NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRACTICE NOTES & QUOTES
JULY 13, 2013
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S/MONOPOLY CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN AN ON-TRACK ACCIDENT DURING THE FINAL PRACTICE SESSION
LOOKS LIKE THE TIRE WENT DOWN BEFORE YOU WERE GOING INTO TURN 3.  IS THAT CORRECT?
“Yeah, I actually felt it pop or go flat really early.  I just couldn’t get slowed down.  Every time I got on the brakes it wheel hopped.  I felt like I was going to turn right.  I was trying to get the car slowed down and I knew for a long time I just couldn’t get slowed down enough.
 
“We cut a left rear tire down. It’s the exact same thing that happened to the No. 42 car (Juan Pablo Montoya) the third lap of practice yesterday. It’s weird, because we had just put new tires on and actually added air to the left rear, trying to make it better. We hadn’t had a problem, but we were just trying to be safe. So it’s a little puzzling that it actually blew out now, when we were trying to be more conservative.”
 
LOOKS LIKE THE CAR HAS QUITE A BIT OF DAMAGE. ARE YOU GOING TO BE ABLE TO GET IT FIXED, OR HAVE TO GO TO THE BACK-UP CAR?
“I don’t know.  It’s torn up pretty good, but we qualified okay so I hope they tell me they can fix it, but I’m not real sure.”
 
ARE YOU OKAY?  YOU LOOKED A LITTLE GINGER WHEN YOU WERE GETTING OUT OF THE CAR?
“Oh no, I’m fine.  It’s ironic that happened because we actually had added air to the left-rear tire to try to be safe.  Then we had a tire go down, so I’m a little bit puzzled more than I am hurt.”
 
HAS A DECISION BEEN MADE YET ABOUT WHETHER IT CAN BE FIXED OR IF YOU WILL HAVE TO GO TO A BACK-UP?
“So, we’re going to try to fix it because we qualified 11th and it’s really hard to pass here. And I thought our car was really good in practice; it’s definitely the best car I’ve had here at Loudon. So we want to race this car. It’s mainly cosmetic. So if they can get the panels out and get it where it’s presentable, I think we’re going to try to race this car tomorrow.
 
“it does look better now that they’ve pulled some of the bent pieces off. The right-rear quarter panel I think is going to be the most critical thing because it was tore up pretty good. But it looks much better than it did 20 minutes ago.”
 
HOW WAS THE CAR BEFORE THIS HAPPENED?
“I honestly thought we had a Top 2 or 3 car after about 10 or 15 laps; our car was really fast. I feel good about it if they can get this car fixed.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
SIX TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS TO START IN THE TOP-10 AT NEW HAMPSHIRE
 
LOUDON, N.H. – July 12, 2013 – Six Chevrolet SS powered race cars will start in the top-10 for Sunday’s Camping World RV Sales 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS led the charge for Team Chevy by posting the second fastest qualifying lap, but his time was disallowed by NASCAR during post-qualifying inspection. The five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and current series points leader will now start 43rd for the 301-lap race.
 
Kurt Busch, behind the wheel of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing/Sealy Chevrolet SS, will move up one place and now start on the outside of the front row in the second position. He will be followed by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS in third.  Earnhardt, Jr.’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS will start from the fifth starting spot.
 
Last year’s winner at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS will take the green flag from eighth.  Starting directly behind him will be the most successful driver at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Jeff Burton, driving the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet SS.  Burton has four wins at the 1.0-mile track.  Juan Pablo Montoya will start 10th in a back-up car following a crash in the first practice session in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS.
 
Other Team Chevy drivers qualifying in the top-20 were:  Jamie McMurray, No. 1 McDonald’s/Monopoly Chevy SS – 11th, Paul Menard, No. 27 Libman/Menard Chevrolet SS – 14th, Ryan Newman, No. 39 Wix Filters Chevy SS – 15th, Tony Stewart, No. 14 Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS – 16th and Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevy SS – 18th.
 
Brad Keselowski (Ford) won the pole position and Kyle Busch (Toyota) rounded out the top-five in fourth.
 
The Camping World RV Sales 301 will take the green flag on Sunday, July 14th at 1:00 p.m. ET and will be aired live on TNT.
 
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SECOND
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
 
SPECIAL NOTE:
QUALIFYING TIME OF JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S SS WAS DISALLOWED BY NASCAR FOLLOWING POST QUALIFYING INSPECTION. JOHNSON WILL START SUNDAY’S RACE FROM THE 43RD POSITION. PRESS CONFERENCE WAS PRIOR TO RULING.
 
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN
JOHNSON: “I was happy I was able to make it. I was getting a little tight on the watch there. I guess we had a side skirt that was a 16th too long and then something with a pound of weight. The way things are regulated now it’s such a small amount, you pass or fail things. So, we cut it close on time. I was trying to get my heart rate down and take a few deep breaths and went out and hand a nice lap. The car drove really good and I missed it by a few thousandths. So it was very close. It was a nice, solid performance.”
 
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN
BUSCH: “For us, ours was pretty exciting exept ours started later. I drove down into (Turn) 1 and I hit the rev chip so soon that I thought the guys missed the setting on the rev chip. It can mean two things. It can mean you’re really going fast or it can mean that it’s set improperly. Luckily it was set properly and we were just fast, but it threw my timing all off. I really couldn’t quite figure out corner entry and it changed the way that I applied the brake and I just had to adjust. But it was such a weird lap. I was expecting Todd (Berrier, crew chief) to tell me that we were going to be 20th. He said we ran an 0.5 and I was like hey, if we can screw up that big and have that much fun while we’re screwing up and be third, we’ll take it.”
 
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO START UP FRONT?
JOHNSON: “Without a doubt (it’s important). It’s a very tough track to complete a pass on. You can get next to someone, but finishing the pass is really hard. So, we’ll both with good track position, but strategy is going to play a big role in how you finish here this weekend.”
BUSCH: “Yeah, good cars can maneuver and run that low lane and pass cars. Until you get into that Top 10, everybody is the same speed and it’s difficult to maneuver side-by-side and still post a fast lap time. But the place is getting a little older. It’s still the same fun flat one-mile track that is real slick on fresh tires and then the more you run, the better the car sticks. So there will be a lot of movement on restarts.”
 
THERE WAS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT WHETHER THE GEN-6 CAR WOULD TURN THINGS AROUND IN TERMS OF SET-UPS AND COMPETITIVE BALANCE.  DID YOU NOTICE ANY BIG CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR?
BUSCH: “I felt like the rear-end skew, since it’s gone, and some of the rear-end camber, since we have more, it changed the way the rear of the car felt. But, overall in a nutshell, it was pretty close. We didn’t do anything dramatic and set-ups that usually work at Phoenix or Richmond apply here. And that was our baseline and we just had to adjust for a couple of key things from there. But overall, I thought the Gen-6 car has always shown speed on the stopwatch and it’s fun to drive and again, another track record fell at this track (with pole winner speed).”
JOHNSON: “I expect there to be more of an issue of trying to find the balance to get the cars fast because we just have fewer tools to work on the car with right now versus last year. But, man, the cars had grip and were fast right away. My initial concerns went away fast after a run or two and the car run really good.”
 
YOU KEEP KNOCKING ON THE DOOR TO GET A WIN FOR FURNITURE ROW. WHAT’S GOING TO MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?
BUSCH: “Fundamentals. I threw away a winning car at Sonoma trying to go too fast on pit road. And some of the events this year, we’ve just had little things pop up that I’ve induced or the team has thrown a wrench in the mix. But we can’t force it. I keep saying it and then I go out there and I try a little bit harder and drive that 101 percent and it steps over the line. Jimmie knows this the best with running as well as he has and has many championships as he has put together. You drive at a certain value and you still have speed in the car. That means you have a window to give. Right now we just don’t quite have that window to give and once we start to back-off of the intensity level, but still have that lap time, that’s when I think it will come together. But we might as well just keep you guys (media) on pins and needles and drag this all the way out to the end. As long as we’re running good, and running and posting top finishes, that’s what the most important thing is.”
 
HOW QUICKLY DO YOU PUT THE WAITING AND ALL THE ISSUES THAT YOU WENT THROUGH PRIOR TO QUALIFYING OUT OF YOUR MIND? WHEN YOU GOT IN THE CAR, HAD YOU FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT? WERE YOU STILL STEAMED ABOUT IT GOING DOWN PIT ROAD?
“I wasn’t steamed. There wasn’t anger behind it. It was like man, if we don’t get our qualifying lap in, we’re going to have the worst pit stall and track position. So, I’m thinking of that angle. The scales are the scales and the lazars are the lazars, so we’ve got to go through there and have that stuff right. There wasn’t anger behind it. There was more anxiety to get out there and post a lap to try to minimize the damage and in that whole anxiety threshold, it was high. Even though I got in the car, I think they let the No. 87 go before letting us roll off, I did my best to calm down and take some breaths and all.
 
“But when they told me to fire it up and roll out, my heart rate was sill pretty high. Coming to the green, there was just a feeling t
he car had and that put me more at ease than anything and helped me get my head in the game and drive the car. The car went in there and stuck real nice and took throttle application. And at that point, I’m like all right. Just four good corners and we’ll take it from there.”
 
CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – MET WITH MEDIA AFTER NASCAR RULED THAT THE CAR FAILED POST-QUALIFYING INSPECTION.
 
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH PRE-QUALIFYING INSPECTION AND RUN OUT TO THE GRID; AND THEN NOT PASS AFTERWARDS?
“We’re really crafty. We’re good (laughter).  No, we had some difficulty and as you all know, it was documented that we were a little bit late. We had some problems getting through the initial inspection process before qualifying. We were able to get it and got the car right, but it just wasn’t exactly right. And we weren’t going to know until after qualifying, once we started to tear it apart, what the problem was. What ended up happening is there was a disassembly issue with the right front and that’s why the heights were so messed up as we were going through initial inspection. And that came back to bite us there in the end.”
 
IT IS VERY RARE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN TO THE NO. 48 TEAM. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT?
IT ALSO MESSES UP YOUR PICK FOR THE PITS, RIGHT?
“Yeah, it’s going to hurt us, obviously; tremendously for the pit selection. But the good thing about Loudon is that if you’ve got a good race car, you can pass. So we’re really looking forward to that. It’s actually kind of a funny race, though. The way the ebb and flow of the event goes, the guys in the back typically get an opportunity to get to the front through some form of pit strategy; so, if nothing else, we can make it exciting.
 
“And yes, I can’t say enough about the mechanical department of the No. 48 guys. They do a tremendous job. And for us to have one single mistake over the course of the last decade or so, however long it’s been since we really had a problem, I think we get a ‘buy’ from that standpoint.”
 
DID YOU HAVE TO CUP PART OF THE SIDE SKIRT OFF?
“Yeah.”
 
SO NOW WILL YOU BE ABLE TO ADD THAT BACK ON WHEN YOU GET THE ASSEMBLY RIGHT?
“Yes. We saw that there was an issue like the left side was real high and the right side was real low and to try to manage those heights; NASCAR does a really good job of making sure that the cars are pretty good going through pre-race and pre-qualifying inspection. And we knew there was something that just wasn’t’ jiving right. And we were able to get through and then afterwards the cars settle a little bit; especially with a track like Loudon, New Hampshire. I think you all see how low the race cars are around the race track. You run a lot of shock. You run a lot of front rebound. It takes a little bit for the cars to come up. With the way that we’re measuring the heights now, you really don’t have a lot of room for error and we just had a little error.”
 
COULD YOU PUT THIS IN LAYMAN’S TERMS?
“We just had a small problem. It happens. There are a lot of things that you’re trying to do in a quick, brief amount of time when you’re changing springs and shocks and sway bars. You don’t have a whole lot of time to get through your final assembly of practice to get the car ready to qualify. And we just missed a little detail there.”
 
WAS CORRECTING THE CAR TO GET IT TO QUALIFY CAUSE IT TO BE LOW WHEN YOU CAME BACK?
“No. That was all our fault. There was nothing from that standpoint. That’s why we were so shocked going through initial inspection when we had the problem with the right side skirt, we’re like man, something is just not right. And it wasn’t.”
 
HOW DOES YOUR STRATEGY CHANGE IN GOING FROM THE OUTSIDE POLE TO THE TAIL OF THE FIELD?
“Well, shoot. I don’t know. We’ll have to get going here. That dust hasn’t settled yet. We’ll have to be aggressive. The thing about this race is it’s a very short race. It’s 300 laps or so. You’ve got to get in there, you’ve got to be aggressive. I look forward to the challenge. I think it’s going to be fun.”
 
DO YOU THINK THE CAR IS FAST ENOUGH TO DRIVE UP THROUGH THERE?
“Yes, the car if fast. The car is fine.”
 
WHY DID YOU COME TO THE MEDIA CENTER TO TALK ABOUT THIS?
“Tomorrow is a busy day. You guys are going to be hunting us down and it’s a busy day. We don’t have a lot of time. We have an early practice at 9:00 a.m. and all of you guys standing around with your cameras and notepads and computers would have been difficult to try to get the car prepared from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. for practice. So we just wanted to get it knocked out and give you the opportunity to ask your questions.”
 
SO YOU HAVE NO ISSUES WITH NASCAR?
“No, not at all. No, we made a mistake. That happens.”
 
HOW DO YOU REGROUP AFTER MAKING AN ERROR LIKE THIS?
“It’s really not that difficult. You look at the issue. You figure out how to put processes in place to where you don’t have any kind of issue. And you just move on with it. These things always happen. Maybe you guys don’t see them as much. They happen to everybody at a lot of different times. We do a very good job of when we have an issue, making sure we don’t do it again. And as long as we can make sure we don’t do it again, we’re going to be fine.”
 
WITHOUT THIS ISSUE, IS IT POSSIBLE THE CAR WOULD BE EVEN FASTER?
“The car is good. We’ve got a good race car. I think it’s going to be plenty fast.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 12, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS –SECOND PLACE QUALIFYING TIME WAS DISALLOWED BY NASCAR FOLLOWING POST QUALIFYING INSPECTION. JOHNSON WILL START SUNDAY’S RACE FROM THE 43RD POSITION. QUOTE WAS PRIOR TO RULING.
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“We had two small issues one with the side skirt height missed it by a sixteenth of an inch.  Then I think a pound of weight was missing or wasn’t right on the right-side weight.  We had to go through twice and that is usually big trouble for teams.  We were able to get it done quickly and get out just in time.  With all that being said it just added a lot of stress to my qualifying lap.  I knew through (turns) three and four coming to the green that I had a fast Lowe’s Chevrolet and was able to get in a good lap and almost got us a pole.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING/SEALY CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“It’s one of those interesting laps.  I was on the rev chip so early I was like ‘we must be going that fast’ or we even dialed our rev chip back too far.  These guys are just incredible.  The things that they are finding and the speed we are bolting on just got to thank Barney Visser, (Joe) Garone, everybody is working hard.  They are great at finding speed, Todd (Berrier, crew chief) is great at managing it, we are parked here with the No. 48 and No. 2 after a weird lap, so that means we are doing okay if we can manage all this weirdness and still be fast.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FOURTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“Yeah I’m real happy with the lap.  I think it could have been better.  We struggled a little bit through (turns) three and four on the first lap, but the car has been fast. Steve (Letarte, crew chief) and the guys and myself we have been real pleased with the speed the car has had all day in practice.  So, we were anticipating having a good lap and hopefully that will stick around and give us the pole.”
 
I KEEP WATCHING YOU LOOK AT THE BOARD EVERY TIME ANOTHER CAR GOES BY.  YOU WANT THAT POLE DON’T YOU?
“Yeah, we don’t really do that well in qualifying.  Haven’t in the past several years and we got the pole over there in Kentucky and to get a pole here I think that would give our team some momentum and give us some confidence that we really need to sort of get into these next several race before we get to the Chase.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SIXTH
THAT WAS A NICE RUN. IT SHOULD MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
“It felt like a possible pole-running lap. It was off a little bit more than I anticipated but all in all, it was a good solid run. The car did the things that I wanted it to do and maybe looking back on it, it was just a little bit freer than what we anticipated. But yeah, that’s good.”
 
DID YOU WORK ON YOUR QUALIFYING RUNS DURING PRACTICE?
“No, we worked on race stuff; just trying to get prepared for Sunday. And that didn’t go so well, so when we switched over to qualifying trim, that last run we made was pretty close and I felt good about it and I knew we had something to work with.”
 
YOU SAID YOU NEEDED TO WORK ON QUALIFYING. DID YOU DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT?
“Well, short track qualifying is a lot different than a 1.5-mile track where we’ve been struggling. So, we’re just trying to get the set-ups to match my style and get as much grip in the car as possible. It seems like every time we qualify we’re just a little bit too loose. So, today is completely different. The short tracks, we’ve actually done pretty well qualifying here. We’ll just see how it goes at Indy in a couple of weeks and the 1.5-miles after that.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED NINTH
HOW WAS YOUR RUN?
“It felt really goof. I wouldn’t change a whole lot. I would just ask for a cloud like the two guys in front of me and I think it would have been better (laughs). I feel good about where we’re at. We just did two qualifying runs today in practice is all we did.”
 
HOW IS THE CAR IN RACE TRIM?
“We’re going to work on it tomorrow, but it seems like it’s close.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 19TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“Just a little free on that end and probably didn’t quite get what I needed to on this end.  All in all it was three tenths better than practice for our Budweiser Chevy.  The guys have done a good job.  I feel good about our car in race trim and hopefully the sun comes out that would be great for us at this particular point.”
 
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT FOR YOU TODAY ARE YOU GLAD TO KIND OF HAVE IT ALL JUST KIND OF OUT OF THE WAY?
“Well, yeah I feel like obviously we are excited about everything, but there is still the task at hand to race this car for RCR and all these guys as fast as we can go every particular week and try to win races.  Hopefully, we can get through these next few weeks and be in the Chase like it looks and race them hard for the championship.  Hopefully, all the little chitter chatter and everything that has been surrounding everything is gone and we can move forward.”
 
 

Sebastien Bourdais Puts Chevrolet IndyCar V6 on Front Row for Race One in Toronto
 
TORONTO (July 12, 2013) – Sebastien Bourdais, No. 7 McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolet, led the charge for Team Chevy in today’s Firestone Fast Six qualifying for Saturday’s IZOD IndyCar Series Race One of the Honda Indy Toronto doubleheader.  With his second place qualifying effort, Bourdais will start on the front row of the first standing start in Toronto IndyCar racing history.
 
Bourdais’ effort today is the team’s best-ever qualifying performance and Bourdais’ best result since joining the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 contingent just prior to the 2012 Indianapolis 500.
 
Chevrolet drivers occupied three of the top-six cars competing for the pole of the first of two 85-lap points-paying races on the Streets of Toronto.
 
Will Power will roll off third in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, followed by Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan, No. 11 Hydroxycut KV Racing Technology – SH Racing Chevrolet, in the fourth starting position.
 
Defending Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, will roll off from seventh on the 24-car grid. Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, was the eighth fastest qualifier, and Ryan Briscoe, No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing Chevrolet completes the top-10 starters.
 
“The grid for the first of two races on the Streets of Toronto was set today,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “It is a mix of Chevy and Honda cars that will be the first to execute a standing start tomorrow.  We are proud to have five different Chevrolet teams represented in the top ten of the field.  The diversity of circuit types we compete on is unique to the IZOD IndyCar Series, and the return to street circuits following a string of ovals is exciting.  It is a challenge to the teams and drivers to execute, and highlights their strengths and weaknesses as evidenced in the number of different race winners there have been during the season.  We continue to work hard to make the Chevrolet IndyCar Twin Turbo V6 capable at all the circuits so Team Chevy will always be in a position to win.”
 
Dario Franchitti won the pole, with James Jakes and Scott Dixon completing the Firestone Fast Six.
 
Race number one of the Honda Indy Toronto 2 in T.O. is set to start on Saturday, July 13, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. ET with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network. Race number two is slated to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network.  Each race will be 85 laps for a total of 299.5 miles.
 
Live radio coverage will be on XM Radio Channel 94 and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 212. In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and discussed the first practice session, racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
HOW WAS THE CAR DURING THAT FIRST PRACTICE?
“We were in qualifying trim the whole time and it was generally loose I would say for most of the practice. We made a final run and we’re moving steadily on fast but by no means are we fast enough. I hit water in three and four. That weeper was a bit of an issue. Hopefully it doesn’t come into play during qualifying. I imagine they’re going to stay on top of that. We just have work to do with getting a car for qualifying for me that I feel really comfortable with.
 
JUST A REACTION TO THE NEWS TODAY WITHIN THE TEAM THAT KEVIN HARVICK WILL BE COMING ABOARD NEXT SEASON WITH BUDWEISER?
“There have been rumors I think. More than anything it’s just nice to be able to get planning and get moving and have everybody moving in that direction. He’s a really good guy. He’s helped me from the beginning when I was running Nationwide. I’m really excited about him coming over and I think we’re going to have a lot of fun.
 
DOES IT CHANGE THE DYNAMIC OF THE TEAM?
“No, there’s not really anything different from yesterday to today or the beginning of the year to now. We’re professional and everybody’s moving in the same direction. That’s to go as fast as we can and to get every car that’s running at SHR as fast as possible. So, I don’t anticipate that much will change through the end of the year either.”
 
THIS IS THE FIRST TIME A WOMAN WILL RUN A SPRINT CUP RACE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE, DOES THAT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU AT THIS POINT?
“No, again these are not things that I’m aware of. There was somewhere else this year that I don’t think a girl had run a race or something like that. It seems like an odd stat. But being the first to do things is something that’s happened quite a few times but nothing that I keep track of. And on my quest as a driver to be the best driver as possible and as fast as possible and run really well I guess these are just things that happen. I’m running full-time Sprint Cup and we come to Loudon twice.”
 
IN GENERAL HOW DO YOU LIKE THE TRACK?
“I think it’s a good track. I think it’s a lot of fun. That second lane is where everybody runs but the first lane’s possible to run there if the car is hooked up well enough and not too loose. It’s a little bit challenging to pass but I think it’s a good race track.”
 
WHAT DID YOU GAIN FROM LAST WEEK’S RACE AS FAR AS WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST LAP?
“I only needed to watch it once to see what happened. Actually I lie, I watched it twice to make sure I knew what happened because I watched it right after I pulled up to my hauler. I saw that and I was like, “Wow, that was me. I came down on the 38.” And then I was like, “Man, I just didn’t feel like I moved.” And then I said to myself, “All I was trying to do was follow the 88.” And so I went back to my bus and watched it and I was like, “I did follow the 88 and that is why I came down”. So, I was just not aware enough of my surroundings, not aware enough that we were turning down the track in the tri-oval that much and it really just felt like we were wrapping around the top coming to the finish line but it gets a little bit harder to judge exactly where you are when you’re going through the tri-oval as opposed to just down the straightaway. So I went and told David I was sorry and I’m really sorry. I not only feel bad that it started the accident but I lost five spots doing it. By no means was it me trying to be tough or move. I had enough momentum to finish ninth.”
 
DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OR WOULD THE CHOICE HAVE BEEN TO STAY A LITTLE BIT CLOSER TO THE WALL?
“Yeah, looking back I would have kept my eyes on the wall and stayed closer to it knowing that it kept you further away from other cars. I can honestly say that I got done and was like, “Man, I don’t know what happened underneath me but it obviously collected me.” But it was my fault. I’m just trying to explain to you how little I thought I did but when you’re running two hundred miles an hour it doesn’t take much. Even David said, “I didn’t even barely feel anything”. But it was just enough to turn the car around. Like I said going two hundred miles an hour it doesn’t much.
 
WHEN YOU WERE EXPLORING THE OPTIONS TO COME TO CUP WHAT WAS IT ABOUT TONY’S (STEWART) TEAM AND PARTICULARLY TONY AS AN OWNER THAT APPEALED TO YOU?
“I think there were two things but there was one main thing. And that’s that we’ve got similar backgrounds. We get along great. He’s not only an owner but a driver, so he’s invested. He wants to run well so that means as an owner he’s going to do what it takes to make it run well. The other part of it that made it a really easy decision as far as being able to move forward was just that they’re a two car team so it was possible to ask be able to ask him if they would be prepared to run a three car team. I didn’t have to wait for someone to leave to find a spot. So it made the planning better. And by all means it took a lot of planning. “
 
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ASKED TO BE IN ESPN’S BODIES WE WANT?
“Yeah, every year.”
 
AND WHY NOT?
“I just never felt like that was something I needed or wanted to do. A lot of the stuff that I’ve done that has been scantily clad has all been swimsuit stuff. I was also asked to do the painted section of the swimsuit issue. I was asked to do that the second year after I’d was in it the first time. I asked one of my most liberal friends if I should do it and she was like, “Um, that’s naked right? Last I checked that’s naked.” Would I feel comfortable? I’m sure it’d be a little bit borderline. There’s a difference to me between going to the beach and wearing a swimming suit and going to the beach and wearing nothing or paint. That’s just pushing the limit a little bit. I mean as far as artistically I think it’d be really fun but it’s not things that I need to do to push the issue with my brand. There’s already enough stuff that I do that pushes that. So, I’d rather stay in my full comfort zone than go that far. I’m not saying there will never be a day. When I speak to them and they ask me each time I say, “Don’t stop asking. I don’t know. I might change my mind one year. And it might be something that parallels something else I’m doing, or where I’m at, or how I’m feeling.” But just not right now.
 
SO IF THEY ASK RICKY TO DO IT, COULD YOU BECOME THE FIRST COUPLE?
“I think the swimsuit issue tried the couple’s thing and that didn’t work. So, I’d be surprised.”
 
WHAT ARE THE KEYS FOR YOU GUYS TO RUN WELL HERE THIS WEEKEND?
“I think qualifying is going to be important that’s why we worked on it the whole time in practice. Not sure it went great but passing is always tough here so qualifying is going to be important. I think that getting through the center of the corner here is going to be really important too. It’s a fairly long corner so you need to get the car rotated. On the other hand I’m not really sure because I haven’t raced here in a Cup car. All I can do is base it off of Nationwide and when we came and tested a few weeks ago.
 
WITH THE OFF WEEKEND COMING NEXT WEEK IS THAT A GOOD TIME FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM?
“Well, I would say that if we had a couple of off weekends it’d be good for all the teams. It’s a lot of work and it’s a grind no doubt. Especially with opening up the testing for those four official tests that can be up to three days long. It wears on a team no doubt. I think it’s going to be nice. Everybody’s been a
sking what I’m going to do. I’m in a wedding. So, that’s what I’ll be doing. The ESPY’s are this week. So, fly out to LA on Tuesday. The ESPY’s are on Wednesday. And then get back for all of the wedding festivities. And then I’m heading down to Indy early. Not really much off-time for me. These last five days have actually been pretty good. I was home Saturday night through last night (Thursday night). That was about the longest stretch I’ve had in one place. Not completely off. I still had a couple things to do but at least I didn’t have to get on a plane to do them.”
 
SOMEBODY ELSE’S WEDDING?
“Somebody else’s wedding. Yeah. No, I didn’t just drop a big bomb right there. It’s somebody else’s wedding. I love weddings. I love love. So, it’ll be fun.”
 
HAVE YOU EVER HAD SPONSORS THAT WANTED YOU TO DO THAT ESPN BODY ISSUE OR THAT THEY DIDN’T WANT YOU TO DO IT?
“I don’t think there’s really been anybody that necessarily says what I can or can’t do. But all I do know is that GoDaddy’s always said from the very beginning and all along is that, “whatever you do we’re behind you”. So, I always felt comfortable that my primary source of concern being GoDaddy would always be OK with whatever it was that I wanted to do. That’s cool for an athlete to know that they’re biggest backer is behind them no matter what. I still have to do things that I feel completely comfortable with and I feel wouldn’t take away from the other things I do. The good things that I do. Because those things can turn negative quick and be louder than the good and that’s not what I want to happen.
 
YOU MENTIONED THE ESPY’S QUITE A FEW TIMES, IS THERE ANYONE YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING THAT YOU HAVEN’T YET?
“You sound like a reporter on the red carpet right now. That’s basically what everyone asks. Since 2005, I’ve been there every year since 2005. And this is what I always say on the red carpet. I don’t know exactly who I’m excited to meet. I mean every now and again I have a year where I’m like, “Oh, this person I heard they know who I am so I’m excited to meet them.” But I’m more one of those people that has an experience there at the ESPY’s and meets someone they didn’t expect to or know much about even sometimes and all of a sudden come away going, “Oh my gosh, he’s a great guy”. Ask me again at the Brickyard and I’ll probably have a story.
 
 
 

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TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and discussed competing for the championship, other contenders and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
TALK ABOUT COMING INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS WEEKEND AND COMING OFF OF LAST WEEK’S WIN AT DAYTONA:  “Excited to be here.  This track is challenging for everybody.  Chad (Knaus, crew chief) really likes this race track and the engineering required to get the car to work.  There is very little vertical loading and a lot of lateral loading with the race car and the way you use the springs and shocks and the roll center of the car to make the car work.  Chad really enjoys that exercise.  I feel like last year we were the second best car in both races.  The 11 (Denny Hamlin) had a bunch of speed, but won a few times here and have been competitive and it’s always been a good track for me.  Excited to be back and a lot like the other drivers hopeful to be in the Chase and we look at this track and know that we come back here in the Chase and we need to treat this with a little more care and attention.  If you leave here with a good result, it just kind of checks one of the boxes going into the Chase that you feel like you can be competitive.”
 
DID LAST SEASON’S CHASE MAKE YOUR TEAM MORE CONSISTENT THIS YEAR?:  “I look at 2011 and think there was more growing that went on over that off season leading into ’12 than what’s gone on from the end of ’12 to now.  We had the speed, we had the tools to win the championship last year.  The year before, we didn’t and there was more going on there.  Last year we had that bad race at Phoenix, but still went to Homestead and were in great position to take care of business and a series of mistakes by our own team so we took ourselves out of it.  That’s almost easier to swallow and deal with than it is being slow.  In a weird way we spent less time focusing on changes that we needed to make and what was going on with our speed in the end result than we did in ’11.  We spent a lot of time thinking about things and knew that we needed to dig in deep and rethink our engineering process, the way we were taking cars to the race track and a lot of stuff there.  I think that this off season was really just a continuation of where we were at the end of last year.  Even though we didn’t get the championship, we had a lot to be proud of over those last 10 races and a lot of speed in our car and it’s just too bad that events at the end on top of the 2 (Brad Keselowski) car really doing an awesome job kept us from winning the championship.”
 
ARE THERE OTHER TEAMS YOU CONSIDER SERIOUS THREATS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?:  “Oh yeah.  Without a doubt.  I think there are a few out there that have showed their strength.  The 20 (Matt Kenseth) car is the first car that comes to mind.  Right now we have a big points lead, but that all goes away when the Chase gets here and that changes the game.  Not only that aspect, but we still have a few months before the Chase starts and we know how fast things can change in the garage area and the speed that an organization may have might not be there two months from now.  We’re looking ahead and we’ve been testing and we have a lot of test sessions left on the books that NASCAR will allow us to test at tracks we race at.  All of that has been saved in hopes that we can find more speed and develop our cars for the end.  I am very proud that we started this season a little bit off on the mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks and were able to find that speed and get it in our cars.  Test sessions really kind of take you to that next level and I’m happy that we have that room to grow still.”
 
DOES THE EXPECTATION TO WIN THE TITLE ADD PRESSURE?:  “I don’t know.  I don’t let that outside pressure affect me much.  I rarely recognize it or see it.  There’s more pressure on myself to perform and more pressure that Chad (Knaus, crew chief) has on himself and our team dynamic than anything outside like that.  I really don’t focus on those things.”
 
WILL YOU EXPERIMENT MORE IN THE NEXT EIGHT RACES OR JUST FOCUS ON WINS?:  “Ideally we need to do a little of both, but we’d be foolish to get too far away from what we’re doing now.  It’s completely working.  Bonus points are going to be everything and we missed out on some bonus points through the year so far.  A little of both and I would say that the closer we get to the Chase, the less experimenting we would do.  You need to hone in and know what you’re going to take to the track and get familiar with it.  I think it’s also important to run well leading into the Chase so that the driver is used to the pressure and running up front, pit crew is when they jump off the wall to the car.  There is just something about that is good for a team.”
 
ARE YOU AT THE TOP OF YOUR GAME OR ARE YOU STILL IMPROVING?:  “I feel I’m a far better driver today than I am from my rookie year, my first championship or my fifth.  Experience is so helpful and useful and important in our sport.  I remember saying in different media situations that I would trade my age for experience any day.  It really does make a big difference.  When you look at the generations before mine in racing, I saw a stat somewhere that the average Cup driver starting point was in the early 30s.  You look at when (Dale) Earnhardt won his last championship and the bulk of his championships he was older and I think the same thing went for (Richard) Petty.  That’s all because of experience.  I feel that I’m much smarter, focused, my talents are refined, I know the race tracks, I know my industry, everything is so much better today than it was in previous years.”
 
HOW MUCH MORE INTERESTING WOULD A CHASE BE WITH KURT BUSCH IN IT?:  “I think it would be a huge statement.  I’m not sure if it’s going to change much on the track, he is racing for wins now and in the mix each and every week.  To see a smaller team if they were able to make the Chase and fight for the championship, it really highlights NASCAR’s vision or focuses in on the vision that NASCAR has had all along where anybody can come and show up with a race car and race and have a shot.  I think it would be great for the team to make it and I think for Kurt (Busch) to kind of bring everything full circle and to get that done would be really cool for him.”
 
DO YOU THINK BRAD KESELOWSKI IS LEARNING HOW TOUGH IT IS TO BE ON TOP?:  “Yeah, every champion goes through it to come back and try to repeat is really difficult to do.  When the spotlight is on you when you’re chasing that first championship and you get it, that light intensifies quite a bit more coming back the next year and I know it from my own experience and it’s five times that what he’s been going through.  The little things that we’ve dealt with over the years that he’s living through and experiencing now.  Everything from you have to be careful what you say because many more people pay attention and a passing comment is now a headline somewhere.  A previous year it was at the tail end of an article and didn’t mean much.  Now it’s a headline.  That’s just one example of how things really changed.  I think he’s handled it well.&nb
sp; We all hit bumps in the road and learn as we go down the road.  I by no means am perfect so I understand what kind of things he’s been through.”
 
HOW DOES JEFF GORDON FIT IN WITH THE TEAM RIGHT NOW FROM A COMPETITIVE STANDPOINT?:  “I honestly haven’t seen a change in Jeff (Gordon) from when I first started and he was off his last championship year to now.  The feel he has for the car, his focus, his involvement with the team, if anything I would say he’s probably more available to his team and around the race shop today than he was when I started.  He used to tease me because I was the new excited kid who showed up and was there three or four times a week.  He wasn’t there that much.  It’s kind of reversed now a little bit in a lot of ways with the amount of time spent at the shop.  That’s all there and I know he’s working hard and I know Alan (Gustafson, 24 crew chief) is working hard on that team.  They’ve been awfully close. He jokes about how many years of good luck that he had and I guess in some ways he jokes that it’s all coming back on him now because he’s had very fast race cars.  Very capable of winning races and fighting for championships, but he’s had some really wacky things happen to him.”
 
HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL THAT YOUR TEAM IS HOW OTHERS ARE MEASURED IN HOW TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?:  “That’s a big compliment for sure and we’re proud of that.  At the same time, there isn’t a team that is studied more than us so anything we do the others follow quickly and try to take our system or our formula and try to make it better.  We do a nice job though of keeping our blinders on and worried about our car situation and I think in the long run that has been really good for us and allows us to keep evolving.  It’s a smart garage area and people pay close attention to what we do.”
 
WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR IMPROVEMENTS WHEN YOU ARE ON TOP AND HOW DO YOU STAY MOTIVATED AT THAT LEVEL?:  “I think for myself I know that it’s not going to last forever and when you’re racing the best in the world you always elevate your game and your abilities to stay there.  That’s just kind of a natural thing for myself that I believe all drivers share that same ambition to win a championship.  From the team side, Chad’s desire and his passion for the sport and for fast race cars really does it.  There aren’t big areas to work anymore.  It’s really about, as he likes to say, stacking pennies.  You just continue to find a little bit in each area and keep stacking and eventually it will turn into something.  That’s where I think he’s different than others.  There are times when he’s putting in all the hours, but maybe we’re working in the wrong area and we missed it.  That happens.  Majority of the time though they’ll figure out the right area to work in and where the speed is in the car and we’ll get it dialed in.  I like him wearing a 48 headset and on top of my pit box and it works really well.”
 

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TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 WIX FILTERS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and discussed, racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, being a free agent in 2014 and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
A THREE TIME WINNER HERE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY TALK A LITTLE ABOUT COMING INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS WEEKEND:
“Well I have different circumstances there is no doubt about that.  For me it’s a track position race.  I’ve always talked about that and the fact that it’s important to qualify well.  You get a limited number of chances to adjust on your race car and tune your race and work in those windows that either the cautions or the green flag runs give you.  Excited it’s big for this weekend for Wix Filters I believe it’s our first race this year on the Cup side and they are also sponsoring the modified which is a lot of fun for me to come up here and race.  I’ve said before this is the birthplace of track position and a lot of weight is put on the teams and the performance of the entire weekend in qualifying.  We didn’t have the best of practices, but I think we have a car that is better than we did practice speed wise.  We will see what we can prove with the Wix Filters Chevrolet in qualifying.  We spent the entire time in qualifying trim so we will switch over and get some race trim in tomorrow.  We did come up here and test and feel we have a little leg up because we had a good test up here.
 
“Let me just go ahead and say before you guys ask any questions.  This is an opportunity for me to come up here and answer probably five or six questions, but all at once. The ability to save my time and your time every time somebody else asks the same question my answer doesn’t usually get as good so let me do it here all at once.  I’m aware of what happened this morning and the announcement with Tony (Stewart) and Kevin (Harvick) and what SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing) plans are.  I’ve had a good run.  I look forward to finishing out this year.  We have great sponsors in Quicken Loans, Wix Filters, Aspen Dental, Code 3 Associates, Outback they have all done us well.  Look forward to the opportunity to make the Chase, winning races and putting ourselves to have a chance to win a championship that’s my ultimate goal and it always has been. I do not know what my future holds.  I have no idea right now.  I didn’t have any idea at this time last year.  That is something that weighs on my shoulders.  I have a little homework to do.  That is part of racing and part of the situation that I’m in.  I can’t say that I’m happy with how everything unfolded.  I know that there are business decisions and business decisions sometimes trump friendships.  I don’t feel like that was the case, but in the end I’m happy with the three wins that I’ve had so far with Stewart-Haas and the performance and the cars and everything else.  There will be a change for me in 2014 and I don’t know what that change is.”
 
AT WHAT POINT DID THIS BECOME FINALIZED FOR YOU?
“I got a phone call from Tony (Stewart) on Wednesday about 20 minutes to seven and we talked for basically 20 minutes.  That was it.  His phone call was about making the announcement and that I would not be a part of Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. That was it.
 
“His stress was the importance of our friendship and that to me will never change.  We’ve only ever argued over how hard we race.  That is the kind of friends Tony and I are.  There is a chance that we might do that again in the future, but we have a great friendship and I look forward to keeping that.  That was the main point of our conversation outside of the obvious of 2014.  That was my first knowledge of what I won’t be doing.  I’ve been a free agent ever since I signed my contract last year in September for 2014 and had the ability to look around.  I will continue to do that.  At this point I do not know what or where I will be.”
 
IN YOUR MIND WHAT WOULD BE AN IDEAL SITUATION FOR YOU IN 2014?
“I don’t know. There are organizations out there that are capable of winning championships and capable of racing I guess into the Chase to give themselves and opportunity at a championship.  It’s obvious that there are some seats that are moving around and becoming available and potentially coming available.  To me I first and foremost want to be wanted for my ability.  Ability behind the wheel as well as what I can do for the sponsors.  That is the most important part.  It’s not easy out there with the economy and what it takes to run one of these race teams financially.  It’s not easy; sponsorship is not at its peak in NASCAR.  There are a lot of things to be considered, but I was sincere when I said it I want to be someplace where I’m wanted.  I want to be wanted for my abilities and the desires that we have as common goals to win a championship.  Every driver out there wants to win a championship.  Every driver out there wants to win races.  It’s the desire that you have to fight through all the things I think that make and separate the men from the boys I guess you could say.”   
 
WE ARE GOING TO YOUR HOME TRACK IN TWO WEEKS.  WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU TO GET A WIN AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY?
“I think for Tony (Stewart) to him it’s more like home court.  To me it’s more like home state and the essence of the history of the speedway and the history of speed at the speedway.  Indianapolis is to auto racing what Daytona is to auto racing in a different way.  The history of speed, the history of land speed, the history of a lot of racing, the great drivers that have crossed that yard of bricks and I say it every year I want to be on that list of winners at that race track.  That is what means a lot to me.  It’s not a brand new facility it is a facility with an awesome history and being a part of that history is one of my personal goals. Yes, it’s big, it’s huge and Tony (Stewart) has been fortunate enough to win it and I’ve been close.  I still want it.”
 
DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMITMENTS FROM ANY OF YOUR CURRENT SPONSORS TO GO WITH YOU TO WHATEVER RACE TEAM YOU MAY END UP AT?  DO YOU HAVE CONFIDENCE YOU WILL BE IN CUP NEXT YEAR?
“I have no idea on any part of it.  There are no answers that I have.  Obviously, I have my own homework to do.  I have no answers with respect to any of that at this point.”
 
DID OTHER TEAMS LOOK AT YOU THAT WAY?  DID YOU HAVE ANY CONVERSATIONS AT LEAST PRELIMINARY TALKS RIGHT OFF THE BAT LAST YEAR OR EARLY IN THIS SEASON?
“I haven’t had much for conversations.  I’ve really been focused on this year and performing the way I think we are capable of.  We had a brand new team when we started this season.  Matt Borland was an experienced crew chief, but our entire organization within the No. 39 side was brand new.  A lot of guys had never even come to a Cup garage before let alone worked on a race car in the Cup garage.  That’s been a learning process for us.  I think it slowed us down a little bit.  I think we have gained a lot of experience in the first 18 races or whatever that we can provide more experience for the next few to be able to have a better chance at the championship.  We are not out of this chance for the Chase.  We are not out of anything right now.  I think we are 17 points out of 10th.  There is a lot of racing left to go, a lot of points to be had.  I’ve been really focused on this year more so than next year.  As we go through this timing of the season,
the silly gets even sillier.  You never know what becomes available.”
 
LOOKING AT THE SPONSORSHIP LANDSCAPE DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO BRING SPONSORSHIP?  ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE TO MAYBE COBBLE TOGETHER SOME SORT OF DEAL TO BRING TO A TEAM GIVEN THAT THERE AREN’T ANY TEAMS THAT SORT OF HAVE OPEN RIDES WITH CARS WAITING?
“As an engineer we don’t like to use the word cobble (laughs).  It takes everything.  It takes a good team with the right resources, it takes the financial side of it and it takes the driver that can guide the rocket.  Yeah, that is part of the homework is putting all those things together.  Then you have to throw in the personalities of everything and putting people together because even if I am a top 10 driver in my opinion if I don’t have the right crew or the right cars or the right downforce or whatever it is it’s not going to work out.  All those things have to work right.  I want to be competitive.  I’m not going to go out there and just find a ride.  I want to find a ride with somebody that has the same goals and perspectives as I do.”
 

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CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and discussed racing at New Hampshire, the championship contenders and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT BEING BACK AT NEW HAMPSHIRE AND HOW WAS PRACTICE THIS MORNING?:  “Obviously from those numbers, I like it here.  We tested here and it’s always beneficial to test.  I thought we had a pretty challenging practice.  Conditions I think changed from the test quite a bit on us and even just how quickly things are advancing with the sport.  You come here whatever it was two months ago and just going week to week and how the setups evolved, speed in the cars, learning more and so here we are trying new things and completely different things than what we even tested here.  Some of the things worked and some of the things didn’t work, but we ended the practice on a positive note with some good qualifying runs.  Looking forward to qualifying and hopefully we can make a few more gains and get us a solid starting position and then learn what we learn from today and apply it to tomorrow to get ready for the race on Sunday.  It’s always a track I look forward to.”
 
DO YOU FEEL THE BANKING AT NEW HAMPSHIRE OR DO YOU CONSIDER IT MORE A FLAT TRACK?:  “Yeah, from where I’m sitting it feels like it has negative banking.  It’s very, very flat.”
 
DO YOU PLAN TO RACE UNTIL YOU’RE 71 YEARS OLD LIKE MORGAN SHEPHERD AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIM RACING AT THAT AGE?:  “I think everyone is made different and how they apply themselves and stay healthy.  I think a doctor and Morgan (Shepherd) are the ones that decide that and I think that should be the case with every individual.  I think if you are taking good care of your body and you pass all the physicals then should there be a little bit more strenuous type of workout to pass that physical examination to make sure that you are prepared at that age?  Maybe, but I think if you’re out there capable of doing it and you are willing to do it and you pass the physical then I think you should be allowed to do it.  I think that’s quite an accomplishment I will say.  We talk about how amazing it is to see Mark Martin out there being competitive over 50 years old, but to just go out there and do what he does as far as Morgan is concerned at 71, that’s amazing.  And no you will not see me out there doing that at 71.”
 
HOW DO YOU JUDGE YOUR COMPETITIVENESS AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON AND ARE YOU EXCITED FOR INDIANAPOLIS?:  “Competitiveness versus results are two different things for me right now.  We’ve really struggled this year.  Earlier in the year with the competitiveness and then we started to get into competitiveness in the cars just driving better and more to my liking and the speed being there.  I think we’ve maybe have had it during the race most of the year, but qualifying we’ve struggled so that’s something that we’ve been working on and I was very pleased with what happened at Kentucky and I hope we can see some more progress there on the mile-and-a-halves.  On these types of tracks we’ve been pretty competitive qualifying and in the race so I hope that continues.  I’m very much looking forward to Indianapolis.  Same thing kind of applies to Indy as it does here, we tested there which is always great and beneficial, but things have evolved since that test and I think our cars have improved since that test and we’ll be trying to apply that when we get there.  All signs of that test and things that we have planned, I’m very excited.  We had a shot of winning that race a couple years ago and I always go to that track with confidence and feeling good.  When the car and the team feeling the same way then that’s a great combination to have.”
 
DO YOU SEE JIMMIE JOHNSON AND MATT KENSETH SEPARATING THEMSELVES FROM THE FIELD IN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE AS FAR AS BEING IN CONTENTION FOR WINS?:  “I would say that certainly up to this point they have and I agree with you.  I think both of those guys could have won more races than that.  The difference is that the way it used to be is you separated yourself through your consistency, especially if you won a bunch of races and top-fives and nobody had a chance of ever catching you.  It was over.  Even if your momentum didn’t quite continue the last 10 races of the year, you had such a stretch that you could just kind of give and take a little bit or maybe maintain the momentum and killed it like we did in 1998 where we just continued that all the way to the final race.  With the Chase, that’s what changes.  All of the sudden everything gets reset and all of the sudden you might have a small advantage based on your wins, but basically it’s something that you’re all on a clean slate now and you have to put the best 10 races that you’ve put together all season long right then and there to win the championship.  That really just in itself breaks up the momentum that you had.  I always feel like the best teams always win the championship.  It seems like they throughout the season build that team up and when the Chase starts, the guys that executed the best are the ones that win it.  I think the 2 (Brad Keselowski) had that last year and the 14 (Tony Stewart) the year before, even though he didn’t have any momentum, they did everything they needed to do to put themselves in position to go and execute well and put a championship run together.  We’ve seen the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) do that as well.  Right now I think it’s the 48’s to lose.  They’ve been so strong and because they’ve won five championships, you don’t expect them to go away anytime soon and you don’t expect them to lose that momentum when the Chase starts.  Because it is the Chase, anything is possible and can happen.”
 
WHY AREN’T OTHER TEAMS DOING WELL BEING RECOGNIZED AS CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS?:  “I think it’s just history.  The dominance that Jimmie (Johnson) and the 48 team have had over the years and the records that they continue to set or break draw a lot of attention and I think that what they need is a good rival.  That’s I think what creates a great story.  I think people and even the media and the competitors, you want to have somebody that you love to hate.  Unless you’re that team winning all the time, you’re not going to be real happy about them when they go to victory lane.  You’re going to want to figure out how to beat them.  I think that’s kind of where people are, but he’s also building just a heck of a resume and stats sheet and just doing unbelievable things that I don’t think truly and I’ve said this for years, I don’t think will truly be respected until years down the road.  It’s unfortunate for those guys because it seems like every time they do something amazing and good, they get a little bit of recognition, but then it’s more of they are stinking up the show, this is not good for the sport and I find that to be pretty unfair.  I think they probably don’t care a whole lot about it either after they’re celebrating the victory.”
 
WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO PEOPLE THINKING A CREW CHIEF CHANGE WILL AUTOMATICALLY MAKE A TEAM START WINNING RACES?:  “First of all, I don’t think anybody should speak to, everybody can have their own opinions and with Twitter and Facebook and the internet these days, the opinions flow freely and everybody has a voice.  That’s great and it’s cool that people are interacting that way.  I don’t think anybody can really give true criticism unless they’re inside the organization and they see the re
lationship and they are in the meetings or they see how we work together at the track and away from the track.  To me, I’ve put as much blame on myself this year as I have when we’re not qualifying well, I feel like that I haven’t given the effort to the team.  I know our cars are better than that and then there’s been times where we’ve made mistakes and we’ve had freaky crazy things happen to us and I’m always a big believer on it’s not about luck, it’s about making your own luck and through preparation and hard work and putting yourself in position for good things to happen.  It seems like every time we get ourselves in that position something changes and those are things that are not a crew chief’s fault or driver’s fault or a team or crew member’s fault.  I don’t know if you’re speculating to Alan (Gustafson, crew chief), but he is one of the best crew chiefs in this garage area and anytime that I see or hear that, it frustrates me because I know how good he is.  Trust me, nobody is more frustrated with our performance this year than I am and our team is because it’s not because of lack of effort.  We know what our teammates are capable of doing and are doing and there is no reason why we shouldn’t be right there along with them.  We’ve changed crew chiefs, teams, pit crews, we’ve done everything over the years to try to keep up with the 48 and it hasn’t been successful yet, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to keep trying and that just shows you how good those guys are and I love my loyal fans that will go with me all the way to the bottom of the ocean even if it was my fault.  That’s just loyalty and you have to love that.”
 
DO YOU FOLLOW DRIVERS ARE TWITTER?:  “Yeah I do.”
 
DO YOU FOLLOW JIMMIE JOHNSON OR READ WHAT HE TWEETS?:  “And I have a lot of fans that are usually talking to both of us so I see his Twitter handle and a lot of tweets that are tweets to me or tweets to him.”
 
DOES JIMMIE JOHNSON COME ACROSS MORE INTERESTING ON TWITTER?:  “Maybe I don’t follow him quite as much as you do.  The thing is I don’t have to follow him to know how interesting he is because I’ve partied with the guy.  I’ve hung out with Jimmie enough to know that he’s a very interesting, great person and works very hard at being as good as he is and there is no surprise there.  Twitter, I think a good bit of his personality comes out in his tweets and again I’m not following it quite as much as maybe you are or others.  He’s mixing it up and having fun and being loose and I think that’s the great thing about Twitter is everybody gets to see a different side of you as well as they get to interact with you.  It’s a great tool or great fun to have.”
 
ARE YOU MORE FUN OFF TWITTER?:  “I am.  I had a pretty good night last week.  Everybody thought my Twitter account had been hacked because I actually said some comments and kind of got outside my norm and all of the sudden everybody thought this was not Jeff (Gordon) and somebody had hacked my Twitter account.  I didn’t know how to take that exactly.  Sort of hurt my feelings.  I guess I’m definitely more fun when I’m not on Twitter.”
 
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN INDIANAPOLIS IN A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT IN AN INDYCAR?:  “That’s a good question.  Honestly, the whole time I was there I didn’t think about that at all.  I know that might be odd, but I really just was thinking of it from a purely entertainment standpoint seeing my son see a different kind of car and just whether he’s entertained by it or not.  Most of it was for him and my nephew who was also with me.  For me it was being amazed at how fast those cars go through those corners, corners that I’m used to going through at much slower speeds and just the technology of the cars.  Would I like to drive one of those cars somewhere?  Yeah, I would.  My biggest thing that holds me back from doing a lot of things is I want to be competitive in whatever it is I’m in and I know if I go run five or 10 laps whether it be a rally car or an IndyCar or whatever car, that’s not enough for me to go be competitive and if I can’t go be competitive in it then I usually don’t have fun.  That’s just my personality.  It’s not about just sliding the car sideways or feeling it stick at 220 mph, it’s about can I be as fast as somebody else and so no, honestly that didn’t persuade me to want to go do it.  As a matter of fact, when I was speaking to (James) Hinchcliffe and then moments later he’s spinning back into the wall, the guy barely flinched and he couldn’t catch it and I felt bad for him and also thought I had no desire to go get in that car.”
 
IS THERE ANYTHING NASCAR NEEDS TO CONSIDER CHANGING ON THE CARS BEFORE NEXT YEAR’S DAYTONA 500?:  “I will say that the way we approached the July race was a lot different than February where we saw guys really get in line and run that high line a lot more in July where guys were a lot more racy and pushing the limits and trying to get that track position and working with other guys to do that — and girls.  I thought the racing was really good.  The only thing that being out front is a little bit too much of an advantage right now.  It’s very hard to organize a group to pass the leader.  Even that run that Tony (Stewart) got coming into three and through three and four, he got a pretty good push from the 29 (Kevin Harvick) and it didn’t materialize as much as I thought it would.  Seemed like it just stopped pretty quick.  I think that looking at some of the aero package, I like the way the cars drive and I like how we are able to mix it up and be three-wide and that has a little to do with the draginess and downforce of the car, but if there was something to allow a car to get a little more of a sling shot on the leader, that would be the only thing I would recommend.  Don’t know if I know enough how to make that happen, but that’s what I would shoot for.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
CAMPING WORLD RV SALES 301
NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JULY 12, 2013
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and discussed racing this weekend at New Hampshire, the addition of Kevin Harvick and Budweiser to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014 and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT BEING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS WEEKEND:
“I’m excited to be here this is a track that’s definitely been good to us for sure.  We used the third of our four tests that we are allotted to come up here a couple of weeks ago and see if we could get our cars a little better for here.  I’m looking forward to seeing how it pans out this weekend.”
 
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF KEVIN HARVICK AND BUDWEISER JOINING STEWART-HAAS RACING? CAN YOU GIVE US YOUR VERSION OF HOW IT ALL CAME DOWN:
“Oh I’m excited it’s something that obviously has been in the works for a while. I think Gene (Haas) is really excited about having him and I know I’m excited about having him as well.  The entire organization is excited about having him come on board.  It was a lot of work to get to that. It started two years ago, I guess, was the thought process of hiring another driver.  Just went through those steps obviously to get where we are today.  It’s not something that a decision was made overnight there were a lot of processes in between that made it a long journey, but we are here.”
 
WITH THIS ANNOUNCEMENT WITH NOW HAVING THREE DRIVERS FOR NEXT YEAR HOW DOES THIS IMPACT RYAN NEWMAN, HIS PROGRAM, ARE YOU GUYS READY TO EXPAND TO A FOURTH TEAM?
“No, we are not ready to expand to a fourth team.  Unfortunately, this will be the last year that we have Ryan (Newman) with us.  That’s probably what has made this a bittersweet day. I’m bringing in another one of my friends to the organization, but also knowing that I’m losing a friend at the end of the year to the organization.  The number one thing when Ryan and I spoke is that our friendship will not change.  This was a business decision that was Gene’s (Haas) as well as mine and it was a hard decision.  There is a personal side and there is a business side. For Ryan and I we had to put the personal bit of it aside to work through the business part.  I’ll do everything I can to help Ryan in any way I can moving forward to try to help him in his effort to find another team next year.  I’m behind him 100 percent.  I believe in him 100 percent.  I truly wish we were able to facilitate four teams at this time.  We are just not able to do that.  Down the road I’m sure if that becomes a possibility that he will most definitely will be on the list to fill the fourth seat again.”
 
DO YOU HAVE THE REST OF THE CAR FOR KEVIN HARVICK SOLD OR ARE YOU STILL LOOKING FOR SPONSORSHIP FOR HALF THE SEASON?
“We are still looking right now.  We have been in discussions with many companies right now and got a long way with multiple companies at this point.  We have a lot of confidence that will be taking care of very shortly.”
 
WHEN TEAM OWNERS ARE LOOKING FOR DRIVERS TO FILL SEATS A LOT OF TIMES THEY LOOK AT COMPETITORS THAT WILL PUSH OTHER COMPETITORS IS THAT ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS OTHER THAN YOUR FRIENDSHIP WITH HIM THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR HIM BECAUSE HE’S OF THE CALIBER OF DRIVER THAT HE WOULD PUSH YOU TO UP YOUR GAME AS WELL?
“Well and Ryan (Newman) did that too and that was exactly why we hired Ryan, but it is exactly that way with Kevin (Harvick) as well.  It’s somebody that because of our working relationship when I drove the Nationwide car I know how competitive he is.  I know how much he pushes the guys.  I know how he pushes myself as a driver and I know how we communicated and that’s a big factor is communication.  It is what you said as well as the communication factor and the fact that we know each other so well.”
 
KEVIN (HARVICK) TALKED ABOUT WHEN HE SIGNED THIS DEAL THERE WAS NO ASSURANCES THAT BUDWEISER WAS GOING TO GO ALONG WITH HIM CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOUR TEAM SORT OF MADE THAT HAPPEN AND ALSO DOES THIS MEAN THE END OF SCHLITZ IN TONY STEWART’S LIFE?
“Yeah, I’m finally upgrading to the good stuff.  Feel like the Jefferson’s now I’ve moved up.  Yeah, it’s the end of my Schlitz era.  I can’t say that it’s terribly disappointing.  Now I get to drink the good stuff everyday guilt free.
 
“Brett Frood is obviously as you guys know a big crucial part we run our business at Stewart-Haas and Brett is the one that pretty much knows all the answers to that question about how we worked with Budweiser to get to this point.  Brett was very much a driving force in working with them to see if they wanted to come over here.”
 
KEVIN (HARVICK) TALKED ABOUT ONE OF THE REASONS HE MADE THE MOVE IS TO REJUVENATE HIS CAREER TO KIND OF GET THINGS SPICED UP AGAIN.  YOU KIND OF DID THE SAME THING WHEN YOU WENT OVER TO STEWART-HAAS RACING AND MATT (KENSETH) SEEMED TO HAVE DONE THE SAME THING. DOES IT JUST COME A POINT IN A DRIVERS LIFE WHERE YOU KIND OF FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TO SHAKE THINGS UP?
“Yeah, I think with different drivers at different times.  That is why you see in this series you will see driver/crew chief combinations like Ray Evernham and Jeff (Gordon) when Ray went and made his move and did something different.  It does work that way there are times when you feel like that things get stagnant.  It doesn’t mean you don’t respect and don’t care about the people that you are working with, but sometimes you just need something new and something that brings that intensity back to 100 percent.  I think this will do that for Kevin.”
 
IS THE BUDWEISER DEAL JUST WITH KEVIN HARVICK’S CAR OR IS THERE ADDITIONAL BUSINESS TO BUSINESS WITH THAT?
“As far as I know it’s just with Kevin’s car so far as far as I’m aware.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHERE THE NO. 48 TEAM IS NOW?  PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS IS JIMMIE’S (JOHNSON) CHAMPIONSHIP TO LOSE, BUT AS WE SAW A FEW YEARS AGO EVERYBODY WAS SAYING THE SAME THING AND YOU CAME AND WON IT.  ARE THEY THAT FAR AHEAD WHERE NOBODY CAN CATCH THEM NOW? 
“I think history shows that you guys are smart enough to know this is a race to race scenario.  Everything can change in a week and can change in the matter of a month.  This is always been a technology based sport and they definitely have things going right, right now.  I don’t see it changing and taking a turn for the worst by any means.  They never have, the history shows that as well.  I don’t know that you can predict it at this point.  Jimmie’s championship the year that I won was one wreck at Charlotte in turn two changed his whole championship season.  I wouldn’t be putting anybody’s name on the trophy yet.  It’s way too early for that.  There are a lot of organizations that can get things going before the Chase and there are the same amount of organizations on top of that that can get something going during the Chase as we saw in 2011.   I think that is how you bench it.” 
  

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY TORONTO – 2 IN T.O.
STREETS OF TORONTO
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT                                    
JULY 12, 2013
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at the Streets of Toronto, and discussed racing at his hometown street course, the season to date and other topics. Full transcript:
 
DO YOU HAVE A ‘LOVE-HATE’ RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR HOME TRACK IN TORONTO?:  “Yeah, no I love coming home to Toronto and this race is something that I’ve been coming to since I was a toddler and a lot of my earliest memories of anything, never mind racing memories come from right here.  It’s a special place.  To get to come back here and now be on the other side of the fence and the guy on track putting on a show for the Canadian fans is something very special.  As you said, it’s a little bit of a love-hate relationship because I’ve never got particularly well here, which is unfortunate.  There’s always another year and here we are again so hopefully we can turn that around.”
 
HOW HAS YOUR SEASON BEEN TO DATE CLAIMING THE MOST WINS?:  “It certainly hasn’t gone the way that anyone would have predicted, to have three wins at this point, but then also five races or something outside the top-10.  We certainly haven’t been the model of consistency.  We’ve been fast and obviously the wins have been great and I wouldn’t trade those for anything because they are all so special and to get to win at this level is very difficult.  To have a team capable of doing what we’ve done this year is phenomenal so we just need to keep doing what we have been doing because some of the bad results haven’t necessarily been caused by things on our end.  Some of it is luck and some of it is getting caught up in other people’s things, it’s just part of the sport.  We just need to keep our head down and hopefully we can get the GoDaddy car back up front this weekend.”
 
HOW DO YOU COMPARE TORONTO TO TRACKS YOU HAVE HAD SUCCESS ON THIS SEASON?:  “It compares favorably because two of the wins have come on street circuits so that is certainly a strong starting point and with Ryan (Hunter-Reay) having won the race last year, we’re coming here with a good base and that’s going to be so important because with this doubleheader format we only get one practice session before we head into qualifying.  Qualifying here is monumentally important.  It’s a very tricky street circuit and I think it requires more setup compromise than anywhere else because of the fast corner, slow corners, the concrete patches and create all sorts of issues for us and then obviously the bumps.  That’s part of the challenge, that’s part of the charm of this place and hopefully we can take what we’ve learned at places like St. Pete and Brazil and Detroit and Long Beach and try to apply it here and hopefully it works.”
 
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE DUAL RACES AT DETROIT THAT COULD APPLY TO TORONTO?:  “Stay away from the tires and don’t hit spinning cars.  Those would probably be the first two lessons that I learned there.  The big problem with Detroit for us was that we had rain in qualifying for the first race and why that’s a problem is one of the big challenges about this format is the tire allocation that we’ve been given and how to use it.  Probably by design they’ve given us too few tires to use and it’s going to force us to be a little bit creative with our tire strategy throughout qualifying and the two races and because one of the sessions in Detroit was rained out for qualifying, we weren’t as pressured with tire allotment.  There’s going to be a lot of guys trying to figure out what to do.  We don’t have decade’s worth of experience on how this works and engineers hate that so I think you’re going to see a bunch of different tire strategies, which is going to be exciting and it’s going to be interesting to see at the end of Saturday and end of Sunday who nailed it and who came up with snake eyes.”
 
HAVE YOU EVER DONE A STANDING START AND WHAT ARE YOUR CONCERNS WITH THE START TOMORROW?:  “I’ve done lots.  I’ve probably done four seasons of open-wheel racing that were standing starts so I’m used to them, it’s been awhile.  I haven’t done them for a couple years now, but everybody is in that boat.  Some guys I don’t think have ever done them in Formula cars, which is a little scary to think.  The big concern is just that we haven’t had a ton of time to practice them.  We were going to do them at the start of the year and then we weren’t and then we were going to do them in Long Beach and then we weren’t and then we were going to do them in Detroit and then we weren’t.  The teams haven’t been quite as active or pro-active I should say on testing and practicing this.  We’ve never gone through the procedure or lining up and going through the lights as a series so there is a serious risk of somebody getting it wrong, which will look pretty silly.  Then of course the other issue doing a standing start on a street circuit is that if somebody does stall, there is nowhere to go.  That’s got big potential for issues.  That all adds to the excitement and that is why everybody should be here on Saturday to see what happens.  It’s either going to be really impressive seeing 25 IndyCars from a standing start rocket into turn one or it’s going to be pretty spectacular what goes wrong.”
 
ARE THERE ANY CONCERNS WITH MECHANICAL ISSUES FROM THE START?:  “No, the cars are certainly up to it.  The engines are up to it and all the components are there to do it.  It was always on the plans to do it, it’s just something that’s been delayed for various reasons.  Now we’re going to test it out for the first time at the start of a race.”
 
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF DUAL RACES ON YOU AND THE CREW?  HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR THEM?:  “It’s going to have a tremendous impact on everybody involved.  The drivers have all really amped up their physical training in the weeks leading up to these events because normally and especially in Toronto, this is a particularly physical street circuit and you’re pretty beat-up on Monday and you’re dehydrated.  A lot of us have blisters on our hands because of the bumps and you normally have at least a week for that to recover and in this case we have a couple hours.  Rehydrating is going to be a big part of it because it’s going to be pretty warm this weekend I think.  There is a very careful balance between being rehydrated and actually over-hydrated, which is almost just as big of a concern.  Some serious medical issues can come from that.  The drivers are being very proactive on this side of things.  A lot of us have physical trainers and ‘physios’ with us for any medical problems that might crop up.  Nutrition is obviously very important.  Making sure you’re staying on top of what you’re eating and how much you’re eating and for the crews, normally these guys have a week to tear a race car apart and re-prepare it and rebuild it for another race and now they have to do it overnight.  Its long nights and early mornings and long days.  It’s very draining on everybody involved, but at the end of the day it puts on a good show for the fans and the fans appreciate having two races then that’s what we’re going to do because they are the reason we’re here.”
 
IS THIS THE BEST YOU HAVE FELT OF YOUR CHANCE TO WIN TORONTO THIS YEAR?:  “It’s probably the worst I’ve felt because now the expectation is higher and I still
am expecting some sort of bad luck to come into play.  It is a bit of a double edge sword because certainly with the year that we’ve had statistically on paper it’s the best chance that we’ve had and it’s one of those things where you want to come here and do so well, but at the same time history just hasn’t been kind to us.  Every track you have good races and bad races.  It just seems like here I have way, way more of the latter and way too few of the former.  We’ll see.  You have to stay positive and we have to keep our heads up.  Ultimately, you have to treat it like any other race and we’ll go up there and do the same job we would if we were in St. Pete or if we were in Long Beach or if we were in Brazil or if we were at Barber or any other track and we’ll see how it all plays out.”
 
YOU’VE TALKED A LOT ABOUT IDOLIZING GREG MOORE AS YOU WERE GROWING UP.  WHAT WAS IT ABOUT HIM AS A DRIVER AND/OR AS A PERSON THAT REALLY DREW YOU TO HIM?
“I think it is both things.  It wasn’t one or the other it was the combination of the two I think that made Greg such a unique person.  His fight on track was obvious.  His passion for the sport was obvious.  I remember watching him win his first race and he came off turn four at Milwaukee and he was fist pumping the air four hundred feet before the finish.  I mean Michael Andretti was not that far behind, but he knew he was getting it.  I will never forget that.  I loved that about him, but outside of the car he was such a genuine human being.  There’s a lot of people that can drive a race car well.  There’s a lot of people that are in the spotlight for one reason or another.  More often than not they don’t come across as genuine humble people and Greg did.  As a young kid even I could see the difference between him and the other drivers off track more than anything else.  I think that is what really drew me to him.”
 
CRAIG HAMPSON REJOINED YOUR TEAM THIS YEAR WHAT’S YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CRAIG AND WHAT HAVE HIS CONTRIBUTIONS BEEN?
“Yeah, we have been going steady for about two years now.  It’s getting pretty serious.  No, Craig (Hampson, engineer) and I obviously worked together at Newman/Haas in 2011. As a rookie coming into the IndyCar series to get to work with somebody as accomplished as Craig and as experienced as Craig it was beyond anything I would have imagined.  Because there are very successful drivers that have never gotten the chance to work with somebody the caliber of Craig Hampson.  I learned so much from him and there is no doubt a lot of the success that we had in 2011 and winning Rookie-of-the-Year and my growth and maturation as a driver was largely influenced by him.  I sort of modeled how I went about my race weekends after the way Craig does his.  I tried to bring some of that influence to Andretti Autosport when I arrived last year.  When the opportunity came up to bring him back it just made too much sense to not do it and obviously it’s been a good match up to this point.  He brings a work ethic to the team on top of his wealth of experience that really just motivates everybody and certainly motivates me.  We have an understanding we speak the same language.  We are both realists.  He’s maybe a little bit more of a pessimist than I am, but that is okay we balance each other out.  At the end of the day we have a very common goal.  We both are willing to work very hard to achieve it.”
 
WE KNOW THAT YOU HAVE RETIRED YOUR KIMI RAIKKONEN IMPRESSION:
“Although (Dave) Despain always tries to get me to do it when I go on Wind Tunnel.”
 
HAVE YOU REPLACED IT YET HAVE YOU GOT A NEW SHTICK?
“No I haven’t had time to think of someone else yet, but I will come up with something at some point.”
 
WHAT ABOUT HAVING PAUL TRACY IN THE BOOTH FOR SPORTSNET THIS WEEKEND DOES THAT TERRIFY YOU?
“Not at all.  I think it’s going to be great.  I mean everybody loves Paul for his candidness.  That is what we need in the booth.  Nobody knows what is going on in a race more than that guy he’s done enough of them and won enough of them. He’s won here a couple of times.  I think more than anything the fans are going to get a kick out of it.  Hopefully he has got some nice things to say.”
 
YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER MEETING MARIO ANDRETTI HERE AND GETTING HIS AUTOGRAPH WAS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE MOMENTS.  CAN YOU COMMENT ON WHAT THE ANDRETTI NAME IN TORONTO MEANS?
“I mean it’s legendary.  It’s probably more recognized even in Toronto than Tracy or Villeneuve or Moore because of the success that Michael (Andretti) had here especially winning seven times.  When I used to come to this race my family and our friends we would do a pool.  We would rip up the spotters guide and put all the names into a hat.  Every year whoever pulled Michael Andretti we just gave them the money at the start of the race and seven times out of 10 they were right.  It was pretty simple.  The name has a tremendous amount of power and influence in this town and to be associated with that just makes our position that much stronger.  It’s really an honor to be associated with them.”
 
RECENTLY I’VE NOTICED IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA EFFORTS COMMENTING ON CANADIAN KARTS AND GRASSROOTS EVENTS.  CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE YOU MORE INVOLVED IN ANY FORMAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IN THE FUTURE?
“That is absolutely the plan.  I have pretty big goals on ways of trying to give back to the Canadian racing community especially the karting level.  We are so fortunate to do what we do and I know that I wouldn’t be here without the phenomenal karting community that Ontario had and Canada had when I was coming up.  I have seen it go through the years, everything is cyclical, and I’ve seen it go through really strong periods and some weaker periods as well.  I want to get to the point where I’ve got enough influence to try and bring back a strong championship.  That is my ultimate goal is to get a karting series started and give young karters a chance to get all the good drivers in Canada together in one place race against the best, make it worth their while and kind of give them a little bit of a taste of what it’s like as you move up through the ranks and pursue the career of a racing driver.”
 
WHAT IS THE KEY TO WINNING OR NOT LOSING HERE WITH THE LAYOUT OF THIS TRACK?
“As I said before this track is very much a set-up compromise.  I think the team and driver that nail that compromise the best are going to be successful.  We’ve got to make both kinds of tires last the black and red Firestones are going to be used during each race.  Maximizing both of those takes a set-up compromise and just the track in general the mix of high speed, low speed, concrete patches, asphalt patches, all these things require a compromise in the set-up as well.  You really have to be the guy that is averagely good around the entire place.  If you are really strong in one place and weak in another people are going to take advantage of that and it’s going to be tough to stay in front. It really is about averaging out the best.  The kind of trick in Toronto is you are never going to have a car that feels really good because in one corner or another you are going to be struggling.  It’s just trying to find one that is equally as average and mediocre around the whole lap.  It’s such a hard thing to accept as a driver and the engineers.  We are all such perfectionist we want to be great everywhere, but this track just doesn’t let you do it.  That is one of its quirks and one of the reasons why we like the challenge so much.”

CHEVROLET INDYCAR V6 DRIVERS READY FOR NEW CHALLENGES ON STREETS OF TORONTO
SERIES PREPARES FOR SECOND DOUBLEHEADER WEEKEND OF 2013
 
DETROIT (July 11, 2013) – After a stretch of IZOD IndyCar Series oval track races, the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 contingent is preparing to take to the 1.75-mile temporary street circuit in Toronto for rounds 12 and 13 of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule. The races in the largest city in Canada will play host to the second of three doubleheader weekends this season.  The long-running Toronto event will showcase a pair of 85-lap points paying races on Saturday and Sunday.
 
As the drivers and teams readjust their set-up’s and strategy from oval tracks to street circuits, they will face a new challenge – a standing start.  For the first time since 2008 at Long Beach, the IZOD IndyCar Series will implement a standing start for Saturday’s race one of the doubleheader weekend using a series of lights to signal the drivers the race is officially started.  The second race on Sunday of the Two in T.O. twin-bill will see the field take the green flag using the traditional rolling start.
 
“Team Chevy is looking forward to Toronto this weekend and the second of three IZOD IndyCar Series doubleheader weekends,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series.  “It is hard to believe the 2013 season is more than half over, but we are very pleased with the race results so far, including the not often mentioned strong reliability of the Chevrolet IndyCar Twin Turbo V6 engine.  In fact, Marco Andretti was able to lead 88 laps last weekend at Pocono while his engine passed the minimum change-out mileage threshold, as did Will Power’s engine on his way to a fourth place finish.  Our teams and technical partners continue to demonstrate the “Never Give Up” philosophy that is so integral to success and to Chevrolet’s principles.”
 
Defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay looks to back up his performance from last year and once again hoist the trophy in his Andretti Autosport teammate James Hinchcliffe’s home country of Canada. Hinchcliffe has already claimed two victories on street courses this season taking home wins at St. Petersburg and Sao Paulo and would like nothing more than to earn his fourth victory of the season in front of the hometown crowd.  Two other former Streets of Toronto Chevrolet IndyCar V6 powered driver’s Sebastien Bourdais and Will Power would also like to find their way back to victory lane in Toronto and record their first victories of the 2013 season. 
 
Race number one of the Honda Indy Toronto 2 in T.O. is set to start on Saturday, July 13, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. ET with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network. Race number two is slated to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network.  Each race will be 85 laps for a total of 299.5 miles.