NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 25, 2013
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed racing at Martinsville Speedway, wheel hop and other topics. Full Transcript:
TALK ABOUT THIS RACE TRACK OBVIOUSLY YOU HAVE FOUR RACES TO GO AND THIS IS A PLACE I WOULD THINK YOU WOULD THINK THAT YOU COULD COME OUT OF WITH A WIN:
“Absolutely, we come in here feeling really good about this race track and our race team. We have had a lot of positive things that have happened to us over the last six weeks. Then to come with a good feeling about where we are at as a race team and our race cars and come into one of my favorite race tracks, a track that we have had good results at, not only in the past, but this year it definitely is something that we come into very excited about. We focused on qualifying today; feel like getting that number one pit stall is so worth it here so we are fighting hard for that. Looking forward to that opportunity today and hopefully we can achieve that and if not hopefully we can just still put a good qualifying run together. Then really looking forward to focusing on the race tomorrow and get ourselves prepared for Sunday.”
YOU WON AT PHOENIX IN 2007 AND 2011 CAN YOU JUST TALK ABOUT THOSE WINS BRIEFLY AND WHAT KIND OF TRACK IT IS FOR YOU?
“Back in 2011 it was a great track for us. I wish it would have stayed the same. They repaved it and that changed our entire world at Phoenix. Phoenix has always been kind of a hit or miss track for me in general. When Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) came on board as a crew chief or really I went on board with their team I was pretty excited about Phoenix. It showed when we went there and we won that race. Ever since they repaved it, it is completely different. Between that and Kansas those are the two tracks that we put on our calendars as tracks that we have to improve. That we have to really focus and execute and we could struggle there if we are not careful. Kansas went pretty well for us and I’m optimistic that Phoenix can as well. Each time we go there it ages and it feels like it gets more and more back to a feel that I like and a track that we can be competitive at. Right now just the way things are going in general I look forward to going to every track. I just think as a race team we are in synch. Our race cars are driving well, my confidence is up and I feel like that is going to bode well for us at Phoenix as well.”
YOUR PEPSI AD HAS BEEN GETTING A LOT OF PLAY DURING THE WORLD SERIES HAVE YOU GOTTEN MANY RESPONSES FROM THAT?
“Well I mean after it got 40 million hits on You Tube I think it’s kind of hard to top that. It’s just been an amazing year when you look at how we started with the Harlem Shake and then that video. We did all of that before the season started and had a lot of fun doing it. You never know how people are going to react to it and what’s going to happen with it overall. Obviously it’s been a great marketing strategy for Pepsi Max and they have certainly enjoyed it, so have I. Every time it airs on something I still laugh and people react. It’s not going to be as big of a reaction as what we got when it first came onto You Tube though.”
DID YOU ATTEND THE NASCAR MEETING ON THURSDAY?
“I had a Pepsi production day that day, so, no. I would like to know about meetings like that more than two weeks in advance because I would like to attend them. We just need to plan a little bit better to try to get those types of meetings together. Not that I could have changed anything because we had that Pepsi shoot scheduled pretty far in advance. I was really looking at it more from the concussion standpoint. Dr. Petty is a good friend of mine. He’s somebody I have spent a lot of time speaking to. I see him on a weekly basis because I got to their facility for my back. It’s just a standard kind of workout that I do every week. So we are always in touch. I feel pretty confident from that standpoint. I probably didn’t understand that there was going to be a lot more than that discussed at that meeting. I have done a baseline test so I feel good about that and the direction that they are going and I agree with it.”
ONE OF THE THINGS THEY BROUGHT UP IN THAT MEETING WAS THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT DRIVERS HAVE ON TWITTER AS FAR AS WHAT THEY TWEET. DO YOU THINK THAT DRIVERS SHOULD HAVE A CERTAIN LEVEL OF MATURITY AND KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG BEFORE THEY GET HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
“Well I think every person should have good common sense. I think that is what it really comes down to. I think with social media we all recognize that the fun it can be. We recognize the benefits it can have for marketing for our sponsors and so many other benefits. But also you have to be careful you can’t just go on a wild spree. You can’t always just speak your mind because it’s there. I think we have all been there where we probably stepped over the line. Every time I put a tweet together I read it two and three times going ‘is this what I want to put out there? Do I want people to read this?’ Sometimes my emotions get the best of me and I push send and I probably maybe shouldn’t have, but I do try to use the best common sense that I can in everything that I send out there before it goes. Plus, I’m a spell freak. I like to spell things right. It’s hard to do on Twitter.”
DURING THE FIRST PRACTICE, PEOPLE WERE COMPLAINING ABOUT WHEEL HOP. WE HEAR IT A LOT, BUT NOBODY HAS EVER EXPLAINED IT. CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH IT AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT IN TERMS OF SET-UP OR DRIVING STYLE?
“We mainly hear about it on the road courses because you are braking so aggressively into the corners at the road courses. It happens here as well, on occasions. It’s definitely something that I’ve had to work on over the years.
“But basically, as you drive into the corner, and these cars, even as much as they’ve advanced in braking and weight transfer and downforce and everything over the years, when you try to slow that car down as abruptly as we’re trying to on these tracks, and the wheel speed starts to try to slow down faster than what the engine and rear gear speed and driveshaft and all those components that are connected are slowing down, then the rear tires start to lose grip and they basically go into a ‘hopping’ mode where you can’t control it. You just have to hang on tight and straighten the wheel out and hope that there’s some room for error out there, which there’s not a lot of room for error here.
“So really, to me, there’s not much you can do about the set-up, in my opinion; I mean a little bit with truck arm angle can help, but other than that, it really comes down to how abruptly you let out of the gas and apply the brake. And this is one place where I think how you apply the brakes is the most crucial part of success at this track; which is why I think some people really struggle here.”
TODAY WE TALKED ABOUT THE TWO CONTENDERS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP, MATT KENSETH AND JIMMIE JOHNSON. MATT HAS MADE A MOVE THIS YEAR AND JIMMIE HAS LONGEVITY WITH HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS. WHAT IS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON THE ADVANTAGES A PERSON WOULD HAVE WITH A SPONSOR AND A RACE TEAM AND HOW IS THAT BENEFICIAL?
“Well, obviously being comfortable and going through so many different scenario situations, stressful situations, positive situations, wins and championships, there is certainly a lot to be said about that continuity of that race team. I think it’s equally as challenging though, to try to stay on top of your game an
d continue to push yourself and every individual on the team and trying to constantly get better. I think that if a team that’s really good, like the No. 48, can stay together and have very little turnover but continue to push those limits, that’s the ultimate.
“I think all the time, back to when Ray (Evernham, crew chief) and I were together, and if we could have just made it through 1999. Now I don’t know if it would have changed his offer to go do the Dodge team, but that was a tough year for us. And I was growing and things were changing and we went through a time where I felt like I could do it without him and he felt like well, maybe he can do it without me but I’ve got another opportunity. And we’ve been able to stay close friends through it all, but we always talk about that time. And I really think that if you make it through those tough times it only makes you stronger. I think if we had done that, we could have really gone on to even win more championships together.
“So, I credit Jimmie and (crew chief) Chad (Knaus) and all that they’ve been through because not all of it has been great. It certainly looks that way. But they’ve gone through their ups and downs as well and I really give them a lot of credit for sticking together. They’re a great team and they’re going to win a lot if they can stay together, and they’ve proven that.
“With Matt, he’s a great driver and he goes over to Gibbs and they’ve got a great program. And I think that it just shows the quality of both, the quality of what Matt brings and the quality of what Gibbs has. By blending those two together, they’ve had a great combination. Sometimes you hit that right away and other times it takes years to find it. They obviously hit on some things right away and other than the penalty that they had earlier in the year, they’ve been able to just keep building on that throughout the year. I think everybody knew they were going to be a real threat for the championship when the Chase came around.”
Category Archives: Chevrolet Racing
Chevy Racing–Martinsville–Jimmie Johnson
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 25, 2013
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed racing at Martinsville, which driver and team he is focused on at this point in the Chase, the No. 48 Chevrolet SS team as closers and other topics. Full Transcript:
FOUR RACES TO GO THIS RACE TRACK HAS BEEN VERY GOOD FOR YOU TALK ABOUT AND JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR OUTLOOK NOW YOU HAVE A FOUR POINT LEAD WITH FOUR RACES TO GO:
“Without a doubt it’s been a good race track for the No. 48 team. It doesn’t guarantee anything for this weekend’s race and we have to go out and get everything we can in this first practice session and then try to get our best two laps possible for qualifying. We all know how important that first pit stall is and it can make life so much easier come Sunday afternoon. Very happy to be here, the week was a comfortable week, one from having a decent finish at Talladega and taking the point’s lead. Then two rolling into a track that is historically really good for the No. 48. It’s been a good week, but again that doesn’t guarantee anything for the weekend. We have to go out here and get the job done and work hard.”
DOES IT SURPRISE YOU THAT MATT KENSETH SAID THAT THEY MIGHT AS WELL JUST PENCIL YOUR NAME IN ON THE TROPHY FOR SUNDAY?
“Yeah, I mean it’s flattering, I appreciate it, but there are four or five guys that really stand a chance each time we come here. I think the No. 24, No. 29 and the No. 18 has been knocking on the door. Matt (Kenseth) ran in the top-five, even led laps here in the spring. We have had a good run over the years. I understand where that comes from based on past history, but again it doesn’t guarantee anything for this weekend. At most it’s flattering, but we’ve got to go out there and get to work.”
HOW IS RACING MATT (KENSETH) NOW AT THIS POINT IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO 2006 WHEN YOU GUYS WENT HEAD TO HEAD? HOW IS HE DIFFERENT? OR IS THIS THE SAME MATT KENSETH AS 2006? HE SAID HE TEXTED YOU THIS WEEK ASKING NOT TO ASK HIM FOR ADVICE THIS WEEK WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT?
“(Laughs) we have had a good banter texting back and forth. For a guy that can come across dry at times, as we all know in here, he is awfully funny. He asked me to not pester him and ask him for too many tips this weekend and a bunch of different things. Certainly having fun with Matt he’s a great guy and one awesome race car driver. We have all grown and changed a lot over the years. I think that especially racing Matt with the experience that he has he understands the big picture, how to race, when to race, what to do. I think his departure from Roush and then joining up at (Joe) Gibbs it’s filled in some weak spots that you would normally think that Matt would have. This track is a perfect example. I think his run in the spring was pretty darn strong. I think the relationship that he has with his team and his crew and his crew chief they are vibing pretty good. I’m not going to put my guard down here even though it is one of our better tracks. I look forward to a battle all the way to the last lap at Homestead with him. If we slip at all the No. 29 and the No. 24 and the No. 18 have shown they are not going away. We need to certainly worry about the No. 20, but also there are four or five cars we have to really pay attention to here. If Matt and I slip those guys are right back in it.”
WHEN YOU WERE THIRD IN POINTS YOU SAID YOU ONLY REALLY FOCUSED ON THE GUYS IN FRONT OF YOU. NOW YOU ARE FIRST WHAT IS YOUR FOCUS ON NOW?
“Really this weekend especially doing the best job that I can, in general that is really what I have done, Chad (Knaus, crew chief) has done and what we preach to our guys. If we put our blinders on and focus on the No. 48 and do our jobs we will be alright. That mentality definitely is there, but the first car I worry about right now is the No. 20. Then it kind of goes back from there with the points. I feel like (Jeff) Gordon and (Kevin) Harvick are going to be awfully tough this weekend. It’s a good track for them. I think the No. 29 was here and tested so that’s going to be helpful for those guys. It is going to be a good race. I think you are going to see the Chaser’s racing for the win.”
WHEN IT COMES TO FEAST OF FAMINE THIS PLACE SEEMS TO BE PRETTY EXTREME. IT SEEMS THAT GUYS EITHER DOMINATE OR STRUGGLE. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS HERE?
“It’s a track that we don’t run on anything like this. It’s the only paperclip out there for us to run on. I don’t know why the switch was flipped for me. I know how. I’ve said it a million times I was following Tony Stewart here as he came to lap me I think my sophomore season and something clicked. We came up and tested my rookie year a couple of times. Looked at data that Jeff (Gordon) was driving around the track and I couldn’t piece it together. There was something that finally clicked. I think once it clicks here for a driver it’s a place they always have. If it doesn’t it gets under your skin and aggravates you and continues to fester and create the flip side. You are happy and enjoy the place, you run well then the flip side is if you don’t and it festers you just have a tough time here and don’t like this place.”
IN THE PAST YOU HAVE TALKED SOME ABOUT RACING THE FIRST SEVEN RACES OF THE CHASE AND THEN REALLY WORRYING ABOUT WHOM YOU ARE RACING. IT SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE REALLY FOCUSED A LITTLE BIT ON (MATT) KENSETH A LOT THE LAST FEW WEEKS. ARE YOU MORE FOCUSED ON HIM THAN OTHER COMPETITORS IN THE PAST? IF (KEVIN) HARVICK WAS SECOND COULD YOU HAVE RAN 29 MILES YESTERDAY?
“I might have to slide a few miles in on the bike if it was (Kevin) Harvick (laughs). I don’t know I made 20 pretty well, but 29 that’s a whole other game. I am focused mostly on the No. 20. He’s been ahead of me, you know Talladega has been looming out there as we’ve all known. I didn’t want to put too much stock in just chasing the No. 20 until we got out of Talladega. But without a doubt that has been my focus. I was pretty frustrated after Charlotte. I was in front of him all day long and then when it finished up he was right there in front of me at the end of the race. My focus is on the No. 20 first and foremost, but again if we slip. I’m not sure at 25 back if Harvick heated up real good if there is enough time to really be concerned or (Jeff) Gordon or Kyle (Busch) is even a little further back yet.”
IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT YOU’VE DONE IN THE PAST?
“No, I mean I guess maybe social media and other things allow people to see more of what goes on during the week, but I’ve always been focused on a particular guy when we get to the end of the year. One year it was Carl (Edwards), one year it was Denny (Hamlin) you certainly do draw focus. The later you go you focus in on one or two cars and drivers much more at that point. Yeah, especially as you wind down I will be much more focused on individuals.”
WE GO TO TEXAS NEXT WEEK. 2007 YOU AND MATT KENSETH PUT ON WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE GREATEST RACE OF THE LAST 10 YEARS. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT AND DO YOU GUYS EVER TALK ABOUT THAT?
“I think about it. I don’t necessarily talk to Matt (Kenseth) about it. I’m not sure he’s thrilled with the results of how it turned out. We put on a heck of a show. I was just there testing and remembering that battle. I was inside of him for many laps. Both of us are sideway
s and just driving the wheels off the cars. From my standpoint I think it was an amazing race. I’m sure Matt would agree on most levels, but the results I think he would want differently. I just remember knowing that second would be okay, but that is just not in my DNA. We had an opportunity to win and I also had confidence in Matt that we would race. It wouldn’t cross that line and was able to push and put on a great show.”
HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO THE OTHER DRIVER’S ABOUT THE KIND OF ANTICLIMACTIC FINISH OF LAST WEEKEND’S RACE? SECONDLY DO YOU KIND OF EXPECT THAT SAME KIND OF CAUTIOUS RACING HERE OR DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU GUYS GET OUT THERE BOUNCING OFF EACH OTHER THAT WILL ALL GO OUT THE WINDOW?
“Any team member or driver I’ve seen this week they all ask the same question. Why wasn’t everybody racing? I don’t know. We had more side-by-side action on lap one, lap 100, on through than we did in the last few laps. I think everybody especially in the first five to 10 positions they were waiting for their opportunity. Waiting for someone to pull out and in anticipation no one made a move. I can’t quite explain it. I’m a little puzzled by it as well. It falls within that strategy mindset. Guys were trying to get their best finish. At Daytona you might make a run down the backstretch. At Talladega the finish line is out at the tri-oval a lot further away so if we made it to turn three, turn four, there would have been a lot going on at that point. But we crashed down the back and didn’t get that chance. For my sake I wish that we would have started racing earlier. I tried a couple of times tried to get the bottom line going and nobody wanted to. Then this weekend it’s a short track so all the cautious driving is going to go out the window. It’s a short track.”
WHAT DID YOU TEXT BACK TO MATT KENSETH WHEN HE ASKED YOU NOT TO ASK FOR ANY TIPS THIS WEEKEND?
“Let me pull out my phone. I will try to remember the exact dialogue. He just texted me again and said ‘be ready for the media center.’ He basically said ‘we are friends and all but he would appreciate me from refraining of asking too much advice or pointers about this weekend at Martinsville.’ He hopes that ‘I would understand and I’m not offended.’ I told him ‘I completely understand and wish I could offer him some help one of these days.’ Then it just went back and forth. Then he gave me the heads up what was going to happen in here (laughs).”
WHEN YOU WENT OUT ON YOUR RUN YESTERDAY DID YOU JUST HAPPEN TO RUN 20 MILES OR DID YOU HAVE THAT NUMBER IN MIND?
“No, for the last couple of weeks I’ve been building up. Last week I ran 17, the week before it was 15. 20 was the number my coach and I talked about it last week when we got to 17. As I got near the end of it I think my coach said 20 for the 20. That kind of planted the seed in my mind and helped me run strong at the end.”
INAUDIBLE:
“No, I have just been training hard and working hard on things. Running those longer distances and paying attention to your heart rate, I ran a conservative heart rate for the first 17 and then at the end started building my heart rate up. I had some left in the tank. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but ran home real strong. I was happy about that.”
WHEN IT COMES TO MATT KENSETH HOW MUCH DOES MAYBE KENTUCKY OR INSTANCES WHERE YOU KNOW IT’S NOT GOING TO BE OVER UNTIL THE END ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP THAT MORE IN MIND PERHAPS OVER THE NEXT FOUR RACES THAT HE IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY EASILY?
“Yeah, for sure I don’t know how I can defend against it, but it is on my mind. Charlotte was another good example of it. I think he ran around the top-five, fifth, sixth, seventh somewhere throughout the night in that position. We were up there dominating the race and I started to think that we might pick up a couple of points on him. Then when the checkered fell he was one spot ahead of me. He is a great driver, great team, and there is no quit in those guys. It just means we need to be buttoned up until the end. It’s no secret that we have missed some opportunity throughout the year. The final laps of a race, restart situations, there have been a handful that have gotten away. At this point I can’t let that happen anymore.”
I DON’T THINK WHEN YOU WON YOUR FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP YOU WERE RUNNING 20 MILES. THE PHYSICAL FITNESS ASPECT OF THIS HAS THE PRESSURE OF GETTING OLDER RESULTED IN YOU LOOKING TO BE MORE PHYSICALLY FIT OR HAVE YOU JUST REALIZED THAT THE DEMANDS OF THIS JOB REQUIRE YOU TO BE IN BETTER PHYSICAL SHAPE?
“I have been in and out of different training routines and I would say really the last five years I have been focused and determined and on the right path with it all. This fascination with the endurance stuff it’s just build over the course of the last year as I got strong been able to compete in a few different events and put up good times. That kind of fueled the fire as well. Then for me mentally as I dedicated more time to it and found a way to manage racing life, personal life and the training side it’s been a very good thing for me mentally oddly enough. Sure there are physical benefits, but there is something in my mind where I feel accomplished, I feel I did all that I could that day to do my job and to be an athlete. I sleep well. I don’t sit up wondering about different things because I’m exhausted. It just generally feels good to get this work done and to have that behind me in the course of the day. There is a strong mental aspect to it that I have enjoyed. Also in the moment suffering on the bike or swimming or running or whatever it’s a similar mindset to driving the race car late in the race or an ill-handling race car, where it’s not fun, but you have to figure out how to get to the end as fast as you can. That mindset has been fun to kind of live during the week days and not only on the weekends.”
THIS WEEK CARL EDWARDS SAID THE NO. 48 GUYS ARE GREAT CLOSER IF THEY ARE AT THE TOP OF THE STANDINGS OR AT THE LEAD IN A RACE THEY ARE GOING TO FINISH IT. EVEN AT THE LAST TWO YEARS, THE LAST COUPLE OF RACES LAST YEAR YOU SURPRISED YOU STILL HAVE THAT REPUTATION IN THE GARAGE?
“Yeah, I mean last year didn’t buy us any stock in that. There have been some races this year late in the event where things have slipped way, but I think people know what our team is capable of. And through most opportunities we show that and we are able to get the job done. We are human and we do make mistakes. I make mistakes, the team does, stuff happens. I’m glad that at least Carl (Edwards) thinks that and hopefully we can live up to that and get the job done and continue to enforce that message.”
Honda Racing–Kimball Leads Honda Qualifiers in California
Charlie Kimball led the Honda field Friday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, qualifying fifth for Saturday night’s season-ending MAVTV American Real 500. Kimball’s two-lap average of 217.986 mph will place him on the second row of the three-wide starting grid being used for the 500-mile IZOD IndyCar Series event.
James Jakes and IndyCar championship points leader Scott Dixon posted identical qualifying speeds of 217.979 mph, but Jakes was placed ahead of Dixon on the provisional starting grid based on the tie-breaker of posting his speed first. Honda-powered Dixon comes to Auto Club Speedway with a 25-point lead over rival Helio Castroneves in the drivers’ championship standings, and can secure his third Indy car championship with a finish of fifth or better, regardless of where Castroneves finishes.
Josef Newgarden continued his streak of strong oval qualifying performances in 2013 and will start 10thfor Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Newgarden also posted top-10 qualifying runs on the Texas and Milwaukee ovals earlier this season.
Saturday night’s 250-lap race, the 19thand final round in the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series to decide both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships, starts at 8:30 p.m. EDT, with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
Scott Dixon(#9 Target Chip Ganassi RacingHonda Dallara) championship points leader, qualified 7th: “I didn’t know we did the exact same time [as James Jakes]. A three-wide start should be pretty interesting around here, but it’s fun to come back to Fontana for the championship finale. It’s fun to be in this position and fight for the championship.”
Chevy Racing–CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500–Post Race
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS
OCTOBER 20, 2013
JAMIE MCMURRAY AND DALE EARNHARDT JR. TAKE 1-2 FINISH AT TALLADEGA
JIMMIE JOHNSON MOVES INTO SERIES POINT LEAD WITH 13TH PLACE FINISH
TALLADEGA, Ala. – October 20, 2013 – With 15 laps remaining in the 188-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway, Jamie McMurray powered his No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet SS to the front of the pack and held off a charge by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the No. 88 Mountain Dew/XBox One Chevy SS to win the Camping World RV Sales 500.
The race ended under caution when a crash on the final lap involving rookie Austin Dillon, who was subbing for injured Tony Stewart in the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS and another car froze the field and secured the win to McMurray.
The victory was the seventh in 398 Sprint Cup Series career races for McMurray, which also squashed his 108-race winless streak. It marked McMurray’s first victory and eighth top-10 finish in 2013 and his second win and seventh top-10 finish in 23 races at the 2.66-mile track.
Earnhardt Jr., who led eight times for a total of 38 laps, gained three positions in the standings and gave Team Chevy a one-two finish. He moved up three positions in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings and is now sixth in the hunt for the title.
With a 13 place finish in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, championship front runner Jimmie Johnson moved into the Series lead and now holds a four point advantage over rival Matt Kenseth (Toyota).
With a solid day in his No. 27 Menards/Duracell Chevrolet SS, Paul Menard finished fourth in the final order. Rookie-of-the-Year contender Stenhouse Jr. (Ford) was third, and Kyle Busch (Toyota) finished fifth to round out the top-5.
With four races remaining in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, five Chevy contenders finished as follows: Ryan Newman, No. 39 WIX Filters Chevy SS was ninth and moved up one spot in the standings to 11th, while Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS finished 12th and dropped one position in the order to fourth. Jeff Gordon scored a 14th place finish in his No. 24 Axalta Chevy SS and is now fifth in the standings, Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row/Wonder Bread Chevy SS finished 18th and is ninth overall, and Kasey Kahne’s 36th place race finish in the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevy SS held him in 13th in the order.
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup resumes next Sunday, October 27th with Round Six in Martinsville, Virginia.
JAMIE McMURRAY, KEVIN ‘BONO’ MANION AND FELIX SABATES, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNERS
KERRY THARP: Let’s hear from our race winning team of today’s 45th Annual Camping World RV Sales 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race here at Talladega Superspeedway, and our race winner is Jamie McMurray. He drives the No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet for Earnhardt Ganassi with Felix Sabates Racing, and he’s joined up here by his crew chief Kevin Manion and car owner Felix Sabates.
Jamie, congratulations, just a super win for you here today, your first win in 2013, but your seventh win in the Sprint Cup Series. You’ve won twice now here at Talladega. Talk a little bit about what your strategy was there at the end because it certainly worked.
JAMIE McMURRAY: Yeah, I felt really good about our car in practice. When you come to Daytona or Talladega you run 10 laps of practice and your car is either good or it’s bad. Spring race here I didn’t feel very good about the car, didn’t suck up very well, just didn’t seem to have any speed in it.
On Friday I felt really good about it. I told Bono, it’s really good, it’s fast, it sucks up, it drives well. If we get ourselves in the right position we can win on Sunday.
Just overall had a really good week leading up to this. Bono and I were talking about it just a little bit ago. When you come to a plate track, the mentality, it goes both ways. Sometimes you’re excited, sometimes not so much. I just was really excited about and looking forward to coming here this weekend. Had a good week leading up to this. We had a good practice on Friday.
I was a little discouraged that I couldn’t get to the front earlier in the race. I felt like I put myself in a good position a few times, and I just could never get to the lead, and I felt like we had a car that had enough speed in it that if I could get there it would be hard to pass me. I saw the 48 and I think the 88, it looked like they led a lot of the race, and they could change lanes and kind of pull each lane with them.
And finally at the end with 25 or 30 to go I saw the outside lane come in, the spotter is like the 17 and 88 are really moving along quick in that lane. I got up in front of them and then I was a little bit shocked that the 24 and the 18 let me have the outside. Those guys were in the middle and I got a big run off 2 on each of them at different times at the end, and both of them let me go to the outside, which I was shocked that they did. Once I was able to clear them, though, it went single file and then you’re just kind of counting the laps down at that point trying to figure out what the 88 is going to do for a move.
KERRY THARP: Kevin, maybe just talk about some of the things that you all worked on from the time you unloaded in practice Friday and now to victory lane that you saw were some of the keys maybe in today’s win.
KEVIN MANION: Yeah, really not too much over the weekend. You know, preparation on a plate track, especially these impound races, are all done at the shop. So this is the same car we had in Daytona that led a lot of laps and finished seventh. We were able to have a well‑prepared car from the guys at the shop, and like Jamie said, we unloaded and made just a handful of laps in the first practice, went from the back of the pack to the front of the pack, felt really good about it, and made one small adjustment to adjust the toe, the wheel, more so that the wheel was centered for Jamie, and pretty much parked it. Just waxed it and fluff and buff and do the things you do and just prepared for the race.
Really, like Jamie said, it’s been a good week leading up to it. We had a good practice, had good speed, and really ‑‑ I’m not going to say this too ‑‑ but an easy weekend, so to speak.
KERRY THARP: Felix, congratulations. Talk about just the thrill of this win here today, and I know it’s important to obviously Jamie but important to your race team.
FELIX SABATES: It was ironic; I have never missed a Talladega race since I’ve been in racing, and last night I had a long night, and when the alarm clock went off this morning, I said, man, I’m not going to Talladega. I got up, yeah, I am going. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed.
And when I got here, I sat down with Bono just before the race, before we left to go to pit road, he said, we’re going to win this race today. He had that feeling, which was a great feeling.
We’ve struggled this year a little bit. This does a lot for both of our race teams. It shows that we’re capable of winning. Jamie can drive at these places. He can drive anywhere, but any time you get Jamie on a superspeedway, he’s a force to be reckoned with. I’m not surprised that we won because we have a team that’s capable of winning every week.
Let’s go to Martinsville and win Martinsville, and that would really make for a nice month. Chip won the championship in IndyCar last night, so it was a great weekend. Last weekend we won the Grand American Series Championship, so the last 10 da
ys have been pretty good for us.
Q. Felix, you kind of just hit on this, and any of you can speak to this. Obviously not being in the Chase, this is the kind of thing, though, that moving forward and looking towards next year, there’s a lot of exciting things happening with the team, if you could just talk about looking ahead and what this does going forward.
JAMIE McMURRAY: Well, from my perspective, it’s weird the things that go through your mind after you win a race. I talked to one of the guys from ‑‑ one of the main guys from McDonald’s last night, and he had sent me a text, and he said your car looks like it’s going to be good. I said, I really think we have a chance to win. And we got into texting back and forth.
I feel like every time we’ve had McDonald’s on our car, we have not run as well as we have when we’ve had Cessna or LiftMaster or any other sponsor, and McDonald’s has 20‑some races.
So when I crossed the start‑finish line, as excited as I was, I was thinking about that text message and a phone call, and I’m like, I would just love to get McDonald’s to victory lane. They’ve been in our sport for as long as really any sponsor, maybe not full time, but McDonald’s has been around for a long time. It’s nice to be able to win with any of them, but I feel like in 2010 when we won three races we had Bass Pro Shops on our car for all three races and then Donald’s on the car for the others.
It’s important for the whole organization, Chip obviously winning the championship on the IndyCar side and the Grand‑Am side. But Chip has made a huge ‑‑ and Felix, have made a really big financial commitment to our team. The switch to the Hendrick engines was not even par with the ECR engines. It was a big financial tax on the team, and I think it’s made our cars better.
Our cars have definitely been better this year, but getting to victory lane, it really doesn’t matter what track, it definitely is a momentum builder for our whole organization.
Q. Felix, could you speak about that, too?
FELIX SABATES: Well, you know, looking ahead is what we do in this business. You can’t look backward because what happened today is history. We’ve worked very hard this week. We spent millions of dollars on the new seven‑post shaker. Every car we have is new. We switched to the Hendrick motor. We have made a big, big, investment, and we did it because we think we can win. If we didn’t think we could win we’d just take our money and go home.
I think we’ve had a lot of opportunities to win this year, and we have some bad luck. If you look at all our races this year, some it’s our fault that we lost, but some of the races we just get caught in accidents that wasn’t our fault. I’m excited about next year, but I’m more excited about the next five races because we have our own Chase. The guy that finishes first out of the Chase gets a huge bonus and that could help a lot of the expenses we had this year if Jamie finishes the first guy out of the Chase.
Q. Jamie, Earnhardt was in here just a while ago describing coming through 2, out of 2, and he said, I felt the run end, and then I looked in the mirror and I saw guys out of control. Could you talk about what you could see? You said you could see the 88 coming. Can you talk about what you could see from the middle of 1 and 2 on and what your thoughts were as you saw that?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Well, I ran the last 20 laps, never looked at the windshield. I looked out the rear view mirror the whole time. The one thing I noticed early in the race was when they would get single file and everybody would run against the wall. The guys on the bottom could make up a lot of ground because it’s such a shorter distance around the bottom, and then as we’d get towards the front, the guys that were on the outside that had been leading would move down to the middle of the track and it would stall out the bottom line.
So when I got to the lead I was trying to enter a little bit lower so we weren’t using so much racetrack so that if everyone behind me would follow, maybe the bottom line wouldn’t develop and move up as fast.
That being said, every time I entered lower, I would get away from the 88, and I feel like he was getting more of a run on me off the corner. As those laps counted down I was kind of trying to do something different each lap so that he couldn’t prepare for it. That’s exactly what he’s done for the last 15 laps; this is what I’m going to do. I was trying to do something different each lap.
And the other thing I noticed about this package is it’s easy to get a big run, but the car will stall out if you don’t have another car behind you helping. The package, I think it races really well. I felt like a lot of racing today, but when we all got single file, I didn’t really think the 88 could get me if the 14 wasn’t pushing him, and I ‑‑ I’m looking in the mirror and I saw the wreck before the spotter said anything. Honestly it didn’t cross my mind that the race was going to be over at that point. I thought we’d have a green‑white‑checkered. You’re so focused on what’s going on that I’m like, we’ve actually taken the white, so if I could just get back to the start‑finish line, you’d be the winner.
Q. So there was no sigh of relief there when you felt the pressure come off you from the 88 car?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Well, when the 88, when a car gets a run behind you, you can feel your car accelerate a little bit. You can hear the engine change pitch. Honestly I didn’t feel like he had stalled out. Like from my perspective I was getting ready to start swerving to try to get in front of him. If the guy behind you can break that plane of your rear bumper, it’s over, and so I just wanted to make sure I could keep my car in front of him.
He would have had a much better opinion of what was going on because I don’t know how much he had left or what he didn’t.
Q. He also said it might not have been the greatest run in the world but it might have been a run that got him up on your quarter panel and then you go from there. If you said once he broke your bumper that would be a problem, if he could have got to your quarter panel, would that have been a real tough situation for you at that point?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Well, if he would have gotten to my quarter panel it would have slowed both of our cars ‑‑ honestly I don’t know if the 88 would have won if he would have gotten to my quarter panel because I feel like it would have slowed both of our cars down, especially in the middle of the back stretch. Maybe coming to the start‑finish line it would have been different. But the closing rate was big for the guy third or fourth back, and earlier on in the race you would just go up to whoever you wanted to push because when you would pull out of line it would only benefit you for a couple of ‑‑ for a mile, and then you would fall back.
But coming to the start finish it just would have fanned out. I don’t know, it would have been interesting to see if he could have broken the plane of our bumper where we would have ended up.
Q. Jamie, you said earlier that winning at any track is a good momentum builder. How about for you personally? Obviously over this past season you guys have improved and you’ve had better finishes, but is that enough for a driver’s confidence, or does winning and getting to victory lane kind of ‑‑ because it’s been I guess 108 races since you won?
JAMIE McMURRAY: I appreciate you pointing that out. That’s nice.
I mean, winning, it’s not just about me; it’s about everybody within our whole group. You know, probably more so the 1 guys because they’re the ones that are in victory lane. But it’s so cool to se
e their faces in victory lane and know that when we go to Martinsville, you have confidence, everybody does. It’s so big for us because Martinsville ‑‑ to me plate tracks are probably my best tracks, and Martinsville is probably my next best. I love getting to go there.
This is a great place to be able to win at to take not only my confidence but everybody else within our group to that track where I feel we’ll run really well at.
Q. You talked about not having McDonald’s on your car. You had the Auburn logo on the car. Did you pay any attention to the game last night, Auburn getting a big win, and also, what reaction did you get from fans today with that?
JAMIE McMURRAY: I really wanted to watch the game last night, but it was Halloween night in the motor home lot and I had a three year old to dress up as a dinosaur and take trick‑or‑treating, and that took priority over watching the football game. I did Google it as soon as I could to see who won because I knew I was going to do a meet‑and‑greet with some of those guys today, and I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight.
It was really cool to have that on our car. Cessna has done a really cool thing with putting their customers on the hood, the deck lid, bringing them, letting them have the NASCAR experience. A lot of people that can afford a jet airplane can afford a lot of luxuries in life. Getting to come to a NASCAR race and come to the hauler, sit on the pit box, have that, it’s something you can’t buy.
It was cool to have Auburn on here. When they told me they were going to do the paint scheme here, I’m not a huge college football fan, but I know enough that this would be a 50/50 crowd here of some liking and some not. So it was interesting. It was fun to see the fans in the garage area either high five you or the opposite.
Q. Jamie, you were mentioning that the last ‑‑ pretty much after you took the lead with 15 to go you were watching your rear view mirror the whole time. Usually in a restrictor plate race the last 10 laps lines there’s mad scrambling going on, there’s lines forming, but here there was virtually single‑file racing from like 14, 15 laps to go until pretty much the final lap. Were you surprised looking out your rear view mirror that you didn’t see that kind of charge coming or did you expect people to start making moves?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Yeah, completely surprised. I don’t know how many laps I led at the end once we finally got single file. But I felt like that was going to last about five laps, and then the bottom would start forming. Because earlier in the race it seemed like if the guys were running against the fence single file that you could get the bottom to make a move, and definitely in these races when you get towards the end, it becomes much more intense and everyone starts taking bigger risk, and I was listening to the spotter, and he’s like ‑‑ he said there’s a line forming, but he said it’s not very organized and they’re not really making up any ground.
I was, I was really surprised that they weren’t able to put something together and make more of a run. Yeah, I was shocked by that.
Q. You said you were shocked by it. Any theories about why kind of the way we always expect it to go here the last 10, 15 laps didn’t materialize this time?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Yeah, I really don’t know. You know, I don’t know if you can see it on TV, but when you’re the guy that’s 10th or 15th in line, you’re getting out of the throttle 50 percent entering 1 and 3. I don’t know why. You get big runs and you have to let out the throttle, and the further back you are the more you have to get out.
Yeah, I really don’t ‑‑ I really thought that the bottom would form. The flipside is that you get that big run, and if you make the commitment to go to the bottom and you can’t get 10 good cars to make the commitment with you, you go backwards. And so if those guys don’t go with you, then you lose 10 or 12 spots, and the risk isn’t worth the reward. I thought guys would take a bigger chance at the end. I know the 29 car run the back most of the day. I thought he would be able to get a group of cars together. It seemed like the 31 could always make the bottom work and move towards the front. But they just couldn’t ever put it together.
Q. You talked about the trick‑or‑treating last night with a three year old. To be in victory lane with your child, who now probably has a little bit more understanding about victory lane, what was that like? What was it like to see your family there?
JAMIE McMURRAY: Well, that was ‑‑ I mean, that’s top two or three moments of my life, to get to experience that with them. I don’t know if you guys heard, but when ‑‑ I remember going to Matt and ‑‑ I rent a space from Matt Kenseth to keep my go‑karts and stuff in at his shop. So I was out in the front where they have some office space, and he’s got pictures hanging inside, some trophies, and there was a picture of Matt and Katie and Grace and Kaylin, and I think it was Dover victory lane, and I remember seeing how excited Kaylin was. She’s a little bit older than Grace. I remember seeing how excited she was, and seeing that picture, I’m like, gosh, I went home and told Christy, I hope that we get to have that moment. That’s a really special ‑‑ especially having a little boy who is into Lightning McQueen and racing in general. That would just be the coolest thing ever.
Yeah, to get to have that with my family is really cool.
Q. Did he get that picture do you think?
JAMIE McMURRAY: He was more excited about ‑‑ I said, Carter, look at the camera and smile, and he got shy, and then I informed him he could have all the M&M’s he wanted if he would just do one picture, and he turned right around, smiled and held his No. 1 up. It was a good compromise.
KERRY THARP: Congratulations, Jamie. Congratulations, Bono, and congratulations, Felix Sabates. Big win here for your race team, and we’ll see you at Martinsville.
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW/XBOX ONE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 DURACELL/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH
KERRY THARP: Let’s roll right into our post‑race for the 45th Annual Camping World RV Sales 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, race No. 6 in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Our race runner‑up is Dale Earnhardt Jr. He drove the No. 88 Mountain Dew/XBox One Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Dale, certainly you were up front just about all day long, led some laps, and just talk about your run out there today here at Talladega.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I was wondering if we might have led the most, but if we didn’t we were up there close.
We had such a good car. You know, since I’ve been working with Steve, we just haven’t really had a good combination here, and maybe I’ve torn up some really good cars and just never got to see how good they were in races in the past. I knew in practice the car was strong, and just wondered if everybody was showing everything they had. Once you get the whole field out there it’s a little bit different, but our car was a rocket and we were able to be aggressive, and I just tried to lead every lap of the race.
I felt like what I’ve seen be successful with this package and this car this year, if you’ve up front all the time, you tend to be there at the end when it counts, and we were. We got shuffled out there on that last run when we come out of the pits. I thought we pitted a little bit early, gave up a lot of time. My crew chief Steve di
dn’t really agree with that, but I just felt like if we could stay out on the racetrack we had a better shot at coming out in front of them guys. We ended up coming out behind a bunch of people and worked our way up toward the front there on the outside.
It’s all kind of a blur as to how we ended up in second, but I had no reason to make a move before the last lap being in second place. I was in perfect position to be patient and wait as long as I wanted to. So that’s why we didn’t go any sooner than that. I just can’t anticipate a caution coming out every single time we run at Talladega race on the last lap, so I just assumed it would go to checkered and was planning my move on the back straightaway.
We sort of let the 1 car get out there a little bit going down the front straightaway into Turn 1 and we mashed the gas in the middle of the corner and got a run with the 14, and I was moving around just a little bit to see where the 1 thought I might be going, because I gotta sort of fake him out, and I noticed the run stopped, and I looked in the mirror and guys were out of control.
We didn’t get an opportunity to see what would have materialized. It wasn’t the best run in the world. It wasn’t what I dreamed it would be, all those last few laps. But it was a good enough run I think to get up to his quarter panel and get beside him, and then we would have found out who our friends were at that point.
But really happy with the way the car ran and it was good to run up front, good to lead. We’ve really struggled this season with being competitive, and to drive up through there and do that like we did today, and it felt great.
Q. So many different things can happen here, but we have had situations recently where a lot of the races that have ended with a situation where you at least have to think about, well, maybe there might be a caution that’s going to end like that.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Can you remember the last race here that didn’t?
Q. Exactly. How much does it go into your thinking maybe I might need to be out front just in case we get…
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I wished I was out front, I really did, but I knew that I had everything to lose and really one spot to gain by going early, and if I waited until the last lap I could possibly defend off a failed run and get a relatively decent finish.
I guess pulling out early and that not working and finishing 25th was worse than trying to take the chance. Waiting and being patient I thought would pay off. Every race we have here we all wreck on the last lap, and it’s fortunate that that wreck wasn’t any worse than what we typically see here. But for some reason it was a lot calmer the last few laps. Everybody was pretty good about staying in line.
I would have been a little more antsy if I would have been back there in 5th or 10th, but they weren’t jumping out, and had they jumped out and moved with five to go, nine to go, whatever, that would have changed everyone’s strategy, and we might have went sooner, been forced to go sooner than we did. But nobody moved, so I was like, hey, I’m just going to wait until the end. I don’t have to try until the very end. I’ve got one guy to pass, and all I’ve got to do is make one run happen, and maybe it’ll work.
KERRY THARP: Let’s hear from our third‑place finisher, and that’s Paul Menard. He drives the No. 27 Menard’s Duracell Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Paul, maybe just talk about what you saw from your vantage point.
PAUL MENARD: Well, first off, we started deep in the field, I think 34th or 35th, and knew that we had a real good car. We just didn’t do much drafting on Friday. Knew we had a good car, knew it was pretty stable but wasn’t totally sure how it was going to handle in a big pack.
At the start of the race we took off and tried to learn more than anything, and car drove really good, was fast, drove to the front, kind of hung out in the top 10 all day long and just could never get to the first couple rows to lead a lap.
Had a good Duracell/Menard’s Chevy all day long. We could make the middle groove work to gain spots and then get to the outside and then ultimately the outside lane kind of won out over the long run. That’s kind of where everybody shuffled out to. Kind of riding around the last 10, 15 laps waiting for somebody to make a move. I didn’t want to be the first guy to do it and get shuffled back to 30th. I was kind of waiting for Dale to make something happen.
Q. Dale, you said on TV just a minute ago that you were talking about your plan was you were figuring the 14 was going to go with you and you said whoever else wanted to come along. It appears the 17 was what kind of glitched the situation back there. Did you see him back there? Did you know he was going to be ‑‑
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: A wild card?
Q. Yeah, part of the mix?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I knew everybody was going to be a part of the finish somehow. I’m pretty sure Jamie wasn’t just going to let me go by. He was going to side draft and it was going to ‑‑ we were going to play hell trying to get the lead from that point. But I thought Austin would ‑‑ I don’t know what Austin would have done for sure, but I assumed, knowing him as I do, he was probably going to help me once. You know what I mean? And after that you’re on your own.
But other than that, Ricky, I didn’t know what his plan was or anybody else’s. We really hadn’t talked to the 14. We were just kind of waiting until the last lap and going to make a run. That’s what we were trying to do.
Q. Paul, as you rode in line there those last 10 laps, were you kind of surprised that everybody kept waiting and waiting, that you didn’t go any earlier?
PAUL MENARD: I was. I thought for sure, as good as the middle was all day long, I thought for sure the 20, the 22, 48, some of those guys would get that rolling at the end, and it just never happened. My spotter kept telling me where they were, and I think the closest guy was like six cars behind us. I’m pretty surprised that it didn’t make further headway.
Q. And June, you said you had the best car of the race, that this was the best car that you’ve had since you’ve been at Hendrick Motorsports. Was there anybody in particular that you worked better with drafting with, one driver or the other?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: No, not really. We had a really good car. We’ve had some good cars at Daytona. For some reason we come to Talladega we haven’t been able to get them to run or we’d tear them up and never find out how good they were. For some reason today the car was fast. I didn’t really have to worry about who we were working with or around. I really didn’t try to piss anybody off, but I just didn’t worry about trying to help everybody and trying to be everybody’s friend out there. You’ve got a run, you take it. Everybody sort of understands what the situation is. When you get a good run, they don’t come every lap, you’ve got to take your opportunities.
Q. Junior, one of the things that we saw some people immediately went to the back and tried to use that strategy. You never did, you raced up front all day, and obviously that worked out well. If you could talk a little bit about that.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, when you try to ride in the back and you try to go, it’s usually typically the race is two or three wide for the first 10 rows and you can’t go anywhere. You can’t go anywhere. So we always end up packed up behind that mess, and then we find our way into the last lap wreck. So I decided that the car was pretty good in practice, and I felt like that if I could get
up there up front, that seems to be working for Matt. He’s been doing really well this year on the plate tracks, and he’s always toward the front and never has to worry about working his way through the pack if he’s coming out toward the front on that last pit stop, and we were good enough today to be able to do that. In the past I’ve tried to do it and just make the wrong moves or whatever and find myself in the back anyways. But the car was really strong today.
Q. This is for Paul. I get the impression that Junior was going to wait until his moment to make the move, but for you guys is it kind of a risk versus reward scenario where you don’t want to be the guy to pull out and you’re waiting for the guys behind to make their move before you jump out in front of them?
PAUL MENARD: My plan was to wait for somebody else to go to the bottom first and keeping track of where the 20, the 22 and those guys were, and I’d try to pull in front of them when they got to me. I wasn’t going to be the first guy to do that because I’ve done that before and been shuffled out pretty quick. I was going to wait for somebody else to make the move first and try to piggy‑back on.
Q. How long do you let your breath out that this weekend is over and that you’ve got great finishes before you turn your mind to Martinsville?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: We’re testing in Texas Monday and Tuesday so we’re working on that and trying to prepare a good car for that race. Looking forward to Martinsville. We didn’t get to run there last time and feel like we always run real good there, so looking forward to that.
PAUL MENARD: We all leave tomorrow morning for Texas to test for a few days, three 12‑hour days, and we did the same test that Ricky did at Martinsville to prepare for this coming weekend. I think of Martinsville as a lot like a plate race. You prepare all you can and then the last 20 laps all hell breaks loose. You never know how you’re going to end up.
Q. Dale, just looking at some of your stats, 22nd runner‑up in the Sprint Cup Series, four this year, four at Talladega. Do they feel like a near miss or…
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I’m not going to complain too much because I’m driving some of the best cars in the garage and got some of the best engines being at a place like that. It really means a lot.
It’s frustrating because the worst part about it really is you go home and you’ll spend months thinking about what you could have done to not be second. That’s the worst part about it. Actually the process of it happening and doing it isn’t that bad. You’re kind of happy with being competitive and it was a good result. But you’ll go back and think of a million things you could have tried different.
Q. You said you’ll replay it and think about what you could have done differently. It seems there really wasn’t anything you could have done differently because it all played out behind you, right?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I guess. We have a last lap wreck every time, and I guess next time we are in that situation we’ll try to go a lap sooner. (Laughter.)
Q. Dale, obviously as they pointed out, 22 runner-up finishes. You run as hard as you can every lap and try as hard as you can. What do you say to the multitude of people out there that every time Jimmie Johnson passes you as a racetrack, they’re screaming it’s team orders, it’s team orders. We know that’s not true.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, we hear about it on the radio every Monday on the Reaction Theater about how disappointed they are we haven’t won yet. We’re close, man. I’ll tell you, looking at our runs since Chicago, this is the best my cars have been all year. I’ve had some of the best cars the last five races that I’ve had all season, and they say they’re not doing anything different, but they sure are running really good. I think we’re right around the corner from winning one of these races, and we’re just going to keep trying.
Q. Paul, can you talk about the improvements that RCR has made in the closing months of the season, and what are your expectations for 2014 with the new lineup?
PAUL MENARD: Yeah, I’m excited for next year. We did a lot of work in the off‑season getting ready for the Gen‑6 car, as everybody did, and I feel like we started the year pretty strong as a company. The 27 team particularly, and then the 29 and 31 have come on really strong thesecond half of the season. We kind of fell off, and now we’re picking back up.
Yeah, I feel pretty good about where we’re at as a company. I know we’re making big gains, chassis, aero, and the motor has gotten a lot better, so small improvements everywhere make a big difference. Ryan coming over next year. He’s going to bring a lot of knowledge, too, and looking forward to working with him. I don’t think we announced the third driver yet.
KERRY THARP: Dale, Paul, Ricky, congratulations. Good luck this week testing. We’ll see you at Martinsville.
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Camping World RV Sales 500
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 20, 2013
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
WHAT A FINISH. TAKE US THROUGH THE DAY YOU HAD AND WHERE YOU CAME FROM IN THE FINAL 35 LAPS:
“I knew that our Cessna Chevrolet was good in practice and I just could never get the right line. At the plate tracks to get the right line, it requires a lot of risk and I felt like I was pretty patient all day and I saw the 17 and the 88 coming on the top. It just seemed the top was the better place to get hung out than if you got hung out on the bottom. Fortunately I was able to get myself in position. I don’t know how the last lap would have played out because I could see the 88 trying to set me up and trying to figure out where he could get a run on me but when I saw the caution come out behind me. Honestly, I wanted to see it end under green but at the same time, I said if there was a caution I would be okay with that right now too.
Really cool for Cessna and we have the University of Auburn on the hood of our car I’m also really happy for McDonald’s. Our cars have been so much better this year and we haven’t been able to get to victory lane. Chip (Ganassi) won the IndyCar championship yesterday so it’s been a good day. But quite honestly the best part about it for me and I told Christy, it would be so cool to be able to take our kids to victory lane. Pretty awesome.”
YOU HEARD DALE EARNHARDT JR SAY HE HAD A PLAN. HAD IT COME DOWN TO THE FINAL LAP, HOW DO YOU HOLD OFF EARNHARDT JR?
“Well, I don’t know. And the thing about the package we have right now is that you can get the third guy in line to push the second guy and it’s hard to defend. You just have to make your car as wide as you can. Quite honestly, I don’t know what I was going to do. With ten laps left to go I kind of thought that it wasn’t reality yet, then with five to go I could tell he was being patient. Then when they could never get the bottom line to form I knew it was going to come down to the first three or four cars. It’s unfortunate that the caution came out, but for me, I don’t know how I was going to defend that.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW/XBOX ONE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
ON THE LAST FEW LAPS:
“I had a plan we were going to get a run down the back straightaway me and the No. 14 and whoever else wanted to go. They got together behind me getting into their quarter panels and we just never really got a chance to see what we could do. We had our run formed in the middle of (turns) one and two and we were coming off of (turn) two with pretty good steam when they spun out behind me. My car quit going because we weren’t being pushed anymore. We didn’t lose to no slouch. Jamie’s (McMurray) a great restrictor plate racer and he has got really good engines with Hendrick power so real happy to run second and definitely an improvement on what we have been doing here in the past.”
DID YOU HAVE THAT STRATEGY READY IF THE YELLOW HADN’T COME OUT?
“Well, we were kind of forming our run around the middle of one and two and I think we had a pretty good head of steam coming off turn two and they got together behind us and that was that. I was going to try something down the back straightaway, but we just never got a chance. We finished second to a pretty good race car driver at these plate tracks. Jamie wins a lot of races here and Daytona, and always runs well. He has Hendrick power, so hard to outrun that. But we are real pleased with how our car did today. The Mountain Dew/XBOX One Chevrolet SS was real competitive all day. We ran up front, could pass, and had fun taking the lead and leading some laps. I definitely felt like we improved on how we have run in the past. So, excited about coming back.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 DURACELL/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH
WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT IN THOSE CLOSING LAPS?
“It was kind of sitting around waiting for something to happen really. We had a really good car all day. The middle lane when you are three-wide you could really gain some spots. Ultimately the outside won out. After everything played out the outside was the way to go. The last 10 laps it was riding around on the outside waiting for somebody to make a move. You didn’t want to be the guy that made a move and nobody went with you. So, there really wasn’t a whole lot we could have done there at the end.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 WIX FILTERS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED NINTH
ON HIS DAY:
“I rode around in the back all day basically just trying to keep my nose clean. I was waiting for something to happen the whole race, but it never really did except for that wreck on the last lap that unfortunately took out my teammate, Austin Dillon. I’m happy that we came out of here with a ninth-place finish and a clean WIX Filters Chevrolet. That wasn’t very much fun out there, though. But, I’m proud of my guys for giving me a good racecar this weekend. That’s another top-10 finish, which we can go home happy about.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 12TH
ON HIS RACE:
“We got ourselves in position to be where we needed to be at the end of the race. Coming to the last pit stop and then lost everything that we gained on the last pit stop again. So, I just hate it for all our Jimmy John’s guys. We had a strategy that we stuck to and then we were just last off of pit road.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 13TH
YOU ARE LEAVING TALLADEGA FOUR POINTS AHEAD TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN AND TALK ABOUT GETTING TO THE TOP OF THE POINT STANDINGS AS WELL TODAY:
“We had a great race car and lead a lot of the race. At the end there the No. 1 decided to run the top and took the bulk of cars with him. As that happened the middle lane that I was in quickly became the bottom lane and then quickly didn’t exist. I dropped like a rock for a while and was able to get in the outside lane and start making some spots back and fortunately missed the big pile up on the back stretch. Obviously, was paying attention to where the No. 20 was. I was the No. 29, the No. 24 and was in and around and ahead I think of most of those guys. 13th isn’t the best finish, but with what we are trying to do and win a championship we beat the competition today and that is good.”
WE TALKED EARLIER TODAY AND YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO BE NEAR THE FRONT AT THE END, BUT YOU WERE STUCK IN ABOUT 15th. WHAT HAPPENED?
“Yeah, the outside lane got going and everybody jumped up in it. You just don’t know if people are going to chase the bottom or the top and when I saw the 1 car had the lead I figured the 1 and the 88 would take the top. As that developed I was on the bottom lane and I worked my way to the middle lane and was able to maintain it for a little while and then everybody went single file and I dropped like a rock. So it wasn’t a comfortable feeling and not the position I wanted to be in late in the race but we rallied back and got a few more spots. Most importantly we got back in front of the 20 and missed the wreck on the backstretch.”
YOU LED THE MOST LAPS, YOU TAKE OVER THE POINTS LEAD AND YOU SURVIVED TALLADEGA. HOW ABOUT LOOKING FORWARD FOR YOU, HOW DOES THIS SPRINGBOARD YOU TOWARD ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP?
“You know I feel that the races forward now are up to where the competitors go earn it. You don’t have this luck issue that can take place at plate tracks. So I am happy to have the points lead and we went through a lot of work to get there.&n
bsp; We were just getting one point at a time and we got a few more than normal today and were able to get the lead. We just go racing from here and that is the thing I am most excited for. Great race tracks, great race cars and it’s just going to be a dogfight to the end.”
YOU’VE GOT TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE AT HEADING INTO MARTINSVILLE NEXT WEEK:
“It’s been good to us in the past. We’ve got to go there and race. There is going to be a lot of strong competition. We will make sure we get buttoned up and ready to go for this weekend’s race and go up there to that paperclip and see what we can do.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 14TH
ON HIS RACE:
“It was a good day. I thought that the car was fantastic. I thought the team did an awesome job of executing our plan and we were in perfect position. And it just didn’t work out. I got kind of shoved on the back straightaway and was trying not to wreck and that got me out of a really good position and then we were kind of a sitting duck at that point and just went to the back and wanted to see what we could do with them on that final lap. And of course you know, a wreck is going to happen. I hope Austin (Dillon) and Casey (Mears) are okay. That looked pretty nasty.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED IT WENT SINGLE FILE LIKE THAT?
“Shocking. Shocking. You never know. I mean it’s smart for those guys up front to do that because it eliminates a lot of cars out of the running for the win. But I’ve never seen guys have that much patience here in my life. So I was pretty shocked to see them just holding that line like they did. Of course they hold that line that one time when we were back there in 25th or whatever it was, so I wasn’t real happy at that moment. But we just hung in there and made a couple of moves there at the end.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE CHASE AND GETTING THROUGH THIS ‘WILD CARD’ RACE?
“We didn’t really gain anything, but we didn’t really lose anything. So it was sort of a wash. And in that sense, we didn’t tear up a race car. I’m standing here. And we just move on to the next four (races).”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/WONDER BREAD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 18TH
ON HIS RACE:
“Restrictor plate racing is all about being in the right place at the right time. We were in the right place for the majority of the race, but when it counts at the end we weren’t there. I tried to make something happen, but couldn’t get there. It’s disappointing because our Wonder Bread car was fast and to finish 18th didn’t do us justice.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 26TH AFTER GOING AIRBORNE ON THE FINAL LAP OF THE RACE
WHAT A CRAZY RIDE DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST LAP:
“I was trying to go for the win there. The No. 17 had a little bit of a run with the No. 27 and I tried to go with him and came back across and hooked me. I can’t say enough about this Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 team. That was a lot of fun right there coming to the white flag at Talladega and having a shot to win. I was going to push (Dale Earnhardt) Junior right there. He had a pretty good car. Just trying to wait until the end and they made a move and I tried to block it and it didn’t work out. I’ve got to say thanks to Bass Pro Shops, Tony Stewart for giving me this opportunity though it was fun.”
YOU HAD A GOOD DAY AND WERE RUNNING THIRD THERE AT THE END. DID YOU GUYS ACTUALLY TOUCH?
“Yeah, we had a really fast Bass Pro Shops Chevy and it was really good. Got to thank Tony Stewart and everyone at Stewart-Haas for giving me this opportunity because it was so much fun. I was trying to help the 88 right there at the end and they had a run, the 17. So I went low and when I was coming back up he just hooked me and when he hooked us it was over there. But a wild ride. I just have to thank NASCAR for everything they have done for safety. That hit was fine. I got to drive the car back and it’s a lot of fun when you have good safety equipment and can go after it like that. It was fun though.”
YOU ARE LEADING THE NATIONWIDE SERIES POINTS, HOW GOOD IS IT FOR YOU TO GET THIS RACING EXPERIENCE IN DURING THE DOWN TIME?
“Well, it’s really good. The No. 14 guys told me to bring back the steering wheel or the trophy. We brought back the steering wheel, but we were close to the trophy. That was fun and the Nationwide team has done a great job this year and hopefully we can end the year with a championship. This was a lot of fun and like I said, I have to thank Tony Stewart, everyone at Stewart-Haas and Johnny Morris – he has done a lot for my career.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN AN ON-TRACK ACCIDENT ON LAP 78 AND FINISHED 41ST
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE TRACK OUT THERE YOU WERE RACING WITH MARCOS AMBROSE?
“I wasn’t really we were riding. I saw the bottom line moving pretty good. The Target Chevrolet was pretty good to be honest. We were running two-wide so it was comfortable. We started running three-wide and the spotter told me ‘get out’ and I backed up going into the tri-oval and the next thing I know. I just saw out the corner of my eye somebody coming towards me and that was it.”
DESCRIBE THAT HORNET’S NEST OUT THERE. IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S PRETTY CRAZY OUT THERE WITH GUYS GOING TO THE BACK AND GUYS COMING TO THE FRONT:
“I rode 90 percent of the time at half throttle, just riding.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE OUT THERE?
“I didn’t see much. I was on the bottom and we were running two-wide and all of a sudden it started being three-wide. My spotter and I both said I think we need to get out. I backed off actually right before going into the tri-oval to start getting out. The No. 99 was getting out with us and the next thing I just saw out of the corner of my eye a car coming across and that was it.”
Chevy Racing–IndyCar Finale
Team Chevy driver quotes following the MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway, the season finale for the IndyCar Series:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: WE TALKED ABOUT A WIN HERE EXORCISING SOME DEMONS AND YOU GOT IT DONE “It’s the most satisfying win of my life. That is the most satisfying thing I have ever done and I have wanted to do it so badly all year and I knew in the early ovals I was conservative and I just wanted to finish every lap and this time I was just going for it. It’s funny at the end that Ed and I were battling for it because I read a column where he said that Will Power did what everyone expected at this race last year. And I thought that I wanted to beat that guy. I respect him, but that comment disappointed me and it gave me a lot of motivation.”
HOW MUCH MOTIVATION DID IT TAKE WHEN YOU HAD A VISOR THAT YOU COULDN’T SEE THROUGH? “I knew we had a very quick car and I didn’t care. I just said, ‘let’s fix this and we can win this’, and this is the most satisfying win and so stoked to win this for Verizon and this is a great way to end the season.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: “We were trying. We just ran out of laps and we were a little trimmed out for that last run and Will (Power) was fast and he got away from us on that last run. Tony and I raced for a few laps there and then I just couldn’t catch him.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD: AND IT LOOKED LIKE ED WAS TRYING TO KEEP YOU FROM HIS SPONSOR’S BONUS THERE AT THE END OF $250K : “Of course somebody came over the radio and said, ‘please don’t let TK win this one’, but I am happy but I am happy the way it ended up. I didn’t have anything for Will (Power) and we had a pretty eventful race so I just want to say hello to Dario at home and he asked me to finish on the podium and Dixon to win the championship so you got your wish and we are going to ask for you to come back.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: ON HIS RACE: “Man, what a race – 500 miles makes for a long evening. We had pretty much everything possible happen to happen to us. We got into Will (Power) on that restart, and he must have had a problem; he just didn’t accelerate. Unfortunately it did our wing in and we were sitting in a good position at that point. After (earlier) a stop put us two laps down, the team just fought so hard to get those laps back. To find ourselves back on the lead lap near the end there… it was just awesome. The car was great when it needed to be; not as good in traffic maybe as much as we needed, but we were up near the front and it was awesome. Our car died in pit lane, we got into it with (Sebastien) Bourdais on track – I mean, it was literally everything that could go wrong. Unfortunately, at the end, we had the temperatures skyrocket in the engine and we were losing some power. We probably had something for second and third, but I’m just happy to end this season on a high. The whole GoDaddy team fought so hard tonight and I’m really proud of that, and I’m really proud of the entire GoDaddy team. It’s a great way to end the season, a great way to end the relationships with GoDaddy and Chevy and to be able to bring them a strong finish, something they can be happy to remember. A big thanks to the whole team, GoDaddy and Chevy for an awesome year. I love the momentum we’ve got going into the offseason, and we’re just going to try and hit the ground running in 2014.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6TH: ON THE RACE AND CHAMPIONSHIP: “I am so proud of the boys and Team Penske did a hell of a job, and I am so honored to be a part of this organization. That is the good news and we have 2014, which is next year. We fought hard and definitely pushed as hard as we could this last race and I had tons of fun out there. But again, I want to thank the guy that cleans the floor at the shop to Roger (Penske) and everyone else and all the partners because without this combination working together we wouldn’t be able to be where we are. So proud of Team Penske and so honored to be around next year, and congrats obviously Ganassi and Scott. They fought hard, and did a great job, and unfortunately for us there was one weekend that went bad for us and cost us the championship. Yeah, five hundred miles was amazing because, wow, nobody was running at the end and it was calm. There was nothing calm about that. But as I said, the team did a great job and it’s a shame we got in contact with the 83 and I knew he wasn’t giving an inch and it was a little bit of a hard-fought evening with Tagliani but hey, coming into this weekend I knew that we were going to fight hard and I knew that they knew that and again, I hope the fans had a great time. I had a great time and thanks to NBC, thanks to the partners, we will see you again next year, and hopefully we will make it happen.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 DR PEPPER ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7TH: ON HIS RACE: “It’s just frustrating because I feel like we have had the car a (races this season) to win, but we just have to watch the lead slip away from us every time. It’s a frustrating way end the season, but I guess it’s on to next year, and I’m more determined than ever to win a championship.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY/AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH: ON HER RACE: “I’m pretty happy with our eight place finish. I hope Justin is okay. I looked over and he seemed to be moving so I hope he’s doing okay. We kind of got tangled in the accident and had nowhere to go and spun out. Luckily I managed to not damage the car that much; I think some of the tow-links were a little bit bent so it felt a little bit funny. But, we stayed out there and people kept falling off. I’m pretty happy, but I think it was one of the longest races I’ve ever done. Big thanks to the team. I feel like in the last few races we’ve really worked in the right direction and that was a lot of fun. I also want to thank my Nuclear Clean Air Energy sponsors Entergy and AREVA for all their support. I’m really happy that we were able to finish the season on such a strong note.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: “I think the DHL car could have won tonight; we led that whole first stint so it’s just really disappointing. We were running second when we had to come in for a flat tire, and then the overheating issues really are what ended the day for us. We came into the season determined to defend the No. 1, but had a lot of bad luck so it just didn’t play out. We’ll work hard this winter, come back next year and fight to earn the championship back. I want to thank everyone at DHL, Sun Drop, Chevy and the entire team for all their hard work and support this year. It was an honor for me to represent IndyCar as their champion this last season and it wouldn’t have been possible without so many great people standing behind me.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 12TH: ON HIS RACE: “We had an awesome night. We were really fast. We were struggling really for the last 10 laps of the stint. We were getting bottled up in traffic so I was really trying to get in the lead and get some fresh air, clear air. I knew if we had any chance finishing well I was going to come through that. I guess were just not quite fast enough to clear these guys. I wanted to keep my tires so I started to run up there when I started to fight with Charlie (Kimball). I had been running the bottom to get back there so I had used up my tires quite a bit. But the story of the night was strong runs.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH: FIRST OF ALL ARE YOU OK
AY? “Yeah, I am one-hundred percent.”
TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED HERE, YOU WERE JUST AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER HERE: “Yeah, I was just behind Justin and I saw him getting loose and for a second I didn’t know whether to go high or low and I ended up going high which was good because I was going to miss him but just to my left Joseph was going to miss Justin but collected me but it was just one of those things. We are all fighting for some little real estate and what are you going to do. Joseph was just trying obviously to not t-bone Justin and anybody he could. Unfortunately we had a good car for the end of the race and we couldn’t show it.”
CARLOS MUNOZ, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO CHEVROLET, FINISHED 23rd: I think I was doing a good job during the race although during practice I wasn’t feeling all that comfortable. But ever since we started tonight’s race, from the first lap, it was like my mind shifted – feeling really comfortable, the car was great, great first run and pitstops, great restart… in the end I just lost the car. It snappend, and I couldn’t do anything. It was my first crash on an oval, but there’s always going to be a first time. I feel really bad for the team. Obviously my plan was to finish the race, but we couldn’t do it. I’m happy with my performance up until the crash, and I’m just looking forward to next year.”
Chevy Racing–Chevrolet Wins 2013 IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship
Chevrolet Wins 2013 IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship
For Second Consecutive Year, Gold Bowtie Clinches Coveted Award
FONTANA, Calif. (October 19, 2013) – With Will Power’s victory tonight at Auto Club Speedway, Chevrolet has clinched its second consecutive IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ championship.
“We are proud of the teamwork and dedicated efforts of our drivers, teams and technical partners that culminated in Chevrolet’s second consecutive IndyCar Series manufacturers’ championship,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “The Chevrolet IndyCar V6 engine gave our teams the right combination of power, fuel economy, and reliability that resulted in winning this prestigious award.
On the way to the coveted title, drivers of the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 twin turbocharged, direct-injected engine tallied a total of 10 wins in the 19-race 2013 IndyCar Series season that included the exciting win by KV Racing Technology Chevrolet driver Tony Kanaan in the 97th running of the Indianapolis 500.
“Clinching the 2013 IndyCar Series manufacturers’ championship with the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 twin turbo-charged direct-injected engine is the result of a collaborative and cooperative effort by our teams and technical partners,” said Mark Kent, Director, Chevrolet Racing. “Chevrolet, Ilmor Engineering, Hitachi, GM Racing Powertrains, Pratt & Miller Engineering and our Chevy teams worked tirelessly to put the best combination of performance and reliability that resulted in this title. Congratulations to everyone whose contributions have made this second consecutive championship possible.”
The Chevrolet IndyCar V6 team and driver roster that contributed to Chevrolet capturing the Series’ manufacturers’ title are: Team Penske – Helio Castroneves, Will Power and AJ Allmendinger; Andretti Autosport – Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Ryan Hunter-Reay, EJ Viso and Carlos Munoz; KV Racing Technology – Tony Kanaan and Simona De Silvestro; Panther Racing – Oriol Servia and Ryan Briscoe; Ed Carpenter Racing – Ed Carpenter and Dragon Racing – Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Saavedra.
Chevrolet returned to IndyCar Series competition in 2012 with Ryan Hunter-Reay capturing the driver championship in addition to the manufacturers’ title. Previously Chevrolet competed in Indy-style racing as an engine manufacturer in 1986-93 and 2002-05 with V8 engines that powered Chevrolet to seven Indianapolis 500 victories, and six driver championships.
2013 VICTORIES:
St. Petersburg – James Hinchcliffe
Barber Motorsports Park – Ryan Hunter-Reay
Sao Paulo, Brazil – James Hinchcliffe
Indianapolis – Tony Kanaan
Texas Motor Speedway – Helio Castroneves
The Milwaukee Mile – Ryan Hunter-Reay
Iowa Speedway – James Hinchcliffe
Sonoma Raceway – Will Power
Reliant Park (Streets of Houston) Race No. 2 – Will Power
Auto Club Speedway – Will Power
Chevy Racing–Corvette Racing at Petit Le Mans
CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: Garcia, Magnussen Claim Drivers’ Championship
Sixth-place finish with Taylor enough to take title at Road Atlanta; No. 4 Corvette places 10th
BRASELTON, Ga. (Oct. 19, 2013) – Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen closed the American Le Mans Series era by winning the GT drivers’ championship Saturday at Petit Le Mans. The pairing drove with Jordan Taylor to a sixth-place finish in the No. 3 Compuware Chevrolet Corvette C6.R at Road Atlanta. Garcia won his first ALMS title, and Magnussen claimed another to go along with his 2008 GT1 championship.
Chevrolet and Corvette Racing clinched the GT manufacturers’ and team championships in the previous ALMS round at Virginia International Raceway two weeks ago. Garcia and Magnussen made it nine drivers’ titles for the manufacturer and team since 2001. The results were fitting ones in the final year of the C6.R in the hands of Corvette Racing.
“Congratulations to Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and the No. 3 Corvette C6.R team on clinching the American Le Mans Series GT driver’s championship,” said Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. Vice President, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “Antonio, Jan and the team raced incredible competition in the GT class and persevered. Preparation, teamwork, efficient pit stops – along with a Chevrolet Powertrain that delivered the right combination of power, fuel efficiency and reliability – were key components of the team’s success.
“It was a total team effort for Chevrolet to win the GT manufacturers’ championship, Corvette Racing to win the GT team championship, and Antonio and Jan to win GT the drivers’ championship in the final season of the American Le Mans Series.”
Garcia and Magnussen led all drivers in the ALMS’ GT class with three victories – Laguna Seca, Baltimore and Circuit of The Americas. They also finished on the class podium six times in 10 races, despite finishing with zero points at Sebring to start the year.
Saturday’s race was not without its dramas for the new champions. Taylor was running second in the race’s sixth hour when he ran over an oil slick and spun the No. 3 out of control. The car ran fifth for most of the final two hours before safety falling back to its eventual finishing position.
“Antonio and Jan are very deserving champions of the ALMS’ GT class,” said Mark Kent, Chevrolet’s Director of Racing. “Their performance, along with that of the team’s crew members and engineers, set the standard in what arguably is the toughest class of sports car racing in North America. Congratulations to Antonio and Jan, everyone at Pratt & Miller and GM Racing Powertrain for a phenomenal end of the season and final race for the Corvette C6.R.”
The No. 4 Compuware Corvette of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook ran in 10th place and six laps down after two lengthy stops to replace a pair of alternator belts. Gavin had moved from seventh to second in the first two laps before the telemetry showed the alternator was not charging the battery at the 30-minute mark. Gavin brought the car in for fuel, tires and driver change to Milner along with a belt replacement. That belt proved faulty, and Milner pitted again on the next lap for another replacement. This time, the belt functioned properly and the car continued with the battery fully charging.
Corvette Racing will open the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship with the Corvette C7.R race car at the Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 25-26.
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“For sure this is a great day for us. We had a fantastic season. There is no way we could think about this after no points at Sebring. The Corvette Racing team just kept digging. We went from zero wins last year to three wins this year. It was a very competitive year, and congratulations to all our competitors who raced against us. They were all very good teams. So I am very happy for my first ALMS title. Now we are looking forward to the next era for Corvette Racing.
“It’s a really hard to celebrate anything. I lost a very close friend last week – Maria De Villota – and then Sean Edwards this week. Even when I went by the checkered flag, I didn’t feel like I could celebrate and be happy. I was more thinking about them.”
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“This is an incredible championship. I could not believe Antonio and I would walk away with this after how the season started for us. We both have to say thank you to the entire Corvette Racing team for their hard work and great pit stops all year. For sure we would have liked to win the race but I will trade that for a championship any day.
“It is a fantastic day. My son Kevin won the World Series by Renault this morning, so that was a good way to start the day. It was nice that he got it over with so I could concentrate on my own championship! I can’t even begin to describe how proud I am of him. I wish I could have been celebrating with him but it’s great we can have a chance to win a big championship on the same day. We will celebrate when we get home.”
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“Congratulations to Jan and Antonio on a terrific season. The guys really gave it everything they had, and they deserve this championship. The second half of the race didn’t go as smooth as we would have liked. The spin on a fluid leak from another car set us back. But at the end of the day, I’m glad to have helped the team win this championship. Topping this off with the Rolex DP championship makes this an incredible end to the season.”
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“These last few races have been extremely difficult and tough for us. But today is all about the No. 3 car. Antonio and Jan deserve this championship thoroughly. They bounced back from a heart-breaking Sebring. But since then they have driven brilliantly. They had great strategy and pit stops. They executed every weekend and scored points every time they were allowed to. A full, hearty congratulations to them.
“For Tommy and I, the 2013 season can’t come to an end soon enough. It seemed like every which way we turned, things were not going right for us. Our luck just ran out. I’m just now focused on 2014 with the new car and hitting the ground running at Daytona. We had two really big highlights – winning at Sebring and Canada was fantastic. But the rest of it has been under par to say the least.”
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“At the end of the day, we obviously would have loved to finish better. But Antonio and Jan got their championship, which is fantastic. We’re team champions and manufacturer champions just like last year. It’s a great send-off for the C6.R and we’re looking forward to the C7.R now. It was a rough day for us –that was our season in a nutshell. There were just little problems that sometimes can be easily fixed and solved. But this year, every little thing cost us a lot of time. All in all, and looking back on the season it was a great one again. The car was fantastic and it’s always a pleasure working with the guys at Corvette Racing. I’m looking forward to a lot more years.”
RICHARD WESTBROOK, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“I’m absolutely for Antonio, Jan and Jordan. They’re part of the Corvette Racing team, but they’re also mates. It’s great to see your mates celebrate like that. From our point of view, we can’t wait to get going on next year. Sebring seems like a long time ago. It was our high of the year. You can’t have good years every year. It will make us stronger and tougher. All of us will work harder over the winter. Today again, we proved we had a great car but Lady Luck was against us.”
DOUG FEHAN, CORVETTE RACING PROGRAM MANAGER“Today was probably the most important sixth-place finish in Corvette Racing history. As we closed out the 15th season of the American Le Mans Series – a historic run – Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia clinched the GT drivers’ championship. It gives Chevrolet and Corvette Racing a second consecutive sweep of all three ALMS championships. Jan and Antonio’s climb back from scoring zero points at Sebring is emblematic of the never give up fighting spirit at Corvette Racing. I couldn’t be more proud of Jan, Antonio, Jordan Taylor and the entire crew and engineering group on the No. 3 Corvette. As satisfying as this is, we are excited and looking forward to the start of a new era in Corvette Racing – the first race of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship at Daytona in January.”
Chevy Racing–Corvette Racing at Petite LeMans
CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: No. 3 Corvette Runs Second After Four Hours
Garcia, Magnussen need seventh or better for GT title; No. 4 Corvette in 10th
BRASELTON, Ga. (Oct. 19, 2013) – Corvette Racing’s No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R ran second in the GT class after four hours of Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia traded stints in challenging conditions, which has seen the weather go back and forth between dry and wet. At the four-hour mark, a light but steady rain continued to fall and put strategy at a premium in the 1,000-mile/10-hour race.
Garcia and Magnussen, who are teaming with Jordan Taylor this weekend at Road Atlanta, need a seventh-place finish or better to claim the GT drivers’ championship. Magnussen led his nearest title challenger, Dirk Muller, shortly after a restart before the race’s fourth hour.
The No. 4 Compuware Corvette of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook ran in 10th place and six laps down after two lengthy stops to replace a pair of alternator belts. Gavin had moved from seventh to second in the first two laps before the telemetry showed the alternator was not charging the battery at the 30-minute mark. Gavin brought the car in for fuel, tires and driver change to Milner along with a belt replacement. That belt proved faulty, and Milner pitted again on the next lap for another replacement. This time, the belt functioned properly and the car continued with the battery fully charging.
The race continues with live TV coverage alternating between FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2. ALMS.com also is streaming the full race broadcast.
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“It is very difficult. It probably is not the situation you want to be in while fighting for a championship. You have to be patient but fast at the same time. In the end, the track was good when it was fully dry. The car was behaving very good before drops began coming down. It is very different from lap to lap. The gaps between the cars are more than 10 seconds, so it is difficult to see how the track is reacting. I was learning a little bit early with a Porsche and then with Tommy (Milner in the No. 4 car). We know we need to keep running and stay on the lead lap. For sure, we aren’t the ones that need to be taking risks. That is the 56. We need to keep following what they do.”
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“We’re quite aways down now. Getting eight laps back is going to be a tall order. It’s kind of fitting for our year. We had a good car and we have a small issue that puts us behind. We’re pretty bummed. (Helping the 3 car) has been the mindset all along. Anything we can do to help the 3 car is what we will do. We’ll be conscious of what they are doing and make sure our stops don’t mess them up. At this point, we will just run laps and see what we can do.”
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Qualifying
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 19, 2013
Three Team Chevy Drivers Will Start in Top-10 at Talladega
Qualifying for Camping World RV Sales 500 Cancelled Due to Rain
TALLADEGA, Ala. – October 19, 2013 – Qualifying for Sunday’s Camping World RV Sales 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway has been cancelled due to inclement weather.
The starting grid has been set per the provisions in the NASCAR rulebook. Starting positions are based on the times from the first practice session held on Friday.
There will be 18 Chevrolet SS drivers in Sunday’s race. Starting in the top-10 will be Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet SS – 2nd, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 Mountain Dew/Xbox One Chevrolet SS – 8th and Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet SS – 9th.
Earnhardt, Jr. is the only Chevy Chase contender that will start inside the top-10. Other Team Chevy Chasers will start as follows: Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS – 11th, Ryan Newman, No. 39 Wix Filters Chevrolet SS – 17th, Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet SS – 19th, Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS – 28th, Kurt Busch, No. 78 Furniture Row/Wonder Bread Chevrolet SS – 30th and Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS – 33rd.
A total of 44 cars were entered for Sunday’s race, and the qualifying rainout determined that Sam Hornish, Jr. (Ford) is the only driver who will miss the race.
Aric Almirola (Ford) was the quickest during the first practice session and will start from the pole position, and Marcos Ambrose (Ford) will start third.
Other starters in the top 10 are: Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota) – 4th, Carl Edwards (Ford) – 5th, Greg Biffle (Ford) – 6th and David Ragan (Ford) – 7th.
The Camping World RV Sales 500 is scheduled to start on Sunday, October 20, 2013 at 2:00 p.m., EDT and will be aired live on ESPN, MRN Radio and Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SECOND
YOU TURNED IN SOME FAST SPEEDS HERE YESTERDAY, AND KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO GET AROUND THE HIGH BANKS OF TALLADEGA. TALK ABOUT YOUR CAR AND YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THIS WEEKEND
“I think my outlook is probably about like everybody else’s. I hope to miss the big wreck and get through that part and be there at the end. On pit selection and all that, I don’t think it really matters where you start here. Certainly having clean in and clean out on pit road means a great deal.
“It’s kind of funny because in the spring race here, when everybody knew it was going to rain, I think I was 30th or something. And I couldn’t figure out how to run a fast pace for that. And then yesterday I was second. So, that tells you I really don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve pretty much confirmed that (laughter).”
DRIVERS ARE LOOKING FOR A VERY NEUTRAL FEELING IN THEIR RACE CARS. WHEN YOU MADE THOSE LAPS, WAS YOUR CAR AS CLOSE TO WHAT YOU WERE HOPING FOR DURING THE RACE?
“Well, we were first, second and third so I think we were pretty happy. It’s so situational. When you’re four-wide and the middle of the car drives different than it does when you’re four-wide on the top. It’s really kind of hard to mess with handling a whole lot here. It sounds silly. The car’s got to be fast enough to get done what you need to do. And you try to do everything you can to take downforce away and take drag away. Typically, handling is not an issue here. Although, the last few races, people have struggled with being a little bit loose. I don’t know that really, in that situation, of running nose to tail, that running a line down, that really the car is; it almost don’t handle if that makes any sense. We’re just sitting in there and driving it. It’s not like it’s very difficult. So, if handling does come into play, it’s more when we’re three or four-wide in the middle of the pack. And then we’ll see what the handling is. But it was really hard to tell that yesterday.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOUR TIME AT RCR HAS IMPACTED YOUR CAREER AND YOUR LEGACY AND EVERYTHING LIKE THAT?
“I’ve had a really good relationship with Richard (Childress) he is really good to work with. He’s a good person. He does what he says he’s going to do in a tough business. It’s hard sometimes in this business as things change to really do what you said you were going to do. He always has and I don’t think neither one of us are real happy with the total amount of success that we had, but at the same time we both know we gave 100 percent and did everything we could together. I’m disappointed that we didn’t have more success. I think when I went there it was a bit of a gamble but it felt right to me. It was a team that kind of needed to get rebuilt. I think we did a really good job with helping rebuild that and get it to where it is. It was probably one of the best places to be. Then it got to where it wasn’t. We did a lot of stuff. We made the Chase three years in a row with all three teams. I took a lot of pride in being part of that. Ultimately with the No. 31 we just didn’t have the success that either one of us really wanted to have. That disappointed both of us, but there are no hard feelings about it. We both know we worked hard at it. We want to win. He wants to win; I want to win so the next five races are about that. It’s really not very complicated. There are only a few chances left so it means those races are more important, but at the same time they are putting the same amount of effort into it. There hasn’t been any let down in effort we are trying real hard to finish up strong. We will see what we can get. I do feel like we’ve been building. There are days we run really well and there are days we run not so well. I feel good about the tracks coming up. Phoenix has always been a good track for us. Texas has always been a good track for us. Martinsville has always been a good track for us. I feel like we’ve got a lot of really good tracks coming up and hopefully we can do something good.”
DO YOU EVER THINK BACK TO THAT YEAR YOU LED THE CHASE GOING INTO MARTINSVILLE?
“Daily. I thought I had a lot of chances at Roush to win championships and to be perfectly blunt about it we just didn’t have everything together. One year we would have pit stops couldn’t get it done, the next year we would have too many engine failures. Kind of like Mark’s (Martin) career too where he had a lot of chances to win championships and it just wasn’t all together at the right time. We had the speed to win championships, but didn’t have necessarily everything else. The year at Childress that we had the best shot, we won the second race in the Chase, had a pretty good lead and went to Martinsville and broke a motor. And then went the very next week with three races left and blew a tire and boom you are done. They are never over until they are over and watching this championship everybody keeps saying it’s a two or three car race. No, not yet. But that year honestly I really thought we had everything in place that year to get it done, pit crew, crew chief, driver, everybody was in synch and it just didn’t work out.”
HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO QUALIFY RIGHT IN BETWEEN TWO GUYS WHO HAD A PLAN?
“I was along with them. Honestly there were four of us that went out and it just worked out where the four cars had gotten far enough back to where the front pack as Marcos (Ambrose) said they kind of got doubled up. Once they got doubled up then here we come, so I didn’t have a grand plan. Like I told you in the spring I had
a grand plan and I think we were 30th. Here I didn’t have a grand plan and we were second.”
THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT HOW SANDBAGGING WONT WORK AS A STRATEGY SUNDAY THE WAY IT HAS IN THE PAST AND THAT MIGHT BE TIED TO THE NEW CAR. AS SOMEBODY WHO HAS BEEN COMING HERE FOR TWO DECADES AND HAS WITNESS ALL THE DIFFERENT TACTICS THAT YOU HAVE WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF SUNDAY’S RACE? DO YOU EXPECT THE CHASE CONTENDERS TO RUN UP FRONT?
“I disagree. I think that you can sandbag. I don’t think there is any reason you can’t. I think we even saw it yesterday. One time I fell back just to kind of see how far you could get back and sucked right back up to the front pack. I think you will see some of the guys in the Chase ride around. I think you will see some of them trying to lead as many laps as you can. I think you will see a typical Talladega race where some people just aren’t comfortable running every lap in the front and some people are. I don’t agree. I think that when you go, if you ride around, when you go is what is important. If it’s 188 lap race and you take it easy for 100 there is no reason why you couldn’t get back to the front in 88 laps. There is no reason in the world. So I don’t know. I think you will see a mixture of stuff. These races are crazy. We got single file sometimes for no reason and I don’t understand why that happens. You just never know what is going to happen at these races, but I don’t agree with not being able to sandbag.”
SINCE WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT PLANS CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FUTURE PLANS AT ALL WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BE DOING NEXT YEAR?
“Like I told you I feel really good about what is going on and when I can talk about it I can talk about it. I’m really comfortable with where I am and the opportunities that have been presented to me the last month have been really interesting. Maybe one day I can talk about some of them because some of them are crazy. It’s been interesting. It’s been a kind of interesting last few months, but I’m really comfortable with where I am and what I am going to be doing. I’m just not in position to talk about it. I promise you when I can I will.”
Chevy Racing–Will Power Puts Chevrolet IndyCar V6 on the Pole at Auto Club Speedway
Will Power Puts Chevrolet IndyCar V6 on the Pole at Auto Club Speedway
Team Chevy Drivers Post Six of Top-10 Fastest Times in Qualifying for Season Finale
FONTANA, Calif. (October 18, 2013) – Will Power set the pace during qualifying for the IndyCar Series season finale at Auto Club Speedway. For the third time this season, the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet IndyCar V6 has won the Verizon P1 Award.
Team Chevy drivers posted the four fastest times of the 25 cars qualifying for the 250-lap race on the 2.0-mile track D-shaped track. Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Auto Club Team Penske Chevrolet, turned in the second fastest time of the day followed by the third Team Penske driver, AJ Allmendinger in the No. 2 IZOD Chevrolet. Sebastien Bourdais, No. 7 McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet, was fourth fastest.\
Giving Chevrolet IndyCar V6 six of the top-10 fastest were Marco Andretti, No. 25 Dr Pepper Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, in eighth, and Ed Carpenter, No. 20 Fuzzy’s Ultra Premium Vodka/Ed Carpenter Chevrolet turning in the ninth fastest time.
The 500-mile race is scheduled to start Saturday at 8:00 p.m., PST with live TV coverage on NBC Sports Network. Additional live coverage will be provided by IMS Radio Network on XM and Sirius Channels 211 as well as on www.indycar.com live timing and scoring.
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER: ” ON WINNING POLE: “As soon as I drove out on the pit lane today, I felt the car was pretty quick in qualifying trim. I thought we had a pretty good shot. The way the order worked out, Scott (Dixon) was after me; I was after Helio (Castroneves), ….it is hard to predict what kind of laps you are going to do anyway, and it would have been nice for Helio to get the point (pole winner gets one point for winning Verizon P1 Award). But Scott didn’t (win the pole) either.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: ON QUALIFYING: “Good effort for entire Team Penske. The AAA boys, they did a hell-a-va job putting everything together from this morning. We had a little issue with the right rear shock. The good news is we found it, and the car was awesome. The car was exactly as we left here (after test)…pretty fast. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have a crystal ball to tell my buddy here (Will Power) to slow down (LAUGHS). But Scott was behind him, so I am glad he went for it. The car was able to do what we needed. It showed we did our homework, and I am proud of those boys.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD: “Qualifying third here at Auto Club Speedway is huge. I am a little bit behind in the race car right now so I’m just trying to play catch up. Obviously, it’s a lot different going around here in a Cup car versus an IndyCar so getting used to the corner entry right now for me is the biggest deal. It’s clear that Team Penske has really fast race cars and Chevy has brought a lot of horse power to the table for this weekend. Will (Power) and Helio (Castroneves) have been great teammates to me, as they’ve been all year. They have really helped me get back up to speed. It’s a long race tomorrow and our goal is to be there at the end.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 4TH: “That car was just a little too fast on the right (LAUGHS). I kinda scared myself on this one (LAUGHS). I convinced myself it was going to alright, but then as I was going through turn one counter steering a little bit, I wasn’t too sure anymore. I am just glad it stayed with me. I am happy for Dragon Racing, McAfee, Variety-TrueCar effort. Thanks to Chevy, we have some real fast cars. Boy it is a great way to finish our relationship. Hopefully we can make it stick, and show we can do it on ovals.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 DR PEPPER ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: “It was a big change from Lap One to Lap Two (of qualifying) in the Dr Pepper car, and you just take advantage of the new tire grip and the dropoff was pretty big – we got a little too aggressive. I wouldn’t say it (tire wear) is going to be an issue; I think Firestone did a great job of shaking the race up – it’s going to be a heck of a show.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA/ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 9TH: “We struggled a lot this morning. The car only ran a few laps that were good and then the car got worse with each lap. I wasn’t sure if it was me or the car. It was frustrating. But when we got the car back in the garage after practice, we found a big problem that caused our troubles. We had a broken damper (shock). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try a simulation of our qualifying run. I know we would have been faster with some additional laps with the proper setup. I’m just glad we figured out our trouble before qualifying. Now we can work on our race setup in tonight’s practice. It’s a long race on Saturday with 500 miles. We learned how to win last year and we really want to get back to that Fuzzy’s 19th Hole Victory Lane.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11TH: “With the race starting when it does here, the track and temperatures are going to change a lot over the course of the race, and it’s going to be the team that stays on top of that the best, the team that’s there at the end and still in contention to win. For sure if you’re not good at one stage of the race, as long as you’re in the final stint, you can definitely come back from that. I don’t think our qualifying run was quite as quick as it could have been, but a 500-mile race, like I said, you don’t have to start on pole to win this one. We’ll do what we can with the GoDaddy car and hopefully we’ll be there (in the winner’s circle) at the end of 500 miles.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH: “We went a little aggressive with the setup so I knew the second lap would be slower. It’s a 500-mile race and we have a good race car. Hey, we started 12th at Indy.”
CARLOS MUNOZ, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14TH: “Yeah, it was really difficult my first time in the IndyCar this morning was really tough; it was completely different from the (Firestone) Indy Lights practice. You have to drive it a lot physically, there are a lot of issues with the conditions, so it’s not always the same especially when the tires were gone. In qualifying, I ran my first lap flat, so I felt like ‘Yeah, I can do it flat,’ but I think I need more miles on the track to get used to it. The other guys tested here before, and I think I’m getting there; we still have one more practice. It’s more experience for me, hopefully for next year, so that’s what I’m focusing on.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH: “We have some imbalances we have to work on, but I’ve got great memories of this track from last year and certainly felt the most pressure I’ve ever felt in my life, and I wish I could do it all over again. It’s unfortunate we don’t have it all to put it the DHL Chevy on pole today, but it’s a part of racing. It’s the ebb and flow of the whole sport and I couldn’t be more thankful for the position I’m in. We have a shot to go for it (the championship) again next year, and I certainly believe that we can. We’re going to have some fun (tomorrow); we’re going to work on the car this evening in practice and hopefully make it a bit better. We’re really working on trying to use all lanes – that’s our biggest goal right now. We’re going for it (the win)… it may not be possible, but we’ll try it. I’m sure tomorrow night will be an exciting show.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIE
D 17TH; “Our qualifying run was good and the National Guard Chevy felt as good at it’s felt so far this weekend. The balance and the gears were great, the speed was just a little slower than we thought it would be. But as we know tomorrow is a 500-mile race and we definitely want to give all our partners at the National Guard and Chevrolet a great last race of the season, and we’ve got the car to do that.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 21ST: “I was actually looking forward to coming here, which hasn’t really happened for a long time. Usually with the ovals, I was always not quite sure about them. But now I think I’m pretty confident on them for sure, so I’m a bit disappointed that our qualifying run wasn’t great. It seems like when the track got hotter we started picking up a lot of under-steer. We had the same thing happening in the morning session. Maybe that’s actually a good thing for the night race, because usually the car gets a little bit looser at night. I think our race car feels pretty good and the race is what’s important. Wherever we start I think we can be consistent, especially on old tires, and I think that will be the key to the race.
Chevy Racing–CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS
CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: Solid Start in Last Title Push
GT championship co-leader Garcia qualifies No. 3 Corvette fourth in GT; Gavin seventh in No. 4
BRASELTON, Ga. (Oct. 18, 2013) – The final race for the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R will see two of Corvette Racing’s GT challengers starting fourth and seventh on the GT grid for Saturday’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Antonio Garcia qualified the No. 3 Compuware Corvette fourth with a lap of 1:19.128 (115.560 mph) in the finale of the American Le Mans Series.
Garcia and Jan Magnussen enter the 1,000-mile/10-hour race leading the GT drivers’ championship. With three wins this season, the duo needs a seventh-place finish or better Saturday with Jordan Taylor to clinch the title. Their only challenger for the title – Dirk Muller – will start fifth. The top seven cars were within 0.579 seconds of each other.
Garcia set his best time on his final lap of the session to beat Muller’s time. The No. 3 Corvette placed second in last year’s Petit Le Mans, and a similar showing Saturday would give Corvette Racing a drivers’ championship for the ninth time since 2001. Magnussen won the 2008 GT1 title, and Garcia was third in last year’s GT standings with Magnussen for his best championship finish.
In the ALMS’ previous round at VIR, Chevrolet clinched its 10th manufacturers’ championship, and Corvette won an ALMS team title for the 10th time.
Gavin, driving with Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook, set a best lap of 1:19.440 (115.106 mph) in the No. 4 Corvette. The trio hopes to bookend their season with a victory to match a season-opening win in March at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Gavin and Milner – last year’s ALMS champions – stand third in this season’s drivers’ points and have a chance to move up to the runner-up position in the final standings.
Saturday’s race begins at 11:30 a.m. ET with live coverage alternating between FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2.
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“We had a decent setup and decent pace compared to where we have been in past races. I felt like I could really attack. We seem to be a little closer to our competitors than where we expected. It’s a very good starting position for a long race. No one will be taking risks right away. The more toward the front you are, the less chance there is of having an issue. This is a good starting point. Now we need to run a clean race. Who knows – for sure we want to make 70 percent. After that, we will go for the win.”
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“We are still searching for some punch out of the slow-speed corners. We also were looking for some direction change in the middle of the corners and made some adjustments before qualifying. I think we overshot with that. Now we have a car that is very much the other way and oversteering everywhere. I couldn’t attack any of the corners or carry my brakes all the way in. I was very nervous with the rear of the car, and my steering inputs were very, very small. It was the sort of stuff you expect when you have a little too much on the nose of the car and the rear is too light. But it’s a long race. We will take seventh place; we have worked our way up well from those positions all year. I’m pretty confident we can do it again. We will get the car right and will be there in the race.”
DOUG FEHAN, CORVETTE RACING PROGRAM MANAGER
“One of the main goals of the session was to start in front of the BMW, which we accomplished. Antonio put in a great final lap, and Oliver positioned the No. 4 to help the team car fight for the championship. Now the goal is to have a clean, mistake-free race under very competitive conditions to wrap up our ninth ALMS drivers’ title – a remarkable feat over the last 15 years. The drivers, engineers and crew have performed brilliantly under pressure all season. Now it comes down to the final race. We are prepared and ready.”
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Dale Earnhardt Jr.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2013
DALE EARNHARDT JR, NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW/XBOX ONE CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed Xbox games, how much he enjoys Talladega, short racing stories, and more. Full Transcript:
WHEN YOU COME TO TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY, YOU THINK ABOUT DALE EARNHARDT, JR. AT LEAST I KNOW I DO (LAUGHTER). THAT’S A COOL PAINT SCHEME YOU’VE GOT OUT THERE. TALK ABOUT THAT, AND THEN TALK ABOUT COMING TO A PLACE WHERE YOU’VE WON FIVE TIMES IN THE SPRINT CUP SERIES. THIS HAS GOT TO BE A SPECIAL PLACE FOR YOU.
“Yeah, that’s true. The car looks great. I’m really excited to be paired up with Xbox One. I’ve got to thank Diet Mountain Dew for being innovative on the marketing side. I’m a big fan of Xbox. I’ve got several actually, strewn around the house and in the bus. So it’s a good fit. And hopefully with this promotion that Diet Mountain Dew has they’re going to auction off a lot of these Xbox Ones right here like this one right here on the table. I think that will be pretty successful, obviously; regardless of our participation because Xbox is such a huge brand. And with the release of the new console, pandemonium is going to set in for a little while. But I’ll be on the list somewhere, trying to get one.
“But this race track is really a special race track, just in general, to the sport. I think the history of this place and just how it was conceived and the unique circumstances of that first race and how the drivers, many felt it was unsafe or what have you. And how the track eventually turned into one of the most impressive and unique, concerning speed, and how the style of racing that you have here is so unique, it’s just amazing what this place has been able to deliver year after year. I do enjoy coming here and I remember this was one of my favorites as a kid. When I was young, out of all the tracks that I had the chance to go to, this was definitely one of my favorites to come to. Milling around in the garage during the race and just how big the place was and the cars looked different because of the superspeedway bodies and it was just a really fun experience for me.
“And this was actually the first race track that I drove on aside from Myrtle Beach. I was racing at Myrtle Beach. Actually I wasn’t even racing Myrtle Beach. I was racing street stocks at Concord. And I think they were testing the V-8. They were going from V-6’s to V-8’s in the Nationwide Series. And Dad was down here driving it and Dave Marcus was out here driving Dad’s car. And Dad called me at the dealership. I was changing oil and told me to get my helmet and my suit and be at the airport the next morning and not to ask any questions or tell anybody where I was going. I didn’t know where I was going. I mean, I knew I was going to Talladega, but I didn’t know why. I assumed I was going to drive a race car somewhere. But we got here and he told me to get my stuff on and get in the car and go out and run; and hold it wide-open, that it would be on the stick. And I remember going down the back straightaway in that car and wondering if it was really going to stick when I got in that corner because it just didn’t seem like it was possible.
“But yeah, this is a real special place. My dad won a lot of races here and I’ve had the fortune of being able to get to Victory Lane several times. I think this place will just continue to deliver, year after year, long after I’m gone. It’s just such an impressive track and I really enjoy being here.”
YOU ARE THE SPORT’S MOST POPULAR DRIVER. BUT DO YOU GET THE EXTRA LOVE THAT YOU GET HERE AT TALLADEGA? AND DO YOU STILL GET A KICK OUT OF THAT BECAUSE IT REALLY IS UNLIKE ANYWHERE ELSE?
“Yeah, I think that we were winning so many races there in a short period of time from ’01 to ’04 and when we weren’t winning, we were running second or third and always in the middle of the race for the lead. And I think, I don’t know, maybe our personality is a good match for this area. I have had a lot of friends down in this area and spent a lot of time down here hunting. And for whatever reason, it’s just been a real comfortable area for me to be in. You know, you travel all over the country, racing in all the different parts of the country and some places you feel almost like you’re at home. And this is one of them.
“So, I think that Dad really started all that with the success he had here. Our DEI team came in and just kind of inherited already a pretty loyal fan base. This sport has got the most loyal fans as it is already. We sort of adopted a lot of people and we were able to go out and win. And that endeared them and has for some time now. And yeah, It makes it fun to come here knowing you’ve got a lot of people excited to see you run. And as soon as the race starts, when you starting on the line out there before you even get in the car, the first thing you’re thinking about is how fast you can get to the lead because you know a lot of people want to see you leading the race. And they come here to cheer that specific moment and hopefully see you go to Victory Lane. You just want to produce as soon as you can.”
WHEN YOU ARE GOING AROUND HERE, AND WHEN YOU TAKE THE LEAD, CAN YOU ACTUALLY HEAR THE FANS? THEY GET PRETTY LOUD. DOES THAT GIVE YOU ADRENALINE? DOES IT GIVE YOU A RUSH WHEN THEY ARE CHEERING FOR YOU? OR, DO YOU JUST HAVE TO BLOCK IT OUT AND JUST KNOW YOU HAVE A TASK AT HAND?
“No, you don’t block it out. I think you enjoy it. If you’ve got one fan or you’ve got thousands of fans, you know that when you put the car in first place, that they’re happy. I think you enjoy that as much as the fan enjoys it. You’re happy being first, obviously, but when you see the reaction that other people get from it, yeah, it’s a great feeling. It’s a really good feeling. Sometimes you swear you can hear them, but most of the time you can’t. But you can definitely see it. You can definitely see after lap after lap of going by the grandstand and seeing them sitting down. When you come by and they are standing up, it’s obvious. And you see the arms in the air and all that stuff. So, yeah.”
MATT KENSETH WAS JUST IN HERE TALKING ABOUT HOW YOU HAVE TO EMBRACE THIS PLACE AS AN OPPORTUNITY AND NOT GET CAUGHT UP IN ALL THE STUFF THAT COULD HAPPEN. KNOWING HIM AND KNOWING THIS JOINT IS THAT KIND OF MINDSET ESSENTIAL TO DOING WELL HERE?
“I think so. As much as I feel like a lot of things are out of your control so you start the race thinking ‘I’ve got no control over what is going to happen. I’m just going to do this or I’m just going to do that.’ I’m either going to lay back you make up your mind probably hours before the race. I’m going to run hard every lap or I’m going to take it easy, this is what I’m going to do. You still even after you’ve got this plan that you’ve talked about and thought about and maybe you spent time with your crew chief and your team. Maybe you spent a week on it who knows you still feel as helpless as a guy with no plan at all. Just because so many things are out of your hand, but I think you can psych yourself out and you can definitely anticipate negative results and negative things happening so much that you almost guarantee that as your fate. I think if you think positively ‘man this is going to work, I’m going to make the right choices when things are quite working right. I’m going to keep striving and pushing and I’m going to make this a good results. I’m going to get something out of this today’. Typically it works out. Typically that attitude is going to prevail over ‘man this isn’t going to work, every time I come here I’m going to wreck, every time I come here I’m going to have trouble, I can’t figure it out why even try’. That attitude never works
. But not that I think drivers are that extreme about it, but you definitely when you have so little in control.
“When you are driving at other race tracks man you are driving the car you are in control of getting the car better and you are in control of a lot more. Where here you are at the mercy of the draft and what line you are in. A choice to change lines a couple of laps ago might have you just going backwards with no option to get out you are trapped in that box. Trapped by the cars around just sort of ride that decision out for a few more laps. That is kind of frustrating, but you have to stay positive I think to not end up in that crash or not end up having a terrible result because you make all these terrible choices you have to stay positive and keep pushing. And try to stay positive I mean you will make five bad decisions but that one right decision you made might be the one that gets you where David Ragan ended up. Just like that he wins the race. You just got to keep plugging away and you are going to make a lot of bad decisions you just got to get ready for that.”
HAVE YOU GOTTEN BETTER AND THEN WORSE AND THEN BETTER AND THEN WORSE? WHERE ARE YOU AT NOW IN THE BACK AND FORTH OF IT ALL?
“Yeah definitely feel like I’m waiting on something good to happen. I don’t think that I’ve made too many bad decisions I suppose. I really don’t look back over each race and go ‘man you know this is exactly where I went wrong’ so I don’t take a record of everything. I feel like we haven’t got the job done and this is a place where I feel like I should know what I’m doing and should be able to go out there and get a great result every time. Every time you show up here thinking that this might be the weekend that you get it kind of turned around and put things back in the right direction. It hasn’t been going great here, as great as I want it to go here lately. We have torn up a lot of cars and been frustrated most times when we leave here. I still come back as confident and excited about the opportunities as ever. That is the way we feel this weekend.”
DO YOU KNOW WHY?
“The package changes a lot and you’ve got to adapt. Maybe I haven’t adapted as well to some of the packages or maybe I’m just not making the right decisions. You’ve got to make all the right decisions in the draft to put yourself in position to win. And I haven’t been doing that to win these races here, but my confidence and my determination has not changed a bit. I think you’ve got to adapt and I don’t think I’ve adapted as well as I’ve needed to, to the way this package needs to be ran. But I’m going to stay open minded to that and try to do a good job this weekend of putting the car where it needs to be and making better decisions that put me in position to have a shot at it. I just want to have a shot at it. You know we haven’t really even done that. Every time we have had these late restarts we have been in the back or outside the top 10 or just things haven’t gone the way we need them to go at the end of these races to have a shot and be up close to the front to make a move at the last few laps. That is the goal this weekend.”
YOU MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE CAN RELATE TO THE WHOLE POPULARITY THING WITH DANICA (PATRICK). DOES NASCAR NEED HER TO BE SUCCESSFUL EVENTUALLY AT SOME POINT IN TERMS OF HER RESULTS?
“I think that she needs it more than NASCAR needs it. I think that for her she wants it. She wants to be successful and strives to be successful and that is on her. That comes down to whether she can get it done or not and time will tell. I don’t think that the sport wins or loses either way. Obviously I mean if she is successful it is a plus, but no matter what happens to any of us the sport goes on. The health of the needle doesn’t move a whole lot depending on individuals. It’s really a sport of so many people and so many different drivers and so many different personalities you move one out and put another one in I don’t think the needle moves a whole lot no matter who we are, me or anybody.”
WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN IN JEFF GORDON THAT HAS ALLOWED HIM TO SORT OF TURN IT AROUND THIS YEAR? DOES HE HAVE THAT PASSION AND STYLE BACK THAT MAYBE HE HAD A FEW YEARS AGO MORE IN HIS SO CALLED PRIME?
“I think Jeff (Gordon) will tell you that he is not has been as successful this year as he’d hoped. He is as determined as I’ve ever seen him. I’ve only spent a few years actually as a teammate, but I’ve known him for a long time. His determination and how he goes through the process of working a race weekend being tenacious and trying to figure the car out and working with his crew and utilizing practice. I mean he puts in the effort and the desire is definitely as strong as it’s always been as far as I can tell. I think that he’s just a real talent and they are just trying to find the right combination of things to sort of get their team where it’s successful every week. I think they show the potential of that off and on and you see them win a race here and there and have struggles from time to time. They are just trying to find that consistency, but yeah, I mean he has got the confidence that he is the best guy out there and wants to go out there and prove that every week. I see that in him in his demeanor and his body language every week. I like having him as a teammate because of that, because of his determination.”
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Kurt Busch
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2013
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/WONDER BREAD CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Talladega Superspeedway and discussed his unique paint scheme this weekend, his current position in the Chase, the unpredictability of Talladega Superspeedway and many other topics. Full Transcript:
TALK ABOUT HAVING WONDER BREAD ON THE CAR THIS WEEKEND. WE WERE WONDERING WHAT YOU PUT ON YOUR WONDER BREAD?
“It’s a wonderful situation. The fun about this is it’s a re-launch for Wonder Bread. They were in bankruptcy earlier this year and the name was traded with the different companies and so with Wonder back on the shelves it’s a great advertisement for them to team up with us to do some marketing together with the power of NASCAR. NASCAR is a brand that can move and teach people about how loyal to be to a brand. So with Wonder Bread and NASCAR here at Talladega it’s fun, it’s exciting. It branches off of the ME car that I ran here last year. That was with the Armed Forces Foundation and creating awareness for PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) and I think that sparked some of the Wonder Bread executives on ‘hey Talladega, Wonder Bread, with Talladega Nights let’s do it and Kurt’s our guy’. It’s very tasteful re-launch of a brand.”
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO CHANNEL ‘RICKY BOBBY’ AGAIN?
“It will be fun. This is more serious this time around. Here we are in the Chase the No. 78 car has had a successful season. Barney Visser (team owner) we have to thank him for allowing all this to happen. I wish we could’ve won earlier in the year. Which would have mean the Furniture Row Chevy could go to Victory Lane, Barney could have enjoyed that and then he would have been more open to releasing his car for marketing opportunities such as this. I think we had to turn down a few different opportunities just because Barney (Visser) the main sponsor and the owner didn’t want to have another brand in Victory Lane. He wanted to have his brand. So Talladega it’s one where there is less of a percentage or is there more of a percentage of a chance to go to Victory Lane, but just the fun in all this to have Exit 10 marketing help us put all this together with the guys at Wonder Bread and the Zimmerman Agency it’s just a fun opportunity to make a strong impact with advertising.”
WILL YOU STILL USE SOME LINES FROM THE MOVIE DURING THE RACE OR ARE YOU GOING TO BE MORE CHASE FOCUSED?
“We are Chase focused and that is what we are here to do is to run well, run successful. There might be some slips of the tongue. ‘I want to go fast and slingshot engaged’ yes, but we are not going to have the full lines rehearsed like we have. It’s just going to be off memory on watching the movie.”
IS THIS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU AT A PLACE LIKE TALLADEGA WHERE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN TO REALLY MAKE UP GROUND IN THE POINTS?
“Yeah we were hoping at this point in the Chase that we would be within 30 points of the lead. That is not the case. So this is a go for broke weekend for two reasons. One is we have Wonder Bread on the car. They want to be up front, they want to be seen, they want to experience the return on investment on sponsoring the car. Secondly we need to go for the win. We need to have nothing but trying to try to win happen and get ourselves back in this Chase if we are going to have a shot at it.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE MOVIE TALLADEGA NIGHTS?
“Well the movie over the years the more you watch it the more you laugh at it. It’s a self-deprecating humorous approach about our sport of NASCAR. But at the end of the day the way we have always viewed NASCAR how powerful it is as a machine to team up with and to advertise it’s because of the loyalty of the fan base. To have Wonder Bread back on the shelves and easily accessible at your local grocer that is what we are here to do it to have people see the logo, see the bread and go pick it up and try it out. I grew up with it out on the West Coast.”
ARE THERE ANYMORE MOVIES ON YOUR BUCKET LIST THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOMEDAY?
“I think we need to get with Bojangles and do the chicken suit if we are going to do Stroker Ace, but this is probably the extent of it. This is a nice tasteful promotion. It’s a nice pat on the back to what the AFF (Armed Forces Foundation) helped me do with the ME car and with the Days of Thunder car when we ran City Chevrolet a couple of months back. A company, an organization such as Flower’s saw the activation and the fun we were having with it and said those guys can do us right and we need to team up with them.”
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE SCENE FROM TALLADEGA NIGHTS?
“It’s got to be either the beginning when he jumps in the laughing clown malt liquor car or the table scene when it’s the prayer that has got to be the best. Or it’s when Cal Naughton, Jr. is asking how to figure out how to run the TV and the radio at the same time because he likes to party.”
HAS TODD BERRIER (CREW CHIEF) BOUGHT INTO THIS?
“I don’t think (Todd) Berrier has bought into this as much as Nick Harrison has done in the past, but you might see him slip up and have fun with it. He’s got the crew uniform on, but again here we are we are in the Chase and we have some work to do.”
DO YOU HANG ONTO THE UNIFORM?
“Oh absolutely we will hang onto the one put it right there next to the other fun advertising that we have done over the years. I thought we were only going to have one, but we are going to have three suits. So I know we are going to be auctioning one off for charity and all the proceeds will be going to the Armed Forces Foundation.”
DO YOU WEAR THEM AT DIFFERENT TIMES DURING THE WEEKEND?
“Yeah, I will have a suit for each day. There is a Friday suit, a Saturday suit and a Sunday suit.”
HOW DID YOU CONVINCE BARNEY (VISSER) THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
“I think that it took time to see the other organizations try to knock on the door and for lack of a better term penetrate him into ‘hey this is a good idea we want to advertise with you, we want to be part of your team because you guys are running well’. I think with the bills adding up this year with the Generation-6 car he came in over budget, plus he never said no to any test session. He never said no to any expenditure that Todd Berrier (crew chief) was asking him for and maybe he saw this as an opportunity to gain some of the money back. But in my mind this is an advertising campaign that is worth a certain value. If you want to advertise with a Cup team the money is at least a half a million dollars when you do that this day and age. So that is a significant amount of money, but it’s also going to be a significant amount of exposure for Wonder Bread this weekend here at Talladega Superspeedway.”
WHEN YOU SAY TASTEFUL A LOT OF PEOPLE, I MEAN A GREAT MOVIE AND FUNNY, BUT MAYBE IT’S NOT THE MOST FLATTERING PORTRAIT OF THE STOCK CAR INDUSTRY…
“That is why Wonder Bread with their launch this weekend is what we are trying to do as a bone fide sponsor agreement. It’s not really themed from the movie. This is a re-launch of a brand.”
IF THE STANDINGS DON’T GET TOO JUMBLED THIS WEEKEND IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP TOO FAR AWAY STILL?
“Anything can happen any weekend. This being Talladega, yes, this one has the most percentage chance of shaking up the standings. Martinsville, it’s just as easy to clobber somebody as it is at Talladega. Then you have motor failures. That kept our defending champion out of making the Cha
se this year even though his run toward the Chase wasn’t as strong as it needed to be. Anything can happen any weekend with points when there is 43 for a win and one for last place.”
INAUDIBLE:
“We are all doing this for a good reason and that is the re-launch of a brand. Wonder Bread is back and it’s fun to have a black race car all year long painted white. It’s a big difference, it’s a big look, it’s exciting and I think the fans know that at Talladega the Talladega Nights movie is part of the way of life here at the track.”
THE TEST AT CHARLOTTE EARLIER THIS WEEK AND NASCAR KIND OF LOOKING AT WAYS THEY WANT TO CHANGE AERODYNAMICALLY THE CAR. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THE CAR TO HANDLE AS WE LOOK TOWARD 2014?
“We need to see more of how the IROC (International Race of Champions) cars handled in traffic and you saw passing. There were only 12 cars in that series, but it provided great excitement. It gave us a platform to race each other hard, side-by-side and produce a show that was only for those quick 50, 60 lap races, but those cars seemed to drive well in traffic. That is what we have to find.”
HOW DOES NASCAR NEED TO MODIFY THE CURRENT CAR TO GET TO THAT?
“There are people smarter than me to try to help out with that. If I knew I would implement those changes.”
TALK ABOUT HOW YOU GOT THIS WONDER BREAD THING STARTED. FANS ARE REALLY HAVING FUN WITH IT:
“We were given a call by Flower the parent company that Wonder Bread was re-launching. They wanted to team up with what I had done in the past with the ME car and Talladega Nights and we created that stage for a big organization to jump on and advertise with. It came from the past experiences.”
HOW DID THE FIRST ONE COME ABOUT?
“That was all the Armed Forces Foundation that was their brain child to draw more attention to the foundation and what PTSD really means and the movie exemplifies that when he thinks he’s on fire he has to go through rehab and then he comes back to be successful. It’s very similar to what I’ve gone through the last 18 months.”
DOES IT SEEM LIKE THE CHASE IF HALF OVER? ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FACT THAT THE END IS THAT CLOSE?
“The end sets in with your mind when you are officially eliminated from the championship, but at the same time I saw our mediocre finish last week as a true definition of our season. We are seventh overall in the points. We haven’t won a race. Sixth is obtainable in the point standings very easily we are only one point out. Are we a top-five team with the Furniture Row Chevrolet? Maybe we are not, but the season has been a success. We have defied the odds. We have worked harder than anybody in this garage to get to this point. We don’t quite deserve a top-five finish. I’m not giving up on it. I would love to get into the top-five and to be part of that group that goes up on stage in Las Vegas. But honestly if we can bring home sixth in the overall standings without a race win it’s almost as good as a championship run from where this team was a year ago at this time.”
HAVE YOU STARTED TO LOOK TOWARD STEWART-HAAS AT ALL AS WE GET DOWN TO THE END OF THE SEASON? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING TO GEAR UP WITH THAT TEAM?
“As far as Stewart-Haas Racing goes, I’m learning the people in their system more of the marketing side, more of the management side. I try not to spend too much time on it because of how strong the No. 78 team is running and my dedication towards this. My official start date isn’t until December, but you have got to get crew members lined up on a brand new team and that is the work that we are working on right now.”
IF YOU DON’T START UNTIL DECEMBER YOU WOULD BE BEHIND WOULDN’T YOU?
“A little bit, but Stewart-Haas racing is a program that can already build chassis and build bodies on cars right now before even the people on the floor show up to turn the wrenches on that car.”
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Jeff Gordon
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2013
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed Talladega as a gamechanger, how he is looking forward to Martinsville next week, what a championship title would mean to him now, and more. Full Transcript:
ON THE STRATEGY OF RACING AT TALLADEGA
“Well, I think some of it comes down to where we qualified. So, we’ll get through tomorrow. Obviously, coming into this race, strategy is to keep you out of that big one or keep you out of trouble the best possible way that you can do that. And ultimately, what’s going to get you a solid finish, if not a win out of here? I think we recognize where we are in the points and that this could be a turning point for us that we need to come out of here with a pretty solid finish and make up some of those points that we’re behind right now and that this is a track that we can do it at. We know there are other tracks where that can happen; it can happen anywhere.
“But this is certainly one where anything can happen and anything can happen anywhere. And we expect that. And we’re going to do everything we can to go out there and approach it in a way that’s going to give us the best finish. Sometimes that means we’re going to be real aggressive and sometimes that means we’re going to be real conservative. But to say that we have an exact plan at this moment, or to say that plan might not change when they drop the green, I just can’t say that because I’m not really sure.”
THIS PLACE CAN BE A GAMECHANGER. SO, DO YOU LOOK AT THAT AS BEING IN YOUR FAVOR OR IN YOUR CORNER?
“Well, we have nothing to lose. We’re sitting here fourth in points. We came into (the Chase) 13th. We’re sitting here in a great position and everything is a bonus from here on out for us. We’re certainly more in the mode of we’re not probably on eggshells like some of the guys are that are ahead of us in points and have everything to lose.”
WITH THE NEW CAR, DOES SANDBAGGING WORK AS WELL AS IT USED TO? DID YOU NOTICE THAT LAST MAY THAT YOU CAN’T HANG BACK AS MUCH?
“You certainly can’t expect us, with 10 or 20 laps to go, to just drive your way to the front. So, yeah, you’ve got to be real careful about trying to hang in the back and while it might keep you out of trouble, it also can get you a lap down.
“It can also put you in a position where you find yourself not getting any further up than 15th. And you might be right in the middle of that big one if it happens, in the final laps, so I absolutely feel like track position is still going to be important in the closing laps of this race.”
WHY IS IT? IS IT IN THE CAR OR THE SET-UP?
“It’s just so may cars and teams and drivers that could win here. It’s just the cars are all so equal with the type of drafting that we have. You really have to be careful pushing the cars ahead of you. So, I just know from the last time we were here, I was wide-open, pushing the guy ahead of me, and somebody was pushing me from behind. We were three-wide, but we weren’t going anywhere. We were just there, kinda stuck.
“And so I think that can work for you and it can work against you. If you’re in the middle of that, and a big wreck happens, you might escape and you might now because the chances are there is probably going to be a big wreck in that type of scenerio. But at the same time, if that doesn’t materialize, if that doesn’t happen, you’re going to want to be in the front of that pack.”
TALK ABOUT THE LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS TRACK
“All of us as teams and drivers want to go into a race track where we feel like we can tune the car to make it go faster than our competitiors; and that as a driver, that I can give information to the team to help the car go faster. And that’s just not the case here. So that’s a little bit frustrating the only time you come here. But at the same time, you do have to work the draft. You have to pick the right lane. And there are still skill sets that pay off at these types of tracks, but just less than others. That creates some frustration. It’s very easy to get shuffled out of the draft, which can cause some frustration.
“But, at the same time, when you’ve experienced what it’s like to go through that and win, it’s an awesome feeling. So, I’ve been able to experience both sides of that and you’ve got to come in here with a postiive attitude. You’ve got to know that there’s going to be times you’ve going to have to really be aggressive and that it’s going to be bumper cars at 200 mph at times and there’s going to be wrecks.
“That’s just part of it. But, at the end of the day, somebody’s going to win this race. And there’s no reason why we can’t win it just as easily as anybody else.”
IS THERE A TRUE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT THE GUYS IN THE CASE HAVE TO DO COMPARED TO WHAT THE GUYS WHO ARE NOT IN THE CHASE HAVE TO DO IN TERMS OF BEING CONSERVATIVE OR AGGRESSIVE?
‘I don’t know if there is a difference in how they approach it, but there is certainly going to be a difference in how they’re feeling about this race. When you come in with a pretty good gap on the compeititon like with what Jimmie (Johnson) and Matt (Kenseth) have, the last thing you want to see on the schedule is Talladega because you just know what the risk and the chances are of getting caught up in something; and that it can be completely out of your control.
“So, for those guys, they have more to lose than the rest of us do. We’re all trying to play catch-up and just hoping that we can come out of here and be unscathed and go on. And if we don’t, then we’re probably not going to win the championship. But we’re in a position right where unless something drastic happens over the next few weeks, we probably don’t have a shot at it anyway. We’ve got a big gap there. And we’ve been racing really really good and the cars have been fast and I’m proud of the team, but we’ve got to have some things happen to get ourselves really in the mix of this thing.”
IF KYLE (BUSCH) OR KEVIN (HARVICK) WERE IN FRONT OR BEHIND YOU, DO YOU EXPECT TO HELP THEM OR EXPECT THEM TO HELP YOU AS TO WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS?
“I don’t expect anybody to help us. And I don’t go into it planning to help anybody. If that materializes throughout the race, and I think that it’s going to be something that can help me and it happens to help them out, then absolutely I’ll do it. But at this moment, I can’t say that I’ve discussed working with anybody or anybody working with me.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHAT DALE EARNHARDT SR. DID HERE AT TALLADEGA AND ON THAT CLASSIC MOVE HE MADE THROUGH THE FIELD?
“Trust me, it’s not the only time I’ve ever seen that. I prided myself on trying to learn from it over the years when I was racing with him, to be able to do that myself and he was a master at it and he was a teacher as well as the greatest executer of it. He just knew how to work that air. Those times have changed a little bit. It’s a little bit harder to make those things materialize as much as they used to, but it still can be done. You still use that air to side draft and get momentum and get big pushes, but you ust get stalled out a lot easier now.
“So yeah, those are classic moments. They are moments I’ll certainly always remember. I remember that day and how frustrated I was that he did that to all of us. But it was like we couldn’t do anything to stop him. But that’s just how good he was.”
ON GOING TO MARTINSVILLE, WILL THAT BE AS OLD SCHOOL AS WE GET WITH A LOT OF BEATING AND BANGING GOING ON?
“I’m excited about Martinsville. I love that track. We always run well. We’ve got to figure out how to lead as much in the second half of the race as we do in th
e first half. We seem to dominate in the first half of the race just about every time we go there, but never seem to be able to pull off the win; or at least recently haven’t been able to.
“That’s where our focus is. You know there are going to be some classic battles there. It’s short track racing, hard-braking, side-by-side; it’s probably one of the toughest places that we race at and certainly plenty of contact.”
WHAT CHANGES WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN THE RACE CARS FOR 2014?
“I think we all recognize that aerodynamics and technology have really dominated motorsports in the last eight to 10 years. And it just continues to evolve. And so, trying to find a way where we aren’t as aero-dependant as we are right now and I don’t know how you get around that. It’s not an easy challenge.
“But we want to see more passing. We want to see more side-by-side racing and there are some tracks that still offer it. So, some of it falls on the track’s surface. Some falls on the tire. Some of it falls on the aerodynamics and the teams and NASCAR. So, we’re all playing a role in it. I’m just proud of them that they’re working towards trying to find something. I wish we would start earlier in the year on that. And I can’t give you all the details of how it went because I don’t know all the details, but at least they’re trying stuff.”
WHY EARLIER?
“Because it takes time. It doesn’t happen in a month or two months. Before we know it, we’re going to be in the off-season and new rules are going to be written and the season is going to start in January. And I think that we should be working right now for 2015. And we should always be at least a year in advance of the design of the car and of the package and trying to get ahead of it instead of always behind one step behind it.”
CAN YOU COMPARE WHO YOU ARE NOW TO WHAT YOU WERE WHEN YOU STARTED IN THIS SPORT?
“Yeah, I feel like I’m definitely a more patient and smarter driver today. Anytime a driver says that it means that he’s probably not putting it out there on the edge quite as much as he used to. So, you’ve got to take the pros and the cons of what you’ve learned over the years and where you’re at. I feel like in some ways, I’m proabably not putting myself in vurnable positions enough and pushing the limits of it, but on the flip side of that, I’m bringing the car home in one piece a lot more often.
“It all still just comes down to the total team effort and we’ve proven that over these last five or six or seven weeks. Earlier in the year, people wrote me off and said when are you going to retire? And now everybody is like wow, look at this guy. Where did he come from? He’s back. He’s got that confidence and that smile. Well, yeah. Because the cars have been awesome and as a team, we’re coming together at the right time and putting great efforts out there and results. And that’s fun. That’s what I like to do.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU WERE HEARING PEOPLE WRITING YOU OFF AND THINKING HOW MUCH LONGER DOES THIS GUY HAVE AND KIND OF THE SWAN SONG OF JEFF GORDON?
“You know, I get it. You’re all about performance and stats in this sport. I always love how earlier in my career, there were certain moves that were made or certain races that happened that I got all the credit and the team didn’t get enough credit. And now, I feel like it’s kind of the same thing. All of a sudden we’re runnning good and everybody is like oh man, Jeff’s confidence is back. Well, no. The team deserves credit. They work hard and unfortunately we just didn’t seem to have it earlier in the year, but we certainly do now and that’s just a sign of a good team that works hard. And for me, I never give up and neither does this team and that’s why we’re seeing good results.”
HOW MUCH WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU TO WIN ANOTHER TITLE?
“I just like the fact that you’re talking about that (laughs). That’s a good question to have you know, because it’s been a while since I’ve had that question asked; probably since ’07. And I’m excited about that. That means things are happening for us. It’s been so long, I don’t know what it feels like to win a championship. I’ve never won a Sprint Cup. And at this point in my carerr, (crew chief) Alan Gustafson and this team, I feel like they are very deserving of a championship. I’d love to experience this as a group as well as with my wife and my family and how much it would mean to all of us to be able to pull that off. I don’t even know if I have words to describe how much it would mean. The longer you’re in the sport, the harder your, and the more ups and downs you go through, the more meaningful wins and championships; certainly nothing would top that.”
DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD APPRECIATE IT MORE NOW THAN THE FIRST FOUR?
“Oh gosh. I can tell you I didn’t appreciate the first one near enough. And each one after that, I appreciated it more to have what 11 or 12 years now in between our last one, you’d better believe I would appreciate it a lot.”
Chevy Racing–Talladega–Danica Patrick
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2013
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS, took questions from the media at Talladega Superspeedway following the announcement that Aspen Dental will be joining the No. 10 team in 2014 for two primary sponsorship races and a year-long associate partnership. Patrick discussed racing this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, how racing at Talladega differs from racing at Daytona and other topics. Full Transcript:
THREE PLATE RACES UNDER YOUR BELT DO YOU FEEL BETTER PREPARED MAYBE THAN EVER TO DEAL WITH THESE THINGS AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE TO SURPRISE SOME PEOPLE WITH ANOTHER DAYTONA 500 LIKE FINISH? OR HAVE YOU JUST LEARNED THESE THINGS BASICALLY ARE JUST THE SAME OLD CRAPSHOOT FOR EVERYBODY IN THE FIELD?
“There is a certain level of it that of course is a little bit of a crapshoot, but there are patterns. I would say that one of my patterns is that they tend to be better races for me and that find a way to the front for a majority of the race. Hopefully this will be another one of those and I know that Stewart-Haas builds great speedway cars. I know I feel very comfortable and confident on these tracks. What I would like is for having good races to not be a surprise and especially on these speedways to really not be as they have been something that I’ve been comfortable and had good results at obviously from the beginning, but from Daytona especially.”
AS SOMEONE WHO IS NOT IN THE CHASE DO YOU THINK ABOUT RACING UP FRONT WITH CHASE DRIVERS NOW THAT WE ARE IN THIS PLAYOFF?
“I feel it’s an element of thought at times, but you just have to get on with the racing. I feel that when, just like with teammates, when you start to tiptoe around someone too much you are not doing what’s normal. Or in some ways not what is expected as a driver. You really have to get on with the job at hand and understand that these races will just play out how they will play out and there will be accidents. You hope that you aren’t the culprit, but if you are that on some level there inevitable in this kind of racing and that nobody wants to crash, but it’s just the nature of everybody going over 200 mph a couple of inches from each other.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS THAT HAS HELPED YOU HAVE THE SUCCESS ON THE RESTRICTOR PLATES? THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF VETERAN DRIVERS THAT HAVEN’T HAD SUCCESS AND DO NOT LIKE COMING. DOES IT FIT YOUR STYLE OF DRIVING? DO YOU THINK IT’S THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE YOU COME IN ACTUALLY LIKING THESE THINGS? WHAT IS THE KEY?
“I’m sure that you are right about some of those things for sure. Having a good attitude always helps. As I have said before IndyCar racing on mile and a halfs was much like this kind of racing. Flat out, close quarters and just trying to do whatever it took to keep the momentum up. I feel like visually it’s very familiar racing to me. Aerodynamics work different, but as far as the visual of how it goes and needing to keep the momentum up is very similar. Then it’s being with good teams that have good speedway cars it’s important. I think that has been seen in qualifying and obviously with Daytona qualifying on the pole for that race you need to have a really fast car to do that.”
HOW MANY FRIENDS DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE MADE ON THE TRACK BEING AS PEOPLE KNOW YOU ARE CONFIDENT HERE AT THIS TYPE OF RACING? TALK A BIT ABOUT WEATHER YOU THINK THIS RACE WILL BE ANY DIFFERENT THIS TIME AROUND BEING IN THE CHASE?
“Well I think as far as it being different these are the races that when I have been a spectator at home they are the ones that you see drivers that are in the Chase hanging back waiting until the last 10 or 20 laps before they really make their move and try and get to the front without putting themselves at risk the whole time. That is something that you might see that might be a little bit different although that happens every now and again otherwise. As far as friends go I think that happens when you do well. Everybody wants to be your friend when you are fast so the best thing I can do is go be fast.”
CAN YOU COMPARE RACING HERE WITH DAYTONA?
“The races are really similar other than the fact that Talladega is a little wider. They are very similar races.”
GIVEN YOU ARE THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY THROUGH THE SEASON NOW HOW DO YOU PERSONALLY JUDGE YOUR PROGRESS? DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE ON TRACK WITH WHERE YOU WANTED TO BE FOR THIS SEASON?
“I’m right where I need to be. I’m right where I was going to be. All I know is that I’ve done everything I can to prepare for the year, to learn throughout the year and that is what’s going to lead into next year. And trying to really put it altogether to get great results for GoDaddy and for Aspen Dental next year. I don’t think that you can ever plan how it’s going to go or give yourself a grade because everybody learns at a different rate. There are times that I probably was unexpectedly better than they thought and worse than they thought. It’s just my own personal progression and everyone’s is different.”
THE GEN-6 CAR WE THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE ADVANTAGEOUS TO YOU BECAUSE EVERYBODY WAS KIND OF STARTING ON THE SAME LEVEL PLAYING FIELD SINCE NOBODY ELSE HAD DRIVEN THE CAR EITHER. WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THAT CAR? YOU HAVE NOTHING REALLY TO COMPARE IT BY, BUT WHAT WOULD YOUR FIRST YEAR GRADE BE TO IT? DID YOU PAY ANY ATTENTION TO MONDAY’S TEST AND POSSIBLE CHANGES THEY MIGHT MAKE AND HOW THAT WOULD HELP WITH THE DRIVABILITY?
“I think it’s been a successful year for the car. I feel like there has been very little issues. It’s just a different balance of a car. I think it suited some driving styles better than others probably, but I think that it really comes down to as we feel and saw as a team to start the year off that you’ve got to bring the best cars possible. I feel like we started a little bit behind, but have rapidly throughout the year been learning and understanding the car better and better. What is hard is everyone else does that too to some degree, but I think that it’s going to give us a lot of knowledge going into the off season for what we need to work on to arrive with better cars next year. Speaking more in specific with excluding the speedways they are a special unique character of their own, but the rest of them. I think it’s been fine. I think there are no issues and I’m also definitely not smart enough to know what they need to fix it. I don’t have the experience with these cars yet to really know, but I will be for sure asking how the test went on Monday and I know that there were team members there to watch and to see what was going to go on and what is maybe happening for next year.”
MARTINSVILLE NEXT WEEK YOU HAD PROBABLY YOUR BEST NON-PLATE RUN THERE. DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE THERE AT ALL?
“Two extremes there, speedway then the extra short track. I think that what that shows is what is possible when you have a good car to work with. I feel like I definitely had that at Martinsville so the challenge for me this time around will be to not down shift from fourth to third when I come out of the pits and over rev the engine and have to start from the back and in general just have a better qualifying run so that I can start further up and work from there. It’s a short track and those leaders are on you very quickly if you don’t have a good qualifying run. Qualify better and let it play out from there.”
Chevy Racing–CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS
CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: Oliver Gavin’s Keys to Road Atlanta
Six-time ALMS winner at the circuit gives the inside secrets
With six victories in 15 American Le Mans Series starts at Road Atlanta, Oliver Gavin certainly knows his way around the circuit. Corvette Racing’s superstar Englishman has hundreds of laps under his belt around the 2.54-mile, 12-turn circuit and is immensely qualified to speak on the challenges the track presents as well as keys to quickly getting around. He hopes to taste victory again in the No. 4 Compuware Chevrolet Corvette C6.R with Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook.
Turn 1: A Thrill
“Turn 1 for me – if you get that right – is a really, really good corner. You come down the frontstraight, are braking on the bumps and go down one gear. Then you try to carry as much speed through the apex. The car tends to slide a little bit just as you apex, but the track starts going uphill and that catches you a bit. It helps with your line and gives the car a little extra grip. Then as you come out of there you have to line yourself up for braking into Turn 3.
“Should you get it right, it builds your confidence for the rest of the lap. If you’re on a qualifying lap, you have to make sure you get that corner right. It’s so important.”
The Esses: Biggest Challenge
“The most difficult section of the track is the combination through turns 3, 4 and 5.
“As you come into Turn 3, you’re braking up and over a blind crest, and you know you have to start turning into the corner before you see the apex. It’s all about repetition and getting that knowledge of where you need to turn in and how much speed you need to carry in there. You need to get over the curb on the inside in a way that the car floats over it. Then when you land on the other side you’re not bottoming out the car and you’re giving it as much speed through there to get down the hill – but not so much that you’re going on the curb at the exit. If you do that, the car gets out of shape and it can be difficult going down the hill.
“Then you’re hugging the curb tightly at Turn 4, and the end of the complex is almost always flat out in our car. Maybe in qualifying we will be flat. But on full tanks and worn tires, it’s harder to do. It’s right on the ragged edge. It’s an area where a lot of prototype cars have caught you out of Turn 1 and they are waiting for you to go through Turn 3 and to go by through 4A. That is a real challenge – either breathe and let them go by or keep them behind you going down the hill.
“It’s difficult then to get the braking point for Turn 5 right. That is a corner where you need to carry speed in and maximize the apex speed. Getting off the corner, you want to be able to use some of the curb on the exit but not too much. If you use too much the car will start leaping and bouncing around and can easily spin or go into the wall. But it’s critical to set up the run to Turn 6.”
Turn 7: Key to the Lap
“Whenever people talk about Road Atlanta, they usually talk about Turn 12, Turn 1 or maybe the Esses. But for me the most important corner is Turn 7 – going to the backstraight. If you get that right, you can make up so much time on everybody. You’re carrying all that speed through and out of the corner and all the way down the backstraight. It’s the longest section of straightaway on the whole circuit. It’s vital to get that right because it can really impact your lap time.”
Chevy Racing–Championship Battles in the Forefront as Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Heads to Auto Club Speedway
Championship Battles in the Forefront as Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Heads to Auto Club Speedway for Season Finale
DETROIT (October 16, 2013) – A championship battle is on the horizon for the Chevrolet teams and drivers in the IZOD IndyCar Series as they head for the season finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. After 18 weeks of racing on road and street courses the season ends at one of the toughest oval tracks on the circuit. The two-mile, D-Shaped Fontana, California track provides high speeds, an abrasive surface and the opportunity for tricky pit strategy for the championship hopefuls to traverse.
“The Finale at Fontana this weekend will decide numerous championships for the 2013 IZOD IndyCar racing season and our Chevrolet drivers, teams and technical partners are burning the midnight oil preparing for it,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “We have a strong racing package at this venue and deep talent within Team Chevy. Flawless execution will be required to come out on top. The drama of the championship battles coupled with 500 miles of superspeedway racing under the lights at Auto Club Speedway makes this race event the most intense of the year. Fans should be on the edge of their seats, or standing, whether they are in the grandstands or watching it live on NBC Sports Network or following it on Sirius XM radio.”
While everyone’s minds are focused on the tasks at hand this weekend at Auto Club Speedway the community’s thoughts are still with their injured competitor, Dario Franchitti from Chip Ganassi Racing.
“All of us at Chevrolet wish the best for Dario Franchitti and those who were injured or affected in the last lap crash in Houston,” continued Berube. “This sport pulls together like one family in these situations and everyone at Team Chevy is hoping to see Dario up on his feet and back in the race car soon.”
250 laps are all that remain between Team Penske Chevrolet driver Helio Castroneves and his first IZOD IndyCar Series championship. The veteran driver enters the finale 25 points behind the championship leader, but looks to have a strong run at Auto Club Speedway. The Brazilian has one victory on the season at the 1.5-mile oval Texas Motor Speedway and is poised to battle for the win and if all the stars align take home his first series title.
Chevrolet is also gridlocked in the battle for the coveted Manufacturers’ Championship title. The quest to defend their 2012 award will come down to if the Bowtie Brigade can find their way to Victory Lane for the 10th time this season.
All the championship hardware will be presented following the 250 laps/500 mile race which is scheduled to start Saturday at 8:00 p.m., PST with live TV coverage on NBC Sports Network. Additional live coverage will be provided by IMS Radio Network on XM and Sirius Channels 211 as well as on www.indycar.com live timing and scoring.
CHEVROLET IN THE IZOD INDYCAR SERIES – FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT:
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, 2nd IN STANDINGS (ONE 2013 WIN):
“It’s going to be an exciting weekend at Auto Club Speedway.. We have put what happened in Houston behind us and we are ready to go fight for the championship. We had a very fast Auto Club of Southern California car at the Fontana test a couple of weeks ago and we go into this weekend with a lot of confidence. I have all the faith in the world in my team and I know we are capable of getting the job done on Saturday night. Everyone should make sure they are watching, because I have a feeling this is going to be an awesome race.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 DR PEPPER ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 5th IN STANDINGS:
“We have been dominant in the 500-mile races and have led a lot of laps, but Fontana is about leading the right lap, and that’s what we need to do. I’d really like to end the season with a ‘W’ for the Dr Pepper team. Auto Club Speedway is a tricky place to get right with the seams, but will be rewarding if we do.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 6th IN STANDINGS (TWO 2013 WINS):
“As a team we have some great memories of what we accomplished at this race track. This time last year we fought through adversity all weekend long to claim the overall championship by just a few points… what a comeback. We learned a heck of a lot about what we need to do different with our setup at this track, and following a successful test just a couple weeks ago, we’re optimistic headed into the final race. For one reason or another, things just haven’t gone our way this year despite recording three poles and two wins. We may not have the championship on the line Saturday night, but we’re really hungry for that third win this season. I think we’re ready.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, 7th IN STANDINGS (TWO 2013 WINS):
“We’re looking forward to ending the season strong with a good result this weekend in the Verizon Chevy at Auto Club Speedway. With the series championship and the manufacturer’s title on the line for Helio and Chevy, it’s definitely going to be interesting. We want to build on the good finishes we’ve had here in the last few races and score some points to hopefully help with both championships.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 9th IN STANDINGS (THREE 2013 WINS):
”This is one of the toughest tracks we race on all year! The low downforce configuration and the seams wreak havoc for us. It’s so easy to be caught off guard, and so 500 miles there feels like 1000 anywhere else! That said, the team had a strong test there a few weeks ago, and hopefully that translates into a good package on the GoDaddy car for the race weekend. It would be great to end the year with a podium and head into the off-season with some momentum.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, 11th IN STANDINGS (ONE 2013 WIN):
“I’m really looking forward to the final race of the season in Fontana. We had a good test there last month and over the season we have shown that we are very competitive on ovals. This is a big weekend for the team. We have $250,000 on the line for the Fuzzy’s Triple Crown Award if we can win here and also, obviously it will be my last race with KV, so I would like to give Kevin Kalkhoven, my good friend Jimmy Vasser and the whole KV Racing organization another victory to remember me by.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, 12th IN STANDINGS:
“Fontana, last oval and last race of 2013. After a strong second half of the season with a few podiums, it would be great to finish in style on a superspeedway. We haven’t been very strong so far on these kind of tracks, but during the last test, I think we found some interesting setup options and I am hopeful Dragon Racing and myself will be able to put the No.7 Mc Afee / True Car / Chevrolet at the top.”
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HVM CHEVROLET, 13th IN STANDINGS:
”Excited to finally head to Fontana which has always been a controversial place. Last year was a very difficult race with a lot of bumps in the track, a lot of changes in the height and seams in the lanes which makes the stability of the car more difficult. It’s also a place that is normally pretty hot, so with all these factors together, it’s going to be a tough weekend. But, we, once again, have faith in the research and development we’ve done as a team.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, 15th IN STANDINGS:
“I’m really looking forward to this weekend’s race at the Auto-Club Speedway in Fontana. We had a test there last month and I think it went really well. I’ve improved a lot on the ovals this year and am looking forward to a strong finish! I want to thank my team, the Nuclear Clea
n Air Energy campaign, and Chevy for all their support this year. We’ve had some really great momentum the last few races, finishing the last four races in the top-10 and getting my first IndyCar podium in Houston. We’re working hard to keep that momentum going with another great finish this weekend in Southern California.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA/ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, 18th IN STANDINGS:
“Last year’s Fontana win was the most gratifying since it was my team and we were in our first year of operation. It meant a lot to go up against the big teams like Ganassi, Penske and Andretti and win the race with our new one-car team. Winning the pole at Indy was a huge accomplishment for our team too. We were the little guys going against the big ‘Goliath’ teams and we prevailed. Now, we come to Fontana and the big teams are racing for a series championship. But I think they know that our one-car effort will be a contender too. It’s always fun to come back to tracks where you’ve had success. Last year we were successful at the Fontana Open Test and that carried through the race. We were pleased with our recent test last month. So let’s hope that carries over again in Saturday’s 500-miler. Fontana is always fun because it’s really challenging. The weather changes a lot and the track changed too. One of the things we have been working on this year is to be able to use more of the track.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, 21st IN STANDINGS:
“It’s amazing how quick this year went by, we’ve been working so hard and seeing where we are right now compared to where we started makes us wish that there were a lot more races ahead. We need to keep the good strides we’ve put forward and finish strong. The test we had last week was good with a strong race car, we need to continue to work on the car to have a good show out there on Saturday. “
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, 22nd IN STANDINGS:
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:
“It’s going to be a lot of fun to get back behind the wheel of the No. 2 IZOD Team Penske Chevy this weekend. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve raced in IndyCar so it’ll be important in practice on Friday to get comfortable in the car and with our setup. It will be an honor to represent IZOD in their final race as series sponsor and hopefully we can come through in a big weekend for Team Penske.”
Chevy Racing–Corvette Racing at Petit Le Mans
CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: A Weekend of Curtain Calls
Road Atlanta marks final race for Corvette C6.R and ALMS championship
DETROIT (Oct. 16, 2013) – This weekend’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta will see two of modern-day sports car racing’s most prominent names take the checkered flag. The Corvette C6.R competes for the final time in the hands of Corvette Racing for the final event of the American Le Mans Series. One of the most successful models ever fielded by Corvette Racing, the C6.R will make way for the all-new C7.R to debut in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
Two Compuware-sponsored Corvette C6.Rs are entered for this weekend’s 1,000-mile/10-hour Petit Le Mans. GT championship leaders Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen team with Jordan Taylor in the No. 3 Corvette while Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook pilot the No. 4 entry that opened the ALMS season with a victory at Sebring.
All said, the C6.R helped deliver six ALMS manufacturer and team championships along with five driving titles since 2001. Garcia and Magnussen can add to that tally this weekend by finishing at least seventh or better in class. Considering those facts, it is no surprise to see Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and its drivers throughout the ALMS’ history records.
There are 55 victories worldwide for the C6.R, which made its racing debut in 2005. Of those, 51 were in the ALMS and four came at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Breaking down the numbers further, the GT1 version of the C6.R scored 42 victories – including a record-setting 39 in the ALMS. At one point, the C6.R won 25 consecutive races in class between 2007 and 2009; it is the longest such streak in ALMS history, regardless of class.
Corvette Racing will end the American Le Mans Series as its most successful entrant. The team’s 82 victories are 27 more than any other competitor. Corvette Racing also has 54 1-2 team finishes in ALMS events and has been the fastest qualifier in 64 races – both series records.
Current Corvette drivers rank near the top of the ALMS’ lists of individual categories. Jan Magnussen enters Petit Le Mans as the co-leader in the ALMS starts with 115. Oliver Gavin isn’t far behind with 110 starts. The Brit leads in career fastest race laps with 29, and ranks third in both career victories (40) and career poles (20).
The TUDOR United SportsCar Championship is a result of a merger between the ALMS and GRAND-AM. The series will feature 12 events throughout North America.
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“This car has won Petit Le Mans several times. For sure it would be great to end the ALMS by winning again this year at Petit Le Mans with it and win the drivers’ championship. It’s a very special car and has won so many races around the world.”
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“I’ve been involved in the ALMS since the beginning. It’s been a championship that personally gave me a second career in racing. I pretty much thought that when I was done with Formula One and the way it ended that it would be it for me. Coming here and getting into this championship – first with Panoz and then in GT racing – has been a super privilege. It’s not just to race but also to fight for championships with the biggest manufacturer in the ALMS.”
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“It is going to be the last race for quite a few things – whether it’s the last race of the ALMS or the last for the C6.R. I’ve gone all the way through the life of the C6.R – both the GT1 version and the GT spec. It’s been so successful and been a great car to drive and be around. I take a huge amount of pleasure in driving it. I’m sure the team has taken a lot of pleasure in working on it and preparing it for the racetrack each weekend. It has been up against the best car manufacturers in the world and oftentimes putting us on the top step.
“If journalists are looking to write a story on the ALMS, the GT car that been there through all its years is America’s sports car – the Corvette. It will be viewed as one of the dominants cars of the ALMS. Corvette has been there for every single Petit Le Mans. If you say ‘ALMS GT car’, I think the automatic reference is a Corvette. The noise and the velocity yellow scheme are the hallmarks of the ALMS. Other cars have come and gone. Chevrolet and Corvette Racing have always been here. The key has been a group of people who have stuck together and functioned properly as a team. Weekend after weekend, we are able to get that high level of performance from the mechanics, engineers, other crew and drivers. It’s been an amazing run. I have to pinch myself sometimes to realize I’ve been part of it. Sometimes in the sport, you have to look back after a couple of years and realize what you’ve been involved in. You look at the last couple of years here with great competition against different brands of cars and different teams. I’m sure we will look over the last couple years of the ALMS GT class and say there was some mighty and fantastic racing at every single round.”
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“The C6.R has featured pretty prominently throughout the ALMS. It was incredibly successful in the GT1 spec. And I think in GT that we have proven pretty well that the chassis and package – no matter where it was raced – was competitive, fast and won championships and everything there is to win in production-based racing. It’s a testament to the car and to the team’s drive, determination and competitiveness to make it a dominant force.”
DOUG FEHAN, CORVETTE RACING PROGRAM MANAGER
“By any measure, the Corvette C6.R has rightfully earned a place among the greatest sports cars of the modern area. Its on-track successes have proven it to be a more-than-worthy successor to the C5-R. Teamed together, these two proud representations of the Corvette production car have made Corvette Racing the most successful team in ALMS history. In addition, with seven Le Mans victories to its credit, Chevrolet and the Corvette brand are now highly respected around the world. All this was achieved through the hard work and dedication of al the guys on the team and the unwavering support of Chevrolet’s management, marketing and engineering personnel. I could not be more proud of all of them.”
(Saluting the ALMS) “It was the extraordinary passion and vision of Don Panoz that led to his creating the American Le Mans Series. In doing so, he literally set the stage for Corvette’s return to international sports car glory. His ability to bring together the historic 24 Hours of Le Mans in combination with the ALMS created what is now considered to be the most competitive sports car racing in the world. Chevrolet and Corvette will be forever grateful for his efforts – Thank you, Don!”
Chevy Racing–Charlotte- Post Race
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 12, 2013
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 QUAKER STATE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
THAT WAS A HECK OF A BATTLE BETWEEN YOU AND BRAD KESELOWSKI THERE IN THE CLOSING LAPS CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?
“Yeah, we had a great race. I was on two (tires) and he was on four (tires) and he could just move around a little bit better. I was trying to move around, but I was just a little bit on the tight side with the front end, then I would get loose if I got the front working. I was doing all I could and felt pretty good, but he made some nice moves and just really had some speed there late in the race and was able to get by me.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S DOVER WHITE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH
ON THAT FINAL RESTART IT LOOKED LIKE YOU DROPPED BACK A LITTLE BIT, BUT THEN CAME BACK AND HAD A GREAT BATTLE WITH KASEY. WHAT HAPPENED THERE THAT YOU DROPPED BACK?
“Down in (turns) one and two just in the dirty air I pushed the No. 5 off into (turn) one. He didn’t get the best restart and something to do with that combo got me off the bottom and a couple of cars got into the side of me. If we could have come out second which was really close with the No. 24 and start on the front row I think it would have been a much different result for us, but it didn’t happen. We led some laps tonight, had a good car. I’m not sure what happened in the points, but I know it’s awfully tight up there right now.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SIXTH
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS YOU GUYS JUST KEPT SWINGING AWAY AND GOT A DECENT FINISH OUT OF IT:
“Yeah, we got a decent finish, but our car was terrible all night. I just have to thank all my Jimmy John’s guys for working hard and keeping the car on the lead lap. Then just the restart went our way there at the end and we were able to get a decent finish out of it. We survived.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SEVENTH
HOW WAS YOUR NIGHT? YOU HAD A REALLY STRONG CAR
“I don’t know about that. It was a solid night. I was really good out front there in the beginning. We really struggled all day on Friday and tonight we could just not get it to take off good and then be good on the long runs. It looked like some guys were maybe a little bit freer than us on the shorter runs, but we were still able to maintain some good laps times and then be good on the long runs. It was a solid effort. It was a great call there to try to make two (tires) work. Our car was just way too tight to be able to do it. We lost a few more positions than I was hoping. But it was still solid.”
DID THE LONG GREEN FLAG RUNS NOT GIVE ENOUGH TIME TO ADJUST ON THE CAR?
“We’ve been adjusting on it all weekend. I don’t know. We had a very fast race car but just trying to get the balance is really temperamental. I don’t know. That’s why we debrief and keep working at it. We were very strong and overall it was a good weekend for us. But I was definitely anticipating or hoping to be a little bit better than that.”
DO YOU THINK THIS WAS AN OPPORTUNITY LOST WITH HOW STRONG YOU THOUGHT YOUR CAR WAS ALL WEEKEND?
“It was certainly an opportunity. You want to take advantage of that number one pit stall but we didn’t have enough cautions to do that. We need more cautions. We needed more cautions because when we had the track position we seemed to be able to maintain it, but once we lost it there was no getting it back. And all those green flag stops just didn’t really suit us. So, we still had a solid effort tonight. But yeah, when you look at the guys who finished ahead of us, they are all the guys we are racing.”
YOU ARE 36 BACK IN FOURTH; FIVE RACES IN. HOW GOOD IS THAT?
“I’m pretty impressed with that, to be honest. We’ve got to be realistic and while we’ve been really strong ever since the Chase started, we also came into this thing barely making it in and one week we probably weren’t in it and then the next week we’re in it and then we came from 13th to where we are. So I’m very proud of that and I’m not going to let this get us down. But, I also feel like we’ve been knocking on the door to get a win and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
TALLADEGA IS CONSIDERED THE WILD CARD RACE. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TALLADEGA AND MARTINSVILLE?
“I’m looking forward to Martinsville. I don’t know if anybody is looking forward to Talladega but it’s part of it. And you’ve got to go in there with a positive attitude and fight and do your best and try to avoid whatever may occur there or what’s going to occur there and hope that you come out with a race car, it doesn’t even have to be in one piece, it just needs to get across the line with a decent finish.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED EIGHTH
ON HIS NIGHT:
“We struggled all night on the short run. Our Quicken Loans Chevrolet was really good as the run went on; it would come to life 20 or 25 laps into the run. But by then, we’d lost track position and couldn’t get it back. We weren’t able to capitalize on the speed we had in the car. Matt Borland (crew chief) kept adjusting on the car all night, but we couldn’t get it where we needed it to be. At the end of the day, we came home eighth, which means we’ll pay 10 mortgages for 10 fans thanks to the “Bring it Home” sweepstakes, and Monday will be a Bloomin’ Monday at Outback Steakhouse.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 14TH
ON HIS RACE:
“We lost the handling of the car and it was a struggle the entire night. We had an upbeat feeling about tonight after two strong practices on Friday but nothing really materialized for us to make a charge. It’s disappointing to finish where we did (14th) after having a number of solid runs on the mile-and-a-halfs, including last week’s runner-up finish in Kansas. Next week we’ll give it another go in the Wonder bread car at Talladega.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 15TH
TALK ABOUT YOUR NIGHT:
“The car just got really tight. We’ve got to take it back and something moved. Something in the set-up moved, but the car was real quick at the start of the race. We were just kind of real happy with the speed. The No. 5 was really good and the No. 48 got real good. Still thought we had a top-five car and I don’t know what happened. We lost a rubber out of the right-rear spring or something like that. It just would not turn at all the last half of the race pretty much. We are just kind of trying to figure out what is going on. We will get it back and figure it out when we get to the shop on Monday. It was still a good effort by all the guys on this Time Warner Cable Chevrolet. We are having some pretty good cars we just something happened tonight we are not quite sure what it was. We will find something I’m sure. The car just doesn’t get that tight from running that good without any adjustments. We were freeing it up, moving the trackbar, taking wedge out and just getting tighter and tighter something wrong with it.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 20TH
“We didn’t have a great starting spot with our GoDaddy Chevy, and as always at these mile-and-a-halfs, track position is really important just because how tough it is to run in traffic and as a result pass. It really was just a little tight the first couple of runs and then man, I don’t know what else we could have done to fix the balance. All we needed really was track position and more yellows so we could get back on the lead lap. The team did a really great job of working through practices and m
y pit crew did an awesome job of getting me out in record time. We just needed track position.”
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 12, 2013
MARK MARTIN, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – SIDELINED WITH AN ENGINE FAILURE ON LAP 82
WHAT HAPPENED THAT PUT YOU BEHIND THE WALL?
“Well we broke a valve spring earlier and we were trying to nurse it along to maybe a caution where we could possibly work on it a little bit where it wouldn’t self-destruct, but we didn’t get that. When you run one with a broken spring a lot of times you wind up failing something else. I hate that for everybody. I hate that we brought out a caution, but we were just trying to do the best we could there. Trying to nurse it along and see if we could make it to the end.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THAT SOMETHING WAS GOING TO GO WRONG?
“It went down a cylinder on the front straightaway a while ago. That is when we started falling back obviously. We went down on seven cylinders no warnings no issues up until that point. These guys are pumped up and we were ready to go racing and it’s really early in the night to be out. I would have liked to have raced and got the experience of adjusting our car and fighting and battling with it. But we didn’t get to do that.”