Manufacturer Notes and Quotes from LVMS's Pennzoil 400

TEAM PENSKE/FORD

Brad Keselowski: “That was a pretty good race.  I passed Joey with the lapped traffic, caught a break there, and then lapped traffic cost me the lead and he pulled a good slide job. I tried to pull it back but I was a touch too nice to him. I’d liked to have had one more lap. It was a good battle. We were both fighting really hard for the top lane. It really seemed to come down to what the lapped cars were going to do. If they messed with the leader then the second-place guy would get a really good and that just kept happening over and over again. It was a pretty good day for our Discount Tire team and for Team Penske.”

 

No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – Ryan Blaney

Start: 13th

Stage 1: 30th

Stage 2: 28th

Finish: 22nd

Status: Running

Laps Completed: 266/267

Laps Led: 0

Driver Point Standings (behind leader): 15th (-64)

Notes:

• Early race misfortune hit Ryan Blaney at the No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil team during Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Blaney fought all-day to regain lost track position after an unscheduled pit stop on lap 50, but a lack of cautions hindered his ability to regain a lead lap position.
• Blaney started 13th and quickly began picking off spots towards the front in stage 1. He reported to crew chief Jeremy Bullins that the balance of his Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang was loose throughout the turns. Blaney came to pit road for his first round of service on lap 45 for 4 tires, fuel and a major air pressure adjustment.
• Shortly after returning to the track, Blaney radioed to his crew he had a tire going down. He returned to pit road on lap 50 and the crew changed all four tires again. After careful inspection the team and Goodyear engineers discovered the valve stem had been knocked off the left rear wheel. Blaney would return to the track and subsequently finish 30th in stage 1.
• The No. 12 opted to take the waive-around under the stage 1 break, putting the Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang on the tail end of one lap down. He fought hard to remain on the tail of one lap down and in the process passed additional cars one or more laps down. Blaney would fight a tight race car at the end and would finish 28th in stage 2.
• Under the stage 2 break, Blaney pitted with for 4 tires, fuel and an another major air pressure adjustment. He would be in the free pass position for much of the final stage, but the lack cautions did allow the No. 12 team to cash in on the free pass back on the lead lap. The team would opt to run long on the second-to-last run of the race, but came to pit road on lap 226 for their final round of service. When the checkered flag waived, Blaney crossed the line in 22nd place.

Ryan Blaney: “A really frustrating day for our Menards/Pennzoil team. We had a really good car but just couldn’t overcome the unscheduled pit stop early in the race. I hope this is the end of our bad luck and we have a good run next week in Phoenix.”

 

No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang – Joey Logano

Start:  10th

Stage 1: 3rd 

Stage 2: 1st – First stage win of 2019                              

Finish: 1st – 22nd career MENCS victory

Status: Running

Laps Completed: 267/267

Laps Led: 86

Point Standings (ahead of second): 1st (+2)

      

Notes:

• Joey Logano scored his 22nd career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in Sunday afternoon’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, securing his place in the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
• Logano initially dropped to the 13th position in the No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang. but by lap 30 had raced his way inside the top-five to the fourth position. Through the first run, the Pennzoil Mustang was described as free, but only slightly, featuring good balance all the way around the 1.5-mile speedway.
• As the green flag pit cycle started, crew chief Todd Gordon elected to run long, cycling Logano to the lead at lap 43, leading for seven laps before pitting. The team elected to make no changes to the car, sending Logano back to the track with four fresh tires to finish the stage. Logano was able to finish the first stage in the third position. The team elected to make an air pressure adjustment on the second stop of the race to give a little more drivability to the No. 22 Pennzoil Ford Mustang.
• Logano had a spirited battle with teammate Brad Keselowski at the beginning of the second stage to take the lead early on in the run. Logano was able to lead until lap 120 when the handling of the Pennzoil Mustang went extremely tight. The tight condition forced him to relinquish the lead just before pitting at lap 124. The team made an air pressure adjustment on the stop, looking to free the car up in clean air.
• Logano was able to grab the lead after the rest of the leaders pitted, maintaining the lead to the end of Stage 2, grabbing the No. 22 team’s first stage win of the 2019 season. Under caution, he reported that at the end of the run the splitter had gotten off the race track, but needed that to happen earlier in the run to help the turn of the Pennzoil Mustang.
• Through the opening laps of the third stage, Logano settled into the third position, trailing the two leaders, but remaining quiet on the radio feeling out the adjustments from the previous pit stop. Logano was finally able to work forward and re-take the lead on lap 210 as the field neared potentially the last pit stop of the afternoon.
• The Pennzoil Crew executed on the final pit stop, positioning Logano for a battle to the finish, which featured all green flag racing. In the closing laps, Logano would fend off last week’s winner and teammate Brad Keselowski to race to his 22nd career victory and secure a place in the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

 

Joey Logano:  “Oh, there was no debate, I was going to tear up the landscaping here.  The talk was last night we had a big PENNZOIL dinner, and the talk was I was going to do some donuts in the grass at the end of the race.  At the end of the race, not during the race.  So to be able to do that was super cool.  Great photo op, but I'm all about the big smokey burn‑out, so I said, well, I've got to do the big smokey burn‑out first, and I also didn't want to go through the grass and have the splitter dig in and completely destroy everything and go flipping ‑‑ I thought ‑‑ I just saw it going wrong in my mind.  I said, I've got to do a cool burnout, which I thought was super cool, I don't know if you guys saw it, but I got dizzy, and that was neat, and then I made a couple donuts in the grass.  That was cool.”

Toyota:  

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Chocolate Bar Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 3rd

Was the pit road speeding penalty just too much to come back from today?

“Yeah because the cars don’t have any speed. You’re wide open just trying to suck off of any car that you can that’s in front of you to get a draft. I was running 31-flats when I was chasing those leaders down and then once I got there, I stalled out to 31.40s because the wind was just so bad behind those guys that you couldn’t corner anymore, you couldn’t maneuver. I couldn’t run low if they ran low and I couldn’t run high if they ran high so you’re always trying to figure out which way to go. I certainly screwed up our day coming to pit road there. We tried a different brake package for us this weekend and trying to make up time in order to get a bigger jump on the guys behind me coming to pit road there and just ruined it for us and we had to come from the back. I think we passed the most cars today so I think we were the most impressive today, but that doesn’t matter because we don’t have a trophy. Whatever.”

 

How tough was your race today?

“If we didn’t have the speeding penalty on pit road, we would have won this race, but the guys gave me a great piece and we were certainly fast there at the end. We were running some of them leaders down and closing in on them running 31-flats and once I got within the vicinity of them, I just stalled out to 31.40s and couldn’t go any faster in order to gain on them anymore. I would try to go low, they would go low, try to go high and they go high and it’s just an air game. Very frustrating, but overall we had a really fast car – the M&M’s Camry was good and driver threw it away.”

 

Did you feel you had control to make moves when you were around other cars?

“The air behind other guys is really, really bad. It can be loose sometimes, can be tight a lot of times and when I caught the 4 (Kevin Harvick) there, I was running 31-flats and when I got to the 4 I was running 31.40s so you get stuck in air.”

Is this package challenging?

“Yes, it’s challenging, it’s all about trying to figure out who can be the man that can hold it down the longest and trying to find your balance in that way. Cars are faster through the corners, there’s more loads on us and it’s harder physically. The wake is just so big that you can’t follow a guy through the corner.”

 

MARTIN TRUEX JR, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 8th

What happened with your stop towards the end?

“The stop was good. For whatever reason, that last restart to begin the third stage, we just got really tight for some reason. But the car was really good before that. Especially in long runs. We had probably a third, fourth or fifth place car. In the long runs, we were the best car and then it just completely jumped the fence and went tight. We made some good adjustments on the last pit stop and gained more spots. It was just too tight at the end.”

How tough was it to come through the field?

“It’s insanely tough. You have to hope other guys run different lanes than you. It’s hard to follow through the corners. You have to be a half-second quicker than they are to be able to stay in line against them in the corners. It’s really tough once you get a few laps on your tires.”

Are you surprised it broke apart as much as it did?

“No. You can’t run behind cars because the tires start wearing. The weight gets so big. You catch lapped cars and lose a half-second. We saw it all day with everyone. A little group of cars would catch someone and they would slow down half-second. It was really just about maintaining. The guys that were the best seemed like they could move around on the track the most. When they would catch someone, they could go somewhere else. That was my weakest point. I was really good on the bottom and I couldn’t run middle-top very good. Especially in Turn 3 and 4. When I caught someone, my hands were tied. I had to maintain Turn 3 and 4, and then try to get a run to get around them into 3 on the bottom.”

What did you need car to do?

“Our car was really good through the middle part of the race and to start the third stage, we got crazy tight on that restart. I am not sure if it was the set of tires or something happened. It just went from being really good to being way too tight. We got behind and lost track position on that restart really bad. We had to fight back from that, so we just got too tight.”

Is this package challenging to you as a driver?

“Yeah, it’s challenging for sure. I think everyone will tell you it’s challenging. I would say it’s probably more of a challenge to drive it than we thought it would be. When we have good tires and enough grip where a handful of guys can run the same speed, it’s pretty racey and fun. But as soon as the grip starts falling off a little bit, you can’t stay behind anyone. That’s when you go spread out. I think the lower horsepower is a big part of the reason we’re able to stay together more. You can’t exploit someone so bad by having a really strong car through the middle of the corner because you only have so much power and speed on a straightaway no matter what you do. It’s a lot different. It’s difficult for sure.”

 

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

Finishing Position: 10th

What fell off and made you lose ground at the end of the race?

“We had a couple tough pit stops that set us back and we just weren’t fast enough to maintain from there. It seemed like we had about a fifth-place car, but we would come in and lose three or four seconds and then some guys would jump us and then it would put me behind some other cars. It’s just so tough to pass once you get strung out that you have to maintain your track position and we kind of struggled with that. Then we lost the balance there at the end.”

Is this about what you expected with this package?

“Yeah, it’s about what I expected. The restarts were super exciting and you’re able to kind of dice around and put yourself in good positions and then once it gets strung out with all the on-throttle time, it seems like the bottom lane is the place to be and then if you’re second you can’t run the bottom either because the wake is so big. It’s kind of a catch-22 and it will work really, really good at some tracks. Other tracks it’s won’t, but overall, I don’t know how tight the field was there, but it definitely seemed like it strung out.”

Were you lifting at all?

“Just barely, just barely. What that does is it just takes away every groove from the middle to the top because you don’t have that off-throttle time. Seems like the draft, what we’re hoping is that the draft can make up for that extra distance and us particularly, we’re just not sucking up that well.”

What can you do as a driver to make up the difference?

“You just try to hold the wheel in it and don’t slip the tires. That’s kind of all you can really do. Certainly, you have to have a fast car and you have to be able to wrap the bottom with a lot of throttle and that’s been kind of the key – that and keeping track position. You look at the 1 (Kurt Busch) car there and he stayed out on old tires. It was just holding up the line, but if he ran the bottom then there’s nothing anyone could do about it.”

Were you surprised there were no cautions?

“Not really. The only time you really are going to get cautions are on restarts when things get jumbled up, but once it gets strung out like that, it’s honestly so tough to run kind of near someone, especially late in a run, the chance of someone running into each other is less likely.”

Do you feel challenged as a driver by this today?

“Not really. I feel like we have to get faster in general. We definitely struggled with speed and a little bit of handling as well, but overall you just have to keep track position – that’s the number one thing. We had issues at Atlanta, we got caught twice with cautions and ended up 11th and then here we had a couple bad stops and feel back to 10th. We had a fifth-place car and we just have to keep going to work.”

 Chevrolet:

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS: POS.   DRIVER 5th       Kurt Busch, No. 1 Star Nursery Camaro ZL1 9th       Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hooters Camaro ZL1  11th     Alex Bowman, No. 88 Axalta Camaro ZL1 12th     Kyle Larson, No. 42 Credit One Bank Camaro ZL1     16th     William Byron, No. 24 Hertz Camaro ZL1     TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL FINISHING RESULTS: POS.  DRIVER 1ST      Joey Logano (Ford) 2nd      Brad Keselowski (Ford) 3rd       Kyle Busch (Toyota) 4th       Kevin Harvick (Ford) 5th      Kurt Busch (Chevrolet)   The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at ISM Raceway with the TicketGuardian 500 on Sunday, March 10 at 3:30 pm ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.   TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES: KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 STAR NURSERY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 5TH REALLY NICE TOP FIVE RUN FOR YOU. TALK ABOUT THE STRATEGY THAT GOT YOU TO THE FINISH: “Yeah, I was really happy that we were able to stay out long. Around the second stage we didn’t get any stage points today, but it positioned us well to make a run at the checkers and we got fifth today. The power of those first few guys altogether it’s aero, it’s engine, it’s handling and that is what we have to work on. I’m really happy with two top fives to start the year. We are playing it smart. We haven’t had any penalties and we will just keep chipping away at it. So, good day for our Chevy, I think we might be top Chevy again.”   A STRONG EFFORT FROM YOU TODAY. YOU LED 23 LAPS. YOU GOT OFF ON STRATEGY A LITTLE BIT AND YOU WERE TRYING SOME DIFFERENT THINGS. HOW DO YOU EVALUATE THE DAY YOU HAD? “Yeah, we made one adjustment and I got really tight in traffic. And then our pit strategist was saying if we stay long on the second stage, then we can stay out. So, we worked that. It played out where we got clean air and it completely changed the complexion of the car. And that’s what we have to do. When we’re in clean air, the car is like this. When we’re in dirty air, the car is like that. I’ve got to get it to where its balanced evenly. But it gave us a lot to learn from today and I’m really proud of everybody to get a top five. Hometown track, Star Nursery on board. It gave me chills at one point, but I’m like hey, we’ve got to get the job done. And now we’ve got two top fives to start the year, but we know we’ve got some more work to do.”    CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 HOOTERS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 9th TOP 10 DAY FOR YOU GUYS. HOW MUCH MORE WAS IT OUT THERE FOR YOU? “Yeah, it really wasn’t anything more than that unfortunately. Definitely a lot better than last week. There were times throughout the day where we were better than that. That run there at the end was one of our worst of the day, I thought, which is never a good way to end it. So, just needed to finish a little stronger and I think we could have been maybe a few spots better. I don’t think we had anything to win, but could have maybe grabbed a few more spots there. Really important to have track position and hard to pass at times. You had to be really good and really think about your passes to get them done. The really fast guys could do it, so it’s not impossible, but definitely have to think through that a little bit.”   OVERALL THOUGHTS ON FULL PACKAGE: “Yeah, I mean I really don’t care. If it’s entertaining for people to watch, it really does not matter to me a bit. Whatever it is, it is, the rules are the same for everybody and it doesn’t matter to me.”   IT LOOKED LIKE THERE WAS MORE SPEED TODAY THAN LAST WEEK WITHIN THE HENDRICK CAMP: “Well, I definitely think so. I mean as a whole we ran inside the top 10 the majority of the day and ultimately finished inside the top 10, which is nice. Yeah, a lot better than last week and a step in the right direction. We just have to keep that going. This is a war not a battle, so we have to think about getting better for 38 weeks and we’ve got 35 left. So, better keep pushing and hopefully take another chunk like we did this week next week.”   KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CREDIT ONE BANK CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 12TH YOU GUYS GOT BEHIND FROM THE PENALTY EARLY, BUT YOU WERE ABLE TO FIGHT BACK. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE TENACITY OF THIS TEAM? “Yeah, for sure. We fought as much as we could there throughout the race. Just tough when you don’t get any cautions or anything like that. I felt like our car was really good on the long runs. Just the short run, I mean, I felt okay on the short run too, I just didn’t have speed. So, we will have to work on that, but all in all we finished 12th the last few weekends and we should have been a lot better than that. That is positive. We have good handling race cars and just got to get a little bit faster is all and clean up pit road a little bit. You know on my end, I think, I probably messed the guys up a little bit. I just didn’t come in the pit stall hard enough and I think they jumped over too soon. Just got to clean up some things I’m doing, but the cars are decent.”   CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 NATURAL LIGHT NATURDAYS CAMARO ZL1 – FINISHED 18th “That was a solid day for our Natural Light Naturdays Camaro ZL1. We were a little bit loose to start the run, but the car would come to us as the run went on it would come to us and we had decent speed to gain positions. The guys worked really hard all weekend and it’s a good start to our west coast swing.”   AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 20th YOU GUYS GOT BEHIND THERE ON THAT PENALTY TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY: “Yeah, we just struggled executing on pit road all day. Had the early penalty, fought back from it, we over adjusted the car and then decided to run long instead of race the next couple of cars and that put us another lap down at the end. So, it was a bummer. I think we had a top 10 car, just never got the track position we needed. We lost it from the beginning and when you lose it, you can’t ever get it back.”   TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 29th “There is still a lot left to learn with this new package. There is no doubt about it. Our GEICO Camaro ZL1 is showing speed in practice and in qualifying. As we continue to run with this package, we will be able to make it all come together during the race. We want to have the advantage over the field, so we will keep grinding at the shop and at the track to learn everything we possibly can about the new rules package. I’m proud of this team’s hustle here in Las Vegas, and I’m excited to turn our focus to Phoenix.”