NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
August 31, 2012
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER YOU GOT A GREAT LAP IN QUALIFYING HOW ABOUT THE RACE ITSELF? “This has always been a fun place. The slicker it gets the more fun it gets. At least we’ve got a great starting spot for this now.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED FIFTH ON HIS LAP: “It was a solid lap. I was expecting to have a little bit more grip than what we did. I came through (turns) three and four coming to take the green and it didn’t stick as good as I was hoping. I was fighting the wheel a little bit and I was like ‘whoa this is going to be adventurous’. This place sometimes can just gain tons of grip and really you lay down a lap and really get aggressive with it, but I wasn’t able to get near as aggressive as I was hoping. We will see if the sun stays out and if the track conditions don’t change much then we will just see kind of where we end up.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED EIGHTH HOW WAS YOUR LAP? “We will see. I think the way this qualifying order goes in order to be in that front row or on pole you probably need a couple of tenths on the guys you are around right now. Seventeenth fastest in practice something like that, I think it will be a decent starting spot, but it’s not going to be… top-five is going to be a stretch, maybe a top 10. It was a good lap the car didn’t do anything scary, but in order to go fast you have to be on that ragged edge and we were a little too close on the comfortable side of things.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 11TH ON HIS LAP: “We just tightened up a little too much. I couldn’t really roll fast and carry good speed. The car felt pretty good. It’s still a solid lap, it’s just not quite as good as we would have liked.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 ARMY MEDICINE CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 17TH ON HIS LAP: “It was okay. I just didn’t get it on the first lap and ran a second one. I picked up which is really difficult to do here which tells you how bad my first lap was. The Army Medicine Chevrolet will hopefully be better in race trim. The car wasn’t bad; I just didn’t get a good clean lap.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 23RD ON HER LAP: “It was better than it has been. The car felt pretty comfortable. It was much more comfortable getting into the corner which was something that I was asking for at the end of practice. I appreciate when ‘Zippy’ (Greg Zipadelli) and everybody trusts me and they trust my opinion on what is going on with the car because I’m obviously so fresh to all of this. As a driver the only thing you can do is trust your gut. If it says loose or it says tight then it’s kind of what you’ve got to go with. Again, I just appreciate them trusting me.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 35TH A LOT OF PEOPLE SAYING THEIR CARS WERE JUST AVERAGE HOW WAS YOUR CAR FEELING? “Mine was below average. We just struggled all day trying to get the balance of the car right. It wasn’t so bad in race trim. It doesn’t drive real good, but the laps were pretty good. For some reason in qualifying we weren’t that good today. “
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