NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA 400
DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 28, 2014
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
DESCRIBE YOUR DAY, WHAT A GREAT PERFORMANCE
“I don’t know what happened to Kevin Harvick. It was unfortunate for him. He was the class of the field. We were tuning on it to try to keep even with him. When I saw him go out, I knew we could compete with the No.2 (Brad Keselowski) car. The No. 2 was really good on short runs, but we could run him down. Of course he made us work for it there at the end because he was so good on short runs and he got to me. I was really, really tight in traffic there at the end. I didn’t know if we were going to pull it off. I’m so, proud to have this orange Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet. This is Hunger Action month and it’s extremely important to all of us who are fighting for the older Americans going hungry every day in this country. This is a great way to take action. I don’t know what I’ve found, but I think a lot of it has to do with Alan Gustafson and all the guys on this No. 24 team. They’ve just giving me such an awesome race car team this year. I’m having so much fun.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS WIN TOWARD GETTING THAT DRIVE FOR THE 5th CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Oh, I think this is huge. We came in here with a little bit of extra pressure because we weren’t guaranteed to be in. If we hadn’t finished where we were running at New Hampshire last week, it would have been kind of an easy day for us. But all we did was focus on executing as a team and trying to win this race and nothing else. It wasn’t about the points; it wasn’t about just squeezing by to get to the next round. It was about making a statement. I don’t know how you make a bigger statement than what this team just did right there.”
ON HIS DAY:
“I have to tell you Alan Gustafson and this whole No. 24 Drive To End Hunger team they work so hard this weekend. We struggled a bit. It was not an easy weekend. There were times when we were pretty good. Other times we needed to really work on, we just stuck together as a team. They gave me a great car today. We weren’t the fastest on the short runs, but boy if we had long runs I could get there at the end of the race. We were pretty tough to beat. They just made great adjustments. One time we got a little bit too free and luckily we didn’t fall back too much and tuned on it a little bit from there and man that thing just took off. I hated that Kevin (Harvick) had his trouble. I don’t know if we could have beat him he was pretty strong, but I would have loved to have raced him. I felt like we could beat the No. 2. He was good on the short runs, but we seemed to be able to pull ahead of him or run him down pretty good and consistently on those long runs.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
ON HIS DAY:
“I think I have won here nine times but I think I have raced here a heck of a lot more than that. Certainly wish we were in Victory Lane, but good solid third-place run. Our car just didn’t have the short run speed that the competitors did. We would kind of run everybody back down towards the end of a run, but just didn’t have what we needed at the start. I wish it was a little bit better, but still a great day with a Hendrick (Motorsports) car in Victory Lane, which is awesome and we will go to the next one.”
ON HIS DAY:
“We had a solid car, our sweet spot was kind of late in the run. With as many green flag runs as we had I don’t know I just couldn’t ever take advantage of it and get to guys. I would get to them just as the caution would come out and just didn’t have the short run speed that we needed to have a race winning car, but still a solid performance.”
ON KANSAS AND THE NEXT BRACKET OF RACES:
“Kansas can be kind of freaky because there is not much wear on the tire. Strategy is going to be a big part of that. Charlotte can kind of play that same role. I certainly want to be victorious in one of the two so I don’t have to worry about Talladega.”
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We fought hard and never gave up today. The guys did a good job in the pits. We got the car better every single stop, and at the end, it was at its best. Track position is important because it’s so hard to pass here. What we are doing now is getting ready for next year. Trying to figure out how to make the car better and how to communicate better as a team. The whole nine yards and we are making progress. Everybody has done a good job the past couple of weeks sticking together, not getting frustrated and working hard. I don’t know what it is about this track — maybe it’s home field advantage for me because it seems like the longer the race goes here the better we get. Just like last week (New Hampshire) I wish the race was longer. I never thought I would say that.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 13TH
ON HIS DAY:
“The inner valve stem got knocked out just like the first race here, except this time it was on the left-front so unfortunate, but probably our own fault for not finding a solution for it for the first race.”
ON KANSAS:
“We expect to be fast and just have to have some good luck. That is really what it’s all about for us. The car will be fast, it’s just about getting it all to come together.”
FRUSTRATING DAY FOR YOU NOT GETTING THE FINISH THAT I’M SURE YOU DESERVE. TAKE US THROUGH WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE LEFT FRONT AND WHAT SET YOU BACK?
“It knocked the inner valve stem out of the left front. A lug nut got in between the wheel and the brake rotor and knocked the vale stem out. Crazy. Just handing out early Christmas presents to people for winning races that we should be winning. But all in all, the Budweiser guys did a great job. It’s just crazy luck. It’s just unbelievable that it can happen. The shock broke first and we could beat them on three shocks, but we couldn’t beat them on three tires.”
THE GOOD NEWS IS THE POINTS RESET FOR THE NEXT ROUND. HOW ENCOURAGED ARE YOU BY HOW WELL YOU’VE RUN DURING THESE FIRST THREE RACES THAT YOU STILL HAVE A TEAM THAT’S CAPABLE OF WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
“We can beat every car on the race track. We just need some good luck. If we have some good luck, we’ll win races and have a shot at the championship.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 17TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We didn’t run good obviously. We struggled with our car all day long. I thought we had a lot better car in practice, but we made some changes. I guess they didn’t really work out for us. We were real loose on entry and real tight in the center. The balance was bad at the start of the run and the end of the run. So we never had a moment during the race where the car was very good and competitive. We just missed the set-up pretty bad. We just need to start from scratch when we come back here next year.”
WHAT WAS YOUR DAY LIKE OUT THERE?
“We had a pretty frustrating day. The car didn’t drive very well. I thought we had a better can in practice, but we just missed it completely. We didn’t have any speed. I was frustrated with the way the balance was. I drove hard. The team worked hard. But 17th was as good as we could run. That’s not good enough to win a championship. But we get to move forward and start from scratch on the next weekend. Trust me, we’re going to go to work and try to find everything we can to get better. But we’re concerned. It’s not been a good couple of weeks. We need to find something quick.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 18TH
*DOES NOT ADVANCE TO THE NEXT CHASE ROUND
YOU WERE JUST ON THE OUTSIDE BY SIX POINTS. WHAT WAS THE CAR LIKE THAT KEPT YOU FROM DOING WHAT YOU NEEDED TO GET DONE TODAY?
“It was just tight the last 100 miles. I felt like we were in good position to advance, but you just can’t expect to advance by running 15th. You have to be more competitive. We gave it a good run, you know? We put this team together pretty late. Gene Haas believed in me to come in here and do this and thanks to Haas Automation and Chevrolet and great associate sponsors like Mobil 1 and State Water Heaters and Monster Energy. We don’t get to advance to the championship, but we can still run for pride and run for wins. You can’t expect to advance running 18th. You’ve got to have better lap times every time you go and hit the track. If you’re off, it’s hard to put the car up on your back and run it. I just chalk it up to me not getting the job done. It’s all my fault that we didn’t advance.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMER’S INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 20TH
YOU MADE THE NEXT CHASE ROUND BY 2 POINTS. YOU WERE TWO LAPS DOWN. WHAT DID IT TAKE TO FIGHT YOUR WAY BACK TO BE ABLE TO ADVANCE TO THE NEXT ROUND?
“I felt like we went four laps down at one point when we pitted. We had to pit because had done the wave-around. But I had a good Farmers Insurance Chevy. I had a fast car. Luckily Kenny (Francis) made great calls. The team prepared a great car so I was fortunate to have that and drive our way back to barely advance. But I had to push hard on that; glad NASCAR just let it go and let us race for it, you know? It was pretty interesting but I’m glad we made it. We had to fight hard. I think we had a top two or three car today; we just didn’t get to show it.”
THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION ON THE RADIO ABOUT THE PIT CREW. WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO STEP-UP?
“Well, these guys work hard. And we’ve struggled all season with that. But they work hard and I know they’ll keep working hard. I just told them if you guys want to go further, it’s time to step-up. It’s time to put our best stuff out there. I know they want to. They’ll work hard this week. I’m going to work hard and we’re going to be prepared when we get to Kansas and hopefully we can keep moving on.”
“I am glad NASCAR let us race for it today because that is the only way I made it in. I guess if a couple cautions came or something we could have gotten the lucky dog but we had a better car than some of the other guys and we were able to race our way in. Kenny (Francis) did a great job and our team did a great job in preparation in giving us a top five or top three car. We just need to work on pit road. We have needed to work on that all year and now it’s crunch time. So if we want to keep going, we need to really step it up.”
HOW REALISTIC DID YOU THINK IT WAS AND DID YOU THINK YOU WERE OUT OF IT?
“I knew I had to keep trying there until the next caution came out. I wanted to pit a little early on that stint and see if we could get further ahead of Harvick. You know, because on fresh tires you can go so much faster. But Kenny wanted to stay out in case we had a caution so that we would have a shot. But once it all cycled through, we were right in front of him and the caution did come out. Harvick had a flat and we were in a much better spot at the time. From that point on I knew we definitely had a shot. Just had to race hard, and I am glad we got to race hard.”
WHAT WAS THIS DAY LIKE? A LOT OF PEOPLE COUNTED YOU OUT AND YOU BATTLED HARD AND NOW YOU ARE GOING ON TO THE NEXT ROUND
“Early we drove to fifth and then we fell back a few on pit road, then drove back to sixth. We fell back a few, and then we had a loose wheel. From that point on it was just hoping the cautions didn’t come out or that they came out at the right time. Really they just didn’t come out and we just had to race, race, race. I never really got nervous at all and I just raced real hard the whole time. Kenny started telling me we were tied for 12th and this was with 30 to go. Then he would tell me we were one point in and then maybe two points in, and then he wasn’t positive. Then I started getting a little bit worried, so it was intense inside the car.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 HUNGRY JACK/ACME CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 23RD
*DOES NOT ADVANCE TO THE NEXT CHASE ROUND
ON NOT ADVANCING TO THE NEXT ROUND:
“We didn’t give up. It was an awful day, but I have to thank my whole team. My pit crew kept giving me good stops. We kept throwing the kitchen sink at it every stop. My crew chief Brian Burns did everything he could to keep trying to make it better. We just missed it all weekend. It’s disappointing to miss it by two points, but we didn’t deserve to be in it with the run that we had. We have to look at it – I’m not going to take a moral victory out of it to miss it by two points, it’s disappointing, but we know we are making steps in the right direction. We beat some good cars, but we have seven races to go. Just because we didn’t make it doesn’t mean our season is over with. We have to keep working and get better. We have seven races to go. I will be disappointed tonight, but be ready to go tomorrow morning.”
“I have to thank my whole team, and my pit crew kept giving me good stops. We kept throwing the kitchen sink at it on ever stop and my crew chief Brian Burns did everything he could to make it better. We just missed it all weekend. You know, it’s disappointing to miss it by two points but we didn’t deserve to be in it with the run that we had so we have to look at it…I am not going to take a moral victory at it because missing it by two points is disappointing, but we know we are making steps in the right direction. We beat some good cars and we have seven races to go and just because we didn’t make it, doesn’t mean our season is over with. We can get as high as fifth in the points and we have seven races to go. I will be disappointed tonight, but I will be ready to go in the morning.”
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