Team Chevy has 16 Impala SS Race Cars in Sunday’s Autism Speaks 400
Dover, DE - A total of 16 Team Chevy drivers will take the green flag in Sunday’s Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway.
Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Impala SS, will start third (3rd) in the 43-car field. Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS, will roll off eighth (8) in the order. Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Impala SS, crashed during his qualifying effort and will start 42nd in a backup car.
The 400-lap/400-mile race is scheduled to start at 2:00 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX TV, MRN Radio and Sirius Satelitte Radio.
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 U.S. ARMY IMPALA SS, QUALIFIED 11TH: “We were looking for a better effort than that. I got a little loose in (turns) one and two. The car kind of washed up after that. The U. S. Army/Haas Automation Chevy is much better than what we showed in qualifying. Dover is my favorite track and I look forward to Sunday.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS, CRASHED DURING QUALIFYING EFFORT: THAT WAS AN AWFULLY HARD HIT OUT THERE, WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED? “Oh man, I just hate it for these DuPont Chevrolet guys. It’s going to make for a long weekend here in Dover but we’ve got the team and the car to be able to get off the truck and come back and still be very competitive. Hopefully we’ll win this race on Sunday. Qualifying is important to us. We’ve been working really hard. I had a great car through practice. Right there the car felt great coming of of (turn) four to the green. I got down into (turn) one and when I got back in the gas it felt pretty good but it started to get lose a little bit there off of (turn) two. I tried to correct it and it just shot it straight in the wall. It was a hard hit, destroyed the car. I’m glad I’m alright. We’ll get the back up out here and go from there.”
WE WERE HOPING YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THE CAR AND NOT YOURSELF, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? “It hurt the car. Obviously its destroyed. It’s so hard to save one when its jumps on you like that in qualifying. You’re so committed. I just hate it for these guys. We’ve been so good all day today. The car through (turns) three and four incredibly good coming to the green. So that’s my tell, tell sign of what kind of grip and what kind of balance we had and I got into turn (one) and the car felt good and got back into the gas and the back end just came around on me just a tiny bit. I tried to correct it and obviously you can see what happened. It just shot straight into the fence. That was a hard hit.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET IMPALA SS, QUALIFIED 3RD: TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN. “I tell you this Target Chevy has been pretty good. It’s hard to describe. These boys have been working so hard and we really want to get into that Chase. It is nice to see every week. This Chevy motor runs great every week and everybody in our organization has done an amazing job. It’s nice to see.”
DOES IT CHANGE THE WAY YOU ATTACK THESE RACES KNOWING THAT YOU’VE GOT TO BE THERE AT THE END TO GET THESE POINTS? “Yeah, you’ve got to be there at the end but you’ve got to be up front. You’ve got to run good every week. It’s pretty cool.”
THAT WAS A FAST LAP THERE. “I tell you this Target Chevy has been amazing. We unloaded good. In practice we were not as fast as we wanted to be but I had a couple of moments running through (turn) three. It’s nice. It’s a very different race than anybody else’s from what I’ve seen but it seems to work for me so I’m pretty happy.”
IS THIS LIKE FOR YOU THEY ALWAYS SAY THIS IS BRISTOL ON STEROIDS, HOW SIMILAR WHEN YOU WERE TRYING TO LEARN? “Very different you know. What is nice about this from my background with cars with a lot of grip, this is probably the most grip we have with this car any where we go so its a lot of fun to drive.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL IMPALA SS, QUALIFIED 35TH: “The Shell-Pennzoil Chevy was a little too tight in the middle of the corners. It felt pretty good coming off, but I had to wait on it to turn in the middle. We’ll work on our race trim tomorrow and try to get it dialed in for Sunday.”
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET IMPALA SS – QUALIFIED 3RD:
ON HIS LAP:
“I think the lap was pretty good. We were actually one of the last few cars on the track, so I think it helped a little. But everybody around us seemed to still slow down. So I think I was one of the few cars to actually pick up from practice. So I was pretty happy with that. The car felt better than practice, performance-wise. So it was good. I think everybody at the team seems to be doing a very good job week-in and week-out and we’ve just got to keep doing the same thing every week and see what happens.”
DID THE OVERCAST/SUNNY WEATHER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR LAP? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF PIT ROAD?
“I did only like two race runs in the morning and the car felt pretty good. I think the sun does make the track a little bit slicker. You could see a lot of the guys sliding around. I think what Kasey Kahne said about going early probably hurt him a little bit, but I think 2nd was still good for him. For us, I think the pit entrance is going to be a little bit harder to get in and stop. Do you want to stay on the track and park the car on the track before you come down, or, you know what I mean, or are you going to come off the banking before Turn 3? It’s always going to be a question and it’s going to be quite a challenge I think.”
ON THE TOWN HALL MEETING, IS THERE ANYTHING LIKE THAT IN F-1 AND DO YOU SEE A VALUE IN DRIVERS HAVING A VOICE IN A RACING SERIES?
“In Formula One you have what’s called the GPDA. My opinion, at least when I was there, they really didn’t listen to us too much. I think that hasn’t changed. But, it’s nice. It’s nice to know that what you think, they care. They are always open for opinions. They always care what the drivers think. And it’s always nice to see that. I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to please everybody in the group. Everybody is going to like one idea or the other, so we’ll see. There were a lot of discussions about double-side restarts and some people say it’s great and some people say it’s bad. It’s what it is and if it happens, it happens. In my opinion, I think when it comes down to five laps to go, I don’t think if you led the day all day long, you don’t want to be side-by-side with somebody with five laps to go on the restart. But it is what it is.”
ON ENGINE PERFORMANCE PACKAGE, WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS THE BIGGEST CHANGE ABOUT GOING FROM DODGE TO CHEVY?
“For me, I think to be honest, it’s hard to go and say they’re better here or there. I think all the engines in the series are just so close, I think the characteristic of the engine is very different. We’re very pleased with it. For us, we took a lot of weight off our shoulders because we were building our own engines last year and with the ECR engines, it’s a lot nicer. It’s one less thing you need to worry about and it seems to make everybody a little bit happier in the company so it’s really good.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE TOUGHEST PART OF THE TRANSITION FOR YOU FROM F-1 TO STOCK CAR RACING? DO YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE NOW THAN YOU DID WHEN YOU MADE THE SWITCH?
“I think the harder thing is just driving the cars. They are so different to drive than anything else I’ve driven before. I think time in the car has really helped and seeing what other people do and learning from them has been huge. People are really nice here. They are very open. You can go to anybody here and ask a question and most of the time, or all the time for me, they’ll give you an honest answer and it’s nice to see. It’s just very different. The racing is different. When you run Open-Wheel, you’re not used to the give-and-take or anything. You just want to take and not give. So it’s hard to learn that give-and-take sometimes, to be honest.”
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