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TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 11, 2014
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 2ND
YOU MISSED THE POLE BY JUST A COUPLE THOUSANDTHS OF A SECOND:
“It’s so tough to get a good lap around here. The first outing put up a decent time fastest of the day for ourselves still knew that we had to go faster and to come out for the second session on older tires and improve by over two tenths is something to be proud of. Of course we want to get the pole, want to be faster, but Kyle (Busch) found a little bit more out there than us. We feel really good about our Lowe’s Chevrolet. We did some race runs to start practice off. The car was right where we wanted it based on our test session here a month ago and q-trim went really well too. This helps make the weekend so much easier to race. You get a good pit stall pick, good track position and you can fine tune from here. Hopefully we will be able to fine tune and make a race winning car.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 5TH
“We had a good session. So that was nice. It’s always frustrating to not back up what you do in practice, but it was really good. It’s a really hard race track I think, for everybody. I don’t know anyone that says Loudon is easy. It’s hard to pass on. It’s hard to be fast here. It’s hard to have your car right.
“Our McDonald’s Chevy is good in race trim, we’ll get a good pit stall; it takes a lot of things to get a good result here so, we’ve got a lot of things going our way.”
HOW’S THE CAR FOR RACE DAY?
“It’s so hard to practice here because we’re not on ‘our’ rubber. We’re on the Modified rubber a lot. So on Friday, you don’t really get to work on your car because you’re on the wrong rubber and you’re working on qualifying trim. But we tested here. So I think we have a really good notebook of what we need to do. The race, I think, this is all about having good pit stops and the crew chief being on the right strategy because you can take a really good car here and put it in the back and it’s not a very good car; or you can take a bad car here and put it in the front and it’s pretty fast all of a sudden. So, track position will be massive.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 9TH
“The guys did a great job from practice to qualifying to find a bunch of speed. I am proud of their effort because the starting position is important here. It gives you a good feeling going to bed and getting ready for two practice sessions tomorrow. We learned a lot today that can help us on Sunday. New Hampshire is a special track for me and the Truex family and it would mean a lot to me to run well here.
So far this is a solid start to the second half of the season.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 11TH
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO MANAGE THE CAT AND MOUSE GAME THAT HAPPENS OUT THERE WITH KNOCK-OUT STYLE QUALIFYING?
“Well I don’t know. I think sometimes if you have a shot at the pole then there is cat and mouse if you are trying to make it in the top 12 some of that. But most of the time we just focus on what we are doing trying to get the best clean lap and best track conditions and me trying to hit my marks and get a good solid lap and today that was a real challenge. We just missed it a little bit with our Drive to End Chevrolet. We were just really struggling trying to put both ends together. We felt fortunate to make it in the top 12. Unfortunately there at the end we just didn’t have anything left after all the laps we put on the tires.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 13TH
WAS THERE A PARTICULAR AREA OF THE RACE TRACK OR YOUR RACE CAR THAT YOU WANTED A LITTLE BIT MORE TO GET MORE SPEED?
“I guess looking back I wish we would have run two laps the first time out on the track. In practice our first lap was fastest. We thought we would just run one and come in. But it seemed like a lot of the people went faster on their second lap. Maybe if we had done that we could have made it to the final round. We tried really hard. We were close, just missed it by a little bit. Not too bad. We had a pretty good day for the Target Chevy. We were pretty good in practice in race trim. We still have some work to do there, but we will figure it out tomorrow and hopefully have a good run on Sunday.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KINGSFORD CHARCOAL CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 20TH
“It is so close here. I’m proud of the guys because in the first run we were a little bit loose and in the second run we picked up almost two tenths. Lap times were so close, there. You can nitpick everything and think oh, I could have found a half a tenth here or there. I think with the new rules package it makes it tough to get around this place. Overall, I’d always like to be a little bit better but it’s a good start for tomorrow.”
WHY IS IT SO TOUGH TO GET AROUND HERE?
“Well, it’s just flat. Last year I only did one of the two races. So I’m trying to figure out whether it’s the ride heights or that the track has gotten a little bit bumpier. It seems like there are more cracks and seams in the race track. I’m just trying to figure that out and get the car stable to get in the corner and make sure you roll around the center and get off the corner.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 23RD
TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN AND WHAT YOU HAVE TO WORK ON TOMORROW:
“Disappointed with our qualifying run. I think we will figure it out tomorrow in race trim. We have put ourselves behind all year qualifying truthfully. I don’t know what it is, what we are lacking, air pressure or what, but we just have to do a better job at qualifying.”
JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 51 ACCUDOC SOLUTIONS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 25TH
“Our Chevy is pretty good. We feel like we learned a lot in race trim today. We tried a couple of things that we learned in race trim and unfortunately in Q-trim it just didn’t seem to have quite the speed we were looking for. We fought grip a little bit there. But, it is a solid starting spot for where we were when we started qualifying and I think we can keep working on it tomorrow and get to where we need to be.”
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