JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS met with media and discussed running at Martinsville, the points, the Chase and his comfort level based on experience, understanding the Martinsville track, the importance of the first pit stall, testing at Rockingham, and more.

TALK ABOUT COMING TO A TRACK WHERE YOU’VE EXCELLED “It’s crazy for me to think that we’ve had so much success here because when I started, the first race that I ran here, I had not idea what I was doing or where I was on the track. We tested once beforehand and we tested a second time before my second event here, and it felt to me like it took a long time to click. In fact it took my following Tony Stewart up through the field in that second race to finally learn the rhythm of this track. It’s a quirky track. Obviously it’s hard on brakes and hard on forward bite and all those types of things, but I think the diverse background I’ve had in racing has helped me here and helped guys like Tony and Jeff as well to be very strong here. But I’m excited to be back. I’ve been looking forward to this race in the Chase for a long time, and I’m hoping to get out of here with some good points and go on to the next one.”

IS THERE ANY SENSE THAT THIS TRACK IS THE LAST LANDMINE YOU HAVE TO GET PAST IN THE CHASE? “Yes and no. I look at Texas, even Atlanta for that matter, you don’t see big pileups like you can potentially see here, but there still is a lot of risk at those tracks. It seems like you can have your fenders torn off the car here, but still stay in the race and get some points. Where if you crash at Atlanta or Texas, chances are you’re on the truck and going home. I’ve looked at this, and I’ve looked at the No. 16 (Biffle) and the No. 99 (Edwards) and said, this could be a track where if we’re in a big dogfight, maybe I can get 10 or 15 points on these guys. Jeff (Burton) is there in second right now and looking strong. This is a good track for him. I think, from what I remember, he’s finished well here and is always in the points and running well. So, again, I’m just hopeful to stretch it out. If it’s 10 points, or 15 points, or whatever it may be, my goal leaving here is to try and get a few points on those guys. And this is a track where I feel we can do that. We go to the next one, things might change a little bit. So I’m hopeful to get what I can here and roll on.”

COULD YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT NASCAR IN THE MIDST OF THE CHASE, COMING BACK TO ITS DEEPEST ROOTS AT THIS PLACE? DOES IT NEED TO? DOES IT NEED PLACES LIKE THIS? ALSO, COULD YOU TAKE US ON A LAP OF THIS TRACK AND EXPLAIN WHY IT’S SO MADDENING OR TIRING? “Yeah, I think the Chase needs to represent what the season is about. So I feel this track does need to be on the schedule, or a short track like this. I personally think this one because I’m terrible at Bristol and would hate to see Bristol in the Chase (laughs). So I feel good about it. I think that our champion needs to represent what the season’s about. And this track is really a lot about our sport and we race here in the spring as well. So I think it’s a good track for the championship battle.

“On a lap around here, just trying to figure out where your car has grip and try to take advantage of those areas. Sometimes you have a car that’s very good up off the corner, so you change your line a little bit and make sure you can make the straightaways as long as possible to really use frontal application. Other times, if the setup doesn’t work and your really strong on the brakes so you’ll try to shift that arc a little bit in the center of the corner instead of making it this way for the exit, you kind of shift it the other way around and try to roll around the corner as far as you can, and then use as little throttle, and make sure you’re as straight as possible up off (the corner). So that’s where, in the race, the track changes a lot and you’ll see the rubber start laying down. And you have to make those adjustments. You have to have different lines and different arcs. The grip level changes, so you’re just constantly shifting that around. And that’s where I really feel like I come into my own here is when we get 20 or 30 laps on a run and you’ve really got to move that stuff around. But most guys know you need to be smart on the brakes so you charge the corner. I use the rev chip a lot to set the rhythm for me, so I’ll hit the chip, fair amount of brake, and as I get close to the curbing you kind of get off the brake and let it roll. And there is a point where you feel the car hitch, and once it hitches and you can kind of see the exit, you start searching for the throttle. It’s amazing how little throttle can upset the car here. So a very delicate right foot is important to get around here as well.”

LAST TWO AND A HALF CHASES, YOUR TEAM HAS EXECUTED PRETTY WELL, AND I KNOW YOU SAID YOU’RE GETTING BETTER ABOUT STRESSING OUT. BUT DO YOU HAVE NIGHTMARES EXECUTING, OR DO YOU DRAW GREAT COMFORT WITH THE FACT THAT THEY DO EXECUTE SO WELL? “As of now, I’m drawing great comfort in what we’ve done in the past and that’s making it easier on us. From ’06 to ’07, I had fewer nightmares. From ’07 to ’08, less again. But we’re performing and doing our jobs. If things change and our luck changes and we don’t execute like we need to over the next five (races) I’m sure the nightmares would come back in a hurry. But experience and building confidence in the experience that we’ve had has helped me be much more relaxed.”

MOST OF YOUR WINS COME IN THE CHASE. ARE YOU MR. OCTOBER OR ARE YOU JUST REALLY FOCUSED ON THESE RACES AND THESE RACE TRACKS? IS THERE A SPECIFIC EFFORT TO FOCUS ON THE TRACKS IN THE CHASE? “There really isn’t. I don’t understand why, at the end of the year, we win a fair amount of races. I’ve always thought that these have been good tracks for us and in the spring we’ll run well at them and in the fall we’ll do a little better job and have a winning car at the point. Or sometimes we’ll win in the spring and also in the fall. I really don’t know what it is. We do not try any harder for these races than we do for the ones at the start of the season. This year, we just didn’t have our act together at the start of the season and we’ve done a good job of catching up. But it’s still the same amount of work and the same effort and thought process that goes into it. I don’t know why the results show that.”

DO YOU THINK YOU’D BE JUST AS GOOD IF THE FIRST 10 RACES WERE THE CHASE RACES? “You bring up a good point. The Chase fits me well, the tracks that are in it. If we had Bristol, if we had Sonoma, or if we had some of these other tracks in it, even Indy, even though we’ve won there twice, it’s been a victory or a wreck. So, it would change that a lot. Ideally, any driver would love to sit down and mark out there best 10 races and I’m very fortunate in the Chase with the ones that are in the final 10. I’d probably choose seven or eight of them if I had my wish list of tracks to pick.”

IF QUALIFYING GETS RAINED OUT TODAY, IT’LL BE THE NINTH TIME THIS YEAR AND THE THIRD TIME IN THE CHASE. IF YOU WEREN’T SITTING FIRST IN POINTS, WOULD YOU CONSIDER THAT GETTING NOT ONLY THE POLE, BUT THE FIRST CHOICE OF PIT BOXES TO BE TOO BIG OF AN ADVANTAGE FOR THE GUY THAT’S LEADING THE POINTS AT THIS POINT? “No, truthfully, and I think you’ll find this to be the opinion in the garage area, you’ve earned that right to be there. If today’s effort is rained out or could be rained out, what you’ve done all season long and in the Chase, you’ve earned that right. So, this track is one of the tracks where that #1 pit stall gives you a big advantage. If it happens, great; if not, we’ve worked real hard on this set up and I feel that we’re going to be a threat regardless. But at the end of the day, I don’t care. I’ll take it however I get it. If it’s because of rain if we go out and do it on our own, that first pit stall, everybody will forget about it about two stops in and it’s just about the race and who’s where on pit road and it would be a big advantage.”

HOW MUCH DOES IT PUT YOUR MIND AT EASE WHEN IT’S RAINING LIKE THIS FOR THE SECOND STRAIGHT WEEK AND YOU KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO GET NOT JUST THE FIRST STARTING SPOT, BUT THAT FIRST PIT STALL? AT THIS TRACK, IS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PICKING FIRST AND 10TH IN TERMS OF PIT STALL SELECTION? “Yeah, a huge difference from first to 10th. From first to second, there’s probably more of a difference here than anywhere we go. I’d say Bristol would be a close second in that ranking. But it’s a huge advantage to have the first stall here. I tried, throughout the day, knew it was going to rain here the last couple of days, and if it happens, great, but I’m mentally trying to prepare for being on track and doing our jobs. We were testing Wednesday trying to get prepared for being here and getting that first pit stall pick and qualifying on the pole, so we’ve been working all week like we’re going to qualify today. And still, even when I was getting close to the track, I could see the rain and started relaxing. I’m like, don’t do it. Just stay focused. You’ve got to be on track and be prepared for that because if we get a small window and NASCAR gets the cars on the track and we get three or four laps, we’ll qualify. And I need to be prepared and make sure I do my job.”

NASCAR HAS SAID THERE WON’T BE ANY CHANGES TO THE CARS FOR NEXT YEAR. ARE YOU OKAY WITH THAT? “I think a lot of us have some ideas for changes and we’d like to see them put in. I feel that as the season’s gone on, we’ve all gotten a lot smarter and we’ve helped the car. But there still are some things that I feel should be looked at and considered. I didn’t hear that yet, but it doesn’t mean much because I usually don’t pay attention, especially during the Chase. I’m kind of focused on racing the car itself. But I was hopeful that something would change there, definitely. So it’s new news to me. At least we’re putting on good shows. The cars are easier to drive in traffic. We have some boundaries with the rear ends being skewed and some of the things where teams found some easy speed at the start of the season. And the racing is going well on the big tracks. I still think it could be better.

“There’s a fine balance, and these are my opinions, I’m sure as you speak to other drivers and engineers and they’ll be plenty of other opinions. But the car is so big and punches such a large hole in the air, we need to get back some mechanical grip. The aero grip is what it is, and we have much less, and the cars are much more sensitive today than the old cars. Where we are with this car, we can’t go back. We can’t go back to the old car. We can’t make the greenhouse smaller. We can’t do that. We’ll run teams right out of business. So we need to find ways to put mechanical grip back in the car. I think allowing the front of the cars to travel further would lower the center of gravity height and bring some more grip in the car, plus help the aero platform of the car. That would be one of the first moves I’d make.”

WHAT KIND OF AN ADJUSTMENT IS IT FOR YOU TO BE OLDER ~ EVEN A DECADE OLDER ~ THAN SOME OF THE OTHER COMPETITORS? HOW DOES THAT EXPERIENCE HELP AND HOW MUCH EXPERIENCE DO YOU STILL HAVE TO GAIN ON SOME OF THE DRIVERS LIKE BIFFLE AND BURTON WHO’VE GOT SOME YEARS ON YOU? “Experience is everything. I still feel like I’m learning more and more each year and learning how to deal with our sport and the challenges in it. Experience has done a lot for me. I’m happy to be where I am and I feel in the next two or three years I’ll be even stronger and better as time goes on. It’s crazy to hear that I could be a decade older. You’ve got my mind going now. I’ve got to try to figure that out. Is that true? Ten years older? Gosh, dang. It goes by fast. I was a young gun not long ago (laughs). Joey Logano, yeah, that one really hurts. I guess it hurts everybody to see that one. It’s crazy. And I’ve been racing my whole life and I’ve felt like I was kind of slow and late, but truthfully I feel showing up at the Cup level in my mid-twenties was really a blessing in disguise. I showed up at the right time, had a lot of experience, and had matured in a lot of ways. I think watching some of these young guys come along, it’s challenging for them. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but they’re going to have other challenges that I didn’t experience. So I’ll take the experience and I’ve love to be competitive at 40 years old and racing for championships. And I really think it’s possible.”

WHY ARE YOU SO COMFORTABLE AT MARTINSVILLE WHEN OTHER DRIVERS AREN’T? “I feel like in the past, and I’m hoping it continues this weekend, I’ve been able to take my time. The first 20 laps on a set of tires, the field is very close. And then as the run goes on, tires give up, the rubber starts to lay down on the track, and there are more lines and options out there to pass than you would think. A lot of guys aren’t creative enough to look for it and to find it and they’re just stuck in the same rhythm and the same line and I can see that, and know how I can adjust what I’m doing and find a way by. So after 20 or 30 laps, I get into a rhythm and things just click and go well. I can go on different parts of the track where guys are not, get position on them, and work my way to the front. The time I worry the most is that first 20 (laps) after a restart. And then once we get going into the middle part of the run, I feel very comfortable and good about things. This race is usually finished under a green-white-checkered, or some type of short sprint at the end and I’ve felt venerable in the past and we worked hard on it this week to make sure we were good on the short run at our test. But the long run stuff in the middle of the race, I look forward to that. I think if we can put a bunch of cars a lap down, hopefully Chase contenders, and get a cushion on these guys and so I’m looking forward to a lot of green flag racing and hope we get it.”

ON THE POINTS, IS YOUR MIND AT EASE OR IS IT STILL NERVE-WRACKING KNOWING THAT EVERYBODY IS TRYING TO COME AFTER YOU? “I’m really content with it this year. In the past, I’ve probably wanted to be in a different position and be a close second or something and not have to have the pressure. But this Chase, this team, the confidence we have in ourselves and what we’ve developed over the years and the experience we’ve been through, has made me much more comfortable with where we are today. And I’m excited to be in the lead, and enjoy the idea of trying to control this thing. I feel that we have a chance at doing that. And so if we just keep going out and executing, I think it will take care of itself. But a year ago, leading the Chase at this point, I would have been pretty nervous. Right now, I’m pretty excited about it.”

REFLECTING BACK ON THE TIME WHEN YOU WERE BEHIND A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, WHAT WAS YOUR MINDSET WHEN YOU’RE STARTING TO RUN OUT OF RACES? IS IT OUT OF REACH FOR CARL EDWARDS NOW? “I wouldn’t say it’s out of reach. The thing that takes place is that you feel like you lose control of your own destiny. Where if you’re within 50 or 80 points, you can race your way and go out and win races and run in the top five and control your own destiny that way, especially leading the championship, you can control it that way. If you’re outside of that, and especially as you lose events you’ll gain points at, you have to start counting on other people having bad luck. And your odds change dramatically if you have one guy in front of you, if you have four cars in front of you, or wherever you fall in there, you’ve got to count on other people having bad luck. And in ’06, that happened to us. We were way behind. Guys had a lot of bad luck and they let us back into it and then we had a shot at it. And you hate not being in control and I would assume that’s where Carl is at, and some of those other guys are at. If we run like we think we will, they can’t go out and just out-perform us by a spot or two each week and win the championship. That’s the reality that you start facing.”

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO REACH A COMFORT LEVEL AT MARTINSVILLE? DO YOU THINK MORE ABOUT WHAT IT MIGHT MEAN TO WIN A THIRD TITLE? “I really haven’t let my mind go on the third championship. We’re in a good position, but truthfully, only being half-way through the Chase, anything can happen. And there are still five races to go. As we get closer to the end, it’ll run it’s course and my mind will start playing games on me and I’ll think about those things. I do appreciate and respect history and what’s been done in the sport, and know that I have a chance to do something very, very special. It’s back in my mind, deep somewhere, but I haven’t let it out yet. There are other things to worry about that are much more important week in and week out and gaining points. If we go to Homestead and we’re sitting in good shape, I’ll really think about it. I’m sure even if I go to Homestead and we’re not in good shape, then it will kick in and it’ll be like man, reality it here. This is the final race. So at that point, thing will really kick in. But right now, anything can happen.

“You’re still comfortable when you’re going forward. I’d say my second race here, I’d figured out how to pass people. If you can keep moving forward, people are patient with you. If you’re holding up a long train of cars, you know you’ve got something coming. So my comfort probably does change during the race and as long as I’m going forward, I feel very comfortable and good about things. And if I’m holding guys up, that’s when you worry. But I’ll tell you, the second race it really clicked for me here. I was following (Tony) Stewart through the pack and there was just a rhythm about it that I didn’t see and didn’t understand and it took following Tony to figure it out.”

YOU HAD EIGHT WINS IN ’04. THAT’S WHAT KYLE (BUSCH) IS GOING THROUGH NOW. WILL THIS SEASON BE REMEMBERED AS A COLLAPSE OR FORGOTTEN IN HISTORY BECAUSE OF WHAT’S HAPPENED IN THE CHASE? “I can’t say that we talk much about the eight wins in 2004. I look back at that, and the fact that we lost the championship by eight points, and say that built a lot of character in our race team to have it slip by. Moving forward, it’ll be a defining year for that team and for Kyle. Obviously he’s young. And the relationship he and Steve Addington have together with what that team can do, they’ll be champions at some point. I think we’ll look back at this season and say that was the one that got away. On top of that, I think we’ll look back at all the races he’s won, period, and think it was a pretty special year. He has nothing to be ashamed of. He’s had an amazing year. I know that the ultimate prize is the Cup championship, but he’s had a stellar year, and the first year with a new manufacturer and a new team.”

WOULD YOU CALL IT A COLLAPSE? “I don’t know. It’s been pretty bad to say the least (laughs). I don’t know if I’d use (the word) collapse, but I don’t know. It’s been pretty rough on those guys. They’ve had everything go wrong with a bunch of crazy stuff. So it’s been pretty bad for him.”

AS A CHEVY DRIVER, DO YOU HAVE ANY REACTION TO TALKS OF A POSSIBLE MERGER BETWEEN GENERAL MOTORS AND CHRYSLER, AND WHAT THE IMPLICATIONS MIGHT BE FOR NASCAR RACING? “I saw something briefly on that, but I have not heard anything through our GM channels to know if that’s true or not and what that may do to Motorsports. I think we’re all sitting back wondering what’s going to happen with the economy like it is and the auto industry like it is. So I’m not sure if anything will happen there and what that affect could be, but I think we’re going to see some big change in our sport from the manufacturers to the economy side and sponsorship dollars; even the whole phase of going green and how we make our sport more green moving forward. So I think there’s a lot of change for Motorsports in general in the next few years.”

ON TESTING AT ROCKINGHAM, AND WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ABOUT GOING TO A FIVE-RACE CHASE? “Oh, we’re already confused as it is with 10. Change it to five? We’re just getting the public to understand 10 races. I don’t know. Whatever it is. One race, five races, or 10 races, I’ll show up and go like hell. Personally, I think 10 races works well. You still have to have consistency, but at the same time you’ve got to have a fast car and win races. I think it does a good job of motivating people. It does a good job of having teams take risks and drivers taking risks, but our seasons are long and the races are long and it needs to have an element of consistency. I think 10 races is a good balance of that.”

“The track at Rockingham was just finished, maybe two days, when we got on it. It was intended to look a lot like Martinsville and kind of act like Martinsville. To their credit, they did a great job, but it’s brand new and it needs some work done to it. They need to grind some areas and smooth it out a little bit. There are no walls up. We blew a right front tire and thankfully there were no walls because I went flying out through this field. I thought I was going to end up on pit road where everybody was standing, to be honest with you. I’m coming through (turn) 4 and the tires blows and there’s nothing there. And I’m like, this is going to be big (laughs). Luckily the ground was real soft and the car stuck and threw dirt all over the place. It can be a tool, especially if they work on it and try to make it more similar to this track and not as rough. It could be a tool for teams to go test at. It’s just an oval sitting out there with a few hay bales. It’s really old school looking (laughs). But they just got the asphalt and concrete down. They still have a lot of plans to bring it along, but the fact that they built it to be a lot like Martinsville, we had to shoot over there and give it a shot to see if we could learn something to bring over here.” NO WALLS? “It’s kinda comforting. There’s nothing to hit. It was comforting until the tire blew and I was heading toward pit road and I thought man, this could be really, really bad. And my transporter was the first one, so how cool would that be to blow a tire and go off the track and run into your own transporter? But it didn’t happen.”

JEFF BURTON, DRIVER OF THE NO. 31 AT&T IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed racing at Martinsville, his win last week at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the announcement of no changes to the COT next year and more.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR WEEK COMING OFF THAT BIG WIN AT LOWE’S MOTOR SPEEDWAY AND ALSO TELL US ABOUT RACING HERE AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY. “Well it’s certainly been a busy week. I had a lot of stuff scheduled anyway, photo shoots and some appearances and some testing. Then we won on Saturday night so that added to the schedule. It’s been a pretty hectic week. I was kind of glad to get here last night and came early just so I could get some sleep. To me, this is a really fun race track. I think it’s one of the hardest tracks that we go to. It requires a great deal of aggressiveness, also at the same time a great deal of patience. It’s hard to do both. It’s been a really, really good track for me, it’s been a really, really bad track for me. But this is a place that I grew up. I remember the day they announced they were going to have a late model stock car race here and I was getting ready to race late models and I thought wow, I get to race at Martinsville. That was really cool. This has been a really special place. It’s hard. It’s demanding but it is a lot of fun.”

ON THE RUMOR THAT MARTINSVILLE MAY LOSE A RACE. “There’s always a debate about what race tracks should have races and which tracks should have two races in particular. I think it’s important as we’ve moved our sport into bigger venues, bigger parts of the country. I also think it’s very important to remember what has put us here. Having an understanding of the history of our sport I think is very important. You certainly could make a case that bigger cities and all that stuff is cool, but I just think it’s real important to embrace the history, to be able to run the race tracks that started the sport. The history here is really long and this track has been very committed to the growth of our sport. I think we need to reward those things and I also think it provides such a different race from what we’re going to see next week and the next four weeks and I think that’s good. I think that’s what makes our sport fun to watch. What really makes it fun to do is a variety of race tracks. So I think we need to be here. I think just for the history and the understanding and the embracement of the history I think we need to be here.”

YOU KNOW IN OTHER SPORTS THERE’S ALWAYS THAT ATTITUDE ESPECIALLY IN THE NBA AND NHL LETS GET THROUGH THE REGULAR SEASON AND GET TO THE PLAYOFFS, IS THERE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT THROUGHOUT THE SEASON TO DO THE BEST YOU CAN BUT GET TO THE PLAYOFFS? “Goal number one for us was make the playoffs, that’s goal number one. If you make the Chase then you can win the championship. If you don’t make it you can’t obviously. You’ve got to come into the Chase believing you’re fast enough or proving you can do the things it takes to win a championship. But you always want to make the Chase because if you make it at least you’ve had a good year and if you make it you definitely have a shot at the championship.

“Even if you’re not the best running team you still have a shot. Who would think the (Tampa Bay) Rays would be in the World Series? You just never know what’s going to happen. So if you put yourself in position to make the things happen, it really depends on the situation how you get into the Chase. I think the first 16 races you’re just racing. You’re just trying to get into a rhythm of racing and trying to do the things you know how to do well and then those last 10 you really start looking at it trying to figure out exactly what you do to get in it. It seems to me like the Daytona 500 was forever ago. It’s seems like that was a really long time ago and that’s how long that regular season is. That regular season to me is more stressful than this because it’s positioning to be in the championship.”

DO YOU MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE GOOD ON THE TRACKS THAT ARE IN THE CHASE? “To me and statistically I may be wrong here, but to me the tracks that are in the Chase are very much representative of the tracks that are in the regular season. So yes, you do but to make the Chase you have to be good on those kinds of race tracks as well. The only exceptions are Sears Point and Watkins Glen. If you can survive those races, that’s very beneficial. If you are real good at it then you can try to win them but if you’re not real good at it survival is very important.”

ON HOW AGE AND EXPERIENCE CAN BE AN ADVANTAGE IN THE CHASE. “I think every driver is different. I can only speak for myself and what my experience brings to me. I think the biggest thing it brings to me is the perspective of what we’re trying to do here and a calmness that I’ve never had in my life. The age that I am to me is a great thing. I love the age that I am. I couldn’t have the things in my life that I love so much if I’m not the age that I am and I couldn’t have the experience without having been through the things I’ve been through and the only way to do that is to be the age that I am. To me, I look at my age as a benefit because I’m able to draw experiences. I’m able to watch other people’s experiences and learn from them. I view it as an advantage not as a disadvantage because I have a pool of information that’s larger than a lot that I can use so to me that’s actually an advantage.”

DO YOU WORRY THAT PEOPLE WILL LOOK AT THAT AT SOME POINT AS A DISADVANTAGE? “At some point it does become a disadvantage. There’s no getting around that. I truly believe that at 41 I’m a better driver than at 25. Now, was I a good enough driver at 25 that’s for someone else to decide but I believe that I’m better at 41 than I was at 25. Am I going to be better at 70 than I was at 41, probably not. But physically our sport allows someone if you take care of yourself and you’re committed you can be successful in this sport well into your 40’s. I have no concerns if I’m emotionally able to put the effort into it. I have no concerns about being in my mid-40’s being able to be competitive, none whatsoever. I speak from experience in watching people that I respect. I watched my father compete in tennis. I’ve watched Mark Martin. I’ve watched people that I know are willing to put forth the effort and the people that I see that are willing to put forth the effort that they can still be successful.”

IF QUALIFYING IS RAINED OUT YOU GUYS GET CHOICE OF PIT SELECTION IN ADDITION TO STARTING TOWARD THE FRONT, HOW BIG OF AN ADVANTAGE IS THAT FOR THOSE HIGHER IN THE POINTS TO BE ABLE TO HAVE THAT SELECTION? “Pit selection here may be the most advantageous race track that we go to, to have the first pit stall. It may be the most advantageous. Qualifying is important. I will say though this is one of those race tracks that if you watch the races and I go back and watch most races, a lot of times people have benefited by qualifying poorly here. You get three or four different pit sequences going on here because you get so many cautions at odd times. It’s really one of those places, and I have a lot of experiences of not qualifying well. I don’t flip out about it because the way cautions fall here it’s so different than everywhere else in how you can pit and what kind of tires you need and all those kind of things. Those sequences get so mixed up during the race you’ll find a guy that’s running 20th and the next thing you know he’s leading the race. It matters a lot here in being able to pass people but in a lot of ways it doesn’t matter a whole lot because you get so many pit sequences going on.”

CONSIDERING WHAT’S HAPPENED TO YOU HERE BEFORE IN THE CHASE, DOES THAT AFFECT YOUR OUTLOOK AND APPROACH TO THIS RACE AND WHAT WOULD A GOOD FINISH ON SUNDAY HERE MEAN FOR YOU? “This race track has meant a lot to me. It’s one of the tracks that I grew up thinking was one of the biggest deals in the world. I grew up an hour from here. We’d come here and watch cup races and come to watch the Twin 250’s, so the history here is really important to me because I’ve witnessed some of it. Certainly not all of it, but I’ve witnessed some of it. That makes it special. There’s people in the stands that watched Ward (Burton, Jeff’s brother) and I grow up as people not just race car drivers. I think that’s real special.

"As far as what happened to us here in 2006, we did that not the race track. We made a mistake. The race track didn’t cause us to make that mistake so I don’t look at this race track in the sense of you owe me one. I look at it really in the sense to me it’s a special place. We’ve had a lot of success here and we’ve had real bad runs here too. I don’t come here with preconceived notions that we’re going to run well. I don’t come here with preconceived notions that we’re going to run poorly. I just think we’ve got to go practice and see what we’ve got and work from there. This race track didn’t cause us to lose the championship, we broke a part and ultimately we are responsible for that.”

CAN MARK MARTIN REALISTICALLY HAVE A SHOT AT THE CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR GIVEN NOBODY HAS EVEN COME CLOSE AT HIS AGE? “No question he’ll be competitive. This is a strange sport and you never know what’s going to happen but I would be willing today and he’s going to shoot me for saying this, I’d be willing to guarantee you that that car will be in the Chase next year. He will make that team better. Mark Martin is a special driver. Look at where that car is in points now.

“We never talk about this but the car that Mark drives on a part-time basis is like 15th or 16th in car owner points. I’m sure that’s wrong but it’s right there. Mark Martin is consistent. He’s fast, he’s smart. He is the kind of driver that’s required to win a championship. There’s no question in my mind he can win a championship next year, none whatsoever.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BREAKING POINT IS AGE-WISE? “I don’t think that something swoops down from the sky and says you’re 47, no longer for you. I don’t think it works like that. I think its individual. I think it boils down to physical, emotional, most of it being emotional, the dedication that you’re willing to put into it. You’ve got to remember if you’re 48 years old, you’ve probably been doing this for 40 years. There’s hardly any race car drivers that didn’t start, not right now I know there’s some exceptions to this, but most drivers started when they were five, six, seven, eight, nine years old. If you’re 50 years old you’ve been doing it for 40 years. Bringing the intensity level every day, I think that’s what becomes difficult. Willing to put the effort in not just on the track on a Sunday but on a track somewhere on a Tuesday when it’s 100 degrees somewhere, putting that effort in that’s where it becomes harder I think.”

YOU’VE BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO REMEMBER 36-CAR FIELDS AT RICHMOND, AND BRISTOL, HOW DIFFERENT WAS THE RACING WITH FEWER CARS AND WAS THE RACING BETTER OR WORSE? “It was more spread out at (North) Wilkesboro. Wilkesboro is really for some reason the place that I remember the smaller fields and how much more things were spread out than they are today. Seven more cars on a half-mile race track is a lot. It’s a whole lot. I also remember a lot of us loading our cars in trailers going home not making races at Wilkesboro, Martinsville and those places. It has changed because things are much more bunched up. There’s more cars on the lead lap. There’s more cars a lap down and it’s made it harder. It’s made it more congested for sure.”

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT YOUR DECISION TO COME HERE LAST NIGHT? A LOT OF THE DRIVERS ARE LATE BECAUSE OF THE RAIN AND JUST KIND OF TAKING THEIR TIME, THERE’S NOT MUCH GOING ON HERE. “Well both my children had friends spend the night. My mother was there, my wife’s mother and her father were there and between the four of them they’ll drink enough wine to kill a small animal so the only way for me to get any sleep was to leave. So that was the brunt of my decision. That’s why I made my decision because it was probably loud at my house last night.”

HOW FAR ARE YOU FROM HERE? “I bummed a helicopter ride last night so it’s 40 minutes for me. It wasn’t exactly a hardship tour.”

EVERY TIME WE ASK YOU OR ANY OTHER DRIVER IF YOU TRIED HARDER YOU LAUGH AT US BECAUSE YOU TRY THE SAME EVERY WEEK, BUT ON THAT LAST RUN LAST SATURDAY NIGHT YOU SEEMED DETERMINED TO MAINTAIN THE LEAD, WAS IT A TRACK POSITION DECISION OR WAS IT MORE A HAVE TO SEIZE THE MOMENT NOW DECISION? “I think it was both. We do always try hard, well I do. There is a difference on how you drive on lap10 and how you drive on lap 200. That difference I don’t think should be real big but there is a little bit of difference. Where we are and the things we’re trying to accomplish it was time to go for it. I mean it was time to lay it on the line and see what happened and whatever the result was it was going to be so my willingness to, I wasn’t going to wreck Jimmie (Johnson) or anything like that, but my willingness to hang it out as far as I thought I could possibly hang it out was certainly there because if I’d come off of turn four and spun it out, what the hell. It was time to go and we’re not racing to be afraid to lose something we’re racing to go try to gain it. I think that showed. Obviously track position was big. The call was 100 percent the right thing to do. Lost in the shuffle was we came to pit road in the lead and I’m proud of that. The No. 16 (Greg Biffle) car is a really strong car and we were able to take the lead from those guys, come on pit road, hold serve, make a great car and then ultimately win. Carl (Edwards) was really good so things worked out for us. Certainly with where we are we’re willing to put the risk level out there a little more than we would have been. Not a lot, but a little bit.”

AS A CHASER WHAT IS THE SCARIEST PART OF MARTINSVILLE AS FAR AS TRYING TO STAY IN THIS THING? “A couple of things. There’s a lot of mechanical problems here if you go back and look through history. A lot of rear end gears have broken here, a lot of people have brake problems, and a lot of people have transmission problems but more rear gear problems. Engine problems occur because of the low RPM to the high RPM, how many times you do that. That’s very hard on the engine. And then just quite simply the race. It’s so easy to drive into turn one and two guys get together in front of you then there’s nowhere to go and the guys behind you have nowhere to go. It’s easy to drive in the corner underneath a guy and get free and have to chase the car up and hit him. It’s easy for you to be the guy on the outside getting run into. So this it’s just really, really difficult racing. The shorter the tracks the more hostile it becomes because it has to. Just getting into a wreck or causing a wreck that you really didn’t want to be involved in happens very easily here. More easily than most tracks we go to. Honestly you can run well here and get on the wrong pit sequence and finish 18th. It’s so hard to pass, but if you get in the back at the wrong time you’re done. Everything has got to work out. You’ve got to have the cautions fall the right way, you’ve got to run well, you’ve got to stay out of trouble, you’ve got to keep from causing the wreck, you’ve got to not have mechanical problems, there’s a lot of stuff going on.”

IF KYLE BUSCH DOESN’T WIN ANOTHER RACE AND KIND OF STAYS WHERE HE’S AT RIGHT NOW IN POINTS, WILL WHAT HE’S ACCOMPLISHED THIS YEAR WITH ALL THE WINS BETWEEN THE THREE SERIES BECOME A LOSS IN HISTORY? “It won’t be to me. It may be to him. Their team I think would be really disappointed because certainly they came into this thing having very, very high hopes of winning a championship. To me they’ve had a phenomenal year and Kyle has done a phenomenal job. It won’t be lost on me but it will probably be lost on them.”

COULD YOU CALL THAT A COLLAPSE? “They certainly haven’t executed when they’ve needed to execute. That’s obvious and I’m not being critical it just it is what it is. I wouldn’t be the one to call it a collapse but they certainly weren’t able to execute at this point post-season and they were able to in the regular season.

“They could win five in a row. Honestly. That team could go win five in a row. It wouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s very hard to win five in a row, but that team could win five in a row.”

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT 2006 AND WHAT HAPPENED IN MARTINSVILLE, DO YOU KIND OF FEEL LIKE THIS IS A CHANCE MAYBE FOR REDEMPTION? “We were in position the same way I said Kyle and those guys haven’t executed in post season, we didn’t execute that in post season. We certainly want to be able to execute. We want to look back on the year and say you know what when we had an opportunity, we took advantage of it and we didn’t do that when we had our opportunity. I don’t look at it from a redemption standpoint but I do look at it from a satisfaction standpoint. It would certainly be great to be able to look back and say hey we put ourselves in position, number one, but then after we put ourselves in position we executed and got done what we needed to get done. If you’re in sports that’s certainly has to be what you want to hear.”

REFERRING TO THE LEVEL OF FRUSTRATION AT SHORT TRACKS, HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THE LEVEL OF FRUSTRATION HERE (MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY) TO MAYBE BRISTOL? “You know to me this track is much more like the new Bristol than it was the old Bristol. The new Bristol is still very aggressive and still real easy to cause a wreck, real easy to get into a wreck but not at the same level it was before which by the way I think is a good thing. You get very frustrated because in Michigan if you can’t pass a guy, you can at least try to go around him the outside. You can at least try something different. Here if someone is a little slower than you are it’s very, very difficult to pass so every lap, every corner that frustration level gets higher and higher and higher. That’s why we see a lot of wrecks because you know laps are clicking away and you know you’ve got to get by that guy. You’re just a touch quicker but you can’t pull it off so the frustration level grows and grows and grows and then you lose patience. That loss of patience is what eventually normally causes the wrecks. It can be a very frustrating race track. It can be a mentally taxing race track because it’s a long race.

“Time-wise I don’t know how long it is compared to other races, but when you drive through these corners 500 hundred times it’s a long race. You’re leg hurts from braking, you’re back hurts from braking; you use different muscles here than you use at other kinds of race tracks. Mentally it’s a grueling race. When you add that to all the stress and the stuff going on with the Chase and then you add that to that guy in front of you won’t cut you any slack, it gets frustrating.”

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY FIGHTS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT OVER THE YEARS? “We don’t fight, it’s against the rules (laughter). I can’t remember specifically an incident but when I think of this place I know people are going to leave mad. I know people are going to leave upset at each other. It seems like there’s always a little carryover of frustration when this race is over to the next couple of weeks. There’s always, I wouldn’t say a fight, but there’s always an altercation between drivers.”

HIS THOUGHTS ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF NO CHANGES WOULD BE MADE TO THE COT FOR NEXT YEAR. “I certainly don’t think they should make any changes during the year. I think that throws a curve ball at us that isn’t fair. I do believe that we have to remain open-minded to the ability to improve everything we do, the car, pit road procedures, whatever. I think we have to remain open-minded to doing what we can to make racing the best that it can be, as fair as it can be, those kind of things. There has been an effort by NASCAR to minimize the changes the teams are having to deal with because we do have a history of making so many changes that it’s very difficult to ever get a center or to get a real base line on what it is that you’re dealing with. They used to cut spoiler heights off. You’d go to a race and they would put a notice out that they were cutting the spoiler height off so all the aerodynamics testing you’ve done, all the stuff you had done you had to start over. So in many ways I’m a proponent of minimizing changes. At the same time I think we have to be careful to say you know what if something comes up at the right time that we believe will make the car better we will be open-minded at that rather than just saying no changes. It is important to know that we are in the process today of preparing equipment for next year and if at this point it’s very difficult for them to make a change. That puts us in a difficult box in trying to be prepared for next year. So if NASCAR is going to make a change it has to be earlier than December and we need to know. So at this point I’m okay with that but I do think that going into 2010 that we have to be willing to, because now we’ve run a full two years on big tracks a full three years on short tracks, we have a lot of history with the car. I think that going into 2010 we have to be looking okay what is it that we can do better without turning the world upside down. You have to be respectful of when NASCAR makes a small change how big that impacts us in costs and efficiencies and testing.

“When they make a change it’s extremely expensive. With the rumored testing policies for next year, our expenses are going to go way up so if we’re going to do the amount of money we’re going to do to test next year then I really think it’s important for us to minimize changes so that hopefully the testing can help the cars a little bit but to spend more money on top of the testing would be a lot.”

DOES NASCAR HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY OR SHOULD THEY HAVE A ROLE IN TRYING TO SAY WE NEED TO BALANCE WHO WE ALLOW TO COME TO THE RACE TRACKS AND CAMPAIGN OR SHOULD IT BE UP TO THE TRACKS AND CANDIDATES? “That is a good question. I don’t know. On the surface of it I think what’s best for all of us is to not make a decision until we have to walk into the booth. I think the more exposure that we have to the candidates the better we can make that decision. This is always been a very conservative garage if you think about the politicians that have come they typically have been conservative politicians. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed the economy, racing at Martinsville, crew chief importance at Martinsville and other topics.

DO YOU THINK THE WEATHER WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE RACE? “I don’t think it will affect the racing too much. I have been lookin’ forward to comin’ here. I like racin’ at Martinsville. I like short track racing. We have run pretty good here. It is probably a wash today, but hopefully we will get a little practice in so everybody will get a good idea on how to get going on Sunday.”

HOW DOES A CREW CHIEF DICTATE THE SUCCESS YOU HAVE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE? “A crew chief has a pretty good amount of influence on giving you an opportunity to win here more so than at other tracks. Because, sometimes at Martinsville, we have seen it quite a few times where guys are doing different things on tires on the last stop to win. I think Bobby Labonte did it a couple years back and Denny (Hamlin) did it. It is tough to know what call to make but, seems like especially with this car, a two-tire stop at the end might be more common than with the older car. Seemed like the older car used left-side tires a lot more and this car just wears the rights out. I think you will see it even more now. It is definitely a factor all throughout the race to give yourself track position. It is much like Bristol, if you qualify poorly, you can pit early on the first couple of cautions and then stay out on that 60 or 70 lap caution to get that track position and try to maintain it the rest of the day.

“It is difficult for a driver to keep track of who is doing what other than what you can visually see around you. You can’t really see from five or six cars on back the other guys are doing. But you can definitely tell who has beat you off of pit road and how. Hopefully, the crew chiefs really take that in to consideration and are watching how those guys are affected by taking two and whatnot.”

SHOULD THERE BE TWO RACES HERE AT MARTINSVILLE? “A couple years back, they really latched on to something unique when they ground the bottom groove and you had a second groove that was actually more preferable. There was a lot of side-by-side racing from front to back and even the ability to pass on the second groove, make passes. They currently don’t have that now, once they fixed the surface. It is back to really just getting around the bottom the best you can. So this track lacks some of the characteristics that keeps it from becoming a Bristol or a Richmond, but even with that said, it is still fun to race here. It is a short track and I think it would really be unfortunate for the sport to remove another short track date from the series, because we haven’t added short track races in a long time. We haven’t seen a new facility built yet we still see some of the most exciting racing of the year at Richmond and you don’t have a problem ever selling out Bristol. Where you do at probably 80% of the other track on the circuit. I think that somebody really needs to kind of wake up a little bit and see what is going on there. Get some more short tracks back on this series.

“There is something about this place, it has a lot of history, but so did Darlington and it didn’t stand the test of time as far as two date. There will be a day where I think this probably will lose a date but it is unfortunate.”

ARE YOU OK THAT NASCAR SAYS THERE AREN’T GOING TO BE ANY CHANGES TO THE CAR NEXT YEAR? “The car is definitely still a work in progress. I think me and Greg (Biffle) both agree that the car isn’t a finished product. Whenever they decide to move forward and evolve and let that car change and become a better race car, we will be ready to do that. But until then, we really don’t have a choice in the matter.”

SHOULD THERE A BETTER WAY TO QUALIFYING THAT IS FAIRER, ESPECIALLY DURING THE CHASE? “I think it is just fine how it is. You can’t do anything about the weather. The current system seems to work perfectly.”

DO YOU SEE SHORT TRACK RACING MIGHT BE THE SAVING GRACE OF THE SPORT AS THE ECONOMY CONTINUES TO DECLINE? “The economy is in a dire situation. It is pretty severe and there is a good chance it is going to continue to get worse, I don’t see how it can not affect every corner and every piece of the puzzle. Everyone who drags a race car to the track knows you don’t do it to make money and you do it if you are lucky, you break even doing it. It is a severe issue for all of us as drivers, owners, every person walking in the garage needs to have a greater understanding of what their position is and a plan of action, I guess should we see the situation get even worse, which I think it possibly could. It doesn’t look like there is any relief any time soon. It is difficult to say that the short tracks affected any less or any differently than any other part of the sport.”

MORE QUOTES TO FOLLOW AS THE DAY PROGRESSES.