MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JUNE 8, 2018
TOP TEAM CHEVY QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
11th RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 OKUMA CAMARO ZL1
13th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 MOUNTAIN DEW/LITTLE CAESARS CAMARO ZL1
14th WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1
16th AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW SALUTES VETERANS CAMARO ZL1
18th CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 SCOTT COMFORT PLUS CAMARO ZL1
TOP FIVE QUALIFIERS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Kurt Busch (Ford)
2nd Brad Keselowski (Ford)
3rd Kyle Busch (Toyota)
4th Kevin Harvick (Ford)
5TH Joey Logano (Ford)
The FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway is scheduled to begin on Sunday, June 10th. Live coverage can be found on FOX, MRN, and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90 at 2:00 p.m.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 OKUMA CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 11th
THIRD WEEK IN A ROW THE NO. 31 TEAM HAS MADE THE FINAL ROUND AND THE BEST CHEVROLET HERE AT MICHIGAN. HOW WAS YOUR QUALIFYING SESSION?
“Well, I mean it was a good improvement from where we started in the first practice session with the Okuma Chevrolet. Yeah, to be the only Chevrolet in the top 12 says something both about our team and the work that we need to do. Just keep doing what we need to do and get it ready in race trim.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 MOUNTAIN DEW/LITTLE CAESARS CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 13th
YOU CAME CLOSE BUT GOT BUMPED OUT AT THE VERY END. HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT?
“You kind of make a decision. I think we made the right one. The bad thing is if you go back out and run when you don’t know for sure, you take a chance on putting another lap on your tires and then if you were to make it through, you’re probably going to wind-up 12th anyway. So, that’s the right thing to do. If you’re close and you think you have a chance, just wait it out and see if you make it. If you do, and have another shot at it, great. If not, you were probably only going to be one spot better anyway. I’m proud of the effort. I feel like we’ve been better over the past couple of weeks. I felt better about our car earlier in practice today. I feel like we had an opportunity to go faster than that. So, I’m a little disappointed with 13th today.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 14th
WERE YOU LIKE EVERYONE ELSE CHASING CLOUDS OUT THERE?
“Yeah, a little bit. It seemed like the cloud cover, we were trying to get that to help us a little bit. The first run we were just too loose and the second run too loose too, but not really great in the center. So, just got to get the center better, but overall not bad. I think we usually race a lot better, so should be good for Sunday.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOU CAR IF EVERYTHING GETS RAINED OUT TOMORROW?
“I mean, I would like a little bit of practice. I think this place is one of the tougher places that I’ve come to this year, just the speed of it is kind of hard for me to catch up to, but we will see. Hopefully, we get some practice in.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 26th
THIS IS YOUR WORST START SINCE THE DAYTONA 500 BACK IN FEBRUARY. WHAT HAPPENED?
“Our car has just been pretty far off, I feel like, all day. It’s really tight. I don’t feel like I can turn the wheel very far either. I don’t know why that is. But, we’ve got some smart people in our race trailer and on our race team that will get it worked out. We’ll get some laps tomorrow and hopefully be better.”
WHAT WAS MISSING IN THAT SECOND ATTEMPT?
“Just really tight. I don’t know, it’s been a weird kind of feel all day. I don’t really feel like I can turn the wheel, not because I’m loose, but just the wheel feels odd I guess. And then I go into the corner and I just get really tight. They have been working on it really hard. Was optimistic it was going to be a lot better there for qualifying and honestly, the first round it didn’t feel too terrible, but it obviously was. Then the second attempt we were just back to being really tight again, so I don’t know.”
WHAT IS YOUR PERSPECTIVE HEADED INTO THE RACE ON SUNDAY?
“It would be really hard to get four in a row, but we will give it our best effort and hopefully get our car driving better tomorrow. Like I said, I don’t know the car just feels way different than it normally does, so we’ve got a lot of work to do, but we have a really good race team. We should be alright.”
DARRELL ‘BUBBA’ WALLACE, JR., NO. 43 MEIJER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 28th
YOU MADE A SECOND RUN TO TRY AND BUMP YOURSELF IN BUT BAILED OUT AT THE END OF THAT RUN. WHAT HAPPENED?
“We’ve been struggling and are a bit on the tight side in our Meijer Chevrolet. We’ve been creeping up on it. I made a joke in practice about ten more runs we’ll finally get to where we need to be and kept picking up a tenth each time we went out. It still wasn’t good enough. Still struggled with being tight. We tried to go pretty big there at least for qualifying and still had those tendencies of just kind of blowing through the front tires. We’re trying to figure it out. This sport produces a lot of humbling days and this is one of them.”