HEVROLET RACING IN NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION
SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT NHRA NATIONALS
SUMMIT MOTORSPORTS PARK AT NORWALK, OHIO
POST-RACE DRIVER QUOTES
SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 2017

An interview with Pro Stock winner BO BUTNER, BUTNER AUTO, JIM BUTNER AUTO SALES CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 2 qualifier; won class-high third race of the season and increased his Pro Stock points lead; all three victories have come this season):
Q: TELL US ABOUT THAT FINAL ROUND. TRIPLE ZEROES ON THE TREE, WIN BY A THOUSANDTH OF A SECOND?
BO BUTNER: It was a good final. Greg (Anderson) and I had some good races even during qualifying. He is the man; I can hardly beat that guy. That’s why he is the best.

Q: COULDN’T YOU CUT SUMMIT (RACING EQUIPMENT) A BREAK?
BO BUTNER: Here’s the deal: Summit is it. They make it happen for the KB team. If it’s not for Summit, there’s no Bo Butner up here (in winner’s circle). Thank you, Chevrolet. Chevrolet has been behind me and it’s been great and we’re getting it done.

Q: YOU’VE WON MORE THAN ANYBODY IN PRO STOCK THIS YEAR AND YOU LEAD THE POINTS. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?
BO BUTNER: I’m very fortunate I didn’t quit. I had a couple of Comp cars I probably should have quit on. It’s the best team, and they pull for me to win as much as Greg. That’s hard to find these days. That’s loyalty. We’re on to the next one.

TOP FUEL:
BRITTANY FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, MONSTER ENERGY CHEVROLET DRAGSTER (No. 2 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “You have to look overall at the weekend, and the Monster Energy team had an outstanding weekend. We picked up so many points in qualifying and went all the way to the semis. I’m hoping that moves us up in points, but semis is not a bad way to end this Eastern swing. We’ll go to Chicago next and hopefully get the job done there.”

FUNNY CAR:
ROBERT HIGHT, JOHN FORCE RACING, AUTO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 2 qualifier; fell in final round): “You have to be in it to win it. But when you just see what you have to run to be able to win, it’s painful, especially when we were doing it. Since Q4, we put a nice string of runs together and I honestly went up there (in the final) thinking if we go A to B it’s over. And that would have been the case (smoked tires). I guess (crew chief) Jimmy (Prock) said the clutch disrelated and you just move on. Everybody says ‘you’re do.’ I don’t believe I stuff like that. No, we have to go up there and do our job four times better than everybody else and we’ll win. The only people who are do are the Auto Club, Chevrolet, who have stepped up and given us everything we need. They’ve done their job. We have to do ours. It’s not fropm lack of effort; we’re working hard. I spent four weeks on the road with these guys. I’ve seen how much they want it, how hard they’ve been working, and they’ll continue it. We’ll get there.”

JOHN FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, PEAK COLLANT & MOTOR OIL CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 3 qualifier; fell in quarterfinals): “When the (race car) gets a personality that doesn’t like you, you have to stay after it. It’s banging right before the lights and we can’t figure out why, and we’ve tried everything. So it’s back to testing. You have to have consistency. Sometimes you cannot be fast and be consistent and be there at the right time with a little luck and win.”

COURTNEY FORCE, JOHN FORCE RACING, ADVANCE AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (Did not qualify): “We’re bummed out. Obviously, we expected better out of our car. We even just tried to get any sort of decent run down there, but we’ve really struggled with the track and the bumps in the lanes here for some reason. But it’s our own fault for not getting it figured out and not getting it in the field. I tried to pedal it down there in the last run, but it wasn’t good enough to get the car in the field. We’re going to have to turn our focus to Chicago.”

PRO STOCK:
GREG ANDERSON, KB RACING, SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 1 qualifier; fell in final): “It wasn’t a perfect run, but I knew it was decent. It didn’t feel like I hit the tree bad. I had a great chance, and I was confident going down the racetrack, but that light didn’t come on. When they told me he had a perfect light, I thought, ‘Oh, I must have gotten smoked.’ I didn’t know it was .001 (margin of victory for Bo Butner) until I got the sheet. But all you can do is laugh. I can’t kick myself for having a .021 light. I didn’t throw the race away, I did the best I could, and so did Bo – he just came out an inch ahead. It was a great race, and Bo is not any easy out anymore. He’s a tough competitor. When he got that first win, I think it gave him so much confidence. He’s the points leader for a reason. He’s done a great job, and he’s going to be a handful the rest of the year.”

JOHN GAYDOSH, GAYDOSH PERFORMANCE, GAYDOSH PERFORMANCE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 14 qualifier; semifinals): “It was different (making the semis). I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. But it was and I’m very grateful that it was this good. We had someone looking over us. That’s all I can say. We’ve ran this good but we’ve never been this lucky, I guess. Because it takes luck and everybody out here knows that it takes some luck. I had a good race car. I didn’t have the fastest race car, but I had the most consistent race car. And sometimes consistency wins races. So we’re blessed this weekend. Pop was looking over us. Without Shane Gray without Johnny Gray, we wouldn’t have been here this weekend. So I can’t thank Shane, Johnny and the whole Gray Motorsports company for all they’ve done to help us get out here. It’s awesome that they are so kind to us and they know my struggles and they know how bad I want to do this. And I really appreciate everything they do for us.”

JASON LINE, KB RACING, SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 5 qualifier; fell in semifinals): “I think one run doesn’t make or break your season, but it’s fun to beat Tanner (Gray, in quarterfinals). He’s a young kid, and he’s hungry. He’s tough to beat, so I knew I had to be better than good to beat him. He’s a good boy, he really is, but he’s a young kid full of vinegar. It’s OK, though. I love the enthusiasm. Tanner is good for our sport. That being said, it’s also fun to beat him. It was just a great day, and we wanted one of the cars with the big Summit Racing sticker on it to win today, but all in all it was a really fun day.”

DREW SKILLMAN, SKILLMAN RACING, RAY SKILLMAN AUTO CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 3 qualifier; fell in first round): “We know we have what it takes to win. We just need to find a way to make it happen. This class is tough. It’s always been tough. That’s what makes it Pro Stock.”

TANNER GRAY, GRAY MOTORSPORTS, GRAY MOTORSPORTS VALVOLINE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 4 qualifier; fell in quarterfinals): “There are a lot of things that I need to work on as a driver. I feel like I have been inconsistent on the starting line and I’m not sure why. I’m just trying to work through it and do my job the best that I can. In this next week and a half I am going to keep hitting the practice tree as much as I can. I don’t know how much more I can do as a driver. I think this test session (June 26) will be good. We will go out there and make good runs and give (crew chief) Dave (Connolly) more confidence for Sunday’s as well.”

JEG COUGHLIN JR., ELITE MOTORSPORTS, JEGS.COM ELITE PERFORMANCE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 6 qualifier; fell in quarterfinals): “We’re making great progress, and that’s really what I’m focused on. We qualified well, ran great in the opening-round win, and then had some sort of issue. That run was kind of déjà vu of last week in Bristol. You could probably overlay the engine graphs and it would be very close. It wasn’t the track, or the car, or the people, we have a solvable problem and that’s good news because we can fix it. We’ve got the data so we maybe need to figure out how we got in that position and avoid it in the future.”

VINCENT NOBILE, MOUNTAIN VIEW RACING, MOUNTAIN VIEW TIRE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 7 qualifier; fell in quarterfinals): “There is no reason; no reason, why this team can’t win races. We’ve got the best of everything and while I’m not perfect, I think I can still get the job done driving. We’ve got good speed so I know it’s not a power issue but something is missing. Right now, we’re just scratching our heads looking for answers. We don’t know. Maybe it’s the car but even if it is, we don’t have another one we can use right now. We’re just going to have to keep fighting until we figure it out.”

CHRIS MCGAHA, HARLOW SAMMONS RACING, HARLOW SAMMONS OF ODESSA CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 8 qualifier; fell in first round): “That pesky red light. I just left too early and I knew as soon as I left that it was going to go red. We shook the tires right after that so we probably couldn’t have outrun Allen (Johnson), but overall we had a good weekend. I’m really happy to be back in our Harlow Sammons Chevrolet Camaro and I’m looking forward to Chicago.”

ERICA ENDERS, ELITE MOTORSPORTS, ELITE PERFORMANCE CHEVROLET CAMARO SS (No. 10 qualifier; fell in first round): “There’s no excuse for a red light. I just left too early and that cost us the win, plain and simple. I feel bad for the guys because Rick and Rickie (Jones, co-crew chiefs) had a great tune-up for the conditions and we would have won under most situations, but woulda, shoulda, coulda … I didn’t get it done. I’m continually amazed at the talent on this team and the togetherness we share. I’m the only one beating myself up. Everyone else is saying, ‘don’t worry E, we’ll get ’em next time.’ We win and lose as a team and today didn’t go our way.”