NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 24, 2014
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER
“Great start to our weekend for our McDonald’s Chevrolet. We tested here and I thought we had a really good test. Keith (Rodden, crew chief) and Josh (Sell, Engineer) just did a really good job adjusting on the car. It’s amazing you can go quicker your second time out. For years we came here to these places and ran slower. That was a good lap. It’s cool that Carter is here with me. It’s the first time for a father-son weekend together so we’re going to get our picture taken together!”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 4TH
TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF RHYTHM ON A TIGHT TRACK LIKE THIS:
“It’s real important. More than anything it means pit stall selection and that’s the biggest thing. We got a little bit of a break there hopefully, and that can be the biggest key to what happens. That’s a good run for us. We haven’t qualified that good here in a while. I’m proud of Chad (Johnston, crew chief) and the whole Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 team. They did an awesome job.”
WHY IS PIT STALL SELECTION SO IMPORTANT AT MARTINSVILLE?
“Every stall is like a shoebox. It’s like putting a pair of shoes in it; that’s all you can get in it. They aren’t very big. It’s very hard depending on who’s in front of you and who’s behind you. If you don’t have an opening, you can’t really guard it. If all three of you are on the same lap and you come in to your spot it’s really hard to get in and out of your box. If you can get an opening, a clean in or a clean out it’s a big advantage.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 9TH
ON QUALIFYING:
“The goods of it is it’s way better than where we were in the spring. That is a big gain, especially where we are this year. That is what I’ve said as far as from our standpoint, we just need to make improvements on where we were in the spring. We have done that. We were a better race car than we were a qualifier in the spring. Hopefully we can take a better qualifying effort and turn it into an even better race car.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 10TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“After our first run I felt like we hit the set-up as good as we were going to get, but maybe we went out too early in the session and some guys went out later and started chipping away. When you are at a half-mile a 15.15 (second) is a huge difference between a 15.18 (seconds). We ran a 15.18 our first time out. Went back out ran a 15.15 and bumped her up. Then had a shot at the pole. We just brought her home 10th. The guys that ran up front that got the pole and the top fiver’s they were fast. For us I feel like we have balanced the car the best we were going to find it for today’s package. We will learn from what we did today and apply that to race trim tomorrow. Now we have a race winning set-up, but you have to continue to evolve in this game.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 13TH
“The track definitely freed-up for us and I was loose-in and real loose off. I really fought the drive off. I thought that first lap might be enough to squeak our way in there and then we could make some adjustments. We tried some adjustments there that next time out and yeah, it just didn’t have the drive-off that I needed so we did fight that. I don’t mind starting 13th. It’s not a bad place to start. You just want that really good pit stall and so we’ll definitely suffer with a the pit stall a little bit, but we can definitely still win it from there. Our car is really good.”
YOU’RE 0.012 SECONDS OFF 12TH PLACE. HOW DIFFICULT IS THAT TO FIND THAT TYPE OF SPEED?
“That’s very close, but in my opinion we didn’t back up what we did in practice. We lost some drive-off in the qualifying session versus what we did in practice. That was really the difference. The car was not getting off the corners the way we needed to in order to advance. Three-thousandths of a second adds a lot of drama. You can sit there and go, ‘Oh man, we can make that up in the next round and reset.’ But we had a second shot at it and couldn’t go any faster even after we made an adjustment. We missed it just a little bit and that’s a little disappointing. But I don’t mind starting 13th. We can start 13th and still win this race. You’re just trying to get that good pit stall and that’s the disappointing part right now.”
HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE BETWEEN PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING?
“We were in fastest in practice… and could only get a :15 out of it right there. So obviously for us it changed. It only seemed to get freer and that wasn’t the case earlier; we were really good. So it changed for us and that’s disappointing. I always say that when you go qualifying here, all I really want to do when I have a good run in practice is back it up. Unfortunately we couldn’t do that in our Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 33RD
“We just missed it today. We were way too loose. We struggled in practice and just missed it in qualifying. We have to get better tomorrow and be ready to go on Sunday.”
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