TEAM CHEVY AT LAS VEGAS 2: Post-Qualifying Notes and Quotes

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
SOUTH POINT 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST-QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
5th KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1
6th DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CESSNA CAMARO ZL1
7th AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 CAMARO ZL1
8th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA FILTERS CAMARO ZL1
9th JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1

TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Clint Bowyer (Ford)
2nd Daniel Suarez (Ford)
3rd Kevin Harvick (Ford)
4th Aric Almirola (Ford)
5th Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)

NBCSN will telecast the 267-lap race on the 1.5-mile oval live at 7 p.m. ET Sunday, Sept. 15. The NBCSports Gold app will stream the race and live coverage can also be found on PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:

KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 5th
“I think with qualifying, we’ve been doing a really good job at the 1.5-mile tracks. Making sure we are wide open, but also to be able to have the right downforce levels for the car for the race. It’s going to be a slick one tomorrow and that’s really where the focus is with the impound. We are making sure the race setup is dialed in.”

DANIEL HEMRIC, NO. 8 CESSNA CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 6th
“I think our No. 8 CESSNA Camaro ZL1 had a lot of speed from the time we unloaded, so that’s always good. The drivability wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be in practice and we tried to go a couple of different directions, but I never really felt like we got any better. We kind of aborted and went back to our baseline. I expect to end up pretty well in qualifying. Hopefully we made the right changes to go and have some success in tomorrow’s race.”

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA FILTERS CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 8th
“It was a much better run than we had yesterday in practice, so that was encouraging. I appreciate my guys working on our No. 9 NAPA Filters Camaro this week and we’re going faster than we did yesterday. So, that was nice. Hopefully we can stick around somewhere in the top-10 and try to get some stage points in the first stage, and go get them after that.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 9th
“We have some goals for the rest of the season. Things are going in the right direction and there is a ton of excitement and optimism around that. But, seeing all the guys that made the Playoffs partying on the Strip doing burnouts hurt. There’s no way around that. I want to be a part of all that and I should be. As I analyze that, I’m glad it hurts. If it didn’t hurt, I think it would be a problem. I’m disappointed that it was more than just one race and what happened in Indianapolis to put us in that position. There is a season full of mistakes that put us in that position. There are 26 races that we could have made a difference, but we have 10 left. Again, the optimism and excitement on the team is really inspiring. I’m excited and ready to go.”

“There are some really good tracks coming for us. I think the company is getting stronger and we’ve had a lot of good things going on. To see the planning for 2020 for Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports and what we have in the pipeline, there are a lot of good things coming.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 14th
“I think tomorrow is going to have a lot of cautions at the end. With it being a night race, just the conditions and the way that they are. It’s hot and the track is going to be changing. It’s a slick race track and really fast, too. I think there are going to be quite a few cautions, especially at the end of the race when restarts seem to pile on.”

“I think you have to be aggressive. I think if situations start to play out at the end of the race and there are a lot of cautions, I think you have to see who you’re around and try to manage your risk. Ultimately, you just have to hope you’re not part of the carnage, I guess. We’ll see, I don’t know if this race is going to be that crazy. I’m sure it’s going to ramp up towards the end.”

HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU TREAT A PLAYOFF RACE?
“I don’t really know. I’ve never been in it, so I think we’ll just have to be cautious about who you’re around and who you’re racing against. Everybody is racing for position, so you can’t treat it any differently than any other race. You just have to hope you have the speed and the good fortune to keep yourself up front. It takes a lot of pressure off your mindset going into the final stage if you get good stage points in the first two.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 15th
“I think it will be a tougher race that earlier this year. It seems like everybody is struggling a little bit more this time around. It has been a little hotter. I would expect there to be more cautions than just the stages themselves. You never know until you get out there in the race. We’ll see, I hope I’m not a part of one of those cautions. My car was terrible yesterday in practice. We changed a bunch of stuff on the car and it’s driving a little better.”

“I didn’t look too deep into other peoples’ lap times yesterday because we were just struggling so much. We were just trying to figure out what we needed to do. So, I didn’t pay too much attention to other people yesterday. Qualifying is so different, too. Everybody is wide open, so a lot of the fast cars are probably pretty trimmed out. It’s going to be a hotter part of the day when we start the race, so I don’t know what to expect. It seemed like a lot of people were having to lift after a few laps, so it won’t be like it was earlier this year when you could run wide open.”

RYAN PREECE, NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 16th
“I think we will be alright tomorrow, I’m not sure what to expect yet. After watching the Xfinity cars a little bit, they looked really loose. I don’t really know yet, I guess we will find out. I think there are a lot of things we can take from the past six weeks to this week. It’s kind of like we had to start over. I kind of know what direction we were in earlier this year here and I feel like we are in a totally different area code. So, I think we’ll be alright.”

ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 19th
“I think we have a lot of handling built into our race car. I just held it wide open and I didn’t go very fast. But, I’d rather handle good tomorrow when it’s 105 degrees than be fast today.”

“You look at our times and you take out a couple of bad laps that we had in practice, we were up there with the good guys. I think we can be really good tomorrow. I think we’ll be somewhere in the middle with cautions compared to earlier this year. I think we are going to have cautions, I think we are going to have tire failures with it being so fast. I think you are going to have guys crashing their stuff. It’s just going to be a really slick race track and tough to drive. Nobody is going to give an inch, so it’s going to create some cautions. I don’t think it will create the 12 that we had here last year, but maybe somewhere in the middle.”

WITH THE PLAYOFFS THIS YEAR, IS THE VIBE ANY DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS LAST YEAR?
“Yeah, I think so. I think we’ve shown that we are capable of having really fast race cars, which makes it easier. I think we have the chance to win races, not just pointing our way through. I think tomorrow will be a good opportunity for us, but we’ll just have to wait and see. The next couple of weeks are really important. You don’t want to be in a must-win situation going into the Roval. We just have to do our best to position ourselves well.”

TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 27th
“I felt really good about our GEICO Camaro after both practices. It’s been a good combination of good speed and handling, and we really haven’t had that here the past couple of races. I’m excited for tomorrow, I think we’ll end up pretty well in qualifying. We really had some good momentum going the last four weeks and I’m looking to continue that here.”

CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 NATURAL LIGHT SELTZER CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 28th
“We watched around five cars spin out in Xfinity qualifying now, so I’m a little nervous going into it. You don’t see it very often and to have as many spins in qualifying over the last couple of days is surprising. Some people have talked about it being easy wide open and we have not been easy wide open. So, we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I think we found a lot of things with our Natural Light Seltzer Camaro yesterday that should make it better for us compared to what we had in practice. But with that, there is the unknown of it being a lot different than what we had. We go out really late, so we have plenty of data to look at.”

BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 VICTORY JUNCTION CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 31st
“We’ve been slow this weekend. It’s not handling very well. We’re just kind of slipping and sliding all over the place. We were really, really bad in practice. We made the car better in second practice, so that was good. Obviously, it’s not the speed that we had in Indianapolis. That’s just how small teams operate. Those little moments of highlights and success, but we’ll keep on trucking.”
“Everybody has been pumped up. Since it’s Vegas, all of the guys usually have Monday off, but they were working on Monday to get the cars prepped and ready to roll out on Tuesday. They are all still pumped up and on cloud nine. All the guys at the shop that don’t travel were excited too. So, it’s definitely been a good week and I’m excited to see the direction that we have getting out of Vegas. I think we are really starting on the right direction from here on out.”

Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 100 countries and selling more than 4.0 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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