NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Chevy Silverado 250

Topics:  Chevy Silverado 250

Chase Elliott
Bill Elliott
Lance McGrew
September 1, 2013

OSHAWA, ONTARIO

THE MODERATOR: We have our race winner, race‑winning crew chief and truck owner with us, Chase Elliott of course won the inaugural Chevrolet Silverado 250. It's his first victory and his sixth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start. He also set a record today of being the youngest race winner ever in this series: 17 years, nine months and four days. They previous youngest winner was Ryan Blaney at 18 years, 8 months and 15 days.
Obviously, Chase, congratulations on your first win. Talk about your run today and obviously that last lap.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, appreciate it. Obviously happy to get to victory lane. Like I told everybody else, I hate to do it like that, but not very often do you have trucks as fast as what we had today and have the day go as good as it did for us today, have our strategy play out. We had a couple curve balls thrown with the cautions and trying to judge guys stopping on the racetrack and we were able to overcome and have that caution right there and we were able to put ourselves in position. Had a terrible restart there at the end and got myself in a hole and I messed up again on the last lap trying to pass a guy getting into a corner. That never works. Had two ideas that didn't work out for me, and had an opportunity there getting into 10. I felt like the 3 was sputtering. I felt like he was really, really close or he was out of gas or something and got to his right rear quarterpanel and tried to move him out of the way and unfortunately ended up putting him in the fence. That's not how I race. I think anybody who's ever raced with me before can testify that's not how I like to do things, but just glad we got to victory lane.
THE MODERATOR: Lance, you've been with Chase since his K&N East days. You've watched him grown and develop as a driver. How satisfying is it to get this first win with this young driver?
LANCE McGREW: I think I was lucky enough to be part of it back in the day with Ricky Hendrick for his first truck win. At the time he was the youngest truck winner ever. Kind of duplicated that effort.
I mean, Chase is a great race car driver. I don't think anybody can argue with the fact that of all the races we've run this season he's been in contention every single one of them and it was just a matter of time before he was going to win one. Like he said, I don't think anybody is happy about how it went down, but there's a point in time when you have to draw the line in the sand, and if you have position on a guy and you're coming into the last corner on the last lap, I don't think anybody here wouldn't do the same thing.
You know, it was time for him to win a race. We had a great truck all weekend. He did a great job all weekend, and today we put it all together.
THE MODERATOR: Bill, a couple different titles for you today, car owner, dad. It's really ironic, I believe your first Sprint Cup Series win was at a road course, and now your son Chase getting his national series win on a road course.
BILL ELLIOTT: Well, ironically I won my first truck race on a road course and won my first Nationwide race on a road course. So my career has kind of taken a whole different turn.
But Chase has done a great job, and kind of‑‑ I was down in 8, 9, 10 spotting, and when they came into 8, Chase was on the outside and got through there pretty well, and Ty got into 9 pretty hard, got really loose, lost a lot of time, and then Chase kind of fanned out, so like I was watching guys do that. You've got a pretty good position, you've got a pretty good shot on him right there, and then it's up to the guy on the outside whether you give, whether you don't, what do you do when you're coming to the last lap; so you've got the position, so what do you do. It's kind of one of those, well, I should have done this and I should have done that.
But all in all he did a great job. You put yourself in a position, I guarantee I've lost races like that many times, and I've won them. It all kind of comes around in the way it ends up in the sport. It's kind of the way it is. But I'm sure it was a great TV race, and the fans were jumping up‑‑ they were on their feet down there in Turn 8, 9 and 10 when they were all coming through.

Q. Chase, regardless of that last lap, you ran a strong race all the way through. Your opinion, your thoughts on the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and the race weekend, the crowd, etcetera?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Sure, obviously the crowd was unbelievable, and to race in front of a big crowd gives you a feeling like none other. Fortunately it was a good show I felt like for everybody, and that's the most important thing. If we don't have people there we're not going to have sponsors on the car, and none of us are going to be able to go racing. Like dad said, everything comes full circle, and I'm sure it's going to come back to me one day. I hope it doesn't, but I've learned that ‑‑ I've lost races, really, really close races; I've won really close races, and eventually things like that are going to come full circle.

Q. And the second question, what did Ty have to say to you when he leaned in the window?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, he obviously wasn't happy. He has a right not to be happy. I wouldn't have been happy, either, but at the same time, like we all three said, you've got to do what you've got to do. I had the fender on him there, I might have gotten into 10 a little bit too hard, but I did have a fender on him I felt like. He just told me I was better than that, and we're probably going to have some problems next week at Iowa, so we'll have to play it by ear when we get there.

Q. Will you still go and have a chat with him at some point to try and mitigate what could potentially happen? I know racing is a contact sport and everybody loves it, and they'll be back, but‑‑
BILL ELLIOTT: I'll answer that. Usually before it gets that far along, NASCAR will intervene. That's the way it's always been in my career.
CHASE ELLIOTT: And two, I haven't seen a video of it yet, so I don't want to make the wrong assumption on anything until I see some footage and see actually what happened there because the way I see it and the way people see it sitting up here is a lot different. I'm not sure how things went down, and until I see a video I'm not going to say one way or the other or say something like that, chat with him before we get there or get anywhere else, and probably not going to change his mind, but at least I'll have made an effort.
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, gentlemen.