RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger)

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR WEEK AND THE TIRE TEST AT DARLINGTON? ”The tire test I think went well. We purposely went back and had Goodyear build some different tires so that we could come back and have an answer instead of guessing for an answer. I feel like we accomplished a lot of things in the essence that we feel like we have good speed, a good tire, and a safe tire. We did 40 laps on a set of tires and we didn’t have any issues whatsoever. It’s a tough situation to have a track that is fast as Darlington is now. It’s so circular and to have a good tire, I feel like we’ve accomplished that. Goodyear has accomplished that. The cars are drivable. We choose a tire that is not the easiest to drive. The more grip you give it, the easier it is to drive. And the closer you come to the safety issues, so we chose a tire that makes it a little bit harder to drive, but still drivable and hopefully it will put on a good race for the fans.”

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR OTHER DRIVERS TO COME TO DARLINGTON AND COMPLAIN TO YOU ABOUT THE TIRE? “They can scream all they want at me, it doesn’t matter; I’ve got a really big head. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. I feel that the situation is different comparing Atlanta to Darlington because Atlanta, the surface is old and there is a lot less grip in the surface with that old tire. When you go to Darlington, the surface has a lot of grip, so you have to build a tire that has less-grip. They did that, but it’s still a grippier package then what we had at Atlanta. Feel wise, it’s the not the same feel. It’s a similar feel, but on a scale of 1 to 10 – if Atlanta is a 10 for no grip - this is halfway back to a five (meaning Darlington). We actually tried some really hard tires, and they didn’t feel good. It slowed the pace down to a point that no matter what, if we can make the cars feel better and not have tire issues, we’re going to be better. So we put some grip back to it. We came back to the second test and it feels like a good package.”

ANY TIRE CONCERNS GOING INTO TEXAS? “When we tested at Darlington, we actually tested the Texas tires there. Goodyear speculated that they might be able to run the Texas tire at Darlington. That didn’t quite work out like they wanted to. The tire itself feels like a pretty good tire. Obviously, we didn’t test it at Texas, but I don’t think it will be like the situation in Atlanta. Again, the situation in Atlanta was a tire that didn’t feel good, but it was safe. So they got one of the two things ideal.”

DID YOU FIND A MIDDLE GROUND BETWEEN THE TIRES BEING TOO SOFT OR TOO HARD? “I feel like we did for Darlington. I feel like we’ve got a tire that is maybe adds more, it’s maybe more designed from a safety standpoint to be a little bit more conservative knowing that we are going to be a little less grippy which feels a little more worse. I’d rather have that the first time. My opinion (and Greg Biffle’s and Jeff Gordon’s) was that we’d rather have that going into a race on a new race track then to be worrying about going back and going quicker because typically we go quicker when we come back to a track for a race then when we do at a test. It’s errored to the conservative side but not to the extreme conservative side.”

HOW MUCH DID THE DARLINGTON TRACK SLOW DOWN? “It probably slowed down little bit, but not much. I say that because we didn’t run the same tires the second test as we did the first test. We ran 28.57 in testing the second time and the first test we ran a 28.04, but it was a different tire. It was definitely different. They did an excellent job with the track. It feels good. All the same things, the characteristics of the track are there with the exception of the bump and the grip throughout a run. They did an excellent job keeping the banking and the wall and the way you drive the track – it’s exact.”

ARE YOU GETTING INTO A PART OF THE SCHEDULE THAT YOU LIKE? “My biggest thing is that I like being off the West Coast because it saves us a day each week and you can spend some more time at home. The West Coast string that we had this off-season and start of the season was just horrendous as far as testing was concerned. Between Phoenix and California and Las Vegas, it seemed like we were spending more time on the airplane then at the racetrack.”

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES WITH ALL THE RE-STARTS AT MARTINSVILLE? “It’s the whole track position game. The one thing about the re-starts and the magnified amount of cautions is the number of cars on the lead lap. It’s a track where you can put quite a few cars down right away, but than you get the repetitive yellows, and yellows breed yellows. The next thing you know you have five-to-seven or eight cars on the lead lap than you had before. It changes your strategy because if you want to come in for tires, those who got the ‘lucky dog’ are probably going to stay out and it changes your strategy. You have to be aware of that more so here then at other race tracks.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR OFF-WEEK AND THOUGHTS ON MARTINSVILLE? ”It was a good off-week. It was great to give the team a weekend off from all the hard work that had gone into Daytona and the first few races. With so many unknowns, it was good to have a week to digest what we went through the past few weeks. We were able to try a few things out on our equipment back in the race shop in terms of our shock dyno and seven-post rig and all the things that you can do back at the race shop.”

DID RYAN (NEWMAN) RELAY ANY INFORMATION FROM THE TIRE TEST AT DARLINGTON? “Darlington is going to be a very exciting race with the track being repaved. Obviously it’s going to be much faster. I’ve got the information as far as set-up when he was at the test. The biggest thing is just talking to him and understanding how the throttle and brakes and steering input is different from what he’s done in the past. It still is a matter of doing it yourself and I know that the pace is that much quicker, so hopefully we’ll be able to adjust to that new pace like Ryan did at the tire test.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MINDSET YOU HAVE TO HAVE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE? “This is one of the toughest tracks to find your own space because there are so many cars and somebody is always on top of you. It’s hard to protect your race car. That’s that thing you have to do at Martinsville, know you’re in it (race) for 500 laps and that you can’t get into too big of a hurry in the early portions of the race because anything can happen.”

DOES A COOL TROPHY MAKE A RACE MORE IMPORTANT OR DESIRABLE TO WIN? “It’s always a special perk and a bonus because that’s what (me) and most drivers shoot for – that piece of hardware at the end of the day. It could be a small $5 piece that somebody made or an extravagant grandfather clock (like at Martinsville). I think that I won here a bit too early in my career because I had no idea that they gave away grandfather clocks when you won here. They’re wheeling this thing in my front door of my house one day and I was like ‘what are you guys doing, who bought this thing’. It’s the most beautiful grandfather clock that I’d ever seen. The most ironic thing about winning the clock was that my grandfather passed away the week before (that), so my clock’s name is ‘Al” right there in my foyer. It’s the best gift that I could have received after winning a race and losing my grandfather.”

DOES IT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE RACING FOR SECOND OR THIRD PLACE HERE WITH THE DOMINANCE OF THE HENDRICK CARS HERE IN THE PAST? “They’re very fast here – very dominate here. It’s been that way for the last three or four years. Old car, new car, you name it, they’re tough to beat. I always feel that we can beat them. Maybe they’ll have something happen to them and they’ll have a flat tire or bad pit stop. But they need something to go against them to beating them. The one thing that I’m looking at is that Dale Jr. has always run successfully here. He’s going to be a strong candidate this week because he’s teamed-up with Hendrick (Motorsports) and has all the DEI information and all the Hendrick information.

I look for the 88 to be running strong and to see him break through here at Martinsville. I think the place would probably get torn down like goal posts get torn down in football (laughing).”

HOW DO YOU PASS HERE AT MARTINSVILLE? “I hope that I have a fast enough car to be moving guys out of the way. This race track whether you’re driving an Allison legacy car, or late model or even in the truck series, the front bumpers to the rear bumpers have always matched up to the point where you can lift somebody’s tires up or get them loose in the fashion that you are racing him. It’s not a life or death situation.

“With this new car, when you bump someone, the front part of the car still stays planted and that’s where some of the excitement can change of this new car. If we want to make adjustments, we need to adjust to where we can race with the front of these cars – but sometimes that always isn’t encouraged. And so, if you have a faster car, that driver 99 percent of the time can figure out a way to get by him.”

WHAT ARE RESTARTS LIKE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE? “This place is tough. When you head down into Turn 1 with a fresh set tires, your car doesn’t grip as good as it does at most places. It takes like five or six laps for the tires to really reach the optimum temperature. You’re sliding around - grabbing gears on a restart – lapped cars sometimes have fresher tires than you do. On this track you really have to absorb a lot on those restarts.

“That’s what makes short-track racing fun. The cars are never hooked-up into the track like at the big tracks. You have to wheel it. Sometimes your sideways, sometimes you’re leaning on a guy and the old cliché comes in – eight wheels turn better than four.”