NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SYLVANIA 300
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 21, 2014
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
THIS CAR CAN’T HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF FUEL LEFT IN IT, TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN:
“It was a really good race for us. Our Target Chevy wasn’t even a top-15 car the first 100 laps, and Shine (Chris Heroy) and everybody on this Target team did a great job to get me in the game. They made some big changes there under the second or third caution, and it felt like a totally different race car. So hats off to my guys. Thanks to Chip (Ganassi), Felix (Sabates), Chevy, Target, everybody. I always get close when Chip is here, I just can’t get a win it seems like. Maybe sometimes I’ll get a win with Chip here.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER DESIGNATE A DRIVER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
YOU LED OVER 100 LAPS BUT DIDN’T GET THE VICTORY YOU WERE LOOKING FOR. YOU ARE IN PRETTY GOOD SHAPE HEADING TO DOVER:
‘Yes, I’d like to thank everybody on our Budweiser Chevrolet. We had the Designate a Driver program on there this week, so everybody drink responsibly. It was just a good day for us. We had a fast car. Track position is tough and it wound up being really hard racing there and Brad (Keselowski) moved me out of the way and I got up out of the groove. And then at the end there, NASCAR must not be able to see the lines on the restart there and the No. 22 (Joey Logano) was way early all day. But all in all, we did what we had to do and I just enjoyed racing that hard.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BELKIN/WEMO CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 4TH
ON HIS RACE AND THE RESTARTS:
“I thought the outside had been better for me, especially on new tires. When we made the last two or three restarts the bottom actually seemed to have a little bit of advantage. I got lucky; I got a good run on Brad (Keselowski) going into one. Got underneath him and was able to clear him and the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) off of turn two. It was a really good day for our WEMO Chevy. All those cautions are fairly frustrating. I know it is fun to watch as a fan, but you are so panicked as a driver as to which lane you are going to get to restart in because that is critical. It was a fun day. It was a pretty good race I thought.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
ON HIS RACE:
“It was a wild day, especially with all of those restarts. Man I don’t know what it looked like from the grandstands today, but I can tell you that inside the car, I was hanging on trying not to spin out. We certainly had a lot of cautions, and all those restarts. Strong day for the Lowe’s Chevrolet. Wish we had a little bit more, but we kind of finished where we ran throughout the day. I got some good points for this second race in this new format.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
YOU RALLIED BACK PRETTY WELL AT THE END:
“Yeah, I like the way we worked all day. We had to put on some real old tires there. We ran out of tires so that last set of tires we put on had some practice laps on them. We still hung in there and had some good restarts. Everybody gets on my ass about them restarts; we had some pretty good ones today. The last one wasn’t too good, but I was on the inside slipping around. We had fun and I’m glad we were able to rebound that was pretty dramatic there for a while. Had a little issue on the right-front, which is going to happen we shook it off. We shook it off like Denny Hamlin (laughs) and we went back to work. The guys gave me great stops after that and I’m proud of my team. You’re going to have mistakes. I’m going to make mistakes, but nobody really got on anybody everybody sort of regrouped and we finished out the day.”
THE PACE SEEMS FURIOUS. WHEN YOU HAVE AN ISSUE HOW COGNIZANT ARE YOU THAT OTHER PEOPLE COULD POTENTIALLY HAVE AN ISSUE?
“Yeah, it’s early in the race when we had our problem. It’s real hard to deal with it when it happens late. It’s real hard to overcome those things obviously when it happens late in the race. We were fortunate on that end to have it early. You just have to be patient. There are going to be so many yellows at the end of this race. There just are always, especially in the Chase as the season is winding down and the action is getting furious. Things are going to happen on the race track that you typically don’t see in these races. You see yellows at the end of the race, but today in the last 100 laps we had quite a few. You know some of them guys are going to have a hard time dodging some of that stuff. That is what I was thinking about when we were back there. We got our lap back or we were trying to get the lucky dog and we were behind a bunch of guys. I was like we ain’t out of the woods yet something bad could happen back here and we might not miss it. I was glad to get some track position and sort of get up there where things are a lot calmer and more organized.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING TO DOVER?
“We run good there. This place ain’t been that good for us. I know everybody is looking at us like we are falling off a little bit. But Chicago hadn’t been a great track for us and New Hampshire hadn’t either. Dover has. So I will be surprised if we don’t go down there and be competitive. We were racing for a win there last year and ran pretty good there this year. I look forward to going and having a good car. Probably will be a struggle in practice, we don’t practice well there. We talk about tracks where we, talking last week, about how we don’t practice well. There are just those tracks that we just don’t. This weekend we had good speed in practice I was proud of that. That is important to be able to feel confident in your car going into race day. Dover is not a track where we practice well. I just have to keep that in mind while we are out there practicing and not get too distraught because we race pretty well there.”
DO YOU JUST EXPECT COMPLETE CHAOS THERE? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR SEASON?
“Yeah, I mean it’s working by design. I wonder that the last race in each round maybe quite eventful. Guys are going to have to – you know on the last restarts or those last cautions guys that need those points and aren’t going to get them any other way are going to have to take some crazy gamble on tires, fuel. You are going to have some guys out there on old tires trying to hold people off and it’s going to cause a lot of traffic. It’s going to get tight. It’s going to get furious. So if they get the opportunities in those late yellows to take those gambles, which I think they will, I think they will be assured of that. Guys are going to be pretty crazy on what they are willing to do. I mean what else are you going to do? If you are Greg Biffle and you have to get chunks of points you have got to take some pretty big gambles here at Dover.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 12TH
“The guys didn’t quit on me today and I’m driving my heart out. This is the second straight week that we made a heckuva comeback. Though we made good adjustments today and came through at the end, we struggled for most of the weekend. But the guys worked hard and kept on making the car better, which gave us a respectable finish.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 13TH
ON HIS RACE:
“In this race we were awful honestly. We really struggled. I was driving my butt off to keep us on the lead lap. We got lucky twice with the Lucky Dog. Then from there, we started making a couple of adjustments that were pretty good. I was just bad on the restarts; really struggled on restarts. Then with about 100 to go, we got a little bit of track position. I got a good restart there. I could start on the outside and the car was pretty good there. I got clear of everybody and thought at that point if we stayed green, we were going to be pretty good, but we had all those cautions. Every caution I was on the inside and that just killed me. So to come home 13th is pretty good because at about 150, I thought we were going to be 25th, but also had a point where I thought we would be seventh. Good points day. There were a lot of mistakes around us. I did everything I could. The guys fought hard. Proud of everybody on this Bush’s Beans Chevy. We are all digging hard. We are trying to be the little team that could.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 26TH
YOU HAD SOME SPEED UNTIL THAT TIRE LET GO HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THIS DAY OVERALL?
“This place just doesn’t like us this year for whatever reason. Both races this year we just had a lot of strange things happen to us. Today we were fighting hard like we have been all day long putting a great car out there. It’s hard to get track position on the No. 22 and the No. 4 and even the No. 2 there, but I mean I was real happy with the car I thought we had an awesome race car, but it doesn’t matter if you blow a right-front tire. I’m pretty sure we cut something. I felt it go down about three-quarters of the way down the front straightaway and there is just nothing you can do. Just go along for the ride and hope the damage isn’t too bad, which we were very fortunate to still end up on the lead lap I guess.”
SEVENTH IN POINTS TALK ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL WHERE YOU STAND GOING TO DOVER:
“Well the problem is you just can’t have things like that happen. We have a strong enough team. We went from being very comfortable going into next week’s race to now not being very comfortable. We just have to go and perform and try to make sure things like this don’t happen.”
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