NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPRINT ALL-STAR RACE
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MAY 16, 2015
KEVIN HARVICK LEADS TEAM CHEVY UNDER THE LIGHTS
AT CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
CONCORD, NC (May 16, 2014) – Reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick led the way for Team Chevy at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a second place finish in the 31st Annual NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race which featured four 25-lap segments and a final 10-lap shootout. Starting from the rear of the 20-car field, Harvick muscled his No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Chevy SS to the front, and captured second place finishes in Segments 3 and 4 and again in the final feature.
Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kurt Busch, had a strong No. 41 Haas Automation Chevy SS too, and led 24 of the 110-lap race. Busch won Segment 4, restarted fifth in the final segment, and took third place overall.
Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet SS, received a special introduction prior to the race, and was joined by the other 19 All-Star competitors in honor of his last career All-Star event. Gordon scored a solid fourth place in the final shootout, which gave Team Chevy three of the top five in the finishing order.
Kasey Kahne, who scored the 200th NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win for Chevrolet last evening, brought his No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevy SS home in 7th place. Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., finished 10th in his No. 88 Mountain Dew Baja Blast Chevrolet SS to give Team Chevy five of the top 10 overall.
Danica Patrick, who was given a starting spot in the 20-car field by virtue of a special Fan Vote, experienced left front hub issues in her No. 10 Mobil 1/Aspen Dental Chevrolet SS and finished 20th.
Rounding out the top five, Denny Hamlin (Toyota) won the race and the $1 million prize, and Matt Kenseth (Toyota) finished fifth.
The next race on the NASCAR Sprint Series schedule will also be at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Coca-Cola 600, the longest race of the season, takes place on Sunday, May 24th at 6:00 p.m. ET.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 HUNT BROTHERS PIZZA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
THE MODERATOR: We’ll get started with our race runner‑up, Kevin Harvick.
Kevin, you drove a heck of a race out there tonight, had a strong car. Talk about your performance.
KEVIN HARVICK: I kind of put us in a hole in qualifying. Our Hunt Brothers Pizza Chevy was really fast. We were able to get through traffic. They made some really good changes throughout the night to get the car where it really needed to be. I was able to move around the racetrack and find a groove that worked for me.
Made my way through traffic. Thought we were in a good spot. I had committed to the center of the corner and just really lost the front of the car up the racetrack, had to get out of the throttle, lost five or six spots.
Really excited for next week, be able to pass cars, maneuver through the field like that, pass cars like we were able to tonight. Real excited about coming back next week.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up to questions.
Q. Kevin, you have to be frustrated finishing second. Over the radio, Rodney said you guys were looking forward to coming back and running 600 miles. What are some of the things you learned tonight that you can apply next week?
KEVIN HARVICK: It’s like I told you guys last week, I’m not frustrated. I’ve been on the other side of this deal. On our days where we have something go wrong, the recovery from starting last and having a chance to win the race today, that was a recovery day, a day that goes smooth hopefully you can win the race.
It’s been a great start. I feel like we’re competitive every week. As you saw tonight, we were able to make it up into the top 10. Then they made some great adjustments on the car and we were able to drive through the top five cars and pass them.
That’s an accomplishment, you know, where we’re at with the cars, how you have to race them, the things that are happening. If you can pass, that’s a huge advantage, something I feel like they did a really good job with our car tonight in making it drivable.
Q. Kevin, conventional wisdom going in was you had to be first or second to have a good shot at winning. Brad sped only because he felt like he had to have the lead or else it wasn’t really going to matter. What was your outlook restarting third?
KEVIN HARVICK: It just depended on how everything shook out when they took off. Who spun the tires, who didn’t spin the tires. Denny sped them up quite a bit, then slowed them down, then took off way early.
Once the cars start going back and forth, it’s really easy to get the tires spinning. On the outside lane, spun the tires a little bit. I was in a pretty good spot. He just made a pretty good move down there. I committed to the center of the corner. He made a good move to slide up in the middle of the corner and got my car really tight.
My strategy was to keep moving up the racetrack. But as it all worked out, I just got too far behind with a mistake right there.
Q. Kevin, you talked about moving up through traffic, making passes. With this rules package, did it surprise you at all or was that kind of expected?
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, I didn’t move much until we got our car handling right. So, you know, the car I felt was really good starting the third run, all the way through the third run, fourth, all the way through the end.
Even at the beginning, the first two runs, the car wasn’t exactly where it needed to be. I couldn’t make a lot of ground other than the restarts.
You got to have your car right. The restarts are really tough because everybody’s got so much throttle, you’re so close to sliding the nose. If you move up too far, the back will come out from underneath you because everybody’s got so much throttle on the car, so it makes it tough to pass until you get to 10, 12 laps into the run.
Q. Kevin, your record at Charlotte didn’t start off well during your time with RCR for a while. The last five years you’ve done better. What is it about Charlotte the last couple of years that you figured out that has made you so good? Can you put your finger on something?
KEVIN HARVICK: I think there were just a lot of things that I had to do differently. Just sat down and really, as we had a test here, I don’t even remember what year it was, I guess it would have been 2009, 2010, just figured some things out driving‑wise, what I was looking for in the car. Coming over to Stewart‑Haas Racing, the cars have been really fast. This has been a place we’ve run really well at.
It just all clicked, I guess. Took me 10 or 11 years to figure it out. It’s all gone okay over the last four or five.
THE MODERATOR: Kevin, thank you very much for your time tonight. We look forward to seeing you next week.