Category Archives: Chevrolet Racing

Chevy Racing–MAVTV 500

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
MAVTV 500
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 15, 2012
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: BEING A TEAM OWNER/DRIVER: “This feels great for a brand new team that just started in November.”
 
ON OVALS: “I probably should have won Indy (Indianapolis 500) but I kind of messed up a little bit. We have been trying to win ovals all year and finally got it done tonight. Good way to end the year.”
 
PASSING DARIO FRANCHITTI FOR WIN: “I got a good start, I thought that maybe that was going to be my last chance to get by him and then he just kept protecting the bottom and I started working the top where I would run all night through one and two and kept building momentum, and building momentum and finally got close enough to get a draft and get a run around him on the front stretch.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 28 TEAM DHL/SUN DROP CITRUS SODA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD: 2012 IZOD INDYCAR SERIES CHAMPION: HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET THAT DONE? “I have no idea, that was a team effort right there.  We were struggling all weekend and I didn’t want to let anyone know about it.  We were really in the woods and this hasn’t sunk in yet.  I just drove 500 miles like it was for my life. I cannot believe we are IndyCar champions, but to IndyCar, Sundrop, Chevrolet, DHL, and everyone, you have mad my dreams come true.”
 
SO THIS RESTART ON THE FINAL RUN, THIS ISNT WHAT YOU WANTED TO SEE, RIGHT?  “Yeah, absolutely, I just wanted to get set back into a rhythm as it was a little bit better but I knew after that red flag I was just sitting there and thinking the tires would take another heat cycle and that we would slide around a bit more.  Everybody raced tough, but they raced clean and my God…….I don’t know about the race but we just kept making it better and better and they did a great job with the radio and the guys did a great job in the pits.  This hasn’t sunk in yet as I am just full of adrenaline. “
 
HOW ABOUT THE WRECK WITH WILL, HOW CLOSE WAS IT? “You know, I don’t know, he (Will Power) was right next to me and I saw him lose it.  I feel like it was pretty close but I have no idea, you tell me.”
 
IT WAS CLOSE RIGHT?  “Yes, it was close and he was joking around that he would take me out if it was too close so……..”
 
TWO YEARS AGO YOU WERE OUT THERE DRIVING A SHOW CAR SO I GUESS YOU DIDN’T THINK THIS MOMENT WAS POSSIBLE? “Not really, and now we have put the hard work in and have the right group of people in surrounding us and Will Power has done a great job of supporting us so I don’t want to overshadow that.”
 
MICHAEL ANDRETTI, CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM OWNER OF NO. 28 TEAM DHL/SUN DROP CITRUS SODA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET:  “This is an incredible day. It wasn’t going so good right at the start there – we were struggling a little bit – and then we saw Will (Power) have his unfortunate accident and we knew it was open from there. We needed to get the job done and it was a lot of hard work. Ryan did a helluva job, and the whole team did – getting the car better and better throughout the race. We had enough there at the end to get it done. I’m just so proud of everybody here with the DHL/Sun Drop team…. There’s a lot more to come. This team is still getting better and better and I think we’re going to be even stronger next year.”
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, SIDELINED AS A RESULT OF SINGLE CAR ON-TRACK INCIDENT ON LAP 56, CREW REPAIRED THE CAR, HE RETURNED TO THE TRACK FOR 12 LAPS OF COMPETITION: ON WHAT HAPPENED? “I just caught a seam. I had a bit of understeer, so I went a half a lane down and caught a seam. It absolutely took me by surprise. It is the last thing I thought would happen running down there on that seam. Depressing to lose the championship again that way.”
 
HOW DO YOU FEEL? “It’s a season, and you can’t make mistakes like this. The whole season, this is just another race.  It’s depressing to lose the championship again that way. It’s the season; you can’t make mistakes like that. I had understeer all night, I was having to lift, half a lane lower than I was before and caught a seam, and yeah. Man, I don’t know what to say, it’s depressing. I was surprised, I had been pushing all day and just went a little bit different than what I had, and nothing I can say. It’s just depressing. My team was pushing me to get around him (Ryan Hunter-Reay), and it was just a mistake. Just a mistake.”
 
HOW DO YOU LOOK AHEAD TO THIS? “There is a very slim chance. I don’t even want to watch the rest of race; it’s just going to be so…  I don’t know what say. I don’t know what emotion to feel right now, I’m so disappointed. I just thought (when it happened), another championship gone. That is basically what I said to myself. I am so disappointed for Verizon and all the guys, just to make a mistake like that is just…just bad. It never comes easy, man. It never comes easy.”
 
WILL POWER – POST RACE QUOTES – FINISHED 24TH: HOW HELPLESS DID YOU FEEL WATCHING THE RACE UNFOLD? “There were definitely times where it looked hopeful, but full credit to my guys for getting the car out to do those 12 laps. It gave us a couple of points. At the end of the day (Ryan) Hunter-Reay is definitely a deserving champion. A real fighter. Probably as far as all-around drivers go, one of the best in the Series because he wins at each discipline. As I look back on the season again, once again the ovals…three crashes on three of the ovals this year, that is massive hits in the points. Three years winning the Road Course Championship quite convincingly, it’s very obvious where I lack.”
 
TALK ABOUT THE EFFORT BY YOUR TEAM TO GET YOUR CAR BACK IN THE RACE: “You see how hard those boys worked. That was a great effort considering how hard we hit the wall, and to be back out probably 45 minutes later. Full credit to them. To lose another championship, three years in a row, man, I feel because all the guys have been with my car for the last three years. They put in a tremendous effort. I feel bad for Penske Racing.”
 
DID YOU THINK AT SOME POINTS IN THE RACE IT MIGHT COME TOGETHER? “I did. I was. You never give up hope. I was thinking anything is possible in IndyCar. Anything can happen.”
 
WILL THE OVALS BE THE FOCUS ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE 12 CAR PROGRAM NEXT YEAR? “It is interesting because we are not slow. I just can’t put my finger on why. It’s not like we’re slow. Or the same thing happens every time. I just don’t know why on the ovals I am jinxed. We get involved in someone’s accident. I don’t know what you do. Where do you look to be better at that? You become massively conservative, or you become really aggressive. It’s hard.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6th: “Man, I thought we had a winner tonight in the No. 3 Auto Club machine. We had a great car and just needed some help here and there to finish up front. The Auto Club guys really did a great job in making adjustments and we thought we could get by some people on the final restart with the new tires. I am disappointed we did not get the championship for Team Penske, but in the end it is a top-five finish and that is a good place to be.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 26 TEAM RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8th: “It’s a good thing we were prepared for war tonight. That’s what we had. It was just fight, fight, fight. We were fast, but we had some clutch issues that caused us to stall a couple of times in the pits, so we would drop back and then have to claw our way back up there. I wish we could have had a better result after starting on the pole, but we tried our hardest.
“Congratulations to Ryan (Hunter-Reay) on the champions
hip, they deserve it, and the whole Andretti Autosport team worked really well together this year, and winning the championship is a great reward for everyone in the company.”
KATHERINE LEGGE, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH:  ON HER RACE: “The team did an awesome job, I had one of the fastest cars out there. It was my lack of experience, and my mistakes in the pits that cost us a top-six, top-eight. It really could have been very good, but I made three big mistakes. But to get ninth, we’ll take that to move on to next year. 500 miles doesn’t seem that much longer. You get in the zone, and get focused. When the red flag and you come in and start to heat up, that is when it is like ‘oh, I still have eight laps to go’. It kind of sinks in. It was fun.”
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD/PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11th: “Obviously we got off to a killer start and the National Guard Chevy was really good those first couple stints. On the restart I was running high and had to pedal it while Ed (Carpenter) stayed flat and drove straight through. I felt like I had the pace to get back by him, but just by the nature of the two lines we were running I was getting a lot of dirty air on the exit of the corners. I knewthat if I could keep the pressure on him I could get back by, I could see that he was struggling a little but, but I was the one that ended up getting caught out. Massively frustrating deal. I felt we had a car that was going to finish in the Top Five and I felt like we had a shot at winning this deal. I’m super frustrated for the team, cause we definitely rolled the dice with a couple things for this race and we had a chance to run up front all day. Once I got stuck a little further back, the car was still good in traffic, but then everybody else moved up on that top line. We got a couple of our laps back, but obviously not enough to get back on the lead lap there by the end.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 TEAM GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13th:   “This is one of those times when we’re all hoping that we get back to the shop and find that something was broken on the car. We had such a strong first stint, we moved up to seventh, and the guys were great in the pits and then it just fell off the wagon.  As soon as the sun went down, I’m not sure if it was just the set-up or a problem, but either way a very tough day for the Go Daddy guys. They deserve better than that. I really wanted the season to end on a high note, so for us it’s a bittersweet day. With Ryan taking the championship, it’s huge for the team, and big congrats to him and everybody on the team for working so hard all year. We’re thrilled for him.”
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17th: “It was a disappointing result, the No.2 IZOD car was running really well at the start of the race. But at the end of the second stint there with Will’s crash in turn two we ran over his wing and I think it might have damaged our diffuser and we just struggled from then on throughout the night. I’m just proud of the guys, they did what they needed to do and it just didn’t go our way tonight.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 GEICO/MOUSER ELECTRONICS KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18th:  “I was trying to go for it.  I had nothing to lose.  I was trying to win the Oval championship.  I got caught in the middle of traffic and just lost it.  It’s a shame.  We had a strong car when I was in front.   It is what it is.  Let’s move on and get ready for next year.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 PANTHER/DREYER AND REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH:  ON HIS RACE: “At the end…we struggled a little bit with the car at the beginning of the weekend. But in the race, I really liked my car. But we had something strange happen, we were having all this debris getting the radiator. We didn’t want to blow our beautiful engine, so we had to keep stopping because it was getting over heated. Our race was over then. We had to stop every 10-15 laps to clean the radiator. Strange. We had a couple of strange things this year. Filter, fuel and things that usually don’t happen. A few more DNFs than we want. We had a great season, especially since we got the Chevy power behind us, definitely.  Good season. We want much more, but we had some strong runs. Hopefully we can come back next year stronger.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AFS RACING ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21st: “I had a blast, to be honest, and I think we need to focus on the positive side of this race. It was an unfortunate situation where the tire temperatures just took us out. We were doing an amazing race. We had a top-five car, but you know at the end I’m very happy to race with my teammates up-front there. And for (Ryan) Hunter-Reay, to be a part of team  that wins the championship, to be a part of that process, and just so proud of them and big congrats to Hunter-Reay. This is the beginning of something big. We’ll keep focused for next year and bring that No. 17 car back.”
RUBENS BARRICHELLO, NO. 8 BMC/EMBRASE KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 22nd: “I enjoyed myself a lot out there.  I had a good car at the beginning and it was all going really well, but unfortunately it ended literally in fumes.  I enjoyed being back on ovals and at Fontana.  I need to thank my crew for their hard work this year a look forward to next year.”
EJ VISO, NO. 5 CITGO/PDVSA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 25TH:  “This was one of the most frustrating weekends of my career.  Starting with testing on Wednesday I had a car that was extremely difficult to drive because it lacked grip.  I believed at the time it was because the track was very slick especially with the downforce levels we were running.  Today I had the same feeling in the car, but I was really looking forward to the last race of the season.  I was focused and I thought we had a chance to make it into the top-six.  However, in the race I had to stop because I was lacking both front and rear grip.  We aren’t sure what caused it, but we definitely need to investigate that.”
About Chevrolet

Chevy Racing–MAVTV 500 Qualifying Interviews

Marco Andretti Wins the Pole at Auto Club Speedway; Ryan Briscoe Makes it Chevrolet Front Row for Final Race of 2012 Season
 
FONTANA, Calif. (September 14, 2012) – Marco Andretti, No. 26 Team RC Cola Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, won the pole for the MAVTV 500, and will lead the 26-car field to the green flag in Saturday night’s IZOD IndyCar Series season finale at Auto Club Speedway.  Andretti’s two-lap cumulative time of 1:06.6455 with an average speed of 216.069 m.p.h. captured the 10th pole of the season for Chevrolet. It is the first pole position this season for Andretti, and his first at the Fontana, California track.
 
Ryan Briscoe, No. 2 IZOD Team Penske Chevrolet, turned in the second quickest average speed to make it an all-Chevrolet IndyCar V6 front row.  It is the fifth top-two qualifying effort of the season for Briscoe.
 
Championship contenders Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, qualified third and 17th respectively, but each will be assessed a 10 grid position penalty for unapproved engine changes prior to the start of the 250-lap/500-mile race on the 2.0-mile track.
 
In total, seven Team Chevy drivers were in the top-10 of the final qualifying order. In addition to Andretti, Briscoe and Power, Chevrolet IndyCar V6 powered drivers Tony Kanaan, JR Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter and Helio Castroneves landed in the top-10 at the end of the qualifying session.
 
Josef Newgarden (Honda) and Scott Dixon(Honda) completed the top-five in today’s qualifying.
The MAVTV 500 IndyCar season finale is scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m. PT (8:45 p.m. ET) Saturday night with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network.
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at

Chevy Racing–IZOD INDYCAR SERIES MAVTV 500

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
MAVTV 500
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 14, 2012
 
 
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 26 TEAM RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: ON HIS QUALIFYING: “Pretty good. First lap 218 (m.p.h.). We were showing some in practice, but I didn’t want to stick it in the wall in practice. And, that is what you have to do, you have to risk sticking it in the wall to go flat (full throttle). I got it flat on the first lap, but the second lap, I had a big understeer, and then a snap. So there was a little on the table for the second lap, so that concerned me about the pole run.”
 
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE POLE, DOES THAT HELP GOING INTO THE FINAL RACE? “Yeah, thanks man. It means a lot. Just what we have been going through this year. Me in particular just been a very trying year for me and my career. It’s good for the confidence, but we still got to get a race car under us tonight which I think we can do. But credit to the whole RC team, but the whole Andretti Autosport is just taking a huge step up this year. And let the best man win tomorrow.”
 
ON YOUR SEASON: “Toughest part of my career. It is inspiring me to work harder outside the track and work harder in the car and still try to see what I need in the set up to get me quick, because I am not going to be quick on these tracks. And a little bit of leading luck will help.”
 
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: ON HIS QUALIFYING: “It was good. On my warm-up lap, I run the limiter up in turn three on that bump, so I went to the top gear which wasn’t ideal. It was sort of dragging around the track, but I didn’t hit the limiter. I went into qualifying saying there are two things I need to do. I need to be flat (full throttle), and I need to not be in the limiter. So I just went to the tall gear, and it was a bit sluggish. But the car was good. I was able to hold a pretty good line around the whole track. We just missed it. It is good. In a race like this, it doesn’t matter where you start, but the prestige of pole is always something. It would have been nice.”
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD:  ON QUALIFYING: “It was very unpredictable.  I was the first of my team’s cars, too.  Wind changes, the whole track changes.  I had totally different balance to what I had all weekend.  Yeah, I mean, man, I got hard limiter both laps down the back straight on a bump.  Yup, starting grid.  Sometimes I’m glad when I start on pole.  Every time, if I start on pole, it’s bad.  Start back in the pack, it’s great.  Hopefully that’s true here (laughter).  So, yeah, it is what it is.  It’s a 500-mile race.  It would have been nice to get the point.  Yeah, we’ll see tomorrow.  Just hang in there, just stay there and hopefully have a shot.”
 
ON STRATEGY FOR THE RACE: “We are focused on the things we can control. Things are out of your control in the race. We are going to do what we can, and see how it ends up.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 GEICO/MOUSER ELECTRONICS KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7TH: “I had a decent qualifying run.  I am little concerned about the race.   In my opinion the car is a little sketchy on the downforce that we have chosen for the race, but I respect IndyCar’s decision on that and we will make the best out of it.”
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD/PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: ON QUALIFYING: “It was pretty good. We took a little bit of a different strategy here in qualifying. It was good for us to work on some things out there. The car was good. The biggest problem I had was with the bumps down the backstraight. Our gearing was a little high, and I just got stuck in the rev limiter for a long time because it was so bumpy. So that brought our speed down probably a little bit. But, with some of the grid penalties and that kind of stuff, we will move up so as far as for the starting grid tomorrow, we are looking pretty shiny right now.”
 
ON TONIGHT’S PRACTICE: “Those first couple of hours when the sun is going down is actually when it is going to be the toughest. As much as we don’t want to have to do it two days in a row like that, it’s good for us to get some practice for us to get some practice for Saturday’s race for those first couple of hours of the race, for sure.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 9TH: “After our warm-up lap of 214 (m.p.h.), I thought we might have a shot to beat Marco’s (Andretti) speed.  But we built a little too much understeer in the car and I had to lift in turn two. It is fun here though.  I‘m enjoying this track.  I thought it would be bumpier than back in 2005 when we were here before.  But it’s smooth than Kentucky.  The (chassis) package for this track is hard but I like it.  It’s a better package than what we ran at Texas.   If we were going to race in conditions like this with the speed, it wouldn’t be good.  But the track will cool off for Saturday night’s race.  I think the fans will be happy with the racing for the 500.  The track temperature was 140 degrees.  That is hot.  For the race, the track will cool down and produce a lot of grip for the cars.  This track is tricky for everyone up and down the pit lane.  Of all of the places we’ve run this year, I think there are more racing lanes here.  You will see guys run on the white stripe and others up against the wall in the race.  This will be my first 500-mile race other than Indy.  I was thinking about going and talking to some of the guys who raced 500 miles here before.  It’s different than Indy.  Indy is intense.  But you have a 5/8-mile straight to take a breath.  You don’t get that luxury here.  It will be a long night.”      
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 10TH: ON QUALIFYING: “Qualifying did not go the way we expected. The speed we felt was a little bit better, especially what we had in practice. Conditions are very difficult for everybody; over 100 degrees.  When you have to do an average speed (two laps of qualifying) is becoming very difficult. What happened is the first lap was a tremendous push in turn one. I adjusted myself in the second lap, and we were able to gain two mile-an-hour from one lap to another. It is what it is. We have a great car. The Auto Club of Southern California car is actually very fast during race conditions. We are looking forward to tomorrow.”
 
ON TONIGHT’S PRACTICE TO GAIN MORE KNOWLEDGE ON RACE CONDITIONS: “We had a great run in the few days of testing, so we feel that we are in good shape. I have to say the Chevys are running really strong here. Hopefully the last race of the season, we get another win for Chevy.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 TEAM GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH: ON QUALIFYING: “It’s a scorcher out here today and it’s going to be a hot race, even at night. It’s very difficult track conditions with the track being this hot and we haven’t done a whole lot of qualifying-sim work. We’ve been working a lot on the race car which I think is going to be important. We need to make sure that Ryan (Hunter-Reay) has the best car – we all have the best cars that we can possibly have when we roll on the grid tomorrow. We have four cars to try and work on different setups and make sure that all of us, but especially the 28, are ready to go out there and do well and try to bring this title back home to Andretti Autosport.”
 
RUBENS BARRICHELLO, NO. 8 BMC/EMBRASE KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13TH: ON QUALIFYING: “I am happy with my result.  We are obviously very lucky because so many dri
vers have got penalties so I have moved up some places.  This morning, I had very little running as we were trying lots of things, so I ended up going blind into qualifying with a totally different car.  But, I am happy.   I think we have done okay and will now work on our race setup for tomorrow.”
 
KATHERINE LEGGE, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14TH: ON HER QUALIFYING: “It was solid considering we weren’t very happy with the car in the test. The team did a great job. They did a lot of changes. My Chevy is feeling fast, and racey. We had a bit of a bauble on the second lap otherwise I think we would have been well inside the top-10. I think we are looking good for the race. The track here changes so much here temperature-wise, we don’t really don’t know where we are at for tomorrow. I think it is invaluable to be able to practice tonight.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 28 TEAM DHL/SUN DROP CITRUS SODA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: ON QUALIFYING: “Not a great qualifying run for us but it’s a 500-mile race so really not that bummed about it. We just hadn’t dialed our qualifying trim in with the DHL/Sun Drop car and that caught us out a bit. We missed the balance and (the car) took off on me a bit there at the exit. It was definitely hard to put a good two laps together. We’ve been focusing on the race though – that’s the big thing, we haven’t done any qualifying runs today so it’s something that we just haven’t really put a lot of time into. Tonight we’ll go out and work on race trim and get these four Andretti cars up front.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 PANTHER/DREYER AND REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 18TH: ON QUALIFYING: “Qualifying was better than this morning. This morning we were not happy with car. We actually made big changes. We put in the same setup as my teammate (JR Hildebrand) which was great to be able to do that. The car was better, but still was a little too loose. I almost lost it out of turn two, like big time. I couldn’t even be flat. So for not being flat, I thought the speed was pretty good, We can fix it tonight.
 
WHAT MAKES TURN TWO SO DIFFICULT? “The difference is there is banking here. Then you go through the corner and then there is more banking. The backstraight has zero banking. So it goes from having banking to really disappearing while you are still in the corner. So all of a sudden, you still want to turn, but there is not banking and the car is not going to turn the same way. If ever it is going to go, it is going to go there.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AFS RACING ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 21ST: ON QUALIFYING: “The day started exactly like we wanted. We did a great job in both practice sessions. We qualified on the pole for Firestone Indy Lights, which was great. We want to end the season on a high note. We just need to continue working and improving the Indy car because tomorrow will be a long race. I don’t see our INDYCAR qualifying being as important as Indy Lights is, since it will be so long. I believe jumping from one car to the other does mess with your head a little bit. I think I should have improved a little bit in the Indy car, but I am comfortable to bring the car home and focus on the race.”
 
EJ VISO, NO. 5 CITGO/PDVSA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22ND: “We didn’t really plan on being fast in qualifying.  We went out with a very safe setup.  I don’t feel comfortable on this track.  It is extremely bumpy and irregular.  I feel that the drivers are extremely exposed and I don’t blame Mike Conway for deciding not to race here.  It is going to be a long race and we are just focused on have a very stable platform.  That is all that really matters.  You just have to hang in there and finish the race.  It is going to be very challenging.  If the series doesn’t decide to add more downforce I won’t race.  It’s tough to understand where the challenge ends and the stupidity begins.”

Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams and Drivers Ready for Season Finale at Auto Club Speedway

Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams and Drivers Ready for Season Finale at Auto Club Speedway; Two Championships to be Settled in MAVTV 500
 
DETROIT (September 12, 2012) – After 14 races; 14 battles for wins – it comes down to this weekend’s MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway for Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers to settle both the IZOD IndyCar Series coveted Driver’s Championship, as well as the Oval Track Championship.
 
“It is hard to believe that we are heading to the final race of the 2012 season,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “It has been an extraordinary year for Chevrolet as we made the return to IndyCar competition with the all new 2.2 liter twin turbo Indy V6 engine. The results stem from the passion, skill and experience applied via the collective effort of the Chevy Teams, our technical partners and internal resources.  But, there remain a couple pieces of unfinished business as we prepare for the weekend at Auto Club Speedway – the driver’s championship and the oval track championship.  We feel very fortunate that there are Team Chevy drivers mathematically in the mix for both titles.  We wish all of the Team Chevy drivers and teams the best of luck this weekend in Fontana. It is sure to be a nail-biter.”
 
The top-three drivers in the battle for the Driver’s Championship are all members of Team Chevy. Team Penske’s Will Power heads to the two-mile oval track with a 17 point lead over Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay. Helio Castroneves, also from Team Penske, sits 35 points behind Hunter-Reay.
 
Tied atop the standings for the Oval Track Championship are Hunter-Reay and KV Racing Technology driver and former Series Champion (2004) Tony Kanaan.  James Hinchcliffe, Andretti Autosport, is sitting in third position in the Oval Track Championship standings.
 
“Having a 500-mile race as the season finale is a great way to close out the IndyCar season,” concluded Berube.  “It requires a significant effort from everyone involved; the race teams and drivers, Firestone tires, Sunoco fuels, the Holmatro Safety Team and countless others that make the race a show of skill, strategy and grit.  It is also good practice for another piece of unfinished business – that other 500-mile race in May.”
 
Chevrolet clinched the Series Manufacturers’ Championship following the 13th race of the season at Sonoma Raceway.  That same weekend, Power was crowned the Road Course Champion for the third consecutive season.
 
Saturday night’s 250-lap/500-mile race will be the first appearance for IndyCar at the Fontana, California track since 2005.  Chevrolet competed previously in Indy-style competition as an engine manufacturer in 1986-93 and 2002-05 with V-8 engines, winning 105 races which included two victories at Auto Club Speedway, 2002 and 2003.  The wins powered Chevrolet to six driver champions, and included seven Indianapolis 500 victories.
 
The IndyCar season finale is scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m. PT (8:45 p.m. ET) Saturday night with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network.
 
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at www.indy.car.com.

Chevy Racing–Grand Am Laguna Seca

Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook Take the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP to Victory Lane at Laguna Seca to Become First Team in GRAND-AM Rolex DP to Score Three Wins This Season; Chevrolet Inches Closer to DP Engine Manufacturers’ Title; No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GS.R Team Takes the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Win
SALINAS, Calif, (September 9, 2012) – Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook were determined to make a strong statement when they unloaded Friday at Laguna Seca Raceway.  They started out by winning the pole for today’s Continental Tire Sports Car Festival GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series (Rolex) race; and ended the weekend standing atop the Victory Podium with the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette Daytona Prototype (DP) sitting in the Winner’s Circle after claiming their third victory of the season – the first team to accomplish that in the Rolex DP class this season.
Pole-winner Westbrook started the race, and led the first 28 laps around the 2.238-mile/11-turn permanent road course.  The running order shuffled with pit stops, but Westbrook kept the bright blue Corvette DP in the hunt, near the front of the field, until he turned the car over to Garcia.
Garcia was credited with leading twice for a total of 11 of the 111 laps run, taking the lead for the last time with five laps remaining in the race.
The victory was the seventh for the all-new Corvette Daytona Prototype in its inaugural season in Rolex competition, and moved Chevrolet closer to the coveted Engine Manufacturers’ Championship with one race remaining in the season.
Claiming the second spot on the podium was the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP driven by Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney. After qualifying second, the pair of drivers clearly had one of the strongest cars in the field and was able to bring home their second consecutive podium and their fourth of the year.
“Congratulations to the Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook as well as the entire No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP team on their win today at Laguna Seca to become the only team to win three races this season.” said Jim Lutz, Chevrolet Program Manger, GRAND-AM Road Racing. “The No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP drivers, Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney had a great run today as well, and brought home a second-place finish to give Chevrolet Corvette DP the top-two podium positions. Both teams were strong off the trailer on Friday, and were able to carry that momentum through to the checkered flag. It will be an exciting weekend for us at the season finale coming up at Lime Rock Park in two weeks.”
Making Chevrolet a double winner at Laguna Seca were Matt Bell and John Edwards behind the wheel of the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GS.R  The pair captured their first win of the season on Saturday in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) race.  The victory was the second consecutive win for the Camaro GS.R.
The race was slowed numerous times by cautions, but the Stevenson duo battled from the eighth starting position, and combined to lead a total of nine of the 71-lap/2.5-hour race.  Edwards took the lead for the final four circuits of the event.
Lutz concluded by saying: “Congratulations as well to Stevenson Motorsports drivers Matt Bell and John Edwards on their exciting win on Saturday in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race as they took the No. 9 Camaro GS.R to victory lane for the first time this season.  That is back-to-back race wins for the Camaro GS.R, and we are very proud of the performance of our teams in CTSCC.”
In the Rolex Grand Touring (GT) class, it was a challenging day. The No. 31 Marsh Racing Corvette driven by Boris Said and Eric Curran finished seventh in-class. And Robin Liddell and John Edwards rallied from starting last in the field to bring the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R to the finish line eighth in-class.
Other Chevrolet Rolex finishers were: No.9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP – 5th; No. 10 SunTrust Racing Toshiba Corvette DP – 7th and No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP – 9th.  In CTSCC, Chevrolet finishers were: No. 00 CKS Autosport Camaro GS.R – 7th; No. 6 Mitchum Motorsports Camaro GS.R – 17th in-class; No. 01 CKS Autosport Camaro GS.R – 18th in class and No. 62 Mitchum Motorsports Camaro GS.R – 24th in-class.
GRAND-AM moves next to Lime Rock Park, Lakeville, Connecticut for the season finale in both Rolex and CTSCC on September 28-29, 2012.
CHEVROLET DRIVER QUOTES:
GARCIA:  WERE YOU AWARE HOW CLOSE YOU WERE ON FUEL? “Nope. Basically since I came in for fuel, I thought I was safe to go to the end. Basically we risked a little bit more than that. At least we got it back on the in-lap. It doesn’t really make any difference at some point. As soon as I knew I was coming in, when I came out, I knew I had to push us. I knew the 99 was doing his own race in front of me. That was the main thing. Me against him.  We were about a half-of-a-lap apart. I got held a little bit in traffic, but for the most part, I was managing the speed and the traffic pretty good. So we were able to go ahead of them. Very nice
“Richard did an excellent job in his two stints. So half of the job was done by him already. So, brilliant!”
WESTBROOK: HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT FOR YOU TO HAVE THAT EARLY-RACE TRACK POSITION? “We did. We were going into the unknown. Everyone was. We didn’t know how the tires were going to hold up running under green for so long. Our car was excellent. We kept the track position. We filtered down the order when everyone short-filled. We really just had to keep our head, and wait for everyone else to pit. It could have gone the 99’s way if they had gotten the yellow. We thought about staying out and taking the risk. I am just delighted. I think it was a really good advertisement for DP racing this weekend, which is really important with the merger going on. I just want to thank everyone at Spirit of Daytona.”
WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THE LAST THREE RACES THAT SPEED WASN’T THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR TEAM, BUT I KNOW IT WAS VERY FRUSTRATING. WAS THERE A TIME WHEN YOU STARTED TO DOUBT AS A TEAM THAT MAYBE IT WAS GOING TO BE IMPOSSIBLE TO GET BACK TO VICTORY LANE? “No, you never think that. It is really important that you stay professional, and keep your head up. When you fly back home, just to really try and forget about the last race and try to look forward to the next race. It did become difficult particularly after Montreal. But we came here nice and fresh. Got here nice and early. Got rid of the jet lag, and had a few rounds of gold. I am so relieved to have a trouble-free weekend.
GURNEY: “We hard fought for this finish. We came back from a penalty, and a problem in the pits. We definitely had a very quick car. At the end there, the guys had a strategy to see if actually we could get a yellow in the last few laps, didn’t happen. But even with that, we thought there was a chance we could get out ahead of the No. 90 after the last stop. But, I got caught up into the GT field and had four pretty slow laps there and that did it.”
BELL:  “Our crew chief Mike Johnson actually called it about halfway through the race. He just started laughing hysterically turned to us and said, ‘We’re going to win it.’ We were in 12th-place with a bumper falling off and already had one face lift done. Our engineers really put it together.”
EDWARDS: “I don’t think I’ve ever crashed so many times and won the race. I wasn’t too optimistic about getting a podium even halfway through the race. Slowly everyone started making mistakes and we found ourselves in the lead.”

Chevy Racing–All Corvette Daytona Prototype Front Row for Chevrolet in Rolex Sports Car Series at Laguna Seca Raceway

All Corvette Daytona Prototype Front Row for Chevrolet in Rolex Sports Car Series at Laguna Seca Raceway
 
SALINAS, Calif. (September 8, 2012) – A pair of Corvette Daytona Prototype drivers scored front row starting positions for Sunday’s Continental Tire Sports Car Festival GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series race at Laguna Seca Raceway. Richard Westbrook put the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette Daytona Prototype on the pole with a lap of 1:21.042 (99.415 mph).
 
Jon Fogarty put the famed “Red Dragon”, No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP, in the outside of the front row for the 2.75-hour race scheduled to start Sunday at 3:00 p.m. ET. (Noon PT).
 
Other Corvette DP qualifiers were: No. 10 SunTrust Racing, Corvette DP, Ricky Taylor, 4th; No. 5 Action Express Racing, Corvette DP, Paul Tracy, 7th and No. 9 Action Express Racing, Corvette DP, Darren Law – 8th.
 
In Grand Touring class, the No. 31 Marsh Racing Corvette qualified in sixth position.  The No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R was moved to the back of the starting grid for a technical infraction.
 
The No. 01 CKS Autosport Camaro GS.R led the way for Team Chevy setting the third quickest time in qualifying for the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race scheduled for later today.
 
The other Camaro GS.R qualifiers were:  No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports – 8th; No. 00 CKS Autosport – 13th; No. 6 Mitchum Motorsports – 14th and No. 62 Mitchum Motorsports – 19th.

Chevy Racing- ALMS, GrandAm Merger

Mark Reuss, President, GM North America, statement on today’s announcement regarding the merger of GRAND-AM Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series:
 
“This is an exciting moment in sports car racing. This merger combines the best attributes of GRAND-AM Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series to create a singularly focused series. Congratulations to Jim France and Dr. Don Panoz on having the passion for sports car racing and the vision to take it to the next level. The joining of these two series will provide a foundation for Chevrolet to develop technologies and race cars with tremendous relevancy to the production vehicles we sell today and in the future.”

Chevy Racing- Baltimore Post Race Interviews

RYAN HUNTER-REAY, No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, Race Winner
MICHAEL ANDRETTI, Winning Team Owner, Andretti Autosport
RYAN BRISCOE, No. 2 PPG Automotive Refinishes Team Penske Chevrolet – 2nd Place Finisher
WILL POWER, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet – Point Leader
 
            THE MODERATOR:  We are joined by today’s race winner, Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport.  Ryan is second in Championship Series points standings down 17 points as we head into the season finale at Fontana in two weeks.
 
            Q.  Going from being dry and then wet and some guys didn’t switch out like Will’s guys waited to switch out the tires and going through the course, what was the most difficulty today?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  I can’t describe how nerve racking that is when it rains on a street circuit and you’re on slicks and you know the championship is on the line; and if you get through this thing, you’re going to have a great race.
            Unbelievable emotions in the car, just trying to tip‑toe through some of those corners.  But these cars are very stiffly strung and they are 700‑horsepower, and putting that down on a city street when it’s wet is one of the tougher things in racing I think.  I’m just glad I got through that.  That was very nerve‑racking. I enjoy racing in the wet but I prefer rain tires when it’s wet for sure.
            It was good but we made it happen.  We thought that it was just going to sprinkle and that I would have to live through a little bit of a wet track and hopefully that sprinkle would end, and it did.  We never came in for rain tires, I think that was absolutely critical to our win today.
 
            Q.  Although after the race on pit lane, Will kind of criticized the restart thinking that you may have jumped the restart; he admitted at the end that given the circumstances he would have done exactly the same thing.  When you know the race victory is on the line and your championship could be on the line that was pretty much the only move that you could make.
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  Well, that and everybody had been jumping me.  So it’s like, I don’t know, what am I going to do.  I just came down there, and I feel for Briscoe’s situation, because he’s the leader.
            But the rule is that when the green flag is waving, and that’s what I was looking at.  This is a rare circumstance.  Usually you’re cued up on the other guy next to you or in front of you depending where you are on the grid.  But I knew they were going pretty early on the restarts.
            And that’s not a criticism to IndyCar.  The problem is, if you go too much later than that you have everybody come through the chicane, and then the first five rows stack up and then you have 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, all of them are coming through in third gear on the chicane.  And they just never lift the whole time and never get a run on anyone else and you have a huge accordion effect.
            Before we criticize IndyCar on throwing an early restart or an early green, you need to look at all the factors involved.  Certainly I had my eyes glued on the starter and that inside was going to be mine, no matter what.  I was not going to let that up, because I knew Pagenaud was coming.  My tires by the end of the race were square.  I looked up so many times going into turn one.
 
            Q.  Michael ended up making a brilliant strategical call in terms of what tires to take.  Were you following his call and didn’t think about the ramifications or did you think that if this doesn’t payoff, you might be screwed?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  You never like being out there in the wet on slicks.  Especially through the fifth gear, turn 11, when that’s wet, oh, my, that was crazy.
            But you know, he said let’s just see ‑‑ he said to me, he said we are going for the championship.  If we are going to do, it let’s do it.  Coming in fourth or fifth is not going to do anything for us.
            I really look up to that.  That’s a pretty brave move and it worked out.  I had to keep the thing off the walls as long as it was drying and when it started drying, I had a big smile on my face for sure.
 
            Q.  If you were to step back and sit where we are sitting and you think how this went today, would you say, no way, this really can’t happen; would you almost describe it as an unbelievable day?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  It is, man, I’m so happy to be a part of it.  So cool.  It is really ‑‑ it is an unbelievable day.  We had one thing we could do to keep this championship and that’s win, and we did that.
            Now we get to go to Fontana, which is an absolute crapshoot.  It’s wide open and anybody’s race.  Granted the usual suspects, Ganassi and Penske, usually are very strong on ovals, especially the Super Speedways.  Too bad we are not going to a short oval right now.
            We are going to go and test, and I have not done a lot of testing in Super Speedways in the past before the races so this is going to be a unique opportunity.  Like I said I believe in what these guys can do, and you’re right, though, it’s an amazing day.  Couldn’t write the script any better other than finishing in Sonoma.
 
            Q.  Points have shrunk between you and Will.  Do you go into the next race solely concentrating on the next race or all‑or‑nothing?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  The championship was on the line today and that’s really the only thing I’m fixated on winning.  This is all I’ve worked for my entire life and to come this close, I haven’t been nervous at all or anything.  I’ve just been enjoying it and driving 110 percent and really getting along with the cars and feel like I’m in rhythm with the car.
            Hopefully we’ll have that at Fontana, too.  I’m enjoying it.  I’m glad I don’t feel really nervous between races or on the race weekend.  Haven’t had any of that.  We have been keeping it light and having fun.
 
            Q.  Speaking of storybook endings, you have not had an easy career, you have lived through teams that dissolved, teams that fell apart and didn’t have it together and now this year is the magic year.  Do you at some times have to wake up in the middle of the night and think, my gosh, it’s all happening and if so, how do you keep that emotion in check?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  I’m certainly very thankful for all of the opportunities that I’ve been given in my
life and racing.  I’ve had the opportunity to drive a lot of different formulas and a lot of different race cars.
            All things happen for a reason and if you keep working at something it’s going to come good; and if you believe in it, most of all, if you believe in it, it can come good and that’s how I have just gone about it.
            The period from the end of 2005 to 2007, those were the longest days of my life not having a ride, an answer, not having anything.  That was a long time period.  I just kept my faith at the racetrack and kept working at it.
            Just like life in general, the more you put in, the more you get out of it.  Every day I show up on the job, I have a beautiful Indy Car sitting there waiting for me, and that’s my job to drive it, I mean, how cool is that.  That’s awesome, awesome.  Couldn’t think of anything better.
 
 
            Q.  What did you think about the way the starter was flowing the green flag?  Aren’t they supposed to wait until at least a few of you are out of the chicane before they lined up properly?
RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  On the restart thing, every time I came out of the chicane the flagger was sitting there getting ready to wave it and they were waving it ‑‑ right as the first row paired up, they were waving it, especially later in the race.  And I knew that.  I came out of the chicane and got right next to Briscoe, and boom, the green was out and I think he was looking out his peripheral at me and waiting for me ‑‑ the flag was green.
            Definitely jumped out and I’m happy about it.  But you know, it sucked for him for sure.  I don’t know what happened behind me today but I want to commend the drivers that were running up front.  We were wheel‑to‑wheel the whole time, really late passes but everything was clean.
            One of those restarts I almost didn’t come out of turn one.  That was really close.  But that’s what I had to do to keep the guys behind me.  On the double‑file restarts, you’re just a sitting duck when you’re starting up front.  When you have a single‑file restart, the leader has the advantage because he can jump whenever he wants to.
            But on the double‑file deals, everybody behind you, knows when you’re going and they are going to be drafting you.  So you’re pretty much a sitting duck.
            What a day for Andretti Autosports.  It’s an Andretti Sports Marketing event, and we need to do it now, for sure.  Can only imagine what if; we need to do it.  We need to go do it at  Fontana.  I think we are going to have a great car there.
 
            Q.  The one thing that Briscoe plained most about was that you never got paired up.  Did you think you got side‑by‑side with him for the restart?
            RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  We are not going to go through my data but you can see in my data that I lifted off and then my back right, so I came next to him, listed up and went right back to.
            It might have seemed like one motion to him because granted he’s waiting for me to catch up to him so I could see how he would think that but I came off the throttle to wait for a moment.  I was just staring at the starter and not even looking at him because I knew how early they were throwing it.
            Yeah, I got the best of that.  That’s where Simon went from 7th to whatever, or 6th to first on one of those.  He just came out of the chicane and went and I said, okay, I’m going to start doing that now.
 
Q. Talk about how formidable your foes are:
RYAN HUNTER‑REAY:  Will and I were talking about it the other day, the bad luck I’ve had the past couple of races; this guy knows the bad luck, too.  I mean, he was leading Kentucky when he was fighting Dario last year ‑‑ last year, right?  Man, it seems like a long time ago ‑‑ when he had an incident in pit lane while dominating the race and got taken out of contention.
            You know, so he kind of feels how I felt at Sonoma.  You know, I it’s tough.  That’s how racing is.  So many factors play into it.
            And Will is absolutely, you know, one of the best drivers that’s been in IndyCar in a very long time but I really believe in my team and I believe when it comes to race day, we may not be the highest qualifiers all the time but the guys do an awesome job on stops and you know I’m a 110 percent every lap.
            It’s a great group of drivers.  The Top‑10 in this series, I couldn’t say enough about them.
 
            THE MODERATOR:  We appreciate your time today.  Congratulations.
 
            THE MODERATOR:  We are joined by Michael Andretti.  Congratulations on a great weekend, successful event and you guys found yourself back in victory lane at a very crucial time in the championship battle.  Talk about the race, especially with Hunter‑Reay.
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  It has been a crazy weekend and want to thank everybody from Baltimore for coming out and supporting the event.  I think it went off really well and proud of our whole team that we put together to run the race.  There was not a glitch the whole weekend.  They did an awesome job.  Just wanted to say that.
            The race, yeah, it was crazy.  You know, especially when the rain came out and you know we took a little bit of a gamble but we thought that, you know, most likely, because it’s so bad, but yet we saw that the rain was going to stop.
            So we thought if we could get through one restart and basically get to three or four corners, because we thought there was going to be another yellow right away, let’s just go for it and we told Ryan, just keep it on the track, don’t try to beat anybody but just keep it on the track and I think if we do that, it’s going to go yellow again and then it’s going to have time to dry out.  That’s actually what happened.
            So it’s nice when the plan comes together.  It was that, and I think that was a difference in the race for sure because that gave us a track position from then on and then it came down to Ryan, really, in the end.  Just he had two really difficult, you know, challenges, which were those two restarts and he did them flawlessly and that’s what won the race then.
 
            Q.  From a race promoter’s standpoint, you had about 100 days to put this thing together ‑‑
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  You can’t even do a wedding in a hundred days.
 
            Q.  Yeah.  And pra
ctice got off to a flying start.  Were there times where you probably asked yourself on Friday or Friday evening, it’s like how challenging was becoming for you?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  It was, you know, me personally, it was not me, it was on our guys.  They busted their butts.  I can’t tell you how many man hours were spent, especially the last two weeks, just burning the midnight oil.  They were literally up all night and they are the ones that did.  It they pulled it off and they did a great job.
            Like I said there was really no glitches, that I heard of, anyway, and that to me says job well done from that standpoint.  And so I’m really proud of that.
 
            Q.  We heard you say on the television, we are going to win this thing.  Do you feel like you’ve got, heaven forbid, a Penske car right where you want it going into a big oval race?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  I think we got them worried and we should have them worried if he’s not.  I think we are really looking forward to it.  We did exactly what we needed to do coming into this weekend.  We had two weekends of really bad luck; had we not had those two weekends of bad luck, we would be cruising in Fontana.
            But this is a tough time and they are going to dig deep and that’s what we did; Ryan dug deep.  And we are making it a show in Fontana, and that’s what it’s all about.  We are excited about it and we feel very good that, you know, we are going to be a factor there in the end.
 
            Q.  Is the big three back?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Big three, teams?  Well, yeah, I think we are there.  I think we have showed it all year long.
            Yeah, I’m so proud of everybody on this team and how hard we have worked to get back to beating Penske and Ganassi, and you know, it’s ‑‑ you know, everybody worked to get here and to stay here is tough.  You can never give up, and we are not.
            If we don’t win this championship, better believe it, we are going to be all ready and armed to do it next year.  But I think we really have a good shot at winning it this year.
 
            Q.  We have two weeks to speculate what might happen at Fontana, but do you feel that Ryan’s record on big ovals compared to Will’s record on big ovals, that he’s got an advantage?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Well, I hope so.  Ryan, that’s the thing about Ryan, he can win on any type of racetrack and that’s what is great to have him on your racing team.
            Yeah, for sure, Ryan is going to be a factor there.  You know, don’t count Will out.  He’s a real competitor.  He’s a great driver.  But obviously he doesn’t have the experience, quite as much experience as what Ryan does, especially on this track that we are going to.  I’m not even sure if Will ever ran on a track like that before.
            So hopefully that will help us out a little bit.
 
            Q.  Things seemed to go smoother with the promotion of the race in general; did you learn lessons from last year?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  A little bit.  There were some things that we did listen to people from last year, like some of the problems they were having like with moving pedestrian traffic and people once they got inside the racetrack, they didn’t know where to go and things like that.
            So we really tried to improve on those sort of things.  But I think really in the end, the biggest difference was just the people that we had and all of the procedures that we had.  I think that’s what really made the difference and made it run so smoothly this year.
 
            Q.  As a Baltimore resident I cannot thank you enough for the miracle you guys put on here.  Four months ago, we thought this is never going to be.  And how you did it, I don’t know but thank you from all of us.
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Thank you.  We did it because we have great people and also I think you’ve got to give a lot of credit to two guys that really stepped it up for your city, and that is JP Grant and Greg O’Neill.  Those guys stepped it up for you guys.  Without them, this was not going to happen.  So it’s nice of you to say that to us but we have got to give them a lot of credit, as well.
 
            Q.  When you were standing on pit road today when they sang the National Anthem and looking out, did you have the same feeling?  Were the people there that you expected to see?
            MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Yeah, I think it ended up being pretty good.  I haven’t seen final numbers and all that, but my guys and stuff were saying it was pretty good.
            So you know, I think could it have been better, probably but I think Mother Nature didn’t help thus weekend with that rain yesterday and the rain today and the threat of rain today, I think maybe have kept some people back.  But I think overall was still a successful event.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We are joined by one of our podium finishers from the IZOD IndyCar Series Grand Prix of Baltimore, Ryan Briscoe’s Team Penske would finished second.
 
            THE MODERATOR:  Ryan, another great race for you, you seem to be picking up momentum heading into the final stretch of the season.  Talk about the restart with Ryan Hunter.
            RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, interesting race, long one, felt like it was longer than the Indy 500.  Tricky conditions.  I mean, a couple of restarts there in the wet on slicks.  And you know I was impressed how everybody, at least in the top nine, ten, getting through turn one, turn two, without incident, and I think most of the incidents happened behind us.
            So it was really tricky out there.  And you know, at the end, we opted to pit early and see if we could stretch the fuel, and it worked, really.  You know we inherited the lead and ended up having Hunter‑Reay right behind us where he didn’t have to save fuel and the car was really fast.
            We started pulling a little bit of gap and then I just started saving harder on the fuel to maintain a two‑second gap there.  The car was really strong today, very happy.  I knew we had a strong car.  I was disappointed after qualifying where we just didn’t get everything out of it.  Didn’t pass through Q1.  And so once we got the lead today it was heads down and just focus, car was fast.
         &nb
sp;  We lost the lead at the end of that restart which I’m yet to review but we were still within the accelerations.  I had not accelerated but they waved the green flag.  I haven’t seen whether they waved it because Hunter‑Reay accelerated or if he accelerated because they waved the green flag.  I didn’t see, because I was honestly just waiting for him to pair up because we came off the chicane and he was hanging back.
            So I was going slow to file up two by two and then the next thing, they just drove by me and I looked up and the flag was waving green.  It was unfortunate.  We dropped back to fourth.  It’s kind of funny, Dixon got me and I out‑braked him down into turn one and we got third and then I got Simon on the final restart for second and actually had to continue saving fuel on the last lap and it made it difficult to challenge Hunter‑Reay.
            All in all, a good day.  Second place is strong and we moved up a couple more spots in the championship and got a good battle with this guy next to me for fifth in the points now.
 
            Q.  Beaux (Barfield, IndyCar race director) stopped in the media center and explained that in the driver’s meeting once cars reached the cone zone, anyone could go and didn’t have to wait for to you react.  He also said that you compared to others chose to start on the outside compared to the inside.  So if not looking for contesting who said what but that was his explanation as to why there was no penalty.  Is there a minute you didn’t go when you reached the first cone?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  The fact is you’re supposed to pair up.  He hung back about two car lengths out of the chicane and then he accelerated from two car lengths back before I accelerated and that’s not how the restarts work.  You come off the last corner, you pair up side by side, and then, within the zone, when the pole sitter, regardless whether he chooses left or right, it doesn’t make a difference, when the pole sitter ‑‑ accelerates they wave the green flag.  Not when the second place guy accelerates from two car lengths back, which is what happened.
 
            Q.  At that point you were push‑to‑pass, how big of a handicap was that?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, it didn’t help.  I’m not sure what happened.  I haven’t talked to the guys yet.  I just know they were trying to load them in before the race started and we couldn’t get the push‑to‑pass loaded into the car.  So we started the race with zero and just had to deal with it.  There were a couple of times I felt like maybe earlier in the race, it could have made a difference, but for the final result, it probably didn’t.
 
            Q.  Could you comment on the state of the track at the start with the rain?  What did you guys see and how did that impact?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  It was tough.  It never actually rained everywhere on the track and it’s not that big a track.  So it was tricky.  Even in the rain, the concrete had decent grip.  It was surprising.
            Certainly it got really wet around turn 12 and through that chicane at one point.  It was really slick.  It was just really tough conditions.  It was tough to gamble; do you come in and take tires or not.  Most cars went for wets for maybe not a full green and everyone went back to slicks because it dried.  Tricky conditions, tough for the strategists and tough for us to decide.  Certainly gave us a handful to drive out there.
          
            Q.  Did you get a chance to address the restart procedure whether you would go through the chicane rather than straddle it?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, we did.  Actually Beau last year was looking after that.  They straddled the chicane.  The problem is when you get ten rows back or seven or eight ‑‑ did you race here last year ‑‑ the cars that were further back, they would end up because the leaders would accelerate, the rear cars would be going across the railroad tracks really fast, straddling a chicane and then getting all out of shape over the railroad tracks so we just decided, as we did last year, to go through the chicane single file and pair up after that.
 
            Q.  With practice, going through the course yesterday and now the race today, where would you say that the hardest turns were or the difficulties on the track were?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  Obviously the final chicane on the front stretch, it’s tricky, it’s fast and you get a bit airborne and sort of land on the railroad tracks and there’s a high risk factor there.
            We saw a lot of accidents in qualifying.  It’s one of the trickiest parts but there were a couple of places and it’s just the whole track, you’ve got different surfaces, lots of bumps in the braking for one and three and then you’ve got really smooth Tarmac from turn four all the way around to turn 12.  So you know, it’s just a tricky track.  And it’s got its difficulties.  You just deal with it.
 
            Q.  Win last week, second this week, with your plans up in the air for next year, how much do you think this good end will help you or do you think your resumé should speak for itself?
            RYAN BRISCOE:  I don’t know.  I mean, you know, certainly results are always good, and doesn’t hurt.  So you know, we are just ‑‑ I’ve just got my head down here trying to finish strong, as I have done all year long, I feel like, finally, we have had ‑‑ despite the restart, we fill finished second and we had some good results at the end where at the beginning of the season we would qualify at the front and just couldn’t do a thing right to get a podium finish.  So it’s nice to finally be moving up the points.  Getting good results, and for sure, it not going to hurt moving forward.
          
            THE MODERATOR:  We are joined by Will Power of Team Penske who leads the IZOD IndyCar Series Championship Series points standings by 17 points as we head into the season finale at Fontana in two weekends.  Walk us through your race today.
            WILL POWER:  Yeah, it was just, the weather, you just can’t ‑‑ it’s just hard to make the decision which way to go there.  Yeah, so basically, there’s a bit of confusion on the radio.  I said I’ll pit and then I said I’ll wait one lap and in the meantime Tim was saying pit.  I think we were talking at the same time and he told me to pit and we missed that; I think that would have helped a lot.  It’s just unfortunate.
            But yeah, it’s every weekend, we are the quickest.  Every weekend we are not just the quickest, but by a bunch, and circumstances seem to
prevent us from winning.
            So that can become frustrating when you’re the quickest guy in town.  When you look at the last three races and even when you look at the run total leading, Edmonton we were the quickest and got the engine change and got back to third, so was a good day anyway.  Mid‑Ohio, pole, quickest again, lots in the pits.  Sonoma, lost it on the yellow.  And today lost it with the weather.  (Laughter).
            But then again you look at it, it’s all good points though.  It’s all good points.  Keep getting points but not to get those wins, if we would have thought winning three races in the beginning of the year in a row and not to win another one, we never would have thought that.
            But, we are here and we are a 17‑point lead and it’s ‑‑ yeah.  It’s going to be interesting, 500‑mile race.  Maybe it will be the first, last race that I finish, because every year, I get crashed out.  So I’m determined this time to just finish the last race and finish it as the leader of the championship.
 
            Q.  Your frustration levels here, how do you manage that between here and Fontana?  Do you let this bleed off or do you let the frustration stay there to keep you motivated?
            WILL POWER:  Yeah, it’s really just, need to forget about this, and not ‑‑ you know, if we thought three races to go we would have a 17‑point lead, we would actually be pretty happy, so it not that bad.  Everyone’s just looking at what the potential was, and the potential was ‑‑ potentially, winning the last three races.
            So you know, it’s actually not bad.  Good news is, if I take Hunter‑Reay out in the last race, we crash out together, I win.  So let’s go side‑by‑side.  (Laughter). 
          
            Q.  What did you think about the way the starter was flowing the green flag?  Aren’t they supposed to wait until at least a few of you are out of the chicane before they lined up properly?
            WILL POWER:  Basically a leader has a zone to go from a first cone ‑‑ there’s a cone distance, and if the leader has not gone by the last cone, the green is thrown.  That’s why it was absurd what happened, how it was happening.
            
            Q.  Talk about how formidable your foes are.
            WILL POWER:  I’ve always rated him very highly.  It was a matter of time before he got in a good team situation where he could win consistently and be up there consistently, so I expected it.  He’s probably the best all‑around driver in the series because he wins at every discipline.
            So, yeah, he’s a very tough competitor and yeah, we understand, we both understand the bad luck thing.  It can be so cruel; what happened to him last week, to be sitting ‑‑ to have done such a good job and be taken out on the last restart, you know, it just ‑‑ like you said, at Kentucky last year ‑‑ that sort of thing, but that is racing.
            That’s the guy who has the least amount of those sort of days wins the championship.  And that’s just how it goes.  You can be as upset as you want at the time and say it not fair and bad luck and all this, but at the end of the day it kind of all works itself out by the end.
 
            Q.  Have you raced at California?  Have you tested?
            WILL POWER:  No.
 
            Q.  Not driven a lap?
            WILL POWER:  Never, no.  We have two tests before we go.  We’ll get to understand.

Chevy Racing- Baltimore Grand Prix

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF BALTIMORE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 2, 2012
 
Ryan Hunter-Reay Wins Grand Prix of Baltimore; Victory is his Fourth of the Season and Tightens Championship Battle Heading to Fontana; Win is 10th Trip to Victory Lane for Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Engine this Season
 
BALTIMORE (September 1, 2012) – For the fourth time this season, Ryan Hunter-Reay stood atop the IZOD IndyCar Series Victory podium. Behind the wheel of the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, Hunter-Reay scored the 10th victory for Chevrolet, and cut his points deficit in the battle for the Driver’s Championship to 17 points heading into the season finale in two weeks at Fontana, California.
 
“Congratulations to Ryan Hunter-Reay and the Andretti Autosport team on their win today on the streets of Baltimore,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “Congratulations as well to Ryan Briscoe on his runner-up finish.It was a difficult race for the teams and drivers to strategize with the changing weather conditions and numerous caution periods, but the tenacity of the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams shined through for a great showing at the checkered flag.
  
“The success this season of our Chevrolet teams in the IZOD IndyCar Series is the result of a tremendous team effort with our technical partners and all of our teams.  Everyone at Chevrolet is extremely proud of the program. We have one race to go in the driver’s championship with three drivers still mathematically in the fight. It will be an exciting season finale in Fontana.”
 
Hunter-Reay was credited with leading five times during the 75-lap race for a total of 13 laps with a margin of victory of 1.4391 seconds. Hunter-Reay sits second in the driver championship standings, 17 points behind leader Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, who finished sixth today after leading twice for a race-high 22 laps.
 
Ryan Briscoe, No. 2 PPG Automotive Refinishes Team Penske Chevrolet, finished second.  Briscoe led once for 11 laps, and now sits sixth in the standings with one race remaining in the 2012 season.
 
Rubens Barrichello drove the No. 8 BMC/Embrase KV Racing Technology Chevrolet to a fifth-place finish, his second consecutive top-five run.
 
Also in the top-10 finishers for Team Chevy were Oriol Servia, No. 22 Panther/Dreyer and Reinbold Racing Chevrolet in seventh place at the checkered flag. E.J. Viso, No. 5 CITGO/PDVSA KV Racing Technology Chevrolet, in ninth position. And, Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Penske Truck Rental Chevrolet, crossed the finish line in 10th place.
 

Chevy Racing–Baltimore Grand Prix Qualifying

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF BALTIMORE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 1, 2012
 
Will Power Puts Chevrolet IndyCar V6 on the Pole for Baltimore Grand Prix
 
BALTIMORE (September 1, 2012) – For the fifth time this season, Will Power has put his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet on the pole of an IZOD IndyCar Series race.  With a blistering lap of 1:17.9750 at 94.184 m.p.h. around the 2.04-miles, 13-turn temporary street course on the Streets of Baltimore, Power grabbed his second consecutive Grand Prix of Baltimore pole position.
 
Power, the current Series’ points leader, also won the pole at the Streets of St. Petersburg, the Streets of Sao Paulo Brazil, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and last weekend at Sonoma Raceway.
 
Also making the Firestone Fast Six was Sebastien Bourdais, No. 7 TrueCar/McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet, who posted the fourth quickest time. And, James Hinchcliffe, No. 27 Team GoDaddy.com Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, with the sixth quickest time of the final session
 
The 75-lap Grand Prix of Baltimore is scheduled to start on Sunday, September 2, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. ET with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
 
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at

Chevy Racing–Baltimore Grand Prix Practice

 
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF BALTIMORE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER FRIDAY PRACTICE NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 31, 2012
 
BALTIMORE (August 31, 2012) – It was a very interesting first day of practice on the Streets of Baltimore. Due to a dip that preceded the train tracks on Pratt Street, the IZOD IndyCar Series officials determined in order to preserve the quality of the racing as well as the safety of the drivers to halt practice and install a chicane on the final straightway just out of turn 12 on the now 13-turn course.
 
When the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers returned to the track for the afternoon practice session, the conditions of the racing surface were much improved, and the teams and drivers proceeded with their preparations for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Baltimore. Will Power posted the fasted time of the session behind the wheel of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet.
 
Other Team Chevy drivers also posting laps that landed them in the top-10 of the final order were Rubens Barrichello – 4th; James Hinchcliffe – 5th; Sebastien Bourdais – 6th and Ryan Hunter-Reay – 7th.
 
There will be another practice session on Saturday morning from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. to allow teams to finalize their set-ups from qualifying at 12:05 p.m.
 
The 75-lap Grand Prix of Baltimore is scheduled to start on Sunday, September 2, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. ET with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
 
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at

Chevy Racing–Looking Toward Baltimore

 
Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams and Drivers Tackle a Street Course for Final Time in 2012 on the Streets of Baltimore
 
DETROIT (August 28, 2012) – For the final time this season, the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers will take on the challenges of street-course racing in the Grand Prix of Baltimore on the Streets of Baltimore. With Chevrolet clinching the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship at Sonoma, and Will Power claiming his third consecutive Road Course Championship title, the battle for the overall Driver’s Championship and Oval Championship will take center stage in the two remaining races.
 
“Congratulations to Ryan Briscoe and Team Penske on their win at Sonoma Raceway,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “With that ninth victory of the season, Chevrolet was able to clinch the IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship. We are proud of the accomplishment for Chevrolet, our technical partners and all of our teams that have put in a tremendous effort in our return to IndyCar competition.
“With two races remaining in the season, we remain focused on winning the Driver’s Championship and Oval Championship.  First up is the Streets of Baltimore, where Will Power was the winner in last season’s inaugural race.”
 
The 2.04-mile, 12-turn street course in beautiful downtown Baltimore, Maryland provided tremendous excitement for the fans in its inaugural race last season.  Slight changes have been made to the course to heighten the competition as the Series returns this weekend. Among the changes to the race track this year include remodeling the chicane, which creates extra turns after the longest straightway along Pratt Street. There will also be improved passing areas around the course — all expected to result in higher top speeds for drivers. However, it will remain a physically and mentally challenging event for drivers, and a technical challenge for the crews to get the car set-up perfectly suited to their drivers.
“The track is modified from last year to improve some passing zones and street courses are physically challenging for the drivers,” Berube continued.  “However, we know our Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and athletic drivers are up for the challenge.”
 
Chevrolet competed previously in Indy-style competition as an engine manufacturer in 1986-93 and 2002-05 with V-8 engines, winning 105 races, that powered Chevrolet to six driver champions, and included seven Indianapolis 500 victories.
 
The 75-lap Grand Prix of Baltimore is scheduled to start on Sunday, September 2, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. ET with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.

Chevy Racing–Briscoe Interview

Race winner Ryan Briscoe, runner-up Will Power and fourth place finisher Rubens Barrichello met with members of the media at Sonoma Raceway following today’s GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway.
 
 
An interview with:
 
RYAN BRISCOE, No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet
WILL POWER, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet
RUBENS BARRICHELLO, No 8 BMC/Embrase KV Racing Technology Chevrolet
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll go ahead and get started with our interview with Rubens Barrichello, our fourth-place finisher today.  Today’s fourth-place finish is a career best in IndyCar.  His previous best finish was seventh at Iowa.
Tell us about your day.
 
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  It was a good day.  Obviously we had a car that was solid.  I don’t think we had the quickest car out there.  We could see that on the restart with Dario and the two Penskes, because they opened up quite a big gap on us.
But it was solid.  It was one day that the strategy didn’t mean a lot.  I was able to play basically the numbers that the team were telling me to play, consistently fast.  I think that we deserved to be probably, in terms of speed, sixth or seventh.  But I was lucky I got away on the first crash and overtook a few people.
My first top four in a track.  I kept on saying I’ve been struggling with some of the tracks this year just because I haven’t got the knowledge.  When you go there, there are some red flags, so you don’t have the flow.
I have tested here, although not last week.  It was a good track.  I think I could use a little bit more of my knowledge of the car to improve it.  So it’s a good result for a well-played day.
 
THE MODERATOR:  What were your thoughts of the racing conditions out on the track today?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  It was a pretty fast race.  With a fast race it meant that we were pulling some marbles on the track.  I think the pace was getting better and better.  The tires were holding up very, very well.
But as soon as you went offline a little bit, the cars were a bit shaky.  Honestly, the only problem I had was in the middle of the race that I thought Ed Carpenter saw me coming, but he didn’t.  When he closed the door, we touched.  Luckily my car was okay and I was able to continue.  Apart from that it was trouble-free.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions, please.
 
Q.        How much would you attribute your result today to the track familiarity you spoke of versus you getting the car closer to the setup you wanted?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  I think that it’s more to the fact that it’s more familiar with the track more than the car itself.  I mean, on an Indy weekend, the car evolves a lot, the track evolves a lot, it changes a lot.  When you start the race, at least this year, I didn’t know if we made the good choices or not.  By the end of the day, the track grips up, sometimes it doesn’t.  So it moves a lot.
But I still haven’t got the balance that I wish to have.  I think I had a good car today, solid, but there was a little bit of understeer.  I was able to just push, push, push.  But I think it’s more to do with the fact that I knew the track a bit more.
 
Q.        You’re saying the familiarity helped you here.  Does that make you look forward to next year?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  Yeah, I think you’re quite right.  I thought that I would get familiar quite easily with things.  But it’s quite a lot different, just the driving.  Some of the tracks are very, very different from Europe.
If we had eight races, I said that before, on new tracks, then eight races again on those tracks, I think I would have done much better.
It’s the way forward to come back next year.  I think it can be just a better year just for the fact that you have (indiscernible) on it.  I take my notes, my memory and everything.
Just the fact that you know where you’re going to brake, take Baltimore, for example, I watched the race a couple times already, but it’s the first time I go there.  I don’t know if it’s slippery.  I don’t know how it is.  So it’s difficult.
 
Q.        One of the things that was interesting was we had a significant wind change.  When we started, it was going south.  When you finished, it had totally changed.  Did that change at all the way the car handled for you?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  I could feel that because I was hitting the limiter at the beginning of the race, but not at the end.  The wind changed and I could see the effect of it.
I saw pretty much with the dust, because you have some dust here.  You see where the wind is blowing.  The wind changing helps some corners and it doesn’t on some others.  You just have to play with it.
But it was okay.  It was okay finally.
 
Q.        You’ve talked about looking forward to next year.  You’ve talked about getting familiar with tracks this year.  Assess a little bit more your season this year.  Has it been what you expected?  Are you a little frustrated?  Are you about where you want to be?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  I didn’t think I was going to come here and just all of a sudden win.  I think there are plenty of really good drivers on a series that is very well competitive.  It’s amazing.
I thought we would have been a bit more competitive.  Just looking for last year, what T.K. was able to do in terms of results, I thought it was okay.
I’m pretty satisfied with what I achieved in the ovals.  That’s first time.  Every time I start on an oval, I can see the last 20 laps as a completely different race.  So I’m pretty satisfied with that.
But I wasn’t on the street courses, for example, in terms of results.  In Europe, Monaco, for example, has been one of my strengths.  It was good.  It was so tough on me, Detroit.  We had problems adapting the car.  But not to be able to qualify, the car was sideways on the bumps.
I think the fact there is not a lot of tests on those tracks is tough on a rookie.  You have to call me an ‘old rookie’ because it’s just the way it goes.  You just don’t have the practice.
If you take the young kid which is very fast and bright, like Newgarden, he has done so many laps on Indy, so he has some knowledge of what to expect.
For me, it’s been quite tough.  I’m happy.  I’m looking myself, when I go back and review, I gave my very best.  But the results were quite poor.
 
Q.        It seems like things are starting to come together a little bit more for you as far as your communication with the team.  You said they had a good race call.  You were more familiar with this track because you had done some testing.  Are you more comfortable with the team, the communication?  Is everything still kind of improving for you?
RUBENS BARRICHELLO:  Yes.  This year, it was going to be like that.  This strategy thing, this weekend for example, we spent more time on it.  We talked more about it.  I called for a change on all the strategy meetings.  There was one for T.K. one for E.J., one for myself.  We got everybody in the room and talked lively about it.  There were more ideas.  It’s a different altogether series.  Strategy plays a big, big thing on how the end result will be.
It’s getting more familiar.  But every time, you know, you change the track, you know, you get new numbers, it’s a totally new thing.  But I’m getting there.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you so much.
 
RUBENS BARR
ICHELLO:  Thank you.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re pleased to be joined by Will Power of Team Penske.  Not only did today’s second-place finish extend his points lead from 5 to 36 points, he took home his first title of the season, the Mario Andretti Road Trophy.
Walk us through the race.
 
WILL POWER:  It started well all the way to the last stop.  I had the quickest car, quite easily keeping a handy lead.  Yeah, went yellow.  We had a slow stop, probably lost four seconds there, then came across a bunch of guys on the track who just doddled all the way back.  I don’t know who those guys were.  That’s when I was using the word ‘wanker’.  Cost me the race.
But I couldn’t be happier for Ryan.  He really needed that win.  He’s been strong all weekend.  But, yeah, I can’t help but be a little bit disappointed but happy because I got a good points buffer.  Yeah, I think it was a good race.  Don’t know what else to say.  We led heaps and then we didn’t.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Can you talk about those restarts with your teammate.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, they were fine, good, clean.  ‘Push to pass’ as usual doesn’t work.  The speed limiter would engage.  If you saw a couple times, Ryan would suddenly pull a big gap, I’d hit the pit speed limiter and it would just die.  Dario would almost get me.  I don’t know what he’s thinking.  He must have been thinking, What is this guy doing?
Yeah, good day all in all.  Congratulations to Chevy to wrap up the manufacturer’s championship.  Now we just have to do it for the driver’s championship.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll open it up for questions.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
WILL POWER:  I’m in win mode.  I just want to win another race.  You know, every time we’ve been there, like Toronto, then a yellow comes and ruins our day.  An engine change at Edmonton, get back to third.
Obviously that pit exchange, had to go around Dixie.  Guys were there all the time.  Wins are right there, but we’re not getting them.  You have to think of the championship, as well.  If we have the car to win, we go for it.  Obviously, as you get further into the season, you become more aware of what these guys are doing, if they’re behind you or in front of you, and know how aggressive you’ve got to be.
 
Q.        (Question regarding pit stops this year.)
WILL POWER:  Yeah, I haven’t seen what happened.  It was more the people holding me up.  We had an eight-second lead.  Probably lost four in the pit stop.  The rest was at the track.
I do understand that you kind of want to go slow where the accident was, it was a big accident for sure.  But these guys, just a whole lap.  I don’t know whether they’re told to do it because maybe they’re a rival team.  Yeah, it cost us the win.
 
Q.        Let’s look forward to Baltimore a little bit.  The track changes and stuff like that, have you had a chance to look those over, start thinking about how you’re going to attack that place?
WILL POWER:  We got a good idea when we actually get there.  I have an idea of what they’re going to change.  I think it’s going to make for better racing, so on.
Amazing, three races, we’ve had one yellow.  I have to say that just shows how the standard of driving in this series is so high right now.  There’s rarely mistakes.  I think the series should be proud of that.  We’re racing on these tough tracks, and there’s one yellow in three races.  Pretty impressive.
 
Q.        You’re probably thinking about winning the race, but as far as the points, the key to one of your competitors, Scott Dixon, was getting hit in the first lap.  Your teammate, Helio, bumped into him.  What is your reaction on that?  Is that just race luck?
WILL POWER:  I felt that a couple times from Helio myself (laughter).  That’s racing.  I mean, I think what happened was Helio was on red tires, Scott was on blacks.  He probably had a little bit more grip, thought that he needed to get him early.
I haven’t seen it.  I don’t know what happened.  But that is racing.
 
Q.        You seemed to have the advantage today over everybody else.  Is that setup or engine?
WILL POWER:  I just think in the past, since I’ve been at Penske, we’ve had an advantage at this track.  This is a very grip-limited track.  This car has a lot more grip and downforce.  This is the first track you come to where your tires actually last.  In qualifying, you do your out-lap, we don’t have tire warmers, you go one lap, you have one lap to really do your time, then it falls off.  So it’s a setup thing, in my opinion.
I haven’t felt, you know, Honda has been lacking.  It just hasn’t seemed that.  You don’t see it in the sectors.  Chevy has done a fantastic job.  As the year goes on, we keep improving.  Reliability also keeps improving.
 
Q.        Briscoe pitted after you did, like a lap later, on the first stint.  Second stint, you came in before the yellow.  He seemed to come in during the yellow.  Did that in any way give him an advantage?  Did you notice anything?
WILL POWER:  I had a slow pit stop because we had the eight-second lead.  Had I not got held up on that out-lap, I don’t think he would have got us.
You know, that’s what I was saying before.  These guys, when the pit is left open, doddle around, because they’re a lap down or whatever, cost me dearly.  You can’t pass under yellow.  I would have gotten a penalty if I went motoring by these guys.
That’s racing.  I think in the drivers meetings, maybe race control needs to be more adamant about when it goes yellow, there’s an accident on the track, you have to be cautious in that zone.  But this is a whole lap.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
WILL POWER:  Well, that’s the rule change this year.  Race control calls pits open or pits closed.  It would have worked really well for me if the pits were left open.  It’s hard to make strategy calls based on that because it’s an unknown.  We kept pitting early so we wouldn’t get caught out by a closed pit.  That’s what happened at Toronto.  I had a big lead.  Went yellow.  Everyone else had pitted.  We stayed out saving fuel, which was good for strategy.  We basically got put to the back of the field because it closed.
It’s just one of those things.  You just got to get a feel for how Beaux Barfield makes the calls.  Is he going to leave it open or is he going to close it?  There’s so many factors that go into it, it’s just something you can’t predict.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
WILL POWER:  Well, it’s funny that these (indiscernible) yellow caught me out today.  Yeah, I see what you mean.  They had to go full-course yellow to clean up the mess.  I don’t know what they do in Formula One.  I don’t know what they do.
At the end of the day, the guys out on the track have an obligation to get back and around the track or into the pits to make a stop.  They just back off, it doesn’t matter.  You’re not going to lose any positions.  So, yeah, I’m all for pure racing so there’s no manipulation by a yellow.  Usually that means leaving of the pits open all the time no matter what happens, unless there’s something unforetold and the whole track is blocked.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Will, thank you for your time.

 
WILL POWER:  Thank you.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We are pleased to be joined by today’s race winner, Ryan Briscoe.  It’s his first win of the season.  His previous best finish of the year was third at Texas.  His last victory came in 2010 at Texas.  Ryan finished second in 2008 and 2009 in Sonoma, third in 2011, now the top spot.
Walk us through today’s great race.
 
RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, pretty clean race actually.  We were kind of expecting it to possibly go green from start to finish like the last two have done.  So sort of in for the long haul.
We started on reds.  The car was really strong.  We were just trying to get a fuel number where we knew we were going to be safe for the rest of the race and not burning too much early on.
I was holding ground with Will at the start of the race.  We went to blacks for the next two stints.  The car just wasn’t quite as good.  I was struggling to maintain speed on the black tire.  Then we got a timely yellow.  The 12 car guys made a little mistake in the pits.  We got the lead and finished the race on the reds.
The car was awesome again.  It was the best it had been all day.  Just put my head down and held the guys off behind me for the win.
Really proud of the whole team.  Flawless in the pits.  Roger, with the strategy.  I don’t know if any of you could hear our radio, but Roger was on it today (laughter).  He was probably talking to me six times a lap for the whole race.  He was definitely excited.
We always get excited when we come to this race.  For whatever reason it is, Team Penske cars are always strong.  Will and I kind of dominated all weekend.  So hats off to Will, as well.  Chevrolet, we got the championship this weekend.  Big hats off to everybody there.  It’s been a strong season.  They’ve been working so hard with us.  Every race we get updates and improvements.  It’s been a fierce battle with Honda.  So a great welcoming back to IndyCar this year.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll start with questions.
 
Q.        Ryan, I counted before I came down, 813 days since your last win.  What do you take away from here, satisfaction that you won or the fact you’re going to close out the season in style?
RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, I mean, it feels good to finish the season strong, for sure.  A lot of those days, unfortunately, are off-season.  I wish we had more races.  We have like five months on, seven off.  That’s my excuse.  It was only last year (laughter).
It’s great to get the win.  You get into a slump, you know, you think, Man, am I ever going to win again?  So this is definitely lifting, a confidence builder.
We’ve been fast all year long.  I don’t know how many front-row starts we had, so many, just had struggles executing in the race for whatever reason, whether it’s been bad luck or whatever.
Today just fell into our hands.  We raced hard, ran strong.  Hopefully it’s the start of maybe a couple more wins in the next two races.  We’ll see.
 
Q.        I know we talked a couple weeks ago about next season.  How much do you think this provides help for a little more security in putting a deal together for next season?
RYAN BRISCOE:  It never hurts.  Who knows what it means for next season.  I just want to go out every weekend and do a good job, be professional and strong, do my job.
You know, we’re sort of working hard on next year, and hopefully have something in place here soon.
 
Q.        Go back over the restarts, how you were able to gun it, stay ahead of Will.
RYAN BRISCOE:  You know Will on those restarts, he was exactly where I was for the start of the race.  I knew the advantage that I had being on the left-hand side.  The restarts are pretty early, and you have sort of one, two, three kinks to the left before you brake up into turn one.  It’s a lot shorter distance.
For me it was about gassing it, making sure I had the rpm right, wasn’t going to wheel spin, be nice and clean.  It went according to plan and we went from there both times.
 
Q.        Looked like Hunter-Reay tried to push you on one of those restarts.  Was that a concern at all?
RYAN BRISCOE:  No, I didn’t feel a thing.  I could see Will on my outside.  Knew that once we hit the hill, it was turning, he was going to have to lift and get in line or end up out in the dirt.
You know, I wasn’t too worried.  I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake.  That was it.
 
Q.        The fact that it was your teammate you were racing against on the restarts, did that give you a little more confidence than if it was somebody else pushing for the lead?
RYAN BRISCOE:  I don’t know.  Will was trying as hard as anyone to try to get me on the start.  There’s not much you can do from that position.  I think you’re sort of relying on maybe the polesitter to make a mistake really.  There’s not much else.  You can’t cross the start/finish line in front of the leader.
You know, I was pretty confident with what I needed to do.  Wouldn’t have done it any different if it was Franchitti on my outside.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Ryan, congratulations on a great race.  Thank you for joining us.
 
RYAN BRISCOE:  Thank you.
 

Chevy Racing–Manufacturer’s Championship Interviews

Chevrolet clinched the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Championship today at Sonoma Raceway.  Jim Campbell, US Vice President of Performance Vehicles and Motorsports, Mark Kent, Director of Chevrolet Racing and Randy Bernard, CEO INDYCAR met with members of the media following today’s GoPro Indy Grand Prix at Sonoma.
 
An interview with:
 
JIM CAMPBELL
MARK KENT
RANDY BERNARD
 
 
THE MODERATOR:  In 2012 the IZOD IndyCar Series marked the return of engine manufacturer competition with Chevrolet and Lotus joining Honda as the engine suppliers for the field.  Today’s win by Ryan Briscoe clinches the manufacturer’s title for 2012 for Chevrolet.  It was the eighth win of the season for a Chevrolet-powered IndyCar.
 
We’re pleased to be joined by Jim Campbell, US vice president of performance vehicles and motorsports for Chevrolet, and Mark Kent, director of racing for Chevrolet, and IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard.
We’ll start with you, Jim.  Talk about this incredible accomplishment this season.
 
JIM CAMPBELL:  Chevrolet has a long history in open-wheel racing.  We are proud to be back in IndyCar racing.  We’ve been focused all year long on developing this engine to deliver that combination of performance, durability, fuel economy, really work with the drivers and teams and work on the drivability of the engine package.
 
It has taken a total team effort with all the teams, the crew chiefs, the drivers giving us great feedback, engineers on the team, our partners from Ilmor, Hitachi, Pratt & Miller.  We’ve had a whole host of folks that made this job possible.  It’s still not done.  There’s still work to do with two races to go.
But we’re very proud to win the manufacturer’s championship and proud to be racing in the series.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Mark, as Jim alluded to, it’s not done.  There’s been a lot of work this year.  Can you talk about how pleased you are with the performance this season to date?
 
MARK KENT:  We’re very pleased where we are, to come back into this series and go against formidable opponents like Honda and Lotus.  It’s a tremendous accomplishment.  It’s something we don’t take lightly.
Every series in which we compete, the manufacturer’s championship is the most important championship to us.  We respect what it takes to be here.  We’re humbled to be here, as well.
 
As Jim said, we’re here because of the efforts of a lot of people.  From day one when we started off the program with our single Dallara DW-12, we had members from all of our teams working together collectively on that program.  From day one, today, everybody has contributed to this success.  We’re pleased to be here.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Randy, in an era of new competition, can you talk about how pleased you’ve been with the performance of the new car/engine combination and the racing it’s provided?
 
RANDY BERNARD:  First of all, on behalf of the IZOD IndyCar Series, I want to congratulate you.
 
When we started 26 months ago, any of you that think that IndyCar can’t keep a secret, we kept a pretty good secret for a while.
 
From the very beginning, these guys have been first class to work with.  I mean, to see this race season go so quickly, to see the competition that both you and Honda have shown, I think it’s been just outstanding.
 
So back to your question.  I think this year, the engine, primarily Honda and Chevy have come out and dominated and shown such great racing.  When you look at our racecar this year, we have seen better speeds than last year.  I think that’s very important.  I think the fact that we’ve seen 26% more lead changes on road and streets, and 50% more on ovals, is fantastic, too.
I think the car and the engines has just been a great story.  I’m very proud of our first year with this new car.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll open it up to questions.
Q.        Jim, can we expect more promotions around your achievements?
 
JIM CAMPBELL:  I would say any of our race programs, but particularly with our IndyCar effort, we’re focused on tech transfer, what we learn on the power train development around direct injection, turbo-charging, boosting, making those direct applications to the production side is really priority one.
Secondly, obviously when you get a chance to win a race or a championship, it does give us an opportunity to elevate the image of the brand.  That’s positive, because what happens there is more people put you on their shopping list.
 
Finally, we have an opportunity to interact with current and prospective customers.  A good example here at the track today.  Every race that Randy and his team put on, we have an amazing opportunity to interact with customers.  We’ll continue that.
 
Finally, it’s a great place to train engineers from the production side over to the race side.  We’ll be on these programs for a couple years then right back to production.  You’ll see more of that from us, as well.
 
Q.        Would you say the level of effort you had to put in this year was greater than you expected or about where it would be?  We’ve had some revisions.  Did you expect that?  Has it been a lot of work to get here?
 
MARK KENT:  It’s been a lot of work.  We knew going in it wasn’t going to be easy.  We know how tough this series is to compete in.  This is top shelf across the board.  We got the best drivers, the best teams, all new car.  We knew it was going to be a tremendous undertaking.
 
But we also had a team that was up for the task, between Chevrolet’s engineering organization, Ilmor, Hitachi, who has been a tremendous help with us on the program, and again with all our teams, we’re here today because of their efforts.
 
We’re looking forward to continue to work, looking forward to wrapping up the season here.  There’s a couple championships still out there, the oval championship, which I think Tony Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay are tied for, then the overall championship.  We’ll keep going through the off-season and look forward to 2013.
 
Q.        Chevrolet and Penske have a long and storied relationship.  How special is it to win the manufacturer’s championship today with Penske?
 
JIM CAMPBELL:  Clearly Chevrolet and Penske have a long relationship, one that’s been going on from the moment he first became a Chevrolet dealer in Pennsylvania, obviously has a lot of stores around the country as well.  It’s very special.  For us to return to IndyCar with Team Penske, as well as working with the Ilmor organization, it’s been a great combination.  I think we’re really pleased with the results.  But always pushing.
 
Roger was really happy out here for Ryan, for what happened with Will to pick up a little gap in the points, and for Chevrolet to win the manufacturer’s championship.  You know him, he’s pushing immediately for more next week, as we are.
 
Then just one other thing, as Mark said, we have an amazing lineup of teams:  Team Penske, Andretti Autosports, Panther Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold and Panther teamed up, we have Dragon Racing, a couple others.  KV Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing.  Fantastic.  Think about that combination.  They have been a key part of our success.
 
What we do in all of our racing programs is what we call key partners’ approach.  We work on common issues together and knock them down as fast as we can.  We really believe this approach works.  It works for us in other series.  We are so pleased it’s working so far i
n IndyCar and look forward to the last two races of the season.
 
Q.        Randy, can you use Chevrolet’s championship to entice our friends at Ford and Dodge to turn this into pony car wars?
 
RANDY BERNARD:  I don’t think I’m going to comment on that (laughter).
 
We’re just excited to have Chevy here.  It made our racing better this year.  That’s exciting.  I’m very optimistic about next year right now.  We’re working a lot on next year right now.
 
Q.        With Lotus not being able to answer the bell the way everybody was hoping them to, how stretched were you for resources?  Are you prepared to go just Chevy and Honda next year?  There’s more out there that really want to get in.
 
JIM CAMPBELL:  We truly hope there’s three engines here next year.  If not, we have the resources to take our fair share of the field.  There’s only one Lotus car out there today.  It’s not much of a stretch.  We hope there’s more cars next year so we have to stretch a little bit further.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Congratulations on the manufacturer’s title and best of luck in our next two races.
 
     FastScripts by ASAP Sports – Courtesy of IZOD IndyCar Series

Chevy Racing–Briscoe Wins Sonoma

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GOPRO INDY GRAND PRIX AT SONOMA
SONOMA RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 26, 2012
 
Ryan Briscoe Wins at Sonoma; Will Power Clinches Road Course Championship; Chevrolet Wins Manufacturers’ Championship
 
SONOMA, Calif. (August 26, 2012) – Ryan Briscoe was a man on a mission today at Sonoma Raceway and scored his first victory of the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series season. It is his first at Sonoma, and the seventh of his career.  Briscoe’s win is the sixth this season for team owner Roger Penske, which clinched the 2012 Manufacturers’ Championship for Chevrolet.
 
Starting second on the grid, the driver of the No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet stayed near the front of the field through two cycles of green-flag pit stops. On the final stop of the day during caution, Briscoe took the lead when excellent pit work by his crew that got him out at the front of the field. He was scored the leader on lap 64 of the 85-lap GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, and held off a charge from teammate Will Power and Dario Franchitti.
 
Power’s second place finish extended his points lead to 35 points over Ryan Hunter-Reay who was involved in an on-track incident late in the race that relegated the driver of the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet to the 18th finishing position.
 
In addition, his run gave Power the honor of winning the 2012 Road Course Championship and receiving the Mario Andretti Trophy.
 
Rubens Barrichello, No. 8 BMC/Embrase KV Racing Technology Chevrolet, scored his best finish of his inaugural IndyCar season, taking the checkered flag in fourth place.
 
Other Team Chevy drivers with top-10 finishes were: Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Penske Truck Rental Chevrolet – 6th; JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing Chevrolet – 8th and Tony Kanaan, No. 11 MOUSER Electronics/GEICO KV Racing Technology Chevrolet – 10th.
 
Franchitti finished third and Graham Rahal rounded out the top-five finishers.
 
Next on the schedule is the Grand Prix of Baltimore on the Streets of Baltimore on September 2, 2012.
 
Fans can follow Team Chevy on Team Chevy Facebook, @TeamChevy on Twitter and on Google+.
 
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 2 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – WINNER:
HOW ABOUT THAT?  CONGRATULATIONS ON THE WIN.  LET’S GO BACK TO THE CAUTION DID YOU THINK YOU COULD CATCH WILL (POWER) AND MAYBE PASS HIM THERE KNOWING THAT THE PITS WERE OPEN?
“I didn’t know where he was.  I just knew that I had to keep pushing as hard as I could even when the yellow came out.  They told me where the cars were stuck, but they said the cars were off track.”

HOW ABOUT THAT RESTART WITH WILL (POWER) WERE YOU WORRIED?
“I just wanted to win the race, but I wanted to do it cleanly.  I’ve been in his spot at the start of the race on the outside.  I knew it’s almost impossible to stay up there and get the lead.  I just wanted to make sure I didn’t wheel spin too much and get a clean run up to turn two.  Then the car was really good at the end on reds.  We struggled a little bit mid-stint on the blacks, but on reds this thing came to life.  I’m glad I was on them at the end.”   
 
ABOUT THE RACE WIN:
“It’s big.  I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to win again.  It has been too long.   Especially here in Sonoma, I’ve always done so well at this track and I got my first ever pole position here and we’ve been top-five every year pretty much for the last five years so it’s great to finally get the win.  I look forward to drinking the red wine.  Great battle with Will at the end there.  He definitely had some bad luck in the pits, but we were there all day.  I’m really excited and I hope to be able to work on my burnouts a little bit more in the future.”
 
ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE TO GO THROUGH A LOSING STREAK LIKE THIS:
“It was tough.  The last year was the first year that I hadn’t won a race in a while.  You’ve just go to keep plucking away, keep pushing hard.  We’ve been fast.  There’s no doubt – several poles this year and front row starts, but we had trouble executing, and today we executed flawlessly thanks to the guys in the pits.  There was absolutely no trouble at all.  It was a straight free race.  It was fun at the end there with some pressure from Will.  My car was a lot better on reds.  In the middle of the race he got away from us – the car wasn’t that good on the blacks.  But, we saved those reds for the end.”
 
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE REDS AND HOW THE TIRES PLAYED OUT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE TODAY:
“We started the race really strong on the reds, it felt good. We went to the blacks and we knew that it was going to be four stints today with three stops.  We only felt comfortable using two sets of reds in the race because our other set was a bit abused from qualifying so we had to do the whole middle part of the race on the blacks.  I just struggled a bit for lap time.  We weren’t slow but I wasn’t as quick as Will and I think even Bourdais was a little bit quicker than us, so I was looking forward to the final stint on reds.  The car came to life again and we did what we needed to.”
 
ROGER PENSKE – WINNING TEAM OWNER:
HOW ABOUT THAT WIN FOR RYAN BRISCOE THERE? I KNOW YOU WERE A LITTLE NERVOUS ON THAT LAST RESTART.
“Well I didn’t want these guys to get together it was just a terrific day for both Will (Power) and certainly Ryan (Briscoe) had an outstanding day.  I think the guys in the pits made the difference between the two cars.  They were both good all weekend.  See one, two and Helio (Castroneves) finished in the top six you couldn’t beat anything like that.  Great for the championship obviously we see that (Scott) Dixon had an issue and so did the No. 28 car of (Ryan) Hunter-Reay.  Good day we just have to move on now to Baltimore, looking forward to it.
 
“We’ve run here a lot, we’ve got a pretty good setup the teams do perform each time we come back. The chance to test here a couple of weeks ago was really a plus for us because we got the car is the same, and I think everyone was on their best behavior from the standpoint of working together. You can see that with the cars as close as they are, but it was a very good day for us, obviously disappointing for Hunter-Reay and Dixon, but we want to win this championship. What we have to do is focus here the next two races.”
 
ON WILL POWER GETTING THE ROAD COURSE CHAMPIONSHIP:
“I think any championship is important; we want to focus on the overall championship. It’s important to us, it’s important to the team, we’ve been close so many years and haven’t been able to close the deal. Ganassi has done a better job doing that, so today was key for us.”
 
REGARDING RELATIONSHIP WITH CHEVROLET:
“I think to have Chevy come into the series was a big plus. We have three engine manufacturers now, and there’s a lot of competition, good competition between the brands. To come from Detroit and have Chevrolet in the race with the engines has been terrific, and certainly the reliability has been excellent. I think the speeds for both engines have been very competitive. I think the league has done a very good job in monitoring each engine and be sure it’s a level playing field. To me, the Chevy relationship goes back a long time when we had the first Chevy Indy engine; to me this is just a repeat. To see them when the manufacturer’s championship in their first year is very rewarding.”
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2ND:
IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD THIS RACE, BUT WHAT HAPPENED DURING THAT FINAL PIT STOP WHEN THE YELLOW CAME OUT?
“Yeah, at the end of
the day, I had a bunch of guys that probably didn’t understand we had to get to the blend line; although there was a big crash, so I’m kind of surprised that the pits stayed open. I can’t win, like, if I got along on fuel and do a good job I get screwed by a yellow if I go short I get screwed by a yellow. But (laughs) it’s tough when you man, we led so many laps and had the quickest car and then the bright idea of the delay on the push-to-pass by IndyCar really cost me too. I couldn’t engage it. It just kept un-doing every time I got on the throttle. It’s still a good day though. It was still a good day. I’m just disappointed to lead so many laps. We haven’t won in so long. But, excellent for Ryan (Briscoe, race winner). I think he deserves to win. He’s a bloody good driver and he’s had a bit of a rough trek. I believe he’s one of the quickest cars in the series.”
 
ROUGH DAY FOR YOU, BUT SOME OF THE OTHERS TOOK A PRETTY GOOD HIT TODAY
“Yeah, that’s the great thing. I love to win but we still got the points and made the most out of the situation that it was. I can’t help but be disappointed. I love to win, man; I love to win. But congratulations to Ryan; I’m really happy for him.
 
“The wins are right there, we’re just not getting them. But on one end, you’re thinking of the championship as well, but if we’ve got the car to win we go for it, and obviously as you get further into the season, you become more aware of what these guys are doing in front of you and behind you, and how aggressive you’ve got to be.
 
“I wouldn’t blame the pit stop; it was more on the people that were holding me up. We had an eight second lead, probably lost four on the pit stop and the rest was at the track. And I do understand that you want to go slower where an accident was, it was a big accident for sure, but these guys that were back a lap—I don’t know if they were told to do it, maybe they were a rival team, but it cost us a limb.”
 
RUBENS BARRICHELLO, NO. 8 BMC/EMBRASE KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – FINISHED 4th:
“It’s really good to have some good points. You know the season started a little bit slow so, thanks to the whole team and thanks for all the support.  I’ve had wonderful support.  The thing that I hear the most is “Welcome to America” and I feel welcome. There’s plenty more from me for sure.”
 
ON THE TEAM AND WHAT THEY HAVE ACCOMPLISHED FOR YOU AND THE EARLY FRUSTRATIONS IN THE SEASON:
 “The team is a small group that works well together.  For one reason or the other we haven’t been able to get the results that we deserve.  I mean, TK was superb in getting those results but today was a good day.  The track really worked well.  I was able to put some really good laps in.”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, 3 NO. PENSKE TRUCK RENTAL CHEVROLET – FINISHED 6th:
“First of all I’m very, very happy with the result of finishing sixth especially after the circumstances that we had. It was an amazing result for the Penske Truck Rental guys. I’m extremely happy being able to collect more points, but not so happy with the early race incident, certainly I did not try to pass Scott. I did not want to ruin my race and especially anyone else’s race. But at the end of the day you need to just keep pushing. I felt that we had a better car than sixth, but again today’s sixth was like a victory.”
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 8th:
“We had a little bit of a fueling issue during the first stop, which was really a bummer because we had to end up making an extra pit stop and it threw our strategy off for the day. But at the end of the day we were able to put the pedal to the metal to catch up and get ourselves back on the lead lap. We were like ten seconds back, you know a lap down, so we caught up a bunch of time and we were really able to get good use out of our red tire.
 
“Given what we’ve been going through this weekend, we made some really significant improvements to the car. Based on the fact that we did have to make an extra pit stop we had to work really hard to get to the Top Ten. The boys did a really great job, and it’s nice to finally have a single digit finish back at home, I’m definitely happy.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 MOUSER ELECTRONIS/GEICO KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – FINISHED 10TH:
“I definitely had a top-six car today.  The first lap I broke my front wing and even with that problem I got up to seventh place.  However during our last pit stop the car got stuck in neutral, which put us a lap down.  We continue to fight and fortunately were able to savage a top-10 finish which gave us valuable championship points.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO 17 AFS RACING ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – FINISHED 15TH:
“I am very happy to bring the No. 17 AFS Racing/Andretti Autosport car home. It was a great experience throughout the whole weekend. We were pretty quick all around and I felt very comfortable competing with the big guys. I really want to thank Gary (Peterson) and Michael (Andretti) for this great opportunity. It was great working with Ryan, Marco and Hinch (teammates Hunter-Reay, Andretti and Hinchcliffe) throughout the weekend. I am looking forward to the next time that we will all be on the track together. It was a learning experience not only for me, but for my engineers also. We have been learning a lot and want to keep that process very steep.”
 
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 CITGO/PDVSA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – FINISHED 16TH:
“We had a very tough weekend.  We only ran a few laps over the first two days because of mechanical issues in both practice sessions, which meant we went to qualifying without knowing how the car would behave on new tires.   Qualifying didn’t go as well as we hoped and on this circuit starting in the back is never good.  In the race, we had some good stints.  I overtook some cars and we were making our way through the field.  I think we had potential for top-10 finish, however with four laps left in the race Ryan Hunter-Reay hit me in turn seven and the car spun which eliminated any change of a good result.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 28 TEAM DHL/SUN DROP CITRUS SODA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, INVOLVED IN LATE RACE INCIDENT WITH ALEX TAGLIANI – FINISHED 18TH:
I’VE NEVER SEEN ANY DRIVER SO FRUSTRATED JUST DISTRAUGHT YOUR THOUGHTS?
“I raced so hard the whole day. I can’t even tell you how hard I drove just to keep better cars behind me at times.  Dario (Franchitti) was really fast and to keep him behind me was no easy feat. Yeah, it’s the usual (Alex) Tagliani deal. That is what he’s known for.  I really can’t get over that, that’s unreal.  I mean with an engine failure last week and the Tagliani factor this week it’s changed the championship.
 
“I drove so hard all day, pushed so hard to get from seventh to third, I can’t even tell you how hard I drove just to hold-off cars that were quicker at times, just to put us in the position to challenge for a win. We had a great car at the end, and then it was the usual Tag (Tagliani). He just got in there, locked up the brakes and got into the back of me. I can’t tell you how frustrated I am after the engine problems last (race, at Mid-Ohio), and then this. We had a podium (finish). I can’t get over it right now. It’s unreal.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 PANTHER/DREYER AND REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH: “Even when we started at the back we thought that we had a car to move up to the front with strategy, but it just wasn’t happening and then we had a couple of incidents. Our first was with Hinchcliffe. I thought that he was saving fuel or was having some sort of mechanical issue and in Turn 11 he broke very early and I had a problem and locked wheels, but I broke my front wing and I spun him. That cost us because we had to change the front w
ing. At the end, Dixon was trying to pass me for three laps and I was braking as late as I could to not get passed and I think Mike Conway hit someone in front so he was a little slow and I hit him in the corner and they gave me the drive thru. It wasn’t our day and it’s one of those days it would have been more painful if were battling for the podium, but still I think that we could have managed a top-ten without those two incidents but it wasn’t the case. Difficult weekend, but the TranSystems car was really good in the end so I think that we will have good pace in Baltimore.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S PREMIUM ULTRA VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 20TH:
“It was a very disappointing race for us.  We made good progress through the weekend with the Fuzzy’s Vodka car and felt we would be better today in the race.  I don’t know what happened for the race.  We didn’t make many changes for the race.  But it felt like it was a completely different car from the past couple of days.  I thought we had the opportunity to do better today and take a step in the right direction.  But the car just did perform the way we wanted.  We’ll have to sit down and go over everything this week as we move to Baltimore for Labor Day weekend. I feel badly I didn’t do better today, that team didn’t do better and I badly for our sponsor, Fuzzy’s Vodka.  We’ll regroup and be ready for the next two races left in the season.”
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 TRUECAR/MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET SIDELINED IN A CRASH ON LAP 63 – FINISHED 22ND:
WHAT HAPPENED TO PUT YOU OUT OF THE RACE?
“It was a very bad impact the tub is broken in two and the gearbox pretty much went through my shoulder so it was a really bad hit.  It’s a shame.  I feel very bad because at first I don’t know what happened the car just refused to turn and it’s my mistake for sure, it’s me turning the wheel.  I have no idea what happened.”
 
YOU HAD A GREAT RACE GOING ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU WERE HOLDING DARIO (FRANCHITTI) ON YOUR BLACK TIRES THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AS TOUGH OF A 10 OR THIRTY LAPS THAT YOU HAD TO RUN ALL YEAR:
“Yeah everything was working out great because then we were going to finish with the better tires.  We had a brand new set of tires.  The problem is we were in the mix of all these lapped cars that were racing us pretty hard and I wanted to stay ahead and I guess I should have just given up.”
 
KATHERINE LEGGE, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 24TH:
“The first five laps were a real challenge, having not been in a race for quite some time. It was carnage out there early and there were cars all over the place. I just wasn’t aggressive enough early on, and that’s just a result of a lack of time in the car.
I was really using today to focus on minimizing mistakes and it was paying off. In all, I feel like we would have done much better if we hadn’t missed so much leading up to this weekend. However, I really want to thank Chevy for getting us an engine for this race, which was really important to my sponsor TrueCar.”
 
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 26 TEAM RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, SIDELINED ON LAP 45 WITH MECHANICAL ISSUE, FINISHED 25TH:
“We had been fighting hard to get by (Graham) Rahal, and I lost part of the (right) front wing, but it seemed like we were still able to turn some decent lap times. We had an extra set of (Firestone) Red (tires), so we were able to catch the pack of cars in front us but it was tough to get around guys. We made a pit stop (on lap 42), and then the temperatures started to go all over the place and the guys told me to come in immediately. Because it happened in the race, we won’t have a penalty in Baltimore (next weekend).”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 TEAM GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – FINISHED
SIDELINED ON LAP 34 WITH MECHANICAL ISSUE, FINISHED 26TH:
WHAT PUT YOU OUT OF THE RACE? “We’ve been slow since day one – since the first session. On the start I got into Simon (Pagenaud), he got held up – or I guess caught up – in Turn 7 there; hit him. We kind of were just settling into it; put a new wing on that first stop and then the car just went wicked lose. The low speed grip was just non-existent. So I had a train of cars behind me and Oriol (Servia) got in to the back of me. It wasn’t intentional – I was hanging on for dear life and I just literally had to slow the car down that much to make the corner. When he hit me I think it knocked an oil line off and that just did the engine in. It’s just bad to worse, there’s nothing else that could have worked against us this weekend, but we’ll but it behind us and try to move on to Baltimore and come back stronger.”

Chevy Racing–Manufacturer’s Championship!

Chevrolet Clinches 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship
 
SONOMA, Calif. – August 26, 2012 – With Ryan Briscoe’s No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet win today in the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway, Chevrolet has clinched the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship.
 
“Chevrolet is proud to race in the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012, and honored to win the Manufacturers championship with the Chevrolet direct-injected, twin turbo IndyCar V6,” said Jim Campbell, US Vice President Performance Vehicles and Motorsports.  “The key to developing the best combination of power, durability, fuel economy and driveability in the Chevrolet Indy V6 has been teamwork with the drivers, crew chiefs, team owners and our engineering partners. There is still more racing to go this season, and the team remains 100% focused on finishing strong.”
 
On the way to clinching the coveted crown in the first season of the Bowtie Brand’s return to IndyCar competition, Chevrolet IndyCar V6-powered drivers won nine of the 13 races to-date in the 15-race 2012 season starting with the season’s opening race at St. Petersburg.
 
“This IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ championship for the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 engine is the culmination of a great team effort,” said Mark Kent. Director, Chevrolet Racing. “From concept to race track, Chevrolet Racing engineers, Ilmor, Hitachi, Borg Warner, our Chevy teams and others put a race and championship-winning product in place in just over a year. To reap the rewards of this dedicated effort in our first season back in IndyCar is gratifying.  We are very proud of this achievement and thank everyone involved for their contributions.”
 
The Chevrolet IndyCar V6 team and driver roster that contributed to Chevrolet capturing the Series’ manufacturers’ title are: Team Penske – Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves and Will Power; Andretti Autosport – Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay; KV Racing Technology – Rubens Barrichello, Tony Kanaan and EJ Viso; Panther Racing – JR Hildebrand; Ed Carpenter Racing – Ed Carpenter; Dragon Racing – Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge, and Panther Dreyer & Reinbold Racing – Oriol Servia.
 
“Congratulations to our Chevrolet teams and all of our technical partners on winning the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ Championship,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “The “one-team” approach we implemented in the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 program has clearly demonstrated the value of integrating the input of all the talented engineers on each of our teams with Chevrolet engineers and the expertise of our technical partners. I am very proud of the contributions made by everyone involved in this program, and celebrate this achievement as Team Chevy.”
 
Chevrolet competed previously in Indy-style competition as an engine manufacturer in 1986-93 and 2002-05 with V8 engines that powered Chevrolet to 105 race wins which included seven Indianapolis 500 victories, and six driver championships.

Chevy Racing- Sonoma Qualifying Report

Will Power Wins the Pole at Sonoma; Team Chevy Drivers Claim Top-Four Spots in Firestone Fast Six
 
SONOMA, Calif. (August 25, 2012) – For the fourth time this season, Will Power will lead the field for an IZOD IndyCar Series race to the green flag.  Piloting his familiar No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, Power set a new qualifying record with a lap of 1:17.2709 at 111.116 m.p.h. today at Sonoma Raceway for Sunday’s running of the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. This is Power’s third consecutive pole at Sonoma.
 
Power, who came to Sonoma leading the Series’ driver’s standings, gained one valuable championship point for winning the pole.
 
Team Chevy drivers claimed the top-four positions in the final qualifying order of the Firestone Fast Six at the 2.385-mile, 12-turn road course.  Second fastest was Ryan Briscoe, No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet. Sebastien Bourdais, No. 7 TrueCar/McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet was third fastest followed by Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Penske Truck Rental Chevrolet in fourth position.
 
A total of 15 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers qualified for race 13 of the 15-race IndyCar season. Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet was seventh fastest to give Team Chevy five of the top-10 fastest qualifiers.
 
Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti completed the top-six qualifiers.
 
The 85-lap GoPro Indy Grand Prix at Sonoma is scheduled to start on Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. ET with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
 
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at

Chevy Racing–GOPRO INDY GRAND PRIX AT SONOMA


 
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GOPRO INDY GRAND PRIX AT SONOMA
SONOMA RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 25, 2012
PAGE 1
 
ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT DRIVERS JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 TEAM GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET, AND RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 28 TEAM DHL/SUN DROP CITRUS SODA CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Sonoma Raceway.  Full transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT THE CHANGES MADE TO SONOMA RACEWAY: JAMES – “The track did have some changes; upgrades if you will. We had a chance to test here last week. Really, the biggest one is turn seven. They widened the turn out, which helps. But the profile isn’t a ton different for us. The big difference in (turn) 11, the geometry of the corner is the same; it is just a little further down. The big change is turn seven. That changes that corner quite a bit. I definitely think it has made turn seven a better passing opportunity, which is obviously the goal. This race has always been notorious for difficult overtaking. I just think the nature of these big brake zones, and tight corners – they are tough in our cars. Indy cars are not really designed for first-gear thirty mile-an-hour hairpin (corners). It makes it very easy to make a mistake. I think that is actually going to create as many passing opportunities as a big brake zone as guys may be getting in a little bit wrong to (turn) 11 and having a nice little drag race up into turn one here. I definitely think there will be more action in the race for sure.”
 
TALKING ABOUT SITTING SECOND IN THE STANDINGS AND THE DEPTH OF THE FIELD AND THE COMPETITION THIS SEASON: RYAN – “This is definitely one of the most IndyCar seasons I have seen in a long time. Either one that I have been a part of, or not. If you ask guys like Dario (Franchitti) and Tony (Kanaan) will say the same thing, and they have been around for awhile. I don’t mean to make them old. This year has been extremely, extremely competitive. The DW12 (chassis) has done an excellent job in really making for some dramatic races. I think this championship is going to come down to Fontana. It’s going to be fought between three or four guys at least. I think realistically the top-five have a shot at winning it. Every race is going to be pivotal. We came into Mid-Ohio, the last race, leading by 20 points, and now we are trailing by five. It can swing quickly. We had an engine issue there at Mid-Ohio which sidelined us. Hopefully we don’t have any more of those, and that is behind us and we can go on and we can win the championship for Andretti, DHL, Sun Drop and Chevrolet.”
 
YOU ARE RIGHT BEHIND WILL POWER IN THE STANDINGS, WHO HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL HERE. WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO SURPASS HIM IN THE POINTS HERE? RYAN – “This is definitely a Penske track. Last year it was one-two-three. For the past four or five years, this has been a notoriously difficult for the Andretti squad. It is tough. Right now we definitely have to close the gap. They are the team to beat. We aren’t stellar at the moment. My side-kick Hinchcliffe here has come up with some crazy set-up stuff for this afternoon’s practice. He’s going to go guinea pig it. Hopefully we will be able tag along. This is probably one of our most difficult races coming from Andretti Autosport standpoint.”
 
WILL THE NEW LAYOUT HELP YOU? RYAN – “We were hoping it was going to. You took one corner and just tightened it up a little bit. And you took another corner and lengthened it a little bit. It didn’t really change the layout that much. Yes, it might change some passing situations. Like James said, slowing the car down more, it’s a little bit more difficult now. The guys that were quick here, the teams that were quick here and quick here still. We still have that same gap to close. It is a gap of about sixth-tenths of a second, which is a lot. But, we desperately need to close that. We will be working hard today.”
 
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE TEST SESSION HERE LAST WEEK? JAMES – “We learned what not to do. Which is almost as good as learning what to do. Not quite as good, but almost as good. We showed up here, because as Ryan said, this isn’t statistically the strongest track for our team, with a couple of different concepts. Unfortunately, not one of them really took. I think the test was vital because we have now had a week to analyze all that data. I think we have actually come up with something, after yesterday sitting down with the engineers, that I’m a lot more confident than I was Saturday morning when I got out of bed thinking ‘Man, this is going to be a tough weekend’. Again, we’ve got a long session this afternoon to try and work it out. We’ve got three cars pounding away at things. We’ll see. I do have faith in the team. One of the big things we’ve seen out of this team is comebacks and bounce-backs. We’ve had some pretty bad Fridays that have turned into some really good Sundays. Hopefully we can make that happen this weekend.”
 
IS THE CAR SETUP A MAJOR CHANGE WITH THE LAYOUT CHANGES TO THE TRACK? JAMES – “it’s pretty close because fundamentally, like we said, it is the one corner where the profile really changed. The rest is just lengthening or shortening sort of things. 96% of the track remains unchanged. The setup philosophies are very similar which is why, as Ryan said, the teams that are traditionally quick here, are still quick here.”
 
HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR TWO-AND-A-HALF OFF TIME? RYAN – “My wife (Becky Gordon Hunter-Reay) ran the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. That was one of the most nerve-wracking things I have ever had to do. Sit at the bottom of the hill and watch the car leave…you are like ‘ok, now I just sit here in the trees and listen and make sure I don’t hear a big sound’. You lose radio communication. Becky did a great job getting up there. It was the only completely stock car in the race, and it was the only stock electric car.  So we did that. Then went to New York and did some media and PR stuff. That was a busy day. Got a lot in. Then with this Isaac thing coming, I had to completely hurricane proof my house, even though I had no idea if it was coming. Which is awesome. Spent the whole day. And now its not coming to Florida, so good thing I did that. (Laughs). But now our lawn furniture is all inside, so its nice. Our whole house is filled with lawn furniture.”
 
JAMES – “You should entertain and have a party. There’s enough places to sit..”
 
RYAN – “That’s what I was thinking. I would just let people track the house.”
 
JAMES – “I’ll come by after the race, how’s that? We’ll have a little gathering at your place. I’ll call friends.”
 
RYAN – “Will you?  Let’s do that.”
 
JAMES – “Yeah, it’s a date.”
 
RYAN – “Date.”
 
JAMES – “Which segways nicely into how I actually spent some of my time after Mid-Ohio.  I spent a few days with Michael, Marco and Mario (Andretti) in Pennsylvania. A little bit of team bonding, which was a lot of fun. Ryan here, he big-timed us and didn’t show up. He was invited, but…” LAUGHS
 
RYAN – “I had to go support my wife, and look after my house.”
 
JAMES – “Details, details. You are focusing on all the wrong points, Ryan.”
 
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
 
JAMES – “It was toing and froing. I wish I had more actual down time that I did with toing and froing to Charlotte for various reasons.”
 
RYAN – “Toing and froing?” I’ve never heard it used.
 
JAMES – “Toing and froing. It means going to a place, and then returning from the same place. You should add into your vocabulary. You expand your horizons a little bit Ryan.”
 
MORE LAUGHTER
 
JAMES – “So, housekeeping. I paid a lot of bills, opened a lot of mail. It was very domestic. I did a lot of laundry. It was great. It sounds weird, b
ut it actually nice to have the time to do stuff like that. It is nice to have 48 hours at home to just literally clean my house, pay my bills and stuff.”
 

The Ups and Downs of Sonoma Raceway Next on the Schedule for Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams and Drivers

The Ups and Downs of Sonoma Raceway Next on the Schedule for Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams and Drivers
 
 
DETROIT – August 22, 2012 – The inaugural season of Chevrolet’s re-entry into IZOD IndyCar Series competition is rapidly nearing the finish line. Sonoma Raceway is next up for the Chevrolet IndyCar V6-powered teams.
 
Situated in the scenic landscape in Sonoma County, just north of San Francisco, California, Sonoma Raceway has long been a favorite track of drivers and fans. But for the running of GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma on Sunday afternoon, the 2.31-mile, 12-turn permanent road course has undergone some changes to turns seven, nine and 11 designed to enhance passing opportunities.
In addition, IndyCar officials have made an adjustment to the push-to-pass assist for round 13 of the 15-race 2012 season.  A total of 90 seconds will be afforded drivers, with a maximum of 15 seconds per activation.

“After mostly positive reports from our Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers that tested on the new configuration at Sonoma Raceway, this weekend’s race should be competitive and exciting,’ said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “Of course, it won’t be without its challenges.  In addition to the changes made to the track, the specifications for the push-to-pass have been changed from a 5 second delay to a 3.5 second delay, based on driver feedback and tailoring the feature to the Sonoma circuit layout.  Also, the amount of time available has been reduced by 10 seconds to a total of 90 seconds.”
 
With the ongoing heated battle for the Series’ Manufacturers’ Championship, as well as four Team Chevy drivers in the top-five of the Driver Championship Standings, the intensity heading to Sonoma is at an all-time high.  Chevrolet heads to Sonoma leading the Manufacturer point standings with eight victories to-date.
 
Will Power sits atop the standings with three victories to his credit through 12 races.  Ryan Hunter-Reay, also with three wins, is second in the points order, just five points down to Power. Two-time winner Helio Castroneves is third in points, and James Hinchcliffe rounds out the top-five in the standings.
 
“As the season is winding down, the battle for the Championship is tight,” Berube concluded.  “Every position is valuable points to Team Chevy. Along with our technical partners, we are focused on providing all of our teams with the best possible tools to finish at the front for maximum points. We believe the continued focus on preparation, strategy and execution are the keys to success in the IZOD IndyCar Series Championship.”
 
In previous IndyCar races at Sonoma, four current Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers have visited the Winner’s Circle.  Power is the defending race champion, and also took the win in 2010.  Castroneves took the trip to Victory Lane in 2008.  Marco Andretti was the Sonoma race winner in 2006, and Tony Kanaan captured the win in 2005.
 
Chevrolet competed previously in Indy-style competition as an engine manufacturer in 1986-93 and 2002-05 with V-8 engines, winning 105 races, that powered Chevrolet to six driver champions, and included seven Indianapolis 500 victories.
 
The 85-lap GoPro Indy Grand Prix at Sonoma is scheduled to start on Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. ET with live television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.

Chevy Racing–Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

 
No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R Repeats as Montreal GT Winner
 
MONTREAL, Quebec (August 18, 2012) – Robin Liddell and John Edwards took the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R to GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Grand Touring (GT) Victory Lane today in the Montreal 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, making it back-to-back wins for the team at the Montreal, Quebec, Canada track.
 
Starting from the pole, Edwards took the green flag and settled into a solid pace at the front of the GT class. After a smooth driver exchange, Liddell held the point comfortably despite losing radio contact with the team and resorting to old fashioned pit board communication for a brief period until he was able to restore the radio.
 
But in the closing laps, the second place car made a final charge for the win. However, in typical style, Liddell continued his smooth maneuvering around the 2.709-mile, 15-turn road course to the checkered flag, and win by .569 seconds. It is the second victory of the season for the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R team, and the fourth career Montreal victory for Liddell.
 
“Congratulations to Robin Liddell and John Edwards on the hard-fought win for the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R in GT,” said Jim Lutz, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, GRAND-AM Road Racing. “Both drove a very smart race, saving the tires and the equipment until the end.  Overcoming radio issues and a strong challenge on the closing laps, it was a great points day for the team.”
 
“Mentally, it was quite tough,” said Liddell. “With the Ferrari challenging at the end, we gave it everything we had, especially those last 10 laps. The rear tires were going off a bit, so when I had a gap, I looked after them as much as I could and saved them for the end. It was pretty nail-biting because he was running me down. But once again, Stevenson Motorsports and the Chevy Camaro come away with the win here. We’ve got such a good record here.
 
“I wasn’t aware of the radio issue at first; then I realized I had knocked the ear plugs out. I fumbled around, got them back in after I saw the sign board and knew they wanted to do something. I got the ear plugs back in, got back in radio communication and pitted when they told me come down. It was a good call on the team’s part getting that stop done in that window to the end.”
 
“Even when everything goes right, I hate sitting on the pit box at the end of the race,” said Edwards. “Because the pressure is on, but I can’t do anything about it. When I’m in the car, I’m a lot calmer and I see things coming up. But when I’m on the pit box, watching the Ferrari closing down.  Fortunately when the radio issue happened, they went out with a sign board and got Robin back in and got it repaired. Near the end, we were good on fuel, no issues there, but it was a nail biter!”
 
With the victory, Stevenson Motorsports in now just one point out of second place in the team points. Liddell is in the same scenario in the driver standings.  In addition, the win closed the gap from first to second for Chevrolet in the GT Manufacturers’ Championship standings.
 
In Daytona Prototype (DP), Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney brought home the runner-up finishing position in the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP. Starting from the pole, the pair was going for a second consecutive win at the Canadian venue. After losing valuable track position after a longer than usual stop for the driver change, Gurney fought his way back through the field, and with a fuel-only gamble on the final stop, the team was able to celebrate on the podium.
 
Finishing a close third place in DP was the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP piloted by David Donohue and local favorite Paul Tracy.
 
Lutz concluded by saying: “The No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP and the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP waged a great battle for the second and third podium positions in DP during the final laps of the race.  With track position very critical, the lack of cautions didn’t allow for the field to get bunched up so our Corvette DP teams could battle for the win, but it was a good points gathering day, and a solid day for Chevrolet in the battle for the Rolex DP engine manufacturers’ championship battle.”
 
The No. 9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP finished fourth, and the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Corvette DP finished fifth in the two-hour, 66-lap race.  The No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP suffered damage in a multi-car first-lap incident that resulted in a ninth place in-class finish.
 
GRAND-AM moves next to Laguna Seca Raceway, Salinas, California for the Continental Tire Sports Car Festival on September 7-9, 2012.
 
OTHER CHEVROLET DRIVER QUOTES:
 
GURNEY: “It was a tough race for sure. A lot of guys had a really good pace. We were a little off sequence there. Had a little trouble in the pits with the driver change and came out fifth. On the next stop, we changed our strategy and left the tires on, and in the end, it worked out. It is great to be on the podium here after a tough beginning to the day.”
 
FOGARTY:  “We’ve taken a little bit of a different approach to find the tire around here than a lot of the other competitors. We are slowest on the straights and faster everywhere else. This track poses a unique situation. The heavy braking areas can be aided by downforce, but the downforce detracts on the long straights. We emphasize the braking zone instead of the straights, and it seems to be working here – we’ve won here before doing that.”
 
DONOHUE:  “Action Express did a great job today. We chose to get some new Continentals there near the end. I think it was the right decision, but the other guys were able to cycle out ahead of us. Paul (Tracy) did a great job at the start. We got all bunched up in that start, and there was some contact. The guys were able to put the car back together, so we made something out of nothing.
 
TRACY: “David (Donohue) did a fantastic job. It’s been a long time for me to be in a competitive situation, and finish on the podium. It was a bit of a rough start. There was a lot of action at the beginning. A car spun in front of us. I was able to hang on and keep the car in good contention. Then David just drove like a pirate today with the knife between his teeth. He was just going for it, so that was just cool.”