NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 3, 2013
 
 
TEAM CHEVY FINISHES ONE-TWO AT TEXAS
Jimmie Johnson Earns Sixth Victory of Season and Regains Point’s Lead
 
 
FT. WORTH – November 3, 2013 – Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, dominated the AAA Texas 500 by leading 255 of the 334 laps to earn his sixth victory of the season.  It is the 66th win of Johnson’s career and his third at Texas Motor Speedway.  The win moved Johnson back into the points lead by seven markers with only two races remaining in the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
 
“This was an awesome, awesome race car,” Johnson said in Victory Lane. “I have to go back to the test session we had last week or the week before. We did a nice job of developing a plan on how we wanted to show up in qualifying trim and in race trim. We had an awesome, awesome race car. And we needed it. Matt (Kenseth) didn’t have the best day and he finished fourth or fifth. So it’s hard to get points in this championship battle, and we got a couple today.”
 
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy Gold/7-Eleven Chevrolet SS, finished second.  The run marks his third runner-up finish in the eight races completed thus far in the Chase and his 20th top-10 this season.  Earnhardt, Jr. gained two positions in the standings and moved up to the fifth position.
 
Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS, earned a fifth-place finish; which gave him ten top-10’s in 2013 and also gave Team Chevy three of the top-five finishers in the Lone Star State.
 
Chase contenders Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet SS, and Ryan Newman, No. 39 Outback Steakhouse Chevrolet SS, both had solid runs on the 1.5-mile track coming home eighth and ninth respectively.  Harvick moved up to third in the Chase standings.
 
It was an unfortunate day for Jeff Gordon, whose top-10 run was halted early after experiencing a right-front tire issue on lap 75 which sent the No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet SS into the outside retaining wall. The team was able to make repairs, but the damage relegated Gordon to a disappointing 38th-place finish.
 
Joey Logano (Ford) was third and Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was fourth rounding out the top five in the race.
 
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup resumes next Sunday, November 10th with round eight at Phoenix International Raceway.
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON AND CHAD KNAUS, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNERS
RICK HENDRICK, OWNER OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS – TEAM OWNER WINNER
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re now joined by tonight’s winning car owner, Rick Hendrick.  This is Mr. Hendrick’s fifth career victory at Texas Motor Speedway as a car owner.  In you could, Rick, talk about the poise that the 48 Team showed this evening?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, it was kind of a perfect night other than one pit stop.  You know, we didn’t make any mistakes on the track, and the car was really fast.  You know, we all tested here and all of our cars ran well.  Dale had a good night, and I think Jeff was going to have a good night.  When they finished three in the Top 5, that’s a good race for us.  We knew Matt was going to be tough from practice and qualifying.
            It’s just good to get out of here with a 7‑point lead.  We had that last year when we went to Phoenix and had a problem, had a problem at Homestead.  So I’d rather be 7 ahead than 7 behind.  But I don’t think we’re going to know what’s going to happen until the last lap at Homestead.
 
            Q.  Rick, what is the difference ‑‑ like you said, you mentioned the points advantage this time last year.  What is the difference with this team this year compared to last year?  Because obviously although you had the problems, you guys got beat, and there was a sense of how invincible this 48 Team has been in the garage.  So what is different from this year to last year to maybe regain that dominance potentially?
            RICK HENDRICK:  I felt real good going to Phoenix last year, and I thought we were in good shape and we had a problem.  I’ve never seen it this tight, so I don’t feel any better really this year than I did last year.  I actually felt like when we went to Phoenix that we put some distance on Brad, and we’d be in pretty good shape.  Then we blew a tire and hit the wall.
            So I think Jimmie has been very confidant, but nobody has said he was unbeatable this year.  Really, Matt’s been right there the whole year.  Scott’s got more wins, one more, I guess, than we do, maybe two.  I don’t remember.  But we’ve led so many laps.  I think the thing that pulls us this year is we’ve been in position and led right up to the end, and on the restart, we’ve given two or three away on the restarts this year, and the car has been really fast and led a lot of laps, and we didn’t close the deal.  That’s not like the 48.
            Matt was right there to take advantage with Kasey in Vegas and Jimmie in a couple of places.  So we know that team’s not going to make many mistakes.
 
            Q.  Can you talk a little bit about your feelings about Jeff having problems and basically falling out of a chance to win a fifth title?  And Dale Jr., fifth runner‑up this year.  They’ve done everything but win.  They’ve surrounded it a number of times.
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, Jeff was leading this race, I think, early this year and had a bearing failure, which we never have.  He was really pumped up after getting in the Chase and winning Martinsville and felt really good about this race.  I was with him this morning, and I think ‑‑ I hated for that for the team because they have really come together and he’s put a bunch of good runs together.  You know, you just can’t help stuff like tire problems or failures or things like that happening to you.
            As far as Dale goes, Kasey, we’ll talk about Kasey just a second, he started the year off as our best car.  I mean, he led everything.  Then he fell off.  Junior came on strong.  He’s been running really well.  I didn’t think Jimmie would get him at Dover, but Dale and Stevie are really clicking.  Dale’s confidence is higher than I’ve seen it since he’s been with us.  You know, if he hadn’t had that motor problem early in the Chase, he’d be right there.
            But it’s, again, I think the engine guys, and I hold our breath for 500 miles when you ‑‑ we shouldn’t need Jimmie to say he had a vibration with 20 to go.  Man, that was a long 20 laps.  Anyway, I think everybody’s doing a good job.  But I feel for Jeff because he really had shown what that team could do, and I hate it for him.  But it could be Jimmie next week.  It could be Matt next week.  You just don’t know.
 
            Q.  You kind of talked a little bit about it earlier and how the team didn’t close.  But this is their first win on a mile‑and‑a‑half track this year, wh
ich seems pretty amazing.  Is there anything that you feel they’re doing better at this point in the season than they were on the intermediate tracks earlier in the year?
            RICK HENDRICK:  No, when you look back I think we had an engine problem with 8 to go somewhere.  I don’t remember where it was.  We led all the laps, and then there was a caution at the end on the restart.  Couple of guys, we spun the tires.  We were really good and ran into each other on the first lap at Atlanta.  I mean, we’ve been fast enough to win races.  We just haven’t led at the right time.  I mean, that sounds silly, but just and the restarts were biting us.
            But if you go back and look at the laps Jimmie has led on the mile‑and‑a‑halves, we should have won more races there.
 
            Q.  This may be two races early to ask you, but you’ve always had wonderful combination of drivers and crew chiefs.  How does Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson rate in all of the different drivers and crew chiefs that you’ve had over these years?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, I think if you look at their performance, it kind of speaks for itself.  Ray and Jeff were kind of magical when they were together.  And Chad and Jimmie, just it’s amazing the confidence they have in each other.  And I’ll tell you, I was here working yesterday at the dealerships, and I called Chad up ‑‑ or I text him.  Those guys don’t answer the phone.  So about 11 o’clock he was saying I was working on the set‑ups and stuff for the day.  I mean, the amount of energy that Chad and Jimmie put into it amazes me.  I don’t know how they continue to come to that level every single week and every single year.
            But I look at Jimmie and his workout routine and what he eats and how he runs, and I look at Chad, and Chad is calmer and I think he’s more seasoned than I’ve seen him.  He can handle adversity better, and that’s made the team better.  I’m glad I don’t have to race against them.
 
            Q.  Does it get easier now that it’s essentially just the 48 versus the 20?  There is really nobody else to worry about beyond Matt?
            RICK HENDRICK:  No, it really doesn’t.  I mean, you just ‑‑ everywhere we go we ride together.  We qualify close together.  We race close together.  I thought we went to Martinsville.  We had come out of Martinsville with a good spread.  I didn’t think Matt would run that well at Martinsville, and there he was almost winning the race.  It’s going to get more ‑‑ I think it’s just more tension.
            I don’t know how it could get any harder than it is right now, I mean from the standpoint of being out there and watching the restarts, watching the start of the race and knowing that we’re asking a lot of the engines tonight on a 500‑mile race on a cool night where they make a lot of power.  I was amazed that there wasn’t more engine trouble because we had some real nice green flag runs.
            It’s nerves.  It’s not going to end ‑‑ I think it’s going to be the last lap at Homestead, unless one of them has a major failure early in Phoenix, and then the other guys just got to finish in the Top 10.  But I don’t see that happening.  I think this is just going to be a dogfight there.  The teams are that close.
 
            Q.  This is about eight straight years Jimmie has done this to be in this position at this point of the year.  Do you see him gaining an extra level of confidence or edge each successive year?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Well, when you win five straight and then you come back and you don’t win a couple years, but they prepare and we’ve been in it.  All you can ask the team to do is show up every week and be capable of winning races and leading the points and being there, and he’s been in it.
            Like last year, Tony was unbeatable, and we were kind of off that year.  I don’t think anybody was going to beat Tony winning five races out of ten.  But last year we were in this position, and we didn’t do it.  It fired us up.  It fired Jimmie and Chad up.  But they can’t work any harder.  I think they’re as good as they’ve ever been and maybe better because they’re seasoned.  Now they’ve lost it a couple of years in a row and they want it bad this year.
            But they’re doing everything in their power, preparation, cars at the shop, at the track, engine guys everybody is working as hard as they can, and so are the other guys.  So is the 20 car and Matt Kenseth.
            I just think it’s going to be, again, it’s going to be the best points race.  If they don’t have any trouble, it’s going to come down to Homestead, and it will be ‑‑ you won’t know until it’s over.
 
            Q.  This is the 20th Top 10 for Junior and the only one better than that is Jimmie.  Would you talk about whether or not you think Junior’s getting contract for the kind of season he’s having?  Seems like so many people still think it’s a disappointment.  But 20 Top 10s this year seems like a pretty strong season.
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, again, if you just go back and give him a top 10 for the motor that he lost in the first of the Chase, then it would be entirely different story.  He’s finished ‑‑ you know, I have this theory.  You’re not going to win until you you’re consistently in the Top 10 and then you’ve got to be consistently in the Top 5.  When you can run consistently in the Top 5, you’re going to win races and he’s been right there.
            Again, I said it earlier, his confidence is as high as it’s ever been.  We get plenty of questions when he is going to win the race, but he’s right there.  So I think as competitive as he is, it’s answered a lot of questions and I think we’re going to build on that momentum.  Hopefully, we can continue the next two weeks.
            He’s really good at Phoenix.  He likes Homestead.  We had a great test there.  I hope he can win a race and carry this momentum into next year.  I think he could be right in the middle of this championship had we not lost that engine, and he had nothing to do with that.
 
            Q.  When the Chase started, Jimmie had just come off I think it was four straight finishes of 28th or worse.  At that time a lot of people questioned whether or not ‑‑ what would he do in the Chase?  I’m just interested to know what your thoughts were at that time and is the 48 Team performance that we’ve seen in the Chase what you believe the true indicator of the team has been this season?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Yeah, again, you go back and look at what happened.  We had some things that happened in the
race, and, again, restart on the first lap and you run into the back of one of the other cars and knocked the radiator out of it, engine problem, a broken valve spring, running well.  You know, when you see that, you know that’s just ‑‑ those are things that are going to happen.  But the speed has been there.  The laps led were there.
            Again, you look at the restarts going back to Dover and some of the other races.  We just, uncharacteristically we were in the wrong spot at the right time, took four tires, got in the wrong lane.  Just the speed was there.  I didn’t think they’d be rattled.  I thought once we got in the Chase, we had a bunch of tracks he was good at.
            His confidence was never down.  Chad’s confidence was never down because we could see what was causing the problem, and it was out of their control, really.
 
            Q.  When you have four in a row, do you start getting a little concerned?
            RICK HENDRICK:  Oh yeah, yeah.  I mean, you think you’re snake bit.  Jeff thought he was snake bit.  That’s what was so good about Jeff Gordon’s run is he just believed something was going to happen.  Then he started clicking off good finishes, and that gets in your head.
            I think Jimmie is able to cinch it up, man, when he needs to, and Chad has always been able to fire his guys up and work harder.  They sure didn’t give up and they knew they were capable of doing it.
 
            Q.  How do you see Dale’s confidence higher?  How do you notice that?  What examples can you offer that prove to you that his confidence is higher?
            RICK HENDRICK:  You can see it the way he walks.  You can see it when he gets out of the car.  You can see it when I talk to him about the race.  He’ll send me a text and say, man, that car was good.  That was really ‑‑ I loved driving that car like that.  You know, I see it in the way he goes to the racetrack and how he prepares for the race talking to Stevie.  His confidence is at an all-time high.  You can just see it in his face.  You can see it in his interviews.  I mean, I can.
            But more than anything is his confidence on the radio when he’s giving feedback to Stevie about what the car needs.  He doesn’t just say I’m junk.  I need a little bit of this, I need a little bit of that, or I’m good.  That was better.  He’s so ‑‑ I mean, that’s just a real ‑‑ Stevie, the two of them, when you talk about combination and you talk about how Chad and Jimmie are, I think a lot of people overlook the relationship those two guys have developed and how well they communicate and how good they’re working together.  That’s about as good as I’ve ever seen with a crew chief and driver.
 
            Q.  As good as Jimmie has been in the Chase, he’s kind of left points on the table at Charlotte and Talladega.  Were you concerned or are you still concerned that maybe those will come back to haunt him because he’s usually so good at getting the most out of every situation?
            RICK HENDRICK:  You know, any time you lose one of those things you go back and think about what ifs.  I remember when Kurt Busch’s tire could have gone a foot the other way and we would have been one‑two in the points.  You can go back and second-guess all of it and look at every mistake or every opportunity that you let get away.  But at the end of the day, all the points, the last one counts just like the first one in the Chase.
            Yeah, we would go back and look at some of those restarts and say, man, if we just had that or if we had gotten in line in Talladega we maybe could have won the race because we led a lot.  But you can’t look at it like that.
            I think we’re in the position.  Now we only have two not to make a mistake, and hopefully we can just race without any kind of failure.  But I don’t think it will look back.  If it happens, we’ll look back at the next two.  We won’t look at the ones way back, I don’t think.
 
            Q.  You talked about how Chad was able to mature and handle things.  You’ve been through so many close title chases, how do you handle it when it gets this close so late in the season?
            RICK HENDRICK:  I’m just thankful we’re competitive and we’ve won races.  I think you do the best you can and you show up.  If we don’t win, I can handle that.  I mean, we did the best we could.  We weren’t searching for speed.  We weren’t searching for horsepower or handling.  We were right there, led laps with everybody and anybody.  So at the end of the day, I just accept it and go on and get ready for next year.
            Come on over here, guys, I need your help.  I’ve never answered this many questions in my life.
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Sorry to leave you here so long.
            THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by the winner of tonight’s AAA Texas 500, Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet.  You become the first driver to win consecutive fall events at the Texas Motor Speedway and are now tied with Carl Edwards for the most Sprint Cup series at TMS with three; for the fourth time in your career you scored a perfect 150 driver rating, led a race high 255 laps, and more importantly, you now have a 7‑point lead going into the final two races in the season.  Talk about just the dominating performance you had tonight?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  That was a great, great race car.  We’re really buttoned up, which is the cool thing.  We came here and tested.  After two days we really honed in on the balance of the car and comfort of the car.  We felt really strong about things, but at the same time we’re here testing, as are all of our competitors were as well.  So it was tough to leave here overly excited because your competition is here getting better and getting data and all of that as well.
            So we came back and just kept our blinders on and focused on our team, our race car and got the thing pretty dang awesome.
            There were a couple moments in the race where we had to work on the car from a balance standpoint.  There was one cycle of pit stops that came out fourth or fifth and had to drive back through those guys.  Just got the lead from Brad before the caution came out, so there were a couple of tense moments in there.  But when you have a dominant car, it is so stressful because you’re just waiting for that thing that can get you, whatever it is.  So it was nice to keep a ‑‑ Chad said it once on the radio, just keep a positive mindset here, and things are going to work out.  We did that.  We stayed focused and got the job done.
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;          THE MODERATOR:  We also have winning crew Chad Knaus.  Chad, you all tested after Talladega here.  Talk about how pivotal that test was in tonight’s performance.
            CHAD KNAUS:  I’m trying to figure out this hat.  It’s supposed to be ‑‑ I don’t even know how it’s supposed to be.  It was a great test.  It was difficult for sure.  NASCAR allowed us four tests per organization to do, and you’ve got to take all of your teammates there.  So when we first came out here after Charlotte, unfortunately, it rained, and we had to make a pretty difficult decision for everybody to go back to Charlotte before Talladega.  Get our Talladega stuff prepared, go to Talladega and race, and then come back out here the next week.
            I think it was very beneficial for us.  We were able to really kind of break down what the race car was doing.  Jimmie was able to go out there and kind of explore a little bit and find the nuances of the racetrack in kind of a more calm environment.  I think it paid huge dividends for us from a lot of different levels, and it was good.
            Eddie had to be patient with us as we were trying to get him to put the Jet Dryers out there the day that it was raining, and pretty much jet fuelled up, and he did the best to allow us to stay, but we had to come back a week later.  It was difficult.
 
            Q.  Chad, we had during this race a couple of troubles with other drivers, including with tires.  When you saw that, did you modify or change your strategy for Jimmie’s race?  And question number two:  During the test earlier, did you figure out that maybe the tires would be a critical factor?
            CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah, well, we were here testing a couple weeks ago.  We did realize there was a tire issue.  But that’s not so unlike the norm.  We have seen that in the past here, especially until the racetrack starts to get some rubber built up on to it that we do see tire wear.  We saw that while we were here testing.  We really focused on the longer runs.  15, 20 lap runs here at the test to make sure we’d get the tires to last as long as what we needed.  Not so much worrying about the short run speed and the three, four, five laps.
            Fortunately enough, what we were able to get from that is we were able to understand how to make the race car go fast at 20 laps, keep the tires on it, and that actually translated back into a fast race car in the short run as well.  So it definitely was difficult to go through all of that.  And we didn’t really have to change our strategy too much.  We were very fortunate that as we were going through that, we knew there were going to be tire problems.  The key is to not be the first one with the tire issue, and fortunately enough, we weren’t.
 
            Q.  What out‑of‑the‑ordinary repairs did you have to make after yesterday’s final practice, if any?
            CHAD KNAUS:  We didn’t make a whole lot of changes.  We felt like we had a pretty good understanding of what the racetrack was going to do based on what we saw last fall, based on what we saw in the spring with the new GEN‑6 race car, and obviously taking into consideration what we saw during the test.  We didn’t have to do a whole lot.  We made small modifications to the race car.  And, man, I was really pleasantly pleased right out of the box.  Jimmie was able to go out there and pass the 99 car with relative ease just a couple laps into the race.  So we hit it pretty close.
 
            Q.  When you guys win a race like this and you’re battling somebody head‑to‑head, this doesn’t shatter their confidence, but it’s a pretty big blow.  Do you think this will put some extra pressure on Matt and his team going to Phoenix and going to Homestead when you have this kind of dominance over them here at Texas?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I don’t know.  I’d like it to, but I don’t.  At this point of the season if you’re in contention, you’ve got more pressure than you ever wanted to you.  It’s just there.  So I don’t know if this puts anymore.  They were able to get some points on us last week.  We got some on them this week, so I’m not sure.
            But I know where we are and where our team is and our focus and how good of a test we had in Homestead, and we’re very excited to get out to Phoenix and go racing again.
 
            Q.  Chad, same question?
            CHAD KNAUS:  Yeah, you know, I don’t know.  That’s going to be interesting to see.  I think Matt’s the strongest player on that team.  I think he’s the glue that holds that thing together, so we’ll just have to see what happens.  I feel if we stay focused on what we’ve got to do, then we’ll let the chips fall where they may.
 
            Q.  You when you all came here to practice, I was here the one day and it looked like you were doing everything that any of the other teams were attempting to do.  Do you try to physically hide is the wrong word, but, nevertheless, hide what you’re finding?  How much did the fact that Kenseth blew a tire on the second day of that test, how much did that help you get to where you needed to be?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I wouldn’t say that we hid a whole lot.  We came here with a plan and our plan was to try to understand this racetrack a little bit better.  Try to know what we needed to do when we came back and what adjustments would yield a good result.
            I know if I was the 20, and I came here and on my last day of testing I blew a right front tire, I’d be nervous as hell coming back to a racetrack.  So that had to have been looming over them.  Quite honestly, based on what I saw at Homestead, they’re probably pretty nervous about that same thing happening there.  But we just came here and just did our thing.  I think that’s pretty Classic 48.  We worry about us and just kind of let everything else go the way it should.
 
            Q.  The slow pit stop that left you fifth on that cycle, was there any worry that losing your track position would cost you or that you wouldn’t be able to rally from that even with a good car?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I knew we were going to lose some time.  I thought if I had a big enough lead I’d be all right and still come out first or second.  But I guess those guys pitted laps before we did and made up more time on track than what we lost on pit road, and that became more evident to me as I was getting through them pretty quick.
            So I got to second pretty quick, and just as I got by Brad, the caution came out, so that was a challenging point in the race for me.  And it was nice to have it because I rea
lized how good of a car we had and got a little experience passing some cars and got an idea if we did lose track position, the adjustment we needed to make.
 
            Q.  Jimmie and Chad, a year ago you left here up 7.  I’m curious do you feel any better about this year or worse about this year on how you’re doing and also considering Kenseth and the competition?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I mean, we learn lessons each and every year.  I know when I go to Phoenix the balance of the car and what I had felt last year led to a blown right front tire.  So we’ll show up there and make sure that from my standpoint and what I feel and what Chad sees with tire pressures and temps and the overall balance of the car that we don’t overwork that right front tire.
            I feel better about Phoenix, honestly, than I did last year leaving here.  Then last year we did not test Homestead and we just came back from Homestead, and that test went really well.  So I’m optimistic.  I feel good.  But, man, it’s so weird because I’ve been in position before where I’ve had these amazing sensations and feelings that a championship was going to happen, and we were able to do it for those five years in a row.
            There were other years where I had those feelings, and it didn’t happen.  I think 2004, we had everything going our way it seemed like, and it didn’t happen.  Last year was another good example of us taking control late in the Chase, and then that ended with two bad races.
            I guess the lesson in all of that is I’m not counting on anything, and I have to go to Phoenix and race, same as Homestead.  It does simplify things a little bit.  I’m not going to get too excited about things during the course of the week.  I’m going to work real hard and train my butt off.  Stay in this little world that I’ve been living in for the last five or six months, but more so the last eight weeks, and show up ready to go these next two weeks.
 
            Q.  Do you feel any different being 7 points ahead this year compared to last year based on how you’re doing?  And the fact that you’re facing this with a guy who has won the title before?
            CHAD KNAUS:  No, I don’t think there is a big difference.  I think you guys have seen it time and time again.  We really focus on what it is we need to do.  We can all say that Phoenix was the culprit last year why we didn’t win the championship.  The fact of the matter is we had a mechanical problem at Homestead that took us out of it.  If we had won Phoenix and went to Homestead and still had a mechanical problem, we’d have lost the championship.
            So I’m looking forward to it.  I really am.  I think we were in great shape last year.  I think we’re in as good or maybe just a pinch better shape this year, though I do feel the opponent is a little more formidable than what we had last year. So I’m excited.  I really am.
            I love this time of year.  This is what we live for.  This is what we want to do.  We want to go out there and do everything we can to try to win Phoenix.
 
            Q.  Following up on that, Rick said that you guys were both really fired up after Phoenix last year.  That set maybe the tone for even this year to some extent.  I guess, what were those emotions like after that race last year?  Did you feel like you solved whatever caused you to run outside the Top 5 with that second you had back in the spring?  Do you feel like you guys are back to form with that track?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, I feel much better about Phoenix this year than last going into it.  I kind of lost my thought.  What was the first part of your question?
 
            Q.  It seemed like it got you guys fired up after that weekend.
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, there definitely was a feeling of it slipping away.  I’m trying to recall the exact emotions at the time.  I mean, frustrated that we blew a right front, and then rolling into Homestead, we didn’t have anything to lose.  We had everything to gain.  That was a fun way to race down there.  We found ourselves with an awesome car, awesome strategy and leading the race, then we had mechanical issues.  I think we had a pit stop issue too right before that that started the downward spiral.
            But there was a range of emotions, for sure.  I mean, pretty disappointed leaving Phoenix to have that slip away like that and lose a big chunk of points.  Rolling into Homestead, eager and ready and trying to put as much pressure on the 2 as we could.  Man, we were close.  We had all the pressure on them and in position, and made some mistakes.
 
            Q.  Chad, you just mentioned a moment ago about feeling like this year’s opponent Matt is a little more formidable than last year’s.  Why so?  Can you explain that comment, please?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I think Matt just from his personality standpoint is a little more controlled.  He’s a little more mature.  He’s been in the sport for a long time.  I think he’s just a little more even keel, so that makes him a little more challenging to get off kilter, off rocker, so we’ll have to see how it shakes outcome Phoenix.
 
            Q.  Yesterday during the Nationwide race, do you stop and watch the race?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  No, I was ‑‑
 
            Q.  What did do you?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I was in Dallas.  My wife and two kids were at a great friend’s house up in Dallas.  So once we had our debrief, I hopped in the car and drove up there and played in the little jump house with my daughter and my God children, and tried to teach my daughter how to ride a bicycle without training wheels.  She didn’t hit the ground, but it didn’t go very well.  Luckily I caught her.
            I went to Mi Casina and got some Mexican food.  I was jealous of everybody else having some of those mumbo taxi margarita things that I wish that I could have.  I could have one tonight, but I couldn’t have one last night.  So that was it.  I was pretty calm.
 
            Q.  So the training wheels worked for the most part.  What would you give her, a grade A through C?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  Yeah, she needs a little more time with the training wheels.  At 3, she’s not quite there yet, but we had fun for sure.
 
            Q.  Chad, what about you?&nbsp
; Do you stay and watch the race to see problems like the tire issue and things like that?
            CHAD KNAUS:  I try to study as much as I possibly can.  I spent some time on pit road and walked up and down pit road a little bit.  Watched what some of the other teams were going through and what was happening.  I don’t analyze it a whole lot because the strategy is so different.
            I’m not very good at Nationwide racing, So I don’t really understand what they do.  But they did have the same tire; it was the same racetrack, so I was able to get an idea of what was happening with the tire wear.  But that was really all I paid any attention to.
 
            Q.  Johnson, Gordon, it’s basically over for him.  He’s 69 points out now.  Finishes 38th, I think.  What’s it feel like when you’re in a situation like he is where he wins last weekend, feels like he’s got a Hail Mary chance to win a championship, then you show up here pretty confident.  I think Rick said he felt really good after the test you guys had, and then it goes out the door like that with a blown tire?
            JIMMIE JOHNSON:  I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him yet, but I can only imagine the disappointment.  To be off to a slow start through the year and to rally and showed great speed at different times, and then the whole Richmond thing.  He thinks he’s out and then he’s in.  As he said, playing with house money.  Things were really going his way.  Wins last weekend, so I would assume that it’s just been a steady build‑up of confidence and anticipation for a shot at a championship, and then, boom, it’s gone.
            So I would imagine pretty disappointed, for sure.  I’ll definitely reach out to him and check on him.
                 FastScripts by ASAP Sports
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by tonight’s second-place finisher of the AAA Texas 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 AMPEnergy Gold 7‑Eleven Chevrolet.  This is his fourth Top 5 finish at Texas Motor Speedway.  Another strong run for you.  Talk about your evening?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR:  We started off, we came here to test, and all the Hendrick cars came here to test, and it paid off.  We started out Saturday morning in practice really struggling, and we worked on the car and improved it for the second practice and made a lot of changes overnight to go in that direction.  When the race started, we had a Top 10 car, and I think  (crew chief) Steve (Letarte) improved it quite a bit.  The track was kind of coming to us as well.
            The track conditions that we tested in were similar to how the race ended, so I think that was in our favor inadvertently.  But just real pleased with being able to run well.
            We want to put forward a good account of ourselves in the Chase because you’re in there for a reason and you don’t want to be an also ran.  So we feel like we’re doing a lot of good work and getting really close to probably breaking through and getting a win.  We’ve only got two more opportunities at it, but real pleased with just the speed of the car.
            I think our team has continued to get better every season, and it’s really showing, especially right now in the results that we’ve got.
 
            Q.  With the exception of the engine failure, you’ve had a remarkable run in the Chase.  You’ve had Top 10 finishes in seven of eight races.  You’ve led laps in 6 of 8 races.  Ran into Stiffy today, and he said can you imagine where you would be right now if you had not had that engine failure?  You’d probably be right in the mix.  Do you think about that or do you just try to go and do what you do best?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR:  Yeah, I mean, the Chicago deal is regrettable.  We’d love to go back and do that over again, but as soon as that happened, we really changed our approach and it was more about trying to win a race, winning a race would really lift all the teams spirits.  You work all season long not to go winless and not to getting to Victory Lane.  So I know how much the guys want the win on the team.  So that’s what we’re working for now.
            We gambled a little bit in the late stages of this race short pitting and getting a lot of track position, and we had a fast enough car to keep it, but the 48 was in another class and nobody had anything for him.  He was just super good all through practice and in the race.
            But, yeah, I think about that a little bit.  But there isn’t much you can do about it.  I’ve got two races to go and we’d love to get a win in one of them and continue to have a good run here the chase.
 
            Q.  I think I heard you or Steve on the radio afterwards talking about how many second place finishes you’ve had, and I think it was five.  There wasn’t a lot of frustration.  Is that how you’re viewing it?  It’s not a matter of like, wow, we’ve missed opportunities.  It’s a matter of we’re so close?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I think it’s a matter of being close.  You know, it’s not ‑‑ we’re not running second by making mistakes.  We’re not giving away wins.  So I feel like we’re just really getting close to cracking through and just trying to maintain the momentum with two races to go is going to be tough.  But that’s what we’re focusing on.
          
            Q.  Dale, as you look at the way Jimmie is running, can you compare him to the way he’s run in his previous championship years?  Is this the best you’ve ever seen him run?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  No, I think that he was equally as good in the other championship runs.  They were all impressive for one reason or another.  They’re just a great team.  Chad’s done a good job of putting the right people in the right place.  You’ve got to give (crew chief) Chad (Knaus) a lot of credit for maintaining the consistency of the group and keeping the performance of the car and the equipment there for Jimmie throughout all that process.
            So to be able to sustain that is kind of challenging in this environment.  Guys move around and get hired over here, hired over there, and Chad’s done a good job of keeping the performance up on the equipment and the team.
 
            Q.  Tonight the wind kicked up quite a bit those last ten, 15 laps.  Does that have any impact on you?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  I didn’t even know it.&nb
sp; We talk about that, and we can see it during practice and we pay attention to it for qualifying and what have you, but as the race is going on, sometimes your crew chief will give you that information, but he didn’t tell me tonight.
 
            Q.  You know the flags they were out straight the last nine laps?
            DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  Yeah, I was just looking straight ahead and trying to hit my marks.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
NOVEMBER 3, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – RACE WINNER
WE RAN OUT OF ADJECTIVES TO DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED TODAY – INCREDIBLE, SPECTACULAR, IMPRESSIVE – HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT?
“It was all of that. We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding what I needed in the car and what was going to create speed. We came back and had a very smooth qualifying session and practice sessions yesterday, and just kept putting more and more speed in the car. It paid off today. Obviously we need a lot of speed in the car and a win to get any points because Matt (Kenseth) is there in the top-five. Nice to gain just a few points on him. But just a dominant day for this Lowe’s team. I can’t thank everybody at Hendrick Motorsports enough for their hard efforts. Great car, great effort. Pits stops…all across the board. This Chevy was fast. I know there are a lot of Lowe’s employees watching and excited and are cheering so thank you. Thanks to all the No. 48 fans. Hopefully my wife (Chandra) gets here soon with my two little ones, I can’t wait to see them.”
 
WITH TWO ROUNDS LEFT, HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU THAT THIS IS YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP TO WIN?
“I have been watching a lot of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way. That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes. I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us.”
 
YOU HAVE A SEVEN POINT LEAD, AND LEFT HERE LAST YEAR WITH THAT NUMBER, WHAT DO YOU THINK?
“I hope history doesn’t repeat itself. That is the perfect example of this thing isn’t over until it’s over. Last year we had eight great races and two bad ones and didn’t get the championship. Very important to finish strong. There are two very important races left.”
 
HOW GOOD WAS THIS NO. 48 CAR TODAY?
“This was an awesome, awesome race car. I have to go back to the test session we had last week or the week before. We did a nice job of developing a plan on how we wanted to show up in qualifying trim and in race trim. We had an awesome, awesome race car. And we needed it. Matt (Kenseth) didn’t have the best day and he finished fourth or fifth. So it’s hard to get points in this championship battle, and we got a couple today.”
 
YOU HEAD TO PHOENIX WITH A SEVEN-POINT LEAD. DO YOU CHANGE YOUR THINKING?
“You can’t do it. You have to go racing. Last year, we had the lead leaving here and had two bad races. We have to go to Phoenix and have a very strong race, and then back that up with another one at Homestead. It still isn’t over until the last lap at Homestead.”
 
RICK HENDRICK, WINNING TEAM OWNER
YOU SAID YOU HEARD JIMMIE SAY HE HAD A VIBRATION WITH 15 LAPS TO GO, WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND?
“We’ve had it happen here with just a few laps to go. But all the cars ran good. Jimmie was just so strong all night. It felt like that last 30 was unbelievable. I asked him when he had a vibration; please don’t say anything on the radio any more, not with 10 to go.”
 
DO YOU THINK THIS IS YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP WITH TWO RACES TO GO?
“Absolutely not. We were like this last year going to Phoenix. Anything can happen. You know, we’re not going to know how this thing is going to end until the last lap at Homestead. It is so tight. That is such team. Matt (Kenseth) is such a great driver. Anything can happen. It happened to us at Phoenix last year. It’s not going to be over until the last lap at Homestead, so we just have to keep doing what we are doing. All the cars are running great. I hate it for Jeff (Gordon) but that Lowe’s Chevrolet was on the money tonight.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
THIRD TIME IN THE LAST SIX WEEKS YOU HAVE FINISHED RUNNER-UP, YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE:
“That’s right. We’re getting close. I have got to give Steve Letarte (crew chief) a lot of credit. I want to thank AMP Energy Gold, National Guard, all of our sponsors – Time Warner Cable. The team has done a good job. We came here and tested so we thought we would have a good chance to win it here. Obviously our teammate was here testing too, so it paid off for him. Congratulations to Jimmie. We’ve been working really hard. Steve has done a great job. It’s paying off. We’re getting close.”
 
WHAT WAS THE DAY LIKE?
“Saturday morning in the first practice we were struggling. We got it a little bit better and a little bit better and then we worked on it last night in the bus studying. When the race started, it wasn’t that great; it was okay. But we dialed it in and I think the track kind of came to us as it got dark here. That’s about what the conditions were when we tested. Steve is doing a good job of dialing the car in. He is giving good cars every week. I am driving them alright; I’m just staying out of trouble.”
 
YOU HAD THE FIELD COVERED FOR JUST ONE GUY:
“He (Johnson) was in a class of his own. We were joking that we won the GT class. They were super-fast. I was super, super impressed with those guys’ car. I’m happy to have a good effort and looking forward to the last couple of races. Hopefully we will get us a win. We keep getting close.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
ON HIS RACE:
“We had a pretty good Time Warner Chevy today. We were seventh to 10th most of the race, and worked our way to fifth there at the end. Not quite as good as what Jimmie (Johnson) and Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) was. I know if Jeff (Gordon) had been out there, he would have been fast as well.  The Hendrick (Motorsports) cars were good today. Congrats to them. I’m glad we were able to have kind of a flawless race, and race all day and make a little bit of ground at the end.”
 
HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE?
“It actually changed a good bit where it got a little bit more rear grip, so we had to take a touch of wedge out on that final stop and that helped with the front tires. So it did change, I think it helped us a little bit with battling our front end the whole night. It was still a good race. It feels good to get a solid finish and kind of be in the hunt.”
 
HOW GOOD DOES IT FEEL TO RUN UP FRONT?
“It seemed like we ran seven to 10th. We kept working on it. We never really hit it like we would have liked but it was the best run was definitely our final. It’s been awhile since we’ve run up front so it feels pretty good.”
 
HOW GOOD WAS THE NO. 48 CAR?
“It seemed like he was pretty good. I never saw him. I could only see him on the restarts, so I knew he was really fast. I knew he was going to be really fast after yesterday’s practice. He looked like he was pretty unreal all day from where I was.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/DENVER MATTRESS CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 17TH
ON HIS RACE:
“That’s all we had, and for us it wasn’t a good day, or for that matter, a good weekend,” said Busch. “We were off since we unloaded on Friday and never found the right balance for this track. We gave it everything we had, but yet it was disappointing because these mile-and-a-half tracks should be good for us. We need a turnaround in the final two races because it has been too good of a year to end on a struggling note.”
 
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
 
Jimmie Johnson Leads Team Chevy in Texas Qualifying
Five-time Champion will Start Third in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500
 
FT. WORTH (November 1, 2013) – Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) champion Jimmie Johnson turned in the third fastest qualifying time for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
 
Piloting his familiar No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS, Johnson, who is currently tied for the lead in the series point standings with just three races remaining in the 2013 season, went out seventh in the order of 43 drivers attempting to make the field. Despite a little brush with the wall, he held the top spot until very late in the qualifying order.
 
“I was committed to the throttle off of Turn 4 and just kind of ran out of room,” said Johnson after his Qualifying run.  “And I hate to admit it, but at one point I think I had my eyes shut because I knew there was going to be contact. I just didn’t know how much. But, I just grazed the wall and scratched the sticker for the bumper cover and tail light on the back of the car.”
 
Giving Team Chevy four of the top-10 starters in the 334-lap/501-mile race on the 1.5-mile tri-oval are: Paul Menard, No. 27 Quaker State Chevrolet SS – 4th; Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy Gold/7-Eleven Chevrolet SS – 7th and Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS – 8th.
 
Carl Edwards (Ford) won the pole. Brad Keselowski (Ford) and Kyle Busch (Toyota) complete the top-five qualifiers.
 
The race is scheduled to start Sunday at 3:00 p.m. EST with live TV coverage on ESPN.  Live radio coverage will be provided by PRN Radio and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
 
 
POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS, QUALIFIED 3RD.
 
YOU QUALIFIED THIRD. IT LOOKED LIKE YOU TAPPED THE WALL. TALK ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING RUN
“Yeah, I was committed to the throttle off of Turn 4 and just kind of ran out of room. And I hate to admit it, but at one point I think I had my eyes shut because I knew there was going to be contact. I just didn’t know how much. But, I just grazed the wall and scratched the sticker for the bumper cover and tail light on the back of the car.
 
“In watching Brad (Keselowski’s) lap, he was in the throttle early as well and lost some time off of (Turn) 4. And then when the Nol. 99  (Carl Edwards) came through, his moment was in (Turns) 1 and 2, but he had a really good (Turns) 3 and 4 and was able to nip us both there. But, I’m real proud of the lap. Even though it was exciting off of Turn 4, as early as we went out to be able to get that lap time, I think it shows our car has a lot of speed in it.”
 
DOES MATT KENSETH HAVE A WEAKNESS? IF SO, WHAT IS IT?
“No; I mean at this point, with three races left, I can’t say that there really is. I’m not planning on it. I didn’t have a lot of faith built in Martinsville being a weak track for him because he ran so good there in the spring. It certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings if he ran 15th all day (laughs) but I knew that wouldn’t be the case early-on in the event and he had a strong race. So, I don’t think there’s a weakness for either team right now. We’re probably going to finish by each other. If somebody has a mistake, I think that will be the deciding factor. But other than that, I think we’re going to run right around each other for these next three races.”
 
LAST WEEK, WHEN GREG BIFFLE WAS ANGRY AND CAME UP TO YOU ON PIT ROAD, YOU DIDN’T THROW A PUNCH, BUT JUST CALMED HIM DOWN BY PUTTING YOUR HAND ON HIS CHEST AND TRIED TO TALK TO HIM. IN THAT MOMENT, HOW DID YOU KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE AND STAY CALM?
“I don’t know what kept me from swinging, to be honest. You never know how you’re going to react until you’re in those moments. After I realized who it was, because I was caught off guard; I didn’t know where it came from. And it was a shock to see Greg because we were on track and roughing each other pretty good for quite a few laps and I thought that everything had simmered down and was gone.
 
“And at that point in time, I didn’t know that his bumper cover was why he went to pit road. I saw him go to pit road, but I didn’t know he was black-flagged for it. So there was a lot of confusion there and I was surprised to see that it was him. I didn’t know who it would be, but I just didn’t think it would be him. So, I thought if he was that mad he would have spun me out on the race track. And then again, my lack of knowledge of knowing that his bumper cover was why he was so upset, I was talking to him about how we had contact in the first place, and the fact that I was inside of him going into Turn 3, which instigated the next five or six exchanges that we had. So my mindset was on something else in general and I was trying to collect my thoughts.
 
“And then truthfully, the most important thing in it all was after he grabbed me, the look in his eyes, I don’t even think he looked at me. He was looking around me and saw all of you (media) standing there. I think he was just as shocked that he grabbed me like that as anyone. And I’ve been in a couple of fights, not many, but he didn’t want to fight. He was just pissed. So, I think at the end of the day that was really the energy in that moment that let me stay calm and just kind of handle it how I did.”
 
DID YOU JUST WORK ON QUALIFYING DURING PRACTICE? YOU JUST DID SEVEN LAPS. ARE YOU THAT CONFIDENT IN YOUR RACE SET-UP?
“Well, we were here and tested last week. We came here twice so I’m a bit confused on exactly when. But we had very similar conditions on the second day of testing. Chad (Knaus) loves to have a plan and to work through a plan and executed well during the test and had a very productive test. And coming back, we had a plan of just working qualifying runs today and then focus on race runs tomorrow. So, it’s nice being able to test, especially being so close to race time and things are buttoned up and the car that you wanted to use and test with and all those kinds of things. So it worked really well for us today.”
 
WITH ALL THIS TESTING AND PLANNING, WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF PRACTICING TOMORROW? WHAT’S THE GOAL TOMORROW?
“For the guys that tested, we’d love to see it rain out to some degree and you’d just have to line-up and run, you know? (laughs) You know what you have in your car. But it’ll be small changes. It’ll be trends. The No. 20 (Matt Kenseth) had a tire issue when we were here so we’ll try to validate a longer run and make sure there are no issues. So, it’s very small things, to be honest. And just to get a temperature on the track and how it’s grip level is and what adjustment might work. So, there will be pretty fine adjustments tomorrow. We won’t be changing a-frames and springs and all that kind of stuff. It’ll be pretty minor.  The engine shop would love us not to run (laughter).”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AAA TEXAS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED THIRD
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I think the lap time was reasonable; we’re just not sure where it will be. But, you saw the effort needed to keep it off the fence. It’s slippery out there; it is going to be a challenging qualifying session. We went faster than we did in practice, so hopefully that is a good sign and we can keep the 48 up top. But, a challenging lap for the Lowe’s Chevrolet.”
 
IN REGARDS TO CHANGING TRACK CONDITIONS:
“The track is going to cool down as time goes on. I put up a good lap and went a couple of tenths faster than what we did in practice. So I’m very proud with what we did with the lap and the conditions of the conditions on the track. It is pretty low on grip and I think the No. 36 car spinning out is a testament to that. It was a pretty challenging lap.”
 
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 QUAKER STATE/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED FOURTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT:
“We unloaded fast of the truck and started practice working on race setup. We liked how we ended, so we bailed on the race runs, and went to qualifying trim and the car had speed in it all day. As good as the car was in practice, I thought we had a shot at the pole. It felt really fast. Probably just gave up a little bit too much in the middle of three and four. But good starting spot for the Quaker State Chevy.”
 
WHAT IS THE HARDEST SPOT ON THE TRACK TO NAIL?
“I felt like one and two was really good. It was mostly shaded, and felt like I picked up a lot from practice through one and two…just more grip down there. Three and four, the sun is pretty direct in it. That has always been kind of the struggle here is getting through three and four. If you overdrive the entry you get tight center-exit. I probably backed up my entry just right, but was just a little late getting back in the gas so maybe could have had it.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GOLD/7-ELEVEN CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED SEVENTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING RUN:
“We started off on the wrong foot this morning and worked really hard to improve the car. We think we have a good race car. I’m happy to put down a lap that’s competitive. We tested here and got a lot of knowledge. We feel like we have a good start to put together a good race car.”
 
AFTER THAT TEST, HOW MUCH DID YOU LEARN ABOUT TIRE WEAR?
“I’m not sure we learned a lot on tire wear. We had some tires tear up on us and we had some tires not do too bad. As the thing rubbers up this weekend, it will be fine on tire wear. We have to get a car that handles well over the entire run.”
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED EIGHTH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I’m happy I thought we made a good gain from practice.  You always go through a lap going ‘oh I could have gone a little bit more there, I could have given up a little bit here.’  I mean overall I think it was a very solid lap.  I think Jimmie (Johnson) had a great lap.  Now I think it just comes down to track conditions.  If the track conditions improve that is going to hurt us a little bit, but we will see.  I can’t be disappointed with anything we have done so far today.”
 
IN REGARDS TO HIS DAY AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY:
“My car was a little bit tight getting back in the throttle so I don’t think I was able to get the backend out like some other guys.  My car was pretty solid, but all-in-all, great day for our Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet. We were 14th in practice, qualified eighth and we went out fairly early, 10th I think. That in my opinion is a good day. We are right there where we need to be to go get ready for this race on Sunday. Funny thing is we qualified eighth in the spring as well and we were pretty solid, but setups have changed slightly since then for the better. I think that just we as a team are more solid, more confident in everything that we are doing. I love this race track. I love how you can search around this race track. It is going to be a fun and exciting race to watch. I am looking forward to getting our car dialed in tomorrow during practice. We tested here last week and thought we found something, and I thought even today we found a few more things to make it even better.”
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 TIME WARNER CABLE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 11TH
ON QUALIFYING FOR SUNDAY’S RACE:
“It wasn’t a bad qualifying effort, but I am looking forward to practice tomorrow to get the car where we need for Sunday.”
 
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN HERE AT TEXAS?
“I think it would be really big for us. We definitely have had a tough Chase. I felt like at Martinsville we had a great car, and some of the other ones. Just haven’t been able to put it all together. Whether it was luck, or mistakes or whatever it’s been. We’re right there. We still have a really solid team and great cars each week. If we could win here, Phoenix and Homestead…Homestead we tested this week and had a great test. There are some tracks where hopefully we can finish up strong and it will at least make the winter a little bit easier.”
 
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 13TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“I think at least we narrowed up the gap between first and where we were by two tenths.  It was a good lap.  We started in qualifying trim.  I wish we could have been a little bit better, but hopefully we will end up around the top 10.”
 
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 19TH
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP:
“We have struggled all weekend.  We struggled today in qualifying trim with just being way too tight in (turns) three and four.  We fixed a lot of it, about half of it right there, still just didn’t quite get it free enough.  Still not bad.  We picked up two and a half tenths so that is all you can ask for is to get better.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 30TH
ON HER QUALIFYING RUN:
“We were good in (turns) 1 and 2 and the car got tight in (turns) 3 and 4. We picked up from practice though, which is a positive. We started out practice way too loose and got better as the day went on. Really appreciate all the hard work from Tony Gibson and the GoDaddy guys. They worked really hard today. I really appreciate the effort.”
 
 

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).”