MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PENNZOIL 400 PRESENTED BY JIFFY LUBE
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 1, 2019
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
4th Austin Dillon, No. 3 Dow Silastic Silicone Elastomers Camaro ZL1
5th Daniel Hemric, No. 8 Caterpillar Camaro ZL1
7th Kyle Larson, No. 42 Credit One Bank Camaro ZL1
9th Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1
11th Alex Bowman, No. 88 Axalta Camaro ZL1
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1ST Kevin Harvick (Ford)
2nd Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
3rd Kyle Busch (Toyota)
4th Austin Dillon (Chevrolet)
5th Daniel Hemric (Chevrolet)
The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube is scheduled to begin on Sunday, March 3 at 3:30 pm, ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 4th
YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN FAST ALL WEEKEND. TALK ABOUT QUALIFYING:
“Yeah, I figured we had the fastest car. I hate that we couldn’t stick to our plan that we had beforehand. We knew we had the fastest cars and we gave up a pole because of it. We just didn’t work together as a team as good as we needed to. I hate that, but we will hopefully learn from it because I’m really proud of these guys. It sucks when you have the two fastest cars and you qualifying fourth and fifth with them. We had the pole we thought that whoever was the fastest in the second round was going to run second and we were just going to go. I didn’t think anybody had anything for us, but plans changed right before the end.”
DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 5th
“It is to a point especially with how fast of race cars RCR gave myself and Austin Dillon. The good thing is though for the No. 8 team it’s a way better starting position than we have had the first two weeks and we are going to try to roll off there and give it a good run, but really proud of everybody in this Caterpillar Camaro ZL1 for giving us that much speed. We just figured out a way to mess it up. This is crazy. That qualifying deal is absolutely nuts. I know it probably put on a good show for the fans, but I kind of made single car runs the first two runs by myself. I didn’t really know what was going to happen there in traffic and just didn’t quite time it exactly right. For sure, I think if Austin and I could have executed our plan, we had enough speed to do it, but just didn’t work out.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 7th
THOUGHTS ON THIS QUALIFYING FORMAT:
“Yeah, it’s crazy. I got to do a little bit of it, that style, in Xfinity a few years ago. Yeah, we did it in Xfinity until we started crashing and then NASCAR made it single car qualifying at a lot of those tracks. So, I don’t know what to think about it. I’m glad it worked out for us throughout each round, but it’s definitely crazy. Just leaving pit road is intense. Me and (Kevin) Harvick were close to squeezing each other and getting damage. Yeah, that was wild, but we will do whatever they tell us to do.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 9th
WAS THAT CRAZY OR WHAT? IT LOOKED ENTERTAINING FROM OUR SEAT, BUT STRESSFUL FROM YOURS:
“It is stressful. We had qualifying like this I think on a restrictor plate track years ago. And I think it was great entertainment, but we were all afraid of how many cars we were going to tear up. So far, no cars are torn up, but I think that opportunity really exists. It is entertaining there is much more going on for the driver than a single car qualifying lap especially with this rules package, but the draft is everything. Being the first car is such a disadvantage and you try to figure out what games you can play to leave a nice game and be fifth on back.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 11th
DID YOU THINK YOU HAD THE POLE?
“TV said we did, the flag said we did, their timer said we did, all of it said we did. So, it’s their sandbox and we play in it. It’s wrong. They don’t give us an official clock to look at because the official clock that they gave us, our lap counted.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HOOTERS CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 12th
“I’m not exactly sure where the right place to be is. Obviously, Kevin (Harvick) did a good job at timing it up and being in the right spot. Try to replicate that I guess.”
DO YOU ENJOY THIS TYPE OF THING?
“I thought it was actually pretty entertaining. I enjoyed it. We might look silly sitting down there waiting until the last second, but it’s pretty fun kind of playing chicken with everybody and seeing who is going to go and who is not and all the decisions you are going to make. So, yeah, whatever I enjoyed it. It’s the rules and we’ve got ‘em so might as well like them.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified
“I don’t know if any of us knew really what to do there. But, you adapt round to round. I thought it was fun and I still think that handling mattered because there were cars in front of me that were really loose and didn’t qualify well. I think what made us keep being able to go out and rerun our second time is we just kept working on getting the car handling so I could hold it more wide-open. So, good speed and good handling still matter. It’s still racing and I’m just glad that we are taking this new package with excitement and really trying to make the most of it.”
RYAN PREECE, NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 24th
“That was something different. It’s just very draft dependent and it validates some certain thoughts on what I thought about. I am not quite sure if some of these guys… I might be wrong, but if they are going to be able to keep that speed in the race when they get in traffic. I know we trimmed our car out a lot there at the end or before we went into this even more just to try and chase that speed and it made it pretty undriveable. So, I think we are going to be in pretty good shape when it comes to race time.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 HERTZ CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 20th
“Yeah, I think we honestly didn’t have the best draw for where we were on pit road and ultimately that kind of screwed us because we couldn’t get out where we needed to for the first round. We were back in the pack and everybody was kind of handling terrible, so, I did what I could, but my foot was to the floor.
“In the second round we were all waiting at the end of pit road to make one more drafting run. Time was counting down and it was going to be close on if we could make two laps before time ran out, so we went and unfortunately ended up the lead car of the pack which hurt us.”
BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 TRANSPORTATION IMPACT CAMARO ZL1- Qualified 21st
“I felt like we look back at practice we ran a .16 or .17 in the pack. The fastest we went was a .14 here. So, I told them I think we are at our peak speed with our car and I don’t know if maybe we were a little bit too free all of qualifying, but I don’t know if being perfect would have maybe put us at a .13. So, part of it. That was kind of fun because it brought me back to the Truck days and it was an absolute soup sandwich when we were doing that, so these guys kind of got it more organized, but hey we made the second round, we have something to work out, we are not totally out to lunch. So, I’m excited about it.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 NATURAL LIGHT NATURDAY’S CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 27th
WHAT HAPPENED?
“It was just a disaster. It was exactly what we expected it to be like with this style. That is a bummer, we have really good speed in our Naturday’s Camaro ZL1. I think we were ninth or something in practice. We’ve got speed it’s just… had a decent first run and then everybody goes at the end trying to jump each other. We were in a good spot and had someone jump right in front of us that could not get going to save their life. Pretty much ruined our qualifying effort and now we get to scratch and claw our way all day.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 STAR NURSERY CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 28th
WAS THAT WHAT YOU EXPECTED WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?
“We didn’t expect to be as loose as we were, so I had to check-up out of the throttle and as soon as you check-up you lose too much momentum, so we didn’t advance.”
