CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING RELEASE AND TRANSCRIPT
JULY 6, 2014

Juan Pablo Montoya Puts Chevrolet IndyCar V6 in Victory Lane at Pocono
Team Penske Teammate Helio Castroneves Finishes Second to Give Team Chevy Top-Two Spots on Podium

LONG POND, Pa. (July 6, 2014) – Juan Pablo Montoya crowned his return to Verizon IndyCar Series competition by driving his No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet to the victory in the Pocono IndyCar 500. It is the sixth 2014 win by a Chevrolet driver and extended the Bowtie brand’s lead in the Series’ manufacturer championship battle with seven races remaining in 2014.

Montoya’s Team Penske teammate Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Chevrolet, was second to give Team Chevy the top-two rungs on the podium of the 200-lap/500-mile race on the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway, also known as the “Tricky Triangle”.

“Congratulations to Juan Pablo Montoya and Team Penske for making such a strong statement by winning this 500 mile race from the pole,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, Verizon IndyCar Series. “Juan Pablo and his crew managed their fuel mileage and track position over the numerous pit stops even with a missing front wing endplate. Congrats to Helio and his crew for taking P2 on the podium, along with Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon in 4th and 5th respectively to round out a Team Chevy 4 out of the top 5 positions. This result comes with a substantial tally of points from this double points event and raises the Team Chevy momentum heading into Iowa next weekend.”

Starting from the pole, the win is the 11th IndyCar victory for Montoya, who last competed in the Series in 2000 before moving to Formula One and then to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He was credited with leading six times for a total of 45 laps in the race that went caution-free for 159 laps, before being slowed for the only yellow-flag of the race that lasted until lap 164.

The win moved Montoya from fifth to fourth in the point standings.

Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Ryan Briscoe, No. 8 NTT Data Chevrolet and Scott Dixon, No. 9 Target Chevrolet, finished fourth and fifth respectively to give the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 engine four of the top-five finishing positions in the 11th race of the 18-race season.

Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, was the point leader coming into the race. Power started in the middle of the front row alongside his Team Penske teammate Montoya and jumped to the lead at the start of the race. He led four times for a total of 69 laps before serving a drive-through penalty that put him back in the field.  As a result of the penalty he was relegated to a 10th-place finish.  As a result, Power and Castroneves are now tied atop the standings with 446 points apiece.

Tony Kanaan, No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, led a race-high four times for a total of 78 laps and looked poised to capture his first victory of 2014, but fuel strategy forced him down pit lane with only four laps remaining for splash of fuel and had to settle for the 11th finishing position.

Carlos Munoz (Honda) completed the podium finishing third.

Next on the schedule is the Iowa Corn Indy 300 on Saturday, July 12 at 8:00 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network. Live radio coverage will be on IMS Radio broadcast on XM Radio Channel 209 and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 213. In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at www.indy.car.com..
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND

THE MODERATOR:  We’ll continue with our Verizon IndyCar Series post‑race press conference.  Before we begin with our race winner I would like to announce that this is the fastest 500‑mile race in IndyCar history with an average speed of 202.402 miles per hour.  The previous fastest race was Fontana in 2002 with a speed of 197.995 miles per hour.
Juan, we’ll start with you.  You have led laps in all three oval races this season.  You’re third 500‑mile race win with other wins at Indianapolis in 2000 and Michigan in 2000.  A big win here at Pocono Raceway.  Tell us about your race today.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think it was a really good race.  I felt a did a good jump on the start and for some reason you’re kind of a sitting duck.  I was kind of surprised how much of a sitting duck I was.  When I got into Turn 1 I was like four wide.  From as soon as I started winning the back straight and changed my feel, make sure and turn down the engine and just started saving fuel from that moment, I felt that’s what we needed to do early, make sure we opened the race and opened the windows, and I felt we did a really good job with that.
From there on, I mean, it’s a matter of being in the right strategy, just making the right calls and hoping things go your way.
THE MODERATOR:  I know you noticed a big band of Colombian fans in the audience today.  What did you say to them when you went over and embraced them after the race?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It was more about signing autographs and saying thanks for coming.  They’re really cool fans.  I’ll tell you the truth, I was amazed how many people were in the grandstands today for an oval race.  It’s unbelievable.  It’s pretty cool.

Q.  I have a technical question.  When you lost the front plate at lap 165, you said after the race you had a little bit of understeer.  In principle can you drive the car without?  Is it absolutely necessary?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, I think they just generate more downforce, not only front wing but overall downforce, but it is what it is.  My pace, it slowed down a little bit.  I could run 217s, 218s by myself and I lost about a mile an hour when we did it.  But I mean, track position is everything, and that was the only shot I had at passing Will and I had to take it.  It was either there or there or there, and we did it, you know.  It was fun.

Q.  Can you just take me through that incident with Will or at least the contact?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  The contact, we did the restart, and we went side by side.  When I went into Turn 2 I said I think I can hold him, and I said, there’s no point.  We’re teammates, let’s be a little smarter, and we went into Turn 3, and he lifted a little bit, and I felt like I said, I’m just going to go in wide open, hopefully ‑‑ you know what I mean, go in really, really low and make sure I can run wide open.  I’m going to run wide open behind him, I’m pretty close.  I got a hold of the toe at the corner and he started going left and more left and more left, so I got to a point I finally got to him, and he like ‑‑ at that point I had to either hope he went right or I went right, and I went right at the same time he did, and I had to lift.  I actually got out of the gas.  If you look at my trace, I got off the gas and as soon as I cleared him I went wide open again.  I think he thought it was because he went through so much dirt, he went so shallow into Turn 1, he lifted.  He lifted too early and I held it wide open, and I said until I don’t clear him, I’m not lifting.
I knew from going around people like they were pitting you could run the second groove you would get a little more understeer, but like I said, run wide open, get ahead of him and then downshift and get out of the corner, and that was it.

Q.  For last week you said you’re almost there.  I guess today you can say that you are here.  Talk about the comeback, first victory since 2000.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s been a long road.  It’s a lot harder than people realize because as I said the other day, driving open wheels is so different than what I’ve been driving the last few years, and it’s just ‑‑ it was going to take time.  I don’t like jinxing it and saying, oh, it’s coming, it’s coming.  I’d rather be let’s just keep working on it.  I feel at this point we’ve got to step it up and work a little bit harder because I think we’re in a position now to win the championship.  So we’ve really got to step it up.
You know, we’ve been having really good finishes and everything, but if we want to win the championship, we’ve got to make sure we perform a little better on the street courses and stuff like that.  We haven’t run on short ovals so I have no idea what to expect.  Hopefully it’s as good as this.

Q.  Juan, on the TV show, Paul Tracy said when you first came here you drove like a wild man back in the kart days.  You drove like a wild man, flat stick all the time, and then you had all this experience in Formula 1 and NASCAR, and he said particularly today all that experience you had in NASCAR came to the fore and you drove a really smart race.  Did you see it a similar way?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, I think he’s right.  The good thing with who I am and my character, it’s I can kind of unplug myself and go at it.  I still don’t care.  But you can run a lot smarter races.  You can look at the bigger picture.  NASCAR really showed me to look at the bigger picture that you never did, and I think 90 percent of the open wheel guys never look at the bigger picture, and I probably lost formula championships and everything by not looking at the bigger picture.  Now that you do, you go, oh ‑‑ you know what I mean?  It’s a shame you can’t turn back to be 20 again with this experience, but it’s what it is.

Q.  You just mentioned NASCAR.  Was your NASCAR experience at this track any advantage or any help for you?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Not really.  The cars are so different.  We go over 10 seconds a lap quicker, so no.  I mean, I wish it would.  The only thing that helped was I knew where the corners were when we came here and tested.  But we run ‑‑ even there were laps in the race you could run wide open all the way around, even in race trim.  It was pretty hectic.

Q.  Are you surprised to be talking about the championship at this point because a few months ago that didn’t seem to be on your radar at all?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It wasn’t.  I was, I don’t know, nearly 200 points out or something, and now I’m within 50.  I’m still a ways away, but hey, I think people know that I’m coming, and it’s good.  It’s definitely a plus.  I think it’s something that is helping and I’ve got to keep that in mind is I got to here because I’ve been really smart about it, and it’s got to be that way.  With Hawksworth in Houston, I could have been stupid or braver or whatever you want to call it and ended up in tires with him and prove a point, and what’s the point.  The point is that would have gave away 20 or 30 points, and then you get to the end of the year, and you go, oh, I shouldn’t be fighting with that dude, you know?

Q.  What did you think when you saw TK pit?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Big relief because like when he pitted, like I looked ‑‑ we have a little display with the laps, and I knew there was no way he was going to make it from here.  I mean, there is no, no way.  So I thought, okay, so there’s two ways.  One for him to make it is he’s got to run really slow, and if he runs really slow, we’ll get to him.  And if he runs a little bit hard, he’s going to run out of gas.  So they were planning on a caution.  If you get a caution with four or five laps to go, he wins the race.  But it’s what it is, you know?

Q.  Juan, first of all, great race today.  You had a really smart race.  Two questions for you.  One:  Did you ever have any doubt in your mind that you can come back after so many years and win in IndyCar again?  Was there ever a doubt?  And number two, you’re going to be running one or more NASCAR races for Roger.  Do you expect that transition back and forth to be difficult?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think now I’m really settled on the IndyCar.  Honestly I believed from how well I performed back in the day and how well I always ran in Formula 1 and like when I ran the Daytona Prototype and anything with grip, I could perform.  I knew it was going to take a little bit of time, but I mean, having the opportunity to run for Roger, it’s unbelievable.  I’ve worked really hard physically and mentally to get here, and I feel in a really good place right now.  I’m really happy.
I think adjusting back to the Cup car, that was a bit of a shock in Michigan, but by the time the race started, it was good.  It was just a matter of what I want from the car is very different than what they want.  I think going to Indy, it’s a really good racetrack for me.  I have really good knowledge of what I need to do, mental knowledge of like I could tell you exactly where I need to brake, where I need to turn, where I need to position the car, every frigging corner now.  I’m going to go there and do that, and I know if I do that, I’m going to be pretty close already.
And something that is going to happen in Indy is that qualifying is after two practices.  It’s between the practices and the race.  So we’re going to be in a little bit better shape.  Last time we had ran, I believe, six laps in Michigan and straight into qualifying.  It was like, oh, what?  I mean, it was kind of shocking.

Q.  You never did much leading today; however, you always seemed to be going a lot farther with the fuel on your stints.  Did you feel like even though you were not leading you were still in control of the race because you could go so much longer on fuel?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I didn’t want to lead.  Like I told Will, if I can lead the first lap, I’ll lead the first lap and I’m going to back off and let you go, and he joked, I’m going to back off.  I said, believe me, when I’m telling you I’m going to back off you’d better run because if not they’re going to freight train us, so I was kind of happy I wasn’t leading.
You know what I mean, it’s about making fuel, learning how you can make more fuel and running smart and controlling the situation and the gap.  I don’t know, I feel like I do a really good job at that.  I used to do a really good job back in the day, as well, with fuel.  It’s pretty cool.  It’s pretty cool when you can make fuel like that.  I think it’s the Chevy, not me.

Q.  You’re now one of a select few drivers who have won a race in IndyCar and NASCAR.  Does that mean anything to you to be with some other noteworthy names or anything?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I did that years ago.  I don’t know, it’s fun to do it again.  I’ll be honest with you.  I never race for the history of it.  I’ve never been a history buff.  You know what I mean?  If you look at everything I did, I’ve accomplished so far in racing, people, I’m probably going to ‑‑ 20 years from now they’re going to go, oh, my God, this guy did this.  Right now I don’t really care.  Now I’m thinking about what are we going to do for Iowa.  Tomorrow we’ll have fun with the team and plan how we’re going to run the weekend and what we did right this weekend, what we did wrong, just ‑‑ I think we’ve been doing a really good job of learning from every situation, you know, taking advantage of every situation and learning from it.

Q.  I’m curious about how you feel about this track, IndyCar, coming back here, the fans, et cetera, because I asked your podium and they were really enthusiastic, and I’m wondering about you.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s exciting.  It’s a cool place because it’s so close to New York and there’s so many Latinos there, New Jersey and all that area.  I mean, I think the crowd was really good.  One thing that is hard is the overtaking is really hard.  Overtaking is really hard.  It makes for a hard race to watch, but I felt at the end of the race when everybody was like opening up the engines and went full ridge and full timing and everything, it was like, here we go, you know, man up.

Q.  You kind of touched on it a couple minutes ago, talking about the Chevy engines.  How key was that in your fuel strategy today.  If you remember four of the top 5 were Chevy engines.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think Chevy has been doing a really amazing job this year.  I remember last year if you look at last year’s race they were getting really beat out of the pits and stuff, and we did a lot of work with that.  We came here and tested a did a lot of work with that, and today our out laps and in laps were amazing.  It’s pretty amazing, the tires were the same.  You could run out of the pits and run wide open all the way around out of the pits.  It was not easy but you could hold it wide open.  By the time you get to Turn 3 you’re already at full speed with cold tires, low pressure, but what the heck.

Q.  How good would IndyCar racing be if you’d had all the fuel you wanted to use?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Well, you can use as much fuel as you want.  Are you going to have like a side tank next to you or something?  (Laughter.)
I mean, it’s about strategy, you know what I mean?  Because the way the race is, if you could do ‑‑ I mean, I’ll give you ‑‑ you could do, I don’t know, like four and a half, a little more, miles ‑‑ that’s what they were telling me, about four and a half miles per gallon with like five laps of yellow, you could do it in like five stops.  If you run full ridge, you definitely had to run six stops.  You had to make sure you covered that basics.  It’s something we talked about is make sure our pace, we can make the fuel, but our pace is fast enough so nobody can make it in five.  If you force people to pick up the pace, you know what I mean, if you can get 20 seconds on them and you will get 20 seconds from them if they are saving too much fuel, then their strategy is out the window.  So you’ve got to push people for that.
I don’t know, some people say maybe a Push‑to‑Pass in the ovals like here would be good.  I don’t know, I think it’s a lot of strategy.  I think it’s always been a hard race to pass even in a Cup car and anything you come here.  It’s the nature of the track.

Q.  I know that when you made the decision to come back to IndyCar, you weren’t really putting a timetable on getting a victory, but did you kind of feel at your own pace that this was pretty much ‑‑ seeing what these cars are like, having a half a season, that this is about right for you to get back to victory lane?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, things were going good, but you never know when you’re going to get the win.  As the move today with Will, I was lucky the front wing didn’t break more.  It could have been worse and both of us could have been out of the race, and it could have taken six more months to get a win.  You never know.  But we did the right things.  We got the win, and I think it’s ‑‑ I mean, we’re in a good place at this point of the season; put it that way.

Q.  Juan, I know you said about history and that sort of thing, but how impressed are you and what should we think about Roger Penske?  Decades ago he won the first 500‑mile race here with Mark Donahue and here you are decades later.  Sort of talk about that a little bit.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think Roger is the man.  I mean, it’s unbelievable everything he does.  He’s head and shoulders above anybody else.  That’s why everybody wants to be like him.  He’s an example to anybody, and for me to be honest with you ‑‑ I’m not saying this because I run for him.  I mean, I knew Roger a little bit, but now that I work with him, it’s unbelievable.  He knows everybody’s names.  The way he does things, you’re not surprised why you’re kicking everybody’s ass; put it that way.

Q.  You came up through the open wheel ranks as a youngster.  You’ve always done well in open wheel racing.  You did okay in NASCAR but you didn’t win as many races as you did in open wheel racing.  Now that you’re back in open wheel, do you feel like you’re here to stay?  Is this what you want to do?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Oh, yeah, absolutely.  I told Roger, if you want me to run some Cup races I will, and I think I can do a good job because of all my experience, but I really wanted to be here in IndyCar, so I’ll probably be here next year for sure, as well.

THE MODERATOR:  We’ll begin with our Verizon IndyCar Series post‑race press conference.  We are pleased to be joined by our second‑place finisher, Helio Castroneves.  With this second‑place finish Helio moves into a tie for the points lead with his teammate Will Power.  This is his fifth top‑5 and eighth top‑10 finish of the season and also his 80th career top‑3 finish.  Helio, a great finish for you and for Team Penske.  Tell us about your race.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yeah, first, I want to thank Hitachi, Shell‑Pennzoil, AAA, Verizon, SKF, and Chevy, of course, for giving me a great engine and keeping me up there.  Yeah, it was tough.  Yesterday because of the incident that we had in Houston, we decided to start with a car setup a little bit different from my teammates so I wouldn’t have any issue because I know the track gets a lot of grip, so I didn’t want to do anything to aggravate the injury, and today I said we’ve got 500‑miles, so I need to get used to it, and we changed it back.
I still don’t think I had the speed of the other guys.  They were much faster than me and we’ve got to sit down and figure out why.
But in the end I was just getting better and better and the car was getting better, and we just were waiting there.  It’s a tough race because the last year was winning by fuel mileage and this year the plan changed in the middle, but Roger had great strategies and put us in a great spot.
Yeah, finishing second no question is great.  I want to win bad, but like I said, I did not have the speed that Juan Pablo had, and now tied for the championship, what a great deal.  This is just absolutely awesome, and we’ve got to keep moving forward and not thinking back.

Q.  Last week the Houston race was totally different racing.  Is there any advice from the engine manufacturer to trim the engine, what to do to save fuel, or it’s up to the team to make the strategy?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  No, you have your mapping through the whole season and you are the one using your strategy, and I think with the Chevy people, they have the same thing most of every one, and you just decide when to save fuel or not.

Q.  Helio, end of the race you’re racing Will Power.  He got penalized for blocking.  What was it from your point of view?  What did you think when it happened?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Well, we were racing hard.  That’s the beauty of Team Penske.  There is no team order.  I don’t think many teams are able to apply that rule.  Obviously the only rule is do not take each other out, but race hard, and especially both of us in the championship.  I wasn’t expecting anything different to be honest.
I’m not the one to make the call, but in the end, like I said, we are racing very aggressive.

Q.  Carlos, what was your view on the last restart that IndyCar gave you a warning on?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I didn’t know I have a warning really.  For what?

Q.  They gave you a warning on the last restart for ‑‑ I assume you nearly passed someone or things got wild in the back.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yeah, I think ‑‑
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I wondered, he was right beside me.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  It was close because I said, oh, man, I’m going to jump this turn so I lifted, also, and that’s why I think I didn’t get any penalty because in the end passing him on the finish line was really close, but the guys behind me, I think it was Aleshin and Dixon, for sure they did the same thing as me.  It was a close one.  I didn’t really know I have a warning.  I knew it was really close, but I lifted to don’t overtake him on the finish line, and I think it worked out.

Q.  Helio, seven races to go, you’ve won a lot of races in the series, you’ve won a lot of Indy 500s but never a championship, correct?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Correct.

Q.  How bad do you want it?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Thanks for reminding me.  Nice guy.
Big time.  I want it as much as anybody probably because we’ve been here for a long time, and now a great opportunity.  Houston was very disappointing for me because it was one of those opportunities that you don’t want to miss, and today for us it was great because we ended up collecting a lot of points, and that’s the way we’re going for it.  So now we’re looking for the next ones and continuing with the same pace.

Q.  Guys, on the last pit stop when new garden and Kanaan went for the fuel strategy, were either of your teams feeling at that point that maybe you had gotten outfoxed in the fuel strategy department?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I just remember at one point which I was already tennis to that plan.  I said, come on, guys, we’ve got to keep going.  I can see they’re moving forward, but I don’t know their strategy to be honest.  I knew they were pitting very early than us, but I remember them saying let’s change the plan.  That was the only thing I heard but I cannot confirm in terms of where they were and what they were doing to be honest.
CARLOS MUÑOZ:  They just said to me, follow the leader, and that’s what I did.

Q.  Helio, you talked about racing hard, no team orders at Penske or anything, but how tough is it when that happens and it’s a teammate as opposed to just another driver, and have you had a chance to talk to Will?  Have you guys discussed it, discussed what happened?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  No, I have not had a chance to talk to Will, and the good news is we try to ‑‑ what happens on the track stays on the track, and like I said, we were racing hard.  I had a lot of teammates in the past, and we always try to keep that kind of way.  Outside the track we can discuss or in the truck, if there was a problem, personal problem or something, but at the end of the day, we continue ‑‑ I have no hard feelings.  I would have done something different probably, but I don’t think there is hard feelings for us in terms of what you do or not.  And I think Juan Pablo also applies that same motto.  Well, today he’s in the victory circle, so it does work.  It’s not about us, it’s about Team Penske, and we want to get this championship no matter what, but obviously we need to be smart, as well.

Q.  I’m just curious, how do you like Pocono Raceway?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Well, it’s always good when you finish up here.  That means you had a good day.  It is 500 miles.  I believe it was actually great.  It’s a difficult track for any type of cars to pass because of the way it’s designed in the corners, and it’s fun.  I felt the fans were incredible from yesterday.  Not only today but from yesterday.  I mean, I don’t understand what these rumors regarding not coming back here because I feel that everybody enjoys it, everybody had fun, and hopefully we will continue coming back.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COKE ZERO 400
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 6 2014

CHEVROLET SS DRIVERS COLLECT THREE OF TOP FIVE FINISHING POSITIONS AT DAYTONA
Kurt Busch Leads the Charge for Team Chevy Finishing Third

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – July 6, 2014 – Team Chevy’s Kurt Busch was looking for his second win of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and first restrictor plate win at the rain delayed Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday when the skies opened up again and dashed his hopes.  The wet and wild race was postponed due to inclement weather on Saturday and continued to be plagued throughout the day Sunday with showers and two major multi-car crashes. Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS, had to settle for a third place finish when the race was finally called at lap 112 of 160 originally scheduled laps.

“We led a lot of laps today with our Haas Automation Chevy, it’s a tough pill to swallow because we want to go back out there and race,” said Busch following the race.  “There is still plenty of daylight left and there are lights here at this track.  I’m disappointed because we want to go for the win.  At the same time this team has turned a good corner it’s been about five weeks in a row now that we have been in the top 15.  We cashed in on a top-five finish today.”

Casey Mears came home with his first top-five finish of the 2014 season by bringing his No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet SS home in fourth place.   It was also his first top 10 finish since the season-opening Daytona 500.  Like Mears, Austin Dillon notched his first top-five finish in the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/NRA Museum Chevrolet SS in fifth place, giving him the honor of being the highest finishing rookie of the year contender.

Danica Patrick, No. 10 Florida Lottery/GoDaddy Chevorlet SS, earned her second best finish of the season by coming home eighth.  It was also her second top 10 finish of 2014.  Patrick moved up one spot to 27th in the standings.

Series point leader Jeff Gordon rebounded from an early incident to finish 12th in his No. 24 Pepsi Real Sugar Chevrolet SS. Gordon maintained the lead with a 27 point advantage over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who gained one spot in the standings by bringing his No. 88 National Guard Chevy SS home in 14th place. Jimmie Johnson, who was sidelined by an early multi-car crash in his No. 48 Lowe’s Patriotic Chevrolet SS, dropped to third in the point standings with his 42nd place finish.

Aric Almirola (Ford) was the race winner and Brian Vickers (Toyota) was second to round out the top five finishers.

Next weekend, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series will head to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  The Camping World RV Sales 301 will begin Sunday, July 13th at 1 pm, ET.

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH (TOP FINISHING ROOKIE OF THE YEAR CONTENDER)

KERRY THARP:  We’re now joined by our second place finisher in today’s race, and that’s Brian Vickers, and he drove the No. 55 Aaron’s FSU National Champions Toyota, and our top finishing Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate, coming in fifth place, is Austin Dillon.  He drove the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet.

KERRY THARP:  Austin Dillon, talk about your run out there today, a strong top‑5 showing for sure.

AUSTIN DILLON:  Yeah, it was a good run for our Bass Pro Shops Chevy.  We just made it through the wrecks.  Seeing it like Brian and everybody up front at the beginning was swapping ends and didn’t look good, and we made it through the first one, and then the second one hanging out there down the backstretch, and my teammate was in front of me, and he checked up, and I checked up, I kind of just shot the middle and they went left and got lucky.  I saw Jamie flying through there.  That was crazy.  Made it through that, and sitting pretty good there.  I think me, Brian and a bunch of the guys right there would have loved to seen it go back, but it’s racing.  It’s part of it.  We’ve been here for a while and would love to go back, but that rain has been tough to deal with all weekend.  I’m ready to go to my dirt race, which is in Indiana.  I’m trying to get out of here.
Q.  Guys, this is obviously one less kind of wild card race off the books, and that means with Almirola winning there’s one less spot in the Chase for points.  It’s been so much talk about wins this year, but now that there’s even less spots for points, does this sort of accelerate what you’ll be looking at every week as far as the standings and trying to have good points days as well as a win?
AUSTIN DILLON:  Yeah, same.  We jumped from 18th to 13th in points.  There’s less positions now, but just got to stay consistent.  We had a test at New Hampshire this past week.  I felt like it was a good test for us, and we go on and try and keep these runs going for us as a rookie, and I think it’ll close up the rookie points now, too.  We’ve gained a lot the last couple weeks, and this will definitely help.
Q.  Austin, how bad did you need this performance today after the strong season that Kyle Larson has had?
AUSTIN DILLON:  It’s huge for us getting a top 10, a top 5; it definitely can change the rookie race.  We’ve got some momentum now.  We’ve got the last four races, I think, in the rookie race, and just stay consistent and hopefully we can come out with this thing.  Our cars have been really fast all year, and we’re getting better each week.  I feel like we’re gaining a little bit, and I’m excited about that.
Q.  Austin, after all the attention you got down here in February, you’ve still been hanging around, so just where would you assess your team halfway through the season and what do you think is the biggest thing you have to work on going forward?
AUSTIN DILLON:  Well, Kyle has had a great season and I’m kind of putting our season against his because we’re racing for the rookie of the year.  That was our main goal going into this year.  Any other year the last couple years it would be a great season, but the way they’ve run we’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves.

You know, we’re hanging in there.  Just want to find some more speed at these mile‑and‑a‑halfs, get more consistent.  Kentucky was a good race for us, just didn’t make a good adjustment at the end.  Experience will come with that, I hope, and like I said, I feel like our cars are getting better and we’ve been really harping on that as a group at RCR to make our cars better, and I think we’re starting to show.  Ryan had a good run at Kentucky, and hopefully we can carry that on at New Hampshire.  We still saved a test or two, I think, as a group, so maybe those tests will help us out.
Q.  Austin, as far as the rookie part of it, are there some learning curves that you had to overcome in the Cup level you’d like to share with other rookies and fans out there?
AUSTIN DILLON:  Oh, for sure.  Each week you learn a little bit here and there and what it takes to compete at this level.  I mean, it takes a full weekend from the start of the weekend when you unload off the trailer, and learning that is just ‑‑ it’s the hardest level of racing in the world in my opinion, because I’ve never done anything past this.  But for us, just progressing each and every week and being smart throughout runs and trying to make our cars better throughout a race instead of maintaining, that’s one tough spot.  You’ve got to be able to gain through a race and you can’t just maintain, where in a Nationwide race or a truck race it’s shorter and you can get your car decent in track position and you can kind of maintain that way.
Q.  How odd is it to be racing not knowing is this going to be the last lap?  Is this the last ‑‑ because you know that the bad weather is coming and you’re just uncertain like do I have two more laps to make it move or do I have to get it done now?
AUSTIN DILLON:  For me, it’s tough because I thought we were racing to 80 there for a while, and when we got ‑‑ I hang around in the back for quite a while just trying to miss some of the stuff that looked like was going to happen up there.  It was pretty wild.  It is tough not knowing if you’re going to get to 160 because you’ve got guys saying, oh, it’s going to rain out, it’s going to do this, and there’s so many opinions and you just have to trust yours, I guess, when it comes down to it and get there when it counts at the end.

KERRY THARP:  Austin and Brian, thank you for being here today, and good luck next weekend.
Joining us now is our third place finisher in today’s Coke Zero 400, and that’s Kurt Busch.  He drove the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet for Stewart‑Haas Racing, and Kurt, certainly you had a strong car up there, and we heard you on a couple of the TV interviews during the rain delays that this might have been one of the strongest cars you’ve had down here at Daytona.  Just talk about how the race unfolded for you and how things went today for the 41 team.

KURT BUSCH:  I thought we had a good finish today.  You know, I’d love to be out there racing and competing for the win, and the car ran strong.  We dominated, led most laps, and the Haas Automation Chevy was a good car right from the time it was completed and shoved into the wind tunnel, and those guys really did a good job back at the shop to prepare the No. 41 for all the speed that you need here at Daytona.

We executed well on pit road.  Again, we led a lot of laps today and thought we were in good position, and when you’re racing knowing that there’s weather in the area, it’s best to be in that lead position because that gives you the best shot at when the rain does come and if they do call the race, that you’re the leader.

Most importantly, though, we’ve made a good turn on the 41 car the last month with good solid finishes.  Today it’s disappointing to finish third after leading the most laps, but all in all, looking at the long‑term projection, it’s been solid on the 41 car, and it was great to run good Daytona weekend, July 4th with a patriotic paint scheme with America’s Machine Tool with Haas Automation as well as the symbolization for our Armed Forces, so it’s great to have the race dedication that we had on the race this weekend from the Armed Forces Foundation.
Q.  Is it difficult to set up a strategy when you don’t know when the end is coming?
KURT BUSCH:  I thought we did well.  Daniel, my crew chief, was on top of when we needed fuel and when we were playing the halfway game as well as when we were playing the pit the last time to make it all the way to lap 160, and it seemed like it was putting us in a good position to lead laps, which we did.  We were leading at the time, and that’s what you want if the rain is going to come out.

So the race was a bit uneasy.  I think the competitors were looking to jockey harder for positions towards the front, and we saw a couple big wrecks today because we didn’t know if we were going to get much past lap 80.
Q.  Just your thoughts, were you surprised the race was called at this point because there’s still so much time left in the day?  And you talked about the building of your team.  You guys are doing it at a variety of tracks, it’s not like you’re having one type of success, so what’s helped turn things around for you guys at this point?
KURT BUSCH:  It seems early to call a race.  It is Sunday already, and the majority of our fans that showed up were going to use this day to travel back home.  On average how far are the fans here locally traveling to get back home?  Is it four hours?  Maybe we could have run later on today and still finished and everybody could have back home and to work on Monday.

You know, the network TV side of it versus the safety of the fans, as well, with thunder and lightning in the area, it’s a tough call to make.  I didn’t do my job to be the leader.  We didn’t quite have a couple solid restarts at the end to be the leader for when the race was going to get called.

As far as our team developing and moving forward, you know, it’s nice that we’ve shown speed on all different types of tracks, and I can’t really pinpoint one thing other than just working through some of the aerodynamic balance changes we’ve made to our car since around the Charlotte race as well as we built up enough notes on what we were doing wrong to steer a different direction, and we did that at the first Pocono.  So the 1st of June we’ve been running a lot better with two different balance changes.
Q.  Are you and Daniel (inaudible) new relationship?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, the relationship with Daniel, you know, there’s some times when a driver and a crew chief hit it off and they’re off to the races right away.  Daniel and I have been slower to mature together in our relationship, and so we’re 18 races into our first date.  Now we’re going into the second half of the season, and all of our first dates are done.  We’ll go to New Hampshire next week, and that’ll be the last new track that we see together, and then from there on out, all the tracks that we’ve been to we have notes and we have test sessions planned, and that’s where we have to make the 41 team stronger.
Q.  As far as your team members and you, when you get rain delays, especially when it’s delayed to the next day, is it harder on a driver?  Is it harder on those team members that have to go to work?
KURT BUSCH:  It’s tough on everybody.  Are you going to go back to green?  Are you not?  You’ve got to pack the stuff up while it’s in a torrential downpour.  I told the spotter as I got out of the car, be sharp, be focused, stay upbeat, keep this good attitude about this right now because we have a shot to win this if it goes back green.  Instead the race is called.  We were almost ready to start kicking the tires because we were third.  But it’s a general good feel when you’re running up front, and we led most laps today.  That’s what we’ll take away from today.
Q.  You’ve been really successful at this sort of weird form of racing without popping through for a win.  Does it frustrate you or do you like it?  Do you anticipate coming here because the stats are good but no trophy yet?
KURT BUSCH:  No, you’re right.  I haven’t won a points paying restrictor plate race.  It’s been tough over the years.  15 years into it, I’ve won IROC races and won a Shootout, won a qualifying race; even Nationwide, I’ve won a Nationwide race here but haven’t broke through for a points paying Cup win yet.  I’ve got to go to the videotape.  I’ve got to go back and study more.  When I’m the leader, I have to advance my game.  I have to be better at blocking and strategically managing the race as a leader.  I’ve been really good at seconds and thirds, top 5s, just got to break through for that win, and I believe I need to do more work to get better at it.
Q. (Inaudible).
KURT BUSCH:  Well, there’s the film study, then there’s the – you have to be in position to make mistakes or you have to be running up front more often to learn from it.  You can’t learn by dragging around in the back waiting for wrecks to happen.  You learn by leading and getting shuffled out of the lead, and then trying a different approach to stay in the lead and to be able to make your car as wide as you can at certain spots and to make others have to rethink their strategy. The chess game definitely comes into play more so when you’re the leader than anything else.

KERRY THARP:  Thank you for putting on a good show this weekend.  We’ll see you at New Hampshire.

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 6, 2014

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: WHAT A RACE: “First off all, I want to thank Verizon, IndyCar, PPG and everyone who supports this car and Team Penske. I want thank Roger for believing in me after how many years out of open-wheel, coming back and believing I could do it. Here we are. It’s awesome that we could do it.”

TALK ABOUT YOUR MOMENT WITH YOU AND WILL POWER WHEN YOU GOT YOUR WING CLIPPED. DID IT MAKE THE CAR MORE DIFFICULT TO DRIVE? “There was a little more understeer. I had to do it. It was one of those moves where you do it or you don’t. That was the winning move and I had to do it.”

WAS PATIENCE THE KEY? “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying. You have to be patient and you have to be smart. On days like this, if you do everything right the opportunity will come.”

BACK IN INDYCAR AND IN VICTORY LANE AT POCONO… HOW EXCITING IS THIS FOR YOU? “It’s huge. I want to thank the fans for coming out… Verizon, IndyCar, PPG, Hawk Performance and everyone who believes in Team Penske and myself. It’s huge. I was overly excited coming to the line, I can tell you that.”

HOW WILD WAS IT AT TIMES? “It was only wild going for the lead with Will (Power). Everything else was more strategy and saving fuel. You have to run a smart race all day and we did that.”

ROGER PENSKE, OWNER, TEAM PENSKE: ON THE RACE:  “It’s great for Juan. What a great job he did. All three cars ran well. Sorry about Will there and Helio getting together. For Team Penske and Chevrolet, our sponsors PPG, Verizon and Hitachi… what a great day here. We just need to continue this. It’s a great points day for us. With Hunter-Reay having a problem, that gave us a real boost in our points. It’s up to the team and they did it with great drivers. Congratulations to Juan Montoya. Certainly a great day.”

ON THE PENALTY TO WILL POWER: “That’s up to the officials. Obviously it’s a shame for him (Power). These guys are racers. What tell them to keep each other on the track but it looked a little tight there for us.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: ON THE RACE: “We made some changes and copied my teammate’s setup. Congratulations to Montoya! Are you kidding? This guy is unbelievable. Coming back after 15 years and winning a race. He did a great job. As soon as he signed, I knew he would be an asset and a headache for us. I’m glad. It’s good with a 1-2 finish and I can’t believe we are now tied in the championship. It’s really unbelievable.
“What else can I say? It’s great news (to be tied for the championship). It was a tough race. You have to be really patient, and that’s what we did.”

RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: “Things are really looking up for NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing and I’m just glad we finally were able to get a finish that mirrored our efforts.  We just keep looking better and better as the season progresses and I think we have a lot to look forward to in the second half of this season.  This track is awesome and it’s been really fun to race on all weekend.”

SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: ““It wasn’t a great day for us maybe overall speed-wise, but we had made our way to the top five there at the end of the race and to get a top-five finish after where we started isn’t that bad.  The Target team worked hard today and you know anything can happen in these long 500-mile races.  We kept the car in one piece and I was happy to bring it home for the guys.  Hopefully this builds us some momentum for the next few races.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH: ON THE PENALTY “I actually let him go and went wide on the brakes and touched the brakes. I move, I move, I move… I was heading that way, heading over, over and over. I mean, he is my teammate. So it was another penalty and other drive-through and another really good opportunity lost. I’m sure all the commentators up there gave me a pretty good rub. The drive-through at the end of the race… painful. It was a double-move. But time after time it happens to me and no penalty. Anyway, it wasn’t a good day. The drive-through penalty… I’ve got to stop it. I’ve gotta stop getting drive-throughs.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH ““There’s two ways to look at today really. First, we had a very strong Target car and I think that shows a lot about what this team and I are capable of when we get the setup right.  Secondly, it’s obviously frustrating to dominate a race like that and not win.  We just missed going to full 500-mile distance by a few laps and it heartbreaking when those things happen but that is racing as they say and we will focus on Iowa now and put it behind us.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: “It was a long race and I kind of knew it would be that way when we didn’t qualify well.  We really had some issues with the car all weekend.  We ran with Scott (Dixon) most of the day and the car was better later in the race.  Unfortunately, it was a tire sensor that came apart immediately when they put the car down off the jacks on the next to last stop (lap 155).  The car was vibrating some badly that the steering wheel almost flew out of my hands.  So I had to pit again on the next lap and we got down a lap.  I’m not pleased how our team’s weekend went here.  We have been so good this year and today just wasn’t our day.  Now we’ll move onto Iowa and I like that track a lot.  Plus I loved night racing.  It should be a great show.”

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AUTOMATIC FIRE SPRINKLERS, INC. – KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: “It was a really long day out there and a pretty scary start when we thought we had the same mechanical issue as last weekend. I brought the Automatic Fire Sprinklers, Inc. – KV AFS Racing car back into the pits, recycled everything and managed to get back out before the green flag and without losing a lap, which was a great job by the whole crew. From then on we just battled….everyone is extremely strong, it’s not like there are big differences between the cars anymore, but by starting the race so far back hampered us big time. We had a strong car, and managed to get some good points for the championship but still have a long way to go.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 No. 11 Team HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 16TH:    “It was a pretty good day. We made progress from Saturday in qualifying. The car was competitive in racing traffic. We were marching forward and fighting with the top-10 guys. Once we got into the top-10 it was looking pretty good. Then unfortunately in a typical example of racing…winning together and losing together…we had a bad pit stop. I have thrown a couple of races away this year, today it was the crew. We just have to keep digging and see what happens. For sure it is disappointing for everyone because it looked like we were going to have a good result, but, that is racing. We are headed in the right direction, so we just have to keep at it, keep building and see what happens next weekend in Iowa.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. . 83 LEVEMIR® FLEXTOUCH® CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “It was a pretty disappointing day for the No. 83 Levemir® FlexTouch® Chevrolet and I feel really bad for the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing crew.  The car was really good all weekend and then we developed a mechanical problem early in the race and then we just fought that all day.  We’re looking forward to heading to Iowa and doing some short-track racing on Saturday night.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COKE ZERO 400
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTES
JULY 6, 2014

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/DUCKS UNLIMITED CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 20:
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“The No. 17 car (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) got sideways on the lap that we’re all getting a competition caution. I don’t know. I guess Ricky thought it paid something to get to lap 20. I don’t know. It didn’t make much sense to me, but I’m not that smart either; so I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m the right person to ask.

“I guess is was just Stenhouse being an idiot. It didn’t make much sense when we’re coming to the caution, we’re like a quarter of a lap from getting to the caution and he does something stupid. It tore up a lot of people’s cars and a lot of people’s days. To get here on Wednesday night and sit here all day and run 19 and three-quarter laps and get wrecked by somebody who’s doing something stupid.”

WAS IT THE WEATHER COMING THAT HAD EVERYBODY UP?
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him and what he’s doing. Every week it’s something kind of with him. I love him like a little brother, but it makes me nervous to be around him on the race track.

“We’re a quarter lap away from getting a competition caution and Stenhouse is going to be a hero. I don’t know what happened to him there, but he took out a bunch of good cars. I don’t know what it is. No matter what I say right now, somebody is going to be mad and somebody is going to disagree with it. But, I think it’s a pretty dumb excuse to have the caution come out 500 yards too early.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S PATRIOTIC CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 20
WHAT HAPPENED?
“I don’t know. There were just cars spinning. I just feel so bad for my crew. They worked so hard to get a car ready to come down here and have a fast car. And then we make 15 laps four days later, or something like that? I’m certainly disappointed in that. But we’ll go get it fixed and go out and try to collect some points.

“I was kind of busy with my environment of three-wide and I just saw cars moving around and smoke in front of us. So I don’t know what triggered it or what happened. But I’m just thoroughly disappointed for everybody on the Lowe’s team. Those guys have been down here for four days in this heat, working on the car; not to mention all the time and effort put into this, to go 15 or 20 laps is just a really big bummer.”

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER FOLDS OF HONOR CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 20
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR VIEWPOINT?
“It’ looked like the No. 17 (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) got squirrelly up there and then they all started wrecking. I had the wreck cleared but unfortunately with the splitters and everything out in front, the grass is what tears all the cars up. It was unfortunate for our Budweiser Chevy; but maybe one day they’ll make grass that’s not eight inches tall.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 98
AT TIMES TODAY, YOU HAD THE BEST CAR.  WHAT CAUSED ALL THAT?
“I don’t know.  I knew I was going to walk out here and you guys were going to ask me what happened, but from my seat I didn’t see anything.  Kasey (Kahne) came over and said that maybe Greg (Biffle) bumped him a couple times and got him squirrelly and he said he couldn’t catch it.  When you have a car spin out at the front of the field, there is just nowhere to go.  I ran into the guy who was directly in front of me and the guy behind me clobbered me.

“I will tell you I have never had a car that’s off the ground and it’s a crazy feeling, and it’s a helpless feeling to have the car do that.  I was really lucky that it set back down.   You see these big wrecks and those are probably the easiest hits you take all year long because everyone is going the same speed and for the most part, those don’t hurt near as bad as if you have a tire issue or something.”

YOU SAID YOU WERE SURPRISED AT THE SWING OF THE HANDLING OF THE CAR FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE RUN TO THE END
“It wasn’t necessarily run to run, but at the beginning of the race I could tell our car drove better and I could tell a lot of guys were having to lift.   And I wasn’t.  Our car was really stable and right at the end of the green flag pit stop run I got a little bit tight and I just assumed that when we put tires on that it would feel fine.  But from the very first lap it was tight.  I don’t know if it was a tight set of tires or if the track was just changing that much.”

FROM YOUR SEAT WHAT HAPPENED? 
“I didn’t see anything. I really didn’t even get to see a replay in the infield care center.  They had a wreck in front of us and you are kind of along for the ride after that.  I was more concerned when I got out about Kyle (Busch).  I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t getting out with his car being upside down on the track.

“It’s kind of scary I think my car got airborne.  I have never had that happen before it’s a helpless feeling when you are getting hit as you are in the air.  It was kind of scary, but glad it looks like everyone is okay.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE/GI CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE: 
“Just got hit from behind and started spinning.  I don’t know how it all… I’m not exactly sure what went on there or how it all happened other than I was hit and started spinning.  Then everybody else was wrecking with me.”

WHAT STARTED IT FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“Yeah, I felt like I was about sixth or so and I was getting hit from behind and I just started spinning.  It’s kind of a tough spot to be in there because everybody is trying to get going and I just got hit, started going left to right and spun around.   I knew it was going to be big as far up as I was.”

WAS IT A MATTER OF THESE GUYS BEING TOO AGGRESSIVE OR THESE CARS BEING HARD TO HANDLE LATE IN A RUN?
“No, the cars are hard to handle when they get pushed and are close together like that.  If you are getting hit in the corners of your bumper.  And that is what I felt like was that the corners got hit a couple times and it went left and right and started spinning. I am not sure exactly how it all happened.  We avoided the first wreck, and we didn’t avoid the second one so, it’s too bad.

JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 51 ACCUDOC SOLUTIONS CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
WHAT HAPPENED? 
“Unfortunately I’m probably the same as most of the guys that were back there with me.  I didn’t really see a whole lot as to what started it.  I saw a white car I think get turned up in the front and it’s just so hard here.  You are running so fast and you are trying to stop right now.  I thought we had it missed.  I was following along with Denny Hamlin there. I thought we had it missed and whoever was behind me started to spin and got into the back of us.

“I don’t know; then it was a pile on from there.  Hit the grass, tore the splitter up, not going to be the finish we wanted for our Accudoc Solutions Chevy for sure.  We had a strong car and I think we can get it fixed.  We have to put a radiator in it and do a couple of other things, but hopefully go out there and gain some of those valuable points.”

REED SORENSON, NO. 36 GOLDEN CORRAL CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
ON WHAT HAPPENED:
“I saw absolutely nothing.  I just saw a car maybe two or three rows in front of me start spinning and then I think I got hit from behind.  It was on from there.  I couldn’t see anything.  It just tore the car up.  It looks like there are a lot (of cars) in here in the garage so it looks like it tore a bunch of.  I will just have to look at the replay, but that is part of racing here.  It is bound to happen.”

LANDON CASSILL, NO. 40 NEWTON BUILDING SUPPLIES CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“I’m really proud of my team they built a really nice car, ECR engines, we go all out for these races and we have had the results to prove it.  I’m really proud that we led some laps today, but there was nothing I could do at that point.”

KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
“We led a lot of laps in the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet. It’s a tough pill to swallow. We want to go back out there and race. There is still plenty of daylight left. There are lights at this track. I’m disappointed because we want to go for the win. But at the same time, this team has turned a good corner. It’s been about five weeks in a row now we’ve been in the top 15 and we cashed in on a top 5 finish today. So that’s the good news. The bad news is that the No. 43 (Aric Almirola) won. That makes him Chase eligible. That might bump us back a spot. That’s the big picture; but also the big picture is us. We’re running better with the No. 41 car. So, I’m happy to drive a patriotic paint scheme to a top 5 finish and give a shout out to the men and women who serve.”

CASEY MEARS, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 4TH
“The GEICO Chevrolet is fast.  It’s nice to be inside the top-five right now. I sure hope the rain goes away because I would like to have an opportunity to get in the Chase.  The car is fast.  Anything can happen, but with an opportunity to win and then possible get in the Chase we are sitting in a good spot.  Hopefully it will blow through I don’t know what is going to happen, but either way if it does come we will have a good day.”

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH
YOU RAN NINTH AT THE DAYTONA 500 SO YOU ARE REALLY BACKING UP A GOOD FINISH THERE: 
“We just got lucky and got through a bunch of it and the guys have been smart and we don’t have too much damage or anything.  A little hole in the grille, but that was from the really big wreck.  Somehow we skidded right through the middle.  I’m proud of this Bass Pro Shops Chevy team.  I’ve got to thank all of our partners with Dow.  We’ve had a solid run today.  I would like to get it back going though.  I think we have a shot here.  Obviously there is a lot of attrition that has taken place, but it would be fun to see if we could work with our ECR teammate Casey Mears and see if we could have a shot at it.”

DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 FLORIDA LOTTERY/GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 8th
ON HER DAY: 
“The car is fast.  It has just been a matter of attrition and getting a little lucky and making it through things.  We have been in two crashes and the car has been okay to keep going which is hard to do here at Daytona because the splitter height is so critical because if it’s a little too low you can’t go the speed you need to because it will just hit the track.  We have been really fortunate from that perspective getting a yellow in the middle when I made the mistake on pit road of missing my pit box.  Here we are with less than 50 laps to go and there are only now 13 or 14 cars on the lead lap. There is a lot less to lose than normal.  On a normal speedway weekend you would say eighth is pretty good lets just go home with a car that is not too badly banged up, but there is a lot less to lose than normal so it would be fun to go back at it.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 14TH
YOU’VE HAD AN EVENTFUL DAY: 
“We are just trying to get out there and see if we can get a good finish.  Anybody can still win this race.  My car is pretty tore up.  The left-front splitter looks a little high and I think the balance of the car is real tight.  When I get into the pack and get behind guys real close I’ve got to use up a lot of race track on the exit of the corner.  We’ve got to figure out what we can do to get better there.  Hopefully the rain goes away and we get going.”

EVEN WITH THE DAMAGE YOU THINK YOU HAVE A CAR GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO WIN? 
“It’s going to be… anybody can still win it.  Anything can happen there can still be another big wreck, but I just don’t know.  I don’t know how it’s going to stack up.  Our car is at a pretty rough spot as far as speed and handling.  If it thins out even more it’s going to handle better.”

YOU DID A GOOD JOB OF AVOIDING THAT LAST WRECK: 
“It’s easy to just come to a stop as long as nobody runs into you.  We were going to be fine on that first wreck, but we got run over.  I can’t believe all of the cars we have wrecked today.  It’s kind of uncharacteristic, but it’s just how it works sometimes.”

WHY HAS IT BEEN THAT WAY? 
“Daytime race, it’s a little bit slicker.  The cars are moving around a little bit more and guys are being a bit more aggressive here.  You don’t see us all lined up on the top running around there trying not to go to the back.  Guys are running side-by-side the way the cars are drafting.  The package is really keeping the pack pretty tight and guys are running side-by-side from the lead on back.  If you are going to run tight like that you are going to have mistakes or cars just get moved around by the air.  Heck a guy could just be holding the wheel and the car will move three foot depending on what is happening around him without him moving the steering wheel.  Sometimes you just get yourself in a bad spot.”

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 WIX FILTERS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 24TH
YOU HAVE HAD A ROUGH DAY TELL US ABOUT IT: 
“Really spent a lot of time just kind of managing and avoiding and staying in the back.  Keeping a good idea where the leaders were going to be staying out an extra lap to pit by ourselves so we could have clean fenders, clean race car with our WIX Filters Chevrolet.  Just got caught up there in that I guess it was two or three crashes ago now. Just unfortunate that fans have been sitting around here for an extra day now and we are fighting Mother Nature.  I hate seeing these race cars get torn up like this. Especially flying through the air everybody knows how I feel about that.”

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WAS THE REASON FOR ALL THIS? 
“It’s the product of being here an extra day, kind of racing the rain.  A lot of guys are racing for a win pulling out crazy stuff.  Just the product of the way the cars race together.  It is what it is.  It’s really not much fun.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR. NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – Finished 15th:
“It was a roller coaster day. We never could get going. I didn’t like what I was seeing early in the race and I hung back. That turned out to be a good move as we missed being collected in the first wreck. Then we had a vibration in the car, and later we needed to make a battery change. As I was exiting pit road after the battery change, the second big wreck happened. We most likely would have been in that wreck had we not been on pit road changing the battery.  We eventually got back on the lead lap and we were ready to move forward. But we never got that opportunity because of the race being declared official following more rain. It’s been one of those weekends you want to forget about and move on.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COKE ZERO 400
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
JULY 6, 2014

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 98
AT TIMES TODAY, YOU HAD THE BEST CAR.  WHAT CAUSED ALL THAT?
“I don’t know.  I knew I was going to walk out here and you guys were going to ask me what happened, but from my seat I didn’t see anything.  Kasey (Kahne) came over and said that maybe Greg (Biffle) bumped him a couple times and got him squirrelly and he said he couldn’t catch it.  When you have a car spin out at the front of the field, there is just nowhere to go.  I ran into the guy who was directly in front of me and the guy behind me clobbered me.

“I will tell you I have never had a car that’s off the ground and it’s a crazy feeling, and it’s a helpless feeling to have the car do that.  I was really lucky that it set back down.   You see these big wrecks and those are probably the easiest hits you take all year long because everyone is going the same speed and for the most part, those don’t hurt near as bad as if you have a tire issue or something.”

YOU SAID YOU WERE SURPRISED AT THE SWING OF THE HANDLING OF THE CAR FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE RUN TO THE END
“It wasn’t necessarily run to run, but at the beginning of the race I could tell our car drove better and I could tell a lot of guys were having to lift.   And I wasn’t.  Our car was really stable and right at the end of the green flag pit stop run I got a little bit tight and I just assumed that when we put tires on that it would feel fine.  But from the very first lap it was tight.  I don’t know if it was a tight set of tires or if the track was just changing that much.”

FROM YOUR SEAT WHAT HAPPENED? 
“I didn’t see anything. I really didn’t even get to see a replay in the infield care center.  They had a wreck in front of us and you are kind of along for the ride after that.  I was more concerned when I got out about Kyle (Busch).  I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t getting out with his car being upside down on the track.  It’s kind of scary I think my car got airborne.  I have never had that happen before it’s a helpless feeling when you are getting hit as you are in the air.  It was kind of scary, but glad it looks like everyone is okay.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – Involved in multi-car crash on lap 98
WHAT STARTED IT FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“Yeah, I felt like I was about sixth or so and I was getting hit from behind and I just started spinning.  It’s kind of a tough spot to be in there because everybody is trying to get going and I just got hit, started going left to right and spun around.   I knew it was going to be big as far up as I was.”

WAS IT A MATTER OF THESE GUYS BEING TOO AGGRESSIVE OR THESE CARS BEING HARD TO HANDLE LATE IN A RUN?
“No, the cars are hard to handle when they get pushed and are close together like that.  If you are getting hit in the corners of your bumper.  And that is what I felt like was that the corners got hit a couple times and it went left and right and started spinning. I am not sure exactly how it all happened.  We avoided the first wreck, and we didn’t avoid the second one so, it’s too bad.

FROM YOUR SEAT WHAT HAPPENED? 
“I didn’t see anything. I really didn’t even get to see a replay in the infield care center.  They had a wreck in front of us and you are kind of along for the ride after that.  I was more concerned when I got out about Kyle (Busch).  I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t getting out with his car being upside down on the track.  It’s kind of scary I think my car got airborne.  I have never had that happen before it’s a helpless feeling when you are getting hit as you are in the air.  It was kind of scary, but glad it looks like everyone is okay.”

JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 51 ACCUDOC SOLUTIONS CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
WHAT HAPPENED? 
“Unfortunately I’m probably the same as most of the guys that were back there with me.  I didn’t really see a whole lot as to what started it.  I saw a white car I think get turned up in the front and it’s just so hard here.  You are running so fast and you are trying to stop right now.  I thought we had it missed.  I was following along with Denny Hamlin there. I thought we had it missed and whoever was behind me started to spin and got into the back of us.

“I don’t know; then it was a pile on from there.  Hit the grass, tore the splitter up, not going to be the finish we wanted for our Accudoc Solutions Chevy for sure.  We had a strong car and I think we can get it fixed.  We have to put a radiator in it and do a couple of other things, but hopefully go out there and gain some of those valuable points.”

REED SORENSON, NO. 36 GOLDEN CORRAL CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
ON WHAT HAPPENED:
“I saw absolutely nothing.  I just saw a car maybe two or three rows in front of me start spinning and then I think I got hit from behind.  It was on from there.  I couldn’t see anything.  It just tore the car up.  It looks like there are a lot (of cars) in here in the garage so it looks like it tore a bunch of.  I will just have to look at the replay, but that is part of racing here.  It is bound to happen.”

LANDON CASSILL, NO. 40 NEWTON BUILDING SUPPLIES CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A MULTI-CAR CRASH ON LAP 98
WHAT HAPPENED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“I’m really proud of my team they built a really nice car, ECR engines, we go all out for these races and we have had the results to prove it.  I’m really proud that we led some laps today, but there was nothing I could do at that point.”

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING RELEASE AND TRANSCRIPT
JULY 5, 2014

Juan Pablo Montoya Grabs the Pole; Sets New Track Record with Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Power; Will Power Gives Chevrolet a Pair of Front Row Starters for Pocono IndyCar 500

LONG POND, Penn (July 5, 2014) – Juan Pablo Montoya was the last car to make a qualifying attempt for Sunday’s Pocono IndyCar 500, and the driver of the No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet made it count. With a new track record of 223.871 m.p.h. two-lap average, Montoya won his first Verizon P1 Pole Award since returning to Verizon IndyCar Series competition this season.

Montoya’s Team Penske teammate and current Series’ points leader Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, was second fastest, also breaking the old track record with a two-lap average of 223.725 m.p.h. to give Chevrolet IndyCar V6 power two of the three front row starters for Sunday’s 200-lap/500-mile race on the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway, also known as the “Tricky Triangle”.

“Chevrolet extends a proud congratulations to Juan Pablo Montoya and Team Penske for putting up a pair of stunningly fast laps at Pocono Raceway today, besting last year’s pole by 2.598 mph, and winning his first pole position since returning to IndyCar racing,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager for Verizon IndyCar Series. “Next to Juan Pablo on the front row will be his teammate Will Power who also beat last year’s pole by 2.452 mph.  The innovation and skills that exist in the Verizon IndyCar Series today are made visible by results like these.  We are looking forward to the Pocono INDYCAR 500 mile race tomorrow where Team Chevy and our technical partners will have the opportunity to demonstrate innovation and preparation under race conditions.”

The third Team Penske driver, Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Chevrolet, turned in a two-lap average that also broke the existing track record set in 2013 and will start seventh tomorrow in race No. 11 of the 18-race season.

Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Tony Kanaan, No. 10 Target Chevrolet, and Ryan Briscoe, No. 8 NTT Data Chevrolet, will start eighth and 10th respectively to give the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 five of the top-10 starters in the race.

Carlos Munoz (Honda) will complete the front row of three.
Live television coverage of the Pocono 500 is set to start on Sunday, July 6 at NOON ET on NBC Sports Network. The command to start engines is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET.
Live radio coverage will be on IMS Radio broadcast on XM Radio Channel 209 and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 213. In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at www.indy.car.com.
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND

THE MODERATOR:  We’ll get started with today’s Verizon IndyCar Series post‑qualifying press conference.  We have joined by Will Power.  Will will be starting second in tomorrow afternoon’s race.  He started fourth and finished fourth last year.  Will, tell us about qualifying and the conditions out there today.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, it was a pretty good run.  I had probably too big of a lift on my first lap, too much understeer, but apart from that, Juan ran a bit more downforce, so I thought if he can be flat or have less of a lift, he’s going to be very tough to beat.  But still very good for Penske to have a one‑two.
Q.  Will, how important is qualifying for a 500‑mile race?  I know it’s a long race.  Does it really have much implication?
WILL POWER:  No, I mean, it’s always good to start at the front.  You’ve got less of a chance of getting caught up in something at the start of the race and probably on restarts, as well.
But you know, apart from that, you look at Dixon who won it last year, all the Ganassi cars last year came from quite a ways back.  Strategy is going to be a big deal, fuel, windows and so on.  Yeah, it’s not a ‑‑ if you qualify last, you can win from last.  You know, it’s not something to worry about, but it is good to be in the front.

Q.  There is no difference like red and black tires here and there’s no Push‑to‑Pass, so how difficult is it going to be to pass here, and which part of the track can you pass on?
WILL POWER:  It’s tough to pass, yeah.  I mean, really when it all sorts out, man, it’s going to be difficult to get by.

Q.  It sounds like a lot of teams went conservative on setups.  Was that based off of the wind from the earlier practice sessions?  Did that factor into maybe toning things back a little bit?
WILL POWER:  Yeah, and also lack of practice.  You don’t get much mileage going into a 500‑mile race, so I think it’s a place you’ve got to really creep up on, so if you go over the top, you know, it can be pretty bad to get caught out.  Yeah, you didn’t have time to really do good qualifying sims.

Q.  Will, this question is for you being atop the points standings, second half of the season here and it’s a short season, so is it great to be in that point position or is it a little bit scary because there’s only one place to go?  What is the strategy?  I don’t mean to be negative, but that’s really ‑‑
WILL POWER:  You look at it black and white, you have more points than anyone accumulated right now, so it’s obviously a good thing.  You would rather have that than not.  So you’ve just got to look forward and just focus on your job.  I mean, that’s all you can do.  You can’t sit there trying to points race.  You’ve just got to go and race.

Q.  Helio said during the session after his run that he felt the track was improving as the session went on.  How much of an advantage was it to run late?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It always helps a little bit, but it’s the luck of the draw.  Some weeks are good for you, some weeks are bad.  I think the big thing for us was balance and we had a hell of a balance.  I know Helio struggled a little bit with the balance during qualifying, and in a way of running late when you’ve got good teammates is you can see how much they struggle and you can adjust the car so you always get a little more information.  It’s like I know like what Will did, they came in ready straight away and he did this and he did this and he helped, so I already knew before I started where to go, so you’re already in a better place.  But they were a little more trimmed than me.  I’m like, I was faster and I was right.
WILL POWER:  You were, you (expletive deleted).  It was only a couple hundredths, too.  Man, why did I lift?  Damn.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  You were good through 3 or not?
WILL POWER:  I was flat through three, but 1 I was like ‑‑
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I had a small lifts in 1, tiny little lifts.
THE MODERATOR:  Carlos, good luck in tomorrow’s race.  Juan, I have some history for you.  Last pole in an IndyCar, Gateway 2000 ‑‑
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No, Surfer’s Paradise.
THE MODERATOR:  15th career pole, obviously 2012 won pole here in NASCAR.  Now that you’re back here in an IndyCar, tell us about your qualifying run.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I had no idea what to expect because this morning I felt like we had a really good car in race trim and really struggled.  Started trimming the car down, and every time we trimmed it, it was just balance‑wise it was awful, had a lot of understeer in the car.  Made quite a bit of changes for qualifying and it was really, really good.  You had a little bit understeer and stuff on the front bar, took a little crossweight out here or is it crossweight we did here?  Yeah, we don’t say wedge, it’s crossweight.  Took a little bit of crossweight out, and as soon as we did that, the car started hooking really nice, and it was good.  I mean, it was a bit of a handful through 3, but it was good through 1.  The big thing here is if you can hold it wide open in 1.  As trim as you are, if you can hold it wide open, it pays off because it’s just all momentum.

Q.  I think you never raced here in open wheel racing, only in NASCAR.  How do you approach this in event?  Did you ask for advice or information from your teammates?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No, you watch ‑‑ I watched last year’s race, a little bit how the race developed and how everything went, and that’s all you can do, be as prepared as you can be and take it as it comes.  That’s all you can do.
It seems like I run really well on ovals this year, so it’s fun.  It’s nice to have a good track position.  For the next race we have pit good stop, as well, so that pays off big time.

Q.  Last Friday at Houston you said we’re getting there, and then you had a pretty good run at Houston on Saturday.  Now you’ve won a pole.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  We’re getting there.

Q.  I think getting there, you’re almost here.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No, I feel I’m still lacking a little bit.  I’m getting a lot better.  I feel a lot more comfortable in the car.  Like I feel at home in the car now.  But I need to be a little more proactive with the car, understand it a little better, help the engineers a little more.  Like I can tell them what the car is doing, but the more I learn the more I can tell them which direction we need to go with the car to make ourselves better because the series is so close and we’ve got two really good teammates between Will and Helio, and we help each other and everything, but I feel to be able to get an edge on them I’ve got to do a better job of understanding the cars so I can get ahead of them.  It’s the only way.

Q.  I know you guys have the new right sides this time around.  Now that you’ve had more laps on the track, more laps on them, do you like the balance with them?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Tires‑wise?  Tires are fine.  They’re not dropping that much.  I mean, if anything it’s going to be a hard race because it seems if you do a really good job through Turn 3 and you suck up in there and you get close enough into Turn 1 then you’ve got a big understeer in 1, and if you miss Turn 3 then it takes you all the way around to get back into Turn 3 and it’s like a vicious circle.  It’s really hard to pass here, so I think track position is important.  Also I think fuel mileage is key, as well.  We’ll see.  I mean, we just ‑‑ we’ve got to plan the race and see what it brings.  That’s all you can do.  Whatever it gives you, you’ve got to be smart, you’ve got to run all day.  It’s double points, and you’ve got to take that into consideration and you’ve got to be there at the end.
THE MODERATOR:  Will, do you have any comments on tire usage here at Pocono?
WILL POWER:  Yeah, they’re very consistent really.  It’s one of the few tracks we go to where they don’t really degrade at all.  I think the speed over the whole stint we stayed the same.  If anything get a bit quicker as the car gets lighter from fuel.  It’s not going to be a tire game tomorrow, it’ll be strategy versus fuel, depending on where a yellow may fall and trying to make it one less stop than everyone else.  If it happened to be green, yeah, it’s that type of race I feel.

Q.  Getting back to the ‑‑ am I getting here, is he here now?
WILL POWER:  He is.  He’s definitely ‑‑ I mean, he’s brought a lot of good stuff to the team from the very beginning actually even when he was coming up to speed.  Definitely good ideas, and I think just the experience of the three of us I think is really helping like push the car in a good direction, the development.  Because at the end of the day ‑‑
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Make sure you mention that to Roger.
WILL POWER:  At the end of the day the drivers push the development in a certain direction, and the beauty of driving for Penske is you’ve got the resources to develop what you want, so it’s good having experienced drivers in the team to push you in the right direction.

Q.  Juan, is it my imagination, it seems like when you’ve taken steps, you haven’t reacted like the veteran that you are.  You’ve kind of looked like a new guy doing something new every race, but you do a little better.  Do you feel like you’re kind of getting into new they are try all the time?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It feels like new territory because I haven’t done it for such a long time.  I know how to do it, but knowing how to do it and actually getting to do it is two different things.  It takes time.  It’s all about believing in what you can do and believing how far like in street courses how far you can actually go before you actually really hit the wall, before you actually bounce off the wall, and that’s one of the things ‑‑ like in street courses I’m still missing.  I’m getting better but I’m still missing in qualifying especially I’m terrible ‑‑
WILL POWER:  So am I.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, you learned from me there.
WILL POWER:  That’s one bad thing you taught me, qualify badly.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Exactly.  Yeah, it was funny because we were in Long Beach and I think I qualified like 14th and he’s like this is our worst qualifying ever, it’s embarrassing, and he’s like, boom, boom, it’s getting worse.
WILL POWER:  Now it’s like 19th, 18th every week.  But it’s fun in the races, man.  You start back there, it’s great fun.  It’s boring from the front.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Really?  It’s amazing it doesn’t matter where you qualify, if you’ve got a good car and you make a couple of good calls you’re there.  You’re always going to get a couple opportunities in the race to do something different, and if you do it right it’s going to pay off and you’re going to get a good finish.  So qualifying is important but it’s not crucial.  It’s good for the pit stop, for the race, for the next race and for the pit stall, and it’s great for the team.  This week we’ve got the PPG Chevy car and it seems to be really good, and Verizon has supported us a lot, so we have the two Verizon cars, the drivers in the front row.  It’s pretty cool.

Q.  We keep hearing it’s really hard to pass here, it’s really hard to pass here.  What is it about this track that makes it hard to pass and how do you overcome that?
WILL POWER:  Straight through the corners, they come back on themselves.  It’s not like Indy has got four corners so they’re at a 90‑degree.  These get passed.  It’s very difficult to make it stick when you rely on aerodynamics to stay close to someone.  I think it’s the same for NASCAR.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, NASCAR it’s pretty hard to pass, same thing, because the last time I had the same thing.  The corner is so long and there’s really only one groove that is the bottom groove.  I think Turn 1 is a little wider, especially because people coming out of the pits should run a little high to go around them, but I’ll be honest with you, if I’m running wide open and somebody comes out of the pits, I ain’t going to run wide open around the outside of them just for the sake of it.  Hell no.  I’m going to make sure I pass them, but I’ll be cautious about it.  But it’s like Turn 3, for example, you’ve got to be on the bottom the way the corner is, especially being so flat, it makes it pretty hard.  If you could run two grooves, then it would make life a lot easier because the cars are very aero sensitive.  That’s where they are.

Q.  Because of the difficulty with passing, how crazy do you expect the start to be just because everyone is going to be right on top of each other?
WILL POWER:  500 miles.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah, it’s a long race.  I mean, it’s all about making sure you work on your car all day long and get a good balance for when it really matters.  It’s all about strategizing and putting yourself in a good position to have a shot at the end.  That’s all you can do.

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 5, 2014
PAGE 8

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: WALK US THROUGH THAT RUN.“Our PPG car was really good with the Chevy engine. It’s fun to be in the Verizon IndyCar Series. We have great cars and great partners. I’m just so proud to be at Team Penske. Being able to get this is huge.”
THE TEAM WAS CELEBRATING. ARE YOU JUST AS HAPPY? “I’m excited. It’s the first time we’ve gotten here together. It’s great to be on the pole. Now we need to start getting some wins.”
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO WIN THE RACE? “I think we have a good car. Let’s see what it brings.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND:  “Yeah, it was good. I probably lifted a little too much into Turn 1. I knew Montoya was going to be tough to beat. They ran a little more downforce. Since I wasn’t flat, I think he probably went wide-open on that run.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7TH:  A LOT OF DRIVERS ARE USING A SLOW WARMUP LAP. ARE YOU EXERCISING TIRE MANAGEMENT SO YOU CAN SAVE YOUR TIRES FOR THE TWO HOT LAPS? “No, I was just trying to make sure the wind wasn’t bothering me. Even though there is just a slight wind out there, I wanted to make sure that the controls and tools in the car were set up because we stalled a little bit going out. So yeah, I thought everything is under control but wanted to make sure the car was ready to go. And it was.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: ““I’m pretty confident in the Target car and it’s obviously a very long race with 500 miles so you have to let it play out.  I think we went a bit conservative on the setup and the No. 10 car had more in it for sure.  We have a good race car under us and today is a decent start to the job we’ll have to do tomorrow. I’m confident in my race car. The No. 10 Target car is hooked up for the race. It’s a 500-mile race and it doesn’t matter where you start.”

RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 10TH: We had a good run today in qualifying.  The No. 8 NTT DATA Chevrolet was the best it’s been all day.  I think the conditions are just really good right now and we maybe could have been a bit greedier with the downforce but it was a good solid run. The car was the best it’s been this week. The conditions are really good right now. We could have been a bit more greedy with the downforce, but it was a good solid run. The gears were right. The car felt solid so hopefully it gets us in good position for tomorrow.”

ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13TH: WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT WILL PUT YOU? HOW IS THE BALANCE OF THE CAR? “Probably 10th or 12th. We left a lot on the table and missed on the balance. We’ve been off today and it’s been frustrating. We will have to get things together for tomorrow and come back strong.  I’m not sure what happened on those two laps.  This place is important for track position so I didn’t want to qualify too far back. I feel like our race car is pretty good, and it is a 500-mile race so you can make certain changes on pit stops and from the cockpit.”

SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH: ““Today we spent both practice sessions working on the balance of Target car.  I think we’ll be okay for the race but you just have very limited time here at Pocono. Each of the three turns here is distinctively different so you really have to be able to compromise the setup to get things right.  Last year we showed you never know what can happen here after starting back in the pack and finishing 1-2-3.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. . 83 LEVEMIR® FLEXTOUCH® CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “I’m not too worried about our qualifying position right now. We qualified mid-pack last year and then we ended up finishing strong in the race.  Tonight we’ll take some time to look at what our teammates did and compare notes and see what kind of data they have.  I think the No. 83 Levemir® FlexTouch® Chevrolet looks really good and I’m excited for the 500 miles tomorrow. We qualified mid-pack last year and ended up running strong in the race. We spent all day today running on one set of tires and working on the race car. Really focused on tomorrow’s 500 miles. I think the car is pretty good. We will look at what our teammates did, see what the 10 does and learn from it for next year.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 No. 11 Team HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET   QUALIFIED 18TH: “I’m obviously not happy with qualifying. It’s not where we want to be. The car seems to be a little better in race trim, but we still have a lot of work to do. Hopefully, we can figure something out and have a decent result in the Shatter car tomorrow

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AUTOMATIC FIRE SPRINKLERS, INC. – KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET QUALIFIED 19TH: “Of course we wanted to be a little more up front, but not being able to test at ovals as much as we want, is showing and starting to hurt us. Our main focus this morning was to just mileage out the car, which we managed. My Automatic Fire Sprinkler guys were then super impressive to change my Chevrolet engine in an hour and a half! In qualifying, I bottomed very hard in turn one on my first green lap and that killed everything because I had to lift and that lost me speed. My second lap was much quicker but by then I had lost the momentum. On a positive note though I think we have a good race car so we will just have to see how the race plays out tomorrow.”

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 5, 2014
PAGE 8

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: WALK US THROUGH THAT RUN.“Our PPG car was really good with the Chevy engine. It’s fun to be in the Verizon IndyCar Series. We have great cars and great partners. I’m just so proud to be at Team Penske. Being able to get this is huge.”
THE TEAM WAS CELEBRATING. ARE YOU JUST AS HAPPY? “I’m excited. It’s the first time we’ve gotten here together. It’s great to be on the pole. Now we need to start getting some wins.”
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO WIN THE RACE? “I think we have a good car. Let’s see what it brings.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND:  “Yeah, it was good. I probably lifted a little too much into Turn 1. I knew Montoya was going to be tough to beat. They ran a little more downforce. Since I wasn’t flat, I think he probably went wide-open on that run.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7TH:  A LOT OF DRIVERS ARE USING A SLOW WARMUP LAP. ARE YOU EXERCISING TIRE MANAGEMENT SO YOU CAN SAVE YOUR TIRES FOR THE TWO HOT LAPS? “No, I was just trying to make sure the wind wasn’t bothering me. Even though there is just a slight wind out there, I wanted to make sure that the controls and tools in the car were set up because we stalled a little bit going out. So yeah, I thought everything is under control but wanted to make sure the car was ready to go. And it was.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: ““I’m pretty confident in the Target car and it’s obviously a very long race with 500 miles so you have to let it play out.  I think we went a bit conservative on the setup and the No. 10 car had more in it for sure.  We have a good race car under us and today is a decent start to the job we’ll have to do tomorrow. I’m confident in my race car. The No. 10 Target car is hooked up for the race. It’s a 500-mile race and it doesn’t matter where you start.”

RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 10TH: We had a good run today in qualifying.  The No. 8 NTT DATA Chevrolet was the best it’s been all day.  I think the conditions are just really good right now and we maybe could have been a bit greedier with the downforce but it was a good solid run. The car was the best it’s been this week. The conditions are really good right now. We could have been a bit more greedy with the downforce, but it was a good solid run. The gears were right. The car felt solid so hopefully it gets us in good position for tomorrow.”

ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13TH: WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT WILL PUT YOU? HOW IS THE BALANCE OF THE CAR? “Probably 10th or 12th. We left a lot on the table and missed on the balance. We’ve been off today and it’s been frustrating. We will have to get things together for tomorrow and come back strong.  I’m not sure what happened on those two laps.  This place is important for track position so I didn’t want to qualify too far back. I feel like our race car is pretty good, and it is a 500-mile race so you can make certain changes on pit stops and from the cockpit.”

SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH: ““Today we spent both practice sessions working on the balance of Target car.  I think we’ll be okay for the race but you just have very limited time here at Pocono. Each of the three turns here is distinctively different so you really have to be able to compromise the setup to get things right.  Last year we showed you never know what can happen here after starting back in the pack and finishing 1-2-3.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. . 83 LEVEMIR® FLEXTOUCH® CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “I’m not too worried about our qualifying position right now. We qualified mid-pack last year and then we ended up finishing strong in the race.  Tonight we’ll take some time to look at what our teammates did and compare notes and see what kind of data they have.  I think the No. 83 Levemir® FlexTouch® Chevrolet looks really good and I’m excited for the 500 miles tomorrow. We qualified mid-pack last year and ended up running strong in the race. We spent all day today running on one set of tires and working on the race car. Really focused on tomorrow’s 500 miles. I think the car is pretty good. We will look at what our teammates did, see what the 10 does and learn from it for next year.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 No. 11 Team HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET   QUALIFIED 18TH: “I’m obviously not happy with qualifying. It’s not where we want to be. The car seems to be a little better in race trim, but we still have a lot of work to do. Hopefully, we can figure something out and have a decent result in the Shatter car tomorrow

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AUTOMATIC FIRE SPRINKLERS, INC. – KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET QUALIFIED 19TH: “Of course we wanted to be a little more up front, but not being able to test at ovals as much as we want, is showing and starting to hurt us. Our main focus this morning was to just mileage out the car, which we managed. My Automatic Fire Sprinkler guys were then super impressive to change my Chevrolet engine in an hour and a half! In qualifying, I bottomed very hard in turn one on my first green lap and that killed everything because I had to lift and that lost me speed. My second lap was much quicker but by then I had lost the momentum. On a positive note though I think we have a good race car so we will just have to see how the race plays out tomorrow.”

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 5, 2014

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 No. 83 LEVEMIR® FLEXTOUCH® CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET met with members of the media at Pocono Raceway and discussed racing at Pocono, his season to date, outlook for rest of season and other topics.  Full transcript:

ON BEING BACK AFTER PODIUM FINISH HERE AT POCONO IN 2013:  “It is always race; at least it was last year for us.  The track itself is pretty challenging, at least from my perspective. All three corners are very different. You have to balance the setup of the three corners very differently. But overall, it’s great to be back. It’s nice to need a sweatshirt in the morning after last weekend in Houston.   I’ll admit, not complaining, after last weekend, I’m not going to complain about the coolness. It is nice to be up here in the Poconos. It is such a beautiful setting. I really enjoyed the drive over from the airport yesterday. It’s nice to be able to enjoy the July 4th weekend in such a beautiful setting.”

ON THE REST OF THE SEASON: “I think the first half (of the season) has been kind of a tale of two stories.  When we’ve finished, we’ve been inside the top-10; you mentioned those three top-fives.  We had a really good battle to claim a top-five in the second race at Houston last weekend. And, the second race in Detroit to get that podium. But we’ve also fought a few DNFs. A couple of mechanical challenges, and then getting caught-up in incidents both during the 500, as well as race one at Houston. For the second half of the season, I think we are trying to solidify that consistency, and continue to get to the end of races, and keep our streak going of getting to the end, and finishing well when we do.”

ANY ILL EFFECTS FROM THE HEAT LAST WEEK? “We all knew in the off-season it was going to be tough physically. As a result, we trained for it. I did a lot of work; pulled a lot of resources from different exercises physiologists, and some of the science side to learn as much as I could during the cold winter months in Indianapolis. Overall, I felt really good. I got out of the car, and yes, I was tired on Monday, but no more than I was after the doubleheader at Detroit. No more than I will be Sunday night here after 500 miles tomorrow. No ill effects. Re-hydrating was as important as pre-hydrating. As I said, it’s nice to the ambient temperature down a little bit. It is nice because I think because the drivers have a better opportunity to interact with the fans on race weekend. All last weekend we spent going from air conditioning to pit lane; pit lane back to air conditioning trying to stay cool and save as much energy for when it counted. So at least here, it’s nice to be able to be able to enjoy the time outside, and interact and thank the fans for coming out. Because I think that is an important part.”

CAN YOUR POSITIVE RESULT HERE LAST YEAR ADD TO YOUR CONFIDENCE FOR SUCCESS HERE THIS YEAR? “I think that the confidence for us as a team having had that podium sweep here last year, and myself with that second place finish, you come in with a good understanding of where the car was, and what direction….Firestone made a small adjustment to the right front tire for this year. We were pretty happy in first practice. We had a small mechanical issue so we didn’t get to finish the fast five, or 10 minutes, and keep up with the track as it sped up at the end there. The conditions are quite a bit different than last year. It is 15 to 20 degrees cooler, and the wind is a little bit stronger…but other than that, we have a lot of confidence heading into the weekend. It changes the strategy a little bit with it being 500 miles versus 400 miles. Last year I think I would have taken a 500 mile race. Hopefully when we get done with 500 miles tomorrow, I would be happy to have 550 or 600 miles. We’ll see how it goes. It does change the strategy and as a team you’re looking towards those extra 100 miles from lap one. Even today in race trim, we’re working towards that direction. It makes some adjustments, but having that great result it meant that the two weeks off testing wise we could go focus on some areas we needed to improve rather than feeling we had to come here, and run at Pocono. Overall I think this morning has gone well. I feel like we have picked up pretty close to where we left off. As a team, we have a lot of confidence heading into the rest of today, and tomorrow.”

ON EASE OF CHANGE FROM HONDA ENGINE TO CHEVROLET: “The biggest thing from my side is the sticker on the engine cover climbing in the cockpit. In as far as the car or the engines drive, they are very similar. You see a little bigger differences I think, or at least from the engine I ran last year being a single turbo to the twin turbo DI (direct injection) Chevy this year more on the road and street circuits where you are at a higher boost level and it’s more dynamic as far as the throttle applications and lifting, and braking and downshifting and cornering especially here at Pocono. You are pretty close to flat, or flat all the way around. It’s a big challenge to feel much difference within the cockpit. Overall it’s been a lot of fun this year working with Team Chevy guys. It was really nice to get that podium in Detroit in their backyard for them. That always helps when the management is there to go out and sweep a podium. Hopefully we can get a good result for them here. I know they have struggled a little bit on the big ovals. Didn’t get the win that they really wanted at Indy, so hopefully we can do it in the two last 500 mile races for the Triple Crown.”

ON THE WEATHER FORCING CHANGES TO THE CAR: “I think it is very similar to how we started last year, how we started today. The car’s not as sensitive as you might imagine. It changes a little bit what we do in the cockpit based on looking at the flag and seeing how hard it is gusting, and how hard it is blowing especially in turn three when you don’t have the banking kind of shading the line from the wind. Overall you start very similar, and you do have to make some adjustments both in the cockpit with my tools, as well as the line driving throughout the corner. We’ve made a couple adjustments set-up wise to compensate for the wind and the temperature, but overall, it is very, very similar.”

AT WHAT POINT IN LAST YEAR’S RACE DID YOU REALIZE THE GANASSI STRATEGY WAS GOING TO WORK? “How many laps did we do last year? 160? About 159! You never know how it is going to play out. Even last week in the street circuit race at Houston and the Indy road course, because of a late yellow the strategy flipped on its head. Some guys were able to go the distance on fuel, and some guys had full fuel and were just trying to get as much of a gap at some point to try to get that stop it late. I think it was probably about half way through that last stint when everyone started to peel in for a splash of fuel at the end and we’d done our last stop, and thought okay, we were good to go. I guess maybe earlier when people were starting to save fuel and play back strategy from the end of the race. We knew it could come to us. Front lap 20, we knew we had a good car. We just had to keep it under us and be smart with it. Make it better the whole race rather than dialing it out, and we were able to do that. And, we had four really good, clean pit stops. I know the No. 9 (Scott Dixon) and the No. 10 (Dario Franchitti) were right there as well.  I didn’t realize that Dario had gotten past Will (Power) for third until maybe a lap to go. Dario got a run on me, but wasn’t able to make anything happen, but my spotter was saying ‘The No. 10 car coming’, and I was thinking it was the No. 12 car, how did that happen?  I didn’t know it was going to be that good until a few laps from the end.”

I SAW A SPECIAL PIECE ON A NASCAR DRIVER WITH DIABETES AND DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE MECHANISM – A SPOT ON HIS UNIFORM THAT LOOKED LIKE A BULLSEYE – THEY USE TO MONITOR HIM, CAN YOU EXPLAIN DIFFERENCES? “I talked to Ryann (Reed) this week. We were both down at a Children with Diabetes conference in Orlando. It is an annual event. They bring young children with diabetes; their friends; their families. They do specific sessions of parents, grandparents, friends; all sorts of activities. There are patient ambassadors; Ironman Jake Hewitt; football player Kendal Simmons; cross country skier Chris Freeman. In the past they have had the Jonas brother that has diabetes come down and speak. I was there doing a couple of different events on Wednesday, and I was talking with Ryan a little bit about it.  He wears a similar system to me in that he wears a continuous monitor so he can keep track of his blood glucose level, a lot like I do. His is a little different because it is mounted on the cockpit dash because they (NASCAR) don’t allow any telemetry or computing during races. Where with mine, it is integrated with the telemetry. So not only can I see it on my electronic dash, but the engineers are able to keep track of it. I think him what they were talking about with his suit is. If the sugars got out of control, and he needed an insulin injection that would be the area in which he would be able to metabolize it, and make an impact so it wouldn’t hold him back. Fortunately, knock on wood, everything I have had in the last five years of racing with diabetes, I have never needed insulin during the race. I’m set up in case my sugars go the other way,  and my blood glucose goes the other way and goes lower, I’m set-up with a drink bottle with orange juice in it so I can get some carbohydrates back into my  system and bring my sugars up so I don’t have to stop. But again, I’ve never needed the orange juice during a race to treat a low blood sugar. The idea is that if you keep it within that range, then you don’t need either carbohydrates or insulin.”

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 5, 2014

TEAM PENSKE’S HELIO CASTRONEVES, JUAN PABLO MONTOYA AND VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES LEADER WILL POWER met with the media at Pocono Raceway following today’s opening practice to talk about track conditions, being back at Pocono, contact on street races and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:

HELIO CASTRONEVES
HOW DID IT GO OUT THERE THIS MORNING?
“Pretty good. The wind conditions hit us and threw a little curveball. At the end of the day, it’s the same for everyone. The Chevy engine is working good. We were able to try a race setup, which is what we wanted. Hopefully now in the second session we will be able to work a little bit on qualifying.”

WHAT DOES THE WIND DO TO THE CAR?
“It makes it a little tough to set up, especially when you are going from one corner to another, even though it is an oval. When it’s a constant wind, it’s not a problem. When it’s a gust of wind, that’s when it’s a problem. On one lap, the car is one way and the next one is, ‘Whoa, what happened?’ The inconsistency is what makes it difficult for us.”

LOOKING BACK AT LAST WEEKEND, THE STREET RACES ARE BECOMING MORE OF A CONTACT SPORT. IT SEEMS THE ONLY WAY MOST PEOPLE FEEL THAT CAN GET AROUND IS TO PUSH SOMEONE OUT OF THE WAY. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
“Certainly I don’t like it, and I don’t think anyone likes it especially if you are the one getting the contact. For one thing, the car is too strong. It gives opportunities for guys not to be careful. If there is a small opening, they are just ‘eh, whatever happened happened’ and not thinking of the consequences. But it became a good show with the contact like that. Unfortunately it hurts when you do have contact like that. It’s not going to change any time soon.”

JUAN PABLO SAID THERE ARE STILL GUYS YOU CAN RACE AGAINST. HOW DIFFERENT IS IT FROM BACK IN THE OLD CART DAYS? IS THERE STILL THE SAME ETTIQUITE OR IS IT A LITTLE MORE AGGRESSIVE NOW?
“In the past, there was more power so it was more difficult to get out of the corner. The close racing was a little different, and the approaching speed was a little different. Now because everyone is so close to each other… the braking marks are so close to each other. In the past, if you touched it used to break you more. It was a little different game. But the competition has adapted and I have to say this field is very close, probably because of the way the equipment is. We don’t have as much torque as we did in the past. Saying that, you see the younger generation driving a little different. Some of the new rookies have very huge respect – some not so much. But it’s never going to change. But it’s always fun to race like in the Indy 500 with Hunter-Reay when we are pushing each other to the limit. It was a great show with lots of respect.”

WITH A DOUBLE-POINTS RACE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS WEEKEND IS A CHANCE TO GAIN GROUND IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Absolutely. Those are the races where we need to focus. But we can’t just focus on the championship. We have to focus on having good performances. Whatever comes out will sort things out.”

DOES IT MATTER TO YOU THAT YOUR TEAMMATES ARE THE ONES YOU ARE FIGHTING OFF?
“No. It’s a good problem for a team to have and that’s what we are looking for. It’s great to be battling with Will. I think the biggest one is how to manage that so we can bring both guys in and at the end of the day we will accomplish our goal – give the championship to Roger (Penske). We still have that mentality of wanting to make that happen.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE STARTING TO COME TO JUAN?
“I never doubted him. You have to give credit to the guy who jumped back in after seven years in NASCAR. He’s doing extremely well. I was never thinking anything different. I’m glad he’s adapting fast, and I think that’s his biggest strength.”

WHICH TURN HERE REQUIRES THE MOST CONFIDENCE FOR YOU?
“I think Turn 3 is the toughest one because of the circumstances of the angle of the corner and how you approach behind from someone. In front, it’s not so much (difficult). Where the laptime is is at Turn 1. Put those together, that’s the toughest part for the engineers and drivers.”

DO YOU ENJOY RACING AT A TRACK THAT YOU KNOW IS ONE OF THOSE GREAT TRACKS FROM 30 YEARS AGO WHERE SOME OF THE GREATEST NAMES IN INDYCAR RACING HAVE WON?
“Oh yeah. The tradition is always great to keep adding to the series – Milwaukee, here. Unfortunately we don’t have Nazareth. Phoenix is another place we used to race. Laguna Seca is another place. But we gotta go where we are welcome. And I think the series is doing a great job of going places where we are welcome.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA
HAVE YOU STARTED LOOKING AT THE STANDINGS A LITTLE BIT MORE LATELY?
“It’s good now. I was looking at them at the beginning when I was 12th or 14th in points, and I was like, ‘I don’t really wanna look at this. It’s embarrassing!’ But I think where experience pays off is you don’t put yourself in bad positions and you finish more races. I feel I’ve been doing a good job for Team Penske, Verizon, PPG, Chevrolet and everyone who supports us. As long as the man (Penske) is happy, then I’ll be happy.”

DO YOU ENJOY THAT IT’S YOUR TEAMMATES THAT YOU’RE CHASING DOWN?
“In a way, yes. But in another way, it’s nice that they are running 1-2 at the moment. Neither of them have a championship yet, and I think both of them deserve one. So we will see how their interaction continues.”

HOW DID IT GO THIS MORNING?
“Good. It’s amazing how fast this place is. Even though you test here and you know what you have to do, it’s hard. To commit yourself into Turn 1 or Turn 3 to hold it down, it takes a lot of self-confidence.”

YOUR RESULTS HAVE PICKED UP A LOT IN THE LAST FEW RACES, AND YOU HAD A HUGE WEEKEND LAST WEEKEND. ARE YOU FEELING MORE COMFORTABLE?
“I’m starting to figure it out. If you’re not comfortable, you’re not confident. Now I know I can outbrake anybody. I get there and I can throw the car in and I’m still going to stop. So the confidence level is starting to go back up. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. You have to go racing to really understand. You test and you push until you think you’re comfortable. Then you go into a race and when you push you’re a second off, you have to get out of that comfort zone and figure it out. That’s what we’ve been doing.”

THE STREET RACES ARE BECOMING MORE OF A CONTACT SPORT. DO YOU REMEMBER IT BEING THAT WAY IN THE CART DAYS?
“It’s a contact sport with some people. It depends on who you are racing. If you’re running with guys that are experienced, you don’t have any problems. You’re running with Kanaan, Power or people like that, if you get out inside of them they will give you the room. They are smart enough. But then there are kids who would rather end up in the tires that give up a position.”

WAS IT THAT WAY IN CART?
“Michael (Andretti) was a guy you could race against always. He was a fair guy. Then you had other people who were desperate. When you’re desperate for results, you’ll do anything.”

WILL YOU WATCH THE SPRINT CUP RACE TONIGHT JUST TO WATCH IT?
“I will be in my hotel room. Last night I was watching the Nationwide race last night and fell asleep. But not in a mean way; I really wanted to watch it with 30 laps to go. It woke me up, the screaming at the line. That’s the thing with restrictor plate racing. We should do 10 five-lap races. That would make it so much more fun.”

YOU HAVE SO MUCH MORE EXPERIENCE HERE THAN ANY OTHER DRIVER. DO YOU FIND THAT IT HELPS?
“No. In a stock car here, you brake and downshift. You downshift in these cars here but it is very different. There is no technique and you press a button. It’s completely different. The IndyCars are very sensitive to the aero. Any gust of wind changes how the car behaves. But they are fun to drive.”

IS THE TRACK DIFFICULT TO DRIVE IN THE SAME PLACES DRIVING A STOCK CAR THAN AN INDYCAR?
“No. In a stock car, if the car was bad it doesn’t matter how good you are. When the car is good, it doesn’t matter how bad you are.”

HOW IS THE WIND HERE?
“It changes the balance and makes it hard because every corner drives different. You go into Turn One and you have tons to understeer. You go through Two – it shouldn’t be a corner in these cars it’s so easy. You turn in and you’re saying ‘please don’t snap, please don’t snap!’ You get into Three, and you have a ton of instability in the entry and feel like the front gives up. You think you’re going crash and you turn the wheel, the car doesn’t turn.”

THE RESULTS HAVE BEEN GREAT LATELY. HAS THE TEAM FOUND SOMETHING OR IS IT MORE OF A PROGRESSION IN YOUR RETURN?
“It’s a progression. I always said it would take time. If you thought it wasn’t, you were dreaming. I hadn’t been in an open-wheel car in six years and not in an IndyCar in 10 or 12. I feel like I’m getting there. I can feel it start to click, and the more it starts to click the more confident you get in the car and the more you can push it.”

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PENSKE AND GANASSI?
“They are very different organizations. They are both great organizations, and I’ve been lucky enough to run for both of them. But the way Chip and Roger wants their things are completely different.”

WILL POWER
HOW DID IT GO FOR YOUR THIS MORNING?
“Good. In the first session, we were trying to work on stuff to try and get the car better. It seems quite difficult to follow. We have to work on that.”

THE STREET RACES ARE BECOMING MORE OF A CONTACT SPORT. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THAT OR WOULD YOU PREFER MORE PLACES TO PASS SO IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A CONTACT SPORT?
“I mean, you can’t hit someone hard but the good thing about these cars is that you can rub. So it has become a little more push-and-shove. Obviously if you go too far you’re going to get a penalty. That’s street racing and how it is right now. You play to the rules at the time. That’s how we are playing right now.”

HOW DAUNTING IS IT TO GO FROM A DOUBLEHEADER WEEKEND TO A 500-MILE RACE?
“I don’t know about daunting. One thing that is daunting is this place. But it’s fine. The temperature will make the race more comfortable. That and the lack of humidity. But it’s great – racing every weekend and having fun.”

YOU’VE SAID YOU’RE NOT LOOKING AT POINTS…
“You have to focus on the actual weekend. It can be a big swing one way or the other. You have to focus on your job and do everything you can to have a good day.”

TALK MORE ABOUT THE HUMIDITY AND HOW THE WIND IS AFFECTING THINGS?
“We’re running out of gear on the frontstraight a lot. So the wind is pushing us along pretty good. It’s actually pretty fast now, the track. The wind always affects these cars. It’s not too bad right now – the direction of the wind. Sometimes when you get a bad direction, it can really upset the car. This isn’t too bad.”