STEVE ADDINGTON, CREW CHIEF, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT BUMP DRAFTING? CAN YOU MAKE CHANGES TO THE FRONT BUMPER AREA OF THE CARS? “You can make us move the front bumper back away from the nose and put a limit in tubing size and what size bars we put up there. And then if you hit somebody it just messes your ductwork up so you don’t want to do it. That sounds like the direction that we’re heading unless they come up with a different material to put behind the front bumpers or something like that. That’d cure a lot of it.” IS THAT THE BEST SOLUTION? “I think so. Right now, that’s the only way to prevent any of it from happening is to either move the bumper bars back away from the nose itself and put some kind of material in between so it messes your airflow up into your radiator. That’s going to be about the limit on it.” WITH THE TIRE RULE, ARE YOU LIMITED TO NO TESTING OTHER THAN AT THOSE DATES DESIGNATED BY NASCAR? “I know that some teams have tires stockpiled up and they are going to go to Kentucky, Nashville, Lakeland and places like that. Until that supply runs out, we’re still going to be able to test other places. You’ve got what you’ve got on your tire supply and then after that runs out we’re only going to be able to test where they want us to test.” DOES THAT GIVE ADDED INPORTANCE TO J.J. YELEY RUNNING THE BUSCH CAR? “Here we can’t take any information because they [the Busch cars] have wickers on top of the cars. At other places we’ll just have to see how it pans out with him driving both cars this year.”

KEVIN MANION, CREW CHIEF, No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER CHEVROLET: IS MAKING CHANGES TO THE FRONT BUMPER THE BEST SOLUTION TO PREVENT BUMP DRAFTING? “I don’t think so. Everyone has their opinion and they probably all stink. There’s no good fix to it. Take the banking out, take the plates off, soften the bumpers up, put brake lights in the car, there’s a thousand solutions. It’s what NASCAR has decided to do this week is put it in the driver’s hands. If they bump somebody they’re going to put a flat tire on their motorhome [smiles]. They basically put a few zones in there, calling them ‘rough driving’ not so much bump drafting. And that’s really what it is. A product of restrictor plate racing is bump drafting. It’s aggressive drafting. A guy can lift and then he might get hit in the ass and get knocked around. Tony Stewart had some pretty strong words and they were sad but true. It’s five years since we lost our leader, our boss, and we don’t want to see that happen to anybody. The rule that they have in place now is one of the best fixes. You can agree or disagree. Somebody told me one time make a decision, whether it’s right or wrong, make one and they’ve made one. We’re going to stick by it. I thought the races were clean yesterday. The front bumper of the 1 car has a few little marks in it but the rear bumper for sure was in. There was some beating and banging but it looked like a clean race.” IF THEY MAKE A CHANGE IN THE FRONT BUMPER AREA, DOES THAT THROW ALL YOUR AERODYANAMIC NUMBERS OFF? “I don’t think they’ll change the shape of it. The might change the integrity of what’s behind the nose but how they police that, who knows? They might have where you only have certain diameter thickness of the tubing behind there. It’s really hard to police. I don’t think they could make a mid-season change. Maybe in the car of tomorrow they could do it, some sort of breakaway nose. I saw Sterling’s car yesterday. Under caution he ran into somebody and basically as slow as they were going they had to go to a backup car. You don’t want to be bumping somebody and then have to pull into the pits because your nose is dragging on the ground. I don’t think that’s a good fix. What they’re doing right now is probably the best solution for today.” YOU ARE LIMITED TO THE NASCAR TEST SESSIONS BECAUSE OF TIRES. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOU GUYS? “I think it’s going to hurt us a little bit. I wish the Raybestos Rookies did have a little bit of an advantage still [more test dates]. In the Busch Series last year in Carl Edwards, here he was a rookie with all these extra Busch tests. The finally said ‘If you make it to the Cup level, you’re not a rookie.’ And I think that’s not true. I think you have Raybestos Rookie teams, which we are and you have rookie drivers. Martin is very green and still has to mature in a lot of different areas. I don’ think it’s fair but that’s a rule and we’re going to play by it. Now somebody did tell me last night as we were watching truck qualifying that Mark Martin is a rookie in the truck series and he gets an extra half-hour of truck practice. Now if Mark Martin is over there in the truck series with an extra half-hour of practice then the system is still busted.” DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE THAT MARTIN IS NOT RUNNING A LOT OF BUSCH RACES? “He’s going to run a handful of races. I think seat time is what’s important, whatever division it’s in. Getting that seat time and feeling out the track, especially a place that he’s never been before. It’s got its advantages and disadvantages but he’s a racer and he’d rather be racing then sitting and watching.”

MIKE FORD, CREW CHIEF, No. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: WHAT WOULD BE A SOLUTION TO THE BUMP DRAFTING ISSUE? “I think it’s another pain of restrictor plate racing. From the competitor’s standpoint, there isn’t a whole lot you can do and you have to always look outside the box to try and get a better finish. And the drivers have found out they can help each other by pushing and things like that. I know everybody’s complaining about it, but it’s one of those things that if these things didn’t have restrictor plates you wouldn’t have that issue. We don’t have that issue anywhere else. It’s two racetracks and there’s so many things that just lead to those two racetracks that just make it very difficult to compete. You take bumping out of racing, which has been there forever, then what is it?” IF A CHANGE IS MADE TO THE FRONT BUMPERS, DOES THAT MAKE ALL YOUR AERO NUMBERS OBSELETE? “I really don’t know what they’re looking at, to be able to answer that accurately. Any time there is a rule change, yeah, you can throw everything that you’ve ever learned out the window and start over. But it opens up other boxes and when those boxes are open there’s going to be more rules and your notes are going to be thrown away again. It’s one of those pains of restrictor plate racing that’s so difficult and you spend the majority of your season working on four races. It’s a small percentage of your racing but it takes a large percentage of your time.” DUE TO THE TIRE RULES, NO TEAM WILL BE PERMITTED TO TEST OUTSIDE OF THE NASCAR MANADTED TEST SESSIONS. HOW WILL THAT AFFECT YOUR TEAM? “I really don’t see that being that large of an effect. We still have six tracks that are different that we test during the season and there’s plenty of other things that we can work on rather than actual track testing. What it will affect is proving out theories that you have that you do learn outside of track time with simulation and things like that that you basically try to take to the track and prove out. But that’s gotten pretty accurate over the last few year and I think we’ll have to rely more and more on that. As far as it having a large impact on what we do, I don’t think it will be there.” DOES THIS MEAN THERE IS AN ADDED IMPORTANCE ON THE BUSCH RACES THAT DENNY HAMLIN RUNS? “With him being as young to the sport as he is, it gives him track time and he definitely needs that at some of the places that he’s not been before or not been many times before. So it does give added importance to the Busch program, which we’re working closer with the Busch program than what we did last year. That information can go back and forth with the driver, which is the most important thing. I think the most important thing is that he’s getting seat time on the racetrack and on those tires before he comes and jumps in the Cup car.”