MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
TALE OF THE TURTLES 400
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 17, 2017
CHASE ELLIOTT EARNS RUNNER-UP FINISH AT CHICAGOLAND
Four Team Chevy Drivers Finish in Top 10
JOLIET, Illinois – (September 17, 2017) – Chase Elliott piloted the No. 24 NAPA Brakes Chevrolet SS to a second-place finish in the 2017 Playoff opener Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) Tale of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Elliott and his team had a strong day leading twice for 42 circuits around the 1.5-mile venue. Elliott also won Stage 2, which marked his third Stage win of the season thus far earning valuable championship points.
The run his is second top 10 finish at two races at Chicagoland Speedway and the fourth second-place finish of his young Cup Series career as he pursues his first Cup Series victory. The effort moves Elliott up to sixth in the Playoff standings with two races left in the Round of 16.
“Yeah, I thought we got all the potential out of the car it had today,” said Elliott following the race. I didn’t have anything for Martin (Truex, Jr., race winner) but our NAPA Chevy was solid. It was a lot better than we’ve been. I think that’s a testament to this team and the lack of quit that everybody has. This is the time of year to go, and we gave it our all today.”
Another Chevrolet Playoff contender, Kyle Larson, earned a fifth-place finish in his No. 42 Target Chevy SS. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver now has 12 top five finishes out of 27 races thus far this season and remains second in the Playoff standings.
Seven-time Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, fought an ill-handling No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, but was able to overcome a loose wheel early in the 267-lap event to earn an eighth-place finish. Johnson is now eighth in the Playoff standings as he chases an eighth title.
Jamie McMurray, No. 1 McDonald’s/Cessna Chevrolet SS, rounded out the top 10 finishers for Team Chevy with a 10th-place effort, which moved him up to inside the cutoff bracket for the next Round of 12.
Other Chevrolet Playoff drivers ended the first race of the 10-race Playoff as follows: Austin Dillon, No. 3 Dow Chevrolet SS, 16th; Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet SS, 21st; and Ryan Newman, No. 31 CAT D10 Chevrolet SS, 23rd.
Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota) was the race winner, Kevin Harvick (Ford) finished third and Denny Hamlin (Toyota) was fourth to round out the top five finishers today at Chicagoland.
The next stop on the 2017 circuit, and Round 2 of the 10-race championship Playoffs, is September 24th at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA BRAKES CHEVROLET SS – Finished 2nd
THE MODERATOR: We are going to get started here with our post-race media availabilities for today’s Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. We are joined by our second‑place finisher, Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 24 NAPA Brakes Chevrolet.
Chase, your second top‑10 finish at Chicago, your 15th top 10 in 2017. Take us through that race for us.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, just a much-improved day from where we’ve been, which is nice. Obviously would have been great to battle with Martin a little bit more. We didn’t have anything for him. From where we’ve been to where we ran today was a major, major step in the right direction, frankly where we need to be, where we deserve to be, to the potential we can run.
It was nice to see that we can do it if all things are clicking in the right way, car is driving good, pit stops are good, race execution was nice. It was a pretty uneventful race for the most part.
I felt like typically when that happens, the better cars always kind of end up towards the front. That proved to be with Martin winning. I didn’t have anything for him, without a restart or something. It also proved that we were second to him. I’m not sure about the 18, if he could have got back up there.
Aside from those two, I feel like we could run about everybody else. That’s a lot better than we’ve been.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up to questions for Chase.
Q. Do you think you would have had anything for Martin if there had been a short run at the end?
CHASE ELLIOTT: If you could get in front of him on a restart or something, sure, I think you could stay there for eight, ten laps. But I wasn’t going to fall in line behind him after a restart and pass him in eight laps without something lucky happening for me.
Q. Was today’s performance more of just an indication of what this team has worked towards, or is it just backing up what you had done last year?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, last year isn’t this year. A lot of things change from year to year. We haven’t run as good through the summer months as we did last year. I did feel like we peaked about this time last year. But this isn’t last year, so it really doesn’t matter.
This is this year. We need to be better than what we’ve been in the past. I thought that was an improvement today. Obviously have some work to do to get to that bunch that won the race. Aside from them, I think we were competitive to the rest of the field.
Q. Were you confident in the team’s mile‑and‑a‑half program knowing how fast your car was today, and the mile‑and‑a‑half’s making up a majority of the Playoff schedule?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s encouraging. There are also a lot of races that are not mile‑and‑a‑half’s that matter, that are important as well. It was nice to have pace and some good drivability today in our car here at Chicago. A lot of the rest of the mile‑and‑a‑half’s that we go to, I guess aside from Homestead, are a little more grippy than this one.
I’m not sure what that will have to do with our pace or not. We’ll see when we get there.
THE MODERATOR: Chase, thanks for joining us. Good luck next week in New Hampshire.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Thank you.