CORVETTE RACING AT PETIT LE MANS: One More Title To Go
Garcia, Magnussen look for ALMS GT drivers’ title at end of 1,000-mile enduro
 
DETROIT (Oct. 14, 2014) – Only one more race separates Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen from the American Le Mans Series’ GT drivers’ championship. Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta is the site of the final round of the 2013 ALMS but also the series’ finale as well. The 1,000-mile/10-hour endurance classic has been a staple at Road Atlanta – an hour northeast of Atlanta – since its first running in 1998.
 
After nine of 10 rounds in this year’s championship, Garcia and Magnussen in the No. 3 Compuware Chevrolet Corvette C6.R lead their sole remaining challenger – Dirk Muller – by 16 points with 24 available to the winner at Petit Le Mans. The Corvette Racing camp is aiming for a second straight clean sweep of the ALMS GT titles. It clinched a 10th series team championship and won Chevrolet’s 10th manufacturer title in the previous race at Virginia International Raceway. The championship chase concludes at Road Atlanta with live coverage starting at 11 a.m. ET on FOX Sports 2; the race’s broadcast alternates between it and FOX Sports 1.
 
No duo in the GT class can match Garcia and Magnussen’s three victories in 2013: Laguna Seca, Baltimore and Austin. For Petit Le Mans, they will team with newly crowned GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype champion Jordan Taylor. The group must finish seventh or higher at Road Atlanta for Garcia and Magnussen to win the driving title; they were second last year.
 
If they do, the duo would succeed Corvette Racing teammates Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner as champions. Richard Westbrook returns to join them in the No. 4 Compuware Corvette; the trio opened the ALMS season with a remarkable, come-from-behind victory at Sebring. Gavin is the team’s winningest driver at Road Atlanta with five victories.
 
With five wins on the season, Corvette Racing is assured of being the ALMS’ most successful entrant in series history. The list of achievements is remarkable – 82 victories, 10 team and manufacturer titles, and 64 pole positions. All are American Le Mans Series records.
 
Starting in January, a new era begins with the debut of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship – a result of a merger between the ALMS and GRAND-AM. The season will open with the Rolex 24 at Daytona and close with Petit Le Mans.
 
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
 
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
(Championship strategy) “We need to keep racing as we have up to this point. We need to use a percentage of caution; we won’t risk as much during the race as we normally would. But in this case, you can’t hold back and wait. If you hold back a little too much, you become vulnerable. We need to keep the same strategy – try to be up front and stay out of trouble.”
“We all just need to stay calm and relax. The key is to remain consistent and keep doing the same things we have earlier in the year.”
(Being successful at Road Atlanta) “The key thing is that we normally have a few more cars and new people running in the race. The amount of traffic rises, as does the risk. Because Road Atlanta is not so easy on traffic due to the layout, you need to take it easy. You also need to have a smart, safe strategy and don’t try to do something out of sequence and completely different than anything from the season.”
 
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
(Championship strategy) “We will have to keep our eye on the ball and win the championship. That’s not to say we can’t go for a victory, but we do need to make sure we get the championship. The situation is looking quite good for us but it is a long race. Our main competitors will be strong but our car is usually excellent as well at Road Atlanta. We need to be clever about it – push when we need to but also smart when need to.”
(Keys to victory) “Because of the race’s length, the team plays a much bigger part. There is a ton of strategy involved and there are more pit stops. Fortunately for us, we have been able to do a really good job at both. The longer distances will suit our team even more and usually we are quite strong. We do put a lot of time and effort into stops and making the right strategy calls.”
 
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“Finishing the last three races in the Rolex Series and winning those races, there isn’t a much better feeling. Having those victories and a championship is the best possible way to come into Petit Le Mans. I’m really excited to get back to the Corvette and the team since the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The No. 3 team has had a great season so far. My job is to help them to win a championship.”
(Taming the track) “Road Atlanta is one of the more traditional courses we have in America. There is a lot of speed, and the track flows very well. It’s a fun track to drive but when you get into a race situation with traffic, it can be frustrating and stressful if you’re stuck behind a slower GT car or trying to hold off a prototype in certain sections. Things can get pretty stressful and it’s easy to lose a ton of time. If you lose a little bit of rhythm or momentum at a place like Road Atlanta – where you are going by rhythm or momentum – you can lose sync of everything and wonder where your lap time went. It’s a big track for confidence and believing in yourself and the car.”
 
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“The race really is one of the crown jewels of the sports car racing world. It’s an event many teams from outside the series want to do. A thousand miles around Road Atlanta is a great challenge. The track is fast and unforgiving. It can frustrate you when you’re in traffic, but sometime you can use that your advantage if someone is chasing you. It’s a track that is suited for this race with the fact you go from starting in the middle of the day and ending at night. Those last couple of hours, you know is going to be hard and tough after racing all day. It will be a fine way to finish off the story that has been the ALMS.”
(Adding a Petit Le Mans win to Sebring) “That has to be the goal. We’ve had some ups and downs starting at Sebring. We had a great victory in Canada before things started going downhill for us. When you have three bad races in a year, you have to be super-lucky to come away with a championship. Considering how difficult this class is, you get one ‘get out of jail free’ card. Jan and Antonio played their card at Sebring, but since then they have nailed it every single weekend. They’ve had a very strong season and deserve to be leading the championship with one race to go. Let’s hope they can seal it at Petit Le Mans and get us all three championships again for Corvette Racing. It would be an amazing feat to close the American Le Mans Series with Corvette Racing and Chevrolet as champions in everything we can win.”
 
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“There is a lot to race for, that’s for sure. We can’t win the championship – we’re one point out of having a chance. We’d love to be second in the final standings. But from my perspective I’d rather go for a win at Petit Le Mans – the last ALMS race and one race I haven’t won yet. That’s higher on my list than finishing second or staying third in the standings. It’s a big race – where the ALMS started. Sebring and this one were races coming into the year that I definitely wanted to win. We got Sebring in March and if we can get Sebring, I’d be able to look back on this season and be satisfied with what Oliver, Richard and I have accomplished. There would be nothing better to end the season and the ALMS’ run with a victory.”
(Track characteristics) “Road Atlanta is a track that suits multi-class racing. There is an ebb and flo
w with traffic throughout the race within our class. It’s one I’ve always enjoyed. It’s incredibly fast and fun circuit. For whatever reason, I seem to get a little more excited for Petit Le Mans. The whole picture of that event makes it pretty special. It’s always well-subscribed by fans.”
 
RICHARD WESTBROOK, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“Petit Le Mans is one of the classics. In the sports car racing world, you’ve got the Le Mans 24 Hours, Sebring and Petit Le Mans. This is where the ALMS started. It will always be a very special event. Any driver that wins it will put it straight away on their CV. Driving a Corvette in Petit Le Mans also is a very special thing. We have a great turnout with the Corvette owners in the Corvette Corral – one of the biggest of the year. So being a Corvette driver at Road Atlanta is an incredibly special thing.”
(Dealing with traffic) “For a driver, and it’s something I have to be mindful of – you have to be patient. It’s a short track with a very large field. It’s easy to get bottled up for half your stint or even your whole stint in traffic. It’s so easy to be caught up in other people’s battles. You need to be patient early and let the racing take care of itself in the last couple hours.
(A good track) “This definitely is a track that suits our car. It’s has a long straight, a really fast section with a lot of high-speed corners. You also have the slow chicane where you are braking from very high speed. It’s a great indicator of how your car is generally because it has a bit of everything.”
 
DOUG FEHAN, CORVETTE RACING PROGRAM MANAGER
“Over the years, Petit Le Mans has proven to be one of the most exciting events on our schedule. From a driver’s perspective, the Road Atlanta circuit presents an extremely difficult challenge featuring a lot of elevation change mixed with very high-speed corners. And none of that is wasted on our fans who truly understand how important this year’s race will be to Corvette Racing. We come in having wrapped up both the ALMS manufacturers’ and team championships, which leaves the all-important drivers’ championship still up for grabs. Jan and Antonio have fought back all year to take the lead in points and Petit Le Mans will decide who goes home with the crown. You can’t ask for any more drama than that!”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 10, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S DOVER WHITE CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed racing this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he currently sits in the Chase and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT COMING BACK TO CHARLOTTE, A PLACE WHERE YOU’VE HAD SO MUCH SUCCESS, AND WHAT YOU’RE HOPING TO GET OUT OF THIS WEEKEND
“I’m definitely excited to be home and sleep in your own bed through the course of the week is obviously nice. Having Lowe’s corporate headquarters just down the road is really cool, too. We’ll have a lot of their executives out. In year’s past, we’ve been able to perform with them right here watching and joining us in Victory Lane. It would be nice to experience that once again with all of them.
 
“The track is great. We all know the history of the track and have really had some strong runs here over the years. And I think the last couple of All-Star races, we’ve been able to hit the first race really well and then when we come back for the 600 we are competitive; but it’s a little different than it was five or six years ago when they resurfaced the track. So we’re still trying to find that magic where we can separate ourselves each time we come back. But I still feel like we’re in that top 3 or top 5 group, week-in and week-out. As long as Matt (Kenseth) isn’t winning, then top 3 or top 5 wouldn’t be too bad this weekend.”
 
TALK ABOUT PHOENIX AND WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT THAT TRACK. YOU HAVE THE MOST WINS THERE.
“It’s changed quite a bit. We’ve struggled there since it’s been resurfaced. Our spring race seems to go well each time, but the fall race is pretty tough on us. It’s a totally different rhythm now through (Turn) 2. I call it ‘Turn 1, then Turn 2, then Turn 3 and Turn 4’, but some call it (Turns) 1 and 2 and the Doglegs. So whatever that little section of road is over there is really different than what we had before. And then the surface is this new asphalt that we can’t get a tire to stick to all that well. It’s obviously an extreme climate area, but hopefully that asphalt will give up and we can get a second lane working. They’ve spent a lot of money to build progressive banking in some areas and on their modeling; they had two and three lanes working around there. But we haven’t been able to see it yet and I hope that we go out there this fall and we get it.”
 
A LOT WAS MADE OF THE MIND GAMES YOU HAD WITH DENNY HAMLIN IN 2010; AND THEN LAST YEAR WITH BRAD KESELOWSKI. NOW THAT YOU ARE CHALLENGED BY A GUY LIKE MATT KENSETH, HOW DO YOU PLAY THOSE KINDS OF GAMES? OR, CAN YOU PLAY THOSE KINDS OF GAMES?
“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the games. I felt like with Denny, whatever our personalities; we’ve always given each other a hard time in a good way. There was just some opportunity there where I could jab at him. And I think Kevin Harvick, at the champion’s press conference we had, really opened the door for it all to start happening there. Harvick had a very helpful hand in all that and getting it going. Honestly, with Bad last year, I’m not trying to play games. You are asked so many questions over the course of that week and you’re talking about somebody’s experience level; if they are defending something and what are those emotions and those conversations come out of kind of playing head games and stuff like that. But really, I’m just answering questions and stating the facts; and also stating facts that I know I’ve lived through and the challenges that I’ve had to fight through. So, with all of that, Matt has the experience. He’s been a champion. And no one is immune to it, but I feel like with someone that hasn’t won their first (title) you can suggest a few things that make them think more about it. And I don’t know what or if or how or any of that with Matt, if it would develop. And there are other years when I’ve raced Jeff (Gordon) for the championship or Mark Martin, and there really wasn’t anything to really mention there. So, I don’t have an agenda, or plan to. I didn’t necessarily those years, either. But I’m sure there will be something to talk about once we get to Homestead.”
 
ON HOW WHITE KNUCKLE OF AN EVENT IS TALLADEGA FOR YOU? WHAT IS THE LEVEL OF TENSION, KNOWING YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP COULD GO UP IN SMOKE AT ANY MOMENT?
‘Yeah, it’s tough. With this rules package, riding is not the things to do. You’ll never get back to the front. So, you’ve just got to go race and cross your fingers and go for it. You just hope that Lady Luck is on your side and that you make it through. The guys that we’re racing with right now in the championship historically go and race there. They don’t ride. So even if that opportunity was there, it would have forced our hand to race. So, we’re just going to show up and race. I’ve been able to finish all three (restrictor plate races) so far this year, and I think all three in the top 5. Hopefully we can keep this streak alive.”
 
THIS IS YOUR 10TH CHASE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW WITH ALL THE EXPERIENCE YOU HAVE? DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT WINNING ANOTHER ONE OR DO YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO BE MORE OF A CHALLENGE THIS YEAR THAN IN THE PAST?
“It’s never easy. I do feel very good about our chances. Post-Talladega, depending on how things play out there, we’ll see where we stand. But the only thing I can do right now is look back on the races we’ve had and think what points we’ve left on the table. And there really aren’t many that we’ve left behind. So, yes there are a few points out there, but we’ve been very consistent. We’ve been competitive. We’ve won a race. I feel good with that. I know if we keep this pace up, we’ll definitely be a contender come Homestead. The big question is just Talladega; and then you do have some general risks that you take during the course of the weekend. Last weekend we had that engine fail with two (laps) to go and luckily, I limped it home. So you do have that mechanical aspect that’s out there. But again, it’s something I can’t control. I really work hard to worry about the things that I can control and forgetting about the rest.”
 
YOU MADE YOUR FIRST SPRINT CUP START HERE IN 2001. THAT’S ALSO WHERE YOU STARTED YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH LOWE’S. WHAT DOES THAT RELATIONSHIP MEAN TO YOU? AND, DOES THIS RACE HAVE ANY MORE SIGNIFICANCE BECAUSE OF IT?
“Yeah, I definitely think about this being my first start. It was a tough week for me. My close friend, Blaise Alexander, unfortunately lost his life on the front stretch here. So it was a weird and emotionally-charged weekend for me. The ultimate high of qualifying for my first Cup race, my relationship with Lowe’s, the Lowe’s car that they had at the time didn’t make the show, so there was that big positive emotion-swing in that direction and the tragedy of my friend, pulling me in another. So, it was a crazy week. And by the time Sunday came around, and I was in the race, my emotions were back under control and I really enjoyed the experience on the track. And I’ll never forget that first ah-ha moment I had was leaving the end of pit road. And I was running somewhere in the top 10 or top 15, and Mark Martin and Dale Jarrett, and Jeff Gordon were all around me. And I still kind of get the goose bumps now, just thinking about it. I just rolled off the end of pit road and I’m like here! This is where I’ve always wanted to be and I’m here.
 
“Shortly thereafter, I spun out and right in front of my teammate, Jeff, who was racing for the championship and I about took him out of it (laughs). It was a taste for me of how humbling the sport can be. I leave pit road on top of the world and it wasn’t five laps later when I was over there backwards in the wall. It’s a challenging sport.”
 
THERE WAS AN INCIDENT WHERE A CUP D
RIVER WAS ARRESTED A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO. WITHOUT GETTING INTO THE SPECIFICS OF THAT, SO MANY TIMES NASCAR GETS HAILED AS BEING UNLIKE OTHER SPORTS WHERE ATHLETES MIGHT BE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO BEING INVOLVED IN A POLICE BLOTTER OR HEADLINES FOR THE WRONG REASONS. WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENS, DO YOU HAVE ANY CONCERNS ABOUT HOW IT MIGHT COLLECTIVELY IMPACT DRIVERS’ BRANDS AND KNOWING THAT SPONSORS GET INVOLVED IN THE SPORT BECAUSE OF THAT IMAGE-CONSCIOUS-TYPE THING. DO YOU THINK NASCAR SHOULD TAKE ANY ACTION WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENS?
“I hadn’t thought about it on that level. I was shocked when I heard about it. But it’s not good for our sport, for sure. I think that most realize that it’s an individual situation and nothing to do with the team or the sponsor. It might shy a sponsor away from that particular organization or driver, but I would hope that it wouldn’t impact any further than that. I guess there could be some repercussions there. But again, I hadn’t thought about it too much in a global perspective for our sport. It’s not good press, so it can’t be helpful by any means. And it is pretty rare. I think that’s something that we all pride ourselves on that we don’t have a lot of that drama in our sport. So, I’m sure there is a negative impact to a small degree.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK WAS IN HERE BEFORE YOU AND SUGGESTED THAT ONE REASON ROOKIE STRUGGLE THESE DAYS IS BECAUSE THE TRUCKS AND THE NATIONWIDE CARS JUST AREN’T AS FAST AS THE CUP CARS AND THE TRANSITION IS SO HUGE.  WHEN YOU THINK BACK TO YOUR BUSCH DAYS IN THE EARLY 2000’S WERE THE CARS THAT MUCH CLOSER?
“Man I can’t really remember and I haven’t been in a Truck or a Nationwide car much since.  Kevin would really be the perfect one to ask that.  My mind quickly goes to how little testing you can have as a rookie.  When I came in the sport I think it was 12 two-day test sessions.  So I got 24 test days to sort stuff out.  As an individual team didn’t race at Martinsville so we went to Martinsville.  Didn’t race at, trying to remember the tracks now, Pocono, went to Pocono and tested.  So we were able to get me up to speed because when a weekend starts, if you are a rookie coming in and you haven’t had a chance to test.  By the time you get up to speed and comfortable on the track the good guys are five, six changes ahead of you.   And you are behind that the entire weekend.  It’s hard to catch up.  That is the part that I can really relate to the most.  I’m thankful that in my generation I was able to test a lot.  I don’t think it’s a bad idea to open up testing more in general.  We are kind of trending that way which is encouraging.  With (Kyle) Larson making the move as he has inevitably other drivers their names come along I think Austin’s (Dillon) make the change.  When you grow up in a high horsepower vehicle at least from my own experience I struggle in the slower cars.  I need the throttle to turn the car.  I have a good feeling for both of those guys.  It’s certainly going to be a tough road for them, but coming from the dirt, coming from high horsepower cars I think the Cup car is going to fit their style a little better.”
 
GIVEN THE STRUGGLES THAT YOU HAD LEADING UP TO THE CHASE HOW GOOD DO YOU FEEL?  DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE SITTING HERE DOING AS WELL AS YOU’VE DONE IN THE FIRST THREE RACES?
“I honestly and genuinely felt like we had a great chance to win the championship when all that was going on.  Bristol and Richmond we don’t have any tracks like that in the Chase.  The other tracks we struggled at we were running very fast, competitive, fighting for wins and had some weird things go on.  It did add a little stress there is no doubt about it.  When you have a new stat of your four or five worst races ever in the history of a team it’s not anything to be proud of.  There was a bit of, I don’t know exactly what to call it, stress, or frustration that went with that.  But we genuinely knew that we would be fine once the Chase started and got back to our tracks, good tracks and had a little luck turn around for us.”
 
SPEAKING OF THE ENGINE AT KANSAS DID YOU GUYS FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS?  HAVE YOU EVER HAD AN ENGINE COME BACK LIKE THAT AFTER IT STARTED TO FAIL ON THE FINAL LAP?  IT SEEMED LIKE THAT MIGHT HAVE SAVED YOU ABOUT TWO OR THREE CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AND COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE:
“It really was bizarre.  I was trying to manage how hard the car was shaking with my throttle inputs and looking back on it all I just got lucky with the parts that were failing.  They decided to work in harmony for another mile and a half or something. I could use a lot more throttle and maintain that sixth position.  We had a big meeting on Tuesday and they walked all the drivers and crew chief through and it’s amazing how thorough things are in our engine shop.  We feel very comfortable and confident that they have the issue sorted out that was in the valve train.  We are feeling good about it.” 
 
YOU SAID A FEW WEEKS AGO YOU WERE ONLY REALLY FOCUSED ON THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU IN POINTS. DO YOU STILL LOOK AT IT THAT WAY NOW THAT KEVIN (HARVICK) HAS A WIN?
“Kind of the same.  Even before when I mentioned looking forward you have to be aware of people behind you.  I think any psychologist or type of coaching you would listen to nobody wants you to look behind they always want you to look forward.  I’m certainly focused forward and just trying to get that top spot.  I was really motivated last week and hopeful that we could leave Kansas as the point’s leader came close, but it didn’t turn out.  I certainly have to be aware of the No. 24 and the consistency they have had and the fast cars and great performances and the same thing with the No. 29.  Kevin has got it all. He’s won championships he understands the pressure.  He is a hard-nosed racer things don’t rattle him.  He’s got that all there and the cars have been trending faster and faster and he showed that last week with a dominating weekend.  Looking forward but I certainly know who is behind us.”
 
YOU TALKED ABOUT HOW YOU CAUGHT A LITTLE BIT OF A BREAK THERE AT KANSAS ON THE LAST TWO LAPS WITH THE ENGINE GOING SOUR.  HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT YOU HAVE BOTH GOOD LUCK AND FAST CARS TO OVERCOME THE BAD LUCK IN THE CHASE?  DO YOU LOOK BACK AT THAT AND SEE THAT AS KIND OF A DEFINING MOMENT OF YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP RUN THIS YEAR?
“Well it’s early.  Talladega is still out there so it’s tough to look back on four races and spot the defining moment.  When the motor first started going I thought it was over and I was looking for white smoke and thought that I wouldn’t finish the last lap.  Started to develop the opinion ‘okay I’m going to finish, but I will be 15th.’  I know the No. 20 didn’t have the best day going so I’m not going to lose a ton of points. Then the engine started running smooth again and I was able to maintain sixth.  So I went through a variety of emotions trying to get that baby home and was very thankful that it did stay running and it got me back.  We’ve still got a little while before we try to look back and spot that moment.  I’m pretty sure there will be some other hairy moments out there we’ve got to deal with.”
 
WHAT ARE THE KEY VARIABLES OR INTRICACIES THAT MADE YOU GO FROM A GUY THAT WON FIVE OUT OF NINE TO START YOUR CAREER AT THIS PLACE AND THEN HAD A 1 OUT OF 15 DROUGHT? OBVIOUSLY I THINK THE REPAVE PLAYED INTO IT, BUT WHAT WERE THE OTHER VARIABLES INVOLVED?
“The overwhelming majority of it is repave I think.  We had a set-up there is a line that I ran and you go back and look at the video and I guess guys would have figured it out and explored and probably got better at it.  But the old surface, the b
umps, how tough it was to get around this place just worked really well for me.  We were able to find a little advantage especially on long runs.  Now with the surface like it is it’s just far different.  There really aren’t any bumps very little fall off due to the tire, so within that is where I think the majority of it went.  Sure, teams get stronger so I guess the other sliver to it is guys getting stronger.   I think of Kasey Kahne and how consistent he’s been here.  It’s been a good track for the No. 29 at times for Matt (Kenseth) regardless of the car that he’s in.  I was going to say the No. 20 but also in the No. 17 you know he’s had some wins here.  I think the competition getting stronger and then certainly the track change.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
OCTOBER 10, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER:
IT WAS EXCITING TO WATCH. HOW EXCITING WAS IT TO DRIVE A LAP LIKE THAT?
“Man, that was awesome. It’s been a while since we’ve had a pole here at Charlotte as well as doing it in that fashion. The way that the draw was today, there’s a lot of fast cars going late in qualifying. But when you didn’t see the lap times picking up as much as we thought they were going to, I didn’t know if that late draw was going to really be a big factor. But I saw that the guys ahead of me were putting down good laps and I knew the grip was there and what the car did in practice. And the guys just did an phenomenal job on our Axalta Chevrolet all day long making good adjustments. The car just did everything I wanted it to do.”
 
SO MANY GUYS’ TIME DROPPED OFF BETWEEN TURNS 3 AND 4, PARTICULARLY OFF TURN 4. YOUR’S DIDN’T. YOU REALLY GOT OFF THE CORNER GOOD. DID YOU FEEL THAT?
“Well we got through (Turns) 3 and 4 good in practice. But I thought I was a little bit tight. They freed the car up a little bit and I thought there was a little bit I could do to help my car in (Turns) 1 and 2. As long as the guys helped it turn in 3 and 4, I thought it would be a good lap. There was a lot of speed and a lot of security and it allowed me to have a lot of confidence.
 
“When I went through (Turns) 1 and 2 as good as it did, I thought all you can do is be committed at this point and hope that it sticks. The front end just kept cutting and I knew a lot of guys were getting tight and I just kept pushing the throttle down and it just carried great speed. But I didn’t know if it was going to be enough and then I found out how close it really was and that was pretty amazing.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 2nd:
TELL US ABOUT THAT QUALIFYING LAP. YOU MISSED IT BY ONE. DID YOU LEAVE SOMETHING OUT THERE?
“I felt like I didn’t get everything in (Turns) 3 and 4. I knew from the way things were going and the way practice was that I needed to try to get everything that I could n (Turns) 1 and 2 and not get tight coming off of Turn 4 and I probably lost the pole right there. I’ve just got to thank all these guys on my Jimmy John’s Chevy. They’ve done a great job. We knew we needed to qualify better in the Chase. We knew we needed to run better on the 1.5-mile race tracks and they’re capitalizing on last week and doing that. We would really have liked to have the pole tonight. But everybody knows how we have qualified in the past and to be on the front row is a great benefit for us.”
 
WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE TRACK TONIGHT?
“We ran about the same time, maybe a tenth faster, than what we did in practice. Or just a touch faster. Once we saw where the session was headed with everybody saying they were going slower, as a driver you kind of know what you need to push forward and what you don’t. I just didn’t want to be 25th and make mistakes. The race is no problem. It’s the qualifying sessions for me that stress me out.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S DOVER WHITE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 4th:
HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING LAP?
“That was really nice.  I was really happy with that lap.  Great pick up we made some good adjustments to get the car right.  I’m not sure many guys have picked up two almost three tenths in the session so we did the right things.  I’m excited.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 QUAKER STATE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 5TH
ON HIS LAP:
“Turns 1 and 2 were way better than I did in practice, but worse than (Turns) 3 and 4. So that’s why I kind of equaled out. I just got a little tight off and I couldn’t go back to wide-open soon enough. It was still a good lap for our Quaker State Chevrolet. It’s just not quite where I want it to be.
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 6TH
“Our National Guard Chevy was pretty good all day and I thought we made some good adjustments in between practice and qualifying. I think I underdrove Turn 2 a little bit. We had a real right car through that corner and I just feel like I underdrove it a little bit.”
 
HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO DO MUCH WORK SO FAR IN RACE TRIM?
“Yeah, we ran a couple of runs early and thought that we had a good handle.  We were really in the ballpark and really happy with how the car came off the trailer.  That is a good sign for us.”
 
TALK ABOUT MAKING YOUR 500TH CUP START THIS WEEKEND:
“Yeah, it’s not that big of a milestone to me.  I just hope I’m around for at least 250 or 500 more.  I’ve really been blessed to have the opportunity to do what I do.  I feel thankful every weekend to be able to get in some of the best cars in the series.  I really mean that from my heart.
 
“It’s truly been a dream career for me and I never took it for granted that I would be driving race cars all my life and be able to make a living doing it.  I’m real thankful and it makes me reflect on that kind of thing.”
 
HAVE YOU HAD A GOOD BIRTHDAY?
“It’s been great.  Getting older is not awesome, but it’s all how you feel I suppose.”
 
HOW OLD DO YOU FEEL?
“I feel 20.  I feel good.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 7th
HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR LAP?
“I had a good lap.  I didn’t nail (turns) three and four.  I thought I had a pretty good (turns) one and two, but a good run for our Quicken Loans Chevrolet.  I think we were 23rd in practice and we are sitting fourth right now with less than a handful of cars to go I think.  Good effort I obviously wanted a pole, but coming from 23rd a pole would have been a really big surprise.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, HO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 8th
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
“It was okay. We really thought we had a little more in the car. But to be honest our Target Chevy is pretty good. I had to bail a little bit in (Turns) 3 and 4.  I was just surprised to run a .91. I was really good through (Turns) 1 and 2. (Turns) 3 and 4 have always been a struggle here. We’re a lot better than we used to be, but I got there and it turned and I’m like oh yes, and it turned and I got on the gas and kind of missed the bottom. I got too much throttle. I was too keen.”
 
WHAT WOULD A GOOD SHOWING HERE DO FOR YOU?
“These guys work really hard and we’ve got about five weeks or six races left, or something like that. I’m having a good time. We have a great bunch of guys. I think we have a great relationship and we all want to have a good ending of this. And so we’re working hard. I’m excited about next year and IndyCars and everything, but I’ve still got to keep my mind on what I’m doing right now.”
 
BRIAN SCOTT, NO. 33 SHORE LODGE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 19th:
“I don’t really remember much of it. I remember I was not breathing as well as I normally do (laughs).  It was exciting. This Chevy SS has a lot of power and it’s just fun to get behind the wheel obviously to enjoy this moment and make my first Sprint Cup Series start is really cool. I’m proud to do it with Chevrolet. And happy to be doing double duty. We have a really good Camaro in the Nationwide Series. This car, I think, is going to be good when we go into race trim. The guys have done a phenomenal job. They’ve given me a car that I can learn a lot in and the car is obviously better than my ability now.”
 
KYLE LARSON, NO. 51 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 21st
IN YOUR SPRINT CUP SERIES DEBUT, HOW HAVE THINGS GONE SO FAR THROUGH PRACTICE AND NOW YOUR FIRST QUALIFYING EFFORT?
“It’s been a lot of fun working with all the guys. I feel like our Target
Chevy is pretty good. We just got a little too free there in qualifying. We were good in (Turns) 1 and 2 and in our mock run; and tight in (Turns) 3 and 4. We just kind of got 3 and 4 good but loose in 1 and 2. I just couldn’t connect to the gas like I needed to. Maybe this is good enough to be 18th. We’ll see.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BANK OF AMERICA 500
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 10, 2013
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS, met with the media at Charlotte Motor Speedway and discussed his win last weekend at Kansas Speedway, his expectations for this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his thoughts why rookies are not more successful these days in the Cup Series and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR MOMENTUM AFTER LAST WEEK’S WIN AND COMING BACK TO CHARLOTTE:
“Yeah well obviously last week went about as well as you could write it down on a piece of paper for us.  Sitting on the pole and winning the race is a little bit out of character from what we have done in the past.  But I think for us it gives us a lot of confidence in the things that we can do and need to do to keep ourself in position to continue to race for this championship over the next several weeks.  We have went to a few race tracks that obviously haven’t been great for us in the past and we had a good run in Chicago, didn’t fare so well in Loudon, and had a decent run in Dover and Kansas.  We just need to continue that and I think as the schedule goes toward the end of the year the race tracks get better for us as we move further down the line.”
 
A COUPLE OF YEARS I THINK IT WAS WHEN YOU WON THE ALL-STAR RACE YOU SAID YOU HATED THIS PLACE EVEN THOUGH YOU WON IT.  YOU ALWAYS STRUGGLED HERE AND SINCE THEN YOU’VE WON THE COKE 600 A COUPLE OF TIMES.  ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE AT THIS TRACK?  DO YOU LIKE IT BETTER NOW?
“I think for us that was a few years ago that was one of our goals was to figure out what we needed to do. I think probably see in our Nationwide schedule it’s a race track that we run a couple of times a year.  We have focused a lot on trying to not have that be the stigma that sticks in our minds as we come to this particular place.  We have run a lot better since the car changed I think for us was a good thing.  It created new set-up packages and things that fit more of my driving style and the things that I felt in the car were better for me once we switched cars.  It’s been a good place for us over the last several years and feel good about coming into the weekend.  Obviously we won the first race here so we just have to keep doing the things that we have been doing.  Feel good about where we are and coming to the track.”
 
ABOUT A DECADE AGO THERE WAS A STRETCH OF YEARS THERE WHERE ROOKIES CAME IN AND THEY SUCCEEDED RIGHT AWAY.  WE DON’T SEE THAT AS MUCH ANYMORE.  WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT HAS CHANGED?  WHY CAN’T ROOKIES GET TO VICTORY LANE LIKE THEY USED TO?
“I think there is really not as good of a training ground that there used to be.  I think that the Nationwide cars and Trucks are so slow.  You get into a Cup car and the driving style that has been created for the younger drivers is so drastically different than what a Cup car is and has made the experience of the Cup drivers more valuable.  Just for the fact that the driving style is so unique.  I think you know when I was coming in the cars were more similar.  You raced on pretty much the same tire, pretty much every week.  The cars were a little bit faster.  I have definitely mentioned that and I think it would be good for our sport to see some of the guys come in.  Obviously Kyle Larson is running this week, I think he is going to be successful in the sport and hopefully they give him the time to do what he needs to do.  It’s just hard.  Obviously the chances with the economy and the things of people taking chances aren’t there, but the training ground is just not as good as it used to be.”
 
THE HISTORY AND THE NUMBERS SAY IT’S VERY DIFFICULT AFTER FOUR RACES TO COME FROM BEHIND TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP WITH THIS FORMAT.  GIVE US AN HONEST ASSESSMENT OF YOUR CHANCES AND HOW IMPORTANT MOMENTUM IS?
“Well the thing that I relate it to.  I saw two of you when I sat in my media session coming into Daytona.  Everybody has written us off from the beginning of the year to not be in the Chase and let along be competitive and winning race in the Chase.  We will just keep bucking the system and hopefully it works out.”
 
HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT FOR YOU TO TRY TO GET MAX POINTS AND GET BACK IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP AND THOSE GUYS (JIMMIE JOHNSON) ALWAYS SEEM TO HAVE THE GOOD LUCK OR IS IT A CASE WHERE JIMMIE (JOHNSON) AND THE NO. 48 THEY MAKE THEIR OWN LUCK?
“I think for us we controlled the things that we could control last week and that was by scoring max points.  You have to have some luck on your side to be around at Homestead.  Hopefully you catch some of those breaks whether it be at Talladega or Martinsville and hopefully you can counter balance that with some lucky breaks of your own.  Running good and running up front you will probably get more good breaks than you will running mid-pack because you will just have more options.  That is just like qualifying last week.  I think that really opened our eyes to realizing when you have a qualifying day like that you had a lot more options when it came time to come down pit road and not having to scramble all day to keep yourself in the game.  You’ve just got to try to create some of your own opportunities, but you also have to have some luck go on your side.  Obviously, Jimmie (Johnson) had some luck go on his side, but that is just part of winning this championship.  I think that is probably something that we’ve learned.  You are going to get some bad breaks and it’s just how you overcome those and then when you get the good breaks it’s how do you capitalize on those.”
 
IS PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY A TRACK THAT YOU NORMALLY RUN WELL AT OR IS IT KIND OF A HOT AND COLD TRACK FOR YOU? HOW WOULD YOU CLASSIFY THAT?
“I don’t even know when that race is.  Right now I’m concentrating on Charlotte.  Phoenix has been a good place for us.  We won this race last year.”
 
IT’S BEEN ABOUT A MONTH SINCE THE CHEATING SCANDAL.  I’M WONDERING IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT LINGERS FROM THAT AND IF THERE IS GOING TO HAVE ANY SORT OF LASTING IMPACT CHANGING THIS SPORT MOVING FORWARD?
“That’s a great question.  I think as you look at it I think obviously from the outside looking in there was probably a hundred different things that you could have done to handle the situation different from a sanctioning body standpoint, from a team standpoint.   There are just a lot of things that happened that everybody I’m sure looks back on it and say’s I would have done ‘this, this or this different’.  I’m sure that you could say that about the NFL too.  They look back on the concussion thing and the way that it’s been handled and so you have to make reactions at the moment to make decisions and the sanctioning body made the decision.  Obviously for us not sitting in that position to make those decisions I think it’s easy to criticize, but they are tough decisions to make.  I think that the repercussions that the team has seen from it are obviously pretty big.  I think if they look back on it they would probably say that they would have done things a little bit differently to protect the things and the sponsors that are expected from their fans. You listen to the reaction to Clint (Bowyer) and you hear the fans boo and you hear the things that they think about it.  I know that bothers him, but it’s had a lot of repercussions.  I think if everybody had it to do over again I’m sure that they would do things differently, but you have to make decisions at the time and those were the decisions that were made.  Everybody is trying to move on and it will definitely be something that is talked about for a long time.”
 
THERE WAS R
ARE NEWS THIS WEEK OF A SPRINT CUP DRIVER GETTING ARRESTED SO MANY TIMES NASCAR HAS SORT OF BEEN HAILED AS BEING UNLIKE OTHER SPORTS WHOSE ATHLETES MIGHT BE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO BEING CAUGHT IN A POLICE BLOTTER OR HEADLINES FOR THE WRONG REASON.  WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENS DO YOU HAVE CONCERN ABOUT HOW IT REFLECTS ON THE BRAND OF NASCAR DRIVERS COLLECTIVELY?  AND DO YOU THINK NASCAR SHOULD TAKE ACTION?
“Well I don’t think anybody knows all the details yet.  It would be hard for me to comment exactly on what did or didn’t happen.  I think everybody wants the sport to be represented in the right way, but without knowing all the details it would be hard to give an opinion.”
 
THEY ARE HAVING THE MODIFICATION TEST OUT HERE ON MONDAY. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR TO COMING OUT OF THAT OR WHAT DO YOU SEE FROM THAT?
“I don’t even know what it’s for to be honest with you.  I have no idea.  I know my current team isn’t inviting me and I know that my future team can’t.  I hadn’t been involved in many of those discussions if any.”
 
CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR WITH THE CARS TO HELP OUT THE RACING OR THAT KIND OF THING:
“I hadn’t been paying attention to it to be honest with you.  I have a tough time keeping up with what I’ve got going on.”
 

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS, WAS THE GUEST ON THIS WEEK’S NASCAR WEEKLY TELECONFERENCE.
 
BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPT:
 
 
JENNIE LONG:  Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s NASCAR Cam teleconference with Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet for Stewart‑Haas Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Newman is 12th in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings with one win and 14 top‑10 finishes.  He returns to Charlotte Motor Saturday on Saturday night, where he has a career‑best nine poles.  Ryan, despite your qualifying success and some strong races at Charlotte, you’re still searching for your first Sprint Cup Series win at the track.  What will it take for you to earn a Bank of America 500 win this weekend?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  Well, I hope we can just build off of where we were in the Coca‑Cola 600.  I think we ended up sixth if I remember right in the Coke 600, fifth or sixth or something like that, but we had a good car, and were in position at the end.  I’ve been in position several times at the Coke 600 and actually I think about five years ago led everything ‑‑ led coming to the white and then crashed in Turn 1.  I’ve been close at Charlotte.  It’s one of my favorite racetracks.  I look forward to going back.  Obviously I have been successful on qualifying nights, usually Thursday nights.  So look forward to that, as well.  Just a good rebound weekend from what we had in Kansas would be good for not just me but for everybody.
 
Q.  I was curious as far as the NASCAR test on Monday, what do you hope they look at?  We’ve heard a lot about no ride height rules.  Would you like to see that implemented?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  I mean, I don’t know if ‑‑ you’re talking about the Martinsville test or are you talking about a different test?  Charlotte test?
 
Q.  I’m talking about the Charlotte test this Monday that’s on the 2014 rules that they’re looking at for the 2014 rules package.
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  Yeah, I mean, I don’t know how to answer that or what to say.  It seems like they’re very complimentary of the product that they have.  They talk about how great it is and the racing and everything else, and then it seems like we can’t just keep things the way that they are for more than one year, more than six months at different times.  The whole ride height rule, that doesn’t ‑‑ I think there’s two different ways of looking at it.  Do we change the car or do we change how we work the car.  The ride height rule being work the car.  We’ll see what comes out of it.  I guess it’s good to be proactive and test, but I think that ultimately all that we need to do is take some downforce all these race cars, and I think it’ll help the end product.
 
Q.  Do you have any update for us as far as who your crew chief will be next year, and do you know is RCR anywhere close to knowing who they will be?
RYAN NEWMAN:  Honestly I don’t know that they have announced it.  I think I know what’s going on but I don’t know that they’ve announced it 100 percent.  With that in mind, I’d rather not answer.  But I don’t want to ‑‑ I think everybody knows but I don’t want to say.
 
Q.  Kind of along those lines, knowing that the Chase hasn’t really panned out the way you expected, are you starting to look ahead to next year knowing that the championship this year appears to be out of reach?  Are you starting to focus more on the RCR side?
RYAN NEWMAN:  No, not at all.  Entirely 100 percent focused on 2013 and having an opportunity.  I mean, there’s a sixth of the season still left.  We have a lot of great opportunities, a lot of good racetracks to go to.  We’re mathematically a long ways out, but we’re mathematically not out of it.  Realistically, yeah, it’s going to be a challenge, but we can move up.  We can do good for our sponsors and ourselves and prove that, as I said before several times, Indianapolis was a great weekend for us, and we need to show that we can duplicate that again.
Q.  There have been some other drivers such as Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth the last couple years that have elected to kind of draw a line there of demarcation which they don’t cross and they don’t go to the other team’s shop.  Are you doing the same thing?  Or are you starting to at least touch base with them every once in a while?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  It’s more of a touching base.  It’s not about sharing ideas or anything else.  It’s more about getting things lined up, making sure that we have seats and seatbelts and helmets and all those things getting in order.  The second part of that is photo shoots and things like that are still starting and always do start this time of year, so I’ve actually done one photo shoot with them already.  I’ve been to the shop, but there’s no ‑‑ no reason not to.  I’m not sure what Kevin Harvick is doing with SHR right now or anything else.  We do what common sense has to happen.  The engineering side, the strategy side, the performance side of that, none of that’s even at all in consideration right now.
 
Q.  The test Monday at Charlotte, are you in the 39 car still, or was there any consideration if you’re not to putting you in the Childress car for next year?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  We’re not going to the test at all.
 
Q.  Normally I know when teams go to a race, after the race they’ve gotten notes and everything that they’ve used for their notebook for the next time they go back and everything.  With you switching teams and with everything that went on this past weekend at Kansas, what did you take away from that race?  What did you learn, if anything?
 
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  I look forward to Kansas next year.
 
We were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got taken out by somebody else’s misfortune when Justin crashed.  I don’t think that our car was great, but I know we were capable of a top 10 run because I know we were better than some of those guys that finished in the top 10.  From a points standpoint our day could have been so much better, but we got pretty tore up.  I hit him really hard, and he hit the wall really hard and knocked off a lot of speed before I hit him, and I just had nowhere to go.  But with respect to where RCR is and where SHR is, like I said, I’m focused on 2013 and doing what we have to do.
 
I guess it’s a little bit reassuring to know all three of their cars did run good in Kansas and it is one of the earlier races in the 2014 schedule, at least I think it’s going to be.  That’s something that’s nice to look forward to.
 
Q.  I know this is a little bit obviously speculation, but you know Tony well and know he’s gone through that third procedure.  Do you see him at all changing his approach, how he deals with managing his short track runs with the fans of the Cup schedule?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  You’re asking the question if he would change the way he manages short track racing with respect to ‑‑
 
Q.  Yeah, in terms of the schedule, whether you’d dial it down a little bit.
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  Tony Stewart was born a short track racer, and he just happened to be a Sprint Cup driver and an IndyCar driver and different kinds of drivers at different times.  I think he’ll always race short track.  I think that there’s potential that with respect to sponsorship that they might ask different things of him in the future, but I don’t know that ‑‑ I think that’s all situational and depends on the sponsor.  In Tony Stewart’s heart, in Tony Stewart’s blood, he will be racing short track racing no matter what year it is and if he’s got 10 fingers and 10 toes.
 
Q.&nbs
p; You’ve gone through an abundance of challenges and changes in 2013 and survived well.  What helped you most do you think, and do you believe that maybe sometimes what can wear you down can also make you stronger?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  Well, yeah, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, no doubt.  It’s been an up‑and‑down year on several fronts, career‑wise, race‑wise, Chase‑wise, all those things.  But I have an extreme passion for the outdoors.  I literally an hour ago was sitting in my tractor planting alfalfa on my farm.  I enjoy those things that are a release for me to get away.  I used to spend a lot more time at the race shop, but those guys have to focus on their things, and I spend a lot of time at the racetrack talking to those guys, and probably more so than some other drivers.
In the end, there’s a balance there.  Whether it’s feeding baby deer or taking care of my kids or fishing or whatever, I just enjoy those things that are entirely different from what we do in any given weekend.
 
Q.  And would you recommend that for some of your fellow drivers?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  I’m no doctor and I’m no therapist, but I do know that everybody needs some sort of release, whether it’s shooting a gun, whether it’s just enjoying the peacefulness and quietness.  There’s people that need to balance their lives in different ways.  Some people like punching bags is my point, and some people like smelling flowers.
 
Q.  How do you feel today, looking back at the days when you ran Winchester and sprints and the midgets and everything?  Did you envision that life would be like it is now?
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  That’s a very good question, one I didn’t expect, but I would say that I never thought to predict the future.  I just knew what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, and that was a Sprint Cup champion.  I’ve still got that opportunity mathematically, somewhat unrealistic, but there’s a lot of fight in me, and I guess that kind of comes from back in those days of racing in Winchester and Salem of 30 laps of fight, 30 laps of desire, 30 laps of making it happen.
 
I enjoyed those days then.  I enjoy those days now looking back on them, even go on YouTube once in a while and look at those old races and just kind of remind myself of who I was and where I am, and still at the same time, having not won a championship, who I want to be.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS
OCTOBER 6, 2013
 
 

KEVIN HARVICK WINS FROM POLE AT KANSAS
SIX TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS FINISH IN TOP 10
 
KANSAS CITY, KAN. – October 6, 2013 – Kevin Harvick won the Hollywood Casino 400 in his No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet SS from the pole position in a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race that featured a record number of cautions and challenges throughout the 400-mile event. There were 15 caution flags and 71 laps run under caution during the 267-lap race, both of which are track records at Kansas Speedway.
 
“To sit on the pole and win the race is obviously a great weekend, and controlling our own destiny by doing that, putting ourselves closer to where we need to be with the championship race,” said Harvick.  “We’ll just keep having fun and keep doing what we’re doing.”
 
The win was Harvick’s 22nd career victory in 460 NASCAR Sprint Cup races; his third win and 16th top-10 finish this season. It was his first career victory at the 1.5-mile track. Harvick moved up one position in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings to third behind Jimmie Johnson.
 
Five-time Sprint Cup Series champion Johnson, brought his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS home in sixth place overall; and reduced his point deficit from eight to just three points shy of the leader.
 
Kurt Busch piloted his No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet SS to a second place finish, which also moved him up two positions in the standings. Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jeff Gordon, was third in his No. 24 Axalta Chevy SS, giving Team Chevy a 1-2-3 finish. Gordon now sits just seven points behind Harvick in the Chase standings.
 
It was a rock solid day for Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 Menards/Splash Chevrolet SS, who finished the race in seventh place; and a strong day for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., in his No. 88 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS who posted an eighth place run.
 
Ryan Newman was not so lucky at the Hollywood Casino 400 when he was involved in an early accident on lap 136, which resulted in his No. 39 Code 3 Associates Chevy SS to be scored 35th overall. Newman dropped five places in the run for the title, and is now in 12 place overall. Kasey Kahne, also a Team Chevy Chase contender, finished the race in 15th position in his No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS, and sits in 13th in the standings.
 
Rounding out the top five were, Joey Logano (Ford) in fourth, and Carl Edwards (Ford) finished in fifth place.
 
The 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup resumes next Saturday night, Oct. 12th with round five at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
 
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS:
 
KEVIN HARVICK, GIL MARTIN AND RICHARD CHILDRESS NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER DRIVER, CREW CHIEF AND TEAM OWNER

KRISTI KING:  We now welcome our race winner Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet.  You called it after qualifying; you said your stats were going to speak for themselves.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  I said, I hope the stats speak for themselves.  Don’t start that.
 
KRISTI KING:  First of all, congratulations on your win today.  Your 22nd victory in 460 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.  Obviously winning from the pole, and of your six career poles you have now won three of the corresponding races including each of the last two, your third victory of 2013, your first victory here at Kansas.  Talk a little bit about your win out there today.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, we definitely don’t need to say that we said that because we don’t want the karma police to come get us.  I talk about the karma police a lot.  We don’t want bad karma to overwhelm us at any point.
 
It was an interesting weekend to say the least.  Obviously everybody was battling the tires and the track, and I think it was like driving on a razor blade.  I told them yesterday, we’ve just got to try to get some kind of consistency because that was the thing that for me stuck out the most was our lap times; one would be good, one would be bad, one would be good, and that’s always our strong point where you have that nice curve of lap times.
 
We just talked about a lot of adjustments that we wanted to make, and kind of eliminated a few things here and there overnight.  It was like driving two different cars.  Out front it was not even close, and in traffic you were just another one of the cars and had a lot of trouble, so that made the restarts really important.  Everybody would get really aggressive on the restarts and try to make up spots because that was the place that you had to do it.
 
To sit on the pole and win the race is obviously a great weekend, and controlling our own destiny by doing that, putting ourselves closer to where we need to be with the championship race.  We’ll just keep having fun and keep doing what we’re doing.
 
KRISTI KING:  Also joining Kevin is crew chief Gil Martin, climbing to third in points, only 25 behind Matt Kenseth.  Talk a little bit about your strategy and moving ahead with four races down in the Chase looking towards Homestead.
 
GIL MARTIN:  I mean, obviously the only strategy you can have is do what we did today.  It’s very hard to do.  But coming into this weekend, we knew we had a test day.  We brought a brand new car and we knew we had a lot of things to put to bed on Thursday and thought we had a pretty good handle on it, but the track completely changed on Saturday, so we had to undo a lot of that stuff.
 
And then in the race today, like Kevin said, it was two completely different race cars.  Out front we made adjustments overnight hoping that we would stay out front most of the day, and then when we got back in traffic, some of those adjustments were not very good for us, so we had to start undoing those as much as we could during the race.  Luckily the way the cautions worked out and the way that we were able to get through traffic, it worked out good today.
KRISTI KING:  Also joining us, owner Richard Childress, your third victory of 2013.  Talk about your season thus far and being this far ahead in the Chase and looking ahead, as well.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Like Gil said, we’ve just got to keep doing what we did today to be a contender.  I don’t think top 10s will win a championship when you’re racing Jimmie Johnson and the group of guys that’s up there.  We’ve been there before, and hopefully this time we can pull it off.
 
You know, today Kevin did a great job.  It was one of them deals you had to position yourself when you had that last pit stop to be out front or close to the front to have a good day.
 
Carl was fast all week from the time we got here.
Q.  I’m going to ask the same thing to you, Kevin, as I did to Jeff Gordon earlier.  How did you like the right front tire used in today’s race, and would you like to see it ran at more racetracks next season where a lot of issues with that occurred?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, I don’t think there were any issues with the tire.  I think the issue is the pavement and the things they keep repaving these racetracks with that put Goodyear in a box.  It’s not Goodyear’s fault; they have to make a tire that’s not going to blow out.  So when you’re running an average of 187 or 185, whatever the average speed is, they have to make the tire durable.
 
The outside of the tire would be 10 degrees hotter than the inside of the tire because they’ve done a good job of making the inside of that tire durable.  But they continuously put the tire company and the competitors in a box that we’re in with the type of asphalt that they keep putting on tracks.
 
I think Goodyear h
as done a fine job with the tire, when you have the cards that they’re dealt.
Q.  Kevin, you won the pole, you won the race, and I think you led the most laps.  Did you have any issues this weekend aside from a second car?
KEVIN HARVICK:  We had a lot of issues.  Honestly, we thought we did, but as you talk to everybody, so did everybody else.  I think for us, it’s the same kind of thing we went through last week.  Everybody was fighting the same issue in the center of the corner at Dover.  After the first session I was really frustrated, they were frustrated, and we just said, we’re not going to work on that problem anymore because it exists for the whole field.  Let’s make the other two parts of the corner better, and this weekend we kind of did the same thing.  We said we knew it was going to drive like crap in traffic.  We knew that it was going to be edgy to drive, so let’s just try to do the best we can and make it as good as possible, and it’s not going to feel good.  You just have to accept the fact that the car is not going to drive like a slot car.  It’s not going to feel good; it’s not going to be comfortable.
 
That’s kind of how we approached the weekend.  After the first practice it was good.  The second practice it wasn’t.  Qualifying trim we had two really good runs and two really bad runs, so we went through what we thought was the best set of tires and the best circumstances to put on the car.  We gambled as to what the conditions were going to be and everything worked out.  It was just an interesting weekend.
 Q.  Kevin and Gil, I know you guys never considered yourselves out of this thing, but do you consider yourselves more in this thing now after the victory plus maybe the issues that some of the others had?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, I mean, there’s no way you can ever consider yourself out of it.  The first race of the year at Daytona I think we came out of there 43rd, and in 10 weeks we were back up to around 10th or 11th, so we made up a lot of ground, not only just by running well.  Other guys had problems, too, and with six races to go, I mean, there’s so many things that can happen.  You’ve still got Talladega and Martinsville that everybody considers to be tracks that shake everything up, but today we were at what everybody considers to be a non‑eventful mile and a half, and you saw what happened today.  So there’s a lot of things that can happen in the next few races, and we’re just going to have to capitalize on them.  But by no means do I think we’re out of it.
Q.  For Kevin and for Gil, was your win at the 600 kind of foreshadowing a little bit?  You guys are the only ones other than Gibbs drivers to win at 1.5‑mile tracks and a lot of people made a point about how many there were in the Chase.  Was that kind of an indicator maybe at that time that you might have something more along the lines of what they had towards the end of the year?
KEVIN HARVICK:  For me, I think today is more positive for us than any other race we’ve been to all year, just for the fact that we were at a mile‑and‑a‑half racetrack that had a lot of circumstances, and being comfortable, more comfortable than everybody else I guess you could say, driving the car and having the speed that it had I think shows the gains that we’ve been able to make since that race.
 
You know, I think the confidence in the team and the car and the mile‑and‑a‑half stuff is good.
 
The bottom line is you can have fast cars, but it’s going to come down just like it did at the 600.  You’re going to have to have the right strategy to go along with everything as the day unfolds.
 
GIL MARTIN:  That’s just it.  It is extremely hard to win on these mile‑and‑a‑half tracks because you’ve got to be looking at gas mileage; you’ve got to be looking at where you’re going to be at the end of the race.  Today with about 100 laps to go I told him we were thinking about this like a road course because you had to just start backing it up knowing when could you make it.  Luckily a couple of times there where we had 10‑lap tires on we were up in the front.  Most of the time you would feel like you were a sitting duck.  But I knew today from practice all you’ve got to do is go out on stickers, come back into the garage, let them sit a minute and then they had a lot of speed and the same characteristic was there today.  We found ourselves in that situation a couple of times.
 
When we go to Charlotte, when we go to Texas there’s going to be a completely different set of circumstances, so the things you did here today are not going to be there, so you’ve got to be open and ready for whatever kind of change happens.
Q.  Does it say anything that there’s just a small group that have done really well on 1.5’s this year?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Can you tell us who’s won on the mile‑and‑a‑half tracks?
Q.  Only Gibbs drivers and you guys.
GIL MARTIN:  I mean, I didn’t know that, either.  But I mean there are too many good cars out there.  You’re not going to stop the 48 from winning at these places, and it’s not going to say that they’re behind and we’re all so far ahead.  It’s just circumstances happen.  The thing of it is I think in the past where maybe some of the different guys dominated; everybody else just hasn’t caught up to them.  Well, now you’ve got a lot of cars that are running equally as fast.
 
So it’s coming down now to just strategies and how things work out, and that’s making a huge difference in just how you set up for the race.  The biggest thing is whenever you go into one of these things whatever game plan you have you’ve got to be ready to change it because it’s probably not going to be the right one.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  Constantly evolving.
Q.  Kevin, you said it was like driving 10 different cars there.  How did you guys attack that with the changes, and also did Kurt doing the tire test help you guys at all, give you data you could use for this even though the temperatures dropped 30 to 40 degrees today?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I didn’t even know Kurt did the tire test.  Obviously everybody is an asset to what we do, whether it’s the 31, 27, 78.  You try to build on everything that you do.  But it was two different cars; not 10, two.  We had one that was really fast out front and we had one that was really sometimes tight, sometimes really loose in traffic.
 
The first time we got in heavy traffic we adjusted on the car, and as we got out front the car was freer, and then the second lane started to open up, and that really ‑‑ when I was behind the 2, I had to try something different.  That really allowed us to find another groove that we really didn’t have to use anymore.  But that second groove for us was really fast and really good, but in the middle of the pack it was ‑‑ yeah, it was everything.  Mostly tight, but depending on how close you would get to the car in front of you and where you were at in the corner.  So you had to try to manipulate the car to make it through the corner, and they did a good job of freeing the car up and still being able to drive it when it was out front.
Q.  What’s the answer to the fact that you have had two very different cars?  When you come back here next April or whenever the next race is, will it be the same, or is there anything that can be done?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Well, I think that obviously they need to work on the tire, but the bottom line is you just have to wait for the racetrack to age.  That’s the box you’re in.  And I don’t know how to fix that.  It’s just a tough box to be in.
 
I didn’t watch the race or see anything, but there sure were a lot of cautions.  That seems to be what everybody wants are wrecks and cautions.
 
 RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Except the owners.  (Laughter.)
Q.  Kevin and Gil, this is a mile‑and‑a‑half.  Next week we’re going to a mile‑and‑a‑half.  But the challenges here at Kansas Speedway seemed far greater.  Is it as they appeared?  And how did you make the changes, Gil, from when he was behind some, because he didn’t look like he was ever hindered in any way when he was up front on a restart.  The car just seemed to be like a rocket ship.
GIL MARTIN:  Well, the biggest thing you’ve got to do when you know you’re going to be in traffic, you have to free it up.  You don’t have a choice because it’s going to be so tight.  But then as you start working your way back to the front, even though you know you don’t need to, you’ve got to start tightening it back up at the same time.  It’s kind of a gradual process that if you know that you’re in 20th, you know it’s going to be extremely tight.  If you’re in 10th it’s going to be another level of tight, and then when you get to about 4th it’s a different slip stream in the front and the cars actually start getting freer.  So you’ve got to start preparing for that.
 
Little by little, it’s hard to do, too, when you’re just putting on two tires or gas only.  We did gas only, we made an adjustment at the same time when we did that, but we were continuously making tire pressure adjustments, and today that was a struggle for everybody a little bit, too, because the tire being such an unknown, we weren’t 100 percent sure how the tire was going to react.  We’ve got data on it that we use, but a lot of times that data doesn’t do exactly what it says it’s going to.  You have to do what you’ve done in the past and what we consider sometimes old school racing and just do with the tire pressure what we know needs to be done, and that’s kind of what we did today.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  If you look at the tire temps and the wear sheets, you’d think the tire was going to blow out and you’d think you were doing everything backwards.  That’s the biggest thing is I don’t think everybody really understands exactly what we need to do with this tire.  It’s no different than changing a spring rule or changing something else.  I think as everybody goes home and goes through it and thinks about it and says, you know, we need to try this, this and this, it’s no different.  I mean, if you gave them a week or two, these guys would go home and sit with the engineers and go through all the data and the notes and say, we need to do this different next time.
 
So it’s no different than that.  But it’s just a different ‑‑ when you look at it, you’re like, this isn’t right.  But it’s just different, so you’ve got to approach it different.
Q.  So will Charlotte be easier next week?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Heck, I don’t know.  It’s like he said, every week is a different challenge.  You just never know what you’re going to deal with.  It’s like today, we went from 86, 87 degrees to 60 and 55, whatever the temperature is out here today, and totally changed the whole balance of the car.  You don’t know what the weather is going to be.  You don’t know what the tire is going to be.  There might be a jump going into Turn 1, who knows.
Q.  Richard, Kevin is leaving from your team next year.  Kurt Busch is leaving for a new team next year.  How are these guys able to finish one‑two today, and can you talk about how they’ve kept their focus and their attention on your team and not peeking ahead?
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  You know, we just talked about it, and we’re committed to try to win the championship.  We owe it to our sponsors and our fans to give them 100 percent, and that’s what we agreed to do, and that’s what we’re going to do until Homestead.  No matter what happens between now and then, that’s our goal is to go after the championship.  What a great way to go out.
KEVIN HARVICK:  There’s also, how many people you got, 550?  Those guys are going to work on the cars whether they’re running first or last, and that’s really ‑‑ whether I agree with him or he agrees with me, it doesn’t really matter.  Those guys that are down there in the shop and digging on the cars, those are the ones that you look at and you say, you know, you owe it to them to go out and do what you have to do.
 
It’s business, but it’s also you have a sense of pride, and your ego just has a hard time taking the fact that you did it like everybody else.  I think that’s what we talked about.  You don’t want to do it like everybody else.  You want to go out with a sense of success and everything has gone well.
Q.  Kevin, you made a comment to the effect during the race that you’d gotten screwed by smoke and duct tape.  I was wondering how frustrating it was getting to deal with all those cautions and the restarts; especially at least one of them was pretty strange with the grass catching on fire behind the track.
KEVIN HARVICK:  I didn’t even really know what to say on the second one.  I knew Gil was in full meltdown mode on the smoke because the first caution was for a piece of tape, and we just started the green flag pit cycles, and sometimes it runs through the cycle, and then they throw the caution to pick up the debris and not really change the outcome of the race, but today it was a caution.  For us it fortunately worked out.
 
And then we’re leading the race, and ‑‑ I think we were leading.
 
GIL MARTIN:  We were leading and trying to stretch it about 20 more laps and we did not need a caution.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  And then there was smoke.  What was on fire, mulch?  Duct tape and mulch were our best friends today.
 
Yeah, it’s frustrating.  Obviously the first thing you think of is man, I got screwed up there or somebody is screwing us, and they were just calling the race, and us sitting in the car, it’s frustrating sitting on the pit box or sitting watching the race.  You always think everybody is out to get you.  But luckily today it all worked out.
Q.  Kevin and Gil, you’ve been around a while.  I’m not making an old age thing about this, but you were around when they transitioned from bias plies to radials.  Can you compare the change, the difference now, how much you’re going through, and does more information help you or does that help you to have more information?
GIL MARTIN:  I’ll tell you, it’s just funny you say that, I was talking to Dale Inman yesterday, we were watching the cars go through inspection, and I just looked at him and said, what has this come to, and he was like, if I had to keep up with all this way back, I don’t know what I would have done.  There’s just so much information now that it’s overpowering, and that’s the thing that we have to wade through every week because you can get focused on one little piece of information because you can study it all week long and you have to break it up into so many different people doing so many jobs that they can analyze it and they can come to you with the pertinent stuff in there.
But the hardest thing about it is three guys can look at the same piece of information and have a different conclusion.  So you really have to know the people that are looking at the stuff to make sure that they don’t have an agenda to make things work.
 
You have to weed through so much stuff now, and that’s what we went through this week.  We went through all of our test stuff from Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and you sit at the hotel and you drink whatever, Budweiser, and you eat pizza, and you do it until your stomach is killing you because you’ve got so much that you have to go through to come in on Sunday morning.  You apply it to the car and you hope that it works, and that’s what you’ve got to do.
Q.  Can you put in perspective for no
n‑technical people; can you compare this to the transition from bias, how much difficulty?
GIL MARTIN:  Oh, yeah, most definitely, because when that transition took place, everybody was trying to do everything they could with adding camber to the tire because we lost the ability to have stagger.  So then everybody was trying to do camber, and Harry Gant obviously won all those races because they were one of the first ones to get on that, and Richard can speak more about that with Dale, but I think that was one of the toughest things, that you couldn’t hang the cars out when the radials first came out like you could with the bias plies, so there was a tremendous learning curve.
 
That’s what we’re going to go through with this tire because you’re going to get into a situation where you’re running on both compounds if you don’t have your geometry right or whatever you’ve got going on the car, and it’s going to make the cars handle just differently.
 
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND 
 
KRISTI KING:  We welcome Kurt Busch, our second place finisher today, driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Denver Mattress Chevrolet, currently 7th in points, 47 points behind the leader.  Talk about your race out there today.
 
KURT BUSCH:  Wow, what an unbelievable drive.  Kansas Speedway has been a great track over the years, and for us to finally knock off a small little check box, and to that what it means to me is a top 5.  Today is a small little victory in my own mind.  I don’t know how much it counts for anybody else, but this is the last track that I needed to get a top 5 finish on, and now I have a top 5 at all the tracks.  So a small little feather in the cap.
 
We battled hard to come from 41st.  We did this in a backup car.  It just shows the strength of this team.  There are all these reports or stories and opinions about how small this team is, but Barney Visser deserves a lot of credit.  We got back out on the track after our wreck in Saturday’s practice at the same time that Kyle did, so it show that a team can turn a car around just as quick as the Gibbs team; that’s important.  Those are numbers that don’t rank anywhere, but they rank in my mind.  I’m just so proud of this team, the way these guys have worked all year.  They deserve a win, and sorry I couldn’t deliver a win for them today.  Our teammate at RCR with Kevin Harvick, they won today and congratulations to Kevin.
 
We finished second.  We’ll take it.  We haven’t quite had the start to the Chase that we wanted, but overall we have two top 5s out of four races.  That’s not bad.
Q.  Talk a little bit if you can about what this team did once the green flag waved, because you all were way back in the pack, and it just seemed like you made steady progress, slow at times but steady progress to get where you got to.
KURT BUSCH:  You know, the way you have to work through these treacherous races where it’s cool out and the tires don’t quite have the heat, you have to be patient.  But at the same time restarts were where we could pass guys.  I found some patterns in the way that restarts were shaping up, and I was able to apply it.  With where we were, when you’re stuck between 8th and 14th, it’s like everybody is back there with machetes and everybody is just whacking and hacking, and once you can clear that, then it’s not smooth sailing, but then you seem like you’re in a little bit more of the clear.
Q.  Can you kind of talk a little bit about your emotions representing ‑‑ the pride you take in this one‑car team operating out of Denver and not in the heartland of NASCAR, Charlotte, yet you’re leaving them, too, and going to Stewart.  How do you balance that?
KURT BUSCH:  It’s just going out to the racetrack and smiling and having fun and working hard with these guys.  You know, the way that they’ve been developing the team over the years, I just so happen to hit it right with them putting together Chase‑quality cars and having setups that are as fast as they are.  The pit crew has had its troubles this year, but overall to have as many top 10s as we do and top 5s, there’s no reason to stop once we made the Chase.  We’ve put up statistics to run right around 4th to 7th this year, and I want to just go out as strong as I can for this group.
 
This might be just a David versus Goliath story, but at the same time, this Furniture Row team has put in the investment into the cars, into the people, and here we are posting top 5s.  But most importantly I want to win for these guys.  I want to drive our Chevrolet into victory lane by the year’s end.
Q.  Would you classify what happened with Jeff Gordon as just good hard racing, and also when you had kind of fallen back to about 20th did you think you were that close to coming back and finishing second?
KURT BUSCH:  You know, we had a good battle with Jeff.  There was a restart where he was on our outside through 1 and 2, and just didn’t quite give us an inch and dumped so much air under the rear of our car where I was on banana peels sliding up onto the exit of 2, and he thought I was trying to pinch him.  I was like, man, I needed an inch instead of you taking that inch.  So I returned the favor by putting my nose close to his rear bumper and took away that inch instead of giving an inch and got back by him.
 
It was a battle.  Could it have been cleaner?  Yeah, but at the same time the track is so treacherous on restarts that it’s hard to pass once you get strung out and everybody is running the same lap times.  Everybody was getting aggressive on restarts.
 Q.  Kyle Busch called this speedway the worst track he’s ever driven on.  I don’t suspect you feel the same way.  What do you think about his comment?
KURT BUSCH:  Well, it’s his toughest track on the schedule, and so he’s going to say that, plus he had a rough day.  Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.  Here he is, he’s raced 30 or so races this year, he got into the Chase where he didn’t last year, and then he started the Chase off strong this year and was a championship front runner.
 
Now it’s gone, so he’s going to be frustrated.  You guys dog pile all you want.
Q.  How confident or how worried were you considering the track conditions, the fact that you were starting in the rear to almost have to try to miss everything on the way through?
KURT BUSCH:  It was tough.  We started 41st, and the wreck on the first lap, there was cars and shrapnel everywhere, and just with the combination with the cold temperatures, the tires, it made it treacherous when you were around other cars.  We always hope we can have more grip and be able to race side by side and have a comfort level to reproduce a show where fans want to come out and we see sellouts, and we need to put on a better show on the track.  And for that to happen, we just have to have Goodyear, the drivers, the teams, the tracks on the same page.  Right now we’re close, but I think we swung and we missed on tire combo this weekend.
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD
 
KRISTI KING:  We now welcome our third place finisher in today’s Hollywood Casino 400 here at Kansas Speedway, Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet, currently 4th in points, only 32 points now behind Matt Kenseth.  Talk a little bit about your run out there today.
 
JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, it was a great day, obviously a great finish for us.  We had what I thought was a tire issue early in the race, and I made a big mistake.  The car got real, real tight on me, and I came down pit road and probably jumped the gun and should have waited maybe a lap or two longer because we got caught under the cau
tion after we made that stop.  So we were playing catch‑up the rest of the day.
 
The nice thing was I knew we had a good race car.  We came in and had four tires, were in the back and I think drove up to all the way around 10th or possibly better.  So I knew we had a good race car.  That gave me confidence.
 
Then it was just all about trying to get the strategy right.  I actually made another mistake because I thought they said if nobody comes in, come in, so I came in when nobody else came in, and he meant ‑‑ no, he actually said, if everybody comes in, come in.  I got lucky.  We got lucky.  That one actually worked in our favor because we got four tires and fuel and then were anal to just come in and put two tires there at the end and come out in, what, second or third.
 
It was a good day for us.  Car was good and finished third.  Man, we’re happy with that.
Q.  How did you like the right front tire used in today’s race, and would you like to see it ran at more tracks next season where a lot of issues occur with that?
JEFF GORDON:  Well, you’ve got to understand, every track is different and every surface is different, and so the biggest thing that I have going on right now with repaves is talking to the companies that pave these racetracks and talking to them about looking at the surface.  It’s not a Goodyear issue.  Goodyear is doing the best they can.  They’ve got a tough job.  These surfaces are too smooth, and we don’t want bumps.  I’m not talking about bumps; I’m talking about the abrasiveness of the racetrack.  It doesn’t dissipate heat, doesn’t wear the tires, and all it does is cause friction and heat and failures, and then Goodyear has to build a very hard, durable tire.
 
I applaud their effort for trying to do this duel tread zone whatever you want to call it.  I mean, for me the issues weren’t as treacherous for me.  The grip level wasn’t as good as I would like it to be, and the falloff wasn’t as much as I’d like it to be, but some guys seem to set their car up a little freer had bigger issues on the restarts than we did.  My car was a little tighter so it would take off halfway decent on restarts.  It didn’t get up to speed good but it was at least comfortable.
 
To me it’s really the surface.  We’re paving these racetracks with what we’re paving new highways with.  This is not a highway, it’s a racetrack and it’s a race car and a racing tire.  It needs to be looked at differently.  We have the same issue in Phoenix.  Darlington, we’ve had the same issue, every repave that we’ve had over the last six, seven years.
Q.  I’ll say this carefully:  Over the course of the year you looked to have become the driver you were again back in the early 1990s.  It’s like you’re far more enthusiastic than you’ve been over the last couple of years.  And today’s effort seemed amazing, as well.  Are you feeling more confident with each race this year?
JEFF GORDON:  Oh, yeah.  It’s not this year, though.  Earlier this year I was probably as frustrated as I’ve ever been in a race car.  We just were missing something, and then the times when we hit on it, like Texas, for instance, and we had a failure with the left front hub.  We’ve had a tough year.  Last year was tough enough, and then this year I thought that we’d gotten all that out of our system and we didn’t seem to have.
 
But I’ll tell you what, we never stopped working and trying to get the cars to suit my liking.  And when the cars are solid and giving me good feedback and I can get aggressive with it, then my confidence goes up.  And right now my team has been bringing great race cars to the racetrack, not just in the Chase but about three, four races I think prior to that, we just really started making some gains on some things, and it’s shown up week in and week out.  I’m having a lot of fun right now.
 
The confidence and how you feel about it is all in the performance of the car.  And it’s a team effort.  You know, I feel like I’m as responsible for that as anybody else on the team.  And I take it hard just like everybody else on the team.
 
I’m just proud of how we fought through a lot of the things we’ve gone through this year, and now when it matters most, we’re making the best of it.
Q.  Wanted to get your follow‑up kind of on what Kurt’s assessment of the race was about how he felt like it was too treacherous and if there was more grip and more side‑by‑side racing that produces a better show.  Do you kind of assess the quality of today’s race the same way or is there any silver lining where a record 15 caution flags can produce all this adversity?  Can that still be compelling for fans or do you feel like it has to have that side‑by‑side stuff that Kurt was talking about?
JEFF GORDON:  I find every race compelling.  I do.  When you’re sitting in the seat where I’m sitting, there’s so many challenges that you’re faced with, and there’s pit strategy, there’s pit stops, there’s fuel, there’s trying to make your car better.  There are restarts where you’re on the edge, the car is sliding around and you’re trying to make it stick.  You know, I wouldn’t say that these are the kind of conditions that I prefer because it’s hard to really feel the car and you are on that razor’s edge, and I think if we had, as I mentioned, a little bit more abrasive racetrack and a tire that suited that, I think that we’d see the groove widen out and have a little bit more side‑by‑side racing like we used to see here at Kansas.
 
But at the same time, you might not see as many cautions.  Sometimes side‑by‑side racing and multiple grooves doesn’t always mean you’re going to have the most exciting race, and to me I think these days we all know cautions make for much more exciting racing, and we certainly had plenty of those today.
Q.  Did you find yourself at all looking behind going, okay, where’s Matt Kenseth, what’s the points now, when you realized he was not one of the drivers you were chasing?
JEFF GORDON:  I knew that Kevin Harvick and I were tied going in and he was running ahead of me.  I knew that.
 
You know, you’re just really pushing to get all that you can get.  We were in second, and I felt like our car was a little bit better on the long runs, and I was really hoping to go green there all the way to the end, and I was hoping that maybe Kevin wore his right front tire out like he did earlier in the race.  That was kind of the only sort of strategy that I had as a driver is trying not to push mine too hard and see if that would work out.
 
And it didn’t.  He was fast all the way to the end.  The caution came out, we fell all the way back to third and then we were battling with Kurt.  I don’t even know where we’re at in points right now to be honest.  I know that it was a good day for us.  That’s all I do know.
Q.  I guess you guys are okay, but could you take us through that sequence of events with you and Kurt, and another follow‑up question, can you tell me what percentage you guys were running throughout the race up until that last 20?  Was it 80 percent, 75?
JEFF GORDON:  There’s only one way, and that’s 100 percent.  I don’t know any other way.
 
Let’s see.  I think that, first of all, with Kurt, it was really just hard racing.  I was fine with all of it up until he drove into my door on the back straightaway.  There was just no reason for that.  And these cars are so aerodynamically sensitive these days, every little thing like that makes a difference, and when he did that all of a sudden my car started pushing really, really bad, and luckily we got to fix it on the next couple pit stops.
 
I just wanted to let him know my side of
what I saw, and hear his side, as well.  I wasn’t trying to get in a fight or anything, but we kind of agreed to disagree, and Kurt and I get along fine, and I just wanted him to know to have a better reason than that to run into the side of my car.
Q.  Charlotte, mile‑and‑a‑half; Kansas today, mile‑and‑a‑half.  How different is the challenge going to be next week versus this week?
JEFF GORDON:  Well, I mean, to me this is the track that ‑‑ one of the tracks I was really worried about.  And again, it’s the repave.  When they repaved this track, it just didn’t suit my style, and we really struggled.  I mean, I spun out qualifying here.
 
To come out of here with a third place finish, boy, I’m excited because we ran really good at Charlotte earlier this year, and I think our mile‑and‑a‑half program has gotten so much better since then.  The big challenge is qualifying.  We’ve got to qualify strong at Charlotte, and I know we’re going to race good there.  I’m looking forward to next week.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES & QUOTES
OCTOBER 6, 2013
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
STARTED ON THE POLE, LED THE MOST LAPS AND BROUGHT IT HOME AND PARKED IT IN VICTORY LANE.  WHAT A DOMINATING PERFORMANCE.  WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THIS TEAM TO MAKE THIS STATEMENT IN THE CHASE THE WAY YOU DID TODAY?
“Well first off I just want to thank everybody from Sprint.  This is a huge race for everybody in this town, Budweiser, Rheem, Jimmy John’s, Chevrolet, Bad Boy Buggies, Realtree, everybody that helps this Chevrolet.  These guys just did a great job all weekend.  To have a car fast enough for me to qualify it on the pole says a lot to how fast this thing is.  We are just really excited to be here in front of everybody from Sprint and going to St. Louis (Missouri) tomorrow just really excited.  I want to say hi to DeLana (Harvick, wife) and Keelan (son) at home.”
 
WITH JUST UNDER 100 LAPS TO GO YOU ARE RUNNING 16TH.  YOU COME IN AND GIL (MARTIN, CREW CHIEF) CALLS FOR FUEL ONLY, NO TIRES AND IT GOT YOU TRACK POSITION PUT YOU BACK OUT FRONT.  HOW BIG WAS THAT FOR YOU?
“Well for me it was like driving two different cars.  You know we got that debris caution right as we pitted there early and we got back in traffic and the car was just really tight.  Then we got better as the cloud cover came over and we kind of found that middle line down there in (turns) one and two and they kept me calm.  I was starting to get a little bit wound up because I knew we had a really fast car out front.  It was just a matter of getting there because track position was so important.  It was a good day just happy as heck for everybody on this team.”
 
TAKE US THROUGH YOUR AFTERNOON AND JUST HOW DOMINANT WAS THIS RACE CAR?
“Well just how fast it was tells you on Friday when we qualified to get my sixth pole of my whole career tells you how fast of a car these guys brought for us to have this weekend.  It was just a tough day with track position.  I knew if we could ever get back out front after we got caught in the pits there with that debris caution.  It kind of worked out for us there at the end and caught a couple of those guys so it all came full circle and we were able to put our Budweiser Chevy up front and once we got out front  the thing was just really fast.”
 
WHAT WERE THE THOUGHTS AND CONVERSATIONS THAT YOU AND GIL MARTIN (CREW CHIEF) WERE HAVING WHEN YOU GOT MIRED BACK THERE IN TRAFFIC?
“I think the biggest thing and Gil (Martin, crew chief) knows is just to keep me sane.  We’ve just got to bide our time and be able to get back up front to have a chance to get the track position back.  The first pit stall really helped today because they did a good job at doing what everybody else did watching the guys on pit road and were able to adjust our strategy as we were coming down pit road.  That paid off and hopefully we can do this again somewhere down the road.”
 
I GUESS YOU PROVED THE GUYS WHO SAID IT WAS A THREE HORSE RACE ALL WRONG.  MAXIMUM POINTS TODAY YOU ARE NOW WITHIN 25 OF THE LEAD YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT:
“We are just having fun.  Everybody wrote us off at the beginning of the year especially from a media standpoint.  We are just going to go do our thing and hopefully keep doing it quietly and have fun at it.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 6TH
“What a day! We had so many things happen to us and still salvaged a very strong sixth place finish. I really feel like we had the fastest car today, but just couldn’t get there with issues and track position and cautions at weird times and restarts were kind of an issue and there was a lot of craziness there. And then coming with two (laps) to go, we had something go wrong with either the ignition or the engine thre and I had to give up a spot and limped it home. I feel kind of bummed out that we left some points on the table, but at the same time I’m happy I made it to the finish line under power and I got a nice finish.”
 
DID THE ENGINE JUST SHUT OFF?
“No, it was just shaking real bad. I shut it off to coast in. It’s rare that you have one that hasn’t totally failed. So I know if I didn’t kill it, they (engineers) would learn a lot from whatever the issue was. So once the checkered came out, I shut off and coasted around.”
 
WHEN YOU HAVE A DAY LIKE THIS BUT COME OUT IN POINTS BETTER THAN WHEN YOU STARTED, HOW GRATIFYING IS THAT?
“It’s gratifying, for sure. It was nice to beat the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth). The No. 18 (Kyle Busch) had some trouble. There has been some separation there and the guys I was around in points and I got a couple on the No. 20, so that’s good. All in all, it was a good day. You always want more, but this was a good day.”
 
OBVIOUSLY YOU HAD SOME ISSUES AT THE END OF THE RACE. CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED?
“Yeah, we had something develp with the power and started losing power and shaking real bad. My gauges were good, so I’m not exactly sure what happened.”
 
YOU ONLY LOST ONE SPOT AND YOU ARE THREE POINTS BACK NOW, BUT WHAT HAPPENED?
“All in all it was just a crazy day. Weird restarts. Wacky restarts. A lot of chaos there. And then caution after caution for who knows what. These cautions kept coming out and they hurt us each time. So we rebounded from all that and passed a ton of race cars, and then on the last lap with I guess two to go, coming down the back, the car started shaking real bad and I thought it was over.
 
“But I limped it around and got it to the Finish line. It started running again down the back coming to the checkered, so I was able to at least maintain over whoever was in seventh there and get it back. So, we went through a lot today and overcame a lot today. I’m very happy and proud of this Lowe’s team. We got a little points on the No. 20 and put a bunch on the No. 18; so in the big scheme of things, it was a very good day for this Lowe’s team.”
 
ON THE TIRE, WAS IT THAT DIFFICULT?
“Yeah, it was treacherous. It was really tough. The cooler the temperatures, it seemed to really affect the stability of the cars. With cold tires, cars are very unstable. We saw that from the first lap we made here over the course of the weekend. So, I know the tire test was during a pretty warm period in time and if you’re not careful with the actual ambiant temp and the track temp, you can get different compounds mix-matched. And I think that’s what we had. I think the direction Goodyear is going with the tire is good. I think that’s a plus. But, it was a challenge today.”
 
DID YOU HAVE ANOTHER GREAT ESCAPE AT KANSAS?
“I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s good to get out of here with the points, for sure (laughs).”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
DESCRIBE YOUR DAY INCLUDING RACING WITH THE NO. 24 ON THE TRACK:
“Well we finished second.  I think that is the most important thing.  The way that our Furniture Row team has found speed at the mile and a half’s wish we could have cashed in.  (Kevin) Harvick our teammate with RCR they won congratulations to them.  I feel like it’s just like this five percent we are missing.  Without that five percent we’ve got to battle hard.  We’ve got to battle on restarts and gain spots when we can.  Restarts were treacherous today and that is where the No. 24 and I raced really hard today.  He was on the outside hooked his nose right on our rear spoiler and I was just sliding.  He thought I was pinching him up into the wall.  I’m like ‘no you’ve got to give an inch to get an inch’ then it just turned into a bit rough play.  The important thing about us finishing second and third that is
when it’s good racing.  There doesn’t need the media to blow it out of proportion and to say two guys are fighting.  We need to put on a better show.  We need to have better tickets for our fans to buy and I hope we put that on back there.”
 
GOOD RUN TODAY.  WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE AT THE END?
“It’s all about restarts and making sure that you can gain spots, but it’s treacherous.  The tires with the cool conditions today didn’t have the heat in them and you had to have a lot of give and take on restarts.  It seemed like if somebody was right there on your outside it would make it where your car was on ice.  If somebody was jacked up right behind you, your car was on ice.  So, you had to give a lot on restarts and not take an inch.  You had to give an inch.”
 
WHAT WAS THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THERE WITH JEFF GORDON?
“That was about those restarts when a car is on the outside or the inside.  We battled hard today and the way that it all turned out we got a second-place finish our best finish for this Furniture Row Chevy.  We are real proud of this effort.  We just have to keep plugging away.  We will get there.  A teammate with RCR , (Kevin) Harvick they won today congratulations to them.” 
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD
TAKE US THROUGH WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND KURT BUSCH:
“Well first of all it was a great day for this Axalta Chevy SS team.  Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and the guys ever since the Chase started they have been bringing me awesome race cars and we are having a lot of fun out there.  Everything could have gone wrong for us today and actually there at the end it went right.  That is nice to have.  It’s not a NASCAR race if you don’t have a discussion with another driver out there about an incident on the track.  These restarts were so tough out there.  Everybody is just trying to get every position they could.  I got in the outside lane there one time and he (Kurt Busch) just came up and the next lap I got to his bumper and got him loose.  I guess that kind of led to him wanting to run into me on the right side on my door.  These cars are so sensitive aerodynamic wise you just can’t have any little damage like that.  It did seem to affect our car.  No, I just wanted to have a good civil conversation with Kurt.  We did.  He did a great job so did Kevin (Harvick) and we are really proud to finish third today.”
 
TELL US ABOUT YOUR AFTERNOON:
“It was a great effort by this Axalta Chevrolet team.  I’m so proud of them.  We had many things that didn’t go our way and there at the end the pit strategy worked out in our favor.  We had a good race car.  A little bit too tight to race with Kevin (Harvick) and get going on those restarts.  Man, I couldn’t be happier the way this Chase is going for us and this No. 24 team.”
 
A LITTLE DISCUSSION WITH KURT BUSCH WHAT WAS YOUR SIDE OF THAT CONVERSATION?
“We were just racing hard.  I think that everybody wants to go out there and race hard on those restarts.  It gets pretty wild and crazy, but there is no reason to run into somebody on the straightaway.”
 
JUSTIN ALLGAIER, NO. 51 BRANDT CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN AN ON-TRACK INCIDENT ON LAP 136
WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE?
“I wish I had a good answer for you.  We were minding our own there just trying to ride.  The car was actually pretty strong and we were running up inside the top 15 at some points and it just turned right.  I got a little bit loose over the seam and everything seemed to be okay.  It turned right and hit the fence really hard.  I hate it for Ryan Newman.  I didn’t mean to ruin their day.  I hate it for the Phoenix Racing guys, the No. 51 guys.  This is Nick Harrison’s (crew chief) last race.  They have done a great job and gave me a great race car today.  We will go on to Talladega and hopefully have a good strong run with our Brandt SS.  I guess this is my wife’s worst fear.  She doesn’t come to the race track and she’s always afraid I’m going to wreck while she is not here.  I’m alright.  We are all good and hopefully we can come back and have another strong run.”

An Interview With:
WILL POWER, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet – race winner
ROGER PENSKE – Team Owner
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE – No. 27 GoDaddy Pink Andretti Autosport Chevrolet,   – 3rd place finisher
 
THE MODERATOR:  We have the winner, Will Power, from Team Penske.  This is Will’s second victory of the season.  He won in Sonoma in August.  It’s his 20th IndyCar win.  Congratulations.  Talk about the race.  The move you made to get past Scott on turn 3 in the race start.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, I could see ‑‑ the restarts are slippery anyway.  But I could see he was struggling a little bit, having moments everywhere, and the apex at the corner.  He had a big moment in 3, saw that good run, and I went up the inside of him on 4.
From there, it was just a matter of trying to keep him behind.  I was pushing as hard as I could.  He was still staying there.  At the end there, when I went full, I was able to pull a little gap.  I think I was a tenth or a couple of tenths quicker in the lap.  So I was able to get that gap and win the race.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Talk about the difference in the weather.  Yesterday really hot, really humid.  Today rain in the morning, maybe washed off some of the rubber, a lot cooler.  How did that change the performance of the car?
WILL POWER:  Actually, it wasn’t that different, as far as the wheels degraded in the same way.  The cars, honestly, it was more comfortable to drive.  We weren’t getting the fatigue in the car.  That was the biggest difference.  But the car felt very similar.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Roger Penske, the winning team owner.  Roger, talk about the emotion of today, winning the race in a tough weekend and day for Helio and how hard the team worked to get him back out there to get one point, which could prove pivotal for Fontana.
ROGER PENSKE:  Obviously, it was a bittersweet weekend, which was the issue yesterday.  We thought we were in great shape.  I guess Will ‑‑ or Helio went wide on the tenth lap, and the car was a little heavier on fuel and launched it and came down, and we broke the gear box away from the engine.  So it’s just one of those things.
Obviously, with Will out there battling with the 9 car and taking some points away was key for us.  So he got his job done.  That was what we had talked about earlier.
And we got the car back in, which is a credit to our guys to be able to go back there.  They worked all night to get the car ready from yesterday and make that move.
Look, the racing isn’t over.  We know that.  We’ve seen this thing go up and down the last several weeks, and I think Will’s performance today shows the speed that the team has to get their car.  Dixon is one of the best guys out there.  To be able to stay ahead of him and not make a mistake in all the restarts.
I think it was a great race.  Sorry about the accident at the end.  I hope Dario’s fine and that people are fine.  But overall, we’ve been there before, and what we have to do is go to a track that we like.  It’s a track we built in California.  Maybe it will bring us some luck.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Does your approach change at all going to Fontana now that you don’t have the lead, that you are chasing for the title?
ROGER PENSKE:  I think the big thing there is our engine is right at the edge.  We’ve got 200 or 300 miles left on it.  We’ll probably have to change an engine and take a ten‑point grid penalty so we have a good fresh engine for the race.  It’s a long race when you look at the race there, and we’re going to go for it.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions for Roger and Will.
Q.                    Will, what did you see when you went through the scene of the crash in terms of the damage to the fence, what was being done to spectators in the grandstands, if you noticed any of that as you were going through there.  Scott Dixon said it reminded him a lot of Vegas.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, actually, I just saw ‑‑ I didn’t see him go up in the stands.  I just saw Dario’s car and him sitting in it with a lot of damage.  And, yes, that’s what it reminded me of, that I’d seen that.
Man, we try to keep these cars on the ground.  I think they’ve done a great job with the floor, where now we can hit and don’t interlock wheels, and I think that’s prevented a lot of accidents in the last two seasons.  But obviously, we need to have a good look at how he got up there.
The main thing, I hope he’s all right.  Someone told me up there that he’s got a bit of back pain and a sore ankle but he’s talking and all that.  So that’s great to hear.
 
Q.                    Will, obviously, protecting as much ‑‑ getting as many points as you can for Helio is the top priority.  But how do you ‑‑ obviously, winning is important as well.  How do you go about balancing those two things?  And if I may have a quick followup to Roger.  You mentioned the engine being on the edge.  I’m assuming that engine is for the 3 car?
ROGER PENSKE:  Yes.  You have to change the engine after a certain time, or you can take a ten‑grid penalty, which is what we’ll do on the 3 car, correct.  That’s the plan right now as far as I know.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, today my plan was, obviously, to try to beat Dixon or just do the best I can to try to beat Dixon, and obviously you saw what happened with Helio, very unfortunate going into Fontana.  It’s all about Helio winning the Championship, whatever I can do.  Obviously, Helio needs to win the race, and I need to be somewhere in between him and Dixon.  So that’s what we’re aiming for.
 
Q.                    Roger, you mentioned about an engine change.  As I understand the rules, when you change engines, you could have an update to that engine within the rules, certain parts can be updated.  Are you hoping for more horsepower for Helio for Fontana?
ROGER PENSKE:  I hope we get more.  I don’t know.  Obviously, there’s standard engines.  We pick them out of a batch, but this is nothing different than the teams have done all season.
 
Q.                    First question is for Roger.  You said on lap 10 you thought the problem happened with Helio.  Dixon had been complaining for many laps that he was shooting oil out, and he thought he saw it happen under a yellow after the first aborted start.  You don’t think it was then?
ROGER PENSKE:  It could have.  We have to go back and look at the telemetry.  But on that lap, when the car hit the ground, something came out underneath it.  I think it broke something out of the back, and at the same time, there was so much force because he was running fine.  I know that I heard they were talking about some oil coming out.  We’ll look at the telemetry, I know, but there was definitely a big impact on 10, on lap 10.
 
Q.                    Is it strange to you that in this season where Helio had been the only driver to complete every lap that he has bad luck two days in a row?
ROGER PENSKE:  It doesn’t make sense, does it?  As far as I’m concerned, our guys have done a terrific job.  The reliability and durability, that’s what it takes.  Dixon’s got some bad luck, but when it’s time to
go, they know how to make it happen.
We’ll just have to see what happens at the end.  Helio’s done a great job, and it’s a disappointment, but the fact is it’s a little bittersweet with Will winning the race, and he did what he had to do.  He was aggressive at the beginning.  He started back in ninth or 11th and came up and was battling right away.  To me, the cars had speed.  It’s just we didn’t execute with the 3 car.
 
Q.                    Will, I asked Dixon, sort of, as the race went on, he got to a point where maybe he should just settle for second place and take the points.  He said, I was having fun messing with Will there at the end and trying to force him into making a mistake.  Did you sense that out of him?  What’s kind of going on between the two of you lately?  It seems like there’s a little bit of a back and forth.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, it seems like we’re battling every weekend.  Sonoma, Baltimore, this weekend.  He’s just very quick.
At the end there, actually, I was probably screwing with him a bit because I thought Tim said one to go, and it was three to go or four to go at that time.  I backed up, and he got close to me, and then I pulled a gap again when I realized there’s three to go.
I’ve never driven so hard these last three races or these last three weekends we’ve had in battling with him.  It’s been absolutely flat out, not any fuel saved.  We’ve just been going at it and equally as quick.
We give each other respect.  Obviously, what happened at Baltimore is very unfortunate.  We’ve raced together for quite a few years and never had incidents.  That’s the first one.  Yeah, I mean, he’s a first class driver, and I enjoy racing him.  He’s very, very, very quick.
 
Q.                    Will, I think James asked you about this yesterday, but your strengths compared to Scott’s strengths yesterday and today around the track.  Seems like you were having a struggle in that left‑hand there beside the Astrodome, and then ‑‑ and so he’d pressure you, and then the Chevy passing would take you away from him around the suite, and then you’d pull out on the front straight.  Is that what you sensed?
WILL POWER:  I could see that ‑‑ yeah, he’s very quick into that left‑hander.  That was my weakest.  And following him, I was able to work out today where I was weak, and I added that all together there at the end and was able to pull a couple tenths of a lap.
In the middle there, I was kind of conserving fuel to make sure I got a lap longer to get him.  Obviously, that didn’t work out.  When I had to go, I think I could have put a tenth or a two‑tenths on him a lap if I really needed to.  It was qualifying every lap.  That’s what it felt like.
 
Q.                    Roger as well, I wanted to ask you, certainly over the last two seasons, Will’s pit crew, they made very, very, very few errors now.  Was there a major change around certainly the style of this season?  Because under pressure, they seemed to be pretty flawless today.
ROGER PENSKE:  Well, Matt Johnson, you know, was the crew chief that moved to Will’s car this year, and that team is a great group of guys.  I worked with them for a number of years.  I think that, when it was time to go here today, they had two great stops.  Yesterday I think the first stop was not what they wanted, but they’re consistent.
You know, we’ve got a trainer.  You know we’ve got a gym.  There’s lots of effort.  This is a by‑product of the NASCAR guys working out.  We have people that try out for the team, and I think we just got to keep that level up because you can see how good Ganassi is and the rest of the teams up and down the pit lane.  If you can get the ability to get by someone in the pits and get track position, it makes a huge difference on the restart.
 
Q.                    Roger, from an event standpoint, this is very important to your sponsor, Shell PENNZOIL.  Mike Lanigan’s crew overcame a few challenges over the weekend, it seemed to be very well attended.  How did you assess the event?
ROGER PENSKE:  I’d have to say that the Lanigan organization did an outstanding job.  Being a track owner myself and putting the Detroit race together and the experience we’ve had over the years, I think these guys did an outstanding job.
The people were friendly.  It was clean.  We had some issues with the track.  I understand the part we had the problem with was really covered over until a couple of nights before we started, but after that, I think it went well.
What I liked was there was a lot of young kids here, and to me it’s demographics that we need to get into our sport, and they were accessible.  It’s not like
Formula 1 where you can’t get close.  Today you saw, when I came over here, these kids were all having fun.  That, to me, is a by‑product of the success for this sport as we go forward.  I give them a AAA for the job they’ve done.
 
Q.                    Ganassi’s going to have Chevy engines next year like you do.  How do you feel about that given he’s your number one rival?
ROGER PENSKE:  I’d like to be sure I’m in the same level playing field as he is, so you never know.  They do a great job.  We race them every year, and they’ve had success.  We’ve had success.  I think it’s great for Chevy.  He’s involved with them and NASCAR, and the ability for him to come over and join that Chevy camp, I think, is a great move.
THE MODERATOR:  Gentlemen, thanks for coming in.  Congratulations on the victory today.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Like to welcome our third place finisher, James Hinchcliffe.  James is third.
THE MODERATOR:  A podium finish is always satisfying, but how much more satisfying is this one for you considering yesterday?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Yeah, I’m really glad this was a doubleheader and we got a chance to redeem ourselves.  Honestly, yesterday didn’t go ‑‑ I’m not going to say quite as planned.  It didn’t go anything close to planned.
It was a solid race.  We started eighth.  We picked some guys off.  Some guys had problems.  But at the end of the day, when we cleared some cars there, we had decent pace, not quite up to the par of Scott and Will.  They were the class of the field for sure.
But keeping guys like Justin Wilson and Sebastien Bourdais behind you on the street circuit, we’re doing something right.  We were good in the pits, and we had the strategy right, didn’t get caught off by any yellows.  It’s great to have the Pink GoDaddy car especially back up on the podium because one off liberty, cool organization supporting the National Breast Cancer Foundation there.
Like Scott said, we’re all thinking about Dario.  We hope he’s not too bad and he’ll be fighting fit for Fontana.  It’s a tough race for sure.  I feel for these guys that had to do it twice.  Luckily, I was a little bit less, and my hands weren’t too bad.  If I had to do it again tomorrow, it probably would be.  So it’s a blessing in disguise.
My team’s always operated on a it’s on the recovery mentality, and that’s what happened yesterday.  That just proves we could have had a good race yesterday.  We had the car for it.  And we’re glad we could just pull it off.
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Q.  When you came around the scene of the crash, could you describe the scene that you saw in terms of the fencing, what may have gone into the crowd if spectators were being tended to, anything like that?
.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Yeah, no, like Scott, I wasn’t even looking at the fence.  I saw a picture of the fence before I saw the replay of the accident.  I didn’t realize he got up there, and that was a bit terrifying.
Like I said, it’s the biggest kind of field of cars and debris field I’ve seen since that race in 2011.  It’s not really what you want to see.  You know how fast that part of the track is.  It’s bumpy.  God, I mean, I saw you do it, I’ve seen Will do it, I’ve done it.  Everybody’s done it.  We’ve gone completely sideways over the bumps there.  I don’t want to say it was a matter of time before somebody got it wrong.
Obviously, those are two guys racing side by side.  Sometimes it’s hard not to have a single car wreck through that corner, which should be a pretty straightforward, flat‑out piece of racetrack.  It definitely keeps you on your toes.  To go that kind of speed and get launched up in the air, it’s not what you want to see.
Just glad to hear it sounds like he’s fine, and he’ll probably be a little bit sore tomorrow, but he will fight on.  He’s come back from worse, that’s for sure.
 
Q.  These bumpy tracks seem to be very entertaining for the fans.  From the driver’s perspective, do you hate the bumpy tracks, or do you enjoy the challenge?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.  It certainly is a challenge, and the last thing you want is a track that’s just so grippy that everybody’s running the same pace, and it’s a procession.  Tracks like this make it, obviously, more challenging and make mistakes more prevalent, which makes essentially the racing better.
But you can go too far, especially when you’re talking about doubleheaders.  Guys started the race today with holes in their hands.  It’s just a tough situation.  It’s not ideal.  It can be dangerous.
Bourdais came to me after the race and said, 100 percent, my car was faster than I could drive it, and that’s not what you want to see.  You can’t train for blisters on your hands.  It’s not a fitness thing.
So I think you would agree, yeah, these tracks that we come to that are sometimes low grip and a little bumpier, they do make the racing really exciting.  They have a propensity for causing a lot of yellows, which is sort of anti‑climactic, but at the same time, the bigger the challenge for the team and the driver, the better the racing.
 
Q.  James, because you’re drinking out of that big bottle, I’m going to try to ask you this.  TK was the first domino to fall for you to see what you’re going to do.  When would you like to have a decision made?  What are your ‑‑ what is your gut telling you at this stage?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  My gut’s telling me to take it easy on the champagne.  No, obviously, it would be nice to have something done in time for the last race of the year and know what you’re doing going into the off‑season.  But at the end of the day, we have a couple things in the works, and if any of them come together, I’m a very lucky guy.
So it’s an interesting thing.  It’s a new kind of position I find myself in.  I’m not in a rush.  There are still some things I need to fall into place.  I’m not ‑‑ like I don’t feel the need to find something tomorrow to make sure that I’m going to be in a car.  I need to make sure it’s the right decision and that sets me up for the future.  I can’t see short term in this.
Like I said, there’s still some things in the air that need to fall into place.  But if something fell in line for the last race, that would be awesome while everybody’s still around and cares enough to hear the announcement.  It will get done in the not too distant future, and hopefully it’s an exciting thing that can keep me racing cars for a little while.
I don’t want to sell insurance, no.  I’m not a very good salesman.  I could be a pizza delivery driver maybe.
 
Q.  What would you say ‑‑ kind of touching on what Mark said, what would you say is the key to why there were so many passing places?  There were a lot of people complaining that there wouldn’t be, and there was a lot of passing again.  Was it just because of the low grip surface or mistakes or gear box or brakes running out or something like that?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I think Firestone deserves a lot of credit too.  I’ve always loved this multi‑compound racing, and we’ve seen guys have a lot of struggles on the reds.  And I capitalize on some guys passing in places that you probably shouldn’t be passing just because the reds were falling off.
So the challenge of having a car that’s quick that can serve all kinds of tires is tough.  So they deserve a ton of credit for the way the racing is and has been the last couple of years.
 

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
THE SHELL AND PENNZOIL GRAND PRIX OF HOUSTON
RELIANT PARK
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES                                                
OCTOBER 6, 2013
 
Will Power Wins Race No. 2 of Grand Prix of Houston at Reliant Park
Mechanical Issues Drop Helio Castroneves to Second in Points Heading into Season Finale
 
HOUSTON (October 6, 2013) – Will Power showed his prowess at street racing with a convincing win today in Race No. 2 of the Grand Prix of Houston at Reliant Park – round 18 of the 19-race 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule.
 
It was the second win of the season for the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, who led a race-high 51 laps of the 90-lap/153-mile race. The victory moved Power to seventh in the standings with one race remaining in the season.
 
“Congratulations to Will Power, Tim Cindric and the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet IndyCar team on their win today in Houston,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “Will drove an amazing race, and the pit stops were quick and efficient all-day long. We are looking forward to the final IndyCar race in Fontana.”
 
James Hinchcliffe returned to podium form with a third-place finish in his bright No. 27 GoDaddy Pink Andretti Autosport Chevrolet honoring the fight against breast cancer.
 
Sebastien Bourdais was the third Chevrolet IndyCar V6 driver in the top-five. Behind the wheel of the No. 7 McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet, Bourdais finished fifth.
 
Other Team Chevy drivers in the top-10 were: Oriol Servia – 7th and Simona De Silvestro – 10th.
 
Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Shell V-Power/Pennzoil Ultra Team Penske Chevrolet, suffered a mechanical issue that sent him to the paddock on lap 11. The crew changed the gear-box unit and Castroneves returned to competition on lap 47, 37 laps down to the leader.  He lost the lead in the point standings for the first time in 10 races, and heads to Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, California 25 points down to the leader.
 
The battle for the 2013 IndyCar Series Manufacturers’ title will also be decided at the season-ending race.  Chevrolet is tied with Honda for the crown at nine wins each.
 
The final race of the season is set for October 19, 2013. The MAV TV American Real 500.  The race will start at 5:30 p.m. PST with live TV coverage on NBC Sports Network.
 
DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: I KNOW ITS TOUGH TO BE HAPPY WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING LIKE DARIO’S WRECK: “I just hate it for him and just hope he is okay.  Man, I hate that.  Really hate that.   But a very good day, and good for Verizon.  Good for Shell and Pennzoil because it’s the Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix.   So very great for our sponsors, kind of helped Helio a little bit there, and I feel really bad for him.    I just hope Dario is okay.”
 
YOU GUYS HAVE HAD A LOT OF SPEED THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON, BUT WHAT HELPED YOU HAVE SOME SPEED AT THE END OF THE RACE TODAY? “Yeah, I believe we had the quickest car for sure.  It was a little bit unsteady on cold tires but I knew at any time I could pull a bit of a gap on Dixon and I was very determined to get him there.   I thought it was such a good battle yesterday between us and unfortunate we couldn’t finish it with the way the yellow was called.  It was good battling and a very good day.”
 
TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES TO WIN A RACE THAT WAY WITH LAST LAP DRAMA AND A BIG ACCIDENT, BUT FOR THIS TEAM THE WAY THAT THIS SEASON HAS CLOSED THE LAST TWO OR THREE YEARS EVERY WIN HAS TO FEEL PRETTY SWEET?
“Yeah, very happy for the guys for Verizon and Shell.  It’s been a bit of a tough season for us.  Yeah, pretty bad sight coming around seeing that.  Man, I hope Dario (Franchitti) is okay.  I really do.  We just don’t need that type of thing.”
 
HOW GOOD WAS YOUR RACE CAR TODAY? “Yeah, it was very strong.  Very strong car.  I was very determined after yesterday so good day.  Very good day.”
 
TIM CINDRIC, PRESIDENT OF PENSKE RACING, STRATEGIST FOR THE NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET :  CONGRATULATIONS A GREAT RUN FOR EVERYBODY ON THIS NO. 12 CREW:  “Thank you very much.  I think that everybody here really executed the day, but Will (Power) really driving from ninth to first there it was extraordinary for sure.  I just hope these guys are okay on the race track because that is our biggest concern.  Certainly a good day for us.  A shame for Helio (Castroneves) but I guess I like the spirit seeing them change the rear end on that car and put him back out there.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY PINK ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD:  EVIDENTLY A LOT OF DEBRIS OUT THERE ON THE CIRCUIT TELL US WHAT HAPPENED:  “Yeah, missing one of the screws from my visor there.  I felt it get a bit drafty after that second to last restart and wasn’t sure why, but clearly that is the problem.  First and foremost I just hope everybody is okay.  That obviously looked really bad and nothing else matters.  We just want everybody to walk out of here fine.  From our point of view happy to be back on the podium it’s been a rough stretch for us since Iowa.  It’s nice to have a good drive rewarded especially after what happened yesterday.  Big thanks to Andretti Autosport guys.  It’s cool to get the pink car on the podium too.  The one off deal with the National Breast Cancer Foundation it’s a great cause.  Huge props to all the fans for coming out and staying out.  Obviously the problems we had on Friday, the weather this morning, how hot it was yesterday.  You guys are the stars of this show really.  Congrats to Will (Power) and Scott (Dixon) they had a little bit more than we did today.  Like I said we are happy with that, but just hope everybody is alright.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: “Tough. (My hand) was pretty torn from yesterday. The grip today was incredibly high because of the cooler temperatures, and everybody running basically running the last two-thirds of the race on blacks (tires). It was just gripped up, and gripped up, and gripped up, and gripped up to the point that the steering got so heavy, I was just trying to keep it out of the fence.  I feel bad for the guys because the car was really, really good, and really fast. Just couldn’t quite use it. The steering was slipping in my hands. Just tore my hand up, and it hurts.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7TH: “Honestly three laps before the end I was disappointed that we weren’t a little higher on the grid, but then I realized how many races we’ve been running up front and something happens at the end. So we got a seventh, which is very decent after starting 21st and it was a legit drive to the front for the National Guard team. The car was great on track and we had a very good pit stop at the end, which is just like the Panther guys to deliver when it counts. It was a good day all around, just unfortunate that we didn’t have qualifying, because with our speed I’m sure we would have started in the Top Ten, which would have helped and made things a lot easier. But we’ll take this and it’s a way to build – you need races like this to start finishing regularly in the Top Five, on the podium and to get wins.”
 
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH: Fir
st, I hope that everybody is ok from the last lap. In general with our race, I didn’t get off the line really well and then got into an incident with Rahal. I don’t think he saw me and I had to bail over the curb and got tangled up there. Then we just started fighting back. I think our car was ok, actually pretty fast, but when you’re in the back it’s definitely more difficult, so to salvage a top-ten from where we started is pretty good. I want to give a really big thanks to the team for this weekend as well as to Chevy and the Nuclear Clean Air Energy campaign. It was really good weekend!
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO.  6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 12TH: ” “I’m very happy for the #6 TRUECar team after having to battle our way from the back of the field. We took advantage of absolutely everything we could. Starting last and finishing 12th took a great job from everybody. We had great pit stops however our strategy didn’t go as planned but we still gave a good battle. We had a strong car and we were battling upfront for awhile. Happy for the #7 McAfee car and Bourdais for a Top-5 finish.”
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HVM CHEVROLET,  FINISHED 16TH: “Well, what can I say? Extremely disappointing race. We were making our way to the front and earning every single spot on the track when we started 12th and running sixth with a big possibility to get fifth. I had a couple more laps of fuel than (Sebastien) Bourdais, and I was pretty confident that I would be able to pass him. In the last pit stop we had a big problem in the pits and that ended up ruining our race. We lost six positions there and pretty much needed to stay there until the end of the race. After I got the white flag there was an accident in front of me that I couldn’t avoid; it was Dario (Franchitti) and Takuma (Sato), and there was nothing I could do, so unfortunately we ended up being involved in that incident.”
 
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 20TH:  “Today was just a bad day; we could have salvaged something out of nothing there in the end.  It’s a shame that it happened the way it did, it cost us nine championship point for no reason. I’m a little disappointed because at this stage in the game we could have finished Top 12. That would have been a win for me, but I’m just really disappointed.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21ST: “I think we had another podium going today. We were running third and then the gearbox broke – it’s another DNF for the DHL Chevy. We have just had horrible luck this year and I guess we just have to look at it as unfortunately circumstances and bad luck. It is what it is; I just hope Dario Franchitti is ok.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA/ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 22ND :  “It was a disappointing day for our Fuzzy’s Vodka team with a clutch problem in the pits on the last stop.  I couldn’t get the car out of gear.  We had something fall off the car from the bumpy track and it was tough to handle.  It was a rough weekend here in Houston after yesterday’s start.  The team just said we had a bad race before Fontana last year and came back to win that 500-miler.  Let’s hope that can happen again in two weeks. My job for Fuzzy’s is to be the spoiler for that $250,000 bonus for Tony (Kanaan) and Scott (Dixon) with a win again at Fontana.  They are after two-thirds of the Fuzzy’s Triple crown award there.  I think we have a strong car again for that event.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 SHELL V-POWER/PENNZOIL ULTRA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 23RD:  IMMEDIATELY AFTER MECHANICAL ISSUE: “Well, obviously this is not how we wanted our weekend to go. We started the race strong in the Shell Pennzoil Chevy and then I just couldn’t shift the car. To be honest, I’m not sure if we hit something or what. It was a very helpless feeling. I have to say, what an incredible job by my guys to fix the damage. The Shell and Pennzoil crew basically replaced the whole rear of the car and we were at least able to get back out on track and pick up another position. I feel bad for the team because they’ve worked so hard to get us in a position to win this championship. And there is still a lot of racing left. We know we have a strong car in Fontana. We were fast in the test there last week and we will definitely be going for it. I want to congratulate Will (Power) on a great win. At least the weekend ended on a positive note for Team Penske. Great job by the promoters here in Houston and Shell and Pennzoil for putting on an awesome event. I hope we can come back and win here next year.”bouncing back and I know this sounds repetitive, but I have faith in these guys.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 24ST:  “We had brake issues yesterday and still had them today. I wasn’t pushing the car. I got loose coming out of turn eight and got into the marbles. It was my mistake. I feel bad for the guys. We still have one more race to go on the oval in Fontana and I feel we have a good chance there.”