Toyota NSCS Notes & Quotes Media Day Busch, Mears, Truex, Waltrip

TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Notes & Quotes — Kyle Busch, Casey Mears, Martin Truex Jr. & Michael Waltrip Daytona Media Day –February 10, 2011

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

How do you perceive other athletes like Ben Roethlisberger or other athletes that not liked by all the fans? “It makes me relate to them and it makes me like them. Like a Barry Bonds for instance.  He’s a great baseball player, you can’t deny that from him, although there might be some speculation or whatever you want to call it there late in his career that kind of hurt his image a little bit. Overall, the guy did a lot for baseball and a lot for the sport and was very good at what he did. Tom Brady, a lot of people don’t like Tom Brady. Why? He’s good at what he does. He’s very good at what he does and he’s very young and very good at what he does. Same thing with (Ben) Roethlisberger, same thing with now Aaron Rodgers –he’s really good. There’s a lot of athletes that I can relate to that are kind of under the same scope that I am and I like all those guys. I like people that are good at what they do and it’s not that they know that they’re good at what they do, but they are accomplished and they know how to accomplish what they want to.”

Do you think Joe Gibbs Racing would ever swap pit crews during a race? “I don’t know. Actually I asked that question and never really got a straight answer. For me, I think the biggest thing is that we all have great race teams. We all have great pit crews and I think the pit crew coaches work really, really hard and really, really good with all three teams. Actually all three teams workout with each other. They don’t do it separately. They are all out there together — they’re all helping each other, they’re all teaching each other. It’s a way for the teams to become closer knit and become closer together. Maybe there was a problem one day where somebody wasn’t getting the job done or they were having an off day where they would switch somebody. I don’t think it would be a problem because they all work together already.”

Is there any difference with your team this year that makes you believe you can win the championship? “I think the biggest thing that’s different with us is just having a full year under my belt with Dave Rogers (crew chief) and now going into the season with that year’s worth of experience to work with Dave and to try to reach our potential and little bit more this year. Unfortunately we’ve kind of fallen shy of that the past few years. This is the year we’d like to change that around and make it to where we get through the regular season okay and get to the Chase and then once we get into the Chase we stay consistent with what we’re doing. Then if we can make it through without motors blowing up or getting involved in wrecks or something like that where we can have a shot come Homestead.”

Are you carrying any hard feelings toward Kevin Harvick following the Homestead race? “You would like to say that you can wipe the slate clean. When you go from a shot at finishing fourth in points to finishing eighth in points –that’s an awful lot of money and an awful lot of money for the race team to develop and to be able to carry on things a little further. Do I care whether or not I have a grudge against (Kevin) Harvick? No. Do I feel like I need to do something about it? No. If something happens to where it won’t hurt me, woops.”

What is an early memory for you in NASCAR before you became a Sprint Cup driver? “I think the one that pops in my head first is when I was 16 and I was in the Truck Series running one of those races for Roush and all of the sudden NASCAR decided they would make the rule change and you had to be 18. That’s the time when I was like, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to come back. Most of the time you see people that are in NASCAR that they get either kicked out or lose their ride or something like that, there’s really not that many opportunities for them to come back. Me being young and not having the experience or not being smart enough to recognize that you can come back and be just fine. It didn’t sit well with me at first, but it became a lot better and a lot more understanding. I think that’s got to be the most visible one to me. Anything else –it was always a dream anyway. As long as you keep clawing towards a dream then one of these days it becomes a reality.”

What did you do those two years before you came back to NASCAR? “I was 16 in May and I raced in August, September, October and November in the Trucks and I got kicked out in November. Everybody at NASCAR told me I would be fine to race Daytona the following year when I was still 16 so then I turned 17 in May –never got to race any NASCAR stuff. Turned 17 in May, I was running ASA. I ran the full tour of the ASA national tour then when it was still alive. Then in January until my birthday in May when I turned 18 I ran ARCA stuff of that year. I won Daytona, but I ran Pocono and Nashville and Kentucky and a couple of those places with ARCA. Then once I was 18 I ran seven Busch races.”

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing (continued) What do you think of the Budweiser Shootout compared to the Daytona 500? “I think it’s a learning experience. It’s just a race that we need to learn what the tracks going to do, what the racers are going to do, what the cars are going to do, how all this is going to play out with the new asphalt and everything. What people are going to try and see what they can get accomplished for that race. It’s basically going to be the outline when we get to the 150s and then when we get to the 500 it’s just going to be kind of what’s going to happen and what to expect.”

Do you feel more freedom to race in the Budweiser Shootout? “You feel like you can wreck and it won’t hurt you too bad. You have to have some sort of mentality and some sort of respect for the game still in that race and not let it go all out the window. It’s a race where it doesn’t mean everything.”

How was the No. 48 team able to win a fifth championship with their adversity last year? “They did what they had to do. They’re very good at what they do and that’s why they’re the five-time champions. It’s hard for any of us to not deny that they’re the best in the sport. We all might be a little bit jealous of them as well because they just seem to be able to put it together year after year and be able to accomplish the ultimate goal that we all want. They’re good at what they do, they have very good leadership. I think it starts at the top with Mr. H (Rick Hendrick, team owner) and then it goes to Chad (Knaus, crew chief) and what he does and the engineers and those guys. They never let something rattle them. When they’re behind, they work on it and figure out what the thing is that is the problem or maybe they’re just that good to where they monkey with all the rest of us for a little while and they come back and show us what’s up.” What did you think when you heard about the dynamometer problem at Joe Gibbs Racing? “I heard about it and thought, ‘Oh man, I hope that wasn’t my Daytona 500 motor.’ Apparently all is fine. Unfortunately some of those things happen where you’ll see an engine blow up in a race car. Instead of in a race car, it blew up in a room and a confined area. It was a bit of a mess and made a big boom, but all was fine, nobody got hurt and everything was good.”

Should people pick you to win the championship this year? “I don’t see why we don’t have the resources or the opportunity or the experience to win the deal. I don’t know. Like I said, maybe if everybody just picks the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) then somebody out there has to be a jinx and then it kind of sets him back. It will be good for somebody else to try to win one.”

Why don’t you have a Sprint Cup championship? “Because the potential isn’t reached. There’s a potential you have to reach and there’s a potential to every race, every week, every pit stop, every lap and somewhere within there, not everybody reaches their full potential all the time. Whoever’s potential is obviously reached the most, which the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) has reached the last couple years, they’ve been the ones that have been able to do it.”

What makes you want to race in all three series during the season? “For me its experience on the race track. You’re able to go out there and you’re able to spend the time on that Goodyear tire for that particular race track for that particular week whether it’s a day race, a night race. You get all that experience in — that’s what I like to do. I learn so many things during the race that I can correlate to my Nationwide car or my Cup car. I like to be able to give that information to Dave (Rogers, crew chief). Other things too is when I’m working with Eric Philips (18 Truck crew chief) and with Jason Ratcliff (18 Nationwide crew chief), they have way different mindsets and thoughts and processes of how to make a vehicle go better and faster that Dave Rogers might not have. I can take all that information that I learned all the way back and forth across all three and try to increase the level of competition in all of those. My encyclopedia fills up quick.”

CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing What did you think of the new surface at Daytona when you tested? “It’s nice and they did a really good job resurfacing the track. It’s really smooth. There were a lot of big swells and big bumps in it that they took out. Those are completely gone. There’s some choppy bumps, but its way smoother. It’s easy, wide open and it’s going to be real tight, close racing. More like Talladega. It’s going to be fun and it’s going to be exciting for the fans. At the same time, it’s going to be easier to get caught up in something that’s not your doing so you have to be real careful and keep your eyes open.”

CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing (continued) What are your expectations being with Germain Racing this year? “I’m excited about it. I haven’t had a real good opportunity to talk to a lot of the guys, everybody has been on their own separate ways over the offseason, but I’m sure as we get clicking along here I will see them a lot more. As far as everybody that works at the shop — the Germain brothers, everybody — they are great guys. I really enjoy working with them. Obviously we’re all working hard to get the full season of sponsorship in, which has been the only thing holding us back. We’ve got really good cars, a good team, a good pit crew — (Robert) Bootie Barker (crew chief) does a great job and Mike Hillman Sr. (general manager) has been putting a good program together. Fortunately, the Germain’s are pretty committed to making it work. We had some fun at the end of last year and looking forward to seeing what it brings us this year.”

How does it feel to know you are with one team this season versus the adversity of last year? “Last year was so patchy. It was a good year for me though, really. In a way that obviously, I wanted to be racing and I didn’t want to be a part of that whole scene just trying to figure out what was going on. It was helpful for me to see the other side of the coin a little bit and understand and really appreciate the opportunity that I have now with Germain. I’ve always had a motivation to do well just because I’ve always loved to do well, but I think there’s an added motivation there just seeing how close it could be if things do go the way they should. It makes you want to work that much harder to make sure that you can persevere and make things happen. All the guys are in the same mindset as I am. They are all people, all guys that have proven themselves, but never on a consistent basis. We all have something to prove right now and it’s a good position to be in.”

What was it like when Brian Vickers asked you to fill in for him last year? “What a mix of emotions that deal was with Brian (Vickers) being such a good friend. First concerns are his health and how he’s going to cope with things, is he coming back? All that kind of stuff. That all quickly rushed through because it was like, ‘Here’s what’s going on with me. Do you think you can get in my car?’ Now here I am with no ride and getting an opportunity and at the same time feeling horrible for what he’s having to go through. He’s done a good job handling everything. I think he was smart in kind of just getting away last year. It’s very, very hard to see something that you love so much — for him to be at the track all the time I think it would have been very difficult to watch everybody do the job that he wants to do. I think it was good for him to get away, relax, get better, heal up and ready to go for this year.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Are you looking forward to getting back on the race track at Daytona? “I am. It’s always exciting to come down here for the 500. This is our biggest race of the year. Coming off the offseason we all get kind of stir crazy and miss racing, so it’s always good to get back to the track, and to start off the year with the biggest race of the year is always really cool. I feel good about this year. I’ve got a lot of confidence going into this season. More so than I’ve had in the past few I would say. We really ended the season strong last year with our team. Found some things that worked for us and I think we’re really going to be able to surprise some people this year.”

Did you wish you could’ve kept the season going at the end of last year? “When Homestead was over, I wished we could’ve just lined them up and started again. The flat tire there was devastating after leading all of those laps and running the way we did. I felt like we had the car to beat. That was kind of the way that our whole second half of the year had gone. It was if we run really well we finish poorly and if we’d run mid-pack nothing bad would happen. We just couldn’t overcome the crappy finishes and the crappy luck, and it was frustrating. I felt really good at the end of the season about how our team was working — the chemistry and communication was very, very good. It was the best I had been a part of. That gave me a lot of confidence at the end of the season and going into the offseason, that we can come out of the box and put our NAPA Camry upfront each and every week at all of the different tracks that we go to.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing (continued) What do you think will make a difference for your team this year? “I think the biggest thing to be honest is the changes that we made at the end of last year. We understand what we did. We didn’t just change things in the offseason and we’re optimistic about them. We have proof that they worked. I felt very comfortable. I had a lot of confidence in my team and the way we were doing things in the last few races, and it showed on the track with our speed. This offseason we didn’t change the team around, we didn’t change that. We were working on our cars, trying to get our engines better, we’re trying to make sure we’re better prepared so when the season starts we can come out swinging and get rid of some of the part failures that we had last year. For us, the confidence of being fast and the confidence that we can be competitive is already there. Those questions have been answered. I guess what I’m saying is there’s a lot less questions than a normal offseason would be for me. A lot less changes, we’ve got a solid group behind me, our foundation is there and I have a lot of confidence in what we were doing when the season was over. I feel like working on those things throughout the winter to make them even better yet is going to be very good for me and for our team.”

How do you overcome the questions and disappointments you’ve had in your career? “I’m a fighter, and obviously the last few years haven’t gone the way I wanted them to go, but I continue to come out every day and give everything I have to the sport and to my team and to the cars I’m driving and put it all on the race track. I feel like I’m a better driver than the stats show. I feel like I should’ve won a lot more races than I have obviously. It just seems like I’ve always been followed around the past few years by this black cloud of bad luck and every time I have a shot to win I get a flat tire, something falls off my car, everybody else can make it on gas and I can’t. It’s always something. The biggest thing is I always fight. I always come to the track every weekend with a new attitude, I leave last week behind and I give my team all that I can give them and I think that’s one of the things that makes me a good driver.”

What do you think of the new track surface at Daytona? “It’s very different than what we’re used to at Daytona. I’ve never raced on Daytona when it wasn’t slick and bumpy as hell and you had to handle good. Now, it’s Talladega, but narrower. It’s wide open all day. Where can you fit your car because you’re not going to lift, nobody has to lift. It’s not about handling, it’s all about raw speed, how much horsepower do you have, is your car better than everybody else’s, does it suck up better, can you actually use it and go faster than everybody else? It’s a big advantage to have a fast car when you don’t have to handle. The past few years I haven’t had really fast cars down here, but I’ve handled them well especially last year. Our car wasn’t very fast. We were actually off quite a bit all weekend until we started racing and next thing you know we were leading the Daytona 500. Heck, we were leading not the last green-white-checkered but the one before that. We were there and we had a shot to win it, and it’s totally different now. The same things apply — you have to be around at the end, you have to take care of your car all day — it’s 500 miles. If you’re around at the end, you will have a shot at winning this race because you never know how it’s going to end up. There’s so much that can happen in two or three laps at a plate track like this when everybody can run like that. You’ve just got to be around at the end.”

MICHAEL WALTRIP, No. 15 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing

What has it been like this month with the release of your book? “The book is cool. It’s really been fun to see how it’s been received, mainly because when we started writing it, I explained to Ellis (Henican), the guy that wrote it with me, that I didn’t care at that point if anyone bought it or not. Mainly my goal was if I handed it to my mom or my sister — and they read the whole thing — they’d say, ‘That’s like talking to Mike. That’s a conversation I could have with him.’ We worked really hard, probably for four months to write it. When I was done and it turned out like that, I said, ‘I hope somebody buys this thing.’ It was so much work. You know what’s interesting, I’ve never been an overly confident person — I always sort of struggle in that area. The thing that I liked most about the book was that I was confident in whoever bought it would like it. I didn’t worry what people would think or people would think it was my voice or people wouldn’t think it was worth their money that they spent for it. Maybe as much as I’ve ever been about anything in my life, I was confident about the story that it has. I wanted the motivation and inspiration and laughter and sadness, and there was enough content there to be worthy of a book.”

MICHAEL WALTRIP, No. 15 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing (continued) What have you learned from putting your story on paper? “First, I’ve never claimed to be very bright. Fortunately for me, about a year ago I realized that when I came here this year there was going to be a lot of questions about that day. I needed to figure out how to answer those questions. To be quite honest, any answers I’d given up until I wrote this book were on the surface — nothing that I would let get into my heart or where I was that day. Writing the book really enabled me to cry and talk and try to piece it all together. The cool thing about me personally is that I’m a Christian, so I believe everything happens for a reason. If I didn’t, I think I’d be pretty mad about that day. Human beings aren’t designed to go through that range of emotions that I was faced with. I like to think of the positives of that day and that was the last thing Dale (Earnhardt) saw on this earth was me and Dale Jr. (Earnhardt) driving off to win the Daytona 500. As a car owner now, I have a couple cars and if my cars were driving off to win the Daytona 500, that’d be one of the coolest feelings ever. I know that’s where he was in the last seconds. Another thing that I’m eternally grateful for — and I didn’t really understand this until last spring when I plugged in the DVD that my sister had made of the race that day. It was pulled out of her DVD player and she inscribed on it all the words that she chose to express her joy from what had happened before she knew ultimately what had happened to Dale. I saw that DVD a bunch of times over the last 10 years and I just couldn’t put it in. So, for the first time ever, I put it in and started watching it. I think the thing I’m most grateful for is when I came around for my cool down lap, I don’t understand, there’s no reason I wouldn’t have stopped and got Dale. His approval of what I did was what I wanted more than the trophy or money