MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KOBALT 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 12, 2017

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – Finished 2nd
VERY SOLID SECOND PLACE RUN FOR YOU, YOU ARE JUST KEEPING THIS MOMENTUM GOING IN 2017:
“Yeah, no fist flying for me. That was exciting right there, but no, awesome day for our Target team. Second in the first stage, third in the second stage and then finished second in the race. I can’t say enough about my team. I’m so proud of them. Our race cars are amazing right now. We are going to hopefully, keep building on what we’ve got and keep challenging for wins and they will come. Had a lot of fun today. Had a bad restart there after the second stage and lost a lot of track position, but was able to get a good restart there on that last one. Brad (Keselowski) I think he was blowing up or something and got luck there and got second. Back-to-back second’s we would like to have back-to-back wins, but this is pretty awesome.”

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 3rd
ALMOST WON THIS THING WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT FINAL LAP?
“I mean we just got luck with where we ended up. We had a really good car, had a bad restart there at the end and lost a couple of spots and just can have it.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CREDIT ONE BANK/CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 8th
GREAT DAY FOR THE GANASSI CARS AND A GOOD START TO THE SEASON. TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY:
“Just a solid whole weekend for the whole group. We got behind on one of the runs with scuff tires on. I just had a bad restart and we lost a bunch of track position. From there on out our car was really good. I thought we actually had a little better car than where we finished. The No. 42 ran good all day he had a great last run, so yeah a pretty good day.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 KOBALT CHEVROLET SS – Finished 11th
CAN ABOUT YOUR DAY AND THE DIFFERENT STRATEGIES EVERYONE WAS PLAYING:
“I don’t know what happened with strategies. It was coming our way and then we had some lugnuts not get on, on the last stop and had to come back in. We had just about everything go wrong that we could today and somehow finished in 11th. I’m not really sure. I know we had some creative strategy working at the end that was going to play well and then whatever car blew up and then we pitted and we came out in seventh and probably could have had a top five if we wouldn’t have had to come back down.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 LIFTMASTER CHEVROLET SS – Finished 12th
ON HIS DAY:
“We did something to the car right there at the end of practice and I liked it, but once the tires gave up and it was rough, you start bouncing more then I didn’t like it at all. It really handicapped our race. But we fought for 12th which was solid for the effort. It was another good effort, we’ve just got to keep doing better, keep figuring out practice starting these races a little bit better, but that is on me and the crew chief and engineers just trying to figure it all out.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – Finished 16th
NOT EXACTLY THE FINISH YOU WERE LOOKING FOR, BUT YOU DID HAVE A STRONG CAR FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE DAY. ON HIS RACE:
“We were about eighth to 12th all day. We made some adjustments real big there at the end to try to gain a bunch of spots and it just didn’t work out for us, so we lost some spots on the restart. That bottom is no place to be on the restarts anyways in the back there, but we will take it. A couple of spots there hopefully that will make or break the season for us and we just can put a few races together and try to climb our way back into the points. We’ve got to finish them like we did today instead of the results we had at Daytona and Atlanta. Phoenix is a good track for us.”

ON THE BEAUTIFUL DAY AT LAS VEGAS:
“It was hot. It was warm out there. The weather is great out here. This is a great race track, awesome that they are going to be coming here twice a year in the future, that is going to be great for the sport. We are just looking forward to the next couple of races. I really like Fontana. Certainly, have had a great car at Phoenix the last several times. Try to keep on chipping away and grabbing some points. We did get in the top 10 a couple of times to get some extra points there during the day, so that helps us out as well.”