NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPRINT ALL-STAR
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
MAY 17, 2014
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined in accident on lap 61:
WHAT HAPPENED?
“I’m not exactly sure what. Hopefully we didn’t damage it too bad so we can’t find out what it was. I was going down the backstretch going into Turn 3 and I felt something in the front end give. All of a sudden I had more wheel and I wasn’t even in the corner. As I got in the corner, the car just went straight. It wasn’t like it was a right-front where it just shot there; it just slowly went there. We’ll have to do some investigating to find out. It was certainly was one fast Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet up until that point.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE RACING TONIGHT? HOW INTENSE IS IT?
“It’s intense. It’s awesome. These cars are fantastic and the conditions couldn’t be more perfect. It’s nice to see some guys switching up their strategies. That’s what making the racing so good because they realize how important it is to get track position and some of them are able to maintain it. Unfortunately for us, the 11 car decided to do it because he pretty much ruined our night.”
ANY IDEA WHAT HAPPENED?
“Something broke in the front end, either a tire or something in the suspension because I was going down the back straightaway and as I was getting to the corner it just sat down and started going straight. I hate we caught those guys up top on the outside of me. But man what an awesome Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet we had tonight. Drive to End Hunger has been such a great supporter of ours and I so badly wanted to get them into victory lane. We had the car to do it tonight but we didn’t have many breaks going our way. That 11 staying out in the second segment killed us because we got behind him a bunch. And every time he was weaving we would get by him. But our car was super-fast and we could go to the high side, middle, and bottom. We were looking forward to the average working out if we could make some ground up in that run but unfortunately not to be. Great effort by this team by this team and I am still just loving driving these race cars because they are just so good.”
YOU LOOKED AT THE REPLAY, WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN ANYTHING FROM WHAT YOU SAW?
“I just wanted to know what broke. Somebody said the engine, but I think that happened after we hit the wall and broke a line or something. I was just trying to figure out if it was the left front or right front. It didn’t just shoot into the wall which made me believe it might have been in the left front. I am not really sure and all I know is it just went in there and went straight.”
