Dodge Charger 500 - Dodge Thursday Quotes

NOTE: Rain washed out all the action scheduled for Thursday at Darlington Raceway. Cup practice begins Friday at 11:10 a.m. with qualifying set for 5:10 p.m.

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger)

“I was rather excited when I saw rain this morning. This is one of the tracks that really hasn’t changed, and we’ve run pretty much the same setup here for two or three years. This is one of the places where some of the new setup stuff we do doesn’t work as well as at other racetracks. I think most of the teams have pretty good notes to work off of, and I expect most that run well here won’t be too disappointed.”

COMMENT ON NIGHT RACE AT DARLINGTON “This was one of the worst racetracks for sun in your eyes last year. Driving off into turn three was horrible. I didn’t know about the tear offs that were tinted and gave you a tinted visor and then when the sun goes down you pull it off and it’s clear. I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem this year with it being in the springtime instead of the fall, but that was huge last year. It’s a cool place at night. There’s so much grip at all these racetracks when the sun goes away, but this place probably gains more grip than anywhere else, here and Charlotte. When the sun goes down it gets really, really fast.”

COMMENT ON THE BUSCH RACE HERE “This is one of the racetracks where I don’t know if the Busch race really helps me. I’ve always seemed to run well here, and I run the Busch race just because I love it. It’s a fun racetrack, and if you have a good car you can pass. This is one of the places they always preach to just race the racetrack. It’s hard to do, but if your car is good it’s a really cool place to get to race at.”

COMMENT ON POSSIBILITY OF HAVING TO RACE TWO RACES IN ONE DAY “I’d like to see us get to race Friday night, but I would way rather race on Saturday morning than Sunday because we’re going to the lake on Sunday. I was pretty excited when I realized it was a Saturday night race at Darlington because I’ve only been home, I think I’ve slept in my bed 13 or 14 nights since Daytona. I was rather looking forward to getting to go home and hang out with all my friends on Sunday, but I’d be totally fine if the race were on Saturday morning. We did it at Charlotte, and it was a longer Busch race and a longer Cup race. It was hotter, so I don’t think it’ll be that big of a deal.”

COMMENT ON JIMMIE JOHNSON’S RECENT PROBLEMS ON THE TRACK “Everybody has days like Jimmie had at Talladega. You guys have to have something to talk about. A couple of drivers really had some harsh words about him, and it makes for a really good story. I’ve been reading on the internet all morning on my bus, so you’re doing a real good job.”

WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE ON AGGRESSIVE DRIVING? “I don’t know. It seemed like when Dale Earnhardt used to be aggressive there were a lot of cheers in the stands and everybody kinda said that’s just the way he is. Some people can get away with that more than others. Jimmie is very aggressive, but a lot of drivers are that way. Maybe this year it has caught up with him a little bit since the deal with Tony happened at Phoenix and Jeff Burton at Bristol. I think maybe if it was all spread out over the year it wouldn’t be so bad but because it happened in the last couple of months it’s been spotlighted a little bit more than normal, plus he’s our points leader. To me, it just makes for a really good story.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

COMMENT ON JIMMIE JOHNSON. IS HE GETTING RIDICULED UNFAIRLY? “I don’t know if it’s ridiculed. You’ve got to be careful because if you call it aggressive driving then Jimmie is going to think he’s doing everything right. That’s not the Dale Earnhardt aggressive driving style I don’t think. Earnhardt would just nudge you and put it where it was supposed to be, but you didn’t see him just wreck everybody all the time or whatever is going on now with Jimmie. A couple of things happened and it looks like he’s taking people out all the time. It’s really not that bad I don’t think. It may be a good story, but you’ve got to be careful. (Jim) Hunter is in here looking at me now, so I can’t say it all. It started at Bristol. Jeff Burton and I were racing together nose to tail, didn’t touch each, didn’t hit each other. I pass Burton and the next thing I know I looked in my rear view mirror and he was turned around and I found out later that Jimmie just punted him basically. You give a guy one every once in awhile, but when you do that you expect him to come back and do like Nemechek did and apologize. That’s not just aggressive driving. I can run over somebody any time I want to. I can wreck somebody every week, but you try not to do that. What I saw from the Tony Stewart deal, I don’t understand how that happens, being going straight and then just punt a guy. Maybe they’ve got problems going on. Him and Harvick had the big wreck at Daytona, and I knew that was coming. They’ve been feuding back and forth. A lot of stuff has been going on back and forth, and I’m not sure how to answer that. There’s more than I thought now that I look back recapping the deal. I think what’s really sticking him out right now, last week both wrecks he was kind of in the middle of both of those. I’m not sure who started it or how it happened, but when you see the replays you see the 48 a lot. Maybe Jimmie can answer it better than I can. I’m not sure what’s going on there.”

JIMMIE IS THE POINTS LEADER. DOES THAT MAKE HIM A BIGGER TARGET? “What makes you a bigger target is when you do what you’ve been doing. No matter if you’re the points leader or not, your target gets bigger and bigger. The thing about it is you’ve got more people shooting at your target than what you realize. Not that anybody takes anybody out on purpose or anything, but to win the championship you need to race like you’ve been racing to get there, not change your ways after you become the point leader. We have a lot of common courtesy amongst ourselves as drivers. I haven’t been involved. We’ve been fortunate not to be involved in any of the big wrecks, but if I see the 48 and we’re racing Saturday night, I’ll probably race him different and it won’t be the pull over and be courteous. I’ll just race him like he’s been racing and go from there. When that happens, everyone will start doing you that way and you might not become the points leader anymore. I guess what I’m trying to say it would be hard to win the championship when you’ve got people that are not really against you but not pulling for you, either.

“The other day when that big wreck started I was right behind Matt Kenseth. It happened right in front of us. We were in the top 10 or 15 when it happened. When everybody started checking up I hit Kenseth. I knew I did that. I wasn’t trying to, but I knew I did that. The first thing I did was come on the radio and said I was so sorry. I apologized to Matt. They came back on the radio and say thank you. You knocked us out of the way so we didn’t get hit. Jimmie knows what will happen. I’m telling you. He knows if he hit Tony or purpose or didn’t or looked down and looked up. I talked to Bobby Labonte at Texas. He had a problem with his car. I forgot what it was, but he went to switch the B bar on his dash and he looked up and the wreck was in front of him and he got into it. He knew that. We all know as drivers and most time you don’t have to go back and watch. You just tell the truth, and the truth was I hit Kenseth and I apologized to him for it. Joe apologized for what he did, and usually the television will show it. I’ve learned to tell the truth and then you don’t have to watch the replay and it is your fault. That’s what we do. We just kind of know amongst ourselves.”

DO YOU THINK THERE WILL BE PAYBACK? “I wouldn’t call it payback. You know how to race each other out there. A guy gets to you and you know he’s going to pass you anyway, so you’ll see guys who will move up in one corner and get right back down behind him and let him go. You save time to the leader that way. You’re not sitting there both slowing down. What I mean by that is like I’m sure people that have been involved – I know Harvick, Stewart, Burton, guys that have had major problems when the 48 gets to him they might just ride there and say ‘here, take me out. I’m going to sit here until you pass me.’ Then all of a sudden the leader catches you and you just get behind the whole race like that instead of racing each other the right way. You make so many enemies in this deal and you’ll pay for it that way. I’m not saying that somebody might accidentally slide into him. Who knows? I’m not going to predict nothing like that, but I know if you waste that way it makes it hard to race.”

DO YOU THINK JOHNSON IS DRIVING DIFFERENTLY? “I haven’t really noticed a difference. He and I have never had a problem at all whatsoever, but just watching the replays from what I’ve seen and I’ll give you an honest opinion on it as a driver, when you just drive right in the back of the 20 car at Phoenix, I don’t understand that. I really don’t. I’m not saying I won’t do it here Saturday night. Who knows? But if I do it here I can honestly tell you that I won’t know what the hell I was thinking if I did that. To see the same thing with Burton, I don’t call that aggressive driving. Aggressive driving is when you’re all over somebody’s tail. Just like Jamie used Dale Earnhardt earlier. You didn’t see Dale Earnhardt do stuff like that. I don’t know what you call it. Only Jimmie can answer what that was, but I’ve never seen Dale Earnhardt just do that kind of stuff. I don’t really call that aggressive driving. I just call that something went wrong, somebody made a mistake. Maybe Tony did brake check him. Who knows? That’s what he said. Tony knows.”

HOW WAS THE TRACK AT CHARLOTTE? “It was pretty wild because the track at Charlotte was so rough before and so hard to get a grip and handle on it, I’ve been used to driving at that place for a long time. You get there the other day and it was like all the bumps you could still see there, but you go in the corner and you can’t feel any of them. I tried to drive the place the same as I always have, getting off and getting back into the gas. I went into turn three the first 30 laps expecting to hit the bumps because you can still see it there when it used to be. The car went right across it like it was nothing. I had to come in. I told my guys I was going to treat the place like I’d never been there before and just throw out all the visualizations of my points and things. I just started all over, and I think that helped me a lot. I think it’s really a better racetrack right now. As you’ve seen the groove wasn’t on the bottom only. It actually moved up even that was the fastest way around there, the groove off the bottom. It’ll make for some great racing. It had a ton of grip, every smooth. I think they’ve done a great job on it. The other night was fast. We ran a 29 flat in race trim and 28.90s. It’s pretty much all you can do going around there. You’re back in the gas early and it’s cool we’ve got that much grip. It felt like we got some of our downforce back.”

COMMENT ON THE PROGRESS YOU’VE MADE WITH THE CHARGER “I’m predicting from here on out, I said before we went to Talladega if we could just get through there and gain all the points we can we can go racing after that. We really feel like we’re prepared for the rest of the season. We feel like we’ve round our balance. I heard a song the other day that said ‘we’ve found what we’ve been looking for.’ I know we’ve found that now, and that’s a good sign to know this is the balance I like and this is what we’re looking for. The Dodge Charger is a great racecar. We just had to tune on it a little bit and we feel like we’ve got the bugs worked out of it. We have found what we’re looking for.”

WILL THE RACE BE DIFFERENT HERE AT NIGHT? “I don’t know if it’ll be different. It’ll be different from the fans’ point of view, but it’ll be cool for us to start when it’s kinda dark and then it turns into dark. It’s not really starting at daytime. When you say night race, let’s night race. Let’s don’t do this twilight thing where you start in the afternoon and watch the sun go down and then we run into the dark a little bit. Let’s just race at night like they’re starting to do now. I think it’s going to be good. It’ll be more good racing. At night with the full moon it’s wild and that’s probably what it’ll be here Saturday night.”