UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 - GM Post-Race Quotes

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MULTI-CAR INCIDENT THAT ENDED YOUR BID?) "It looked like the '4' car (Mike Skinner) got loose on the bottom and came up and hit Rusty, and they both spun. I was on the outside, trying to slow it down and get away from them and I just couldn't do it.

"We had a great race car. The guys were doing an awesome job. We had a problem in the pits and that put us way back. We were working our way back up to the front and took a two-tire stop there. We were going to fall back a little bit, but I still think we were going to be ahead of the game for that last pit stop.

"It's unfortunate."

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 4 KODAK PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(WHAT HAPPENED?) "I'm not totally sure. But, I think Rusty pulled up on the outside of us and it just took enough air off the car that our car got a little bit loose and I just wiggled up and hit him.

"When we started out we were really, really struggling. The car was really, really loose all day and they just kept working. The guys never gave up. We're just miles from last year. I'm really, really happy with our Pontiac; I'm happy with our team. They did a great job. They got the car to where, when that happened - if we had been in the lead lap - we'd have been a top seven or eight car. We could use that right now."

TONY STEWART, NO. HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"If we hadn't knocked a hole in the fender, I think we could have run second, for sure. We were running with Matt [Kenseth] right up to that point where we had our problem, and I still think we could have made our car better than what it was at that point. So, who knows? We could have won this race even. You know - 'ifs and ands and buts,' but a top five - after something like that - we'll take that any day of the week."

(DID YOU FIGURE A TOP FIVE WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION AT THAT POINT?) "I knew we had a good car once we got the fender fixed. It was just a matter of getting through the weapons out there, and there were plenty of them out there today."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"We're very fortunate that we came out of here today with a clean race car. It seemed like everything that was happening out there was happening in front of me. Luckily, I just wasn't involved in anything.

"The guys on the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet did a great job and we came out with a top five. That's our first top five in a long time, I'm sure, so it feels good."

(DOES THAT CAP OFF A SUCCESSFUL WEEKEND FOR YOU?) "Yeah, it was. It was a good day. We had a good car all day. We weren't quite as good as some guys on the get-go, but we were better after 20 laps and then we were still good after 60 laps, or whenever we would pit. But, it was good. We were a little bit off at the beginning of a run, but I don't blame that on anybody but me."

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"It was a good day - a good day for our whole UAW-Delphi team. We got up there and we were contenders there for a while. Then, Kevin Harvick - on a restart - tore the left side of my car off. We pitted, just to not take a chance on cut left-side tires. Then, we had a piece of trash on the nose and overheated. We just overcame a lot of odds today and to end up ninth is good. I think we had a car that was capable of running up there in the top three, but we'll take it. It will move us up in the points and we're going to Atlanta. Hopefully, we'll have a shot at winning that one."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LAST LAP WITH STERLING MARLIN?) "We were racing hard. Unfortunately, we put just rights (right-side tires) on. We thought we could save a little time because we didn't need a full tank of fuel, and maybe pick up a couple seconds on pit road. But, it just didn't work out for us. It was a great gamble. It just didn't pay off. It's worked at other places, but didn't work here today.

"We were slipping back through the pack, racing hard at the end to try to stay in the top 10 and get every point that I could. We went down into three and the '40' got into me.

"I saw the video on TV. I don't really know what has happened at this point. I hope it wasn't intentional, but I raced clean with everybody all day long and don't put a tire mark on anyone and then I get turned coming to the checkers and lose two more spots. That kind of bums me out there."

STEVE PARK, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

[COURTESY OF PENNZOIL PR] "That's a great day. The guys worked really hard. Tony Gibson and the whole Pennzoil team worked good with the rest of our teammates. We really gambled and changed the whole setup on the car this morning. To get a good top 10 run, it just showed that I've got a confidence in this team that we can win races. This just goes to show you what a team effort is all about. We really weren't that good the other day and we changed everything this morning, and came out with a top 10, so it was right along the lines of what we thought."

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"That was a real tough day. We think the car was decent. We just kept fighting and fighting and fighting to get up there. We obviously weren't quite good enough. We were just a little slow on the beginning of the runs and really good in the long runs. I don't think we were terrible, at all. We were off just a touch."

(WAS IT HARD TO PASS TODAY?) "You could catch a guy and you could get underneath a guy, but he would just run side-by-side with you and I couldn't do anything about it."

(YOU'VE BEEN STEADY FOR THREE WEEKS...) "I guess you could look at that and say, 'Yeah.' But, that isn't the way we want to run. We want to run a little better than this, obviously, and we've just got to keep digging and move forward."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(ON HIS RUN) "It was up and down. I thought we were right where we needed to be early, and then I would have been happy with a top 10 in the middle because we got off. And, then we were decent at the end. We came out of the pits and ran like a 32.50 on our new tires and I knew I was too good at that point. I knew I'd be pushing later and that's how it turned out. We just got a little tight at the end and [Dale] Junior got us for second. But, it was a good day for DEI. We just didn't quite have the stuff that Matt had today."

(ON BATTLING WITH JUNIOR AT THE END... HOW DID THAT GO?) "It went pretty good for him. It didn't go very good for me.

"It was fun. The car drove great. I was just real proud of our team. We got off in the middle and we were smart enough to fix it and get us back at the end to where we were very competitive and very fast, even. We just needed one more adjustment, or two. We needed to be free-er, for sure."

(IS THIS KIND OF RUN A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME?) "The thing I'm happy about is, historically, I've struggled on new tires - sideways loose in order to be decent at the end and I'd lose a lot of spots because of that. My agenda is to make sure that I'm decent on new tires. We were able to accomplish that today. We were really fast at the end on new tires, so I think as a whole we learned a lot here that will help us as we go down the road."

(DID TODAY TELL ANYTHING ABOUT THE NEW BODY RULES IN PLACE THIS YEAR?) "Everything can be told by today and it's what I knew and wasn't worried about from the beginning - the cars are alike (equal) and there is not a story there. At Rockingham, we missed it as a company - DEI. We didn't run well there. Some of the other Chevy teams struggled. Historically, Roush has run well at Rockingham and so has Yates.

"There is not a story there. The cars are even and we can just drive the heck out of them. You saw Chevys lead a lot and Matt just got on it at the end. I think that is what you're going to see all year long. You're not going to know where it's going to come from until someone hits it at the end.

"I think it's a great story that y'all can finally write that it's not a story. If somebody is dumb enough to say, 'Man, our cars aren't even,' then I wouldn't want to be that person."

(IS THIS THE SEASON THAT THE GRUMBLING AMONG THE MAKES ENDS?) "Probably not, but it could be. The engines are different. Somebody is always going to have more power than the next guy. But, the bodies are the same and that is cool. I think the rules are great."

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NEW BODY RULES AFTER TODAY'S RACE?) "I think the people that are grumbling are always grumbling. I think that is just in their personality. That's my opinion. I think the cars are close to the same. Nobody is ever going to be totally satisfied until the end of the whole shebang, so I think everything is just going to keep kind of changing and keep changing year after year. But, I'm pretty happy. Look at the teams that ran up front - they're all just good teams. That's what it comes down to. They're all just good race teams and good drivers."

WALTRIP:

(AT THE END OF THE BROADCAST TODAY, WHY DID YOU ASK EVERYONE TO STAND BEHIND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?) "We're a country and he's our leader, and we need to unite behind him and support the decisions that he makes. Democrats and Republicans are all in Washington, and as a group, they're going to decide what is best for this country, and the President is just over the system. To turn your back on the flag or to protest at this time, it hurts my heart.

"I pray for the President and our country, and I just ask that people support the system and be behind him."

(IS THAT THE FEELING THROUGHOUT THE NASCAR COMMUNITY?) "I would venture to guess that people, as a whole in our community, feel that way. But, I can't speak for them."

EARNHARDT, JR.:

(ON HAVING THREE DEI CARS IN THE TOP 10 HERE) "I think it does a lot for my confidence and I think it does a lot for the team's. I'm sure it helps Steve a lot to be able to run a good top 10 finish. I know Michael was real happy. We were happy and relieved all at the same time. We've just had a hell of a start to this year, so it feels real good to be able to run good and be happy with what you've got at the end of the day."

WALTRIP:

(DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT YOUR TEAM IS CHARACTERIZED AS GOOD ON PLATE TRACKS, BUT NOT SO GOOD AT OTHER PLACES?) "Junior hasn't (struggled). He's won other places and he's led a lot of laps other places. I have struggled, but we've run well at times, also. Like (Dale) said, it's a big relief to put everything together and then come out here and run like we did. We threw all we had at it. We needed to perform and we did. We didn't test here. A lot of teams did, but we think we pretty well got the setups for tracks like this figured out for now. It will evolve and change, but for now we're happy with what we've got. We qualified ninth and finished third, and it wasn't like we were perfect with our setups. We struggled all day and still wound up up there, so we're very relieved.

"It doesn't bother me that people say I've struggled there. It bothers me that we kind of do."

(ON THE SUCCESS OF ROUSH RACING HERE) "I can't comment. I don't know. It's impressive. But, Matt is a great driver, and Biffle and all the guys that drive for them are just on top of their game. They've got good guys and good cars."

EARNHARDT, JR.:

(WAS THERE ANY KIND OF TEAM MEETING THIS WEEK TO DISCUSS THE START YOUR TEAM WAS OFF TO THIS YEAR?) "We didn't really have a meeting. We had a pretty good end to last year. We found out a lot of things that are going to make us better this year with our chassis. We were running raised-rail chassis and stuff and we got some standard-rail chassis and that's why we ran good at Phoenix and Homestead. We had never really run good there before. But, I've never been good at Rockingham. I've just never been good there. I don't know why. I ain't never run good there. We go in there and if we got a 20th place finish, I'd be ecstatic. Daytona, we were just a victim of some crappy, old pa rt that didn't work right. Everybody, but the team, has made a bigger deal out of the start of the season for us. I feel like we're on track.

"We still know our potential. This is the kind of results - we're not used to, of course - we don't have them all the time. But, these are the ones that we know we can produceomHomdH

"We were really good all day long. I really led a lot of laps and I feel like that's how good we should be. Our car really drove great. Over the three years that we've run here before, we've never really had a car that would get into the racetrack. We're learning so many things that are helping us at all the tracks. Running good here is going to reflect on the rest of the season. But, like I said, we found some things out during the last third of last year that really helped us out. That's how we got to running real good and climbing back up from the depths of the point system, and running good at tracks we hadn't run good at before, like here.

"I really want to get a win at Atlanta. We've come so close. I don't know how many times we've run second or been in second place there with a few laps to go. Hopefully, one day we'll win a race there. Daddy used to win all the time...I like Atlanta. It's a fun, fun racetrack because you can run three-wide and move around. Your car can work on the bottom and as good up top, so you've really got an opportunity to do some racing there. I hope they don't ever cut back on the schedule for that track because it's a lot of fun."

(WERE YOU AS GOOD AT THE END OF THE RACE AS YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE BEEN?) "We were pretty good when the race started. I was really, really loose at the start of the runs, so I think the third stop we put a little air in the right front and I was perfect. That's when I put the three seconds on Matt. I was just cutting up through there on those restarts and getting to the lead and everything. At that time, he may have still been better than us. Looking at the result of the race, he may, at the time, have been better than us. But, I was just riding and my car was real comfortable. The second-to-last set of tires was real tight. They closed the stagger up and made my car too tight. The last set of tires we put on, they took spring rate of the tire - a softer left rear on and fixed the stagger and everything, so I was too loose then. It was real temperamental. I don't know why our car was affected by such minute changes. I've always told Tony (Eury) Jr., that a driver can feel an eighth of an inch or a 16th of an inch in tire stagger. With these tires you have now you can feel an eighth of an inch or a 16th, and you can feel 30 pounds less spring rate in the left rear. It changes the car. It doesn't make you a 10th place car. It makes you a third or fourth place car when you might have been a second or first place car."

(IS THERE ANY PRESSURE WITH BEING THE NO. 1 GUY TO THE FANS?) "I don't think so. I have a good core fan base. I think that I'm one of the few drivers in the field that a race fan can really relate to and attach themselves to, so I feel like a have a stronger bond with my fans than more so other drivers. I feel real comfortable with the fans we have. It fluctuates. There are a few stragglers that like you one week and hate you the next, but the core fan has always been good to me."

(ARE YOU MORE ON TARGET THIS YEAR THAN YOU EVER HAVE BEEN IN THE PAST?) 'I think we're definitely a better team. I guess that puts you in a better position to get better results.

"We're not on target. We wanted to win Daytona. We wanted to, at least, get a good finish there. We should have. We were so awful at Rockingham. We wanted to at least come out of there with a 20th place finish, so we're not on target. But, we're a better team and that will show and that will reflect in all our results this year. I don't count us out. It's real early. We can still come back and win the championship real easy. Weeks like this surely help."

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