CHEVROLET INDYCAR V6
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
QUALIFYING REPORT
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
 
ST. PETERSBURG (March 29, 2014) Tony Kanaan, No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, led the way for Team Chevy as he qualified his Chevrolet IndyCar V6-powered car in second for the first race of the  2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season  – the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It was a challenging round of qualifying as the track went from wet to dry conditions during the three rounds but Kanaan delivered a solid qualifying effort on the Streets of St. Petersburg for his first race with a new team.
 
“The Verizon IndyCar Series 2014 season has kicked off here on the Streets of St. Petersburg,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager for Verizon IndyCar Series. “And it is apparent the fans will be presented with some outstanding racing on Sunday.  The challenge of a qualifying session that was delayed for rain and started out on wets became a rapidly changing set of conditions for each team and driver to adapt to and likely exposed any remaining driveability issues.  Tomorrow’s weather looks spectacular and Team Chevy will be ready to race for the win and as many of the top 5 manufacturer point scoring positions as possible.”
 
Two additional Team Chevy drivers making it through knock-out qualifying to the Firestone Fast Six were: Will Power, No.12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, who will start fourth and Scott Dixon, No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, who turned in the fifth fastest time in the final session.
 
A total of 10 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 powered drivers will start the 110-lap race on the 14-turn, 1.8-mile street course in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida
 
Takuma Sato (Honda) won the pole.  Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andetti completed the Fast Six.
ABC will have a live telecast of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 30, with pre-race at 3 PM ET. The green flag will fly at 3:27 PM. The IMS Radio Network brings the action live to fans. Both the radio broadcast and live timing and scoring can be found on www.indycar.com.  Radio broadcast can also be heard on XM Radio 209/Sirius Radio 209.
 DRIVER QUOTES:
TONY KANAAN, NO.10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: “I  think it has been like 3 years since I have been in the Top 6. It feels really good , I can’t thank the Target Chip Ganassi Racing guys enough. A lot of people made a lot of comments over the years because we struggled so much in qualifying in street and road courses and nobody was counting on that.  I like to be the element of surprise.  Nobody was talking about us at Indy last year and nobody was talking about this weekend.  Although this is not even half of the battle because this is qualifying. Front Row, man it feels pretty good!  I used to see 16 or 17 cars in front of me in a circuit like that so it feels pretty good. I am happy.  It is a new team and those guys had a heck of a year last year and a huge disappointment on Dario’s accident and I still feel like this is Dario’s car.  Those guys went through a lot and they gave me a lot of credibility when I replaced Dario.  They made me feel extremely comfortable and although we have only been working together for the three or four months, I feel part of it.  Every one of them is part of this front row for me.”
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:, QUALIFIED 4TH: “The car is OK. Balance-wise, it feels good. We got a bit of the insight there on the red tires and bit of a dry track in the Fast Six. Just have to make we have a good look at the data overnight and work to make the Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet better for the race.”
 
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET. QUALIFIED 5TH: “It was a pretty good track out there. It was kinda fun to be in the mixed conditions. This place has been kind of a thorn in my side. I think that might be the best I’ve ever qualified here, but, we typically race well here. I did have loads of understeer, which was a bit of a pain on the backside.  Maybe we didn’t manage the tires well. I think the best lap was when TK (Tony Kanaan) was off in (turn) one. By the new rules, we have to slow down, so it was okay. I have to start there, and that is 15 spots better than last year. I am looking forward to the race.”
 
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH:  “We started on the slick tires then went to the red tires and the track just kept getting better and better.  My tires kind of dropped off there at the end and we didn’t have the speed when the track was at its best. We went the safe way expecting there to be a yellow or a red at some point throughout the session and it just never happened. We’ve got the speed but today just didn’t go to plan. We’re still in the top 10 and I’m just excited to get out there tomorrow and be back with the Verizon IndyCar Series.”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 10TH: “It was a little bit tough out there but the Hitachi Team Penske Chevy was really fast. I had no reference point in some areas so it made it challenging and it was a little wet for me in Turn 5 especially. We came up a little short to advance into the Firestone Fast Six and we have a little bit of work to do tomorrow. But I can’t wait. I have Roger (Penske) on my side with the strategy and the Hitachi guys will be strong. It should be a really etxciting race to start the season here in St. Pete.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA: NO. 17 KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11TH:
“I think it was meant to be that 11th position, whether we had qualifying or not. We’re meant to put on a show and I think that’s exactly what we did. The first session was wet, so it’s important to read the track as quickly as possible and try not to make any mistakes. I think the KV AFS team did a great job in predicting what was going to happen. Q2 was positive in the beginning when it was still wet, but as it got drier I misread the track thinking it was wetter than it was. Once I had realized, it was too late so I didn’t get the best out of my tires and wasn’t then in a position to fight for the Firestone Fast Six. I am looking forward to the first race tomorrow and hope to bring home some good points.”
 
MIKE CONWAY, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH:  “We generated a lot of tire temperature early in the second session of qualifying when the track was a bit damp.  We are still missing something in the car. We need to look at it overnight. The 12th spot might have been a little better than what we thought coming into qualifying.  The start of the race here is always pretty wild here.  You can’t take too easy and you can’t be too aggressive either. You need to be aware of what and who is around you.  We will need to make up some positions early and I hope we can do that in the first lap.  Even though it bottlenecks into turn one, you usually can go two or three wide through there.  You need to find the space to get through the turn.”
 
ED CARPENTER, TEAM OWNER, ED CARPENTER RACING, HIS FIRST RACE OUT OF THE CAR AND ON THE PIT STAND: “We felt like the track was ready for slicks at the start of the second session.  And we were right in that regard.  Mike was P1 in his first four or five laps.  If we could have caught yellow in there, we would have been in good shape.  It ended up hurting us in the end because us and Briscoe started on slick reds and we probably used the best part of the tires before the track got better.  So the guys who waited a little bit longer to go to slicks had an advantage at the end.  But we also have some work to do to get the car better
too.  We need get Mike more confident with the car.  We’ll keep chipping at it.  The rain probably helped us the first group with the wet track. I think the transfer was more on Mike than the car then.  I was happy with job he did in qualifying.  We’ll look for a solid run on Sunday.”
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLE, QUALIFIED 13TH: “It wasn’t much of a qualifying session for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing team. Because of the track conditions we waited to go out to make sure that we had room in case something happened, so everyone else got in a lap before the first red flag. When we went back out I got one lap at speed before the second red flag. We were too conservative and I feel bad for the crew. They did a good job preparing the car. We will just have to go to work and do the best we can in tomorrow’s race.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALFIED 18TH: “The biggest problem for the No. 2  Verizon Chevy was the last corner, for some reason. I just couldn’t come off that corner and get the car to turn. (Takuma) Sato was in front of me and I would lose everything to him right there. It is what it is. I haven’t driven in wet conditions in a long time and we never had an opportunity to do it in testing. I don’t think we’re that far off. I’m still getting acclimated back to the Verizon IndyCar Series. My team is still getting acclimated to me. If that process was complete we would be a lot better. We are definitely making progress.”
 
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVOLOG FLEXPEN CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20TH: “We started on the slick tires then went to the red tires and the track just kept getting better and better.  My tires kind of dropped off there at the end and we didn’t have the speed when the track was at its best. We went the safe way expecting there to be a yellow or a red at some point throughout the session and it just never happened. We’ve got the speed but today just didn’t go to plan. We’re still in the top 10 and I’m just excited to get out there tomorrow and be back with the Verizon IndyCar Series.”
 
 
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
An interview with:
WILL POWER
TONY KANAAN
SCOTT DIXON
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Scott Dixon.  Scott, talk about how it was for you out there today.
SCOTT DIXON:  It’s been a tough place for me here.  I think the qualifying today, it was a lot of fun actually with changing conditions and trying to time things right.  Q2, we had to really string it together on that last lap.  That got us in.  Q3 we went out on old, put in a lap, then came in and switched over.
I think kind of best timing for us might have been when T.K. was off in one, so we had to slow down on that lap.  Whether that made any difference or not…
It was a good comeback for the Target team, T.K. starting on the front row, we’re on the inside of the third row.  Considering how the weekend has been going, I think we’ve made some good improvements.  Hopefully we race a little bit better.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re also joined by Team Penske’s drive Will Power.  Will will be starting fourth.  Will has won pole here the last four years here at St. Petersburg and won the race in 2010. 
Will, what was qualifying like for you?
WILL POWER:  Just trying to get through every round without making a mistake.  The Fast Six, that was as quick as I could go.  The car wasn’t that bad.  We got a little bit of work to do, but definitely happy to be qualifying in the front two rows.
It’s a pretty long race.  Make sure we get everything right and see where we come.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll continue with questions.
Q.        What parts of the track changed the most from your first session to the end?
WILL POWER:  Just got a dry line basically everywhere.  Just got dryer, dryer, dryer.  At the end it was completely basically a dry track.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re also joined by Tony Kanaan.
Tony, another strong start for Chip Ganassi Racing.  You’ll be on the front row.  What are you expecting from tomorrow’s race?
TONY KANAAN:  It feels good not to see 17 cars in front of me on the start.  We were doing the math.  Probably three years I haven’t made it to the Fast Six.
It’s good.  It’s just qualifying.  You still got to make it to turn one tomorrow.  We’ll see.
I’m happy.  The whole team, I think we did a great job.  We were pretty competitive all weekend with one of our cars.  Probably for the fans qualifying was fun, but for us it was quite hard.
 
THE MODERATOR:  What has the experience at Target Chip Ganassi racing been like you so far?
TONY KANAAN:  It’s been awesome.  It’s quite a bit different than what I was used to.  I have very tough teammates that keep me on my toes.
I have to say they made me feel pretty comfortable in the past three months.  For me to adapt, it wasn’t that difficult.  Obviously there are quite a few things that I need to relearn.  We have a lot more information.
Like I said, with four teammates, it reminds me back of the Andretti Green days.  It’s been good for so far.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll continue with questions.
Q.        The race being 110 laps, would you rather have two sets of red tires and one black, or distance-wise is it better to have blacks?  I heard Firestone brought the same tire you had last year.  .
TONY KANAAN:  It’s tough to say.  I mean, I would say I would prefer to have more tires, period, for the we
ekend.  Right now it’s hard to say black or red.
We’ll find out tomorrow, that’s for sure.
 
Q.        Scott, as the reigning series champion, what is it like being back now that you have several practices and a qualifying under your belt?
SCOTT DIXON:  It’s fun.  It’s good to be back at St. Pete.  It’s probably not my favorite track as far as speed-wise.  It’s probably the best place we could kick off the season.
I think with the momentum we’ve had from the past few years, obviously with Verizon coming onboard as a series sponsor, I think it’s huge for us.
I think we’re all excited.  The weather has been a bit funky for the past two days, but tomorrow I think is going to be perfect weather conditions.  Hopefully we have lots of fans out here and put on a good show for everybody.
But, yeah, it’s good to be back in the car.
 
Q.        Tony, is there any part of the track that feels different this year from last year?  How has that track been maturing?  Any pieces that you have to attack a little differently?
TONY KANAAN:  I was talking to Scott about that.  They did repaint going into turn one where the runway is, the white stripes on the inside.  I felt that they were new.  I think that’s the only part.
Felt it was a little bit bumpier everywhere else, as well.  To me the biggest one was turn one.
 
Q.        T.K., not only do you look good in red, you seem very happy.  Talk about the rejuvenation you feel to get off to such a good start.
TONY KANAAN:  I think it’s quite normal.  I was in a very good position back in the days when I was with Andretti.  For whatever reason or the circumstances were, I took a big hit on that when I had to leave.
The struggle for the past three years with finding money, not just doing what I want to do, which is drive the car, I didn’t realize then, but for sure now I can see.
Yeah, I’m happy, because I think anybody that would be
driving that 10 car, you could ask anybody on the grid, they would be smiling the entire time.
I’m in a very good organization, probably one of the best positions I’ve been in my career in IndyCar.  There’s no reason to be unhappy.  I’d have to say I’m happier because I was always happy.  I’ve been mad a couple times.
We came out of a great year last year winning the 500 and things just happened after that.  That’s probably it.
Q.        Being a street course, you don’t get to practice here, you just come and race.  Is the track slippery?  I’ve heard them say that on the PA that it’s very slick.
TONY KANAAN:  Always.  When we come here every year I think the track starts a little slippery.  For some reason this year, in my opinion, has been worse than years before.  You can look at the lap times, as well.  We were a little slower in both sessions.
It’s hard to tell.  We don’t know if we came in with the same tires as last year, same conditions.  It’s hard to tell.  But definitely felt that it was slipperier than years past.

CHEVROLET ADDS TO HISTORIC WIN TOTAL AT MARTINSVILLE
Kurt Busch Earns First Race Victory of the Season and Leads a Podium Sweep for the Chevrolet SS
 
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (March 30, 2014) – Chevrolet added another notch in the win column at Martinsville Speedway, bringing the all-time victory total to 53 wins in 104 races at the 0.526-mile track. Kurt Busch brought home the victory for the bowtie brand in his No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS.  The win in the sixth race on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) schedule, breaks an 83 race winless streak for Busch and is his second career victory at Martinsville.  Stewart-Haas Racing now has two drivers with victories this season. Busch joins his teammate Kevin Harvick as the sixth race winner in the NSCS this season.
 
“I didn’t know if we’d be able to do it,” said Kurt Busch following the race. “The No. 48 car is king here – him or the 24. The old theory is if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. We have a Hendrick chassis prepared by Stewart-Haas Racing. Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet… thanks to those guys. I’ve been on this journey for a while. Every time you come to Martinsville you draw a line through it; like ‘there’s no way I’ll be able to challenge those Hendrick guys or challenge for a top-10’. This Stewart-Haas team gave me a team to do it. Now I know what I need to do on Saturdays: don’t even practice. Just show up and race on Sunday that way I won’t dial out the car! It’s a dream come true to have Gene Haas call you and tell you that he wants you to drive and he wants to go for trophies and wins. It’s an unbelievable feeling to deliver.”
 
Busch led a Team Chevy sweep of the top-three positions.  Jimmie Johnson, an eight-time winner at Martinsville Speedway led a race-high 296 laps in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, but was overtaken by Busch for the win with only a 10 laps remaining, relegating the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion to a second-place finish.  Johnson was followed by his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet SS, in the third position.  Earnhardt, Jr. battled his way from the 26th starting spot to earn a top-three finish.  With the run; Earnhardt, Jr. resumes the point’s lead by nine markers over Matt Kenseth (Toyota).
 
Other Chevrolet SS drivers earning top-10 finishes at Martinsville were Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet SS who earned a seventh-place finish and Paul Menard, No. 27 Pittsburgh Paints/Menards Chevrolet SS as he ended 500 laps at the paperclip shaped track in the 10th position.
 
Joey Logano (Ford) was fourth and Marcos Ambrose (Ford) was fifth to round out the top-five.
 
Next week the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for round seven of the 2014 season. 
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS, RACE WINNER
KERRY THARP:  Let’s hear from our winning race team of today’s 65th annual STP 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race here at Martinsville Speedway.  Our race winner is Kurt Busch.  He drives the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet for Stewart‑Haas Racing, and he’s joined by his crew chief Daniel Knost.  Congratulations to the No. 41 team.  Very well deserved, and glad to have you guys up here today.  This is Kurt’s 25th win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  This is the silver anniversary for your victories here today.  You were part of 33 lead changes, which is a new track record, and certainly can’t wait to hear you talk about how the race unfolded at the end.  Daniel’s first win as a crew chief, just your sixth start as a crew chief, and you’re a Virginia Tech grad.  Being able to win your first race in your home ‑‑ I know it’s not a state, it’s a commonwealth.
Let’s hear from Kurt.  Talk about this win here today and what it means to you as a racer and to be able to get into the Chase and just the significance of winning this here today.
KURT BUSCH:  Well, it’s an unbelievable feeling, you know, to have a shot at winning, and when it comes across you, you want to deliver for your team.  There’s things you have to do in the car to manage your emotions and then tires, most importantly, and to be in position to win this early with the Haas Automation team, it’s been for ‑‑ to the credit of a lot of hard work and a lot of mistakes have been made, but enough that we could learn from.  To deliver for Gene Haas this early, it shows the potential of this team.  I know Kevin Harvick won earlier this year at Phoenix, and I think our strength this year with the Haas Automation Chevy and most of Stewart‑Haas Racing has been at the short tracks.
A win like today is a great step forward.  I don’t want it to camouflage any of the work, though, that we still have to do to make our car stronger and to be more competitive week in and week out, but don’t think that I’m not going to enjoy this for one moment.
I’m going to soak this in.  This is an unbelievable feeling, to get back to victory lane after this tour that I’ve been on, to find this opportunity with Stewart‑Haas, and to win, it means the world to me.  That’s what I’ve always driven for was just going for the wins and you let the rough edges drag on the other side.  You get compared to guys that are sponsor dreams and they’ve won one or two races, and now to hear that I have 25 wins and to have a championship and to hoist a trophy at a track that I would draw a line through this track every time I’d show up not ever having a shot to win because it was one of my worst tracks.  So it shows what teamwork is all about.  That’s what I want everybody to take away from today is teamwork.  What better way to win than using that old cliché, can’t beat ’em, join ’em.  I’ve got a Hendrick chassis and a Hendrick motor prepared by Stewart‑Haas Racing, and we brought our No. 41 car home to victory lane.
Awesome feeling.  Thanks to Daniel.  His pit calls were wonderful.  The pit crew did an excellent job holding serve on pit road, and every time that I had a little handling issue, Daniel had a fix for it today, so great teamwork.  Thank you, Daniel.
KERRY THARP:  Certainly it’s a big deal, too, the first time the Haas Automation Chevy has visited victory lane.  Daniel, talk about how it feels to have your first victory as a Sprint Cup Series crew chief.
DANIEL KNOST:  You know, it’s very exciting.  In some respects it hasn’t hit me.  You have that kind of moment on the box where you yell and scream and stomp your feet and hit something and you get that out, and now, maybe just in a little bit of a daze.  I can’t believe that I’ve had success come to me this fast.  But we’ve got a great driver, we’ve got a great organization.  We have guys that really work hard on our stuff, and that is manifesting itself.  We took a chance and almost got it last week and this week we cashed in, so I think our group is pulling together at a good pace.
Q.  Kurt, Kevin Harvick said one of the main reasons he wanted to join Stewart‑Haas was to get the Hendrick equipment.  Is it that much different and that much better?

KURT BUSCH:  You know, it still is about the people.  You can have the best things given to you or you can purchase them, such as Gene Haas and Tony Stewart have, and they’ve provided us with a foundation to work off of.  Every team has their own custom pieces that they add to the car.

I do have to thank Rick Hendrick, though, for allowing the information that they create to be shared and for the technical alliance to exist and for us to run those motors.  It’s a Chevrolet brand, and coming from a Chevrolet brand last year, there’s small little things that are different, but let’s face it here, Jimmie Johnson has got six championships, and the Hendrick group, every week it seems like are the cars to beat.  So that’s what Harvick’s mentality was, is let’s ju
mp in with that equipment and shift gears.  He’s been with Childress for a dozen years, so a big change for him, and I was happy to see him win at Phoenix right away.
Q.  Getting the box checked and getting essentially a seat in the Chase, you’ve got this upcoming huge opportunity and challenge coming up with the double.  Does that take pressure off doing that and make that easier for you?

KURT BUSCH:  Wow, that kind of hit me hard.  I hadn’t thought of that.  My focus is here in the stock car world and with my NASCAR team.  It is nice, though, to have a genuine position now to make the Chase.  At this pace, though, six winners in six weeks, right, or is it five?
Q.  Six.

KURT BUSCH:  It’s going to fill up quick, and we have to do our job on this 41 team to develop as a team and to be a bona fide chase contender when the Chase starts.  So we’re not going to rest on this win.  We have a long way to go, though, to get up into that top 16 in points, and once we get there, let’s keep digging.  Consistency now is what we’ll focus on.  A win is a win.  If we get a second win, that’s when I would call ourselves locked in.  But we have this consistency battle that we have in front of us, and I’m up for this challenge, especially when you have all this weight lifted on your shoulders with a win so early.
Q.  Kurt, I asked Jimmie about this earlier, a couple years back you had famously said that you would rather lose to 41 other cars before the 48, but you’ve come a long way in the last couple years and he even mentioned that you guys had sat down and talked it out and everything was good on that front.  I’m curious, two years ago versus today, if you were in that same scenario, because you guys had a fantastic clean race there at the end, would your temperament have been different when you were attacking the 48 over those last laps?

KURT BUSCH:  You would think it would be worse today with not winning for two years.  It flashed through my mind when he passed me that I’m hungrier than he is.  I’m ready to tackle 10 prime rib steaks right now.  I was hungry, and I wasn’t going to let this slip away with it being so close.
You know, a few years back when we were battling, I was speaking for the fans.  Anybody but the 48, when you have the same winner time and time again, it can get stale, and I wasn’t doing my job well enough on that team to challenge Jimmie for the win and to knock him off the top.  When you win as much as he has, he has that target, and you want to go there and knock him off his podium.
It was great to have raced him, and there was that respect today because we don’t come from the same garage, but we do have some ties.  We do have Mr. H, we do have Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, and there is a little bit of that camaraderie of teammates back and forth, and you don’t want to start it off on a bad foot like that.  But that’s an epic‑type battle at a short track, with a six‑time champion to go back and forth and exchange the lead, a couple taps, a couple moves, a little bit of a chess game.  I was hoping I had enough rear tires to drive away from him at the end, and I got an arm pump at the end.  That was the hardest 30 laps I ever drove not to slip a tire in my life because I didn’t want to let last week where I let the win slip away, let it slip away this week.  So I gave it all I had, and it felt good.  It felt really good to give it my all and deliver and to win knowing that after this two‑year run it can still be done.
Q.  I understand Gene Haas wasn’t here, which I would think is pretty disappointing with the lengths that he went to to get you aboard.  Have you had any interaction with him after or anything at all?

KURT BUSCH:  He texted me on Friday, how’s it going.  I said, it’s Martinsville… he goes, what does that mean?  I said, we’re loose, we’re sliding all over.  He goes, well, just slow down.  His sarcasm is unbelievable.  I love him.  He’s great.  He gives us every tool we need to win, and when he hired me he said go for wins.  If you go out sliding sideways and you wreck, I’m okay with that.  Just bring home those trophies.  I said, deal, you’re just going to have to carry them out of victory lane.  Unfortunately Gene wasn’t here today to carry the trophy out of victory lane.  Daniel carried it out.  Last week at California we had a shot to win in his backyard and I didn’t deliver, and to see him go with the car to tech inspection and hang out with the guys and he wasn’t in a rush to jump on a plane to get out of there because he lives in Southern Cal, it was a moment missed, and I’m glad I could deliver the week after, and we need him back at the track again as soon as possible to help us win again.
Q.  You talked about the first win in two years.  Has not winning over the last two years been as frustrating or less frustrating considering you’ve been working with teams that are kind of growing?

KURT BUSCH:  You know, it was a process.  It was a challenge to work with those Furniture Row guys.  I thought we were knocking on the door about the 10th race in last year, and we couldn’t win.  It’s amazing how many things have to fall into place, and so I never doubted myself.  I never gave up.  I kept trying to find little stones to uncover and rocks to overturn to try to make teams better for the way that I knew how to make them, and I was just trying to find the right combo, trying to find the combo that Daniel found today, and Stewart‑Haas Racing is that combination for me.  It’s great to win six races in with a brand‑new team like this and have that feeling of a competitive organization around you.
Q.  And as far as what happened on pit road with Keselowski, can you talk about what happened and were you surprised that he was upset?

KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, I can’t believe he overreacted and he’s as upset as he is.  The 5 car was trying to pull into his box, Brad ran into the back of him, I steered right to go around Brad and then he clobbers our left‑side door, and it’s like, okay, accidents happen on pit road.  It’s congested.  It’s not a place to race, because of all the pit crew guys down there and I didn’t think much of it, and then once we were back out running, he targeted us, he was aiming for us.  He tried to flatten all four of my tires.  That’s a no‑fly zone.  That’s a punk‑ass move and he will get what he gets back when I decide to give it back.
Q.  You said that you were really going to let this victory soak in.  When you took that checkered flag, was it a sigh of relief of just like, I told you I’d be back, I’m back, and how have you changed?  How have these last two years changed you?

KURT BUSCH:  You know, I had such focus for the last 30 laps not to slip a tire and the emotion of performing at my best and then to deliver, I had this sharp chill go through my body of I’ve done it, I did it, I’m back on that stage, we’re with a competitive organization, we’re a winner, and it takes a team to do it.  I ran a lot of my early part of my career as an individual, and I didn’t respect my team, my team owners, and to have a team owner like Tony Stewart who’s a driver and an owner, I can communicate things to the mid‑level personnel, those are all the things that I knew I struggled with and that I needed to communicate better to the channels of people that are all part of this team.  It’s not just me and the crew chief or the pit crew that jumps over the wall.  There’s a full channel of everybody, and when you have racers like Greg Zipadelli that are there to help you, Matt Borland was there to assist Daniel in our growth, and a whole group of guys back at that shop that are hopefully not going to tear the lobby down when we party, it’s that camaraderie and it’s that feeling. 
Those Furniture Row guys gave it to me.  The Phoenix Racing guys gave it to me, but we just never were able to deliver a win, but we’ve been knocking on the door for the last two years, and it feels great to get back there.
Q.  You won this race after I think earlier you had even said you’re done and there was a lot of adversity early, the Keselowski thing probably would have rattled you or anybody.  How did you refocus at that point?  How did you pull yourself together, brush that off and say I’m just going to move past this?

KURT BUSCH:  Because it wasn’t that big of a deal.  When somebody has a problem on pit road, it’s like, ooh, I’m glad everybody is cool, pit crew guys are fine, and then he brought it out on the track and he really tried to ruin our day.  If we would’ve got a flat tire at that moment, we would have gone a couple laps down because it was a green‑flag condition, and there would have been hell to pay.
Q.  You touched on a question that I was going to ask about, and that’s the dynamic of driving for a driver and what that means not just for the Kurt Busch team but for the entire organization.  If you want to just expand on that, and then secondly, at what point did that car come in?  Did Jimmie start to lose?  Did you start to dial in because it seemed like maybe the weather conditions started to change, and at what point did that start working for you?

KURT BUSCH:  You know, it’s a blessing to have a team owner who’s a racer because then there isn’t the cloudiness or the lack of clarity when the drivers are asking for something specific.  I remember sitting in big meetings with Jack or with Roger and there was some question on what’s the driver really talking about.  Tony Stewart can really clarify that and move the things quicker.
It’s great to have him out there.  At Fontana we raced for the win, which was an interesting situation.  I really enjoyed racing him for the win, but the problem was the 14 and the 41, neither one of us won that day, so it’s kind of a bummer we didn’t deliver for our team last week.  It’s all about the team guys.  Tony can communicate very easily.
You know, the car never really told me it was a winning car, but we kept passing guys, and I got to 10th and I had to celebrate.  I was like, I’ve never been running 10th after 200 laps here before, and we kept looking out our windshield going to chase down more guys.  I didn’t know what that feeling was like to have a winning car here at Martinsville because I haven’t won here since 2002.
 Q.  You’ve taken a journey that none of us can relate to, can quite understand.  When you get to this point, what does winning feel like?  What is special again?  What has stood out in the last 25, 30 minutes and is part of this two‑year journey that you’ve gone on, and did you ever think you’d get back to this point?

KURT BUSCH:  You know, it’s a moment of self‑satisfaction and enjoyment of all the hard work that I’ve put in and all of the people that have been around me to help me, and to have a guy like Gene Haas believe in you and give you a shot with a brand‑new team and a brand‑new car.  You’ve got to put life in perspective, and you have to learn from your mistakes, and you can’t just sit there and try to muscle your way individually through certain situations, and so you rely on your experience level, you rely on your team, and this is a great day for me to be able to lift the trophy in victory lane for Stewart‑Haas Racing.
 Q.  You had said last year you really wanted to win and get little Houston in victory lane, so I’m curious what that moment was like today to finally be able to do that.

KURT BUSCH:  It’s pretty emotional.  To see him starry eyed and not knowing what he needed to do and I was directing him where he needed to stand and where he could see it all better and put him up on stage.  And to have him break down in tears, it got me crossed up because I’ve been trying to deliver for him, and when you deliver for your team and everybody that’s on this Stewart‑Haas, Haas Automation team, we’re all adults, but when the kids get involved and he gets to soak it in, it just kind of took it to a new level.  He busted out crying, and tears of joy from a nine year old are probably the heaviest tears of all.
 Q.  You kind of touched on this a little bit.  You said how special it was for a team that’s only basically six races old to be winning already, but for you personally, and you mentioned this, this has never been one of your best tracks.  When you add the two of those together for you guys going forward, doesn’t that even kind of provide you, sort of set it up for what could be a very special season when you’ve accomplished a goal like that so early at a place that’s been difficult for you?

KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, I don’t know how to exactly define it.  I’ve always looked at Martinsville as a struggle.  To get a 15th and just kind of move on.  To beat Jimmie Johnson and to pass for the win and have him pass me and then I got back by him, it was a great short‑track duel.  It was as if I hadn’t missed a beat.  But it’s been a long two years, and it’s been a lot of hard work, and I just kept staying the course.
You’ve just got to believe in the people that are around you, and I’m very thankful to have a chance to win today and to be in a good position for 2014 already with a race win and moving our way up through points.  Now our next objective is just to build more consistency in our Haas Automation Chevy.  Daniel deserves a lot of credit.  He’s brand new in his position, Wes, the lead engineer underneath him is brand new, the guy underneath him is brand new in his position, so a lot of guys we promoted internally.  I think the key to today’s victory was no practice on Saturday, so I’m taking Saturday off when we come back here in October, or just give me a blindfold.  I might do better.  I think I’ve been really good at dialing the car out on practice days here at Martinsville.  A lot of times we could just kind of roll the dice on Sunday morning with the setup.  We took advantage of today’s conditions with the track being rained out and the new ride height rule through a lot of teams’ guaranteed setups out the window, and it put everybody more on an even playing field today.
Q.  Can you talk about what a relief it is to get this win behind you because it makes the whole Indy challenge probably a little bit less daunting?

KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, it didn’t hit me until the question was brought up about Indianapolis.  I’ve had my mindset around the beginning of the season, get these first 10 races under our belt, and then once we get to Talladega and to Kansas, that’s when the Indy stuff will really start picking up.  There’s going to be a lot of flights back and forth.
This is just a great feather in the cap.  It’s a load off our shoulders.  There won’t be the questions or the distraction thought process anyway.  It’ll be, hey, the 41 car is doing well.  We still have a long way to go to be competitive to give ourselves a shot once the Chase starts, but my Indianapolis adventure, now we can breathe easier as we go through these next two months.
KERRY THARP:  Kurt and Daniel, congratulations.  Big win here today, and I suspect we’ll see more of that this season.  Enjoy this victory.
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 2ND
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 3RD  
KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll right into our post‑race for this afternoon’s 65th‑annual STP 500, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race here at Martinsville Speedway, and our second‑ and third‑place finishers have joined us here in the media center.  Our race runner‑up is Jimmie Johnson.  He drove the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet for He
ndrick Motorsports.  Our third‑place finisher is his teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr.  He drove the No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.  Jimmie, certainly contended for the win throughout the day, back and forth with the 41 car over the last 50 or 60 laps.  Tell us what happened out there.
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Just a very strong race car.  We unloaded off the truck fast and qualified well and had an awesome car here in the race today.  Of course disappointed not to get to victory lane, but there wasn’t anything else I could do.  Man, I got back by him and I thought that we had control of the race then.  I felt like since I hadn’t seen him through really any part of the day that he might have me on short‑run speed but he would fall off.  He stayed in my mirror and found a way back by me and then got a car length or so on me and did an awesome job.  I wish I could have gotten the win here for the 30th anniversary, but I came up a little short, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.
KERRY THARP:  Dale, certainly you battled throughout the day, got in a couple of bumps and bruises out there it looked like, but just talk about the race out there today.  Certainly was no easy task out there getting around this short track today.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  Yeah, well, it was pretty easy until the end.  You had to just discipline yourself to not use the throttle, and I think we’ll have a lot of fun looking at the throttle trace on some of them runs because I was quarter throttle at the max, under the lap I was probably quarter throttle toward the end of them runs, even on the straightaways.  There just wasn’t no point in mashing the gas any further than that.  When guys were faster, I just let them go and just sit there.  I was real patient all day in saving the left rear, saving the left rear and just waiting until the end, see where we’d be.  We had good track position.  Inside of 38 laps to go I thought everybody was going to go like hell, and we all did and ended up running third.  I think the two guys in front of me were ‑‑ I was losing my car pretty fast there the last five laps so I didn’t have anything else to get there.  I got a couple lapped guys gave me the outside instead of the inside.  That’s their right, but that cost me a little time and maybe some wear and tire on my tires.  I thought when we passed the 22 we might be able to roll up there and get in the middle of the race for that win, but no, those guys’ cars, they were pretty good.
Q.  Jimmie, I think you set a record for lead changes today with 32.  Seemed like with you and Kurt the last 20, 30 laps, seemed like exceedingly clean racing.  Is that how it felt?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Man, we were so on edge slipping and sliding.  I gave him a little nudge to get inside him, and he came and put some pressure back on me, but it was so slight, honestly the cars were so on top of the track and slipping and sliding you would go out there and push one around with your hand.  I think the lack of security in our own car kept us from feeling more racy and putting a bumper to someone or really getting inside someone aggressively.  From the minute I would hit the brakes and go into the turn I was turning right and just drifting in there the whole time.
The lack of comfort probably prevented us from racing a little harder.
Q.  Dale, I was listening on Fan Vision, and Steve was apologizing during the race that he was reminding you so much about taking it easy and making your stuff last.  You mentioned that discipline.  Does it help having him in your ear to remind you when you’re running 30 or 40 laps that you’ve got to keep maintaining your speed?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly what ran through my mind when he said that, when he was saying I’m probably getting on your nerves, I’m thinking, man, I’m just going to bring it on because I’ll be missing this next year.  There’s nobody like him.  I don’t expect the next guy to come in there and mimic him or be like him.  We’ll work that out and communicate like we need to communicate going forward.  But yeah, he does a great job of keeping my mind focused on the tasks, and there’s several different things you’re doing in the car during a run, and you can forget to ‑‑ you can easily get yourself carried away and race a guy and forget taking care of your car and taking care of your left‑rear tire.  It’s easy to get swept up in the competition of things, and he’s good at sort of cheerleading you along the way and running the show.  He does a good job on top of the box.
Q.  With Stewart‑Haas winning two of the first six races, do you ever look at Rick and go, what were you thinking about bringing them on board as partners?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I don’t.  You know, I look at it as an opportunity to learn more.  I look at it as an opportunity to understand new ideas.  It’s a good partnership that works both ways.
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, totally agree.  They’re an important part of Hendrick Motorsports in general.  We wouldn’t be as strong as we are as a company if we didn’t have the relationship, either.
DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I’ll say I don’t know the crew chief on the 41 that well yet, but it’s been a real pleasure being able to communicate with Rodney from the 4 car.  You sort of build those relationships throughout the year with those guys, and it all works back and forth.
Q.  Did you feel any added pressure going into this week knowing that it was the anniversary of Rick’s first win and knowing that it happened at this track?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  You know, Rick has had so much success here starting with the first win, and it’s been great to watch Rick have so much success here.  It’s been awesome seeing the company go to victory lane.  It’s been great to be a part of understanding how that works and benefiting from it.  We run third today because we got great teammates that understand how to get around here and put good cars on the track, and we lean on that.  It’s been a great experience seeing it happen, and I’m sure that one of us would have loved to have won that race for Rick.  We’ll get more opportunities to win more races, and I’m just frustrated I’ve been chasing the clock here for so long.  Hopefully one of these days it’ll work out.
Q.  Dale, you mentioned racing with discipline today.  Can you afford to race with less discipline at other tracks like next week, for example?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  Well, when I mean by racing with discipline today, you couldn’t run any harder with the wear we had on the tires.  You just couldn’t afford to.  You saw how the 20 car and the 18 car, those guys would run real hard at the lead early in the race, and they set an example for the rest of us to watch out and be easy on that left‑rear tire, and it just goes away like a snap.
I couldn’t afford to run any harder if I wanted to be competitive on the end of these runs, and particularly we seen longer runs here than we saw today.  None of the runs went past 80 laps, but typically we see a good long run in the middle of the race, and we were just ready for that.
Q.  Jimmie, I don’t want to be the downer, but over the last couple years for as much as you’ve won, you’ve lost a lot of races dominating like today.  Are they starting to add up in your mind?  Any frustration?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:  No, but thanks for the reminder.
Q.  I said I didn’t want to be a downer.

JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I’ve got to figure something out.  Hopefully I’ll win a race soon or a championship.
To be truthful, last year I felt like some got away that I definitely had control of and was disappointed in myself on some of that.  Some of the stuff circumstances got me, but we left a lot of wins on the table la
st year for sure.
Today I couldn’t have done any more.  I just got beat.  You’re going to have those, too, and you’ve got to recognize when you get beat and you’ve got to recognize when you make mistakes, and today we just got beat.
Q.  What is the feeling today besides the fact you know you got beat at Martinsville, which you’ve won here eight times?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:  It’s nice to know our cars are good.  This track is in the Chase, so we’ll come back a lot smarter and try to prevent running second again.  You just learn from the situation.  I’m not saying there was a mistake today, but you learn from this weekend and carry it forward.  This is a brand new car and a lot of stuff to figure out, so I know in the coming months the car’s setups will be a lot different, and we’ll just keep evolving and try to prevent running second.
Thanks for the hard questions.
Q.  Jimmie, a couple years back Kurt was quoted on camera as saying there were 41 cars on the track he would rather lose to than losing to the 48, but you guys obviously had a great race today and it was predominantly clean.  Is that indicative of the fact that you two have gotten beyond that point and you’re now able to race without any kind of animosity?

JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, for sure.  I think things came to a head at Pocono and then Richmond was shortly thereafter.  After the Richmond race we sat down and talked long about things and got through it.  Through some of the struggles he’s had the last couple years before he landed at Stewart‑Haas, I’ve been there and kind of advised ‑‑ not necessarily advised, but had conversations with him, gave him my opinion.  I was happy to see him go to Stewart‑Haas.  He’s a fantastic driver, and with the way we share information, we can learn from him and learn from that.
We’re definitely in a good place, that’s for sure.  I think today was very representative of that.
KERRY THARP:  Dale and Jimmie, congratulations on a strong run here today and good luck at Texas next week.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 30, 2014
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN A CRASH ON LAP 199
IN REGARDS TO THE ON-TRACK INCIDENT:
“He (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) barely got into me and you hope that wouldn’t happen and he would get off of you, but he didn’t.  I went around and got into the wall pretty hard.  I don’t know if they will be able to fix it, but we had a really good run again and had a great McDonald’s Chevy and it’s just unfortunate.”
 
WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE?
“There was a lap car holding up our pack.  I thought the No. 88 would be a little more patient with me.  I had gotten by him in lap traffic.  Then he got on my inside.  When he got into me it was like it couldn’t get off and spun me around and just got into the wall there.  Really unfortunate had a good car, every race we’ve had good cars.  You just wish you weren’t racing for points because that is the hardest part to swallow is the point’s loss.  It’s fun to run well but that is what you will think about for the next five days.”

KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – WINNER
ON HIS RACE:
“I didn’t know if we’d be able to do it. The No. 48 car is king here – him or the 24. The old theory is if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. We have a Hendrick chassis prepared by Stewart-Haas Racing. Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet… thanks to those guys. I’ve been on this journey for awhile. Every time you come to Martinsville you draw a line through it; like ‘there’s no way I’ll be able to challenge those Hendrick guys or challenge for a top-10’. These Stewart-Haas team gave me a team to do it. Now I know what I need to do on Saturdays: don’t even practice. Just show up and race on Sunday that way I won’t dial out the car! It’s a dream come true to have Gene Haas call you and tell you that he wants you to drive and he wants to go for trophies and wins. It’s an unbelievable feeling to deliver.”
 
THE PIT LANE INCIDENT WITH BRAD KESELOWSKI
“We won. We’re not worried about any of that nonsense right now. We are a winner. We’re not guaranteed in the Chase but we have a win and we’re moving forward. Thanks a lot to everyone on this team. I can’t thank them enough.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
ON HIS RACE:
“I’d been loose in the final third of the race and was hanging on there. When (Kurt Busch) got back by me, I was hopefully that he’d wear his stuff out and I could get back by him. He did but I couldn’t hold him off. I started to get looser and looser. That’s all I had. I ran the rear tires off the car. I flipped every switch and knob I could get front brake and turn fans off to bring my balance back but it was a little too loose to get the win. I hate it. We had a very fast race car. I wish we could have gotten this for Rick (Hendrick’s) 30th anniversary.”

CHEVROLET RECOGNIZES HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS FOR 30 YEARS OF SUCCESS AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
 
DETROIT (March 29, 2014) – Chevrolet congratulates long-time partner Hendrick Motorsports on 30 years of winning. Hendrick Motorsports has fielded only Chevrolets in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The combination of two of motorsports’ most prominent names tasted victory for the first time April 29, 1984 when Geoff Bodine in a Chevy Monte Carlo earned the first checkered flag for Rick Hendrick’s organization. In the 30 years that followed, Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports have driven to a total of 219 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins and 11 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships.
 
During the past three decades, Hendrick Motorsports drivers have piloted the Chevrolet brand to Victory Lane at Martinsville Speedway 21 times. Geoff Bodine, Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson all have earned the prestigious Grandfather Clock trophy from NASCAR’s oldest track.  Gordon and Johnson, both Chevrolet NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers for the entirety of their careers, currently hold the record for most victories by active drivers at Martinsville Speedway with eight wins.
 
“We are extremely proud of our partnership with Rick and the Hendrick Motorsports organization,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “Rick’s success over the past three decades is the result of his passion, persistence and emphasis on teamwork to get the job done. As a result, Hendrick Motorsports has 272 wins and 14 NASCAR Owner Championships – all with Chevrolet. As a key partner and respected friend, we congratulate Rick and Hendrick Motorsports on 30 great years of racing and winning.”
 
Both Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports hold significant records at the 0.526-mile track.  Chevrolet is the winningest manufacturer there with 52 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins, and Hendrick Motorsports is the most decorated organization with 21 victories.
 
With the 2014 season in full swing, both Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports are off to a good start. Chevrolet leads the manufacturer standings while Hendrick Motorsports has already recorded a victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 placing Dale Earnhardt, Jr., driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet SS, into contention for the Chase. All four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet drivers hold positions in the top 20 in the point standings.  
 
Together Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports look forward to continued success in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series not only at Martinsville Speedway where all the trips to victory lane began, but at all the others along the way.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 28, 2014
 
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON AND JEFF GORDON LEAD TEAM CHEVY
IN QUALIFYING AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
FIVE TEAM CHEVY DRIVER’S WILL START IN THE TOP-TEN
 
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (March 28, 2014) – Chevy SS drivers and Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon led the way for Chevrolet in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) qualifying at Martinsville Speedway.   Johnson posted the fourth fastest time in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS and will be in search of his ninth victory at the .526 mile short track.  Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet SS, also an eight-time winner at Martinsville, will start fifth in Sunday’s STP 500.   In all, Chevrolet has captured the victory in over 50 percent of all NSCS races at Martinsville (52 of 103).  
 
44 entrants took to the track for the first session 30-minute session before the field was cut to the 12 fastest cars.  Those 12 cars moved to the final round two and were given 10 minutes to post another fast lap.  Five Team Chevy drivers ended the day in the final top-12 group – with all of them in the top-ten.

Tony Stewart, No. 14 Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS, recorded his best qualifying effort of the season and will roll off from the seventh starting spot on Sunday.  Stewart has three career victories at Martinsville with his last coming in 2011.   Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet SS will start ninth and Danica Patrick, No. 10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet SS, earned her best start of the season posting the 10th quickest time.

Kyle Busch (Toyota) was the pole winner, Denny Hamlin (Toyota) was second and Joey Logano (Ford) qualified third to round out the top-five.

The STP 500 takes the green flag on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET and will be aired live on FOX.
 
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FOURTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN:
“It was good.  Man it’s really really close on speeds.  I was surprised to see the tires kind of hang on as well as they did.  They didn’t seem to repeat that well in practice.  I guess it seemed if you went out early enough and could let everything cool down the tires would come back and be kind of similar to the run before.  I don’t know all that said it went well.  We have had a good car all day long and fourth is decent.”
 
YOU WERE WAITING TO THE END TO MAYBE MAKE A PASS AND CUT IT CLOSER TO THE END OF THE SECOND SESSION:
“Really managing your tire temps.  I thought there was going to be more chaos in that first outing and it was very well organized to everyone’s surprise I believe.  Where that put us behind is I lost 10 minutes there and then I’m sitting there on hotter tires wishing I had 10 more minutes to cool down like the guys who went early.  That is something we have got to stay on top of, but again I really thought it would be impossible to get a clean lap in that opening five minutes, but everybody stayed pretty well organized and friendly out there.”
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 CODE 3 ASSOCIATES/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SEVENTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN:
“I’m pretty happy. Code 3 Associates is on our car this week and the last time I drove their car, we won at Dover last year. Excited for them and excited for us.
 
“We’re battling weather here this weekend. It was supposed to rain out today and we got that in. Now they’re saying it might rain out tomorrow. If that does happen, I’m kind of comfortable with what we’ve got if we have to go straight to the race. We’ve got some things we can do to make it a little better, but all in all, our Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet is a pretty balanced racecar.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY/GET FOUND CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 10TH
HOW WAS YOUR QUALIFYING SESSION?
“Significantly better than it’s been so far this year.  I wasn’t very good in practice and I was laughing telling everyone it was one of my crew guys Jay that said put the fear of God in me to wreck this car.  He’s like ‘it’s a new car don’t wreck this car.’  So I was a little cautious but at the end of the day I don’t think we started off very well, but we made good improvements and when the car went into qualifying trim it was much better than it felt in race trim.  Hopefully, we can learn something from that.  Then Tony (Gibson, crew chief) made good changes from practice to qualifying because I was able to do what I wanted to do and what I asked to be able to do better.  That is why we went faster.”
 
YOU OBVIOUSLY WEREN’T EXPECTING THIS AFTER PRACTICING 29TH:
“Just got to expect the unexpected I guess.  I think that our practice started off a little bit rough because you go out with all those cars out on the track I was following another car and he was not coming up to speed and ended up getting passed by 15 cars it felt like in the first five laps.  You are just not really getting up to speed and in a rhythm so we didn’t really put a lap in at the beginning and then in our qualifying runs I feel like we improved a lot, but we still needed something.  That something Tony (Gibson, crew chief) gave me for qualifying.  That is the difference.  Then just nailing that lap, I mean that is qualifying.  I just have to get better at it.  I’ve got to get better at getting all of it out of the car every time and I have such kind of a negative attitude about qualifying that I said I need to be positive and at least be neutral on it and let these be positive reinforcements.  It’s so important and especially at a place like this.”
 
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 BUSH’S BEANS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 15TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN:
“We’ll be close enough to the front to at least be able to see when it goes green. It’s our best qualifying effort of the year. When you miss (getting in) by one-hundreth, it’s kind of tough to swallow. But ultimately we’re making our Bush’s Beans Chevy strong each weekend. To have our first top-10 finish last weekend. We’re steadily improving. We started out practice not so good but we got better as it went on. To be in the top-15 isn’t too bad.”
 

CHEVROLET INDYCAR V6
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
FRIDAY PRACTICE RECAP
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
 
ST. PETERSBURG (March 28, 2014) The 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season is officially underway as the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers worked on qualifying and race setup for Sunday’s season-opening race – Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
 
Will Power, No.12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, led the way for Team Chevy with a fast lap of 1:02.6443 seconds, 103,441 m.p.h. A total of 10 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 dirvers were on-track in today’s two sessions on 14-turn, 1.8-mile street course along the St. Petersburg shoreline.
 
Although the weather threatened during the day, the top-10 on the end-of-day final order were a mere.5 seconds apart.
 
Practice for Team Chevy  in the Verizon IndyCar Series will resume at 10:00 a.m. ET on Saturday. Firestone Fast Six qualifying is scheduled to begin 2:00 p.m. ET.
.On Saturday, fans can see: Mike Conway at 12:15 PM; Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya at 12:30 PM; Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Saavedra at 12:45 PM and Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan at 5:30 PM.
ABC will have a live telecast of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 30, with pre-race at 3 PM ET. The green flag will fly at 3:27 PM. The IMS Radio Network brings the action live to fans. Both the radio broadcast and live timing and scoring can be found on www.indycar.com.  Radio broadcast can also be heard on XM Radio 211/Sirius Radio 211.
 DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: “It was a good day for the Verizon Team. We tried to find the right set up, going back and forth with different things, but, overall, I feel real positive about us going back at it again tomorrow.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:  “Not a bad day today with the No. 2 Verizon Chevy. Obviously we wanted to be a little further up the speed charts, but we knew it was going to be a learning process. This is my first time on this circuit so we had to guess a little bit on the setups. Unfortunately we unloaded pretty far off. In the second sessions we picked up a big understeer. At that point we really quit focusing on speed and just tried to get the car driving better. I learned quickly that there are places on the track where the penalty of missing it is much greater than the gain, so from a track-learning perspective I’m much better off than I was when I got here.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: “Overall, it was a good job by the Hitachi guys today and it was good to get back out there after a long offseason. We avoided any issues and Mother Nature was messing with us a little bit. We improved a lot over the course of the day and put things together for a good session in the afternoon. That was a much smoother practice and we will continue learning and improving in the Hitachi Chevy as we go along.”
MIKE CONWAY, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA CHEVROLET:  “We didn’t find as much as we wanted between sessions 1 and 2.  We are struggling a bit to get the Fuzzy’s Chevy where we would like it in terms of time.  We tried a lot of things today and we’ll study our data and see where we can improve for Saturday.  The track wasn’t as bad with the grip level.  I think we can get better for the qualifying runs.  We continue to learn with Ed’s team and find the proper settings that I like too.  It’s the season opener so you would like to come out of the gate well.  I know we are working hard to find the best setup.”
ED CARPENTER, OWNER OF ED CARPENTER RACING, FIRST TIME ON THE TIMING STAND AS A TEAM OWNER: “It was okay on the stand today.  It’s a little hard on days like today because we didn’t do the best on track.  It was a disappointing day for Mike and the Fuzzy’s team.  We thought we had some easy things to fix to make the car faster from the first outing this morning.  But, in the second session today, the car just didn’t improve enough as we wanted.  Now we have to work overnight and work on things to get the car better for Mike.  We need to do a better job to give Mike what he needs.  The red flags can hurt a driver’s rhythm during a session but it is the same for everyone.  We will have to work on it now.”
TONY KANAAN, NO.10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET: “We had a very productive day with the Target team although the times might not necessarily show it.  Today is the day to make changes and try a lot of different things, and that’s what we took advantage of doing. We ran into some traffic and lost some time like everyone else, but that’s pretty typical for a street course race. I’m optimistic about tomorrow and gaining more time.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET:  “I think we are in a better position this afternoon than we were this morning with the Target cars.  The times are all pretty tight throughout the field and I think a lot of the other teams took tires at the very end of that session, when we opted not to.  We’re making progress but we just need to keep working hard and be ready for qualifying tomorrow.”
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHEVROLET: “It’s great to be back here in St. Pete.  It was a pretty good first day back at the track.  We made some good setup changes but we still have some work to do for tomorrow.  I think we’re on the right track.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVOLOG FLEXPEN CHEVROLET: “We had a really good first day. The No. 83 Novolog FlexPen car made a lot of progress and we got some great data from our teammates. I have full confidence that we’ll come back tomorrow strong.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET: “It was good to be back on track with all the other drivers for the first time in six months.  The Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing team had a productive morning practice. The afternoon session wasn’t as good because of the weather conditions. We weren’t as fast as we hoped, but I don’t think we are that far off. We will review the data and make some changes for tomorrow morning’s practice, then see what we can do in qualifying.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA: NO. 17 KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET: “It was kind of a rough start for the KV AFS team today. Wasn’t quite how we wanted to start the weekend, but I think we have now found the right direction to go. We just need to focus on a few small things, which will make a big difference to the car. There is a lot of work to do tonight, but tomorrow is an important day and we need to keep that momentum.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 28, 2014
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 AXALTA CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed his winning record at Martinsville Speedway, tire testing at Sonoma this past weekend and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOUR AND JIMMIE JOHNSON’S SUCCESS HERE AT MARTINSVILLE?
“Great race cars, great race teams.  I think just the approach that we have had and that is built from having some success over the years.  Hendrick has always given us great cars even from when I started coming here.  I found something that worked for me and I have been able to go back to when I come here and not a lot has changed.  I have mentioned that a lot of times, but this weekend there is the most drastic change I have seen in a long time because of the new ride height rules.  But for the most part, I think not a lot has changed as far as how you approach the way the cars are set up and how you drive the track since I first started coming here.  It’s nice to have something that you have learned that has worked and can be a constant that you can come back with and make it work over and over again.   It’s probably similar for Jimmie since he has started having success here as well.”
 
DO THINGS CHANGE COMING BACK HERE NOW THAT YOU HAVE WON HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN EIGHT YEARS?  WHAT DOES THAT MEAN COMING BACK HERE AFTER A WIN?
“It gives us more confidence.  I have always had confidence here because we always run good and have been in position many times to win but we didn’t.  Whether the caution came out or other things that maybe happened.  So I have always had confidence coming here because of laps led and having cars capable of winning.  But when you actually finish first and you complete what you set out to do it gives you added confidence and momentum going back to that track.”
 
REGARDING YOUR FIRST CUP WIN 20 YEARS AGO AT CHARLOTTE, WHAT DO YOU RECALL?
“That was such a huge moment for me.  I look back at that and I was still just a young kid and it was amazing that I was just in the Cup garage, at Hendrick Motorsports and had the opportunity that I had. You really never know what you are capable of doing until you accomplish it.  So every step of the way that I would go up to the next level and when you win for the first time you are elated and overwhelmed sort of at the same time.  That is how I felt that day and it also gave me a lot of confidence that we could win more races, and then we went on to win the Brickyard. 

“To do it at Charlotte not because it was the longest race, but it’s a prestigious race and people look at it as one of the toughest races to win – especially being longer.  But also just that track in general because it’s not an easy track to drive and win at.  So I think maybe not in the same category as Darlington but close to it.  When you look at tough places to get a win I think a lot of people would think of the old Darlington as one of the toughest and I would say Charlotte is right up there with it as well.”
 
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MENTAL TOUGHNESS THAT IS REQUIRED TO WIN THE 600?
“All the sudden we have got to talk about the 600 and I thought we were at Martinsville (Laughs).  I think it takes mental toughness to win anywhere but when you do have a very long race like that its mental toughness throughout the whole team.  There are a lot of pit stops and a lot of calls coming from the pit box by the crew chief and engineers. Then as a driver you go through some ups and downs and it’s such a long race that you just have to stick with it and it’s tough.”
 
ARE ANY OF THE NEW CHANGES AFFECTING HOW YOU DRIVE?
“I think any time the teams find more speed in the car it changes slightly on finding that limit of the car.  Whether it’s rolling out of the brakes sooner or getting on the gas sooner or harder, or not slowing the car down as much getting in the corner.  Those type of things.  But usually the grip of the car tells you that and you are constantly seeking the limit of the car and finding that edge.  So yeah, there is more grip in the car because of the spoiler and of the ride heights.  Nothing has changed, the teams have made the cars faster and you are always having to push yourself and push the car.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT NASCAR DECREASING HORSEPOWER NEXT YEAR?
“No, I am not in favor of it.  I think the reason they want to do that is to keep the cars bunched up more and it will do that.  I would like to see things that create more passing that go along with that.  I think more horsepower creates more passing, but it also can create more of a gap between teams, cars and drivers.  So whatever is going to help the sport grow and continue to be competitive and entertaining – I am going to support it.
 
“I am old school so when they start talking about things like that I am one of the last to adapt to it or accept it.  But what I do like is that they are planning for it with the teams, with the manufacturers, with the engine builders to do it the right way instead of just throwing a plate on it. That is not the way to go about it.  It’s going to take some real planning because we saw some tire issues last week and if you put less horsepower on us then the tire issues are only going to become greater.  We are actually going to be carrying more speed through the corner and not less.”
 
FOR DRIVERS WHO HAVE ALREADY WON THIS YEAR, DO YOU THINK THEY ARE BETTER CANDIDATES TO BE ROUGHED UP FOR A WIN AT THE END OF A RACE?
“Yeah, absolutely.  I think that there is such a huge advantage to them to be relaxed and go about business a different way than the rest of us who haven’t won yet.  I think you always have to look at both sides of it.  They are looking at it as ‘okay, we can be more aggressive with set ups and what we can do to prep for the next race or winning the championship’, but you also have to remember there are a lot of other guys are out there that haven’t won yet and are really hungry to get that win because we see how important it is.
 
To me it’s not just important to lock yourself in the Chase, we are all here to try and win the championship. And it is a huge step forward to winning the championship because of the mindset that you go into and how you approach each race after you have gotten a win.
 
JIMMIE SAID YOU HAVE TO BE ULTRA AGGRESSIVE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE TO GET TO VICTORY LANE, WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH?
“That must be why he has been winning a lot lately and I haven’t because that is not the way I win at Martinsville.  You have to be aggressive on restarts and that is just in general to where we go these days.  There are some tracks that I feel I have done a good job with that and others that I haven’t.  For me, this track is about finesse.  This track is about patience.  If it comes down to a late caution then I think yes, it comes down to aggressiveness but also what line you are in.  You want to be in that inside line and if you are in that outside lane then you can be as aggressive as you want but it’s not going to do a whole lot for you to get down and into that inside lane.  So yes, I have a different approach to that.”
 
HOW MUCH OF A FACTOR ARE BRAKES STILL HERE AT MARTINSVILLE?
“That is probably one of the things that has changed a lot.  I think if anything the brakes have gotten so good you have to be more careful of melting the bead on the right-front tire than you have to worry about brakes.  The brakes, the cooling has gotten so much better, the efficiency of the brakes has gotten so much better that I haven’t had to worry about brakes in a long time here.&nb
sp; I’ve had to worry about over heating other things, but not the brakes.”
 
FROM WHAT WE HAVE SEEN SO FAR WHAT DO YOU THINK THE RACING WILL BE LIKE AT TEXAS?  DO YOU THINK WE WILL SEE ANY ISSUES WITH THE TIRES THERE?
“I think we will see issues there.  We saw issues there last year.  I think as a team we are already looking at things that we were doing last year that we can look at trying to improve as far as abusiveness on the tires for Texas.  My question is did Goodyear test there?  Because from what I understand they didn’t test in California and I think that that was obviously a mistake.  Because I think so of those things may have shown up in that test.  Did they test in Texas and if they didn’t then I hope they have a back-up plan because I do think that we are going to have some issues there.”
 
YOU TESTED TIRES AT SONOMA THIS PAST WEEK DID YOU HAVE ANY DISCUSSIONS WITH GOODYEAR ABOUT FONTANA?
“I did not.  No, I’m too mad at them to have a discussion with them about that right now.  I went and did everything I could to put the best test together that I could there to learn what we could to go to Sonoma and win.  Tires aren’t an issue there when it comes to that type of situation we had at Fontana.  I did not discuss it with them.”
 
SO THEY NEED TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT ISN’T NECESSARILY HARDER BUT SOMETHING WHERE THERE ARE NO BLOW OUTS?
“Don’t get me wrong we all play a role in it.  You can easily sit here and say ‘oh well the teams were not conservative enough, there were teams that weren’t having issues.’  Well I mean we saw issues on Saturday and we detuned our car from a tire abusive standpoint.  We still had a great race car but we were having problems throughout the whole day.  We were one of the fortunate ones that never had one that came apart.  Every pit stop there were plenty of signs that it could happen to us just like it happened to anybody else.  I think when you have that many cars that are that close to being on the edge or going over the edge then the tire is too aggressive or something else needs to be looked at.  The teams have all gotten, with the ride heights and everything they are doing, they have got more aggressive no doubt about it.  But that is what it’s going to take to win races and if no tire test happens at that track then I think that I would question why not.”
 
WHY NOT JUST MANAGE YOUR TIRES BETTER?  BUT IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY ARE BLOWING OUT RIGHT?  IT’S NOT A MATTER OF TIRE WEAR?
“Yeah, tire wear I have no problem with tire wear.  I know how to manage tire wear.  But when it’s the sidewall and you don’t know is it the bumps on the back straightaway, is it the apron in turn three and four, is it speed, is it air pressure, camber?  I mean I heard where people were low on pressure came up on pressure and that didn’t seem to fix it.  When those things are happening it definitely makes you nervous because you don’t want to be that close to the edge.  I think we all were very close to the edge.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE RACING WILL BE LIKE AT TEXAS?
“I hope you like the racing in California.  I thought the racing was really amazing.  I didn’t like that we had to have a caution every 21-25 laps.  To me Texas is always harder on tires than California.  So that is what makes me a little bit concerned.  I have loved going to Texas the last few times because I’ve had good race cars and I love how the groove widens out and you can run all over the race track.  But I want to make sure we can go through a full fuel run too.”
 
SO WAS THE FACT THAT YOU WERE SET-UP FOR A LONG RUN IN CALIFORNIA WAS THAT BY DESIGN OR WAS THAT JUST THE HAND YOU WERE DEALT?  HOW WOULD THAT IMPACT TEXAS STRATEGY?
“It is sort of my M.O. it’s part of the way I like to drive the cars and something that is sort of worked for me throughout my career.  I like a car that runs good on the long runs.  I feel like taking care of tires and managing that has been one of my specialties over the years. Part of it is because that is my approach.  Sometimes that hurts me on the short run sometimes that hurts me on the restarts with two to go or five to go.  I mean last week that is just to me the way the car was.  It took a couple of laps for it to come in, but boy when it came in it was unreal.  There at the end I knew that Jimmie (Johnson) had more issues than I had and I tried to push him hard.  Because one I wanted to keep pressure on him and not make it easy for him and I wanted to pass him.  As it turned out as soon as I got to him and pushed real hard I started having the vibration which I thought was a tire issue.  As it turned out the tire was going to make it.  I’m not sure where the vibration came from we never found it.  At that point I backed off and then Jimmie had the problem.”
 
WITH THE PROSPECT OF EVEN MORE TIRE WEAR AT TEXAS COULD YOU BE PERSUADED TO CHANGE TO A SHORTER RUN STRATEGY?
“You never want to be the first one to have tire issues.  So if anything I would probably go with the opposite.  I would go with making sure that you never bring out the caution because of a tire failure.  The other thing is being out front, actually being in cleaner air helps.  To me I wouldn’t do anything any different.  I felt like we were in perfect position to win that race.  Had we been in the outside lane on that last restart it would have been a whole different deal.  We wouldn’t be talking about how terrible of a restarter I am and finishing 13th at California.”
 
THAT LONG RUN STRATEGY DOES THAT IMPACT YOUR RESTARTS AT ALL?
“It does.  I don’t know how everybody else approaches it.  I only know how we approach it.  Sometimes your car just has short run speed not by design it just does.  I would say more times than any our car has long run speed and it’s because of what I’m looking for in the car.  Rarely do I go into a race practice going ‘I want to see my name at the top of the board to put that one fast lap up and be great for five laps and then it fall off.’  I’m always like ‘I don’t care about the board I care about a 10 laps average, a 20 lap average, a 30 lap average and being good in the middle to the end of a run.’  That is just how we approach it.  You could say ‘oh well, but more races come down to short runs now.’  They do, but sometimes they don’t and so I mean that is just the way we race and the way we build it in there.  Then you try to change air pressure and do some things to maybe make it better on the short run so you can have the best of both worlds.
 
“Honestly, last week was not because our car wasn’t good enough on the short run at the end, my car was plenty on the short runs.  It’s because we started on the inside lane and Kyle Busch about knocked me into the grass as I got underneath him going into (Turn) one.  Then they go three wide on the outside of me and we were done.  That is all it takes is that quick of a thing to happen and all of a sudden your race is kind of gone.”
 
WHEN NASCAR CHANGED THE QUALIFYING PROCEDURE THIS YEAR IN YOUR OPINION SHOULD THEY HAVE DONE THE SAME THING FOR THE SPRINT ALL-STAR RACE?  OR SHOULD THEY HAVE LEFT THAT THE WAY IT WAS BECAUSE IT WAS ALREADY KIND OF DIFFERENT?
“It’s unique and cool and different and fun.  I’m not saying they can’t maybe blend what we are doing now and enhance the all-star qualifying and mix it together, but I love making the pit stop.  Incorporating the whole team into it is pretty cool.”
 
 

DARIO FRANCHITTI, TEAM AND DRIVER ADVISOR FOR  CHIP GANASSI RACING INDYCAR PROGRAM and four-time Verizon IndyCar Series champion and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, met with members of the media and discussed his role at Chip Ganassi Racing, driving the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 to pace the 2014 Indianapolis 500, the Chip Ganassi Racing 2014 driver lineup and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
An Interview With:
 
DARIO FRANCHITTI
 
 
THE MODERATOR:  A little different role with Chip Ganassi Racing than last year, kind of stepping in as a driver coach for this year.  Dario, first of all, how are you?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Yeah, feeling fine, thank you.  It’s not really a driver coach.  It’s more of sort of an advisory thing.  When you have drivers like Tony and Scott and Ryan and Charlie, you’re not really coaching as much as occasionally having a discussion about something.  I think we can come up with some ideas.  So it’s more in that kind of role, working with them, working with the engineers a bit.
            Right now we are just getting ‑‑ it’s a new role so we are just getting used to it and we are just all coming up with ideas to maximize it, too.
            So apart from that, no, doing well.  Good to be back at the track.  Get the season started.  A little different not to be out there practicing this morning.  Felt a little strange when everyone was peeling out there for their installation laps, but physically quite good and mentally not too bad, either.  Getting used to the after effects of the concussion and they are getting less all the time, so good.
 
            Q.  And you just mentioned that role specifically, but day‑to‑day, here today at St. Pete, what are your day‑to‑day responsibilities with the team in this new role?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Responsibilities, that’s a big word.  They vary.  Really depends on what the team, what the drivers need.  It can be going to a particular corner and watching or it could be going over data and it could be just discussing tricks in different corners or might bring some direction like we had before.  Just really depends if the Target guys are here, if the Target guests are here, then working with those guys, as well.
 
            Q.  And you are joining us after a pretty exciting announcement last week in New York that you will be driving the Chevrolet Camaro Z28 pace car at the Indy 500 this year.  What is that experience like for you?  It’s quite an honor.
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I’m delighted to do it and I have said thank you to the guys at Chevrolet and Mark Reuss, Jim Campbell and everybody that made that happen, because I’ve been a Honda driver for most of my IndyCar career.
            So for them to kind of give me the honor of letting me drive the pace car is really cool.  I got to do some practice the other day at the Speedway, a couple laps, and it was good fun.  It’s a very quick car and a lot of fun to drive.  It’s going to be different to be on the grid at the Indianapolis 500, and just savoring all the atmosphere and the crowd and all that stuff because my job before has been to block all that out and just focus.  So that’s going to be an interesting experience.
            And one I’m looking forward to, heading back home in Indiana, bittersweet; obviously it’s the last time Jim ‑‑ that he’s going to sing that.  Hopefully they can record it or something and just play it because I don’t think anybody does it like Jim does.
            So, no, it’s going to be interesting watching all the other drivers getting nervous before the start and stuff and I’ll be nice and chilled out.
 
            Q.  (No mic).
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I’m not sure what the Marino sports car program is going to look like after Sebring.  I think they are still ‑‑ Chip and the team and Lou and his people are all trying to work that out right now.
            So, I hope so.  I hope so.  I didn’t actually get to Sebring.  I wasn’t at the race, but it was wonderful to watch at those last laps, I was so proud of the job he did there and he just took off and did exactly what he had to to win that race.  It was a stunning display.  Even Chip was impressed, so I was very proud of him.
 
            Q.  (No mic).
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Toronto.  I’m commuting there from Scotland.  Moving back home to Scotland, so I’m going to be in Toronto for the races there, the IndyCar races.  Other than that, I don’t know.  I’d like to.  I’d like to see more.
 
            Q.  Following up on that, you moved back to Scotland?  That’s going to be more permanent?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Yeah, uh‑huh.  That’s the plan.
 
            Q.  Following up on what you said, I don’t mean to get personal about it, but it did interest me, you said getting used to the after effects of having a condition cushion, can you give a sense of what that is like?  What does that look like, because we all have taken some lumps.  What does it feel like?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  It’s not the first time it’s happened.  In 2000 I had a very sizable concussion, too, and other ones in between.
            But memory is not that good, that kind of stuff.  Just not quite as sharp.  Some of the guys on the team will tell you I was never that sharp to start with but less sharp or more blunt.  Just a couple little things like that.
            Those are the main sort of things, and just trying to have that balance of ‑‑ because if I push myself to the level I did before and flying around and all that kind of stuff, it’s a little much right now.  So just kind of look for that balance.
 
            Q.  As far as ‑‑ of course you’re going to be a star at Indy now out there in the Camaro, but as far as stars go, there are a lot of champions and all different ‑‑ you get to meet a lot of these people and you have a little star power yourself, for sure.  What does it take to get to the top?  Why are there so many unemployed people that never make it to the very top?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Of racing?
 
            Q.  Of racing, at anything.
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I think there’s about a million different things have to go right in order to be successful, and one of those is luck, being in the right places at
the right time and surrounding yourself with the right people.  It’s not something that’s about one person.
            No driver out there today in the IndyCar Series has got there because they did it all on their own.  It’s about a team of people, and even a success or failure this weekend in the race here at St. Pete, will be because of a team effort, including the driver.
            There’s always ‑‑ yeah, there is that team aspect, we talk about all the time, and it is huge.  And you’ve got to surround yourself with different people along the way, and some of that luck is meeting the right people at the right time.  I was lucky enough to meet Jackie Stewart who wanted to help me.  It’s stuff like that.  When you think about it, and you think of all the things that have to go right to get into the position of even competing in an IndyCar race, never mind winning one; it could have gone wrong very easily at any step along the way.
 
            Q.  How is your relationship with Scott Dixon going to be different with your new role, or is it going to be different at all?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Not really different at all, I would say.  Wow, like if I was sitting here as a driver, I would be thinking of every way how to beat him.
            You know, we had ‑‑ as drivers, we had a very open relationship of sharing information and helping each other to the point we would talk about different corners; and hey, what are you doing there, what are you doing there, and actually offer each other information.
            But now, one of my jobs is to absolutely make sure that ‑‑ do everything in my power to make sure him and Tony, Charlie and Ryan have got everything they need to be successful.  So there’s no ‑‑ I’ve gone from kind of being in some ways, as well as a teammate, obviously a competitor, to being part of that team to make sure that they are successful.
 
            Q.  You’ve obviously worked with him a long time.  What makes him as successful as he’s been?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Skill, determination are the two big things that come to mind when I think of him.  He’s tremendously talented, but the determination that he has is something special, and particularly, as he’s been successful, he hasn’t slowed ‑‑ that determination has not gone away, basically.  He’s kept that and that’s I think one of his strongest assets.  He knows how hungry he was when he was a young kid coming over from New Zealand, trying to make it all happen.  Now he’s got all the trappings of success but it doesn’t change his outlook.  Kind of unusual like that.
 
            Q.  (No mic).
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I’m not looking too far ahead.  The job ‑‑ trying to explain the job, but the relationship with the Ganassi organization, with the Target guys, took care of that sort of first thing, because that was the first thing that I really wanted to do.
            So the fact that we quickly, Chip and I were like, hey you want to do this, and I’m like, absolutely and so that gave me that sort of focus but not the same level of intensity as when I was a driver.  So I’ve got the chance to do other things, go to other races.  You know, go and do road trips, take a bit of time off, all that sort of stuff.  I haven’t thought more than, I’d say I haven’t really thought too far ahead right now.  But my goals are, as I said, to help these guys in any way I can to win races and win championships.
 
            Q.  (No mic).
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Double‑edged sword really.  Sometimes I miss it and some days I don’t miss it at all.  Most ‑‑ I used to put a lot of pressure on myself, and my sort of intensity level was fairly high.
            I thought about this all the time; this is all I did, and so I enjoyed the fact I can just chill out a little bit, but I do miss that little hit of adrenaline sometimes that you get from the pressure and being up against it, being up against that pressure.  But it has its good sides, too.
 
            Q.  Either here or at Daytona, did you, when you got to the track, did you have any sense of sadness that you weren’t driving?  Did that hit you at all?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Yeah, Daytona did, actually.  The night before the race, we went out to dinner, and actually the night before practice, we all went out to dinner with Chip and all the boys and we were driving back with Scott, and I think it was with Scott, Tony and Marino, and I started thinking about the next day, and I’ve got to get ready and it suddenly hit me, no, I don’t.  I don’t have to worry about that.
            And I was ‑‑ that was a little sad.  And then the start of the race was a bit difficult.  The good thing about that, Allan McNish was in Daytona too, and obviously he’s just retired, too, so him and I compared notes on what we were going through.
            And sometimes I find myself sort of slipping into the driver mind‑set of getting ready, and quickly it comes back that, no, I’m not doing that anymore.
 
            Q.  What sort of pressures does TK have in replacing you, the champion, and in many respect, the face of the series?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Well, TK is the current Indianapolis 500 winner.  So, you know, he’s a big star.  He’s a big guy.  The pressure, if he wanted to mess himself up, he could sort of think about the pressure of the success of the Target team, the success of the 10 car.
            But I think that’s not a good way to think about things.  TK will write his own story.  Anyway, as I was saying to Kanaan ‑‑ yeah.  No, he’ll write his own story.  Just as well ‑‑ my peripheral vision isn’t what it once was.  Mind you, there’s a few out there with the same problem (Laughter).
 
            Q.  I understand that it’s been decided that they are not going to do double‑file on the restarts, and I wonder, since you’ve done single‑file and double‑file, how do you feel about that?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I’m for the single‑file restarts.  The double‑file, I think it looks kind of spectacular as it came up to the start, but then what then happened was if you got a run on somebody, the track was blocked, anyway, because it was ‑‑ naturally two‑wide became sort of three‑ and four‑wide; where, if you start on single file, you make a run on somebody and you have a chance of making a pass.
            I just didn’t think it suited IndyCar Racing, open‑wheel rac
ing, when cars are bouncing off each other so much, and that did happen a lot.  So I’m all for the single‑file restarts on road and street courses and Indianapolis, too.  It was a good decision.
 
            Q.  Hope this didn’t get asked, but now that you don’t have to train every day, is that something that you miss or don’t miss?  I’m sure you still work out but it’s a little different?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I’m glad Kanaan left because he’d start laughing at that point.  Do I miss it?  I’m training, not to the same intensity level, but every day I’m doing something.
            I used to run because I had to, and I miss running because I can’t, but I can cycle.  I can do a lot of cycling.  The guys at Trek are fitting me for a new bike this week which will be a challenge with all my various ailments, so going to do that.  I miss it, and I never thought I would, the training part of it, the intensity of it.  But every day I’m doing something to stop me getting fat.
          
 
            Q.  You mentioned Allan retiring about the same time as you; are there any open-wheel, young Scottish racers in the pipeline?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  A few coming up.  In sports cars you had Allen leading the charge, and Marino has been very successful; and you mentioned Sebring, that was a great thing, Ryan Dalziel finishing second, that was a cool day for Scottish racing.
            But there’s a bunch of young Scottish drivers coming up and hopefully they can get the support that will bring them to this kind of level but that’s the tough part.
 
            Q.  Curious if you talked to Rick Mears, if you think your role at Ganassi is going to be similar at all to what Rick does at Penske, or if you had any words with him?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  Rick and I, I saw him at Barber, and saw him at Sebring test.  We frequented some of the same corners.
            We haven’t really talked about that because obviously there was a big rivalry there, or according to some people not, but I guess there is, and so I don’t quite know what Rick’s role is there.
            I tell you this, though, every time I talk to Rick, I learn something.  And I wish that I had him in my corner for like my recent career, because there’s a few races that I may be threw away that I wouldn’t have had Rick been there.
             So if I can help the Ganassi guys and the Target guys half as much as Rick’s helped the guys at Penske, I’ll be pretty happy.
 
            Q.  What is your role?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  You weren’t here for the start?
 
            Q.  I wasn’t, sorry.
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  We’re still figuring that out.  It’s working with the drivers, working with the engineers, the team in general, to get the most out of what we’ve got to try and help in any way I can to be successful to win races.
            It’s not a team that you need to go in there and reinvent the wheel, because they have won, what have they won, five out of the last six championships between Scott and I.  It’s a really good team, a well‑oiled machine that just occasionally, might be something to say that I can offer some advice on, maybe something that I learned about a track or something.
            We are still learning what it’s going to be, and as I say, myself and the team, and Chip, obviously he’s got some ideas about that, too.
 
            Q.  And since you brought it up, what are your thoughts on Rick’s assessment Ganassi and Penske rivalry?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I think it’s been a great rivalry.  I think it’s been going on for 25 years now.  I think Roger Penske is a class, class operator.  He’s first class.  I thought Tim’s comments weren’t in any way.  I thought they were ‑‑ yeah, I think they kind of summed him up a little bit.  If I had the resources that he’s had in his hands, I would be a little upset with the success ratio they have had recently.  I’m very proud of the record that the Ganassi organization and the Target organization has had.
 
            Q.  I remember, recall, that you used to walk the track before the race.  Are you going to miss that or are you going to do that anyway?
            DARIO FRANCHITTI:  I walked it on Thursday ‑‑ Wednesday ‑‑ no, Wednesday I walked it with Scott, Justin Wilson and Simon Pagenaud doing some safety stuff with Colin and Brian Barnhart.  Walked the track with him and had a look at some of the new bumps and all of the rest of the stuff, and Scott was with me so he could kind of sneak off.  And then Tony and I and Ryan and Charlie did the track walk yesterday afternoon.
            So I don’t think ‑‑ I don’t think I’ll be out there tonight doing what I used to do, you know, do my nightly track walk.  I don’t feel I need to do that.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 28, 2014
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed his opportunity to get a win this weekend, his past Martinsville memories and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY WHERE YOU HAVE HAD SO MUCH SUCCESS OVER THE YEARS:
“Always exciting to come back to Martinsville and with this being the site of Rick Hendrick’s first win, 30 years of Hendrick Motorsports and obviously 2004 with the plane crash there is a lot of motivation when we come to this race track.  It’s great to be back and it’s nice to know that this track is strong for the Hendrick cars and very strong for myself.  We would love to check the win column box.  We are certainly close and we were knocking on the door last weekend and I think we have had a couple other looks at wins.  I think we are really understanding this 2014 package and getting some speed out of our cars and we should be contending and racing for wins I believe.”
 
FIVE DIFFERENT WINNERS IN FIVE RACES.  CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SPREAD THIS YEAR AND ARE YOU SURPRISED YOU HAVEN’T WON THIS YEAR CONSIDERING THE SUCCESS YOU HAVE HAD EARLY ON?
“Last week was a real bummer to not pull into victory lane with how strong of a car we had.  We have had some other good top-three runs with a chance to win and didn’t capitalize on that.  But it’s not uncommon for us to get a little deeper in the season before we start winning.  Statistically I think the end of the year is where we heat up the most.  So you know what?  We have a good track here and Dover is coming up soon and there are a lot of big opportunities coming along and with the new rules package that we have – I think that has allowed for the five different winners at five different tracks.  It’s just a challenge right now to figure out what you need and what you want and it’s nice to see so much parity with different teams and drivers winning.  I guess it would be nice if the Hendrick guys were walking away with it and we had won all the races, but there is a lot of parity out there.”
 
AS A FRIEND OF BRIAN VICKERS, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HIS RESILIENCY IN BOUNCING BACK TO WHERE HE IS NOW?
“Yeah, he has definitely dealt with a lot of issues and certainly at a young age.  The emotional and personal side with Ricky (Hendrick), and professionally with the challenges of his health, and even the loss of sponsorship and looking for a ride when Red Bull pulled out….those are tough things to handle.  He is a young guy and he handled it all well. I am glad that he is healthy and is in a great car and he has been running great.”
 
I KNOW YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN WIN AT ANY TIME AT ANY TRACK YOU GO TO, BUT IS THAT FEELING ANY DIFFERENT FOR YOU WHEN YOU COME SOMEWHERE LIKE MARTINSVILLE WHERE YOU HAVE HAD SO MUCH SUCCESS?  AND IS IT ANY MORE DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN YOU DON’T WIN WHEN YOU COME SOMEWHERE LIKE THIS?
“It kind of depends on the circumstances.  With this being our first trip to Martinsville with the new 2014 package, I am very confident because I know the track and Chad knows the track and we will figure it out.  But I don’t know how we are going to unload.
 
“Last year we had a refined package, we knew where we would be and we could play the game the way we needed to, and we had a good feel for things.  So there is a bit of uncertainty and some questions that we need to answer today on the track. But no doubt as far as a mental aspect of walking into a track from a team standpoint and a driver standpoint, when you walk into a track where you have had success, it does put a spring in your step.”
 
WITH ALL THE EMOTIONS FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS WHAT IS IT LIKE WINNING HERE FOR A HENDRICK DRIVER AS COMPARED TO OTHER TRACKS?
“It’s a very deep emotion and something you take deep pride in representing the company.   To see Rick and his face and the expression that he has and you can sense in his voice and in his eyes – you can see how much it means to him to win here.  It is a cool, amazing experience to go through.  Rick is a very competitive guy and he likes to win races.  But with all the emotion that you have here I think we are in a good place here.  Absolutely we are sad that the aircraft went down and we lost everybody that was on the airplane, but I am finding today that there are a lot more happy stories as we are reflecting back.  Especially of thinking about little Ricky and the crazy stuff he would do and the stunts he would pull on his dad. There’s a lot of laughter, and I would assume if one of the Hendrick drivers get to victory lane, it would be a very joyful celebration and emotion. Rick and Linda would probably shed some tears later in private, but from a team standpoint, and everybody at HMS, it would be a very uplifting experience.”
 
WHAT IS THE VIBE OF THIS PLACE FOR YOU? AS YOU’VE SAID BEFORE, THIS HAS BEEN THE SCENE FOR SOME INCREDIBLY GREAT THINGS FOR YOU PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY, BUT ALSO SOME VERY SAD THINGS. WHAT IS THE FEELING WHEN YOU COME HERE? WHAT ARE THE THOUGHTS THAT POP IN YOUR HEAD WHEN YOU SEE CERTAIN THINGS OR HAVE CERTAIN MEMORIES?
“It just depends on what activates my mind. Like today, I flew up. It’s overcast. It’s cloudy. The whole week leading into Martinsville, I’ve been excited about coming here to race and feel like we have a great chance to win. I wake up this morning and it’s overcast, and I can’t help but think of the airplane incident. It just kind of depends on what triggers the thought process. Generally speaking, race time here, there’s a lot of very good positive vibes flowing around. I’ve had great fortune to honor and remember our friends in victory lane. Certainly, the day that it happened, I look back on that day a lot and think about how things went down. NASCAR called all four cars to pit lane. We get to pit lane, and there are police officers standing around our cars, and I’m like ‘What in the world has happened?’ Normally there are NASCAR Officials not police officers.  I walk through that from time to time. I hope to never ever go through anything like that again.”
 
IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S A LONG WAY AWAY, BUT TALLADEGA ISN’T THAT FAR FROM NOW. IT WILL BE THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU GUYS QUALIFY WITH THE NEW SYSTEM. HAVE YOU EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT THAT WILL BE LIKE, WHO YOU ARE GOING TO DRAFT WITH OR IS IT YOU GET TO THAT WEEK WHEN YOU GET TO IT?
“A lot of guys paid attention in Daytona to what the Nationwide cars did, and there is a way to run a fast lap, but it’s out of your hands. It just depends on who’s trying to team up, who’s trying to work together, how far somebody is laying back. You know you are getting up to speed and the group behind you, you are pulling them along at a faster rate, do you abort on your lap and trying to catch somebody else and tag on to the back of their draft? So, it is going to be extremely – you can’t predict it. It’s just going to be out of control, in a good way. There could be some wrecks event because there’s going to be a lot of cars coming and going and blending and things like that. It will be a very interesting, I don’t know, 40 minutes of television, whatever it ends up being.”
 
YOU’RE AS GOOD AT TALKING ABOUT TRACKS BEFORE YOU GOT THEM AND LEARNING TO GET THEM. IT’S INTERESTING, YOU TAKE A DALE EARNHARDT JR. WHO’S GOT ONE OF THE BEST DRIVER RATINGS HERE BUT HASN’T ONE OR KASEY KAHNE TALKING ABOUT IT. SEEMS TO THE AVERAGE PERSON IT SEEMS TO BE A MENTAL THING AS WELL AS GETTING THE TRACK BUT NOT SURE. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THIS TRACK? ONE OTHER THING, EARNHARDT JR. SAID THERE’S MORE FREEDOM NOW WITH THE NEW POINTS STRUCTURE TO NOT BE SO WORRIED THAT SOMETHING MIGHT HAPPEN HERE. MAYBE THAT W
ILL HELP HIM WIN HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME. I DON’T KNOW. BUT WILL YOU TALK ABOUT WINNING HERE AND LEARNING IT? WHAT COMES TO MIND?
“I don’t know exactly. First off that came to mind, when you go to a racetrack and your concerned about how you’re going to run there and you start protecting a nice top-five run or a top-two, top-three, whatever it might be. Maybe you don’t race as open as you should and take the chances that you should to win and be as aggressive as you need to. I was fortunate to get a win fairly early in my Cup career here and I’ve been able to race here with an open mind and not worry about protecting. As I’m on the track, I see a lot of different drivers, they get to the top-five, it’s a tough track to get around and they’re very defensive and worried about every little inch on the track and protecting and blocking and I’ve been able to get so much experience here and understand how to pass and how to set our car up that I’m just thinking offense the whole time. Maybe there is a small mindset there that is the difference.”
 
SPEAKING OF LEARNING THE TRACK, I KNOW YOU HAVE CREDITED JEFF GORDON WITH HELPING YOUR PROGRESSION IN LEARNING THIS TRACK. WHEN YOU COME TO MARTINSVILLE, IT’S HARD NOT TO MENTION YOU AND JEFF. WHAT SPECIFICALLY DID HE DO TO HELP YOUR PROGRESSION AND YOUR SUCCESS HERE?
“With Jeff, we were very fortunate at that point in time to test. We had a lot of test sessions we could use up. I think I had 12 as a rookie my rookie season. With data traces and even just general testing rules and procedures, it was very easy to get Jeff here and work with him and understand what to do. We took every step we could to get me prepared and get me right, and I still was kind of in the way. And truthfully, I think our second trip here, so the fall of my rookie year; I got lapped by Tony (Stewart). So then all of the verbal stuff that Jeff said and all of the mechanical stuff, we basically just put his set up under my car and go figure it out type of thing, it all came together when I followed Tony and could pick up the rhythm. This is a track where a half-tenth per end of the race track is huge. And it’s so hard to even quantify that or see that. It took me following Tony and getting into that rhythm where I picked it up. I was fortunate enough to get my lap back and then I think we ran a top-15 or top-10, and from that point on I’m like ‘OK. I see it. I get it.’ Or maybe more so I feel it and understand that rhythm.”
 
HERE AT MARTINSVILLE WE ALWAYS SEE A LOT OF FRONT SHOCK TRAVEL ON THE CARS. WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW FRONT END RULES, THE HEIGHT RULES, THAT NASCAR HAS BROUGHT OUT FOR 2014, ARE WE GOING TO SEE A LOT LESS TRAVEL AND IS IT GOING TO BE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN FEEL FOR THE DRIVER.
“Definitely. The straightway height versus the corner height will change. That gap will close up quite a bit. Some guys still may elect to let the nose pop up some and transfer weight to the rear tires for forward drive. In general, you will see the cars on the deck and sealed up straightaway and corner. It’s ultimately the goal. Every now and then, especially on a small track like this, you’ll allow the front to transfer a little weight to the back for grip but we’re just going to have to see how the day goes on. This is one of the tracks where you’ll notice a big difference in the car’s ride height.”
 
YOU MENTIONED IT WASN’T UNCOMMON FOR YOU TO START WINNING LATER IN THE YEAR. DO YOU KNOW WHY THAT IS? CONSIDERING MARTINSVILLE AND TEXAS ARE BACK-TO-BACK, ISN’T THAT A GOOD SPRINGBOARD TIME FOR YOU TO START THAT WINNING?
“It’s a great lineup of tracks. Truthfully, every team has good tracks and bad tracks. I think on the calendar our good tracks are placed kind of spring and fall – the Dover’s, Martinsville, Texas, those types of tracks, and we’re getting into them. Hopefully, we can get something here early to check that box and progress through the regular season and make sure our car’s right because there’s a lot of change going on and a lot of speed to still find in our race cars and then buckle down in the Chase. We’ve always operated well in the Chase, and again, a lot of it is because those tracks are really our strong tracks.”
 
YOU’VE HAD A LOT OF CHALLENGES WITH JEFF GORDON THROUGH THE YEARS HERE AT THIS TRACK. HOW DOES THAT CHALLENGE OF RACING HIM FOR A WIN – HOW DOES THAT CHALLENGE YOU? AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM RACING SOMEBODY ELSE OR ANOTHER TEAMMATE?
“When I first got started here, the short run really hurt me especially late in the race, and that was a strength that Jeff had. So, from a car setup standpoint and even driver technique, I kind of focused on that area so that I could kind of cover that base. And now, Jeff certainly still has his short run speed, but he’s figured something out on the long run and runs a much different line. The last couple of times we’ve been here on the long haul, his car has been better than just about anybody. I’ve been the leader and watch him come and run me down so it’s kind of ever-changing. I don’t know if Jeff has consciously worked on changing from short run to long run or if it’s just circumstantial with car and tire and track. Whatever it is. Fortunately, I can identify with it and try to make a change and try to protect myself. I think from a trend standpoint, we usually end up with a lot of short runs at the end of a race here and that’s probably been better suited for us to be focused there.”
 
OF THE LAST 19 RACES, ONLY SIX GUYS HAVE ONE – MAIN TEAMS BEING THE 48, 24, 11. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT IT IS ABOUT THIS PLACE THAT IT SEEMS TO BE SUCH AN EXCLUSIVE GROUP? DO YOU SEE ANYBODY CREEPING INTO THAT ECHELON? COULD WE SEE SOMEBODY NEW BESIDES YOU OR DENNY (HAMLIN) OR JEFF (GORDON) OR MAYBE TONY (STEWART) OR KEVIN HARVICK? IT SEEMS LIKE THOSE ARE THE NAMES THAT EVERYONE EXPECTS WHEN THEY COME HERE.
“It seems like, I don’t know why, when somebody sorts this place out, they’ve got it and you can hang on to it for a while. The 20 (Matt Kenseth) I think surprised us all last fall so I would definitely put him in that expect to win category. The 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) has always been strong here. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a shot at victory lane. The 5 (Kasey Kahne) has shown a lot of speed here.  So, I think there might be those – the 11, the 48, the 24, at first thought but not far behind there is a whole lineup of cars including the 4 (Kevin Harvick). He’s always been strong here, too. I can’t answer why only six guys in 19 races have been able to win here. It’s kind of interesting.”
 
CAN A DRIVER’S SKILLS – YOUR SKILLS IN PARTICULAR – AT A TRACK LIKE THIS NEGATE ANY OF THE CHANGES THAT HAVE COME WITH THE NEW SETUP. DOES THE NEW SETUP MATTER AS MUCH HERE AS IT DOES AT AN INTERMEDIATE TRACK WITH THE AERO AND EVERYTHING?
“I think so. The biggest factor you have here working for you is your center of gravity height. To be able to start the car inches lower will just help put grip and speed in the car. And of course, some small aero implications will come. I think braking will improve because you don’t have the cars that rely on the straights slamming down on the nose and then you’re able to get the whole car lower not only from the front ride height changes but also the open book we have with our rear heights now, you can get the car awfully low, and pick up a lot of speed.”
 
INAUDIBLE FOLLOW UP:
“At the end of the day, it’s still a race car and the teams and drivers – NASCAR works hard to make sure that the people make the difference and the teams and the drivers really instigate that and drive that. A good driver won’t be able to take a 20th-place car and win with it, but he’ll finish better than 20th. The most important thing you can expect out of a good driver is to lead the team in the right way and make the right changes to the car and get it in the ballpark.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
STP 500
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 28, 2014
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 DIET MOUNTAIN DEW CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media and discussed getting his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at Martinsville, what makes the Hendrick Motorsports organization so good at the paperclip and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
COMING UP TO MARTINSVILLE CERTAINLY A TRACK YOU HAVE HAD SOME GOOD RUNS AT.  TALK ABOUT HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET YOUR SECOND WIN OF THE SEASON HERE AT MARTINSVILLE THIS WEEKEND:
“Yeah, this is a track I have been trying to get a win at for a long time.  I grew up in a house full of clocks so it’s been pretty illusive.  We have had some good cars in the past here that I’ve felt like could have won races and we just weren’t able to get the job done for whatever reason, somebody was faster or whatever.  Looking forward to having another opportunity.  Just every time we come here we are excited.  I love short-track racing.  I love this track.  I love the history of this place, what it represents.  It’s a joy to run here and a lot of fun to race.  It can be frustrating and you’ve got to battle all day long to maintain your track position, but it’s a good challenge, a fun challenge.”
 
WHAT IS THE KEY TO STAYING MENTALLY FOCUSED IN A 600 MILE RACE?
“Just having something to occupy your mind is enough.  If the car is competitive and your team is communicating with you and keeping you busy, keeping you on task those are keys to being able to stay focused.  When you see yourself with an opportunity to win the race going into the last 200 or 150 miles it’s pretty easy to stay on task and stay focused.  When the car is not handling well you are struggling to run inside the top 10 that is when frustration can kind of creep in and then that just becomes another hurdle for you.  You have to be pretty disciplined to stay on task and just focus on just trying to improve no matter how the thing is starting to shape up.  Because yeah, those last 100 miles you realize mentally and physically that it’s a unique race due to that extra 100 miles.  It’s a very long night and you just have to be sharp all night try to push yourself to stay disciplined.”
 
YOUR TWO TEAMMATES JIMMIE (JOHNSON) AND JEFF (GORDON) WE TALK ABOUT THEM WHEN WE COME TO MARTINSVILLE WHAT SPECIFICALLY CAN YOU TAKE FROM WATCHING THEM RUN AROUND HERE THAT YOU CAN APPLY TO YOUR SET-UP?
“We use a program called dart fish where basically it overlaps my lap with another car.  Maybe we look at the guys who sat on the pole or qualified in the top three and then look at my qualifying lap.  I can do that for last year, the year before, we can go as far back pretty much as we want and see what guys are doing differently.  How they are getting in the corner, how they turn into the corner, I can try to learn things that way.  As far as my teammates go I’m out on the track with them.  I know their tendencies and it depends on how their car is driving and how their car is handling as to how they are going to run, drive the corner and approach each corner.
 
“Yet Jeff has a real good knack for finding out how to get his car around this place depending on how his car drives.  He can change his approach to the corner and how he enters the corner to affect the speed on his car quite well here.  Obviously Jimmie has got a lot of success here, but he seems to be very consistent in how he drives and deliberate in how he drives this track.  They are definitely two guys that have had a lot of success here so you sort of tune in to what they are doing, how they are setting up their cars and what their comments are about their cars.  You try to stay on top of that and try to understand how their weekend is going and try to use any of that stuff to your advantage for sure.”
 
DENNY HAMLIN KIND OF RELEASED A STATEMENT ON WEDNESDAY THAT KIND OF LAID OUT KIND OF WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY.  I WAS CURIOUS IF THAT ANSWERED YOUR QUESTIONS AND/OR IF YOU HAVE HAD ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE THAT HAVE ANSWERED YOUR QUESTIONS?
“Well I feel real comfortable with the process and I just was worried.  I thought that the lack of a statement from Denny’s point of view left him vulnerable and unprotected.  I just felt like it was important for him to have a very simple statement that sort of cleared up any kind of assumptions or whatever you have for him personally.  That was good I thought on his behalf to be able to do that as quickly as he could.  I feel great about the process and what NASCAR has had in place for years.  I feel like they bring in the best people from that region that have the best connections to those hospitals in that region. If I’m in trouble I know I’m going to be somewhere where I can get taken care of very quickly.  NASCAR has a team that travels and has all the information on our health and it’s updated weekly if it needs to be.  I like the system that we have in place. I feel like it’s adequate and I’m happy Denny is cleared and ready to race this weekend.”
 
CAN YOU BE MORE OFFENSIVE HERE NOW WITH THE NEW CHASE FORMAT? DO YOU THINK WE WILL SEE A LAST LAP PASS?
“Yeah we have had that happen in the last couple of years regardless how the points system is stacked up we have had guys pushing each other around here quite on a regular basis so I assume if there is anyone within reach on that last lap of the leader the leader is going to have his hands full.  That is fair.  I can tell you though as far as being offensive, defensive, you are only as offensive as your car will allow you to be.  I can attest to that over the last six years that if your car is fast enough you want to drive it as far as it can go.  If your car is quick enough to be in the lead you want to get it there.  If it’s not you go as far as you can and try to defend that situation and wait until you have an opportunity to improve the car.  I don’t think I’ve ever raced here walking on egg shells.  I think you can get in trouble pretty quickly if you do that.  You definitely have to be offensive all the time and always try to be aggressive in how you drive the race track and how you race with the competition.”
 
IT’S HENDRICK’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY AND YOU PROBABLY HAVE SOME OF THE BEST PERSPECTIVE IN THE GARAGE AS TO REMEMBERING BACK WHEN IT STARTED.  WHAT IS THAT EVOLUTION BEEN LIKE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE AND BEING ABLE TO ULTIMATELY JOIN THE COMPANY?
“It’s been interesting to see how Hendrick Motorsports has progressed and changed and evolved.  They were tough competitors when I was young going to races watching my father race.  Just they seemed like they had so many resources and they had quite the dynamic when it came to drivers.  It was just a team that always was going to be challenging for the win and challenging for championships, especially once Jeff (Gordon) got there they were almost unstoppable at that particular point in the ‘90’s.  Ever since really Jeff got there they have never fell off.  They have always maintained their status as one of the top teams with a lot of growth and success.  I think that is a credit to the people working there, management, just a lot of great decisions putting people in key positions.  Understanding people’s talents and being able to maximize their potential just in management and other key roles in the company.  Obviously Rick (Hendrick) has an influence on his employees.  Everybody really strives from the top to the bottom to give their best.  It’s a cliché but it’s so true when you actually get to work there and get behind closed doors and see the influence that he has just on individuals.  Everybody just pushes so hard to do so
mething good every day.  It makes everybody else’s job that much easier.  It’s just good reflection of his influence on the company as a whole, but yeah it’s fun being a part of it.
 
“All those years as a young kid before I drove and then as a driver competing against them you always wonder what is the culture like.  Then when you get behind there and see how they are working on their cars, how they set their cars up, for year’s you have wanted that access.  To finally have it it’s pretty mind blowing in certain areas.  It’s been a fun experience for me.”
 
OF ALL THE SUCCESSES YOU HAVE HAD HERE AT THIS TRACK WHAT IS THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY?
“I think you look at all of them and see how close you came.  We flat go out ran by Kevin (Harvick) that one year in ’11.  I thought we had it.  I thought we were going to be fine once we got out front, but he was just so fast.  I tried to get under him in (turns) three and four but he didn’t have a bumper left to move.  I went in there to shove him a little bit and everything on that corner of his car was gone.  That is just how it works out.  I think the best car I had here was when we knocked the right-front fender off and we ended up running fourth that day.  I was coming back through the field and spun out on the inside of (Ryan) Newman in (turns) three and four and had that not happened I think we would have been in position to win the race because we were by far the quickest car.  Just we had to go back to the back of the field after that additional spin and we didn’t have enough race left to get back to the front.  We ended up finishing fourth, but that car was really fast.
 
“Having that fender torn off kept that right-front tire cool, kept it turning, kept the brakes cool, we were kind of an average car for 10 laps and then after that it would just take off.  I have been trying to figure out how to get my fenders to fall off ever since.  But we have ran into a few things but they just seem to bend and get taped up.  I hope we can be competitive.  It gets harder and harder because the competition seems to get better and better every time you come back here.  Obviously I’m racing with my teammates who are two of the most talented and successful guys at this track.  We got a tough hill to climb, but hopefully we can maybe get it done.”
 
IF WE HAVE A NEW WINNER EVERY WEEK AT WHAT POINT DOES IT ALTER THE CHASE STRATEGY AND DO YOU KIND OF FORESEE A NEW CHASE STRATEGY DEVELOP?
“Yeah I think it will change as it goes as we start to see it happen.   If we have a new winner every week, if we get into week 13 and 14 and we have got 12 winners at that particular point with 10 races left in the regular season guys are going to get a little more protective of their position in points.  I hope that we don’t really get to that situation.  You would like to not have to worry about it the whole process of going through Daytona and winning and feeling like we were in was a great feeling.  Not having the burden of worrying about points and being able to just race one weekend after the next and not worry about anything else was great.  Having to fall back into that mode of concentrating on your point’s position, your track position, maximizing every race to get the most points that is a bit of a burden.  One we always dealt with year after year and this year it seemed to go away.  If we get into about the 12th or 13th week and we still don’t have a two-time winner in the season I think guys are going to start to change the way they think about points.  I don’t think the racing changes.  I don’t think the competition and the product changes.  I just think guys pay a little more attention and if you were at all careless you will be shoring up all that stuff so you are not making mistakes out on the race track.  The pressure will rise for sure.  Intensity I think on the race track I think will stay the same if not increase.”
 

Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Teams Prepared for 2014 Season-Opening Race
Streets of St. Petersburg Kicks Off 18-Race Schedule
 
·         2014 marks Chevrolet’s third year in Verizon IndyCar Series competition with the V6 2.2 liter twin-turbocharged direct-injected purpose-built engine fueled by E 85
·         A Chevrolet IndyCar V6 powered driver won both the pole and the race on the Streets of St. Petersburg in 2012 and 2013
·         Chevrolet is the defending IndyCar Series Manufacturer Champion, and also won the title in 2012
·         In two full seasons of competition, Chevrolet IndyCar V6 drivers have won 21 of the 34 races held in the 2012 and 2013 seasons
·         Chevrolet IndyCar V6 driver Tony Kanaan is the defending champion of the Indianapolis 500
 
DETROIT (March 26, 2014) – Chevrolet’s drivers and teams are ready. They have prepared for five months for this moment.  The first race of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series (IndyCar) is about to commence on the 14-turn street circuit on the Streets of St. Petersburg (Fla.) for the Firestone Grand Prix. Since Chevrolet’s return to open wheel racing in 2012 their drivers and teams have taken the pole and the checkered flag at the season opening race setting the stage for two manufactures titles.  New faces to the Chevrolet brand along with a new redesigned 2.2L twin turbo engine are the focus as the new season gets underway.
 
During the off-season IndyCar officials made significant rule changes for engine manufacturers.  In 2014, engines are now required to complete 2,500 miles before change-out without penalty, or as high as 2,850 miles if they start a race with just short of 2,500 miles on the engine.  This is a 25 percent increase from 2013 where engines were to be changed after 2,000 miles of use.  This season both engine manufacturers are required to use identical, yet revised twin turbos from Borg-Warner, a technology Chevrolet already had in place. Multiple areas of the engine were opened up to both engine manufacturers to be redesigned and resubmitted to IndyCar for re-homologation.  Chevrolet worked tirelessly during 2013 working in numerous areas including fuel injection, cylinder heads, plenum / inlet system, exhaust headers and calibration to improve upon an already immensely successful engine.
 
Racing is deeply sewn into the fabric of Chevrolet. The dedication to constantly evolve the performance of Chevrolet’s production vehicle line-up is the driving force behind the involvement in the Verizon IndyCar Series, which was never as prevalent as during this off-season.  The engineers working on the updated Chevrolet IndyCar Series engine focused heavily on simultaneously improving its power, reliability and fuel efficiency, which are key characteristics of several current powerful and fuel-efficient Chevrolet production cars.   
 
“Team Chevy is primed, prepared and positive about the start of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season kicking off on the streets of St. Petersburg, said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, Verizon IndyCar Series.  “Chevrolet has had good results on this circuit the past two seasons since returning to IndyCar competition.  With our updated 2.2L twin turbo direct injected V6 Chevrolet IndyCar engines, new formats to the championship points and a race on the road course at IMS to kick off the month of May, there is a plethora of new challenges to look forward to.  Top it off with Verizon as the new Series sponsor to engage the fans with leading edge communication technology and this could be the season to remember.”
 
In addition to an updated engine, a few new faces have joined Chevrolet’s star studded driver lineup for 2014 including the Chip Ganassi Racing stable which houses defending IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon.  A total of four organizations fielding 10 full-time cars will carry the Gold Bowtie as they take on the competition in 2014 powered by the purpose-built Chevrolet IndyCar 2.2L twin-turbocharged, direct-injected V-6 racing engine powered by renewable E85 ethanol fuel.
 
The Team Chevy line-up as the season kicks off in St. Petersburg will be:
 
Ed Carpenter Racing: Mike Conway, No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet (Road Courses only.  Ed Carpenter will drive the oval track races)
 
KV Racing Technology: Sebastien Bourdais, No. 11 Mystic/Hydroxycut KVSH Racing Chevrolet and Sebastian Saavadra, No. 17 KV AFS Racing Chevrolet
 
Team Penske: Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 2 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet and Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet
 
Chip Ganassi Racing: Ryan Briscoe, No. 8 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, Scott Dixon, No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, Tony Kanaan, No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, and Charlie Kimball, No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
 
For the first time, the Team Chevy IndyCar display will be on site on the Streets of St. Petersburg.  Located in the Fan Midway that runs adjacent to the front straightaway, the display hours of operation will be Friday, March 28th: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Saturday, March 29th: 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM and Sunday, March 30th: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM. On display will be a number of vehicles from the Chevrolet line-up including Impala, Malibu, Silverado, Sonic RS, Traverse and Volt.  There will be interactive activities for children and adults alike.
 
The highlight of the weekend will be the driver visits to the stage in the display where fans can engage in question and answer sessions with Chevrolet’s top IndyCar stars.
On Saturday, fans can see: Mike Conway at 12:15 PM; Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya at 12:30 PM; Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Saavedra at 12:45 PM and Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan at 5:30 PM.
ABC will have a live telecast of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 30, with pre-race at 3 PM ET. The green flag will fly at 3:27 PM.