BILL ELLIOTT, NO. 36 GINN CLUBS AND RESORT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS:

DO YOU MISS BEING A FULL TIME DRIVER IN NEXTEL CUP? "I don't miss the feeling you have when you get up feeling so beat up from racing so hard the day before. Regardless of how you feel on Monday, you are off testing on Tuesday and Wednesday then back at another track on Friday. But I do miss the people, the competitiveness of the sport, I like to compete. That is what drew me into this sport I don't know how many ever years ago it was. I guess I didn't realize how much you come to depend on that as time goes on. But I really enjoy where I am at today, being able to pick and choose what races I run. It took a long time for me to get to this point and now that I am here, it is very important to me.

ARE YOU STILL COMPETING IN SNOWBOARDING OR DO YOU FOLLOW SNOWBOARDING? "I have never competed in snowboarding, but my son is in a snowboarding school. Last Saturday they had a little competition and went in the half pipe. He doesn't go very high, he doesn't do a lot of the tricks the other kids do when they do some of the jumps. But to watch some of these kids do the things they do is just amazing. It is just unreal what some of those guys can do. Whether you are driving a sprint car race or in a NASCAR race, when you are on your game and everything is going right, what you can do and how everything can come together. It is the same for those guys on those boards. I went in the half pipe but I didn't go very far. I ended up looking like Superman going down it."

WITH HAVING JUST A PART TIME TEAM, CAN YOU BE A THREAT IN A RACE? "We will see. I would like to think so, at least an opportunity running up front. To me, this race track (Daytona International Speedway) is unlike an Atlanta and some of the other places where you can strategize, the crew can be 80% to 90% rather than 100% sharp and still have a good run Sunday afternoon, still put yourself in a position to win. You can't do that last four tire stop, come in and get a little shot of gas or do whatever else you want to do and still put yourself in a position to win. Here, you have to have good teammates to get you in the right position as well as the crew. With Joe (Nemechek) and Sterling (Marlin) both on this team, they have been here enough and have been good enough; we can put all three cars in the right position at the end of the race. I think Joe finished fifth in the 500 last year and the team qualified this car in the top-10 for the July race and we got some awfully good speeds out of it at testing, so we will see."

YOU HAVE HAD WINNING CARS HERE BEFORE, HOW GOOD IS THE CAR YOU HAVE NOW COMPARED TO THEM? "It is good, it is a really good car. It is a very competitive car, capable of winning. You have to put yourself in the right position. How you come into Daytona, makes a big different. To me, if you unload off the truck, everything goes just right, you get through the 'Room of Doom' (NASCAR Tech) and then you go out and have good runs, that kind of starts the ball rolling. By how all that goes, you can kind of tell if you are going to have a good Daytona week by they way things come together early. For us, we had a good test, so now if we can continue to put it together the next few days, getting ready for qualifying on Sunday and then the 125s on Thursday. "

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO? YOU HAVE ALWAYS SEEMED TO BE A FORD MAN SO DO YOU HAVE ANY FEELINGS ABOUT THE FORD/CHEVROLET THING? "It seems to run well. I have driven Chevrolets in the past and this one is a good car. I drove Dodge the last five years. This is an opportunity for me. When Jay Frye came to me, I wasn't looking a brand as much as I was looking for the right opportunity. If Jack Roush or someone else had come to me and said there was an opportunity for me, it would have been the same thing. I chose it as that, an opportunity and look past everything else. For me it is an opportunity to come run the Daytona 500 and I am just glad to be here."

DO YOU THINK THERE ARE GOOD OPPORTUNITIES OUT THERE FOR VETERAN DRIVERS? "I think there are opportunities out there for drivers to be here a longer period of time. Rusty (Wallace) quit cold turkey more than anybody. For me, as hard as I worked and as long as I have been in to it, I wanted to have options and not quit cold turkey. I wanted to be able to do it my way. Whenever you say you aren't driving any more, like Mark (Martin) who was going to quit the end of last year, then things changed. I didn't want to put myself in a box, I wanted to have a few options to take advantage of the opportunities."

IF YOU HAD A BAD CRASH, WOULD THAT CHANGE ANYTHING FOR YOU? "I am sure that would play in to things but if you think about that side of it, you probably wouldn't have gotten into one of these things in the first place. It is like the car I ran 210 here with back in '87, I still have that car back at the shop and every time I walk by it, I cringe. I would have hated to have known what would happen if you wrecked that thing at 210 (mph) around this place. It is part of the sport though."