GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS, AND CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, WERE THE GUESTS ON THIS WEEK’S NASCAR WEEKLY TELECONFERENCE.
BELOW ARE THE TRANSCRIPTS:
 
GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS:
 
AMANDA ELLIS:  Gil, congratulations on the victory at Phoenix.  This weekend’s race at Homestead will mark Kevin’s final race with RCR, and how do you approach this weekend knowing you have one last chance at winning a championship together?
 
GIL MARTIN:  Thank you for having me.  One of the biggest things we’ll try to do is the same thing we did at Phoenix, our biggest objective is to try to win the race, lead as many laps as we can, and just collect as many points as we can because that’s what we’re going to have to do to try to have any shot of winning this championship because there will be things that are out of our control that we won’t be able to do anything about.  We’ve just got to try to get maximum points and go from there.
Q.  Gil, we’ve heard talk this past week, after this past weekend’s race from Matt and those guys about regardless of what happens, they’ve had a really good season, nothing to hang their head about.  He’s had a career high in wins. How do you guys look at the season regardless of how it turns out on Sunday? Are you looking at it as like we had a really good year, or do you look at it as a missed opportunity or what exactly?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, the way I look at it is back in December when we got ready for this season, going into January, we set several goals for ourselves knowing the scrutiny we would be under with Kevin leaving and a few things like that, that we knew we would have to face each and every week.  But still, through the course of the season we intended to win a race, get into the Chase and have a chance at the championship.  That’s all you can ask for.
 
But with that being said, to have the season that we’ve had with four wins and two non‑points wins, to be in the Chase and to have a shot going into Homestead, it’s been a tremendous season.
 
As far as missed opportunities, I mean, yeah, you can find some points here and there, but quite honestly it’s just been a tough act to follow with the numbers that the 48 has posted all year long.  It’s a great season, a phenomenal season, and the season we’ve had is something that we’ll probably win many championships from here on out.  It may not this year, but the way that we’ve run I’m extremely proud of.
Q.  Normally when a team ends a season strong and everything, you talk about carrying that momentum into next year and building toward 2014.  With you guys going through change, how does that impact what you guys will try to do?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, I mean, the biggest thing that we’ll try to do is just, like you said, try to carry this momentum because we’re excited about how the season is coming to an end and how we’ve been able to run.  But some of the things that this team will affect to do for next year is just to try to get another game plan because we’re going to be going through a lot of testing with the proposed rule changes that’s going on right now, just for 2014, and that’s what we’re going to try to focus on, to get ready for that.
Q.  Talking about 2014, do you expect this whole group to be together in some form or fashion next year, or are you guys entering this weekend with kind of guys not really knowing what their future holds?
GIL MARTIN:  No, this whole group will be together, no matter what happens.  This whole group will be together.  Looking forward to that, no changes internally on this team.  I think that all that part will be a known, so we’re looking forward to it.
Q.  The Saturday of Martinsville weekend on Saturday night, did you think it would be possible to win a championship with all the turmoil going on?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, I mean, this deal is tough enough, like it is, and obviously you don’t want things like that to happen, but it did.  But I felt like after several phone conversations and several face‑to‑face conversations that we would get right back on track.  I never had the doubt about the focus of the team or Kevin once the race started.  After the race was over, I felt pretty confident that we were right back on track right where we were at.
Q.  At the end of the first season with the Gen‑6 car, from a crew chief’s perspective and what you’ve got to do to adjust the car and all that, how do you rate how it’s performed in comparison to the Gen‑5 car?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, I think right now this car has still got a lot of upside potential.  I think we’ve just barely begun to scratch the things that we can do with this car.  Sometimes it takes a long time to find huge changes along with the car, but I think as the season has progressed, we’ve gotten much better with the car, and I think the garage has.
 
And then with the tests that we’ve got coming up in December, I think there’s a tremendous amount of upside for what’s going to happen with the future of this car.  I think the racing is just going to continue to get better.  I think the passing that you’ve seen this year has been on a high, but I think that’s going to get to be a lot more because this car has just got a lot of potential that we really haven’t had the opportunity to just completely iron it all out yet.
 
With the things we’ve got coming, I’m excited about it.
Q.  I know you said that you guys want to go out there this weekend and lead every lap and win the race and all that, but are you in a position where you might get a little creative with strategy and you might go for the big picture, the championship, or do you look at this race as even a bigger fight with Matt Kenseth to take away at least that second spot?
GIL MARTIN:  Yeah, obviously we can’t do something that’s going to be so out of the box that we jeopardize the fact that finishing third where we currently are or have an opportunity to grab second.  If we’re going to come up short in any kind of gamble, five, 10 points, 15 points, the gamble won’t be worth it at that time.  You’re going to have to weigh it out on what the gamble is going to be worth.
 
Obviously even if we lead all the laps and are leading the race, Jimmie and Matt both are going to have to have probably something go wrong during their day.  So at that point we would weigh out any options on any over‑the‑top type of calls we might make.  Obviously we want to try to come out of there with a second‑place finish.  If we can’t do that we want to maintain our third.  So we’re not going to do anything to jeopardize that.
Q.  For the past couple weeks the talk has been Jimmie versus Matt but you’ve been there and you obviously proved that with the win in Phoenix.  Has there been any extra motivation in the shop, hey, we’re still here, too?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, there always is because everybody wants to feel they’re worthy out there in this garage.  It’s a tough atmosphere and you want to go there each week thinking you deserve to be there and you want all your peers to think that you deserve to be there.  These guys showed this weekend that they have tenacity and that they are more than willing to fight to the end to see if we can take the trophy home.  I know it’s a David and Goliath task that we’ve got ahead of us right now, but there’s a lot that can happen.
Q.  Gil, over the years we’ve seen kind of the championship contenders go and the drivers kind of playing mind games and poking at one another and things like that.  Is there any gamesmanship that you expect between you three crew chiefs going into the weekend?
GIL MARTIN:  Not really.  I mean, I think we’re all pretty familiar with each other, and we know everybody’s tendencies and traits.  But for the most par
t, the crew chiefs really don’t have an opportunity to play any of those games.  The crew members, they kind of do it I think a little bit to pass the time and just work with each other in the stalls.  But I think it’ll be business as usual for us.  I know I will, I’ll have a lot on my plate just trying to figure out ‑‑ at least match what Chad is doing because of the fact he’s going to be extremely prepared when he goes into this weekend.  So we’re going to have to be, too, so there won’t be any time for that, really.
Q.  Gil, I don’t think anybody would have expected much if Kevin and you and the whole entire team had a lame‑duck season like it could have been, and yet it wasn’t.  It wasn’t just business as usual, it was better business than usual, actually, or it seems that way with the wins and all.  Was there anything that you can talk about that was different about the team and about Kevin that just said, well, let’s get it done?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, I think if anything, it’s not just trying to prove a point, but everybody is trying to, quite frankly, we want to win the championship really bad.  And we want to win races.  In order to do that, again, you just can’t have any distractions.  This garage is full of distractions, whether it’s the fact that Kevin is leaving or Budweiser was leaving or whatever the case may be, and you have to try to overcome those.  It’s hard to do because everybody else in the garage is trying to find a way to either bring you down or make it to where you’re not a car to contend with that week because you’ve got 43 other guys that you’ve got to contend with.  If you can bring somebody down by having drama stirred up around them, you’re all about that.
 
It’s a tough thing to do, but we want to try to send Kevin out of here with a championship, and quite frankly that’s what we’re trying to do.
Q.  As far as the team goes, do the team members feel that, too, that they kind of overlook it and just get it done?
GIL MARTIN:  They certainly do.  I mean, they have to because you take ‑‑ that’s the good thing about having a lot of veterans on your team that have been there and seen all this stuff instead of a lot of kids who are inexperienced, because they can get distracted very easily because of just the things going on in the garage, and you listen to news reports or things going on on TV that can quite frankly ‑‑ it can bring you down, and each one of you guys that travel each week with us for 38 weeks knows the drain this puts on you mentally and physically, so if you get caught up in a lot of that, it’ll distract you and you’ll make mistakes throughout the weekend.  They’ve been able to shed away from that.
Q.  I think it’s safe to say you’ve got a Type‑A type personality for a driver and Kevin is sometimes volatile.  Matt and Jimmie, I don’t think you would say that about them.  What to you describes the relationship or the adaptability to a specific driver’s personality that a crew chief has to have to find success?
GIL MARTIN:  I think that the driver and the crew chief have to feed off of one another.  When Kevin has an issue at the track or with a car, it drives me to want to push our guys to fix the problem as fast as possible.
 
When you have somebody that’s got a personality like that and as vocal as Kevin is and the way Kevin wants everything to be laid out perfectly, very meticulous, it’s very easy for the guys to shut down on that and not function very well under a high‑pressure situation.
 
I kind of like that.  I like the fact that Kevin pushes me and pushes us to be that much better each week, and I think with that being said, because he does that, when we stand up and we find whatever it is he needs, it pushes him again, too, because he doesn’t want to be the weak link.  So we continue to push each other each week, and sometimes the more controversy that’s going on, it kind of helps that a little bit.  It kind of fuels both of our personalities.  Kevin is more vocal than I am probably, but on the inside I know what he needs and I know what he wants.
 
When he’s firing off a bunch of commands, it’s basically just letting me know an insight of what he needs, so it works pretty well.
Q.  To follow up on that, you and Kevin have obviously been in championship points races from year to year, sometimes not.  The 48 is there all the time.  When you sit back and see that relationship, what about you stands out or what about that stands out?
GIL MARTIN:  I think the fact that they endure the years together, that they stuck it out in the early portion of their career together, and that they were able to work through that and they’ve grown together.  That’s something that you can’t replace.  You can put a lot of guys together, you can put great crew chiefs and great drivers together, but if they don’t know each other’s personality and don’t know what it takes to make that guy tick from weekend to weekend, it’s a hard thing to do because you’ve got to know when to let your driver have his head about him and really complain in a car and you’ve got to know when to shut him down and know when he’s gone too far.  I think they know each other’s personalities so good that they know when they can say something to each other that in a lot of cases people would tiptoe around.
 
I look at it as the dating stage, the holding hands stage that you have to go through with somebody new.  They’re past that.  They know exactly what they’ve got to do each and every weekend.
Q.  I wanted to ask you, I know you talked about the things that have helped you and Kevin do so well.  What are the challenges, I guess, in moving ahead?  Obviously the last preseason you got top‑three points finishes.  What have you learned from this experience and how can it help you and your group moving forward as you’re with somebody else next year?
GIL MARTIN:  I think one of the biggest things is over the past 13 years of working with Kevin, we’ve built a database of things that we need to do at each individual track, and I think a lot of those things are going to come true and those are going to work with whatever driver is in a seat.  And with that being said, I think our group being together, not having any change in personnel next year, that we’ll have that known going into the season, too.  So that’s going to lend a big helping hand for what’s going to happen next year.
 
We’re just looking forward to it, and we’ll see how it goes.
Q.  And also I know you talked about the 48 team’s success and the relationship between the driver and the crew chief.  There are other teams that have those kind of relationships and don’t have the success.  Being a competitor, going against them, having the success that you guys have had, what kind of perspective does it give you on what that 48 team has been able to do year after year?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, for everybody that’s been in this garage, they know how hard it is just to physically run 38 races, much less do it at a level that they’ve done it at, to win championships, to win races over that extended period of time.  That’s a tough feat to follow.
 
We’ve been able to win several races in the past several years, and to finish in the top 5 in points, and I know what it takes to do that.  It takes a supporting cast back at the shop that’s tremendous.  It takes an owner, sponsors and people behind you to put up a great deal of commitment just to keep that ball afloat. But for those two guys to be able to do it with different personnel that’s been their supporting cast, they’ve had a lot of the same people I’m sure, and I can’t really say how many people they’ve had or haven’t had in their situation, but they obviously haven’t all been there the whole time.  Their personalities have led to putting the correct people in place to ha
ndle the jobs.  Two guys can’t do it all.  You’ve still got to have a supporting cast.  So I know they’ve done a tremendous job on that, and a lot of people in the garage try to emulate it.
Q.  I wanted to follow up on something you said to me earlier.  You said that after some phone calls and after kind of what you saw on race day that you had confidence this team could be in the hunt.  I’m curious what did you need to hear in the phone calls that you made or what did you see during the race at Martinsville that convinced you that, okay, we can get through all this?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, obviously after you have something like that happen, no matter what the situation is, with two parties, you’ve got to have somebody that’s a mediator.  So I tried to be a mediator in it and to try to do some things just to let everybody know that obviously Kevin wishes he hadn’t said what he had said and wished it hadn’t taken place, but by the same token after it is said you have to get everybody together and talk about it.  It’s one of those situations you can’t stick your head in the sand and not address it.  There had to be some conversations just to get things smoothed over, because like it or not, in this environment there’s so much stress, so much pressure, you’re going to do and say some things in the heat of the moment that you absolutely wish you hadn’t said, and then you’re going to have people who are going to stoke that fire and you’re going to have people who are going to try to calm the waters.
 
Well, we had enough people try to stoke the fire, so all I was trying to do was calm the waters, making certain that when Kevin got in the car on Sunday that he knew the support was still behind him, the company was still behind him, and I think Richard relayed the exact same messages.  I think as the race went on, Kevin became comfortable because he’s extremely comfortable in the race car.  I think when he gets his helmet on, a lot of the controversy that’s going on outside of the car, he kind of puts aside, and I think after the race is over and going into Texas, I know there was a lot more conversation just to everybody sit down and talk and just forgive and forget at that point because with a lot of things at stake you have to do that, and quite frankly with everybody as close as they are in this garage, whether you work together or not, you’ve still got to be around one another, so it’s a lot easier to put it to bed and be done with it.
Q.  How much of the fact that you were still in the championship hunt allowed those waters to be somewhat calmed?
GIL MARTIN:  Well, obviously that had a lot to do with it, also, because there’s a lot at stake, not just for Kevin or anybody else, but we’ve got 400 employees here and a lot of sponsors and everything else.  So you’ve got a lot of commitments that you have to make sure you stand up and do those commitments because people are looking for us to do the right thing each and every week.
 
Like I say, you have to find a way to put that behind you, resolve the issues and move on.
 
AMANDA ELLIS:  Thank you for joining us today, and best of luck to you and the team this weekend at Homestead.
 
CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS:
 
AMANDA ELLIS:  Welcome to today’s NASCAR teleconference.  We are joined by Chad Knaus, crew chief of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports and driver Jimmie Johnson in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  Knaus and his team have won six races and five‑time series champion Jimmie Johnson leads the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings going into the finale at Homestead‑Miami Speedway on Sunday.  You’ve come into Homestead as a contender a number of times.  How does this particular finale compare with the others?
 
CHAD KNAUS:  That’s a good question.  It’s probably not a whole lot different.  We know that we’ve got to go into Homestead prepared to go and race hard for 400 miles.  We know that we need to go in there and do everything in our power to qualify as best we possibly can and to get ourselves in position to potentially win the race if the opportunity arises.
 
That’s kind of the way that we’ve approached it every single time that we’ve gone to Homestead for the final race, and if we can do that, everything should shake out okay for us on the 48 car.
Q.  Chad, just kind of wondering after seeing you guys together for so long, how long can you maintain the type of intensity needed to compete at this level?
CHAD KNAUS:  Are you referring to Jimmie and I?  I hope for a while yet.  You know, I think we’re definitely in a very comfortable environment, very fortunate to be able to be working with Mr. Hendrick and everybody here at Hendrick Motorsports.  We know that these are good opportunities for us to go out there and win a lot of races and battle for championships.  I think if things continue the way they are, we should be able to stay together for a few more years yet.
Q.  When you were working under Ray Evernham did you ever envision a time where there would be somebody, and that being you, that would even beat his records, what he established during the glory days of the 24?
CHAD KNAUS:  I didn’t ‑‑ I don’t know that I ever really thought of it from that angle, if anybody would beat him or if it would be me or anything like that.  That really wasn’t what my focus was.  When I was working with Ray and Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports back in those days, in the early‑to‑mid ’90s, all I wanted to do was work as hard as I could and do the best I could for Ray and Jeff Gordon and Mr. Hendrick to try to win races.
 
I can’t say I thought of it from that angle.  I didn’t really care about that.
Q.  As much success as you’ve had and as much ‑‑ as long as you’ve been linked with Jimmie, is there a next step for you?  Do you ever allow yourself to think ahead of where you want to take the career that’s already had this kind of success, and also, what keeps it from year to year from seeming like the same old?
CHAD KNAUS:  (Laughing) I don’t know what the next step is.  Mr. Hendrick doesn’t give me enough time off work to actually think about anything other than racing.  I don’t know if there is another one.
 
I don’t know what I’m going to do.  You know, one day we’ll wake up and I’ll probably just check out and be gone.  We just have to wait for that day to arise.  But right now I really enjoy what it is that I’m doing.  I really enjoy working with Ron Malec and Jimmie and everybody here at Hendrick Motorsports.  But I don’t know what’s going to happen.  We’re just going to have to wait and see.
Q.  We were talking to Gil Martin earlier, and he was talking about the success you guys have had, and he said you’ve been through what he described in a dating sense, the holding hands period and reached ‑‑ got past that to the point where you could just put it all together so well.  Could you sort of address that?
CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah.  Jimmie and I have been together for a long time, obviously.  Any relationship needs work.  We’ve been very fortunate to have been together for a long time, and it’s been a lot of work.  We’ve had some really good times, we’ve had some really stressful times together.  We’ve had some really successful times.  We’ve had a lot of victories and a lot of faults.  We lose a heck of a lot more races than we win.  Everybody thinks that we dominate and so on and so forth and that’s what everybody writes about and the fans talk about, but man, we lose a lot of races, and that’s taxing on anybody.
 
As we’re trying to do better weekly and improve weekly, it’s always a challenge.  The good thing we’ve got is that I’ve got 100‑percent confidence in Jimmie and I feel like he has the
same for me, and we know that at the end of the day, all we’re trying to do is to make each other better with any of our constructive criticism, any of our feedback or any of our suggestions.  It’s a really nice environment to work in when you know that your driver has your back 100 percent.
Q.  When you and Jimmie were first winning championships together, did you ever think he’d be getting up at 5:30 in the morning to go run, and what do you think his current focus on his fitness as far as just running and swimming and biking have impacted his performance?
CHAD KNAUS:  First off, no, he was definitely not an athlete when we first started hanging out, not by any stretch.  I shouldn’t say he wasn’t an athlete, that isn’t fair.  He wasn’t a training athlete.  He didn’t enjoy it, he didn’t do it.  He knew he needed to.  He would do enough to potentially get by.  At that point in time I was probably in a lot better shape than what he was.  I was probably training more then.  Now he’s taken it to the next level as far as training goes.  He’s a phenomenal athlete.  He’s got obviously a tremendous skill set, and now he’s working on his physical aptitude.  I think it definitely does a lot of good for him.  I think that it, one, obviously makes his endurance a lot better throughout the course of these races.  I think it makes him more alert and better come the end of the events when other drivers are maybe more tired.  I think it also has provided a significant outlet for him to where he can go, train, get away from the racing environment and enjoy it.
 
I’m 100 percent in favor of it.  I like what he does.  I think it’s good for him all the way around.  So it’s a good thing.  It’s a definite positive, plus‑plus.
Q.  I assume, though, that you’re not going to want to ever join him on a 5:30 in the morning run?
CHAD KNAUS:  Man, I’m coming to work at 5:30 in the morning.  He gets to go train.  We have completely different schedules.  If I had the ability to go train at 5:30 and come in at 8:00 or whatever, I would maybe do that.  But unfortunately that’s not how it works for me.  I have to come in and go to work.  But we have been on some rides together.  I’m not near the shape that Jimmie is by any stretch, but I do enjoy going riding with him when I can, when we can fit it in at the racetracks or whatever it may be.
Q.  I know you’re so busy with the 48 team and the Chase, but I just wondered if you’ve ever had time to think about what it would be like to compete against the 48 team if you were with another organization.  I guess you might consider that a good challenge, right?
CHAD KNAUS:  Wow, that’s a good question.  I’ve never been asked that one before.  What would it be like to compete against ourselves.  I think quite honestly, we do a lot.  If you look at the capabilities of the other teams at Hendrick Motorsports with Kenny and Kasey and the 5 car and Alan and Jeff on the 24 and Stevie and Dale on the 88, I think that we’re competing as close to our brothers as we possibly can, so it’s difficult.  You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to try to beat those guys week in and week out.  I’m very fortunate, it’s been a long time since I’ve worked on another team, so I don’t know all the resources they’ve got.  I don’t know what they’ve got or the intensity level or how the other crew chiefs work in the other race teams, but I can only assume that they’re very similar to us.  So we’re probably racing against ourselves maybe even more so than what we actually think right now.
Q.  If things go your way this week, the talk will pick up about how you guys are the greatest team in history and people trying to analyze how that happens.  Are you the greatest crew chief, is Jimmie the greatest driver?  From your view, do you think that you’re working with the greatest driver in NASCAR history?
CHAD KNAUS:  I think ‑‑ gosh, that’s ‑‑ how do you answer that question without somebody saying I’m wrong, right?  I can tell you this:  I’ve worked with a lot of fantastic race car drivers and I’ve seen a lot of drivers come and go in our sport.  I think that Jimmie is, for me, and for our time, the best driver to ever sit in a race car.  Now, does that mean that he could have taken a 1956 Dodge or Plymouth or something like that and beaten Richard Petty?  I have no idea, right?  All I can compare it to is the present.  All I can compare it to is what we do out there right now and the performance that I see him pull.  I think he’s pretty remarkable.  I’m very, very fortunate to have a driver of that talent.
Q.  You’ve made some changes on your pit crew this season.  Some of the guys have never been in this final race situation before.  How are they handling the pressure this week, and how do you think they’ll handle it on Sunday?
CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah, we do have some new guys.  We’ve got actually quite a few new guys, but honestly I think they’re going to do really well.  I think the way that we prepare leading up to this point, the level that we expect out of our guys on a weekly basis, I think they’re used to pressure.  We’re fortunate enough that we’ve been in position to have battled for race wins.  We’ve battled for ‑‑ battled to come back from bad problems, from bad things that have gone on in the race, and these guys have responded really well.  I’m super excited to see how these guys go down there and tackle this.  I’ve got all the confidence in the world in them, and I think they can do it, I really do.
 
I think they can pull it together and go out there and put together six really good pit stops, and that’s probably about what we’re going to need.
Q.  Jimmie said there’s so much pressure on him going into this week, especially with the big points lead.  Do you feel the same way?  Is there more pressure with the bigger points lead?
CHAD KNAUS:  I wouldn’t say there’s more pressure, but you’ll look like a bigger fool if you lose it.  I think that we want to ‑‑ we just want to go down there and perform.  We want to get down there and race, and the better we qualify, the better pit selection we get, the better starting position you get, the better race you’re going to give yourself a chance to have.  There’s a lot of pressure, no doubt about it, but that’s what we love.  I live for these last 10 weeks, and once we get through these next 10 weeks I can’t wait to get through the next 26 so I can get to these 10 weeks next year.  This is what we live for.  This is what we enjoy.  We like the pressure.
Q.  As you were coming up, I’m guessing there were guys like Ray and other crew chiefs in the business that you emulated and you wanted to be as good as they were, be better than they were.  Now that you’re in the position that you’re in, you’re regarded as the best crew chief in the garage, who do you measure yourself against, the competition each week?  How do you look for to find that next ‑‑ to learn from, I guess?
CHAD KNAUS:  Well, I don’t think I’m the best crew chief in the garage.  I think I’ve got the best team, I’ve got the best driver and the best resource.  I think that keeping those pieces together is a bit of a challenge and difficult, and that’s one thing I’ve been very fortunate enough to be able to do.  We’ve had a lot of changes with engineers and mechanics and pit crew members and we can still run up there, but I feel like that as a whole, what I’m trying to improve on isn’t really the crew chief thing, it’s the personal issues, how to communicate, how to continue to improve the respect with the people that work with you and your group and how to communicate properly, how to gain the respect on a consistent basis with everybody that you’re involved
with.
 
When I think of people, how to do that, I think of guys like Rick Hendrick, I think of people like Mr. Penske, I think of gentlemen like that that go out there and have a very demanding, very taxing lifestyles that are able to go out there and be successful and maintain a moderate level, sense of sanity.  That’s really what I’m trying to do now.  I feel like from the racing standpoint, we’ve got a good handle on things, and I’m just trying to improve my inner self a bit.
Q.  Is it correct that you guys have the Texas car this weekend, and if so, is the plan from the drop of the green flag to do what you did in Texas, or do you feel like maybe you’ve got a lead to protect before you start going after it that hard?
CHAD KNAUS:  It is our Texas race car.  It’s a really good race car.  We’re going to have to go down there and just see how it all unfolds.  Obviously we would love to get ourselves in a position to where we can get out there, control the event and potentially get ourselves in a position to win the race.  What better way to end the season, obviously, than with a victory.
 
But we’re just going to have to see how it all unfolds.  We’re not dumb.  We try to be fairly intelligent and understand all circumstances, and we understand that there’s two race cars that we’re racing, and that’s the 20 and the 29, and that’s really where our main focus has to be.  But we also know if we go out there and we lead laps and can battle for the victory, we know that we’re going to ultimately beat those guys.  So that’s kind of our plan, so we’re going to go down there and go and see if we can close it out big.
Q.  I just wondered if you could kind of describe for me the tenor of this week, this championship finale.  There’s not really any locker room bulletin board material, the other crew chiefs are kind of talking about, well, it’s a long shot, all we can do it just try to win the race.  You’ve been through so many of these.  How does this one shake out for you?  Are you having to do a lot of motivating?  What’s it like?
CHAD KNAUS:  I don’t think so.  I had a quick meeting with our guys this morning.  Every situation is different, every person is motivated differently.  I’m very fortunate that the guys on the 48 team, they kind of help motivate each other.  There’s an energy that is involved being a part of this team that makes you want to do well and makes you want to work harder.  So it’s not like I really have to get the guys and develop this huge rah‑rah speech.  I don’t have to go and make them feel like they need to do more.  But I’d say the biggest thing I told the guys today was what we do between now and Sunday night, whatever we have to do, if we have to work 24 hours a day, if you have to sacrifice time at home, if you have to sacrifice lunch, if you have to do whatever you can to make sure that that car is as prepared as it possibly can be and you are as prepared as you possibly can be for that event, any pain that you feel between now and Sunday you won’t remember that 20 years from now.  But what you will remember is if you win that championship and you have that ring.
 
I think that they understand that that’s the facts, and if they can go out there and do what it is they need to do and we are as prepared as we need to be, everything will fall into place.
Q.  Is it almost harder because you don’t have anyone ‑‑ this isn’t a real fiery ending here.  As it just works out circumstantial, these aren’t people that are getting all fired up?
CHAD KNAUS:  If you don’t think it’s a fiery ending, go talk to Denny Hamlin and ask him what happened a couple years ago when he came in with the points lead.  If you don’t think it’s a fiery ending, come over here and hop on the pit box and help me try to call the race and make sure you don’t mess up.  It’s a very fiery ending.  It’s so easy to throw these things away.  We see it time and time again.
 
There’s things that you cannot control, there’s things that you can control, and we’ve got to make sure that we can control what is in our ability and put our best foot forward.  If we don’t, if we let something slip, it could be a big problem.
 
We almost came back last year and really put that 2 car in a position where they had to race pretty hard.  Unfortunately we had a couple situations that crept up, but this is not easy.  It’s not easy going out there and trying to race for 267 laps.  It’s not.  It’s not easy at all.
Q.  Not everybody gets to talk about repeat championships, and not everybody knows as much about repeat championships as you do.  What recommendations would you share with other drivers and team members that have that drive to go out there and win championships?
CHAD KNAUS:  Honestly it’s just about the details.  There’s so many things that you cannot control in motorsports or in any other type of sport.  You’ve got to make sure that the things that are within your control, that you’re on top of and prepared for to the best of your ability.  Playing out the scenarios in your head, playing out the scenarios in your head with the group, making sure everybody is on the same page, communicating, that’s what you’ve got to do.  You’ve got to ‑‑ it’s not an individual process.  It’s a team process.  That’s something I learned a long time ago.  And the more I bought into that and the more I realized it, the better we were.
Q.  Are repeat championships harder?
CHAD KNAUS:  No.  No.  Not really.  I mean, they’re all hard.  Every single one of them.  Just because ‑‑ it’s not like climbing a mountain, right?  As you climb up it, it doesn’t get harder.  It’s the same challenge, it’s just whether or not you can keep everything together to win.  It’s not any harder.
Q.  A little off the subject, NASCAR keeps changing the dimension of the body, the chassis each year and stuff, and we’re seeing more and more of the cars getting over, upside down in the air and stuff.  What’s your feelings in that area?
CHAD KNAUS:  I think that the cars are significantly safer than what they’ve been in the past.  I know we’re continuing to work on more safety measures.  They’ve got some things that they’re working on in Charlotte when we go there in a couple weeks to do some testing that will help increase the safety parameters of the cars.  Quite honestly I think the cars are very safe.  We were talking about it not too long ago, Dave Elenz my engineer and myself, and I can remember when we didn’t even have soft walls and these guys were still going 180, 190 miles per hour and careening into those walls and it was amazing we didn’t have more injuries than what we did, because they still come out of the car now and they’re hurt.  Cars are going to get upside down, cars are going to get turned around backwards from time to time.  The closer the racing is, the higher the likelihood of that type of situation arising, but that’s part of racing.  It’s part of the thrill, honestly.  We just need to try to make the cars and the fans as safe as we possibly can, that way when we do have those situations come up, we can have everybody walking away.
Q.  Was the plan always to bring the Texas car to Homestead or is it the fact that it was just so dominant at Texas that you changed plans?
CHAD KNAUS:  We wanted to.  We were prepared if the car didn’t make it from Texas.  We had our Kansas car sitting there ready to go, which is actually our backup car, so it’s very similar type racetracks for our backup car.  The car that we ran at Texas is also the car that we ran at Charlotte that I felt like we could have won with in Charlotte.  It’s the car that we won with in Dover, so it’s a really, really good race car, and performed great.&nb
sp; I was hoping we were going to be able to bring it, but shoot, you just never know sometimes.
Q.  Using the same car three races in five weeks and now it sounds like four races in eight weeks, is that typical if you have a car that you really like, or is that somewhat not typical?
CHAD KNAUS:  No, it’s definitely not typical.  We could very easily take another race car and run very, very competitively.  This car as we had worked on it throughout the course of the season was showing some promise.  We kind of had it at Dover in the spring, we felt like we should have, could have, would have won that race.  We felt when we unloaded that car in Michigan as a backup car, albeit we only ran a handful of laps, the car was really fast and Jimmie had some good feel for it.  So we liked that.  Then when we took it to Dover, we realized it still had that same potential and we had tested it a couple times before that.
 
We felt really confident with the race car, and we will typically towards the end of the season, if we have a car that we really like, we’ll try to race that car a little bit more often.  But throughout the course of the normal season, we usually probably have like a four‑week turnaround.  So this is a little bit different.  But the boys are up to the challenge.
 
AMANDA ELLIS:  Chad, we thank you for joining us today, and we wish you and the team the very best of luck this weekend at Homestead.
           

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 10, 2013
 
 
Kevin Harvick Wins at Phoenix for Second Consecutive Year to Lead
All-Chevrolet Top-Six Finish
Jimmie Johnson Extends Points Lead to 28 Points With One Race Today
 
PHOENIX (November 10, 2013) – Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet SS, proved once again that not only is Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) one of his favorite tracks, it is also the track where he has scored the most victories in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) career. Credited with leading four times for a total of 70 laps, Harvick scored his fourth win of the 2013 season and his fourth win at the track in the desert west of Phoenix, Arizona.
 
“We were all pushing it on gas there to try to just put enough in it to get to the end so that we could gain all the track position we could under green,” said Harvick.  “I saw (then race leader) Carl Edwards slowing with about maybe a lap and a half, two laps to go.  Richard (Childress) came across the radio and said he was slowing down.  I’m like ‘dang we might still be in this thing.’ Just have to thank all the guys on my Budweiser Chevrolet.  The car was rocking all day.  Just wound up in Victory Lane where it needed to be.”
 
The victory keeps Harvick third in the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup (Chase), just 34 markers behind the leader, with one race remaining in the season.  It also brought the total wins for Richard Childress Racing in NASCAR National Touring Series competition to an impressive 200 trips to Victory Lane.
 
Kasey Kahne, No.5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS, finished second after leading twice for a total of 41 laps.  Kahne moved up one position to12th in the standings heading into the final event.
 
Jimmie Johnson came into the PIR race with a seven point lead in the Chase as he pursues his sixth NSCS championship, and finished third behind the wheel of the No. 48 Lowe’s/KOBALT Tools Chevrolet SS.  After starting on the pole, the five-time champion overcame two close calls to lead just one lap in the 312-lap/312-mile/500K race. The team rallied back and now heads to the finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway with a 28-point lead.  Johnson needs a 23rd place finish or better to clinch the title; 24th or better if leading one lap or 25th or better if he leads the most lap.
 
“I knew I had a great race car and that makes life a lot easier,” said Johnson. “I really had to fall back on my dirt driving skills racing out here in the desert all the years that I did.  All those incidences were close.   The second one, I thought I was hitting the wall so I was glad that we got it gathered back up and got it going.  Then the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) wasn’t having the best day, so after that issue we came to pit road and left and I expected him to be ahead of me and he was behind me.  So at that point I knew I was in good shape relative to the championship battle; knew I had a good car, knew I could get through traffic, and I knew it was just about getting points on him at that point.”
 
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS, finished fourth and remains fifth in the standings as the 2013 closes next weekend.
 
Kurt Busch brought the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Chevrolet SS, to the checkered flag in fifth place to maintain 10th in the standings.
 
Giving Team Chevy the top-six finishing positions was Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS.
 
Ryan Newman, No. 39 Quicken Loans/Salute to Veteran’s Day Chevrolet SS, finished 10th to give Chevrolet seven of the top-10 in the AdvoCare 500. The run moved Newman up to 11th in the Chase standings.
 
Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet SS, finished 14th after leading four times for a total of 49 laps.  The four-time NSCS champion sits sixth in the standings.
 
The final race of the 2013 NSCS season is scheduled for Sunday, November 17, 2013 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
 
 
KEVIN HARVICK AND CREW CHIEF GIL MARTIN, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS, AND RICHARD CHILDRESS, TEAM OWNER, RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING – RACE WINNERS
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
KRISTI KING: We will continue our post‑race media availability.  We welcome our winning race team and our race winner Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet.  This is Kevin’s 23rd victory in 454 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, fourth win at PIR ‑‑ this ties Jimmie Johnson for most wins in Cup races here, ninth all‑time at Phoenix.  Fourth victory of 2013 and fourth victory again here at Phoenix.  Talk about the race out there today.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, it’s always fun to come to Phoenix, and we’ve been fortunate to have a lot of success here in all the divisions, and today was no different.  We had a good car and really from the time we unloaded, we qualified well and were able to have three solid practices and a good qualifying session and a good race today.
 
With the way that the strategy and everything worked out today, you just had to play your cards right off the bat, and those guys got a little bit lucky with the way that the strategy worked out.  But our car was fast enough to work through traffic and keep ourselves in contention even with the other guys on the other side of that strategy, and we were able to be there at the end.  Everyone was able to put just enough gas in the cars to make it to the end, and our guys got it right and the other guys were a little short.
 
KRISTI KING:  Also joining us is crew chief Gil Martin.  Talk a little bit about the strategy.  Obviously a lot of folks saying that everyone was on pins and needles throughout the entire race and it seemed to last forever.  Talk about your strategy and how you prepared Kevin for this race going into today.
 
GIL MARTIN:  I mean, it was such a tough race because track position was everything.  We took two tires several times.  Last time we took left‑side tires was on lap 100, so with 212 laps on the left‑side tires, that was pretty amazing for the car to be that fast and only have that many laps on the left sides.  But we elected to come in and pit right there, I can’t remember the lap number now, but we pitted early, came back to top 15, and we knew at that point we’re able to put in one can of gas in at the end and we wouldn’t have to shuffle cans at the end.  We knew that was going to cost us a couple of seconds shuffling cans under green, and as it turned out, you can just about gauge how much fuel you’re putting in when you’re emptying a can, you know the amount of time, instead of having to guess when you’re shuffling cans, because the longer you sit there, the more you are.  You’re wanting to send him quick, because you know that you can’t lose any time there.
 
KRISTI KING:  Also up here with us, Richard Childress, owner of the 29 car.  Talk a little bit about how it feels to be sitting here. Anything can happen in a race.  I think we proved that today.  Kevin is only 34 points behind Jimmie Johnson.  Matt Kenseth is now just 28 points behind Jimmie Johnson.  He is definitely a contender for this championship.  Talk about how you’re feeling.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, we’ve been there, I think this is the third time we’ve been going to Homestead with Kevin and a couple times with Clint. Having the chance to win the championship, mathematically you never give up until it’s over.  For us to have a shot going in again this year, that’s all you can ask.  You’d ask to be out front like he is, but if you can’t you’ll take this.
Q.  For any of you, is it harder to race a strategy race like this where there’s so many ups and downs than
just maybe a normal mile‑and‑a‑half race where you know you’re going to be wide open the whole way?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I’ll let him answer that question.  I know for me you just have to let it play out.  You just have to sit in the car, give him the feedback and just do the best that you can because they can see a lot more than I can.  He can tell you the stressful part of it.
 
GIL MARTIN:  The stressful part of it is we had dinner last night, the engineers and I, and we were sitting there trying to go over all the scenarios.  No matter how many you go over you don’t never go over the one you needed, and that’s the one today that we didn’t really go over last night about trying to make certain how much fuel we were going to put in at the end on a green‑flag run, and that made such a huge difference because when you’re trying to time how much gas you’re putting in by basically counting one‑1,000, when the fuel can is plugged up there’s a lot of variables you have there.  You’ve got the variable did the gas man get plugged up good enough?  Did he get it completely plugged up?  Is it flowing the right amount of gas?  We knew if we could time it out to where we were emptying one can of gas, we know exactly how long that takes, so we waited to pit until we got to that point, and then it worked out.  But when you run a race like this when the tires really aren’t an advantage, it comes down to the driver’s tenacity in the car.  It comes down to the fact of ‑‑ he has to give, not a 100 percent like they’ve asked, you have to give 110 percent every single lap because if you let up even one lap you lose too much time.  A tenth of a second here is a long way, and he didn’t do that today.
Q.  Richard, you’re standing right there when the 99 starts to slow down right in front of you.  What went through your mind?
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Well, I think I told him on that lap or a couple laps before that I thought the 99 was going to run out.  I didn’t think he had pitted.  I came on one time and told Kevin that he was racing the 5 and 48 for the win, and then when I saw the 99 had pitted, I didn’t think he could’ve got enough fuel in it, so it was close.  I knew that if he did, he wasn’t going to have enough fuel left to jump off his car.  He wouldn’t have made it back to the start/finish is what I was going to say.
Q.  Kevin, last December in Vegas you got asked how this final season with RCR would go and you said it would probably be your best season yet.  Now going into Homestead you’ve got a chance not just at the championship but to finish second in points.  Can you just talk about maybe this could be your best season at RCR kind of like what you were expecting, despite all the circumstances that you could finish second in points and go out on that kind of high with this team?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think he’d probably sit here and tell you that we’ve been good for each other because we challenge each other.  You know, I obviously handle a lot of situations wrong, but it pushes a lot of buttons to try to make things better.  There’s no better way to go out than to do what we’ve done this year. Obviously we went to Martinsville, and I said things that I shouldn’t have said and put everybody in a position that was not good, but I think we had conversations about things after that that probably made us closer as people, and I think as we move forward will probably make us closer as friends.
It was a tough week to handle, but I think that some of the conversations that we had were good for all of us and made us really understand just the fact that how successful we’ve been together and how successful we’ve been for each other as RCR, and for me it’s great to be able to ‑‑ I think that situation really put into perspective, just made you think about everything that we’ve been able to accomplish and the things that we’ve been through together.  It’s more of a family conversation than it probably was a racing conversation.
 
For me that was great as a person.  You don’t want to put yourself in those particular situations just for the fact that it makes you look dumb, first off, and you want to go out on top.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  We committed to each other early in the year that we’d give 100 percent, and we have, and Kevin has.  Just like we talked, we’ve had a great relationship, and when this race is over, I haven’t got a driver out there that’s driven for me or crew chief or anyone I can’t walk up and talk to, and that’s the way we want this to be.
 
We’re like family.  You spend a lot of time with each other at the track, so you’re going to have your spats and stuff, and just got to make it work.
Q.  Question for Richard Childress. Earlier it was announced that you’ll employ for next year Mike Coughlan from Formula 1 as technical director. What do you see as the benefit to employ somebody coming from a totally different environment?
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  He was in NASCAR with Michael Waltrip Racing for a year and a half and got their program really up going off the ground, and he’s going to be our technical director.  He’s going to bring a lot of design work, engineering work, and we’re really proud to have him there, and couldn’t be prouder for Eric Warren going out and putting together the people behind this race team that gives Gil and our crew chiefs what they really need to go out and win.
Q.  For Gil and maybe Richard, with everything that’s taken place this season and even as Kevin pointed out from earlier in the year, some people thought that just because he was leaving you guys would be overlooked.  How has it been being able to keep the team as a unit together and focused on the goal as you still have an opportunity, even if it’s slim, to win a championship or finish as high as second in points?
GIL MARTIN:  It’s funny you asked that question.  In our team meeting today before the race, after we talked about the things that we may do or not do during the course of this race, I told the guys on the team that very thing, that this garage is tough.  They look for any kind of flaw that you may have to drag you down because the competition is so close that they try to break your team down.  And that’s what I told these guys, that they have to be the toughest group that I’ve been around, just because of the simple reason of everybody has been expecting us to implode, everybody is expecting us to fail and not succeed, and with the rest of the garage trying to force some of that upon you, to not get distracted, whether it’s the team, whether it’s Kevin, whether it’s anybody involved with our organization, it just shows the quality of these guys because this is just a tough environment.  Nobody knows how tough this environment is until you live it every day.
 
But I can promise you, the guys that are next to us in the garage, if we find a chink in their armor, we’re going to get on it.  If it’s turning a radio up, like the 2 car tries to do to the 48 during the week to get under their skin or if it’s placing a fake camera on your pit box and trying to look like you’re recording what the guy next to you is doing and make him work undercover, we’re going to do it, because that’s just what’s going to happen in this garage area, the games that are played, and these guys are just tough.
Q.  Richard Childress, as you look back your entire history, compare if you will what you’ve got coming up in the next week to another time when you were going into a race and it was either going to be a championship or a second‑place finish.
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, I mean, you just give it everything you’ve got.  We’ve been in that situation in trucks and Nationwide and Sprint Cup and the old Winston cup, and you just go give it everything you’ve got, do what got you where you’re at, and that’s race as hard as you can.
 
It’s great to ‑
‑ you know, this is a long season.  Everybody goes through a lot of stuff, and you start to tire down, but it’s all about commitment and your employees and sponsors and everybody makes the commitment to start the year out, and your commitment is to go give 100 percent every weekend, and that’s what we try to do.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  And Saturday I’m going to stand beside him and lock his radio out.  (Laughter.)
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, I don’t need to be on it.
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  We’ll be fine on Sunday but Saturday we’re going to have the defibrillator really close and we’re going to have his radio on easily to override.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, keep me quiet.
 
 
Q.  You guys have known for quite a long time that you’re going in different directions next year, but for each of you, for Kevin and for Richard, how important is it that you’re going to finish strong this year no matter what, looking ahead to 2014?  How important is this finish?  What does this mean to you?
 
KEVIN HARVICK:  Well, I think as we talk and as we’ve gone through the year, we’ve been successful.  We’ve been able to win four points races, two non‑points races, and so we’ve been successful on the racetrack.  Obviously you wish you could have raced ‑‑ for myself I wish I could have raced Martinsville, but I think as you move forward, you look at ‑‑ you have to take those life lessons.  We’ve had a lot of life lessons together, and it started in 1999.  So we’ve had life lessons, and you try to become a better person, and I think as I’ve been at RCR, you learn from situations, whether it be just starting my job or last week at Martinsville or Dale’s situation in 2001 or the situation we went through with Gil and the things that we’ve done there.  So you always try to take those situations, and it’s not just really about ‑‑ you want to make your race team better, but in the end you want to be a better person, and you try to take those situations and apply them to what you’re doing and make yourself better.
 
I think we’ve been through a lot of the situations.  He’s taught me a lot about being a dad (tearing up).
Q.  Richard, how important is a strong finish?
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  It’s great.  You look at life, I’m sure y’all have heard that old song, don’t blink, 100 years goes by fast, and this is just another chapter in life that we’re all living, so it’s really.  You’ve got to be tough to hang in there and make it, and we’ve did a lot together.  We’ve won a lot.  We’ve been through some tough times.  But at the end of the day, 100 years go by awful fast.
 
GIL MARTIN:  And if you want to make some really good press, next week lock Jimmie in a Port‑a‑Potty so this can really look good.  It would be a Cinderella story.  It would be a good thing to write about.  (Laughter).
Q.  What’s that emotion I just saw? Where did that come from?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think as you go through time, you look at situations as life, not about racing, and that’s a good thing.  Life is a good thing, and you want to be a good person.
Q.  Now on to what I was going to ask, and it’s on a similar note, what is it about you guys and controversy?  I think that some of the things you’ve faced over your lifespan together as teammates would completely disintegrate a lot of programs, but any time that happens, whether it was you and Richard fighting or Gil moving on to a different job and coming back and all those things, you end up winning.  How is that?  What is it about your personality types that allows that to happen because it wouldn’t work most places?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I know he might not want to hear this, but I always tell people it’s a generation gap.  So you have his generation, and then you have my generation, and then you have the guys that are stuck in between.  Then you have Gil and you have Mike and Dillon, and even Austin now as we go through time are kind of stuck in the middle.  It’s not that ‑‑ I don’t want to ‑‑ we want the same things.  We want to be successful and we want to win races, and I think we have a different approach of how you approach things and how you talk about things and how you move through things.  So these guys have done a good job of kind of being that glue, the glue that kind of holds it all together even when he and I are mad at each other.
 
So in the end you want to respect each other, and these guys do a good job of explaining that and really keeping it all together.
Q.  How would you describe the opponent you face next weekend?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Which one?
Q.  The 48.
KEVIN HARVICK:  We’re talking about locking him in the Port‑a‑Potty, so that should sum it up.  (Laughter.)
 
You know, we’ve stumbled ‑‑ I don’t know what the average finish is for us in the last nine weeks, but it hasn’t been too bad.  We’ve stumbled once at Loudon with a 20th place finish, and we’ve won a couple races, and here we are 34 points behind the 48.  So those guys are ‑‑ they’re good at what they do and they’re good at every track, and obviously Chad and Rick do a good job of keeping the next good thing coming.
But I feel like we’ve probably had the best Chase that we’ve ever had, and you go to Homestead 34 points behind.  They’re just good.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, I’ll add something to that.  Those guys, you look back at the history, and some of you guys that know all the numbers about the sport, Jimmie Johnson and those guys and the Hendricks, they’ve just had phenomenal years.  Our average finish, we’ve been right there for a championship five out of the last 10 or 11 years, and counting Clint’s couple of runs and Kevin’s two runs and then this run, and to be able to be there and be beat by that same team says something to how strong they really are, and we’re going to go to Homestead and just try to win the race, and if we go down there and win the race, we’ve done everything we can if we lose.
Q.  Kevin, my question for you is it took you seven starts to win your first Phoenix race on the old surface compared to three for the new surface.  Was there anything difficult for you on the old surface that is not showing as much on the new surface, or was it based just on experience level?
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, I think the experience probably plays into that more than anything.  I think for us today, we found some good things that worked for us in practice with the grooves and the way that fit my driving style to get through Turns 3 and 4 that are very similar to the things that we used to do with the old surface.  So it just took me a while to adapt.  My first day here was I think 1995, and I wound up hitting the outside wall off of Turn 4, just trying to find that particular sweet spot that exists down there in Turn 4 that still exists there with this new surface.
 
It’s been a fun run at this particular track, old surface, new surface.  We’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of success on this track.
Q.  As it winds down to only one week to go, is there a sense of, I guess, dread that the relationship is ending, the working relationship, and what will you guys miss most about each other?
KEVIN HARVICK:  I think just the fact that ‑‑ probably just the fact that he challenges me.  You talk about that generation gap, but when you make a mistake, he is not scared to just step up and say, this is the iron fist that’s running this show, and I think you have to have somebody that’s willing to put that iron fist down and say, this is the line, this is how it’s going to be, and if you don’t like it, get out.  And that’s really how we ran ‑‑ DeLana and I ran our race teams.  This is our way, and this is how we do it, and I think that came from
him, was this is my way, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door.  That’s probably the part that I’ll miss.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  Yeah, you know, I think just ‑‑ we’re going to see each other at the tracks a lot and everything, but we talk about a lot of other stuff, too.  Like he said, the generation gap is bigger than what it was with Dale and myself, and it was, but at the end of the day, the one thing that we both do have is a word called respect, and we’ll always have that.
Q.  Kevin, you’ve been racing here for a long time, and I would like to know your personal feelings about this facility.
KEVIN HARVICK:  Yeah, I have been racing here a long time, and I remember when I showed up at the first driver meeting and I used to pick on Rick Carelli.  I guess that would have been ’95.  He was the old guy at that particular time.  So you had Carelli and you had Mike Chase and you had Hornaday, and I went to the ‑‑ the truck race that I ran, obviously it’s known for a lot of different reasons, but the truck race that I ran in Martinsville, I went to driver intros and I’m like, alright, there’s Joe Nemechek’s kid, there’s Ty, and the average age was like 20 years old and I felt like I should be somebody’s dad, let alone grandpa.
 
It’s been fun, and you go through those times of really respecting the sport and those guys, especially at this particular racetrack.  I know Carelli has raced here for a long time, long before there was any of these grandstands sitting here and any of these buildings sitting here, and they used to run the open comp cars.  My dad would come over and work on the racetrack, and if you had a bad storm you couldn’t get to the track because the bridge was washed out.
 
So those were a lot of things that a lot of people don’t remember about this particular place, and this particular place is very special to me just for the fact that this was ‑‑ when you used to have the Copper Classic and the 300 lapper at the end of the year for the Southwest Tour cars, this was our Daytona 500.  So to be able to come back here and win races and be successful, means a lot to me, and you always come here with a lot of fans and a lot of friends so it’s fun.
 
RICHARD CHILDRESS:  We were here before the interstate.  Going to Riverside, I used to drive by here before the interstate.
           
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
KASEY KAHNE:  I felt pretty good.  I had a lot better car, a lot more grip than what I had yesterday in practice, so I thank the guys, Kenny and Keith, they came up with some good stuff for today.  We were close with our Farmers Insurance car, and we were on a little bit longer strategy.  We stayed out longer so our tires were ‑‑ Harvick was on a lot fresher tires, I guess.  He was able to stay out longer and came out there at the end and was pretty quick on that restart, got by us.  Carl short pitted.  That’s how he got so far out front.  It was interesting; the strategy plays such a big factor here.  You have half the field doing one thing and half the field doing the other, and everybody is pitting five, six laps difference on those strategies, as well.
 
It’s kind of a crazy race, but worked out pretty good, and I thought the track got a little bit better as it went.  I just keep hoping we could get a little bit softer tires so we could race around a little more.
Q.  It’s definitely been an up‑and‑down season for you, but over the past couple races you’ve had a couple solid top 5s.  Over the course of the season has there been any point where you began to wonder if things were going to get better?  Did you lose any confidence?
KASEY KAHNE:  Yeah, I think you lose a little confidence.  I get down once in a while and feel pretty bad about what’s going on.  I thought just ‑‑ we’ve had a lot of things happen to us this year, but we’ve battled back the last two weeks.  We ran pretty good, fifth and second, so I’m happy about that.  We’ll try to finish off strong at Homestead with another top 5 and maybe prepare a little better for next year and try to have a little more consistent, stronger year from start to finish.
 
KRISTI KING:  Joining Kasey is Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Kobalt Tools Chevrolet, who finished third in today’s AdvoCare 500. Currently our point’s leader heading into our season finale next weekend in Homestead.  Jimmie, talk a little bit about your good battle out there day.
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  The race was challenging.  Everybody says it’s a short event here, but man, it seemed like it took 600 miles’ worth of time to get through this race.  We had a very strong race car, so that made life a lot easier, especially comparing this effort to last year’s effort in the Chase.  You know, we did what we should have.  I felt like yesterday we had a race‑winning car, and today seemed to be like a second‑ to third‑place car.  I hate that we missed it a little bit there, but still, all in all a very strong performance for us.  We’re heading into Homestead in the position we want to be in.  I’ll have to go down there and run 400 miles.  It’s far from over.  You’ve got to finish that race.  Although we have a nice cushion, we still have to go down there and take care of business.
Q.  Jimmie, at any time in those two incidents today, for the tiniest fraction of a second did you think this is it, or were you too busy driving, correcting?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  The one with the 22 didn’t worry me too much.  I felt like I had enough room, and then the way the car was sliding to save it.  But the one with the 99, two different points as I saved it the car pointed back at the fence, and I thought I was going to hit it.
 
Thankful that that didn’t happen, clearly.  Certainly worried me, and then we were mired in traffic after that and I didn’t know what that was going to mean for us.  We were in a nice position strategy‑wise, but there was a caution and they missed some oil off of Turn 4 and that drug off the laps under caution and put everybody into the same fuel strategy.  I was starting to get worried at that point in time, but seemed shortly thereafter we left pit road and the 20 was behind me again, they came down pit road, then I felt like I knew where I was, I felt like I knew where I could manage things and it was about trying to get points again, and I found my way up to third.
Q.  Jimmie, mentioning those earlier incidents, we saw Matt, he struggled with his car all day and then they had issues on pit road.  Does a race like today just stress how on your game you have to be in these races?  Everybody talked about you had such a dominating run last week and it’s not going to be much of a Chase.  Does it tell you that these things aren’t over?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, everybody is so eager to predict the champion, but you’ve got to play the game.  You’ve got to run the race and stuff happens. There’s so many variables in one of our races, I think more variables than any pro sport out there.  We have all 43 teams playing, driving, racing, all the mechanical components on the race car, pit stops, other issues on other cars that can take you out, tires.  There are a lot of variables, so we don’t take any of these weekends lightly, even with a nice point’s lead I’m not going to take any week any differently.  There’s still a lot of pressure to get the job done, and it’s no lay‑up at all.
 
I sympathize with Matt.  We were in that position last year and we went to Homestead and still had a shot and put a lo
t of pressure on the 2, and then we made mistakes again that took us out of it last year.
Q.  Jimmie, you’ve been through these wars ‑‑
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Anybody have anything else for Kasey?  He needs to get home.  (Laughter.)
Q.  You’ve been through these wars seven, eight, 10 times now in these Chases.  Were you surprised how poorly the 20 ran all day?  They just weren’t there all day.  Were you surprised by that?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yes.  Yes, surprised, and at the same time, I went through it last year.  I don’t know how to quite describe it, but it can happen.  I thought that yesterday in the final practice session they made a nice run, and I thought that they got themselves where they needed to be.  But clearly today that wasn’t the case.
 
When the 11 was leading early, I thought that might mean good things for the 20, and I never really saw the 18, and that was another marker to me that the 20 was not having the best of days, and both of his teammates were slipping back.
Q.  Back in the garage area, Carl said that the last thing he wanted was to be in the position like that that might have affected the championship.  Do you accept that just in the context of the overall racing environment, or just at that moment what were your thoughts on that?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, without a doubt.  I know Carl very well, and I have a ton of respect for him and what he does on the racetrack.  You know, the contact we had was unfortunate, really not three lanes down there, and I was coming around the outside of him, and I guess the 29 had a run on the inside, and once we all went to the brakes we were all committed to three wide in there.
 
You know, a little contact and all that stuff.  At the time I was frustrated.  Happy I didn’t crash, and I was hopeful that I didn’t lose all that track position and really affect our performance.
 
There was some frustration initially, but deep down inside I knew it wasn’t an intentional situation, it was just a racing deal that didn’t go our way.
 
Q.  Jimmie, not to bring up bad memories, but your last two finishes at Homestead were 32nd and 36th.  I know that was somewhat circumstantial, but given that and knowing you only need a 23rd or better how do you approach next week at Homestead?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Well, we’re going to go down there and race as hard as we can.  I think the safest place on the racetrack is up front, and if I look back to our Texas performance, we found a way to race smart, stay out of trouble and still get the race won.  I would love to win the race and win the championship, but we’ll just have to see how things develop in the race and where we are relative to the 20.  The big prize at the end of the day is what we’re focused on, it’s not so much that individual win, but we need to go down there and be prepared and treat Friday and Saturday like we need to win the race so we can make the car as comfortable and as fast as possible to give us all our options on Sunday.
Q.  What about Kevin Harvick?  He’s closed up on the points, too.
JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, he’s done a good job winning some races.  I guess he’s in third right now.  If we have a hiccup or some type of mistake in Homestead, it’ll be a race between the 20 and the 29.  But I feel like if we go down there and run as we should, we should be able to take care of business.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
ADVOCARE 500
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTES
NOVEMBER 10, 2013
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER:
WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN YOU SAW CARL (EDWARDS) COME OFF THE PACE?
“Well I think we were all pushing it on gas there to try to just put enough in it to get to the end so that we could gain all the track position we could under green.  I saw him slowing with about maybe a lap and a half, two laps to go.  Richard (Childress) came across the radio and said he was slowing down.  I’m like ‘dang we might still be in this thing.’ Just have to thank all the guys on my Budweiser Chevrolet.  The car was rocking all day.  Just wound up in Victory Lane where it needed to be.”
 
WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN YOU SEE CARL (EDWARDS) RUNNING OUT AT THE END?
“I really wasn’t expecting that, but just have to thank all these guys on our Budweiser Chevrolet.  Jimmy Johns, Chevrolet, Bad Boy Buddies, Hunt Brothers, Freightliner, Ollies, Odyssey Batteries, all the people who help us and the race fans and Sprint for putting us on this race track.  We had a really fast car all day.  We were able to make our ground through traffic.  We just we were on the opposite side of the strategy that worked out.  You just never know how the cautions are going to work out.  It was a great day and just have to thank Richard (Childress) and everybody at RCR for all they have done for me.  One to go.”
 
IT MIGHT BE A LONG SHOT BUT YOU HAVE STILL GOT A SHOT NEXT WEEK AT HOMESTEAD:
“Yeah and that is all you can ask for to happen.  Anything can happen.  You have to be in it to win it and done a good job of winning races in the Chase and we will see what happens.”
 
TALK ABOUT THE CAR ALL DAY LONG, IT DIDN’T LOOK LIKE YOU GUYS MADE HARDLY ANY ADJUSTMENTS:
“Yeah, we didn’t.  You know you never know how the caution flags are going to fly.  We wound up on the opposite side of.  You’ve got a 50/50 shot at the strategy, but our car was fast enough to make up ground through traffic. We were able to make some aggressive moves through the day and be able to put ourselves in position to win and here we are.”
 
DOES THIS PUT AN EXCLAMATION POINT ON WHAT YOU SAID EARLY IN THE YEAR THAT THIS IS NO LAME DUCK TEAM WITH FOUR WINS?
“Yeah and you know we have had a few bumps in the road.  Obviously, Martinsville was something I wish I could put behind me and keep my mouth shut.  But I think it made us closer in the end, myself and Richard (Childress) and Mike (Dillon) and Austin (Dillon) and all the guys on this team.  Just really proud to have driven at RCR and glad that we could wind up here in Victory Lane again and hopefully we’ve got one more shot at it next week.”  
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED THIRD:
“I knew I had a great race car and that makes life a lot easier.  I really had to fall back on my dirt driving skills racing out here in the desert all the years that I did.  All those incidences were close.   The second one, I thought I was hitting the wall so I was glad that we got it gathered back up and got it going.  Then the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) wasn’t having the best day, so after that issue we came to pit road and left and I expected him to be ahead of me and he was behind me.  So at that point I knew I was in good shape relative to the championship battle; knew I had a good car, knew I could get through traffic, and I knew it was just about getting points on him at that point.”
 
HOW WILD WAS IT FOR YOU OUT THERE TODAY?
“Yeah, the opening lap was kind of crazy and then we had another moment later in the race.  I am just glad nothing happened on both of those.  The first one my car just went straight.  I couldn’t turn, so I ended up in like the second lane entering the corner.  It got pretty nutty there and then later in the race once again. But a solid race car, I’ve got to thank Chad Knaus (crew chief) and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports for the awesome equipment they give me week in and week out.  Great pit stops and we had a good race here.  Last year at this race we had a tough day and we had a good day today.  Now we just need to go to Florida and have another good day.”

GIVE US THE MINDSET FOR THIS UPCOMING WEEK GETTING READY FOR THE FINAL RACE:
“Just excited to go racing.  I’m in a position I want to be in.  I want to go down there and need to defend the championship.  We’ve got a nice points lead so happy to be back on the West Coast.  I want to say hey to everybody in the stands.  Thanks to all those No. 48 fans out there and we will go to Homestead and race some more.”

KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND:
DESCRIBE THE WAY THIS RACE WENT.  IT WAS UP AND DOWN THE LEADER BOARD ALL AFTERNOON WITH ALL THIS PIT STRATEGY HOW WILD WAS IT FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL?
“Yeah there was just really a lot of strategies throughout the race.  Everybody was kind of switching about 10 or 15 cars who were in the front and who weren’t.  We were able to work our way back.  Kenny (Francis, crew chief) had a great strategy throughout the race and we got our car really good about (lap) 150.  I got a little loose in the last restart, but actually the last full run prior to the restart as well.  Just felt good about our Farmers Insurance Chevrolet.  We made some big gains from yesterday and nice second-place finish.  I wish I could have held off (Kevin) Harvick once Carl (Edwards) ran out, but that is the way it goes.  We had a strong car today.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN/SALUTE TO VETERAN’S DAY CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 10TH:
“We had a good strategy, but we ran out of fuel coming to pit road. We had an opportunity to make something of it, but running out of fuel cost us four or five spots. That was probably the difference between us finishing fifth to where we actually finished, in 10th. Matt Borland and the guys worked hard to make the Quicken Loans Chevrolet better over the course of the weekend, and once we got in clean air the car was actually pretty good. But track position was everything. When we had it, the car was pretty good. When we didn’t, it was so hard to pass. But we got another top-10 finish, which means Quicken Loans will pay 10 more mortgages and everyone can head to Outback Steakhouse for a Bloomin’ Onion”.
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FOURTH:
WHEN YOU CAME DOWN PIT ROAD WITH THAT LOOSE WHEEL DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD BE STANDING OUT HERE WITH A TOP-FIVE FINISH?  TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY:
“Yeah, I did.  We had a fast car.  I thought Steve Letarte (crew chief) could get some good strategy to get us back up into the top-10, top-five and I was real happy with the way we were able to rebound.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH:
UP AND DOWN ROLLER COASTER AFTERNOON DID THE CAR RESPOND TO THE WAY YOU GUYS HAD IT SET-UP BASED OFF OF ALL THE PRACTICE SESSIONS THIS WEEKEND?
“Well we were fifth today and maybe we were an eighth-place car.  We got up as high as fourth.  We put a good effort in and we just didn’t have the muscle those top-five guys had.  With (Carl) Edwards running out of gas that put us fifth and we will take that.  This is a single car team in the Chase with the big dogs and we have had a very successful season.  It’s tough we haven’t won, but we have been knocking on the door.  We will give it everything we’ve got next week in Miami.  It’s been a good run.  Really have to thank those Furniture Row guys out of Colorado.”
 
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA,
NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SIXTH:
“It was a good day for the Target team. The car was good and the guys did a great job with the pit strategy. It seemed like everyone was on a different pit strategy and I’m happy with a top-10 finish. The car had great speed all weekend and aside from a few handling problems the car was good.”