CHASE FOR THE NASCAR SPRINT CUP
ROUND 2 OF 10
BAD BOY OFF ROAD 300
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 25, 2016
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 DITECH CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
HOW DID YOU GET BY THE NO. 20 OF MATT KENSETH?
‘I just want to thank all our sponsors and everyone at the shop who works on the Stewart-Haas Racing cars. Man, that worked out really good. The car was pretty good on the restarts. Once we got clean air there at the end, it wound up being really good up front. I’m just really proud of our team. They did a great job.”
DID VOICING YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE PREVIOUS RESTARTS MOTIVATE YOU AT THE END TO GET THAT BEST ONE?
“We talk about that stuff all the time. For me, it was just a smooth restart. I just didn’t want to spin the tires. I don’t know what happened to him, or if I just timed it right. It worked out good when we got to Turn 1.”
FROM HAVING A BAD DAY LAST WEEK, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO COME TO VICTORY LANE HERE?
“Yeah, that was a game of inches last week. We wound up getting a lap down there and I had a good car. I had a fifth of sixth place car, and just wound up not being where we needed to be. But all in all, we wound up where we should have been last year, this year.”
YEAH, YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO DO DOVER AND WIN THIS TIME. WHAT DOES THAT FEEL LIKE?
“Oh, it’s definitely going to be nice. One of our main goals this year was to not stretch ourselves out so bad. I feel like the performance of the car and the things that we’re doing are good enough to be competitive, and we just need to not make mistakes and go from there.”
SO, HOW IS THE HEART RIGHT NOW?
“I’m just excited. I was content with where we were. But, once you get up there in the front like that, you’ve got to take a chance to try to win.”
WHAT AN AWESOME RESTART:
“Yeah, just really proud of everybody on our ditech team for everything that they did today and for Rodney (Childers) leaving us out there. Our car would fire off really good after the tires would cool off and we could take off. All those other guys were buried back in traffic. We were able to time that last restart really good and I was able to keep the right side tires above the hash marks going into Turn 1. That was really the key for me to get the car and get off the brake and get back to a little bit of throttle.”
YOU SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE VERY METHODICAL TODAY:
“Yeah, we had a really good car in practice and qualified about where we have been on these types of tracks throughout the year. I think as you look at the performance that we’ve had throughout the year it’s been really good. We just had to fine tune it in practice and made some good adjustments this morning and then the same thing throughout the race just were able to fine tune the car and make things a little bit better as we went on.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 MONSTER ENERGY/HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
YOU REALLY HAD TO WORK FOR THAT TOP FIVE:
“We had everything thrown at us, even the kitchen sink at one point. I feel like the way that this team and everybody felt like we needed to have a solid finish, but you just can’t ask for it. It felt like we were up against the odds and then the car ran great. Really proud of the overnight adjustments and what we did better this time around than when we raced here last time was restarts. I think that showed that Stewart-Haas racing, we went to work on that, Kevin (Harvick) got the win today, real happy for him and we got a great top five with the Monster Energy Chevy.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 8TH
ON HIS AFTERNOON:
“The second half of the race, there was one run we were off and lost some track position and had to rally back from that. Those quick cautions at the end if you were on tire you were superman, if you weren’t on tires you were getting run over. It was just a chaotic close to the race. I’m glad to finish in the top 10 with this Lowe’s Chevrolet and we will go on to Dover.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 10TH
“I think we finished 10th and that is better than where I have been here the last couple of years, so that is good. Just a solid, consistent day, we got off there halfway through the race and lost some track position. We were good on just short runs, then would be bad in the middle of the run and then I would be pretty decent again there at the end of the run. We took two tires there late and needed it to go green. I probably would have finished seventh or eighth. We had some cautions there and was just able to kind of hold on for 10th. I don’t know where the points sit, but hopefully we made some improvement.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 13TH
“I had a good car and the cautions didn’t fall our way.”
ON DOVER:
“I feel like it’s a upcoming race and we need to do a better job.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 PUMPKIN SPICE CHEERIOS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 16TH
ON HIS DAY:
“Truthfully, that was a heck of a fight and we are only five points out going into Dover and we struggled all week long. We fought hard. I never gave in, never gave up, our team never gave up. They did a heck of a pit stop there to put us in a lucky dog position, just to gain us some more points. A bunch of them guys are just right there. Now we go to Dover and we’ve given ourselves a shot. We just got to go run good there; got something new that we think is going to help us there. I’m looking forward to it. Just a whale of a fight by the guys.”
YOU SOUND PRETTY POSITIVE ABOUT YOUR POINT’S POSITION:
“It sucks we didn’t have a car all day capable of doing anything, but we stayed focused and that means more to me than anything because at times this year we haven’t. I tried to let God work today and let things play out. It wasn’t our day, but we made the best out of our day, we really did.”