CHEVROLET RACING IN NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION
NHRA FOUR-WIDE NATIONALS
ZMAX DRAGWAY AT CONCORD, NORTH CAROLINA
POST-RACE DRIVER QUOTES
SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 2017

CHRIS MCGAHA, HARLOW SAMMONS RACING, HARLOW SAMMONS OF ODESSA CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 4 qualifier, earned first Pro Stock win of season and fifth of career):

Q: HOW DOES THIS RANK AMONG YOUR VICTORIES?
CHRIS MCGAHA: “All of them are special in their own way. The first one at Sonoma was pretty sweet. Waited too long, and got another one right behind it. Each one has their own story. This one I always felt like it should have been my first. In ’14 we had a dominant car, won our quads nearly every time we went up there. Eventually shook and blew the motor up. That motor never really recovered until this week. That’s the same motor then as it is now.”

Q: YOU LOOKED DIALED IN AND RELAXED. WHY SO CONFIDENT?
CHRIS MCGAHA: “Because I thought I was going to take a six-week break and not come back until Norwalk. Now everybody is screaming that I have to come to Atlanta. I’ll have to sleep on it. I just wanted to take time off, work in the shop and hang out with the kids. I was going to take a break. I was going to work on the dyno; that’s where I’m most comfortable. Now it looks like we have some momentum.”

TOP FUEL:
BRITTANY FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET DRAGSTER (No. 7 qualifier; fell in first round): “It’s definitely frustrating from my point of view and of my team standing right behind me. We put so much into this car this weekend and to just blow the tires right off of it right at the hit … you just have no shot at it at that point. I tried to pedal it but I could see two cars ahead of me so I knew there was no chance. We are making some changes going into Atlanta. The car is a little stiff and a little heavy since we made some changes in Phoenix. So we are going to front-half it and hopefully get it figured out by Atlanta. The good thing is that we go right into the next one which makes it a little bit easier.”

FUNNY CAR:
COURTNEY FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, ADVANCE AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 1 qualifier; fell in first round): “Today was a little bit of a disappointment coming from the No. 1 spot three weekends in a row and have a car that is flying and really just needing to figure out how to get it fixed up for first round. We keep having this problem where it’s trying to spin down and I am hoping we can get it solved. I thought we did after last weekend in Houston. We have a fast car, which isn’t a bad problem to have but we just have to slow it down enough to get it through these rounds. We should have been able to get through that round easy but now we have to look on to the next race.”

ROBERT HIGHT, JOHN FORCE RACING, AUTO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 2 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “We had low E.T. first round by quite a bit and that just proves that when it’s right we have got a little bit on the rest of the guys. When you run that good it gives you confidence going into the next round. You have lane choice and you can put anyone anywhere you want them. But we dropped a cylinder right at the hit of the throttle, which happens with these cars. It was self-inflicted and it was obviously too rich or something and still not sure why it did that. But we are moving on to Atlanta and knowing that we have a great car. When things turn around here, we are really going to roll some wins together. Just keep working hard, that is all we can do.”

JOHN FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, PEAK COOLANT & MOTOR OIL CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 3 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “We made some mistakes today. We qualified good, we turned the corner, but we still have some work to do. The guys are on top of it. The aerodynamics is great and this car is really good. The motor is showing power, but we have to get some more improvements for our motor program. We are right there, and we are going to be testing all day tomorrow and maybe Tuesday. And we are going to be OK.”

PRO STOCK:
JEG COUGHLIN JR., ELITE MOTORSPORTS, JEGS.COM ELITE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 1 qualifier; fell in first round): “I’m not really upset. It’s just the complexity of the four-wide format. The staging procedure is extremely important and once all four of us were pre-staged I started the count in my head. About that time, I saw Lane 3 (No. 16 qualifier John Gaydosh) take the pre-stage light out so I figured his front end was in the light and he was going to be fully staged within a matter of a second. What I didn’t realize was that he had rolled clean through both beams. In a two-lane race, you just take an easy win when someone rolls the beams, but in the four-wide scenario, the two competitors in Lanes 1 and 2, who I can’t see, were already on the chip. They obviously did a better job of being ready for that type of a scenario. It’s one of those deals where we were bitten by someone else’s fluke start and it compounded into a fluke of our own. There’s nothing you can do but commend your guys on giving you one helluva race car all weekend and chalk it up to one million and one ways to get beat.”

ERICA ENDERS, ELITE MOTORSPORTS, LUPE TORTILLA ELITE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 2 qualifier; fell in first round: “We’re definitely making strides in the right direction and the scoreboard is finally showing the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. I’m proud of the efforts, though today was not a good illustration of what’s going on. Jeg (Coughlin Jr.) and I, in my opinion, are two of the better drivers out here and we both had a brain fart for lack of a better term. It’s a really unfortunate situation. We had the two baddest Chevy Camaros on the property and we’re going home first round. The good news is our performance gains and we get to try it again in six days.”

GREG ANDERSON, SUMMIT RACING, SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 3 qualifier; fell in final): “It was a wild weekend, and when you race four at a time anything can happen. The guy who did the best job driving and tuning his race car won. My hat off to him. I’m a little bit disappointed. We just couldn’t find a happy home with our car this weekend. To come out of here with a runner-up, I’m probably fortunate because we never got our car quite right and I never got that light that I needed out there and Chris (McGaha) did. In this particular case, I’ll be happy with a runner-up. We padded our points lead today and that’s the good news.”

DREW SKILLMAN, RAY SKILLMAN AUTOSPORTS, RAY SKILLMAN CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 8 qualifier; fell in final): “We’re getting the car under control. It’s a brand new car, so as we learn the ’17 Camaro has been real good. We just have to figure out how to use it with our program. That’s where the learning is going to come from. We have a good team, a great race car, good power, and we’re going to get there.”

TANNER GRAY, GRAY MOTORSPORTS, VALVOLINE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 7 qualifier, fell in semifinals): “We got the win in the first round, and going into the second round I knew I would have to be pretty good on the tree. I just rushed myself getting in (red lighted), so I shot myself in the foot. It’s part of it, I guess. I just have to calm down and not rush, and I think it’s easy to get rushed here with the four-wide. In general, calm down, stay focused and hit the tree better.”

JASON LINE, KB RACING, SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 5 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “We just didn’t run well. It’s one of those things, and we tried to test a couple new parts here and we didn’t run like we should have. All in all, I have to be happy to some degree because we had a Summit Racing Chevy Camaro in the final. I’ve had worse days, but I’ve certainly had better.”

BO BUTNER, JIM BUTNER AUTO, BUTNER AUTO SALES CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 6 qualifier; fell in first round): “Nothing about this event is natural. The car didn’t run quIte like it did in qualifying. It was kind of lazy down low. It’s tough racing. We’ll move on and do some testing (May 1) and we should be ready for Atlanta.”

VINCENT NOBILE, MOUNTAIN VIEW RACING, MOUNTAIN VIEW TIRE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 9 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “Not a terrible weekend. We always seem to get put behind the eight ball during qualifying, which doesn’t help on race day. We had a few minor issues with the car during qualifying. All in all, not a bad weekend because we won first round. We think we found a problem, other that what happened in qualifying, and I think we’ll be much better in Atlanta.”

ALEX LAUGHLIN, GAS MONKEY RACING, GAS MONKEY GARAGE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 10 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “Ultimately, we’re running fair. We’re not where we need to be. We need to come out and keep making laps to be where we want to be. It’s hard to be competitive if you don’t run all the races. We’re definitely making respectable passes. This race is not something you get used to because we only run four-wide once a year. We came out and did well this weekend. It was one of the tightest fields that I’ve ever seen, and it didn’t matter who you were running they are all fast cars.”

SHANE TUCKER, TUCKER RACING, AUZMET ARCHITECTURAL CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 15 qualifier; fell in first round): “We were realistic with our ambitions coming into our first event of the year. I was really happy with how things went, and we are still way off on tuneup. Our first goal was to qualify and our second main goal was to make sure we made improvements every run, and I think we did that. We ticked all the boxes at the moment and will hopefully make more improvements at Atlanta.”

JOHN GAYDOSH, GAYDOSH RACING, GAYDOSH PERFORMANCE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 16 qualifier; fell in first round): “When I pushed in the clutch and put it on the tip it rolled forward. I wasn’t trying to do anything to hurt Jeg (Coughlin Jr.). We just didn’t have enough air gap so the car rolled through the lights. We trying to move forward as best we can, doing everything in house. We have a motor from Gray Motorsports, and we’ll keep on going. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do 10 races this year.”