Month: June 2011

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SAVE MART 350

INFINEON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES

JUNE 24, 2011

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 MCDONALD’S CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2ND:

“We’ve got a really good McDonald’s Chevrolet. I was happy with the way that we unloaded today. We’ve really had a tough season; especially after all the success that we had last year. So, it was nice to come here and unload and have a really good car. I think we’ll be in the Top 10 in qualifying and if we can just have the right strategy; the hardest part about Sonoma is not getting collected in someone else’s issue. Turn 7 is always really tough on restarts because guys will dive bomb in there and it might be three rows behind you but if they start wheel-hopping they can’t get stopped. So, it’s a really frustrating track. But I love coming out here. So I’m really happy with our run there.”

YOU ENDED UP SECOND:

‘Honestly last year after our qualifying run I told Bono (crew chief) that I just didn’t drive hard enough. So I drove as hard as I could there. And the car had a lot of grip. I’m really happy for our McDonald’s Chevrolet. We’ve had a really tough year and it’s a lot of fun to come out here. It’s one of my favorite tracks. We’ve got a really good car this weekend. So I hope that we can get a good qualifying run and then capitalize on it in the race.”

PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 DURACELL/MENARDS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 3RD

“You’ve got to be so smooth. Goodyear brought a different tire and it’s very slippery and everybody is kind of fighting that. So you just have to have a lot of discipline with the throttle. We made a few changes after practice. We made a couple of adjustments and kind of made a swing at it. The car drove really good right there. We still fought some forward-bite issues, but hopefully it holds on for a good starting spot. We had a pretty good lap; uneventful, which is good in qualifying on road courses. It seems like the slower you’re going, the faster you’re really going and when you start hustling too much, and then you go slower. I’m looking forward to practice tomorrow to work on some more stuff.”

MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE/GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 16TH:

ON GETTING A RE-DO, FOR YOU IT WORKED OUT PRETTY GOOD

“Yeah, it did. It did distract me. I got a blue flag. I saw the debris. If they had left it alone and not flagged nothing, I’d have been fine. But with the blue flag and a black flag; I know how this stuff works. You’d better get your time. I don’t care what flag is out there! So, I got my time, but I was distracted a little. So it was nice of them to give us another crack at it. It’s better. I thought we should have run a .30 or .40; but we ran a .50, so that’s pretty close to what I was hoping for. I was real disappointed when they told me the first lap was a .90.”

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 13TH:

THAT WAS A PRETTY GOOD PICK-UP FOR YOU AFTER PRACTICE

“Yeah, a lot of guys are picking up. I’m pretty happy that we picked up. I’ve been here before where we haven’t. So it was a clean lap. There are definitely some areas where we still need to make some improvements, but I’m certainly encouraged by that as well as encouraged about how good our car is when we made our race runs. So we’ll know more tomorrow. But yeah, that’s pretty good for the DuPont Chevrolet. I’m happy with it.”

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 5TH

THAT WAS A GOOD LAP

“Yeah, it was a god lap. It was a little bit freer than I expected it to be but the track picked up grip and we picked up time. I didn’t get a really good practice lap; just had some traffic and I’m sure other guys did too. But we’ll see where that shakes us out with the Haas Chevrolet. I feel like we’re more competitive this year than we have been the last two years here. So we’ll see if we can improve it tomorrow and shake it and bake it on Sunday.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 COTTONELLE CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 17TH

“As bad as we were in practice in this Cottonelle Chevy, I think we gained a lot and I think we have a very good direction for tomorrow and for the race. Our qualifying normally has been terrible here, so it’s not a surprise. I think we’re actually better than expected. I think that’s positive. I think we’ll be okay; it’s just a little bit of time and patience.”

BORIS SAID, NO. 51 SECURITY BENEFIT/THANK A TEACHER TODAY CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 30th:

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING. “It was the best lap we’ve run all day but I don’t know where I’m missing the speed this year. So hopefully we can find a good race set up tomorrow and be good in the race.”

I KNOW THAT THE HENDRICK GUYS ARE RELYING ON A LOT ON YOUR EXPERTISE FOR THIS, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU CAN ALL SHARE AND ALL BE BETTER?

“I don’t think I’ve done the best job yet. We’re going back to the drawing board for sure because we’re not where we need to be yet. But that’s racing. You’ve got to learn faster than your competition. You can’t give up and you’ve got to keep learning. I’m just missing something right now. There are a few things I don’t like about the car and I don’t know if it’s because the track has changed a lot or the tire is different or what or if I’m just older I’m not sure but we’re going to keep working on it.”

NOT HAPPY WITH THE QUALIFYING, ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE K&N WEST RUBBER ON THE RACE TRACK?

“Yeah, I mean for sure. We found that in the first practice right in the beginning the track was actually slippery and hard to get forward bite. I mean we are trying to hook up 900 horsepower so it definitely hurt. We didn’t get a good practice qualifying time and to go this early is a disadvantage but we’re working on our car, we’re getting it better. Hopefully we’ll get the Security Benefit/Thank A Teacher Chevrolet better tomorrow in race practice.”

JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 25TH:

WATCHED THAT LAP AND THE CAR LOOKED PRETTY GOOD.

“Yeah I didn’t do a very good job there in our mock qualifying run and over drove all the corners so we had to kind of take a stab at what we had to do with the car and my guys did a good job with making some changes without a whole lot of information. We could have bee a little better if i had hit my marks in qualifying practice. Nonetheless it has been a hard year for us and hopefully we can turn things around this week. I believe in this team. i believe in what we are doing. We keep fighting and we’ll be okay.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 12TH:

THIS IS THE CAR YOU WON IN LAST YEAR. CAN YOU DUPLICATE THAT ON SUNDAY?

“We’re getting closer. We had a rough practice session. Made some adjustments to the car and I think that will allow the car to be in the top 10. There’s still some speed out there to have. This new tire is just throwing us for a loop. A couple of guys had it under control early in practice; we’re playing a bit of catch up and certainly on the right track now. Excited to have the Jimmie Johnson Foundation on the car. We had a big week of fundraising and looking forward to a good race on Sunday.”

IS SIDEWAYS LOOSE REALLY FAST BECAUSE YOU PICKED UP A FULL SECOND FROM YOUR PRACTICE RUN?

“Yeah, I definitely had the effort level at eleven out there on that qualifying run and gave up some time in the process but we’ve been fighting this new tire really bad in practice and it was kind of a situation where I was learning my grip level. i went through each corner and made it back with a much better time than what we had in practice. So excited about the direction we’re going. I don’t think this will stand up for the pole but hopefully it will have us close to the front for a good pit road pick, good track position and all that kind of things. More than anything I’m glad we found a little traction with the car so we can apply that for tomorrow’s race practice.”

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 ce5&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chevrolet.com%2f> .

Friday, June 24, 2011

Dodge Motorsports PR

Infineon Raceway Save/Mart 350

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Final Qualifying

KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 11th “We were fastest in practice but just couldn’t put down the qualifying lap that we needed. We missed it in turns four and seven and were just slow in (turn) 10. When you add all that up, you just can’t give away that much time on this track. Our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge is really fast in race trim. We’ll work on it tomorrow.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 15th “A really good Miller Lite Dodge race car. We qualified inside the top 20 and that is huge progress from our effort here last year. I feel like I left something out there. Either way, I know that I have a really fast car for Sunday. We were really good in practice all day in race trim. I’m really optimistic for the race.”

ROBBY GORDON (No. 7 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 28th “I didn’t expect that. We were 16th in practice. We made a couple of changes and went the wrong way. We went up on rear springs, down on rear bar and our car was all over the place. We have all practice tomorrow to figure it out. I think tires are going to be really difficult on Sunday. I’m not sure if it’s a different tire or what. I’m struggling and I think a lot of other teams are as well. We just can’t find bite.”

P.J. JONES (No. 77 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger R/T) Qualified 35th “The excitement for us was getting the car ready before qualifying. We were tight for time getting this SPEED Dodge Energy car prepped for qualifying. I just wanted to make sure that I went out and ran the smoothest lap that I could and not run the car off the course. It worked. Our car was pretty good. We made some huge improvements from the first practice today. For only running six laps in practice we’ll take that qualifying lap. I want to thank Dodge and Robby (Gordon) for the opportunity.”

FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES

Save Mart 350 (Qualifying)

June 24, 2011

Infineon Raceway

Ford Sonoma Qualifying Order

7th AJ Allmendinger

8th Marcos Ambrose

22nd Greg Biffle

23rd Carl Edwards

29th David Gilliland

33rd Matt Kenseth

34th David Ragan

39th Terry Labonte

40th Brian Simo

41st Andy Lally

DNQ Tony Ave

CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Scotts Ortho Ford Fusion (Qualified 23rd) “That was a pretty good lap. I know it won’t probably be top 10 but if it’s top 15 that would be good for us. We focused on race trim in practice because I was going to go to Road America tomorrow and have no practice. We finished practice and didn’t get any qualifying in and it was very frustrating. Billy Johnson is fastest in the Fastenal Mustang at Road America. I don’t think Billy Johnson knows he is driving that car there tomorrow but we made the change. Fastenal is amazing. I called Will Overton the CEO after practice and he said it was cool and they were part of the team and wanted to do whatever they could to help us be fastest. So that is the plan now. We have changed it. I want to win this race bad.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Qualified 34th) “I smoked the right front tire a little getting into 11 and probably over drove it a little getting to the checkered. Sometimes that smoke can get under the hood and make it appear like it’s something. We will change a gear and change a few things from qualifying. I never felt like I was in a rhythm out there. The track lost a little grip and I was a little aggressive which slowed me down a little bit. Last year I wrecked so it’s not bad to bring it back in one piece.”

GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 22nd) “It wasn’t bad. I left a little out there. I didn’t get the right turn into the corners and there was more grip out there than I thought in a few spots. You know, it is give and take and I wish I would have taken a little more in some spots and been a little easier in some other spots.”

MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion (Qualified 8th) “That was good. We were struggling in practice a little bit but we got a gain there so I feel better about it. We are going to get a good race car out of it we just have to keep working away. This new tire they brought here has thrown us for a loop a little bit. We just aren’t quite prepared for it. We will get it right by Sunday.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion (Qualified 7th) “That was a lot better than I usually qualify here. I will take it. I think my best ever was 17th here, so that was okay. The lap was solid. I felt like I could have gotten a little bit more but overall I hit my marks fairly decent. I am pleased with it. It is a lot better than we have ever started here and I think the car is pretty decent so we will keep working on it tomorrow and keep working on forward drive. I will take it.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SAVE MART 350

INFINEON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

JUNE 24, 2011

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 33 CHEERIOS/HAMBERGER HELPER CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Infineon Raceway and discussed his walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, strategy coming into the road course race this weekend, going back to Daytona next week and much more. Full transcript.

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR WALK ON WEDNESDAY. “The walk was good. It was a lot of fun. Just very appreciative to have great sponsors like Cheerios, Hamburger Helper and General Mills brands. They always create good environments to interact with fans. Certainly a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge is something that I probably would never partake in. It gave me an opportunity to get to meet a lot of my fans and let them get to meet me. It was a lot of fun, it really was.”

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR STRATEGY WITH ROAD COURSES AND THIS WEEKEND’S EVENT. “It seems like forward bite, rear grip is a big issue. I was looking at that Top Fuel Dragster over there, it’s kind of what you feel like coming off of turn seven over there. That’ pretty much right there. You know we’re working on things for tomorrow. It’s a different deal. Nobody has their coaches out here so you don’t have anything to do but sit there and bicker and gripe to your guys about how to be better, what things you can work on. We’ve been working a lot just trying to get better on the bigger race track. We really had a good handle on things what a month or so ago. Things were running really good and the last two or three weeks we have just been off. Our speed has been off and we’ve been working really hard trying to figure out the reason why.”

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS FAR AS ROAD RACING, ARE YOU A GOOD ROAD RACER OR ARE YOU STILL LEARNING? “I’m not as good as that guy. I don’t know if I will have that hat on my head at the end of the day by any means, but I think hopefully we can be, I think we had the speed to be somewhere in the top 10 and that’s really a good goal for us right now as far as starting position. I really do believe forward bite, grip is going to be a big issue on into the race on Sunday. Just starting up front where you don’t have to worry about passing and then being overly aggressive with your tires and things like that, things you have to do to pass somebody is going to be beneficial. Other than that you’re going to have to race the race track. Focus on making sure you’ve got better grip than the rest.”

THE RED BULL THING WENT DOWN AND ALL OF A SUDDEN YOUR NAME POPPED UP AS YOU WERE REALLY CLOSE TO SIGNING. “I was actually on a golf course for a sponsor of ours and my phone started blowing up. I was like what the hell is this all about? You guys are pretty creative. You are really pretty good at creating stories and stuff like that. Any time any sport loses anybody it’s a huge setback for everybody. I hope they do keep that team going. They had a lot of strong runs and was a big part of this sport. The biggest thing is hopefully they can keep those cars in this sport and we can continue to move on having a full field and things like that. As far as myself goes, I’ve said from day one I want to stay at RCR and we’re actively pursuing that. It’s this time of the year, you’ve got to see what’s out there, you’ve got to see your options and things like that and other than knowing what the goal is the goal’s never changed. I want to be able to stay driving where I’m at and hopefully keep the same colors on our car and everything. As far as I’m concerned, sign us up for three more years.”

WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT CAME FROM? “Hell, I don’t know. Where do you think it come from?”

IT PROBABLY CAME FROM THEM CALLING YOU. “No, seriously it’s amazing how rumors and things, like I said there’s a lot of people call and ask questions. Not necessarily call, you just run into people in the garage and hey what are you doing next year. Well, I don’t know. Well, okay we might be interested. Something like that and all of a sudden the next thing you know you are standing on a golf course and you hear everybody saying, oh now what are you going to do. Your plan just blew up. And you’re like what? So it is what it is. Its part of coming in here to the media center and answering questions.”

SO WHAT IS STANDING IN THE WAY OF YOU GETTING A THREE-YEAR DEAL DONE AT RCR? “Money, sponsorship that’s the biggest thing just making sure you lock in everything. It takes time to get all that done. Like I said I would be happy exactly with the sponsors, the partners we have are great. General Mills has been an awesome sponsor to work with. BB&T has always been our go to sponsor and it’s always been good. We’ve won the Nationwide championship, we won my first Cup race with them, been a great sponsor and is right there in our own backyard. It’s been a proven product that has worked. I think we’ll get it all put together and certainly that’s the goal. It just takes time to get everything put together and if that doesn’t happen then you’ve got to explore options and see what’s out there. It’s the same thing that everybody goes through. It’s not much fun but its part of it.”

GOING BACK TO DAYTONA DO YOU HAVE ANY REASON AT ALL TO BELIEVE ANYTHING MIGHT BE DIFFERENT AND DO YOU GUYS EXPECT TO BE MORE ADVANCED WITH THIS TWO- CAR DRAFTING NOW? “I think my radio box is a little more advanced. It’s a little more easier to navigate. I can find my teammates. I think it even has a really cool light on it that lights up whose numbers they are so they’ve worked on it really hard. Other than that, just making sure you bring the fastest bullet to the race track. That’s all you can do. We were good there obviously in the 500, we were good at Talladega, I mean missed it by inches. This is a great opportunity for us to capitalize hopefully and get our first win of the season. It’s time. We need to do that. Obviously for the Chase and everything that happens with these crazy wildcard for the last two I’m telling you there are 15 teams that are plenty capable and have been in the Chase. That’s the thing, if you look at the top-15 teams they’ve all been in there and should be in there. But you’re just going to have to do a better job than the rest and beat them out of it.”

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 ce5&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chevrolet.com%2f> .

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing What are your expectations for this weekend’s race at Infineon Raceway? “It’s good to kind of get a mix of race tracks going here. I like this race track, I like road course racing in general, so hopefully it’s going to be a good weekend for us. We have some pretty good momentum right now and hopefully that continues.”

Does getting your first win of the year affect your outlook on the rest of the season? “Well, we were going to win eventually if we kept running like we were, I felt like. It’s just a matter of time. I felt like before we got a win, of course we didn’t want it to take this long in the course of the season, but it’s still — we know we can win. Results haven’t been what we wanted for the most part this year, but they are where we want them at this point this year. This is what it’s all about. As long as you can get it in the top-10, it’s really what you do for the first 25 races doesn’t matter that much to begin with. So, you have to just make sure you’re running good at the right time. Hopefully we time it well to where we start running our best in September.”

Does the win give your crew confidence? “It is, for sure — getting a win does that. It obviously gives everyone a little bit of confidence, a little bit of fresh air to know you can finish and win races.”

Was last year’s results typical of your team? “To me, a normal goal for myself is probably three to four (wins) a year, I feel like is very feasible given our style of racing. When you have eight wins, that means you’ve won at some tracks you don’t necessarily — people don’t consider you a race- winner at. But, I feel like we’re a good enough team now, we can win just about everywhere we go. That wasn’t the case the first three years of my career where it was strictly Martinsville and Richmond and Pocono. We’re winning at other tracks now. Once we win once at one track, we typically repeat or have multiple wins at a track. So, we know getting into victory lane at one particular track for the first time is the key to having more success. When you have eight wins, it obviously puts a bigger target, especially when you make a run at the championship like we did last year. Everyone is going to have high expectations or they’re going to expect you to fail. Similar to the let down we had at the beginning of the year last year. When you have good talent on your race team, good guys working, things like that — they’re not going to run terrible forever. It’s not like we got the monkey off our back and a sigh of relief. We weren’t going to go winless for the rest of my career. We were going to eventually get over last year and things like that. It just took a little bit longer.”

Does your team do anything around this race to build morale? “Most of our team goes on off-road trips and things like that before Sonoma. I think one of our team guys, his brother in- law has some off-road vehicles and they take an off-road trip together and everything. That’s really good. Obviously if I’m able to attend, then I’m there. We constantly do things on and off the race track, whether it be dinners or stuff like that. All that stuff is very important, but I think anyone will tell you on-track performance adds a lot to team chemistry, no matter what. When you have on-track performances and you’re winning races and things like that, all is well most of the time.”

Did the difficulty you had at the end of 2010 help you handle the beginning of 2011? “Probably, I didn’t hit the panic button at any point. Really, even when we were 20-something in points. I just never did because I knew we were going to bounce back. I told you all a long time ago, we will be in the top-10, we’ll be where we need to be when we need to be there. It’s going to look bad at the beginning. I knew that, and I realized it. Trust me, when I’m on the race track and during practice and all that, I never think about last year. It has nothing to do with it. It looks a lot worse because you’re coming off — we were in contention to win right through the last few races of last year and then all of a sudden the beginning of this year, you’re not a contender. A lot of people blame it on that, but it’s typical on our race team every year. Realistically, it took six to seven more weeks to get in our swing than what it usually does. People just need to realize that we’re typically slow starters.”

Does the win reaffirm that you have the correct crew chief in Mike Ford? “Well at least they’re not saying we need a new driver. That’s the positive about it. It would never get past me. Getting rid of Mike (Ford, crew chief) or switching Mike out would never leave my desk. He’s always — he’s the guy that knows me the best and even though people doubt him and his ability and consider him old school, I consider him new school. He’s the guy on our team being JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) that innovates a lot of things that’s on all those race cars. I definitely feel like he’s the guy that I can win a championship with — there’s no other guy right now that I would do a better job than him.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing (continued) Does your relationship with crew chief Mike Ford help you when you come to tracks like Sonoma? “When you go to — I feel like we’re extremely good at adapting to places that we’ve never been to before, or places that are one off. Like Pocono, Martinsville — those are tracks we don’t race at — no where else really relates to those tracks. I feel like we’re good at those race tracks. I think we’ll be good at Kentucky, simply because everyone is going to be starting from scratch and it’s going to be a new place. I feel like our chemistry is so good that we typically get our stuff good before we get to the race track. That’s where I feel like he is a benefit, it’s on one off tracks like this.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

SAVE MART 350

INFINEON RACEWAY

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

JUNE 24, 2011

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET met with members of the media at Infineon Raceway and discussed importance of qualifying, road racing and other topics. Full transcript:

HOW IS YOUR CAR SO FAR?: “Practice was interesting. The track is definitely hard to get a hold of. We ran a couple race runs and then we put in the qualifying trim. Lacking a little bit of speed and grip there. We made a big gain there on that last run. If we can make another gain like that for this qualifying session, we’ll be alright.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS QUALIFYING HERE?: “I think on a road course, it’s probably more important than anywhere else we go. You probably heard nothing but how important track position everywhere is that we’ve been going. It tells you that it’s huge here. If you don’t have track position then everybody kind of goes in that mindset then we work on pit strategy. That’s not a fun way to run this race. It’s really, truly about track position. I think more so on this track than on any other, usually track position does have more of an indication of how much speed is in your car compared to ovals where you can make your car a lot better in the race. If you qualify bad at some places like ovals, then you can still be a good car for the race. Here, it’s usually a pretty good indication of what kind of speed you have as a driver and as a car where you qualify.”

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT LAST YEAR’S RACE?: “Disaster. It was just one of those terrible days where I made a lot of mistakes, no doubt made a lot of people unhappy and been trying to move on from it ever since. Thanks for bringing it up though.”

HOW DO YOU EXPECT THOSE PEOPLE TO RACE YOU ON SUNDAY?: “I’ve tried to apologize to the ones that I really made mistakes with. There were some racing incidents that went on that day too that was just racing and that you just move on and race one another however you race one another. I have to approach the race the same way I do any other race and just go out there and do everything I can to get the best finish I can. Not put too much effort into thinking about what those guys have planned or whatever. I’m sure if they’re in a position to kind of get back what happened then I’m sure they will. My goal this weekend is not to allow myself to get in that position.”

HOW MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE DO YOU HAVE TO BE AT INFINEON?: “It’s just different kind of aggressiveness. You’re talking about aggressive braking and driving into the corner hard and really getting the car slowed down and out-braking other cars with the down shifts. In that sense, you have to be aggressive when you’re passing somebody or trying to prevent somebody from being passed. The rest of this track is about not being aggressive. This is a very finesse race track. There is just a couple areas that you can drive deep in the corner. The rest of them it’s about not making mistakes. I think coming into turn 11, yeah, you can be aggressive there, but other than that you have to be careful being aggressive here.”

HOW IS YOUR PERFORMANCE THIS SEASON IMPACT HOW YOU APPROACH THIS RACE?: “We’ve had quite a bit of confidence coming in here. We had a good test at Mid-Ohio and just had this second win in Pocono. We feel like we’ve really improved our program. We really focused on short tracks over the off season and now as we’ve gotten in the season, more mile and a half program. What I love about this team is when they go to work on an area, they’ve gotten results. We, as a team have shown those results in the progress. We’re working on the road courses and right now I’m looking at it and saying that we’re not quite there yet, but we’ll see where we end up this weekend and then really, truly evaluate it.”

HOW SHOULD THE COMPETITION LOOK AT YOU THIS WEEKEND?: “I don’t think you can ever count us out. We’re fighters. We never – we go out there to put the fastest race cars on the track we can. I think this is one of those tracks where practice is not always the best indication of where everything is at. I think there’s no doubt we’ve lost a little bit on the road courses. We’re going to work real hard all weekend long to get that back. We still have plenty of time to do that. I think anybody knows that if we get ourselves in position up front that we are definitely a team that can win this race.”

DO YOU STILL FEEL LIKE YOU’RE THE KING OF INFINEON?: “I think right now there’s definitely a couple guys that I would say are really dominating the road courses and I think those guys are the ones that I would focus on if I was – it’s certainly who I’m focused on. That’s (Marcos) Ambrose, (Tony) Stewart, Juan Pablo Montoya – Kurt Busch is always pretty strong on road courses and he looks good here today. Those are guys that I would say right now because to me it’s only about what you’ve done lately. Our stats are great and we come in here with confidence and we love the road courses, but I don’t think we’re the car to beat right now. I hope that’s different on Sunday.”

DO YOU HAVE TO RACE INFINEON WITH A SHORT TRACK MENTALITY?: “What happens is now double-fie restarts definitely ramp up the aggressiveness. There’s preferred lines and then there’s basically being offline. If you happen to get put in position where you’re offline then you’re going to fight, claw, scratch for everything you possibly can. Especially in the closing laps. There’s no doubt in the closing laps, if you get caution flags, it’s as aggressive or more aggressive than a short track.”

ARE YOU MORE LIKELY TO TAKE A CHANCE HERE WITH THE AGGRESSIVENESS?: “Anytime you take more risk and you heighten the aggressiveness, you’re more chance to make mistakes. Plus this is a track where there’s two passing zones and so you want to take advantage of those areas when you’re in them. That’s going into seven and 11. Now what guys have done is because on the restarts you get kind of stacked up and guys start blocking that move and prevent you from making and that gets frustrating over time. Eventually somebody’s going to have to react in a different way to make the pass work if they’re a lot faster than that car ahead of them.”

IS THIS THE MOST IMPORTANT TRACK TO WIN THE POLE?: “I think they’re all important, but I think the road courses are extremely important. I think track position is probably more important here than anywhere else and I think being on the pole proves more about what kind of car you have. More so than other tracks we go to. When you’re on an oval, for whatever reason, you can qualify on the pole and still be a 15th or 20th place car. You can qualify 35th and be a winning car. On the road course, it’s not usually like that. You don’t usually see or find a guy that qualifies 30th or 35th here and all of the sudden he finds a second and a half in the race.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A THIRD ROAD COURSE IN THE SEASON AND WHICH COURSE?: “Sure, that would be great. I love the road courses. I love the two that we have and I guess if you want to look at a complete championship – we have short track, superspeedway, intermediates and why not have a road course in there. I’ve always dreamed about racing at Laguna Seca and that’s one of the premiere road courses in the country, but I don’t see that happening. That’s more of a dream.”

WHAT HAS NORTHERN CALIFORNIA DONE FOR YOUR CAREER?: “I never raced at Sonoma in my entire life I lived here. I wasn’t road racing so this was all foreign to me. Everything else around here, Sunnyvale, Hayward and even moving down south into Pomona – that’s where racing was at for me. Watching sprint car races as well as doing the quarter midget racing and go-kart racing myself. If it weren’t for those opportunities and those race tracks and the kids I raced with and my parents getting me into it, I certainly wouldn’t be standing here racing at this track.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT THE DAYTONA 500 TO USE NEXT WEEK?: “Just the bump drafting. That you can push all the way around the race track now. I think when we go back to Daytona, it will be about the temperature, the track and whether the grip has gone away at all and whether we can still do that. I’m expecting – right now I’m expecting us to be able to do that so it’s going to be about finding a partner, a drafting partner to work with and me and Mark (Martin) obviously worked well together at Talladega so we’ll have to look at maybe going that same route for Daytona.”

DO YOU ENJOY THE TWO-CAR DRAFTING?: “You know it’s not really about whether you have an opinion or like it, it’s just the way it is. If you want to be good and have a shot at winning, then you have to learn how to do it well. You have to learn how to cool the engine and you’ve got to find somebody that you can stick with and they can stick with you all day to be there at the end to win the race.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SCOTT PRUETT?: “I’m a huge Scott Pruett fan. One of the things growing up around this area when I did race go-karts, which I didn’t do a lot of go-kart racing, but when you did and you went to the race track and Scott Pruett was there, he was like a legend. You just looked up to him like he was the ultimate. To see what he’s done through his career and still to this day be one of the premiere road racers in the world in my opinion and he’s a great guy. To me, I kind of knew we probably weren’t going to need a fill in driver, but I just to me, if you’re going to have one, why not have the best. I definitely had one of the best road racers standing in for me if we did need him.”

HAVE YOU TRIED SCOTT PRUETT’S WINE YET?: “We talked a lot about wine. I haven’t had his wine yet, but I hear it’s good.”

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