CHASE FOR THE NASCAR SPRINT CUP
ROUND 1 OF 10
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 400
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 18, 2016

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN THAT CAUTION CAME OUT WHEN IT LOOKED LIKE THE RACE WAS YOURS?
“Expect it nothing is yours until it’s over. I mean that is part of life man. You are not dumb, we have all watched this stuff long enough we know these races don’t go green that long. We see more cautions come out at the end of these races than we do not. That is just part of it, you’ve got to expect it and be able to embrace it and move forward. I feel like we did a good job controlling the things that we could control today. We had a fast NAPA Chevy. I appreciate everybody’s hard work this weekend, Hendrick (Motorsports) was strong that is good to see. Like I said, there are some things you just can’t control with the amount of guys that stay out and where you line up on a restart. We played the cards we were dealt and came up short.”

YOU DID LOSE A SPOT ON THAT FINAL PIT STOP HAD YOU RESTARTED FOURTH DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD HAVE WON THE RACE? 
“Well if one less guy had stayed out then we would have been fourth. You never know how things are going to play out. Obviously, you hate to lose a spot on pit road, but our guys did a good job all day. They were solid and those are the kind of days we have to have on pit road. We will take it as motivation and move forward.”

HOW ENCOURAGED ARE YOU BY THE SPEED THE NO. 24 TEAM BROUGHT THIS WEEKEND?
“Yeah, we are definitely proud of it. We are proud of that. We are proud of the run we had today. Obviously, hate to come up short, but that is part of life some days. We were fast and I think that is something to be happy about and we can move forward to Loudon with some motivation, I think, and get ready to get going.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 LIFTMASTER CHEVROLET SS – Finished 7th
WAS THE RESULT WHAT YOU EXPECTED?
“We had a top 10 car. We had about an eighth to tenth place car and we ended up seventh. It was a good team effort. We just couldn’t figure out how to get a touch better. The car was tight through the bumps. This place is really rough in spots. I couldn’t get the front to turn coming out of the bumps, so that slowed me up a little bit. But, other than that, I feel like we had a great Liftmaster Chevrolet. We were real close to being a good bit better than where we were.”

HOW MUCH DID THOSE ADJUSTMENTS PAY OFF FOR YOU?
“The guys did a nice job of making the right adjustments. We just needed to go back to the garage and work on it a little bit to get to the front.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 10th
TALK ABOUT YOUR RACE TODAY
“It means a lot that Hendrick Motorsports has taken a chance on me and I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and we wish Dale (Earnhardt Jr.) a speedy recovery. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports and Axalta worked so hard. They brought a great race car.

“We were really good at the start of the race. It didn’t seem to like the initial takeoff, but once we built air pressures it seemed pretty solid. But we were running sixth or eighth there; and then we had two really bad runs and fell back. We tried some pit strategy and got pretty good there at the end. Greg (Ives, crew chief) made a good call to take two (tires) and recover from those two bad runs we had and get us a solid top 10.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 12TH
NOT THE RESULT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR, BUT WHAT DOES IT DO FOR THIS TEAM TO GO OUT AND LEAD THE MOST LAPS AND SHOW THAT KIND OF SPEED?
“Yeah, very proud of this Lowe’s team, everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. We are digging. I’m just… I just can’t believe I got in trouble down there leaving the pits. I feel terrible for these guys. It should have been a top five day, but I will back down pit road even more and try not to make that mistake. Hats off to the team for our fast Lowe’s Chevrolet, I just screwed up.”

WE HEARD THE EMOTION FROM YOU AFTER YOU HEARD YOU GOT A PENALTY. HOW DO YOU CLEAN UP THESE LAST DETAILS?
“I’m making adjustments and I was dumbfounded that happened. You can’t argue it. Maybe a mistake on our part somewhere, definitely a mistake on my side, but I by no way shape or form thought that I was speeding. I was probably the slowest down pit road all day just to try to avoid it and got nailed. I will soak on it tonight and come back next week and be at 100 percent again and get ready to take this Lowe’s car to Victory Lane.”

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 RUSH TRUCK CENTERS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 16TH
YOU BATTLED ALL DAY LONG WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEHIND THE WHEEL?
“It wasn’t much fun, but I was proud of Mike (Bugarewicz, crew chief) and the guys on the Rush Truck Centers Chevy. We were probably a car that was going to be three or four laps down if we had to race yesterday. Today we got the luck dog twice, but we were much better, we just weren’t good enough to be where we needed to be. We gained on it for sure. You gain on it and still aren’t going to be good enough to move to the next round if we don’t get better than this.”

YOU ARE TO THE GOOD GOING INTO RACE 2. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT NEW HAMPSHIRE? 
“Well, it was a good race for us in the spring, but I mean some of the guys that are behind us are guys that are really good too. We are going to have to be on our game these next two weeks.”