NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013
 
 
JEFF GORDON SETS NASCAR RECORD IN WINNING THE POLE AT RICHMOND
FIVE TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS POST TOP 15 STARTING SPOTS
 
RICHMOND, VA – Sept. 6th, 2013 – With a track record qualifying lap of 20.674 seconds and average time of 130.599 mph, Jeff Gordon put his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS in the pole position for Saturday night’s 56TH Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway (RIR). This was Gordon’s first pole of the season, giving him 21 straight seasons with at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) pole – which breaks the record he had shared with David Pearson of 20.  This was also his sixth pole in 42 races at RIR, and 73rd career NSCS pole in 715 races – which makes him third on the all-time list.
 
Kurt Busch, No. 78 Furniture Row/Beautyrest Chevrolet SS, qualified in second position – his eighth front row start and 12th top-10 start of the 2013 NSCS season.  Busch, who sits 10th in points, is just six points ahead of Gordon for the coveted top-10 in points needed to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.  Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet SS, qualified in seventh position for his sixth top ten start of 2013.
 
While Hendrick Motorsports driver, Jimmie Johnson, was in North Carolina with his wife, Chani, because their second child was born early this morning; Regan Smith took over practice and qualifying duties for the No. 48 Lowe’s/KOBALT Tools Chevrolet SS.  Although Smith qualified the car in 10th, Johnson will have to start from the rear when he returns for the race tomorrow night.
 
Other Team Chevy starters in the top 15 are Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS – 12th and Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS in 14th.
 
Brad Keselowski (Ford) qualified third, Clint Bowyer (Toyota) qualified fourth, and Matt Kenseth (Toyota) qualified fifth to round out the top-five starters.
 
The Federated Auto Parts 400 will take the green flag on Saturday evening, September 7th at 7:30 p.m. ET and air live on ABC and PRN Radio.
 
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, POLE WINNER:
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN: “Obviously that was big – it was really big. Of course to address the record with (David) Pearson. It is not very often you get to break a record that David Pearson set. So that is really incredible. I’m pretty overwhelmed, and blown away by that record in itself and to be able to accomplish that.  I didn’t think it was going to happen this year. We just have not been qualifying well. I like to pride myself in my qualifying, and it has just been little things here and there that have kept us from getting it. Today just went really smooth. The car was good in the first practice in race runs.  We swapped over for qualifying trim in the second one and went straight to the top of the board. The car was just driving well. I saw Kurt (Busch) put that great lap up at the beginning. Then I saw the cloud go away. I was a little bit nervous as to whether we had enough.  On the first lap the car stuck good, and I knew I had a little bit more in me for the second lap. It did all the things I wanted it to do. That’s huge to be able to do that at a crucial time. Get that number one pit stall, and set ourselves up to do what we are going to have to do tomorrow. It is going to be tough. It is going to be a hard fight. That little bit of confidence that we needed; this is what this gives us. The car just feels really good, and I am just excited to get the race going tomorrow.”
 
HOW INTERESTING DO YOU EXPECT THE FIRST LAP TO BE WITH KURT STARTING ALONGSIDE YOU AND BRAD (KESELOWSKI) STARTING RIGHT BEHIND YOU? “It depends on everybody’s attitude and goals are. I think we all know Kurt is a very aggressive guy, so I would think he is probably going to try to fight pretty hard to get himself in position. Not only for track position, but it is important for him to lead a lap just like it is important for me to lead a lap. I would imagine that there will be a little big of battling there. I have been in this sport a long time; the race is not won on the first lap. I will try to get the best start that I can and try to get the lead. If I feel like I’m not wearing the tires out too much to get it, or to keep it. Then we will try to stay up there. But, this is a long race. You have got to be smart. We found that out last year. Halfway through this race, we were done. We didn’t give up on it, and look what happened. So we have to take that approach when the green flag drops tomorrow. You have to fight hard, and you have to be smart as well.”
 
DID YOU GET EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD GET OUT OF THE CAR ON THE LAP? OR WAS THERE MAYBE A LITTLE BIT LEFT? “There is always a little bit left Stan (Creekmore). You know that. Until a computer is driving the car, I don’t know if it going to be perfect. I felt like I got everything out of it. If you scan me, you know that when I cross the line, I make comments. When I crossed the line, please tell me that’s it, because I thought it was. And, it was. Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) was a little confused because he was on his stop-watch, and his stop-watch said a .70 so he knew it was really close. Then he came back and said it was a .67. I knew that was a great lap. Didn’t know if that was going to hold up,
 
‘”We got behind a cloud there, especially when the NO. 20 (Matt Kenseth) went. And it was really, really close. So, I knew it was a good lap though. The car has been good all day and I was really thrilled that we backed it up when we went to qualifying. When you qualify here, you pick up six-tenths from practice and/or half a second. When you push as hard as you can in practice, you just can’t comprehend that the track has that much in it. And yet you go and push it and it does. Today it stuck and that was great.”
 
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU MADE A STATEMENT TODAY?
“We made a better statement than it we would have qualified 35th (laughter). If you think qualifying 35th meant something, then I think qualifying first means something as well.
 
“To me, it’s just really about building momentum and confidence throughout the weekend to know that we’re fune-tuning but we’re not looking and searching for big things. That’s the kind of day that we’ve had and specially since we’ve gone into qualifying trim. But that number one pit stall is big.
 
“Track position is big. So, did we make a statement? Yeah. But so did Kurt (Busch) and Brad (Keselowski). I find it so fascinating. You come into this race and there’s all these guys that are all in this bubble or whatever you want to call it to make the Chase. And all of a sudden, they all just step up to another level and I think that makes for a really interesting conversation of what’s going to happen prior to the race, and when that green flag drops of what’s going to happen throughout the whole race.”
 
THIS IS THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW YOU’VE HAD TO RACE YOUR WAY INTO THE CHASE. DO YOU THINK  YOU ARE MORE CONFIDENT KNOWING WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO ACCOMPLISH THAT? AND HOW IS STARTING AT THE FRONT GOING TO HELP YOU ACCOMPLISH THAT?
“I’m certainly a lot more comfortable. Last year I was really on edge and it was stressful. The entire weekend was stressful. And I’ve been a lot more calm this weekend. I don’t know exactly why other than I think because we went through so much last year that it does help prepare you to deal with whatever is thrown at you and know that you’re giving your best. This is only step one. We started pretty good here last year, if I remember correctly.
 
“This is a good track, qualifying-wise, for me. I thought we started pretty good but we faded fast. We did the same t
hing here earlier this year. That was our primary goal why we tested here, and our primary goal goal to learn today when we got here. And that’s what I’m excied about. Not only did we qualify well and get the pole, but I think we have a much better car for the race in the long runs as well.”
 
NORMALLY QUALIFYING SECOND WOULD BE A GOOD THING AND KURT BUSCH WAS. BUT THE FACT THAT YOU QUALIFIED FIRST DOESN’T MAKE IT AS GOOD FOR HIM ANYMORE. ARE YOU HAPPY HE IS THINKING ABOUT THAT AND WHAT HE COULD HAVE DONE AND THAT IT’S KIND OF IN HIS HEAD NOW?
“I that there’s not doubt we all recognize what’s on the line here. We all recognize the conversations that are going on about who is going to do it and who is going get in the top 10 and who is going to be the wild card. And I think that while I don’t necessarily agree that we should be singling us out, it does seem like that was the questions I was getting asked about yesterday. I think there are too many other guys out there that we really have to race; not only to win this race, but also to make it in. But then, we go one-two in qualifying. So that’s pretty ironic. At this point, I’ll take every little boost and bit of confidence and little victory that we can, and today was a good one.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING/BEAUTYREST CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SECOND
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORT AND WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS FOR TOMORROW NIGHT:
“It was a great lap for us.  We made a lot of changes and it turned out to be a great lap.  I didn’t know if it would stick for the pole or not.  We end up outside pole which I think now that is like you said seven outside poles for us this  year, eight, one pole and a bunch of outside poles, I don’t know if that and a dollar bill gets you a Big Glup (laughs).
 
“It’s cool that we are on the front row and hanging out up front with (Jeff) Gordon.  The way that it shakes out it’s just a front row starting spot which is great for our crew guys.  We will have a good pit box selection.  We will probably choose the one with the opening that is in front of it back around I think pit box 17.
 
“That first pit box is nice.  I got the pole here once at Richmond before and you can just fall right off the jack and trigger that line.  We will see that No. 24 use that to his advantage all night.  So we know that little bit of difference in the lap time we just ran will give him a nice advantage all night long.  Our guys will know that and then once we settle into the race it’s a matter of just making sure we focus on our drive off and not spin those rear tires.
 
“This is cool.  Here we are the two guys battling it out for the last spot.  Like the bottom of the seventh I feel like we have a one run lead and it’s off to the final few innings.”
 
WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS IN SITUATIONS LIKE THIS IN HIGH PRESSURE SITUATIONS THAT GUYS WHO HAVE THEIR BACKS AGAINST THE WALL THEY SEEM TO RISE TO THE OCCASION? 
“I’m going to just draw the parallel that all three of us have and that is the Sprint Cup trophy that is sitting in our trophy room.  It also comes down to great teams making the adjustments to know how the track speed is going to pick up and then the driver has to drive with that increased speed. We picked up eight tenths from where we practiced.  Eight tenths is a lot and also on our computer and some of our simulation it said that from the beginning of qualifying to the end of qualifying the track is going to pick up eight hundredths.  (Jeff) Gordon went out right around in the middle and he beat us by four hundredths.  It’s ridiculous how close computers are getting these days with simulation.  That is all the teams doing that and the drivers have to go out there and back that up.  That is why you probably see us three up there.”
 
IN THINKING BACK, WAS THERE A SINGLE INSTANT IN YOUR QUALIFYING LAP THAT YOU THINK COULD HAVE KEPT YOU AT THE TOP OR WAS IT JUST TIMING?
“You know the track going out fifth it was very early to go out, but we also had cloud cover in the beginning and I think that helped us equalize some of that track conditions picking up a quicker pace towards the end.  I don’t know I look at turn two maybe.  Didn’t quite swat the throttle as hard as I maybe could have, but I also watched Brad (Keselowski) slip his tire off turn two and end up third.  We are going to take second.  We came from all the way back in 19th in practice now we are outside pole and now we get into our comfort zone of going through the debrief and looking at our set-up notes.  Maybe we can translate a couple of things from our qualifying run and add them to our race trim and carry those with us all night long.”
 
WATCHING THE MONITOR AND WATCHING THE TRACKER IT SEEMED LIKE IF YOU EVER GET BELOW INTO THE RED NOBODY EVER COMES BACK UP.  IS THAT THE WAY IT IS WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE MISSED A TURN DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO GET IT BACK ?  NOT YOU BUT EVERYBODY IN GENERAL?
“When you are at a short track there is really no time to gain that little slip.  I’m having a hard time explaining, but at a short track any time you throw away you are never going to get it back.  At a mile and a half you can get it back on the other end of the track because there is that much more space left, track distance.  I learned that in drag racing.  In a quarter mile there is no time to waste.  Once you throw away a thousandth you are never going to get it back.  So the moment you feel like at a short track that you slip well there is only three quarters of a mile around here you can’t get that time back.”
 
DO YOU EXPECT A LOT OF DICING ON THE FIRST LAP FOR YOU GUYS TO TRY TO GET THAT BONUS POINT BETWEEN THE THREE OF YOU?
“Yeah, there is the bonus point for leading a lap and I’m looking at our car over the long run.  We’ve got a job to do to complete 400 laps and the first one isn’t the important one.  It’s lap 400.  So we will see how it shakes out if Jeff (Gordon) slips his tires I will take advantage of that and try to lead the first segment of the race.  Otherwise the game plan is to let him lead on the start because I’m on the outside. It’s not the preferred lane and then by lap 10 we will see how the sequence pans out or even sooner if our car is going to come to life and want to pass his.”
 
YOU ARE A STRONG RICHMOND RACER ARE YOU GLAD THIS IS THE TRACK YOU HAVE FOR THE CHASE?
“This is a cool place to come to because of the balance of the short track atmosphere versus the speeds here are greater at this track than the normal short tracks.  Then the tire drop off the pace is so fast for qualifying and then by lap 30 you are going to hear everybody on their radios asking for rear grip, the rear is sliding all around and the rear can’t hook up.  So you’ve got to manage your tires throughout the tire run.  It’s a great challenging track that you could get caught pinned down by a pit sequence as well.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER:
YOU RACED YOUR WAY INTO THE CHASE LAST YEAR WITH THAT LAP ARE YOU ON THE WAY TO DOING IT AGAIN?
“Well this is only part of it, but that’s certainly a great run and we’ve had a really good AARP Drive To End Hunger, Hunger Action Month take action and we just did.  I’m excited about the day that we’ve had.  Our car has been good in race trim and certainly been good in qualifying trim.  When those guys start laying down laps like they were laying you just don’t know what it’s going to take how much further you can push the car and weather it sticks.  It did the things that I wanted it to do.  The first lap was sort of a feel out lap and the second lap was going for it. It stuck good, turned good, and got off the corners good.  I felt like it was capable of it and then they came over and said it was.  The sun is going down and clouds are out anything can happen with these cars that are coming up, but all in all really nice day.  It was a great moment for us to get this weekend started right.”
 
CAN YOU COMPARE YOUR FEELINGS NOW TO HOW YOU FELT HERE LAST YEAR?  
“Well we had a good qualifying run last year I believe.  We actually had a good start to the race.  Then it all went downhill from there.  We really had some revelations when we were here testing a few weeks ago of some things that we had to work on.  I’m so glad we did that test because we have made some huge strides and not only from last year some of the issues that we had, but earlier this year when we didn’t run very well here at all and I think they kind of came to the front of what was kind of maybe hiding underneath and we solved some issues and I think we made our car a lot better.  It’s been reacting really well so far this week. We still have a little more work to do.”
 
FIRST POLE OF 2013 IS SIGNIFICANT FOR THE RECORD BOOKS HE NOW MOVES AHEAD OF DAVID PEARSON WITH 21 YEARS IN A ROW THAT HE HAS HAD AT LEAST ONE POLE.  WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?
“That is amazing.  I didn’t think it was going to come this year I’ll be honest.  Qualifying has not been very good for me and for our team this year.  Very proud of this one, boy, it comes at a great time.  We know how important making this Chase is.  We know how important that number one pit stall is and starting up front.  ‘Whoo’ I can breathe now.  Don’t forget it is hunger action month so take action go to drivetoendhunger.org to help out this great cause.  I’m so proud of this race team.  That was huge.  To have to go out there and beat the No. 78 you know what I mean there are just so many story lines you don’t know where to begin.  So many things that are going to happen in this race this is just step one.  Very proud and happy that this moment came and that we are stepping it up when we need to.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING/BEAUTYREST CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 2ND:
HOW BIG DO YOU THINK THAT CLOUD COVER WAS HELPING YOU?
“We will take the cloud cover and we will take those adjustments we made.  That lap came out of nowhere.  Awesome lap.  I don’t know where it will end up, but that is big time team stuff when you are off in practice and you have to throw quite a few changes at it and it makes a good reaction to the changes.  The car handled really well there for qualifying.  I don’t know where that will stack up, but that was nice for us to have to come from behind in qualifying practice.
 
“I think we are okay for the race, so real excited about that lap. These Furniture Row guys and this Chevy we will keep plugging along here we are in good position.”
 
HOW FAR BEHIND WERE YOU IN PRACTICE?  HOW MUCH ADJUSTING DID THEY HAVE TO DO?
“Well we were 19th overall.  We might of got blocked on one of our qualifying laps.  So it might of hurt us by a tenth or so.  So that was 15th, 15th is the right end of where we have to draw the line.  We have to stay ahead of (Martin) Truex and all those guys.  15th is the worst we want to be.”
 
IT WILL BE THE EIGHTH TIME THIS SEASON YOU HAVE STARTED ON THE FRONT ROW.  THAT IS A CAREER BEST.  YOU WERE 19TH IN QUALIFYING TRIM IN THAT FINAL PRACTICE HOW DID YOU PULL IT OUT THERE WITH A SECOND FASTEST QUALIFYING TIME?
“We just threw a couple of things at it and it stuck.  There are days when you make changes and it doesn’t necessarily translate into speed.  Just got to thank these guys, these Furniture Row guys keep working, we keep finding things and qualifying has been strong for us this year.  I’m glad that we could lean back on some of the knowledge we had from earlier this year.  I didn’t think we would get the outside pole, but man that is what eight outside poles, it’s crazy.  It’s just cool to be in position.  Now at the start of the race we are right there with (Jeff) Gordon and we will settle in and race our 400 laps.”
 
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU STARTING ON THE FRONT ROW TOMORROW NIGHT?
“Well since (Jeff) Gordon is on pole he will lead probably the first lap.  If we were on pole we would have lead the first lap and that is a two point swing.  So we will see how that shakes out.  We want to make sure we pace ourselves, do the right thing.  We will have a good pit selection that will help our guys.  From there we just have to go back over the notes on today’s practice runs and then look at what we did here in qualifying to pick up that speed and see if we can use any of that to add to tomorrow night.  We are feeling good about this.  I love these challenges and right now (Jeff) Gordon and I are one-two.”
 
ON HOW IMPRESSIVE SS HAS BEEN THIS SEASON:
“It’s fast. The way they allow us to take all the fuel out of it; the center of gravity is so low that when you are at a smooth track like Richmond, you can really gain from that center of gravity difference. I’m just impressed by the changes we’ve made; and to have a shot of being in the top-10 in qualifying. In practice, we were just off when we switched over to Q trim. A bit surprised, but to be able to make changes like that, and get a good reaction out of the car, that is big time team stuff.”
 
REGAN SMITH, INTERIM DRIVER FOR JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 10TH:
WHAT HAS THE EXPERIENCE BEEN LIKE FOR YOU THIS WEEKEND AND WHAT DOES JIMMIE (JOHNSON) HAVE TO WORK WITH TOMORROW NIGHT?
“Well, it’s been a great experience for me.  Number one the seat time has been awesome and numbers two getting to hop in a car after Jimmie does in a test session and then feel what he looks for out of his race car.  He’s got a great car tomorrow night.  I know they were real happy in the test, we were happy at points this afternoon.
 
“Qualifying trim I was like a fish out of water for a little while there.  Chad (Knaus, crew chief) did an awesome job with the Lowe’s/KOBALT Tools Chevy before I hopped back in it.  It was good.  I didn’t quite get all of it, but proud of these guys for working with me all day and all weekend.
 
“They will have the regular guy back tomorrow.  Hopefully they are doing good with the baby back home.  Hopefully things are going well there and look forward to watching it.”
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED 7TH: ON HIS QUALIFYING: “It wasn’t a bad lap. We’ve struggled being fast on our second lap, and it seems like most guys can go quicker on their second lap. We seem to always have the fastest first lap, but just can’t get the speed out of the car on
the second lap. It wasn’t a bad lap I don’t think. It was better than I expected.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED 12TH:
ON HIS QUALIFYING: “It was okay. We haven’t been that good this week to be honest with you. We really struggled in practice. It’s okay. It didn’t drive as good as I wanted it too, but it’s not bad.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED  24TH:
ON HIS QUALIFYING: “We have just been struggling on short-run speed. That kind of goes along with all year with a couple of exceptions. We’ll see how we shake out. It’s not where we want to be. But I feel confident that we have a good long-run Quicken Loans Chevrolet.”
 
MARK MARTIN, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 16TH:
“I got loose there on the first lap getting off of (turn) two and that kind of put a little damper on our second lap. I thought we were pretty close in terms of setup, but as it turns out, we could’ve used another adjustment and tightened the car up.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 36TH:
“The rear of the car was a little jumpy. We picked up from practice, but were hoping for a better lap with the GoDaddy Chevy. Well be ready for tomorrow. I appreciate the hard work of the GoDaddy guys today. They put a lot of effort in.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013     
 
CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Richmond International Raceway and discussed the birth of Jimmie and Chani Johnson’s second daughter, Regan Smith practicing and qualifying the car, Jimmie racing Saturday night and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
CONGRATULATIONS UNCLE CHAD KNAUS: SMILES “It is pretty cool. We are all excited about.”
 
TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW AND HOW THE DAY IS GOING TO GO: “As far as the day goes, Regan Smith is going to practice the car, and he is going to drive the car at qualifying today. Jimmie will be back here tomorrow, and he will race tomorrow evening. As far as Jimmie and Chani go and the baby – everything is fine there. They had her early, early this morning. Healthy; all her fingers, all her toes; all that stuff looks good.  Chani is doing great. They are recovering and hopefully be home tomorrow.”
 
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE OF REGAN AND JIMMIE? “Actually they fit in the same car. This has been the plan since the onset. We felt that if we went into Loudon (New Hampshire) weekend, we were going to have some difficulty with the mixed schedule. We were hoping she was going to come this weekend. We actually tested here a few weeks ago. It was a company test. Regan joined us at the test, and made some laps in the No. 48 car. He felt very comfortable in the race car. Turned some pretty respectable laps. It is actually working out better than we had hoped.”
 
DID YOU ACTUALLY GET A CALL AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING? “I was getting text messages all night last night. Jimmie sent me a text, and we bantered back and forth a bit. It was quite exciting.”
 
HOW IS JIMMIE? “He is great! He’s having a good time. He is enjoying the moment with Chani. He really wanted to be here, but after talking it over with him last night, and really trying to put some sense to it; it made a lot more sense for him to take the day off. Get some rest. Spend some time with Chani. That way when he showed up here tomorrow night, he was actually fresh and ready to go instead of sleep deprived and wanting to be with his kid.”
 
WHAT IS THE IMPACT WITH HOW IT IS GOING TO WORK TODAY? “Really, as poorly as we have qualified here, I don’t think the implications are going to be too bad. We start toward the rear typically anyhow. So we are going to go out there; we’re going to try and qualify as best we can so we get a solid pit selection. We will have to start toward the rear of the field tomorrow. We have 400 laps to try to work our way up there. I feel very confident with it. Regan is actually a fantastic qualifier. We’ve seen that time and time again, so I feel like he can get the Lowe’s/KOBALT Chevrolet qualified in the top-10, top-15. Get a good solid pit pick and go in there and race.”
 
HOW MUCH LESS PRESSURE IS THERE KNOWING IT’S NOT GOING TO BE A DISTRACTION OR AN ISSUE NEXT WEEK? “It is just the thing, man. Life happens, so we are prepared for everything. We tried to be as prepared as we could for all of it. We were ready for Chicago in case Regan needed to go in there as well. It’s nice to know that we don’t have to worry about it, but if it had crept up, we would have dealt with it. We would have been okay.”
 
DO YOU HAVE ANY INPUT ON THE BABY’S NAME? WE HAVEN’T BEEN GIVEN A NAME: “I think Genevieve has the biggest influence on that right now.”
 
DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE MANY CHANGES INSIDE THE CAR FOR REGAN VERSUS JIMMIE? “No, he (Regan) fits in the car really well. It is really, really close. If it gets to the point where he needs to drive the car in the race, we’ll need to make some small modifications to it. But, for what he is going to be doing, we don’t really change much at all.”
 
HOW MUCH OF A CHANCE IS THERE THAT HE WILL HAVE TO DRIVE THE CAR IN THE RACE? “Very slim.”
 
DID YOU DISCUSS AT ALL HIM MISSING TOMORROW’S RACE? “We did talk about him not attending the race.  It would have had to have been because of some form of complication, or the baby came later today than what we had anticipated. But since she came at a reasonable hour, and Jimmie is going to be able to take the day off, he feels like he will be well-rested and be able to come out here and perform the way he needs to tomorrow night.”
 
IT’S BEEN A ROUGH STRETCH FOR THE TEAM LATELY, HASN’T IT?
“Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s been tough but the thing is our cars have actually been very fast. At Atlanta we were running well and everything was going to be fine. At Michigan, we were clearly very, very fast in both race cars; and at Pocono we were fast, and so on and so forth. So, it’s unfortunate that we’ve had these situations, but quite honestly, it’s actually helped us, because our team was a little rusty on fixing crashes and repairs and on-road stuff. And it’s given our guys an opportunity to get back in the swing of things. So, if it were ever to happen, it was a great time for it to have happened. And we’re looking forward to the next 11 weeks. We feel like our race cars have been super-fast every weekend. We’ve qualified well. We’ve run very fast in the back-up cars, so we feel like we’ve got the packages that we need. We’ve just got to try to get out there and not have these silly problems.”
 
DO YOU EXPECT ALL HELL TO BREAK LOOSE HERE AT RICHMOND? NOT SO MUCH FOR YOUR TEAM, BUT IN GENERAL BECAUSE OF THE WILD CARD SCENARIOS?
“Yeah, it’s crazy. There are a lot of different scenarios that are going to potentially play out. I’m glad I’m not involved in it, how’s that? We were talking about it in the competition meeting the other day and I was like darn, can I just stay home and not even get in this mess? Because it’s going to be show, I can tell you that. But it’s going to be exciting and that’s what we want. We’ve seen it year in and year out, that coming into Richmond a lot of guys and a lot of players make some petty critical decisions to take them out or put them into the Chase.”
 
WILL THE NEW DAUGHTER BE LIKE A BREATH OF FRESH AIR AND MAYBE CHANGE THE BACK LUCK YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN HAVING FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS?
“I hope she brings us good luck. I don’t know. I’ll take it. That’s good luck, yes. Absolutely Everything from here on out is going to be perfect. How’s that? (laughs)”
 
YOU HAVE BEEN THE POINTS LEADER FOR MOST OF THE YEAR, BUT MOST LIKELY WON’T BE FOR THE START OF THE CHASE UNLESS YOU WIN SATURDAY NIGHT
“Oh, so you’re counting us out already?”
 
OH, NO, I’M NOT. BUT HOW WOULD THAT AFFECT THE TEAM?
“Not at all. Not at all. We’ve started the Chase in a lot of different scenarios. We’ve started leading the points. We’ve started 10th in points. We’ve started Chases with DNF’s and been able to come back and run competitively. So, we don’t really focus on that stuff as much as everybody else does. We focus on how the team is performing. We focus on what we’re capable of doing and how we’re going to approach the situation. And right now, we’re coming in with our heads high and our shoulders back and we’re ready to go. We feel very confident that we’ve got a great race team and a great driver and good race cars; and we can go out there and race our way into this championship.”
 
WILL YOUR DAY TODAY BE SPENT CONCENTRATING JUST ON QUALIFYING?
“We’re going to do some race runs in the first practice session and then we’re going to switch over to qualifying trim the second practice. We were fortunate enough to be here for the test a few weeks ago and we were able to test during the nighttime hours, so we feel confident that the set-up that we have for the No. 48 car is going to be good at night.”
&nbs
p;
IS THE FACT THAT YOU TESTED AT NIGHT ACTUALLY MORE BENEFICIAL THAN ANY PRACTICE YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN TODAY?
“Yeah, basically. Today is going to be mainly to get Regan (Smith) acclimated to the race car again and try to turn some fast laps and try to get a solid qualifying effort.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2013
 
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS – WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY:
 
RYAN NEWMAN:  To me, everything is like an ordinary race weekend.  Once the checkered flag drops, it all changes.  We have to do the same thing that we chose and want to do back in Daytona for the 500, at Phoenix and Vegas, everything else.  That is the same task at hand.  That’s to win the race.
            Again, for so many of us, winning answers so many things.  A few of us, some people can win and still not make it in.  In my position, if I win, I’m in.  I can run 2nd and still not make it.  It’s just a matter of going out there and seeing how everything falls.
            I mean, I finished 21st in Bristol, went out of the wild card spot to into the wild card spot.  Anything can happen in a short track race.  I think the guys that we’re all racing, even if you look back at Atlanta, I looked at the pylon after the race, guy trying to make the Chase, guy trying to make the Chase, had to get to like 6th or something to get out of that group for guys that are battling for that tight spot.
            Anything can happen.  I think it’s just an ordinary race up until that point.
 
            Q.  If you get in, how competitive do you think you can be?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  That was the question and answer to myself before Atlanta.  If we can’t do what we need to in these two races, we won’t be able to achieve anything in 10 races.
            These last two races, Atlanta, I think we did a good job there, kept ourselves in the hunt.  I think we can be competitive.  We’ve proven we can win.  Everybody says you have to be a winner to be a champion.  I don’t know that’snecessarily the case, but obviously it does help.
            I mean, I’m not going to sit here and say, Yeah, I think we can win it, I know we can win it.  I think we can be a true contender and shake some things up.
 
            Q.  Tony said the other day they didn’t want to talk about him being out for the season because they didn’t want to put any distraction.
            RYAN NEWMAN:  (Laughter).
 
            Q.  I know.  I know.
            RYAN NEWMAN:  Two U‑turns, going back in the same direction, right (laughter)?
 
            Q.  Has trying to figure out what you’re doing next year been a distraction while everything else is going on as well?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I think no matter what, trying to figure out anybody’s future is somewhat of a distraction.  When it compares to living in the present, trying to figure out and perform like we need to perform for the Chase.  I think it takes a pretty good mind to separate all those things.
            I think if you look at somebody like me and Kurt, I think we’ve done well managing that.  I think in the end it is a big challenge, but that’s what we enjoy, is challenges.  We’re out there competing against 42 other people to try to win a race.  Don’t expect anything to be easy.
            They say the more challenging it is, the more rewarding it is, so…
 
            Q.  How much of this is the mental game?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I still say in our sport, just like I said when I drove the Army car, it’s a 33% deal.  There’s mental, physical and emotional.  They all weigh evenly.  Some at times more than others, but in the end they all weigh evenly.
            I think there will be a part of racing here in Richmond that is mental, physical and emotional.  Emotion may be the first lap or the last lap, but in the end there will be a 33‑and‑a‑third balance of all three.
 
            Q.  If you could have one race back from earlier this year, which would it be?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  Two of the first three were DNF’s.  You pick the engine failure, the blown tire, either one of those were 40‑ish‑place finishes.  That was tough.  30 points we couldn’t get back, if you take a top‑10 finish.  That was huge.
            So many guys in our position could say the exact same thing.  There’s several races like that.  You go back to when we had the ball rolling, then we had Loudon and everything kind of blew up, then we came back and won Indy.  Loudon we got crashed running 6th on a restart in our last fuel window.  We ended up 36th there.
            So many of us could say the exact same thing, exact same story.  We just all have one race to make it happen.
 
            Q.  Did you watch Tuesday with Tony?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  No.
 
            Q.  Fans have been hard on him.  He’s been bothered by it, people feeling like he lied to you or deceived you.  Do you feel that?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I don’t think Tony lied to me.  I don’t think anybody lied to me.  I don’t have any of that feeling or emotion.  I don’t think any of that matters because the plans they made are for 2014 and I’m not part of that.  I knew that going in.
            I don’t think there were any hidden agendas on Tony’s behalf.  I had a good relationship with him and been up front with him.  My communication has been mostly with him in my whole relationship at Stewart‑Haas Racing.  No surprise.
 
            Q.  No hard feelings?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  No hard feelings.  I know a lot of things became tough for Tony once he was injured.  That all kind of happened at the same time.  Kind of like what we do in our business, you have to get through the tough times.
 
            Q.  This week did you do a lot of things not making your car go fast?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I spent some time this week working on next year, which I can’t really talk anything about.  I also spent a lot of time around my farm.  It was the first week we’ve had no rain.  I was actually able to do some of the things I wanted to get done.
   &nbs
p;        To me that helps balance out some of the mental sanity of dealing with next year, dealing with this year.  I think everybody has to have that in some shape or form.
 
            Q.  You said you’re not ready to say anything about next year.
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I’m ready to say it (laughter).
 
            Q.  Just not allowed?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  It’s not that I’m not allowed.  It’s just not the right time.
 
            Q.  Are you able to feel there is a peace of mind with the other stuff?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  Yeah, you know, I’ve actually watched and heard and saw some of like Kurt’s comments about how he’s focused on the race, he’s focused on other things during the week.  I’ve been the same way.
            With our history, you look at our age, when we started in the Cup Series, we’ve gone through the same growingpains, the same highs, some of the same lows.  In the end, I mean, I’m focused on what I need to focus on when I need to focus on it.  That could change any minute depending on the next phone call.
 
            Q.  When do you think you can say something about next year?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  Shortly (laughter).
 
            Q.  How does this track play to your strengths?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  It’s easy to say that when you’ve won at a place, you feel like you can do it again.  I think our series and sport is so competitive, there’s no guarantee to that.
            I mean, I won here 10 years ago on a track before they repaved it, they tared it, it was coming up.  The cars were three generations old at that point.  A lot of things have changed.  The wall is still in the same spot.  The way you drive the racetrack is similar.
            There’s guys now that are great at driving here.  You look at some of the guys that really stand out here, it’s a very challenging racetrack.  You look at Denny, Kevin, those guys can dominate this place.
            Not to say that I can’t, I’ve been good here, but I don’t have the stats they do.  I’ve won here.  Kevin has won here.  Denny obviously has won here.  Just because you have doesn’t mean you will again.
 
            Q.  There’s so many guys so close to get in the Chase this year, how do you feel the race will take place this weekend?  Do you think guys will be more aggressive than usual here?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I think it all depends on how things go.  All it would take would be an hour rain delay and it drives people nuts.  I think that totally changes the tempo, the emotion that goes into the start of the race.  I’ve seen that happen in the last few years at different racetracks.  What happened to these people?  Did everybody have too much sugar in the rain delay or what?  That can change everything.
            I don’t know.  I think there’s a little bit of potential for everything.  I think there’s a chance it could be calm, a chance it could be caution after caution after caution, a chance that could be the exact same scenario in the entire same race twice.  It could be a couple long runs, then four cautions in a row, or vice versa.
            I sound like I’m rambling, but it really could be anything.
 
            Q.  What would happen if you found yourself in a situation where the only way you’regoing to make the Chase, running the second‑to‑the‑last lap, you have to take out the guy running first for the win.
            RYAN NEWMAN:  Guy or girl.
 
            Q.  Would you take out the girl?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  She’s taken (laughter).
 
            Q.  What do you anticipate you would do?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  It all depends.  Everything is a situation.  If that guy roughs you up to get to where you are, maybe.  If that person is the one that caused you mischief earlier in the season, maybe.  If that person is somebody you extremely respect, know they wouldn’t do that to you, maybe not.
            It’s so situational.
 
            Q.  Considering some of the struggles that the organization had earlier in the season, does this feel like a small victory to be in a position to make the Chase or once things started rolling for you would you have hoped it wouldn’t be this close?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I’ve been stuck in this spot so many times in my career over the last five or six years, I’m kind of used to it.  I’ve made it.  I’ve missed it.  I know the highs and lows of both of them.
            Yeah, it’s a little bit of a reward knowing how we started with two DNF’s in the first three races.  To finish 5th in Daytona, two DNF’s, then struggle with some tires at Martinsville, rebounded after losing my job, so to speak, with a win and a track record and pole at Indy.  There’s been highs and lows throughout the season.  That can happen four different times Saturday night.
 
            Q.  What is the responsibility you have to do everything you can to make the Chase to your team?  At the end of the day it’s about making the Chase, is it not?  Don’t you have a responsibility to the team to be eligible for the championship?  Are you going to suddenly sprout morals?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  My responsibilities to my team is the same responsibilities my team has to me.  If they expect me to go out there and hit somebody, then why wouldn’t I expectthem to go and grab somebody and trip somebody on pit road.  There’s no rule against it.  Why wouldn’t it?  It’s not the way we operate.  It’s not responsible.  I mean, yeah, as a driver we take on the majority of that responsibility in racing.  But, I mean, if we’re pitted next to somebody, block them in.  Have the 14 block them in, have the 10 block them in.
 
            Q.  That stuff happens.
            RYAN NEWMAN:  It does happen.  But that’s not where my mind is, to answer your question.  I don’t feel that’s part of the responsibility.
 &
nbsp;          My responsibility is to go out there and do the best job I can, not do the best job I can knowing the rest of myteam, organization, is going to sacrifice their night to make mine better.
 
            Q.  If you’re in a situation, you have to make an aggressive move, are you comfortable making an aggressive move knowing there may be some contact?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  You can be comfortable making that move and take the assumption in the next 10 races they’re going to get you back.  Is that move really worth it at that point if you’re going to take yourself out of running for a championship later by getting yourself into the Chase.
 
            Q.  How do you balance when to be aggressive or not?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  It goes back to what I said before about being situational.  There’s going to be that feeling and emotion for myself, my crew chief, for the pit crew guys, other drivers on restarts.  Some drivers have more respect for guys that are racing to get into a championship.  It’s all situational.
            I kind of say the same word over and over, but I really feel the same.
 
            Q.  What went through your mind when Kasey went out and you knew things were flipping at the back end of the points, you went from wild card in, wild card out?  Was that frustrating?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I never asked the first word about points.  I knew we had a good car and had a good shot at winning.  Then I had a couple bad restarts which took us out of the running.
            In the end I knew Kasey was in that crash and that changed our situation.  I also knew that Martin had to come in for a pit stop late in the race, unscheduled pit stop under caution.  That put him I think 18th or something at the time.  He came back from that and fought back.  Probably wouldn’t if it had stayed green.  We were running 2nds chasing down Logano.  That would have changedeverything coming into Richmond.
 
            Q.  (Indiscernible).
            RYAN NEWMAN:  I equated it, and I’m not really good at other sports, comparing to other sports, but to me what we’re going through in the Chase is like watching golf on TV. You have a leaderboard, you can see it, some people can’t see it, but you know you have to perform and do your best.  If you just do your best, you’re good enough to beat the other guys, you will.
            When you have that leaderboard, you can watch who is doing good, who is not.  Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don’t.  Sometimes we see it under green because somebody’s engine blows.  It all changes.  Again, it’s all situational.
 
            Q.  Would you like to see the tracks change in the Chase every year?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  To me Talladega doesn’t belong in the Chase just because of the type of racing that we have there.  You can criticize and say what you want, but it’s not the same kind of racing that we have in the other nine races, and for that matter the other 32 races throughout the season.
            Does it add a sense of energy or different type of excitement?  Absolutely.  Is it fair for the racer?  All depends on who you are.  But I don’t know that is the best thing.
            Moving races around or tracks around, in and out, geography, all those things, you could probably argue those things till you’re blue in the face.  I don’t think there’s anything bad with the way it is, and it probably could be better.
 
            Q.  Would you be against a road course in the Chase?
            RYAN NEWMAN:  There’s control.  All depends on how fast the racecar you have is.  That’s the tough part of it.  I’ve been jumping to the back of the field instead of trying to jump to the front of the field because I didn’t feel I had a car that could lead a bunch.  You have to lead a bunch in order to stay out of trouble, and there’s still no guarantee.
            I’d usually opt to watch the crash and try to avoid it.  I feel a road course is a better option.  I’ve said several times, going to Birmingham, to race that road course, even though I’ve never seen it or been there, would keep everything else the same as far as the geography, the market, put a road course in the Chase.
                      

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2013
 
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 CESSNA CHEVROLET SS – WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY:
 
JAMIE McMURRAY:  When I think about Richmond, it always seems like the unexpected can happen here.  It always produces a little bit of drama. So I wouldn’t expect this year to be any different.
            I think as a fan watching the race, there’s more scenarios this year than in the past.  I assume Saturday night is going to be interesting to watch on TV and probably a little bit chaotic from the driver’s seat.
 
            Q.  Have you looked at all the permutations?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  No.  Our deal is going to be a huge challenge because, first off, you have to win, then you also have to have other guys have unfortunate nights.
            I think if you can put yourself in a position to win the race on Saturday night, there will be some drama that happens with other guys.
            So, yeah, there’s still a chance, but it’s obviously grasping a little bit.
 
            Q.  Does that put more pressure?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  No.  To me, of the guys that are trying to fight their way in, I think I would have the least amount of pressure because it is somewhat of a longshot.  I’ve been in this situation where you’re only five points out or ten points out.  That’s tough because you first off look at practice, where you’re at, where those guys are at, then you look at qualifying.  As the race goes on, it seems like you pay more attention to those guys than the race because you’re not really racing the race, you’re racing those few guys you’re around.
 
            Q.  If it comes down to helping another Chevy, a lot of times we’ve seen manufacturer alliances play out, have you and your group talked about that at all, helping a Hendrick car, a Childress car?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  I think that’s grasping.  Yeah, no, no.
 
            Q.  Having said what you did before, does it make what Jeff did last year, doing everything he absolutely had to do to claw his way in, is it that much more impressive?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  What Jeff did last year is impressive because he was laps down early in the race.  I remember passing Jeff.  His car was terrible.  Normally when your car is that bad at the start of the race you can’t fix it unless something is broke and you replace that part.
            I was shocked to see that he was able to race his way back up.  I think he finished 2nd last year.  That was super impressive what he was able to do.
 
            Q.  If there’s one race you could take back from earlier this year, which would it be?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  Well, Dover would be the race I look back at.  I thought maybe we had the best car, had the piece fall off of the 11 car, go through our radiator.  Everyone has had those.  That’s why we’re in the situation we are.
            I don’t think our year has been results‑wise tremendously better than others.  Everybody from 8th in points to 20th has had a lot of bad luck and unfortunate races.
            Dover would be one definitely that you’d like to have back just because you had such a good car.  Wasn’t anything we did wrong.  A part fell off the 11 car and went through our radiator.
 
            Q.  Earlier you talked like you felt you were getting over the hump.  Do you still feel it’s moving in the right direction?  Is it where you want it right now?
            JAMIE McMURRAY:  Both of our cars were good last week at Atlanta.  The 42 and the 1 ran well.  When I look at our race team, where I think we need to work the most is executing the races.  I feel like our cars have been better than where we finished in the races.  A lot of that I wouldn’t place blame on anybody for that.  Just kind of the circumstances you’ve been put in.  I don’t feel like we’ve executed the races as well as we have.
            I still believe our cars were better than they were in 2010 when both cars were able to win races, big races.  We haven’t done a good enough job, I don’t feel like, in the race itself.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2013
 
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY:
 
THE MODERATOR:  Obviously Saturday night, got to go for broke.  Your thoughts about coming in here Saturday.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, after last year, this is going to be easy.  We went through so much last year that I think it allows us to be more relaxed, be more prepared knowing that you got to race as hard as you can till the final lap, till you cross that start/finish line.  It can change every split second.
            We’ve run good in recent weeks, which I’m excited about.  We tested here.  We didn’t have a great test, I’ll be honest.  But I feel like we learned what not to do, made some big changes to improve the car as the test went on.  That’s certainly going to benefit us this weekend.
            This is certainly a track I enjoy.  I think we’re up for the challenge.  So looking forward to Saturday night.
 
            Q.  You mentioned the fact you were in a specific place last year.  How can it help you that you were in the same spot last year and you did make the Chase?
            JEFF GORDON:  I’ll be honest, I think we were in a tougher spot last year than we are this year.
            I think the way it prepared us was knowing no matter what happens, you can’t ever give up.  You just have to put every bit of effort into every single moment, every lap.  If the car’s off, you got to work on it.  Sometimes take big swings at it.  If your car’s perfect, don’t get complacent.
            Pit strategy, as we saw, really played out huge here the last time.  Of course, the rain, all that played a factor as well.  It’s going to be crazy and intense.  There’s so many factors that play into who’s going to make it in, who’s not, it’s certainly going to be an exciting race to watch and be a part of.
 
            Q.  How are you this race weekend?  Are you any different?
            JEFF GORDON:  I’m a lot more relaxed this year than I was last year.  Last year I’d never been through that before, so I was pretty nervous.  Obviously the way the race went for us, it was probably one of the most stressful situations I’ve ever been through.
            Kind of glad to have the rain, not only because it seemed like our car came to life after that, but also kind of breathe and relax.  Things were going pretty bad up to that point, then it turned around in a big way for us.
            To me, I feel very relaxed this week.  I’m anxious to get the race started.  I feel like our chances are good.  I know that our team has been in this situation and knows how to fight and overcome this type of adversity.
            I’m confident with the group we have going into it.
 
            Q.  How critical will your first practice session be?
            JEFF GORDON:  We’re practicing during the day for a night race.  That’s why we tested here.  We tested at night.  That was huge for us.  It’s not a typical thing that the track does here when you test.  It was one of those things where we asked for it and they were able to, you know, pull that together and get us that valuable time on the track under more suitable race conditions.  There were quite a few cars here, as well.  I think the conditions were pretty much what we’re going to be expecting and better than what we’re going to practice in.
            So I think the value that we are going to get out of our track time here is going to be able to compare what we had in the test if we continue to make improvements like we did in the test.
 
            Q.  How much will you want to know where Kurt Busch is on the track?
            JEFF GORDON:  I won’t ask.  To me, even last year in the closing laps, it changes every single lap.  I mean, you don’t really want to focus on that.  You just want to focus on pushing as hard as you can.
            I hope we’re in a similar situation as last year where we’ve got the tires, we’ve got the car, and I’m able to focus on go get that next car, go get that next car.  That was the nice thing about last year was the way it ended.  You never were thinking about what other guys were doing, you were only thinking about what you were doing.  That’s something else we take from last year, try to incorporate into this weekend.  Focus on what you’re doing, don’t focus on what anybody else is doing.
 
            Q.  How impressive is it what he’s done with a one‑car team this season?
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, it’s definitely been impressive.  They’ve had a lot of speed this year.  They’ve really come together.  Any time you see that out of a smaller team,it’s a great story with Kurt, as well, with all that he’s been through, to be able to do it with that smaller team.
            I look for them to have a lot of speed again Saturday night.
 
            Q.  The 78 has been fast all year.  They’ve struggled a lot on pit road.  You seem to be more consistent.  Do you think you have an advantage on pit road?
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, I think we have a slight advantage on pit road.  I think the advantages kind of weigh out with the speed that they’ve had.  If we can have one of our better‑performing racecars this weekend and the pit stops, definitely we’re going to have a good advantage.
            But, I mean, the reason why we’re in this situation is we’ve had inconsistent speed this year with some other issues.  They’ve had speed, but inconsistent pit stops, some other issues that have kept them from being higher up in the points.
            I mean, there’s a lot of teams out there, more so than just Kurt, that we are going to have to deal with.  Anybody can have that breakout race that you didn’t expect.
            All I care about is we bring our A game and perform at a level we’re proud of when we leave here.
 
            Q.  You talk about not focusing in the race on Kurt or anybody else, just on your own program.  This week have you looked at some of the stuff?  NASCAR has put out different scenarios that have to happen for you positively or
negatively.
            JEFF GORDON:  John Edwards shared some of it with me because we thought it was comical.  I mean, it definitely put a smile on our face when we were starting to go through some of the scenarios.  I think I stopped him about halfway through and said, Stop, I really don’t want to know any more.  It gets too confusing.  It’s going to change when the green flag drops anyway.
 
            Q.  FOX put out some quotes from their analysts.  They were asked to analyze the contenders, what they thought.  Darrell Waltrip commented on you and Brad.  He said, Gordon is going through a tough time in his career personally.  I think he doubts himself.  It affects the race team.  They feel it, see it and hear it.  I wonder why he thinks you doubt yourself and you’re going through a tough time.
            JEFF GORDON:  That’s no revelation.  I don’t see anything unique about that.
            I think this year I’ve admitted there’s been times when I’ve lacked in confidence when qualifying poorly.  I’ve lacked in confidence many times throughout my career, but that’s because the car speaks to you.  If you go through, let’s say three weeks in a row, where the car is not speaking to you, you’re not getting the speed out of it, things aren’t going well, I question everything.
            I question our setups, I question my driving, I’ll question tires, engines, everything.  That’s just normal for me, and I would say most people.
            The one thing I also agree with, when that green flag drops, if that car sticks in turns, stops, then there’s nobody that’s going to have more confidence thanme.  Same with my team.
            You know, Pocono, I love Pocono, because after the Pocono race, my team is high‑fiving, fired up, Yeah, that was awesome.  That’s because I was making passes on restarts, and we drove to the front.  We haven’t done enough of that this year.
            There’s no doubt that our confidence has been tested, mine personally.  There’s no doubt that this team is not riding high like some of the other teams that are out there.  That’s why we’re 11th or wherever we’re at in points right now.
            So I don’t dispute any of those things.  That doesn’t change what our mission is on Saturday night, though.
 
            Q.  When it takes all you’ve got to get into the Chase, how much does that set you back?
            JEFF GORDON:  I’ll be honest.  For us, it didn’t set us back at all.  What set us back was the throttle issue that we had in Chicago.  I mean, we came out of this race, went to Chicago, I think we had a car capable of winning, butcertainly top 5.  If you would have matched that up with some of our other performances, take out Phoenix, I mean, I think we were capable of being in the top 3 or 4 in points, maybe even a slight contender.
            If we just sneak our way in through the race where we do the bare minimum, but it actually gets us in, that’s different.  When we did it like we did it last year, Whoa, that was awesome.
            The track, it’s all about your car at that track, at that moment.  You could have the worst year you’ve ever had and hit it.  We’ve seen that happen this year with different teams, where they just hit it.  All of a sudden it’s like, Where did they come from?  How did they win that race?  It can happen to anybody, and it certainly can happen to us.
            Once we get in it, I feel we’re stronger at this point now than earlier in the season when things happened that kept us out of being a championship and Chase contender.  But I do think we’re much stronger right now if we make it in, our chances of being in the top 5 in points are actually pretty good.
 
            Q.  So much racing now is determined on pit road and who wins on the last restart.  Has that worked against your driving style?
            JEFF GORDON:  At some tracks it has.  I mean, restarts have definitely not been my strong suit this year.  I think it depends on the track, it depends on the tire.  This past weekend in Atlanta, our restarts were really good.  I mean, you can look at some of the spin in the tires at the start/finish.  Some of it’s the line.  Now that we’re double‑file restarts, that leader controls a lot of things.  To me, 1st and 3rd, a lot of times have more of an advantage over 2nd than we’ve ever seen before.
            Pit strategy and pit stops and track position just continue to increasingly get more and more important.  That’s just the way technology and aerodynamics are these days.
            For me Saturday night, it’s going to be crucial for me to have good restarts.  That’s been a thing that I’ve criticized in myself.  I would say definitely my team, you know, recognizes that hasn’t been our strong suit.  But I like to surprise them and everybody else.  You know, this is a track where I feel like we’re actually pretty good on restarts.
 
            Q.  With the experience of going through the year here where you didn’t make the Chase, is that something that has come to mind or just now that you mention it to you?  Is that something you think about?
            JEFF GORDON:  Every experience you go through is valuable, positives and negatives.  I can tell you not making the Chase is tough.  I mean, you’re always looking for something to get behind and build momentum, step it up.  When you don’t make the Chase, that’s tough.  It’s hard to rebound from that.
            Yet we’re motivated by it, as well, in the last 10 races to get whatever it was we were lacking turned around.  I think that it proved to be good for us because we went into the next season much stronger.
 
            Q.  Is it a motivator now?
            JEFF GORDON:  It is slightly a motivator.  At this point you don’t accept not making it.  You’re only focused on what you have to do.  I think if we do our job, this is a great track for us, we can make it in.
            Try not to really think too much about that until that time came, if it does come.
 
            Q.  You’re in a situation where you have a teammate in Kasey Kahne, but he’s guaranteed a wild card spot.  If it came down to it Saturday night where you were on the cusp of being in the top 10, but Kasey was there, team orders?
            JEFF GORDON:  The thing
is we’re in a unique situation where we all have something on the line.  I mean, it’s forcing us really to just go out and race as hard as we can and all get the best finishes.
            There are still scenarios, though, in the right situation could play out to help us if we needed it.
            But Kasey, from our meetings we had this week, he wants to be in the top 10, utilize those wins that he has.  Jimmie knows that right now he’s not leading the points when they start the Chase.  Dale knows that there’s an outside chance that they wouldn’t make it in.
            We all have a lot to push hard for and not take into consideration too much about how we’re going to help our teammates in those situations.
            But if we get into it, all right, Kasey is not going to win the race or get into the top 10 in points, there’s a chance I can, then that would certainly be an open option.  For other teammates as well.  If Jimmie is not going to win the race, is there a situation that would help me or Kasey or Junior even?
            You have to consider all options.  When we left our meeting this week, talking about just preparing for this race and everything else going on, I think it was pretty clear we all felt like we got to go race hard and not overthink that.
 
            Q.  You don’t expect Kasey to give up those six points in the Chase to get you in?
            JEFF GORDON:  Of course not.  Who would?  Now, you know, unless Rick Hendrick has a different agenda…  He’s the boss so I listen to what he says (laughter).
 
            Q.  Out of the first 25, is there one race you would like to have back?
            JEFF GORDON:  Oh, several, several.  First Bristol, Texas.  Those two seem to stand out to me.  Martinsville.  I think we had a shot at winning that race.
            Yeah, I mean, we’re in the position we’re in because a lot of bad things have happened to us this year.  There’s been some reason we just ran poorly.  I’d like to have those races back, too.
            But the ones that we were running good at, little things happened that cost us big in the points as well as a shot at winning, love to have those back.
 
            Q.  Anxiety the next 48 hours?  Is it tough being in the position you’re at, where you just want to see how it plays out, period?
            JEFF GORDON:  I mean, I said this last year.  You don’t really know until you’re getting ready to go out for the first practice session.  And last year I was feeling calm.  In the first practice session, I was a little nervous.  You know from hour, two hours you have on track, you want to get the most out of it, you want to be productive and get you prepared.  Same thing with qualifying.
            I feel very relaxed right now.  Over the next, you know, 24 hours, till we get on track tomorrow at noon, I don’t think I’ll be anxious.  But at noon when we get on track, I’ll be a little anxious the first couple laps.
            Then the car, again, will speak to me.  If the car is feeling good, I’m going to feel good, the team is going to feel good.  You start to build on it in that way.
 
            Q.  A couple weeks ago Kasey had a chance to move Kenseth out of the way for a win at Bristol.  He didn’t do it.  A lot of people applaud that.  If you were in a situation where you could drive through somebody to make the Chase on Saturday night, what do you do in that situation?  Is that fair game?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, it all comes down to who it is, how they raced you, how you’ve raced them in the past.  It’s one of those things where you stick your nose in there.  You’re not going to give anybody an inch.  If you’re leading and they stick their nose in there, you’re not going to give them that.  You’re going to force them not to wreck you.
            On the flipside, if you dive in there, you feel you have a fender inside of them, they don’t give it up, you’re going to take it.
            You know, the intensity of this race, being in this situation, is very high.  It forces people to make more aggressive moves.  So I think you understand that and your competitors understand that.  That’s a part of it.
            That’s certainly not the way I’d want to do it.  I probably won’t do that.  I had the opportunity to do that at Atlanta last year.  A lot of people said, Oh, you could have made it in the Chase right then and there, all you had to do was wreck the 11.
            I’m not going to wreck a guy by just running straight in the back of him.  That’s not racing.  But if you’re racing the guy, you guys make contact, then that’s where you can start to draw the line or kind of understand the situation.
            Kasey, that’s the kind of guy I want to have as a teammate and who I want to race out there, is a guy that’s going to race hard, race clean, take chances, but he’s not just going to go out there and wreck you.
            Could he have roughed him up a little bit more? Maybe.  I thought Kenseth was tough.  I don’t know their history.  It worked out the way it did.
            Chase, that’s a totally different situation.  Two young, very aggressive drivers.  Certainly Chase being the younger.  He didn’t go into that corner going, I’m going to take him out to win this race.  He said, I see an opportunity and he went for it.  That’s what young guys do.
            You can sit there and criticize him if you want, but I think we all want to see young guys be aggressive.  We want to see old guys be more aggressive, right?  Either way it’s going to give somebody things to talk about.
 
            Q.  Roughing up somebody is acceptable.  If whoever is racing you for a spot, comes down to you or them, regardless of who it is, how they’ve raced you, don’t you expect if they get to your bumper that you arefair game, and understandably something is likely to happen?
            JEFF GORDON:  Absolutely.
 
            Q.  To be honest, to get in the Chase, if you have to block somebody or hit somebody, you’ve got to do it.  How do you not go back to your team or your owner and say, I wasn’t going to wreck ’em, we’re not in the Chase this year?  I’ve denied us the opportunity for
a championship because I have higher morals.  At the end of the day this is about winning.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, yeah, wow.  Good thing you’re not out there racing (laughter).  You’d have a lot of enemies.
            You know, again, I look at every scenario, every situation different.  For me to just right now sit here and say, I don’t care who is in front of me, if I can get to his bumper, I’m turning him to win the race, to get in the Chase, is not very realistic.
            In the heat of the moment, with the intensity that’s going to be in this race, you don’t always know what you’re going to do.  Sometimes that’s the driving force behind you making those choices and decisions.
            In a better scenario for me to think about, I want to feel like I’m running the guy down, I’ve tried him on the outside, I’ve tried him on the inside, he’s blocked everything I have and left me no other option, kind of made the choice for me.
            Let’s say the guy passes me, I just go in there and knock him out of the way.  When you hit somebody, you don’t know what the outcome is going to be.  You don’t know if he’s going to back into the fence, move up the track a lane or two, or not even go up the track at all.  He might be able to get back to you and wreck you.  You don’t know what’s going on behind you.
            This is the thing about this race.  You could hit that guy, he collects you, you fall back to 3rd, somebody else does something on the last lap, and you might be out. You might even win the race and something happens on the last lap and you might not make it.
            You have to race as hard as you can, make the best choices you can, be smart about it.  If you decide to make that big, aggressive move that ticks somebody off, do it and be ready for the consequences because you still got 10 weeks ahead of you.
            This is not the last race of the year.
              

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2013
 
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY:
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We’re not locked in by no means, but we’re in a comfortable enough position to be able to pay attention to the race we’re running.
 
            Q.  Do you expect a team order thing, that if your teammates can help you or Jeff, they’ll do that?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We haven’t really talked about that.  I know from my point of view it would be hard for me to understand exactly what I could do to help one of my teammates.  The crew chiefs can see the picture a lot clearer than the driver can.  I want to help my teammates.  I want my teammates to be into the Chase.  I want Rick to have as much opportunity to have a chance to win a championship as he can as an owner.
 
            Q.  You say you’re comfortable enough.  Have you been able to plan ahead or do anything looking at the final 10 given your situation?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  If we knew what to start planning, we probably would.  You can only just run one race at a time.  You show up at Richmond, and Richmond is an important race, a race we want to win.  So we focus on that objective before we start thinking ahead.
 
            Q.  In terms of how competitive you could be when you get in, you don’t want to go there yet?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I don’t even know.  I don’t even know what the answer to that is.  Who is going to win the Chase?  Who is going to win the championship?  Order the drivers are going to finish?  I don’t think anybody can predict that.  You have to get in there and do your best.  I think we’re all capable of doing a good job and everybody’s capable of winning the championship.  Some guys are going to catch some breaks and some aren’t.
 
            Q.  Something horrible would have to happen to you to not make the Chase.  Is there anything you can do to prevent that or is it just a normal weekend?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  It’s just a normal weekend to me.  Fortunate enough we’ve had enough good runs over the last couple weeks to put ourselves in this situation, not have to be nervous or worried.  It wasn’t much fun over the last couple weeks having to make sure we didn’t make any mistakes and give up too many points to the guys behind us.
 
            Q.  On Saturday, the only way you’re going to make it in is to move somebody out of the way, is that something that you would do or is that not part of your makeup?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I’d have to do whatever it took to make the Chase.  I’d have to do whatever it took to give ourselves an opportunity to run for the championship.
            You know, it just depends on the individual you’re racing.  Wins are hard to come by in this series.  You work all year long for an opportunity to run in the Chase to be part of the championship.  I don’t know that anybody could blame you for not taking that opportunity and taking what’s there, taking advantage of a situation.  That’s racing.  That’s why we got bumpers on these cars.  Sometimes you got to use ’em.
 
            Q.  Everybody goes back to when your dad took out Terry Labonte.  It’s a fond memory.  Now a lot of drivers talk about you wouldn’t want to do that, because it doesn’t take talent to drive through somebody.  Why did that change or has it?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think some of society has shifted away from that.  There’s still personalities in the sport that would race like that with no guilt whatsoever, no remorse, no concern.
            But I think as a whole society, we’ve kind of shifted in the other direction.  We haven’t gotten more aggressive, for sure.  And I don’t really know what plays a role in that, whether that’s something that starts from the very beginning of your upbringing.
            I think it changes to the drivers, the situations involved.  You got guys out there that really don’t like each other.  When you can put them in the perfect storm where they’re the two on the stage at that moment with a lap to go, you’re going to get the fireworks that you want to see.
            But when you put other individuals together that have a lot of respect for each other, have been somewhat friendly off the racetrack, they’re more than likely notgoing to run over each other.
            Again, you know, I don’t know.  I was driving in that race at Bristol.  It was slick, it was real hard to get to people.  As much as it looked from the viewpoint of the fan or anyone watching the race, it seemed like Kasey could just drive up there.  He’s right there, why didn’t he just tap him?  But it was so hard to get that extra inch, even to get another foot to a guy.  You were on top of the racetrack, chasing the car.
            I don’t know how much he could have done even if he wanted to, even if he was the baddest SOB out there.  I don’t know if he could have moved him enough without wrecking himself or getting himself in enough trouble control‑wise to make a pass even.
            You know, I don’t know how Kasey feels, but I know when I am put in that situation and I don’t take advantage of it, I do relive it with regret ’cause, like I said,wins are hard to come by.  As much as you hate running through people, running over people, winning races is pretty damn important in this sport, really defines your career, defines the success the team’s having, can make a big difference for a team.  Sometimes you got to do everything it takes.
 
            Q.  Where do you rank the 88 as it stands now compared to other teams you’ve gone into the Chase with?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think this team’s in the top percentile.  I don’t really know how to rank it specifically.  Last year I thought we were really, really strong.  I thought we were going to be in the top 3 battling to the championship at Homestead.  I felt like we were that capable of a team.
            We were in the conversation.  The media had earmarked us as one of the teams.  We were leading the points, still strong in the summer months.  Even drivers themselves were earmarking us as contenders.  I felt like last year we really had put ourselves in a great position.
            This year the speed has been the
re, if not even better.  Even though we’re working with a new car, the speed has been really good with the car, but we’ve not finished all the races.  Mistakes I’ve made, crashes I’ve gotten myself into, engine failures, things like that that have taken away from our ability to show how strong we are to get consistent finishes like we did last year.
 
            Q.  If you get in, do you think this could be your shot?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Every time you’re in, you think this is your shot.  Every time you’re in, you got to go in with the most confidence that you’re going to get it done.  This is a great opportunity that I’ve got.
            We’ll have to see if we’ve got anything extra in the tank as a team.  We’re going to be up against tough competition.  But I’ve raced all these guys for a long time and I feel like we belong in the Chase, feel like if we can put 10 races together, I think we can do it as good as anybody when it comes down to it.  Hopefully we can make it happen.
 
            Q.  You talked about mechanical failures, crashes.  If there’s one race you could have back this year, which one would it be?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  It’s hard to say.  I think the first Michigan race where we was running so well, had the engine problem.  That was a good car.  We had good speed.  Even the second Michigan race where we had the tire issue, I thought the car had good speed there, too.
            We’ve had a lot of good runs, just not been able to capitalize like last year.  We started the season off stronger than anybody in the sport in the first five races there.  Just came unraveled a little bit at times.  But the speed still has been there.  That’s been important.  That’s one thing we haven’t had in years past, was just the pure speed.  We’ve always been good enough to run 8th, 5th, whatever.  We were able to do that without any problems, do it consistently.  But that wasn’t going to win championships.
            This year we’ve gained a little speed, seem to be getting faster each year.
 
            Q.  (Question regarding controlling your own destiny.)
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  You control your destiny every week, whether it’s a short track, mile‑and‑a‑half.  We’re all good enough drivers you’re not in a whole lot of danger out there.  You just have to drive a smart race, use your head, drive people with respect.  You want to get run over, you can make a few wrong turns and tick some people off, get yourself put in the fence real quick.
            There are guys in there that aren’t going to make the Chase, aren’t too happy about their situation, going to have some pretty short fuses out there.  You don’t want to rough up anybody.  You want to take your time getting around some of these guys.
            It’s about that time where it’s toward the end of the season, guys are kind of looking for payback from some situations before.  You’re going to start to see some of that stuff start to surface a little bit.  You want to be there to capitalize and come out on the good end of most of that stuff.
 
            Q.  You talked about the stress of the last couple weeks, trying to make sure you stay in the Chase picture.  Did that take any of the fun of what you do out of it?  Is that something that just comes with the territory?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, I definitely understood last year when we were set, locked in, that it was a much easier ride, much more enjoyable.  The last couple weeks have been pretty stressful from a points standpoint.  Difficult for you because you have to focus so much on those points, you have to focus on all those guys, that handful, half a dozen guys, that are around you in points, wonder what they’re doing.  You can’t help it.
            I think it makes perfect sense to want to know how they’re doing in the race.  As much as you try not to do that, at any other point in the season,when it comes down to it, it’s one or two races to go, you’re all tight on the points, you got to watch those guys.  You’re curious as to where they’re at.
            That’s not much fun.  You really like to concentrate on the balance of your car, working on your car with your crew chief, trying to give yourself a chance to win the race.
 
            Q.  How do you balance the ability about when to be aggressive or when not to be aggressive?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We’re always aggressive.  Might not be apparent just watching the race from the point of view that you see it.  But, you know, every lap we run, we run as hard as we can run it.  We don’t hold back any.  We don’t put anything in our pocket, leaveanything on the table.  We go out there and run as hard as we can every lap, try to win the race.  It’s that competitive in the sport to where I guess at times it looks like we’re all kind of content.
            I think that’s one thing you have to keep in mind when you’re watching every week, every guy on the track you’rewatching is running 10/10ths, as hard as he can go.
            I think once you start to see potential for yourself as a winning car, you may get a little more aggressive, you may get a little more physical, but when it comes down to it, you know deep inside I think toward the end of the race just how capable your car is, howmuch potential you have that night to win.
            If you start realizing you have that potential, you might get a little more physically aggressive, not really work harder, but fight a little bit harder for positions and stuff like that.
 
            Q.  You mentioned speed is the biggest thing that gives you confidence.  What concerns you the most heading into theChase?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  The only thing that really concerns me is gremlins like tire failure, engine failure, myself making a mistake, getting myself out of control and in a wreck, doing anything that’s going to tear the car up, anybody making a mistake, us making a mistake on Saturday and getting the car out of the racetrack, not putting a good car on the starting grid, just struggling all day in the race.
            You worry about those kind of things.  To run well, you need to be able to put a good car on the grid every week that will be quick and fast.  You need to be able to put together solid races and take care of that car and make sure it finishes as good as it can.
            There will be sometimes when Steve is going to have to mak
e some gut decisions that aren’t going to be easy to make.  But you just hope he makes the decision that goes the right way for you.  We saw Brad Keselowski and those guys gamble, had a great mix of when to gamble, when to be smart, when to be clever, when to take risks.  You’re going to have a lot of that if you want to win that championship.  You’re going to have to be able to pull those strings at the right time.
 
            Q.  We heard the question earlier about moving people to get in the Chase.  What type of race do you think we’re going to see here Saturday night?
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think it’s going to be similar to what we always see.  I really hate to harp on it over and over, but this racetrack has so much potential that’s just not realized because of the way the surface of the racetrack has been utilized over the past several years.
            We used to see multi‑groove racing here.  They haven’t sealed the racetrack in a really long time.  Really, the only place to run is right on the bottom.  You almost have to hook the left front on the apron a little bit all the way around the track.  There’s no second groove.  It’s there if they want it, if they want to seal the racetrack and create that kind of racing again.  You don’t have to pave the place or nothing, just throw some sealer down and everything.  Be so much better.
            But it’s going to be right on the bottom.  Everybody’s going to be hunting for the bottom.  Some guys aren’t going to roll the center very well.  Some guys will.  The guys that get through the middle, can keep that left front working that line, are going to have good runs, going to have good cars.  But otherwise if you get off the bottom, man, it’s just so slick, you can’t really make any ground up there.
 
            Q.  Last year Jeff Gordon’s performance in this race, a desperate situation, he had to do what he ultimately did.  This year again he’s in a similar situation.  People are doubting him.  Can you talk about how amazing it was last year to pull it off and his chances on doing that again this year.
            DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think Jeff has great chances to make the Chase.  He always seems to bring his A game when it’s needed, when it’s really vital that he has a good run.  He always seems to find a way to get what he needs.  He runs well here.  This is a good track that I think he has a lot of confidence at.
            I hope that we’re all able to make the Chase.  They have a very strong team with a lot of speed.  I think if all four of us can be in the championship Chase, I think we all have really great opportunities of winning the championship.
            I think against the competition, we’ll be pretty tough.
       

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 400
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2013
 
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITUE ROW/BEAUTYREST CHEVROLET SS  –  WILD CARD CONTENDERS MEDIA AVAILABILITY:
 
            THE MODERATOR:  All comes down to Saturday night, Kurt.  What is your mindset right now?
            KURT BUSCH:  You know, a few months ago we needed to put ourselves in position to control our own destiny.  We’ve accomplished that.  Is it the cushion that we wanted?  No.  We have only a six‑point cushion.  At the same time we can look forward and see that Biffle is 9th in points, and he’s only eight points ahead of us.  Logano, he’s 10 points ahead of us.
            There’s plenty of positions to gain moving forward.  That just gives you the motivation to know it’s not necessarily about defending what position you’re in with the guys behind you.
            So we’ve had our shares of strong runs.  We’ve had our shares of misfortunes.  Are we a Chase team?  I believe so.  I think we’ve performed at levels that are comparable to those that are locked into the Chase such as the top 5 numbers, top 10 numbers, laps led, just the general stats board has us in good position.
            But the most important is the overall points tally that we have, and that’s got us in 10th, with a six‑point cushion.  So I’ve been in this situation before, but it was to win the championship, it wasn’t to race into the Chase.
            Seems like each year that I’ve made the Chase, there was plenty of comfort, plenty of room to spare as far as like having a poor finish and the help of somebody else we would still get in.
            This reminds me of the 2004 battle where I went into Homestead where I had a few points positions as far as a cushion.  We were able to bring it on home and deliver.
            That’s the same mindset now.  Not necessarily defending the points we have, it’s about gaining on the guys that are ahead of us.  Right now Biffle had speed, but he hasn’t produced the results.  I look at him as being a guy we can try to pass in points.  Even Jeff Gordon can look to pass him in points, put both of us in on not necessarily the wins, Biffle would have the win to fall back on.
            So many scenarios that could play out.  But we’re looking ahead.  We look at we can gain those eight spots off of Biffle and gain our way into the Chase.
 
            Q.  Are you chasing Biffle Saturday night or Gordon and Keselowski, other guys without wins?
            KURT BUSCH:  There’s plenty of ways to look at it.  We want to say that Gordon is where the focus is to make sure we stay ahead of him.  If we’re going to do that, we may as well look at trying to grab the same amount of points on Biffle and race our way on him.
            Last year Gordon was a lap‑down car, got the lucky down at a pit stop sequence in the race that allowed him to put four fresh tires on.  Kyle and his team, they were leading the race, I think, or running top 5, had no need to pit at that point.  Those are the moments you’ve got to look for to make sure somebody is not going to get four fresh tires on you and advance on the next sequence.
            That’s what makes Richmond so exciting, is tire drop‑off here is so dramatic, you have to make sure you keep an eye on coming in to get tires.
 
            Q.  At the end of last year, where did you expect to be with Furniture Row Racing coming into Richmond?
            KURT BUSCH:  The team was 25th in points last year.  Now here we are on the threshold of making the Chase.  To say that we had it as a goal, that it was going to be an easy task was not necessarily the case.  Even with the way the season started, I think we were as low as 29th in points, we had our work cut out for us.
            When we unloaded at Texas, I think that’s when we turned the corner.  That’s when we had speed.  That’s when we had just a newfound rhythm within the team.  We turned into players at that point in the season.
 
            Q.  How much will you want to know Saturday night where everyone else is running, specifically about Jeff Gordon?
            KURT BUSCH:  If I’m running up front, that protects us very easily from not having to add up points to know where Gordon is.  15th is what I’m going to call the threshold for us on when things aren’t necessarily guaranteed because we have to stay 15 points ahead of Truex who has a win and could move into the top 10 in points.
            As long as we’re running up front, which we hope we will.  We ran this Richmond race earlier this year in third place most of the night.  We finished 9th after one of those crazy restarts at the end.  We feel like we’re going to be in good position.
            We tested here earlier this year.  We ran well.  We’re going to start with that same setup.  So I feel like we’ve positioned ourselves well.  It’s not necessarily a matter of keeping track where the others are unless we’re starting to fall into that 15th‑place range.
 
            Q.  Does it become more of a chess match trying to figure out who is whereas opposed to running a conventional race?
            KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, there’s a large amount of variables here.  With the tire drop‑off, when you pit, when you don’t pit.  There’s a lot of times when you’re running top 5, you don’t pit because you want to protect that track position.  For us, we have to keep track of the 24 and see if he’s in that tail end of the lead lap scenario, he’s going to come in and put tires on.  We have to keep track of that.
            Best‑case scenario, we’re both running top 10, there’s no way for him to gain a lot of points on us if he’s running right next to us 6th through 10th.
 
            Q.  Any time during this weekend when you can just get behind the wheel of the car and only think about how good you’re running, not think about the Chase at all?
            KURT BUSCH:  Well, when we start practice tomorrow, we’ll see our speed on the speed charts.  We hope to qualify well.  The random bingo ball can dictate a lot of your weekend if you have to go out early here at Richmond.  We hope we get a goodqualifying draw to go late.  That will help our qualifying chances.  That blends into a better pit road selection.
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;         It’s the same scenario.  You just get in the car, you practice, you race hard, and you see where the points fall out at the end.
            We can control our own destiny here by being six points ahead, put the pressure on the others on having to do something that puts them up against the window of having to gamble.
 
            Q.  How do you balance when to be aggressive and when not to be in your situation?
            KURT BUSCH:  My situation is protect the racecar, make sure on restarts we don’t find trouble, that we spread out, and make sure that we don’t have any fender benders or a chance to poke a hole in the radiator, get hit hard from behind.  I have to do my job to protect the car to get to that three‑quarters mark through the race to see where things are.
 
            Q.  If you get in Saturday night, how optimistic are you you can contend in the Chase?
            KURT BUSCH:  We can contend.  I’m optimistic about it.  We posted great numbers all season.  We have a test session left that will allow us to prepare at a track that might be a good track for us, to get even better, or use that test session on a track that I know I struggle on in those final 10 weeks.
            The team has advanced a tremendous amount.  When I said we found a new rhythm at Texas, I think we hit another boost of speed when we came back to all these tracks a second time.  Since then, like at Pocono earlier this year we finished 7th, second race 3rd.  Michigan we wrecked in the first race, but we came back and finished 3rd again.  Those are the finishes that it’s going to take to run well in the Chase.  When you’re talking about 3rd, 6th, 4th, like last week, those are the numbers that stack up to give you a shot in the Chase.
 
            Q.  If you compare the situation of 2004, if you become the single‑car driver to make it to the Chase, would it be on par with almost winning a championship?
            KURT BUSCH:  It will be a significant accomplishment, but I don’t race for 10th, I race to win.  Championships are what every driver sets out to achieve.  When they’re building a team, they want to win championships.
            This is a great step for Furniture Row, and for me to be part of this team, I couldn’t have done it without them, they couldn’t have done it without me. It’s a significant accomplishment, and unchartered territory for a single‑car team to make it.
            It would rank in the top 5, I would say, of accomplishments within the NASCAR world for me.
 
            Q.  How similar is the pressure you feel going into this race that you felt going into Homestead in 2004?
            KURT BUSCH:  I think with more years of experience, it’s easier to understand what to expect, the scenarios that can be played out.  You can do those all night long.  But just get into the groove of driving the car, making the car as good as you can in practice, then just settling in knowing that if we go do our job at a normal rate, we’ll work our way into this.
            Homestead 2004, that had to be something extraordinary.  This just has to be a normal type of day.
 
            Q.  Concerned about your pit crew at all?
            KURT BUSCH:  You guys love the word ‘well documented.’  You’ve used that enough on me and those poor guys are getting worn out not performing at the level that are Chase material.  I see this coming down to a pit stop or two, down to a restart at the end.
            I know they’re going to put their best stop down when it counts because we know the whole season rides on this weekend.
 
            Q.  A few weeks ago Kasey was chasing Matt Kenseth at Bristol.  Could have bumped him out of the way and didn’t.  If you were in a similar situation to make the Chase or not, the only way you weregoing to make it is you had to rough a guy up, is that something you would do or is that something drivers stay away from because it’s not part of the code?
            KURT BUSCH:  Well, it’s hard to play ‘what if.’  I don’t like playing what if.  We’re here to make the Chase with the 78 car.  Two weeks ago after Bristol, we had a right rear hub failure.  That put us up against the fence.  We knew at that point Atlanta and Richmond would be the two most important races of the 78 car’s career.
            So I’m looking forward to this challenge on whatever it takes to get in.  If it takes moving somebody, that’s something that I’ll have to weigh out when we’re out on the track Saturday night.
 
            Q.  Everybody is professional, has to focus on the job at hand.  After you made your decision, were guys upset at your decision to leave because of what you’ve meant to this team?  Any hurt feelings on their side?
            KURT BUSCH:  There’s always an equal and opposite reaction.  At Stewart‑Haas Racing, I was texted by 20 to 30 guys on how pumped up they were.  One of the managers there, Joe Custer, called me and said, You would not have believed the amount of rejoice and celebration when Gene Haas announced you were coming to the team.
            At the same time at Furniture Row, you get the texts of, Man, I wish we could have worked it out.  We’re kind of bummed out, but we have the present, right now to work on.
            There was the disappointment but there was also, Why can’t we make the best out of these final weeks together and do something very special?
            Our first task was to make the Chase.  So here we are.  That’s what we have to do on Saturday night.  I think the way that this team has come together stronger and harder knowing that now is the time, I think the timing of this has worked out to be a benefactor for the 78.
 
            Q.  Are you concerned about limited experience in this type of situation, it may be too much for them?
            KURT BUSCH:  Really it comes down to Todd making the pit calls, me driving the car, and the pit crew producing those stops they knowthey need to produce now.  The time is now or never.
 
            Q.  You talked about having your share of good runs, share of misfortunes.  If you could have one race back in the year to make this weekend a little easier, which race would that be?
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sp;     KURT BUSCH:  That’s a tough question.  We had a brake failure at Martinsville, caught on fire.  We had a fuel regulator go bad at Texas while we ran 5th.  Sonoma, I finished 4th, but I had a winning car.  If we had a win right now, we’d feel a lot better about things.
            So you could look at a wide range of things that went against us.  Even New Hampshire, we led the most laps that day, got caught up on a restart wreck with Kenseth with 100 to go.  That day we had a shot at winning, and we finished 31st.  That was a 30‑point swing.  If I had 30 points in my pocket right now, this would be a boring press conference.  We can look at that moment, other little things.
            But it’s exciting.  We’re in position.  We can’t look back at spilled milk.  Right now we have the upper hand going into Saturday night by having the other guys having to chase us.
 
            Q.  The goal is to always win.  Can this be fun or is it too much pressure, too much on the line?
            KURT BUSCH:  That’s a good question, too.  I’ve been able to take a step back the last 18 months and put fun back into racing.  It wasn’t necessarily about driving into Victory Lane to have to have fun.
            Here we are on the cusp of doing something very special with a single‑car team.  Win, lose or draw, I think it’s been a success.  We’re in unchartered territory for a single‑car team.  If we don’t win, we gave it our best shot.  We know that we were capable of doing it.  We just came up shy on some of those bad days or some of those moments that you wanted back.
            Every team has those, though.  But to be in the position we’re in and to have a cushion, it’s fun to be here and to feel this energy and to feel the excitement of trying to deliver for the team.  I like these pressure cooker situations.
 
            Q.  Do you feel like the underdog in this situation?  Going in six points ahead, you don’t really feel that underdog‑type mentality?
            KURT BUSCH:  No, I feel like we’re an underdog.  It’s fine to be that.  I’m a Chicago Cubs fan for life, so I enjoy the underdog role.  The way this has turned out, we don’t have a win.  We’ve been brutally consistent when we’re able to finish the race.  We haven’t finished worse than 15th when things have gone our way on a regular‑type day, finished on the lead lap, since April.  Those are Chase numbers.
 
            Q.  1 to 10, how would you rate your confidence?
            KURT BUSCH:  8.5.  A couple things that could come at us that we can’t control.  Restarts are going to be important all night.  The way the pit crew hasn’t been as consistent as they’ve needed to be could be a factor.  The other element I think is Richmond, the track can chew up tires.  You can be off sequence of a guy.  It wasn’t even your own doing.  It was purely track position where you were running and why you pitted then versus not pitting.
 
            Q.  Everybody is going to look at qualifying tomorrow.  How much do you put into that, how much does that change things, how does qualifying matter for Saturday?
            KURT BUSCH:  Qualifying has a decent impact, but it’s not a thing that’s going to keep you out of the Chase.  I qualified 32nd at Atlanta last week.  We struggled for track position.  We worked our way up to about 15th and got stuck there for a while.
            Then our pit road selection was awful.  The 22 was pulling into his box.  I’d have to pull around him.  The polesitter, the 17 car, he pulled around us, Stenhouse.  It was just a logjam until Stenhouse was a lap down.  Then it freed up pit road a little bit so I wasn’t blocking the 22 in, having trouble getting out.
            That can last halfway through the race if you’re in a bad pit box, and you’re in a bad pit box because you didn’t qualify well.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING: CHEVROLET DRIVERS AND TEAMS HEAD TO LAGUNA SECA WITH THE CHAMPIONSHIP ON THE LINE
 
DETROIT –  (September 4, 2013) –  With only two races remaining on the 2013 GRAND-AM Road Racing schedule, the battle for the championships within both the Daytona Prototype (DP) and Grand Touring (GT) series intensifies as Chevrolet teams and drivers make the trek to Laguna Seca located near scenic Monterey, California.
 
The historic 2.238-mile, 11-turn permanent road course was the site of double victories for Chevrolet last season.  Antonio Garcia and Richard Westbrook piloted the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP to victory while Matt Bell and John Edwards hoisted the trophy in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series in their No. 9 Camaro GS.R.  The pressure is on this weekend to not only to repeat as victors, but to gain valuable points in the championship battle as the series finale at Lime Rock Park approaches.
 
Max Angelelli and Jordan Taylor inched ever closer to becoming this season’s Rolex Sports Car Series DP champions after taking the victory in the inaugural race at Kansas Speedway three weeks ago in their No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Velocity Worldwide Corvette DP.  The victory was the pairs third of the season.  They currently lead the driver’s point standings and are only 14 points behind the current leaders in the team standings.   
 
In the Rolex GT class Robin Liddell and John Edwards presently sit third in the team and driver standings.  The duo has four victories in their No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R in 2013, and is only three points behind the top spot.
 
Chevrolet leads the DP Engine Manufacturers’ championship with only two races remaining on the strength of six DP victories this season.  Wayne Taylor Racing, Action Express Racing and GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing have all celebrated in Winner’s Circle with their Chevrolet Corvettes Daytona Prototypes in 2013.
 
“With two races remaining in the season, this weekend’s race at Laguna Seca is critical in the battles for the drivers, team and manufacturer championships in both DP and GT,” said Jim Lutz, Chevrolet Program Manager, GRAND-AM Road Racing.  “The track is very demanding and will require close communication between the drivers and their engineers to quickly analyze feedback to fine-tune car setup.  The altitude changes, sharp turns, and fast straights make the ability to get the Chevrolet power to the ground critical to optimize performance.  As it has been all season, I am looking for tight, close and exciting racing.”
 
Also competing this weekend at Laguna Seca will be the drivers and teams in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series. Drivers of the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GS.R, Matt Bell and John Edwards take momentum heading into Laguna Seca.  Not only were they the winners in the inaugural race at Kansas Speedway three weeks ago, but they are also the defending winners of this weekend’s two hour and 30 minute race. With only two races remaining this season drivers and teams will be looking to make the most of this weekend’s race at Laguna Seca.  

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS, WAS THE GUEST ON THIS WEEK’S NASCAR TELECONFERENCE.
 
BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPT:
AMANDA ELLIS:  Good afternoon, everyone.  We will now join the Stewart‑Haas Racing press conference with three‑time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and co‑owner of Stewart‑Haas Racing, Tony Stewart.
THE MODERATOR:  Tony, welcome back.  I know these folks have missed you.  How are you feeling?
TONY STEWART:  Oddly enough, I actually miss you guys, which tells you that I’m not healthy yet.
No, excited to be back, and the reason we’re going to be here until your questions are over is because Mike took my wheelchair, so basically I’m stuck here.
No, I am feeling a lot better.  We’ve made huge gains in the last four weeks.  This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with.  This is definitely the worst injury I’ve ever had in my life and racing career.  It’s definitely been a big change from being probably one of the busiest drivers on the schedule to being in bed seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
We’re getting around a lot better.  I’m starting to get a lot of my independence back as far as being able to take care of myself and get up and shower, do all the simple things that we take for granted.  That’s stuff that we’ve been able to do here in the last couple weeks that we’ve gained back.  We’re definitely making a lot of ground on it.
Q.  What’s the prognosis, and when do you expect to be back in a race car?
TONY STEWART:  They’re looking at the beginning of February, which isn’t a bad deal.  I mean, it’s really ‑‑ I guess if you had to have this injury happen, if it would have happened a month later, it would have got us in a really big bind for next year even, so we would have missed not only this year but the beginning of next year, as well.
To answer your question, February is what they’re looking at, and something that is part of this process, I’ve really been very vague with the doctors about what’s going on and what’s happening, what’s going to happen a month down the road or three months down the road, and the reason for that, I’ve tried to kind of to a certain degree protect myself from myself by not getting too far ahead and not trying to do something too early that I’m not supposed to do.  I’m really trying to guard against that right now.  A setback would really be bad.
Everything is going according to schedule and may actually be a little bit ahead of schedule, but as long as ‑‑ if we get done early, we don’t have anything to gain by it.  If we have a setback we have a lot to lose by it.  I’ve been pretty disciplined on just trying to not ‑‑ every time the doctor says I’m going to see you in so many days, I ask what do you want me to do through that period and what’s the goal.
You know, I’m kind of learning as we go here.  I’m trying not to get ahead of myself so I haven’t asked too many questions as far as what the time frames are other than just the obvious of when am I going to be able to get back in a car, and he’s very confident February will be okay.
He said it should be 100 percent recovery.  He doesn’t see any problem in that whatsoever.  There was no doubt in his mind when he said it he had a grin on his face and said it’ll be 100 percent.  He said when it heals it’ll actually be stronger than it was before.
Q.  I guess I want to know what you’ve learned about yourself and your organization through this process.
TONY STEWART:  I don’t know that I learned much about myself.  I pretty much knew already that I could sleep 20 hours out of a 24‑hour day going into this.  But the team I’ve learned a lot about.  The one thing, Greg Zipadelli, I can tell you this, when I heal, Greg Zipadelli is going to be the first one to try to kill me when I heal from this, but I’ve never been more proud of him and everyone here at Stewart‑Haas.  To go through what we’re going through and try to make the changes and the growth that we’re going through all at the same time and in such a short amount of time and go through this injury, this team has stayed extremely focused.
I’m proud of the group we’ve got.  I think everybody has just kind of said this is the cards we’re dealt, now what’s next and what do we do.  Nobody sat there like oh, this is doom and gloom.  They’re like what’s next, how do we make the adjustment and what’s the plan going forward.
I’ve probably learned more about the team than I have about myself, which I’ve been very impressed with.  I think they’ve done a great job.
Q.  When you were injured and you’re sitting there in your own space, how much concern did you have about letting people down, your team and your employees and your sponsors and all the tentacles that come from Tony Stewart?
TONY STEWART:  You know, you never want something like this to happen, but a perfect example this week is Bobby Labonte was riding his bike and broke three ribs and missed a race.  It’s just life, guys.  Things happen every day.  You can’t guard against all the time, and the thing is you’ve got to live life.  You can’t spend your whole life trying to guard against something happening.  If you do that, in my opinion you’ve wasted your time.  We are all here a short amount of time in the big picture, and I’m somebody that wants to live life.  I’m not somebody that wants to sit there and say, I’ve got to guard against this and I’ve got to worry about that.
I mean, if I got in a race car and didn’t wear a helmet and didn’t wear seatbelts, then that would be dangerous, and that’s being foolish.  We don’t do that.  But I’m going to go live my life.  I’m going to take full advantage of whatever time I’ve got on this earth.  I’m going to ride it out to the fullest and I’m going to get my money’s worth; you can bet your butt on that.
Q.  Last week Gene Haas was here talking about the fourth team, and he made a couple of jokes and comments about you guys weren’t necessarily on the same page when he proposed the idea to you. Are you now?  Have you guys worked through it?  Are you excited about it?  Where are you?
TONY STEWART:  Well, it wasn’t as dramatic as he made it sound.  You know, when Gene came to me about the fourth team, he told me on a Monday, and then on Thursday I was told that they had a contract ready.  So it definitely moved a lot faster, but in that time frame there were a lot of meetings in three days.  And the biggest thing was having Greg Zipadelli sit there and say we can do this and we can get it done in a time frame.  That was my concern.  It wasn’t that I was against the idea of what Gene had in mind.
In all honesty, you think about what role he’s played in this company, ever since I’ve been a part of Stewart‑Haas with him, every year he’s become more engaged than the year before, and for him to go out and take an opportunity like this to go find somebody like Kurt and do it in a time frame and make this happen in such a short amount of time has really been encouraging to me as his partner in this deal.
It was just me getting caught up more than anything, and when he asked me about it, I wanted to make sure that we had the time ‑‑ the timing is very tight, and we’re going to have to get a lot done in a short amount of time to accomplish this.  But I think it was really Greg saying we can do this and we can get this done in the time frame, and it may not be fun and it may not be easy, but we can do it.  That was what made me finally give my 100 percent blessing on it.
Like I said, it wasn’t that ‑‑ we never argued about it.  He asked me my opinion, and it was just Gene being ‑‑ Gene was so excited about doing this and having his hand involved in it, and that’s great.  I mean, for me as his partner, I love seeing him engaged now.  I’m reall
y proud of him for being as active in this process as he was.  I was just worried about the time frame, and that’s what he hired me for.  My job is to protect this company, to look out for it, to make sure what we do we do in the right timing, and like I said, Greg was the big factor of assuring me that we could do it in the right time frame and not hurt the effort that we’ve got with Ryan trying to make the Chase and run for a championship this year.
Q.  Just want to go back to, I can understand and appreciate your point about you’ve got to live life with your limited time here.  Obviously your situation is different from mine or a lot of other people, and certainly a lot of people depend on you here in this organization.  How does that responsibility change?  Does this incident make you rethink that to some degree in that balance between your responsibility to the folks in here to your right to do whatever you want in your life?  Has that changed?
TONY STEWART:  Well, in saying that I’m going to live my life doesn’t mean I can do anything I want.  But you can go in there and ask those guys, none of those guys missed a day of work through this.  Nobody has got a cut in paycheck.  It hasn’t changed their life as far as what they do and what their job and what their responsibilities are here.
My role in the company has definitely changed, but we’ve got a guy out here that you couldn’t ask for a better guy to come fill in and having Mark and Arlene here; thank you, guys.  I appreciate you guys being here, first of all.  That means a lot.
But this company has never stopped.  I know what you’re saying about the responsibility, but I mean, I’ve been a part of meetings for the last three weeks.  I haven’t really missed work.  I mean, the only part of my job that I’ve missed as far as responsibilities to this company is I haven’t been in the race car.  Granted, I’m not trying to downplay that, but I am going to go to Tallahassee, Florida, tomorrow to a Bass Pro Shops appearance; I’m going to be in Richmond on Thursday.  I’m not missing work.  I’ll have missed one appearance since this has happened, and other than being out of the race car, that’s all I’ve missed.  That’s all I’ve let down as far as my responsibilities.
Like I said before, if I got hit by a car on the street coming to the shop and this injury happened, I would still have missed the same thing.  You know, you can’t guard against everything, so as far as thinking about it, everything that I do we sit there and try to make sure we’re as safe about doing it aspossible.  It was an accident.  It wasn’t something that ‑‑ it wasn’t something that was pre‑planned.  It wasn’t anything other than just an accident that happens just like anything else in life that happens out there, just like Bobby’s deal this week.
That’s why they call it accidents; nobody does it on purpose.
Q.  First of all, it sounds like you’re going to be in Richmond this weekend.  I just wanted to see if that was the case, if you’d be at the track.  And also, going forward are there any more surgeries or anything like that planned with your leg?  What’s the medical plan going forward?
TONY STEWART:  You know, when the accident happened on Monday night, they did surgery right away just to clean up the scenario as far as the bones, the tissue, the skin.  There was a lot of skin damage in the accident.  So they got that all taken care of in Iowa, which I will say that from the time that the car stopped in the wreck to the time that I got to Eddie and Dana Jarvis’s house, that’s about as good a care as I possibly could have imagined ever would have happened.
Jay Mercer was the first one to get to me at the race car, and he’s actually a doctor, I believe, in South Dakota, and then I’ve actually stayed in contact with him since.  But he’s got a very good medical staff that takes care of the racers at Huset’s Speedway in South Dakota and they go down to Oskaloosa and help during Nationals week.
The care that his staff gave me at the track and all the way to the first hospital, and when we got to Des Moines and got to the hospital there, their staff in that first surgery went really, really well.  They flew me back to Charlotte on Wednesday, two days after the first surgery, and on Thursday morning at 8:00 I went into the second surgery, and that was to insert the titanium rod that’s in my leg right now, and that rod will stay in.  So there’s no anticipated extra surgeries after this.  We’re on the mend.
They’ve actually this past Wednesday took out 90 percent of the stitches that were in the skin.  The skin is healing really well.  Like I said, there was a lot of skin damage where the bones, where they got through the skin during the accident.  But the rest of those will actually come out with the doctor that helps us here with Stewart‑Haas Racing that will be at the race this weekend.  He’s going to take out the remaining stitches, and then we’ll be done with that.
No extra surgeries.  There’s no ‑‑ we’re not out of the woods as far as inspection right now with the skin or the bones, but the time frame that the doctor said is if we can get through the first two months and not have any dramas with infection that the odds of getting it are really, really low.  We’re halfway there on that, and the skin keeps healing faster than the doctor anticipated, so everything is progressing really well right now.
Q.  I have two questions, both sort of related.  Sprint car racing, you haven’t been asked directly, Zippy had said that all that racing, it’s your hunting, it’s your fishing, and it also gives you your edge, he thinks, into what you do.  Will you keep up the same sort of schedule that you think you’ve done in the past?  Question number two, Mark and Zippy both said in a joint press conference that their exact words are you are bound and determined to address sprint car safety and sort of make improvements that maybe should have been done years ago.  What can you do and add to that going forward?
TONY STEWART:  Go back to the first one again.  What was the first one?  Oh, am I going to run?
Q.  Are you going to run?
TONY STEWART:  I haven’t had to think very much the last four weeks.  I’ve got to watch Oprah the last four weeks now, and I’m very tired of watching TV.
As far as getting back in a sprint car, this year was the most aggressive schedule that we had planned, and even if I was 100 percent healthy, I wouldn’t plan on racing 70 races again next year.  I think I was a little aggressive on my schedule as far as how many dates I wanted to run.  But even with that, some of the places that we went to, some of them are tracks that I’m like, aww, it’s probably not a place I want to go back to next year.
I am going to get back in a car eventually.  There’s no time frame on when I’m going to get back in one, but I’m definitely going to cut back the amount of races, just on scheduling purposes more than anything.  I was starting to tell I was getting a little bit tired around Brickyard time, and that was ‑‑ we had the truck race that week, which was a lot of stress, and we had a lot of races scheduled in the two weeks prior to that.
Definitely going to cut back quite a bit, and a lot of that is ‑‑ it’s not been pressure from the sponsors.  Everybody has been ‑‑ our sponsors have been absolutely amazing through this whole thing.  Everybody at Exxon Mobil, all the executives there have either sent text messages to me on the phone or sent us letters to the house.  Johnny Morris is one of my best friends, and he came to the house and saw us.
You know, there’s definitely concern they want me to be healthy.  They want me to be 100 percent health‑wise, and every one of them is worried about my safety, and obviously the sprint car topic has been a little bit
of a sensitive topic with them, and a lot of them just don’t understand everything about sprint car racing, so it’s easy to understand their side from that.
But they’ve all been supportive of me living my life and understanding why I do what I do.  But for sure it’s definitely ‑‑ I’m definitely going to cut back that schedule.
The safety side, it started before I even brought it up.  Jerry Russell, who used to own Eagle Chassis, is developing a torque tube tunnel, which is kind of like a drive shaft tunnel like we have in the Cup cars for the same reason.  Jeannie Butler and Butler Built here in Charlotte have already been working on tether systems for the front of the sprint cars, where Jimmy Carr, my crew chief, has already been working on issues in the torque tube that he thinks can be addressed plus tethers for the back of the car to make sure that the rear end coming back like it did that actually caused the problem will be addressed.
The great thing is it’s kind of a movement similar to when Dale Sr. crashed and how it sparked a movement of safety, and in stock car racing it’s been really impressive to see how many companies and groups have really started looking at how can we make things better.
This wasn’t a deal where it was a wore out race car and wore out parts and somebody that you question their maintenance program.  This was a brand new car that we had, and it was just the perfect storm and a freak accident that I’ve never even heard of what happened happening to anybody else as far as the actual injury and everything, as far as how it happened.
But the good thing is that it got enough attention to, I guess, get this movement started, and there’s a lot of people that are actively working on it right now.  There’s going to be something that comes positive out of this negative of being hurt.  Sprint car racing has had a dark cloud over it this summer and just a lot of things that normally don’t happen in it have happened in a short amount of time.
Reading some of the articles from people, from writers that don’t know anything about sprint car racing, what they wrote has just devastated the sprint car community.  I think that’s been a big part in why some of these manufacturers have got involved and are trying to say, hey, this isn’t as dangerous as everybody thinks it is, but we can make it better.  There’s going to be something positive come out, just like in NASCAR.  There’s no formal group like NASCAR put together to actually do this, but it’s independent manufacturers that are saying we’re going to figure something out, and that’s pretty impressive to see.
Q.  Going back to what you said about the heightened engagement of Gene Haas, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this to be able to clarify.  You said pretty emphatically at New Hampshire, no fourth car for next year, and now of course while you were sidelined all these things get set in motion to add a fourth car.  Was that a conversation that you and Gene never had, that he would be willing to foot the bill and pay out of his own pocket, the millions it would take to start a fourth car, and were there any concerns about the perception of how that might look, that it all transpired while you were incapacitated?
TONY STEWART:  You know, when we had the press conference at Loudon, where we were at then, it was exactly what we said.  It was 100 percent on the mark.  There was no ‑‑ I was pretty disappointed to hear Kyle Petty say that we basically lied to Ryan and deceived Ryan.  Deceived was the word that he used actually.  They said we deceived him at Loudon in doing this.
Gene addressed this last week.  This literally came up while they were at Indy at Brickyard and they were at a Chevy dinner, and that’s where the conversation of doing the fourth team for next year, that’s when it started.
I think as it progressed, Gene is not used to having partners.  Gene is a self‑made success story in the CNC industry, and he’s pretty much been a one‑man show doing it, and this is the first time that he’s really had a partner.  I think going through that process, I don’t think that he thought much ‑‑ he just didn’t think about talking to me about it until it got further along.
Like I said, the Monday that they came, a week after my accident was the first time that he talked to me about it, and granted, I was in the hospital the week before, so that’s probably why he didn’t talk to me about it sooner, but a lot happened in a very short amount of time, and that’s why when he spoke to me about it was really the first opportunity that he had.
It moved along very quickly, and like I said, my only concern was the fact of the sponsorship about it and the time frame of building the team.  As far as having Kurt, Kurt is a huge asset.  He’s a guy that you know can go to every racetrack and has the capability of going out and being fast and being able to possibly win the race every week at every discipline.
As far as having Kurt, having a fourth team, I wasn’t ‑‑ there was nothing in my mind when he said that this disgrudged (sic) me because I knew from day one that Gene wanted this to be a four‑car team eventually.  I had no dream that he had it in mind for 2014 until three Mondays ago.
But as far as how it was going to look, and especially to Ryan, I think Gene addressed it last week.  This was something that he came up with and it happened all at once, and Gene had made the decision that he wanted to make a change.  We’re partners in this, and Gene wanted to make a change, and I’ve got to go with that.
You know, it was his choice to add Kurt to the organization, not me.  I really truly was 100 percent behind it, I was just concerned about the timeframe.  The rest of it about everybody’s perception that we’re fighting and arguing, there was never one argument between us.  I just expressed my concern about the timing of it, and it was no more elevated than the conversation you and I are having right here.  It was literally trying to figure out the facts of can we feasibly do this in the time frame that we have and can we do it to the level that we want to accomplish in that short amount of time.
Q.  I just want to confirm, was it the torque tube that hit your leg?
TONY STEWART:  Yes.
Q.  As far as your therapy goes, do you know what you’re going to have to do to get ready to be back in a car?  And what will determine when you get back in the car?  Is it just a matter of healing so there’s no further injury, or is there pain and muscles that you have to address before being able to race?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah, the injuries are not just compound fractures.  That was probably the easiest part of it.  There is tissue damage, there’s skin damage that’s involved, and that’s kind of been the first part of this process that the doctor was concerned about was before even the bones.  They put the titanium rod in, and that’s all they’ve done bone‑wise up to this point.  They literally, the first phase of this healing process was getting the skin to heal together, which I’ll admit I’ve been about as squeamish as anybody you’ve ever seen.  I literally have damned near passed out at every doctor visit I’ve been to so far with the surgeon.  I go into it with the attitude that I’m not going to look at my leg, and as soon as they get the wrapping off of it, I’m like, I’ve got to look.  It’s like yelling at a dog going “squirrel.”  I cannot not look.
And then I spend the rest of the time sitting there with a wet washcloth on my forehead trying to regain consciousness.
But once we get through that, as far as the therapy side, like I mentioned earlier, I really don’t know the timeframe of that.  I know I don’t have another doctor’s visit for three Wednesdays from now, and this is the longest that I’ve went without seeing him.  But I’m pretty sure that right after that we’re going to start therapy, an
d like I said, the main reason I don’t know the answer to that is because I’m trying to keep from getting ahead of myself.
I do know that when we start therapy he said there’s going to be a lot of crying involved, so I’m not looking forward to that.  But I am looking forward to being able to get up and walk around like I’m used to doing and getting around like I’m used to.  And the biggest thing is I can’t wait to get back in a race car.  I want to be ready for Daytona.  As far as when he’s going to give me the green light, I don’t know what that’s going to entail.  I’m sure a lot of it’s going to be really the bones being healed 100 percent, or as close that it needs to be to do what I need to do.
The rest of it I think is going to be up to us therapy‑wise to get that back in shape, and I can promise you we’ll work really hard on that side to accomplish that goal, too.  The doctor will ultimately make that decision as far as when we’re cleared to get back in a race car.
Q.  You said you’ve been watching a lot of television.  I just wondered, have you been watching a lot of NASCAR television, and what has it been like to follow the sport as a sort of fan rather than participant?
TONY STEWART:  I’ll be honest, when I heard Kyle Petty say that we deceived Ryan Newman, I pretty much quit watching the talk shows and went to just watching the qualifying shows, the practices and the race.  I’m kind of used to hearing some of that.  I’m glad I’m at the racetrack and don’t see those shows because I was a little disappointed with it.
But every weekend, especially the last two weekends, my team has got me the radio that you guys are aware of that I can sit there and listen to the team and talk to the team from the bedroom and lay in bed and watch TV and watch practice.  That’s been really ‑‑ makes me feel engaged with the team even more.  Even though I’m not there, I feel like I’m there.  Even at Michigan when the 8:30 practice came up, believe it or not I was out of bed and watching an 8:30 practice.
Like I said, made me feel like there’s something still wrong with me because I’m getting up early and all that.  I’m really trying to be as engaged as I can, and I’m not very much help lying in bed in Charlotte, but if there’s one thing that I can see when I see the car on the racetrack that can help, I like having that opportunity to be able to contribute.
But I get NASCAR.com, I get the timing and scoring on there, I get the little dots tracking around so I know exactly where the cars are on the track, I’ve got the radio up here and I’ve got the TV to follow the race.  I like listening to Dale Jarrett and those guys on race day.  I just don’t mind missing some of the other stuff that goes on before that really doesn’t matter.
Q.  You just talked about how you’re staying engaged with the race team and that sort of thing.  Is there any one thing that you are missing the most, other than obviously the obvious being able to go and do what you want to do with walking around?  Is there one thing you’re missing in particular at the racetrack besides just being there?
TONY STEWART:  The hot girls, there’s no doubt.  I mean, when you’re laying in bed there’s not much traffic going through my room.  I thought surely through three Cup championships, an IndyCar championship, winning the USAC triple crown, a national championship in ’94, that I could surely out of this whole process get one hot nurse during this whole thing, and I got Eddie Jarvis to take care of me.
And with that, Eddie and Dana, you couldn’t ask for a couple that is like family to me to take better care of me than they have.  Nobody could do it.  They’ve literally turned their house upside down for me, altered their lives for me for the last month and however much longer I have to interrupt their daily routine.  They have been beside me and through this with me from day one, and there’s been other people involved that have helped out a lot, too.
When this happened Eddie had to make some really tough decisions in a short amount of time, and I don’t think there was anybody that I would have trusted more than him to make crucial decisions about where to go, what doctor to try to get in touch with to do the procedures, and I think he did it and handled it better than anybody you could ask for.
But yeah, I miss the girls at the track, I’ll be honest.
Q.  After the wreck happened I think the wife of the other driver in the crash said she thought you might have even saved her husband’s life because you made a last‑minute turn when you saw him.  What did happen in the crash?  Did you try to avoid it at the last minute?  And once you were injured, did you immediately know, like this is season‑ending, this is really bad?
TONY STEWART:  What actually happened in the accident is he had hit a marker tire on the inside of the track, and when it did it pushed the tire in through the infield in the part that wasn’t watered down like the racing surface was. So it picked up a dust cloud.  There wasn’t a lot of wind, but there was just enough wind that it pushed it over the top of the racetrack.  What the view was like, I’m exaggerating when I say this:  It was like the scene in “Days of Thunder” where he’s driving into the smoke cloud.  It wasn’t quite that bad, but I couldn’t see through it, and leading the race I wasn’t going to jump out of the gas just because there was dust there because there’s a lot of times people get below where those tires are and in between them pick up a little dust that kicks across.
We have one‑way receivers that race control has and nobody had called a caution, and like I said, it was a perfect storm.  I think they were a split second of calling it probably, and when I got through the backside of that and could actually see what was on the other side of it, he was sitting right in the middle of the racetrack.  The track we were running was a half‑mile track, and it was very, very fast, and we were running wide open around there.  The times were very quick.
You know, if it hadn’t kicked up the dust, I would have been able to see him much earlier than I did.  When I did see him I was aimed straight at the cockpit.  Even if I wasn’t aimed straight at the cockpit, your reaction is to try to go around it, but definitely in that scenario it was try to at least go somewhere other than where I was pointed.  I knew I wasn’t going to miss him, but at least I got to the side of him a little bit.
I tried to minimize the damage of what was going to happen to both of us, but the way it worked out it ended up tearing the right rear suspension up.
As far as the second part of it, when I landed I started unbuckling my helmet and undoing my belts, and it just felt weird that I couldn’t ‑‑ my right leg felt numb, and I thought I must have just banged it against the frame rail or something and it went numb, but when I looked down, like I told Steve Addington, it wasn’t like the toe was out on the front, it was more like we needed a jig to fix it.  It was way out.
I knew at that point that it was fairly serious, and then when I went through the first surgery and realized ‑‑ I didn’t really look at it, and it was still ‑‑ my leg was inside my uniform so I really didn’t fully understand what the extent of the injury was until after the first surgery and after they kind of showed me X‑rays and what had happened and what they had to do to fix it.
At that point I knew we were going to be out.  The reason we didn’t let you guys know that, and I know you guys probably think we deceived you by not telling you that information, but the reason for that was we had to make plans to not only figure out what we were going to do for the rest of the year driver‑wise but make a plan, and with Ryan, still trying to get Ryan in the Chase at that point, not have answers to who was going to be in the car yet, that would
have been a lot of media attention and stress that the teams didn’t need to have.  It was already bad enough, and that was our way, I guess, of kind of making sure we had our ducks in a row before letting you guys know what was going on so we had the answers to why we’re doing what we’re doing and that way we could make it a little bit more cleaned up on our end from the media side of it, being able to keep you guys abreast of what was going on.  It did take some time to get all those details organized, to know what the answers were going to be so we had them when we met with you guys.
Q.  Will all of your therapy be done here in Charlotte, or will you do some in Indianapolis with those doctors up there?  And I know you said you didn’t want to get ahead of yourself, but has the doctor indicated to you how many days a week you will have to do your therapy and each hour of the day?
TONY STEWART:  Honestly that’s part of my goal the rest of the week.  We’re kind of in this three‑week stretch here that he’s kind of said you don’t need to come back, but we’re already starting to do some things with bands as far as trying to get range of motion in my foot and stretching, pulling my foot back and extension.  So we’ve kind of somewhat started that.  I’m not going to say that’s my therapy yet because I know it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder than that. But like I said, not getting ahead of ourselves.  I don’t really have the answers to that yet.
I’m going to reach out to the doctor here in the next couple days and try to figure out exactly what the therapy schedule will be, and I think at the same time that’ll help me understand whether I’m able to do it from Indiana or whether I need to do it from Charlotte.  We really don’t know yet.  I would like to do it from Indiana.  I’m kind of ready to go home for a little bit, but at the same time I’ve got a lot of responsibilities here.  The biggest thing I know from the doctor is he said he did not want two therapists doing this, that he wanted one person that was dedicated to it through the whole process, so that will dictate whether it’s there or here.
But we have to find out what that schedule is going to be.  That will kind of help dictate where it’s going to be as far as whether I need to stay down here or whether I’m going to be able to do it from home.  Whatever he says and whatever we decide on, I’m not going to waver from it.  If I don’t get to go home and I get to do it from here, I’ve got a 200‑piece family here that doesn’t mind seeing me every day.  Either way I’m going to be content doing it where we have to do it.
Q.  I hear everything you’re saying about Kurt being an asset and the conversations with Gene being just that.  If you had been in a position to try to block this for logistical reasons, would you have or could you have?
TONY STEWART:  It’s a good question, and I don’t know, because we have not been in that position through the last five years.  I think through this whole process, I think it’s been a learning experience for Gene, as well.  We’ve never, ever had to think about anything for the last five years I’ve ran Stewart‑Haas Racing.  I definitely welcomed Gene being engaged like this, and I am excited he wants to be a part of it.
You know, I think Gene realizes the value of the group that we have here now, and especially since his media session last Tuesday.  I think he really understands this a lot more and that there’s a lot more involved in it.  But he’s a smart man, and he understands what it takes to run a company, and I think he appreciates the job that Brett Frood and Mike and Eddie and our group here really do and have done for the last five years.
I think we would talk about it a lot more.  He’s definitely the guy that writes the checks, and if he decides he wants to do something, I’m pretty sure with the fact that he holds the checkbook that he gets kind of the final say of it.  But I think he values our opinions now and understands why I was asking questions and cautious about the time frame of it.  So I think he respects that a lot more since last week.
Q.  With one race left to go in the regular season before we get to the Chase, can you evaluate the performance of both the 39 and the 10 for the first 25 races?
TONY STEWART:  Well, I think on the 10 side for sure, we all knew it was going to be a learning year.  I was pretty impressed with Danica’s race on Saturday.  I know 21st isn’t what she wants.  Her standards on where she wants to be each week is much higher than my expectations are each week, but I thought she ran a really good race.  And I think every week is just a learning week there.  I don’t think we ‑‑ I’m definitely not judging her success by her finishing position, I’m judging it more by the Monday morning meetings and listening to her feedback and what she gained knowledge‑wise out of each weekend versus the finishing position at the end of the day.
Ryan, I thought Ryan and Matt Borland, I think they’ve done a great job.  We all got a really slow start to the year performance‑wise.  Here recently, obviously Brickyard was huge, and you look at the race Saturday night, if they don’t get those last two cautions and it runs to the end, Ryan had a really, really strong shot at winning the race.  The first restart got him hemmed up in a spot that even made it tougher after the second restart.
I know that wasn’t what he wanted for a finish at the end of the day, but in all reality that’s the best he’s run in Atlanta in a long time, so I really feel like they’ve gained a lot of momentum.
We’ve used our four allotted NASCAR tests that we’re allowed, and I think where there’s been some teams that are in safer positions and already locked into the Chase already, they’ve saved some of those for these last 11 weeks.  But where we were at the first third of the season and our strategy and Zippy’s strategy of utilizing those tests a little earlier, I think we’re starting to see the results of that pay off.
Mark had a good start to the race and then got caught up in the same deal that Kasey Kahne got caught up in on that restart, and other than that, I think we were in line for a strong day there.  He had to go out early qualifying, which wasn’t an asset for us there, but Mark is one of those guys that it doesn’t matter where he starts, he knows how to run the race and especially race the race in Atlanta, so there wasn’t any concern there, and I think we were in good shape there, as well, if we would have had the opportunity to not get caught up in the crash there.
I feel like all three teams are doing a good job.  I’m really proud of the 14 team.  I mean, to have Max in the car the first week, Austin in the car the second week and Mark in the car the third week, that’s three big changes.  And Steve Addington is probably ‑‑ you could probably not have to sign him up for Rosetta Stone to learn new languages because I think he’s had to learn three new languages in the last three weeks, or four weeks.
I think he’s done a great job, the teams have done a great job communicating and working and keeping their eye focused on what the goal is each week.
Q.  Assuming you’re not back in the car until Daytona Speedweeks, are you going to have Mark continue with the team into ’14 to do the testing and development, and do you have somebody else that you’re looking to bring in?
TONY STEWART:  I’m all for Mark Martin doing all the testing he wants to do.  I’ve never been a big fan of testing anyway.  It’s like watching paint dry to me.  Like I mentioned earlier, if there’s ever ‑‑ I don’t know that you could pick anybody any better to ‑‑ if that scenario happens, I definitely hope he would be willing to do that, and would love to have him do that for us because he’s been around the sport so long and he’s so detail oriented, you couldn’t ask for somebody
better to go into test that probably would pay more attention than I would about what’s going on with every detail.  That would definitely be a great option for us.
Q.  The busiest guy in racing goes from racing six nights a week to bedridden watching Oprah, and I guess that could go the other way where you could be woe‑is‑me and feeling bad about yourself, but you seem in good spirits and you look good, you look like you’ve lost some weight ‑‑
TONY STEWART:  That was the goal.  I thought, man, the only way I’m truly going to lose weight, because I’m not as dedicated as Mark is to the workout program, the only way I’m going to be able to do this is I’m going to have to break something so I can lose weight.
Q.  Because that’s something that I asked Zippy, is the mental part of it going to be harder than the physical part.  So how did you overcome that, and did being here in Charlotte and that steady stream of visitors, because a lot of guys said they went to see you and they found you in good spirits, did being in this community help you with that?
TONY STEWART:  Absolutely.  You know, and something that was really overwhelming right off the bat was the first 36 hours after the accident happened.  I couldn’t even type a sentence on my phone to reply to text messages, but I had 850 text messages in the first 36 hours after the accident, and it was people ‑‑ I got one three days ago from Mark Webber from Formula 1 saying, “Call me; I had a similar injury,” and just hope you’re feeling better.  The outreach from people from IndyCar racing, Sports Car racing, NASCAR racing, the sprint car community and the visitors that we had.  There was a day that we had nine straight hours of visitors, and I didn’t have a five‑minute break between any of those. That’s been a huge, huge asset, and keeping me motivated and my spirits up.
I’m kind of surprised myself to be honest; I’m surprised I’ve been this upbeat about it, and I don’t know why.  But I guess I just look at it as it’s just a bump in the road.  I’ve raced 36 years and never had an injury that lasted ‑‑ the worst injury I had was an IndyCar crash, and all I had was fractures, and there was no scars, there was no stitches, no anything that I had to look at.  It was literally just waiting for it to heal enough that I was comfortable enough to even be in a car.
But it’s been surprising to me.  To go 35 years and run all the hundreds of races and thousands of races we’ve run, and to finally have an injury, it’s like, this hasn’t been a bad run of going out getting hurt.
It just seems like a small bump in the road.  I guess if this was the fifth injury in a row that I’ve had that put me out of a race car, I’d probably feel worse about it.  I’m one of those believers that everything happens for a reason, and I feel lucky that I guess if it’s going to happen that the timing of it happened in a scenario where I’m not going to miss next year, I’m not going to miss a race.
It could have been a lot worse.  I mean, physically it could have been a lot worse, but the scenario of everything else surrounding it could have been a lot worse than this.  It’s not that bad.
Darrell Gwynn came and saw me, and that’s the one thing he said is he was really worried about me emotionally getting down.  I spoke to him again this morning, and I guess a lot of people have been really surprised that we’ve been this upbeat about it.  Got a lot of great friends and a lot of great friends that are drivers that I compete with each week that have been there to keep me pumped up.
Clint Bowyer has probably been my comic relief.  When I know he’s coming to the house, I clean everything up around my bed, I clean everything up around because I know I’m going to be laughing so hard I know I’m going to knock stuff on the floor.
I really wanted to wear a shirt that he brought me this week, and like everything else I want to do, like being on Twitter, it got vetoed by Mike.  But it has ‑‑ it’s just a black tee shirt, and it’s got like the guy that’s on the restroom door, the little stick guy, and he’s got two crutches and the right leg is broke on the guy.  But on top of that, it, with two letters in front of it “‑‑it happens.”  And I thought, man, that’s a perfect shirt to wear to this press conference today, but of course big brother is standing there over at the podium in his nice striped ‑‑
THE MODERATOR:  I just wanted to keep you out of Twitter jail.
TONY STEWART:  I’ve been thinking Twitter would have been a really good idea the last four weeks because I’ve got a lot of time to think and talk and reply to things.  But again, I keep ‑‑ the battles that I keep losing, like you mentioned whether Gene would actually trump everything.  I’m still getting trumped by guys that I pay.  My life really hasn’t changed much.
Q.  We have a lot of folks listening on Sirius XM live on NASCAR radio, and all over it says #smokewillrise.  What sort of reaction have you gotten from the fans who maybe didn’t follow you but felt for you?
TONY STEWART:  Well, I know Mike follows that.  I don’t even know how to look at Twitter to be honest.  That actually was Mike’s creation.  But we’ve got so many cards and letters in the mail that have that at the bottom of it, and I think it’s just something that everybody has kind of been able to grasp onto that reminds us all that we’re down but we’re not out, and we’ll recover from this.
It’s just, like I said, a bump in the road.  I’ve got a stack of cards from fans just that have come to Eddie’s house that is this tall, not to mention what we’ve got at our race shop here.  I spoke to my mom yesterday, and the amount of cards that we’ve got there, and they’ve actually put a board up, and everybody that comes into our shop has wrote messages on the board, and it’s just been overwhelming she said.
I know there’s a lot of fans that haven’t been able to talk to us that are supportive, and that’s the stuff ‑‑ that’s the things that help you when you’re ‑‑ when I’m having a bad day at therapy and I don’t feel like doing it or it hurts and you don’t want to go those extra 10 minutes or whatever, that’s the things that you put in your mind that help keep you motivated and wanting to push to get through this and get healthy, because it’s not just for me, it’s for 200 people here at Stewart‑Haas Racing.  It’s so Mike won’t yell at me, and it’s for our fans.  It’s for the people that support us every week that miss me being in the race car.
Q.  We know you support the Kurt Busch addition, but what are the things that are going to be really tough, and then where are you on Kevin Harvick’s team, crew chief, team members, that sort of thing?
TONY STEWART:  Well, we got a crew chief, and I think we’re getting ‑‑ I think he will dictate the crew members on that team like every crew chief always does, but I think Zippy is more in tune with exactly the details of what all is going to be ‑‑ what all is going to have to happen to accommodate the fourth team, to get a lot of the new equipment that Gene wants to get through this process, and things that will help not only his car but all of our cars.
That’s more a question for Zippy as far as every aspect of what it’s going to take to do it.  My role through this as well as healing is to be a cheerleader and keep Zippy pumped up.  Like I said, he can’t wait for me to get healed up because he wants to beat the crap out of me right now for getting him in this position.  But he’s been amazing through all this.  This is a new ‑‑ this is a relatively new role.  He’s been in this role for two years now, but there’s a lot that’s going to be happening, and two winters in a row we’re not going to be on cruise control like he would ‑‑ I don’t think any team ever is in cruise control in the winter, you’re always pushing hard, but this is going
to be a different year just like last year was of getting new cars done last year.
Now it’s going to be new equipment, making changes to the building, adding a second building on the lot next door.  There’s just a lot of stuff that’s going to be new, and Zippy is really the spearhead of that whole thing and going to be the guy that’s going to organize and orchestrate that.
Again, like we mentioned when we did the press conference about hiring Zippy, there’s nobody I trust more through this process than him, and literally like when he said that he thought we could do this and it wasn’t going to be fun and it wasn’t going to be easy but we could do it, then that’s what pushed me over the edge to say, okay, I’m in 100 percent with the timing of it, let’s do it.
Q.  (No microphone.)
TONY STEWART:  Yes.  Yeah.  I don’t know if we’ve done any formal announcements on that, but yeah.
THE MODERATOR:  We just did.
TONY STEWART:  Welcome to Tony doesn’t remember protocol here.  (Laughter.)
Q.  Since the news of Kurt Busch came out, I was just wondering if you’d had a chance to have a heart‑to‑heart with Ryan, and are you guys okay at this point?
TONY STEWART:  Ryan and my relationship is still the same.  Since this has happened the last week, I really haven’t had time to sit down with a heart‑to‑heart.  Obviously he had a busy weekend with the Coke ride‑along last week and the dinner on Thursday and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and during the weekend I wanted him to stay focused on what’s going on.  But I think today will answer a lot of his questions, but I still will have a conversation with him about it.
But the biggest thing is I want him to focus on what we’re trying to accomplish this year, and even when we spoke earlier this year before we made the announcement at Loudon, we were both very adamant to each other that our friendship was going to stay the same and we both knew where each of us stood as far as the business side of this and understanding that it wasn’t emotionally driven, that it was business driven, and that through this our friendship would stay the same, and this won’t change that.
Q.  In the immediate time after the accident, did you fear about losing your leg or the end of your career or something like that because this sounds like such a dramatic injury?  And secondly, you mentioned earlier about coming in and running the team in essence for the last five years, now Gene is seemingly becoming more involved in some sense.  What kind of an adjustment is that in trying to learn how to work with in essence a 50/50 partner as they start to assert themselves a little bit more?
TONY STEWART:  Well, the great thing is for five years I’ve done all the press conferences, all the meet‑and‑greets, and I welcome Gene doing some of these.  I don’t think there’s a shot that he’ll do that.
But it’s not really ‑‑ I welcome that change.  Like I said, I’m proud that I have a partner that wants to be engaged and has steadily done that for the last five years and become more engaged as this has gone on.  That’s a good sign.  I mean, for a guy that has a lot of responsibility of running a multimillion dollar CNC business, he’s emotionally invested in this as much as he is financially.  He keeps adding to that emotional side to it, too, which is great.
It makes me feel good that I feel like we’re making him proud and that he wants to be more involved and more engaged in it.  That’s a great thing in any sport if you can have an owner that is becoming more engaged as he is.  I don’t know that you can ask for a better scenario than that.
As far as it being an adjustment, there will be.  Obviously the last two weeks, we sat with him last Monday and said, listen, what are you going to say when you go down there tomorrow.  He’s like, I’ll just wing it.  I’m like, no, you can’t do that.  Speaking from experience you can’t just wing it when you get down there.  He called me two days later, and he goes, man, you were right.  He read what was written and realized that you’ve got to think about it or more than just shooting from the hip with it.
I think it’s as much of an adjustment for him as it is for me, but the good thing is we’re both working for the same cause and the same results, and that side of it is pretty exciting.
Q.  (No microphone.)
TONY STEWART:  I honestly didn’t know ‑‑ I didn’t know what the extent of it was to be honest.  You know, like I said, I’m kind of a ‑‑ I’m squeamish when it comes to ‑‑ I can’t let them draw blood to do my physicals each year without looking at the ceiling and stuff.  When it happened and when it was ‑‑ the doctor I told you that was the first one to me in the race car, he was also in the ambulance, and he tried at some point during the ride to somewhat explain to me what was going on, and I did this and said, I do not need to know.  I don’t want to hear it.
I learned a lot more about it after the first surgery when the doctor ‑‑ the surgeon came in when we got out of recovery and were coherent enough to understand what he was saying, and we realized the severity of it then.  But the threat of losing the leg, I don’t think it was ever to the point where there was a huge threat of it.  There was a lot of trauma that went on with the leg obviously during that, but by the time the surgery was over, they had already overcome all that and got everything stable.
You know, I learned a lot more about it after it happened, but I guess during that process I was on a need‑to‑know basis, and I did not need to know, for sure.
Q.  I know you said that you’ve been watching the races, all the gadgets and radios and stuff, but what do you see?  What’s your impression of watching the races? You’ve been in every Cup race since you started.  What does it look like to you on TV?
TONY STEWART:  Same as the replays look like when I watch them on Monday after the race.  You know, I thought Atlanta was good.  I don’t know, with the way the race was going, I don’t think anybody knew 20 laps from the end when we had that first restart, first of the last two restarts, I don’t know how you could have planned who exactly was going to win.  Kurt’s restart was outstanding, and threading the needle, he drove by four cars in one corner on the restart there.
I guess it really hasn’t changed my perspective of it because you always see the replays on Monday or Tuesday or you see the highlights of it.  From that standpoint it really hasn’t changed ‑‑ I guess I’ve been a little more engaged than just watching it on TV.  I spend more time watching the lap times on the computer and watching exactly where the cars are and really stay focused on listening to the audio, listening to Mark’s comments during the race and listening to my comments to how I talk about the car to Steve Addington and how Mark does, the language is totally different.  But a couple weeks into it learning what he’s wanting and trying to figure out, okay, what will we do in that scenario, and then I can scroll to Danica’s channel and then I can scroll to Ryan’s channel, and just going back and forth, I stay really busy during the race because I’m not only listening to what’s going on in the 14 car but I’m really engaged with what all three cars are going through during the race.
Like I said, watching it on the computer, I’m not sitting back in a recliner getting a beer every commercial break and watching it on TV; I’m really engaged and got a lot more information than what they’re just getting from the TV broadcast side of it.
Q.  You get lauded for all your success in various forms of motorsports, but one thing that seems to have come out with this incident, particularly from Gene last week, is talking about how engaged you were here at Stewart‑Haas Racing, and even you today talking about I was the one who said are we really
sure we should do this next year, and Gene said last week, I want to spend this money, Tony can be the good businessman.  Do you think that your contribution here as a business owner, as an owner, has been kind of overshadowed a little bit the last several years outside of just being a successful driver, how much you’re engaged and what goes on here on kind of a day‑to‑day basis, considering how you entered it as being offered a half ownership?
TONY STEWART:  I don’t think so.  I mean, I’ve got a great group of people here, and I’ve got Brett Frood, I’ve got Eddie Jarvis, I’ve got Mike Baroneunder Mike Arning.  We’ve got a great group that run this business together.  I don’t run this business; there’s a group that runs this business.  That group has been intact for five years.  The part that scared me when Gene and I spoke about all this is that for a split second I was actually the adult in the conversation, and that probably scared me more than anything through the process was that I actually was the one that used common sense and was like, wait, let’s take a step back and think about this, and normally I’m the guy that’s throwing the dart on the board and saying if it hits, yes, I’m full throttle and I’m out the door.
But I think that’s part of what ‑‑ I think that’s something that gained my respect with Gene a little bit was that he’s wanting to spend a lot of money right now to do this project, and it would be very easy for me to say heck yes, give me the blank checks and let me go run with it.  But for five years we’ve ran this like a business, and that’s what he hired me for.  He hired me to go out and win races but at the same time try to help this business along.
I don’t have a business degree, but I’ve got a guy that works for me that has one hell of a business degree, and if you just pay attention a little bit, you can learn a lot, and whether it’s the business guy or whether it’s guys that just have common sense that we have here, you can learn a lot in a short amount of time, and you don’t have to have a degree to make good educated decisions.
But through all this, it’s not me making a decision, it’s a whole group that makes the decision, and that makes this whole process a lot easier because I guess it’s, like Gene mentioned last week, a very good checks‑and‑balance system of sometimes there’s something that I think is a great idea, and somebody else may also think it’s a great idea, but two other people may say, yeah, it seems like it’s a good idea but these are the negatives to it.  We’ve got a really good group that can look at whatever the topic is from a lot of different angles and really make an educated decision about it, and I think that’s what makes us a really good company.  It’s not one or two people making the decisions; it’s a group of people that sit down and try to find every positive to it and every negative to it before we pull the pin and make a decision one way or the other.
Q.  Now that you’re sprung from the house, are you going to resume more outside activities, and now that you’re going to Richmond, are you going to be in a wheelchair at Richmond?  How will you get around the racetrack?  And are you in a walking boot?
TONY STEWART:  I think it’s a walking boot.  I just got crutches Wednesday at the last appointment that I had with the doctor.  If Eddie Jarvis had to push me around the racetrack this weekend in a wheelchair, we would have to stop every 100 feet for a smoke break, and I don’t feel like I’m going to get around like I would like to in that scenario.  If I tried to go on crutches, I would have to stop every 10 feet and I would have to have a smoke break, and I don’t smoke, so I do have an alternate mode of transportation.  There has been a little bit of thought put into this.  I’ll surprise you with it on Friday, but when you see it you’ll realize that I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands.
Q.  Did you engineer something?
TONY STEWART:  I don’t engineer anything.  I’m just the guy that comes up with the really stupid ideas.  Believe it or not, I learned how to use the internet and how to shop on the internet, which has made me very, very dangerous to the accounting department.  I should be done with my Christmas shopping in about a week.  Gene has got the blank checks.  Unfortunately my account doesn’t tie into all of his accounts, unless he decides to adopt me any time in the next couple weeks, which I’m more than happy to do that.  I think my parents would in this case perfectly understand, probably at this point in my life might be all right with it.
Q.  Your most recent victory is the Rascal 500 right here, right?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah, I’m actually proud to announce that I have returned to racing, 21 days after my life‑threatening and potentially career‑ending injury.  We had a scooter race upstairs with Greg Park, who is one of our head financial guys, who uses a scooter to get around, as well, and we had the Rascal 500 upstairs around the engineering department and the marketing department upstairs where I was victorious, and there is some video ‑‑ not video, but we do have some photos of the victory lane celebration.  I’m proud to announce that after 21 days I’m back in the winner’s circle and not forgot how to win races.  It may take a little longer for the second one, but the first one was successful.
Actually Kurt was the one that supplied me with the scooter, and he spent ‑‑ he went way above and beyond.  It took him an hour and a half to build it Monday morning, and it took him about 15 minutes to show Eddie how to disassemble it and put it in the car and put it back together, which Eddie doesn’t really understand how to do that.  Luckily we have about 200 people that are smart that know how to put mechanical things together, so that’s what I ride around at the shop in.  Until I get stronger and can use the crutches more efficiently, it’s a fairly large building, and I can get around in a scooter a lot easier.
The guys are a little more attentive when they know I’m here because it’s electric, it doesn’t make a lot of noise, and I definitely can sneak up on them. That’s definitely keeping them on their toes.
Q.  Since we’ve chatted with you, your driver Donny Schatz has a historic, incredible Knoxville National win and has gone on an amazing run in the World of Outlaws, and your other team Steve Kinser looks like he has picked up.  Just assess going forward the final quarter of the season for your two STP World of Outlaws sprint car teams.
TONY STEWART:  They’re definitely gaining momentum.  With the exception of the first night at Skagit, which was on Friday night last weekend, he has not finished outside the top two in points since I think a week or two before Knoxville, which has been an incredible run.  He tied his personal best for feature wins for a season last night with 19, and we’ve still got a quarter of the season to go.
You know, Steve has been on his side with the 11 car, has had a similar year to us, was really struggling the first half of the year, ran third last night and has had a couple wins since then.  He’s gaining, as well.
His Bad Boy Buggies team is doing a great job, and Donny’s STP team is doing a great job.  I’m really proud of that side of the organization, as well.  They’ve just been on a hot streak.
Being laid up in bed, being able to listen to Dirt Vision, that’s part of my routine, and they’re on what they call a hell tour this week.  They went to Washington Friday and Saturday and then they had Sunday off, and then they raced, since yesterday, seven nights in a row.
The good thing is talking about being stir crazy in the house and everything every night, it gives me something to look forward to at the end of the day that I’m going to get to listen to my race cars race in the evening for the next seven straight days, when I’ll go to the Cup ra
ce and watch my cars run.  I’ve got a lot to keep me busy, but I think they’re doing a really good job.
Q.  Have you gotten to sit down and talk with Kurt yet?  And second, you and Kurt had some pretty hellacious run‑ins in years past, just as Kurt and Harvick did, and Kurt and Harvick seem to be like this this year.  Is that something that racers get through when they become teammates easier than us civilians think you maybe be able to?
TONY STEWART:  Well, I think it’s kind of been inevitable at some point that all three of us during different stages are going to start growing up, and I don’t know that all three of us have completed that process yet, but I think to a certain degree and certain level, all three of us have made huge gains in that area.
You know, I think the good thing is, especially for Kurt’s side, it’s a new organization, and it’s the same with Kevin.  But Kevin and I have raced with each other.  I raced for him in the Nationwide car quite a bit, so we’ve worked together a lot.  Kurt and I haven’t had the chance to work together, but I really think it’s an asset for Kurt to have both myself and Kevin as a support system, I guess, and to lean on each other.  I think that’s something that will help the growing of him coming to the organization.
I told the crew guys, I said, there’s no doubt in my mind that through the hiring process, we’re definitely going to have to hire a lot more people for the team.  There’s going to be two really key positions that we’re going to have to fill, and that’s, one, a therapist for me, and the second one is the therapist for the rest of the team.  But it’s going to be fun.  I think there’s a lot more positives than ‑‑ everybody is looking at this as oh, my God, this is an atomic bomb that can get set off at any moment.
I look at it the opposite way; I think the fact that we’ve all been through this to a certain degree and we all don’t want to get back in that mode again, I think whether I get frustrated and those two guys calm me down or it’s one of the other two and the two of us calm them down, I think it’s a good support system for each other.  But I think we all look at it as a positive that we all three as well as Danica ‑‑ I mean, Danica is good at calming scenarios down with us.  She was a little wound up in the trailer.  I think we’ve got four people that can sit there and really work well together and can contribute, and they’re passionate and can go out and be competitive.
I think that makes it really encouraging for what we have in store for the team next year.
Q.  I just wondered, a lot of people like to go home when they’re hurt or whatever, and it sounds like it’s going to be almost more difficult for you to go home now with your mobility and everything, and I wondered if you do get here, will you be able to do some of the things you really like to do, whether that’s fishing or whatever?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah, I mean, I actually got approval through the doctor, and Eddie has been, like I said, a huge part of this.  I’m going to get to go to Richmond this weekend, which I’m excited about.  I’m excited to not only spend time with my teams but at the same time get the opportunity to see other teams and NASCAR officials that I miss.  But I am going to get to go home back to Indiana for a couple days after the Richmond race, and I’m really looking forward to that.
I’m not going to get to do a lot of things I like to do, which is get on a tractor or get a beer and go out in the woods and do a lot of things I want to do, but just getting to go home, as much as I love being at Eddie and Dana’s house, at the same time I want to go home just to get them some sense of normalcy for a couple days and let them get their life back for a little bit and not have to babysit me.
I’m pretty sure that fishing is not going to be too bad a strain on my leg, so I’m pretty confident I’ll get a couple days of that in before I have to come back.  But like I mentioned earlier, if my therapy means I have to be down here, the biggest thing is getting my leg healed up and getting ready for the next season.  If it has to be down here and I don’t get to go home, that’s just part of it and that’s part of the bump in road.  But we’ll do what we have to do to get healthy again.
Q.  While you were in a hospital bed, I was also in one.  I had a heart ablation, so I kind of can relate to ‑‑ I was only four days in a hospital bed, but I’d kind of like for you to share what it’s like to be all of a sudden, oh, man, this is a whole thing of life.  What would you say to people that are mostly ambulatory all the time and in good shape and everything else, how fortunate they are and how much a hospital bed, as much as you need them, they’re not much fun?
TONY STEWART:  From the sound of it, it’s affected your life more than mine.  You know, I don’t think it’s necessarily a scenario where people take it for granted.  I think we all know somebody that’s had an injury or had an illness that they’ve had to be in the hospital, and you see how it affects them and how it affects their families.  But the big thing is, like I said, we’ve had a huge support system of people that not only came to the house to visit but people that have texted and called, and it makes you forget about the fact that you’re hurt, and probably in more aspects it reminds you how good of friends you have and how much you mean to people that you really don’t realize how much you mean to them, and that, I guess, to me far outweighs whatever injury I’ve got.  The injury will heal, but having that sense of knowing how much people care about you probably means more than how long the injury is going to take.
Q.  Did it surprise you that some of the fans who might not have liked Tony Stewart were so gracious to you when you were injured?
TONY STEWART:  I wasn’t aware of that, but that’s pretty cool.  Like I say, there’s one thing that Dale Sr. taught me a long time ago.  In 2000 or 2001, we were riding in a truck together, and I went across during driver intros, and I got into it with somebody the week before, and it wasn’t very popular.  I think 50 percent of the crowd booed and 50 percent cheered, and when we got in the truck together and were riding around, he knew I was pretty disappointed about hearing it.  He goes, well, kid, you’ve finally made it.  He goes, whether they booed you or cheered you, everybody made a response, and if you’re making them respond one way or the other, you mean something to them one way or the other. That’s something that even an injury like this, if it means something to you, whether they liked you or disliked you, you mean that much to them that they respond, I guess that’s a good thing.
Q.  You talked about coming back for Daytona.  What is the comfort point as to the date that the doctors have got to inform you that it’s a go or no‑go for you to be ready for Daytona?  Is it months?  Is it weeks?  What is the time frame or cutoff point for words from the doctors and also the point to let NASCAR know?
TONY STEWART:  I’m honestly not sure.  I think the doctor is very, very confident that it could be even earlier than that.  The one thing that when we spoke about a time frame, I think at first he thought how soon can we be back in a race car, and my question to him was more just on the average, if we don’t have any setbacks and we don’t have any problems and everything goes according to schedule, what’s a comfortable time frame, and he said the end of December to the beginning ‑‑ I mean, end of January to the beginning of February.
You know, like I said, this isn’t ‑‑ we don’t have to push anything to get accomplished what we’re trying to accomplish here, and the biggest thing is we’re trying to accomplish not having a setback.  I’m not sure what that time frame is of what a cutoff is necessarily.  I don’t think we’re
even thinking that way because we’re pretty confident that minus any setbacks we’re going to be there and be ready to go.
I think if there’s any setbacks then obviously we’ll address it as it happens, but as far as our mindset and focus, we’re focusing on being ready for Daytona and being ready to go 100 percent.
Q.  Obviously you talked about listening to the radio and being engaged with the team, but do you watch these races at all with like a pit in your stomach or a sadness or a disappointment that you’re not out there either competing for trophies or for the Chase?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah, I mean, as a driver you always want to be out there.  I mean, I didn’t have 115 races on my schedule because I don’t like racing.  You definitely want to be in the car.
But I think what makes it easier to watch each week is none of this has been a scenario where I’ve had to make a decision to be in the car or pull myself out of the car.  This decision was very cut and dried, and it was not an option. There was not an option of me going and possibly getting in the car this weekend.  That would be a lot harder to do.
This is a very cut‑and‑dried injury, and I don’t have that option right now.
Knowing that there’s not an option of if we push and work really hard we can make it before the end of the year, I guess it takes some of that out of there, and it shifts your focus from wanting to be in the car to what can we do and what’s in the best interest of the team and how can we do everything we can to make it as good as possible.
I guess that’s kind of what’s made it easier as far as that standpoint of being able to turn the TV on and watch, and like I said, when I turn it on and watch and I see the car on the track, I’m excited because I want to see where the splitter is at, I want to see the attitude of the car, I want to see if it’s tight, if it’s loose.  I just look at it from a different perspective now than what I’m used to, and I’m just in a different role now.  I’ll pick up my normal role at Daytona, but until then, I’ve got work ‑‑ I’ve got plenty of things to keep me occupied and busy, and staying engaged with the team is something that’s really important to me right now.
Q.  And you talked about doing fewer races, that maybe you were a little bit tired.  Did you feel like fatigue played any role just as far as reaction time in the accident itself?
TONY STEWART:  No, not at all.  I mean, what hurt the reaction time was the fact that there was just dust that I couldn’t see through.  I looked at the video, and it looks like I’m driving off the nose wing of the car like I’m not even paying attention.  But it’s hard from the camera angle to see what the dust was that we had to go through, and we were just running so fast there, it’s no different than a stock car crash where the car is sitting there and guys get in the wreck late.  I was the first one to the scene of the crash, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t paying attention or was tired or anything.  I mean, we started getting caught up, our schedule had started slowing down a little bit after Indy weekend.  I felt like we were fine from that side.  Physically I was fine doing what I was doing.  It just was a weird incident that normally doesn’t happen and I’ve never seen happen.
Q.  You just mentioned how you’re watching how the spoiler is sitting and the attitude of the car and that sort of thing.  Is this time away from being behind the wheel maybe helping you become a better driver for when you return?  Do you think you’re learning more from just watching and being involved in I guess a semi‑pit crew or crew chief manner?
TONY STEWART:  Just make no mistakes, I’m not qualified to even make a call on air pressure on the car, let alone anything else that’s going on.  I don’t think honestly there’s anything that’s making me a better driver.  I guess I look at it from the standpoint that I can lay in bed and watch TV all day or I can be excited about when the cars are going to be on TV and I can watch them go around the track and just pay attention and listen to their comments and stay engaged with what’s going on.
You know, I’m not ‑‑ I can sit there and look at it and then listen to his comments and put what I’m seeing visually to what I’m hearing or put what I’m hearing and be able to see it visually on the racetrack, and that helps me understand more what’s going on during practice and during the race.
But it’s not making me any smarter, trust me.  I’m not gaining much while I’m laying in bed right now.
Q.  With all know how much respect and admiration you have for AJ Foyt, and unfortunately now you share something in common with him in terms of you’re probably not going to be walking the way you’d like to for the foreseeable future.  Have you talked to him and offered any advice for somebody like yourself who’s gone through a major accident and ended up pretty well?
TONY STEWART:  We really haven’t talked about the injuries very much.  The funny thing is he goes, yeah, we’re both laid up right now, but the difference is he’s old and I’m middle aged.  He’s supposed to not get around that great right now, and I should be getting around great.
No, I cherish every time I get to talk to him on the phone, and when he’s called he’s just calling and checking to see how you’re feeling, and he just is upbeat on the phone.  We don’t talk about what happened.  We talk about what his cars did that weekend, we talk about how our cars ran this weekend on this side, and we just enjoy each other’s conversation during the phone calls, and that’s something I really appreciate.
Q.  Do any of the four of you have plans to do any Nationwide races next year that you know of?
TONY STEWART:  You know, I normally only run the Daytona race, and I’m not sure if we are going to have plans to do that or not.  I think a lot of it will depend on how the healing process is going.  But I honestly don’t know on Danica’s side or Kevin’s side or Kurt’s side what they have planned.  I don’t object to them running Nationwide races, even Kurt’s side as far as running ‑‑ if he can get something put together to run at California for an IndyCar race or even Indy 500 in Danica, and Kurt if they have interest in doing that.
I don’t object to it; now, Zippy and Gene might have objections to that, and like I say, if that’s the case we’ll sit down as a group and figure it out. But other than the Daytona race, that would be the only Nationwide race that I would have on my schedule for next year.

CHEVROLET SS DRIVERS GRAB SIX OF THE TOP 10 AT ATLANTA
 
TWO MORE TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS CLINCH POSITIONS IN UPCOMING
CHASE FOR THE NASCAR SPRINT CUP
 
HAMPTON, GA – September 2, 2013 – As the excitement builds in anticipation of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Kurt Busch made some bold moves in his No. 78 Furniture Row/Beautyrest Chevrolet SS to rally from a 32nd place starting spot to fourth place overall in the Advocare 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It marked his seventh top five and 12th top-10 finish of the season, to date. Busch moved up two positions in the point standings and now ranks 10th overall.
 
Behind the wheel of his No. 39 Aspen Dental Chevrolet SS, Ryan Newman came away in fifth place and recorded his fifth top-five finish this year. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver moved up one place in the point order, keeping his Chase hopes alive with a Chase Wild Card berth in sight.
 
Other top 10 Team Chevy finishers under the lights at Atlanta: Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevy SS – sixth, Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS – seventh, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard/Race to Achieve.org Chevrolet SS – eighth, and Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Jimmy Johns Chevrolet SS – ninth.
 
Harvick has now secured enough points to clinch a spot in the Chase. And, on the strength of two wins in 2013, Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevy SS has earned a ‘Chase Wild Card’ spot.
 
Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson who was involved in an early multi-car accident in his No. 48 Lowe’s Dover White Chevy SS, finished 28th in the 500-mile race. Johnson maintained his point lead in the current standings with a 28-point advantage over second place.
 
Kyle Busch (Toyota) was the race winner, Joey Logano (Ford) was second, and Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota) was third to round out the top five.
 
The next race on the tour, and final race to the Chase is September 7th at Richmond International Raceway.
 
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING/BEAUTYREST CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH
TALK ABOUT THAT RESTART WHERE YOU PASSED WHAT SEEMED LIKE HALF THE FIELD:
“The inside lane was definitely the preferred lane on restarts and I didn’t realize how bad the outside was until I got to try it on the outside of Kyle (Busch). And I could not get any power down up there. And on the inside, it’s like you’ve got all the power you can just put it to the floor and go. And inside versus outside was a tremendous difference. The seas parted for me and we went from 11th to second and we were able to hold on to fourth. We weren’t a top 5 car tonight, but our restarts, that one was great and the other ones were sub-par. So, it was just a battle, just a battle all night. The car was not a great car. We missed it, but we’ll take it.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 ASPEN DENTAL CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
WHAT WAS YOUR CONVERSATION WITH KURT BUSCH AFTER THE RACE?
“Oh, I just told him I’m glad I’m not the only one that can’t restart on the outside there. I don’t know what the deal is but there’s no grip on the straightaway. I don’t know if it’s rubber on the race track or what, but you did not want to be on the outside on a restart. And I was and he wasn’t and it didn’t work for either of us.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SIXTH
A GOOD NIGHT TONIGHT, BUT YOU ARE JUST OUTSIDE THE TOP TEN IN POINTS, HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THINGS GOING INTO NEXT WEEK?
“Well, I am more focused on tonight right now you know.  We had an excellent Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS and it just got away from us a little bit.   You know, the track changed quite a bit and we just couldn’t battle up front there for the lead and for the win like I thought we could have.  Little disappointed in that, but a great effort by the team all weekend long and we will take the momentum of these last two decent finishes, solid runs, and fast race cars and take it to Richmond and see what we can do.”
 
GOOD LUCK NEXT WEEK:
“Yeah, I am having fun.  These last couple weeks we have been battling and passing and having a great time out there and that is all we can ask for.   We didn’t do enough of that earlier in the year and that is why we are in the position we are in.”
 
TALK ABOUT GOING INTO RICHMOND:
“We are going to have to just perform at a high level.  I don’t even know the points.  Yeah, but our position doesn’t mean anything to me, it’s who we are racing and who we are going to go battle and really most of it is just us doing what we have to do.  Just like we have done the last two weeks we have done a good job, but we can do better.  In Richmond I think we are probably going to have to do better, but we do have a shot.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SEVENTH
ON HIS RACE:
“It was a good night for the Target team. We had some trouble keeping up with the changing track conditions during the first half of the race, but the guys made great changes and the car was good at the end. Happy that we were able to bring home another top-10 finish for Target tonight.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/RACE2ACHIEVE.ORG CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED EIGHTH
ON HIS RUN:
“I was real thankful the car was as good as it was.  We have struggled here and not ran great here the last several trips.  It’s so hard and it’s such a struggle to get a car that has a good balance and we did.  The car had great speed at the end of the race; we just got restarted in the wrong lane a couple of times and lost some spots there.  All in all I’m real pleased with the way the car performed and the job the guys did.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED NINTH
YOU HAD A TOP 10 RUN TONIGHT AND ALSO CLINCHED A SPOT IN THE CHASE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
“Obviously we’re happy to be in the Chase. Our day wasn’t very good. Our car was just terribly tight all night long and drove nothing like it did in practice. We’ll work on that and try to figure that out. But all in all, it’s been an okay season so far and obviously you want to put yourself in position to race for the championship and everybody has done a good job doing that. So, we’ll go to Richmond next week and try to win another race. I come to this race track expecting to have a chance to win the race and we were off all night.”

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF BALTIMORE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 1, 2013
 
BALTIMORE (Sept 1, 2013) – Sebastien Bourdais, No. 7 McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet, scored his third IZOD IndyCar Series podium appearance of the season by bringing home a third place finish in today’s Grand Prix of Baltimore.  In a race that can only be described as intensely competitive with six lead changes among six drivers as well as an eventful contact-filled race that resulted in six caution flags for a total of 25 laps, Bourdais was credited with leading twice for a total of 19 laps in the 75-lap/153-mile race.
 
“The results of the Grand Prix of Baltimore were difficult to predict and more difficult to accept given the solid efforts put forth by numerous Chevy teams,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series.  “Congratulations to Sebastien Bourdais and Dragon Racing for finishing third after leading the race nearly to the end before contact with the eventual race winner. The focus and hardened resolve of Team Chevy will be brought to Houston for the next double header event.”
 
Simona De Silvestro scored her best finish of the season by taking the checkered flag in fifth place behind the wheel of the No. 78 Nuclear Entergy Areva KV Racing Technology Chevrolet to give Team Chevy two of the top-five finishers.
 
Helio Castroneves, No. 3 PPG Automotive Finishes Team Penske Chevrolet, leaves the 12-turn/2.04-mile Streets of Baltimore with a 49 point lead in the battle for the Series’ championship with a ninth place finish.  Castroneves battled back from a lap-one incident that sent him to pit lane for repairs, and contact later in the race that again sent him to the attention of his crew for repairs.
 
Additional Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers were credited with top-10 finishes in the hotly contested race were: James Hinchcliffe, No. 27 GoDaddy Andretti Autosport Chevrolet – 7th; Sebastian Saavedra, No. 6 TrueCar Dragon Racing Chevrolet – 8th and Marco Andretti, No. 25 Dr Pepper Andretti Autosport Chevrolet – 10th.
 
Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, led a race-high 31 laps, but was relegated to the 18th finishing position after on-track contact required lengthy repairs.  Also suffering a disappointing finish was 2012 Series’ champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, who was forced to retire with mechanical issues and was scored in the 20th finishing position.  As a result, Hunter-Reay now sits fifth in the championship standings.
 
Simon Pagenaud was the race winner.  Josef Newgarden and Justin Wilson complete the top-five finishers.
 
Next up for Team Chevy in the IZOD IndyCar Series will be the third and final doubleheader of the season at Reliant Park temporary circuit in Houston, Texas. The Shell and Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston – Races 1 and 2 will be run on Saturday and Sunday October 5 and 6, 2013 with live TV coverage on NBC Sports Network.  Additional live coverage will be provided by IMS Radio Network on XM and Sirius Channels 211 as well as on www.indycar.com live timing and scoring.
 
 
CHEVROLET IN THE IZOD INDYCAR SERIES – FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT:
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD:  We had a fast car.  We had a fast car all the way to the end of the race.   That car got beat up pretty good, so by the end it was pretty ragged.  I am just really happy for the guys.  Yeah, it would have been awesome to win and in so many ways I guess we should have or would have.  But you know, it’s the podium……….another one, and its really important for the group.  For the spirits, for Jay, for the sponsors: McAfee, TrueCar, and Chevy.    Still pretty happy because when you start nearly dead last and you make it to the podium, pass a bunch of people and make it stick at the end – its pretty sweet.”

SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5th:  I think we recovered pretty well.  We  struggled a bit this weekend with speed and I think we kind of figured it out for the race and had some pretty good pace.  The tires didn’t go off so much on our car so that really helped us.  And it was pretty crazy out there I thought, but I was really happy with the ending of it.
 
“I’m definitely really happy with P5.  It was kind of a crazy race. I don’t think we had the fastest car out there, but we had a pretty good call on the pits when we got stuck in one of the wrecks. After that we were able to move forward and had some pretty good restarts. The Nuclear Clean Air Energy car was really good at the end, so I’m pretty happy with it for sure. Not a bad way to celebrate my birthday.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7TH:  “It was just wrong place, wrong time. I mean, we stopped dead on-track twice, we restarted twice and still ended up with a seventh-place finish. First of all, it’s a testament to the car, the work that the GoDaddy guys did and playing the strategy we had due to the circumstances. But, this isn’t what you want to see – this many cautions for the fans, and this many wrecked race cars. We’ll see, we’ll obviously take it. It’s a lot of points that race; it didn’t look like we were going to be anywhere near the top 10, so we’ll just keep fighting. That’s the spirit of this team; the DNA of this team is to never give up. It’s all in the recovery, and I think we all did a good job recovering today.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO.  6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH:
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 PPG AUTOMOTIVE FINISHES TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: “Wow, what a crazy race. Well, first off I have to say sorry to (right front tire changer) Doug (Snyder). I’m glad he seems to be alright. It was very slippery in the pits and I just slid in – I’m not really sure what happened. I want to thank PPG and Team Penske for never giving up. I am glad we were able to finish in the top 10 and keep our lead in the championship. Now, we’ll turn our attention to Houston. That will be a big race for us and our sponsors and a lot of points on the line with the doubleheader.”

MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 DR PEPPER ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET,  FINISHED 10TH:  “We’ll just do what we can. We missed the balance, but my Dr Pepper guys did an awesome job of getting me in a good position, but I just couldn’t hold it without the C.O.P (center of pressure because the front wing was damaged)… I was dreading it every lap. I was so afraid I was going to get run into from the back, so I’m glad that nobody just drilled me because I could not drive it into any of the corners, was just saving myself. We had two really bad stints so to end up 10th, but it’s all we could ask for with what we dealt with today.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 12TH: “During that long yellow it was hard to keep the tire warm because our brakes were getting so hot. So when we went into the restart I didn’t try to brake too late and I wasn’t trying to pass the first two guys. I had actually planned to try to pass Sebastian (Bourdais) in Turn Three, not in (Turn) One, and when I went into the first corner I couldn’t slow down. I was still going to make the corner but Sebastian continued like nobody was there, and unfortunately I touched him. I am sorry because we both had a chance at winning and that ruined both our chances. But honestly I’m super happy with all the work done by the team, as a one-car team these guys put together one of the strongest cars out there today. I said yesterday that the National Guard Chevy felt great and we even improved it from there.
We basically drove through the field at the start of the race, and legitimately went from 15th to third. We were passing cars all over the place and we had a legit shot and winning the race, which is all you can ask for. I think that shows how hard the Panther team has been working, and I’m super excited for Houston – which is a racetrack that’s not too different from Baltimore; we have two chances there and hopefully we can do well.”
 
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HVM CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH :  “We were definitely a victim of an incident that had nothing to do with us. The best word I can use to describe this race is botchery. It wasn’t about who was fast or who had the right strategy, it was simply about who didn’t have a problem. We definitely had a good car that would have taken us to the podium as it was looking until we had that issue in Turn 1 where I got punted from the back and I ended up hitting (Oriol) Servia from behind. I ended up damaging my car and had to come back in for another front wing. Anyways, it was a tough weekend from the beginning, but at some point in the race, we really set our hopes pretty high.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA/ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “Unfortunately, I made a dumb mistake early on when I slid into the turn five tire barrier.   That put us a lap down. We had a good pace after that but we could not get the lap back.  We put on a new front wing that helped.  But that mistake hurt us throughout the race. We stayed out a long time on some older Red Firestones at the end and I was just holding on.  I couldn’t fight (E.J.) Viso for the position due to the tires being down to the cords.  It was really crazy out there today.  People were just taking every chance that they could.  We kind of knew there could be carnage on those restarts and that’s what happened.  Overall, we’ll take the points and work towards the final three races.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH : “It was a very physical and bizarre race. All the crashes on the restarts, all the cars that were involved just made the whole race difficult. I drove the whole first stint with a damaged front wing and still got up to sixth. I was hanging on the whole time and trying to fight through it. We pitted a bit out of sequence and got to the front avoiding all the carnage. After the last restart the car started getting away from me. It got worse and worse and finally I hit the wall in Turn 12.”
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH:  “Man, that’s a very tough result today for the Verizon team. I feel really bad. We had a good start to the race in the Verizon car but then I made a mistake on the first pit stop and then the accident on the restart that really ended up ruining two good days. I thought I had a really good run on Bourdais and I was going to the inside to get around him and I thought I hit a bump or just lost it on cold tires. I really had no idea that (Scott) Dixon was there. I actually didn’t even know until I got back to the pits and they told me. I feel terrible for him and his team. All I can do is tell them how sorry I am and move on to Houston.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET,  FINISHED  20TH:
“Yeah I believe in miracles, but that’s probably what it’s going to take now (to clinch the championship). Hard work and fight hard probably isn’t going to do it from here. I’m just so disappointed; we had an anti-stall mechanism kick in and it worked as it wasn’t supposed to, and I was supposed to be able to pull the clutch and get going with it. Unfortunately, I had to get it back to neutral, went back to the back of the pack, we were passing some cars, had a great car, and then out of nowhere the car just died – electronics cut out on it, battery voltage looked good and then all of a sudden it just fell through the bottom. It’s heartbreaking especially when you see Helio Castroneves stuck in Turn 1 and the fact that we’re sitting in here on the other side of the track. Thanks to all the fans for their support and thank you to our great partners at DHL, Sun Drop, Chevrolet, Circle K for sticking behind us. We had a great season, and there is still more to go and we can still win out here.”
 
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT – SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS
September 1, 2013
 
            THE MODERATOR:  Sebastien Bourdais of Dragon Racing finished third, his third podium finish of the season.  He started today’s race from the 22nd position.  Talk about working your way up to the front and continuing to stay at the front with all that beating and banging.
            SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Yeah, obviously it was a pretty exciting race, starting from the back, walked our way steadily towards the front.  The guys did a great call on strategy, and that second stint, we were really strong, so we were in clean air and could run fast.
            The yellow fell right after our second pit stop, and that was it pretty much.  We just had a perfect scenario for that.  It really looked like the race was pretty much in the bag, but then, you know, the race started to be the usual Baltimore chaos, and it was one restart after another and it was just survival.
            And then when Graham got the better of us on one restart, kind of jumped it a bit, but whatever.  You know, we got hit and got turned around, thankfully, I don’t know how, but we didn’t lose so many spots.  I think we ended up like fourth, fifth.
            And the car was getting banged up a bit, but overall, we still had some pace, made some good moves, and then on the next restart, there was a bit of an incident when James tried to dive in the inside of the hairpin, and I just ‑‑ it just took my attention and I just looked at him, and, I saw, oh, yeah, and next thing I know, I just brushed the back of Justin’s car, and that spun him around and that got James up and it was just chaos.  I felt bad for him.
            But in the meantime, I was in the middle of a fight, really.  I just didn’t know what to do anymore.  If you were not aggressive, you were going to get run into.  If you were aggressive, you took the chance to hit someone.  It was very, very dodgy.
            It looked like after things settled down, we were going to really have a shot at winning again, and Simon made a mistake and nearly hit the wall.  I think he probably brushed a bit in turn seven and that got a run.  Yeah, I guess he didn’t see me coming, but squeezed me pretty good.
            We touched twice and I thought that was over, because I probably missed the tires there by about half a foot or a couple of inches, and then after that, the car bounced off a couple too many times from the wall and it wasn’t the same anymore.
            I’m just happy we finished; in the end, we won the podium.  It’s another podium and it’s what we needed for the organization and for the sponsors.  We’ll take it.
 
 
            Q.  Is a race like this stressful to the point of being ridiculous with all the things going on, or are there so many things happening that, you know, your emotions, you’re almost numb to everything?
         &
nbsp;  SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  I don’t think we are numb to anything.  I think we are more excited than anybody else.  From the car, sometimes it’s really hard to keep the emotions in check, particularly when you are in position when you know you have a lot to lose on all these restarts, and the problem is with these double‑file restarts, they breed another one.
            You basically get into a rhythm where you can’t get your tires and your brakes up to temperature and clean the tires up, and everybody arrives at that first corner locking wheels and running into the back of each other and cannot make the turn; and it’s just, you know, it’s inevitable.  And.
            I think that’s really when and where we probably as a group need to really think about these double‑file restarts, because, I mean, I think it was a pretty exciting show and everything.  But at the end of the day, when it’s just a series of incidents after incidents, it just reflects poorly on everybody and we just look like idiots and I don’t think it’s the best.
            But I don’t know what fans want to see, they want to see racing or they want to see crashes, but I definitely saw the first half of it was racing and the second part of it wasn’t so much.
 
            Q.  On the restart before you got spun out, did you have problems getting going on that restart, because it looked like maybe Will Power and Scott Dixon stacked up behind you and had their incident.
            SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  No, I just braked where I knew I could stop the car, and I guess they just brake later.  I saw them in my ‑‑ on the mirror, I was left, and the other one got tagged by an unidentified object, so that was gone, so I only had the right one.  Yeah, I saw dime getting pretty damn close, and I was like, hmmm, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if I don’t get run into, I’ll be lucky.
            No, nothing was wrong, but the problem is also you start from the inside and there’s no grip there.  Just when you put power down, there’s absolutely no grip.  Just debris and marbles and dust and everything, and when you put power down, you just don’t get going.
            And then you start to brake on the inside where it’s less grip, so you kind of are a little careful not to try to overdo the corner, and even though you think you’re safe, you still run wide ‑‑ actually I thought I was going to lose it there.  It’s one of these races where when you finish, you just feel like a survivor because you have near misses like about ten times during the race.  It was not uneventful, that’s for sure.
 
            Q.  You talked about the chaos out there, and you talked about it quite a bit, but if thief future races here, would you like to see the courses modified?
            SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Not really.  The only question is what we do with the curving situation for the chicane.  There’s not so much we can do in the series or the organizers do about the chicane.
            The problem is we would have to race the car so much to be able to run through railroad tracks on the main straight flat‑out, that it would be very difficult to actually even change the tires, because the tires would hit the ground even when the car would be on the jacks.  So that’s No. 1.
            And you know, No. 2, I think it’s always the same thing.  You know, it’s the balance between aggressivity and trying to get things going.  But the race directors are asking us to pair up and kind of keep a consistent pace through the acceleration corner which clusters everybody, because you get that, basically, two or three rows formed before you get to the throttle, and then you’ve got everybody exiting the chicane full throttle and it stacks up at some point; land it gets there when it’s already really tricky, and you’ve got a bunch of cars locking wheels getting into a very tight corner, which is going to create an accordion effect.
            So I don’t think there is so much you can do.  But for sure, what Marco was doing, basically jumping the start straightaway and not letting anybody back up with basically a single‑file restart; and that’s probably, for me, at this place, to try to get some racing, that’s probably something we should consider, because you see every time we try to go double‑file, it doesn’t quite work out so well.
 
            Q.  Regarding the chicane and what you’re talking about, would it make a difference if they adapted going to a double‑file restart and then avoiding the chicane and then just discounting the chicane on the restart?
            SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  We talked about that, but then the problem is basically the guys from the back end up basically going over the railroad track full blast because you exit the corner and they are on the gas.
            So they tried that and it turned into a pretty big disaster.  I’m not so sure that’s in the solution.
            THE MODERATOR:  Sebastien, congratulations on a great finish here at Baltimore.

CORVETTE RACING AT BALTIMORE: Garcia, Magnussen Lead 1-2 GT Finish
Season’s second victory for No. 3 Corvette duo in wild street race
 
BALTIMORE (Aug. 31, 2013) – Corvette Racing scored a 1-2 class finish today in one of the wildest and unpredictable sports car races in memory at the Grand Prix of Baltimore and the seventh round of the American Le Mans Series. Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen won for the second time this season in the ALMS’ GT class driving their No. 3 Compuware Chevrolet Corvette C6.R. Defending ALMS GT champions Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner were runners-up for the second consecutive season on the Streets of Baltimore in the No. 4 Corvette.
 
Magnussen moved from third in class to first – and around Milner – on a restart with a little less than 20 minutes to go. The 1-2 finish was the team’s first since last year’s Laguna Seca round. It also increased Chevrolet’s lead in the GT manufacturer championship, as well as Corvette Racing’s margin in the team standings.
 
Garcia and Magnussen moved up to second in the drivers’ championship and sit just two points behind Gavin and Milner with three rounds left in the season.
 
“Congratulations to the Corvette C6.R drivers and crews on their 1-2 class finish in the ALMS GT class in Baltimore,” said Jim Campbell, Chevrolet US Vice President, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “Both teams demonstrated exceptional driving, quick pit work and tremendous perseverance. Oliver Gavin and Antonio Garcia did a terrific job of adapting to intense, ever-changing racing conditions. And finally it was great to see Jan Magnussen and Tommy Milner drive to the front after the final restart.
 
“Today’s Corvette Racing results were important for manufacturer, driver and team standings,” Campbell added. “However our focus remains on the three final races in the ultra competitive GT class.”
 
ABC’s 1 p.m. ET Sunday broadcast of the race will be one to see. The race featured a nearly one-hour, red-flag period after a massive crash blocked the circuit immediately following the drop of the green flag. The race length was shortened from two hours to approximately 70 minutes, and both Corvettes were involved in a slight incident on the subsequent restart. The drama continued for Garcia, who lost radio communication with the Corvette Racing crew and did not hear the call to pit just 12 minutes after the restart. He made an evasive maneuver and spun 180 degrees to make the pit entry at the very last minute.
 
Milner rejoined the race in third place and Magnussen fourth. Milner chased down Maxime Martin’s BMW and moved to second with 41 minutes left, and Magnussen followed suit one lap later. The race’s fourth and final caution period led to Magnussen’s move on Milner and another BMW going into Turn 1.
 
Corvette Racing returns to action at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, for the eighth round of the ALMS championship. The race, set for 3:45 p.m. CT on Saturday, Sept. 21, will air Sept. 22 at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
 
 
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“It was one of those situations you don’t like. We had just started to accelerate and could avoid people. But those that were three or four cars behind me couldn’t do anything at all. The situation is that no one practiced that line (around the curbing) before the start. So you don’t know how much you will jump (over the rail line). You have the chicane when we are racing to slow us down but not at the start. We are going straight. Maybe that is what caught people on the start when they went to power and jumped more than they thought. On the inside, the jump is heavier.
“I was on the lucky line because I just followed the car in front of me and it looked like it was the right one. After we crossed the rail line, I started to see people spin around. I tried to find my spot and carry on. Afterwards when I saw on TV what happened, that was not really good for the fans for sure. At that point, the race lost what looked like half of the cars.”
Loss of radio communication before the pit stop: “I got the call that when the pits were open, we were coming in. I had no other radio communication afterward. When I saw a Ferrari that was a lap down pitting, I didn’t know if it was my turn. If it was the BMW or maybe someone else pitting then I would follow. But as soon as I saw Olly (Gavin) pitting, I did a 180-degree turn to get into the pitlane.
“The main thing is that there was no communication. I started the race thinking it was a two-hour race, and then following the caution I was told we were doing a pit stop and a driver change. That’s when the radio went off completely. As soon as I saw the cars following me go into the pit, I decided I needed to go in too.”
 
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“It was a really weird race – a sprint race with really no pit stops. There was one in the beginning once we restarted the race but everyone had the driving time limits to figure out. We got a little bit messed up in the pit stop because of a radio failure so there was no way to tell Antonio that the pits were open. It was impossible for him to know if it was all cars, just P cars or just GT cars. He made the right decision. He stopped, spun it around and only lost a couple of spots when we could have lost them all. It was good thinking and reaction on his part. After that, it was a matter of going as hard as we could. We didn’t have to worry about tires or fuel. We just needed to go.”
Pass for the lead: “I was trying to pass one of the BMWs, and he got balked by someone. I had to get around and in front so I could defend and not give him the position back. I got a little off-line and locked up the inside-front a little and the car shoved me to the inside of Tommy. It wasn’t a planned move but when I got halfway there, I thought ‘To hell with it. I’ll just go!’ It was a clean pass, and Tommy used his head. We were just trying to race and maximize our points to get both Corvettes ahead of the BMW. We were successful in that.”
 
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“I’ve never been quite in anything like that before. You see a wreck like that at the start, and you think it’s going to be nasty. Cars start bouncing around and ricocheting everywhere and there is nowhere for anyone to go. I was off-throttle as the Level 5 car went into the wall. I thought for sure he was going to bounce back across. Immediately it was all being waved off. We came around and just sat there. No one knew what to do for the next 45 minutes. For the restart, I moved from the left side of the grid to the right side, and starting on that side is much tougher. You get such a bigger jump across the train tracks than on the left.”
On the starts the last few races: “There is something strange going on at the front of the grid with the way these races have been started. Someone is absolutely jumping the gun, and that’s making it unsafe for all of us. That’s a bit crazy.
More on the day: It’s pretty amazing that we were sitting in a wreck at Turn 4 – both cars – with others and somehow we’ve managed to pull a 1-2 out of that! It was one of those wacky races that you couldn’t take your eyes off of. You have to take every single one, and I’m very happy to take second in this one.”
 
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“It was a weird race, unfortunately. What can you say? It’s a tight street race and you can see what happens when one car gets turned around. Fortunately we missed all of it. There was a lot going on, and we’re happy to come home with some good points. Jan snookered me there at Turn 1. But that’s what he should do. We’re all here to race and win. I had to brake a little early because I was on the dirty line. But great day for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 31, 2013
 
MARK MARTIN, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway and discussed what the team will be working on in final practice today, his plans for 2014 and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
YOU WERE ONE OF THE EARLY CARS OUT YESTERDAY FOR QUALIFYING WHICH PROBABLY MEANS YOU DIDN’T GET THE LAP THAT YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED.  WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE GET ACCOMPLISHED TODAY DURING PRACTICE?
“Just get a little bit more time to get the car more comfortable.  The car is still quite a bit different than what I have been driving for a couple of years.  The car felt pretty good.  We did some race trim stuff yesterday before we went into qualifying trim and the car actually seemed to have good speed and felt pretty good.  We definitely have some things we thought about and want to work on today to try to improve the car and work all over the race track to check out the multiple grooves.  It’s going to be hot and slick for sure and it will be a challenge for us to get those things handling good in this heat.”
 
CAN YOU GIVE AN EXPLANATION WHY YOU FOR NEXT YEAR WILL LEAVE THE MICHAEL WALTRIP TEAM?  WHAT WAS THE MAIN REASON?
“Because everybody won in that situation.  Brian Vickers, MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) had secured Brain Vickers for a two year contract to race for a championship.  Aaron’s had signed on board to fully sponsor the car for the next two years.  Everything that Michael (Waltrip) and I hoped to accomplish when we entered into that scenario was accomplished.  It was a win for them to get a chance to start with Brain.  Get a head start with Brain and because Tony (Stewart) asked me if I could come do that.  That is why.”
 
AS A GUY WHO HAS DRIVEN A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS OVER THE YEARS CAN YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENCE AT ALL FROM THE DRIVERS SEAT WITH THE NEW DUAL TREAD TIRE?
“You know what I thought the tire had exceptional grip yesterday for the pavement.  We have really complained as drivers quite a bit about the grip level the last few years here.  The combination of the Gen-6 and the tire seem to work pretty well.  The biggest thing is that hopefully it gives us the durability that we really need for these high speeds and these long turns.  I think it’s probably a really good scenario because it pushes the teams to protect themselves by putting softer rubber on the outer part of the tire it pushes the teams to try to get out there on that instead of the fast inside shoulder which is problematic.  We certainly don’t need to abuse the inside shoulders here and fail right-front’s at this race track with these speeds.  I think it’s a very smart move because it encourages the teams to take a little camber out maybe and it gives us better grip than we would have if had the really hard stuff all the way across the tires.”
 
ANY PROGRESS ON 2014 WHAT YOUR PLANS MIGHT BE?
“You know I was thinking about it and had some discussions before Tony’s (Stewart) injury.  I will be real honest with you I could care less about 2014 right now because I am doing all I can to tread water.  Making this change was pretty huge because not only is it different crew guys work on the car which really isn’t a huge thing, but it’s a whole different thought process, it’s a whole different bunch of guys that I didn’t have a chance to go to test in February and go hang out in the shop.  Just jumping right in it added, I don’t know, about three races to my schedule what I had so I picked up three additional races.  So I am really pushed and driven to try to get immersed in this team and figure out what I like in these cars so that we can start putting that in there week to week.  We are still just throwing stuff at the car and me saying ‘nah, yeah that’s better, nah’.  When you find something that really feels good to you there is a sense of continuity from track to track you can use that same logic.  You might not use the same springs and all but you can use the same logic and you can simulate it out and shoot for those same kind of feels at other race tracks.  We are not there yet obviously.  This is not like making a change over the winter.  It’s not like stepping out of a MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) Toyota into even a (Joe) Gibbs Toyota like I did at Martinsville.  There is just a lot going on.
 
“And I’d like to say one more thing to Wolfgang (media member with question). I think everybody in here heard what I said in February. I’m not a candidate for the No. 55 car for 2014. I did not want to drive that car. It was because I wanted to see those guys run for a championship, which is something I’m not going to do. So, I had really built a strong relationship with those guys and they’re championship material and I want to see them be able to go out there and go after that. So, for me, making a decision on what I do in 2014 is not important right now. I’m in no hurry because I’m not really worried about what I do. I do have a focus on what I can do in NASCAR. I want to do more in NASCAR than drive race cars. I want to do more than that. I had a good time at MWR and they let me be a part of that organization a little bit more than just to show up and drive, driver; and I want to grow more of that. So that’s of great interest to me and is where my primary focus was before Tony’s (Stewart) No. 14 car came up. After that, it’s like I’m not worried. I’ve got to stay focused on what’s in front of me.”
 
HAVE YOU AND ARLENE MOVED TO NORTH CAROLINA AND MADE THAT YOUR RESIDENCE AS OF NOW?
“You’re on to something but not completely. This is the craziest thing. My son, Matt, lives in our house in Arkansas and we live in his house in North Carolina. So, I’m not sure this is working like it’s supposed to. But he has a place in North Carolina and we do spend a good bit of time there. He’s going to school in Arkansas, so he stays at our house in Arkansas. So, that’s kind of what we’re doing right now. We don’t have a permanent residence there but we’ve got a place to stay. I spent a lot of time there last year and am going to spend more time going forward because like I said before, I am going to find a niche in this sport that goes beyond driving. And so if I’m going to do that, I’ve got to be around more.”
 
WHAT YOU JUST SAID ABOUT BEING MORE INVOLVED WITH NASCAR, A MOVE TO THE CAROLINAS OBVIOUSLY MAKES SENSE. ARE YOU STILL KEEPING YOUR PLACE IN FLORIDA?
“Yes, we’re not giving it up. We’ve been there 20 years. We’re not giving up on that. But right now we have a lot going on in the Carolinas and enjoy getting back to Arkansas as well. I do have a place in Batesville and we enjoy getting back there. But, the business at-hand is really in Charlotte. We have been there for a couple of years now, more than we used to. And we do have a place to stay there. So, I’m getting in position. I’m positioning myself for the future, long-term.”
 
YOU WERE THE FIRST GUY TO INTRODUCE US (MEDIA) TO JOEY LOGANO. AS IT TURNS OUT, IT LOOKS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BE OKAY (LAUGHTER). WHAT DO YOU SEE IN KYLE LARSON? IF KYLE LARSON CAME TO YOU FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO HANDLE THIS JOB OFF THE RACE TRACK, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL HIM?
“To answer the last question first, I would answer his question in specifics. He wouldn’t ask me in general like your question was. He would ask me with more specifics and I would answer him honestly on my opinion on whatever specific thing that he was pondering. What I see in Kyle Larson is the same thing as what you guys see. Strapped in a race car, one that didn’t normally always run in the top 5 and almost normally does run in the top 5 now with little or no experience, whether it’s a car or a truck o
r whatever he’s done. It’s just real plain. You just turn on the TV, watch the race and say he’s never done that before but it sure looks like he has. It was a little bit like when I saw Joey Logano and he was 11 years old here at this track and I saw him race. I’d already heard about him. And when I saw him race, he raced like a man, not like an 11 year-old kid. So, different, but Kyle Larson is very obvious (laughs). It’s just obvious. You just look at his results and they are amazing.”
 

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF BALTIMORE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 31, 2013
 
BALTIMORE (Aug. 31, 2013) – Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, qualified second for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Baltimore on the 12-turn/2.04-mile temporary street circuit in Baltimore’s (Maryland) Inner Harbor. It is his sixth front-row qualifying effort of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season.
 
Current Series’ point standings leader Helio Castroneves, No. 3 PPG Automotive Finishes Team Penske Chevrolet, turned in the seventh quickest qualifying time of the 24 drivers who made a qualifying attempt.
 
2012 Series’ champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, set the eighth fastest time to give Team Chevy three of the top-10 qualifiers.
 
A total of 12 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers will take the green flag tomorrow for race 16 of the 19-race season schedule.
 
Scott Dixon won the pole with Simon Pagenaud, Justin Wilson, Josef Newgarden and Tristan Vautier completing the Firestone Fast Six.
 
The 75 laps/153 mile race is scheduled to start Sunday at 2:30 p.m. with live TV coverage on NBC Sports Network.  Additional live coverage will be provided by IMS Radio Network on XM and Sirius Channels 211 as well as on www.indycar.com live timing and scoring.
 
 
CHEVROLET IN THE IZOD INDYCAR SERIES – FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED  2ND: “It was a tough qualifying man, but we gave it everything we had in the Verizon Team Penske Chevy. Our chance to get pole really came the lap before our final lap but we just couldn’t get there. It should be a good race tomorrow. With the chicanes, especially, there could be a lot of action and I expect it will be another good battle.”
 
SELECTED QUOTES FROM FIRESTONE FAST SIX PRESS CONFERENCE: ON WHETHER FINAL LAP WOULD HAVE BEEN POLE BEFORE REAR-END STEPPED OUT: “No, I was five tenths down. It was not there.”
 
ON HIS PREVIOUS SUCCESS AT BALTIMORE: “It’s a cool track. It would obviously be nice if we didn’t have to use the chicane there, but these street courses are bumpy, and it is just a part of the game. I think it is good for racing, and there will be a lot of mayhem, hopefully behind me, tomorrow. (LAUGHS)”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 PPG AUTOMOTIVE FINISHES TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7TH: “In qualifying today, it’s one of those deals where on the odds you’re thinking to wait a little bit and it might pay off because the track might be better. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off for us as the red flag came out and ended the second qualifying a little early.  The PPG Team Penske boys will keep working and move forward so we can get that Chevy to the front in tomorrow’s race.”

RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET,  QUALIFIED 8TH: “Same thing as last year – almost the same exact circumstances; (Graham) Rahal put it into the wall and we didn’t get a lap time in that was capable of carrying us onto the next round. It’s part of it – it’s part of street course racing. I think we could have advanced to the (Firestone) Fast Six had we nailed everything today, but we’re just off a little too much at the moment. We’re going to go back, work on it and hopefully get a good race car under us. We’re starting better than we did last year so you have to look at the positives… and maybe hope for rain.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11TH: “It’s obviously really tricky right now. The track here is always a challenge with the bumps and the chicane still catching a couple people out, myself included over the weekend. You know, I feel bad; the GoDaddy guys have done a good job. We had a much stronger car in place. I was on a lap, which, I’m sure, everyone was on a lap sorta thing. But we were four turns in and already a quarter of a second up… would it have been (Firestone) Fast Six? I don’t know. Obviously there are a lot of strong cars out there. Certainly we didn’t want to back on the sixth row, but the car’s good; we definitely improved it over the weekend. It’s consistent which will be important in the race tomorrow, so I think we can do some damage from here.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY – SH RACING CHEVROLET,  QUALIFIED 16TH: “We definitely are faster than we showed in qualifying. First we had a red flag and then I got held up by traffic and couldn’t get a clean lap when I needed it. No excuses. It is the same for everyone out there. It is just disappointing. We will start in the back half of the grid again, but I think we have a good race car. We just have to make up positions during the race like we did last weekend in Sonoma.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “I’m confident for tomorrow because we’ve got the best car that we’ve had all year. We’ve been near the top six nearly every session and we just didn’t have our best effort in qualifying unfortunately. We just missed it by a little. But the truth is we were in a tough group; the same lap time would have put me P4 in the other session. But qualifying is the first time you put on the red tires and that always changes the balance a little and if you’re able to do the first transfer you can always tweak it and be strong in the next round. The National Guard Chevy was good, but we just didn’t have enough. We can still have a great race starting in 17th, especially here where there are always a lot of things that happen during the race with yellow flags and restarts. I just wanted to qualify a little better for the National Guard and to show that we had the speed, but now we have to do that on race day – and we will.”

MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 DR PEPPER ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET,  QUALIFIED 18TH: “I’m not going to blame anybody but me… I didn’t get the greatest gap – and that’s on me, ya know. I had to blow the first lap so we had one lap to do it and I didn’t do it. I hope we can get the right set up on the Dr Pepper car to be able to get through the field tomorrow. We have the warm up, but not a lot of practice so we’ll have to see. We have two teammates that advanced so that part of it is good, but it’s frustrating. It’s a double edge sword.”
 
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET,  QUALIFIED 19TH: “I’m a bit frustrated with qualifying and where we ended up. I guess we’re going to have to make it up tomorrow. We haven’t been shiny all weekend; we’ve had some brake issues to deal with. I think we got that fixed for qualifying, so now we can start working on the car. Hopefully we’ll have a good car and be able to move forward during the race tomorrow.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA/ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20TH: “We had a little improvement from our previous times.  We closed the gap on the leaders which is good.  We had some fortune today with guys making mistakes in our group. I think we made some good changes going into that session.  I’m hopeful we are getting on to something for the race.  There is definitely some potential for a lot of carnage in the race, especially the way things have gone in practice and qualifying.  We need to keep working on getting a good race pace for here.  We are just hoping for a clean race on Sunday.  There are just so many places on this track that can create problems.  The name of the game is to stay as clean if possible.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO.  6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 21ST:
 
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HVM CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22ND: “Well, qualifying wasn’t right from the beginning. I think just waitin
g until the very last minute to go out and put a lap down put a lot of risk and pressure on us. We couldn’t go through – I clipped the wall on the only qualifying lap I had and bent the pushrods in the back. I couldn’t continue qualifying so we’ll be starting from the back. Anyways, this is probably one of the tracks that you can make a different call on the strategy where you would be able to cycle back to the front; that’s what we’ll be looking for tomorrow.”
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 24TH:
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NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 30, 2013
 
 
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA TO START THIRD IN THE ADVOCARE 500
FOUR TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS POST TOP 10 STARTING SPOTS
 
HAMPTON, GA – Aug. 30, 2013 – With a best speed of 188.539 mph in 29.405 seconds, Juan Pablo Montoya put his No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS in the third place starting postion for Sunday’s Advocare 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This qualifying effort was Montoya’s fourth Top-10 start on the 1.5-mile oval, and his ninth Top-10 start of the season.
 
Behind the wheel of his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS, Jeff Gordon posted a solid qualifying run of 188.053 mph in 29.481 seconds to earn a fifth place starting position. With that, Team Chevy will occupy two of the top 5 starting places in the 500-mile race.
 
Other Team Chevy starters in the top 10 are Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 National –Guard/Race2Achieve.org Chevrolet SS in eighth and Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Dover White Chevrolet in 10th.
 
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Ford) won the pole position, Carl Edwards (Ford) qualified 2nd, and Denny Hamlin (Toyota) qualified 4th  to round out the Top 5 starters.
 
The Advocare 500 will take the green flag on Sunday evening, September 1st at 7:30 p.m. ET and air live on ESPN TV and PRN Radio.
 
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 3RD:
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR LAP AND JUST PRACTICE IN GENERAL TODAY
“Most of practice was done in race trim. We only had two laps in qualifying trim and we kind of struggled. We were kind of loose there every run we did and we worked a lot on the car. At the end, when we went to qualfiying trim, it was actually pretty good. I actually ran a 40-something in practice and it was kind of disappointint to run a .40 tonight. It felt really good but just bottomed-out in (Turns) 1 and 2 and I had to get out of the gas. It’s okay. I’m in. Can’t complain.”
 
DID YOU HAVE AT ALL ENOUGH PRACTICE TO GET A FEEL ABOUT THE NEW TIRES AND WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE LIKE?
“What do you expect when you come to Atlanta? That they’re going to fall off, I don’t know how much, but I would say at least two seconds in the fuel run, to more like three probably. And just keeping the tires on it is going to be very important. They seem really good. When they’re new, they’re really good. When they’re brand new you have a ton of grip and a lot of stability and they are really easy to push, so it makes it fun.”
 
DO YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENCE WITH THE NEW TIRE COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS TIRES YOU’VE HAD?
“I think we used the tires a year ago. So, a different car.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
AUGUST 30, 2013
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
ON HIS LAP:
“I was really expecting to run in the 20’s to be honest with you.  I ran in the 40’s in practice in the heat.  It just bottomed out and with the cooler conditions the track grip bottomed out and I had to get out of the gas in (turns) one and two.  It’s okay.  I mean I can’t complain I’m third.  That is probably a top five start.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FIFTH
ON HIS LAP AND TRACK CONDITIONS:
“I’m a little bit concerned that the conditions are going to improve here and that we may have just been right there on the edge of when the track is going to get better.  The car has been really good all day.  Gosh, I’ve been so happy. That backs it up because it wasn’t a perfect lap, but still decent lap.  I got through (turns) one and two I thought really good and (turns) three and four just a little bit too tight.  I’ve been so thrilled with the car all day.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/RACE2ACHIEVE.ORG CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED EIGHTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I think we finished eighth.  That was a real good car.  The car had a lot more speed than that in it.  There was such a huge difference between the track I think in practice and qualifying that I really underestimated what kind of race car we had.  Got to give Steve (Letarte, crew chief) and my engineer Kevin (Meendering) a lot of credit because they had the car ready.  The car was really good real fast.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S DOVER WHITE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 10TH
HOW CHALLENGING WAS IT TO FIND THAT FAST LINE HERE AS THE SUN BEGINS TO SET?
“There’s nothing like taking the line in qualifying you didn’t run in practice. That was interesting. And the first time through, that seemed to work pretty good. So, it’s so hard to tell. I think the track is going to pick up some more speed. If we can stay in the Top 10, that will be good. The lap felt nice. I just don’t know how it’s going to stack up. I’m encouraged because we’re right there with Kyle (Busch), but the temp just seems like it’s dropping. I don’t know if it was because it was in a hot car and got out and now it feels cooler, or what; but it does feel like the temps are coming down a little bit.”
 
CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE ON BABY WATCH?
“It is getting close. And I’m really just going off my wife’s pulse on it all and she’s pretty calm and relaxed about it. We’ve had weekly doctor checkups and everything is going great and it looks like we don’t have anything to worry about right away, although I’d love for something to happen this weekend or next weekend and but everything is great. Mom is healthy and baby is healthy and we’re just kind of waiting for when No. 2 decides to come out.”
 
WHEN IS THE DUE DATE?
“Chicago weekend. “Richmond and here is real easy. It’s easy for me to mess with the situation being locked-in. Chicago, it gets kind of tricky there and there is no one more focused and committed on the No. 48 winning a championship than Chani, and she is like you need to be in that race car and do your job. So, that’s letting me sleep well. And I clearly want to be there for the birth of our second daughter.”
 
IS REGAN SMITH THE BACK-UP FOR THIS RACE?
“Yeah, it must be. Yeah it is kind of convoluted with Regan and James and how things bounce around; so yeah, I’d think it would be Regan.”
 
WHAT IS YOUR CHASE OUTLOOK AT THIS POINT?
“The tracks in the Chase are really good for us. The last three, four or five weeks, we’ve had a lot of different things go on. We have very fast race cars; the majority of them. I’ve blown tires and blown an engine, two different things there that have kept us from scoring points and then potential wins. But, I feel like we’ve got great race cars and great tracks in the Chase. It would be nice to have a little momentum leaving here and going into Richmond, although this race track and Richmond, we don’t have a track like either one of those in the Chase. Although momentum is key and important, if we don’t have the best Atlanta or Richmond races, we know that those 10 tracks in the Chase and really good for us and that’s where we’re really focused.”
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 E-Z-GO CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 15TH
ON HIS LAP:
“It looked a little worse than what it really was. You somewhat know what you have in the middle of the corner. I was just trying to keep the wheel as straight as I could and trying to leave skid marks off the corner. I didn’t feel like it was that good of a lap. I think it’s going to turn out okay and there’s been some good cars go. But it was pretty interesting. It’s such a fun race track.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 ASPEN DENTAL CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 17TH
DID THIS DRAW HELP YOU?
“I don’t know if the draw helped us, but it was a definite improvement over practice. I think we’ve beat as many guys now with 30 cars left, as we did in practice. So it was a definite improvement for our Aspen Dental Chevrolet. Not the lap that we wanted, but a huge improvement, which is what we needed.”
 
MARK MARTIN, NO. BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 27TH
YOU WENT OUT EARLY. DO YOU THINK THAT MIGHT BE A DISADVANTAGE?
“Yeah, well, it’s not going to help any. The guys did a good job on the car. It felt good. I don’t feel like it was a spectacular lap, but it was a decent lap, respectable for what the car could do. It was definitely early. And it’s going to get real fast as we go on. So, we’ve got a good race car. We’re all comfortable working together now. We’re starting to get kind of in a groove. Last week was really tough and no time; and we’ve had some testing time now and a good day today. The wonderful thing is we get this evening to think about it and tomorrow to get a little bit more dialed in. So, I’m enjoying working with these guys. They’re a good bunch of guys and they’ve made me feel real comfortable.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/BEAUTYREST CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 32ND
ON HIS LAP:
“We ended up on the tight side and we’ll end up 30th.”
 

CORVETTE RACING AT BALTIMORE: Third and Fifth in GT Qualifying
Top-five positions for both Compuware Corvettes on crowded streets of Baltimore
 
BALTIMORE (Aug. 30, 2013) – Corvette Racing will start its two Compuware Chevrolet Corvette C6.Rs from the second and third rows of the GT grid for Saturday’s Grand Prix of Baltimore. The positions are solid ones for Corvette Racing and Chevrolet, both of which are leading in the American Le Mans Series’ team and manufacturer championships.
 
Tommy Milner qualified the No. 4 Compuware Corvette third Friday with a time of 1:30.007 (81.594 mph) around the 2.04-mile, 12-turn street circuit alongside Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Teammate Jan Magnussen in the No. 3 Corvette ended the session fifth at 1:30.132 (81.480 mph).
 
Saturday’s race is the seventh round of the ALMS championship. Live online coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN3. On Sunday, ABC’s coverage starts at noon ET.
 
“Baltimore is an exciting yet demanding venue,” said Jim Campbell, Chevrolet US Vice President, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “The ALMS GT class is extremely competitive so it will take the right combination of race strategy, smart and persistent driving, and efficient pit stops to work our way to the front of the pack. Baltimore is a critical race for the ALMS drivers’ and manufacturers’ standings.
 
“It’s great to have the support of so many Corvette owners in the Baltimore Corvette Corral,” Campbell added, “along with Corvette owners and fans from around the world as we work to defend the manufacturers, team and drivers championships in the ALMS GT class.”
 
Indeed, Milner and Oliver Gavin entered the weekend leading the GT drivers’ championship. The duo placed second in last year’s race at Baltimore and is the only pairing to win more than once in the class this season.
 
Magnussen and Antonio Garcia, stand fourth together in the championship, underwent some drama following an engine issue in the day’s first practice. The No. 3 crew changed the Corvette’s motor in less than two hours, and the car made the next session.
 
Bill Auberlen (BMW) was the fastest qualifier in class, followed by Joey Hand (BMW).
 
EDITORS: High-resolution images of Corvette Racing are available on the Team Chevy media site for editorial use only.
 
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“What happened this morning was unfortunate, but luckily we didn’t lose that much time in practice. It’s a shame that the guys had to change an engine instead of concentrating on making the car go faster. But they did a fantastic job of getting it back out there for the second practice. In qualifying, the car was pretty good. It had a little bit too much understeer for me to really be able to have a shot at pole. I don’t know if we could have caught the two BMWs but it is very close behind them. Usually you don’t have to deal that much with traffic in qualifying. You have to make a quick decision – are you going to fight to get by or give some time and create a big gap. What I can say is that it will be worse tomorrow.”
 
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 COMPUWARE CORVETTE C6.R
“In the end, I could have gone quicker were it not for traffic early. It is what it is. Third place is good. Based on all the practice sessions and qualifying, it will be an incredible race. I laid it all out there in qualifying. It’s so close that if I didn’t push that extra last little bit, I would have been fifth or sixth and that puts us in a worse position for the race. In this case, qualifying matters because the race matters, and because it’s hard to pass getting the car up front is important. The car feels good and should be great for the race.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 30, 2013
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway and discussed the first practice session, the addition of Kurt Busch to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014 and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
HOW DID PRACTICE GO? TYPICALLY OPEN WHEEL DRIVERS DO WELL ON THIS TRACK BECAUSE THERE IS NOT ONE SPECIFIC LANE AND IT’S FAST:
“You know I think that it’s not an easy track.  It’s slippery so grip is at a premium and balance is at a premium.  We struggled with that at the beginning.  We were trying a whole different set-up and it really didn’t work.  The very last qualifying run was a little bit better. I finally felt like the car was in the track a little bit.  Hopefully, that means that we will be able to make it even better that amount again for qualifying.  I really think it has a lot to do with the car.  When it’s the slippery you don’t just go out and hold it wide open.  There is a lot of moving around and adjusting for the car and the balance.  It’s about that.”
 
YOU LIKE HIGH SPEED TRACKS.  HOW DOES THIS PLACE SUIT YOU?
“I don’t know if I necessarily like high speed tracks.  I think it’s being able to work with the car and make it better.  I feel like I’ve had good success on everything in stock cars from real short tracks like Martinsville to big tracks like Daytona and road courses in Nationwide.  I used to think that I had a sort of track that I was best at, but I think it just has to do with where the strengths of your team are and where you just make progress on the weekend.  It could have been easy to melt down a little bit in practice and get everyone upset and take ourselves out of the game, but we all stayed calm.  We worked hard and our last run was our best run. That is the kind of stuff that we need to pull us through the weekend.”
 
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON KURT BUSCH JOINING STEWART-HAAS RACING IN 2014?
“I am glad that came out officially.  That is always nice when we there is a yes or a no to it, but it all happened pretty quick as everybody knows.  I’m looking forward to it.  Kurt (Busch) is a great driver, very fast and I’ve always gotten along with him.  I feel like we are going to have a pretty fun team.”
 
ARE YOU GLAD THE TEAM LINE-UP IS ALL DONE FOR NEXT YEAR?
“It is nice.  I think it helps from a team perspective to get things in order and in line for the year because there is going to be a lot that we are going to need to get organized everything from space at the shop to airplane space.  There is a lot for the team to get in order and this gives us the appropriate amount of time to do it without having to skirt around making it look obvious.”
 
IT’S A VERY BOISTEROUS TEAM SOME OF THESE GUYS ON THE TEAM…
“There is a girl too.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR TEAMMATES FOR NEXT YEAR?
“I think they are all great drivers and I think I have a lot to learn from all of them.”
 
DOES IT TAKE ANY OF THE PRESSURE OFF OF YOU AS FAR AS IF THE TEAM DOES STRUGGLE THERE IS ANOTHER VOICE THERE?
“I think the best part about having more drivers is one we are going to start hiring people.  We are going to get some fresh ideas and perspectives in.  We are just going to have more brain power.  There are going to be more crew chiefs, more engineers, more of everything and then when you have a line-up like we do there is a lot of experience there especially those other three guys.  I feel like it’s going to help our team from top to bottom.”
 
DID YOU GET A CHANCE TO SEE ANY OF GENE’S (HAAS) PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK?
“I read a little bit here and there, but I didn’t see much of it.  I was back in Indiana with my family.  Obviously, Gene (Haas) was in a position year’s back where he was the team owner and had drivers.  Then obviously the Tony (Stewart) equation came in where he becomes a partner and I think he got excited about wanted to kind of have his own driver again.  So be it.  Again, I’m all about bringing great drivers into the team.  It’s good for everybody, especially good for me.”
 
HAS HE BEEN A LEADER IN THE TEAM OR JUST STAYED IN THE SHADOWS?
“I guess from my perspective, I feel like in general, he kind of trusts that the right people are in the right places. And Tony (Stewart) and Brett (Frood) and Eddie (Jarvis) and Zippy (Greg Zipadelli) and everybody know what we need as a team. But, then again, I wasn’t around back when it was his. So, I think he’s been a little more on the silent side from my perspective. But he’s definitely been there and whenever we’ve talked, we’re always talking about the car and things like that. So he’s just passionate on sports.”
 
ON FANTASY FOOTBALL:
‘Yeah, I was just saying today that you ought to do our Fantasy Football and Ricky (Stenhouse) said I think that’s all done. Everybody’s done their draft. But we put one together today is the point. So there are 12 of us on the team now or in the division or whatever, so I think we’re all a little lazy and we’re auto draft.”
 
SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO PICK?
“Let’s face it. I’m a football fan, but I’m not really sure I can put a whole team together from all the different teams. Now, if we’re just talking about like the Bears, Packers, Lions, and those teams, I’ve watched them enough that I could probably pick out some good ones. But I found that last year doing Fantasy Football at JR Motorsports, I found that I learned a lot more about a lot of other teams and a lot of other players because I had to pay attention to other people. So, I’m actually looking forward to auto draft because it helps me learn about other teams and other divisions. So, I’m excited because it’s really fun to do in the winter and I like it.”
 
HOW BIG OF A BEARS FAN ARE YOU?
“I go to games every year. I’m a big Bears fan for sure. I always watch their games. I even get nervous for their games. That means that’s a fan, right? I’m sure I’m not the biggest fan but I’m a big fan for sure.”
 
WHEN YOU HAVE PLAYERS FROM OTHER TEAMS PLAYING THE BEARS IN THE FANTASY DEAL…..
“It almost makes me not want to have anybody from the Packers. Because if I have players from the Packers, that means I’ve got to cheer for them. It’s tough.”
 
WHO IS IN YOUR LEAGUE?
“It’s like Ricky and I and a bunch of our friends and some family. So, yeah we’re trying to come up with a team name and we couldn’t.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 30, 2013
 
CHIP GANASSI, OWNER EARNHARDT GANASSI RACING WITH FELIX SABATES, MET WITH MEDIA TO ANNOUNCE THAT KYLE LARSON WILL DRIVE THE NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET IN 2014.  JOHN OLGUIN, VP OF COMMUNICATIONS WAS THE MODERATOR.  FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
JOHN OLGUIN:  Good afternoon, everyone.  Welcome and thank you all for being here.  I’m John Olguin, head of communications at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.  We’re excited to be here today to introduce the 2014 driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet.  We think it’s a great day for not only our team but for our 24-year partner with Target and also for the sport.
This driver currently sits eighth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings with 13 top 10s and six top 5s in 23 starts.  He’s started twice in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series where he won at Rockingham and finished second at Eldora.  
He is a two-time SPEED performer nominee both in 2011 and 2012.  He is the 2012 NASCAR K&N Series champion and Rookie of the Year.  He’s a graduate of the NASCAR Driver For Diversity Program and their Next Program as well.
We’re pleased to announce the 2014 driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet is Kyle Larson.
Obviously we have here with us Chip Ganassi and Kyle.  Let me start with you, Chip.  Give me your thoughts on this announcement.
 
CHIP GANASSI:  I have some prepared comments here, ladies and gentlemen.
Certainly we believe that Kyle is the future of the sport.  He’s a unique talent.  Let me be very clear, this was a racing decision.  We felt that Kyle was the best short-term and long-term fit for the team and for Target.
While our team has been partnered with Target for 24 years, when we decided to make the change, we wanted to make sure we found the right driver, someone that would represent their brand as well as have a chance to win races.
Kyle was our first choice.  We did not offer any deals to any other drivers.  We talked to other drivers.  We’re thrilled to have Kyle.  Nothing he has done makes us feel he cannot move to the Sprint Cup Series.  As I said, we spoke to a number of current Cup drivers.  At the end of the day we felt that Kyle was the best option for our organization.
We do feel that we need to continue Kyle Larson’s growth, and putting him in a Cup car was the very next step.  We’re sure there will be some growing pains but we’re sure he’s ready.  Some of those growing pains will come whatever his first year in the series is.  It’s a good opportunity.
My expectations and advice to him will be to keep the car on the track and run laps.  As many of you already know, this kid is a special kid.  We couldn’t be more proud to have him here today announcing him as our driver for next year and beyond.
 
JOHN OLGUIN:  Kyle, what are your thoughts?
 
KYLE LARSON:  I’m really excited, excited to be a part of the Target brand.  Everybody knows the Target logo when they see it.  It’s a pretty iconic car.  I think I can do okay.  Like you said, there’s going to be some growing pains, I’m sure.  I think I’ll learn a lot and I’ll grow as a driver and mature as a person.
 
JOHN OLGUIN:  Let’s open it up to some questions.
 
Q.        Kyle, how much of a whirlwind do these last few years feel like to you?  Will moving up to the Sprint Cup Series cause you to focus more on that and less on all the other racing you’ve been doing?
KYLE LARSON:  It’s definitely been quite a whirlwind.  I was walking over here saying a year ago today I was making my second Truck start.  It’s been a really quick road.  But I feel like I’ve done okay with it and learned quite a bit.
As far as next year goes, I know I’ll have to focus more on the Sprint Cup stuff.  I understand it’s probably going to be the toughest step in my whole career.  I’m going to have to dedicate a lot of time to it and grow as a driver, do a great job for Target, for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and make everybody there happy.
 
Q.        Chip, obviously the past several seasons you’ve tried to double and redouble your efforts to try to get back to where you want your team to be.  Can there be a difference here when you have a young, fresh driver that everybody is enthusiastic about, does that help you throughout your team, even in your shop?  Do you have hope to believe that you can come yet again with a fresh new effort?
CHIP GANASSI:  That’s a good question.  I think we’ve made some steps since the inception of our team.  Some were solid steps.  Looking back, some were not so solid.  But it’s a building process.
I think we made a big step this past year.  Our cars are a lot better.  They seem to run at the front a lot more.  You know, we led some races.  We’ve been running at the front a lot.  Having the right drivers certainly doesn’t hurt.
Are we there yet?  Do I think I’m there yet?  You’re never there.  You’re never there.  Until we can win on a consistent basis and win championships consistently, we’re not there, you know.
 
Q.        Bottom line, are you counting on winning some races with Kyle next year?
CHIP GANASSI:  Am I counting on winning races next year?  That’s a good question.  I think Kyle is the kind of driver, when he sees an opportunity in front of him, he takes it.  If that means it’s a win, hey, great.  There’s no pressure for him to win his first year out.  I don’t think there’s any pressure like that.
I mean, the kid’s done very well in every step he’s made in his career so far.  I see no reason why this should be any different.
 
Q.        Chip, Kyle has been compared to Jeff Gordon, to Tony Stewart.  First of all, what kind of a game-changer can that be for the organization, signing him at such a young age?  Do you anticipate you’ll get him in any Sprint Cup cars this year as far as running a race or two before the 2014 season?
CHIP GANASSI:  I appreciate those comments.  They all said nice things about Kyle.
In terms of comparing him to drivers, that’s something for you guys to do in the media.  I’m not somebody that’s going to sit here and compare him to anybody.
Obviously, when those guys came into the sport, guys like Jeff, Tony, Jimmie, they were certainly game-changers when you look back on it now.
I think to say we’re sitting here today with a game-changer, I think that’s a bit rambunctious.  We have to see what the guy does.  Maybe when he’s been in it as long as those guys have, we’ll be able to look back and do that.  I wouldn’t go as far as doing that today.
In terms of Cup races this year, right now the plan is to try to do that.  I don’t foresee that happening.  It’s never been my MO to push anybody out of any cars that are on our team.  As you know, Juan has been a great asset to our team for many years.  I’m not going to push him out or do anything like that.
I would think there’s opportunity to get him in Cup races this year and we’re going to take advantage of those opportunities.
 
Q.        Chip, you call him a special talent.  What makes Kyle a special talent in your mind?
CHIP GANASSI:  Well, you know, you hear those words a lot.  That gets thrown around a lot.  Believe me, I’ve seen my share of young guys come along in motorsports.
I would say that, you know, my first indication was at Daytona this year.  I remember watching him in the race, hearing all the time how special he
is, how special he is.  He’s running around the Nationwide race 14th or 12th.  I thought, What the hell is so special about this kid?
Sure enough, at the finish line, he was right there.  Of course, he was here and there at the finish line at Daytona this year, I should say.  Be that as it may, that to me was special.  I’ve seen that five or six, eight times now.  He gives you the impression he’s dilly-dallying in the middle of the pack, not paying attention.  Always at the end he’s where it seems to matter to be.  That says something to me.
 
Q.        Kyle, you handle yourself in many situations very calmly.  People were looking at you as a young guy, look what he can do.  As you move into the Cup Series, it will be, Did he move too fast?  Is all that attention going to be the toughest part for you?
KYLE LARSON:  I don’t know.  I think I’ll pay attention a little bit to it.  As long as I’m out there, you know, living up to my expectations and Chip’s expectations, that’s all that really matters.
Like you said, I’m not one to pay attention to all the hype or the pressure that other people put on me.  I just try and go out and do the best I can.  I don’t see myself doing any different next year.  I’m not going to push it harder than I think I can push it.  I’m just going to try and do the best I can.
If that’s winning races, contending for wins every week, that’s great.  If I’m running top 15, I’m happy with that, too.  It’s going to be a fun year next year.  I think I’ll learn a ton and I’ll enjoy it quite a bit.
 
Q.        Chip, knowing that this is an incredible talent, how do you groom him, bringing him up to this series, what do you do to make it easier on him as he comes into the series?
CHIP GANASSI:  Well, I think a big part of it was certainly his Nationwide experience this year.  In fact, we’re planning on Nationwide next year, as well, being in both series.  I think he’s in a great team with Turner Scott Motorsports.  Those guys have done a great job.  I think it’s kind of a plus that he’s with a bona fide Nationwide team.  It’s not a Cup team there doing a Nationwide car.  It’s a bona fide Nationwide team.
A lot of people think his learning curve is a little steeper doing it that way, but that will pay dividends down the road.  So I think that’s pretty important.
I’ve never considered myself a great coach or anything.  I’m sure they’re out there.  We just want to win races.  We want to be at the front.  This is not a complex thing we’re talking about up here.  It’s racing cars.  We have a young talent here that deserves a shot, and we’re giving him his shot.
 
Q.        Kyle, I don’t know if you’ve heard the debate the last couple weeks, but how ready you may be for this step.  Does it bother you?  Does it motivate you?
KYLE LARSON:  It doesn’t bother me at all.  I’d like to prove the people that don’t think I’m ready for it wrong.  The guys that think I am ready, let them pump their chest out a little bit.
Like I said, you know, as long as I’m running top 15, I’m happy with that.  I don’t know if the fans and media people think that’s good enough.  I think that’s about where I’ll set my goals for next year.
Like I said, I’ve never let the pressure get to me of running well or doing whatever.  Just always kind of sat back and raced, tried to do the best I could.  I think that’s paid off for me in all the years I’ve been racing.
I was always young.  Starting off racing Sprint cars, I was the youngest to start off in California at 14 years old, did well, proved people wrong.  I’m hoping I can do the same next year in the Cup Series and go from there.
 
Q.        This situation is nothing new to you?
KYLE LARSON:  No, I wouldn’t say so.
 
Q.        Chip, when it was clear that you and Montoya were splitting, in Europe the comment was you would bring him back to open-wheel racing.  To what percentage was Target, your sponsor, involved in signing Kyle or was it your own decision?
CHIP GANASSI:  It was our own decision.  It was a racing decision.  Target has been our sponsor for a long time, but it’s a team decision.
In terms of Juan, bring him back to open-wheel racing, whatever, I think at this time let me say this:  Juan has been a great asset to our team for many years.  We’ve enjoyed a lot of success with him.  He’s not only a driver of our team, he’s a great friend of mine.
I think there are always opportunities in our team that seem to present themselves.  You never know from time to time when those come along.
With all the different cars we have, it does make for some great opportunities at different times.  I’m certainly not counting him out of any opportunities or potential opportunities coming along.
 
Q.        Kyle, as you’ve already seen in this press conference, there’s a lot of people who have at some time or another questioned whether or not you’re ready.  For a young guy who is starting out in racing, whose goal is to race in the best and biggest series that there is, is there ever a time you’re not ready?
KYLE LARSON:  I don’t know.  I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit this year in the Nationwide Series, the K&N Series, all the stockcar stuff.  Even the Sprint car stuff I run helps when I come over here and race the stock cars.
I guess there’s a point when somebody’s not ready.  But I feel like I am ready.  I feel like I can go out there and contend.  I raced with some Cup guys in the Nationwide Series this year and learned a lot from them.  Raced them hard.  Beat some of them.
I think I can do it.  I think Chip obviously thinks I can do it, so that’s all that really matters to me.
 
Q.        Ryan Newman said earlier today when an owner comes up to a young driver like yourself and offers them a deal like this, it’s up to the driver to have the maturity and responsibility to say if he’s ready or not.  Was there any doubt in your mind that you could do this?
KYLE LARSON:  No.  Like I said, I think I can do it.  These opportunities don’t come about very often.  You never know when you have another shot like this.  You have to capitalize on it and do the best you can.
You know, there’s been people that are a lot younger than me that got their start in Cup.  I think I’ll do okay, like I said.  I’ll be all right.
 
Q.        Kyle, a number of people have said, including Jimmie Johnson and a couple of other drivers, that the Cup car may actually suit your style better given your background with the higher horsepower and greater weight.  Wondered what your thoughts on that are.
KYLE LARSON:  I believe so.  The Nationwide stuff, I don’t know, it’s about 200 horsepower less than a Cup car.  With my Sprint car background, they’re 1400-pound cars with 900-horsepower engines.  I’m used to having way too much horsepower.  I think it will translate well to the Cup cars.
I’ve gotten to test earlier this year at Rockingham.  I feel like I did pretty well in it, enjoyed it.  I feel like it suited me a little bit better.  We have to finesse the car a little bit more.  It wasn’t so much momentum driven.
I think that’s where I struggle a little bit in the Nationwide stuff, I probably don’t understand momentum quite as good as Kyle Busch or somebody.  That’s why I think the Cup stuff will be a little bit better for me.  We’ll just have to wa
it and see, I guess.
 
Q.        Chip, talking about the opportunity he may have this season to run a few races in preparation for next year, what experiences specifically would you like Kyle to have to kind of condition him for running in the Sprint Cup Series?  Kyle, in running both series, is there any room for Sprint cars as well on the schedule?
CHIP GANASSI:  That’s a good question.  What kind of experience?  Obviously, there’s no better experience than being in the races themselves, just going through all these sort of cycles that you have to go through as a young driver coming into the sport.
I think a lot of those he’s been through already.  These younger guys that come along today, they seem to take a lot of these things in stride that we all as adults think they’re big deals, scary things, whatever.  These young drivers seem to take it like a fish to water.
He’s shown a great ability to field anything that gets thrown at him, if you will.  So I think that’s what said it all for me.
KYLE LARSON:  Racing both Nationwide and Cup next year, that takes up about your whole weekend.  I know I won’t be able to race as much Sprint car stuff.  I’m cool with it.  Getting more experience in stock cars is a little bit better than racing Sprint cars.  That just shows where my focus is at being in the NASCAR stuff.
If I could still race 10 Sprint car races next year, I’d be totally fine with that.
CHIP GANASSI:  Not all of us might be (laughter).
KYLE LARSON:  I run nearly 55 to 60 this year.  That’s a bit much.  I’m ready to slow down a little bit.  If I could still be part of Sprint car racing, whether it be in ownership or having a small part in it, I would still enjoy it quite a bit and feel like I’m over there racing.
 
Q.        I don’t know what Kyle’s contract situation was with you before all this came down, but I do wonder, how important was it for you to give him this opportunity so somebody else didn’t?
CHIP GANASSI:  You know, I don’t know.  That’s a question that’s probably three years old.  I mean, that’s how long ago I met Kyle.  I don’t know.  I think that’s about when we did our first deal, two or three years ago.
To tell you the truth, I don’t have a good answer.  I think you know me well enough to know I have a pace at which we do things at our team.  Outside interference doesn’t affect that much.
 
We have our plan.  We work our plan, plan our work.  I’m sorry, but your column doesn’t influence me that much (laughter).
 
Q.        Chip, will Kyle run the full Nationwide schedule next year or just companion races or go for the title?
CHIP GANASSI:  Yeah, I mean, hopefully he’s running for a championship there next year, too.  Is he going to run every race?  That might be a stretch.  The idea is to do that.  The idea is to run as many as he can.  If he misses one or two, he may have to.  Not just companion races, no.
 
Q.        Chip, in your career you’ve brought in a lot of young guys with good and bad results.  What were you looking for during his Nationwide races to know that this was the right move?
CHIP GANASSI:  You know, I think I answered that already.  His level of maturity approaching the racing, of the race itself.  I said earlier I thought it looks sometimes like he’s back there in 10th or 12th, but always seems to be in the top 5 at the end.  I think that’s a good thing.
You know, there’s obviously a lot of questions about whether a guy like Kyle, I’ve heard from everybody, It’s too soon, too early.  Let’s take the list of drivers that we say it’s too early or they came too early and put that list over on one side.  On the right side let’s put a list of guys that at tracks all across the country, Saturday night tracks, dirt tracks, that never got the opportunity.  How long is that list, okay?  That list is 50 times longer than the list of guys that came along too soon.
As I said, there’s an opportunity here.  He’s a great driver.  He’s obviously the number one pick, as said by many other people besides myself.  Nobody deserves a shot more than he does.
 
Q.        Chip, certainly over the last couple of years you’ve made a lot of changes within your organization.  Is it to the point where your organization was ready for this type of opportunity to have a young kid?  Maybe I’m going out on a limb, but typically a young driver isn’t going to be able to come in and say, We need to do this to make the car better.  Has your team gotten to the point where you can take this opportunity?
CHIP GANASSI:  I think so.  You know, I think our cars, like I said earlier, have shown they can run easily in the top 5, top 10 on a pretty regular basis this season.  For one reason or another we’re not there at the end.
But I think plugging in a guy like Kyle, certainly the team is ready for that.  Again, until you’re winning every race and you’re winning every championship, you know, you’re never really complete, your team is never really complete.  I’m sure every race team in this garage area would like to tweak one or two things on their team from time to time.
What you’d like to do and what you actually can do are two different things sometimes, whether it’s availability of people, resources.  Lots of things come into play.  It’s not like scripting a movie.  It takes a lot of things to happen on one of these teams when you make changes or you anticipate improvements.