Category: RC NASCAR Cup

SPARTA, Ky.  (July 10, 2016) – The Circle Sport – Leavine Family Racing team welcomed Ty Dillon back behind the wheel of the No. 95 this weekend at Kentucky Speedway for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.  Dillon and the team had a fast race car and persevered through two on-track incidents to secure a 25th place finish in the Quaker State 400.

With qualifying canceled due to weather, NASCAR set the line-up by owner’s points putting the No. 95 in the 30th position for the green flag.  But, Dillon quickly began to move up the field, getting to 21st position by Lap 27.

Dillon, who finished seventh in the Alsco 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race the day prior, stayed in the Top-25 and got as high as 20th within the first 90 laps of the race.

Unfortunately, Dillon was caught up in a wreck on the track on Lap 92 when he was running in 24th position.  Three cars in front of him made contact and Dillon had nowhere to go.  Luckily, the team was able to fix the damage on pit road and keep Dillon on the lead lap.  He restarted in 30th position and told the crew they did a good job in fixing the car.

From there, Dillon was able to continue to gain positions on the race track.  He restarted Lap 157 in 23rd position on the lead lap and radioed into his crew, “we ain’t too bad at all!” – and then quickly raced into the Top-20.

The biggest challenge of the race came at Lap 172 when the No. 95 Chevrolet was in 19th position.  Dillon ran over debris on the track and had a huge piece of sheet metal in the nose of the race car.  The team had to pit multiple times to remove the debris and fix the nose of the car. This put the team a lap down and from there, Ty held on to the 25th position all the way to the checkered flag.

“Tonight really wasn’t our night, but we stayed with it and battled to the end,” said Dillon after the race.  “We got into a wreck pretty early on and had to make several pit stops to repair the right-front nose of our No. 95 Chevy Summer Sell Down Chevrolet. I’m proud of the effort of our team and its never-give-up attitude. Overall, I learned a lot and gained some experience on this new racing surface; it was tough to maneuver and pass and had a lot of speed. This is not how I envisioned the night going, but being able to race here in the Sprint Cup Series is always fun.”

Michael McDowell will return to the seat of the No. 95 Chevrolet SS for the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 17 at 1:30 p.m. ET.  Fans can follow the race team on Twitter at @CSLFR95 for updates.

About Circle Sport – Leavine Family Racing
Formed in 2016, Joe Falk, owner of Circle Sport Racing and Bob and Sharon Leavine, owners of Leavine Family Racing teamed up to compete in the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season as Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing.  The team will field the No. 95 Chevrolet SS, which will be driven by Michael McDowell as well as Ty Dillon in select races.  The team operates out of their Concord, N.C.-based race shop with a veteran group of racing personnel and is driven by several core principals including Value, Integrity, Flexibility, Opportunity, Access and Experience.  For more information, please visit www.CSLFR95.com.

Austin Dillon and the Dow Chevrolet Team Show Speed at Kentucky Speedway before Finishing 16th

“What a race. We had a really fast Dow Chevrolet tonight but we didn’t execute the way we needed to in order to get to Victory Lane. It turned into a fuel conservation race and we didn’t play that game as well as we could have. The down force package we ran tonight lacked takeoff speed but once the run progressed we were very good. We have some work to do on restarts. I think we can build on tonight and come back stronger next week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.”
– Austin Dillon

Paul Menard Finishes 18th in Fuel Mileage Event at Kentucky Speedway

“We had a top-10 Sylvania/Menards Chevrolet tonight. My guys worked really hard on pit road to make changes to keep us moving forward. The balance went to the tight side halfway through the race, but we were fast in Turns 3 and 4 where most teams struggled. Late in the event we pitted just prior to the caution and that left us 10 laps short on fuel. I tried to save as much as I could but the math just didn’t work out. We will take this momentum and move on to New Hampshire Motor Speedway next weekend.” – Paul Menard

Ryan Newman Earns First Top-Five Finish of the Season with Third-Place Finish at Kentucky Speedway

“We had a good Caterpillar Chevrolet. We really struggled, like most people did, in dirty air. Track position was definitely key, but I’m proud of these guys on the Caterpillar Chevrolet and all the ECR Engines guys. They obviously did a good job on the fuel mileage to make that happen. We started saving fuel as soon as the final green-flag run started and we saved exactly the right amount. We were out at the end. I think all of us drivers that made it knew what we were doing. It’s just a matter of if we thought we were as good as we were. I’m just proud of the guys. It’s our first top-five finish of the year, but we’ll keep digging.” – Ryan Newman

KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY POST RACE REPORT

Event: Quaker State 400 Presented by Advance Auto Parts
Date/Time: Saturday, July 9th / 7:30 PM ET
TV/Radio: NBCSN / PRN / SIRIUSXM
Start: 19th
Finish: 36th
Points: 20th

Quotes:

It was a tough night for AJ Allmendinger who was involved in two accidents with his No. 47 Kroger/Clorox Chevrolet SS at Kentucky Speedway Saturday night before being credited with a 36-place finish. He was treated and released from the infield care center twice.

“I don’t know if it blew a tire or if something broke in the car,” said Allmendinger about the accident that ultimately ended his night. “Everything kind of happened at once. Unfortunately, it was right on the bottom of the racetrack on the tri-oval and it went straight to the fence. I didn’t get my hand off the steering wheel. I got it (left-hand thumb) jammed in the steering wheel pretty bad – – the way I hold the steering wheel. It just slammed in and caught the steering wheel. I have a splint around my thumb. It hurt a little bit. Fortunately, it moved around enough I don’t think anything is broken in there, but I’ll get it X-rayed to see what we got. I’m not sure. A lot of hurt ego right now more than my thumb hurts.”

“Just a lot of crashing,” said Allmendinger about the multi-car accident he was collected in at Lap 94 that caused substantial damages to his No. 47 Kroger/Clorox Chevrolet SS. “I won’t say we deserved it, but we put ourselves back there. We weren’t very good, but Randall Burnett (crew chief) and everybody was trying to figure it out. I thought we had a really good test here. They changed the tire and we didn’t figure the tire out as good as other guys did. It’s disappointing because this is Kroger’s backyard and we have Clorox on the car and all our partners. It was a tough night.”

FAST FACTS:

Career Starts: 281
Wins: 1
Top-fives: 8
Top-10s: 41
Pole Awards: 4
First Start: 3/25/2007 Bristol
First Pole: 4/10/2010 Phoenix
Last Pole: 8/8/15 Watkins Glen
Best Start: 1 – 4/10/2010 Phoenix
Best Finish: 1 – 8/10/2014 Watkins Glen
Driver DOB: 12/16/1981
Hometown: San Jose, Calif.
Crew Chief: Randall Burnett

Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes -Brad Keselowski Press Conference
Quaker State 400 – Kentucky Speedway
Saturday, July 9, 2016

BRAD KESELOWSKI – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT THE DRAMA INVOLVED IN TONIGHT’S RACE.  “That was something. We weren’t the best car tonight, that’s for sure. The 78 car was really good. I thought the 4 car looked really good. The 19, the 20, the 18 looked really good. We seemed to kind of hover right there in that fifth to eighth-place range and we came down pit road, I think fifth with 72 to go or 73 to go, and left pit road fifth. I thought, ‘Well, who knows how these things are gonna go,’ but then the 78 got the penalty, moved us into the outside line on the restart, which I think we saw all night was the preferred line. I was able to clear the two inside cars, I don’t remember who they were, and get into turn three behind Kevin. I was about half-a-car-width back, which I had a pretty good idea if I could stay within a half-a-car length of him that I could create an aero-wake behind his car and loosen him up a little bit without touching him and, sure enough, we went down in the corner and it looked like he got really loose and I was able to make the move and get by him. That’s kind of a product of this package, just how hard the cars are to drive with somebody behind you. That worked out beautifully. We had a great car on restarts to kind of complement that. Once I got to the lead there I was like, ‘OK, we’ll see how this all plays out.’ I kind of expected another restart and our car was really fading on long runs.  It was losing grip kind of rapidly and with about 20 or 30 to go I was like, ‘I’m gonna be in trouble here.’ I was probably not gonna be able to hold off the 78 and the 20. That hadn’t been our strength and I think Paul Wolfe, my crew chief, he saw that and made the aggressive call to go to fuel mileage. I knew we were way short of being able to make it, so I got as aggressive as I could.  Somehow, we made it and I’m not even really sure you can say we made it because we ran out with about two to go, and by running out I mean it stumbled really, really bad and I was able to somehow limp it around the last two laps and stay ahead of Carl and bring her home. That was something. This is a night I’m not gonna forget. Last year we came here and I thought we were the best car and didn’t catch a single break, didn’t execute, and those two things kept us out of victory lane, not just here but a lot of times last year, and this week we caught some breaks. We executed and we were able to win, so not the fastest car but it’s still a hell of a team effort to be proud of.”

WHAT ABOUT THE RACING TONIGHT IN GENERAL?  “Anytime you have a repave the track gets a lot narrower.  I think we saw that tonight.  Tonight was one of those nights where I think everybody is challenged to define what great racing is.  I would probably say that of course Kentucky last year was an incredible race.  It would be tough to beat that, ever, on a mile-and-a-half race track, but I would also say that the cars, the new rules package makes them harder to drive and requires a lot more precision as a race car driver, and I can appreciate that about the race.  We’re still facing and fighting the same dilemmas in our sport of the lead car having a significant advantage over other cars in the field, but that advantage seemed to go on maybe a 1-10 scale from an eight to a six or a seven here, which I think is good.  But until the track widens out and gets multiple grooves, I honestly think this is the best race you’re gonna see on a repave.”

WHAT CHANGE WERE YOU REFERRING TO EARLIER IN THE RACE ON THE RADIO.  WAS IT CIRCUMSTANCES OR TRYING TO GET CLEAN AIR?  “I was referring to we needed to start the weekend over with a different car (laughing).  That’s kind of what I meant because the changes that we were doing to the car we were just kind of maxed out.  You had all these knobs in the car and adjustments you can do to it once the race starts and we had kind of turned them all and it was like, ‘Well, there’s nothing left to turn here,’ and all we were gonna do was make ourselves worse in one area.  It’s like, ‘Let’s just leave it alone and finish the race out the best we can.’  That’s kind of where we were.  Like I said, we weren’t the fastest car.  We have a lot of work to do from a speed standpoint after tonight.  That’s not what won us the race, so the 78 car, I think, was heads and tails above everyone else and there were probably a handful of others that were maybe a touch better than us as well, so we still have a lot of work to do when tonight was over.”

WHAT IMPACT DID THE LOWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE HAVE ON THE RACE?  “It won me the race.  Without the lower lower downforce package today I don’t think I would have won the race.  I would have never made the move I made on the 4 car and that would have been it.  There were certainly moves you could make today that you couldn’t make before with respect to getting behind somebody and being able to alter the way that their car drove, and that’s a part of being a race car driver, that’s a part of this package.”

HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK BEING REPAVED PLAY INTO THE RACE ITSELF?  “Dramatically.  It played into everything this weekend.  The line you ran on the race track was significantly different than the line you would normally run here.  Normally, we would run in the middle of the race track because there’s a progressive hitch to the track, but that hitch never took the full rubber that it would need to grip up and to optimize the speed and dictated that the cars run on the bottom.  I expect that will change over the next two or three seasons and the groove will move up tremendously back to where it was.”

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE IN TURN THREE AND DID YOU ANTICIPATE THAT THERE WOULD BE ANOTHER CAUTION LATE?  “I certainly anticipated another caution.  I don’t think we had a stretch in the race that long before that one, to my knowledge, and, yeah, I anticipated a lot of problems in turn three.  It’s designed that way.  The track is specifically designed for turns one and two to be fast, somewhat easy to drive, and three and four designed to be slow and very, very difficult to drive.  That’s one of the design features of this race track, and I think you saw that today.  I think most of the accidents were in three and four because of how difficult that corner was, and that’s not a bad thing.  That’s how it was meant to be and contributed to the race we saw today.”

CARL IMPLIED THAT YOU DID A GREAT JOB PLAYING IT PERFECTLY THE LAST LAP OR TWO AND SAID YOU MASHED THE GAS PERFECTLY.  DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE OUT OF GAS OR WAS THAT FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S BENEFIT?  “If the question is, ‘Did I think I was out?’  Yes, I thought I was out, and I did not think I was gonna win the race based on what I felt in the car.”

DID THIS RACE PLAY OUT MORE LIKE A SHORT TRACK WHERE YOU HAD TO RACE THE RACE TRACK?  “Tonight was a very disciplined race for sure.  Maybe you can make an analogy to short-track racing, I’m not sure, but it took a lot of discipline to run this track tonight.  If you got into turn three and four the least bit wrong, you wrecked.  That’s just the way the race was, and I think that’s what we saw.  There are arguments being made good or bad for that.  I think it’s a good challenge.  We’re professional race car drivers.  It shouldn’t be easy.  It wasn’t tonight.  It was very, very difficult and you had to certainly be very smart.”

DO YOU RECALL A MORE TENSE TIME AND HOW DID YOU KEEP YOUR FOCUS?  “It’s a pretty helpless feeling being out of gas and seeing guys behind you running you down, and knowing that you’re not at full speed, but there’s nothing you can do about it and freaking out isn’t gonna help anything, I can tell you that.  That just makes it worse, so I guess that’s the way I look at it and approach it.”

DO YOU RECALL OTHER RACES LIKE THAT?  “Oh yeah, a lot of them are that way.  Daytona and Talladega feels that way because you know at any given point the cars behind you can always develop a run to pass you, so leading there at the last lap is not very fun.”

Quaker State 400 – Kentucky Speedway
Saturday, July 9, 2016

BRAD KESELOWSKI PRESS CONFERENCE – Walt Czarnecki and Paul Wolfe

WALT CZARNECKI, Executive Vice President, Team Penske – “It’s extremely significant. Obviously, coming on the heels of our 100th Cup win last week at Daytona, which was huge, and then today our Indy Car team recorded our 500th pole – Simon Pagenaud at Iowa – so it’s been a big day for Team Penske. Looking back at the last six weeks the job that Paul and Brad and Joey and Todd and Travis and Mike and all the people who are charged with running this program, they really brought the program together. We felt early on that our cars were good.  Brad won a race at Las Vegas. I think we all realized that maybe the team wasn’t executing as best as it possibly could, and clearly over the last six weeks that situation has changed. I think we’ve established ourselves as a contender, but clearly there’s a long way to go. I’m pretty comfortable and will say this, I think there are a few more wins left in this team prior to getting to Chicago.”

PAUL WOLFE, Crew Chief – No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – TAKE US THROUGH THOSE LAST FEW LAPS.  “It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster for sure the last few laps of that race.  When we pitted, I guess it was with about 70 to go, we knew that everyone was a little bit short.  I feel like we’ve been on the good side of the fuel mileage this year.  All the guys at Roush Yates have worked hard to give us power and mileage, and that showed up again tonight.  With that being said, we were kind of expecting to maybe see some cautions as we did early in the race, so it wasn’t really a big concern.  But with 20 to go it was time to start making decisions.  As you saw, some of the guys running fifth or sixth peeled off with maybe 15-16 to go and then it was kind of decision time on what do we do.  We knew we couldn’t make it.  We knew we were short, but as we got out there and got the lead in that final run Brad started saving and he’s one of the best in the business at saving fuel, so as we got down to 10 to go he was like, ‘Make the call on what you want me to do.’  I kind of know what our strengths are and that’s definitely saving fuel, and I went with that strategy and told him to a 10 on the scale of save mode.  Everyone else – I think the 20 ran out – and that gave us a big cushion back to the 19.  I think it was 10 or 12 seconds, so that really allowed us to start saving, but when it comes down to it we were out.  We were totally out at the start-finish line, so it couldn’t have timed out any better.”

WALT CZARNECKI – “I’d like to interject.  I was sitting up there with Paul for that last segment and this man to my right never lost his composure.  He stayed totally focused and never wavered one bit when he made that decision and it was really wonderful to watch.”

PAUL WOLFE – WHAT IMPACT DID THE LOWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE HAVE ON THE RACE?  “It had a big impact.  There were a lot of factors this week with this being a repaved track, the first race on the track, it’s always a challenge for Goodyear and NASCAR to figure out what tire combination to bring.  These repaved tracks tend to build a lot of heat in the tires, so you’ve got to build something with some durability.  It’s always a challenge to get that balance.  Sometimes that leads to the cars not driving as good as maybe some may like, but ultimately we’ve got the best drivers in the business in this garage and I think we saw some guys lose it tonight, but I think the cars are tough to drive and a challenge.  I think that’s what separates the guys that can rise to the occasion and the ones that can’t.”

CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH THE LAST LAP AND WHEN YOU COULD EXHALE?  “I felt good about it until the 19 closed up to us.  When he first said he felt like it stumbled that was about with two to go.  Typically, we feel like you usually can get a lap-and-a-half when you feel it first stumble as much as he was saving, so I still felt pretty good about it until I think with one to go he said, ‘I’m out.  I’m out again,’ and the 19 had closed up within two car lengths.  We got into turn one and he said it picked up fuel again.  He was able to go and I think he said it shut off a little bit down the back as he got into the corner again it picked up and then once we were coming off four I saw he was still under power and I felt like we had it at that point.”

WALT CZARNECKI – YOUR TEAM HAS WON ALL OF THE LOWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE RACES.  CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE WORK DONE AT THE SHOP?  “I hadn’t really thought about that, but again I think it’s a testimony to that adaptability and the talent of the people that work on these cars at Mooresville.  They’re prepared.  One of the things that I think the hallmark of our team has been for many years, not just this year, we want to come to the race track prepared with the best possible equipment.  I was at the shop on Wednesday and I was watching the work that was going on for example on the cars that we’re going to be taking to New Hampshire next week, so there’s total focus, total concentration.  My hat’s off to the people back there.  Roy McCauley and the whole team that put these cars together.”

IS JOEY OK?  DID YOU TALK TO HIM?  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.  I didn’t see him afterwards, so I really can’t answer your question.  Sorry.  I hope he’s OK.”

PAUL WOLFE – CARL SAID HE THOUGHT BRAD WAS OUT OF FUEL AND HE WASN’T.  CAN YOU COMMENT ON THAT?  “Brad did a great job saving.  I don’t know that there was any plan to just finish whatever it was, a car length in front of Carl, but when he said he was out he was out.  Like I said, typically the car will still pick up fuel for a lap-and-a-half there.  Honestly, when Carl closed up to us going down the back I thought he was gonna go around us.  I haven’t heard for sure, but I’m assuming he was probably in the same situation as us, where he was starting to stumble a little bit.  But, like I said, when I made the call to go into full fuel save, it was really just the confidence I had in Brad through that whole 70-lap run that he does such a good job of saving fuel when we need to that I had confidence enough that, you know what, I think we can pull it off this way, our chances are pretty good and kind of rolled with it.  I knew it was gonna be close, but that’s what ultimately made it so exciting at the end.”

IS IT A TRADE SECRET ON HOW BRAD SAVES FUEL SO WELL?  “I’m not really sure if it’s any secrets.  I think everyone knows he’s good at it now, but I don’t know.  The key to it is being able to keep speed and save fuel at the same time, and he’s able to balance that out really well of not losing much lap time while saving fuel – just the techniques and how he uses the brake and the gas and he’s just really been good at it.  It kind of showed up more, I think, when we still had the carburetors and all that.  It’s harder to save as much with EFI now as what we could back when we first started, but it still works.  He’s still able to do it, so it could just be his driving style in general that works really well when you need to save fuel.  When it comes to thinking in the car, Brad is really good.  He’s really intelligent and thinks a lot about what’s going on and is able to react and stay calm.  I think that’s key in situations like that is being able to stay calm and stay focused and that’s definitely one of Brad’s strengths.”