Sharpie 500 - Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - "I'm fine. I think my pride's hurt more than anything. I saw the (No.) 22 spinning high so I went low. I thought I had him cleared -- I needed another six inches --it was that close. I got hit in the right rear and started spinning. There wasn't anything I could do. The car hit driver's-side first but luckily it wasn't flush. I took a good hit, I felt it."

I don't know what it is, but my foot swelled up. But hey, this is Bristol. We'll be back in California." Note: Nemechek suffered a bruised left foot and will have further evaluation Sunday in Charlotte.

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Winner = "Boy, I'm wore out. That's a long green flag run. I think it wore everybody out. This is the biggest race of my career. It's Bristol, baby."

(IT WAS A LONG ROAD GETTING BACK TO VICTORY LANE. YOU'VE HAD SOME TOUGH DAYS.) "Yeah, but you're going to have that. You can't be number one all the time. It just makes them sweeter, man. You wouldn't enjoy them as much. This is really great for our team. We really needed that. It's awesome.

"I came to a lot of races here when my dad drove them. He made this place magical if you're an Earnhardt fan, and me being one of 'em. I might not have done it like he did it just now, but that was pretty damn close."

(YOUR DAD WAS IN VICTORY LANE HERE FIVE YEARS AGO TONIGHT) "Yeah, we seem to keep on matching number some how or another. But wherever he is, he's laughing. He had some great races here. That's why this place is so magical to me. I've wanted to win here so bad. I never thought I'd win a Busch race and a Cup race the same weekend at Bristol. Good Lord. What a great day.

(ARE YOU GOING TO CELEBRATE?) "Oh, yeah, and we've got Sunday off".

(THIS IS THE MOMENTUM YOU GUYS WANTED GOING INTO THE FINAL 10 RACES) "We might not bounce back to full consistency right away, but we're gaining on it. I count on my team. When everybody thinks we're down and out we get it back. We figure it out. We keep going. That's what makes us tough." More to follow

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 3rd = "It was a great day for the Lowe's Monte Carlo. I've just got to thank these crew guys and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports and all the Lowe's employee owners for not giving up on me. It's been a tough month. I made a mistake yesterday and crashed the car. To bring out a back up car and have a third place finish with it is really good. My hat's off to the whole Lowe's team for working their butts off. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them." More to follow

JEFF BURTON, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 4th = "This is an awesome race team. I stepped into a situation with a lot of good people and am trying to take advantage of it. I'm real proud of these guys. This AOL team is working well together and started working well together right off the bat. I'm real inspired right now and feel really good about where we're headed. Kevin Hamlin (crew chief) and all these guys are really good. Hopefully we can just keep building on this."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 24th - Note - Harvick was dehydrated and his arm kept falling asleep. Kyle Petty took over the driving duties on lap 362: "My arm just fell asleep during that long green flag run. My seat was pinching a nerve under my left bicep and it just went numb. I tried to bring it back to life after that pit stop, but once we went racing again it fell right back asleep. I knew the only thing to do was have someone replace me because I knew I couldn't drive the car with one arm.

"It's a lot better now that I've had a chance to cool down and get some fluids back in me. Dr. (Jay) Bolden (RCR physician) looked me over and made sure my arm was okay. I want to thank Kyle for taking over for me in the Realtree/GM Goodwrench Chevy. I knew he'd drive it as hard as I did."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 12th: "It was brutal. Wow. It's probably the toughest race I've ever raced. It was hot. The car was hot inside. We've got to do some work on that. I don't know where 12th is going to put us, but it was a decent run for us tonight.

"We had a really good car. I think Kevin Harvick could have worked with us a little bit better. I worked with him at the Glen. If he was going to get out of the car, there was no reason for him not to let us by. That probably cost us the Lucky Dog. I'm a little disappointed by that, but it's kind of the way it's been all year."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

"It was a good race. But while you're sitting there leading, you think of all the ways you're going to get beat. But nothing ever happened, so I feel real lucky."

(ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE BURNS?) "Just getting the beer in them - there was a lot of beer sprayed on my pants that soaked through. It's gotten to the point where I have a big open spot on the top of my thigh. Sometimes when I slap my leg while laughing at a joke or something I'll hit it. So I guess it isn't bothering me so much. One thing my doctors were worried about was that I wasn't using my leg and then it starts to cramp up in the race car. It started cramping up a little bit when I first started getting back in the car. You just keep trying to keep fluid down there because it keeps pushing fluid out of the wounds. You've got to drink water all the time. You can get dehydrated easily."

(WHAT MADE A DIFFERENCE THIS WEEKEND AT BRISTOL FOR YOU?) "For me, the difference was that I had a good car tonight and I could do the job. My car was really quick through the center. I was able to stay on the bottom. I was able to cut a lot of time on everybody that I needed to catch by beating them through the middle of the corner. We basically ran really close to the same set-up we ran earlier this year. We had the same car. We made a few adjustments to make it turn better and one adjustment to give it some more forward bite. That's really all we did."

(ON HIS MINDSET TO WIN BRISTOL) "I was sitting there with 100 (laps) to go and I was thinking man, I hate this place. But it's a love/hate relationship. You come here as a child and it puts you in awe and you want to win here so bad. It's like a lot of tracks with a lot of history like Charlotte and some other places that deal you some nasty blows. They'll dangle it right in front of you and then deal you a nasty blow and make you wait it out. I'm just really glad I won tonight. This is like the Daytona 500 and Charlotte and Atlanta. These are the historic tracks that have been around for years and have been on my list of places to win."

(DIDN'T YOU GET IN SOME TROUBLE AT THIS RACE IN THE SPRING?) "I was mouthing off on the radio. I know NASCAR scans a lot of the drivers and it was very unprofessional. I was blowing off some steam and it took 40 laps to do it."

(YOU JUST OUTRAN THE COMPETITION TONIGHT) "It was like that last night. You just can't go to the track with a new line to run. My car was really identical as last night's car (Busch race). I knew I could run the Cup car the same as the Busch car but I told Tony (Eury) this morning that I'm not sure you'd want to. I'd give up a lot of speed on the exit of the corner by driving in the center so hard. You'd almost have to stop and turn again to get off the corner. I don't know that you'd want to do that in a Cup car. I started doing it and I got a little ahead of myself and let Rusty go. But then I got back in the groove and passed Rusty back three or four times. I did it with the No. 48. I got out front and I got loose driving foolish out of my pace.

"My daddy and I were practicing for the race one weekend when I was a rookie. I was all over the place and wasn't running real good. And he got on the radio and told me he was going to tell me where to lift and where to get on the gas. You lift at the flagstand but you don't use any brakes so you're not really losing a lot of speed by the time that you get there..... you've just got to keep repeating it. I beat myself up about lifting early all night long and try to get through the center of the corner and pick the gas up before anybody else. And it's really hard. You've got guys around you that are going in deeper than you but you're driving right back by in the center of the corner. The other good thing about that is that you don't beat your tires up driving deep in the corner and beating the right front."

(AT INDY, YOU SAID YOU WERE NOT A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM. DOES THIS WIN CHANGE THAT?) "We can win the championship. But when I said championship team, I'm taking about the guys who are a factor in the win every week. We've got tracks that we run good at. We've got to keep testing. We're not as good as I want to be, but I don't know if that will ever happen. We just have to keep working and do what we can. This race and this win does boost your confidence. It's definitely a shot in the arm for the team and we need it."

"It's been kind of tough. You can't hide from it. You're reminded by the media of your performance and how bad it is. You can't run and hide from it. It makes it tough on the team. But when we win like this, it makes it more special. When we do have slumps, winning at places like the Daytona 500 and like this, Bristol, it makes it so much more special. It's a bigger relief than just having an average consistent race team every week. I'd rather be more consistent every week, but man when you run like crap a big win like this is pretty meaningful."

(CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE RULE ABOUT LEAVING YOUR FEELINGS OUTSIDE OF THE GATE WHEN YOU WALK INTO YOUR SHOP) "I thought everybody knew what that means. Tony Jr. and Tony Sr. and me - all the original guys who were working there before DEI was even named - have always said to leave your feelings at the gate. You've got to be tough as nails when you come in there. You've got to have thick skin. It's a tough crowd. It's a good group of people. Everybody seems to be really motivated - even when we don't run good and even when I open my mouth when I shouldn't with the media or in the press box and say things I shouldn't say or realize the impact it will have. But you've got to be strong when you're working there - especially when you're working on the No. 8 car with Tony Sr. He treats his friends and total strangers alike. When it comes to business and racing, he's the same."

(DO YOU THINK IN A BACKWARD SORT OF WAY THAT GETTING BURNED MIGHT BE GOOD FOR YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP RUN?) "Never. I'd never want to deal with that ever again. I don't think it helped me in any way. We didn't run good. We had to get a couple of relief drivers. I should have been healthy and never been hurt. I should have been able to run races even if we failed, we failed together. I felt like I let them down a little bit. But again, I don't put any responsibility on anybody's shoulders for me getting burned. I made that decision to do that and I'd do it again. I wouldn't change things. I found out some people and my family meant a lot more to me. My mama took care of me for three or four weeks. I was complaining and cussing her. She just chugged it out. It was awesome. She hadn't done anything like that for a long time because she lived in Virginia for 20 years and I saw her once a year. She moved down here and I see her and I take care of her and she works for me and all, but we just never had really been that close in 20 years. I wouldn't trade that."

(CAN YOU HANDICAP THE FIELD FOR THE CHASE AND HOW DO YOU RANK IN THE FINAL 10?) "I'd like to think I was number one. Jimmie is strong. Jeff is strong. Those to cats right there are tough. I think Tony's got a chance of winning. I hope I'm right up there. I don't want to say I rank behind any body. That's wouldn't be right. But it's pretty much anybody's championship. The guy in 10th might have to work harder, but it can be done."

(DID YOUR DAD TEACH YOU THAT WINNING AT BRISTOL IS TO BE VERY SMOOTH? IS THAT THE ULTIMATE SECRET IN A WAY?) "Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. He was telling me that. He was telling me to lift now, and that was way back. The corner is way down there. And I'd lift. And then he'd tell me to get on the gas now and I'd think it was way too soon. I started to figure out why he wanted me to lift so early and it was because he wanted me to get on the gas soon. I was driving into the corner until I couldn't drive in there no more and then going the other way. It was just not as fast. It took me a while to figure it out. You have to have a good car too. It made it easier on me to just run that same line. I knew that it was faster than the guy behind me."

(DO YOU SEE OTHER PEOPLE DOING THAT, OR WAS THAT YOUR DAD'S LITTLE SECRET?) "Yeah, I see other guys driving through there like that - especially later in the race. They talked about it last night on a couple of radios. There is a little bit of black tar or paint before you actually get to the asphalt apron. There is a little bit of banking that's maybe eight inches wide. If you get the left front tire perfectly on that, it hooks so much better than that concrete. I was just going in the corner slow enough that I never let the left front tire slide off of it. It was hooking."

(WHAT'S IT LIKE TO SEE 160,000 FANS WEARING RED?) "It means a lot to me. It's close to home. It means a lot to me that the Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans enjoy what I do. I'm glad that I can do something out on the race track and make somebody's day. Do you know what I mean? That's really a good feeling that you know you've made a lot of people happy."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

"It was a very hard race with the long green flag runs we had today and the stress of being in the back. You'd complete five laps and look in the mirror and the leader was behind you. It was difficult coming from the back. We chose to pit quite a bit at the beginning and get our car as good as it could be. We hoped we would have enough fuel and good enough tires to catch the leaders when they would have to pit. It worked out where we didn't need to pit because we just pitted 12 laps before that and after that, we were able to stay up front. We fought for it the rest of the day.

"We led at one point. But for some reason - I guess I didn't clean my tires off good enough when we went back to green after that run and I got real loose a couple of times and Junior got by. We slid back. He was really in a class of his own today. I was surprised we caught him and passed him the one time. On that last restart, unfortunately somebody got into us and I lost a few positions. A lot of lapped cars got in front of me and I had to use my stuff up trying to get up to the No. 30 and the No.12 and I got by the No. 30 and brought it home. This is something this team needed real bad after the rough month we've had and the hard weekend I put them through. Coming in third was like winning for us."

(HOW WAS IT TO HAVE A STRONG RUN AFTER STRUGGLING RECENTLY?) "Obviously we're very happy to be back on track. This team is very strong and we try not to let bad things get us down. When you get three consecutive DNF's - all for different reasons - it does take its toll on you. To come back and get a third place finish is something this team needed. We've got to get to work and that final 10 is coming up faster than we can believe it. We're ready to test. We're ready to get going. We'll be in New Hampshire this week and getting ready for the final 10."

(ON CHAD'S EARLY PIT STRATEGY) "We were going to have to take a gamble at some point. And fortunately it worked out early in the race that we could be toward the front and not have to be in any dicey situations. In the beginning of the race, I was right around several wrecks and had some close calls so I was pretty nervous with that. About 80 laps in, we caught our break where we could cycle through and then we had the speed to stay up front."

(IT WAS EXPECTED THAT BRISTOL WOULD BE WILD AND CRAZY BECAUSE OF THE NEW POINTS SYSTEM, BUT INSTEAD IT WAS RELATIVELY CALM) "It depends on where you're at in the points. Junior is rebounding back from some difficulties. Ryan was as well. I was. Jeff Burton is in a new situation. So the guys I had to race at the end of the race - we were all being pretty respectful to one another because we needed to have good nights. That maybe worked in to the deal there. Back in the pack, some of the other guys needed to finish races. I noticed the No. 9 and the No. 19 didn't have the best night. Your chance at the championship is in two weeks. If you don't make that cut, you're only racing for 11th."

(ON GOING TO CALIFORNIA INSTEAD OF DARLINGTON NEXT WEEK) "I'm really torn. I really enjoy racing at Darlington. It's such a cool race track. We won there in the spring. I wish we were racing there a couple times a year. But Fontana has been good to us. Jeff won there and we were second. We'll be in good shape. We've got a good understanding about what's been going on with our engine stuff. Some little things have slipped through on us that have caused some problems. So we'll go to Fontana very secure and confident with the engine package we have on top of the aero and mechanical grip and it should be good. Over the holidays and under the lights will take our sport another step forward."