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News and Results | Point Standings | 2006 Schedule | 2006 Teams | 2005 Schedule and Results AMD at the Glen - Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes KEVIN HARVICK TAKES THE WIN AT AMD AT THE GLEN, TONY STEWART FINISHES 2ND MONTE CARLO SS DRIVERS FINISH 1-2 Sunday, August 13, 2006 - Watkins Glen, NY - Kevin Harvick, No. 29 GM Goodwrench Monte Carlo SS, captured the victory in the AMD at the Glen. The win is his 200th NASCAR Nextel Cup start, and the seventh of his Cup career. The win moved Harvick into third place in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (NNCS) standings with four races remaining in the 26-race chase to the Chase for the Championship. Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Monte Carlo SS finished second. With Harvick's victory, Chevrolet has won 13 of the 24 NASCAR Cup Series races at Watkins Glen International, more than any other manufacturer. Monte Carlo SS drivers have visited victory lane in nine of the last 10 NNCS events at WGI. Chevrolet extended its lead in the NNCS Manufacturers' Cup standings and Monte Carlo SS drivers hold eight of the top-10 positions in the Chase to the Championship.
The NNCS Manufacturers' Cup standings following the race are: The series moves to Michigan International Speedway for Round 23 on August 20, 2006.
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH MONTE CARLO
We were racing there for seventh and eighth all day pretty much and decided to pit. We stuck to our strategy. We pretty much predetermined everything that we wanted to do and stuck to that strategy and it wound up working just the way it supposed to work. If you can catch those breaks and put yourself in position, that's all you can ask for at these places. Track position is important, but I think to race Tony, who obviously everybody knows is one of my good friends and has won here a lot and a lot on the road courses, makes it that much more special because you know it didn't just come from pit strategy; you had to beat the guy that's been on top here, and that makes it really gratifying for myself. Q. THE DECISION TO PIT WAS WHAT TURNED THINGS AROUND AND GOT YOU TO THE FRONT. BUT THEN WITH THREE LAPS TO GO YOU'RE PASSING TONY TO WIN THE RACE. IT'S ALMOST LIKE THE PIT STRATEGY WAS ONLY PART OF THE EQUATION. TALK ABOUT TONY PASSING YOU AND THEN YOU PASSING HIM BACK. KEVIN HARVICK: He passed me going into the interlude back there, and I knew for two laps I was really a moving chicane. My car would push really bad and the brakes wouldn't work for whatever reason when it was cool. But I knew I could go, and it was tough to hold Jaime off for those couple laps and drive away from him. Tony I went to the inside to block and he just flat?out drove around me. He bombed it in there 200 feet further than I had ever thought about driving it in there. He was in the dirt smoking the tires, and I said obviously I'm going to have to pick it up here. I got a little bit more aggressive on the restart getting in the corners and knew if I could stay with him for a couple laps that I was probably going to have three opportunities to get by him getting into turn 1. He got a little loose and made a mistake there getting onto the front straightaway, and luckily I had had a good corner coming to that and was able to get underneath him. Q. ON A LOT OF THE ROAD COURSE RACES EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT JEFF, TONY, ROBBY, BUT YOU HAVEN'T WON ONE BEFORE. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE UNDERRATED AS A ROAD COURSE RACER? KEVIN HARVICK: You know, I really hadn't even thought about it. I've kind of learned that everybody gathers their own opinion off of however they gather their information, and I know and our team knows that we've always been fairly good at the road courses and been in position to win them before and just had things happen. Today they put us in position to win the race, and we were able to capitalize on it there at the end and come home.
KEVIN HARVICK: Thanks, man. Q. RICHARD, AFTER FIVE YEARS DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO BE BACK UP HERE A LOT MORE OFTEN IN FRONT OF US, AND IS IT WORTH ALL OF THE AGGRAVATION AND CRAZINESS HE MIGHT HAVE PUT YOU THROUGH EARLIER IN THE YEAR? RICHARD CHILDRESS: Well, it hasn't been aggravation or craziness. You've got to love what you do, you've got to have a passion for what you do. We've got off, and a lot of it has been our race team, and I feel that everybody has worked hard for the last year and a half to get us back there. We got the drivers, we've got the crew chief, we've got the talent I think to make a serious run for this championship, making the Chase. Q. KEVIN, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SURPRISED TONY WITH THAT LAST MOVE? ONCE HE GOT BY YOU, YOU THOUGHT, OH, I'VE GOT IT DONE DOWN, BUT HERE YOU COME AGAIN. KEVIN HARVICK: I was taught to never give up, and that's kind of the attitude that I kind of work in is to never quit and never just roll over. I knew that everybody that I wanted to win the race, and I knew everybody else was obviously hoping that we could make another run. I don't know that Tony is just going to say that's it. I mean, he's obviously going to go as hard as he can go. But I think it probably surprised everybody else that we were able to drive back by and win the race. Q. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT SEEMS TO BE TOUGH OR HAS BEEN TOUGH THE FIRST TWO YEARS WITH THE CHASE IS THERE'S ALL THIS TALK ABOUT MAKING IT AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU HAVE TO GO IMMEDIATELY INTO THE TRANSITION TO TRY AND WIN IT. I KNOW YOU'RE STILL THINK ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE IT BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT FOUR RACES LEFT, BUT TALK ABOUT ?? YOU AND RICHARD BOTH, TALK ABOUT THAT TRANSITION, IF YOU GET THERE, HOW DO YOU GO FROM QUALIFYING FOR THE CHASE TO WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP ALMOST OVERNIGHT. KEVIN HARVICK: I think the mindset has to be a lot like it was today. If you're running seventh or eighth you have to figure out how to finish seventh or eighth, trying to get sixth without wrecking or doing something stupid. But when you have a chance to win, you throw all that out the window and you have to go after winning the race and not worry about anything else. I think you're going to have to win a race or so in the Chase if not two to be able to capitalize. But it's the days that you don't have a winning car that you have to make things happen. We've had a good plan coming into this year, and these guys started working on stuff last year, middle of the year, and had the cars ready for the Homestead test last year and had a great plan. I feel like we've got great communication, all the drivers and crew chiefs and the whole organization has a plan, and I think we have one for going forward in the last ten, too. It's just exciting to see it all turn around and a lot of fun to be a part of it. Q. RICHARD, YOU'RE TOASTING WITH YOUR VINEYARD PRODUCT THERE. TALK ABOUT THAT AND ALSO ABOUT THE FACT THAT WHEN YOU WERE WATCHING FROM THE PIT BOX YOU SAW TONY COMING. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING FROM THE BOX? RICHARD CHILDRESS: Well, I actually was watching the race and I walked back down there and talked to Todd and I'd walk back and go to Jeff's crew chief. I walked to stay active. When Tony got up there, I knew Tony had been fast, but when Kevin came on there and told us that he thought he'd have a shot at him if he could get a couple of good green laps, we knew we wanted a shot at winning the race, and what Kevin said there is it's all about winning once you get into position. Q. EITHER ONE OF YOU GUYS, THIS LOOKED LIKE A REAL SLOPPY RACE TODAY. THERE WAS A LOT OF CAUTIONS, A LOT OF TIME SPENT UNDER CAUTION, SOME STRANGE CALLS MADE, CALLS NOT MADE, ET CETERA, ET CETERA. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR MIND IN SOMETHING LIKE THAT? KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I didn't see what a lot of the cautions were. Richard will have to answer on that. I knew I didn't want to see that last caution because I felt like we were driving away and I knew that we didn't need a restart. We didn't need a late restart or any restarts. We just needed to keep going. For me personally I was a little bit angry just that it came out. I can't answer the rest of it, I didn't see the rest of the race. RICHARD CHILDRESS: Everybody was really racing hard, and this thing brings this time of year going into the Chase and people trying to stay in the top 35, everybody is doing everything they can, and I think that bred a lot of the cautions today. Q. IS THERE A POINT IN THE CHASE WHERE YOU PEAK AND YOU'RE PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME NOW, AND HOW DO YOU NOT LET IT GET TO YOUR HEAD AND JUST KEEP RACING, NOT START THINKING ABOUT BEING IN THE CHASE? KEVIN HARVICK: Well, we think about being in the Chase every week. That's a topic of conversation before we even get in the race car, before we even get to the track. Richard preaches consistency, but it's the days when you have that good car and you have to run in the Top 10 because all the guys that you're racing against run in the Top 10 pretty much every week. But it's the weeks where you have the car that you can win the race that you need to try to do everything you can to win because it's not easy to win in this deal. We've been on the other side of the fence and been running 15th to 20th struggling to do that, and so when you have an opportunity to win, you need to give it all you've got and go for it. Q. RICHARD, HOW DOES THE CHAMPAGNE COMPARE TO ANYTHING THAT CHILDRESS VINEYARDS PUTS OUT? RICHARD CHILDRESS: When you win a race, when you can win a NEXTEL Cup race like you did today, you take a bath in champagne if that's what it took. It's good. Kind of like our chardonnay this season. TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT MONTE CARLO - 2nd in AMD at The Glen: We had a solid day. I mean, we got to second there pretty quick. You know, you feel for Kurt Busch today. I mean, he had, if not the strongest car, one of the strongest cars for sure. I don't know where his car and Kevin's would have stacked up there at the end, but he definitely had a car that was capable of winning the race today if it didn't get caught at the wrong time at the pits with the caution coming out right before he hit the line. That's absolutely rotten, terrible luck right there and nothing that him or his team could have done anything about. That was just bad racing luck. But it's when you work hard and have a weekend like he was having, that's when you feel bad for a guy like him that was doing everything right all weekend. We had a good day. We got to second there pretty quick and just kind of ran our race. It was hard to stay with Kurt. We were actually better toward the end of a long run. We could start catching him a little bit. I don't know if we ever could have got all the way to him, and if we could have got to him, if we could have got by him. But at least we could match him lap-time-wise and start being a tick quicker than him later on in the run. But just caution after caution after caution and tires cooling off, he would get away from us really good. His car was just really stable and solid. If I ran as hard as I needed to to stay with him, I'd start abusing my tires and brakes, so we just kind of let him get away for a while and he'd start coming back to us. But there at the end it was fun, racing with Jaime, and my buddy Kevin Harvick there, it's two guys who you trust when you're around them. You know you can race side by side with them and not have a problem. We didn't, we didn't have any trouble there. Our only shot at getting by Kevin was at the end of the back stretch there and on the restart he got a little bit loose going up the hill through the esses up there and let us get a run on him and then he pulled down to the inside of the block. I was all right with that. I wanted to be on the outside anyway going into that corner. We got in there really good. My brakes were really good when they were cold and got by, and as soon as we got by we were really loose and he could stay with us. I couldn't keep the rear end underneath me under braking or acceleration after that and got loose coming into 7 here, didn't let him get underneath us going into 1. About the only thing I could do was let him go and then try to get back under him and he was really good up off the corner. As soon as he went by, our car got fairly decent again. We were too loose to be leading the race actually. Q. A LOT OF CAUTIONS TODAY. DID IT HURT YOUR RHYTHM AND WOULD YOU HAVE RATHER SEEN A LOT LESS CAUTIONS? I agree. I think we were better off in the long run. It let you straight away from everybody enough to where you didn't have to feel like you had to dive into 1 and 6 so bad. But like I said, it seemed like when we were behind Kurt in second, the longer the run went, the better our car got versus his, so we were kind of actually looking forward to a longer run. Q. COMMENT ON THE POINT SYSTEM AND SOLIDIFYING YOUR TEAM'S POSITION IN IT TODAY. I hope so. I haven't seen the numbers, but I know we went up to seventh they said, so that's somewhat encouraging. I don't know how far 10th and 11th is back, but any time you can move up in the points, it's encouraging obviously. This is a race that we've looked forward to and felt like that if we had a day like we had today that we could gain points and hopefully help ourselves out in that situation. It worked according to plan. Q. YOU WERE RIGHT BEHIND BUSCH WHEN HE HAD THE UNFORTUNATE STOP. WERE YOU GOING TO PIT, OR WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN AT THAT POINT? No. I had not been told to pit yet. I was kind of surprised to see him pit when he did. But I don't know how many more laps it was until we were coming in. I think it was within two or three laps of when that happened. So I think it was pretty close to what our window was anyway.
ON METICULOUS RACE NOTES HE KEEPS, ONE THAT SAID WAS ABOUT TO THROW UP ABOUT POSSIBLE SHORT OF FUEL ISSUE: "I was talking to Scott Miller and Jazzy on the No. 31 car, saying man, just cross your fingers man. If we can get 395 and we didn't spill more than three gallons, we were good to go to the end. We were sweating it a little bit, but obviously we got there. There just wasn't anything we could do about it, we couldn't stop again. The good Lord was looking out for us today." ON THOUGHTS WHEN STEWART MADE PASS "I didn't think it was over for us because our car was pretty good on long hauls but we weren't as good in the braking zones. We had a new engine package we brought here for the first time. It made a lot more torque and we passed "The Man" (Tony Stewart) off the corner, so obviously that was a big deal today."
ON HOW KEVIN HARVICK GOT BACK BY FOR LEAD "I think I just overdrove the entries and exits, he (Kevin Harvick) was good. I knew my only shot was to get back by him back there in the back, he gave me the outside, he didn't want to give me the inside, I got by him on the outside - (TONY LEAVES INTERVIEW TO RUN AND CONGRATULATE KEVIN HARVICK) "He is a good friend of mine, it is fun racing guys you trust like that. That was a lot of fun, we just overdrove it a little bit there, smoked the tires there is seven and opened up the door. He did an awesome job, he hit his marks every lap. That was our only shot to get by him was when we went by him the first time. Second place is ok for us. It was a good day for our Home Depot team. We are leaving here with a smile on our face." (press conference transcript to follow)
ON THE RACE: "We were just really too loose all day. And our pit strategy didn't really work out in our favor and got us behind and then I really just wasn't fast enough to pass a lot of people there at the end."
It wasn't a disaster. I had some wheel hop issues getting down into the corner and spun out. We were lucky to be able to get back to 20th and so I was real happy to be able to do that. Our pit strategy sort of backfired on us a little bit and Kevin and them guys, the cautions fell really good for them and it ended up working out for them and we were sitting back there running 27th you know and had to race pretty much everybody in front of us and pass so we didn't have anybody going to pit in front of us. But just racing too hard and got the front brakes hot and then the rear brakes started wheel hopping in the corner and I spun out." ON BEING 10TH IN THE POINTS: "It is what it is. Coming in here, Tony Jr. felt real confident and I knew I had a good car but so many things can happen out there and they did today. I'm very thankful that we finished where we did. I feel like we know we're not in a great position to be in 10th, but we've got a lot of guys who would be glad to be in our position. So, we've got to take advantage of it." ON THE SPIN: "I just got the front brakes real hot; I was racing real hard and they give up on me. The rear brakes started wheel hopping on our down-shifting and we ran real soft in the front this time, which we normally don't do. So that would have helped a lot if we would have had the bigger springs in the front of the car like we normally do." ON THE HIGH NUMBER OF CAUTIONS: "That was real frustrating because you're not racing and passing and trying to pass. Any time you're under caution, you have no opportunities to gain spots. This is a long race track and NASCAR could do a better job of getting the track under good conditions for us to be able to go back to racing sooner. We don't have to run all them laps under caution and I don't think the fans like to see it either."
"We had a decent car. It was tight most of the race in the right-hand turns, but for the most part it was manageable. The biggest problem for us ended up being our brakes. Toward the end of the race, it just became way too hard to pass without the brakes I needed. Then, on the white flag lap the transmission jumped out of gear, which cost us a couple of spots. We were better than where we finished-I do know that much."
ON MARK MARTIN AND THE SPIN: "We were all just dicing it up there and I got underneath somebody and everybody drove in there real deep and Mark came over and apologized to me and said he just got in there too deep. I got in too deep too and I had to check up just a little bit myself. It's hard to be mad at a guy like Mark Martin." ON THE POINTS: "We wanted to make up some good ground. We got fortunate we didn't lose much ground with everything that happened there in the last couple of laps. We were a top five car. We weren't a winning car today. I'm not sure to be more upset about - that we just weren't good enough to battle with the good guys like Tony (Stewart) and Kurt Busch. But we were going to be a top five. But you never know when the cautions are going to fall and how the pit strategy is going to work out. If we hadn't have gotten spun there, we were going to be up there in fifth or sixth I believe, and that would have been a great day for us. So, we salvaged what we could. We're a great team right now; we were just getting into some bad situations where we were running out of laps there at the end to do it in."
ON WHEN TONY PASSED HIM WITH NINE LAPS TO GO: "I was thinking 'Oh my gosh, how am I going to drive it in to the corner that far and pass him back. It seemed like his brakes were fading. I want to say hi to my wife, DeLana. She stays home for the road course races, so Love you DeLana, sorry you aren't here, I will be home late tonight. "This GM Goodwrench Chevrolet was a lot of fun to drive today. It was really good. Got the fenders caved in early and just never gave up.It was a lot of fun racing with Tony there at the end. I don't know how he passed me in the chicane still but my car was really good getting in to one and we were able to get back by him. "I knew my only shot to get him back was getting in to one, he had to back off, it seemed like his car didn't have quite enough brakes getting in there and it was tight through the center. I knew I was only going to have a couple of chances so I took my chance and off I went and it stuck and I went on by. "I just want to thank everybody on this car, my teammates and Richard (Childress) for sticking with us and giving us everything we need to make these teams better. This means a lot, a road course win. It has a lot to do with the driver, the team and they gave me the opportunity and the track position to do so. Just thanks to Todd (Berrier, crew chief) and all the guys. It was a lot of fun. "They didn't tell me there was a fuel problem, but I saw it on TV on the big screen, and I asked how much did it lose after seeing it there on TV. But at that point, you pretty much got what you got there is no reason to worry about it, you just do what you have to do and go as hard as you can. "Tony and I are just really good friends. To be able to race each other there at the end was a lot of fun. We both have big pictures but we both want to win the race, so we both will do everything we can to do that. It was just a lot of fun to race with my buddy. ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP "I think we can win it once we get to 10 to go. This team has been really consistent. As long as we don't have bad luck, or do something we haven't been doing, we should at least have a chance." (transcript to follow)
"Man that felt like we won the race. What a way to fight back. I thought the day was done after the truck arm mount broke. No one on the kelloggs team panicked. They didn't miss a beat and had to weld that thing together. It was 5 laps and then the cautions fell where they needed to and we worked our way back. The 5 has a lot of heart they want the chase and to run for a championship as much as I do. Today was unbelievable. My hats off to every one on my team right now. We're in this thing and plan to stay here."
"It was a good run for all the guys at Jim Beam. DEI guys have been doing us a good job on our engines. I know they went a little conservative with our motor, because they thought if they gave me something that ran all day, we could win the deal. It wasn't the case. We just got yarded on the straightaways. They have given us good engines all year. Good run for all the boys on the Jim Beam crew, and all of our sponsors. It was a good points day for us; definitely helped us. "On that last restart, we just couldn't get close enough to out brake them. We a little bit of an opportunity there, tried them outside but then didn't have anything for them." "I'm pretty happy with it. We just didn't have any brakes there at the end. We made a couple of changes from where we were a year ago and we probably needed to go. We boiled the brake fluid and just had to ride around."
YOU WORKED ON THE CAR ALL DAY AND GOT A TOP 15 FINISH, TELL US ABOUT YOUR DAY AND THE BIG PICTURE: "It's really frustrating. We just weren't as good as we needed to be by any means. We were sitting there and they kept getting by me on the restarts because I just couldn't go. There at the end - that wreck at the end - I saw the wreck and I don't know how the people behind us didn't see it but Kurt (Busch) came flying in there 400 mph like nothing was going on and just knocked the hell out of us and we just lost five positions or whatever. I don't know. I don't know how he missed that. But regardless, it could have been worse. If you get wrecked on the last lap and still finish 11th you should come out of here happy."
“I was happy about how we ran today. I though we had a really good car. Unfortunately we didn’t get the finish we deserved. We got caught up, first on pit road - that really hurt us and then getting caught up in that wreck. I was happy with the way we ran, our pit stops were really good and I learned a lot running my first road course of the year. Hopefully, we can take the momentum we have been building and go to Michigan and run well there.”
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