and on the world circuit, you just knew about it. I knew where his facility was. I had a sponsor in the general area and I’d drive over and get free clothing all the time (laughs) and on my way out I would see his big building and everything that was in there. I’d always drive by and smile and I knew that he had some awesome machinery in there. But, he’s done so much for automobiles, plus racing. His vision and early days of pioneering and finding speed and lighter cars and bigger engines; the stuff that has become synonymous today with racing, but he was the one doing that back in the day. And it really represented the U.S. well abroad and took down Ferrari at a key point in time, which was awesome to see.”
Q. KASEY, YOU WENT OUT QUITE A BIT AHEAD OF JIMMIE. WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT MORE PEOPLE DIDN’T MATCH OR GET PAST YOU? AND JIMMIE, WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT MORE PEOPLE DIDN’T HAVE A CHANCE AT THE POLE?
KAHNE: “I was a little bit surprised, but if you look at the track, it really stayed pretty similar. Where the sun goes down, in (Turns) 1 and 2 were still completely in the sun, and then (Turns) 3 and 4 were slowly getting shaded. But where I ran there, I was in the shade. I didn’t run low, so I was in the shade over there. It felt like I had really good grip over there. So, I don’t think the track changed a whole lot throughout the field as qualifying went. So I think that’s why we were able to kind of get that lap early and stay up there.”
JOHNSON: “When I saw Kasey go to the top, I knew it was a good lap. He’s always been up front and winning poles, especially since he’s been in our cars, he’s always out-qualifying. So he was the bogey that I was trying to beat. I knew it was a strong lap. To Kasey’s point, it wasn’t super-hot today so I don’t think we had a big change in temperature and all that kind of stuff. I was surprised that some of the guys actually didn’t go faster like the No. 29 (Kevin Harvick). He was fast in that first practice and I thought he was going to really blister one. But they weren’t able to do that.”
Q. KASEY, A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO YOU WON AT ROCKINGHAM AND THEN NOW YOU WERE TECHNICALLY SECOND FAST IN QUALIFYING; YOU TIED JIMMIE. IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THESE OLDER TRACKS THAT PLAYS TO YOUR BACKGROUND? JIMMIE, ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE BIFFLE A HARD TIME THAT HE SCREWED-UP YOUR TIMES FOR A HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS FRONT ROW?
KAHNE: “Yeah, I don’t know. I just always like racing here and racing at Rockingham. It eats the tires up; not as much here as it used to, but it’s a track that’s really technical and you’re right by the wall. Racing dirt, growing up, although at a lot of those tracks you run on the cushion or you run right up against a wall, and that’s kind of part of it. So it’s just something that can grab you in a hurry here, too. And it can do the same at Rockingham when you try to run around that place in different areas. But it’s a great track. I always enjoy racing here and it’s slippery today than what it was I think on Friday last year when we were here. So I think the racing will be better tomorrow night and I’m looking forward to it. I’m glad we qualified well and can start up front.”
JOHNSON: “It would have been great to have a Hendrick front row. We’ve watched it over the years and qualifying is so tight. One of these days we’re going to have a tie for the pole on the front row. I was hoping today would be the day, but Greg (Biffle) put down an awesome lap and didn’t allow that to happen.”
Q. NASCAR PUT OUT SOME NEW RULES THIS WEEK RELATED TO HOW YOU CAN SET-UP YOUR CARS ON 1.5-MILE TRACKS. HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO YOUR CREW CHIEFS TO FIND OUT HOW THAT WILL AFFECT THINGS?
JOHNSON: ‘I wasn’t aware of it. I hadn’t heard anything. We hadn’t talked about it in any of our meetings that I was a part of. I wasn’t at our Tuesday meeting this week.”
KAHNE: “Yeah, I didn’t hear about it.”
JOHNSON: “Hopefully our crew chiefs heard about it.” (laughter)
ON HIS SPOTTER
KAHNE: “My spotter is going to be Kevin Hamlin, who was supposed to do it last week but he had Laryngitis or something. So we had to grab another one about 15 laps in, which worked out fine. Kevin has done a great job, so we’ll see how long RCR lets us use him. He’s a good guy though. I hope he gets to keep doing it but we’ll see how that goes after this weekend.”
INAUDIBLE
KAHNE: “Oh, to win? I don’t know. I’ve never won here. It’s tough to say. I think it could be anything. Last year the No. 78 car didn’t seem to pay off because they weren’t up there; more like eighth to 10th the whole race and then they ended up winning. So anything can happen here. Jimmie has won here.”
JOHNSON: “Yeah, that was the old surface. The cars are all going to be very equal on speeds. It’s going to be tough to pass. I think strategy-slash-that-last-pit-stop, strategy is going to be king at the end of the race. So it could come down to fuel, but how that last pit stop goes is going to be important too.”
About Chevrolet
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