NASCAR CUP SERIES FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400 MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTES AUGUST 8, 2020
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:POS. DRIVER7th Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Camaro ZL1 1LE9th Bubba Wallace, No. 43 Victory Junction Camaro ZL1 1LE10th Kurt Busch, No. 1 Monster Energy Camaro ZL1 1LE12th Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Ally Fueling Futures Camaro ZL1 1LE14th William Byron, No. 24 Axalta Camaro ZL1 1LE TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:POS. DRIVER 1st Kevin Harvick (Ford)2nd Brad Keselowski (Ford)3rd Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota)4th Ryan Blaney (Ford)5th Kyle Busch (Toyota)
TUNE-IN:The NASCAR Cup Series season continues on Sunday, August 9th at Michigan International Speedway with the Consumers Energy 400 at 4:00 p.m. ET. Live coverage will air on NBCSN, MRN, and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES & QUOTES:
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 7th“We had a strong restart there at the end of the race from the inside lane. When that next caution came out, I just didn’t see it playing out the same way twice, so I chose to go to outside lane. Our NAPA Chevrolet was just tight all day and the team worked hard to try and get it dialed in – they had a solid day on pit road. I think we learned a few things today that we can hopefully use tomorrow.”
BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 VICTORY JUNCTION CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 9thON A COUPLE OF THOSE FINAL RESTARTS, I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE A POTENTIAL WIN. WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU HAD THAT SHOT ON THE SECOND ROW, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO PULL THIS OFF BECAUSE YOU MADE A BOLD MOVE TO THE MIDDLE?“A solid day for us and our Victory Junction Chevrolet. I appreciate everybody back at the shop. I know this whole COVID-19 deal has been tough. I haven’t been able to go to the shop and show my appreciation and how much they really work and make our cars better week in, and week out. So, it’s been fun. We’re in the middle of ‘silly season’ right now, so my mind is there, it’s here. So, to come out with a solid top-10 finish is positive. We’ve got a lot of work to do. I was not happy with the car, but I think that’s the racer mentality. I don’t know if (Kevin) Harvick, (race winner) was happy about his car, either. We always strive to be better, but all in all, it was a solid day. The choose rule. Good job, NASCAR. That was fun. That was cool. It brought be back to the shootout days. I didn’t tick as many people off as I did at the shootout today, so it was all good.”
THESE RUNS ARE GREAT, RIGHT? ARE THEY EVEN BETTER WHEN HEY, YOU GET TO TURN AROUND AND DO THIS AGAIN IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS TOMORROW?“Absolutely. The race distance is a lot of fun. It’s something to look at, too, for sure. But man, say a prayer for us. Everybody say a prayer for us. There’s a big deal on the line right now and this could only help so much. I have yet to check my phone to see the status of it, but this will send us over the top if we can get it done. So, it’s been a lot of hard work off the race track for my team and everybody involved, to make things better. And that’s what we’re trying to do. So, putting solid runs together and having awesome restarts all thing, this is only going to help the effort. So, I’m definitely smiling.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 10th“With a shorter race we had a bunch of variables today, including a lot of restarts. When the spotter says, four and five-wide, and we didn’t get damage, I will take that any day. Our Monster Energy Camaro was really reliant on clean air, once we got back in traffic it was really a struggle for us, but we were able score points in the first two stages and battle back for another top-10 finish at the end. We know that we can do better, and we’ll get a chance to do that tomorrow”.
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY FUELING FUTURES CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 12th“We had a fast Ally Chevy all day, but restarts hurt us. It was up and down all day fighting traffic and weird things happening on the restarts. We are going to talk tonight and get a better plan for tomorrow. It’s a long day for these team guys but we will be ready.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 14th“It was a tough day for our No. 24 Axalta team. We worked hard to improve the handling of our Axalta Chevy as the day went on. Luckily we’ll get another chance at it tomorrow and we’ll hopefully get a better result and stay in the playoff hunt.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHEVY ACCESSORIES CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 18th“We had some good speed in our No. 8 Chevrolet Accessories Camaro today at Michigan International Speedway, but we just seemed to get caught up in other people’s messes today. I was able to move up into the top 10 early in the race, but the No. 19 made contact with us when he had a tire go down, which gave our Chevrolet some left rear damage. It felt like we had a tire going down shortly after that, so we were forced to pit under green for fresh left-side tires. We had to fight hard to get our lap back and did, but then our right-rear tire went down and we had to pit to repair that under green as well. Somewhat luckily for us, that tire issue happened close to the end of Stage 2, so we were able to get our lap back with the wave around, stay mostly on sequence with the leaders and really get back in the game. We were making some progress after that and were up inside the top 20 when we got some additional right front damage from another on-track incident, so we had to hit pit road one more time for slight repairs but didn’t lose a lap. We were able to avoid a couple late-race accidents to pick up a few more spots but didn’t quite get to where we wanted to be today. Good news is that we get another shot at it with our No. 8 Chevrolet Accessories Camaro tomorrow.”
