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News and Results | Point Standings | 2007 Schedule | 2007 Teams | 2006 Schedule and Results | 2005 Schedule and Results Chevy Rock & Roll 400 - Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes JIMMIE JOHNSON GETS SIXTH WIN OF SEASON AT CHEVY ROCK & ROLL 400; LEADS NINE TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS INTO THE CHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP, AND CLINCHES MANUFACTURERS' CUP FOR CHEVROLET RICHMOND, VA - With his win of the Chevy Rock & Roll 400, Jimmie Johnson swept both NASCAR Nextel Cup races at Richmond International Raceway and positioned himself at the top of the leader board as the series moves into the final 10-race Chase for the Championship. With 10 races remaining on the schedule, Johnson's victory in the No. 48 Lowe's Impala SS also clinched the 31st all-time Manufacturers' Cup title for Chevrolet.
Johnson has scored six wins on the '07 tour to date, more than any other driver. The field of 12 contenders locked in the Chase for the Championship feature nine Team Chevy drivers:
"We just had a solid effort all night," said Johnson, who is looking for a second Nextel Cup trophy this year. "Parts of the race, especially the first two-thirds of it, we had a good car, maybe not the fastest car. We kept working on it and got the car right, great stops at the end, got me the track position I needed and we were really able to set sail there. I just can't thank these guys for never giving up and fighting all night long. We had a third or fourth place until the end and we made the right adjustments and got this victory." Four of the top five finishers were in Impala SS race cars, seven of the top 10. With 26 races in the books, Chevrolet has made 19 trips to victory lane. The next race, Round 1 in the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship, will be September 16 at New Hampshire International Raceway.
"Tonight we had our car going pretty good. We just had that one deal and had to come from the back. Still a good night for us. Everybody's back on the same turf now so it'll be fun." ON RACING WITH DENNY HAMLIN WITH 35 LAPS TO GO: "We were better first half of the run and the second half of the run we would just kind of maintain at best and some of those guys would get a little bit better but we made up some ground there at the beginning of that run. Just one of those things where you just get all you can and then take your time from there." ON BUILDING ON NASCAR'S NEW GENERATION RACE CAR WITH FIVE RACES WITH THE IMPALA SS IN THE CHASE: "We have to race a little bit different. Obviously the engines will be better, everything will be better. You had to race cautiously tonight and just there at the end as the car started falling out, things started happening, I was able to get a little bit more aggressive with the 11 and got by him but just kind of burned my stuff up trying to get by him on the bottom."
ON HEADING INTO THE CHASE: "We need to pick up our momentum a little bit. We're not coming in with big momentum like the guys like the 48 and 24 are but I think for the most part we're solid and that's what it's going to take in the Chase to be consistent." WHAT DID YOU LEARN OVER THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS AND HOW WILL THAT BE AN ADVANTAGE IN THE CHASE? "Well what we did is we didn't hold anything back with our race cars. We've been running our good cars for the last six, seven weeks trying to learn more about them. That's the only way I feel like we can get them better. Really in the Chase when it comes down to it, it's going to be whoever has the least amount of bad luck." WHO ARE THE BIGGEST THREATS IN THE CHASE? "I think without a doubt it's the 48, 24 and 20. I think those three guys are going to be really tough. They're tough every year. Not everyone is going to have a silky smooth Chase so we just got to capitalize if one of them has trouble." WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO BEAT THE 48, 24 AND THE 20? "I think we're just going to have to keep running top five like we have been all year long. Yeah we're not winning races like those guys are but we're consistent and that goes a long way and you just can't go all out like everyone has been doing for the last eight weeks, the guys have been locked in. So really it's going to be all about consistency." ON WHAT HE LEARNED IN LAST YEAR'S CHASE: "The biggest thing is not going to be to make mistakes. We know which race bit us last year and everyone seems to have a bad race so really we just got to concentrate on not making any mistakes like I made today on pit road. If we can do that we're going to be in good shape."
ON ANNOUNCING THIS WEEKEND THAT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS RESIGNED WITH CHEVROLET AND SWEEPING THE CHEVY ROCK & ROLL 400 WEEKEND: "Man, it's unbelievable. I grew about 60 miles from here so it's unbelievable. I'm excited man. It's great."
WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE ENGINE? "I don't really know. We ain't took it apart yet. It just started locking up on the back straightaway. We was having a great race there for second with Tony (Stewart). I was having a whole lot of fun up there racing with him and (Jeff) Gordon. I thought at the end we had actually a good enough car if we could have got by Tony that we could have raced the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) a little bit, but we broke another motor. They seem to come apart when they plug them into my car. I don't know what it is about it but we've had great power all year long. It's just really frustrating. I'll get over it. But my guys worked hard all weekend to see that thing go up in smoke like that, they're very disappointed." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AS YOU GO INTO THE FINAL 10 RACES? "Congratulations to all the guys who made the Chase. We'll try to get in there and win a couple of races. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to race hard, no matter who we're racing." DURING THE RACE, YOU TOLD THE CREW YOU NEVER WANTED TO DRIVE THAT CAR AGAIN. THEN YOU CAME STRAIGHT TO THE FRONT. WHAT HAPPENED? "The seat was messed up and hurt my back." WHAT COULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY? "Seriously. Just not break. Obviously, not break motors. We run in the top five every week. I do." DOES THAT MAKE IT MORE DISAPPOINTING FOR YOU? "Yeah. If I'm running 15th and 20th and blowing up, you can get over that." TONY EURY JR. CAME OVER AND YOU GUYS HUGGED AND HE TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE A CHAMPION. HOW ARE YOU FEELING? "I'm just upset for my team with Tony Junior being the leader and the rest of them guys. They work so hard all year long. I'm just disappointed for them that we didn't make the Chase because they work harder than anybody to make it happen for me and for them. They're just very, very disappointed about it. I'm upset for the fans because I'd like to keep it interesting. Them guys pay a lot of money to come see us race. But I don't know. We had a great car and Tony Junior made some great adjustments. We were about a 10th place car to start and he dialed her into about a second or maybe even a first place car, depending on the circumstances. But he was working so hard tonight and he's just really disappointed." YOU'RE LIKE THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD. YOU NEVER GAVE UP TONIGHT "Yeah, I'll take that (laughs). That's a good analogy. That engine just wouldn't hold together. It's very, very frustrating not for me, I think for everybody at DEI to have the spoils that we've had in our engine department this year. I know those guys have worked very hard to give us great power. And we overcame so many obstacles to have the best power in the series and I think that what we accomplished was awesome. We're just very disappointed for the engine failures to take us physically out of the Chase. We've run in the top five every week and my team is very upset and disappointed and bummed out about it. We've got 10 more races to run together before we may never race together again. And we'll just try to have fun and enjoy the kind of cars we put on the track and see if we can't win a race or two." THE CREW IS STILL SMILING "There is a lot of pride in how well we ran and how hard we raced and what kind of battle we put forth and the effort we've put up. We've run in the top five every single week, just about. I'd say 90 percent of the time we run in the top five in this series and we weren't doing that three years ago. So I'm very, very proud that we've established the ability to bring great race cars to the race track. It seems like every time we fix one thing to get somewhere in one direction, something else creeps in and this year is just seemed to be the untimely engine failures." ON WANTING A VICTORY THIS YEAR "Yeah, if it ain't one thing you guys (the media) want out of me, it's another (laughs). I'm going to go out there and try really, really hard. My fans deserve it. My team deserves it and I would like to enjoy it. That's our goal." WERE YOU TAKING ANY MORE CHANCES WITH THE MOTOR? "No. None that I was aware of. I would be very surprised if ours had turned into the Guinea Pig over the last five weeks. I don't think that's what happened. I'm just hoping that it's just $2 parts. Things like small stuff that are out of everybody's control. Most of the engine failures have been sort of freakish. Little stupid things that have happened. Ten more races and we're going to enjoy the hell out of that. And then the season will be over." WHEN YOU MISSED THE CHASE A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, YOU SAID THAT THOSE FINAL 10 RACES WERE KIND OF LIKE TAKING A BREAK. DO YOU NEED THAT NOW? "I'll take it. I wouldn't turn down any time off. I don't think anybody would. I'm going to work really, really hard with my guys. I promised them that these last several races through the last half of the season, no matter what, that we owed it to ourselves to race hard and work really hard. It would really be foolish and uncharacteristic for my team to sort of skip along the rest of this year and ride it out. I want to race hard and I want my guys to race hard and no matter what the results are, I want us to feel like when we turn the last lap at Homestead that we worked hard and we had good integrity." DESPITE THE ENGINE FAILURE AT THE END, YOUR FANS WERE HOPEFUL "Yeah, I was actually surprising myself. I couldn't get by Jeff (Gordon) and I didn't want to rough him up too much. I think I scared him on the front straightaway. It kind of scared me a little bit. And I was like, well, I can't figure out a way to get around him and I'm trying all kinds of things and Tony (Stewart) sneaks up in there and drives right by us when we're banging on each other."
ON TONIGHT'S RACE: "We just had a solid effort all night. Parts of the race, especially the first two-thirds of it, we had a good car, maybe not the fastest car. We kept working on it and got the car right, great stops at the end, got me the track position I needed and we were really able to set sail there. I just can't thank these guys for never giving up and fighting all night long. We had a third or fourth place until the end and we made the right adjustments and got this victory." ON THE PIT STOP THAT GOT HIM UP FRONT AND SEEING JEFF GORDON, DALE EARNHARDT, JR. AND TONY STEWART RACING AND PULLING AWAY: "First of all those three behind me, I'd be nervous all night. Those three are all real tough, this a great track for all three of those guys and then I was able to get a little daylight and I could hear that they were racing side by side and I knew that was good for me and I tried to take care of my tires in case we caught a late caution but luckily it stayed green and I was able to stretch it out and get this Lowe's Impala to victory lane." HOW MUCH DOES THE MOMENTUM MEAN? "It means a lot, it really does. We've seen time and time again with different race teams. We're happy to be hitting our stride now. We had a great 26 and now it's about these last 10 and we'll just see what we can do."
TALK ABOUT YOUR TOP-10 FINISH TONIGHT: "The entire Interstate Batteries team did their job tonight. It was awesome. Steve (Addington, crew chief) had a really good car underneath me from the get-go. We just tuned on it all night. Pit stops tonight were great. We had one bad stop that cost us a little bit but the way they cautions fell it was an awesome night. With about seven laps to go the 10 car (Scott Riggs) was down on the apron and I thought he was going to pull in the pits and he shot back out in front of me. I think he legitimately cost us two spots. I was just catching the nine (Kasey Kahne) and the two (Kurt Busch) and I lost everything I just gained. To be side-by-side there at the end fighting for ninth place was great. To start back as far as we did and end up 10th if was definitely a good night. " IT SEEMS LIKE YOU THE CAR THE BEST IT WAS ALL NIGHT AT THE END? "We fought just being a little bit free in all night. I struggled with it at times. We were struggling with the center a bit but I didn't want to mess with the front brake because it was going to make the center much tighter. If you want to have a good run you want to have your car best at the end of the night. I would have like to have even two more laps. About 280 laps in I was complaining because the first 200 laps blew by so fast but then it was going by at a snail's pace. It's always fun when a car handles that good. When the car runs good you forget about everything else and enjoy the race more."
ON THE LAST 50 LAPS: "We got off just a little bit there and we were making some adjustments to try to free the car up through the middle and I thought that would really hit on it. The 8 car and the 48 took of there and we were able to run the 8 car down. Finally I made a couple efforts to get inside him. I thought I was faster and I got in front of him and I couldn't get away from him. He was all over me. I don't know if I wore the tires out or we were just way too loose, especially with him behind me. We got racing there so hard that the 20 came up there and after that it was just holding tight making it to the end. I wish we were battling up there for the lead but Jimmie and those guys, they made the right adjustments. We were the car to beat the first half of the race but if you're not the car to beat at the end it doesn't matter."
ON IT BEING AN EVENTFUL NIGHT WHEN A LOT OF THINGS COULD HAVE GONE WRONG:"It was a definitely eventful for the Shell Pennzoil Chevrolet. We had a lot of things happen that normally don't happen. I got the splitter filled up with grass there and the car started overheating. But all in all everybody did a great job and did what we had to do. We had a good car just it kind stinks having to race with one eye at the scoreboard and one eye on the Chase there. Not really my style but we were able to kind of get up there at the end and race the 11 pretty hard." ON COMMUNICATION WITH HIS SPOTTER AT THE END OF THE RACE: "Nobody every said anything. I kind of saw how much carnage there was, how many cars there were tore up and not running so there at the end we just kind of figured we'll just go for it and race."
ON THE FINAL LAPS OF THE RACE: "Man, Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon were having so much fun I felt like I was missing out on the party so I wanted to get involved in that. It worked out good for us because we got them guys racing real hard and wearing each other down. We were about 10 laps behind that cycle so we got to get up there. Junior had a better car of the three of us I believe if he could have cleared both of us but we were able to get by him then get by Jeff but I don't know what happened to him at the end. But it was fun, it was fun racing. It's fun when you race around guys like Jeff and Dale Jr. like that, that you trust and you know you can run that close to and not having any problems with." ON THE FINAL 10 RACES: "I'm excited about it. I feel like we're not exactly where we need to be but as close as anybody else is. We just got to do what we do best and that's make a charge at the end of this thing."
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE IN THE CHASE? "It means a lot to us. It wasn't the greatest night here but it was respectable. We'll have a lot to look forward to the next 10 weeks so we're real excited, real happy for everybody at Bass Pro Shops and Tracker Boats and Chevrolet, just everybody that's been part of the deal all year. My guys have done an awesome job. I'm real proud of them. It's just a shame Junior isn't going to be in it with us. We could really use his help but those guys had a little too much bad luck but hopefully we can hold up the banner for DEI and give them a run for their money." ON LIKING THE TRACKS THEY START THE CHASE ON: "Yeah I love the two tracks we're starting out at but there's a lot of other ones in there I like too so I think the only place we haven't really ran well at that we're going to in the Chase is Martinsville and we need to figure that place out. If we can do that we'll have a great shot at this."
"Obviously we didn't get done tonight what we wanted to. We were experimenting a little bit and it didn't work out for us. We're proud that we got all three teams in the Chase. Game on now. It's time to get going and we certainly need to try to find a way to step it up a little bit if we're going to beat some of these guys but I have a tremendous amount of confidence of what our team can do and we're just going to go and mash the gas and see what happens. Nobody's picking us to win which is fine and we'll be persistent and try to make some good stuff happen. "We stunk it up tonight but we were trying. We were a little bit different than we normally are. We did some things tonight that I think will make us better. Sometimes you learn about things not working out but at the end of the day we were lucky enough to be able to experiment a little bit and our experiment gone bad but I'm proud of our effort. To have all three teams in the Chase is a really cool thing. We'll all fight hard and see what we can make happen here in the next 10 weeks."
ARE YOU GLAD THE CHASE IS FINALLY HERE? "I guess. Tonight was one to forget definitely. We definitely ran our worst here tonight and didn't have a very good showing. Those kind of performances aren't going to do you well in the Chase so we got to turn something around and make sure that we run better next week. Just a bad day for us but hopefully next week when we start up at Loudon again we'll be back on our game where we need to be."
CAN YOU BELIEVE YOU'RE GOING TO BE RACING FOR A NEXTEL CUP CHAMPIONSHIP? "Of course I can believe it. I'm with a good organization, a good race team, Gil Martin and everybody on the Jack Daniel's Chevrolet do such a good job and give me good race cars so absolutely I can believe it. But I'm just kind of bummed out. I was going to go for it when I showed up here tonight and just went a little too hard. "I'm really proud of everybody at RCR and everybody on the Jack Daniel's Chevrolet. Gil and everybody worked so hard and everybody's families and everything else to put a lot of effort into this so I'm really proud to be here but I promised the guys I was going to go for it and went a little too hard."
ON HAVING ONE VICTORY GOING INTO THE CHASE AND HOW THEY FEEL HEADING INTO THE CHASE: "I feel pretty good. I was a little disappointed in the way we ran tonight. We kind of struggled all weekend but this is a whole different deal with this car that we've been running. I'm looking forward to it. The next two races are two of my favorite tracks, ones we ran very well at here this year, and one of them we got our first win at. So I'm looking forward to them for sure. I'm real proud of all these guys on this Bass Pro Chevrolet team. I'm proud to get them in the Chase and just looking forward to it. It's going to be a lot of fun. I think there's a lot of tracks that we really enjoy and run good at throughout the Chase so hopefully we'll keep all the bad luck from striking and have 10 good races and we'll see wh at happens."
"First I am always excited to come Richmond. I have had some great runs here. We were good here in the spring; we had a strong car at that race. We were fast right off the truck this weekend and fast in practice. "We qualified terrible, but I knew it was just a matter of time before I could make my way to the front, the car was that good. I made it up to the top-10 then we made a mistake that got us back to 31st or 32nd. I tried to be patient and worked my way back to the top-10 and then finished in 5th. "I think the COT has been instrumental in part of growth of our team. We have run good all year in the COT races and Loudon was one of our best runs of season. It is the consistency we are lacking with both the cars and on pit road. The potential is there, just have to build on this momentum and keep having these good runs."
JIMMIE JOHNSON, Driver and CHAD KNAUS, Crew Chief - No. 48 Lowe's Impala SS Q. Take us through the win tonight and your thoughts about being the number one seed as you head into the Chase.
The race was starting off good for us and we ran in the Top-5 all day. At the end the car started to come to life and made some great adjustments. Adjustments were spot on and got me in good track position. The last hundred laps the car was as good as it's been. Q. If you can talk about some of the adjustments you made tonight, thoughts about coming back and defending the championship and being the top seed.
Q. Do you think you've finally tamed Richmond, because for a while there, you seemed to be in the garage at Richmond. Do you feel like that's finally behind you? JIMMIE JOHNSON: Yeah, this place has been tough on me. And to win -- to sweep the season here is pretty cool. I feel that the Car of Tomorrow helped me -- helped me be in equal equipment in a sense, because I was searching so much in the past for how to drive the track and have Chad pulling his hair out looking for what to do with the car set-up wise and getting lost and off base and all of those things. So to come with the Car of Tomorrow where all of the teams are on the same playing field, same level starting point, I figured some things out last year, or in the spring I should say and we've been able to build on that. Car of Tomorrow has been able to help me get a better feel for Richmond here. Q. The nature of the Chase is odd that for the last six weeks now, we've been obsessed about who is not going to make the Chase, or who is and who isn't; and now it turns almost overnight to who is in it and who is going to win it. You start looking at this Chase, the Top-5 guys going in, four of you have won championships. So the theme this week is going to be, the cream has risen to the top, now let's go get it. Is that the way you look at it? The focus changes for us but looking at the handicap of the field, it's a pretty stout field you're facing. JIMMIE JOHNSON: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, it's a really stout field. You see a lot of teams hit their stride, the 10 has been strong, the 99, the 20, the 11 has been consistent all year. I said this earlier, this is going to be the most competitive Chase we've seen. Last year's experience of how far you can really be down and out and come back, I don't think you're going to have to dominate all ten races. It's going to be great and if someone does, that's obviously the way you want to do it. But ten races are long, you have Talladega, Martinsville, you have a lot of wild cards and action that you can't control. I just want to be strong and steady and start knocking down Top-5s starting next weekend and hopefully we can accomplish what we want to at that point. Hopefully win a race or two in the Chase would be nice and hopefully be at the top at the end Q. Now that you're trying to repeat a championship, how do you approach this year as different from last year? CHAD KNAUS: I don't think your approach is really a whole lot different. I think that -- I really think that you're going to have to be very aggressive throughout this Chase. The competition level is high, like what Jimmie was talking about. Jeff Gordon has really switched on this year. Jimmie is switched on. The teams are stronger than ever. I think that kind of like what Jimmie said, I think we're going to need to... I think the average finish that you typically had to win the championship, which has been about eighth and ninth place, it's going to shape up and you're going to have to be a sixth to a fifth place finisher for the final ten races to win the championship. But then again, I could be wrong. You never know what's going to happen. It's going to be tough. There's going to be multiple winners from Championship Chase racers in the final ten races and it's going to be exciting. Q. Jimmie, do you have some feeling for Gordon in this situation? I mean, he's losing 300 and some points -- he's losing 400 and some to you. Do you have a feel for how far back it's flipped around? JIMMIE JOHNSON: Yeah, I really look at how Jeff has carried himself as these weeks have kind of closed down, and getting closer to his big points lead disappearing. I look at him and think he's really done a great job of representing what the sport is about and how we're going into the Chase, and he's known it all along and those types of things. I think the racer inside of me feels bad, he's had an amazing 26 first races but we all knew coming into the season it was going to be this way. We were able to maximize the seeding process on the 48 car and doing everything we can to be a champion, but I do in the back of my mind feel something for him. Q. You said that you feel like you have to be very aggressive in the Chase. Can you further define what you mean; is that in regards to pit calls, is that set-up, is that getting in Jimmie's ear to step further up on the wheel? CHAD KNAUS: I guess what I meant I was saying, by aggressive you have to go out there and try to win races and finish in the Top-5. Most people don't think that finishing in the Top-5 -- you know, it's difficult, like you have to have an aggressive race and you have to run competitively. You have to do things to finish in the Top-5. The Top-5s just don't fall on your lap and you have to go out there and be spot on and make a strategic call and you may have to have the driver step up a bit and you may have to call on your pit crew. There's so many things that you have to call on to make sure you finish in the Top-5. Like when you have a bad day at the racetrack, people say, it's going to be all right. I don't think people understand how hard it is to be all right. Q. You talked about how you guys avoided that late summer swoon that you always seem to have. Even last year you had it and even after Indy you did not have a Top-10 -- was it something that you broke through last year and won the championship and you approach it differently this year; is there anything differently why you guys are on this roll? CHAD KNAUS: There's a multitude of reasons. I think the team has gelled together than it has in the past. We've had a lot of groundwork laid out by Hendrick Motorsports and they have done a phenomenal job and the product we are bringing to the racetrack is better than what it has been in the summer months. Typically in the summer area, that's where your bodies are established and your engine program is established and this year we've just kept on pushing through and we've been bringing better race cars and better equipment to the racetrack every single week. We didn't stop there, we continued to work on the pit crew and everything and I think it's showing. Q. Jimmie, now that you have a championship under your belt is it easier going into this year knowing what it takes to get to the Cup at the end of the ten races, or are you approaching it any differently, is this a whole new game with 12 drivers instead of ten? JIMMIE JOHNSON: I don't think getting the end result is going to get any easier. But I think my mental strength is much greater than what it was last year. I think the team is stronger. We're all -- experience helps everyone on so many levels in motorsports and I think life in general. But to be able to go through the five seasons of almost getting it, the letdown, and then getting it last year; and knowing that we can do it, we've been there and we can fight through this, you don't have to have a perfect final ten. Stay focused on the right things, the championship could be there. I feel a lot more confident and I'm sure the team does, too, and more relaxed. I don't think it's going to make our job any easier for us, but we are coming in without as much pressure on ourselves I think. Q. Last year you guys sort of seemed to discover something at Martinsville. You had that trouble early and you -- I think the phrase was, whatever happens -- you went in with an attitude where every week you went out just doing the best you could and it seemed to sort of ignite you and carry you forward. Is that going to be something that you will revisit, that attitude going into this Chase, that thinking about -- as you said, it may not be -- well, we just don't know what's going to happen. JIMMIE JOHNSON: We would like to be in that same mind-set when we were knocked out of those top two finishes, I guess we had five of them. We have a lot that led us to that frame of mind, and if we can be in that frame of mind all the time, would be the best thing. Especially through all ten of those races and I think that's where we want to go and where we want to be. If you get off to a fast start in the Chase, you start protecting and if you get off to a slow start, you start charging. That's the balance we are trying to find of where the team works, and that harmony, to use a corny phrase, just working right week after week. Q. Jimmie, you had just about every possible experience in the Chase, you have been accused of erring on the side of preparing for the Chase and losing momentum during the regular season, you have had comebacks that failed, comebacks that made it. Does all of this give you an advantage? Does all of this experience of what to do and how to act -- and this is probably true of Chad, too -- give you an advantage that perhaps others without your depth of experience have had? JIMMIE JOHNSON: I think it helps. But when I look at the guys in the Chase, I look at Jeff Gordon, all of the ups and downs he's been through. I look at Stewart probably ahead of us. I think we're there and probably third and argue that against Kenseth and maybe -- I'm trying to think of who else is there with a championship. Those experiences make you stronger and it makes the team stronger. We have a group of guys that have been together for a long time and we have grown through the up-and-downs together. It certainly helps us and puts us on pace with these guys that have more experience than we do and we're going to fall on that. At the same time we're going to fall back on that and the 20 is going to try to do the same thing, the 2; and it's going to be tough. We have dealt with a lot in a short period of time and we have been on a fast learning curve and I think that's helpful, too. Q. For Jimmie and Chad, the suspension that you had after Sonoma or something like that, Jimmie was just mentioning experiences that make the team stronger. Could you both comment on that and how that made you a little bit stronger, and, Chad, maybe you saw something on your six weeks away from the track that you might have found out. (Laughter). CHAD KNAUS: Boy, that's a played out question. Q. Loaded. CHAD KNAUS: Holy smokes. You know, I'll be honest with you, obviously when something like that happens, it's painful. It's painful for the organization; it's painful for myself, it's painful for Jimmie, the sponsors, the team, everything. And there's no benefit to that happening. There's only downside. Yes, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for six weeks. Did it help our race team? Absolutely not. Did it prove that our race team is extremely well-trained and dedicated to the sport? Absolutely it did. It showed that everybody, Ron and Lance, everything that goes on on the road early can prepare a race car just as good as anybody else out there. It showed what we can do at Hendrick Motorsports to prepare a car to take it to the racetrack is phenomenal. That's all it proves. It doesn't do us any good. It just makes us all step up and dig deeper, and that's what we did. JIMMIE JOHNSON: I agree with Chad. There's really nothing good to come from it. You know, your skin gets a little thicker and I think if there is a positive thing that comes from it, when you're learning new people, like with Ron and Lance coming in, I find that I've got to be much more descriptive because Chad and I know each other so well and can talk in much shorter terms and phrases and he understands where I'm coming from. I think it helped me in some ways become more involved in describing more sensations that I feel in the car. And the more I tell these guys, the better it's going to be. So I think trying to learn, Ron and then Lance, help me be more descriptive in a car; if we can really measure that, I'm not really sure. But that would be the one thing from the driver standpoint that helped through that experience. Q. When Jeff was leading the race early and when you were leading it late, there seemed to be some tremendous racing going on. But it was all behind the leader, and it seems like aero push is worse than ever with this Car of Tomorrow that nobody can challenge whoever gets out front. Is that really the case, and if so, how does it affect your strategy going into the Chase? JIMMIE JOHNSON: We certainly feel the aero push. It's tough without going from car to car without really saying it's worse. Because we have less downforce, higher roll center, a more -- I guess a tighter box to work in with the Car of Tomorrow and the car we're going to have here in the next -- forever. So it's tough to really compare that. But in theory, it's a bigger car punch and a bigger hole in the air, so it's going to make more turbulent air the further back in traffic you go. We have a splitter to keep working off the asphalt so it's not dependent upon the air coming over the top of the car. Is that really working? We're not really sure. It does seem like it is worse and I haven't been on the track with the car like Atlanta or Charlotte and stuff. So I'm eager to get to Atlanta to test and see how bad it is. I've heard the cars are tough to drive in traffic and fear that we might have that, might have a little more single-file racing and a worse problem in traffic. And to NASCAR's credit, I think they are trying to be proactive and we are going to Atlanta and work on that with all of the teams and hopefully we can work on some adjustments when we're there and fine tune and make the car a little bit easier to drive and better in traffic if any of those problems co me up.
TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Impala SS
Q. Tony, your thoughts about the race and about being back in the Chase again Tony.
Tonight, we really didn't set the world on fire at any point in the race but we did keep making the car better and better and better. We got to the lead there and had a couple of stops that were off a little bit and got us back to fourth by the end of the sequence. You know, at the end of the race, it was pretty fun. I had probably the best seat in the house of watching the race between Gordon and Dale Junior there. It was a lot of fun. I felt like I was missing out on a lot of fun stuff and got myself in the mix ourselves. Junior was probably the better of the three of us car-wise, and he had his problem. But it was fun racing guys like that. It's fun when you can race guys like Dale, Gordon and Earnhardt Junior and you can run that close with them. We were all trying to get by each other but when you can run that close with each other, it shows the confidence we have in each other. Q. Talk about your first appearance in the Chase, has to be a thrill for you
Q. You're back in the Chase, your thoughts, congratulations.
Q. Kevin, when you started the Daytona, you were 34th and no one paid any attention to you and you had one of the biggest days of your life. Tonight you started 13th and everyone was looking at you. Can you compare the emotions of these two days? KEVIN HARVICK: I mean, it's really not -- for us, it's really not any different emotion just for the fact that you prepare yourself the same to go into each race. You know, this isn't near as exciting as winning the Daytona 500, I can promise you that. To get into the Chase is what we needed to do and feel like we've had good race cars quite a few times and got tore up or just had something crazy happen. So, you know, it's hard to complain after we won the Daytona 500, we won the All-Star Race, and now we've made the Chase. Now we've just got to get it together the next ten weeks, and we're capable of winning races and we know that. We've just got to have momentum on our side. Q. For anybody who wants to tackle it, now that you have to hit a reset button of some kind going into the Chase, it's been kind of -- you've all had different agendas for the past few week, some of you were locked in; is it now hitting a reset button or do we overdo the thought process and it's just another few weeks of racing? MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to keep racing. It's just ten more races I think. I'm not going to be saying anything. Just go after it. KEVIN HARVICK: I know from a team standpoint, we've obviously got different engine stuff and different things. And tonight, you race -- you know, we had to race a little bit guarded the first three quarters of the race, but tonight you're able to race a little harder. The last ten weeks will be a little bit different for us than what we've had this week, last week. Q. Tony, what value do you put on momentum at this point in the season or how can it impact a team, do you feel? TONY STEWART: You guys call it momentum. I call it just how is your performance right now at this point. You know, the teams that are running the best right now are the teams that have a hot at winning the championship. You can call it whatever you want to call it but it's still a matter of performance at the end of the day. It's still a sport that's a week-to-week sport and anything can happen, but even with technology changing as fast as it is, it seems like that if your program has been pretty good the last four or five weeks, you've probably got the best shot of anybody at winning the championship. Q. Tony, three series champions are starting this Chase, one, two and three. For those of us outside the car, it looks like it could shape up to be a really spectacular battle. Any thought to that or is there any excitement from your perspective in chasing these champions? TONY STEWART: It makes it fun because you respect the guys that have made it and obviously guys that have won it before, they know how to win championships. That in itself makes it fun to know that you're racing guys that have been in that situation, guys that are capable like these two beside me. Like Martin said, you put ten good weeks together, you're on that list now. So that in itself does make it exciting. In a way, it's like you don't care who it is. You still just want to beat them all. But at the same time, it does add prestige because of who is in that list. Q. Kevin, it looked like something was gone on with your engine, you had steam coming out. Were you aware you had engine problems? KEVIN HARVICK: I didn't hit anything. I just went through the grass. The way these cars are, it's like a shovel with the splitter on the bottom of the car. It just filled the grill up solid and there was water coming out. Once we got that off, it actually ran cooler than it did the rest of the night. Most of the crowd wears red, so that's why they were excited. Q. Just wondering, now that there's no bonus points for wins, are you scaling back to racing for points, or will you still go just as hard for wins now? MARTIN TRUEX, JR.: Oh, yeah. (Chuckling) TONY STEWART: You guys can handle that one. KEVIN HARVICK: It pays more to win, more money, more points, more everything. Obviously you get ten more points than the guy in second, and so that's a pretty big bonus in itself. So the more races you can win, the better off you'll be for sure. TONY STEWART: (Laughing). Q. For Kevin and Martin, can you put into perspective with the reset points system, obviously these guys in front of you have been running in the Top-10 will do that most of the time. So how difficult can 50 points be to make up even in ten races? KEVIN HARVICK: It can come down to ten points, two points, five points, we've seen championships lost by that. Every point matters and obviously everyone who is in the Chase has run good. You want to gain all you can getting to this point and see what happens. 50 points, it's hard to make up among guys that are running good. Q. Kevin, were you at all ever nervous tonight when you were back a little bit after having to avoid Montoya and Sorrenson KEVIN HARVICK: That's normal, right? Everyone has to do that. (Laughter). TONY STEWART: Check, please. Q. And Junior was running up front. Were you ever consciously aware of that and nervous at all? KEVIN HARVICK: You approach every night the same, and you try to put yourself in positions tonight that were as good as can be. But you still have to go forward and you still have to try to pass cars. At that point I think we were 28th or 29th, and we had to go forward at that point. You hope something doesn't happen, but you just race as hard as you can and luckily everything worked itself out and we had a good enough car to not get kind of mired back in traffic there while they were all beating and banging. Luckily we had a good enough car to get back through there. Q. Tony, last year, when you weren't in the Chase, you did roll the dice like in Kansas city, how likely -- not necessarily Kansas City, how likely are you to roll the dice to get that win? TONY STEWART: Like Kansas City, we probably won't have that opportunity now -- well, we won't have that opportunity. We never have. We've never taken that chance in a Chase and we won't take that chance if it presents itself now. The risk versus reward is too great. The guys that headed for fuel and still came back out still finished I think fourth or fifth in that race. If you take that gamble for the win and it doesn't pay off, you're finished in the upper 30s or the 40th place race. The risk versus reward isn't really worth it as far as the points are concerned, and that's what it's going to be about the next ten weeks. As much as we all want to win races, you have to weigh everything you do, risk versus reward.
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