 |
 |
| Nextel Cup Series |
 |
|
News and Results | Point Standings | 2007 Schedule | 2007 Teams | 2006 Schedule and Results | 2005 Schedule and Results Coca-Cola 600 - Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes Casey Mears Scores First NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Career Victory in Coca Cola 600; Chevy R07 Engine Wins Second Consecutive Event at Lowe's Motor Speedway; Six of Top-10 Finishers Behind the Wheel of Chevy Monte Carlo SS Win Gives All Four Hendrick Motorsports Drivers Trips to Victory Lane in 2007; Team Chevy Drivers Have Won 11 of 12 NNCSPoints Races This Season CONCORD, NC - Casey Mears, No. 25 National Guard/GMAC/American Heroes Monte Carlo SS, captured his first NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (NNCS) in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Mears’s victory is the second consecutive win for the new Chevrolet R07 engine and the first in a NNCS points-paying event. Crew chief Darian Grubb made the call late in the race to gamble on fuel mileage to give Mears and their Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) team a shot at their first victory. The Bakersfield, CA native ran out of fuel on the backstretch of his cool-down lap. Mears trip to victory lane gives HMS nine wins in the 12 races run so far this season. Mears inaugural win also completes a sweep of all four HMS drivers winning in 2007. "I am so proud of everybody here," said Mears. "It is definitely a team win. We had a third, fourth, maybe fifth place car. The only way we were going to win it was to stay out. I tried to conserve fuel the best I could. All the Darian (Grubb) and the National Guard/GMAC guys did an excellent. I want to say hi to all the National Guard guys out there. It is a special weekend for all the American Heroes; they have all paid a big price for us. I am proud to take them to Victory Circle. It is a big night for all of us." Mears started 16th but was never lower than 13th in the running order the entire 400-lap/600-mile race. J.J. Yeley, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Monte Carlo SS, also scored his best NNCS finish coming to the checkered flag in second place behind Mears. Tony Stewart, No. 20 Home Depot Monte Carlo SS, finished sixth. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 8 Budweiser Monte Carlo SS and Denny Hamlin, No. 11 FedEx Freight/Marines Monte Carlo SS finished eighth and ninth respectively. Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Power of Pride Monte Carlo SS rounded out the top-10. Chevrolet continues to lead the Manufacturers' Cup standings as the NNCS heads for Round 13 of the 36-race season on June 3, 2007 at Dover International Speedway.
“I can’t believe it. Wait a minute. Let me look around to make sure what it looks like. The team just did an awesome job. I’ve got to thank Darian (Grubb, crew chief). He made an awesome call. He told me to conserve fuel. I am so proud of everybody here. It is definitely a team win. We had a third, fourth, maybe fifth place car. The only way we were going to win it was to stay out. I tried to conserve fuel the best I could. Darian (Grubb) and the National Guard/GMAC guys did an excellent. I want to say hi to all the National Guard guys out there. It is a special weekend for all the American Heroes, they have all paid a big price for us. I am proud to take them to Victory Circle. It is a big night for all of us." ON DARIAN TELLING HIM STRATEGY TO CONSERVE FUEL: "What happened was I wasn't sure I could do it. Then there at the end, we thought we were falling off, and maybe not good enough to win, I don't know, we thought we would work on the fuel mileage so I started saving fuel. I saved a bunch of fuel but we did run out of fuel on the backstretch of the cool down lap." ON THE SATISFACTION OF WINNING: "You know, a lot people were really good to me to get here. It is hard for me to talk about right now, just so happy right now. I appreciate everything everyone has done. Everybody has done an unbelievable job. The new Chevrolet engine ran great and ran 600 miles. It was a great day for us."
ON HOW GREAT CAR WAS ALL NIGHT: "We really definitely did, we were going to come out with a top-eight finish at least. If we hadn't I would have been really upset. We got up to fifth and got real tight and fell back to about 10th. But the guys really kept digging. Steve (Addington, crew chief) made great calls. The car was so close, all the changes made a huge difference. We went back and forth between being too free and too tight. We hit it there near the end and thank goodness they got all the fuel in it we needed. This is a great feeling. We were definitely worried about running out fuel. I tried to let the thing coast as long as I could to conserve and then use the breaks. My little girl's birthday is in three days and wish I could have got her a win tonight, would be nice to give her a big trophy for her birthday, but this is ok."
ON HARD HIT: "It wasn't that hard. The car just got up in the air really good, I knew that. The No. 96 just good loose, I tried to go underneath him, he clipped me, turned me in the grass and I shot right in the outside wall. The No. 84 hit me just as I hit the wall and that is what put the car up in the air like that. Spectacular wreck. Unfortunate because, man, what an awesome race car we had. I was so proud of Steve Letarte and the guys. When we bring race cars like that to the track, it just makes me have a whole lot of fun. I was having a blast out there and I hate we are out of it. But I am ok. I want to say hi to Ingrid at home, because I know she is probably a little nervous right now. I will be home soon. "Honestly I am fine, it looked a lot worse than it really was. I just feel bad for all these guys on this DuPont/Department of Defense Chevrolet because the car was really incredible. I just had no where to go when Tony Raines got loose, I tried to go to the inside but he just clipped me. ON WHAT IT WILL TAKIE TO RECAPTURE MAGIC HE USED TO HAVE AT LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY: "I was falling in love again out there today. I tell you what, when the car is driving like that, you drive from 32nd to the top-five, the way we did, I was liking it. We have got to have everything go our way. We have been having so many things go our way, I hate this today because of the points. But as good as this race team is, we will fight our way back and get back up there and have some more good runs. Hopefully come back here in the fall and win it, we know we are capable of it. "This will be that one bad race we haven't been hoping for or looking for, but we had such a great car. We have a lot of clawing back to do, because of the points thing, but we will be ok." WERE THE TIRES A FACTOR? “It does have a factor, but if you’ve got a brain, you know that you don’t race right now. You run your own race. There are just too many guys out there who aren’t doing that. The tire doesn’t make it easy, but it’s just common sense right now, it’s such a long race.” IS THERE A COMMON LINK TO ALL THESE EARLY CRASHES? “Well, it’s a 600-mile race. It’s hot and slick during the day like this and with these tires; it just makes it very hairy. You’ve got to be careful. I see guys driving way over their heads too early in a 600-mile race – too early for any race. That’s why we’ve seen some of those incidents and that’s why I got caught up in that one. It doesn’t make it easy when the grip level is where it is right now. But oh, well. It doesn’t matter. We had a great car. My car was good. And all I do is just drive it straight for a few laps and then boom, you’re gone.” IT LOOKED LIKE A REALLY HARD HIT, ARE YOU OKAY? “Yeah, I think it looked worse than it really was. I was gearing up for it to be a really hard hit, but it wasn’t as severe as I thought. With all the safety things that we have (like) the soft wall, I was very, very pleased with the impact and how it absorbed. It looked nastier than it really was when the No. 84 (AJ Almendinger) was right there because it sent the car airborne, but I’m fine.”
“It felt like we were going to have a good car. We were just biding our time and waiting on the sun to go down. We picked up about 15 spots, and were just trying to be patient. It was a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ deal. I thought I had (the wreck) cleared, but then someone slammed me in the back. The car’s done, so we’ll pack it up and head to Dover. I hate it for Best Buy and the Fisher House, which is the program we were running on the car this weekend. We still want people to go to BestBuy.com and donate to the Fisher House. It’s a great cause that helps military families. “The tires we’ve got this weekend, it’s just causing everyone to slide around. It doesn’t make for very good racing, I don’t think. There’s already a lot of torn up race cars, and I think you’re going to see a lot more in the garage before the night’s out.”
“It was great. I thought we finished second. I didn’t know all those guys stayed out. I wasn’t watching. But I was still real happy with the way we ran. We were good all night. We were in the top three; top five all night. I’m real proud of that.” WHAT DOES THIS MEAN AFTER THE DARLINGTON PENALTY? “It’s all right. I would have rather finished third or second, like we should have. But some of those guys can afford to gamble. We can’t. But we had a good car. It was fun.” WERE YOU LAUGHING WITH YOUR TEAM? “Yeah, I didn’t know I finished eighth (laughter). I thought I was second, man. They didn’t know either. Oh well, what are you going to do.”
"Our car was good. We were going to finish third but everybody had to pit. Some guys got better fuel mileage than us. We just missed out there. We had a great night. We ran a lot better than what we tested and practiced here, so overall. It was a good night for the FedEx/Marine Chevrolet." ON HOW FRUSTRATING IT IS TO BE RUNNING SO WELL AND HAVE TO PIT WITH SO FEW LAPS TO MAKE UP TIME AND TRACK POSITION: "Very frustrating. Just kept getting closer and closer to Tony (Stewart) there and Junior (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) we had the best car at the end. We just didn't have the right fuel tank, we just couldn't afford to come in and top-off like some of those guys did and they lucked out and got a good finish.
"We made a mistake on the last pit stop, but still had to stop for fuel. I think the best we would have been was sixth where the No. 20 was. It’s just part of the deal. ON FIGHTING BACK AGAIN FROM ADVERSITY: "We did. It is the hallmark of our team. But it is just little things, frustrating little things that kept going wrong. Good points night."
ON LEVEL OF FRUSTRATION ON HAVING STRONG CAR AND HAVING TO PIT: "Well, we weren't going to win the race anyhow. We had a very poor pit stop and it put us back a little bit. We had a good car, the guys did a good job, it was the best the car had been since we been here for the race. We knew we had to stop; it is all right. We weren't in a position we did that, they are either not up in the points, you know what it is. Right now, we are accumulating points and trying to get to the end." ON SATISFACTION FOR REBOUNDING AND SURVIVING FOR A DECENT FINISH: "No, not satisfied at all."
WAS THAT A WILD END TO THE RACE? “It wasn’t that wild to me. We just had to pit for gas and ended up outside the top-five.”
ON HAVING ALL THREE JGR CARS IN THE TOP-10, WITH A CAREER-BEST FINISH OF SECOND FOR J.J. YELEY: “I’m really happy for Interstate and J.J. You look at something like that where they just fought and fought and fought, and I think that jumped them up to 15th in points. So, I’m really happy for them and the Interstate car. As bad as we feel with the 20 car we’re still moving in the right direction in points and everything. I felt like it was the best car. You hate to lose the race when you have the best car, but I think we did the smart thing because we felt like we were going to be short (on fuel) so we had to come in. To have all three cars in the top-10… Denny (Hamlin) and FedEx did a great job all night and fought hard. So we had three cars up there and I’m really proud of everybody at the race shop. Motor guys and everybody did a great job. That’s a long race. It’s a big battle for everybody on pit road. Everybody had to hang tough and to have three cars in the top-10 was a big night for us.”
WAS THAT A WILD END TO THE RACE? “I guess. I’m proud of my guys. Everybody did a good job tonight. We didn’t have a great practice yesterday with the heat and as slick as it was, so we elected to quit early and kind of put our car close to where we were in the All-Star race with some more adjustments in it for pit stops. Everybody did a good job tonight. We were just a little off on fuel mileage. I didn’t feel we could make it. We were two-and-a-half laps short. That’s the problem – you run so fast and you lead all those laps and you get the worst fuel mileage. That’s just part of racing. We wanted to come in here and race all day and try to put ourselves in position for a top-10 and then hopefully a top-five at the end of the day. Coming into it I would’ve been excited to finish sixth, because we haven’t been that good here at Charlotte in the last few years. But to see that we were probably a second- or third-place car, at worst, all night long, it’s a little disappointing. But, that’s kind of the way our season has been. But we’ll keep pluggin’ and go to Dover. It’s a place we’ve won before. It’s a place we’ve run really well at, so maybe we can get a win there.” IS THERE MUCH SATISFACTION TO YOUR FINISH IN THIS RACE? “If we didn’t have an opportunity to win it, then I would’ve said that sixth-place and leading laps was awesome. But sitting where we’re at right now, it seems like everything is stacked against us. There’s probably four or five (races) we could’ve won easily this year and things just didn’t go our way. This team’s been through it before and if we continue to run as good as we do, we’ll be there at the end of the year and hopefully get our wins when we need them the most.”
TALK ABOUT THIS, YOUR HIGHEST FINISH EVER IN NEXTEL CUP: "We had a top eight race car. We ran up there pretty much all night long. We had a couple of stops where we made some adjustments where we got the car a little bit too free and fell back to 12th. So if we would have finished worse than eighth, I would have been definitely been disappointed with today's finish. But there at the end, when we came into the pits, Steve Addington was really crunching numbers trying to find out if we were going to make at. At any point there, if we would have pushed it really hard, we were a top five car at best. Pretty much from the get go, I just really started rolling off the throttle early trying to save as much fuel as I could. 'I learned from California last year when they finally figured with about 20 laps to go that we had a shot at making it and I had run too hard. So I just was trying to save as much fuel as I could. The fuel pressure never faltered - even on the last lap. We probably could have made at least three or four more laps. But a second place finish was definitely what this Interstate Batteries team needed." WITH THREE GIBBS CARS IN THE TOP 9, BUT YOU COULDN'T GET THE JOB DONE? "How many Hendrick cars were up there? They've been winning everything and they only had one car that finished up there. We weren't the best cars here at the test - any of the three of us. The Ginn cars looked really impressive. We brought the same car back from the test. We were a top-10 race car. The COT stuff we really seem to have a good handle on it. We've led a lot of laps. We haven't won any races there yet either. "This is the toughest sport and the toughest business around. Just because you have the fastest race car doesn't mean you're going to win." YOU'RE ONE OF THE GUYS ON THE HOT SEAT RIGHT NOW WITH DALE EARNHARDT JR BEING AVAILABLE. HOW DOES THIS STRONG FINISH HELP YOU OUT AND HOLD ONTO YOUR SEAT? "That's kind of a silly question. I do my best every time we go on the race track. We've run fast pretty much every race this year. We just don't have the finishes. We've had a lot of bad pit stops - not all the time, we just have them at the wrong time. It seems like it really costs us a lot of track position that we can never really make back up. As far as being on the hot seat, if I get fired, I get fired. There are a couple of other places I can go. I'm not worried about not having a ride. If I couldn't find anything in Nextel Cup, I'll go back to racing Sprint Cars. That's all I know how to do. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to drive a race car - regardless of whether it's here or somewhere else. My job is to go out there and try to win races. This is obviously a good step in the right direction. The communication between me and the team and Steve Addington has gotten so much better. "We've built some cars that are a little bit different that suit me a little bit more. They found what Denny (Hamlin) needed really quick. Tony (Stewart) has that relationship with Zippy. They've been crew chief and driver longer than I've been married, and I've been married a pretty long time. That just doesn't happen very often. We're figuring out what we need to do as the day goes on and with those changes, we're going faster and faster and getting better finishes." IS THERE A TIME WHEN YOU GOT DOWN? EVERYBODY IS STARTING TO WRITE ABOUT YOU NOW; "No, I don't generally read what you guys write. I stick to TV (laughs). I can't control what you write. And I can't let what you write affect what I do on the race track. I can only do what I can do. Joe Gibbs Racing gives me excellent equipment. I can go out there and drive the wheels off a car. If I catch the breaks, we can run second. If I don't catch the breaks, we're going to get caught a lap down because we pitted or we didn't pit. "This is just the first time probably in my two years in Cup racing that I didn't catch the bad break. I always wait until five laps to go for a caution to come out or for me to run out of fuel because we had the same scenario at Homestead last year. We stayed out. It looked like we had a chance of winning the race. A caution came out. We were short four gallons of fuel. But the way the fuel cells were in the cars, it couldn't pick it up under caution and we ran out of fuel with three laps to go. "So I've always ran into bad luck. I can't blame it on anything else other than just going out there and trying to do my best. So, maybe this will cut me a little slack from you media people for at least a couple of weeks." DID YOU JUST SAY THAT YOU CAN'T CONTROL WHAT WE WRITE, BUT YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT TV REPORTS? "I guess I can kind of control what you write by just going out there and running well and staying out of trouble. Last year, I had the worst season I've ever had in my life racing. Obviously it's easy to pick on me. I was caught up in the most accidents - I read that somewhere in the paper. Statistics show that I was in a wreck 40 percent of the time. But it didn't show that I cut a tire down half the times or I got wrecked by someone else. Because you don't watch the race you're not looking for the No. 18 Interstate Batteries race car on the race track, you don't know what happened other than at the end of the day I was wrecked. All I can do is go out there and avoid wrecks, run up front, and you look at the statistic and go hey, he finished 10th - regardless of how good I ran all day long. The guy who races the hardest is generally the guy who finished between 10th and 20th. The guys that wins the race is just having a Sunday cruise because his car is driving so good. Today, I could go another 100 laps. Last year at this race, I went to the infield medical center because I was going to die. So, I had a better race car and I feel a lot better today." POST RACE WINNER'S PRESS CONFERENCE WITH CASEY MEARS, DARIAN GRUBB, RICK HENDRICK - NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC/AMERICAN HEROES MONTE CARLO SS
MEARS: ON A MEARS BACK IN VICTORY LANE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 16 YEARS: "That is pretty cool. I would say something better but that made me tear up a little bit. I have watched my Uncle (Rick Mears) and my Dad (Roger Mears) got a chance to race the Indy 500 too, but my Uncle won four of them, on this day. Man, what special day just because of that. My family has had an unbelievable history in racing. I have always wanted to make my mark in history with my family. We have a long ways to go and a lot of races to run, but it sure feels good to come up with a win today, especially being Memorial Day. Obviously because of my Uncle's success in The 500 but on top of that, the National Guard. Memorial Day weekend, what better car to win than the National Guard car this weekend. We had a lot of troops here supporting us. The American Heroes car was running a lot of the names of the fallen soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for us, for us to be able to come out and have a good time like we did this weekend. It was a very big honor to run those names on the deck lid of our car today. For a lot of reasons, it is a very special day for us." "I think that one of the things that carrying all of those names made it really hit home was that we have a team member who had a relative whose name was on the decklid of our car. General Nepal (SP) was there today and he knew several of those people first-and. Just listening to them and how they spoke about it really hit home. It is a huge honor for us just to be able to do that. And to represent them in the highest regard with a win today is very special. It feels good. What those men and women do for us week in and week out is...well, it is very easy to forget what they do because we are happy, living in the United States, loving it just like everybody else and we forget what they are doing overseas to help protect us and keep it that way. Today is one of those days that we need to remember that and hopefully we brought a little more awareness to it today."
MEARS: ON FEELING ANY PRESSURE TO JOIN HMS TEAMMATES IN VICTORY LANE: "I think there is always pressure in this sport. I never got involved in this sport because I wanted to run fifth or sixth, I always wanted to win. So there has always been that pressure there. More than anything it was a comfort knowing that those guys were winning week in and week out. It is easy to look back now and go 'Hey, it is here. These guys are winning with it. We just have to grab a hold of it.' I think that what Darian has done a very good job of this year is really working with the No. 24, No. 48 and No. 5 and really learn exactly and understand what is going on there and applying it to what we do week in and week out. It has been a lot of hard work. I think a lot of people don't realize exactly what we've gone this year. The stuff that we have gotten caught up in, the little bit of bad luck that we have had. The reorganizing that we have been doing. We are rebuilding a team this year. Not completely, but rebuilding in a lot of areas. Going through that and then having several good runs and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it has been frustrating. But this definitely solidifies that we are a team that is out there to wins races and out there to run up front. We keep getting better all the time. I think the more that Darian and I work together, I think we said it this weekend, when we left on Thursday, I looked at Darian and said, 'Man, I feel like we are starting to click.' He is starting to understand what I want, understand the way I say things, what I need after that. We just felt very comfortable this weekend. I am really happy with the progress we are making." MEARS: YOU NEVER DOUBTED YOUR ABILITY TO WIN A RACE. NOW THAT YOU HAVE, CAN YOU EXPAND ON THAT? "As a driver in this sport, if you are doubting your ability to compete with other competitors, you're in the wrong place. But I think I'd be completely lying if I didn't say at some points, you'd doubt. Not necessarily that you can make it happen, but what do I need to make it that much better. My uncle and my dad have told me that if you ever stop learning, you need to retire because this is a sport that constantly changes and improves over time and you need to keep up with it and learn. I've always in the back of my mind, known we can do this. We could run up front. We've just never quite come home with it. Today solidifies a lot of that. Some people might say this was a fuel mileage deal and obviously it was at the end of the day to win it. But we did a lot out there to. We conserved fuel. We didn't run down Tony. We could have at one point. And we conserved and saved the tires in case we had a run there at the end, and it all paid off." MEARS: DID YOU THINK YOUR FIRST VICTORY WOULD BE SUCH AN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE FOR YOU? "I just didn't think about it. I have a lot of special people around me. I've got people coming out of the woodwork pulling for me. My mom and dad are my biggest supporters every weekend. My dad drives my motorcoach, so he's here through the good things and bad. So it's been gratifying to see the satisfaction on their faces because they've been living it with me. It feels good to bring it home for them." GRUBB: COMPARE WHAT IT'S LIKE TO GIVE CASEY HIS FIRST WIN "I'd say it was definitely tough and a new experience being the crew chief and actually getting to make the call and second-guessing the engineers' numbers and running the numbers myself with a calculator. I was the guy making that recommendation before. And now I was taking it from the engineer and looking through it. We had to take into account everything that was going on with the points and where we were. We were running second at the time, so we didn't back into the win. We were running top 10 all day. We fought and fought. We were able to go out there and continue to win the way we wanted to win. We ran hard all day and just didn't give up. We have an entire team and organization backing us up at Hendrick Motorsports. I'm kind of numb a little bit I guess because of being in victory lane with Jimmie (Johnson). This is even more special because it's Casey's first win and our first win together. We earned it. We've gotten better and better each week and we'll keep working." MEARS: ON GETTING THE NO. 25 CAR TO VICTORY LANE "Rick told me at the beginning of the year that one of his biggest goals was to make sure we got the No. 25 team up and running the way it needed to. We've seen nothing short of that. Anything we've needed, we've been able to get it. I've made some pretty aggressive decisions at the beginning of the year and gotten a lot of the stuff we needed. It's great to have that support. It feels great to bring a win home for Rick and reward him with all the support he's been giving us." MEARS: NOW THAT YOU'VE WON, WILL THAT HELP YOU TO REALLY CONTINUE TO CHANGE THINGS AROUND? "We've had that confidence for about the last five races. We had a car at Darlington. We've had several cars that have been fast and competitive. We knew we had the speed. We just needed to get everything else around it right. From a team standpoint, and when you talk about confidence, for the past five weeks even though we've been in this hole, when you walk in the shop the attitudes have been great. Guys are smiling and laughing and having fun at their job and doing a good job with their job. And we're sitting 35th in points and I think that's key. Darian's demeanor really sets the tone. Everybody on this team and in this organization knows our capabilities. It's very hard to prove that to everyone in the outside world. But we know it, and we're going to back it up the rest of this season." HENDRICK: TALK ABOUT YOUR EMOTIONS ABOUT GETTING YOUR FOURTH TEAM INTO VICTORY LANE, AND ABOUT CASEY GETTING HIS FIRST WIN AT A PLACE WHERE JEFF GORDON GOT HIS FIRST WIN? "It always feels good to see someone in the organization who hasn't won a race, win a race. You feel like you've accomplished something. You climb that mountain. You never know how a guy is going to act on the box. It's almost like a field general. Can they make the call? Can he handle the pressure? We saw that. He (Darian) just never flinches. It feels good. If I look across the sheet at what we've spent and what the resources are. They're equal across the board. I know these guys can do it and that Casey can do it. When crew chiefs and drivers can work together, they know what they want before they even call for it. I was on the radio tonight when Darian said they were going to be about a half lap short. I knew somewhere inside of me that Darian was going to go for it. "But it felt so good with the win at Talladega last year, we couldn't really enjoy it. We had one guy in the points that got booted. So this was special. But to win at Charlotte with all our guys was really special." MEARS: ON HOW HE IS GOING TO CELEBRATE HIS WIN ON MONDAY: "I am going to relax. I had about a 10,000 lb gorilla off my back. I am going to relax, spend some time with my friends. We have to go test on Tuesday so we have to be ready for that. But definitely go out and have a good time and celebrate and spend time with some good friends. In victory lane, Jimmie and some of those guys came up and I think we are all going to be ready to get together and have a little fun tonight." GRUBB: ON RELIEF OF GETTING FIRST WIN: "I really don't see it as pressure. I see it more as the overall pride of the job. That is what we are paid to do. We are in this sport for a reason. The pressure is there, of course, when I get the call from Mr. H and he asks me what is going on and I have to give him answers but, that is the reason we are there, we are there to perform every week. We come in to every race planning to win. We put the pressure on ourselves; just to drive ourselves further and further, try to make ourselves better and better every week to win. We have made steady progress toward that. We still have a lot of work to do; I won't kid anybody on that. We have got a lot of issues and stuff we are going to keep working on, but it is all smaller things now. We are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, tonight was a good show of that." MEARS: ON HIS JOURNEY TO GET TO THIS POINT: "I actually had opportunities in both CART and IRL at the time I made the decision to come run the NASCAR Busch Series. It was still very unclear at that point whether CART or IRL was the place to be and it is still kind of unclear at this moment. I figured what the heck, I will take a chance and go run Busch, if things work out, great. But if they don't, by then I will know what direction to go in open wheel and hopefully make the right decision. Fortunately, it has paid off. "I got an unbelievable opportunity out of the blue with that Busch team. Got an unbelievable opportunity the last four years. I feel like the greatest opportunity I have ever had is sitting right here. It is very special. The first couple of years I was in Cup, the first year I can't believe I was even there. I was so far inexperienced with these types of cars. It just took a while to get the feel for it. I think the last couple of years that I ran before this year, I was really starting to get the hang of it. Starting to get the feel for it, starting to understand what was going on. Then to get the opportunity to come to Hendrick Motorsports with all the resources and people out there to do things to the very top of their game, it is just an unbelievable opportunity. It is a great place to be, a fun place to work. I have great teammates, from the crew chiefs, to the other drivers, we all share information, we all talk and that is a huge part of the success that we have. "I think the most challenging thing was getting used to the cars on the track. You go from a 1,800 lb car to a 3,400 lb car and it is just a totally different animal all together. The short tracks were very difficult for me. I had never driven anything smaller than a mile; those are our short tracks in open wheel. Then go to Martinsville and Bristol, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to get around those places. It took time but I finally figured it out. You know, those are probably the toughest things, learning the cars and the short tracks. Over time I have gotten comfortable with it, this really feels like home. A lot people ask me if I wish I was in the Indy 500 this weekend or would I love to have an opportunity to do the Indy 500, I would like to do that sometime, but I feel like I am at home here, I love driving the stock cars." MEARS: ON THOUGHTS WHEN ACTUALLY TOOK THE WINNER'S CHECKERED FLAG: "I don't know, I was yelling so loud, I couldn't hear myself think. I was going down the backstretch and I was thinking I might be able to coast and still win this deal. I was hitting myself inside and telling myself not to think that way, just get through three and four and then the goose bumps starting coming because I knew we had an opportunity to win this race. All my emotion for the last four or five years being here has just built up, it has been frustrating having the runs that we had, coming so close and finally seal the deal and come home with it, was just unbelievable. Great place to start. I feel like we are starting over. I feel like we have something real special going on here. Darian and I have developed a real good relationship and we are 10% in to a 100% relationship we still have a lot of growing to do, a lot of understanding. We are just going to continue to get better from here. That is the good part. To see the progress we have made from the beginning of the season, see the runs that we have, to come home with a win this early in working together, there is still a ton of growth there is really exciting for me." HENDRICK: ON HOW HE KEEPS UNITY IN HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS: "It is hard, because of the all the emotion. I went to the hospital (LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY INFIELD CARE CENTER) to see Jeff (Gordon) to make sure he was ok. He had an awful good car. It is just racing. You get disappointed whenever you have a race and have a problem. It is almost like having two children; one hits a homerun and one struck out. I think what we have been able to accomplish is everybody feeling like when one car wins, everybody wins. We go home and try to get better. We look at every single aspect of where we are short. We have done that with the No. 25 team. Darian and I have talked so many Mondays about what can we do to make it better. How can we help you? I think the crew chiefs; again, I give them all the credit because they are consistently trying to make the whole organization better. Sunday night they don't feel too good but usually by Tuesday morning, everybody is geared up and focused again and we are ready to go back." HENDRICK: ON WHAT HE SAW THAT CONVINCED HIM THAT CASEY WAS THE RIGHT FIT FOR THE NO. 25 CAR: "Casey and I almost got together back in 2001. Ricky (Hendrick) and Casey were great friends. Jimmie (Johnson) and Jeff (Gordon) too. Casey has been like part of our family. I kind of got an inside track of what the party is going to be like because I have witnessed it before. With Jimmie and the guys and Ricky in years back. He is a guy that has been around us and we have watched him, we have seen him. He has a lot of talent, everybody has seen that. He has been close to our organization it was a pretty easy deal." HENDRICK: ON HOW HAPPY HE IS WITH SUCCESS OF ALL FOUR TEAMS: "I am real happy. If you didn't feel bad for the guys that had bad luck, all of them on the team that work so hard, I don't think you would have the kind of relationship I have with those guys. I go in after there is an accident and make sure everybody is ok and tell them they had a good car and pat them on the back. It you have feelings for those guys because they do work hard. But tonight has been a special night for Darian and Casey and the No. 25 team and the sponsors they carry the logos for. The other guys have all had success this year and this team has worked just as hard. I am real excited and real happy. We can't do anything about what happened to Jeff and what happened to Kyle. Jimmie had a problem on pit road; those kinds of things are going to happen. The thing that we have to try and do is make sure everybody is competitive and when they show up each team is competitive and run with the top-10 and be in position when somebody else has a problem or it is your turn. Tonight was a night, we have had races where the No. 25 has been competitive and been up there, and they were there all night tonight. It was a combination of a good car, a great driver and great calls by the crew chief. They are sitting in victory lane. So I am happy. All the cars were competitive. That is all I can ask for. Nobody got hurt. We will go back and regroup and try to do the same thing in Dover." HENDRICK: ON THE FACT ALL FOUR TEAMS HAVE WON THIS QUICKLY IN THE SEASON: "We have had some races--Joe Gibbs and I were kidding at the helicopter pad when we got here today, I asked him if he wanted me to go to the hospital and get a metal detector to check and see if I still have this horseshoe I have been carrying again. He caught me after the race and said 'I you still have got it, don't you' and I said 'Yes'. I know we are fortunate in some situations and we haven't had the best car. Situations have happened, people have had problems and we have been the beneficiaries. I wish we had this streak in the last 10 races, I say this every week. You see how good some of those other guys are and we have to race them in the Chase. The momentum is going really good for us right now, but I know wasn't in this camp, I would be working hard. Everybody is going to be working hard to beat us. It is going to be a dogfight through the summer and in to the last 10 races. We are enjoying it while we can, because you know it can't last. There are too many teams and too many cars out there, but hopefully we just keep putting ourselves in the position and we will get our share." HENDRICK: ON ALL FOUR OF HIS DRIVERS GETTING THEIR FIRST NNCS WIN WITH HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS: "It is the drivers and the crew chiefs and I have great pride in their accomplishments. When I look at Stevie (Letarte), I remember the day Ricky won at Kansas and I was sitting in the back of the room and I was so proud of them. My wife Linda was there too and she remembers that. When I saw Stevie getting interviewed after he won his first race with Jeff, then Alan (Gustafson) and now Darian and Casey, it is a really special feeling. I love to see these guys have opportunities and do well. It is infectious throughout our whole organization. It is just like watching your son hit a homerun or your daughter win a relay race. I am amazed when I see guys that have been there like Darian who is a young engineer just out of school. When he took the box at Daytona (2006, No. 48) I thought I wasn't sure he could handle the pressure. This is a huge deal he is getting ready to step in to. Then when he and I talked about this deal, he asked me if I was sure I wanted him to do it. I told him I knew he could do this and do a great job. It awful special and I just look at them, look at the families, Casey's Mom and Dad tonight, it is really special. First wins, have it come here, it just couldn't come at a better place." MEARS: ON SPEAKING WITH HIS UNCLE RICK YET: "I haven't yet, I am sure my Dad has been in contact with them, they have been talking all day about things. I am looking forward to speaking with him soon." MEANRS: ON EVER ENVISIONING HIMSELF WINNING A RACE LIKE RICK DID ON MEMORIAL DAY: "Definitely, when I was a kid I wanted to do that. That was my goal coming up through watching my Dad and my Uncle be successful throughout their careers. That is what drove me to want to do it, seeing the success they had and the fun they had doing it. I can't wait to talk to Rick. Obviously I got to talk to my Dad already, it is a very special win doing it today on Memorial Day. "One thing I do want to point out that hasn't really been brought up yet. Today didn't go just smooth for us. These guys fought, they did a very good job. Darian made a lot of changes. We had batteries going dead on us; we had to replace a battery. I ran the whole second half of the race without any fans inside the car. No bead blowers, no brake blowers, and a lot of that stuff. "Having said that, no so much for me inside the car, it was a little warm in the car but it wasn't that bad. But not having the bead blowers on the tires and the brakes, we were using the brakes a considerable amount in this race and we needed those things. To run as well as we did the second half of the race without that stuff trying to conserve the batteries, I am just real proud of whatever has done. We fought hard for this one. The guys did a very good job and it is a very well deserved win for the team." HENDRICK: ON THIS BEING THE END OF THE GHOST OF TIM RICHMOND IN THE NO. 25 CAR: "You know, I never believed that. I know everybody in here says I needed to change the number, I need to do this or that. I think the circumstances just haven't been right. So I hope so, I hope that is it. I hope we don't have to talk about that anymore." MEARS: ON ACTUALLY RUNNING OUT OF GAS AFTER THE CHECKERED FLAG: "Yes, I took the checkered, went through one and two and on the backstretch, the car started to stumble so I went ahead and shut it off so I had a little bit left to fire it and try and get down pit road. I ran out on pit road and had to get pushed in. So we were right at the end, for sure."
Home | Nextel Cup | Busch Series | Photo Gallery | Forum | Silly Season | Newsletter | Fire and Ice
©Copyright 2007 Race 2 Win
|
