Friday, May 6, 2011 Darlington Raceway Dodge Motorsports PR SHOWTIME Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

KURT BUSH OPEN INTERVIEW — DARLINGTON

KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR EVENTFUL PRACTICE TODAY? “We ended up blowing a right-front tire that sent us straight into the fence on the last lap of practice. It’s funny how things work out sometimes with the way that this week has gone. It’s been a productive week. There’s been a lot of movement behind the scenes with re-structuring, moving some things around and getting a general idea what some of the actual issues are instead of just talking about them; we’re acting to it. Just a tough day. We had a great plan in place to go out there early in practice and post a lap that put us third overall. If qualifying got rained out we’d be third on the grid. With a back-up car, we have to go to the back and dig our way out of that hole from there. No holes were (not) use to getting out of and digging.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RACING AT DARLINGTON? “I love Darlington. With the great finish with Ricky Craven here, I’ll never forget that. I still think that the more that I tell that story, I’ll have a chance at winning one day. I finished second by two-thousandths of a second, that’s the way it goes. I finished in the top-five here last year with a third-place run. It depends. You get the different phases with different chassis or with the way that the body is and just the general competitiveness of the car. You hope that you get a solid finish every time out.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TIRE TEST AT INDY? “It was an interesting tire test to say the least. We got rained out the first morning, got on the track about 1:30 p.m. on the first day and then we broke a motor two hours into it. Just all kinds of shots that we’ve been taking left and right. For Goodyear, the way that the combination went was there were a set of tires and a set of runs that we did, so we did four total runs of eight laps each. We saw cords right away and then developed into some other scenarios they wanted to try and did 15 lap runs and didn’t have problems. So now, it’s just a matter of them going back through the information. I think all of the drivers did all that they could to give feedback. There wasn’t just one specific tire that jumped out at us that said, ‘hey, pick me.’ It’s a matter of going through and filtering the information. Reading about how we’ve solved the tire issues, I don’t know. It’s just a matter of that track is diamond cut. It really chews up tires fast and it’s up to Goodyear to choose the right tire. We gave them all the information that we could with the teams that were there, so we hope for the best.”

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE CHANGES AT PENSKE THAT YOU ALLUDED TO EARLIER? “I feel like we’ve made great adjustments with what we’re doing internally and that’s to better understand how to build a better car. There’s been great feedback and everybody’s listening. Yeah, it wasn’t the best forum to go out there on Saturday night and talk about things. We’ve just, in my mind, seen things deteriorate and I’ve held it in, held it in and it wasn’t the right spot to do so. Now that people are listening, I think that we’re going to do some good strides and try to advance it. We need Brad Keselowski up there in the top 10 in points with us. That’s what we need; we need the cars more competitive and I think that we know that. Crossing the line and singling one person out, we’ll he’s the one person that’s got us in this position and it’s up to all of us to make sure that we’re better at the end of the day.”

DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULDN’T GO KNOCK ON A DOOR. IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU DIDN’T FEEL COMFORATABLE GOING TO SOMEONE WITHIN PENSKE? “There’s always been an open door policy to talk with Roger (Penske) and he’s always open to listening for what needs to happen. Things happen slowly sometimes. When you see things from the cockpit, you notice how fast things go and where you’re struggling. If it’s a common theme and yet you continue to knock on the same door and nothing is happening, then there are issues. We need to put egos aside. For me, I’m willing to talk to anybody or listen to what happen. I feel like we have a great forum now with the way things have been opened up this week. It’s just not being pushed under a rug now.”

YOU’RE A FAN OF OTHER SPORTS. WHAT DIFFERENTIATES THE SPRINT ALL-STAR RACE FROM OTHER SPORTS? “The atmosphere is just as electric as it is at other sporting venues in other professional sports. What’s fun for us is that everybody is there. It’s just not a group of specific all-stars. Everybody has a chance to be in the race. At the same time, what sets it apart is that there are no points. At the end of the day, there is a winner. It does mean something. With the Pro Bowl, it’s an all-expense paid trip, so to speak, to Hawaii to enjoy the end of the season. With the NBA all-star game, it happens right in the middle of their season and who wins, East of West, it doesn’t matter. With Major League Baseball, you have the win, now that American League team or National (League) team gets home field advantage for the World Series. There’s the fun part of winning (the Sprint All-Star Race), of course the cash is key when you’re out there racing for no points. At the same time, you get the experimental value of learning something new with the team and if you wad the race car up and walk away, you can laugh at it. Whereas, at the Coke 600, you wad the car up you feel like you’ve lost all those points and you’re digging out of a hole.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE YOUNG GUYS STRUGGLING TO GET RIDES AS COMPARED TO WHEN YOU AND KYLE CAME INTO THE SPORT? “I think that the way it was 10- to 12-years ago, there were rides out there with quality sponsors looking for those young drivers with all the potential in front of them. Drivers were thrown into some rides and expected to swim with the sharks. If you could swim, you’d made it. If you didn’t, you really don’t hear their names anymore. I had a rookie class of five rookies and now we really struggle to find the rookies out there. A guy like Kevin Harvick was Rookie of the Year my (first) year. I finished second in the Rookie of the Year standings. We had guys like Ron Hornaday, Casey Atwood, Andy Houston, so half the field, you know, of those rookies, half you don’t even know those names anymore. Now, it’s tough for new guys to get in because there’s not the quality rides available. There aren’t teams willing to take the risk of putting them in there because there’s not the funding coming in like there was before.”

DID IT TAKE SATURDAY NIGHT FOR PEOPLE AT PENSKE TO FINALLY LISTEN? WOULD IT BE INACURATE TO SAY THAT YOU’VE BEEN CARRYING THE CAR THIS SEASON? “There’s times when things are absorbed and times when I think that things are just bounced off the wall and I have to continue to shovel it back in there. We know we can be a better team. Communication is what does that. That’s what I preach when I get a chance to go talk to different college teams or high school events to pump people up. It’s all about communication. To say that I’ve been carrying the car, I’m doing the best that I possibly can. I want to win. I don’t want to finish 15th or 22nd like I did last week and say that we did our best. No, we didn’t because we would have got a top-five or had a chance at winning. For me, Brad (Keselowski) hasn’t beaten me all that much at Penske. I didn’t get beat all that much by (David) Stremme. I didn’t get beat much by Sam (Hornish Jr.). The last time that I felt equivalent was when (Ryan) Newman was there and that was in 2007.”

DO YOU FEEL THE LAST FEW RACES LEADING UP TO THE CHASE WILL BE CRAZY WITH GUYS OUT OF THE TOP 12 TRYING TO GET A WIN TO GET IN? “Absolutely. Right now, consistency get’s you in and those wins will get you in. A guy like (Kevin) Harvick with two wins this year is almost guaranteed a spot for the Chase. You’ll have those teams with one win or teams with multiple wins, but then you’ll have maybe two or three guys in the top 10 that might not have a win yet and sitting there in the hot seat trying to get in. Fuel mileage gambles, taking two tires, you name it, they’ll be stretching themselves thin to pick up that “W” to get a Chase birth.”

WITH THE PROBLEMS YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT, IS IT FRUSTRATING KNOWING THAT YOU CAN RUM MUCH BETTER? “We won the All-Star race and the (Coca-Cola) 600 last May and once July came, it seemed like we struggled. And there was a new chassis design toward the latter part of the season and that’s where we struggled. I voiced my opinion then. I felt like we might have missed it on this chassis design and that we might have to look back at things and circle around. When you have communication and it’s there, it works. When there is just hard-headiness, it doesn’t work sometimes. For me, it’s understanding. If you could go back and research some of those races you’d find out, we didn’t run in the top 15. We were scrambling to get into that top 15. Just like at Texas this year, we finished 10th because we were off-sequence. We didn’t run in the top 15 all day. We haven’t run in the top 15 in quite some time. When you see the writing on the wall, that’s’ when you can talk about it. When you’re sixth in points, it’s because our worse finish this year is 22nd. I’ve managed to dodge wrecks, bounce off walls, have bad pits stops or miss the setup and still come away with what you would call a salvageable finish. That’s what keeps you up there in points. When you’re leading the points six weeks ago and find yourself sixth in points now, that’s one spot a week that you’re losing.”

ON THE PENSKE RE-STRUCTURING, WERE PEOPLE MOVED AROUND? “Things have been talked about with Roger (Penske), Walt (Czarnecki), Bud Denker, Jonathan Gibson, Tim Cindric, Tom German, all the top people are involved. There’s no re-structuring with people in positions, but this week at the race track, I’ve seem four engineers that I haven’t seen at the track ever. I see them at the shop, but they’re at the track now.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SHOWTIME SOUTHERN 500

DARLINGTON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

MAY 6, 2011

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET met with media and discussed improving race car issues, last week’s race at Richmond, upcoming races at Dover and Charlotte, Mother’s Day, and more. Full Transcript:

HOW WAS YOUR CAR IN PRACTICE?

“Well, we only ran 15 laps, but I think we’re all right. We didn’t get out right away. We didn’t really run more than about four or five laps at a time so I’m not sure we really know 100 percent yet; but at least it looks decent on the sheet right now.”

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT OR WERE YOU HOPING TO GET MORE OUT OF IT?

“So far I’m pretty happy with it. It seems pretty balanced. We’re just trying to figure out a couple of little things to try to anticipate what we think it’s going to do on the long runs. We didn’t really get a chance to do a long run so far today. But I think we’re okay.”

ON THE EXCITEMENT OF THE ALL-STAR RACE

“Yeah, everybody amps it up so much (by) saying there’s nothing on the line but money. Trust me, we all think of the trophy first and the money second. But it’s fun to know that you can take extra chances in that race and you know that everybody is going to do it so it just takes the whole level of racing and just takes it up a whole new level that we don’t get a chance to do when we’re racing (the normal schedule).”

ON CHANGES THAT NEED TO BE MADE TO THE RACE CARS TO FIX THE ISSUES

“I wish I knew, bud. If we knew what we needed to fix, we would have already fixed it. That’s the hard thing. And I don’t know. I’m not smart enough to know that stuff. I’m the driver. Our short track stuff we definitely need to work on right now. We’re not where we need to be, for sure.”

DO YOU CONSIDER DOVER A SHORT TRACK OR DO YOU HAVE SOME TIME TO WORK ON THAT STUFF BEFORE IT REALLY WOULD COME INTO PLAY AGAIN?

“Well, I don’t know if we really consider Dover a short track. But I don’t know. We’re trying to figure out what we’ve got to do to be better and not just there, but everywhere. We’ll look at Dover I’m sure, also. But that’s probably a (crew chief) Darian (Grubb) question more than I’m going to know.”

AS THE TEAM OWNER, IS IT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO RALLY THE TROOPS AND JUST SAY LET’S GET BACK TO BASICS? “Yeah, we had that meeting Monday with the crew chiefs and Bobby Hutchens. It’s hard for me to sit in the meetings and speak on the owner’s behalf. I’ve got to speak more from the driver’s side and Bobby is doing a really good job from the Competition Director’s side of getting us all together and us all trying to figure out and knowing that we might be missing something; and it may be something we’re doing that we’re self-inflicting. We know we’re missing something. We’re just trying to figure out and find what it is right now”

YOU SEEM TO HAVE KEPT YOUR COOL PRETTY WELL AT RICHMOND LAST WEEK. HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO MAINTAIN YOUR COOL AND GET A TOP-10 OUT OF THAT?

“We were busy all night. We really didn’t have time to get too frustrated. That’s probably the hardest 400-lap race at Richmond I ever had to run because we just never had a break. We started far enough back at the start that we had to push hard to try to stay on the lead lap. And then that didn’t work. So then you’re fighting to get back on the lead lap and that took another 200-plus laps; and then finally when we get on the lead lap, it’s time to go and start working your way through the field toward the end. But we never had a break to where we could actually just run a pace that was easy on the tires and easy on the car. We had to push hard for 400 laps.”

SO THERE WAS NO TIME TO YELL AND SCREAM? I’M SURE YOU WANTED TO

“I just had to stay focused. Yelling and scream has never fixed a race car yet, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t want to do it. When you guys (the media) get frustrated, you want to yell and scream too. It’s how you vent. But I don’t know why I didn’t. I was too worried about driving the race car. I had enough stuff to worry about.”

ARE YOU JUST TRYING TO GET YOUR CAR TO TURN?

“I was trying to get it rotated in the center of the corner. It was really tight in the center-third of the corner.”

IS PART OF THAT THE NEW CONSTRUCTION OF THE TIRE? “If you can figure it out, you are hired at Stewart-Haas. You won’t have to do this crummy, miserable job any more. You can work for me and be equally as miserable just working for me instead.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT DOVER? “It is really similar to Bristol, it is just bigger. The same variables that you fight at Bristol, you fight at Dover. The guys that normally have a good car at Bristol and normally pretty good at Dover at the same time.”

WHAT IS A NICE STORY OF YOUR MOM WITH MOTHER’S DAY THIS WEEKEND? “I feel like I have the sweetest Mom in the world to be honest. A lot of people look at me and say what happened because they know it wasn’t her. She has been very supportive of everything that we’ve done with the racing and she has worked for us at our office. She runs our foundation. I feel pretty lucky that I get to keep her close that way.”

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL MEMORY THAT HAS TOUCHED YOU MORE WITH YOUR MOM? “Not necessarily. She has been there for all of it. She was there when I ran my first go-kart race. She was there when I won my first IndyCar championship. She has pretty much been there for everything. She has been a Mom. Every Mom is special. There is something that everybody’s Mom always does. But it is hard to single out things because it is Mom.”

WHAT DOES THE MONTH OF MAY MEAN TO YOU BEING FROM INDIANA? DOES IT FEEL DIFFERENT EVERY TIME THE MONTH OF MAY ROLLS AROUND? “The only thing that feels different is that everybody still, every May, asks me about Indy. No, nothing has changed. I still pay attention every day that the cars are on the track. I still have the TV on two hours before the race starts on race day. Nothing has changed. I always watch. That is what I always do.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SCOTT SPEED RACING THE INDY 500? IS THAT TOO TOUGH A PLACE TO GO FOR YOUR FIRST INDYCAR RACE? “For Scott I don’t think it will be a big deal. He is still pretty current on what he was doing with the F1 stuff. He has not been out of it that long I don’t think that he won’t be able to adapt to it. I think he’ll probably be fine. I really don’t know scott that well, but I would say doing what he did on the Formula One side that he’ll probably just fine when he gets to IndyCar over there.”

WHEN SOMETHING BIG GOES DOWN WITH THE MILITARY, HAVING A MILITARY SPONSORSHIP, DOES THAT HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE ORGANIZATION? “I don’t know that it did at the shop. It probably did, I wasn’t there the next day to see what the shop talk was. But I know that I was pretty proud sitting there watching TV and watching the announcement and hearing that the military, the Army, had gone in there and kicked their butts. That was a pretty cool feeling knowing that we are associated with them and we feel like we are a part of their family and they feel like they are a part of ours.”

ANY THOUGHTS ON YOUR BIRTHDAY LATER THIS MONTH AND THE SIGNIFICANT NUMBER? “Yea, because I can’t change that part, no matter what. Yea, I’ve got no choice in the matter. I learned my lesson when I turned 30, the sun came up and I woke up the same as I did at 29, the day before. I’m sure when I turn 40, it will be the same thing.”

ASIDE FROM THE ONE MILLION DOLLAR PRIZE, HOW WOULD YOU DIFFERENTIATE THE ALL STAR WITH THAT OF OTHER SPORTS? “If you look at the Pro Bowl and some of those events, I don’t feel like those guys give 100% and I can promise you that everybody gives 100% at the All Star race. They don’t leave anything out on the table for sure.”

DID YOU GET ENOUGH TIME IN SHORT PRACTICE TO GET A GUAGE FOR THE HOW THE TRACK IS? “I got 15 laps so, probably not.”

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KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Doublemint Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing How is your car this weekend? “Car is not bad. The Doublemint Camry seems to be pretty good thus far. We just brushed the wall a little bit there behind somebody in traffic kind of and didn’t hurt it too bad. So, they’ll fix it up and get it ready to go. A lot of tire wear and a lot of rubber being put down. Kind of good, but it will be interesting for Saturday night.”

What do you think when you hear media and fans talk about the ‘new Kyle Busch’? “I’m just trying to do what I’m supposed to do and do it my way instead of somebody else’s way.”

Why do you think you have changed this season? “It’s time for something new.”

Do you approach the upcoming tracks differently because they are Chase tracks? “You don’t really approach them any differently. The biggest thing you do is just try to make really good notes. Write down everything that you’re doing, write down the changes you’re making — all of that kind of stuff — better than you typically would. With Chase races being in the regular season it sort of helps us be able to build a better notebook for when we go back, and just having a better idea of understanding some things, but that’s about it.”

Have you noticed your meetings aren’t as points driven at this point in the season since you have two wins? “No, our talks are all just to try to do everything of what we’ve been doing. Just keep the momentum going, keep the good finishes coming, keep trying to run well and all of that kind of stuff. It’s not necessarily that we’re not racing for points or anything. We want to be the point’s leader. We want to be the point’s leader and winning races. That would be the best ticket.”

What is your comfort level at Darlington? “I’ve had some success here at Darlington, but not as much as I’d like to have here. It’s not one of my best tracks, but it’s a challenging one. It’s definitely a very difficult race track. There’s only a few select drivers who tend to run well here every time they come here. We need to work on that and get a little bit better. The Nationwide car is pretty good. The Cup car is pretty good. We’ll just have to see how they race.”

What was your plan when you sat down with Dave Rogers prior to the start of the 2011 season? “We thought that there was some ideas that we could get better at. Some things that I didn’t do very well in the past and some things the crew didn’t do very well in the past. And, we’re just trying to modify ourselves to be where we’re championship contenders every race. You want to be race winners. But, you can be a race winner but then the next wee k you can be a 30th-place guy. Where a championship race team wouldn’t quite be like that. It’s consistency really and just making sure everybody is on top of their game answering questions that need answered and not leaving any unanswered questions, and making sure that their job is to button everything up and pay attention to detail.”

How do you learn to be patient and save your car for the end of the race? “I think last week was more about just saving fuel, not necessarily saving the tires. Yeah, when you save fuel you save tires because essentially you’re not trying to run as hard because you can’t. You’ve got to make it to the end. We were scheduled to be about five laps short and by doing the work that we did over the off-season and by having a little bit of a conservative approach to the final run of the race we were able to make it. It worked well for us.

We were proud to see a fuel mileage race finally turn our way. It’s probably what lost the championship for Denny (Hamlin) last year. It was good to see the work that we’ve been doing and all of the hard work the engine guys have been doing pay off.” Is it a struggle for you not to pass during the race if you are saving your car for the end of the race? “Yeah, you want to race those guys that are around you all of the time. You want to go, ‘Uh, there’s a car in front of me. I want to pass that guy.’ That’s what’s in your blood to do. Sometimes you’ve just got to back off a little bit and kind of let the race play out. You’ve got to get to the end of the final pit stop. Once you get to the final pit stop then the race is on. That’s kind of the way that it works out. This place can suck you in and it can suck you in pretty easily — into the wall I mean.”

What does it take to be successful at Dover? “Dover being a concrete track is challenging. They are all a challenge, but just because of the way that you have to run around that place. The way tires sometimes wear out. The way the rubber gets put down there. You’ve got to be fast through the corner. Two-thirds of your lap time is through the turn rather than down the straightaway, so you definitely have to make sure that you have a good handling race car — one that’s good in the beginning of the run on low air pressures and one that’s good at the end of the run on high air pressures, and even through traffic too. Those are some challenging times, is trying to ge t through traffic with guys.”

Does it frustrate you that you’ve experienced bad luck in the Truck Series at Dover even though you’ve run well there? “I should’ve won the past five races in a row at Dover, I just haven’t been able to do it. I like running the Trucks at Dover. They are fun. Nationwide cars the same way and the Cup cars. Dover is a good place for me. I like going to the ‘Monster’ and hopefully it’s another good one for us this time around where we can try to go for another sweep. I feel pretty good about that, and knowing that we run well there and hoping to keep that streak of running well there.”

Do you ever try to censor yourself over the radio because you know other people are listening? “Sometimes you try to think about what you’re going to say before you say it, but other times you mash that button and you just say what is coming. Man, it flows and it flows pretty easily sometimes. I’m guilty of it just as much as anybody else out there. This year I will say that I’ve been a lot better at it. I’ve more so been frustrated at myself on the radio than the team guys. I feel like they’re doing their job and they’re doing a good job at it where I’ve made mistakes. Every driver does it I think.”

Does it matter what you say on the radio because you have M&M’s as a sponsor? “I mean, yeah, sometimes depending on what sponsor you’re with you’ve got to be a little bit more careful with what you say and other times the sponsors don’t really care much. It’s probably in everybody’s best interest to not go completely off the deep end. I’ll admit that.”

Does it feel better when you take your emotions out over the radio? “It does, but man you’ve got to put out some fires afterwards. It definitely does not get you anywhere. I’ll tell you that.”

Are you ever surprised at what you have accomplished? “That’s all NASCAR wins — that’s not Cup wins. In the all-time list, if you think of it that way, it’s pretty cool. It’s good. People will always tell you that they’re not Cup wins and Richard Petty’s was Cup wins. Nothing to take away from Richard or anybody else that raced back in those days, but I pulled up some entry lists and some finishes and sometimes there’s 12 cars that entered the race or 18 cars that entered the race. The only guy they had to beat was John Smith, the local guy or whoever. That’s not taking away from those guys. They built this sport and what it is today. They won those races and for me, I feel like our realm of motorsports now has come so far from what it was that it’s definitely a lot harder to win every week. There’s definitely a lot more involved every week. Those guys certainly did work hard because they worked on their own stuff, drove their own stuff to the race track, did their own tires and all that kind of stuff. Now, us drivers sometimes, I don’t know that any driver has ever ridden in the semi hauler to a race. I have actually one time. I did ride in the semi. It was pretty eventful. Other than how hard things were back then to get to the race track versus now. You’ve got multi-billion dollar companies that are helping to sponsor you and doing advertising around racing, which is good for us to do what we love to do.”

Do you think you’re having more fun this season? “I would certainly admit to things being a little bit easier, things being done my way versus some other people’s way. It seems like it’s more fun, seems like it’s a little bit easier. Things just seem to be falling a lot smoother.”

How does being married help you to have more fun? “I think marriage has been good. It’s definitely been good. Let me rephrase that. Her (Samantha Busch, wife) and I — I mean that in the way of the business aspect and the things that we’re doing with Kyle Busch Motorsports, with the Kyle Busch Foundation, with all the people that we work with and work around. The Gibbs family and the relationship there and stuff like that has really changed and turned a corner. It’s been a lot better.”

Do you have a favorite Mother’s Day story? “I won here a couple years ago on Mother’s Day weekend with the 18 car, which was really good and it was cool to give her a win on Mother’s Day weekend. I’ve also won — I think it was Mother’s Day weekend at Kentucky when I ran Kentucky ARCA back in 2003 when I was just coming up. There has been a few good weekends that I’ve had on Mother’s Day — those are the most memorable ones. When I was a kid I just remember going with my Dad and picking out some cheesy gifts and stuff like that and giving her stuff like that, which was pretty much useless. She still said she liked it.”

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion, is leading the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings for the third straight week.  He spoke with reporters in the Darlington Raceway infield media center to discuss a variety of subjects.  

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – YOU HAD YOUR SECOND CHILD THIS WEEK.  CONGRATULATIONS.  HOW IS IT GOING?  “It’s going great.  It was amazing.  Kate is an amazing woman.  We had a healthy young boy.  His name is Michael Edwards and he’s doing great, so it’s just a great week.  It was unreal.  We had a lot of fun.  Annie is really excited about her little brother.  I don’t think she quite understands what is going on, but we’re all doing really well, so it’s good.”   

WHERE DOES DARLINGTON RANK ON YOUR DIFFICULTY SCALE AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT JEFF GORDON HAS FIVE MORE WINS HERE THAN ANY OTHER ACTIVE DRIVER?  “This place is really difficult.  I had a lot of help before my first trip here from Jeff Burton.  He’s really good here and he helped me a lot with my first run here in the trucks.  Bobby Hudson was spotting for me then and he’d watched a million races here.  I’ve never gotten a win here, but we’ve run really well.  We’ve run well in the trucks, in Nationwide and in the Cup Series.  We’ve had at least one Cup race get away that I thought we could win.  I feel like our Aflac Fusion is pretty good this weekend, but it is very difficult.  I think Jeff’s success here says a lot about him as a driver and a lot about that team.  He’s won seven races.  That’s unreal.  I ran the truck race here and we overheated the engine.  We were running really well and overheated the engine, but the first Cup race I came to here I was just watching, hanging out.  I watched the beginning of the race from turn three, in that building, watched a bunch of laps and then I decided I was gonna drive back to Charlotte.  I got back to my apartment, drove all the way home.  I had watched enough that I was ready to go home, drove all the way home, walked in and flipped on the radio and the race was still going.  They were still out there grinding it out and it was like 90 degrees outside.  It’s such a tough race.  It’s a grueling race physically, so that says a lot about Jeff to be able to win all of those.”   

IS THERE ANY UPDATE ON YOUR CONTRACT STATUS FOR NEXT YEAR?  “I don’t have any timetable, and, like I said at the beginning of the year, I don’t really like to talk about that stuff in the media.  I’ve been fortunate to be able to take care of it behind closed doors, but it’s all going well.  We’re just working on it.”   

HARVICK AND KYLE BOTH LIKE HAVING AS MANY WINS AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE THEY FEEL THEY CAN TAKE MORE CHANCES WITH SETUP S.  AS THE POINT LEADER WOULD YOU RATHER BE WHERE YOU ARE NOW OR MORE WINS THIS YEAR?  “I’d rather be where I’m at now.  The wins are very important, though.  I think just the fact that we have one win is great, two would be better.  I think both of those guys are in a great position to make the chase because they’re both gonna be in the top 20 in points.  It’s kind of interesting all the curves that go with that stuff.  I think if you can have two wins, I believe you’ll be in the chase, so that’s a relief, I’m sure, for those guys.  But having the points lead is nice, too.  I think it builds a lot of confidence within the team.  This is the longest we’ve led the points.  We’ve been able to hang onto the points lead for quite a while now, so I’m enjoying it.  If it does rain out qualifying, there’s an advantage there.  I’d like to have the points lead and a bunch of wins.  That would be the best, but we’re working on that.”   

YOU CAN SEE GRAY COMING BACK TO THE TRACK.  DOES THAT MEAN GRIP IS GOING AWAY FROM THE TRACK?  “I was pretty excited and anxious to see what it looked like.  I was telling the guys that rode with me down to the race that this track was so different before they paved it, and I’m hoping it gets back to that.  It seems like it has aged quite well, I think, over the last year.  It took a lot of rubber about three-quarters of the way through the Nationwide practice and that changed the grip level a little bit.  It seems like the tires are falling off a little bit, so I think it’s good.  I think the track is going really well, and I think that’s good for the racing.”   

CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT IT’S LIKE BEING A NASCAR DRIVER AWAY FROM THE TRACK?  “We run all over the place.  There’s always something going on.  I’ve been running the Nationwide Series full-time.  I think this is the seventh year running both series full-time, so, for me, days like today without the rain are really busy.  You’re in the car, it feels like for 12 or 15 hours – from 8:30 in the morning until whenever we finish the race at night, so those days are really busy.  The one thing that I’ve noticed since I’ve been doing this is my off days are like Monday and Tuesday, so I end up having days off when nobody else does, so that’s kind of odd.  But we work on the weekends essentially, and the guys in the shop are the ones that really work the hardest, the guys that work in the shop all week and then travel.  There’s more than what you see on television, I guess, is the best way to put it.  There’s a lot of work that goes into this and it seems like the more you work, the better you go so nobody lets up.”   

DOES YOUR BOY LOOK OR ACT LIKE YOU, AND HOW FRUSTRATING IS THE TRACK TO LEARN AT FIRST?  “I don’t know him well enough.  He’s only been around a couple of days, but he’s healthy and that’s the biggest thing.  That’s one of the most stressful things that I hope I ever have to go through.  It’s wild to anticipate how everything is gonna go, but I’m very fortunate.  As far as this race track, it’s just wild.  To drive down into turn one, if you had a heart rate monitor it’s like as you’re approaching turn one your heart rate just gets higher and higher and you think, ‘OK, we’ve got to get this right.’  And you drive down in that corner and it just launches you into the middle of this corner and, to me, I don’t know what other guys feel like, but my brain is screaming, ‘Step on the throttle, step on the throttle,’ and for some reason my foot just won’t do it quick enough because it’s so different from most tracks.  You have to be on the throttle really, really running hard around the center of the corner and you build up all this steam and then the game is to see if you can thread that needle off of two and launch down that back straightaway, so it’s a very challenging race track.  I feel like the pace of the race, mentally at least, changes a lot throughout the race.  You get a lot more comfortable and understand how it’s working, but the first few laps out here are tough.”   

DOES THE ALL-STAR RACE HAVE A LEVEL OF INTENSITY YOU CAN FEEL AS A DRIVER?  “Yeah, it’s really fun because it’s all about the win.  It’s about winning a million dollars and getting the trophy.  It’s a neat race.  It feels like we should have more of those type of races because it is different and it truly is all or nothing.  If you’re running around there in eighth place or whatever, it doesn’t matter.  It’s about winning.  I have not been fortunate enough to run that well at that race.  It seems like we’re always really bad there.  We were watching some coverage from last year’s race before I came over here and we talked about it a little bit and they think we’re gonna be better this year, but it’s fun.  That would be an unreal race to win.  That would be cool.”   

HOW AND WHEN DID YOU FIND OUT WHAT WAS ACCEPTABLE TO SAY ON THE RADIO TO YOUR CREW?  “I think everybody is different and everybody expresses their frustration in different ways.  In the heat of the moment, at least for me, it’s easy to say things that you sometimes go, ‘Man, I shouldn’t have said that,’ but I think that’s just part of the sport and I don’t know if that will ever change.  I think at the end of the day caring enough to be upset about something is part of competition.”   

DO CREW GUYS UNDERSTAND THAT FRUSTRATION?  “I think we all do it differently.  Just like all of us do there are people that deal with things in different ways, so I don’t think it’s the same scale for every person.  I know just within my team there are guys that can say certain things to me and we can interact in a certain way that I couldn’t interact with another guy, so you just have to kind of measure that stuff based on who you’re dealing with.”   

HOW DO YOU EXPECT THE LAST 5-10 RACES TO GO WITH DRIVERS OUTSIDE THE CHASE TRYING TO GET A WIN AND GRAB A WILD CARD SPOT?  “That’s gonna be really interesting.  I think that’s something we haven’t talked a lot about, but there will obviously be guys that aren’t gonna make it in the top 10 – there might be some wild pit strategies and really, really hard racing to get a win.  It just depends on how it stacks up and what it looks like is gonna be needed.  If there are eight guys or something that are all on equal ground, but if they got a win they would be in the chase, you’re gonna see some really hardcore racing out of those guys.  I hope I’m in and I hope I don’t have to be one of those guys, but I think the fans are gonna benefit by that.” 

DID THE RAIN CREATE ANY ISSUES AS FAR AS GETTING A READ ON THINGS?  “We’re gonna look good or not here based on whether or not it stops raining because Bob and the guys forecasted right when it was gonna rain.  We got some race trim in, we got qualifying practice in, and if it continues to rain, then we might have messed up because we should have spent more time in race trim, but if we do get qualifying in, then I think we did the right thing.   It’s really difficult to decide what to do because it’s not just about whether it rains, it’s how quick does it dry off, are we gonna get more race practice.  It’s a tough call.  I’m hoping that we get qualifying in, just so we can make use of all that practice we had.”    

DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE A BETTER APPRECIATION OF WHAT YOUR CREW GUYS DO SINCE YOU USED TO WORK ON CARS, COMPARED TO GUYS WHO HAVE NEVER DONE THAT AND JUST DRIVE?  “I can tell you honestly that it’s difficult sometimes to remember how much work goes into these cars because we show up, we get in the race car, we race them really hard and if you run into something, I don’t have to fix that.  So sometimes it’s easy to forget how much work goes into these things.  I’d say it could go either way.  I know when I first came in, I probably was a little timid sometimes on the race track because I didn’t want to tear things up and I didn’t want to be too hard on the car.  I was so used to thinking, ‘OK, don’t wear out the engine.  It has to last all year.  Don’t miss a shift.  Don’t be hard on the tires’ because I didn’t want to buy new tires.  I think it took a little while to where I could get the most out of the car, but I guess  it could go the other way too and you could abuse the equipment a little bit because you don’t understand what goes into it.  I don’t know if that’s really a factor in how fast a guys is. I think it could go either way.  I don’t think the guys want you to be too easy on it, in a way.  I really respect what goes into these race cars.  The thing that’s hard to remember sometimes is that every single person is giving everything they’ve got.  Everybody is doing their best job, so when things aren’t going well it’s so frustrating because you think, ‘Why can’t they make this car any faster?’  But everybody is doing the best they can.  I think on our team we did a really good job of staying conscious of that through those 70 races we went without a win.  We were right on the verge of people starting to point fingers at each other and we didn’t do it and that was pretty cool.  I was really proud of everybody.  I never heard a cross work about me driving and I did my best not to blame anyone.  We just kept working and I think that’s really important.”    

WHEN WAS YOUR SON BORN?  “He was born on Wednesday afternoon.  He was eight pounds, six ounces.  They’re doing really well.  She’s a great mom and I hope she enjoys this Mother’s Day.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SHOWTIME SOUTHERN 500

DARLINGTON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

MAY 6, 2011

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 33 BB&T CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Darlington Raceway and discussed racing at Darlington, the All Star race, testing and other topics. Full transcript:

YOU DIDN’T GET MUCH PRACTICE BEFORE THE RAIN STARTED: “We unloaded pretty good with the BB&T Chevrolet. I’m telling you, anytime you come here and unload good, that is a breath of fresh air right off the bat. This isn’t one of my best race tracks. But, nonetheless, we have to be able to overcome it and a good race car goes a long way towards that. Pretty excited about the weekend. Like I said, started off good and hopefully we can keep it that way.”

IF THE RAIN PERSISTS, WHAT IS THE RACE GOING TO LIKE? WILL BE IT AFFECTED BY SUCH LIMITED PRACTICE? “I think everybody got enough practice. We all know enough about our programs that we’ll be fine. I’m not really worried about it. We didn’t get a whole lot of practice. We actually unloaded good and switched over to a completely different package and it wasn’t as good. Then, we had to really backup and punt and we only got one lap back on the track with the old way but it was still a pretty good lap. I’m not really worried about it. Kurt (Busch, crashed during practice) had a problem there and it might be tough on him. But it is the same for everybody and everybody will be able to overcome it and everybody’s gone down this path. Benn on these bigger race tracks. It is a little bumpy off of two. Everybody’s pulling their control and things like that; kind of threw us for a loop right off the bat but we were able to put some packer in it and it was fine.”

CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT BUILDING ABOUT THE ALL STAR EVENT? “Oh, absolutely. I mean, we live right there too. You do feel the excitement in the air. It just builds over the course of about a month’s time. A lot of hype goes into that and it’s for a million bucks you know. Everybody wants to win that race. Obviously it is a big race for our sport, but that is a huge payday.”

NINE RACES INTO THE SEASON WITH THE NEW POINTS SYSTEM AND YOU HAVE MADE SOME BIG GAINS, ANYTHING STAND OUT FOR YOU ABOUT THE SYSTEM? “You really do feel like it is about the same thing it has always been. When you look down and you look at it, you are like ‘Man, I’m only four points ahead of that guy’; or something crazy like that and you aren’t used to seeing that. It still pretty much takes the same things to be good. We’ve made a lot of ground up. We came from 24th to seventh, but we’ve ran strong. We have had five good runs in a row and that’s very difficult to do as competitive as this sport is right now; as even as everything is, it is very very tough to be able to string together a bunch of good runs. I know how fortunate we’ve been and hopefully we can continue to ride that wave.”

WITH THE NEW CHASE FORMAT, HOW DO YOU EXPECT THE LAST FIVE, 10 RACES TO GO HEADING INTO THE CHASE AS SOME DRIVERS OUTSIDE THE TOP-10 ARE GOING TO BE LOOKING FOR WINS? “I’m not a big fan of that. I don’t want to be negative about anything but I just feel like if I was running a Chase format and had 12 teams to run for a championship; I’d want my 12 best teams over the course of a year to be able to compete for that. I just don’t see how a guy running 19th in points and if he were to win on a rain-delayed race or a fuel mileage race or something like that, how he would stack up against the competition in a 10-race Chase for the Championship.”

HOW DO YOU RACE JUAN PABLO MONTOYA? “You know, I race people the way they race me. It doesn’t matter who it is, you know. I have a lot of respect for everybody. Juan has always raced me well and I give the same respect back to him. If somebody is racing you hard, you race them back hard. Like I said, that’s the way it goes. It seems like the rule of thumb the way I learned and that is the way I do things.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TESTING? GOODYEAR SEEMS TO BE DOING MORE TESTING AS THE TIRES HAVE BEEN A LITTLE BIT FINICKY? WOULD YOU STILL LIKE TO HAVE A BAN? “Two or three years ago, I would have said absolutely, we need to test. We have to test. Man, I’m telling you, the more I have learned. The more I’ve become confident in my guys, in my engineers and the guys that bring the setups to the race track, we don’t need to do any more. Things are good. We’re running well as it is and we haven’t tested all year. Really, the only way you are going to test is if Goodyear invites you to test. We just haven’t been invited yet. Some of my teammates have. We’ve been able to look at what they have learned at the tire tests and things like that and put it to good use. I feel like that through simulation; through the engineering side of our sport has come so far that can get you pretty close and get you a good baseline setup before you even get there and don’t need to be on the race track.”

Note: Team Chevy press releases, high-resolution images, and media kit can be downloaded from the Team Chevy media website:

About Chevrolet: Founded in Detroit in 1911, Chevrolet celebrates its centennial as a global automotive brand with annual sales of about 4.25 million vehicles in more than 140 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. The Chevrolet portfolio includes iconic performance cars such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long-lasting pickups and SUVs such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers such as Spark, Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including Cruze Eco and Volt. Cruze Eco offers 42 mpg highway while Volt offers 35 miles of electric, gasoline-free driving and an additional 344 miles of extended range. Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SHOWTIME SOUTHERN 500

DARLINGTON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

MAY 6, 2011

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Darlington Raceway and discussed taking more chances in races, what it takes to be successful at Dover, how RCR is running as a whole and more. Full transcript.

ON DARLINGTON. “It’s a fun race track and we’ve had okay results here. We’ve got a couple of different things we want to try this weekend and hopefully it will all work out.”

WITH WHERE YOU ARE IN THE POINTS AND TWO WINS, CAN YOU TAKE MORE CHANCES AND DO THINGS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT? “Well I think all that started last week at Richmond just trying to know where we need to be and depending upon where we are at in September. Dover and Charlotte you’ve got to know where you need to be to get back in the Chase. It’s an important week for us to put the notebooks where they need to be and have a good understanding of the things that we need to do.”

NOW THAT THE RCR CARS SEEM LIKE THEY’VE BEEN CATCHING UP, DOES THAT CHANGE THE ATTITUDE AROUND THE SHOP? “I think the best thing that happened is that Paul came out of the box and ran really well. Our cars, it hasn’t had the consistency that I would like to see it have but it’s been fast for many weeks and we’ve been able to knock off a couple of wins so that makes a big difference. It’s nice that the No. 33 car is turned around. The No. 31 car just has to get a little bit of luck. But yeah it definitely helps when everybody is running good because you have more to lean on as a driver and as a team when you have more available notes.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE A LITTLE MORE RELAXED NOW AT THIS POINT WITH THOSE TWO WINS THAN A FEW YEARS AGO? “I just feel like we have difference conversations in our competition meetings about different things. It’s not just about worrying about top-fives its worrying about how you are going to win races and then its worrying about how you can better yourself to be in position to try to get the performance that you need to try to win a championship. It’s been an interesting month I guess you can say.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT DOVER? “Dover is just one of those places as a driver feels really fast. With this style of car it seems like the forward drive up off the corner is probably the most important thing but you still have to make your car turn in the center of the corner so as a driver the car has to be comfortable to be really aggressive.”

DO YOU HAVE TO APPROACH YOUR DRIVING THERE DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THE CONCRETE? “Not necessarily because of the concrete but the style of the track.”

WHEN THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON THE TRACK LIKE THERE WAS LAST WEEK WITH THE NO. 42 AND THE NO. 39, CAN YOU SEE THAT AS A DRIVER AND SAY MAYBE I BETTER STAY AWAY FROM THOSE GUYS? “Usually if there is a situation you are around and you see it you need to be on your toes or something is going to happen. I wasn’t around that situation so I really didn’t know what was happening. They were just kind of giving me play by play on the radio.”

IS THAT KIND OF A FUN POSITION TO BE IN WHEN YOU ARE HEARING ABOUT A COUPLE OF OTHER GUYS DOING IT AND YOU JUST PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR BUSINESS? “It’s always fun. That’s why the fans come, we’re no different we like to watch it too.”

NEXT WEEK WE KNOW YOU’RE DRIVING THE TRUCK RACE, WHAT ABOUT THE GOLF TOURNAMENT? “I’m sure everybody else will have the same thoughts on this. I was actually not going to run the Truck race then decided not to run it at the last minute because we already had all the plans for the golf tournament. Hopefully they can raise a lot of money and have a lot of fun, that’s really what it’s all about.”

SO YOU’RE NOT RUNNING THE TRUCK RACE JUST TO GET OUT OF THE TOURNAMENT? “No, not really.”

BEING MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY YOU HAVE OF YOUR MOM? “Well I think my mom has a lot of responsibility about me just being here to be honest with you because I was kind of at a cross roads in my racing career and in my life, whether I should go and try to finish college or take a chance on my racing career and she was the one who said you need to go take your chance on your racing career and see how it works out because if it doesn’t school will still be here when you get back. I guess it all worked out okay.”

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN GRILLING THE LAST COUPLE OF NIGHTS? “We grilled steaks one night. Been trying to eat better so eating at home is a lot better for us. Lots of fish, chicken, steak, whatever?”

ARE YOU THE GRILL MASTER? “The Foreman. (laughing).”

Note: Team Chevy press releases, high-resolution images, and media kit can be downloaded from the Team Chevy media website:

About Chevrolet: Founded in Detroit in 1911, Chevrolet celebrates its centennial as a global automotive brand with annual sales of about 4.25 million vehicles in more than 140 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. The Chevrolet portfolio includes iconic performance cars such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long-lasting pickups and SUVs such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers such as Spark, Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including Cruze Eco and Volt. Cruze Eco offers 42 mpg highway while Volt offers 35 miles of electric, gasoline-free driving and an additional 344 miles of extended range. Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.