“What a day. I just remember being so pumped to get another win for Hendrick Motorsports. We had a really strong team that day. My guys put in a great effort and I remember having so many other drivers and fans reach out to me with their support and congratulations. It was a great feeling that afternoon. Even Mario Andretti sent me a tweet. It was pretty unbelievable to get a tweet from Mario.”
Kasey Kahne on earning the most recent Hendrick Motorsports win at New Hampshire in 2012
“Loudon is a really tough racetrack. It’s hard to call a race there. Tires do matter a little bit. It’s tough to find that balance of track position versus tires and getting your car to handle correctly. The restarts there are crazy. Sometimes the inside lane gets bottled down by the outside lane and everyone gets started bouncing around in Turns 1 and 2. There are a lot of near misses there. That’s tough. The traffic is tough there. It’s a really hard track, but we’ve run really well there in the past and I’m looking forward to getting back and seeing what we can do this time.”
No. 5 team crew chief Keith Rodden on racing at New Hampshire
“When I think of things I’ve accomplished in NASCAR, the Iron Man record is one I think ‘…damn, that’s a tough thing to do,’ especially when you see what happened to Kyle (Busch) or Denny (Hamlin) or Tony (Stewart). It could be an illness or a broken bone or an accident or a lot of things that can easily take you out of one race.
“Since I was five years old, I have missed only one race that I was scheduled to do and that was because of poison ivy.”
Jeff Gordon on being on the verge of setting a new consecutive starts record
“New Hampshire is a scrappy track – it's tough. We qualified well last time out but didn’t have the finish we needed. As you can tell, the Chase is going to be intense, and drivers are going to be fighting for every inch on the racetrack. Dover is a cut-off, so everyone is going to be going for it with two races to go.”
Jimmie Johnson on racing at New Hampshire before an elimination race
“We’ve got a pretty good track record at New Hampshire. I think we’ve gotten top 10s in the last four races there, and hopefully the guys have worked on some things to improve and we’ve got a competitive car going into this week. It’s a very flat track -- the corners are flat and there’s not a lot of banking to lean on, so the car gets a little loose on entry and tight in the center. It’s really hard to get a car to get around there exactly like you want. You’re never extremely thrilled or happy with the way the car runs. There’s always something that it needs to do better, even when the car is really fast. Your line can’t vary but maybe half-a-foot or a foot each lap. You have this very small groove to race in, there are seams on the track that the tires do not like to touch, and you have to run in this little alley all day long, so it’s a bit of a challenge, but a fun one.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on racing at New Hampshire
“We need to be competitive at both New Hampshire and Dover. We need to run 10th, 11th or 12th at the worst so that we can get into that next round without being a top-five car, but after that it’s going to have to be a top-five car. We know that, we understand that, so we’re trying as hard as we can to improve things and get to where we need to be to be able to race for the championship. (No. 88 team crew chief) Greg (Ives), the guys, we’ve all been putting in a lot of time and hard work away from the track, going over notes and trying to get better.”
Earnhardt on advancing in the Chase