KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

COMMENT ON YOUR WEEK SO FAR “The week has actually been pretty good. I took it easy. I didn’t have a whole lot to do. We did some media stuff because of the Fontana sweep out there. Basically we had some good things going on, but I actually relaxed. I was home a lot. It was the first time I’d been home in awhile, so it was nice to just sit at home. I didn’t do a whole lot.”

HAVE YOU FELT ADDED PRESSURE COMING INTO THIS RACE? “It actually doesn’t feel too bad right now. I felt good about what’s gone on all week. We talked about the way we’re going to run the car this weekend, the changes we’re going to make, the things that will be on the list to make the car better in practice today and just be prepared for tomorrow night’s race. We tried to look at some different scenarios and see how everything ends up. I’ve actually been excited to still have a shot, excited we ran so well last week. It gives us a shot still to make The Chase. After running well here in the last three races with one win, I feel like it’s a great racetrack for us. I did all the winner’s circle stuff up here and met a lot of the media a couple months ago. It’s been pretty neat. I sold some tickets for this race and I just look forward to going out there tomorrow night and trying to run up front.”

DO YOU WONDER IF NASCAR SHOULD AWARD MORE POINTS FOR WINNING? “I don’t know. It would be nice in the situation I’m in, but I don’t know of too many situations you’d be in with five wins on the outside looking in. As good as we’ve been all year, we’ve had those six or seven races we did not run well in. We’ve had some engine problems. We’ve had three or four we just didn’t run good in and I’ve wrecked in a couple. You add up all those and that’s a lot of points. If you look at the other guys with the most wins, they’re first and second in points. If you take away just half of my bad races I’d be sitting about third in points. I think wins do give you a lot of bonus points to a certain point. Usually if you win you’ve led a lot of laps and you’ve got at least 15 points right there and sometimes 20 if you’ve led the most laps.”

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THE SUPERSTAR ROLE OR IS IT SOMETHING YOU’RE STILL GETTING USED TO? “I think it’s always something I’ll get used to because it’s not necessarily me. I grew up in a small town and grew up as kind of a shy person. Basically everything I do anymore is not about that. It’s about being more out there and people know who you are. You do things to excite the fans and try to mingle and make them happy and stuff like that. It’s definitely going to be different for me. I enjoy it now to where three or four years ago I was so nervous I didn’t enjoy it. Now I’m starting to enjoy some of that stuff. If it keeps getting better and better I think I’ll love it. It’s just part of growing and trying to be a champion in the long run, and that’s what we want to do – be a champion. Just to keep getting more and more of it is fine with me.”

TWO GUYS COULD MAKE THE CHASE WITH NO WINS. DO YOU THINK THAT’S RIGHT? “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. One of them could have a win after this weekend, and I could be in with all those wins or not, there’s all kind of scenarios. I think Matt Kenseth won a championship with one win. I think consistency is part of it, too. With The Chase and the way they do that, I think it’s awesome. Richmond wouldn’t mean anything without that right now. It wouldn’t be nearly as big a race or as exciting as it’s going to be. You look at wins. You look at bonus points and excitement for fans. Also, I think NASCAR has to be about consistency and your team has to be up front every week. I think that’s what the 10 teams in front of me have done, and we’re just right there. We’ve been consistent but not quite consistent enough.”

SHOULD THE CHASE BE DEFINED ON WHAT HAPPENS THIS YEAR? “I think NASCAR looks at things for awhile. I don’t think they make decisions off one race or one year. If they do make any changes to The Chase it’s going to be to make it a little more exciting. It’s not going to be off Kasey Kahne and whether he’s got five wins or not. I don’t think that’s going to play into it. When they do make a change to The Chase it’s going to make it more exciting and probably put more pressure on the drivers as it gets to this race and as it gets to the final 10. That’s good for the fans. It’s good for TV. I enjoy it as a driver. I’d much rather be 30 points out this weekend than 200 points out and have no shot. That’s no fun at this point. Making The Chase is what every team wants to do and needs to do. We still have a great shot to do that.”

WILL YOU MONITOR THE CHASE COMPETITION? “I think you’ve just got to go out and get the points, especially the first 300 laps. It’ll be about leading laps and trying to run up front, seeing where your car’s at and trying to make it better. That’s track position. You’re going to want to be up there. After that maybe there will be some things that have happened and certain guys are out of the race and are still in the race and running third or fourth and you’ve got to be in front of them. Then you’ll have to start trying to get a little more out of your car, whether or not you can, usually I go about as far as I can every lap so that will probably be tough. There’s going to be a lot going on. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be an exciting night. I’m glad I don’t have any enemies going into this race. There are guys out there with enemies and I know about them. It’s been a long season. It’s been a great season. I’m excited for the weekend and can’t wait until Saturday night. I don’t want to say a word about anybody. If you say something about Tony, the next thing you know he’ll be on top of me and I don’t want anything like that.”

IS THERE ANYBODY AHEAD OF YOU NOW THAT YOU THINK YOU CAN MAKE A MOVE ON? “Mark and Jeff are the closest, so that’s good for us. Tony is pretty close, but he runs really good at Richmond. I’ve raced in the front the last three races and every race the 20 has been up there. I can remember him being up there before I was in Nextel Cup. I think the 20 is looking good, the 8. I said four races ago that nobody was going to catch the 8. I looked at these races and he looked good at the start of the year. Not counting Matt Kenseth, he’s probably been the best car in the last four races. They’ve done a really good job.”

HAS ANYBODY ON YOUR TEAM BEEN DESIGNATED AS THE MATH MAN? “There’s been some sheets made up I guess so everybody will have them on the three teams and just know where everybody needs to be with all the scenarios. Really I don’t think Kenny Francis has looked at any of that stuff. I think all he’s looked at is how to make his Dodge Charger fast. What’s worked during the tests? What’s working during the races? Just what we need to do this weekend. Sammy Johns and Ray Evernham will be looking at that stuff and maybe giving Kenny some advice, but Kenny and Keith are focused on our car and just making it go fast.”

WILL YOU WANT CONSTANT UPDATES? “I just want to run my on race. I can see up front and I have a mirror to see behind me. I can look at both of them and know if they’re very close to me, and I’ll know where I am on the racetrack all the time. Add that up and I’ll know if I need to go harder or if I’m not going to make it.”

WILL THIS BE A TOUGHER RACE FOR YOU THAN ANYBODY ELSE? “I don’t thinks so. They may need to hold me up, but I also need to get by them. We’re going to race hard, but I’ve got as much on the line as they do this weekend. I want to make that Chase. I want to make it as bad as anyone else out there. I’m going to race just like I do every weekend. I think everybody else will, too. If they don’t, that’s the way it will happen and things will happen because of it. I’m just going to race hard and do everything I can to get to the front.”

HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO PUT THIS SEASON INTO PERSPECTIVE? “My biggest goal at the start of the year was to make The Chase. If we don’t make it, it’ll be disappointing for the week, but after that…. My dad called me this week and said no matter what we’ve had a good year to this point. I think going into these final 10 races, you can look what we’ve done the past three or four and just sweeping California we can take two or three more races before the year’s out. I think we’ve got a good enough team to do that. I’m happy with my team. I’m happy with what we’ve done. We know where we’ve lost the points. We know where we need to work next year to not be in this situation. Whatever happens these last 10 races I’m going to race hard and try to win.”

WOULD RACING FOR 11TH BE A CONSOLATION FOR YOU? “It would work. It’s not what we want, but it would definitely work. If I did finish 11th that would be the best I’ve finished in Nextel Cup. It would be cool to finish 11th with five or six wins. I’d be proud of that, but it’s not what I want. We want to be in The Chase. We feel like these final 10 can be as good for us as anybody else, and we can do a lot of good stuff in those final 10.”

ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT TEAM ORDERS FROM OTHER DRIVERS NOT IN THE CHASE? “Yeah, you’ve definitely going to have that. There are a lot of team cars out there, but our team cars are going to race hard. Everybody is going to race hard. You want to get every spot you can no matter who you are to help out your teammates or to help Evernham Motorsports or Roush Racing or whatever team it is. It’s going to be a battle from start to finish for sure. I don’t know what else to say about it. Other than don’t hold me up too long.”

TALK ABOUT TRYING TO HOLD YOUR POSITION ON THE TRACK “You’re at Richmond and it’s kinda turned into a momentum track around the top the last three races. It keeps getting more and more momentum, and it’s hard to pass late in the tire run for sure when your tires get worn out. It’s going to be just like any other Richmond race, other than there’s a little bit more on the line. I’ve looked at the last couple of years and really nothing, not too much more happens in this race than the first race. It’s just a hard-fought race and you get what you get. I know in the drivers’ meeting they’ll talk about respecting the top 10 in points or the top 11 and not doing anything to jeopardize what they’ve got going on. That’ll probably come out of Mike Helton’s mouth, so it’ll be a pretty serious drivers’ meeting, which it has the past two years. Everybody will go out there and race like we do each week. I don’t think it’s going to be a much different race. There’s just going to be more on the line.”

YOU COULD HAVE EIGHT OR NINE WINS AND NOT FINISH BETTER THAN 11TH IN THE POINTS. DOESN’T SOME PART OF YOU THINK THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT? “Yeah, I would think if we had that many wins we should be better than that in the points. I don’t know what to do about it at this point. Maybe they’ll make that change for next year and the guy next year will have two wins that misses The Chase or something like that. I don’t know what to think about it other than yeah, I wish there was something that said if you’ve got the most wins you’re in.”

ELLIOTT SADLER (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

DO YOU FEEL THE PRESSURE FOR THE CHASE GUYS? “Oh yeah, it’s going to be an exciting weekend. You’ve got 11 guys going for 10 spots, 11 good race teams. I know they’re feeling the pressure. Any little mistake is going to cost them dearly. I think it’s going to be a good race, a tough race and the fans have got a lot to be excited about.”

HOW HAS KASEY KAHNE BEEN AROUND THE SHOP? “I think he’s been fine. I think he knows what he has to do. I don’t think the pressure is on him. I think coming out leading the most laps and winning at California last week, he’s run very well at Richmond the last couple of times he’s been here. I think Kasey is ready to come here and do the job and he’s going to put the pressure on somebody else. I know us as a team and Evernham Motorsports has done everything we can to give him a great chance to make The Chase. Hopefully after 400 laps here Saturday night he’s going to be in it.”

DO YOU THINK THEY NEED TO CHANGE THE CHASE? “No, I like it like it is. You work so hard to win these races. This is not like normal stick and ball sports where you have one winner and one loser. We have one winner and 42 losers so why not give the winner more points. I think that’s something they need to look at.”

WOULD YOU CHANGE RACES IN THE CHASE? “I think I would put Bristol in it. That’s such an exciting race, and it’s a night race. I would take Talladega out and put Daytona as the last race of the season. I think that would be cool. We put so much emphasis on Daytona every time we go, so it would be neat to end our season at Daytona.”

TALK ABOUT BEING WITH EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS? “I’m very happy with it. We’ve run well. We were very fast at Bristol and California. I think our communication level is getting better and better every week. Scott (Riggs) and I come from the same background. We pretty much speak the same language. Kasey and I get along really well. So far, so good. Everyboby at Evernham’s wants to do whatever it takes to win the championship. They’re really prepared for the future, and I’ve been very excited to be over here.”

TO WHAT EXTENT WOULD YOU GO TO HELP KASEY? “What we’ve been doing is our team is trying different setups. You only get two hours worth of practice, so we’re going to try some different stuff that might help my car or his car. If it does that then they can transfer it over. Whatever we can do as teammates to try things and make sure when they get the green flag Saturday night we’ve got the best possible setup we can in the car to get him in The Chase. Then we’ll just let him and his team battle it out with everybody else.”

HOW WILL YOU HELP KASEY ON THE TRACK? “I want to keep up with him. Last week at California when I was leading I asked the guys, I knew Kasey was catching me and I asked how close he was to leading the most laps. That’s what Scott and I want to do. We want to see one of the Evernham cars in The Chase. I think that’s important for our company, so we’ll do what we can do to help him.”

DO YOU FEEL PRESSURE TO WIN? “I don’t doubt my ability at all. I think I can still drive a racecar. To come out of the box and run as well as we have so far, it’s been absolutely amazing. Everyone at Dodge has been great to work with and all of the partners. We’ll see what happens, but I think we’re going to win races with them. We had a good chance to win at Bristol. We could have finished second or third at California to Kasey. We have got a good race team. We’ve just got to build on it.”

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Marathon Motor Oil Dodge Charger)

NOTE: Petty is scheduled to make his 775th career start Saturday night at Richmond.

COMMENT ON THE CHASE “It’s a 10-race schedule. It’s not a 36-race schedule. It’s a 10-race schedule. Kasey could win every race of the year and not be in The Chase and not win the championship. What goes on in the first 26 races really doesn’t matter. It’s a 10-race schedule for the championship. You could have a guy win 10 races and fall out of the next 16 races and still not make The Chase. That’s just the way the system is set up.”

IF YOU WERE KING OF NASCAR WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO MAKE THE SPORT BETTER? “The last 10 races of the season, the point system has been really good, but I don’t like it. We’ve had exciting Chases two years in a row, but that still doesn’t mean, and I’ll go back again and use the Busch Series. If you take the first 10 races of the Busch Series, look how far ahead Kevin Harvick was after 10 races. That could happen in the last 10 races of the Cup Series. I’m not a big fan of continuing the same points system in the last 10 races that you had in the first 26 races. I would probably judge those 10 guys off of each other than off the field. The highest finishing guy if you win you get X number of points and the second highest finishing guy gets 9, 8, 7, 6 or whatever it may be and the last guy gets at least 1 point. They race inside the race because that’s basically what it is. They race inside our race now. If you’re going to have a different race inside the race, why not have a different point system? We build up all this hype and excitement and as soon as we leave New Hampshire one guy is eliminated right off the bat. One guy has such a bad day that he can’t recover. It’s happened the last two years. If you want 10 guys in The Chase, keep ‘em close. That builds excitement. If there’s 3 games to go in the season and you’re a half game out or a game and a half out, that’s excitement. I’m not a Yankees fan or a Boston fan, but when they’re a game apart with three games to go, I just want to know what happens. I just don’t think there’s any excitement there. >From The Chase perspective, I’d look at that.

“I’m going to tell you something. You look at 400 as a good number, but 400 might not be the perfect if they’re going to continue their same point system. Let’s use Kasey. He’s hot and he’s 11th. So you’re going to knock the hottest driver on the circuit out and a driver with a huge following. We could have got Junior and Jeff in with a little bit of a different system. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. On a personal level, I’m not a big fan of it. Obviously it’s working because for two years in a row there has been excitement leading into the last race. There has been some hype. You guys write about it, maybe because you have to write about it. There is some stuff going on. You can’t say it’s all bad.

“In the last 10 races we run Martinsville. I’d like to see Bristol and Watkins Glen or Sears Point in the last 10 races. I’d like to see the last 10 races be a miniature season. From a percentage standpoint, the same number of short track percentages, middle track percentages, big tracks, road courses. You’ve got to score points on every type of track we race on. I’d like to see the schedule tweaked and it becomes a miniature season. You want to reward somebody who can drive on every type of racetrack.”

IS THERE A CLEAR CUT FAVORITE TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “I think this is the first season since The Chase that nobody has had a streak of hotness. You look at Kasey and he’s won five races but he’s won them at different times. He didn’t do like Biffle and get hot the first 10 or like Jimmie Johnson and get hot the second 10. He didn’t do like Tony and get hot the last 10. There’s been no streaks this year. Kenseth has come as close as anything the last three or four weeks in the Busch Series and Cup Series. When Biffle got hot last year he was streaking for half a year almost and then he just went dead cold. Jimmie got hot in the middle part of the year, and Tony got hot when it counted. I think anybody can look out across the field and see the guy who is going to sit everybody on their ear. He hasn’t popped up yet. He may pop up when we get to New Hampshire. Maybe he’s sandbagging right now, but I doubt it, but I don’t think today, sitting at Richmond, there is that guy.”

HOW SHOULD THE CHAMPIONS PROVISIONAL BE CHANGED? “You’re talking about that, let’s be totally honest, because there’s a shortage of drivers. Everybody is going to get Terry Labonte and Bill Elliott. Next in line will be Darrell and we’ll go get The King. That’s the way it is. Part of what’s hurting that, in Kyle Petty’s opinion, is when they drop the flag on a Busch race on Saturday, 21 of the drivers are Cup drivers. How are the Busch drivers going to get any experience? They can’t get any experience because there are no slots for ‘em. Even the guys driving on the Busch Series are not driving in Cup quality equipment. When you look at it, we’re compounding our own problem from an owner’s perspective and from a Cup perspective. The King of driver development, Jack Roush, had to ask Mark Martin to stay another year. You ought to be able to look at that and say ‘what’s the problem?’ The guy who started driver development had to ask an older driver to hang another year. I don’t think the driver development thing worked out like they thought it would. Where are all the drivers coming from to drive all the cars for all these new teams? I know Toyota has made their announcements, but there hasn’t been a lot of driver announcements. Maybe I don’t like the fact that an ex champion can just show up and make the race. He’s an ex champion. He should be able to show up and do whatever he wants to do. If you look back, there’s not a lot of ex champions. Realistically we’re only talking about a couple of guys. I don’t see the champions’ provisional as being as big an issue as everybody makes it out to be.”

WHAT’S THE STATE OF DODGE RIGHT NOW? “If you take the entire Dodge group they’re more engaged right now than any other time in the previous five or six years. They’ve taken a special interest in their motorsports program. Did it come too late for 2006? It may have. There has been some changes from the beginning of the year to where we sit right now. At the same time, I think the group they have their now is very hands-on, a lot more hands-on than any group we’ve had in the past. The group they have there now is a lot more engage in NASCAR. The group they have there now is a lot more engaged with all the teams, not just one or two teams. I do believe from the Dodge perspective, Dodge has regrouped, reorganized, refocused and are recommitted to where they’re headed with the program. Whatever shakes out in ’06 remains to be seen. When you get down to one race to go and you say is Kasey in or out. It’s not just one race that knocks Kasey in or out. It’s things that happened previous in the year. That’s the same way we are with Dodge. It’s not this one race if Dodge gets in or not. It’s how Dodge teams totally performed all year long. Who would have thought Kurt Busch would have had such a slow start or Ryan Newman would have had a season like he’s had? I think we all felt coming in with the Charger with one year under our belt that we would be more competitive. Not that we’ve not been competitive. We’ve got no luck or something. Kurt Busch can lead 90 laps of a 100-lap race and something happens in the last 10 laps and he’s out of the race. I’m really comfortable with where Dodge is at right now, maybe more so than in the previous five or six years.”

HOW HAS THE CHASE CHANGED YOUR APPROACH TO SPONSORS? “It hasn’t. I think everybody looks at that, and I think that was one of those fears that never shook out. The Chase model kind of changed and the sponsorship kind of changed at the same time. If you take Tire Kingdom or Marathon or Schwan’s or Wells Fargo, those sponsors really don’t care if you’re in The Chase or not. What’s in it for them is a market promotion, whether they have a big event in this market. I don’t have to be in The Chase to have a huge promotion in the New Hampshire market. I don’t have to be in The Chase for Marathon to run a big promotion in Kansas City. I don’t’ have to be in The Chase for Wells Fargo to run something in Texas. You’ve got a car at the track. You’ve got a car in the race, even when you don’t make the race they still do the promotions. I think the misnomer of saying we’re only going to pay you for 26 races and then if you make The Chase we’ll pay you for the last 10, I don’t think that ever flushed out. I think what did flush out was we’re going to pay your for 36 and if you make The Chase there’s a big bonus for you. I don’t think it cut. I think it added. I think the general fear was that it was going to cut. I think the general fear was it was going to cut. I think smart business people look at it as a season. They don’t look at it as a 10-race season. For us, it didn’t affect our program with Dodge.”

DOES WINNING BECOME LESS IMPORTANT IN THE CHASE? “Winning becomes part of the brand building. You build your brand up to be a winning brand. In the bigger picture a win is important. On a day-to-day basis, a win is not as important. The Yankees built a brand on winning. The Padres are still a brand, but they’ve not won as much. When you think Yankees, you think winning brand. When you think Hendrick you think winning brand. When you think some of these other teams you just don’t think winning brand. That’s global. When I think Coca-Cola, I think winning brand. You’ve got to look globally and those teams command more money. This is a funny sport. You’re only as good as what you did last week anyhow. People forget really quick. Think of the times a driver gets fired four weeks into the season. You’re looking at that car and you’re wondering who started the year in that car. You only remember last week or two weeks. That’s why guys in the sport can get out and fight on Sunday and be over it the next week or the week after. The sport just moves on in spite of itself. It’s just like the tide. It comes in and rolls out. The footprints on the beach are washed away and nobody cares. It is a sport and in the bigger picture winning is critical. In the day to day and week to week, when I come here and whether Marathon does a promotion in the Richmond area, we leave on Sunday night and win, lose or draw and they got their promotion.”

COMMENT ON MAKING 775 CAREER STARTS “I don’t care about that. I don’t think about it. All it really says is I’ve been here a long time. Just being around for a long time just means you’ve been around for a long time. Sometimes we’ll be standing around talking and Dale Inman will say ‘you remember when we ran Darlington in 1958?’ I was born in 1960. Bud Moore was the same way. This was about eight or nine years ago and Bud said, ‘how old are you now? About 54 or 55? I said, ‘Bud, The King is only 59. How can I be 54 or 55?’ He said, ‘that’s right, but you’ve been around a long time.’ The problem was I started coming to the racetrack in the mid-60s with my father. I remember driving with my father from Riverside over to where they were building Ontario and that was the first racetrack I’d ever seen in my life with trees in the infield. They planted palm trees in the infield. You’d go to Asheville-Weaverville and they didn’t have trees in the infield. We went out there in 1970 and Evel Knievel jumped. That’s even better. That was like the big pre-race. Now there’s a mall there. Then I ended up racing there in ’79 and now that race track is not there. It’s funny when I look back going to some of the racetracks on the northern tour and going to some of the places where we don’t race now. I have been around a long time. I tell people all the time. I may have only won eight races, but I’ve been to victory lane more than anybody out here because I went with The King a bunch.”