Category: NASCAR Cup PR

CHASE ELLIOTT, CHEVROLET CAMARO ZL1 SCORE VICTORY AT CHARLOTTE
Team Chevy Takes Four of Top-10

CONCORD, NC (September 29, 2019) – Chase Elliott adds to his impressive road course resume by winning the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course in his No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Camaro ZL1, his third victory of the season and 13th top-10 finish in 2019.

With a dominating performance in a chaotic race, Elliott rallied from a near-disastrous wreck when leading the restart on lap 64, and was eventually able to retake the lead of the 248-lap race with just six laps to go. The victory, Chevrolet’s sixth win of the season, is the manufacturer’s 46th win at the Charlotte facility, the first ROVAL win for Team Chevy, and the 785th all-time win in NASCAR’S top series. The win at the 17-turn, 2.32-mile road course is Elliott’s sixth victory in 142 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series Races starts.

The win is the 256th MENCS triumph for Hendrick Motorsports, which was also celebrated by Elliott’s teammates Alex Bowman, who finished in the runner-up spot in his No. 88 Nationwide Retirement Plans Camaro ZL1, William Byron, who was sixth in his No. 24 UniFirst Camaro ZL1, and Jimmie Johnson with a ninth-place finish in his No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1.

Kevin Harvick (Ford) was third, Clint Bowyer (Ford) was fourth, and Brad Keselowski (Ford) rounded out the top-five finishers in the race.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Dover International Speedway with the Drydene 400 on Sunday, October 6 at 2:30 P.M. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBCSN, NBC Sports Gold, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

CHASE ELLIOTT, RICK HENDRICK (OWNER), AND ALAN GUSTAFSON (CREW CHIEF), NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

THE MODERATOR: Good evening. We are going to start our post‑race media availability here for today’s Bank of America Roval 400 with our race‑winning team owner, Mr. Rick Hendrick. Congratulations on that victory. We will take questions for Rick.

Q. Rick, what was your swing of emotions from watching Chase go nose first into the wall and then him coming back and winning?
RICK HENDRICK: Man, I thought it was over. I mean, I thought that he made ‑‑ if we came back to the top 10, that would be great. But the car was really fast, and I thought it was hurt when it went into that barrier. But he came out and the lap times were good, and then we got a couple of cautions that helped us, and he got back up to the front. The car was really good, and he made some unbelievable moves, so I’m just really proud. Three out of the last five road courses he’s won, that’s pretty sporty.

Q. That was a really gritty performance by Bowman. Can you just talk about the heart that this kid has and what he put into his performance today?
RICK HENDRICK: You know, nobody tries any harder than Alex does. He just didn’t give up. I mean, and he was quick, but he ‑‑ I mean, he just refused to lose today. I thought, man, if he gets up there to Chase, we might have a problem. But no, Alex is committed. He’s a hundred percent in. Greg, that’s such a good team. I’m excited to see where they’re going to go here in the next round. But he did ‑‑ when you think about where he came from and finished second, that was unbelievable. Proud of him.

Q. Rick, Chicagoland aside earlier this year, do you believe that today and maybe these last two days are a defining moment for Alex within his history at Hendrick?
RICK HENDRICK: I think Alex is just getting better, and he’s had some rough luck. But if I watch his progression, especially on the mile‑and‑a‑half, he’s got heart. I mean, he’s got talent, and he’s got heart. And I think giving him the right circumstances and cars, he’s going to win more races.
I’m extremely happy with Alex because his commitment is 100 percent. He and the team work extremely well together, and he will not give up. So I think that’s the key to Alex Bowman, and we’re getting better, and he’s getting better, and I’m looking forward to the future with him.

Q. Last season Chase obviously won his first race at Watkins Glen and then really the team seemed to gel in the playoffs. They got a couple wins the season before the playoffs. Given his performance today and what you’ve seen so far this season, do you see any reason why he can’t be a contender for one of the four spots at Homestead?
RICK HENDRICK: Absolutely. He is ‑‑ he’s been good everywhere. But the organization is getting better, all the cars have got speed, and Chase has got so much confidence. I’m just looking forward to Dover and Kansas. I think they’re going to be great races for us, and I think Chase can go all the way.
There’s a lot of guys have built up a lot of bonus points in front of us, but I think we can win our way in.

Q. Chase’s celebration, did you see that, and what did you think of it?
RICK HENDRICK: No, I didn’t see it. I think he went back to the barrier and did his burnout there. I thought that was cool. But I didn’t see it. But I thought it was really neat.
You know, I think Chase, he doesn’t give himself enough credit. I mean, he told me after the race he kind of made a big mistake. Man, you drove the wheels off the car and you won, you came back. Everybody, that’s a tough ‑‑ I think that’s the toughest corner in it. But I think that was cool that he did that.

Q. And then during the race, Alex had an incident with Bubba Wallace and Bubba also confronted him post‑race. I was wondering if you saw those things and what your opinions were on it?
RICK HENDRICK: I didn’t see that. Any know. I knew Alex was dehydrated and went to the care center, but I did not know anything about he and Bubba having a confrontation. That’s news to me.

Q. Did you say anything to Alex after the wreck yesterday and starting the backup car and having kind of this week of adversity? Did you say anything special to him before this race about the odds stacked against him?
RICK HENDRICK: Actually before the race started I talked to him. I said, hey, man, you’ll be go, just do your thing. Don’t worry about the car, you’ll be good. He carries a lot of weight on his shoulders, a lot of pressure, and we try to help him all we can because he wants it so bad. He was beating himself up about wrecking a car with 30 seconds left in practice, but this is a whole new day.
I think coming away from this race, he’s going to have a lot of confidence going into Dover because I kept hearing the guys tell him where he was, two points ahead, one point behind, three points, got to pass this guy, you’ve got to pass that guy. On this track, that is the most treacherous track that I’ve seen these cars run on. If you make a mistake you’re in big trouble. I’m real proud of his performance today.

Q. Rick, I was just wondering if you could talk about the maturity of William Byron through the first round of the playoffs and how far that can take them?
RICK HENDRICK: Yeah, nobody knows how hard William Byron works. Chad Knaus gives him homework. He studies everything. He’s mature way beyond anything I could imagine. He listens, he picks every single video apart and looks at all the traces. Nobody works as hard as William does to understand what he did wrong and what he did right or the guys that are in front of him, what they’re doing. He is coming so quick to be, what, 10 front row starts, five poles, laps led. He was really good at Sonoma. He was good at Watkins Glen. He got into that jam with Kyle. But that kid is going to ‑‑ I’m not going to call him kid. That man is going to be really good for a lot of years to come. I’m super excited about our young guys.

Q. Not related to the race, the Stenhouse news this week created a little bit of a flurry. There’s a lot of driver change going on. I know your lineup is presently set. What do you make of what’s happening right now, and do you consider this a reset?
RICK HENDRICK: You know, I can’t really put myself in anybody else’s shoes. When you’re a team owner you get a lot of pressure from the sponsors. People expect you to do things, expect your people to perform and handle themselves a certain way. You know, I can’t really judge what another owner does because I’m not in their shoes.
It’s a tough business. That one shocked me because I thought that Buescher was all set in the 37.

Q. Rick, you started today with two drivers on either side of the cut line and you walk out of today with the win, four drivers in the top 10 and three drivers moving on in the playoffs. Just talk about how big today was for Hendrick.
RICK HENDRICK: Well, you know, any time you can bring all the cars and they can run well ‑‑ we haven’t been as good as we needed to be this year and last year, but we’ve worked extremely hard, and to see the cars run like they did today, super proud of them, and it’s a lot of ‑‑ you know, it’s a lot of hard work. There’s so many good teams and good cars out there. To finish in the top 10 or top 8 with four cars, it’s really hard. I’ve never seen the competition as tough as it is right now with as much talent as there is in the top 10 drivers. It’s going to be a dogfight all the way to Homestead.

Q. Rick, of your four drivers, Chase and William were obviously the youngsters, Jimmie is the elder statesman, but a lot of people don’t remember that Alex has got almost 150 starts in the series. Do you put additional pressure on him because of his experience, or do you let him just kind of be his own man and whatever evolves evolves?
RICK HENDRICK: I don’t think you can count his starts. I think you have to look at the equipment he was in, and if he had equal equipment as what these other guys have, I think he would be in much better ‑‑ he would have done better, won more. Every time we put Alex in a car ‑‑ the first time up in New Hampshire, he was running up in the top 10. I mean, he’s got a tremendous amount of talent. There’s so many guys in this sport that have a lot of talent that just never get an opportunity to get in the right seat.

Q. I think you touched on what I wanted to ask you about, but with the stable of drivers that you have now compared to years ago with Gordon, with Johnson and whatnot, what is the learning curve when you have a younger set of drivers and you’re trying to groom them but trying to manage the expectations of sponsors and running the business?
RICK HENDRICK: You know, our sponsors are pretty excited about the young guys because they see how much potential they have. I think by having Jimmie there with them and Chase’s experience, that they feed off of each other. I look forward to years to come because I felt like, yeah, William had not done ‑‑ he hadn’t spent any time in most any series, but he’s a quick learner and got a lot of talent. But you never know how good they’re going to be until you put them out there with the best, and it’s when they start running the top 15, top 10, that’s one thing, but when he starts running up there in the top 5 with the guys that are winning the races, that’s when you see the level of talent they have, and now what they need is experience. They just need to keep racing and running up front, and they’ll get their share of wins.

THE MODERATOR: We’re going to continue with our post‑race media availability here for today’s Bank of America Roval 400. We’re now joined by our race‑winning crew chief, Alan Gustafson. We’ll take questions for Alan.

Q. What was the damage that was done when Chase plowed into the tire barrier?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Fortunately, it really wasn’t much. It seemed like it pushed the hood down more than anything and kind of pushed the hood inside of the top of the fenders and kind of pushed it back into the windshield. The biggest thing that we really had to do is get that back sealed up and get it down. Having that vented isn’t the greatest thing in the world for the performance of the car. Yeah, it was a biggest task. As long as the splitter was intact and in good condition, no tire rubs, we were going to be in decent shape. That was the case. We got lucky on that. I don’t know how we didn’t have more substantial damage than that. I think that just went our way.

Q. What did Chase say happened when he hit that tire barrier?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Well, those restarts, it’s tough to time your speed when they’re out there running laps. They exit that chicane pretty consistently, and then have their braking marker set up. In that situation he was carrying a bit more speed than he had at the restart before, and I haven’t gone back and analyzed if he braked at the same spot or drove it in a bit deeper, but nevertheless he locked up the left front tire and couldn’t get it back and just had to go straight.

Q. How surprised were you ‑‑ obviously you’ve got to have confidence and all that when you make those repairs, but he slid into the frigging wall nose first. How surprised happily were you when he was starting ‑‑ when you could see that it really didn’t affect him that much?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, it was ‑‑ as soon as he backed it out, I was like, man, it looks pretty good, and then NBC kind of followed us, so we had great shots of the car, and we could see that it just didn’t sustain that much damage. Yeah, I mean, super surprised. I just kind of going off last year and the thing that kind of stands out is when the 2 did something similar and took half the field with him. Those cars were destroyed. You know, when you see him kind of smoking it off in there like that, you’re like, yeah, that’s not going to be good. But it worked out for us. I don’t know if the tires ‑‑ I don’t know what’s down there to be honest with you, if it’s tire barriers or some type of foam barrier or whatever, but it seemed like it just slid up the nose of the car and ultimately didn’t damage it very much.

Q. Per NASCAR’s timing and scoring data, you had the second fastest car in the race today. Through the three road courses this year, your car ranked as the fastest. Over the last few years, Hendrick Motorsports has waned in terms of overall speed but you’ve managed to maintain really good speed on road courses. How have you been able to do this?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, who was fastest today? I’m surprised we weren’t fastest. Harvick was? Gotcha.
Yeah, I think it starts with Chase. I think he’s a good road racer. We were fortunate enough really where this kind of started in my opinion was we had a test at Watkins Glen in 2016 when he was a rookie, and we worked through a lot of things there, and we came up with a really good package that was really good and really fast, and something he was very comfortable with.
Unfortunately we didn’t really perform that well that year, but that is the basis. That test was the basis. That’s where we found the speed in the car and were able to generate a package that had a lot of pace, and we’ve just carried that on kind of from that point in time.
I think we’ve run better than it shows in ’16 and even this year. Obviously we won Watkins Glen and here and then we were third at Sonoma when we had an engine failure. Yeah, I think it starts with him, and then that test rings to me as a place that since then we’ve just had good pace and a good package that we can build on.

Q. Alan, timing is everything, and you guys right now are showing the speed that you need to. All three Hendrick cars are into the next round. What do you guys need to move on to that round of 8, and how close are you to being where you need to be to compete for the championship?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, I mean, these rounds are tough. This round, you can get through this round with just not making mistakes. Fortunately for us we ran really well at Vegas and really good here, so‑so at Richmond, but they’re going to get tougher, and with Talladega looming, you never know what’s going to happen there.
We’re going to have to have knockout top 5s and win, and certainly I think to get to Homestead, if we don’t win and get close on bonus points to get to Homestead, we’re going to have to win a round in that round of 8. I think the 4, the 19, the 18, the 11 I guess, I don’t know where we stack up to all those guys now, but certainly the 19 and the 18 have a lot of bonus points, so it’s tough to make up that amount on those guys in three races. Even if you outrun them, those guys are typically in the top 10 scoring stage points. For us moving forward we’re going to have to be top 5 certainly this next round and then winning past that.

Q. Alan, I think at one point you or Chase might have expressed some frustration on the yellows that were called today, lack of yellows. Can you comment on that?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: I expressed some frustration on the lineup. That was really frustrating for me. I didn’t see anything about the yellows. The lineup there when we had gotten tires, I can’t remember, it cycled back and some guys had stayed out, and we had just pit, beat the 4 off pit road, first car off pit road, and then they were supposed to swap the 48 and the 2, and that was what was conveyed to the spotters, and then the 48 pulled down and the 2 stayed in the bottom lane, and he was supposed to swap to the top lane. So long story short, that puts us back a whole ‘nother row and puts Harvick up a whole ‘nother row, so a guy that we beat off pit road now is three spots in front of us, which is unbelievable to me, and I just don’t see how you can start the race in that position.
Fortunately for us, we were able to win that stage, but that was going to be ‑‑ that put us in a bad spot, and I feel like the team and the driver and all of us had put ourselves in position where we needed to be, and then to get kind of bumped back like that ‑‑ I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m not in the tower, and I’m certainly not criticizing the job that those guys do. They’ve got a very, very tough job. But if the 2 was supposed to move and he didn’t move, he needed to be black flagged; it’s that simple. Now, if there was something that I didn’t understand correctly or he wasn’t supposed to move, then that’s a different story but there’s really no scenario that I can understand where the 4 should be in front of us when we beat him off pit road, right. There’s nothing that could transpire to me that would move him up.
So that was really frustrating. And fortunately we came back from it, but you never know, right, that could have been the difference between that one stage point or that could have been the difference between getting crashed or not getting crashed, and who knows what happens.

Q. Is this a difficult race because it’s so new for everybody, NASCAR included, and when spins happen, sometimes they’re yellow, sometimes they’re not, is it harder for you on what are going to be cautions and what aren’t?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, my opinion on the cautions are, look, you don’t want to throw them, and I’m assuming that’s what they’re trying to do. I’m not watching the race as intently as you guys are or they are for sure. My comment on the cautions is you want to delay it. I’ve done a lot of road racing in my life and in my career, and that’s pretty standard operating procedure. They leave it green until there’s a point that somebody is in harm’s way, and I think that’s what they tried to do, what I’m assuming they tried to do, and if somebody is in ultimate in harm’s way and their safety is at risk, then the caution comes out. But there’s so much space, you should allow the race to transpire, and I think that’s the best philosophy and the way it should happen, and the premier road racing series will do that typically, even when cars have failures and pull off to the side, as long as they’re out of harm’s way, they continue to race.

Q. You’ve been with Chase for a little while now, and I think a lot of us and the fans have been spoiled in recent times with the chemistry developing very quickly between drivers and crew chiefs, and there were years where that would take seasons for it ever to really gel, but you guys have been together a little bit, and it seems like you’re starting to get more to that almost finishing each other’s sentences now. Do you feel like you’re at that point where just by things like the inflection in Chase’s voice lets you know what’s going on even without him telling you?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, I mean, I think that relationships is kind of like an arranged marriage. You never know ‑‑ you kind of don’t really choose your driver and the driver doesn’t really choose his crew chief in most circumstances. You never know if you’re going to see it eye to eye or you’re going to get along, and I think it takes a while to build trust in the relationship and to build the foundation to know that ultimately I’m looking after his best interest and he’s looking after my best interest, and certainly the best interest of the team.
For us, I’ve been pretty fortunate with the guys I’ve worked with, it’s not been a huge problem, and it wasn’t a huge problem with Chase, and we’ve gotten along pretty well from the beginning. But over time as you go through different circumstances and different situations, that gets a bit stronger and stronger, and as you have success, right, you get stronger and stronger, and that forges a better relationship and puts you in a situation where you can overcome more things and you don’t waver. The worst thing you can do is if things don’t go your way, the worst thing I can do, right, is say he made a mistake and try to blame him, and the worst thing he can do is say, well, the car did this or that and try to blame me. That doesn’t get you anywhere. I think if you’ve been through it enough and have trust and faith in each other and all that stuff, you just deal with it and focus on improving, and that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always tried to do and I think it’s certainly not getting worse, and I think probably getting better because we’ve been having some pretty reasonable success.

THE MODERATOR: We will take questions for Chase.

Q. When you hit the barrier in Turn 1, after that, when did you know it was going to be okay and you might have a chance?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, definitely at the time I thought we were done for sure. You know, I could see they were showing it up on the big screen, I could see the big screen down the back and I was looking at it, and I was like, well, the hood is not that bad, but I thought the splitter was knocked up, and I felt like if that was going to be the case, then we were probably done from there, and obviously just a really stupid mistake. I mean, I’m not sure you could do something more stupid than that.
If there ever is a notebook of things not to do, that should be number one in that book.

Q. You asked on the radio (indiscernible)?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I was curious about it, and I just didn’t compensate enough for the faster pace. I mean, yeah, it was nobody’s fault but mine.

Q. You’ve had your first win came at Watkins Glen a couple years ago. How does this racetrack compare to Watkins Glen as a road course?
CHASE ELLIOTT: It doesn’t. I mean, other than you turn right. It’s really different. But I felt like this track is more similar to Sonoma than I think it is Watkins Glen for sure, but it’s still road course racing, and it’s still ‑‑ the fundamentals I think are similar, but the track surface and the condition and everything is definitely ‑‑ definitely suits more of a Sonoma style than Watkins Glen.

Q. Chase, you’ve won races at each of the next three tracks in the Round of 12. Do you anticipate a win coming in the next three weeks?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I hope so. You know, nice to have an extra six points going into the next round for sure. We’ll go to work on Dover on Tuesday and start our prep and really think about the next one. But it’s hard to carry anything really from today into next week just because it’s back to the ovals. Anything we learned today from a road course standpoint obviously we don’t have another one the rest of the year. But can definitely take those six points with you as long as you’re alive in this playoff system, and hopefully we don’t need them but we got them, and hopefully ‑‑ well, it’s good either way, so we have them.

Q. Your celebration was obviously in like the Hall of Fame of celebrations. At what point did it occur to you, like you know what, I’m going to just drive it back down there and stuff it in there and do a burnout?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I was coming back on the frontstretch and I saw that dang thing, and I was like, well, I couldn’t pass this opportunity up to go down here and redeem myself a little bit in Turn 1. Yeah, I was pretty excited about that one. I’m typically not very quick‑witted, but I was really proud of that. I was pretty fired up. Definitely it should have never been special in the first place, but since I went out of my way to make it special today, I felt like I had to go back and see it one more time.

Q. You didn’t sound too pleased with your practice or your qualifying on Friday, but of course practice went really well for you yesterday. What were you able to see yesterday that helped you bring it together today?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, that’s a good question. Friday was really just a struggle. Just never felt like I got into a rhythm Friday, spun out there in qualifying, made a dumb mistake there, too, and that set us back. Certainly not how you want to start the race, middle of the pack. You’re asking for it in there and getting body damage or some problem. You know, luckily was able to get our car driving better yesterday in practice, and then stayed out of trouble those first handful of laps and was able to get strung out and get into a rhythm and from there felt like our car was close.

Q. Chase, in the several weeks leading up to your win at Watkins Glen, you guys had struggled a lot with performance. I was just wondering since then up until today’s victory, do you feel you guys have corrected some of the problems that you thought you had or addressed and feel that it’s put you in a good position to challenge for the championship?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Oh, I think we’re a stronger team now than we’ve ever been. I honestly feel like we’re really close to being able to assert ourselves amongst those top teams. I feel like we have that in us. I don’t say that because we won today, I say that because I believe it. I think that we definitely have work to do. You know, you can’t go and run as bad as we did last weekend and then come here and win. You’ve got to be able to have a little more consistency than that. So we definitely have our work cut out for us and trying to get better. But I think we are the type of team and we have a good enough group of guys that we can run with those guys or really whoever, I think, whenever we’re at our best, and I thought we proved that today.

Q. Chase, it was a good weekend for the entire Elliott family. Your dad got to visit Victory Lane yesterday at Road Atlanta and then you win today. I can’t imagine that’s something you thought would happen over the course of your career. What did that mean to you?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it was cool. They’ve been driving vintage cars at Road Atlanta this weekend. I wanted to go over there and see it. I’ve never made a lap at Road Atlanta. It looks like a really cool place. Definitely neat, not something you would necessarily think would happen. That’s kind of a tough thing to do for sure. But definitely pretty cool and hopefully we can share some more weekends like that moving on.

Q. Alan was in here and was talking about how there was confusion for you guys on the order of one of those cautions. Could you explain that?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I’d have to ask a question on that one. I don’t understand why that was okay or why that wasn’t addressed. But yeah, I think the 48 and the 2 were in flip‑flopped positions. It was made apparent over the radio. I think Jimmie made a very conscious effort to move down and try to swap with the 2, and the 2 wasn’t having it. That was his decision. But they let him run with it, and I’m not sure.
Yeah, I can’t answer that. I think they were supposed to swap spots and one of them did and the other one didn’t, so you tell me.

Q. Is this race tougher year two? I know it’s a road course but a different kind of road course, for NASCAR to call it where sometimes guys spin and there’s yellows, sometimes there’s not? Is it confusing from that perspective?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I don’t know ‑‑ obviously that’s a discretion call for whoever makes that decision. If they think somebody is wrecked bad enough or whatever, I guess then they put the caution out. I don’t know. But that’s not really for me to concern myself over. I don’t make that decision. Luckily for us today the cautions fell at a good time, and honestly had more cautions there at the end than what I was wanting, but you don’t always get what you want, and luckily it worked out for us.

Q. You’ve demonstrated your abilities at just about every venue you’ve been, but it seems like the road course seems to suit your style very well. Does a road course typically challenge a driver more or is a road course just a road course and an oval is an oval?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s tough. They’re very different, your approach and how you drive the cars are very different, but I feel like you have to be able to be good at all of them. There’s really just not an area I think that you can be bad at nowadays and expect to compete with the guys who win championships in this deal.
We put as much emphasis on the road courses just as we do the other races. You know, and sometimes they have gone well and sometimes they haven’t. We’ve had our struggles at Sonoma and Watkins Glen really for that matter and had our struggles here on Friday. So I mean, it’s not just a guarantee you’re going to run good. It’s definitely a challenge, and it can be a challenge for whoever.

Q. Chase, I know it was a foam barrier, but when you’re going head‑on into something like that at that kind of speed, what are you thinking? What’s going through your mind?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I was just thinking, you idiot, like what did you just do, more than anything. But I hit it pretty hard. I thought it would hurt it a lot worse than what it did, and luckily the splitter didn’t get knocked up, and that was the saving grace of the whole thing. It was just kind of cosmetic hood damage and didn’t bust the radiator. Guys did a good job ‑‑ a lot of times when you have damage like that you come down pit road and try to fix it a lot of times you can make it worse than pushing and pulling on that stuff. Those are fragile areas. There’s really no support for the front fenders after it leaves the front bumper. It’s kind of its own piece of metal until it gets back to the A‑post, so that’s a fragile piece of an area of the car that could potentially cause a tire rub or this or that. The guys did a nice job to put it together the right way.

Q. You may have answered part of this, but to lead 35 laps, to be out there, to overcome what had happened and to have that momentum going into the next round of the playoffs, how important is that for you as a team to get that win?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, I mean, just those extra six points, you know. Who led the most laps today? Is that a point? Not anymore? Never mind, bummer.
But anyway, so yeah, I guess six points, that’s a big deal regardless, and obviously we wanted to win. But those six points stick with you, and you can’t put a price tag on that. You hope it doesn’t come down to six points. You hope that you’re cruising there and you’re able to run good enough or better yet win, but they’re nice to have for sure, and like I said, you can’t put a price tag on them. Those guys that have five, six wins are pretty well cruising to Homestead. You know that, and that’s the goal when we get to Daytona in February is to try to get up enough wins where these rounds, if you have a bad race that you can keep digging.

Q. Chase, I just wanted to go back to the accident. What was going on behind the wheel? Did it look as smooth or was it as smooth as it looked on TV when you hit the tire barrier and then seemed like you were quickly in reverse and got yourself going again?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I knew long before I hit it that I was going to hit it, so I was just thinking about reverse and getting out of there and finding a hole to crawl in as fast as possible because that was pretty dumb.

Q. On this course, and I don’t know if it’s because it’s the Roval or if it’s just the way this one lays out, but most of the time on road courses, passing is done under braking, and you out‑brake a guy and beat him in. We didn’t get to see all of your overtakes today, but it seemed like most of them were actually on acceleration and coming off of corners faster. Is that just the nature of this course, or was it the way your car was running?
CHASE ELLIOTT: You know, you just try to do ‑‑ you try to take advantage of wherever your strong points are, and I just didn’t feel ‑‑ at other places, braking zones are ‑‑ I think here, a braking zone would be a great place to pass. The problem with here is if you blow the backstretch, you’ve ruined ‑‑ you could potentially have ruined your day. The risk versus reward there doesn’t make a lot of sense. Other places, Watkins Glen, you out‑brake somebody into Turn 1, well, if you blow it you just run wide. So I think you have to think about that, and I think that was probably a big reason why guys just weren’t just champing at the bit to pull out of line down the back because we didn’t know if we were going to make it by ourselves a lot of times, much less two people.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

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
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY ROAD COURSE
BANK OF AMERICA ROVAL 400
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
September 29, 2019

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Playoff Contender)
1st * CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1
2nd * ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE RETIREMENT PLANS CAMARO ZL1
6th * WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1
9th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1
13th * KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1

TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Playoff Contender)
1st * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
2nd * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
3rd Kevin Harvick (Ford)
4th Clint Bowyer (Ford)
5th Brad Keselowski (Ford)

UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK (Following Round 3 of 10)
POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Contender)
1. Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
2. Kevin Harvick (Ford)
3. Brad Keselowski (Ford)
4. * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
5. Joey Logano (Ford)
6. Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
7. Kyle Busch (Toyota)
8. * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
9. Clint Bowyer (Ford)
10. * William Byron (Chevrolet)
11. Ryan Blaney (Ford)
12. * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
13. Aric Almirola (Ford)
14. Ryan Newman (Ford)
15. * Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)
16. Erik Jones (Toyota)

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Dover International Speedway with the Drydene 400 on Sunday, October 6 at 2:30 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 – RACE WINNER
“It’s almost like an away team taking away a win at home. All my guys are from here and obviously Hendrick Motorsports is right over here behind the race track. It’s a home win for most people and that’s all that matters. What a day; I was about as tired as I think I’ve ever been after an event. So, I just appreciate the effort. The guys just didn’t quit. It was unbelievable, they fixed the thing the right away. A lot of times, you can make mistakes fixing these things and sometimes you can even make it worse. They made sure they did it the right way and got us a win.”

HOW DOES THIS SEND THE MESSAGE TO THE COMPETITION, AS FAST AS THIS HOTROD WAS TODAY AND PICKING UP THAT WIN HERE IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS?
“Yeah, it’s our last road course, so the biggest thing is I think we have six more bonus points to continue forward with. A win is awesome. It doesn’t get any better than that. There’s no feeling like winning one of these races.”

“Appreciate all our partners, everybody that helps us on this car, Hooters, Mountain Dew, Kelley Blue Book, Valvoline, Chevrolet. Obviously had great power today to drive back up through there. What a day. Somebody in the media the other day asked me if this would be like an upset if a guy from Georgia came up here to North Carolina and won, and I never really thought about that, but now that he says that, I kind of like it. We’ll take this one back to Georgia. For me and all my guys here, we’re going to celebrate and enjoy it. These wins are too hard to get not to enjoy, and just happy we could overcome a lot of adversity.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE RETIREMENT PLANS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 2nd
WENT TO INFIELD CARE CENTER IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE RACE. ALEX, WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU?
“I was just really sick Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; I felt a little bit better today. But I was just really behind on being hydrated and just kind of exhausted. I was tired and everything was real tingly, which is not a great feeling inside a race car. I got some fluids and I’m definitely feeling better. We’ll be good to go in Dover.”

CONGRATULATIONS ON MAKING IT INTO THE NEXT ROUND. HOW DID YOU GET THAT DONE AFTER THE FIRST LAP INCIDENT AND HOW TOUGH WERE THE FINAL LAPS KNOWING YOU DIDN’T FEEL WELL?
“Yeah, I mean probably about lap 10 of the race, I was pretty done and out of it just from a physical standpoint. I just tried to keep digging and obviously, I tried to give it away on lap 1. As soon as I touched the brake pedal it started wheel-hopping and turned around on me. I apologize to those that got collected in that. I feel like I hurt myself more than anybody on that one. But I’m glad we were able to rebound and the guys obviously gave me a really strong car to get back through the field. There at the end, cautions were rough. Under green it is what it is. But under caution, when you actually have time to think about how you feel, it’s not much fun.”

DID THE RED FLAG MAKE IT WORSE?
“Oh, for sure. I saw them coming with water and I was out of water in the car; and they didn’t get to me. They got like four cars behind me and then they started rolling. And I was like, dang-it, man; I could have used that water. It’s just part of it. I feel like I’ve been doing a pretty good job on the physical side of things this year with a lot of help from Josh Wise and leaning on Jimmie Johnson a lot. But, when you’re sick, it just gets to you.”

NOW THE TOUGH PART OF THIS RACE: ON THE INCIDENT WITH BUBBA WALLACE. WALK US THROUGH WHAT HAPPENED. IT SEEMED LIKE IT HAD BEEN GOING ON FOR A WHILE
“Yeah, I don’t know if he was mad about the first lap, or what, but obviously that was just a mistake. And then I got flipped off every single straightaway on the entire race track for three laps. I got flipped off by him for like three or four laps in a row at Richmond, so I’m just over it.”

AND YOU DECIDED TO TAKE ACTION ON YOUR OWN?
“I’ve got to stand up for myself at some point, right? He probably wouldn’t have got wrecked if he had his finger back in the car. But, I’m just proud of our guys today and just really focused on moving forward and being good this weekend (in Dover).”

YOU HAD THE INCIDENT WITH AUSTIN DILLON LAST WEEK AND THEN THIS WEEK WITH BUBBA WALLACE. IS THERE A CONCERN ABOUT THAT MOVING FORWARD AS A PLAYOFF DRIVER?
“No, we’ve just got to focus on going and running well. At Dover we finished second in the spring, so our race car is going to be really strong there and we’ve just got to capitalize on that.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 UNIFIRST CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 6th
WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE FOR YOU IN ADVANCING TO THE NEXT ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS IN JUST YOUR SECOND YEAR OF CUP?
“Yeah, it feels awesome. It was a goal accomplished. We had a good car and we could have gone for more, for sure. But I just wanted to finish the race. I knew we were close on points, so just to finish the race was a goal accomplished. A sixth-place finish is good and we’ll go onto Dover. I know it’s a good track for us.

HOW DOES THE MINDSET CHANGE NOW FROM GETTING ENOUGH POINTS TO MOVE ON TO NEXT WEEK?
“Same thing, we can continue to do this for sure. I have to recover from this race, the heat and go to Dover and have a really good race there.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9th
“We had a good car. We lacked a little drive off of the turns and would fade a little bit over the long haul, but I still think we really were a top-five car. I just made three really big mistakes in the race and cost us. I locked up my front tires three different times, flat-spotted the tires, and we had to pit out of sequence. I spun around once on one of those wild restarts. So, a rally back to ninth was a nice recover, but I’m kicking myself for the mistakes I made.”

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS CARS WERE FAST TODAY. HOW DOES THAT EFFECT YOUR CONFIDENCE GOING INTO THE REST OF THE SEASON?
“Yeah, we’re getting better. Man, it was impressive to watch that 9 car. He had the field covered. If we keep working together and understanding what’s making the cars go, then we’re going to have all four cars where they need to be soon.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 13th
“I felt like Chase (Elliott) was probably the fastest, but I felt like myself and William (Byron) were probably the next best. We won the first stage and during that pit stop, I didn’t wait on them to pull tape and kind of drug the crew member out of the pit box. So, I got a penalty there, a pretty stiff one. I had to lose a lap, but I got the lucky dog. I thought we were going to be OK and there at the end. We actually had a slow green-flag stop because we had some damage and they couldn’t get the right front out. We ended up 13th, but I felt like we could have easily been in the top-three. Just disappointed that we don’t have the finish to show for how good our car was.”

“We just had to be cautious and stay out on older tires to try to be ahead of the craziness that was bound to happen. I just lost a lot of spots to guys on new tires. I just wish I would have had more points so we could have come to pit and be aggressive on tires and not really worry about crashing. We’re onto the next round. We’ve been running pretty strong in these Playoffs, so we’ll keep going.”

IS THIS A SURVIVE AND ADVANCE THING HERE WITH HOW CRAZY THAT IT IS?
“I felt like the first round, for sure. If you can stomach mistakes, you can make it through. We haven’t made many mistakes, we have two top-10’s out of the three races and pretty comfortably made it to the next round. You may be able to do that in the next round, but once you get into the third round, you have to start winning.”

HOW HARD DO YOU THINK ROUND TWO WILL BE?
“It’s going to be a harder round for sure. You just have to be on your game, you have to be running good like we have been.”

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, September 29, 2019
EVENT: Bank of America Roval 400, Charlotte Motor Speedway

Ford Finishing Results:
3rd – Kevin Harvick
4th – Clint Bowyer
5th – Brad Keselowski
8th – Ryan Blaney
10th – Joey Logano
12th – Michael McDowell
14th – Aric Almirola
16th – Paul Menard
17th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
25th – Matt Tifft
27th – Corey LaJoie
32nd – Ryan Newman
34th – Daniel Suarez
35th – David Ragan

CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang – “We did what we had to do. We knew what we had to do all weekend long. We knew we had to dig ourselves out of a hole we put ourselves in at Vegas. We had a good weekend last weekend and had a great weekend this weekend. Coulda, woulda, shoulda – maybe a little bit more aggressive on those restarts, but, again, you could have got yourself wrecked too. When it got down there to the end and we got our stage points and got ourselves in contention and was where we needed to be, it was time to re-evaluate your situation and where you were running and just protect. We were in protection mode. That 9 and the 88 coming on those tires, man. It seems like every cycle would hurt old tires. I think if we could have got back green I honestly think Kevin would have won the race. I don’t know what, just heat-soaked or whatever else, we were a good bit slower after those cycles than we were before them, so I was bummed out for Kevin. He dominated that race and was up front all day long and looked to deliver Stewart-Haas our first Roval win, but I’m proud of everybody’s efforts. It was a team effort for sure all across the board. We worked together, practiced well, leaned on each other when we needed to and was courteous to one another on restarts and that’s the way a four-car team needs to work.”

ARE YOU READY TO RESET NOW? “Hell, yes. I’m excited to reset and not be playing catch-up. I won’t put ourselves in a hole again. Dover is a good track for me. Dover is a good track for our organization. I feel like we can get reset and go for that next Round of 8.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang – HOW WAS THE HEAT? “Yeah, it was tough. That’s part of it. They pay us to drive race cars and we don’t get to pick the weather, so some days it’s really hot and miserable and that’s what you train for.” DID THE SIDE WINDOW MAKE A DIFFERENCE? “It’s just hot in general. We’re inside of a race car with engine temps 250-300 degrees. The cars get really hot, so there’s nothing you can do. It’s just part of it and that’s why we do what we do.”

WHAT DID YOU NEED TO GET MORE? “I don’t know. I think they said we missed by five points, so the strategy we were on if the race would have continued to go green to the end we were gonna be in a good situation. I think we were seven or eight points to the good. That caution came out and kind of put us in a spot to where we had to choose, and I knew and Johnny knew that all the guys we were racing in points were gonna do the opposite of whatever we did. We were the first car ahead of all those guys on the cutline, so we stayed out and made our bed and all those guys came and got tires. That’s just part of it.”

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN NEWMAN JUMPED THE CHICANE? “I knew he was gonna have to make a pass-through. I was putting a lot of pressure on him there trying to get by him. He was either gonna make a mistake or I was gonna move him out of the way and he made a mistake, but it wasn’t enough. We still had to get more cars, so I think we came up four or five points short.”

HOW FRUSTRATED ARE YOU? “I don’t know. I’m disappointed. It didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to, but I’m still really blessed and fortunate to have this opportunity. So many people put a lot behind me. Everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing, Smithfield, Ford Motor Company and so it stings, but the sun is gonna come up tomorrow, I’m still gonna be Aric Almirola, I’m still gonna be a husband and a father. They’re not gonna take my birthday away, so as disappointing as it is, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll move on to Dover next week and continue to fight and battle. It’s still really achievable to go and finish fifth in the points. We did that last year and we can go have some good runs, but most importantly we just need to continue to build for next year. Off the top of my head I can’t help but think about 2017, the 22 missed the Playoffs and then comes back the very next year and wins the championship. We can’t let this define us, missing the next round and the cut. We’ll continue to build and sometimes you go through adversity and it makes you better and strong. Last year, it seemed like everything kind of came relatively easy for a new race team and me being new to the organization to go on the run that we had last year and finish fifth in the points. Unfortunately, this year we’re going through some adversity.”

RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Performance Plus Ford Mustang – “I felt like I made a lot of mistakes trying too hard. We did not have the race car and that’s what I had to do. I felt like we were in a position at one point and then just kept trying too hard trying to keep the 10 car behind us and missed the curbs. That was unfortunate. We came in at a big deficiency and finished one point out or whatever it was, but, no matter what, we’re still gonna fight for fifth. I’m proud of everybody at Roush Fenway for the fight and the opportunity that they’ve given me. We’re not done, we’re just out at this point.”

ANY SATISFACTION WITH HOW YOU CARRIED THE TEAM ON YOUR BACK? “I didn’t carry the team on my back. We worked together. They carried me. I carried them at times and it’s a team effort. It was a team effort today that failed, but it’s still a team effort and I’m just really proud of everybody’s hard work. We’re not done. We’re gonna keep digging. We’ve got some stuff up our sleeve for later in this Playoff and we’ll do what we can to try to get to fifth.”

WHAT HAPPENED WITH SUAREZ OUT THERE? “We had a little miscommunication. I missed the curbs down there in the chicane and I was under the impression that I had to do a stop-and-go over there, but then they told me I had to do a pass-through, I guess because I didn’t get it that lap, so I zigged and zagged and I guess got him turned around or whatever. It wasn’t anything intentional by any means, but whether he thought it was or didn’t I didn’t really care.”

WHAT ABOUT THE CHICANE RULE? “I really don’t like this race track at all, so asking me about the chicane is not gonna narrow it down.”

DOES HAVING A DAUGHTER HERE KEEP THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE? “It’s awesome to have her here. That’s special for me to have her come out and be a part of this. It doesn’t make it all better, but it surely makes it better.”

YOU GAVE ALL YOU COULD. “Yeah, we just didn’t have it. I screwed up several times. We didn’t have a great race car, struggled all weekend, didn’t qualify good, just nothing went our way, but that’s racing and those other guys did a better job. Obviously, the Hendrick guys had a great road course package and we didn’t and we just didn’t do a good enough job, period.”

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU PEAKED A LITTLE LATE COMING INTO A NEW PROGRAM? “Yeah, but we worked hard and we did what we did, and we’re just gonna keep building on it. We learned from today. We’ve learned from the last two races and we learned from every race before that. There’s a lot of racing left to go and we’ll keep digging.”

KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang – “Honestly, it was a great day for us. Without all of those cautions at the end, or one or two less, I think our Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang probably still wins the race, but I could see that 9 creeping in my mirror and I knew how good his car was from practice yesterday. Once he got to us, he just rolled right around the outside of us. I thought if I could just get through turn one and beat the 19, I’d be in decent shape, but the 9 was just so good even after he crashed.” YOU THINKING DOVER? “It’s not Monday yet. We’re gonna enjoy this one. We worked hard to try to have a better showing here this year than last year and all that work paid off. We’re closer. We’re not where we need to be with the Hendrick cars, but we’re getting close.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Duracell Ford Mustang – AN EVENTFUL DAY FOR YOU. “We definitely had a lot of ups and downs. I thought we did a pretty decent job most of the day finding ourselves towards the front. There were a lot of mixed strategies with the way the cautions fell. I messed up really bad and hit the fence and really set us back, but I’m really proud of the whole group for fighting and getting it fixed to where we could make some ground.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – ARE YOU ANY MORE CONFIDENT HERE AFTER TWO RACES ON THE ROVAL? “Confident about what? That we’re all gonna crash? Yes. It’s a mess.”

HOW TAXING WAS THIS RACE WITH THE HEAT? “It was so hot. It was brutal inside the car. The temperature was up for sure. It was a tough day. It was really tough in there. During that red flag I think everyone was probably ready to pass out in there, so it’s nice to have a little shade come over right now.”

YOU’VE BEEN OFF THE LAST COUPLE WEEKS. “Today is on me. We had a pretty good car, something that could compete. We were in the top five there the first stage and looked like we were gonna have a car that could contend and then I just made a mistake on pit road and hit the wall. It’s not speed. I keep saying that. It’s not that we’re far off on speed, we just have to clean up the races and today is on me.”

WHAT HAPPENED ON PIT ROAD? “I didn’t hear anything about the air hose yet. I just came off pit road there and the 1 was underneath me and I wanted to clear him into the corner and I drove off in there probably a little bit too hard and just went sliding.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Mustang – HOW DO YOU FEEL? “That was a hot race, pretty miserable, but we got through with a decent finish and made the most with what we had.”

DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR THE LEADERS WITH TRACK POSITION? “No, I think Chase could have ran around on seven cylinders. He was handling so good that nobody was gonna touch him.”

WERE YOU MORE CONSERVATIVE ON THE RESTARTS WITH WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR HERE? “Maybe a touch, nothing too much. I didn’t really have the lead on any of the restarts, so it’s hard to say.”

WHAT WERE PASSING CONDITIONS LIKE? “You could pass, you just had to be super, super fast and the 9 car was that.”

ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEXT ROUND? “I’m ready to go have a beer. It was a hot one and we got through with a decent finish and that was all we had.”

WITHOUT ALL THE YELLOWS DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR THEM? “We had new tires than everybody, but it didn’t really matter. The 9 car was so much faster than everyone. He passed everybody on old tires. I don’t know what they had, but we need to come back with that.”

IT LOOKS LIKE YOU LEFT IT ALL ON THE TRACK. “Yeah, that’s what you’ve got to do. That’s what the Playoffs are about.”

Track:                Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course
Race:                 Bank of America ROVAL 400
Date:                 September 29, 2019

____________________________________

No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Mustang – Brad Keselowski
Start: 11th
Stage 1: 6th
Stage 2: 2nd
Finish: 5th
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 109/109
Laps Led: 3
Driver Point Standings (behind first): 7th (-22)

Notes:

Brad Keselowski passed Martin Truex Jr. with two laps to go to score a fifth-place finish in the Bank of America ROVAL 400 Sunday evening at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course. Keselowski claimed his third top-five in three NASCAR Playoffs races this season and will advance to the Round of 12. The driver of the Alliance Truck Parts Ford Mustang claimed his best finish in two starts at the 2.32-mile racetrack. The 109-lap race was held in unusually warm weather conditions, with the temperature in the low 90s on Sunday afternoon, creating brutal conditions for drivers and crew members. Keselowski claimed his 12th top-five of the season and enters the Round of 12 seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings, 22 points behind leader Kyle Busch.

CONCORD, N.C. (Sept. 29, 2019) – The cutoff race for the opening round of the NASCAR Playoffs came down to one final restart for Ryan Newman. Despite battling every inch – just as he and the No. 6 team have done all season – his fight came up just short and he will not advance through to the round of 12.

“I felt like I made a lot of mistakes trying too hard,” Newman said after the race. “We did not have the race car and that’s what I had to do. I felt like we were in a position at one point and then just kept trying too hard trying to keep the 10 car behind us and missed the curbs. That was unfortunate. We came in at a big deficiency and finished one point out or whatever it was, but, no matter what, we are still going to fight for fifth. I’m proud of everybody at Roush Fenway for the fight and the opportunity that they’ve given me. We’re not done; we’re just out at this point.”

Newman entered the weekend ninth in points and knew the 109-lap event would come down to the final few laps. That proved to be true as he restarted with less than 10 to go on the plus side, but just lost that advantage in the final six laps. He was credited with a 32nd-place finish after apparently failing to perform a stop-and-go penalty in the final two laps after missing the chicane.

The South Bend, Indiana, native began the day from the 24th position after qualifying on Friday. The opening 25-lap stage featured two cautions – the second of which ended the stage – as Newman finished 20th after a multi-car collision occurred in turn one on lap 22.

After lining back up 17th for the second segment, Newman jumped up to 14th by lap 33 but reported he was simply struggling for grip. The caution flag was again displayed with nine to go in stage two, setting up another pit stop to try and tune up his Performance Plus Ford, before restarting 17th and finishing 23rd in the stage.

He fired off 22nd for the final segment, which featured six yellows as the field jockeyed for positon. After staying out under the first of those yellow flags at lap 61, Newman restarted 17th, and got as high as 11th by lap 71 after another caution came out. He would pit under green from the eighth spot at lap 76 for four tires, but after the field cycled – some taking fuel only or just two tires – he cycled back to 24th when the yellow came back out at lap 88.

With 17 to go, Newman found himself facing the wrong direction on track after a chain reaction spin occurred just in front of his machine. That incident required a pit stop for four fresh tires, setting him back up 27th on the restart with 15 to go. Over the course of the closing laps, he was forced through the grass at one point and eventually ran out of steam as the checkered flag flew.

Despite not advancing through, Newman and the No. 6 team still have seven races remaining to try and improve even further on the 2019 season, which continues next week at Dover. Race coverage on Sunday begins at 2:30 p.m. on NBCSN. Coverage can also be heard on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90.

Austin Dillon and the No. 3 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet Team Survive Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval with Teamwork and Strategy

Paul Menard and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Mustang ran in the top 10 – and often in the top five – for most of the first two stages of Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway before the craziness of the final stage left them with a 16th-place finish.

Menard qualified 10th for the second-ever Cup Series race on the 2.28-mile road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway but moved up to sixth for the start after two drivers ahead of him had to drop to the rear before the start of the race.

Menard stopped for fresh tires and fuel near the end of the first 25-lap Stage and wound up 11th at the end of that segment.

Because he’d already pitted, he moved up to sixth place for the ensuing restart and held that spot through the majority of the second Stage before ending up in ninth place at the end.

Menard, who had already dodged several crashes in the first two stages, continued to evade spinning cars in his path, but his fortunes took a turn for the worse just after a restart with 16 laps remaining when he was collected in a multi-car crash in Turn Six.

After a trip to pit road for repairs, he rejoined the race in 32nd place and by avoiding more incidents in the final laps worked his way to 16th place at the checkered flag.

Eddie Wood said he was proud of the speed of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Mustang and not overly disappointed with the day’s overall results.

“Things were going our way, and Paul was doing a good job missing the wrecks until that one late in the race when he got hit from behind, and it messed up the right rear and the right front,” Wood said. “The crew got it fixed and got Paul back out there, but he was in the back in dirty air, and everybody was fighting for every inch.

“It was just a war back there.”

Menard and the No. 21 Wood Brothers team return to the track next week for the 400-miler at Dover International Speedway.

About Motorcraft

Motorcraft® offers a complete line of replacement parts that are recommended and approved by Ford Motor Company. From routine maintenance to under-hood repairs, Motorcraft parts offer exceptional value with the highest quality and right fit at competitive prices. Motorcraft parts are available nationwide at Ford and Lincoln dealers, independent distributors and automotive parts retailers are backed by Ford Motor Company’s two-year, unlimited-miles Service Parts Limited Warranty. Ask for Motorcraft by name when you visit your local auto parts store or your favorite service facility. For more information, visit www.motorcraft.com.

About Quick Lane Tire & Auto Centers

Ford’s Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center offers routine vehicle maintenance such as oil and filter changes, light repair services including brake repair, and tire replacements on all vehicle makes and models. With more than 800 locations and growing, customers can visit www.quicklane.com to find a center that is closest to them, print savings coupons and review maintenance tips to keep their vehicles running at peak efficiency. This site includes information on how to spot tire wear, how to jump-start a battery and even a series of tips to improve a vehicle’s fuel economy.

About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Ford employs approximately 200,000 people worldwide. For more information regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit Company, please visit www.corporate.ford.com.

Wood Brothers Racing

Wood Brothers Racing was formed in 1950 in Stuart, Va., by Hall of Famer Glen Wood. Wood Brothers Racing is the oldest active team and one of the winningest teams in NASCAR history. Since its founding, the team won 99 races (including at least one race in every decade for the last seven decades) and 120 poles in NASCAR’s top-tier series. Fielding only Ford products for its entire history, the Wood Brothers own the longest association of any motorsports team with a single manufacturer. Glen’s brother, Leonard, is known for inventing the modern pit stop. The team currently runs the Ford Mustang driven by Paul Menard in the famous No. 21 racer.

CONCORD, N.C. (Sept. 29, 2019) – After an emotional week, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove his Sunny D Ford to a 17th-place finish in the second annual Roval race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“Overall it was a clean weekend for our Sunny D Ford,” Stenhouse said. “Our goal was to be there at the end and try to make minimal mistakes. Last year we really struggled so I’m pleased with our performance today.”

The two-time Xfinity champion lined up in the 21st position picking up four positions before the first caution flag waved on lap 19. With only six laps remaining in stage one, crew chief Brian Pattie brought Stenhouse to pit-road for four tires, fuel, and a chassis adjustment to help with the loose handling condition. After restarting in the 20th position for the final three-lap shootout, a caution was displayed on the restart ending stage one under yellow flag conditions scoring Stenhouse in the 15th position.

After electing to stay out during the stage break, the Olive Branch, Miss. native lined up in the eighth position for the second 25-lap stage where he maintained in the top 10 before the caution flag waved on lap 41. Another late stage caution set up a six-lap shootout, Stenhouse was able to jockey for position taking the second green-checkered in the 13th position.

While working his way through the field after a green flag pit-stop, the Sunny D Ford spun while racing for position but suffered no damage. After restarting in the 29th position, Stenhouse was able to work his way inside the top 15 with less than six laps remaining. After a late-race caution brought out the red flag for fluid on the track, the two-time Cup series winner lined up in the 15th position for the final six-lap shootout. With this race being a cut-off race for the Playoffs, there was a lot of beating and banging on the restart. Trying to be respectful of the drivers racing for playoff points, Stenhouse took the checkered flag in the 17th position.

Stenhouse and the No. 17 team head to Dover International Speedway next weekend. Race coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Coverage can also be heard on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR radio.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, September 27, 2019
EVENT: Bank of America Roval 400, Charlotte Motor Speedway

Roush Fenway Racing announced earlier this week that Chris Buescher would be rejoining the organization to drive the team’s No. 17 Ford Mustang in 2020. Owner Jack Roush, president Steve Newmark and Buescher held a press conference today at Charlotte Motor Speedway to talk about the situation.

STEVE NEWMARK, President, Roush Fenway Racing – “Our number 17 program at Roush Fenway has a long and what we believe storied history. We’ve been fortunate. We’ve had Matt Kenseth as an anchor brought us a championship and privileged to be able to pass that off to Ricky Stenhouse, who continued that and maintained that program in prominence. I do want to thank Ricky for being an incredible contributor to our organization for quite some time. He’s a first-class individual, passionate race car driver, and personally I am certain that he’s gonna be extremely successful in this series for many years to come. With that said, I do want to focus on what we’ve got going on for next year and that’s a homecoming of sorts for us and that’s bringing Chris back into the fold. As some of you are aware, Chris started with us under a driver development agreement when I think you were 16 years old back in 2009, and he kind of was shepherded up through the program, went into ARCA and won the ARCA championship. I believe the only driver maybe in the history to finish every lap in that series, progressed up to XFINITY, which was our program at the time. In his second year, he brought Jack his last NASCAR championship to date. I think he led the points for the last 24 weeks of that season, so we’ve been fortunate that was then able to go on and get some experience with a couple of other really solid organizations in this sport, and we had the opportunity to bring him back and what our hope is that we can reunite Chris and Jack and see if we can recreate some magic for the 17 team next year.”

CHRIS BUESCHER – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY? “I think, for me, it’s gonna be really exciting. Like Steve said, it’s a homecoming of sorts. I signed up 10 years ago to go into that driver development program with Jack and everybody at Roush Fenway Racing and, for me, that was a huge moment for myself. I really got going into stock car racing, had six late model races before that in stock cars. Other than that, was basically fresh out of Legends cars, so that was a big moment and then with everyone’s help and David Ragan’s help at the time, I was able to go and win a bunch of races, won a championship and worked my way up through the company and was able to be there for a long period of time. For this opportunity to come up now and be able to come back over, we were in the 17 number through our entire ARCA seasons, all but the last four races there, so that’s kind of a neat deal. I was definitely a Kenseth fan growing up and it was nice to be able to have him be somewhat of a mentor for a short period of time while I was over there. That’s really neat and I think performance-wise you’ve seen the organization really step up over the past couple of years now as I’ve been able to get invaluable seat time at Front Row Motorsports and at JTG Daugherty Racing. I’ve learned a ton and I’m ready to come back and try and pick up where their program is and try to help elevate it.”

JACK ROUSH, Owner, Roush Fenway Racing – “It’s not often in real life that you have a chance to re-do a mistake. I figure as I’ve looked back at the 32 years I’ve been involved with stock car racing that the decisions I’d made that I wish I could have made over and, fortunately, this is the one that I can make over. In 2015, he won the XFINITY championship or Nationwide championship at the time and he completed a lot of laps, led a lot of laps and was a good points racer as well as a good closer. When we looked at 2016 and what we had in front of us in terms of talent, I decided at that time that I would dilute my existing programs more than I should be starting a program for Chris, and I wish I had done that differently and we’ve got a chance now to build behind him. But Chris has spent the time in-between learning things and building his career, building a reputation for the kind of racer that he is on the race track. Certainly, he exemplifies and complements the number 17 car number that Darrell Waltrip initially and that Matt Kenseth more recently had used for their stock cars, and not that he’s in Darrell Waltrip’s fold, but certainly Matt Kenseth raced in the way that Chris likes to race. I think that will work out very well with Ryan Newman’s attitude towards racing and what he does with his car and the way he approaches this sport generally. Chris had won over 100 races in Legends racing before he made his move with Ken Ragan’s family back to be part of the things going on in Charlotte here. Of course, very quickly Ken got my attention and said, ‘You really need to look at Chris,’ and we got Chris on the development program and he raced for Front Row and did some other things that were outside the norm, and he contributed to those programs and made a name for himself. We’re really excited to build the program around him. We think that we’ll have a chance to make our cars better by having the similarity in the approach to the cars that we see in Ryan for what we saw in Chris before, and I think that some of the best days for Roush Fenway are in front of us.”

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

STEVE NEWMARK — DID THIS COME TOGETHER QUICKLY? JTG SEEMED SURPRISED BY THE MOVE. “I have spoken to Tad and I think your assessment is correct. It did come together pretty quickly. This wasn’t something that we’d been planning for quite some time. I’ve been fortunate to work with Tad quite a bit over the years and when I look at what JTG has done, I kind of believe that Tad is the model for what the type of owner we need to have in this sport. He’s built his race team. He runs it the right way. He’s continued to elevate it. He’s unbelievable with how he works with his partners and, to me, Tad is someone that we need to be celebrating and trying to emulate in this sport. I think Tad understands how this unfolded. The timing wasn’t ideal. We’ve been focused primarily for the last however many months on trying to get the 17 into the playoffs, and that was our focus. We weren’t looking at other things. Unfortunately, and it’s on the shoulders of Jack and the competition folks and myself, that we weren’t able to accomplish that goal and extract the potential from that program. Around the same time, we were alerted to something from Chris and his representatives about a residual option that Roush Fenway had retained from many years back, and so through some circumstances that arose between JTG and Chris, that option came about, so that was kind of put back on our plate. We talked to our board and Jack and John Henry at the Red Sox. They had a lot of discussions about what the right direction was and ultimately decided that it would be best for our organization to try to move forward and exercise that with Chris. So that did come together, literally just came together this week, and it was the next morning that we sat down and talked with Ricky and then I called Tad.”

JACK ROUSH – ANY DESIRE TO OWN AN INDY CAR TEAM? “I believe first and foremost that race cars have doors, and that if you don’t have the prospect of tying a manufacturer to the prospect of winning on Sunday and selling on Monday, you’ve really missed an opportunity to market what you’re doing with the race car that’s hard to overcome. I’ve never felt diminished nor have I missed anything by not racing Indy cars or open-wheel cars. I drag raced full-bodied cars. I road raced full-bodied cars, and I look forward to racing my stock cars for a long time to come.”

STEVE NEWMARK — HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO HAVE SOMEONE WITH CHRIS’ CONSISTENCY WHEN TRYING TO GET YOUR PROGRAM BACK TOGETHER? “I think there’s no doubt that’s important. We’ve seen the model that Ryan has employed with Scott Graves and that new team that we constructed around the 6 and how they’ve been able to have success with our cars and get it into the Playoffs. That said, we’re still not where we expect to be and where our goals are, which Jack has set a pretty high standard to be regularly competing for race wins and championships. But if we look at how Chris raced in our cars, the feedback that he was able to give, the impact he had in the simulator, the way he interacts with the crew chief, we just felt like where our program is today that that would fit in perfectly, and hopefully allow us to showcase Chris’ talent, and we think that with that model our expectation is that we have two cars in the playoffs and that next year at this time we’re focused on both of them making the next round.”

JACK ROUSH – “When you look at the high water mark for Roush Fenway in stock car racing, when we had five cars that was the best of times and four cars were great times, and the thing that was consistent with those timeframes and that success was the fact that our drivers pretty much agreed on what they wanted on their cars, or at least one car was dominant and competitive enough that everybody else came to heel and they lined up on that. And we got ourselves into a situation where we were really challenged. I had to stop and think if our engineers knew how to engineer, and if our fabricators knew how fabricate, if our wind tunnel program was working right because we had so much trouble getting the speed out of our cars, and with Ryan – and actually with Matt Kenseth’s help last summer – we identified some things we should be working on, which had not been on our radar screen, and we worked on those things and when we put Ryan in the car he fell right in line with what Matt Kenseth had thought was our priorities, and we see Chris falling in the same line. So, I look forward to having cars that are more similar for both drivers that we can develop from race to race by not having so many wrecks. Ryan has done really well this year in terms of keeping his car together and Chris has got a history doing the same thing, so we’re gonna work on our cars to make them faster and to not be repairing them when they’re damaged. We’re gonna work on a consistent car that they both like and I think we’ll have much better success.”

CHRIS BUESCHER – IS THIS YOUR DECISION OR WERE YOU OBLIGATED TO GO BACK TO ROUSH? IF IT WAS YOUR DECISION IS SEEING WHAT NEWMAN HAS DONE MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THERE’S MORE UPSIDE AT ROUSH THAN JTG? “First of all, JTG has come so far and we’ve had a terrific year. Nothing against anybody there. It’s been a terrific time. We’ve been able to elevate from where we’ve been the past couple seasons and I believe that program will continue to elevate. From my side of things, when my availability a couple weeks ago and everybody fires right off with the talks and stuff wasn’t in progress and that was no I. That was working through the channels and through the last couple months just got past a couple things that enabled an opportunity to basically come up with the opportunity to go back and for Roush Fenway to retain their rights from a contract that was in place when I signed 10 years ago. For me, it’s given the opportunity to have a homecoming of a lot of senses. It’s a place I spent a really long time. I have a ton of friends that are still at Roush Fenway Racing and in the entire Ford camp. I would say through the craziness that has come up in the past couple of days, it’s been absolutely incredible to hear from so many people that have so many well wishes and congratulations that are people I haven’t heard from in a really long time and I miss, to be honest. There are some really good relationships that you’re able to build over that seven years of being over in this organization, so, for me, that was something that has been really neat to see the outpouring and to have that support and have the backing from Jack and Steve and everybody over here that believes in me, that I can come back over here and get this job done. That’s what we plan to do. We plan to go out and follow suit of what you’ve been able to see Ryan and Scott do on the 6 side. Scott and I have a history together and some great stories to tell, and that championship in ’15 is a big thing as well, so try and take that mentality and follow suit and try to build up to something.”

SO IT WAS YOUR DECISION? “Yes.”

STEVE NEWMARK – WHEN CHRIS WAS ANNOUNCED AT BRISTOL IN AUGUST 2017 AN EXTENSION WITH JTG IT WAS SAID THEN THAT HIS OBLIGATIONS WERE FULFILLED TO ROUSH. TO CLARIFY, THIS WASN’T LIKE A RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL. WAS THIS A CLAUSE WHERE HE HAD TO TELL YOU GUYS THAT HE WAS AVAILABLE? “I’m gonna try to dance on the line here because I always try not to get in the contract terms because that’s generally between the driver and the teams, but the way this situation evolved is he had his contract with JTG and that was his contract, and it was only – we didn’t have a right of first refusal – it was only if certain circumstances came out where he was no longer under that arrangement with JTG that he essentially had to notify us and let us know his status.”

JACK ROUSH – YOU SAID A MISTAKE WAS MADE IN LETTING CHRIS GET AWAY. WHY WAS THAT MISTAKE MADE? “Because Chris had won all those Legends races and he won the ARCA championship, he was the ARCA rookie of the year the year before he won the championship. He finished as the first driver in ARCA history to ever finish every lap of every race of a given season, so he had a lot of things that really spoke highly for his potential. Certainly, Matt Kenseth came through the program, Carl Edwards came through the program, Chris had distinguished himself in that rarified air and the fact that I didn’t have the courage to go on and stress the organization and stress my other resources to make room for him was something I regretted.”

HAD CHRIS NOT BEEN AVAILABLE AND BEEN A FREE AGENT WOULD RICKY STILL BE WITH YOU GUYS? “That’s a really tough question. First of all, let me say about Ricky that Ricky’s time, his chapter of involvement with Roush Fenway will be remembered very fondly and with all the things that Ricky did. He initiated some things with marketing on our sponsors that were first times. He was certainly a great representative. He brought a level of intensity that is required and that very few drivers have, and he was true to himself in terms of reaching for his own race car for the things he thought would be best for him, and that’s a good fight and certainly respect that. We respect him and we’ll remember him fondly and very positively the time he spent with us. But the fact is over the last couple of years we weren’t realizing the improvements that we need to and I had to look at myself and the organization and say, ‘Are we just not doing what we need to do or is it time for Ricky to step off and to seek a better combination, a better package for himself with another program that might have a different look at the engineering or the aero program or the kinematics or any of the other things that affect a car’s ability to support a driver and the way he wants to drive the car?’ It’s hard to say if I would have made that change. Certainly I was thinking about what would be best for Ricky and what would be best for us, and it was on my mind.”

STEVE NEWMARK – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE WAY THE PROGRAM HIS IMPROVED SINCE BRINGING MATT BACK LAST YEAR AND RYAN THIS SEASON? “I think everyone in this room understands that NASCAR is a team sport and it is more than just the driver that determines the success or failure. So when we had to do a really honest look at ourselves in the last few years, we realized that we needed to step up our game at every aspect of racing, and so we’ve overhauled our aero program over the last few years and taken a different approach there, brought in new talent on that front. Our pit crews, I think we’ve seen them excel this year and it’s been the best performance that we’ve seen, and then we’ve also focused on the driver side of making sure that we were able to bring in a couple senior veteran drivers who were able to really help us take all of those resources that we have and make sure we put it together in the right combination to extract the speed out of the car, and so I think that’s what Matt did. I think Matt was open when he started with us that the cars were off, and he helped us kind of dial it in in conjunction with all the other changes that were going on, and we saw him start to excel at the end. He won a stage at Indy, finished top 10 his last couple races, and then bringing in Ryan he just continued that. But it was not just the driver piece. We brought back Scott Graves, who as Chris mentioned was the championship crew chief, and you kind of put all that together and it’s like every other team out there is trying to figure out the right recipe. We hadn’t hit on that. We feel like we’re going in the right direction and there’s a lot of blue sky for both this year and next year.”

CHRIS BUESCHER – “I think there are so many combinations of things that have to be put in place the correct way to get the results. I think when you look at the organization you can definitely see it starting to trend in the right direction over the last couple of years now with help from drivers such as Ryan or Matt Kenseth, people that have a ton of laps in these big, heavy race cars that really have the experience and, for me, that’s hard to compete with from that side of things, but I think I’ve been able to be around long enough and learn a lot. To be honest, driving different race cars has helped as well through the couple years to be able to feel differences, try and find things that you like as a driver, things that you don’t like and things that may not necessarily drive good, but can equal speed and can definitely bring on better finishes. There are things along the way that you find that are able to help the program and finish better, so just with the different packages that we’ve had over the last couple of years I’ve been able to drive a bunch of different packages and it also just basically builds up your notebook and builds up what your knowledge level is of the cars and what you’re looking for as everything adapts with it, and so I think just having that and having these several years in this series now, to be able to lean on that, gives me confidence I can come over and be able to apply that and try to help add to the conversation and also just from being able to run consistently well and elevate our game and be able to close races out – not tear up equipment. I’ve had to work on way too many wrecked race cars early in my career and I learned that I don’t like being up until five in the morning trying to fix stuff, so I try and take care of it the best I can, and in a lot of situations – and I think that’s something that has stayed with me through my career the entire time, even as I’ve been phased out of working on them and told I’m not trusted to start turning wrenches anymore.”

IS THERE ANY PRESSURE TO BE LIKE MATT KENSETH WAS FOR THIS TEAM? “Yeah, I mean Jack Roush is sitting to my left. That’s pressure enough right there. With those names and the drivers that have been through the organization have had tremendous success. You look at Matt Kenseth, you look at Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, I mean there are tons of drivers that have done great things over there. We’ve been able to add to that. We’ve been able to go win races and add a championship, and, for me, that’s pretty neat for me to even be on that level and I want more. We’re ready for more and ready for more wins, want to get out there and get to the point where we can compete more regularly and that just starts with progress. You’ve got to run top 10 consistently before you can run top five consistently and then you get into that area and you definitely put yourself in position to capitalize and win some races.”

Toyota Racing – Kyle Busch
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

CONCORD, N.C. (September 26, 2019) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was made available to media at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course:

KYLE BUSCH, No.18 M&M’s Hazelnut Spread Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Would you consider letting NASCAR make a decision to potentially penalize you if you cut the chicane short, or would you just run the course to keep them from making a call?

“I don’t know. You hate putting NASCAR in that position to make a call because more times than not, it’s probably not going to go your way – my way (laughter).”

Do you think NASCAR would be a stickler for ensuring everyone runs the entire course?

“Yeah, they are. We are on the cool down lap and instead of getting yelled at and whatever, I went ahead and did the chicane on the backstretch and it’s pretty simple to just roll through there straight and not have to slow down for it because it’s pretty slow over there. Your motors are shut off and you don’t have power steering and all that stuff, but you’ve got to fire up and go through there normal.”

How different is the race track where the chicane is now?

“Last year, you just kind of slowed down a little bit – downshifted one gear and then tried to go through there with about six inches to spare. This year, it’s really, really tight still, but you know you downshift to second. Some guys are going to first, so it’s really, really slow, slower than the front stretch in fact. It’s vastly different for sure.”

What’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s reputation among drivers and your thoughts on him?

“(Ricky) Stenhouse (Jr.) is a race car driver and he’s been one for a long, long time. He comes from the open wheel ranks with sprint cars and has won two Xfinity Series championships and you know was proven there, made his way to Cup and just unfortunately it never clicked. Not sure what all happened. Obviously the Roush era of late hasn’t been great, but you know there’s also guys right now that are in that stuff that are doing okay and finishing races.”

How do you look at this weekend as far as being a crapshoot?

“It’s just a different challenge. It’s alright. There’s a whole lot of differences here than a typical road course. Last year, there were times on the spot that I could make up time and a lot of other spots that I would lose time and now those spots that I could gain time are gone, so you know I’m kind of at a loss right now with the whole lap. I’ve got to get better and figure it out.”

Where do you stand on pit stops versus no pit stops?

“Pit stops have been around for a long, long time, so when you get to this level, I think live pit stops and having the whole team aspect I think is important. You know local short track aspect, I get it. Those guys, they obviously don’t have the money and the resources and everything else to be able to hire pit crews or whatever for some of those races, which I’ve only ever hired a pit crew for the (Snowball) Derby. Otherwise, we’ve always just had our guys, our late model guys would do it. Like the Winchester 400 or there’s another race – the Rattler, a couple of other races over the years, but Truck, Xfinity, Cup, I think you should try to stay pit stops as much as you can.”

Following the announcement of the Ilmor engine situation in the Truck Series, should ThorSport drivers be reinstated into the Playoffs?

“There’s no great solution to it. It’s unfortunate we’re in the box that we’re in. I guess it’s just the luck of the draw. How the M&M’s crumble.”

What are your expectations at Dover next week?

“Not very optimistic. Let’s just go with that.”

When you’re sometimes not optimistic, you sometimes go back and win races.

“Yeah, my teammate was really, really good there in the spring obviously. He passed everybody and won the race. I sat there in 10th to 14th all day and just complained about it. I guess I need to get better at passing.”

How do you deal with having teammates who are some of your strongest competitors and working well together?

“It’s a work relationship essentially. It’s kind of just what it is with going to work and doing our things with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota and some of the different things that we do together as teammates. Other than that, yeah, I mean we kind of live separate lives I guess. You know our weekends are pretty much in the same spot. It’s no different than my brother, really. I do the same thing with him. Just the way it is.”

Denny Hamlin said he thinks that when he’s running well, you race him harder than normal.

“That’s just because he’s up there with me and we’re racing, right? When he’s not racing up front, then he’s not racing with me.”

How different was your setup last week compared to Martin Truex Jr.?

“I don’t know how to differentiate between the differences that there were, but if I had to guess, I’d say five percent different. Not a whole lot. Nothing really. I would say all our JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars were probably a total of eight percent from one another.”

Do you ever wonder if Martin Truex Jr. and his team are still optimizing their cars like they did when they weren’t with Joe Gibbs Racing?

“I still wonder (laughter). Cole (Pearn, crew chief) is really good and Martin is really good. They’ve got it going on right there. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and myself, not saying we’re slouches, but certainly we know that that’s where we’ve got to get better, somewhere.”

Even though you have access technically to what Martin Truex Jr.’s team is doing, you still wonder if they’re doing something that you don’t know about?

“Sure. Or they make better race adjustments or whatever, things like that than we do. Like I said, our cars were about five percent different last week and with those changes would my car have been a little bit better, maybe. I also ran the start of the last stint harder than he did and burned my tires up a little, so would that have been a difference, possibly so.”

Have you been more impressed by Martin Truex Jr. as a driver now that he’s a teammate?

“Yeah, he obviously made it to this level for a reason. He’s a smart guy, smart driver and he’s done a good job over the years obviously of managing his equipment. You’ve never seen him going off and doing too many crazy things or crashes or anything like that. He just always kind of had what he had and that’s where he ran. He kind of does the same thing with that right now. He’s better at managing some of his off days and turning them into okay days.”

What’s the difference between Charlotte Motor Speedway’s oval and the road course?

“It’s another race track. Obviously being able to come out here and run the oval in the early summertime is pretty fun. I enjoy that. Then the ROVAL now is what it is. Thankfully we have an opportunity to already kind of be through (the first round) and we don’t have to worry about the chaos if something happens.”

Is the backstretch chicane now going to be a passing zone like the bus stop at Watkins Glen?

“I don’t think so. The bus stop at Watkins Glen, if you both really, really slow down you can go through there two-wide. I don’t think you can go through this one two-wide. If you’re a guy who’s going to dive bomb and make a move on the inside of somebody to out-brake them getting into that corner, they have to let you go because you’re going to be going so much faster. You’re almost going to be overstepping your braking zone over that guy to get in there, so you’re going to need as much room as you can have. You can’t turn that sharp corner and be two-wide. I hope guys will understand that if they’re getting outbroke, they have to give it up and kind of fall into line.”

You mentioned wanting to run Chili Bowl, is that something you’d actually consider doing?

“Yeah, I’d love to do it. I think it’d be fun. I’m just not allowed.”

What are your thoughts on so much turnover in the Cup Series and not having enough seats available for all of the drivers?

“I mean we’re all at a four-car cap and there’s no room for expansion and there’s only so many good teams. If you look at it in that regard, you’ve got SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing) and (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) and Hendrick (Motorsports) and (Team) Penske – (Chip) Ganassi (Racing) is right there too-ish. However many cars that is, that’s about how many good seats there are. The rest of it’s just cars that make laps.”

Do you think Christopher Bell will have the same success in the Cup Series that he had in the Xfinity Series?

“That’s the age-old question, man. You could ask that question of anybody that’s coming. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, anybody that’s had success at Xfinity, are they going to have it at Cup? Vice versa for Jimmie Johnson, right? He won one Xfinity race and then dominated Cup. You would think so. It’s hard to say. Obviously Christopher (Bell) has done a great job at being able to contend and win Truck Series races, Truck Series championships, doing the same thing in Xfinity. He’s won, contended for a ton of races over there and we’ll see if he can win the championship this year or not. I’d like to think he’s one of the top-two guys to be able to go out there and do it at Homestead. That’s going to bode well for his success when he gets to Cup. Especially bringing Jason Ratcliffe (crew chief) with him.”

What do you think about the Ilmore engine situation and ThorSport asking to be reinstated in the Playoffs?

“I said it earlier, it is what it is – as the M&M’s crumble. It is what it is. William Byron should have had a shot for a championship at Homestead, but whoever’s fault it was, we blew an engine at Phoenix and he was eliminated, so it is what it is.”

Do you have any interest in Josef Newgarden’s IndyCar exhibition today?

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool. I’m somewhat friends with (Josef) Newgarden, I guess. We have the same lawyer/agent-type guy, he thinks. So yeah, I got in touch with him just congratulated him on his championship and stuff like that. It was pretty cool to see that and for him to be able to come out here and be willing to do this – I don’t even know what kind of setup they would have in that thing. I don’t know how fast he’s going to go. I don’t know how his loads are going to be through (Turns) 3 and 4, whether he’ll drag the bottom or not, but it’ll be cool.”

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