NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
QUICKEN LOANS 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES & QUOTES
JUNE 16, 2013
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
YOU HAD A VIBRATION AT THE END, AND HAD TO BACK IT DOWN. IS THAT CORRECT?
“Yeah, we had one at the end. We had a few of them throughout the day. You just have to ride it out and hope that you don’t wind-up like a lot of those guys did. Everybody on our Budweiser Chevy did a great job today. I didn’t wake up this morning thinking that we were going to even run in the Top 10. I was pretty nervous about our car. But everybody on this whole Budweiser team did a great job making adjustments this morning. And we just kept our head in there and kept digging and changing the car. We didn’t start off great. We made some big adjustments on that first pit stop and we were able to get some track position and then they did a good job managing, when the caution came out there, to get us off the end of pit road in front of the leader. So, everybody did a great job today.”
WE SAW SO MANY RIGHT FRONT TIRES GO DOWN TODAY. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT WAS?
“Well, it’s just there’s a lack of grip with this particular tire on this particular track. And you’ve got really high speeds, so you have to do everything you can do to get your car planted in the race track. And when you do that, it’s going to build some heat and be harder on the tire, and you have some issues sometimes. It’s just a fine line. We’re always on the conservative side on camber and a lot of things, so I’m glad for that.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH:
YOU FINISHED FIFTH TODAY IN A BACK-UP CAR. THIS SHOULD SAY A LOT ABOUT THIS CREW. THEY ARE PRETTY TIGHT, AREN’T THEY?
“Oh yeah, they’ve been tight. It’s just that we haven’t had much luck. And today we really weren’t a fifth place car. But we had some breaks go our way. A caution came out at the right time and we got a good re-start and two of the guys ahead of us, one had fuel trouble and one had a problem. So, we got some breaks going our way today. But I’m proud of these guys. Bass Pro Shops have been hanging in there all year with us and Mobil 1 and Rush Truck Centers and Code 2 and Associates and Coke and Sprint and everybody. It was a good weekend for me putting us in a hole as far as I did on Friday crashing our primary car.”
TALK ABOUT ANOTHER TOP-FIVE FINISH AND WHERE THIS TEAM IS:
“I think we definitely got a lot of luck there at the end, but we’ll definitely take it for sure because we haven’t had much to this point in the year. The caution came out after some guys had pitted, and that put them at the back of the lead lap. We got a really good restart and got up to fourth there, then fell back to fifth, or back to seventh or whatever it was, and Jimmie (Johnson) had his problem. And Brad (Keselowski) ran out of fuel, so we got a couple of spots there at the end because of that. Definitely proud of the effort this week; I thought our guys did a good job. We weren’t very good all weekend. I made a mistake on Friday and crashed the primary car on Friday, so this team had to work hard and do a lot to get us where we are today.”
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 10TH
ON HIS RACE:
“The No. 31 Caterpillar Team fought hard all day to bring home another solid finish. It turned out that tires made a huge difference. We continue to make progress with our mile-and-a-half and two-mile track programs. Overall it was a good point’s day.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 13TH
WHAT DO YOU TAKE FROM THIS? THIS WAS NOT THE EASIEST RACE FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE:
“I think that there were some breaking moments out there. Yellows definitely helped us be able to get track position as far as closing up the gaps and being able to pit a few times. We tried to take right sides and get track position early on. It just didn’t go well we weren’t ready the car wasn’t… we just hadn’t gotten ourselves to a good place with the car that I could carry the speed that I needed to run with them. It didn’t work out so well. We worked on it and got it better. At the end of the race the last run was the best run I felt as far as the balance of the car, which I was surprised because we had fallen off a little bit at the end of the run before. We had only taken right side tires again for a second time. It’s nice to just get a decent finish for the team and for GoDaddy. It’s been rough going since Martinsville. This will hopefully get everyone’s head up a little bit and we will go on. I think we have been strong lately. We just needed to have days like today where we finished it off.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 28TH:
YOU CAME FROM THE BACK TODAY THREE OR FOUR OR MAYBE FIVE TIMES TODAY. HOW FRUSTRATING WAS IT TO HAVE THE CAR GET INTO THE WALL IN THE CLOSING LAPS?
“Yeah, it’s just a bummer. We had a great race car. Our strategy was throwing some challenges at us today and we just struggled with maintaining track position. But we had a fast car and I could drive up through there and as soon as I’d get to first or second, a caution would come out and then something would happen again and we’d lose track position. But we had a great race car and I hate having that problem at the end. I had to run the car really hard to get through all those guys and must have worn through that right front tire with two or three (laps) to go, it went down going into Turn 1.”
TALK ABOUT YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT AFTER LEADING SO MANY LAPS:
“Definitely disappointed for this race team, everybody at Lowe’s and all my race fans out there. We had a great car coming through the pack multiple times. We just couldn’t get it right on pit road with the strategy. Chad (Knaus) is being a little hard on himself about that right now. Good news is, we had an awesome race car and we had a big points lead. I’m sure we lost a little today. I hate to miss an opportunity. I want those bonus points for winning races, and I feel like one got away from us today. But, we will come back next week at Sonoma, make some right hand turns and see what happens.”
WAS IT A TIRE? WERE YOU JUST GOING FOR IT AT THE END? HOW DID YOU END UP IN THE WALL?
“No, we cut a right-front tire there at the end. I guess just running that hard trying to get through traffic and get to the No. 16 we wore through the right-front. I’m kind of shocked because we didn’t have any issues. The No. 5 had some problem, but that was kind of a weird thing to happen there.”
TALK ABOUT THE DISAPPOINTMENT HERE LATE IN THE GOING:
“Definitely disappointed for this race team, everybody at Lowe’s and all of my race fans out there. We had a great car coming through the pack multiple times. We just couldn’t get it right on pit road with the strategy. Chad (Knaus, crew chief) is being a little hard on himself about that right now. The good news is we had an awesome race car. We have a big points lead so I’m sure we lost a little today. I hate missing an opportunity. I want those bonus points for winning races and feel like one got away from us today. We will come back at Sonoma next weekend make some right-hand turns and see what happens.”
A VERY UNCHARACTERISTIC DAY FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS TODAY ALL THE WAY AROUND WITH EVERYONE HAVING SOME SORT OF TROUBLE:
“Yeah, I hadn’t thought about it, but everybody did have some form of trouble. I think all of our cars were fast. There is a silver lining in it. At least we weren’t running 25th with problems that makes it all the worse. We have fast race cars and I’m proud of everybody at Hendrick.”
WHAT ABOUT THE RESTART WITH THE NO. 88 WITH THE WHEEL SPIN. JUST GIVE US YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT HAPPENED THERE:
“Yeah, he spun his tires and almost ran into the side of me trying to control his car. I wasn’t going to get burned on that again so I jumped off the gas and go drilled from behind. Then my tires were off the ground and I can’t go. It’s an interesting scenario. The distance outside of the restart box to the start/finish line that area is something that needs to be addressed. There is a game to be played there and you can cause a heck of a pile up and take out 15-20 cars if you are trying to give it back.”
DID YOU AND CHAD (KNAUS, CREW CHIEF) REALLY DISCUSS THAT FOUR TIRE STOP? WERE YOU SURPRISED WHEN YOU DROPPED THAT MANY SPOTS?
“Yeah, he is so great at calling a race. I figured everybody was coming for four when he called for four. They didn’t clearly and we lost a lot of track position there. I know he is beating himself up pretty bad about it. He has won a lot of races on four tires. One got away from us today, but we still had a fast race car.”
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