MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
COKE ZERO SUGAR 400
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTES
JULY 7, 2018
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KROGER CLICKLIST CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 3rd:
THE MODERATOR: We are joined by tonight’s third‑place finisher for the 60th annual Coke Zero Sugar 400. Here we have third‑place finisher AJ Allmendinger, driver of the No. 47 Kroger Clicklist Chevrolet for JTG Daugherty Racing.
Q. AJ, you got third tonight, your best finish, I believe, this year. Is it surprising you got it here at this race?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: No, I mean, we’ve ‑‑ for whatever reason, we run well here. My guys, they ‑‑ we really work hard on setup and trying to get at least a good handling race car, especially in the 4th of July race, and Daytona, the last, I think, four races I’ve had a shot to win the race.
You know, tonight was strange. Tried to ride at the back early on, and still got wrecked and had a lot of damage on the left rear of the race car, so my guys did a good job to fix it good enough. Heck, I probably missed another seven wrecks after that. It was just kind of chaos out there.
You know, it was a little bit of survival, and there at the end it was just trying to make the right moves. With that damage on the left side of the race car, it put a lot of drag in it, so I didn’t really know if we had a great shot to win it. I knew my only shot was going to be off of Turn 4 and try to make the right move. Going down into 3, Martin was battling with Erik there and made a move and tried to push Martin and obviously get as much as I could, and we salvaged a great result out of it. We had two cars in the top 5 out of our race team. You know, I mean, it’s just a solid night. It’s one of these nights where you’ve just got to survive. It’s not pretty. I think that was a lot of crazy racing, but we survived.
Q. Both in February and this race, it seems like all the wrecks, the big multi‑car wrecks are happening at the front. Is it blocking? Is it just the urgency of needing to be up front because if you get shuffled back you can’t get back up there? Any reason for that?
AJ ALLMENDINGER: I agree. No, I mean, I think it’s ‑‑ some of the wrecks happen at the end of the stages. You know, the 500 especially. You know, the stage points, especially to start the year, I think everybody is aggressive on them, trying to get more stage points and get your season kicked off right. Hell, I don’t know what happened tonight. I was trying to ride at the back, and it just seemed like ‑‑ the blocking, it seems aggressive. I mean, it is very aggressive. The urgency, whether it’s to stay up front, even if there’s a lot of time left to get back to the front, I’m not really sure why, but to me that’s what’s causing it.