NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 6, 2014
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – Finished 5th
ON THE RACE
“We didn’t have the best car tonight but got a Top 5 out of it and that’s what you’re going to have to do over the next 10 weeks to keep yourself in the game. And that’s really what it’s about it keeping yourself in the game. You’ve got to keep doing that and everything else; the race car runs fine and you’ve just got to battle every week.”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE TRACKS AHEAD, WHICH ONES ARE THE BEST FOR YOU?
“They’re all good for us. I think we’ve run well at all the race tracks. It’s a matter of putting it all together on particular weekends and capitalizing on weekends when you’re the best car. Hopefully we can do that but it will be an interesting 10 weeks.”
CAN YOU PUT TOGETHER A CHAMPIONSHIP RUN?
“I think we have the speed to. We’ve just got to keep digging at it.”
HOW WAS THE CAR IN TONIGHT’S RACE?
“Our Budweiser Chevy, we fought all the problems we had in practice. We could run some good laps and some bad laps and the middle section of the run for me wasn’t very good because I couldn’t run the bottom and I couldn’t run the top. I was just too loose up off the corner. It was an interesting night. I’m glad that one is over. That’s a long night when you’ve got to drive the cars like that. All in all it was a good night for our Budweiser team. They hung in there and we got a Top 5 out of it.”
WHAT ARE YOUR CHANCES FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Our cars are really fast. I feel like we’ve overcome a lot of problems. We’ve gone 26 weeks and haven’t fixed pit road. We have to fix pit road in order to win a championship.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 4TH: ON HIS RACE, JUST MISSING THE CHASE: “Had a really good night; had a really fast car. The team did a good job; our pit crew did an amazing job gaining of maintaining what we had. I thought at times there was a chance we could maybe get up there and contend for the win. But after the third or fourth stop, we just couldn’t make the car any better. We got to the best we could be which was third or fourth place car.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 2ND: “Really solid effort all weekend long. When it counted most, the team stepped up. I am really, really proud of and excited for these next 10 weeks. We just didn’t have what Brad (Keselowski) had on the short runs. He was able to take off and get away from us, but we were better than he was on the long runs. We gave it a heck of an effort. It’s been a great season so far, we are excited to get that Chase started next week in Chicago. It is Hunger Awareness month, that is why this car is orange for our Drive to End Hunger folks. You want to win every race. If you don’t win every race. If you are not able to win every race, you go to work to figure out what you need to do to be better. There are certain tracks that we go to that you know you are really, really good. And there are some that we go to that we have to work on a little bit. All in all we are just a solid, consistent team that also knows how to win. You can’t ask for better than that. Now, if we can make ourselves a little bit better at some of these places, watch out.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 23rd “It will be cool tomorrow when I wake up, right now it was just a long night. This race team, putting it together at the beginning of the year, and to do what we did at Watkins Glen was pretty special. We definitely have a ways to go to go there and compete for a championship. But the first way to win a championship is to be in it, and we are in it. We’ll forget about this effort tonight, and we’ll be ready for Chicago.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 9TH: “We did tonight what we had to do and a little bit more. We didn’t win the race, we were here to do that, but it got to a point there near the end where there were so many cars on the lead lap that if we could just maintain, we were in a good spot. Have to thank Caterpillar, Quicken Loan, Wix Filters, QuickSet; all the people that help with this Chevrolet. It has been a lot of fun this year, but the fun has got the potential to just begin again.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 7TH: “It’s great to finish in the top-10 tonight, and give ourselves a chance to pretend it was a Chase race, and race for points tonight amongst all the chaos. Tonight could have gone so many different ways for so many different individuals with win and your in so I knew there would be some chaotic moves, but it all seemed like it was a pretty normal race. But for us on the Haas Automation Chevy, we won earlier this year at Martinsville. At that time, we weren’t a Chase contender. Now I believe we are a Chase contender. We’ve really polished up on points as of late. Went for the win at Michigan, otherwise I think we could have had four top fives in a row. That is the consistency it is going to take. Seventh place finish tonight, for all the guys that are here at the track every week on the Haas Automation Chevy to all the guys back in the shop that build the cars, hang the bodies. The engines from Hendrick Motorsports, and the chassis from Hendrick – I have to thank them. We have the whole package. It is a young team that is putting the cars together, and I feel like we can do the job that it takes here in the Chase. Thanks to Monster Energy and Rush Truck Centers, Mobil 1. A lot of key associates that help us to get to the track every week. And of course our Armed Forces working with the Armed Forces Foundation. Thanks to our troups.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 12th:
“Yes, I am only thinking about the last race. I wasn’t really happy with our performance tonight, but it wasn’t too awful, but it was just real frustrating to see all those guys in front of me struggling late in the race, and not be able to do anything. Our car was struggling as well. I was struggling. that was kind of frustrating. We’ve had an awesome year, and we are going to take this entire week building up to Chicago and the first Chase race to really prepare ourselves mentally. Steve (Letarte. crew chief) has a lot invested, and I do to, so does the whole team. Everybody is very focused and ready to go. We’re going to get together this week and make sure everybody knows what is their job, and who is going to lead us on into Chicago. Hopefully we can have a good result there, and start it off nice there. Last year we got in a hole really quick with engine trouble and all that. We just want to go up there and have a real strong run, and come out of there real comfortable.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMER’S INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 17TH
ON THE RACE:
“I’m terrible here so the racing is not what I enjoy because I can’t figure it out. So, it’s just not ideal. I’m just happy this track isn’t in the final 10 for the rest of this year.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR TEAM RIGHT NOW?
“I’m really happy we won last week because we wouldn’t have raced our way in this week. So, it was good we won. We’re in. And now we just need to get better if we want to contend. We’ll just see how it goes. I’m glad we’re in.”
WHAT ABOUT THE RACING TONIGHT? IT WASN’T CHAOTIC OR DRAMATIC LIKE WE THOUGHT
“Yeah, there were a lot of long runs and I was slow so I wasn’t really enjoying it that much. I never saw what was going on up front and I never saw the leaders. They lapped me once and I was just paying attention to what I had. So I don’t know if it was much of a race or not. It was a difficult race for myself. I’m glad we don’t come here any more this year.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 11TH
YOU RAN HARD ALL NIGHT LONG
“Yeah, it was a pretty quick race with a lot of green flag racing. Our Target Chevy was just outside of a Top 10 car, so I hate that we couldn’t get into the Chase, but we’ve been working hard all year. I guess that’s the crappy part. But wins are important, so we’ve got to work on that next year to get some wins before the post season starts. I’m sure we’ll work hard for 2015 from here on out to try and get better and hopefully it all pays off.”
YOU’VE STILL HAD A GOOD ROOKIE SEASON. HOW DISAPPOINTING IS IT FOR YOU NOT TO MAKE THE CHASE?
“It has been a good rookie season so far. I guess we’d be out of the old Chase format anyways; so we can’t be disappointed. Well, maybe we can be a little bit more. But we’ll just work hard to try to get a win now. It’s too late to get a win, but wins are always nice. We’ll work hard. We’ve got some good tracks coming up. It’s disappointing, but at the same time we’ve been pretty good all year.”