NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
QUAKER STATE 400
KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JULY 10, 2016
RYAN NEWMAN GIVES CHEVROLET SS A THIRD-PLACE FINISH AT KENTUCKY
Three Team Chevy Drivers Finish in Top 5
SPARTA, KY – July 9, 2016 – With all the strategies involved in the Quaker State 400, the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway came down to to fuel mileage at the end of the 267-lap race. Smart fuel management by veteran driver Ryan Newman, pilot of the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet SS, gave him a third place finish, his best effort of the season thus far.
“We had a good car,” said Newman. “We really struggled, like most people did in dirty air. Track position was definitely key, but I’m proud of these guys on the Caterpillar Chevrolet; all the ECR guys, they obviously did a good job on the fuel mileage to make that happen. I think all us drivers that made it, knew what we were doing, it’s just a matter of it we thought we were as good as we were.”
After starting at the tail-end of the field as a result of having to go to a back-up car, Kurt Busch and the No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Chevrolet SS team rallied to record a fourth-place finish. The 2002 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion has now earned a top five finish at all 23 tracks on tour. Busch’s Stewart-Haas teammate, Tony Stewart, who won at the Sonoma road course two weeks ago, recorded a fifth-place finish in his No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS to give Team Chevy three of the top five finishers.
Jamie McMurray captured a seventh-place finish in his No. 1 Cessna Chevy SS. Series points leader Kevin Harvick, who started on the pole in his No. 4 Busch Light Chevrolet SS, and led a race-high 128 laps, finished ninth. He continues to lead the current point standings for Chevrolet.
The repaved and reconfigured surface at Kentucky Speedway played host to a bevy of accidents early, including one that knocked out six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup series champion, Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, on Lap 31; but he returned to the track on Lap 72, and finished 32nd. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate and Rookie of the Year contender was also collected in an on-track incident and was relegated to a 31st place finish.
The next stop for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 17.
POST RACE PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT:
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
THE MODERATOR: We’re going to roll right into the sixth annual Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts at Kentucky Speedway. Our third place finisher is Ryan Newman. He’s the driver of the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Talk about the race. It certainly had a lot of twists and turns. Certainly looked like the cars were a handful and certainly there at the end there was a lot of strategy involved. What were your thoughts?
RYAN NEWMAN: I don’t think there’s a driver here that didn’t have a handful at some point in Turn 3 tonight. But a good well played race by Luke (Lambert) and all of us to get the finish that we did. We did have a good car. We just never seemed to be able to get good track position and played the fuel game there at the end, did what I thought I had to do, and with no fuel gauge or any kind of telemetry was able to make it to the end. Was hoping that we were going to be the first guy that could pull that one off, not the third guy, but just proud to get our first top 5 of the season with the Caterpillar Chevrolet and the guys at ECR and RCR have been working really hard and a night like this is definitely something that we are really proud of.
Q. Ryan, how is RCR right now as an organization, and how are you going to approach the second half of the season and what improvements you can make to get into victory lane?
RYAN NEWMAN: Well, we’ve definitely been building. We started the season off decent but not where we wanted to be or where we thought we should’ve been, but been building on it. I think the cars have gotten better, the engines have gotten better. We’ve been more competitive. We’ve still got some more work to do. We’re not leading a bunch of laps or leading the most laps in a given race and talking about how we didn’t win. We’re talking about how we can finish in the top 5. We’ve got some work to do, don’t get me wrong, but I’m proud of the effort that went into tonight.
Q. A lot of talk here at Kentucky Speedway in terms of the repave about trying to season it so it would drive not like a brand new track, like an older track. Did it work?
RYAN NEWMAN: I think it did but it didn’t. I think everybody has got their own idea. If it was me, it would have been done better, but I think if you took the tire machine and just focused on the middle to upper groove and let the race cars work on the bottom groove, it would have helped. I wasn’t here to see how many laps they ran or where the guy drove the tractor around and what all that stuff was and what tire they used when they did that. Could it have been better? Obviously, anybody can say that. But for a first race, I said before Carl got in here, I think everybody had a hard getting through Turn 3. It’s kind of a design aspect of the racetrack, but I was happy that we didn’t have any tire problems like the XFINITY cars and the truck cars did, so kudos to Goodyear making that tire change after the tire test. As much as we hate that coming to a tire test as a group, as organizations, to change a tire after a test, it looks like it was the right call.
Q. You’ve got two races coming up, Indianapolis, kind of the tail end of those. Even though this was a fuel mileage race, does this give a little momentum to either team going into the next two races?
RYAN NEWMAN: For me, obviously yeah. It is four places better than our best finish all year. Our first top 5 from an organization, our team at least, that’s a big deal. Proud of that effort. Leading into this stretch of races, especially where we are in the Chase, to have good points night tonight, even though it wasn’t a win. It’s a small victory in itself.
THE MODERATOR: Ryan, thank you for putting on a great performance here this weekend. Good luck.