Jimmie Johnson Wins the Pole at Phoenix with New Track Record
Chevrolet SS Drivers Capture Two of Top-Five and Six of Top-11 in Qualifying for Sunday’s AdvoCare 500
 
AVONDALE, ARIZ (November 8, 2013) Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and current point leader Jimmie Johnson was blistering fast in the heat of the desert sun at Phoenix International Raceway in setting a new track pole on the way to winning his third pole of the 2013 season.
 
With a lap of 25.858 seconds/139.222 mph, Johnson behind the wheel of the No. 48 Lowe’s/KOBALT Tools Chevrolet SS, scored the 32nd career pole for race 35 of the 36-race season.
 
“Track records are awesome,” said Johnson.  “I don’t qualify on the pole all that often, so I take great pride in them; especially track records. It’s very cool to do. It’s clearly a great time in the season with the Chase and all that. We have a great pit pick and track position to start the race with and now we just need to be able to make the right decisions during the race and maintain track position.”
 
Jeff Gordon put is No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet SS in the fifth starting position for the 312-lap/312-mile/500K race to give Team Chevy two of the top-five starters.
 
Other Chevrolet SS drivers in the top-10 are: Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS – 7th; Kurt Busch, No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet SS – 8th: Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet SS – 9th and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS – 11th.
 
Rounding out the top-five qualifiers were Denny Hamlin (Toyota), Joey Logano (Ford) and Kyle Busch (Toyota).
 
The race is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 10 at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN and MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER
ANOTHER NEW TRACK RECORD AND DOMINATING PERFORMANCE BY YOU AND YOUR TEAM SO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR RUN HERE AT PHOENIX:
“New track records are awesome.  I don’t qualify on pole all that often so I take great pride in them; especially track records.  It’s a very cool of a deal.  It’s clearly at a great time in the season with the Chase and all that. We have a great pit pick and track position to start the race with.  Now we just need to be able to maintain that and make the right decisions during the race to keep track position.”
 
DO YOU REALLY HAVE THE ABILITY TO TURN IT UP AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON?  DOES SUCH A THING REALLY EXIST?
“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything different, but we have been able to, at least the year’s we’ve won championships, have been able to do more than we have during the regular season.  It’s hard when you are inside of it, inside the car, inside the team to know what the difference is because we are doing the same stuff.  But when I look around and I see what other champions do to win in the competitors, the battle between the two or three guys whoever it is they always seem to find a way to find a little more. So somehow we are doing it, yes, I recognize that, but it’s not a concerted effort.  It’s not something that we are doing any differently.  It’s just I think what you have to do to win championships.  We are trying to rise up to the pace of the No. 20 and beat him.” 
 
DENNY HAMLIN JUST BASICALLY ADMITTED THAT AN OFF DAY FOR YOU WOULD BE A FIFTH PLACE FINISH.  DO YOU EVER REFLECT ON KIND OF THE STANDARD YOU HAVE SET AND WHAT THAT MAY DO TO YOUR COMPETITION EACH WEEKEND?
“Man, I had like five races of 28th in a row before the Chase started I guess everybody forgot about that huh? (laughs) It happens to everybody.  You have bad days, but I feel like the majority of the tracks we race on are good for us.  There are a few in the summer months that beat us up from time to time and we went through that earlier this year.  Then racing luck can get you from time to time too.  In Pocono we blew a right-front (tire) leading, Atlanta we got smashed on a restart and on and on.  If you are going to win a championship you have got to run in the top-five week in and week out. Fortunately we have been able to do so really for these eight races.  Last year we made it eight races there and didn’t finish out that way.  So we need to make sure we finish out these final two with strong finishes.”
 
WHILE LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR YOU WILL START THE NEXT TO LAST RACE WITH A SEVEN POINT LEAD YOU WILL START SUNDAY’S RACE 23 POSITIONS BETTER THAN YOU DID LAST YEAR.  WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN THIS RACE AND AT THIS TRACK?
“I’m not sure it means a ton.  Matt (Kenseth) if you look at the history of Matt, qualifying hasn’t been his best, but he is always there when the checkered falls.  That is what I have to expect out of he and his team once again.  I’m sure they will be there when the checkered falls on Sunday.  So we need to be buttoned up tomorrow, get our adjustments right, get the car right and then have a flawless race on Sunday.”
 
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE KEY FACTORS IN DETERMINING THE OUTCOME OF THE RACE?  GOING TO BE A LOT OF TWO TIRE STOPS? SOMEBODY MENTIONED CARL (EDWARDS) WENT THE WHOLE WAY ON LEFT-SIDES LAST TIME.  DO YOU THINK THAT WILL BE POSSIBLE?
“Yeah, I think tire strategy first of all and then a close second is really fuel at the end.  We have seen this turn into a fuel mileage race at the end of a few shows.  I think we won one and that is how we got closed the gap on Denny (Hamlin) one year as well.  I would say between those two parts.  You obviously need a good car and good (pit) stops and all that, but tire strategy and then fuel is going to be the key points.”
 
DID THE DRAW MAKE A DIFFERENCE TODAY?
“It didn’t hurt.  I will take it.  I was a little… probably like everybody else curious why things didn’t get faster sooner.  I don’t know TV almost had me believing there was a transition period that the track was going through, but I don’t have a clue.  But it didn’t hurt going out late for sure.”
 
HOW MUCH OF YOUR PRACTICE TODAY WAS TOWARDS QUALIFYING AND HOW MUCH TOWARDS THE RACE AND HOW CRITICAL WILL YOUR PRACTICE BE TOMORROW MORNING?
“Tomorrow morning, I guess I have to think it through about track temp and stuff, but I would assume the second practice is closer to what we are going to race on.  So the first practice we will make sure we are in the ballpark and things are going in the right direction.  But today we spent half, 60 percent on race trim and then switched over midway point and made a couple of qualifying runs.  Some tracks we go to we will start in qualifying trim and just focus on it solely, but here we felt like it would be nice to get some race trim in.  Have something to sleep on overnight to start tomorrow’s practice with.”
 
AS COMMITTED AND FOCUSES AS CHAD (KNAUS, CREW CHIEF) IS AND WHAT HE DOES HOW MUCH OF THAT HAS RUBBED OFF ON YOU AND EFFECTED THE WAY YOU APPROACH WHAT YOU DO?
“It definitely has.  He has shaped me and molded me into the teammate, the team leader, the driver that I am.  There are times when I do not want to hear what he has to say to me.  Sometimes it ends up being right.  In Homestead at our test there were a couple of examples of that which took place.  The good thing with Chad is his intensity is there all that is an obvious, but he doesn’t have a filter.  He is not fearful of getting something off his chest.  At times it can rub anyone in here the wrong way, it can rub the competitors the wrong way and it can rub me the wrong way, but at least it’s out there.  It’s nice working with a guy that isn’t afraid to get it off his chest.  Because then you have a chance to work on it and you have a chance to address it.  So from techniques and driving the car, what I do
during the week and my involvement with the shop, with the pit crew guys, over-the-wall guys or approach to the race track, even lines I drive on the track.  I know some crew chiefs get a kick out of listening to him because he will try to drive the car during the pit box during the race at times, but he only does it because he cares and that he is that focused on it all.  His intensity has shaped me into who I am today and very grateful to have that environment.  I think I thrive in that environment.  There are some drivers that want to crew chief from the seat. That is not our dynamic.  He has created an environment for me to thrive in and to learn.  So it’s worked out really well.  I guess I’m good at being told what to do (laughs).”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – POLE WINNER
“I just have to thank everybody on this Hendrick team. This KOBALT Tools Lowe’s Chevrolet has been very good off the truck and we were able to back it up and get it done in qualifying. I knew we had a fast car in practice and it’s tough to back it up. It’s a very tough field and a very tough industry and I’m proud of the effort across the board at Hendrick Motorsports to get it done today.”
 
YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE IMPORTANT TO HAVE GOOD TRACK POSITION BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T THINK THERE WOULD BE MUCH OF A SECOND GROOVE ON SUNDAY. CAN YOU TELL US WHY?
“Yeah, since the repave we just haven’t seen it. And it was kind of a single-file track in the past. But, the old asphalt allowed a second lane at times to kind of run on. But now, we haven’t really seen an outside lane anywhere. I hope it comes. I know they spent a lot of money on Turns 1 and 2 and the back straightaway to promote it. Hopefully we get up there some day and we can use that progressive banking.”
 
WHAT DOES THIS POLE DO FOR THE ENTIRE WEEKEND FOR YOU? ARE YOU BREATHING A SIGH OF RELIEF?
“For today, but it’s still a long race and a lot can happen.  Strategy plays a big part in what takes place on Sunday during the race here. We did ourselves a lot of favors today with getting the pole and that first pit stall. Track position to start the race with and a lot of things directional will be in our favor. We’ve still got to go out there and go to work and get the job done on Sunday. But it’s a great start to the weekend for the KOBALT Tools Chevrolet.”
 
YOU ARE ON THE POLE.  WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR THE REST OF THE WEEKEND AND ARE YOU BREATHING A SIGH OF RELIEF?
“For today, but it’s still a long race where a lot can happen and strategy plays a part in what takes place in Sunday’s race.   So we did ourselves a lot of favors here today by getting the pole, having that first pit stall, and track position to start the race with.  A lot of things will be in our favor, but we still have to go out there and get to work to get the job done on Sunday.  We are off to a good start for the weekend in the KOBALT Tools Chevrolet SS.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FIFTH
WAS QUALIFYING WHAT YOU EXPECTED?
“Probably even a little bit better. It is certainly a pick-up from practice which is great. Based on the angle of the sun going into turn one, it is so difficult. It is a guessing game down there. The car felt great in three and four, so I felt like the team made good adjustments, so I am pretty happy with that lap time because I wasn’t sure when I was out there if it was a good of a lap.”
 
DID THE TRACK HAVE A LITTLE MORE GRIP?
“One and two certainly does because it is all shaded, but like I said, you can’t see getting in there, so you have to be careful. My car felt pretty good in three and four also.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED NINTH
YOU HAD THE POLE FOR JUST A SECOND THERE TELL US ABOUT YOUR LAP.  IT IS AWFULLY HOT OUT THERE ON THE TRACK RIGHT NOW:
“Yeah, honestly felt really good about our Budweiser Chevrolet in race trim.  In qualifying trim we struggled a little bit, but they made some good changes and our car was substantially better than it was in practice and we were able to put up a good lap.”
 
DID REALLY WELL HERE A YEAR AGO, WON THIS RACE, TELL US WHAT WE MIGHT EXPECT ON SUNDAY WITH THIS TRACK STARTING TO WEATHER IN A LITTLE BIT?
“If you push the car at all too hard right now it slides the front tires.  So it will be interesting to see what the race track does tonight and tomorrow night and we will just have to wait and see what Sunday brings.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 11TH
AN EARLY DRAW, BUT HOW ABOUT YOUR LAP?
“I really don’t know.  I think the car drove alright, but I just know that draw is not very good.  That is going to cost us quite a bit.  The guys did a good job giving me a car that was comfortable for that kind of a draw.  I think we got a pretty decent lap considering, but I don’t know where that is going to end up.”
 
WHAT DID YOU FEEL IN PRACTICE TODAY?
“Well we ran some race trim and felt good about our car.  In qualifying trim we really couldn’t progress like we wanted. Guys were picking up as they were running and we weren’t.  So we were a little bit worried about our effort in qualifying so we will just see how it works out.”
 
I HEARD YOU SAY YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE ON THE FIRST QUALIFYING LAP, WHAT WAS IT?
“I was trying to roll the center real easy in (turns) three and four and didn’t anticipate the car turning as good as it did and I got down onto the apron coming into the throttle and just ruined the lap.  So, just tried to put together the best lap two I could.  I don’t know how good the draw is and I don’t know if that will be a top-15 or not and I know the guys are just going to get better from here on out and I don’t know how good that lap is to be honest with you.   Looking at what Matt (Kenseth) ran, I think it’s pretty good, but you never know so we will just have to see.”
 
HOW IS YOUR RACE CAR?
“I think we can race pretty well, and with how this tire works here – you don’t really need to change it – we can do some good strategy and get ourselves up front.”
 
DO YOU LOOK AT THIRD IN POINTS AS ATTAINABLE?
“I haven’t really looked at the numbers to know how far back we are. We are just trying to give it all we can each week, and see what we accomplish. We’ve already come a lot further than I thought we would after Chicago. I’m really proud of the team, and how they’ve hung in there, and they have done their best work in the last six weeks or so.”
 
WERE YOU TRYING TO LEARN SOMETHING FROM HOW JIMMIE DOES THINGS BY BACKING UP YOUR CORNERS IN PRACTICE?
“Well, we do that every week. We look at all the throttle input that every driver uses, and if we’re off a little bit, we might look at the fastest guy which tends to be Jimmie more times than not. My guys thought I might be over-driving the corner a little bit, so they wanted me to go out there and back up the corner a little bit like he was. I tried to do that, but we couldn’t make it work for us. The cars aren’t setup identically, the setups are really different. So you probably have to drive them a little different. We got a good lap there in qualifying so we will see how that works out.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Phoenix International Raceway and discussed the championship battle with Matt Kenseth, racing at Phoenix and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT PHOENIX AND HAVING TWO RACES TO GO?
“Eager to get on the track and see where we are, see how our car is handling and excited to be at the race track.  When you’re sitting there Monday through Thursday thinking about a race, thinking about how your setups going to be, those are the hardest days.  I’m excited to be here at the race track and get out there and turn some laps.”
 
WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR MIND LAST YEAR WHEN BRAD KESELOWSKI WAS MESSING WITH YOU IN PRACTICE?
“I don’t even remember that.  What did he do?  I don’t remember it, but Matt (Kenseth) and I in practice this year have been out there and really evaluating ourselves against one another to see what the other has.  It’s not uncommon.  I’m sure that’s what he’s doing and if you’re the guy that can overtake or I guess Brad (Keselowski) was trying to overtake me, there’s always a little message in that or a little smile from your team if you’re showing a little speed at that point.  I’m sure there was a little something in it, but it’s not uncommon.”
 
DO YOU ANTICIPATE MATT KENSETH TO MESS WITH YOU IN PRACTICE?
“We’ve been sizing each other up pretty good each week.  We roll out right near each other in practice each time.  Texas, I think I was catching him, he let me by and got up behind to take a look at my stuff and where I was.  I can’t remember the exact mindset last year what kind of led to it, but the end result I don’t think is all that uncommon just to size yourself up.”
 
ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT MATT KENSETH HAS BEATEN YOU AT TRACKS WHERE YOU ARE NORMALLY STRONGER COMING TO PHOENIX, ANOTHER TRACK WHERE YOU ARE HISTORICALLY STRONGER?
“I don’t know if the numbers mean much, especially in championship battles.  You look at Martinsville where the numbers skewed my way and Matt (Kenseth) came out with points.  Here, we’ve had some good success, but I can’t rely on that.  It’s all in the past.  They’re great stats, they’re a great reference, but the past is the past and it’s all about today and this weekend and I think especially when you look at the No. 20 car and there’s Matt in general and now that he’s in the No. 20 car, you can ‘t look at stats from the No. 17.  I think that there’s been quite a big improvement on a lot of race tracks for him.”
 
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DO THIS TIME IN THE CHASE THAN YOU DO THE REST OF THE SEASON?
“No, not really at all.  There are systems that are in place and there are systems that lead you to a playoff berth and get you in the Chase and then your systems keep you competitive in the Chase.  There’s been more pressure and I’m sure everybody is focused thinking about things a little bit more, it’s hard to say focused, but I’m sure there’s a little more thought in there and a little more emotion, but what we do is what we do and that’s what led us to where we are in the points and we’re not going to change anything there.”
 
DO YOU BELIEVE MATT KENSETH IS MORE MECHANICAL AND YOU ARE MORE PSYCHOLOGICAL?
“Yeah, I think Matt (Kenseth) with his upbringing and all the years he spent in stock cars, much more mechanically inclined on the race car and understanding the particulars of the chassis and the vehicle, vehicle dynamics and all that stuff.  My fifth year ever in a stock car was at the Cup level so I had two years of ASA, two years in Nationwide and then Cup so I was pretty far behind.  I remember being in Milwaukee with Howie Lettow as my crew chief just trying to understand what to do.  I didn’t know what wedge was so he literally took this little plastic table we had and cut one of the legs down and made it shorter and said, this doesn’t have any wedge in it and it’s tipping over.  Just had to go through all the basics and teach me the basics.  Matt is much stronger, back to your question, in that area.  I agree, I’m probably more on the psychological side.  Making sure that I’m buttoned up, trying to create a good energy through the team and keep the guys up and things like that.”
 
HOW DOES THE SEVEN POINT ADVANTAGE NOW COMPARE TO THAT OF LAST YEAR?
“I think as far as the No. 48, we’re in a very familiar spot, a very similar spot to last year.  I can’t remember which race off the top of my head, but competitive winning races, winning races to take the points lead, it’s very, very similar.  We got to this point in the year last year and had an issue at this race track and then made mistakes at Homestead.  That’s the area that we need to clean up and not repeat that aspect of history.  Make sure that we’re focused on doing a great job here and on into Homestead.”
 
HOW DO YOU EVALUATE THE GEN-6 CAR THIS YEAR AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE TWEAKED MOVING FORWARD?
“There’s a lot going on within the NASCAR offices and all the competition side and then what takes place in the garage area and the race shops.  In December there’s a big test session and we’ll know a lot more at that point as to the direction of the rules package and where it’s going.  Over the years I’ve learned to not stress about things.  There’s only so much I can contribute to in this decision making process.  When I’m asked questions by whatever NASCAR official it is, I’m more than willing to give my opinion and try to sound off and be a part of that process.  They’ve got to manage so many different angles and now we’re using a lot of data, some of its new data that they’re using to make these decisions.  I’m just sitting back patiently waiting where things go.  I always look at change as an opportunity and the No. 48 has taken advantage of those opportunities over the years.  I don’t care what package the car is, I’m very confident in my skills as a driver and what my team’s capable of, what Hendrick Motorsports is capable of and we’ll race whatever they decide to come up with.”
 
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES TO THE RACE ON SUNDAY?
“I think the largest issue is track position.  We haven’t been able to really work in a second lane around here and create passing opportunities.  That means your strategy on pit road and the stops themselves are where the weight really lies.  If you back up another step from that, making sure your car is good on older tires is going to be important as race practice develops and you’re not going to want to be on pit road much or very long when it shakes out on Sunday.”
 
CAN YOU COMPARE AND CONTRAST YOURSELF AND MATT KENSETH AS FAR AS PERSONALITIES AND ON THE RACE TRACK?  ALSO, IT SEEMS LIKE YOU GUYS HAVE STRUCK UP A PRETTY DECENT FRIENDSHIP CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THAT HAS HAPPENED?
“Yeah, I think there are differences between us for sure.  I feel like we are both big picture thinkers and inside the race car and understanding the flow of a race, the flow of the Chase, the flow of a year, there is just a broader vision.  Being patient in the car at different times, if it’s racing someone in traffic or if mistakes made to not let an issue there destroy your whole race, again more of a big picture thinker and how to work through issues and come out of the race with your best possible finish.  We look at Matt over the years.  I think the best example of it would be qualifying effort.  Qualifying hasn’t been Matt’s strongest suit, but regardless of where he starts when that checkered falls he is there.  There is just a differ
ent kind of mindset and I feel the No. 48 is very much in that same line of thought. We find a way to be there at the end of the race. Friendship, yeah we have known each other, gosh, a long time now, probably 15 years with Nationwide included.  Just been able to get along from the beginning, there were a few bumpy episodes in the Nationwide series where I was the slow guy in the way.  He used me up a couple of times and I like to harass him about that and point that out to him, but we have had a great time.  Really since his championship, when we got home my wife and I drove over to his house and had a beer with him and Katie (Kenseth, wife) and his team when he was in the No. 17 car.  I would say from that point forward we have always had a strong friendship.”
 
FOR LACK OF RUNNING FACILITIES WE HAVE SEEN YOU RUNNING AROUND CERTAIN TRACKS.  DO YOU RUN UP IN THE HILLS HERE ANYTIME?  DO YOU BRING ANYTHING FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RATTLE SNAKES?
“No, I don’t get on the dirt around here not unless I have motocross boots on. I spent too much time in these deserts and know what is sitting in the bushes.  I haven’t been on any trails.  I considered bringing my mountain bike out to ride, but I will probably just hit the pavement on foot and on the road bike a little later on Saturday.”
 
THE CARS HAVE CHANGED SO MUCH HERE PRESUMABLY SINCE THE FIRST RACE AND YOU GUYS YOU AND MATT HAVE BOTH DONE BETTER AT TRACKS MAYBE WHERE YOU HAVEN’T DONE AS WELL IN THE PAST.  IS THERE ANYWAY WE CAN PREDICT AT ALL GOING INTO THIS WEEKEND WHAT TO EXPECT OR IS IT ALL PRETTY MUCH A CRAPSHOOT AT THIS POINT?
“Yeah, I think it’s a crapshoot that is the way I prepared myself mentally.  I look at Martinsville at a track that statistically showed to favor the No. 48 and it didn’t point’s wise when the checkered fell.  I’m using that to help keep my guard up.  I think he ran eighth or something here in the spring which is a great finish and we were second.  They are going to be strong is the bottom line and we have to be prepared for that and do our best.”
 
BRAD KESELOWSKI WAS SUGGESTING LAST NIGHT IN HIS COMMENTS THAT HE FORCED YOU GUYS INTO THE BLOWN TIRE LAST YEAR.  DO YOU BUY THAT?  SECONDLY, HE TALKED ABOUT TO BEAT YOU GUYS RUN YOU HARD AND APPARENTLY THERE IS A LINE THAT YOU CAN’T CROSS CAN YOU RESPOND TO THAT?
“I guess we need to ask Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, who else have I raced for a championship, Carl Edwards a lot of those guys how we race.  We race hard.  That is not a weakness of ours by any stretch.  Last year here they were better than us for sure.  We worked real hard to play catch up through the course of the weekend.  Sure we had a tire failure and yes we overworked the tire.  We created an issue ourselves.  We were lacking some speed.  The No. 2 had us covered the entire time here and that particular run where the tire blew I look back on it and think ‘man if I would have preserved my tire a little bit more and didn’t overwork my equipment and didn’t speed up that tire blowing and create that issue we would go to Homestead with a much smaller deficit and have a much better chance of racing.’ So that is the lesson I take from last year’s race here.  Again, we love to race hard that is what we are here to do.  I know some want to say we have been to Homestead and didn’t have to race for it, but you look at our last championship with Denny (Hamlin) and we had to come from behind and win down there finished second and won the race.  Racing is what I’m good at.  I’m not the best at putting up the fastest lap, the best at qualifying or the best at topping the speed charts in practice, but look who passes cars on the race track.  I’m good at racing that is my sweet spot.”
 
YOU GUYS AND JOE GIBBS RACING BOTH TESTED AT TEXAS AND HOMESTEAD.  NEITHER ONE OF THE TEAMS PARTICIPATED IN THE TIRE TEST HERE.  DOES THAT MAKE THIS RACE MORE OF AN UNKNOWN FOR YOU? SECONDLY, IF YOU APPROACH ALL THE RACES GENERALLY WITH THE SAME MINDSET HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THE FACT THAT YOU WIN TWICE AS FREQUENTLY IN THE CHASE AS IN NON-CHASE RACES?
“I don’t know how to answer that one.  I’ll be interested to see the Chase tracks what my percentages in the spring, we got to a lot of these tracks they have been good tracks to me.  I guess what I’m getting at is the Chase tracks are just good tracks for us and we win at them spring or fall.  In my opinion, the stats may show differently, but that is the first thing that comes to mind there.  Gosh we would have loved to have been here and get some current data and be on the current tire, but when it gets to the end of the year NASCAR and Goodyear are very selective of teams they bring.  From what I understand in the conversations we have had with Goodyear not a ton different.  A small change I guess to the left-side.  Wish we could have been here, but just didn’t get that chance.”
 
IS IT A LOT HARDER THAN PEOPLE MIGHT REALIZE TO USE YOUR VOICE AND MAKE CHANGES AS A CHAMPION?
“There is definitely a learning lesson in it all.  I’ve been through it myself.  I guess to summarize it looking back on it all being the champion is an amazing thing and it does change a lot.  But it doesn’t change the way you are viewed in the competition department of NASCAR.  You are still a driver.  You are still one of 43.  Sure you have the big trophy, but it doesn’t change a lot there.  What it does change is in here (media center) and what happens out there with the fans and people listen more.  So you have an opportunity to speak your mind.  You have an opportunity to say more and to be heard and your voice carries a lot further that can be good and bad.  All champions, especially first time champions go through trying to understand how to use that new power.  It doesn’t change a lot in the garage.  It doesn’t change a lot in the competition department of NASCAR, but the other areas it does.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Phoenix International Raceway and discussed racing at Phoenix, the Chase Championship battle, his RCR career winding down and other topics. Full transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR FOUNDATION DONATION TO THE HIGH SCHOOL YOUR HOMETOWN OF BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA:  “We had our yearly event at home. In the past, we have taken care of something at my old high school. This year we donated 21 sets of gold clubs and golf balls and things to the girls and boys teams. It was a good event. We’ve done a lot of work with the school. It was great to see it headed in the right direction. It is always fun to go home and be able to give back to your hometown.”
 
DEFENDING WINNER OF THIS RACE, THIRD IN POINTS GOING INTO THE SEASON, TALK ABOUT THIS WEEKEND AT PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY: “This has been a great race track for us in the past, and hopefully we can have another good weekend. The race track has changed over the last couple of years, so we have to do things a little bit differently than what we are used to. It is going to be a good weekend. We have the Nationwide car and the Cup car this weekend, so looking forward to getting in practice.”
 
IS WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO GO RACE AND NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHAT ANYONE ELSE IS DOING? “It is definitely less stressful. We wish we were closer to being in the top-two. We had one bad race at Loudon (New Hampshire).  I think we’ve averaged (finishing position) at seventh in the Chase as far as finishing positions. We haven’t been where we needed to be as far as keeping up with those two guys (Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth) as far as winning races and finishing a little bit better. Can’t complain about the season nor the finishes that we’ve had in the Chase. We knew we needed to win at least one race in the Chase, and we accomplished that. It just happens to be a year where you needed to win a couple or three races in Chases and finish in the top-five a lot. It’s not been anything to complain about. We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing, and try to win one of these or both of the last two races.”
 
AS YOUR CAREER AT RCR COMES TO AN END, AND YOU PREPARE FOR YOUR NEW TEAM, HOW ARE YOU FEELING? ARE YOU HAPPY? SAD? RELIEVED? EXCITED? “You know, Richard (Childress) and I were talking about it last week, just about the things that we’ve been able to accomplish and do, and win, and situations that we have been through. We had the incident at Martinsville, but it’s definitely not the hardest situation that we’ve been through as owner and driver, or friends, or whatever you want to call it. It is definitely something that we both have been fortunate to have a lot of success, and look forward to the next chapter. As we get to today for instance, this will be the last Nationwide race that we’ve run for RCR. We’ve won 30-some Nationwide races, a couple of driver’s championships. I think four or five owners championships. So it’s been very successful. It’s kind of like being a part of your family. You have some spats. You have some things. It seems like each instance makes you closer in some kind of way.”
 
WHEN YOU WON HERE LAST YEAR, IT WAS THE WEEKEND EVERYTHING BROKE YOU WERE LEAVING RCR. HAS THAT SET A TONE THAT HAS HELPED OUT THROUGH THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS DESPITE SOME DRAMA OR WHO IS MAD AT WHO? “Well, I think last year everything did come out. I think a lot of the emotion was pretty calm for the most part. I think as we’ve got through the year, the performance has been good. We’ve been able to win several races as we’ve gone through the year. I don’t know that anybody really knew what to expect as we went through time, and went through week-after-week to see how it was all going to work. It’s kind of been a week-by-week thing. I think everybody has worked through it fairly well.”
 
IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP REALLY A TWO-MAN RACE, OR DO YOU STILL HAVE A REALISTIC SHOT AT THIS? “I think 40 points is a lot to overcome. We can control how we run, and that’s about it. Having both of those guys have major catastrophes in two races is asking for all but a miracle in my mind. We still have a lot to race for and two great tracks for us coming up. Just control the things we can control and go from there.”
 
WILL IT BE DIFFERENT FOR YOU NOT TO HAVE THE SAME KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WHICH HAS HAD UPS AND DOWNS LIKE IT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN WITH RICHARD NEXT YEAR AT STEWART-HAAS? “Time will tell that. I think it is good to have somebody who challenges you. I think that Tony (Stewart) will challenge me in a different way. I think for myself and Richard, you push him; he pushes you and you meet in the middle and you finally have something that pushes the whole company forward. I think the roles will be defined a little bit more as we start racing next year, and understand how everything works and can start building on that.  I think with Tony’s passion for the sport and the championships that he’s won and the things that he has done on the race track; that itself will push you to respect the things that he has done and talking about. Same thing with Kurt (Busch). He’s won a championship, and won a lot of races. I think with the whole group, it’s going to be a really new group of people from a lot of different areas as you look at the cast of characters going into next year. It will definitely take a while for it to kind of build into what it is going to be.”
 
ARE YOU INTRIGUED BY HOW THAT ALL MIGHT COME TOGETHER SINCE THIS JUST SEEMS LIKE A MOTLEY CREW (LAUGHTER)
“Well, I think the bottom line is it’s a group of racers. And that’s really what we’re here to do and I feel very comfortable with the crew chief choice for my car for sure. With Rodney (Childers), he’s very calm but he’s also very engineering-minded and very competitive and loves to race. So, I think that balance will be very similar. When you look at Gil (Martin), he’s kind of been that guy that can always corral everything and take it in-house and figure out how to fix and make it better. So, I look at Rodney as a very similar person in that respect.”
 
HOW POISED IS YOUR TEAM? WHAT’S THE MOMENTUM AND THE FEELING? WHAT’S THE FEELING WITH THE TEAM RIGHT NOW HEADING INTO THE FINAL TWO RACES?
“Through the years we’ve been through a lot of different situations, for sure. So, I think the nucleus of all that is still Gil (Martin). This is a whole different group of guys than what we had three years ago and he’s made it into another great race team. So, I think he’s the one that keeps all that stuff together. But everybody is in good spirits. The testing that we did over the last two months has kind of worn everybody out, but everybody in the garage is worn out at this point. So, it’s good that we only have two weeks left and everybody can enjoy some down time with their families over the holiday season.”
 
YOU WILL FIGHT TO THE VERY END FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP. BUT IF YOU TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THE EQUATION, DO YOU THINK EITHER JIMMIE JOHNSON OR MATT KENSETH HAS AN ADVANTAGE? WHO WOULD YOU PUT YOUR MONEY ON?
“If you look at the past, and I’ll use Martinsville as the example. Going into Martinsville, you look at it and say Jimmie is absolutely going to annihilate Matt at Martinsville, and Matt goes out and leads the most laps and has a chance to win the race. So, it’s just about who hits it the best on a particular weekend because those guys have run well all year and I think the part that everybody forgets are that the stats don’t really mean anything, especially on Matt’s side, and especially at Martinsville. Roush has never been very good at Martinsville and Gibbs has always been fairly good at Martinsville. So, it’s a crapshoot at this point. About the time t
hat you think that Jimmie hasn’t won a race on a 1.5-mile race track all year and goes out and just absolutely crushes everybody at Texas. So, it’s just a matter of who hits it on a particular weekend. Obviously this race track can play a lot of havoc on track position and things happening and get caught up in something, but I think performance-wise, it’s a draw at this point.”
 

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS/SALUTE TO VETERANS DAY CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Phoenix International Raceway and discussed memories at Phoenix, the 2014 season and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
WHAT IS YOUR FONDEST MEMORY OF RACING AT PHOENIX?
“I’ve been fortunate to be able to experience it and the old style or old shape of the race track and the way it is now.  Some of my fondest memories include the Copper World Classics out here and the midgets and Silver Crown cars.  That was our Daytona was to come out here the first of February and race and prepare in the off-season for our big race.  That was literally our Daytona 500 in the open wheel series.  Then to come back here 10 or 15 years later, whatever it was, to race in the Cup Series and have as many poles as I did here in a row and my win here would probably be the peak of it all because going back to the Copper World and having those poles, obviously you want to put the bookend on one side of it or at least a potential bookend and that was that victory in the Cup Series here.  And to do it in the style that we did it was pretty cool too.”
 
CAN YOU REFLECT YOUR STATE OF MIND LEAVING STEWART-HAAS RACING AND HEADING TO RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING NEXT SEASON?
“About four or five weeks ago somebody had asked me a similar question and to me, it was like a series of books where you’re not finished with one book so you can’t start the next and in that series of books you have to get the last couple chapters over and done in order to get started and understand the next one.  There’s part of me that’s excited about the future, no doubt and getting to that next book, but there’s part of me that wants to finish out these last couple chapters and do it strong and do it in the right way and we have two opportunities here being Phoenix and Homestead.  Those are tracks I’ve run good at.  I can’t even say that it’s bittersweet because I don’t look at it as bittersweet as it is just a matter of doing my job and having fun.  That’s what the whole goal is.”
 
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT JEFF BURTON, MARK MARTIN AND BOBBY LABONTE POSSIBLY RETIRING AFTER THIS SEASON?
“I think with Mark (Martin), I don’t know how to say that because Mark’s retired like 16 times now.  I guess if you look back at it, it was destined to come.  If you look back to when Jimmie (Johnson) and I came in, eventually we’re going to have that time too.  Same thing with maybe (Matt) Kenseth and (Tony) Stewart and a few other guys.  I think there’s going to be some waves of that happening and I think that those guys are definitely proud of their careers and the things that they’ve accomplished.  Someday I’ll probably be making that same announcement.  I think at this point in the season is where it all becomes kind of vocal.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
 
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CAT MINING CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media today at Phoenix International Raceway and discussed making his 1,000th career NASCAR national series start, his role in the sport in 2014 and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
A BIG MILESTONE FOR YOU THIS WEEKEND YOU HAVE HAD A STOUT CAREER IN NASCAR MAKING YOUR 1,000TH CAREER NASCAR NATIONAL SERIES START HERE AT PHOENIX.  TALK A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR CAREER AND WHAT THIS MILESTONE MEANS TO YOU:
“Well it means I’m getting old I guess, that is primarily what it means.  I’ve been really blessed to do it for as long as I’ve done it to do something that you love and to be able to do it as long as I’ve done it really is a blessing.  When I was seven years old I wanted to be a race car driver.  I’m 46 and I’m a race car driver.  I’ve just been really blessed.  The cool thing is I’ve met so many people and experienced so many things that I never would have been able to do.  To have a chance to compete for a living is really is a cool thing.  You know what your job is and go out and try to do it.  Competing to me means something.  To be able to do it this long has been really cool.”
 
IN SHORT TERM OR LONG TERM FUTURE IS THERE AN OPTION TO SET UP YOUR OWN SPRINT CUP TEAM?
“Do I look dumb?  (Laughter) You know there was a time that I really thought that would be an option for me, but in the environment that we have today I don’t know how a small guy could have a Cup team that would be a formidable force.  My pockets aren’t deep enough and wouldn’t have the financial; actually Jack Roush talked to me about the money tree one time.  If he had to he could turn the money tree on and create money for the investment until the investment had time to pay off.  If you can’t do that as a car owner I don’t think you can be an effective car owner.  So for me in today’s world there may be room for me as an ownership group, but to be the primary owner would be farfetched.”
 
OF YOUR 999 RACES WHICH ONE STICKS IN YOUR MIND THE MOST?
“I have done a terrible job in my career of taking time to enjoy it.  My personality is such that I’m always on to the next thing.  In many cases kind of looking back on now they are a little more special now than they were then.  Racing Matt Kenseth for those couple of wins that I got with him meant a lot to me because I respect Matt so much.  I respect what that No. 17 car was all about.  They meant a lot to me.  Winning my first races in Nationwide and Cup were big races.  Racing Kyle Busch at (Las) Vegas in a Nationwide car last lap battle.  I got by him on the outside, he spun coming off turn four.  That was fun.  It was just two guys racing hard.  If I would have finished second or spun it still would have been fun.  Those experiences are really neat.  Winning Darlington in adverse conditions, rain delays, those kinds of things, we went to Darlington and dominated those races for years and couldn’t find a way to win and then we won two of them in rain shortened races.  Winning the Winston ‘No Bull’ races I think we won three of those.  When we won three of those races three fans won a million bucks too.  Being in Victory Lane with those fans winning that money that was cool.  I hate to pick one out, but those were really cool events.”
 
WE ARE AT THE END OF THE YEAR WITH THE GEN-6 CAR.  WE ARE LOOKING AT MAKING SOME CHANGES FOR NEXT SEASON.  WHAT IS YOUR EVALUATION OF HOW THE CAR HAS CHANGED RACING OVER LAST YEAR AND HOW IT HAS PERFORMED AND ALSO WHAT WE NEED TO TWEAK?
“I think it’s an improvement over last year’s car.  I think that is evident in watching races I think it’s proven to be better.  I still think there is a step to go.  I’m guilty of comparing what we do today to what we did 15 years ago, but I think that’s irrelevant.  What we really need to be looking at is what do people want to see today?  So, sometimes we defend the racing today by saying ‘well it’s better than it was 10 years ago’, but that doesn’t matter because today’s fans are today’s fans.  There may be a fan that was there 10 years ago, but what they are watching today is what they care about.  So, fans want to see more action.  They want to see more intense racing.  The only way to do that is to get the cars closer together.  We talk a lot about making it easier to pass.  Well if you make it easier to pass are the cars really going to be closer together?  Do we really want it to be easier to pass?  I think the reason Martinsville is so much fun to watch and do is because it is hard to pass.  The definition of what better racing is that is where the problem comes in.  You are not going to make everybody happy.  I think what NASCAR has to do is they have to look and say ‘what is NASCAR all about’?  Then make the rules so that the racing is indicative of what NASCAR is about.  That should be close racing; not intentionally wrecking each other, but tire marks down the side of cars is cool.  That kind of close racing is what we need to be pushing for, but it is hard to do.  A 1.5-mile race track running 190 miles per hour into turn one it’s kind of hard to be rubbing tires.  We have got to find a way to have cars that can be closer together, can race harder to put on more exciting racing.”
 
IF YOU LOOK AT OTHER SPORTS AGE DICTATES HOW LONG YOUR CAREER IS.  AUTO RACING IS SO DIFFERENT FROM THAT IN THAT YOU GUYS HAVE A SAY ON WHEN YOU WANT TO CALL IT QUITS.  WHEN DOES A RACE CAR DRIVER KNOW WHEN IT’S TIME TO GO?
“Well that is a really tough question.  One thing I do know is when you aren’t having success and you are 46, it’s because you are 46.  That is what people think.  When you aren’t having success and you are a rookie it’s because you are a rookie also, it works both ways.  To me it’s about what you are willing to give up to be in this sport.  I think what happens is the older you get the more other things matter.  Racing still means a lot to me, but for me to sit here today and say it means the same thing to me that it meant when I didn’t have a daughter getting ready to go to college, a son that is racing, those things they do play a role.  I think that the schedule is harder today than it’s ever been.  I know guys used to race more in the ‘50’s, but I’ve been in Toronto (Canada) all week filming.  You are gone more today.  I think it boils down to desire.  If you have talent, I don’t think talent goes away.  Certainly eye sight changes, those kinds of things change, but we can fix that.  But talent doesn’t change; it’s more the passion that you are willing to bring to it.  As long as you are willing to bring that passion and you are willing to give something up then your career can go a long time.  It’s not a number; it’s more of a personal thing and what you are willing to sacrifice to be involved in the sport.”
 
YOU LOOK AT MATT CRAFTON HE IS 37, YOU LOOK AT TWO GUYS IN THEIR 40’S BATTLING FOR THE CUP TITLE, SAM (HORNISH, JR.) IS NO SPRING CHICKEN.  WE TALK ABOUT ALL THESE KIDS COMING UP, BUT DOES THIS YEAR TELL US MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE CAN STILL DO THIS?
“Well there is no question.  I mean we are blessed because we are in a sport that you can.  It isn’t like the NFL; it isn’t like Major League Baseball, where you don’t have to be young to do this.  Experience helps you here.  There is no question.  It’s good to see who is battling.  Don’t get me wrong I believe in the cycle of things.  I believe that we
always need to have young drivers coming and pushing the older drivers out.  I mean I’m a 46 year old driver saying that, but we need it.  Our sport needs that, but at the same time it’s good that we have two veteran drivers battling it out, because it is a sport that if you have passion and you have desire and you have the right situation you can have success well into your 40’s.”
 
IN YOUR BUSCH DEBUT BACK IN 1988 YOU MADE TWO LAPS IN THE GOLDEN SKILLET CAR BEFORE THE ENGINE BLEW.  DO YOU REMEMBER THAT DAY?
“Vividly, that was the second engine we blew up that day.  I had gone to the bank and borrowed money; we wonder why the banks are in trouble right.  I had gone to the bank to borrow money to buy and engine and it blew up after qualifying.  Hubert Hensley, Jeff Hensley’s dad who is a crew chief on a truck, said ‘hey man, I’ve got an engine if you need it.’  We went to his shop that night and we had a Pontiac engine in and had to put a Chevy engine in.  Which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was a big deal.  We ran that engine for those laps and it blew up.  So, yes, I remember it vividly.  It took me about three years to pay that damn engine off.  No, it didn’t it took me longer than that.  It took me like five years to pay that engine off.”
 
OF THE TWO CHAMPIONSHIP LEADERS MY GUESS IS YOU KNOW MATT (KENSETH) A LITTLE BIT BETTER THAN JIMMIE (JOHNSON) PROBABLY CAN YOU COMPARE AND CONTRAST THEM BOTH AS RACERS AND AS PEOPLE?
“You know they are very similar in how they race.  They are both quietly aggressive.  They are both aggressive drivers, but they don’t do it by running into you.  They do it by driving into the corner a little deeper than perhaps they should to get that position.  They are both clean drivers, both very committed to the sport.  They are a lot alike.  I don’t know Jimmie nearly as well off the race track.  Matt is a smart ass.  We all know that right?  He knows that too.  He claims that he learned it from me, but I don’t think that is true.  They are both good people.  They both have values that you can be proud of. They are the kind of people that when they win championships you are proud that they represent the sport.  But you know their driving styles they really are very similar.”
 
WHEN YOU ARE A YOUNG DRIVER YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN ASKED ‘WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING IF YOU WEREN’T DRIVING’.  LOOKING OVER YOUR LONG CAREER WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN DOING IF YOU WEREN’T DRIVING RACE CARS?
“I left high school and went to work for Jay Hedgecock building race cars, building chassis.  Actually me and Bobby Labonte and Jack Sprague all worked there at the same time.  So, I really enjoy that part even my time at Roush, Jack (Roush) let me kind of oversee the chassis department there for a while or be involved in it rather.  So I really enjoyed that part of it.  Had I not been able to make it as a driver that would have been the direction that I would have tried to go in; whether I would have been good at it or not I don’t know, but that is what I would have been trying to do.”
 
HOW DO YOU THINK KEVIN (HARVICK) WILL HANDLE NOT HAVING THAT TYPE OF FORCE OR PUSH FROM RICHARD CHILDRESS AND HOW THEY HAVE GOTTEN?  IT SEEMS LIKE THEY IN ONE SENSE MAYBE THRIVED ON HOW THEY HAVE PUSHED EACH OTHER AND WHAT IT HAS KIND OF BEEN LIKE.
“I think Kevin (Harvick) is going to wherever Kevin is he is going to be pushing.  That is one of Kevin’s strengths is to… Kevin is not the kind of guy that is willing to say ‘okay it is going to be good three weeks from now’.  He wants it good right now.  I think that RCR has benefitted from that.  I think that Stewart-Haas will benefit from that.  Kevin to me is a different person than he was four years ago.  Kevin owning those race teams, Keelan coming along, all those things have had a major impact on Kevin.  Kevin really sees the company.  He understands it has to be successful from a financial stand point.  He understands investment is not easy to make.  He has a much broader picture than he had say six years ago.  I think that he will help Stewart-Haas.  Richard (Childress) to his credit, much like my father did with me, Richard didn’t try to stifle Kevin.  Richard let Kevin be Kevin.  He would get mad at him, but he wasn’t the kind of guy that just would say ‘you are not going to do that’.  He would let Kevin be Kevin.  There was a lot of wisdom in that.  You have got to learn your way.  You can’t learn by somebody telling you not to do something.  You have got to learn by doing it and wishing you hadn’t of done it or at least that is how I have learned everything I’ve learned.  That is really what Richard, in my opinion, let Kevin do.  But Kevin is really good at pushing buttons to try to get things to happen.  You have to do that in this sport.  You have to do it.  If you don’t have that intensity of ‘we have got to succeed now’ then the future never gets here because if you are always building for something you are not doing it now.  The now matters.”
 
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF BEING IN FIVE YEARS?
“I don’t know.  I don’t know we will see. When this process started this year I decided to step back a little bit and take myself out of the mental habit of being at the race track every single weekend and look at things from a broader view.  Kind of ‘hey what else is out there’ in the racing world so to speak.  The last several months have been really interesting.  I have been offered some things that were just crazy that I can’t talk about today, but there were some really interesting things that have come my way.  I’m having meetings with people currently about doing stuff with them that are real exciting, but I don’t know.  We will see. I will be involved in the sport. There is a place for me.  I want to be here.  I feel like I can contribute so I would be surprised if five years from now I wasn’t still involved in the sport.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HARRISON (BURTON)? HAS HE TALKED TO YOU ABOUT WHAT HE WANTS TO DO IN THE FUTURE AS FAR AS NATIONWIDE AND EVEN A CUP DRIVER IN THE FUTURE?  IS THAT SOMETHING THAT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WANT HIM TO TAKE A PATH WITH?
“Well, what I try to do with Harrison is to teach him everything I know about racing, but we don’t go racing trying to teach him how to be a Cup driver or how to be a Nationwide driver.  We go racing trying to teach him how to do what he is doing today the best he can and then when it’s over what did we learn.  Where that takes him we don’t know.  He is doing things at 12 and 13 years old that are pretty much unmatched. I mean no one else has been able to do the things he has done at his age.  I’m not bragging that is just how it is.  But what is more important to me is that through all this he is learning how to be a human being because driving a race car isn’t a given.  Just because he’s the son of a Cup driver that doesn’t give him the right any more than it gives anyone else a right to drive a race car for a living.  He has got to earn that.  He may not, as good as he looks today, he may not look that good five years from now.  You never know.  But he is always going to be with himself and so through racing we are trying to teach him how to be the kind of person that he needs to be.  That is really the primary focus.  Now don’t get me wrong we go to race we go there to win or we go there with a realistic goal.  When he races against Bubba Pollard and he races against some of those guys to think that a just turned 13 year old is going to beat those guys right now is sort of unrealistic, although he is getting close.  But what did h
e learn from that experience?  That is really what we are focusing on.  We are not worrying about what he might be one day because we don’t know that.  We are trying to train him so that mentally he is capable.  His physical skills will take care of themselves, but his mental skills are the most important thing.  As far as he’s concerned he is going to win three or four Daytona 500’s and four or five championships and all is good.  But I know that probably isn’t going to happen and that is what as parents that is what our focus is on.”
 
YOU HAVEN’T ANNOUNCED YOUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR YET, MARK MARTIN HASN’T ANNOUNCED ANY PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR NOR HAS BOBBY LABONTE.  AFTER NEXT WEEK’S RACE ARE WE LOOKING AT THE POSSIBLE END OF AN ERA?
“We are going to go film a movie about three old guys in (Las) Vegas (laughs).  That just dawned on me.  I’m thinking that might work.  Mark would be boring as hell though.  He would be in the gym every morning.  I find it hard to believe that we won’t still be around in some form or fashion.  Now the chances that any of us are going to be running for a Cup championship next year are obviously next to nothing.  But Mark Martin has a tremendous amount of value of being able to have a positive impact on this sport in some form or fashion so does Bobby Labonte and I feel that about myself as well.  Yeah, I think it is going to be different and that is okay.  I’m speaking for Mark or Bobby either one, but for me when I came in a spot was created for me somehow some way a spot was created for me.  Part of that is through older guys moving on.  It’s just the natural cycle of things.  But to think that Mark Martin and Bobby Labonte don’t have a way to contribute to make this sport better whether it is for a team of for the sport in some form or fashion to think that they wouldn’t is inaccurate because they can definitely help.”
 
A FEW WEEKS AGO YOU SAID THAT YOU WERE PRETTY CONFIDENT IN YOUR 2014 PLANS.  SHOULD WE TAKE THE SILENCE TO MEAN THAT THINGS HAVE CHANGED?
“No, really nothing has changed.  I feel that I know what I am going to be doing it’s just you all don’t (laughs).  Some things have taken a little longer than I thought they would take and some of that is because of me.  Some of that is because I slowed some stuff down and wanted to really think about it. Some of it is because some situations have popped up that weren’t there a little bit ago.  I feel very confident.  I know exactly what I’m going to be doing part of next year and there is another part of it that I’m still working on, but really close on.  I’m just not the kind of person that is going to talk about it until we need to be talking about it.”
 
IS PART OF THAT PLAN DRIVING?
“Yeah, part of it is, yes.”
 

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS, AND JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS, WERE THE GUESTS ON THIS WEEK’S NASCAR WEEKLY TELECONFERENCE.
 
BELOW ARE THE TRANSCRIPTS:
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We are joined by Jeff Gordon.  Gordon is currently sixth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings and has one win and a top‑five finish.
            Jeff, going into the final races, what is your approach to finish off your season strong like you did last year with a win at Homestead.
            JEFF GORDON:  That’s certainly one of our goals.  We tested in Homestead last week.  Had a fantastic test.  I’m very excited about that race.
            Certainly disappointing to have the race we just had in Texas.  So doesn’t change really our approach, how we go through these next two weeks.  Just takes us back, you know, in points.  Certainly kind of takes that momentum away that we had.
            But the confidence is still high.  The car was fantastic again this past weekend, felt like we were going to have a great weekend.  We take that confidence in the cars that we’ve been bringing to the racetrack into Phoenix this weekend, on to Homestead.  Finish out the season the best we can and hopefully move up in points again.
            THE MODERATOR:  We will now go to the media for questions.
 
            Q.  Jeff, could you talk a little bit about the overall importance of physical fitness to what you do as a racecar driver and just talk a little bit about what you do to stay in shape.
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, physical fitness is definitely important.  Getting more and more important all the time as the speeds of the cars increase.  The demands on the driver, the competition in general, just getting tighter.  I think being fit is going to help you be more focused throughout the race weekend, through a long schedule that we have with 38 races.
            So, you know, it’s something that I probably haven’t put as much effort into as some other guys out there.  I think there’s some that may take it even a little bit further than it needs to.  But if that is what keeps them focused and enjoying the week or helping prepare for the race, then I think it’s a great routine.
            For me, I’ve had some back issues over the years, so a lot of my routine is just mixing in cardio with stretching, just staying as loose as I can, building up my core to help strengthen my back and stomach to try to keep the pain that I deal with in my back to a minimum.  That’s really helped me get through the races and not really be thinking about my back, so I can just think about driving the car.
            But from a fitness standpoint, other than maybe road courses in the summer months, some of these hot races are more demanding.  I feel like fitness is always something that I’ve been really good at.
 
            Q.  Jeff, did you guys ever find out what happened to the tire?
            JEFF GORDON:  I know the team was having a meeting with Goodyear today.  I don’t have all the details from that.  I’m planning on meeting with them tomorrow.  I was out in Las Vegas yesterday.  We didn’t get to do our normal debrief.  Plan on getting with them tomorrow to get more detail.  Wish I had more to share.
 
            Q.  Do you look at that as bad luck?
            JEFF GORDON:  No.  I think that everything happens for a reason.  It’s unfortunate that it happened.  I think there’s a cause behind it.  The question is whether we caused it or did it run over something.  If I ran over something, then I guess you could maybe call that bad luck.
            Until I know more details, I don’t want to say it’s bad luck.  We’ve certainly had our share of that this year.  In order to get up there and be a threat for the championship, you can’t have things like that happen.  It’s unfortunate.  Certainly sort of took the wind out of our sails, the momentum we had.
            But we also know that we came into this thing 13th and we still have a great shot at being third or fourth, and that’s our goal.
 
            Q.  Jeff, the question I get a lot after a race like Texas where Jimmie dominates so much, with the cars and drivers being so close, how can he be that much better than everybody else?  It happens so consistently with him.  If everybody could figure it out, they would be doing what they’re doing.  I wonder what it’s like to race against the 48 team when they’re running like this.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, it’s tough.  I think sometimes a lot of people don’t put enough credit into the overall team in our sport.  Jimmie is a great driver. Chad is a great crew chief.  But they’re also surrounded by incredible people and resources at Hendrick Motorsports.
            Not that the rest of the Hendrick teams aren’t, but you have to understand, this is a group that’s been together a long time.  They’ve won championships, they’ve lost championships, they’ve won and lost a lot of races.  These guys know how to step up and win at the right time.
            I would say Texas is one of Jimmie’s best tracks as well.  He has a lot of confidence.  Went to the test there, he had us beat by a 10th, 10th and a half during the entire test.  I felt like we closed that gap slightly over the race weekend.
            But everybody was kind of playing catch‑up.  Especially you let those guys get out front, they had the track position.  They had the one little issue on a green‑flag pit stop that put them behind.  But they had such better tires against everybody else they were up against, everybody was short‑pitting.  It made it that much easier for him to drive up through that.
            I think Matt was the one guy, one team that had something for him.  I think that’s why they’re 1‑2.  He was the only one that could run lap times that Jimmie could.  Once they got behind on the mistake they made on pit road, they never were in a position on those final caution restarts to battle it out and try to get in front of Jimmie.
            So you have to give a lot of credit to the 48.  Other than that one little issue, they were flawless all weekend.
 
            Q.  Jeff, you’re someone who has raced against Matt Kenseth for a long time.  His numbers rank up there among some of the best in the series, some of the best of all time.  I don
‘t think that people recognize that about him.  Why do you think that he goes so under the radar and is so underrated?
            JEFF GORDON:  I think he’s kind of an under‑the‑radar kind of guy.  He’s a great racecar driver.  He probably hasn’t won as many races as he could have.
            I think this move to Gibbs is just showing his talent, how good that team is.  You might start to see a lot more attention be put on him if they can keep these kind of stats and numbers and this kind of consistency up, especially if they win this championship this year.
            But Matt is just one of those drivers where he’s really good at a lot of tracks.  So you give him the right car and team, this is a guy that can be a major threat for the championship every single year.
            I think he sort of is more quiet and reserved in front of the cameras, and even the way he goes about his racing.  You don’t see him knocking guys out of the way or doing anything over the top.  He’s just solid, always there, knows how to put himself in position when it matters most at the end of the race.
            I don’t know.  I think he’d kind of prefer it that way as well, as long as he’s getting the job done when that checkered flag flies.
 
            Q.  Would you have been surprised if people said he would win second in the championship race?
            JEFF GORDON:  Yes and no.  I mean, you never know how somebody’s going to transition into a new team.  You look at that team in past years, they certainly haven’t shown to be a threat for the championship.  But at the same time, I feel like from Matt’s talents and capabilities, while they might have been diminished slightly with his results at Roush, I think that a lot of us within the sport knew just how good he was.
            Again, you put him with the right equipment, the right team, the crew chief that he gels with, he can put up some great numbers, and that’s what he’s doing this year.
            So a little bit of a surprise just because they’re new together.  But not so much of a surprise, in my opinion, from what Matt’s capable of.
 
            Q.  Jeff, this has been a particularly turbulent Chase for you.  You’re in, you’re out, you’re sneaking back into it, then Sunday the letdown.  Talk about the emotions that hit in that very moment you’re in the wall and you know another year has gone by without a championship.
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, I remember sitting in the hauler while the team was fixing the car, watching the race, watching the lap times, sort of in disbelief. We’ve been through so much, not just this year, but the last couple years as a team, just clawing and fighting our way to get in the Chase, ups and downs, trying to win races, sometimes just trying to finish races.
            We get in this year, things start to go well for us, we find ourselves in a great position.  It’s all over in a split second.  It’s pretty devastating for the whole team.  You work so hard to get to that point, it’s definitely a letdown.
            Yeah, I was just sitting there going, I can’t believe this.  I felt like I was in a bad dream and I was going to wake up any second.  The longer the time went by, the more and more I realized this is reality.  You have to face it, deal with it, put it behind you as fast as you can and move on.
 
            Q.  Every year there’s somebody that surfaces and they’re either a contender, win a championship, like Brad.  Next year they’re way out of it or don’t even make the Chase.  Can you maybe discuss just how difficult this is.  Obviously Jimmie makes it look easy because he’s the guy that’s inevitable.  Discuss the level of competition that makes it difficult for anybody to sustain a long run.
            JEFF GORDON:  It’s extremely difficult.  You’re right, Jimmie and the 48 team, they make it look easy.  That just shows you how in tune they are with one another, how confident they are, how good of an organization Hendrick Motorsports is.  They’re setting the bar.
            I think the bigger question is what happened with the 2 car?  Is it just the change from last year’s rules package over to the new Gen‑6 car that got them off track?  Is it some of the issues that went on earlier in the year that took a little speed out of the car that they had to search and find?  Seems like they’re getting it back now.
            It’s hard to say what takes a team from being so good, on top of the sport, winning the championship, a real threat for the championship, like the 99 a couple years ago, and those things that change.  Sometimes they’re internal, teams don’t want to talk about it.  Sometimes they just put everything together in that year and have an amazing year.
            The 48 team, where they separate themselves, you know they are capable of doing that every single year.  I mean, heck, last year I think if they hadn’t have had the issue at Phoenix with I think it was a blown tire, I think they would have won the championship last year, too.  That’s just how good they are.  We’re all playing catch‑up, trying to be that good.
            As long as those guys stay together, stay confident, are able to continue to bring competitive cars to the racetrack, it’s going to be very, very tough to stop them.
 
            Q.  Jeff, despite the disappointment at Texas, what do you take from the Chase?
            JEFF GORDON:  We did the same thing last year in the Chase.  We were really solid from Chicago all the way to Phoenix.  Obviously we had our issues there that took Bowyer and myself out of being more competitive, higher up in the points.  That was pretty disappointing to us, to have a shot at the top five, you know, not be able to pull that off.
            The same types of things have happened this year where we’ve been really solid, fast racecars.  We’ve come on stronger at the end of the year.  Those 10 races in the Chase have been very good for us up until Texas, and up until Phoenix last year.
            I think it just shows what kind of quality team we are.  We never give up.  It’s a long season.  You want to be at your best in those final 10 races.  That’s what we’ve done the last two seasons.  But we’re still just missing those final little ingredients to get us on top and stay there.
 
            Q.  I guess throughout the course of a Chase, the ever‑shifting goals that your teams have.  You might come out one week and you’re contendi
ng for the championship like you were after Martinsville, or now where you sit here after Texas.  Talk about the way your goals constantly shift throughout the 10 weeks.
            JEFF GORDON:  I mean, our primary goal always stays the same:  that’s that you go to the race to win the pole, win the race, accumulate the most points. It doesn’t change your thought process throughout the week, how you’re going to execute as you get to that next race.
            A lot of these races are planned out weeks in advance.  Some of it comes from testing, simulation, building the cars.  Maybe it’s a new car.  All these things lead up to a race.  That doesn’t really change.  It’s really what are we capable of accomplishing if we do our absolute best.
            And that’s the thing that’s shifted and changed so much for us after this past weekend in Texas, is that we knew we had an outside shot at making some gains on those guys.  We knew they were both going to be tough at Texas.  A part of it was just trying to maintain as much as we could or maybe make a gain on one of those guys if they didn’t have any issues at all, just go put the best race we can together to show we’re capable of it, show everybody else we’re capable of it.
            I think our best track in the Chase is Homestead.  I really just wanted to get to Homestead with a shot, you know, with a mathematical shot at this championship because I think we could put some pressure on them, have a shot at winning that race.
            Now, yeah, it’s, Okay, how high up in points can we get?  You’re still dealing with the same thing.  It’s just one is the championship and the other one is maybe a third or fourth in points.  That will all be reevaluated after we go through this next weekend’s race in Phoenix.
 
            Q.  You talked about how at the Texas test you had an idea how fast Jimmie would be.  After the Homestead test, who should we be looking out for?
            JEFF GORDON:  I felt pretty good about our chances and our car there.  We had a great test there.
 
            Q.  Does having a pretty successful 2013 season serve as motivation at all going forward for 2014?
            JEFF GORDON:  I wouldn’t call it a 2013 season.  I’d call it a 2013 Chase.  The majority of the races that we’ve run this year, I don’t think we’ve even come close to living up to our full potential.  Maybe Pocono stands out.  That’s a race I feel like second and almost winning was a great accomplishment for us at a crucial time in the season.
            But we had a disappointing season on so many levels that, you know, to just be able to step it up to this next level during the Chase has been probably the best motivating thing we could have.
            Again, we went through the same thing last year, by ending the season, by winning the race in Homestead, really pulled our team together, got us excited for 2013.
            The car and some of the changes threw us off a little bit, threw me off a little bit, took us a while to start to make gains on that.  With some of the issues and failures we had earlier in the year…
            We never stopped trying to make our cars better, getting me to feel that I need to go out there and have confidence in the car and have the speed.  We’ve done a great job of that.
            That’s what we’re going to take out of this year’s Chase as well, is that depending on how many changes happen for 2014, that we have a team that can fight, that can find a way to get where we need to be by the end of the season.
            I’m hoping that next year we can get it a little sooner in the season so we don’t have to go through all the drama we had to go through this year and last year.
 
            Q.  Jeff, consistency is probably one of the most desirable goals in motorsports.  Can you identify the important factors that build confidence leading up to consistency or the lacking that causes a slump.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, consistency is important when you’re battling for a championship or a place in the Chase.  I say that because you can consistently run 15th, and while you might not be extremely happy with that, that will get you into the Chase.
            At some point you’ve got to turn that consistency and what you’re doing into gains.  You’ve got to continue to progress forward and stay a consistent 15th, make it a consistent 10th.  If you’re running a consistent 10th, you have to move it to a top 5, and then wins.  That’s the only way you’re going to battle for a championship.  You have to start somewhere.
            When you have consistency, it does allow you to fine tune, look to find out where your team is weak, where can you make gains, you as a driver, you as a team, performance, pit crew, pit strategy, everything that’s involved nowadays.  If you can do that consistently, you’re more than likely going to start making gains.
            If you don’t, you’re just a consistent driver, not a winning driver, the frustration is going to start to kick in and you’re actually going to start losing a little confidence instead of gaining that confidence.
 
            Q.  Can you identify that in your team when that starts to slip away?  Is there anything you can do to stop that, teams going up and down?
            JEFF GORDON:  I mean, for me, I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of success, especially the first 10 years of my career, where I can fall back on that success.  I know what I’m looking for in the car to push the limits of the tires, push the limits of the car, to be more competitive out there on the racetrack.
            While that’s been challenged at times and questioned by myself and probably even by my team, you know, I never stop believing that I can do it, and never stop believing in the team that has the answers.  The engineering that goes into these cars these days is so important.  So you’ve got to work together.
            They’ve got to believe in you and you have to believe in them.  I think that’s what turned the corner for us this year.  While we were frustrated, not performing the way we wanted to at times, we never stopped believing in one another, eventually started getting the results, coming together, making big gains. The way the cars were driving, the speeds we had, how we were qualifying, so on.
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS:

THE MODERATOR:  Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s NASCAR Cam teleconference with current Sprint Cup Series poi
nts leader Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Kobalt Tools Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.  Five‑time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Johnson has six wins and 15 top‑5 finishes this season.
            Jimmie, you currently sit seven points ahead of Matt Kenseth, and this weekend you head to Phoenix where you sit atop the track’s all‑time wins list with four victories.  What’s your mindset as you approach a possible sixth championship?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Well, there’s still a lot of racing left, and the two tracks that remain on the schedule are very challenging tracks.  Last year we were in this situation with a points lead.  We had a seven‑point lead going into Phoenix and had a very bad race and blew a right front tire.  Actually had a decent race going but blew out a right front tire and hammered the wall.  Really hurt our opportunity and our chance to win a sixth championship then.
            So I’m just not going to put my guard down.  We need to go into Phoenix, race well.  We finished second there in the spring, so we strong about our setup and the performance we should have there, but that doesn’t guarantee us anything, and we need to go out and have a good strong, clean weekend.
 
            Q.  I asked Rick this before you came in Sunday at Texas, but your stretch of four races right before the Chase, which I think someone at some point said may have been the worst four‑race stretch of your career, but one thing Rick said is during that four‑week stretch neither you nor Chad ever lost any bit of confidence, and that looking at you, you would never know that you had gone through a stretch like that, and a lot of that he said was because you guys understood the reasons for what happened.  I was just wondering, when you have a stretch like that, A, how were you able to maintain your confidence; and B, what was it about what took place during that stretch that allowed you to believe that you would still be just as good in the Chase?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I mean, it certainly challenged us mentally.  We had to remind ourselves the reasons why we had those bad races and issues behind it, and truthfully those issues were two of the tracks aren’t very good for the 48, and I’m so happy they’re not in the Chase.  The other two tracks we were running very, very strong and had, I think, a tire blow at Pocono.  We had an engine issue at Michigan coming from the back and I think had a great chance to win.  Then there was another race in there where we had an issue while having a very strong race‑winning performance.  I can’t recall exactly what happened ‑‑ oh, it was Atlanta, where we were running well but maybe on the first restart everybody checked up in front of me and I ran into the back of one of my teammates and killed the front of the car.
            We could put a lot of stock in the tracks there that we had speed, we had pace, had good things happen, and that helped us out a lot.  And then the other two tracks, we just sweep those under the rug.  That would be Richmond and I think Bristol.  Just move on, forget about them.
 
            Q.  The Jimmie Johnson 48 team that we see right now would you say is indicative of what you have really been all season long?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I think so.  We’ve shown great speed and pace at a lot of tracks, especially mile‑and‑a‑halfs.  One thing that we aren’t very proud of is the opportunities we let slip by through the course of the year on mile‑and‑a‑halfs.  The win at Texas I guess was our first mile‑and‑a‑half points win of the year, and we were in position to win a lot of other ones and just dropped the ball in a variety of ways.
            Glad that we executed well.  We certainly have another big track with Homestead and need to execute there, and then we’ll go into the short track this weekend and see what we can do.
 
            Q.  Are you as comfortable and confident at Phoenix since the repave as you were before the repave, or is there still some gap there do you think?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, there’s definitely less confidence in the track that we’re racing on now, and if you just look at our performance over the years, we won so many races with the old configuration and that old asphalt that we’ve had a good run here, it seems like the spring races have been very good for us on the new configuration, but man, if there was one guy sad to see the old configuration and asphalt go away, that was me.  We just had something that worked there and fit my driving style and we were able to win a lot of races.
            Part of our sport is dealing with change, and we always have cars changing and surfaces changing, and I feel like we’re going in the right direction with the racetrack, and hopefully we can capitalize on that this weekend.
 
            Q.  How often in your career have you had a car that was as dominant as the one that you had this past Sunday at Texas?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Not many.  Usually when you have a car that strong, you find a way to mess it up and not pull into victory lane.  So I was really happy to see it through and close the deal at the end and get the car to victory lane.  But it doesn’t happen often.  The car was flawless.
 
            Q.  And that success that you had, will that transfer to the finale at Homestead, and I know you guys tested at Homestead Miami, but what works well in Texas, does that same thing work at Homestead?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  The overall concept will, and we were able to validate a lot of that through the two test sessions that we had.  The base, foundation of the setup carried from our Texas test into our Homestead test, so I’m excited about that and clearly want to see the same results once we get down to Miami. But we’ll race hard this weekend and then roll into Homestead and try to take care of business down there.  But it’s going to be a tough two weeks.
 
            Q.  Last year you were you were battling for the championship with Brad Keselowski who had not won a Cup title prior to that point.  This year you’re battling Matt Kenseth, a guy who has been a Cup champion before.  From your perspective, how do those two experiences stack up against each other, and from your perspective is there a sense of comfort in racing hard with somebody that’s been in that situation before versus someone who hasn’t and may be tougher to predict?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  You know, it’s hard to know what to predict in general, and I’ve found a lot of peace in expecting the best out of a championship contender, and that’s the way it’s been this year and every year to be honest with you.  I felt like last year there could have been an opportunity to put pressure on Brad and his team, and it was Penske’s first championship in Cup.&nbsp
; Same for the driver, same for the crew chief, and no one will ever know, but maybe there was a little opportunity there to put pressure on them and put them into a stressful environment.  We just didn’t do our job, and we had our problems in Phoenix and then again at Homestead.  And honestly in Homestead we had them where we wanted to put them and was really putting the pressure on them to see what they could deal with and handle at that point, but then we made too many mistakes and didn’t follow through on our side.
            It’s really hard to know the truth in it all, but I do feel driver and team competing for their first is dealing with stress and pressure that someone that’s racing for their second, third, fourth, that they just don’t have that same pressure, and I only know that from my own experience.  My first was far more stressful than anything I’ve done in my life.
 
            Q.  I told John Force last week probably no one knows more about championships at NHRA over there than him.  I can ask you the same question: Probably no one knows more about NASCAR championships than you.  Can you share what it takes to be a repeat champion with others what you think have the drive to be a champion?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  You know, it’s such a team sport, and I think that gets overlooked at times.  Certainly people just think of the driver and the driver’s impact.  Next in line would be the crew chief.  But as you work your way down through the different positions and the department heads and even people back in the shop, I know we always reference these folks and it might get annoying to some, but the ability to repeat comes from the depth in your organization, and it’s certainly led by the driver and crew chief, but it takes everybody in the system to have the right mentality, to be pulling in the right direction.  There’s always rule changes that the entire company has to respond to, and then the end result is what the driver and crew chief do at the track.  But the load and stress and burden is far greater than just what the two guys at track deal with.
            I really put a lot of our success into the depth we have, the systems we have at Hendrick Motorsports, the support we have behind the scenes.  That really lets the race day crew, the guys that go there each and every weekend seen on TV, to do their jobs and handle the issues at hand.  It boils down to depth, I believe.
 
            Q.  How important is it as far as your momentum that you’ve built up now going into Homestead with only 900 miles to race?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Momentum is nice, and we’re happy to have it.  But I’ve been doing this long enough where I realize that momentum doesn’t guarantee a thing.  It makes a nice Sunday evening until Friday morning when the NASCAR timing and scoring system starts up again, but it doesn’t change a thing about Friday practice, qualifying, Saturday practice, or that Sunday race.  You’ve got to go out and do your job each and every day.  It’s been a nice, comfortable week, but the pressure cooker will start up there Friday morning when we’re on track.
 
            Q.  This is kind of a strange question, but it’s been talked about by many, many people.  That was a great shot of you, your daughter and your wife wearing the hats after the win at Texas.  Because your daughter has been around many tracks with you, what would you and your wife say if in a few years she says, hey, I think I want to start racing?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  It wouldn’t bother me a bit.  I’m not sure my wife would be on board.  But really at the end of the day, we want to support our children and have them pursue what they’re passionate about and what they enjoy in life.
            I was raised in that environment and so was my wife, and we all think of traditional means of work and providing and starting a family and all that, and we just really want to keep an open mind for our children and help them develop and support what they’re passionate about.
            I feel so lucky and fortunate that my passion turned into my career, and I know the happiness it’s brought me.  So whatever passions my kids have, that’s what I’m going to pursue, and if someone of the two girls we have now, who knows if there will be more kids, but if either one of them want to hold a steering wheel, dad will be happy and ready to go.
 
            Q.  I know part of this is your natural demeanor, but it seems your success and the team’s success has built an immunity of the kind of stress experienced by those who haven’t won championships.  Can you sense that, and can you compare your state of mind at this stage this year with that same 2004 and 2005, some of the earlier years?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I mean, we’re not immune.  We’re human and deal with all the same stress that anybody competing for a championship goes through.  I feel that through the years of winning championships we learn how to manage stress much better and find a way to enjoy the pressure and enjoy the stress.  We’ve lost some interesting close championship battles which have been interesting character builders, although they hurt badly and it’s not a fun month or two following that experience, but there’s a lesson to learn from everything, and I always try to find something to learn through those downtimes.
            But we’re not immune.  We do have experience on our side, and we’ve been here before, and hopefully that experience will lead us to a sixth.
 
            Q.  Do you recall what it was like in 2004 and 2005 when it was a fresh experience?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I do.  2004 was a heartbreaker.  We had a tragedy amongst our race team in the NASCAR community with an airplane of ours going down, lost 10 wonderful people.  We rallied through a difficult Chase and got back into striking distance at Homestead, and essentially the championship slipped away from us in the closing few laps as Kurt Busch worked his way back from an issue on pit road and his wheel falling off, and went from the high of highs feeling like it was meant to be to not winning and wanting to win for all those on the airplane and to help heal everyone involved and all the hurt that was around.  We just felt like it was meant to be, and there’s a big lesson in that that what you think is meant to be isn’t what’s going to happen.
            We got stronger from that, and then in ’05 was really the toughest point for us.  We had a very strong start to the season, led by a lot, and then as the year closed out, we slipped and we slid off the map essentially.  Tony Stewart came in, or was there, and the guy we were chasing, and Tony got the job done.  That was really a turning point for Chad and I.  It tested us in our relationship and our bond pretty tough, and put a lot of pressure on us, and we had our milk‑and‑cookies meeting then, and from that point forward we were a stronger driver‑crew chief and have been
very, very strong since and learned a lot from 2005.
            As I mentioned earlier, some of those down moments have been some of the most impactful moments of my career,  and 2005 is really that defining moment for us as a team.
 
            Q.  Do you sense that Matt is going to be even more of a player now that he’s with JGR?  If anyone can deliver a Jimmie Johnson type season, he might be that guy?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I’ve always known Matt’s abilities.  I’ve raced against him a lot over the years, and just always been extremely impressed.  I’ve known that the JGR cars have been quick.  Denny and Kyle have showed that throughout the years.  Matt’s experience I think has brought in a level of consistency, and matching that with the speed those cars have, he’s taken it to a new level.  And I think the 20 team, there’s a lot of new faces over there, and as time goes on, they’re going to get stronger and stronger and stronger.
            Put it this way:  What they’ve accomplished in year one, there’s no telling what the top is going to be, the peak is going to be.  It’s amazing.  That doesn’t happen often, so they’re going to be a force for a lot of years.
 
            Q.  Can you talk a little bit about your foundation’s education grant announcement you made earlier today?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yes, absolutely, thank you.  We announced our grant recipients here today in the Charlotte area.  Three great schools, just over $430,000 that we distributed here to the area in which we live in North Carolina, in the Charlotte area.  Each year we hold a big fundraiser in California, and throughout theyear raise more money, and right now is our time to pass it out.  There’s areas where I grew up in El Cajon, my wife grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and right here in the Charlotte area.  We’re making those schools known about their checks and excited to see them put that money to use.
            We also have some stuff that will be announced as we move forward in I guess probably the start of next year.  We’ll be doing more fundraising here in the Charlotte area and trying to do more in the area in which we live and excited about those fundraisers and look forward to sharing them with everybody here soon.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 3, 2013
 
 
TEAM CHEVY FINISHES ONE-TWO AT TEXAS
Jimmie Johnson Earns Sixth Victory of Season and Regains Point’s Lead
 
 
FT. WORTH – November 3, 2013 – Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, dominated the AAA Texas 500 by leading 255 of the 334 laps to earn his sixth victory of the season.  It is the 66th win of Johnson’s career and his third at Texas Motor Speedway.  The win moved Johnson back into the points lead by seven markers with only two races remaining in the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
 
“This was an awesome, awesome race car,” Johnson said in Victory Lane. “I have to go back to the test session we had last week or the week before. We did a nice job of developing a plan on how we wanted to show up in qualifying trim and in race trim. We had an awesome, awesome race car. And we needed it. Matt (Kenseth) didn’t have the best day and he finished fourth or fifth. So it’s hard to get points in this championship battle, and we got a couple today.”
 
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy Gold/7-Eleven Chevrolet SS, finished second.  The run marks his third runner-up finish in the eight races completed thus far in the Chase and his 20th top-10 this season.  Earnhardt, Jr. gained two positions in the standings and moved up to the fifth position.
 
Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS, earned a fifth-place finish; which gave him ten top-10’s in 2013 and also gave Team Chevy three of the top-five finishers in the Lone Star State.
 
Chase contenders Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet SS, and Ryan Newman, No. 39 Outback Steakhouse Chevrolet SS, both had solid runs on the 1.5-mile track coming home eighth and ninth respectively.  Harvick moved up to third in the Chase standings.
 
It was an unfortunate day for Jeff Gordon, whose top-10 run was halted early after experiencing a right-front tire issue on lap 75 which sent the No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet SS into the outside retaining wall. The team was able to make repairs, but the damage relegated Gordon to a disappointing 38th-place finish.
 
Joey Logano (Ford) was third and Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was fourth rounding out the top five in the race.
 
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup resumes next Sunday, November 10th with round eight at Phoenix International Raceway.
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON AND CHAD KNAUS, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNERS
RICK HENDRICK, OWNER OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS – TEAM OWNER WINNER
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re now joined by tonight’s winning car owner, Rick Hendrick.  This is Mr. Hendrick’s fifth career victory at Texas Motor Speedway as a car owner.  In you could, Rick, talk about the poise that the 48 Team showed this evening?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, it was kind of a perfect night other than one pit stop.  You know, we didn’t make any mistakes on the track, and the car was really fast.  You know, we all tested here and all of our cars ran well.  Dale had a good night, and I think Jeff was going to have a good night.  When they finished three in the Top 5, that’s a good race for us.  We knew Matt was going to be tough from practice and qualifying.
            It’s just good to get out of here with a 7‑point lead.  We had that last year when we went to Phoenix and had a problem, had a problem at Homestead.  So I’d rather be 7 ahead than 7 behind.  But I don’t think we’re going to know what’s going to happen until the last lap at Homestead.
 
            Q.  Rick, what is the difference ‑‑ like you said, you mentioned the points advantage this time last year.  What is the difference with this team this year compared to last year?  Because obviously although you had the problems, you guys got beat, and there was a sense of how invincible this 48 Team has been in the garage.  So what is different from this year to last year to maybe regain that dominance potentially?
            RICK HENDRICK:  I felt real good going to Phoenix last year, and I thought we were in good shape and we had a problem.  I’ve never seen it this tight, so I don’t feel any better really this year than I did last year.  I actually felt like when we went to Phoenix that we put some distance on Brad, and we’d be in pretty good shape.  Then we blew a tire and hit the wall.
            So I think Jimmie has been very confidant, but nobody has said he was unbeatable this year.  Really, Matt’s been right there the whole year.  Scott’s got more wins, one more, I guess, than we do, maybe two.  I don’t remember.  But we’ve led so many laps.  I think the thing that pulls us this year is we’ve been in position and led right up to the end, and on the restart, we’ve given two or three away on the restarts this year, and the car has been really fast and led a lot of laps, and we didn’t close the deal.  That’s not like the 48.
            Matt was right there to take advantage with Kasey in Vegas and Jimmie in a couple of places.  So we know that team’s not going to make many mistakes.
 
            Q.  Can you talk a little bit about your feelings about Jeff having problems and basically falling out of a chance to win a fifth title?  And Dale Jr., fifth runner‑up this year.  They’ve done everything but win.  They’ve surrounded it a number of times.
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, Jeff was leading this race, I think, early this year and had a bearing failure, which we never have.  He was really pumped up after getting in the Chase and winning Martinsville and felt really good about this race.  I was with him this morning, and I think ‑‑ I hated for that for the team because they have really come together and he’s put a bunch of good runs together.  You know, you just can’t help stuff like tire problems or failures or things like that happening to you.
            As far as Dale goes, Kasey, we’ll talk about Kasey just a second, he started the year off as our best car.  I mean, he led everything.  Then he fell off.  Junior came on strong.  He’s been running really well.  I didn’t think Jimmie would get him at Dover, but Dale and Stevie are really clicking.  Dale’s confidence is higher than I’ve seen it since he’s been with us.  You know, if he hadn’t had that motor problem early in the Chase, he’d be right there.
            But it’s, again, I think the engine guys, and I hold our breath for 500 miles when you ‑‑ we shouldn’t need Jimmie to say he had a vibration with 20 to go.  Man, that was a long 20 laps.  Anyway, I think everybody’s doing a good job.  But I feel for Jeff because he really had shown what that team could do, and I hate it for him.  But it could be Jimmie next week.  It could be Matt next week.  You just don’t know.
 
            Q.  You kind of talked a little bit about it earlier and how the team didn’t close.  But this is their first win on a mile‑and‑a‑half track this year, wh
ich seems pretty amazing.  Is there anything that you feel they’re doing better at this point in the season than they were on the intermediate tracks earlier in the year?
            RICK HENDRICK:  No, when you look back I think we had an engine problem with 8 to go somewhere.  I don’t remember where it was.  We led all the laps, and then there was a caution at the end on the restart.  Couple of guys, we spun the tires.  We were really good and ran into each other on the first lap at Atlanta.  I mean, we’ve been fast enough to win races.  We just haven’t led at the right time.  I mean, that sounds silly, but just and the restarts were biting us.
            But if you go back and look at the laps Jimmie has led on the mile‑and‑a‑halves, we should have won more races there.
 
            Q.  This may be two races early to ask you, but you’ve always had wonderful combination of drivers and crew chiefs.  How does Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson rate in all of the different drivers and crew chiefs that you’ve had over these years?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, I think if you look at their performance, it kind of speaks for itself.  Ray and Jeff were kind of magical when they were together.  And Chad and Jimmie, just it’s amazing the confidence they have in each other.  And I’ll tell you, I was here working yesterday at the dealerships, and I called Chad up ‑‑ or I text him.  Those guys don’t answer the phone.  So about 11 o’clock he was saying I was working on the set‑ups and stuff for the day.  I mean, the amount of energy that Chad and Jimmie put into it amazes me.  I don’t know how they continue to come to that level every single week and every single year.
            But I look at Jimmie and his workout routine and what he eats and how he runs, and I look at Chad, and Chad is calmer and I think he’s more seasoned than I’ve seen him.  He can handle adversity better, and that’s made the team better.  I’m glad I don’t have to race against them.
 
            Q.  Does it get easier now that it’s essentially just the 48 versus the 20?  There is really nobody else to worry about beyond Matt?
            RICK HENDRICK:  No, it really doesn’t.  I mean, you just ‑‑ everywhere we go we ride together.  We qualify close together.  We race close together.  I thought we went to Martinsville.  We had come out of Martinsville with a good spread.  I didn’t think Matt would run that well at Martinsville, and there he was almost winning the race.  It’s going to get more ‑‑ I think it’s just more tension.
            I don’t know how it could get any harder than it is right now, I mean from the standpoint of being out there and watching the restarts, watching the start of the race and knowing that we’re asking a lot of the engines tonight on a 500‑mile race on a cool night where they make a lot of power.  I was amazed that there wasn’t more engine trouble because we had some real nice green flag runs.
            It’s nerves.  It’s not going to end ‑‑ I think it’s going to be the last lap at Homestead, unless one of them has a major failure early in Phoenix, and then the other guys just got to finish in the Top 10.  But I don’t see that happening.  I think this is just going to be a dogfight there.  The teams are that close.
 
            Q.  This is about eight straight years Jimmie has done this to be in this position at this point of the year.  Do you see him gaining an extra level of confidence or edge each successive year?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, when you win five straight and then you come back and you don’t win a couple years, but they prepare and we’ve been in it.  All you can ask the team to do is show up every week and be capable of winning races and leading the points and being there, and he’s been in it.
            Like last year, Tony was unbeatable, and we were kind of off that year.  I don’t think anybody was going to beat Tony winning five races out of ten.  But last year we were in this position, and we didn’t do it.  It fired us up.  It fired Jimmie and Chad up.  But they can’t work any harder.  I think they’re as good as they’ve ever been and maybe better because they’re seasoned.  Now they’ve lost it a couple of years in a row and they want it bad this year.
            But they’re doing everything in their power, preparation, cars at the shop, at the track, engine guys everybody is working as hard as they can, and so are the other guys.  So is the 20 car and Matt Kenseth.
            I just think it’s going to be, again, it’s going to be the best points race.  If they don’t have any trouble, it’s going to come down to Homestead, and it will be ‑‑ you won’t know until it’s over.
 
            Q.  This is the 20th Top 10 for Junior and the only one better than that is Jimmie.  Would you talk about whether or not you think Junior’s getting contract for the kind of season he’s having?  Seems like so many people still think it’s a disappointment.  But 20 Top 10s this year seems like a pretty strong season.
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, again, if you just go back and give him a top 10 for the motor that he lost in the first of the Chase, then it would be entirely different story.  He’s finished ‑‑ you know, I have this theory.  You’re not going to win until you you’re consistently in the Top 10 and then you’ve got to be consistently in the Top 5.  When you can run consistently in the Top 5, you’re going to win races and he’s been right there.
            Again, I said it earlier, his confidence is as high as it’s ever been.  We get plenty of questions when he is going to win the race, but he’s right there.  So I think as competitive as he is, it’s answered a lot of questions and I think we’re going to build on that momentum.  Hopefully, we can continue the next two weeks.
            He’s really good at Phoenix.  He likes Homestead.  We had a great test there.  I hope he can win a race and carry this momentum into next year.  I think he could be right in the middle of this championship had we not lost that engine, and he had nothing to do with that.
 
            Q.  When the Chase started, Jimmie had just come off I think it was four straight finishes of 28th or worse.  At that time a lot of people questioned whether or not ‑‑ what would he do in the Chase?  I’m just interested to know what your thoughts were at that time and is the 48 Team performance that we’ve seen in the Chase what you believe the true indicator of the team has been this season?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, again, you go back and look at what happened.  We had some things that happened in the
race, and, again, restart on the first lap and you run into the back of one of the other cars and knocked the radiator out of it, engine problem, a broken valve spring, running well.  You know, when you see that, you know that’s just ‑‑ those are things that are going to happen.  But the speed has been there.  The laps led were there.
            Again, you look at the restarts going back to Dover and some of the other races.  We just, uncharacteristically we were in the wrong spot at the right time, took four tires, got in the wrong lane.  Just the speed was there.  I didn’t think they’d be rattled.  I thought once we got in the Chase, we had a bunch of tracks he was good at.
            His confidence was never down.  Chad’s confidence was never down because we could see what was causing the problem, and it was out of their control, really.
 
            Q.  When you have four in a row, do you start getting a little concerned?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Oh yeah, yeah.  I mean, you think you’re snake bit.  Jeff thought he was snake bit.  That’s what was so good about Jeff Gordon’s run is he just believed something was going to happen.  Then he started clicking off good finishes, and that gets in your head.
            I think Jimmie is able to cinch it up, man, when he needs to, and Chad has always been able to fire his guys up and work harder.  They sure didn’t give up and they knew they were capable of doing it.
 
            Q.  How do you see Dale’s confidence higher?  How do you notice that?  What examples can you offer that prove to you that his confidence is higher?
            RICK HENDRICK:  You can see it the way he walks.  You can see it when he gets out of the car.  You can see it when I talk to him about the race.  He’ll send me a text and say, man, that car was good.  That was really ‑‑ I loved driving that car like that.  You know, I see it in the way he goes to the racetrack and how he prepares for the race talking to Stevie.  His confidence is at an all-time high.  You can just see it in his face.  You can see it in his interviews.  I mean, I can.
            But more than anything is his confidence on the radio when he’s giving feedback to Stevie about what the car needs.  He doesn’t just say I’m junk.  I need a little bit of this, I need a little bit of that, or I’m good.  That was better.  He’s so ‑‑ I mean, that’s just a real ‑‑ Stevie, the two of them, when you talk about combination and you talk about how Chad and Jimmie are, I think a lot of people overlook the relationship those two guys have developed and how well they communicate and how good they’re working together.  That’s about as good as I’ve ever seen with a crew chief and driver.
 
            Q.  As good as Jimmie has been in the Chase, he’s kind of left points on the table at Charlotte and Talladega.  Were you concerned or are you still concerned that maybe those will come back to haunt him because he’s usually so good at getting the most out of every situation?
            RICK HENDRICK:  You know, any time you lose one of those things you go back and think about what ifs.  I remember when Kurt Busch’s tire could have gone a foot the other way and we would have been one‑two in the points.  You can go back and second-guess all of it and look at every mistake or every opportunity that you let get away.  But at the end of the day, all the points, the last one counts just like the first one in the Chase.
            Yeah, we would go back and look at some of those restarts and say, man, if we just had that or if we had gotten in line in Talladega we maybe could have won the race because we led a lot.  But you can’t look at it like that.
            I think we’re in the position.  Now we only have two not to make a mistake, and hopefully we can just race without any kind of failure.  But I don’t think it will look back.  If it happens, we’ll look back at the next two.  We won’t look at the ones way back, I don’t think.
 
            Q.  You talked about how Chad was able to mature and handle things.  You’ve been through so many close title chases, how do you handle it when it gets this close so late in the season?
            RICK HENDRICK:  I’m just thankful we’re competitive and we’ve won races.  I think you do the best you can and you show up.  If we don’t win, I can handle that.  I mean, we did the best we could.  We weren’t searching for speed.  We weren’t searching for horsepower or handling.  We were right there, led laps with everybody and anybody.  So at the end of the day, I just accept it and go on and get ready for next year.
            Come on over here, guys, I need your help.  I’ve never answered this many questions in my life.
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Sorry to leave you here so long.
            THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by the winner of tonight’s AAA Texas 500, Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet.  You become the first driver to win consecutive fall events at the Texas Motor Speedway and are now tied with Carl Edwards for the most Sprint Cup series at TMS with three; for the fourth time in your career you scored a perfect 150 driver rating, led a race high 255 laps, and more importantly, you now have a 7‑point lead going into the final two races in the season.  Talk about just the dominating performance you had tonight?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  That was a great, great race car.  We’re really buttoned up, which is the cool thing.  We came here and tested.  After two days we really honed in on the balance of the car and comfort of the car.  We felt really strong about things, but at the same time we’re here testing, as are all of our competitors were as well.  So it was tough to leave here overly excited because your competition is here getting better and getting data and all of that as well.
            So we came back and just kept our blinders on and focused on our team, our race car and got the thing pretty dang awesome.
            There were a couple moments in the race where we had to work on the car from a balance standpoint.  There was one cycle of pit stops that came out fourth or fifth and had to drive back through those guys.  Just got the lead from Brad before the caution came out, so there were a couple of tense moments in there.  But when you have a dominant car, it is so stressful because you’re just waiting for that thing that can get you, whatever it is.  So it was nice to keep a ‑‑ Chad said it once on the radio, just keep a positive mindset here, and things are going to work out.  We did that.  We stayed focused and got the job done.
 &nbsp
;          THE MODERATOR:  We also have winning crew Chad Knaus.  Chad, you all tested after Talladega here.  Talk about how pivotal that test was in tonight’s performance.
            CHAD KNAUS:  I’m trying to figure out this hat.  It’s supposed to be ‑‑ I don’t even know how it’s supposed to be.  It was a great test.  It was difficult for sure.  NASCAR allowed us four tests per organization to do, and you’ve got to take all of your teammates there.  So when we first came out here after Charlotte, unfortunately, it rained, and we had to make a pretty difficult decision for everybody to go back to Charlotte before Talladega.  Get our Talladega stuff prepared, go to Talladega and race, and then come back out here the next week.
            I think it was very beneficial for us.  We were able to really kind of break down what the race car was doing.  Jimmie was able to go out there and kind of explore a little bit and find the nuances of the racetrack in kind of a more calm environment.  I think it paid huge dividends for us from a lot of different levels, and it was good.
            Eddie had to be patient with us as we were trying to get him to put the Jet Dryers out there the day that it was raining, and pretty much jet fuelled up, and he did the best to allow us to stay, but we had to come back a week later.  It was difficult.
 
            Q.  Chad, we had during this race a couple of troubles with other drivers, including with tires.  When you saw that, did you modify or change your strategy for Jimmie’s race?  And question number two:  During the test earlier, did you figure out that maybe the tires would be a critical factor?
            CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah, well, we were here testing a couple weeks ago.  We did realize there was a tire issue.  But that’s not so unlike the norm.  We have seen that in the past here, especially until the racetrack starts to get some rubber built up on to it that we do see tire wear.  We saw that while we were here testing.  We really focused on the longer runs.  15, 20 lap runs here at the test to make sure we’d get the tires to last as long as what we needed.  Not so much worrying about the short run speed and the three, four, five laps.
            Fortunately enough, what we were able to get from that is we were able to understand how to make the race car go fast at 20 laps, keep the tires on it, and that actually translated back into a fast race car in the short run as well.  So it definitely was difficult to go through all of that.  And we didn’t really have to change our strategy too much.  We were very fortunate that as we were going through that, we knew there were going to be tire problems.  The key is to not be the first one with the tire issue, and fortunately enough, we weren’t.
 
            Q.  What out‑of‑the‑ordinary repairs did you have to make after yesterday’s final practice, if any?
            CHAD KNAUS:  We didn’t make a whole lot of changes.  We felt like we had a pretty good understanding of what the racetrack was going to do based on what we saw last fall, based on what we saw in the spring with the new GEN‑6 race car, and obviously taking into consideration what we saw during the test.  We didn’t have to do a whole lot.  We made small modifications to the race car.  And, man, I was really pleasantly pleased right out of the box.  Jimmie was able to go out there and pass the 99 car with relative ease just a couple laps into the race.  So we hit it pretty close.
 
            Q.  When you guys win a race like this and you’re battling somebody head‑to‑head, this doesn’t shatter their confidence, but it’s a pretty big blow.  Do you think this will put some extra pressure on Matt and his team going to Phoenix and going to Homestead when you have this kind of dominance over them here at Texas?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I don’t know.  I’d like it to, but I don’t.  At this point of the season if you’re in contention, you’ve got more pressure than you ever wanted to you.  It’s just there.  So I don’t know if this puts anymore.  They were able to get some points on us last week.  We got some on them this week, so I’m not sure.
            But I know where we are and where our team is and our focus and how good of a test we had in Homestead, and we’re very excited to get out to Phoenix and go racing again.
 
            Q.  Chad, same question?
            CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah, you know, I don’t know.  That’s going to be interesting to see.  I think Matt’s the strongest player on that team.  I think he’s the glue that holds that thing together, so we’ll just have to see what happens.  I feel if we stay focused on what we’ve got to do, then we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
 
            Q.  You when you all came here to practice, I was here the one day and it looked like you were doing everything that any of the other teams were attempting to do.  Do you try to physically hide is the wrong word, but, nevertheless, hide what you’re finding?  How much did the fact that Kenseth blew a tire on the second day of that test, how much did that help you get to where you needed to be?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I wouldn’t say that we hid a whole lot.  We came here with a plan and our plan was to try to understand this racetrack a little bit better.  Try to know what we needed to do when we came back and what adjustments would yield a good result.
            I know if I was the 20, and I came here and on my last day of testing I blew a right front tire, I’d be nervous as hell coming back to a racetrack.  So that had to have been looming over them.  Quite honestly, based on what I saw at Homestead, they’re probably pretty nervous about that same thing happening there.  But we just came here and just did our thing.  I think that’s pretty Classic 48.  We worry about us and just kind of let everything else go the way it should.
 
            Q.  The slow pit stop that left you fifth on that cycle, was there any worry that losing your track position would cost you or that you wouldn’t be able to rally from that even with a good car?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I knew we were going to lose some time.  I thought if I had a big enough lead I’d be all right and still come out first or second.  But I guess those guys pitted laps before we did and made up more time on track than what we lost on pit road, and that became more evident to me as I was getting through them pretty quick.
            So I got to second pretty quick, and just as I got by Brad, the caution came out, so that was a challenging point in the race for me.  And it was nice to have it because I rea
lized how good of a car we had and got a little experience passing some cars and got an idea if we did lose track position, the adjustment we needed to make.
 
            Q.  Jimmie and Chad, a year ago you left here up 7.  I’m curious do you feel any better about this year or worse about this year on how you’re doing and also considering Kenseth and the competition?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I mean, we learn lessons each and every year.  I know when I go to Phoenix the balance of the car and what I had felt last year led to a blown right front tire.  So we’ll show up there and make sure that from my standpoint and what I feel and what Chad sees with tire pressures and temps and the overall balance of the car that we don’t overwork that right front tire.
            I feel better about Phoenix, honestly, than I did last year leaving here.  Then last year we did not test Homestead and we just came back from Homestead, and that test went really well.  So I’m optimistic.  I feel good.  But, man, it’s so weird because I’ve been in position before where I’ve had these amazing sensations and feelings that a championship was going to happen, and we were able to do it for those five years in a row.
            There were other years where I had those feelings, and it didn’t happen.  I think 2004, we had everything going our way it seemed like, and it didn’t happen.  Last year was another good example of us taking control late in the Chase, and then that ended with two bad races.
            I guess the lesson in all of that is I’m not counting on anything, and I have to go to Phoenix and race, same as Homestead.  It does simplify things a little bit.  I’m not going to get too excited about things during the course of the week.  I’m going to work real hard and train my butt off.  Stay in this little world that I’ve been living in for the last five or six months, but more so the last eight weeks, and show up ready to go these next two weeks.
 
            Q.  Do you feel any different being 7 points ahead this year compared to last year based on how you’re doing?  And the fact that you’re facing this with a guy who has won the title before?
            CHAD KNAUS:  No, I don’t think there is a big difference.  I think you guys have seen it time and time again.  We really focus on what it is we need to do.  We can all say that Phoenix was the culprit last year why we didn’t win the championship.  The fact of the matter is we had a mechanical problem at Homestead that took us out of it.  If we had won Phoenix and went to Homestead and still had a mechanical problem, we’d have lost the championship.
            So I’m looking forward to it.  I really am.  I think we were in great shape last year.  I think we’re in as good or maybe just a pinch better shape this year, though I do feel the opponent is a little more formidable than what we had last year. So I’m excited.  I really am.
            I love this time of year.  This is what we live for.  This is what we want to do.  We want to go out there and do everything we can to try to win Phoenix.
 
            Q.  Following up on that, Rick said that you guys were both really fired up after Phoenix last year.  That set maybe the tone for even this year to some extent.  I guess, what were those emotions like after that race last year?  Did you feel like you solved whatever caused you to run outside the Top 5 with that second you had back in the spring?  Do you feel like you guys are back to form with that track?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I feel much better about Phoenix this year than last going into it.  I kind of lost my thought.  What was the first part of your question?
 
            Q.  It seemed like it got you guys fired up after that weekend.
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, there definitely was a feeling of it slipping away.  I’m trying to recall the exact emotions at the time.  I mean, frustrated that we blew a right front, and then rolling into Homestead, we didn’t have anything to lose.  We had everything to gain.  That was a fun way to race down there.  We found ourselves with an awesome car, awesome strategy and leading the race, then we had mechanical issues.  I think we had a pit stop issue too right before that that started the downward spiral.
            But there was a range of emotions, for sure.  I mean, pretty disappointed leaving Phoenix to have that slip away like that and lose a big chunk of points.  Rolling into Homestead, eager and ready and trying to put as much pressure on the 2 as we could.  Man, we were close.  We had all the pressure on them and in position, and made some mistakes.
 
            Q.  Chad, you just mentioned a moment ago about feeling like this year’s opponent Matt is a little more formidable than last year’s.  Why so?  Can you explain that comment, please?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I think Matt just from his personality standpoint is a little more controlled.  He’s a little more mature.  He’s been in the sport for a long time.  I think he’s just a little more even keel, so that makes him a little more challenging to get off kilter, off rocker, so we’ll have to see how it shakes outcome Phoenix.
 
            Q.  Yesterday during the Nationwide race, do you stop and watch the race?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  No, I was ‑‑
 
            Q.  What did do you?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I was in Dallas.  My wife and two kids were at a great friend’s house up in Dallas.  So once we had our debrief, I hopped in the car and drove up there and played in the little jump house with my daughter and my God children, and tried to teach my daughter how to ride a bicycle without training wheels.  She didn’t hit the ground, but it didn’t go very well.  Luckily I caught her.
            I went to Mi Casina and got some Mexican food.  I was jealous of everybody else having some of those mumbo taxi margarita things that I wish that I could have.  I could have one tonight, but I couldn’t have one last night.  So that was it.  I was pretty calm.
 
            Q.  So the training wheels worked for the most part.  What would you give her, a grade A through C?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, she needs a little more time with the training wheels.  At 3, she’s not quite there yet, but we had fun for sure.
 
            Q.  Chad, what about you?&nbsp
; Do you stay and watch the race to see problems like the tire issue and things like that?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I try to study as much as I possibly can.  I spent some time on pit road and walked up and down pit road a little bit.  Watched what some of the other teams were going through and what was happening.  I don’t analyze it a whole lot because the strategy is so different.
            I’m not very good at Nationwide racing, So I don’t really understand what they do.  But they did have the same tire; it was the same racetrack, so I was able to get an idea of what was happening with the tire wear.  But that was really all I paid any attention to.
 
            Q.  Johnson, Gordon, it’s basically over for him.  He’s 69 points out now.  Finishes 38th, I think.  What’s it feel like when you’re in a situation like he is where he wins last weekend, feels like he’s got a Hail Mary chance to win a championship, then you show up here pretty confident.  I think Rick said he felt really good after the test you guys had, and then it goes out the door like that with a blown tire?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him yet, but I can only imagine the disappointment.  To be off to a slow start through the year and to rally and showed great speed at different times, and then the whole Richmond thing.  He thinks he’s out and then he’s in.  As he said, playing with house money.  Things were really going his way.  Wins last weekend, so I would assume that it’s just been a steady build‑up of confidence and anticipation for a shot at a championship, and then, boom, it’s gone.
            So I would imagine pretty disappointed, for sure.  I’ll definitely reach out to him and check on him.
                 FastScripts by ASAP Sports
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by tonight’s second-place finisher of the AAA Texas 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 AMPEnergy Gold 7‑Eleven Chevrolet.  This is his fourth Top 5 finish at Texas Motor Speedway.  Another strong run for you.  Talk about your evening?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR:  We started off, we came here to test, and all the Hendrick cars came here to test, and it paid off.  We started out Saturday morning in practice really struggling, and we worked on the car and improved it for the second practice and made a lot of changes overnight to go in that direction.  When the race started, we had a Top 10 car, and I think  (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) improved it quite a bit.  The track was kind of coming to us as well.
            The track conditions that we tested in were similar to how the race ended, so I think that was in our favor inadvertently.  But just real pleased with being able to run well.
            We want to put forward a good account of ourselves in the Chase because you’re in there for a reason and you don’t want to be an also ran.  So we feel like we’re doing a lot of good work and getting really close to probably breaking through and getting a win.  We’ve only got two more opportunities at it, but real pleased with just the speed of the car.
            I think our team has continued to get better every season, and it’s really showing, especially right now in the results that we’ve got.
 
            Q.  With the exception of the engine failure, you’ve had a remarkable run in the Chase.  You’ve had Top 10 finishes in seven of eight races.  You’ve led laps in 6 of 8 races.  Ran into Stiffy today, and he said can you imagine where you would be right now if you had not had that engine failure?  You’d probably be right in the mix.  Do you think about that or do you just try to go and do what you do best?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR:  Yeah, I mean, the Chicago deal is regrettable.  We’d love to go back and do that over again, but as soon as that happened, we really changed our approach and it was more about trying to win a race, winning a race would really lift all the teams spirits.  You work all season long not to go winless and not to getting to Victory Lane.  So I know how much the guys want the win on the team.  So that’s what we’re working for now.
            We gambled a little bit in the late stages of this race short pitting and getting a lot of track position, and we had a fast enough car to keep it, but the 48 was in another class and nobody had anything for him.  He was just super good all through practice and in the race.
            But, yeah, I think about that a little bit.  But there isn’t much you can do about it.  I’ve got two races to go and we’d love to get a win in one of them and continue to have a good run here the chase.
 
            Q.  I think I heard you or Steve on the radio afterwards talking about how many second place finishes you’ve had, and I think it was five.  There wasn’t a lot of frustration.  Is that how you’re viewing it?  It’s not a matter of like, wow, we’ve missed opportunities.  It’s a matter of we’re so close?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I think it’s a matter of being close.  You know, it’s not ‑‑ we’re not running second by making mistakes.  We’re not giving away wins.  So I feel like we’re just really getting close to cracking through and just trying to maintain the momentum with two races to go is going to be tough.  But that’s what we’re focusing on.
          
            Q.  Dale, as you look at the way Jimmie is running, can you compare him to the way he’s run in his previous championship years?  Is this the best you’ve ever seen him run?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  No, I think that he was equally as good in the other championship runs.  They were all impressive for one reason or another.  They’re just a great team.  Chad’s done a good job of putting the right people in the right place.  You’ve got to give (crew chief) Chad (Knaus) a lot of credit for maintaining the consistency of the group and keeping the performance of the car and the equipment there for Jimmie throughout all that process.
            So to be able to sustain that is kind of challenging in this environment.  Guys move around and get hired over here, hired over there, and Chad’s done a good job of keeping the performance up on the equipment and the team.
 
            Q.  Tonight the wind kicked up quite a bit those last ten, 15 laps.  Does that have any impact on you?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I didn’t even know it.&nb
sp; We talk about that, and we can see it during practice and we pay attention to it for qualifying and what have you, but as the race is going on, sometimes your crew chief will give you that information, but he didn’t tell me tonight.
 
            Q.  You know the flags they were out straight the last nine laps?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  Yeah, I was just looking straight ahead and trying to hit my marks.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
NOVEMBER 3, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
WE RAN OUT OF ADJECTIVES TO DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED TODAY – INCREDIBLE, SPECTACULAR, IMPRESSIVE – HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT?
“It was all of that. We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding what I needed in the car and what was going to create speed. We came back and had a very smooth qualifying session and practice sessions yesterday, and just kept putting more and more speed in the car. It paid off today. Obviously we need a lot of speed in the car and a win to get any points because Matt (Kenseth) is there in the top-five. Nice to gain just a few points on him. But just a dominant day for this Lowe’s team. I can’t thank everybody at Hendrick Motorsports enough for their hard efforts. Great car, great effort. Pits stops…all across the board. This Chevy was fast. I know there are a lot of Lowe’s employees watching and excited and are cheering so thank you. Thanks to all the No. 48 fans. Hopefully my wife (Chandra) gets here soon with my two little ones, I can’t wait to see them.”
 
WITH TWO ROUNDS LEFT, HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU THAT THIS IS YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP TO WIN?
“I have been watching a lot of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way. That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes. I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us.”
 
YOU HAVE A SEVEN POINT LEAD, AND LEFT HERE LAST YEAR WITH THAT NUMBER, WHAT DO YOU THINK?
“I hope history doesn’t repeat itself. That is the perfect example of this thing isn’t over until it’s over. Last year we had eight great races and two bad ones and didn’t get the championship. Very important to finish strong. There are two very important races left.”
 
HOW GOOD WAS THIS NO. 48 CAR TODAY?
“This was an awesome, awesome race car. I have to go back to the test session we had last week or the week before. We did a nice job of developing a plan on how we wanted to show up in qualifying trim and in race trim. We had an awesome, awesome race car. And we needed it. Matt (Kenseth) didn’t have the best day and he finished fourth or fifth. So it’s hard to get points in this championship battle, and we got a couple today.”
 
YOU HEAD TO PHOENIX WITH A SEVEN-POINT LEAD. DO YOU CHANGE YOUR THINKING?
“You can’t do it. You have to go racing. Last year, we had the lead leaving here and had two bad races. We have to go to Phoenix and have a very strong race, and then back that up with another one at Homestead. It still isn’t over until the last lap at Homestead.”
 
RICK HENDRICK, WINNING TEAM OWNER
YOU SAID YOU HEARD JIMMIE SAY HE HAD A VIBRATION WITH 15 LAPS TO GO, WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND?
“We’ve had it happen here with just a few laps to go. But all the cars ran good. Jimmie was just so strong all night. It felt like that last 30 was unbelievable. I asked him when he had a vibration; please don’t say anything on the radio any more, not with 10 to go.”
 
DO YOU THINK THIS IS YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP WITH TWO RACES TO GO?
“Absolutely not. We were like this last year going to Phoenix. Anything can happen. You know, we’re not going to know how this thing is going to end until the last lap at Homestead. It is so tight. That is such team. Matt (Kenseth) is such a great driver. Anything can happen. It happened to us at Phoenix last year. It’s not going to be over until the last lap at Homestead, so we just have to keep doing what we are doing. All the cars are running great. I hate it for Jeff (Gordon) but that Lowe’s Chevrolet was on the money tonight.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
THIRD TIME IN THE LAST SIX WEEKS YOU HAVE FINISHED RUNNER-UP, YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE:
“That’s right. We’re getting close. I have got to give Steve Letarte (crew chief) a lot of credit. I want to thank AMP Energy Gold, National Guard, all of our sponsors – Time Warner Cable. The team has done a good job. We came here and tested so we thought we would have a good chance to win it here. Obviously our teammate was here testing too, so it paid off for him. Congratulations to Jimmie. We’ve been working really hard. Steve has done a great job. It’s paying off. We’re getting close.”
 
WHAT WAS THE DAY LIKE?
“Saturday morning in the first practice we were struggling. We got it a little bit better and a little bit better and then we worked on it last night in the bus studying. When the race started, it wasn’t that great; it was okay. But we dialed it in and I think the track kind of came to us as it got dark here. That’s about what the conditions were when we tested. Steve is doing a good job of dialing the car in. He is giving good cars every week. I am driving them alright; I’m just staying out of trouble.”
 
YOU HAD THE FIELD COVERED FOR JUST ONE GUY:
“He (Johnson) was in a class of his own. We were joking that we won the GT class. They were super-fast. I was super, super impressed with those guys’ car. I’m happy to have a good effort and looking forward to the last couple of races. Hopefully we will get us a win. We keep getting close.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
ON HIS RACE:
“We had a pretty good Time Warner Chevy today. We were seventh to 10th most of the race, and worked our way to fifth there at the end. Not quite as good as what Jimmie (Johnson) and Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) was. I know if Jeff (Gordon) had been out there, he would have been fast as well.  The Hendrick (Motorsports) cars were good today. Congrats to them. I’m glad we were able to have kind of a flawless race, and race all day and make a little bit of ground at the end.”
 
HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE?
“It actually changed a good bit where it got a little bit more rear grip, so we had to take a touch of wedge out on that final stop and that helped with the front tires. So it did change, I think it helped us a little bit with battling our front end the whole night. It was still a good race. It feels good to get a solid finish and kind of be in the hunt.”
 
HOW GOOD DOES IT FEEL TO RUN UP FRONT?
“It seemed like we ran seven to 10th. We kept working on it. We never really hit it like we would have liked but it was the best run was definitely our final. It’s been awhile since we’ve run up front so it feels pretty good.”
 
HOW GOOD WAS THE NO. 48 CAR?
“It seemed like he was pretty good. I never saw him. I could only see him on the restarts, so I knew he was really fast. I knew he was going to be really fast after yesterday’s practice. He looked like he was pretty unreal all day from where I was.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 17TH
ON HIS RACE:
“That’s all we had, and for us it wasn’t a good day, or for that matter, a good weekend,” said Busch. “We were off since we unloaded on Friday and never found the right balance for this track. We gave it everything we had, but yet it was disappointing because these mile-and-a-half tracks should be good for us. We need a turnaround in the final two races because it has been too good of a year to end on a struggling note.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
 
Jimmie Johnson Leads Team Chevy in Texas Qualifying
Five-time Champion will Start Third in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500
 
FT. WORTH (November 1, 2013) – Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) champion Jimmie Johnson turned in the third fastest qualifying time for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
 
Piloting his familiar No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, Johnson, who is currently tied for the lead in the series point standings with just three races remaining in the 2013 season, went out seventh in the order of 43 drivers attempting to make the field. Despite a little brush with the wall, he held the top spot until very late in the qualifying order.
 
“I was committed to the throttle off of Turn 4 and just kind of ran out of room,” said Johnson after his Qualifying run.  “And I hate to admit it, but at one point I think I had my eyes shut because I knew there was going to be contact. I just didn’t know how much. But, I just grazed the wall and scratched the sticker for the bumper cover and tail light on the back of the car.”
 
Giving Team Chevy four of the top-10 starters in the 334-lap/501-mile race on the 1.5-mile tri-oval are: Paul Menard, No. 27 Quaker State Chevrolet SS – 4th; Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy Gold/7-Eleven Chevrolet SS – 7th and Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS – 8th.
 
Carl Edwards (Ford) won the pole. Brad Keselowski (Ford) and Kyle Busch (Toyota) complete the top-five qualifiers.
 
The race is scheduled to start Sunday at 3:00 p.m. EST with live TV coverage on ESPN.  Live radio coverage will be provided by PRN Radio and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
 
 
POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED 3RD.
 
YOU QUALIFIED THIRD. IT LOOKED LIKE YOU TAPPED THE WALL. TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN
“Yeah, I was committed to the throttle off of Turn 4 and just kind of ran out of room. And I hate to admit it, but at one point I think I had my eyes shut because I knew there was going to be contact. I just didn’t know how much. But, I just grazed the wall and scratched the sticker for the bumper cover and tail light on the back of the car.
 
“In watching Brad (Keselowski’s) lap, he was in the throttle early as well and lost some time off of (Turn) 4. And then when the Nol. 99  (Carl Edwards) came through, his moment was in (Turns) 1 and 2, but he had a really good (Turns) 3 and 4 and was able to nip us both there. But, I’m real proud of the lap. Even though it was exciting off of Turn 4, as early as we went out to be able to get that lap time, I think it shows our car has a lot of speed in it.”
 
DOES MATT KENSETH HAVE A WEAKNESS? IF SO, WHAT IS IT?
“No; I mean at this point, with three races left, I can’t say that there really is. I’m not planning on it. I didn’t have a lot of faith built in Martinsville being a weak track for him because he ran so good there in the spring. It certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings if he ran 15th all day (laughs) but I knew that wouldn’t be the case early-on in the event and he had a strong race. So, I don’t think there’s a weakness for either team right now. We’re probably going to finish by each other. If somebody has a mistake, I think that will be the deciding factor. But other than that, I think we’re going to run right around each other for these next three races.”
 
LAST WEEK, WHEN GREG BIFFLE WAS ANGRY AND CAME UP TO YOU ON PIT ROAD, YOU DIDN’T THROW A PUNCH, BUT JUST CALMED HIM DOWN BY PUTTING YOUR HAND ON HIS CHEST AND TRIED TO TALK TO HIM. IN THAT MOMENT, HOW DID YOU KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE AND STAY CALM?
“I don’t know what kept me from swinging, to be honest. You never know how you’re going to react until you’re in those moments. After I realized who it was, because I was caught off guard; I didn’t know where it came from. And it was a shock to see Greg because we were on track and roughing each other pretty good for quite a few laps and I thought that everything had simmered down and was gone.
 
“And at that point in time, I didn’t know that his bumper cover was why he went to pit road. I saw him go to pit road, but I didn’t know he was black-flagged for it. So there was a lot of confusion there and I was surprised to see that it was him. I didn’t know who it would be, but I just didn’t think it would be him. So, I thought if he was that mad he would have spun me out on the race track. And then again, my lack of knowledge of knowing that his bumper cover was why he was so upset, I was talking to him about how we had contact in the first place, and the fact that I was inside of him going into Turn 3, which instigated the next five or six exchanges that we had. So my mindset was on something else in general and I was trying to collect my thoughts.
 
“And then truthfully, the most important thing in it all was after he grabbed me, the look in his eyes, I don’t even think he looked at me. He was looking around me and saw all of you (media) standing there. I think he was just as shocked that he grabbed me like that as anyone. And I’ve been in a couple of fights, not many, but he didn’t want to fight. He was just pissed. So, I think at the end of the day that was really the energy in that moment that let me stay calm and just kind of handle it how I did.”
 
DID YOU JUST WORK ON QUALIFYING DURING PRACTICE? YOU JUST DID SEVEN LAPS. ARE YOU THAT CONFIDENT IN YOUR RACE SET-UP?
“Well, we were here and tested last week. We came here twice so I’m a bit confused on exactly when. But we had very similar conditions on the second day of testing. Chad (Knaus) loves to have a plan and to work through a plan and executed well during the test and had a very productive test. And coming back, we had a plan of just working qualifying runs today and then focus on race runs tomorrow. So, it’s nice being able to test, especially being so close to race time and things are buttoned up and the car that you wanted to use and test with and all those kinds of things. So it worked really well for us today.”
 
WITH ALL THIS TESTING AND PLANNING, WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF PRACTICING TOMORROW? WHAT’S THE GOAL TOMORROW?
“For the guys that tested, we’d love to see it rain out to some degree and you’d just have to line-up and run, you know? (laughs) You know what you have in your car. But it’ll be small changes. It’ll be trends. The No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) had a tire issue when we were here so we’ll try to validate a longer run and make sure there are no issues. So, it’s very small things, to be honest. And just to get a temperature on the track and how it’s grip level is and what adjustment might work. So, there will be pretty fine adjustments tomorrow. We won’t be changing a-frames and springs and all that kind of stuff. It’ll be pretty minor.  The engine shop would love us not to run (laughter).”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I think the lap time was reasonable; we’re just not sure where it will be. But, you saw the effort needed to keep it off the fence. It’s slippery out there; it is going to be a challenging qualifying session. We went faster than we did in practice, so hopefully that is a good sign and we can keep the 48 up top. But, a challenging lap for the Lowe’s Chevrolet.”
 
IN REGARDS TO CHANGING TRACK CONDITIONS:
“The track is going to cool down as time goes on. I put up a good lap and went a couple of tenths faster than what we did in practice. So I’m very proud with what we did with the lap and the conditions of the conditions on the track. It is pretty low on grip and I think the No. 36 car spinning out is a testament to that. It was a pretty challenging lap.”
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 QUAKER STATE/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FOURTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“We unloaded fast of the truck and started practice working on race setup. We liked how we ended, so we bailed on the race runs, and went to qualifying trim and the car had speed in it all day. As good as the car was in practice, I thought we had a shot at the pole. It felt really fast. Probably just gave up a little bit too much in the middle of three and four. But good starting spot for the Quaker State Chevy.”
 
WHAT IS THE HARDEST SPOT ON THE TRACK TO NAIL?
“I felt like one and two was really good. It was mostly shaded, and felt like I picked up a lot from practice through one and two…just more grip down there. Three and four, the sun is pretty direct in it. That has always been kind of the struggle here is getting through three and four. If you overdrive the entry you get tight center-exit. I probably backed up my entry just right, but was just a little late getting back in the gas so maybe could have had it.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SEVENTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN:
“We started off on the wrong foot this morning and worked really hard to improve the car. We think we have a good race car. I’m happy to put down a lap that’s competitive. We tested here and got a lot of knowledge. We feel like we have a good start to put together a good race car.”
 
AFTER THAT TEST, HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN ABOUT TIRE WEAR?
“I’m not sure we learned a lot on tire wear. We had some tires tear up on us and we had some tires not do too bad. As the thing rubbers up this weekend, it will be fine on tire wear. We have to get a car that handles well over the entire run.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED EIGHTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I’m happy I thought we made a good gain from practice.  You always go through a lap going ‘oh I could have gone a little bit more there, I could have given up a little bit here.’  I mean overall I think it was a very solid lap.  I think Jimmie (Johnson) had a great lap.  Now I think it just comes down to track conditions.  If the track conditions improve that is going to hurt us a little bit, but we will see.  I can’t be disappointed with anything we have done so far today.”
 
IN REGARDS TO HIS DAY AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY:
“My car was a little bit tight getting back in the throttle so I don’t think I was able to get the backend out like some other guys.  My car was pretty solid, but all-in-all, great day for our Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet. We were 14th in practice, qualified eighth and we went out fairly early, 10th I think. That in my opinion is a good day. We are right there where we need to be to go get ready for this race on Sunday. Funny thing is we qualified eighth in the spring as well and we were pretty solid, but setups have changed slightly since then for the better. I think that just we as a team are more solid, more confident in everything that we are doing. I love this race track. I love how you can search around this race track. It is going to be a fun and exciting race to watch. I am looking forward to getting our car dialed in tomorrow during practice. We tested here last week and thought we found something, and I thought even today we found a few more things to make it even better.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 11TH
ON QUALIFYING FOR SUNDAY’S RACE:
“It wasn’t a bad qualifying effort, but I am looking forward to practice tomorrow to get the car where we need for Sunday.”
 
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN HERE AT TEXAS?
“I think it would be really big for us. We definitely have had a tough Chase. I felt like at Martinsville we had a great car, and some of the other ones. Just haven’t been able to put it all together. Whether it was luck, or mistakes or whatever it’s been. We’re right there. We still have a really solid team and great cars each week. If we could win here, Phoenix and Homestead…Homestead we tested this week and had a great test. There are some tracks where hopefully we can finish up strong and it will at least make the winter a little bit easier.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 13TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I think at least we narrowed up the gap between first and where we were by two tenths.  It was a good lap.  We started in qualifying trim.  I wish we could have been a little bit better, but hopefully we will end up around the top 10.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 19TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“We have struggled all weekend.  We struggled today in qualifying trim with just being way too tight in (turns) three and four.  We fixed a lot of it, about half of it right there, still just didn’t quite get it free enough.  Still not bad.  We picked up two and a half tenths so that is all you can ask for is to get better.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 30TH
ON HER QUALIFYING RUN:
“We were good in (turns) 1 and 2 and the car got tight in (turns) 3 and 4. We picked up from practice though, which is a positive. We started out practice way too loose and got better as the day went on. Really appreciate all the hard work from Tony Gibson and the GoDaddy guys. They worked really hard today. I really appreciate the effort.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
JOE GARONE, GENERAL MANAGER OF FURNITURE ROW RACING AND MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Texas Motor Speedway and announced that Martin Truex, Jr. will be the driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet SS in 2014 and beyond.  Full Transcript:
 
JOE GARONE – “Let’s not waste any time this has been a long time coming.  It’s been intense I’m really happy to be able to do this right now.  We are announcing Martin Truex, Jr. coming on board driving the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet in 2014 and beyond.  Martin, welcome aboard.”
 
MARTIN TRUEX, JR. – “Thank you.  Appreciate it.  We are definitely excited to be here today.  I know this has been a big secret and everybody is really shocked (laughs).  No, in all seriousness this is a big deal for me.  I’m very excited about the opportunity to drive the Furniture Row No. 78 for Joe (Garone) and Barney (Visser, Team Owner).  I’ve really been impressed with their organization obviously I think everybody here has been impressed with what they have accomplished this year being a single car team based out of Denver (Colorado).  I think that anybody in this garage area will tell you it’s been really amazing to watch them progress.  Everybody has been impressed with their competition program, the way their cars have ran this year, the speed that they have had.  I’m looking forward obviously to being a part of that equation.  I think the biggest thing for me is a driver is a few weeks ago when dominos started to fall I wasn’t sure where I would end up.  To have an opportunity like this, this late in the season I just feel really blessed.  I feel really lucky and definitely excited and looking forward to the future with this team.”
 
WHAT WAS THE DECIDING FACTOR?  AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KIND OF REALIZE THAT YOU NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING ELSE?
 
TRUEX – “Well, that is a tough question to answer.  There are a lot of different things I had to think about.  Just the opportunity to do something to try to be better, I think was the deciding factor.  The opportunity to go to a winning race car, start fresh and hopefully do the thing I want to do. I just got excited about the opportunity.  This is only the second time I’ve changed teams.  It’s very difficult.  I’ve had a great four years at Michael Waltrip Racing.  I really enjoyed my time there.  I wouldn’t change anything that ever happened there.  I mean it was great.  Just after all the stuff went down I just felt like it was time for change.  I think this will be a good one.”
 
STORIES HAVE BEEN FLYING ABOUT THAT THE HOLD UP ON THIS DEAL WAS THAT MARTIN YOU MIGHT WAN THE FLEXIBILITY OF A ONE YEAR DEAL AND FURNITURE ROW MIGHT WANT THE SECURITY OF A MULTI-YEAR DEAL CAN EITHER OF YOU ADDRESS THAT?
 
TRUEX – “Yeah, I can tell you it’s not true.  Did you read that on the internet? (Laughs) It’s a multi-year deal.  That was not the hold up.  It was just typical stuff.  Got to get through it all and make sure everybody is going to be happy.  You don’t want to go down the road and say ‘well I wish this was this way or I wish that was that way’.  We wanted to make sure both parties involved are excited looking forward to it.  Put all the other stuff aside and go race cars.  It just takes a few weeks to get that done.  We were able to get that done.  We are looking forward to the next couple of years together for sure.”
 
WHAT CAN MARTIN DO FOR YOUR TEAM?  MARTIN WHAT DID YOU SEE IN THIS TEAM?
 
GARONE – “Martin can win races, certainly so.  He is a Chase level driver.  He is going to fit into the program.  It’s not just Martin, it is Martin and the family, the Truex family.  It’s a fit it really is.  We are excited about all the opportunities that come along with Martin being on board.  From how he represents our sponsors to what he can get done behind the wheel.  We are going to have some work ahead of us.  We are going to work really hard.  Todd (Berrier) and the guys they are excited about moving forward and getting him the cars he needs to be able to win.  That is what we are looking forward to.”
 
TRUEX – “For me obviously the race cars they have had this year, the speed they have had, the things they have been able to do are the things that you look at first and foremost.  Outside of that I have been really impressed with Barney (Visser, Team Owner) talking with him, the things he has been able to do.  The commitment to the program that he has made over the years and continues to make for the future and I think those are the two big things.  I can tell you from being at MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) the turn around that was made there a couple of years ago it all starts at the top.  Barney Visser is the kind of guy that can make things happen.  Obviously, he has already made things happen.  I’ve been impressed in talking to him the way he handles himself, the businesses he has and obviously the race team at the end of the day is the big thing for me.  He’s been able to build a great one.  Hopefully we can continue to make that better and make that stronger.  It’s going to be a different challenge for me and I’m excited and looking forward to doing the best job I can with it.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE UNUSUAL SITUATION THIS HAS BEEN FOR YOU?
 
TRUEX – “It was unfortunate the way everything happened obviously.  We never saw it coming.  It is one of those things that was definitely unprecedented in the sport we’ve never seen before.  I hate that I had to be a part of it.  But again I think that shipped has sailed, things happen.  I’m just very fortunate to have the opportunity to drive for a team of this caliber this late in the season to be able to have that opportunity. It’s something that I didn’t think would exist.  Really I mean as unlucky as I got at Richmond a month or two ago I got just as lucky when this deal turned up.  What can you say?  I guess all things happen for a reason, hopefully all this happened for a reason and we will be able to do some great things together.”
 
SURELY THIS HAD TO ALMOST SEEM SURREAL GOING FROM VICTORY LANE AT SONOMA TO RICHMOND TO NOW.  HOW HAS THAT BEEN FOR YOU PERSONALLY? HOW HAVE YOU GOTTEN THROUGH THAT?
 
TRUEX – “It’s been tough.  It’s been a roller coaster of emotions to say the least.  I think that at the end of the day the things that helped me get through it were just the people I surround myself with.  My family, my girlfriend, even folks at Napa that I talked to that really helped me through the situation.  It was definitely difficult.  It’s something that I never thought that could ever happen.  I guess it was the unimaginable.  But really I tried to stay positive through it all.  I knew it would work out, I had hoped that it would work out and it has.  I think I dealt with it pretty good as far as not getting down trying to focus on racing four days a week then what I am going to do next year the other couple of days of the week.  I think it was tough, but I’ve got my health.  I’ve got great people around me that keep me grounded and keep me focused; at the end of the day that I didn’t lose too much sleep over it.  It all worked out good.  You think about people like Marcy Scott losing her this morning.  You know life is not fair.  As big of a deal as this is to a lot of us sometimes it’s not the end of the world.  That is kind of the way I tried to look at it. 
That helped me get through.”
 
YOU JUST MENTIONED YOU SPOKE TO NAPA.  HAVE THEY LEFT THE DOOR OPEN TO ANY FUTURE DISCUSSIONS OF POSSIBLY COMING BACK WITH YOU IN YEARS TO COME?
 
TRUEX – “I think that really at this point anything is possible.  We have got a lot of great partners that we have worked with over the years.  That I’ve worked with personally that have shown interest in the program that we are going to put together.  Yeah, I can’t really say much right now about it, I’m not sure, but they have been great supporters of mine the last four years.  Hopefully we will be able to do something together.  We have got a lot of great partners that are interested in the program and hopefully moving forward we will be able to put some things together with them.”
 
GOING FROM MICHAEL WALTRIP RACING THAT WAS TWO OR THREE CAR TEAM TO A SINGLE CAR TEAM WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES?

TRUEX – “Well, I’m not real sure to be honest.  I think I will find that out as I get into it.  I think advantages are the alliance they have with RCR (Richard Childress Racing) right now obviously makes them strong.  One of my best friends Ryan Newman is over there. We will kind of be teammates next year which is really cool.  I’m looking forward to working with him and hopefully helping each other.  I think the advantages of the single car operation from what I gather talking to Barney (Visser) and Joe (Garone) the way they kind of do things.  When they want to build a part and put it on the race car they do it.  There is no five, six weeks of it going through a system to get it on the race car.  I think that from a technology stand point I think it’s a great thing.  There are a lot less channels for things to go through.  I think the guys in the shop Todd Berrier has a lot more kind of leeway to go build some race cars and do things it takes to get ahead of the competition.  Certainly look forward to seeing how that all works, plays out, but from what I understand that is kind of the way it’s been.  They have been in the forefront of technology this year as a race team.  You look at the things they have done, you look at the race cars throughout the weekends for a lot of the season everybody was chasing them.  I think being a single car team, being able to do things like that is something that is going to be exciting and be fun to be a part of.  Looking forward to seeing how all that works.  We will just have to see how it goes.”
 
DID YOU HAVE ANY OTHER OFFERS?
 
TRUEX – “There were other offers. I talked to other teams a bit.”
 
WAS THERE ANYTHING CONCRETE WITH SPONSORS?
 
TRUEX – “No, There was a lot of hypotheticals.”
 
TAKE US BACK TO THE MOMENT WHEN YOU LEARNED NAPA WAS GONE AND YOU WERE GOING TO LOSE YOUR RIDE:
 
TRUEX – “I can’t say what I said then. (LAUGHS) I was terrified. My first thought was ‘What am I going to do next year?’ Here it is September. Everybody’s got their deals done for next year. I pretty much said ‘Oh Crap’. It was like getting punched in the face. You didn’t see it coming. It came out of nowhere. Obviously, I kind of saw it coming after what all went down. Right away, it was ‘Ut oh, this is bad. This could be real bad’. Again, I think, that ship has sailed. I don’t even really like talking about it anymore. I just really want to focus on looking forward, and the opportunity to work with the No. 78 team. I just feel really blessed to have that come along. Again. nine out of 10 years in NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, if somebody would have lost their ride at the time of year I did, the changes of getting a ride of this caliber are slim to none at best. I feel lucky that I was able to put this thing together.  All you can do is look forward. You can’t turn back time. You can’t go back and fix things you might have done different. You just have to look forward and try to push forward, and that is what we are doing.”
 
IS THE RCR ALLIANCE A MULTI-YEAR THING OR AN INDIVIDUAL YEAR-BY-YEAR?  THE TEAM ITSELF, YOU MADE SOME CHANGES AROUND DOVER, CREW MEMBERS, ETC. WHAT KINDS OF THINGS ARE YOU DOING TO STRENGTHEN THE TEAM FOR NEXT YEAR?
 
GARONE – “It is a continual process. Our RCR deal is that we do them year-to-year, and that has been a strong program. Richard (Childress) made a commitment to make sure that that program ran as a complete open-book type of relationship, and they have stood by that. It is certainly something that we utilize. But, as Martin said earlier, one of the big advantages that we have as a single-car team with that type of alliance, is our ability to move quick. We are real agile, and focus out in Colorado is 100% is about what we are doing in that shop with a staff of about 60 people, and that makes it really strong. The RCR deal is real important. As far as personnel goes, we’ve had some struggles, it’s not a secret, on pit road. We have been working hard to overcome that. Our pit crew didn’t grow as fast as the performance of the car did last year. We’ve been able to secure Martin’s pit crew; actually bring them on-board in full-time positions for 2014. I think that is going to really help that part of our program.”
 
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE FURNITURE ROW TO SAY THAT MARTIN WAS THE ANSWER FOR THE TEAM?  MARTIN, DID YOU COME TO THEM, OR DID THEY COME TO YOU FIRST?
 
GARONE – “You know, sometimes you have to have faith, and have patience. We were looking at every driver that was available, and some that you would bring up out of the other series that are ready to come up, or maybe even not quite ready yet. We were looking at all of those, and we were really trying to take our time. It is a balance. We are also trying to compete – make the Chase; complete in the Chase. We don’t want to upset that. It was really a struggle to keep ourselves patient and just pray for the right opportunity to come along. And then, the right opportunity comes along. Probably an opportunity that you just couldn’t even dream about having. That’s kind of how it went. It was tough to be patient.”
 
TRUEX – “I’m not even sure who.  Obviously once it happened, that was my first happened.  How do we get a hold of these guys and see if we can do this.  I think along those lines, they thought the same thing as far as I remember back. But honestly, it all happened really fast. I think that once we both knew we could work together and put a deal together, it was like okay, let’s talk about this and see what it would look like and if we feel like we could be successful together. I think that was the first thing we talked about. It happened fast, but again, it is one of those deal, as Joe said, you never really saw it coming, it just all of a sudden happened. Obviously we are both thankful that it did, and looking forward to taking the next steps, and hopefully being successful together.”
 
WHEN DID YOU ACTUALLY SIGN THE CONTRACT?
 
TRUEX – “Last night.”
 
I KNOW YOU SPENT A COUPLE OF SESSIONS WITH COLE PEARN AND TODD BERRIER.
 
TRUEX – “Boy you know a lot. I mean, I get my news from Twitter anymore. I’m just going to tell you. I follow a lot of you guys in here (media center) and if ever want to know something, I just go on Twitter, and it is there. So, that’s how I get my NASCAR news.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR INITIAL RESPONSE? HAVE YOU BEEN TO DENVER?
 
TRUEX – “To answer your question, I have not been to Denver yet. We just haven’t been able to get the logistics down. It’s been kind of a crazy time of year, so I have not made it there yet. But, I think the biggest thing in talking to Cole and Todd, and to Barney and Joe, and just everybody is that their focus is on race cars. Barney says if it makes the car go faster, we get it. Those types of thing as a race car driver that you look for. As much as it sounds crazy, but fan experiences, and shop tours
and all those kinds of things don’t make cars faster. These guys are 100% focused on making race cars faster. Whether it is Todd and Cole at the race track, or at the shop building stuff. Or Barney’s commitment to the team, it is all about racing cars. As a driver, it is refreshing. In this day and age, it is something you don’t see a lot of. A lot of this sport is about the fans, the experience and putting on a show.  These guys are in Denver, and they build race cars…fast race cars, and I can’t wait to drive them. Just talking to Todd and trying to get a game plan together on how we are going to approach this; how we are going to get prepared; get to know one another – those are the kinds of things we need to make happen quickly so we have a good game plan going into the off season, and getting ready for testing and things like that.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Texas Motor Speedway and discussed his success at the track, strengths of his challengers in the Chase and being in close proximity to some of those challengers. Full transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT BEING AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY A TRACK WHERE YOU’VE HAD SUCCESS AND THE SEASON COMING DOWN TO THE WIRE.
“It’s definitely a tense period of time. Actually it’s a lot of fun once I can really slow things down and pay attention to it. Having another shot at a championship this year is something I’m very proud of, and I know our race team is. Having to race so hard for it and fight for each and every point as we have is, in most situations, a lot of fun. It’s not over yet. There is still a lot to go. It’s going to be this way to the end. I’m excited and looking forward to it. We tested here before and I feel good about our car. We should have a good weekend. We just wrapped up a few days in Homestead, so I feel good about our stuff. When we pulled in to test here and at Homestead, we noticed Joe Gibbs Racing was there too, so it’s not like we’ve been getting a leg up on Matt (Kenseth). Jeff Gordon for that matter has been at test sessions too. It’s hard to feel like we found something over them, but we had two really good test sessions.”
 
FOR YOU AND MATT, 1.5-MILE TRACKS HAVE BEEN STRONG POINTS FOR YOU. IT SEEMS LIKE AT THIS PLACE IN THE GEN-6 CAR, YOU’VE RUN SOMEWHAT BETTER THAN HE HAS. AT NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MARTINSVILLE, HIS TEAM MADE GOOD STRIDES THAT HE DIDN’T EXPECT. ARE YOU CONCERNED THEY COULD PULL ANOTHER GREAT SETUP OUT OF THE HAT?
“I think Martinsville is the best example of that. Matt and his team, the direction their cars are going, you can’t look at past history and say that you can count on a 15th-place average at Martinsville for Matt. I think the championship battle brings the very best out of people, and he and his people are bringing their best each and every weekend.  I feel in order to win the championship you have to be up front racing for the win. I expect to see the No. 20 there each and every week.”
 
NOT EVERY RACE AT THIS TRACK IS MEMORABLE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THE ONES THAT ARE INVOLVE DUELS LIKE YOU AND KESELOWSKI LAST YEAR, OR YOU AND MATT IN 2007. IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TRACK THAT PRODUCES MORE OF THE SIDE-BY-SIDE BATTLES FOR THE WIN IN THE CLOSING 10-15 LAPS?
“I think it has to do with the lanes and options we have to run around here. At the 1.5-miles especially the freshly paved ones, the bottom lane is the preferred groove. Once you get the position on someone, you usually end up going by. Here and if you look at Atlanta and how many good side-by-side finishes we’ve had there, you can’t complete a pass as easily as you think because there is a second lane. You don’t storm on by at the bottom.”
 
WOULD YOU SAY YOU AND MATT HAVE SIMILAR PERSONALITIES, AND DOES THAT HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS THINKING ON THE RACE TRACK?
“I think we do have a lot of similarities in the way we race. Being around him, off the track as well and with his family, we have a lot in common. I wouldn’t say we are identical. But we do have something very deep down that is very common between the both of us the way we approach things a little more laid back.”
 
WHEN YOU SEE BOXING MATCHES, THE GUYS GET TOGETHER AND THEY ARE FIERCE IN FRONT OF THE MEDIA, AND THEN THEY GO THEIR SEPARATE WAYS UNTIL THEY DO BATTLE. HERE, YOU AND MATT PASS EACH OTHER IN THE MEDIA CENTER AND LIVE NEAR EACH OTHER AT THE TRACK. HOW WILD IS IT FIGHTING AN INTENSE BATTLE AND BE SO CLOSE TO THEM? AND DO YOU THINK THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF WHEN IT’S YOUR YEAR, IT’S YOUR YEAR?
“I think when it’s your year, it’s your year. You can look back on it once the season is over and where things could have turned badly for you, but fortune came your way. It’s just too tough now, especially with it tied up in the points like it is. Coming into our sport, ever since I got on four wheels and had teammates and the dynamic of competing hard. We were joking at the test at Homestead and I was saying that you know these people and have friendships outside of the car or they are teammates. Then you get in the car and you think badly about that guy and want bad things to happen to him. That dynamic started when I got on four wheels.
 
“When I raced dirt bikes, I raced for myself. You really don’t have teammates or have to worry about from a team standpoint. Since I’ve been on four wheels, it’s there and that’s a tough thing to get used to. I think kids coming along in today’s world are far more open-minded to it. I feel like the way I was raised and always had a teammate that I came in under prepped for this. I was very thankful, and it was something both Rick (Hendrick) and Jeff (Gordon) liked when I came on board. Some of the other guys ahead of me like (Jerry) Nadeau and some of the other folks at Hendrick didn’t grow up under that system. It was more difficult for them to open up and share like they needed to do. At the end of the day it’s a different dynamic than a lot of other sports. But people question sometimes how we can put our helmets on and go to work and race as hard as we do. All of us in here know it. You see it each and every week. But there really is two worlds outside-the-car and in-the-car world.”
 
LAST YEAR (BRAD) KESELOWSKI WENT AROUND AND REPAIRED ALL THE DAMAGED RELATIONSHIPS HE HAD WHEN HE WAS RUNNING FOR A CHASE.  YOU HAVE GREG BIFFLE THAT YOU HAD THE RUN IN LAST WEEK.  DID HE FINALLY CALL YOU?  IF SO DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT’S IN THE PAST?
“I do feel like it’s in the past.  We unfortunately haven’t had a chance to talk.  We have been in communication through texts trying to get together.  He has had a busy week.  I was in Homestead testing for a couple of days.  I do feel like things are under control there and I feel like if he was that angry in the car he probably would have turned me around in Martinsville.  I just don’t see how it would linger on and over.  I certainly hate that things turned out as they did.  I don’t think it’s going to go any further.”
 
ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN RACING, BUT LOOKING BACK AT MARTINSVILLE WHERE YOU WERE A HEAVY FAVORITE COMING IN AND GOT AN OKAY RESULT.  DO YOU THINK WE MAY LOOK AT MARTINSVILLE RESULT AS A TURNING POINT IN THE CHASE?
“I don’t know.  The biggest difference in our finishing order I guess would be Talladega so far.  It depends on which way it goes.  If it goes the No. 48 direction then you might look at a different race.  If it goes the No. 20 way you would definitely look at Martinsville.  There still are three races left there is no telling what is going to happen.”
 
WHEN MATT (KENSETH) WAS IN HERE HE WAS DISCUSSING 2006 IN LAS VEGAS YOU GOT HIM IN THE LAST CORNER.  2007 HERE YOU ENDED UP BEATING HIM.  THAT STILL STINGS HIM.  HOW HARD IS IT TO LET THOSE GO AND HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THAT GENERAL DYNAMIC OF RACING AGAINST HIM THAT HARD THROUGHOUT THE YEARS?
“Those moments do sting and I have one with Carl Edwards in Atlanta.  I see the video occasionally and it still hits me deep.  ‘Man I can’t believe I came that close to winning and it slipped away 50 yards from the finish line’.  Those do stick around.  It doesn’t make me want to crash Carl or dislike him or race him any harder, you just hate that it got away.  Matt and I have always had a very good respect for one another on the track especially in the Cup Series at this level.  We have been able to get to that line and respect each other on the track.  Accidents do happen and stuff can happen.  We are out there racing hard for our team for a championship and we will se
e how things turn out.  I expect really good racing as we get through these next three races.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Texas Motor Speedway and discussed making the transition from IndyCar to the NASCAR Nationwide series and the NASCAR Nationwide series to the NASCAR Sprint Cup series, what she has learned her first full season in the Sprint Cup Series and other topics. Full transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT THE COOKING CONTEST WITH DEMARCUS WARE, HOW IT WENT AND WHAT YOU COOKED.
“I definitely got launched into the cooking world when people saw the ‘Chopped’ episode or heard about it. Nationwide Insurance is partnered with Demarcus Ware. We were trying to think of something to do for the North Texas Food Bank. I was out in Raleigh doing an appearance where I met the governor and all kinds of things. I said let’s cook! There were kids involved, and I said it would be fun if they picked the ingredients. And Demarcus can cook too! It was breakfast-oriented, which was perfect because it doesn’t take as long. It was fun and we raised money; that was important. Plus I got to cook, which is always fun for me. I made French toast, scrambled eggs with cheese, peppers and spinach, and a smoothie.”
 
HAVING ALMOST COMPLETED A FULL SEASON, WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST TRANSITION INDYCAR TO STOCK CARS OR NATIONWIDE TO A FULL SEASON OF SPRINT CUP?
“That’s a good question. It was definitely a bigger transition to go from IndyCars to stock cars. It’s just that I was doing it on a smaller platform with the Nationwide Series. I’m really glad that GoDaddy was supportive of the recommended process of getting to Sprint Cup. If I had gone from IndyCar straight to Sprint Cup, it would have been an incredible challenge. I’m appreciative of my partners standing behind the recommended way to do things and to have that patience and belief. Stock cars are definitely a lot different than an IndyCar. Understanding the flow of the races and what the cars do, it was important to have the base of the Nationwide Series experience before going to Cup. It’s still very hard, but it was definitely bigger going in from open wheel.”
 
DO YOU SEE THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF YOU BEING IN GODADDY’S SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL AS A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE CONSIDERING THE YEAR YOU’VE HAD? AND CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE CHANGE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR GODADDY’S BRANDING?
“I’ve never been 100 percent sure I’d be in their Super Bowl commercials at any point until they announced it. Their creative is very important and their marketing campaign in particular their Super Bowl commercial. I was really happy last year when they had me and I’m very happy to be in it again. I don’t necessarily see these Super Bowl commercials as a  specific change in philosophy. That has kind of been happening for a little while as we saw the rollout of the Jean-Claude Van Damme series of commercials and social media pictures of him doing splits and things. The problem is that not a lot of people knew what GoDaddy did. It was smart to expand on that and in particular help the small businesses of America grow and have that platform to, in GoDaddy’s words, kick ass.”
 
WOULD IT HAVE CONCERNED YOU IF YOU WEREN’T IN IT?
“I suppose I would have wished that I was and wondered why not. Blake (Irving) has been supportive of this whole program and had such great things to say. It wasn’t all that long ago, he had spoken about being with me for an awful, awful long time. If I wasn’t in the Super Bowl commercials, those kinds of things are reassuring. But definitely when there are transitions in companies and with who is in charge and making decisions, you hope you are part of those decisions for a long time. All these things happening this year is very reassuring. I’ve always said that it’s most important that my sponsor benefits the most and that their company grows. I want to help them do that.”
 
EARLIER IN THE SUMMER THERE WAS SOME COMPARISONS TO YOUR ROOKIE-YEAR RECORD AND OTHERS WHO HAD COME UP THROUGH SPRINT CUP AND ACCOMPLISHED A GREAT DEAL AND IT WAS PRETTY GOOD. CAN YOU LOOK BACK AT YOUR PROGRESS AND HOW WOULD YOU EVALUATE WHERE YOU’RE AT NOW VERSUS WHERE YOU’D LIKE TO BE?
“I feel like the rookie year I’ve had has been actually similar to Nationwide, to be honest. I wasn’t super-fast figuring out how to go fast. When I figured out how to go faster, it was riddled with bad luck, things happening and silly mistakes. Then come the end of the year I started to get it together, it did happen. A lot of that happened this year. I’d like to be running better at this point. Last week at Martinsville was definitely a better weekend for us. We have some good races coming up for us. We’ve been qualifying better at some of the tracks. At Charlotte by the end of the race, I said I didn’t know what else you could do to make it better other than throwing a couple hundred pounds more downforce on this thing so I could go faster or 50 pounds or 20 pounds or anything.
 
“We have been making improvements but at the same time come the end of the year, because we’ve been looking ahead to next year, we’ve also been taking bigger chances. We’re trying different things with the car that we haven’t tested because we need to get ahead for next year. While we’re not throwing away this year we are using it as a way to get ready for 2014. Those are some things that hadn’t happened at the end of my Nationwide year. It’s been similar but on a slightly diluted level because everyone is so good in Sprint Cup. If we can find our way to the next little level it’s going to be really competitive and a much more satisfying spot to be in. I can’t tell you where I expected to be. I don’t know. I’ve always said to you guys the last couple of years that everyone learns at a different pace and a different rate. There are going to be times when I do better than you expect, and there are going to be times where I do worse that you expect. That path is going to happen for a couple of years until you can get into a rhythm and know what you’re doing.”
 
STAYING WITH THAT THEME, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED AS A PERSON IN YOU FIRST SEASON?
“I always thought I was a patient driver and methodical, and there is a lot of that. But I really realized this year how getting a little overly excited or anxious or frustrated can bite you so hard. We’re that close to the edge all the time. You push that limit and bad things can happen. I’ve found that I’ve had to be more patient than I am normally. That’s one things that, as far as a personality in the car, that has surprised me a little bit.”
 
ONE OF YOUR FOLKS SAID THIS MORNING THAT THE REASON YOU DO SO WELL AT MARTINSVILLE AND SOME OTHER TRACKS IS THAT MARTINSVILLE, IN TERMS OF WHAT IT DEMANDS FROM A DRIVER AND A RACE CAR, IS A LOT LIKE INDYCAR. DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY?
“There are two things. I think that Tony Gibson (crew chief) has traditionally had good cars there. We had a really good test at Little Rock at the beginning of the year before we went to Martinsville. That really gave us a good base setup that I felt comfortable with because every driver is a little bit different. Beyond that, I think it’s a track where it’s a lot about rhythm, patience and discipline. It’s very easy there that after 20 laps to blow the entry and have mistakes. It was catastrophic to get into the marbles 1.5 lanes up. Limiting those mistakes was how I moved up so much. I think between those two things, that’s what has been working at Martinsville. Then, I don’t know maybe I’m just okay there.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed his position in the Chase, the leaders currently in contention, great racing at Texas, winning at Martinsville last week, and more. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
WITH THREE RACES LEFT AND ALL THAT MOMENTUM COMING OUT OF YOUR WIN AT MARTINSVILLE LAST WEEK, WHAT’S YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR?
“I’m real positive; not just because of Martinsville, but in general; things and the momentum have been building for this team since Chicago. And we’ve run good at a lot of different race tracks. We’ve been qualifying better, which is something I stressed before we got into the Chase that we needed to do. And we’ve been doing that.
 
“Martinsville was fantastic. Of course it’s a short track and this is an intermediate. I think that test we did here last week and that race that we ran he earlier in the season was probably more of what we’re building our confidence on coming into this weekend more so than just that win at Martinsville. The win at Martinsville I think was a great team booster and was obviously good for points. But it’s really about having a car and a team and the set-up that you need to run well at a track like this that’s going to get us the results on Sunday.”
 
CONSIDERING THAT MATT KENSETH AND JIMMIE JOHNSON ARE THE TWO AT THE TOP OF THE CHASE, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE REALISTIC CHANCES ARE OF THIS BATTLE BUNCHING-UP?
“Every week will tell us. Even if you take that scenario a little further; one of them potentially having an issue is possible. But both of them, I think that even narrows the percentages down even more. So, all I know is that none of that changes our game plan and our approach. We’ve got to go out and execute and put the best results up that we can. What those guys do is somewhat out of our control.
 
“We’ve got to try to put pressure on them and put fast race cars out there to do that and then see what the results are after each race. Even last week, we win the race and we really didn’t really gain that much on those guys. They’re very solid teams, solid drivers, and they run good everywhere. And I expect them to run good these three remaining races as well.”
 
HOW CLOSE DO YOU NEED TO BE TO GET THEM TO TALK ABOUT YOU BEING A VERY CLOSE CONTENDER GOING INTO PHOENIX OR GOING INTO HOMESTEAD?
“I’m probably more thinking about going into Homestead of what those points need to be; it’s hard to make up more than 10 points on either one of those guys in a single race. So, I would think that you’d need to be within 10 or 12 points at Homestead. I do know we had a great test at Homestead. I felt like we have a very fast race car and I would love to be in that position at Homestead because I do think we could put some pressure on them. Those guys make very few mistakes.
 
“We’re not expecting anything out of them this week, next week, or the week after that. Again, all we’re doing is trying to do our job the best that we can. But it would be pretty exciting for our race team to go into Homestead and be maybe 10 or 12 points out. That would be pretty exciting.”
 
ALONG THOSE SAME LINES, TALK ABOUT GOING TO PHOENIX. THE FIRST TIME YOU WENT THERE, THE GEN-6 CAR WAS ALMOST BRAND NEW. DO YOU THINK THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME? WHAT SORT OF RACE ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THERE THIS TIME?
“Since they repaved Phoenix, it’s not our best track. We’ve got some work to do there. I came into this looking at two tracks that were on our radar of tracks we need to improve at; and that was Kansas and Phoenix. At Kansas we came out with a third place finish. If we could make those kinds of improvements at Phoenix, I feel pretty good about the other two.”
 
IS IT STRANGE TO HAVE THE HOPE THAT THESE GUYS (KENSETH AND JOHNSON) HAVE PROBLEMS?
“Man, the thing is, I love just the fact that we’re in the conversation right now. I’m just excited that we’re not talking about me retiring and what changes need to happen to our team. I mean, you’ve got to understand those are the conversations and questions I’ve been getting and asked the most this season and I understand. Our results and our stats have not been good enough to have any other questions be asked.
 
“So, now they are. Now we’re getting asked different questions. I’m fine with all of them. We’re not going into anything hoping or wishing anything bad on anybody. We’re just proud to be where we’re at and we just hope that we can keep that up.  We’ve got momentum and we’ve got a lot of excitement within the team. We’re going to the race track having fun, whether we’re testing or racing. I just want to keep that going all the way to Homestead no matter what the results are when this thing is over, we’ll be able to hold our heads up high.
 
“But I would like it to be a little bit more interesting when we get there (laughs). At this point, you can ask me all the questions in the world and my answers are going to kind of be the same. Let’s wait and see what happens after this race. Let’s wait and see what happens after Phoenix. You can’t predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit here and say oh well.
 
“There are a million things that can go wrong for every race team that’s out there. So, we’re just going to go and focus on the things that we’re doing to make sure we don’t have those issues and we have good results.”
 
IT SEEMS LIKE IN THIS SPORT, WHEN YOU TRY TOO HARD IT JUST DOESN’T WORK. DO YOU REMEMBER RUNNING FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS OTHER TIMES? DOES IT JUST SEEM TO COME TO YOU AND FEEL RIGHT WHEN YOU WON TITLES?  DOES TRYING SO HARD WORK, OR NOT?
“In my experience over the years, most of the times when you try too hard you fail. You’ve got to push yourself within the limits of the car and within the limits of yourself. And there are some tracks you have to mentally and physically push yourself. This is one of them here for qualifying. This is a track where the grip level is very high. It is an intense lap. And you’ve got to mentally push yourself harder and push the car harder than you think it’s capable of running. There are moments like that when maybe you need to try a little harder.
 
“But, I would say, most of the time it’s just trying to find those limits and be within them. The closer you are to the limits, the more chance of mistakes that are made. As we all know, every green flag pit stop and entry on to pit road, every restart and every lap is so crucial that it’s all about being calm and that’s the thing that I think separates the top five or six teams from the others that are out there right now is that those teams all have quite a bit of confidence in what they’re doing.”
 
WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON TIED FOR THE LEAD IN POINTS, ARE YOU STILL SHARING INFORMATION TECHNICALLY? OR DO YOU KEEP IT NOW TO YOURSELF IN CASE YOU CAN FIND TECHNICAL ADVANTAGES IN YOUR CARS?
“No, we’re business as usual at Hendrick Motorsports now. If we get to Homestead and we’re in the thick of this thing, then I don’t know. That might change slightly. People are human and people are competitors but at this point, it’s just going along as we always do. We’ve got a database full of information. We have a system that’s all about what information is put in there.
 
“After that, it’s wide-open to our engineers to gather that information and what they do with it. So, just even today, we were comparing driver inputs and data from each run that we made (including) set ups and all that stuff. It’s pretty much close to being live information. I’ll let you know how the debrief goes tomorrow (laughs).”
 
IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TRACK THAT PRODUCES SOME GOOD SIDE-BY-SIDE BATTLES TOWARD THE END OF A RACE?
“The thing is, we pretty m
uch know that to be a factor for the championship, you pretty much know that you have to be good on the 1.5-mile tracks. That’s been known for the last several years. You get down to this point in the season and you start to narrow it down to those teams that are running for the championship and pretty much all of them are going to be good on these 1.5-mile tracks.
 
“This is a track that has really matured and aged well and that has offered more side-by-side racing fall-off in the lap times, which I think contributes to some great racing. And then you have the championship battle going on, on top of that and those guys being competitive. It definitely has the makings of great racing.”
 
JEFF BURTON IS GOING TO HAVE LESS OF A PRESENCE NEXT YEAR, MAYBE NO PRESENCE ON THE CUP RACING.  DOES HE HAVE A STATESMAN STATUS WITHIN THE GARAGE AMONG OTHER DRIVERS AND CAN YOU ENVISION WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE NOT HAVING HIM AROUND THE GARAGE AREA NEXT YEAR?
“You don’t want to really comment on it until you know what it’s really going to be.  I spoke to Jeff (Burton) when we were here testing and he didn’t necessarily allude to me he wouldn’t be in a car next year.  That is possible and if that was he will certainly be missed.  I have almost my entire Cup career Jeff, certainly the whole time I have been in NASCAR.  I came into the Nationwide Series and Jeff was a very strong driver in that series.  I have always had a lot of respect for him, other than that time he wrecked me here (crowd laughs).  He’s a good guy.  I think he is a smart race car driver.  I value his opinions that he has when he is analyzing the sport and the cars just kind of looking at the broader picture.  He has got a good perspective and very level head about it.  He seems to be very excited about his son racing right now as well.  I think he will be a part of the sport next year and as long as he is he is going to be contributing something that is valuable.”
 
YOU KNOW JIMMIE JOHNSON SO WELL IS IT POSSIBLE TO FLUSTER HIM ON THE TRACK?  DO YOU OR MATT (KENSETH) KNOW WHAT BUTTON TO PUSH ON HIM?
“It’s just the speed button you just have to have more speed than him that is why it’s very rare it ever happens.  Those guys are just really good.  They have a group that has been together for a long time and they have been through a lot together.  They get into this position and they know how to step up at the right moments.  It’s hard to put pressure on them.  I think everybody talks about it.  The 10 tracks in the Chase are really good tracks for him.  I think that they go into every Chase feeling like they can win it because they go to the majority of the tracks feeling like they can win.  The fact that he finished fifth at Martinsville that was a huge let down to him because those guys are so good there.  When a guy goes to a track and he’s let down because he finishes fifth that tells you how good they are.  So we saw last year that they are not flawless.  Anything can happen in racing, again, I’m going to just say my answer is kind of the same.  It’s not about them, it’s about us just going and doing our jobs.  Hopefully, we can continue to step up a little bit more and try to find a way to put some pressure on them.  That I think is the only thing and I don’t even know if it’s really been done yet where anybody has really put pressure on them other than a little bit last year.”
 
CAN YOU THINK OF ANY OTHER SEASON IN YOUR ENTIRE RACING CAREER WHERE YOU WERE CHALLENGED OR FACED THE SAME CHALLENGES AS YOU DO NOW AS YOU RUN FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Oh I’ve faced much larger challenges than this.  I mean not even being in the conversation is a bigger challenge.  Not even being in the Chase is a bigger challenge.  I’m pretty excited we got that win last week because we have had seasons where we didn’t win races either.  I’m not saying we couldn’t still be in this conversation without winning that race, but I’ve had a few years throughout my career even before I got in the Cup Series and in the Cup Series that have been more challenging than this one.  The challenges that stand out to me this year is just how when we had the cars capable of getting results earlier this year we just couldn’t seem to get it.
 
“Call it luck, call it whatever you want, we just weren’t executing, we weren’t putting ourselves in position and we certainly weren’t getting the results.  Then the times when nothing went wrong we didn’t have the performance to get the results.  This has been a pretty big turnaround for us.  We never stopped fighting which is what I’m most excited about.  But we also did that last year.  Last year we struggled to get in and of course we all know about that Richmond race last year, but to me what we did in the Chase was actually very similar to what we are doing now.  Just getting in seems to be the bigger challenge to us than when we are actually in it.  Now, of course making up 27 points on Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth that is a big challenge.  At this point I don’t even think we are really focused on that gap.  We are really just focused on doing our jobs because I think realistically we know that unless those guys have a couple of bumps in the road probably not going to make those points up on them throughout three weeks.”
 
IT LOOKED LIKE YOU REALLY ENJOYED THE WIN LAST WEEK AT MARTINSVILLE.  I’M JUST CURIOUS IT’S BEEN EIGHT YEARS SINCE YOU WON THERE WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK?
“I enjoyed it immensely.  That was awesome.  I was actually proud of my burnout, it had been awhile.  It was very late when I left that race track just because I wanted to soak it all in and see the team enjoying that and my wife and Rick (Hendrick) just everybody.  You have got to understand the Grandfather clock you see is not the Grandfather clock we get.  That is more of a prop.  Ours is shipped to us in a box.  I don’t even know if we have taken delivery of it yet, maybe we have.  We have not made any decisions with it just yet.  Certainly want to put it somewhere where the team can view it and enjoy it.  My offices are right above where the No. 24 and No. 5 shop are.  Maybe we can find a way to display it where everybody on the team can look at it.”
 
CAN YOU GIVE US A SENSE OF WHAT THE STORM IS LIKE TO BE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TITLE CHASE?
“This is one of the busiest seasons I have ever had. The testing rules changed things this year.  We have done two Goodyear tire tests on top of that.  With those changes a new car, compared to last time we had open testing I didn’t have two young children as well keeping me busy when I am at home.  We also our whole team debriefing meetings that take place now that didn’t used to exist.  This year just new car, testing, everything that goes into trying to be competitive not to mention taking care of our sponsors has been one of the most hectic ones that I have had.  It’s been good in a way just to your point it takes my mind off of how crazy this season has been for us.  Now being in the Chase and moving up in the points being that busy it has just really kept us focus on traveling and testing and trying to make the cars fast and all those things.  I can’t say I have over thought it anyway.
 
“Today it’s interesting how things can change in one week.  I don’t think we are really in the thick of this thing enough for everybody to all of a sudden throw us in there.  I think we have got to make up that gap.  That is why let’s see what happens after this weekend.  But other people want to make it we win, got momentum, we have been moving up in the points and now we show up here and there are cameras all over us and it’s like ‘w
e didn’t make up that many points folks’.  So perception is pretty interesting.  Within the team it’s really just more positive things are happening and we are just enjoying ourselves and we are just enjoying being a part of the conversation.”
 
DRIVERS WILL TALK TO EACH OTHER AFTER A RACE AND I WAS WONDERING BECAUSE OF THE CHASE AND TRAVEL SCHEDULES, GREG (BIFFLE) SAYS I’M OLD FASHIONED I’VE BEEN TRYING TO CALL JIMMIE (JOHNSON).  JIMMIE SAYS THEY HAVE BEEN TEXTING.  IS THERE AN UNWRITTEN RULE, UNOFFICIAL STATUE OF LIMITATIONS IN THE GARAGE HOW LONG YOU HAVE TO TALK TO ANOTHER DRIVER AFTER YOU HAVE HAD A BAD RACE INCIDENT?
“I think it’s ridiculous that we are texting and calling one another after incidents like that.  There is only one reason you call the guy and that is because you don’t want a confrontation. You don’t want an issue, you don’t want the guy to wreck you at the next race and you are worried about where you are going to finish in points and all that stuff.
 
“So you are just trying to smooth things over so you don’t have any enemies out there, but you are only doing it for your own benefits.  There are very few guys out there that you friendship and bond off the track is stronger than you competitiveness on the race track.  I don’t think that exist a whole lot if any at all.  To me if you have made a mistake and you have done something that you regret and you feel bad about and you generally feel that way you should reach out to that guy.
 
“But it doesn’t have to happen over the phone or by text, maybe it could.  Maybe it’s you wait until you get to the next race or maybe you are at a test and you see them and maybe you let a couple of days go by and calm down and have a conversation.  Again, I mean it’s usually only the guy that is concerned about what is coming back to him, it’s the one reaching out.”
 
DRIVER’S HAVE A MEMORY LONGER THAN WIVES WHEN THINGS HAVE GONE WRONG?
“Absolutely.  I don’t remember a whole lot of things, but I can tell you every time that I was wrecked by somebody and where they rank on the list (laughs).”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS
OCTOBER 27, 2013
 
 
JEFF GORDON WINS FOR TEAM CHEVY AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
VICTORY GIVES CHEVROLET THE 2013 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER CHAMPIONSHIP
 
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – October 27, 2013 – With 20 laps to go, Jeff Gordon – No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS, made the winning pass in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway to score his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) victory of the season.  It was his eighth win at Martinsville and the 88th Sprint Cup win of his career.  The victory ties him with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, for the most wins at Martinsville among active drivers, trailing only Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip on the all-time wins list at the .526-mile short track.   Gordon moves up two positions to third in the point standings, just 27 points behind the leader.
 
Gordon’s win clinched the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Manufacturers’ Cup Championship for Chevrolet. It marks the 11th consecutive year, and the 37th time overall that the Bowtie Brand has captured the prestigious title in NASCAR’s premiere series. It is also the first Manufacturers’ Cup award for the Gen-6 Chevrolet SS race car.   It was the 14th NSCS win this year for Chevrolet and 716th overall.
 
Johnson brought his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS home in fifth position in the race, which was his 14th top five finish of the year.  The five-time NSCS champion is now tied with Matt Kenseth for the championship lead with three races to go.   
 
With a solid day in his No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet SS, Kevin Harvick holds on to fourth place in the overall driver standings with three races remaining, 28 points down to the leaders.  
 
While the race was marred by 17 cautions and 111 laps, it was beneficial to the American Cancer Society and Chevy’s “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” program.   Chevrolet will donate $200 per caution lap run in the race to the ACS, and the high tally of cautions in the event led to a total of $22,200 to be contributed to the cause.
 
Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was second, Clint Bowyer (Toyota) was third and Brad Keselowski (Ford) rounded out the top five in the race.
 
Other Chevrolet drivers in today’s event finished: Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 National Guard Chevy SS was eighth and is seventh in the standings; while last week’s winner Jamie McMurray, brought his No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet home in 10th.  Virginia native Jeff Burton, No. 31 Sleep Innovations/Dow Chevrolet SS came home in 11th; Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS was 13th; and Danica Patrick had another good race at Martinsville in coming home in 17th in her No. 10 GoDaddy Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet SS.
 
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup resumes next Sunday, November 3rd with Round Seven in Ft. Worth, Texas.
 
JEFF GORDON AND ALAN GUSTAFSON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
            KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll right into our post‑race winning team, winning driver, crew chief, for the 65th annual Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 powered by Kroger here at Martinsville Speedway, and the race winner was Jeff Gordon.  He drove the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.  He’s joined by his crew chief Alan Gustafson.  This is Jeff’s 88th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win, his first win in 2013, his eighth win at Martinsville.  That ties him with Jimmie Johnson for most wins among active drivers.
            Jeff, you may or may not know this, but this also gets you in the 2014 NASCAR Sprint All‑Star Race because your provisional had expired.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, you know how bad we’d love to be in that All‑Star Race, so that’s cool.  That’s a lot of positives to come out of a win.
            KERRY THARP:  You know, you’re third in points and made up some ground there, but anyhow, congratulations.  Talk about what it meant to win here today.
            JEFF GORDON:  Oh, my gosh.  This meant so much.  I feel like we’ve worked so hard, and many weekends we’ve left the racetrack looking at one another going, what do we have to do?  We’ve had race cars, we’ve had pit stops, we’ve had strategy.  I feel like I’ve had days where I’ve done my part but just couldn’t get it all lined up.  Today ‑‑ I mean, we come into this race with a lot of confidence.  This is a great track for us, the 24 team, for me personally, and these guys, Alan especially, they gave me a great race car all weekend long.  I was a little disappointed in myself qualifying.  I felt like we should have done a better job than that, but he made up for it getting that No. 2 pit stall.  That was sort of a turnaround for our weekend in many ways, or just that kind of added bonus, and that paid off for us today, as well.  And of course a great race car.  I feel like we’ve been in position to win this race several times the last few years, and no different than like Jimmie Johnson today, you get stuck in that outside lane on the wrong restart, all of a sudden you’re fighting to try to be in the top 5 or top 10, and we went through some of that today at times ourselves, but there at the end, great pit stop, tires at the right time, good adjustments, and then we were in the inside lane the final two restarts, and to me that made all the difference.
            Of course we had to really run in Matt’s (Kenseth) tracks.  He was strong.  I felt like they made some adjustments, made his car even better.  That’s probably the most patient I’ve had to be here, or in a race in a long time, just because I didn’t see his car fading like I thought it would.  It just took a little longer, and it finally did start to give up a little bit, and we took advantage of that.
            KERRY THARP:  Alan, talk about coming here this weekend and maybe a couple things that stick out in your mind that might have been the key to the win.  Is there anything that sticks out in your mind?
            ALAN GUSTAFSON:  Yeah, it was obviously a great day.  Coming here we knew this was a race that we needed to try to capitalize on.  We needed to get a lot of points out of here to keep ourselves in contention for this championship.  As Jeff alluded to, I think we had a really good car all weekend.  Qualifying we were a little disappointed.  We focused solely on qualifying on Friday because we really wanted that No. 1 pit stall.  We felt like a few of the last races we’ve lost races because we didn’t have that No. 1 stall and our competitors did.
            A little disappointed with ninth, but ended up being a blessing in disguise because I think we got a really good stall in No. 2 and we had a good car.  Through the day we had track position, had a good car, had a decent short‑run car, had a good long‑run car, and we maintained track position fairly well, and I don’t remember what lap, but that was just a rash of cautions that got ‑‑ when we were leading that put us in kind of a compromising position.  I had to make a tough decision there to either stay out on tires or com
e get tires.  I decided to come get them, and ultimately I think hindsight 20/20 it probably wasn’t the right decision.  The caution came out 25 laps later and all the leaders were able to come in so we had to battle back from that, and I think the key to that was having a really good car.  Jeff did a great job in traffic, and then we had two really clutch pit stops at the end I felt like that we needed ‑‑ had a little bit of a rough start on pit road and the guys got two really good ones at the end, and when I knew we had gotten back to the front with new tires and were in position, I felt like it was going to come down to those restarts, and personally was looking forward to a long run.  I felt our car was really good on the long run, and Jeff is the best here at keeping the car straight, driving the car straight off the corner, being patient with the car, taking care of the car.  I think his patience and his ability to be really precise with the car at the end of the race ultimately paid off, and he wore Matt down, and that’s not easy to do.  Of all the drivers in the series, Matt is much like Jeff.  He’s a guy that does not make many mistakes.  I was really proud of Jeff to be able to do that and just wear him down and ultimately pass him and win the race.
            As Jeff also alluded to for me personally, man, we’ve been so close here so many times and have not been able to win this race, and it’s a race that I dearly wanted to win and really happy that we could do it.  No matter time than right now.
            KERRY THARP:  And with this win today also, Jeff, this wrapped up the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Manufacturer’s Cup championship for Chevrolet, 11th straight championship and 37th overall for Chevrolet, so congratulations to Chevrolet on winning that championship.
 
            Q.  Jeff, I talked to Mark Martin a couple years ago, and he said you never know when you’re going to win the last race or the next race, so the further on you get in your career the more meaning and the more appreciation they have.  You alluded to that earlier, but can you just talk about the emotion of doing this after coming so close and barely making the Chase?
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, I remember for years Mark saying that, and we’d always laugh at him, be like his 10th race win of the season.  You’d say, wow, you never know when that next one is going to come.  I understand that better today than I ever have, just because the wins haven’t come as often, and it seems like even when we’ve had race cars capable of winning we’ve been close.  Just the little small circumstances could be all it takes sometimes to keep you out of victory lane, and it makes you realize how hard it is to line all those stars up to make it happen.
            Sometimes guys make it look easy, and it’s not.  I can promise you that.  I think what’s even tougher is when you’re not getting the wins and just over time it just starts to accumulate, and it’s hard to keep the confidence in what you’re doing.  Each individual on the team as well as together as a team.  That’s what I think I’m most proud of is that we’ve been able to stick together and maintain a great working relationship to know that just keep on our path and it’ll come.
            Now things have really been coming our way, and the momentum is there, and confidence is there.  The race cars are a lot of fun to drive, and just going to the racetrack right now is a lot of fun, and that makes a big difference.
 
            Q.  Along those lines, how long will you think about this win, and how long will it stick with you before you start thinking about the next race and what do we have to do to ‑‑
            JEFF GORDON:  I was going to say, when do I get to Texas?  You don’t get to enjoy wins for very long in this series.  You always want to win a race when there’s an off weekend or an off‑season.  It’s pretty sweet to win Homestead last year because we got to enjoy that one for a while.
            But this is a special one for many reasons.  You know, it’s Martinsville, that grandfather clock is very special, very historical racetrack.  It’s one that’s been very good to me.  Also memories, not so good memories, so there’s a lot of meaning to winning at this track.
            I mean, I think it’s just really why it’s going to stick with me is because it’s been a tough year.  There’s no better time to win races than right now, and to be able to carry that momentum ‑‑ I’m so proud to be third in the points.  We all want to win the championship, but I mean, from where we started early in the season, heck, where we started in this Chase, to be third in points right now, I’m very proud of that.  We can’t get the cart ahead of the horse; we’ve got to appreciate that but also take advantage of this momentum and confidence that we do have, and I can’t wait to get to Texas.  We just tested there, thought we had a great test, thought we ran good there earlier in the season.  I mean, right now, like I said, I’m looking forward to getting to every race.
            But you try to savor and enjoy this one as much as you can until we get to the Homestead test on Tuesday.  We’re busy right now, so I just can’t wait to get home and see my kids.  My daughter, she made me cry on the phone because she told me she was crying because she wasn’t able to be in victory lane.  That kind of stuff makes every win special.
 
            Q.  You kind of just touched on this a little bit, but this question is for you and Alan.  A little over seven weeks ago, you weren’t even in the Chase, and now with three races left in the season, you have a plausible chance to win a championship.  What has transpired over the last seven weeks?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, it’s not seven weeks to us because to me it’s about 11 or 12 weeks.  It started before we got to Richmond that I feel like we started to connect on some things with the setup of the cars.  I think ‑‑ I really think back to actually New Hampshire between me and this guy, the first New Hampshire.  We had a terrible ‑‑ I went into that race thinking, this is a great track for us, that we’re going to come out of here with either a win or a great finish, and we were not very good that day, and I had a bad attitude, and he and I had a heart‑to‑heart conversation afterwards, and I’m so proud of him for stepping up because what happened, the things that I said, the attitude I had was just not the way we were going to get ourselves up into victory lane or where we needed to make it in the Chase.
            To me, that turned things around.  It kind of was a bonding moment for us as well as kind of smack myself around a little bit to where I was like, you know what, I’ve got to go and work as hard as I can, give these guys everything I’ve got because they’re working their butts off, and let’s pull it together.
            I think from that race on, we started seeing improvement, and sometimes you’ve got to have those moments, and I’m proud that we did.  I
t might not have shown up at the racetrack the next week or the week after that, but it did finally start to come together, and I don’t know, Alan probably can touch on it more so.  He’s got a better memory than I do when things really started to allow us to even get to that position that we were in at Richmond.
            ALAN GUSTAFSON:  Yeah, I mean, you look back at it, and unfortunately or fortunately, I felt like we did a good job those races leading up to Richmond and put ourselves in position and raced really hard in my heart to get in that race and put ourselves in the race.  And like Jeff said, I don’t think we had any bad performances or the cars ‑‑ Vegas maybe, I think Vegas we were pretty bad, but we’ve had decent speed and we just haven’t been able to put together the finishes, and ultimately we got to a point through the summer where we kind of reset, and we said, hey, being negative is not going to do any good, we’re going to have to go at this and be positive and fight hard and put ourselves in position and try to win some races, and I think we did that and raced our way in at Richmond.
            The thing at Richmond that to me personally what happened there and barely qualifying for the Chase, for me it changes your perspective a little bit.  Ultimately you sit there, and I don’t want to say you take it for granted, because you don’t take it for granted, but it is a special chance to compete for a championship at this level, and you don’t know how many of those you’re going to get.  And for me when we didn’t have it for a couple days, that was one of the most terrible feelings in the world, and I think the guys and Jeff share that sentiment, and especially in the circumstances, and when we got the opportunity, I knew ‑‑ you could see it on the guys’ faces, you could see it on everybody’s faces, we’re not going to squander this opportunity, that we have a good enough team, we have good enough cars, we have a good enough driver to go out and compete with these guys week in and week out.
            Really, really proud of the guys and Jeff and everybody for making it through, and ultimately I think times when you ‑‑ part of the struggle, you see the highs here, but that maybe isn’t the biggest accomplishment.  The biggest accomplishment is us not falling apart on the lows, and I’m really proud of that.
 
            Q.  The win today puts you 27 points out, which I think you’re in it, but maybe first, do you agree, are you in this championship race?  And what do you have to do to get closer to it with the way that the 20 and the 48 are running?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, of course we’re in it.  Until we’re mathematically out of it, we’re in it.  This was certainly a big moment, big day for us, and like I said, we tested at Texas.  I’m excited about Texas.  I think it’s a great track for us.  But it’s pretty darned great for both those guys, as well.  They performed very, very well again today.  It’s going to be tough to catch them.
            You know, but all we can do, I think, is go out and perform at our best and just see what happens.  The nice thing is that we’re not doing the points racing right now, we’re just going out and just trying to go out and win races and not think about protecting anything.  You know, it’s just go and give it everything we’ve got.
            ALAN GUSTAFSON:  Yeah, I agree.  I think we’re in it, and I think that Jimmie and Matt, both of those teams have been incredible all year.  I don’t expect anything different than that.  But I do feel like it’s plausible.  I think we can go win these next three races, and I think that anything can happen.
            If we go win these races, it’s not like they’ve got to finish 20th.  Those guys go and finish 10th, we’re going to have a show at Homestead.  That’s what we’ve got to focus on doing, and obviously we can win.  We did it today and we’ve got to go try to win Texas and we’ve got to try to win at Phoenix and so on and so forth.  It’s not going to be easy, never is easy, it’s not going to be easy for them, either.  I haven’t been actually in the exact position they’re in, but I’ve been close, and even being first and second it’s not an easy ‑‑ with 27 points between us, it’s not an easy position to be in.
 
            Q.  For Jeff, you talked about how going on a winless streak or not winning at a track you’re expected to kind of gets to you after a while.  How do you remain confident at this track, considering how well you run when you come so close, and how do you maintain that confidence knowing if we have something go our way, unlike the 2011 spring race, that we can actually come out of here and win?
            JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, I’ve said this quite a few times over the years.  Martinsville is probably of all the tracks, all of the things that you look at with our sport today, it’s probably changed.  Don’t get me wrong, but it’s changed the least amount as far as I’m concerned, how you drive this track, how you set the cars up, just the way kind of the race is run.  To me it’s changed the least amount of every track that we go to, so it has allowed me over the years to do what I did 15 years ago when we first started winning races here and apply those same things today.
            Now, competition has gotten tougher, setups have changed slightly, but I feel like I just try to go do the same things and then feed information back to Alan and the guys of what I feel like we need with the car.
            So that has helped me tremendously because if you think about it in another light, when they repave a place like Kansas, I mean, aerodynamics and the setups and the tire, how it reacts to the racetrack, that has changed so much over the years, and an old guy like me, it gets a little tough to adapt to some of those changes, some of those big changes in the setups and what these guys, Alan and the engineers, are doing to make cars go fast at those tracks, it’s changed so much.
            But here I would say that it’s still kind of old school.  You’ve got to save the tires, you’ve got to be patient, you have to get into a rhythm.  I like this track.  I like Atlanta.  I like Texas.  I like those types of racetracks, and it definitely plays into a guy that’s been around the sport for a long time like myself, especially when there’s a long green‑flag run all the way to the finish.
 
            Q.  You mentioned getting caught up on the outside a couple times on the restarts early in the race.  Can you describe the helplessness of that at this place when you get into that situation?  And also maybe compare how ‑‑ we know the inside line is the better line here, but maybe compare it to some other years you’ve raced here.  Was it more difficult today?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, I feel like I kept my composure pretty good all day today except for those two times that I got stuck on the outside, and I wasn’t real proud of that, but I was mad.  It wasn’t just the outside lane, it was some of the things that w
ere going on of the guys on the inside lane making it even harder for you on the outside.  They know they’ve got you in a vulnerable position, and they just run you up the racetrack.  And then other guys know, I’ve got to fill that hole.  That’s part of what makes Martinsville so exciting and why those restarts are so critical.
            So it was very frustrating, but on the flipside of that, when I was on the inside, I was able to take advantage of that situation and make up for it.  But yeah, you know, telling you, you get caught on that outside on the final restart, it doesn’t matter how good your race car is, it’s difficult to come back from that.
 
            Q.  Alan and Jeff, if you could both address this.  Jeff, the last time you missed the Chase in 2005, you changed crew chiefs.  The last time you went winless in a season, 2010, you changed crew chiefs.  Is everything that’s happened in the last couple of months maybe reinvigorated both of you guys and made you more committed to each other and have this surge and make you feel like you can still work together and want to have a future together going forward, given that past events you’ve made changes in these sorts of situations?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, I don’t want to get too much into the conversation we had at New Hampshire, but I didn’t bring it up, he did, but it’s either you’ve got to have a heart to heart ‑‑ the thing is I love this guy.  I think he’s a great crew chief.  I don’t think he gets near enough credit.  And when you’re Jeff Gordon’s crew chief, a lot of people like to say things when things aren’t going well, and it makes it even tougher to be in his position.  I think the crew chiefs already have the toughest job out there.
            But before he was my crew chief, I wanted to work with him, and now that he is, I like working with him more than I ever thought I would.  So when things aren’t going well, the toughest thing is to see him go through criticism or to criticize himself or anybody doubt one another.  When we’re not doing well, I can tell you, I’m not questioning him; I’m questioning myself.  I’m like, man, what do I have to do.  But the nice thing is they’re doing the same thing, and that’s how you come together.  Once he stops believing in me and I stop believing in him, then we’re done.
            Luckily for us, that has not been the case this year, and that’s why I think we’ve been able to stay so strong and come back and be where we’re at today.
            Q.  You’ve gained a few points today, you’re a little closer, three races to go, you’re within striking distance.  Does the fact that you’re closer, does it take a little bit of the pressure off or does it increase the pressure and ramp it up?
            JEFF GORDON:  I think it increases the pressure.  I don’t know if pressure ever decreases, does it?
            ALAN GUSTAFSON:  Yeah, I don’t know that it increases it.  To me I think that opportunity, it kind of ‑‑ you’re always competing to win and you do everything you can, but when it’s getting closer and closer, you know, somehow or another you seem to find a little bit more and a little bit more, and I’ve seen that in Jeff, and I think it’s just kind of part of human nature.
            Yeah, I’m hoping to go to Texas and get a little bit closer and then we’ll have this conversation again.  I think the closer we get, really ‑‑ I don’t want to say that we’re playing with house money, but of all the cars that are competing with it, I think we are.  For us the best thing we can do is just go out there and try to win and get closer and closer and have a chance at Homestead.  That really was my goal going into the Chase.  Still, my goal now is to go into Homestead with a shot.
            Q.  Jeff, as far as the Texas test, when you’re at that test and Kenseth is there, too, a guy that you’re competing with for the title, how much are you ‑‑ is it hard not to peek and look at what they’re doing or wonder what they’re doing or wonder what times they’re running on a test like that?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, of course we’re paying attention to that.  I think we’ve got one of the toughest competitors not only for this championship but for each track that we go to right next to us in Jimmie Johnson.  You know, and really all of our teammates, Kasey and Junior, they all run good at every track we go to.  But when you’re at a test like that, you want a bunch of teams there, especially the highly competitive ones, one, to put rubber down on the track and get true race conditions or as true as you can get, but also to stack yourself up against them.
            I’ll be honest, the first day I didn’t think that we were competitive enough, and I felt like now that the Roush guys, they were down at one end of the garage, so there wasn’t a lot of peeking and looking around, it was kind of they were on one end and we were on the other.  But we are certainly looking at lap times of them as well as our teammates and keeping track of it.
            You know, I don’t think it really changed our game plan.  I think we just had to continue to try to find comfort and speed and confidence in the car, and I feel like we really made huge gains the second day that we were there.  I was looking forward to that race already, but even more so now.
 
            Q.  Jeff, in 2007 you put up some big numbers and were the runner‑up in the points.  This season right now the way you guys are running now sort of gives me that feel.  You come every week competitive, you come with a car that can run top 5, a chance to win.  Does it give you that feel and does it frustrate you guys that the worst number you’ve had is 15th here in the Chase and yet you’re still 27 points behind?  And also, if you could make a comment about clinching the Manufacturers’ Cup Championship for Chevrolet, as well.
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, my memory is bad but it’s not bad enough that I know that 10 weeks ago those questions and comments that you’re making were exact opposite.  What’s wrong with you guys?  How come you’re this far back?  Why can’t you win races?  So it’s very refreshing to us to sit up here and not just be talking about a win but hear those types of comments.
            I understand, right; it’s easy to count a team out when we haven’t put the numbers.  But we don’t live off stats.  We live off of how competitive we are and what little minor things that are going on that sometimes maybe look bigger on the outside but to us on the inside, it’s like, we were this close.  And so that’s why we’re looking at it a little bit differently than others.
            But this is a great position to be in.  We’re excited to have had these last six, seven weeks go the way that they’ve gone, and it only ‑‑ each race weekend where things ‑‑ actually in a lot of ways, I think we could have done even better. 
I mean, I think of Chicago.  I thought we had a car that could win there.  We did a great job getting back to sixth or seventh or wherever we finished because we had a flat left‑rear tire coming to a restart.  But we don’t dwell on that, we just move on to the next one.
            I can’t say right now I feel any frustration in anything.  I’m just very proud, excited, and know that there’s three races ‑‑ that’s a lot of racing left, and with the way things are going for us, anything is possible.
            As far as the manufacturer’s championship, it’s a great way to wrap it up with a win today.  It was a great, exciting finish there, battling it out with a Toyota that you’re battling for the manufacturer’s championship with, and I know how much that means to Chevrolet.  They’ve been amazing supporters of ours for so many years, and it feels great to be able to ‑‑ there’s a chance we were going to get it either way, but it’s always good when you’re the one that kind of seals the deal.
            Q.  I don’t know if you know the answer to that or your theory is, but you got roundly cheered in driver intros and you got wildly cheered after the race.  This is one of those southern types of tracks where you didn’t always get cheered.  What do you think has changed?  Is it you’re not winning as much?  Is it that you’re older?  Why do people cheer for you now at places like that?
            JEFF GORDON:  Well, you never really know why people cheer or boo.  Sometimes it’s obvious, but for me I came into the sport and started our third year in, started competing for the championship, and then the boos started coming.  We were winning quite a few races and for the next three or four years we won a lot of races and it was a lot of boos and cheers and fan bases building at the same time.  So I never really thought a whole lot about it.  It was, I don’t know, things are going well, and if they’re booing I guess that’s a good thing.  As long as they’re making noise, there’s no doubt not winning as much and being older, I think you earn respect through your consistency and just trying to go out there and show what you’re capable of and your team fights through a lot of things and shows signs of the things that the fans love to see your team doing, and then you come to a place like Martinsville that you’ve won a lot of races at but it’s been a while.  I’ve got to think that not winning has a lot to do with it because Jimmie Johnson to me has been so dominant here, and I wanted so badly to see him right after driver introductions just to say, Earnhardt told me a long time ago, as long as they’re making noise, and they were making a lot of noise for him but it wasn’t all cheers, that’s a good problem to have.
            Q.  In the stands afterwards were you soaking up ‑‑
            JEFF GORDON:  I’ve never felt more support from my fans than this year, and I think it has a lot to do with social media.  You see it through social media.  But that kind of response where they’re sticking around after the race, and while I can’t hear and see everything going on when I’m passing for the lead or getting the checkered flag, I had a lot of people telling me the reaction, and that’s so cool.  I think that’s awesome.  Whether I’m at the track hearing it one‑on‑one from the fans or reading about it on Twitter or Facebook, through all that we’ve been through this year, I’ve never had more support.
            And they are critical, at times, don’t get me wrong.  There’s times they’re saying things that are tough, but I know that it’s only because they want the best for us just like we do, and when you finally can pull that victory off and see their reaction, between the team, my wife, my kids and the fans, it’s just nothing better.
            Q.  From how you got into the Chase to the positive and negative reactions surrounding that, to running well, you win, you now have a shot to win the championship, do you look at it as a, hey, take that, to the critics, or does it just feel sweet in the sense that we belong here and now I’m going to show you just how much?
            ALAN GUSTAFSON:  Well, I mean, for me, obviously when the unprecedented events happened at Richmond and Chicago, right away what I felt like it was fair because you can race for it.  It ultimately isn’t ‑‑ if we didn’t belong here, then beat us.  If we don’t belong here, then we won’t run good and we’ll be 13th.
            But for me I feel like we’ve proved right now we’re a third place team.  Ultimately at the end of the year can we be better than that?  We’re going to do our best, but that’s the way I look at it.  I think the proof is in the pudding.  Your finishes and your results ultimately determine how good you are or you aren’t, and I think that we’ve represented ourselves well, and I don’t think we’re done.
            JEFF GORDON:  I mean, I feel like we deserve to be in it.  I don’t like how we got in it, being an added 13th team.  You can dispute that all you want.  But we’re certainly not going to say no, we won’t take it.  We wanted to be in it.  We feel like we were in a position to earn our way into it, and I think that this team would have performed like this whether we were in it or not.
            I was as motivated on Wednesday between Richmond and Chicago to go out and just prove why we should have been in it and how we’re going to go into the season strong as I was once I found out on Friday that we were in it.  You know, to me that decision just meant that what we’re going to be racing for is a championship instead of for ourselves and pride and to kind of show the critics.
            Q.  Besides the fact that you just want to win another championship, deep down does it ever cross your mind, hey, I just want to win it to give all the critics something to talk about, how we got in the Chase and I went on to win the championship, just to maybe frustrate them all off‑season?
            JEFF GORDON:  I don’t think of it that way.  We just want to win.  We just want to win the races and win the championship.  That’s all that matters.
            Q.  One last question about points.  Matt said earlier tonight that anybody in effect one race behind, 48 (points) behind, is probably out of it.  There are five teams still within that 48‑point margin.  Do you think it’s down to you, Kenseth, Jimmie, Kevin and Kyle?  Are they the five that are still in it?  You’re all less than 48 points.
            JEFF GORDON:  Let’s be honest.  We’re all alive, but right now there’s two that are in it.  Our job is to go to Texas and make it three.  Realistically, legitimately, we’ve got to put pressure on those guys.  Right now, other than this win today, they don’t really feel a lot of pressure from ‑‑ they’re racing one another is the way I look at it, and those guys are capable of putting very solid finishes together for the remainder of the season.
 &nbsp
;          For us we’re really thinking of we’ve just got to go fight hard and see if we can’t do something extraordinary, and it’s going to take an extraordinary three weeks for that to happen.  But mathematically we’re certainly in it.  But until we close that gap, I don’t think that anybody else is really looking at it other than those two guys.
            KERRY THARP:  Congratulations to Jeff and to Alan and Hendrick Motorsports for this big win today, and we’ll see you at Texas.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 27, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
THIS IS YOUR EIGHTH WIN HERE AT MARTINSVILLE. AFTER BEING SO CLOSE SO MANY TIMES THIS SEASON, HOW GOOD DOES IT FEEL TO BE IN VICTORY LANE?
“It’s hard to top what it feels like to win; especially when you’ve been through all of what this Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet team has been through. I’m just so proud of them for never giving up. We’ve shown it all year long. We’ve been through a lot, but boy, this is making it all worth it. To be able to get a huge win here at Martinsville for points, for the Manufacturers’ Championship, for all the Hendrick family and for all those that were lost several years ago; seeing Rick (Hendrick) here means a lot to all of us.
 
“Man, what a great race car. I thought we’d given it away a couple of times there; and I’m just so proud of how we fought. We had great pit stops and just that never give up attitude. I thought I got too loose there at the end, running with Matt (Kenseth). Every time he slip the tires I just tired to let off a little bit.”
 
MATT KENSETH SAID HE FELT LIKE HIS INEXPERIENCE AND YOUR EXPERIENCE AT MARTINSVILLE MIGHT HAVE MADE THE DIFFERENCE. WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND AS YOU WERE STALKING HIM IN THE FINAL LAPS?
“What would Jimmie Johnson do? (laughs), or better yet, maybe what would Richard Petty do? The tires really went away on us there at the end. I knew this car was good on the short runs, but he was putting a really good run together and we had freed my car up, and at the end there, I think it was a little too free. But every time I saw him slip a wheel, I just tied to conserve my tires and drive the car real straight into the corner and off the corner; playing with brake bias and everything else. I finally saw where he started struggling on the exit. I dove in there a couple of times, but I couldn’t quite make it. He drove in deep to protect his line and did a heck of a job. Matt drove a really first-class caliber race today and I didn’t know if we were going to get him. But it was awesome and we finally did. I was just hoping that no cautions were going to come out and they didn’t.
 
“I’m just so happy for this team. That clock, there’s nothing better than getting a clock at Martinsville!”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5TH: WITH THREE TO GO, YOU ARE TIED AT THE TOP OF THE LEADERBOARD. HOW DO YOU SEE THIS THING PLAYING OUT? “Just like it’s been. It’s been a great battle with the No. 20 car (Matt Kenseth) and the No. 24 (Jeff Gordon) is really showing that he wants to be a part of this deal, as well; and there are some other guys back there kind of close. So, it’s going to be a dogfight to the end. The way that I would want to go racing for a championship, and I know that’s exactly what the fans want to see. We’ll keep digging hard. We had a decent day today and see if we can’t get this Lowe’s Chevrolet to Victory Lane here soon.
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 RHEEM CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 6TH: ON THE RACE: “It was interesting. We fought all day; got the nose banged up there and had a little leak in the radiator, so kind of nerve wracking there. They (Gil Martin, crew chief and pit crew) did a good job of adjusting the car to the little bang-up here. We came away for a solid day.”
 
TAKE US THROUGH THE PHYSICAL CONTACT TODAY. THE FRONT OF YOUR CAR IS PRETTY MUCH USED-UP
“Yeah, first thing I want to do is apologize to Ryan Newman. I tried to shoot in a gap there and just barely clipped the right rear of his car. It doesn’t make his day any better. But I’ve just got to thank all my guys on the Rheem Chevrolet. It’s all beat-up. And it’s leaking water so we didn’t have any water pressure there for about 150 laps, so it was a little bit nerve-wracking. Luckily it was a small hole. We battled all day and had a decent day and had a decent car. They adjusted for the damage and had the car really good there at the end and we lived to fight another day.”
 
ON THREE UPCOMING TRACKS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE: “Good tracks in three weeks. We just have to do what we have to do.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 8TH: YOU GOT AN EIGHTH PLACE FINISH AND LOOKED LIKE IT WAS A TOUGH BATTLE OUT THERE TODAY:
“We worked really, really hard all day and just…….we had a decent car and didn’t do everything exactly like we needed to.  It was a pretty good car, maybe a fifth place car.  This tire was a struggle for us last year, and the last time we were here and we felt like we made a lot of good gains on it in practice and had some good speed.   I don’t know what we have to do to get that extra bit.  I think the race could play out a little bit differently and give us a little better track position.   We tore the right front off and I think that hurt the aerodynamics quite a bit.”
 
WAS IT TYPICAL MARTINSVILLE RACING OR WAS IT SINGLE FILE RACING LIKE LAST WEEK?
“Well, its hard to pass.  If you can’t drive under them, you can’t drive under them.  You saw everybody trying to get to the bottom on the restarts because the bottom is so much better than the middle.  Trust me, if guys could drive up under people they would.   Everybody has got the same race cars, everybody is running the same speed, and all these teams are so competitive.   If you get 35 cars out there running out there within a tenth (of a second) of each other, then you aren’t going to have side-by-side no matter where you are at.”
 
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE YOUR TEAMMATE JEFF GORDON WIN AT A PLACE LIKE THIS THAT HAS BEEN HOME TO HIM? “I don’t know. I would rather win the race, and I have missed a lot of opportunities to win here.   We finish alright, we run alright.   I am really happy for my teammates when they do well, but right now we are just worried about ourselves.   We have two or three races to go and we want to get as close as we can.”
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 10TH: ON HIS RACE: “An up and down day for our team.  We chased the balance on the car both loose and tight throughout the race.  We raced near the front and the back at different times through the race.  Our guys worked hard to make adjustments and put us in contention for a top-10 finish, all-in-all a good day for our McDonald’s team, on such a tough track.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 13TH: ON HIS RACE:  “The Target Chevy started out strong and then we fell behind and struggled keeping up with the changing track conditions. The guys kept working on it and we were able to get back on the lead lap and run up in the top-15 for the end of the race. I’m proud of these guys. They never gave up and we had a decent finish today.”
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 17TH: ON HER RACE: “I’m really proud of what our GoDaddy team accomplished today. For pulling out the backup car on Friday and having to start so far back in the field, it was a really good run. We started in the back and made our way through, and we didn’t have quite the car that we had here in the spring but we got a similar result and that’s something I’m proud of. The guys did a great job in the pits. They were on their game each stop. Our adjustments were good all day. It was just a really solid day for our team, and that’s what we want to do these next few races and end our season on a strong note. Today was the last race for our pink car. I’m really proud that we were able to give GoDaddy and .ORG a good run because I’m very proud of what they do to help promote breast cancer awareness and I’ve been honored to hel
p them with that through the month of October.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 18TH: ON HIS RACE: “We didn’t qualify well, didn’t practice well and obviously didn’t race well today,” said Busch. “I don’t know what it is but there’s something about this track that doesn’t suit me. A very disappointing performance today. For a Chase team we should have been much better. Our Furniture Row Chevrolet got banged up early when it took a big hit to the right side. But no excuses, we just didn’t have it.”
 
KYLE LARSON, NO. 51 TARGET CHEVROLET SS, SIDELINE WITH MECHANICAL ISSUE ON LAP 165:  “I started out too tight. I don’t know, we just can’t seem to catch a break in these two Cup starts that I’ve had. We blew up in Charlotte and not sure we had a rear end blow up here or what. I just want to thank Target for the opportunity to get some experience this season…Chip Ganassi, Felix (Sabates) and everybody that put me out here and let me get a little bit of laps. I would like to finish one of these races that I have run. Who knows, might gt a couple of more races this season, so hopefully we can have those go a little better. I learned that I have to get my car a little bit better in the center of the corner during practice the next time I come back. You see the leaders and how much better their cars work in the center of the corners which helps them off the corner and all the way down the straightaway. I just need to get a better feel for these things and help my career out a little bit.”

JOHN FORCE; COURTNEY FORCE 1-2 IN LAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS (October 26, 2013) – The Funny Car father daughter duo of John Force and Courtney Force dominated at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during qualifying. The youngest Force was the provisional No. 1 qualifier on Friday and held that distinction until her 15-time Funny Car champion father set the track record for elapsed time during the final qualifying session at the Toyota NHRA Nationals. The eldest Force posted a 4.011 second time at 317.79 mph moving around Courtney Force whose 4.052 second time was pushed back one spot. The reigning rookie of the year does hold onto the track speed record of 318.24 mph however.

John Force made the quickest pass of the first qualifying session and the quickest pass of the final session to pick up six qualifying bonus points to extend his points lead to 72 points over second place Matt Hagan.

“It smoked the hot dogs a couple of times today I leave that to the crew chiefs. I don’t think about it. (Crew chief) Jimmy Prock and our brain-trust they just go after it. It has had a little magic and it would just get away with anything. Jimmy said we had to pull it back. It still was in trouble. They found the problem and zip right down the race track. It was just like a rocket ship. It was pretty awesome,” said the 145-time No. 1 qualifier.

Force will face veteran driver Gary Densham in the first round. Force and Densham’s careers first crossed paths over three decades ago when Force was just getting started.

“I have Densham. I love the guy. He taught me how to race. He is a good guy.  We will race the race track. The points will be what they will be,” said Force.

Over the course of their careers Force is 37-10 versus Densham but at the spring race here Densham defeated Force in the first round. For the winningest driver in NHRA history his success has not given him any sense of over-confidence going into race day for the 634th time.

“I have people ask me if I am nervous. I am nervous but I have the same gut aches that everybody has. I am 64 year old truck driver. I have four beautiful girls and I am a fifteen time champ. What else can a guy ask for? I just do what I do and I love NHRA. I love the crowd they are unbelievable. They were screaming over here and I finally went over and saw them,” said Force an obvious fan favorite

“Anybody can whip anybody else out here. He is a drag racer and he buys parts from me. He is a good racer and I love the guy. We will go up there and have a race. If he spanks me; he spanks me. I am just going to have some fun tomorrow. I am going to go home tonight and have my little bowl of tomato soup and split a tuna sandwich with my wife,” said Force.

After two additional qualifying passes today, Courtney Force, driver of the Traxxas Ford Mustang, wound up the day as the No. 2 qualifier and will go into race day with Tony Pedregon in the opposing lane.

“We didn’t make a good pass to start the day today. I was a little bit to the left of the groove and it started spinning so I had to get out of it a little early. I have a great team behind me and they give me a great race car so I hate to lose out on a run like that,” said Force.

The 2012 Rookie of the Year raced her black and turquoise Traxxas Ford Mustang specialty car to a 4.061 in the last qualifying session today, but had some problems at the finish.

“In the last qualifying attempt we went down there and I was able to keep it in the groove a lot better. Making a stellar pass even though it broke the barrel valve, we still made a decent run at a 4.061. We were going after a good one. Obviously we were trying to get that top spot that my dad stole from us earlier in the session. It slowed us down through the lights, but it still made a good pass,” said Force.

The last time Force raced at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the spring, she also qualified in the No. 2 spot and ended the weekend by going all the way to the final round before falling victim to Cruz Pedregon.

“We’re excited going into tomorrow. We’ll be matched up against Tony Pedregon and we’re going to do the best we can, but I think we’ve got a pretty good hotrod and we’re just going to have to push it hard and gather up those points so we can move up the line,” said Force.

While Courtney and John Force were dominating the performance boundaries for the past two days the Auto Club Ford Mustang piloted by Robert Hight and tuned by Mike Neff was making steady progress on a race day tune up. Hight is sitting in 4th place in the Mello Yello Funny Car points standings and he is focused on reeling in the three drivers in front of him including the Mello Yello points leader and teammate John Force.

“We are still in this. The good news is we don’t have to race a teammate in the first round. Mike Neff has given me a great car and we are going to try and go some rounds tomorrow. We are in great shape and I am confident going into the race tomorrow against Cruz (Pedregon),” said Hight. “I have had some great success here and I want to keep that good feeling. The best part of this deal is all these John Force Racing Funny Cars are making good laps. John and Courtney are one and two and I am not worried about being a little further back. We will race the conditions tomorrow and give it our best. There are two races left and our goal is to race as hard as possible every round.”

Hight’s best run of the weekend 4.086 seconds came in the final qualifying session under race conditions similar to the first round tomorrow. The 2009 NHRA Funny Car champion knows there is more out there and will be ready to battle the two-time Funny Car champion Pedregon.

Brittany Force and the Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster improved their performance today and will go into race day as the No. 10 qualifier. The Auto Club Road to the Future Award contender will face Spencer Massey for the fifth time this season and second time in the Countdown.

“So far I’m happy about qualifying this weekend. Today we went out and ran a 3.85 and we were happy with that even though it put us in the bottom half of the field, we were still in the show,” said Force.

“The second pass we actually improved and to be able to improve with a 3.82 was great for our Castrol EDGE team. To go from a 4.85 to a 4.82 makes us a pretty consistent car running in the 4.80s. To come out on the last qualifying run and make our best pass of the weekend is really exciting for our team. It pumps us up, motivates us and gets our head in the right place.”

“We’re looking forward to tomorrow, we have Spencer Massey and he’s whooped us on the track, but I’m hoping we can turn that around and go some rounds tomorrow.”

While Force is focusing on track improvements she is also hoping to draw some attention to Breast Cancer Awareness. She is running a pink color scheme for the second race in a row as part of a promotional initiative with die-cast manufacturer Lionel.

“This is a beautiful car designed to show support for breast cancer research. We ran it for the first time in Reading, Pa. and I’m glad to be out here in Vegas with it for the month of October. We’re trying to bring a little more awareness to the cause. The car looks beautiful and there are other teams out here also supporting the same organization. It’s so great to be a part of it and I’m hoping to paint the track pink tomorrow and go some rounds,” said Force.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 25, 2013
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway following his qualifying run.  He discussed the announcement that National Guard will once again sponsor the No. 88 Chevrolet SS in 2014, NASCAR’s mandate of baseline testing for concussions and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR EXTENSION WITH NATIONAL GUARD:
“Yeah, just real excited to get a deal done.  It seems like that the guard has been really thrilled with the way things have gone over the last several years.  I have enjoyed the relationship tremendously and we got a great new paint scheme for next year and we are just really enjoying the relationship.  Glad to be able to look forward to another season with the guard.”
 
NASCAR ANNOUNCED THIS WEEK THERE WILL BE A MANDATORY BASELINE TEST GOING INTO 2014 WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THEM MOVING FORWARD ON THIS?
“We were told last year that this would probably be mandatory in ’14 it was no real surprise.  I think it’s a great move by NASCAR to have another tool in the tool box to sort of help diagnosis, but as equally as important help treat the concussion.  It’s a great tool not only to help diagnosis but really to understand the type of injury and the style of injury that you have and how to treat that particular injury with the information that you get from the baseline test.  As much as the baseline test really is just good to do regardless it can really help you in the long run when you are needing that kind of treatment.  It’s just valuable information.  If you care about your wellbeing and your health and quality of life it’s a smart move to embrace.”
 
WERE YOU GIVEN ANY INDICATION THAT YOUR SITUATION LAST FALL HAD BEARING ON THEM MAKING THAT DECISION TO IMPLEMENT THAT TESTING?
“I don’t know if it did.  I don’t know if what I went through had any effect on the choices they are making today, but I know that I learned a tremendous amount about how important all this is.  I know that I did not take it that seriously.  I didn’t take the impact test that seriously because I didn’t know much about it.  I went to Pittsburgh and met the people up there and they explained to me how useful it is for them and to be able to help treat not only your own concussion.  Concussions are like snowflakes they are all different in the way you are injured and how your symptoms are different from every person.  Everybody reacts differently to it.  This information that they are getting from a baseline test and then the retest of an individual like myself it helps further down the line treat other individuals.  I think everybody is still learning about the way to treat a concussion and the best way to treat it obviously.  All the information that they can get from these impact tests are valuable way on down the line.  It’s important to look further ahead.  It’s important to look on around the race track instead of driving right out the windshield just off the nose.  It’s a pretty big deal. I think it’s a great move and I’m sure that NASCAR is going to be better off for it.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS GROUP QUALIFYING POSSIBILITY FOR NEXT YEAR?
“I’m excited.  We’ve had a lot of changes in this sport in the last several years.  It seems like every year we make a tremendous amount of changes.  I think that these new ideas and the things that they proposed are going to be pretty exciting.  I think driver may not like it.  I might not like it particularly as a driver, but I think for the sport it’s better to be more exciting and to sort of give the fans what they want.  I think we will all end up enjoying it though as far as drivers go.  I think we will work the kinks out.  Nothing is ever going to be perfect the first go around.  We will adjust on it just like we always have.  NASCAR will make adjustments and try to improve it for everybody and we will all end up enjoying it for sure.”
 
DID YOU UNDERSTAND THE CONCERNS SOME DRIVERS HAVE ABOUT THE BASELINE TESTING?  SOME DRIVERS ARE WORRIED ABOUT IN ESSENCE DOCTORS SAYING YOU CAN’T DRIVE WHEN MAYBE THEY FEEL LIKE THEY CAN?  DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?
“No, I don’t understand any concerns like that. Going through what I went through I don’t understand that.  I think that you have to know how the test is taken and how the test is scored and how you are evaluated in the retest. It’s not two plus two equals four and ‘oh well you chose three you are out’.  There is no right or wrong answers.  It’s a test that really gives you an image of how someone thinks, how quickly they make decisions and how they make decisions, how they rationale.  It’s not really a test of what’s the capital of North Carolina.  There is not a grade.  You are not graded to it. Steve Letarte (crew chief) and I took the test together.  He did well on some things.  I did well on some things, but when I was concussed my grade was dramatically lower, not just a few points.  It’s not a guess for a doctor when they see an individual that is concussed on the test results.  There is no gray area.”
 
IT WAS EASY IN YOUR CASE BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T FEEL GOOD.  IF YOU FEEL GOOD…
“I don’t know that you would feel good if you were concussed. I mean I understand that drivers are going to be concerned that things could go wrong for them and they could get incorrectly diagnosed. I will be honest with you in my situation see I didn’t have a baseline to really go off of.  I hadn’t taken the baseline first and I took the test after I was concussed and they had to grade me against the norm, the average of all the individuals that they had tested before.  That was my mistake because I got graded against some other individual.  They had to make an educated guess on whether I needed to be in the car or not.
 
“To prevent that from happening I think it’s smart to go get the test.  I mean it’s going to be mandatory, so I think a lot of drivers went and took it anyway this year.  I think it’s a really good move and it’s really smart.  I think once people understand.  I encourage you to go take the test.  It takes 30 minutes and you will know what the test means, how it’s scored, how your graded, if you will.  It’s a really loose term.  Then you will see a bit more of the doctors point of view and you will understand there is not a big need for concern on the driver’s point of view.  Like I feel just as comfortable knowing everything I know now as I did before I didn’t know anything.  I don’t feel more worried about getting a concussion and being held out than I did before going through the whole process and understand how the test works and how they verify the test and all that.  It is kind of frustrating, but I think we get about a year down the road and everybody understands how the test works especially when all the drivers are forced to take it. It is no sweat and I don’t think they are going to be too worried about it.” 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOODY’S HEADACHE RELIEF SHOT 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
OCTOBER 25, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAP 1 AND LAP 2. WHAT WAS THAT DIFFERENCE?
“I guess just getting the right rhythm and matching the grip level that’s out there. There’s some grip but it’s just a fine line (laughs). And it always is here, for sure. But these cooler temperatures kind of make it a little more difficult to get tire temps. It was a good rebound and a nice qualifying effort. Hopefully we can stay in the top 5 and have a good race on Sunday.”
 
YOU SPENT A LOT OF TIME EARLIER TODAY TALKING ABOUT HOW ADVANTAGEOUS THAT FIRST PIT STALL IS.  WHAT IS THE NEXT BEST ONE YOU ARE SECOND ON THE BOARD RIGHT NOW?
“There are so other good ones, but for sure that first pit stall is the place to be.  We won’t get that opportunity, but hopefully we can stay in the top-five here as this winds down and have a nice opportunity on pit road and good track position to start the race.”
 
THE GUY YOU ARE NECK AND NECK WITH IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP ON THE TRACK RIGHT NOW I UNDERSTAND YOU GUYS HAD A LITTLE FUN THIS WEEK TEXTING WITH EACH OTHER?
“Yeah we have had a lot of fun over the last couple of weeks.  Kind of harassing one another but he is doing a good job and he’s on a decent lap here right now, right behind me.  So it will be interesting come Sunday.
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SEVENTH
ON HIS LAP:
‘I felt like I had a good first lap, but I was a little bit greedy with the McDonald’s Chevy in Turn 3. I slid up the track, not a lot, but a little bit. I was shocked that it seems like the track has actually lost grip from practice. We’re so used to it when it comes time to qualify, it actually picking up. I was really thankful that I was just able to run a little bit quicker because from inside the car, it felt like a slower lap than I ran in practice. So, hopefully it will be a top 10 or top 12 starting position. I don’t think it has any chance for the pole, but it would be a good spot for the McDonald’s Chevy.”
 
A QUICK LAP OUT THERE YOU WERE 17TH IN PRACTICE THOUGH YOU FOUND SOME EXTRA SPEED IN YOUR QUALIFYING LAP HUH?
“Yeah, it was an okay lap.  It was a little quicker than I ran in practice.  I actually thought the track had a little bit less grip than what it did in practice which this track doesn’t change a lot, but I expected to go quicker.  I thought the track had a little less grip.  Overall it was a good day for our McDonald’s Chevy.  We have had a really good week with winning at Talladega.  It’s been a pretty good weekend for us so far.”
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 MENARDS/TURTLE WAX CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 23RD
YOU GUYS SPENT SOME TIME UP HERE A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO TESTING.  IT LOOKED LIKE IT HELPED YOU ARE THIRD ON THE BOARD RIGHT NOW WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THAT?
“Well we didn’t do any qualifying runs so we weren’t really sure what to expect there.  The car had good speed in practice.  We didn’t do a whole lot to qualify here.  The tires never really came in we didn’t change a whole lot.  The tires never felt like they gripped.  In practice you do runs and everything gets heat soaked.  It felt a lot better in practice I guess.”
 
WHAT ABOUT FOR THE RACE TOMORROW WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?
“We will switch over the race trim and do a lot of long runs and see how the tires hold up.  I felt like the test was really good as far as the drivability and the cooler temperatures now we will see how that applies to tomorrow.”
 
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 SLEEP INNOVATIONS/DOW CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED 22ND:
HOW WAS YOUR LAP OUT THERE?  “We kind of struggled all day and just never quite had a grip on it.  We came here and tested and the track is a ton different than the way it tested.  That wasn’t great by any means but I don’t think it was horrible.  Looks like we slowed down a little less than the other guys did and right now, that is a good thing.”
 
EARLIER THIS WEEK NASCAR ANNOUNCED THERE WOULD BE MANDATORY BASELINE TESTING.  WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT MOVING FORWARD? “I am a fan of that.  I think the reason I am a fan of it is that they didn’t rush into this and they are taking their time at it and understanding exactly what it means rather than just jumping at it.  The big concern for everybody is that someone else is going to be making the decision whether you can race and that concerns everybody.   On the other hand, they are experts.  Its not like a bunch of people doing it as a hobby and there is nothing wrong with somebody looking out for your best interest.”