NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed the new race cars, why the Daytona 500 is so tough to win, bump-drafting, and more. Full Transcript:
 
Q.        Probably been asked a thousand times, but the discernible difference for you when you got behind the wheel of the new car, what was that like for you?
TONY STEWART:  I ran a day and a half at the tire test at Phoenix and we didn’t even have a steel body car, it was a fiberglass bodied car.  Didn’t really notice a lot.
We had the one day at Charlotte.  That was probably a bigger understanding of what we got than what we learned at Phoenix.
The car’s got a lot of downforce so far.  A little easier to drive.  For a new car to come out in that short amount of time, for it to drive that well, that’s a pretty big feather in NASCAR’s cap to have a car that drives that stable.
 
Q.        Some guys say it allows drivers to attack.
TONY STEWART:  You’re able to be a lot more aggressive with it.  I’m not sure you have to have as much finesse with it.
I think it’s going to give more drivers an opportunity to run a lot better with it because, like I say, it’s got a lot of downforce and a lot of side force.  It will definitely catch mistakes that they make.
 
Q.        You’ve had a tremendous amount of success, won 18 races here, but not the 500.  A lot of great drivers have never won the 500.  Why is it such a tough race to win?
TONY STEWART:  I think SPEED had a special going on last week about guys that hadn’t won it.  I saw three or four clips of races where I remember we had a shot and let it get away from us.
Everything has to go right.  The Indy 500 is the same way.  It’s easy to compare those two because everything has to go right that whole day.  You don’t normally get the opportunity to have a mistake and come back from it.  It just seems like it’s hard to make up from a mistake.
You look at the guys that normally have that trophy at the end of the day, they’re guys that had no drama at all during their race.  It’s one that you just can’t afford to make a mistake.
 
Q.        Because of that is it harder to get a feel on whether your car is really good, who could be a favorite, because there’s so many variables going on?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah.  I think by the time you get to the qualifying races, you have a good idea of who the players are.  The difference is by the time you put both groups together for the race, groups get separated and make new groups, there’s partnerships that don’t happen in the qualifying races that come up in the 500.  Now a group of three or four groups may turn into six or eight groups that have the potential to get up there, at least in the past.
It makes it hard to predict because you don’t totally know.  Even guys that have had good racecars have got held up in the back of the pack with less than 10 laps to go and they just can’t get through.  It’s hard to know where to be at the right time and hope you haven’t gotten yourself in a predicament in a spot that you can’t get out of.
 
Q.        Is it fair to say it’s a combination of a science project and the luck of a casino?
TONY STEWART:  That’s the most educated way I’ve ever heard it been put.  It is exactly that way.  You do everything in your power to take care of the science or technology side, do everything you can to build the fastest car you’ve got.  Then if you don’t have the luck to go with it.  Even if you don’t have any drama with getting the car touched, nothing happens to the car, if you’re just in the wrong spot at the wrong time at the end, it can take you out of the opportunity to take the best racecar in the field and a chance not to get through.  It is exactly that combination.
 
Q.        Any other races than Indy that approach that?
TONY STEWART:  Not that I’ve ever been a part of.  Those two races, the drama that’s involved in those two, the pressure that you put on yourself, I’ve never had any other race like it.
Not any championship race or anything.  If you go to Daytona and Indy, there’s just something about running those two races that you don’t get anywhere else.  You don’t have that emotion.  That’s part of the equation that doesn’t get factored into the other races because it just doesn’t exist like it does here and Indy.
 
Q.        Danica was talking about Indy and stockcar racing.  She said, I really have fun in the stock cars.  Do you understand why?
TONY STEWART:  No, but I’ll ask her about it.  I’m definitely going to find out why she said that.
 
Q.        She said it was more nerve-wracking in the IndyCars because of the nature of the racing.
TONY STEWART:  Well, yeah.  I think probably, you know, the course of a stockcar race, you’re not pushing 100% for 100% of the race.  Where an IndyCar race, everything is so fine and minute.  I understand it ’cause I drove them.  The passing opportunities are a lot less than what you have at a Cup race, a lot less pit stops.  All of that puts each stint of that race at higher importance.
Our races are longer.  You’re going to have more opportunity to pit, more opportunity to think about your car than you are thinking about pit strategies and all that during the race.
Other than that, I’m not sure exactly what she’s talking about, but I would assume that’s what it is.
 
Q.        What makes Ricky Stenhouse a good driver?
TONY STEWART:  I got a lot of racecar frames in my lake that have his name on them or cars that he crashed.
But the thing about Ricky that was good about him from the start was he was always fast.  It didn’t matter whether it was the Sprint car, the Midgets, the Silver Crown car, all three cars he got in and was quick right away.  The hardest part was pulling the reins back in on him.  There were races he’d have half a lap lead on second place and crash the car with 10 laps to go.  That was the hard stuff to get him to understand, is you don’t have to go 100% every lap.  That’s stuff that he’s learned in the last couple years in Nationwide, is how to take his aggressive style and at the same time be smart about it, make it work to his advantage.
 
Q.        It seems like you may have a kindred spirit in Kyle Larson.  Both of you share an appetite for racing.  He wins this championship on the last lap of the last race.  What do you see in him that reminds you of you?
TONY STEWART:  I think he reminds me of a lot better than me.  Everything he’s got, I mean everything.  Even when he got in a stockcar the first time, it was just natural to him.  Go from lightweight car to a heavy car is a hard adjustment for a lot of drivers.  It’s a lot easier to go from a heavier car to a lighter car.
To watch him run his first couple races in a stockcar, that’s what shows you this kid just has natural driving ability.  He’s just good in whatever he gets in.
 
Q.        Last fall at New Hampshire, wins a race.  You send him to Eldora, he wins there.  Is that symbolic of what he can do, his potential?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah, absolutely.  I mean, the hard part of that day for us is we throw him on the jet.&nbsp
; He goes up and wins in somebody else’s midget, crashes in somebody else’s Sprint car, and he’s supposed to start on the pole in my Silver Crown car.  Never got the chance to do it because he crashed the Sprint car and got hurt.
It does, it shows how versatile he is.  He’s the kind of guy, I’ve been around a lot of wing Sprint car races, I don’t think he ran a lot of that, but he ran a lot of non-wing races.  The wing races we’d go to, you would watch how quick he adapts to it.  It amazes you how good he is.
 
Q.        Is he the next generation type star?
TONY STEWART:  Yeah.  You can bet the farm on it.  I guarantee it.  If not, you can take everything I own because I’m that confident.
 
Q.        Pretty stout prediction.
TONY STEWART:  It’s not a matter of if, it’s when.
 
Q.        Is he just smart?  Pretty intelligent for his age.
TONY STEWART:  I don’t know how smart he is, I just know he’s good.  I mean, you watch him, in between racing, he’ll be playing video games on his phone.  He just naturally gets in it and he’s fast.  He just has that ability.
The great thing is he’s still a kid and he still acts like a kid.  Nobody’s tried to make him grow up too fast, put pressure on him to do anything.  He just gets in and does it.  That’s something that I don’t see there being any red flags with him.  I’ve seen good drivers in the past that have come up and you see red flags, you see problems or hurdles they’re going to have to cross in their career.  He doesn’t have any of those signs.
 
Q.        The elephant in the room, Danica and Ricky dating.  Is it an issue for you at all?
TONY STEWART:  Why would it be?
 
Q.        I don’t know.  They could on track…
TONY STEWART:  I had a run-in with Matt Kenseth, but I’m not dating him, so…  I still don’t see the relevancy in it.
 
Q.        Racing is about give-and-take.  Relationships could play a part in whether you give somebody an inch, who you might push at the end of a race.  That’s the way we perceive it.
TONY STEWART:  Okay, we’ll move on to the next thing (laughter).  God.  We’re at Daytona and this is the stuff we’re talking about at Daytona.  Amazing.
 
Q.        Years ago you were outspoken one way to end bump-draft is making sure the bumpers don’t line up.  Do you feel that’s been accomplished with this car?
TONY STEWART:  I don’t know.  We’ve only seen one guy try it so far, it didn’t end up very well.  I doubt that’s the last time we’ll see it tried.  I’ll say by Thursday we’ll have a really clear idea if that’s going to be possible or not.
 
Q.        Is it a step in the right direction to get away from that type of racing?
TONY STEWART:  I mean, it’s a theory.  Like I say, I think having Saturday and Thursday night’s races is good.  The logic, if you push a guy, it picks the guy up and wrecks him, doesn’t make guys want to do that much if that’s the end result.
 
Q.        How will that affect practice?
TONY STEWART:  You’ll see somebody try it.  Somebody’s bound to try it again.  Just ’cause it didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean somebody else isn’t going to try it.  I will say at some point during practice somebody will try it.  It may just be on the straightaway at first, but somebody’s going to try it to see if they can make it work.  If one makes it work, everybody is going to figure out how to do it.
 
Q.        You’re not going to be the guy to try it first?
TONY STEWART:  I’m too old to be the first guy to try anything now.  So I’ll anxiously wait for the crew chief to say, Yeah, that just happened and we’re going to have to figure it out.
 
Q.        Almost like a test pilot mentality?
TONY STEWART:  I would assume that’s what it’s going to be like.  Somebody’s going to have the nerve to try it, be impatient and try it.  That’s when we’ll have the answer.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
TONY STEWART:  I think you got to go out and at least see what’s going on.  You got to see how the car is going to react.  You’re going to have to see mostly how it sucks up and how when you get there how it pushes a guy without physically touching the bumper.
We’ve always talked about air being like a spring between the cars and that’s still in play.  I think you’re still going to have to go out there and physically figure that out, figure out what you have to do, what you can and can’t get away with.
 
Q.        Do you still have those sponsorships?
TONY STEWART:  Yes.
 
Q.        As an owner, is finding the right sponsor one of the hardest things?
TONY STEWART:  It depends on which aspect you’re asking.  There’s a lot of different aspects.  Financing the team is one thing.  Finding the right personnel is one thing.  The right teammates.  There’s so many variables.  It’s one of many variables that compiles into making a successful race team.
The funding is a huge part of that.  Funding is a big result of a lot of those other things happening, but still just one of those pieces of the puzzle.  You can have the best finance team in the series.  If they don’t know how to apply it, it doesn’t matter.
There’s teams that have taken less money and gotten better results out of it because they know how to use the money, where to put it, have gotten the right results.
 
Q.        How much of a frustration has it been with all the changes that have happened with the cars?
TONY STEWART:  I think it’s expected.  The history of the sport, there’s always been changes, real changes.  The frustration this winter was trying to build racecars and not being able to get the parts we needed to build racecars.  That’s got a lot of teams in a bind here for the first probably five or six weeks I would say.
As far as going through the changes, I mean, for us as car owners, if it’s better for the sport, it’s well worth the investment.  It will come back eventually.
You don’t look at it as it’s money wasted if it’s a good thing for the sport and makes it better for everybody.
 
Q.        Roger Penske is giving AJ Allmendinger another chance in an IndyCar.  How do you expect that test to go?
TONY STEWART:  I haven’t been in an IndyCar for 11 years really.  I honestly don’t know.  AJ hasn’t been out of them that long.  I honestly think he’ll pick it right back up is my gut feeling.  It’s a hunch.  But I think he’ll pick it right back up.
I think if he can pick it up in those early races, he can be ready for Indy no problem.
 
Q.        What do you think of Roger’s loyalty to him?  Many would have passed on him.
TONY STEWART:  I said last fall when they reinstated him, he’s the perfect pick right now.  Roger is a smart business guy.  He’s not dumb.  He has always been loyal to his drivers.
I think this just shows how deep that loyalty really goes.
 
Q.        You have three Cup drivers that are going to run a half marathon before their qualifying on Sunday.  Does that give drivers an adva
ntage to be in that kind of shape to do that?
TONY STEWART:  Do you anticipate me running any marathons anytime soon?  In case you didn’t know, we won the championship two years ago.  I don’t think a lot has changed since then.
 
Q.        If you told Earnhardt and them back in the days you’re going to have drivers running half marathons, what do you think they’d say?
TONY STEWART:  Nobody would have said anything because nobody would have thought about that question.  I don’t think it matters.  Unless you got to get out and push the car, it’s a different deal.  Nobody is having to get out and push these things.
I don’t even know where to go with this.  It’s like people live in Alaska.  They’re used to living in the cold.  People that live in Arizona, they get used to being in the heat.  They don’t have to work out to do either one of them.  You get acclimated to it and do it.  Running a marathon or not running a marathon doesn’t make an ounce of difference.
That’s all I got on it.
 
Q.        You here about the generation six.  Are you hearing from Chevrolet or other manufacturers, saying Chevrolet instead of referring to it as the generation six?
TONY STEWART:  I think as a whole that’s why everybody is talking about it as the gen six.  As we get in our individual cars, I think you’ll hear less about it being called a gen six.  You’ll hear as the season starts here the teams and drivers will do a good job of separating the brand identity.
 
Q.        When you talked about Ricky, him being fast, rein him in, how difficult is it to take somebody and make them understand that’s not the best way?
TONY STEWART:  It’s easier to pull them back than it is to try to make them fast.
 
Q.        How easy is it to pull them back?
TONY STEWART:  I mean, the guys that get it, they figure it out with some guidance.  There’s guys that I race with still that still have that mentality.  They’ll win one every now and then, but they can’t put a string of them together and can’t win a championship.  There’s some that get it and some that don’t.  That’s why you got guys that are champions and guys that aren’t.
 
Q.        Is it important that you realize that?
TONY STEWART:  With him?
 
Q.        Personally.
TONY STEWART:  I had help just like everybody else.  I had a guy explain to me how slowing down would make me go faster.  I’m like, Are you kidding me?  Didn’t make sense to me either.  It’s like the first time you do it, feel it, it’s like the light switch kicks on and you understand.
 
Q.        When you move up, is it big awakening to move up to Cup, even if you’re a great Nationwide driver?
TONY STEWART:  The competition level is the biggest thing from going from Nationwide to the Cup Series.  The Nationwide cars always seem to drive a little bit better than the Cup cars anyway.  That inherently is part of it.
At the same time the biggest thing is you’ve got a lot, you hate to say it, not taking anything away running in the Truck Series or the Nationwide Series, but you’re running with the best of the best when you get to this level.
It’s tough in the Truck Series.  It’s a little bit tougher in the Nationwide Series.  It’s real tough when you get to the Cup Series.  You have more guys that consistently have a shot to win the race every week.
 
Q.        It took Darrell Waltrip a long time to win, and others.  Do you find any solace in knowing there are legends that took so long to win?
TONY STEWART:  You can look at it that way, or you can look at guys like Rusty and Mark Martin that have never won it, never have won it.  You never say, Well, it’s okay because of.  There’s still that opportunity that it couldn’t happen, that it might not happen.
You approach each year with the attitude of doing everything you can to win it.  If it doesn’t happen, the only thing you can say is you have to wait 365 days to do it again.  That’s the reality of it.  That’s what makes the plane ride home suck.  There’s nothing you can do about it.  You can go win the race the next week somewhere else, but it’s not the Daytona 500.  Once you start this first race, once the first race of the year is over, you either accomplished the goal or you got to wait a whole year to do it again.
 
Q.        Feels the same in the brief time you did Indy?
TONY STEWART:  Felt like you got mule kicked and nothing you could do for a year.  Sit there and think about what you did wrong, what you could have done different.  It’s a miserable feeling waiting, feeling like you have to wait the whole calendar year to get that opportunity again.
 
Q.        (Question regarding Brad Keselowski.)
TONY STEWART:  Well, I think in his case, I think his demeanor is one that is not going to be a bother to him.  I don’t think like he’s going to feel that pressure that weight.
Brad is pretty good about kind of doing things his own way, having his own identity.  I don’t feel like that’s really going to be anything that weighs on him at all.  I think he’s a guy that’s not going to look at the past as much as he’s going to look at the future.
 
Q.        In terms of him being a good champion, what constitutes a good champion?
TONY STEWART:  Kerry, what constitutes a good champion?  You have to deal with them.
KERRY THARP:  I like a guy who wins and enjoys winning and enjoys being the champion.  You fit that mold.
 
TONY STEWART:  On Keselowski’s side, I don’t know.  I assume he likes to win races.  I don’t know anybody that likes winning more than he does.  I think a good champion is a guy that does it his way, not somebody else’s way, too.  For sure he does that.
 
Q.        Who doesn’t enjoy being the champion?
TONY STEWART:  I haven’t seen anybody yet.
 
Q.        I watched this on YouTube after the Talladega spring race.  That was a masterpiece of sarcasm.
TONY STEWART:  No, where is David Newton when somebody actually calls a spade a spade here and calls it right.  The dumb guy that asks the marathon question, you need to go down there and tell him.  That’s the highest form of flattery, what you just told me.
 
Q.        Are you proud of being so sarcastic?  Where did you find this talent?
TONY STEWART:  I’ll be honest, it just came to me one day.  I think I was born with it.  I take a lot of pride in the fact that I feel I’m probably the most successful driver at being extremely sarcastic.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
TONY STEWART:  Oh, no.  You are the closest thing to making me lose it because I was looking at you the whole time and you had a bigger shot at losing it.  That was the only shot I had at losing it, was watching you laugh.  I was able to put on my game face and stay true to character.
 
Q.        Don’t shoot the messenger.  Do you think it helps Danica, because of her high profile, she’s always been used to dealing with extra media, that because there is a lot of talk about her and Ricky, it’s not as big a deal to her because she’s used to already having to answer all these other questions all the
time?
TONY STEWART:  I would tend to agree.  I would say it’s less of a distraction to her because she has to deal with media, a high amount of media, every week.  I don’t think this is anything that will be any distraction to her whatsoever.  Logical question. 
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media and discussed competing in triathlon’s, last year’s Daytona 500 and other topics.  Partial Transcript:
 
DOES IT (COMPETING IN TRIATHLON’S) GIVE YOU A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE  OVER GUYS THAT DON’T DO IT AS MUCH?
“I don’t know.  There is no way it hurts to do this other stuff and to be in really good shape. To take care of yourself and push to run a ½ marathon as fast as you can or a sprint tri or whatever it may be.  There is no way that stuff hurts you when you are in the race car.  Does it help?  I don’t know how much it helps because Smoke (Tony Stewart) is about as good as they get and he doesn’t do that stuff.  For me personally it helps me.”
 
INAUDIBLE
“I don’t know I haven’t talked to him about it.  If he is that is really good. I originally when I signed up to do it, I wanted to do under an hour and 35 minutes so that is a lot higher than 650, but I’m in a lot better shape now than I thought I would be.  So, we will see kind of where I’m at I don’t know.”
 
DO YOU GET BUTTERFLIES BEFORE A RACE?  HOW DO YOU HANDLE THAT?
“I get a little bit jittery just because I would say more the excitement and the feeling of just wanting to go the anticipation of qualifying or the race or even practice.  It’s like two minutes until practice starts and it’s like ‘man just let us go early, I just want to get on the track.’ So, I get some nervous more anxiety like excitement more than anything.  I think that is one of the things that I strive for to.  I enjoy that and kind of like that side of things.  I like it when you feel that pressure and stuff.  It’s a good thing.”
 
IS IT MORE FOR DAYTONA?
“Not really.  I know right now kind of what is ahead of me.  Other tracks things happen and they just happen and they happen quick.  But, Daytona you pretty much know what is going to happen here.  Hopefully, you avoid it.  It’s tough to say with this place just a lot of the same stuff every time we come.”
 
LAST YEAR’S RACE HERE WAS SO CRAZY WITH FIRE AND THE RAIN IS THERE ONE THING THAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MIND ABOUT LAST YEAR HERE?
“I just thought all the rain on Sunday to put us to Monday night, just how long and drawn out the weekend was.  I didn’t care for the racing at all last year myself.  I ran in line for three-quarters of that race and couldn’t do anything.  You pull out and lose spots so to me it was just horrible the whole package that we had last year with that car at the Daytona 500 was terrible and I’m glad that they have made big improvements for the season.  I think it will be much more exciting fun race to be a part of for not just the drivers but the fans and everybody that is watching.”
 
WE NOTICED YOU GOT A HAIRCUT SINCE WE LAST SAW YOU…
“I needed a haircut before I came down here so I just trimmed it up.”
 
WHY NOT STAY WITH THE OTHER… WHAT WAS IT CALLED?
“I don’t know what that was called, but I don’t know maybe I will bring it back later in the season.  I liked it myself.  About 65 percent of people didn’t 35 did.  I liked it maybe it will come back again some other time (laughs).”
 
AS A DRIVER DOES IT GET TO YOU WHEN PEOPLE ASK MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS RATHER THAN COME IN HERE ON A DAY LIKE TODAY AND ASK ABOUT RACING?
“It’s hard to ask too many racing questions we are kind of clueless to some of the things that are getting ready to happen this season other than the testing we have done which has been great for the new Chevy SS.  The Gen-6 car is much better than what we have had.  I am definitely looking forward to that.  It doesn’t bother me too much any of the questions.”
 
ARE PEOPLE GOING TO BE A LITTLE BIT MORE CONSERVATIVE ON SATURDAY NIGHT THAN IN THE PAST BECAUSE OF PERHAPS SOME CAR SHORTAGES?
“They may be at times, but I think when it comes to the end of the race it can still take half the cars.  It’s tough, but I know that there is definitely a shortage of cars right now.  I could see a little bit more conservativeness in the Sprint Unlimited, definitely in practice for the Unlimited.  There may not even be an Unlimited practice because nobody, we can’t lose a car.  We lost that one at the test which you don’t expect that so we need to make it through.”
 
HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THREE MANUFACTURERS WITH THIS NEW CAR YET? 
“There are a few differences here with pushing and being close to the car in front of you with the way that the front ends are on the cars.  But that is the only place that is the biggest deal I felt other than that just seeing times and stuff it is just kind of whoever is figuring things out was running good times at Charlotte.  I don’t think it necessarily matter which manufacturer as much as what the teams were doing and the drivers and things.   I have felt like our Chevy SS is really good.  Every time I’ve been in it since January of last season was the first time I got in it and it was great.”
 
DO YOU WANT FOR ANYTHING AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS? AS A DRIVER IS IT EVERYTHING THAT YOU COULD HAVE EVER WISHED FOR IS IT THERE?
“Yeah, I have more than I ever wished for.”
 
WHAT HAS THE LAST YEAR BEEN LIKE FOR YOU?
“It’s been way more to me just less worries.  You don’t have to worry about so many things. Just worry about yourself, worry about communicating and the team and how we can all pull together and win.  Because we have everything it takes to win it is sitting there.  I get to drive it every week.  How we make it go around the track right and if I do my job.  As a driver you don’t get that very often.  Those are the things with my Sprint car teams I try as hard as I can to make sure they have that opportunity the guys that work there and drive for us have the opportunity.  Mr. H (Hendrick) gives all of us that opportunity.  There is nothing I have even asked for because there is more than enough.”
 
HAVE YOU LEARNED THINGS AT HENDRICK THAT YOU CAN BRING OVER TO YOUR SPRINT CAR TEAM?
“Procedurally it’s so much different it’s just so big compared to our deal.  We have three people per team so it’s a much smaller scale.  I think since I started with Ray Evernham, Rick Hendrick now and different people that I have worked with over time.  I’m always trying to listen and learn so that maybe we can apply that to our Sprint car teams or to the people.  There are just different ways that they do it.  So I try to pay attention to that and learn from it.  It all is really good.  It is things they have taken over time and been able to win championships with.  It’s all neat things you can take.”
 
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A CUP OWNER SOMEDAY?
“I don’t think so.  I don’t know.  You never know what might happen in the future, but as of right now I really enjoy owning three Sprint car teams and racing Saturday’s, Sunday’s running my Sprint cars when I can and just being a driver.  That is really what I enjoy.  10 years from now, you never know, tough to say.   I like racing so much I need to be part of it for a long time.”
 
IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU AND KENNY FRANCIS (CREW CHIEF) DON’T KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER?  IS THERE ANYTHING THAT WOULD SURPRISE YOU AT THIS POINT?
“I don’t think so.  We go to lunch we do different things together and are pretty much on the same page.  We had lunch the other day and just kind of went over things that we had
talked about at the start of the off season and kind of where we are at.  Just all good stuff, there is no one else I want to work with.  I think he feels the same way right now.  That is where we are at.  I think we both feel that we have got a team surrounding us that it is capable of doing a lot this season.”
 
WHAT DOES MR. H (HENDRICK) SAY ABOUT YOUR SPRINT CAR ACTIVITIES?
“He likes it.  He asks me about it and asks how things are going.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS, met with the media and discussed baseline testing and other topics.
 
NASCAR TOLD US THEY SUGGESTED TO THE DRIVERS THAT THEY MIGHT WANT TO GET A BASELINE IMPACT TEST, WHICH COULD BE MANDATORY IN 2014. ARE YOU PLANNING ON DOING THAT? “I haven’t done it yet. I’m investigating it and getting all the information that I feel like I need to get. Trying to get educated on it. I think it is a good idea. But, the fundamentals of it are a good idea. I want to know the specifics of it. I haven’t done it yet, but I have started doing research on it. I just want to know all the facts before I commit to doing it.”
 
WHAT WOULD CAUSE YOU TO HESITATE DOING IT? “The interpretation to the results I think is everybody’s concern. I think nobody wants to drive in a condition they shouldn’t drive it, but I think we all feel like we are our own best judge to determine if we should drive or not, from an ability standpoint. So the interpretation of the results I think is the biggest concern, I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but I think that is the biggest concern. I don’t think anybody in here wants to drive in a condition that puts somebody else in danger, or puts themselves in larger danger. That part of it is good. But how they implement it; how it is judged; how it is scored – all those things – are to me, specifics that I want to understand.”
 
YOU WANT TO BE CONFIDENT THAT IF THEY ARE GOING TO SIT YOU, THEY HAVE A GOOD REASON TO DO SO. “Yes, and I think that I don’t have this belief in that NASCAR wants to sit a driver down just for the fun of it. I don’t think that they would do something except only in the incident that there is no other choice. But then again, it is a mechanism that could be used to make a decision. I want to understand exactly how it is used. I’m gathering that data. I’m not opposed to doing it. I was to understand how it all works before I commit to doing it.”
 
DO YOU THINK RICKY STENHOUSE, JR. AND DANICA PATRICK CAN RACE EACH OTHER JUST LIKE YOU WOULD ANYONE ELSE? “I think that’s a valid point. I think they are both racers. I have people that I race with that I have relationships with. Not that kind of a relationship, but I think an awful lot of. I race them, and they race me. We find a way to make that work. They will to. I think the biggest issue is what happens if they break-up. That’s probably the biggest issue. But, listen, I just don’t see it being an issue. It may be something to talk about, but it’s not an issue.
 
“I think it is a little naïve to say it is no different, because it is different. A male/female relationship is different than two buddies. It just is. So it is naïve to say it is the same thing. But I think that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. That they can’t go race. But it is different than two buddies racing against each other.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed the off-season, racing at Daytona, what the Budweiser sponsorship means to him, some of his favorite trophies, high school wrestling, and more. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  It feels good.  To be able to get through the winter, be able to relax, not have any new race teams or anything to worry about makes it nice.  You get to enjoy your time off and get ready to go.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, you know, you kind of get into a routine.  You’re still pretty busy during the week, for the most part, except for around Christmas, to do your photo shoots, production days, stuff like that.  Anytime you can sleep in your own bed, which is most of the time during the winter, I call that time off.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  In relative terms, I guess.  But, you know, for me it was important to spend some time at home with my son and be able to help DeLana and I enjoyed that as well.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Time at the Super Bowl was very short.  We went on Saturday afternoon and were able to take in a couple meals and went to the game and enjoyed it.  It was a good game.  Obviously I wish the 49ers would have won.  All in all, it was good.
 
Q.        Do you still get butterflies coming into Daytona?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, I think this race is different than most races.  You come into this race excited just because it’s a new season, a lot of optimism.  Just getting back into the swing of things.  Once you get into the grind, you get towards the end of the season, you can get wore down, especially if things aren’t going well.
To be able to get back down here, get back in the swing, definitely brings a lot of enthusiasm and excitement.  I’m pumped up and ready to go.
 
Q.        Growing up, what is your first recollection about racing?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I was around racing from pretty early in my life.  Most of my moments came from Mesa, Phoenix, those types of places, watching guys like Rick Corelli, Hornaday, Mike Chase, all the guys from the West Coast.  Those are the guys I grew up watching race.
Every once in a while you’d see a Joe Ruttman or a Davey Allison, Rick Mears, George Snider, some of those guys come in.  We grew up in Bakersfield, California, so a pretty supportive racing town.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  The track has changed.  This is the second style of car we raced since then.  Been a lot of changes.
Anytime you’re at home and you walk past that trophy, you realize the magnitude of the race that the Daytona 500 is, being able to experience that, is something you want to experience again.
So hopefully this will be a good year to do it.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, there’s obviously different challenges, but I think there’s still always an extreme amount of challenges as you go through the week.  I’ve been through weeks.  I look at this race, the Daytona 500, as weeks just because of the fact that there’s so much that happens leading up to the race.  You go through the Duels.  You can have the fastest car here and wreck it.  I’ve been through weeks where you wrecked every race, get to the 500, have a great day, and the opposite of that.  You just have to maintain an even keel on the way that you approach things and be able to ready for Sunday because that’s when it all counts.
 
Q.        Do you have a special area for those trophies?  Which ones mean the most?
KEVIN HARVICK:  You never know what size they’re going to be.  Luckily the Harley Earl fits in the middle of that trophy case.  I keep all my Cup trophies at home.
 
Q.        How much effect has your family life had with your Budweiser sponsorship?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think having my son has really helped keep a new balance on life that you didn’t really understand until you had a child.  For me, I become so emotional and so attached to what happens on the racetrack, if it’s going good, if it’s going bad.
Now you have this way of coming home and letting all those things go for two or three days, then you come back to the track and you hadn’t thought about it all week and you’re really focused at being at the racetrack.
The same kind of thing has gone for what you do off of the racetrack.  We kind of have to plan things out and trips become really more productive because they’re more well-planned out.  You have to be a little bit choosier about where you go.
Really haven’t changed a lot as far as the sponsorship goes.  We went to Chicago for the UFC fight, went to the Super Bowl.  We’ve done photo shoots, production days.  One of the biggest reasons we got rid of the race team was to balance those two.  Couldn’t do all three.  Couldn’t be dad, team owner and driver on Sunday and be successful probably at any of them.  We had to eliminate one.  That new balance adds to your life, lets you be more focused and hopefully more competitive on the weekends.
 
Q.        (Question regarding the last 10 laps.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think that’s kind of why for me there’s a really high anticipation of getting into Saturday night’s race, getting through the practices on Friday, just to know what you need to work on, where you need to be, what you need to do, how to run your race, really start to plan that out in your mind.
The urgency always builds as you get closer to the end of the race, for sure.  You got to kind of start taking some chances and pushing and shoving a little bit to get yourself in a position that you want to be in.
But I don’t think that’s going to change.  It’s just a matter of how that needs to play out as to where you need to be and how you need to approach getting there. 
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Well, I think as we’ve gone through the tests, every team’s had a specific test plan, and everybody’s gone back and evolved their cars to what each thought was the best result on the track.
That’s obviously one of his big priorities, is to come in and kind of narrow down the things that need to be tried, find the answers to them without all three teams having to go down different paths to do that.
We’ll get places a lot quicker if we have three people working on it than one.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  You know, for us at Phoenix, I think you could attribute it to that for sure.  After practice was over, we took everything out of the 27 car and put it in our car for the race and were able to adjust on it to my driving style and were able to win the race.
Definitely some parallels there as to things we did at Phoenix.
 
Q.        How does the 78 play in all this?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think when you have somebody of the caliber of Kurt, as long as their cars stay similar to the game plan to what we have, they’re not changing ’em up as they get their hands on ’em out there, things will work a lot smoother and easier.
If you can take that from three to four people with somebody
like Kurt that is going to give good information and run up front, you’re basically looking at a four-car team.
 
Q.        You mentioned earlier going to a UFC event.  Where is your connection with that community?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Well, there’s a couple different connections.  Obviously Tapout has been a supporter of the racing program.  The Jimmy John’s sponsorship first started when we met Brock Lesnar.  Jimmy sponsored him in his fighting.  That’s probably been five years ago.  We’ve just gotten more involved in it, learned to like the sport.
 
Q.        What was it like being in a corner and what have you learned about the sport?  Have you trained any, got on the mat?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think I’m past my training days as far as with those guys for sure.  They do it on a daily basis and make a living at it.
It’s just an intriguing sport.  There’s something about that one-on-one type of situation where the other guy just wants to rip your head off.  Being behind the scenes like that, seeing how they get prepared for the fight, seeing the anticipation they have every time they get in the ring, it’s a whole different atmosphere than what you’re used to.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, definitely called Donald and Brock friends for sure.  Brock has been here the last two or three years to support us during the Daytona 500.  Donald is coming down next weekend.
 
Q.        Certain mental similarities in how they prepare for a fight and you for a race?
KEVIN HARVICK:  For those guys it’s not getting so pumped up and so overdone that you spend all your energy.  For me it’s much the same.  You don’t want to get yourself over-anxious and do something dumb in the beginning of the race.  There’s a lot of similarities between the two in that aspect of it, especially getting prepared for the race like that.
 
Q.        The energy level seems to be exciting, too.
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, you know, there’s just that anticipation of building up to an event in general.  The Daytona 500 for us is obviously our biggest event that we go to every year.  There’s a lot of similarities in any sport building up to the event.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, you know, I think I’m a very honest person.  Kind of tells it like I see it, right or wrong.  Obviously in the racecar pretty aggressive and like to drive the car every lap as hard as I can drive it.
So, you know, it’s pretty cut and dry with me.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  I don’t know about ‘evil’.  Yeah, I guess that would be somewhat appropriate.  Depends on what day it is, how I woke up.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  You know, everything is just so much different than what it was then.  Those guys laid a great foundation for us to come in and race.  But there’s so many sponsors and so many different things involved now, you just have to approach it a lot different.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  It depends on what aspect of it.  I’ve worked on my own cars and put them together.  In that aspect of it I guess you could say.
In this day and age, you have to be able to adapt to not only the racing side of it but the marketing side of it with the sponsors and things that come with it.
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  I said it earlier.  I think it’s made me more focused because a lot of times the thought process and the thinking during the week, carrying your emotion, not being able to get away from it, being more focused when you come back, letting last week go, that was kind of hard for me to do.
I think with him, for me it’s one of those things where you can come home and let that go for a couple days and come back and really be focused on what you’re doing.
You’re not going to do anything different as far as making a pass, driving the car as fast as you can or anything like that.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think that’s not going to happen from anybody.  I think most everybody here has won at every other level and division that they’ve raced in to get to this point.  So pretty much everybody here are winners and are pretty competitive in everything that they do.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  First one was probably five years ago, a troops fight that they had.  I don’t remember exactly where it was.
 
Q.        How many have you been to?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I don’t know.  Five or six.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  He’s out there riding around.  He’s not in a pedal car.  We had to push him.  First full weekend that he’s gone to.  He’ll be here all weekend.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  I wouldn’t even go in.  Those guys are dangerous, man.  It’s a whole different level.
 
Q.        Do you have a best memory from going to any of those matches?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I just like competition.  Those guys, I wrestled in high school, so there’s that competition of you against yourself.  Then when you get in there for the competitive side of it in the ring, just something about being one guy against another guy.  The only person you have to blame for making a mistake is yourself.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KEVIN HARVICK:  Brock is a good person.  Obviously we see each other at some Jimmy John’s stuff and talk occasionally, but a good person.
 
Q.        How about Donald?  Seem to be different characters.
KEVIN HARVICK:  Oh, yeah.  Much different characters, for sure.  They both are very different people.  Donald is quite a bit younger than Brock.  He’s got a few different hobbies.  Brock likes to hunt, Donald likes to wake board.
 
Q.        Which one do you think you’re more like?  Who are you closer to?  Donald?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I’d say they both have their own different perspectives of what you like about both of them.
All right.  Thank you.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS, met with media and discussed the 2013 season, having three cars at SHR and other topics.
 
TALK ABOUT EXPECTATIONS FOR THE 2013 SEASON: “For me personally, 2013 is just a matter of going out and having fun. Having fun for me is winning races, winning poles, leading laps – all those types of things, which I know I am capable of. I feel like we have the equipment to do that. With Matt Borland (crew chief) leading the group of guys, looking of forward to having fun.”
 
ARE THERE ANY SPECIFIC TRACKS YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO? “I think every track I have an opportunity to win at. Some maybe more than others. My stats are always the best, for whatever reason, on short, flat tracks. But I think I am capable of getting to Victory Lane at every type of race track or race car we drive.”
 
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHANGE FOR YOU THIS SEASON? “The new car is the biggest change. Nobody really knows what it is going to be like exactly at every race track, or in every different situation we are going to be in. I think it is an awesome looking car. I think it is great that NASCAR and the production market has tied themselves back together from a visual standpoint. We’ll see.”
 
WHAT CHANGES DO YOU EXPECT GOING TO THREE CARS AT STEWART-HAAS? “I have used the analogy before that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and when you add a whole other third to the chain, you have the opportunity for weaker links.  As long as those links are strong, there’s no issue.”
 
DO YOU STILL GET A SPECIAL FEELING COMING INTO DAYTONA? “If we didn’t have to come here and do all this stuff (media day), it would be even more of a special charge. (LAUGHS) Absolutely! I don’t think many drivers enjoy coming and doing this, but it is a part of what we have to do for our sponsors and for our teams. It just happens to be the first race, and its grown bigger and bigger in the last 10 years I have been a part of this sport.”
 
DO YOU GET JITTERS? “I wouldn’t say jitters. There’s an emotion to it, but I wouldn’t say jitters. Not like I’m nervous. Not like I have the butterflies. Part of me is excited, but I have to control that excitement. Part of me is anticipating but I have to control that anticipation. Every driver is different. Every driver has different characteristics when it comes to that emotionally and mentally.”
 
DOES IT GO AWAY FAST WHEN YOU GET IN THE CAR? “For some people. It’s different for everybody. For me, I never have it, so it’s not an issue.”
 
WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP, DID YOU HAVE A MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU SAID YOU CAN DO THIS?  “I was 38 days old.”
 
 
WITH THE FOCUS ON HEAD INJURIES, HAVE YOU TAKEN THE TIME TO LOOK AT WHAT IS AVAILABLE AS FAR AS WHAT TESTING IS AVAILABLE, AND HOW MUCH ARE YOU A FAN OF THAT? “I guess it’s been no rocket science that an injury has more potential to be damaging to the head than any other part of the body. But, for me personally, I have not done any extra testing. I haven’t been to any labs to diagnose my neutral or zero point, or whatever you want to call it. I haven’t put much emphasis on that.”
 
DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO MAYBE DOING SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “I’m not usually wanting to be the first one to go be the baseline when it comes to those types of things. I would rather the system be worked out a little better than what I understand it is right now.”
 
WHAT IS YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL? “To win the championship. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and I feel like I am fully capable as a driver.  I think that there is more than 12 teams capable of winning a championship, it’s just a matter of who does. It is much more competitive than it used to be.”
 
ARE YOU RUNNING ANY NATIONWIDE THIS YEAR? “There is a chance for it, but nothing is planned as of right now.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY,  #1 MCDONALD’S/CESSNA AIRCRAFT CO./TEXTRON CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway and discussed the birth of his second child, the new car, what it feels like to win the Daytona 500 and much more.  FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE 2012 SEASON AND HOW THINGS WENT FOR YOU?
WHAT DO YOU THINK ITS LOOKING LIKE FOR 2013?
“Ready for 2012 obviously to be over. I think like most teams ready to get this season started. There’s a lot of unknowns with this car. We got to have more testing in the off season than what we’ve had in the past, but I think everyone is still trying to figure out what it’s going to take to make this car quicker than the next guy. At Charlotte I was shocked at how close all the cars were from the best really to the 25th-place guy. It was a very tight group. It’s not going to take a big advantage to be seen on TV.”
 
WHAT’S THE LATEST NEWS ON YOUR NEW ARRIVAL?
“So, yeah my wife just had our second child and had a little girl this time. Our first child was a little boy. A little girl is much different. I have compared notes with other dads that have had a boy then a girl. It is a different experience. But both, Hazel is her name, Hazel and Christian are doing very well. This was a much easier experience than the last time. We’ve really enjoyed it. I was very thankful. They weren’t supposed to get to come home until today and I was really upset that I wasn’t going to be able to be the one to go pick them up. That’s a big moment as a dad, to get to wheel your wife down in a wheelchair with the baby and pick them up. I really enjoyed that last time, so I was upset that I wasn’t going to get to do it but they let her come home a day early so I got to have that moment. That was good. Last night was an experience for sure, but I have a really good wife who kind of takes that whole responsibility on. So it was nice.”
 
OBVIOUSLY WITH THE BODY CHANGES THIS YEAR, THIS IS GOING TO BE THROWING THE CREW CHIEFS A CURVE BALL, BECAUSE THE ADJUSTMENT THAT WAS MADE IF YOU WERE LOOSE LAST YEAR MIGHT BE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ADJUSTMENT THIS YEAR. WHEN YOU WERE TESTING UP IN CHARLOTTE, DID IT SEEM LIKE THEY WERE KIND OF SCRAMBLING A LITTLE BIT OR DID THE COMMUNICATION PRETTY MUCH STAY THE SAME?
“I think some of the changes will be the same. When we did our testing it wasn’t really about what you did at the race. It was really just about testing and seeing how different pieces and different attitudes on the car, different bump styles, kind of the traditional testing. Certainly you want to make the car as fast as you can, but more than anything we didn’t have any data on the cars so it’s so nice to get to test and have data to back it up to go back to the seven-post and see if you can make your simulation program and your seven-post and actual track data all relate.”
 
DO YOU THINK THE STRATEGY IN THE FINAL LAPS OF THIS RACE IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT WITH THIS CAR?
“I’m anxious to get on the internet in the morning and read different people’s quotes and see what other drivers have told you guys about what they expect. My gut tells me this is a survival race. I think we are going to have wrecks and I’m going to say that hoping we don’t. Based on how bad the cars drove at the test, how hard the cars were to drive at the test in a large pack, I think when we get a large pack together we’re going to have a wreck. I’m curious to what happens in the Shootout and then also in the 150. I think until we get 43 cars on the track, it’s not going to be the same. To me the key to the 500 will be survival. The last 10 laps are really a crap shoot. I heard a play back on the radio of the 500 that I won and there are so many circumstances of not just what you do but what other people do around you, the decisions they make. You go out and you drive your hardest, try to make the smartest decisions, and you hope the other people around you will make decisions that will benefit you as well. The truth of it is a lot of it when it comes down to the last lap is about you making a good decision and also people around you making a good decision that benefits you.”
 
IT ALMOST HAS TO BE A SPLIT SECOND DECISION.
“Absolutely, it seems like some guys are better at it than others. But there is a large amount of luck involved in this. I believe the guys that tell you that it’s not are just full of themselves.”
 
DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE TANDEM?
“I don’t think there will be tandem.”
 
EVEN ON THE LAST LAP?
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. We didn’t get to do that a lot at the test down here. So, I don’t know. The Shootout is going to tell us that, when we get to the last lap of that because it seems like that race always ends under caution or a green-white-checker. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I don’t know what there will be.”
 
WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT DOWN HERE FOR THE TEST AND HOW DIFFICULT THE CARS WERE AT THAT POINT, DO YOU MEAN JUST FROM A STABILITY STANDPOINT?
“Yeah, so the last few years we were down here the reason you could do tandem is because when you’re pushing the guy, the car is just very stable, a lot of grip. Not effortless but fairly easy. When we were down here for the test, the cars seemed light in the back. We’ve got such a small spoiler on them the cars skate around a lot and you didn’t want the guy shoving you that much and I think the noses are shaped a little bit different. It’s a different experience. We might get more comfortable at that. I didn’t see anyone tandem while we were down here. First off because you can only go about half a lap anyway. The reason tandem used to work was because if you could get locked together and go about three or four laps you could go faster, but that first half of lap you spend trying to get locked together you lose so much time that you have to hope you make up a lot on the end of it. I don’t think now you are going to spend a half of lap getting locked together, and then you have to break apart immediately. It’s such a counter-productive move.”
 
DO YOU THINK THERE’S AN ASPECT OF THE CAR BEING PART OF THE STAR NOW?
“First off, I really liked what we have five years ago, real pretty car. It was real racy. They looked aerodynamic. I thought the generation five car was the ugliest car of all time. I thought it was horrible. I think this is the best looking car we’ve ever been in. I’ve been so anxious and excited to see the pictures of the different paint schemes that are coming out this year, and every paint scheme even if it’s the same one from last year on this car, it looks better. You’re like that looks great. And I think it’s cool that we have some brand identity. So, if you’re a Chevy fan you have something to pull for. Where before the cars just had different decals on them, they are actually different now which is cool.”
 
DO YOU HAVE ANY RACE DAY RITUALS THAT YOU DO? ARE YOU SUPERSITIOUS?
“No, not really. I’m a schedule person. I just like to have a schedule and the same type of schedule every weekend. I don’t like breaking. But that’s my life too. Every day that I wake up I do the same thing for the first three hours.”
 
DO YOU STAY AWAY FROM PEANUTS OR ANYTHING?
“No, Matt Kenseth does though. I don’t believe in superstitions. I think you make your own luck.”
 
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU LISTENED TO THE END OF THE DAYTONA 500 THAT YOU WON?
“Actually I was listening to something on XM Radio last night and they were replaying like the last lap of the last 10 Daytona 500’s. All of them make your heart beat, and you start sweating. It’s so nerve wrecking, this kind of racing. For as boring as it is for the first p
art of the race because you are riding and trying to make it to the end, the last 10 laps, 25 laps of these are just awesome inside the car.”
 
WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO WIN THE 500?
“It’s definitely the most amazing race you can win. There’s not any other race that compares to the Daytona 500 because we’re here for so many days and there’s so much buildup to it. As a little kid, this is the race that everybody watches. Even if you are a casual NASCAR fan, you watch the Daytona 500. I’ve watched this since I was a little kid. It’s the most amazing racing moment you can have.”
 
WAS IT A RACE THAT YOU FOLLOWED AND THOUGHT, I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO WIN IT ONE DAY?
“I always wanted to race NASCAR. I tell you something else I saw on TV the other day was I think they call it the next nine, I don’t know what they are calling that group of kids but I was listening to those kids talk about how they can’t wait to make it to the Sprint Cup level and their goal is to make it to that. As a guy that’s been here for a long time, I forgot those moments. You come here and you do this, it’s your job and you work, this is what you do. I think sometimes we all forget how anxious we were and excited to get to be at this level. So I thought that was really cool to get to see those kids talk about that. I can remember being at the point and not having won the Daytona 500 at that time of my life, then you look back and you’ve won that it’s pretty fascinating.”
 
DO YOU THINK BACK TO YOUR BUSCH DAYS?
“Yeah, media day make me think back to Busch days because we used to be down here for this and then we would have four or five days off to go goof off and play and just be a guy. I was thinking about it on the way down here. Gosh I remember what we used to do down there and my wife had a baby on Monday and how much different my life is now.”
 
ON TEAM CHANGES THIS YEAR
“We’ve actually had a pretty big turnaround. Some guys are just doing a different job at the shop. Some guys have moved on. There’s quite a few new guys on the team but we’ve had two tests. We actually did one test of not really making the car faster but just changing parts at the track to get them used to working together. They’re a really good group of guys. They have good attitudes and are also quality workers.”
 
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT PROSPECTS FOR THIS YEAR?
“I think there are just too many unknowns right now to know what you’re going to have. To me, the first four or five races the cars are going to be closer than they ever have, so track position will be more important than ever. Qualifying is going to be important. I think there is a lot of unknowns. I don’t know that we know exactly what to expect from each team.”
 
DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE MADE A STEP FORWARD FROM LAST YEAR?
“It’s so different. When you say making progress we cut up all those cars and have brand new cars. The things that made those cars tick last year, I don’t think will make these. It’s going to be different. I thought that our testing in relation to the other competitors, we’ve been faster this year than what we were last year. That’s all you can really base it on because you don’t know what other guys have but our speed has been better in testing compared to last year for sure.”
 
HOW IS IT HAVING THE HENDRICK ENGINES?
“The engine deal will be interesting down here. When you come to a plate race it seems like the engine people are grouped together in qualifying and in the race, but I think at the intermediate tracks and short tracks the engine program looks pretty good. It’s really strong. It’s much more open than what the ECR was with sharing data and that’s really important to us only having two cars. When you can go look at Jimmie Johnson or Tony Stewart or whoever it is. That’s a positive for sure.”
 
GROWING UP, WHAT’S YOUR FIRST MEMORIES OF RACE CARS?
“Car or go kart?”
 
GO KART, WHEN YOU WERE A KID.
“First thing, I remember going out to the local go kart track, I was six or seven and there was a kid there about my age racing and I remember thinking how cool that was that he’s actually getting to race these karts. A year later I got a go kart for my birthday and actually ended up racing the first four or five years of racing go karts with him. We became good friends. Go karts are what I remember. Not only fun, but family fun which was really important.”
 
WAS THERE A POINT ALONG THE TIME WHERE YOU FIGURED OUT, I’VE GOT THIS?
“You know what I had was very supportive parents, but mainly a supportive father. I couldn’t do anything wrong. He always told you, you were the best so he convinced me of that. I think having somebody always telling you that you are doing the right thing, and you’re doing a good job, I had a really supportive father which was huge.”
 
SO THAT ONE BIG FAN MAKES A DIFFERENCE?
“Yeah, when you are related to me it does.”
 
HOW ARE YOU PLANNING TO CELEBRATE VALENTINE’S DAY?
“We just had a baby on Monday, so my wife is not here. She’s at home. I think that Christy and I have a little bit, not really a different relationship, but we don’t buy presents, or do flowers. I usually tell everybody that it’s Valentine’s Day every day at our house. We’re just nice to each other and we don’t have a day to celebrate it.”
 
JUST BECAME A FATHER FOR THE SECOND TIME, TELL ME ABOUT THAT.
“I forgot how special it was to be in the delivery room. The part that you forget from my take is that you watch your wife carry this baby around for 10 months, and you talk about it and when that moment comes and you get to see the baby. Even though we have crazy technology that will give you a nice ultrasound, until you actually see it you don’t know. You don’t know that all the fingers and toes are going to be there. The first time you hear your baby cry, its immediate eyes water for both of you. It’s a moment that I wish everyone got to experience.”
 
WHAT WAS THE ONE THING THAT SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT BEING A FATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME?
“That you can love something unconditionally and it can test you and make you mad and you get frustrated and then you can immediately forgive it and love it. That’s something that people tell you. You hear it and people tell you stories. Everything that everyone tells you is true. It’s also very fascinating to me that I had my daughter on Monday at 11:52 and you’re in love immediately. It’s like immediate.”
 
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR EXERCISE?
“I had a trainer at one time, a guy that did a lot of the supercross guys and that’s an extreme. When you talk about motorcross guys they are in the best shape of any I would say athlete but probably motorsports athlete. So, I had that. My body fat got to an all-time low and the eating came along with that, and the eating is the hardest part of your workout. Now I try to eat correctly and really it’s about running 45 minutes a day and I do a little bit of weight lifting, but I don’t do a lot. There’s not anything to me that you can do weightlifting that duplicates what you can do in the car so the best exercise to me other than just some good cardio to stay healthy is just kind of being in a car.”
 
WHAT’S THE FAVORITE PLACE YOU’VE EVER BEEN TOO TRAVELING?
“Italy. We actually went to Italy when Christy was pregnant with Carter in 2010 on our off weekend in August. It’s just, gosh so much different than America. Beautiful, old.”
 
WHERE IN ITALY WAS IT? “We went to Rome, Venice and Verona. It’s much different. People are not as friendly as they are in America. We grew up in the South and everyone says yes ma’am, yes sir and cater to you. Italians not so much, but scenery was beautiful.”
 
I BET THE FOOD WAS GOOD TOO. “The food was good. We live a very fast paced life. It’s hard when you get over there because there is no rush. Lunch
could take an hour and a half or two hours and that’s normal. That’s hard to get used to.”
 
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
“Pasta, maybe.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
DAVE BLANEY, NO. 7 FLORIDA LOTTERY CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed his racer son, Ryan Blaney, the status of Tommy Baldwin Racing, the new race cars, social media, and more. Full Transcript:
 
ON THE QUALIFYING CHANGE AND HOW THAT MIGHT IMPACT SOME OF THE TEAMS
“I don’t actually know where we ended up last year; it was in the top 35 somewhere last year, but it was 33rd, 34th, or 35th I believe. I’ve looked at it for down here (Daytona) and heck, a guy 15th in the points from last year could miss it, right, if there are a bunch of good cars that wreck in the Twins. A lot of weird things could happen in the Twins.”
 
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN QUALIFY PRETTY WELL HERE AND THAT’S NOT MUCH OF A CONCERN?
“Well, yeah for here, it’s all about the Twins. We’re not going to qualify on the front row.  So, we just have to concentrate more on qualifying this year. Last year, we were locked-in. So we didn’t really spend extra. We didn’t throw tires away in qualifying mode. We just didn’t do it. But we’ll have to this year. You can’t rely on provisionals. So that’ll change our plan a little bit, but that’s okay.”
 
ON THE NEW CHEVY SS RACE CAR
“We were down here a little bit for testing and we were at Charlotte for the day. I think we’re okay. I think we’re in pretty good shape right now for the first three races and that’s my team, and J.J. Yeley’s. They’ve done a good job. Parts aren’t that easy to get but we’ve got a couple of guys at the shop that are building fast. I don’t know whether that’s good, but they’re getting them ready anyway.
 
“It’s been impressive to me. At Charlotte, it was really really fast; it’s a bigger spoiler on it, but still. It was really fast and really stuck-down feeling. Hopefully the racing is good like that. Hopefully we’re not just all spread apart and running wide-open. But the looks are great, I think. The racing side of it, you just have to go race and see. And then I’m sure they’ll tweak the rules if they have to a little bit to try to make the racing better.”
 
ARE YOU SURPRISED ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF YOUR SON’S RACING SO FAR (RYAN BLANEY)?
“I’m surprised in some ways. I’m not surprised in others. I probably saw it when he was 14 years old. I could see what I thought it had what it took to keep going. But, when he got a chance in the first Nationwide race with Baldwin, obviously it went way better and he caught on to things right away. He ran in a couple of ARCA races for the Venturini Group and some K&N races for me and took off really good in a heavier car on a bigger track. And then when he got a chance with Penski and the truck for Brad, yeah, it went better than I expected, for sure. And he used his head way better than I expected for an 18 year old, 19 year-old now. So, that part was a pleasant surprise.”
 
HOW IS TOMMY BALDWIN RACING COMING ALONG?
“I think we’re in better shape than we’ve ever been, sponsorship-wise, which has enabled us to hire more people and I think have better equipment come race day. So, right now, we’re looking good. Hopefully we can be a good bit more competitive than we were.”
 
MORE ON SON RYAN BLANEY
“He wasn’t all about racing. Even when he was 10 or 12 years old, half the time he didn’t even know where I was racing that weekend. It wasn’t like he was obsessed with racing. And we were racing Quarter Midgets at that time, racing little Bandolero cars. But by the time he was 14 or 15 in there somewhere, he was pretty locked into it. He had some success in Short Track cars and his confidence was building and he was pretty locked into it then.”
 
INAUDIBLE
“I’m trying to run sprint cars this summer more than I have. I brought my own car down to Volusia County and we’re racing tonight and the rest of the week. I hope to run 15 or 20 sprint car races this summer around the Cup schedule. We’ll see.”
 
IS THAT JUST SOMETHING FOR YOU TO GO OUT AND HAVE FUN?
“Well, that’s what I grew up doing so it’s part of me forever. And I wouldn’t mind being back in that world in the near future as well; more than I am now. So, we’ll see.”
 
REGARDING TONY STEWART RUNNING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP IN SPRINT CUP AS WELL AS RUNNING MANY SPRINT CAR RACES THIS YEAR
“He’s got enough money and enough sponsorship that he can do whatever he wants, right? (laughter). So, I’m running this Sprint Car myself and okay, I can’t go getting enough guys to do it right. I mean my race car is plenty good. But I’ll just do what I can this year. But like I said, my years here are not many left so I’d love to be able to get back into that racing I think, once it stops here.”
 
ON HIS SON, RYAN BLANEY
“He’ll be here for a long time, I hope. And so we can always come and watch that. But watching is not that much fun (laughter).
 
WHEN YOU WATCH, YOU KNOW THE GOOD PARTS. BUT YOU KNOW THERE CAN BE DANGER, TOO
“We’ll, I do. But I don’t know. That side is just a part of it that’s always there, but I can’t say that I think about it too much. We do all we can do inside the cars. I haven’t gone and looked in the Penske cars. Obviously those guys know what they’re doing. But any car he’s driven, whether it’s been mine or somebody else’s, I’ve looked it over and do all I know how to do to help him. And freak accidents happen on the highway everyday, let alone at the race track. So, you just try to do all you can do.”
 
YOU’VE BEEN GOOD ON RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS. IS THAT YOU OR THE CAR OR A COMBINATION? CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?
“I think it’s a little bit of a combination of a lot of things. Tommy Baldwin has always has good restrictor cars. I think he understands that kind of racing really well. And we do come with good equipment. I feel like our speedway cars, our engines, are as good as what we’re racing against. So equipment-wise, I think we’re closer at those races. I don’t know if I’m a good plate racer. I think I have the respect of the really good plate racers; where I can run with them, beside them, in front of them, behind them, push them, or whatever. I think that helps when it comes down to it. Those things combined, I think, makes to where we can have a chance.”
 
DO YOU ENJOY THAT TYPE OF RACING?
“Not that much. I don’t think any drivers really enjoy it. It can be fun, but there are just so many things that can happen that are out of your control. That’s what you don’t like. But, you get to come to Daytona and race. So, that’s pretty cool.”
 
WHAT DID YOU THINK LAST YEAR WHEN THE RACE STOPPED?
“I remember I sat in my car for a long time with my helmet on. I didn’t know if it was going to be a long delay or a short delay. Baldwin was on the radio yacking about oh my gosh, we might luck into one here. So then you get out, and you’re sitting there for two hours trying to explain how in the world I’m going to explain winning this race (laughs). So, it was a strange, strange thing.”
 
WHEN YOU THINK BACK ABOUT THAT RACE, IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE MOST?
“No, what sticks with me is I came to pit road too fast and blew a front tire, so that’s what I was mad about. That kind of hurt our day. But I think we finished 15th still with a beat-up car. And I was disappointed that I did that and hurt our day. But yeah, the other stuff I couldn’t control. So I was mad about that.”
 
REGARDING NASCAR’S CONCUSSION POLICY AND BASELINE TESTING
“I don’t know. It’s a concern in all sports obviously, right now. There is voluntary baseline testing, I believe right now. I’ve had concussions. Obviously I’ve been racing a long time, but not in a long time (suffered a concussion). When I was younger,
back in my Sprint Car days, I had several. In my case, I definitely knew when I should or shouldn’t be in that race car. But you can’t speak for anybody else. But I would trust the driver’s judgment on that and whether they think they did a mandatory thing, I don’t know.”
 
HOW LIKELY WOULD YOU BE TO TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF A RACE IF YOU HAD A CONCUSSION?
“Oh, I’d do it in a heartbeat if I felt like my brain wasn’t right and the visual side of it wasn’t right. Oh yeah, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
 
WHAT’S THE BEST PART ABOUT THE START OF THE SEASON?
Just to come back out and compete. Over the winter, we got more stuff going and we have cars and you just come out and see where you stack up. I think at Baldwin’s we’ve made big improvements this winter with personnel, just adding. We’ve got more sponsorship than we’ve had. We’ve got more people than we’ve had and so I hope it shows on the race track.”
 
IS THERE A POINT IN THE SEASON WHERE IT BECOMES A LITTLE LESS EXCITING?
“For sure (laughs). That’s all dependent on anything you do. The better you’re doing, the more exciting it is, right? (laughs). So, you’re struggling. Yeah, the excitement leaves pretty quick.”
 
 
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH UPS & DOWNS
“Well, you just learn to balance it and learn that it’s not the end of the world. You think it is at that moment, but it’s okay, let’s try to learn something from it and move on.”
 
ON HAVING FLORIDA LOTTERY AS HIS SPONSOR
“It was fun, actually. I was not looking forward to it first, I’ll admit. But it’s a fun thing. It’s a cool sponsor for us to have and I can’t wait to have the car out here in the 500.
 
HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FACEBOOK AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA FOR A LONG TIME?
“No, I was forced into it about a year ago (laughs); by my PR people at Tommy Baldwin. But it’s a fun thing. I don’t probably use it at all or as much as I should. But when I do, it’s fun to see everybody jump on there and reply and for the younger guys, even my son, Ryan, doesn’t use it a ton, but he has fun with it too. He’ll get one there and ask okay, let’s just open it up for questions and a bunch of people ask questions. It’s fun for them.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEED WEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013

REGAN SMITH, NO. 51 GUY ROOFING CHEVROLET SS, met with media and discussed what goes through his mind during a crash, winning the Southern 500 and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET IN A CRASH?
“I think the first thing is how to I avoid it if you are about to get in it.  Once you know that you are in it, it’s more of a process.  When you are coming up on a crash that you think you might be involved in a crash you are thinking ‘how do I get out of it’?  When you know you are going to be involved in it you are thinking ‘okay how do I minimize damage’ that would be the next thing you are thinking about.  So you are trying to avoid as much of the other cars and steer out of it as much as you can.  When you know you are going to be in it and it’s going to be catastrophic you are thinking ‘okay what should I do next’.  You are along for the ride at that point and you are hoping it doesn’t hurt too bad.”
 
DO YOU EVER SLIDE OVER IN THE SEAT?  DO YOU EVER CLOSE YOUR EYES?
“If you can slide over in the seat that is bad.  You shouldn’t be able to move in your seat.  You should be pretty well strapped in good.  No, you can’t slide in the seat.  I usually don’t personally close my eyes.  I have only had one wreck that I remember recently that I closed my eyes in and it was Talladega.  I thin in 2011 and it was the hardest hit I ever remember taking.  Just no chance to slow down or anything like that.  Typically don’t close my eyes sometimes I take my hands off the wheel.  I’ve broken my wrist recently in a race car and don’t really want to do it again by catching it in the steering wheel spoke.  I play it cautious on that and pull my hands back.”
 
DID YOUR FIRST NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES WIN AT DARLINGTON GIVE YOU A SENSE OF ADDED CONFIDENCE?  A SENSE THAT YOU BELONG AT THIS LEVEL?
“It doesn’t hurt definitely.  Confidence is something that grows with you as you race and as you’re around.  I was maybe a guy that came in and tried to not ruffle feathers and keep things clean and do things the right way.  That for me was a moment where it was like ‘okay I can race with these guys and I belong with these guys”.  I belong next to them and I belong door-to-door even though it was with a smaller team at the time and now fast forward even to the Nationwide Series.  I expect it now.  It’s not a matter of ‘okay do I or don’t I’ I expect to be up there and be door-to-door with the best guys.”
 
WHAT ARE YOUR BEST MEMORIES FROM THAT NIGHT AND SOME OF THE CELEBRATION WHO YOU SHARED IT WITH.  IS THERE ANYTHING THAT STANDS OUT THAT YOU HOLD DEAR?
“I think the guys that took the time to come to Victory Lane.  There was a group of them that took the time and came down there and congratulated me.  That meant a lot.  I think some of the memories that I don’t really necessarily remember from the following night are more memorable (laughs).”
 
IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE THAT WIN, HOW WOULD YOUR MINDSET BE DIFFERENT?  WOULD IT BE DIFFERENT AT ALL?
“I don’t know that it would be different.  You get that first win then you want to get the second one. Then you want to get the third one.  You want to continue to do that.  You want to be the guy that can go out and win 10 races a year.  I think that, at least I can speak for myself in saying that I believe that I can do that.  It’s just a matter of being in the right situations and opportunities which from my standpoint I’m fortunate that I got the Nationwide car this year and it’s great equipment, a great team and I can go out there and showcase my talent.  Hopefully, we can have lots of wins and enjoy that.  It’s a situation where if you get one you want another.  If you get two you want a third.  There is never enough you always want more.”
 

 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEED WEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS, met with media and discussed racing at Daytona, the new Chevrolet SS Sprint Cup Series car, improvements to the team and other topics.
 
ARE YOU STILL FEELING GOOD ABOUT YOUR WIN IN THE ROLEX 24 HOUR? “I think the Rolex win was definitely a plus. It is fun. Different than the other wins was actually finishing the race. I think it was pretty special. Makes it a little bit more fun. To tell you the truth, 2011 and 2012 were hard. In ’12, it was one of those years that everything could go wrong went wrong. If we ran well, it would break down. If we ran bad, we ran all day. We just didn’t seem to get it right. I think over the winter they realized, even last year, how much work needed to be done to get ourselves more competitive. I believe the homework has been done.  Are we going to fix the whole problem? Not 100% sure, but I think we are definitely going in the right direction. We are going testing and we are competitive. I think that it is a good sign.”
 
ARE YOUR NUMBERS MORE A REFLECTION OF WHERE THE ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN, AND NOT YOUR GROWTH? “It is kind of crazy. I always said it would take about three years, and in year three, everything was good. We made the Chase. We were leading races and fighting for wins and stuff. Even the year after was good. Then the next two years have been really hard years. I think as a team when there were a lot of changes made, we just took a step back. We finally put all the right tools and things in place. Chip (Ganassi, team owner) put in a lot over the last year in getting better equipment and more simulation and stuff into the team. I think it is paying off.”
 
HAS IT BEEN HUMBLING? “It is not humbling, it sucks.  It’s not about humbling. I’ve won at everything I have been in, and I came to NASCAR and I’ve been good. I know I can do it. To run where we’ve run, it hasn’t been fun. It hasn’t been fun for Chip, or Jamie (McMurray) or myself, or the crew chiefs, or the organization or Target. We know we have the right tools to make it work, and I think this year we’ve done enough over the winter that is going to put us in a better situation. I think going to a new car helps. I think taking some of the things people were doing like the rear bushing, the track arm bushing and track bars, and things like that which are going away, I think are going to make us more competitive because they are going to lose some of their advantage. As well, we are making ourselves better.”
 
HOW PIVOTAL A YEAR IS THIS GOING TO BE FOR YOU? “I think every year is. I don’t know make or break what. I made the Chase two or three years ago. There has been two hard years. I think not only for myself, but Jamie. We ran pretty close together. Even last year as bad as we ran, we had two poles. I always run as hard as I can, and that is all I can do.”
 
ARE YOU THE SAME DRIVER? “I think I’m a lot better driver than I was four or five years ago. I have not only the open wheel experience, but the stock car experience. I understand how the races work. How everything is done. So, yes, way better.”
 
 
IS YOUR EDGE THE SAME? “Yes.  It is kind of funny. People say the edge or these or that, and you look, I get in the GRAND-AM car that is a car that can win races, and you dominate. It’s completely different.”
 
DID YOU EVER START TO WONDER IF THIS WAS THE RIGHT PLACE TO BE? “No, not the right place to be. I am committed to Chip and to Target. And, we are committed to make this work. As long as that is the case, yes, we’re going to try to make this work. Chip is committed to it. When he fired Brian (Pattie), and he fired everybody else, he didn’t think that was working and he needed new people, he hired new people. As everybody starts coming together, you kind of expect everybody to work perfect side-by-side from day one. But they have to understand, and understand the problem. One you understand the problems, then you can find solutions.”
 
WHAT ABOUT NASCAR IN GENERAL? WHEN YOU CAME HERE SIX YEARS AGO, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE COMPARISON TO F1:  “Racing is still amazing. I still love it. I still love being here. But, when you’re not running good, it’s not fun. I don’t think it is fun for anybody.”
 
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR VALENTINES DAY? “I will put it this way. This morning my wife woke up and said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ and I went ‘Oh no, I forgot’.  Yes, that wasn’t good. Her birthday is next Tuesday, so we are doing a dinner at home on Monday, and I am inviting everybody and getting everything sorted out. Getting the food, and everything myself. So it never even crossed my mind about Valentine’s Day.  So I screwed up there.”
 
WELL, YOU GOT HER A ROLEX WATCH: “Yes, she took my Rolex. Honestly she did. I gave the watch to someone at the trophy presentation in Victory Lane, and I came back to the motorhome, and she’s wearing the watch. So I thought ‘Okay’. “
 
HAVE YOU SEEN IT SINCE THEN? “No.  But that’s fine. As much as I suffered over the last couple of years, she’s been there as well. We enjoy the success together, as much as we enjoy the hard times together.”
 
WHAT IS HER NAME? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?  “Connie. 10 years.”
 
YOU HAVE THREE KIDS AND A DOG. HOW HAS THE DOG BEEN? “The dog is great. I don’t deal with it, so it is great.  I play with it. That’s all that I do. That was the deal. To tell you the truth, the dog is a funny story. Do I like dogs? Yes, I like dogs. Do I want to have a dog? No, I don’t want to have a dog. I had dogs when I was a kid. Parents are so excited, they give you a dog. You play with dog for a month, and the rest of the life of the dog, the parents have got to take care of it because the kids never play with it again. It is a fact. It is what it is. They have been trying to convince me to get a dog. I said the deal is simple, I don’t clean, I don’t feed, I don’t anything. I will play with the dog, I will love the dog, but I don’t want to take care of it and they said okay. So I said okay, we’ll get the dog. So, it’s all good.”
 
HOW MUCH GRIEF DO YOU STILL GET FOR THE JET DRYER? “Way too much. I actually got mad at somebody this morning for saying there is a bigger one now. People are dumb enough to think I hit the thing on purpose, like I really want to try and kill myself. It is kind of crazy. That was a freak accident, and in a way, I was very very lucky to walk away from that one. Not only myself, but the guy driving the jet dryer. To walk away with nothing out of that it was a miracle. I was glad it was over.”
 
DO YOU TALK TO DUANE BARNS, THE GUY WHO DROVE THE JET DRYER? “I did at the time, yes.”
 
WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF THAT CAR, YOU SEEMED WOBBLY: “Yes, I actually. My foot hurt. The clutch pedal sliced my boot open. And I bent the pedal from the impact.  I got out of the car and leaned on my foot, and it was painful.”
 
WHAT EXACTLY WENT WRONG ON THE CAR? “One of the truck arms broke.”
 
HOW SCARY WAS THAT MOMENT? “You know you are going to hate something, and you know whatever direction you are sliding, you know that is where you are going.”
 
YOU ARE IN A GOOD MOOD, ARE YOU GLAD TO BE BACK? “I am excited to be back. I’ve been working really hard over the off season at training, and testing, and with the team. I don’t think we can be better prepared than we are right now. The hard thing at Daytona with the restrictor plates, it doesn’t show how good you really are or where you stand until you get to race two or three. We were good here in testing. The Hendrick motors were really good. Our cars seem really good, so we are ex
cited.”
 
DID CHRIS (HEROY, CREW CHIEF) HAVE A LEARNING CURVE LAST YEAR? “Absolutely. A tough one.”
 
IS HE A LOT FURTHER ALONG NOW? “Yes, I think he had a bit of reality check when he came in. I think when you come from Hendrick, everything is the way it is supposed to be. The cars are good. I don’t think he needed to worry about how quick the car was, the chassis, or this or that. He came into a world where he needed to make sure the chassis were right. There was a lot of things that we needed to work on. We wanted to try a lot of things, and things weren’t working on the car, like that bushing that everyone was doing. We could never make that work. There were a lot of things that really hurt our performance.”
 
WILL THE UNLIMITED SHOW US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW THE CARS ARE GOING TO PERFORM? “I think it is going to show how the cars are going to draft, and how they are going to run. I’m glad I’m in it. Last year, it was exciting when we got those two poles because they were a big deal for us. We needed something to show for our efforts. Getting those poles were pretty big. To come out of that is a big benefit here. At that time how the Bud Shootout, or the Sprint Unlimited now, was going to be. Now to know that being on-pole is a plus, I think it is going to have benefits.”
 
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A 20-LAP SEGMENT AT THE END? “Whatever they bring. For us to wreck, it takes about lap. 20-10-5 are plenty. (LAUGHS).”
 
WHEN YOU GOT IN THE NEW CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME, WAS THERE A DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE? “The first time I got in it, they were trying to decide on which side of the aero package to go, and they had taken all of the downforce out of the car. We were at Texas. I was like ‘oh really, we don’t like this’.  We were sliding around, it wasn’t fun. The next time I got in the car was at Charlotte, and they had all the extra downforce in it, and I was like ‘oh, now this is a race car’. It was fun. I think they understood where they needed to go with it.”
 
DID THEY GIVE YOU MORE GRIP WITH IT? “It is a little more predictable. I think there are a couple of things that are really playing to my driving style. I think it is going to be a plus.”
 
HAS ANY TIME IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, HAS YOUR CONFIDENCE BEEN SHAKEN? “You always wonder ‘can I do anything different’? But, even when you run good, you think about how you can make it better. It is hard. When the cars don’t have enough speed, you can compensate for a little bit, but if they aren’t good, they aren’t good. I was telling someone the other day, we are not miracle workers. So you start trying different things, and sometimes you make more damage than help by trying different things.”
 
HAVE YOU EVER HAD A STRETCH THIS LONG OF STRUGGLES IN YOUR CAREER? “No, not really. The beginning of 2011 wasn’t that bad. The first half of the year wasn’t bad, then Brian left and we went downhill, and 2012 was a hard year. You look for example restrictor plate races have never been really good races for me. One thing or the other. We didn’t finish a single one last year. The two races that we have a shot a winning easily are the road courses, and we were good at both of them. One we had a fuel pickup problem, and the other one the suspension broke. It’s like ‘really?’  Everything that could go wrong went wrong. So, it was hard. They throw at you things you can handle, and I’m good with it. It’s tough, but I’m motivated, and I’ve been working hard. I don’t want to leave anything on the table so it’s good.”
 
WHAT’S THE DOG’S NAME? “Spot. It’s a French Bulldog.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed the new race car, his anticipations for the Daytona 500 race, tanden racing, his view of the season, concussion impact testing, and more. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
Q.        2013 is here.  You ready?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yup, ready to go.
 
Q.        How is the new car?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We’ll get to see how the car is once we get on the racetrack, run a few laps.  Feel pretty confident that we’re going to have strong Speedweeks.  Just ready to buckle down and get to it.
 
Q.        You know how to do the final laps.  What do you anticipate with this car the last 10 laps?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I really don’t know how the car is going to race and draft, what kind of strategy we’ll need to be using or think about using.  That sort of changes and turns, does different stuff throughout the week.  It changes as the week goes.
 
Q.        Are you more optimistic about this 500 than you have been in the past few years?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We’ll see.  We’ll have to get a couple races under your belt.  Everybody’s got to learn the car, figure out what makes it go fast.  Hopefully we can do that before anybody else.
The car is going to want certain things.  It’s up to us to get the time on the racetrack.  When we get to Vegas, spend that extra day, hopefully we’ll learn more there.
 
Q.        You wouldn’t be totally upset if tandem is gone?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I hope it’s gone.  I hope we don’t do that anymore.  I don’t enjoy doing that.  I like taking care of myself, having to worry about what I have to do in a car instead of having to worry about me and somebody else.
 
Q.        Do you think they could have given you a little bit more practice with this new car?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Plenty of practice.  The cars are really all the same as last year as far as the chassis goes, splitter’s in the same place.  Everything is still the way it was before.  We don’t really need tons of practice.
You can go to Nashville anytime you want and run as many laps as you want to run.  It’s the guys like that that will put in the work, the guys that are going to succeed.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  No, we don’t tear up too many four-wheelers.  We just kind of hang out, have some good time to be with the family, enjoy the families.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, I think the format is going to be long enough to start to understand what kind of racing we should expect for the qualifying racing and for the 500.
 
Q.        Is this a championship-caliber team?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think it is.  I think we were in the conversation last year.  Really excited about how consistent we were last year.  We’ve been able to improve as we’ve worked together.  Me and Steve’s worked together.  We’ve been able to improve steadily over the last couple years.  I hope that’s able to continue.
I hope we haven’t realized our true potential.  Maybe this year, if we can step it up another notch, we’d be right there where we’ve been striving to be the last couple years.  It isn’t going to take much to improve over last year and be one of the top teams.  We were pretty close last year and feel pretty good about that.
 
Q.        What was missing last year?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  It’s hard to put your finger on what a team needs.  No matter how close it is or far off it is, it’s hard to really put your finger on exactly what you’re missing, especially when you work with a company like I do that’s got all the parts, pieces, all the personnel, does such a good job delivering the physical racecar to you.
It really comes down to the minds that are in control of everything, me and Steve making the right calls and decisions on the racetrack.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We had such good success with the 360, seemed to be quite popular with our fans.  Brought a lot of traffic to our Nationwide site to help bring recognition to our partners there.  We thought it would be a new, fun avenue that we could bridge our relationships with ourselves, our partners and our fans at the Dale Jr. site.  Just sort of try something new.
I think Mike is really excited about it, Mike Davis.  He’s been working really, really hard on it.  This is sort of his little baby.
I’m excited about it, too.  I think there’s good potential there to do some pretty fun stuff, try to give our fans some information, give them some substance, give them something new.  They’re always striving for information, want to learn something new, want to understand what’s going on.  This will give us an opportunity to really give them that feedback, what’s going on in the company, what we’re dealing with.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I’ll be in and out, physically in and out, of the broadcast.  For the most part it’s going to be not just about me, per se, but what we’re doing with our company, what our goals and plans are.  We’ll talk about races, how we ran, what happened in the races, my races, the Nationwide races.  We’ll talk about what we’re doing out on the property, anything fun that might be popping up that we want to share with our fans, anything we might be doing downtown.
Who knows.  We can talk about literally everything.  It’s similar to what we did with our old XM radio show, but a little more professional than that.  We were pretty rag-tag back then, really didn’t know what the hell we were doing.
I mean, it was fun, but we didn’t work hard enough to try to be relevant and stick around.  So this will be a great place for us to provide content for our fans but also give our partners more bang for their buck.
 
Q.        Is this your Twitter, so to speak?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I suppose.  It’s something that I’m comfortable doing.  I think Mike Davis has been a great employee for our company, but he’s also been a really, really good friend of mine.  He’s just so excited about this.
It’s something that we talked about doing for a couple years.  So this is something that he’s super excited about.  He’s put a lot into.  I’m happy to see how successful we can make it.
 
Q.        NASCAR said today it’s going to make concussion impact testing mandatory in 2014.  Do you think that is a good idea?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, it makes perfect sense to make it mandatory.  I think it was nice of them to look into ways they could protect us from ourselves really.  The test is really simple and it’s pretty straightforward.  You sit at a computer for about 30 minutes answering a series of questions.  It tests short-term and long-term memory, a lot of different variables, a lot of different things of the mechanics of the brain, what the brain does.
It sort of tests how competent you are through a series of different things.  It’s really, really hard, a hard test.  Even if you don’t have a concussion, taking the test can be diffi
cult.
But you take the test to get a baseline because everybody is different.  It’s really a bit of a personality test at the same time.  Everybody is going to score different.  There’s not like a maximum score you need to strive for.  Basically everybody just sort of has a different outcome and result after taking the test.
When you get into an accident, you may have, may not have had a concussion, you can take this test again and find out exactly what is happening to your brain, if things don’t feel right, you feel like you’re having some trouble.  This test can pinpoint where in the brain you’re struggling, what kind of injury you have, what kind of things you can do to rehab and to recover.
It helped me a lot.  There was a lot of good information I learned throughout that whole process.  That impact test was a good standard for measuring.  There’s no way to diagnose concussion, but this is a good standard for being able to measure one.
 
Q.        (Question regarding sponsorships.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We’re still working on it.  We got a lot of people we’re talking to, a lot of good things happening.  We’re trying to find the right fit, the right partner.  But there’s some things in the works.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Well, we’ve gotten some great sponsors onboard.  We have a number physically that we need to reach in order to fund the racecar.  You can’t sell yourself short.  It wouldn’t be fair to our partners.
We’re just looking for the right corporations that are a good fit for us, that are long-term, they want to be in the sport for a while, that we can build on, Hendrick can build on.  You don’t just take the first guy that comes along.  You have to find the right fit.
 
Q.        Are you still locked in with the National Guard guys?  Do you mingle with those folks and the troops?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, we got our National Guard sponsorships in good shape.  They’re going to be on the car the majority of this year compared to our other partners.
We get to spend a lot of time with those folks.  We do a lot of fun things throughout the year as far as going out to the bases, having a lot of fun with those guys.
It’s a process that lasts the entire season.  We get a lot of interaction throughout the year.
 
Q.        What does it mean to you to be the most popular driver 10 years in a row now?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if there’s a way to explain it or understand.  It’s kind of overwhelming.  I don’t know that I really realize exactly what that means until it’s way, way down the road.  I’ll look back on it finally, tell my grandkids, nephews, nieces about it, see if they really dig it or not.
It’s pretty cool just to win it the first time.  That really, you know, took me aback, surprised me when that happened.  To keep going back and keep winning it, it just means we got a lot of loyal fans and got a great fan base that’s been supportive through these years and they’re still sticking behind us and excited about what we’re doing.
 
Q.        What is this about Mike Davis being your moderator?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, he’s done so good with the 360 that you almost have to have him.  He’s quite a personality.  He’s got a good flair.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Not really (laughter).  It’s witty, he’s funny.  He’s a good guy.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Well, yeah, I mean, the hardest part has been trying to get the body panels from the manufacturers.  The manufacturers, I don’t know that they’re quite used to pushing out that kind of production toward motorsports programs.  They haven’t done that in years really.  Seems like 20 years since we were getting panels from manufacturers to strictly use on the car.
So that process has really held everything up.  Getting the deck lids and stuff is okay.  The deck lids, we were actually using homemade or pieced-together deck lids to get through the test, to be able to go to Nashville and practice the car.  They aren’t the deck lids we’re going to race.
All of that really was running behind considerably more than people wanted it to.  Just sort of understanding exactly what kind of material we’re dealing with, we’re having a lot of brace failures on the quarter panels and stuff because we’re trying to weld a piece of this metal from Chevrolet and the materials don’t like each other.  The quarter panel from Chevy is real thin.  There’s all kinds of bugs like that to be worked out, worked out over time.  All that stuff is just a process, something you come to expect, especially with a brand-new car.
I think we’ll have the stuff we need when we show up for the racetrack when it’s time to race, but, yeah, it’s been tight.
 
Q.        Do you have a couple cars here, a backup car?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, of course.
 
Q.        Does everybody at Hendrick have at least two cars?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Absolutely.  Yeah, of course.
 
Q.        Jimmie Johnson said in crashes these react differently because the parts fly off the car.  When you repair the car in the garage, it may take longer than in the past.  Did you notice that?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I didn’t have any trouble.  I didn’t have any damage.  But, yeah, I imagine with the fiberglass and things like that, it’s going to react differently in an impact.  You’re going to have to understand as a team, the mechanics on your crew are going to have to understand what they’re potentially going to be working against as far as repairing the car.
It’s not really that big a deal.  When you tear your car up, get in a crash, you have more serious problems than worrying about getting it back together.  You have to make sure the tires are all going the right direction, everything else.
But the body itself, as far as what you carry on the crash cart, the things you bring to the racetrack, nosepieces, that may change a little bit.
 
Q.        How about race-ability?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I don’t know yet.  We haven’t had a chance to get around people.  Aside from the little bit of drafting we did in the test, we didn’t get a chance to do much racing.  The testing we’ve done in Nashville, we’ve done single-car runs.
 
Q.        There’s been talk about how much you love this car.  Is there danger in overplaying it?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think it got overplayed a little bit.  It’s a great car.  It’s a step in the right direction.  There’s so much to learn.  We’ll make it a better car.  Over the year, we’ll learn what the car likes and doesn’t like.
I think it’s starting off on the right foot.  I say positive things about it because that’s the way I feel.  But I think everybody needs to just be patient, let the car kind of come to us, let us sort of improve the car over time.
I think it’s a great direction we’re going in.  The potential for us to really enjoy this car, it to give us and provide us with good racing is good.
 
Q.        (Question regarding the radio show.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I didn’t know there was a limit on them.  I mean, I imagine they don’t want us to have too many.  What is the li
mit now?
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Well, they did that last year.
 
Q.        You like that?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Oh, yeah.  I got used to it.  Once they made the change, made the decision to do that, I was fine.  We weren’t really talking to each other before until we were tandem-ing.  We just did that out of safety.  It wasn’t a strategical advantage to using it other than to be able to tell each other to look out.
 
Q.        Do you expect to tandem?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I don’t know.  We haven’t had a chance to get on track.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  No, not really.  They gave me a lot of exercises during my recovery to help me, help my brain sort of recover faster.  I don’t really know whether that’s true or not.  But they gave me stuff to do, and I did it.
Over time I talked to a lot of people that have been through it, a lot of drivers that had them in the past, what to expect.  I had them before.  I got a lot of information and it really helped me remain calm.  You got to remain calm because when your body isn’t doing what you want to do, not acting right, you sort of freak out a little bit.  When you’re out of control, you’re not too happy about that.
 
Q.        When you haven’t been racing during the off-season, it’s time to go racing again, is it more natural to be in a car?  Do you feel like that’s your normal mode and you haven’t done it for a while?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  We test a lot in the off-season.  We were testing in the middle of December at Charlotte.  We weren’t out of the car that long, maybe two or three weeks.  That was unique to this year.
In the past, you definitely feel like you got rust or something when you get back in the car.  You want to get re-acclimated with what you’re seeing, the speed or anything.
Q.        Any chance you’ll run outdoor with (indiscernible) charity racing?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Never say never.  But I don’t have plans for it this year.  I don’t think he’s having it this year.
Q.        With the top 35 rule gone, has your approach to qualifying here changed at all or is it business as usual?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  For qualifying we’re just going to go out there and run the fastest lap we can.  That’s really all you can do.  You just hold it on the mat, run around the bottom and what you get is what you got.
Cool.  All right.  Thank you.
 
 

 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed what it’s like to compete in the Daytona 500, his program with Furniture Row Racing, the new race car, how he describes himself in terms of Cup racing and his personality, and more. Full Transcript:
 
KURT BUSCH:  — when I developed my skills, dad and I would run one, two a lot.  When we would get in first and second, he would slide up high, bump me, move back up front, and it would turn into a little bit of a show.  It was enjoyable doing that with dad.  When Kyle started getting a little older, getting his skills developed, it was fun for me to do the same thing back to Kyle.
 
Q.        Was there a point in time when you realized, I got this?
KURT BUSCH:  No.  Still don’t.  The racing thing, you’re always trying to develop more skills, to understand more about everything that there is to do in racing to be successful.
But just as a family, it was a lot of fun as an operation to make sure we didn’t wreck the car because we couldn’t afford a lot to repair it and spend excess money digging from behind.
 
Q.        Do you get butterflies on race day, especially before Daytona?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah.  Each qualifying day is pretty stressful.  Each race, the start of the race, you have the national anthem, then it really settles in on all the weekend’s preparations, all of the setup notes just start flashing through your mind.  It makes you a little nervous until they throw the green flag.
 
Q.        Is that when it all goes away?
KURT BUSCH:  When they drop the green, it’s business as usual.
 
Q.        You are even more closely tied with the RCR folks this year.  What kind of role can you play in lifting all the boats?
KURT BUSCH:  Well, I can’t do it by myself.  It’s a whole team operation.  Mark McArdle is our lead liaison in a sense to tie everything together.  But Todd Berrier, he’s worked for 15 years at RCR.  He’ll know more channels than I’ll ever know.
It’s a matter of making Eric Warren, the chief engineer at RCR, more tied directly to us.  When we’re a customer in a sense, they want to see us do well.  That way it provides the opportunity for other teams to go, Wow, they’re treating them with respect, this is what they’re involved with the financial side of the support, so you want to see that return on investment.
For me I want to see it in results on the racetrack and go from there.
 
Q.        What about working with those three drivers?  Would you be in those meetings?
KURT BUSCH:  Absolutely.  I was in Charlotte last year.  The setups for all four cars were there on one sheet.  The crew chiefs are in a meeting, the engineers are in a meeting, the drivers are in a meeting.  You have all the top guys spread around into the meetings as well.
It’s like we are the fourth car.  Instead of it saying 33 on the door, it says 78 and Furniture Row.
 
Q.        You’re not just picking up from what they gain; you give stuff, too?
KURT BUSCH:  I talked to Barney last night on the phone.  It was a great conversation because it helped me understand a little bit more about his mindset, some of the strategy on why the team is set up this way.
Technically when we pay for the support from RCR, it’s just a one-way street.  We can just take whatever we want from them and not give anything back.  Last night Barney taught me something on what we’re doing with a specific component that we could have kept to ourselves but we’re letting RCR know about it, we want them to be better.
At the end of the day it circled around to me what Barney meant; that is, if we can make RCR better, we’re going to be a better team.
 
Q.        Are you forming as close of a bond with your team?  How is the bond with the team now?
KURT BUSCH:  Things are good, with the six weeks especially at the end of the year to run well, have two tests during the off-season, then this past two weeks hanging out with the pit stop guys.  They’re based in North Carolina.  They’re not in Colorado.  They’re right down the street from my house here.  I stay at Todd’s place when I’m in Colorado.  Just definitely tied in the with the team.  When you eat, sleep and drink it, that’s full-on NASCAR.  That’s the best way to be with the team.
 
Q.        What kind of people do you have on that team as you would compare it to the other teams and RCR?
KURT BUSCH:  I think we’re a B plus program right there, right now, as is.  What we’re able to do with a smaller team is navigate through the waters more quickly.  I said that at the media week in Charlotte at how we can take something that we receive from Richard Childress Racing and implement it quicker and not have to have as many channels to get it approved by.  That’s the exciting part of being a smaller operation.
 
Q.        We’re entering a new frontier with boyfriend racing girlfriend.  Any thoughts?
KURT BUSCH:  It’s TMZ now.  We used to write about racing, now it’s more about the emotional or personal side of it now.  It’s an element that will draw attention.  It’s exciting.  At the end of the day I don’t think it’s going to be anything different than a couple racers out there racing.
 
Q.        Really?
KURT BUSCH:  They’re both rookies.  Rookies are prone to making mistakes.  That is a better opportunity for the two to run into each other.
But we have to understand that Stenhouse is a two-time defending Nationwide Series champion.  That’s a big difference.
 
Q.        Did you like the COT?  A lot of drivers say looks matter in a car.
KURT BUSCH:  The generation five or whatever it was?  I thought it was hideous, we took a step back when we introduced that car.  In 2007, if we have what we have today, the sport would be further ahead.  We have to have a cool-looking car that people want to look at and think that was futuristic.  That didn’t happen with the Car of Tomorrow.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KURT BUSCH:  Absolutely.  This is that European sedan look.  The car has the aesthetic look that Chevrolet can give it its brand, where Toyota can give it its, and Ford.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
KURT BUSCH:  Oh, yeah, I raced Biffle in the wiener mobile.  We both had our own.
 
Q.        In some ways you’re not removed from being a kid that says, That’s a cool-looking car.
KURT BUSCH:  Instead of having Hot Wheels in our little suitcase, we might have a garage that has six cars in it.  One can be an old car, a sports car, an old truck.  I have a bunch of old cars.  When you’re a car guy, you want something that you race to look cool.
 
Q.        Do you think you’re in a better position to have success this year?
KURT BUSCH:  This year is great with Barney Visser and Furniture Row.  We thought we could do great things with Phoenix Racing.  It was just a matter of all the stars aligning perfectly.  It almost happened a few times. 
Plate races, Sonoma, we finished third.  But this year definitely.  We finished last year with three top 10s in a row.  That’s the foundation that this team wanted to build right away.  Now that we have that done, now we can start looking forward for the top fives and the wins.
 
Q.        Can you talk what kind of track will be the hardest to adapt to with the new car?
KURT BUSCH:  The mile-and-a-half’s are the core of our schedule.  Any team that finds an advantage early on, usually a team that wins Vegas will run all the way till May with an advantage.  That’s going to be an important race.
I think Phoenix, we raced there in November there with the old car, I think it will be the same with the new car.  The mile-and-a-half, that’s where we’ll see the different.
 
Q.        (Question regarding where to test.)
KURT BUSCH:  We’re in the same meetings.  We are the fourth car there.  We don’t need to be at a test along with somebody else from RCR.  Then we have the Dillon boys.  They can go and test at tracks as well.
Right now I chose one, I was selfish, I said, I have to go to Richmond.  It’s been the toughest track on me the last two years.  That’s where the 78 will test.  But then we have the 29 going here, we got the 31 going there, 27 going there.
 
Q.        Are you expecting a lot of drafting in practice?
KURT BUSCH:  I think each day it will ramp up.  So Friday, tomorrow, is Shootout practice.  We’ll get a small taste.  Then Saturday night will be a big blow-out of drafting, what’s going on.  Once we come back next week with Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it’s going to lead in heavier and heavier and heavier, just as far as the knowledge you gain going into Sunday.
 
Q.        Would you describe yourself as one of the real characters of Cup racing in terms of personality?
KURT BUSCH:  I would just say that I’ve always been true to who I am, a hard-nosed racer.  Yeah, that defines your question, one that gives his all all the time.  I guess I do stand out on most occasions, so, yeah, there is that identity with it.
 
Q.        From what I learned in Europe, quite often you’ve been in the center of controversy, center of attention.  Is that something that you have to work on or that will stay with you forever?  You know what I mean?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, there’s ways to look at it.  There’s positives and there’s negatives.  The story I tell with this type of question is, I was a rookie here in Cup, and there were five other guys.  We had a big rookie class.  If you didn’t stick your neck out, you could be like two of the guys that you never heard of again, Casey Atwood, Andy Houston.  If you didn’t stick your neck out, you’d end up in that position.  If you do, you end up in is it hot water or you have talent to back it up.
You go through the thick and the thin and hope you’re able to maintain and create a long-lasting opportunity to drive in this series.  Sometimes it comes with baggage, other times you let the rough edges drag and go for those wins.  That’s what I’ve done.
 
Q.        Last year you were optimistic with James Finch.  Didn’t quite work out the way you planned it.
KURT BUSCH:  We felt there were opportunities that we had that we lost quickly with part failures or small mistakes.  It kept building and building.  We never really learned from them.  That was some of the problems.  When you’re a small team, it’s hard to bounce back after those tough days.
 
Q.        Now with the 78 team, you have a better prospect?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, we’re the fourth car at Richard Childress Racing.  The team’s depth, this gives us a great feel, especially with how we finished last year with three straight top 10s.
 
Q.        Does it also allow you to step in with the drivers from RCR and talk to them about what you feel in the car testing?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, we did that the final six races last year.  My first race at Charlotte with the team, I’m in the meetings with the other drivers from Childress, the other engineers.
First couple weeks you just have to blend in and settle in.  But they were asking me for info right away on how those Hendrick motors drove, what types of trends I’ve been doing with some of the bump-stops and shocks.  It was, boom, right away they wanted my feedback.
Q.        Would you talk about how the things went with the sports psychologist, whether the media overplays them, whether it’s worse in other sports than NASCAR.  How did it go for you?
KURT BUSCH:  It’s just another tool in the toolbox.  There’s so many situations that come up these days, so many hats that you have to wear as a driver, that when you work through those situations, they can teach you things to pick up very easily, to bring out the best in yourself.
It’s just another tool in the toolbox.  It’s like a heavier hammer at some points.
 
Q.        Is that something you’re still doing?
KURT BUSCH:  Oh, yeah.  It’s fun to be able to interact, teach them about NASCAR, bring them to the race so they can see it.  We see this in all types of sports, whether it’s in golf.  That’s where I met my first guy.  He was with the Ryder Cup team.  He would go and travel with Tiger Woods and those guys that were on the Ryder Cup team.  He would be right there with them.  He was on a golf cart.  He would be helping them, coaching them along the way.
 
Q.        You raised half a million dollars for soldiers.  Can you talk about what that experience was like.
KURT BUSCH:  It was an incredible, emotional event.  Barrett-Jackson has always been great to the Armed Services Foundation.  I’m just piggybacking on that to line up some of the bigger power players to bid on the car.  I was doing autograph sessions, drawing attention to the car is where I was trying to help out.  Ultimately that was Patricia, the president of the armed forces foundation, my girlfriend.  Her connections through Barrett-Jackson, you have to get the time slots, the TV slot, you have to get the people in the seats that are going to be there to bid.  It’s an amazing process.
To be able to bring home the second largest charitable donation from a vehicle down there is something to be proud of.  That helps with getting the AFF up and running for 2013, the Armed Forces Foundation is the official military charity of NASCAR.  So it ties right into that.
People that have a passion for cars, a lot of people definitely have a past in the military and have a strong passion for it.  So it’s really neat, half a million dollars off of one car, and it’s going to go to so many different areas.
 
Q.        What is special about that for you?
KURT BUSCH:  Going to visit the troops at the hospitals, the VAs, you see the true stories, and you feel the work, their dedication, their life commitment that they’ve given.  Then there’s some of the unforeseen battles such as post-traumatic stress disorder, TBI, traumatic brain injury.  Those elements, you can’t see ’em, but the families and even the children feel the effects from their mom or their dad that has been in the service.  So there’s a lot to learn from them and there’s a lot of motivation to receive from them as well.  It’s very gratifying to be able to give back that way
and take something in.
 
Q.        Have you been to Afghanistan to visit the troops?
KURT BUSCH:  I have not been overseas.  It’s all been here domestic.
Q.        I’ve been asking some of the drivers about their role on social media.  You’re active on Twitter.  What do you get out of that?
KURT BUSCH:  You get the beat on the street.  You get the heartbeat, the thoughts.  It seems as if everything these days is juried by public opinion.  So you can go on there and get a pretty quick answer.
 
Q.        How do you respond when you get negative feedback and positive feedback?
KURT BUSCH:  You want to make sure you’re getting the right message out there, whether it’s sponsor related or something you’re trying to give for insight to help explain things because there’s no other form that we’ve ever had in sports where you can talk directly to the fans.
Twitter still has to be moderated, it still has to be professional, but there’s a quick way to get the information right to the fans.  The fans look up to us as role models or their sports heroes.  It’s a quick way to be able to communicate.
 
Q.        Steve O’Donnell said the policy about language and stuff on Twitter is really informal.  It’s on a case-by-case basis.  Is that a concern where you might find yourself cursing on Twitter?
KURT BUSCH:  When you’re typing, you have a lot of time to think about it.
 
Q.        You would think that would make a difference.
KURT BUSCH:  Common sense has to play the lead role.  There’s situations that can get you excited, but it’s a matter of just playing the right role as an entity for everybody to view and to watch.
 
Q.        How does someone get a follow from you on Twitter?  What would they have to do to get your attention?
KURT BUSCH:  If they’re 100% and spot on, I’m feeling the same emotion at the same time, then they’ll get something.
 
Q.        What kind of pressure is Keselowski going to feel this year?
KURT BUSCH:  There’s the target that’s put on your back and it’s because you’re the guy on top.  When you’re the guy on top, everybody wants to push you off.  The pressure that comes with that, it comes from all areas.  It’s not just internally in your team because they’ll have a young, hard-charging teammate going against him.  It’s everywhere, whether it’s sponsor, media-wise, different things with the fans that expect certain things out of you as a champion.
There’s not one thing to look for, there’s just a lot that you always have to keep in mind.
 
Q.        Is it a situation that nothing can prepare you for except going through it?
KURT BUSCH:  Well, Brad has won I’m sure championships in his other racing divisions, so when you have that feeling, that’s the first thing you lean back on.
 
Q.        Do you have any race day traditions that you try to avoid, superstitions?
KURT BUSCH:  I try to always get a turkey sandwich in.  I don’t know why.  That just helps settle my stomach.  We’re always a little nervous before the race.  A turkey sandwich.
 
Q.        Stay away from peanuts?
KURT BUSCH:  I see what you’re saying.  Peanuts are a bad thing in racing.  Banana peels are bad.  Green and the number 13.  Peanut shells are bad.  Might have been here at Daytona years ago and people just blamed it on the peanut shells.
 
Q.        Juan Pablo says he still gets grief for hitting the jet drier.  You don’t get any grief, do you?
KURT BUSCH:  This is a social age to where something is burned into somebody’s mind once, that’s what they’re tabbed with for a long while.  I’m guilty of that, right (laughter)?
 
Q.        What is your workout regimen?
KURT BUSCH:  Primarily strength training and cardiovascular.  You don’t work out too hard pushing heavy weights, but you try to have every bit of your body toned with certain muscles being used in certain ways.  Cardiovascular is the biggest thing, running.
 
Q.        What do you do?
KURT BUSCH:  Running, biking, elliptical machine and swimming.
 
Q.        How does it fit into your schedule every week?
KURT BUSCH:  It’s just something you have to do.  We have usually slow days on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so you try to implement it then for sure.  On race weekend, you end up doing stuff inside the motorhome or you get out into the infield in the wee hours of the morning before the fans wake up, get out there and run.
 
Q.        Are you better at this than your brother?
KURT BUSCH:  I would say yes.  But it’s a matter of what you feel mentally from the workouts to be better prepared for the racing.
 
Q.        NASCAR is more about having strong mental strength, considering what you see in Europe.
KURT BUSCH:  I would say that the European racing is similar to a 100-yard dash.  It’s quick, intense and it’s done.  Whereas in NASCAR, it’s more of a marathon.  You’re out there for four hours.  You don’t have as much adrenaline at certain points, but you’re doing it for a longer duration.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed the off-season, volunteering to take the concussion impact test, social media, who he follows on Twitter, racing in the Daytona 500, his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, and more. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
JEFF GORDON:  Hi, guys.
 
Q.        Tell us what happened in the off-season.  Get a chance to spend any family time?
JEFF GORDON:  Yeah, definitely.  We pretty much have a routine down that we’ve done for several years now.  Of course, that changed a little bit with the kids and evolved slightly.
For the most part, yeah, as soon as Christmas is over, we have a great time with my family and our family, then we head somewhere hopefully fun and exciting and warm that we can have a great time as a family.  We went down to St. Barts.  Had a good time.
 
Q.        You volunteered to take the concussion impact test.  Can you tell us what went into that thinking.
JEFF GORDON:  Well, I mean, one is I think there’s a potential for it to be mandatory in the future.  To me why not go ahead and get ahead of the game.  Plus I’d rather have it before the season starts, before the potential of having a head injury, to get a baseline.
I talked to Junior about it.  He told me the process of it.  It was pretty simple.  I stay in pretty close contact with Dr. Petty.  We’re good friends as well as I just admire his work and his opinion.  So I mentioned it to him.  We made it happen.
It was kind of fun to do.  I tell you, it was stressful.  It makes you think really hard.  Haven’t had to think that hard in a while, maybe other than the closing laps of a Talladega or Daytona race (laughter).
Other than that, it went pretty smooth.
 
Q.        Do you think it needs to be mandatory?
JEFF GORDON:  I just think whether it’s voluntary or not, it’s a good idea to have.
I don’t think NASCAR necessarily has to make it mandatory.  But if you’re a racecar driver, you feel like you’re going to be here a while, then you need to make it mandatory to yourself, in my opinion.
 
Q.        Junior’s situation spur you to do this?
JEFF GORDON:  I mean, I didn’t even know what an impact test was prior to that.  So, absolutely.
 
Q.        Did you imagine being like a crash test dummy?
JEFF GORDON:  I’ve hit my head many times, so I felt like a crash test dummy at times.  But also I don’t know if I just really have a hard head, good helmet, good racecars.  I’ve never been knocked unconscious, never had headaches following.  I’ve had MRIs and things like that just for precautionary measures, but never had any issues.
 
 
When you hear about guys having issues, you want to take every measure you can possible to not only the safety of what’s going on in the cars and the tracks, but if there’s a way to get a baseline of where you’re at, it’s a good idea.
 
Q.        Would you ever take yourself out if you didn’t feel lucid after a crash?
JEFF GORDON:  You know, I’m in a position these days with my career that I don’t have anything out there to prove.  I don’t have a situation where I feel like my job’s on the line if I’m not out there in the car.
So for me, yeah, if I felt it necessary, I would.  But I also think the doctors can help you make those calls.  But if you don’t feel right and you don’t feel prepared to go perform at your best, not to say ‘at your best,’ there’s days I felt like I wasn’t at my best, but in a competitive way, then I think, yeah, you got to make that call with other information at your disposal.
 
Q.        Did they want to retest you after that video you posted?
JEFF GORDON:  Yeah (laughter).  Probably after a few things I’ve done in recent years, they said, Maybe you should take that test.
You know, I’m not scared.  That’s one thing I’ve found over the years about myself.  I’m not afraid to put myself out there.  The Saturday Night Live thing did that.  The break dancing.
This thing happened fast.  We did it in two takes.  One of the best times I’ve ever had.  Certainly the best time I ever had in my race shop with my guys in there.  Luckily it was quick so it didn’t take them away from their jobs too long because there’s a lot going on at the shop.
It turned out fun.  I’m a little embarrassed at my dancing, but it was still worth it.  It was fun.  It was a great time.
 
Q.        How do you deal with social media as part of your racing persona?
JEFF GORDON:  It’s fun.  You got to laugh at yourself.  Your fans, they’re very loyal, they want to be connected to you in a closer way.  I think it’s a great way to connect with your fans.
I really enjoy Twitter and Facebook, our YouTube channel, getting reactions from them, seeing what they like, their comments.  I love it.
The sponsors, they enjoy it as well.  Knowing you have that kind of loyal following makes a big difference when you’re talking to sponsors, when you’re re-upping with sponsors, or current sponsors, another way for them to benefit.
It’s great for everybody as far as I’m concerned.  But it opens you up.  You got to be a little careful.
 
Q.        Who do you like to follow on Twitter?
JEFF GORDON:  I follow where I can get my news, to be honest with you.  I follow all these guys that write about racing because I’m interested in knowing what’s happening, what’s the latest.  Then there might be a couple drivers that I follow.  Then outside the sport, people.
But if a fan writes enough interesting things to me and asks great questions and is intuitive and into with who I am and our sport, I’ll follow them as well.
 
Q.        As far as getting butterflies, jitters, do you get those before a big race like Daytona?
JEFF GORDON:  You know, not necessarily at this stage or even next Thursday.  But come Sunday morning right when you’re getting ready to take the green flag, everybody probably handles it differently.  But for me it’s, Oh, wow, the Daytona 500 is getting ready to start.  It’s a huge race.  We’ve prepared and worked so hard.  It’s just been all work up to that point.  It’s all on the line and this is the moment.
So there’s no doubt for me there’s a few butterflies.  Then once the green flag drops, it’s back to business.
 
Q.        Is that the best way to handle it?
JEFF GORDON:  It’s just the way I handle it.  It’s worked out good for me three times over my career.
 
Q.        What do you see as the differences in running for a first championship and defending one?
JEFF GORDON:  I think a lot of times the hardest thing is to get the first one because once you get that first one it gives you confidence in yourself and your team.  You know:  I’m capable of doing this.  Especially in the new format, to do battle over 10 weeks, you got to get in and you got to be on top of your game for 10 weeks.
So to me that gives you confidence to come back and do it again.  But it also puts a target on you.  People are now focused on you, paying more attention to your every move, what’s going on thr
oughout the season.  That’s going to make it a little bit more difficult for you to repeat.
Plus other teams want to step up and find out where their weaknesses were, what they missed out on in winning the championship and make themselves better.  So competition gets better and you have to improve along with that.  You can’t stay stuck in that place where you were at.
This year with a whole new car, not many people are stuck.  They’re in that mindset of, We got to push, push, push, because it’s all different and they’re not sure what is going to work and what is not.
 
Q.        Are you surprised Junior hasn’t competed for a championship yet and can he still do that?
JEFF GORDON:  I think he can.  It’s just things have to click at the right time.  It seems like guys peak at certain moments in the season.  With the way the points are now, you’ve got to peak right at the end of the season.  You got to be careful of getting off to too good of a start and how you maintain that momentum.
I think Kasey Kahne was a good example of that I think last year.  Brad was pretty even throughout the season.  But I just think that Junior had a great start to the season and then it seems like some things flattened out a little bit for them and it was hard for them to get it ramped back up.  Of course, he had the issue with the crash.
I mean, I don’t see why not.  It’s a great team, best organization.  Steve Letarte is a great crew chief.  They click well together.  Junior is a great driver.  I’m going to say yes.
He gave me a ride down here today.  I’ll tell you all kinds of good things about him.  I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for Junior (laughter).
 
Q.        Things in the garage changed in the last years?  He was the butt of a lot of jokes because he was getting a lot of coverage but his results weren’t there.  Now it seems like that has dropped off.  What are things like in the garage?
JEFF GORDON:  I would say the way I look at it is he had a lot of buzz and hype coming into the series.  He did very well his first couple years.  Came off of a championship in the Nationwide Series.  For whatever reason, and I’m sure there’s a long list of them, of why things didn’t continue to progress.
To me where he earned so much respect in my book was that he looked at Hendrick Motorsports as a team that he wanted to come to knowing how much pressure there would be, how good the equipment would be.  That could also add pressure, not necessarily take it away, yet he wanted that challenge and he felt like that’s the right place to be.
That’s the mindset you should have.  A quality driver that feels like they can go win championships should have that kind of mindset and he did.  That certainly earned a bunch of points in my mind.
Now I think that decision is starting to pay off.
 
Q.        Over the years, what it means to win a Daytona 500 compared to what it means to win a championship, has that changed?
JEFF GORDON:  Not in my opinion.  I’ve always looked at it as the single biggest race we have is this one.  The single biggest thing we strive for is the championship in every season.  So the championship is really the ultimate goal.  But when you just look at each race you prepare for, you prepare for this one different.
It is different.  It’s a huge, huge event.  For all the good reasons, the history, the excitement and energy that this track and this event has is second to none.
 
Q.        What about for a driver’s career, to win at this level?
JEFF GORDON:  Depending on your career.  Everybody wants a Daytona 500 win.  If you don’t win another race, you win the Daytona 500, it’s made a huge impact on your career.  If you’ve won championships and haven’t won the Daytona 500, you feel like you’re missing something on your résumé.  It is obviously very, very important to your stats and where your career is going.
 
Q.        Speaking of through the years, can you believe it’s been 20?
JEFF GORDON:  No, I can’t.  When I look in the mirror, I see more wrinkles and gray hair, I know it has been a while.  I look at some of those old photos and things.
It’s been a heck of a ride, a lot of fun, great and challenging moments.  I wouldn’t have wanted or asked for anything different than the way it’s been over the last 20 years.
 
Q.        Got to be gratifying to compete this long and still be competing for races.
JEFF GORDON:  I’ve gotten beat up and beat myself up a little bit not being as competitive as I was 10 years ago.  No matter how long you’ve been in this sport, when you’re competitive like that, it’s hard to manage those expectations.
I’m so excited the way this team has stepped up.  Winning the final race of the year last year was big for us.  I think I’ve got a crew chief that can take us all the way.
The pressure’s on me to step up my game and maintain that level of consistency and drive and talent that I’ve had that’s gotten me to this level and has gotten us wins and championships.
I know that I don’t have 10 more years left in me.  It’s important to me to stay competitive as long as I possibly can.  I think I definitely have a few more good years left in me.
 
Q.        The first Duel you won in ’93, how big was that?
JEFF GORDON:  That was huge.  That was more of I didn’t expect anything, didn’t plan on it, and it happened.  I was just like, Wow, how did that just happen?  Now I go into the Duels, make that same move and finish 15th.  I’m like, Gosh, the move worked that time, not necessarily other times.
We’ve won a bunch of Duels.  ’93 was a very special Daytona 500 for me.  It’s one I’ll always remember because we qualified well, won the Duel, battled all day long in the top five with Dale, not just Earnhardt, but Jarrett, who won the race.  It was a surreal experience for me that I’ll never forget.
My mind wandered during that race.  There were only four or five of us up there, so you could breathe a little bit more.  I just remember trying to take it all in.  I mean, full grandstands, live television, Daytona 500, and I’m sitting there in a position as a rookie making an impact on the race and the sport, starting my career.  That was exciting to me.
 
Q.        Do you have any advice for young drivers that are up-and-coming?
JEFF GORDON:  Yeah.  Work hard, try to get yourself in the best equipment, the safest equipment, race as many different things as you possibly can.  Diversity is extremely important.  When you get to the Cup level, the competition is so tough, the types of tracks you race on are very diverse.
That’s why I love guys that have dirt backgrounds, because they’re racing on high banks, flat tracks, short tracks, big tracks, tacky tracks, to black, slick tracks.  I think it just teaches them how to be very well-rounded and have great car control and have what it takes to be at this level.
 
Q.        (Question regarding Danica and Ricky racing against one another.)
JEFF GORDON:  I’ve raced my wife on the track and I can tell you that I’ve raced her different (laughter).
You know, they’re racecar drivers.  They’re professionals.  I’m sure they’ll handle things accordingly.
Listen, we all have awkward moments with our competitors, our teammates, our friends out there.  There’s no doubt it’s going to happen.  It’s just how they handle it.  I’m s
ure that hopefully that conversation has come up and they’ve talked about it, or they will if they haven’t.
 
Q.        What did you race your wife in?
JEFF GORDON:  Just go-karts.  I didn’t let her win.  I scared her and tried to show her a few things, bumped into her.
 
Q.        Is she competitive?
JEFF GORDON:  She’s very competitive, very competitive.  Once she got over the fact that she thought it was going to flip over and realized it wasn’t, she just kept going faster and faster every lap.  It was fun.
No, I was much easier on her than I was on anyone else that would have been out there for the first time go-karting.  I would have taken it much harder on others.
I knew where I had to draw the line and say, Okay, can’t cross it.
 
Q.        Keselowski has said that he didn’t like the way the COT looked and that looks matter in a car.
JEFF GORDON:  A hundred percent agree with that.  That was the first thing I noticed about the COT, that I didn’t like the way it looked.  I expressed my opinions.  I didn’t like the way it drove either.
In the last couple years, we made that car drive really well – but at a price.  You hear the TV commentators saying, What is that car doing?  It’s running sideways down the straightaway.  Through inspection line, NASCAR’s head is spinning trying to figure out what these teams are doing.
What’s nice about this car is it’s going to start off looking good, driving good, looking like a racecar should look.
 
Q.        Any sentimental value regarding DuPont?
JEFF GORDON:  I can tell you it makes racing Homestead that much more special to me, that that DuPont oval won’t be on there.  It’s kind of odd to answer that because I’m working with the same people.  It’s the same business, probably a lot of the same customers, as well.
Other than the name change, getting used to that, making a few mistakes along the way, and probably just not going to Wilmington, seeing the broader scope of DuPont, that’s going to be significant.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 MENARDS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media and discussed Richard Childress Racing’s outlook for 2013, his plans beyond this season and other topics.  Partial Transcript:
 
ERIC WARREN (DIRECTOR OF COMPETITION) HAS TALKED A LOT ABOUT GETTING THE THREE TEAMS ON PARALLEL TRACKS BUILDING THE CARS THE SAME WAY AND SO FORTH.  TALKING ABOUT THAT IS EASY BUT GETTING EVERYBODY LINED UP TO DO THAT IS THE HARD PART.  HOW IS THAT GOING SO FAR?
“It sounds good on paper, but it’s tough to do in practice obviously.  Eric (Warren) is one of those guys he has great organizational skills.  A very structured guy and if anybody can do it, it’s him.  Every team wants all their cars to work together.  Any multicar team that is the goal is to get everybody sharing information, but it’s tough to do.  You just have to bring everybody together.  Have meetings, sit everybody down to have open dialogue on what everybody is working on to try to go to the same focus.  What you don’t want to do is have two cars do the same thing over and over and just waste time.”
 
THE COMPANY (RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING) HAS OBVIOUSLY STRUGGLED ON THE CUP SIDE THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS.  WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE ISSUE?  WHAT’S BEEN HOLDING YOU GUYS BACK?
“Last year was a struggle.  I would say 2011 we were pretty good as a company.  I think every car expect the No. 31 won a race.  Kevin (Harvick) won several.  Last year we took a step back.  We just got behind on some of the tricks I guess with the skew.  We were one of the late comers to that.  Then having Eric (Warren) come in towards the end of the year I think we saw our performance pick up a little bit towards October, November.  Just getting everybody on the same page and working the same direction that has translated to this 2013 car trying to get everything that we can build up a notebook for the off season and all the testing we have done.  I feel like we have got good speed and I think the test in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks is going to be one of the biggest test of the year just to understand what these cars do.”
 
IS (KEVIN) HARVICK’S WIN AT PHOENIX SORT OF AN ILLUSTRATION OF WHAT ERIC (WARREN) IS TRYING TO GET GOING?
“Yeah, that was a great example of team work.  The No. 27 guys we tested there at Phoenix with the 2013 car a couple of weeks before the race.  We struggled in practice, all of us struggled in practice and we basically threw in what we learned with the 2013 car at the test.  We threw that in and we felt like we were really good in happy hour and then the No. 29 just threw that in for the race kind of going off of what we said.  We kind of had the same issues they were fighting so they threw in our setup and he went out and won the race.  That is the way it should be.”
 
THIS IS A REALLY BIG YEAR FOR YOU WITH YOUR CONTRACT COMING UP HAVE YOU DECIDED WHAT YOUR PLANS ARE GOING TO BE BEYOND 2013?
“It’s a contract year so I’m sure these questions will be coming throughout the year.  I hope by middle of summer we will have an answer for everybody.”
 
HAVE YOU LOOKED INTO ANYTHING BEYOND WHERE YOU ARE AT AND WHAT YOU ARE DOING? WOULD SLUGGAR (LABBE, CREW CHIEF) STILL BE PART OF THE PACKAGE?
“Yeah, honestly I haven’t had discussions with anybody.  Sluggar (Labbe) is a great friend and a hell of a crew chief.”
 
COULD YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS WERE OF A CHILD OF GROWING UP IN RACING?
“I grew up around it.  One of my earliest memories was my Dad used to race go-karts.  I was too little to reach the pedals so I would sit in his lap.  He would run the pedals and I would steer the steering wheel in his race kart.  I was probably three or four years old.”
 
HOW CAN KURT (BUSCH) FIT INTO WHAT YOU GUYS ARE TRYING TO DO?  THERE IS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT HIM HAVING MORE OF A ROLE THIS YEAR CAN HE BE A BOOST?
“I mean Kurt (Busch) he’s a champion. He is a race winning champion.  He has the same equipment that we do essentially.  Even though his team is out in Colorado it’s almost like a fourth car.  We share a lot of information.  He is in our weekly meetings, our race weekend meetings also.  He is a highly driven, motivated guy, not afraid to speak his mind either which is a good thing.”
 
DOES HE FIT IN PERSONALITY WISE WITH THE GROUP?
“Yeah, we all get along great. All four of us get along.  All four of us have pretty distinctly different personalities but we all have good working relationships and feed off each other.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 33 CHEERIOS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media and discussed making his first Daytona 500 start, racing for a championship in the Nationwide Series in 2013 and other topics.  Partial Transcript:
 
WITH SO MANY PEOPLE COMING INTO NATIONWIDE TRYING TO PROVE THEMSELVES HOW WILL THAT AFFECT YOU RUNNING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Running for a championship this year is going to be tough.  Not only do we have guys that are consistent and are coming down from the (NASCAR Sprint) Cup series that are going to be tough.  Like you said you have got guys that are going to want to prove themselves and I have seen back in the Truck Series when I raced that you have guys that make big mistakes trying to make that move.  Instead of trying to take a top-five you are taking more than what the car can give you at that time.  You will see some of that this year I’m sure you are just going to have to watch who you are around and be smart the people you race.”
 
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT CUP WISE THIS YEAR? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF THAT?
“The biggest thing is to gain experience and have that ready for 2014.  The great thing that the Nationwide Series is going to give me this year is the competition level is going to be awesome. Especially with the experience that is coming in and then you’ve got guys that are just fast there is a lot of sheer speed out there. That competition level is going to help me going into 2014.  For the races that we run just want to go out there and gain experience and try and lineup with these guys and make sure we are going to be confident for the next year.”  
 
YOU HAVE SEEN THE STRUGGLES RCR (RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING) HAS HAD ON THE CUP SIDE.  ON THE INSIDE WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ON THAT?  WHAT HAS BEEN THE ISSUE?
“I think we have made the right steps as a company to come back this next year and work together more.  I think that was one of the big things.  Our Nationwide shop did a great job of making sure we were all on the same program when we got to the track. Our drivers worked well last year together.  I think this year the Cup drivers are going to be better together also.  We will just have to kind of corral and make it more what we had at that Nationwide shop where we worked really well together in practice.  If a car was faster we switched to that setup.  It’s not an ego thing it’s more just you take what is faster and go with it.  In today’s world you have to have good teammates that push you and use their setups.  We will see how it goes this year.  I think we have made a good step hiring Eric Warren.  With him and my dad (Mike Dillon) they have been working really hard in the off season to make sure that the cars are very similar and working together well.”
 
WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE IN TERMS OF GOING FROM NATIONWIDE TO CUP WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THAT YOU CAN SEE YOURSELF FACING?
“The competition level is obviously the best in NASCAR.  You don’t have from first to 15th, you have first to 25th, 26th, 27th, all the way back to 30th. You’ve got guys that are running within the same three to four tenths.  You can’t miss a line, you can’t mess up, and you’ve just got to be very consistent.  That is where you see a guy like Jimmie Johnson who has done so well.  He is mentally just a very tough guy and stays up front and just wears you down.  I think the Cup series is a grueling 36 races that you really have to be prepared for when you go into it.”
 
ERIC (WARREN) HAS TALKED A LOT ABOUT GETTING EACH TEAM ON PARALLEL TRACKS.  THAT IS KIND OF EASIER TO TALK ABOUT THAN ACTUALLY DO.  CAN YOU JUST SIT GUYS DOWN AND SAY THIS IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?  
“It’s pretty tough you’ve got to have guys that are willing to want to change.  You can’t change it on your own.  They’ve got to want to buy into the same program.  I think it is going to be an interesting to see how we do when we get to these oval tracks.  I know these cars have been faster.  Our RCR cars have been faster at the tests.  I’m looking forward to getting out in one.”
 
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT RUNNING THE NO. 3?
“I’d love to run the No. 3.  Jeff (Gluck) sitting right in front of me, he had a great article with Richard Petty and just to see the No. 43 and No. 3 out there it would be very cool.  We were able to push each other around last year in the July 4th race.  I enjoy running the number.  It’s very special to me and my family.  Not only that, it’s just a fun number to have running out there.  All I can guarantee is 110 percent from my part and if we are running that number it’s just going to give you a great opportunity to see it back out there and be up front.”
 
WOULD YOU AND TY (DILLON) EVER BOTH WANT TO RUN THAT NUMBER?
“I think from the beginning I started running that in a Bandolero.  He (Ty) started running a No. 2 then he switched to No. 41 in ARCA.  He has been pretty comfortable with that.  I think he would like to have the No. 41.  Just because my grandfather ran that at Bowman Gray (Stadium) and that was one of his other numbers.  He likes that number and he won an ARCA championship with it.  He kind of leans toward that number he said.”
 
DO YOU OWN A (RICHARD) PETTY MODEL CHARLIE 1 HORSE HAT?
“I don’t have all the cool stuff on top of mine.  I’m kind of a little bit more simple.  He has got the really cool feathers and snake skin and stuff.  I have seen some of his hats.  They are very awesome.  I got to go to the main office in Texas.”
 
HAVE YOU JUST ALWAYS LIKED THE HATS OR DID YOU MAKE A CONSCIOUS DECISION THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE YOUR THING?
“I have always liked the hats.  I don’t know if it’s my thing because I can go out and wear a baseball cap or spike up my hair whatever it may be.  I don’t want to lock myself into anything.”
 
DO THE FANS LIKE THE HAT?
“Yeah there are a lot of people that like the hat.  I gave one away at Bristol to a kid.  I try and pass them out every now and then if I have some straw hats.  I don’t give out the felts very often.”
 
IS THERE ROOM FOR TWO COWBOY HATS IN THE CUP SERIES?  YOU AND RICKY (STENHOUSE, JR.)?
“He doesn’t really wear his on race day.  He just kind of wears his around before.  Yeah, I’m fine with that.  I think it’s cool to look back at some of these heroes that wore cowboy hats.  Everybody back in the day a lot of people wore them.  Not only just because they are cool, but during the summer it gets pretty hot.  We get to some of those places where the sun is burning down on you it’s nice to have a little shade.”
 
WHO LOOKS COOLEST IN A COWBOY HAT?
“Well, Dale Earnhardt with his long hair was pretty awesome.  He had that suit undone and he had the cowboy hat on.  I don’t know if it was here that picture was taken, but it’s a pretty awesome picture.”
 
AS FAR AS JITTERS GO DO YOU GET THEM AND WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE THEM?
“I think I’ve gotten better with the butterflies.  The only time I ever kind of get a little bit nervous is probably before qualifying just because you are the only car out there and I always want to bust off a big lap.  That has always been a fun time for me is qualifying.  I’ve been able to be pretty successful with it.  Once we are in the race and all the weekend’s events are kind of dying down that is the most calm you will see me is getting into the car.  Just because we are sitting down in the place I f
eel comfortable.  The Daytona 500 qualifying for it that is going to be pretty nerve racking, but once we get in it’s going to be fun from there.  It’s all going to be fun, there are no points, just go out there and give it your all which is an advantage in my opinion.”     
 
 
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NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2013
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed her outlook for the 2031 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, her relationship with driver Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., her rookie status as a full-time Sprint Cup drivers, the new race cars and her driving style, running some races in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this year and more.  FULL TRANSCRIPT:
 
DANICA PATRICK:  Okay, let’s do it.
 
Q. I asked Joey Logano if there any sense in the garage area of a relationship.  He laughed and said, Ray Charles could have seen it.
DANICA PATRICK:  I’m curious what that means (laughter).
 
Q.        Did you notice that other people were noticing?  Did y’all talk in the garage, hang around together around the garage?
DANICA PATRICK:  We’ve been friends for a long time.  I mean, I’ve always gotten along with him.  I guess that is what they observed.  They saw something we didn’t know about.
 
Q.        Oh, really?
DANICA PATRICK:  Yeah, I mean, here we are now, but…
 
Q.        Are you surprised at the attention it’s gotten from media and fans?  Seems like now that’s all anybody wants to talk about.
DANICA PATRICK:  Seems like that now.  I haven’t been asked that many questions about it.  Poor Ricky has been asked a lot of questions.  But I haven’t gotten too many.  But I’m happy to answer them.  I’m happy to talk about it.  It’s fine with me.
 
Q.        How is Ricky doing with all this attention?
DANICA PATRICK:  I think you have to ask him.  Seems like he’s doing pretty well.  A little while back he was talking about not wanting — doesn’t like people looking at him, staring at him.  So I’m like, You better get used to that because there’s going to be a lot of people looking at you.  He said, No, they’re not, they’re going to be looking at you.  I said, No, they’re not, they’re going to be looking at you as well.
Anyway, but he’s doing good.  Doing good.
 
Q.        How did it change from a friendship to a little bit more romantic?  Who asked whom out first?  What was the bud of the thing?
DANICA PATRICK:  I mean, the friendship is the bud, for sure.  But beyond that, I think it was like, you know, just talking a little bit more often and then deciding to spend time together, and that goes on from there.
 
Q.        Was there a first date?
DANICA PATRICK:  I don’t know if you could really say.  I mean, I’ve spent so much time with him, whether I have dinner with him or do appearances or things like that, so I think it’s pretty tough to put a first date on anything.
 
Q.        You don’t, like, have an anniversary?
DANICA PATRICK:  There was one point in time, though, that I asked him to ask me out on a date, though, because it’s just like you go do something.  Are you going to ask me on a date?  When was that?  It wasn’t that long ago.  Just an official one, you know.  I can’t remember what the date of that was, though.
 
Q.        What are you guys doing tonight?
DANICA PATRICK:  Good question.  Well, luckily my bags (luggage) came in.  My flight was very delayed out of Chicago, so I caught another flight.  They were supposed to be in already.  They’re hopefully going to be in in time because my Valentine’s Day present is in that bag.  In fact, there’s like a whole bag dedicated to Valentine’s Day.
So what are we doing?  I’m going to bet I’m cooking ’cause I cook and he does not cook.
 
Q.        He bought you a card, but you tweeted that you haven’t gotten his yet.
DANICA PATRICK:  Oh, no, no, I have a card.  What I was saying is in the future, I was saying in the future, when you get my homemade card, it’s like a folded over white piece of paper from the fax machine or from the printer machine, that’s when you’ll know I forgot to get you one and that will be funny.  But like I said, I’m creative.  So I’ll make it look nice.
 
Q.        Have you ever done a press conference like this before?
DANICA PATRICK:  No.  This doesn’t feel very racing oriented really.  I don’t want to be on this loud speaker, honestly.  I asked them if I could not be on it.
 
Q.        Jimmie Johnson said this would be a fun thing to follow because everybody would be watching it.  He said, Danica, she can get a little upset and let people know it.  Ricky, on the other hand, is never involved in payback much but he drives the car sideways.  If Ricky is driving his car sideways and drives it into you, what happens then?
DANICA PATRICK:  He better have a really good ‘I’m sorry’.  I’m just kidding.
I got a feeling PR is just lurking and sweating their butts off over there.
 
Q.        Can you talk about how you will race each other and eyes will be on you every time you’re near each other.
 
DANICA PATRICK:  I think racing-wise that’s obviously a big question in a lot of people’s minds, fans’ minds.  I had a friend say, I’m excited to see how you guys race against each other when you’re out there.  That’s someone that isn’t even into racing curious to see how that will go.
We’ve been racing against each other as long as we’ve known each other.  So, you know, there are times you’re out there on the track, you don’t even see each other, you’re not even next to each other.  Every time we have been, it’s about respect and neither of us put up a big fight.
So far it’s been pretty obvious who is faster than who whenever someone comes up behind the other.  For the most part it’s been him faster than me, I would say, of course.  The few times it’s happened to me, he doesn’t put up a fight.  And I don’t see that any different.  I don’t see us putting up a huge battle.
But I’m guessing, I mean, as we keep getting better over the year, over the years, you know, you’re going to end up having to race each other harder because they’re going to be for better spots.  But in general, it’s going to be just like it always has been.
 
Q.        Have you sat down with Tony or your sponsors and do they have any interest or care about this?
DANICA PATRICK:  You know, when I told them about the relationship, they had no questions about the racing side of it.  I think they all trust that both of us are going to do our jobs and do it the way we always have.
 
Q.        Other people, the ones asking, curious about this, have you actually had a conversation with Ricky, If that happens, then this or that?  Or do you feel other people are more concerned?
DANICA PATRICK:  I think the extent of our conversation about racing with each other is like laughing and saying that I’m going to have to outsmart you because I know you’re not lifting.  That’s kind of it.
 
Q.        Did the whole friendship and everything start with you seeking his advice about racecar setups and everything?
DANICA PATRICK:  I mean, we first got to know each other in rookie meetings.  He was Rookie of the Year in ’10, was that right?  So I did race.  That w
as my first year, was ’10.  So I saw him in rookie meetings. But it’s funny, basically it will be us in rookie meetings again this year.  Since we’re running for Rookie of the Year we have to go to every single track for the rookie meeting.  That’s funny.
 
Q.        Does that change the dynamic, both of you vying for the Rookie of the Year?
DANICA PATRICK:  Does it change the dynamic of what?
 
Q.        Your interaction on the track when you’re both racing for something.
DANICA PATRICK:  You know, I don’t think it does.  I think both of us are just going to race really hard and do what we’ve always done.  Running for Rookie of the Year is something that’s happening, but it’s not going to make you try any harder.  I mean, we both try as hard as we can every time.  Kind of where it ends up panning out at the end it does.
 
I mean, usually at the end of the year, no matter what’s going on, whether it’s Rookie of the Year, whether it’s for a championship position, you kind of put a little emphasis on certain things or start to understand where you’re going to end up just based on points.  I mean, that’s 38 races away, or 30.  How many races is the season?
 
Q.        36.
DANICA PATRICK:  36 away.
 
Q.        Do you feel like a rookie at this point?
DANICA PATRICK:  I definitely feel like a rookie because I know there’s a lot I have yet to experience in Cup, and especially the competition level of that every weekend, and the length of the weekends, adding an extra day on every weekend.
But, honestly, I mean, in my heart I don’t feel like a rookie.  I feel like somebody who has a lot of experience but needs to kind of train different.  It’s a different car, it’s a different experience.  But I feel seasoned and kind of everything else that goes on around it.  I guess that’s the reason why I feel pretty comfortable right now.
That’s probably a good thing.  Whether I have a situation going on now that y’all are asking about or being in Sprint Cup for the first time this year, it’s nice to have had the experience, media and work-wise and everything outside the car, that helps me be able to focus on my job better because this is less stressful to me.
 
Q.        When you were in IndyCar, you used to express some dismay at the very notion of running 36 races.
DANICA PATRICK:  I did.  You’re right.
 
Q.        Now that you’re at the brink of this, how does it feel?
DANICA PATRICK:  I feel like I had a nice little transition into the length of the season.  This will be a whole ‘nother level because we’re adding 30 odd days onto my racing work schedule because of the extra day for Sprint Cup.
But, you know, with doing those two years of part-time Nationwide, it really helps kind of transition into about 30 races a year.  Then last year was 34 or something.  Now this is going to be 36 or so.  So it’s been a nice transition and it doesn’t scare me anymore.
I think more than anything I found something that I really, really enjoy doing.  I’ve said it before to people.  Driving stock cars, it’s really fun to me.  The racing is really fun to me.  While I get nervous, it’s something I really care about, I want to do really well.  For some reason I have more excitement than I do so much nerves.  Like in IndyCar I was always really nervous.  I always felt like there was a lot of pressure and I felt like every lap was on the edge.  The racing was getting really dicey at the end.  People were just all over the place and I felt nervous going into that.  Now I just feel excited.  I feel a little nervous but definitely more excited.
 
Q.        Mark Martin said he advised you that not only can you slide these cars around, you’ve got to.  You felt like you were sort of the Jeff Gordon school of loose and necessarily fast.  Ricky is known for sliding these cars around.  Do you think talking with him over a period of time you might be more comfortable in a looser car, sliding cars around?
DANICA PATRICK:  I think that for me, my driving style is smooth and not heavy braking, so I feel like I’m learning mostly from Tony Gibson, from Tony, from Ryan, just being able to put my driving style compared to them, and then having that translated to words by Tony Gibson as to what that means in a racecar.
I drive a little bit more in the Tony Stewart way.  I have a style like him at this point in time.  I’m kind of slow in, not heavy braking, and smooth.  It allows me to run a freer car because I’m not so hard on the brake and pitching the car so much.
I’m just kind of learning more about my style than anything.  There’s no changing that really.  I think that’s one of the great things that Tony Gibson understands and knows.  The driver’s style is the driver’s style and you do the best job you can as a crew chief to adapt to it.
So I don’t feel like I’m going to change my style based on anything else.  I think for me it’s going to be how to get a racecar so I can be fast.
 
Q.        How do you like the new car compared to last year’s car?
DANICA PATRICK:  I like the new car’s looks, number one, for sure.  Another thing is they do drive maybe a little bit tighter, so that’s kind of nice for me.
I also like the more grip.  I mean, I’m used to having so much grip coming from IndyCar that I felt like the tracks I had more grip and was able to carry more load through the corner because of that felt to me most comfortable.  I feel like I was able to feel the edge of the car better.  I think there’s a lot of things about this car that are good for me.
We have yet to see how it’s going to perform in all aspects yet, especially when all of us get out there on the track, especially at a place like Daytona, or when we get out on a mile-and-a-half.  But so far, so good.
 
Q.        What about the laws of unintended consequences with this car that nobody will know what happens between now and the checkered flag?
DANICA PATRICK:  As in like what?
 
Q.        A lot can happen with this car that a lot of people are not prepared for.
DANICA PATRICK:  I don’t know.  Well, I don’t know.  If I knew what was unexpected, we would just have the answer then.  So I don’t know.  I suppose we’ll just all have to see.
But I think one of the things that piques my curiosity and I’m sure a lot of other people’s curiosity is how it went in practice, when all the cars get in pack, how easy it was for people to get turned around.  So that could make for some pretty exciting racing for the fans.
 
Q.        You’re running in the Nationwide race here.
DANICA PATRICK:  Yeah.
 
Q.        Is that a good warmup for Sunday?
DANICA PATRICK:  Yeah, so today it’s official that I’m going to run the Nationwide race for Turner Scott Motorsports.  Go Daddy stepped up in a big way to make that happen.  So it will be the GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, Camaro.  How should I say it?
 
Q.        Chevy Camaro.
DANICA PATRICK:  How about that?  Damn good thing I included Chevrolet in there.  I’m getting used to it.  It’s a mouthful.  Please tell me if I lose my spark.  That would be sad (laughter).
I’m glad to be running it because I think it’s really good practice for the race.  The rac
ing is very similar from the Nationwide to the Cup car, especially at a place like Talladega or Daytona.  I feel like we have a chance to win and that’s exciting.
I appreciate that everyone made it happen and put it together.  I don’t even know when the first practice is, but I’m excited about it.
 
Q.        That’s the only race announced?
DANICA PATRICK:  At this point in time that’s the only race that’s for sure.  Originally we were looking at 10.  So anywhere up to 10 would be great.  It serves as the ability to go out there and do well, gain confidence, keep confidence up, to be able to get some experience on tracks that just need laps.  So more challenging tracks.  Also just have a chance to have good races.
 
Q.        What’s the likelihood of 10?
DANICA PATRICK:  I think the likelihood of 10 is probably low, but maybe five.  That would be good.  Probably in the middle of the season, if we only do five, probably good we only did five because it will be very busy.
But as busy as those weekends were that I did both series, I really felt like it ultimately helped each other a lot.  So practice in the Cup car helped practice in the Nationwide car and racing the Nationwide car helped racing the Cup car.  I feel like they really help each other.  It’s a great swimsuit diet in the summer, too.
 
Q.        Your old IndyCar profile under musical tastes used to say, Anything but classical or country.
DANICA PATRICK:  You’re right.
 
Q.        I assume rodeo becomes country.  So how does that come along?
DANICA PATRICK:  Because I went to a rodeo?
 
Q.        I would assume with Ricky’s taste, along with rodeo…
 
DANICA PATRICK:  He definitely loves country.  He loves country.  He likes a lot of different country.  I’m more of the modern kind of country girl.  I like more modern country.  He likes a lot of the older stuff.
He probably tolerates some of my music that’s a little bit more ’90s.  For some reason he doesn’t like ’90s music.  He likes ’80s before ’90s.  What?  Barely just a baby then.
I don’t mind country now, I really don’t.  I actually really like it.  I think it’s some fun music.  It’s great to put on.  It’s like you can understand all the words, tell a little story (laughter).  But there’s a lot of great artists in country.
 
Q.        You’ve been reluctant to talk about your private life.  What makes this different?
DANICA PATRICK:  I mean, I’m sure there’s definitely going to be a line.  I mean, I’m not going to go into details about my private life all the time.  I understand there’s a curiosity for it.  To be honest, it’s my life.  I have always done everything to my comfort zone level.  Once it starts to go beyond that, I just stop.
Whether it’s a photo shoot, whether it’s talking about my life, these are things that I draw the line by instinct.  So I don’t think there’s anything too serious talked about today.  But I’m sure there will come a day where you ask a question that I don’t want to answer and I’ll tell you I’m not going to answer it.
I mean, I’m just relaxed.  Like I feel happy.  I feel like I’m just enjoying my life.  It makes me smile to talk about him.
 
Q.        I know y’all became friends first, but what attracted you to him?
DANICA PATRICK:  I feel like I’m on The Bachelorette.  I just had a connection (laughter).
I mean, I think there was just something there.  I think you end up finding some kind of a chemistry with someone and you can’t always put it into words what exactly it is.  We’ve just always kind of enjoyed being around each other.  I think he’s really funny.  His jokes are really funny. 
Yeah, I just like being around him.
 
Q.        Can you talk about qualifying with the way they’re doing it this year, even though you have points.  Have you looked at it?
DANICA PATRICK:  I have absolutely no idea how qualifying works.  Does anyone?  I think I was actually sent like a long email with the way that qualifying works.  I didn’t read it.  ‘Cause you’re just going to drive as hard as you can, right?  What else am I going to do?  I got to qualify in the top two or top six, whatever it is.  You’re going to go as fast as you can possible can and deal with it afterwards.
I know that with buying the points, what that does for us, it allows us the opportunity to make sure we compete even if there’s a rain situation.
That can happen.  It’s that time of year where that can happen.  Hopefully everything goes well for the Nationwide race.  I remember my first year it rained out qualifying and I had points so it would be fine.  It would be a different story now.  Hopefully we don’t run into that situation.  But it’s very important that it doesn’t happen in Cup.
 
Q.        Within reason and cleanliness —
DANICA PATRICK:  Cleanliness?  Of people?  Yeah, like I said, I thought the bump-drafting jokes were hilarious.  It’s going to be like when I’m out there on the track, it would be like me and Dale Jr. bump-drafting, like teammates, and Dale Jr. at Daytona.  It’s going to be like that.  I feel like that’s kind of the excitement level if we were out there bump-drafting with each other.
I’m not sure I want to be bump-drafting with this car very much.  It would be unfortunate if he was pushing me and I was turned around.  Clearly it won’t be intentional, but it seems as though that might be a real likelihood in this car with the new changes.
But, anyway, go ahead.
 
Q.        Nationwide garage is full of young, single male drivers.
DANICA PATRICK:  I’m too old.  I’m too old.
 
Q.        Did anybody else ask you out or hit on you among all those young, single drivers?
DANICA PATRICK:  Uhm, no.
 
Q.        I don’t want you to name names.
DANICA PATRICK:  There was some curiosity maybe.  But I think I scare people, so not a lot.  Do I scare people?  Maybe I should ask that question.
 
Q.        Did you ever maybe second guess dating Ricky because he is a competitor.
DANICA PATRICK:  Sure.  I think initially it was a little bit of a mental hurdle of like, We compete against each other.  I said it’s like the Capulets and Montagues with Chevy and Ford.  This just doesn’t work.
You can’t tell your heart who to like or not like.  In the end it ended up being something that I just didn’t think was a big deal at all.
 
Q.        You’re about to start your full Sprint Cup season.  Are you anxious, nervous, excited?
DANICA PATRICK:  I’m excited.  I think of all the years I’ve competed at a top level, I feel like I’m most excited for this season.  I really am.  I think it’s going to be a fun season.  I think it’s going to be a great season.
 
Q.        Do you have a points finish range or set of results you’d like to hit this year to make this a success in your mind?
DANICA PATRICK:  I mean, you know, I think it would be great, if I looked at the points from this past year, looked at the people I was competing against last year in those 10 races that I did, if I
could be somewhere up a little bit ahead of where that kind of area is, I mean, that’s probably a first blush good spot to hope to be.
But secretly do I hope for more?  Of course, I do.  I feel like these long races are going to play into my strength of focus, improving on the car, getting more confident and stronger as the race goes on.
There’s too many changes going into this year with the new car, new full-time schedule, all kinds of stuff that it’s going to be really difficult to pin it down.  Ask me again when we get a little bit into the season and I think I’ll be a better judge as to where I’m falling into the line.
Thanks.  I’m sure everybody enjoyed that.
 
 
 

 
Wayne Taylor Racing Finishes Second in 51st Running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona; Gives Corvette Daytona Prototype First-Ever Daytona Podium
 
Daytona Beach, FL (January 27, 2013) – The Wayne Taylor Racing trio of Max Angelelli, Jordan Taylor and Ryan Hunter-Reay battled from the drop of the green flag, to the waving of the checkered flag during the 51st running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Their focused effort yielded a second-place finish for the No. 10 Velocity Worldwide Corvette Daytona Prototype (DP) and delivered the first-ever podium position for the Corvette DP at Daytona International Speedway.
 
Starting 12th on the grid, Angelelli ran the first two and a half hours of the historic race to set the pace and the tone for the remainder of the longest endurance race for the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series.
 
“Just representing Team Chevy it’s such a big deal for me,” said Wayne Taylor, team owner. “I wanted to win so bad for Team Chevy just so much for Velocity Worldwide and everybody.  I’m really happy.  I’m relieved I guess you know.  I was not prepared to not be the face of Team Chevy with my team.  I know there are a lot of teams, but I wanted to be the one.”
 
Today’s finish is the first podium at Daytona for a Taylor-owned team since a third-place finish in 2007 where he and Angelelli shared the driving duties. Taylor and Angelelli also have the 2005 race win on their resumes.
 
“Congratulations to Wayne Taylor Racing for giving the Corvette Daytona Prototype its first podium finish in the iconic Rolex 24 At Daytona,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “I am very proud of the tremendous effort put forth by all of our Chevrolet teams and applaud the “never give up” attitude of our Corvette Daytona Prototype and Camaro drivers and crews as they battled for their finishing positions this weekend. We are looking forward to an exciting 2013 GRAND-AM season.”
 
Giving the Corvette DP three of the top-five finishers in the race were the No. 9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP driven by Joao Barbosa, Burt Frisselle and Mike Rockenfeller who finished fourth; and the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP with drivers Richard Westbrook, Ricky Taylor, Oliver Gavin and Antonio Garcia who crossed the finish line in fifth place.
 
Jon Fogarty, Alex Gurney, Memo Gidley and Darren Law drivers of the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP finished seventh, with the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP driven by Christian Fittipaldi, Brain Frisselle, Nelson Piquet, Jr. and Felipe Nasr eighth in the final order.  The No. 3 8 Star Motorsports Corvette DP drivers Enzo Potolicchio, Anthony Davidson, Pedro Lamy, Nicolas Minassian and Stephane Sarrazin finished 10th in-class and 34th overall after early-race mechanical issues.
 
The No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R team with drivers Robin Liddell, John Edwards, Jon Magnussen and Tommy Milner finished 23rd in-class and 36th overall after mechanical issues spoiled what started as a very promising race. The No. 31 Marsh Racing Corvette GT, driven by Boris Said, Eric Curran, Brandon Davis and Lawson Aschenbach, finished 32nd in-class and 52nd overall following mechanical issues early in the race.
 
 
 
“All of our Chevrolet Daytona Prototype and GT teams fought a great battle during this grueling race,” said Mark Kent, Director of Chevrolet Racing. “There is no other race in North America as demanding as the 24 Hours of Daytona and just finishing is an accomplishment. It was great to see the #10 Corvette Daytona Prototype finish in 2nd place and on the lead lap in a race that tests the limits of endurance for man and machine. We now turn our focus to the balance of the 2012 Grand Am season as we work to defend Chevrolet’s Daytona Prototype Engine Manufacturers Championship.”
 
The next event for both the Rolex Sports Car Series and the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge GRAND-AM Road Racing is March 1-2, 2013 at Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas.

 
GRAND-AM ROLEX SPORTS CAR SERIES
ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
JANUARY 27, 2013
 
WAYNE TAYLOR, OWNER, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE/WAYNE TAYLOR RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED SECOND
TELL ME WHAT THIS FINISH MEANS TO YOU TODAY:
“Just representing Team Chevy it’s such a big deal for me.  When I think I have been in America for 22 years and when I first came here I drove for Jim Miller who is now Pratt and Miller.  My program manager when I was driving at that time was Mark Kent (Director of Chevrolet Racing).  In 1991, when Jordan (Taylor, son) was born we were racing at Lime Rock (Park) and Jim Miller said to me ‘I’ll have a plane for you because Shelly (Taylor, wife) was pregnant with Jordan and now all this time later he is in this car, with this team, with Mark Kent and everybody.  I’m happy.  I wanted to win so bad for Team Chevy just so much and Velocity Worldwide and everybody.  I’m really happy.  I’m relieved I guess you know.  I was not prepared to not be the face of Team Chevy with my team.  I know there are a lot of teams but I wanted to be the one.”
 
WE’VE GOTTEN SO USED TO SEEING THE EMOTIONS ON YOUR FACE. ONCE AGAIN TODAY, WE JUST SAW YOU FILLED WITH EMOTIONS. IS IT TOUGH TO SEE THIS TEAM AND WHAT HAPPENS? OR ARE YOU AT LEAST KIND OF HAPPY AFTER LAST YEAR GETTING OUT IN THE FIRST 30 MINUTES OF THE RACE? AT LEAST YOU’RE STARTING OUT THE SEASON STRONG.
“I’m really happy. Coming into the season we’ve all been excited with this new car partnership and Team Chevy and I think Ryan Hunter-Reay, winning the championship last year and driving with me back in 2006, coming with us. Max (Angelelli) of course is my family and part of everything, and then Jordan (Taylor) coming on board this year, there was so much expectation. And there was so much drama coming into this race with horsepower and this and that. In the end, I felt that this team did more than anybody else. I don’t remember one pit stop that we didn’t beat everybody. And everybody just executed perfectly and we were just about there.”
 
MAX ANGELELLI, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE/WAYNE TAYLOR RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED SECOND
WHEN JUAN PABLO MONTOYA WENT BY YOU, YOU STILL DIDN’T GIVE-UP THE FIGHT?
“No, never, never; I told everybody on that team I would never give up, and they know me. But look, this is the Velocity Worldwide team. They made an effort, not me. They made an effort with pit stops and strategy, just absolutely perfect. So, it’s their win.”
 
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE/WAYNE TAYLOR RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED SECOND
TALK ABOUT THE FINISH TODAY AND THE RACE:
“I guess we were the best of the rest you could say.  Ganassi was somewhat in a class of their own.  The team did a great job.  We didn’t have one mechanical problem the entire race.  We never had to do anything in the garage it was just fuel, tires, driver changes and that was it.  Everyone executed the race; it was just unfortunate the way the cars were going that is where we ended up.  You’ve got to be proud of everyone.  Looking at the long run we are in a championship here so second-place points is not a bad place to start.”
 
RUNNING YOUR FIRST RACE THIS SUCCESSFULLY WITH YOUR DAD WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?
“Of course it’s special, it’s cool to have him on the stand and hearing him give feedback.  It was special.  It would have been great to win it with him, but hopefully we can do that another day.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE/WAYNE TAYLOR RACING CORVETTE DP– FINISHED SECOND
ON THE RACE:
“Excellent job, excellent team effort by everybody involved.  Team Chevy, Wayne Taylor Racing, the preparation was second to none.  We had a phenomenal race really when you look at how it all went.  No mistakes, never went to the garage, never a hiccup, had great pace.  We were struggling a little bit on some of the regulations with power.  We had a little bit of a disadvantage there that we had to work against.”

JOAO BARBOSA, NO. 9 ACTION EXPRESS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED FOURTH
YOU HAD A DISAPPOINTING END TO A REALLY SOLID DAY WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE RACE?
“It’s very frustrating.  We did the race we had to do.  We drove clean, we had no problems and the car was getting better every time.  Unfortunately, it was a terrible call in my view.  Deciding a race like this is a shame.  Obviously, I have to congratulate Scott (Pruett) he did a good job in the Ganassi car.  They had the edge on everybody for sure this year. I think for sure we could be on the podium, an easy podium.  I think we were very able to do that and we deserve that.  Unfortunately, it was just the call.  I think they are trying to make it like Ganassi and Allmendinger show, but everybody is there to fight for position.  You have to know when you can go and when you can’t.  I mean he was obviously outside the track, not in a position to take the corner.  He could have just lifted and try again, but GRAND-AM did the call that they did. We are learning and next race we will try again.”
 
BURT FRISSELLE, NO. 9 ACTION EXPRESS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED FOURTH
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE RACE AS A WHOLE AND HOW DID YOUR 24 HOURS GO?
“I never thought I would say a top-five finish at Daytona would be as disappointing as it feels right now.  It is a bit disappointing.  With that being said my first race as a full-time driver for Action Express was just so exciting.  I’ve got two of the best drivers in the world as my teammates this weekend.  It was so great to work with them and to push hard every stint to keep the car running. I’m so excited to be a part of this organization and be representing the Bowtie.  I even had a chance to give one of the Corvette engineers a ride around before the race.  That was really exciting to meet a guy who is designing the street product and give him a ride and give him a little insight into what we do here at the track.  Overall, it’s a great start to the season.  It’s great points, it’s a top five, but man that penalty hurt.  I have to say tonight it’s a little bitter sweet, but I’m also thrilled to be a part of this team.”
 
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 90 SPIRIT OF DAYTONA CORVETTE DP – FINISHED FIFTH
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR RACE:
“It was a long one, not just because it was a 24 hours.  Just initially a few minor issues like some electronics we ran into. At one point I ran blind in one of my stints.  I had no radio, no telemetry, no shift lights, even with that the car was good.  Overnight we fixed all of that got back on the lead lap.  At some point we were actually, probably not fighting for the win, because I think there were two cars here like they have us covered.  A bit too much I have to say.  I mean we just kept it there all race long until two hours to go. I was placed fifth at that time.  I was feeling great, starting to put some pressure on the No. 60 car and I think by then I think we had the pace to fight for second-place.  All of a sudden the exhaust just gave up.  We lost all the headers, the exhaust, so we lost power, torque, everything.  So from that point on we were on the lead lap, but we couldn’t fight.  We just stayed around, kept running laps. It is good run for the Spirit of Daytona team for the championship.”
 
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI, NO. 5 ACTION EXPRESS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED EIGHTH
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR RACE:
“We were on target after about 2:30-3:00 o’clock in the morning.  Exactly where we had planned for, unfortunately, Nelson (Piquet Jr.) had a small off coming out of the pits.  That broke our rear suspension and
we lost 20, 22 laps with that.  That was the end of the race for us.  But, things happen I guess.  He did it, (Jamie) McMurray did it and Jeff Gordon did it, so at least he is in good company (laughs). When you are running with this caliber of guys like in the car and you are pushing wide open all the time.  Our main goal here was to try and beat the Ganassi (cars) so we were doing like qualifying laps one after the other and it happened.  It’s a shame now I guess from that point on I was already on a 364 day countdown for next year.”     
 
NELSON PIQUET JR., NO. 5 ACTION EXPRESS RACING CORVETTE DP – FINISHED EIGHTH
TALK ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AT THE ROLEX 24 HOURS AT DAYTONA THIS WEEKEND:
“It was a fantastic race.  Obviously, I did a silly mistake leaving the pits. It was obviously 5:00 am in the morning, new tires, one of those things.  I touched the wall barely at the exit and it was enough to bend our rear suspension.  We had to come in and change it.  It took a bit longer than we expected.  It is a shame.  First, I need to say sorry to all my teammates Christian (Fittapaldi), Felipe Nasr and Brian Frisselle.  Thanks to the team for the invitation it was a great experience.  Obviously, I’m going to be back over here in a couple of weeks with NASCAR, but it was a good start of the year for sure.”

 
Max Angelelli, Jordan Taylor and Ryan Hunter-Reay drove the No. 10 Velocity Worldwide/Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP to a second-place finish in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
 
QUESTION: Chip was just in and admitted that, yeah, you want to leave a little bit in your pocket when you’re testing, but where they found speed was with the rear wing.  That’s where they picked up all their speed.
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  We are not rookies.  I mean, what else can I do?  It’s so obvious, so unfair.  What else?
 
QUESTION: Max, to play off that a little bit, talk us through a little bit at the end of the race there, did you think there was anyway that you could stick with Montoya or even get by him for the lead?
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  We were hoping with a strategy to make it to the end and beat them in the fuel, with the fuel.  So we didn’t change tires at the kind of    I had many, many laps on my tires, and we were hoping just to make it like that with the strategy and get the win.
           
But Montoya and the 01 car is another league, is an A class.  We are B class.  Anyway, we are very happy, our Velocity Worldwide car Corvette performed very well.
 
QUESTION:  Do you still have a good explanation as to why your engines were restricted?
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  Well, I wanted to ask you that.  I need an answer because there is no explanation.  There’s no point.  Everybody could see it yesterday, the day before yesterday, today.  I don’t understand.  It makes no sense.  This is not competition.  I am competing against myself, and there’s no chance.
 
QUESTION:  After last year the difficulty with the engine failure, is there any redemption in coming back at all?  Are you able to get any celebration or joy?
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  We celebrated after the 22nd minute when we made it after the 22nd minute.  We were very happy.  It’s been a great day for us, thanks to Ryan and Jordan, a perfect job.  They did a perfect job, and our team, our crew, they made it happen.  It’s thanks for them, for their strategy, their pit stop.  They never made a mistake?
 
QUESTION:  When you said about Juan, he’s A class, we are B class, were you talking about the cars or were you talking about Juan?
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  We have something restricted, okay, just like driving with handcuffs; you can’t do it, can’t drive?
 
QUESTION:  So we’re talking about the cars?
 
MAX ANGELELLI:  Yes, the car.
 
JORDAN TAYLOR:  I think a comparison could be when Brumos won the 24 hour and Ganassi finished second.  They had the same complaints.
 
QUESTION: Jordan, can you talk about your first outing with this team and what it meant to you to finish so well?
           
JORDAN TAYLOR:  Yeah, it was good.  It was cool being with Ryan and Max, of course, just to have drivers like that to learn from and compare to.  As for the race, it was definitely a learning experience, it was my first time really being thrown in with all the GT cars trying to hold you off, but every stint felt better and better and I was feeling more comfortable.
           
I think the team said that it was the first time they’d ever run this race and not had to go to the garage, so I think that says some good things about us for not putting a wheel wrong, but it goes to the team for preparing the car to not have one little issue for 24 hours.
           

 
Daytona Beach, FLA (January 27, 2013) – At the half-way point of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, four Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype (DP) teams maintain strong top-10 positions in the running order. In near perfect racing conditions with blue skies and temperatures in the 70s at the 3:30 p.m. ET start, the temperature at the half-way point is 54 degrees.
 
Team-by-team recap:
 
No. 10 Velocity WorldWide/Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP – Driven by: Max Angelelli, Jordan Taylor and Ryan Hunter-Reay:  Started 12th; Running 2nd on lead lap
 
No. 9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP – Driven by Burt Frisselle, Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Mike Rockenfeller: Started 13th; Running 4th on lead lap
 
No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP – Driven by Brian Frisselle, Nelson Piquet, Jr., and Felipe Nasr: Started 11th; Running 5th   on the lead lap
 
No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP – Driven by Richard Westbrook, Ricky Taylor, Oliver Gavin and Antonio Garcia: Started 5th; Running 6th on the lead lap
 
No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP – Driven by Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty, Memo Gidley and Darren Law: Started 8th, Running 11th 16 laps down to the leader  NOTE: At the 7.5-hour mark, after changing a right front flat tire, an electrical problem sent the team to the garage for several laps to diagnose and repair the issue
 
No. 3 8 Star Motorsports Corvette DP – Driven by Enzo Potolicchio, Stephane Sarrazin, Danthony Davidson, Pedro Lamy and Nicolas Minassian: Started 9th, Running 37th 46 laps down to the leader. NOTE: In the first hour, a bearing failed in the transmission sending the team to the garage to diagnose and repair the issue
 
No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R – Driven by Robin Liddell, John Edwards, Tommy Milner and Jon Magnussen: Started 7th in class, running 30th overall, 19th in class, 32 laps down to overall leader.  NOTE: Suffered a broken front brake line sending the team to the garage to diagnose and repair issue.
 
No. 31 Marsh Racing Corvette GT – Driven by  Boris Said, Brandon Davis, Lawson Aschenbach and Eric Curran; Started 22nd in class, retired from competition 91 laps into the race

ALEX GURNEY, NO. 99 GAINSCO/BOB STALLINGS RACING CORVETTE DAYTONA PROTOTYPE (DP), met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following his first driving stint in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
TELL US ABOUT THE FIRST STINT AND MAYBE A QUICK LOOK AHEAD TO THE REST OF THE 24 HOURS:
“I think it started off reasonably well. I made up a position on the start got around (Ryan) Dieziel on the outside of the first horseshoe and just tried to settle into a pace.  I think we were going along well.  I was behind (Richard) Westbrook for a while and finally got by him.  He got caught up in traffic and got by him, so as far as the Corvettes concerned we were thinking we were looking pretty good.  A little farther into the stint (AJ) Allmendinger I think went off in front of me, I think that was him; it was one of the (Michael) Shank cars, in the kink all the way through the grass.  When I was coming around the second horseshoe I thought he was maybe come into me, but that worked out okay.  After the first pit stop I got caught for speeding.  I just went a little early; I know they extended the pit lane speed limit area.  That was a shame because I didn’t get to try it in practice, just went too early.  That didn’t help our cause fell back to tenth.  It looks like the guys did a really good pit stop. After the pit stop we got up to sixth.”
 
AFTER 23 LAPS THE BMW’S WERE 23 SECONDS AHEAD.  IF THEY DON’T BREAK DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY SPEED FOR THEM?
“Well, it’s hard to say.  That is a pretty good stat there.  We saw from qualifying there is an awfully big gap.  We are at minimum wing angle so we can’t do much as far as going down the straight any quicker than we are.  We would like to think that we can get the car working well enough to challenge them at the end, but we will after to wait another 22 hours or so.”
 
HURLEY (HAYWOOD) WAS IN HERE EARLIER AND WAS TALKING ABOUT THE BUTTERFLIES YOU GET BEFORE THIS RACE AND HOW HE WAS MISSING NOT HAVING THEM. COULD YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE BUTTERFLIES STARTING THIS RACE AND MAYBE ABOUT HURLEY (HAYWOOD) MISSING THIS EVENT?
“I understand the sentiment there.  I think every driver gets it.  I certainly get it especially at a race so important and with so many fans all around.  I don’t know.  So many great drivers on the grid there I got (AJ) Allmendinger in front of me and (Ryan) Dieziel next to me and I think (Max) Angelelli behind me and (Stephane) Sarrazin I guess so a lot of big dogs.  You want to be nice and clean, don’t make mistakes and try and hang in there.  As far as Hurley (Haywood) missing it, I mean I definitely understand that.  I have been on the sidelines.  If you feel like you can do it you want to be out there racing.”
 
IT WAS MENTIONED EARLIER DID THEY ADD SOME RESTRICTION TO YOU SINCE QUALIFYING TO THE CHEVYS AND WHAT WAS THAT AND HOW MUCH DID IT COST YOU?
“Well actually added it before the start of the weekend.  It costs us dramatically.  I don’t understand why they did it.  I think they felt that a lot of guys were sandbagging and it turned out they weren’t.  In my view they put a penalty on the slowest car on the straight.  I don’t get that.  They halved that difference after qualifying.  So, we are a little closer.”
 
 
 
MEMO GIDLEY, NO. 99 GAINSCO/BOB STALLINGS RACING CORVETTE DAYTONA PROTOTYPE (DP), met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following his first driving stint in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
TELL US ABOUT THIS EARLY STINT FOR YOU? WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THE REST OF THE RUN?
“Well I think the car felt pretty good.  Honestly, the first half of the first stint I probably did more laps than I have done in all the preseason testing.  For me it was just getting back used to the car again and then also with all the cars out there it’s a lot of traffic.  It’s great to have the field that we have this year.  It makes it super challenging.  You come up on two or three or four GT cars battling, going three and four wide.  You just have to be really patient.  I think my whole mindset going in is just to keep doing laps.  If I have to lose a position I will lose a position and keep it safe so we have a fast car at the end.”
 
I’M SURE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT WOULD MEAN TO THE TEAM STARTING WITH ALEX (GURNEY) TO WIN THIS EVENT.  HIS FATHER WON THE VERY FIRST INCARNATION OF THIS RACE BACK IN 1962:
“That was a pretty special victory for Dan (Gurney) for sure.  Then just Bob Stallings has put a lot into the series and a lot into this team.  Not to mention it’s truly an all American team.  He doesn’t hold it against us if we’ve got an American accent which is totally cool.  He has just invested a lot in this series.  He is also as far as a team owner and I’ve been with a lot of teams Champ Car, Atlantics, all the way up through the ranks. He is probably one of the best, most supportive and fun to be around and gives you the tools to win races.  I think his team shows why they have won so many times except for this race.”
 
IS THERE A NOTICEABLE DROP IN THE TEMPERATURE OUT THERE ON THE STINT YOU JUST DID?
“Inside the car you don’t feel a whole lot different when the temperature drops because the DP’s are pretty warm inside.  It makes a big difference in the amount of grip and I noticed in the first stint the car was sliding around a fair amount, wasn’t too hooked up.  I had to work a little bit harder.  As the sun went down the track cooled off and it’s almost like the rubber that is on the surface gets a little bit more stable and the car hooks up, rolls around the corner better, puts the power down.  Other than the visibility being a little tougher, I really enjoy driving in the night when it’s cool just because the car seems to just hook up a little bit more.”
 
HOW IS THE TRAFFIC NOW WITH THE SMALLER SERIES IN THE TRACK?  ARE THEY CREATING PROBLEMS FOR THE TOP DRIVERS?
“It’s very challenging.  It’s part of what makes this race so interesting.  Actually the slowest cars, the GX cars they are actually a lot easier to get around because down the straightaway we are considerably faster.  But, when you look at the GT’s and how fast they are going looking at the times they are doing 47 (second laps) or something in qualifying. That is not a whole lot slower than what we are doing.  This is really a horsepower track, so I can see one coming out of the bus stop that is 100 yards ahead of me and I’m lucky to get around him by start/finish.  That makes it really challenging to get around these guys.  Just makes it a little bit harder everywhere.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE TOP CARS HOW THEY ARE DEVELOPING THE RACE?  ARE THEY ON A VERY FAST PACE?
“I thought the pace was pretty fast.  It really comes down to II think there are some cars that are a little bit faster than us ultimately, at least right now.  We will tweak on it a little as the night goes on.  I think that it’s a pretty fast pace for sure.  I think there are a lot of cars that are really close within a second.  As the night goes on and as the cars change a little bit, some hook up, some start loosening up, changing handling wise.  You never know who is going to be in contention, but there are just a lot of good teams out there.”

MAX ANGELELLI, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE CORVETTE DAYTONA PROTOTYPE (DP), met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following his first three driving stints in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
TELL US ABOUT THE FIRST STINT AND OBVIOUSLY YOU GUYS WANT TO GET OFF TO A GOOD START THIS YEAR AFTER LAST YEARS EARLY DISAPPOINTMENTS IN THIS RACE:
“As everybody could see I did three s
tints. At the beginning of my first stint I really took my time, very patient, just stayed behind to look around at what happened.  I felt the car was pretty balanced, good fast and it was too risky to take those people and they were already racing like the final hour.  When I got the opportunity I went by.  Our guys, the Velocity Worldwide team had an excellent, exceptional pit stop both times.  That really helped because we overtook so many cars in the pit.  The final stint, my third stint, I could stay with the No. 01 for half of a stint, but it was too quick in the straight.  As soon as I loose contact there was no chance.  Our car Corvette is really good, very well balanced and we’ll see.”
 
THEY MADE A CHANGE TO THE RESTRICTOR THAT YOU ARE USING COULD YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE AT ALL?
“No, I didn’t know.  Did they change?  No feeling at all.  I mean if change is 0.000001 millimeter is not a change.  They need to be released, just look at the top speed it is very simple.”
 
THIS IS REALLY SOME TEAM.  YOU ARE HERE WITH JORDAN TAYLOR WHO IS ONE OF OUR VERY BEST GRAND-AM DRIVERS FOR A FEW SEASONS IN GT AND NOW IN DP AS WELL AS THE INDYCAR CHAMPION RYAN HUNTER-REAY.  WHAT KIND OF TEAM IS THIS AND WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL?
“I’m very proud to share the car with Jordan (Taylor) and Ryan Hunter-Reay the champion in IndyCar.  We have two great drivers it’s just fantastic.  In talking to Jordan he says if he cannot make it in racing he is going to Hollywood (laughs).  He has an option open.”
 
WE HEARD THIS IS ACTUALLY THE FIRST TIME THAT YOUR FAMILY HAS BEEN ABLE TO SEE YOU RACE OVER HERE IN THE 24 HOUR.  CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE EMOTIONS THAT YOU HAVE KNOWING THAT THEY ARE HERE WATCHING YOU TONIGHT?
“It was strange for me it was the first time ever.  My kids, who are 9 and 5 they only, discover I was a race car driver last year.  So, 8 years, 4 years for the other one, they didn’t know.  They thought I was a mechanic and I was working on Wayne Taylor car.  My wife it’s her first time here ever all three of them.  I’m looking forward to seeing them and asking them how they are feeling.”
 

 
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 10 VELOCITY WORLDWIDE CORVETTE DAYTONA PROTOTYPE (DP), met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following his first driving stint in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
TELL US ABOUT THE EARLY STINT AND THE OUTLOOK FOR THE REST OF THE 24 HOURS:
“Well I think I got caught for speeding on pit lane.  They extended the line and I think I just got caught out, which I was surprised about.  But, the car is good I think it is pretty quick.  I don’t know if we have enough for Ganassi if we really wanted to push hard.  We are definitely in cruise mode right now saving fuel.  I got stuck behind the No. 99 for a while.  I think if we were able to get around them we would have been quite a bit quicker.  But, I don’t see a point in really racing anybody at this point in the race.  We saved enough fuel to go a lap longer than them and were able to pass them in the pits and then pull away on the next stint.  I think the car is quick enough if we really want to start going, but at this point in the race I don’t see any reason to start pushing it so far.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR YOU TUBE VIDEO AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT?
“Well I was just informed that it might be taken off You Tube so I’m a little upset right now.  My friend Mark Jensen we were at dinner one night at a little Mexican place and a Mariachi band came around and serenaded us.  I think they thought we were together.  From that point we kind of thought of a funny idea of maybe doing a Mariachi dance for a video and then it kind of escalated from there.  I said on TV just now that everyone at the track sees all of us as very serious people and I don’t really think they see our personalities away from the track.  We all thought it would be fun to kind of just do a weird, goofy video like that.  If you have a sense of humor you will enjoy it.  Some people took it a little too seriously I think and were making some weird remarks.  I think if you are just open to laugh at people we were just laughing at ourselves the whole time.  It was just a fun video.”
 
YOUR BROTHER SPENT A NUMBER OF YEARS IN THE SAME ROLE LEARNING IN THE PROTOTYPE WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE FOR YOU THE FIRST WEEKEND WITH MAX (ANGELELLI) AND RYAN HUNTER-REAY?  HAS IT BEEN A BIG EDUCATIONAL ASPECT FOR YOU YET?  ARE YOU STILL SOAKING IT ALL IN?
“We had the November test just Max (Angelelli) and myself and then January it was all three of us.  I’ve been able to get used to everything, get used to the car and the team. It’s definitely been a learning experience as you saw in that first stint that was basically my first time in race conditions when GT cars are actually trying to hold you off.  It took a little time to get used to it and following guys like (Allan) McNish and (Scott) Pruett and them.  You pick it up pretty quickly just learning from the best guys.  I think when you are thrown in at the deep end with these guys that is the best way to learn.”
 
AFTER YEARS OF BEING THAT GUY IN THE GT CAR WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE LIKE NOW?
“I realize why so many DP guys dislike GT cars.  You are in your own race in GT and you try your best to not lose any time.  You do block a lot of DP cars.  I didn’t really realize how irritating that is until tonight.  You are always on the radio asking who is in this car, who is in that car, because you want to understand which drivers are like what.  When you get back in the car later on the team is kind of aware of what drivers drive in what style and you know what to expect so you don’t get caught out.”
 
THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF TALK HERE OF THE CHEVROLET’S MAYBE BEING DOWN ON POWER A LITTLE BIT, BUT AT ONE POINT MAX (ANGELELLI) WAS ALMOST MATCHING SCOTT PRUETT’S LAP TIMES, BUT HIS QUOTES SAY THAT HE JUST COULDN’T KEEP UP WITH THEM ON THE STRAIGHTS.  WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU GUYS ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE TO THE BMW’S?
“I would definitely put it to straight line speed.  We were around the cars in practice and it was difficult to even stay close to them out of the bus stop even if you got a run on them.  Even if it there was not a great driver in the car, but our car in years past the No. 10 car has traditionally been very strong here at Daytona under braking and on the infield.  It is not surprising that Max was able to match lap times I would say if you look at sector times we are gaining in the infield maybe two or three tenths on them and then they are gaining it back on the oval section.  I think if we get to the end of the race.  It will be definitely a very tough battle for us because the best place to pass is obviously on the straight.”
 
DARREN LAW, NO. 99 GAINSCO/BOB STALLINGS RACING CORVETTE DAYTONA PROTOTYPE (DP), met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following his first driving stint in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
 
TELL US ABOUT YOUR STINT OUT THERE IN THE RED DRAGON:
“The car is good.  It is running well.  We are doing like we should just basically protecting the car, staying out of trouble.  I have got to say, I have been running this race for over a decade and it is pretty crazy out there right now.  I mean stupid stuff where I literally have to stop and go to first gear in the chicane sometimes.  It’s nuts.”
 
OBVIOUSLY RUNNING IN THE TOP-FIVE RIGHT NOW IN FOURTH-PLACE CAN YOU TALK ABOUT MAYBE HOW YOU FEEL YOUR PROSPECTS ARE AT THIS POINT?
“I would say as far as the Chevy powered cars, I feel confident we are among the best there.  I feel fairly confident with
the Fords.  I still think the BMW’s really have the legs on us on the straight.  If you don’t you have to really run through the corners hard and get a heck of a run out to be able to even try and run with them.  It’s going to be tough, but we have seen a ton of cars go out already.  You never know we have a long way to go.  Not even half way.”
 
TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT IT HAS BEEN LIKE TO DRIVE WITH A NEW TEAM HERE THIS YEAR:
“Well I drove for Brumos for a long time and Action Express for the last couple of years.  The GAINSCO car has always been fast.  It has always a desirable car to be in and the guys have been very welcoming.  A great group of guys, I’ve known them all for several years now and raced against them.  I was happy to be asked to come to it.  For me power wise the Chevy, aero wise the Corvette body I was used to that from last year.  The thing that is different is I’m back in a Riley which is what I ran for many years prior to the Coyote last year.  It’s very nice to be in a Riley, great handling car.  I actually feel that it is easier to drive at a competitive pace for a long period.  I think it is better for the long races for sure.”