RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 alltel Dodge Avenger)

“The Alltel Dodge was pretty good. We knew that we were good enough to get track position with the disadvantage. With two tires or with fuel only and that was okay. I wasn’t mad about that, but I wish we just had that extra little speed so we could get on everyone else’s strategy. You know, being able to take two tires when everybody takes two, or take four when they take four. We’re getting closer to that. It’s just a matter of time. To have a top-five finish is great. To build on another top-five finish, that’s two in a row, that’s really great. I don’t know if we’ve done that all year, so to finish up at leas two out of three would be great.”

YOU HAVE FINISHED AS THE TOP DODGE DRIVER IN THE COT MORE THAN ANY OTHER DRIVER. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE MADE GAINS SINCE EARLIER IN THE SEASON? “I think both Penske teams have been good all year with the Car of Tomorrow. We haven’t had the greatest finishes, but we’ve been competitive. Hopefully we can build on that for next year in the Car of Tomorrow on those short tracks, but more importantly have a leg up on the intermediate tracks.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Avenger)

“We had a good run with the Miller Lite Dodge. It was just a little too tight in one spot and a little too loose in another spot. So all in all we’ll chalk it up as a year of experience with the COTs. We have some more work to do.”

ELLIOTT SADLER (No. 19 Siemens Dodge Avenger)

“We have to run the back of the car so loose just to get the front to turn. That’s been our problem with the COT all season. We haven’t hit on the combination at this point. The 9 team has worked hard on the new car and we will get things sorted out. I’m confident we will figure it out. We got the car close a couple of times, but when we put on a new set of tires with no adjustments, the handling went away. We have one more shot at closing out the season on a positive note and then we’ll turn our focus to 2008 and solving this handling issue.”

RODNEY CHILDERS (Team Director, No. 19 Siemens Dodge Avenger)

“I thought we had a better car than that today. It shows we have a lot of work to do with this car during winter testing. We’ve made gains, but there’s still work to do.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/Lifetime Powertrain Warranty Dodge Avenger)

“Right there I just hit the wall. Today was frustrating. We got into it with a couple other cars earlier and the car wasn’t where we wanted it to be. It was time for the day to be over.”

WHY DID YOU WALK BACK TO THE CARE CENTER? “I wanted to walk. I don’t know.”

SAM HORNISH, JR. (No. 06 Mobil 1 Dodge Avenger)

HOW DID THE DAY GO? “It was a long day for sure, but I was pretty happy with the car. We started out intentionally started out a little bit tight and then we got a pretty long run there at the beginning where we lost a lap and we never could get where we needed to be as far as that. I had a lot of fun out there. The Mobil1 Dodge ran well all day. The driver’s obviously lacking a little bit right now; still learning as much as I can. I am just glad I didn’t take anyone out or hit anything. We’ll go into Miami with one race under my belt and a little bit less of a rookie, I guess.

HOW DOES THIS HELP YOUR CONFIDENCE? “I just wanted to go out there and finish the race. I said a couple times finishing in the top 30 would be a pretty good day as far as I was concerned. I guess we hit it right on the head. It could have been better; had a couple problems in the pits but I’m a little bit rusty as far as race experience. It’s been two months since I ran this long of a race. It’s been a little tough. It’s probably the longest I’ve ever ran in one of these cars with all the heat; I drank probably ten bottles throughout the day and still feel dehydrated. So, we’ll keep working on it.”

DOES A STOCK CAR WORK THE DRIVER HARDER THAN AN OPEN WHEEL CAR? “If you’re going to do it one lap or two laps, the IRL car, I believe, is a lot more physical. This is very demanding because of the temperatures that you face in the car, the amount that you are doing as far as footwork, plus you have 43 other cars so there is nowhere to really relax. There’s nowhere, even the last 40 laps, only about the last five laps was I ever in a rhythm where you were just kind of running by yourself and able try new things. Most of the other time you were in traffic, right on the edge of your seat and your heart rate goes up right there so every thing seems a little harder at that point. The physical effort of driving these cars is very much because it’s like you’re doing in a sauna. But, one or two laps, the Indy car is more demanding.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD LEARN TODAY? “I’ve known for awhile that I’ve got to learn and I’ve said it a lot. It’s throwing everything that you’ve learned over the past couple of years out the window. Driving the Busch car is totally different as much as it’s similar it’s a lot different. It’s just so much different than the Busch car even, because the quality of the competitor. Everybody’s a past champion of something. Daytona 500 winners and past champions go home every week, it’s tough. That’s why I like the challenge of it and hopefully I’ll continue to get better and hopefully someday be a winner.”

WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN TODAY? “Obviously I had two main goals today. A was to not get into an accident with Jimmie or Jeff and B was not to get into an accident with Kurt or Ryan. I should say they were both my number one concern. Either way I was going to be in a lot trouble if I had any problems with any of those four guys. So, I did my best not to get in the way. The other thing was that important to me was to get as many laps as I could. I wanted to bring it home and say that we got the maximum we could get that day and not that I ran into the wall on lap two and was done.”

PATRICK CARPENTIER (No. 10 Valvoline/Sears Auto Center Dodge Avenger)

WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE YOU GOT THIS WEEKEND? “Everybody told me advice from the team and Ray (Evernham). The two that helped the most were Jimmy Kitchens and Kenny Schrader. I qualified because of what Kenny Schrader said on Friday. That’s what got me in the show and how to do it.”

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT YOU LEARNED TODAY? “It’s so hard. You have to be so smooth that it’s almost impossible. You have to go in hard and then get off the throttle. You abuse the car and then as soon as you do that for 10 laps you are done. The car just slides. Every time they put new tire on I was like yeah this is good. Oh I got it. I get the picture. Then 10 laps later I was back to battling the car."

HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO COME IN FOR A PIT STOP? “It was hard. I mean the guys did a good job. They have been nice all weekend. They have been great. We took the last pit so it was easier for me. I had good power I must admit. The car was pretty good on that. I just couldn’t get out of the corner. I was just coming in too fast all weekend and I was trying to adjust in the race. It’s so hard. There are no computers, no nothing. You have got to count on what the car does and half the time I am right and half the time I’m not for now. That’s what’s hard.”

YOU SAID BEFORE THE RACE THAT IF YOU WERE STILL RUNNING AT THE END OF THE RACE THAT IT WOULD BE CONSIDERED A SUCCESS. DOES THAT STILL HOLD TRUE? “I’m very happy. I’m not happy with the speed for sure, but we ran all day. It’s the first race, I did one at Cayuga with cars that have half the power and were one-tenth the length of this race, but it’s the first time that I’ve done that. I’m pretty happy. Kenny said if you do 310 laps today you’ve achieved a really good weekend, so we did it. I just want to be nice with the guys. I didn’t want to be in anybody’s way. I gave a lot of hand waves to go by, and that is important for future races.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Avenger)

YOU IMPROVED FROM THE WAY YOU RAN HERE IN THE SPRING. “I guess this is a really bad track for Ganassi. I don’t know why. We struggled all day with the car pretty tight and when we tried to free it up it was really loose off and could never find a good balance. But hey, that’s the way it goes. Generally we’ve been pretty good. This is generally a bad car for us [smiles]. But hey, that’s the way it goes.”

DID THE TRACK IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE RACE? HALF THE TRACK WAS IN SHADE AND THE OTHER HALF IN SUNLIGHT. “We had the same problems all day long. We were good in a short run and really bad in long run.”

DID YOU RACE WITH SOME OF THE OPEN WHEEL GUYS TODAY? “They were pretty good. It’s hard to judge them after a race.”

Driver Team Qualified Finish
Ryan Newman No. 12 alltel Dodge 13 5
Kurt Busch No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Avenger 9 12
Juan Montoya No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Avenger 14 17
Bobby Labonte No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Avenger 32 18
Reed Sorenson No. 41 Target Dodge Avenger 25 19
David Stremme No. 40 Juicy Fruit Dodge Avenger 37 20
Elliott Sadler No. 19 Siemens Dodge Avenger 16 27
Kyle Petty No. 45 Wells Fargo Dodge Avenger 36 29
Sam Hornish, Jr. No. 06 Mobil 1 Dodge Avenger 26 30
Patrick Carpentier No. 10 Valvoline/Sears Auto Center Dodge Avenger 24 33
Kasey Kahne No. 9 Dodge Dealers/Lifetime Powertrain Warranty Dodge Avenger 10 40

GEORGE GILLETT (Co-Owner, Gillett Evernham Motorsports)

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AND EXPECTATIONS FOR NEXT YEAR? “Our family, the Gillett family works on the business side, so hopefully we’ll get even more professional and we’ll bring some more sponsors in. We are working on some very exciting things. We had an announcement with Best Buy on Friday that I think was a very interesting one for us and very good for all of us hopefully. On the racing side we are looking for victory lane.

WITH ALL OF THE TALK THAT NASCAR HAS PLATEAUED, DO YOU FIND IT HARDER TO FIND SPONSORS IN GENERAL OR IS IT EASIER FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE PRE-EXISTING RELATIONSHIPS? “I think there is a little bit of both. First thing that I would argue is that NASCAR is plateauing. What has happened is the things that we all measure on a historic basis like television ratings they have in fact plateaued, but there are so many other ways that our fans are accessing NASCAR today that the actual fan base is growing at a very rapid rate. If you could ever figure out a way to measure all of that I think we’d be very thrilled with what’s going on within the NACSAR family. As a result of that what we are finding is the more sophisticated advertisers who understand new media and the various ways that we have access to the fans are really coming in, in droves. So the new advertisers coming in are the people that are really quite sophisticated. We’re very excited.”

CAN YOU GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF THE TYPE OF ADVERTISER THAT YO U ARE TALKING ABOUT? “I would really rather not say. There are some that we are talking to, but they are very exciting folks who have not been in the sport before, and you can imagine who they might be because they are quintessential new media.”

ARE YOU SEEING INTERNATIONAL SPONSORSHIP INTEREST? “Very much so. I think you’ll see us in the next few weeks a little something, a very major international sponsor coming in and another one growing with us. We’re very excited and we do see recognition of the international aspects of NASCAR. As I say, it’s not just the traditional way to measure it, it’s the new ways that people are accessing it and this sport is exciting.”

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU PLANNING TO ADD TO THE GILLETT EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS MARKETING DEPARTMENT? “We don’t have a target. I think it’s what the market will require. You’ve got to remember that if you’re going to be in this sport now it is no longer just enough to sell a sponsor. The idea of us being a moving billboard is passé. We’ve got to provide our sponsors so much more today, and so that takes people, very, very bright and talented people. Not necessarily young people, in many cases experienced people.”

DOES PATRICK CARPENTIER HELP WITH THE INTERNATIONAL APPEAL? “No, the decision to hire Patrick Carpentier was a decision made by Ray Evernham not by the Gillett family. Last year when we put him in our Busch car that was a Gillett family influence and he was so good, so positive, bilingual, has a wonderful family. He is in many ways the future of the sport. It’s not about national or international, it’s about the fact that he’s a hell of a driver. I mean if you happen to watch what he did down in Atlanta, you know the first morning he was 50th, that afternoon he was 49th, the Tuesday morning he was 36th, by Tuesday afternoon he was 31st and he qualified 24th here. This is only the second day that he was on a car on this track, and this as you know is a tough track. We are seeing not just great young athletes coming in, but we’re seeing people with international experience and I think that’s a real asset.”

WHAT REALLY BROUGHT YOU HERE TO NASCAR? “What brought me here to NASCAR is a love of cars. My family has been in the car business for, I don’t know, 50 or 60 years. We own 30 or 40 auto dealerships. I used to be a driver. We sponsored cars. We went to the winner’s circle at the Indianapolis 500 with Buddy Lazier. We’ve been in the sport a long time. In the mid-70s Mr. France and I talked about us becoming an investor in NASCAR and/or in Talladega and Daytona. Our interest is not fresh and new. We’re not new to the sport we’ve been around it a long time.”

HOW SERIOUS WERE YOU IN YOUR ATTEMPT TO PURCHASE NEW HAMSHIRE INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY? “We were psychology close and seriously interested, but we didn’t have a racetrack like Las Vegas that might perhaps be the source or the spot to take an extra race where they can make fabulous profit. The Bahre family built a great track. I have been to all but a couple of the tracks over the last five years and I would have to tell you that the feeling and the training of that staff is as good as anything that I’ve seen anywhere. I think that Speedway Motorsports made a very, very good buy.”

WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN BUYING POCONO IF IT BECAME AVAILABLE? “I don’t know that much about Pocono. I’ve never been there. I know the doctor and his family own it. I know they do very well with Boston. I think they are quite experienced. I think it’s just charming that this sport continues to have individual owners rather than just two major conglomerates. I think we bring something to the sport by having families continue. I was disappointed to see the Bahre family sell for that reason, but I understand why Bruton did what he did.”

DO YOU EVER RECOMMEND ANY CHANGES TO BRIAN (FRANCE) OR DO YOU JUST LET THE SPORT COME AS IT MAY? “I don’t really know Brian. We’ve met a couple of times just briefly or socially. We have a dinner on our calendars coming up soon. I think it’s as much what Brian wants to know about me as what I want to know about Brian.”

WHY ARE WE SEEING SO MANY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF COMING INTO THE SPORT FROM OTHER AREAS? “I think in our case it’s a little different. I think we’ve been in and around motor racing, sponsored and owned cars, and so forth in all different forms of racing. So I think that we are probably a little different and I think that there is sort of a tendency to put us all in the same boat.

“When you come here today and there are probably a 120,000 or a 125,000 people on premise and down the road the Arizona Cardinals, a darn good football team will be playing, we’ll have more than twice the audience and twice the crowd then they will. They’ll come here earlier. They’ll spend more money. They will support this sport in different and better ways. They will watch tonight when they get home. It’s a different crowd and I think this is really such a wonderful sport for that reason. That’s why we like it. That’s why I think others like it.”

IN YOUR ESTIMATION WHAT IS THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE FACING NASCAR? “I think its sort of more of the same. I think that they are on such a great track. We’ve studied it for a long time before we got into it. We read what a lot of you say and you do look that the television audiences are down a little bit in some cases, and I think what you see is that they’re trying to grow the sport in terms of its audience base, which means that they have been playing around a little bit with the starting times and that certainly effects the audience. The second thing is we’ve had some peculiar weather this year that has either delayed or moved a race to the following day in some cases and those numbers are put into that average. If you look on a similar staring time basis I think NASCAR is doing fine. So, I don’t sense that there is anything on the sports side that I’m really concerned about. I do think that the cost of fuel is a real issue, because an awful lot of our fans drive and that makes it expensive. On the other hand you come into a market only twice a year and that’s really not quite so hard on our fans. I do think that the cost of fuel and the national economy are two serious issues that effect and awful lot more than motorsports racing.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE CANADIAN FANS REACTION TO YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE SPORT AND IS IT GOING TO RAISE AWARENESS IN CANADA? “I think you’d have to ask some of the media from there, but based on what I’m seeing there is tremendous excitement. I met two of the French-Canadian press here yesterday. In fact one of them came up and thanked me because I think he got a new assignment and he really likes it. There is tremendous interest. You go on TSN and whether it’s Villeneuve or Capentier or whatever there is tremendous interest. I think there is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for motorsports racing. If you ever come to Montreal, either for the Formula 1 or that Busch race, I mean it is unbelievable. The participation of the fans, the energy and passion, it’s the same thing that the Canadians have motorsports racing has.”

DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS TO INTEGRATE STRATEGY BETWEEN THE TWO TEAMS? “I don’t want to be impolite, but if we had some creative ideas, and I don’t have very many, but if I had a good one I don’t think I’d be sharing it today.”

ARE THERE WAYS THAT YOU MIGHT BRING NASCAR TO YOUR OPERATION OR WAYS THAT YOU MIGHT CROSS POLINATE THE FAN BASES? “Okay, I’ll give you an idea. We’ve got auto dealerships all over the country and we have millions of people coming in, you can imagine that we’ll start to use some of that kind of an experience and whether they are Dodge dealers or not we’ve got 50 cars left over from this year that you might start to see on the floors with some video and so forth explaining what auto racing is and see if we can’t bring some new fans into the sport.

“The driver development area is an area that we fell very passionately about. I think you’ll see us do some interesting things in driver development. I think you’ll see us create a whole new television series on driver development with a whole new thought and idea. I can’t really go any further, but we’ve got a number of brilliant young drivers – male, female, national and international already signed up for the series. I think you’ll see us doing some fun things there.

“As you look at what it takes to win in this sport the idea that we’re all dealing with a relatively small number of athletes and they all sort of rotate. I don’t think that’s very healthy for the sport. I think we are going to be looking at bringing some new people like Patrick Carpentier, and who bring both a new skill set and a personality. I think that’s good for the sport.”