JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T MOBILITY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Richmond International Raceway and talked about racing at Richmond, approaching Darlington next week, Talladega last week and much more.

ON RACING AT RICHMOND. “I’ve always really enjoyed Richmond. It’s a fun racetrack to run on. At the same time over the last few years, much like Phoenix and New Hampshire, it’s been a place that we’ve struggled, I don’t know why. This is one of those places I’ve always led a lot of laps, ran in the front and the last few years we just haven’t been able to do that. It’s been a concern of ours. We didn’t run as well at Phoenix as we hoped to. We ended up finishing sixth but really had probably a 10th, 12th-place car. Of course Phoenix and Richmond are similar so hopefully we can step that program up. We’ve worked hard at it; we just haven’t quite found it. (Kevin) Harvick tends to run better than we do at these tracks and actually Clint (Bowyer) has too. We’re working hard to get this program better on this kind of race track; hopefully we can figure it out this weekend.”

ON BOBBY LABONTE’S RECENT DRY SPELL AND TICKETS STILL BEING AVAILABLE LESS THAN 24 HOURS BEFORE THE RACE. “I think Bobby is a talented driver. You don’t win a championship and do the things he’s done in this sport, obviously he knew he was taking on a lot when he went to Petty’s to try to help rebuild that. That’s been a tough process. I’m sure they haven’t had the success that Bobby expected or that Petty Enterprises expected. I respect Bobby a lot for taking that challenge on. It is a tremendous challenge. You put Bobby Labonte in a fast race car and Bobby Labonte will go fast in it. I believe that in my heart, I really do. I think that he is really smart, he knows how to race. When I look at Bobby I see a guy that’s in a situation, he walked into a tough situation, he knew it was tough trying to make it better and it’s probably hasn’t progressed as quickly as he wanted it to. But I don’t think Bobby has lost anything. As far as ticket sales, there’s just no question that our economy is tough right now. Fuel prices are way up, there are a lot of things going on that make it harder for the heart and soul of our sports which is average, everyday middle-class, that’s what our sport has always been supported by. When they’re feeling it and they’re struggling with their finances then we feel it too. This race track has a long history of being sold out and it is a cause for concern. I’m not concerned about the health of our sport. I believe that racing is good. I believe our fans are still excited and fired up about it. I’m not concerned about that, I’m concerned about – thinking about it if someone can’t buy a ticket there’s other things they can’t do as well. Our country goes through ups and downs and we’re in a financial down right now. It will come back, and when it comes back the fans will come back.”

ON HOW HE WILL APPROACH DARLINGTON NEXT WEEK. “I go into it with a lot more questions than answers and that’s exactly how I’ll start when I get in the car. I have time because we have that added practice on Thursday. I have the Nationwide car there and I have time to try to figure it out and that’s how I’ll walk into it. I’m not concerned about running the fastest first lap of the day. I’m worried about when the day is over, what did we learn and what can we apply toward Friday and then of course apply that to Saturday night. That’s how I approach it. I know the track is going to be awesome. It’s just what tire do they have to bring to match the track. I know the first tire here was just incredibly fast and I think their next tire they pulled a lot of speed out of it and I heard it takes a while to get going. Really it’s just the first couple laps getting a feel for the tires. That’s how I look at it. I don’t have any answers I just feel like I have all questions.”

I BELIEVE IT WAS 1998 WHEN YOU HAD THAT RACE WITH (JEFF) GORDON HERE AND YOU GUYS WERE DOOR-TO-DOOR FOR THE LAST 20 OR 30 LAPS, WHERE DOES THAT RANK FOR YOU AND WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THOSE LAPS? “It ranks really high. I remember we had a race at Darlington where we were door-to-door and he won. Then we had that race and it was the Exide 400 and I was obviously sponsored by Exide and Art and all his family was here and it was a neat night. We were really trying hard to put pressure on the 24, to win championships and that was our night to kind of say hey we can do it if we put it all together. It was a really cool night. To do it here made it that much more special.”

ON THE DIFFERENCES OF RACING AT TALLADEGA LAST WEEK VERSES RACING THERE LAST FALL AND ON HAVING START AND PARK CARS IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES. “The first race at Talladega with the Car of Tomorrow, when I left there I felt like there wasn’t really a car problem, I was thinking it was probably more of a driver issue. I think the first race there we were really just trying to feel the car out, nobody wanted to make a move that was going to cost them. This time everybody said the heck with that, we’re just going to go for it. It got really wild, didn’t surprise me that we had the wrecks that we had. It surprised me we didn’t have them sooner to be quite honest. It was four wide a lot and it’s easy to do four wide at Talladega but it’s not easy to do four wide at Talladega when the guy on the outside is in the middle of the race track and we saw that a lot. It was an exciting race. I was glad to get through it to be quite honest. It was pretty wild.

The quality of cars from top to bottom is certainly less in the Nationwide series and in the truck series than it is in the cup series. I think it’s always been like that. I don’t know that it will always be like that, but I do believe when it costs so much less to do it more people can get into it and have a chance to do it but they don’t have the funding that the top teams have. If the economy doesn’t turn around quickly, that problem will only get worse. We have to have sponsorship to make these things work.

“So the Nationwide series and the cup series and the truck series are very much economy driven. We go back and look at the year that the No. 99 car didn’t have a sponsor, we were down to 43 cars. I think 44 cars took time for the Daytona 500. There was a lot of talk about that, what’s the impact of that to the sport. We can’t control the economy. The sport can’t control the economy. When the economy is down we are going to see less car count and when we do have full car count in the lower series we’re going to see the quality of cars at a larger variance than what we normally would. That’s not the best thing in the world for us for sure, but I believe it’s short lived.”

ON HIS TAKE OF HOW THE OPEN-WHEEL GUYS ARE DOING SO FAR ON THE CIRCUIT. “They’re obviously very talented drivers. What they’re having to do is take the skills they have and adapt them to this form of racing. I believe it to be a harder transition to go from what they were doing to this verses going from this to that. I’m not suggesting that our drivers are better, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that they’re so different. Their cars make a lot of grip, these cars make very little grip. There’s less cars over there, there’s more cars here. There are a lot of things that make this different. I don’t want to say it’s harder then I’m indicating that you have to be better to do this, I don’t believe that. I believe that any of their top drivers could be successful over here. I truly believe that, but it’s going to take time. The longer that you do that, the harder it is to come over here and do this. These cars are low down force, high-power, low-grip, very fast, heavy, everything you would not want in a race car. That’s what these cars are, and that’s a huge transition. To drive these cars on the limit is very, very difficult. To drive those cars on the limit is very difficult too. And there’s a reason the same guys and the same teams are having success over there, because they’re the best at it. So I’ve been extremely impressed. I know that (Patrick) Carpentier has made some really impressive qualifying runs this year. When he didn’t look like he had a chance, he found a way to step it up and make some incredible laps. (Juan) Montoya is a very, very skilled race car driver. Those guys can be successful. I’m sure they will be successful and can be successful as long as everybody’s patient. The minute that somebody says well they can’t do it, then it puts pressure on all of them. The car owners and sponsors have to continue to be patient as they go through the learning curve of getting accustomed to these cars.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE LEVEL OF CONSISTENCY YOUR TEAM HAS HAD THIS YEAR AND THEN HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO MAINTAIN THAT OVER THE COURSE OF A SEASON? “We’ve run well this year. We haven’t run great this year, but we’ve run really well. If you look at the key components that we look at, you know ratings, the driver rating thing is a pretty smart statistic to look at. If you look at the number of laps that we’ve run in the top 10, the number of quality passes that we’ve had, all those kind of things, obviously we’re a top-five, top-six, top-seven car. We’ve had less trouble than other people have had and therefore we’re leading the points.

“We by no means are a team that doesn’t deserve to be where we are, but we haven’t put the laps led, we haven’t put some of the fast lap times that some other teams have. Our strength has been that we’ve been good on the track. The thing that’s put us leading the points is that we’ve been very consistent and that’s been really important. It’s very difficult to maintain any of that throughout an entire year. I believe this team is capable of improving. I believe I’m capable of improving. We’re working exceptionally hard to improve and I think we will, but it’s gonna be hard. We’re racing against great race car drivers, great race teams and it’s extremely difficult to be successful in this series, but I believe our effort will make results.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., DRIVER OF THE NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD / AMP ENERGY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Richmond International Raceway and talked about how his car is running, winning at Richmond, getting that next win, his mom and much more.

HOW WAS THE CAR DURING PRACTICE? “Yeah, we were good. We were good when we first got out there, pretty happy. The car is a little bit loose up off the corner and we made some changes and got the car in qualifying trim. Pretty happy with my lap there. The track is gonna be quite a bit different than it is right now once the Nationwide cars put all the rubber down. I’m very happy. We came here pretty good and made some adjustments and got it better.”

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT WIN HERE TWO YEARS AGO? “Just running the top. Denny (Hamlin) had a better car, a faster car and I just give him the bottom and he couldn’t get by me there for a while. I guess he finally wore his stuff up trying to do it. I remember him going for his first win and just running the top so he would try to keep running the bottom and I knew he wouldn’t be able to pass me down there. It was a fun race. It’s been a good track for me. Got a lot of good memories here from the Nationwide days and the cup wins we got here. We’ll see what we can do this weekend.”

LOTS OF HEAT I GUESS THIS WEEK ABOUT JEFF (GORDON) AND YOU NOT WORKING WELL TOGETHER IN TALLADEGA, HAVE YOU GUYS TALKED ABOUT THAT? “Yeah, we did. The exact instance that he had a problem with I felt like, he felt like it was 25 to go and I should have helped him and went with him but I felt like the person he went with or decided to get behind and help was not the best choice and that from where he stands, it totally - if I was him I would have felt like I dumped him. From where I was at I felt like I was making the wiser choice between the two of us, but uh. There are ways where people can - it would have done us a lot of good to have sat down before the race at any point this year to discuss our morals and our choices in restrictor-plate racing and what we believed to be fair, what we believed to be right, and what we believed to be wrong, so everybody has a better understanding of what to expect from each other, that way there’s really no real disappointments. That’s just something we’ll have to learn together as teammates. Restrictor-plate racing is difficult because you want to help your teammates but you want to win a race too. Had we won the week before and weren’t in such a, weren’t trying to end the streak of losses I would have been probably a whole lot more apt to work with him and give up a little bit more and my opinion of what I thought was going to help me win the race I would have been willing to sacrifice more to help him. But I - when the green flag dropped in that race I didn’t want anything but the wind and I was gonna do whatever it took and uh.

”I don’t know how it would have played out if I would have helped him. We definitely wouldn’t have been in the situation we were in to get in all that action at the end and end up having to struggle for 10th. But uh, you know I got a little hot on how things were going for me and I should have been a little more patient. But I don’t know, sometimes patience doesn’t get what you want either.”

ARE YOU TWO OK? “Yeah, we’re good. We talked about it at Nashville. We went testing and we sat down and I said look man I got nothing but respect for you. I’m the first guy here ready to cooperate. I’m the last guy wanting to make any problems or cause any issues. I’m determined and I go out there and I race hard. He could see that and he can see that when he’s on the race track with me. I guess the one thing that he wanted to make sure that he understood was that I didn’t have a spot in my mind to spite him or to show him up in any way. To be competitive with Jeff after all the years he’s been at Hendrick, that would be foolish. That would be foolish for me to even, that would be pretty immature to even act that way at this point. But, there’s a positive competitiveness you can have at most teams, but that wouldn’t be very productive.”

WHO DID HE GET BEHIND? “He was behind the 12 and I was pushing him and we were running down the front straightaway with a good head of steam on the outside. The 6 was in the inside line about the second car, he saw us coming and pulled up in front of us to see if we would push him but we were going about 10 mile an hour faster. The 12 went in the middle. I expected Jeff to go to the middle and I already went there and it was a split second decision. My instinct was to steer the car to the left and follow the 12, when I would follow the 12 he would make the move. I just expected Jeff’s car to be right in the middle of that in between us two and Jeff didn’t do it. He went with the 6 who was the slower car. I definitely wasn’t wanting to do that because I felt like I would be the third guy in line on the outside of a three-wide pack and that guy never gets a good position out of that deal. But after I moved in I couldn’t lift and let Jeff try to get the spot. We were running too fast and guys were coming and what not. That’s gonna happen again and again and again with everybody. All kinds of friends that I’ve got, there’ll be times when we don’t do things that make each other happy. If it’s a move on a restrictor plate track where you feel like you got left out or somebody dumped you, you can get over that. We’ll try to do a better job of working together next time to win the race. I definitely feel like we have a better opportunity to win the race as teammates working together than we do separately and we should take that opportunity next time and try to do the best we can with it.”

IF YOUR LOOKING AFTER HIM THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY SPITE THAT YOU HAVE TOWARDS HIM I CAN’T EVEN SEE THAT, BUT IF YOU’RE LOOKING AFTER HIM DOESN’T THAT IN A WAY KIND OF INITIALLY HOLD YOU BACK FROM WHAT YOU’RE USED TO DOING AND HOW YOU’VE ALWAYS DONE IT? “That’s definitely not my style. I’m used to having all my friends help me win. But in a sense, everything comes back around. Due to all those races where Tony Stewart pushed me across the finish line to win, Michael Waltrip pushed me across the finish line to win, Ryan Newman helped me win the Shootout once, got a lot of help from different guys, but due to all those wins that way and the few times I’ve helped anyone win a race, that comes back to haunt you. We find the ever decreasing field of willing participants to help me, work with me and draft me, a lot of guys really go against me and work against me, that seems to be mounting or getting fewer and fewer, just due to how things worked out for me over the years. I still get help from Tony from time to time. I like racing Tony though so it’s hard for him and me not to get into racing each other when we should probably keep helping each other. The only chance we’re gonna have, because I’ve got a bulls eye, Jimmie (Johnson), Jeff, Casey (Mears), they’ve all got bulls eye’s individually and then you add the entire bulls eye the company has on it, everybody’s out to get you. Everybody’s out to beat you.”

DO YOU JUST WANT TO CHECK THAT BOX AND GET THAT FIRST WIN AND NOT HAVE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT IT? “I want to check that box so I can celebrate, just enjoy the win. That’s got to be what the best part about it will be. Certainly to your point by Thursday or Friday it will be nice not to have to worry about whether you’re gonna get it the next week or the next. I can’t wait to just have that celebration we’re gonna have in Victory Lane, it’s gonna be so much fun.”

ON EDDIE GOSSAGE OFFERING HIM $100,000 TO RUN THE INDY CAR RACE. “He thinks I’m a cheap date I guess. I wouldn’t be able to do it, my conscience wouldn’t let me. If they offered me more money, my conscience wouldn’t let me feel comfortable with doing it. I know his intentions are well and we had that discussion with the billboard thing and I totally understand what his approach is advertising now. If I had the opportunity if I was there testing my car and somebody had their car there, I’d like to jump in it and run a couple of laps but that would be the extent of the adventure.”

IN KNOWING YOU WERE GONNA TURN IT DOWN HE SHOULD HAVE PUT AT LEAST 5 OR 10 MILLION ON IT JUST TO MAKE IT INTERESTING. “That would have definitely made the advertising of that a little more effective but he’s kind of like Austin Powers or Doctor Evil, first estimate of holding the world ransom a little under-figured you know. That would be a good little cartoon.”

IF YOU WON WHAT TYPE OF BURNOUT WOULD YOU DO AND WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF BURNOUT? “My preference is not to do a burnout but the fans like it. If it’s a plate motor or something like that you got to take care of the pistons and valves so you do it in the grass. Old motors, you can usually wear them out pretty good out there on the apron or something.”

CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR MOM FOR MOTHER’S DAY WHICH IS COMING UP NEXT? “I’m fortunate. She’s a great mom. Really lucky to have her support. She enjoys going to Darlington every year for Mother’s day and seeing all the other mothers. She gets a lot of pride and joy out of that. I love doing things for her and giving her a good life. She’s got a good place right now where she’s at in life. I feel like I was able to help her get to that place, but she’s good to me. We’re best friends. She’s a real good smart ass. (LAUGHS) I try to learn as much from her on that side of it as I can every day, because she puts people right in their place. It’s fun to be around her and talk to her.”

DO YOU THINK IT’S HARDER TO WIN A RACE NOW THAN IT’S BEEN BEFORE? “No. I feel like I’ve got a better shot now than I had last year or the years before. We’re obviously getting better statistics this year than we did last year and the year before. So I feel like I’m in a better position to win with the team I’ve got around me. They’re a good bunch. We could’ve went a hundred different ways as far as the personalities and how we would work, get along, but this is really a good deal and I enjoyed last week how we were able to get back to 10th with coming under the flag with four to go we were 31st. Even though it was all on the race track, the team helped make that happen and helped motivate. I feel like it’s easier, for me it is. Were you here last year? That was horrible, the whole year. So, I’m in a better spot now. The rest of these guys might not agree because some of them are in the same spot, some of them aren’t running as good this year. Matt Kenseth is gonna tell you it’s harder but I feel like I’m in a better place so I got a better shot every week.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS, met with media members at Richmond International Raceway and talked about racing at Richmond, the All-Star race, burnouts, what his mother means to him and much more.

YOU AND CHAD (KNAUS, CREW CHIEF) WERE MEETING INTENTLY, IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG? “Just trying to make sure we do all the right things. With the evolution this year of the cars, we’re just trying to make sure. We had such a great base line last year, we don’t want to talk ourselves into some stuff that we thought would work well this year and not have it pan out. Good practice and now we’re just trying to be smart.”

HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU WITH THE SUCCESS YOU EXPERIENCED AT THIS TRACK LAST YEAR? “Last year was much needed for us at Richmond. This track is so difficult for myself to figure out and Chad to find the right set up for me. It was nice last year to have the two victories much more than what we expected. Obviously we come back and want to do that again. We’re focused on top fives and if you’re in the top five, especially on a short track like this you have a shot to win.”

ON HOW MUCH THAT SUCCESS HELPS HEADING INTO SATURDAY NIGHT’S RACE. “At times success really helps a team and other times it will pinch you into a corner and you’re afraid to make changes because it worked so well last year. So that’s what we’re taking a little extra time with today. We have confidence coming in here but we’ve been bit in the past by being over confident and we’re just trying to be realistic and smart about the adjustments made to the car leading into the race.”

WHAT MAKES RICHMOND UNIQUE FOR YOU? “I guess it’s one of the very few d-shaped, ¾-mile ovals that we have. They’ve done an amazing job with the transitions into the corners so you can run side-by-side. Yes, you’re a little tight especially off of two but it’s kind of what a d-shaped race track will deal. They’ve done a great job working this track and it’s always been one of my favorites for fans and drivers for years.”

IS THERE REALLY AN EDGE COMING INTO THIS WEEKEND, WHEN YOU SWEPT LAST YEAR? “We have some confidence but every year is such a new year and really even during the season from the spring race to the fall race so much takes place. I feel like we had a really strong practice, especially in race trim. We were very pleased with the car. I like to stay a little hesitant, it keeps me on my toes and it keeps the team on its toes. We don’t have much extra patience that way but I feel like we’ll be in great shape.”

THEY HAVEN’T PAVED THE TRACK HERE IN FOUR YEARS, DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT’S GOING TO BE ANY ADVANTAGE OR DISADVANTAGE? “I think that for our cars the older the surface the better. The track is really holding up well, there aren’t a lot of bumps. Doesn’t seem like the asphalt is pulling apart, but the asphalt is losing grip and I think that’s a good thing for our stock cars. It allows a second and third lane to come into play and be useful to put on great racing. I think this track has held up over time, they just need to leave it alone. It’s done a great job for us.”

THE ALL-STAR RACE IS JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY. YOU HAVE TWO WEEKS IN CHARLOTTE, IS IT LIKE A VACATION BEING HOME FORTWO WEEKS? “No, not for me. Being the Lowe’s driver at Lowe’s Motor Speedway is pretty busy for me. It’s that way for a lot of the teams. You’re able to sleep in your own bed and enjoy that, but that’s a hometown track. There’s just a lot going on. All sponsors, NASCAR, Sprint you know everybody involved does whatever they can to really blow out being at home and everybody does a great job. It’s an active week, two weeks for us. On top of that, with all the testing we have now with the cup car, additional two days, the Nationwide test that’s coming up for myself and then we’re trying to get prepared for the road course events coming up. We have some road course testing coming up leading up to All-Star week so this month is really, really busy for this Lowe’s race team and I assume it’s that way throughout the garage.”

ON HIS FAVORITE MOMENT IN THE ALL-STAR RACE. “Winning. Nothing better than winning knowing that you got that million dollar check and I’ve been fortunate enough to do it twice.”

WOULD YOU CHANGE ANYTHING IN THE FORMAT? “I liked it when we had a band playing during the first intermission that was cool. Outside of that I think it’s a great format. You’re always trying to wonder when that inversion is going to take place and how that’s going to work out. That’s part of the fun of the All-Star event. I think when it boils down to it you have the best cars racing for the win each year.”

ARE DRIVERS A LITTLE DIFFERENT IN THE ALL-STAR THAN THEY ARE ON A NORMAL WEEKEND? “Yeah, I would say so. Especially in the closing laps if you have a shot at the win. It’s not a point’s race and it is for a million bucks so I see people a lot more aggressive at that point. When we show up to the track, it’s such a great warm up to the 600. It’s typically our first time on track with whatever tire and configuration we have that year with the car and this will be a COT there so I think that week will be pretty important for all the teams to work out some more development stuff.”

KYLE BUSCH IS REAL HOT RIGHT NOW IN ALL SERIES, HOW DOES A DRIVER GET THAT HOT AND HOW DO YOU STAY THAT HOT? “My own experience, it’s difficult to understand why I’m hot and you don’t know how to hang on to it. There’s a feeling that you have, there’s a level of communication that exists within the team that are some of the things that stand out in my mind. You don’t how or when to bring that up and how to keep it there and maintain it. It’s just one of those things that comes and goes and working with Kyle (Busch) the last few years, I know how talented of a driver he is regardless of what he’s driving. He can be in a go-kart, lawn mower, race car or whatever it is and the guys gonna be fast so I have a ton of respect for him and I think he’s doing a great job in all three divisions.”

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BURNOUT? “I don’t want to give away my secrets because I think I have a pretty good burnout. Brake is important. You need to on the cool down lap make sure you get all the front brake in the car and as many gears as you can grab. The faster those rear tires are spinning the better. First gear you’re all over the chip and I’ve blown an engine messing around that way, so if you can get into second or third gear you’re gonna have a lot of smoke.”

DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE ANY BURNING RUBBER ON THE TRACK OR IS IT LIKE ALL SMOKE? “I’ve thought the Jack Sprague burnout here was one of the coolest, where the rear tires were on fire. I’ve tried that a couple of times but I’ve actually blown the tires out in the process and then as you bring the car to Victory Lane NASCAR is looking at you like why are you blowing the tires because it does damage to the car and I feel bad for my crew guys because as those tires come apart it rips the body apart and everything underneath it apart. So I’ve given up on trying to light them on fire just with all the damage it does.”

CAN YOU IMAGINE GOING TWO YEARS IN THE CIRCUIT WITHOUT A VICTORY? “Especially with all this attention, It’s got to be tough, it really would be tough. I can tell you that when people ask you what’s your favorite part of the year, what’s the most important thing you cheer in, my opinion it’s been that first win. The first win of every year just does so much for the team, so much for the driver mentally, that it’s important. That’s just looking at one win a year. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be to go multiple seasons, shoot a career for that matter. Some guys have been putting in their time for a long, long time and don’t have a win. So I’m very fortunate.”

DO YOU THINK IT’S HARDER TO WIN A RACE NOW WITH ALL THE TALENT AND TECHNOLOGY? “NASCAR works hard to make it tougher and tougher every year to break away. That’s what’s kept our sport in business so many years. It’s not like F1 where one team develops and advantage and then runs off for four or five years and wins everything. It’s the way our sport is by design and makes it awfully difficult week in and week out.”

ON PREPARING FOR A LONG RACE LIKE THE 600, IS THERE A DIFFERENT MIND SET? “I don’t really treat it much different than any long race. I’ve had some bad luck at the start of some of those events, thankfully it’s been a 600-mile race. I think I passed Bobby Labonte coming to the checkered one time. If it was a 500-mile race that would have never happened because we had some difficulties. The long races really suite the 48 team. I think the challenges from day to night help us. We usually do a good job staying on top of that. I think that our team is well prepared, I’m well prepared physically and that all shows up in a 600-mile event too. It’s really one of our strongest races on the calendar year in and year out.”

OVERALL, WOULD YOU CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT THE LENGTH OF THE AVERAGE RACE? “In the car it goes by so fast, that’s it’s tough for me to think that much needs to change except for Pocono. Pocono feels like it’s a two thousand mile race. Then talking to friends that are there four or five hours watching the cars run, from the outside perspective I think they could be shortened up in some respects, but inside the car it’s amazing how fast 500 miles goes. It’s gone before you know it.”

TELL US ABOUT THE GOLF TOURNAMENT YOU WENT TO THIS WEEK. “From my standards I did well. I really did well. I scored three points for the team throughout the day. I had a chance to score a couple more but had a tough time with a put that I was way short and got a good heckle from the gallery on it. It was really a lot of fun. I can say I had the most fun I’ve had playing golf. The whole pace of the day was set by the first tee box and I actually hit the ball well in the center of the fairway and at that point all the nerves kind of disappeared and I went okay I’m gonna be all right today and have some fun with this.”

WAS THAT THE WACHOVIA TOURNAMENT? “Yeah, I played in the Wachovia pro-am on Wednesday.”

WHAT PARTS OF YOUR GAME TO YOU NEED TO WORK ON? “Everything (laughs). I’d say probably putting has been where I really need to focus. In the driving range you work on different aspects but never go to the putting range. I mean I missed a four footer that for my handicap would have been an eagle, would have been a par at the time, but an eagle for our team which would have put us up near the money. To finish each score and totally dropped like a four footer so I need to go to the driving range.

WHO WAS THE PRO? “Mark Wilson was the pro.”

WITH MOTHER’S DAY NEXT WEEK, TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR MOM AND THE INFLUENCE SHE’S HAD. “My mom’s been a big part of my racing career especially when I was a kid. She’s been to so many races over the years that she doesn’t come that often anymore. Had enough days in the traffic and stands and all that stuff. My mom’s been the glue in our family holding everything together and has really taught my brothers and myself how to be compassionate and caring people. She’s a special lady and I certainly appreciate everything she’s done.”

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT HOW YOU AND JEFF GORDON HOOKED UP AND BECAME FRIENDS? “I guess it was 2000, my rookie season in Nationwide. I had some different things going on with the team I was driving for and sponsorship was leaving and I needed some advice. I had other manufacturers approaching me, other sponsors, other drivers at it to switch from the team that I was on and I went to Jeff for some advice. He listened to my story and gave me some advice. He let me know there was a potential fourth car starting up and Hendrick and they were considering me as one of the drivers. That was the last thing I had ever expected. I didn’t know Jeff before that. Never met him until that day so it was quite an eye opener for me, a shock to hear what came out of his mouth and within a month I would say because that was in August, by September I had a signed contract with Hendrick and have been there ever since. It was pretty special to have all that take place in my rookie year in Nationwide. My best finish was a sixth and just lucky they saw whatever it was and gave me that chance.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT YOUNG DRIVERS GOING TO DRIVING SCHOOLS AND PAYING FOR IT TO GET INTO THIS SPORTS. “It really just boils down to seat time and however anybody can go about getting seat time is a very important part of the process. There’s so many guys that put the time in and get the seat time, but no one knows about them or no one can see them drive so there’s a balance there where kind of on the quiet side you need to log laps and understand what’s going on, understand the race car. Then once you start having some success you need to be out in front of the scouts and the different people on these teams that are looking for a driver.

“I think there was a craze a few years back where every team had a development driver and program but it’s expensive and it’s tough to put millions and millions of dollars into a 16 or 18-year-old, develop him and bring him along. We’ve had some struggles at Hendrick’s trying to find that and bring that along. I encourage kids to get an early start but I don’t think they need to be worried at 18 that they haven’t been noticed yet. I think early 20’s is a good time. I didn’t really make it into cup until I was in my mid 20’s and I certainly got my chance and it’s worked out well.”

HIS THOUGHTS ON WHY HENDRICK AND CHEVROLET HAVE NOT BEEN AS DOMINANT THIS YEAR AS LAST YEAR. “It’s the fact that the Car of Tomorrow has been run on all the race tracks. If you look at a lot of my victories last year, at the start of the season they were on the 1.5-mile and two-mile tracks and that was with the old style car and we’ve just been working hard to understand what this car needs on the big tracks. My teammates have gotten off to a little better start than I did, then I came on at Texas and ran well. I think our short track program has been on par. Bristol, I was more competitive than I have ever been. Martinsville, Jeff and I were up front and very competitive, so short track stuff has been right. We’re just trying to develop the bigger track stuff.”

LAST WEEK, WE REALLY DIDN’T SEE A WHOLE LOT OF YOU, WAS THERE A REASON FOR THAT? YOU KIND OF HUNG OUT IN THE BACK, WERE YOU PLANNINGON MAKING A CHARGE? “Oh yeah. I just didn’t need to be up there yet and got there probably eight laps too early. Almost timed it right, but will be smarter for the October race.”

CLINT BOWYER, DRIVER OF THE NO. 07 BB&T IMPALA SS, met with media members at Richmond International Raceway and talked about racing at Richmond, the new surface at Darlington, burnouts and much more.

ON THE EFFECT THE NEW PAVEMENT AT DARLINGTON WILL HAVE. “Only time will tell. There’s only a couple of us that went down there for the tire test. We’ll just have to see. Looking forward to it, everybody loves going to Darlington. There’s so much history behind that place. I’m anxious to get there and see how the new pavement is.”

DO YOU EXPECT ANY KIND OF TIRE PROBLEM OR IS IT REALLY HARD TO GAGE WITH THE LIMITED TESTING YOU GUYS HAVE DONE? “I don’t expect a tire problem. I know there’s (Jeff) Gordon and (Greg) Biffle and I don’t know who else went down there to tire test, but I’m sure they picked a good one for us.”

ON COMING BACK TO A SHORT TRACK LIKE RICHMOND. “I love Richmond. I don’t think there’s anybody in the garage that doesn’t like Richmond. I mean this is one of my favorite race tracks to race on. It always makes for a good race. Any time it’s good for you to watch on T.V. it’s good for us to race.”

WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE KIND OF RACE WE’RE GONNA HAVE TOMORROW NIGHT? “I think it will be good. I think the race was good in the fall race. I’m excited about it. This track always breeds a good race. This place is made for racing. It’s just a neat race track and our car is decent. Everybody’s kind of slipping and sliding around right now. Obviously when the track cools off it will probably tighten up a little bit, it always seems to in the race. Hopefully we will be able to turn.”

HOW MUCH OF A KEY IS TRACK POSITION GOING TO BE? “It’s still a short track. It’s no different than any place else. Track position is everything and being able to keep that track position, so hopefully we can get it and keep it.”

WHEN YOU GUYS GO TO THE TEST ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY, WHAT SPECIFICALLY ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? “I’m only going Monday. My personal opinion is it’s kind of a wasted test, waste of money. I think we could have gotten along fine without it. With this car, you’re just so limited to big things, big changes. It’s just not that big change you’re gonna make and make or break your car as far as speed wise. It’s all about fine tuning and find the little things and massaging what you have.”

WHEN YOU GO TO A TEST OR GO TO A PRACTICE LIKE TODAY DO YOU GO WITH A SET UP BASED ON WHAT THE SIM SYSTEM TOLD YOU? “You know, I mean obviously from the past, we’ve been there. Aside from that it’s gonna be like you said what we get from that test, the sim program stuff like that is what you’ll use.

“You’ll go through the travels, you’ll find the right springs to make it travel the way you want. Nine times out of 10 you’re pretty close.”

WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING TO FINE TUNE THE CAR AND YOU GO BACK OUT TO MAKE A RUN, IS IT SO FINE YOU CAN’T FEEL THE DIFFERENCE AT TIMES? “For instance here I think for us, I talked to my teammate, both teammates, you fight in the center and then when you loosen it up to get it freed up and roll through the center freely, then it’s too loose in and too loose off. It just kind of seems like there’s always a trend no matter what track as far as front to rear grip and balancing that out.”

DOES STUFF FROM LAST FALL CARRY TO THE SPRING HERE? “Absolutely. Obviously we’ve ventured out and tried some things and kind of fell right back to what we had in the fall race. You’re always fine tuning, you’re always looking for a little bit more. What was good in the fall won’t always be good – it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to be good the next time around.”

WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE LOOKING INTO NEXT WEEK GOING TO DARLINGTON WITH THE NEW TRACK SURFACE? “That was the one that really didn’t make sense. We have a new surface with Darlington and we didn’t go down there and test, we’re going to Charlotte to test. I guess Humpy is a better salesman or something. It’s gonna be the same for most, I think a couple of them have been there. They say it’s fast and I’m excited about getting down there. Darlington is always a fun track. Everybody likes going there. Everybody likes racing on it, it’s just gonna be a little bit faster this time.”

ON WHAT HE THINKS IS A THE PERFECT LENGTH FOR A CUP RACE. “The Nationwide race. I don’t think the promoters would like that much but I think that’s about the perfect length. It’s getting too drawn out. I think when they get drawn out like that, pit strategy and things like that come more and more. You’re able to put two tires on or do something there. You could run 30th all day long, we’ve done it, running 20 to 25th all day long make a good gable in the pits and end up with a top-10 maybe even a top-five. That’s not fair to the guys that have a good run that day.”

DO YOU THINK THAT MAYBE FANS WOULD BE INTERESTED IN A SHORTER RACE? “I think the 600, I think that’s just too much to ask for our fans. It’s too much. I remember when I used to live down on the lake I went over to (Ron) Hornaday’s house one time. We ate dinner, went out on the boat, road around for a while, came back, ate some more, hung around and it was still going on. That’s a tall order to ask for anybody, driver, fan or anybody.”

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IS THE MADDEST YOU HAVE EVER BEEN IN A CAR? “I get mad a lot. No different than you on the highway. If you went out and crashed everybody on the highway you probably wouldn’t have a license. If we crashed them every time we got mad out here on the race track, we’d probably be asked not to come back.”

HOW DO YOU MANAGE IT? “You got to look at the big picture. If somebody gets into you or ruffles you up a little bit, you got to be smarter than to get upset and know what the big picture is and that’s to finish at the end of the day. That’s something I’ve learned over the years.”

TALKING ABOUT THE LENGTH OF RACES AND THE 600, DO YOU JUST HIT THE WALL AT SOME POINT? NOT LITERALLY, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. “I have there, quite a bit a Charlotte actually (laughing). Hopefully not this time. No, it will wear you out but it’s just long. It’s no different sitting in the stands and watching cars go around in circles. There’s a lot more to NASCAR other than going around in circles and I think that’s the neatest thing as a new fan or whatever else, they see that and that’s what attracts them to NASCAR. The strategies, the way the races play out and things. It’s still too much of it there but hey Humpy’s always been different and he’ll continue to be different.”

DO YOU PREPARE YOURSELF ANY DIFFERENT FOR THAT TYPE OF ENDURANCE TEST OR IS IT THE SAME? “Same thing, just longer.”

ON HOW COMPETITIVE AND HOW HARD IT IS TO WIN AND HOW GOOD THE GUYS WHO HAVE WON HAVE BEEN SO FAR THIS YEAR. “I think there’s, Carl (Edwards), obviously awesome race car driver but they obviously have something figured out that nobody else did. They’ve won on every 1.5-mile track or should have won you know what I mean. They’ve just figured something out, they hit on a little something and everybody’s working hard to catch up to that. Aside from that, the whole playing field is pretty even right now and it is hard to win and when you do it’s big.”

ON HOW A DRIVER WANTS TO EARN THAT FIRST WIN OF THE SEASON AND HOW MUCH PRESSURE THERE IS AS THE YEAR WEARS ON. “You want to win every time you go out there. I’ve learned it hard. When you grow up racing on the short tracks and things back home you race to win every night. You wanted to win, you didn’t care about points, you didn’t care about the championship. If you won every week you were going to win the championship any way. It’s easiest if you don’t anymore because nobody does. It’s all about that big picture. It’s all about being in the Chase. You know I made the Chase last year and that was satisfying, it really was, PAGE 22

‘To be able to go to New York and the banquet was awesome. All the hype that goes around the Chase, that’s where everybody in this garage wants to be and we got to continue to go down that path and look to that. You can take gambles to win these races and end up costing you a heck of a lot more. My spotter, he told me a couple of weeks ago, I was about to wreck and he goes you better be careful that position in front of you is five points. That mistake is gonna cost you 105. That’s the way you got to look at it sometimes. Right now this point in the season you just got to accumulate all the points you can, obviously winning races does that but you can’t take that 100 point hit right now.”

WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES A GOOD BURNOUT? IN YOUR MIND WHAT’S THE CRITERIA FOR IT? “I don’t know. I think having your own unique deal. Kevin Harvick kind of acquired John Force’s nephew or something, what he looked like out there going straight and doing burnouts all the way down the straightaway. Kyle Busch kind of does rings and stuff and gets out and does something different. I just think being unique. You know Carl (Edwards) does a back flip and that sets him aside from everybody else. Nobody wants the same thing. You thrive to be different in everyday life everybody wants that. It’s kind of running out of options.”

DESCRIBE IN A SIMPLE WAY TO FANS ON HOW DO YOU DO A BURNOUT. “Let her eat. More throttle, less brake (laughing). Obviously you need to try to adjust some front brake in to pull the rear brake out of it and ride the brakes and control the throttle. If you give it too much throttle they tend to want to spin out and not continue to go straight. Just kind of keep it going. I’ve got to win more races so I can get more practice.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THE TRACK IS OUT THERE, DURING THAT FIRST SESSION? “It was a little slick. It’s a little bit different than what we anticipated. Last year the car felt a little more on top of the track. The same for everybody. When it cools off it always gains a little more grip and makes for better racing.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW TOUGH IT IS TO GET TO VICTORY LANE, NOT JUSTHAVING THE BEST CAR, HAVING A LITTLE LUCK? “Everything has to be 100 percent perfect anymore to win these races and if it’s not, anything shy of that you’re not gonna win. It takes 100 percent race car and 100 percent driver. Everything, all the pieces have to fall in place. I feel like even this year already there’s been teams that have hit on something and just had a little bit more than everybody else. But it’s up to everybody else to figure out what they were doing and using that call and be better.”

EVERYBODY’S EARS KIND OF PERKED UP WHEN THEY HEARD SOMETHING THAT DID WORK OR DIDN’T WORK. DO YOU ALWAYS TRY TO LISTEN IN MAYBE TRY TO CLING TO SLIGHTEST BIT OF INFORMTION ON A SET UP? “You won’t be able to overhear anybody, you just got to try to figure out what they’re doing. The main thing is you have to focus on what you’re doing. You can’t get caught up in all that, he said stuff. You know, I heard this and these guys are doing that. That’s never worked, never in my career racing. You just got to continue to go down your path, learn, and if somebody’s beating you work hard and go back to the shop and try to learn new things, get new ideas, test and figure it out and get out there.”

YOU WERE INVOLVED IN THE TEXT MESSAGING PROGRAM YESTERDAY, ARE YOU A TEXTER? “Yeah. I don’t do a lot, but occasionally something that is a quick text is a lot easier than making a phone call.”

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS met with media and discussed racing with Junior at Talladega, driving schools, two weeks of racing coming up at Charlotte, driving differently in the All-Star race compared to regular races, Darlington, bump-drafting at Talladega, his mom, racing at Richmond, and more.

DID YOU AND DALE EARNHARDT JR. GET INTO IT LAST WEEKEND AT TALLADEGA? “Yeah, we had a little disagreement last week on the race track. He and I have talked about it. I feel like it’s really a non-issue. You’re going to make decisions that sometimes are going to work with your teammates and sometimes they’re not. I feel like the decision I made and the decision he made just didn’t really blend together. But yeah, I was mad about it at the time but it’s a non-issue now. I love working with him on the race track and drafting with him and having him as a teammate. Trust me, if you guys made as big of a deal out of how upset we all got at different things that happened at Talladega, it would fill up your whole column or entire show. I think everybody is making a much bigger deal out of this because it’s, you know, Junior and myself. I said plenty of things about others out there too (laughs) that nobody seems to want to talk about.”

JUNIOR SAID SOMETHING ABOUT MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE SAT DOWN AND HAD A LITTLE DISCUSSION ABOUT MORALS AND ETHICS BEFORE TALLADEGA STARTED. DID YOU LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER AT THIS NASHVILLE TEST WHEN YOU HAD THIS DISCUSSION? “Yeah, I think we did. We just had a good sit-down and understanding about going forward and how we’re going to be drafting and working together on the race track.”

HE BASICALLY SAID HE FELT LIKE YOU MADE THE WRONG DECISION. WOULD YOU AGREE WITH THAT? “Well, again, I said that we had a disagreement, you know. I feel like I made the best decision I could. He feels like he made the best decision that he could. We’re making a much bigger deal out of it than needs to be made out of it.”

AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON, HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET THAT FIRST WIN AND CHECK THAT FIRST BOX, OR IS JUST RUNNING WELL CONSISTENTLY MORE IMPORTANT? ”You’ve got to walk before you can run. I’ve always said that when you’re consistently a top-five and leading laps, the wins are going to come. We just haven’t been doing that. That’s why we’ve been testing twice in Nashville and we’re looking forward to the test in Charlotte because we’ve got some things to work on and to figure out to get ourselves into victory lane.

“Before we can get to victory lane, we’ve got to start putting more consistent runs together and getting ourselves a little bit further up in the points as well as getting ourselves prepared to win.”

THERE ARE DRIVING SCHOOLS THAT PROMOTE BEING ABLE TO MAKE THE NEXT NASCAR STAR. WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION OF THESE SCHOOLS? “Yeah, I will say that I went to Buck Baker Driving School. I’ve been to a lot of driving schools from Bob Bondurant, Buck Baker and you name it. I really can’t say that those driving schools taught me what it took to be a great race car driver. I think they helped me kind of fine-tune some skills. At the Buck Baker thing, I got introduced to a car owner, which just happened to be a coincidence. I have my own driving school, Jeff Gordon Racing School, and our school is about entertainment. It’s about fun. It’s about something exciting to be able to get behind the wheel of a NASCAR Sprint Cup car and we have the new Impalas that you can drive. But we don’t gear our school towards making the next great race car driver. If you are a short track driving school, maybe you can really help somebody. But yeah, that’s a challenge that I don’t know if they can live up to.”

HOW MUCH HAS THE RATIO BETWEEN MARKETABILITY AND DRIVING CHANGE? “That’s a good question. Sponsors are driving the market these days. And if a sponsor is happy with their driver, then you’re going to keep the driver in the car. But I will say that most of the time, sponsors are pretty happy when the drivers are running good and the team is performing. So, I think that marketability is important, but I still think driver skill is the most important.”

HOW NICE IS IT GOING TO BE TO SPEND TWO WEEKS IN YOUR OWN BED FOR THE UPCOMING ALL-STAR AND COCA-COLA 600 AT CHARLOTTE? “Yeah, it’s very nice. Hey, I like my bus, don’t get me wrong. I have no problem sleeping in my bed in my bus. Sometimes I enjoy it more, you know. The nice thing about being in Charlotte for me, is that I get a lot more done. I get more time to spend at the shop, the office, with my family. It’s just kind of knowing that you’re not going across the country for a week or two. To me, that’s the only real difference.”

HOW DIFFERENT TO THE GUYS DRIVE IN THE ALL-STAR RACE COMPARED TO REGULAR POINTS RACING THROUGHOUT THE SEASON? “You only drive different because it’s basically a short, sprint race. You have to be aggressive. It’s going to be tough to win the race based on a long term driving and being consistent. That’s not going to work in the All-Star event. It’s really about going all-out and being aggressive in the pits and aggressive on the race track.

“The format has changed so many times I couldn’t even tell you what the format is. And I always liked the 10-lap shootout at the end. I always thought that was pretty exciting and fun and pushes guys to push even harder. And I don’t know (laughs) I can’t remember what the format is.”

ON THE UPCOMING DARLINGTON RACE ”I love Darlington. I’m excited about racing under the lights there. I think the new paving job that they did is fantastic. The first race, we’re going to be challenged with that new surface, but I think long-term wise, it’s going to be fantastic. I think it’s a track with so much history and a track that I’ve always enjoyed racing at and the fans have always enjoyed it too. It’s important to keep it on the schedule.”

IT GOT KIND OF RUN DOWN A FEW YEARS AGO AND THERE WAS TALK OF LOSING THAT RACE. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? “I always have said you’ve got to keep up with the times. Unfortunately what I’ve seen happen is that we’ve looked more at the market that the tracks are in instead of just the race tracks and as the growth and changes have come along, that’s why some of the tracks like Rockingham have gone away. And sometimes you wish you could pick those tracks up and put them in the market that is good for the sport that NASCAR wants to be in because it’s hard to re-create some of these great race tracks, especially the history that’s there and you don’t want that to go away. So I’m certainly pleased that Darlington is one that is surviving and that they obviously have confidence in and they are putting money back into it. It’s been run down. It’s still, even with the things they’re doing it still needs more. I’m not sure what the fan experience is like, but from the competitor’s standpoint, there are certainly a lot of upgrades that could happen there, which would be nice. But, you know, I understand unless the track has a commitment and knows what their future plans are, it’s hard to make those upgrades.”

JEFF, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU WERE FAST DURING PRACTICE: “Don’t pay any attention to the times. One of the things we are being challenged with right now is, that Goodyear has changed the tires just about everywhere we have gone this year except for Martinsville. So, all the setups we had last year, you can just throw them out the window, they don’t seem to work. Not to mention, the other teams have stepped up and we are trying to step up along with them. What comes along with that are challenges, sometimes you will hit the setup, sometimes you will mess the setup. Right now, you know, we are definitely a little bit off of our game, because we are coming back to tracks that we had success at, but not everything is the same. I really couldn’t tell you about this weekend right now. The feel wasn’t there. We struggled in practice, but yet, the laps times were. So, it is pretty confusing to us right now.”

ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT YOUR TEAM HASN’T WON AS OF YET? “I know how great our organization is and our race teams when you show up to the race track. And I have confidence in myself. But, you show up to the race track and cars are doing things you aren’t used to it doing, It throws you for a loop, you are surprised. We spent three or four days testing in Nashville the last two weeks and felt like we really had some big gains and showed up here and it didn’t feel anything like that. We aren’t there yet, we still have work to do. It is as much me as it is our cars and our setups. The team is capable of doing it. It is just that we aren’t there yet.

“Sometimes you have to learn how to drive different setups. I went through this many times in my career. I probably go back to like 2000 and 2005, both of those years were we just really were searching for speed. Everybody was transitioning to different setups and trying different things. We tried them and they didn’t work for me. A little bit of it was in my driving style, some of it just getting used to a different feel and how the car reacts and the way the car goes through the corner. That is one of the things we are dealing with right now. There are some major big changes going on in setups. I mean, this car was created to simplify things and in my mind, all I have seen is things becoming more complicated. It is just something that some guys have figured out and I have not.”

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BURNOUT IN YOUR OPINION? “Well, obviously lots of smoke. I don’t know, donuts, smoke. If you can get the fire burning off the tires, that is usually pretty good too. I have never been very good at burnouts, I have done a few good ones. If you can do a burnout and slide the car, you know, keep the car sliding sideways through the corner or down the straightaway, something like that. That can be good too.”

WHEN DID DOING THE BURNOUTS START? “We used to just drive to victory lane. I don’t know? I don’t remember. It may have been Kevin Harvick at Atlanta. Somebody did it and the crowd went nuts. It just seemed like the guys…Television liked it, NASCAR liked it, people just started liking it and then if you didn’t do it, they were like booing you. But I don’t remember what year that was.”

HOW AS A DRIVER DO YOU GET ON A STREAK? “You run good. You win races. You get up in the points. All that just builds confidence in you, confidence in your team. It just builds momentum.”

JUNIOR SAID THAT IF HE HAD NOT HAD THE LOSING STREAK, HE MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY LAST WEEK AT TALLADEGA ABOUT GOING WITH YOU INSTEAD. DID YA’ALL TALK ABOUT THAT AND DO YOU SENSE THAT MAY HAVE INFLUENCED HIM THE LAST FEW WEEKS? “The only thing I remember us talking about is that he had been up front a lot more during the day and was making it work. Every time I got toward the front, I got shuffled back. I wanted to be third, fourth, in the top-five, I didn’t really want to be up front. I was trying to position myself for the end and he was trying to position himself. I mean, that is the bottom line. Where we disagreed is that he wanted to be in a different position than I wanted to be in. And, that happens sometimes, it does. That is his thing. I am more clear about that going forward and I think he is as well. “

WHAT IS THE SECRET OF GETTING AROUND RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY: “You would like to think that you run basically the same groove, the same line. That you accelerate and get on the brakes the same way each time. In all honesty as things evolve, as cars for faster or sometimes slower, it just depends on how things change in the sport. Then, sometimes you have to adjust what you’ve done in the past. If something has worked, you try that. If that isn’t working you try other things. It is the same thing for the car and the setup. Something that worked for us last year, we start with that or something close to that, if that isn’t working, we move in a different direction.”

WITH MOTHER’S DAY COMING, CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR MOM AND HER IMPACT ON YOUR CAREER AND LIFE? “She loves being a Grandma. She wishes she could be around the grandchildren every day of the week. My Mom is a big supporter of my racing career. She has been a great Mother. I always look forward to having her come to Darlington for Mother’s Day weekend and spending time with her on Mother’s Day. I have a great Mom. I am very very fortunate, she is sweet. I feel like I take after her quite a bit as far as personality. We look similar too, but, I have always said I got all my driving skills from my Mom because she is a pretty good driver.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHY TWO CARS COULD HOOK UP AT TALLADEGA AND RUN AWAY WITH FROM THE FIELD? “It is something is kind of new, it is hard to really explain. I think it is just this new car. It punches a bigger hole. You are able to get inside of that bubble and stay there. The cars have a little more power, so that might have something to do with it as well.

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO GET BUMP DRAFTED AND HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT? “It can be tricky, there is a fine line there. To be honest with you, I am, surprised that NASCAR allowed it to happen. I thought there was kind of a no-bumping zone, no bump drafting, but I never saw that area on the race track last Sunday. Seemed like it was kind of all out.

“I think there is a fine line because the driver in front sort of has to ride the brakes to keep that car there, then that car has to try and not hit the car too hard in front. Even if you are riding the brakes, you still go faster. It is a weird situation. One time I got it worked out. Some of the other guys got it worked out a little bit more than others. I was surprised it didn’t really play a factor in winning the race. Or at least this past race.

“But, it depends on the bump and who is giving it. Sometimes it isn’t much, sometimes it is big, it is huge. Sometimes it will through your head in to the back of the seat. That is the one you don’t want to have.”

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A YOUNG DRIVER COMING TO RICHMOND FOR THE FIRST TIME? “I hope he did a lot of testing. (Laughs) A driver that is coming here this weekend means they are either in the Cup series or the Nationwide Series. If they don’t have racing experience enough to know what it takes to be here, then they don’t belong here. If I am going to give them advice, I am going to give them the advice of don’t crash, just gets a lot of laps. The rest is up to them and their skills and their team. There is very little I could do for a young driver that is going to make a big difference for him in one weekend at one track.”

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF RICHMOND? “I have liked Richmond. I ran here for the first time in the Nationwide series and I don’t remember how we ran, I always remember liking Richmond and the multiple grooves. It is a great track.”

MARK MARTIN, DRIVER OF THE NO. 8 U.S. ARMY IMPALA SS, met with media members at Richmond International Raceway and talked about his favorite All-Star moment, changes at Darlington, burnouts and much more.

ON THE RICHMOND RACE NOT BEING SOLD OUT. “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. It’s a real tough time economically, but that’s the first I’ve heard of it so I haven’t thought about it very much. Definitely I know that it’s tough economic times, we feel it at our dealerships. I see it when I roll up to any kind of fuel pump, gas or jet fuel or whatever you name it, it’s putting a hurt on a lot of people.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE ALL-STAR RACE A COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FORMAT IS THIS YEAR? “No. (laughs), not really. Excitement I’m sure. I think I saw something about that but I don’t pay much attention to what it is. We’ll figure out what the format is when that’s at hand.”

ON HIS FAVORITE ALL-STAR MOMENT. “I think both times we won were really great. The way we won the first one was such a huge surprise. We were coming off of turn four running second, coming for the white flag and Jeff Gordon pulled over to the inside and he was out of gas. It was a big surprise. Then winning in 2005 was pretty awesome. Things went pretty awesome that night for me. Every move I made just happened to be right. It felt really good because every move I made just really worked out to be like it was planned that way. It’s not always planned that way. Sometimes the moves you make are right or wrong based on what other people do. You can’t control those so it worked pretty slick that night, 2005.”

YOU LIVE IN FLORIDA, HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TWO WEEKS IN CHARLOTTE? DO YOU STAY IN CHARLOTTE? “I’ll go back. It’s only an hour and a half to my house. For me it’s just like someone else jumping in their car and driving up to Greensboro.”

ARE YOU ENCOURAGED BY ALL THEIR SPENDING AT DARLINGTON NOW? A FEW YEARS BACK EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT CLOSING THE TRACK. “I’m encouraged. I don’t know, not a lot of things surprise me. You know that’s real encouraging. I’d like to see them get their race back.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS WHEN HE HEARD A FEW YEARS BACK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF LOSING A RACE AT DARLINGTON. “It was real sad. I’m a Johnny come lately, to be real honest with you. I don’t even know what it meant to race there in ‘59 or whatever the first year was. I know I have a lot deeper roots than a lot of people in the garage, but I still don’t have the kind of depth that that place had. To me it was sad and definitely I’m sure it was even more sad to the people who have even deeper roots than I do in NASCAR. That didn’t seem like a race track that needed to lose a date. I think there are some, but I don’t think Darlington is one of them.”

ON DRIVERS ATTENDING DRIVING SCHOOLS TO HELP GET INTO THE SPORT. “There are a lot more opportunities to do that today then there were 30 years ago, but there were driving schools 30 years ago that a lot of us went to. Whether it was road racing, Bondurant, or the driving school that I went to when I was getting ready to start late model racing. There are a lot more to choose from today, but the whole world is quite a bit different than it was 30 years ago.” DO YOU THINK IT CAN BE BENEFICIAL TO SOME PEOPLE? “The easiest way to become a NASCAR driver is to be better than everybody else. That you don’t have to learn. That you have, I think you’re born with that. That’s the easiest way, just to have more ability and more talent than everyone else. For the rest of us, you got to work hard at it.”

WHAT ABOUT MARKETABILITY? HOW MUCH HAS THAT RATIO SHIFTED BETWEEN DRIVING TALENT AND BEING ABLE TO SELL THAT PARTICULAR PERSON? “I really don’t think it shifted, I just think it’s more important. It’s selective. You still have to be incredible as a driver. Then when you line up five incredible drivers side-by-side, you know the first one’s that are chosen, are chosen based on their marketability, but it still hasn’t diminished the need for the incredible talent.”

HOW EASY IS IT TO GET FRUSTRATED AT ONE OF YOUR TEAMMATES AT TALLADEGA? HAVE YOU CUSSED A TEAMMATE BEFORE? “Yes, and they’ve cussed me. It’s easy to actually have that anywhere, at Talladega it’s even easier. Your expectations from your teammates are sometimes unrealistic and yet sometimes you fall short of what you might do for a teammate based on the things that are going on around you. Not that you plan it out and say I’m gonna do something bad to my teammate. It’s just there’s a lot going on out there. If you’re as dull as I am, sometimes you don’t get the chance to think everything through. It happens pretty quickly. You have to make decisions and sometimes in retrospect you might of could’ve done something differently but you have to make those kind of decisions. It’s been going on for a long time. I’ve had teammates since about 1990 when Jack (Roush) started the second team and you do your best to get along but sometimes you’re expectations are pretty high of your teammates and sometimes they just can’t meet those expectations.”

WHAT’S THE MADDEST A TEAMMATE HAS EVER BEEN AT YOU? “Matt (Kenseth) probably made it clear that he was mad at me. I may have had other instances that were worse than that, but it wasn’t as clear to me as Matt was with me at Chicago or Kansas quite a while back.”

DID IT COME AS A SURPRISE THAT HE WAS THAT MAD OR A TEAMMATE COULD GET THAT UPSET WITH YOU? “Well obviously you never think you did something that was that bad. I didn’t think what I did was that bad, but that’s how everyone is. We’re all just a bunch of grown-up little kids, and you know how little kids, they think they never did anything wrong. We’re just a bunch of grown-up little kids.”

ON WHAT HE EXPECTS DARLINGTON TO BE LIKE NEXT WEEK. “I think it will be a great race, but it won’t be quite the same old Darlington. It will have shades of the old Darlington. But with new pavement, we had new pavement I don’t remember what year it was, mid 90’s, 95, so it’s different. It’s better with the worn out pavement in a lot of ways. It’s easier to pass I think and a lot of fun but it was ready for a new dress and it got it.”

BEING ON THE TRACK IN A STREET CAR, I THOUGHT IT WAS RIDCULOUS GOING DOWN INTO WHAT IS NOW TURN THREE. YOU GUYS ADD ANTOHER 50 MILES PER HOUR IN SPEED, THAT’S GOT TO BE INSANE. “It is, but you add the grip to go with the speed, that’s where the speed comes from. It’s all relative. It’s no more insane to go 15 miles an hour faster than it was to go 15 miles an hour slower on that pavement that wore the tires out as you were rolling across pit road. They were wore out before you got out of the garage, that was pretty insane too.”

DID THE TRACK NARROW UP? YOU MAY HAVE MORE GRIP BUT DOESN’T IT GET EVEN MORE NARROW WHEN YOU HAVE HIGH SPEEDS? “It may get a little bit more narrow with higher speeds, but it’s pretty narrow at lower speeds when you don’t have any control of your car. It’s Darlington, new pavement, old pavement. Fast, when the speeds are slow it’s still fast. It’s really fast. It’ll be interesting. I didn’t do the tire test, so I don’t know. I knew what it was like in ’95. Like I say, I think every driver pretty much likes old pavement verses new pavement.”

DID YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF AT DARLINGTON MAKING A MOVE AND IT WORKS AND YOU GET BY AND THINK I DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH ROOM TO DO THAT, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? DID YOU EVER SURPRISE YOURSELF SQUEEZING THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE THERE? “Yeah, and then I usually key up the mic and tell my spotter to tell what’s his name, thank you. That’s why I made it, because he let me make it.”

WHEN DID BURNOUT’S BECOME POPULAR? “They came apparent to me through (Alex) Zanardi. Zanardi is where I saw it start, that doesn’t mean that’s where it started. Zanardi did them big time. If he was winning every week and he was doing them like crazy and that’s where it seemed to have started from.”

WHEN DID IT COME HERE INTO CUP? “Fairly soon after that. Pretty soon after that. I think they’re real juvenile. It would embarrass me to do one because I would think that was either being a copycat or it was something to be expected. From these kids if they didn’t do it, it would probably embarrass them so that’s what you do today but I don’t think I saw Jeff Burton do a burnout at Bristol. Thank goodness.”

DOES IT TEAR UP THE EQUIPMENT? “It’s disrespectful to the equipment but it makes good T.V. That’s what they show on television every time. If I did a burnout, I would wreck. So I’m not gonna do it.”

DID YOU EVER PICTURE ANY CIRCUMSTANCE AT ALL THAT YOU WOULD DO IT? “No. I slid a little bit in the grass at Charlotte in 2002 when we won the Coke 600 over the Coke logo that was in the grass. I don’t see me doing a burnout ever of any kind or a snow angel.”

SO YOU WERE BEING PRETTY WILD AND CRAZY GOING THROUGH THE GRASS? “That was it, yeah. That was a stretch for me. I’ll just collect the hardware. I’d rather take the checkered flag and hurry on in to Victory Lane and get there so I can start enjoying it.”