ELLIOTT SADLER (No. 19 Best Buy Dodge Charger)

ON GETTING OUT TO PRACTICE TODAY: “I don’t know if we are or not. I told them not to rush to get to practice. I’ve got one of the best cars that I’ve ever had in my life here at Daytona and I want to make sure that we get it right and get everything back straight before we go to practice. If we don’t make it out today it’s not a big deal. It’s a shame what we went through yesterday with the right front tire problems as fast as that car was. We didn’t need any help at all to make our way to the front, so I feel like we’ve got a legitimate shot to win the Daytona 500. It’s probably one of the best chances that I’ve ever had and I’ve got some pretty good finishes here in the Daytona 500, so I’m looking forward to Sunday. We know it’s going to be tough. We’re going to have to do a lot teamwork to race with Hendrick and Gibbs – those guys raced good in the Shootout and in the Duels so hopefully we can get in there and do a good job.”

ARE YOU CONFIDENT WITH THE RIGHT FRONT TIRES CAN MAKE IT A FULL FUEL RUN BY SUNDAY? “Yeah, the more rubber we lay on the track with the truck and the Nationwide cars will help us as far as the tire wear is concerned. Kasey Kahne learned some things, my teammate, yesterday in the Duels to help us for Sunday with tire pressures and things like that. We think we’re going to have the problem handled. We are just going to make sure that the bolts and nuts are back tight. We’ll make a good fuel run on this engine, get a good plug check and that’s it. I don’t think we need any adjustments for Sunday.”

THIS CAR WAS SO GOOD THAT YOU DIDN’T WANT TO PULL OUT THE BACKUP CAR? “Yeah, I mean this car was so good that we didn’t even practice the second practice on Wednesday it was so good. We made us a 15 lap run on Wednesday morning and I told them I can’t think of one thing to change on this thing to make it better. I’m very proud of my guys. We had a great test down here. They have brought me a car good enough to win the Daytona 500 and as a driver that is all I can ask for. We’re going to go take this Best Buy Dodge and go out there and try to be competitive on Sunday and give ourselves a great shot to be in contention to win this thing. That’s all we can ask for.”

REACTION TO THE PROBATION PENALTIES GIVEN TO TONY STEWART AND KURT BUSCH: “I really don’t know what probation is. I think that is a little bit more lenient than what they would have been in the past, so maybe they are sticking to their guns by letting drivers be more their own personalities. I think it’s great for our sport. I think NASCAR could not have written a better intro into the Daytona 500 – people wrecking in practice, people fighting and hitting each other on pit road and stuff like that and Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. winning the first race of the season. I think they’ve had a great start to Speedweeks. I don’t think you can penalize those guys for that. You have two great race car drivers going for the same piece of real estate. Let them be their two personalities. I think it’s going to make better racing for everybody.”

MIKE ACCAVITTI (Director - Dodge Motorsports and SRT Marketing, Chrysler Group, LLC)

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NEW SEASON? “We are very excited for the ’08 season at Dodge. We had an off-year last year. That should be no surprise to anyone in this room. We’ve explained to you in earlier sessions why that happened. We lost focus on what we were doing on track due to a variety of reasons, however those things are behind us and we feel like our cars are performing very well based on the results of the (Gatorade) Duels yesterday. Duel number one we did very, very well with five in the top nine and Kasey (Kahne) coming in fourth in the second one. We’re looking forward to a great start to the ’08 season and a great season.

DOES THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT FEEL THEY ARE GETTING THEIR BANG FOR THEIR BUCK USING NASCAR AS A PLATFORM? “I agree with all of these guys to an extent. I am a marketing guy, so I can answer directly. Yes, of course I would like more identity like Dan (Davis) said, but understanding the competition and what the design is all about I’m fine with that. Our challenge is how we make the most with our car and we feel that we’ve done that with the decal package that we have on the front clip. It looks like a production Charger that people can buy. It’s well identified as a Charger. Anything or anytime we can get a Dodge Charger associated with fun and performance driving then that is the kind of message that we want to get out there. We are always looking for more like any good marketing guy, but satisfied with the direction that we’re headed right now.”

WHICH MODEL CAR DO YOU HAVE FOR THE NATIONWIDE SERIES IN 2009? ARE YOU GOING TO BE READY TO ROLL IT OUT FULL-TIME IN 2009? “I agree with Pat (Suhy). What we did learn from last year, and it was really our Achilles’ heel was trying to do too much change at one time, and burdening the (Nationwide) teams with less resources than the Cup teams with that challenge is something that NASCAR may want to consider. So, we’ll work with NASCAR on when and how it’s implemented and we’re not quite ready to announce our name either, but we have great new performance vehicles coming out that you could see driving around the track on a Saturday afternoon, so stay tuned on that.”

WHAT IS THE TOUGHEST PART OF YOUR JOB FROM YEAR TO YEAR? “I echo Pat’s (Suhy) sentiments. I have a phenomenal job. I explain to people what I do for a living and I don’t get any sympathy because I had to work on Sunday I’ll tell you that. The issues that we have dealing with teams, we’re dealing with independent teams; we’re dealing with competitors – that’s the challenge. I mean we work together and we all want to carry the Dodge banner, but at the end of the day, at the end of the race it’s every man for himself by their very nature. That’s where it becomes a challenge for us on how do we make that happen. From a marketing perspective our challenge is how do we come up with fresh ideas that all of these other guys and colleagues haven’t already come up with to try to draw people into the show room, to try to draw people into our products at the track. That’s something that we work on - the effectiveness or the ROI of whole racing thing. We’re getting a lot more scientific on that, but that is something that we’ve really been working on the last couple of years. It used to be win on Sunday, sell on Monday. How can we prove that now that what we’re doing here at the race track is actually helping us sell cars. It’s helping to build that image of the Dodge brand. There’s no question about that. We can measure that, but how does that translate into sales. We’re finding some interesting ways in that as well.”

ON RUNNING MUSCLE CARS IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES? “I am fortunately empowered to make that recommendation myself. I can see exactly your point when you are launching a new muscle car and speaking to two audiences with these muscle cars. The guys my age who may have had one when they were a kid or at least saw older guys or friends of theirs driving them, and you are speaking to a whole new generation of folks that want speed and performance and they might now know what a Camaro or a Challenger is but when they see one they are going to want one. When they see one on the track they are going to see that they’re about performance and fun, and having fun when you’re driving.”