Cliff Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on past experience at Nashville: “The most relevant things to pull from my previous experience there and Kyle’s testing experience there is the nuance of the track. It’s a really unique track geometry. It’s sweeping into turn one but then gets tight off of turn two. We know the track is going to be temperature sensitive. Knowing that will help us, but we don’t have a pure setup or race strategy standpoint. We don’t have any data points to go off of.”
Chase Elliott (15/2), driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on how he is preparing for Nashville Superspeedway: “My preparation for this weekend is really going to revolve around the test that I’ve had at Nashville in the past. I actually had a test with the 24 team in 2013, back when Jeff (Gordon) was driving with Alan (Gustafson) and (engineer) Tom (Gray) and a lot of our same group that we have now. I’ve spent some time talking about that and just some of the tendencies that I remember from the racetrack. I feel like the rules have changed, the cars are different, and Cup has never raced there to look back at a ton of races. Maybe watching an Xfinity race or something, but I think a lot of it is really just going to be more from the test for me, personally.”
Elliott on being nominated for an ESPY: “It’s just an honor to be considered for an ESPY. I haven’t been doing this stuff near as long as guys like Lewis (Hamilton) and Scott (Dixon). I’m not sure I even belong on the same list as them, but it is such an honor to be there and be considered. Regardless of how it works out, I’ll certainly always be appreciative of being considered for something like that.”
Alan Gustafson, crew chief of the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on testing at Nashville Superspeedway: “We were lucky to have been able to test at Nashville Superspeedway when he tested for Hendrick Motorsports back seven or eight years ago. There may be a couple things that we can apply, but that test just gives us a rough baseline to know what drove decent back then, but things are so much different now. We have different tires, aero package and hopefully we are smarter than we were in then (laughing). Having that test definitely helps; it’s better than starting from square one with nothing.”
William Byron (13/1), driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on the challenges of racing at a new track: “You’re not going to have a good feel in general going into this weekend, I think. Nashville (Superspeedway) is going to be one of those places that you just need to adapt and learn as you go. It looks like a superspeedway but it’s more of a short track with how tight the corners are. It’s going to be tough, especially with the heat. I think that this race is going to be one of the toughest places we will go this season just because we don’t have any notes on it. No one has any notes from any series, really. Things have changed so much since the last race there. I’m going to rely heavily on the truck race and watching the Xfinity race. I’ll use that info to hopefully learn and be able to adapt faster in our race. It’s going to be challenge but it’s good to have a new environment and the excitement around it.”
Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on his experience at Nashville Superspeedway: “Nashville is a tricky place. It races like a short track and has short track features, but it also has the characteristics of a mile-and-a-half track. That’s going to be your biggest issue; finding a setup that balances that line perfectly. You want it to handle similar to how it would at a concrete short track like Dover but also handle well, aero-wise, like a mile-and-a-half. While we have limited notes across the board, we do know that it will also be a very temperature-sensitive track, as well. There’s going to be a lot of obstacles to overcome, but I think with William running the truck race and us having a practice session on the Cup side, we’ll be as prepared as we can be. I’m excited to get back to Nashville and see what we can do as a team.”
Alex Bowman (13/1), driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on competing at Nashville: “I have tested at Nashville Superspeedway before but haven’t actually raced there. It is going to be interesting learning the track with the No. 48 Chevrolet in practice on Saturday. Our last race we ran on concrete (Dover) we were able to claim the victory, so we are hoping for the same result on Sunday in our No. 48 Ally Chevy.”
Bowman on Ally hosting its first entitlement race: “This is a huge weekend for our partner Ally. It is their first entitlement race, and they have a lot of fun things planned for the sold-out crowd coming out to Nashville. We have a fun, neon paint scheme designed by Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., and I will have a new helmet that Bernard Pollard and Greg (Stumpff) from Off Axis Paint and I designed. It would be really cool to be able to bring home the Ally 400 trophy on Sunday with so many great people from Ally in attendance.”
Greg Ives, crew chief of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on his experience at Nashville Superspeedway: “Nashville was always a fun track. You used to be able to test at the speedway all the time and it was always a lot of fun. I remember testing when it was 40 degrees out and you were shivering and wondering how the tires were holding up. Then there were times where you would test and it would be extremely hot out. We have been to Nashville Superspeedway a lot, just not with this configuration. We have been around this track with rental cars multiple times to try to dry the track, so hopefully I can study from some videos I have of that. It is going to be a fun track.”
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