NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS MEDIA DAY
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 16, 2012
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway and discussed last year’s performance, social media, the history of Martinsville Speedway, Kevin Harvick and other topics. Full transcript:
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY IS CELEBRATING its 60TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR, TALK ABOUT YOUR APPRECIATION FOR THE TRACK?
“The history there is really cool, you go back and you trace the history and you think about it being a dirt track, how it started. Clay Earls being there, for me it is a lot of history. I grew up watching the double header, was the late model sportsman and modified race. When I go there, that is what is on my mind. I remember like it was yesterday when they announced they were going to run a late model stock car race at Martinsville. I was working on my late model stock car, had the radio on listening to a Cup race and Clay Earls was interviewed during the race and he was talking about it. I can remember thinking; Damn, I’m going to get to run at Martinsville, it was really cool. Every time I go there, I think about that. From a Virginia guy, a lot of people don’t like the track because it is really hard, it is really small, but for me the fact that it is really hard and small, that makes it special. Then growing up in that area and understanding the history of it a little better than most people I think makes it a little more special for me.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES IN THAT LATE MODEL RACE AND HOW IT TURNED OUT?
“One of the first things I remember is going there and we got there to test and those geese were all in the infield. Clay Earls walked in there, actually he drove in there in his car, unrolled his window and yelled to the geese and they all lined up and walked out. I was like that man is in control, even the geese know who the boss is, and I will never forget that. How did they know to do that? Just stuff like that, and going there to run that Late Model race, the first year I went I was able to make the race. My dad told me, if we made the race, he would buy a new car, and the car we were running was less than a new car. We made the race, and it was like wow, now we are going to get a real car and that is my fondest memory of that race. I ran second there once to some guy named Mark Martin.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE SOCIAL NETWORKING STUFF, THE FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND ALL THAT?
“Well, I didn’t really understand it at first. A year ago this time I thought it was ridiculous; I was not a fan of it. Then thought it was a way for people to talk to each other about when they went to the bathroom, and what they had for breakfast, and I was like what the Hell why do we have to do this? But, everywhere I went fans kept asking me when are you going to get involved, and so I started looking into it and gained a little better appreciation but not really, I was hesitant to mess with it. I kinda got pushed into it a little bit, you need to get involved, and the fans want you to do it. I did, and once I got involved, it was like ok now I get it. I don’t talk to my buddies about what we did for breakfast, I do talk to my fans about what is going on with the racing, what is going on with a particular race, or what happened in qualifying or what happened in the race, what we are doing to prepare, stuff like that. It gives the fans an opportunity to do a lot of question and answers, on race weekends we do a you stream cast, it has been fun. You have to have thick skin, there are some things that are written on there that you have to be willing to over look, as I am sure all of you all know. That is part of it, when you open up a forum; you have to understand it is coming back to you. That is what makes it work fans can respond to you, they can give you their opinion as raw as it is, as uncut as it is, they can give you their opinion. Sometimes that makes you a little upset but really if you sit back and think about it, it is ok, and sometimes I have gotten into an argument with people on it and most of those people have then turned into my fans which is pretty interesting, but I think it is a real positive thing. It is easy to do, you can take fifteen or twenty minutes every three or four nights and spend some time and it goes a long way. It gives the fans a chance to be involved. That is what separates our sport. That is the one thing that our sport has always lead in. To me social media has made it easier for other sports to open that up. Football players, Basketball players, Baseball players, they don’t do stuff before the game. That is their special little time, we are used to it. We do a lot more appearances, we do a lot more than they do, but social media is easy to do and you can do it in your own home. You can do it while you are traveling and I think that they are taking big advantage of that because now the fans are like, wow we can talk to a big star in another sport. Whereas they have always been able to talk to our big stars. In some ways it has hurt our sport a little bit because we were already open, and now it has lead some other sports to open up.”
THOUGHTS ON FUEL INJECTION COMING INTO NASCAR?
“Well, I think it is the right thing to do. I think our cars need to be relevant as it relates to cars on the highway. From a performance standpoint I am not sure there is going to be a major difference. I think fuel mileage should increase a little bit; performance should increase a little bit, probably not enough for the fans to really be able to tell. Us running fuel injection is a great thing for a lot of reasons, the manufacturers do use this as a test bed. We will now be able to bring some information to the street that will ultimately will benefit the street cars and it is an expensive endeavor, but I think long term it is a necessary thing to do.”
WAS IT TOUGH FOR THE TEAMS TO CONVERT?
“Yea, it was really tough for the teams. Teams have had to spend a lot of money, put a lot of resources to it, not just in money, so yes it is tough. It also comes at a time where the economy is down, so it is not at the best time. None the less it is something that had to happen. The same way with the car, the car next year I think will have a bigger impact than the fuel injection, but it is time to do it.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WARD (BURTON) GETTING INTO THE TRUCK SERIES?
“I think that is a huge plus for the truck series. I think the truck series having someone like Ward that everyone recognizes, been gone for a long time, Ward had a lot of fans, people like that Ward speaks his mind and says what he thinks and says it in a way no one else could. People like that. I think that is a huge plus for the truck series, it is going to be fun to watch him run. He is an extremely competitive person, he has been gone from the sport for a long time but I know he did not leave the sport the way he wanted to, and I am sure he feels that he has something to prove, knowing Ward, he won’t be here to just ride around. He is here for one reason and that is to win the race and I am sure you will see him put a big effort toward it.”
JEFF, YOU SAID LAST MONTH THAT YOU WERE P.O.’ED ARE YOU STILL P.O.’ED?
“I am getting happier, as the year has gotten here, as we have been able to test, as we have been able to spend more time focusing on the future rather than worrying about the past I have started to get into the mindset of the year. That has been good for me because last year was frustrating and I was mad about it and that did not always work out for me. Being able to go do the tire test, being able to come down here and test, being able to focus on what we need to do to win Phoenix, what do we need to do to win the 500, what do we need to do to win Vegas. Those things have allowed me to see that there is a future and confirm my suspicions that we were moving in the right direction. Now it is more about moving forward, but you never forget. For me, I never forget the bad days. I tend to forget the good ones, the bad ones seem to stick with me for a while and that certainly goes for years as well. To be honest, I was mad from 2010. I don’t think there has ever been a year, and I have had years were I have won a lot of races; there has never been a year than I was in more positions to win races than 2010 and we didn’t win any of them. That was extremely frustrating, and that carried over into our poor performance last year. I had two years where I thought we had great opportunities to win races and do great things and didn’t do them and then rolled into the next year and preformed horribly. To me those two years ran together. “
YOU DO NOT SHOW YOUR FRUSTRATION UNLESS YOU DO IT AT HOME AND KICK THE CAT OR SOMETHING, HAVE YOU GOTTEN THAT ACROSS TO PEOPLE THAT I DON’T LIKE THIS, LET’S SO SOMETHING?
“Well, the people on my team understand. I make it clear to everybody that I need to make it clear to, how I feel. It is part of my role to be part of the performance too, it is not like I get to walk into work on Monday and say well all you people are just stupid, and if ya’ll would just give me a fast race car I could show you that I could do it. It doesn’t work like that at all, if I am part of the problem, I have to be a part of the solution. I want to be part of the problem if that makes any sense. I know people laugh when I say that, but the reality of it is, you don’t do everything right. There are a lot of things that you do wrong. If you did everything right, you would win all the races and of course nobody does. When we make decisions that are wrong I want to be a part of those decisions, when we make them right, I want to be part of those too. Through that there is ownership. I am excited about that. Drew ( Blickensderfer, crew chief) is very open to that. I am excited in being involved in the decisions that ultimately may not be right, but now I am not a victim, now I am able to say we made this together, here is why we made them, versus saying well, those people made the decision and I don’t know why they made them. That is a bad place to be.”
YOU OBVIOUSLY IN YOUR CAREER HAVE SOME DEALING WITH THE FRANCE FAMILY. THE PETTY/PEARSON GENERATION, THE CALE YARBOROUGH GENERATION WOULD REFER TO BIG BILL AND BILL JR., LIKE THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT THE ZAHR; THEY WOULD USE ONE WORD FRANCE. IT DID NOT ALWAYS HAVE A WARM AND FUZZY TONE TO IT; IT WAS LIKE THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT THE DICTATORSHIP. FOR YOUR GENERATION OF DRIVERS, IS IT JUST NOT LIKE THAT, THAT YOU CONSIDER THE FRANCE FAMILY AS THE CZAR?
“I think Bill started toward the end of Bill’s reign at the top, he started to become more open to conversation. Although you always knew who was in control. He was very clear this is how it is going to be, but I think that anytime someone is in control and has ultimate power people tend to be nervous about that. I guess is the best way to say it. You talk to a lot of the guys in older generation, there is almost like resentment that NASCAR is so successful. I don’t really hear that with the newer generation. I think that certainly people disagree with NASCAR because they ultimately have to make the decision which means you are going to disagree with them, the same way you do with anyone that is in power. NASCAR today, although they make the final decision it is more open. You can have more conversation. Even though we talk about the fines you can get if you say the wrong thing, as compared to the way it used to be, I think that is ok. People are able to say things and have conversations that I am not so sure you could have before. I think Brian, has done a good job with that. I have not agreed with everything that Brian has done, but I do believe that Brian believes that he needs to talk to the competitors; he needs to understand the opinion. Mike (Helton) has been phenomenal about that. From day one I think Mike was very open to having conversation. It is just a different way of ruling today than it was in the past.”
SO YA’LL DON’T SEE AN IRON HANDED DICTATOR SITTING THERE?
“I think we see a very firm, but I would not say iron handed. It is different. I would say, they are going to make the final decision, and they should, but you can have a conversation easier today than you could in the past. I think that is good. I think being able to talk about it take a little bit of that feels, well they are going to do whatever the hell they want anyway. Being able to have that conversation takes a little pressure off of that.”
DO YOU HAVE A 1 IN 43 SHOT TO WIN THIS RACE OR ARE YOUR ODDS BETTER?
“I don’t know I am not a statistician. Our plate program last year, itself, we were fast in every race. We had a chance to win every plate race we were in. Obviously we did not win any of them, but we had chances. I am confident that we can come here and compete at a high level. It is a long race and I will be honest, I don’t even know what the rules are going to be right now. I don’t know how the tandem versus big packs, I don’t know how all of that is going to work out. It is a little hard to say exactly where we are going to be but I do believe that our speed will be good. With good speed, you can control the tempo. When you do not have good speed, you are waiting for something to happen and then you respond to that. With good speed, you make it happen. There is a major difference in that. Based on our past experience over the recent past, I believe we will have the speed in order to force tempo.”
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WITH THE WAY THE RULES ARE, IT IS DISCOURAGING TANDEM DRAFTING OR DOING IT LESS, THAT WE COULD SEE A LONG SINGLE FILE LINE OF CARS, BECAUSE MAYBE PEOPLE WILL NOT WANT TO GET IN PACKS THEY WILL WANT TO BE SOMEWHERE SAFE?
“Anything is possible. You know the year we went to Talladega, which by the way was not the only year that this happened. The year NASCAR made the rule that said you can’t bump draft in the corners and everyone got single file, before that race started, I didn’t know that was going to happen. We had other races at Talladega where the lead pack went and ran the outside and we ran single file for lap after lap after lap, I didn’t know that was going to happen then either. I don’t know. I think that if the cars are on the verge of overheating when you are in a big pack then you are not going to be in a big pack. That is why this is so difficult. NASCAR can make our cars overheat but the ultimate goal is to have a really, really good race. If our cars overheat so easy, well then you can’t have a really good race. They have a very difficult job in making this happen to limit our pushing but also put us in a position where we can be in a big pack. I don’t know how it is going to work. I know they are doing everything in their power to make it work. However it is a difficult challenge.”
COMPARED TO ANYTHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD WINNING THE DAYTONA 500 MEAN TO YOU COMPARED TO OTHER VICTORIES?
“Well I would not trade a single win I have had for a Daytona 500. However, if you got to pick, I would pick a Daytona 500. If that makes any sense, I wouldn’t, if you said to me today, after I had already won a race somewhere that you could trade them, I wouldn’t do it. Every win is special in its own reason. Winning in the Daytona 500 puts you in a category, when you are introduced later in life, you are a Daytona 500 champion. They do not introduce you as, a something 300 champion; they introduce you as a Daytona 500 champion. They introduce you as a Southern 500 champion; they introduce you as a Sprint Cup champion, so you want to win those marquee races.”
IS THAT A VOID; IS THAT SOMETHING YOU STILL DREAM ABOUT EVEN AT THIS STAGE?
“Listen, I have several things on my list that I want to make sure I get done and one of them is the Daytona 500.”
HOW MUCH OF WINNING THE DAYTONA 500 IS LUCK VS. SKILL?
“Well, we could debate that all day. There is an element of luck involved; there is no question about it. Ultimately skill wins out.”
JEFF, GREG BIFFLE TOLD ME THAT HE WOULD RATHER MAKE THE CHASE THAN HAVE THE YEAR JAMIE MCMURRAY HAD A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN HE WON THE 500, THE BRICKYARD AND WON AT CHARLOTTE, I THINK FANS WOULD FIND THAT ODD. HOWEVER HE SAID HE WOULD RATHER MAKE THE CHASE THAN WIN THOSE THREE RACES, HOW DO YOU FEEL?
“I want to do both.”
SOME LIFE CHANGES AHEAD FOR YOUR TEAMMATE KEVIN HARVICK…”Yea, now that he is having a kid he can’t run fast anymore right? HAVE YOU SEEN, OBVIOUSLY PART OF THE REASON HE SHUT THE TEAM DOWN IS HE WANTED TO FOCUS MORE ON THE CUP SIDE, NOT JUST ON THE FAMILY SIDE, WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN, HAVE YOU SEEN OUTWARD CHANGES?
“In the off season, we don’t do a whole lot together. There was a lot of stuff going on, but a lot of stuff was planned and we did not see a whole lot of each other. I think having a lot of that stuff off his shoulders is going to be a good thing. I thought he handled it well with having the truck teams and nationwide teams, I thought he handled that exceptionally well. At the end of the day, there is no way you are not thinking about it. No way are you not concerned about, how and I going to be paying my employees, where is the sponsorship coming from. I think being able to focus on what he is just driving and that team, I think that will be easier for him. Make his life easier, a little more normal. When you have children, when you don’t have children, the whole world is about what is going on around you. It is natural, when you have children; there is no way to realize there is so much more. I think that some people lay down a little bit with that because the softer side of them comes out. They are only worried about the karma, other people it makes them more intense because now they have a responsibility that they didn’t have before that is greater than them. That responsibility in having that something that is greater than you makes some people step it up. Kevin (Harvick) is one of those people that I think will step it up, will find a way to be better for it. No matter what you think of yourself, once you have children that is bigger than you and now you are racing for them, you race for them longer than you race for yourself.”
DOES KEVIN (HARVICK) ALWAYS SEEK MOTIVATORS, IT SEEMS LIKE HE IS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR CHALLENGES?
“Kevin (Harvick), his nature is that when things are hard, he doesn’t mind things being hard. He doesn’t mind conflict, he doesn’t mind creating an issue that is uncomfortable, those things just don’t bother him. He actually uses those things and he is willing to put it out there and say we are going to do this, everybody around him saying what in the hell are you talking about, but he has a plan and he knows what he wants to do and he has a reason for wanting to do it, then he says I will show you. He is a very self motivated person, doesn’t mind making hard decisions, doesn’t mind conflict, I think sometimes those things make him better.”
AS FAR AS KIDS GO, WHAT IS YOUR BEST ADVICE TO A YOUNG GUY WANTING TO RACE?
“Well, quit worrying about whether you can do it for a living or not and go have fun. I see a lot of kids around the country that parents are pushing them really hard because they think they can be the next Jimmie Johnson. I think that, that is a mistake. I think that, you should push your children to do well in whatever endeavors they have, I don’t care what it is, playing the violin or playing basketball, whatever, but kids need to have perspective in that, it is part of their life, it is not their life. Have fun, work hard, have fun, try to be the best you can be but make sure you are having fun.”
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