Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Quotes

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined on lap 105
DID YOU HAVE ANY VIBRATION OR INDICATION AT ALL?

“No, I had no indication. We were just cruising. We had a really good Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. I knew it was going to be a battle with Jimmie (Johnson) today. He’s fast and I thought we were really good. We were on the loose side but I think we could have tightened it up a little bit more and gotten a little bit better. But I felt really good about it. We’ll see what happens here through the rest of this race.

“But I know it’s been a tough week for a lot of people. Jason Leffler was a good buddy of mine and it’s neat to see how the racing world and the fans and his friends and everybody has supported him for the last four or five days. That showed the person and the racer that he was. I’m just glad I could say he was one of my good friends.”

WHAT HAPPENED?
“Something broke.  I don’t really know. I would say it was a tire that went down, but I don’t know for sure.  I just was going into the corner and then it ‘boom’ and turned right went straight into the wall.  It was a hard hit.  We had a great Farmers Insurance Chevy.  Things were working out.  I thought it was going to be between myself and Jimmie (Johnson).  We both had two really fast cars.”

HOW SLICK IS IT OUT THERE?
“It was slick at the start.  It’s still slick.  We were still on the loose side so I thought as the race went we still had an opportunity to tighten up and hopefully get a little better.  My car would move around some on exit, but I felt really good.  I felt like our Farmers Insurance Chevy was fast and Jimmie (Johnson) is going to be tough to beat. I thought it was going to be between me and him.  It would have been a shootout.”

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD ‘MAN OF STEEL’ CHEVROLET SS – Sidelined with engine failure on Lap 132

HOW DISAPPOINTING IS IT TO BE RUNNING UP FRONT WHEN AN ENGINE LET’S GO?

“Yeah, that is worse than if it happens when you’re running in the back. I’m real proud of the car. We were really struggling in practice and I’m just real proud of (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) and the whole team. They made a lot of great changes. And that car was just flying at the end there. I don’t know if we had as good a car as Jimmie (Johnson), but we had certainly made some gains on it, even in the last stop. So, I’m just real proud of my team. I hate to run into trouble. They’ll figure it out and we’ll get it sorted and we’ll be able to come back here and expect to run strong again. I just hate it. Hendrick Motorsports, they work harder than anyone in the business. They’re the best company in the business and we ought to be out there running up front still, but we’ll get it eventually.”

WAS THERE ANY WARNING WHEN THE ENGINE LET GO?
“No there was no warning at all even after I think we lost a cylinder.  The gauges all looked really good.  Flipped all the switches I could flip and nothing was really making a difference.  We just had something come apart in the motor.  Really happy though with the engine.  Happy with the way the car performed.  Weren’t really happy with the National Guard Chevrolet yesterday.  Made a lot of changes last night. Steve Letarte (crew chief) and the whole crew made some great changes last night.  We had such an awesome car.  Look forward to coming back here and try to get a win.”

YOU TALKED QUITE AWHILE WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF ONCE YOU CLIMBED OUT OF THE CAR.  WHAT WERE YOU DISCUSSING?
“I was just telling him how proud I was of him and the team because we were really frustrated yesterday after practice.  Really frustrated with how the car was driving and where our speed was.  Just telling them guys to hold their head up they did a great job overnight getting the car competitive.  We had a first or second-place car right there.”

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