MBNA RacePoints 400 - Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes

Kyle Busch #5 Kellogg's Chevrolet 2nd position

PRESS CONFERENCE EXCERPTS

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED THAT'S MADE YOU SUCH A GOOD COMPETITOR HERE? Pretty much I just had to learn that a loose car here is fast. You're just trying to get the car setup all weekend, even the Truck to the Busch car to the Cup car, we just try to get them all the same. You know, it's cool when you can get them driving the same, pretty much. It makes it easier on yourself, just on the fact that you can run the same line and the same way, everything like that. On restarts, our car was really good on the outside for about two laps. You'd get right back down to the bottom, and it's kind of a shame to see this place.it's spread a lot, don't get me wrong, it's just that my car wouldn't really work anywhere else except the bottom on long runs when I got tight. It was cool to be able to run up there with all the rest of the veterans like Mark Martin and Elliott Sadler and Greg Biffle. It was really neat to race with those guys-and my teammate Jimmie Johnson. And they all gave me great room. We all had fun, we all had a blast.

HOW MANY MORE LAPS BEFORE YOU COULD HAVE CAUGHT GREG? There was no catching him. He was checking out. It was all about how many laps I could hang on for Mark Martin. You know, if we came in and took four tires, we probably wouldn't have finished second. We probably would have been about fourth-maybe third. But, that was about it. We just thought all about track position and trying to get out there. You know, I knew as soon as I looked up in the mirror and we had the lead that Greg was too close and I wasn't going to be able to hold him off. I was hoping that I would be able to hold off second place and it was definitely a great call by Alan Gustafson. He came on the radio and asked me what I thought and I said, 'Well, we'll think about it and when the leaders are pitting here and what not.' And I saw Greg Biffle come in and I said, next time we're coming, we're doing two (tires), let's do it. We ended up making that change.

YOU SAID EVERY RACE HERE HAS BEEN A LEARNING EXPERIENCE HERE AT DOVER. WHAT DID YOU TAKE FROM LAST NIGHT'S RACE TO TODAY? The biggest thing was just throttle control about what you need to do with your race car and how you need to run it. Especially in the beginning part of the race and on fresh tires you can run really, really hard for a few laps. About never lift all the way out of the gas. A few laps after that, you really have to stick it to the bottom and use a lot of throttle control to keep it there and hopefully not too tight coming up off the corners.

Jimmie Johnson #48 Lowe's Chevrolet 4th position

HOW MUCH MORE DID YOU NEED THERE AT THE END TO RUN DOWN BIFFLE? I think everybody at the end there was pretty equal. Mark (Martin) took tires there at the end and he got a spot or two out of that. Probably a good call. We were burned last week by pitting early trying to win the race, and this week Chad didn't want to pit early. The #16 came to pit road early, got out on new tires and got going. You know, great call on their behalf. It was a call that worked out. Last week a lot of people tried that and it didn't work out. To bounce back from mid-race kind of being a little slow, top 5 is awesome. It's a great day for the Lowe's Monte Carlo.

TALK ABOUT THE RHYTHM OF THIS RACE TEAM AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO KEEP THIS UP THE REST OF THE YEAR We just really have to keep our eye on the ball. You know, it's easy to get caught up in other things. I get worried about one event if you're having a bad week and let the highs get to your head. But our race team is so stable. We're a good group of guys and we'll just be back and try to get ready for that final ten.

HOW HARD DID YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR THIS FINISH TODAY? Very hard. Everybody was running very hard today. In a long haul, we were better. Got a little loose in the short haul and then bounce back. I'm very happy for the Lowe's team and happy with the performance.

Brian Vickers #25 GMAC / ditech.com Chevrolet 6th position

COMMENTS ABOUT THE RACE The guys did a good job on the GMAC Chevy team. We had a decent car. They worked on it every pit stop, got it better and better. The second to last run, we had a really good car. Faster than the leader, but we just ran out of time and track position. We went for two tires on the pit stop on the last run and we came out with a good, solid day.

WAS IT A TOP SIX CAR, OR DO YOU THINK YOU JUST DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME? I think at times it was better, on a long run. Speed-wise, we were the fastest car on the second-to-last run. On the last pit stop, we put two tires on which freed the car up. We probably should have adjusted for it, but we didn't and it definitely hurt us there on that last run.

HOT RACE TODAY Oh, it was definitely hot. No doubt. It was a long day.

Scott Riggs #10 Valvoline Chevrolet 11TH position

COMMENTS ABOUT THE RACE Yeah, it was hard fought race for us, that's for sure. We just made some adjustments after practice yesterday and I thought we went the right direction. I don't know if they hurt us. The extra hot temperatures really hurt our car more than anyone else. It just seemed like we couldn't get our car to turn in the middle of the corner. Kept trying to work with the front end and made some pretty good adjustments. Cost us a lot of time on pit road doing it-just trying to grasp at something. Really never could help it, so we finally just had to start freeing the rear up. To get the rear outside the front. Actually not a very good car. We missed all the wrecks and had a decent finish.

WAS THIS THE HOTTEST RACE SO FAR? IT was pretty hot. My seat insert in this car was one of the worst ones we have for air blowing in it. It was pretty hot in there, but I stayed hydrated on my Gatorade and feel pretty good.

Tony Stewart #20 The Home Depot Chevrolet 15th position

COMMENTS ON EARLIER ACCIDENT WITH JEFF GORDON ON LAP 41 I got into the back of him. It doesn't take too much of a rocket scientist to figure that out, now does it?

SHOULD HE HAVE MOVED? Everybody else was doing a pretty good job of give-and-take. It's just when you get around Jeff (Gordon) I guess the rules are different with him. He does more taking than he does giving. But the intention wasn't to knock him up out of the way. I just wanted to get behind him close enough that he knew I was there to say, 'Hey, you know, let us go and if you're faster we'll let you go.' And we've always done that with him. I don't know why it is with him and Jimmie (Johnson) and Ryan (Newman), but it's a group of them that think that the roads are named after them - one way.

HE SAID NEXT TIME HE'D PREPARED TO DO THE SAME THING TO YOU That's fine. Jeff's always whining like that. If somebody does something to Jeff it's always their fault. That's just Jeff Gordon. That's the way he's been ever since he's been down here. So, that's fine. We can get into a car crash. It really doesn't matter to me.

IS THIS HAPPENING FROM WEEK TO WEEK BECAUSE IT'S SO COMPETITIVE OUT THERE? No, it's happening week to week because people are forgetting how to. you know they were talking about it today on the pre-race show about people being respectful. I remember when I started, I mean the best thing that could happen to NASCAR racing is Mark Martin give a seminar on give-and-take, because it didn't used to be like this. Now guys. I mean, you've got to race them to the death just to get by them, and if you have to do that then that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to get behind guys like that and then when Jeff (Gordon) checks up like that and I run into him, then it's his fault and not ours. All he had to do was move up and let us go and 20 laps later if he was faster we would've let him go right back by.

HE SAID HE HAD A SLOWER CAR Then why didn't he move?

HE SAID HE EXPECTED MORE PATIENCE Yeah, he expects more patience on everybody else, not himself. Instead of him doing it he expects us just to let him go and wait until his car gets better.

SOME DRIVERS HAVE SUGGESTED THAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT INTO A ROOM AND REMINDED ABOUT GIVING DRIVERS RESPECT Yeah, I mean, I didn't have any problems with Mark Martin. I didn't have any problems with Jeff Burton. The only guys I had problems with were Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. It's the same guys every week. Eventually, you finally got to stand up for yourself. You give so much that they expect you to just give it to them all the time. Well, by gosh, if I got a fast race car they're going to have to start giving me some now.

Jason Leffler #11 FedEx Freight Chevrolet 20th position

HOW WAS YOUR LAP? It's good to be back on the track after last week. The car wasn't great today, BUT DAVE and the crew did enough with it to make it competitive. We had really good stops-the guys in the box called a real good race. Fast stops, which always helps for position. We hope that this 20th place finish is a good step and we look forward to carrying some momentum to Pocono.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. #8 Budweiser Chevrolet 22nd position

COMMENTS ON THE RACE Not much fun out there today. We struggled with the car; never really could find out how to make it work through the corners. The last two runs were the worse it had been all day, and I thought for sure I was gonna be crashin'. I'm not sure where we finished, but I know it wasn't good.

ACTUALLY, YOU FINISHED 22ND Really!?! Hell, that's a lot better than I thought. I figured I was in the 30s somewhere. Considering how bad our car was, I'll take a 22nd.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING PHYSICALLY? IT WAS A HOT DAY AND A LONG RACE I'm actually pretty sore from the car bouncing and throwing me around so much. I felt like I was in a paint-can shaker with a cinder block tied to my back. The car just bounced, bounced, bounced all day through the corners, and it didn't matter what we did, the bounce never went away. But it's cool. We've got to get better, and we know it. This is a track we've never really been consistent at. Sometimes we do good, sometimes we do bad. But we'll learn from this. We're going to test at Michigan this week, and then head to Pocono. Looking forward to it.

Joe Nemechek #01 U.S. Army Chevrolet 27th position

RACE COMMENTS Let's just say it was not a good day for the Army team. We struggled from the beginning and never could get it going. This is the kind of race you want to forget about immediately and start thinking ahead to next week.

COMMENTS ON CHANGES MADE TO THE CAR DURING THE RACE We threw everything but the kitchen sink at the car and it never responded. We've had much better performances but worst finishes. Go figure. This is a crazy business and there are going to be days like we had today. But we'll be better next week (in Pocono) and I am confident about that.

We were fired up after last week and wanted to put on another great show. It didn't happen but no one can ever say that we gave up. We fought hard right up until the checkered flag waved. Charlotte was a strong performance and today wasn't. We're looking to make a 180-degree turnaround in Pocono. Pocono couldn't come at a better time. We have a good book on that track.

Dave Blaney #07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet 36th position

Note: Blaney crashed on Lap 135 and retired from the race.

WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE? I just lost my car. That's all.

Quotes from Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte

Dover International Speedway

Jeff Gordon #24 DuPont Chevrolet

Note: Gordon had an accident on Lap 41. The team is currently repairing the car in the garage.

WHAT HAPPENED? Well, we didn't take off too good on the restart. Tony was a little bit better than me and, you know, there's no doubt I was holding him up and I wanted to see if my car would come to me, and he just ran out of patience. I just think it's a little uncalled for to start something that fast. I probably would have let him go once we got out there; it's a long race. All I can say that the next time Tony's holding me up, it won't be very long for him to be out of my way.

Bobby Labonte #18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet

Note: Labonte came to the garage during Lap 51 with engine problems

I looked under the hood, all the belts are gone off the front of the motor. I don't know if something happened to the motor. I think the belts came off. Something happened. Ultimately, it was an untimely engine failure. That's just our luck.