It's not the ideal situation when you can't use the best stuff you bring to the track. We just never found a comfort zone with the backup Army Chevrolet. |
Michigan has always been a good track for us and hopefully it will continue being that come next Sunday. |
My team is definitely capable of being in the Chase. Any Nextel Cup race you can win is big. It's the most competitive thing I've done. |
NASCAR is just trying to do whatever they can to keep the series under control, |
Not a great finish but an outstanding effort. We struggled in practice yesterday and I had concern. But Ryan (crew chief Ryan Pemberton) and the crew put a whole new setup in the car for the start of the race and let me tell you -- the Army Chevy was bad to the bone. One of the best cars I have ever driven. It was just incredible, I mean incredible on how good the car drove. |
Not bad at all considering everything we went through. I had what I had and had to make the best of it. We're trying a lot of new stuff and we didn't get much time in the backup car in practice. The Army car wasn't comfortable enough and we didn't have any time to work on it. |
Not much to say except the Army Chevy was a little loose and I lost it after trying real hard to pass the No. 11 car (Denny Hamlin). Fortunately our car didn't suffer any damage, but the incident did drop us to the rear of the field. |
Once we get the primary engine in the backup (car), we should be fast. I am not really sure why the (primary) car did what it did. I was down low and the car was sticking, and then all of a sudden it was headed to the wall. |
Ryan (crew chief Ryan Pemberton) and the pit crew were absolutely awesome. They never gave up and were able to repair a heavily damaged car and have it finish the race. I was very impressed and very proud of each and every one of the guys. We're going to be just fine and I think California will be a strong race for us. |
Since joining the Army team I've flirted with glory in California a couple of times, but wasn't able to complete the job. I think it's time to change all of that. |
Since we didn't make the Chase, our goal right now is to finish 11th and we can do that, |
Since we didn't make the Chase, our goal right now is to finish 11th and we can do that. We have some race tracks coming up that we like and can run well at. We proved that last year, and if we can repeat that performance, we'll be contending for 11th place and the one million dollar bonus that goes with it. We have that Army spirit of never giving up. |
That pit stop killed us, ... Changing right-side tires was a good call, [but] instead of coming out of the pits in the top five, we were back at the rear of the field. |
That was a good call by Ryan. And overall, it wasn't a bad result today. We had two bad-luck runs coming into this race and needed to get some points, which we did. Again, the Army Chevy was strong, it responded to changes and right now everything is looking really good for our team. |
That was an excellent and I thought we had it figured out, but the tightness kept on coming back. Outside of that run, we struggled for track position. |