Jimmie Johnson
#48 Lowe's Chevrolet
3rd position
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
It was a solid lap. In practice I ran a 27.94 and I felt like the car was a little looser from what I had there. I felt like I drove the same way and did all the same things. It's still a great effort, great job for the Lowe's team. Unfortunately we have to go to the back because we blew an engine in practice. It's alright and we'll just get going on Saturday.
PRESS CONFERENCE EXCERPTS
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
It was good. We really worked to get the pole tonight, but came up a little bit short. We put up a great effort. The car drove really, really good. It was a bit tighter than what I was in practice and it being so close on speed, it's really hard to see if that would have made the difference or not. It was a very good lap - something I'm proud of. Unforutnately we won't be able to start there because of the engine failure we had in practice. So we'll get a good pit stall and go to the back and put in 500 miles and hopefully make it up there.
RE: OTHER DRIVERS IN THE CHASE, COMPETITIVENESS ON THE TRACK?
I think it will be the same. Eveybody in the Chase is really comepetitive. I think it's shown week after week, where everybody is finishing. It's just going to be a fight all the way to Homestead once again. In my eyes I still feel there's a lot of racing left and a lot of things can happen every race. It's about finishing in the top 5, top 10 and not having really bad days. Hopefully we can do that and we'll just see how everybody else's life goes. With two or three to go, we'll evaluate where we are then and a little bit more then and take it from there.
RE: BRINGING THE CAR BACK FROM YOUR SPRING VICTORY IN THE COCA-COLA 600
This is not the car and the first time we haven't brought the car back. Things have changed here at this track and aero balance and chassis. We had so much success with this car at Dover that we thought we should bring it here. It's a new body and new version that went to the wind tunnel and had great numbers. It had everything that we had in it, had everything that we wanted to improve in it. It was much better and it showed out on this race track, at Dover. At that point, we decided to bring it back since there wasn't any marks on the car. With the new paint scheme, since we're here at Lowe's Motor Speedway, we thought it would be a great time to give a chance to see what the 2006 paint scheme will look like.
HOW MUCH OF HAVING THE PREVIOUS CAR A PART OF YOUR SUCCESS AND HOW WILL THAT AFFECT YOUR RACE ON SATURDAY?
With all the races we've won, we thought it was a huge part of it. When we made the decision not to bring it, we've been telling ourselves it's not a big deal and this car is better. So, we'll see what happens Saturday night.
RE: SPEEDS GETTING HIGHER, WHAT THAT DOES TO THE TYPE OF RACING ON THE TRACK
I that it's going to be like that. Single file. The reason being is that we use all the race track right now to make, to run the lap times that we do, and on race pace we use every inch of the race track to get the speed. The tires slowly give up a lot, or actually I should say wore a lot, because of the surface and the bumps and everything. It was easier to run side by side because you didn't need that extra track to run your lap times. Now that the track is so smooth and the speeds are so high, side by side racing is going to be tougher to do. And we just won't see as much of it.
HOW MUCH OF AN ADJUSTMENT IS IT WITH THE CHANGES IN SPEEDS?
I'm not really sure. As far as the team and spotter and people, I don't think it will have a huge effect on any of that. We just go when something in our bodies and sensors says we need to go faster. We drive in as deep where we're comfortable at. So, those sensors that we have when you're on a track with a lot of grip, it's not like you feel like you're going that much faster, you just go from your past experience from the track and you know that you normally lift at this spot and now you're going way past it. Back to wide open a lot earlier than you did in the past. I can't think of the G-forces in the car being any different. It's more the reference points and those are the things more than the visuals.
WHAT HAPPENED IN PRACTICE TODAY AND HOW HARD WILL IT BE TO START FROM THE REAR AND COME THROUGH THE FIELD?
We were out scuffing some tires for qualifying and I came off turn 2 and the engine locked up. I know that they worked hard to get it out and change the engine and put the other one back in. I don't have a real understanding about what happened yet. Maybe they do. I just haven't heard. It's not a good thing to come from the back. There are a lot of risks I'll have to take to get to the front. Hopefully we can do something with tire strategy to get us some track position. But I have to be on my toes at the start of the race. I do feel that I have a great car. I think I'll be able to race my way to the front. We've just got to be smart.
YOU DO VERY WELL AT THIS TRACK. DOES HAVING LOWE'S AS YOUR SPONSOR MAKE YOU DO BETTER HERE?
Coming out of the box, we did put more emphasis on this race and came and test. This year I came in the Busch car to test and we didn't even come in the Cup car. We have tried to use our test sessions a little smarter. We try as hard as we can every week. So it's not a matter of trying harder or paying more attention to anything any more here than at any other tracks. It's just my style and it's (crew chief) Chad's style for whatever reason. It's just been a good track for us for whatever reason. I think it's really a matter of preferences and the way I drive a car that works for me personally.
Tony Stewart
#20 The Home Depot
4th position
It was just not fast enough. Ryan (Newman) put a good lap down. We're all waiting to see what the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) does. He was fast in practice. The good thing for us is that both our laps were consistent laps. I'm really happy with the Home Depot Monte Carlo. It's driving really good. I'm excited to get this thing in race practice.
It felt really good. The track has a lot of grip in it right now. To run two laps that fast is really impressive for our car. I'm excited to see what this car will do around other cars in practice tomorrow. This is probably the best I've qualified here in a long time, so I'm pretty excited about it.
SINCE THE TEST HERE, HERE IS MORE RUBBER ON THE TRACK. DOES THAT HELP?
Yeah, we all kind of got around Humpy when we had all the crashed cars and said we needed to do something here. We all gave Humpy a hard time about changing this place, but the one thing he did was that he's stepped up and tried to make a change to make it better. It needed some work. He didn't realize that. It's hard until you get a car on there to know. But he was proactive about it. He didn't blame the teams and the drivers too bad. But at least he did his part and worked on the race track dragging tires around. It's made it better. It's got a lot more grip and it's a lot faster for sure. The good thing is we're not seeing the problems we had in testing.
Bobby Labonte
#18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet
5th position
GREAT LAP OUT THERE
Thank you. We ran a lap in practice that I screwed up on, but we still ran a decent lap, so I thought, man, we should have done better. Just worked on the car a little bit to make the adjustments for night time. You know, we just tweaked it a little bit here and there and got us a really good lap in. The guys on the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet did a good job today. We just worked on race setup the first practice, then we worked on qualifying setup the second practice, so I'm pretty happy about our efforts.
Mike Bliss
#0 Net Zero Chevrolet
11th position
We've been really good off the truck all day. This Chevrolet has just been strong. I really thought I was a little faster than that because this place is fast. It's crazy fast. But it's fun when your car is good.
Joe Nemechek
#01 U.S. Army Chevrolet
12th position
I've got to tell you, I thought I'd run faster than that. My car ran almost perfect. The biggest thing here in qualifying is that you've got to be in the throttle. The more time you're in the throttle, the faster you're going to go. Coming off the corners and we're not getting out of the gas all the way. I thought we went faster but we'll take it. It's going to be a good starting spot for us. I still think they're going to go really fast here at the end. It will cool down and get faster.
Scott Riggs
#10 Valvoline Chevrolet
15th position
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
We made some changes right there during practice and it really helped the car. I felt like it should have been faster, because of the faster track. Because of what the track is giving right now because of the cooler temperatures. You know, those changes might have hurt us.
Dave Blaney
#07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet
22nd position
HOW WAS YOUR CAR IN QUALIFYING?
It's been our best car. We're pretty excited about the race.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING FOR YOU IN 2006
I don't know where I'm at next year, so I guess we'll leave it at that.
DO YOU HOPE TO BE BACK AT RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING IN SOME CAPACITY?
I don't know where I'm going to be at next year. That's all I know.
THERE SEEM TO BE A LOT OF OPTIONS RIGHT NOW WITH SOME THINGS OPENING UP AND OTHER DEALS HAVING AN EFFECT ON WHERE OTHER DRIVERS COULD END UP
I think there's a couple right now. There's still a lot things that could happen with other things going on, obviously with Penske and Roush and Ganassi and all that. So, who knows? Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll know.
HOW DO YOU LIKE RACING AT CHARLOTTE?
I love racing this track. It's so much fun and I really think the surface is really good. I didn't think it was very good in May and it ended up being trouble for some. From what I can see right now, I think it will be good. As long as the tires can take the speeds, it will be fine.
Brian Vickers
#25 GMAC / ditech.com Chevrolet
25th position
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
It was alright. We definitely need to be better but we weren't good that good in qualifying trim all day. We were really good in race trim. I don't know why. You know, I'm all but wide open. You know, I talked to my teammates and they're lifting more than I am. You know, I don't know. We were a little tight in the center so maybe that's scrubbing some team off. We'll be fine. We're real good in race trim.
HOW DOES THIS CAR COMPARE TO THE WON WITH WHICH YOU WON EARLIER THIS YEAR IN THE NEXTEL OPEN?
It feels close. We've only made a couple of race laps, the rest was qualifying trim. It feels good.
Mike Wallace
#4 Lucas Oil Chevrolet
36th position
HOW WAS YOUR LAP?
It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. We ran about the same thing in practice. So, I was a little disappointed because I thought we should run a couple of tenths quicker. And then the second lap I just overdrove the entry to three. I heard what my first lap was and I knew that and kept me.you know, we're in a different race when we come to the race track, unfortunately. We need to beat the guys to get into the race. I knew what they ran, knew what we needed to beat Spencer and Sauter. I tried to dig a little bit more but I dug too deep.
Denny Hamlin
#11 FedEx Chevrolet
41st position
It was real conservative. It kind of got me all jittery after wrecking last week. I tried to take it easy this week and race the same car we practiced. IT's good to be with these guys. We ran in race trim for the first practice, where a lot of guys just did qualifying runs all day. I know we've got a great car.
