CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “We’ve had some strong runs. We stubbed our toe a little bit last week in Atlanta. Things are going pretty good for the Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet. Everybody is upbeat having fun. If we can push this weather out of the way hopefully we can have a good race here at Bristol.” WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET ENTERING THIS RACE AT BRISTOL? “You do have to have some luck here but you still have to have a good handling racecar. You’ve got to drive the wheels off of it to beat these guys. You’ve got to have a car that can turn underneath people, pass them and beat them to the next corner. I’m fairly confident that we can do that. We ran well as a team last year in the ACDelco Chevrolet in the Busch Series and I think it can be a good race for us. You can’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and you’ve got to come out of these next two weekends the best you can.” COMMENT ON RACING AT MARTINSVILLE NEXT WEEK. “I’ve never seen the racetrack before. I’m going to watch plenty of tape, I can promise you that. I’m going to run the truck race there so I can gain some experience, seat time. I’m looking forward to next weekend. It’s pretty close to my house [SMILES] so I don’t have too far to travel.” IS THAT IS A TRACK WHERE CUP SHOULD HAVE ROOKIE PRACTICE? “They’re doing that in the Busch Series and it would help. A lot of us Raybestos Rookie have never even seen the track before. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never even seen the track so I’d like a rookie practice but it’s probably not going to happen. You’ve got to go to that weekend and get all you can out of that weekend. You can’t be on the hook in the infield, either. You’ve got to do the best you can and balance off these resources that I have. You’ve got good teammates that run good there with Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton and an experience crew chief with Gil Martin. I’ll be using him as much as I can.” WAS IT RICHARD CHILDRESS’ IDEA FOR YOU TO RUN THE TRUCK? “It was kind of all of us. Not ever being there before, it’s an extra 250 laps on that track before the big dance.” DOES RUNNING WELL AT BRISTOL GIVE YOU A BOOST FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON? “There’s no track quite like Bristol. There’s no track quite like it. This is the track that you want to win at. If you can’t win the Daytona 500, you want to win the race at Bristol and hopefully we can do that.” DO YOU RUN WIDE OPEN EVERY LAP HERE? “You’ve got to have a little bit of strategy. You’ve got to be cautious out there. You’ve got to be patient. Patience is a virtue at a place like this but when the time comes you can’t take any trouble off anybody. There’s some give and take that needs to be done out there but you can’t give too much.” AT WHAT POINT IN THE RACE DOES THE GIVING AND TAKING STOP AND IT’S ALL TAKING? “About 50 laps to go [LAUGHS].” HOW MUCH OF A FACTOR WILL IT BE TO HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF PRACTICE? “We’ll see how we do in the Cup car [LAUGHS]. I have the Busch race to race on Saturday to get in the rhythm, to get in the swing of things and we’ll be ready to go by Sunday.” YOU ARE LEADING THE CHASE FOR RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR. “I’m just excited to be a part of this Raybestos Rookie class. It’s a strong rookie group. We all raced against each other last year and we all kind of know what we up against, talent and equipment-wise with each other. It’s been a lot of fun, had a lot of fun last year racing with these guys. Hopefully at the end of the year the shoe will be on the other foot.” WHAT CHANGES DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE TO THE CAR BECAUSE OF THE COLD WEATHER? “I kind of leave that up to these guys, especially being a rookie and not having much experience in these Cup cars. These guys have had years of experience with them and they know what they’re doing. When you get into a situation like this, you’ve got to use your resources, you’ve got to use those guys with experience and use as much as you can off of them. But then again, the things I can control, watch some tape, watch what goes on, watch how guys are passing, see how things are working. The Busch race will be important, have a good race on Saturday, and get some valuable experience so we can be good on Sunday.” DO YOU THINK THE DRIVER THAT WINS RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR WILL FINISH IN THE TOP-10 IN POINTS? “I don’t know about that. That’s what we’re all here to do is make that Chase. The season is still young. It seems like the people that struggle for the first couple of weeks and then you see those teams figuring it out pretty quick. There’s going to be some bumps and bruises in the road. Last week at Atlanta we had a fast racecar and just a rookie driver, I ran into the wall and had a little bit of trouble. Those weekends are going to come. You’ve got to make the best out of every weekend possible and you can’t leave that weekend thinking ‘If I wouldn’t have done that we would have been a top-10 car.’ Those are the things that you can control and just be smart about it. You can’t get over aggressive and end up on the hook.” WILL THE STRONG START MAKE THOSE TOUGH WEEKENDS EASIER TO HANDLE? “Definitely. Getting a good points base established is definitely important and that’s what we’re here for. We were a little bit conservative through the first few weekends in qualifying and race setup and stuff like that. We can free the car up and get it to where it’s able to run those fast lap times. But as far as the first few weekends go, there’s no need for that. A good solid top-15 finish two or three weeks in a row will get you where you need to be. We stubbed our toe pretty hard last week and ended up 27th at Atlanta with about a top-10 car. Those are the weekends that you can’t have. I really felt bad for my teammate Jeff Burton. He was a top-five car all day long. He really deserved to be there and had to pit and ended up 25th. Our results didn’t show our effort. We just got to get through those weekends, can’t have too many of them and we’ll be just fine.” DOES IT ALL BOIL DOWN TO LAPS IN THE CUP CAR? “Absolutely. I’m still learning a bunch. I learned all the way through last season in the Busch car. We got better and better every week until Homestead the last race of the year. I think it’s going to have to take a year or so to get used to these Cup cars. I think we can run strong. I think we have a top-10 car every week. We’ve had a top-10 car every week, we just haven’t come away with it and that’s what we’ve got to get better at. If we can get that car solidly in the top-10 and work on that then later on in the work on getting in the top-five. It’s all baby steps, it’s all getting a rookie driver acclimated to this stuff and that’s what these guys are doing a good job of.” DO YOU GET ON THE COMPUTER AND LEARN SOME OF THESE TRACKS? “Not really. I learn a lot from tapes and things like that. I watch tape and film of the other races. The biggest thing is seat time, just being out there with those guys, seeing how they’re racing, seeing where they’re better than you and improving in that area. I’ve improved a bunch already. These guys are a lot better than the Busch guys in the pits, for instance. These guys can really make up a lot of time on you in the pits and everybody knows that’s the gimme time. That’s free time on the racetrack. They can gain seconds in the pits where you can gain tenths of seconds out on the track. I’m getting better at that, on and off of pit road. Didn’t have a lot of green flag pit stops in the Busch Series last year. You’re going to have at least one or two in each race in the Cup Series. I’m having a lot of fun with it. We’ve just got to keep this momentum strong, keep that pep in everybody’s step and having a good time. You’ve got to use your head here and be smart. You can’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and you’ve got to have patience at this track and be there at the end of this race. That’s going to be important. You can’t be the hero up there beating and banging on each other in the top-10 and be on the hook by lap 200. You’ve got to focus on being there at the end of the race and if you do that, nine times out of 10 you’re in the top-15.”

GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: ARE YOU SURPRISED THIS TEAM IS IN THE TOP-10 IN NEXTEL CUP POINTS? “I think he’s done a good job. I think our first race in Daytona has kept us where we are right now, it obviously has. Our finishes haven’t reflected how we’ve run. We’ve run a lot better than this. Hopefully this weekend will turn around where we can complete a full day.” HAS THIS TEAM UNDERGONE A REBUILDING EFFORT? “There’s a couple of guys still left. Ratto (Clint Almquist), Ron Liddell and Dustin Stanley are probably about the only three from last year’s road crew that are left. Mostly we have just rebuilt all the cars and made them the same and tried to make them like the cars that Clint was used to driving last year. But basically we’ve totally gone through the whole thing.” HAS THE BUSCH CAR HELPED THE CUP CAR THIS YEAR? “I think at some places it has just because of track time. As far as actual setup knowledge, probably not, but just track time it’s probably helped it.” CLINT HAS NEVER SEEN MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY. DO YOU PREPARE ANY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THAT? “We’re going to try to get him to run a truck next week. It’s not going to be a lot of help for our first time on the racetrack because the Cup cars are on the track before the trucks but we’ve got a lot of videotape and everything else we’re trying to get him to watch and overview and we’re just trying to do the best we can as far as getting him used to the track. I think when the race comes around he’ll be fine.” HOW MUCH OF A DISADVANTAGE IS NOT HAVING THE OPPORTUNITY TO TEST THERE? “It’s huge, just because of the fact that he has never seen it and because of the type track it is, such a finesse track and you’ve got to really master the track itself, more than just racing the place. It’s going to be a huge disadvantage to all the Raybestos Rookies that’s never been there.” WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO PREPARE HIM FOR MARTINSVILLE? “Basically just talking to him about it, talking to Jeff Burton as much as we can because he’s raced there a lot, just trying to get him ready in that way.” IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO PREPARE OTHER THAN BEING IN THE CAR? “Not really. The only simulation we’ve been using is Playstation and he can’t seem to make 10 laps on that [laughs]. I hope that not an indication of what’s going to happen.” HAVE YOU EXPEREINCED ANY ISSUES WITH THE TIRES THIS SEASON? “They’ve been no more of a factor for us than anybody. It was kind of luck of the draw last week, who got better sets of tires than others. Throughout the race we had good sets and we had some bad sets and I think everybody did. For the most part we really haven’t had a big problem.” COMMENT ON COMPETING AT A REPAVED LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY. “It will be the same for everybody. I don’t think it’s going to be so bad. Luckily, one of our teams is involved in tire test, the 29. Hopefully we’ll get some information from that and then with the two-day test that we’ve got coming up I think by the time that’s over, we’ll be good to go by the time the race comes around.” HOW FAST WILL THE TRACK BE WITH NEW ASPHALT? “I’d have to assume it’d be really fast. Traditionally, every time they’ve repaved, whether it’s been Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas or wherever they’ve repaved, it’s picked up.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 ASTHMACONTROL.COM/INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: “The team is really doing and excellent job. Everyone is having a lot of fun and that’s the name of the game. When you have fun you seem to perform a lot better.” THE BATTLE FOR RAYBESTOS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR IS GOING TO BE TOUGH. “It is going to be tough. The biggest thing is that you’ve got to go out there and be consistent. I know that they take the top 17 races at the end of the season and here at the start I want to go out and just be consistent. I know that we’ve been capable of running in the top-five every week. The biggest thing is that you’ve just got to finish.” YOU HAVE QUALIFIED WELL IN RECENT WEEKS. ARE YOU SURPRISED TO BE RUNNING WELL SO EARLY IN THE SEASON? “A little bit surprised, I guess. We haven’t actually been putting a lot of effort into the qualifying stuff. We’ll go out and make a run but Steve Addington [crew chief] and everyone over here in the Interstate car, they know what the need to do for the changes. And it just makes it easy knowing I’ve got to go out there and drive the car, not overdrive the car. I think that’s the biggest thing that gets you in trouble is just trying too hard in these cars and it costs you way more time. Right now, we’ve got a lot of confidence; we’re on a big roll running here. We’re going to ride the wave and try to stay up front.” HOW BIG OF A FACTOR WILL IT BE TO HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF PRACTICE TIME THIS WEEKEND? IS THAT A BIG FACTOR AT BRISTOL? “It’s going to be a big factor. I know this team is still going off of last year’s points. I believe they were 23rd in points and 23rd is not exactly the greatest starting position here at Bristol. The biggest thing for me is that we just don’t get caught in someone else’s accidents. I’ve had that happen almost every time I’ve been here. It’s kind of a catch-22: you don’t want to run into someone but next thing you know, you’ve checked up and everything is good and someone has hit you from behind. Of all the races that we’ve had this year, this is the race that I’ve probably been dreading the most just because I haven’t had a lot of success here. It’s not my favorite racetrack and there are so many guys, especially in the Cup series that have been coming here for so long, they know the ins and outs. They could be completely asleep, show up and drive the car and be their best where it might take me a couple laps to get used to these new Cup cars.” HOW DO YOU RACE CLEANLY HERE? “And that’s another good question. I try to race everybody clean. I’ve actually taken myself out more times saving someone than I probably should have. I think this is a racetrack where you can’t have that mentality and that’s probably why I’ve gotten in so much trouble here is that I’ve worried about crashing somebody. That’s just not how I race. I think you have to race a little bit more on the offensive side. We’ve been running well enough and hopefully I’ve earned enough respect from the veterans that we can go out there or they will cut me a little bit of slack versus years past where they just knocked you out of the road.” YOU AND THE TEAM SEEM TO BE GAINING MORE CONFIDENCE EACH WEEK. “The greatest thing for me is when I came to the Interstate team here nothing changed. The crew chief is the same and everyone that works on the cars are all the same so the only thing they had to adapt to is my personality and my driving style. I’m a very easy guy to get along with and we have a lot of fun. I think that’s the big thing they’ve been missing. As much time as you spend on the road, you’ve got to have fun doing your job. You know when you go to the racetrack you’re going to be competitive and everything is going to be good. Everyone is going to kick in that little bit of extra effort.” DO YOU THINK EVERYTHING BECOMES EASIER WITH THE MORE LAPS YOU GET ON THE TRACK? “It definitely does and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Cup car or a Busch car, if you get seat time it’s beneficial. It’s amazing to me now just thinking about it just the different feel that I have in the racecar now compared to what I had this time last year. I can drive a car that’s a lot looser or I can stay out of trouble. I can put the car in positions that I probably couldn’t have gotten out of last year so just having seat time and getting used to these cars, knowing what they want and what they don’t want has been the biggest thing for me. On the Cup side you have to exercise so much patience because the races are so long and after you get a couple under your belt without having any kind of altercations it makes it a lot easier. Other than Daytona, we’ve run three races and all the cars have no scratches on them [laughs]. Compared to my record last year with the Cup cars crinkled, the guys at the shop and the paint shop are pretty happy with me.” WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHEN YOU WERE IN THE CUP CAR LAST FALL AND NOW? “I think the biggest thing is that relationship that you find with the crew chief. Nothing against Mike Ford, I think he’s an excellent crew chief, and what he likes to do to his racecar fits Denny’s [Hamlin] driving style. It might have not have been what I needed and unfortunately I didn’t run enough races to where we found that combination of what I needed for him to know. Coming over here, I’ve worked with Steve before. He was the crew chief on the 20 Rockwell Automation car when I was starting in the Busch Series. I’ve known Steve for a very long time. The things he does to a racecar suits my driving style and it just makes a good combination.” DOES IT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE KNOWING THAT THIS CAR IS YOUR HOME? “Sure it does. It always makes more confidence when you show up and you know you’ve got a job and it’s yours. That’s only a low excuse that I can use from last year is that I tried really hard to impress people so I could get a ride. You just try too hard and put yourself in positions that aren’t good. This year I don’t have anyone to impress other than myself and I’m trying very hard to do that.”