NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
GEICO 500
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 29, 2016
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed what it takes to win at Talladega, superspeedway strategy, the lugnut issue, and more. Full Transcript:
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS HEADING INTO SUNDAY’S RACE AT TALLADEGA?
“I’m just ready to start the race and get qualifying done and figure out how the weather is going to be. Practice here is a little bit of fun because you just get out there and see what kind of car you’ve got. But you don’t really know for sure until you get out there with 43 guys. Everything acts a little bit different once everybody is on the race track together. So, the anticipation to get out there in the race is very high. Whereas, at other race tracks during Friday and Saturday, you really are working and grinding through practice and working on a lot of balance issues. We’re not really dealing with any of that stuff here. The real anticipation is ramping up for the race itself and qualifying is what it is. We’ll go out there and see where we end up. I think we’ve got a pretty good car. I don’t really know for sure how good it is. We did have to put a whole new front end on it, so I’m sure it’s different one way or the other. I wouldn’t expect it to be exactly the same. So, hopefully those guys improved it just a little bit more and we’ll have a good race on Sunday.”
YOUR RECORD AT PLATE TRACKS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE. YOU’VE WON 10 PLATE RACES. WHY ARE YOU BETTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE HERE? AND DOES THAT CAUSE YOU MORE PRESSURE AT TALLADEGA OR ARE YOU MORE RELAXED WHEN YOU COME HERE?
“It doesn’t really feel like it’s a lot more pressure. I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is about myself, but I’ve had some really fast cars. If I looked back at all the races that I’ve run here, there are some where the car just didn’t have what I needed. Every driver wants their car to do something different. Or, races where we just didn’t have the combination of car and driver and the races that we won, we certainly did.
“One of the things that helped me a lot was when RCR and DEI and (Andy) Petri formed the RAD racing program that was strictly dedicated to plate racing. And Tony (Eury) Sr. and Tony Jr., just by happenstance, happened to be very smart about what they needed out of their plate cars and how to work in some of the gray areas that a lot of people don’t didn’t know about. Watching my dad, who was one of the best, I learned a tremendous amount because I solely watched him whereas, someone else who grew up around the sport may not have focused as much on one particular driver. All those things maybe helped me develop into maybe a better plate race car driver than the average guy.
“But the cars are everything. If the car can’t complete the passes that my mind mentally wants it to make, then I won’t be as offensive and as confident in making those moves. I’ll make those moves less often and put myself in the least likely position to succeed. If I would go out there and drive the car and it’s just not doing what I think I need it to do, then your confidence goes down and you certainly aren’t the big dog out there and someone else sort of rises to the occasion throughout the day and throughout the event as the dominant car, the dominant driver, the guy with the best stuff; and he’s the one that tends to control the race. So, you’ve got to try to establish yourself as that guy all day long and I’ve had more success doing it that way here lately than I have taking it easy or just taking care of myself ‘til late. When I was driving the Bud car, around 2003, ’04, ’05 when we was winning all those races, I raced as hard in practices as I did in the race. And I think that since, you kind of can set the tone early in the weekend with your competitors that this is who you’re going to be out on the track; plus this is the car you’ve got. And when they start talking about who might be strong in the event before the event is even here, and you’re one of those names on the list, you know they’re thinking that you’re a guy they’re going to be looking for and you’re more likely going to get the drafting help when you need it, and so forth. They’re going to expect you to complete these passes and expect you to know what you’re doing and they tend to work with the guys that do that. I do, when I’m out there. I’m like oh, I think he knows what he’s doing. I think he’s got a good car. I’m going to push him instead of this guy.
“So, that starts at the early part of the weekend. And I think there was a time around 2008 to 2012 where we didn’t race in practice. We’d just come here and make up laps by ourselves. And then we’d go race. It just didn’t feel like you really understood who you were or what your car was capable of doing before you got to the race. So, now we’re drafting a lot more. We’re going to draft some more in this next practice if some guys get out there. So, that certainly helps. You get that confidence in your car in practice, and you get that confidence in yourself and that bleeds over into the Sunday race.”
WILL YOU KNOW BEFORE THE RACE WHETHER YOU’VE GOT THE CAR? OR, DOES IT TAKE SOME PRACTICE TO KNOW?
“Well, like, I said, the car feels way different when you’re out there with just 20 guys versus 43. Nobody has the same speed. Nobody gets the same runs. The same things that develop in the race won’t develop in practice. And it’s hard for me to understand why that is. But in the race, the car just does more and is capable of more and will show you a little bit more than what you can see out there in just a little pack. And not everybody is running as hard. Not everybody is pushing as hard to get to the front. So, those things don’t develop in practice. You get a little idea of what your car can do, but not everything.”
WE’VE HAD 8 RACES SO FAR WITH THE NEW PACKAGE THIS YEAR. ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT HOW MUCH FUN IT’S BEEN TO DRIVE. WHAT’S THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE THAT YOU’VE SEEN AND FELT THIS YEAR BETWEEN LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR?
“A lot less grip. The cars are really harder to drive. To run a good lap at Richmond last week took a ton of discipline and self-discipline; same thing at Texas. It’s particularly at track where we have a lot of falloff and the tires get wore out and get slow. There is so much more going on inside the car as far as what the driver is facing and what he’s dealing with and how he’s struggling with the car. There’s so much more of that than we’ve had in the past. With the spoiler on the back, they didn’t handle bad, they always drove pretty good, be in the throttle all the time. If you’re in the throttle all the, you’re obviously pretty comfortable. But man, they were way harder to drive. This seems weird to me but it’s what you want. I don’t know if that makes sense to someone who’s not a race car driver, but you want it to be hard because all the guys in the garage think they’re the best driver in the garage. And the harder we can make it, the better shot each one of them think they’ve got at winning, right? So, all of us are like, make it harder; make it harder, because that helps me. That’s pretty much the mentality in there. And so, I think you see in my conversations with the fans a little bit, they’re seeing the cars move around. That’s something they hadn’t seen in a while. They’re seeing the drivers wrestle with the cars a little more, which is important, to having a more exciting product. And if they can figure out a way to capture more of that, particularly with the television audience, I think we will be going in the right direction. But, yeah, the cars are way slicker, they’re harder to drive, they slide around on top of the track as far as in the past, they felt forced into the track and felt much more comfortable.”
DO YOU THINK WE WILL SEE A LOT OF TEAMMATES WORKING TOGETHER?
“The Gibbs guys did it to perfection in Daytona. I think that we did a great job of that the last time at Talladega at the end of the season when I needed to win and Jeff (Gordon) was trying to protect his position. The other drivers certainly worked with each of us a lot more than we typically would. I think it helped us and almost allowed us to achieve what we were trying to do there with winning the race. But what the Gibbs guys did was good. That is what you want to do. You don’t start from 20th and all of you work together up through there. All of you have to find your way to the front on your own. Once you get there you quit racing each other and just race everybody else. It’s hard to do because somebody is going to have to be at the back of that line of teammates. That is not where any of us want to be. I would rather be leading every lap and I think all my teammates would certainly rather be leading every lap.
“Being the leader is so much easier than trying to hold off everybody that is going to get these runs. All they are going to keep doing is trying to get runs, get up beside you over and over and over. If you are third, fourth in line you may run side-by-side with somebody on your door for 20 laps, 50 laps before somehow your line can break free or that whole line dominates the particular line you are in. It just depends on how it works out. We can’t sit there in 10th place and work together because we are just going to run in 10th. You’ve got to get to the front on your own and once you get there hopefully, you find your buddies up there with you. Once you are together in the lead or toward the lead you take care of each other a little bit better. If somebody tries to make a move, one thing that I did last time, I had to win the race. We got all single file up on the high side and I was just sitting there around sixth or seventh or eighth and I had to get to the front.
“We all know if you pull out you go to the back, but Jimmie (Johnson) was running around 10th and I knew he would let me in line. So, I could be more aggressive in trying to pass to go up toward the front and find my way toward the front and then we did. We got up in there in the top three and top two and that led to us being in the right position on those last final restarts to actually have a shot at winning. So, yeah, you can work together a little bit, but you have to find your way to the front independently more so, but again if we get in those single file lines where we are trying to hold everybody in their position.
“If the leader goes up to the top to basically see if everybody will run there and then anybody drops out of line is screwed. The leader wants this to happen because he will lead and not face any real challenge. That is perfect for the leader. If you’ve got a teammate running 10th and you’re in fifth you can be aggressive and try to screw that whole plan up knowing that teammate might let you in if you happen to not make the right move and start to get shuffled to the back on your own. I hope that made sense.”
YOU HAD PREVIOUSLY SPOKEN ABOUT THE LUGNUT ISSUE AND YOUR CONCERNS OVER IT. WHAT DO YOU THINK NOW THAT THEY HAVE CHANGED THE POLICY? IS THAT A SATISFACTORY SOLUTION?
“I think it’s a step in the right direction. It’s not all the way there and I don’t think NASCAR has the technology to go all the way there. But I think it’s something that they are interested in improving over time. The only way we could fix it today is to put all those officials back on pit road. That is not an option. So, facing that, I think that they did what they could do today. I think that they will look at ways to have new technology come into the sport to be able to further observe what is going on throughout the event, so that they can ensure that everybody is doing what they need to be doing, what they should be doing on pit road. For a while you had half the people arguing that it policed itself and then you had another group over here that thought it was a safety issue. It appears that we have everybody on the same team, which I think is great for moving in a better direction. I’m happy that they are making some choices that are good for the drivers.”
TALLADEGA HAS ALWAYS BEEN SPECIAL FOR THE EARNHARDT FAMILY. GIVEN THE SUCCESS, DO YOU EVER LET THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY BOTHER YOU WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF HERE BECAUSE OF HOW SPECIAL THIS PLACE IS?
“The only one I can remember is last year’s. I done and forgot all the other ones. I swear that race we ran… I’m going to pat myself on the back a little bit, but I swear the race I ran here last year, I thought was the best race I had ever ran at Talladega. It will not ever really get remembered because I didn’t win. I’m disappointed because of what happened in that race and what we were doing with the car and what the car was doing was amazing. It sucks because we were just six inches short of being declared the winner. No, we’ve lost a lot of races here, but I can’t even remember any of them that stand out like that. That was frustrating because that was actually the anniversary of my father’s last win. I’m a bit envious he gets so much credit for what a race that was and how he came back and all that stuff. Man, I thought I was writing my own little story here last fall, but it just didn’t work out for me. We will have to try again this weekend to see if we can write it again and hopefully get the win.”
CAN YOU SPEAK TO HOW THE COMMUNICATION OF THE DRIVERS COUNCIL, NASCAR AND THE TEAM OWNERS WORKS? COULD IT BE BETTER?
“I think what we are doing is pretty amazing. At first it was NASCAR and the drivers getting together. That was incredible. We thought we would never really have that opportunity to sit down and spend time with everyone that needed to be in the room in the same room. NASCAR, to their credit, really puts a lot of preparation into those meetings. They do a lot of work that they could put on the drivers, but those meetings are very well done and are very productive because of a lot of the efforts that NASCAR puts in to preparing for the meetings themselves. So, the council is great in that regard. We just now started this opportunity to talk more with the RTA and the competition committee which is really helping NASCAR, the teams and the driver because the drivers all come in there and say these are the parts and pieces we want. Then the owners come in and talk to NASCAR and say well… those parts and pieces aren’t stuff we really want. We can’t have that going on because nothing can get done.
“So we talked to the teams and we allow them to be the parts and pieces guys, the detail guys. It’s now up to the drivers to just to say this is what we want to feel, this is what we think would make good racing if the cars drove in this manner. It’s up to the RTA and NASCAR to come to an agreement on the direction the cars go technically. The other point of that too is I’ve learned a tremendous amount about what is possible and what is not possible. As a driver you go through all these great ideas that sound awesome until you have to really put them on paper or make them work. The teams will tell you whether that is feasible or whether it’s not and NASCAR will too. I’ve certainly learned a tremendous amount about really how that process works between NASCAR and the competition side of the RTA. I’ve gained a lot more respect for the individuals in our sport with NASCAR and with the RTA and the competition committee. It used to be just drivers, when we started the council it was drivers just pounding their fists on the table and it has turned into so much more than that. It’s really productive.”
IT WOULD BE KIND OF HARD TO IMAGINE YOUR DAD COLLECTING SOCIAL SECURITY BECAUSE HE WAS SUCH A BADASS. WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM TODAY (DALE EARNHARDT, SR.’S BIRTHDAY) AND HOW WILL YOU REMEMBER YOUR DAD?
“You know I have to actually be reminded by somebody. I don’t look at the calendar on April 28th and go ‘oh tomorrow is Dad’s birthday’. I wake up in the morning and see something on social media and go ‘that’s right, damn if it ain’t the 29th’ because it sneaks up on you. We are so dang busy you can’t really keep stock in what day it is and where you are half the time. It’s crazy to think of what he would have been like at 65 years old. You kind of had an idea he wouldn’t have changed a whole lot had he lived a little bit longer, but at 65 and what would he have been like at 80 and all those things would be hard to imagine. It’s awesome. One of the best things about it and I’ve said it before, is that it’s great that people still talk about him. That the sport, his fans, the media, that everybody still acknowledges who he was and what he meant. That is all I care about is that we don’t ever forget just the impact that he had because I felt like he had so much influence, definitely in the top five, top three people that influenced this sport as a whole, as much as Bill (France) Sr. and guys like that. I put him right up there with people that really changed the sport. It’s so awesome to see him get that kind of appreciation and recognition after all these years. Hopefully, that is something that never changes. I see it on his birthday and day’s like this is when I’m reminded of that appreciation that everybody has for him.”
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