FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, August 16th, 2015
NOTES AND QUOTES FROM NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES RACE COVERAGE FROM MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY ON NBCSN
Race winner Matt Kenseth to Marty Snider on his dominance at Michigan: “This has been a great week. We have had a great couple months. We definitely have some momentum built.”
Steve Letarte on Matt Kenseth’s win: “Not just a win, it is a very impressive dominant performance out of the No. 20 team.”
Steve Letarte on the potentially illegal right side skirt on Kenseth’s car: “Without a doubt not on purpose. If you were going to flair the side skirt for an advantage you would want to do it way closer to the rear tire, out underneath the tail pipes. That would be an advantage.”
Brooklyn, Mich. – August 16, 2015 – NBCSN presented NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing from Michigan International Speedway this afternoon. Friday’s pole winner Matt Kenseth dominated the race, leading 146 out of the 200 laps. It was Kenseth’s third win of the season and 34th career win in the Sprint Cup Series.
Inside the NBCSN broadcast booth, race announcer Rick Allen and analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte called the action. Working the pits were NBCSN reporters Marty Snider, Kelli Stavast, Mike Massaro and Dave Burns.
| Position | Driver | Car # |
| 1 | Matt Kenseth | 20 |
| 2 | Kevin Harvick | 4 |
| 3 | Martin Truex Jr. | 78 |
| 4 | Austin Dillon | 3 |
| 5 | Denny Hamlin | 11 |
The following are highlights from today’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race coverage on NBCSN.
Burton on the preferred line at “MIS”: “You have seen that the leader picked the outside line all day today. You are able to carry your momentum on the outside, there is no one taking air off your car. That car on the bottom is having all the air pulled off the side of the car, taking the downforce away. The outside line I believe will be the preferred line all day.”
Burton on Clint Bowyer’s three-wide crash on a restart: “The No. 15 car and Clint Bowyer, they do not need a bad race. They were running well, their performance was good, but this wreck is really going to hurt their opportunity to make the Chase.”
Letarte on Kenseth’s restart strategy: “Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth are two veteran race car drivers. They understand the importance of every restart. It’s not just luck, there is strategy involved.”
Letarte on Carl Edward’s loss of power during the caution: “When you shut the car off, you have to have battery juice to crank the car back up. That is the one scary part about saving fuel.”
Burton on Dillon’s pursuit of Kenseth: “If Austin Dillon can run the same speed through the corner as Matt Kenseth, he will have an advantage on the straight. It is hard to do because you are losing air when you are in second, but that is the whole key. He needs to try and maintain position and use the straights to his advantage.”
Letarte on Kyle Busch’s top-30 points standing in the Chase: “I think at this point they have to be deliberate. It doesn’t appear they have had the fastest car here today…The No. 18 needs to be a little conservative because he needs those points.”
Burton on Jimmie Johnson’s current racing situation: “This team isn’t in sync. They are not running well, they don’t have the speed and they are making mistakes. They have found a way every year to be better when the Chase started, but they are not in sync right now.”
Denny Hamlin to Burns on his 5th place finish: “Top five is pretty good with this aero package, twice in a row we got top five. Hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Austin Dillon to Burns on his fourth-place finish: “I had fun racing Matt out front. I just couldn’t lead very well when we got out front. It was a little bit of a learning experience I think for me. Matt has been up there a lot in his career. For me, it was my first time and I will learn from it and get better next time.”
Burton on Austin Dillon’s improvement over the season: “I think this is the most-improved team on the race track. They are starting to get consistent top tens, and that is what you want to see. That is real improvement.”
Third place Martin Truex Jr. to Massaro on his momentum in Michigan: “We passed a lot of cars, but we just could never get that track position we needed to fight for the win.”
Letarte on Kenseth’s win: “Not just a win, it is a very impressive dominant performance out of the No. 20 team.”
Coach Joe Gibbs to Stavast on Kenseth’s two wins in last three races: “We were down for about a year and a half, we have come back to a point where we have a chance at races…I don’t think you can ever guess in pro-sports. Things can turn and next week they twist and go the other way. I think that is the reason that all the fans and all of us love it, you don’t know what is going to happen.”
Race winner Matt Kenseth to Snider on his dominance at Michigan: “This has been a great week. We have had a great couple months. We definitely have some momentum built. The guys gave us a rocket today. They gave us rockets the last couple months. We are just going to work hard to try and keep it rolling.”
Letarte on the potentially illegal side skirt on Kenseth’s car: “The competitor in me saw it in the closing laps and I wanted to know how that side skirt got to where it was. There is a distinct rule that says you can’t flail these side skirts on purpose…but without a doubt, this was not on purpose. If you were going to flair the side skirt for an advantage you would want to do it way closer to the rear tire, out underneath the tail pipes. That would be an advantage.”
Kenseth’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, to Snider on the side skirt incident: “Actually it slowed the stop down quite a bit, I would like to sit here and say that was by design. The jack slid under it and they had to reset and obviously it bent the side skirt.”
NBCSN’s NASCAR coverage continues this evening with NASCAR Victory Lap at 11 p.m. ET, and tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. ET with NASCAR America.
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–NBC SPORTS GROUP–
