|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES: BANK OF AMERICA ROVAL 400September 29, 2019Chase ElliottCharlotte, North Carolina THE MODERATOR: We will take questions for Chase. Q. When you hit the barrier in Turn 1, after that, when did you know it was going to be okay and you might have a chance? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, definitely at the time I thought we were done for sure. You know, I could see they were showing it up on the big screen, I could see the big screen down the back and I was looking at it, and I was like, well, the hood is not that bad, but I thought the splitter was knocked up, and I felt like if that was going to be the case, then we were probably done from there, and obviously just a really stupid mistake. I mean, I'm not sure you could do something more stupid than that. If there ever is a notebook of things not to do, that should be number one in that book. Q. You asked on the radio (indiscernible)? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I was curious about it, and I just didn't compensate enough for the faster pace. I mean, yeah, it was nobody's fault but mine. Q. You've had your first win came at Watkins Glen a couple years ago. How does this racetrack compare to Watkins Glen as a road course? CHASE ELLIOTT: It doesn't. I mean, other than you turn right. It's really different. But I felt like this track is more similar to Sonoma than I think it is Watkins Glen for sure, but it's still road course racing, and it's still‑‑ the fundamentals I think are similar, but the track surface and the condition and everything is definitely‑‑ definitely suits more of a Sonoma style than Watkins Glen. Q. Chase, you've won races at each of the next three tracks in the Round of 12. Do you anticipate a win coming in the next three weeks? CHASE ELLIOTT: I hope so. You know, nice to have an extra six points going into the next round for sure. We'll go to work on Dover on Tuesday and start our prep and really think about the next one. But it's hard to carry anything really from today into next week just because it's back to the ovals. Anything we learned today from a road course standpoint obviously we don't have another one the rest of the year. But can definitely take those six points with you as long as you're alive in this playoff system, and hopefully we don't need them but we got them, and hopefully‑‑ well, it's good either way, so we have them. Q. Your celebration was obviously in like the Hall of Fame of celebrations. At what point did it occur to you, like you know what, I'm going to just drive it back down there and stuff it in there and do a burnout? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I was coming back on the frontstretch and I saw that dang thing, and I was like, well, I couldn't pass this opportunity up to go down here and redeem myself a little bit in Turn 1. Yeah, I was pretty excited about that one. I'm typically not very quick‑witted, but I was really proud of that. I was pretty fired up. Definitely it should have never been special in the first place, but since I went out of my way to make it special today, I felt like I had to go back and see it one more time. Q. You didn't sound too pleased with your practice or your qualifying on Friday, but of course practice went really well for you yesterday. What were you able to see yesterday that helped you bring it together today? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, that's a good question. Friday was really just a struggle. Just never felt like I got into a rhythm Friday, spun out there in qualifying, made a dumb mistake there, too, and that set us back. Certainly not how you want to start the race, middle of the pack. You're asking for it in there and getting body damage or some problem. You know, luckily was able to get our car driving better yesterday in practice, and then stayed out of trouble those first handful of laps and was able to get strung out and get into a rhythm and from there felt like our car was close. Q. Chase, in the several weeks leading up to your win at Watkins Glen, you guys had struggled a lot with performance. I was just wondering since then up until today's victory, do you feel you guys have corrected some of the problems that you thought you had or addressed and feel that it's put you in a good position to challenge for the championship? CHASE ELLIOTT: Oh, I think we're a stronger team now than we've ever been. I honestly feel like we're really close to being able to assert ourselves amongst those top teams. I feel like we have that in us. I don't say that because we won today, I say that because I believe it. I think that we definitely have work to do. You know, you can't go and run as bad as we did last weekend and then come here and win. You've got to be able to have a little more consistency than that. So we definitely have our work cut out for us and trying to get better. But I think we are the type of team and we have a good enough group of guys that we can run with those guys or really whoever, I think, whenever we're at our best, and I thought we proved that today. Q. Chase, it was a good weekend for the entire Elliott family. Your dad got to visit Victory Lane yesterday at Road Atlanta and then you win today. I can't imagine that's something you thought would happen over the course of your career. What did that mean to you? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it was cool. They've been driving vintage cars at Road Atlanta this weekend. I wanted to go over there and see it. I've never made a lap at Road Atlanta. It looks like a really cool place. Definitely neat, not something you would necessarily think would happen. That's kind of a tough thing to do for sure. But definitely pretty cool and hopefully we can share some more weekends like that moving on. Q. Alan was in here and was talking about how there was confusion for you guys on the order of one of those cautions. Could you explain that? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I'd have to ask a question on that one. I don't understand why that was okay or why that wasn't addressed. But yeah, I think the 48 and the 2 were in flip‑flopped positions. It was made apparent over the radio. I think Jimmie made a very conscious effort to move down and try to swap with the 2, and the 2 wasn't having it. That was his decision. But they let him run with it, and I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't answer that. I think they were supposed to swap spots and one of them did and the other one didn't, so you tell me. Q. Is this race tougher year two? I know it's a road course but a different kind of road course, for NASCAR to call it where sometimes guys spin and there's yellows, sometimes there's not? Is it confusing from that perspective? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I don't know‑‑ obviously that's a discretion call for whoever makes that decision. If they think somebody is wrecked bad enough or whatever, I guess then they put the caution out. I don't know. But that's not really for me to concern myself over. I don't make that decision. Luckily for us today the cautions fell at a good time, and honestly had more cautions there at the end than what I was wanting, but you don't always get what you want, and luckily it worked out for us. Q. You've demonstrated your abilities at just about every venue you've been, but it seems like the road course seems to suit your style very well. Does a road course typically challenge a driver more or is a road course just a road course and an oval is an oval? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it's tough. They're very different, your approach and how you drive the cars are very different, but I feel like you have to be able to be good at all of them. There's really just not an area I think that you can be bad at nowadays and expect to compete with the guys who win championships in this deal. We put as much emphasis on the road courses just as we do the other races. You know, and sometimes they have gone well and sometimes they haven't. We've had our struggles at Sonoma and Watkins Glen really for that matter and had our struggles here on Friday. So I mean, it's not just a guarantee you're going to run good. It's definitely a challenge, and it can be a challenge for whoever. Q. Chase, I know it was a foam barrier, but when you're going head‑on into something like that at that kind of speed, what are you thinking? What's going through your mind? CHASE ELLIOTT: I was just thinking, you idiot, like what did you just do, more than anything. But I hit it pretty hard. I thought it would hurt it a lot worse than what it did, and luckily the splitter didn't get knocked up, and that was the saving grace of the whole thing. It was just kind of cosmetic hood damage and didn't bust the radiator. Guys did a good job‑‑ a lot of times when you have damage like that you come down pit road and try to fix it a lot of times you can make it worse than pushing and pulling on that stuff. Those are fragile areas. There's really no support for the front fenders after it leaves the front bumper. It's kind of its own piece of metal until it gets back to the A‑post, so that's a fragile piece of an area of the car that could potentially cause a tire rub or this or that. The guys did a nice job to put it together the right way. Q. You may have answered part of this, but to lead 35 laps, to be out there, to overcome what had happened and to have that momentum going into the next round of the playoffs, how important is that for you as a team to get that win? CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, I mean, just those extra six points, you know. Who led the most laps today? Is that a point? Not anymore? Never mind, bummer. But anyway, so yeah, I guess six points, that's a big deal regardless, and obviously we wanted to win. But those six points stick with you, and you can't put a price tag on that. You hope it doesn't come down to six points. You hope that you're cruising there and you're able to run good enough or better yet win, but they're nice to have for sure, and like I said, you can't put a price tag on them. Those guys that have five, six wins are pretty well cruising to Homestead. You know that, and that's the goal when we get to Daytona in February is to try to get up enough wins where these rounds, if you have a bad race that you can keep digging. Q. Chase, I just wanted to go back to the accident. What was going on behind the wheel? Did it look as smooth or was it as smooth as it looked on TV when you hit the tire barrier and then seemed like you were quickly in reverse and got yourself going again? CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I knew long before I hit it that I was going to hit it, so I was just thinking about reverse and getting out of there and finding a hole to crawl in as fast as possible because that was pretty dumb. Q. On this course, and I don't know if it's because it's the Roval or if it's just the way this one lays out, but most of the time on road courses, passing is done under braking, and you out‑brake a guy and beat him in. We didn't get to see all of your overtakes today, but it seemed like most of them were actually on acceleration and coming off of corners faster. Is that just the nature of this course, or was it the way your car was running? CHASE ELLIOTT: You know, you just try to do‑‑ you try to take advantage of wherever your strong points are, and I just didn't feel‑‑ at other places, braking zones are‑‑ I think here, a braking zone would be a great place to pass. The problem with here is if you blow the backstretch, you've ruined‑‑ you could potentially have ruined your day. The risk versus reward there doesn't make a lot of sense. Other places, Watkins Glen, you out‑brake somebody into Turn 1, well, if you blow it you just run wide. So I think you have to think about that, and I think that was probably a big reason why guys just weren't just champing at the bit to pull out of line down the back because we didn't know if we were going to make it by ourselves a lot of times, much less two people. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|