MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
GEICO 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 7, 2017
JAMIE MCMURRAY LEADS CHEVROLET WITH RUNNER-UP FINISH AT TALLADEGA
Team Chevy Earns Four of the Top 10 Finishing Positions
TALLADEGA, Ala – (May 7, 2017) – Jamie McMurray, piloting the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet SS, earned a runner-up finish in overtime in the GEICO 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, the 10th event of the 2017 season. The effort is his ninth top 10 finish at the 2.66-mile venue and his sixth top 10 result thus far this season.
“I was super happy with our McDonald’s Chevrolet,” McMurray said after completing 191 laps at Talladega Superspeedway. “This has been a really good track for me and I haven’t been able to finish here the last couple of years, so really happy with that. We had good pit stops. Matt (McCall, crew chief) did a great job calling the race. The guys are building really good cars. You know, it’s interesting because in year’s past I feel like this is always a track that you thought you could win at and gain great points. And we have run so well at so many tracks this year, this was a track that I just wanted to survive at so we could get to another track and race.”
Kasey Kahne pulled his No. 5 UniFirst Chevrolet SS across the finish line in the fifth position, earning his second top-five finish of the season.
Kahne’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate and seven-time Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, had a shot at the victory late in the going, but was shuffled back on the final lap relegating him to an eighth-place finish in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevy SS.
Richard Childress Racing’s Paul Menard showed strength all afternoon in his No. 27 Valvoline/Menards Chevrolet SS. He was able to get a quick look at the lead spot pacing the field for a single lap, but ended the day with a strong ninth-place effort,
Kyle Larson fought battery issues in his No. 42 Share an Ice Cold Coke Chevrolet SS but rallied to collect a 12th place finish. He continues to lead the point standings by 54 markers.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (Ford) was the race winner, Kyle Busch (Toyota) was third and Aric Almirola (Ford) was fourth the round out the top five finishers.
Next weekend the series heads to Kansas Speedway for a Saturday night battle under the lights in the GoBowling 400. All the head-to-head action begins March 13th at 7p.m. ET.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S 41 ANY SIZE SOFT DRINK CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND:
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by today’s runner‑up of the Geico 500 in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and that is none other than Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing. Jamie, I know for somebody who is really not particularly fond of restrictor plate tracks, you really know how to navigate these. Talk about how you were able to get a runner‑up finish today.
JAMIE McMURRAY: I thought it was super hard to pass today. I don’t know how everybody else felt. But you would ‑‑ until the tires wore out and the cars started sliding around, it was just three wide, and there really wasn’t anywhere to go. I actually raced with Kyle in about 30th for quite a bit of the race because there was no holes. It seemed like as the tires wore out and it got down to two lanes that you could kind of make people three wide and make some passes.
Yeah, but overall, I’m glad everybody is okay. It looked like an extremely scary wreck on the backstretch. I’m glad that we were able to miss that. It’s super circumstantial on the track of who’s in front of you, who’s behind you. Like there’s times when you feel like you’re going to have a good run and you don’t, and then there’s other times that it happens. So it was a good overall day for us.
Q. Jamie, where you restarted and Kyle had such excellent restarts, how do you figure out who to go with and where to go and which lane is moving?
JAMIE McMURRAY: I’d like to give you a really sophisticated answer, but the reality is that those plans fall apart in Turn 1. I think at one point someone missed a shift, maybe the 78 or something, and so it just scatters everybody. Really through Turns 1 and 2, you’re not up to speed enough to really do a whole lot, and the 17 had a really fast car. He was able to make the very top work a couple of times. I just had to commit to the middle, and that’s where my car was the best. But I asked them when I restarted behind Kyle the next‑to‑last restart, I’m like, what’s happening because I haven’t been here today, and I felt like the bottom seemed to be the better lane for a lap or two, so I was trying to get some information, and no one really seemed to know.
But I don’t know, I mean, Kyle might bulls‑‑‑ you a little bit, but I don’t think anybody really knows what they’re going to do because you have to wait and kind of see what transpires on the restart.