Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS – Budweiser Duel #1 Winner
YOU WIN THIS WITH YOUR NEW CREW CHIEF GREG IVES THAT HAS TO FEEL GREAT FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM:
“Yeah it does. We have had a great car all week. I’m so glad to be able to get through the Duel in one piece because I know how good this race car is. We have a couple more practices to go through and try to stay out of trouble during those and put this thing on the grid. We are going to have a fun day on Sunday. We had to do a lot of blocking there at the end, but those guys were mounting some pretty hard charges. We made a lot of good moves tonight because the car is so good. TJ Majors (spotter) deserves a ton of credit for helping us win that race tonight. He called a great spotting job up on top of the hill there. He gave me all the information I needed to make the moves I needed to kind of keep them guys behind me. It was hard to keep them all back there they were stacking up.”
FIRST OFF, CONGRATULATIONS.
“We had an awesome Nationwide Chevrolet. This crew has built an amazing race car. I don’t think I’ve had a car this good since 2004. It’s way better than last year’s car. I’m so excited to get through the dual and put the car on the grid for Sunday. We have some practices to get through but we’ll be safe and put a good, fast race car on the grid. It’s going to be a great Daytona 500. There’s so much power out there and so many good race cars. It’s going to be an awesome race. I’m proud of my crew. I’m proud of T.J. Majors. He did a great job spotting tonight. But these guys built an awesome race car. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports… they should bronze this thing. It’s amazing.”
THE RACING, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT?
“We had a fast race car so I could make some fun moves and could depend on my car to complete the moves. I saw that in practice a little bit too, so I was happy about my car. Leading though, I don’t think anyone is safe. We had to make some aggressive moves at the end. That’s kind of out of character to drive that way but it was what I needed to do to win the race. You have to throw some pretty hard blocks when it comes down to it at the end. I don’t think it’s necessary early in the race. Near the end of the race, everyone is pretty vulnerable out front. These cars give some pretty good runs. So I think we’ll see a lot of passing and a great race Sunday.”
FINALLY, GREG IVES IN VICTORY LANE. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT TO GET THE NEW CREW CHIEF IN VICTORY LANE?
“It’s going to give him some confidence. They should be real proud of the car they built. When you come down here, you have to drive the thing a little bit but you depend on the car so much. The car is a bigger part of the equation. The whole company should be really proud of the car they have here with the Nationwide Chevrolet. All the cars they built are doing real good.”
GREG IVES, CREW CHIEF, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS:
“It’s pretty awesome what this group can do. Everybody at the Hendrick shop… to see what they can produce is pretty awesome. All four cars are going to be starting 1-2-3. That’s pretty awesome.”
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