NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
LENOX INDUSTRIAL TOOLS 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
July 13, 2012
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED SECOND HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “It was really good the car felt great. It felt great in practice today and it was just a little edgy getting into the corner. I tried to get a little more my second lap and about spun it into (turn) three so I had to just pull it in the pits. I didn’t get a second lap, but I felt like it was close to my first lap. It probably wouldn’t have beaten it, but it would have been pretty similar. Our Farmers Insurance Chevy feels good I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 ARMY ROTC CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED SIXTH
WERE YOU TELL YOUR CREW CHIEF TONY GIBSON THAT YOU FIGURED OUT A WAY TO MAKE THE CAR GO EVEN FASTER NOW? “No, we were just giving a little feedback for (Tony) Stewart so when he goes he knows what the track’s got in it. Just doing the teammate thing there to make sure we can have two cars up as far forward as we can. The U.S. Army Chevrolet was pretty good there. I think hopefully it will be a top five run for us. We picked up a good bit from what we practiced and the track is a little bit hotter. We beat a lot of guys by a good margin there so we will see.”
TOP-FIVE RUN LAST WEEK AT DAYTONA BY THE WAY I DID WANT TO THANK YOU FOR THE FREE BLOOMIN’ ONION ON MONDAY NIGHT AT OUTBACK THAT WAS VERY NICE OF YOU CAN WE GET ANOTHER ONE THIS MONDAY? “I sure hope so. It would be nice. Outback is a proud partner and they do some great things marketing wise. The ‘Newman Bloomin’ Monday’ works out pretty good for all of us.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED SEVENTH TELL ME ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING LAP HERE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE:
“Strong lap, it was a little hairy there trying to get out to pit road on time so that always gets the blood pressure up. The car drove real nice had a great lap, gave up a little time in (turns) three and four a little driver error over there. The car was still good enough to get us a top five for now hopefully we can stay there.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET QUALIFIED EIGHTH
HOW DOES YOUR CAR FEEL FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SUNDAY? “Well you know we struggled a little bit in practice today. This is a different tire that Goodyear has brought here. I threw us off a little bit so it took us a little while to make some gains there, but I felt like the lap right there was really solid the car felt good. All the adjustments that we made from practice did their job. I would have like to have it to do over again like so many guys I’m sure have said just because I came off turn four and got real loose getting to the gas up off the corner. That surprised me other than that it was a really solid run. Our DuPont Chevrolet is running good we are excited about Sunday here in New Hampshire.”
YOU GUYS ARE OUT FOR EVERYTHING TO GET A WIN OR TWO DOES THIS MEAN WE NEED TO KEEP AT LEAST ONE EYE ON THAT NO. 24 HERE ON SUNDAY? “Well you’ve got take one step at a time. Right now we are looking to get into victory lane and we know that there are some tracks coming up, including this one that are very good tracks for us to be able to get that win. We’re just going to have to work really hard at it all weekend and so far so good.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED NINTH HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “Our car was a little bit too tight. We erred on the side of being conservative as far as making sure the rear had enough grip. Traditionally this track gets really slick in qualifying. That probably helped us actually put together a decent lap and it’s going to give us a good starting spot, but we could have been a little better if we weren’t quite as tight as we were.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 RHEEM CHEVROLET QUALIFIED 12TH
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
“We were just a little bit too loose up off the corner, but all in all it was faster than we ran in practice so that is always a good thing here.”
REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/FARM AMERICAN CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 17TH
HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “You know it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t feel like the perfect lap. There is definitely some more time out there. We struggled with the Furniture Row Chevy when we unloaded so we made good changes on it today and got better with it. Just can’t get off the corners very good with the handling for some reason, really tight off the corners, but we will work on that tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will be better for the race.”
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 25TH
HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “Today has been a struggle we were way off in practice and swung for the fences in q (qualifying) trim and picked up two tenths from what we had run in practice. You normally don’t pick up here so we were headed in the right direction now. We just started off with some problems. We had a mechanical issue we found too when practice ended so we fought that for a while and didn’t know we were fighting it. I kind of feel like we might be headed in the right direction now.”
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