NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GOOD SAM ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
OCTOBER 7, 2012
JEFF GORDON LEADS TEAM CHEVY WITH SECOND-PLACE FINISH AT TALLADEGA
Chevrolet Claims Six of Top-12 Finishing Positions Following Last Lap Melee
TALLADEGA, AL. – OCTOBER 7, 2012 – Jeff Gordon skillfully maneuvered his No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet through last lap carnage to emerge from the smoke in the runner-up position of the Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. As the field came to a green-white-checkered finish, defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart made a charge for the victory in his No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet by blocking his position; but was turned into the air sideways coming off Turn 4. The majority of the original 43-car field was collected in the last lap on-track incident. Matt Kenseth (Ford) was able to miss the wreck and win his second restrictor-plate race of 2012. Gordon’s solid finish moved him up four positions in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings to sixth. He remains 42 markers behind current leader Brad Keselowski (Dodge).
Regan Smith drove the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing/Farm American Chevrolet across the start/finish line in the fifth position despite damage sustained in the wreck. Ryan Newman, No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet finished ninth while Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar/DriveCat.com Chevrolet limped home in the 10th position.
Chase contenders Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet and Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet finished the race 11th and 12th respectively, despite suffering damage in the final lap accident.
Other Team Chevy drivers that were involved in the final lap accident were: Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet finished 17th; Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew/National Guard Chevrolet finished 20th; Tony Stewart, No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet finished 22nd; Paul Menard, No. 27 Certain Teed Insulation/Menards Chevrolet finished 28th; Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Allstate Chevrolet finished 34th and Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target/Gillette Chevrolet finished 38th.
Kyle Busch (Toyota) finished third, David Ragan (Ford) finished fourth to round out the top five.
Next stop on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tour is Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, October 13, 2012.
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2ND
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
THE MODERATOR: Let’s roll into our post-race for today’s 44th Annual Good Sam Road Side Assistance 500 here at Talladega Superspeedway. Our race runner-up was Jeff Gordon. He drove the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff, heard you out on pit road talking about the action there in the last couple of laps. You came out on the good end of it, and certainly kept your championship hopes alive. Maybe just talk us through those last laps or so here at Talladega.
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, wasn’t looking really good there when we took the white flag, I’ll be honest. I found the restart we had — we had to come in and take fuel which was unfortunate. We had worked really hard to get ourselves up there, and you’ve got to believe there’s going to be more than one green/white checkered, typically so. We had to come and do that.
So we were in a decent position, still up there about 10th or 9th or something. I had the 5 in front of me, and the 18 behind me. It was like, man, we’re looking good. We’ve just got to get an opening, and this group is going to run.
But we took off, and I was pushing from the start/finish line and never stopped pushing them. We weren’t going anywhere. I have no idea. I have to go back and watch the video because I just don’t understand what was stalling our line, but it just was not going anywhere. Then the middle lane, the outside lane, they were just trucking by us.
We started to make a little bit of ground down the back straightaway. We were like four-wide, went into three, and I saw smoke. When I saw smoke, everybody checked up in a hurry, and I hit the 5 and the 18 hit me, and it just turned me right down to the apron and I drove by pretty much everybody but the 17. So we got really lucky there. Like you said, it keeps the championship hopes alive.
Q. What is your reaction running out there at 190 miles an hour and seeing all of that?
JEFF GORDON: I mean, do we have a choice? I guess we do, but I don’t feel like I really do. It’s just part of racing here at Talladega. You have to accept it. You have to know that you’re going to be going through that at certain times during the race, but at the end, for sure, especially with a green/white checkered. You put a lot of faith in your safety equipment and you kind of white-knuckle, hold on tight.
I can’t even describe to you. Kyle was describing it, I was describing it, but it still just doesn’t put into words what that is like. I don’t know how we made it to the white flag. Coming through that tri-oval, being hit from behind, hitting the guy in front of me, you’re sandwiched in between basically cars. There are cars doing the same thing on that side of you, cars on that side of them doing the same thing.
I really don’t know how we made it to the white flag. It was just insane. But you’re doing all you can to try to move your lane and hope that you make it back around. In today’s case, we did.
Q. You knew it was coming, didn’t you?
JEFF GORDON: You’ve got to believe that it’s coming. It always seems — yeah, pretty much. Because what you know is inside the car certainly, but you might see it a little bit as well. You start seeing more cars getting out of control and losing some positions because the aggressiveness just goes up.
We understand we’ve got to make it to the end of the race. There are certain times in the race where you feel I’m going to be a little more aggressive here to try to get to the front. So you’ll see a little bit of that. But at the end everybody’s got that philosophy from the front all the way to the back.
I almost lost it on the front straightaway trying to get to the lead. I saw the 16 got sideways. The 51 was being pushed by the 1, he got sideways as I was outside of him. That was earlier.
But at the end you know it’s going to get aggressive. It started to ramp up, so you’re pretty sure there’s going to be a caution, and then with the green/White checker, you know you’re not making it back to the checkered. You wonder if you’ll make it to the white. You know you’re not going to make it back to the checkered without there being a wreck.
Q. You touched a little upon this, Jeff, but Junior was saying he just does not like this style of racing. Too many people are bunched up. You know the inevitable is going to happen. Is there anything that can change the dynamics of this? I know we’ve gone back and forth with the restrictor plates. Do you guys enjoy this kind of race?
JEFF GORDON: I remember when come Talladega was fun. I really do, and I haven’t experienced that in a long, long time. I don’t like coming here. I don’t like the type of racing that I have to do.
But if I’m a fan, I would love that. I think it is incredibly intense. It’s wild. It’s crazy. You’re going to see it. Sometimes that balance that NASCAR has to deal with doesn’t mean — I mean, I don’t have to be happy and be all excited about coming to Talladega. I don’t expect that.
But I do remember times when the draft and the thought that you had to put into it, the strategy working the draft and the cars in the lines was fun. You had some room in between the cars, and you had to use the air instead of the bumper. To me you could still come from the middle of the pack to first on the closing laps, but just how you did it was different, and it certainly wasn’t what —
I mean, that literally is bumper cars at almost 200 miles per hour, and I don’t know anybody that likes that. Maybe Kyle does. I don’t know. He might want to talk about it. I think he really likes this kind of racing. This is for the young guys, not for the old guys like me.
Q. Did you see on the white flag lap Matt going from the middle lane all the way across, running into the 15 and then coming back across? Did you see that? Were you surprised by that?
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, I saw Hendrickcars.com. You can’t see anything but the bumper in front of you. And you don’t have a move. It’s not like you can sit there and say, oh, okay, I’m going to switch, go to the outside. You’ve got no moves, man. You’re just sitting there pushing that car in front of you as hard as you can. I couldn’t tell you what was happening right in front of us. I certainly couldn’t have told you that that was happening. But that explains maybe why our lane wasn’t moving.
Q. I guess first part of my question is kind of lost, but as far as what you guys can see. I don’t know if you know, but Tony (Stewart) took a hundred percent blame. He said he cut down across Michael (Waltrip) trying to protect position and all. So if either of you guys saw any of that, I’d be interested. But when you’ve got a guy as skillful as Tony Stewart on places like that and he, leading the race, acknowledges causing this massive pileup. Is that even more of an indictment of the way the racing is going here like y’all were talking about? Does that just add to your stating the case for the craziness of it?
JEFF GORDON: Kyle doesn’t seem to want to take any of these questions. First of all, yeah, if you just isolate it to the move, I did see it. If you just isolate it to that, I mean, somehow he got the lead, but then he had nobody. Somehow they went to the outside of him, and they were coming. There is no doubt. The 55 was coming hard, and the 13 I believe was pushing him. They were going to go right by him, and he just made a late move, and, you know, unfortunately, he turned himself and caused a big wreck.
But when you look at the bigger picture is that really what caused it? Because this type of racing and the way the aerodynamics are and the power on these cars, that’s what happens. When you lose that momentum, you lose a ton. You’re going backwards in such a hurry and the other guys are coming forward with so much momentum, it’s inevitable that those types of things are going to happen.
You’re trying to judge making that move, but it’s almost impossible to judge it because they’re coming so fast. That’s aerodynamics, that’s power, and that’s just the nature of the type of racing that we have right now at Talladega.
Tony is a guy that takes blame for things and you’ve got to respect him for that, but I think there is a little more to it.
Q. I know it’s a risky assumption to assume that both of you men will make the Chase next year. But this race next year is two weeks later, leaving you far fewer chances to make up in the Chase for something like what happened today. Does the fact that this is a later race next year concern either one of you?
JEFF GORDON: Does it really matter when this race is?
Q. You said it’s been a while since you’ve had fun at Talladega. Also it’s been a while since Talladega has been full. There were some sizeable gaps out there. Is there any correlation to — I know the economy gets a lot of the blame for attendance and things like that, but do you think the attendance is being hurt by this style of racing?
JEFF GORDON: From an entertainment standpoint, they should be lined up out to the highway out there. That I don’t get at all. That makes no sense to me. So there’s got to be something more to it. If I’m a race fan, I want to see two and three-wide racing all day long, passing back and forth. I want to see guys shoving one another. I want to see the big one at the end of the race because guys are being so aggressive, and knowing that is not something that as a fan you could ever imagine putting yourself into and sort of defying danger.
Why they’re not lined up out to the highway is beyond me because I think they should be.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
JEFF GORDON: The gaps in? I didn’t see many today. I’ll be honest. Not from where I was sitting, because I raced all day long. Even though I fell back, I never said okay — I did save fuel for about eight to ten laps because the team asked me to. But other than that I pushed every single lap, and I saw everybody else trying to do that too.
Now guys have learned, all right, if you can just push for maybe a lap and a half or two, even though you blow some steam off, you can get up there and get to the front. I remember early on I did that with Kasey. I think I did it with Kasey Kahne and Casey Mears, and then all of a sudden here they come doing the same thing to us. So I moved up to the inside lane, and next thing I know we’re running tenth again.
I saw great racing throughout the day. I didn’t really see that. But I have no idea. I’m only paying attention to what’s going on within my own race and around me. I thought it was pretty exciting all day. If it is, then they just shorten the race because all it really is a 20-lap shootout anyway. They could shorten the race and there won’t be as many lulls.
Q. Now that we’ve thoroughly discussed the type of racing we do here. Can you take a minute to talk about the performance of your team today?
JEFF GORDON: Our team did awesome. We had a fast race car. Awesome race team, great pit stops, great calls from a team standpoint. It was a great day.
Q. You finished third and second the last three weeks. But I think you’ve only gained five points on the leader. Is that frustrating to you?
JEFF GORDON: After today, it’s a little frustrating. Our team is doing a great job. We’ve been performing really, really well. We can sit there and really get mad about what happened in Chicago, but the reality of it is all we can do is go each and every week and keep trying to put ourselves in position to win and get top 5s. It’s not over yet. It is certainly not over yet. So we’ll see what happens. If we keep doing this, I really think we might have a shot at it.
Q. Do you think with the new car coming, if it will have any effect on the racing or are we just going to be prone to this whenever we come to Talladega and Daytona?
JEFF GORDON: It’s going to be awesome. Start buying your Talladega tickets now. And Daytona 500 tickets.
Q. I’m not sure if you were asked this, Jeff. On these types of tracks when somebody gets a crazy run on you — I think the 88 is who got the run on you today and turned you completely sideways at 200-however many miles an hour. After you save it, what is that moment like when you realize that you’re not going to clear?
JEFF GORDON: Let’s clarify this first. That happened because Jamie McMurray’s car is wide as that racetrack out there. I’ve never seen anybody run so many lanes in my life. He does a great job staying up front. It’s amazing how he stays up front. But I guess it’s because he just moves so wide that you can’t pass him.
So the 88 had a run pushing me. I mean, we were just pushing. He didn’t have a run on me, we were just pushing. And I’m sitting there going, Which way is he going to go? Which way is he going to go? So he started to move left. So I go up to go around him. He decides not to go down. So at that point I’m having to put wheel into it, and all the 88 can see is my rear bumper. Text 50555 (laughing).
So I did go sideways. I mean, he was doing that all day long. I don’t know. It seems to work for him, so I guess he’s going to keep it up. But it about cost us today.
Yeah, it went sideways, and I thought for sure I was around it caught. Thankfully for that shark fin, I think that must have done it and straightened me back out, and Junior got off of me, and we went back racing.
I caught my breath there for a second. Then I was like, okay, let’s go back racing again.
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