AUSTIN DILLON PUTS CAMARO ZL1 ON THE POLE AT TALLADEGA
Five Team Chevy Drivers Qualify in the Top 12
TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 27, 2019) – Austin Dillon powered his No. 3 DOW Camaro ZL1 to the pole position for Sunday’s GEICO 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) race at Talladega Superspeedway with a fast lap of 49.734 seconds, 192.544 mph. This marked Dillon’s fifth pole in 203 MENCS races, his first pole in 12 races at Talladega, and his second pole thus far in 2019.
The feat was also the 36th pole for Chevrolet at Talladega Superspeedway, the 704th pole in NASCAR’s premier division, and the fifth pole this season for the Camaro ZL1.
Dillon’s RCR teammate, Daniel Hemric, driver of the No. 8 Caterpillar Camaro ZL1, was fifth quick and the fastest qualifying rookie. Alex Bowman qualified ninth in his No. 88 Nationwide Camaro ZL1, Kyle Larson was 10th in the No. 42 Clover Camaro ZL1, and Chase Elliott qualified 11th in his No. 9 Mountain Dew/Little Caesar’s Camaro ZL1 to give Chevrolet five qualifiers in the Top 12.
Aric Almirola (Ford) qualified third, Clint Bowyer (Ford) was third, and Brad Keselowski (Ford) qualified fourth to round out the Top 5.
FOX will telecast the 188-lap/500-mile GEICO 500 live at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, April 28. Live coverage can also be found on MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CAMARO ZL1 POST QUALIFYING TRANSCRIPT:
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO GET THE FIRST POLE FOR THE 3 CAR AT TALLADEGA IN 25 YEARS?
“I’m a numbers kind of guy and you correlate all those numbers together – it’s the 50th anniversary for RCR, 50th for Talladega. Talladega is where RCR kind of started in 1969. I’m pumped to be here in the No. 3 car. Danny Stockman (crew chief) and the boys did a great job building a fast car and you want to go out there and make some noise and they did that. I give all the credit to those guys. Tomorrow it’s up to us to keep that car up front and hopefully make a real iconic win for RCR and everyone here at Talladega.”
HOW BIG IS IT TO HAVE DANNY STOCKMAN BACK?
“Stockman is my guy. He’s a grinder. He’s like me. We’re cut from the same cloth when it comes to just competitive nature. We hate to lose at anything and it’s nice to have that back just because he pushes me for every little bit he can get. We were second right there in that first round and he was talking to me about my line and where I can make up some speed. It’s pretty tough to cut feet out of this track because it’s so big. I did my best for him, I didn’t spin the tire leaving that time and I think that kind of jumped us up a little bit – enough to get the pole.”
HOW DO YOU KEEP THE LEAD TOMORROW IF IT’S TOO DANGEROUS TO BLOCK?
“I think having people behind you that you can trust is a big key to that. Getting those Bowties up front and working together, that will be a big part of it. Blocking is going to be tougher for the ducts in the front, but it’s a part of the game. We’ll just have to test it out early and see what it is. I definitely don’t want to give up that front position, but there are going to be guys – just the front guy seems to be a little bit of a sitting duck. There will be a lot of movement on the track tomorrow, hopefully it’s good movement and not cars going the other way.”
HOW MUCH DID IT BOTHER YOU AT DAYTONA THAT A CHEVY TEAM WORKED WITH ANOTHER MANUFACTURER?
“I think that’s in the past. I think it’s cool that we’ve learned from that and moved forward. I think it was cool today sitting in there with all of our guys in one group having a group discussion about what we need to do to accomplish our goals for tomorrow.”
WHAT WAS THE MEETING ABOUT TODAY WITH THE CHEVY TEAMS?
“I think we’re just unified as a group now and in a better position to work hard. We know we saw other teams doing a really good job of it here at Talladega last year. For us, that was just about working together to get a Chevrolet to victory lane the best we can. Put ourselves all in a better position and that’s just kind of what it was, working together was the message.”
IS THERE AN ORDER FROM CHEVROLET TO ONLY HELP CHEVROLETS OR MORE OF A SUGGESTION?
“I think it’s just looking at what the other teams have been successful in the last couple plate races, you look at those guys and they’re grouping up and they’re dictating the race. We don’t want to be in that position where we’re having to fight from behind the whole time and we have good numbers at Chevy and we need to use them. Honestly, it’s just looking at what the competition has done and trying to make it better. Do our job to be better at it.”
IS IT MORE OF AN EMPHASIS BECAUSE CHEVY HASN’T WON THIS SEASON?
“I don’t think it’s any more of an emphasis if we didn’t have this meeting, we would just still be behind. I think everybody with the other manufacturers have done a good job of doing this and instead of sitting back and playing it the old way of speedway racing, we’ve decided to take it as a group effort and I think you’ll see that tomorrow. I truly hope so. It’s our first time. These guys have been working at it for a couple races now and they’ve kind of done a good job perfecting how to get to the front and work together. We’re still working as a group. We have a young group of Chevy drivers there, a little less experience, but we as a group have done a good job over the weekend and last couple weeks. This is not just our first meeting about it. We’ve been talking about it a little bit behind the scenes and leading up to Talladega to do our best job as a group to work together.”
WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE CONFISCATED DECKLID IMPACTING YOUR PERFORMANCE TODAY OR ANY PENALTIES GOING FORWARD?
“I knew it wasn’t going to hurt our performance. It’s not from a speed and penalty-wise, it wasn’t something. We were just fixing a problem and it turned out we didn’t need to do that. I’m sure Stockman was spun out about it, but speed-wise, I knew it wasn’t going to hurt us and moving forward, I hope that NASCAR takes into effect the entire story of it and whatever is dealt our way, we’ll handle it and go on from there. I’m just happy that RCR has brought a lot of speed to the track this year, we’re running toward the front more where I feel like as a driver and as a team, we can compete with these guys and consistently if we are, Richmond was awesome for us. We really had a car capable of running in that top-three group and had a bad stop at the end. More of these type of races where we show speed and we’re constantly up there, we’re going to have a chance to win a race and lock ourselves into the Playoffs. That’s what I’m more concerned with. You fight for points all year long, but we need to have a shot to win the championship and that’s our ultimate goal.”
DO YOU FEEL MOMENTUM AT RCR?
“Truthfully, speed-wise, I feel like we’ve had momentum all year. You go back to Vegas, Fontana I sat on the pole. I’m really proud of us as a company with what we showed up to this year with the packages. The Xfinity team has been kicking butt all year. With Randall and Tyler Reddick, they’ve been impressive so that’s always good moral in the shop. Just the edge that brings running up front, it keeps the guys wanting to do more, wanting to go faster and that’s what you love seeing out of a group at RCR that’s been here for a long time. The fire is lit and when that fire is lit, we can be tough to beat.”
DO YOU FEEL THE RELATIONSHIP IS REKINDLED WITH DANNY STOCKMAN?
“That relationship has never really gone away. It has distanced itself, but now I feel like – I told him after one of the races, we had a practice at Phoenix and we started yelling back and forth at each other and we were fast in the practice. I told him we were going to do this and he was like, all right. We did it and the car didn’t respond to what I wanted and then he did what he wanted to do and it went fast again. After practice I told him that was the best practice we’ve had since we’ve been separated and that I loved him again. It was just me and him joking with each other, but it was a good race for us at Phoenix and it kind of got us back on the right path. He’s just constantly on me and that’s what I have to have, I have to have that guy and I’m a fiery personality and he hates to lose at anything when it’s both practice sessions, qualifying and the race – I love that. That’s the mentality you should have every weekend, as a company and as a race team. Everybody should want to win everything they do.”
