NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FOOD CITY 500
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 15, 2013
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Bristol Motor Speedway and discussed returning to Bristol for her second run in the Cup Series, style of racing at Bristol and other topics. Full Transcript:
WHICH LINE TO YOU PREFER HERE AT BRISTOL? “I prefer the fastest line, and I would imagine to start the weekend, it’s going to be a little lower. In the second Cup race last year, it moved to the top, and it was really good on the top. I think if you can get the bottom to work and get the car turned, you have some options in your pocket for lapped traffic, and if you get stuck behind somebody. In general, as a driver, I would say I’m more of what I could call a bottom feeder. But, you have to run where the grip is.”
YOU WERE RUNNING WELL HERE LAST TIME AND YOU GOT WRECKED. HOW CAUTIOUS ARE YOU GOING TO BE THIS TIME? “You know, when we are racing nose-to-tail really close, it’s always more of a risk, of course. But, there is nothing I can do to prepare myself better for the race that would fix the problem from last time of getting taken out. If you get taken out, you get taken out. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. The best thing I can do for that is try and get further up the field so that it is around some smarter drivers. Hopefully that happens.”
HOW IS IT HELPING YOU RUNNING EVERY WEEK NOW, AND GETTING INTO THAT RHYTHM? “Last year I did 10 Cup races, and it was a great way to, I feel like, more than get my feet wet with the series, and with the different car. It’s nice to come to a place like Bristol that you know is going to be challenging, and know you have done some laps here. 440-odd in a race here, from what I remember from the second race last year. All that stuff helps out. It’s not going to be the be-all-end-all of running up front, or should be running up front. But all of it helps.”
DO YOU LIKE RACING HERE? “I do. I like Bristol. Obviously can be a little bit…the cars definitely got in a train last time we were here. It was tough. It was a little bit hard to pass. But like I said, that is why the bottom becomes important because if you get stuck, or even if you start on the bottom on a restart. If your car is turning, you can make that work I think for a little while. I think qualifying is going to be really important, so definitely going to find myself doing a lot more qualifying runs…as many as possible before qualifying in the afternoon. But, I’ve liked Bristol since the first time I came here.”
HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU HAVE TO BE? DO YOU KIND OF HAVE TO LET IT RIP AND JUST DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO? OR, DO YOU HAVE ANY SORT OF GAME PLAN ON HOW AGGRESSIVE YOU WOULD BE. “I think that is a silly question. As a driver, every single one of us is going to go absolutely hard as possible. There’s never a plan to back off, or go easy, or anything like that; other than if you are saving fuel out there on a strategy at the end of the race, you always go as fast as you can all the time.”
HOW MUCH RISK-REWARD DO YOU TRY TO BALANCE HERE? “We run that every weekend. We run it every single weekend, no matter where we go. There’s risk in what we do, that’s what hopefully makes it exciting for the fans, and why people like to watch it because we’re running on the ragged edge of losing grip and finding ourselves up in the wall; or at least running up the track a little bit. That’s our job.”
DID YOU SEE BERNIE ECCLESTONE’S COMMENTS YESTERDAY? “Yes I did see something about Bernie’s comments and they sounded complimentary. It looked like he was kind of acknowledging my ability to drive a car. So that was kind.”
ANY THOUGHTS? WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO TRY IT (FORMULA ONE RACING)? “I’ve always said that unless that it would be something I would want to do for real, as in race a Formula One car, I don’t see any point in testing it. It is a lot or work to get fitted in the car comfortable enough to go drive it. Then as a driver, for me at least, I run the risk of what if it doesn’t go well, and then people judge me for that. So, unless it was something that I was really serious, I wouldn’t do it. I will say that Bernie over the years has actually sent a lot of messages. Any kind of big high point that happens in my career, whether it be at Indy, or Daytona now, or winning in Japan – things like that, he has sent messages. He even sent me like a big picture one time that was signed by him. He’s actually been really nice. I don’t necessarily think that his comments a long while back are representative of his opinion of me.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT VEGAS FOR THE OTHER MILE-AND-A-HALF’S COMING UP ON THE SCHEDULE? “It was definitely a struggle last week in Vegas. It was very, very loose. To be honest, it was loose at Phoenix as well. There were a few things that we did; a few common denominators in the weekends. I feel like we came away, given the fact that it was so challenging, that we really need to figure it out. I went into the shop on Tuesday and there was definitely some thoughts and concepts that they were like look, we did this wrong; we need to fix that; your comments made sense from practice it didn’t even make sense to me that we needed to do them necessarily for the race. I think that this car works a little differently in traffic as well. Aerodynamically we have lost a lot of side-force, and I think that plays a roll. I think that we have to get all four tires on the ground the way they need to be. We have to get the rear tied down. There’s nothing you can do if you can’t put the power down.”
WHAT ABOUT THE GRUELING ASPECT AT BRISTOL? “It’s fine. I think it is a little daunting to say 500 laps, but there’s a lot of times that we do 500 laps, or 500 miles, this is just one of them – one of many. It makes me appreciate all the races I did last year, and how almost all of them were 500 miles. It is a different mindset. I feel like no matter what happens – whether it’s a 200-lap race, or a 500-lap race, you find your rhythm. Time goes by fast sometimes, and sometimes it’s slow. All I can hope is the car has a decent balance because when it doesn’t, that’s when the laps seem wrong. If we can just get a decent car, and get into a rhythm, and find ourselves in a good spot, have a consistent car throughout the race, time does go pretty quickly usually.”
FANS COME HERE AND EXPECT A LOT OF BEATING AND BANGING. DO YOU LIKE THAT KIND OF RACING? “Yes. I mean, I don’t mind some beating and banging out there, I don’t mind pushing your way around a little bit. It just happens. I did it a little bit at Phoenix even. It is just the nature of short tracks when you are running really close to one another. You put 43 cars out on a track this size; you are filling up a lot of the track. You are able to run closer as opposed to the mile-an-a-half or more. The short tracks are conducive for close racing. The aerodynamics don’t come into play quite as much. I enjoy it. I’ve always said from the beginning that NASCAR is a lot of fun for me because if somebody lays on you, you can lay right back. You aren’t risking your life, like the old days in IndyCar when somebody would do something that was not intelligent to you, I understood that it was a physical risk to try and get them back, because when the wheels are exposed, bad things happen. Not here, though. Not in NASCAR. You can bump and bang all you like.”
Chevy Racing– Bristol–Danica Patrick
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
FOOD CITY 500
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 15, 2013
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Bristol Motor Speedway and discussed returning to Bristol for her second run in the Cup Series, style of racing at Bristol and other topics. Full Transcript:
WHICH LINE TO YOU PREFER HERE AT BRISTOL? “I prefer the fastest line, and I would imagine to start the weekend, it’s going to be a little lower. In the second Cup race last year, it moved to the top, and it was really good on the top. I think if you can get the bottom to work and get the car turned, you have some options in your pocket for lapped traffic, and if you get stuck behind somebody. In general, as a driver, I would say I’m more of what I could call a bottom feeder. But, you have to run where the grip is.”
YOU WERE RUNNING WELL HERE LAST TIME AND YOU GOT WRECKED. HOW CAUTIOUS ARE YOU GOING TO BE THIS TIME? “You know, when we are racing nose-to-tail really close, it’s always more of a risk, of course. But, there is nothing I can do to prepare myself better for the race that would fix the problem from last time of getting taken out. If you get taken out, you get taken out. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. The best thing I can do for that is try and get further up the field so that it is around some smarter drivers. Hopefully that happens.”
HOW IS IT HELPING YOU RUNNING EVERY WEEK NOW, AND GETTING INTO THAT RHYTHM? “Last year I did 10 Cup races, and it was a great way to, I feel like, more than get my feet wet with the series, and with the different car. It’s nice to come to a place like Bristol that you know is going to be challenging, and know you have done some laps here. 440-odd in a race here, from what I remember from the second race last year. All that stuff helps out. It’s not going to be the be-all-end-all of running up front, or should be running up front. But all of it helps.”
DO YOU LIKE RACING HERE? “I do. I like Bristol. Obviously can be a little bit…the cars definitely got in a train last time we were here. It was tough. It was a little bit hard to pass. But like I said, that is why the bottom becomes important because if you get stuck, or even if you start on the bottom on a restart. If your car is turning, you can make that work I think for a little while. I think qualifying is going to be really important, so definitely going to find myself doing a lot more qualifying runs…as many as possible before qualifying in the afternoon. But, I’ve liked Bristol since the first time I came here.”
HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU HAVE TO BE? DO YOU KIND OF HAVE TO LET IT RIP AND JUST DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO? OR, DO YOU HAVE ANY SORT OF GAME PLAN ON HOW AGGRESSIVE YOU WOULD BE. “I think that is a silly question. As a driver, every single one of us is going to go absolutely hard as possible. There’s never a plan to back off, or go easy, or anything like that; other than if you are saving fuel out there on a strategy at the end of the race, you always go as fast as you can all the time.”
HOW MUCH RISK-REWARD DO YOU TRY TO BALANCE HERE? “We run that every weekend. We run it every single weekend, no matter where we go. There’s risk in what we do, that’s what hopefully makes it exciting for the fans, and why people like to watch it because we’re running on the ragged edge of losing grip and finding ourselves up in the wall; or at least running up the track a little bit. That’s our job.”
DID YOU SEE BERNIE ECCLESTONE’S COMMENTS YESTERDAY? “Yes I did see something about Bernie’s comments and they sounded complimentary. It looked like he was kind of acknowledging my ability to drive a car. So that was kind.”
ANY THOUGHTS? WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO TRY IT (FORMULA ONE RACING)? “I’ve always said that unless that it would be something I would want to do for real, as in race a Formula One car, I don’t see any point in testing it. It is a lot or work to get fitted in the car comfortable enough to go drive it. Then as a driver, for me at least, I run the risk of what if it doesn’t go well, and then people judge me for that. So, unless it was something that I was really serious, I wouldn’t do it. I will say that Bernie over the years has actually sent a lot of messages. Any kind of big high point that happens in my career, whether it be at Indy, or Daytona now, or winning in Japan – things like that, he has sent messages. He even sent me like a big picture one time that was signed by him. He’s actually been really nice. I don’t necessarily think that his comments a long while back are representative of his opinion of me.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT VEGAS FOR THE OTHER MILE-AND-A-HALF’S COMING UP ON THE SCHEDULE? “It was definitely a struggle last week in Vegas. It was very, very loose. To be honest, it was loose at Phoenix as well. There were a few things that we did; a few common denominators in the weekends. I feel like we came away, given the fact that it was so challenging, that we really need to figure it out. I went into the shop on Tuesday and there was definitely some thoughts and concepts that they were like look, we did this wrong; we need to fix that; your comments made sense from practice it didn’t even make sense to me that we needed to do them necessarily for the race. I think that this car works a little differently in traffic as well. Aerodynamically we have lost a lot of side-force, and I think that plays a roll. I think that we have to get all four tires on the ground the way they need to be. We have to get the rear tied down. There’s nothing you can do if you can’t put the power down.”
WHAT ABOUT THE GRUELING ASPECT AT BRISTOL? “It’s fine. I think it is a little daunting to say 500 laps, but there’s a lot of times that we do 500 laps, or 500 miles, this is just one of them – one of many. It makes me appreciate all the races I did last year, and how almost all of them were 500 miles. It is a different mindset. I feel like no matter what happens – whether it’s a 200-lap race, or a 500-lap race, you find your rhythm. Time goes by fast sometimes, and sometimes it’s slow. All I can hope is the car has a decent balance because when it doesn’t, that’s when the laps seem wrong. If we can just get a decent car, and get into a rhythm, and find ourselves in a good spot, have a consistent car throughout the race, time does go pretty quickly usually.”
FANS COME HERE AND EXPECT A LOT OF BEATING AND BANGING. DO YOU LIKE THAT KIND OF RACING? “Yes. I mean, I don’t mind some beating and banging out there, I don’t mind pushing your way around a little bit. It just happens. I did it a little bit at Phoenix even. It is just the nature of short tracks when you are running really close to one another. You put 43 cars out on a track this size; you are filling up a lot of the track. You are able to run closer as opposed to the mile-an-a-half or more. The short tracks are conducive for close racing. The aerodynamics don’t come into play quite as much. I enjoy it. I’ve always said from the beginning that NASCAR is a lot of fun for me because if somebody lays on you, you can lay right back. You aren’t risking your life, like the old days in IndyCar when somebody would do something that was not intelligent to you, I understood that it was a physical risk to try and get them back, because when the wheels are exposed, bad things happen. Not here, though. Not in NASCAR. You can bump and bang all you like.”
Chevy Racing–Bristol — Jeremy Clements
JEREMY CLEMENTS, NO. 51 ST. JUDE.COM/REPAIRABLEVEHICLES.COM CHEVROLET CAMARO, met with members of the media at Bristol Motor Speedway and discussed his recent suspension, the support he has received from other drivers and much more. FULL TRANSCRIPT
ADDRESSING THE MEDIA IN REGARDS TO THE REASON FOR HIS SUSPENSION:
“I want to start out by saying I made a remark that has no place in our society, kidding or not. I want to apologize to NASCAR, the reporter, my team, my family, my sponsors and of course all the fans out there. I didn’t mean to offend anybody at all. I’m sorry I let you all down. It doesn’t represent who I am or how I was raised. My Grandpa Crawford Clements who I looked up to and respected and got me started racing when I was seven was a crew chief for Wendell Scott in 1965. I was raised to respect everybody. It has been a challenging time for me. I want to grow from it and help other people from it. Anytime a race car driver gets sat out any amount of time it is the worst thing that can happen to anybody. I don’t want to watch anybody drive your car when you are supposed to be in it driving. I had a lot of time to think about my action. I want to thank Dr. (Richard) Lapchick and his team for their time and helping me learn. I’m excited to be back here at Bristol and get a chance to race again. Hopefully, put all this behind me and move on.”
HOW DIFFICULT HAS THIS BEEN FOR YOU?
“It’s been extremely difficult time. At first it really hit me hard. When I got the call from NASCAR I was definitely shocked. They had called me and asked me if I did say that remark. I was honest with them and owned up for it which I think anybody should have done. I took my punishment and I have done everything I can to make it right and try to move on and make all this better. But, it’s been very tough on me. I’m just so happy to be back and just be able to race again.”
HAS THIS AFFECTED YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SPONSORS?
“Yes and no, most of them have been behind me. I’ve had one pull out on us, but we have a lot of support. We have our car filled up this weekend and just very grateful for guys like Jim Sealy of US Petroleum for helping us and sticking through it with us.”
HAVE YOU HEARD FROM OTHER DRIVERS? HAVE YOU GOT SOME SUPPORT FROM OTHER DRIVERS?
“Yeah, Michael McDowell, Josh Wise, Justin Allgaier, I can just sit here and name a bunch of them. They have all had my back. Like I said it doesn’t represent who I am or what I’m about. I have done a lot of stuff as you can see we have St. Jude on our hood, wearing a St. Jude suit. It has no representation of who I am. Hopefully, I just want to get that out of the way and make it right and show who I really am.”
WHY DID YOU USE THE WORD IN THE FIRST PLACE?
“I wasn’t thinking honestly. I was just walking along trying to help the guy find somebody else. I just blurted it out. As soon as I did I knew I didn’t do good. I knew I messed up, but it was too late and I just kept talking. It was stupid.”
WHAT DID DR. LAPCHICK HAVE YOU DO?
“We went through a day’s worth of studying different things, a lot of different meanings of different words where they came from, who they offend and why you shouldn’t say them. You know you sit out here and talk to people all the time and make jokes. Somebody could say something offensive and you might not say anything, but from now on I’m going to stand up and be like ‘man that isn’t something you should say’ and try to pass along what I learned.”
HAS DARRELL WALLACE OR ANY OF THE SCOTT’S OR ANY AFRICAN AMERICAN’S INVOLVED IN THE SPORT REACHED OUT TO YOU IN THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS?
“I hadn’t talked to any of them. I don’t even have Darrell’s number or anything. This is first time I have been back to the track. If I definitely do pass Darrell I would love to talk to him. I’ve had a lot of my friends call me that are African American and tell me ‘dude that is no way that is you’. I had my support and it’s been great honestly. I’ve had a ton of support.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE BEEN TREATED FAIRLY WITH THE SUSPENSION?
“NASCAR did what they had to do. I respect their decision and like I said I did everything they wanted me to do. Anything to right the wrong, took the suspension, took the class, and apologized to the reporter and of course all the fans out there. I didn’t mean to offend anybody. I just want to try to move on now.”
YOU HAD TO PAY FOR THE CLASS YOURSELF IS THAT CORRECT?
“Yeah, it was the right thing to do. I had a sponsor offer to pay for it, but I declined that. I just felt like I needed to do that.”
HOW MUCH WAS IT?
“$2500 and then obviously missing racing you don’t get paid and the drivers points it hurts a lot of things. We depend on that money at the end of the year for driver’s points to keep our team going. It hurts us in all aspects. It definitely doesn’t help us, but just want to make the best out of it and move on. Try to get us a top-10 here at Bristol.”
YOU CHOSE RIGHT AWAY WHEN THE COMMENTS CAME OUT THAT YOU SAID YOU CAME OUT AND SAID ‘YES I SAID THIS’ IT WASN’T ON CAMERA. YOU DIDN’T DENY. DO YOU THINK IF YOU WOULD HAVE DENIED IT THAT THE SUSPENSION COULD HAVE BEEN LONGER?
“I don’t know. I don’t know how it would have been handled. I’m not sure I don’t even want to go back and look at it really. I just want to move on. It is what it is. I said it, I owned up for it so that was it. I didn’t have any thoughts of lying about it.”
IN REGARDS TO THE AFFECT ON HIS CAREER:
“Obviously, the way our sport is unfortunately it’s not all about, but it’s a lot of who can bring the money to what team. We are here racing on a lot smaller budget than the guys up there that we race against. I would love to bring a ton of money to (Joe) Gibbs (Racing) or (Richard) Childress (Racing) or something, but the way it is just can’t. Obviously, hope that it doesn’t hurt my relationship with any of those teams and I think everybody deserves a second chance. I think you’ve got to look at the person’s history. I have never been in trouble with NASCAR. I always just try to do the right thing and just stay here and be able to race. I always try to get new fans coming and do anything NASCAR wants. I hope it doesn’t hurt. I don’t know.”
DID YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL IN DAYTONA AFTER THE NATIONWIDE ACCIDENT?
“No, I went before. I went Wednesday when I got there. I had been the past two years and I go to the kids ward up there and visit the sick kids. I like doing that. I don’t do it because of anything else, but I just like to. I was asked to come back Sunday. I was already home and we were working on our cars to go to (Las) Vegas and Phoenix so I didn’t have a chance to come back. That is originally what I thought because they kept calling me wanting me to come. I just said there is no way and then he called me again Sunday night and left me two messages. That is when I was in Church. I got out of Church and I was like ‘this isn’t good this is something else’. Then I was like ‘oh no’, it’s funny how all that works.”
Follow A Dream Readies for Gainesville
Jay
Blake’s
Permatex/Follow A Dream team makes its 2013 national event debut this
weekend at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, where last month the team
reached the semifinals at the East Region Lucas Oil Series opener. “We
started this year a month earlier than
usual, but it’s great to be back with Permatex and back with every
member of the team from last year,” Blake said. “We’ve got the same car
and the same team but a lot of new stuff, and we’ve got big plans for
the season.”
Blake’s
Permatex/Follow A Dream team makes its 2013 national event debut this
weekend at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, where last month the team
reached the semifinals at the East Region Lucas Oil Series opener. “We
started this year a month earlier than
usual, but it’s great to be back with Permatex and back with every
member of the team from last year,” Blake said. “We’ve got the same car
and the same team but a lot of new stuff, and we’ve got big plans for
the season.”
Driver Todd Veney ran a 5.59 off the trailer at Gainesville in
February, tying for low e.t. of
the event. He defeated John Headley in round one and lost to eventual
winner Dan Pomponio in the semifinals. The Permatex/Follow A Dream team
won the 2006 Gatornationals and reached the semifinals in 2010 and the
quarterfinals in each of the past two years.
“It’s
nice to head to Gainesville this year knowing that it’s not the first
outing of the
year,” Veney said. “Everybody already has a race behind them, and after
watching the guys swap in a new engine before the semi’s like it was
nothing, I’d say they’re in midseason form.”
nice to head to Gainesville this year knowing that it’s not the first
outing of the
year,” Veney said. “Everybody already has a race behind them, and after
watching the guys swap in a new engine before the semi’s like it was
nothing, I’d say they’re in midseason form.”
Currie Begins Chase for LOORS Championship in Phoenix
Currie Begins Chase for LOORS Championship in Phoenix
Casey Currie is looking to rise to the top of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, beginning this weekend at the season opener at Firebird International Raceway, near Phoenix. The Monster Energy/General Tire Nissan driver claimed two LOORS Pro Lite victories in 2012 and is looking to put his name in the history books with a 2013 championship.
“Last year we made a lot of progress with our truck,” said Currie. “During the off-season we kept working on the it and I know we are going to unload with a very fast truck. I’ve also been busy getting back into race shape and have been working with a trainer to make sure I’m at my best throughout each race and over the course of the long season.”
The 2013 LOORS premiere at Firebird Raceway will be bittersweet for everyone in the pits as it may mark the final off-road race at the facility, which has hosted multiple races over the years. The 2013 season also marks a change to the LOORS schedule, as the series will now hold only one event each month between March and October.
“I really like the new LOORS schedule,” continued Currie. “I am always busy doing something, whether I’m racing, enjoying time out in the desert or just free riding on my dirt bike. I like to stay active and the schedule this year lets me pursue some of these other activities away from the racetrack.”
The door-to-door action from the LOORS season opener kicks off on Friday, March 15, with practice. Currie will dial in his Monster Energy/General Tire Nissan Pro Lite during this time in preparation for the points-paying races. The weekend’s opening pair of rounds will take place on Saturday and Sunday.
Mopar Enhances Support of NHRA Sportsman Racing in 2013
Mopar Enhances Support of NHRA Sportsman Racing in 2013
Mopar launches ‘Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge’ to support NHRA Sportsman Class racing
Winner receives $4,260 purse and will be presented with a commemorative Mopar trophy
Challenge and trophy named for Tom Hoover, ‘Father of the 426 HEMI®’, member of the famed Ramcharger race team and retired Chrysler engineer
Mopar continues NHRA contingency program with enhancements for 2013 season
Mopar to host Sportsman barbecues at Gatornationals, Mopar Mile High Nationals and U.S. Nationals in 2013
Mopar will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the HEMI® in 2014
Auburn Hills, Mich. (Thursday, March 14, 2013) – As a proud supporter of Sportsman racing within the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), Chrysler Group LLC’s Mopar brand will continue to recognize its roots with the establishment of the “Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge” beginning this season, along with enhancements to its contingency program.
The winner of Mopar’s Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge will be determined by selecting the Sportsman Class racer that amasses the most points earned in a season during NHRA sanctioned races at the wheel of a Chrysler Group vehicle, competing in either Stock or Super Stock classes nationwide.
The winner will be awarded a $4,260 purse, as a nod to the 426 HEMI®, and presented with a special commemorative Mopar trophy, as well as a plaque with their name engraved on it. All National event winners will continue to be eligible for the “Mopar National Event Winner” decal to proudly display on their Chrysler vehicle.
“Mopar is incredibly proud to support Sportsman drag racing as it really is the backbone of the sport,” said Pietro Gorlier, President and CEO of Mopar, the Chrysler Group’s service, parts and customer-care brand. “Mopar’s Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge was created in anticipation of many planned celebrations for next year’s 50th anniversary of the introduction of the 426 Race HEMI engine. It also is a thank you to all loyal and dedicated Sportsman racers for their passion for Mopar vehicles and NHRA drag racing.”
The competition and trophy are named in honor of the “Father of the 426 HEMI®”, Tom Hoover, a retired Chrysler engineer and original member of the Ramchargers team, whose passion for high-performance engine design and racing helped launch and build Chrysler’s motorsport program in the 1960s. Amongst his many contributions are the 426 HEMI, HEMI and small-block Pro Stock cars, and involvement in the development of the Funny Car.
Hoover also oversaw field development of the HEMI and other race parts through the efforts of sponsored racers nationwide. He was an avid Super Stock racer, built motors and raced on weekends much like Sportsman racers currently competing in NHRA events nationwide.
Mopar will also be making some enhancements to its contingency program for the Sportsman classes in the 2013 NHRA Full Throttle and Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. The long-running Mopar Contingency Program offers financial awards to Mopar-powered grassroots racers competing with specified Mopar parts.
In addition to the Tom Hoover Sportsman Challenge, Mopar will continue sponsorship of the annual “HEMI Challenge” held at the U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis since 2001.
Mopar also is hosting Sportsman barbecues for those competing in Chrysler Group vehicles at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., Mopar Mile High Nationals in Denver, and at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
Next year, Mopar will mark the 50th anniversary of the 426 Race HEMI engine, first introduced in February 1964, with a number of planned celebrations.
IndyCar- Barber Test Day Two
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
BARBER OPEN TEST DAYS
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST PRACTICE NOTES AND QUOTES – DAY TWO
MARCH 13, 2013
Will Power Again Puts Chevrolet V6 Power on Top at Barber Open Test for the IZOD IndyCar Series
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 13, 2012) – For the second consecutive day, Will Power behind the wheel of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet topped the leaderboard at the end of the second day of the Barber Open Test for the IZOD IndyCar Series at Barber Motorsports Park. Power, who has won two of the three races, held to-date at the road course, just outside Birmingham, Alabama, set the fastest lap with a time of 01:07.1329, and a speed of 123.337 m.p.h.
Giving Chevrolet V6 IndyCar the top-two in the final order was James Hinchcliffe, No. 27 GoDaddy.com Andretti Autosport Chevrolet with a lap time of 01:07.3839 at 122.878 m.p.h.
“It has been a very productive two-day test for our Chevrolet teams,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Motorsports Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “We have learned a great deal for the start of the season; especially for the race here at Barber Motorsports Park the first weekend in April. Testing gives the drivers and team engineers, working closely with our technical partners, the ability to evaluate a variety of setups and calibrations to see how the car reacts. We are looking forward to the first race on the streets of St. Petersburg and getting this season started.”
Other Team Chevy drivers with strong performances that ranked them in the top-10 in the final day of pre-season testing were: Tony Kanaan, No. 11 KV Racing Technology Chevrolet – 4th quickest; defending IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet – 5th fastest and Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet – 9th fastest.
The season opening race for Team Chevy in the IZOD IndyCar Series is Sunday, March 24, 2013 on the Streets of St. Petersburg (FL).
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FASTEST IN DAY-TWO TESTING: ON THE TWO-DAYS OF TESTING:
“Good start for the spring training. I think we got some good stuff to come back here for the race. It’s just phenomenal how tight it is up front all the way through the field, and also just how fast these cars are around here, it’s just unbelievable.”
ON WHAT HE’LL BE DOING LEADING UP TO ST. PETE:
“Resting. That’s it. I’ve got to go to Indianapolis for a Meijer appearance and then just rest up, get ready and start the season.”
ON THE NUMBER OF INCIDENTS IN TODAY’S TEST SESSION: “I think towards the end of the day everyone starts putting on tires, starts going for big laps, and there’s always a couple of mistakes. That’s normal for these sessions.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“I think it’s been a pretty productive test so far, the GoDaddy car was pretty good here last year on race weekend so we certainly had a good base to start from. We had a lot of things to test, with a long off season it give the engineers a lot of time to dream up new fixes and magic pieces so we had to test a lot of those. I think having four cars really helped us get through the things we wanted to. The Go Daddy car ran well both days and it was good to be up near the sharp end of the grid, but ultimately it’s just testing the track conditions will be a bit different when we come here for the race. But hopefully what we learn here translates and we can be competitive when we roll off the trailer in a couple weeks.
“The lap times were incredibly quick so we had to re-learn a couple of things because we weren’t expecting to go that fast. We rolled off with something pretty strong, and I think we were in the top three for all four sessions. That’s not a bad place to be. We still have some work to do, but it was good to get through some of the stuff we developed over the winter and move on to St. Pete.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“It’s a good feeling to go into the first race of the season after a productive test like this. Being here for two days gave us the ability to sort out the small bugs that we had on the first outing and work through our full test schedule. We made some good progress with the car, the new Firestone tires are working great and our Chevy engine was flawless. I’m ready for the green flag in St. Pete.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“It was a productive couple days at Barber. We need to close the gap, but we have some things to work on. We definitely didn’t optimize our quickest run of the day on new tires. We know what’s in the car – we need to close the gap to whittle on the Penske boys but all in all the team did a good job over the test and I’m looking forward to the season with the DHL car.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“Another good day for the Hitachi Team Penske Chevy today and it is good to see our team leading the way. The cars were really fast again and I’m guessing there will be some sore drivers tomorrow. Things got a little hectic out there towards the end but we were able to get what we needed here and now it is on to St. Pete for hopefully another win.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“A good day; I think it was a good two days for us. It’s cool to finish this testing before the first race and to be running in the top ten all day, so that’s a good thing. But, it’s still testing. Now we have to start focusing on St. Pete. During race weekends things are busier and there’s less track activity so we really have to nail it every time and hopefully we’ll be able to do that. I’m really happy with the team. They’ve done a great job. I’ll think we’ll have a really good car for the Barber race.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 PANTHER DREYER & REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“It was a promising test. It was a good test, but still not the performance we want. Yesterday we were very competitive, we were seventh at the end overall but feeling we still had much more room to improve. Today we tried a direction that didn’t really work and by the time we got it back, I spun and we ran out of time to put a good lap together at the end. I am happy because the car feels good and we are continuing to improve, but you always want to finish up top. It’s only test and we’ll soon see how are in St. Pete. We’re making good progress and I am pleased with everything we’ve been learning.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“We still have a long ways to go in the learning process but I was pleased with some of the steps we were able to make today in the No. 2 IZOD Team Penske Chevrolet. Obviously these Chevy engines are fast when you look at the best two times, now it is my job to start getting in front of the car and learn how to turn that speed into better lap times.”
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA/PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“Testing these two days in the No. 5 car was great. In Day One I was able to finish in the top five with a strong car. For Day Two we took the day with a different approach and went ahead and tried and test items that later on are going to be very useful. It definitely was a couple of successful days knowing that we were able to be in the front whenever we had the right things. I’m just looking forward to this year – I can see that we have a very strong line-up of drivers and personnel on the team to keep achieving great results. On behalf of Team Venezuela, I can say that Vicente Tralciis is really excited about his partnership and we are looking forward to the first race to start seeing the fruits of all the ef
fort and dedication we have put in to make this happen.”
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“It was great to get back into the car and be back at the track with all the Panther boys. Barber was a two-test but we had a very busy couple of days, and I think it’s because we felt like we had to get through a lot of different items because the start of the season is coming up so quick.
“Overall I think it was a very productive test; we were able to test a lot of different aspects on the car, the boys and I got some pit stop practice, and the new Chevy engine ran great. We definitely found some interesting things, and now the trick will be to go back and understand how it all fits together best for different circumstances. We’re definitely looking forward to St. Pete.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“We got a lot done, but just not a lot of forward progress for No. 25 car today. It was a disappointing day, but obviously our teammates were quick, so we can look at what they are doing and be ready to come back in a couple weeks.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“Today we were not able to find the solution at Barber. It was a long day; we did a lot of laps trying different things and just couldn’t figure it out. We will go back to the shop and take a look at things, so we can be back to where we need to be.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET:
ON OFF-TRACK INCIDENT TODAY DURING TESTING:
“The car stepped out. It’s been quite nervous yesterday and today. Coming out of Turn 9, it started to slide. I caught it once. I caught it twice and the third time, I couldn’t do anything. It’s small damage, but it’s not the way we wanted to stop. There are a lot of improvements that we wanted to be doing.”
ON THE TWO DAYS OF TESTING:
“Today was our chance to use a bit of strategy this season where having a teammate is key in this situation. Sebastien (Bourdais) went a very different direction which helps us find different components for the set-up. Unfortunately, I only was able to complete 17 laps due to small mishap in turn 9, causing my day to end much earlier. I am very confident on the job my teammate is doing a good job and will be able to give us the right information for when we come back to race here next month.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S PREMIUM ULTRA VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET:
ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“The conditions seemed to be better this morning for us. We were trying some changes this afternoon and it wasn’t the direction we wanted. So we went a different way and I was trying hard on used tires. Then I slid off between turns 13-14. And I got in the guard rail. But I’m fine and the car isn’t bad. Just the front wing a little. It’s too bad because we were going to put on new tires at the end. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance. But overall, we were able to get some good direction going into the St. Pete race next week.”
Five Questions With Mike Edwards
Q: Looking back at the preseason debate, you and your team were not part of the real equation. Now after two No. 1 qualifiers and sitting in second place in points, was that a blessing over the offseason?
Mike Edwards: During the off-season things were a little different compared to previous years. For one, we were having a new chassis (car) being built, so that takes up much of your focus. And second, we knew we where going to be a competing as a single team again with no engine renter, since Ron Krisher decided to retire.
While all of that was going on with one side of the team, it basically gave us more time on the engine development and it allowed us to concentrate heavily in that area and it has shown in the first two races. Our engines are running great and are showing fantastic power. Paul Hoskins, our head engineer, was able to take some extra time and focus on the efficiency of our engine program and it has proved to be very beneficial.
Q: Based on what you accomplished at the first two races, does that add any pressure moving forward for the next 22 stops?
Mike Edwards: Not really but, it does give us great confidence in our program moving forward. It is a very long season and we have a huge chunk of races left to go. As a team, we cannot get comfortable with where we are at, but need to keep moving in the right direction with the entire program and be even better than we are right now come the fall.
Q: What do you do to keep the momentum going with your I Am Second/Interstate Batteries/K&N Camaro after taking the last two weeks off?
Mike Edwards: Well we really never had any weeks off so to speak, but I guess you can call it that with no NHRA national events on the calendar. We did some much needed testing at out local track – Tulsa Raceway Park. It gave use the opportunity to try some things on our Chevy Camaro that we just didn’t have a chance to during the two events. Even though we have had success with this car this early in the season, it still only has less than 50 runs. So we are trying to figure out what it likes
and dislikes, so we can make sure we don’t have costly letdown when the runs really count.
Q: Gainesville Raceway has always been one of the fastest tracks on the tour, how do you approach this event different?
Mike Edwards: Gainesville promises to not disappoint in that the track will be good and the atmospheric weather conditions will be fantastic. We did test in Bradenton, Fla., over the winter so we have a few notes from that test session. But, Gainesville will present to us our biggest challenge thus for in the season in that it will be a completely different setup than the first two races. We just hope the chance to test since Phoenix will allow us to keep at the same level of performance.
Q: What is your fondest memory at the East Coast season kickoff?
Mike Edwards: It would have to the first to break the 6.4 barrier in national event competition. I’ve been doing this a long time and I remember the day when going in the 6’s was a big deal but, to go 6.49 in a quarter-of-a-mile is fast in a Pro Stock car. We love to race in Gainesville because it is always super fast and allows you to sometimes swing for the grand slam. If the weather conditions are good we could see a national record. That would be cool to have, but so would the Wally come Sunday, so we have to keep our focus on why we are there.
Chevy Racing–Will Power Puts Chevrolet V6 Power on Top of the Leaderboard for First Day of Testing at Barber Motorsports Park
Will Power Puts Chevrolet V6 Power on Top of the Leaderboard for First Day of Testing at Barber Motorsports Park
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 12, 2012) – Team Penske’s Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, landed on the top of the leaderboard with the fastest lap time in both the morning and afternoon sessions of Day One of the IZOD IndyCar Series Open Test at Barber Motorsports Park. Power’s lap time today of 01:07.8625, bested the track record he set at the track in 2012 of 1:09:8524.
Giving Chevrolet the top-three quickest times of the day were Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet with a lap time of 01:07.9388 followed by James Hinchcliffe, No. 27 GoDaddy.com Andretti Autosport Chevrolet who turned his fastest lap at 01:07.9869.
“We were very pleased with the results of today’s testing at Barber Motorsports Park,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Motorsports Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “It is good to have all of our Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers on track to test the results of a great deal of hard work during the off-season. We continue to learn more during each test in our quest for consistently top performance and reliability. The 2013 IndyCar racing season will be more competitive than ever, and we know we have to bring our “A” game to every race. Our teams, along with our technical partners, have put forth a dedicated effort to be well prepared for the first race at St. Petersburg (Florida) and beyond.”
E.J. Viso, No. 5 Team Venezuela/PDVSA Citgo Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, Simona de Silvestro, No. 78 Nuclear Entergy Areva KV Racing Technology Chevrolet and Oriol Servia, No. 22 Panther Dryer and Reinbold Racing Chevrolet also turned in quick laps that landed them in the top-10 of the order at the end of the day.
The second and final day of the Barber Open Test will begin Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. CT.
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FASTEST IN DAY-ONE TESTING: TALK ABOUT THE SESSIONS TODAY AND GETTING THE SEASON STARTED: “These cars are unbelievably hooked up around here. It must be three seconds a lap quicker than the lap I did in qualifying. I have never felt so much grip in this car. Good to have Team Penske one and two. It’s only testing. It’s only the first day of testing. But, it shows we have worked hard over the winter. I think as a team we are very determined to tick a couple of boxes this year. Obviously the Indy 500 and the championship are absolutely at the top of the list. We’ve let it go too many times now. So, a good start.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS TESTING HERE FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO FIND MORE SUCCESS LATER IN THE SEASON TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “It’s important testing here for actually racing here. It’s not very relevant anywhere else. It’s a pretty unique track. It’s very nice, fast, flowing circuit. We’ll get as much as we can out of testing here. Obviously when we go to St. Pete, it is a very different track. Very bumpy, low grip and different tires. I think we’re prepared for that too. We expect to be fighting for the win in the first four races for sure.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR AJ (ALLMENDINGER) TO KEEP HIM FROM GETTING FRUSTRATED? “I think he’s doing a bloody good job for someone who hasn’t been in these cars for seven years or something. He’s been driving a stock car which is so different to an Indy car, especially around this place where downforce plays a big part. The car’s just stuck, and it’s really hard to understand the limit. But he keeps creeping up. He keeps getting closer. I think where he is right now, he’s in a good place. He doesn’t need to get frustrated. He just needs to chip away at it, and he’ll get there because he’s been really fast in open wheel cars. He just gets better every time he goes out, so he shouldn’t feel discouraged at all.”
YOU SAID YOU WENT TWO SECONDS FASTER THAN QUALIFYING LAST YEAR. DO YOU THINK THAT IS JUST FROM WORK THAT HAS BEEN DONE OVER THE WINTER ON THE CAR? “Yes, work that was done over the year last year. Also engine work. And, it is little cooler which helps grip. It is just a very fast situation?
IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THE BRAKING ZONES HERE? “You don’t really brake here in IndyCar. There is only one place you brake really. It is the cars. It’s the temperatures. Remember, we are on black tires, so you can imagine when you put the reds on. It’s going to be fast.”
ARE YOU RUNNING THE TEST ON THE TIRES YOU WILL RACE ON? “No, you don’t get to run on the red tires – the soft compounds. We are just running on the black compound. We don’t get to use the reds until we qualify. The reds should degrade quicker than the blacks. Hopefully they keep it as it was last year because that made for really good racing.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “Wow it was fun to get back out there today in the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet. The car was really fast and P2 today shows all the hard work the Team Penske and Chevrolet guys have put in over the offseason. The grip was incredible and the close times today show how competitive the racing will be this year. Hopefully tomorrow is another good day so we can keep getting ready for St. Pete.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “I think it was a good day. We lost a little bit of time so we didn’t get to run that much. But, I feel like every time we were on the track we made improvements and that’s what counts. I think we can be pretty happy with the day and hopefully we can even make a step more forward tomorrow.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “It’s good to finally be back on track. We had a lot of down time today sorting out a couple of things in the #11 KV Racing car and did not put in the amount of laps that we were anticipating, but we still had a productive day. I’m looking forward to tomorrow to get more laps in the car. St. Pete can’t come soon enough.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S PREMIUM ULTRA VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “I was pleased with how we started out today. We made some good gains at the test at Sonoma last week. So we are ahead of our setup from last year here. We made good adjustments through the lunch hour. But we hit a bit of a wall in the afternoon. What is good about our team now is that we know the direction we are headed. That wasn’t the case last year. We were still learning some much about the team and the car in the first year. Overall, I think we have now found a good start for Wednesday’s testing. Being a one-car team, we are really trying to find things on our own. So the learning process is a little slower for us than the multi-car teams. But I am pleased where we are headed right now.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “Today wasn’t the best day as we had some issues with the car causing us to not have much time on track. We’ve got work to do, some new things to try, and some ground to make. Tomorrow we are going to restrict our running time as we do not want to put too many miles on this engine, but we still look to accomplish a lot more than we did today.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “It was a very interesting day for us as we continued to try different things from the last couple of tests. Our main goal was to get me connected with the team, my new engineer and for my team to get to know my driving style and I think from that aspect it was a very successful day. We were not satisfied with the times, but we were also on a different plan than others and I am looking forward to tomorrow as we have a lot of space for improvement. I am very satisfied with my crew and how we are
getting to know each other like a family.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING:
“Today was another positive step in the learning process and I thought the No. 2 IZOD Team Penske Chevrolet showed some good speed. We need as many laps as we can get but my teammates are being great about sharing information to accelerate the learning curve and I am excited to see what we can get done tomorrow.”
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA/PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “I’m extremely happy to be with Andretti Autosport. The setup that we used was very refreshing and it’s nice to start the season with all good things. I’m looking forward to having a great season, and thanks to all my sponsors for the support.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET: ON TODAY’S TESTING: “It’s really not a bad start. We had a strong GoDaddy.com car here last year and we knew what to show up with for the most part. Today was a lot of working through a lot of the things the engineers dreamed up during the offseason. Some were good and some were bad, but ultimately, it was good to end up in the top three. There’s still some time to find in all the Andretti Autosport cars, and hopefully, we can go challenge those Penske cars tomorrow.”
Brian Fitzpatrick’s Rail
IndyCar- Barber Media Day
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
BARBER MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 11, 2013
EJ VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA/PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed working with his new team, working with up and coming Venezuelan drivers and much more. Full Transcript:
ONE OF YOUR CREW CHIEFS OR TEAM OWNERS WAS INVOLVED IN DOING SOME WORK WITH HVM?
“Yeah, Keith (Wiggins) a guy that we all liked and they raced with for two years. 2008 and 2009 pretty much I learn a lot from him when I was brand new in the series. I know he has a deal going on with the team where I’m going to be running with this entry so pretty much Andretti and HVM are helping each other. Probably in a technical area Andretti is going to be the one taking control of it. I know Keith is going to be bringing his experience in racing into the team as well.”
IS THERE A POSSIBILITY TO SEE YOU ONE DAY IN AN ENDURANCE RACE?
“I would love to. We haven’t spoken about it, but I have done a few endurance races and I like it very much. I would like to do it. Of course, we haven’t spoken about it, but maybe you can be my agent and help me (laughs).”
DO YOU KNOW IF HE WILL BE ON THE TIMING STAND AT ALL OR WHETHER THAT WILL ALL BE ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT?
“I’m sure he will be there. As I said before Andretti is pretty much taking full control of the car of the entry of the team. How you know he is presence is always important especially when we are going to be using his entry. I know he has his racing priorities that his other kind of racing that he is starting to do, but you know this is what he loves doing. The entry is still his.”
HOW DOES YOUR MOVE TO ANDRETTI INTERFACE WITH YOUR TEAM VENEZUELA?
“Well, I want to make it clear that Team Venezuela is nothing to do with me. Team Venezuela it’s a group of Venezuelans that have been involved in sport for a long time. Actually one of them is a guy called Vicente Tralci, a former driver. He is the one that took me into racing in 1990. He took me around a race track in a go kart and his lap. That day I really knew that racing was for me. So, he has just been putting a lot of energy together creating Team Venezuela. Team Venezuela is we want to call it and a very proudly say it. That is a Venezuelan team so far this is step one into IndyCar, into racing. But, they want to grow, what they are doing in the business side is partnering with Andretti. A lot of the assets in my entry, my team, are going to be owned by them the cars. So that is a way that they are doing it. That is Team Venezuela so they thought about me to come and drive their car, which they negotiated with Andretti to work together this season.
“Team Viso is something that I have done for years now it’s almost two years that I’ve been helping Venezuelan drivers pretty much when they are starting to do those first steps into that professional level. I’ve been around them and giving them all my advice, helping them with their sponsors back home. I have been in that position myself many years ago. I’m probably the difficult one where you see a kid and you really don’t know if you should do it. If you really like it pretty much is focusing all those attention ideas and efforts into one direction. That is why you can see in the Indy Lights this year there are going to be probably two or three Venezuelan drivers in the Mazda. There is Diego (Ferreira) he won already his first race last weekend in Austin. I’m very excited about it. This is a way that I thought about bringing something back to my country very proudly and I feel very lucky person that I have been able to race for so many years having the back-up from my own country. From sponsors from there, from companies, from everyone, so I think this is the least I can do for my own country is to help some other coming drivers trying to make it.”
IS THERE A POSSIBILITY IN THE LONG TERM TO SEE A RACE IN VENEZUELA SOMEWHERE?
“I want to. Of course Venezula is a country that has been going through a lot of changes in the last year, especially now. That has been an idea that I had for years. You can go and ask the guys in IndyCar I have been every year I bring up the idea. I haven’t forgotten about it. I am going to make it happen for sure I will. I need to wait. It is a big effort. A lot of money, a lot of organization happening around, soon you are going to see me, you are going to be invited. I’m going to pay your business class from Germany (laughs).”
IS THERE A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN VENEZUELA SIMILAR TO WHAT IS GOING ON IN AMERICA?
“Yeah, there is plenty of racing going on in Venezuela. You can see that they are pretty much a driver in every single category around the world including Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, there is a driver that did a few races last year in the Road Courses. GP2, Mazda, Indy Lights so racing is growing back home. Of course we need to start from the fundamentals that it’s racing in our own country. Which is happening probably not in the level it should be happening. That is growing it’s coming.”
ANY YOUNG DRIVERS IN YOUR COUNTRY?
“That is what I have been doing. I just explained about the Team Viso. That is something that I have been doing and I’m going to keep doing.”
SO YOU HAD ONE DAY ON THE TRACK AT SEBRING WITH MICHAEL CANNON YOUR NEW ENGINEER HOW DID THAT GO? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THIS TEST?
“First of all for me it’s very refreshing to be with a team that they are not only successful in racing because they can prove it. My new team Ryan (Hunter-Reay) just won the championship and I really know all the effort that is behind it. They not only see the technical side of racing, but they really understand each of the part of the puzzle, marketing, merchandising, media, attention to the sponsors, all of those things are very well taken care of. It’s really refreshing when I stepped into the team and we started going through things. You really feel that they are pushing every single aspect. My sponsors, my partners, my group, Team Venezuela guys, everybody is really excited and looking forward. Sebring so far has been the only day I have been interacting in the track with the team. It was a good day. I think a day that it was new for all of us. It was a brand new car, new engineer, new driver, new crew, everything was new and we believe it was successful one. That is only the beginning. We just getting ready tomorrow and after tomorrow we are going to be on track. Definitely we have a lot of work to do.”
HOW WILL YOU MEASURE SUCCESS NOW WITH THIS NEW TEAM?
“I think you can measure success when you as a driver, you as a person and you as an individual feel that you truly gave your best. Sometimes I’ve been feeling successful even if I finish not in a great position in the race, but you feel that you gave everything you have. Those were the resources I had at that point. I think this year I’m definitely going to be counting with a way stronger organization, partners and team. I think we are going to be able to be so much closer to the front. I’ve can already feel some podiums coming. These guys they work super strong, super hard with the strategies. I have pretty much won races in every single category I have been in the past except in IndyCar. I want to make that one happen.”
YOU SAID STRATEGIES; DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR STRATEGIST WILL BE?
“As of now ‘Ziggy” is going to be helping me Paul Harcus. For sure he has the experience. He has done it for a number of years
. I’m sure Michael Andretti is going to be surrounding the timing stand. This is a team that they work very closely with the four entries.”
WHAT YEAR DID YOU SAY TEAM VENEZUELAN GOT YOU WHEN YOU DROVE FIRST?
“1990. Almost 23 years ago. That was my birthday present. I will be turning 28 on the 19th. That was my birthday present when I turned 5. That was my present they took me to this go kart track and I drove around. Before I drove a little go kart I drove in the lap of this guy Vicente which now is the owner, director of Team Venezula.”
YOU BECAME A MUCH MORE CONSISTENT DRIVER LAST YEAR. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THIS SEASON?
“I think that I’m in a position that I need to be trusting the team. I think they do have every single resource to make good things happen. I know and I don’t need to say, but I know I have the speed because I have proven it. I am right now I probably just need to find a stable path with them and just really attack when I should. That is something that I am going to be counting with is the strong team that is always going to be behind me. As of now that is what I’ve been feeling and seeing inside this organization.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 IZOD TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed being with Team Penske for two races, having Helio Castroneves and Will Power as teammates, driving both a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Chevrolet SS race car and an IZOD IndyCar Series Chevrolet-powered race car during the season and other topics. Full transcript:
HOW DIFFERENT IS THIS CAR FROM THE LAST INDYCAR THAT YOU DROVE? IS THERE LESS POWER AND MORE DOWNFORCE?: “Well, it’s a lot different than what I’ve been driving for the last seven years, I can tell you that. After I drove it at Sebring I was like, ‘Maybe it will all come back natural to me.’ It felt like I was riding a unicycle. I almost forget what it feels like to drive a Champ car — it’s been so long. The cars, they’re definitely fun to drive. They have a ton of grip. I think the biggest thing for me is just the braking force of these cars and just everything in general. The G-force, trying to get used to that again. Stock car racing, training, you’re working on just that mental aspect of being in a car for four hours in the heat, especially during the summer and that wearing on you and being able to be strong enough for that. There’s a not a lot of race tracks physically where you get worn out, at least for me. Bristol maybe a little bit, Dover, but physically overall you’re not just drained after a race. In IndyCar obviously, it’s physically demanding. I think for me, that’s the biggest thing is trying to get back into that and that kind of mentality of how to train for that and just to get used to that in general again. The car overall once I got up to speed with it, it felt good. The biggest thing is it felt a little heavier in the back so when the thing kind of starts to sway you get in the corner and it gets loose, it almost feels like a little bit of a pendulum kind of swinging behind you. That was kind of the biggest thing that I noticed.”
IS IT DIFFICULT TO GO BETWEEN THE STOCK CAR TO THE INDY CAR AND EVEN SPORTS CAR RACING?: “I was a little nervous getting back in the Cup car at Phoenix because I hadn’t even drove one of the new cars and I hadn’t been in a stock car for over four months. Phoenix, obviously being a short track, it’s not as critical to get up to speed, you kind of ease your way into it. I kind of got up to speed pretty quick. I think it’s going to be more of a transition getting back to the Indy car every time than going from the Indy car back to the stock car. That’s what makes it fun. That’s what makes being a part of this just a challenge for me because I’m challenging myself every week just to adapt to something new. If I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t be here. I’m excited about that and those chances to adapt back and forth. There’s not a lot of drivers out there that can get to say that they’ve raced a sports car, they are going to race a stock car and they are going to go race an Indy car during the year. I’m excited about that.”
DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD BE BACK IN INDYCAR?: “I’ve learned quickly in life that you just take everything as it comes. You take one day at a time and you don’t say no to anything and you expect everything to happen. Did I think it would happen like this? No, but I love the IndyCar Series. It’s not like I left and stopped watching. I’ve still got a lot of friends in this series and I think this series has a lot of great things to offer. If it can just get put together the right way and go in the right direction, there’s a lot of great things. The racing last year, I watched as many races as I could. It’s some of the best IndyCar racing I’ve ever seen and to have the championship come down to the end like it did. It’s fun to watch and to be a part of and there’s so many great drivers in it. For myself, putting myself against some of the best in the world and I know that’s going to be a lot of hard work. I don’t expect to just come in and dominate. It’s going to be a lot of hard work. These guys are the best for a reason. I love the challenge and I’m excited to have this opportunity. I feel honored to have this opportunity. I’m going to do everything I can to make it right.”
WHY DO YOU THINK THE NASCAR FAN DOESN’T SEE WHAT A GREAT PRODUCT INDYCAR IS?: “I think it’s just got to be marketed better. Honestly, I don’t know if they see it and then they don’t see it, I just don’t know if they see it honestly. That’s part of the problem. If it’s able to be marketed better, that’s what over the last several years NASCAR has done, they made sure that they marketed their drivers and told their stories — good or bad. Especially in life now, that’s what people are drawn to. This series has got a great American champion with RHR (Ryan Hunter-Reay) and to see what he did last year to win the championship and have that, that story needs to be told. A guy like Will Power that has probably been the fastest man in the series the last couple of years and for whatever reason it hasn’t happened as a championship, but those types of stories are what need to be told and I think it’s not that people see it and they’re just not attracted to it. I just don’t think they see it. If we can market it better, the series can be strong. It’s not that in the U.S. or North America that there’s only room for one racing series, there’s plenty of room for a lot of racing series. It needs to be a strong open wheel series and I just think it needs to be marketed better and if the series is able to do that then people are going to watch. There’s so many great venues to go to. There’s so many different types of venues. If you’re an oval fan, you’re going to see oval racing. If you love street course, there’s a lot of great street course races. We’re at one of the best pure open wheel, motorcycle, whatever type of road course you want to call it — we’re here. There’s something for everybody. It just needs to be marketed and shown better.”
IN MAKING THE TRANSITION BACK TO INDYCAR FROM STOCK CAR RACING, DID YOU USE THE SIMULATOR IN ITALY?: “No. No, this is all just happening one day at a time. The most help I’ve gotten is from Helio (Castroneves) and from Will (Power) honestly and from the race team. I’m just piecing it together as it comes.”
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIM
E YOU WERE ON AN OVAL IN AN OPEN WHEEL CAR?: “Milwaukee 2006.”
DID YOU RACE THREE TIMES IN MILWAUKEE AND IN LAS VEGAS?: “Three times in Milwaukee and two in Vegas. One or two in Vegas. Plenty of oval experience. I got this. Plenty. I’m not going to lie, I roll out onto pit lane in Indy, there’s going to be some nerves there. I’m going to be a little nervous because I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to brake at the end of the straightaway. Actually they told me I could, they just said I would be really slow if I did that. There’s definitely some nerves, there’s some unknown there. Road course racing, I’ll adapt to it pretty quick and hopefully get up to speed. It’s going to take a little bit at Indy. Fortunately enough it’s Indy so we have plenty of time to get rolling. I’m with the best team so I think there’s a couple of people that know how to get around there pretty well at the Penske organization. There is a guy named Rick Mears, he’s not bad I heard. There’s a lot of banners up inside the Penske garage and in the shop, it seems pretty good. There is a guy named Helio (Castroneves), he seems pretty good. Will (Power) is a big help to me because he was in Champ Car when I raced so he can kind of describe to me what it was like coming to Indy for the first time from the old cars and what to expect. There’s a lot of people that are going to help me and I feel fortunate for that.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU SEE DRIVERS THAT YOU STARTED WITH BEING SUCCESSFUL IN INDYCAR NOW AS THE EVOLUTION OF THE SERIES?: “I think it just shows that the talent’s there. There are some of the best that are there. It’s fun at least because when I left there was still all the best there and unfortunately they were split between two series. You can sit there and argue all the time, ‘Okay, who’s better?’ It was a terrible argument because you couldn’t compare it. To have it back to one series and to have all these guys, it’s fun to watch because you have to show up with your ‘A’ game. If you don’t, it’s not like your fifth or sixth, you’re going to be 20th. That’s what makes it fun. It’s good to see the guys that I raced against and I think you have a good mix of both. You have the guys like Dario (Franchitti) and Helio (Castroneves) and those types of guys that have been in the series for a long time that are still really fast. Then you have the young guys like Will (Power) and (James) Hinchcliffe and RHR (Ryan Hunter-Reay) and all these guys that were really fast as young guys that have come in and they’re stars of the series. It’s a fun series and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.”
DID THE FACT THAT OPEN WHEEL WAS SPLIT IN 2006 INCREASE YOUR DESIRE TO WANT TO GO TO NASCAR AND TRY THAT OUT?: “Yeah, it was no secret that being in Champ Car at that point you didn’t know what was going to happen. It was tough. I took a lot of heat for leaving, but at that point being sponsored by Red Bull and they had a Cup team starting, it wasn’t like I was like, ‘Okay, I’m just going to ditch one series and go to another.’ I didn’t know if the series I was going to be in was even going to be around next year and if I was even going to have a job. I didn’t know if Jerry (Gerald) Forsythe was going to the IRL, he hated it. It wasn’t like I was guaranteed a job the next year so I took a lot of heat for leaving because people though I just left one job to go to another. No I left something that I didn’t know if I was going to have a job the next year to a job that at least I knew was there. When I went into NASCAR I didn’t want to go into it like I did. I didn’t think I was ready to go right to Cup, but at that point you can’t turn it down. It’s how it happened.”
IF THIS WORKS OUT FOR YOU DO YOU THINK IT WILL ENTICE OTHER NASCAR DRIVERS TO TRY INDYCAR RACING?: “Honestly I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me if it does or it doesn’t. For me, it’s just focusing on myself and looking for the best opportunity, being happy in life and in general and then at a race track with whatever I’m driving. I think it’s pretty simple. You make the series strong, you’re going to entice a lot of people because it’s a fun series to be a part of. You go to a lot of great venues and you drive a really cool race car. I think it’s pretty simple. I’m not going to entice people to come over. It’s all about the series enticing them. If it’s strong people will come. It’s like the field of dreams — if you build it, they will come.”
HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO SEE THIS TRACK?: “I’ve played it in a lot of video games and I’ve watched a lot of video. It’s almost the same, but not quite. It’s a fun looking race track. Just talking to Helio (Castroneves) and Will (Power) and they really enjoy this race track. It’s a good flow it looks like. It’s a track that you can really attack, it’s got a lot of speed in it. I’m looking forward to getting out there. There’s also a lot of little nuances around this place that just to get within a half-second or six or seven tenths, it looks like there’s not a lot, but if you get that last little half-second, there’s a lot of little nuances around this place that it will only take laps to figure out. Hopefully, for two days it goes smooth and I think the biggest thing for me is obviously speed is important. You don’t want to leave here at the bottom of the time charts a second off and think I’m okay. The good thing is the Penske race cars have been dominant around here since they’ve come here so I know I’m going to have a good race car so for me it’s about being comfortable. If I can leave this test being comfortable and feeling good in the race car and kind of understand pit stops and how all that is going to work and things like that and still have decent speed, then I’ll be happy leaving this test and be ready to come back for the race weekend and know it’s about the race weekend and not about learning the track more or learning these cars more. It’s just about focusing on how the race weekend flows. That’s what I’m going to try to do for two days.”
HOW CLOSELY DO YOUR DRIVING STYLES MATCH WITH WILL POWER AND HELIO CASTRONEVES?: “I made it simple and said to start with their setups. I didn’t care which one, they are both fast. I’ll figure it out as it comes. I would say initially just looking at it, I’m more of a closer to Will (Power), he brakes really late and really hard on the brake pedal. I feel like in open wheel racing that is more how I was. Helio (Castroneves) is more of a flow kind of let it roll through the corner, but at the same point in these cars I don’t have a driving style yet so if I can kind of mix both and try to get the best of both worlds then that’s what I’m going to try to do. As I get comfortable with the race car, then we’ll start making changes and see what I feel like I need. The first half is all about just getting comfortable and just trying to stare at their data over and over again and figure out what makes them so good around this place.”
WHAT WOULD YOU THINK ABOUT A SECOND RACE AT INDIANAPOLIS?: “You have to be careful running a race at a place like Indy twice. Then you start losing all the prestige of it. What makes Indy, Indy is you go there for what used to be a month and is a couple weeks now and it’s down to that one race. The series would really have to look at would that be beneficial and would people come out for it or does it just lose the luster? To me, especially around a plac
e like Indy, in my opinion the way I look at it, there is no reason to run a second race there. I think what it looks like is you need to go to places that don’t have a race. Whether it’s an oval or a street race or a road course — get that city excited about that race. Go to more venues and get those fans excited because maybe you go to a venue where nobody has ever seen what an IndyCar race is all about and all it takes is going out there one time and then they’re hooked. Indy is going to get the crowd so I think it just needs to go to places, new places. I don’t care what kind of venue it is, just go to new places. You have to keep the places that are strong and bring in new cities that can just love Indy car racing and know what it’s all about. Me, I wouldn’t want to go to Indy twice, whether it’s a road course or another oval race. You win the Indy 500, you’re in victory lane there and one person gets to say that every year. No reason for a second opportunity.”
IS DRIVING IN THE INDY 500 SOMETHING YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO?: “Of course. Being an open wheel guy, I miss not being able to do that when I was in Champ Car. I felt like when they split a little bit of the Indy luster kind of got lost. As the series has come back together, you’ve had a lot of great races there the last couple years. I’ve never really even been to Indy up until I rolled out in a stock car for the first time and thought, ‘Okay, this is what Indy is all about, I get it, but it’s still not the Indy 500.’ Honestly, when I sit here and talk about it right now, I’m excited and I’ve got a lot of emotions, but they will be nothing close to what it’s actually like for the first time when I roll out there April 11 for rookie orientation and it definitely won’t be the same until I get introduced and you walk down to the yard of bricks and they introduce you and you get those 200,000 people cheering or booing whatever. At least it’s a reaction.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed the new tracks that were added to this year’s schedule, the important of being with the same team and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL OPINION ON SOME OF THE NEW TRACKS THAT HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE SCHEDULE FOR THIS SEASON?
“I’m very excited about some of the new tracks especially Pocono because it’s just so different. It’s such a unique track. Indy cars haven’t been there in a long time so it will be a new thing for everybody. A bit of an even playing ground, I think it’s going to be very good for our cars. I think the racing has got a lot of potential. Houston is new to this calendar, but some of us have driven it before in its previous life as a Champ Car track. That will be interesting to see how that one turns out. It was a little bit rough the last time we were there, so hopefully they have made some improvements. Certainly, Pocono I think is the new event on the calendar that everybody is really excited about.”
YOU HAVE SOME CONTINUITY THIS YEAR BEING WITH THE SAME TEAM FOR ANOTHER YEAR HOW DO YOU THINK THAT IS TO HELP YOU?
“I think if you ask any driver continuity is a huge asset. It’s a huge thing to move forward and progress as a driver and as a team. For me it’s coming back to the same team for the second year for the first time in my career. It’s the first time I’ve been able to do that. The kind of unfortunate thing is in January my race engineer left and that is sort the most important relationship on the team is the driver’s relationship with his engineer. The good news is the guy that we got was my engineer from the previous season and a very accomplished guy in that respect as well. I’m glad that we don’t have to go through the whole getting to know you, first day phase and we can sort of just get on with our jobs. The only down side is that because he wasn’t there last year I can’t say ‘oh well remember last year in Detroit when we did this.’ There is still going to be a little bit of learning and it’s still not 100 percent ideal because we are going to have a little bit of a communication gap to begin with, but the relationship is there and I’ve got a lot of faith in Craig (Hampson) so hopefully we can have some success.”
WHERE DO YOU SEE HAVING AS MANY TEAMMATES AS YOU DO LOOKING AT YOUR DATA WHAT ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS?
“I’m going to have to get better at reading data faster because there is going to be so much to go through this season with four cars. I think that we are still learning this car in a lot of respects and the more information you can get the better. For me one of the big areas that I felt like I could improve last year was in Q-3. We made it to the fast six quite a few times with the exception of here and Barber it was sort of a fourth, fifth, sixth-place effort. We really struggled to sort of get on the front row there. It was a little bit team wide, but I think Ryan (Hunter-Reay) had a little bit more success than I did. We have been trying to figure out over the off season what we are doing wrong in Q-3 cycling on a set of tires. Then on the street circuits in general Ryan (Hunter-Reay) is the king. He is very good at certain elements of corner entry and this car suits his style very well. I have had to look at that a little bit. Marco (Andretti) teaches us a lot at speedway. That kid just has such a feel there it is unbelievable. So there are always areas to improve. I’m anxious to see what EJ (Viso) has got, the data that he comes back with, what his driving style is. Ryan (Hunter-Reay) and I have a very similar style. We could really rely on each other on set-up. It will be interesting to see where EJ fits into that whole mix as well. I think information wise the more you have the better.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU LAST YEAR? STARTED SO GOOD THEN KIND OF TAILED OFF.
“It’s no secret that six, eight races in whatever it was we were in the top five and I didn’t think genuine title contender, but certainly in a position to be in the top four, top five in the championship. What happened at the end of the season I think was twofold. One was the competition got a lot tighter. As everybody figured out the cars a bit more those gaps got a lot smaller and some guys that maybe were outside the top-10 guys at the beginning were inside the top-10 guys by half-way then top-five guys by the end of the season. Then the other thing is I hate to say it but we made some mistakes. I made a mistake in Iowa we made some strategy calls that put us in bad positions. I think Baltimore Ryan (Hunter-Reay) and I restarted one-two on one restart and then a caution came out. He opted to pit, we were on a different strategy, he goes on to win the race we got caught in a mess back in the back of the field and had a bunch of problems. I think that a lot of the races that my teammates did well we were right there. Either I made a mistake or we made a mistake on the box or we made a mistake in the pits. I think Detroit and Toronto were the only two that were just sort of bad luck. We had failures and a track issue. I think all the elements are there and the pieces are there. The team is obviously very capable and I think if we can just hit all our points on any given Sunday we will be as competitive as anybody.”
DOES THE LACK OF TESTING THIS WINTER ARE WE JUST STARTING FROM WHERE WE WERE AT THE END OF LAST YEAR OR HAS A LOT BEEN LEARNED OFF THE RACE TRACK?
“The problem with such a long off season and very little time to test is it gives engineers like six mo
nths to sit in a box and come up with crazy ideas. Then you only have like three days to try and get through all these things that they have dreamed up. I think what you are going to see is last year everybody had so much testing we all arrived to St. Pete, we knew what our cars were going to be like. The rust had been blown off if you will. We were all almost basically race fit. There were very few silly accidents. There were very few start and restart problems. I don’t think we are going to see that this year. I think we are going to get to St. Pete everyone is going to be so anxious to finally be back in the car you are going to see guys making more mistakes in practice, hitting the wall in practice and more mistakes in the races because we just haven’t been in the car. It’s like telling a quarter back ‘hey you’ve got to practice with your team for three days before the start of the season.’ It’s crazy. It actually makes ours the hardest profession sport to be in because you cannot practice your craft. You are not allowed to practice your craft. That is a very difficult situation. I just think that this year with so many fewer miles in the off season we are going to run into more problems in the first two races.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI/SHELL V-POWER/PENNZOIL ULTRA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed having AJ Allmendinger join Team Penske, working with two teammates, changes to Team Penske and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Q. Allmendinger says you have the second best looking hair.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Well, you be the judge when we finish the race and we take the helmet off. I think that will be answer.
But it’s cool to have AJ around. Actually, it’s great. Having AJ on the team, it’s pretty fun, it’s pretty cool. He’s coming back. First test he did in Sebring, he was right on the pace. It’s great. It’s great to continue to have a good atmosphere.
Wishing all the best for Ryan, obviously. We create a good foundation since he was on the team in 2006, I believe. So hopefully he can join us whatever he’s going to do.
In the end of the day, we’re here. Another year, 2013. We’re looking very strong again. The DW12 seem to be a little bit better, which I think everybody went through all the phases of learning the car. I’m really, really excited for 2013 to start.
Q. Who is going to talk to Will and you during the race now most of the time?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Right now (Tim) Cindric going to keep in Will’s car. John Erickson so far is officially the guy on my car. I believe Roger is going to be the consulting. I hope he’ll be consulting more on my side because Cindric has his opinion, his own, which is a good thing for sure.
But right now officially John Erickson is going to be calling my races.
Q. You don’t want Roger?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I do. What I heard, I think he’s flexible now. He also want to be going to the NASCAR races. I believe he want to be back and forth. In this case of a third car, he also be able to call the race for the third car.
But, yes, it would be an honor to have Roger. So far two races I did with Roger, which was in the Porsche, the Spyder, we finished fourth and won one race. It’s a pretty good record, I have to say. I would enjoy having him in my group.
Q. When you get a new teammate, how do things change? I know AJ won’t be there all the time. How does it change?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: For us, having AJ around, like I said, he’s already understand the Penske work ethic, you know. First test as we had, it was just like he’s being there, even though it was a NASCAR team, but he’s been there.
I don’t think it’s going to change much. Right now Will and I, we understand about third car to be there. It’s important also now, especially because we don’t have much practice to collect data. We feel AJ is going to be really good.
Right now the way he adapt is extremely fast. I think that’s one of his characteristic. He’s able to jump from NASCAR to IndyCar to DP. He doesn’t need time to adapt. So I guess that’s one of his strongest point.
I feel going into the race here and Indy, he’ll be extremely fast as well. It will be good. For sure it will be good to collect a lot more data, like we always have.
Q. (Question regarding foundation with Will.)
HELIO CASTRONEVES: For sure, Will is proving the last three, four years how incredible he is in the road course and street course. I mean, the guy is a super talent. For sure he’s able to do a lot of things that I haven’t seen my other teammates do.
He’s able to adapt quick in certain circumstances, especially in qualifying. Sometimes you’re able to match one or two corners, but the good thing about him, he’s able to put like a good lap in all the corners.
I would say he’s very accurate, especially in qualifying, and he’s able to be smart when you switch to race pace. That’s his strength right now at this point.
I would say for us, we be able to work together well. Him and I use similar setups, especially in ovals. You know, in his case ovals hasn’t been his strongest point, but I guess experience will help. Right now we’re doing everything we can to make sure both cars, not only in ovals or road course, but they be competitive.
Q. Seems that when you’ve worked together with Will Power over the last two, three years, it almost seems to me like you’ve improved.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Oh, yeah.
Q. I don’t mean just because you have somebody to compete against, but I feel like you’ve stepped it up a little.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: For me, I have to say moving with this new car, I change the way I drove with the left foot brake. Last year was the first year that I did that. Especially when you have two paddles in the car, plus carbon brakes, reaction time got to be faster.
Plus the double-file restarts, you know, it’s one thing in the start of the race, but every yellow you have double-file restart, so we have to be on it all the time, especially when the tires might be cold, not new, things like that.
So, yes, that’s why I change a little bit. I felt very, very comfortable. But still, when you spend most of your life braking with the right foot, you still face some challenge. But right now it’s nothing an issue for me.
Q. Now you’re back, a championship contender again.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: You got to update. I said it before, just like a computer, you got to update. Sometimes the computer’s good, but the technology around you go faster. You got to just keep going.
Right now we have a new group in our team. I have John (indiscernible), I never know his name. As you can see, it’s new for me, too. We work together with the prototype, the Porsche Spyder. He was working with Ryan Briscoe last year. I mean, our group of guys, especially the engineers, are incredible.
The reason when they eliminate a third car, I felt, we all felt, that Ron, who was the top engineer, it would be good for him to look both cars instead of just one car, keep in pace with everything.
I felt great with John because I worked before. Plus John worked with John Ericson on the Porsche Spyder for many years together. So I guess the combination would be great.
Also we have different crew guys. We did a mix, you know. We’re getting all the best guys.
We do have a problem. We have old very good guys. It’s tough for you to select. But internal they have some type of questionnaire of who is going to keep going to the races, that’s the way they select who is going to be on the No. 3 and the No. 12.
We chasing a little change, the No. 3 group. I like what I had in the past. But sometimes little change, details, makes a big thing on the racetrack.
Q. You said that AJ was on pace at Sebring.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Yes.
Q. What do you think he will bring to you guys that will be a benefit for both of you?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Just a different style. He seemed to be very aggressive with the car. Sometimes in some of the tracks it’s important for us to find out what’s possible.
I remember when Will came onboard, I mean, we have one style, and all of a sudden a guy comes with a different style and able to make it happen. So it’s great for that. I feel AJ going to bring that, as well.
That’s why, I mean, I’m excited. Plus he’s funny as hell. It’s really nice to have another guy making fun. I’m sure he’s not understanding much, which is funny as well. But right now the three of us are having a good time.
Q. Is AJ a left foot braker also?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I think he’s always been a left foot braker. Those old guys, me, Dario, I don’t know who else, those old guys, we kept the right foot. I think Dario still right foot, is the only guy.
Q. I thought he changed last year.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: He’s left? I know the Dallara end up making a new pedal. Suits the right foot brakes. I decided trying the new challenge with the left. But I don’t know who else works on the right foot brake.
Q. If Mr. Penske wants to field a sports car, would you be interested in racing at Daytona and Sebring?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Would love to. I think I did twice. With Team Penske I did once and we finish in the top three. It would be great. In Sebring I race with the Spyder and we finish third, as well.
I would love to. It’s a great series. I believe the series is growing, as well. But right now I’m not focused on that. Just starting the IndyCar Series. Can’t wait to be in the racecar. Can’t wait to be racing again.
Q. Is the off-season too long for you?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Yes. I think for everybody. Especially when we don’t have testing. I would strongly suggest – I don’t know the financial part of it – but when you have that kind of a long off-break, it’s difficult to everyone, for the drivers especially. Especially for rookies, they need to understand how it works.
All of a sudden you have June, July and August a race every weekend. It’s becoming rushed to everyone, including the mechanics. They have to turn over cars from street course to ovals. I think that’s the most tough of it.
Sometimes mistakes end up happening because you don’t have enough time and probably spending more money. So I wish we would have at least started much early. If it can’t be in February, at least early March, so you could break it up with the times and dates.
But that’s outside of my control. I don’t know. I just want to wish that that would happen.
Q. What would an ideal season look like? How long and how many races?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I think 19, the way we have it, with the doubleheader, is good. 17 race weekends, it’s not bad for the combination that we have.
But I would rather start in February, have a bigger space in some of the areas, especially in the middle of the season, give a break for the mechanics. Drivers it’s actually not a problem. For the mechanics it would be great. And coming back with those double-headers in those places that you have a break, that probably would make everybody fresh for those type of conditions.
And finish, I would say, about November. Used to be in the past, long, long time ago when we used to run CART, we used to have even more races, 22. But I feel if you don’t want to test, you save money, at least you have those spread-out races, you probably would have an opportunity for, you know, okay, what’s next, keep the ball rolling.
That’s just my humble opinion (laughter).
Q. Will you go to Indy when Allmendinger does his orientation?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Texas, isn’t it?
Q. April 11th, I guess. Right after this test.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I know I have an appearance with Hitachi and Shell, but it’s right after Barber. They didn’t request my presence yet. I would love to actually. Trust me, he doesn’t need much of a help.
Q. What are the chances of getting a second race in Brazil? Still interest down there?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: They are. Brazil, economic situation is very strong. Certainly it would be great. I heard now Formula One might moving from Sao Paulo to the south of Brazil. Obviously it’s all about how much the promoters are willing to spend. I think it’s more than actually interest.
At this point I feel that America has a lot of other places, which we should have a little more 50/50 in terms of challenge if it’s a street course, oval, short oval, speedway. At this point I think we just got to take the pace the right way and see what happens.
Q. How was T.K.’s wedding?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: It was actually very funny. Lauren was really, really happy. That for me was incredible to see her having a great time, smiling. I was very happy for both.
I did not drink. Actually, much of us were having a good time and have fun because we knew we had a test this week. But it was great. Very happy for them. We show the best for the couple.
Q. Did you like doing the Harlem Shake?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: You’re asking me what to do? I don’t even know what to do. But it was funny. We all prepare and I was the only one that (didn’t?) have my helmet on. C’mon. It was great. Everybody got into it. It was great. We had a good time.
Q. You said she was having fun. Was T.K. not having fun?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: You know T.K. I don’t need to talk about much. Sometimes people ask about him. Normally in the wedding it’s not his time, it’s her.
Q. When are you getting married?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Very good. Hopefully very soon (laughter).
I’ve been thinking a long time, but just thinking the right time. It’s tough. You trying to think about all the details, it’s worse than a race team, let me tell you. But you will hear me.
With that, I’m done. Thank you (laughter).
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed the upcoming season, working with AJ Allmendinger and other topics. Full transcript:
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO MOVE UP JUST A LITTLE FARTHER?: “Just get four points. I just need to score fou
r more points. It’s not really to change much. We made changes within the team and had a relaxing off-season. I’ve never seen a team work so hard in the off-season really. Me personally as well so all we can do is bring what we’ve got, do our absolute best. My approach to the season is really no different than it’s been the last three years. Just going to keep chipping away and hopefully at some point we can get the thing done.”
ALL THE WORK THE TEAM DID IN THE OFF-SEASON, DID YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT FEEL RIGHT FROM THE GET-GO?: “Actually you can’t change much on the car. We definitely made improvements, but it’s all such small stuff. The only thing the series allows you to do is change dampers and that’s it. I think pretty much everyone runs the same dampers now anyway. It’s going to be about putting the weekend together in the best possible way to get everything out of everything basically. I felt we’ve been strong in testing, but we’ll see the next couple of days will really tell where the engines stack up. Obviously, that’s probably or that really is the place that you can make the biggest gain in the off-season is with the engine. Chevy has been working really hard I’m sure.”
IS IT A GREAT SOURCE OF PRIDE FOR YOU THAT YOU ARE ON TOP EACH YEAR WITH SO FEW CHANGES THAT CAN BE MADE TO THE CARS?: “Spec racing, it really does come down just to the driver and engineer or the team as a whole getting everything together on the day. As far as the whole team does a great job for us between myself, my engineer and having to go out and actually do it — spec racing can be cool and so tight. We see now where two tenths among 10 cars, it’s crazy competitive and it’s a lot of fun to drive.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM LAST YEAR’S CHASSIS AND ENGINE PACKAGE MOVING INTO THIS YEAR?: “The team I think has optimized everything we can with the car as it is. This is all details that you can find. I feel we’re definitely coming into this season and the way we started last year is definitely different, the car is different to how we began the year when it was brand new.”
DID LOSING THIS CHAMPIONSHIP STAY WITH YOU LONGER THAN OTHERS HAVE?: “No, not really actually. It’s funny, not really I think you learn to finish second. I’ve finished there three times. A week after the race we were back in the shop talking about next year already. I have to say it was the most relaxed off-season I’ve ever had. I just kind of enjoyed it. It is what it is. I get to compete at a high level with probably the best team year after year and it’s just an enjoyable thing to do. It’s cool that we are always there in the hunt for the championship and it’s a real motivation to try and get that done.”
DOES YOUR APPROACH THAT LIFE IS PRETTY GOOD HELP YOU DEAL WITH THE ADVERSITY OF FINISHING SECOND IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?: “I just think that as you go on in life, just in general or with your job, whatever that may be and for me it’s racing. You become a lot more comfortable with your surroundings and the people you work with, the series and everything you’re in. You just become more relaxed naturally because it becomes more common to you. That’s what’s happened with me. I think that would happen to anyone in any job, you just become more comfortable.”
WILL IT BE HARD TO GET BACK INTO RACE MODE AFTER SUCH A LONG OFF-SEASON?: “You have to get back into the process of working with your engineer and everyone on the stand. I think these two days will be great to get back to that mode because the tests that we’ve done have just been single car tests where you are just going through the normal process of going through a 30 minute session and we’re going to get this, this and this done. You have to give feedback quickly. We’ll have an opportunity over these next two days to get back into the process.”
ON AJ ALLMENDINGER BEING PART OF THE TEAM: “AJ (Allmendinger), the small amount that I’ve worked with him, he’s a great guy, great personality. He’s funny, but on the track he’s very fast as we can already see on the data at Sebring. The lap time wasn’t representative of it, but he got up to speed very quick. You could see some very good sectors in there and I was already learning stuff off of him. I think he’s an asset to the team and so far I think he’s doing two races and I hope he does more. He’s good and I enjoy working with him.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed her new opportunity at KV Racing Technology,
NEW TEMMATE, NEW TEAM AND SOMEWHAT A NEW SPONSOR?
“So yes, everything is new and this is the first time that I have changed teams in my IndyCar history and joining KV Racing Technology is something pretty exciting. You know, I think they are a really strong team and hopefully we can have some really good results this season and having a teammate like TK (Tony Kanaan) is the first time I am having a teammate so it’s a bit strange. You know you have to learn to kind of share things and I think we are starting to learn how to do that, especially on my side. It’s really exciting especially having the New Clean Air Campaign that is still with me. You know after the season we had last year it was really difficult but they believed in me and chose to stick with me and that is something real important for me.”
DESPITE THE UNCOMPETITIVE SEASON YOU HAD LAST YEAR WITH LOTUS, IS THERE ANYTHING POSITIVE YOU CAN TAKE OVER? “You know, yes, I think last season was really hard but there are some things that I can take out positively especially for example at Indy what I experienced in 2011 was really difficult for me. And maybe not having a competitive engine….it allowed me to kind of take my time through the whole week and kind of work through things that were going to be an issue within myself. So I think that is something very positive and I think I learned a lot about myself just to be patient and to try and get things out of a car that I could not do before. Some corners were really quick and some were street courses so that was really good.”
WHEN WAS THE DEAL FINALIZED WITH KV AND WAS YOUR FORMER TEAM TRYING TO CONVINCE YOU TO STAY WITH THE TEAM? “Well, I think at the end of last year it was pretty clear to me and the people around me that it was time to make a change. I really have to than, Keith (Wiggins) for all the things he has done for me because I think I learned a lot and he gave me some pretty good opportunities but I think it was time to open a new chapter.
“The deal came together pretty quickly and I think it was after Fontana that we started talking with KV and they were really excited about the opportunity to work together and we had a pretty quick test plan because they had some test dates available so I think pretty much in November after I did my first test it was kind of done and it’s great that we got everything together. And also my engineer came with me from HVM so I think that is something special that they allowed me to bring some people that I wanted around me to the team.”
WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE THE FIRST TIME YOU GOT BACK INTO A PROPERLY-POWERED CAR?
“It was here in Barber actually and I did the first lap and I seriously couldn’t believe the power difference and I was shocked because last year I knew for sure they are faster but I couldn’t imagine I was down that much of a difference. And yes, it was quite a shock and at the end of the day I wanted more power but it was great to be with Chevy. They have so much
experience and they listen to what you want and make things possible. Every test we went to, they came up with something that is going to help you and also the openness between the Chevy teams….I think that is something pretty special because you can know what the other teams are testing and it keeps you on track of the development of everything and that is something very exciting.”
HOW MANY TEST DAYS DID YOU DO HERE AT BARBER?
“We did a few test dates. So we started with a day here, and then we went a day to Texas which was good for me to go back on an oval with an engine and it was fun to actually kind of get a lap time out of the thing. I think my out lap was quicker than any lap I did there last year. So that was pretty fun and then we did two days in Sebring and then one more day in Sonoma. So we have been testing a little bit and it’s been interesting because it was the first time we kind of had test days of going through things especially coming into a new team because there are more options that we didn’t have last year so we kind of had to work through these things. Some things I liked and things that Tony liked and so on. So hopefully this test that we have coming up is going to show the pace we have and what we learned from the last couple of days.”
HOW ARE YOU AND TONY WORKING TOGETHER AND HOW SIMILAR ARE YOUR STYLES?
“Yes, it’s a little bit different I have to admit. I think his driving style is a little bit different to mine and I think that took some adjustment but the good thing is that I think they learned some things from us and I think they learned some things from us and I think we have improved over last year. So that is a good thing and I think the way we worked together took a little bit of time. Like the first couple of tests, it was really strange to have a teammate and how you work with that but I think two weeks ago in Sonoma it really started clicking. Also between the engineers it began to click and they began to learn how to work together and I think that is a really good thing.”
HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO GET TO INDY AND HAVE A PROPER CHANCE TO RUN?
“Yes, it’s really exciting and I think when you go to Indy you really want to win the race as well as any race track you go to. Tony finished third there last year so I know the car can do some really good things and he has a lot of experience so I think I can learn a lot from him during that week of practice we are going to have and hopefully we are going to have kind of a smooth 500 because so far it’s been a tough place for me a little bit but hopefully in this season it’s all going to come together.”
YOU SAY YOUR DRIVING STYLE IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT THAN TONY, ARE YOU TRYING TO ADAPT TO HIS DRIVING STYLE?
“No, not really because I think there are some things I think he does better, and I think there are some things I do better. At the last test I think we kind of found the compromise that was good for both of us. I don’t think I can drive like he drives, and I don’t think he can drive like I drive so I think it’s more in the set-up we have learned to kind of favor me a little bit and what favors him and I think so far we have made steps forward but I don’t think as a driver that you want to drive like the other person. You know what is right for you and I think it’s important to have the car underneath you to do what you want to do.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Media Day and discussed driving for Dragon Racing, how he has adapted to the new car and other topics. Full Transcript:
HOW DO YOU THINK TAKING A STEP BACK TO COMPETE IN THE INDYCAR SERIES THIS SEASON IS GOING TO HELP YOU?
“It was a huge decision for sure. It was a decision made together with Gary Peterson in the way that course the deal was to build up to move a full season AFS Racing, but for me it was even greater because it was my future in a way. It was a tough decision to make, but at the end now I see that it was the right way to go, not rush it. I think that was my problem in 2010. I think we tried rushing it too much. After a great season in (Indy) Lights, but at the end still 22 years-old I think that is a good way to think back, sit down, breathe and take another go at it. It’s working.”
HOW IS THE SITUATION WITH THE TEAM?
“From my side I think I really kept away from any kind of situation. I just whenever we start working was directly with the team on the development together with Chevy, together with our shock guys. I haven’t been very connected to the situation. At this point it’s Jay’s (Penske) problem I guess.”
HOW HAVE YOU ADAPTED TO THE NEW CAR?
“Being able to of had three races from last year it helps. It gives a little bit of a jump start. Of course being in only three races it’s always a problem because you want more, you want more track time, you get very little track time everywhere that I went. I think that is something that is going to be interesting this year. I will be able to already prepare myself have the whole information not only part-time information from the teams. It should be very interesting to see where we go from here. I think we have done very good in the preseason, but there are so many test objects that we want to get through in very little time. It is going to be tough, but together with Sebastien (Bourdais) it’s a great way to divide the work load and see where it goes.”
IF YOU LOOK BACK AT THE END OF THIS YEAR WHAT’S IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO FEEL LIKE YOU HAD A GOOD SEASON?
“I think putting everything that has happened over the past three seasons I’ve been like part-time and getting all the positive and putting it all into play that is for sure the most important thing here. Getting to have Sebastien (Bourdais) to work and push each other is going to be also key. He is obviously a bit ahead at this point. For me I have the motivation to beat him and of course he has the motivation not to be beaten by me. I think that is going to be key. I think having in the back of my head a little bit of tranquility of knowing that I have a full season that is also a key. IN the past only having one or two races it was a bit nerve racking not to make mistakes, it was a lot of pressure. Right now I have a lot of different kind of pressure. Pressure of a season, pressure of a championship and that is where I’m going to.”
HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW?
“I’m 22.”
THAT SEASON TWO YEARS AGO YOU KNEW ALL SEASON THAT IT MIGHT NOT BE A FULL SEASON I THINK YOU DID ALL BUT TWO RACES…
“Three.”
THREE SO YOU KNEW THAT IF YOU HAD A COUPLE OF BAD CRASHES YOU WOULD BE DONE SO YOU HAD TO PROBABLY BE A LITTLE BIT MORE CONSERVATION THAT YEAR?
“Exactly it was a very tough situation very tight budget. It was one of those situations that we were looking for the budget throughout the season. That budget was also into the crash damage and also into results. It was a different world and I’m very thankful to Conquest Racing for the giving me the opportunity of course, but it was not the opportunity that a driver wants if he wants to give his full potential. That is what I see here in Dragon Racing. I can give my full potential just not thinking of anything negative, just giving my 100 percent.”
WHEN YOU SAID YOU AND SEBASTIEN (BOURDAIS) CLICKED JUST DRIVING STYLE IS THAT WORKING WHEN YOU ARE COMPARING DATA?
“We are in a way. Sebastien (Bourdais) has always said that he cannot drive a loose car period. That is one of his things. I heard that from Formula 1 when I was back in Europe. But, when you get to work with him you realize what kind
of a car he likes. Of course he having more experience he tends to learn from his driving style and try to marriage in some way. If it works for him he wants it also to work for you. That is something that we have been seeing in the last testing that he can drive a loose car. It’s his way of thinking what a loose car is or not. I will say that is a clicking.”
DO YOU LIKE A LOOSE CAR?
“I like a loose car more than anything on ovals for some reason. I think that is also a thing that we want to do each other maybe me pushing Sebastien (Bourdais) on the ovals and he pushing me on street courses. I think it’s a great combination and we have been starting to build so far. In the street courses I think there are a lot of things that we can combine. His braking is unbelievable. His braking consistency is something that I want to learn a lot from. Things like that you want to learn from somebody like him.
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 26 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Media Day and discussed what he did in the off season to improve his skills on the street courses, testing and other topics. Full Transcript:
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING TO GET OUT OF THIS TEST COMING UP THIS WEEK AND HOW YOU ARE PREPARING FOR THE SEASON COMING UP:
“I guess this test is primarily geared just toward obviously all the road courses. Sometimes when you find something good here you can take it to like a Sonoma or Mid-Ohio sometimes not it’s a finicky place as well. Obviously we race here so it would be good to come up with some kind of a good package for here. (James) Hinch (Hinchcliffe) ran good here last year in qualifying so we have a good starting point anyway just try to build on that.”
HOW ABOUT KNOCKING THE RUST OFF? LONG OFF SEASON CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT AND WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING TO TRY SHARP AND GOOD?
“There are so many miles you can run on a treadmill it gets boring. The off season is too long for me. Is there rust? There is no rust. I would say I’m the kind of person you could just wake me up out of my sleep and I will go drive. Obviously, take it will take a couple of laps.”
THAT FIRST RACE HERE IN 2010 DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT WAS ONE THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE WON HERE? DO YOU THINK THIS TRACK OWES YOU ONE?
“I don’t know. If this track owes me one there is a bunch that owes me one. You can’t look at it like that. I think we were in a really good spot contending with Helio (Castroneves). It’s a track position place and we were up front the majority of the time. We kind of ran out of strategy at the end. Our pace was there which I was pleased with that. You’ve got to qualify up front here. Although, I think Firestone has done a great job here in particular at separating the alternates from the primary and I think that actually creates passing around a place that you might not get any passing without that.”
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO RUN SINCE FONTANA?
“I just had a one day Sebring and I attempted another day and we had to stop for an engine thing. So, a day and a half at Sebring.”
I READ IN SOME OF YOUR QUOTES YOU ARE REVISITING THE STREET COURSE STYLE AND THE WAY YOU ATTACK?
“There is no question that I need to up my game on the streets. I think I always knew I was over driving the car and this tire, but I didn’t know how. I was really diagnosing it in the off season. I did all kinds of stuff. I went overseas with a driver coach and everything. You can never be too proud. You can always learn something. Basically, I’m just asking too much of the front tire in the middle of the corner. So, the way I attack the corner I’m over the edge of the tire so I’m creating problems for myself is what he said. Rather than getting the time from the tire it’s actually like almost in a downward spiral because I’m just over the edge of the tire. There is some similar stuff that helped me going up against Ryan (Hunter-Reay) and stuff like that, but we have to just put it to work and see if what I learned is going to work. I’m pretty confident.”
WHO DID YOU WORK WITH? WHO WAS YOUR COACH?
“I’m not supposed to say.”
DID YOU DO MAINLY SIMULATOR OR ON TRACKS MORE WHILE YOU WERE OVER THERE?
“We did some stuff in London and I did the Dallara simulator. That is pretty fun. The first 10 minutes I was a little woozy and then you have to get used to it then everything kind of calms down. You have to get used to that lack of feeling so to speak under your butt you know what I mean. There is that feeling when you are driving the race car that tells you ‘okay there is the back end now you can go to power’ where it is more, it’s still a little ‘video gamey’, but I was very impressed.”
WAS WHAT YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE TIRES WAS ALL SIMULATOR BASED OR WAS THERE SOMETHING ON TRACK?
“Actually, it was road car stuff in the wet. It was like really just driving the finesse and stuff like that. It was interesting because he was supposed to go set a time and I was supposed to beat him. He said ‘just do what you would normally do’ then I beat him. Then it was tough for him to really teach me what I need. I actually picked up a couple of tenths just from the finesse part of it. Something where finesse is not a part of Marco Andretti my first seven years of my career I can tell you that. That has been really working against me.”
DID YOU SPEND TIME LOOKING AT RYAN’S (HUNTER-REAY) INFORMATION?
“I would be foolish not to look at Ryan’s stuff.”
IN THE WINTER TIME DO YOU JUST SIT WITH YOUR LAPTOP AND LOOK THROUGH THAT INFORMATION?
“Yeah, my biggest thing is I brake like Dario (Franchitti) and not huge. I don’t have a lot of pitch. I brake late, but I’m not blaming the tire, but for me what hurt me was carrying the brake too far into the corner. It sounds obvious, but if you are on the brake with a little bit of steering it will put you right over the edge of the tire. For me you have to get the braking done harder and earlier and get off the brake before you turn so I think that will help me on the streets instead of just braking really late and over loading the front of the car. Then you are going to snap if you come off with under steer it just creates a lot of problems.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON HAVING A FOURTH TEAMMATE?
“We will see. We all have a lot experience together yet. We were both kind of had our own little mechanicals going at the day we had at Sebring. I’m sure it will be fun.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 PANTHER DREYER AND REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed starting the season with Chevrolet, working with JR Hildebrand and other topics. Full transcript:
ON STARTING THE SEASON KNOWING THE POWER IN YOUR CAR: “It really is the biggest difference for us. The way we approached last year, we had a new car like everybody else, but we had really no testing to learn the car. We thrown into the lions a little bit without really knowing the weapons we had and it showed. It was a really, really tough start to the season and it was only when we got Chevy for the first time in Indy that we obviously had a great race. We actually had two or three good races then. We had probably the worst qualifying record I ever had in my career and in defense of the team and myself, we were just learning every weekend a little bit about the car. We didn’t have testing like I said. The weight distribution is quite different and was quite different between the two engines.&nbs
p; The power delivery as you can imagine was very different. Even the little we had learned in the Lotus didn’t really translate much. It was tough. We’re super excited because we’re continuing together and that is the first time that has happened to me since 1999 to be two years in a row with the same team so that’s huge. Also because we feel last year we just did what we could, adapting quickly, but we didn’t have a proper pre-season like we had this year. I think we are a lot better prepared plus when we got the Chevy we also started to work together with Panther, but because it started in the middle of the season it was never really totally fluid like it should have. Now that we have half of last season together, the whole off-season we are finally working like a two-car team. Honestly, I couldn’t be more excited to start a season.”
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS SEASON? OBVIOUSLY TO QUALIFY BETTER?: “Yeah, exactly. First we were very proud saying, ‘We’re passing more cars on track than anybody.’ Until it got to the point where it started that we got the record in the series, but it also shows how bad we were starting. We are starting to be a bit more quiet about that. I myself have very high expectations just because as you guys know, I’ve been around the series for quite a while and I feel like I’m getting better. It’s just tough to put yourself in a good position where you are with a team that can give you the means that you need to go for the win every weekend. I think what these guys proved last year, obviously Andretti is a great team and a powerhouse also, but if you can beat Penske and Ganassi then you are doing an awesome job. I think that motivates teams like us that have been getting better, but we are not yet at the level of those two guys. If we focus on doing everything in our hands perfect then we don’t need anything else. We don’t need any tools we don’t have, we have everything we need we just really need to fine tune every weekend and work hard and it’s doable. I’m at a point in my career that I just really want to win races, I want to win the 500 — it’s a race that I’ve loved always like everybody, but I feel it fits me very well. The last two seasons I had great runs and started on the front row in 2011 and finishing sixth. Last year being almost a lap down until 20 laps to go because we had a flat tire and was finishing fourth. It’s just a race that I love and as I said it fits me. The team obviously being from there and having the past they had there, they are also very excited. We want to win races, but we are obviously focusing on the 500 as something for my mental health it would be awesome to win.”
ARE THERE SIMILAR DRIVING STYLES BETWEEN YOU AND JR HILDEBRAND AND DO YOU SWAP SETUP CHANGES?: “I think we are very similar. We give very similar feedback. The truth is that last year we were sharing all the information, but we were starting with complete different setups just because they had their learning, we had our learning and we got to get in the middle so we were sharing everything, but my engineers were working on the setup through the week and on Thursday they would send them our setup and they would do the same. It was complete transparency, but it’s not like we were working together like my team and his team and okay let’s see what we do. That really never happened. That’s a big difference this year, especially because Tino Belli (technical director) his position is on top of both, it’s more like working like a two-car team where we’re going to be starting much similar on setups and then we can really compare driving styles. I’d say that whenever we had a similar car we were within a tenth of each other and giving very, very similar feedback, which you need to be competitive. I keep saying the reason why (Will) Power is the fastest man in the world or the paddock really is because for the last two years had two guys that only beat him a couple times in qualifying, but I’m sure he was picking up a tenth from Helio (Castroneves) and a tenth from Ryan (Briscoe) in the different corners and that’s how a guy that is already fast becomes super fast. That’s where I think we can help each other with JR (Hildebrand) and help out our team.”
ARE BOTH CARS IN THE SAME RACE SHOP?: “Actually my car is in my shop and his car is in his shop and the engineers are actually spending time in both shops. But the actual car and mechanics are in my shop. Last year we had to do what we had to do, but it was a pity because I don’t know if you guys have come to the shop, I’ve been to many, many teams and for me it is the nicest IndyCar shop there is. I’m happy that my guys are able to work from there.”
IS THERE ANOTHER TRACK OTHER THAN INDY THAT YOU WANT TO WIN?: “You know, I’ve been doing this for so long that I love the Long Beach race and I always have and have had good results there. I’ve always liked it and I now live there also. The race track itself and I’ve always been open about it, I don’t think it’s anything special. It’s kind of like boring, but after you’ve done it so much and you really try to be good at it in every corner, it’s just what makes you addicted to it. Just turn nine, turn three — it’s just all the corners. It’s difficult in fighting it so much and you are getting better at it and you end up liking it. It’s like anything else. I don’t have any other favorites, I really enjoy all of them and at the same time I don’t have one that I hate. I used to love a race track that we don’t go to anymore, which is Elkhart Lake and Surfer’s Paradise. Hopefully, we will come back to both.”
HAVE YOU HEARD MUCH ABOUT POCONO?: “No, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ve only seen it, I’ve never driven around it, but I’ve seen a lot of NASCAR races there and it is one of my favorites to watch. I’m sure our cars are going to be very different than they are there, but I am looking forward to Pocono. I may be completely off, but it reminds me a little bit of the track in Germany, has a similar like three corners, fast, flat, three corners and I enjoy that a lot. I’m looking forward to our first test there.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S PREMIUM ULTRA VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed additions to his team, testing so far this season and other topics. Full transcript:
ANYTHING NEW FOR THIS YEAR?
“No, everything is pretty much the same. We added one new assistant engineer that we didn’t have last year but other than that, everything should go pretty much the same as last year. The car hasn’t changed; the people haven’t changed, so we are just trying to carry on from where we left off. It was nice to have a real offseason because last season we didn’t really get to do much preparation specifically for different races and we were just getting ready to go, so as a group, I think we feel much more prepared coming into this year. Hopefully we will be able to get up to speed a little quicker.”
SOME TEAMS ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE LACK OF TESTING BUT SOUNDS LIKE YOU GUYS ARE FEELING GOOD BECAUSE YOU ARE TESTING MORE THAN YOU DID LAST YEAR?
“Yes, I have been in the car twice since Fontana but as far as the other development that we have been able to do and that we did none of last year, I feel like I expect to see some gains everywhere we go.”
I THINK I READ THAT MATT BARNES IS YOUR ENGINEER AND HE TOOK OVER AROUND INDY OF LAST YEAR? OBVIOUSLY YOU GUYS STARTED TO JELL AT THE END OF LAST YEAR?
“Yes, he started out last year as my assis
tant and we started to make some moves for various reasons in May and we worked well together the whole time but it takes a little while to get the chemistry going and understand each other and know what the other is thinking so as the year went on, I felt like race-by-race we got better and better with one another. It’s nice to not have much change for this year.”
OBVIOUSLY YOUR OVAL PROGRAM IS RIGHT WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE WITH EVERYBODY ELSE. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE CREEPING UP ON IT ON THE ROAD AND STREET CIRCUITS?
“I felt good about where we were headed at the end of last year and we had a good test a couple weeks ago at Sonoma. But I hate to say we are putting more of a priority there because there is still a lot that we want to accomplish on the ovals and you don’t want to ignore your strength either because that is where our greatest opportunities are going to be anyway. But I do feel like we are going to keep closing the gap and I feel confident coming in and I feel excited for the test here and like I said, we had a good test at Sonoma so I am ready to keep making progress.”
AS A TEAM OWNER WHO HAS TO DECIDE WHERE TO SPEND YOUR RESOURCES, WHAT PERCENTAGE WOULD YOU SAY YOU SPEND ON OVALS VS. ROAD/STREET COURSES?
“Without doing track testing it’s easy to balance it off-track but we probably have weighted it a little more towards the oval side. Indianapolis is obviously the main goal for us and probably most every other team as well. It’s the most important race of the season and you want to make sure you are doing everything you can to be the most prepared for that race so I think for that reason alone we spend a little more energy there but at the same time, we haven’t ignored anything.”
DO YOU STILL HAVE A LONG TERM OBJECTIVE TO GO TO A TWO CAR TEAM?
“Yeah, the plan is always to grow, but that is easier said than done. If we could do it, we would have done it by now, but when the opportunity is there we will certainly take advantage of it. It’s going to have to be the right situation at the right time, just like it was when we started the team to begin with. Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.”
GROWING FAMILY, BUILDING A HOUSE, GROWING A RACE TEAM, HOW DO YOU BALANCE ALL THAT AS A DRIVER?
“Well, Heather (his wife) is phenomenal and really helps with everything away from it. And the time I spent in college managing a full time race schedule and a full load of classes helped me learn how to manage my time well. I don’t really think it’s that difficult but obviously a third child makes things hectic at home but it is what it is. As far as the race shop is concerned, Derrick (Walker) and Tim (Broyles) do a great job and I don’t feel the need to be there every minute of every day and I am not a micro-manager by nature so I just try to stay organized and prioritized. I got faster with the first two kids, and I feel like I keep getting better so if that trend continues who knows how many we will have.”
WHAT DO YOU FEEL A SUCCESSFUL 2013 IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE?
“Obviously we want to keep winning races but improvement and improvement all around. I feel like we left a lot on the table last year even with getting one race win. I feel like there were two more where not much would have had to been done different to have a couple more wins so like I said earlier, I expect that we are going to be better and faster just about everywhere we go. So hopefully more wins.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed being the defending Series champion, changes at Andretti Autosport, having four cars in 2013 and other topics. Full Transcript:
Q. How was Atlanta?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: It was interesting. It was usual Atlanta, unfortunately.
Q. Your thoughts on how you follow up a year like last year?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: How do you follow up a year like last year? I really don’t have the answer for that. We’re going to have to be better than last year, that’s for sure. I know that. That’s what we’re looking to do, is come back and improve in our weak areas.
We didn’t have too many weak spots last year, but if anything you can point out, the superspeedways, I think Texas, Fontana. We were running decent in Indy, but we had a mechanical failure there.
I guess the big tracks we need to step it up a little bit.
But I think across the board we’re just going to have to be better than last year. It’s going to be a really tough season. I think this is going to be the tightest competition we’ve seen in IndyCar in a very, very long time.
Q. Depth of competition, new car.
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, I mean, everything. The manufacturers are another year into it, Honda and Chevrolet, two of the best in the business, have another year under their belt. Then you have all these teams, Andretti, Ganassi, Penske, Schmidt, you can keep going, Rahal, KV, all these top teams have a lot more data on these cars. We’re not testing to the first race now, we know what we’re doing with them.
I think it’s going to make it that much tougher to get a win. It’s going to be tight. Qualifying is going to be at a premium. It’s going to be like that through the whole season, you know, just give-and-take a little bit.
But I think everybody’s expecting that and it won’t be a surprise when it comes.
Q. You mentioned the big tracks. I know it doesn’t affect your individual engineer. With McDonald leaving, one of his fortés was the big tracks. Does that make the challenge bigger?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Absolutely, it does. With him leaving as late as he did, that definitely wasn’t ideal. Everybody is dissatisfied with that, leaving that late in the off season because it put us in an awkward position and it helped Schmidt quite a bit.
But I think the additions we’ve had since then, with Craig coming on and working with James. Craig is a top-notch guy, top-notch engineer. He’s a real addition to our race team.
I think as James put it, where one door closes a window opens, I think he said. It’s an opportunity for us to take the next step forward, somebody with a different perspective, dealing with working with Newman/Haas for so many years. We’re looking forward to that information. We’re really looking forward to working with Craig.
We have Michael coming on with E.J.’s car. Ray, my engineer, is working as a de facto technical director in some ways. He’s kind of leading it, I guess. I’m really happy with our direction. And I think the atmosphere on the team is really positive, despite those late personnel changes, which you would think would really put the team down. The additions we had right after that really boosted the team. So it could be a win.
Q. Ray still on your car, overseeing the entire group?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Ray is on my car still. He’s overseeing the group. At the same time Craig, he’s fully capable of taking on his own program, whatever that may be. Let’s just give you an example, like aero. Then Ray would work on dampers. Kind of piecing it together.
Q. Is there any progress on the Fort Lauderdale race?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yes. The support continues to come. It’s a matter of getting the location we want to do it in. In order for one stretch of road to share two straightaways, the roads are going to have to be widened, and t
he sidewalk would have to be dealt with in a way where it’s removable almost. You wouldn’t know it if you saw it, but they do this at a few other racetracks.
They would be able to remove the sidewalk, and underneath would be pavement/racetrack. For the rest of the year they would put the sidewalk back.
The problem is all this is financially very (indiscernible). You have to take a big risk in order for it to pay off over five, six years for a race to work out.
There’s a lot of local support, a lot of local support, whether that be from car dealers, DHL is right there locally, as well. Just had very good feedback on it.
There’s just so much to it. It’s shocking how much there is to it. We’ll see. A lot of people want to make it happen, the right people want to make it happen.
Q. What was your off-season like?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Off-season was unreal. It started off pretty busy testing. We went into the tour right afterwards and then went and tested. I was tested in Road Atlanta, Race of Champions in Bangkok, then our son was born December 28th. So he got there just in time to make 2012, the year that could be pretty much unmatched. 2012, it was a year of firsts. Never be quite a year like it, even if we win a championship. Pretty unbelievable season, unbelievable year, outside of the car, as well, so…
But it’s been busy in the off-season just doing sponsor appearances, the usual stuff, and keeping up with mostly what’s going on at home, with the little guy. I’m still getting used to being woken up all hours of the night. Last night wasn’t exactly smooth sailing either.
You know, any parent knows it’s a lot of fun. We’re loving every bit of it. Doing the 12 hours of Sebring next weekend and then on to St. Pete. Daytona 24 Hours, too. Forgot that one. Finished second there. How close it was at the end was pretty amazing, but had a pretty good time with Wayne Taylor’s team there. Almost got a win for Chevy.
So, yeah, it was a very busy off-season. Missed the testing, though. Really missed the testing that we did last year. A number of drivers have mentioned that. Testing three days at Sebring and then basically going racing into the season is a bit of a bummer.
Q. You got three days at Sebring?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah.
Q. That’s actually a lot.
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I heard from a few guys that tested Barber, Sonoma, Sebring, Texas, Milwaukee. Not all one team, but been around quite a bit, so…
Q. What was it like doing the Race of Champions?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: The Race of Champions was a lot of fun, very unique. You get there, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to that track or not, if you know the cars and which one to get. These guys have it dialed in. The guys that have been there many times know.
I got off the plane, a few hours of sleep, I got there late, went straight to the track, put on a helmet, get in line, here comes a car, they don’t tell you anything about it, you get in it and you run two laps. You get out, the next car, you run two laps. The next car is there, you run two laps. Each car you run, different gears, different braking points, different handling, then the next night is the race. One warmup lap before the race.
You really have to work with your other drivers to get information out of them. Trust me, they don’t want to tell you a thing. These guys are there with a smile, but they don’t want to tell you anything.
I had a great time with them, a great time with the people that organized it. It was put on the right way. But I heard that Schumacher, they rent the cars a couple weeks earlier to get some times in them. The Team USA guys, hopefully we’ll be able to go back at some point. We’re definitely going to do some practice.
Q. (No microphone.)
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I was, yeah. Definitely by the time the races got going, I was kind of finding where it was at. It’s all 2/10ths, 3/10ths. It’s nothing big. I was just overdriving the car. Because how you drive IndyCars, everything I’m used to, pretty hard. There was no grip. I was sliding around, losing a lot of time. I learned a lot but had a good time.
Q. How advanced do you feel like your car is this year versus last year?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: It’s been fine, for sure. We’re dealing with the same animal. There’s no breakthroughs. You’re going to find some teams that find an advantage with dampers, find an advantage a little bit under the braking, stuff like that, power down. But there’s no major revelations happening. It’s small chunks here and there.
That’s why I really hope we get to develop some type of aero kit or something that really takes the next step of development next year, so we can really go back to the drawing board and work on things. I just really enjoyed what we dealt with last year, which was developing an engine in a very short period of time.
Right now we’re in that last percentile, where we’re tweaking things, getting it honed in. We have the standing starts and everything else that we can work on. That’s new. That will be fun, I think.
Q. You think they’re any different than the pit stops?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, it’s quite a bit different. A lot different actually. Leaving the pits, you’re on a pit lane limiter, helps you get out of the box. You’re not allowed to do that on standing starts. This is just basically taking off in a straight line as fast as you can go.
Yeah, it’s quite a bit different.
Q. Ryan, have you noticed much of a change from the engine to start this season versus last year’s Chevy?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, I really haven’t. Not much. I mean, you know, like I said, a little bit of refinements, like the shifts are a little crisper. Going down the straightaway, you’re almost like you’re waiting for, Is that different? I don’t know. It’s small, very small.
Q. Do you feel any pressure coming in as the defending champion or a relief that you have it out of the way?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: It’s both really. The best thing about winning a championship, this is what I’ve been working for my entire life, it’s a dream come true. Nobody can ever take that away from me now, from us, from our team. It’s something that we accomplished. We earned it, straight up earned it. Nobody can ever take that away. That’s a beautiful thing. We were IndyCar champions.
We’re starting new now. We’re the defending champions. And that does absolutely nothing for us when the green flag flies in St. Pete. We’re starting all over again. We have to go out there and live up to the No. 1 on the side of the car. That’s where the pressure comes from, is living up to that No. 1.
I know if we execute and put a decent car on the racetrack, we’ll be competitive, competing for race wins. Putting the package together is the tough part. That’s what we have to focus on.
We know how to do it from last year. We know where we need to be a lot better. Hopefully if we do that we improve in the areas we need to, then we can make a serious run for this championship.
I know one thing, it’s going to be interesting. I think the past three seasons now it’s come down
to the last race, and it certainly will this year, I guarantee it.
Q. Does that ever creep you out a little bit to see your face on these banners, ‘champion’ next to it?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, it’s definitely cool. I wouldn’t say ‘creep me out’ is the right word. For sure, it’s interesting to see.
Q. Does it seem real?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Not really. It’s all still a pretty new feeling, the champion side of it. There was so much pressure packed into the last bit of the season, I just kind of had the blinders on. The next thing I know we’ve emerged from the masses as champions of the IndyCar Series.
Q. When did it strike you that you were the champion?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: A few weeks after probably, yeah, is probably when it really settled in.
Q. What about having four cars, four drivers this year? They’ve done that before. Do you think that is going to make things easier or more complicated?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I don’t know. I really don’t know. We haven’t had time to work with it yet. We haven’t had an opportunity to work with the four cars. E.J. did one day at Sebring with us. Everything seemed great, fine. Like you said, this is what they’re accustomed to, what they’re used to working with, is four cars. Hopefully this will be beneficial for us.
We certainly had a great chemistry last year with the three of us. This is hopefully a good addition, so…
We’ll see. We’re certainly all going to continue to be open to learn. If a teammate goes quick, that makes us quicker, so we’ll all work together and push.
Thank you, guys.
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Media Day and discussed testing, standing starts, teammate Oriol Servia and other topics. Full Transcript:
HOW MUCH TESTING HAVE YOU HAD SO FAR?
“Very little we did a day at Sebring last year and did what turned out to be not much of a day unfortunately at Sonoma a couple of weeks ago. We have the great fortune of working much more closely with Dreyer Reinbold Racing this year and Oriol Servia so for the days that we have had go awry he has had some good days. Looking forward to getting here hopefully getting out on a dry track for a couple of days and more than anything really try to sort of solidify that relationship and transparency with Dreyer Reinbold Racing or Panther DRR as they are called now. Last year it was something that happened midseason that we sort of joined together and I think because of that it wasn’t as streamlined of an operation as we all really needed for it to be. I think there were a lot of times you could argue that it made things more complicated than really helped us figure anything out. Having the off season to kind of iron those wrinkles out and with Tino Belli coming from Andretti Autosport as technical director to kind of oversee that whole element of the operation I think will be a pretty big gain going into this year.”
WHAT WAS YOUR ISSUE IN SONOMA?
“We had an electrical problem in the morning that just took a long time to figure out what exactly it was. We thought it might be an engine issue, but it turned out not to be. We got the car running again in the afternoon, but we just didn’t end up really doing many laps. We did like 20 laps in the afternoon.”
DO YOU CONSIDER ORIOL SERVIA A BIG BROTHER OR MENTOR TYPE?
“I think more than that necessarily I think he has always been in the top two or three guys on my list of guys that I want to have as a teammate. Besides him actually being available as a guy that is kind of a teammate just because he always stands out as somebody that understands the value of working together with somebody. Anytime he has been in a good car he runs up front. I think the two of those things together just make him kind of an obvious guy to want as that sort of mentor or partner or whatever in racing. It was fun to work with him last year. I think we were both sort of frustrated by the whole thing not really being what we would have liked for it to be from a sort of engineering stand point. This year it will truly operate as a two car team. That is kind of an exciting thing for both of us.”
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR TEAM’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES GOING INTO THIS SEASON?
“I think our strengths obviously at Panther our strengths have always been showing up to places like Indy and being fast. I think that the confidence that we have going to places like that this year is only bolstered by the addition of another car and a new presence in the engineering department with Tino (Belli) coming from Andretti. Those guys were quite fast at Indy last year. That strength is something that is exciting for us. I think in general there has been no reason to beat around the bush that the street courses in particular have been somewhere that we have struggled the last couple of year. In our mind coming from Indy Lights those are the only races that I won were road/street courses. I think at Panther we are focusing pretty heavily this year on debunking that sort of outlook that we are much stronger on ovals than we are on road/street courses. That is certainly something that we are looking to change.”
HAVE YOU DRIVEN OTHER CARS THROUGHOUT THE WINTER?
“Yeah, I’ve actually driven a bunch of stuff that probably at the end of the day isn’t really that close to driving an indy car to be honest with you. This is not totally public information yet, but I’m going to be racing a drift car for a couple of events this year. So I’ve been doing a little bit of that with a couple of buddies of mine we are working with Chevrolet on an engine program for it. We have been trying to build that out over the off season. I drove one of the GRC (Global Rally Cross) cars that do the rally stuff. I have driven a bunch of vintage race cars. I drove some historic F1 cars and stuff like that. That really was just to sort of stay sharp. Those things are a hell of a lot bigger handful than driving an indy car is. Been keeping busy, but it’s tough. With last year we kind of got spoiled by having a lot of manufacturer test days available. This year that didn’t exist. I think that we certainly still feel like there is some work to be done before we show up at St. Pete next week and there will be some work to be done through the first part of the season.”
ORIOL (SERVIA) WAS SAYING THOSE GUYS ARE BACK IN THERE OWN BUILDING. DIDN’T THEY SHARE YOUR BUILDING LAST YEAR?
“The car is over there, but the engineering staff is all in the same building at Panther.”
AT TRACKS THIS YEAR YOU GUYS WILL STILL BE TRAILER TO TRAILER?
“Yes, so all the debriefs and all that stuff will be in the same place.”
ARE THERE ANY TRACK OR ANY RACES OTHER THAN INDY THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS YEAR?
“I am really looking forward to the first few races of the season to be honest with you. St. Pete was a race we ended up having a fuel pressure issue, but we were looking solid to finish fifth or sixth there last year. I think that is somewhere now with a little bit of a new outlook on the set-up of the race car I can really have a teammate situation. Those first few races going to St. Pete coming here (Barber) and going to Long Beach are places that we definitely look forward to. I would say another one that sticks out is Pocono. Just being a new track on the schedule I think that is going to be somewhere that I’m expecting that to be tougher depending
on what the downforce package is that we end up running there. But if it’s like a sort of Texas style downforce package that place is going to be pretty ballsy if you want to go fast. I’m all for having tracks that we are light on downforce and high on horsepower. We just have to get the high on horsepower part sorted out here.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON STANDING STARTS?
“I really like standing starts and I think it adds another piece to the puzzle that is in the driver’s hands, so I think that is another interesting element to it. That has little to nothing to do with your car set up and it’s just a lot about us because we won’t have any kind of real launch control or any of that. You know, I can see where the series is hesitant to implement it everywhere that we go, but I think that there are a lot of tracks that it will work well on that we go. It’s definitely an exciting way to get the race going because there is a certain kind of risk versus reward factor for getting it right versus screwing it up so I am looking forward to doing them wherever they start.”
SOMEONE MENTIONED EARLIER TODAY THAT YOU COULD STALL THE CAR DURING THE STANDING START
“Oh yeah, you definitely could. They have been working on the anti-stall for these things so that is something if they get that really working at a high level, then you probably won’t but yes, you can definitely stall the car for sure.”
I GUESS THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH THE CLUTCH, WITH A RIGHT CLUTCH AND A LEFT CLUTCH?
“Yeah, so the car always has a left and right clutch paddle and the reason that is, is typically there are pit boxes like on an oval where you are turning left into the pit box that you need to be able to clutch on the way in or….actually it’s turning out of the pit box. You need to be able to turn the wheel to the right and have the clutch engaged when the wheel is like this (gestures) and you wouldn’t be able to get to it when it’s on the other side. So it’s basically for having pit lanes in opposite directions. You need to have a clutch on both sides to be able to turn the wheel one way, and can’t grab it on the right side, and turning the other way you can’t grab it on the left side. But in Formula One it’s been tested with the Formula One car in 2009 and there are a lot of different things you can do because of the fact that you do have two clutches or clutch paddles that you can have one paddle like Dixon said at 30, 40, 20, 10, or 50 percent or whatever that is set at some piece of engagement. You can have the other one where the clutch is totally disengaged with the other clutch so that when the lights go out you can just dump the one clutch and not actually be fully engaging the clutch because you have got the other one somewhat part way. So those are things you can definitely dial in and the engine manufacturers who I think will be working with the drivers and the teams to figure out how all that is going to work. At the end of the day, every track is different, every grid position is going to be different and every track is going to be a little bit different so even if you can totally get it down to a science on pit lane, it’s going to be something totally different once you start the race.”
BUT YOU SEE THAT AS A POSITIVE?
“Yes for sure. And I think to your point really quickly about the stalling thing, the fact that the cars are turbo cars adds to the potential ability to end up stalling them. Because if you do end up kind of bogging down….once the RPM goes down you have no boost and that is where a car that has a lot more torque like the old Indy cars, we never had any issues getting out of the pit box with those and going forward. You just dump the clutch and go. Whereas this year, particularly that this year was a lot on the ovals, you had to feed it in a little bit because you couldn’t get the revs to come up quickly enough to get the boost spooled up enough to just floor and dump the clutch. You would just kind of stick right away and have the car (makes rev sound) kind of lurching out of the pit box so I think that is an added element that could become an issue.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber Motorsports Park and discussed working with Simona de Silvestro, expectations for the season and other topics. Full transcript:
ABOUT THE NEW SPONSOR THIS YEAR: “We haven’t announced it yet, but we’re going to have a few new sponsors I think. That’s what we need to do to survive.”
ARE YOU GETTING ALONG WITH SIMONA DE SILVESTRO?: “She’s awesome. I already had a female teammate before so I’m used to getting out of the truck when they need to get changed. It happened before. She’s awesome. It’s the best opportunity she had in IndyCar so far so looking forward to work with her and help her out whenever she needs. Not just Simona (de Silvestro) needs a good result, but the series as well having her and her personality coming out more often will help us out too.”
DO YOU THINK RUBENS BARRICHELLO WILL RETURN TO INDYCAR?: “I was with him this weekend and he was trying to race in St. Pete, but he has a lot of commitments right now back home with the stock car racing and he’s going to do some Formula 1, he is going to commentate some Formula 1 races and I think that the TV broadcast won’t let him do the IndyCar race in Brazil because it’s a conflict between the two TVs. I would say if you ask Rubens (Barrichello), he would do it in a heartbeat. We’ll see, if he has the opportunity I think he would go back and fight with the TV people to let him do it. It would be lovely to see him back. I will miss him. I was a little bit responsible for his coming to IndyCar so I would say I will miss him for sure.”
DO YOU THINK RUBENS (BARRICHELLO) WOULD DRIVE IN THE INDY 500?: “Depends. Depends where and with who and he would consider for sure. If he believes he is going to have a competitive car, yes. If you’re going to call him just to make the field, he won’t even pick up the phone I think. If it’s this team I think he would do it because of me and the team and being here before. It’s tough. He was a little bit bitter when he couldn’t get a job or he couldn’t find a team for this year. That’s a guy that didn’t have to do this at all last year. He did it and I think we didn’t take the right opportunity to give him. That’s the financial situation that everybody faces. It was easier for him to decide to go do something else because he doesn’t need the job pretty much. It’s the reality, he was doing it because of the love of the sport, the pleasure to drive with me. I would say if somebody puts a call to him, he’s going to call me and ask for sure what is my opinion. I will try to tell him not to come so it’s one less guy that I have to fight.”
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE FOR THIS SEASON?: “We regrouped. I think last year what happened was Rubens (Barrichello) came into the deal extremely late. It was February and we were planning to run two cars and we ran three. What people didn’t realize, I don’t think we had the structure like those big teams do to run three cars. We still did it, it’s not about just the money or anything like that, it takes awhile to get a three-car team going. We have plenty of examples. Then because of his name and my name, it added a lot of pressure and a lot of hope to everybody. We didn’t do any worse than the year before, we had actually more podium finishes than the year before and my first year with KV. The team didn’t succeed the way everybody expected. W
hat we did was just regrouped, downsized big time and still, I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘we’re going to give the Penske boys and Andretti boys and the Ganassi boys a run every race.’ We’re not up there yet. We’re still building. There’s a lot of things that need to happen for us to be up there. I can tell you this, one of the biggest races that matter the most to me, I think we can win that one. With this team, I finished fourth and third. That’s what we are focused on right now and trying to be competitive and win more races through the year. I think until we find the stability with the sponsorship and the people in the team, we won’t be able to beat those guys because that’s what they’ve got. We have the same equipment and we have very good people. My engineer, the guy has been with me forever and the quality is there, everything is there, but consistency and stability, it means a lot to a race team and we don’t have that yet.”
DID YOU SPEND ANY TIME IN THE WIND TUNNEL THIS YEAR?: “We did plenty. The program is full on and then again, it’s not about the quantity of days that we did. It’s about the quality of work that we can do. We’ve done everything we could yes, could we have more? Always. I’m extremely confident that we’re better off this year than we’ve ever been since I joined this team.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR DRIVING STYLE AND SIMONA’S DRIVING STYLES ARE GETTING CLOSER?: “It will get better I think. One thing that I’ve learned all these years, it was not about trying to adapt to each other’s driving styles. At Andretti we never, you will find somebody that will drive closer to you, but it’s about understanding what we both need to make the cars go faster. That’s what I’m working with her. It’s funny because like you said, she’s not used to having a teammate so the first time you approach her to tell her things she’s looking at you like, really? Like she never asks a question because she’s not used to it. We’re developing that relationship right now and yes, she has a very different way of driving, which I would relate. I remember back in the days when I was (Alex) Zanardi’s teammate when he came back. We had completely different driving styles. Zanardi once told me that this is because you are the new generation and I’m the old generation. I think I’ve got to that point now and it’s the other way around. Tires have changed over the years and you drove before and you know exactly what I’m talking about. She just has a different way of driving because she’s in a different generation than me. Maybe I will be able to do things that she does, but I don’t think she’ll be able to do things that I do because it’s just the way it is.”
OTHER THAN INDY, WHAT OTHER RACE OR SECTION OF THE SCHEDULE DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO?: “To be honest, I like the calendar a lot. I always wanted to go to Pocono. We’re going to Brazil, which I don’t have to speak about. Long Beach, Detroit and other places where we have been extremely successful and Texas. The mile ovals that I know my strengths. There is not a place that I would say right now — Houston, I haven’t seen it, but I remember in my rookie year that was my second full year of my career in IndyCar back in the Champ Car days. I would say that I am looking forward to the season. There is not a place, obviously I would pick a place to win — if you give me two places to win then probably I would pick Brazil and Indy.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Barber media day and discussed the off season, his thoughts on standing starts and other topics. Full Transcript:
HOW WAS YOUR OFF SEASON? WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE OFF SEASON?
“Long, very long, way too long. Pretty much V8 and Daytona (Rolex 24 Hour) that is it.”
IS IT HARD TO GET BACK INTO THAT RACING FORM?
“Yeah, it has been a long off season and obviously just trying to get back in the groove so Daytona was good. Straight away a double stint it was like ‘okay wake up’ (laughs). So, yeah pretty sore after that actually. I was starting to get a little worried about the rest of the race, but it’s funny how the body kind of gets back into it. Like the first double stint was really bad then I got out of the car was broken pieces and so was the same thing. You do an endurance race and you don’t have your own seat and then you try and ‘I’ll be alright I don’t need an insert or anything.’ Then you come out of the car you are in pieces so it’s another 20 hours to go so you are like ‘whoa that is going to be a long one.’ Then the body adjusts and you get back in the groove and the next ones go smooth and you can even do a triple stint no problem. It was kind of good to do that. For sure it has been a long off season just glad we did a little bit more testing last year at that point. We did half a day in Sebring and a full day in Sonoma. Then here obviously the two days will be very welcome. We will see how it goes.”
HOW’S YOUR SHOULDER?
“The shoulder has never really been an issue it’s always been kind of the back, the ribs that got into the vertebrae that has been the problem. It is still kind of soft and I can’t do any weights, but I will be alright.”
YOU GOT A SLOW START LAST YEAR, BUT THE ENGINE IS THAT AN ISSUE THIS YEAR?
“We have a very good package. Very happy and pumped up about the season we know there is potential. We have showed that last year. We just need to put it together and score. Hopefully, we have a chance to do that and have some fun.”
YOU ACTUALLY HAD A VERY GOOD RACE LAST YEAR HERE ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. WOULD YOU PUT THIS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST OF PLACES YOU THINK YOU COULD DO WELL AT?
“No, I don’t know. Obviously, last year we didn’t have the package that we are going to run this year. It’s a stronger package obviously, but we will see. I think we have been pretty fortunate that we could find a set up that was fairly strong for the road courses and a different set up obviously for the street courses. We haven’t really changed from that very much because the car has been pretty good. We have just made little progress on things on dampers and stuff. We will just run through the list of things that we want to try and explore a couple of things and hopefully we can get a little better. I think last year we had a really good race because mostly the degradation was nowhere near as bad as the others. We will obviously keep a close eye on that.
“It’s one thing to be very fast on one lap in this place, but you can hurt your tires really bad. There is a lot to be said about nursing the thing and being smart. You can’t just; especially when you run the pack with the dirty air you can hurt yourself pretty good in a hurry. I remember last year just being the last corner just being able to pretty much go around the outside of Marco (Andretti). I remember him passing me like a rocket ship when he was on fresh tires then dropping like five seconds during the stint. It’s a strange place when it gets warm and everything you have to think a little bit what is going on and how much you are actually asking the whole package. It’s always an interesting race and I guess it’s only under the circumstances that we could shine last year at that stage with the other engine. Just very happy that we have a baseline, we are pretty happy with what we’ve got right now with Chevrolet and we know we can be very fast. Now it is going to be about putting it together and having good day
s.”
HAVE YOU DONE MUCH RIG TESTING?
“Yeah, we went rig testing so that’s a big plus. We confirmed a few things and gathered some ideas on others. I think obviously the biggest thing is to start with a known base and not just flip a coin and just go okay, what’s going to happen this weekend. That’s big. We’ve really been fortunate that we have been able to keep most of the people as well. That’s crucial. If you want to keep the chemistry and build on something, you need to keep the foundation and the foundation of the team has stayed together over the winter. It wasn’t easy obviously, there was a lot of financial stress on the team after everything that happened last year and that kind of carried through the winter. You still have to pay the bills and everything. Just glad that we could do that. Although we wish that we could always do more, we’ve been able to keep the main things together and start working as early as January and build on that. It’s been pretty good. It’s definitely the one season in IndyCar that I feel the most prepared for. When I came back in 2011, I had no idea what was laying in front of me and last year not knowing anything about the package and not being able to test and putting a new team together and all that was quite a trip. To be in a very different position now and feeling a little more under control gives us a lot of reassurance.”
WILL HAVING A TEAMMATE HELP?
“I’ve never really been hoping to get stuff from my teammate, but obviously from time to time it’s always welcome to be able to get double reads on stuff and I think he is going to be pretty fast. There are going to be corners where he’s going to be a little faster here and there and you can always learn from that and get better. It’s a good thing for the team to be a strong two-car team and a good organization and look sharp on everything. We’re building up. We’re going to have PR now. It’s all coming together. It’s taking time; you don’t build a team from scratch in a day, particularly with everything we’ve had to go through over last year. We feel that with Chevy we have the right partner. We have good sponsors with McAfee and the team is kind of gelling together. Pretty excited about the season.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT STANDING STARTS?
“I feel we’ll all be starting from speed zero. We’ll see how that goes. The cars are not as hard as I thought they’d be to get out of line, but it’s not an easy thing. It can always go wrong, you can always stall, you can always screw it up. At the end of the day, it’s another exciting thing for the fans. It’s another thing to try to get on top of and it will be interesting. It’s going to be very much dependent on the track, obviously there are some tracks that are just not adequate for that and I’m sure the series will look at that very closely and when it’s just not appropriate then we’ll just keep the rolling starts and when we can we’ll add the excitement of standing starts with the engines revving up on the grid and roaring before the green flag.”
DID IT BOTHER YOU HOW IT PLAYED OUT WITH KATHERINE (LEGGE) AND HOW THAT BLEW UP?
“If you are referencing that interview, yes. It was a 20 minute interview, with one question in there and to make that big of a mess out of it, obviously, not even…just being inaccurate is what happened. But, it is always going to be like that. You are always going to be asked the question you probably just should not answer. I guess I’m sometimes a little too easy on the speech side of things. It’s the way it is. I’m glad that the team’s in good shape, and we have two cars that should be running the right way with two good drivers. It is sad for Katherine. But the team made the decision and I’m moving forward now.”
HAVE YOU SPOKEN TO HER, OR IS THERE NO NEED TO?
“I sent her an email to say ‘This is what I said or meant’. I didn’t get an answer. I am perfectly fine with what I meant. There was no offense. She is a good driver. She can do good things. Again, it was just not my decision.”
DO YOU ENJOY CAMARADERIE WITH THE OTHER FRENCHMAN IN THE SERIES?
“Well yes, it’s the French Connection out there. (LAUGHS) It’s kind of funny that you have to go to the U.S. to be acknowledged and given a chance. There are worse places to go, it’s good. I think Tristan (Vautier) has obviously shown great speed in testing. Simon (Pagenaud) is right on. They are both with a good team. Hopefully we can mix it up, and just show that the French drivers don’t have anything the envy to the others.”
DO YOU HAVE THE SAME ENGINEER?
“Yes. Neil (Fife) is back with me. That is really why I am really happy with what we’ve starting to try and build. We have same assistant engineer, the same engineer, the same chief mechanic, the same mechanics for the most part. So it’s really the foundation of our team LA base has stayed the same. It’s been a little frustrating for them over the winter not be able to do everything they wanted because there were some restrictions to everything we could do in the winter. But, still we kept everyone together and we are going full-steam ahead. We know what we had last year and to build on that is key. Really I can’t put enough emphasis on this. If you want to build on something, you’ve got to keep whatever is under you. Otherwise you can’t…very unstable. I’m really glad we could do that.”
John Force Racing–Looking Toward Gainesville
COURTNEY FORCE OFF TO FAST START WITH HOPE OF GATORS WIN
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 5, 2013) – This time last year, Courtney Force was preparing for her third professional start in the Funny Car category. Today, Force is sitting No. 2 in the point standings, having qualified No. 1 and collected a win at the season-opening Winternationals at her home track, and is ready to take on Gainesville Raceway for the 44th annual Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals.
At the last NHRA event in Phoenix at Firebird Raceway, Force qualified in the No. 2 spot, picking up bonus points along the way. Now, Force sits just 45 points behind Ron Capps in the NHRA point standings.
“I’m excited going into the Gainesville race, especially coming off of a win in the opening race in Pomona. I’ve got a great team behind me and look forward to coming to this track, and taking what I learned from here last year and improving on it,” said Force
Last year at this same event, Force qualified in the No. 11 spot and lost to Ron Capps in the first round of eliminations.
“I feel that our Traxxas Ford Mustang team has come a long way from when we were racing in Gainesville just a year ago. When I was competing at the race track last year, it had only been my third race as a rookie driver. This track was new and unfamiliar to me, and I struggled. I hope that I can take everything I learned from throughout last season and really improve with my performance going into Gainesville. I’ve got a great crew chief, Ron Douglas and Dan Hood, tuning my race car and a strong, motivated, group of guys on my team which gives me that extra push of confidence,” said Force.
During the first qualifying pass on Saturday, Force drifted right and smacked the wall hard enough to cause severe body damage, bend the right side header to the ground and leave it scraping the track surface. She quickly exited the car and made a point to let everyone know she was unharmed and ready for the last qualifying pass of the weekend.
“After brushing up against the wall last year, it definitely showed me that things happen in these cars when you least expect it. As a driver, I think I’ve learned a lot from having an entire season under my belt and I really want to take everything I have learned and use it to my advantage in Gainesville. Although I struggled here last year, and I’m still a new driver and have a lot to learn, I can’t wait to get back on this race track because I am very eager, and I’m confident in myself that I can perform better. It was a tricky track for me last year, and I really hope that I can learn from it and overcome it to do better my second time around,” said Force.
The NHRA drivers and teams have had a few weekends off since last competing in Phoenix for the second event of the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series season. Force took advantage of the downtime and accepted an invitation to fly with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, an honor teammate and brother-in-law Robert Hight had the pleasure of doing in 2007.
“I had an incredible time. We hit 7.3 Gs and went over 700 mph and when we hit Mach 1 and broke the sound barrier I was amazed at the feeling. This day wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Auto Club of Southern California and I know I will never forget this experience,” said Force.
The recently-named 2012 Rookie of the Year by RACER Magazine will have an even busier week before Gainesville. Force is set to participate in an NHRA media tour in the Orlando area before competing at Auto-Plus Raceway for the 2013 fan-favorite Gatornationals.
FORCE LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
15-Time Champion Returns to Gainesville Track He Once Dominated
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With long-time crew chief Bernie Fedderly’s Thursday induction into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame serving as a backdrop, John Force tries to recapture the form that once made him unbeatable in the NHRA Amalie Gatornationals contested this week for the 44th time.
In the early 1990s (1992-96), Force won five straight times at the track now known as Auto-Plus Raceway at Gainesville. Not only did he win, he dominated. He won from the No. 1 qualifying position in 1992 and 1995 and posted the quickest time during eliminations in 1993, 1994 and 1996.
The fifth of those wins, secured with a final round victory over Chuck Etchells, was the 50th of his career, a milestone eclipsed many times over on the way to his current total of 134. He remains the only pro driver in the NHRA’s Mello Yello Series to have won as many as 100 races.
However, in a “what have you done for me lately” sport, Force is trying to put a pair of ninth place, one-win seasons behind him and return to championship viability with a Castrol GTX Ford Mustang that showed some real potential three weeks ago when it raced through the 1,000 foot course at Phoenix in 4.047 seconds at a track record 316.82 miles per hour.
The rub is that despite the performance numbers, he wasn’t able to get his Castrol Ford to the final round.
The reality is that the 63-year-old icon has appeared in just three finals in the last 47 tour events. Now, that may be okay for some, but not for a 15-time series champion who, on the average, has been in every third final round 36 seasons (216 times in 613 events).
To address the issue, the former big rig truck driver has re-united with Mike Neff and the crew with which he won six races and the championship just three years ago.
He also has a new chassis beneath him to which Neff still is making adjustments.
“I’m excited to be back racing with Mike Neff instead of racing against him,” Force said. “He did a great job for Castrol, Ford and JFR as a driver, but he came to me at the end of last season and told me that doing both jobs – driving and tuning – was becoming too much. He said he never had any time to just think about the set up and the tune-up.”
Neff’s return exclusively to the mechanical side, from which he has won a pair of championships (one with Force in 2010 and the other with Gary Scelzi in 2005) significantly raised the level of expectation for Force. Now all he has to do is deliver.
“Nobody wants to hear about past championships and race wins,” said the man who last year was a first ballot inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala. “And that’s how it should be.
“That’s what keeps me motivated,” he said. “I want to show Robert (Hight) and my girls (Courtney, who won the season-opening Winternationals in the Traxxas Ford, and Brittany, who drives the Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster) that I can still compete for a championship. I’m excited.”
DEFENDING CHAMP HIGHT READY TO GET BACK TO GATORS
YORBA LINDA, CA (March 11, 2013) — Two weeks off between races gave Robert Hight and the Auto Club team some time to regroup after a sluggish start to the 2013 Mello Yello Drag Racing season and to focus on the upcoming Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals, March 14-17, 2013.
In the first two races Hight has battled tough qualifying efforts and qualified for both events. They picked up a dramatic first round win in Phoenix over Johnny Gray when Gray’s Pitch Energy Dodge brushed the wall advancing Hight to the second round. For a team of Hight’s caliber and with their own high expectations qualifying isn’t enough. They want to be one of the elite qualifiers and round winners. They currently sit in the 10th spot in the Mello Yello point standings with the goal to move up this weekend in Gainesville.
“We have not started out with the kind of success we were expecting after the off-season we put in. Jimmy Prock and my guys busted their butts all off-season and unfortunately we haven’t seen the results yet. It is only two races but we are not going to get dow
n. We are going to be ready for the Gatornationals,” said Hight.
“We won this race last year. We had some weather show up on Sunday so we had to win it on Monday. I would love to repeat and get the win on Sunday in front of one of those huge Gatornationals crowds.”
Last year rain rolled in after the second round forcing Hight to win two rounds on Sunday and two rounds on Monday. Hight defeated three DSR Funny Cars on his way to victory besting Ron Capps, Jack Beckman and Johnny Gray in the final.
Hight might not be off to the strong start he and crew chief Jimmy Prock had envisioned but this driving tuning combo will not be held back for long. They have won more races together over the past five seasons than any Funny Car tandem. Hight has won at least two Funny Car events every year of his career and last season Hight won four races in a row becoming just the fifth driver in NHRA history to put together such an impressive streak.
“I want to dominate a whole season. There are still twenty-two races left and the most important are the six that are in the Countdown. We moved up into the Top Ten last race but we want to be up in that number one spot. The Gatornationals is one of the races like Indy that you have to have on your resume as a former winner. I got my win last season and I would love to get another win in Gainesville this weekend,” added Hight.
On the off time between races Hight spent time at the famed March Meet at Auto Club Famoso Raceway and also attended the Mac Tools Tool Fair in Dallas.
“I went to Dallas for the Mac Tools Tool Fair and that event is really cool because you see all the new tools and tool boxes Mac Tools is rolling out. We also got to spend time with their distributors and their families. It was a fun time. When I went to the March Meet it was like going back in time. There was some rain but I loved seeing all the old school Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters,” said Hight.
ON-THE-JOB-TRAINING FOR TOP FUEL ROOKIE
Aspiring Teacher Brittany Force Gets 320 MPH Learning Experience
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – On-the-job-training takes on a whole new meaning when the job is trying to herd 10,000 straining horses into a straight line.
That’s the challenge confronting rookie Brittany Force this weekend when she sends one of the world’s most powerful race cars, a Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster powered by a supercharged Ford BOSS 500 engine, to the starting line for the 44th annual Amalie Gatornationals at Auto-Plus Raceway.
Although she tested in a Top Fuel dragster for an entire season under the tutelage of her father, 15-time NHRA Funny Car Champion John Force, the 26-year-old graduate of Cal State-Fullerton has acknowledged that some lessons can’t be learned in the classroom.
For instance, there’s the art of “backpedaling,” which essentially is feathering the throttle to regain traction if the rear tires unexpectedly begin to spin.
The schoolteacher-to-be got her first competitive opportunity to practice the technique three weeks ago at Phoenix, Ariz., and while she wasn’t able to rein in her 320 mile-an-hour hot rod in time to hold off veteran David Grubnic in the Arizona Nationals, it wasn’t a negative experience at all.
“That first round was the first time I stepped on (the throttle) and had to pedal it,” she said. “It was good experience for me since I had never done that before. That’s not something you can test. It just happens and you have to react.
“I stepped on the gas twice and it got a little close to the wall the second time, so I lifted (off the throttle).”
It wasn’t the first time Brittany had ever backpedaled, but it was the first time she had done so in one of the world’s fastest accelerating vehicles (zero-to-100 miles an hour in LESS than a second).
“It’s a lot more challenging to pedal than my A/Fuel dragster,” she said, referencing the car she drove for two years in the NHRA’s Top Alcohol Dragster class, one in which she twice started NHRA national events from the No. 1 qualifying position.
“It was easier to keep the A/Fuel car under control,” she admitted. “This one surprised me, but I was able to handle it. I just need a little more practice and I’ll be fine.”
She may get that practice this week when she again tries to become the first driver in 43 years to win a round in the NHRA series at the wheel of a Ford-powered Top Fuel dragster. The last driver to do so was the late “Sneaky Pete” Robinson when he beat Bob Murray in the second round of the 1970 U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind.
Despite a pair of first round losses to start her rookie campaign, Brittany and her crew chiefs, Dean “Guido” Antonelli and Eric Lane, nevertheless are encouraged by the fact that she was competitive.
Ousted by Brandon Bernstein in the season opener at Pomona, Calif., 3.785-to-3.822 seconds, she then lost a “pedalfest” to Grubnic, 5.580 to 5.851, after being ahead early-on.
Although she really doesn’t know what to expect at Gainesville, a track on which her only previous competitive experience came in the entry level Super Comp class, she is anxious to get back into the cockpit.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Brittany said. “We’ve had a little bit of time off but it’ll be nice to be back on the track.”
Chevy Racing–Las Vegas Motor Speedway Wrapup
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
KOBALT TOOLS 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE NOTES
MARCH 10, 2013
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND
TALK ABOUT THE BATTLE AT THE END OF THE RACE WITH MATT KENSETH:
“I had an unbelievable Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. Throughout the whole race the pit stops were great. We just came out sixth there which I think Matt (Kenseth) would have beat us out anyways because he didn’t take tires. Tough to say if we would have gotten by him, but I think just two cycles on left sides I wasn’t quite as good. I couldn’t turn down the track quite as well as I could the runs before. It just got greasy out there and that was it. He beat us, but I had a great day. I drove so hard every single lap today and I think that is just the new Gen-6 car and the Chevy SS. It was a lot of fun. I love it. I had the car to beat today, we lost, but it was still a great run for all of our guys.”
YOU LED THE MOST LAPS IT JUST SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE DOMINATING THE RACE, BUT AT THE END IT JUST DIDN’T SEEM LIKE YOU COULD CATCH MATT (KENSETH, RACE WINNER) WHAT WERE YOU FEELING?
“I caught him, I just couldn’t pass him. We definitely had the best car today our Farmers Insurance Chevrolet. Everybody did a perfect job, when I got to him at the end my tires got a little greasy. I think it was two runs on left-side tires made it a little more difficult to pass that final run there. Prior to that I could pull down and pass anyone on the track, including Matt (Kenseth) who was out there. Just that last run just wasn’t quite as good on two runs on left sides. We still had a great day. My engine ran unbelievable, the car was perfect and the guys did an awesome job. We just didn’t get the win.”
HOW GOOD DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL THAT THREE OF THE FOUR HENDRICK CARS WERE IN THE TOP-FIVE, TOP-10 ALL DAY?
“Well I could see them all day. I battled with Jimmie (Johnson) at one point. He was quick during the middle part of the race. Our testing went really well over the off-season with the Gen-6 car and I really felt confident coming into a 1.5-mile track that we would have a great shot and we did. Our cars were quick all day.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY ORANGE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SEVENTH
TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN TODAY NOT TOO BAD:
“We ran a little bit better than where we finished, but just needed a little track position at the end. Couldn’t really get going, just didn’t, I don’t know, the car was pretty good, not exceptional, but we got a pretty good little start to the season. We are working on it trying to improve and we are running up front. So, real happy with that, real happy with our performance.”
HOW SLICK WAS IT OUT THERE TODAY?
“I loved it. It was so much fun. We were moving all over the race track. Just aside from the bumps, I’m not a big fan of all them bumps down in turn one. The surface and race ability here is just what all tracks ought to strive for. There are a few just like it on the circuit like Atlanta, but all the tracks ought to shoot for something like this.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS –FINISHED 6th:
“It was a strong performance for the Kobalt Tools Chevrolet. I wish we could have been in Victory Lane with our sponsor as the race sponsor.”
ON BATTLING WITH TEAMMATE KASEY KAHNE
“We were racing really hard. It’s fun to race that fast. We were flying (laughs). But at the end, I just wish we had a little bit more to go up there and race with those guys. But it was a solid performance, all in all.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/SERTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 20TH
“We just never got up to speed,” said Busch. “The car was loose then it was snug and no matter what adjustments were made we never could find the right balance for this track. We needed one more caution at the end to get back on the lead lap, which would have given us a good opportunity to pick up additional positions. It wasn’t our day.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 QUICKEN LOANS CHEVROLET SS – SIDELINED WITH ENGINE PROBLEMS ON LAP 235
“I missed a shift. And I missed a shift because of the restart. But that’s my responsibility; not those guys in front of me. It was a disappointing day for the Quicken Loans Chevrolet team. It’s entirely on me. But yeah, the restart, if I wanted to point fingers it was the restart. But it was still my fault.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 RHEEM CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED NINTH
ON HIS RACE:
“The Rheem guys battled hard today, and we were able to pick up our first top-10 finish of the season. Our car was fast, but we had a few issues with the handling during the race. The No. 29 team kept at it all day making changes that allowed us to leave here (Las Vegas Motor Speedway) with a good finish.”
Team Chevy Drivers Take Five of the Top-Ten Spots at Las Vegas
Kasey Kahne Dominates Much of the Kobalt Tools 400 to Finish Second
LAS VEGAS – (March 10, 2013) – Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS, led 114 of the 267 laps that made up the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway today, but was not able to make it back to the point after restarting seventh on the final restart. Kahne came home second and posted his fifth top-ten finish in ten races at Las Vegas. It was his first top-ten finish of 2013 and he moved from 31st to 14th in the overall point standings.
Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet SS, had another solid performance as he came home sixth after running in the top-five for most of the day and leading 66 laps. Johnson has finished first, second and sixth to start the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and leads the point standings after three events so far this year.
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS, finished seventh in today’s event and sits third in the overall point standings.
Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet SS, started eighth and finished ninth while his Richard Childress Racing teammate Paul Menard scored his first top-ten finish of 2013 in the Menards/Schrock Chevrolet SS.
Finishing just outside the Top 10 were Tony Stewart, No. 14 MOBIL 1 Racing/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet SS in 11th and Jamie McMurray, No. 1 McDonalds Chevrolet SS was 13th.
Matt Kenseth (Toyota) was the race winner, Brad Keselowski (Ford) finished third, Kyle Busch (Toyota) was fourth, and Carl Edwards (Ford) was fifth, to round out the top five.
The series heads to Bristol Motor Speedway next week for the Food City 500 on Sunday, March 17th.
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2ND:
KERRY THARP: Joining us now also is our race runner‑up, and that’s Kasey Kahne. He drove the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Kasey, you certainly had a car that looked like could win the race, led a lot of laps, passed people, you were fast. Just talk about how things went out there today for you, and I know you’re trying to track down that 20 there the last few laps.
KASEY KAHNE: Yeah, started of the race pretty good, was a little bit too loose, and Kenny Francis and Keith (Rodden, engineer) , they made great calls to tighten the car up and get it driving perfect, and from there on it was about making the right pit calls and the pit stops were good. I just had an awesome car. It felt about perfect, I think, throughout three quarters of that race.
There at the end we had two cycles on left sides, and I just got kind of ‑‑ M
att did everything right. That’s when I caught him, I was like, man, this is not the guy you want to have to race with 10 to go because he’s going to do everything right. You’re going to have to figure out how to squeeze by him. And you know he had a fast car, too, so it was difficult. He did a perfect job and we came back second. But still a good run. I think we were seventh maybe after that one restart and fought back to second, so we had a great car, did everything right. We just didn’t quite get there.
Q. I don’t know if you saw Kyle take a line under the white line. Did you ever consider making that move to try to overtake Matt?
KASEY KAHNE: Yeah, I saw that, the problem was Matt was doing that. That’s what he was doing. So I could follow him and kind of stay in his draft a little bit and stick with him about the same amount, and when I didn’t do that, he would pull away. So it was definitely faster down there if you got a good run off turn four to do that down the front straightaway. So yeah, he did that so I would have had to go through the grass, and I didn’t want to do that.
Q. Kasey, Matt didn’t take any tires in the last pit stop, and he actually told his team with about 10 laps to go that he thought he’d blown the race. Did you think at some point you were going to overtake him because of that?
KASEY KAHNE: Yeah, I really thought I was, but I just felt like I could have got there, you know, the way the car handled throughout the race and how I could turn down in the center of the corner and carry a ton of speed doing it. I felt really confident, that when I got to him I’d be able to do that again like I had raced with Kyle (Busch) and Jimmie (Johnson) earlier in the race. And when I got to Matt I couldn’t do it, so I was trying to brake in and mess with anything that I could, lift early, lift late, try it all, and just couldn’t find a way past him.
So he just did a really good job of keeping his momentum up, keeping his speed. He was cutting across me off the corner. We were kind of tight, loose and he just put up a great battle and pulled it off on told tires, did a good job.
Q. Kasey, there was a lot of criticism coming into this week about the new car, seemed like they were pretty racy out there, a lot of guys moving up through the field. Could I get your impressions on the new car?
KASEY KAHNE: My car drove good. I felt like I could pass, I could race underneath the car, do things that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do in the past. First time on a mile and a half with this new Gen‑6 car, and I would say to have the same tires ‑‑ this is the same tire, also, which we didn’t have last week, which was a big part of the Phoenix deal.
I think the car itself today was ‑‑ I had a lot of fun driving it, and I thought it was a heck of a race. I got to race through cars, traffic and battle for the lead four, five, six times. I felt really confident with our Chevy SS.
Q. We had the restrictor plate at Daytona, we had the kind of unconventional layout at Phoenix. Some races just look visibly fast watching it. Today looked like a bunch of guys that had kind of been cut loose. Did it feel like that out there today because it just looked fast?
KASEY KAHNE: I wasn’t surprised by the pace because of the practice speeds, and the pace that we could run there for 10 or 15 laps, depending on how long we stayed out in practice. Today with it being hotter and a little bit slicker, like Brad said, I thought it was a lot of fun. I mean, you could get a little bit loose and not have to like call it quits and get on the brakes and onto the gas and all that, you could just kind of drive through it and ease back on the throttle. It was exciting. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed driving the car today and thought the pace was up. I’ve never had great cars here, I’ve had some pretty good ones, but today I’ve never driven that hard for 267 laps before, either.
Q. Kasey, oddly on the final laps you and Kenseth are chasing each other and you’ve got a deal with the lap traffic in front of you. Who’s got the spotter communication? Are you listening to it in the car and urging them? What’s going on with both parties in terms of the communication on that stretch run?
KASEY KAHNE: Yeah, I mean, for myself I’m just kind of paying attention to what’s Matt’s doing and what I need to do and where I need to place my car in order to try to get a run on him and at least get beside him and see what can happen from there. As far as the spotters, Matt’s spotter is probably trying to talk to a few of the guys that we were lapping saying, hey, give us some space, whatever. I was hoping maybe they’d run Matt’s line and he’d have to go to the bottom and I thought maybe I could get a run that way. I think we eased through six or seven lap cars there and most of them went to the bottom and you could pass them fairly easy. It wasn’t too bad. It didn’t slow Matt up at all, which I was hoping someone at some point would slow him up a touch, but it never happened.
Q. How important are the restarts at this point because the last two restarts looked very, very hairy, and to hear everybody say that they want to be in clean air, obviously there’s an advantage up there. Can we expect some of the best action now to be coming out of the restarts?
KASEY KAHNE: I felt like the ‑‑ I thought restarts last year meant a lot, and if you didn’t get a good restart you’d lose those spots and it would take 40 laps before you could get back by that guy. I thought similar today everybody was trying to push a little bit, slow up, get a bump on the straightaway. Matt about crashed doing that, he spun his tires or tried to wait for Carl a little bit. But he had him completely sideways and in front of us. I think it’s big, to try to get through (turns) one and two as quick as you can and get position on another car is key. If you can do that and get one or two spots, you’re making it a lot easier on yourself for the next 40, 50 laps of that race run.
Q. We’ve had three very different tracks so far. Next week we go to another one, Bristol. Have you guys had much practice on the half-mile and do you have a feel for how this car is going to race on a short track?
KASEY KAHNE: I haven’t.
WoO–Pittman Prevails at Wildcat Shootout Presented by NAPA Auto Parts
Pittman Prevails at Wildcat Shootout Presented by NAPA Auto Parts
He becomes the first repeat winner of the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series season
TUCSON, Ariz. – March 9, 2013 – You don’t need to be a teacher to give Daryn Pittman a grade at the head of the class.
Heck, he gives himself an A+ so far this season with the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series and rightfully so.
Pittman, who won the season opener after accepting an offer to drive for NASCAR star Kasey Kahne during the offseason, became the first repeat winner of the season on Saturday in front of a near capacity crowd at Tucson International Raceway during the Wildcat Shootout Presented by NAPA Auto Parts.
“It’s been an A+ for sure,” he said. “I think all of us are really disappointed in our first night at (Las) Vegas. That was our first humbling experience as a team, but nobody was down. We got messages all night from each other, just stay positive and come back the next day. And we rebounded with a solid night at Vegas the second night.
“This is a tough sport and a grueling year that we know can turn around in a hurry. So we’ve just got to stay focused, go into the next race and try to win.”
It was the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series first race at the 3/8-mile oval since 2007 and the first event in Arizona since 2009. Speaking of history, Pittman’s two wins this season are more than he recorded in the past four years combined. It also helped him to maintain the championship points lead, which he’s held since the season-opening victory.
“Points matter in October and November,” Pittman said. “Right now we’ve just got to win races and go after that, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
However, it could have easily been a sixth different feature winner in as many races this season. Polesitter Joey Saldana, who Pittman replaced at Kasey Kahne Racing, won his first dash of the season and led the first nine laps of the 30-lap feature before a lengthy red flag because Chad Kemenah flipped in turn three.
On the restart, World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series officials deemed that Saldana got on the gas too early and he was penalized one row. That moved Pittman to the lead, which he never relinquished.
“Outlaws races are very hard to win, so if you’re going to lose one you want to lose it racing,” Saldana said. “I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I’m the leader of the race. I don’t know what I did any different.”
Pittman powered to a sizeable advantage and by the time he entered traffic on Lap 18, he led by nearly a straightaway.
In thick traffic, Saldana passed Brian Brown for the runner-up position exiting turn four on lap 25. However, he was unable to make up any ground on Pittman, who empathized with Saldana’s situation.
“Obviously we were the beneficiary of that and it was great, but I would have been ticked if it was me to have the same penalty on us,” Pittman said. “Their job is to make the rules and enforce them. Ours is to push them as far to our advantage as we can to try to get an advantage. He got bit tonight. I’m sure he’s unhappy about it.
“At the end of the day I think we had a great race car. I think we had something for him no matter what. It would have been nice to race for it to see who would have came out on top, but our car was awfully good.”
Saldana’s second-place finish was his second straight podium. Brown picked up his first podium finish of the season in third.
“With the crowd being good enough, hopefully we’ll get to come back here soon,” he said. “The track was in great condition. (It was) probably a little bit too narrow. It made it tough to pass, but when you’re starting in the front you don’t mind that every once in a while.”
Paul McMahan, who established a new track record in qualifying, placed fourth and Tim Kaeding ended with his third consecutive top five.
Donny Schatz was sixth, Danny Lasoski seventh, 16th-starter David Gravel eighth, Kraig Kinser ninth and Cody Darrah rounded out the top 10.
Kerry Madsen rallied from 21st to 12th to earn the KSE Hard Charger Award for the third time in six races this season.
Chevy Racing–Las Vegas Motor Speedway– Dale Earnhardt Jr.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
KOBALT TOOLS 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 8, 2013
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY ORANGE CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and discussed racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, consistency in finishes and other topics. Full transcript:
TALK ABOUT THE PAINT SCHEME ON YOUR RACE CAR THIS WEEKEND AND HOW THE TEST WENT YESTERDAY AND YOU’RE OUTLOOK FOR THIS WEEKEND AT LAS VEGAS:
“The day went pretty good. We had pretty good speed right off the trailer and just worked with a lot of things. Everybody had a lot of time yesterday to really kind of get up to speed. By the end of the day, everybody was running about the same times. We had more than enough practice really this weekend so I’m not too worried about what we didn’t get to do today because yesterday was way more than we needed to be honest. Feeling good, just hope we get a little time just to make sure everything is working right and get a couple laps Saturday just to make sure everything is cool and we’ll be ready to go.”
CAN YOU CARRY OVER YOUR GOOD RUN FROM LAST YEAR TO THIS RACE WITH THE NEW CAR?
“The car is really the same chassis, it’s still got the splitter. It’s just a little different, the body is different and the spoiler’s different, the aero is way different. It didn’t make a lot of rule changes to the back of the car, the way we were using the rear-end housing and stuff. We were ready to race in two hours of yesterday. Everybody knows what they’re doing and the cars aren’t really a mystery so just getting out on the track and making sure it don’t hit the ground and get the balance where you want and you’re ready to go.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN GAMBLE FOR THE WIN NOW THAT YOU ARE CONSISTENTLY IN THE TOP-10?
“I don’t know what we could have done to really gamble to win any differently. I mean it’s not like there is some window of opportunity in every race where everybody could just take a wild gamble. We’re running as hard as we can run every lap and that’s all you can do.”
WILL YOU CURTAIL YOUR COMMENTS AFTER DENNY HAMLIN’S FINE OR WILL YOU JUST BE YOURSELF?
“I think we were told a couple years ago to just sort of watch all the negative comments and tones when we were — I think after Talladega was a good example several years ago, but I don’t recall which year it was. I thought it was clear to all of us to be careful how we said what was on our mind. I don’t think they mind you coming up in the hauler and talking about what you think about the racing and how you think things could improve or what might improve things. I think that they’re open to listening to that kind of stuff. We always want to get better and always want to strive to be better as a sport. I think we’re going in a good direction, I like the new car. Obviously, I’ve had a couple good runs with it so I’m excited about what we have going on and things are only going to get better from here as we learn more and more about tires and the tire is changing quite a bit with the way they’re trying to make tires and trying to go green on the tires and stuff like that. That’s really going to change the way the cars react. Everybody has to understand that the tire has a lot to do with how these cars drive. That’s what connects them to the race track. I think Goodyear is doing a good job trying to improve things there and we’re learning a ton so it involves more than just the vehicle itself. It’s all kinds of things and NASCAR is doing a lot of good things. There’s a lot of good ideas moving around, a lot of good conversations happening that I’m happy to hear and happy to see going on that I think we’re going in a good direction.”
WILL THINGS DEVELOP WEEK TO WEEK WITH THE NEW CAR THAT WILL MAKE THE RACING DIFFERENT?: “The track and the surface of the track has a lot to do with it, the particular tire and the compound of the tire, the side wall, the softness of the compound. All those things really play a big role. Look at the variety of race tracks we have on the circuit, every one of them is completely different. We joke about how the mile-and-a-halves are all the same and all that stuff, but every one of them is different in their own way. You’re not going to go to every race track and see the exact same race. The surfaces are different, the tires are different and the way you set the cars up and the setups that you run in the cars are different. The geometry that you might run in one place versus another is different. Everything about the whole race weekend and the process is different so you’re going to see a different race everywhere you go. I think as we learn more and more about these cars and what makes them work and drive better, things can only get better as far as the product we put out there every week. It’s a new car, there’s a lot of things to learn and that’s what everybody in the garage is trying to do is trying to get an advantage on the rest of competitors out there. We had a good opportunity yesterday with 12 hours of practice. I was kind of glad to see it rain today because I practiced enough, I was ready to race.”
HOW TELLING WILL THIS RACE BE TO HOW YOU WILL BE ON INTERMEDIATE TRACKS THIS YEAR?: “It can. This place has got a lot of bumps going into turn one. They are something else, I’m impressed each time I come here how much rougher it is. That really challenges you to set the car up to be able to get through them bumps and you might run a little different style shock package to do that where at Michigan or Charlotte or somewhere that doesn’t have bumps like, you don’t have to run that style of package so the setups are getting further apart I guess as far as most mile-and-a-halves and we run at Vegas. It does set the tone. Confidence is everything and when you go to Vegas and you run well, you expect to go to the next mile-and-a-half at Texas or wherever it may be and run well.”
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY?: “At Fontana? I like the way the track has gotten really wide and you can run at the bottom or you can run at the top or the middle. I just love tracks like that. They put on really good races and there’s opportunities to pass when you run a guy down, you can change the line you’re running and get some clean air on your car and you feel confident that if you do the right thing and drive the car well that you can make a pass. I love that about that race track. The surface has got a good age on it and we even run on the apron some down there in turn three and four, which is a lot of fun when you can get your car to do that. It’s a wide track, I think the racing there is a lot of fun for a driver.”
DO YOU THINK MEETINGS BETWEEN THE MAJOR DRIVERS IN THE SPORT STILL TAKE PLACE LIKE THEY DID YEARS AGO?: “Who’s to say those meetings don’t happen today? I think they do and I think that those meetings are very productive and it’s a great way to get a lot of good ideas moving across the table and I think that a lot of the innovation that you’ve seen in the sport in the last probably five or six years have come from those discussions. There’s a lot of good dialogue and I think those style of meetings are still prevalent.”
HAVE YOU INSPIRED OTHER PEOPLE WITH YOUR CLEANSE DIET?: “I don’t know. I wouldn’t recommend what I did to anybody. I really did it on a dare plus I was alright that if I lost 10 pounds then that was going to be a bonus. A buddy of mine just dared me to do it. He told me about it and I was a little jealous so I went for it, but it only lasted 15 days. It was no problem.”
ARE YOU BACK TO EATING CHEESEBURGERS?: “No. I like a good steak, but I haven’t ate a cheeseburger in I can’t remember how long. Once I got about 34 or 35 I kind of had to start watching the cheeseburgers and chicken wings and the pizzas be
cause I swear I would probably eat two or three pizzas a week around that time. Those were the good days.”
WAS THERE A SPECIFIC REASON YOU ARE RUNNING THE NATIONWIDE RACE THIS WEEKEND OTHER THAN SPONSOR WANTING YOU TO RUN?: “It had probably a lot to do with the financial side of it, but I was looking forward to doing a little more racing. I do enjoy racing at the plate tracks, but I think to truly benefit me in any way on Sunday, I think it would be better to run at one or two more mile-and-a-halves. I’m excited to have the opportunity to run this weekend to hopefully learn a little bit about maybe the tire or something or how the track changed or what condition the track is in as far as Sunday goes. Even though we didn’t run very well last week, I think Jimmie (Johnson) and Chad (Knaus) feel like they learned a lot about the tire and the track and just a little about the strategy stuff because the tire wasn’t wearing out that much. Taking two tires and alternating left to right, things like that really started to show themselves Saturday so they learned quite a bit. We want to definitely use that race on Saturday to help us if we can in any way and I haven’t been in the Nationwide car so I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of speed we’ve got. Hopefully we’ll get out there for a couple hours.”
Chevy Racing–Las Vegas Motor Speedway– Tony Stewart
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
KOBALT TOOLS 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 8, 2013
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1 RACING/BASS PRO SHOPS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) and discussed winning at LVMS last season, competing at the Bullring and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
TALK ABOUT WINNING HERE LAST YEAR; THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A RACE TRACK THAT YOU HAVE LOOKED FORWARD TO COMING TO:
“I think everybody does. It’s probably one of the most fun places you can go to all year and have so many things to do. We are all getting a chance to do that a little earlier today because of Mother Nature. I think we are all excited about being here. Excited about coming back after a year that we won and a year before where we were a dominate car and ended up second. This place has been pretty good to us.”
HOW LONG IS IT GOING TO BE REALISTICALLY TO GET THE CAR DEVELOPED TO THE POTENTIAL WHERE THE RACING IS AS GOOD AS EVERYBODY HOPES IT IS GOING TO BE?
“I said it last week and I said it the week before. The one thing you guys have got to understand when we all built these new cars not one of them came with an instruction manual. That is the easiest way to describe it. You literally have to figure it out as you go. It’s impossible to give you an answer, an accurate answer. It is literally a work in progress. I thought last week for a new car I thought last week was a really good debut for it. I personally think it’s off to a great start and it’s got a lot of potential. We had good racing, we had a good finish and everybody is going to keep learning. Everybody has their piece of the equation that they will figure out. You have to start somewhere and for it to debut the way that it has I think has been a very positive start.”
IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE DRIVERS WHO HAS CHASE HOPES AND YOU ARE 30TH OR LOWER IN POINTS RIGHT NOW WHEN DO YOU START TO GET A LITTLE CONCERNED?
“I honestly don’t know. It’s so early right now; there are so many things that can happen that I think it’s way too early to be thinking about that. I think if you are a team that is worrying about it right now you were probably worried about just making it in to begin with. I think the teams that have confidence that they are going to be in or should be in the Chase probably aren’t that concerned about it at this point.”
WHAT MEMORIES DO YOU HAVE AND WHAT WAS THE IMPORTANCE OF WHEN YOU USED TO RUN USAC OUT AT THE BULLRING HERE? WHAT DID THAT MEAN TO YOUR CAREER? YOU RAN THE (WORLD OF) OUTLAW RACES THE PAST COUPLE OF NIGHTS WHAT KIND OF FUN DO YOU GET OUT OF THAT?
“I don’t have a wife and kids to go home to so I get to go race without getting yelled at. I have only ran the Bullring actually one weekend out there. It was a doubleheader with the midgets and sprint cars. We got lucky enough to win both races that night. We’ve got a pretty good memory of that place. It was fun. It’s a fun track. This facility has got four or five…actually flying in they’ve got an awesome go kart track. This facility has got so much acreage in it and the ability to do so many things. To have a drag strip, a dirt track, a great 1.5-mile oval, the go kart track, an off-road track, the Bullring, they’ve got a road course out there. This place has it all. That is something that is pretty cool. There were four or five different divisions that ran the last two nights before we even ran anything over here. To see how many different types of cars they can accommodate here is a pretty neat deal.”
HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TIRES LAST WEEK ON THE CARS OF RYAN NEWMAN AND DANICA PATRICK? AND IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN’T HAPPEN AGAIN?
“They lost air (laughter). Why they lost air, I have no idea. It’s a work in progress and I’m sure that the crew chiefs and the engineers are working hard this week to figure it out all out. It’s kind of hard sometimes when it happens because with the wreck that happens after that can sometimes take away the evidence of what actually caused it. But I think the second one on Ryan’s car was definitely heat-related for sure because it had knocked the cooling ducts out. So, we’re speculating that it’s heat-related.
YOU ALSO WON AT FONTANA. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RETURNING TO THAT TRACK IN THE NEW CAR?
“Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s on the schedule (laughter). I don’t know that there is any big super-thing about it. We’re all going back everywhere this year with a new car. We’re going with a new car. So it’s kind of like starting from scratch. It’s nice knowing that we had a good run there last year and we have a pretty good feel for the track and where we think we need to be on it.”
YOU SAID AT THE START OF THE YEAR YOUR GOAL WAS TO RUN 100 RACES THIS YEAR. HOW MANY OUTSIDE OF NASCAR HAVE YOU RUN? HOW HAVE YOU DONE SO FAR?
“We’ve run six outside of NASCAR so far. I think our highest finish was third at Ocala. I think our worst finish was actually over here two nights ago when we finished 22nd. We’re definitely going to hit 100 this year. We’re actually going to be at between 65 and 70 Sprint Car races right now with the schedule the way it is. That’s not counting three rainouts that we already had. So we have a pretty ambitious schedule this year and it will put us almost at 110 races total for the year if we get to run them all.”
Chevy Racing–Las Vegas Speedway– Jimmie Johnson
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
KOBALT TOOLS 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 8, 2013
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and discussed testing at Las Vegas, the handling of the new cars and other topics. Full transcript:
WHAT DID YOU LEARN YESTERDAY THAT NOW THE RAIN IS GOING TO UNDO?
“Not sure the rain will undo a ton. I’m glad we got on track yesterday. That was a good move by NASCAR to give us some extra time on top of the fact that if we did have rain or some issues, we would all have on track activity. I feel good. We worked on race trim and qualifying trim so I don’t know if they would, but if they say, ‘Hey, you guys got your practice yesterday and we’re going to put qualifying into effect this afternoon and that’s all we get,’ then I feel like we have our bases covered. Our car was fast. It took us a few runs to sort out things down in one and two over the bumps, but once we got that under control then we had a lot of speed in our Chevy.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE FINE TO DENNY HAMLIN AND DOES THAT CHANGE HOW YOU APPROACH ANYTHING GOING FORWARD?
“I think we’re all watching and learning as things unfold and we do know that NASCAR is sensitive to some things and that line is becoming more defined right now as to where that is and what type of criticism is allowed and what is not.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR PROFESSIONALISM WILL HELP YOU TO ADAPT TO ANY CHANGES OR ANY MOVEMENT THAT NASCAR MAKES IN THIS AREA?
“I think we’re all learning and we’ve all been encouraged to have an opinion and speak our minds about each other as drivers and on certain topics. The old phrase ‘actions detrimental to stock car racing,’ that’s something that I am going to try to keep top of mind and as my opinions come about if it’s something that’s going to hurt our sport and I think about it and it enters my mind then I probably need to keep my mouth shut and head over to the truck and talk it out in there rather than through microphones.”
HOW MUCH WILL THE NEW CAR IMPACT A SHORT TRACK RACE LIKE BRISTOL COMPARED TO A TRACK LIKE LAS VEGAS?
“I think short track racing is going to be short track racing. The bumpers aren’t as square so the bump-and-run can be far more effective. It was really tough to get somebody out of the way with the COT or Gen-5 car so we might see a little difference there. I think the crash damage is going to be different. There is some glass on the nose of these cars that we can fold up pretty easily and we might have to cut noses off the cars even from not being part of a crash, but just the stack up on the restart might cave in noses. We might have some modified looking vehicles out there running around. There will be a learning process. I don’t think the aero balance and implications there will come through, but we’ll be talking a lot more about less weight, the type of camber we’re allowed to run this year and things like that.”
HOW IMPORTANT WAS YOUR FIRST ROAD COURSE WIN AT SONOMA?
“It was huge to get that first win out there. I hope to get another. I’ve been competitive since that day and that’s something I’m very proud of. That track is tough for me to get a hold of and especially with the big Cup car. I just melt the tires of the car and could be fast for a few laps and that was the end of me. Thankful I got my win and I hope to get back to victory lane again out there. It’s such a cool race track.”
IS STARTING THE SEASON WITH A FIRST AND SECOND PLACE FINISH COMPETITIVE OR DOMINANT?
“One, one would be dominant, one-two is competitive. We’re around the front throughout the Phoenix race, but didn’t have a chance to lead and take control so I would even put that more in a competitive mindset, but we’re still learning. Daytona is its own animal. Phoenix was a very good sign that we have speed in our cars and I think by the time we get to California Speedway we’ll have a much better idea of which organizations and which makes have the speed.”
HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU LEARNED YESTERDAY TRANSFERS TO THIS WEEKEND AND HOW MUCH TRANSFERS TO THE FUTURE RACES?
“A lot, we’re learning a ton. Phoenix, things changed quite a bit and I can use Kasey Kahne and myself as an example, they’re thought and setup was very, very fast there last year. They came back this year and had to work pretty hard to get it. We showed up at Phoenix and was fast right off the truck. Coming here, running a very similar package to what we thought worked here last time, it didn’t exactly work. The front end didn’t ride like it should and we had to go to work and get the front end to stay down on the car and not bounce up and down so bad through the bumps. Some of that is probably due to the fact that the splitter is a much more solid structure now where before you had some give in the front end of the car and stuff would move. NASCAR added a bunch of bars up there to stiffen that and splitter contact has a big impact on how the race car drives now and we were feeling that yesterday.”
HOW MUCH DO THINGS CHANGE TO IMPACT THE HANDLING OF A CAR COMPARED TO YOUR TEAM’S SIMULATION PROGRAMS?
“The structure of the nose is one and the other part is the data that we have for race tracks to run in our sim (simulation) program and all the machines we have at home, it’s so old. That’s the biggest reason every team is excited for testing this year so that we can go out and get some current data files. As tracks evolve every winter and every summer, we haven’t had a chance to pull data here in a long, long time so we’re just working on old data and a lot has changed out there.”
DO YOU THINK THE LIGHTER CAR WILL MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE AT BRISTOL?
“I think the mechanical aspects will help the cars at Bristol. The last time there we were very curious about the grinding and what would happen and what wouldn’t. The track just changed in some ways and we will just go back and get in a rhythm and see what happens. For the longest time we were not competitive at that track and now we’re in the mix and I’m really happy about that.”
WILL YOU LEARN A LOT SUNDAY ABOUT HOW THE CARS RACE WITH EACH OTHER?
“Yeah, we’re still learning a lot, even by ourselves in trying to understand the race tracks and how the car wants to be setup. Then at these higher speeds, downforce-wise, this will be our first exposure to it. I tried to get around some cars yesterday, things seem stable at least catching one car, but when you get all 43 in a big pack and the air is really swirling around then the cars drive a lot different. There will be a lot of learning going on come Sunday.”
Chevy Racing– Las Vegas Motor Speedway–Jeff Gordon
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
KOBALT TOOLS 400
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 8, 2013
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and discussed his thoughts on racing this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his thoughts on Denny Hamlin’s fine and other topics. FULL TRANSCRIPT:
WHAT COMES TO YOUR MIND FIRST WHEN YOU COME OUT TO LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY?
“I think of a fast high banked 1.5-mile race track with some real challenges. That is what competitors love. They love a good challenge. The competition brings that in itself and that seems to always come out here. There are some pretty significant bumps going into turn one at this track. You are always battling with getting the grip, getting the balance, but also trying to figure out how to get over these bumps. That was what we struggled with the most yesterday during testing. We anticipated that coming in. It was evident yesterday and so it’s something that we definitely worked on overnight to try to improve for today.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON SPEAKING UP? YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO SAY WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY IN THE RIGHT WAY. IT’S KIND OF A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD FOR DRIVERS. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?
“My first initial thoughts are that I think we brought more light to the situation by the fine. I question that, but at the same time we are all in this together to grow this sport. You learn from your failures as well as the things that you did well. I think that when I look back on… I guess we are calling it Gen-5, when did Gen-5 come? Somebody is going to have to explain to me Gen-5 exactly because I don’t remember one through four. Anyway, I think that we all learn through that experience that while that car didn’t drive great, it didn’t look great, but it actually didn’t race bad. Yet, we were very critical of that car. Now we have a car that looks great, drives good, and we have done two races. I think it is a little early to be really gauging where we are at from how it races. I think that we have to understand that we all play a role in growing this sport. When we say and do things that negatively could affect the sport, while sometimes it doesn’t need to be said because other people are paying attention to what is happening and making their own opinions you don’t need to say that. I think that it was obviously pretty evident to me that NASCAR decided that was taking it too far.”
FROM WHAT YOU KNOW OF DENNY (HAMLIN) ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT HE IS CHOOSING TO STAND HIS GROUND AT ALL? WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS CHANCES OF SUCCESS ARE GOING HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH NASCAR?
“We are in (Las) Vegas so we can try to count the odds of when the apology is going to be coming and when the ‘we are all in this together to grow this sport’ tweet is going to be coming. You guess is as good as mine. Listen, I think it’s been an interesting story for somebody to challenge that authority. That is fine, but at the end of the day I know whose sand box I’m playing in. I like the sandbox. I like to play in it and I want to have the best opportunity to have the most fun in that sandbox. Sometimes while you don’t always like it you have to bite your tongue and just go out there and race. I have been there before where I have wanted to challenge that and say those things. If he chooses to do that, that is his prerogative. I think in his mind he is just being honest with himself and didn’t see anything wrong with it. Again, look bigger picture. That is the way I look at it. There are times when I feel like ‘hey, this is my place to speak my mind and say what is there.’ But, as Claire (B. Lang) said sometimes I just choose to do it a little bit less harsh.”
WHEN YOU DO CHOOSE TO SPEAK YOUR MIND DO YOU THINK YOU WILL THINK ABOUT THE WAY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO SPEAK YOUR MIND, THE COMMENTS THAT YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE BASED ON THIS MOST RECENT PENALTY AND THE WAY THAT (DENNY) HAMLIN APPROACHED IT?
“No, I’m going to go about it the same way that I always do. I feel like I try to think before I say anything. I try to think if this is going to be something that is going to negatively affect the sport, negatively affect my sponsors or myself, my team and is it worth it. I try to do that when I am doing interviews and when I’m talking about things that are going on. It’s hard to kind of do that in the heat of the moment over the radio during a race, but when I get out of the car I’m usually pretty good at being able to do that and think about that. I won’t be doing anything any different than I ever have before.”
HOW DO DRIVERS PREPARE DIFFERENTLY IF YOU HAVE CURVED PIT ROADS VERSUS STRAIGHT ONES?
“The thought process is usually more as you talk to your crew chief depending on where you qualifying there are certain… I think of Richmond as one that has a pretty good curve to it. Like Phoenix last week down in (turns) one and two you make those decisions based on where you qualify and where you would like to pit and the advantages and disadvantages of those types of pit roads. The curves are usually less of a concern as the grip level of a pit road or an opening on pit road. Usually, you are trying to qualify better to get either that number one stall so you just have to roll across the line to beat other cars out under caution. Or you are looking for an opening to where it is just clean in, clean out. This particular pit road has the concrete pads that we see a lot. But, they are all different textures in how they finish them. This one is extremely slick. So you have to be very careful coming in. You don’t get much grip leaving as well, so you spin the tires a lot so you are trying to minimize that. You really can over shoot this pit road, the pit boxes very easily. Now, the transition from the track onto pit road is extremely I don’t know extreme I guess is the only way I can say the transition is a significant one. You have to definitely manage that risk versus reward entering the pit road as well.”
IS THAT WHY A LOT OF THE PIT CREW GUYS PUT DOWN COCA-COLA FOR GRIP?
“Pepsi in my pit box, but yes. We do whatever NASCAR will allow us to do. Because of the, like I mentioned, the slippery… that stuff really doesn’t help me until I lay rubber down on it and slide the tires across it. Then when that rubber gets laid into that syrup or whatever it is that they are putting on there. Then it gives me more grip, but for them it is instantly more grip. It’s more for them. You don’t want those guys slipping and sliding around, especially the ones carrying tires and the jack. Then there are some safety issues as well, but most of the time we do it for speed.”
AS A GUY WHO SPENT ALL OF LAST SEASON BATTLING BACK FROM A POOR START. WHAT DOES THAT TAKE OUT OF A TEAM? DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU GUYS WERE SPENT BY THE TIME YOU FINISHED THAT CLIMB AND GOT INTO THE CHASE?
“We were, it can either tear you completely a part or make you stronger. I think in our case it made us stronger. I think that is just a sign of how strong knit of a team that we are, how we communicate because we were challenged every weekend with good race cars and bad results. We just kept fighting through it. In this sport, in this day and age, it’s so competitive, so far back that it is hard to find your way out of that type of a hole if you get into one early in the season. You’ve got to perform extremely well, really go on a streak in order to get out of it. I think it is the best thing that happened to us even though I don’t like the way we ended up the sea
son. I think that coming into this season and the way we ended the final race of last year going through all those tougher times certainly made my communication and relationship with Alan Gustafson (crew chief) and our engineers much stronger. Even just yesterday we struggled. We weren’t very good during the test. Yet, at the end of the day we weren’t pointing fingers at one another, we were just working to get through it and to make sure that today we made improvements or at least by Sunday.”
IS THERE TOO MUCH TRANSPARENCY IN THE SPORT TODAY?
“I think that is some of NASCAR’s response to this is that they like to be given the opportunity to discuss it and work on it more privately. I have mentioned this many times in here the schedule, the competitiveness, now all these debriefs that we do with our teams and how we don’t practice after the Nationwide race like we used to. We find ourselves doing more for sponsors as well. There is just not that opportunity that there used to be to see three, four, five, six guys up in the NASCAR hauler discussing the sport and discussing the rules and discussing the racing. Whether or not that… and I’ve always told NASCAR, that wasn’t because we thought we were actually being heard or we actually thought we were making a difference it was just we felt like we were getting it off our chests and that they might be listening. I think that we lose some of that now. I’m a big fan or true drivers meetings. I’m not talking about on Sunday morning. I’m talking about get the group of drivers together with NASCAR and just have some open discussions about what is happening. We got to a test to develop this car and we are working on developing the car and what is happening with the car. We are not really openly discussing things as much as I think we would all like to. You go down certain paths based on what you see on the track and a little bit of conversation. I think that sometimes it would be good to get back to some of that and see a little bit more of that. It’s going to have to be scheduled. It’s not something that is just going to happen the way it used to happen.
“To elaborate on that, I know for me when I came in Ray Evernham would say ‘I just saw Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. going to the NASCAR hauler you better go over there and see what is going on.’ It was one of those things where you knew that Dale had their ear. If you weren’t up there giving your side of it there could be a result that came out of it that might affect you. Half of the reason I was even up there was just to see what was going on to make sure I could get my 10 cents. There were usually others that followed as well because everybody kind of saw when Dale moved in there.”
GOING BACK TO YOUR INITIAL COMMENT ABOUT DENNY HAMLIN’S SITUATION HERE THIS WEEKEND. THE GENERAL CONSENSUS ABOUT THE GEN-6 CAR WITH THE TEAMS AND THE FANS HAS BEEN VERY POSITIVE TO START THE YEAR. DO YOU THINK THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED INTERNALLY SO AS NOT TO SPOTLIGHT ANY DISAGREEMENT WITH THE CAR?
“I’m not saying how it should have been handled. I’m just saying that I didn’t even know about his comments until yesterday. I don’t know how much it was written about, maybe it was just because I was completely out of touch. I was out in the sand dunes Monday and Tuesday just having a blast. I didn’t know any media that was going on. Maybe it’s just me, but certainly this thing has blown up after yesterday and has drawn a lot more attention to it than I think had there not been a fine. I don’t know if that really justified a fine in my opinion. I don’t think it was right the things that Denny (Hamlin) said and how he went about it. It probably needed to be handled in some way. I just feel like I wouldn’t be getting asked these questions had they went and just talked to him about it.”
Chevy Racing–Las Vegas Motor Speedway– Danica Patrick
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and discussed racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, last week’s race at Phoenix International Raceway and other topics. Full transcript:
TALK ABOUT COMING TO LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY AND YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE WEEKEND:
“This is a fun track. I feel like it is definitely the kind of track where I feel the most comfortable at. High bank; high grip. Fourth in the Nationwide car a couple of years ago was fun, and I feel like every time I’ve been here, we run pretty decent. It was nice to have a test day yesterday in the Cup car, just to get up to speed there; also for me to work on some qualifying the last half of the day. I’m not sure any of that is going to happen today (referencing the rain currently falling at the track). But, it was good for us to have some extra running, and get to grips a little bit more with this new Gen 6 Chevy and see what it needs to handle well.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO SEE THE LITTLE KIDS WHO WANT TO GET AUTOGRAPHS, HUGS OR SMILES?
“It is very cool. Nothing can brighten up your day like seeing a three year-old who knows your names and wants to meet you, or be too shy to meet you. That is also equally adorable. That is sometimes amazing. I don’t know how they know my name, or how they know what is going on. Sometimes the parents don’t know. Kids are just very impressionable. The fact that they have a good impression of me, and like me is really neat. I also love hearing stories about coming out to the track because now everyone has someone to cheer for. The wife comes; or the daughter comes; or the son; or whatever the reason may be to get a whole family out to the track, it is nice that they do. It is nice that they can do that together as a family, and kind of create that tradition, or that culture within to all come out. Very cool. I always try to make time for them. If I don’t have time for anything else, I try to sign autographs for little kids, or just say hi to them. It makes me feel good. I feel like it makes me feel better than it makes them probably.”
ARE YOU WORRIED OR NERVOUS AT ALL ABOUT QUALIFYING WITH 44 CARS ENTERED HERE? “I’m pretty sure we’re in because we bought points right?”
YOU ARE IN BECAUSE AFTER TOP-36 FROM LAST YEAR, IT GOES TO THIS YEAR’S POINTS, AND THAT’S HOW YOU GET IN:
“I don’t know how in the hell it works. I am so confused. I don’t know about you guys. I’m sure this is not the best talking point for anybody who is trying to inform me, or who has. But look, you have to go like hell and you just have to qualify as well as you can. That’s all you can do. Of course I don’t want to have to worry about that so I’m not going to. We’re just going to plan on being better than that. The reason for doing qualifying for the last half of yesterday was to not only try to do a good job for here, but everywhere else we go because there’s a certain sort of offset that the car needs going from race to qualifying runs. I really hope that we don’t ever feel like we need to worry about that and weekends like last weekend in Phoenix we were definitely not good, but we feel like we will quickly get to grips with what we need to do. Tony Gibson is talented, the team is talented and has good equipment so that is really not a concern moving forward and that we are really only going to get better at that and I’m only going to get more comfortable. If it rains I feel like I’m still in the race, but I start in the back or something like that. Again, another situation and either way it’s part of the learning process.”
WOULD TRACK POSITION CONCERN YOU IF YOU HAD TO START IN THE BACK?
“It’s always important. Everybody is so good in Cup that it takes a lot to pass cars. You kind of settle into a pace and you kind of lose momentum at times and it’s just challenging. Our equipment stays so consistent out there and that’s what makes it difficult. You just have to get creative sometimes with your pit stops. I know pit stops played a big role last weekend. Whether it’s strategy or not, but I mean I feel like if you have a good car you will be able to pass and that makes restarts even more important too.”
HOW ARE YOU FEELING AFTER YOUR WRECK LAST WEEK?
“I feel like I have a concussion from last night. I got hit by a rock at the dirt track and I took it to the ground. I feel like this is really sore. It hit me straight in the head. Good thing I had a hat on or I’m feeling like there would have been blood. The safety crew does a great job. The cars are safer than they’ve ever been and the tracks are. I said after last weekend that I’m glad that I didn’t race in the era of the lack of SAFER barriers out there because I don’t know what it’s like without them. I know that the hits feel hard and my neck was sore after last weekend for sure, which it never has been before after a wreck. Either my training program is off or it was just that big of a hit or maybe the fact that it was both sides. That’s something that you as a driver make those decisions and the safety crew helps you make them.”
DID YOU HAVE TO GO GET A SCAN AFTER THE INCIDENT?
“No, I was able to say my name and where I was born. They take your blood pressure, they do like vitals and they ask how you’re feeling and I really felt fine. It’s understandable that my neck would be sore. The medical staff always does a checkup the next day, they either call or send you a text to ask how you’re doing. They’re thorough, but it’s based on your information too. If I was to say, ‘I don’t feel so great or I’m feeling sick or I don’t think I can remember anything.’ It’s up to you to be honest about it and it’s your decision. You can say, ‘I’m fine,’ and go along with your day. If you’re not, it’s your risk. They can’t read your mind, they can’t tell if you’re not well if you don’t tell them. Other than my neck being sore, which I told them, I felt fine. I said I had a headache on Sunday night and on Monday my neck was sore. They said it sounded like it could have been worse so we’re glad you’re okay. That’s what my situation was last week. As far as the source of it being the beads melting, not really sure if it was a melting. Goodyear came to the hauler yesterday and chatted with Greg Zipadelli in the hauler with me and Tony Gibson, they basically are looking at how they can fix the problem and there were obviously seven situations where they were exactly the same problem. I think they’re looking at things moving forward and they try to make the tire better coming back around this time at Phoenix with a softer tire. Obviously that didn’t work. I hope we have a different tire and I told them I would do the testing for you. Maybe that’s what we’ll do moving forward, but I know they are evaluating their options because they feel bad about the situation.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE STYLE OF RACING AT BRISTOL?
“I’ve liked Bristol since the first time. For me, I respond to the banking which translates to grip and it’s definitely there. We were having a decent run in the Cup car, we were lead lap and top-20 after 440 laps and unfortunately were taken out, but I think that all those events lead us to more potential the next time around with a better baseline setup. I feel like for us and for me, my strong suit is the race or at least at this point. We just need to work on qualifying and get a decent qualifying spot so we can work from there. I feel like it’s not very common to drop back for me so if we can just start further up then we can continue to make progress and be smart and take care of our equipment. Whether you pass people at the beginning or pass them on the run, they are both passes. I look forward to going back there, I like the banked tracks. It was fun.”
WOULD YOU BET ON YOURSELF THIS WEEKEND?
“
Yeah, I would bet on myself. I was running up there last year when I had less of an idea what was going on and didn’t have a full time effort, it was only a partial schedule obviously. I would, but I think that even the best of us can have bad weekends and that they happen. Whether it’s from bad luck or whether it’s just from missing it, it can happen. I think we’ll be better than that and I would think that the test day would help that just to get us up to speed better and make us feel more comfortable and have a better baseline setup for the race.”
Sebring Bound: Dyson Racing Partners with Mazda for 2013
Dyson Racing has renewed its long-term partnership with Mazda for the 2013 American Le Mans Series season as it prepares to recapture the P1 crown it won in 2011. The #16 Thetford/RACER Mazda Lola entry with Chris Dyson and Guy Smith will be Mazda-powered for the fifth year. Mazda won its first P1 victory at Mid-Ohio in 2010 and the manufacturer’s championship the following year. Last year, the team bookended the season with first place ALMS P1 points at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 1,000-mile Petit Le Mans Powered by Mazda, and won at Road America in the closest ever overall finish in ALMS history.
“As we look forward to the unified world of road racing in 2014, we still have a full-season of great ALMS action in 2013,” said John Doonan, Director Mazda Motorsports. “We’re happy that the Dyson team will be racing their Mazda MZR-R powered Lola for what we anticipate will be the final chapter for this car and engine. From Sebring to Petit Le Mans, and our favorite stop at Mazda Raceway, we look forward to adding additional race wins into the Mazda logbook. I’m sure the Dyson team will be going all out to recapture the magic of their 2011 season when they brought home the drivers, team, and manufacturers championship for Mazda.”
“We are heading into our fifth year with Mazda and any relationship that has that kind of tenure is to be celebrated,” noted Chris Dyson, Vice President and Sporting Director. “We are fortunate to have their support and it has been a hugely beneficial relationship. AER have been working on some nice engine upgrades over the winter and their work on the Mazda program has been outstanding. We are looking forward to putting together another championship effort for them.”
Guy Smith returns for his ninth year with Dyson Racing. The 2005 12 Hours of Sebring was his first race with the team. “I’m really excited about driving for Dyson Racing again this year: they are ultra-professional but also a friendly operation. It should be a good year,” stated Smith. “I tested some developments at the test at Sebring last month which were a step in the right direction and we have some engine tweaks coming later in the season which will help us. It will be competitive with us and the Muscle Milk team being joined by the Swiss-based Rebellion team, who I raced for at Le Mans in 2010 and ’11. Sebring is always a huge challenge every year but it is a brilliant race – it epitomizes what sports car racing is all about. The track at almost four miles in length is long, while its bumpy and fast nature, combined by a high ambient temperature, makes it a physically demanding race for the driver and puts the car through a real stern test.”
“The biggest credit I can give to Guy it that he is every bit as motivated and is faster than when we started driving together almost ten years ago,” said Dyson. “All you can ever ask from your teammate is that they give 100 percent and with Guy, that is never in doubt. Guy is incredibly supportive as a teammate. He is a team player and when the chips are down, he knows how to get it done. Everyone knows in pit lane when he comes in from a race stint or a qualifying run, he has given it everything he has. There are never excuses, just performance. And that is why we’ve worked so well together.”
2013 marks the thirtieth year in professional sports car racing for Dyson Racing and the twenty-sixth for the team at Sebring. Butch Leitzinger will be joining Chris Dyson and Guy Smith in the #16 entry for the sixty-first annual 12 Hours of Sebring and the team is working on running the #20 Dyson entry in subsequent races of the 2013 season.