NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
JUNE 12, 2016
CHASE ELLIOTT EARNS CAREER BEST SECOND-PLACE FINISH AT MICHIGAN
Three Chevrolet SS Drivers in Top 5
BROOKLYN, Mich. – (June 12, 2015) From a tenth place starting spot in the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway (MIS), Chase Elliott led the field for 35 of the 200-lap race and powered the No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet SS to a career-best second place NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career finish. It was his 11th top-10 effort in 2016 and first top-10 at MIS for the 20-year-old Rookie-of-the-Year contender. With a strong Chevy SS race car, Elliott took the checkered flag just nine-tenths of a second behind the race winner.
Kyle Larson, who is also looking for his first win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, took third place behind Elliott in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS. Kevin Harvick, who started from the 29th spot due to an untimely caution during his qualifying effort on Friday, piloted his No. 4 Outback Chevy SS to a fifth place finish; which gave Team Chevy three spots in the top-5 overall.
Tony Stewart, with a very strong No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS, brought home a solid seventh place; Austin Dillon was eighth in his No. 3 Dow Salutes Veterans Chevy SS, and Jamie McMurray took his No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet SS was ninth in final order.
The 200-lap, 400-mile race, which featured a new aero package, was plagued with nine cautions for 46 laps.
Harvick continues to lead the standings by 30-points over teammate Kurt Busch, who finished 10th in his No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Chevrolet SS.
Joey Logano (Ford) was the race winner and Brad Keselowski (Ford) finished fourth to round out the top-5.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes break next week, and returns to action for the first road course race of the season at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California on June 26.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by today’s second‑place finisher in the FireKeepers Casino 400, and that is Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. The racing out there today looked fantastic. Looked a little bit difficult from everybody’s standpoint who was on the track, just walk us through the final laps and your overall run today.
CHASE ELLIOTT: I had another fantastic car. My guys have been doing a really good job the past few weeks, and we’ve been just trying to give it all we can get to get one of these things. Had another fantastic opportunity today and I feel like definitely messed that one up for my guys. As I said outside, you can’t do dumb stuff and expect to win. That’s just the way life is. That’s certainly the way this sport is, and I did dumb stuff today, so can’t expect to win.
Q. Talk about the debut of this aero package. Was it significant or much to do about not much?
CHASE ELLIOTT: It’s hard to say. It’s still hard to race running that fast. You know, definitely when you have clean air on those, that’s going to be an advantage. I don’t care if we have a spoiler or no spoiler or 16 inches of spoiler. It doesn’t matter. Running 215 miles an hour, it’s going to be hard to race.
Q. You, Kyle and Joey in the top three, three of the younger drivers on the circuit. What does that say about ‑‑ is it cool to have a day where the youth dominates, and what does that say about the sport right now?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I think it was a day that myself, Joey and Kyle had three fast race cars, and I don’t care if you’re Superman, if you don’t have a good car you can’t go win one of these things. That’s just a testament to the teams, certainly my team for giving me a fast race car, another one, and my guys have been doing such a good job from pit stops to the guys at the shop. Everybody has been giving it 110 percent, and I definitely messed one up for them today.
Q. You talked about dumb things. Can you address what those mistakes were?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, just putting it in the correct gear would be a good start.
Q. I was going to ask you, what chances did you have, A, to get up to Joey Logano, or was he just that dominant this afternoon?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, we had a shot. Kyle gave me a really, really good shove on a restart, was able to get by him, and I felt like we could kind of control the pace when we were out in front of him. I thought that said a lot about our car, and once we had the lead there, I felt like we had a really good opportunity to control the rest of the race if we had good restarts and good time on pit road. Pit road was fantastic, and the restarts weren’t, so that was the difference.
Q. How close do you feel you are to winning one of these races?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, I think we had a fantastic opportunity today, and I think I messed one up.
THE MODERATOR: Chase, enjoy the break and good luck in Sonoma.
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined on the stage by Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet for Ganassi Racing, and Kyle, Chase was talking about cars were slipping and sliding out there; almost looked like a dirt track race on asphalt today. Can you explain how the racing was from your perspective today?
KYLE LARSON: Restarts for sure were pretty crazy there. At the start of the race, it looked like everybody was trying to take it easy but still sliding around, and we were able to gain a few spots there. Don’t really think I ran out of the top six pretty much all race long. That was good.
Yeah, every restart you’d get, you kind of struggled through the middle of (Turn) 1 and then into (Turn) 3 depending on where people were on your outside or whatever. Once it got kind of spread out, they weren’t crazy to drive, definitely more out of control than what we’re used to. Entry was really loose for me. I was able to figure out a couple things to help my entry out, but still wasn’t able to arc my corners as much as especially Chase, but Joey, as well, and ended up third.
It was a solid run for us. We’ve been consistent as we’ve been in the last year and a half anyways, so it’s nice to be running up front and getting closer to a win I feel like. Still got some work to do, but it is nice when we can get a package like this thrown at us just a few weeks before the race, and our guys at the shop and here at the racetrack can look at engineering data and come up with a good piece. Thanks to them, and hopefully we can build on this and try and get a win in my home state.
Q. Kyle, the fans got their money’s worth today, I think. How would you rate it 1 to 10 from the package deal and your own performance?
KYLE LARSON: Well, you know, I was up front for a lot of it, all of it really. So I don’t ‑‑ I think I maybe passed one car really for position. You know, the 3 let me go because he had some trash on his grille early in the race, and then I think I ‑‑ yeah, I passed the 14 but he kind of let me go because I was a little bit faster than him.
I didn’t really get to race around a whole lot of people today, so I don’t have a very good opinion on if you could pass or whatever; like that. But you could definitely run up closer to somebody than you could probably in the past. So that’s a plus.
I mean, there’s always going to be a little bit of changes, I’m sure, NASCAR or whoever can look at to make the cars race a little bit better. I don’t know what that is. I just hold the wheel and hit the gas pedal.
I don’t know. Honestly I can’t give you an opinion on how the racing was just because I was kind of up front through all of it.
Q. A lot of people thought the new package might favor some of the veteran drivers, but it turned out to be a day for the youth. Where is NASCAR right now? A lot of good drivers obviously very good day‑to‑day, but is it a pretty exciting future with the younger drivers here?
KYLE LARSON: Oh, for sure. NASCAR is ‑‑ you’ll see a big change in the next six or seven years probably with some of the veterans leaving the sport and lots of new guys filling their seats.
It’s exciting to see. I’m happy I got here in the first small wave of seats opening up. But yeah, today was cool. Joey Logano, he’s a couple years older than me; Chase, I don’t even think he’s 21 yet. So probably the youngest top three the Cup Series has ever had. It’s pretty special.
Yeah, it would be cool. It’s going to be us and (Ryan) Blaney and whoever else hopefully in the sport for a long time.
Q. Nine cautions today. It seemed like most of the incidents were coming out of (Turn) 2 in the backstretch. What seemed to be the problem coming out of (Turn) 2 and the reason for all those cautions?
KYLE LARSON: Well, if when you’re in traffic like that, we really don’t have a whole lot of aerodynamics or downforce on our care, and then when you ‑‑ I think when you get in traffic and get people on your right side, it takes that ‑‑ extra little bit of air off your car, and you’re already out of control, and you’re trying to grab as much throttle as you can so you don’t get the guys behind you driving down the backstretch.
You’re just trying to drive as hard as you can on the edge, and it’s easy to slip here. This place, all these newly repaved tracks, they have a lot of grip when you do have grip, but when you cross that line and step out a little bit, it takes off on you fast, and you can’t really feel it coming, and it’s tough to save. I haven’t seen any of the wrecks, but I imagine that’s probably what went on.
Q. Will you sit down with the drivers from the drivers’ committee and talk about what you felt the rule changes did for you today?
KYLE LARSON: I’m sure we’ll all bring it up to each other and kind of get some ideas and stuff like that. Like I said, we’re all the drivers, so we’re not really out there to come up with ideas on what will make the racing better. We’ll just kind of communicate and probably talk over what we liked or disliked and present that to NASCAR or whoever and let them come up with a way of improving it.
I’m sure all those guys ‑‑ I fly with the team, so I don’t have wi‑fi on the plane, but I’m sure my phone will blow up by the time I land with all those guys with the wi‑fi on their private jets.