KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Avenger)

MOMENTUM RIGHT NOW? “It feels good to be back in the top 12. Just the attention the drivers get with the different sessions with the media. So we must be doing something okay. To be able to continue this role is obviously the most important ingredient for us if we want to make the Chase. With five races left, I have won at four of the five tracks. I had a great car last year at Watkins Glen. We’re looking to build on each one of those wins and use that past experience to help us in these next few weeks.

“I think the key ingredient has been Pat Tryson coming aboard. He’s really clicked with our team very well, building the race cars as well as making pit calls. So, it just feels good with the Miller Lite Dodge and the team and where we are headed right now.”

HOW BIG WAS THE POCONO WIN? “It’s a tremendous feeling to go to victory lane and to do it at a point in the season where you definitely need some points. The way that everybody at Penske Racing has embraced this win, crew guys that don’t get to go to the track or anybody that is in the front office, the guys in the back; we had a big pizza party Wednesday and one of the guys came up to me and said, ‘Winning is great but having you right here at a pizza party on a Wednesday afternoon here at the shop means more to me.’ It’s that feeling you get when you are part of a team; the atmosphere of people working so hard all the time and not being able to enjoy it. Victory lane is something that cures a lot of evil and you want more of it when you get there.

“Right now the biggest key for us in the Chase is consistency. To have a long stretch without winning you have to go back to what you’re building on and that was to get the team up to speed. We won right away with Roy McCauley but with him taking a leave-of-absence earlier this season and having an interim crew chief knowing he wasn’t long term, we had a lot of things to build. We’ve gotten to the point where we feel like we now have built up the things we need and now let’s go start running for race wins.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE LAST THREE RACES BEFORE THE CHASE? “Bristol is going to be the biggest wild card of the races left to get into the Chase. The half-mile has got new concrete. It’s going to be interesting how old setups are going to work on that race track. And, then with it being new it’s going to be different to pass cars. It’s not going to be the same passing cars when someone gets loose over the bump in two because the bump in two doesn’t exist anymore.

“Bristol is going to be a wild card. We like California Speedway. I finished seventh there earlier this year. Richmond, a great short track for me, I thought we had a great shot at winning in May just came up fifth.”

FINISHES NOT AT STRONG AS RUNS AT THE GLEN – “Last year was a great weekend for me here at Watkins Glen sitting on the pole for both the Busch race and the Cup race. Having the chance to go to Victory Lane with the Busch car after a long, hard-fought battle with Robby Gordon felt very solidifying to me in building my road course resume. I feel comfortable on the road courses. I enjoy racing at them. Pit strategy always has a lot to do with if you are going to win or not. Last year we tried to pit and about a foot before I got to the open/close line the light changed on me. So it was red when I pitted and we had to adhere to the penalty. It made it interesting that we had a great car, dominating performance, but we just came home 19th because we had a one-lap penalty. You always look back at those events and it pushes you harder to try to go get it again. And that is what we will do this week. It will be very different with the Car of Tomorrow racing at this road course then where our setup was last year. Some of the stuff will apply but most of it will be different.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GAIN POINTS EVERY WEEKEND? “That’s the thing, we would like to go into each week and gain as many points as we can, but on a weekend like this we have all the extras that come in such as Ron Fellows, PJ Jones and guys like Boris Said. The normal gang that likes to run road courses, they’ll be here. Then you have to look at the guys we’re running for in points, Truex, Junior, Bowyer and my teammate Ryan Newman. If we can stay in front of those guys that will help us when you end up adding the points up at the end of the day.”

ABOUT THE COT PRACTICE TIME ON THE TRACK: “We’re definitely looking forward to getting out on the track with the way that the weather is playing around we might not have as much practice time. So, that will make what practice time we get very valuable and the way that our car ran at Sonoma we want to be better than where we were there. We tested Road Atlanta on Monday this week trying to get better for road courses with our new setup with the Car of Tomorrow. The Car of Tomorrow has better braking power than the previous car, but it also has a higher roll center, center of gravity. The car is very high as far as its weight. And, then the rear end slides around a bit more with the wing on it then it would with the regular spoiler. So, there are quite a few things that are different. You get into the corner faster, but then you have to go slower through the center and the exit because of the way the car handles.”

WHICH IS THE MOST DIFFICULT, SONOMA OR THE GLEN? “Each place has its difficult quirk. This race track here at Watkins Glen has much faster straights, much faster corners and much harder on the braking zones. It’s a very fast racetrack for a road course. At Sonoma, it’s more of what a road course guy would call a point-and-shoot race track where you have very tight corners, slower apexes and not many braking zones. You just get in there, point the car and shoot it out of there.

“Here at Watkins Glen, much more momentum based where you’ve got to roll the corner with speed. Turn one dictates how fast you get all the way to the bus stop with carrying that momentum through the esses. Here each corner is more important than it is at Sonoma just because momentum really carries all the way around this racetrack.”

CHIP GANASSI – “First of all, thanks to everybody for coming this morning in such weather conditions. I want to talk to you a little bit about how proud I am to be here this morning. Last fall, our company got together with the William Wrigley, Jr. Company and we mapped out a strategy on how to get involved in motorsports; how to get involved in this great sport that we all love.

“After a bit of a bumpy start with our team on the Cup side and the Busch side, we got to Mexico City and everybody knows what happened in Mexico City. So it was kind of an inauspicious start for the Juicy Fruit brand and the Wrigley Company. They’ve been an associate on the #42 Cup car all year and they have a win down in St. Louis with Reed Sorenson driving.

“It’s just a great opportunity to present both of these two drivers who are probably the two best road racers in the series right now. To have them with the same company, different branding Juicy Fruit and Big Red, it’s just an honor to have both drivers involved with such a great company. We all grew up with the Wrigley name, the Juicy Fruit name, the Big Red name and their other great brands.

“I think both drivers have a chance to win the (Busch) race.”

TALK ABOUT ENDING THE MONTOYA BUSCH SCHEDULE - “What we’ve done is we’ve been transitioning to the car of tomorrow and just jumping back and forth between different cars and different mind sets and setups. We’ve been to all the tracks now and we know what we need to do with the Cup program. So maybe the Busch, in terms of the remaining races with the #42 Busch programs, were not so paramount to the his success, if you dare say he needs a learning curve.”

SCOTT PRUETT – ANOMOSITY LEFT OVER FROM MEXICO? “It’s all good. I think that a lot was made of the deal making it bigger than it was. It was frustrating at the time. I mean things happen in racing. To me that is old history, it doesn’t even make sense. “

GANASSI – “On Monday it was over. Let me say, on Monday at 5 o’clock it was over.”

SCOTT PRUETT – WHAT MAKES JUAN PABLO MONTOYA SO GOOD ON THE ROAD COURSES? – “I think it’s just car feel, its braking, shifting, it’s understanding traffic and how to work traffic. Car feel is a big part of it. The challenge for any road course driver, especially the NASCAR guys, on a road course is the fact we’ve been fortunate to do this a lot. So instead of not downshifting at all, braking for two turns at most of the tracks, we have 11 turns here and you’re breaking and down shifting lap after lap after lap.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA – DO YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN? – “This is my last Busch race and I think this Busch race is going to really help me out with the Cup race. It’s going to give me more track time. Is it possible? Yea. Do we have a chance to win? I would say yes. The problem in NASCAR when you have a chance to win there are at least five other guys who can do that as well. I just see it as an opportunity to win a race. You just have to have a smooth race, have good pit stops and everything go your way and then you can win. We definitely think we can have a good result here. We tested at VIR (Virginia Int’l Raceway) and we actually picked up a bit of lap time compared with Sonoma, so our car is probably going to be quicker, so that should be pretty exciting.”

SCOTT PRUETT – HOW DO THESE CARS COMPARE TO OTHER TYPES OF CARS AT THIS TRACK? – “Coming off Montreal last week, where the Juicy Fruit Dodge ran great, the car was sweet all race long except at the end; between the issue at the end and running out of fuel, we would have had a great finish there. That has been by far the most difficult track for NASCAR that I have been on, more so than even Sonoma. Of all the courses we’ve been to, I think this is probably going to be, generally speaking, one of the easiest tracks to learn, one of the easiest tracks to adapt to; and that’s why we continually see a lot of people doing well here. You don’t just see the road course guys run good here; you see a number of the regulars run good here whether it’s on the Busch or the Cup side.

“There is virtually one left hand turn and all the rest are rights. It’s more set up like an oval. There is a lot of speed through the turns. You just not as demanding on the car set up. If you don’t get it right at (Sonoma) your car is not very good and it’s easy not to be right. Juan ran great (Sonoma). And, it’s very difficult to get the right balance and right setup with the car. Here, I guess it just has more of a sweet spot is the best way to put it.”

JUAN PABLO – “I ran here in ‘94 with Barber Saab, but it was the big track. But, it’s about the same. I’ve seen a couple of videos and stuff. The only real way you can go and do it is to just run a little bit. If you can run behind somebody they don’t have to be great. Just follow somebody for the first few laps and that can give you an idea of where to go and what to use and what not to use. Scott can give me a hand there. Being realistic, it’s just corners. In Formula One you go to many racetracks you’ve never seen before and you just go out there and drive it and within four or five laps you are up to speed.”

JUAN PABLO – LOOKING AHEAD TO MICHIGAN WHAT ELEMENTS TRANSLATE FROM THE SPRING TO THE FALL? “Hopefully nothing because we sucked the last time I was there. It’s funny, we took the same car to Indy and Pocono and we ran really bad there. We just delete everything we did there and just go with a different approach. We’ve already talked about it so it should be interesting.”

ON THIS WEEKEND – “This is an exciting race for us. It’s the first time I am going to be driving both series with the Big Red car so it’s going to be pretty cool. We’re just looking for the whole weekend.”

SCOTT PRUETT – “The one thing that has been exciting working with Chip is the fact everything is approached as a team. It’s wide open, all the setups, all the data. The whole idea is how to get all our cars to the front and then we can settle it as drivers. As far as whether you have the Busch car, the Cup car or the Car of Tomorrow, whatever we can do to help each other, we are a team effort.”

CHIP GANASSI – KYLE BUSCH? “We look forward to the Busch race, the Cup race and then going on to Michigan.”

JUAN PABLO – IS PATRICK CARPENTIER A THREAT? “I think what Patrick did last week, he did a very good job. He was very quick. I think he had a good advantage. He knew the racetrack very well. I think here he should still do a really good job, but it should be a more level field for everybody.

“I think it’s always exciting when the hometown guy can run good. He ran great at Montreal. But, that’s going to be different when you get to Cup. Busch is easier than Cup. Cup is a lot more difficult, it’s a lot closer, he’s going to run good but as Juan says the playing field is going to be more even for him. The reality of it is Cup is just a lot tougher than the Busch side. The depth of the field, the quality of the drivers, the commitment that the teams have to developing and testing to make the cars the best they can is just that next step higher.”

RAY EVERNHAM, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GILLETT EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS

WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT ON MONDAY? “It’s something we’ve been working on for quite some time with the Gillett family. We’ve been really, really close and worked through the weekend and got it done on Monday. It will allow us to go forward and continue to grow the company in a way that we want to. A partnership with Gillett brings a lot of things for Evernham Motorsports in terms of A) it will allow me to concentrate a little bit more on the competition side but it also allows us to be in touch with other professional sports and sports marketing programs and some entertainment and recreational things across the country, across the world that we would never had access to.”

IS IT HARD TO LET GO OF SOME OF THE OWNERSHIP? “You always have mixed emotions when you build something from the ground up. But you also have to look to what you want to accomplish. As the sport changes, the job gets bigger. I was saying to somebody the other day that all of a sudden you’re the world champion plate spinner and it goes from spinning 10 plates to spinning 20 plates. Sometimes you’ve got to have a little bit of help. My goal is to win the championship. The direction the sport has grown, there’s no way I was going to be able to accomplish that on my own. You’ll see in the future that there are very few teams that are owned by a single person. It was a perfect opportunity because George does the things that I need someone else to do. He can open doors for the company that I just couldn’t open. It will allow me to focus on the competition side, which he doesn’t do.”

WHAT DOES KYLE BUSCH’S DECISION DO TO YOUR PLANS? “We’re still business as usual. Again, there’s no sense in adding a fourth car until you know you can perform well with it. We’re going to focus on making the three that we have perform. I hate that we didn’t get Kyle, but our performance isn’t where it needs to be so I certainly understand why we didn’t get a driver but maybe made a new friend. I’ve also got a lot of respect for Kyle and learned a lot about him that I hope a lot of other people will learn that he’s really a good kid and very mature and professional for 22 years old.”

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE NO. 10 NOW? “It’s all about points. We’ve got to get it back up in points. We appreciate Scott being willing to step aside to maybe having a shot at Patrick maybe finishing a little bit better on the road course than Scott. We’ll have Scott certainly right back in there next weekend at Michigan. Our goal is to get that thing in the top 35 in points. We’ve got to keep building it stronger and stronger. Right now it was the best thing for all of us to do, looking at Scott’s history of qualifying and finishing here, was to put a road racer in there. Patrick did a great job Saturday in Montreal. With George’s Montreal connection it was kind of a no-brainer.”

ARE YOU A HOCKEY FAN, AS WELL? “It’s not that I’m not a hockey fan but I don’t really follow a lot of professional sports. All I ever really followed is racing. I’m starting to learn a little bit about hockey. I’ve been to the Bell Centre now and been to a Canadiens game. The one thing you do learn is that hockey players are much bigger and in much better shape than you think they are.”

WILL YOU MAKE ALL OF THE RACING DECISIONS? “We’re still trying to work through those things. Right now, nothing’s changed. I’m pretty much the CEO of the company and I’m still making a lot of the business decisions. I’m hoping to come up with a system that we decide what George is going to support. I’m always going to have a pretty big vote in whatever happens, whether it’s business or competition. But, I really want to hand off some of the day-to-day business stuff to other people. It’s going to be a transition because I’ve done it all for so long. There’s going to be some good support there but I’ve still got to bring them up to speed. I’m going to focus as much time as I can on building our new cars and making sure our engines are going in the right direction with this new Dodge R-6 engine and the COT program is on track. It’s certainly not going to cut down on any of the time that I’m spending but eventually it will be bigger as I get some new people trained.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT KASEY RUNNING IN KNOXVILLE? “I don’t always feel super about him being in a sprint car but he’s a racer. We’ve not had a great year and if it helps his attitude and helps him do some things, it’s just not fair to keep a guy from doing what he wants. I know you have responsibility to sponsors and know that you have responsibilities but he’s a racer. Those are the things that got him here. This year we haven’t given him a lot to cheer about so hopefully that made him happy and he didn’t hurt himself.”

YOU STILL NEED TO SIGN SCOTT RIGGS’ CONTRACT? “Scott and I are still talking. We’ve got some options and we’ve not closed anything yet. I want Scott to be a part of our program next year. We’ve got to bring up overall performance as a big part that’s on my shoulders. He can help us do that. As the thing grows, I want Scott to be part of it.”

ARE YOU ANY CLOSER TO ANNOUNCING SPONSORS? “Not closer. It’s like the Gillett deal, there are just so many things. Obviously we’re talking to some people. We’d like things to happen. There are a lot of things that have to fall into line perfectly for something to happen. Without trying to dance around like I was on the George deal, when it’s the hands and going back and forth you never know if there’s an insurmountable hurdle or not. Right now it still looks like we’re shooting for the next two or three weeks to be able to talk about where we’re headed with sponsorship. But you don’t know if that could turn into five or six weeks with one swipe of the pen.”

IS THAT ON THEIR END OR YOUR END? “I think on both ends. It has to work out perfectly – it has to be a good deal for everybody on both ends.”

IS THIS YEAR A SETBACK AFTER WINNING SIX RACES LAST YEAR? “It’s been hard, there’s no doubt. I think it’s been the hardest competitive year of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a race team in 30 years that’s run this bad, ever. That’s something that you grow into. I accept the responsibility for it. It’s on my shoulders to change it. But it’s been very difficult not only on me but everybody here. You’ve just got to keep knowing that you’re going to get it turned around. As somebody that’s competitive and feels responsibility to the people who put money in this program and the drivers that believe in it, it’s been a tough year. All you can do is look for. It’s tough business, and like Elliott Sadler says ‘There’s just days you’ve got to get up in the morning and put your big boy britches on and go to work’.”

WHO MIGHT BE A FAVORITE GOING INTO THE CHASE? “That Chase really throws a good thing into the mix. If you look historically, there’s people who have really turned it on at the end of the year and other guys in the middle of the year. Jeff seems to be on his game and when Jeff’s on his game he’s tough to beat. Tony’s strong and who knows. I have to tell you that I haven’t really looked that much at the people up there because we’ve been looking so hard at our own problems. If my guys can’t win it, then I’d love to see Jeff win his fifth.”

WHEN YOU WERE IN IT LAST YEAR, DID YOU SAVE SOME STUFF FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP RUN? “Normally we would bring out some new motor combinations and things like that. We felt like largely it was some bad luck that kept Kasey out of a better finishing position last year. I don’t think we were strong enough to win it but we surely could have finished in the top five. But we wrecked at a couple of places and blew an engine, things like that. Last year the things that hurt us hurt us all year. Crashes and blown engines. This year it’s just been non-performance. We’re still crashing, we’re just crashing a lot slower.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE FORMAT OF THE CHASE? “It’s no different than the way it used to be with people winning the championship without winning a race. You know what the points system is going in and you know what the rules are going in and that’s just the way it is now, the same as it was under the other points system. You just live with it. There was some value to the old points system and there’s some value to the new points system. I think the new points system in the Chase does add excitement at the end of the year. Everybody knows that TV ratings have to be up because that’s what drives the real estate up on these cars. If the real estate is not up on these cars, then we can’t afford to do it anyway.”

DID YOU TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM LAST YEAR’S CHASE? “That seems like so long ago. We thought we had learned enough. We thought we were going into this year better than we were last year. We tested harder, we worked on the proper things, we thought we had been prepared. This year we’re not even close to making the Chase, we’re just trying to get back up to able to run consistently in the top 10 and the top five.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TANK ON YOUR PROPERTY? “That’s not done yet. They’re still trying to figure out ecologically what to do. I’d be lying if I told you. I imagine I’m going to get a bill for it, but I don’t know what they’re doing with it. I think they just signed a deal that we’re fixing it but I don’t know what we’re doing.”

HOW IS YOUR ORGANIZATION COMING ALONG WITH THE CAR OF TOMORROW? “I think it will even things out. I think it will eventually stop us from spending more money. I think we started out good with it but got spread a little bit thin. I think we’ve got a good plan right now to go get us competitive going forward. Right now, you hate to go ‘This year’s kind of shot’ but we’re going to be rebuilding and moving a lot of people around this year. We’re building a bunch of new COTs and a bunch of new engines and we’re going to take a different path than we’ve been on. The one good thing about the COT is that once your figure one out you can build them all the same.”

ARE THE MERGERS CAUSING OLDER DRIVERS TO BE PUSHED ASIDE IN FAVOR OF THE YOUNGER GUYS? “I don’t think that’s got anything to do with the mergers, I think that’s just the way it’s going. I’ve said for years that this sport, the bigger it gets, the more money that comes into it, you’re going to see the driver age coming down. It’s going to get more and more like Formula One. There’s not going to be guys here anymore at 45 or 46 years of age that are here just because they can make the races. As the cars become more technical and they get more alike, you don’t need that information base of being able to go around a racetrack for the past 20 years. You’re going to see that average age coming down. You’re going to see the average age of drivers, crew chiefs, crew members coming down because you’re not going to stay in this sport for 20 years racing 38 or 40 weekends a year. It just can’t happen.”

HOW MUCH DOES IT HURT A DRIVER LIKE JEFF GORDON TO HAVE HIS CREW CHIEF ABSENT? “It doesn’t look like it’s bothering him a lot. That’s one good thing about Jeff, he can carry the deal on his own. The Hendrick organization has a ton of depth, but when you’ve got a driver that’s as good as Jeff he can guide a young crew chief to make the right decisions. That’s invaluable to a guy. It always was to me. There are some really good drivers in the garage area, but not a lot of them can really help you get that car set up and Jeff Gordon was always one of the best at that. There are some others that I certainly haven’t worked with. I’m sure that Tony is, and there some good guys like Kurt and Kyle Busch, guys that can really help you get the car set up right. I think Jeff can really help a young crew chief.”