TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT MONTE CARLO SS takes second straight Pepsi 400 win - STEWART IS JOINED BY CREW CHIEF GREG ZIPADELLI AND JOE GIBBS RACING PRESIDENT, JD GIBBS:

LAST YEAR YOU SAID YOUR CAR WAS THE BEST YOU'VE EVER HAD. WAS THIS CAR EQUAL TO THAT ONE?
STEWART: "It was close. It wasn't quite as good to start with. Last year it cooled off a lot more and I think our car tightened up a lot more. But this year, the first three runs of the race we were a little bit loose and needed to tighten the car up. That's where (crew chief) Zippy and the guys did an awesome job. It's hard to do everything you want to do when you've got come in and in one stop just take fuel only and the next stop just take two tires and all that. It got that way at the end. I'm just not sure it was at the point to where I could just go and run and not have to worry about holding guys off. I really had to pay a little more attention to what was going on behind me this year than last year."

HOW WAS IT FROM ON TOP OF THE PIT BOX?
ZIPADELLI: "Like Tony said, we had to make a few adjustments in one stop. We got aggressive with our adjustments the two stops and the rest of the day we didn't do anything with it. It was the same car we had here in February and the same car we had here in July. We did make it a little bit better aero-wise, but we knew everybody else was working on their stuff. Basically it was a very similar set-up and a lot of the same things. It wasn't much cooler last year here in looking at the air temp and track temp than the way it ended tonight."

HOW WAS IT FOR YOU JD?
JD GIBBS: "I will say this. My dad had the best quote of the night. He watched Zak, Zippy's son up there. Zak made the last three calls in the race."

WERE YOU AT ALL WORRIED ABOUT BEING ABLE TO GET AROUND BORIS SAID AND IF THE CAUTION HADN'T COME OUT, WAS THERE ANY QUESTION IN YOUR MIND THAT YOU WOULD HAVE HELD OFF THE BUSCH BROS. BEHIND YOU?
STEWART: "I didn't want to see the caution. Obviously we were in really good position where we were at there. I was really comfortable with the pace that we were running. Nobody could really do anything with us at that point. I felt like we had a better shot of getting around Boris than anybody else - not because Boris is not a great driver, he is a great driver, but he hasn't had a lot of experience up front at a restrictor plate race and knowing what to do and watch for. I knew some things that I could do that he probably wasn't going to be watching for. So I still was concerned and there was no guarantee we could get by him. If he won the race and it was going to be pretty cool if he could win his first pole and first race on the same weekend. I hated to spoil it for him but we just had a car that was too good tonight to not go out and win this race."

HOW DID YOU GET INTO POSITION BEHIND BORIS? "We did get a big run and I think if I remember right that it was a restart that kind of led us up to that. We were behind anyway and we got separated from that pack a little bit. I think we just got a good push that gave us the run when we got there - those guys really weren't paying attention to me, they were paying attention to the two-wide that they were involved in. We got underneath Denny (Hamlin) and got by him and then Casey Mears was stuck in the middle and working on somebody on the outside and I don't even think he even saw us coming because he never even flinched. He could have drove a semi between me and him. He never tried to block or anything. We had such a big run that we just blew by all those guys and the next thing we knew, we were in second."

THERE WERE A LOT OF CHANGES IN THE POINT STANDINGS TONIGHT. DO YOU THINK THAT IS BECAUSE THIS WAS A PLATE RACE, OR IS THAT HOW IT'S GOING TO BE FOR THESE NEXT 9 RACES LEADING UP TO THE START OF THE CHASE? "I'll be honest. I haven't really looked at the point standings and I do that on purpose. It doesn't even really matter where we're at. I don't know how far or close the points are. With the group of guys in the top 10 right now and the group outside the top 10, it's not going to be surprising at all to see them jumping around from week to week. There are a lot of teams who are really running good right now and on any given day you get two or three of those teams that just have an average day, I think you'll see the points jump up and down. It's pretty tight right now. We've been like a yo-yo in the points."

WHY DID YOU DIVE INTO A MOB OF FANS? "I don't know why I do half the stupid stuff I do, I'll be honest. I felt good after the end of the race until I got stupid and went up the flag stand again. I'll be honest. There was no way I was going to let those race fans down tonight because it started here and this was the year after it all started and I was either going to get all the way up or I was going to fall off and fall on my butt. But I wasn't going to stop until I either got all the way up or fell off. One or the other. I wasn't going to let those race fans down. They expected it tonight. You could see it when we came down the front stretch before we even turned around. They were already on their feet by the flag stand. I was not going to let them down. It was every bit as big, if not bigger, than it was last year. Last year I thought I was going to fall off the fence going back down over the fence.

I thought this year I'd be smarter - more experience at it - go down, crawl through the gate and call it a day. I got down there and there was no gate. But there was a mosh pit. So I did learn one thing. I'm too old for binge parties and all that stuff. So I'll be a chaperone for it instead. I don't even think I should be a chaperone, you're right. I'm not really chaperone material."

THIS TIME LAST YEAR, YOU HIT A STREAK THAT CARRIED YOU ALL THE WAY TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP. ARE YOU GETTING THAT SAME FEELING NOW? "Oh, I sure wish I was. Last year at this time, it was two in a row. Where (this year) the last two weeks have been really bad for our team. We haven't had the kind of success we were hoping for. I think the emotion after tonight's win versus last year's win is more of a healing process for the last two weeks at Michigan and Sonoma. I hope it's that way and I hope it's the same momentum. But more than anything, even if we didn't win - if we just stayed in the top five or top 10 and didn't crash or blow up, it was going to be a good night for us. This is the kind of night that leads you to hope that maybe history can repeat itself."

GIVEN TONY'S AND MATT KENSETH'S RECENT HISTORY - ESPECIALLY AT THIS RACE TRACK - WHAT BROUGHT ON THE TALK OF BEING BUDDIES TOWARD THE END OF THE RACE?
ZIPPY: "Our cars work good together. Just because what happened in February doesn't mean that we're not friends with them or that Tony's not friend with Matt. They're good people. They race hard. Matt had helped us earlier in the race and said he would help us as long as if the roles were reversed at the end of the night that we would help him. And that's all you can ask. It's hard to get people to work with you and our cars work really well together. So it didn't matter which order they're in. You didn't want to give that up if you have that opportunity to work together."

STEWART: "Yeah, it's a classic case of thinking outside the box. It's easy to sit back and think about something that you wrote or somebody else wrote that happened in February but you've got to be smarter than that. This past Tuesday, Matt and I raced together as teammates in Madison, WI where his father put on a race so it goes back to the same old thing that I always gripe about the media: You guys always want to go back and reflect on something that happened in the past and assume that it's still that way. Matt and I moved on from that even before the Charlotte race where everybody started to bring that up again. We both moved on past that. Are cars were very fast together. I don't know if his car would have led as good as ours did, but his car pushed really, really good tonight. We had talked about it when the roles got reversed there and we were going to go with him. But when Jeff and Matt got kind of jammed up in Turn 2 there, we were able to turn down and get below it. But that is the only reason we left the back of Matt's car. Our plan was to stay with him 'til the end there because he had got us to the lead twice and helped us lead the most laps. We knew that the pit stop was probably the one thing that could change it and if that happened that we were going to follow him the rest of the way."

WHAT KIND OF THREAT WOULD JEFF GORDON AND JIMMIE JOHNSON HAVE BEEN IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE THEIR PROBLEMS AT THE END? "That ain't different when they were here in February. I mean it's pretty much the same deal. I don't know what else to say about guys. My God they're always good here. I don't know what to say about that. They're always fast. If they don't have trouble they're probably going to be up in the top five at the end."

ON THE PASS AROUND BORIS SAID. YOU WENT HIGH AND KYLE BUSCH CAME LOW. WERE YOU REALLY WHERE YOU WANTED TO BE OR WAS THAT A HOLD YOUR BREATH, GET THROUGH IT MOMENT? ON THE LAST LAP WERE YOU AWARE OF THE TIRE CARCASS THAT WAS IN THE GROOVE IN TURN THREE? "I did know the tire was there. As soon as we came off turn two the spotter told me that the tire was laying right in the middle of the track and he said stay on the bottom. So I knew even if they didn't throw the caution I knew where I was going to go when I got there. That was probably the most anxious point of the race for me was when we did go into (turn) three to pass Boris. I thought he would just kind of go to the bottom and run the line that we'd been running. When I went to the outside he kind of went up with me and opened up the bottom and then Kyle (Busch) bailed off and I thought 'Oh no, this could be really bad' because I thought we might go from second all the way back to sixth or seventh there in one corner. I was really happy when we carried enough momentum to still be beside Boris when he had pulled down and blocked Kyle and then Kyle moved up and followed us the rest of the way. Once he moved back up off of (turn) four I knew we were going to be in good shape."

WHEN YOU PASSED JEFF GORDON EARLY IN THE RACE FOR ONE OF YOUR FIRST LEADS IN THE RACE, THE FANS WERE ON THEIR FEET AND WERE FOR MOST OF THE RACE. TALK ABOUT THE LOVE AFFAIR YOU HAVE WITH THE FANS: "I'm a very passionate person. I'm not sure I'd even call it a love affair. I think we're dating at this point, me and the fans at Daytona. No, it's cool. When you can have fun with the race fans like, it was just like Tuesday. We went up with Matt (Kenseth) Tuesday and had a great time with the fans. I think last year kind of set a standard for us when we come to Daytona now. Those people respected that so much because it started here and after tonight I think every time we come here we're going to have a huge fan base of people that come to this race and respect the fact of what we've done in the last two years here. It's cool and the thing is you can see them stand up. That is momentum personally for you when you're inside that car when you see that many people stand up and cheer when you do something good it's momentum for you the rest of the night. You know you have a lot of people pulling for you and it makes you feel great."

ON THE COMMENTS ABOUT BUMP DRAFTING AND AGGRESSIVE DRIVING IN FEBRUARY. IS IT ACCURATE THAT TONIGHT WAS A MUCH CLEANER AND LESS AGGRESSIVE RACE? "I definitely think so but I wouldn't say that we're all saints now. I think a lot of it was circumstances too with the track being as hot as it is. When it's cool everybody can hold the throttle wide open. When you're the fourth, fifth, sixth car in line sometimes you've got to crack the throttle because it's slick out there. I think a lot of it was dictated by how good guys' cars were handling but nobody got that big run. Nobody got that big push to where they could go up there and give you that big hard hit. Even if they could I think with the fact that NASCAR softened the bumpers up kept everybody conscious of not hitting too hard. Its three races in a row now where we haven't had a huge drama other than what I created in February here. The last three races on the plate tracks NASCAR has obviously done the right thing with their decision to change the bumper rules. I think everybody is just more conscious of it and realized that it was getting a little bit more out of control than what we all wanted it to so I think we're all conscious about it."

DID YOU IMPRESS YOURSELF HERE THIS WEEKEND? "I'm just happy I survived. I'll be honest. I don't even know who the driver was yesterday but in the Busch race we were in the back and I saw this skinny kid get out of his car because he was too hot. I was like 'This fat kid, me, I just outstanded this what appears to be a good that's in pretty good shape get out and abandon his car on pit lane.' I was pretty happy with that. I thought maybe I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought I was. I can guarantee that there were guys that got out of their car today that felt better than I did. It's still showed me this weekend that I need to be in better condition. Last year was a cool summer. We had very cool conditions all year last year. We didn't have a lot of hot days. This weekend was a very testing weekend for me. Thursday with an IROC practice, two Busch and two Cup practices and then the IROC race. I was flat wore out after that was over. I was sick to my stomach. Yesterday I didn't feel real great in the car. Tonight I felt great in the car. The better the car drives the less energy you've got to use and tonight was one of those nights where the car drove good enough where I didn't have to use a lot of energy.

ON THE IROC WIN: "I was really, really happy with the road course win Thursday night. To go out there and beat guys like Max Papis, Max Angelelli and Scott Sharp who are great road course drivers. That's what the IROC Series is all about is testing your skills against their skills. I said before the race started that I thought the race here at Daytona on the road course was going to be the most fair and even race for all the drivers. The only guy that really didn't have any variable that accommodated anything we did Thursday night was Steve Kinser. For all of us stock car drivers we're used to driving that type of car. For the road course drivers they were used techniques that you use on a road course and I felt like that kind of evened out the competition a little bit more."

DO YOU STILL HATE PLATE RACING OR IS IT GROWING ON YOU A LITTLE BIT? "I still hate plate racing."

DO YOU HATE IT AS MUCH NOW AS YOU DID BEFORE YOU SEEMED TO HAVE MASTERED IT? "I never have liked it and I never will like it. I still don't like it. I shouldn't say that I hate it. I dislike anything where you have to rely on somebody else. To me what you and your team do should be what it's all about. If Kyle Busch would have went with Boris Said, Boris Said may have own the race tonight but he went up and went with me and we won the race. I don't like having to have a guy behind you or in front of you dictate what you do and where you go. That's really the one reason why I dislike it. Every year it's getting better and better as far as the beating and banging especially the last three races it's getting better. It's still very nerve racking when you can't plan your moves unless you know what the guy behind you or in front of you is going to do."

WILL YOU MAKE TONY STOP CLIMBING FENCES BECAUSE OF THE DANGER FACTOR?
JD GIBBS: "As long as he keeps his helmet on, we're good. Keep the grey matter."

STEWART: "I told you guys at the media center at Indianapolis, that is why I would not go any higher on the fence because I swore that I would probably fall off, I already had my helmet off and I'd go into a coma and forget that I won the Brickyard 400 and the best day of my life would have been erased from my mind. See, David, I'm not totally stupid, I leave my helmet on when I go up."

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE FOR YOU IN WINNING WITH ALL THE DELAYS WE HAD HERE LAST YEAR COMPARED TO THIS YEAR GOING SO SMOOTHLY? "It pays the same; it's not dictated by time. It didn't matter to me. I think the important thing last year was that we had 180,000 people that had planned their weekend around coming to this event and the important thing last year was to just get this race in and to let those fans stay to those schedules that they had planned for their holiday weekends. It didn't really matter to me.

I'm nocturnal anyway. Until I was about 15 years old I though the sun started straight up and went to the west. I had no clue that it started in the east and came up. So as soon as the sun goes down you get into my best hours of the day."

DID THIS RACE MAKE YOU WANT TO DO MORE FOR YOUR TEAM, COMING OFF YOUR INJURY AND A FEW LESS-SUCCESFUL RACES? "Not necessarily, I mean, I'll be honest. I've never worked for a group of guys that were more dedicated to what they do and why they do it. I've been on teams that ego was such a huge part of it. That is the least of concerns on this race team and even through the bad week at Dover those guys were laughing, cutting up with me. They tied my shoestrings to the pit box during the race while the race was going on. We're like a huge family. That's what makes nights like this that much more impressive. This is not a race where a driver can go out and just win it. You have to have a good car, you have to have a fast car that's prepared well and it's not any different than any other week but these restrictor-plate races. some of these other tracks you can go out there with a car that isn't necessarily a winning car and you can win a race if things go right. You can't do that here. These guys have worked so hard and they have the best attitude of any race team I have ever seen in my life. When things go bad, we're always there picking each other up and Zippy and I keep the guys having a good time and I think in the last year and a half we've really hit a stride and a momentum that I don't think any other team has accomplished. And it doesn't t mean we're guaranteed success by it but it does make going to the race track a heck of a lot more fun each week I think for all of us. If I had to trade a championship this year to keep this group of guys around and take a second- or third-place finish, I would do that in a heartbeat, to keep this core group of guys here because that's how much they mean to me."

GREG ZIPADELLI, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS:

TALK ABOUT THE COMFORT LEVEL YOU HAVE WITH TONY'S ABILITIES: "He's obviously one of, I think, the greatest drivers that any of us are ever going to see. There's a lot of good drivers out there but it's getting to be so competitive that you need that attitude, your guys need to have that attitude. It's truly become I think, a little more of a team sport than it was years ago because everything was so competitive. Your driver's got to be 110%, your car's got to be 110%, your pit crew does, you know what I mean? Before, you only raced four or five guys. Eight years ago when we came into the series we raced six or seven guys. There's 15 teams out there that you're racing every week. A lot of weeks there's 20 or 25 teams that are capable of, that's how close these teams are today. The cars have gotten so much closer, everybody just needs to do their job and he's obviously, with his change of heart, as far as realizing and appreciating the team and the guys more in the last few years has obviously made my job a lot more enjoyable. That was one of the more stressful things in the first five years of my job was trying to keep the guys together, trying to keep everybody focused and understanding that when he got upset, not to take it personally but a lot of times it was hard not to."

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 5 KELLOG'S/CHEEZ-IT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS

"It was a good run for the Kellogg's/Cheez-It Chevrolet definitely, to come out of here with a second-place finish. We've never been able to finish here much, that's definitely a big improvement. The biggest thing was just being able to make sure that our car was in one piece and keeping it that way through the whole night. Just like Kurt (Busch) said, there was a bunch of tight and loose conditions all over the board, really. It never felt like my car was superior to anyone else's, it was mediocre with everybody. We had a shot where we could make up ground and then we'd loose some ground. We could come back through a little bit. Never really a force to be reckoned with tonight, we were able to make it through some good passes towards the end and not get hung up anywhere and got in front of everybody except the No. 20 (Stewart) and finished second."

COMMENT ON BORIS SAID'S WIN: "I think he thought this was a road course. He looked good out there. I never really saw him all that much all night but to prevail there at the end, he's got a good crew chief, one that's had some success here over the years, Frankie Stoddard. They made a pit call that really put them up front and gave him some track position. Pretty good run for them. Glad to see them come out of the Nextel Cup series with two top-tens in a row."

DID YOU FIND IRONY IN THE FACT THAT YOU HELPED PUSH STEWART THROUGH THE WIND? "I knew he was a strong car and if I wanted to finish second or have a shot at finishing up front he was the car to go with. It doesn't matter who's driving the car, it's whoever's car is fast, that's the one to go with. I saw Kurt make a move to the bottom of the race track and I thought about going with it, but he was going to get bogged down a little bit too much and I wasn't going to be enough to push him through the hole. I kind of had to go up and around and get in front of him then fall behind Stewart. Once I was able to do that Kurt fell in and all three of us were able to go through the train and get up to the front and take the lead eventually."

WITHOUT THE CAUTION, DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN PAST TONY STEWART? "I do, I think there was an opportunity there for the both of us. Kurt had a decent run built up coming from the back straightaway and I could see him closing in on me a little bit. As soon as he'd get to me through turns Three and Four then that would boost my car up a little bit and that might have been a shot coming down through the short-chute before the start/finish line. If there was any shot we probably would have been able to get side by side with them but I don't know if there was going to be anything as far as either one of us winning or not but there probably would have been some fireworks."

WAS THERE DISSAPOINTMENT HEARING THAT THE RACE WOULD FINISH UNDER YELLOW? "I got the news through turns One and Two that there was a tire carcass in the groove through Three and Four. It ain't gonna move itself so we're either all going to go through it and run it over or they were going to throw a caution. I was pretty much counting on the caution. I think they were going to get us to our last complete second so if we could have developed a run half a lap sooner we could have something formed the back straightaway, they probably would have let it go a little bit longer. They had to do what they had to do, throw a caution in order to keep everyone safe and not have that problem of running it over and causing more damage to somebody or ruining somebody's night just coming to the checkered flag."

YOU'VE JUMPED IN THE TOP 10 IN THE POINT STANDINGS. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MOMENTUM THIS GIVES YOU? "Well it just wasn't this week. It had to do with last week as well with Sears Point Infineon Raceway there. Being able to come out of there with a decent finish and come into Daytona and try to run strong and have a decent finish in here. We can pretty much take care of ourselves on mile and a half and two mile race tracks so the biggest thing is trying to miss the big one which thankfully never came tonight. But also on the other hand was Sears Point and trying to make just a decent run and staying on the track and keep it on the asphalt all day and come out of there with a solid finish. Thankfully we were able to do that both weekends in a row. We weren't quite as satisfied with what we got in Sears Point but we'll take it and we'll come out of here with a second place and go on to Chicago and see if we can keep our momentum rolling a little bit better."

FOR A WHILE THERE ALL FOUR OF THE HENDRICK CARS WERE RUNNING TOGETHER. CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SETUPS? ARE THEY SIMILAR SETUPS OR ARE THEY QUITE DIFFERENT? "Honestly, I can't tell you. The only thing I really know for a fact is that the 24 (Jeff Gordon) had a different brake setup on it than any of us. Also the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) and the 25 (Brian Vickers) had five more horsepower than the 24 and the 5 did just due to the fact of being safe. The 5 and 24, we've got a shot at trying to make it into the Chase so we've got to be a little bit more conservative than the 48 has to or the 25 has to. As far as anything else really I can't answer that, I'm sorry."

TONY RAINES, NO. 96 DLP HDTV MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 21st

"I'm disappointed. I thought we had a better car than that. The car just wouldn't draft up like it did at Talladega. It was handling awesome, it just seemed like it was off a little bit. The long runs we were good, but on the restarts we just struggled. I want to finish better than we did. 21st, I want to finish a little better than that."

TRAVIS KVAPIL, NO. 32 TIDE/DOWNY MONTE CARLO SS- Finished 30th

"We had our hands full tonight. The impound situation really hurt us because when it came down to the race, this car was a handful to drive with it set up in qualifying trim. It was way too loose with about 25 laps to go and we were not able to make a charge to the front like we had planned. We made a track bar and wedge change with 4 laps to go and it handled better in the end. We just ran out of laps. Bottom line ... racing in qualifying trim is not very fun.

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 40th

"We had guys out there who had no tires - some two, some four - and we had four and the car was handling great. My guys did an awesome job tonight in the pits and getting the car dialed in because we weren't that great yesterday and we were just working our way up through there. It was getting dicey and crazy. The No. 18 (Yeley) was backing up through the middle and I got to the outside and the No. 16 (Biffle) was going around him and there were so many guys that were getting out of control. And I want to badmouth every one of them but I'm not going to. I guess if I don't have anything nice to say I shouldn't say anything at all. It was just unfortunate that we got caught in it because our DuPont Pepsi Superman Chevrolet was awesome tonight. I don't know if we had a shot at Tony (Stewart) but we definitely had a shot at the top three or four. I just had that we got cut short by guys who were being stupid."

"It was just a lot of craziness. It's Daytona at night and the lights are on and you know, some guys had tires and some guys didn't have tires. We were working our way up through there. And we were really battling with Tony and (Matt) Kenseth and we were banging bumpers and everything else and we got three wide there and the No. 18 was in the middle and the No. 16 was on the outside and they came together. The guys were getting a little bit out of control there those last few laps and that's usually what happens when guys drive like that.

"It was a frustrating night all the way around. We took off there and we were great. The pit stops were great and I couldn't ask for more. But you make one move that somebody behind you chooses whether they want to go with you or not to go with you and you get shuffled back 10 spots. And we slowly but surely worked our way back up there, and then we'd get shuffled back again. So it was just frustrating on a lot of levels. I definitely am going to have to go make some friends in the garage. I think me and Junior --- neither one of us have any friends out there because there was nobody who seemed to want to work with us and that's a part of restrictor plate racing. We had all the other ingredients there and we'll just have to go to Chicago and make up for it."

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 5 CHEEZ-IT/KELLOGG'S MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 2nd

ON TRYING TO GET A FEW RUNS IN ON TONY STEWART AT THE END OF THE RACE: "Yeah, we just didn't have a good enough run on him there. Kurt (Busch) was pushing me from behind but just couldn't ever get a strong enough run on him to complete the pass. I felt like I had a good run down the back straightaway. If I would have pulled out a little bit too soon and blocked his mirrors but he had to do what he had to do to win the race. Congratulations to (Tony) Stewart and congratulations to my whole Kellogg's/Cheez-It team for being able to put me in second place tonight."

YOU'VE NEVER HAD GOOD LUCK AT THIS RACE TRACK. WHAT'S MORE SATISFYING, A TOP FIVE FINISH AT DAYTONA OR THE FACT THAT YOU BEAT YOUR OLDER BROTHER KURT TONIGHT? "A top five finish at Daytona. I can beat him all year long. I'm just kidding. The biggest thing is just being able to actually to finish here in Daytona. I came out of here in the spring not liking this place very much. It doesn't have any offense to do with the people here or the atmosphere or anything like that. It's just I haven't had very much success on restrictor plate races. You put a half-mile Bristol around here in Daytona somewhere and I'll like it. Sorry." (Press conference transcript to follow)

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 13th

"My car was real tight all night long and I couldn't really move forward. I just couldn't race side by side with nobody. I had a hard time on the restarts, a hard time getting in my pit box. The car just wouldn't go. We struggled in a lot areas tonight. We really did and (it's) very disappointing but my team gave me an A effort and that was the reason why we were able to come out here sort of with a decent gain in the points. I've got to give my team a lot of credit."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 32nd

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CRASH WITH BOBBY LABONTE? "I've got to look at the video. I mean, we were three-wide and I got loose inside of him (Labonte). Chased him up the track and just ran out of real estate. I'm not sure what was really going on around me but I got loose, was chasing him and off the gas, trying not to get into him and did.

DID THE CARS HOOK TOGETHER? "Yeah, once we got together my steering wheel pulled to the right and it just turned my steering head-on into his and I couldn't turn off of him. I just sat there grinding him into the wall, destroying both of our cars even more. I feel really bad about it."

JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 15th

"It handled good, and that's what racing is all about, making the cars handle. I think everybody expects racing like we have at Talladega but it's an unrealistic expectation. It's not gonna happen. This is the kind of racing we ought to have at Daytona and in my opinion that's how it ought to be. The three-wide, two-wide, ten rows deep, twenty rows deep isn't what racing's all about, it's about making them handle and the car that handles the best wins."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 HERSHEY'S/GM GOODWRENCH MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 9th

"It was a good night. The car is still rolling and we got a top-10 out of it so that's all we came for."