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

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

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

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

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

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

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