NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
2011 DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DUEL AT DAYTONA NOTES AND QUOTES – DUEL NO. 1
February 17, 2011
REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET: FINISHED 2ND :
“The Furniture Row Chevy was really good today. You can have a good pushing car, but if you don’t have anybody willing to work with you it doesn’t mean anything. Kurt (Busch) and I worked good all day and we had good cars hooked up together. He worked with me down here last week and taught me the switch and everything like that. I hope we can find each other and do the same thing on Sunday. We work good together. We had two cars that hooked up well together, and we had two spotters working real hard together. I knew if I could push and we got away, I’d have a chance to make a move on him. I didn’t make the right move, so it’s my fault. You learn stuff for Sunday. I’m real excited for Sunday. I’ve got a real good pit selection now and we’re starting toward the front. And, I’ve got that 22 car sitting right in front of me. I learned that I’ve got a good pushing race car, and a car that can be pushed really well. We worked hard on this thing. We weren’t fast when we got here, but the guys on the Front Row Chevrolet kept digging and digging, and got it where it needed to be. We have a good starting spot for Sunday.”
“I thought the racing was pretty good myself. When you have two by two and three by three and two sets of cars pushing each other.we’ve never seen anything like that. It’s different. I’m sure the guys who finished bad don’t feel that way, but I finished well. If I finish bad on Sunday, I’m sure I’ll say it’s bad then (laughter). Kurt didn’t have anybody out there either. As soon as I saw him, I thought, ‘we’re going to have a good day. It was close. I made the wrong move coming off four. Unfortunately, I watched the end of the Shootout because of one of those deals, but I’ll take the good starting spot for Sunday.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6TH: WAS THAT A ENTIRELY NEW KIND OF RACING OUT THERE? “It is fun. It is different but it is fun. I think people are used to restrictor plate racing, it is going to be a very different restrictor plate. It is a helluva lot of fun restrictor plate racing. Our Target Chevy was really strong all day. I thought we had a shot at the win, the last restart we tried our best. Being the lead pair with a lap and a half to go isn’t a good thing.”
ANY TROUBLE WITH THE TEMPERATURE? “Hot”
MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH: ON THE RACE: “It was fun and we have a really fast race car and it is still in one piece. We located a number of things we need to work on in different areas. We have a few days to get. Before today we really didn’t know what we really needed to zero-in on. I am tickled to death. The GoDaddy.com Chevy can win this race but we are going to have to make those areas better and we know where to work.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: WHAT DID YOU GUYS LEARN FROM DUEL ONE? “I feel like we had a pretty good little opportunity there right before we pitted. When the pitting started to happen I found myself to be the odd man out without a partner and we needed to come on pit road but we ran about two or three more laps trying to figure out what to do. I was trying to find a partner until they called me to pit road and I was just loosing a lot of time to the leaders. We learned something there. After that we just tried to race as hard as we could. Trying to win that race on a green/white/checkered wasn’t very good. You know there wasn’t nothing else we could do. The car, we need to find more speed on the car. Guys are able to run a little bit longer than we are without swapping. We need to find a little bit better deal on the cooling. We’ve got some homework to do but we’ve been working really hard. I got these guys so far behind with them two wrecks this week but we’re coming back.”
BILL ELLIOTT, NO. 09 PHOENIX CONSTRUCTION CHEVROLET – Races his way into the Daytona 500 with a 15TH place finish: CONGRATULATIONS ON RACING YOUR WAY INTO THE DAYTONA 500 TODAY: “Well, I’m just proud of the guys. You know James (Finch) kind of said we’d make this deal work this year and we’ve got some good sponsors on the car and we just need to make this Chevrolet go to the front come Sunday. Right now is a good test and we brought it back in one piece. We have a couple of more days of practice to work through. Hopefully we learned a lot today. The hardest part of this deal is the guys that’s been doing it when they did it in testing a month or so ago and continues to work on their technique as far as swapping and how they do it and how quick they can do it. They can make that leap and get to you and keep going. And that’s where we’ve got to work. Ryan (Newman) and I worked really good together and there was times we got separated and we had to get back together. But that’s what it’s all about. I think we did a good job and I learned a lot even for an old dog like me.”
JJ YELEY, 46 RED LINE OIL CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH – Races his way into the Daytona 500 with a 15TH place finish: RACED YOUR WAY INTO THE DAYTONA 500, HOW BIG OF A DEAL IS THIS? “This is huge. Obviously for the sponsor International, Red-Line Oil, Chevrolet. It wasn’t as good obviously as we had hoped when we came down here but I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for Marcos Ambrose, DeWalt and whoever he has for his sponsors because he was a heck of a pusher. He stuck with me the entire race. I learned from the start on a restart it didn’t matter where it was, you were better to be by yourself on a restart and it took almost two laps before the train race would take off and I just had to keep the No. 97 and No. 87 separated there as we were comin to the green. I had to fight Nemechek off and we were beating on each other down the back straightaway but it was enough that it cost them almost a half lap before they got locked in there. This is a relief off my shoulders and the entire team. We got that speedway engine about two weeks ago and its been a mad thrash but to put it in the biggest race of the year, that’s awesome.”
Note: Team Chevy press releases, high-resolution images, and media kit can be downloaded from the Team Chevy media website:
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