Sunday
Team Chevy, 2010 NSCS CARFAX 400 Race Recaps
Press Release
HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THAT FINAL YELLOW-STOP OR NOT STOP? “Well, we came to our decision by what we’ve done in the last 21 weeks. We came in with 180 point lead. We could gamble staying out hoping that clean air was the way to go. And, it was, because if you get in the back, you got mired in. The tires just didn’t send you up there like we needed to. We knew if we could get the clean air we’d be ok. I would like to say hello to my Mother-in-law, her sister just died. I want to tell her I am thinking about her and I love her and love you guys at home.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN TODAY IN GETTING THIRD WIN OF YEAR AND LOCKING YOURSELF IN THE CHASE: “First off, I want to thank the fans and Sprint and all these people for coming out and watching us race today. Shell-Pennzoil, Reeses, SKF, Jimmy Johns, Champion, Sherwin Williams, Realtree, everybody that helps us with this car. Chevrolet. We had a good car in practice. This has been a very bad track for us and to come here and do what we did today says a lot about where RCR is; where our cars are and hopefully what we can do in the last 10 weeks of the season. Really proud of everybody. Just gotta thank all the guys on this team for working as hard as they do and putting up with me. It is a lot of fun right now.”
TALK ABOUT THE BATTLE WITH DENNY HAMLIN: “I knew Tony (Stewart) was a little higher than Denny, I wanted them to start working the bottom and Denny moved up in (turns) one and two so I moved down and got even better in one and two down there. It just took a while; once the bottom went off of his car, our car just kept getting better and better. A lot of fun racing with those guys. Even more fun beating them.”
WAS FUEL AN ISSUE? “I don’t think fuel was the issue, the biggest concern I had was the tires and obviously there was enough cars in between us for us to get out there. Once we got past those first three, four or five laps, the new tires kind of evened out. Our car was so good up on the top, we were a little off on the restarts. What a great day, this hasn’t been the best track for us. Just want to thank all the fans and everybody for coming out and supporting us today. A lot of fun when you are running good.”
YOU TOLD SOME PEOPLE THIS MORNING THAT YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANY PRESSURES AND IT WAS LIKE ON VACATION, DID IT FEEL LIKE VACATION THOSE LAST 10 LAPS?
“No. I didn’t need a restart. We weren’t as good on the restarts as we needed to be but we were so good after 10 laps that it was hard to make any adjustments. Three more weeks of vacation then we can go back to the pressure cooker for the last 10.”
SO YOU ARE LOCKED IN THE CHASE, SO NEXT UP IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP RUN: I’m just really excited. It could all go wrong, but it has been such a great turn around for the year that we’ve had. To finally get this down force victory out of the way, we have been close a lot this year. Now they can’t just say we won on superspeedways this year.”
WHAT DOES THIS VICTORY MEAN TO YOU? “It means a lot. To come here to Michigan and do what we did today is very important and this is what we think is our worst track. So to do what we did today is awesome and it shows where our cars are.
“It has been a great year for us. Last year was a tough year. To start the year off with winning the Shootout and then win three more races and now to win on a down force track where we have been so close to winning so many times this year is important. At the end of the year, we have got to make it happen in the last 10 weeks and that is what we are trying to prepare ourselves for.”
YOU ARE FIRST GUY TO CLINCH A SPOT IN THE CHASE, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THE BONUS POINTS AND BEAT DENNY HAMLIN? “I think it is important just for the fact that they won the first race here. Obviously they have won five races on the year and they are going to be somebody you are going to have to race down the stretch. It is a lot of fun racing the way we did today. He took my life away a couple times and I was able to move down and find another line and then eventually get by him on the top. Just a great Shell-Pennzoil Chevy today. The top is what made it happen for us today.
“It just my car a little bit to get going and once the bottom kind of slouched off for Denny, he started losing grip, he didn’t really have a good car up top or not as good as our car up top. So, it was a lot of fun to have a car like that and run around up top.”
DID THE CLOUD COVER AFFECT YOUR CAR? “A lot. Our car was too loose in the run and perfect in the cloud cover. As it came in and out, our car seemed to be a little more consistent than everybody else’s.”
HOW DO YOU PLAN FOR THE LAST THREE RACES BEFORE THE CHASE? “We have won at all three of the race tracks in the Cup Series. Hopefully we can do it again. They are really good race tracks for us. We’ve run well there over the past few years along with winning there before. So hopefully we can put ourselves in position to win and have a car as strong as we did today should have a chance to win a couple more. Any of the bonus points we can get, we’re happy with. We just want to race like this the last 10 weeks.”
RICHARD CHILDRESS, TEAM OWNER, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: WHAT A BIG CHANGE FROM A YEAR AGO, WHAT A CHANGE: “We actually started a little earlier. A lot of people get credit. We made some changes in personnel, engineering, a lot of different things. Kevin has been so rock-solid. He is into it this year. The whole team is. Clint (Bowyer), Jeff (Burton). I can’t say enough and the sponsors and the fans. What would we be without our fans.
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN A GOOD TRACK FOR RCR, DID YOU KNOW KEVIN WOULD BE THIS GOOD? “Yesterday I knew he was good up high which we were the last race here and we kind of lost it part way through the race. Today, he just stayed solid all day long.”
DO YOU THINK ABOUT WINNING THE TITLE YET? “You just have to be solid to win championships. We contended in 2007 and 2008, with Clint and Kevin in 2008. We are going to give it our all this year.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET – FINISHED 12th
“We overcame a lot today. We started the race good and faded a little bit and in the middle of the race when things started to slip from us, we did a good job of keeping our heads in the game and not letting it beat us down start making bad decisions. It’s definitely not the finish we wanted but I think it was a big victory in a lot of other areas. At a few races this year we’ve had some struggles and you can all get frustrated and start making mistakes, but we kept our head in the game.”
SO IT’S MOVING FORWARD NOW?
“Yeah, when we lose our cool, we would miss an adjustment or two due to being frustrated and then we were an adjustment or two behind and could really never recover; and today we all kept our heads in the game and we did a good job of that.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET – FINISHED 27TH:
ON THE DAY
“We had a great run going and I was really excited about how good the car was to be able to drive up from 36th and I really thought we were going to give those guys a run for the win there. But, everything that could have of happened did happen. We cut the front tire and got damage to the right rear (tire) the vacuum system we had a problem with that. I don’t know if we caused that or if the system failed or what. We’ve never had a problem with it. Everything just went wrong there at the end.”
ON THE CONTACT WITH JEFF BURTON, HE THOUGHT YOU WERE HAVING AN IGNITION PROBLEM; HE HEARD SOME POPPING
“No, that was the cut tire. I just went in the corner; actually it was about halfway down the straightaway when I felt it go. I tried to pull to the inside but I couldn’t steer it and yeah, I hated that. Jeff and I were having a great race all day and that ruined both of our days, probably. But that caused damage to our right rear and the car was just never the same after that. But then we started having the electrical problem or vacuum problem.
ON MAKING GAINS EARLY IN THE RACE AND PEOPLE SAY IT’S HARD TO PASS HERE AND YET YOU GAINED SO MUCH WITHOUT THE HELP OF A CAUTION
“I don’t think it’s tough to pass here. I think this probably is the best place to pass on of all the tracks we go to because it’s so wide and there are so many options of lanes. So, you’ve got to have a good car and we had an awesome car. We really did. But we also found out how important aerodynamics are here. All you have to do is look at that race car and the slight damage to the right rear made it so loose that I couldn’t drive it. Mark Martin got in the wall early and I want to see what kind of characteristics the car had after that. But you know, it’s a big, fast race track. Who knows what would have happened had we not had that cut tire. But the other vacuum brake system might have failed us anyway. So, who knows what would have happened.”
ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RCR CARS
“They’re strong. They showed it all day. All three of their cars are pretty strong; especially Kevin (Harvick, race winner). This is the time to get momentum going into the Chase and leading the points. They’ve shown strength. They haven’t gotten the victories on these types of race tracks and these are very important race tracks to win on right now. I think that was a huge win for them and I’m obviously disappointed for us.”
DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY FOR THE REST OF THE RACES?
“Oh, yes; on finding a golden horseshoe out there somewhere. I don’t know. We’ve just got to work hard and keep putting good race cars out there and you just hope that things turn around and come your way. That’s the thing about the Chase. Your momentum can shift at any time. And it doesn’t matter what you do. If you show that your cars are fast and you’ve got a good team, even if you don’t win races, you can get one or two wins and all of a sudden the momentum is on your side and confidence and everything is there.”
KNOWING YOUR CARS HAVE BEEN STRONG, DO YOU STILL HAVE A LOT OF CONFIDENCE IN THE SEASON?
“Definitely. Oh, yeah. I think we’re one of the best teams out there, honestly; especially on the 1.5-miles this year. But we’re already 50 points down here and we’d be starting 8th or something like that if the Chase were to start tomorrow. We’ve got to get those bonus points and cut into those 50 that (Denny) Hamlin and Jimmie (Johnson) have and hope we can battle them to keep them from even getting more as well as the NO. 29 (Kevin Harvick). And now there are a lot of important battles going on to really get yourself seeded correctly in the Chase, but heads up, I think we can beat anybody in 10 races; especially the 10 tracks that are coming up in the Chase.”
WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN A LOT TODAY?
“You always learn from things that go wrong. But our car was fast. So, I know there were some guys that struggled but that was not our issue today.”
MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 GODADDY CHEVROLET – FINISHED 28TH
“I ran into the back of the No. 82 (Scott Speed). He lifted for Juan (Montoya) and I didn’t know it was time to lift yet and I pounded him pretty hard and that really messed it up. But I put us behind anyway earlier in the race getting up against the outside wall. So we got a little behind because of that too. It was, oh, I’ll call it my mistake but we are racing hard. And that was a case of me racing too hard, too early for sure. But that would have been too hard even late because it messed me up; it would have messed me up late or early. I was charged up and excited and amped up when the race started and had to hammer down a little bit more than I control.”
WHAT ARE YOUR CHASE CHANCES?
“I don’t know what they are. We’ll keep digging. I don’t know. Every race is a new race.”
HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP THE DAY?
“My guys did an awesome job. The car was really fast the last run but it took us the whole race to fix up my mistake. I was real aggressive early in the race and got the damage in the front. It got us a little bit behind first of all and then got the damage in the front end. We going to race hard like we did today and try not to have any more scrapes but we’re going to go down swinging and that’s what we did today. I’m real proud of the rebound that the guys made; we were pretty fast in that last run.”
DID THAT SPEED LATE IN THE DAY GIVE YOU ENCOURAGEMENT?
“I think we had a decent car. I don’t know what we had because things started going wrong from the start. It was a great team effort and we’ll keep pounding no matter what. We were racing hard.”
About Chevrolet: Chevrolet is a global automotive brand, with annual sales of about 3.5 million vehicles in more than 130 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. In the U.S., the Chevrolet portfolio includes: iconic performance cars, such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long lasting pickups and SUVs, such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers, such as Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including the Cruze Eco and Volt, both arriving in late 2010. Cruze Eco will offer up to 40 mpg highway while the Chevrolet Volt will offer up to 40 miles of electric, gas-free driving and an additional 300 miles of extended range (based on GM testing; official EPA estimates not yet available). Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security, and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response, and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models, fuel solutions, and OnStar availability can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
- Team Chevy, Press Release
Article Tags: CARFAX 400, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing With Felix Sabates, Gil Martin, Hendrick Motorsports, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Michigan International Speedway, MIS, RCR, Richard Childress, Richard Childress Racing, SHR, Stewart-Haas Racing, Team Chevy, Tony Stewart
