TEAM CHEVY ADVANCE
FOOD CITY 500
BRISTOL, TENNESSEE
APRIL 23, 2017
BOWTIE BULLETS
CLASS OF THE COLISEUM:
Chevrolet is the most successful manufacturer at the ‘World’s Fastest Half-Mile’ earning 44 wins in 112 races at Bristol Motor Speedway. Chevrolet earned their first win at the ‘Last Great Coliseum’ in 1971 with Charlie Glotzbach behind the wheel, that same race Glotzbach set the race speed record at Bristol clocking 101.074 mph average pace throughout the 500-lap event. That record still stands today.
CHEVY HISTORY MINUTE:
Did you know? Of active drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, Chevrolet’s Ryan Newman has the most pole wins at Bristol Motor Speedway, with three pole awards to his credit.
PACING THE FIELD:
Before 500-laps of beating, banging, and battling begins at Bristol Motor Speedway, all 40 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competitors will be following a Chevrolet SS pace car. This marks the fifth time in 2017 Chevrolet will activate by pacing the field to begin a MENCS race. And, for the Fitzgerald Gilder Kits 300 NASCAR Xfinity race on Saturday, a Chevrolet Camaro will serve as the pace car.
RACE REWIND:
Two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway, seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, took Chevrolet to Winner’s Circle for the third time in 2017. It was Johnson and the No. 48 team’s first victory of the season and punches their ticket into this year’s playoffs.
TUNE-IN:
The Food City 500 is scheduled to begin on Sunday, April 23 at 2 pm, ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
BY THE NUMBERS:
Chevrolet has won 39 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Manufacturer Championships
Team Chevy drivers have scored 768 wins and 690 poles in MENCS competition
Chevrolet drivers have won 44 of 112 races at Bristol Motor Speedway. Victories by current Team Chevy drivers are:
Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, has made one trip to Winner’s Circle at BMS (’10)
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS, has one victory at Bristol Motor Speedway (’04)
Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet SS, has recorded one victory at BMS (’13)
A Chevrolet driver has won one of the last three races at Bristol Motor Speedway
A Chevrolet driver has sat on the pole at Bristol Motor Speedway 37 times
Team Chevy drivers have scored 201 top-five and 414 top-10 finishes at Bristol Motor Speedway
A Chevrolet has led laps 22,773 (41.8% of possible 54,477laps) at Bristol Motor Speedway
FOR THE FANS:
Fans can visit the Team Chevy Racing Display in the Fan Zone at Bristol Motor Speedway
Fans can check out great a great assortment of Chevrolet vehicles including: Cruze, Malibu, Impala, Volt, Camaro 2SS Convertible, Corvette Coupe, Equinox, Colorado Crew, Silverado 1500 Crew, Silverado 2500 High Country and Suburban
At the Chevrolet Display, fans can view the No, 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, No. 3 DOW Chevrolet SS and No. 7 Brandt Chevrolet Camaro Xfinity Series show cars
Also on display is a Chevrolet R07 racing engine complete with electronic fuel injection. Fans can also see a sample of engines, parts and accessories available for purchase from Chevrolet Performance at their local Chevrolet dealer
Other activities at the Team Chevy Racing Display include a variety of interactive games for adults and kids
TEAM CHEVY QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSIONS AT THE DISPLAY:
Friday, April 21st
11:45 a.m. – Daniel Hemric
12:00 p.m. – Brandon Jones
2:00 p.m. – Paul Menard
2:20 p.m. – Brendan Gaughan
2:45 p.m. – Quin Houff
Saturday, April 22nd
11:00 a.m. – Ross Chastain, Harrison Rhodes and Garrett Smithley
Sunday, April 9th
10:00 a.m. – Michael McDowell
10:15 a.m. – Jamie McMurray
Chevrolet Display Hours of operation: Fri. April 21st – 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sat. April 22nd – 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and Sun. April 23rd – 8:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
QUOTABLE QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CHEVROLET SS – POINTS LEADER
“Bristol is always a track I look forward to racing, so glad we’re headed there this weekend. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the schedule, but recently hasn’t been a place where our team has had much luck. Our Chevy has been fast, but we’ve had some bad breaks keeping us out of contention. This weekend we’ll be looking to keep up our string of good races and hope for some better luck in the Credit One Bank Chevy. A lot of our success this season has been the result of consistency and good execution, so we just need to keep that up and stay sharp this weekend.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 MOUNTAIN DEW/LITTLE CAESARS CHEVROLET SS – 2ND IN STANDINGS
“Bristol is a tough place. Very challenging, you get in traffic a lot and you get in tough situations. Yeah, I think so. It’s important to have your car driving well and can do something different than a guy ahead of you.”
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION CHEVROLET SS – 8TH IN STANDINGS
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – 11TH IN STANDINGS
“I had a great relaxing weekend with my family after the Texas win. I know we had a slow start to the year, so winning Texas will give us some momentum and it was certainly good for morale. Bristol has been a better track for us with the exception of this race one year ago when we were caught speeding on pit road in the first 52 laps – it was so costly, we never recovered. Besides that, over the past two years we have been consistently in the top five. It’s a tough race mentally and physically but is always entertaining for the fans.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 GRAINGER CHEVROLET SS – 13TH IN STANDINGS
“You always want to win Bristol. I mean, it’s nice to survive Bristol with a car all in one piece, but when you get to the end, I think I’d rather be in contention and get the win.”
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 GREAT CLIPS CHEVROLET SS – 17TH IN STANDINGS
“I’ve always liked Bristol. The atmosphere is neat and it’s a pretty cool show for the fans. We’ve been working really hard as a team and it would be an awesome place to visit Victory Lane again.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – 20TH IN STANDINGS
We’re going to keep looking at ways to improve our car and get better, but I always look forward to racing at Bristol – there’s just no other track like it. Hopefully we can carry our momentum from Texas into this weekend.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 NEW ERA CAP CHEVROLET SS – 21ST IN STANDINGS
“It’s tough. You can really slow a guy down there. It’s just one of those things that it’s hard to manage, but you’ve got to be able to clear somebody on entry and get up in front of them really quick before they have that momentum on exit.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – 24TH IN STANDINGS
“Almost every week we’ve accomplished the goals we set at the beginning of the year. Now it’s time to start adjusting the goals a bit higher. We’d like to start working on top-15’s and top-10’s with our GEICO Chevrolet SS. I think we are ready for that. Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the most fun tracks we go to all year. It is the “last great coliseum.” They nailed it with the description of that place. You are not human if you don’t get chills when you walk in that place. Last year was really fun, they put that grip strip around there. It’s a place where I’ve had a lot of success and I like running there. Things happen so quick at Bristol. It is mentally draining. You have to be ‘on’ the whole time you’re on the race track. But these days, in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, you’ve got to be there, mentally, every race. If you aren’t mentally drained at the end of a race, you probably didn’t have a very good day. You have to be working hard from the time you land the plane to the time you take off again. I know we are looking forward to every lap this weekend at Bristol in the GEICO Chevy.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KROGER CLICKLIST CHEVROLET SS – 25TH IN STANDINGS
“Bristol is a tough place no matter if you are running on the bottom or up top with the No. 47 Kroger ClickList Chevy. I wouldn’t say it’s my most favorite place to race, but we’ve had some decent cars there the last couple of years. Maybe I don’t give myself enough credit. I’m definitely not the best one getting around there, but I get around there okay. We’ll see when we get there.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 LIBMAN/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – 26TH IN STANDINGS
“Bristol is a rhythm racetrack, you get in the race and just hit your marks, and get into a groove. To make a pass you have to break that rhythm and then quickly get back into it. The key is doing that and not making a mistake. You’ve got to stay in your groove.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET SS – 27TH IN STANDINGS
ON USING A TRACTION COMPOUND AROUND THE BOTTOM LANE AT BMS:
“Yeah, I liked what it did for the race track last year. I think the idea was to try to make the bottom dominant and I’m glad it didn’t work that way. I’m glad that is just kind of created an option. It created something that we were able to go down there, if you caught a lap car, you could run the bottom, pass quick and move on. If you were faster than the cars in front of you, you could go to the bottom and be able to work them over and be able to get by. It was just a little bit extra that we needed. I don’t know how easy that will be to duplicate just knowing how the weather affected how it was laid down. How different our circumstances were last time there, but if it is anything like it was the last time I really had a ball running Bristol that way and I think they did a nice job. I think it made for better racing. It still had a dominate top groove, but the bottom definitely had something we could run on.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, NO. 95 WRL GENERAL CONTRACTORS CHEVROLET SS – 28TH IN STANDINGS
“Bristol is probably one of my favorite places to go. There’s a ton of excitement and the atmosphere and racing is awesome. They are putting a grip substance back down on the track, so there should be a lot of side-by-side racing. Last year, that really enhanced the race, so it should be another exciting race.”