Conway scores second win on the streets of Long Beach

TOYOTA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH QUICK QUOTES:

MIKE CONWAY (No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka/Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet): “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m actually here (in Victory Lane). Just an awesome job by the team. I can’t believe it. Two times a Long Beach winner. It’s unbelievable. It’s good to be back here. My face is somewhere over there. Now there will be two of them.” (How are you here after braking your front wing on Lap 1?): “You never know where you’re going to be, so you just have to push as hard as you can all the time. I pushed because I knew Will (Power) was going to be close and he was good off the last corner. I knew I had to keep it clean there. I wasn’t sure Scott (Dixon) was going to pull in there. I couldn’t see he was saving fuel where he should have been saving. Second would have been good, but awesome. Awesome.”

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): (About getting through the incident on Lap 56) “I could see that whole thing happening because when (Ryan) Hunter-Reay went to go up the inside (of Josef Newgarden) he wasn’t quite there. I was hanging back and waiting for something to happen because they were all on cold tires. A good day. I regret not using that Push-To-Pass on that last restart. I thought I’d save it and get Mike (Conway) later, but he was quick and a deserving winner.” (About incident with Simon Pagenaud post race): “”Man, I’m really sorry about what happened. I honestly thought he had a problem because he went back really slowly and so I went up his inside and then realized he was just going to turn and try to back out. I got him. My bad. I feel bad. I don’t like to be raced like that and I’m surprised I didn’t get a penalty. But I honestly thought he had a flat tire or something because he was really slow and I didn’t understand why. My bad.” (He seemed quite angry. Did he not want to hear your apology?): “He should be angry. I’d be the same.”

CARLOS MUNOZ (No. 34 Cinsay AndrettiTV.com HVM Honda): “It went pretty well. It’s not the way I’d like to earn my third place with so many accidents, but this is racing. Anything can happen, especially on this track, especially in IndyCar, anything can happen. But I’m really happy. It was a really nice race. In the first turn we were struggling a lot with the rear tires. I was fighting with the car trying to maintain the position. After that my guys, my crew guys did an awesome job on the pit stops and everything. You know, I just pushed pretty hard on the last two laps to try to overtake Will, but it was really difficult. Even though I had some push to pass. But I’m happy, second podium in the IndyCar, and first podium this year. So I’m going to keep pushing.”

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “It was a tough situation for the Target team to be in there leading at the end and not make it. We ended up being about a half of a lap short on fuel and didn’t get a break with a yellow flag. We could have stayed out and tried it but then we would have risked running out of fuel and wrecking the field. I feel bad for the accident with Justin Wilson. I didn’t expect him to be there on the outside so I will go talk to him. Not the day we wanted but we’ll regroup and be ready for Barber.”

TONY KANAAN (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “My wrist is a little sore from the accident. It’s a shame for the Target team. They told me to take it easy on the radio when the accident happened but I guess I didn’t take it easy enough. I didn’t expect to have four cars there and when Sato hit, I couldn’t avoid it. It’s a shame overall but we were up there and what ever happened there in front of us today didn’t look smart.”

RYAN BRISCOE (No. 8 TNT Energy Drink Chevrolet): “We had some major mechanical issues throughout the race and we thought we might actually be done for the day. We came back to the garage and our engineers were able to work with the Chevy engineers to get some things figured out and we were able to get back out there to make up some positions. Obviously finishing 17th isn’t where we wanted to be, but it is encouraging that we were able to get back out there and get back some points. It’s just disappointing because Long Beach is one of my favorite races and we had such a good start by making up all of those positions so early.”

JACK HAWKSWORTH (No. 98 Charter/Castrol Edge Honda): “It was a disappointing end to the day, getting taken out by the accident. It’s a shame. We struggled a little bit for speed in the race but we were hanging up front. Thanks to the team for all the hard work. They put in a big effort and it’s a shame we didn’t get the result.”

NEXT PAGE: Quotes continue from Verizon IndyCar Series drivers at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach