Category: NASCAR Cup PR

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 20, 2019

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Playoff Contender)
2nd * CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1
4th KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 ADVENT HEALTH CAMARO ZL1
5th * WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1
10th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY FUELING FUTURES CAMARO ZL1
11th * ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1

TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Playoff Contender)
1st Denny Hamlin (Ford)
2nd * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
3rd Kyle Busch (Toyota)
4th Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)
5th * William Byron (Chevrolet)

UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK (Following Round 6 of 10)
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Contender)
1. Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
2. * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
3. Ryan Blaney (Ford)
4. Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
5. Kyle Busch (Toyota)
6. Kevin Harvick (Ford)
7. Joey Logano (Ford)
8.____* Chase Elliot (Chevrolet)__________
9. Brad Keselowski (Ford)
10. * William Byron (Chevrolet)
11. * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
12. Clint Bowyer (Ford)

UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK WITH POINTS RESET GOING INTO THE ROUND OF EIGHT
1. Kyle Busch (Toyota)
2. Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
3. Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
4. Joey Logano (Ford)
5. Kevin Harvick (Ford)
6. * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
7. * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
8. Ryan Blaney (Ford)

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Martinsville Speedway with the First Data 500 on Sunday, October 27 at 3:00 P.M. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBCSN, NBC Sports Gold, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 2nd
“Honestly, I was just trying to win the race and the rest of it just kind of fell into our hands a little bit, with the 2 (Brad Keselowski) having a misfortune and the 22 (Joey Logano) being in that crash. Luckily, we got a good bit of stage points in that first one, got five more in the second stage, and battled for the win. I was proud of that. We weren’t the best car by any stretch, but I did feel like we came here with the mindset to win and I was proud of the fact that we came here and fought for a win.”

CAN YOU DRIVE AND DO MATH AT THE SAME TIME?
“I’m not. I’m just trying to move forward. Obviously, three points is three positions, two points is two positions and one is one position. That’s pretty simple, but obviously it’s just about trying to get as many as you can get. In our case, I was under the impression that we had to win all the way up to the end of the race. It was a lot of good fortune for us there at the end, a lot of luck and just being in the right place at the right time. There was a great pit stop there at the end to put us into position.”

“I really through we were out. I had a pretty good restart, gave Denny (Hamlin) a push and I think William (Byron) didn’t get as good as a restart. So, he wasn’t pushing me and that was what I kind of needed I felt like to give Denny a run. Once we singled out, it takes more than a couple of laps to get the momentum up now. So, it was going to be really tough. Denny did a good job on the bottom at not making any mistakes. Like I said from there, it was a lot of luck.”

WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND ON THOSE FINAL FEW RESTARTS? ALAN GUSTAFSON (CREW CHIEF) KEPT SAYING ‘WE HAVE TO WIN TO GET IN’?
“Yeah, I was under that impression and I was trying to make a run at Denny (Hamlin, race winner) and we just never got our momentum up enough for me to do anything about it. And restarts, I think, were helping his cause on tires. But the good news was the bottom lane rolled good enough there on that last restart to at least get back to second. So, I appreciate the effort. We were really struggling there at one point in the race and you just have to stay fighting in these things, especially with these late-race restarts. So, I’m just proud of the effort today. I’m just excited we get to fight another race. With our backs up against the wall here and battle for a win, that’s what you have to do when you’re in the position that we were in. If you ever get to Homestead, you’re going to have to fight for a win down there. So, I’m proud of the effort. I learned a lot. To be able to come out here, and like I said, have to win, or in our minds have to win, and come and fight for one and finish second, I think is a step in the right direction for us. So, I’m excited to move on.”

THE SECOND HALF OF THE RACE WAS WHEN THE CAR STARTED TO STRUGGLE. AND YOU GOT UPDATES AND THOUGHT WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT. HOW THEN DID YOU TURN IT FOR THOSE FINAL TWO RUNS TO BE ABLE TO MAKE A RUN, EVEN FOR THE WIN, TO MAKE IT IN?
“Really, just the restarts, I feel like were saving us. If it had gone green, I don’t know that I could have finished second if it had gone green. So, just a lot of good fortune to have cautions when we did and to make the most of those restarts. The guys had a heck of a pit stop on that last one to put us in the position we were. So, it was a total team effort. And, like I said, we get to move on and get to reset those points and get to put those three wins that we have in the bank and use those points for this Round of 8. So, we’ll go get ’em.”

KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 ADVENTHEALTH CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 4th
“We got fresh tires at the end and the outside lane really worked well for us. I was able to give it a lot of throttle on time and knife my way up to fourth place. It was nice to have Advent Health on our car today. We had a breast cancer survivor Nicole riding with us and she got us a top-five. We struggled a little bit, didn’t get any stage points but you can’t be disappointed with a top-five.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 5th
“Yeah, it’s just a bummer. But we had a great run today and we can take pride in that, for sure. We had a great car, one of the best cars we’ve had on a 1.5-mile track. It was fun, but we just needed to win and we couldn’t do that. But it is what it is. It was a great day for us overall, we’ll move onto the next couple of weeks and keep fighting. If we can go out and win, that’s all that really matters now.”

YOU SAID YOUR GOAL WAS TO BE 12TH IN POINTS. NOW, YOU GUYS CAN GET 9TH. IS THAT STILL A FOCUS?
“Yeah, absolutely I think so. I think we can still further our position in points, which is awesome. Really, for us to make that next step, we have to compete for wins. We’re getting close, we’re running in the top-five and that’s great. We just have to make that next step and I think we’re really close.”

CONSIDERING WHERE YOU WERE THIS TIME LAST YEAR, YOU HAVE TO BE MOST IMPROVED DRIVER.
“Yeah, last year was no fun and this year has come a long way for me and my team. It’s been a lot of fun. Last year, I blew up here 60 laps in. This year, finishing fifth is great. We came close and I think we could have finished second or third. But overall it was a great day.”

WHAT KIND OF INFLUENCE HAS CHAD (KNAUS) HAD ON YOUR RACE TEAM AT THIS POINT?
“He’s been great. I feel like we are finally starting to get that little extra bit that we need. I wish it could have been a little sooner in the year, but I think we’re really making some good progress and that’s exciting.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY FUELING FUTURES CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 10th
“I think someone said fourteen spots on the radio. We passed a lot of cars, so that was cool.”

DO YOU FIND IT AMUSING THAT AFTER WE SPENT THE LAST FEW WEEKS TALKING ABOUT GETTING MORE RESPECT, DENNY (HAMLIN) WOULD GIVE THAT TO YOU?
“There is respect there and I do feel there is respect off of the track. But out there on the track, it’s just another level of respect you have to earn.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 11th
“No, we got up to fifth or sixth there pretty quickly and obviously had a really good car to start. I got loose, I saved it and it was all good; that’s just racing. I guess just the 6 (Ryan Newman) being right there tore the left rear off of it. You wouldn’t think it, but that’s probably the most sensitive corner on these cars for rear downforce and rear side force. We really fought with it the rest of the day and all but crashed it for the remaining 260 laps or however long it was.”
“We didn’t get in, so that sucks. We had a good start and a really good car there for five laps or however long it lasted. It just sucks driving a wrecked race car for the rest of the day.”

WAS IT THE AERO PACKAGE HERE, THE WIND OR WAS IT JUST A MATTER OF FACTORS FOR A LOT OF GUYS?
“I think we got kind of thrown for a loop on Friday with the new tire and it’s really windy, which didn’t help what we were fighting. But I felt like for the first five laps or so, we turned our stuff around, our car was really good and we made good changes Friday night. We were obviously going forward when that happened.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 14th
MOVING FORWARD, DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE A CHANCE AT THE NEXT THREE TRACKS?
“Texas will be our best chance to get a win. Martinsville is our worst chance, but we’ll give it our best shot. I’m excited to be in the Round of 8. It’s my first time and my team’s first time being in the Round of 8, so I look forward to that and hopefully it goes good. We have a way to go on points behind people, but a win could fix all that.”

KNOWING HOW WELL YOU RUN AT HOMESTEAD AND HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED THIS YEAR, IF YOU CAN GET TO THE FINAL FOUR, HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU WITH YOUR SUCCESS THERE?
“Yeah, I always said if I can get to the Final Four, I have the best shot out of anybody. So, hopefully we can do what we have to do this next round to get us that opportunity. I’m excited to get going and I look forward to this coming week.”

THOUGHTS ON THE CONTACT WITH JOEY GASE.
“I was just trying to get a big run up top. There was a lot of us. I was hoping I could get a lane and I didn’t get one. I was already to his back bumper, so yeah. It wasn’t really a message, I was just in a hurry and he was doing his best to get out of the way of the guys below. It was more so impatience on my part.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL YOUR TEAM IS AS A CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDER?
“Today, was our roughest day that we’ve had in a long time. I stalled it on that green flag stop and we just had some really slow stops. My pit box was really slick, so I couldn’t get in aggressive enough and I couldn’t leave fast enough. It made the pit stops seem worse than they were. It’s tough to have a day like that, but we had a fast car. We tried to gamble on tires there. It worked out for Denny (Hamlin), but it didn’t work out for us and we got ate up on those restarts. We finished 14th with a top-three car.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THIS RACE AND ABOUT ADVANCING?
“The race was definitely different than the night race here. There was less grip, I think we were all sliding around quite a bit. I was really loose, but we tried to make it better. It got better on the long runs, but I was way too loose on the short runs.”

WE THOUGHT THIS ROUND WAS BRUTAL, BUT THE NEXT ROUND WILL BE UNBELIEVALBE.
“Yeah, the intensity just ramps up every round and every race. It’s going to get wild.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Hollywood Casino 400 | MENCS RACE RESULTS/QUOTES

FORD FINISHING RESULTS
8th – CLINT BOWYER (P)
9th – KEVIN HARVICK (P)
16th – RICKY STENHOUSE JR.
17th – JOEY LOGANO (P)
18th – BRAD KESELOWSKI (P)
19th – PAUL MENARD
21st – RYAN BLANEY (P)
23rd – ARIC ALMIROLA
24th – MICHAEL MCDOWELL
25th – MATT TIFFT
26th – DAVID RAGAN
28th – COREY LAJOIE
32nd – DANIEL SUAREZ
40th – RYAN NEWMAN

(P) RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Dickies Ford Mustang — Finished 21st (Advanced to Playoff Round of 8)

“It was an up and down day. We didn’t start off great but we got better throughout the race. We were able to get up to second there but the 11 was pretty phenomenal and I could only make time at the wall and had to pound the fence to do anything. Lap cars were running the fence and they wouldn’t give you the fence so I would lose time trying to run down. We couldn’t really run different lanes of the race track. That kind of stunk. Eventually I got too close to the fence trying to run it and run those guys back down and hit it. We blew a tire before we could get to pit road. We knew we had to take that chance today trying to run hard. It sucks that I blew a tire and caused that caution. Overall we need to find a little more speed but I am proud of the day that we showed up until that mistake. We will go on to Martinsville.”

WERE YOU AWARE OF THE STRUGGLE YOUR TEAMMATES WERE IN AT THE END OF THAT RACE? “Yeah, I was a little aware. I definitely wasn’t going to go pass them after we were in the back there also. It seemed like they got jammed up a little bit. I hate that the 2 wasn’t able to transfer. It looks like he got run into there on the last restart and lost some spots. You definitely hate to see that.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang — Finished 19th (Eliminated from Playoffs)

“We didn’t make it. I pushed as hard as I knew how and didn’t quite do good enough on the last restart and that was it. We clawed as hard as we could and there were times it looked like we were going to be fine and times it didn’t. In the end it didn’t work out.”

WHEN IT IS THIS CLOSE, IT ISN’T JUST THIS ONE RACE, RIGHT? “Pretty much. That is a fair way of putting it. We just didn’t get through.”

HOW MUCH DID THE DAMAGE WITH THE 20 AFFECT THE CAR? “I don’t know how bad it was, so it isn’t really fair for me to say.”

HOW ABOUT THE DAMAGE WITH TWO LAPS TO GO? “Yeah, I am sure there was more damage there but I don’t know how bad.”

DID YOU FEEL LIKE WHEN YOU WERE ABLE TO PIT THERE THAT YOU WOULD BE OKAY? “Yeah, I did think we were okay but obviously we weren’t.”

WHAT DO YOU DO NOW FROM HERE? “Go win Martinsville.”

(P) KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang – Finished 9th (Advanced to Playoff Round of 8)

“That was not a very good weekend from top to bottom. I just didn’t have a very good car today and didn’t have a very good day on pit road. Nothing went right all weekend. It was definitely one of the worst weekends we have had in awhile. We had to start in the back and had a tough day getting through traffic. A couple times we got up there and then had bad stops and got mired in traffic. It didn’t go as planned with our Jimmy John’s Ford but we did what we needed to do to get to the next round and now we get to start over.”

HOW DO YOU RESET WITH MARTINSVILLE COMING AND THEN TEXAS: “I think we just have to go home and make some decisions for Texas tomorrow. Obviously we still have to beat the Gibbs cars. We just have to go and see what the other cars did this season with their higher downforce cars and see how it worked for them and go from there.”

(P) JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang – Finished 17th (Advanced to Playoff Round of 8)

ARE YOU SHOCKED THAT SOMEHOW YOU SURVIVED AND ADVANCED? “Yeah, it felt like that this whole round. Starting in Dover when we watched the race start in the garage. Then the crash in Talladega but scoring enough stage points and an okay enough finish to get some points. Then today, whew, we got that stage win which was great and that is a point that will continue on, so that is a big deal. We needed every point we could and it looked like we were in a good spot. Next thing you know they are wrecking on the outside and I get hit and I am going through the grass. I felt comfortable before that but the next thing you know – I am watching it here on the replay for the first time – I didn’t hit anything so I got lucky for sure. I have been lucky a few times. We were able to finish Talladega and I parked the thing and there was a hole in the radiator. It was hard fought and blue collar round for sure. We just have to smooth it out a little bit. We need to not have as much carnage out there and finish some of these things. On to the next round. We get to reset, thank God. We will fight from there.”

YOU HAVE BEEN CONSISTENT IN SAYING THAT EVERY POINT MATTERS IN EACH RACE. DO YOU FEEL VINDICATED IN THAT STANCE TODAY? “Yeah. Nine points after three races. I think every one of them matters for sure. You just have to fight for every point. I think everyone does the same thing. It is tough. You see a late race restart in Kansas and it is like, ‘Oh boy, we are about to crash some stuff.’ Because everyone is trying to get every point possible especially when cars are right on the cut line and know they have to pass three or four cars. Then it becomes a real mess. Luckily we made it.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 DEKALB Ford Mustang – Finished 8th (Eliminated from Playoffs)

“Obviously we wanted to be in victory lane. I like the situations that we could put the car in and it would withstand. We got a little bit of damage there on that last stage. I don’t really think that affected it that much. It was a decent day. It wasn’t a stellar day by any means. I am proud of our effort. I am proud of trying something there and it working out.”

YOU HUNG IN AND STAYED ALIVE A LONG TIME THIS YEAR: “Yeah, in the playoffs we stepped up in a big way. Not having a points pad or anything like that and going into these rounds is difficult. Those guys have 20 or 30 points on you, so to come within a fighting chance. Had that deal not have happened last weekend we would be right there. You knew that was the opportunity last weekend but unfortunately it just wasn’t our day.”

(P) indicates NASCAR Playoff contending driver

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 19, 2019

DANIEL HEMRIC CAPTURES FIRST CAREER POLE AT KANSAS
Four Camaro ZL1 Drivers Qualify in Top 10

KANSAS CITY, KS (October 19, 2019) – Daniel Hemric was the fastest qualifier for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) playoff race at Kansas Speedway with a quick lap around the 1.5-mile tri-oval of 178.047 mph in 30.329 aboard his No. 8 Caterpillar Camaro ZL1. He was the only driver in the 40-car field to surpass the speed of 178 mph, and it marked the first MENCS career pole win for Hemric.

The feat was also the 15th pole for the Camaro ZL1 thus far in the 2019 season, the 11th pole for Chevrolet at Kansas Speedway, and 714th for the manufacturer in NASCAR’s premier series.

Kyle Larson, who recently won at Dover, was 5th quick in his No. 42 Credit One Bank Camaro ZL1. Hemric’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, Austin Dillon, was the 9th fastest in today’s qualifying session in his No. 3 Roland Camaro ZL1. Bubba Wallace put his No. 43 Victory Junction Camaro ZL1 in 10th place in the order to give Team Chevy four of the Top 10 qualifiers.

David Ragan (Ford) was second, and will start alongside Hemric on the front row tomorrow; while Ryan Blaney (Ford) and Brad Keselowski (Ford) qualified third and fourth, respectively, to round out the Top 5.

DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1, PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:
BASED ON PRACTICE SPEEDS AND BEFORE YOU CLIMBED IN THE CAR, HOW CONFIDENT WERE YOU TO SIT ON THE POLE TODAY?
“I should know better not to count out the guys on this Caterpillar Camaro ZL1 team. I’ve been on the good qualifying side of things with a couple of top-five qualifying efforts this year. Our teammate has knocked a couple of them out of the park with Austin Dillon and his group. We’ve always knew we can qualify up near the front and have cars that are really fast by themselves. We wanted to at least get one of these poles before the season wrapped up. When I got out of the car, I wasn’t aware of what happened with the No. 4 car with inspection and all that stuff. I felt like he was the guy that was going to be the top pole threat. I thought we would end up between 5th and 8th. That’s what I told my guys when I got out of the car, so I wasn’t too pumped up about the lap I ran. As every car went by, I felt like our odds continued to increase. We got down to five or six and I looked at who was left to run, and I began to feel better and better about it. It is just a pole award, but it’s a bigger moment for this race team. To do something good together, have something to say that we accomplished together. I was thinking about it when I was getting the pedal car a minute ago, I sat on the pole here in the Xfinity race last year. So, it’s good to get a little stock of pedal cars at the house now. I’m just really proud of this group for continuing to come to the race track and work hard every week, and give me an opportunity to go out there and have fast race cars. We look forward to have it hopefully as good in the race.”

HOW HAS WINNING THE POLE CHANGED YOUR OUTLOOK ON TOMORROW?
“It doesn’t really change the outlook. I say that, but when we qualified fairly decent throughout this year, we’ve always been in traffic. Now, we have the opportunity with a clean start tomorrow to control the air and be the guy out in clean air. If we can do that, I feel fairly good about what we can do with a clean race track. If not, we’ll try to battle what we’re faced with tomorrow. It definitely changes the confidence level as we go down into turn one.”

HOW MUCH IS THIS A CONFIDENCE BOOSTER FOR YOU THROUGH AN UP AND DOWN SEASON?
“I wouldn’t say I’ve lost confidence, it’s just cool to get a checkmark off for this race team. Myself being a small part of it, it’s good to get that. Through all this stuff, I feel like my confidence hasn’t really waivered one way or the other. In the mix of everything that’s going on right now, from a personal side to the racing side in trying to align all that stuff and position yourself for the future, this definitely doesn’t hurt all that.”

WITH ALL THE ATTENTION ON THE PLAYOFF DRIVERS, DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO SNEAK IN THERE AND GRAB SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF?
“That’s a good point. There’s no better way to get talked about than to go out and outperform those guys. That’s why I’m proud of this No. 8 team for allowing us to do that. I have to leave pit road and get up to speed good and try to make the shortest distance I can, but if the race car won’t do it, then it won’t do it. So, those guys deserve all the credit for this pole. To know that we are able to take some focus off those guys and have some attention on us, man these guys have busted their tails every single week since we said we were going to do this deal together and it’s good to see them get some recognition.”

WITH EVERYTHING IN THE UNCERTAINTY FOR 2020, HAVE YOU PUT ANY ADDED PRESSURE ON YOURSELF FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON?
“Not at all. I’ve always said that if you lay your head down at night and know you couldn’t have done anything different or second guess anything you’ve done, you’ve done all you can do. Through everything, the mistakes I’ve made, the mistakes we’ve made as a team, through all that stuff this year; I know we’ve all given 110 percent in effort. That’s all you can ask for when you’re in this position. It hasn’t really changed any of my outlook or where I feel like I’m at throughout the season. We just go out there and achieve the goals we’ve set before us. This was one of them. I didn’t necessarily think it was going to come here at Kansas, but it did and hopefully we can continue to mark one of those off in the coming weeks.”

WE’VE HEARD A LOT OF DRIVERS SAY IF YOU QUALIFY GOOD, YOU PROBABLY WON’T RACE GOOD. YOU’VE MENTIONED YOUR CAR DIDN’T REALLY SEEM TO CHANGE MUCH IN PRACTICE. WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR TOMORROW? HOW GOOD IS YOUR CAR FIRING OFF? IT SEEMS LIKE RESTARTS HAVE BEEN KEY LATELY.
“I told my crew chief when I got out of practice yesterday, no matter what we did, my car felt really good firing off. Being in the position we are with clean air and whatnot, I think it will be huge for tomorrow. I do believe a lot of the guys’ thought process is if you qualify good, you’re not going to race good. But I feel like a lot of the Stewart Haas guys, especially the 4 team, has kind of been on their own island in being able to do it and do it effectively over the last couple of weeks. It can be done. I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve been on the other side pushing for a slower, single car race car and give me the drivability. But when you get to the race track, you’re committed. I’m not hands on, I’m not building the bodies. There are a lot of smarter people way above me that are making those decisions. When it gets here, it’s our goal as the 8 group to make the most out of what we got. It just so happened that it’s a fast race car and that’s what we have to deal with this week. We’re going to try to make it drive the best that it can in traffic. But nobody’s car drives better than the guy that has clean air and hopefully we can continue to maintain that tomorrow after the start of the race.”

WOULD YOU SAY THAT KANSAS SPEEDWAY IS THE BEST TRACK YOU CAN PERFORM AT?
“I wouldn’t say that, but after we left here last fall, I felt really confident in what I wanted and what I needed. It’s such a totally different race car from the Xfinity car. We have a different left side tire this week. A lot of differences allow me to tell you yes, but I do think there are certain things that you look for your car to do really well here. We got my race car here this weekend to do some of that stuff. Hopefully, with having clean air here tomorrow like we didn’t have when I was putting myself in dirty air situations yesterday, will pay off and allow me to continue to perform here. We’re just trying to not get too far ahead of ourselves. We have a long race for us tomorrow and hopefully it leads to us having a solid day.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY POST-QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 19, 2019

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1
5th KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1
9th AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 ROLAND CAMARO ZL1
10th BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 VICTORY JUNCATION CAMARO ZL1
12th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY FUELING FUTURES CAMARO ZL1

TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Daniel Hemric (Chevrolet)
2nd David Ragan (Ford)
3rd Ryan Blaney (Ford)
4th Brad Keselowski (Ford)
5th Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)

NBC will telecast the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway live at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, October 20. The NBC Sports Gold app will stream the race and live coverage can also be found on MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:

DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CATERPILLAR CAMARO ZL1 – Pole Winner
GOOD JOB BY THE WHOLE TEAM! THIS IS YOUR FIRST CAREER POLE. HOW DOES IT FEEL?
“Yeah, it’s pretty special. I kind of just feel crazy. I got out of the car and I thought I’d be maybe fifth to eighth but man, these guys on this Caterpillar Camaro ZL1 have done a great job all year of no matter what’s thrown at us, kind of just rising to the occasion and showing back up at the race track every week ready to work. And, with all that going on, there’s so much going on around us, that you can get lost in the distraction of things. But, to know these guys have continued to have my back through all that stuff has meant the world to me. So, congratulations to ECR and RCR. They’ve been doing a great job for us all year. It’s cool to be the guy to steer it around the line there and get the quick time.”

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL YOU HAVE TO THANK?
“A lot of people, man. Kyle Larson was kidding around last week and said man, I’m not sure what car you’re going to be in every week. We were doing a thing on stage and he brought that up. So, that being said, everybody you see on the suit has given me an opportunity to Cup race this year and hopefully there are many more years of my future down the road.”

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 ROLAND CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 9th
“That’s where you want to be. I feel like the magic number is 8th to 12th when it comes to downforce. Some of the guys obviously have more downforce that are further back. I didn’t want to be on the pole. I feel like you get out there and it’s hard to maintain when you have all the drag out of the car. I’m happy with it for what our car drove like yesterday. It got better, we did a good job going into today.”

BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 VICTORY JUNCTION CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 10th
“It was just like last week, a little boring. It’s not as windy as yesterday, so that’s nice. It was just one lap. We had a good qualifying run here in the spring. We qualified 12th, a lot of cars got disqualified and I ended up 7th. We were 20th or 25th by lap one. So, not a good day for us. We have a good car. I think it’s better than what we have been, so that’s good. We’re shooting for a top-15 for our Victory Junction Chevrolet. It should be solid for us. Kansas is always tricky with the weather. I think it’s to be the sun shining tomorrow and windy again. I talked to a couple of people in the garage; they were just sideways from the wind. I didn’t really put that into a factor after the first practice until I was watching Xfinity practice and they talked about it on the broadcast. So, we tried to tighten it up a lot and it still didn’t really knock a dent in it. The wind is going to be a pretty big effect here. We’ll see what we can do for tomorrow.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY FUELING FUTURES CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 12th
“It’s too early to know really where we’re going to end up. I know we picked up from yesterday, but outside of that, I’m not sure. Our approach this weekend was a lot different for ourselves than when we were here in the spring. We’re eager to get in the race and see if we made it better.

HOW MUCH OF A CHANGE IS THERE FROM THIS RACE IN THE SPRING TO NOW?
“With the new rules package, the rate in which you learn is just so quick. Although it’s a few months earlier, it has changed quite a bit. The evolution of us adapting to this rules package, you couldn’t even show up with the same car.”

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 14th
“It was alright. We went a little better than I expected, so I guess that’s good.”

WILLIAM (BYRON) SAID HE FELT LIKE HE WAS LACKING STRAIGHT-LINE SPEED. DOES THAT APPLY FOR YOUR TEAM?
“I guess according to qualifying, yeah I guess it depends how aggressive you want to be on that for tomorrow and how much you can get out of your car today to be able to adjust it to get some downforce back tomorrow. I would think you would want some of that downforce in the race tomorrow, but we’ll see. There’s a lot of different numbers at the top of the board, for sure.”

KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 ADVENTHEALTH CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 15th
“I feel like the car has been strong in practice. This is a sister track to Kentucky, where we won earlier this year. We have nothing to lose, really nothing to gain on points because Talladega didn’t turn out all that well for us. It’s like win or bust for the rest of the year for the No. 1 car.”

IS THIS MAYBE THE TIME WHERE YOU TRY SOME THINGS FOR NEXT YEAR?
“Right now, I think we are just all pushing hard for right now. It’s Kansas this weekend, we’ll be in Martinsville next week, Texas after that. We just need to push, push, push for race conditions and races this year. We are 15th right now in points and that’s not all that great. So, let’s just grab wins. We can’t even really point our way back up in the points right now.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 16th
“We aren’t where we want to be and not where we wanted to qualify. It drove fine in qualifying, just wide open. But it’s not the speed we need to have. We didn’t really have the handling that we needed to have yesterday either. I’m pretty bummed with how we’ve been throughout the weekend, especially with how strong we were here in the spring. We have a lot of really smart people working hard to make it better.”

ARE YOU WORRIED?
“Yeah. We were a 30th place race car yesterday in practice, so I’m pretty worried.”

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THAT WORRY?
“We have what we have now. We made some good changes last night and, obviously, Greg (Ives) and the guys are doing all that they can. The new tire is kind of throwing us for a loop a little bit. We’re just trying to figure out exactly what we need and lean on our teammates. The 24 I thought looked really good in practice yesterday, at least compared to us. Hopefully we can lean on them and just try to get all four of our cars better than where we were yesterday.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 25th
“It hasn’t been a super easy week, it’s been pretty stressful. But, we kind of know what we have to do and we didn’t really do anything different this week. We just spent our normal time in the simulator. I feel like this is a good track for us as a team, hopefully that pays off tomorrow. It’s hard to say. We don’t have the straight-line speed this weekend, but we’re kind of hoping that pays off.”

CAN YOU PICTURE A SCENARIO?
“Yeah, for sure. You kind of have to feel it throughout practice. I felt like I felt that way throughout practice, in terms of how the car felt and how confident I could be with my moves. I feel like I had that feeling that I had similar to when I ran the truck here. Hopefully, that’s the confidence that we need. Honestly, even if it’s not really there, you just have to go for it. It’s just going to be all hands-on deck to try to go out there and win. If we can do that, that would be awesome. It’s honestly what our approach is for the rest of the year. If we make it through this round, we’re going to have to win in the next one anyways.”

CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 KROGER SIMMER LIKE A WINNER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 26th
“It was a low in first practice, but the second practice got a lot better. We’ve come a long way with our race car this weekend. We’ll see how qualifying goes here. The weather is a lot different. The race track is pretty green after the Xfinity cars have been on track after that rain shower overnight and this morning. We’ll see. We’ll have a good race car. That’s something that we’ve had a strong suit all season long; not qualifying the best, but being able to race well. That’s our plan. It’s a fun track, I do like this place. I like to be able to move around. You can run the fence, you can run the white line on the bottom, and really anywhere in between. It’s a cool race track and we enjoy coming here.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

MENCS Post-Qualifying Report – Kansas Speedway
Martin Truex Jr. leads Toyota at Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (October 19, 2019) – Martin Truex Jr. leads Toyota with an 11th-place starting position for tomorrow’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Kansas Speedway.

Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Report
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Kansas Speedway – October 19, 2019

TOYOTA STARTING POSITIONS
1st, Daniel Hemric*
2nd, David Ragan*
3rd, Ryan Blaney*
4th, Brad Keselowski*
5th, Kyle Larson*
11th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
18th, KYLE BUSCH
20th, ERIK JONES
23rd, DENNY HAMLIN
27th, MATT DiBENEDETTO
32nd, PARKER KLIGERMAN
39th, JOEY GASE
*non-Toyota driver

TOYOTA QUOTES

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 11th

Does the starting position matter?
“We are 11th, which is a lot better than we expected. We have a good starting spot, probably better than we expected. Hopefully that’s not a bad thing. Generally, we don’t run good unless we start like 20th. So I’m a little nervous.”

ERIK JONES, No. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 20th

How was your qualifying lap?
“It was alright. It was kind of where we expected. Not a whole lot you can do here, but I feel like the Reser’s Camry is pretty good in race trim. We focused a lot on that yesterday. I feel like we have it pretty good, pretty close, pretty good in traffic.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 23rd

How do you look at this race?
“I felt like we were pretty good yesterday. I thought our car drove really well. We were pretty good compared to the field. I’m looking forward to it.”

MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Toyota Camry, Leavine Family Racing
Starting Position: 27th

Talk about the difference between qualifying and racing here at Kansas.
“It’s completely different. In qualifying, that’s more up to the speed of the car, the team’s work. I can just go out there and shift through the gears and hold it to the floor and be smooth on the wheel. It’s kind of like Daytona qualifying now. Totally different than it used to be. But racing, totally different story. It’s got to handle well. When we first started practice, I thought I was going to crash every lap. It was really, really loose. You have to work on it handling well. The cars that may not qualify well, can race really well, so you just don’t know.”

PARKER KLIGERMAN, No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota Camry, Gaunt Brothers Racing
Starting Position: 32nd

What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
“Our Gaunt Brothers Racing team has worked really hard. We weren’t great in practice, but with us being a part-time team, we have to use track time for our advantage. We kind of do some science experiments, that’s the best way to put it. Yesterday was full of science experiments. We don’t know where we stack up. I think for us, we have been fully focused on knowing that things that we need to do better as a team car wise and aero wise. The only way we are going to get better is putting it on the race track. Our Toyota Camry was really loose yesterday, hopefully, we got rid of some of that looseness. If we get in the race and it’s a little bit tighter, I think we can have a solid day.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 38 million cars and trucks in North America, where we have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the U.S.), and directly employ more than 47,000 people (over 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold 2.8 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2018.

Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit ToyotaNewsroom.com.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Hollywood Casino 400 | MENCS QUALIFYING RESULTS/QUOTES

FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS
2nd – DAVID RAGAN
3rd – (P) RYAN BLANEY
4th – (P) BRAD KESELOWSKI
6th – MICHAEL MCDOWELL
7th – RYAN NEWMAN
8th – DANIEL SUAREZ
13th – ARIC ALMIROLA
17th – MATT TIFFT
19th – RICKY STENHOUSE JR.
21st – (P) CLINT BOWYER
22nd – PAUL MENARD
29th – (P) JOEY LOGANO
32nd – COREY LAJOIE
40th – (P) KEVIN HARVICK

DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 MDS Ford Mustang — Qualified 2nd

“I hope we can be the fastest on Sunday too. We made adjustments on our Ford Mustang last night anticipating a little warmer race on Sunday. We looked at the weather and we looked at what we did here in the spring and so we really didn’t think much of qualifying. It is what it is on these impound races. I was surprised to see the speed that Michael (McDowell) had in his car. I was optimistic knowing our cars were pretty close. To be on the Front Row is awesome for the start of the race on Sunday. Hopefully we can make some adjustments and be a top-10 or top-15 car on Sunday.”

WHAT DOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS DO FOR THE MORALE OF YOUR TEAM? “It is Front Row Motorsports, we should be on the front row at some point. It is awesome leading the field to green with Daniel (Hemric) is a neat thing. We come here to win and run the best we can in the race but qualifying is fun too. Single car qualifying you just go as fast as you can. Like I said, we made some adjustments that we thought would help our car in the race. We didn’t really think much about qualifying. That was just a free bonus for our team this weekend.”

(P) RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Dickies Ford Mustang — Qualified 3rd

“The lap went really smooth and the Mustang drove really good. We were pretty surprised in the speed it had because we added some downforce yesterday after practice. That is always good when you add downforce and go faster than your mock run yesterday. That is pretty promising for the race and a good starting spot for sure.”

(P) BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang — Qualified 4th

“I feel good about that. We have three Fords in the top-four. It isn’t the top spot that we wanted but it isn’t bad either. We should be in a good spot. We think we have it dialed in for tomorrow. My teammate Ryan Blaney is pretty good too. There are certainly some cars that favor qualifying over the race, and vice versa.”

(P) KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang – DNQ (Failed Inspection) – Qualified 40th

WHAT CHALLENGE DO YOU FACE FIRST OFF TOMORROW COMING FROM THE BACK? “I have to pass a lot of cars. It is what it is at this point. You just go out and try to strategize and plan what you can and try to pass as many cars when you can at the beginning and go from there.”

YOUR TEAM KIND OF TOOK A CHANCE. YOU COULD HAVE GONE OUT AND QUALIFIED AND THEN MADE THE CHANGE AND STARTED AT THE REAR FOR UNAPPROVED ADJUSTMENTS, BUT YOU DECIDED TO MAKE THE FIX TO START WHERE YOU QUALIFIED. DO YOU FEEL A LITTLE SNAKE-BIT ON THAT? “Just a number of things kind of lined up right there. Obviously going out on track and having the drive line drag the tunnel was probably not a good option for a number of reasons. So, I think we all felt like we had to try to fix it and I don’t think anybody thought that we were anywhere close on the toe to fail the next time or you probably would have thought through things a little bit differently. Just a number of things lined up there that didn’t exactly go right and lined up in a circumstance that we are.”

WAST IT A PARTICULAR PIECE OR PART? “I don’t build ‘em.”

YOU HAVE A POINTS CUSHION, BUT DOES THIS MAKE YOU WORRY OR FEEL LIKE YOU ARE IN A HOLE TOMORROW? “It is just another race. It is like I have talked from the very beginning. You deal with the situations as they approach you. It doesn’t matter if it is the first race or an elimination race. You go about the circumstances you are dealt. This is why I always tell you guys you never know what the circumstances will be and you have to adapt and adjust as they present themselves. It is basically one lap and it could have been in practice or the race and it is basically one lap that comes at qualifying and a number of things that go with that. It is still only one lap that changed the direction of where you thought you were going to be yesterday when we were going to qualify. You do what you can do. We have been in these types of situations before and you adapt to it and go about your business.”

(P) JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang – Qualified 29th

“You have to pick one or the other. Do you want to go fast for a lap or do you want to be good for all of them. I hope this is the right choice for all of them. Time will tell. Obviously we are probably outside of the majority considering where we are at compared to some other cars. We will see when we get up there. Hopefully she handles great and I can make some aggressive moves to get up there. I feel confident we will.”

WERE YOU ON THE RIGHT PATH WITH RACE TRIM IN PRACTICE YESTERDAY? “I felt really good yesterday. I felt like my car was able to do what I wanted it to do and was competitive. I could pass up to the lead of the pack when I was out there and maintain it once I was there. I think we are going the right direction but tomorrow will be the real true test.”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang — Qualified 6th

“We went out early and I don’t know how that will stack up when it is all said and done but that was a good solid lap. The car was pretty good in race trim yesterday and we feel really good about where we are at. I think that will put us in the top-10 or 15 starting spot and we will do work from there. Where you start matters everywhere now. I think it is really important with this particular package to start up front and get that clean air. Restarts and starts get wild and we are three and four-wide and just that kind of energy with those cars three and four wide you lose ground to the leader so the closer you can be, the better.”

(P) indicates NASCAR Playoff Driver

Toyota Racing – Martin Truex Jr.
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

KANSAS CITY, KAN. (October 18, 2019) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Martin Truex Jr. was made available to media at Kansas Speedway:

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No.19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

How was practice today?

“Practice, we missed it a bit there. We struggled a little, so we are making big changes. Hopefully, we will be better for second practice.”

Can you talk about your thoughts about this track with the Playoff picture?

“We’ve been pretty good here, but we struggled in the spring and we weren’t too good in the first practice. I was really optimistic coming in here – the way we’ve been running on mile-and-a-halves, coming off the Vegas win a few weeks back. Felt good about that, but just missed it a little. We will regroup here and get going for final practice and make the right calls for the race. It’s a fun track to race on. You can move around, which is good with this package. Looking forward to it and hopefully we have a good night.”

Does the handling change racing in this weather versus racing at night like you did in the spring?

“Yeah, for sure. I think it changes a lot of things. I think I’m probably hoping for it to be as hot as possible. It’s not going to be as hot as we would like it to be, but it seems like when the tracks are hotter and slicker, we do better. I’ll be looking forward to that. For sure, racing here in the day is different that racing in the nighttime. It always has been, and I’m sure that will be the case this time around.”

Consistently, you have a long-run car. Is that a driver thing or a team thing?

“I think it is a little bit of both. You kind of work on certain things. Certainly, a lot of it is driver feel, and the team kind of takes that feel and approaches things certain ways. I think based on the way we have done things in the past, that’s where we ended up. I feel like that is where we ended up, and we can do the most damage. I wouldn’t say that we specifically work on that, but it just seems that when I’m happy, when the car feels good, when everything is right that’s where we are good. I don’t think we have ever looked at it as a bad thing and said we need to be faster on short runs. There has been tracks where we have been fast on the short runs, and not really understood why. A place like Richmond in the past. We’ve been really good there, we’ve led a lot of laps over the years, but there have been times with similar approaches that we were faster in the short runs and similar approaches we were fast in the long run. It can be little things sometimes I think.”

So, it’s not like you look at Homestead last year and say we need to be better on short run speed?
“Yeah, without the last caution, we had the thing won. How do you change your strategy completely? We won the championship. The year we won it; we weren’t good enough on the long run. It could go either way. It’s kind of a toss-a-coin and see where you end up. You just try to get your car the best you can, and sometimes it ends up doing things that you don’t expect.”

Do you think with Cole (Pearn, crew chief) you became a long run driver or was it before that?

“I would say in general it has probably been more so true that way my whole career. I feel like a lot of the places that I have been good over the years, Darlington, Homestead, I was good in those cars in the long run when I was in cars that weren’t really the greatest, or teams that we weren’t winning a lot, I should say. We could go to places like that and be good on the long run. Even Richmond. So, I think some of it just goes back to the driver.”

Does this feel any different than it did last year?

“Yes and no. There are definitely some differences. When I show up at the race track and I’m doing my thing, no, it doesn’t feel any different. It’s the day-to-day, week-to-week stuff with meetings, and the amount of people you talk too. It’s just a lot bigger group of people.”

Is that good?

“Yeah, it’s fine. I enjoy it. I enjoy our team. We have a lot of great people there, and honestly, you never know how it’s going to go. I can honestly say, most of the way through our first season together, it has been a lot of fun. We have worked hard. We’ve achieved a lot of goals. More than we even thought we could. You think first year together, six wins, and still going with a chance to win a few more. It’s been good; I’ve been having a lot of fun.”

# # #

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for more than 60 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 38 million cars and trucks in North America, where we have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the U.S.), and directly employ more than 47,000 people (over 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold 2.8 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2018.

Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit ToyotaNewsroom.com.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2019

RYAN PREECE, NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1, Media Breakout Session Highlights:

HOW IS THE BACKUP CAR?
“We were just super, super loose. We made some adjustments and we’ll go at it again. I will say it was turning pretty solid.”

HOW DIFFERENT WOULD CHRIS BUESCHER’S BACKUP CAR BE COMPARED TO YOURS?
“I think our car builds are pretty close. I think it’s just other stuff that goes into it. I think we found a direction at Dover that we’re heading in. We’re just really, really loose and limited with what you can do with what you have. I think what really needs to be focused on how hard these guys worked this morning to get this car turned around. We were probably 10 minutes late into practice, but we were there. We practiced, we found what direction we needed to go in and now we need to do that. Man, these guys haven’t had much sleep. I’m pretty proud of them.”

INAUDIBLE
“Mentally, I think my guys are pretty tough. So, I think they’re fine. We’re in it as a team. I wasn’t going to just show up later in the afternoon and show up to drive. I wanted them to know I was right there with them.”

“I was helping those guys more with the interior stuff. Everything else, these guys do this on a daily basis. I’ll let them do it, but I wanted to help in any way I could.”

IT WOULD BE EASY FOR A TEAM TO USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE. HOW DO YOU GUYS NOT?
“I think it really just shows how strong the team at JTG Daugherty is. I don’t even know what time they started making plans to make this all happen, but it was less than 36 hours to figure it out. My hat is off to them because I know what it takes to even plan a regular weekend. The fact is that we’re here and we’re going to make the best of it.”

AFTER THIS WEEK’S ANNOUNCEMENT, HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO TALK TO RICKY STENHOUSE JR. ABOUT NEXT YEAR?
“I’ve known Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) for a while, just because of the similar people we’ve worked with. The first time I ever met Ricky was actually New Hampshire in 2015. I’ve known him for a while. I look forward to working with him and what we all feel he can bring to the team. Hopefully, we’ll keep going.”
“We’re both race car drivers. As far as finding something, a path in what we need in a race car, I felt like Dover even though it’s different, it’s not. It’s still a race car. It was a direction. Like I said, it’s an unfortunate circumstance to have to do what we had to do because I felt like the primary we were bringing was going to be really good. We’re just moving on this weekend. I look forward to working with Ricky. Hopefully, we can continue to build.”

WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING OUT OF MARTINSVILLE GOING BACK A SECOND TIME?
“I don’t know. I’m looking forward to it. I love places like Bristol, Martinsville, all those short tracks. Hopefully, some of the stuff we’ve learned will help even more at Martinsville. I feel like it will because it’s made it that much more positive. But time will only tell. I’m definitely excited to get to Martinsville. Aerodynamics matter, but not nearly as much as it does at other places.”

HOW HARD IS PATIENCE AT MARTINSVILLE?
“Patience is important everywhere. But, at the same time, if you’re fast, you want to get out front and dictate the pace that you want. I don’t know yet, we’ll find out next week.”

HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT RACING THE PLAYOFF DRIVERS?
“You’ve got to be respectful of them. You’re racing around them, you have to. If it’s a guy that’s racing on the cut line and he’s fast, you cut him a break for sure. You’re not going to lay a door on him, you’re not going to take the air off of them. If it’s for a win, I think you do what you have to do. But, if it’s for 15th or something like that, you want to have a good day but you want to show respect at the same time. I think every situation is different.”

INAUDIBLE
“I think we just need to find out where we are going to be, as far as balance. It’s complete unknown. I think we found that direction. We’re pretty loose right now, so we’re just going to try and tighten it up some.”

IN TERMS OF RACING, WHAT LINE DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE ONE TO BE ON?
“I think weather is going to play a big part in that. We’re not really sure yet, we’re going to find out.”

YOU’VE HAD A UP AND DOWN SEASON. HOW DO YOU GRADE YOUR SEASON SO FAR?
“I think it hasn’t really gone the way we wanted it to. We’re just rolling toward next year.”

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO IMPROVE ON FOR 2020?
“I think consistency. We just need to be consistent.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2019

KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 ADVENTHEALTH CAMARO ZL1, Media Breakout Session Highlights:

INAUDIBLE
“I feel like we’ve come such a long way at Ganassi from our first race at Martinsville. I’m looking forward to going back to apply all the season-long trends. Martinsville is so early in the year and we were such a new team. I think we finished 12th. We learned so much together as a group. That’s what’s cool about going back to these tracks a second time.

HOW TOUGH IS KANSAS SPEEDWAY? WHAT’S TOUGH ABOUT IT ON THE RESTARTS?
“The restarts are going to be pretty wild because we are able to hold it wide open through one and two. The shortest way around is on the bottom, but then you’re trying to position yourself for the high side through three and four. So, the restarts are going to be pretty crazy this weekend.”

ARE RESTARTS AN INSTINCT OR SPLIT-SECOND DECISION?
“Yeah, you just go with it. But, for us, I made a move on a restart in Vegas and our playoffs were pretty much ended with a tire rub. That’s the bad side effect, the hard part about the whole system.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT COMING OUT OF TALLADEGA?
“Yeah, I dodged three wrecks, but I couldn’t dodge four. It’s tough. Right now, the cars don’t draft very stable, everyone is out there on older tires just trying to do fuel-only to minimize time on pit road, and everyone is more aggressive at the end when cars are handling the worse. That’s the perfect recipe for some bent sheet metal.”

WE SAY A LOT OF DEALS GO DOWN THIS WEEK. ARE YOU GETTING CLOSER?
“When there’s something to talk about, we’ll give you the information.”

BACK EARLIER THIS SEASON, YOU WON AT KENTUCKY. THAT WAS A FUN BATTLE TO WATCH WITH YOUR BROTHER (KYLE BUSCH). IS THAT SOMETHING YOU CAN DRAW FROM FOR THIS WEEKEND AT KANSAS?
“Yeah, we’re hopeful that the setup we had at Kentucky to win with matches up here because this is the closest track to Kentucky; with the banking, the size, grip level, the tires, everything kind of leads and points to Kentucky. We are hopeful that things play out in our favor.”

YOU ARE THE ONLY CURRENT CUP DRIVER THAT RACED IN THE FIRST RACE AT KANSAS. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHANGES YOU’VE SEEN IN THE TRACK?
“There might have been a couple of us, I know I’m getting up there in years. It’s my 19th year on the circuit, maybe Kevin Harvick or Ryan Newman was around at that point. The grip level changes, where it had extreme grip when it was paved originally. The tire was so conservative, it was really a hard tire. As the asphalt kind of gave up some of that grip, they brought in a softer tire. I think we’ve seen a couple of epic finishes here. It’s all about the balance of how you get the car to run in traffic and out there by yourself. Now, with the aggressive banking, this is where I see the track at it’s peak. This is the best that it’s been in the last three to four years. Now, they’re starting to bring back a harder tire. Kansas Speedway is racing really well right now.”

TALK ABOUT PRACTICE, THE URGENCY WHILE YOU’RE OUT THERE.
“A couple hours in session, same as each week. It’s very heated time of getting your car dialed in, getting in and out of the garage, and also with the draft out on the track. You want to make sure you’re in the biggest group possible to learn the most about your car. There’s a lot going on in those couple hours of practice.”

“Right away, the car felt stable and it was quick. As the trends were on, we ended up on the tight side of things with building too much front tire pressure. So, we have to keep track of that to make sure we can get the front to turn, especially in the dirty air.”

HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY FEEL THE WIND? HOW MUCH DOES IT EFFECT YOU IN QUALIFYING AND THE RACE?
“Right now, we’re wide open through one and two, and we are not through three and four. If you’re out there by yourself, the only eliminate you’re battling is track position. The wind can be a 15-mph tail wind into one corner and it can be a 15-mph head wind going into another corner. Add that up, that’s a 30-mph difference. That’s 190 into one corner and 160 into the other; that’s pretty big difference. When you add 40 cars out there together, that’s when the smart engineers, crew chiefs and driver start to rise to the top.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
HOLLYWOOD CASINO 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 18, 2019

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1, Media Breakout Session Highlights:

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW YOU FELT IN THE FIRST PRACTICE.
“I thought it was OK. We started not very good I thought. Once we kind of got back in the ballpark, I thought we were decent. We’re just trying to get it as close as we can and I think, now, there are going to be a handful of guys that will have their cars driving the way that it should. Hopefully, we’re amongst that group and can give ourselves a shot. We have to try to be the first guys off pit road or be the guy with the best restart at the end of the race because there are going to be a few guys that will have the car driving well enough to win.”

IT LOOKED PRETTY SLICK UP THERE AT THE TOP OF THE RACE TRACK. IS THAT WILL THE GROVE WILL BE?
“I would assume so, it seemed like that was the case at the last race and it was at night. I guess with this race being during the day, I would assume it will be that way.”

PEOPLE SAY THAT YOU ARE GOOD WHEN YOUR BACK IS AGAINST THE WALL OR WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON. DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY?
“I feel like we’re good when we do our best job. I think some of that is probably depends on the track we happen to be at during that particular point of time. I think this is a place where we can be good; we’ve been good here before. That doesn’t mean we’ll be good, but I feel like we can be a top team here this weekend. I want to do a nice job for my guys here. So, I hope that’s the case and we’ll go on down the road.”

SOME PEOPLE SAY THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST ROUND OF EIGHT WE’VE HAD IN AWHILE. DO YOU AGREE?
“I think this is the toughest round of 12 I’ve been a part of in my four years, for sure. Really, I think all 12 teams and drivers are pretty good that are left right now. I think we knew coming into this round that it wasn’t going to be easy. We knew it was going to be tough to move on. That’s where we’re at, it’s tough. Here we are.”

IF YOU MOVE ONTO THE ROUND OF EIGHT, IT’S GOING TO BE REALLY TOUGH.
“It is. I think that’s going to be what separates the guys if you can get through that next round with confidence. For us, we have to get through this round first. We’re not too worried about the round of eight right now. We’re just trying to make it through this weekend.”

DO YOU GO AT IT AGRESSIVELY THIS WEEKEND?
“I think you have to be aggressive, but I don’t think you want to overreach it. I feel like in my time in racing, especially since I’ve been in Cup, I feel like I’ve got myself in my trouble when I try to do too much than just trying to do my job. I’m just going to try to do my job this weekend. I think to perform at our best, we are doing the job that all of us as a group and a team can do, I think we can compete with the best teams and we don’t have to reach to do that. That’s how it should be.”

TALK ABOUT WHAT THE MANUFACTURERS WANTED TO DO AT TALLADEGA VERSUS HOW THAT RACE PLAYED OUT.
“It’s definitely tough. I think there was give and take. It might not have been as apparent as it was in the spring race, but there was definitely some give and take. We tried, but with so many people on so many different game plans, it’s hard to put all that together. I thought it was an interesting race. There was a lot of crashes and I’m sure that’s what a lot of people want to see. So, hopefully it was a successful weekend for Talladega.”

WHAT MAKES KANSAS HARD?
“The restarts here, it’s just so inviting to take the guy in front of you three wide on the front stretch. Sometimes, that’s the thing to do. Sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes, you can be really aggressive and then you come off turn two, you are right back where you were before the restart. It’s hard to know exactly when the right time is to do that. Sometimes, you capitalize off of somebody else’s mistake. Sometimes, you capitalize off it working out. So, really knowing if you want to take that chance is kind of a split-second decision and whether it works out off turn two or when you get back around to the front for the next lap is to be determined. It’s definitely inviting to widen out and do something different than the guy in front of you.”

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO GET OVER TALLADEGA?
“Well, I was pretty much over it about the time I got out of the car. I mean, what do you do about it? We knew coming in that we were going to be in a tough spot. I knew that after we didn’t score any points in that first stage on Sunday, that we pretty much needed to win that second stage and probably finish in the top-5 to still be in the points situation to points our way through. We knew then that we were going to be in trouble. After we crashed coming to the end of the second stage, we pretty much knew our fate was going to be to have to win the race or win at Kansas. It didn’t work out at Talladega, but we have an opportunity here and we just have to embrace that. Hopefully it works out.”

OBVIOUSLY, YOU RACE YOUR TEAMMATES EVERY WEEKEND. IS THERE REALLY ANYTHING DIFFERENT WITH WHAT’S AT STAKE?
“Obviously, one of us could make it through and the rest of us couldn’t. So, there’s definitely more at stake. I’m not really sure it changes how we do things though. I feel like our weekly routine has been the same all year long. It’s going to stay the same, I can’t bow out of our competition meeting this afternoon and I’m not going to. So, I don’t think either one of the other guys would either. We’ll continue to do our part and however we use that to our advantage is up to us.”

INAUDIBLE
“I think it’s been OK. We’ve had a couple of good runs here and we had a good race here last fall. When we started today, I thought we were kind of in left field a little bit. We made a couple of changes and I think it got us a lot closer. We just have to get a little better. Like I said, I think there are going to be a handful of cars that probably have their stuff driving good enough to win. I don’t think it’s going to be one guy, it seems like it’s going to be a handful of people. Whether it’s whoever gets out front on the last pit stop or the last restart, they will probably be the one to beat. Hopefully that’s us.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.