JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Darlington Raceway and talked about the new surface, his team’s improvement in performance, personalities on the race track and much more.

HIS THOUGHTS LEADING INTO TOMORROW NIGHT’S RACE. “Well it’s really interesting. It reminds of when they repaved Charlotte or when they redid Texas, some of the real fast race tracks. It’s pretty interesting. If you watch lap times, people every time they go out they seem to go faster which indicates that tires don’t make a whole lot of grip when they’re new but they make more grip when they get air pressure built up and they’re scuffed. It’s not 100 percent deceiving looking at the time chart, but it’s a little bit deceiving because if you can run real fast that doesn’t necessarily mean you can run fast for a long time. Any time you have these kinds of speeds that we have here today and what we’re gonna have tomorrow night, the only way you can go that fast is have the car tight. You can’t run that fast loose and of course it’s only gonna get tighter and tighter and tighter. I think the key to the race is going to be how loose can you start and reasonably keep up and then hopefully the car will swing and be good on long runs because I see a lot of people, including ourselves, that are having trouble after five or six laps getting their car to turn and that’s just because of the accelerated speeds. I think it’s going to be a really interesting race. It’s gonna be a lot like Darlington but a lot unlike Darlington. We saw last night in the Nationwide practice, I don’t know it must have been seven or eight cars that wrecked. It’s still Darlington. It’s still Darlington, if you make a mistake you’re gonna pay a big price. There’s less just Darlington stripes though. It seems like when you hit something now you hit it quite a bit harder because you’re going so much faster so it’s a lot like Darlington in the sense that you don’t have room to make a mistake but it’s a lot different than Darlington too because the grip level is so high.”

TALKING ABOUT JAKE ELDER. “Jake was just a touch before my time. As I was coming in, Jake was starting to not be around as much so I never really got a chance to spend a lot of time with Jake. But he’s one of the people that someone in our sport needs to write a book about. I know somebody in here is thinking about that. There’s so many great Jake stories that he is indeed a legend in our sport. I never had a chance to work with him. Never had a chance to spend much time with him. But the stories that follow Jake Elder are really interesting so I certainly hope he himself can improve because he is truly one of our legends.”

IT SEEMS THE NO. 99 HAS FOUND AN UNREGULATED AREA IN REFERENCE TO THEIR REAR TIRES AND IF THAT IS SOMETHING THAT OTHER TEAMS ARE LOOKING AT. “It’s pretty obvious what they’ve been doing and they deserve a lot of credit. That’s not the only reason they’re running well. They’ve done a lot of things really well and Carl is driving it well, Bob’s (Osborne, crew chief) got a good set up, the engineering program is working really well. There’s more than just that why they’re running well. They certainly have pushed that to the extreme in comparison to what most teams have done. It was blatantly obvious what they were doing even early, early, early in the year. Again, I think that is something they’ve done that’s helped their team. We’ve seen a rash of people trying to imitate and copy them and not yielding the same results. There’s more to the picture than just that. That’s my opinion.”

IN REFERENCE TO CLINT BOWYER’S WIN LAST WEEK, IS THERE A DOUBT IN YOUR MIND THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY GET THAT SECOND WIN? “Well I’ve won 20 and there is a doubt in my mind whether I can do it again. I mean that’s just how this sport is. Obviously being a multi-time winner means a lot more than being a one-time winner. Clint appreciates a great deal the fact that he’s been able to win twice on this level and I think he appreciates how hard it is to do it. I don’t think that Clint left Richmond thinking everything is perfect now we’ll go win 50 more. I think Clint has a real good understanding of how things work and it’s very hard to win races and to be at the right place at the right time and all those things add up. The whole company felt great about Clint Bowyer winning and the 07 team winning but we’re all smart enough to know there’s a lot of challenges ahead. But certainly that second win is pretty special.”

TALK ABOUT THE SUPERMAN FACTOR, THE INVINCIBILITY FACTOR, AS YOU PUT IT BACK WHEN YOU WERE HERE FOR THE RE-PAVING PROCESS, WHEN IT COMES TO THE NEW SURFACE THAT SOME DRIVERS MAY HAVE TOMORROW NIGHT? “The speeds are up so high you’re gonna be pushing pretty hard to make lap time, you’re gonna be driving harder than you typically drive at Darlington. You know Darlington’s always been a race track that you have to run right on the edge. To run fast, you have to be on the edge. The cost of being on the edge and crossing that edge is greater now because the speeds are up. So we’re gonna see a typical Darlington race in which people overstep the bounds, but I think we’ll see it more. I think that when you have a low-grip race track people respect it more than when you have a high-grip race track. If you really think about it, when we come to Darlington we have a lot of long runs. We have a lot of runs that go to fuel stops and those kind of things because people respect it so much. I’d be willing to guess that people have lost a little bit of respect for it at this point because the grip level is so high. But it won’t be long that we’ll gain it back because again I think the consequence and the cost of hitting the wall is gonna be higher than it used to be.”

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR NASCAR SAID THEY WANT MORE PERSONALITIES BACK, DO YOU NEED PEOPLE LIKE KYLE BUSCH WHO REALLY DON’T SEEM TO WANT TO SAY THE RIGHT THING AFTER THEY GET INVOLVED WITH SOMEBODY? “We’ve always had it. There’s not a time in this sport that I’m aware of that we haven’t had the people that were willing to push the buttons, willing to lay it all out there and not worry about the consequences. It’s Kyle’s turn (laughing) but he won’t be one of the first and he won’t be the last. Our sport has been full of it and full of them for a long time and that isn’t going away. In some ways last week, as seen by me, it was hard racing. Kyle made a mistake and I think Kyle would admit that he made a mistake and obviously it took out the most popular driver in the sport so it’s been big news. But it wasn’t the first time that’s happened and it certainly won’t be the last. And to be quite honest, in Kyle’s defense, when you wreck Dale Earnhardt, Jr. what are you going to say that makes anybody feel okay about it anyway. What can you do? You can’t do anything. 70 percent of the crowd is going to hate you no matter what you say. If you’re Mark Martin you can probably get by with it. If you’re Kyle Busch you’re given less latitude because he’s shown he’s very aggressive and people immediately say he did it on purpose because he has been aggressive and he has pushed it to the limit. So in a lot of ways Kyle is better off just saying nothing. Because whatever he says is going to be wrong anyway.”

ON WHETHER HIS TEAM IS WORRIED ABOUT NOT LEADING MANY LAPS IN RACES. “Yeah we worry about that. We have never stood up in front of our fans or the media or ourselves more importantly and said that we’re going as fast as we need to be going. We’ve been very open about the fact that we need to find some speed. We’re doing a good job. It’s not like we’re not fast enough to put ourselves in position in races, but there are other teams that have been able to lead more laps. The 99 team, the Gibbs cars, you know those teams have been able to lead more laps and put themselves into position to win more often. We’re not in denial about that and I won’t sit here today and tell you that’s not an issue for us. It is the issue for us. It’s the issue that we feel like we need to be better in. We think we’re doing a lot of things really well but there’s areas – I talk every week about us needing to improve and that’s the area right now that we need the most improvement.”

ON GETTING THE BEST FINISH POSSIBLE OUT OF A 20TH PLACE CAR “Well I think that we deserve a lot of credit in getting a lot out of average days. When we do it, it’s been viewed as they’ve been lucky and they’ve been in the right place at the right time. It’s very similar to what the 48 team has done over the last two or three years. How many races have they been running 20th and found a way to finish fifth, which by the way that’s a sign of a great race team. You’re not always going to be your best and when you’re not your best what do you make out of it. We haven’t been what I believe to be our best yet. I believe that our best is yet to come. But in times when we haven’t been our best, we have still managed to do a really nice job.”

ON HIS TEAM’S IMPROVEMENT OF PERFORMANCE OVER THE PAST FEW SEASONS. “There is no question that we’re better than we were three years ago. We couldn’t put ourselves in position to do the things we need to do three years ago, we just couldn’t do it. Over the last two years and up to the point this year, we’ve had enough speed to put ourselves in position to have good finishes and contend for the championship. We made a big step in ’06 and in ’07 I thought we kind of stayed level and I think we’ve taken a step this year. I think we’ve taken a positive step this year. I know it doesn’t show in laps led, but there are a lot of areas that we won’t talk about publicly. There are a lot of areas that we as a team feel that we’re way stronger in. Those are backed up by evidence, so we’re a much stronger team today at this point than we were last year at this point. I don’t know what our laps lead and all looked like last year, but I know we’re a better team and I think that We’ll shine as the year goes on, I really do.”

WHEN DENNY (HAMLIN) HAD CAUSED THAT LATE-RACE CAUTION IN RICHMOND, AFTER THE RACE SOMEBODY ASKED HIM ABOUT IT AND HE SAID SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT THAT IT DIDN’T REALLY MATTER BECAUSE I WAS GONNA HAVE A TERRIBLE FINISH ANYWAY. DON’T THINGS LIKE THAT ADVERSELY AFFECT EVERYONE ELSE WHO IS STILL COMPETING ON THE TRACK AND HAD HE NOT DONE THAT WE MIGHT NOT BE TALKING ABOUT KYLE BUSH AND DALE (EARNHARDT) JUNIOR BEING INVOLVED IN A LATE-RACE WRECK? “Well anything that you do has a consequence and there’s no question about that. Every move that you make on the race track affects other people because there’s other people on the race track. What Denny’s comment is, what he’s saying is we all do it. We’re not concerned about the efforts of the other teams, we’re only concerned about our efforts. Denny didn’t set out to do something that was going to be detrimental to someone else, he set out to do something that was going to take a real negative situation and try to help it the best he could. There’s no doubt that a race is no different than everyday life, what you do affects other people. What he did at the end of the race last week certainly affected other people. He didn’t set out to affect other people, he set out to affect himself and the effort of his team. That’s what he’s supposed to do. What he did obviously wasn’t ultimately right and I’m sure he would say that but what he was doing was what he believed to be in his team’s best interest, not would be detrimental to someone else.”

WHAT WOULD YOU THINK ABOUT A NATIONWIDE SERIES ALL-STAR RACE – NO CUP GUYS. WOULD IT BE INTRIGUING? HOW WOULD YOU THINK IT WOULD WORK OUT? “Don’t see how you could have an all-star Nationwide race without any cup drivers in there. Like it or not, the Nationwide Series part of its identity is the cup drivers. We can have the romantic notion all we want that would the series be better if it didn’t have any cup drivers in it but the harsh reality of it is that’s not true. The series is better because of the cup drivers in it. I’m not saying there’s not negatives to it too, there’s no question that there’s negatives to it, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. To have an All-Star Nationwide race without a lot of the all-stars in it, it wouldn’t be an all-star race. It just wouldn’t be.”

HOW WOULD YOU THINK IT WOULD TURN OUT WITH THE CUP GUYS? “I think an all-star race in the Nationwide series would be exciting. I think it would be something that people would like to see. I do think there’s something special in having the all-star race just for the highest level. I think there’s something to be said about that too. I haven’t put any thought to it, but I think it’s real special to have an all-star race for our top series but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be wrong for another series as well.”

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 07 JACK DANIEL’S IMPALA SS, met with member of the media at Darlington Raceway and discussed team momentum from Richmond win, new surface at Darlington, improvements at RCR and other subjects.

DOES YOUR WIN AT RICHMOND LAST WEEKEND GIVE YOU GOOD MOMENTUM COMING IN TO DARLINGTON? “It does. What a weekend, it was pretty wild. Kind of a gift. But, Darlington, you can’t say enough about the job they did repaving the race track. It has a lot of grip. It is kind of back to, every time they repave one of these tracks, it is that way for a while. It either is you have got a lot of grip, or you don’t have grip. With our Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet, we are down on grip right now; we are searching a little bit. We were a little down on speed. I am anxious to get back in the car this afternoon to see what we have got.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT GETTING YOUR SECOND SPRINT CUP SERIES WIN AND HOW IMPORTANT THAT IS? “Absolutely, it gives so much confidence and so much momentum to the team. It propelled us to fourth in points which is very important right now at this point in the season. It is all about being in that Chase at the end of the year. You can’t win a championship without being in it. We have just got to make sure we are consistent week in and week out. We have done a pretty good job of that thus far, but the year isn’t over with. That deadline to the next time at Richmond is a long ways away yet. Just trying to keep the ball rolling. Darlington is one of those places where things can happen here. This is an important race for us and we have to get out of here with a good finish.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS THAT MORE ATTENTION HAS BEEN PAID TO OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED AT RICHMOND RATHER THAN YOUR WIN? “I know where the trophy went and I know where the money went. That is all I care about. (LAUGHS) You guys can write whatever you want!” (MORE LAUGHTER)

WHAT WAS DIFFERENCE IN THE OFF SEASON AT RCR THAT HAS PUT ALL THREE TEAMS IN THE TOP OF THE FIELD? “I think it was more of the same thing that got all three of us in the Chase last year. We keep fine tuning what had. We came a long ways from two years ago. They were getting their butts whooped pretty bad on a regular basis, Richard (Childress) moved a lot of people, spent a lot more money to make sure we had the right things to get the job done on our part on Sunday. I am just proud of everybody at RCR (Richard Childress Racing) as a whole for working together. Right now we are down to fine-tuning. It is no more ‘Richard, give us 30 horsepower and we will go out and win these races’. There is no more of that. We just need five percent in every category right now and I think we will be where we need to be. Obviously we are running well with all three teams in the top-five, but I think there is definitely room to improve even yet.”

WHAT WOULD YOU GUESS WOULD BE THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME SCORED AS THE MARGIN OF VICTORIES IN ALL 36 2007 RACES COMBINED? “I don’t have a clue! (LAUGHS) I honestly don’t have a clue how much it was. Whoever wins, wins. It is very competitive. It is so hard to win at this level any more. Something like Richmond that happened last week, it was a gift. But there have been a lot of circumstances and situations where I thought maybe we could win a race and something went wrong. It all seems to come back around to either get you or help you out at one point or another.”

WOULD YOU BE SURPRISED TO HEAR 60 SECONDS? “I don’t know, I guess.”

JUST TALK ABOUT THE NEW DARLINGTON SURFACE AND WHAT IT IS DOING RIGHT NOW. “It has taken a lot of rubber. It seemed like as the night fell, it gained grip, but it kind of got a little bit slicker too in areas. Saw a lot of people crashing throughout practice on in to the evening, especially in the Nationwide practice. I am kind of curious to see what direction it will go from here. It is still the same ole Darlington, which is the neat thing about it. You are still running up high, still lifting in pretty much the same areas, picking up the throttle up in the same areas. So as far as that aspect goes, it is the same. It is smoother, has a lot more grip. Only time will tell how we will be able to race once we get this evenings race (Nationwide Series) underway and figure out what we can get away with and what we can’t get away with in that race, we will be able to put on a lot better show in the Cup race.”

HOW WOULD A NATIONWIDE ALL-STAR RACE PLAY OUT AND WOULD IT FUN TO HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT? “It would be fun. Probably all the drivers that can drive them, drive them as far as something like that. It would be neat. It would still be the same thing; there would still be a lot of crashing and lot of going for it. (LAUGHS) How much you paying? A million bucks would be a good payday again! I think that is a pretty good assessment for all the stuff they tear up in the All-Star race.”

KEVIN HARVICK, DRIVER OF THE NO. 29 SHELL-PENZOIL IMPALA SS met with members of the media at Darlington Raceway and talked about the fast speeds, the Lowe’s test, winning the All-Star race, the burnout competition and more.

HOW FAST IS THE TRACK, IS IT TOO FAST? “Well I mean you’re kind of in a catch 22 situation here. I was on the other side of the fence here when the track came up and went through the radiator, so you are at a point where you have to do something with the track and any time we have new race tracks, the track is really fast. This is no exception. The track is really fast. It’s really smooth. It’s going to be tough to make it all right this time and that’s probably not a fair situation to be in but it is what it is and there’s nothing you can really do about it because you got to repave the race track in order to keep stuff from flying out of it.

“It’s fast, it’s gonna be tough to race on. I think if you look through the garage there’s more cars that have hit the wall than not and I’m in that category. I hit it twice. It’s still Darlington, still can reach out and grab you it’s just the consequences are a little bit bigger.”

IS IT SLICK? “It’s not slick, it’s just you’re riding on the edge and when you go over the edge there’s no warning, it just goes and that’s just the hard tire and the new race track and the high speeds and it’s magnified at this place because you run right against the wall.”

ARE THEY (THE WALL) A LOT HARDER NOW AT THE HIGHER SPEEDS? “That’s like throwing a baseball. If I threw a baseball at you, if I threw it soft it wouldn’t hurt as bad if I threw it hard.”

DOESN’T THAT MAKE FOR A GREAT RACE? “It will be made for TV. It’ll definitely be made for T.V. for sure. It’ll be exciting and fun to watch.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE PASSING IS GOING TO BE A PREMIUM. “Passing is going to be hard. It’s going to be all about track position and keeping yourself out of trouble. The Nationwide cars are even worse because the speeds, you are out of the throttle so little that everybody kind of runs the same speed and the speed is so high that it takes the momentum into that one lane that you can run in. Unless somebody makes a big, big mistake it’s going to be tough to pass.”

HAVE YOU HAD TO CHANGE HOW YOU GET AROUND HERE? “It’s so narrow that you drive the same line that you ran before but there’s really no other option at this place because of the fact that it is narrow, it’s just Darlington and it’s kind of the line that you run. You do have a couple of more options in three and four than you probably did before. You can kind of run in the middle and you can run at the top so you do have a few other options down there than what you had before and feel like you’re not tearing the tire up.”

RICKY CRAVEN SAID WHEN HE WAS RACING AGAINST KURT (BUSCH) HERE SO CLOSELY THAT HE ALMOST FORGOT TO RUN THE TRACK. HE ALMOST LOST IT BECAUSE HE ALMOST STARTED RACING AGAINST HIM INSTEAD OF RACING THIS RACE TRACK. THIS IS GOING TO GET MORE FRUSTRATING PROBABLY, THIS TRACK. “I almost won the lottery a couple of times too. (laughs).

HOW MANY DID YOU GET? “A couple of numbers.”

SO REMEMBERING THAT THIS TRACK IS AWFULLY FRUSTRATING IN ITSELF. “I think you just have to race the race track. I mean there’s no other way to do it here because as soon as you get comfortable and you feel like you can gain a little more speed you hit something. So you still are going to have to race the race track, you still are going to have to do all the same things that you normally do it’s just a lot faster.”

JEFF (BURTON) WAS TALKING ABOUT ALL YOU GUYS ARE IN THE TOP FIVE IN POINTS AND HAVEN’T LED THAT MANY LAPS, HOW CLOSE DO YOU FEEL LIKE CROSSING OVER THAT NEXT BAR? “I think we’ve been consistent, a consistent top-10 car. I don’t think we’re where we need to be performance wise as far as leading those laps and having a race that was dominate. We went to our best race track last week and ran eighth. Obviously we are not where we need to be performance wise but we’re not in the trunk either. We feel like we’ve taken that step from where we were four years ago and completely in the back part of the pack and made that better to where we are in the front part of the pack and making the cars better. Now we’re all wanting to take it to that next level. We’re consistent and we can luck into wins like we did last week, but we’re not where the 18 and the 11 are. We’re able to put ourselves in positions where we have a chance to win if something goes wrong with those two or three cars that are on that night, so that’s just where we are.”

WERE THE TEAM’S HAPPY WITH THE LOWE’S TEST? WERE THEY HAPPY THEY GOT THE TEST? “I don’t know. I hate testing so I’m probably not the person to ask.”

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM IT? “Not really.”

DID YOU GUYS FLIP THE SWITCH IN THE OFF-SEASON FOR THE THREE OF YOU GUYS AS A TEAM AT RCR? “No, I think you have to go further back than the off-season. We all ran pretty well last year too. Were pretty consistent last year and ran really well the year before and really well the half year before that. I think it goes further back than just the off-season. I think all three of us have gotten along really well.

“Everybody’s communicated very well and we all work together very well so it’s just a matter of finding that little thing that we all needed to take it over that hump.”

ARE YOU DOING THE BURNOUT COMPETITION? “Yeah.”

A LOT OF PEOPLE CREDIT YOU WITH MAKING IT POPULAR IN NASCAR. “I don’t know. I think (Ron) Hornaday probably started it back in about ’98. The first one I remember was probably in Memphis and then (Dale, Sr.) Earnhardt banned him from doing it because it was tearing everything up. He probably started it. I don’t think I deserve the credit for that for sure. It’s becoming a pretty common thing as far as when you win but that will be a lot of fun. I guess we get to practice Monday night. I guess Clint’s (Bowyer) has already practiced. We’re supposed to be practicing burnouts not crashing. We didn’t call it a crash competition but he got to practice a little bit so we’re going to get to practice Monday after the Nationwide test.”

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR STYLE POINTS AND IS THERE A SECRET FOR DOING BURNOUTS? “I think the best style points are probably just blow the tires out. That’s what I’m going for. Just pop the tires.”

CAN YOU GET TO VICTORY LANE BY DOING THAT? “Oh, we can walk.”

WITH THE STORMS THAT WENT THROUGH THE GREENSBORO AREA, DID THAT IMPACT YOUR RESIDENCE OR KHI (KEVIN HARVICK, INC.)? “Not that I know of. Everything was right around it. I know the home is okay. I haven’t talked to anybody from the shop, but DeLana didn’t say anything about anything being torn up but everything around us was tore up.”

WHAT DID WINNING THE ALL-STAR DO YOU FOR YOU LAST YEAR? “Charlotte is notoriously not been a place where we run very well at and we ran really well at the All-Star race last year. We had a good test there last year. We ran good at the 600 for the 75 laps that we ran before the big accident. It’s just been one of those places that’s been harder for us to get a hold of. To win at Charlotte was a pretty big event for us and to win the All-Star race is one of those races where we all want to win and we all want to have that on our resume and to do that is something that we’re all pretty proud of.”

IT DOESN’T HURT TO WIN THE BIG MONEY RACES EITHER DOES IT? “Well they’re all big money races now. Obviously it did pay a million dollars so that didn’t hurt anything. Still the trophy is the most important thing.”

IS THERE A BURNOUT THAT YOU’VE SEEN SOMEONE DO THAT IMPRESSED YOU AT ALL? “Really the only one that’s really impressed me, probably the best one that I’ve seen is probably the (Jack) Sprague burnout. “It was probably 2001 when all the tires caught on fire. I think it was 2001 at Richmond. That was probably the coolest one that I’ve seen. I don’t think I’ve been able to do that one but no one is overly impressive.”

HOW ABOUT YOU? “I think I’m pretty good at it.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS, met with member of the media at Darlington Raceway and discussed the new surface at Darlington, expectations for Saturday night race, his Mom, Casey Mears, David Ragan and other topics.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE NEW SURFACE ON DARLINGTON RACEWAY AND IF THAT IS THE CAUSE OF DRIVERS HITTING THE WALL? “I think people are hitting the wall than what we have seen in the past here at this race track. First of all, they did a great job repaving it. The asphalt looks nice and the way the seams are all laid down, they did a really nice job with that. Unfortunately, when you repave tracks, it makes it more of a single-groove race track. This track of all places with new asphalt was already narrow to start with and really one line and now with the new asphalt down, it is even more narrow than it has ever been. I think in a few years once the track ages, it will get back to the way we have all seen races here and we have loved about Darlington, but, this first year or two, it going to be tough. It is going to be tough to pass, it is going to be tough to really race side-by-side because the track is so narrow and the speed is so high with these cars getting around this new car.”

DOES THE NEW SURFACE FORCE YOU TO THE LOW LINE OR WILL YOU STILL RUN UP AGAINST THE WALL? “It is pretty forgiving right now. With all the grip that it has people are driving race pace at qualifying speeds, faster than we have qualified here. As far as what I am doing in the car, my race laps, I am as committed as I ever would be on any standard qualifying lap. People are just driving so hard that you are kind of running out of space and getting in to the wall. I think if you added up all the flat right sides are less than we have ever had here. In the past, this track has been so slick and rough; you would go out, get your Darlington stripe and go on because that is a part of it.”

DOES THAT GIVE YOU AND JEFF (GORDON) ANY ADVANTAGE BECAUSE OF YOUR PREVIOUS SUCCESS HERE? “I think it takes that advantage away. It is a much different race track than I have ever raced on. The surface is very very good. Smooth. That delicate touch you needed to be successful here, the fact that you could burn off your tires, all of those things are gone right now. From talking to some of the veterans who have been here after they repaved it years back, it started that way, then it came back to the old Darlington. I think everybody has done a great job with repaving it here, but, it is just going to take a while to get back to what it needs to be and what we have all enjoyed about it. If they rework the track and redesign the track, made it wider and worked on the transitions, I think it would start off better the first year or two. But with it staying the same configuration it has been, it is just a narrow place and you add speed and tracks get more narrow.”

IS THERE LESS TIRE WEAR WITH THE NEW SURFACE? “As far as tire wear and tire falloff, it is nothing that I have ever seen here before. You can go out on 11 or 12 lap tires and run your fastest lap time. I think Dale, Jr. (Earnhardt) was second fastest last night and he went out on 30-lap tires that had a chance to cool down and then went back out. In the past, your first lap was your fastest and you would lose two to three tenths each and every lap from there. So, the track is much different with tire wear now and fall off, I think over a few summers and the way this track kind of ages and the mix they use for this race track, it will come back and be the Darlington of old.”

WHAT KIND OF RACE ARE YOU EXPECTING SATURDAY NIGHT? ELLIOTT SADLER SAID IT IS JUST GOING TO BE FOLLOW-THE-LEADER. “I am predicting the same thing. There might be some good crashes. I think guys in order to pass are going to need to be really, really aggressive and with the track being so narrow and so fast, our cars don’t run very well side-by-side together and you could see guys lose it because of the aero situations. I think that might be a problem. So there may be plenty of action, but as far as racing people and making competitive passes for the lead I don’t expect to see a lot yet. It isn’t because they did a bad job repaving it; it is just a narrow race track. You add speed to any race track, it becomes more narrow and it is just kind of a product of a new paving job and if a track was going to suffer from a new paving job over the first couple of years, it would be this one.”

DO YOU THINK THE CHANGE IS BAD FOR DARLINGTON? “I think everybody is feeling the same thing right now that it is just going to be a narrow, one groove race track for the first couple of years. And that is after they did a great job of repaving it, not that the paving job is bad, it is more the design of this track. It is so narrow and you put a new surface down and it brings the speeds up, it just makes it tough to race side-by-side.

“I think in a few years, once the track ages, it is going to come back and be the same Darlington we have all grown to love. Again, speaking to some of the veterans who have been through this in the past, this is exactly what happened after they repaved it last time. I haven’t experienced it; I only know the old Darlington and am looking forward to the year when that comes back.”

WHICH DARLINGTON, OLD OR NEW, IS MORE IN TUNE WITH YOUR DRIVING STYLE? “I feel I am good on either style of race track. I think with the new paving job now, it has closed up the field and made it a little bit easier for all the competitors. It is easier to hit the setup right and closer. There are less demands on the driver as far as being patient, your technique, saving the tires, all of those things that were so important here in the past. So, it has taken some away from the drivers right now and made it more forgiving.”

WAS THE THURSDAY PRACTICE SESSIONS BENEFICIAL AND NECESSARY? “Yes, I think so. I think it was great to get on track and get a good idea of things. It was a smart move on NASCAR’s behalf to have the best racing possible for this weekend’s event. So hopefully with the additional track time, we will all figure out how to set the cars up and driving better and hopefully make some competitive passes because of it.”

HOW HELPFUL IS IT FOR A DRIVER TO HAVE THE CONSISTENCY OF THE SAME CREW CHIEF, TEAM MEMBERS AND CAR OWNER FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME, UNLIKE CASEY MEARS WHO HAS HAD NUMEROUS OF EACH IN THE LAST FOUR SEASONS? “It is helpful. Before I got to the Cup level, I had driven for a lot of different teams and it was mainly because I was climbing the later trying to get to this level. I was really with one team for two years at a time and from year one to year two; it was such a different feeling inside the race shop, communication, confidence in myself and the team. So I can hopefully hope and wish for Casey that he can have that and have this team stay together. Granted he stayed at Hendrick from last year to this year, but it was a complete turnaround in crew and people. I think they have done a good job, they have had some things not work out for them luck wise and some misfortune, but I really see them gaining the confidence they need and turn the corner and getting things going.”

WHAT INFLUENCE DID YOUR MOM HAVE ON YOUR RACING CAREER? “My Mom was kind of the glue that kind of kept everything together at our house between normal life and racing. That is all we have ever done is race and she has always kept my Dad and my brothers and I focused on the right things and gave us the support that we needed to go racing week in and week out. On top of the fact, she instilled in myself and my brothers’ compassion. She is just a very caring, almost to a fault at times, woman and has really put that in myself and my brothers.”

HOW WOULD YOU ACCESS THE PROGRESS OF DAVID RAGAN? “I think he has done a great job. I have heard the comments about being aggressive and stuff and I can’t say that in racing with him, I have seen anything that I was upset with. I mean, he is a young guy trying to make it in a tough sport and he is trying hard. So I never really had any issues with racing with him and I think he has grown a lot and seeing him up there in the finishing order, not being caught up in different wrecks really shows the progress he is making. I think he is a solid Cup driver which is a huge statement, it is not an easy thing to do.”

DO YOU FEEL YOUR TEAM HAS TURNED A CORNER THIS SEASON AND NOT SO MUCH BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL? “Some weeks we feel like we understand this car and exactly what it needs and other weeks we don’t. So, there is still a bit of a question mark in our minds right now. We are testing a lot and working really hard to get back to the form we were used to the last couple of years.

“Our sport has always been real close with things. It seems like one team will find whatever it is that year and run with it. Roush did it a few years back. We’ve been fortunate to do it the last couple of seasons, now it looks like Gibbs has that whatever it is, they have it right now. We are working hard to get it back at Hendrick.”

WILL THE NEW GENERATION IMPALA SS CHANGE THE COMPLEXION OF THE ALL-STAR RACE NEXT WEEK? “The test that we had there last week was a good one. I was shocked to see a middle lane and an outside lane coming in and working at a test session, which never happens. I think we have a track at Lowe’s that is coming in to its own right now and is going to put on good racing. These cars are a little more difficult to race on the big tracks than what we had in the past, hopefully that test session will let us get enough track time to find the stability in the car and the balance we need to really put on a good show for the fans. These cars on the bigger tracks still need a little bit of work, but the track itself is coming in and looking good.”

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS met with media and discussed All-Star moments, efforts to make the new race car handle better, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch, support from his mom, expectations for Saturday’s race at Darlington, tires, and more.

REGARDING THE ALL-STAR RACE, YOU’VE WON IT THREE TIMES. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU WON? “You’ll have to remind me. I don’t remember the first time. I remember the Jurassic Park car that we won all three segments. I remember running out of fuel there with the Superman car one time and then the year that we all crashed down in Turn 1, but honestly I don’t remember the first year.”

IN 1995, IN SEGMENT 1, YOU BEAT DALE EARNHARDT TO WIN. THE SECOND SEGMENT YOU STARTED IN THE REAR. “Oh I know which segment that was now. That was the segment where Dale and Darrell got together in the final segment and crashed and we went on to win. Yeah, that was a wild and crazy race. We had a great car. When it was 10 laps to go, that last segment was always out of control crazy. And those two guys wanted it really bad and ended up unfortunately taking each other out and I ended up getting the win.”

DO YOU HAVE A THEORY ON WHAT THE NO. 99 TEAM IS DOING TO BE SO COMPETITIVE ON THE 1.5-MILE TRACKS? “Not really. We can tell that they’ve got the car in yaw quite a bit all the way around the race track. Everybody has been trying a bunch of different things in rear-end housings and they might be doing it that way and just kind of have it figured out better than us. But they might be doing it a different way. There are a lot of theories going on around this garage area right now.”

HAVE YOU GUYS TRIED STUFF? “Oh, yeah, we’ve tried a bunch of stuff. We’ve tested the last three weeks in a row trying stuff. It felt like we found some things at Nashville. And we went to Charlotte and didn’t see anything spectacular with it, but we weren’t bad either. But honestly, we went back to kind of the way we were at Vegas where we were the best. I like Steve’s (Letarte) new theory is you know we’ve been trying to do things outside the box to get ourselves into the top five to win, and we’ve been having a hard time getting a top 15. Let’s go back to trying to get between 10 and 15 to see if we can start trying to take steps from there. So that’s our plan. We’ve got to walk before we can run.

“And I think one thing that’s interesting right now is that NASCAR did everything they could to stop us from twisting these bodies up and saving us a bunch of money and now we’re building about 10 rear-end housings a week.

“So I think that no matter what, these teams are just sharp and the engineering is such that we’re always going to the next level to try and find speed and to try to find something. And when you see a team out there doing something and having success with it, you’ve got to try to figure out how you can catch up to them.”

WHEN DALE EARNHARDT JR. CAME TO HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND KYLE BUSCH WENT OVER TO GIBBS, WAS IT INEVITABLE THAT THEY WOULD HAVE A LITTLE RIVALRY? “Not necessarily. I could sense that Kyle would have some hard feelings toward Hendrick and I think that he feels like he kind of got the raw end of the deal and he might be right, but I don’t think that should transfer onto the race track. But you never know with Kyle. I don’t know. I think those are a couple of downsides. I think he’s a tremendous race car driver and that’s proven itself. But sometimes he lets himself get the best of him. And I’m not saying that happened in that situation. But if a rivalry continues or builds into something, that’s the only thing that I would go back to.”

WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS FOR THE RICHMOND INCIDENT? “I thought it was typical Kyle Busch. He was racing too hard and I think he just drove in too deep. Turn 3, when you’re on the inside, you’ve got to be the conservative one. You can’t be the aggressor. And the guy on the outside, you know he’s going to hold you. And he’s going to pinch you. If you don’t want to wreck, you’re going to have to check up a little early and try to get a run on him at the bottom of the corner and then drive down into Turn 1 and get him. Or, beat him off Turn 2. You can’t try to outrun a guy into Turn 3, not when you’re on the inside like that.”

WHAT KIND OF RACE ARE WE GOING TO SEE TOMORROW? “It’s going to be a tough race. I think this it is going to be an exciting race, but I think it’s going to be a crew chief race. It’s going to come down to the crew chief making very, very good decisions about how many tires, or not taking tires, or whatever is going to get track position. The track is very fast. The tire is very hard. And the groove is very narrow. I think that we’re going to see a great race, but it’s not going to be a lot of passing.”

DID GOODYEAR BRING THE RIGHT TIRE? “Oh, yeah. Thank God they brought the tire that they brought. We saw guys running in the mid-27’s last night and it’s getting to be very fast. Had they not brought this tire, we would have had a lot of tire trouble right now.”

IS THE TRACK TOO FAST? “Yeah, the track’s too fast you know. But what do you mean by too fast?”

IS THE TRACK TOO FAST FOR YOUR LIKING? “No, it’s not a danger. But it’s too fast to really do what we want to do.”

ON HOW HIS MOM HELPED HIS RACING CAREER “My mom was so supportive. Luckily I got my height from my mom. Luckily she was short enough to get into the Quarter Midgets when I was younger and we would go practice. If there weren’t other kids, we would put my mom in one of my cars and me and her would go out there and run against one another. But things like that. Traveling with us for years around the country and sometimes me and my dad were traveling racing and she had to run their business to keep it going. So, she sacrificed a lot for our family to allow me to have the career that I’ve had.”

ARE YOU RUNNING A SPECIAL PAINT SCHEME AT THE COKE 600 FOR THE SALUTE THE TROOPS PROGRAM? “I love the program, but we’re not running a special paint scheme for that race. We are running their decal, so we’re certainly supporting them. Memorial Day weekend is coming up and I think it’s extremely important for all of us to pay tribute to the troops. The troops that are there today, the troops that have been there in the past, and the ones that really fight, and give their lives for our freedom. So it’s only fitting that we support them. I feel like everyone, not just the race teams out there, show support for all Americans.”

YOUR MOM HAS A REALLY POSITIVE OUTLOOK. IS THAT WHERE YOU GOT THAT SAME ATTITUDE? “Definitely. Absolutely. I think that you get a lot of your personality and who you are, most of it through your parents; through whether it be the genes or whether it be setting that example for you growing up. My parents were always telling me to be the bigger person and to accept defeat when it comes your way, but to fight hard to get better and do better in life and in racing. So, yeah, definitely.”

ARE YOU GLAD TO NOT WORRY ABOUT TIRES AT DARLINGTON LIKE YOU USED TO WORRY? “Yeah, I mean we had a race like this when they repaved this track several years ago, but it only lasted one race and then it was back to the old Darlington. This time I don’t think it’s going to be that way. This track, they’ve used all the modern technology in paving and this surface is going to last a lot longer and it’s going to be smooth and have a lot of grip for longer than it did before. So, this is something we’re going to need to get used to here at Darlington. We do hope eventually it gets back to grinding the tires down because that’s what makes Darlington so much fun is having to manage the tires.”

DOES TONY STEWART’S THINKING OF MAKING A CHANGE GET YOU THINKING ABOUT YOUR FUTURE AND WHAT YOU WANT TO DO? ‘Ah, not necessarily Tony and his choices, but as you get you get older and you’ve been in the sport for a while, you’ve got to start thinking about your future. If you don’t, then you’re not being very smart.”

TALKING ABOUT BUILDING A BUNCH OF REAR-ENDS, IS THAT AN AREA THAT NASCAR POLICES OR SHOULD POLICE, OR IS IT JUST SOMETHING THAT NOBODY CAUGHT IT AND IT’S TO THEIR (NO. 99) ADVANTAGE RIGHT NOW? “That’s a good question because NASCAR knows it’s happening. They are the ones that see the cars come through inspection. They see it. When the cars can’t even get on to the scales because they’re running sideways, I think it’s something they need to address. Whether they address it this year or not, I don’t know. But I think that this car was designed and built in such a way that these types of things were things they wanted to prevent. And yet it’s again, something that’s being taken to the next level. So I don’t think that they could just turn away from it. I think they’re going to have to address it eventually.

“The thing that I have a problem with is that we’re trying to find downforce and grip in the car and that’s why we’re doing it. But it makes the cars drive so terrible that it doesn’t really help us in the way that we really need it. I think it’s all of us just kind of saying hey, we need more grip in these cars and we’re going to take desperate measures find it. And it’s typical NASCAR you know, throughout all the years in the history books, we do whatever we can within the rules. And everything that we’re doing, we’re just maximizing the areas that they’ve let loose a little bit. And that’s all.

BUT IT’S LEGAL, RIGHT? SO DO THEY JUST LEAVE A HOLE IN THE RULES TO ALLOW THAT? “I’m not really sure. This started last year and now it’s been taken to a whole other level. So, I don’t know. I believe it was something they didn’t expect. And again, like I said, the teams look into every single rule and how they’re taking the cars through inspection and think, okay, this is an area that they don’t really focus much on or don’t check or that they’re not concerned about. So we can work in this area. What can we do in this area that might make the car go faster? So you go to work and as soon as they prevent this from happening, we’re going to go to another area. That’s just the way it works. I don’t blame NASCAR in any way. It’s not like they’ve done anything wrong. It’s just an area that we’ve taken advantage of.”

DO YOU REALIZE THAT CASEY MEARS HAS HAD FOUR RACE TEAMS AND FIVE CREW CHIEFS IN FOUR YEARS? “I hadn’t thought about that.”

HOW MUCH COULD THAT HURT SOMEBODY? “No it’s tough. But this has been done before. Some people get one opportunity. And all I can say is that Casey obviously has done something right along the way or he wouldn’t be still here and he wouldn’t be in the position he’s at and have a ride at Hendrick Motorsports. But timing is everything. How things fall together can make or break your career.

“And unfortunately for Casey, he hasn’t been able to get himself into a more stable situation and really build on it. And I hate that for Casey. But it happens to a lot of people. I agree the my circumstances worked out very well and Jimmie’s (Johnson) and other guys have had success to that level, that’s certainly a common denominator. But I’ve seen a lot of guys in the garage area fight and claw and do a lot of things and have to go through those situations, and some of them have to go through that before they have success. But it’s something that certainly you hope for a guy that he can get something. Our opinion at Hendrick is that each time we want to improve for that team for Casey, and what happened was we had him with Darian (Grubb) and that was new to him. And then when Junior came, it just put us into a position to move him with Alan (Gustafson) who we believe is a tremendous crew chief, and use Darian as an engineer that we thought would benefit that team better. Unfortunately it made for another crew chief change and team change for him.”