CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO LEAD A LAP AND TO LEAD THE MOST LAPS AND GET AS MANY BONUS POINTS AS YOU CAN? “It’s very important. We’ve got to do that. If you’re leading laps you’re running up front and doing what you need to be doing. We’ve just got to keep chugging along. We went and tested this car at Nashville and I liked what I felt. Hopefully we’ll have a good car and we’ll have a good day.” WILL YOU TRY TO STAY OUT AND LEAD A LAP UNDER CAUTION? “Yeah, at this point we’ve got to do whatever we can do, if it’s not going to kill ya and a huge gamble to try to lead laps and get those bonus points. But we’ve got to do whatever we can do to keep track position, stay up front and contend for wins. It would be extra special to get the WIX money here in the Chase.”

JEFF BURTON, No. 31 AT&T MOBILITY CHEVROLET: ARE YOU AWARE OF TRYING TO LEAD A LAP AND TRYING TO WIN THE WIX FILTERS LAP LEADER AWARD AND GET THOSE BONUS POINTS? “Certainly we want to lead the most points because that means we ran well. We don’t count ‘em. We don’t sit there and say ‘Okay, that’s one, that’s two, that’s three. We try to run the best we can. We haven’t been good enough lately to lead the most laps. Some people play a lot of strategy to lead a lap. You don’t see a lot of people racing for the championship doing that but you do see that and it’s important. Points are points and if you can lead 10 races that’s 50 points. Fifty points in this ballgame is a lot.” DOES STAYING OUT TO LEAD A LAP STRAY FROM DOING THE TYPES OF THINGS THAT GOT YOU INTO THE CHASE FOR THE NASCAR NEXTEL CUP? “It depends on the situation. There are situations where you have nothing to lose by staying out and leading a lap. If there’s 15 cars on the lead lap and you’re running 15th, and people say why don’t you stay out and lead a lap? Well, our pit crew might pick us up three spots and now we’re running 12th and that’s a big difference. When you just say oh, I’m going to give that spot up to go lead a lap, that means that you’re saying that five points is possibly more important than having your pit crew pick you up those three spots. And three spots is more than five points so it’s a balancing act. Leading a lap is important but the best way to lead laps is the old fashioned way, just go lead ‘em.”

KYLE BUSCH, No. 5 KELLOGG’S/CARQUEST CHEVROLET: ARE YOU AND YOUR CREW CHIEF AWARE OF LEADING A LAP AND LEADING THE MOST LAPS TO GET EVERY POINT YOU CAN? “It’s pretty important. Last week I made a move to try to lead lap before pit stops came around so I wasn’t sure when we were going to come in and we were able to lead a lap so that was good. You hope that if you don’t lead the most laps that somebody out of the Chase does. But that’ll be a tall order because everybody is so good that’s in the Chase. It’s very important to lead at least one lap. I mean, if everybody leads a lap then it doesn’t really matter, then it more important to lead the most laps. But as long as there’s only a couple of you running good, you definitely want to be able to lead one.”

GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: EVERY POINT IS CRITICAL HERE IN THE CHASE FOR THE NASCAR NEXTEL CUP. DO YOU TRY TO FIGURE OUT A WAY TO LEAD A LAP AND THE MOST LAPS? “I think at some point during the day you’ve got to figure out how to lead a lap. In order to lead the most laps obviously you’re going to have to have a pretty competitive car to lead the most laps. It’s pretty easy at some point throughout the day to try to lead one lap, stay out on a pit stop or stay out longer on a gas run or something of that nature. You’ve obviously got to try to do that. Obviously, the closer you are to the front, if you’re a top-10 car, you can’t really stay out and give up track position and let everybody pit and you stay out just to lead a lap. But if you’re back in the pack or close to the end of the lead lap line, it’s pretty easy at that point. There’s a certain balance that you’ve got to do during the race to make that happen and hopefully we’ll be close enough to the front where we just lead our lap and not have to worry with that, but sometimes you have to.”