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MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR ALL-STAR RACE

May 18, 2019

Chad Johnston

Charlotte, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We're going to start rolling here with our post‑race media availability. We have now been joined by our race‑winning crew chief of the No.42 Advent Health Chevrolet and crew chief Chad Johnston. Chad, congratulations on winning tonight's Monster Energy All‑Star Race. It's a good one to win. Talk about us about the run tonight and obviously bringing home your first win of the season.
CHAD JOHNSTON: Yeah, it comes at a good time for us. We've had a rough year. We've had a lot more speed than what we've shown in points, obviously, but haven't been able to string together any finishes until as of late. So we come off of a third‑place finish at Dover and a seventh‑place finish at Kansas, and with the exception of that and Phoenix it's the only three races we haven't had issues.
To be able to come here to the All‑Star Race and take home a million dollars is huge for us, and hopefully it's kind of a stake in the ground for a turning point for us.

Q. Chad, obviously it's been a rough stretch for you guys over the last year plus not going to Victory Lane. How much have you had to do? What have you done or said to Kyle to help keep him from getting too down on himself and just keep fighting through all this to get back to the top tonight?
CHAD JOHNSTON: He's pretty good about that himself, but we just keep plugging away and trying to find speed. Like I said, we haven't got the finishes we've deserved. Obviously we haven't had the speed we've wanted. I feel like most races we've been fifth‑ to tenth‑place cars, which isn't good enough. We just keep plugging away at it, and he's a racer so he's going to give you 110 percent no matter what he's got, and it's just up to us to figure out with this new package and everything what he needs to go fast. Obviously this weekend was a different package than what we've been racing, but it's still‑‑ it's never bad to win, especially when it's for a million dollars.

Q. Chad, because you guys haven't won in so long, what was the initial feeling? Was it excitement that we've won or relief that we've finally won?
CHAD JOHNSTON: I think a little bit of both. Obviously relief because we had a couple good years there where we won a lot of races, and last year we got a lot of second‑place finishes and were in contention to win, just couldn't close it off. Like I said, any win is a big win. Obviously this weekend is a little bit different because it's not points racing, but still, everybody is laying everything out on the line because it's not a points race and you're racing for a million dollars. I think it's more relief for me than probably excitement, but by tomorrow maybe it'll be a little bit more exciting.

Q. Chad, what does this do for maybe the confidence of you and Kyle in each other? Especially kind of after Richmond it seemed there might be some frustration.
CHAD JOHNSTON: Yeah, I'm not sure what you're referring to there‑‑

Q. Him taking the car to the hauler, you're like, come to pit road and then he took it to the hauler because he knew it was‑‑
CHAD JOHNSTON: Yeah, he knows better than anybody else, so it definitely couldn't be out there. We couldn't have fixed it. He knows better than anybody. I don't know this there's ever been any frustration between the two of us. I've got 100 percent confidence in him. I believe it's the same from him to me. We're just plugging away. You know, it's the same group of guys that we won races with, and it's a different package and a lot of things different this year. We definitely haven't started off like we wanted to, but normally we start off pretty well and don't end up finishing well, so hopefully we're on pace to kind of hit our stride and get to where we're stringing together some finishes and competing for wins towards the end of the year.

Q. With the passing that we saw tonight, how much do you think will be replicated in the 600, or with the radiator ducts and the different splitter, is there no correlation?
CHAD JOHNSTON: I think it's really hard to say. I'd have to go back and watch the race because obviously for me I'm watching our car, not everybody else's, so I can't really comment on how easy it was to pass. I felt like when you run the Open you kind of have an advantage the first‑‑ especially with the first 30‑lap run of being on track knowing what to expect, being able to adjust on your car, where the guys that are in the All‑Star Race don't have that. So it's a good time to take advantage of that information and being able to gain some of the track position back pretty quickly.

Q. NASCAR shared with us some of what they found in their study of the Talladega crash, that they felt the car lifted because of damage in the right front quarterpanel and it lifted more from the right side rather than it being rear lift. Is that what you‑‑ do you kind of agree with what they were showing you, and is there anything‑‑ they said that no changes need to be done to the cars. Do you agree with that?
CHAD JOHNSTON: I think there's no arguing that the right side of the car came up more than the rear of the car was‑‑ it's 60 degrees of yaw and it was laid over on the left‑hand side and the right‑side skirts came off the ground and it got airborne. It had pretty significant right side damage from where the 24 came over and hit it, so definitely I think that that had a big factor in it.
You know, it's not for me to say, but yeah, I don't know that you could disagree with it. I think the encouraging part to me was how well the car held up in the driver cockpit area. Everything stayed where it was supposed to. Our biggest concern was the mirror bracket got ground off, so to me when you have an accident like that and to come out of it unscathed and only be worried about a bracket is a pretty big atta boy for NASCAR and how safe the cars are nowadays.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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