BUSCH: "It was not necessarily a difficult night but it was definitely a fun night. We were actually good in the beginning of the race and we kind of got tight there and Lance [McGrew, crew chief] and myself decided to make some changes to it. It made it a little bit worse and then we came back in there on the second stop and actually made it a lot better so we were able to capitalize on our pit strategy and I was actually thinking about second-guessing him but I thought about last night again and I was like 'Never mind. We're coming in and we're getting tires.' It was an awesome night by the Lowe's team. They did an awesome job all day. We weren't all that great in practice like the 8 car was. The 8 car probably missed 40 minutes of practice. We worked on it all day long trying to get it better for us." YOU DID NOT MAKE A PIT STOP WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE DID AT THE END OF THE RACE. "Basically, we didn't come in when Biffle and the 37 because we didn't have anymore tires. We had already made our last stop, I believe back on lap 112, so we couldn't come in anymore." WERE YOU WORRIED THAT THE TIRES WOULD HOLD UP? "I wasn't worried, especially after all the yellows that were happening and we were getting some yellow flag laps in there. We came in and got our tires and I thought that was a little bit too soon. That's why I was hesitant to come in but I wasn't worried about it. I figured there'd be some cautions in there and maybe we'd have a long run where we'd be able to get up front a little bit and the other guys would come in and get stuck and mired back in traffic so they weren't able to come back up there." DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HOLD OFF SAUTER AGAIN? "I did but I didn't. I kept watching my mirror, seeing him get closer and closer and I was like 'Man, I don't know how I'm going to hold him off ' so then I just started looking ahead of me and not worrying about the mirror. That's what fixed it right there was not worrying about him, just worrying about my own car and how to get around the racetrack better." WOULD A LATE RACE CAUTION DOOM YOUR CHANCES TO WIN? "We wouldn't have been able to hang on to Sauter I don't think if he was right on our back bumper, even though if he would have drove us clean it would have been tough for him to get by. Johnny Sauter had an awfully fast truck last night and a car tonight so it was definitely going to be hard to hold him off." YOU WERE ABLE TO PUT SOME DISTANCE ON HIM OVER THE LAST FEW LAPS OF THE RACE. "It wasn't all that good. I just tried to find a new line to make it a little bit better where I could work with the car. Another thing was, like I said, stop looking in your mirror and paying attention to what was in front of me. A couple of those lap cars really screwed us up on trying to get through there quick. The really made it difficult for me to try to keep the lead and keep that gap really large. All in all, the Lowe's guys did an awesome job to give me a car that was capable of winning and all I had to do was keep it up front do it." HOW MUCH DID THE TRUCK RACE LAST NIGHT HELP YOU? "I'd say that it helped me probably an awful lot. Last night we learned a lot. Like I said, instead of miscuing Lance tonight, I should have went with what Randy Goss [his truck series crew chief] said last night and pitted. We probably could have won the race, if not, finished in the top three or five. That Axiom truck is pretty awesome. I'd love to do it again. I don't know how we're going to be able to get it done, though." HOW HAVE THE LAST FEW WEEKS BEEN FOR YOU? "It's been not necessarily difficult to get over but you've just got to throw it behind you. Last week was last week. You're not going to be able to change it. We were just trying to work on what we had this week. We didn't have all that great of a car in practice but worked on it and worked on it and we definitely made it better there towards the end of the race." YOU HAD A NEW SPOTTER TONIGHT, RICKY HENDRICK, WHO IS ALSO THE CAR OWNER. "He talks too much [laughs]. He was pretty good, not too bad. Instead of my Dad saying the car is at my door or at my taillight or whatever, he's like 'Nose inside, to the door' and I'm like 'Tell me where he is on my car, not in relation to his car' so it was kind of confusing sometimes but I got used to it pretty quick. He's all right. Just at the companion events we're going to try something a little bit different and see how it works. My Dad will be back and he'll be doing practices and stuff like that. He won't be out of the picture altogether." DID YOU START A NEW TRADITION HERE, KISSING THE FINISH LINE? "The motor tuner was like 'Hey, you know what? We ought to start our own tradition here at IRP. The get to kiss the bricks over at the big track so let's kiss the start finish line here' and I thought it was pretty cool. And so did Rick. He was jumping on the opportunity to go do it. He didn't care. All in all, it doesn't matter what everybody wants to do, we just all jump in and do it as a team." YOU GAINED SOME POINTS ON TRUEX. "All we can do is keep winning races and leading laps and finishing up front. Wherever they finish is where they finish. We didn't gain an awful lot but we were able to gain some on them. This was where Brian Vickers was able to turn it around last year, getting his first win at IRP and it's definitely great to get one here. This is a tough track for me and I haven't been able to get around here all that great. Last night was definitely a turning point for me, being able to run well in the truck race and obviously tonight we were run well, too. Hopefully that can continue on for the rest of the year." WHEN DID YOU RUN HERE BEFORE? "I made my first Craftsman Truck Series start here in 2001 and made an ASA start here in 2002. I did run here last year in a Busch car and obviously this year in truck and Busch." YOU HAVE SEEN SAUTER DOMINANT HERE. "In ASA, he dominated here pretty bad a couple of years ago, I think it was 2000 he killed everybody." WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT HIM EVEN BEFORE THIS WEEKEND? "I never knew he was going to come up here and be this good and be this dominate, basically and be able to kick out butts." IS IT FRUSTRATING TO RUN WELL, LEAD A LOT OF LAPS, BUT NOT GAIN A LARGE AMOUNT OF POINTS? "It's kind of frustrating but we just did the best we could. He didn't finish as bad as we wanted him too but you can never wish bad luck on anybody. You just try to go out there and do what you can do. It's what we keep saying at the shop is that we need to go out and do what we need to do, try to finish up front and win races, and everything else is going to try to go our way." THE BUSCH SERIES IS OFF NEXT WEEK. WHAT IS YOUR SCHEDULE? "Wednesday I'm going to go back out to Las Vegas and hang out with some friends of mine, maybe go out to California, Six Flags or something like that, and watch my little protégé back in Vegas race on Saturday night." HAS THE SEASON BEEN A TOUGH GRIND? "Not really. When we were in that long stretch, I was having a lot of fun. We were going week after week and we got like 10 top-10s in a row and that's when we were leading and swapping the point lead back and forth with Truex and running really well. I was having my most fun there. These past couples of off-weeks haven't been all that great but we kind of need 'em because we've been struggling a little bit. On the other had, you want to get back to the racetrack and do well because you don't want to linger over a whole week that you did bad. It's good to go off into an off week now that we did good and we were able to win a race so now it's like 'Whew, let's get ready for Michigan.' WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW CLEAN THIS RACE WAS? "I was trying to keep my nose clean all night long. I had a couple guys who tried to squeeze me up high and tried to rub me into the fence but I just backed out of the gas and made sure that I kept my nose clean. Ricky and Rick being here, that was awesome. Our thoughts and prayers are with them because of Papa Joe. We really appreciate all their support. They're still going 120 percent like they always do. Papa is up there watching us, too."