HORNISH JR.: WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE ALL-STAR RACE? “Hopefully I won’t spin the tires on the second to last restart and lose about five spots like I did in the Showdown. That could have been pretty detrimental to us. We could have had somebody get into the back of us and put us around. Never want to do that but just real happy with the way that the Mobil 1 Dodge ran. The guys have worked real hard to put us together a car that’s equal to what hopefully we’re going to be running next weekend. It makes us feel pretty good about both weekends.” YOU MIGHT HAVE AN EDGE WHEN THE ALL-STAR RACE STARTS. “Well we’ve got a little bit of an idea what the track does and yesterday in practice we felt like we were really good. We felt like we had a car that was capable of running in the top-10 in the all-star race so hopefully we’ll just stay out of trouble. It gets a little bit wilder now in this one. This is for the big bucks so hopefully we’ll just stay out of trouble and not get collected in anybody else’s problem, make it to the end and hopefully be able to run for a top-10 finish. I’d be happy with that.” AND YOU DIDN’T STOP TO CHANGE TIRES. “We didn’t pit and we didn’t think that we were going to. We knew that if we were in the top-five that when it came to that break we weren’t going to stop. We figured it would be harder to come back through the field than it would be to have what we’d have by having good tires.” HOW BIG OF CHALLENGE IS IT TO GET A CLEAN RESTART? “I don’t know. I just think that the restart was really slow and then as soon as I touched the gas it lit up the rear tires.” DO YOU LIKE BEING AN UNDERDOG IN THE ALL-STAR RACE? “I feel like an underdog every time we go out there so it doesn’t really make too much of a difference. I’m just super-excited that we get to run in the all-star race. We put together a lot of work to be able to come down here and to run in this. It’s a weekend and when you already have so few off, you want to make sure that you make it a big event.” COMMENT ON RACING AJ ALLMENDINGER IN THE CLOSING LAPS. “The biggest thing that was really keeping me back a little bit was the fact that we have a car that was out backup car for next weekend and you never know what might happen and you might need it and we feel that we’ve got two very good cars. And we don’t want to have to go to something that’s less than what we have. We’re probably going to be a little bit more careful than some of the other guys are probably going to be out there in the all-star race. I really wanted to win and I’m happy for AJ that he won. He’s been doing this another year longer than I have and had to make the transition the same way and do all the learning process. When we got there I wanted to pass him real bad. I felt like we had another lap or two for me to try it I could get the job done or if it was for the million dollars I probably would have done it a little bit differently. I’m just really happy that the Mobil 1 Dodge made it into the all-star race and now we’ll hopefully go out there and get some good practice for next weekend but also hopefully run well.”

HORNISH JR. PRESS CONFERENCE

“I’m super-excited about it. I felt like we had a really good chance yesterday. We had a good car in practice and felt like we could probably beat some guys over the long run. We didn’t have a particularly great qualifying car. We just tried to do the smart thing, made sure that we made it to the end of the race. I don’t know if it pays anything to win the Showdown but I didn’t want to take the chance that we didn’t make it in the all-star race. It sure does mean a lot to me to have the Mobil 1 Dodge in that race and to be a Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate and to make it into the all-star race is pretty cool as well.” WERE YOU TRYING TO PASS AJ? “I was trying to get there, for sure. I didn’t know if we would have a good chance to actually get around him or not. Actually the last two laps I could have tried him in the inside of three but I just figured if I could get the pass done easily and not take a chance at wrecking the car that’ll be great because this is probably going to be our backup car for next weekend. And while we want to do really well here, we want to make sure we do well next weekend as well.” YOUR CAR IS DOG TRACKING DOWN THE STRAIGHTAWAYS. DO YOU HAVE ANY SENSATION OF IT DRIVING DIFFERENTLY DOWN THE STRAIGHT AND WHERE EXACTLY IN THE CORNER DOES THAT HELP YOU? “It’s one of those things where it kind of helps all the way around and if you look at every car out there is dog tracking to a little bit of a degree. We just maybe push the envelope a little bit further than some of the other people have. It’s something that we saw other people doing earlier on in the year and decided that we wanted to try it out. Actually there’s been people running it all year. It’s not really a weird sensation because you’re in the car and you’re kind of looking forward but about the toughest thing about driving that car the way it is is getting it in and out of the garage stall because you’ve only got a concrete box to go in through so wide and backing it in and out is hard.” HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SO HAPPY TO FINISH SECOND IN ANY RACE? “I can’t think of any time, especially this year. It just feels really good. I was asked on the way over here 'Is this the most fun you’ve had all year?' and I had a really good time at Daytona. That was probably my favorite race of the year so far. I’m super-excited about finishing second right now and being able to transfer in and I think we’ve got a really good car. If we can avoid the wrecks out there and make sure we can make it to the end I think that we’re going to have a shot at running in the top-10, hopefully a little bit better than that.”