NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GO BOWLING 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 7, 2016
CHEVROLET’S KEVIN HARVICK EARNS RUNNER-UP FINISH AT KANSAS
Six Chevy SS Drivers In Top 10
KANSAS CITY, KAN. – (May 7, 2016) – Kevin Harvick led the charge for Team Chevy earning a runner-up finish in his No. 4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS in the Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway, the 11th race of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series campaign. Harvick, nicknamed ‘The Closer’, did his best to catch the leader in the waning circuits of the 267-lap contest. The 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion fell just shy of recording his second victory of the season, but posted his 10th top-10 finish in 21 races at the 1.5-mile track. Harvick remains the series point leader by four markers.
“For whatever reason I got tight, I hit a big piece of debris down there about six or seven laps into the run, said Harvick. “From that point on I just got really tight. I’ve just got to thank everybody from this Stewart-Haas team, Jimmy John’s, Outback, Busch, Mobil 1, ditech, everybody from Chevrolet for everything that they do. We overhauled this thing this morning to try to get it close. They did a great job. It’s going to be a long week we are going to go do some testing this week and have fun with it.”
Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Chevrolet SS had a solid night and finished third. Kansas marks Busch’s fifth consecutive top 10 finish.
Continuing his consistency, Austin Dillon rallied from the 17th starting spot to end the night in the sixth position at Kansas. His Richard Childress Racing teammate, Ryan Newman, No. 31 Grainger Chevrolet SS, earned his best finish of 2016 thus far coming home seventh.
AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Dillons/Kingsford Chevrolet SS finished eighth, followed by Rookie of the Year contender Chase Elliott piloting the No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevy SS in ninth, giving Team Chevy six of the top 10 finishing positions.
Kyle Busch (Toyota) was the race winner, Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was fourth and Ryan Blaney (Ford) was fifth to round out the Top 5 finishers.
The series heads to the ‘Monster Mile’ Dover International Speedway next weekend. The AAA Drive for Autism 400 is scheduled to commence on Sunday May 15.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
THE MODERATOR: We are ready to get started with our post race media availability. We are joined by our second‑place finisher, Kevin Harvick.
Kevin, take us through your run out there today.
KEVIN HARVICK: Thought we had a good run today. Just really proud of my team for what they did. From where the car was yesterday, to change pretty much everything on the car and have it be that competitive on the racetrack today says a lot about our team.
We went down some different roads throughout the weekend that didn’t work and were able to go with what we normally run and be competitive. So just super proud of the effort and excited that we have the capability to do the things that we did today.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Kevin.
Q. You got around Kenseth on that restart. What was it about Kyle that you just couldn’t quite get around him?
KEVIN HARVICK: Hit a big piece of debris and knocked a big hunk out of the nose and knocked the splitter down. From that point on it was tight. Otherwise I would have drove around him.
All in all, it just didn’t play out that way and they were able to win the race.