LONG POND, PA. (June 9, 2013) – Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet SS, scored his third win of the season and third win at Pocono Raceway in dominating fashion today. Johnson closed the deal by leading 128 of the 160 laps in the race, and was untouchable while cruising to his 63rd career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) victory. He extended his overall lead in the series to 51 points over second place with his ninth top-10 finish of the season.
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in the No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS, finished third in today’s event and moved up two spots in the standings to fourth. This was Earnhardt’s fourth top-five finish of the season and his 10th career top-10 finish at Pocono.
Last week’s race winner, Tony Stewart, posted a solid fourth-place finish in his No. 14 Mobil 1/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet SS and moved up another three spots in the standings to 13th. His Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Ryan Newman, also had a good run in today’s event and came away with his second top-five finish in fifth in the No. 39 HAAS Automation Chevrolet SS.
Kurt Busch started 20th, but drove to the front and stayed in the hunt all day long before finishing seventh in his No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet SS. Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet, scored his sixth top-10 finish of the season with a ninth-place finish, putting six Team Chevy drivers in the Top-10. Busch moved up two positions to 15th in the standings while Harvick maintained his fifth-place point position.
Greg Biffle (Ford) was second to round out the top-five finishing order.
Next stop on the circuit will be Round 15 at Michigan International Speedway Sunday, June 17th at 1:00 pm ET on TNT, Sirius/XM Channel 90, MRN Radio and www.nascar.com
JIMMIE JOHNSON AND CHAD KNAUS, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNERS
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
THE MODERATOR: We’ll get started with our post‑race press conference for today’s Party in the Poconos 400 here at Pocono Raceway. We’ll get started with Chad Knaus, crew chief for the No. 48 Lowe’s Kobalt Tools Chevrolet. Talk about that exciting race out there today.
CHAD KNAUS: That was a lot of fun. I really love this racetrack. It’s always been one of my favorites. When you come up here you have to have so many elements to have a successful race. You’ve got to have a race car that’ll handle, you’ve got to have a race car that’s good aerodynamically, great horsepower, great drive train, so many cool things have to come into play, good fuel mileage, good pit stops. When we showed up here on Friday we realized we had a very fast race car and that was nice. When you have a fast car that obviously makes the rest of the race a little bit easier. It was a great race. Everybody has been working really hard at Hendrick Motorsports, and I really couldn’t really be prouder. Jimmie did a fantastic job today. His car control today was second to none.
THE MODERATOR: You guys led 128 laps which is a career high for you here at Pocono. This is your third win here, first since 2004. Talk about your strategy today.
CHAD KNAUS: Yeah, we really wanted to try to maintain track position. I think we saw that a lot. The 39 car played that a little bit. The 2 car was attempting to get some of that going, as well, and in traffic you could run about a second slower than what you do with the leaders, so we wanted to try to stay up towards the front. We had to work that pretty heavily with the tire strategy and the fuel strategy, but that’s pretty consistent is what we’ve had up here. Everybody understands that game, and it was a lot of fun. Actually there was some solid racing, some good passing and a lot of fun.
Q. Steve Letarte said you came here with a similar concept. How alike were the 48 and the 88 today?
CHAD KNAUS: As the weekend progressed they definitely merged closer to one another. When we got here there was some differences, but then as practice went and the evolution of looking at all of our teammates’ notes we were able to kind of pull some good from everybody and apply that to the 48 and I know the 88 did the same. That’s another thing I want to say is from the 48 and 88 shop we’ve been working really hard to try to get our race cars better, and I think this is a good venue to try to show how good your race cars are, and for everybody at the 48 and 88 shop I think they did a fantastic job prepping these cars coming into this weekend.
Q. Chad, your sense of how Jimmie’s mindset was this week, it was a disappointed ‑‑ sometimes when a guy has something he feels should have went to him, taken away from him, there’s an extra sense of motivation. Did you see a different demeanor, different intensity level from him this week?
CHAD KNAUS: I don’t really think so. It would have been very easy to come in here with a chip on your shoulder or a grudge, and Jimmie is not that kind of guy. For any of you who know Jimmie, he doesn’t carry a grudge. He is a very laid back ‑‑ the pinnacle Californian, and he just lets it go and come and go as it pleases. We knew what we needed to do and that’s what we focus on. The one thing I feel we do really good as a team is we don’t focus too much on what happened yesterday or last week. We always try to keep eyes forward, and I think that gives us always a little bit clearer view. Sometimes it’s pretty easy to get clouded.
My allergies are killing me up here from all that rain. I don’t know if you guys are having the same problem.
Q. Chad, you said this is a good venue to show how good your race cars are. Last year the 48 and 88 did really well here. Are you bringing this car to Indianapolis, as well?
CHAD KNAUS: Oh, geez, I don’t know. This is actually the race car that we won with at Indianapolis last year, I think. I’m pretty sure it is. So I don’t know exactly ‑‑ I don’t know yet. I’ve got to get home and look at it. We’ve had such a busy season trying to get cars built, trying to get our inventory up to where we can kind of begin to pick and choose where we want to take race cars. For the first third of the season, we really haven’t had the luxury of saying, oh, this is a good race car, we want to take it here, and I don’t think anybody in the garage has. I think everybody in the garage is trying to get the Gen‑6 cars produced and manufactured. You just kind of take to the race track what you have, and that’s kind of the way that we’ve been. We’ve been very fortunate that a lot of our race cars have been very, very solid, so when I get home, I won’t be home this week, when I get home next week I’ll be able to sit back, relax and kind of see what we’ve got for inventory.
The article Chevrolet SS Driver Jimmie Johnson Dominates at Pocono is from Catchfence.
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