KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)

“It’s been an interesting Chase for the Miller Lite Dodge; competitive most every weekend up until Martinsville. I feel like that was our worst race this past week with where we finished and just how the day progressed. It’s always tough when you blow a right front tire and get into the fence at Martinsville, because there is just no time to work on the car during the yellow flag pit stops because there are always cars that are going to come around and lap you. So, we just had to race the race; ended up with an inch and a half toe out in the car and just had to muscle our way through that. All in all, the outlook for us, three mile and a half race tracks coming up and we’re going full throttle. We’re going to try to pick up some wins, hold nothing back and go for it. There is nothing else a team would do at this point other than just run for the wins. So, a tenth overall is not where we want to be. We want to move up from there so what better way than to celebrate in victory lane with some good points.”

WERE YOU SHOCKED BY THE INCIDENT BETWEEN CARL AND MATT AND DOES THE TEAM NEED A VETERAN LEADER? “I guess you are just assuming I saw the video. I did read in the paper there were 425,000 people that went to You Tube to check it out. I was one who didn’t. I don’t really keep up with who’s into whose face and what’s going on; I’d rather keep up with racing statistics. That use to happen in our sport. With the way “the Carl” is referred to in the Roush organization, because there is only one of them, he is “the Carl”; he seems to not be getting along with some of the other drivers that are over there. I’ve seen it all along with him. He’ll give you that flashy smile but at the same time he’s got something underneath his breath for you. Now it’s just starting to appear. We’ll just see how it goes. All those guys are great drivers. Jack has always let the drivers decide how they’re gonna sort out their differences and that might not have been the best way to do things.”

WHAT’S MADE THE DIFFERENCE THE LATE PART OF THE SEASON? “It’s been quite a few things. You don’t just have one thing that bumps you back into contention. You work aerodynamically on the cars. You work mechanically, like you were saying with coil binding and you get a better feel for where your crew guys are; who’s really pulling strong and pulling hard and you ask for those guys that aren’t to pull a little harder. A year and a half of work has gone into it. You’re right, we’ve had some blown tires and two motor problems during the Chase. That’s four out of six races. One was Martinsville where we missed the setup and the other was Talladega where we finished seventh. So, we’re right there knocking on the door. What I think is next for us is bumping it up another notch and getting more competitive so that when we do have some small circumstances that pop up we’re able to bounce back from them stronger such as the 24 and the 48. They’re running so good right now that when they have small little hiccups you don’t even notice it and they’re right back in the top five at the end of the race.

“It’s been great working though working with teammate Ryan Newman; his crew chief has developed this past year. Pat Tryson fit really well in our program. You can say we’re hitting on all eight cylinders.”

FIVE GUYS HAVE TALKED AGAINST CARL IS THIS A SECRET COMING OUT? “I really don’t keep up that much with what people think; with what people think is a good guy or a bad guy. I live every day in the face of the fans eyes of ‘wow you are really a nice guy. I thought you were going to be a _____’, when they see me. That’s what I live with every day. So, we’ll see what happens with Carl here leading into the next few races. You just don’t upset the veteran of the team which is Matt Kenseth. He’s been there many years and he’s put in long hours. And, whatever their beef is neither one of them has spun around on the racetrack, so it’s really had to figure out where it’s stemming from.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR TEAMMATES TO BE FRIENDS? OR DO YOU HAVE TO BE FRIENDS? “That’s a perfect question because there is so many ways to look at it in my mind. When it’s just two guys, myself and Ryan Newman working at it every day you really have to be on the same page and the two really have to get along. It comes down to respect. You have to have a lot of respect for each other. You want to beat each other because you always want the best for your own team. But, if you’re sitting there running 14th or 15th every week there’s still that many teams that are beating you and if you have to work together to get to the top. Once you get to the top and you run one and two every week, that’s when things can get a little interesting and I have been to that point. But, when you have five guys racing in the same program it almost feels like you have to appoint the leader and who is going to be the veteran of the group and who is going to be the young guys. So it’s much harder to get five to work together as it is two. I feel like I have always been a team player whether it was with a guy like Mark Martin or whether it was with a new guy. When I was over there Carl was the new guy and I bent over backwards to help him, gave him advice just to see him do better because once he started doing better than that information from that team would mean more to our team. So, you have to look at it many different ways but when you get too many roosters in the hen house it could be a problem.”

COMMENT ON SAM HORNISH’S PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE FUTURE IN NASCAR? “It’s been tough. I’ve expected more things from him and that Roy McCauley led team. Yet, he hasn’t broke through to get into a race. We wore out laps on the pace car at Martinsville Friday morning while the rain was falling trying to show him the racing groove. Trying to tell him this was the breaking point, this is where you’re going to struggle to get the car to turn. We made tons of laps and so I am really doing the most that I can to help him get him in these races. We talked about the racing line at Charlotte and where he needed to be. He felt like that track just didn’t have grip for the banking level that it has and I said, ‘well of course, because the tire we run on is very hard and you’re not going to get that grip out of the tire’. So, I am teaching him tires, grip and just the different nuances of a cup car the best that I can.”

Ray Evernham (CEO, Gillett Evernham Motorsports)

ON PATRICK CARPENTIER “Patrick impressed us at Watkins Glen. Obviously Patrick is Canadian and we have a strong Canadian tie with Mr. Gillett right now. Things kept working where it didn’t look like Scott Riggs was going to be back for the next season. Quite honestly, there is just something about Patrick that impressed us. He impressed us so much that we took him to testing and he did well. We feel like he is a good racer. We’re hoping because of his Canadian presence that it does some things to help create sponsorship. We really looked into his records when he drove open wheel cars. He has a pretty good record on the ovals. We hired him as a road racer but he is pretty fast on the ovals. He fit with our team. He just clicked with the guys. I know it is taking a risk on everybody’s part but when you look out there you can either go hire guys, knowing where their performance level is at, or you can take a chance. That is the one thing that I like about Mr. Gillett is that he is like ‘hey, let’s take a chance.’

“We’re going to work real hard to give Patrick what he needs. We are going to try to get him in a car more and more this year. We’re trying to get him into some races. We’re trying to surround him with veteran people. We have talked to people like Kenny Schrader. We have a lot of great plans. The neat thing about it is that we have a guy that really, really appreciates the opportunity. He is a home run with the media. The announcement they did in Canada was just phenomenal. Patrick has brought a little bit of spark to the organization and we’re happy.”

ON SIGNING WITH THE GILLETTS “It was something that had been coming. I think it was a little bit over a year ago. We talked about what was happening in the future. About a week after that I got a phone call and they said ‘are you serious, are you really interested?’ I really was looking at the handwriting on the wall. I was physically and mentally tired thinking about how I was going to handle all this stuff. I met with a broker I gave him criteria of a partner I was looking for and he put George Gillett and I together. George on paper was everything I was looking for. As we became friends [I realized] it was just incredible that you could get that. The further we go into this thing the happier I am with the Gillett family.

“I think he is a business guy first and a sports guy which is what I needed. They do have several car dealerships and they continue to grow. I think George at one time had a really neat car collection and he is building that up. More importantly the guy is a visionary. He surrounded himself with really good tactical people. He has the vision and he has some quality people to get those visions done. You will be hearing some really exciting things in the next two to three weeks. Everything that I asked for [from] being able to bring business and sponsorship opportunities, to grow the business and management side so I could work back on the competition side, they have done.”

DO YOU THINK THE ONGOING TREND OF MERGERS IN NASCAR WILL CONTINUE TO SNOWBALL? “I do because most of the traditional people in this business are not big, giant marketing and advertising people. We are just not trained that way but the business has grown to that level. The only way we can continue to survive or be a part of it is if we partner with somebody. This sport has grown and it is going to continue to grow. I think bringing in partnerships like Gillett and some of the other people are going to help this sport continue to grow. As it grows, unfortunately it is not going to be totally run by people like me anymore. There will always be a place for us. But when I look at some of the things George is doing, [I think] I never would of thought of doing it that way and I would have been scared to death to do it - It is pretty cool watching those guys work.”

HAS THE MERGER TAKEN A LOT OF PRESSURE OFF OF YOU? “It has taken a lot of pressure off in a lot of ways. When you’re as intense as I am about competition and you’re having a bad year, it is not good. On top of that when you’re gambling with everything you’ve worked for your whole life, you feel if you don’t do something you could lose it at any day. It has allowed me to take a little chips off the table and allowed me to concentrate on the things that I like. Plus, rest a little bit. I’m actually starting to take half a day, one day off a week and I like it. For the past 15 years it has been seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Eventually that catches up with you. They have shown me how to delegate. When you can delegate to someone that you have confidence in it really puts your mind at ease.

“I feel like our cars are starting to get a little bit better. We are qualifying better, we are running better. That is what I do. It’s not that I have any magic it is just a matter of getting everybody working together and communicating again. I have a lot of fun doing that.”

IS THERE A CONCERN THAT MONTOYA MADE THIS YEAR LOOK SO EASY THAT OTHER OPEN WHEEL DRIVERS MAY NOT BE A SUCCESSFUL AS HIM OFF THE BAT? “I said that last week. It is great that the open wheel guys are coming. There are some really talented guys. They all speak for themselves. But they should never underestimate the talent that Juan Pablo has. Juan Pablo is special. There are guys that walk around this garage area, the Gordon’s, the Stewart’s. I think Kyle Busch is one of the most talented drivers in the garage area. Juan Pablo is an extremely talented race car driver. He might of made it look easier for those guys. But those guys are all good race are drivers too. Open wheel drivers or anybody really should not think this is easy because Juan Pablo has done it. He is one of those guys that is just special.”

DOES PATRICK CARPENTIER UNDERSTAND THAT? “Absolutely he does. He works hard at it. He understands it and he has been humble about it. What I like about him is that you don’t want a guy that is so humble there are scared to death of it. He is not intimidated by it but he knows what he has got to do. He is working and focusing on the right things right now. That is what I like about him. I’ve always said that good race car drivers are smart. Patrick is right. He knows he has a huge challenge but he is not going to let it intimidate him. He has that inner confidence that he is going to get it done and I like that.”

WHAT IS HE DOING TO PREPARE HIMSELF? “He is doing a lot of things physically. He is following us just about everywhere we go. He will be here this weekend. He is calling people, talking to people, spending a lot of time at the shop. He is doing some thing to put his life in order so he can spend 38 weekends with us. He is taking it pretty seriously.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TREND OF OPEN WHEEL DRIVERS IN THE SPORT? “I have always said that it does go in cycles. Sometimes everybody is hot on sprint car drivers and late model drivers. Now it’s Indy car guys. Next week it could be motorcycle racers. But good drivers are good drivers and they come from all different series. We have had some great drivers from sprint cars, open wheel and late models. There are guys out there from across the country. Three or four years ago who would of heard of Denny Hamlin? The guys walks in and he is doing an awesome job. Kyle and Kurt Busch came out of legends cars. Those guys are out there. Right now the focus is on Indy car and single seater guys. I don’t think we ever had the big stars come over here and do it full time and none of them had really been that successful. Now you’re drawing the top stars and they’re being somewhat successful.

“Our cars have become more identical and more based on engineering. Rather than having to have a notebook of what we did 20 years ago. The car now, the design, the tires, the way it’s engineered you don’t have to be an experienced Cup driver. You have to be a guy that has a good feel for a race car that can communicate.”

HOW ARE THINGS COMING WITH YOUR DEVELPMENTS ON THE COT? “We are actually getting this stuff better. We are getting it better by working on aerodynamics, horsepower and handling. From 1949 to right now that is what people were working on. The problem that we got off of that is that we weren’t working on the right things. With the COT car we are going to continue to work on understanding the aerodynamics. I think the horsepower is going to be even more critical because the cars are a lot more identical. We are going to have to work on getting all four tires to work. If we work on those things we should be as good as anybody.”

Elliott Sadler (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

DID YOU SEE THE VIDEO OF THE CONFLICT WITH EDWARDS AND KENSETH? “I have not watched the video. I have been in the woods all week so I haven’t had any access to any computer. I heard what had happened but I have not seen any video.”

HAVE YOU EVER HAD AN ISSUE WITH EDWARDS? “Yes, I have. I have had problems with Edwards. I had problems at Richmond a couple years ago when he spun me out in the Busch race and he didn’t like some of the things I said in the paper, I guess. He came and confronted me at the driver’s meeting the next day pretty much in the same manner he did with Kenseth. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s right especially if it’s teammates. But, that’s not my fight. I don’t have a dog in it. I’ll let Jack or Matt or Carl or whoever, however they want to talk about it, battle it out or whatever they’re interested in doing.”

WHO HAS RESPONSIBILITY, THE DRIVER OR THE CAR OWNER IN THESE SITUATIONS? “I don’t know. I guess every owner is different. My teammate got into me last week and took me out of the race. We handled it as drivers, as men. We talked about it. We understood what position both of us are in and we’re fine. We’re going to move on from it. As a man you handle it yourself.”

IS CARL’S BULLY PERSONNA REAL? “I don’t know. Racing with Carl, he seems to have a lot of problems with a lot of different people. Hitting Dale Junior after the race in Michigan, attacking him in victory lane and then attacking Matt. I think he is one of the best race car drivers in our sport. Carl Edwards can do a lot of amazing things with a racecar. I just think sometimes he can’t control his attitude. A lot of times he’s a nice guy, just sometimes he just can’t control his emotions. He lets his emotions get the best of him. I think as he matures, gets older and understands the sport a little more, I think that will calm down a little bit. I don’t really believe in the ‘aw shucks’ attitude either. I think he is a great racer. I just think if he controls his emotions a little bit better he’ll be fine.”

HOW DID YOU HANDLE THE RICHMOND CONFRONTATION, PHYSICALLY? “I don’t think the garage is the right place to fight at or to have a boxing match. Especially when you represent different sponsors like you do each and every week. You have to learn how to control your image and your attitude. You’re the face of a lot of different sponsors and you just gotta control your emotions and like I said before he is an unbelievable race car driver, one of the best guys we got on here. He just has to control his emotions a little bit, not let them get the best of him and he’ll be fine. He’s really a nice guy. He really is. He just sometimes let his attitude get the best of him. Once he controls that, matures a little bit, he’ll fit right in and be a good guy for this sport.”

THERE IS TALK YOU MIGHT HAVE A NEW SPONSOR NEXT YEAR, CAN YOU SAY ANYTHING? “I know the guys have been working real hard on it. I know they got some people interested. As far as anything signed or anything like that, I don’t know of anything like that yet. It’s cool to have people interested in us and interested in me and our race team. I know we’re talking to four or five different folks that are inquiring. As far as anything final right now, I don’t know anything about that. I told them ‘don’t let me know until its final’. Yea, I’ll talk to the guys if their interested but I don’t want to be in any of the negotiations or anything like that and when they finalized it that will be cool to announce something like that. Until then I told them leave me out of it.”

WHAT WILL PATRICK CARPENTIER BRING TO GILLETT/EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS? “Well, I think he is going to bring a lot of energy. I think he is going to bring a different way of looking at things. Hopefully he can help us with some of the road course stuff. That is always cool to go to VIR and places like that and test with road course guys and kinda overlay laps. That’s something I have always wanted to get better at. But, I don’t know until we actually get in that format. I’m looking forward to working with him at the racetrack under racing conditions. We’ve done some testing at Kentucky and things like that, but that’s so much different when you have computers on the cars and they pretty much can tell you everything you are doing. I think when you get down to really racing with each other on a race weekend where communication is involved and stuff like that, I think then we’ll start realizing how much we can help each other.

“I’m sure he is going to look up to Kasey and I as mentors and kinda ask us a lot of advice each and every weekend. We’re going to try to help him the best way we can next year. So, we’re looking forward to it. I just think he just needs to get in the seat some, get his feet wet, make some laps and make some races and go from there.”

HOW WAS THE HUNTING? “Awesome, had a great time; been hunting all day, every day, all week in Virginia. We had bow hunting in; had a great time. The weather changed a little bit, got cooler, the deer moved. Saw a pile of deer, spent a lot of good time with my friends. It’s that time of season again.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TEXAS NEXT WEEK? CAN YOU WIN? “I think so. We’ll see here in Atlanta. We can take a lot of things from Atlanta and translate it over to Texas. I do love that racetrack. It’s one of my favorites. I’m running the Busch race there so I have two good opportunities to go in there to be successful. Anything can happen. We showed up there and have led a lot of laps at that place, led the most laps there the year before we won there. So, pretty cool racetrack for Elliott Sadler. It fits my driving style. I am really comfortable there. Was running very good there last year before we blew a motor; top five with the 19 car. We think we can go back down there again this fall and be competitive.”

WHAT MAKES TEXAS A BETTER MILE AND HALF THAN ATLANTA OR LOWES’? “Every track is different just like every golf course is 18 holes with some par 5’s and some par 3’s but every one of them is different. A golf course that has a lot of dogleg lefts in it fits me good because I hit the ball right to left with a draw. If it’s a golf course that goes left to right, yea it’s got 18 holes but I don’t do to well at it. So the same thing with a racetrack, yea they are all mile and a halves, Atlanta, Charlotte, Kansas, Chicago and the list goes on but every one of them is just a little bit different. Texas is just a little bit different. The entry is a little different. The exit is a little different. Just for some reason I adapted to it the first time I went and fell in love with the place. I wish I could explain it. I wish I could learn how to take it to Richmond where I am terrible.”

IS THERE PRESSURE TO GET A WIN FOR GILLETT EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS IN THE NEXT FOUR RACES? “You know I am not looking at it that away. I’m looking at my guys have busted their butts all year long and feel like we’ve been climbing a mountain just as steep as it can be to get back to where Kasey was last year and that’s being competitive, running up front, leading laps, winning races, getting on poles. We’ve been looking at it as how far up the mountain are we are climbing, not we gotta do this, we gotta do this or this record is lost or that record is lost. We just want to make our teams better. And, if we get ourselves an opportunity to win we want to do that. We got four races less, yes you said, time is running out. We feel like we are peaking a little bit now for our team this year. We are getting a little bit better so anything can happen. A couple of these tracks we race at I think I am pretty decent at so we will see.”

CHIP GANASSI (team owner, Chip Ganassi Racing)

”I told you anytime somebody good comes along if you’re doing the right thing for your team, drivers and sponsors you want to take a look at him. It didn’t take me long to take a look at Steve.”

ON HMIEL’S DAY TO DAY DUTIES “Manager of competition. I think it fits in great [with what Tony Glover does]. There are plenty of duties there. Glover is my weekend guy and a great team manager.

“In a sense you need more upper managers. Somebody has to make sure the cars are getting set up right, getting to the race track and going around in circles. It is still about racing but it does help to have strength in upper management.”

HOW DOES STEVE PUT YOU CLOSER TO THE GOAL OF A NASCAR CHAMPIONSHIP? “When you plug a guy in like that I would hope I am moving closer to that goal as opposed to moving away from it. Any time you can add somebody good to your team that puts you closer to that goal.

“I thought we had some momentum going there earlier in the year. We kinda peaked and we have plateaued. We have to make the next step. We’re still getting beat by teams I don’t think we should be getting beat by.”

STEVE HMIEL (manager of competition for Chip Ganassi Racing)

WHAT DID YOU SEE AT GANASSI RACING? “First thing is I saw an owner at the race track. I saw an owner at the race track that wanted to boost his group a little bit. Things went along pretty quickly. There is a lot of comfort in not having too many bosses and there is a lot of comfort in having a boss that is standing right there watching what is going on. I’m sure there will be times that I’ll be uncomfortable with that. He knows what he is doing. He is on site. He has very successful teams in other forms of motorsports. He has some really good senior people in Indianapolis and Concord that we can draw from. He has made a commitment to go racing and he hasn’t wavered from it. He has brought in some interesting drivers. They are going to pay off. He is the guy that is in the shop carrying the flag for the company every day. That is a comfort to me and everyone that works there. We all just need to work together toward the common goal. It is about talking to each other not talking about each other.”

THAT LEADS US TO BELIEVE THAT YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS LACKING AT DEI? “I wouldn’t shine a spotlight on DEI. I’m not sure that a lot of these owners are at the race track or are at the shop everyday. I was just talking about the culture of our sport. It has changed a little bit. It has become extremely corporate. There are different layers of ownership. There are all kinds of mergers going on all the time. It gets confusing as to who is really in charge. [Chip’s] name is on the building. He is there, you can talk to him. He is also a real open guy. You can talk to him and hash out some things. It is nice to know that his main goal is to have a faster race car and win races and win Championships.”

“I’m not saying the sport is changing for the worse. I’m just saying the culture is a little bit different, with mergers and foreign drivers and young people and old people. I think I’m very privileged to be a part of that and do be employed by somebody who looks at that as something that we need to be working on going forward to make sure our team is strong in the future. I think that’s a good opportunity.”

ON INITIAL CHALLENGES “We just have to work as a cohesive unit. Because the teams are so large communication is incredible. Some people think communication is incredible. Some people think communication is complaining when actually communication is having a reasonable conversation, using all the engineering staff. There are so many ideas and so few things that really solve problems. Going forward we need to be a force. Everybody looks at Rick Hendrick and sees what he does. But we also understand that there were times that he had a terrible time. He brought in the right people and got it going in the right direction and he was able to maintain it. It is something that [all the owners] fight everyday. We have to take the group of guys that we have and improve on them.”