NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
PRICE SHOPPER 400
KANSAS SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
October 1, 2010
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Kansas Speedway and discussed his position in points, his car in practice and other topics. Full transcript:
A LOT OF DRIVERS HAVE TALKED ABOUT THE NEXT COUPLE OF RACES OF SETTING THE TONE FOR THEIR CHASE AT THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS, DO YOU AGREE? “I think so. I mean, there are more mile-and-a-half tracks in the Chase than there are anything else. It definitely a situation where the next couple of weeks kind give everybody an idea of where they are at and what they have to.”
DOES HOW JIMMIE JOHNSON PERFORMS IN THE CHASE, DOES THAT COME INTO PLAY ON HOW DRIVERS APPROACH HIM AND THE RACES? “I don’t know. All I’m worried about is our car right now. That is the only one we have control of. That’s what we’ve been focusing on.”
WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET WITH WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS RIGHT NOW? “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain, really. It is a situation that I wish we could say that we were right in the middle of this and had to worry about everything. In two weeks I have dug myself a pretty big hole. It’s literally a go-for-broke attitude. We don’t have anything to lose right now. 10th doesn’t mean anything to me in the point standings. I’m going for everything I can get right now.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE A BETTER TEAM AND HAVE RUN BETTER THAN YOUR FINISHES HAVE SHOWN? “Definitely. But we’re a better team. But still the last two weeks are what they are. We can’t change, we can’t fix it. We can’t go back and redo it. It is a tough situation to be in where we have got behind in two weeks. We have eight weeks to do the best we can to get everything we can get out of them.”
DO YOU BEAT YOURSELF UP THAT THE DRIVER MADE SOME MISTAKES? “Yes, I still do that. I just have made mistakes the last two weeks that have cost us. Like I said, I can’t do anything about it now. All I can is go out there and do the best I can the rest of the year.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE GETTING CLOSE TO WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR AT THE END OF THAT PRACTICE SESSION? “I think so. We made gains the whole time we were in race trim. We waited pretty long to switch over but I felt like we made a lot of gains in the session. Darian (Grubb, crew chief) even said that he got a good direction for tomorrow. It is encouraging going into tonight. No matter where we end up qualifying, we had a really productive practice today.”
IS IT DIFFICULT BECAUSE YOU ONLY RUN HERE ONCE A YEAR? “No, there are a lot of tracks we only go to once a year and everybody does just fine at it. It is the same for everybody. Your whole career you go to places you have either never been to or go to only once a year. Everybody does just fine with that.”
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