CHEVY MENCS AT KANSAS ONE: Post Race Notes and Quotes

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
GO BOWLING 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 13, 2017

KYLE LARSON AND JAMIE MCMURRAY TOP CHEVY FINISHERS AT KANSAS

KANSAS CITY, KS (May 13, 2017) – In an eventful Go Bowling 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) race at Kansas Speedway, Kyle Larson was the first Team Chevy driver to take the checkered flag with a sixth-place finish in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS.

With his solid season to date and another strong run, Larson continues to maintain the series point lead by 44 markers.

Larson’s Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) teammate, Jamie McMurray, powered his No. 1 McDonald’s $1 Any Size Soft Drink Chevy SS to eighth in the final order, giving Team Chevy two of the top 10.

Other top Chevy contenders were Michael McDowell, who finished13th in his No. 95 Tommy Williams Drywall Chevy SS, Ty Dillon, who was 14th in the No. 13 Twisted Tea Chevy SS, and Kasey Kahne who was 15th in the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS.

In a wild night of racing, the 267-lap event was red-flagged for nearly 30 minutes following a lap 199 accident involving Joey Logano (Ford), Danica Patrick (Ford) and Aric Almirola (Ford).

Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota) was the race winner, Brad Keselowski (Ford) finished second, Kevin Harvick (Ford) was third, Ryan Blaney (Ford) was fourth, and Kyle Busch (Toyota) was fifth to round out the top five finishers.

The next stop on the MENCS will be at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC for the 33rd annual All-Star race on Saturday evening, May 20.

POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – Finished 6th
ON HIS NIGHT:
“The early parts of the race I thought we were okay, not great, but I thought we were like a fourth or fifth place car and I got into the wall on one of those later restarts after that big wreck. I just got really tight and it took off and hit the wall. Then my car was pretty tight afterwards, so I’m sure some aerodynamic issues there, but still recovered for a decent finish there. The restarts weren’t really working out for me there the last handful of them. It seemed like at the beginning of the race I could pass people no problem on restarts. There at the end my line just kept getting choked down and stuff, but sixth place is still a good day for our Target team. The No. 2 (Brad Keselowski) finished really well so that is not great for us because I would like to be leading the points here in a few months. Still in all a good day.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – Finished 8th
“So, we had a really good night. We had a hard time in the pits tonight. I’m not sure if something with the set-up of the car, but we struggled in the pits, but overall, we had a really fast McDonald’s Chevy. We were pretty good on restarts, which was important and I’m really happy to finish eighth because we restarted like 20th or something with two or three to go. It was a good finish.”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, NO. 95 TOMMY WILLIAMS DRYWALL CHEVROLET SS – Finished 13th
ON WHAT HAPPENED WITH CHASE ELLIOTT ON PIT ROAD AND HIS RACE OVERALL:
“You know it’s tough on pit road and I would have to go back and watch it, but obviously, Chase (Elliott) took two tires there. I was following the No. 88 into the box, so I couldn’t see the No. 24 coming out at all and by the time we made contact he was at my left-rear. I just didn’t see him coming in and I don’t think his crew chief knew I was coming in either because he sent him when both the No. 88 and myself were turning into the box right in front of him. So, it just happens on pit road. It definitely wasn’t anything that I felt like I could have prevented because I didn’t even see him coming out of the box. Unfortunate I know because we got a lot of damage and obviously, it took him out for the day too. But, good recovery, everybody at LFR has been working really hard. The 1.5-miles have been good for us this year and it’s good to get another solid finish. We have had a bad string the last three or four weeks and blew an engine there in practice, didn’t get a lot of practice, so, Toddy Parrott (crew chief) and John Leonard and all the guys did a good job of really guessing with the set-up and we got a solid finish.”

TY DILLON, NO. 13 TWISTED TEA CHEVROLET SS – Finished 14th
“Man, did this team fight hard. We struggled in the first two stages to find the perfect balance for our No. 13 Twisted Tea Chevrolet. We spun when we stayed out with old tires, but we didn’t get any damage and were able to recover. It started coming to us there in the final stage, but it was just impossible to pass cars. We really needed track position that we just didn’t have. We picked up some spots at the end with the cautions though and brought home a solid top-15 finish. We have a lot of notes to take back with us on our intermediate-track program. There is still some work to do, but we’ll get there.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMER INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – Finished 15th
“The guys did a great job tonight. We had good pit stops and we had a good car. After the red flag the car just got really loose for whatever reason. We had a good run though until that point.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW DEW-S-A CHEVROLET SS – Finished 20th
ON HIS NIGHT:
“Well, I don’t know if I can remember it all, but for whatever reason the car had a lot of vibration issues. We had some loose wheels. I thought we had one early in the race, but it is questionable whether it was, but it was shaking pretty bad. We had a lot of vibrations late in the race and one in particular that was real serious. You know it’s just a judgement call whether you stay out there and the wheel comes off or you come in and get it tightened up. I don’t think we had any loose wheels after that. I don’t think we had only but one loose wheel tonight. Looking back through our notes this is a track where we all kind of complain a lot about vibrations and thinking we have loose wheels when we don’t. I know a lot of guys tonight complained a lot about it, so if I would have thought about that and kind of known that in the heat of the moment I probably wouldn’t have stayed out on the track, but we had about a 10th to a 15th place finish lined up. And I came in for a vibration that wasn’t a loose wheel and we lost a lap and we got it back and ended up 20th. We had a much better car than that. Had good speed, liked the car and we had good speed in practice. It’s been a real tough weekend because of what happened in qualifying with inspection there and me, I made a few mistakes tonight on the vibrations and what I thought they were and it cost us a lot of track position. It cost about 10 spots at least. So, it’s hard on the team. Hopefully, the guys hang in there and knowing that the car is fast, we got to feel good about that. When you can’t get the car to handle well or drive good that is a real tough job to figure out. If we can work out these bugs it’s not that hard, but making the car fast is a whole other project that we don’t need to worry about because the car has got good speed. I’m just a little confused as to why we can’t seem to shake this … I can’t say it’s really bad luck because tonight really was our own doing, but we can’t get in harmony and know whatever it is. Hopefully, we can get going here in the next couple of weeks and make a couple of good runs.”

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – Experienced an engine failure on lap 158
YOU WERE RUNNING STRONG AT THE END OF STAGE TWO WHAT PUT YOU IN THE GARAGE?
“The bottom end of the motor just broke. We finally got the Caterpillar Chevrolet running well, not to where we needed to be, but better from how we started the race. We knocked a hole in the grill from a spring rubber or something. I watched what I hit, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Finally got enough tape on it so it would run warm and stick a little bit better and made a whole bunch of changes to the car, but just something in the motor broke, bottom end for sure, but I’m not really sure what happened first.”

HOW WAS THE RACING OUT THERE WITH ALL THE CAUTIONS?
“There were more cautions than I expected. I didn’t see all of them with why it happened or whatever, but a lot more sets of tires we went through or at least we would have gone through had we had more.”
 

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