JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS MONTE CARLO SS TALKS WITH MEDIA ABOUT THE DAYTONA 500, IMPALA SS CAR OF TOMORROW, CALIFORNIA DRIVERS AND MORE:

ON FINISH TO DAYTONA 500: "That was a great finish, there is no question about it. That is what is so cool about our sport. We have those great finishes and all of that drama. That is what it is all about. The controversy, is it, it seems like no matter what happens, there is controversy swirling around something. At some point somebody needs to be worrying about trying to make the rules and just report and talk about what actually happened. It seems like everybody wants to question everything now and that is ok. The scrutiny comes from the exposure of the sport. At the end of the day, I thought NASCAR did the right thing. The reason you throw a caution is because of safety. It is to make it safer for everybody who isn't in the wreck. Throwing a caution would not have had any impact on that whatsoever last week. I am really hard on them when it comes to safety issues and I support their decision 100%.

"Everybody was either in the wreck or in front of the wreck. When you have one big pack, and they throw the caution, it doesn't do you any good. It doesn't matter if the caution out or not, all you are doing is trying to get through the wreck. If they had thrown the caution and the competition is all spread out, you do slow down, you have to slow down, and you are locked in your position.

But in that situation, there was nobody behind the wreck that would have benefited from the yellow flag being thrown. Throwing the caution is about rolling the rescue personnel, it is about a lot of things, but in that situation, it wouldn't have impacted it in a positive way whatsoever."

ON CALIFORNIA TRACK HAVING A REPUTATION OF BEING BORING: "I don't know. I am here to race my Cingular Chevrolet and try to win the race. I don't get caught up in if it is four-wide, three-wide. I don't get caught up in all that. I just get caught up in what we have got to do to win the race. Every race track we go to has the tendency to put on good races or be boring.

If somebody gets hooked up, then off they go. It isn't boring for me, I can assure you that. I don't pay a lot of attention to the conversations of whether it is boring or not."

ON ENGINES ON CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY: "We saw here in the spring last year toward the end of the race, three or four people had trouble. They made it almost all the way and then had trouble late in the race. Any time you run 500 miles somewhere, especially a two-mile race track, it is a lot of miles, a lot of wear and tear on your engine so reliability is a major issue. "

ON DAVID RAGAN: "He needs to try to keep his nose clean. Try to be competitive and get everything out of his car that he can. But he also needs to understand he has a lot of growing to do, I do to by the way, and be respectful. Nobody needs to pull over because you have been here for 10 years, nobody expects you to do anything but race hard. This goes for anybody, but you have to race smart and you have to understand this isn't the last race you are going to run. You have to understand the race you are at is the most important race you are ever going to run. But, it is not the last one you are ever going to be in. If you forget you have to look everybody in the eye the next week and race against everybody the next week, they can make it really hard on you. Guys in this garage demand respect and demand to be driven against in manner that is appropriate, and then they have a way of making you wish you had.

"It was different when I came in. I was told if we finish 20th in points, we are going to be really happy. No one expected us to win a race; no one even had a conversation about that. It was just hey; lets make the races and try to be around at the end of the races on Sunday. It wasn't let's go out and get a top-five or top-10, it was let's just try and finish the race. There is a different level of expectations now. I was afforded the opportunity to be able to take my time and learn, not cause a lot of stuff. The first Cup race I was ever in, I caused a wreck on like the third lap because I made a mistake. Not because I was being overly aggressive, but I listened to my spotter rather than me driving my car. I learned from that and that has never happened again. He just has to understand if he wants a long career, you can't be successful in this sport if the people in this sport don't want you to be successful. You have to be respectful."

ON BALANCE OF EAST COAST VERSUS WEST COAST DRIVERS IN CUP SERIES: "Anybody who thinks you have to come from the Southeast to be a NASCAR driver is crazy. There are great drivers all over the country, all over the world. It is not something in the water in North Carolina or Virginia that makes you a great race car driver. I think you are born with it and I think you nurture it, you grow it and you make yourself better. I think the people that are here have natural ability, but the people who are able to stay here are the people who have harnessed it and tried to improve it and that doesn't' matter what part of the country you are from. You have to be in a part of the country that allows you the opportunity to be exposed to it and be able to compete. Your level of success has nothing to do with where you are from."

ON INJURY TO CREWMAN AT DAYTONA: "It is really disappointing, Josh (Yost, team jackman who suffered an ankle injury) worked his butt off to get back, He has a long road to get back, it wasn't one of those overnight things, he really had to work hard to get back. Then to blow out his other one, is hugely disappointing. He is pretty down about it, but he has been through it before so he is smart about it. He'll fight it and he'll do everything he can to get back."

ON MARK MARTIN'S LEGACY TO THE SPORT: "For me it is about a level of professionalism and respect he has brought to the sport. He has been a mentor, not so much in what he says, but what he does, to a lot of young drivers. He is respectful, drives with respect, race hard, race smart, race people the way you would like to be raced. And he brings a level of intensity. I worked with Mark for a long time, every race he goes to, he is really wound up about it and agonizes when things don't go well and is a true racer, there is no question about it. He is trying his best to do it the right way, there are not many people if you asked if Mark ever made them mad, there would not be many in the garage who said he had."

ON UPCOMING CAR OF TOMORROW TEST: "Every team needs to evaluate where they are compared to the competition. You can test all you want by yourself, but until you get out in competition, you really don't know what you have going on. An evaluation of where you are on your speed compared to other people is really what we are going to take out of it. There are certainly some issues with the COT that are going to come up - reliability and things we don't know about, but the main thing we want to take out of there is we want to be able to see where we are from a speed standpoint compared to our competition. We can't win races if we aren't faster than they are. We can't compete at a high level unless we can't at least run with them. So we have to go there to evaluate where we are, see what we need to improve and not worry about what we have done well. Worry about what we haven't done well and try to improve on it."

ON PERCENTAGE DRIVER PLAYS IN SUCCESS OF A TEAM: "That is a tough question and the way I answer that question when I am asked is a great driver can't take a bad team and be successful. And by the way, a great team can't take a bad driver and be successful. It takes everything. The driver is obviously very important in the level of success a team has in other ways than just mashing the gas. But there are a lot of things that influence whether he can be successful or not. There is no room to just point to the team and say you need to do better stuff nor is there room to point to you and say you just have to do a better job. It is all about them working together and finding out what that driver needs to do this job. Finding the right combination for that guy is critical and what works doesn't necessarily mean it will work for someone else."

ON NASCAR SAFETY AND POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS: "We can always be looking at things. If we ever get to the point that we don't think we can have room to grow, then we are in trouble. Continuing to absorb energy is obviously a huge thing as is continuing to work on every factor. There is nothing we can't continue to work on. The absorption of energy and helping a driver be able to withstand major impact, that is obviously number one. We have come a long way on that with soft walls, better head and neck technology, better belts and a lot of stuff. But if we ever think we have got to the point we have done it all, we are in trouble. Safety is a goal you can't reach. Something you are always trying to do, but you are never going to get to the point where you are as safe as you are ever going to be because technology allows you to continue to grow. If you are not willing to look at technology, if you are not willing to look at better things, you can get to a point to where that is as safe as you will ever be, but that is your own fault. It is not because there are not answers out there. I don't have one thing on my mind that NASCAR needs to be looking at, other than to say we have to continue an aggressive approach to find better things to do what we do."

ON HAVING A DOCTOR AT TESTING TRACKS: "I think definitely having trained medical professionals at a test is very important, there is no question about it. We have a relationship with a doctor but not to the point he goes to a test or to a race track to help the drivers in case they are in a wreck. I am not aware of it. Today with the tests that we have, every team is there and they can fully staff all the medical people. But when we get to somewhere and test, certainly we are there with responders, rather than physicians and they do a great job. But there is another level of being a trauma surgeon or a trauma physician in some form or fashion, yes that is certainly something we could do a better job at.

ON ATTENTION LEVEL AS A DRIVER: "I have yet to a race track and test in the last say 10 years where there weren't medical personnel there in some form or fashion. I can also tell you I am not sure I have ever been to a private test where there was a physician there. There have always been emergency respond teams but I have never been to a private test where we have had a trauma surgeon or a trauma specialist of some kind.

"Certainly the more trained medical care we can have, the better there is no question about that. You can't argue that point."

ON CONFIDENCE TEAM TOOK AWAY FROM DAYTONA: "We are smart enough to know that we ran well in the Daytona 500 and were fortunate enough to come out of there with a car in one piece. Anyone that finished that race was fortunate, that is what I honestly believe. It was really wild that last 40 laps and we put ourselves in position to have a good finish and we got one. It is better than running terrible but we separate Daytona and Talladega from the rest of our year. We could have gone to Daytona and finished 35th and we wouldn't feel any different coming here. It is just such a departure from what we do every week, so other than adding or subtracting points from your tally, there is little that matters about how you do at those two tracks versus how you are going to do here."

ON HOW MUCH YOU AND TEAMMATES TALKED ABOUT HELPING ONE ANOTHER AT DAYTONA: "The stories about teammates talking about helping each other are so exaggerated. I know it makes a great story and I understand all that but at the end of the day, if Kevin Harvick helped me finish third and he finished eighth and could have finished fourth, he did the wrong thing. That is just how it is. Anybody who thinks teammates go in to the race thinking we are going to work with each other all day long is crazy, you don't run with each other all day long. It doesn't happen that way. There is a time at some point late in the race, your teammate does something and you can try to help him make sure it helps him. But that is a very situational thing and we have rule if you can help me without hurting yourself do it, but if you are going to hurt yourself don't do it, I don't want you to do it. That is not fair to you, your team, your sponsor and everybody involved. It is just not. We work together, but we don't go in to the race thinking that. If you do think that every time you do something your teammate is going to go with you, you are destined to be mad, that is just how it is. Matt Kenseth helped Kevin Harvick because he thought he was going to get the best finish he could by doing that. He didn't think oh there is Kevin Harvick, I am going to help him win the Daytona 500, or to be a good guy or because all the Harvick fans will like me and the Mark Martin fans will hate me. He said my opportunity to get the best finish is to go right here. And that is why he went there. He didn't go there to help Kevin; he went there to help himself. That is what we do. We are selfish, self-centered, arrogant people drive race cars. That is how we are supposed to be. It is not about helping other people; it is about doing what you need to do for yourself. That is what competition is. You can't live your life like that, but if you aren't willing to race like that, you won't be successful."

ON JIMMIE'S REPRESENTING THE SPORT AS THE CHAMPION: "Other than not being able to ride on a golf kart very well, he has done a great job. He has proven to not being a good golf kart passenger (LAUGHS) Short of that, I think he has been terrific. Jimmie is a quality guy. It doesn't matter if he is champion or finished 50th in points, he is still a quality guy. Being a champion doesn't change who you are or aren't. Jimmie is the kind of guy people can look up to, people can respect, he is the kind of guy you expect to do the right thing and he will do that as our champion, there is no question in my mind.

And by the way, he would do it if he wasn't the reigning champion. But again, he isn't a good golf kart rider.

ON NEW CHEVY ENGINE: "We are looking forward to it. Our engine department has worked really hard on it and we aren't quite ready with it just yet. A new engine requires a tremendous amount of effort and we aren't quite there with it yet. But, it puts us back in the ballgame, we are racing technology that is really outdated compared to our competition. It puts us back in the ball game and we are excited about that."

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S MONTE CARLO SS TALKS WITH MEDIA ABOUT THE DAYTONA 500 AND RACING ON THE WEST COAST

ON THE DAYTONA 500 "We're just trying to put that event behind us. It was a great race and we had a great race car. The Kellogg's / Carquest Chevrolet was very strong throughout all of speedweeks and we still have our Busch car. So I'm very proud of all the guys at Hendrick Motorsports. It was a bad set of circumstances there at the end of the race that took us out of a top three or top four finish."

ON RACING IN CALIFORNIA "Yeah, I like coming to California. It's a great race track for me for some reason. It's like Michigan, but I can't ever finish well at Michigan for some reason. I run well there but don't finish well. Here, I don't run that well, but I finish well. So it's kind of a mix. All in all, I love to come to California. I love the west coast. I get up in the mornings and I feel good - more so than the east coast. I don't even have to set my alarm clock. I have one that goes off in my head at 7a.m. for some reason. It's just a good place to come to."

ON GOING TO LAS VEGAS IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS: "The biggest thing you look forward to out in Vegas is the atmosphere. But on the race track, the new surface is definitely going to throw a curve ball toward everybody. It's definitely going to make it worthwhile to try to have a good race car, of course.

But they are giving us a smaller fuel cell so they could try to make sure tires last. The track is so fast that Goodyear can't make a tire that will last. And it's hard to do that because the amount of load that we put on those tires is just horrendous. So I'd hate to be in anybody's shoes when it comes down to that sort of stuff. So we're looking forward to getting back out there.

"It's a lot of fun out there to hang out with some of my friend. And I'm also going to kick off my first fan club event out there and we're looking forward to there. It's going to be at an indoor Go-Kart track there in town and it's going to be a lot of fun."

ON THE UPCOMING BRISTOL COT TEST "Going to Bristol for that is definitely going to be a big deal. Everybody is going to be looking to see what's going to happen there and what the car is going to be like and everything else. I'm wishing it was on a different week - somehow to get it off an off-weekend - that wasn't very smart. But it is what it is. We're going to go there and test and then do something over the weekend - I'm not sure what. I'm just going to kind of lay low and probably go out to Vegas probably on Wednesday."

J.J. YELEY, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES MONTE CARLO SS TALKS WITH MEDIA ABOUT CHANGES TO HIS TEAM AND ADAPTING TO STOCK CAR RACING:

WHAT DID DIRT RACING DO TO PREPARE YOU FOR STOCK CAR RACING? "I think the biggest thing you learn from Sprint car or dirt racing is that you're taking a car that weighs 1100 lbs that has 850 horsepower and you have to do your best to get all that power to the ground and you don't do it with traction control, you do it from the seat - the feel in your butt and the way you work the throttle pedal. These cars don't always drive perfect and I think being able to adjust the way the car's handling whether it's good or bad and taking the best of it and making the car faster because of it."

WHAT ABOUT THE TRANSITION FROM OPEN WHEEL TO STOCK CAR? WHAT WENT INTO THAT? "It was really a lot. What comes down to it is that a stock car is a big old heavy race car. They don't exactly respond very well sometimes. They're just a stock car. The name fits the car sometimes. The past couple of years they've made these cars drive a lot better and feel a lot racier. But because of the car having more control of the driver versus an open-wheel car because it's so lightweight, you can change the way you're driving the car and change your lane on the race track, and take a 10th place car and maybe win with it. At most of these race tracks you go to, you have to be on the bottom. And if your car is not handling on the bottom, you can't drive your car up harder or different or better to make it faster. It's a matter of maintaining until you can make a pit stop and being able to communicate to your crew chief the changes that you need to make your car better. That's why you see the same guys at the top week in and week out. You've got to have that relationship or that ability to fix your car as the race goes on. So obviously it doesn't matter how your car is the first 50 laps. It's those last 50 laps. The guy who knows the most about his race car and can work the best with his crew chief are going to make sure they have that right."

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO FEEL COMFORTABLE IN A STOCK CAR? "It didn't take me very long at all. The longest transition was for me to get used to not overdriving the car and being more comfortable maybe riding around when the car is ill-handling, and then being able to communicate to the crew chief how far you needed to go with the changes. In the Busch Series it's more critical because you only make half as many pit stops. You've got to make sure you make a ton of changes in that first stop if your car isn't handling. Hopefully you don't go too far so that in those second and third stops you can really fine-tune the race car. In my whole first year, I don't think I ever got aggressive enough with the changes I needed on my race car. If we started the race good, we ran the whole race good. If we started out bad, we never really got where we needed to be. I think that's something I've become a lot more comfortable with in making those changes and making some of those decisions myself now."

ON HOW SATURDAY BUSCH RACE TRANSLATES TO SUNDAY CUP RACE: "You can probably take 60% to 70% of what you learn on Saturday and apply it to the Cup race. It is fun to me and it is just spending more time in a stock car, getting more laps and getting more experience. I am from Phoenix, AZ and I have raced Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) plenty of times in a lot of different race cars and last year in the Busch fall race, I learned something I have never learned there in a stock car that made my car faster in turns three and four. I applied that to the Cup car and it worked. Here is a race track of all the places we go in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, that is the track I have the most experience on and my third year there in a Busch car, I learned something I had never before. As a race car driver, you can always learn something regardless if it is a Busch car or a Cup car, they might not be the same. It may be something to do with the track, it might have to do with the tires, with air pressure; there are so many things that happen to make a car fast"

ON HIS FIRST CUP SEASON: "(CHUCKLES) It was one I would soon like to forget. 2006 was probably the worst racing season I have ever had in my career. It was probably the toughest mentally and I guess because I have such a good team, having a family made it a lot easier on me. I mean, I could have a bad day and I could go back to the motorhome and Faith, my daughter would look at me, she is one-year old, she doesn't care, she is just glad to see her Dad. Those things make it easier to let maybe a bad day at work roll off your back. Things are definitely going to be a lot better for us in 2007. Personally I have learned a lot from the mistakes I have made. We have made a lot of changes on the team and I think those things are going to add up to a lot of success for us this year."

WAS THERE A SNOWBALL EFFECT LAST YEAR AND THINGS STARTED GOING BAD? "Yeah, it does. I think the last quarter of the season I was able to characterize what I needed to be doing during a race weekend - not to get excited about maybe something happened halfway through the race - and it was really easy at different points of the year to hit the panic mode. At that time, you feel like you need to do something if it's getting track position and get back out front and drive the race car harder and generally that puts you in a bigger shot of getting into more and more trouble. I'm definitely guilty of doing that a couple of times last year.

I'm just thankful that I was smart enough to think about it during the off-season and learn from it and try to be sure I don't do the same thing this year."

ON THE CREW CHANGES, IS IT A TRUST FACTOR BETWEEN YOU AND THE GUYS ON THE CREW? "No, not so much a trust fact. A lot of the guys on the Interstate Batteries team were around during the Bobby Labonte years and had been there for a really long time because there's not a very high turn rate at Joe Gibbs Racing. And these guys spend as much time on the road as a race car driver. It's very difficult for them. The last two years for Bobby weren't exactly good. I think that brings the morale down for the guys - especially when they're gone for so long. Then you bring a rookie in and you have highs and lows week in and week out and because of that the morale doesn't get any better. And I think sometimes you need to bring in something fresh. The changes we made on this team are J.J. Yeley guys now. These are my guys. So far, from the tests we've had and from going to Daytona, everyone is working a lot harder and there's more excitement. I think that's going to make the year go a lot smoother for us."

TALK ABOUT THE SNOWBALL EFFECT LAST YEAR.GOOD START THIS YEAR? CAN YOU GET A SNOWBALL EFFECT THE OTHER WAY? "Oh, absolutely. Racing is all about momentum. When you make it to the Nextel Cup level, this is the most difficult and competitive racing in the world. And you start out the season like we did last year 40th in points, you're trying to do whatever you can to make up stuff. Sometimes it works. Tony Stewart won a championship after finishing dead last at Daytona. But he's obviously a guy who is a very gifted race car driver, but he had the experience and the know how and the patience. And I guess being a rookie, I put myself in a bad position. But this year starting out 10th in points - not in the panic situation and knowing we have really good race cars, all of our tests have gone well and just knowing that we can go out there and work really hard, the finishes will come and we'll win races and we'll be in contention to make the chase."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD / GMAC MONTE CARLO SS TALKS WITH MEDIA ABOUT RACING AT HIS HOMETOWN TRACK AND JOINING HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS

ON BEING IN CALIFORNIA AND SPENDING TIME WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY "We're testing in Bristol next week so we've got to go back home Monday after the race. But fortunately a lot of friends and family come here, so I get to spend time with them."

HOW IS THE CAR OF TOMORROW GOING TO IMPACT THE SPORT? "It is definitely going to impact the sport. But in what way, I don't know yet, until we run it. It's a huge change for everybody. Even though a lot of the same ideas apply to the COT as our current cars, they are a lot different in a lot of ways as well. So we've got a lot of learning to do."

ON JOINING HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS, HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT? "Brian (Vickers) left and I got the call. It was one of those deals where I was obviously in a contract year and was trying to decide what I was going to do when the seat opened up. I got a call from Rick Hendrick. And with Jimmie (Johnson) and Jeff (Gordon) being really good friends of mine as well, it just seemed like a really good fit. And obviously they are a first class organization so I'm excited to be a part of it."

YOU'VE GOT SOME FIRST-CLASS TEAMMATES TOO. ARE THEY GOING TO BE ABLE TO HELP YOU OUT AT ALL? "Absolutely."

HOW DID PRACTICE GO? "Not good. We really struggled. I don't know. We've missed it pretty bad. We're trying to find out the issues right now before qualifying.

IS STARTING UP FRONT REALLY IMPORTANT HERE IN CALIFORNIA? "No. In these races these days, they're along enough and there is enough strategy involved that starting position isn't critical. Obviously you want to qualify well to get a good pit stall, and it makes it easier on you to start in the top 10, which we still might have an opportunity to do, but at this point we're kind of guessing a little bit going into qualifying because we were off pretty good."

ON MAKING HIS START IN RACING IN THE MTEG SERIES AND NOW RACING FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS "It's awesome. To think back five or six years ago to where I am now just amazes me. Things have just happened at the right time and at the right place. I couldn't be happier to be with Hendrick Motorsports and to be teamed up with the National Guard and GMAC as well is pretty special. I'm just looking forward to the season."

HAS YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR DAD, ROGER MEARS, BEEN SUPPORTIVE IN YOUR RACING CAREER? "Oh, always. I always look to him for support. He drives my motor home to all the races and has done that now for the last few years. When things are going good, he's there to pat you on the back and if things are bad, he's there to help you out as well. It's nice to have Dad on the road and obviously he has a lot of knowledge in racing so from top to bottom he's helped me a lot."

SHOULD NASCAR HAVE THROWN THE CAUTION EARLIER ON THAT LAST LAP AT THE DAYTONA 500? "I don't think anybody would have done anything different if they would have thrown the caution. You've got a bunch of hungry guys out there. There are 43 of us who want to win that race. When you're sitting there with the checkered flag in sight - even if the caution comes out, you're going to be hesitant to check up just in case. If they did throw the caution early, you don't know where those timing lines are. You can't physically see them. So with the checkered flag that close, I don't think anybody would have checked up or done anything different anyway.

"For the most part any seriously dangerous situations were avoided anyway. If there would have been a crash going into Turn 1, and they didn't throw the caution, with what happened off of Turn 4, there would have been an issue. But everybody that wrecked was going to wreck anyway, regardless of whether or not they threw that caution. There is always a fine line in a gray area, but I think for as much as they get criticized for various cautions and too many green-white-checkered's. Mark (Martin) is a great, but he has been a big proponent for not having cautions come out. So I think they did the best job with the scenario they had, you know, having the race finish the way it would have finished if there wasn't a caution. I don't view anything any different. I've always known that beyond the last lap, things are different. As a driver, if you take a guy out in the middle of a race, you're a bad guy. But if you take a guy out with one lap to go, hey, you're did what you could to win. Those last lap scenarios are always different and NASCAR's got to make those calls as well."