MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIESRICHMOND RACEWAYFEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTESSEPTEMBER 21, 2019
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:POS. DRIVER (* = Playoff Contender)3rd * KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL111th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL113th BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 VICTORY JUNCTION CAMARO ZL114th * CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA CAMARO ZL119th * KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1TOP
FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS:POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Playoff Contender)1st Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)2nd Kyle Busch (Toyota)3rd Denny Hamlin (Toyota)4th Erik Jones (Toyota)5th Brad Keselowski (Ford) UNOFFICIAL CURRENT PLAYOFF RANK (Following Round 2 of 10)POS. DRIVER (* = Chevy Contender)1. Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)2. Kevin Harvick (Ford)3. Kyle Busch (Toyota)4. Denny Hamlin (Toyota)5. Brad Keselowski (Ford)6. Joey Logano (Ford)7. * Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)8. * Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)9. Ryan Newman (Ford)10. Ryan Blaney (Ford)11. Aric Almirola (Ford)12. * William Byron (Chevrolet)13. * Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)14. Erik Jones (Toyota)15. Clint Bowyer (Ford)16. * Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course with the Bank of America ROVAL 400 on Sunday, September 29 at 2:30 P.M. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBC, NBC Sports Gold, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 7th“If maybe I could have gotten a better restart there that last time, I could have been a spot or two better. But, we ran better than I thought I would. At the beginning of the race I was kind of falling back. But, then we made it better each stop. Actually, I had a pretty good car in the long run there at the end. So, I was happy about that. And, I haven’t seen the points, but it seemed like a lot of guys had a bad night. So, I’m sure we gained a little bit on the cutoff, so that’s always good.”
HOW DO YOU TAKE THIS INTO THE ROVAL NEXT WEEK?‘Yeah, just have another clean run. Just don’t make any mistakes. We didn’t make any mistakes tonight. Our pit crew was really good tonight, with the exception of one stop. But, other than that, we gained spots every time and we might have even gained spots on the stop that didn’t feel great. So, it was a really good night for them. We’ve just got to keep it going.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 11th“Just a solid performance and unfortunately missed our pit box on the second-to-last pit stop, and we had to dig out of that hole. But just a solid performance, and I think we could have been fifth or sixth if I didn’t miss the pit box. We worked our way back to 11th and it was a solid qualifying effort and all three stages of the race which led to a respectable finish.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 OKUMA CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 23rd“What a night. The Okuma Chevrolet was loose to start the race but I felt confident that Danny Stockman and everyone on the No. 3 team would be able to keep up with changing track conditions and make the adjustments needed to get us a solid finish tonight at Richmond Raceway. Unfortunately, our night became a lot more difficult after we made contact on a restart and ended up with a couple of flat tires. We fell off the lead lap when we pitted for repairs and spent the rest of the race playing catch up. We just couldn’t get the break that we needed to get back on the lead lap, which is a shame because we had a good Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 24thWHAT CAN YOU DO WITH DAYS LIKE TODAY TO MAXIMIZE EVERY OPPORTUNITY YOU GET?“Yeah, we didn’t execute very well on top of it either. So, it’s definitely a bummer. We were really tight here in the spring and we came here trying to build a car that would turn really well. It did that, but it just didn’t have any drive. When you’re on stickers and the guys running 75 lap old tires are forward driving you, it’s not much fun. We didn’t have a good day. We didn’t have anything go our way either. We just struggled with the car all day. It’s a bummer, but Greg (Ives) and all of us will regroup and we should be strong next week.”
THE ROAD COURSE PROGRAM FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS HAS BEEN STRONG THIS YEAR. WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK GOING TO THE ROVAL? OPTIMISTIC?“Yeah, we qualified third and ran fourth there last year. So, we just have to get stage points and have a good day all day. If we don’t make the next round, we don’t really deserve to be there with how we are running right now. It’s definitely a bummer, but we have to get our stuff together.
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 25thYOU’RE IN THE PLAYOFFS FOR THE FIRST TIME, YOU’RE ON THE BUBBLE GOING INTO THE ROVAL. DO YOU FEEL PRESSURE OR DO YOU FEEL LIKE HEY, IT’S MY FIRST TIME? IS THIS AS MUCH OF A LEARNING EXPERIENCE AS ANYTHING?“It’s just great to have a shot. It’s just great to be even on the upside of it. And, I think if we can do that, I’m really optimistic for what we can do going forward. We’re just really fortunate to have another shot after a night like tonight and we can go forward and see what we have.”
HOW DID YOU END UP ABOVE THE CUT LINE HERE AT THE END?“I have no idea. I really didn’t know that was even a possibility. But, it was just a tough night. We started out far back and lost our first lap pretty quickly. We just couldn’t recover, we just kept getting lapped. So, we just move on from here and move on to the Roval. I think we have a good shot there to have a good result and hopefully compete for a top-5 or something like that would be nice. I’m really optimistic about that with how we’ve run at the road courses and hopefully that will work out for us.”
YOU’RE GOING HOME TO CHARLOTTE. WHAT’S THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL GOING TO THAT TRACK? YES, IT’S A ROAD COURSE, BUT IT’S ALSO A STREET COURSE. IT’S KIND OF A COMBINATION.“Yeah, it’s definitely a combo. The back chicane is definitely a lot tighter than it was last year. So, I think we are going to have to really kind of judge the braking zone differently and it’s probably going to be a passing zone there. I think it’s going to be a totally different beast this year with that. At least we can look at the notes that we had for the other corners from last year and try to put that all together. I’m not really sure what to expect with that chicane, but it should be fun.
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