KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL IMPALA SS met with media and discussed racing at Martinsville, the new car, and the early season success for RCR.

WITH THIS NEW CAR, HOW DO YOU MOVE SOMEBODY OUT OF THE WAY AT MARTINSVILLE WITHOUT TEARING UP THE FRONT OF IT? “This car is actually a lot more durable than the old car. The old car was a little bit easier to knock the fenders and things in on. But it’s just kind of part of the game here at Martinsville. You just lean on everybody and everybody seems to lean on each other and it’s just good short track racing.”

LAST YEAR, JEFF GORDON AND JIMMIE JOHNSON BATTLED IT OUT. IS THAT A CONCERN HERE ON SUNDAY THAT YOU REALLY CAN’T MOVE SOMEBODY OUT OF THE WAY? “Your first concern is to race, not run into each other.”

DAVID REUTIMANN IS RACING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DALE JARRETT’S CAR. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO TAKE OVER FOR ANOTHER DRIVER? “Obviously this is a tough sport. And obviously the situation he’s getting in is a little big different than the situation I was in. But it’s tough to live up to those expectations and have to answer to what somebody else has done for a long time in a particular car, but we’ll see what happens. It should be fine.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PATIENCE AT MARTINSVILLE “You have to take care of your car and you have to do the best you can to try to make sure the brakes and the fenders and the sides and everything are still rolling. You’ve got to have the radiator in the car and it’s easy to get caught up in something here. So you just try to put yourself in position for those last 100 laps to be able to have that capability to race for the win at the end.”

HOW DO YOU THINK THE CAR WILL RUN AT THIS TRACK? “It ran fine here last time.”

DO YOU THINK RCR IS AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION WITH THE NEW CAR? “I don’t think we’re far ahead of anybody. I think we’ve just put together a good string of races. Everybody, it seems like, is kind of in the same ballpark. It seems like every team is competitive in one way or another. We’ve got to keep working. We’ve got to keep trying to get ahead and that's how we got to this point, but it won’t last long.”

SO WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING RIGHT? “We’re just racing. We’re racing smart and everybody worked hard over the winter to get the cars better.”

IT SEEMS LIKE IT HAS BEEN A QUALITY START TO THE SEASON FOR EVERYBODY AT RCR “Yeah, it’s been a really good start for us. To get started good is something that we really haven’t been able to do as a Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet team. We’ve kind of gotten off to a slow start. Not a lot of good race tracks for us, but as a company in general, we’ve really gotten off to a good start and we’re looking forward to trying to keep it going.”

JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T MOBILITY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Martinsville Speedway and talked about the weekend off, figuring Martinsville out, the difference between Bristol and Martinsville, the Hendrick Motorsports dominance at Martinsville and more.

ON HAVING A WEEKEND OFF. “It was nice to have a weekend off and I really liked the way that this year’s rolled with running five races and then having a weekend off verses the way we used to do it. It was two weeks then get a weekend off and two weeks and a weekend off. I never understood that. I definitely enjoyed having a five race stretch. I think it allowed all the teams to kind of get into a rhythm before a weekend off. I think that’s important. It was good to have a weekend off but at the same time I kind of missed the race track. That weekend off in June, I never missed the race track. I’m glad to have it in June, but the early weekends off I always think they are a little too early.”

ON HOW THE CAUTIONS PLAY INTO STRATEGY AT MARTINSVILLE. “The restarts are important because we do have so many. This is the tightest race track that we go to, it’s the smallest racing groove that we go to and you get half way through the race and you get it seems to me like there are always 17 to 20, 22 cars on the lead lap that means that you are doubling up just like it’s the start of the race. Track position is huge, it takes forever to get by people. So it’s real important. Having track position at the right time of the race here is important because of the restarts. It’s a long time before you can start passing anybody and it makes being in the front of that real important.”

ON PAST STRUGGLES AT MARTINSVILLE AND IF HE FEELS HIS TEAM HAS A BETTER HANDLE ON IT THIS YEAR. “I hope not. We have struggled, honestly the weakness of our team has been what we’re getting ready to come up on and that’s Martinsville, Phoenix those smaller tracks for whatever reason is where we’ve struggled the most. If you go back and look at where in the past I’ve not been my best you make the case that it’s been the Martinsville’s, New Hampshire’s, Phoenix’s, but for whatever reason we just haven’t clicked with this type of track. So this is an important weekend for us, probably Phoenix more important than here for us. It’s one of those tracks that if you’re not right it’s hard to figure it out. It’s hard today, there’s no rubber on the race track, we’re the first cars on the track. The track is going to change so much between now and Sunday that sometimes I think that we put too much emphasis on what we do today because the track changes so much by Sunday. I can’t tell you that we spent a lot of effort getting ready for just this race, but we have worked on our short track program and hopefully that will yield results because this has been one of our weaker race tracks.”

ON THE DIFFERENCES IN PREPARING FOR A RACE AT BRISTOL VERSES THE RACE AT MARTINSVILLE. “This and Bristol, actually I saw an overhead shot of Bristol from last week and I thought wow that looks just like Martinsville. If it didn’t have the banking in it, it would be just like Martinsville. They both have similar shapes but obviously the banking is so different that they are not even the same thing. You prepare for Bristol more like you are going to Michigan than you would say like going to Martinsville. This is truly a short track. There’s nothing short track about Bristol except the wrecks. Bristol with such the high bank has so much banking and the track has that characteristic that is more like a short track than Martinsville is – Martinsville is more like a short track than Bristol, I’m sorry.”

ON CONTAINING EMOTIONS DURING AN INTERVIEW AFTER AN ON-TRACK INCIDENT. “We’ve heard talk in the past about having a cooling off period before post-race interviews and I’m a huge proponent (OPPONENT) of that. I think that’s a terrible idea. I think that the emotions of our sport are what make this sport work. If drivers, crew members can’t show their emotions, then why watch. I think that the fans deserve to hear the story, I think the fans deserve to see the emotion and I think they deserve to see the raw emotion. I do believe though that you have to harness that in a way so that, you have to understand that you’re speaking to an audience that you don’t know is there. You have to assume that you are speaking to a room full of Kindergarteners. That you can’t use language that isn’t right, but the fans deserve to know what happened as you saw it. What I try to do is tell what I believe to be the truth and I do it in a way that’s clear and concise and easily understood. That’s the way I try to do it, that’s not saying that’s right but that’s how I do it. I love the fact for our sport that something happens on the track and a guy comes out of the infield care center there’s a microphone there. I think that’s awesome, I think that’s how it ought to be. I think other sports miss out on that and you’ve seen some football coaches react negatively to being mic’d, I’m sorry basketball coached being mic’d and acting negatively to that. I mean we do it every week, what’s the big deal. Heck we have direct pass riding with us hearing everything we say, I think that’s what separates our sport.”

YOU GUYS AT CHILDRESS YOURSELF, CLINT (BOWYER) AND KEVIN (HARVICK) HAVE COMPLETED EVERY LAP THIS SEASON, CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE CONSISTENCY AND HOW YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT? “Obviously we’ve had some luck, I mean we’ve had some things go our way. Mechanically we’ve been good. We’ve put ourselves in position not to get wrecked. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control, a guy wrecks in front of you, has something go wrong there’s nothing you can do about it. We’ve had good luck, we’ve put ourselves in position to have good luck and mechanically we’ve been solid but it takes a little bit of everything. It takes good decisions by the drivers, good decisions by the mechanics and some good fortune as well.”

ON HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS’ DOMINANCE AT MARTINSVILLE. “I think that they will make a stand. I think that they will be extremely strong this weekend and how much that carries over depends on the team. I can tell you that winning this race last year doesn’t mean you are going to come here and run well. Running poorly last year doesn’t mean you’re gonna run poorly. The work that you’ve done between now and then is going to determine how well you run. But they obviously have a set up and a feel for the cars that has yielded results, that’s obvious. Jimmie (Johnson) has done it a lot, Jeff (Gordon) has done it a lot before Jimmie did it. (Dale Earnhardt) Junior’s run well here so they have the mechanical ability and they have the drivers that can do it as well. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see them come here and be successful. They pretty much, as seen by me, have dominated this race track for a while and until somebody can take that away from them it’s theirs. As long as you’re the last one holding the trophy, you’re the man. Somebody’s got to take it away and nobody has been able to do that consistently recently for sure.”

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS met with media to discuss his progress so far this season, what it takes to learn Martinsville, stealing parts in the garage, the HMS team, and more.

ON TAKING OVER ANOTHER DRIVER’S RIDE, WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? “I don’t know. He’s got to be nervous. His (Reutimann) first race, I’m sure he’s got to be nervous but he seems to be a pretty professional guy when it comes to driving and all. He seems like he’ll be cautious. Seems to be pretty level-headed.”

IS IT JUST A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE YOU MAKE ANOTHER TRIP TO VICTORY LANE? “I hope so. We’re just going to keep trying until it happens. I enjoy running good and running up front and really being consistent. That’s something I haven’t been called in a long, long time. So it’s a good feeling how we’ve been going right now. We’ll just keep working and keep doing the same job.”

HAS THE PROCESS OF GETTING UP TO SPEED WITH A NEW TEAM GONE FASTER THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD? “No, it could have gone a 100 different ways as far as I knew at the beginning of the year. I didn’t know what to expect or how fast or slow it might happen. I knew I was getting in good stuff. I knew I had my cousin me who knew a lot of things about me that we wouldn’t have to figure out. He knows how I like my cars to drive and he knows things about the set up that I will like or not like. So, we cut a lot of hurdles out of the way with that.”

HMS HAS DOMINATED AT MARTINSVILLE FOR THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. WOULD YOU MIND KICKING JIMMIE JOHNSON AND JEFF GORDON OUT SO YOU COULD KEEP THE TORCH GOING FOR HENDRICK? “Well, I think it’s going to be tough. They’re running good. We’re running good. They’ve always run really good and won races here. We seem to be able to run in the top five quite often. I do like the track. And I would like to win a clock. Tony Jr. says he wants a clock. We’ve come close a couple of times. We got us some third place finishes and been real close. He builds a good car with a good set-up and it’s up to us to make the right calls on pit road and do the right thing on the race track. We’ve got a good shot, though.”

ARE YOU READY FOR THE FAN CHANGE FROM A SEA OF RED TO A SEA OF GREEN AT MARTINSVILLE ON SUNDAY? “The fans are really supportive. And no matter what color shirt they’ve got on, we’ve had a lot of support this year. And I’m in debt to how they’ve treated us and it’s been really surprising to me how excited they are and how much they’re looking forward to all year long. Hopefully they’re happy with the way we’ve been running. A couple of them have been a little hard on Tony Jr., but he’s my cousin and hopefully he’ll always be my crew chief. We’re a package deal and hopefully that’s the way it’s always going to be. I’d rather work with somebody that you care for and enjoy being around and that you can have good success with. I’d rather have that than try to go a different route. I think he feels the same way. I’m pretty fortunate to have the opportunity we’ve both got and we’re trying to make the most of it for the rest of the season.”

DO YOU THINK MARTINSVILLE DESERVES TWO RACE DATES? “Absolutely, man. We can’t lose any more short tracks in the season. They ain’t building any short tracks to replace them. And we can’t afford to loose any more short tracks.”

WOULD YOU FIGHT TO SAVE MARTINSVILLE? “Oh, I don’t know what I could do, but I don’t think there is any jeopardy of losing a date.”

THIS PLACE GIVES SOME PEOPLE FITS. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO GET IT AND WHEN DID YOU GET IT? “We struggled here until we came and spent two days solely just testing. And when we did that, we ran that set-up and generally in that area of springs and stuff since then. And it seems to do well. I ran into everything for a couple of years. We had one race where it was just ridiculous, just the wrecking that I was doing. So it takes a little bit. It really has a lot more to do with the race car than you think. When you first come here, you’re thinking oh I’m doing it wrong I’ve got to go harder and do this different and harder, harder, harder. And you just make it worse and worse and worse. Once you figure out how to get the car to turn and to work and be able to put the power down, it makes learning how to drive this track way easier. And so we struggled with the car for a while, which didn’t enable me to understand how to get around here. And I just made it worse trying to drive what I thought was a good car, but apparently we made it a lot better and it calmed me down. That’s how it worked.”

ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT IT’S YOU THAT’S CARRYING THE HENDRICK BANNER NOW AND NOT JIMMIE OR JEFF? ‘Well we’re running good and they’ve ran good. They’ve had some misfortunes and some bad luck and struggled at a couple of race tracks. But it’s just a matter of time before they get back to where they want to be. With the way that organization is, you won’t be down or struggling for long. And there are too many good people that work there; too many dedicated people. The spirit that company has to run up front and the dedication they have is to do whatever it takes to get that. It’s not going to be like it is for much more. I expect them all to be in the top 10 this weekend. I think we’ll all have good runs this weekend.”

COULD YOU ELABORATE ON HOW YOU STRUGGLED AT MARTINSVILLE? “Yeah, well the first several starts were embarrassing. We came here and tested and worked really hard with it. We had a test a long time ago, and we’ve used that information and improved on it. We do fine now. You just can’t overdo it. You’ve just got to get down in the corner. You can only get in there so fast. The brakes are only going to do so much. And you can only put the power down, you know, the power’s going to spin the tires. So you’ve just got to be patient and work on the car to get the car better. It’s real important.”

WOULD YOU LIKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE A TEAMMATE WITH MARTIN TRUEX JR. AGAIN? “Well, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, and working with the guys that are my teammates now. We’ve got a good combination and a good group between Casey (Mears) and Jimmie and Jeff. There is just a lot of good chemistry there. Everybody is positive about not only themselves, but making sure everybody else is having success and running good. Casey is struggling and he’s had a lot of unfortunate luck. He’s a better race car driver than he’s been running. I think everybody knows that. And I enjoy having him as a teammate. Martin is a great friend of mine. We hang out and I told him to go to that Darlington test if he wanted to go, you know, because we’re buddies. I told Matt (Kenseth) to go. But he ended up going to see his mom. There were a couple of other drivers and at one time we were all going to go together. I thought it would be fun. But we’re just good friends. Martin is a good guy. I know that he’s going to have a difficult year answering this question all year long as far as what he’s going to do and where he’s going to go and all that. But the only thing I can do for him is help him with that, on how to deal with it. He probably don’t need it. He’s pretty focused. But we’ve got a good deal where we are at Hendrick. Our main goal is to give Casey the best opportunity every weekend and give him a better chance and hopefully put him in a situation where he can create some better luck and change his fate a little bit so he can get the finishes. He runs good. He was running great at Bristol and just got caught up in some stuff. It’s been unfortunate for him. It’s been a tough year.”

JACK ROUSH IS UPSET AND ACCUSING ANOTHER TEAM WITH ANOTHER MANUFACTURER OF STEALING A PART AND TAKING ADVANTAGE. IS STEALING EQUIPMENT MORE OF THE NORM THAN THE EXCEPTION IN THIS SPORT? IS THERE REALLY AN HONOR CODE IN THE GARAGE? “Well I don’t like stealing, no matter what it is or how it’s happening. I don’t think anybody should steal anything out of anybody’s garage or shop or through a change of hands with employees.”

HAVEN’T YOU HAD STUFF STOLEN? “We were testing at Memphis and some guy broke into the race track and hauled off with all the laptops and a bunch of stuff. And they found the car that he used to tow it up on the railroad tracks behind the race track. And that sucks, man. You come to work and that’s not even in the back of your mind. You know when you’re at home, you lock the door at night or you put things in certain places to keep them safe. But when you’re here working, or at your shop, you never feel that way. You feel like the total environment is secure, and that nobody would even have the nerve to even try it.”

WHY? “Oh, just a gentlemen’s agreement or a trust factor, I don’t know. I would assume that nobody here would want to steal anything from our team. I don’t care what it was. It’s just because you don’t. But maybe I give everybody more credit than they should have, I don’t know. I just assume this is a safe environment. So when we got stole from at Memphis, that was just a couple of guys trying to pawn some stuff for money. That wasn’t even another race team. So, that’s sort of understandable. It’s not acceptable, but it’s understandable. But I don’t know anything about that story. I haven’t read up on it or anything. I’m not sure exactly what the situation is. Well, I’m sure it happens. There are people that get fired and have information that goes with them. Well, that’s just part of firing somebody. That’s the price you pay when you let a guy go. If that happened, that’s not necessarily stealing. That’s just hey man, I got fired but I know they run this spring and this kind of spring bucket and it’s been working great and that’s why they’ve been whooping everybody. So that’s not stealing. That’s just the price you paid to get rid of the guy you didn’t want to have around anymore.”

JACK ROUSH SAID SOMEBODY ACTUALLY TOOK A PART FROM THEIR PIT BOX OR TOOL BOX FROM DOVER LAST YEAR AND HELD ON TO IT. “Another team?”

YES, ANOTHER TEAM. “Another team walked over to their pit box and stole something off of it?”

IT WAS UNDER THE PIT BOX. “That really happened? Wow. If that happened, whoever did it ought not to have a hard card anymore, hands down. I don’t care what his excuse was of if he was put up to it or whatever. If anybody steals anything off my pit stall doesn’t deserve to be in the garage; has no business being in the garage. No second chances there.”

MAYBE THE SPORT IS CHANGING WITH ALL THE MONEY IN IT. NASCAR SAID THERE REALLY ISN’T A RULE ABOUT THAT ‘Yeah, it’s unfortunate. You assume that you get enough respect around here that people don’t steal from you. I’m going to continue to assume that, that people are just respectful enough and everybody has a good enough head on their shoulders that that’s not the kind of activities they’d get involved in. And until I get stole from, that’s how I’m going to feel. Once I get stole from, I hope I’ll have the ability to come down really hard on them.”

WHAT IS THE HARDEST PART FOR A DRIVER IN A CONTRACT YEAR? “Messing with y’all (the media) and talking with y’all. That’s the hardest part. You’re working behind the scenes and trying to figure out what you’re going to do. You’re working as hard as you can. You want to get the right deal. You want to get is just like you want it. And it takes time. And people want to believe what they want to believe. And I know the media has a job to do. A driver in a contract year, you try to give them what you give them. Hopefully they return the favor with some room. But if I was going to ask anybody around here, I’d ask them once a month, not every week. Because there’s probably nothing happening in the last couple of weeks. He’s not going to give you new information. Plus, you’re going to find out when everybody else finds out in the end. But y’all got to get the people to tune in and watch and read. So I guess it’s good to talk about. But it makes it tough, it does.”

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 07 BB&T IMPALA SS met with media and discussed the importance of brakes at Martinsville, his learning curve at Martinsville, the season to date, and more.

ON COMING TO MARTINSVILLE, WHAT ARE YOU HOPING FOR THIS WEEKEND? “Big things. Obviously I like this place. It’s close to home. But this is an opportunity for me. This isn’t one of my best race tracks. I’m just looking to capitalize on it. We keep getting better every time we come here. In practice I was probably the highest I’ve ever been at 17th, at least in the first practice. But we’re inching in on it and I feel like this is a track that we have to improve on and we have room to improve. I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”

HOW IMPORTANT ARE BRAKES AT MARTINSVILLE? “I’d hate to not have them (laughs). They’re very important and that’s something that we’ve all tested, especially on the 07 team. We’ve tested over the off-season a lot on our brake package. We felt like we was a little bit behind in that area and that’s something we’ve put a lot of emphasis on over the winter to improve at tracks like Martinsville.”

ON YOUR LAST THREE STARTS, YOU’VE FINISHED 1ST, 2ND, AND 3RD, AND I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SMILE IN TWO WEEKS. WHAT’S IT GOING TO TAKE? “We’ve been having fun (laughs). Things have been going good. It’s just once you get rained out in Victory Lane, Goodyear building in Bristol, it makes you want more. You’re not happy unless you get that. I’m a racer and that’s what you get paid to do. So, don’t let me kid you. We’re having fun and we’re just trying to keep it up. When you run good, there is more pressure to keep it going. So I’m looking forward to it.”

THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT RCR CATCHING UP WITH HMS. HOW CAN YOU CLOSE A GAP LIKE THAT? “It’s just a lot of little things. It isn’t one area. It’s not like Kevin (Harvick) or Jeff (Burton) or I can pick up the pieces of the puzzle. Certainly we’ve worked harder to improve our game and try to be better. But it goes farther than that. We’ve had to improve in every area just a little bit. Our chassis had to be better. Our engineering had to be better. Our engines had to be better and drivers had to be better. You know, just everything. We were at a point where you couldn’t pinpoint just one thing. We couldn’t go to Richard (Childress) and say give us 30 more horsepower and we’ll go out an dominate. That just wasn’t going to happen.”

DID YOU GET A SUPER LATE RIDE FIGURED OUT FOR 311 SPEEDWAY TONIGHT? “Man, I did. I got fired out of a feature win and two top fives. I was fired! That was a quote out of Days of Thunder (laughter). That’s what I told Dillon. I had me a ride. My dirt boys are in Mississippi and headed to half of the world Outlaw race and I asked Shane McDowell who runs (Mike) Dillon’s dirt deal, who is running Austin’s car? He said nothing, let’s go. Let’s go to 311. And Dillon found out and fired me. That wasn’t no good. Go ask him why I’m not racing 311 this weekend.”

WHY DO YOU WANT TO TAKE A CHANCE AND GO DOWN THERE AND RACE? “Oh, it’s just fun. Dirt racing is in my blood. That’s what I love doing. And if you want to see a smile on my face, go over to the dirt track. I just love doing it. My driver and all the guys took the whole dirt program and they’re off, so I guess this year if I’m going to race, I’ve got to go with them.”

WITH A CAREER BEST FINISH OF NINTH AT MARTINSVILLE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE SLOWLY GETTING THIS DIALED IN A BIT MORE? “Yeah, a little bit. This is a track where I feel like we have room to improve, especially in the seat. I keep getting better and better as I come here. It always seems like I’m a slower learner at this place for some reason. Usually we start out with qualifying and practice here and we’re terrible. We’re a little bit better this time than we were last time. So if we can keep improving, then who knows? Maybe we can win one (laughs).”

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR FIRST FIVE RACES? “We really got off to a rocky start. The Daytona 500 was going good. We were leading the 500 with 18 to go and just got wrecked. That’s Daytona. But aside from that, California and Vegas were definitely not what we expected. Things just didn’t work out and we learned a lot. Sometimes it takes a bad race like that to be able to build and learn from and that was certainly the case there.”

MARTIN TRUEX, JR., DRIVER OF THE NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS IMPALA SS, met with media members at Martinsville Speedway and talked about racing at Martinsville, returning to a 1.5-mile track and much more.

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT MARTINSVILLE THIS WEEK. “Well I’m not sure. Martinsville has probably been my biggest struggle as far as race tracks we go to on the circuit. We always came here, we ran good in practice and qualifying, we set on the outside pole here last year. We just never seem to race well so we kind of changed our thoughts. We brought a different car than we ran here last year, trying some new stuff and so far it doesn’t seem any better but it’s not quite as good in qualifying trim. Hopefully come tomorrow afternoon and come Sunday it will be better. That’s what we’re banking on right now.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS OF WHERE HE IS SO FAR THIS SEASON. “I’m pretty happy with where we’re at. There are a couple of races we let some finishes slip away. With a problem on pit road at Atlanta, we went from running sixth or seventh to finishing 21st, that hurt. Last week at Bristol we made a bad pit call and lost a lap, had to fight all day to get it back and we finally got it back at the end and run 13th. We’ve been okay, we’ve not been great, not as good as we ended the year last year. Some of the 1.5-mile tracks we seem to be lacking just a little speed but at this point last year we were like 25th and we’re 12th this year. So we started off a lot better, we just need to figure out some stuff and hit our stride and get to work.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT RETURNING TO A 1.5-MILE TRACK AFTER THE TIRES ISSUES AT ATLANTA. “I just hope they have a better tire. Something we can race better on, I think they will. Surely, they’ll go back with something like we raced there last year, which will be good. But I’m looking forward to it. Texas has been a really good track to me. We’ve always been really consistent; we’ve always run in the top five, the top ten. Hopefully we can go there and do that again and maybe have a shot at winning one of these things. We haven’t quite been a top-five car yet this year and it would be nice to go there and do that next weekend. We’ve been seventh, eighth place cars when we’ve been good. The guys are working hard trying to find that extra little bit and I’m doing the same. We just keep plugging at it.”

ON HOW MUCH BETTER THE IMPALA SS IS AT TRACKS THAN IT WAS LAST YEAR: “It’s hard to say. Bristol has been the only place that we’ve been with the new car that we’ve been last year so it’s all been different. The 1.5-mile tracks are a lot different than what we ran these cars on last year. It’s kind of hard to say. I think it’s definitely got closer, it seems like the cars that were really good last year are still really good. The cars that weren’t that good are a lot closer to them. It’s tremendously close especially like Bristol last week and here at Martinsville the times and what people are running, it’s unbelievable how much alike everybody is.”

DALE JR. WAS TALKING ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE LAST YEAR AND THOUGHT THAT YOU WOULD HAVE A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE THIS YEAR AS YOU DECIDE YOUR FUTURE. ARE YOU FURTHER ALONG IN THAT PROCESS? “I haven’t looked down that road yet. I’m just focused on winning right now with my team and giving these guys everything I’ve got. I know they are working hard. We haven’t performed the way we expected to so far, we’ve been okay. We’ve been pretty good at places but when we’ve been good it’s been fifth, sixth, seventh-place cars so we got a little bit of work to do. We’re just working hard, focused on making our stuff better, trying to win some races.”

DO YOU FEEL COMPARATIVELY TO THE START OF LAST SEASON YOU’RE A LITTLE BIT OFF? “I feel a little bit off. Last year we started off slow in the finishes because we had a lot of tough luck but we were running really, really good. We went to Daytona and ran good, in the 500 we led laps. Went to California and ran like third until we blew up. We were really fast right out of the gate last year, this year not quite, we don’t quite have that speed to run in the top-five yet so that’s been a little frustrating. But at the same time, we’re sitting a whole lot better in points. We’ve been a lot smarter throughout the races and our equipment has been better as far as staying together. We just need to go find some extra speed and get up there and race where we belong.”

SPEAKING OF YOUR TEAMMATES, YOU HAVE NEW ONES, ARE THINGS DIFFERENT THIS YEAR? “Not really. It’s not a whole lot different. I try to do the same thing every weekend and that’s help whoever is around me who needs help. Do the best job I can, make my car run fast, try to win the race, try to get the best finishes across the board for the company. That’s the same thing I’ve always done. I don’t think it’s really changed. I haven’t really done anything different so I guess not really, no.”

ARE YOU PROUD WHEN SOME ADVICE YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER TEAMMATES HELPS THEM? “I do. It’s cool. It’s fun. It’s good when you tell them some things or you try to help them and they go out there and pick up two or three tenths and they come back and say thank you man that was awesome you know. That really feels good. It feels like you are doing something special, something extra that some guys don’t. I’ve really enjoyed working with Aric (Almirola) and Regan (Smith). Paul (Menard) he doesn’t really need much help, he’s been doing this for a while and he’s kind of got his own way of doing his thing, but Regan and Aric have really been a pleasure to work with especially at tests.”

ON HOW WELL HE THINKS ARIC ALMIROLA WILL DO HERE AT MARTINSVILLE: “Well so far I don’t feel he needs anything, he’s faster than me. So, he’ll be fine. If he’s got any questions he knows I’m here to help. I think last week at Bristol I was able to help him a bunch with his set up and stuff like that. He went off and ran really good in the race so I’m sure he’ll do the same this weekend.”

YOU MADE MENTION BEFORE, ARE SETUPS CLOSE ON THE CARS COMPARED TO LAST YEAR? “I think it’s a garage-wide thing. The race here, racing has always been a lot of trouble here. Since we went to these newer cars, you got to slow down more because they don’t go through the corner as well so it’s gotten worse over the years but I think a lot of guys have issues. Ours have been okay today, the second race last year we ran the whole race and had no problems.”

HOW DO YOU THINK ARIC STACKS UP TO THE OTHER GUYS? “Well, he doesn’t have a lot of experience but he’s got a lot of talent. He can get the job done. He just needs a little bit of time. A perfect example is what he did last week at Bristol. I don’t think he had ever raced there before and he goes there and finishes in the top 10. He’s a good little race car driver, get some experience and gets working with that team every week he’s going to do a really good job.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS met with media and discussed track position at Martinsville, the tire test at Darlington, the progress the team has made by testing the past two weeks, his success at Martinsville, and more.

YOU GUYS DON’T LOOK LIKE CHAMPIONS RIGHT NOW. WHAT’S GOING ON? “Well, we’re certainly learning (laughs). I think that we all get sucked into things that we think are predictable and we forget that this is racing and nothing is predictable. This is so tough and it’s so easy to lose whatever you have. It’s just a tenth or two-tenths of a second that can take you from a hero to a zero. We certainly have gotten off to a slower start than we wanted to. But we have had some good races through all that. California went well. Bristol was one of the most competitive Bristols I’ve ever had. We’ve been testing during the past two weeks. And I think we’re a lot smarter and we’re looking forward to Texas. We’ve just been working hard. Maybe we spent a little too much time worrying about last year’s championship, but hell, I wouldn’t trade that for the world. That’s what we needed to do. I’m learning how to drive this car on the bigger tracks and we’re learning how to set it up too.

ARE PEOPLE STILL OVER-REACTING ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS RIGHT NOW? “In some ways I think so. But we’re not trying to distract anyone and to be honest, we don’t like where we are either. But if you look at different stretches that we have had or that the No. 24 has had, or the No. 20 or any of the big teams, it’s not uncommon to have four or five weeks stretch where they’re not good races. We’ve been doing this long enough and we’re trying not to overreact. But we still are reacting and we’re trying to get back to our winning ways and the high expectations we have for ourselves outside of the expectations anyone else has of us.”

COULD THERE BE A BETTER RACE TRACK THAN MARTINSVILLE TO GET YOU BACK ON TRACK? “I really think this is the best track we can come to to get back to our ways. I might not qualify stellar here. That’s kind of hit or miss for me. But in the race, something clicks. That’s just Martinsville. I’m really looking forward to this race. But I looked at Las Vegas as one of those tracks, but that didn’t pan out for us. So I’m optimistic. But at the same time I know that this is racing. It’s a tough deal. We’ve got to be on our game even here at one of our better tracks.”

ON QUALIFYING AND THE IMPORTANCE OF TRACK POSITION AT MARTINSVILLE: “You either want to qualify really good, or really bad. And track position is important, especially later in the race. But the pit stall pick is your biggest problem. If you qualify 15th, you’re forced to pit around other cars that are going to run at similar speeds. So it’s almost better to qualify 30th so you can look at pit road and say all right, now this car doesn’t typically run good here. We’ll find somebody that’s not up to speed and try to pit behind him and hope they go a lap down. So I want to qualify in the top three or in the back.”

HAVE YOU TALKED TO JEFF GORDON ABOUT THE TIRE TEST AT DARLINGTON? “We talked briefly before this weekend and I look forward to catching up with him some more on it. They went back down for a make-up test. And by our brief conversation, it sounds like there were some good changes made. But the track is much different. It’s going to take a while for it to get back to side-by-side racing and the Darlington that we’re used to. Whenever you repave a track, it just kind of makes it single file. The speeds are so high there that it’s going to be tough to run side-by-side I think for a year or two.”

ON THE CHANCES OF WINNING FOUR IN A ROW AT MARTINSVILLE “It’s been a great streak and we certainly want to keep it going. It would be nice to get a win under our belt and get this slow start to the season behind us. But it’s a tough track. And it’s a good track for a few cars so we’re going to have to be prepared and on our game.”

HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU LEARN AT MARTINSVILLE CARRIES OVER FROM YEAR TO YEAR? OR, IS THIS A WHOLE NEW DEAL? “This is one of the tracks that doesn’t change that much. Even with tires; even with the car of tomorrow or the regular car, it’s still Martinsville. You’re going slow enough here where more things stay the same at this track than other places. That’s something I’m excited for and ready to get out there and get that going.”

IS THIS SLOW START TO THE SEASON JUST LIKE WHAT YOU NORMALLY GO THROUGH EVERY SUMMER? ‘There are tracks that we typically run well at. So in the summer slump, we’ve been used to running at those tracks so it’s been a little easier to take and understand. But the tracks that we’ve been really good at, it’s hard to understand why we’ve struggled. But times change. Racing is a tough sport. And we’ve just got to go to work and figure it out.”

YOU’VE BEEN REALLY GOOD AT THE VIRGINIA TRACKS. WHAT IS IT ABOUT MARTINSVILLE AND RICHMOND THAT WORK FOR YOU? “Richmond is just now working for me. Last year was my best year by far there. Martinsville has been a great track for me. This is a quirky, small, little track that takes a lot of discipline to get around here and to be competitive. I’m hopeful that I can go to Richmond and run well. That’s been one of my worst tracks in year’s past. So, I was very relieved to have it come together and be a good track for me last year.”

ON GOING TO TEXAS NEXT WEEK ‘We’re excited. We’ve spent a lot of time testing the last two weeks and I feel like we’ve made some great gains that will show up at places like Texas and hopefully correct our Las Vegas problem. Atlanta was terrible. We still ran competitively. We ran up front. We were on the lead lap and in the top 10 throughout the day. So it wasn’t a terrible day, but I think we’ve learned a lot and learned what went wrong at Las Vegas and how we improve on our run at Atlanta.”

JEFF GORDON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS, met with media members at Martinsville speedway and talked about the race on Sunday, tire testing at Darlington, the stealing parts situation and much more.

ON HIS OUTLOOK FOR THE RACE ON SUNDAY. “Right now I’m going really, I’ve won seven times here that’s awesome. We’re pretty excited about being here at Martinsville. It’s a great race track for us. Love getting to the short tracks. We didn’t have as good of a car as we wanted in Bristol so we know we got a little bit of work to do there, but this has always been a solid track for us and last year was a solid track for us. We got beat so we’re back trying to step it up a notch and had a good morning.”

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS PLACE? KASEY KAHNE SAID HE WENT FROM HATING IT TO LOVING THIS TRACK. “This is one of the toughest tracks to learn. You would think half mile, looks pretty simple, it doesn’t look like it’s a difficult track but it really is a difficult track. You have to have a lot of patience here. I feel like short track experience really plays a key in doing well here. I do remember my first few times here was just so frustrating. I just could not figure this track out, what it took with this big heavy car to get around here. I was testing here and running some laps and started to find some things that really started to make sense. The car started to do what I was wanting it to do. Then we started having success here and all those things have now contributed to being a track that I certainly love to come to. Of course, when you’ve won here seven times that also helps. I think that’s the key. I think guys that never find it are always searching or haven’t had good fortune here, success, they don’t like it. But the guys that have had good runs here and found some things to get around here, and Kasey (Kahne) he’s got short track experience, this is definitely a short-tracker’s dream track to run on. You can’t overdrive it, you got to be patient. It’s kind of like a real slick, tight and narrow dirt track.”

JACK ROUSH WAS IN HERE A LITTLE BIT AGO COMPLAINING ABOUT TOYOTA STEALING PARTS OFF HIS CAR, DOES THAT HAPPEN A LOT IN THE GARAGE AREA? I KNOW YOU GUYS ARE ALL TRYING TO BEAT EACH OTHER, BUT DO PEOPLE STEAL STUFF FROM EACH OTHER? “What’s he doing with stuff just laying around the garage area? If that was a proprietary piece I think that you would have some tighter grip on it (laughing), not letting it go. I think the whole thing is just hilarious. I think it’s a great story, certainly we’ve been talking about it. Once I heard about it today, we were talking about it up in the truck so I’m sure it’s making for some good entertainment around the garage area and here in the media center. I really hope Jack (Roush) is not taking it that serious because he shouldn’t. It really (laughs) is kind of something to smile about and if he’s really that upset about it I want to really know what’s going on with that sway bar man. Maybe there’s something that we’re missing that really truly is contributing to how fast their cars are. I don’t think it is. A lot of us have a little bit different design sway bars. Once we start getting into the really big sway bars, trying to figure out to lighten them up is definitely important, so I don’t know maybe they figured something out on that design and they didn’t want it to get out of their garage. I guess you shouldn’t leave it laying around then either, where somebody can grab it. When I talked to some of my guys on my team and they said you’d be surprised, you’re cleaning up or you’re in post race inspection and stuff gets laid around and you could take it, you could not take it, you could tell a NASCAR official that it was just laying here whatever. It happens all the time. If they don’t claim it, I think its kind of yours (laughing). I don’t really know what the deal was. The difference is Roush wanted it back and he got it back.”

TALK ABOUT HOW ANXIOUS YOU AND JIMMIE ARE ABOUT GETTING BACK TO A PLACE LIKE THIS GIVEN YOUR SUCCESS HERE AND THE START YOU’VE HAD THIS SEASON. “I know we’re just terrible this year, it’s awful to be 14th in the points five races in. I can’t believe how rough it is over at Hendrick Motorsports (sarcastically). One thing I’ve come accustomed to at Hendrick Motorsports since 1994, 1995 is that we hold a very high standard and expectations within our organization and that also is outside the organization. So when you’ve had the type of year that we had last year it’s only natural for the expectations to be high and if we don’t live up to them we’re going to get criticized and people are going to question. As a race team, if you live by that it would be a short career. You’ve got to go out there, you’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to make your cars and your team the best you can and you hope to have good fortune along the way. We’ve had a couple of things that have bit us this year but as far as how well we’ve run, we’ve run great except for Bristol. Bristol is the only race track that I felt like we were truly a 10th or 11th-place or worse car and yet we hadn’t had the good fortune to at least come home in that position. We’ve been a lot better than that this year at a lot of tracks and haven’t put those finishes together. We just try to get into a rhythm and get that consistency going and get ourselves where we need to be solidly in the chase. Last year we started off the season strong, strong all the way through and consistent and we didn’t win the championship. To me, it doesn’t matter if we’re 15th in the points or second in the points, it’s still not what you’re shooting for if you’re not the winner or leading the points or the champion when it’s all over.”

ON BEING ABLE TO BEAT AND BANG TO MOVE ANOTHER DRIVER WITH THE NEW CAR. “Yeah, there’s not a fine line anymore. I mean I really hit him (Jimmie Johnson) hard on that last corner and I still didn’t move him up the track enough to make the past. And honestly you really don’t want to win races that way. I wouldn’t have felt good about it if I hit him any harder, moved him up the track any further. He drove a great race and they had great pit strategy, put themselves in that position and we didn’t have the car to be able to pass him or at least get up beside him a little bit further to really bang wheels and get the win. I’ve always looked at that races, we just got to make sure that we are in that position they were in or a better car to be able to make the pass. This car definitely, it’s tough to get around this race track but as far as the short track action, bumping and banging you can hit guys pretty easy with this car and the bumpers line up and all those things are good but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to move the guys enough to make the pass. In the past if you tapped the guy usually your bumper actually went underneath their bumper, lifted them and then made it hard for them. This car, you actually have to hit them. In the past you weren’t really hitting them, just lifting the back of the car. Again you don’t want to have to do that anyway. You want to be able to have a car that turns up underneath them, out brake them in the corner. If you really get side-by-side maybe slide up a little bit and move them a groove, but to just run in the back of them anybody can do that.”

REVISIT THE JACK ROUSH DEAL: HE SAID IT MIGHT BE TIME FOR NASCAR TO MAKE A RULE ON STEALING IN THE GARAGE. WE HAVE CHEATING COVERED POSSIBLY, HOW ABOUT A RULE ON STEALING? “I’m not even answering that. I have no problem with you asking the question, it’s such a silly (situation). It’s that silly. If something is sitting, who knows whether they stole it or didn’t steal it. The thing might have rolled over in their garage and they took it home, who knows what happened. I think he should investigate, I think the FBI should get involved (laughter breaks out). I really am not even going to go there, it’s just so funny.”

BESIDES SAFEGUARDING YOUR PARTS FROM THIEVERY, WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART FOR YOU ON A RACE WEEKEND? “(Laughs) That’s a good one. Sorry the mic wasn’t working good enough for everybody to hear it. Obviously the competition is the toughest thing we have and it gets tougher and tougher all the time and that’s the thing, we’re going back to a question I had earlier. Obviously the competition has really stepped it up this year. I feel like we’re strong. I don’t feel like we’re that far off but yet the competition has been able to be better than us. We’ve got some work to do to lead more laps and put ourselves in position to win and you got to give credit to those teams for doing that. I know how hard we’ve worked to get where we’re at. I know how hard we’ve worked over the off season to try to be better this year and some teams have done some things to get a step or two ahead. It’s just an ongoing process of constantly trying to make your car work better, learning this new car and what you can do as a team and my part and my role as a driver to give good information, be the best that I can be.”

ON TIRE TESTING AT DARLINGTON. “Let me make one thing clear, the most challenging thing that all of us have in this sport is a re-pave. It is so, so tough because the re-pave, especially with the polymers and things that are involved in the paving processes these days, gives the track a very smooth surface with a lot of grip. Even with the older car it wouldn’t matter, you’re gonna go to Darlington, you’re gonna be really, really fast and you’re gonna build a lot of heat up in the tires literally doing 200 miles per hour going into turn three, so it’s a challenge. The first time that we were there, I think that we learned enough and we could have probably gone with a tire that they had there but I just kind of challenged Goodyear and I think all of did to say hey instead of having to make that decision based on what you have here or making a guess at it, let’s make a commitment as these three teams are here right now that we come back and at least give you a half of day or something on that tire that you feel like is the right tire. So that’s what we did, it was a group effort, we’re very proud of how it went and what Goodyear did. There’s going to be some teams that like the tire and other teams that aren’t going to like it because you do have to go really hard and take the grip away to keep the speeds down and keep the heat out of the tires so that we don’t have any issues. I promise you it’s not going to be like Atlanta. They’re being conservative for the right reasons, but it’s not so far conservative we’re not going to like it. I certainly recommend the drivers the first couple of laps take it easy and then the grip comes in and the cars are fast and good and it will be right back to old Darlington. I feel pretty good about it.”

IF JIMMIE DOESN’T WIN, IS HE STILL MR. MARTINSVILLE? CAN YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE TAKE THAT AWAY FROM HIM? “I mean he certainly has been the last three times we’ve been here, you know he’s been the guy to beat and he was strong today. In my opinion he and Denny Hamlin are the guys to beat here and they were both really strong in practice there. I would imagine that if Jimmie wins this race he will still be considered Mr. Martinsville. If he doesn’t win the race, I don’t know. To me in this sport it’s always been what have you done for me lately (laughing). I think that Mr. Martinsville will be whoever comes out of here on top.”

LOOKING AHEAD AT TEXAS, WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING FROM TIRES THERE AND ALSO WITH DARLINGTON ARE YOU GOING TO MISS WHAT IT USED TO BE IN TERMS OF TIRE WEAR WITH THIS REPAVING? “I mean I definitely miss that side of it and we’ll get back to that eventually. I’ve learned a lot about paving over the years and it’s changed with the polymers that are involved. It holds the pavement together and makes it last longer, makes it smooth with a lot of grip. The last time they paved at Darlington, my understanding, I think it was around 1996, they didn’t have the polymers in the pavement so in one year it was right back to old Darlington. I don’t think this track is going to get back to old Darlington for a number of years and that’s the trend we’ve been seeing in all the new tracks or any re-paves. So in that sense, yeah I miss that. It’s cool we’re still running up against the wall and it’s a neat race track, but to me what really makes Darlington a thrill as a driver is the fact that you’ve got to manage the tires and the grip goes away over a run. Let’s hope we can get back to it as soon as possible. As far as Texas, I don’t really know. None of us tested there. I didn’t test there, I mean they might have tested some tires or something there, so I didn’t really get a recap on what’s going on there other than I heard good things. You know that track is not as abrasive as say Atlanta and so I feel like Goodyear is pretty confident with what they’re taking there. I’m much more concerned with just our set up and what we have with this car at that track because we’ve never been there with this car.”

TONY STEWART SAID HE WOULD FIGHT TO KEEP THE TWO DATES AT THIS TRACK. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MARTINSVILLE KEEPING THE TWO DATES AND WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO KIND OF FIGHT FOR IT? “Oh yeah, I like short tracks. I think that we need more short tracks on the schedule so I’m a big fan of this track. Obviously the challenge always becomes as the sport grows and you want to look at big markets and try to reach out to the biggest group and number of people and fans and bring in new fans and entertain the corporate level people that are here as well as the fans. This might not be the best location but unless you can just pick this place up and put it in that location I want it to stay right here. I love Martinsville. I love this race track and I think when you talk about the core fans this is a great place for those fans to come and enjoy and I think it’s important for that to stay within the sport.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, DRIVER OF THE NO. 8 U.S. ARMY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Martinsville Speedway and talked about his fire last fall at Martinsville, qualifying, improving as a driver and more.

COMING OFF YOUR BEST FINISH AT BRISTOL ARE YOU TRYING TO BRING THAT MOMENTUM OVER TO MARTINSVILLE? “Yeah, of course. Hope to come here and have a good run just like Bristol just to prove it wasn’t a fluke.”

DO YOU WISH YOU DIDN’T HAVE A WEEK OFF IN BETWEEN? “No I was glad I had the weekend off because I got sick so I was thankful for the weekend off just to help recover. If I wouldn’t have been sick, I would have been disappointed we had a weekend off.”

ON RACING AT MARTINSVILLE: “I’ve run here in a late model several times and run here in a truck and I ran a Cup race last year. This race track is really tricky and I wish I was better at it. It’s not my favorite race track and I’m not the best at this race track. Interested to see how our race car handles in this first practice.”

A LOT OF GUYS SAY QUALIFYING AT MARTINSVILLE IS A DIFFERENT ANIMAL, DO YOU FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT QUALIFYING HERE? “It’s just so tight. The field is really tight here. I think the pole and the last may be separated by two tenths, three tenths. If you mess up just the least little bit you’ll be 40th so it’s really important to get a perfect lap in here. Hopefully I can do that.”

ON HOW HE WAS RUNNING PRIOR TO THE FIRE LAST FALL AT MARTINSVILLE. “We were running decent, I think we were like 25th or something like that. Wasn’t spectacular but it was respectable. We caught on fire so it didn’t turn out to be a good day for us. Nonetheless I think we had a pretty decent car. We were just logging laps there, it was the beginning of the race. That was disappointing to fall out that early in the race here last year.”

ON HOW HE SEES THIS RACE BEING DIFFERENT THAN LAST YEAR’S RUN, FIRE ASIDE. “Hopefully it’s a lot different. Hopefully we have a better race car and hopefully we qualify really good because this place is tough to pass, it’s tough to race. Our goal is to qualify up front and go up there and ride around. It’s a lot easier to race with those guys. When you get in the back everybody gets two wide and gets bottled up here really bad and makes it hard to do anything, pass, anything. Before you know it your spotter is telling you that the leader is in your mirror, you’re a lap down. It just makes for a long day when you don’t qualify good. We’re going to focus really hard on getting a good qualifying effort in and just play the track position game all day.”

EXPECTATIONS FOR THE WEEKEND: “The best thing is that it’s Martinsville. I think that a lot of the other race tracks like California, Atlanta, Texas those kind of race tracks would be even more of a learning curve for me, but I’ve raced here in so many different things. I’ve raced here in a late model, I’ve raced here in a truck, I’ve ran here in a Nationwide car when they ran Nationwide cars here two years ago. So I have a lot of laps around here in many different race cars, so that’s the one good thing is that when I show up here I know the race track. I know kind of how to get around the race track. The biggest thing for us will be to work on the race car and get the race car handling how I need it to handle.”

WHAT DO YOU NEED IT TO DO? “Turn (laughs). This place is really, really tough on getting the race car to turn in the middle and still go fast enough. You can slow down and make it but the problem is somebody else is going to figure out how to make it go through the corner faster. It’s a constant struggle of making your car turn without using too much brake so you don’t wear the brakes out. This place is the hardest race track we go to on brakes so it’s really easy to run the brakes off the car.”

WERE YOU GUYS ALL THAT FAR OFF WITH YOUR TURN IN TESTING? “I think we should be good. I think the No. 8 car notoriously has run good here at Martinsville so they have a pretty good set up for this place. I think Tony Gibson and the boys will have this thing dialed in pretty good I hope.”

CAN YOU TRANSLATE ANYTHING FROM BRISTOL TO HERE? “Not really just because Bristol’s got so much banking and you don’t really have to work, I mean Bristol you get tight but it’s not like this place. This place is flat, it’s just really, really hard to get your car to turn here where Bristol’s got so much banking it kind of forces your car to turn.”

WHAT’S GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST PART TO YOU IMPROVING AS A DRIVER, BEING COMPETITIVE WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT? “Just getting that Chevy Impala to the finish line every weekend. That’s my biggest thing is just to cross the finish line, hopefully on the lead lap every time I’m in the race car. That’s my goal and run competitive while I’m doing that. Anymore these days if you cross the finish line at the end of the race and you’re on the lead lap, you’ve had a competitive day because it’s really easy to get a lap down in these races. We run green for so much in these races now. That’s our goal, to run competitive and run all the laps every week. Not just run all the laps, we don’t want to log laps, we want to run competitive so that’s important for us.”

WHAT CAUGHT FIRE ON YOU GUYS LAST YEAR? “A fuel line on the carburetor was loose.”

DID IT JUST FLAME UP INSIDE? “It flamed up everywhere. It burnt that thing pretty bad.”

WAS THAT YOUR FIRST TIME CATCHING ON FIRE? “No, I’ve been on fire more than I would have liked to have been.”