NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COCA-COLA 600
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 25, 2014
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S PATRIOTIC CHEVROLET SS – WINNER
WELCOME BACK TO VICTORY LANE THE LONG NIGHTMARE IS OVER:
“There are more people fretting about things than myself. I mean what 12 races? Give me a break. Obviously it’s great to win and we are very happy to win here especially in the backyard of Hendrick Motorsports, Lowe’s headquarters is just up the road as well. A huge night, all the executives from Lowe’s are here. I can’t wait to have a cold beverage with those guys. Just stoked for the night. Very good race car. We raced up front all night long and that last restart let us bunch up to those guys on two (tires) and our four (tires) were able to prevail.”
WAS THERE A POINT YOU WERE CONCERNED YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO CATCH (MATT) KENSETH?
“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Chad (Knaus) made me think I could get to the No. 24, but the No. 99 was up there and that is who he was afraid on the radio I wouldn’t be able to run down. Sure enough we were able to catch a caution and I think the No. 27 and No. 99 had to pit. When the No. 20 got away I thought ‘man I’m not going to be able to run him down.’ I saw him missing the bottom tight in (Turns) 3 and 4 and I thought ‘okay I’ve got a little something for him.’ And was able to get by with a few laps to go.”
YOU NOW HAVE MORE CUP WINS AT CHARLOTTE THAN ANYBODY ELSE – 7 – HOW ABOUT THAT?
“That is amazing. That is very cool. This is no easy race track to get around and to beat the greats that were before me I’m very proud of that.”
ON HIS RACE:
“It’s great to win, but believe me – and I promise you – all the hype and all the concern and worry, that was elsewhere. That wasn’t in my head; there are plenty of voices in my head, I’m not going to lie! We’ve had great races and we’ve had opportunities there in front us and had stuff taken away. And we’ve had bad races; I have to be honest about that too. I’m so proud of this Hendrick Motorsports-prepared race car, Chad Knaus and the leadership of this race team, and the great, great support from Lowe’s and KOBALT Tools. And do this on Memorial Day… just thank you to all the men and women who served our country.”
WHAT WAS THE KEY TONIGHT?
“It was such a long race and so many things going on. The track went in a little bit different direction than I thought it would from a handling setup. Once we got on top of that, we were real competitive. I really think clean air on those restarts were key. I was happy to get by the 24 and then the 20. I wasn’t sure I was going to get by both of them, but I did and brought this baby home.”
WILL PEOPLE START TO FEAR THE 48 AGAIN?
“Yeah, they know we’re awake. In winning, it doesn’t matter who you are. The 4 car has had that momentum this year. They’ve been able to go out and execute and show a lot of speed and win. Hopefully this 48 is heading that way and we can get those other people thinking about us.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER FOLDS OF HONOR CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2nd
ON HIS RACE:
“We shot ourselves in the foot again. We left two wheels loose and played catch up the rest of the night. I have to thank everyone on the Budweiser Chevrolet team for putting fast cars on the track but we have clean pit road up.”
WHAT TOOK YOU OUT OF CONTENTION FOR THE WIN TONIGHT?
“Just a loose wheel. We got behind and it took us the rest of the night to get our Budweiser Chevrolet back up front. Rodney (Childers) and all these guys are doing a great job. We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot on pit road. We have to clean that up because we obviously can’t win races with the fastest car if we make mistakes continuously on pit road. It’s frustrating but everyone on this Budweiser Chevrolet has done a great job.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
TELL US ABOUT YOUR NIGHT:
“The caution fell a couple of laps wrong for us. Keith (Rodden, crew chief) did a really good job adjusting on the car, and our car was fast enough that even when we went to the back we were able to recover and get back to the top-five, which is great. We’ve had such good cars all year long and have not been able to capitalize because of tire issues or just some bad luck. So I’m excited we won last week. We ran really good again this week and Dover is one of my favorite tracks. I’m looking forward to getting there.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE CAPTURED MOMENTUM?
“I feel like we’ve run well enough all year long that it’s not really any different. It just seems like the luck has turned a little bit. When the cautions fell wrong tonight, I got a little nervous. But our car was good enough to recover. Really our cars have been pretty awesome all year long.”
ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR RESULT?
“We had a really good car. We did the strategy of staying out. It’s unbelievable how quick the car was out front. I’m sure it’s that way for everyone. Keith (Rodden) adjusting on it. The motor ran really good tonight. I was really impressed with the Hendrick power. Just an all-around good night.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
IMPRESSIVE NIGHT FOR YOU NOT THE SEVENTH PLACE FINISH BUT RACING WITH BACK ISSUES. HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT FOR YOU?
“It was better than Saturday morning and that was what I was thankful for. I think the procedures and different forms of therapy that I did. Thanks to all the folks – there are quite a few people that were tending to me and I appreciate every one of them. I don’t think I would have gotten through this long race. It was tough. I was aching in there. There was one time when I got on the brakes into (Turn) 1 and it triggered something. I didn’t know what was going to happen after that, but it settled down. Luckily I started getting off the brake. We had such a great race car. I’m really proud of this Drive To End Hunger Chevy team. Alan (Gustafson) and all the guys – I love that call there at the end. Just like the call that was made when we won the first race here. I don’t know if I could of held off Matt (Kenseth) but we were going to give them a heck of a run. The car was feeling pretty good right there so just a matter whether it was going to tighten up over 20 something laps. I got a decent restart there, but when Matt got to my outside I got real loose. At that point I was kind of just a sitting duck it got real tight. It was a good effort. I’m happy that I got through it. It tells me a lot about what kind of threshold I have and I just want to show this team the kind of commitment I have to them because of what they have shown me this year.”
WHAT ABOUT THIS WEEK GETTING READY FOR DOVER WITH THE BACK?
“I mean the one thing we didn’t have this weekend was time. It happened on Thursday. I was hoping I would be okay by Saturday. I wasn’t and then we got real aggressive from Saturday to Sunday. Luckily that paid off. Now having some rest and being able to take it easy and do my normal therapy I should be fine by Dover.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/SUPERMAN CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 19TH
YOU HAD A STRONG CAR, BUT THEN DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO THE MOTOR?
‘We don’t know. We have to find out. We had a little bit of an engine issue or something cropping up. We had a lot of water pressure and a lot of vibration; a real bad vibration. We came in and relieved the water pressure and the vibration got better, but it didn’t completely go away. They’ll take it back and see what’s wrong with it. I’m glad we tried to keep going. I don’t know what’s wrong with it but we’ve got a little problem with that car. But it was very fast. I’m very happy with the speed.”
HOW IMPORTANT WAS CLEAN AIR HERE TONIGHT?
“Oh, it was pretty important. We’ve got a pretty big spoiler on these car so anytime you get out in front you’ve got a good advantage.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE IMPROVED ON YOUR PROGRAM TONIGHT EVEN THOUGH YOU DIDN’T GET THE FINISH YOU WANTED?
“We’ve been pretty good all year, I think. We’ve had good speed all year. We were as good tonight as we were in Kansas and a couple of other races. We just didn’t bring a good car last week to the All-Star race but that’s not a reflection of how good this team is.”
ON THE RACE IN GENERAL, ARE YOU FRUSTRATED?
“Yeah, I’m a little frustrated. But it was trying to blow up. But we had a lot of real high water pressure and a real bad vibration. The vibration was so bad I was afraid to hold it wide open because it would just get so bad at the end of the straightaway. I thought we was about to break the motor. We came in and knocked the pressure out of it and the vibration slowly got better and never completely went away. Something is wrong with the car.”
SO WAS IT A TOUGH TWO WEEKS HERE?
“No, we’ve got good speed. I’m real happy with the speed in the car. We were able to at least finish 19th tonight. We could have blowed up and finished in the back. We had a really good fast car and I’m really excited about all the races coming up. We’ve had good speed every week. You’re going to have some bad weeks and you’ve got to be able to roll with them. This was one of them and we just have to look at the positives and try not to dwell too much on what happened. We just need to go home and find out what it was and see if we can learn something.
HOW DID YOU LIKE IT THAT YOUR TEAMMATE JIMMIE JOHNSON, WON?
“I’m happy for Jimmie. He ran a good race. He was fast here; I thought we had a good enough car to win, though. I thought if we could get out front, we were fast enough to win.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – SIDELINED WITH AN ENGINE FAILURE ON LAP 281 – FINISHED 39TH
THIS ISN’T HOW YOU WANTED THE NIGHT TO END:
“We had a plan to make a big adjustment (early) that I thought would really help under yellow. We dropped a cylinder or lost power, then we got hit. Unfortunately, we had a lot of bad luck. We weren’t really as fast as we needed to be at the beginning. It’s unfortunate for the whole team. It would have been great to keep the run going that we had. I think we still showed some good things this weekend. We’re not going to forget about where we’ve been lately and running better. We’ll be back to get ’em at Dover.”
THIS HAD TO DISAPPOINTING AFTER YOU HAD A GREAT CAR EARLY:
“Yeah, it’s really unfortunate. We started off great and started to get tighter and tighter. We couldn’t really figure out how to fix it. We had a good plan for the next yellow, then dropped a cylinder and lost power, then got rear-ended. That was our day. We’ll just remember the good stuff that happened here at Charlotte and at Kansas last race and build on that for Dover.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION MADE IN AMERICA CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined with engine issue on Lap 271. Completed a total of 906 miles in his effort to run the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. – FINISHED 40TH
WE KNOW YOU DIDN’T WANT THIS DAY TO END LIKE THIS. WHAT HAPPENED?
“The motor blew. It acted like it swallowed three cylinders all at once, so it was real slow. It’s kind of a shame. It almost symbolizes how tough it’s been on the Haas Automation team. We give it our all, and the way we were clawing our way up there and got a lucky break with the caution one time… I thought we were making good gains on the car. It was great to race in traffic and to feel the stock car right after driving an IndyCar was a day I’ll never forget. I can’t let the mood here with the car dampen what happened up in Indy today. That was very special and it takes a big team; it takes a team everywhere. Andretti Autosport gave me a top-five car to try to win the Indy 500 with and Stewart-Haas guys gave me a good car today and the motor just went. Sometimes that happens. All in all, I’m very satisfied. I gave it my all. I trained very hard. I had a lot of people helping out. Thanks to Gene Haas, Tony Stewart, Michael Andretti and this whole group. Everyone worked hard on both sides.”
TELL US ABOUT YOUR DAY AND WHAT WENT WRONG HERE.
“It was really a lot of fun. A lot of preparation, a lot of hard work and a lot of team involvement on the Andretti side and the Stewart-Haas side. It was a dream come true to run at Indy and post a really good finish there. I can’t let what happened down here dampen the mood. I’m still really in awe of how well we ran at Indy. Those Andretti guys gave me a good car to do it with. Tonight, we were clawing our way up. We got a lucky break with one of the yellows. It was nice to run in the packs and side-by-side and feel that NASCAR on the same day as an IndyCar. The motor just expired. It’s a tough break. It takes a team if you’re going to do 1,100 miles. It’s not just one individual. We came up just short. It really means a lot.”
“Our Cup car was running okay. We clawed our way up there and caught a lucky break with one of the yellows. We worked on the car and I thought we were actually you know, right in the mix. Those top 15 guys seemed to separate themselves. We were going to start cracking on the top ten if we could get one more adjustment done to the car. And then we had a problem on pit road. A car came at me perpendicular on pit road and it broke the left rear shock. And so we were hanging on. We were going to muscle it out. And then it’s like the car just swallowed three cylinders all at once. So, the engine let go. Those things happen in motorsports.
“It was a good battle though. I was hoping to do 1100 miles today. I can’t let what happened here dampen the mood on what happened up in Indianapolis. But it’s not just one individual. It takes a team. Andretti Autosport guys put me in a good car. Stewart-Haas gives me a great car every week. We just had a monkey on our back down here in running NASCAR this year. That kind of motor failure symbolizes some of the struggles we’ve had.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE TODAY?
“Today is a memory I’ll have forever. It was a challenge I put forth for myself. I enjoyed it. I soaked it all in up North. I loved racing up in Indy in front of all the Indiana natives and the Hoosiers. They love their speedway up there. That speedway loves them. That’s what I really saw out of that track today. There was a grand stage to stand on and represent NASCAR. We brought her home in sixth place. I didn’t think I had anything for those top five guys. They were racing hard. And those were the top five in that series. They’re strong. They’re tough.
“The mood down here we’re not going to let it dampen things. There is still wind in our sails and we’ll still sail on off into the sunset after today.”
HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
“I’m feeling good, actually. They way that this race was coming to us, the cooler conditions tonight; you know, my hands are a little sore. My feet are a little sore just from working it. And overall, I can stand here with a smile knowing I gave it my all for six months trying to get to this point.”
WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?
“I’d love to do it again. And at the same time, you’ve got to do it with quality teams. The teams really can make the big difference in all of this. And I have to thank Andretti and I have to thank Stewart-Haas.”
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