NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BUDWEISER DUEL NO. 2
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
FEBRUARY 20, 2014
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
DESCRIBE THAT LAST LAP:
“Well it was a pretty calm race for the Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet team.  We were up in the top three most of the time.  It got pretty wild after the pit stop.  Me and Carl (Edwards) were having a heck of a drag race leaving pit road.  We got into a good position there and I just kept seeing everybody back up behind me trying to get that big run when the white flag came out.  I felt like we had a good shot at getting a good run as well.  They split up behind us and then it was just chaos to the end.  I made one run on the No. 41 and couldn’t quite clear him and then when we got off of (turn) four I got one more push and was able to get inside of him for a great second place finish.”
 
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT AS A RACE CAR DRIVER KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE TO SIT THERE AND BE PATIENT FOR SOMEBODY TO GO WITH YOU AND WORRY WHEN YOU DO THAT SOMEONE IS EVEN GOING TO GO?
“Yeah, it’s nerve racking.  Your heart is pounding for sure plus this is the car we want to race in the Daytona 500 so how aggressive do you want to be?  We are here to win it and we wanted to be aggressive and I feel like we were with our pit call, which was a great one.  Aggressive trying to get to pit road, aggressive in the moves we made, we just didn’t have a lot of opportunities there because we didn’t have the whole pack behind us the way we would have liked it to have been.  But hey that is Daytona racing and it was a lot of fun.  I think the fans are going to have a heck of a race for themselves on Sunday.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD
WILD FINISH IN THIS ONE.  DESCRIBE THE WAY THIS RACE WENT FOR YOU GUYS:
“I had a gift from Tony Stewart.  He raced his way in and that gave us the champions provisional, which meant we could go race our car and not have to worry about side-effects.  When somebody says the green light is on I want to go.  With Gene Haas thanks to him and all this Haas Automation crew it’s fun going to race at these restrictor plate races when you don’t have to worry about racing your way in.  I tried to put on a show.  Denny Hamlin was strong. He won the race off pit road.  Who would have known that would have been where the difference maker was.  With all four of our Chevy’s lined up I thought we could get a run on them.  The problem is when you are running there second place, third place the fifth and sixth place guys are developing their plan.  I blocked Jeff Gordon once coming off turn four.  I couldn’t block him twice otherwise I would have been in the wreck.  So I have to thank everybody that is involved with this Haas Automation team Chevrolet, Monster Energy, it is going good.”
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 PEAK/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH
TELL US ABOUT YOUR RACE TONIGHT AND ESPECIALLY THAT LAST LAP:
“Really good car all night.  It was our back-up car our primary (car) got wrecked yesterday, but everybody at RCR, the fab shop, body shop, ECR engines they build fast race cars as we have shown all Speedweeks.  All of our cars have been really quick.  It drove pretty good there.  We made quite a few changes actually, chassis changes, from last night to tonight.  Actually drove pretty decent, but I think there are a couple of things we can do to improve for the (Daytona) 500.  Just proud of everybody at RCR the Peaks/Menard Chevy was fast.”
 
WHAT DID YOU LEARN TONIGHT?
“That RCR builds fast plate cars. It was a back-up car, and it’s really good. We got a couple of laps in it yesterday. Wasn’t all that great I didn’t think in the draft. We changed a couple of things and it was really fast tonight. ECR motors. The RCR Peak/Menards Chevy was really fast. Just really looking forward to getting in the 500 and keeping this thing clean for 490 and go race like hell the last 10.”
 
BRIAN SCOTT, NO. 33 WHITETAIL CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON EARNING A SPOT IN THIS YEAR’S DAYTONA 500:
“Well you know I’m just really excited.  The first part of the race we were just riding fourth and I thought it would be great if the whole race will go this way.  I knew that pit stops would shake it up.  We kind of committed to the bottom and we got the outside groove to go around us and we fell to the back.  I knew it would get exciting there at the end.  I’m just proud that we were able to get the Whitetail Chevrolet back towards the front and finish fifth and get us a good starting spot in the Daytona 500.”
 
HOW DID YOU SEE THAT LAST LAP UNFOLD?
“Well I saw my teammate Paul (Menard) he went down to the bottom and Billy O’Dea my spotter has got a lot of experience.  He said ‘go with him, go with him’ so we went with him and it started jostling in front of us and we were just trying to get our run going.  Coming out of turn four I caught something just in my mirror it was like sparks and stuff.  I kind of looked up and I saw them all wrecking behind me.  Then I knew that our fate was sealed and that it was nice to have the good Lord looking down on us to keep us safe and to bring us to the start/finish line with relatively no damage.”
 
MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED EIGHTH
DESCRIBE THE LAST LAP FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW:
“Cars spinning and crashing into the wall and nowhere to go.  I mean really that is all you can say about it.  It’s unfortunate obviously, last corner, last lap to have something like that happen.  It’s not the end of the world.  We’ve got a good back-up car and it doesn’t matter really where you start here.  It is what it is.  Guys will get to work on the back-up I guess tonight and get ready for Sunday.”

YOUR EMOTIONS RIGHT NOW HAVING HAD A FRONT ROW STARTING SPOT:
“It stinks for the guys who have worked so hard on that car, and have a great race car, only to have that happen on the last corner of the last lap. Somebody running out of gas is kind of like you never really think that can happen. It is what it is.  We’ll get our back-up out to race. It doesn’t matter where you start anyhow. We’ll be fine; I just hate it for the guys and got the front row starting spot. That was all their work, and it stinks that they can’t keep it. It is all good. Restrictor plate racing, it is what it is.  Unfortunately 90% of the time you get caught up in other people’s mistakes, and that’s what happened tonight. It happens. It’s part of the deal. We’ll just get ready to go racing on Sunday.”

DO YOU KNOW HOW YOUR BACKUP WILL BE?
“They say it is just as good. So I’m sure it will be fine. The car was good tonight. I was just kind of hanging out there. At the end, my brother got a lap down, somehow lost the draft and I got him in front of me, and I just pushed him the rest of the race to help and see if I could get him in. So my main concern right now is to figure out if he even made it. So I am going to go find out.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 11TH
WHAT HAPPENED?
“I wasn’t real sure. I had my hands full obviously trying to gather my car up. But I thought I saw a car flip and then when the wreck was all over and I came back on pit road, I didn’t see any cars that had appeared that they had flipped. So that was really lucky that Clint (Bowyer) was able to land on his feet.
 
HOW ARE YOU, PHYSICALLY? YOUR CAR IS OBVIOUSLY TORN UP:
“Yeah, our McDonald’s Chevy is torn up. We had a good car and I felt like we were in a good position in the end. I felt like I was far enough back that Jeff (Gordon) and Jimm
ie (Johnson) and those guys would make a move and maybe I could just try to suck back up to the No. 11 (Denny Hamlin). The No. 27 (Paul Menard) started the inside lane earlier than I think than what we wanted to. And then, once we got to Turns 3 and 4, I was content on just pushing Jimmie and I didn’t know what happened. I saw him just swerve to get out of the way and things happen so fast when you’re going that quick on the track. You make a decision and you just have to stick with it. I’m glad to hear that he was out of gas because I felt like I had caused that entire wreck. It’s frustrating. But we’re going to unload our Unlimited car that I thought was actually a little bit quicker than this car. So, we’ll unload that and get a little bit of practice in and put a fresh engine in it and look forward to the Daytona 500.”
 
ON THE FINISH:
“It was a wild finish When we got to Turns 3 and 4, we were just side-drafting each other. I was content on just pushing Jimmie to the start/finish line. I thought I could probably get a big run and maybe get to second and third. And then I guess he ran out of gas is what they’re saying. When he started getting out of the way I went to get underneath of him and when a car turns sideways in front of you, it takes so much air off of your car that you lose control and there’s just nothing you can do about it. And then obviously there’s a huge chain reaction and you’re just fighting to stay off the fence after that.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 16TH
YOU HAD YOUR HAND OUT THE WINDOW; DID YOU RUN OUT OF FUEL?
“I did, and I feel terrible. To tear up that many race cars; to see the No. 15 flip.  I feel terrible, and certainly want to apologize to everyone.  I tried to get up out of the way; I had my hand out of the side. But last lap coming to the checkered, there is so much going on right there. So much energy in the pack that I knew I was going to get run over if I ran out because guys warned me about it – and it did. Thankfully everyone is alright, and I certainly feel bad for the torn up race cars.”

ARE YOU OKAY AND WHAT HAPPENED?
“I’m fine.  I feel terrible all these cars that were caught up in that crash.  I ran out of gas, man at the most inopportune time right in front of everybody.  I feel terrible.  Thankfully it looks like everybody is okay, but a lot of great race cars were torn up. Clint (Bowyer) flipped over.  I just feel real bad about it.  Certainly glad everybody was alright.”
 
UP UNTIL THAT POINT WHAT WAS THE RACING LIKE?  DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING THAT IS GOING TO HELP YOU ON SUNDAY?
“You definitely learn out there.  Everybody seems to want to run that top lane.  I tried to race a little bit on the bottom and slip back.  Then just kind of settled in on the top and logged some laps.  I thought I was going to bring home a great race car and then all that happened off turn four.”
 
GREG ZIPADELLI, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMPETITION AT STEWART-HAAS RACING
 
ON THE NO. 4 CAR FAILING POST RACE INSPECTION:
“The track bar had more rake in it than allowed after the qualifying race. (John) Darby and them are up top; we’ll wait for them to come down and see what it is. I guess they’re telling us we’re starting at the rear. It’s one of those areas.  There’s a rule, it’s three inches. Everybody in the garage has adjusted their cars during the race and it’s never been an issue afterward. But I mean it’s a different deal here. We need to figure that stuff out on our side and make sure we don’t put ourselves in this position again.”
 
WHAT ADVANTAGE IS IT IF ANY?
“You can dictate the rear travel, the amount the car travels by the amount of rake you have in it. That’s kind of how we got on that rule; people were coming up with just ridiculous amounts of track bar rake and it was pulling the back of the car down so they came up with this rule and you can only have three inches of rake. It doesn’t matter where. You can have it way down on the bottom if you need rear grip, you just can’t have more than three inches.
 
“It went through (inspection) that way. They go down and check you every week. It just came back with more than it was supposed to have.
 
“For something that honestly as little as it was didn’t probably amount to anything other than changing the handling characteristics of the car. We needed a little bit of an adjustment during the race. So it’s disappointing because it knocks the wind out of your sails. You had a good car, had a great run, did a great job tonight. Just a little setback. But we’ll have a few of our cars back there, we’ll team up and haul ass to the front.”
 
           
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT WITH:
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 3RD
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 7TH
LANDON CASSILL, NO. 40 HILLMAN RACING CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 9TH
 
KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll into our post race for our second qualifying Duel.  Our top finishing Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate, coming in seventh tonight, is Kyle Larson.
            Kyle, congratulations on a strong showing.  Your thoughts about lining up now for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
            KYLE LARSON:  Yeah, it was definitely a really exciting race from my viewpoint.  The beginning we were three wide there really early in the race.  We all got in line.  I was riding around there, just logging laps.  It looked like I think it was David Ragan got tight off four.  I rolled off the gas.  I don’t know if Jamie was to my rear bumper or not, but I got a little loose, had to correct it, lost the draft for a little bit, had to catch back up.
            There late in the race, wasn’t really trying to make anything happen on the bottom, but it was how it was kind of working out.  Coming off four was pretty scary.
            Glad to stay out of that wreck and come away with a seventh place finish, get a better starting spot for this Target car and try and get a good finish on Sunday.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Racing his way into the Daytona 500 is Landon Cassill.  We also have Jeff Gordon who came in second tonight.
            Landon, tell me about your excitement about racing your way into the Daytona 500.
            LANDON CASSILL:  I’ve been stressed out about this since July.  I think I’ve played this race over in my head, what I think it could do, for months now.
            The team, Hillman Racing, we came down for the test and felt like we had a decent car, but we didn’t have the motor that we were going to race.  They came back and made some serious investments in it.  For a small team, this race kind of makes our whole season, just the prize money alone to start on Sunday gets us through the next six or seven weeks.
            It’s just huge for us.  Carsforsale.com jumped onboard to help us out for this weekend.  We have a big deal we’re really working on, good people that we’re talking to, just this positive accomplishment is going to help tremendously.
            The team is just so pumped up.  I’m really proud of them.  M
ike Hillman and Joe Falk have put a ton of faith in me, probably too much.  I can’t appreciate it more.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Jeff Gordon, talk about this Duel here tonight.  A lot of drama on the last lap.  Talk about your outlook now for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
            JEFF GORDON:  It’s always interesting when you watch the first Duel.  Never fails, if that one is really exciting, then the second one can be a little more calm.  If the first one is calm, the second one can be more exciting.
            Looks like they were shaking it up a little bit more in the first one, guys trying to get the lead.  In our race we seemed to be content to wait till the end.
            I thought it was going to happen with three to go.  Looks like it didn’t materialize until one to go.
            I’m really happy with our racecar.  I think we snuck in there with a quiet, under the radar, very fast car that’s capable of winning this race.  I like it that way.  Let some of those other guys get all the attention and get that target on their back.  And hopefully we can just go along our week working hard to get in that perfect position on Sunday.
            But, no, I was trying to make something happen there at the end.  They just kept stacking up behind us, backing up the pace, trying to get some big runs.  I tried to back up to Jimmie.  I know he was backing up.  Guy behind him was backing up.
            Finally on the white flag lap, the 27 pulled out.  That’s what happens.  You stack it up like that, further back, guys are going to say, Hey, somebody has to make a move here.  He did.
            We had big runs, but never big enough runs to get to Denny.  I was happy to get that big run to get by Kurt to get to second.  You want to try to move forward to keep the momentum going, so that was a really good run for us.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Questions.
 
            Q.  Landon, with this race being so important for you, what is your strategy?  Is it to be safe and avoid what happened in the end?  What happened to your face?
            JEFF GORDON:  Did you really just ask that (laughter)?
            LANDON CASSILL:  I’ll answer your first question first.
            I think we kind of will celebrate, take a deep breath, then treat Sunday like a typical superspeedway race for a team like ours.  We have a speedway car that’s a pretty good car for our team and we’d like to take it to Talladega in one piece.
            It’s also important for us to get good points from Daytona to carry us once the 2013 points are no longer in effect, which I think is really only three races.
            We’d love to come out there and win the Daytona 500, but the priority is to bring it home in one piece.
            As far as my eye, I was riding my bicycle in Daytona on Saturday and got hit by a car.  It was pretty bad, but I’m all right now (smiling).
            JEFF GORDON:  Good question.
            LANDON CASSILL:  Thank you.  Any other questions?  NASCAR medical?  Everybody good?
 
            Q.  Did you go to the hospital?
            LANDON CASSILL:  Yeah.  Got checked out and released.  Got approved by NASCAR medical on Sunday before I qualified to race.
            It’s actually healed pretty well.  I’m really lucky.  Got some road rash on my arms and legs.  Inside of my knees were bruised up pretty badly.  But my face took most of the fall.  Just the chin.
            It’s okay, Jeff.  Your face is cool, man.  It’s all good.  Just sitting there with your face.
            JEFF GORDON:  I was riding my bike the week before I came down to Daytona and I was thinking about that, I could have gotten hit by a car.
            LANDON CASSILL:  I don’t know.  It’s dangerous.
 
            Q.  Whose fault was it?
            LANDON CASSILL:  Unfortunately, it was the motorist’s fault.  I mean I blame myself a lot for the position I put myself in.  I was in the bike lane and had the right of way.  It’s really not funny, I could have gotten really hurt.
            But, yeah, I was in a bike lane.  The woman was trying to cross the road from a side street and cleared herself to the right, kind of rolled the stop sign, I believe, T boned me really.  Destroyed my bike.  Face plant, blood.  But I made the Daytona 500 and she doesn’t know that.
 
 
            Q.  Jeff, based on what you’ve seen, the Gibbs cars are three for three.  Have you got anything for them or are they clearly the prohibitive favorites for Sunday?
            JEFF GORDON:  If you’re going to pick a favorite, I would consider them the favorites.  They’re very fast.  They won both races today.  They won the Unlimited.
            I don’t know if that means anything, but I would definitely say they’re very quick and very capable of winning this race, along with 42 other guys (smiling).
 
            KERRY THARP:  Finishing third tonight is Kurt Busch.
            Congratulations on the performance here tonight with a new race team.  I heard you on the television talking about the excitement of starting now the Daytona 500 for this new race team.
            KURT BUSCH:  What a fantastic night for the Haas Automation Chevy.  Thanks to Gene Haas for giving me this shot.  Building a team over the off season with Daniel Knost, it’s been a great progression.  To deliver on our first night a top five finish, that’s solid.
            I got to race my way tonight, and that was due to Tony Stewart locking himself into the Daytona 500 the first race.  That meant we had the champion’s provisional on the 41 car if we needed it.  I was able to hammer down and race to the front.
            It was solid execution, though, on Daniel’s part, the crew chief, with our pit strategy, the dra
ft playing into our hands, except for just that last lap.  I wish I would have had a shot to win.  Had Jeff Gordon and a Chevrolet behind me, Jimmie Johnson there, McMurray.  When those fifth and sixth place guys get dicey, you haven’t made a move yet, it’s going to be tough to generate enough speed to clear the leader.
            Coming off turn four, I had to block Jeff Gordon high.  If I had to block him low, I would have been involved in the wreck as well.  I took the approach of let’s protect our car at that last moment and it brought home as many Chevys as we could in that top five.
            It’s a great start for us.  Thanks to Gene Haas and Tony Stewart.  Away we go.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Questions.
 
            Q.  Now that you’ve been with the team for a little bit, has the experience been what you’ve hoped so far?  Does anybody have anything for the Gibbs Toyotas that look so strong?
            KURT BUSCH:  You know, it’s been everything I would have hoped it to be.  It’s a first class organization that’s built on a championship foundation with Tony Stewart’s name, with Gene Haas, the partnership there is as solid as it’s ever been.
            The four cars that we brought to Daytona didn’t qualify where we wanted to, now it’s time to race.  This is where you roll your sleeves up.  This is when the communication really starts clicking within the team.  So you lean on the crew chief, Daniel Knost, the lead engineer Wes, then it goes right on down the train.
            It was great to execute tonight flawlessly and bring home a top five finish, put that checkmark next to the 41’s number to say, Hey, we’re in the great American race in style, we’re prepared and ready to do this.
            Those Gibbs guys, they’re strong.  I’ve been coming down here 15 years.  You see cars qualifying really well and some of them don’t race well.  Then you see guys that don’t qualify well and they race really well.  I’m starting to draw some conclusions.  I’m not the smartest guy, maybe it’s taken me way longer to figure this out than most, the Gibbs cars, those Toyotas, don’t throw in all that snake oil and magic for qualifying.
            If you’re 18th on your own, like Matt Kenseth was on his own, Denny Hamlin was 23rd, that’s pretty strong when you’re going with basically your package you’re going to race with.  So now it’s shown up three times.  Denny Hamlin has two wins, Kenseth has a win, those Gibbs guys are on their game.
 
            Q.  You’re not going to have help early in the race from your teammates because they start in the back.
            KURT BUSCH:  What did Harvick do?
 
            Q.  His car failed inspection.
            KURT BUSCH:  That’s not good.  Maybe there was a 12 pack in the trunk.
 
            Q.  That was almost the way he said it, too.
            KERRY THARP:  Track bar over three inches.
 
            Q.  So you’re going to have to make new friends.
            KURT BUSCH:  For us, Gene Haas came over and patted the hood of the car.  It was his name on the hood of the car.  It says Haas Automation, and the car doesn’t have a scratch on it.  I’ve never seen a guy that doesn’t say much show so much with that one genuine pat of the hood on his car, in the top 10 in the Daytona 500.
            It’s our best bullet on the 41 car.  It’s his pride.  It’s his Haas Automation company with the Chevy emblem and with Monster Energy onboard.  It’s what we all want on the 41.
            We’ll race from there.  I know the Stewart Haas teammates will show up.  It’s a long 500 miles.  You have pit road, you have drafting mistakes.  There are plenty of things that will mix up the field.  We’re proud to be up front in the great American race.
 
            Q.  What do you perceive is the major difference in the feel of this year’s car with the tweaking versus a year ago?  I know you were in a Chevy, but a different Chevy last year.
            KURT BUSCH:  It just seems like everybody has more things ‘scienced’ out.  There’s more speed in the cars.
            What I’ve noticed is maybe we’ve gotten so aggressive with trying to find speed that teams are starting to sacrifice stability.  When you sacrifice stability that means your cars are wandering around a little bit more.  We’ve seen some wrecks on the tri oval.  The tri oval is a corner; it’s not a straightaway.  The car is not as loaded in the tri oval as it is in the banking on turns one and two, three and four.  The car skates on the looser side or the unstable side through the tri oval.
            It’s now starting to get to the point where you got to make sure you put some comfort back in the car and not necessarily go for that raw speed.
            But it’s not like years past where the asphalt was old, it was about handling.  It’s still about raw speed, but the cars are wandering around a little bit more.
 
            Q.  Is the skating around more the 18 degrees versus the 31 degrees where you have more to grip?
            KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, you’re right.  The corners are 31 degrees of banking and it holds the car better.  The tri oval is 18, therefore it slides around a little bit more through that corner.
            KERRY THARP:  Kurt, congratulations and good luck on Sunday.
            KURT BUSCH:  Thank you.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
BUDWEISER DUEL NO. 1
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
FEBRUARY 20, 2014
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND, BUT WILL START AT THE REAR OF THE DAYTONA 500 DUE TO FAILING POST RACE INSPECTION
TAKE US THROUGH THE LAST LAP, SPECIFICALLY TURNS THREE AND FOUR TO THE START/FINISH LINE:
“Well I was prepared to go with a couple of laps to go it just depended on when they group really started getting antsy and getting tightened up as much as they could to get that run that you needed.  I had to just go whenever I thought that run was going to be the biggest.  We waited a lot longer.  Everybody I guess was waiting for me to go and then we went.  The way it all timed out we just went a little too late.  I was able to side-draft and not clear him and I knew the side-draft was going to come back and just a matter of when I got back to him it was just too late for me to get back by him.”
 
DID YOU DO THAT IMPRESSIVE SIDE-DRAFTING MOVE TOO EARLY? OR, WAS IT ABOUT THE RIGHT TIME?
“Well, the first thing I would say is thank you to Budweiser and Jimmy Johns, Outback, and everybody on these guys. And I can’t tell you how bad I want to win a race with these guys early, just to repay them for all the hard work and effort that everybody at SHR has put in. But I knew I had to go when I had the momentum. So whoever those guys got to me, I knew had to pull out, whether it was two laps or one lap. When they were jammed up the tightest, is when we had to pull out. So, I pulled out. And I thought that I’d gotten under him soon enough to where he could get back to me and kind of do like we do a long time ago in the Daytona 500 but just the timing of the side-draft was off just a little bit. And then we about both lost it because when I went up to chase him, I noticed the No. 5 (Kasey Kahne) come to the bottom. But what a great way to start Speedweeks. We’ve had two solid races and we’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing and everybody on this Budweiser team and give ourselves a chance to finish the race on Sunday and hopefully we’re in the same spot.”
 
 
EXPLAIN WHAT THE SIDE-DRAFT DOES AND WHAT IT FEELS LIKE IN THE CAR:
“It’s like putting the brakes on, exactly like putting the brakes on.  When you go to go by a car basically the front air off the car that you are passing packs up against your rear spoiler and just slows the car down.  It’s very effective with this package and made for an exciting finish tonight.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD
THIRD-PLACE FINISH, BUT ONLY BY A FENDER SO YOU HAVE TO BE PLEASED WITH THE WAY THE CAR PERFORMED TONIGHT:
“Yeah, I was really happy with our Farmers Insurance Chevy.  We had speed from the start of the race.  I kind of screwed up and went to the back there at the start.  I didn’t realize everybody was going to get single file, but we caught back up through there pretty quick and had a great run.  We were really close.  Tried to stick with Kevin (Harvick) there and Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) was behind us and we just about got it.  It was close, it was exciting.”
 
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE NIGHT?
“I thought it was pretty good. I was really happy with my Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. I went to the middle early and dropped to the back and then we drove back through the middle there and got back to the front. So we had a strong car. When do you go when do you get the run and if you can get to the front. Matt (Kenseth) did a good job of being able to hold us off. Kevin (Harvick) was right there as well and Dale (Earnhardt Jr.). So, I had a good time.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
WAS THIS RACE ABOUT LEARNING AS MUCH AS IT WAS ABOUT WINNING?
“Well we found out we’ve got a real good race car.  We slid the left-front tire and got real tight that last run.  So I’m not sure if we need to work on the balance or whether it was just that flat spotted tire.  Real happy with the way my car drove.  Sat there all the way until the end to make a move and you know that is what we are doing.  We are all waiting to make a move and I went to make a move and nobody got on the elevator with me.”
 
A LOT OF YOUR FANS WERE CONCERNED IF THAT TIRE, WHICH WAS FLAT-SPOTTED, WOULD LAST. BUT FOR YOU, THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION WAS ANTICIPATING WHEN EVERYBODY WAS GOING TO MAKE THEIR MOVE
“Yeah, knowing when to be at the top with everybody and then knowing when the bottom was coming.  And just trying to make that decision and we made some good ones tonight. We slid the left front tire coming onto pit road but that held up and we were able to make some spots up there at the end. We had a little trouble fueling the car, but this National Guard Chevrolet is real fast and I’m happy to be able to find that out tonight and load it up and deliver it to the starting grid on Sunday. That’ll be good.”
 
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO.47 KROGER/USO CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED EIGHTH:
ON LOCKING INTO THE DAYTONA 500:
“It was really good. We were right on the edge, if we didn’t get in the top-15, whether we make the race, so we kind of had to be smart.  I haven’t done a lot of drafting in these cars since I only had one race in this thing last year. More learning trying to watch the really good guys – (Matt) Kenseth, (Kevin) Harvick – really. How they moved around (Dale Earnhardt) Junior and all that. I felt like I learned a lot. Had to play it a little safe at the end. I felt like I gave a couple spots up, could have got aggressive. Overall we have a pretty fast race car. I think we work on a couple of little things. But, we are in the show, and I think we have a good shot on it.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 10TH
ON HIS RACE:
“The outside lane won the race.  The outside lane won the start of the race and the outside lane won the end of the race.  Like I say my race isn’t until Sunday and we will see how we do then.”
 
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO BE IN THE OUTSIDE LANE TO WIN THE RACE?
“Who knows you get 43 cars out there on a restart and you never know what is going to happen.  We will see.  The guys had a good pit stop, feel confident.  We were a little short on raw speed that time it felt like for the first time.  Just need to have a little look at that.”
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 11TH
ROUGH WEEKEND, BUT A PRETTY GOOD NIGHT:
“Yeah the good thing is I’m pretty certain that the No. 41 (Kurt Busch) is in now because we are in.  It’s nice getting all four cars in and not having to worry about it half way through the qualifying races.  We at least know we are going to have all four in.”
 
GOT A BIG THANK YOU FROM GENE (HAAS):
“Yeah, I mean that is what it’s all about.  It’s hard to get four cars in, especially when you’ve got to race a couple of them in.  Just to get through one qualifying race and know that you are going to have all four cars in that is a comforting feeling.”
 
HOW WAS THE RACING COMPARED TO WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT? 
“I think it is just how many guys get on the bottom.  I mean everybody gets on the top and then they start having to lift.  As soon as they have to start checking up then the guys that can hold it wide open and go around the bottom can make time, it’s just a matter of who wants to be the first one to start it.  We were kind of in a position there where we didn’t want to take any chances and we were where we needed to be at the beginning anyway.  So, no need to get in a hurry.  We just stayed in line up there and rode around with the guys we were with there for a while and let it shake out.”
 
IS THE BOTTOM LANE GOI
NG TO HAVE TO DEVELOP FROM THE GUYS IN THE BACK?
“Whoever the strong cars are if they, Matt (Kenseth) is a strong car so he gets on the bottom he is going to get takers to go with him and they are going to make ground.  It’s not saying it can’t happen, but you are going to have to have a strong car leading it to do it.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 14TH
ON LOCKING INTO THE DAYTONA 500:
“I think every time there is a chance that something could happen, then you worry that it could happen. From a couple of days ago, it was really more the mentality ‘Let’s just go out and race’ and ‘Let’s just see if we can make something happen. Let’s see what happens when we try various different things. That is kind of what I did out there.  I kind of keep getting the same results when I try things as in like when I try this, this happens. When I try that, that happens. That’s all good information for Sunday to be honest.””
 
IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO DRAFT UP FROM THE BACK?
“It could be challenging, but I think if you get a few people behind you, I think it will be fine.   I know my pit crew is really good, so I know when it comes to pit stops; they’ll help get cars behind me.  They are awesome.   In know that (Tony) Gibson will try strategy to get me track position. With those two things, we’ll get in the thick of it. From there it will be a matter of using those things that I have learned over the last week, and put them to good use.”
 
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 19TH
ON THE RACE:
“I wanted to know that we had something I can move around with in the race. And, now we get to have some fun. Man, that car is super-fast. I think we could get to the draft from anywhere we wanted to.”
 
YOU LED A LOT OF LAPS. THEN, DID YOU DECIDE TO DROP BACK TO BE SAFE?
“Yeah, we ran on the outside there for a while. As soon as we got kind of going backwards and three-wide or whatever I said all right, now it’s time to go back there and play the patient game. It’s no fun, but we get to start on the pole for the Daytona 500 with a really fast car.”
 
WHAT’S YOUR PLAN FOR THE DAYTONA 500? IS IT TO RUN IN THE BACK AND BE SMART AND MAKE IT TO THE END? OR UP FRONT AND STAY OUT OF TROUBLE?
“I like leading laps. I like being up front. We’ll see what we can do. If it gets hairy; the only thing is trying to get to the back you can get yourself wrecked, too. So, we’ll work hard and see where we end up.”
 
AS A ROOKIE, DID YOU HAVE ANY ISSUES ABOUT GUYS NOT WANTING TO WORK WITH YOU?
“They were working with me well. It was good. I knew I had a chance to get in front of (Dale Earnhardt) Junior at one point and I didn’t want to take that chance that early. We already led laps. We wanted to lead some laps. It was a good day for us.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 2ND, BUT WILL START AT THE REAR OF THE DAYTONA 500 DUE TO FAILING POST RACE INSPECTION
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS, FINISHED 3RD
 
KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll into our post-race for tonight’s first Budweiser Duel at Daytona, the first qualifying race for Sunday’s 56th running of the Daytona 500.  Our race runner up is Kevin Harvick.
            Kevin, you said you were doing almost really good, but you have to feel good about this racecar as I know you’re trying to get that second Daytona 500 win under your belt.
            KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, just I want to win bad for everybody at SHR, on the new team.  It was really close tonight.  Obviously we’ve won some races that close, we’ve lost some races that close.
            We’ve had two good races.  Our cars have been fast.  We’ve been able to run up front and lead some laps and do the things we need to do.
            On Sunday we just need to do the same thing and keep it rolling for 500 miles.  I think when you get more cars in the pack, it’s going to be a little more intense than what it was tonight.  It was obviously a great finish.  But I just had to go whenever the pack bunched up and decided to make a move like that.  We made it just a touch too late to be able to get the last side draft by Matt there at the end.  So it was a good race.
 
            KERRY THARP:  We’ll take questions now for Kevin.
 
            Q.  Kevin, was conservative driving more a function of less cars or also a function of you guys didn’t want to bust anything up in this race because Sunday is the most important one?
            KEVIN HARVICK:  I think we’ve all done a pretty good job at tearing a few things up along the way so far.  I think everybody was a little bit conservative.  I think obviously there was only 18 cars in the Unlimited and we tore the whole field up.
            I think everybody wanted to do what they had to do to get the best finish that they could.  Obviously those of us running up front tried to win the race.  It just didn’t time out exactly perfect.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Our third place finisher has joined us, that’s Kasey Kahne.
            Let’s hear first from Kasey.
            KASEY KAHNE:  I had a really good Farmers Insurance Chevy.  Was happy with it throughout the race.  Was right behind Kevin, trying to get a run.  We got one right there at the end.  Came close to getting by Matt.
            It was a great finish.  I was able to move around all over the racetrack depending on when people wanted to race.  If people wanted to race, I thought our car was really strong.  That’s really about it.
 
            Q.  Based on what we’ve seen so far with this, think we’ll have a good package to race in the 500?
            KEVIN HARVICK:  We just had a three wide finish for the win.  I guess if you guys don’t like that, we’ll have to try something different (smiling).
            Yeah, I mean, I think when everybody gets antsy and wants to go, you can group up and go.
            KASEY KAHNE:  Absolutely.  If the guys want to race, then the cars suck up quicker.  A bit more of a handful than what they were last year.  I felt like, too, in the pack.
            It will be exciting and a lot going on when people do want to race.
            But 500 miles, you’re probably not going to run three wide all 500, I wouldn’t expect.
 
            KERRY THARP:  Congratulations for putting on a heck of a show.  We look forward to Sunday.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 20, 2014
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO.88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway and discussed past success at restrictor plate races, side-drafting, his expectations for the Daytona 500, and more. Full transcript:
 
TALK ABOUT YOUR OUTLOOK AND HOW THINGS ARE SHAPING UP FOR THE TEAM:
“We have a good car. This car has a ton of preparation and time put into it compared to even the backup car. Hopefully we can get through qualifying race without any problems and get through the rest of the practices so we can deliver this car to the starting grid on Sunday because I think it gives us the best opportunity to win the Daytona 500.   So just sort of going through the processes this week, trying to learn what we need to learn and trying to find what we can out of the car for additional speed.  We were able to do a little bit of that yesterday in practice and in the evening.  But otherwise, it’s been pretty uneventful.”
 
THE RESULTS OF WHAT WE SAW YESTERDAY IN PRACTICE, WAS THAT THE RESULT OF SIDE DRAFTING AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
“I wasn’t out there in the accidents that we had.  Obviously I think Cole (Whitt) cut a tire on something that came off of another car and that created the first accident.  The second accident was just a product of the side draft and these cars getting stuck beside each other a whole lot easier than anything we have ever driven down here, ever since I have been driving down here.  Whether it’s the fenders being flared and the wheel wells not sealing up to the tires, but there is something going on with these cars.   We had it last year and we first noticed it last year when we raced them at the plate tracks where they kind of get stuck beside each other.
 
“You just have to sit there beside someone until someone pushes you by and when everybody kind of gets jammed up behind a couple of guys that are stuck beside each other, you have what we had in the second accident.  Just about 12 cars packed up really tightly behind a couple of guys that are sitting there drafting side-by-side without any help and a couple guys were trying to get out of the draft.   I think Parker Kligerman said he was trying to get out of the draft, and a couple of guys are trying to get in the draft with the 5 and the 27.  So it’s just a challenge in practice and you have cars pulling out of the pack and you have cars blending into the pack and it makes things a little bit challenging sometimes.”
 
WITH YOUR RECENT SUCCESS HERE AT DAYTONA DO YOU FEEL FRUSTRATED THAT YOU HAVE HAD SUCH A LONG DROUGHT SINCE YOUR LAST PLATE WIN?
“I don’t have time to do that honestly, and I have run second in three of the last four Daytona 500s.  Neither one of them were a win, but that is nothing to be ashamed of.  I still feel like that we run well enough at these tracks for me to continue to come into them with confidence, and just in myself regardless of the car.
 
“I still feel like I do restrictor place race well, understand how the draft works rather well, and enjoy racing at
them.  You know, I hope that is always the case.  It’s a different challenge every time you come back and that makes it enjoyable.   The packages may change and maybe the package doesn’t change, but the dynamic weather and this track surface always changes, so the way you draft is always different no matter what.”
 
WITH PACK RACING AND THE ACTION IN PRACTICE YESTERDAY, IS THAT A PREDICTOR OF A WILD RACE ON SUNDAY?
“I hope not.  I think that the qualifying races have me a little nervous because they are at night and just running at night is going to be unique and new for everybody.   You just hope everybody realizes that we have got the Daytona 500 to run on Sunday and this isn’t for all the marbles yet.
 
“So as much fun as it is to run and win a qualifying race and set the tone for your team, you definitely want to go out and try to win those races for your team, but you don’t want to be pulling out a back-up for the 500 if you don’t have to.  You definitely want to start your primary car because of the preparation, time, and development put into the primary car is vastly superior to the back-up.  It gives you the best opportunity to win on Sunday.
 
“I think just saying 500 miles changes everybody’s demeanor, and everybody’s approach to that race.  Those wrecks in practice definitely surprised me and surprised a lot of people and I hope it’s just a product of a lot of cars just trying to get out of the draft, cars blending in, and cars put in a bad position that they could not get out of.
 
“I think definitely this package and the way it drafts is bringing things a lot closer together and making things where guys are racing double file more often.  That is good and we need that and we definitely didn’t race enough in the Daytona 500 last year….you couldn’t race because you would just go to the back and couldn’t risk pulling out because you just didn’t know and going to the rear was a likely result. So we really won’t have that this year and won’t have to worry about that because the bottom seems to be able to put together runs and that is going to make for a better race.  
 
“We have been able to race side-by-side here forever and I think we can do it Sunday without any trouble and put on a great show.”
 
IT SEEMS LIKE YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO ADAPT AT THESE PLATE TRACKS WHEN THEY CHANGE THE RULES.  DO YOU FEEL THAT GIVES YOU AN ADVANTAGE ON SUNDAY?
“I definitely try to keep an open mind and try to understand how the packages and the changes, whether it be a little bit of spoiler or opening up the plate or closing the plate up, and how that does change the draft and the way you get runs and the way the car is going to react to runs. And so you sort of pre-determine and pre-estimate what’s going to happen out there as you’re driving around the track. I feel like I do that well. And I feel like that’s been a part of my success at these places. Just trying to finish off the job has been a little bit difficult in the last several years, but we’ve still had some good runs and have been able to maintain our good track position throughout the races. When we’ve gotten good cars, we’ve been able to put them toward the front.
 
“You just have to have an open mind. What you learn when you first start racing at these tracks is important, but how it works is always changing and you’ve got to be ready for that. You can’t expect it to react at the exact same time every time you come back here. And how the car’s side-draft; they side-draft, for lack of a better word, they are a little more frustrating to side-draft with now. You used to use a side-draft as an offensive move, where you would get up on the guy’s quarter panel and stall him out and it would give you a boost and you’d pull away like jumping a boat wake and get out away from him so he could not do the same thing to you and you would make a pass. That was how we used to use that with success. But now, there’s an extreme stall when you side-draft a guy and it really kills his car. But before you can get out and get away from him, it starts to kill your car and you sort of sit there and just fight on each other’s quarter panels until somebody tucks-in behind one of you and pushes you through. So that’s more frustrating. You’d rather just make the move on your own and move on to the next guy. But you’ve got to be open to those things changing. And when the do change, recognize it and understand it.”
 
IS THERE ANY MORE CONCERN AMONG THE DRIVERS WHEN YOU SEE CARS GETTING UP IN THE FENCE? DOES THAT INCREASE THE AWARENESS?
“It doesn’t.
We’ve seen accidents, bad accidents; but as a driver, we’ve seen that in the history of the sport for as long as I can remember and before my time. But as a driver, your gut feeling to your core is that you’re as safe as you’re ever going to be in that car. And that you worry about driving your race and doing what you need to do and you’re not going to be in that situation. So, I feel like there is still a lot to be learned as far as how to protect the spectators and how to do some things with the catch fence that can prevent things from going into the stands. And I think that NASCAR understands that and we’re obviously always learning and trying to learn and trying to improve.
 
“Unfortunately, those types of accidents give us some of the best knowledge that we can get to improve that situation. But as a driver, you don’t worry about that. When you see that happen, that’s just man, that’s unfortunate for that gut. And that’s a rare occurrence and that’s not going to happen to me. So, that’s how I feel about it.”
 
HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENT VISION PERSPECTIVE IN THIS CAR VERSUS PREVIOUS CARS?
“I don’t feel like I am struggling to see, or struggling to understand where cars are around me more than any other time down here.  I don’t feel like these cars are any different than the C.O.T. or even the generation before that.  There is nothing about the A-post, or the B-post or the C-post that really annoys me as far as being able to see out of the car.  I am pretty satisfied with my vision out the front and out the back of the car, and what my spotter is telling me.  The thing about it is that one of the things I hear from people who watch these races, and that I see myself and my spotter sees is a car will get a run out of nowhere almost seemingly. We’ll be running along in the pack, and somebody in the middle of the pack will just find something draft-related that will just shoot their car up into a hole.  You always could pre-determine what lane was going to move; how they were forming; how close they were together and you could almost pre-determine where you needed to be by seeing how people were lined up around you.
 
“But with this car, and the way we sort of get stuck side-by-side in the side draft, guys are sort of finding big gaps of air, and their cars and just getting theses boosts out of nowhere and they’ll come running up on you. The other day in the Unlimited, I never knew the No. 9 (Marcos Ambrose) was on the outside of me or trying to go to the outside of me. I wasn’t really paying attention n to him because I didn’t think that him pushing me was keeping his car connected to mine. I didn’t think he had enough power to push me, and then pull out and go around me.
 
“That just isn’t something you really see that often. You can underestimate the runs these guys are getting around you, and you’ll be three-wide more often than you know. I think there were definitely three-wide in that second accident in practice, and I think that a lot of those guys didn’t know they were three-wide because it was inches just the way these cars are getting runs. But I can see fine out of my car. I’m not concerned with the vision at all.”
 
IT SEEMS YOUR DRIVER CHASE ELLIOTT TAKES A LOT OF FLACK FROM OTHER DRIVERS IF SOMETHING HAPPENS ON-TRACK.  WHAT IS IT ABOUT IN YOUR OPINION AND DID YOU HAVE PROBLEMS LIKE THAT EARLY IN YOUR CAREER?
“I think Chase is going to be under a microscope a little bit because of his last name because of the expectations put upon him and because of his alignment with Mr. (Rick Hendrick), and maybe even with his alignment with us.  He’s going to have a lot of expectations.  Take for example the ARCA race where he had something to do with that accident. The guy that spun out – everything him had some influence on him losing control of his car. Chase had no intention of spinning the guy out.  I don’t think he even thinks he did it.
 
“And maybe you could argue that he didn’t spin the guy out. But just the way the air works, that guy got tight and put a lot of wheel of wheel in his car and Chase was right up on him. If he didn’t hit him, he was an inch off of him, and that’s all it took. I’ve done the same thing. I came down here, I can’t remember, I think it was the second 300 that I came to. Maybe It was the July race, we were out there practicing and was running down the front straightaway drafting with Jeff Burton, Dick Trickle and a couple of other people. Michael Waltrip pulled out on the track and he was blending up on the track, and I had a run on somebody and pulled out to make a pass. I was basically going three wide in the middle. Michael was about 50 mile-an-hour slower than we were. Just going by Michael that fast blew my car up into the guy beside me, and we all wrecked; about 10 cars in practice.  Jeff Burton and Dick Trickle were both in my garage in 10 minutes trying to chew my butt.
 
“Those things are going to happen to every driver that comes into this sport. And, more importantly, I think it happens more often with guys like myself, or Chase number one, because they are angry. But number two; they expect more out of you.  They expect you to know better than to do that because you are Bill Elliott’s son, or you are Dale Earnhardt’s son and you’ve been around this forever and you ought to know better. And they want you to know better.  As much they were there to chew my butt, they were there to help me to understand to not make that mistake again. If I am going to get it, and going to make it, you have to learn not to make that mistake again.   So, that is going to be part of the process for Chase, and part of the growing pains, but he is such a quick study, and he handles those situations just really well.  He said ‘Hey, I might of done it; I don’t know if I did it.’ He’s sitting there in the car under caution with a pretty level head about the situation, which I felt pretty good about. He doesn’t get excited. He doesn’t bad mouth; he doesn’t point fingers and say ‘It’s that guy’s fault’ or ‘It wasn’t my fault’. He just has a real level head and open mind about things, and I like that about him.  I think that is going to benefit him as he is going through these growing pains, and trying to process everything happening to him.”
 
HAS YOUR APPRECIATION CHANGED FOR THE DIFFICULTY OF WINNING A PLACE RACE WITH THE LONG GAP SINCE YOUR LAST WIN?
“Those were different cars. Those cars were pretty amazing that I was driving back then. I will be honest. Those cars should have won. Those were pretty fast cars. I can’t as much credit as I would like for how good those cars were back then, and how we had ourselves separated from the competition I think.  Under the current rule package, and strict guidelines with the rear shocks and springs; really there is no area that the teams are able to work in to set themselves apart from anybody. So everybody pretty much has the same car these days. It is a lot harder to win these races and rightfully so. I definitely appreciate the challenge we have today. But if it were the same playing field, I would be asking myself a lot of questions. But it has changed so much since then. At least that is my story.”
 
YOU HAVE BEEN SECOND IN THREE OF THE LAST FOUR DAYTONA 500S. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN TAKE FROM THOSE BECAUSE THE CARS KEEP CHANGING?
“You are always trying to learn, and every time I go out on the track, I want to be around a pack of cars that I can learn from every time we practice.  Every time we practice this week, I want to go out there and try to learn my car.  Maybe we’ve changed something that makes my car do something it couldn’t do. Maybe it does something better or worse that I need to pinpoint. So I am eager every time we get an opportunity to go on the track to do that.  As far as trying to win  one of these races, or not
run second again, I think we need to be up front.  We’re not far enough toward the front.  When we’ve run second; we’ve come from third, or fourth, or fifth, or sixth I those last few laps.  You are not going to win the race from back there. You might run second, but you aren’t going to win.  You need to be leading the race. I would much rather be leading the race tonight, and the Daytona 500 inside of five laps to go than be anywhere else.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS PRACTICE
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER NOTES & QUOTES
FEBRUARY 19, 2014
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS  – AVOIDED CRASH DURING FIRST PRACTICE SESSION, BUT A PIECE OF DEBRIS, A COWL FLAP, WAS STUCK IN THE HOOD
 
YOU HAVE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME. HAVE YOU EVER HAD SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPEN TO YOUR RACE CAR?
“I can’t say that I have. The whole thing happened so quick. I haven’t even made half a lap. The field had just gone by me. I actually, as the field was going by me, I came on the radio and I said, ‘Alan (Gustafson), do we want to be in the middle of this because it looks like a debris big mess’. I’m not exactly sure what happened in front of me; I think it the No. 26 (Cole Whitt) or somebody had gotten into the wall. And it looked the No. 55 (Brian Vickers) moved down to avoid him and came across the nose of the No. 13 (Casey Mears) or somebody. But yeah, I just tried to avoid them and this (points to a cowl flap) got stuck in my hood. I thought I was in pretty good shape until I saw that. That’s a bummer. So, our Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet is a little damaged right now. We’ll fix that damage and I don’t know if we’re going to come back out after this (laughs).”
 
CASEY MEARS, NO. 13 GEICO CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN AN ON-TRACK INCIDENT IN PRACTICE
WHAT DID YOU SEE OUT THERE?
“I was just kind of cruising through the middle and the No. 55 turned down.  After looking at the replay it looked like the No. 26 got into the fence and he (the No. 55) was just pulling down to avoid him.  These things happen.  This is definitely one of those tracks you kind of expect these things to happen.  As bad as it is and as much as we don’t want to get involved in something like this you also expect it.  It’s not good for the GEICO Chevy, but at the same time these guys will get it fixed up.  It seemed like it had pretty good speed in the draft so I like the way it drove.  Got to work on it to get it to turn a little bit better, but other than that we are good.”

WHAT DID YOUR CREW CHIEF BOOTIE BARKER SAY ABOUT THE DAMAGE?
“They are obviously going to try to repair it where this car is probably going to be useful.  That is a good thing it wasn’t bad enough where we have to pull out a back-up.  Not the work that we wanted to do.  I don’t think we will get in the second practice because they are going to have to take their time to repair it right.  But hopefully we will be good for the 150’s.” 
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 PEAK/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – INVOLVED IN MULTI-CAR PRACTICE CRASH
WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE?
“What I saw in the car was just the front half of the No. 20 car getting kind of squirley like somebody ran into the back of him to try and bump draft.  Turns out Joey (Logano) was bump drafting the No. 20 in the middle of the pack when we were trying to get up to speed.  I guess that is the end result.  Fortunately Parker (Kligerman) is okay and nobody in the stands got hurt.  It could have been a lot worse.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE OUT THERE WITH THE SIDE DRAFTING? 
“I literally just got up to speed and the side draft is huge on these cars with this new style of car.  We knew that coming in, but we were just three wide.  I’m pretty sure the No. 20 got hit by somebody and the next thing I know I’m sideways.”

THOUGHTS GOING INTO THE DUEL AFTER THIS HAPPENED?
“We had a really fast Chevrolet as you saw all the RCR cars have been extremely fast this week.  Our back-up car is pretty good too.  It comes out of the same shop obviously, so it’s not as good as our primary because it’s our back-up, but sometimes a slower car drives a little bit better too.  We will see.  I have no reservations about the 150’s.  We will try to race our hardest to get the best starting position we can and if we crash, which is 50/50 shot at these places we crash and we will try to get another car out of the shop.”
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed   .  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  Helio Castroneves joins us.
At the end of last season, coming up short in the championship, you put that away.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  That’s gone.  Yesterday’s news.  Now we’re in 2014.  We have a lot of work ahead of us.  We’re ready.  We’re starting some few testings already.  We’re going to be testing Thursday in Barber, then Sebring before the spring training, then the race.
I’m excited and ready, to be honest, to start the season because it’s been a long off-season in a good way.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll dive right into questions.
Q.        What are you going to have to do to win that first championship?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I don’t know.  I have the right line with God, to be honest, and with the Pope, too, especially with John Paul.  He said, When the time comes.
I just got to push it.  I just got to keep pushing.  You can’t waiting for something to happen.  You have to continue giving yourself an opportunity.  Well, it may be this year.
Certainly we did our job last year.  Unfortunately circumstances outside of our control, didn’t happen.  But right now that’s the attitude I’m going with 2014, give ourselves an opportunity, that door will open one day.
 
Q.        Juan, we were talking about how you didn’t like each other earlier in the careers.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I think it was more rivalry.  I don’t think it was personal.  We cross our path many, many years, including the beginning, middle and end of the stage.  Now we’re literally together.
I feel we’re in a different phase of our lives, there is a lot going around, we accomplish a lot in our career.  I guess you can call that mature.
All of this, it’s part of life.  Honestly, it’s amazing to have him in our side.  He’s been an incredible addition, and I mean that.  He’s definitely going to be a tough competitor.  Most of what I noticed, which I knew he would be quick adapting on the car, but most of it’s the information that he brought, that I was very surprised and happy about.  Certainly it’s going to make our cars better.
 
Q.        Last year with AJ, you, Will and AJ bonded quickly and became very close.  Can that same relationship happen with Juan, the three of you?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I think so.  Right now that’s the way it is.  We went to many trips together, all of us getting along very well.  One thing is testing, another thing is competing.
In my end I feel that so far myself, Will, even Juan, we know the type of person he is.  I know him very well.  Anytime he step on somebody’s toes the wrong time, it’s going to be bad.  What I’m actually happy about so far, we seem to be speaking in the same way, which is one way:  win for Roger.  We want to win this title as bad as anybody else.
 
Q.        How different is this series going to be without Dario?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Good question.  Dario, for me, I can’t say for others, but for me he was certainly an amazing competitor, an amazing driver first of all.  Second, my competitors, they make me better.  Not having Dario, for sure I’m not going to be as good as I was before.
However, he accomplished so much in his career.  For me at least I’m going to be happy to see that he’s still here with us, not racing, but at least around.  That for me, it’s happiness.  It was a scary accident.  He’s going to be able to tell stories to his kids or dogs or whatever, and I feel that at least for us — it was shocking for me.  I’m glad at least I’m going to see him around.
 
Q.        This year is the 10th running of this race with IndyCar.  As the driver who has won it the most times, what can you say about this race, not just what it means to you, but to IndyCar?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Well, there’s several things.  The first thing is after a long season, we starting in St. Pete, so everybody’s fresh, everybody’s ready.  Second is the atmosphere.  I mean, the weather is great.  The fans are amazing.  Over 120,000 people over the weekend.  It’s becoming part of a big party in the town.  Hen you put all these things together, it’s becoming a great event.
Plus the track.  The technical side, it makes between the street course with an airport involvement.  It’s not always a 90-degree corner like a typical road course has.  You have high-speed corners, things like that.
It’s only four hours’ drive from my home.  So everything counts.  Plus, when the place suits you well, you tend to enjoy much better.
 
Q.        What can you say about some of the young, up-and-coming drivers keeping the IndyCar Series fresh?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Briscoe is already old (laughter).  But it’s great he’s landing in a good team like Ganassi.
I think the young generations is always going to have surprising drivers.  Last year we have several new winners, might not be young drivers, but new winners.  I think when the series, Indy Lights could be better in 2015 with new cars.  That could become something more important for the new generation.
On the other side is leadership now with Derrick Walker and Mark Miles, it shows at the least, the meetings we had before, it shows leadership.  Maybe that’s where we were at the weakest point, and now we see a lot of positiveness.
I feel great about the series getting in their feet, getting back the way it used to be.  It’s been a long time I haven’t felt that positiveness in the series.  I’m exciting.  I’m honestly really exciting.
Media say, They always say the same thing.  But this year with Derrick and Mark Miles, good things for the series and could create a new generation of drivers.
 
Q.        At this stage of your career, what would mean more, the fourth Indianapolis 500 or finally getting your championship?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  For me, Indianapolis 500, if you got to win one race, that’s the race you got to win.  Especially the position that I’m at, it’s a great opportunity to join an incredible club.  Yes, that would probably be the biggest accomplishment I could do it.
The championship certainly is personal.  It’s just something that I didn’t get yet.  It’s like one track I didn’t win.  That’s the way I see it.  There are several places that I finish, like Milwaukee is one of the place that I’m always fast and I always finish second or someplace else.  It’s a something that I want to accomplish and win the championship.  I’m going to do everything I can to make it happen.
 
Q.        Driving for Roger all these years, was there any thought of driving the Daytona 500 and win both of them?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I asked Roger if I could try a different car, he said no.  I asked again, he said no.  The third time he said no.  So it’s not a lack of trying (laughter).
 
Q.        Did you space it out?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I space it out.  I been there 14 years.  It’s no.  I think I got the message (laughter).
 
Q.        14 years in any form of motorsports, that’s an incredibly long time.  Could you
speak to that association.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yeah, I feel it’s a great marriage for me and for the team.  Right now both of us working together, we have the same goals, we have the same accomplishments that we want to make happen.
When you have that kind of a marriage, everybody is happy.  We want to make it happen.  Last year was a big prove that we want to make it happen.
 
Q.        Expanding Team Penske up to three drivers, do you know who your race strategist is going to be for this season?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yes.  Do you want to know?
 
Q.        Yes.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  RP is going to be my strategist.  I’m super happy.  First time I had him was last year and I’m happy to have him back.
 Erickson is now selling motorcycles in Detroit.  If you need a motorcycle, Indian motorcycle, help him out.
 
Q.        Roger said before he would be your strategist, if you didn’t win the championship, it would be his fault.  Was there punishment?
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  No (laughter).  Roger does not make mistakes, if you know what I mean.  No, like I said, I’m just honored to have him on the radio and happy to have him as the strategist.
 
Q.        Did I see a picture of you on Twitter with Brad and you were wearing the yellow suit?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yes.  That was Cooper Standard group that they sponsor him at the Truck Series.  It was me and Chelsea doing a presentation for them.  I tried to bring Brad to do a little moves.  Looks like he was having an oversteer problem there.  Wasn’t quite sexy.
It was a lot of fun.  A great event for his sponsors.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Helio Castroneves, thank you very much.
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed his first full-season with Chip Ganassi Racing, expectations for the season, his CGR teammates, driving for Corvette Racing and other topic.  Full transcript
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Ryan Briscoe.
How is it being a new dad?
RYAN BRISCOE:  She’s doing great.  She’s 10 weeks old now.  No complaints.  It’s all good.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Ryan recently tested out on the West Coast.  Tell us a little bit about that experience and what you can take away from going back into St. Petersburg. 
RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, good, really good.  Any track time has been big for us with our crew.  We’ve put together a new team to run the fourth car at Ganassi.  Got a few familiar faces there, but a lot of new guys as well.
For Eric Cowdin, who is my engineer this year, we worked together for a few years at Penske.  We’re both new, getting back integrated into Chip Ganassi Racing.  A bit to learn for both of us.  A few new mechanics and stuff.
The testing has been great, getting everybody working together, trying to get into a bit of a flow as we get closer to the first race.  We’re testing one more time at Barber before the first race.  Really there’s not a whole lot of track time.
We did Fontana last week on Monday, then to Sonoma on Wednesday.  We got a lot of good data points from the oval to the road course, lots of good laps, lots of good information from the engine side.
All in all, it was really successful.  For me, great to be getting the seat time.  Feels good.
 
THE MODERATOR:  You also participated in the Rolex 24.  A little bit about that experience because it was a brand-new car you were driving.
RYAN BRISCOE:  Yeah, I’m doing Daytona and I’ll be doing the Sebring 12 hours as well with Corvette Racing.  It’s an awesome car.  I’ve never raced GTs before, so I was a bit apprehensive going in.
The thing drives unbelievable.  It really drives more like a sports car.  Good downforce, lots of fun.  From here I’ll be heading down to Sebring for testing this week.  Anytime at the racetrack is good fun for me.
 
Q.        Between driving for Chip and Roger, is there any thoughts of running both the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500?
RYAN BRISCOE:  I’ve never really put any effort into talking to anyone about doing that, so not really.
I don’t have any experience driving stock cars.  I think it’s a cool idea, but it takes a lot of effort from the team’s standpoint as well to make that happen.  They probably look more towards guys that have won those races to begin with if someone’s going to do it.  So, yeah.
 
Q.        What are your thoughts about how this month of May looks to you?  Two races, two thought processes.
RYAN BRISCOE:  I think it’s going to be good ’cause I like the fact that we’re extending the month of May.  I think it’s going to be an exciting way to open up the month of May with a big event.  Something new for a lot of fans that will be there that maybe just go to the Indy 500 every year, haven’t seen what we actually do most of the time throughout the year, which is road course racing.
I think being able to showcase our diversity as a series on one venue, in one place, I think that’s going to be great for the series and great for a lot of the fans as well.
I can’t wait to drive the track.  I did the testing back in November.  We drove a couple of variations of the circuit going both ways down the straight, and the track will be different again to improve the racing.
I think it’s going to be great.  It’s going to be a quick turnaround from race day to opening day for the oval the next day.  It will be a refocus like you’re going to a new place because your mindset changes completely.
I’m hoping it’s a success.  I think it’s a great idea.  I’m hoping the fans really take to it.
 
Q.        You spent most of your career with Penske or Ganassi.  You have to play a role as a driver when you have big owners.  How does Kanaan fit into a Chip world?
RYAN BRISCOE:  Tony?  He’s driven for big teams, too.  I don’t know.  Honestly, I’m not sure.  I’m just getting to know Tony really.
I think Chip knows Tony pretty well before just hiring him, so he’s pretty comfortable with him.  They almost signed a few years ago, as well.  I guess time will tell.  He’s definitely a fun character to have around.  He’s always a lot of fun.  He’s aggressive.  He’s definitely got a unique driving style that I’ve picked up on the last couple tests, which is interesting to look at and learn from as well.
I’m looking forward to working with him.  How he’s going to fit in?  He has his own style, so I think he’ll fit in the way he always does.  I think he’ll be good.
 
Q.        You’ve had an interesting view at Scott Dixon.  What makes him so successful?
RYAN BRISCOE:  I think he’s just solid, man, like a rock.  Even-keeled.  He just gets the job done.  Definitely having the continuity he’s had through highs and lows, he’s just been there the whole time.  When he’s had those bad days, he doesn’t say bad things about the team.  He just gets down to work and works really hard behind the scenes without publicizing it so much.  I think that’s what he’s good at.
He’s a phenomenal driver.  He’s fast, he’s consistent.  He’s just the same every year.  You can always count on him going for a championship again
.
THE MODERATOR  Last year you had a few races in IndyCar, injured your wrist, came back.  Coming back for a full season, tell us your thoughts about that.
RYAN BRISCOE:  It’s like everything I wanted after I didn’t get a full-time ride last year has sort of come true now.  It’s really the perfect scenario.  Last year we sort of got to a point around this time where I was like, Full-time ride is not looking good, but that’s all right, we’ll focus on doing something for the Indy 500, I’ll keep my racing up by doing the sports cars.
I didn’t think I would do as many IndyCar races as I ended up doing.  The end goal was I want to get back to IndyCar and have a full-time ride in 2014.  I thought my best way of doing that was to do the sports cars last year, then work hard from that point on on being here now.
It’s crazy.  It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride to get here.  Had a great run with Chip at the 500 last year.  John Barnes gave me the opportunity with his team at the races that I could do, which was tough because I was racing the IndyCar one weekend, then I couldn’t do the next race because I was racing the sports car, then I could do the next race which was an oval.  It was just all over the place.  It was really hard to get that focus.
In the series that’s so competitive, you need that consistency to be competitive.  But in saying that, things have worked out.  I was there on the race weekends, keeping my face in front of the teams, everybody that needed to see me.
Anyway, things have worked out.  I’m really excited to have this opportunity.  It’s a huge chance to run with Chip this year.  We’re working really hard on being strong.  I’m working hard on being on top of my game and hopefully competitive.
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed team ownership, 2014 season and Mike Conway.  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll get started with Ed Carpenter.
Ed, tell us about that transition in ownership and driving, the main reason for that with you and your sponsors and the rest of the team.
ED CARPENTER:  We started the team two years ago.  I want to be able to race as long as I can and do it well.  At the same time the race team is something that I see as my future beyond driving, whenever that day comes.  It’s certainly a business that I want to be successful for long after I’m driving.
That’s kind of where the decision came from, just to make sure that we’re doing everything we possibly could to position the team well and in a strong place to deliver for all our current partners, Fuzzy’s, Chevrolet, and hopefully to grow the team in the near future.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Your team tested last week both at Fontana, then Sonoma with Mike.  What did you learn from those manufacturer test days?
ED CARPENTER:  Yeah, we’ve definitely been busy testing the past month.  It was nice to get back on the track for me.  It’s always fun to work with Chevrolet, developing some new things, it’s fun to be part of that process.  To go back to Fontana, run there, continue working on that track is fun.
A lot of what we’ve been doing is really getting Mike comfortable with our team and at the same time us getting comfortable with Mike.  It’s gone well.  He’s been in the car four days now since he joined us, which other than Juan is I think as much as anyone has tested.
I feel like he’s made a lot of progress.  He came to Fontana with us when I was in the car.  I think that was a good exercise for him as well, just to see me not as a half driver/half owner standing on the timing stand, but to see me interact with the guys.  I think it made him feel more comfortable seeing me in that element rather than seeing me as kind of an owner and a driver.  I think it’s been different for both of us figuring out that role, but it’s been a fun process.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Last year you finished second in Fontana.  You sat on the pole of the Indianapolis 500 last year.  Going into this season with Pocono, Indianapolis, Fontana, what are your thoughts about those big ovals, those super speedways with the Chevy power, what you think you can do?
ED CARPENTER:  I mean, 500-mile races are fun.  They’re more fun than the shorter races just because of how much more that goes into it.  You have more opportunities to figure out how to win the race and you also have more opportunities to mess it up.
It definitely has a higher degree of difficulty.  Really happy to see Pocono being a 500-miler.  I needed an extra 100 miles there last year.  Looking forward to having the extra mileage.  Hopefully we can reclaim that one for Chevy after Honda kind of put it to us with Ganassi last year.
Just looking forward to getting started.  Like you said, we have those three 500-milers.  The rest are all great racetracks and races as well.  So excited for my schedule.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions.
 
Q.        Ed, it’s been alluded to with the strength of you on the ovals and Michael on the road and streets that you could challenge for the entrants championship this year.
ED CARPENTER:  It’s been talked about definitely.  I think that Mike and I are both capable of winning in our respective disciplines, so to speak, or strong suits.  I feel really strongly about the capabilities of our team.  I feel like we should be in the mix everywhere we go.
With that being said, the strength of the series, teams and drivers right now, is at a really high level.  It’s no easy feat, but we’re definitely going to give it our best shot.
 
Q.        I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to do any testing, but I’m curious to know whether you see a difference in the Chevy engine.
ED CARPENTER:  I’ve been on the track twice, both times with the new 2014 Chevrolet.  It’s hard to really have a direct comparison because it had been several months since I had been in the car before.  To be honest, both engines operate at such a high level.  Chevy has continued to do a great job for all its teams and us.
Until we get to St. Pete, then Indianapolis for an oval, it’s really hard to know where it’s going to shake out.  I don’t know that Honda has shown their hand yet.  I don’t think we’ve shown our hand yet either.
I definitely feel good about where we are as a team.  I feel really confident in Chevrolet, the work that they’ve done and continue to do, that they’ll put us in a position to be able to win races as a team.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you, Ed.
 
ED CARPENTER:  Thank you.
 C

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed joining KV AFS racing, teaming again with Scott Sebastien, looking forward to the season and  other topics.  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Sebastian Saavedra.
Sebastian, the team has been joined by Gary Peterson.  Tell us a little bit about that relationship and how it has transferred now to the IndyCar Series.
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Well, it’s something that has been working for a while now.  When I came from Europe in 2009, Gary was pretty much like my second dad, having my first dad present here of course.
We built a very strong relationship.  He took me below his wing to develop me inside his driving development program.  We come through since then.  Last year, of course, having a great sponsor.  Dragon Racing was one year we got slightly separated.  As soon as the season was over, we wanted to continue the great path we have.
Together with Jimmy Vasser, we got stuck on a flight going on our way to Toronto.  We were side-by-side speaking for everything, future plans.  Since then everything start to move forward.
Very happy that the KV AFS Racing program has come together.  Now to put it in papers and make it a reality is something that makes me very excited and, of course, gives us a lot of positive energy going into the season.
                    
THE MODERATOR:  Moving from the IndyCar Series to the Firestone Indy Lights help you?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Totally.  It was not an option.  It was that or doing nothing at all.  But it came the opportunity to make our stronger with AFS and Gary Peterson, trying not only to prepare, but keep learning.  At that time, being 20 years old, I had the opportunity to take chances, and still can.
Now looking back, this is a reality because of those days.  Because of the not only trust that the Indy Lights Series had in me, but, of course, the trust of Gary Peterson and Michael Andretti.  Everything is just a building structure.
 
THE MODERATOR:  You made your Indianapolis 500 debut when you were 18.
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I was just turning 19, yes.  I think I was the first driver from 1990 to be in the great Indy 500.
I think that first time, maybe being young, it was everything a bit too overwhelming, not understanding where I was in.  But the second time everything becomes so clear and so real.
I’ve been blessed to be able to do this for a while now.  This is actually going to be my second full season.  I already had a long round with Conquest Racing.  It’s something that makes me very proud to be around this great series, seeing its development throughout the years.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions for Sebastian.
 
Q.        Were you getting nervous at all as time was going on that you weren’t going to have a ride for this year?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I think as soon as I knew that Dragon Racing was not going, it was a bit late for sure.  I had a three-year contract with Dragon.  This was something that give us a little bit of relief, knowing I had somewhere to be in.
When they decided not to go, it was a late call.  But fortunately enough, as I said, something was brewing very slowly inside KV and AFS.  I was nervous in a way of not being able to race, but how quick could we make it happen.  Now that the series has opened up testing a little bit more, I wanted to be part of that.
But at the end I think I knew I was in the hands of great people and that things were going to come through, the question was when.  It came right at the time that we were expecting.
 
Q.        The flight you were next to Jimmy, was it to the Toronto race?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I’m pretty sure it was.  We got stuck in New York.  We had to change flights and go somewhere else.  It was just a big mess.
So we had a good six, seven hours side-by-side.  Then we arrived to Toronto.  He took me to the track.  I had to go to the track to sit fit.  He was ready to go to the hotel, but he took me in the worst traffic ever of Toronto.
We had an interesting relationship there.  Before it was, Hey, Jimmy, bye, Jimmy.  That was as long as our conversations went.
But we learned a lot from each other that day and opened what we are building today.
 
Q.        Do you like working with Bourdais?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I’m actually being forced to (laughter).
No, we built a really great relationship last year.  I think I respect Bourdais a lot and he respects me.  I think that’s the key to building a great partnership with your teammate.
I think we were able to understand each other and see development-wise that we needed each other to move forward.  So I think it makes it a lot easier to have somebody by your side.  As Jimmy said, you broke those barriers of who the heck is by my side.  Definitely it’s a plus to have him on my side, something that is already natural.  We already get along very well.
 
Q.        I know Juan is a lot older than you.  He’s told us in the past he’s not that popular amongst Colombian racers.  Did you watch him when you were growing up?  Was he not someone that you followed?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  He’s one of the reasons I’m here.  I was only eight years old when he won Indy 500.  I was just starting my go-kart career by then.
It surely gave a little bit of, Hey, if you’re a Colombian, you can make it happen.
Since then we’ve had a couple of contacts.  I raced in the 500 miles of Brazil.  He was there.  That was actually the first time we actually get to speak.  I was 13.  Since then we never spoke again until the Race of the Stars at the end of the year, when we became a lot closer.
I do accept that he’s one of those guys that came through on a very important time of my life, thinking, Is this what I want to do for my whole career?  And it was, and of course, Roberto Guerrero was another guy that came through on my first Indy 500.
I’ve been very blessed with very good people around.
 
Q.        What have you learned from Bourdais?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  He’s a very technical guy.  I think we’ve learned from each other a lot.  We do not have the same driving styles, so that’s something that leaves us to develop different paths throughout the course of the weekend.  We are pretty much able to see what works, what doesn’t, pretty much adapt it to our specific cars.
What I’ve been able to learn from him is just experience.  He has plenty of experience.  He just portrays that very easily.  It’s good when we were sitting with all the engineers for me to say my thoughts, listen to his thoughts, of course complement on those lines.
It’s been a good relationship.  I’ve pushed him to different limits.  It’s good that you don’t feel comfortable at all anytime.  You always start to push when you have somebody behind you all the time.  That’s the development; that’s how it works.
 
Q.        Just looking at your team, times standing, people looking at data.  Will you sit together with Sebastien’s engineers to look over the car data at race weekends?  Will it be independent with separate engineers?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  That’s defini
tely one of the key points for this season:  we’re going to be one team sharing completely everything.  Very good relationship between our engineers.  That’s something that helped to see what is the next step in every session that we are out.
I live in Indianapolis.  I’m pretty much every day bothering the mechanics and engineers at the shop.  That also makes a huge help.  But we are meant to be just one.
 
Q.        Sebastien also tested yesterday at Sebring and Sonoma late last week.  You mentioned about Bourdais.  Have you received any information or had conversations with Vasser on his input, on his style of management, how he relays information to the drivers?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Jimmy sees Bourdais with a lot of respect, of course.  He saw me as the youngster that pretty much still has no limits.  So that’s great to keep the development and pushing Bourdais.
He has a lot of positive attitude around us.  Demanding a lot, of course.  That’s something we’re very welcome to.  When he says he wants to see trophies in his trophy case, that’s something we’ve heard a lot, not only in a couple interviews.  That’s, of course, one of the opportunities that KV AFS Racing is giving us.
We just need to keep focused.  We know what we have.  We know what we’re capable of doing last part of the season last year.  We just need to continue that same path, already having knowledge from two sides.  Having the great oval package from KV, then having great knowledge from street courses from Dragon Racing.  That’s what we’re trying to combine and make a strong overall performance.
 
Q.        Have you raced against Montoya before?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Non-professional events.
 
Q.        What do you think it’s going to be like?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I think it’s going to be interesting, mostly for Colombia, for our country.  Now having three Colombians already signed.  I don’t see it definitely.  When I put on my helmet, I don’t care who is by my side.  I just focus on the cars, the track.
But it’s something definitely very big for history as Colombia has never had three Colombians ever in the same series or ever in the professional level.
It’s going to be a very proud moment for all of us.
 
Q.        It has to go through your head that you watched that guy growing up.
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Definitely.  But I also watched Helio, Dario, T.K.  I’ve had the opportunity to work by their sides the past three, four years.  So I think that moment passed 2009, 2010.  That was the moment of saying, Helio is by my side.
I’ve been able to build a great friendship with them and not look at them as the professionals as they are, but more as friends and competitors.
 
Q.        Is it a big deal in Colombia to have three Colombians in the series?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  It’s insane.  It’s huge.  Sports in Colombia has been growing exponentially in the past 10 years.  Last year we won our first gold medal in BMX actually.  It’s something that we’re very proud of our athletes.
It’s starting very slowly to portray the support from the government, from the public and private enterprises.  So it is huge to have three Colombians in the same roof, the most professional series in America at IndyCar.  There’s a possibility of having a fourth.  That’s something that has never been even thought of in the past.  We have Roberto Guerrero.  Right now we have something like about 50 Colombians worldwide trying to make it.
 
Q.        When you compete you want to do well for yourself.  That’s pressure for you to win for yourself and your sponsors.  Do you ever feel that you have to do well for your country?
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  I think in general you just want to be the best of the best.  That’s my thinking, just winning the race or the season.  In the end you want to be the best.
In this case, yes, you want to be the best of your country, but you also want to be the best in North America.  I see the big picture more than just this regional goal.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Sebastian Saavedra, thank you very much.
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA:  Thank you.

 
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed winning the 2013 championship, preparations for the 2014 season, Tony Kanaan joining the organization, Dario’s new role and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We are pleased to be joined by Scott Dixon.
Scott, the first question for everyone, what do you have to do to repeat as champion this year for the fourth time?
SCOTT DIXON:  Beat everybody else.
Yeah, you know, stay with the same team, same pretty much combination on my car.  There’s been a few changes with the 10 car.  But big change obviously being engine manufacturer, then T.K. going into the 10, welcoming Briscoe back to the team as well in the No. 8.  Lots of changes.
We haven’t done a lot of testing, maybe two or three days so far this year.  Gone pretty smoothly.  Confident in the season.
Personally and for the team, the thing on the 9 car side we need to do a little bit better is start the season off a little bit stronger.  Looking for strong results straightaway in St. Pete.  Long Beach has been definitely not a great track for results for us in recent history.
I think if we can start strong and carry the momentum through from last year, that will be goal number one.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions for Scott.
 
Q.        Are you behind in the number of test days you’ve had compared to other people?
SCOTT DIXON:  I think some teams like KV have done quite a few, six or seven days so far.  We’ve done three.  Juan obviously got gifted for tests.  He’s on eight or nine so far.
Yeah, there’s other teams.  For us we save a fair few for the middle of the season.  It’s easy to get down the road in conditions that can be 40 degrees cooler than when you actually race.
We’ve just canceled the Barber test we had set for the 4th of March.  We want to make sure we keep developing in the areas we need to from the off-season, then work on the car for setups during the hotter months.
 
Q.        How is the communication different with T.K. than Dario?
SCOTT DIXON:  Very different.  Some is in Portuguese and then broken English (laughter).
But, no, you know, for him there’s lots of change.  New team members, new engineer, totally different car setup.  The one constant for him was luckily the engine package with Chevrolet.
Dario and I were very similar I think in debriefing and the way that we approached the weekend.  Hard to tell with T.K. yet because we haven’t worked together that much.  But obviously he’s a big personality.  Fun to have him at the team.  Just to see how we work on car setups is yet to be determined.
But he’s been quick at the first few tests.  It’s nice to have a different driver to look at different areas where he may be quick and areas that the team and myself and the other drivers can definitely work on.
 
Q.        Sounds like Dario can be a big benefit to the team in whatever role.  You lose a contemporary, a guy who is actually pushing you.
SCOTT DIXON:  Yeah, it is a big loss, not just for myself, but I think for the team and also for the series.
The positive side is that he’s still going to be involved with the team.  He’s obviously very talented.  He’s won a lot races, achieved many things.  But when it comes down to the engineering side of it, his approach to a race weekend, I think it’s something that will be missed a little bit.  Hopefully with his involvement we can keep that going.
As a friend, it’s going to be great to have him around.  He’ll be sorely missed on the track.  We’ll have to see how big that change is as we get through the year with different drivers and different combinations.
 
Q.        The 9 and the 10 are very formidable, difficult to beat.  Does the 9 suffer with Dario not in the 10?
SCOTT DIXON:  No, I don’t think so.  There’s many different ways to look at it.  I think T.K. is a great driver.  He’s won a championship.  He’s won many races.  He may be stronger in other areas and maybe a little weaker in others.  I think with the team combination, drivers and engineering, we can try to bring that back together and make it a strong 1-2 punch.
I think you will lose some stuff in the respect of losing Dario, but you’re also gaining different areas, as well.
 
Q.        Without Dario in the 10 with his hair and teeth, does Scott Dixon finally get to stand alone and the world see the greatness of Scott Dixon?
SCOTT DIXON:  Well, I don’t know.  We’ve all still got Chip at the team, too.  T.K. definitely doesn’t have the Dario looks.  We can talk about his big nose, I guess (laughter).
But, you know, I won’t actually go down that road.  Dario will still be with the team and taking some of that limelight.  I’m perfectly fine with that.  Gives him more recreational time away from the track.  I’m sure he’ll be sucking that up.
 
Q.        Your championship last year, are you feeling like you are cementing your place, climbing up the ladder?  Are you carving out your spot in the open-wheel ranks as one of the greatest drivers?  Does it even matter to you?
SCOTT DIXON:  I love my job.  I love racing.  I think that’s what matters to me.  If you can build on those, that’s fantastic.  I’m not a huge sort of stats guy.  I think it’s something you can reflect on when you do leave the sport.
It’s important to me.  It’s important to win.  It’s important to win championships and Indy 500s, fly the flag obviously for the team.  But it’s not something that I wake up thinking about.
I wake up thinking about that race day and trying to win that race day.  I’m not looking for a goal of a certain amount of wins or championships.  I’ve been very lucky with the success we have had as a team.  I guess for us, what we try to do is build on that.
 
Q.        Are you surprised to see Juan struggling, not getting up to speed, by his own assessment?  It wasn’t like riding a bike.  He doesn’t think he’s going to win St. Pete, per se.
SCOTT DIXON:  Are you getting unofficial times from somewhere (laughter)?
It’s hard to comment on.  You don’t really know what teams are testing.  There’s different specs of engines.
Juan I think we all know is a huge talent, and he’s won in everything he’s raced in, many different formulas.  It’s a big change, for sure, coming from mostly oval racing, such a big car.  It’s a different car and the mindsets you get into.
But I think with the team and drivers he’s with, it will come along quickly.  It’s just when it’s going to happen, whether it’s right out of the box or a few races.  He’ll definitely be challenging for wins throughout the season.
 
Q.        You and Dario may have been equals, but now you may be considered the team leader.  How do you feel about that?
SCOTT DIXON:  Well, you know, I think it’s hard to sort of answer that.  There’s never been sort of ones and twos.  Dario was definitely looked up to because he was someone that had been in the sport for a while and been very successful.
He definitely pushed me.  I think we pushed each other, as well.
You know, I’m not real interested in who is a one or a two or who is leading the team.  I
think we do it as a team effort.  I think each driver on the team is like a quarterback to their own group of guys, and then Chip is the leader of the pack, I guess.
I don’t think anything will really change that.
 
Q.        Being a teammate with Charlie, you have a firsthand look of what he deals with with his diabetes.  What impresses you most about that?
SCOTT DIXON:  I guess it’s kind of flying under the radar part when he’s involved with the team.  It’s only at lunchtime that you see him break out a needle.  He prepares himself so well with his dietary needs or training.  He does a first class job on that sort of thing.
He’s done a great job in the last year.  Even the tests we’ve had in the pre-season so far, he’s definitely upping his game.
When he first started, some people might have written him off.  But he’s a smart guy.  If he can’t do it, he’ll look and try to achieve it.  For him to get a win at a tough road course like Mid-Ohio was huge for him and the team.  He’s getting stronger and stronger each year.
 
Q.        The St. Pete track has been a thorn in your side with the second-place finishes.  If you could pick one thing, what would get you to the top there?
SCOTT DIXON:  I think qualifying a little bit better.  We’ve struggled.  The last couple years we’ve struggled out of pre-season development, kind of gone down the long road.  Last year was a big showing of that, obviously.  I think we qualified 20th or something.  To come back with a fifth place was definitely a big race for us.
But I think qualifying.  I think it goes back to the pre-season testing.  We have to be careful of what roads we go down and what works at a Sebring when it’s 40 degrees cooler to what it is when you actually get to the first race.
For me it’s preparing a little bit better, maybe not veering off as much as we did last year, try to have a clean race.  In the early years we definitely had a few podiums.  We’ve had speed there in the past and I’ve made my own mistakes, even leading the race.
If we just sort of go in, not put too much pressure on it, start the season strong, we can definitely do that.
 
Q.        You struggled early last year, then where you ended it, where does it rank among your accomplishments in the sport?
SCOTT DIXON:  I think the comeback for us as a team was huge.  The three in a row with Pocono and Toronto was the start of the swing.  The strength that the team had throughout the remainder of the season, with the exception of some of the big ovals where we didn’t have the speed.  All the road and street courses, we were qualifying in the top three or four every race.  For me, I think that was one of the biggest achievements was to keep strong.
I think that’s where this team is really good.  Even when Dario’s championships in the past, they haven’t led a whole lot of the season.  When it’s counted, they’ve pulled it out or been able to stay more consistent than some of the others.
For me each championship is so different because of the outside obstacles that you have.  I think as sort of a pure enjoyment after the year, this one was probably my pick for the favorite.
 
Q.        Is it official now that your number is the 9 and not the 1?
SCOTT DIXON:  Yeah, I think so.  I haven’t seen a car with a 1 on it.  That’s not up to me, that’s up to Chip.  We could arrive at St. Pete and it could be a 1.
 
Q.        Is it your opinion that you don’t want the 1 because of what happened a couple years ago?
SCOTT DIXON:  It’s not a number.  It’s a stigma, just a number on the car.  I think for us it’s more the icon of the No. 9 and being a Target car, much similar to how the people recognize the cars in NASCAR.  That’s becoming more apparent in IndyCar, as well.
The 9 has been good.  It’s a team number.  If they picked the 1, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
 
Q.        The Daytona 500 is this weekend.  With Chip’s NASCAR program, has he ever asked you about that?
SCOTT DIXON:  We’ve flirted with the idea of having a test.  Last year I was supposed to do a test in New Smyrna.  I only drove Jamie’s car for a swap thing we did at Barber.  Talladega, wasn’t much fun driving around by myself.  Jamie had a lot of fun at Barber in the IndyCar.
I would love to have a go at a short track or road course.  We have to look at schedules.  I think even if the Nationwide side, there’s some races that don’t clash with Mid-Ohio or Road America.  I just want to have a go first and see what it’s like.
Those guys are very good at what they do, very competitive series.  I think it would be a lot of fun to have a go maybe in a Nationwide race.  It’s not something we talk about a lot.  Sort of a once-a-year thing.
 
Q.        So those sort of races would have to happen before the 500 before you go that route?
SCOTT DIXON:  I don’t see the 500 in my near future.  That’s for sure.
 
Q.        Carlos was asked about pranks at Andretti.  Now that T.K. and Dario are back together, are you worried about anything?
SCOTT DIXON:  I don’t know how that’s going to go.  It’s a good question.  I could see it probably starting with me and Dario on T.K. we’ll have to see.  There’s some entertaining things that will happen with truck drivers.  I’m sure it will kickoff.  I’m sure T.K. will be the instigator of most of them.
 
THE MODERATOR:  With 33 wins, Scott is the active leader in wins.  Just ahead of him is Al Unser, Jr. and Bobby Unser.
 
Q.        You had to do a heavy load at the Rolex.  How did you think Larson did overall?
SCOTT DIXON:  The second stint I didn’t really see.  I saw the first one.  I was just going to bed.  There was a problem with the pit speed limiter.  When the car actually ran out of fuel, it wasn’t actually his fault.  When one of those things happens, it tumbles into other things.
The problem is that it’s a very tough race for anybody.  Even if it was me and I’d never done the 24 before, it’s a tough race to go from a race like a Cup car, not have any electronics, understand how things work.  It was maybe his fifth road course race ever, we were going into a gun fight with a knife.
It was stacked against him, but for next year it’s going to help him with the learning curve.  He’ll be not much better prepared but understand things better than before.
He did a hell of a job.  I think the second stint went fairly well.  The first one went fine.  You’re getting in at night, cold.  He was trying to be a little bit cautious.  But he did a good job.
 
Q.        Every time I looked up you were driving.  Is that exhausting?
SCOTT DIXON:  It’s fun.  The cars are getting a little easier to drive because they’ve taken the shifter out of it.  It’s paddles.  Physically it’s not as demanding as what it used to be.
No, when I’m at a racetrack, I think you should be in the car.  I’m always sort of the guy that’s pushing to have three guys for the 24 because you’re in the car more often.  You might as well race if you’re there.
 
Q.        Are you going to Sebring?
SCOTT DIXON:  I’m going to the test this Friday.  I think that’s probably going to happen.  I hope so.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you,
Scott.
SCOTT DIXON:  Thank you.
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO.83 NOVO NORDISK CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed expectations for 2014 season, relishing his win at Mid-Ohio, going back to four car team and CGR and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Charlie Kimball Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Rasing.  You’re not as gregarious as James Hinchcliffe, but if you are shy or retiring, does that make you a bad person?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  No.  I think there are certain drivers with bigger personalities.  Part of it is I think my upbringing has never been real outspoken.  I’ve always tried to be pretty quiet.
Growing up my dad always had a saying, I will inevitably screw this up, But, It’s better to keep your mouth shut and thought a fool than open it and confirm the fact.
I think I’ve always tried to live by that and as much as possible let whatever it is I’m doing, be it on the track, young at school, on the tennis court, let my driving do the talking for me.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll open it up for questions for Charlie.
 
Q.        Charlie, do you have any special memories of savoring the win in the off-season?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  Definitely.  You get more of a chance to let it soak in, for sure.  Funny enough it was more of a poignant moment that I enjoyed most was looking back on that day, the podium ceremony.  I guess it was Wednesday or Thursday after Sonoma, the week after the next race, I got an envelope from the team with all of Floyd’s photos from Mid-Ohio.  It was his last race before he passed on.  For me it was very special.
For me having that vision of him pushing through the crowd to get to Victory Circle to congratulate me, it brought home how special that was, to share that win with Floyd, everything he’s done, not just for Chip, everything he’s done, all the drivers.  Every time at the track he would pull me aside asking me how I was, how my family was at home, knowing that racing is important, but it’s not everything.
Having caught my breath after Sonoma, looking back at that, that was very, very special.
 
Q.        You do have a sense of humor with the videos.
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  We had fun.  I felt like I got swept along with that.  When you put James in front of a camera, couple with Josef and Will, maybe it’s because Will is from the other side of the world, the humor comes out.  We had fun doing those.  James, JR and I did a video about who we were because we kept getting mistaken for each other.
It was a lot of fun.  I hope at some point we’ll be able to do more of those because I think the opportunity to show our personalities, show our colors outside of a racecar, out from under a helmet, is really helpful as a series, and also for us as drivers.
 
Q.        How different is the organization going to be without Dario there?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  Well, I think it’s impossible to replace same with same when you come to someone like Dario as a driver.  Tony brings a lot of different skills and a different personality, as does Ryan.  I think going back from three to four cars will change the organization maybe more than what losing Dario as a teammate will.
Having said that, I think I will always miss having Dario as a teammate and competitor because of how much he helped me in the first three years, what his being involved in the team, being able to talk to meant.  But gaining him as a mentor, assistant to the team, as a coach, he is invaluable.
Pull out another arcane saying here.  He used to say, Just because I taught you everything you know doesn’t mean I taught you everything I know.  So having him as a coach, maybe he helped more than he did as a teammate because he’s always at heart a competitor.
 
Q.        Now that he’s not in the driver’s seat, it’s only been a short time, but what has he been able to do in this short time outside of the car that has helped you?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  He has such a fresh perspective, having so recently driven the car, this iteration of the car.  While he hasn’t driven the Chevrolet we’re running this year, he has a fresh perspective on what the racing is like.  Being such a student of the sport, he understands the history and development of that.  Just that wisdom coming to bear, the three test days we’ve had, four even before Christmas, he was there, so having those four days with him lending advice has been huge.
He has a good relationship with Brad, my engineer.  Brad was the assistant engineer on the 10 car.  They can talk data.  He knew what he did in the car.  Comparing that to what I’m doing, as he said, it’s filling out my toolbox for the year.  As things change and develop throughout the year, we’ll be able to go through that toolbox and rifle and, for lack of a better analogy, pick the right tool for the job.
 
Q.        In the test sessions you’ve been fairly fast.  Do you feel you’ve made a large step with the victory last year?  In your career you’ve had a good progression, maybe moved up to the next level?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  I’d like to think so, for sure.
I think being part of the 1-2-3 at Pocono, not riding on the coattails, being second, not third, beating Dario – and any time you beat Dario, it’s very confidence-building.  Getting that victory at Mid-Ohio, not having had the experience, go there and get the victory, and get the win by going fast, not catching a yellow at the end, but winning by outright speed cemented my confidence level for sure, took that next step.
All the way along Chip’s advice has been to build the foundation for a long-term career, not one year flash in the pan.  Try to build a one-way street, so when I take that next step I stay there.  I think that’s helped.
Going away at the end of the season, having a little downtime, doing a lot of work with the Novo Nordisk allowed me to reflect on that and know coming into this season we’ve prepared as a team and we know we can win because we’ve done it.  That lays the groundwork to have a great year.
Last year was good.  Two wins would have made it great.  We didn’t get that opportunity at Fontana.  To get that opportunity coming into this year is what we’re aiming at.
 
Q.        You mentioned why you think it’s important for fans to see who you are with the helmet off.  Talk about why you think that’s important.
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  I think as drivers it’s easy to only know us by our car number or only know us by our car colors or our sponsors.  With me I think maybe it’s a little different because I have such a connection to Novo Nordisk and the insulin they make.
But for fans to have that connection to a driver at a personal level, no matter what car number they’re in, what paint scheme they have, what suit they’re wearing, what race series they race in, you create a fan.  When you create a fan at a personal level, you create a fan for life.
 
Q.        You talked about what you learned from Dario.  What have you learned from watching Dixon every day?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  More than he’d like, not as much as I’d like.
Having Scott to learn from, he’s so very good at so many things.  He’s been with Chip Ganassi Racing for so many years, he’s young as far as long-term career length.  He’s going to be a competitor for a long time.
Any day I feel I can get within a couple of 10ths of him on a test or race day, I know I’m doing
a good job because that will be the benchmark.
As much as he’s taught me how to do things in the racecar, drive style, technique, fuel saving, he’s a master at that, he’s taught me as much out of the car about how to handle myself, be a member of the team, develop and build the team, and also in the public eye, handle the media, handle the challenges and pressures of being a full-time IndyCar driver and a successful one.
A little bit back to the previous question.  I’ve tried to lay the groundwork so when I take that next step, I’m prepared for it, all the things that come with it, not just the on-track success, but all the additional elements that are part and parcel of that off the racetrack.
 
Q.        The St. Pete track, talk about how it starts off the season.
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  It’s incredible we get the opportunity to race at St. Pete to start the year because it is a crown jewel in the series.  It’s a little bit like coming back to the first day of school.  While you see some teams and drivers at different test days throughout the years, Media Days like that, the physicals in Indianapolis, it’s the first time you’re there all together with the team and crew members.  Inevitably you have friends on different teams, throughout the paddock.
To be in an environment where the weather is good or great, compared to the weather in Indianapolis this year, to a city that really embraces the Grand Prix, that has such a level of enthusiasm and excitement, really enjoys having us in town, it’s awesome.  It’s really nice to start that way and keep that momentum building that whole year off that first springboard.
 
Q.        This is your first opportunity since the season ended to now be with a new engine manufacturer.  At the end of the season the engine manufacturers can go back and make changes.  Can you talk about whether you noticed a difference.
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  I’ve driven a Honda engine for three years in IndyCar before switching to Chevy.  I’ve had three days with Chevy.  It’s difficult to delineate all the differences, I’d say.
One of the things is while I’ve only had three days, it’s been a lot of fun ’cause it is a transition period.  It’s not just unbolt an engine, slide another one in.  There’s electronics packages, so many mechanical parts and pieces to make it work.  The transition has been pretty painless and very seamless.  To be able to jump in the car the first day, do as many miles as we wanted, getting used to it, has been surprising, but also very, very nice.
Working with the guys from Ilmor, Pratt & Miller Engineering, GM and Chevy, getting a chance to go to the Detroit Auto Show as a member of the Chevy family was neat.  Gave me goosebumps to see the championship-winning car and engine from NASCAR as well as from IndyCar with the same badging, bowtie, knowing I would get the chance to wear that bowtie all year, it was pretty cool.  It definitely gave me goosebumps and a level of excitement I didn’t expect coming into the year representing the Chevrolet brand.
I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.  The transition has been largely seamless, but there’s still some work we need to do as a team.  As I said, the whole back half of the car is different.
 
Q.        I’m not sure exactly how this works out on a race weekend, but from what I know from the outside, Ganassi, when you had four cars on the team, you and Graham were on one team, then you have Dario and Scott Dixon together.  From what you’ve said in the past, the data is there for everybody to share.  Last year you went to a three-car arrangement, now you’re going to a four-car arrangement.  How does it work on a race weekend?  Will you and Ryan Briscoe sit down with your engineers in a group or each driver does their own things with their engineers?
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  You touched on it a little bit.  Last year with three cars, that integration into more of a one-team mentality, it’s always been an open-book policy, those resources, both engineering and drivers, crew members, all of that, have been available to all of us, all three, four drivers.  Last year the integration was maybe a little smoother because there were only three data points, it was quieter.
I think the single best definition of teamwork I’ve ever seen is the number of crew guys in a tiny Mid-Ohio sports car garage rebuilding a car after I crashed in practice so I could go out for qualifying and qualify fifth.  It didn’t matter what color shirts they were wearing, they were all in working on the car getting it ready to go.
We rolled onto the 10 setup pad and rolled straight out for qualifying.  I think that one-team mentality built very strongly last year and is something that will continue this year.
I don’t know sort of how it will all work.  I think that the four of us drivers, engineers and assistant engineers will all debrief together at some point.  I think that will be very helpful in that we’ll be able to hear what other people are thinking and pick up something maybe we weren’t expecting.
As I said, that one-team mentality has only gotten stronger over the last couple years and will continue to get stronger.  One of those things is getting the 83 car to a race-winning operation where we can contribute.  Rather than just draw resources, we’ll be able to give something back.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Charlie, thank you.
 
CHARLIE KIMBALL:  Thank you.
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO.11 MISTIC KVSH RACING  CHEVROLET,  met with members of the media and discussed in move to KVSH Racing, pre-season testing, expectations for the season  and other topics. Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re ready with Sebastien Bourdais.
Your thoughts about testing at Sebring and the testing overall so far this off-season?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  First off, good morning, everybody.  It’s really been a great winter for me, obviously signing with KV, joining Jimmy and the whole crew.  It’s been quite an experience.  Really feeling very fortunate because I got a great group of guys around me.  They’ve been working really hard all winter.  It’s really paying off.
I think it’s needless to say that work is rewarded.  As far as we’re concerned, it’s been the hardest winter in terms of work that I’ve seen my team go through in a long time.  It makes you feel great because you know the level of preparation is quite high.  We’ve been able to test four times.  Another one at Barber before the season starts.
Couldn’t be happier.  We’ve made a lot of progress on all fronts.  It’s probably not going to be perfect right off the bat, but it’s a two-year deal and I’m excited to see the progress we made.  Hopefully we can hit the ground running and just keep on getting better.
 
THE MODERATOR:  St. Petersburg being the town you reside in now, your thoughts about racing there.
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Yeah, St. Pete has been home for me since 2003 kind of on and off.  It was my very first race in open-wheel in the U.S., started out on the right foot.  Great memories from that.  It’s been really a great place for me to spend time, obviously bring the family over.
When I arrived in the U.S., I was a kid kind of.  I evolved from being married, having a child, then another one.  We’re raising the family in St. Pete in a great neighborhood.  Starting the season at home is a great feeling.  Hopefully we can get things going right and have a great weekend in St. Pete, because it’s not been so great so far since I returned to IndyCar.
Hopefully we can have a better showing this year.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions.
 
Q.        You have been top three every time you’ve tested.  That’s caught people’s attention.  Chip Ganassi said, Who is his engineer?  Do you feel people are noticing and people are remembering that you are an elite driver who can win races and challenge for championships?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  It’s funny, we were having that same conversation last night.  Somebody was like, Why did you not get picked up by a big team?  The common thread in racing is short-term memory.
I don’t look at what people say, write or think of me.  I try to be myself, do the best I can, and hopefully eventually it pays off and works out.
For sure this year I do feel like there is a lot of potential, unexplored potential at KV.  Last year was an eye-opener when Tony won the 500.  I think it’s pretty much to the credit at KV.  They worked very hard.  They have a great group of guys who really love racing, which is not so easy to find.  I could not put a strong enough point on saying that this group can win, that’s for sure.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take before we do it, but only because competition is so difficult in IndyCar these days.  You look at the number of cars you need to beat to just get there, it’s really hard.  But at the end of the day everybody has the same equipment pretty much.  It’s just a matter of how you use it, how much work you put into it to get it right.
Every time we’ve unloaded the car, it’s been a bit of a struggle at times, but we just kept digging in, kept digging in.  As long as we know and understand what actually makes the car faster, I think we’ve done just that during all these tests this winter, we end up finishing the test in good shape.  That’s making me feel very hopeful.
It’s not a moving target.  You might struggle a little bit to find the answers and solutions, but we do find them eventually.  They know what they’re shooting for and why they work so hard.  It’s great.  I haven’t felt that way in a long time.  I feel like there’s something pretty awesome to do and am really pumped about it.
 
Q.        When the season was winding down, you weren’t sure what you were going to do, you knew Dragon was going away, did you think you would land on your feet and it was as good as it’s turned out?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  No.  I was getting pretty not scared, but I didn’t really have any idea how that was going to turn out.  Maybe it was going to be sports car racing for good or something else.  I didn’t know which way it was going to go.
You don’t control the opportunities that present themselves to you.  I think it’s about as good as it could ever get.  Obviously the only other thing could have been the 10.  I don’t think I really ever was on that list, and that’s fine.  Just going to do the best we can with our group and try and beat these guys and show them.
 
Q.        In the last week your teammate from last year will be your teammate this year.  Is it helpful you worked with him last year?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  He’s a good kid.  It’s helpful in the way it helps the team set all the base work, have a two-car team, know all the people, keep everybody onboard.  Otherwise you have to start to lay people off, do all sorts of things that disturb an organization and are painful to do because you don’t want to see anybody go when everybody has been working so hard through the winter.  That was a relief for everyone.
The guys never really doubted it was going to happen, but the longer you wait, the more questions come up.  As far as I’m concerned, you know, I have a really good relationship with Seb.  But I’ve never been one to rely on my teammate.
The way the weekends go, it’s really hard to feed off each other.  You can look at a couple data and see, He’s done this in that corner.  It happens.  But it’s not the big picture.  You need to find the answers you’re looking for within your group and make the best of your car.
I don’t think it’s going to play a big factor.
 
Q.        You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who believes in karma or fate.  Opening the year with the win in the Rolex, do you allow to think, This is going to be a really good year for me?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  No, I’m not superstitious.  I don’t believe in momentum or anything like that.  But starting the season on the right foot never hurts.
It’s helpful.  When I was in Champ Car, everything was going our way.  Didn’t matter.  Everything was working out.  Maybe because we were in the best team, working more than the others, generating our own good luck.
For sure for the longest time in the last few years it felt like, heck, you know, when is it going to work out.  Yeah, finally we kind of clicked at the end of the season, got a few podiums, things looked like they were turning around.  I was kind of looking forward to building on that.  It all went away.  Well, where do we go now?
Now this new program with KV has come together.  I’m definitely very much looking forward to these next two seasons and very excited about the prospects.
 
Q.        You touched on how much of a struggle it was coming back to IndyCar racing.  Do you ever
question whether you can get back to the top of the mountain?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Well, yeah, you always question that.  Obviously you’re only as good as your car is.  That’s always been true for me.  I’m no super hero.  I can be very fast in a good car with a good team around me.  On my own, I’m no better than anybody else.
Yeah, I guess that first half season when I decided to give it a shot and do the road courses, we had some strong showings, but were never race-winning material.  Maybe once in Toronto.  Apart from that, we were not quite strong enough.  It felt like it was going to be a very steep mountain to climb.
You don’t question whether you can do it or not, you just know you can’t do it alone.  You never know whether you’re going to get the opportunity to get back in the winning seat.  That’s the thing.
Like I said before, when I left Newman/Haas to go after that dream of mine in F1, there was no guarantee if I ever tried to come back getting a top seat.  I knew that.  It happened before with Zanardi and Cristiano.  I knew once I left, I had taken a one-way ticket.  It’s not that I couldn’t buy a return, but nothing was guaranteed.
Yeah, for the longest time it just felt like it was not meant to be.  Hopefully I’m going to prove myself wrong.
 
Q.        Could you talk about how things developed with Dragon Racing last year when you sort of realized there wasn’t going to be a full-season ride?  When did the interest from KV occur?
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Well, yeah, it was kind of difficult really because, like I said, it felt like the IndyCar with Dragon was still very much steering in the right direction.  But then all the sponsor money was on this two-year deal, which was coming to an end.
To Jay’s credit, he had put a great program together.  Unfortunately circumstances with the Lotus at first, it was just one step back after another.  Not really anything that Jay could control.
Then when you start obviously exhausting all the options, very soon, in the middle of the season, I got to understand through talking to Jay that there was going to be a 30% chance it was going to happen again.  As time was going on, there were a couple of sponsor issues and stuff, it was pretty clear it was maybe going to be an Indy-only deal.  Then we started talking with Jay.  He got all my attention.  I got all his attention when we started talking about it.  It was really an open discussion.
At the end of the day, he had an option he could have executed.  He didn’t.  He really understood what was a goal of mine, which was to, you know, stay in IndyCar and try and be a champion again.  He knew he could just not offer that to me.
We decided to keep the relationship, obviously.  I’ll probably end up driving his Formula E once the IndyCar season is over.  We’ll see how that works out.  He let me go to chase my main target.  It kind of all happened at the same time.
When Tony announced he was moving to Ganassi, the next choice for KV really was James.  James was going back and forth between Andretti and KV.  At some point KV really needed some commitments from a driver to finalize the sponsor deal.  When James didn’t commit to it, it was me.  That was that.
It was obviously very straightforward.  All along I knew exactly what the deal was.  I was kind of third in line.  That’s the way it was.  When they didn’t take it, I was like, Yeah, I’ll take it.  We went for that.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Sebastien Bourdais, thank you very much.
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS:  Thank you.

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18, 2014
 
An interview with:
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, met with members of the media and discussed his return to IndyCar, pre-season testing, his teammates at Team Penske and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We have Juan Pablo Montoya rejoining the IndyCar Series.
Juan, going through some testing already, your thoughts?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I’m really excited.  I mean, I feel like I’m not where I want to be yet with the car.  I feel we have come a long way.
It’s weird.  Sometimes we’re really good, some we’re average.  The first Sebring test was horrible.  I feel like Sonoma was pretty good.  I was really happy.
It’s hard because the new tires are different than the ones I’ve been used to the last three years.  I’m starting to get it, but the problem is I don’t get to put it all together.
If you look at my laps, if you put my fast three laps together, everything is there, it’s just a matter of putting it together in a lap.  I think it’s just experience.
I feel like we gaining on it.  I think I drive the car a little bit different than the other two.  I think Helio drives a little bit more like me.  Will just got used to driving the car in an awkward way to be quick.  We’re just trying to make the car drive a little better.
You’re always on the limit, but to be more comfortable at the limit.  So we’ll see.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll open it up for questions.
 
Q.        Juan, how odd does it feel to you when you see a red car now on the track?  Does it feel odd?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s kind of weird.  I mean, a lot of the mechanics worked with me at the 24 Hours, especially when I was in the 02 car, it was all the Indy crew.  It’s okay.  They’re good people.  That’s it.
 
Q.        You’re rivals now.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Right now I’m my biggest rival.
 
Q.        Why?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Because I feel like I got to do a job, push myself.  It’s good to have a guy like Will on the team that’s really quick and gets the job done.  Helio has a lot of experience.
If I have my experience plus what they do, I think it’s pretty good.  I felt like I brought a few things to the team already to make the cars better.  We’ve gotten a little bit better, so I’m pretty happy.  No complaints.
 
Q.        Can you reflect a little bit on the NASCAR journey?  What are your thoughts with Speedweeks going on?  Does it feel odd at all that you’re not there?  Do you feel like you’re where you belong?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s a feeling that I wasn’t missing it probably.  It was weird actually.  A month ago when they did their first set, I was with my son racing at Homestead.  I got a text from Chevy, We’re missing you.  I’m like, Why are you missing me (laughter)?
I had no idea they were even testing.  It’s nice to do what I’m doing right now.  I feel really happy.  I’m really excited to be part of Team Penske.  It’s a tough challenge ahead of me.  I know that.
It seems weird because it seems like race speed is really good when we’re in race trim.  Our pace is really good.  I was telling my guys, like my race engineer, If you really look at it, even on new tires, I’m not missing corners.  There’s a lot of room there for improvement and I know that.  It’s not bad.  It’s a process, I guess, I hope.
 
Q.        You were talking about it being a difficult challenge.  Obviously it was a difficult challenge when you moved over to NASCAR.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s completely different.  The NASCAR one was one that it was like, Where the hell am I?  The cars were very different.  There was a lot of movement.  This is the opposite because in NASCAR the limit of the car is very easy.  You can get to the limit of the car very easy.  The big thing is you’re driving it too hard.  In IndyCar, you can’t drive it hard enough, or at least I can’t yet.  I’m leaving a lot on the table.  I think that’s the biggest thing.
 
Q.        Having been successful in virtually every motorsports field you have taken part in, how do you look back and judge NASCAR?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  When we had good cars, we did good.  When we had bad cars, we did bad.  I think as a team we threw a lot of races away.  It’s part of the thing you always do.
The point is when you’re winning races, you throw a lot away and you still win a few.  When you’re not winning races, you notice the things you throw away.  I think that’s the biggest difference.
The focus for me now is IndyCar 100%.  I’m pumped about it.  I feel like a complete rookie right now, so it’s pretty cool.
 
Q.        Kurt Busch is talking about wanting to come and do the Indy 500.  For somebody who has your experience in open-wheel, trying to get up to speed from that point, after running NASCAR to now, how difficult do you think it’s going to be for him to jump in there for the month of May and get the job done?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think the configuration, the low downforce configuration of these cars, it’s not too bad.  I haven’t driven around Indy.  But like Fontana, I was up to speed in five laps.  When I went to Phoenix, it took me half a day to get up to speed, it really did.
It’s hard because, Helio went out, ran wide open.  You think, It’s wide open.  Your brain says it’s wide open, but your body says, Hell no!  You’re going into turn one wide open, you say, No, not happening.
It’s hard to get comfortable.  Three and four wasn’t so bad in Phoenix.  One and two were hard.  That’s the high downforce.  The high downforce, it’s just a matter of learning how far you can go with the car.
Low downforce, I think anybody would get used to it a lot easier.
 
Q.        Roger said with the right funding, he’d like to see you run the Brickyard 400.  Is that something else you want to do?  A fan on Twitter wants to know if you have any interest in running the NASCAR road courses as well?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I think the Brickyard would be a good thing.  I’ve been so close so many times, it would be a good way of closing that chapter with a good win there.  I know Roger hasn’t won there.  If we could get the opportunity to do it, I think it would be pretty cool.
 
Q.        Juan, comparing the IndyCars that you drove previously, what are the biggest changes you have noted?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  The biggest thing is braking.  The braking is unbelievable.  Used to have a lot more power.  But the initial acceleration is very similar.  It’s when you go through the gears…
The braking in the corners, it’s unbelievable.  The grip level of these cars, it’s like an eye-opening, to be honest.
 
Q.        Would you have thought a couple years ago that you would ever be returning?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  At that point, no, because I felt comfortable with what I was doing and everything.  But if I look back at everything I’ve done, the most fun and best racing I’ve done in my career, it’s been in IndyCar.
This was the perfect time to do it.  I felt like two years from now, wouldn’t be able to do it.  Timing-wise, it was ideal.&
nbsp; So we’ll see.
 
Q.        Are you surprised that you haven’t just jumped back into the IndyCar and it’s like riding a bike again?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No, no.  I mean, the speed was there right away.  Once I pushed the car, the speed was there.  The problem is, if you try to be too greedy too early, let’s say we got to Sonoma and I tried really early to push really hard, throw the car off, you spend the rest of the day repairing the car, you don’t learn anything.
Laps I think are very important at this point.
 
Q.        You said you want to go back to IndyCar because you want to win again.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Yeah.
 
Q.        If it takes you time to win…
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  It’s going to take me time to win.  How much time, I don’t know.  I’m not expecting to go out the first race and win to be honest.  I have to understand strategies and everything.
If the team does a good job of that, it’s good.  There’s a lot of things with saving fuel.  There’s a lot of strategy that goes in that that I know of, but I haven’t experienced it.
 
Q.        Your reputation and legacy being what it is, is the expectation and the pressure on you to be good immediately, to turn this series upside down quickly?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  My expectations?
 
Q.        Not for yourself, from the outside.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I don’t care what the outside thinks.  I really don’t.  I put myself enough pressure to perform and do whatever it takes to get it done.  I probably put more pressure on myself than anybody else.
For me, it’s all about winning.  You know me, I never really care what people think of me.  I care what I think of me.  I know when I do a good job and a bad job.
I feel I’ve done a really good job with the IndyCar so far, that I’ve done a good job getting up to speed.
It’s funny because a lot of it is, let’s say you run through the day, at the end of the day you look at the data, you look at what Will or Helio are doing, Oh, I got to do that.  I go out there and just do it.
That’s going back to, okay, you could probably run wide open through here, nobody done it.  If I tried and get it wrong, then I throw away half a day of testing.
I’d rather look at what they’re doing, copy what they’re doing.  Then they do something different again.  You go, Oh, next time I got to try this.  It’s just a matter of doing that.
 
Q.        Roger told us after the Sebring test it seemed you struggled, at least on paper.  He said everything was going to be fine, that your biggest concern was getting him in the black pants.  Is that accurate (laughter)?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  The first Sebring test was a struggle.  It was a struggle for all of us.  The new motors, the old motors.  It’s hard to judge how far behind are you.  You say, I did that corner great.  Coming down the straight, Oh, there you go.
At this point it’s been tough to really compare and know.
I would say, looking at Sonoma data after the test, I felt I could have been a little quicker than Helio.  If I would put a lot together, I would be a 10th or two behind Will.  I know there’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s not like, He’s so much better everywhere.
It’s just two corners.  One of them, I screw up.  Like I went in, got a huge moment.  I know I can do that.  The other one was like, Wow!
The good thing with me, when I go, Oh, wow, I just go and try it.  I always have had the attitude, if somebody can do it, it can be done.  What the heck, give it a try.
 
Q.        Are you wearing the black pants now?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Absolutely.  Proudly.  I told them today actually white shirt, the Verizon white shirt looks better than the black shirt.  But they say, White shirt is management.  Again, I’m not management, I’m just a driver.  Black shirt for me (laughter).
 
Q.        How familiar are you with the St. Petersburg track?  What are your thoughts on it?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I’ve seen about a hundred videos of it.  I watched the races.  I will start watching the races again just to figure out how to drive the car, see what they do and stuff.
That’s one of the hardest challenges, the first time on a street course, St. Petersburg.  I think it’s going to be eye-opening.  I think it’s going to be a slow-building weekend, getting comfortable in the car.
It’s something I’ve been getting better at, work on the car.  Going fast, it’s easier.  If you’re not comfortable in the car, first of all the chances of getting it wrong are big and you’re never going to be good enough.
I’ve been working hard on things that I like about the cars, things I don’t like about the cars.  Setup-wise we’re a little different at the moment.
 
Q.        Given the fact you’ve had so much success throughout your career, but also you’re kind of a rookie again, what would be a successful season for you?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Winning the Indy 500 and fighting for the championship.  You would say that would be a good season.
 
Q.        You think those are realistic expectations?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  You look at my oval experience in NASCAR, it’s huge.  I did ovals before.  You have to figure out again in IndyCars what you can do and what you can’t do.  It will be fine.
Going back to the same thing:  if you can get the car to do what you want, you’re going to be really competitive.  Is it going to be easy?  No.  If it was easy, anybody would do it.
 
Q.        In the 2000 Indianapolis 500, it was said you weren’t impressed with the car.  How much have you seen this car evolve?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  This car is more of a CART car than an IndyCar.  They’re completely different, I think, personally.
 
Q.        Is this a hard car to drive?  What makes them different?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  When it’s bad, it’s a horrible car to drive.  When it’s good, it’s really, really good.  When we did the Sebring test, it was awful.  My first test was there.  My first test I ran half a second quicker than I was running there.  I ran a half second quicker without any effort.  When we went back, What the heck is wrong with this?
We’ll see.
 
Q.        Is there any consideration this year to try to run the Daytona 500 and Indy 500, to be the guy to win them both?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No, unless Roger asks me.
 
Q.        Have you asked him?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  No.  I got enough things going on.  No, no, no, no, no (laughter).
 
Q.        What did you think of the pace car fire?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  Which one?
 
Q.        Not yours.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:  I’ll tell you the truth, I didn’t see it.  I was in a car.  Sebastien was racing.  We came back from a dinner.  Actually my wife turned it on because she saw a tweet about it.  They were interviewing Stewart after the crash.  She wanted to watch the race and I fell asleep.  I’m not saying I fell asleep because it was boring, I was just tired.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you.
 

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
INDYCAR SERIES
PRE-SEASON MEDIA DAY
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
FEBRUARY 18,2014
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET met with members of the media and discussed pre-season testing, expectations for season and other topics.  Full transcript:
 
 
THE MODERATOR:  We welcome Will Power of Team Penske.
Will, just a little bit about how potentially the momentum of last year can carry over to this year and your objectives and outlook for 2014.
WILL POWER:  That was an unusual finish to a season for me if you go off the last few years.  Definitely had a good off-season and very motivated to have a good year.
We’ve had a couple test days with the three cars.  Actually found some pretty good stuff.  I feel as though we’re going to be pretty competitive.  Kind of just working hard, not leaving anything on the table, not leaving anything to chance.  You just can’t be lazy.  You’ve got to work hard in this game if you want to continually be competitive.  So that’s our plan.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Questions, please.
 
Q.        Will, how is it different this year testing with two teammates?  How is it with three cars?
WILL POWER:  Just another car to give feedback and try things.  Just more information.
With Juan, he’s had some good experience, good ideas.  He’s obviously been very successful in Formula One.  His experience in NASCAR, it’s kind of good having him there, for sure.  He’s a guy that I looked up to when I was racing Formula Ford and he was in Formula One.  Kind of cool to be working with him.
 
Q.        Will, you and Helio got on along very well with A.J. What has the relationship been with Juan?  Have you been able to adapt as quickly with him?
WILL POWER:  Yeah.  Juan’s obviously worked on a lot of teams before and understands how the whole thing works.  Yeah, it’s worked well.
Like I said, he’s brought a lot of experience to the team and come up with good ideas.  He’s already helped to point us in a good direction, along with Helio as well.  We all kind of work together.
At the end of the day we all understand that we got to race each other on the track.  During this testing time, part of the season, we need to work together and try things, find things that are going to help us be at the front.
 
Q.        Talking to Tim Cindric last month, he mentioned the testing has not gone as well as you would like.  What do you think is happening in early testing?
WILL POWER:  Was that before Sonoma?
 
Q.        It was.
WILL POWER:  The test at Sebring, it’s kind of a hard place.  It’s not a track that we run on.  It’s probably a place you can try some unusual things and may not work.
I think we definitely found some good stuff.
 
Q.        Last year was an unusual year for you in that you were not winning all the time.  What did you learn about yourself last year?
WILL POWER:  Yeah, I have to say I was a lot more relaxed in racing situations.  I had spent three years being very conservative, feeling the points.  Actually taught me you just need to race hard no matter what.  At the end of the year, it was fun.  You can just race hard, it does not matter.  In fact, the results came a lot better when I did that.
It taught me a lot about racing, getting in the pack.  When you spend a lot of time at the front, the restarts, you’re not in the pack.  I feel that my race craft was really good by the end and I enjoyed it.
That’s how I’ll be racing this year.
 
Q.        With the series having so many more street and road courses on it, how much does that kind of help set you up for a serious championship run this year having gone through the disappointments of last year?
WILL POWER:  Like I said, I mean, it just taught me not to think about points, but just race hard and enjoy it.  A lot of teams now are really compressed.  There’s no one that sticks out.  Obviously Ganassi was strong on the road and street courses last year.  Every off-season, all these small teams, including us, you close the gap.  The gap gets smaller and smaller.
It’s a different series or different intensity of competition, you could say, to what it was two or three years ago.  It’s really ramped up.  No one just takes all the poles.  It’s quite difficult to get a pole, let alone get in the Fast Six now, which is great.  It’s a good, tough series.
 
Q.        Will, actually you started on the pole at St. Petersburg last year.  You had your race craft toward the end of the year.  Is putting those two things together one of your goals for 2014?
WILL POWER:  Yes.  I think if I raced harder at St. Petersburg, Helio would have never had gotten me around the outside.  Joe would have never ran over me.
 
Q.        How different do you think the Ganassi group will look like with T.K. there instead of Dario?  Do you think Dixon will be a different kind of foe without Dario there?
WILL POWER:  That’s hard to say.  It’s the first time I’ve seen T.K. be quite serious in a press conference.  He had the Target shirt on.  He wasn’t joking around like the rest of us.  He was dead serious.  I don’t know.
I think he’s going to be really competitive.  If you look at the four Ganassi drivers, they’re all really good.  Briscoe, you can expect him to be right there in the championship, as well.  And Charlie, he’s gained a lot of experience, won a race.  He seems to be always getting in the Fast Six there towards the end of the year.
As a whole, that team is very strong.  T.K. is obviously very good on ovals, too, which will probably bring something to the table there.
 
Q.        What would we make of Bourdais?  He seems to be fast in testing.
WILL POWER:  Yeah, he is.  He’s the quickest guy.  It’s hard to know what they’re running.  Yeah, I expect him to be a contender.
Weird last year, so competitive in 2012, he turned up, the tide changed a bit, he struggled, but then was there at the end of the year again.  This guy is a four-time champion.  And KV is a very good team.  Resources and the money behind him.
 
Q.        What is in the Penske files?
WILL POWER:  I don’t know.  Had to give a job interview.  Thought I put it on strong, lots of information (laughter).
 
Q.        You mentioned about the change in the tires throwing not just Bourdais, but maybe some of the other teams off.  What about this season?  Have you had a chance to work with Firestone?  Have they made any changes?  Do you have to start over again?
WILL POWER:  Every year they tell us the tire is not different.  The tire at Sonoma, the 2014 road course tire, better grip, so a better tire.
Those guys always doing a little bit of development.  It’s a one-make tire, so not a huge amount of motivation to change it a lot.
Biggest change we felt was beginning of last year.  I don’t think much is going to change this year.
 
Q.        With Ganassi switching to Chevy power, how does that affect you guys?
WILL POWER:  It’s just going to make Ganassi better, more reliable and better.  Makes it tougher on us, for sure.
But it’s good to have them in the family.&
nbsp; Four more drivers giving good feedback to help Chevy, help point us in the right direction.  Plus they’ve had the experience of looking at some of Honda’s strengths, see if we can transfer it over to the Chevy side.
 
Q.        Do you think they’ll share?
WILL POWER:  They have to.  It’s an open book with the Chevy guys.  Everyone has the same.  So, yes, we all have the same goal in mind:  to make the engine the best.  We’ll fight it out on the track then.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you.
WILL POWER:  Thank you.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA 500
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE NOTES
FEBRUARY 15, 2014
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BASS PRO SHOPS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – EXPERIENCED AN ENGINE FAILURE DURING NSCS PRACTICE 2 FOR THE DAYTONA 500
 
WHAT DID YOU FEEL INSIDE THE NO. 14 WHEN THE ENGINE EXPIRED? 
“Just something in the bottom end broke.  It happened all at once.  I was talking to Scottie Maxim (director of track support at Hendrick Motorsports) one of the head engine guys at Hendrick and went over everything.  It’s a good thing about having the telemetry with the motor side is you can see what goes on, what’s happening, but it wasn’t anything that we knew with some warning.  It just happened all at once.  The good thing is we have a lot of depth at Hendrick and the motor they will put in for tomorrow will be just as good as this one.”
 
AFTER CONVERSATIONS WITH SCOTT MAXIM, IS THERE ANY CONCERN WHATSOEVER AFTER THOSE TWO ENGINE FAILURES?
“Not that I’m aware of.  We basically just went over what happened.  He said the one that is coming down, our back-up motor here; it’s just as good as this one.  Not really concerned about it.  We only have to make a small run tomorrow.  I’m pretty confident we will be fine.”
 
DO YOU ALMOST HAVE TO TAKE THE ATTITUDE THAT BETTER NOW AND LET’S GET THIS THING GOING AGAIN?
“It’s just a motor.  If it was getting ready for the race you would be a little more concerned.  It’s just for qualifying.  They pay the big check a week from tomorrow, not tomorrow.”
 
WHAT DID YOU FEEL?
“It broke a motor.  Just a vibration.  That is what happens when they break.  It’s nothing fancy it just vibrates.  As soon as it breaks apart it throws all the weight off and that is what makes it vibrate.”
 
HOW WAS YOUR PRACTICE TODAY?
“Typical (Daytona) 500 practice.  Yesterday was a little more fun, today definitely feels like being back at work today.  Single car runs aren’t very fun for the drivers but it’s a necessary evil here.”
 
MORE TIME IN THE CAR AND STILL ZERO PAIN?
“Yep, still feel good.  We have all afternoon now to rest and get ready for tonight and go at it.”
 
TONY GIBSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS:
CONCERNING THE ENGINE FAILURE EXPERIENCED BY THE NO. 10 CHEVROLET SS:
“Several times you will see two and three of them (engines) at the same time blow up.  When you get into qualifying trim, you are asking these things to do a lot.  They have to run hot and a lot of RPM’s and a lot of crazy stuff.  We will work it out.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS:
REGARDING LOSING AN ENGINE DURING THE FIRST PRACTICE SESSION FOR THE DAYTONA 500:
“I’m sure they are going to dig deeper.  Hendrick is great support for us.  I sat on the front row last year.  I sat on the pole.  I’m sure we will get it together and it’s better it happens; I mean I only had a few hundred yards to go before the start/finish and then I would have shut it off.  So I said man I guess I’m glad it did it then as opposed to being five seconds away from blowing up because that would have been tomorrow.  We will get our arms wrapped around it.  We will figure out what we can, but more importantly just get the next engine in and get going.  I said, ‘Can I still start on the front row?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, but you have to start at the back for the Duels.’”
 
IS THREE ENGINE FAILURES A CONCERN AT ALL FOR YOU?
“Sure, yeah, it was a concern when I saw Tony (Stewart) blow up and then I did.  I was like man are we doing something but it doesn’t seem to necessarily be specific to our team I guess.  But it’s something that we are doing in our family here and we need to figure it out.  I was saying I bet other Hendrick cars are thinking ‘what’s going on’ so we have got time to hopefully figure it out.  Definitely figure it out before the race.”
 
BETTER FIND THIS OUT NOW.  IS THAT THE KING OF ATTITUDE YOU HAVE TO TAKE?
“That is the only way to look at it at this point in time.  It’s definitely a departure from where we were last year when we unloaded and were very quick and really we made one run in each practice and everything was perfect.  This is different, but it’s a different year and that’s what happens.  That is why when y’all ask what you expect for the year you have to really get into the year to start to set expectation levels because this is very different than the last time.  I don’t doubt everybody in their effort and their ability to fix it, so yeah, the bright side is that it didn’t happen on qualifying it happened before and we will get something else in there and we will do our very best.”
 
SCOTT MAXIM, DIRECTOR OF ENGINE TRACK SUPPORT AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS:
 
REGARDING THE THREE ENGINE FAILURES FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS DURING THE FIRST DAYTONA 500 PRACTICE SESSION:
“Data that we have been able to look at would suggest that it’s something in the bottom end of the engine.  Really, until we get the engines further apart to be able to more closely analyze them, I really couldn’t see anything anymore than that right now.”
 
WHAT LEVEL OF CONCERN DO YOU HAVE GOING FORWARD?
“Moving forward, we will be alright.  We will identify what we’ve got and we will make changes needed and I think that we will be able to make corrective action.  Certainly as well for tomorrow, we will be able to look the engines over closely and make sure that we are not going into tomorrow with an issue.  Then after that, we will be all good.”
 
DOUG DUCHARDT, GENERAL MANAGER AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS:

WE SAW THREE HENDRICK ENGINE FAILURES IS THERE SOMETHING ACROSS THE BOARD YOU ARE TRYING TO DO THERE? WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM?
“Across the board we are trying to do the best we can for qualifying tomorrow for those two laps.  We’ve worked through that process.  Obviously we have been pushing the limit and we found the limit there.  We feel like we understand what is happening.  We will get the engines back over and tear them down from NASCAR.  I think we will be able to confirm everything that is happening.  The drivers have been consistent they feel like it has been something in the bottom end of the engine.  We think we understand what is happening there and we will take a look at that.  For tonight and for the rest of the week when we go to race we don’t have any concerns with the Sprint Unlimited or as we get into the twins or the (Daytona) 500.”
 
DO YOU THINK IT IS A COMPONENT?
“Well I think it is just part of us trying to maximize two laps for tomorrow.  So it’s not a specific component issue.  It’s just how we go about trying to minimize going around the track for qualifying.”
 
WE SAW JAMIE MCMURRAY ABORT HIS RUN COMING DOWN PIT ROAD.  IS THAT YOUR CALL FROM HENDRICK ENGINES OR IS THAT THE TEAMS CALL?
“Once we saw some things that were happening and saw some data we knew they were on pit road getting to run again.  They had started a run when Tony (Stewart) had an issue.  So we wanted to get them back in take some time, look at that data, understand where they were at and make a decision.  I don’t think they had enough time to get back out.  That is why we did that we didn’t want to we just didn’t want to have another issue.  We wanted to be on the safe side with that.  So we called Keith (Rodden) and Keith understands he has worked with us before when he was with the 5 car last year so he understands how we work and go about things so that was pretty easy.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPRINT UNLIMITED
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2014
 
MARTIN TRUEX JR, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Daytona International Superspeedway and discussed his outlook for Speedweeks, working with a new team and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
HOW IS YOUR OUTLOOK WITH YOUR NEW RACE TEAM? TALK ABOUT THE NEW CHAMPIONSHIP FORMAT; YOU COME OUT OF DAYTONA WITH A WIN, YOU’RE LOOKING PRETTY GOOD. TALK ABOUT THAT, TOO:
“First of all, I’m glad to be in Daytona. I’m ready to kick off a new season obviously. I think going to a new team is always something that at first you’re nervous about, but then as you start to know the team and do some testing, you know go through all the things getting prepared for the new season it starts to become really exciting.  A lot of anticipation. Really looking forward to the start of the season and trying to see kind of where you stack up, what kind of things you’re going to need to work on to get better at and all that. It’s been a really good experience so far. I’ve really enjoyed working with Todd and Cole and everybody at Furniture Row. I’ve been to Denver a few times, really impressed with the things they have, the stuff they’re doing and the things they are working on. Some of the stuff they did last year was really impressive. Just obviously looking forward to hopefully taking that team to the next level, going to victory lane and going back to the Chase again.
 
“With all the rule changes, not only with the car but with the Chase, I think it’s a good year to be with a different team. If you ever had to pick a time to switch teams, you would want to do it when there was some big rules changes. So, you kind of start off on an even playing field with everyone. We’re going to have to learn a lot of things about this race car with the new setups with the ride height changes and things. It really changes a lot about the cars, about how they’re setup, how they feel to drive. It’s going to change a lot about the things we need to do to them to make them fast. Definitely a good time to be starting with a new group and looking forward to getting the ball rolling and seeing where we stand.
 
ZERO FOR TWO FOR SCHEDULED IN-PERSON MEDIA APPEARANCES THIS YEAR. TELL US THE STORY OF GETTING DOWN HERE. WHAT HAPPENED?
“We were supposed to leave at 10:45. Obviously, that didn’t happen. We ended up taking off, um. We got to the airport about 2:15, 2:30, hoping to take off at 2:30, ended up taking off close to 5 o’clock. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get from my house to the airport in my truck, which is like a big jacked up Chevy with 38’s on it. It was pretty fun in the snow nonetheless but hour and 15 minutes probably to get to the airport which is normally 16 minutes away from the house through the snow. It was pretty nasty. It was a lot of fun. Once we got to the airport, the runway was nowhere near as ready as we thought it would be. Ryan (Newman) was out there in his truck doing laps up and down trying to break up the slush and help the plow trucks. He had unstuck the plow truck once because the guy had went off the end of the runway and got stuck in the grass, so he had to pull him out. It was an interesting day to say the least, and we had a good time. Much rather would have been here talking to all you all, but we did end up getting here and got most of our things done yesterday and last night so it ended up working out. But definitely an interesting day to say the least.”
 
IT WAS YOUR PLANE?
“Yes, sir.”
 
THREE CHANGES FOR YOU – SPONSOR, CAR MAKE AND ALL THE CHANGES THAT NASCAR PUT DOWN. WHICH HAS BEEN THE MOST CHALLENGING OVER THE WINTER?
“I don’t think there has been one that really stood out. I think that’s a lot of changes at once. There are just a lot of things to get accustomed to. As far as going to a new team, it’s a lot of the little things. You know – how do you like your seat? How do you like your shifter? How do you like your brake pedal to feel? Master cylinder choice? What kind of steering box do you like at certain tracks? There are so many little things that you take for granted when you are with the same team for four or five years. You go through those things the first year and you kind of forget all about them. You forget that other teams do things differently, other drivers like things a little bit different. Going through the testing, going through all those little things about the car that I like a certain way has probably been the biggest challenge or the thing that has taken kind of the most time to kind get through and figure out. I’m sure there’s going to be other things that come up along the way that we’re going to have to figure out together. I think that’s probably the biggest challenge is just changing teams and they do things kind of a different way, and you have to kind of say ‘ok, I kind of like this way here and there.’ That takes a little bit of time to figure it all out. I feel like we have made some great headway on that, but again until you start racing a lot of those things don’t come up in the forefront as much as you’d like them to. So, we’ll learn as we go. Testing has gone really well with the team. Communication has been great so far. I really enjoy working with Todd and Cole, the engineer there. They’re some sharp guys. They’ve got some really neat stuff they are working on. I’m excited to drive their cars and you know, hopefully, I can do a great job for them.”
 
YOU MENTIONED YOU WANT TO SEE HOW YOU MEASURE UP AGAINST OTHER TEAMS. HOW MANY RACES DOES IT TAKE BEFORE YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’RE AT GIVEN THE DIFFERENCE IN TRACKS WE HAVE COMING UP IN THE FIRST FOUR OR FIVE RACES?
“I’d say not too long. I think by California you really get a feel for where you stand. You go to Vegas, which is a mile and a half, but it’s very bumpy. It’s a little bit different. It’s kind of got the newer asphalt. Then you go to California which is that old, wore out type asphalt. Really slick race track, need a lot of downforce and things. Of course, we go to Bristol in there – a short track, high banks. And a superspeedway here at Daytona. So there’s a lot of, a good mix of tracks. Phoenix, can’t forget that one, obviously that will be a good place to know where you’re going to stand at the short tracks – Loudon and Richmond and places like that. I think pretty early in the season you’ll kind of know the things that you’re going to need to work on – the tracks maybe you are strong at, the tracks that maybe you need to work on a little bit harder. It doesn’t take long.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES WILL BE THIS YEAR WITH YOU BEING JUST THE ONE CAR AND WILL THAT MAKE IT A LITTLE MORE CHALLENGING GETTING FEEDBACK AND NOT GETTING THAT FROM TEAMMATES AND DO YOU HAVE ADDED MOTIVATION KNOWING THAT THEY WERE ABLE TO HAVE SUCCESS LAST YEAR WITH A GOOD DRIVER?
“Well, it definitely makes you feel better knowing that they have been able to put up some great results and that they have had some fast race cars.  Obviously that is part of why I went there.   I wasn’t going to go there if I didn’t think that we could win races – that is not what I am here for. So I definitely think that the team is capable and I really feel good about that obviously and just really looking forward to getting the season started.  The off seasons are always tough.  You are always wondering how it’s going to happen and how it’s going to go.  You really just want to get in there and race.   Especially when you start changing teams, you start talking to them, and you sign a deal.  Last year we pretty much signed the deal in Texas and there is a lot of time in between Texas and the Daytona 500 if you think about it.  So it’s really kind of a tough time and you really just want to get in the
re with your new team, and get to work and start racing together.  But obviously you have to wait.  
 
“It’s been good and I don’t think that there is going to be one thing that stands out about it being challenging.  I think the relationship with RCR…they really have evolved with that and I am obviously pretty good friends with some guys over there.   Ryan Newman is one of my best friends and I think that will be a big deal to be able to work with him and we are both looking forward to that.   It’s obviously a single car team but they have the RCR resource and that teammate mentality to where if we are off or we are struggling with that, we can go to them for help.   It’s the same thing on our side where if we are doing something well, and they are struggling, then they can come to us.  So it’s got the benefits of a single car team where they can move fast and make changes quick, build their own parts and not have to wait to get them finished to put on the car.  But at the same time if we get out in left field, then we have that catch fence to help us with RCR.   So that is the great thing and I think there are benefits to being that single car deal and we will just have to see how it goes.  It is going to be different for me because I have not been in a situation like this before, so it’s going to be interesting and it’s going to be a lot of fun.  It’s going to be a new challenge and I always look forward to those.”
 
DO YOU THINK BEING RESILIENT IS WHAT HELPS GUYS LIKE YOU MAKE IT TO THIS LEVEL?
“Racing is a tough sport and there is going to be a lot of ups and downs and most likely a lot more downs than ups.  This is a tough business and you are talking about racing against 42 guys every weekend and you don’t win fifty percent of the time.  You know, if you win one percent of the time at this level, it’s pretty damn good.  It’s a difficult sport and it takes its toll on your mentality.  You have to be strong-willed, know what you stand for and know why you are doing what you are doing.
 
“Certainly last year was tough for me but I feel like we moved on from it pretty quick and things are still going pretty good for me.  I am obviously very appreciative of this opportunity and very fortunate that I was able to land in a great position that I am in right now with how things went and how late in the season they were.   So, honestly I am blessed to be here and looking forward to the opportunity.  I am going to do my best to make the most of it like I always do.”
 
HAS THIS OFFSEASON FELT FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT AND DO YOU FEEL PLUGGED IN AND READY TO GO AT THIS POINT?
“I feel really good about it, yeah.  Definitely refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to go.  You know I think their approach was a little different and they didn’t feel like this was one of the places where they wanted to spend the time and effort testing.  They felt like their time was spent better getting things ready at the shop to go test places like Nashville – which we have already been to.  I think part of it is that (crew chief Todd) Berrier is a little bit superstitious and that the year that they didn’t test here, they won the 500.  So maybe that is part of the reason as well.  He hasn’t really said that, but that is kind of what I got from talking to him. So we will just see how it goes. But yeah, it’s been a great offseason.  There has been a lot of work behind the scenes obviously in getting all the stuff ready and I have been to Denver quite a few times and all that has gone well.  So it’s not been the typical offseason, but it’s been a busy one for sure.”
 
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THE NEW CHANGES TO THE CHASE AND IF IT WAS IMPLEMENTED LAST YEAR, YOU WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO THE DRAMA THAT YOU WENT THROUGH AND THAT YOU MIGHT STILL BE WITH THAT TEAM AND YOUR SPONSOR ON THAT CAR?
“That crossed my mind, yeah.  Obviously none of that would have ever happened.  But that is not what the rules were last year, so there is nothing I could do about that.  You can’t look back at things that happened and say, ‘well, if the rules were different, it would have gone this way’.  Because the rules are what they were and it not even worth looking back on to be honest with you.   It’s one of those things you just want to forget about and move forward.   And I am excited about the new changes and I think it’s a great thing and obviously in what we have seen in football where it’s a more exciting playoff system – I think it’s going to be more like that.  I think the eliminations are great and it’s going give everybody a chance to race for a championship.  I think we are capable of getting in that top-16 and hopefully by winning a few races because that is the plan.   So yeah, it’s going to be good and I am looking forward to it.  It’s going to be exciting for everyone to watch, definitely going to be different for us as drivers, and there is going to be some good stuff in there.”  
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
SPRINT UNLIMITED
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 14, 2014
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway following the first practice session for Saturday’s Sprint Unlimited.  The three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion discussed how he felt in the car as he climbed behind the wheel for the first time following his accident last season, what he is expecting during tomorrow’s Sprint Unlimited and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
HOW DID IT FEEL?
“It felt good.  The great thing is there is zero percentage of pain in the car.  That was nice.  We will see what it feels like at 9 o’clock tonight, but so far so good.  That is better than I was hoping for, honestly.  I thought we would have some kind of ache, pain of some kind that would bother us.  It was like putting on an old pair of shoes again.”
 
AT WHAT POINT WERE YOU SMILING?
“When we hit the end of pit road leaving.  That is way too long to wait to get back in a race car that is for sure.”
 
IS IT A RELIEF OR ARE YOU JUST OVERJOYED?
“Well a little of both.  I think once we got the relief of knowing we weren’t hurting anywhere then it was just joy of being back out there again.  It didn’t feel like I had been gone seven months when we started running.  It was today though, every five minutes I was looking at the clock from 3 o’clock on going ‘is it 4:30 yet’ because I wanted to get dressed at 4:30 and come in.  That is a long time to be staring at the clock for an hour and a half.  That is small compared to the seven months.”
 
YOU GOT IN THE CAR ABOUT 18 MINUTES EARLY, WHICH SEEMS EARLY FOR YOU…
“I told them don’t get too excited that is not going to be a habit.  So I’m logging curtsey minutes so if that way I’m late for practice I got that credit.”
 
AFTER YOU GET YOUR HELMET ON WHAT IS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND?  WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
“Just waiting.  I didn’t want to wait anymore to be honest.  The biggest thing was going in there, as soon as I got in the car, I’ve sat in that car three times now.  I still had to move the mirror when I got in there one more time.  We just wanted to give ourselves a couple of minutes so we weren’t thrashing at the last second if there was something we needed to move.  Sure enough I had to move my mirror.”
 
WAS THE WALK TO THE CAR ANY DIFFERENT?  WERE YOU ANXIOUS; WERE YOU EXCITED, JUST NORMAL TYPICAL?
“I just put one foot in front of the other like I do every time I got to the car.”
 
ARE THERE ANY TEAMMATES YOU MISS? (Asked by Ryan Newman)
“I miss Ryan (Newman) and the good thing was that was who I had behind me for the first part of the practice.  So it’s nice to have somebody you trust behind you like that.  He took care of me a couple out there that we got kind of in a bind just the normal practice deal, but it was nice having him back there.”
 
HOW LONG BEFORE YOU FOCUSED ON WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE CAR AND NOT WORRIED ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF?
“I already am.  I already was.  As soon as we came in from that first run there we were already talking about how it was sucking up, how it felt when we were leading.  Already trying to go over details of what we can do to make it better for tomorrow already.  Like I said once we got in the car and once I didn’t feel the pain right off the bat it was right back to business as usual.”
 
DID YOU HAVE ANY THERAPY TODAY OR ANY SPECIAL STRETCHES OR ANYTHING?  OR IS IT JUST LIKE A NORMAL PRACTICE DAY?
“Knowing you are my back-up guy (referring to an inside joke with reporter Bob Pockrass) I didn’t do anything extra.  I felt like my back-up guy is on par and ready to go.  No, I didn’t do anything today.”
 
DID YOU MISS PIT IN?
“Well we were supposed to get a tire sheet so I just missed getting my tire sheet spot.  But that was the first time we had gotten on the brakes hard with new pads so the second time it stopped a lot better.”
 
HOW WAS THE PRACTICE IN GENERAL?
“It was pretty sane.  It was the same as it always is here.  I mean everybody is just trying to figure out what their cars are doing and where they can get runs and where they can’t.  If there car is stronger on the top than bottom, how it pulls up to the cars behind it, so pretty much just the same as always.”
 
HOW ABOUT GETTING IN AND OUT OF THE CAR?
“Piece of cake.  I didn’t fall.  I think that was what everybody was waiting for.  If there was ever a time to not screw up it is getting in the car this time.  About 400 cameras there so I didn’t want to be the guy that fell out of the car and got on the cover of the paper for that.”
 
WILL YOU WANT TO DO MORE LAPS THAN NORMAL SORT OF AN ENDURANCE TO SEE HOW GOOD THE LEG IS?
“No, we didn’t really get as many laps as we wanted to in the first session.  We are going to run the second session anyway.  So we will get plenty of laps in tonight.”
 
WHAT IS YOUR LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE OF DRIVING OVER 500 MILES?
“I don’t think Bob (Pockrass) is going to be able to have his first Cup start this week.  I’m pretty confident we are going to be fine.”
 
WAS IT A GOOD FEELING TO SEE ALL THOSE CAMERAS AND EVERYBODY THERE?  LIKE YOU GETTING BACK INTO A CAR IS A BIG DEAL?
“Yeah, and honestly last night I started getting a bunch of text messages.  I got them from media members, from our dirt track guys, friends of mind from the West Coast.  Everybody started texting saying how excited they were for today.  Today in the big picture was just another practice day, but obviously it was a little bigger than normal for us.”
 
WHEN YOU GET INTO A BIND ON THE TRACK AND YOU HAVE THAT MOMENT THAT WILL LIKELY COME IS THERE GOING TO BE APART OF YOU THAT IS GOING TO WORRY MORE THAN YOU DID BEFORE?
“No, I mean Denny (Hamlin) pushed me down the frontstretch and I got a little wiggly and it just, like I said, it was crazy how it just felt like it was yesterday that we were doing the same thing.  For somebody who hadn’t been in a car it sure doesn’t feel like I haven’t been in a car.  It feels like I was in it a week ago already.  I was pleasantly surprised for that.”
 
HOW ABOUT CHAD JOHNSTON AND BEING UP THERE AND HEAD OF THE NEW SCENARIO?
“It’s kind of cool because I can actually hear him on the radio.  (Steve) Addington was always hard to hear.  Steve has just got a very calm voice.  Chad’s got a calm voice, but the volume is a little louder so I don’t have to jack the volume on the radio up so loud to hear him.  It’s the first time I’ve heard him on a radio.  It’s going to be different when we got to Phoenix in a couple of weeks, but for here it just sounds normal and natural already.”
 
WHAT IS PRIORITY ONE NOW?
“Wait for the next session and just do the same things that we always do.  Just go through the steps of trying to figure out how to make the car better.  I think we will probably do single car stuff the rest of the day just to make sure that we are making changes that we know what the effect of it is versus trying to be in packs. If the pack is five cars deep you are not going to learn as much as if it’s 10 cars deep.  It’s hard to get accurate information so we are just going to do single car stuff the rest of the day and get ready for tomorrow.”
 
HOW MUCH DOES IT CONFIRM GETTING IN A CAR THAT YOU JUST LOVE RACING TO PIECES?
“If I didn’t think Greg Zipadelli would absolutely kill me tonight I would probably want to go race at Volusia
tonight.  It felt that good.  I don’t think Zippy would be the only guy.  I think the entire organization here would probably duct tape me to the flag pole on the frontstretch so I couldn’t leave.”
 
EVENTUALLY YOU ARE GOING TO DO THAT?
“Yeah, I’ve said that all along.  I haven’t waivered from that.”
 
ARE YOU RELIEVED THAT GETTING BACK INTO A CAR IS NOT A BIG DEAL AT ALL?
“Yeah, I thought it was going to be… I’m glad it wasn’t any bigger deal than that.  That is the good part of it.  I didn’t think it would just blend in like it did.  It just kind of felt like any other day at the office.  Once we got off pit road and got going and actually got in the pack there you forgot about all the other stuff and you went back to work.  Just got back in the swing of things.”
 
HOW MUCH OF A RELIEF IS THAT?
“Especially not having any pain afterwards and not having any pain driving that is a big weight off our shoulders.  It’s the only thing we couldn’t answer to you guys was what is it going to feel like after being in a car.  Like I said unless after adrenaline wears off tonight at 9 o’clock I start getting sore it feels really good, much better than I thought it was going to be.”