NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 18, 2016
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 AMERICAN ETHANOL CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER
YOU WERE DAYTONA 500 POLE WINNER TWO YEARS AGO, YOU HADN’T HAD A POLE SINCE WHAT DOES THIS ONE MEAN TO YOU?
“It means everything. That is what I said down the backstretch. A Daytona 500 pole sitter, now I got a pole somewhere else. To do it at a drivers race track like this at Fontana it means a lot to me. Just proud of this American Ethanol team we’ve had fast cars all year long. I knew going into that third session if I didn’t make mistakes I would have a shot. I just stayed with it off of (Turn) 4. I kept my locker locked as much as I could with the gas just keeping as much fuel to the car as I could. It worked out for us.”
YOU WEREN’T THE FASTEST CAR IN THE FIRST OR SECOND ROUND HOW MUCH STRATEGY WENT INTO TAKING CARE OF THOSE TIRES SO YOU HAD IT WHEN IT COUNTED IN THE THIRD ROUND?
“Well me and my engineers just talked about it. We wanted to be from 13th to 24th in that first one. We were 13th on the front side of that. On the second run I was a little tight. We just kept freeing the car up a little bit there to help ourselves in that third run and it all worked out.”
ON WINNING THE POLE:
“Very cool just huge for RCR. We’ve wanted to get our cars back to this moment in time to put ourselves in a shot to win a race. We’ve got fast cars this year and I’m proud of our guys, they just keep working hard. Hopefully, we can turn this into something on Sunday.”
WHAT WAS THE FINAL QUALIFYING LAP LIKE?
“Well just kept talking to my engineers about driving style and what I needed to do on that last run. I entered really hard the run before in (Turns) 1 and 2 and I think it hurt me. I just lifted and pumped the brakes a little bit earlier and coasted into 1 and it really got to the gas good. When it came to (Turns) 3 and 4 I just tried to keep my gas foot in it as much as I could and use the whole track. I felt like we had a good pull to the start/finish line. It felt like it kicked up and was running well. Just proud to put that No. 3 back where it needs to be. Hopefully, we can do this a few more times this year.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 2nd
DID YOU CHANGE YOUR LINE DURING THE THREE ROUNDS?
“Well each round was a little bit different. The second round I had a little traffic getting onto the race track. The first round was pretty clean. I didn’t really change anything. I think I caught the inside of that seam with the right-side tires a little more than I wanted to through (Turns) 1 and 2 and it just started to step out and I had to pedal it three or four times down there because it was loose. Pretty good through (Turns) 3 and 4, but all-in-all a good day for our Jimmy John’s/Busch team and hopefully we can cap that off with a win when we get done on Sunday.”
ON HIS CHANCES SUNDAY:
“Yeah, this is the first qualifying/practice and then going from practice to qualifying that I think we have all felt like the car did exactly what we thought it was going to do. Our goal was to run the same lap time all three rounds usually that is going to put you in a spot to have a chance, but all-in-all it’s been a good start to the weekend and really looking forward to the race on Sunday.”
BRIAN VICKERS, NO. 14 JANSSEN ARNIE’S ARMY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 24th
WHAT WERE YOU LACKING IN THAT SECOND ROUND?
“We just got really tight. It’s funny we fought loose in qualifying practice and just got really tight out of (Turn) 2 in qualifying there. We didn’t really see that coming, didn’t expect it, so we are going to go back and look at everything. I felt really good about the car in race trim this morning. I think we were faster in race trim than qualifying trim. I’m not worried about it at all tomorrow or the race we’ve got a little work cut out for us, but it’s easy to pass here. It’s a great race track, a lot of fun. It’s a special weekend for me being back on the race track after everything that happened last year, especially being here with Treatmyclot.com and raising awareness about blood clots. It’s blood clot history month so, it’s an important month for me and then having Arnie’s Army on the car. How cool is that? Mr. Palmer he is a legend. So being partners with him is great.”
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