NASCAR Sprint Cup Series SERIES – Media Day
Daytona International Speedway
Team Chevy Driver Press Conference Transcript
February 12, 2015
Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS met with media on Media Day at DIS. Transcript:
Q. What’s your favorite Jeff Gordon memory?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: What’s my favorite one? There’s a lot. You know, we’ve raced each other a lot, and I remember how great it felt to ‑‑ me and him had a race, I think it was ’99 at Michigan in the Nationwide Series when we used to run the Pepsi car a couple races that year. I was so excited that he was going to run some Nationwide races in now the XFINITY series. I was so excited that he ran that year and was really pumped up when he would come to the racetrack because we ran against Mark Martin all the time, and Mark was very, very hard to beat, but he showed up every week, so you kind of got used to Mark being around and learning from Mark, so I was excited to get out on the track with Jeff.
We ended up racing together for the win at Michigan, and he led some of the race, I led some of the race, we ended up winning the race, and then we went to Phoenix and raced each other for that win and he ended up winning the race and I was crowned the champion of that particular event.
I really enjoyed those moments and racing with him and trying to impress him in those particular instances, but also what I talked about on Twitter one time where I was introduced to him by my dad racing a late model car, it was a Sundrop late model car and just sitting on pit road in my driver’s suit waiting on practice or something, maybe the race was getting ready to start, and I’m nervous as hell just being there, and I think dad and him were riding around the track with an official, and if I remember correctly it was Jeff’s rookie year and dad was sort of showing him the track, and they got out of the car about 10, 20 feet away from me just by coincidence and dad walked over and saw me and introduced to Jeff, and told me that Jeff was going to be really good, had a lot of talent, something along those lines.
I had already knew of Jeff, seen him racing sprint cars on Thursday Night Thunder and all that stuff and heard all about it, and he had a pretty big ‑‑ he had a lot of buildup coming into the sport, a lot of publicity coming into the sport with Rick and all that and the DUPONT car. I kind of knew everything about him already, but it was interesting for dad to compliment him because dad is such a fierce competitor and didn’t rarely ever compliment any of his drivers that he raced against.
A lot of great memories, and him and dad did some business together. They were in several of the souvenir businesses together, and I think off the track Jeff really learned a ton from dad, so they had a lot of respect for each other back and forth.
Q. Does it feel weird that you’ve witnessed his entire career and you’re going to witness it coming to an end?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, it is weird. I think about that with football players a lot. We’ve watched ‑‑ I remember when Peyton Manning was a rookie. It just seems like it was 10 years ago, when it’s more than that. It just seems like it’s amazing to think that these guys like Peyton and Drew Brees came into the series and came into the NFL and they’re nearing the end of their careers. It’s crazy to see Joe Montana in these commercials and he’s an aged man, and you remember when he was this young, athletic quarterback playing on your television screen.
It reminds you of how long you’ve been around, and it kind of makes you look at yourself in the mirror and realize how old you are. Makes me feel old anyways.
It’s a crazy thing. I think it makes me reflect more about my own age than Jeff’s, because you still see Jeff as this guy that could race another 10 years as competitive as he is, so he doesn’t appear to ‑‑ you don’t look at him and go, man, he’s old. Look at Jeff, man, he’s been here so long. It doesn’t feel like it.
Q. How ironic is it to have all the support that your teammates (inaudible) Chase Elliott?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, the circumstances have been awesome for me. I was excited to be able to work with Jeff and become his teammate. That was one of the things that I was secretly excited about, to work with him and Jimmie at the particular time me and Kasey were good friends, so that was going to work out well, but I was excited to learn as much as I could from Jeff and Jimmie. I was excited about the challenge to sort of become one of the guys, and I felt like the new guy or a bit of an outsider for many years at Hendrick Motorsports until we started getting more competitive and doing well.
But those guys are ‑‑ they know a good race car driver when they see one, and they don’t sugarcoat it, so I was looking forward to that challenge, impressing them and showing them what I could do.
It’s going to be fun to see sort of how Jeff continues to keep himself involved and what kind of an asset he can be to Hendrick Motorsports going forward. I think that he has a lot of interest to continue to be involved, and I’m excited to see how he goes about that, because he’s such a great influence on our performance now, how can he be that outside the seat, so that’ll be exciting to watch unfold.
Yeah, the Chase deal, I was excited about working with Chase, but more so getting to know Bill better. I didn’t know much about him. I didn’t really have much of a relationship with Bill other than hello and how you doing in and around the racetrack when he would drive. So I didn’t know him all that well. But it’s been ‑‑ I was really excited to get to know Bill more, and we’ve been able to do that through this relationship with Chase. It’s been refreshing to see how good a guy Chase is. We’ve all realized what a character he is and how well he was raised by his mother and father, so that’s been a bonus for sure, that he’s an easy guy to work with and deal with.
Q. You were talking about how Jeff probably could race another 10 years, and if you think about it he’s really not that much older than you. Has it ever dawned on you?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Sure, yeah, I’m getting up there. Like I’ve said a couple weeks ago, it’s just certain factors sort of play into what makes that decision, and I think that his children play a big role in that, even though they don’t want him to stop. He wants to spend more time with them, and they’ll certainly enjoy that, whether they realize it or not, and I think maybe his back is more of an issue than he lets on. I’m sure any guy with any ‑‑ won’t admit to how limited that may be making Jeff, so I can understand him withholding all the truth there. I think that he ‑‑ but there’s other factors that play into making that decision for you, and right now I can’t see anything cropping up around me, and hopefully they don’t for a while.
Q. Do you feel like with all the changes, does it feel so different than it doesn’t feel like you’re the defending champ?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I don’t know that it changed a whole lot for the Daytona cars. The package for those didn’t change a ton. I feel confident about what we did last year and that we can come in and be competitive, and we should be competitive with the equipment we’ve got, so that shouldn’t be any issue. I’ll just get out there and make all the good decisions that I can in the draft and put myself up toward the front and try to work hard to stay there and really be mentally disciplined to fend off the challenges and all that stuff that we did in the race last year. I think there was a lot of things that ‑‑ a lot of decisions that were made out on the racetrack that really depended on us winning that race, and I’ve just got to be disciplined in myself to fight for those positions and work real hard and not get too relaxed in the car and try to stay up on the wheel.
Q. How do you think Greg plays his role handling all the pressures?
DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think he’s got a tough mental attitude. I think that he focuses real hard on his work, and I don’t think he really will be too affected by anything on the outside. It will be interesting ‑‑ I just look forward to getting in there and seeing how we communicate. We haven’t really had a chance to be on the racetrack with the testing and all that stuff being limited. I feel like we’re kind of starting from scratch here at Daytona and trying to build that communication and trust and starting to understand how we can talk and communicate and work together. That’s going to be real important for us. I mean, I don’t even know what it’s like to sit in a hauler and be in that environment during the race weekend with him. A lot of new things to sort of work ourselves through, and I’m excited, nervous, and not apprehensive but very anxious and excited to go ahead and get into a practice session and start working.
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