Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS, met with members of the media at Michigan International Speedway and discussed Jimmie Johnson Foundation, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart as teammates, importance of winning at Michigan to Chevrolet, preparing for the Chase, saving fuel and other topics.

DRAWING FOR JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION: “The fan selected St. Jude for last drawing for the special helmet paint so they will go on the helmet for last week’s draw for Claire B. Lang. I will draw these two here. Once again, thank you to everyone for supporting this idea with the helmet. It has been really amazing how much support it has received and how many fans and media members have written in. I know that all the foundations really appreciate it too, so thank you. The first one is Winston Kelly, MRN Radio, the charity is the Classroom Central, it levels the academy playing field for over 80,000 students in the Charlotte region. Many of these students show up the first day of school empty handed, but, because of Classroom Central, their teachers are able to provide them with all the basic material needs for learning. Thank you Winston and congratulations.

“The fan is Susan Engle. The charity name is Caring Bridge. A co-worker’s grandson recently had a rare brain tumor and had to go from Indianapolis to Phoenix for life-saving surgery. Michael’s family posted regular updates so everyone stayed informed without having to take away time from Michael by making tons of phone calls. It was a family blessing for a family touched by illness. It is a website that connects families and loved one in times of critical illness. So thank you Susan Engle.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TONY STEWART/RYAN NEWMAN COMBINATION? “I think that you have two very hard-nosed, territorial drivers that are smart and can earn points. I think Ryan at times has been one of the hardest guys to pass and Stewart may be a little easier to pass from time-to-time, but you know you have made him mad and have something coming. (LAUGHS). I say that with all the respect in the world to both of them in trying to make light of it all. But I think those two together will do exactly what that team needs. Ryan is great at qualifying; they are obviously going to need that. They are both great at points racing. Now as teammates in a sense, hopefully they are able to make it through all the weather issues the first five races and get those two cars where they need to be. I think it was a wise move on Tony’s behalf. Very stable environment over there, very stable group of drivers. You have Matt Borland and Ryan potentially back together, if not back together. I think they are making smart decisions.”

HOW WOULD YOU RANK THE TWO WHEN COMPARING TO OTHER TOP TIER DRIVER PAIRINGS? “It is so hard to tell, especially without seeing them on track. There is so much time between now and California Speedway (next season). Maybe a better mark would be between now and the Las Vegas/California test sessions. Daytona is Daytona. It is not really an indicator of what the season is going to be. At that point, I think we can start forming opinions. Haas has been a great organization that we know the engines, bodies and chassis that they have on their cars, just putting the rest of those pieces together and get the chemistry right inside the team. Both drivers have obligations through the end of this year to finish up strongly, plus Haas. Then those guys need to somehow gel during our short off season and come together and be ready. So they have a lot of work ahead of themselves, but I think you have professionals across the board over there and they will do a good job.”

ARE YOU USING THE SAME SETUP ON YOUR CAR THAT YOU USED IN JUNE HERE AT MICHIGAN? “Michigan started some new ideas in our minds when we came here a couple of months ago. The practices we kind of validated the technology that we were bringing to the car setup. I think qualifying was rained out actually, but we were very fast in qualifying practice. In the race, I think we led the most laps and ended up 10th or 12th or something like that because of fuel strategy, I can’t exactly remember. But, we fought for the win all day long. I really since then, we have improved our car setup that we started with here. Coming back, I feel very strong about our performance. I think the No. 17 (Matt Kenseth) and the No. 99 (Carl Edwards), the end of the race, I really remember chasing the No. 17, I know there were a couple of other guys. This is a great track for Matt. As I traveled here and thought about what the race was going to look like and be like, for whatever reason, I see that No. 17 up there and I know we are going to be dealing with him.”

CAN YOU GIVE US YOUR HONEST ASSESSMENT OF WHAT KYLE BUSCH HAS DONE THIS SEASON IN ALL NASCAR SERIES? “I think it is an amazing story what he has done. I would much rather it be myself with the eight wins and you guys asking Kyle about we are up to. The competitive spirit inside of me doesn’t like to see what he doing. But, I respect what he is doing. I have worked with him as a teammate and have always know that he is a special, special talent. I told him a couple of years ago ‘Once you figure out how to win, you aren’t going to stop, but you have to stop knocking the right sides off you cars and crashing in practice and taking unnecessary risks.’ He has figured that out this year and he has been on fire. I feel the same thing about championship form. Once he understands how to win a championship, he is going to be tough to beat each and every year. Chemistry means so much. You look at what he has done at Gibbs with his group of guys. Denny (Hamlin) and Tony (Stewart) are driving the same equipment, what is the difference.

“We see that at Hendrick Motorsports where you have four cars and four guys running in different spots in the point standings and throughout the race. So chemistry is everything and he has hit the perfect combination. Once you have it, you have to recognize it and figure out how to maintain it. There are so many challenges that come along week-to-week, year-to-year and Kyle is going in to new territory for himself right now and trying to figure out, how do I hold on to this? How do I keep this through the end of the regular season and in to the Chase and so forth and so on. It is a tough thing to do, it really is. He has matured a ton and he is doing a damn good job.”

HOW IS YOUR TEAM RUNNING HEADING IN TO THE CHASE AND DO YOU GAMBLE NOW TO TRY AND PICKUP PRECIOUS BONUS POINTS? “We don’t gamble all that often. If we are a lock, I think things change at that point if we lock in. Until then, we want top-fives; we want the momentum of running up front. More seat time, more pit stops, that whole energy and that pressure that comes with racing for wins. We want to be in that every day. I feel that we have made a lot of ground from the start of the season until now. I think we are where we need to be. I still feel we can be a little better and hopefully over these next few weeks, we can really polish up we have and be a little bit more consistent with the top-three finishes, our worst day being a top-five. Of late, I think we have only been in the top-three the last few races, oh; we finished seventh at Watkins Glen. If we can do that, find that rhythm and just sit there in those top-threes, top-five, opportunities to win will be there and we will collect points and everything will take care of itself.”

HOW IMPORTANT DO YOU THINK THIS RACE IS FROM A MANUFACTURERS’ STANDPOINT? “Every race pays the same amount of points so in one respect you look at it as just another race. But, whenever I go back to California or I am Lowe’s Motor Speedway, there is a different mindset that it is our home track. I completely understand how the manufacturers that are based here come to this track and want to win on their home court. And I can only imagine how bad that No. 20 car with Home Depot signage on the side wants to win at Lowe’s. So I can also understand how bad the other manufacturer would want to come in and beat the US-based companies here. I kinda see it and understand it. It doesn’t change how we race. It doesn’t change what we do, but Monday morning when everybody is at their board meetings, catching up in the business, there are some big bragging rights that go with it all and we want to make sure a Chevrolet wins again. Junior’s win was the first in a while and we want to try and do that again.”

HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE TERM HYPER-MILING? “That would be the first time I’ve heard of it? What is hyper-miling and how do you spell it?”

IT IS SOMEWAY TO SAVE GAS AND SOME PEOPLE ARE DOING IT ON THE HIGHWAYS NOW. IT IS JUST LIKE FUEL CONSERVATION TECHNIQUES ON THE HIGHWAY AND IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYTIME WE COME HERE, YOU GUYS HAVE TO USE THAT. SO, IF YOU ARE TOLD YOU NEED TO SAVE GAS, WHAT IS PROGRESSION TO DO THAT? “You try to let off a little earlier and not use as much brake in corner entry. Just maintain a speed the car can handle on corner entry to the center. When you get to the center of the corner, you try to roll back in to the gas slowly. Obviously the slower you roll back in the gas slowly. Obviously the slower you roll back in to the gas, the slower you are up on to the straightaway, but you find a rhythm and lap time you can produce. On the pit box, Chad (Knaus, crew chief) and the engineers are calculating that lap time versus how much it is saving fuel. Through a series of smoke and mirrors, you come up with what you think is your window. There is no guarantee, if they car is tighter it is going to affect it. If the car is looser, it is going to affect it. So it is really a guessing game and it is tough to get it right. Sometimes it surprises me how close they can really calculate where you are going to run out. It is tough to really save fuel. In most cases, you get the deal on the radio where you go back to green and you are running like crazy and they are ‘Hey, you need to save fuel.’ You are like, it would have been nice to know that 20 laps ago or 10 laps ago and now what are you going to do. It is really tough to save fuel.”

ONCE YOU ARE LOCKED IN THE CHASE, HOW MUCH EXPERIMENTING CAN YOU DO WITH YOUR CAR? “It depends on where you are at. In ’05, we got real aggressive with some things and almost talked ourselves in to it because we felt like we were close; it didn’t work out for us. The last two seasons, we focused more on refining the equipment we developed to that point and mentally being ready and treating those last few races like they were in the Chase. The pit stop mentality, how you drive on track, you are just trying to find the right rhythm through the weekend from qualifying practice through qualifying on to the race and everything that goes on in that period of time. A lot of it depends on where you are at. If you are hanging on to be in the top 12 right now, you only have a couple of ways and choices you can make. If you are in Kyle’s position, you can look at it a couple of different ways. Either it is pretty good, don’t mess it up or guys are catching us, let’s get aggressive. So, it is really tough to give you a general comment. It is more about the individual team and where they are at.”

HAVE YOU NOTICED ANYTHING DIFFERENT ABOUT JUNIOR AND THE NO. 88 CREW IN RECENT WEEKS? “No, not anything different. I can say that at the start of the season, Tony, Jr. (Eury) had a real good feel for what the setups need at that point. As time has gone on, this sport keeps changing. Everything is moving and shaking. We didn’t have it, and we have slowly picked it up. Those guys had it early and are trying to get that going again.

“It sounds odd when all the teams are in the same shop and that technology doesn’t apply from one car to the other, but, driving styles, crew chief styles, it all plays a part of it. Those guys won’t be down long. They have all the tools necessary. I have been extremely impressed with Tony’s and Dale Jr.’s commitment to the team. The feel that Junior has had in the car. I didn’t know what kind of a teammate he would be like; he has blown the roof off of the expectations because he really has a good feel for the car. You go up and down, you go through slumps and stuff happens, but those guys will be just fine.”

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Impala SS, met with members of the media at Michigan International Speedway and discussed scoring a repeat win at Michigan, thoughts of how team is performing as Chase approaches, his crew chief, Tony Eury, Jr., saving gas on-track and other subjects.

HOW WAS PRACTICE TODAY? “It was good. I was pretty happy. I think I could have run a little quicker if we had got back out there. Got a pretty good car. Ran some race stuff early, seems like the qualifying stuff is going to get us up in the top 10. I am pretty happy.”

WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON WITH THE TEAM THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS SINCE YOU WON HERE THAT SEEMS TO HAVE YOUR FRUSTRATED? “Just the race tracks we have been going to. I don’t have good finishes at those race tracks. Couple of road courses, Pocono, It is just typically not a good part of the season where we have run very good. We are always strong at the races the first third and last third of the season.”

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING BACK TO RICHMOND? “Yea, I am looking forward to the last third of the season. We seem to do really well at all them race tracks. We seem to gain a lot of points, or have the ability to gain a lot of points in those two stretches, the first and last part of the season. I figured the summer would be rough and it was. I don’t know why that is other than, there aren’t any favorite race tracks of mine in that little stretch. That is one thing I know for sure. We tried the best we could to get through that stretch pretty good and do better. I don’t know, I wasn’t no happier about it than I have been in the past. Starting here, we will start to see some improvement and start a run like we have been running at the start of the year. Like I think we are capable of doing.”

DO YOU LIKE HOW YOUR TEAM IS RUNNING AS THE CHASE GETS CLOSER? “No, we haven’t been running that good lately. We are coming up on some tracks where we run pretty good. I like the tracks and I like my chances.”

HAVING WON HERE IN JUNE, HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR CHANCES FOR REPEATING? “It would be nice you know. It would be good to get another win to show everybody we can do it on a full tank of gas. It would be a good to get a win anywhere, but Michigan is a good place because of the manufacturers being close. Being close to Detroit, Motor City.”

IS IT UNFAIR TO GET CRITICIZED FOR HOW YOU WIN A RACE? SHOULDN’T JUST WINNING THE RACE BE ENOUGH? “Yes. But, I mean, it depends on what side of the fence you are on, man. If you are on the winning side, you are happy, don’t matter how. If you are the guy who had the fastest car all day, you aren’t real happy about it. I have been on both sides of it, it goes down in the history books however it goes do in there, you know. Everybody would like to just go out there and just out run the hell out of everybody to win races. Sometimes you have to take them how you get them.”

ARE YOU AND JEFF GORDON FACING THE SAME KINDS OF CHALLENGES? “I think we are facing different stuff. I have just never ran good at the tracks that are in the middle of the season. It is funny that they are all together, but maybe that is kind of good. Jeff has just kind of struggled with the car a little bit here and there all year, you know. I think by the time we are in the Chase, they seem to have it turned around. Hopefully we will have that too.”

IS THE “RIBBING” YOUR CREW CHIEF HAS TAKEN THIS WEEK FAIR OR UNFAIR? “It ain’t fair. I mean, I know that nobody always makes the right calls and I know that everyone has to take responsibility for their actions. Everybody has to take responsibility for their job. He is in that position and he knows as good as anybody that there is going to be some criticism. But, I don’t know man; it is pretty harsh at time for a guy for a guy who has given everything he has given to the sport. A guy that has dedicated himself and devoted himself, sacrificed as much as he has, it gets kind of harsh sometimes. I wish it wasn’t like that for Tony, Jr. (Eury) because he don’t deserve it. But, working with me, I guess that is the breaks.

“I can say this, I don’t think the pit stop strategy ruined the race any more than how bad our car was handling or running at that particular part of the race. I was going backwards as it was, so it ain’t like we screwed ourselves on pit strategy. The car wasn’t that good, we just kind of stayed out there longer than anybody else, it was fun to lead. Hell, I didn’t want to pit either. You know what I mean; I was leading the race - that was fun.

“We had some problems with the car. It was very very fast at the start of the race. But, that wasn’t the car I had there the last half of that race, I didn’t have that good of car. I don’t think many people that are very critical of Tony, Jr., knew that. I try to describe how the situation is without trying to take anything away from Tony, Jr. because he is a really really good crew chief and he has done a lot for me and other drivers in this sport. He has helped a lot of crew members and taught a lot of things to a lot of different guys as he has come up. He is not a real volatile personality and he is not the kind of personality that you probably expect to have on this type of team with this magnitude of a team.

“He is just a good ‘ole guy, you know. I wish it was different for him, but oh well. He is pretty tough and I feel like when it comes down to it he will prove to everybody, yea, we are human, we make mistakes, but he is damn sure the guy for the job in my opinion.”

DO YOU THINK HE IS IN ONE OF THE MOST SCRUTINIZED POSITIONS IN THE SPORT? “He is in one of them, sure. Right now, I don’t know if it will be like that for a long, long time, but he has a lot of people to answer to, just like I do and just like the rest of the team. The team itself, when they don’t do right or have a problem or whatever, you know, they have to deal with it. That is part of being in this sport man. You know, you have to live up to all expectations and you have to meet some expectations, you get paid a lot of money to do. There is a lot of good things about it too. He had a bad, he said he didn’t read any of the papers or listen to anybody and so, I said, that was all right, its good. We will move on. When I am in the race car out on the race track, I can’t do the math and try to figure out what the strategy is that he has planned and we don’t’ talk about that before the race. Sometimes the best laid plans never work out. I don’t know what his strategy; I didn’t have a problem with what it was. It was definitely the wrong call to make in hindsight, but again, even if we make the right call and stay on the same strategy with those other guys, we got a 25th or 30th place car at best because he had some issues with the suspension. I like the way the man does his job and I am glad he is helping me. I have his back and he’s got mine. Regardless if he makes that mistake again this week, we will try to learn from it and move on.”

WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO SAVE FUEL WHAT IS YOUR PROCESS? “Get mad because you don’t want to save, you just want to run hard. It is just a lot of work. It is a pain in the butt really. It is a lot of work and you don’t know if what you are doing is saving gas or not. You don’t know what you are accomplishing and it’s no fun.”

HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE TERM HYPERMILING? “What is that?” ESSENTIALLY WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING ON THE HIGHWAY NOW, COASTING AND STUFF LIKE THAT TO STOP LIGHTS AND EASING AWAY FROM STOP LIGHTS TO TRY AND GET BETTER GAS MILEAGE. “Well, that is cool.”

JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Michigan International Speedway and discussed what he expects this weekend in the race, fuel mileage, taking gambles to gain bonus points and much more.

GIVE US A QUICK IDEA ON WHAT YOU’RE EXPECTING AT THIS RACE TRACK AND THIS WEEKEND. “This track has been probably our biggest thorn in our side. We just haven’t run well here in several years. We ran poorly here in the spring. For whatever reason we just haven’t run very well here so we come here hoping to improve on that. We’ve worked very hard. It’s time to get going. Four races to go in this deal so the first thing we’ve got to do is get ourselves established in the Chase but it’s time to be making better lap times and hopefully we can improve on our performance here in the spring because it wasn’t very good. We’ve worked really hard. We’ve got a lot of new stuff, a lot of different stuff and testing a lot. Everybody’s kind of tired so hopefully we can get some results.”

THREE WEEKS OFF THE BRICKYARD RACE, WHAT’S THE SITUATION WITH THE TIRES? “We really hadn’t had the issues anywhere other than at Indy. Indy was the place where just nothing worked very well. In an effort to fix that Goodyear is doing some testing at Indy. I know they did a tire test this week at Charlotte. Early in the year we had some trouble in Atlanta with the grip of the tire but for the most part tires haven’t been as big of an issue certainly as they were at Indy. Indy was a huge issue but the tire that Goodyear has designed for almost every other race track hasn’t been an issue. It was much more of an Indy isolated problem than an overall problem.”

ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE TERM HYPER-MILING? “Hyper-miling?”

YEAH IT’S SOME KIND OF WAY THAT PEOPLE ON THE INTERSTATE SAVE GAS WITH CERTAIN DRIVING TECHNIQUES. “I’m very unfamiliar with that, but I’m willing to learn.”

WHEN WE RACE HERE IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S ALWAYS A FUEL MILEAGE SITUATION, IF YOUR CREW CHIEF COMES ON THE RADIO AND SAYS SAVE FUEL WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND? “The first thing I need to know is how much fuel do we need to save. You can’t tell the driver to save fuel with five laps to go in the race. The information has to be fed to a driver as soon as that run starts. Look we’re on the edge here, we might need to save fuel so you need that information early. The only way to save fuel is to go slower. You de-accelerate sooner. You’re off the throttle sooner. You’re on the throttle later and you’re on the throttle less aggressively.

“By the way you still have to make reasonable lap times in most cases. I’m either going to save fuel or I’m not. If you’re gonna run hard and make lap time you can’t worry about fuel. If you’re gonna save fuel you just have to slow down. That’s where the information is important. If Scott (Miller, crew chief) comes on and says we have half a lap to gain over fifty laps, I can handle that. If he comes and says you have five laps you have to gain that means all we can do is slow down a great deal. You really just have to know all the information in order to make the right decision. If it works out to where you’re on a forty-lap run or a thirty-eight lap run lets’ say and people are starting to pit and you’re trying to stretch it, then the information about how far the guy behind you is becomes important. Now how much can I slow down if we’re trying to make it to the end of the race? Can I slow down four seconds and not lose anything? That’s where the driver just has to have information but the earlier he has that information the better he can do of saving fuel.”

WOULD YOU SAY THIS TRACK AND CALIFORNIA ARE GOOD DRESS REHEARSALS FOR THE FIVE 1.5-MILE TRACKS THAT ARE IN THE CHASE? “I think these tracks are a great deal different than Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas, Homestead certainly. Here and California for the size have the lowest grip of all race tracks. Texas has a tremendous amount of grip, Charlotte has a tremendous amount of grip, Homestead has a tremendous amount of grip, Atlanta not so much. It does but it goes away in the race. So these race tracks are in my opinion unique to themselves and this race track unique from California because the grip level here is so low compared to those race tracks. We see people routinely that run very well here that struggle at almost every other race track.

“Then we see people that run well at almost every other race track that struggle here. This is for whatever reason a very unique animal and I think it’s just because of the grip level. It’s really low grip. I don’t necessarily think that if you run poorly here you’re going to run poorly at Texas nor if you run positive here you’re going to run positive at Texas because I think they are just completely different. These are real long radius corners. The radius of these corners is greater than the radius at Texas. The banking is different. The transitions into the corners are different. These are real sweeping, real slow entry into the corners. When I say slow I mean steering wheel input. You stay against the wall. You make a big late slow arc.

“Texas is much more aggressive with the wheel, off the throttle, completely different. This is a much smoother transition which means the way the car approaches the corner from a physics stand point is quite a bit different than it is at a place like Texas. They’re tremendously different which means I don’t think it’s so much a dress rehearsal.”

A YEAR OR SO AGO YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT CONCERNS ABOUT TOO MANY SPONSORS WIH TOO MANY CARS WITH NO GUARANTEES OF MAKING THE FIELD, FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS SEASON FORTY-FOUR CARS ARE ENTERED HERE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? COULD THE FORTY-FOUR CARS WE SEE BE A FUNCTION OF SPONSORS GETTING SCARED OFF? “I don’t think there is any question that it is a function of sponsor involvement. Now the sponsor involvement has a great deal to do with the economy. A company has to be one hundred percent committed to motorsports in this kind of economy to be able to spend the money that it takes which goes back to part of the reason that I believe it’s not in our best interest to have forty-eight, forty-nine teams. If you look at what’s going on with employees right now. How many cars did we have at Daytona? Fifty or so. We’re having teams shut down. Every time a team shuts down there is somebody who is unemployed. We put ourselves in a position where with this change of car count, over a three-year, four-year period you go from forty-nine full-time teams to maybe forty-four full-time teams, that’s a five team switch. If you put sixty people on a team, that three hundred people whose jobs are impacted by that. Our sport would be so much more secure, our employees would be so much more secure, our sponsors would be so much more secure if we had forty-three teams. In the modern era I’m not sure if we’ve ever been in the position where we didn’t have forty-three sponsored race cars. I don’t remember that. Maybe we have but I don’t remember that. We don’t need forty-five teams. There’s no benefit in having forty-five teams. It only creates insecurity for sponsors, for car owners, for crew members. We have very few advantages in having forty-five, forty-eight, forty-nine teams. We need forty-three teams to put on a race. If we have forty-three teams that knew they were going to be in the race then the sponsor’s investment is much more secure and at a time when the economy is iffy, the sponsor’s that want to be involved in the sport they want to know that they’re going to be in the race.

“The philosophy of having forty-eight cars all vying for forty-three spots, I know that’s cool and everything or if you’re not good enough you just go home you don’t deserve to be in the race, that’s not economically sound. This is a time when you start seeing a negative side of having a bunch of teams. The sponsorship is being spread out over more cars. The cost of sponsorship is being de-valued because they have more choices. The employees are losing opportunities. There’s really no advantage in all that and our sport is less secure.”

FORTY-THREE FRANCHISED TEAMS IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING? “I’m not saying the f-word (laughter).”

FORTY-THREE CARS THAT ARE ASSURED OF BEING IN THE FIELD. “Forty-three cars that are assured of being in the field is the best scenario for our sport. Professional golf being the exception, we are the only major sport that has to make the investment that we make and you don’t know one hundred percent you’re in the field. Now, the top thirty-five rule is a tremendous step in the right direction. Its way better than it used to be but it ought to be a forty-three rule. I don’t know how you go about determining whose going to get the car owners and all. I don’t know how you do that. I’m a driver so I get to point at somebody else and say figure it out, but it’s in our best interest to have forty-three sure well-funded teams and sponsors that are secure in what they’re doing. That’s in our sport’s best interest. That’s my opinion.”

THIS WEEK KANSAS SAID THEY ARE GOING TO ASK NASCAR FOR A SECOND DATE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A SECOND DATE AT KANSAS AND IF SO WHAT ISC TRACK SHOULD LOOSE ONE? “I haven’t heard that so I have to think for just a minute. I don’t think it’s in our sport’s best interest to run more races. That’s not because I don’t want to do it. When I’m not racing here I’m racing with my seven-year-old. I’d rather race but we have to be careful to not have too many races. I think major league baseball suffers from that. I think the National Basketball Association suffers from that. We have to have a limited number of races so they mean something. So if you have thirty-six point-paying races, where are we best served serving the fans. Where are the fans best served having us, where do we need to be? I’m not intelligent enough to say that we ought to be in Kansas verses being somewhere else. I don’t know. I haven’t looked at statistics enough to make that comment. But I believe it is in our best interest to be in as many places as possible. In some cases I don’t know where adding a second race somewhere puts us in as many places as possible. We’d be better off going somewhere else that we don’t go currently. On the surface of it that’s the way I feel about it but again I haven’t looked at stats so I hate to say yes or no.”

WITH THE RACES WINDING DOWN AND KYLE BUSH ALREADY HAVING EIGHT WINS, DO YOU TAKE A GAMBLE OVER THE NEXT FEW RACES IF YOU CAN GET THAT WIN TO GET THOSE TEN BONUS POINTS? “I think you have to look at. I think it depends on your situation. If you’re second or third in points and you look really good at being locked in I think that puts you in that position to do that. If you’re ninth in points, eighth in points the gamble to win the race may not be worth it. Every gamble has a loss and the loss of that could put you in a position where you don’t make the Chase. So it’s a tough time to gamble for a lot of people and it’s an easy time to gamble for a few. If we could lay down a good race this weekend then we could be in a position to probably gamble some going into the next three but we’re not there right now. We’re not in the deal. We look good but we’re not in it. We’ve got to first build a little more cushion before we could think like that. That’s my opinion.

“If this gamble has a negative consequence of finishing twelfth, then yes. But most gambles in this sport have a negative consequence of finishing thirty-eighth and you can’t do that.”

BEING IN THE BACK YARD OF THE BIG THREE HERE AND THE STRUGGLES OF THE AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURERS, DO YOU THINK THERE IS A DANGER THAT THE MANUFACTURERS SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE OR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS MIGHT PULL AWAY FROM SUPPORTING MOTORSPORTS LIKE NASCAR AND IF SO HOW WOULD NASCAR MOVE ON? “I thought the big three was State, Carolina and Duke (laughter). The auto manufacturers are no different than all of our sponsors. They have to look at the bottom line. They have to be able to afford to do this. The manufacturers have played a tremendously positive role for our sport. They’ve moved the sport forward in a great deal of ways but it is clear the manufacturers are struggling economically. You’re going to find out how committed they are. I can’t speak for Ford or Dodge obviously. I can speak for General Motors in saying that Chevrolet has been extremely committed even through very tough times of keeping their program moving forward. I think there was a time in our country where you looked at the auto manufacturers as an empire that could never go away and I think today we can’t look at it in that fashion which is sad. If you think about how big the American manufacturers are to the economy of America it’s huge. The amount of employment, the things that they do is unbelievable and it’s hard to see them struggling because it should be a source of pride for our country. The exports, the things that the American manufacturers are able to do it should be a sense of pride for our country and they’re struggling really hard. I don’t think you can take that for granted anymore. There was a time that you just, you know Chevy is going to be involved, you know Ford is going to be involved, they always have they always will but I don’t think as committed as Chevrolet is they still have to be able to write the checks.”

JEFF GORDON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS, met with members of the media and discussed Steve Letarte heading into the Chase, racing at Kansas, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman, and more.

HOW WAS YOUR PRACTICE? “Pretty good. We had one problem with the ignition box and that got us a little bit behind for one run. I feel like we’re a little bit better, I think we ended up tenth. That was pretty good so far.”

LATELY I’VE BEEN GETTING A LOT OF CALLS ABOUT EITHER STEVE (LETARTE) OR YOUR PERFORMANCE, IT’S REALLY YOUR FANS THEY LOVE YOU BUT THEY’RE GETTING UP ON THE EDGE OF THE WHEEL, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? “You got to love them for that but at the same time it’s a competitive sport. We focus on everything from how internal communication is, how people are doing their jobs. If making a change was going to fix it then there might have been changes, but that’s not the issue. I think Steve Letarte is doing an awesome job. I feel like last week was not a great performance for us. We’ve had that happen this year. It’s just been one of those years. I believe in what we have. There’s areas where we’re looking to getting stronger and better. The fans have to just be patient and I remind everybody of what we did last year.

“We were an awesome race team last year. Had one of the best years that I’ve ever had and Steve was the guy that was guiding that ship so I believe one hundred percent in him. Your confidence gets down and a lot of things happen. Performances aren’t always there and it’s the toughest thing to rebound from that and that’s kind of the situation we’re in right now. We’re working really hard. We tested this week in Kentucky and we just continue to work hard at it.”

HOW FAR OFF YOU? THEY SAID THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE FAR OFF TO BE WAY OFF. “Not with this car. You can actually have a good car and just lose track position and be done. That was a combination of what happened to us last week. We weren’t very good there at the beginning on the long run and then we had the radio problem. We lost a lot of track position and it’s just so hard to make it up. We didn’t have enough cautions to work on the car.

“All those things contributed to the type of day we had not to mention Robby Gordon spinning me out on the last lap. My favorite part about it was Mark Martin sending me a text, he said hey man we had a tough day but its tough days that make you appreciate the good ones a lot more. You know he’s so right and I appreciated that very much. That’s the way we think and focus.”

IS THERE ANY ONE THING THAT CAN HAPPEN FOR YOU GUYS TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER? “Again, even though we’ve been hit or miss this year, I feel like those last ten races are all good tracks for us other than Texas. Texas is a track that has been our Achilles heel and we’re going to work hard to try to fix that. When you’re looking at a deficit of eighty or ninety points going into it from the way Kyle Busch has been running this year, that’s a lot to overcome. We know we need some bonus points before we start that Chase and all our focus is on is racing hard and trying to get those wins and get the best finishes that we can.”

CAN YOU TAKE A GAMBLE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS IF THAT WIN IS THERE FOR YOU? “No, we’re not in a position to take a gamble right now. We’re in a tricky position right now because we have one or two bad finishes where we could find ourselves very easily slipping back and not be secure going into Richmond. We want to be secure going into Richmond and so these next couple of weeks if we put good finishes together then we might be in a position to take some more risks. I say risks, it’s experimenting with things that you’re testing, its taking gambles on pit strategy calls, those types of things.”

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WATCHING POINTS NOW? “I pay attention to it. I try not to get too caught up in it because it doesn’t change how we approach things every weekend unless you have a big points lead or if you’re on the outside of the top twelve. If you’re on the outside of the top twelve you’re going for broke right now. You’re taking gambles. When you’re up front, you got nothing to lose. We were in that position last year. Right now we’re pretty much just kind of doing what we normally do which is go out there race hard, clean and put the best average finish we can together.”

KANSAS ASKED FOR A SECOND DATE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A SECOND DATE AT KANSAS AND IF SO WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE LOSE ONE? “I don’t want to see a second date anywhere. I think we need to go everywhere once in my opinion. I don’t know. Kansas has been good to me so it’s not like they don’t deserve it or we wouldn’t like going there. That’s up to them.”

REGARDLESS OF YOU’RE FINISHING POSITION, WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR SUNDAY WHAT DO YOU NEED THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE MAKING PROGRESS AND HAVE SUCCESS ON SOME OF THESE BIGGER TRACKS? “I think that it’s being able to get to the front. I feel like if you’re talking about us being in championship position we got to go out there and lead a lot of laps and being in contention. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to win the race which we do need the bonus points. We need to be out front, competitive, contending for the lead and then plan the pit strategy right. All those other things have been good for us, pit stops, communication and the pit strategy. We just lacked a couple of things, track position.

“If you have a car that’s working good you could take a few more gambles to maintain the track position. If your car is not good enough then you’ve got to work on it and put four tires on it. That’s what we need this week is a good enough car to be able to stay out or take two tires and do some of those things that are paying off for those other guys.”

IS THAT MORE HANDLING OPPOSED TO HORSEPOWER? “When have we ever complained about horsepower? Horsepower is not an issue with us, not at all. Power is good.”

WE SEE JIM LONG HERE THIS WEEK, IS HE HERE HELPING YOU GUYS? “Jim comes to a few races a year or several races a year. I’m not really sure on that one.

He’s a part of our research and development team so I’m guessing it’s important that they come and pay attention to what happens at the race track as well. Sometimes you get caught up in your world of testing all the time. You’ve got to see what guys are doing here at the track. So I’m guessing he’s just kind of eyes and ears for Hendrick Motorsports.”

HOW TOUGH IS IT GOING TO BE TO BEAT KYLE IN THE CHASE? “I tell you last week impressed the heck out of me. What he did in Sonoma didn’t impress me as much because they hit the caution just right, he had the track position. Last week he beat one of the best there is out there in Tony (Stewart). He was solid all day long. That shows me what kind of team they have and what kind of driver Kyle is. They got their momentum back. I was saying prior to the race weekend and I wasn’t trying to stir anything up I was just pointing out the way that things were going that I felt like they had lost some momentum but they got it all back in a hurry last weekend.”

DO YOU BELIEVE JUNIOR’S TEAM HAS LOST THEIR MOMENTUM IN THE LAST MONTH? “They’ve been consistent all year long and they continue to be consistent. I would really like to see them, as high up in the points as they’ve been at times, I’d like to see them going out there and doing what I’m talking about, leading more laps and being a little bit more dominant. So I don’t really feel like they’ve lost anything.”

WHEN NASCAR SHOWED YOU THE BLACK FLAG LAST WEEK DID YOU KNOW WHAT THE PURPOSE BEHIND IT WAS? “You know what. I knew exactly what it was because I hadn’t heard anything on my radio for a while and last I heard was pit in five laps. Usually I hear alright two more or one more or something like that and I hadn’t heard anything and I came by and I saw it. I immediately got on the radio and said can you hear me and I knew that’s what it was. We got lucky.

“The car stumbled coming through the bus stop or whatever they call that on the back straightaway and we were lucky just to make it. Even after we left pit road it was stumbling like it was low on fuel. That cost us so much time last week. It was a terrible day don’t get me wrong but had that not happened it was going to be a terrible day where we finished fifteenth not twenty-ninth.”

THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT ADJUSTMENTS TO MAKE ON THE CAR AT THAT POINT DID THEY? “The last they had heard from me I was talking a little bit about where it had been loose but it had gotten tight big time on me toward the end of that run. The last comment I was making was about being tight and they were actually making me tighter. That’s why we came in and made those major adjustments on that one pit stop. It was just one of those days. When I got hit on the last lap by Robby (Gordon) I didn’t even say anything because I was just like this is just one of those days that nothing really goes your way.”

IS BRISTOL LESS OF A WILD CARD THAN IT USED TO BE? “Yeah, anytime you go to a one-groove race track, especially on a short track, you’re going to have kind of a little bit of Russian roulette. But now, we’ve got multiple grooves there. To me, I love it. I think the racing is three times better. It’s just the crashes don’t happen as much, so if you love crashes, you’re still going to see them at Bristol but you’re not going to see them as often or as much as you used to, because basically when the guys got frustrated with the car in front of them, they just took them out. And that’s not racing, in my opinion. That’s more bumper-cars. Now, we’re going to Bristol and we’re racing and I love it. We haven’t been as good there since they re-did the track, so I’m anxious to get there and be better, but I do like what they’ve done.”

LESS TEMPERS THERE NOW? “A little bit. The tempers are only because a guy cheap-shots you, you know. That’s more where tempers come from. The tempers just don’t come from driving around Bristol.”

SINCE WE’RE IN DETROIT, DO YOU THINK MUCH ABOUT THE MANUFACTURER BATTLE OR IS THAT JUST FOR BOARDROOMS? “We definitely have it on our minds. We like to represent them the best we can every weekend. But when you’re here, I think there is a little bit more pride on the line because you know there is more pride on the line for them being near Detroit.”

WHAT SORT OF IMPACT WOULD IT HAVE IF TOYOTA GOT THEIR FIRST CUP WIN HERE? “They’ve been winning plenty this year so I don’t think it would be any big surprise to any of us.”

WHAT SORT OF TEAMMATES DO YOU THINK TONY STEWART AND RYAN NEWMAN WILL BE? “It’s going to be interesting. I think that what I look and see now is you take Tony Stewart and you make him a car owner; and look what kind of talent he starts attracting, from drivers to personnel to crew chiefs and car chiefs. It’s just amazing how somebody like Tony Stewart can motivate and change the whole attitude of a garage area to making that into a team worth working for and attracting top people. I think that’s how you get results. That’s how you build a top quality team. So, the fact that we have a partnership with them, we’re only looking at is as a positive.”

AS A CAR OWNER, WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR TONY STEWART? “I’m sure he’s going to be a lot more involved. His name is on the marquee. It comes first. My name is way down the list. He’s going to take on a lot more responsibility than I am. Mine is more for the future. I think that Tony likes to be involved. That’s the biggest challenge as a driver and an owner of not letting those headaches outweigh the focus on driving the race car. There is nobody out here that I think could do a better job than what Tony can. He’ll do fine. It’s the obvious distractions and issues that can come from trying to operate that business and drive at the same time.”

YOU ARE GOOD AT WEATHERING TOUGH TIMES BECAUSE YOU’VE SEEN IT BEFORE “Yeah, as I get older, it gets a little bit more difficult. Every race, every year, is crucial and important and you want to do well and you feel like you’ve got the team capable of doing well and it’s always frustrating. It’s just how you show it. I feel like if I go stomping my feet and throwing things around here, it doesn’t make me run good. It doesn’t make it any better. So going back to the fans talking and calling in and stuff, the reason why I don’t really respond to that is because we respond to it internally. We deal with it internally, like any good business should. When you start getting into trying to explain to outsiders, it doesn’t make it any better. I only hope that our fans support me and Steve and the whole team, and I know that they are. They just want us to do good. The funniest thing happened to me in 2000. I had a fan come up to me and said you need to tell Robbie Loomis he needs to get that thing going! And I said, ‘Hey, trust me. We’ve got as much on the line as anybody.’ And he goes, ‘I’m losing a lot of money on all my bets every weekend, because I pick you every weekend.’ And that’s when it hit me how far the fans take it and why they take it so avidly for many different reasons. It could be that type of situation or it could be just that they’ve been a longtime fan and their pride is on the line. But I still promise you, we all have a lot more on the line than anybody else.”

HOW IS DALE JUNIOR AS A TEAMMATE? “He’s been great. I’ve had a great time working with him. He’s funny, and he knows a lot about the cars. I’ve been able to learn first-hand what a great driver he is.”

WHEN YOU HAVE A WEEK LIKE LAST WEEKEND, HOW NICE IS IT TO GO HOME AND ELLA DOESN’T CARE IF YOU HAD A BAD DAY? “Yeah, yeah…it was that times ten. She’s been teething this week, so not only does she not care how I ran, but it’s very quick how you don’t even think about what happened at Watkins Glen because all you care about is her trying to get her naps in and eating and having a temperature and all the things that come along with teething. Not to mention I was testing in Kentucky and had a full production day for Pepsi. So, between all those things, I haven’t thought a whole lot about Watkins Glen this week.”

YOU SAID YOU DON’T STOMP AROUND. IS THERE EVER A TIME WHEN THAT MIGHT BE NEEDED FOR A TEAM? “No, I meant I don’t stomp around and throw things out here (laughter). I do plenty of that. Don’t worry. We handle things the way that I feel like is productive. And you don’t just turn the other cheek. You don’t deny what’s going on. You face it head on. Everybody handles it professionally and you can only have the type of relationship like Steve and I have, where we don’t take things personally. He can criticize me and I can criticize him and we only want to get better and know that he’s the leader of this team and I’m the best tool that he can possibly have to help make the car better. And I have a responsibility; he has a responsibility, and that’s where our focus is.”

WHAT’S COOL IS THAT YOUR TEAM ISN’T EATING ITSELF UP ON THE INSIDE ”No, we’re very fortunate in that sense. We’re not having a terrible year, you know? It’s frustrating because I know we’re capable of running better and we should be. But we still are sixth in the points. We’ve been outside of the Chase before, so we’ve had worse years. So it’s nothing that we need to start quitting our jobs and moving to other teams and all of that type of things. It’s nothing like that. And we’re fortunate that when we do have tough seasons that our guys don’t leave. We’re still able to continue to get quality people at our organization and that’s what gets us through the tough times.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED AT KYLE BUSCH’S SUCCESS THIS YEAR? “No, I am and I’m not. I always knew how talented he was. But keeping his head on straight and not making mistakes and being able to handle the pressures and all those things are what were unanswered questions. And this year, so far, he’s handling himself extremely well under the pressure. I’m surprised not as much by him, but I’m more surprised at how good that team is. I think it shows just how good they really are by how well he’s done. He did well with us, but now with that team, they’ve both gone to a whole other level.”

DO YOU THINK YOU GUYS HAVE SOMETHING TO COMPETE WITH GIBBS FOR THE TITLE? “Well, we’re certainly wanting to find that. So far, no. I think Jimmie (Johnson) has, at times. And Carl (Edwards) has, at times. But other than that, nobody has. And we’ve got some work to do before we can.”

KEVIN HARVICK – NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL CHEVROLET IMPALA SS met with media and discussed fuel mileage, the importance of Chevrolet to his race program, Bristol and leading into the Chase, California, Ryan Newman joining Stewart-Haas Racing, and more.

WITH ALL THE FUEL MILEAGE GAMES AND WEATHER FROM THE JUNE RACE, ARE YOU ABLE TO TAKE MUCH FROM THAT EXPERIENCE AND ROLL IT INTO PREPARING FOR THIS RACE? “I think for us its probably a lot different than the last time we were here just because all our cars are different, our engines are different and our whole package is different from what we raced here in June. We ran okay here last time and kind of got caught last time here with that rain because we pitted and came back through and then it started raining again. But I think we should be in good shape this week.”

DO YOU GUYS PLAN ON RUNNING A LONG RUN IN PRACTICE WITH THIS NEW ENGINE JUST TO SEE WHAT THE FUEL MILEAGE IS LIKE? “No, we ran them at Pocono so we should have a pretty good idea of where we should be on fuel mileage and the things that we have done the past couple of weeks, so we should be alright.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS CHEVROLET AND ANY MANUFACTURER TO THE SPORT THAT THEY GIVE YOU? “Well, I think different teams vary at different levels of manufacturer support and our particular team at RCR, we’ve obviously had good support from Chevrolet for a long time and they are a big part of everything that we do from an engineering side and really from a little bit of all sides I guess you could say just for the fact that they give us technical support and engineering support and all the things that make our cars better not necessarily at the race track but away from the race track.”

HOW WOULD THE TEAM GO ON IF THEY HAD TO PULL AWAY FOR SOME REASON? ”I think everybody is prepared for that to some extent. Obviously its something that nobody wants to see and I think there is still a lot of benefit for the manufacturers to not go away. And the world the way it is right now I think all businesses have to clamp the belt down a little bit and make things a little bit tighter. I think there are definitely ways to do it without (the manufacturers) if it ever came to that but I don’t think it ever will.

TALK ABOUT YOUR MINDSET GOING INTO BRISTOL AND GOING INTO THERE LOOKING FOR A SPOT IN THE “CHASE”. “Bristol is a good track for us and we had a good run at the beginning of the year and obviously we are excited about going there. It will be the first weekend that I haven’t run the Nationwide car since I started racing there but when we laid the schedule out this year we felt like we would just be better to run the Cup race and to concentrate on that. I might be a little bit bored but other than that Bristol has always been a good place for us and we’ve been fortunate to be successful there.”

HOW ABOUT CALIFORNIA COMING UP AND THE HEAT YOU EXPERIENCED LAST YEAR OUT THERE? “Its not very warm out there right now but I am sure its just waiting a week and hopefully its nothing like it was last year because it was the most miserable race we went to on the whole circuit last year.

WHAT CAN YOU TAKE FROM THIS TRACK AND USE AT CALIFORNIA? WE ALWAYS HERE THERE ARE CERTAIN SIMILARITIES BUT NOT EXACT. “Yeah, one and two at California is so much different than anything we do here. Its low on grip and then you wind up with the front tires pushing and its just a unique corner. In (turns) three and four you can take some of the things you do here and do there but there are some things like engine packages and half the race track is similar to California but the asphalt is different and not quite as worn out as it is here so you don’t get that same type of feel that you do here from inside the car.”

YOU AREN’T DOING THE NATIONWIDE RACE HERE OR AT BRISTOL. WOULD YOU RATHER BE RACING IN THOSE EVENTS OR NOT CONSIDERING WHERE YOU ARE IN THE CHASE? “We really kind of laid it out that way at the beginning of the year to hopefully be involved in having a chance to get in the Chase at this point of the year. We just tried to be as fresh as we could be going into the Chase and that is what we felt was the best thing to do so I’m happy that Cale (Gale) is going to get a chance this week and glad I don’t have to do it.”

ARE YOU NERVOUS ABOUT THIS CHASE THING? YOU DON’T SEEM SO? “Not really. It is what it is and you just go out and race as hard as you can. It wouldn’t be anything we do any differently if we were first and if we were twentieth so we go out and where it falls is where it falls, and not a lot we can do in between.”

ARE YOU FRUSTRATED OR ARE YOU GUYS CONFIDENT THAT YOU ARE MAKING STRIDES TO BE A CHASE-CALIBER TEAM? “I think its pretty obvious that we’ve made strides over the last couple of months and I am pretty happy with the performance of the cars and where everything is at right now so I’m pretty confident with everything that we’ve got going on.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT RYAN NEWMAN JOINING THE STEWART-HAAS TEAM? DO YOU CARE? “I think its pretty neat to see the progress that Tony has made with his team. Ryan is obviously a friend of mine and Tony is a good friend of mine so its neat to see them come together especially with similar backgrounds and having a lot of the same interests. I think it will be a good combination with Ryan getting in there and being able give his opinion and help Tony. I think he is someone that Tony will listen to and value his opinion. Its interesting to watch it take place because we’ve done that with our Nationwide teams and Truck Series teams and put it all together. “

CAN THEY CONTEND RIGHT AWAY? “Well here is the hard part about when you start a new team. The hardest part of starting a new team is usually you come out of the box good, but its when you get into the summer months and you start crashing cars and things start going wrong – its how you rebound from that. So I will say they’ll come out of the gate strong because they’ll have a lot of time to prepare and get things situated but the character-builders come in the middle of the year.”

HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE TERM HYPER-MILING? “I have no idea.”

IT’S LIKE SOME WAY TO SAVE GAS ON THE HIGHWAY FOR REGULAR DRIVING FOLKS. SO WHEN (TODD) BERRIER COMES ON THE RADIO AND TELLS YOU, ‘OKAY MAN, YOU NEED TO SAVE GAS’. WHAT PROGRESSION DO YOU GO THROUGH MENTALLY AND IN THE CAR TO DO SO? “Well, for me its all about slowing down and staying off the break and we kind of have done some testing for what you do under caution and what you don’t do so it’s a pretty basic routine that we go through that we’ve done for years and just feel like its our best case scenario and most of that work is done in the shop and in the engine department. So they have done a good job at that and I feel most likely that at some point this race will come down to fuel mileage because it just always does.”

IS IT EXASPERATING AS A DRIVER WHEN YOU HEAR THAT YOU NEED TO SAVE FUEL? ”Well at that point, you want the fuel mileage to work out but we’ve been around it long enough to have been on both sides of the fence. A lot of times your fuel mileage doesn’t work out the way that you calculated it or want it to and you wind up running out of gas or pitting and coming up short, or whatever the case may be but you work on it as hard as you can and usually fuel mileage will pay off for you several times a during a year if its good.”

MORE QUOTES TO FOLLOW AS THE DAY PROGRESSES.