KEVIN HARVICK, NO 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS:
The motor just burned up. It took off good for the first four or five laps then it started eating itself alive. I hate it for all the Reeses people, hopefully it is just a thing with this motor. We kind of had trouble with that thing from the beginning."

TODD BERRIER, CREW CHIEF:
I think we burned a piston, it wasn't running hot or anything like that. We need to get it back and take a look. He had smoke in the car about three laps before that but he wasn't sure about what the smell was, possibly a rearend gear or maybe engine oil, but it wasn't a distinct smell. When the wreck happened, we got a flat tire so we came down pit road and there was smoke pouring out the pipes. We were planning on just riding it until the little break anyway, but fortunately we got the wreck that kept us from burning it up completely. All the engines for Thursday are all the same in the whole place so we need to get it out and apart to figure it out.

BRIAN VICKERS, NO. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS:
"This is not the start we wanted to get to the season because this GMAC racing team really worked hard to get us ready for Daytona. I will have to check the replay to see what happened for sure. We were running through one and two there and there were cars on the either side of us, we were three wide. There was one on the bottom coming up and one on the top coming down. I tried to get out of it to avoid a wreck but you can't do that because you are just going to get hit in the front and behind, They are just going to hit you. I think it was Jamie (McMurray) but I am not sure. A car came around the outside of us, we were three wide. Some where along the way somebody didn't seem to think we were three wide. I tried to get out of it but I guess I was too late. Both cars came across my nose and that was it. When you try to get out of a three wide situation too quick, that is what is going to happen. It is tough, not the way you want to start a season. But we got the blown motor and the wreck out of the way so now we get on to the Daytona 500"

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS:
"I was having a blast racing those guys. I messed up my left front fender and punctured the oil cooler getting into the back of the 17 car and ended our day. The car was awesome, we got up there on the outside there and had fun working with my teammates, Jimmie, Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch. We were just picking our way up there, trying to get to the lead or at least get back up there with Jimmie again. That restart, I don't know what happened, Schrader took off good, I took off good but nobody behind me did so we got shuffled back there. I was looking forward to working our way back up there and giving these guys on this Dupont Chevrolet a chance at a green flag pit stop."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS: - Finished 3rd:
A LOT OF BEATING AND BANGING OUT THERE: "Yeah, we're going to kill somebody. Somebody else is doing to die at Daytona or Talladega with what we're doing right here. I hope I'm not around when it happens."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 2nd:
"We had a blast out there. It was wild. There was beating and banging, which is not necessarily what you want to be in the middle of. There at the end when we got side-by-side, when we got to race with Tony (Stewart) a little bit, it was a lot of fun."

ON THE BUMP DRAFTING: "It's a necessary evil is what it is. You can't race restrictor plate racing without doing it. You have to do it. But I had fun racing with Tony. I had fun with the one-on-one personal battles. I don't like getting turned sideways off of Turn 2. When the guy behind me can't lift, because somebody is pushing him -- they don't know they're turning me sideways. The guy three rows back doesn't know he's doing it. But that's what happens. It gets backed up. It's just dangerous. But they pay us pretty good to do this, so I'm not complaining."

DENNY HAMLIN, NO. 11 FEDEX CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS: Winner:
"I can't believe it. It wasn't but two years ago I was here. Dale Earnhardt Jr. invited me to come and stay in his motor home. That's the only time I'd ever been to victory lane. I just can't believe it. We're coming back this year and we're going to win rookie of the year."

TALK ABOUT THOSE LAST COUPLE OF LAPS: "I thought when Tony got by me there with four to go, that it was overwith. I had good help. Jimmie (Johnson) gave me a great push down the back straightaway. I thanked him. And Tony pushed me. I don't know what to say."

DO YOU THINK YOU MADE ANY FRIENDS FOR NEXT SUNDAY'S DAYTONA 500? "I hope so. That was my main goal for tonight. I figured I wasn't going to have any help at all. All I wanted to do was just gain respect from these guys for the 500 and hopefully we did that

TRANSCRIPTS: TONY STEWART, DALE EARNHARDT JR., AND DENNY HAMLIN

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:
HOW WAS YOUR RUN TODAY: "It was pretty good for the most part. We stayed up toward the front all day. We finally go with our teammate (Hamlin) and once we got there we just tried to keep the two of us together and try to do everything we could to stay up front."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT BUMP DRAFTING? IT LOOKED OUT OF CONTROL: "It is out of control. I was watching TV before we came down here and they were talking about the tribute to Dale Earnhardt. Five years from now we're probably going to have to do another tribute to another driver because we're going to kill somebody from Wednesday to Sunday. It could be me or Dale Jr. or anybody out there. This isn't a new topic. It was brought up last year and guys had the right idea. I don't think softening the guys rear bumper in front of you is the answer. I think it's softening the front bumper because it's the guys that are doing the hitting. Trust me, I did my share of bump drafting too. The problem is that it's not that guys are trying to get people out of control; it's just a product of the environment that we're in. To get through a line and to blow through a line, you have to get that guy and stay on his bumper and blow him through that hole. And guys are doing it in the middle of the corner, coming off the corner, and going into the corner. That's how I lost second. I got hit so hard by Ryan (Newman). And Ryan's not trying to move me up out of the way. He's just trying to push us along and keep the line moving. But we're going to hurt somebody really bad next Sunday if we don't find some way of calming this down soon."

WERE YOU TRYING TO PASS DENNY HAMLIN OR PROTECT HIS POSITION OR BASICALLY TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE AS YOU DESCRIBED JUST NOW? "I was trying to safe my life. And then when I did get a chance to actually take a breath, I was trying to just take care of both of our cars. That was the first time in a long time that I can remember two Joe Gibbs Racing cars being together that we could actually work together. We had cars that were very even and it's been a long time since Bobby (Labonte) and I had the opportunity to do that. Denny and I drafted the other night in practice and we were very good up front. So once we got in that position, he was running a very smooth line. I'm very proud of what he did. I did not see any rookie mistakes in him at all during the times I was around him. But at that point in time, we just tried to keep ourselves one and two."

WHY HAS DENNY HAMLIN TAKEN TO THIS SO QUICKLY? "Man, I'm just the driver. I don't know. He's a talented kid. You don't win races and poles if you're not talented. Obviously the infrastructure was there all the time or it's coming together. Denny was the right mix and the right piece to finish the puzzle. It was the same thing with Greg and me. It gives me a lot to look forward to."

THIS IS THE FIRST COMPETITION OF 2006. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN LEARN FROM TODAY? "Yeah, I learned to look at my life insurance policy today or on Monday as soon as I can get the office open."

DENNY WENT INTO THIS RACE WITH THE INTENTION OF MAKING SOME FRIENDS TO WORK WITH HIM NEXT SUNDAY. DID HE ACCOMPLISH THAT? "I hope so. I can't speak for everyone else, but I thought he ran a very solid race. I thought he showed patience. If he didn't earn their respect in that race, I don't know what's going to earn it. I thought they did everything right. He already had my respect coming into this race as a teammate, but he just furthered it even more."

DO THE OFFICIALS NEED TO GET OUT THE BLACK FLAT TO TRY AND CONTROL THE BUMP DRAFTING? "No, it's not the drivers that are the problem. It's the fact that we have quarter-inch steel plates in the front of our cars and reinforced rear bumpers. That's the problem. If my idea is worth anything, and I've been racing for 27 years, but just leave the rear bumpers alone and make the front bumpers soft, where if you run into the back of the guy, you're going to hurt your car. It's going to hurt the nose and take the aero away from it. If we don't, we're going to hurt somebody. There were plenty of opportunities for it tonight. Luckily, thank God, nothing happened and nobody got hurt. But there were plenty of opportunities for something big to happen."

ARE YOU REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE? "Well I'll tell you what, big boy, Wednesday you climb in the car with me for practice and you find out for yourself. Better yet, you can drive the car if you like because I'll be more than happy to take Wednesday off if that's what I've got to go through again on Wednesday. I'm not real anxious to get back in the car for practice if that's how it's going to be."

CAN WE GET NASCAR TO CHANGE THE RULES BEFORE THE DAYTONA 500? "NASCAR is NASCAR. You've got to ask them. They've changed rules mid-stream before. If it's in the safety of competition. The big push is safety. This is not a performance issue. It's not anything to help one make over another. This is hey, we've got to do this before we hurt the guys that are going out there trying to put on a good show for the race fans out there. Trust me, I'm elated with third tonight. This isn't because we didn't win the race or run second or anything like that. It's just to walk out of the car at the end of this. There were three times when I thought I'd totally lost the car. It is absolutely insane. There is no reason they can't do anything now. It's a matter of the time it would take the crews to comply with it. Is there enough time for that? Even if it doesn't happen this week, as long as we can get through this 500 and not have any big issues, there is plenty of time to do something before Talladega. I'd love to see them do something before next weekend. Hopefully they'll do something before Talladega. It's not because you want to do it, it's because that's what you have to do. That's the package we all have. To try to put yourself in position to win the race, you've got to do just like everybody else. I hit Jimmie Johnson so hard, and then a split second later, Mark Martin hit me trying to push us all through. It should have knocked a filling loose out of my teeth. My head hit the headrest. I've never hit the headrest in a stock car unless I've backed it into the fence, that hard. It's not a good deal. Trust me. I'll bet it looks great and fun up there, but it is absolutely out of control."

SHOULD THIS BE ADDRESSED AMONG THE DRIVERS WHEN YOU MEET IN THE MEETING BEFORE THE RACE? "We can sit and talk about it, but we're going to do what we've got to do to win the race. We can say we're going to slow down and not do this, but I guarantee by lap 2 somebody is pushing somebody. It needs to come from NASCAR. We're in control of the cars, obviously, but our job as drivers is to do what we can do to win the race. So this is an issue that NASCAR needs to address. They make the rules. They control the guidelines on how the cars are built. They're a smart enough organization. I guarantee you this is not the first time this topic has been brought up to them and I'm sure it won't be the last. "

HAVE YOU COACHED DENNY HAMLIN AND THE REST OF THE TEAM? "He had a great car. When we got behind him there was absolutely nothing we could do with him when he got in the lead. But still, the best car doesn't win the race if the guy behind the steering wheel doesn't do a good job. He's had that talent all along. He drove a smart race and did an awesome job. I thought he did it all right."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 2nd:
"We had a pretty good car. We started in the back and it was a little difficult to pass. We really couldn't find a way at all to get up toward the front. We got in that mess on the back straightaway. Somebody got run into and spun around. We barely made it through there. During the break, we straightened up the car as best as we could. The car was pretty fast after that, still. With the field thinned out a little bit, we were able to restart the second half in 12th. We got a good start and got up to about 7th and put ourselves in position to see the lead and try to work our way toward it. Those last laps were real hairy and exciting for me. That's about as wild as we can possibly be. If you didn't that that was wild enough, I don't know what we need to do. But it was a lot of fun racing with Tony side-by-side and beating and banging. He's a real safe driver. We always help each other and stuff in the 500's and Talladega races if we can. We were just all-out racing each other and that was fun to be able to do that for a change. At one point I almost totally forgot there was somebody out in front of us. I was real glad to get second. Denny had an awesome car. The Joe Gibbs operation has done a great job of improving Tony over last year and their other cars as well. Denny used his head. I'm sure he had a lot of coaching along the way and had a lot of help from Tony and myself and a lot of other people. When you're in that catbird seat like he was, it's definitely a lot easier task to win the race from that position when the guys are beating and racing real hard like they were from second on back. He just did a nice job of not making any mistakes and not really getting too wound up when Johnson got on the outside of me one time. That was a real character move on Denny's part to just calm down and stay in position to wait for a push behind him and that's what he did. That's the kind of things you've got to do. But I'm proud of my team. They worked real hard to give me a good car. It's the back-up car to the 500 and it's a real good piece as well. It's brand new. The first laps it saw was when we brought it here for Bud Shootout practice. It hadn't been tested or anything. I'm about as proud as I can be for not winning the race."

TONY STEWART SAID WE WERE PROBABLY GOING TO KILL SOMEBODY OUT THERE. ALSO IT SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES WITH MICHAEL WALTRIP OUT THERE. "Yeah, Michael gave me some help at times. We talked about it prior to the race. He had a great car in practice and obviously he expects me to run well. Aside from being on different teams, we are still great friends and want to work with each other if the opportunity arises. And it did on occasion. He's got to do what he's got to do for his own team. He did some moves that countered some of mine. It was a lot of fun racing with him. Again, he doesn't really put me in any compromising position. And that's what you like to race against. You like to race against people who know what not to do and what to do when you're racing close.

"If I had my way, we wouldn't be running this package and we wouldn't be running like this, but I don't have my way and it's not my decision. I get paid a lot of money to get in that car. It's not a 500-mile race. That'll totally have a different outlook and perspective from a driver's standpoint and you won't see that type of action from the entire field. You'll see it from some guys because that's just their mentality throughout. But that's just only a select few. When you have a 70-lap race, it's a sprint. Guys are going to race like that. I'm going to race like that. It's the way you have to approach it. If you want a shot at victory, you can't afford to give up spots easily or anything like that. You've got to race every lap as hard as you can go. Tony's got a point. It was dangerous in a couple of spots. It's hard to explain because you have to get real technical about it and most of you haven't drove race cars.

"But when I'm on the race track and I'm on the bottom and there are guys on the outside of me, I don't run as fast as I would by myself. Me and the car on the outside of me are fighting for the same air. When you get two cars together, it raises the ceiling of the air going over them. That slows them down. I've got three guys, two car-lengths apiece behind me. They all of a sudden can run up on me real easily because I'm choking my car for air. So if this guy gets behind me and he's pushing through the corner. The guy catches him and pushes him and so on. I'm starting to get turned sideways. The guy behind me starts lifting, but the other two don't know that's going on and they're still driving through the corner and we're all going through there crashing. It happened a lot of times tonight. I don't know how you fix it. I don't think you'll see it a lot except for in the Shootout. You'll have a couple of guys that don't understand what's happening and they don't know any better and they'll just drive right through it. For the most part, the drivers won't race that hard and risk crashing every lap. But the Shootout you can. Those cars are pretty safe. I don't want to try them out. You've got a lot of young guys in there that haven't been in the sport that long and they're climbing in these cars with all this safety equipment and they don't remember when they didn't have headrests and things like that. So to them, there's no way you could ever get hurt. That's what I thought when I first got in a race car was how could you get hurt? It has a little bit to do with the package. It has a lot to do with drivers driving like that and we're all guilty. It will not be like that in the 500. Everybody will be a lot more calm."

TONY STEWART SUGGESTED SOFTENING UP THE FRONT NOSE PIECES. WOULD YOU BE IN FAVOR OF THAT BY SUNDAY? "No, not really. There ain't no way you can do that. What are they going to cut everybody's nose off and make sure they're mounting everything right? They'll find a way around it. The Chad Knaus's and the Tony Eury Jr's will find a way around it. We'll find something else to run into each other with if it isn't the front bumper. At the 500 last year, it was pretty spread out. It came down to a late caution. I wasn't really packed with a lot of three-wide stuff. At the end, it was. When I won it, It looked like a race from 1985 -- before they had plates because it was a two-car race at the end. I don't like the package but they haven't found an alternative. But we're about out of changes as far as trying to find a happy medium between being able to get away from each other without running over the top of each other to put on a good race. I think the race track is in poor condition, in my opinion. We run around the middle of the corner because the bottom is so dang rough. There's a lot of bad bumps and it moves the cars around when you're side-by-side; three-wide and you've got cars running through bumps and holes, you're going to have a hard time hanging on to them.

"The drivers are the biggest part of it. But how do you calm down some of these guys? You can show them tapes of crashes and that's not going to do nothing. They're not going to calm down. I've done it. I've made mistakes. If you just give the guy a little bit of room, it's fine. But in the Shootout, you can't afford to do that. The bodies don't have a lot of downforce. When you go through a bump and the car is bouncing around and you don't have the ability to move up the race track, that's just the way it is. That's restrictor plate racing. The Shootout is always going to be a battle and I think that's the only time Tony will get upset or have an opinion on it. Otherwise, I think it's smooth sailing at Talladega and the 500 here."

ON DENNY HAMLIN BEING DALE JUNIOR'S GUEST A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO AT THE DAYTONA 500. "We're good friends. I think Denny is a lot better race car driver than a lot of people realize. I tried to get Joe Gibbs to give him up, if you will, so we could get him over to DEI. But they hung onto him and that's probably the smartest move they've made, because he's going to make them a lot of money."

ON DENNY HAMLIN'S BURNOUT: "Well, I would allow it because it was his first win, but his motor man won't like him doing that too many times. Aside from racing with Tony, me and Tony haven't really had any battles except for the 500 that I won, but that was really fun racing him and then seeing Denny celebrate. That was probably such a big stage compared to what he's been involved in and what he's been through and it's happening really fast for him. He's really talented. I believe he'll make some smart decisions on the track. He'll do well behind the wheel."

ON THE SHOOTOUT BEING SO WILD AND ON THE MOVE THAT DENNY HAMLIN MADE TO TAKE THE LOW LINE AND WIN THE RACE: "The Shootout is 70 laps long. A lot can happen. We went from 7th to second or whatever, and that was a lot of work. You know it's a quick race. Even in the first 20 laps, you know you're going to stop for 10 minutes. But there was some stuff that happened in that second segment toward the end, but that was hard racing in the top five around the veteran guys. But when you're back there in the middle and no matter how much of a veteran you are, you're three-wide and you've got some guys who haven't done this that often, you get a little nervous. There were some times when it was really crazy. But you don't have much of a choice. I wanted to be up toward the front and each time I had to walk through that mess to get up there."

DO YOU THINK DENNY HAMLIN GAINED SOME RESPECT IN THIS RACE? "Yeah, this is 20 of some of the best drivers in the series and to me, that's more of a challenge to me than winning against 43 guys. When you stack them up, for a rookie that's tougher. Absolutely. When you go out there and win, he ought to have plenty of drafting help when it comes to the 500. He's got a great car. He's smooth on the wheel. He'll run across a couple of situations that will compromise people, but he'll figure that out."

DO YOU THINK YOUR CAR HAS ENOUGH SPEED FOR THE 500? "My 500 car is good enough. We tried a carburetor in this Shootout that didn't work out for us. The fuel mileage was way off. I had some thoughts that the car was missing at some point. So there must be a distribution problem. We'll probably run with what we traditionally do with the carburetor situation."

DENNY HAMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE/ MIKE FORD/ JD GIBBS

DENNY HAMLIN - TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN TODAY "I wasn't the most optimistic person before the race started. J.D. (Gibbs, president, Joe Gibbs Racing) came by the car and he and Mike (Ford, crew chief) and I were talking and we know we aren't going to have any help out there, so lets just take this race and make the best of it. Try to learn about the car for next weekend and try and make some friends out there for next weekend. It seemed like about 15 laps into the race, I told them over the radio, that we were out handling these guys right then so we just kept working our way up and put ourselves in position the last part of the race and my pit crew got me out in front. There isn't enough I can say about those guys. I think I was third when I came in and came out first. It is just one of those deals where I relied on my crew and they came through for me.

MIKE FORD - TALK ABOUT DENNY'S RUN TODAY - "It was phenomenal. I have been part of some race teams that have had some success but coming down to what impressed me the most was the last restart. We got a good restart with Tony (Stewart) below us and we knew that was our only shot to win. Denny stayed tough and the 48 came up and gave us a push and we got to the front. He worked the guys behind him really well. Trying to keep them side-by-side, it was a very impressive run. I am glad to be a part of this team and look forward to next week with Denny.

J.D. GIBBS - TALK ABOUT DENNY'S RUN TODAY - "Obviously just a huge win for us. We started this team year and we were struggling, we were awful. We were having a tough time with this 11 car, the 18 car was struggling, the 20 car was just ok early but wasn't great. So to wind up where are now was exciting to go through that process with all the guys that we built this team with who kind of went through the hard times and now seeing them there for the good times is pretty neat deal. So for Denny to be driving late models two years ago and now to win a Cup event is very impressive. We keep telling him it isn't always going to be this easy and he keeps impressing everybody. I am proud of the whole FedEx crew.

DID THE RACING OUT THERE SEEM THAT SCARY TO YOU TODAY FROM WHERE YOU WERE SITTING? "Big time" I don't know what is left of the back of my car but it was beat in. I have heard a lot of drivers talk about it will benefit you to run up on another driver and kind of push them,not hit them. But there was major hitting going on out there today. I am not complaining because when I was getting it, I was up front, but a few times there were a lot of close calls. It is the nature of the race. I don't think you will see it in the 500, guys aren't going to want to tear their cars up like that. It is the nature of the beast as far as the race is concerned, I was lucky enough to not have to use my front bumper, only the rear."

ON THE RESTART, DID YOU THINK YOU HAD SOMETHING FOR TONY WHEN HE WENT AROUND YOU ON THE OUTSIDE? "No, I thought the race was over. I had forgotten about the double file restart. All I could try to do is stay right on his side to not let the air pull him away from me. So I did that. A couple of times he was clear me, I would get closer to his car and get that side draft which was just enough to bog him down to wait on my help which was Jimmie Johnson to come give me a push. I saw Jimmie coming in the rearview mirror at what seemed like 100 mph faster than I was running. I was just hoping he wasn't going to make it three wide. Instead he decided to push me on and clear me and there toward the end, I think a couple other guys got beside me but I just held my line on the low line and Dale Jr. gave me a push there with just one lap to go.

WHEN DALE JR MADE THE MOVE TO GO AROUND YOU ON THE OUTSIDE YOU MOVED OVER A LITTLE TO BREAK HIM MOMENTUM AND THEN PULLED DOWN TO THE LOW LINE, IF YOU HADN'T DONE THAT, DO YOU THINK HE HAD A CHANCE THEN TO WIN THE RACE? " You have to that because you are not necessarily slowing him down as much as you are helping yourself. I think our biggest problem there toward the end of the race was that I was pulling away from those guys too much. I think I had a three or four car length there at one time and you can just feel it that the farther you pull away, the slower you go. When I saw him coming, I more used it for my benefit to get the air off my rear spoiler more so than to do something to him. That is just the way you have to drive these races, 80% out of your rearview mirror to use it to my advantage. It is something I have watched him do many times.

AT THE END YOU TOLD MIKE YOU THOUGHT YOU RAN OVER SOMETHING ON THE TRACK? "I thought it was over with. I pulled beside Tony just to mess with him a little bit and was about 10 feet in front of it. It looked like a front or rear bumper actual bumper bar. It was a heavy duty piece of metal. I told Mike I just ran over something and I just waiting for it to ride on the rim. I got Junior to check it out and it was fine. We definitely weren't going to pit. I would have probably run on four flat tires before I would have come in to pit.

WERE YOU NOT AS GOOD IN ONE AND TWO AS YOU WERE IN THREE AND FOUR? "We were a little bit tighter in one and two than we were in three and four. That seems like just a characteristic of the race track. Seems like it is a little bit tighter in one and two rather than three and four. It is just one of those things where the air means so much you have got to put yourself in the right position and you can't get out there too far. I found myself a couple of times where I would try to time it when I got such a big lead, they caught me, it was in the corners, not on the straightaways. That way they had to make a decision, either they had to go high and risk it to get shuffled out or they were going to stick with me. You have to put them in that position in order to help yourself.

MIKE FORD - WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THE LAST LAP OF THE RACE? "I was thinking that those guys were going to gang up on us. I knew Tony was back there and we had support from him and when he got shuffled out there with about 10 to go, I thought it was over, we lost our help and we were going to get shuffled out at some point. Even in practice when our car was out front, no one could really could really come up and make a challenge. We felt pretty good about that. We would rather be leading than anywhere at the end. As aggressive as some of those guys were getting, I thought we were going to get shoved out of the way and freight trained at some point but we were in the lead, so I kept reminding Denny to keep an eye on his mirror. Where we were, they would have had to wreck us to win. I think Denny drove with that mentality as well. Then we got the restart and were fortunate enough to get a run off turn two and get a push. Once we got out front, I knew it was over.

J.D. - WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THE LAST LAP OF THE RACE? "I like the fact that it was Tony and Junior up there with him, guys he knows in the sport. At this point, I know enough to know you can't get too excited at that point until it is over.I was nervous for him and kind of curious what he was thinking. Denny, what were you thinking?

DENNY - "I was fine, but the spotter and the crew chief voices got a little louder every lap. He can say what he wants to about the nervousness, he was saying 20 to go, 15 to go, 10 to go and the pitch was getting higher. I am excited for the guys on the FedEx team more than myself. Yes, I was getting nervous there toward the end. You know you think at about 10 laps to go what if I actually win this race. Then when Tony got by me, I thought ok, back to reality. I am not sure when we actually cleared for the lead but I knew if we could get those guys side-by-side behind us so I could switch lanes and help whoever was behind us, we were going to be ok."

CAN YOU REMEMBER SITTING HOME WATCHING THE SHOOTOUT AND IMAGINING YOURSELF IN THE RACE? "It is just one of those deals where it is happening so fast, it still hasn't caught up to me yet. I know I was way more emotional for my pole than I was this race, probably because I had a whole lot more time to think about it. We went out fairly early at Phoenix to qualify, so we had to sit through the rest of the cars and had time to think and think and think about it and imagine the what ifs. This race went by so fast I still can't believe it. I will probably believe it when I log on to NASCAR.com and see my face up there."