NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AARON’S 499
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 4, 2014
 
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
TELL US ABOUT THE LAST FEW LAPS OF THAT RACE AND HOW WILD IT WAS:
“Yeah first off I have to thank everybody at RCR and ECR motors.  Just so much speed in the race car.  I’ve got to thank everybody at the No. 47 shop for doing such hard work and preparing this car so well.  The previous restart the outside lane had such a run.  I kept inching, inching and then I just waited too late and I got shuffled.  I really thought I had messed us up there and that last restart I’ve got to thank Paul Menard.  He just kept shoving me all the way up through the inside of guys.  Just proud of everybody on this team.  I’ve got to thank Bush’s Bean and Clorox and Kingsford, Charter, House Autry, Shore lunch, Scott products everybody that helps us get to this race track and all the great sponsors we have on this team.  We are slowly getting there each step day by day.  I’m just proud to be on this team right now.”
 
WAS THE RACING TODAY TYPICAL TALLADEGA OR WERE THERE THINGS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT THAN WHAT WE HAVE SEEN IN THE PAST?
“These cars the package we have now drafts so well. I kept waiting for everybody to kind of calm down and single file out.  I went to the back at one point, like everybody is going to calm down and it never happened.  About 50 to go I was like ‘alright I guess it’s time to get crazy with everybody’.  I hope the fans enjoyed it.  It was awesome to see all the fans come out and how packed the grandstands were here at Talladega.  It’s like the old Talladega again so thanks for everybody coming out.  I hope it was a great show.”
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 RICHMOND/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 6TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We had a really fast Richmond/Menards/Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Chevrolet all weekend.  All the RCR/ECR motors qualified up front and we tried to stay up there as long as we could.  Kind of got shuffled back and I just played the game when to go/when not to go.  I got some damage, maybe 50 laps to go and we were trying to get back up there.  We had a good run.  Got a little bit of damage, but my boys worked really hard, fixed it.  I think we pitted like five or six times to get all the fenders knocked out on it.  It was really good at the end.  On the last restart just pushed the hell out of AJ (Allmendinger) and wound up being okay.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
TOP TEN-FINISH HERE AT TALLADEGA. ASSESS WHAT HAPPENED HERE TODAY:
 “We were in a good spot there at the end and what you would want to put yourself in a position to win.  I felt like I got a good restart with our Jimmy Johns Chevrolet SS, but our line just never formed up.   The 40 was way out of line and obviously there was some crashing going on behind us.  The bottom was able to get formed up better but a good, solid day for our Jimmy Johns team.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE/THANKAMILLIONTEACHERS.COM CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 8TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We had a really good car.  The Farmers Insurance Chevy was fast, just didn’t get to the front when I needed to there with like 30 (laps) to go probably.  From that point on we were in the back.  We just had to wait for wrecks to happen.  It was kind of you either charge through and move people a little bit and aggressively do it or else you just wait.  I chose to wait and we ended up wherever we ended up.  I wish it would have went to the line though because I think we had good momentum me and Ricky (Stenhouse, Jr.) and Paul Menard.”
 
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 17TH
ON HIS DAY:
“We were solidly running in the top-10 but got into the wrong spot on the (final) restart. We managed to get a good start but the guy behind me didn’t and it just pulled me back. When there’s no one behind you it’s difficult to get going. I tried to stay on the No. 18’s bumper (Kyle Busch) and got going with him but as I got up through the gears I started to fall off. That screwed us up and put us on the outside lane three wide. For some reason our car wouldn’t work on the outside all day — we had to run the middle and the bottom. It just came down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time on the green-white-checker. Except for those last two laps it was a good day.  We raced hard and ran a lot of laps in the top-10.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 22ND
YOU LED A LOT OF LAPS HERE EARLY ON IN THE RACE TELL US ABOUT YOUR DAY:
“It was good out front.  I wish I could have stayed there.  I was just talking about heating issues I was getting hot a lot.  I think you saw that from a lot of cars.  It was a hot day here in Talladega.  When you get back a little bit in the field it gets even worse.  I think I was the second lane like second car back real early on and it just felt like it kind of died a little bit.  Then I started getting passed.  So I dropped back to get some clean air.  Got some track position, a couple of times and got up there a little bit, but heating was definitely an issue.  It really limited me to the bottom lane.  Because as soon as I jumped up it went there.  It was a good car to lead which is something that as a team we struggled with as a car that could lead.  I felt good about that.  It was good to get the GoDaddy car to lead some laps because it had been awhile and we missed a lot of accidents.  The good news is this car is going to get to go to Daytona.  That is a positive.  The result was not necessarily too much of a positive, but it’s going to get rolled up on the truck so that is more than a lot of people can say coming from a speedway.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/VALSPAR CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 23RD
“We all did a nice job of being patient out there and managing the race itself until it was time to go. I got caught-up in the first wreck and that did some damage; and I don’t know what happened when I spun out. I just went out in front of everybody. The car just got real loose going into Turn 3 and turned around and collected a bunch of guys, unfortunately. And then after that, I think I got in two more wrecks and somehow still came home in the twenties. So, we definitely have a beat-up race car which was unfortunate because we had a very fast Lowe’s/Valspar Chevrolet today.”
 
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU SPUN?
“We just got turned around. I’m not really sure why. I know I had some damage to the right rear quarter panel and I had a great-driving race car with no issues and then as I was coming through Turn 3, the back end just slid out from under me. So, I don’t know where cars were around me and what could have created it, but it just took a big lazy slide and the back came around.
 
“I don’t know if the damage to the car played into it because I didn’t have any handling issues all day long. The car drove great.”
 
CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THE AGGRESSIVENESS INCREASES THROUGHOUT THE DAY?
“As the day progresses throughout the day, you just try to wedge yourself into holes. You don’t lift when you might normally lift. When you have a big run on somebody, instead of dragging the brake a little and avoiding making contact, you just let it roll up in there and hit their bumper; and that energy there creates a lot of that action.”
 
WERE YOU AROUND BRAD KESELOWSKI TODAY?
“Yeah, at times.”
 
THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT WEREN’T VERY THRILLED WITH HIM. HOW ABOUT YOU?
“I wasn’t so thrilled that a car six laps down crashed the field, that aspect of it. But I get it. You