JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Pocono Raceway and discussed what it will take to get his first win at Pocono, recent comments made about racing at Pocono, what he would do to make the new car pass better and much more.

ON WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO GET HIS FIRST VICTORY AT POCONO. "It's one of those places where I always feel like we run well here, we certainly have never run well enough to get a win. There was a couple of times early in my career I thought we had a good chance and then I broke parts real late in the race. This is a really challenging race track, obviously everybody is going to come here and say the same things. The three corners are completely different from each other. It's a tremendous challenge to get your car to drive well in all three corners. With the car of tomorrow in particular, the bumps are more of an issue. We have a new grove in turn three because of some new pavement down there that's really changed the way that we run turn three. That's really made it really interesting. I think that's going to have a huge factor in the race because the fast grove is four or five lanes up from the bottom of the race track which means the bottom is always going to be open. The top seems to be the fastest so that's going to be interesting. That's a lot different. It's never been like that before. I think that's really going to have an impact on the race."

MARK MARTIN HAS BEEN SECOND HERE SIX TIMES, IS THERE MORE PAIN TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT THAN NOT WINNING AT ALL? "It's better than being third six times. It's one of those things that if you keep putting yourself in position to win the race you'll win them. You go back and look at Dale Earnhardt's Daytona 500 win it took him forever to do it but he kept putting himself in position over and over and over and if you keep finishing second, third, fourth you're gonna eventually get your wins. I don't know, I can't speak for Mark but I can speak for myself and when I come to Pocono I don't look at it and say well this is a place we almost have won a bunch of times. I look at it as what it Is, a place we haven't won and that means we need to find a way to do something better. I'm sure Mark would say the same thing."

THERE'S BEEN SOME NEGATIVE STUFF SAID LATELY ABOUT POCONO, DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ON SOME OF THE RECENT COMMENTS MADE ABOUT COMING TO RACE HERE IN POCONO? "What were the comments? I don't want to comment on a comment unless I know the comment."

ON THE 500 MILE RACE AND POCONO HAVING TWO RACE DATES: "I don't know if a comment that is asking for a change is a negative comment. I've never said that we shouldn't be here twice and whoever has said that they must have a reason for saying that but I've never said that. I do support the fact that I think the quality of racing potentially could be better at 400 miles. What the heck, it would be worth trying it. We have two races here it would be worth making one of the races the 400-mile race and see what happened. We could always go back to 500. It helped the Rockingham race; it helped the Dover races. You know Darlington cut back. The 500-mile thing was almost a status symbol in the day. It was a track that had a 500-mile race. People have gone so far to call their races 500 but they're 500k's. I don't get the number, I think what matters is that the quality of racing is the best that is can possibly be and this is a track that has the potential to put on a better show at 400 miles. I think it would be worth a shot. I don't think the fans would be disappointed about that. It really doesn't matter what the teams think, it's really what the fans think. I think it would be worth a shot. If the fans didn't like it we could always go back to 500. I don't care if it's 800 I just want the race to be something that the fans have the most fun and the most excitement. When you have a track this big you tend to get the fields spread out a little more because the track is so big. I think it would be worth trying something different."

LOTS OF TALK AGAIN LAST WEEK ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO PASS. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULD TO MAKE THIS CAR RACE BETTER? "Well it's interesting because the talk about not being able to pass, the aero-push term is not a new term. We've been hearing this for a long time. It is very difficult to pass with this car. It was very difficult to pass with the last car as well. Some of it is physics. Some of it is quite simply any time you're going the speed that you're going, there's less air so it's quite simple you're gonna have less air for your car to drive well on so it's harder to pass. My son at seven years old races quarter midgets and they race on a 1/20th-mile race track and the car in second will go faster than the car in first if they're equal and they're only going 35, 40 miles per hour. So some of it is just physics and what can we do to make it so we have less impact. From an aerodynamic standpoint, the only thing we can do is try to make the cars drive better overall so you have less of an impact when you lose down force. To do that there's a hundred ways to skin a cat, you could probably raise the splitter up a little bit, might help some. I think you could flatten the deck lid out, actually let some air get under the wing, I think that could help some. I don't know that it's a whole lot harder to pass today than it was two years ago. It is hard, but I'm not sure it's much harder."

WHAT KIND OF AN AFFECT DO YOU THINK THE ECONOMY IS HAVING ON NASCAR AND DO YOU THINK THE ECONOMY AFFECTS NASCAR MORE THAN IT DOES OTHER SPORTS? "I think every sport is impacted by it. At the end of the day sports are sports. When you have a sport that's created so fans can watch it and the economy is down it's going to impact it. Fuel prices are up, people are feeling pain at the pumps. People are feeling pain making their mortgage payment. People have to make choices and the more choices they have to make the less entertainment stuff they're able to do. The impact that we see has a great deal to do with what the fans can do. If our seats aren't full I don't think it's because the quality of show, I think it is just because of the cost of the whole weekend. I think next year we're going to see a reduction in the car count. We had a similar economic issue back in 2001, 2002, my dates are probably wrong but sometime in that time frame.

“We went to Daytona and there were only 43 cars, maybe 44, because you have less sponsors that are willing to write the check when the economy is down. So I think we're going to see the car count down next year, which doesn't concern me so much. The health of our sport isn't judged by the number of cars, it's really judged by the number of people watching it. We'll have less teams next year. I'm not aware of any really new sponsors coming in; that's an economic issue. The fans certainly, with the addition of the fuel price, ticket prices, food prices, lodging prices, it makes it harder for them to come to the events."

EVERYBODY SAYS 400 MILES WOULD BE A MORE COMPETITIVE RACE HERE, WHAT MAKES YOU SAY THAT ABOUT THIS TRACK? "That's a good question and a lot of people do say that, why do you say that. Because the track is so big and it takes so long to get around the track, if you're 2% off of somebody at a 50-second pace, how far are you off in time? If you're 2% off of somebody at a 20-second pace you're much closer in time. It's really simple, the bigger the track is, non-restrictor plate, the more variance you are going to see in speed from top to finish. If you put a 300-mile race you raise the intensity level up. The race gets the most intense at the end. The sooner you can start that intensity level up, the better the action. The more chances people take. The more things happen, not that I advocate wrecks, but cautions do create exciting racing. The more we can do to compact those things on a bigger race track the better opportunity for a high-quality race. Now we've seen some really good races here and we've seen some that are not so good as we have every race track. I just think that when you start looking at how big the track is, the bigger the track is the better opportunity for exciting racing with the shorter amount of racing. That's my opinion. I could be 100 percent wrong, which is why I said I think we ought to try it. If it were my show I'd say we're running a 350. What the heck you can always go back. Once you make a decision it's not like you can't back it up. It would be neat to see what would happen."

ON ADVANTAGES VERSES DISADVANTAGES OF BEING A VETERAN DRIVER VERSES A NEW DRIVER WHEN IT COMES TO SETTING THE CAR UP. "I think in some cases it's advantageous to be really ignorant and naive about your thought process. In other ways it's a huge disadvantage. Sometimes if you just don't know any better, there are times that a car can be doing stuff that a driver just can't get through although it still might make good lap time. I think the best drivers don't really care what it feels like as long as it will make grip. The only thing I can tell you is I have been at a point in my career where we had a lot of teams coming in and they were doing stuff that I wasn't able to be successful with, but the reason I wasn't able to be successful with it was because the way we were doing it wasn't working. When we learned how to do it then I had no problem doing it. So the question is were we not being able to do it because I had in my head what a car was supposed to feel like or was it because we didn't have it doing the right thing, that's tough to answer.

"What I try to do, this is something that teammates have changed the scope of what we do, I'll just go get one of my teammates and put them in my car. It's nothing for me to go to (Kevin) Harvick and say hey, come drive this thing because honestly the easiest thing to change on the car is the driver. If we're struggling and I can't get a handle on it and I have access to a really, really good race car driver that can roll over in my stuff and give me input, it's pretty stupid not to do that. Whenever I've done that, whether it be with Matt Kenseth or Mark Martin or with Kevin Harvick the results always come back the same. So at the end of the day I don't think it matters, it doesn't matter to me necessarily how the cars feels as long as it's fast, as long as it makes grip. I do know in messing with young drivers, my son at seven, my nephew whose 15 racing, they don't know any better. You can give them something that's completely screwed up and they just go try to make it work and there's something good about that. What's bad about that is sometimes you can't make it work. Sometimes they're trying to work on themselves to make themselves do something when in fact you got to be able to make the car do it. The best drivers can raise their hand and say look I've got to work on me or they got to raise their hand and say you got to fix the car. It's hard to say that's an advantage or disadvantage. I think it's a disadvantage when you let it be a disadvantage and it's an advantage when you make it an advantage."

HOW OFTEN IS IT THE DRIVER WHO CAN'T SAY I GOT TO WORK ON ME AND TOO OFTEN YOU SEE IT PUSHED BACK ON THE TEAM TRYING TO MAKE IT BETTER? "Drivers complain a lot. That's what we do. Immediately it always comes to the car. A lot of the conversations that go on in the trailers and go on face to face aren't as exposed as the driver coming on the radio saying the car won't do this and the car won't do that. When I come to a race track I think I know what to do. Until I prove myself wrong I'm pretty damn sure what to do. There are times that I prove myself wrong and now I got to go back and say I got to work on me. I can tell you that Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer are really good at saying I need to work on me. I'm not good at this track, I need to work on this and I need to work on that. But at the same time we still complain about the cars too. I don't know. It's a tough answer. I think it's very individual and I think its very case per case. That was a long answer for no answer."

HAVE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO INSPECT THE PATCH AND DO ANY RESEARCH ON THAT AND WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OUT OF IT THIS WEEKEND? "It was here when we tested. That black asphalt has 15 to 20 percent more grip than what's on the bottom. It's really interesting. There's a lot of speed running in that new asphalt verses running on the bottom. I don't know what happened it looks like maybe somebody had fuel coming out of a blower truck or something and they had to go repair that. I don't know what happened but it looks like something like that. From what I saw in the test you're gonna be running up there in that grove which means that the bottom is going to be open all day long, but it is one-grove wide. It's like being at Darlington. There's no wall on the outside of it, it's like being at Darlington.

“If you try to run the bottom you are a good four or five tenths slower than if you run up there in that new asphalt. It's real smooth, but it's kind of like being at Darlington. You have to hit your marks perfectly. It's way faster than not being in it. It changes lanes, it's hard to stay in that black asphalt all the way around that corner and if you get out of it and if you get out of that asphalt on the outside of it is where all the tire buildup is. So getting off of Turn 3 you're on it and then when you transition off the corner to go out to the wall you have all this grip in your car and then when you get on the old asphalt you don't have that grip anymore."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY / NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS met with media at Pocono Raceway and discussed how his life has changed since joining Hendrick Motorsports; Pocono Raceway; working with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates and other topics.

HOW HAS YOUR LIFE CHANGED AND WHAT IS DIFFERENT FROM LAST YEAR NOW THAT YOU HAVE JOINED HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS? “That is a hard question. It is like shifting gears, I don’t know, if is different. Nothing really sticks out. Nothing drastically is different. I have a new job, everything is different about it. I am happier, yes. I have a good team, have good cars. The one thing that may stick out is the pressure and the stress is a lot less because there is more confidence now with the equipment and the team, my future and the company’s ability to be a front runner over a long period of time. That is really good. So for the next five years, I will have a good opportunity at that each year. I just don’t have to worry, I guess I just really worried a lot about DEI and its future and how successful it would be and how healthy it was, and I don’t have to worry about that as much. They have really good people working at Hendrick Motorsports that are there to assure the success of the company for a long time. Those types of things are out of my hands and I can just concentrate on my job. I get good criticism and feedback from my owner that helps me understand what my job is and what I am supposed to do. How to do it differently. It is just an easier deal. My days off are a lot more worry free. I have noticed that a little bit. That is about the only thing I have noticed.”

SOME DRIVERS HAVE BEEN CRITICAL OF THIS TRACK (POCONO), ITS CONDITION AND WHETHER IT DESERVES TWO DATES, WHAT IS YOU POSITION ON THAT? “I don’t know whether I can debate whether it deserves two races or not. That is really not necessarily up to the tracks quality, putting a good surface down and stuff like that. They fill the stands up full of people, and if you have a good crowd, you should go there more often. I don’t know what the numbers are here and how this place compares to other crowds and other events. We don’t have many other races up in this market. It would not be smart for us logistically if we are trying to show off our sport to the whole country, it wouldn’t be smart to take away from here unless we are going in to a new market.

“The surface of the track, not up to standard, at all. But there are no guidelines in force for that, so really it is up to the race track to leave it like it is and that is that.”

IS THIS RACE TOO LONG? “Yea, they are all too long. (LAUGHED) Not this one in particular, all of them in particular. I wish we were running shorter races. I guess I could put up with how rough it is if the race is a little bit shorter. But, they are all quite long. For what the ultimate goal is and what we are all setting out to do, there is a meaningless hundred miles in there somewhere, I am sure we can all find it.”

ARE YOU AT ALL CONCERNED ABOUT THE TYPE OF RACING WE MIGHT SEE HERE WITH THE NEW CAR? “No, if the race is poor to watch, we are still in there with our hands full even if the race is not a whole lot of fun to watch, we’re still busy. I am not very concerned. One way or another, I am still having to work regardless of what the race looks like. Ain’t much I can do to make it better. I try the best I can each week to make it fun for the people that pull for me. That is still totally up to how good of a car we have and our ability to use it and manage it. This track has had some pretty excitin’ finishes. As far as just awesome racin’, there have not been many races that are just chocked full of excitement from one end to the other. If we have a boring race, was it any more boring than the other races we have seen here before? Just like Dover. Dover is sorta always kinda a boring race. So that was another one last week. But all the race car drivers weren’t bored, hell, we were working our tails off, just trying to stay on top of the race track and tryin to work, just not able to put on a better show than that, that is just the way it is.”

YOU SAID THE TRACK ISN’T UP TO THE STANDARD, WHAT WILL THAT MEAN ON SUNDAY? “We will be bouncing around and your vision will be impaired slightly.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KYLE BUSCH DOING THREE RACES AT THREE TRACKS IN THREE SERIES? “I used to always say that I admired the Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyers and Kevin Harvicks of the world for running the full schedule in the Nationwide Series. Man, that is real real tough. Just going from car to car even when they are at the same race track, going from practice to practice, it makes for a real full day on Friday and Saturday, but it is really a lot of work and you are going to do that every weekend. I do it four or five times a year and that is about as much as I can stand. I gotta hand it to Kyle to have the…, he loves driving the race cars and he is having a great season, winning a lot of races. If I was him, that would be a great motivator to keep doing it, but the logistics, especially for a weekend like this has got to be tough. I think it says a lot about what kind of a racer he is. He is pretty damn dedicated.”

HAVE YOU DONE ANY MORE POINTS RACING THIS YEAR THAN IN THE PAST? “I was disappointed last week to have all the trouble we had and lose all the points we lost, we have been priding ourselves on our consistency. We didn’t get a shot at it last week, but, I don’t know, I am running as hard as I can run every lap. I know to be smart enough not to spin out and crash and wreck any other people driving too hard, but I run as hard as my car can go. Every lap when you see my car go by, I am giving it all it has got and in a sense, that is points racing. If you know how to run your car to the limit, take care of it and not put yourself in bad positions, yes, you are thinking points, you are thinking smart, you are trying to finish races. You have got to finish. You can’t always be the fastest guy out there and you can’t wreck every week and expect to make the Chase. We go out there and do our best and hope that every week we get that opportunity.”

IS IT UP TO THE TRACKS OR THE SANCTIONING BODY TO POLICE THE RACE TRACKS? “I would like it if NASCAR was a little strictor toward certain facilities. It is not easy to do that. But I would like it. I think the tracks that NASCAR owns are great race tracks, all of Bruton’s tracks are really nice. Any time we ever have a complaint about those facilities; it usually gets tended to, looked out, worked at and fixed. I know it is not easy being a single owner, which is what have here and at Dover. But I think there is a standard to being involved in this sport and I think we need to realize and understand what that standard is and I don’t think it is “enforced”, I think that is a poor choice of words. I feel like it should be maybe a pleasure and an honor to meet it. That should be really up to the race tracks to do that. I think NASCAR, by the end of this weekend and by the end of hearing all the comments from all the drivers, NASCAR will probably have the same opinion we do. But they can’t force someone to make changes; someone has to want to make changes.”

WHO OF YOUR TEAMMATES IS YOUR STYLE OF GETTING IN A CORNER CLOSEST TO AMONG YOUR TEAMMATES: “Who is the fastest one. (LAUGHS) Whoever is the one on top. Jimmie is the same way, what his point is, he looks at whose car is quickest and uses their setup and knows their driving style and may adjust himself to that. With the COT, everybody is making a lot of adjustments throughout the weekend to find the way the car wants to go around the race track. It doesn’t like to be driven exactly like the old car. It seems to have a certain style that it wants. You look at the guys near or at the top of the board whose setups you know well and maybe you work in that direction with that setup and also maybe find by using their setup how to they are driving the car.

“I think everybody adjusts regardless. Maybe a lot of the guys do and just don’t know it. You have to adjust. If the car is tight on entrance, you have to back the corner up that is an adjustment, you roll in the corner and go straight and keep it from the nose pushing worse. Everybody does that, everybody’s car has done that in their history of being behind the wheel. A lot of times what I will find or what Jimmie will find or somebody else, by having four teammates, what is fortunate about that is you can put their setup in the car and you will notice right away by the first corner the difference in the setup and how it is working, what it is doing better. Why this other driver is having success with it and your style of driving becomes similar to his due to the setup more so. I don’t really know how Jeff drives, maybe Jimmie knows him better than I do. I will go in a direction of what some of the guys are running today and find that my car does things better and I am able to drive it differently. Everybody is out there adjusting. You are always adjusting as a driver week in and week out, lap after lap.”

ARE YOU TEAMMATES LEANING ON YOU AT ALL? “No not really. They have been real fast and just had some poor luck at the beginning of the season. Everybody has worked off of each other at one point or another. It has been pretty even up to this point. I have to give Chad and Jimmie the credit for where we are this weekend right now. They seem to have the package we are all sort of studying. It seems to be a different guy each week.”

JEFF GORDON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Pocono Raceway and discussed the pavement patch in turn three, driver's driving styles, going to Sonoma and more.

HOW WAS PRACTICE? "Practice was pretty good. We really did a lot of homework when we left here and worked with our teammates especially the 48 car and we basically came back exactly like the 48. It's definitely helped us."

WILL THE CHANGES IN TURN THREE CAUSE A BUMPY RIDE ON SUNDAY? "No the new pavement is smooth as glass. It's got a lot of grip. It's real smooth unlike the entire rest of the track. I think it's going to make things interesting though because it's leaving that whole inside grove open. So if you can get your car working down low there, we're gonna see some side-by-side racing down there or we're gonna see guys going in and try to slide up in front of guys. It's definitely going to make the race interesting. I think today in qualifying you will pretty much see everybody running up there."

IF YOU WERE THE GRAND SCHEDULE MAKER WOULD YOU CHANGE THE NUMBER OF DATES AND MILES RUN HERE? "I don't know all the details that go into, what makes them decide a 500-mile race verses a 400-mile race. Just purely from a competitor standpoint 500 miles around this track seems to be a little long. You know what the track owners, the Mattioli's and television and NASCAR they make those decisions based on a totally different set of information. They might have a much better reason than any of us understand so I don't think it's right for me to side that or even make a comment on what the decision should be made."

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT KYLE BUSCH PULLING THE TRIPLE-DUTY AND IF IT IS SOMETHING HE COULD SEE HIMSELF DOING OR HAVE DONE BACK IN THE DAYS. "He's young man (laughs). Back in the day maybe. I pretty much found out early on in my cup career that putting 100 percent of my effort into the cup series and into this team is what gave me the best results. He's a very talented and young driver and he's obviously got the energy to go out and do that. I think it's pretty cool what he's doing. There's a reason why nobody else has done it or is doing it."

TALK ABOUT YOUR SEASON, POINTS WISE YOU ARE DOING OKAY BUT PERFORMANCE WISE DO YOU WISH YOU WERE DOING BETTER? "I think we have the best team out there, I really do. I don't think we've gotten the most out of the cars and I put myself in that category when I say we. It's not just the guys on this team or Hendrick Motorsports, it's all of us and we're working hard to make those gains. It's hard for me to give us a bad grade because of where we're at in the points and because of how good our team is so I give us a B, B+. Based on sometimes how we performed on the track you would think it would be easy to grade us lower than that but to have four straight top 10's and three straight top five's that's something I'm pretty proud of."

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE CLOSE AND SIX WEEKS FROM NOW WOULD YOU BE SURPRISED IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE A WIN? "Well we're not as close as we need to be I feel like right now. Other than a road course coming up and maybe a Martinsville track, which is a while from now, there's a lot of different ways to win these races these days. I never count ourselves out. We're a strong team. I feel like I'm driving as good as I ever have. It's about bringing all those ingredients together and making the most of it. Just like at Charlotte, it could be fuel mileage and this weekend pit strategy is going to be all over the place. It could be very, very interesting how this race plays out. We gambled here last year and won with the rain and the weather and fuel mileage. I think that there's no doubt we can win. We can win anywhere. If you're just basing it off of sheer speed, we still need to gain. We feel like we got until September to make all those gains and be in the Chase and start the Chase off to be solid and have something for those guys."

HOW FAR ARE YOU BEHIND? "Not that much. It's not that much. Just like we saw with Kasey Kahne, you know. At Charlotte they were just a little bit off and made some gains and got the car driving the way he wanted it to and boom they've gone and won two races in a row. With this car I don't think you are ever that far off with this car. Everybody's pretty tightly matched. While sometimes it might look like on the track you're very far off, it could just be something that's small that makes up that big time."

HOW SPECIAL OF A PLACE IS SONOMA FOR YOU? "I love it. I wish I could go and spend more time there. There's so many things that I love about that area and having family and friends and everything there. This year is even going to be more special. Last year was a spectacular weekend for me because Ella was born that week but I had to leave. I didn't want to have to leave. This year we're actually celebrating her birthday in Sonoma and we've got a big event happening on Saturday with a bunch of friends and family. Who knows what else we're gonna have for it. It's a pretty spectacular first birthday. So I'm really excited about Sonoma coming up. We've got a great race car, we tested at VIR (Virginia International Raceway). I'm anxious to get out on the track as well and our wine is doing good. I could go on and on."

WITH PASSING BEING SO DIFFICULT IN THIS CAR, IS THIS THE PERFECT KIND OF RACE TRACK WITH THE WIDE AND LONG STRAIGHTAWAYS TO SEE MORE PASSING? "No, other than that paving strip over there I don't think that's going to be the case. I think that the long straightaways definitely help but you got to be close to them in the corners to be able to make the pass down the straightaways. We didn't really do a lot of race runs around traffic. Until we get out there tomorrow I really can't answer that. I think passing is just a premium and a tough thing to pull off in general these days because the cars are so evenly matched. With the aerodynamics with the way they are it makes it tough. I'll know more tomorrow."

YOU TALKED ABOUT PUTTING THE 48 SET UP FROM THE TEST IN YOUR CAR, BUT A LOT OF TIMES YOU HAVE TALKED ABOUT YOU AND JIMMIE DON'T REALLY DRIVE THE SAME SET UPS, WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT THIS TIME? "We didn't have a choice. We were way off at the test and those guys were pretty good. I'm surprised because I was expecting their set up to be much freer and looser because in the past when we've tried Jimmie's set ups they were pretty loose and it was opposite actually. The car was pretty tight but it was fast. We just had to work through some things there but that definitely got us started in the right direction. As bad as we were at testing, it's actually been a pretty good day."

WHY IS IT THAT YOU GUYS CAN'T DRIVE THE OTHER PERSON'S SET UP? "Why don't you write the same way another writer writes? It's just how our brains work. It's how our motor skills work. Some guys go in and want to get on the right front and drive through the right front and connect the car that way. Some guys want to do it with the right rear. Some guys are harder on the brakes than other guys. One of the things through telemetry especially having teammates over the years and being able to compare the telemetry is that you just see that some tracks, some drivers are just all the same. But then there's some tracks where you can really do things different and this is one of them, so that makes the set ups and the way the car reacts to the driver different. There's some places I think Jimmie and I can run similar set ups and have and then there's other places we just have not been able to. But it seems like with this car we've been able to get closer to those guys than ever."

WHERE DOES A DRIVER'S DRIVING STYLE COME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE? "The way you're raised. I think it's instinct of how you start driving and then it can come through just what your past experience is, what kind of cars and what those cars demand in how you drive. In his (Jimmie Johnson) off-road racing I'm sure those trucks and those types of cars are quite a bit different. You would have to ask him. For me it goes all the way back to quarter midget days where it all started for me. That's where I learned how to drive and then I just transferred that over to midgets and sprint cars. I don't feel like I've really done anything different over the years other than just get in the car and try to feel it and find that edge and push it to go faster."

THE TELEMETRY LAST YEAR SHOWED THAT KYLE (BUSCH) DIDN'T REALLY USE A LOT OF BRAKE WHEN HE DRIVES AROUND. IS THAT AN UNUSUAL THING OR IS THAT SORT OF COMMON? "Like I said, everybody is different. I don't really remember. I know that a lot of Kyle's set ups last year we had at Hendrick were quite a bit different. He and Alan (Gustafson) were able to do some things that really worked for Kyle. If you go back a lot of young talented drivers that come into the sport a lot of times they'll drive what you put underneath them and they'll make surprisingly good progress with that.

“And a lot of times it can fool you as a crew chief and as a team because you think I'm putting some good stuff underneath this kid and then you realize they're just driving so far over the top that sometimes it makes it even better than it is. You got to be careful not getting complacent with that. I've seen it happen to a lot of young drivers, even myself coming into this sport. Once you start getting it settled in and you start getting more experience and you know when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive usually that's when you start building your characteristic of what you use."

OBVIOUSLY LAST YEAR YOU GUYS WERE TOP DOG, NOW THE SHIFT IS A LITTLE BIT TO GIBBS AND TO ROUSH AND WE HEARD YOU GUYS WERE RACING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR, IS THE EXPLANATION THAT SIMPLE? "Yes and no. The simple part is just hard work. You pick a direction that you're going in and you work your butt off to make the best out of it. It could be as simple as one of those teams goes and tests and says I've got this idea, let's try it and they try it. Another team says I've got this idea that's complete opposite of that, let's try that and they go in that direction. This one goes in that direction and one works and one doesn't. It is way simpler than you would think to get better and to get off, but it all starts in hard work and just trying to gather as much information as you possibly can and how you read the information. It's getting more and more by engineering and computers and all that stuff than it ever has."

ARE YOU GUYS OFF HORSEPOWER WISE? IS THAT PART OF THE CONCERN? "No, I don't feel like that's concern. I think we're in good shape horsepower wise. The only place that I feel like the Toyota's are getting us horsepower wise is maybe on the restrictor-plate tracks. They do seem to have a little bit more power there. I feel really good about our power this year. I think our power has been awesome."

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE ADVANTAGE WOULD BE IF ONE OR BOTH OF THESE RACES WERE DROPPED FROM 500 MILES TO 400 MILES? "I think it just changes the complexity of the race. It changes your strategy. I think shorter races are a little more exciting personally. It all depends. We race 500 miles now knowing its 500 miles. We race 400 miles knowing its 400 miles. In this race because the lap times are the longest other than a road course, longest lap times we have anywhere that we go and yet we're running 500 miles. It just makes for a very, very long day.

“I think sometimes the field gets a little more spread out. I think the attrition becomes a little bit more. Those to me are the factors that play into a shorter race being a little bit more exciting."

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM YOUR SPOTTER? "I expect him to give me as much information as he can. You build up trust over time and you have to really go with your own instincts. They're giving me the information that I don't have. There's blind spots out there, there's things that you can't see other parts of the track and they're not there to make decisions and drive the car for you, they're just there to make sure in those areas that are blind that they're giving you the information so you don't cut somebody off or run somebody in the wall or make a mistake."

A LOT OFTHEM SAID THEY'VE BECOME VERBAL WHIPPING POSTS FOR THE DRIVERS. "It depends. If you don't hear anything from the spotter and you turn down in the corner and there's a guy inside of you and he never said anything, there's two parts to that. You probably should have had an idea that there's a guy on the inside and he should have said something. I never give full blame to a spotter. There are certain tracks like Talladega and Daytona where spotters play a huge role. There's so much going on you can't keep up with it, but when you're at Dover or Martinsville you watch in your mirror enough that you should know when they're there and when they're not there.

I grew up in Sprint cars where you didn't have a mirror or a spotter and if they weren't there, they didn't exist. When you grow up in stock car racing if you have one inch of your bumper inside that guy, then you consider yourself there and he can't turn down on you. I think that sometimes that's being a little naïve. I think that sometimes you got to protect your front bumper as much as they have to protect their rear bumper and the spotter shouldn't be fully responsible for that, but he should be telling you that. It's up to you whether you turn left or turn right."

HOW WOULD YOU CATEGORIZE YOUR YEAR SO FAR? "We're in the Chase but we need to be more competitive. I feel like we do have some work to do. We're not going to deny that. I feel like we're one of the best organizations out there and that we can make those gains. I feel like our performance has been building our confidence that we're not that far off, that we just need to keep working. We've got an incredible team, pit crew, all those things are right there. I think Steve Letarte is doing an awesome job calling the races and communicating with me but we need to find a little bit of speed. We're happy to be where we're at in the points but we're not happy that we haven't been leading more laps or putting ourselves in position to win more races."

WITH THE DIFFICULTY IN PASSING, HOW MUCH DOES TRACK POSITION MATTER IN TERMS OF QUALIFYING AND EARLY ON? "Qualifying and track position to me this year has been more important than it's ever been. The difference is that because the tires are fairly hard this year, they haven't been wearing as much as in the past so you can get track position in unique ways. You can stay out, you can just do fuel, you can just do right sides and play the pit strategy and track position that way. Qualifying is still as important as it's always has been but it's getting even more important. As long as you have a tire that holds up, this weekend is probably not one of them, but like Charlotte was certainly one of them and Darlington and those places, you could pull that off."

SO RACE STRATEGY IS GOING TO BE PRETTY IMPORTANT IN HOW YOU CAN GAIN POSITIONS? "Yeah. Typically here you have a lot of green-flag runs so a lot of your pit strategies can be based on your fuel mileage and when you're going to pit under green. It's a long lap, you don't want to run out of fuel and if you pit when other guys don't, you usually try to do the opposite of what the leaders and the other guys are doing."

WOULD YOU RATHER SEE A SOFTER COMPOUND ON THE TIRES FOR BETTER RACING AT THE RISK OF HAVING MORE BLOWOUTS? "No. You don't want to risk blowouts. You're isolating one thing, it's not that easy. In order for Goodyear to build a softer tire, the car has to be able to not abuse the tire so much. This car abuses the right side tires more, that puts Goodyear into the box to make a harder right side tire to be more durable. It's a domino effect that needs to be addressed by a little bit with the car, a little bit with the tire and the team has to be responsible with that as well. We all know that you put more camber, less air pressure in the right front tire you're probably going to blow it out and there's a limit there and you need to know where that limit is. It can't be one that's just a very fine line that's easy to get to. If you blow a tire these days, it better be because you were just way outside the box."

HOW DOES HAVING ONE TURN WITH NEW ASPHALT AND THE REST OF THE TRACK BEING SO BUMPY CHANGE DRIVING? "It's changes it quite a bit. We're running three groves high down here in turn three. We're not even close to running the bottom. I can't ever remember us really running off the bottom here, maybe one grove up. That is the preferred line. It's really smooth, it's got a lot of grip. I'm assuming they maybe did that because of the seepage and they went in and did some things underneath. I don't know why exactly they did it because it would have been nice to have it all the way around. It's making it different because you have more grip and a very smooth part of the race track verses the rest of the track is pretty bumpy with less grip. When you already have three corners that are so much different and then you add that into it, it makes it a real challenge to set the car up right."

LAST WEEK YOU MADE SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THIS TRACK THAT WERE BETRAYED TO BE NEGATIVE, DO YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS REGARDING THAT? "I felt like it was constructive criticism. I don't feel like that I came across as negative. I feel like it's obvious that this is a track that needs some upgrades and I still believe that. At this day and time with this series at the level it's at, to go to a race track that has some of the bumps and some of the safer barriers and different things that we have here or lack of, in my opinion its only being constructive criticism as to what I think upgrades they need to have especially if they want to continue to stay on the circuit going forward."

TALK ABOUT THE SAFETY ISSUE WITH THE GRASS ALONG THE WALL. "The guardrail. To me this is a fast race track. We've seen some pretty nasty wrecks and I think if you compared most of the tracks out there I would say that this track is probably further down the list of things that they've done."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS met with media and discussed the Pocono track conditions, racing at Eldora, the length of the Pocono race, the changes he’d make in the new race car, the Turn 3 patch, and more.

ON RACING AT POCONO: “In today’s world with all the modern changes that have been made to tracks and progressive banking and just the shape of the track, it’s tough to really put on a good race here. It really is. It has long straightaways and tight turns. There is only one corner with banking. So from a racing standpoint, we don’t feel it puts on the best racing. I think there are some safety upgrades that need to be made. Armco barriers don’t need to be there. We need soft walls and real walls all the way around the track. And we can really do away with the grass that we have down Long Pond and down the short shoot. We’ve seen a lot of problems because of the grass.

“We sound awfully harsh in saying these things, but we’re just trying to be honest. We all appreciate and respect the Mattiolis and all that they’ve done. It’s not a personal dig on them. But there is no denying that this is an old, old facility. And as racing has gone on and we’re trying to put on a better show, it’s just been tough to do that here.”

WHAT KIND OF SHOW DO YOU THINK WE’LL GET ON SUNDAY GIVEN THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THESE CARS WILL RACE ON THIS TRACK IN LIVE ACTION? “The bigger the track, the more difficult these cars have been to run side-by-side. And we come to a track where there is really only one lane to run side-by-side, it should be even more difficult to pass and more single file than we’ve seen in the past.”

ON RACING AT ELDORA, WAS THAT FUN? “Oh, without a doubt. That was a lot of fun. I regret the fact that I wasn’t able to make it there in the previous couple of years that it’s gone on. I had a great time and a lot of fun spending time with (Clint) Bowyer and driving his car and meeting his regular driver Shannon Babb. They are a great group of guys and I felt like I made a lot of progress from my first lap on the track until the end. And so it was a lot of fun.”

KYLE BUSCH SAID THIS COULD BE A BORING RACE. DO YOU THINK THAT COULD HAPPEN ON SUNDAY? “Oh, we’ve seen on the bigger race tracks where aero is more important that things that have been taken away from the teams show up. And so the mechanical grip, the tire, and the aero balance all shows up the faster we go. The next thing that helps us on a lot of tracks is banking. We only have one turn that has any banking. So we have a lot of things stacking up that are going to make it really difficult to race and be competitive. It’s not boring in the car. I’m not sure what the opinion is outside. But inside the car, things are a handful. It’s not going to be an easy day’s work in there.”

IF YOU WERE THE NASCAR SCHEDULE-MAKER, WOULD YOU COME TO POCONO TWICE A YEAR? TWICE IN A SIX-WEEK PERIOD? “I wouldn’t. There are a lot of fans here, so I do respect and understand that. This track has been a bit part of the sport, but we have a lot of stuff in the area that we race at. And as we try to grow the sport and continue to make it bigger and stronger than what it is, we really need to think long and hard about this track and two dates so close to one another. And obviously there are a lot of rumors floating around about what could be and what might happen, so we’ll all just stay tuned and see how it ends up.”

ON THE PAVING IN TURN 3 “Yeah, that’s one thing that made the test so exciting. We had something new to try here and hopefully another option to pass down in Turn 3 now that that paving strip is down. Otherwise you just wait until Turn 1 and hopefully you can get alongside someone and fight them down through the Long Pond straightaway and get a position on them through the tunnel turn. It made the test fun and unfortunately everybody knows about it now and everybody is going to use it. So it could very well be single file up there up by the wall.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET A GOOD QUALIFYING SPOT HERE? “Qualifying is important every week for your pit road pick, and then the fact that it’s so difficult to pass. Qualifying is very, very important.”

WHAT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS HERE? “Go fast (laughs). It’s a different track. I’m sure you’ve heard all the stories about it. It’s a different track with three different turns and all that stuff, but you’ve just got to go fast. If you’re not fast, it’s not a fun day.”

HAVING WON HERE BEFORE, DO YOU LOOK BACK ON THAT FOR SOME IDEAS ON HOW TO WIN AGAIN? “So much has changed since we won here. There’s a different car and a different rules package. Things that really worked for us then won’t work for us now. I do have fond memories of the track and I’ve enjoyed the challenges of it with three separate corners, but it’s just such a different world. I’m excited to get out because we all had that test session. We were very strong in that test session and I’m hopeful that what we learned will cross over and we’ll have a good race here.”

WITH WHAT YOU LEARNED IN THE OLD CARS BEING OBSOLETE NOW, IS IT ALMOST LIKE YOU’RE IN A DIFFERENT SPORT? “In a lot of ways, it is a totally different sport. It’s a different car with different demands with the car and the different aero balance it has; mechanical balance, and tires continue to change. It’s a totally different animal than what we’ve had in the past. And the notebooks that we’ve had for the last 10 years are really out the window, even from last year. We ran this car on the small tracks (last year) and it takes a different set-up from a short track to a big track, so we’re still learning this thing.”

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST THING YOU LEARNED FROM THE TEST? “The paving deal that went on down in Turn 3 is going to make it pretty interesting. Hopefully it brings us another passing zone. Outside of the hope there, you’re only real chance is through Turn 1. There is some banking down there and you can run side-by-side. So I think we’re all eager to see what’s going to play out and if we have two passing zones now.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE FOR THE TEAM WHEN YOU GET ON A HOT STREAK LIKE KYLE BUSCH IS ON NOW? “It’s a high that you don’t want to ever end and you want to experience it. It takes so much to be successful in this sport. I’m sure a lot of those guys are sitting back and savoring the moment and the fact that they are the guys right now. So we’ve been there and I appreciate it and respect them for all the hard work that they’ve done to put themselves in this position. But unfortunately after a few weeks of being there and a short period of time of being there, I should say, questions start coming (like) how long is it going to last and can you continue to do it? Eventually another team comes along and how you respond through all of that is what’s really challenging. And those guys have been very strong and I would imagine they would rebound well through it all. But it’s just the roller coaster ride that we live on week after week.”

WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STREAK LIKE THAT, DO YOU APPROACH THE WEEKEND ANY DIFFERENTLY? “Oh, you’re a lot more relaxed. You really are more relaxed and typically you have some go-to moves set-up wise. And even from the driver’s standpoint, certain things that you know you can find some speed with your driving style around the race track, you look for those things and really try to take advantage of them. And you just hope that you produce the same lap time and the same success.”

HOW WOULD YOU GET MORE FRONT DOWNFORCE IN THIS CAR? WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST? “There are a lot of things that I would like to change. But to increase front downforce, there are some very simple things you can do from opening up the fender width; giving the cars more front travel would help in two ways. One, it would give you areo, plus it would lower the center of gravity height. So there are a lot of positives based on that. Plus it would take the emphasis of running on bump stops solely away from the teams, so you could get back to a conventional set-up and the coil binding that we used to have. So, it might bring more options, but it’s more than just an aero change. I’m not sure if NASCAR is ready to open the book back up and let everybody do that again. But if you’re going to give just front downforce, simply opening the fender width up in the front would do that.”

BUT THAT WOULDN’T FIX THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH THE CAR NOT TURNING AND THE AERO PUSH AND THE LACK OF PASSING? “In my opinion, now, the aero balance problem is because the car is so big and it’s punching a huge hole in the air, which we’ve heard them talk about and it’s what they want to do. It works great on the speedways, but it’s terrible everywhere else. So that huge hole that it’s punching in the air doesn’t allow anyone behind that car to have any downforce. So I don’t know how we make this car smaller because everything about it from safety and even design is to make it bigger for that reason. So we’re going to fight that for a long, long time. And then you get into the mechanical grip issues and front travel issues and there are just a lot of things different in this car. A lot of it was to help NASCAR police the sport better. And so there are a lot of positives within it and hopefully we can continue to change and work on the car. But at the same time, I think the tracks have a responsibility to recognize what our cars are doing and to try to make more competitive race tracks. Reconfiguring these tracks and making them progressively banked is a great thing. And we’re seeing better racing on those tracks.”

SHOULD THEY RECONFIGURE POCONO? “Absolutely. It definitely needs a facelift. This is an old, old track and a lot has changed since the time this thing was designed. You have two flat corners and one banked corner and really our only passing opportunity is down in Turn 1 where it’s banked. So, it could be reconfigured or from the sounds of it, there might be something else though, totally taking place.”

ON THE LENGTH OF THE POCON0 500, SHOULD IT BE SHORTER? “Hell, I think 200 miles would be better (laughter). And it’s not from a visible standpoint, all of us drivers are able to do it and the cars the crews are, I just don’t know if you keep your audience captive for 400 or 500 miles. Five hundred miles here is actually four or five hours; especially the TV viewing audience. It’s just a long, long day.”

ON KYLE BUSCH RUNNING ALL THREE NASCAR RACES THIS WEEKEND: ‘I think that he’s having fun and that he’s racing anything that has wheels. I’ve spent a lot of time driving other vehicles and thoroughly enjoy it. If he goes out and has success in all three classes, everybody is going to praise him. I guess the bottom line is how he performs in the Cup car. That’s where he will get the most criticism. If he has a bad day on Sunday, the whole negative side of it will chase him down.”

IS IT KIND OF CRAZY TO DO IT? WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT? “No (laughs). I love racing but the things that I want to drive are different vehicles and really not inside the NASCAR ranks. I enjoy road racing and endurance racing. I didn’t realize how much fun I could have in a dirt car until Eldora. So if I was going to run off and race other cars on a given weekend, I would want to experience different things. That’s not taking anything away from Kyle and what he is doing. He’s doing something cool and neat. If he runs well, he’s going to look like a hero. If he runs bad, everybody is going to be on his butt.”

ROBBY GORDON RUNS THE BAJA AND A CUP RACE ON THE SAME WEEKENDS “Exactly. It can be done. We are physically strong enough and able to do it and it’s not a factor from that side. It’s more about outside influences and opinions that pop up when you do it. If your team and sponsors sign off on it, then oh well. Let criticism fall where it may.”

ON THE FACT THAT THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE TOUGHEST CHALLENGE WILL BE? “I personally think that’s it’s the travel side of it. If you have any weather at any point in time, not only from the travel side, but from the track side; like say you don’t get back to Pocono until 4:00 in the morning because of what goes on in the Nationwide race. I think it’s the timing of it all relative to the weather.”

IF YOU ARE JUST A COUPLE OF INCHES OFF IN TURN 3, WILL YOU GET INTO THE MARBLES? “Yeah, where the patch is you have 30 percent more grip. If you get any given tire, not just your rights, but even if your left side tires dip below, you lose a lot of grip fast. So it’s a finicky spot.”

IS IT A SCARY SITUATION TO TAKE TURN 3 A LITTLE BIT HIGHER THAN YOU NORMALLY WOULD? “The first couple of times I went through there and tried to use it. It’s not a straight patch, by any means. I don’t know what work went on below the surface or why they did it, but it wasn’t intended to be a racing line. And the shape of the line, shows that. So, there are points where your left sides are off of it, and then your right sides are and you’re just wheeling it hanging on.”

ON HIS YEAR TO DATE “It is a long season. We’ve got a lot of racing left. Our first goal is to be in the Chase and we’re looking good there. Of course we want to run better, but hey, this is bigtime auto racing. It’s not an easy deal.”

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 07 JACK DANIEL’S IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Pocono Raceway and talked about the new asphalt in turn three, racing in general at Pocono, his contract extension with Richard Childress racing and other topics.

DO YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD HANDLE ON WHAT TO EXPECT AT THIS TRACK SINCE YOU TESTED HERE LAST MONTH? “Yeah, it seems like it was just yesterday we were here. I think our Jack Daniels Chevrolet was pretty fast in the test. It didn’t really show the speed, but we haven’t had that speed in the first lap or so. The car handled fine, drove fine, so hopefully we are looking for big things.”

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON IF IT WILL BE A BORING RACE FOR FANS? “I think it will be the same ole Pocono. This is a big race track you know, we get stretched out a little bit but you have to stay focused, you have to stay honed in on the task at hand. The race always plays out pretty good.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KYLE BUSCH DOING THE TRIPLE RACE MARATHON THIS WEEKEND? “If I was running as good as Kyle is right now, I would be racing snowmobiles somewhere on my off days.”

TALK ABOUT RACING AT ELDORA IN THE PRELUDE. “It is just an unbelievable experience. Tony (Stewart) does such a great job, my hats off to him for even getting that race in. When we flying in, every field around there was flooded, it was flooded everywhere and somehow he was able to work his tail off and get the track ready. I was watching him drive around the track and he was looking pretty wore out. I am glad he won his first time, I am very glad he won. Worked out good, it was a fun night. Everybody had a smile on their face. Anytime you can have that much fun and be able to help such a great cause that is so dear to our hearts, Victory Junction Gang Camp, it is pretty cool.”

DO YOU THINK POCONO OWES YOU ONE AFTER A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO WHEN YOU HAD A GREAT CAR AND IT GOT A LITTLE HAIRY OUT THERE? “You put that stuff behind you, I mean, since then, we have gotten past that. It was a bad deal, unfortunate. But you have to be able to put that behind you and look forward at the big picture.”

HOW DO YOU THINK THE PARTIAL PAVING IN TURN THREE CHANGED THE TRACK? “It changed it a lot. It is strange how they paved one eight-foot patch out there. The first day, I was looking at it out there and it is way out there, I thought, I should go up there and try that. I was telling Burton and Harvick, we went out to eat dinner that night; nobody was up there the first day. I said ‘You know, I am going to try it up there, it is a long ways out there, but I think there is probably a ton of grip out there.’ You are always loose and sliding around in three anyhow. The first lap on the track I look up and all three cars in front of me must have been thinking the same thing over night because we were all up there. I don’t know what that is going to do as far as the race. You have to be on it, so, turn three is such an important corner to get down that long straightaway. We will see how it plays out.

“It may be a little single file down there, but is always was. Before you had to be right down there on the curve, right down on the bottom and have your car rotate, then you could drive up off underneath of them. I don’t know if you are going to be able to get on that patch. It is kind of like a traction patch, you let your car rotate and drive straight up off. It is just a long sweeping corner and it is real slick. If you can get your car rotating right on the traction and drive straight across, you will be ok.

“You will slide out there in no-man’s land across out there to it and then all of a sudden it is like Whoop, then you are stuck there. It is like a cushion on a dirt track. You jump the cushion and you are going to be in big trouble.”

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON YOUR NAME BEING TOSSED AROUND IN THE SILLY SEASON TALKS ABOUT WHO COULD MOVE WHERE? “Richard (Childress) exercised his option for ’09 and we are just working on a long term deal right now. I don’t know.”

SO YOU ARE SET FOR NEXT YEAR RIGHT HERE? “As far as I am concerned, yes.”

DO YOU THINK THIS STUFF STARTS EARLIER AND EARLIER EVERY YEAR? “I think that is probably the corporate sponsor side of it. Everybody wants to know where you are going to be as soon as can, I think the sponsors are paying a lot of money to be able to know where they are going to be and want to be there for a long time. It just takes so long to get a team put in place. Get the right driver, right crew chief, all that stuff in place. You need to get started as soon as you can.”

ARE YOU HAPPY THAT THE OPTION WAS EXERCISED? “Yes, absolutely, yea, yea.”

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF YOUR SPOTTER IN YOUR MIND? “I think a good spotter does a lot more than just high, low, clear. I think that is their job, that is all they have to do but you won’t be a spotter of mine very long doing that. I think a spotter can give a lot of insight looking up. He has the bird’s eye view looking down, he can see where cars are beating you. If there a car five cars behind you that is running the top and running 3/10ths faster than everybody, he should be on the radio saying hey, man, you have a little of an opening, try that outside, like the 29 is up there running fast or something like that. There is a lot to a spotter and you have spotters that just want to sit up there and call you clear on the inside, to me you can do a lot more than that.”

IS GETTING A LONG TERM DEAL DONE WITH RCR, IS THAT SOMETHING YOU WANT? “Yes, absolutely. Nobody wants to shuffle around year to year, you want to know where you are at and know you that your team is underneath you and every thing’s put in place for long term. Nobody wants to be bouncing back and forth and see the guys in the silly season year after year, that has to be torture. Not knowing where you are going to be and worrying about that all the time and trying to stay focused on the task at hand at the same time; I think that would be pretty tough.”

MORE DRIVER QUOTES TO FOLLOW AS THE DAY PROGRESSES.