KEVIN HARVICK, DRIVER OF THE NO. 29 REESE’S IMPALA SS, met with media members at Phoenix International Raceway and talked about NASCAR’s drug testing policy, racing at Phoenix and more:

DOES NASCAR NEED TO MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE NEW CAR? “I don’t think so. I think after watching Michael McDowell flip several times and drive straight in the wall, the mission was accomplished as far what everybody wanted to accomplish from that car. As you look back and you go to those types of race tracks, the high-banked 1.5-mile race tracks have been the toughest on the COT car and it’s been that way with the old car as well, those types of tracks are a little less conducive to the racing it seems for whatever reason. But being the first time that we went to Texas I don’t think anybody wants to throw up a red flag and say we need to change everything because we had a tough race at Texas. I mean we got to give it more than one race. You can’t just change things, just to change them. The cars, the drivers, everything will be better the next time we go back. That was the first time we were there.”

DO YOU THINK TEAMS NEED MORE TESTING? “I don’t. I don’t want any more testing. I think if we see a problem, a consistent problem on those types of race tracks maybe it might be something that you look at. It’s just hard to throw up a red flag over one race.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF AARON FIKE’S REVELATION THIS WEEK OF HIS HEROIN USE DURING RACES? “I had a long conversation with NASCAR the last time we had this policy brought up in the end of the year last year and it almost seems like it went on deaf ears. I’m disappointed with the fact that we’re in a case where we have to have a reaction instead of being proactive about the situation. So that part I’m disappointed with that we have to answer these questions again and we haven’t made any headway whatsoever on the drug testing policy. In the 10 years that I’ve raced, I’ve never been drug tested. So to me that is not a proper professional sports drug policy and as I went up and talked to them about it. They were more mad that I had a reaction to the situation than they were as far as trying to move forward. To me, it was just kind of one of those meetings where they were content to listen to what I had to say and that was about it. My name is not Jeff Gordon.”

DID YOU GET ANGRY THAT YOU HAD BEEN IN A RACE WITH FIKE? “I have been in a race with him and I know for a fact that he’s not the only one. There’s another driver that is suspended that I can almost guarantee you was in a race car while he was under the influence and that pisses me off. That is not fair to the 95 percent of this garage and that’s the bad part about it is 95 percent of this garage I can guarantee you is clean, but there’s a five percent chance - it’s just like the safety thing back in 2001 the reason that we reacted to it, we weren’t proactive until that situation happened.

"There’s no reason not to be proactive in the state of the world of sports, there’s no reason not to be proactive in the drug situation and that to me is irresponsible more than it is anything. I’m sure I’ll be blasted from somebody for saying what I feel but I don’t want to be on the race track with people like that."

ON HIS TEAM’S DRUG TESTING POLICY. “That would be a question you would have to ask Richard (Childress) as far as the RCR policy on it. I’m sure they have the same type of policy. It’s like I told NASCAR before, this isn’t about the teams, this isn’t about the crew members, this is about the drivers and being very, very forward thinking as to how the drivers are perceived from a public standpoint. If I’m a fan of another sport, I don’t want to watch and think that I don’t know if those drivers, are they really clean. What difference does it make if they do random drug testing every week on every driver in the garage and you have to do it 15 times a year? I’m sure I’ll have to for speaking my mind, but if I have to pee in a cup 15 times a year I’m happy to do that. Just make sure that everybody in the world knows that our sport is clean. I want the perception of the fan and the sponsors to know that this garage is clean and there’s no reason to have to go back and clean up all this mess because we have two or three people. Let’s just get it over with and do it and be done with it. As you can tell I’m a little bit frustrated about the situation.”

WERE YOU SUSPICIOUS THAT AARON FIKE HAD BEEN ON ANYTHING WHILE DRIVING FOR HIM. “Aaron drove a couple of races for me and there was no reason to think that they were suspicious, but there’s certain people that maybe they experiment with a lot of things. I don’t know about drugs to tell you the truth, but I know that I want to be next to the guy and I want to know he’s clean. I don’t want to have to get in a truck or get in a Nationwide car or get in a cup car and think that somebody had been out the night before and not been clean. It really frustrates me that we have to even as a driver that is responsible and understands how the sports work and respect the sport and respect my sponsors, I’m frustrated with the fact that I have to answer questions about Aaron Fike. Everybody that has to do a media bullpen today will have to answer a question about Aaron Fike and it really, really ticks me off that we have to answer that because everyone should know that we are taking random drug tests, and every driver in this garage should take them, in any garage in NASCAR. This is always been perceived as a clean sport, let’s not let it be perceived as something that is not clean now because it is for the most part. But let’s prove it.”

WILL YOU DRUG TEST YOUR DRIVERS BECAUSE OF THIS TYPE OF THING? “I can, I don’t right now. In order to race in this series we have to sign a substance abuse policy and we have to sign a lot of things to race in this series. In the end, it’s the responsibility of the sport to make sure that all the drivers in the seats are clean.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT RANDOM DRUG TESTING ON A REGULAR BASIS. “There definitely needs to be random testing on the drivers. I care about my crew guys and I care about the other people in the sport, but nobody wants to turn a newspaper in of Joe Blow tire carrier on the 33 car, that’s not a big story. A big story is Aaron Fike not being clean while he was in a race car. That’s a big story and that’s going to be a story that’s consistently run through this week, next week and the weeks to come until we fix it. It’s definitely something, we all have to figure out how to evaluate it. They don’t listen to me so, I don’t know how we need to evaluate it, but we need to change something.”

HOW ABOUT YOUR DRIVERS AT KHI? “I don’t know exactly how we go through that policy right now. We definitely need to change the way we look at it too. I do know that to get any kind of insurance for our company and employees as well as my personal insurance, drug testing is a part of that procedure. Based on the responsibility of what we got going on here, we all need to fix it.”

YOU SAID NASCAR LAUGHED AT YOUR OR JUST IGNORED YOU? “They were more mad that I spoke my opinion about it, then they were about trying to listen to what I had to say. I’ve had several situations like that lately where they just kind of listen to what you want to say and that’s the end of it. There’s not a whole lot that they want to listen to for some reason. We’re not all against them, we all have the same goal in mind here to take this forward. I’m just really frustrated about the whole deal just for the fact that I know that 95 percent of the garage is clean and there’s a lot of people I don’t know. Those are the ones - you just need to know what you’re racing against.”

ON HOW HE FEELS RCR STACKS UP TO SOME TO THE OTHER ELITE TEAMS. “I think we’ve run really well. I think we’ve been very consistent. I think we haven’t shown that dominance on a week-to-week basis as far as being able to lead a bunch of laps. We still have work to do. We’ve been very consistent over the first few weeks and we have to continue that consistency and when we’ve had a bad day we’ve kept it so it’s not a 30th or 25th-place bad day, we’ve kept that kind of in the championship form I guess you can call it. That was one of our goals coming in, when we had a bad day was to try to finish in the top 12 because that’s what we felt like it was going to take.”

CAN RCR BE THE TOP DOG LIKE HENDRICK WAS LAST YEAR? “They have been before. I don’t see why we can’t do that. I think if you go back and look at the history of RCR they’ve always been a very reliable race team. They always concentrated on being very consistent and finishing races and running laps. When we crash our cars we don’t give up, we try to fix them even if we go out and run laps. That’s been kind of a trademark of the RCR organization long before I got here. It’s something Richard really pounds in everybody’s head.”

IN YOUR OPINION, WHO IS THE GREATEST DRIVER IN ANY SERIES? “I think the most diverse driver would have to be (Tony) Stewart just because he’s been in the Indy car. He’s won in Indy cars, he’s won in stock cars, he wins in midgets, wins in dirt cars, everything that he runs in. I don’t think anybody else has that broad of a racing spectrum I guess you can say of what they race now because most people don’t race like that on a week-to-week basis and he races on a week-to-week basis in everything.”

ON WHAT HE LIKES ABOUT PHOENIX. “I just like the fact that I’ve raced here a lot. I like the flat tracks. We’ve always had a fair amount of success on the flatter race tracks. I’ve got a lot of experience here, the track hasn’t changed a lot and we’ve had a lot of success here so that always makes it fun to go back to.”

ON WHAT MAKES RACING ON A FLAT TRACK MORE ENJOYABLE. “There’s a lot of braking. You have to really work on getting your car through the center of the corner and still having the forward bite you need up off the corner so you get all three aspects of the car, the driver and the set-up all in one.”

DO YOU FIND A TRACK LIKE PHOENIX MAY BE A LITTLE MORE FUN FROM A DRIVER’S PERSPECTIVE? “You feel like you can do a little bit more on these types of race tracks than you can on some of the other types of race tracks, the cookie cutter race tracks that you would call it.”

IS IT MORE IN THE HANDS OF THE DRIVER HERE? “You still have to have the car working really good and you have to have the engine and everything going really good but you feel like you have more control than you do at some other places.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., DRIVER OF THE NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/AMP ENERGY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Phoenix International Raceway and talked about how his car is running so far this weekend, racing at Phoenix, his consistent runs and start to the 2008 season and more.

DID YOU EXPECT YOUR MOVE TO HENDRICK TO BE AS SMOOTH AS IT HAS BEEN? “Yeah, I thought it would be smooth. They’re a good company and they should be able to help make it pretty smooth, so I thought it would go alright.”

ON HOW THE HANDLING OF THE NEW CAR AFFECTS THE QUALITY OF RACING. “The cars are harder to get the handle correctly. They handle pretty bad even when they’re good. I mean even when you run toward the front they don’t drive quite as good as the old car. The racing wasn’t that good I guess, I don’t know. I think it’s important to help with the sport that we put on a good show and a lot of side-by-side racing and if we’re not able to do that right now, we need to figure out how.”

ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT HIS CAR SO FAR THIS WEEKEND. “It’s alright. It’s a little tight. I was tight in the center in my race trim, tight in the center in my qualifying trim. Tony (Eury) Jr. is waiting on me to help him.”

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING PLANNED FOR THE OFF WEEK AT ALL? “I will stay home and just hang out. No big plans.”

ON HOW THE COT RACES COMPARE WITH ANY OTHER ERA. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to compare it to any other era. I’ve been only alive for this one, I wasn’t around for them and I just see them on TV. and I can imagine what it was like, but I’m sure I won’t hit the nail squarely on the head with that. NASCAR will always work to try to get the racing as good as possible and if for some reason this car is not able to provide it, they’ll work on it and they’ll fix it. They won’t let it stay like that. If it’s not good they won’t leave it like that, they’ll fix it. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, NASCAR will fix it. NASCAR’s always tried to fix any problems this sports ever had no matter what they are. I think the car itself, we got to learn what gets the car to drive better and NASCAR can’t really make the car and give it to you and you go and say here’s all the ways to make it drive better. They don’t even know that. It’s up to us to figure that out and over time we will and as we get better at getting the cars to drive better the racing will get better. It’s just gonna take some time to figure it out.”

ON HIS CONSISTENT RUNS SO FAR THIS SEASON AND IS IT FRUSTRATING THAT HE HAS NOT BEEN TO VICTORY LANE YET. “Well I haven’t been in Victory Lane in two years so I don’t see why that would be frustrating because we’ve had plenty of time to get used to not winning. It’ll happen. I’ve got a great team, I’ve got a great program so I’m in the best position possible to make that happen and that’s just gonna have to do for right now. The reason why our position is exactly that is because of the quality of race team we have around us, the quality of the company as a whole.”

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS YEAR AND LAST YEAR? “There isn’t one thing that sticks out, it’s overall as a whole. Hendrick has a great organization in every aspect of it. They’ve been doing it a long time and have worked very hard setting a standard. They just don’t have any weak area. They work on anything they see they need to fix immediately. It’s just a good company to work for and there’s not one thing that’s like this is why. It’s just a lot of different stuff.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON RACING AT PHOENIX. “Yeah, I like Phoenix. It’s a fun track. We have had success on it. Race is pretty fun here. I don’t know what kind of racing we’re gonna have this weekend, but we’ll have to see. The COT just takes some time for us to understand what kind of set up these cars generally like and until then the racing is gonna suffer just a little bit.”

ON HIS REACTION TO AARON FIKE’S ADMISSION THAT HE RACED UNDER THE INFLUENCE. “Mine is the same reaction that anyone else would have. It’s unfortunate. It’s obviously not a safe situation for anybody especially Aaron. I think Aaron did enough in his own admissions to his problems. I don’t know if everyone, all the public, has to know the specifics such as that. In a situation like that, the most common reaction is how appalling it is and how dangerous of a situation that is for everybody that was involved. But the most important thing is Aaron trying to get himself on a right path and that could get lost in the story. The real important thing is just him getting right and staying right and leading the good life away from those sort of pit falls and hopefully that’s what’s going to happen.”

ON NASCAR HAVING REGULAR RANDOM TESTING. “If the public were to ask that question, NASCAR’s reaction would be to start testing people. They’ve always sort of had that style of management if you will. Once a complaint gets loud enough, they sort of take reaction to it. I wouldn’t have problem with random drug testing if it’s important to the integrity of the sport. That’s what’s important to me and maybe it would be able to help maintain that. We’ve always sort of had it differently than other stick and ball sports because we drive cars. It’s just overall handled differently. People would assume that steroids and things like that wouldn’t be an advantage here and I don’t see how they would but I suspect the only reason a guy would do that in this profession is just physical appearance of his own perception of himself. I don’t think it would be an advantage inside the car. Recreational drugs have always been a fact of life and people always say you’d be surprised but I don’t think it’s a problem here. I don’t think it’s an issue here but maybe you’d be surprised, I don’t know. If NASCAR wants to go in that direction, I guess the second to worst-case scenario is for speculation to run rampant in the media.

"The worst obviously is for that to be happening. If that’s the second worst for us to be speculation and be running rampant in the media, let’s just squash it, fix it, make a statement with testing and what not.”

IS IT MORE DIFFICULT NOW TO MOVE AROUND THAN IT WAS, OR IS THE DRIVER IN MORE CONTROL AT TALLADEGA? “It’s always been hard to pass since the second race car was built. It’s just the fact of automobile racing regardless, I mean if the guy’s faster than you, you can’t build cars that are going to give you the ability to pass him, he’s just faster so you’ll never catch him. It’s hard to pass, it’s always been hard to pass.”

EVEN WITH THE NEW CAR? “I suppose. I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of good race cars and they give me the ability to make moves and do things that I want to do. I don’t think the COT is any more difficult in dirty air than the other car or any less difficult. They’re about the same and offer the same challenges in that aspect of it especially with 10 laps to go. You’re already overdriving the car due the limited time you got left in the race. If you’re up in the top 10 you’re amongst tough competitors any way and it’s always a challenge.”

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE TRAINING YOU DID AT THE BONDURANT SCHOOL IN PHOENIX? “It was a long time ago but it was the best thing I did as far as helping me cut the learning curve on a road course. Road course experience and the learning curve there was pretty steep for me as is with a lot of oval racers. They have fantastic approach to tutoring and helping you learn and understand what you’re learning and how you’re improving and what key elements are important in road course racing. They just have a great group of teachers. Bill Cooper was my teacher I don’t know if he’s still there. I enjoyed that a lot. I’ve often recommended it to a lot of people.”

CONSIDERING THE START THAT YOU’VE HAD, HAVE YOUR GOALS FOR THE SEASON CHANGED? “They’re about the same. I just want to be able to run as good as my car is which we typically roll with a good race off the trailer and I just want to get a good finish with it.”

ON WHAT KIND OF RUN HE THINKS HE WILL GET THIS WEEKEND. “The cars are very close and very similar and it’s going to be hard to not overdrive the car trying to catch the guy in front of you. You just got to be patient and you’ll have your shots and opportunity to pass if you’re patient enough. I think that’s going to be key. Any time I try to run a little bit harder, I just slowed myself down and made the problems or issues my car had worse. The guy that can just be on a pace and even kill the entire day, he’s gonna to be the guy that’s moving forward the most.”

MARK MARTIN, DRIVER OF THE NO. 8 U.S. ARMY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Phoenix International Raceway and talked about additional track testing, drug testing, racing at Talladega, his favorite Phoenix memory and more.

ON WHAT CHANGES HE WOULD RECOMMEND TO THE NEW CAR: “Without a question raise the splitter up. But I wouldn’t mess around with an inch. They should have started at seven inches on that splitter, not four. The rest of the car is okay, there’s nothing really wrong with the rest of it and we are so far along now with this four-inch splitter, I don’t know. I don’t know if I would even do anything. Maybe you could take it up an inch and give it some front suspension. That’s the only real problem with this car, it doesn’t have enough front suspension.”

ON IF FRONT DOWN FORCE IS THE MAIN ISSUE WITH THE NEW CAR: “Its front grip and you can get a lot of mechanical grip by giving it some suspension. The down force is still a question; I still don’t completely understand what all this aero push is. In 1990, 1989 we didn’t have any down force and there was no such thing as aero push. And now when we take down force away, now we have aero push with down force, we take down force away and it seems worse. I’m a little bit baffled about that. We could use more mechanical grip in the front end and that would be easy to get. A four inch splitter was really way radical of a call for NASCAR to make and we could’ve had seven inches like the truck and gotten used to the car and then maybe each year cut it down an inch, to six then to five or something like that. Really the rest of the car, it’s backwards, but it isn’t that bad. It’s heavy, it’s higher, it’s this and that but you can pretty much get used to all those things but giving up 50 percent of your front suspension is hard to get used to.”

ON IF ADDITONAL TESTING WOULD BE A SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT: “No, we don’t need to test. It’s just burning everybody up, catching them on fire. I don’t think that’s it.”

ON HIS REACTION TO REPORTS THAT AARON FIKE HAD ADMITTED TO BEING ON HEROIN DURING RACES: “I’m astounded. Just, wow. I saw that and I guess that just shows you can be naïve, I was naïve. I didn’t think that was ever really a problem or ever would be an issue. I was surprised by that.”

WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK THAT WOULD BE AN ISSUE? “Cause I’m a race car driver and I would have no desire of racing a car or driving a race car with any sort of impairment at all. Matter of fact, I need something to enhance myself. I’m not good enough as it is, so I can use some help instead of something to put me backwards.”

ON HOW HE WOULD REACT TO KNOWING HE WAS RACING WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS IMPAIRED FROM DRUGS, ALCOHOL OR SOMETHING ELSE: “I’m not gonna over react to that. Let me be honest with you, I’ve raced with a lot of guys that weren’t impaired that drove like they were. That’s not all of it. I don’t know, I’ve raced a long, long time and I’ve had a lot of guys on the race track scare me that I’m pretty sure weren’t under any kind of influence.”

ON IF HE THINKS THERE IS A NEED FOR INCREASED DRUG TESTING: “That’s a tough call, that’s a tough question. Maybe, because I was naïve. I would have said no, the system works fine. I think that’s a very isolated incident, but it goes to show you it could happen. Whether you put somebody out there on the race track who doesn’t have the experience level and doesn’t have the maturity to do it or you put someone out there that has all of that and is under the influence you know it’s all not good and you need to prevent both sides of it. You need to screen these people closely, especially the newcomers, the young drivers and all and you also need to be screening them for drugs. That is a big deal. We have a very, very strong sense here in NASCAR of the competitors, what they’re like and what they do and how they live their lives on most occasions. I think that one kind of caught us off guard.”

ON RACING AT TALLADEGA WITH THE NEW PAVEMENT: “The last few races they’ve had there have not been like the last few at Daytona. Prior to that, Talladega was more inclined to give you that kind of finish and Daytona was less inclined to. I don’t have an answer for that, for sure. Don’t really love new pavement anywhere for what it does to the tire situation and the grip situation and all. I really just think it’s a matter of coincidence that we haven’t had the kind of wild showdowns at the end of Talladega. I was involved in NASCAR in 1981 and 1982 when there would be two, three cars on the lead lap at the finish. I remember four cars on the lead lap at Talladega and nobody complained it was boring and then maybe three or four races later there might have been 15 on the lead lap at the end of the race. So, it’s random. You can’t predict racing. Sometimes they go down to this much at the finish line and sometimes they go down to nowhere in sight. If you’ll just wait, if you see a race that you don’t think was exciting enough, if you’ll just wait long enough you’ll have one there. Be patient.”

WHO IS THE GREATEST DRIVER IN ANY SERIES? WHO DO YOU CONSIDER THE GREATEST DRIVER EVER? “Oh, wow. I won’t give you one name but a few names come to mind. Top of my head - Larry Phillips, Dale Earnhardt, Al Unser, Jr., Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, A.J. Almindinger (laughter), don’t laugh.

HOW ABOUT MARK MARTIN? “No, I’m not in that league. I might make the good category but not the great. I’m serious, there’s a lot of really great race – Juan Montoya, a lot of names that people are surprised about. Al Unser, Jr. was one of the best I ever raced against. Anytime, anywhere, anything - Tony Stewart. A.J. Foyt was a little bit before my time when I was a little kid and a fan, but for what I understood he could drive anything, anywhere, anytime, that’s Tony Stewart in my eyes. There’s a lot of great race car drivers, I’m not talking about great results, I’m talking about great race car drivers. What gets the results are fickle, what team you’re with all kinds of things like that so I don’t really go off the trophies. I go off the abilities and what they can do behind the wheel of any given race car.”

ON TIRES LAST WEEK AT TEXAS AND PREVIOUSLY AT ATLANTA: “I think the grip level that we had at Texas was marginal, it was right marginal. It was acceptable, but it was right there. If you go over that line, it’s not acceptable like Atlanta, totally unacceptable. It’s not all race car. Part of it is the tire that we marry to the race car and I think over time the team’s getting better with the cars and Goodyear’s getting better with what we need for a tire that will be durable enough but also give us a grip level, I think it will get better. One note I would like to make here, point I would like to make, I didn’t see one tire failure all weekend at Texas. And by the way, the tires were acceptable. The grip level was acceptable for that car. With that all said, I would say that’s a pretty good weekend.

"Unacceptable at Atlanta, acceptable at Texas. We didn’t have a tire failure at Texas. I’m not so sure you can say that about Atlanta. I felt like there were tire failures at Atlanta and the grip was unacceptable. There were two pluses at Texas, you were inside the margin of acceptable grip and what I would call zero failures.”

ON IF HE THINKS GOODYEAR’S LEARNING CURVE WITH THE NEW CAR HAS BEEN A LITTLE SLOW: “They’re trying to make themselves happy, NASCAR happy and the teams happy. That’s a pretty tall order and this car has presented a challenge to try to meet all that criteria. I think they did a good job in Texas with that.”

HOW ARE THE TIRES FOR THIS WEEKEND? “I think they’ll be fine. We had a test here. I think they will be great.”

ON IF HE THINKS TIRES ARE A FACTOR IN THE SLOWER SPEEDS: “I don’t know. Everybody is going as fast as they can go.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT NASCAR HAVING A TRAVELING SAFETY TEAM: “I think that’s a hot potato. I don’t think NASCAR likes to hear that. That’s been discussed ever since I’ve been a part of this thing.”

DO YOU THINK THE CARE IS CONSISTENT FROM TRACK TO TRACK, CONSISTENT ENOUGH? “When it comes to somebody’s life, is it ever good enough?”

HOW CAN THEY GET BETTER? “Well they spend more money.”

SIMPLE AS JUST LAYING THE GREEN BACKS DOWN? “It costs more money to make it better. It’s a pretty simple formula. I mean that formula is fairly simple. Costs more money to have better . . .”

WHO SHOULD SPEND THE MONEY? “I don’t know.”

NOT THE TRACKS, NOT NASCAR? “I don’t know.”

DO YOU THINK NASCAR DOESN’T WANT TO DEAL WITH IT ON THEIR OWN? “I don’t know. They didn’t used to. They didn’t use to want to talk about it, so I don’t know where they are today. I don’t talk to them a lot about a lot of things because they don’t really, what I mean doesn’t really matter and if they had done what I thought they should have done then the whole thing would be all messed up so I keep my mouth shut because I usually don’t know what’s best.”

ON HIS BEST MEMORY OF RACING AT PHOENIX: “We won here in ’93, that’s pretty awesome. I don’t know if that was the year that I raced with Ernie (Irvan) so hard, but winning here and racing with my buddy Ernie.”

ON HOW THE TRACK HAS CHANGED THROUGHOUT THE YEARS: “It’s just been a little different. It’s a lot the same. Different stages of pavement from new to old, in between. It’s like that, its old pavement and they repaved it somewhere along the way and now the pavement is old again. It’s just gone through those age cycles.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS met with media to discuss the Jimmie Johnson Foundation (JJF) sponsorship of the NASCAR Camping World Series West race, NASCAR’s drug testing program, the challenges of the new race car, gains made through testing, and more.

ON THE JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION 150 TONIGHT - Note: Jimmie’s wife, Chani who is the co-founder of the foundation, is the honorary race starter: “I’m extremely excited for tonight’s race. It came together a couple of weeks ago and I really have to give Brian Sperber and everybody out here at the track, credit for it. Racing was very important to my family. Not only are we able to put the Jimmie Johnson Foundation out an about, but there are also some families that are going to come in and enjoy the race as well. It’s really a well-rounded program that came together in a short period of time. And I can’t thank everyone out here enough for this opportunity. Hopefully, through all of this, we can raise awareness for the causes that are important to the Jimmie Johnson Foundation and do some more good in the world. So we’re very excited about that.”

ON THE RACE THIS WEEKEND: “I’m also excited about the race this weekend. We’ve been making our stuff better and better each week. We’re back on a short track where I think last year we showed that we have the success on short tracks; even the few that we’ve had this year, we should be right there in the thick of things. We’re looking forward to a good performance.”

LAST WEEK AT TEXAS, YOU AND A LOT OF OTHER GUYS WERE FRUSTRATED ABOUT HOW THE CAR DROVE IN TRAFFIC. THE RACE WINNER ESSENTIALLY SAID SHUT UP AND DRIVE BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE. HAVE YOU TALKED ABOUT ANY POSSIBLE REMEDIES FOR THIS SITUATION, OR ARE YOU STUCK WITH WHAT YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW? “No, I think we all recognize that the rules are the rules and we’ve got to go out there and drive the car. I’ve been in Carl’s (Edwards, TMS race winner) situation where you’re dominating and you don’t want to see a change. You’ve got the magic set-up and you don’t want any rules changes or any more testing. The world is right as far as you see it. But from being in this (NASCAR) seven years now, I try not to say anything until I’ve really formed a solid opinion and have everything there in front of me to form an opinion. Up until last week, we weren’t running well enough to form an opinion. We had other problems inside of our set-ups and what was going on there. When I got into that race, I was shocked, even with the best car, how difficult they are to drive in traffic. It really, really surprised me. I thought a lot of what I’d been feeling was just our set-ups. We got the set-up closer and some of those same sensations were still there. In all fairness of the car, this is the first year of this car on the big tracks and we need to take time to sort this out. Another way to look at it is when we started the Car of Tomorrow on the short tracks, there weren’t very many nice things said about it. But over time, it came around.

“Is there a change that needs to be made for the cars? I think there can be to help the cars on the 1.5-mile, 2-mile tracks. Will we get it? I’m not sure. Are we counting on it? We’re still continuing to test and make our stuff better and better. If you look at what we did over the off-weekend, we went from being a 20th place car to a second place car. So we’re on the right track and doing the right things, but it seemed like not only did I have that opinion, there were a lot of guys – everybody but the winner I guess – felt like some things needed to be looked at. And I know NASCAR is paying attention and they want to have the best show possible. In time, we’ll get this thing right where it needs to be.”

DO YOU SEE THE NO. 99 TEAM (CARL EDWARDS) AS THE TEAM TO BEAT THIS YEAR? “Yeah, the way things have started off the No. 99 is certainly the team to beat. I’d say inb general, Roush last year showed they were moving in the right direction and had a lot of speed. I thought maybe the No. 17 (Kenseth) would come out of the gate and be the lead driver and team at Roush, but it’s turned out to be the No. 99. It’s not really a surprise. Carl is a great driver. I really think a lot of Bob and everything that his team is about. They’ve set a very high mark for the start of the season and we’re all trying to catch up.”

IF NASCAR IS NOT GOING MAKE CHANGE WITH THE FRONT END OF THE NEW CAR, WOULD MORE TESTING HELP? “Yeah, I think so. More testing is definitely the answer. I also think we could, as a group maybe, talk to the smart people at Hendrick Motorsports, Roush, Yates, Childress and get some opinions of where we think we could make a change, and if NASCAR would be open to that. And maybe test it and see. It’s an easier job to set this car up to run a single lap with no one around you. When you get in traffic is when things really get interesting and are tough. So open test sessions I think are great. It’s certainly a big help. I also think another small thing that could help is opening up more tires and making more tires available so teams can test and go to 1.5-miles and test on their own schedule. There is something there where NASCAR can show a little love, or whoever it is, can open up some tracks, send us some tires, and let us try to make our cars better so that we can race like we want to.”

ON HIS EXPERIENCE WITH BOB BONDURANT AND HIS HIGH PERFORMANCE DRIVING SCHOOL “I’ve had a great time over the years at the school, everything from working on my road course stuff before we got to Sonoma to taking friends out there. I’ve taken our crew through the shifter cart school and we came out a day early to do that. It’s just a great facility with knowledgeable people and it’s really a lot of fun. We’ve had a surprise appearance from Bob (Bondurant) from time to time and that helps things out there as well. It’s a great school. I’m really a big fan of everything they do out there.”

IN THE 7 YEARS YOU’VE BEEN RACING, HAS THERE BEEN A BIG CHANGE ON HOW DRIVERS SET UP FOR THE LAST FIVE OR 10 LAPS OF THE RACE AT TALLADEGA? CAN YOU RACE BETTER THERE NOW IN THE LAST FEW LAPS THAN YOU COULD PREVIOUSLY? “Yeah, I think so. I think that the Car of Tomorrow and the new pavement that we have down give more opportunities to different car and drivers in the closing laps. The track is racier now because of the whole package. The Car of Tomorrow, there is enough room now where it’s not like Daytona where you need to handle as much so with the big hole that this car punches in the air, you can take advantage of that. You need that much space to really take advantage of the hole these cars punch in the air. Talladega fits it well. We’ll go there and put on a great race. I felt like the fall race last year a lot of the key players were worried about points, including myself. We sat in the back. Right now, points are important, but I expect this Talladega race to be very exciting. I don’t have any intentions of riding in the back unless the boss comes down and says hey, let’s be smart and ride in the back. But I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be three and four-wide and great racing. That’s because of the new surface and that package works so well on the track.”

WHAT IS IT GOING TO BE LIKE SPONSORING YOUR FIRST RACE FOR THE JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION? WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE LIKE WEARING SEVERAL HATS THIS WEEKEND? HOW IS YOUR WIFE, CHANI, INVOLVED? “Yeah, it’s exciting. My brother is running in the event. Chandra is going to say, ‘Gentlemen, start your engines,’ and I’ll be driving the pace car and well spend some time this afternoon with the pre-race stuff that’s going on. It’s going to be fun and interesting to not have that pressure of starting an event and actually enjoying the pre-race ceremonies, and hopefully raising a lot of awareness for our foundation.”

HOW GOOD IS YOUR LITTLE BROTHER? “We’re going to find out” (laughs)

CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT HOW HE DRIVES? “He’s done a great job. He’s been running at Hickory in the Late Model Stock Car division up there. He won seven or eight races last year, which was great. He had a chance to run a couple of truck events a few years back and ran an ARCA race and I things didn’t really work out too well for him. It may have been a little early in his driving career to get those chances on those big tracks. This came together last-minute and I haven’t seen him yet so I have no clue how things have gone. He just met the owner and saw the car for the first time yesterday. He welded his own seat in, out on pit road (laughs). It was really a last-minute, thrown-together deal, but I’m excited for him to be out there and get some experience on this great track.”

WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO AARON FIKE’S ADMISSION TO RACING WHILE UNDER THE INFLUENCE? “I cannot believe it. That is absurd. I don’t know what this means or where things go from here, but I’m so happy they figured out or found out what was going on and got him off the track. That is absolutely unacceptable.”

KEVIN HARVICK SAID IN 10 YEARS HE’S NEVER BEEN TESTED BY NASCAR. HAVE YOU BEEN TESTED? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE POLICY THAT’S IN PLACE? “No, I’ve not been tested by NASCAR. I’m confident that every driver in this garage area is willing and open to whatever NASCAR decides to do or whatever policies are put in place. I see no issues with that from any driver.”

MAYBE YOU’VE BEEN ON TRACK WITH A GUY WHO IS UNDER THE INFLUENCE. WHAT WOULD BE YOUR REACTION IF YOU KNEW THAT? “Gosh, I think if anyone really knew, especially other drivers, you’d go straight to NASCAR and try to come out with the information and help them understand what you heard, what you know, what you saw to get that person off the track. There are no exceptions for that on track, period.”

CAN YOU JUST TALK ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR SEASON? WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW? “We’re definitely making things better. At Daytona, we just got caught up in something and got turned around racing hard in the closing laps. At California, things went well, but we still felt like we were pretty far off the No. 99 even though we finished second. We tried some things at Vegas and Atlanta, and really just didn’t have the events we wanted. I’d say that Las Vegas was a disaster. We’ve never been that bad before. It reminds me a lot of what the No. 24 went through last weekend. On paper, even in Las Vegas, our set-up wasn’t that much different than the No. 24, but we were two or three seconds off the pace and he was up there racing for the win all day. We’re still very confused with the car. I think the testing we did over the off-weekend helped. We feel confident with the short track program and with the road course program. Superspeedway stuff, we feel like we have a very good hold of as well. But this downforce stuff is new for the car this year. It’s evident that some teams have picked up on it right away and they’ve got it. We are one of the teams that have not. And we had to go to work and make things better. And we made some big gains, but I still fell there are a few tenths that we need to find to really race with the No. 99. He’s certainly the best Roush car and best car out there. So, we’ve just got to keep working on it and we’ll be back where we need to be. We’ve moved up a lot in the points and we’re excited about that. We need to keep our goal on making the Chase and hopefully have out stuff right when the Chase starts and be a champion again.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE AT HMS THIS WEEK AFTER JEFF GORDON’S BAD RACE AT TEXAS? COULD HMS TEAMMATES SHARE SET-UPS? “That just shows you how confusing it is right now. Those races at Vegas and Atlanta, our set-ups were not far off. In fact the points in each event during practice we put in their set-ups and didn’t run well. At Texas, Jeff put in our set-up and it didn’t work for him. In the testing we’ve done, we’ve realized there really isn’t one big thing that we were missing. It’s a combination of a lot of small things. And when a crew chief or driver looks at a set-up sheet, 25 pounds here or there and a little bit of difference in track bar height or wedge, bar pre-load, there are all these different things we look at. And the numbers are close. But all that adds up to make your car terrible if you’re not on top of things. That’s what we found out through testing. It just takes more and more testing to get it right. And that’s just part of learning a new car. I know NASCAR isn’t thrilled to hear that. They’re trying to keep costs down. But we’ve got to do something to be better. And we’re not the only team. There are a lot of teams out there that are trying to make their stuff better. Trying to find the right tire to test on is impossible. We have some tires that we’re trying to strategically use at the right time for the right things, but it’s really tough to catch up once you’re left behind.”

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 07 DIRECTV IMPALA SS met with media and discussed the strength of RCR, his accident with Denny Hamlin last week at TMS, the importance of engines, and more.

HOW DO YOU THINK YOU ARE RUNNING AND HOW WILL THIS RACE TRACK SHAPE UP FOR YOU? “I love coming to Phoenix. I won a Busch race here. It’s a racy race track and I think everybody loves that. Practice was not bad for the Directv Chevrolet. I guess we’re going out first (in qualifying) so we’ll just try to do the best we can with that. I think I’m going to fire the guy who has been drawing for us (laughs). Other than that, things have been going good and we’ve been having fun.”

ON LAST WEEK’S FINISH AT TEXAS: “Oh, it was my fault. There ain’t no way of getting around it. I just pushed up into him (Denny Hamlin) and we hit and it turned me into the wall. He tried to lift. It’s just racing. You can’t expect him to back out and let me have it and you can’t expect me to back out and let him have it. You’ve got 300 – 400 feet to the finish line. I just got the bad end of the stick that time. It’s been that way my whole career. You give me a shot up off of (Turn) 4 racing with somebody and I’m going to take it.”

ON RCR DRIVERS BEING ON TOP IN POINTS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGINES “Horsepower is very important. You can’t compete for championships on the hook, by any means. The engine department has done an exceptional job of making sure we have good horsepower, but making sure it will last throughout the weekend and throughout the race. That’s number one key. When you go to engine guys and performance you want to push the envelope as much as you can, but Richard (Childress) has always been conservative in that aspect that making sure it’s going to live throughout the race. Knock on wood. We’ve had no trouble so far. That’s the key to racing for a championship is consistency right there is being consistent week in and week out.”

ON THE STRENGH OF RCR “We’ve got to get better but obviously we’ve come a long way. I’ve very proud of everybody at RCR for putting together equipment that makes Jeff (Burton) and Kevin (Harvick) and me look good. But we’ve got a long ways to go. We’re not going to sit back and watch it happen, we’re going to make it happen.”

ON HIS REACTION TO AARON FIKE AND THE DRUG ISSUE “I was just as shocked as everybody else. This is very bizarre. It’s a shame. It’s a shame that everybody works so hard and a few bad apples have to spoil it for everybody.

“NASCAR has done a good job at making this sport what it is today and if they want to change the policy they have put in place, I’m all for it. It’s the same for everybody. We’ve all got to abide by the rules and we’re all given an opportunity of a lifetime to be able to make a living doing what we love to do and I’m not about to let something stupid get in the way of that.”

JEFF GORDON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 24 DUPONT/NICORETTE IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Phoenix International Raceway

HOW ARE THINGS GOING HERE AT PIR COMPARED TO HOW THEY WENT AT TEXAS LAST WEEK? "Well, last week at this time, things weren't going so bad. It all kind of went downhill on Saturday. Obviously, we didn't qualify that great last week. We weren't too bad in practice. This week it is going pretty good, we are in the top-10 in practice. The car feels pretty good. We're not on a mile and a half here. The mile and a half tracks are the ones that are real hit or miss. They can get away from you and that one bit us last week."

IS THE LACK OF SIDE-BY-SIDE RACING AT TEXAS INDICATIVE OF WHAT WE ARE GOING TO SEE AT THESE TRACKS? "That is for you guys to watch the race and you make your own story out of it. Sometimes you will have great races, sometimes you won't. Texas has always been a very aero-sensitive race track. I think it is whatever you make of it."

DO YOU THINK NASCAR HAS DONE ENOUGH TO HELP YOU GUYS WITH THE NEW RACE CAR? "I am going to follow Carl Edwards advice, shut up and drive. Obviously he is not having those issues with his car, so we have to go to work on ours. I am really trying not to focus on that anymore, it is what it is, we are stuck with it whether we like it or we don't like it. All I care about is being the most competitive I can be out there on the track. Obviously we weren't last week, it is a concern. We are going to do a lot of testing because of it and hopefully, we find out and resolve the issues."

DO YOU FEEL AS GOOD COMING IN TO PHOENIX WEEKEND AS YOU DID LAST YEAR GETTING MONUMENTAL WIN? "This was a big race for us last year. Coming off the poor run at Texas doesn't give us all the confidence in the world and we didn't test all the great here either. But, I am confident in my team. These guys are awesome. They provide me with the best cars that I could ever ask for. When we have issues like at Texas, we don't just sit down and do nothing. We try to figure it out and that is why I said, we have a heavy testing schedule that is coming up that we just added. Most of that is mile and a half stuff. Since the test here, we have done some things we feel like, back at the shop, just trying to figure out how to be better. Jimmie (Johnson) won the last race here. They did some testing as well so we feel pretty good and I was decent today. Right now I feel pretty good about it."

DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR OFF WEEKEND? "Nothing but baby time planned. We don't have any plans for going anywhere; we are just going to stay home. I don't know, do some spring-cleaning. (Laughs) Just hang out, relax. We have been traveling so much, we just wanted to really do as little as possible. Like I said, I have some testing coming up so, I am going to have to do some traveling unfortunately."

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO TALLADEGA OR LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING PAST TALLADEGA? "I am looking forward to Talladega. I think it is going to be a similar race to last time. We are going to have to make a decision as to whether we ride in the back and come up through there at the end. I don't think a lot has changed since the last time we were there. We had an awesome, awesome day, awesome race. Love to have the same result. Certainly any time we go to a restrictor track, and Talladega being one of the best ones out there for us, I always look forward to going there."

IS THERE A DIFFERENT FEELING AT ALL BETWEEN FEELING 20TH OR 25TH OR 42ND OR 43RD? "No, not really if you are off. If you finish 20th or 25th. I think if we hadn't of crashed, we would have been about 25th probably. I would have been feeling just as bad about it today as I did 43rd. You hate to lose those points. That is the disappointing part of it, but as far as performance and confidence, again, that is isolated at Texas, we ran at Vegas, we ran great at Atlanta, we ran at California. It is really a Texas thing for me personally. And for us as a team. I am not going to carry too much of that disappointment out of there until we have to go back there."

WHAT IS YOUR FEELING ABOUT AARON FIKE ADMITTING HE RACED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HEROIN? "It is mind boggling. It just blows me away that anybody, at this level, would ever consider anything like that. I guess you have to admire his honestly at this point and you wish him all the best trying to really work his way back out of that situation. But, I can't imagine anybody wanting or thinking about doing that at this level."

DO YOU THINK NASCAR SHOULD IMPLEMENT MANDATORY DRUG TESTING AND WOULD YOU GO AS AN AMBASSADOR FOR THE DRIVERS WITH RECOMMENDATIONS TO NASCAR ABO9UT WHAT THEY SHOULD CONSIDER? "I feel like the policies are in place, the reason why they haven't had to do more is because they haven't really felt like there is an issue. Now, obviously, we have seen more in the Truck and Nationwide Series and so maybe they do things differently over there than they do in the Cup Series. I don't feel like there is a reason to do more, but at the same time, I have never been randomly tested and just to do it every once in a while, might not be a bad idea, just to get everybody's attention even though you sign that waiver that it could happen. It probably does need to happen from time to time just to make sure. But, you know, I think most of us have the impression that we only want to do something that is going to enhance our performance. There isn't anything that can really enhance the.performance of a race car driver. Not that I know of, I can't imagine doing anything that would take away from my performance. I don't need for a knee-jerk reaction here. Maybe they (NASCAR) to look in to it a little bit more since this has come out. Obviously, that is pretty serious. I have confidence in them. The word travels fast around this garage area. If there are any issues, it usually comes out fairly quickly and they have their ways of resolving them."

DO YOU LIKE HAVING IN-CAR CAMERAS OR IS IT INTRUSIVE? "I like to watch them after the fact. During the setup of it, it is more intrusive to the team when they are trying to work in and around the car. We used to have issues with the in-car cameras because of the weight issue; it would add weight to the car. Now, they pretty much add weight to every car out there to equal it out there. Not a big deal. Now we pretty much enjoy having them on board. It is a great shots they get so you can really see what is going on with the driver and the car. They are seeing action they can't get from outside the car. So, I think they have been a big part of the growth of the sport over the years."

DID YOU EVER SEE YOUR LAS VEGAS WRECK FROM THE IN-CAR CAMERA? "I didn't get it. Unfortunately on that particular situation, they don't record every single camera. They only record the one that they are showing on air. There are only like two or three that they are choosing to record. So unfortunately, they didn't record the one I want to see which was the one to see the impact from inside the car. So I was kind of disappointed in that."

DO YOU FEEL CARL EDWARDS IS THE GUY TO BEAT THIS SEASON? "If they run like they did last week, yes, absolutely. I mean rivalries come through competition and when you are the guy to beat like Carl is right now and Jimmie has been in the past couple years, then it is going to build rivalries. Again, those only come if you are consistently battling with those guys. If that builds and continues like it did last week, then it could turn in to a nice rivalry, which wouldn't be a bad thing for the sport."

DO YOU THINK THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE TESTING ALLOWED ON THE MILE AND A HALF TRACKS? "I personally don't think it is a testing issue. I don't think it is a more time thing. Yes, I think it might help a little bit, I am always open for that. We wouldn't be going to do more testing if we didn't think it was beneficial. It is more it is we want to go and figure out some things we are missing. I guess, yes, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea."

DO YOU THINK THE EXTRA TESTING THAT HUMPY WHEELER HAS OFFERED AT LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY IF NASCAR WILL ALLOW IT IS NEEDED? "Obviously, it is for us (Laughs). I don't think everybody needs it. This car depends on the tire. At Atlanta and Texas, it was a different tire than Vegas and California. We had no issues at those tracks. We were awesome. I felt great at those tracks. Then we go to Texas. And even at Atlanta, as bad as it felt, the car was still very competitive. But in Texas the car felt bad and it was not competitive. Unless we are going to be on a tire similar to the Texas tire and Atlanta tire, I don't feel like we need to do anymore testing. I don't think that case with the type of pavement we have at Charlotte. I am pretty sure it is not the Texas tire. But if it is, then yes, I want to go there and I want to run on it because I obviously don't have a good feel for that tire."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TRAINING YOU DID AT THE BONDURANT SCHOOL? "It has been a while, but there was a time when I first came in to the series that I wanted to get as much roadracing experience as I possibly could. I've been to Skip Barber. I've been to Jim Russell and to Bob's school. Bob worked with me on a personal basis and we have had a lot of fun. I feel like his knowledge has been beneficial. I have always wished we could go out to his school and work with Bob and work with our cars because the cars are so much different than we are driving out there, that you can only learn so much. But any little bit helps is the way I look at it, so we have had some fun out there with him."

IS THERE A DRIVER THAT YOU CONSIDER THE GREATEST IN ANY SERIES? “Mario Andretti. I don’t think there is a question. The guy dominated on dirt, open wheel, Formula I, IndyCar, and Sprint Cars. He’s the man as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even think there is a question.”

HOW DOES A NEW DRIVER COPE WITH ALL THE SPONSOR AND HOSPITALITY AND MEDIA OBLIGATIONS WHEN HE FIRST COMES INTO THE SPORT? “I think it’s important to have somebody with some knowledge to kind of help you through that aspect of it or to help prepare you for that side of it. I feel like I was fortunate to come into an organization like Hendrick Motorsports. I was around Mark Martin early on when I was at Bill Davis Racing. You can’t prepare yourself for those types of commitments that come along with it, especially if you start having success early on. It turns your world upside down and you’re just trying to race and drive. And you start to realize that’s only half of it.”

WAS THAT EVER A DISTRACTION? “I think the thing that I’ve worked the hardest on over the years that I feel like we do very well between John (Edwards, PR person) and my office is coordinating our schedules. From how the requests come into the office to how they are handled with the scheduling as well as PR requests. All the requests have to funnel down to one area and how we handle it and how we schedule it. What works best within the schedule of when to do things and when not to do things; when to say yes and when to say no. It’s been 16 years and we’re still trying to perfect it. It can be a huge distraction if you don’t learn how to balance it out.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TWO FULLTIME JOBS ON RACE DAY? “Yeah, well, we kind of limit how much I’ll do. So I have an understanding. I know when my race morning starts, I know I’m going to do this, this, and this. I’ll be at the driver’s meeting at this time. I’ll eat at this time. I’ll get ready and hang out with the team. It’s kind of a routine that you get into. The only thing that shakes it up for us sometimes like this weekend when we have Nicorette on board, we might do a couple more hospitalities on race morning. Or I might add a meet and greet on the weekend. So some of those things can be a little bit much when they add up. We were just talking that I’m going to do something for Dover Speedway as a part of their Winner’s Circle program so I’m going to go out to their hospitality on race morning. That’s added. And I have to get prepared in advance and expect it and understand it before it comes. If it just gets thrown on last minute, then it’s no, that’s when I really get in trouble. It’s when I get really frustrated when last minute things get thrown on me. And that’s where John does a great job of trying to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

WHAT DO YOU SAY TO KIDS THAT ARE TORN BETWEEN DOING SOMETHING THEY REALLY WANT TO DO OR GETTING A 4-YEAR DEGREE? “That’s a good question. I didn’t go to college and I look back on it all the time and wish I had had that experience and the education that comes along with it. In my situation in racing, being out on the race track and traveling and racing was what benefited me the most. For some other individuals, getting that four-year education might be more beneficial for whatever their path is. I think whatever is in your heart and whatever works for you and whatever is sort of leading you, you’ve got to go with it. For me it was racing and being out on the race track every weekend.”