MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 7, 2019
RYAN PREECE, NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:
HOW DID YOU FEEL AFTER THAT LAST ROUND OF PRACTICE?
“I think we are going to start working on handling a little bit for the next run because being wide open in the throttle is going to be key I think to being fast. We’ll see in the second practice. I think you really just lost air when you got around other cars. I don’t know what other people are fighting, but I was fighting being free. Sometimes you would fight a loss of both front and rear, so it’s going to be interesting. I think it’s going to depend on which way you decide to go with whatever you are working on, but at the end of the day, whoever is wide open is going to be the fastest.”
HOW DID YOU FEEL WITH YOUR SPEED?
“I felt like we started out a little off, but as we went on, we got faster and kept making gains. Now, we kind of have a direction of what we need to head in for the second practice. At the end of the day, as long as you can keep gaining time every time you go out, that’s really all you can ask for.”
WITH THE OFF WEEKEND NEXT WEEKEND, DO YOU LOOK AT IT AS A TIME TO RELAX AND REGROUP OR MORE OF GOING INTO THE SHOP AND MAKING SURE YOU ARE READY FOR THE NEXT NINE-STRAIGHT RACES?
“That’s what all of those guys are doing. You don’t want to step on any toes. I’m going to go racing up north in Connecticut and have some fun. I’m somebody who likes to race, so that is my time to relax.”
GIVE ME SOME PERSPECTIVE ON LAST WEEK AT POCONO. FROM WHERE YOU WERE SITTING IN THE COCKPIT LAST WEEK, WHAT WAS THAT RACE LIKE AND HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE IT?
“It was a track position race. Everything was on restarts; you had to maximize everything you could. If you got in front of a guy that was two are three-tenths quicker, you could really use the air to stop him from catching you. It was different.”
WHEN YOU GO BACK TO POCONO AGAIN, WHAT ELSE ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
“That’s hard to say. You just have to maximize your car. You have to be off the throttle as little as possible. There are things we can do to make our cars better. There are things we are working on every single week to be better, so next time, I’d like to be wide open. As long as we can minimize that off-throttle time, it will be good.”
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR TEAM OVERALL; THE GAINS YOU’VE MADE AND WHAT YOUR EXPECTATIONS ARE FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR.
“Really, just top 20’s and then top 15’s. That’s what you need to do. You almost need to restart and rebuild to gain that momentum. We have found a direction in what we need for our team and we are heading in that direction. We’ve seen a lot of progress with practices over the past four weeks. I felt like we had a pretty good car last week at Pocono; just had some unfortunate instances there that kept us from running really well. At the end of the day, at the All-Star Race and Pocono, we had some really good cars. I feel like heading forward into some of these 1 ½ to 2-mile tracks, I feel like we can start having some pretty good runs.”
HOW ARE YOU CHALLENGING YOURSELF BEHIND THE WHEEL DURING THE RACE? HOW ARE YOU BEING VOCAL TO YOUR CREW CHIEF TO GET YOU MORE EACH TIME?
“I go 120% every time I’m out there. That’s what we’ve been doing the entire year. Every single week and every single meeting that we talk at, we are always heading in that right direction. It’s tough, but we’re getting there. I’ve seen a lot of progress over the last four weeks. Ever since Kansas, we’ve been making a lot of gains. As long as we can keep doing that and translating it into the race, we’ll be just fine and we will end up where I feel like we should be.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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