FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 19th, 2015
NOTES AND QUOTES FROM XFINITY SERIES PRE-RACE AND RACE COVERAGE FROM CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY ON NBCSN
Race winner Kyle Busch in Victory Lane: “I wasn’t sure I was going to win this thing early on, the way that [Kenseth’s] car was running. I told (crew chief) Gayle, ‘they’re kicking our butt right now.’”
Runner-up Matt Kenseth after the race: “The best car didn’t win tonight but the best driver did. Kyle just did a better job.”
Petty: “I’m sure Gibbs would rather Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth drive in an XFINITY race than play basketball after everything that happened to Denny Hamlin!”
NASCAR on NBC analyst Steve Letarte writes NBCSports.com story on the Crew Chiefs guiding Chase drivers through the Playoffs
Joliet, Ill. — September 19, 2015 — NBCSN presented NASCAR XFINITY Series racing from Chicagoland Speedway this evening, a 1.5-mile, D-shaped tri-oval speedway located 50 miles Southwest of “The Windy City.” With eight races left in the 2015 XFINITY season, tonight’s event began with points leader Chris Buescher racing to hold off stalkers Chase Elliott and Ty Dillon in the standings.
Saturday afternoon’s festivities began with the Countdown to Green pre-race show, hosted by Krista Voda alongside analysts Kyle Petty and Hall of Fame driver Dale Jarrett. Green-flag racing from the “The Lady in Black” was handled by lead race announcer Rick Allen, Daytona 500-winning crew chief Steve Letarte, and Sprint Cup Chase driver Jamie McMurray. Reporters Rutledge Wood, Marty Snider, Kelli Stavast, Mike Massaro and Dave Burns contributed throughout the broadcast.
| Race Results | ||
| Position | Driver | Car # |
| 1 | Kyle Busch | 54 |
| 2 | Matt Kenseth | 20 |
| 3 | Darrell Wallace Jr. | 6 |
| 4 | Paul Menard | 33 |
| 5 | Ty Dillon | 3 |
The following are highlights from this afternoon’s XFINITY pre-race and race coverage on NBC.
Petty on today’s stiff competition: “I’m looking forward to seeing if an XFINITY driver can win two weeks in a row, and we’ve got a few really good Cup guys thrown in here, with three in the Chase. So let’s see if one of these XFINITY drivers, who are now going after a championship, can rise to the occasion and put the Cup guys in their place.”
Last week’s winner Chase Elliott to Snider prior to the green flag: “Last week was a true team effort from the start of the weekend until the end. All of my guys did their job. They’ve done that before throughout the year, but I haven’t done my end for them, and so I was just happy everything worked out.”
Points leader Chris Buescher to Stavast before the race on aggressive driving down the final stretch of the season: “We’ve been aggressive this year and have taken chances that have gotten us some good points early, and we’re going to do the same thing as we look into these last eight races… We understand our situation. We know that we need to be as good as possible without making mistakes so that we don’t lose anything. We definitely have an opportunity to gain some points here today, and we’re going to take the same approach. It has worked for us up to now.”
Petty on being the “hunter,” or the “hunted,” at this point in the XFINITY season: “I’d rather be Buescher. I want you to hunt me down. This is the way we grew up racing. This is an old-fashioned, old-school, championship run, and we’ve got three boxers standing in the ring, toe-to-toe.”
Jarrett: “What a championship like this is all about, is maximizing your best days, but also minimizing your points lost when you don’t have your best chance. We’ve seen the leaders run in the top-10 most of the time, but who is going to make that mistake or have that flat tire at the wrong time?”
Voda: “Fatigue can lead to mistakes, and these guys are on race number 12 of a 16-race stretch without a break in the XFINITY Series, so mistakes may happen.”
Matt Kenseth to Marty Snider prior to the race: “It has been a long time since I’ve been over here racing with these guys. Kyle [Busch] looked like he was the class of the field all day yesterday, and we were a step behind, so I’m looking forward to rolling off today and seeing what our balance is like in a long run. I feel like it’s going to be pretty competitive.”
Petty on the risks involved with Sprint Cup Chase drivers racing in the XFINITY series: “You look at Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth, both drivers for Joe Gibbs Racing, and I’m sure that Coach Gibbs would rather them drive in an XFINITY race than play basketball after everything that happened to Denny Hamlin!”
Guest analyst McMurray from the NBCSN broadcast booth: “Thanks for having me, I’m excited to get to do this. I’ve watched [NASCAR on TV] for years and I’m glad that you guys are breaking me in.”
Letarte: Chris Buescher has done an amazing job with the point lead, but he had a 43-point lead the last time we were in Chicago and Chase Elliott has since cut that down to 21. With only eight races left, the pressure is starting to mount.”
McMurray on Daniel Suarez: “The thing that people don’t realize about Daniel is the language barrier he’s dealing with. He’s trying to learn English, and in NASCAR, we don’t always have English. Sometimes we have this ‘jargon,’ and it doesn’t make sense even to us. So I can’t imagine what he is going through, but he’s doing a great job.”
With 58 laps to go, Letarte offers: “It’s way better to be up here talking about fuel strategy than to be on top of a pit box figuring it out. Right now, I’d be down there on the calculator, and some times you get the decimal wrong… it’s stressful.”
With 19 laps to go, Letarte on points leader Buescher, who was running ninth: “If I’m on Chris Buescher’s radio, I’m telling him that we’re not racing Chicago, we’re racing for a championship. Every bit of coaching that I would be giving him is focused on the big picture. I want every move he makes to be considerate of the end of the year.”
With 6 laps to go, Letarte: “Matt Kenseth’s biggest cheerleader right now is Kyle Larson (racing third). Larson’s best chance is if Matt catches (race leader) Kyle Busch, because his best chance is if those two start racing two-wide and their cars get draggy.”
After the race, Matt Kenseth said the following to Burns: “I just couldn’t get Clyde Torkel (Ned Beatty’s character from Stroker Ace) out of the way, but I was trying. The best car didn’t win tonight but the best driver did. Kyle just did a better job driving tonight… so anyway, we got beat. It’s a bummer to be second, these guys bring the fastest car every week, and I have one more shot to win one with them at Kansas.”
Race winner Kyle Busch to Mike Massaro in Victory Lane on Matt Kenneth’s valiant attempt to pas him in the final laps: “That dive bomb (move) was crazy… I just got enough cut in the center of the corner to know that he was going to just stop and block the top, so I had to get back underneath him. That was some fun racing.”
Kyle Busch later added: “I wasn’t sure I was going to win this thing early on, the way that [Kenseth’s] car was running. I told Gayle, ‘they’re kicking our butt right now!’”
NASCAR on NBC analyst Steve Letarte has penned his first NASCARTalk article for NBCSports.com. Heading into the first event of the 2015 playoffs, Letarte breaks down the backgrounds and approaches that the championship-contending crew chiefs are employing as the competition heats up. The article can be accessed here: http://nascar.nbcsports.com/2015/09/18/letarte-is-a-crew-chief-breakthrough-on-horizon/
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–NBC SPORTS GROUP–
