Tropicana 400 - GM Post-Race Quotes

MIKE WALLACE, NO. 01 USG SHEETROCK PONTIAC GRAND PRIX Finished 37th: "Two cars banged tires on the back straightaway for some reason. I saw one of them go to the bottom of the racetrack and I thought I could get by on the outside, and I guess I got caught as he came back up the racetrack. I backed into the wall and then came back down, and I don't know who everybody hit. I saw Bobby Labonte on fire when I was facing the wrong way. It appears that they ran into each other on the straightaway and turned around, and we got caught up in it."

JOHNNY SAUTER, NO. 4 KODAK PONTIAC GRAND PRIX Finished 35th: Note: Sauter, last year's winner in the Busch Series race here at Chicagoland Speedway, made contact with the wall on Lap 105 after cutting a tire. "The Kodak Pontiac was running pretty good. It was a little tight at the start and we were able to free it up, and we actually had it pretty good when we cut a right rear tire. That's how we've got a torn up right side of the car. (ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT BACK OUT?) "Yea, we're not doing Kodak or Pontiac any good sitting here in the garage. We'll get back out and get these guys some points."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 7th: "I had a real good car today. We were a little tight in the beginning, but I knew I had a good car and told the guys we could work it through, and we did. I feel bad for (teammate) Kevin (Harvick), but it was a great finish for us. Good day!"

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 2nd: "I think we had the fastest car today - I think we were proving that with our lap times there at the end. It was just scenarios where we got caught back in the pack, and on those restarts the leaders were able to get away from us. Every restart we'd get a couple more positions and get a little closer to the front. On the last restart Ryan (Newman) and I were able to get so far ahead on the restart with all the lap cars and everything going on that there really wasn't much we could do. We were just in there trying to make as much time as possible. I think we were catching them three or four tenths a lap. We had the fastest car, but not a bad weekend at all. I'm very, very tickled to death about the way our weekend went. We came off the truck, and after everybody made their first run of the day on Friday, we were the quickest car on the sheet, and that makes me feel proud to get the pole. Even prouder with bigger smiles on our faces yesterday in the race warm-ups, we had a really good car and we were very excited about the race today. I think the first two stints of the race showed the tale of the tape - we were bad fast. Jamie (McMurray) and I were just talking, we thought it was going to be a carbon copy of California all over again, hopefully minus the motor blowing up. We were looking forward to racing with Jamie. It's fun racing with this kid. I met him when I don't know if he was a full three-foot tall yet, with some mushroom haircut and I think he was about eight years old, and we were racing go-karts together. We raced in different classes and different divisions, but we used to run around the go-kart tracks together. I think it's been a good 16 or 18 years since we've been around each other again, and getting to race together again in NASCAR Winston Cup is pretty fun and exciting. I'd be happier if I was in Victory Lane, but I've had a pretty doggone good weekend, and I'm pretty happy with it all in all." (WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOU AS FAR AS THE CHAMPIONSHIP CHASE GOES?) "I don't exactly what happened as far as where people finished today. My buddies from Diamond Rio (who sang the National Anthem prior to today's race) say they're the reason that we ran good today, so if you guys will put in your columns that Diamond Rio was a guest of ours and they were the sole reason. They put the magic setup on the car, which Zippy neglected to do this morning, so we appreciate that. Having guys like that here and Joe (Gibbs) and everybody, we just had a great weekend. If we could've gotten a little better track position at the end, I think we would've been fine, but we'll take what we can get." (CLEAN AIR SEEMED TO BE A BIG DEAL TODAY - IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THAT?) "To be honest, today wasn't the normal aero-push scenario that we normally talk about. The track came right into it. You couldn't have asked for a better racetrack today. It got probably four lanes wide with three legitimate racing lines that you could run. You could run three-wide and really not have a problem. For a track's that is only in its third season, that's pretty uncommon. I think he people in Illinois have a track to be really proud of. This is going to be a place that we're going to put on some really good races in the future. The thing that got everybody so messed up today was if you were one of the first two or three cars, and you could get clear of the lapped cars right away, you could build a heck of a gap between yourself and whoever else you were racing on the lead lap. Any break in momentum, because this is such a fast racetrack, if you have to check up at all, it's speed that you lose going down, and it's speed that you have to gain coming back up, so you lose it on both ends. It's hard to overcome that. If you have to do that on both ends of the racetrack for five laps because of lap traffic, you've lost a lot of track position on the track. We were running four tenths of a second faster than the leader at the end of the race, but we were so far back we just couldn't make up that deficit. That was the obstacle that you had and the scenarios that you had. It wasn't a track that you couldn't pass on. Jimmie (Johnson) and I had a great race, Jamie and I when we were leading in the first couple of seconds, we had a great race up there. I passed a bunch of cars on the high side, and that's not something I thought we would see today. We had a fun race from the standpoint of being able to race guys one on one, and to be able to move around there on the racetrack and actually not sit there and follow the leader all day." (DO YOU THINK YOU'RE OUT OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP CHASE?) "I don't know where we are in the points (11th), but I can promise you we're not going to finish 11th in the final points standings. We're going to be in the top-10, and if the last half of the season works out like it typically does, there's no reason we can't get in the top-five still. We'll take everything we can get. If we can get to fifth, we'll take it. If we can get another spot and get to fourth, we'll just keep going until we run out of races. We're at that point of the season where tracks are getting hot and slippery, and that's what we like. These guys can't hold it wide open and they can't sit there on high-grip tracks, and they actually have to drive these things when we start getting fast. (IF YOU HAD A LONG GREEN-FLAG RUN AT THE END INSTEAD OF ALL OF THOSE YELLOWS, COULD YOU HAVE RUN UP ON RYAN?) "Yea, we would've hot a shot at it, for sure. Like I said, our car was so fast there at the end of the race. We just need to get through lap traffic, we needed to get clear and race the guys that we were actually racing for position and not race guys that were a lap or two down on the inside that were holding everybody up." (COMPARE HOW YOU THINK THE TRACK DEVELOPED THIS YEAR AND WHAT YOU THINK WE CAN EXPECT FOR NEXT YEAR.) "I think this was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for all of us as drivers. As far as I was concerned, the track was in perfect condition today. I don't think you could've asked for a better racetrack as far as being wide enough to race two and three wide. If you couldn't get by a guy, it wasn't because he was holding you up, it was just because you couldn't drive by the guy. You could go anywhere on the race track. I ran up to the gray area and clear down to the white line on the apron. I mean, I ran everywhere in between three or four different times at each different spot. So you had the flexibility if you wanted to move. For drivers you can't ask for more than that. When you have to sit there and follow like we had to do last year, and definitely like we did the first year, that's what makes it frustrating as drivers. But when you have the ability to dictate your own fate by moving around on the racetrack, or changing your lines and changing your entries, that's what drivers like. They like to race each other by having places on the racetrack to move around and create your own opportunities to make passes." (THERE WAS A LOT OF DIFFERENT PIT STRATEGIES OUT THERE TODAY. ANYTHING YOU MIGHT HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?) "It's hard to say from where I sit. From the pit box you can sit there and evaluate it and say, 'If this would've happened, or if that would've happened things would've been different, but from inside the car it's hard to say because you don't know what everybody is on. You just know where you are track position-wise. I've talked to Goodyear engineers, I've talked to NASCAR officials, and I'd love to see it get back to where when the yellow came out, everybody came and got tires and went back and raced again. Two tires, no tires, all of that garbage, I think it's hurting what we're doing here. But if you can win on fuel mileage, hey, win 'em. They still pay the same and still pay the same amount of points. They'll still give you the trophies and all of the neat stuff after the race is over. You take them anyway you can get them, but I'd like to see it get back to the way it used to be. I don't know if we'll ever get back to there - it may be an era that's long gone." (TALK ABOUT YOUR BATTLE WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON TOWARDS THE END OF THE RACE.) "There's guys that it doesn't take long to learn who you respect, and you learn guys that you see in front of you that you go, 'Please give a caution or something where I don't have to race this guy.' I like racing with Jimmie. He's a fierce competitor. I knew he wasn't just going to lay over and let me go by. I was hoping he would, but I didn't think the odds were going to be very good. I knew that no matter what happened we were going to race each other hard, but we raced each other clean. He's got good car control, and I know that we can race door to door like that at the speeds that we run and not have any problems. It's fun racing with guys like that. I just wish everybody like we raced together today. It would make things a lot more fun." (YOU'RE GOING FROM A TRACK THAT SEEMS TO HAVE COME INTO ITS OWN IN ITS THIRD YEAR, TO A TRACK WHERE YOU'VE TESTED AND IT'S A NEW SURFACE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE WHICH HISTORICALLY HAS HAD SOME PROBLEMS. ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THAT POT OF GOLD THERE TOO?) "Sure, and I'd like to hit the lottery too, but the odds of that are slim and none. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen when we get there. There's going to be a Modified race before we get there, and I think they run Busch North this upcoming week too. So you never know what's going to happen until you get there and really get running and get into the race. I mean yesterday when we ran Happy Hour, I don't think we ran two-wide at all during Happy Hour, but we could run three-wide today in the race. Hopefully the track will mature in a short amount of time, but if it doesn't we'll race it by what ever circumstances are given to us when we get there."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Finished 36th: "I'm fine. We had a bad break there. We had a bad break there. We had to come back in and lost a lap. We got going pretty fast. It looked like someone got into the No. 10 car (Johnny Benson) and he got down low and spun to the inside and clipped me in the left rear I guess. It was pretty close. I thought I had it made. We backed into the fence and then we had this problem with the fuel cell blowing up again and it makes for a bad scene. It looked worse than it was. I just want to tell everybody back home that I'm fine."

(WHAT WERE YOUR EMOTIONS AS YOU POUNDED THE GROUND?) "It was just frustrating, you know. The fire was one thing, but it was just frustrating to be out of the race. We had to battle back there and got up to 13th. It's just frustrating that it had to happen. You hate to see it. All the safety stuff in the car worked great and I feel fine. I smell like a BBQ pit, but other than that I feel fine."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Finished 38th: "We had just made a pit stop and made a lot of adjustments. I told the boys the car was tight. But I just couldn't drive another lap. I'm fine. We just had to go through loops to drive it. I just lost control of it. It's unfortunate, but it was a handful. It was out of control. I think I may have had a flat tire, but we had just pitted three laps before that. So I think we just over-adjusted and I wasn't going to make it another corner. It was too bad but I couldn't handle it."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "To come here and get the pole and then finish second this weekend was not exactly what we wanted, but it we were one step away from it. We had a really good car all day. We had one change that we should have made yesterday but I didn't ask for it and should have asked for it. That held us back a little bit. All in all we had a good day. This Home Depot Monte Carlo was bad fast. The thing has been good everywhere we've been with this particular car."

(IT LOOKED LIKE GUYS COULD MOVE AROUND ON VARIOUS LANES TODAY, WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS?) "I don't know about the fans, but I liked the fans. I think this race track is finally coming into it's own and getting it's own personality and it's finally a place to go where Illinois can be proud of. I think we have a pretty good race track right now."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Finished 3rd: We had a great race car. We came from the back and were able to work our way to the front. We had some ductwork blow off from underneath the bottom of the car and that hurt us pretty bad there at the end. I heard something dragging and then finally it came out from underneath. We just got tight.

"But those guys had great strategy to stay out. And we came in and just topped off and it worked out in our favor and they did a good job. Ryan (Newman) was very fast in the end. But we're happy to have the weekend we did."

(DID THIS RUN HELP YOU IN THE POINTS?) "This was great for us to get some points. The No. 17 (Matt Kenseth) had trouble. The No. 8 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) wrecked. The No. 18 (Bobby Labonte) wrecked. So it was a good day to close the gap on those guys a little."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Finished 4th: "We had a solid run. I'm real happy with that. It's all about track position. When you'd get out front there the car would just set sail and you could drive the wheels off the thing. Back in traffic, it changes everything. We were real loose on new tires. And so we fought with that all day long. But once we got going, we felt like we were as good as anybody. We had a fifth place car there at the end and then I think Kevin Harvick (ran out of gas) made it up one spot for us. But it was a great points day for the Dupont Chevrolet."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROET MONTE CARLO Finished 5th: "I'm happy. We are just a notch off. We can almost run with the leaders but not quite. And that's pretty consistent week in and week out. It's fun to run like we are but it would be a lot better if we could get up there and mix it up for the win. I'm proud of my team. They made great adjustments all day long on our NAPA Chevy. It was just a decent day and we made the most of it. We maximized our day by having good fuel mileage and being able to stay out there at the end and get some track position and hold those guys off."

(WHERE WAS YOUR CAR HANDLING THE BEST?) "The best the car will handle is on the bottom, that's for sure. But I learned yesterday (in the Busch race) that if somebody is in your way, you can pass them on the high side. So if a guy is hooked up around the bottom, he's going to be tough to beat. This track or these tires just have so much grip that the turns don't fall off a whole lot. So therefore, you don't see a lot of change in the running order. If the tires were harder or slicker in some way, or the track was slicker, then maybe you'd see more craziness happening - you know, guys going from first to 20th and back and forth. But as it is right now, there's just a lot of grip so you can kind of manage to hold your track position."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Finished 17th: "We had a great car until we ran out of gas. The car started out loose, and then got tight towards the end of each run. That's what happened there at the end with Ryan (Newman). I couldn't get up to him because the car was just too tight off the corners."

"We all thought we had the pit strategy worked to perfection. Before we came in that last time, we took a gas n' go that we thought would make up for about six laps that we thought we'd be short. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way for some reason."

"We ran out of gas and that was it."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - MEDIA CENTER INTERVIEW:

"It was obviously a great run for us. We had a lot of problems throughout the weekend with a blown engine and brakes hanging up. All kinds of crazy things went wrong with the race car. But I'm thankful that my guys have such great attitudes about things and we just laughed it off. We started at the back today - started 43rd and ended up third. So we're real happy about that.

"I think being in traffic and racing through traffic all day long, if you're able to stay out of trouble, you don't get behind on adjustments. We had a great race car and raced up to 14th before the first caution came out. And then we were able to race up front all day. In the end, the radiator ducting on the bottom of the race car blew off. We were dragging it around. I think that made it a little tighter at the end. That's what Chad (Knaus, crew chief) told me. I don't really know what the heck it would do (laughs)."

(WAS THERE ANY PARTICULAR PIT STRATEGY THAT COULD HAVE CHANGED THE OUTCOME?) "We were able to see that new tires would only change things by a couple of tenths and you'd only get that for a couple of laps. So it became apparent to us quickly that whatever you could do while you were getting fuel in the car - take tires if you can get them -- but keep the pit stops as short as possible. And then a couple of guys stayed out and started stretching fuel opportunities and we did it one time too - just came in for fuel only. We won California that way - my first win on no tires - and I've lost them before by not taking tires. It's a strategy we have to play. It doesn't mean that it's probably the best racing."

(ON THE BATTLE WITH TONY STEWART AT THE END OF THE RACE THAT WAS HARD BUT CLEAN) "At the end of the day, especially after that last pit stop, you've got to race everybody as hard as you can. I've been in situations this year where I've put a lot of trust in a guy racing with me to not take me out on the last lap and I've been crashed. Chad got on the radio and said, 'Man, just let him go, let him go.' In the back of my mind, I'm thinking the next time we get door-to-door; if I don't do my job he isn't going to respect me for it. I could put my trust in Tony and be out there and race with him side-by-side. I did it with the No. 24 (Jeff Gordon). There are certain guys that you can. You'll give each other room. But man, you're going to race hard and that's what we're here for."

(ON THE NEW SURFACE AT NHIS) "It can't be any worse than what we've had in the past with the track coming apart and the different issues we've had. We've found ourselves racing on the apron just to have a racing groove and opportunities to pass. As hard as it was to race down there, I think we still had some good short track racing - even though we were using the apron and king of hooking the grass in (turns) 3 and 4. Jeff (Gordon) and Tony tested there. Jeff came back thinking that we're going to be in good shape."

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX Finished 17th: "Man we had a good car today but it seemed like everything worked against us. At the start of the race we were fast but not as f ast as Tony Stewart. We lost a lap and that really hurt. Even though we could race with everyone we could never make up our lap and that was frustrating. We were great in the middle of the race, and I thought we would make up that lap, but then the #41 came down on me and I couldnt save the car. Bobby clipped us and that is when the big wreck started. I hate it for everyone because a lot of good cars were tore up. But we have a lot of positives to take out of the race today. We ran well and despite everything went through we managed to finish 17th."

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