MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
PURE MICHIGAN 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 13, 2017

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
ON THE RESTART
“I was running a few options through my head of what to do if I got a good jump, and that was one of them and it worked out perfect. I can’t believe that happened. We were struggling all day. We were definitely not as good as the last two times we won here, but we preserved and had a great restart at the end.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO YOUR FANS RIGHT NOW?
“I want to thank Chip Ganassi, for one, for finding me in 2011 and bringing me up from USAC to race for him. I want to thank all my fans as well. This has been an incredible week for me. We ran second in Knoxville yesterday to Donny Schatz, and then to come here and win and beat Martin Truex, Jr., who is a Donny Schatz right now, is definitely a week I’ll never forget.”

TAKE US THROUGH THAT RESTART WHEN YOU WERE BEHIND MARTIN TRUEX, JR. WHAT DID YOU DO TO GET UNDER HIM, CLEAR HIM AND KEEP HIM BEHIND YOU?
“Yeah, I wanted to get a good jump on him, get to his bumper and if I stayed locked at the start/finish line I was going to try and pull out like I did. It just worked out good. I didn’t have a car that was capable of winning throughout the race, but we had a restart there that allowed us to try and be perfect and we were. I’ve got to thank everybody on this Target team, Chip Ganassi for everything he has done for me, Target, Credit One Bank, everybody who has their names on this car and everybody back at the shop for everything they do.”

WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET BACK UP TO FOURTH?
“Yeah, we were struggling actually the run before that final caution. We were stretching it and going to pit pretty soon, but we caught that caution at the right time and came down, got some tires, which I thought helped me a little bit, the tires did. But we finally got to line up on the outside lane the last two restarts. I had been on the bottom every time and I would lose spots. Lined up eighth, got to fourth and the obviously lined up there behind Martin and was able to just get a good jump.”

WAS THIS A LITTLE BIT OF A THANK YOU FOR LETTING YOU GO TO KNOXVILLE?
“Yeah, for sure. You know Chip (Ganassi) is the best boss anybody could ask for. He knows that sprint car racing is very important to me and especially the Knoxville Nationals to let me go there last night and run. Wish I could have got a win there last night, but Donny Schatz is a pretty damn good driver.”

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 VELVEETA SHELLS & CHEESE CHEVROLET SS – Finished 4th
“Oh, it was just a good run for the Velveeta Shells & Cheese Chevrolet. Luke (Lambert, crew chief) did a great job making the call for us to stay out and caught the break there with the No. 22’s (Joey Logano) tire. We got a couple of good restarts and make it a little bit out of nothing. We were challenged all day and struggled a little bit, but it seems like whenever we’ve got this Velveeta name on the car we end up in the top 5.”

STRATEGY SEEMS TO PLAY OUT WELL FOR YOU TODAY:
“Well, we caught a couple of good breaks and we could have caught a couple of bad breaks there, but good run for the Velveeta Shells & Cheese Chevrolet. Get an ice-cold Coke now like you said and head back to the house.”

CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 BUSH’S GRILLIN’ BEANS CHEVROLET SS – Finished 6th
TELL US ABOUT YOUR DAY:
“Wild. We had a tire go down early and put us off sequence early on and this team did a good job today. They played the strategy right and worked hard. We had to fix the car. We had a hole in the nose at one point from debris through one of the crashes. Fought hard all day long, to be able to get to here right now, that is a really cool finish. Really proud of this team.”

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – Finished 7th
ON HOW GOOD THE CAR WAS:
“We have come a long freaking way in the last couple of weeks. The car was very drivable throughout the race. We just needed a little more speed to really get after it, but we made good pit strategy and adjusted the car well.”

ON A TRACK LIKE THIS WHERE YOU ARE GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS WHERE IT IS ALL BIG TRACKS LIKE THIS IT’S GOT TO FEEL GOOD:
“Yes, it does. Just proud to be running with these guys. That was fun to do right there at the end.”

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 8th
IT LOOKED LIKE THOSE RESTARTS WERE NOT WHAT YOU NEEDED THERE AT THE END:
“Yeah, they could have been I guess if I had done a little better job. Kyle (Larson) made it work, I didn’t, so, part of it.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR RUN OVERALL TODAY?
“I think we need a little work and need to get caught up here in a hurry.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 9th
ON HIS RUN:
“I had a great car all day long. I think we would have finished third or fourth without the random caution at the end. That just put us back to 14th and we got back to ninth on the restart, but a really good day for our car, really good day.”

ON HIS TEAMMATE’S PERFORMANCE:
“Yeah, they had a really good day too. I don’t know where they ran most of the day, but they had good strategy at the end and they were able to get a win. It was good.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 14th
ON HIS DAY:
“Well, it was alright it wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible. Just ain’t had the car just right the way we need it for the race. I think at times we needed track position and we might have been able to run in the top five, but I didn’t know a lot of guys that really passed many people. It was really pretty even out their competition wise. We weren’t like losing a chunk of time to all them guy, I mean I could see them, but just I don’t know what we’ve got to do.”

TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – Finished 21st
“The balance of our GEICO Chevy felt a lot better yesterday in practice than it did today, but we were able to bring the car to us with some wedge adjustments. We had a fast race car there toward the end. The strategy was to go long on fuel mileage in the final stage of the race and it worked great. We were able to pit for four fresh tires and fuel and get a decent finish at the end of the day. ”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 LIFTMASTER CHEVROLET SS – Involved in a multi-car accident on lap 139
THAT WAS A WICKED HIT. TAKE US THROUGH WHAT HAPPENED
“Yeah, I’m fine. We had to fight from the back and had a good Liftmaster Chevrolet. We kept working to get up there. Daniel (Suarez) was going backwards and I was going by and I ran the bottom. I expected we could be close off the corner, and I was just coming off and then we hit. So, I don’t know. I expected to run side-by-side down the backstretch, but not give a lot of room, because you don’t. Nobody does. But I was making the pass and I don’t know how we hit. Ruined it. It’s over.”

ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT HAPPENED?
“Yeah, I’m fine. We had a pretty good Liftmaster Chevrolet, trying to go forward. I was passing Daniel (Suarez) he was going backwards and as I went under him and I’m just coming out to the wall thinking we are going to be maybe side-by-side, maybe not and we hit right on the right-rear corner. So, just a racing deal, but that really shouldn’t have happened. I was going by him, so I don’t really understand why we hit, but we did.”