For the full story, visit http://www.pitroadscene.com/2010/03/hamlin-to-have-knee-surgery-monday/.

“Like Greg said, our cars are driving better this year than what we had last year and it’s shown for all eight Fords in our camp. It’s been good. Last week at Bristol we had another good car. We ran around 10th all day long and, at one point, thought we were gonna pull out another top 10 and just put two tires on at the end and lost a lot of ground. I’m just really pleased with the effort of everybody at Richard Petty Motorsports and under the Ford Racing
banner. We’ve made big gains, but the hard work is still in front of us and we just have to keep on digging.”

WHY HAS YOUR TEAM PERFORMED SO WELL WITH A NEW CREW CHIEF IN SLUGGER LABBE AND HOW DO YOU KEEP IT GOING?

“Slugger and I have a good relationship. We talk a lot during the week and I feel like our communication is really good on race weekends – as good or better than any I’ve had in the past. Our getting-to-know each other period is over for sure, but we got up to speed pretty quick on that. If he wants more info from me, he’ll ask more questions and try to get more depth, and I’ve got some good understanding of what he’s trying to accomplish in different simulation programs and setups. That’s all good and I feel like we’ve had a good run so far and we’re gonna continue to improve. Knock on wood, we’ve been out of trouble in the first five races. Martinsville is a big bullet, and then Talladega coming up is another big bullet to dodge, but we’ve had fast cars and that makes my job easier.”

HAS HE PUSHED YOU IN WAYS TO GET YOUR PERFORMANCE UP?

“He’s a competitive guy for sure, and he’s an emotional guy, too. When he gets mad, I know I better do something to make him happy. Luckily, our personal
relationship is good and our professional relationship is good. We know our boundaries, but this is an emotional sport. We can get on each other’s butt and still be friends at the end of the day.”

SEVERAL DRIVERS HAVE TALKED ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO RACE FROM 20TH ON BACK. HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENCE RUNNING UP FRONT?

“Yeah, it’s always been a black and white situation. When you’re running at Bristol or a place like here, when you’re running 10th or 15th and you get side-by-side with somebody, somebody is gonna give up and let the other guy go just so you can maintain your track position and not lose too much ground to the leaders. When you’re 25th and the leader is coming, you want to put as many cars behind you and between you as possible, so there’s a lot less give-and-take, and they just race a lot harder.”

HOW DOES BEING IN BETTER CARS THIS YEAR HELP YOU BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE?

“Every race car driver pushes themselves 100 percent, whether you’re running 35th or fifth, so, for me, that’s no different. I’m driving the same way and we just have resources and tools and teammates and a lot of smart people I can lean on, and everybody on the 98 team leans on, to make good decisions and go
forward. We’re all competitors and nobody wants to lay down and give a half-hearted effort. Everyone wants to give 100 percent and do the best job they feel they can personally.”

HOW ARE YOUR SETUPS DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?

“I can’t tell you that (laughing). There are things we’ve learned, but there are things we know other people are doing that we’re trying to improve on also. It’s a work in progress. Somebody is gonna find the next hot thing and everybody is gonna go for that, and then somebody else is gonna find the next one.”

HAVE YOU FOUND THE NEXT HOT THING?

“No. Last year, the Yates camp and the Roush Fenway camp, at this time last year we were struggling bad, so you’re trying to find that next hot thing and it might not be there. This year, we’re just kind of going back to basics and getting solid cars built at the shop and trusting the simulation programs while
taking the common knowledge that we know has worked in the past and just apply it and try to improve on it.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON TALLADEGA IN A FEW WEEKS?

“Where we ended the test two weeks ago, the cars drove about how they did last fall, so you’ll see the ame racing – big packs. We can run three-wide very comfortably. We can run four-wide a little uncomfortably, but we can make it happen. The cars probably suck up a little bit better with the spoiler. NASCAR put a smaller plate on from where we unloaded and made a smaller spoiler to try to keep the guy in front from being a sitting duck. When we had
the big plates on and the big spoiler, whoever was leading at the last lap was not gonna win the race. Now, you’ve got a shot at winning the race.”

HOW MUCH OF YOUR SUCCESS ARE YOU CONTRIBUTING TO CONFIDENCE?

“I’m not so sure it’s confidence as it is just knowing how the car should drive, knowing what a top-10 car feels like and just striving to get to that point. It’s a week-by-week situation. The kind of cool thing this year is if we unload and we’re not happy with the car at Bristol, we struggled in Saturday’s practice, but made some big changes and got the car driving better. The car reacts to changes and, like I said, Slugger and I have had communication that’s
been good enough to where we can work on improving the race cars. At Atlanta, we unloaded and were really fast and didn’t have to do a whole lot to the car, so each week is different. It’s just a matter of how you improve your race car to the conditions.”

IS THERE A TRACK YOU ARE LOOKING AT AND FEEL LIKE IF YOU GET THROUGH IT, THEN THINGS ARE GOING TO GO REALLY WELL THIS YEAR?

“I’ve had decent runs here in Martinsville, a couple top-20s and solid finishes, and if we get a solid finish out here, then we’ve dodged a bullet. Talladega is another big one. We go to Phoenix and Texas and I feel pretty good on those tracks. I’ve won the race at Phoenix before in different
divisions, and we’ve had good runs before at Texas so I’m looking forward to those tracks. Every week is a new challenge, but it’s hard work trying to give 100 percent all the time. It makes for a longseason, but that’s what everyone does and that’s what we do.”

HOW DOES THE CAR FEEL WITH THE SPOILER?

“It feels great. I’m very happy. We just saw some faster speeds and I was thinking that maybe it was the tires because it is a little bit different Goodyear tire, but it could be the spoiler. But everything feels really good.”

DOES THE CAR LOOK BETTER WITH THE SPOILER?

“Well, one thing we’ve learned, and NASCAR has learned, is that perception means a lot to the fans and in the media. It’s not always about performance. We’ve had some great racing over the years with the rear wing, but I’ve never been crazy about the way it looks. But I will say that the spoiler looks really good.”

IN A MACHO SPORT LIKE AUTO RACING, IS IT FUNNY THAT THE DRIVERS ARE CONCERNED WITH THE LOOKS?

“What race car driver doesn’t want to drive a cool looking race car? That’s always been important.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MARTINSVILLE TO THE NASCAR CUP SERIES

“I think it’s important to keep short tracks on the circuit. I think that this is what the history of the sport has been built on. And I think it’s some of our best racing and the best action that we have. I’m a big fan of growing the sport and reaching out to new fans, but I also know how important our core fans are in the history of our sport. Martinsville pretty much epitomizes that and I’d love to see it stay with both races.”

WILL MARTINSVILLE AND PHOENIX BE GOOD TESTS FOR THE SPOILER, OR WILL THE REAL TEST COME AT TEXAS?

“I think Phoenix will be a better test; it’s a bigger and faster track than this (Martinsville). I thought the test went really well at Charlotte the other day. There were no big surprises, which I think was something we were all happy about. Until we go to a bigger track and see what it’s like driving one another, that’s going to be the best test that we’ll have.”

ON TWO WEEKENDS OFF, CLOSE TOGETHER ON THE CALENDAR, IS THAT GOOD OR BAD?

“Oh, I don’t think it affects our team in any way. It’s fine by us. If I had my way, I’d like to see us have an off-week after Daytona for two reasons. Daytona is really long for all of us and we need a break, but also to spend a little more time marketing the winner of that race and being able to ship him all over the country and not wear him out before he gets to the next race, and then go for a few weeks before we get an off-weekend. But I’m just happy to have an off-weekend, so I’m not going to get too involved with it.”

ON GETTING INTO COMPETITORS’ HEADS

“I think that if you focus on that, you’re the one that can get messed with the easiest when things aren’t going your way. That’s not a way I’ve ever approached it. If you just go out there and win and do your job and just keep focusing on doing that, then I think that’s going to win your respect as well as keeping you focused on the important things with your team. There’s no doubt that when someone has been as dominant as they’ve (Jimmie Johnson and No. 48 team) been, you sit there and scratch your head and say man, what do they have? What are they doing? What do we need to do differently? And they’re just that good of a race team. If I ever question anything, it’s just how do we make small little changes to our team and our race cars to be that good. I see all the data. I see everything. And those guys know how to put themselves in position and capitalize on it when it counts the most. And they’ve just built confidence. There’s no doubt that they have a lot of confidence in their program and what they’re doing. Jimmie does in his driving and Chad (Knaus) does in his ability to be a crew chief. But nobody is invincible out here.”

FOR A LONG TIME, THAT GUY WAS YOU. GETTING INTO PEOPLE’S HEADS, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? YOU WERE THE ONE WITH THE BULLSEYE ON YOUR CHEST

“To me, it just made us work that much harder to try to stay on top of it. Those were the easiest weekends I ever had in this sport. When you have things going your way like that, you just go to the race track and it doesn’t matter where you’re at on the board. You feel like you’ve got a shot at winning the race. And you just focus on that and the cars are driving so good. It seems like the decisions that are made are always the right ones. At the end of the day, you’re driving into victory lane going, ‘Wow, we won another race!’ And you win the races that you shouldn’t be winning and you’re winning the ones that you should be winning. And it’s an awesome feeling. But I’ve never focused on how that affects the competition. I just really focus on how do we maintain that.”

ON THE PROGRESS OF RACE TEAM THIS SEASON VERSUS LAST YEAR AT THIS TIME…

“I feel like we’ve definitely made progress, and that most of the progress has been on the communication between myself and Steve and our engineers. That’s what we focused on the most over the off season was really talking about how we dissect everything that we talk about over the radio throughout the weekend. We talked about how we go through data, adjustments, and everything before qualifying or after practice or even during a race. I feel like we’ve really made some gains there. Even last week at Bristol we had a moment where we started to lose position and we got it back. That’s what I’m most proud of with this race team even though we haven’t had the results to show for it yet other than at Vegas. I feel like it’s something we’re capable of doing.”

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT COMING TO MARTINSVILLE?

“The racetrack. I love this track. It seems like a natural fit for my driving style. Our race cars are always fast here. I love qualifying here and it seems like we always have a chance at the pole. I’m not sure that we’ll get that opportunity today unfortunately, but I hope we do. I just love the challenges of this race track and what it presents to a driver—how hard to drive into the corner without over driving the corner, what you have to tell the team to get the car to work through the corner and off the corner, to try to go out there and win the race. It’s a fun track to tune [the car] on.”

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO VETERANS DRIVERS HAVE ON HOW THE UP-AND-COMING GUYS ARE GOING TO RACE THEM?

“I think with a young driver you expect them to go through lessons like all of us did going up. If you see a guy that is disrespecting you or not learning those lessons, then you want to make sure that they do. Sometimes you do thing on principle just to teach them because we’ve all been there. I don’t think it matters who you are; you have to have respect for your competition. We push and shove out here and that’s competition. I just treat people how they treat me. So if it’s a rookie driver and I feel like I’m faster than him and I make several attempts at passing him clean and he keeps chopping me, well then I’m going to show him why you shouldn’t do that. I have to pick and choose those battles with myself as well as with myself.”

HOW DO THEY MANIFEST THAT DISRESPECT?

“It’s tough; when you’re young you want to come in and prove to everybody that you have what it takes. You’re kind of trying too hard at times to show that and it forces you to make mistakes. A lot of times you see guys get into other competitors and upsetting guys. I went through it and there isn’t a guy out here that I know of that didn’t go through that to some extent. It’s tough. You have to put yourself in their shoes, realize they’re rookies and that they’re allowed to make mistakes. When it happens consistently, over and over to with the same guy, then it’s your duty as a veteran to school that person.”

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO TALK TO THEM, OR IS THAT A LESSON THAT NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT ON THE TRACK?

“Sometimes you talk to them. I remember talking to Kurt Busch when he was first coming along about some things at Daytona at Talladega. There are certain drivers that you know have what it takes and it’s worth the effort to sit down with somebody. It was just Kurt being real aggressive, which he is and certainly was when he first came along. It’s tough with the schedule changes to really find time to really find guys and sit down with them and talk with them. We used to have practice in the morning on Saturday, and then a break with another race, and then practice in the afternoon. You used to have time to go sit down with NASCAR or you could go find another driver; you could go do a lot of things. Now we don’t have that [opportunity] anymore.”

TALK ABOUT LUCKY DOG, OR THE MARTINSVILLE DOG

“I’m not a fan of either (laughs). I know that the Martinsville dogs are famous and everybody on my team loves them. Hey listen, I used to eat more hot dogs and corn dogs than probably anybody else in this garage area. I don’t do that anymore. And for some reason, the Martinsville dog was never appealing to me. But the Lucky Dog? It’s great when you need it. But the rest of the time, it’s not the greatest thing.”

WOULD YOU BE UNHAPPY IF QUALIFYING IS RAINED OUT AND YOU HAVE TO START 11th?

“I’ll be disappointed because I feel like we have a shot at the pole and I like to qualify here. Looking at the radar, I’m not getting my hopes up that we’re going to qualify today so we’re already looking at strategy for pit picks and trying to get something that will work for us on Sunday.

YOU’RE NOT STARTING IN THE BACK, BUT NOT UP FRONT EITHER

“What are we, 11th in points? That’s not a terrible place to start. We can manage that. But you look at the competition you’re going to have to race, and qualifying gives us an opportunity to try to get ahead of some of those guys that are ahead of us in points, which we’d certainly like to get that opportunity. But it’s not the end of the world.”

ON PHOENIX, WILL THE ADDED MILES MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

“It’s interesting to see how it’s going to affect the race from a fuel mileage strategy standpoint. And you won’t know until you get into it. It just depends on how the cautions fall as it does in most races. From a reliability standpoint, no big deal. I love that race track, but it is a very challenging race track. Both ends of the race track are completely opposite. It’s sort of like a one mile Darlington without the banking in my opinion; just in the way of it’s impossible to get both ends of the race track to work perfectly. And I like that challenge in a race track. It’s a fun track. I’ve driven on that track since I was like 18 years old. So, it’s one I always look forward to going to.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON NASCAR CHANGING TO FUEL INJECTION?

“I don’t have a big opinion on it. It’s been a long-time coming. From talking to some of the engine guys, it’s not a full-blown fuel injection. It’s kind of like a semi-modified carburetor-slash-fuel injection. I think that we have some ideas on how we can make it really more efficient. But I think this is a good step in that direction and I’m happy that NASCAR is going with it.”

SIZING UP THE FIELD, DO YOU SEE ANOTHER DRIVER THAT IS READY TO MAKE A MOVE TO CHALLENGE FOR THOSE TOP SPOTS?

“I’ll tell you, Juan Pablo (Montoya) was really strong here the last time and he looked good in practice today. I expect if anybody is disappointed with qualifying possibly being rained out it’s probably him because he’s not very high up in the points and he’s strong, and I think he had a shot at qualifying up front and running good here. He’s still going to be tough in the race. But I would say that he’s probably toward the top of the list. You got any other names? I just know the last time I battled really strong and hard with Juan Pablo and it’s just a sign of how they’ve turned their program around and how he’s really learned the tracks on the circuit.”

TALK ABOUT THE SPECIAL PAINT SCHEME YOU HAVE ON THE CAR THIS WEEKEND: “I appreciate it. I think it turned out pretty good. It is the Sugar Free Lightning flavor of AMP. I like the lightning. I try to do my best on designing cars. I think this might be the best one we have come out with so far. I am pretty proud of it. I actually really do like the Lightning flavor, that is probably what I drink the most of back home. It is kind of cool to have the Sugar Free here unveiled and on the car for this weekend. I wish this kind of thing more often. Go through all the flavors week after week. It would be kinda cool to have different colored cars every week. Change it up a little bit. It is fun for me to be able to do the one-off stuff like we are doing this weekend. A lot of fun.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON SAID EARLIER TODAY THAT HE THOUGHT YOU WERE PUSHING YOURSELF HARDER IN AREAS YOU AREN’T COMFORTABLE IN AND THAT IS HELPING YOU. ARE YOU PUSHING YOURSELF, DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY? “I don’t feel uncomfortable. Lance (McGrew, crew chief) made a lot of changes in the off season and he made a lot of calls he had to make and knew he had to pull the trigger on a few things. The guys, and myself included, really forgot and erased what happened in the past and tried to start fresh and imagine a better future for ourselves. And imagine ourselves being more competitive. The changes helped a lot, the people that we moved in and moved around helped a lot. Chris Heroy, he is the engineer-we call him Sunshine, I don’t know where he got the name, but he’s been a big help and a couple of other guys that have come on board. The relationship with Lance, I was counting and I think I have worked with about six different crew chiefs, Lance, we aren’t kin or related, we have to respect each other more, I think, because of our different backgrounds and upbringing, whatever, what have you. The longer we work together, the more respect we have for each other. I read in an article where he said there is a lot of respect back and forth. He backs me up a little bit more than I am than I’m used to I guess. He sorta has my back in a lot of situations. The reason why I guess I was able to keep my composure because I knew that he wanted the same result I wanted. I knew he was pulling for me; we were on the same path, on the same page even though I was upset. I wasn’t upset at him, I was upset at NASCAR, but I wasn’t upset and him or anybody on the team. I just sort of had to get all that shit off my chest. I think the reason we are running better is because of the changes we made in the off season mainly and that has given us some confidence. The guys that were already there are more confident because of those changes. Everybody can see a little different step in our walk. Last year when we were struggling and we would show up and unload the car and it was a little bit off, it was really easy to accept it. It was disappointing as hell. There was no reaction of we can fix it. You didn’t really have that feeling of confidence that that could happen. If it was the practice before qualifying at any of those races, those last 10, that was the feeling that I had. I figured if we did fix it, oh well. If we didn’t, that wouldn’t surprise me either. But this year you have that feeling that anytime there is that little thing that goes wrong; a little switch comes on where we can probably fix this. This is not a problem because we just have so much more communication going on. It is good. Lance has done a lot of great things. He started off when he came in as the crew chief building a few cars that he thought needed to be a little different in some ways. I drove them, I liked them. In the off season, once he understood that was his position and his right to do so, he made the changes to the team. He deserves a lot of credit.”

HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU HAVE FELT LIKE YOU COULD MAKE THE CHANGES TO MAKE IT BETTER? “Probably three-quarters of the way through the first season with Rick (Hendrick). We were running pretty good all year then it all went to hell. Right around then.”

HOW FAR CAN A CREW CHIEF PUSH SOMEBODY AND ARE YOU A GUY THAT NEEDS TO BE COACHED IN A DIFFERENT MANNER? “I just think you talk to people…it is real easy. Every situation is different and the good people know exactly what each situation calls for at that very moment. Throughout my career, everybody has always sort of said I wasn’t focused, especially when my Daddy was alive and he was out there running he did and was. Everybody would compare me to him and say that I lacked so much determination, didn’t have the will power, all that he had. He wore it on his sleeve and I don’t really do that. Even after he passed away, I still got that I didn’t have focus and this that and the other. That sort of followed me throughout my career. Anytime somebody would say that I laid down or insinuated that I might or whatever, just sort of pisses me off a little bit. Which, I have a right to feel however I want to feel or get upset about things that I want to get upset about. I’m just a human being. The thing about a really good crew chief is he will know exactly what to say for each situation. Lance knew to cheer me back to my game and steer me in that direction with a little pep talk and he did it and that is what I needed. Maybe at times it is his job, maybe it ain’t. Maybe it is my job to keep my head together. If he sees me going off on the wrong path, he cares enough to want to fix it and helped me out a lot at that moment. Because I was really really upset about how that went down, regardless of who was right or wrong, I wasn’t thinking about what I was supposed to be thinking about, my job. He did the right thing. I go on the internet and listen to all the audio files of everybody else and I don’t see or hear anything that is really different. To be honest, what happened at Bristol on the radio, hell, that probably happens to half the field during every race at some point. It is really not all that uncommon. There are some lines that you just don’t cross when you are pissed off and you are talking dirty, even if you are really mad at your crew chief, there are just lines you don’t cross.

As long as we don’t cross them, we will be in good shape. We have to be able to speak up when we feel strongly about something but we have to be able to have respect at the same time and I think we have done that. He knew Sunday I wasn’t mad at him, but I needed to tell somebody what I was mad about and why I felt that way.”

HOW MUCH DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE PUSHED YOURSELF? “I don’t feel like I’ve really had to change a bunch. The thing about Lance is, Lance just works on my confidence all the time, which that is what I need. Certain times there are moments during the bulk of the work of the weekend on Friday’s and Saturdays. During that time there are little moments where he goes ‘we’re going this little bit right here, we’re going to work and you’re going to do this for us and we’re going to do this and that is going to get us to where we want to be on the time chart, that is going to get us to the target lap time that we want’. That is kind of refreshing and he just asks you to step up a little bit and he really sort of does that to the whole team at the same time. He say’s ‘all right, everybody just step up a little big’ and that is really is a lot of fun especially when it works which it does most of the time. Even if it only worked half the time, it is worth the effort. It is good. He has just done a good job. He has got a good group of guys around him and they keep improving and I’m happy to be working with them.”

HOW MUCH HAVE YOU MISSED BEING IN THE MEDIA CENTER AND ARE YOU GLAD TO BE BACK? “Honestly, I try not to say too much when I get in here, which never happens. Cause I like to go on the Internet and not read about myself. A couple of years ago, we were in the top-12 all the time for quite a bit of the season and it was frustrating having to sort of bullshit your way through a top-12 media session when there was nothing to talk about but we would find something. That was what would be all over the news whether it was me talking about it or another driver. I enjoyed last week and everything that went on with you guys. I was watching it from the guys and I am glad to be in the top-12 so I will come in here every damn week if I have too. (LAUGHS) As long as I can stay in the top-12. I remember that first year, I complained a lot to Mike Davis about having to do the top-12 media every week. But after this spell I have been in, I will put up with it.”

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH GETTING YOUR CONFIDENCE BACK IN ADDITION TO THE PRESSURE OF BEING THE FACE OF NASCAR? “I have the confidence that we can do this the right way and we can accomplish our goals. We haven’t turned a corner. We are maybe turning the corner, but we haven’t quite got there yet. We are approaching it maybe. But as a team, we got a lot to fix still. We have a lot to improve upon and I think that the next 10 races will surely reveal where we are still weak and where we need to work as a team. I think we showed at Fontana, Atlanta and Vegas where we need to be better. We got sort of fortunate last week to be able to get enough of a finish to get ourselves in the top-12. We have a lot of work to do. I have the confidence we can fix it but I just know we need to be better. I think that it is important not to get too really satisfied with how things are going. Always trying to strive to get more out of your team performance.”

TELL US ABOUT MARTINSVILLE, WHAT YOU LIKE? “This was one of the race tracks that I could count on coming to as a kid so I saw a lot of races here when I was young. One of the amazing things about Martinsville is the ability to be so close to the action, especially a lot of you guys will walk down on pit road. When you stand out there during qualifying you feel like you can almost reach out and touch the cars when they are going by. And you can see, you are so close to the cars, you can really see them working. You can almost guess how the car is handling so much easier than you can at the other tracks. I remember that as a kid, just being so close to the cars, even when there was a little bit of infield down there in the corners, we could still get close enough to see them coming through there and working the throttle and the brake all the way through the corners. There is just a lot of good history here and it is an old race track and it is a short track. I always complain about the lack of short tracks in the schedule. It is fun to come to any one of them. Martinsville is so unique being a paperclip and flat. You have to really get your car working pretty good through the corners and be able to be competitive in the race, it is really really imperative that your car handles well, because there is not much adjustment to the line in the corner that you can make to try to make up for something that you car isn’t doing correctly. So you really have to work hard with your team and show up pretty good out of the box. I love coming here and I hope as long as I am a driver that we are always visiting this race track.”

WHAT WERE YOU REALLY MAD ABOUT AT BRISTOL AND IS IT UNFAIR HOW THEY DETERMINE THAT? “It’s not unfair. We all know where the little loop holes are and how to use them. I just wish they weren’t there. I just wish it was a little more cut and dried on how things are done. We know what the tricks are and that one stall is better than another and why and how to make that work to your advantage. If somebody picks it before you, then you have to pick the next best one that has a little less advantage but still something. Eventually you get down to the bottom line and you are in the stalls that are a total disadvantage. At the short tracks they really show up more, there is quite a bit bigger tolerance between a good stall and a poor stall. We all know that going in so I don’t feel as if the chips are stacked against me. I will be the first to admit that I obviously sped, I went over the speed limit and that is speeding so it wasn’t that I was arguing that I wasn’t speeding, it is just that I saw the guy in front me that was going to pit before the start/finish line and the timing line gun his car for about five stalls and I gunned mine for maybe one and a half or two stalls and it is just frustrating to be caught. We are out there trying to get everything we can. They gave us five miles an hour over the original speed limit and we still complain when we get caught speeding but we are competitors, we’re racers.”

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT TO SEE AT TALLADEGA? “During the testing, I really enjoyed it. My car was super fast. The racing seemed pretty entertaining. I think it will be really close to what you’ve seen there the last several trips. We’ll start the race, run a little bit. Everybody will find some position they are happy with and we will all probably go to the top and ride around for about 300 miles and then start racing. Riding around the top is fun. Even though we are all in a line, it is pretty cool getting up against the wall like that going over 190 mile an hour. Probably super boring for you guys but a way to pass the time until the real race starts. It will probably be a lot like that.”

HOW HAS PRACTICE GONE FOR YOU SO FAR TODAY? “So far, so good at Martinsville. It’s always a tough track to get around. You hope that you find some of the off-season notes and scratch through things to help you get a little better each time you come back. It’s one of the challenging tracks on the circuit for me, trying to get the car to turn and also get that good drive off the corner. With practice, the way it shook out, everything actually felt a little better than normal. We feel like we’ve got the car turning. In qualifying trim, we’ve helped ourselves on the tight side of things, so we’re going to make a few adjustments, look forward to qualifying and see how things shake out. If the rain continues, we’ll take it as well and start sixth. That is probably better than where we’re going to start if we do qualify.”

JEFF GORDON SAID THE SPEEDS WERE A LITTLE FASTER, BUT WASN’T SURE IF IT WAS BECAUSE OF TIRES OR THE NEW SPOILER. HOW IS IT WITH THE SPOILER OUT THERE?

“I’m not sure exactly where the additional speed is coming from. I felt like our car was working a little bit better than it normally had been in the past, yet our lap times weren’t that competitive. I always joked around, when the pace starts getting pretty quick here, you get into the lower 19s and I always joked around, you just have to have an older guy who was born in the 30s or the 40s and shoot for that lap time. So we’re shooting for a 1940-something. The pace seems to be pretty quick right now.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON TALLADEGA IN A FEW WEEKS? “Talladega is in a few weeks for us. It’s really hard to think about the approach into the race other than just being prepared for whatever changes NASCAR makes. They really haven’t decided on a spoiler, gear or a restrictor plate size. With the first package that we had down there, it was pretty wild. Big drag with the rear spoiler. Big restrictor plate size, bigger than normal, so it allowed for more air to mix with the fuel and the speeds were intense. (NASCAR) is going to look at things and find the right package. We really won’t know until we show up. That’s going to be the tough part about it.”

NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY IS CELEBRATING ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON NEW HAMPHSIRE? “It’s hard to believe that there’s been races there for 20 years. Things add up pretty quick. It’s just amazing how the years add up. The visionary with Bob Bahre, starting the race track up and getting things underway. It grabbed the name “The Magic Mile” and it has seen its share of great races. We ran a restrictor-plate race there years ago after we had some issues with cars wrecking in turn three. We lost Adam Petty and we lost Kenny Irwin there, a track you don’t normally think of as a very life-threatening track. It certainly has it’s identify as a flat one-mile race track that’s slick and tough to get around. It’s been through a couple of face lifts that has helped the racing there. I’ve enjoyed racing there. I won in the truck series and then I had a chance to win in Cup a few times. It’s a cool track. I like the distance too, it’s a 300 miler. The race seems fairly quick.”

HOW’S THE VISIBILITY HERE AT MARTINSVILLE WITH THE NEW SPOILER? “It seems to be OK right now. I think the way the spoiler grabs your eye, you see it because it’s something different. Normally, the eye looks at something and if it seems odd and you’re focused on it for a little while, you just get in the groove. You’re looking through the other eye in front of you and even in front of him. It’s not really of concern. It’s just something new the eye seems to catch.”

YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT COMING TO MARTINSVILLE AREA AND WHERE WOULD MARTINSVILLE BE WITHOUT THIS RACE? “It’s part of our short-track heritage. Having a race here at Martinsville, two races…we have Martinsville, we have Bristol, we have Richmond, and those are the only tracks that are under a mile in length that we consider true short tracks. I think that it would be a big loss if we didn’t race here at Martinsville, if it wasn’t replaced by another short track. One of the identities of Martinsville is the tight paper clip shape. Over the years, it was always a test of can your equipment make it over 500 laps, mainly the brakes. You would overheat those and then you could have transmission trouble, motor trouble. As the years have progressed, cars have gotten more and more bullet proof and it’s not really a test on the cars. It’s a test on the driver’s patience. Something that worked in 1949, as far as the size of the track, might not be the best thing in 2010, but it’s a must for our short-track heritage to race at a track this size. Where would Martinsville be without it, unfortunately the tobacco industry is where it is, so if there wasn’t a race track in this little town, we probably wouldn’t be here.”

SPEAKING OF HERITAGE, HAS PENSKE LOOKED AT GOING TO NORTH WILKESBORO FOR TESTING INSTEAD OF SOME OF THE OTHER TRACKS YOU GO TO? “The tough part about North Wilkesboro is the asphalt surface chews up tires so fast that with the tire leasing program that the teams have through Goodyear and NASCAR, we couldn’t get enough tires. The biggest thing we look for when we test at a race track that we don’t race on is repeatability, being able to go out lap after lap, time after time just getting good lap times that are consistent out of the tires and the car. That’s usually what we are looking for.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN SEE WHAT THIS CAR REALLY IS LIKE NOW WITH THE SPOILER AND THE ENTIRE PACKAGE TOGETHER?

“What I have seen so far, and it holds true a little bit at Charlotte test but I noticed it even more at Texas, is that the car turns better from the corner exit or is looser on corner exit and that is really where we have struggled on this new car. We have skewed the axle housing and done all these things to try getting the thing to turn, but it seems like from center out the spoiler turns a little bit better. I felt that was the case when we tested Charlotte. We will have to wait and see if that is truly just a matter of coincidence or what, but visibility is a little bit better out of the car. I think the car looks better with the spoiler on it and I’m sure it’s going to drive different. I am anxious to get to a mile or mile-and-a-half to see what the car drives like behind another car. I know it’s going to be different.”

NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY IS CELEBRATING 20 YEARS, WHAT HAS THAT TRACK MEANT TO YOU?

“That track has changed a tremendous amount since we’ve started racing there. I remember in the old truck days almost winning my first race there. Andy Houston beat me on the white flag lap. I’ve love that place and run good there ever since I first saw it. When we first switched to the new car I remember
battling with Matt (Kenseth) in ’05 for 3rd and 4th but when we switched to the new car there were a few years where we were terrible there. More recently we have gotten better there again. It has been a fun track. They have changed the apron, you used to run down on the apron but then they made the track different. It has been a fun place for me. I enjoy it.”

WHAT MAKES IT HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GET USED TO DRIVING HERE AT MARTINSVILLE?

“I think it is actually the slow speed. We go tremendously slow here. Speed definitely has something to do with it. It has a really super slow corner speed. There is a lot of technique to the brake, when you brake, coming off the corner. If the car doesn’t have bite with the front tires and won’t stop straight and wants to pull hard to the left or slide that left front tire … if the car won’t do those things, then there is nothing the driver can do to mask them because the speed is so slow. We can’t arc it out and get a different angle because the speed is so slow. If that car won’t do its thing, then you don’t stand a chance. I think that is a lot of it. A lot of it is that this place doesn’t necessarily fit the driver’s feel and what they are used to. Some teams have figured it out a lot better than other teams.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK TALLADEGA WILL BE LIKE WITH THIS SPOILER CHANGE WHEN YOU GET THERE?

“It is going to be crazy, not because of the change, but because at that race track we can bump draft all the way around because it is smooth enough. When NASCAR said they were taking the gloves off and we should police ourselves, it didn’t really show up at Daytona because you can’t really do anything. And then a rule was made because of Talladega. Now we are going back there for the first time and it will be interesting to see what happens with guys pushing each other all the way around that place. I am almost willing to bet it will be the most exciting race of the season. I don’t know how the spoiler will affect that. It might effect how the car drives to the point where you can’t push guys all the way around the track. I didn’t do the test there, so I don’t know. I am willing to bet you are going to see some action there though.”

ROUSH STRUGGLED AT SHORT TRACKS LAST YEAR, BUT THERE WAS SUCCESS FOR THE ROUSH TEAM AT BRISTOL. HOW GRATIFYING WAS THAT AND HOW MUCH HAS THE TEAM WORKED ON SHORT TRACK SUCCESS?

“It is a big boost for us as a company because we blew up last year at Bristol and I didn’t really think that was possible. It must be something about that race track. It is nice to go there and have all of us run fairly well. This weekend here and when we get to Phoenix and Richmond will be our test on short tracks and how well we are running and what we have improved on. I think the alliance with the Evernham/Petty organization is going to benefit us in the long run too.”

ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE WAY YOUR TEAM IS WORKING TOGETHER RIGHT NOW?

“This year I wouldn’t say we’ve been lucky, but we haven’t been the best. Communication has been decent. In Atlanta we struggled a little bit. The car got really fast. I was running the top and working on running the car up along the fence but I hit the fence and we had to get the backup car out. So that was a scramble. Last week at Bristol it wasn’t until about five minutes left of practice that we really got the car going. At the Charlotte test we struggled huge. We were arguing with each other and trying all kinds of stuff to get the car going better and at the end of the day we were able to get it. The communication has been good, but it has been like really trying for us this season. It has been right at the last minute that we have excelled. I think that is from working together for the last three years and knowing each other really well. We were third from the bottom on the speed chart when we started practice today and worked our way up toward the top 15, which is a huge improvement. That is what it is about. I have to tell them how the car is driving and they have to try to fix it. Communication is key.”

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON PAUL MENARD’S GREAT SEASON SO FAR?

“What I was going to say before I saw him walk in here was that they have done a remarkable job this season. Paul has shown skill all along that he can drive. It has been apparent in the Nationwide and the Cup Series. They have gotten the car to his liking this season and, to be perfectly honest with you, we
copied his entire set-up into our car at the Lowe’s test. I think there are a lot of factors to why they are running well. I am really happy to see it happening.”

DO YOU SEE ANY PARALLEL WITH WHAT MATT IS DOING NOW TO WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH A COUPLE YEARS AGO?

“Yeah, I think so. I knew in the beginning that the crew chief change would help him. Matt is a very skilled driver. It shows more and more how important
our cars are. Matt and Paul both have good cars and those guys are running well. Matt is the kind of guy where you aren’t going to break him. He is going to try and try and try and I am glad to see him running well.”

WHAT’S THE OUTLOOK GOING INTO THIS WEEK?

“I don’t really know. Every week is a little bit of a surprise. Last year, we weren’t very good at Atlanta and Bristol, and we’ve really improved our program for those tracks this year, so this week and Phoenix, I think, will be a big test for us, especially Phoenix. I’m looking forward to getting on the track here this weekend and seeing what it’s like. Todd Parrott loves this track and he’s had some success here with all of the other drivers he’s been
with, so I’m hoping for better things.”

WHAT ABOUT PHOENIX? WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO LEARN THERE?

“I think as an organization that tracks like Phoenix and Richmond and probably even New Hampshire were probably our worst tracks last year. We really struggled at those places, but I think Jimmy Fennig being in research and development and trying to test some of these flatter, shorter tracks that we can get to where we don’t race will hopefully help us a little bit. Again, that was one of our tough places, so that will be a good test for us
to see how we stack up and how we’ve improved our program.”

HOW DO YOU KEEP THINGS GOING GOOD WITH TODD PAST THIS FIRST MONTH TOGETHER AND HOW HAS TODD IMPACTED THINGS?

“I agree with you. I was joking with Todd and telling him that we’re still on our honeymoon period. Everybody asks how it’s going and I’m like, ‘Well, we’re still kind of on the honeymoon, so we’ll see how it goes.’ It’s been going really well. I’ve enjoyed working with him. He’s got a lot of experience
and the guys really look up to him as a leader, and he’s got some great leadership qualities about him. I’ve enjoyed the first few weeks. We’ve been running pretty well and as an organization we’ve been running a lot better than the way we ended up last year, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s been fun and, obviously, it’s very early in the season. We’ve had a couple of off weeks with rest and all that stuff, so you really see what it’s about here in a couple of months.”

HOW HAS THIS CHANGE AFFECTED YOU?

“There were a lot of things after Daytona that I really thought about and there are certainly things I need to do better. I realize every race of every year that there are things I can do better and improve at on the race track, but I tried to look at some of the off the track stuff, too. Maybe try to work a little harder on camaraderie with the team and keeping them upbeat, and interacting more with the team and trying to get to the shop more – take the guys out to dinner more often – and maybe try to keep the group a little bit more upbeat so it doesn’t feel so much like a job sometimes. That’s especially
important when you’re not performing well. When people are winning races and things are going good, it’s easy for everybody to be happy and giving their best everyday, but when things aren’t going as well sometimes you’ve got to put a little extra work into it. I’ve tried to be a little more conscious of that and trying to be a little more positive on the radio.”

THIS IS THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY. WHAT STANDS OUT TO YOU ABOUT THAT PLACE?

“They’ve improved the track from what it was when they moved the banking around and got the groove to the middle. Those type of tracks aren’t my favorite. If I had to pick my favorite type of tracks, I like the more high-banked tracks because I seem to do a little better and more comfortable at those places, but it’s certainly been a real popular track. The one thing you think about whenever you go up there are all the sellouts they’ve had in a row and all the great fans up there in that area that show up to support the races and enjoy watching us.”

YOU COME ACROSS AS A PATIENT PERSON, BUT HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO DEAL WITH THE FRUSTRATION OF THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS?

“I haven’t always done the best job at being patient. Certainly time never stops moving and as you get farther down the road and later in your career you can’t ever get that back, so there’s a certain amount of patience you need to get things turned around to be where you’re at, but, on the other hand, I think maybe sometimes I’ve been too patient and been way too reluctant to make changes or try different things, or maybe dig in there deeper and be involved more even in the parts of the thing the driver shouldn’t need to be involved. It hasn’t been easy. It’s easy when things are going right and you’re being successful. That’s when everybody can be in a good mood, but when things go bad it’s hard not to push the panic button or to get too down or get the
whole thing torn apart. You just have to keep working on it every week and you really try to put that week behind you as soon as you can and move onto the next week and start thinking about what you’ve got to do because we can’t do anything about whatever happened in past weeks or seasons. You just try to learn from them and try to get stronger moving forward.”

DO YOU TRY TO STAY EVEN KEELED?

“I try to be pretty even keeled about it, no matter how good or bad it’s going. It’s tougher when things are going bad because you lose your patience and you feel like with the people that we have assembled and the equipment we have that we should be able to do better than what we’ve done the last couple years. I feel we should be able to do a lot better and I think they feel like that to, so it’s hard to remain patient when things aren’t going right, but you just have to keep working on it.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MINDGAMES DRIVERS CAN PLAY WITH EACH OTHER?

“I have no idea what’s been said or what’s going on. I haven’t paid one bit of attention because I’m more worried about our own team and our own car. When you win races you get the most points and the most bonus points and I think you just focus on going out and trying to beat your competition. That’s all I’ve every really tried to do is worry about our team and what we can control. I can’t really control what the other teams and cars do, so I’ve never really gotten to into that before or paid that much attention to it. I think you just have to figure out how to beat those guys and figure out how to make your cars faster. You have to learn how to execute better on pit road, on adjustments, on the track, so I think that’s really what we focus on.”

ROUSH FENWAY DOESN’T HAVE A STERLING RECORD HERE. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE BEHIND AS SOON AS YOU COME THROUGH THE GATES ON FRIDAY?

“I usually feel like I’m behind at about 2:00 on Friday or whenever we get through with the first practice. The thing that’s cool about this sport is we go to so many different sizes and shapes of tracks, and almost everybody has strong suits and weak suits. There are certain tracks that are more of a struggle and you’ve got to work harder to try and make it happen than you do at some other tracks, and this has certainly been one that has been a struggle and a source of frustration for me, but you just keep working on it. You come here and try to bring the best stuff you can, work as hard as you can, and hope for a good result.”

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OLD SPICE CHEVROLET met with media and discussed the new spoiler, racing at Martinsville, Jimmie Johnson’s popularity, his involvement in Ryan Newman’s team, and more. Full Transcript:

TALK ABOUT HOW PRACTICE WENT FOR YOU TODAY: “It was good. We started in race trim and basically the last 20 minutes in qualifying trim. Car is driving pretty good so far.”

HAVE YOU FOLLOWED BUTLER UNIVERSITY RUN THROUGH NCSS TOURNAMENT AND WHAT HAVE YOU PROVEN FROM LAST YEAR UNTIL NOW ON BEING SO CONSISTENT? “I haven’t watched any basketball this season to be honest. I kind of wish I would of, but I haven’t. I feel like everything we have done is because we have good people. We have guys like Bobby Hutchens and Darian Grubb and Tony Gibson. Ryan Newman as a teammate. That is the tip of the iceberg, it trickles down through the people that they have assembled. We have just been really fortunate to have really good people.”

HOW MUCH ATTENTION AND INPUT DO YOU HAVE WITH RYAN’S TEAM? “As much as I put on my team. There is no point in having a second or third or fourth car if you don’t put the same amount of effort in to all the cars. We have our competition meetings on Monday and we try to figure out what happened. We dissect the whole race and find out what happened. What we can do better. It just seems like there has been one thing every race that has caused Ryan to have the struggle he has had during the day so, we just have to figure out how to put the whole day together. They have got times when they are running really good, they just haven’t been able to put the whole day together and that is what we are trying to figure out how we can help them do that.”

TALK ABOUT PHOENIX. IS THAT A BIG SHORT TRACK? “Easy, you stay inside the concrete walls that are on the outside of the track. You stay to the left of that and you have pretty much navigated around there pretty successfully. You know, it races like a short track in all reality even though it is a mile, it races a lot like a short track because of how slick it gets. That track is a pretty old surface but that is what makes it fun is because it makes you have to work so hard to get your car right and get it driving good there. It is a place I like. It is one of my favorite tracks we go to all year is Phoenix is because of that.”

LOOKS LIKE YOU AND TRAVIS KVAPIL GOT TOGETHER AT THE END OF PRACTICE, WHAT HAPPENED, WE ONLY SAW THE END OF IT? “That is a really good question, I wish I knew the answer to that. That is all I saw was the end of it too when he checked up in front of us. Not sure why that happened.”

ARE BRAKES AN ISSUE HERE FOR YOU? “I’ll be honest, even when guys were still having trouble with brakes; we were one of the teams that historically didn’t have trouble week to week. That is part of why we have been decent on road courses too is because our brake package is pretty good. I’ve guess I’m just not really hard on brakes for some reason. “It never seems to really be an issue for us. I don’t think we have really worried about it for three or four years now. The brake packages have gotten better all the way across the board, even with teams that really struggled with brakes seem to have a lot better under to control now.”

AS A TWO-TIME CHAMPION, HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO GET INTO THE OTHER COMPETITORS HEADS? “Yes, definitely. But, the thing is, there is a group of guys that are easy to do that to and there is a group of guys that it is impossible to no matter what you try to do, you can’t get in their heads. Then there is a group of guys that it is real easy to get in their heads. Everybody is different but there are definitely groups that you can use that to your advantage.”

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON ‘HAVE AT IT BOYS’ AND DO YOU THINK WE ARE GOING TO HAVE ANY ON-TRACK POLICING THIS WEEKEND? “I thought we handled and answered that question at Daytona during the media day there so I think that is already in the books.”

HOW MUCH HAS THE AIR PURIFICATION SYSTEM FOR DRIVERS BEEN IMPROVED? “I think it is more what NASCAR has done to help out. It seems like everybody has kind of worked together on making it a better air package. It is a lot better than it used to be. In the last two years in particular it is quite a bit better and significantly different. It is a lot better and at the end of the race you feel a lot better. NASCAR will come down and take readings with the drivers after the race and it has been cut in half in the last couple of years from what we saw two, three, four years ago. They have definitely made huge gains in that area and that is better for us down the road.”

WHAT HAS DARIAN GRUBB MEANT TO THIS TEAM?

“He’s the backbone of it. We couldn’t do any of it without him. He was such a huge part of when we hired him a year and a half ago of really getting the ball rolling and getting the process started and getting the right people hired in the right positions. He had to do a lot of work that was above and beyond a crew chief’s job to get everything going. There is absolutely no way that we would be where we are with this organization without him right now.”

ON THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED, HOW CHALLENGING IS IT AND HOW DOES IT STAND OUT?

“Well, you know that every corner counts in that green-white-checkered. You’ve got four chances to get through a corner better than somebody else and you know that you have to make that count. A lot of it is the circumstances of how many cars you get by are the tire strategies. And we had the luxury in Atlanta; we had just gotten back on the lead lap there and were able to get tires and that gave us the opportunity to get by those guys. It’s controlled chaos. Everybody is trying to get that one last spot and they know they’ve got two laps to do it in and everybody is bunched together when that happens. So it’s a pretty wild two laps (laughs) and you’re normally glad when it’s over.

“I think a situation like Atlanta where it’s wide and the tires are so different, that makes a bigger difference than it does here (Martinsville). It seems like it takes three or four laps for things to kind of sort out here, so it’s really hard to get two lines. You’re not going to run three-wide here anyway, so starting double file, a lot of times it’s going to stay that way and whichever line gets going you might get a spot because of that. But it’s hard to make up a bunch of spots here. Guys could have 100 laps on their tires and if there are 10 of them in front of you in a green-white-checkered and you have four brand new tires and you’re the fastest car all day, you’re not going to get back by 10 cars in the last two laps.”

IN THE PAST, IT SEEMS LIKE WHEN A GUY DOMINATES, AFTER A WHILE PEOPLE GET TIRED OF IT AND THEY START BOOING HIM LIKE CRAZY. DO YOU HAVE A THEORY AS TO WHY JIMMIE JOHNSON DOESN’T SEEM TO ATTRACT THAT REACTION FROM THE FANS?

“It’s because he doesn’t do anything on the race track that makes them mad other than win. He’s the kind of guy that it’s hard to not like Jimmie. He’s personable. I get along with him great. Every time I won a race last year, he was one of the first people to send me a text message congratulating me. And I think that shows Jimmie’s personality and character. He’s just not one of those guys that goes out there and gets into guys and gets into trouble with guys on the race track that creates some of that animosity that the fans have sometimes.”

DOES THE NEW SPOILER MAKE THE CAR LOOK LIKE A GOOD OLD RACE CAR?

“It looks like a car with a spoiler on it to me. We’re worried about making them go fast. I mean, I’m not entering it in a car show for appearance, so it doesn’t really matter to me. I’m trying to figure out how to make it handle good. Sorry, I don’t think about that stuff (laughs).”

AFTER THE FIRST PRACTICE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE, DID YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENCE WITH THE NEW SPOILER?

“No. We didn’t notice any difference. You’re running about 80 mph here; you’re not really going to feel a difference.”

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT RACING AT MARTINSVILLE?

“It’s still that old short track feel. That’s what I like. We run a lot of 1.5-mile tracks during the year and this is the only place that races like this. We’ve got two half-mile tracks that we race on. This one’s quite a bit different than where we raced last week (Bristol) and that’s what makes it fun here. You can out-brake guys; you can run the outside if you get a shot, but it’s racing the way we all grew up racing.”

JEFF BURTON, No. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET, met with members of the media at Martinsville Speedway and discussed racing at his home track, expectations of the spoiler, beating the No. 48 and other topics. Full transcript:

ON RACING AT MARTINSVILLE: “We feel good about it. We worked real hard on our short track program over the winter. We spent a lot of time testing, so hopefully that will pay off for us. We feel like we’ve had a solid start to the year. We’ve come short in a few areas, and we’re trying to address those and be better. All in all, we’re very excited about this weekend. This is always a hard race. It requires a lot of patience, but at the same time a lot of aggressiveness. That’s why I like it. It requires a lot of balance, and it comes at a time of the year when points mean a lot. We’ll try to make a good weekend out of it.”

DOES THE SUCCESS OF THE 48 GET IN YOUR HEAD? “Well when you win four championships and three of the first six races or whatever he’s done, and you’re not in somebody’s head then nobody’s paying attention. I think everybody’s different, and everybody’s affected by things differently. For me, if you’re not paying attention to what they’re doing and understand that they’re the guys you need to beat if you want to win a championship, then you’re not a fast learner. You can be in denial about where they are and what they’re doing if you like, but if you want to understand what you’re up against then you need to understand it. Now, if that’s being in your head or not, I don’t know. They certainly have had the success that no one else has had over the past four years, and that no one has had at the first part of this year. If they’re in peoples head, they’re in it because of their success not because of what they’re saying.”

DO YOU THINK THE SWITCH FROM THE WING TO THE SPOILER CAN TOTALLY CHANGE THE RACING OUT THERE AND MAKE SOME TEAMS THAT HAVEN’T BEEN COMPETITIVE SUDDENLY FIGHTING FOR THE WIN? “I wouldn’t be totally surprised. I’ve said from the beginning that I think going to a spoiler could be a game-changer. I think that it will affect some teams more than it does others. The teams are pretty smart today, and we have more resources than we’ve ever had before. Still at the end of the day, you have to go out and race everybody. As hard as you’re working your competitors are working too, and when it’s something different some people are going to catch on to it quicker than others. Tuesday and Wednesday at Charlotte [Motor Speedway] felt like a normal test. There were teams that were running well, there were teams that were struggling, and there were teams that were on the fence between the two. I don’t think the dynamics of that is going to change, but it could change who is running well and who isn’t running well. Anytime there is a change, there is a risk of losing the good that you had, but there is also the chance of gaining something good that you didn’t have, and that’s going to affect every team differently.”

SINCE MARTINSVILLE IS YOUR HOME TRACK, DO YOU RACE ANY DIFFERENTLY AROUND THIS TRACK? “I don’t race it differently; I believe you race it the best way you know how. You use your strengths and the things that you’re good at every week whether it’s the first race of the year or the last race of the season and you’re racing for the championship. At the end of the day, you need to utilize the thing that you’re good at, and avoid the things that you’re not good at. It’s easy to let the emotion of a particular event drive the way that you’re going to approach the race, but that’s not the proper way to do it. The proper way to do it is to bring the same amount of intensity to every lap of every race to get the result that you want. That may mean a little more winning at your home track or winning the championship. The end result may change a little bit, but the way you get to that result should stay the same.”

DO YOU THINK THE SPOILER WILL SLOW THE NO. 48 DOWN? “I expect that the Hendrick teams will do well and I don’t think that it will slow the 48 down. I’m paying attention to what the 48 is doing, but I’m much more concerned about how it affects us. I don’t think it’s going to slow them down, but I know that we need it to make us better. I’m paying attention to that.”

IS IT GOOD TO HAVE DALE, JR. IN THE TOP-12 IN POINTS? “Junior has a huge following in the sport. There are so many people that watch what he’s doing. There is no way that having Dale Jr. doing well isn’t good for the sport, and to be honest, more importantly it’s good for him. I like Junior. I think he’s a good racecar driver that has had a lot of attention put on him over the past couple of years that wasn’t good attention. It’d be good to see Junior having fun again, because the way things have been going he hasn’t been having fun. Honestly, I think he’s fun to talk to and he has a lot of respect for the sport. He’s the kind of person that I like to see do well.”

WILL TEXAS BE THE RACE WHERE WE ACTUALLY SEE THE EFFECTS OF THE SPOILER? “In some ways, yes. Charlotte is a difficult track to test on. Since they’ve changed the track, the tires are really kind of odd—you go out the second time and you’re faster, you go out the third time and you’re faster yet. It’s really hard to get a balance there to know where you are. You put on new tires to make a run and you would have been better if you had just stayed on older tires. It’s a difficult place to test, so that in itself more so than the spoiler means that Texas is kind of starting over. Still, I do think that you learned some things at Charlotte that you can apply to Texas.”

EVEN THOUGH YOUR TEAM HAS STEPPED IT UP A LOT FROM LAST YEAR, ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED WITH THE RESULTS THAT YOU’VE HAD SO FAR? “I’m disappointed that we haven’t executed with some opportunities that we’ve had. We’ve run well and had fast race cars at every race, and I don’t necessarily have the finishes to show for it. I’m disappointed with that. We had a great chance to win at California and we didn’t execute on that. A lot of people said, “Well the No. 48 got a lucky break.” They did, but we restarted third with enough of laps to go win the race and we didn’t make it happen. Last week, we were running fifth on the last caution and ended up finishing tenth. At Atlanta, we had fast car and had a problem, and then I made the problem worse. We’ve got to do a better job of executing. If we do that we’ll win our races. I don’t want to sit up here and say that we’re good enough to be winning because if we were, we would have been winning. You are what your record says you are, and our record says that we haven’t been good enough to win yet. I’m disappointed with that, but my focus has been on why haven’t we been winning. We haven’t been winning because we haven’t executed on it, and in some other cases we weren’t fast enough to win. We need to get a little more speed and we have to execute better.”

WHAT DO YOU DO TO DRIVING THE CAR TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING ALL OF THE RUBBER THAT BUILDS UP IN THE CORNERS? “The rubber builds up on the exit of both corners. It starts to build up just past the center of the corner and through to the exit. You have three options—run all the below it with the right side tires, which means that your left tires are right up next to the curb, straddle it, or run with all four tires above it. You adjust your car to run whichever way you think is the best at that time, and then a caution comes out and the rubber goes away, and then you run for 40-50 laps with no rubber on the track. So then you have your car set up to run in a certain area that your car doesn’t want to run in anymore. It’s a constant balance between where the rubber builds up and where it doesn’t. It is important to understand where that rubber is and I see a lot of people in practice that forget that and practice with the right tires exactly where the rubber is going to be. So and when they have that setup starting the race, they can’t run anymore. The knowledge of that and how it changes your car is very important because it affects how you practice your car and how you set up your car.”

THE PROBLEM WITH FUEL INJECTION WAS THAT THERE WAS NO WAY TO POLICE IT, IS THAT A PROBLEM ANYMORE? “I am very uneducated in the fuel injection deal, but I would think that in today’s time, policing a part wouldn’t be a problem. As much policing as NASCAR does today with all the parts on the car, I highly doubt that that would be a problem. Although, if you’re going to run 12th it’s a lot easier to cheat than if you’re going to win the race. There would be the potential for that, but in the way that NASCAR does things today. I just don’t think that would be a problem.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED AT RCR TO MAKE YOU CHASE EVERYONE ELSE TO REGAIN AN ADVANTAGE AT SHORT TRACKS? “The people you are chasing are working to and you have to respect their work and sometimes how they get better than you. This is a competitive sport, and when you have an advantage everyone wants to take it away from you. Typically there are shifts on who’s doing well and who’s doing well at which race track.

We have worked diligently to get our short track program back to where it needs to be. At the same time, we’ve worked to get our mile, and mile-and-a-half and superspeedway programs to where they need to be. Every one of those departments deserves the same amount of attention, but they get different results at different times. The best times can get the most results out of everything they’re working on. Last year when we were struggling, it was hard to be as good as we needed to be anywhere because we were just off. This year it seems like we’ve been able to be more competitive everywhere because our program has been more together. It allows us to focus on individual departments instead of trying to put our whole program.”

IS IT THE CAR’S FAULT OR THE DRIVER’S FAULT THAT MORE PEOPLE AREN’T BEATING THE 48? “As long as I’ve been racing there’s been the question is it the driver or the car? The truth of the matter is that it’s both. The truth of the matter is that it is the driver’s responsibility to get the car to make the car better in communicating more than just driving the race car. A four-time champion is doing it better because his results say that he’s doing it better. Yes, you cannot take a car that will only run a 22-second lap and run a 21.90 [second] lap with it. It’s your as a driver to communicate the things that the car is doing to get it to where it can run a 21.90. That’s part of the driver’s responsibility. It is also the driver’s responsibility to always run a 22-second lap every lap when your car is capable of a 22-second lap. You can’t just dismiss the driver’s involvement in it, because the driver is greatly involved in it. It becomes harder when your car can’t do it, but what can you do? You have to be a part of the solution. Ultimately, it is both the responsibility of the driver and car, and it is partially the driver’s responsibility to get the car to where it needs to be.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET met with media and discussed his success and how it is affecting other drivers, the new spoiler, techniques for racing at Martinsville, double-file restarts, and more. Full Transcript:

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES FOR A SEVENTH VICTORY AT MARTINSVILLE THIS WEEKEND?

“We were just talking about it. I feel very confident and good about things coming to the track, but you just can’t take anything for granted. We still have to come in here and qualify well. I think qualifying is going to be a very important part. Pit stall pick is very, very important here as we all know. But I have a good feeling about things. I feel like we’ll be competitive, but I love to live in the world where I’ve got to go out and earn it each week and not take anything for granted. We’ll get after it today and see what happens.”

LAST FALL THIS RACE WENT TO A GREEN-WHITE-CHECKER AND YOU STARTED OUTSIDE OF DENNY HAMLIN. HOW DOES THAT COMPARE TO OTHER PLACES WE RACE?

“First of all, I was watching a classic yesterday of a Martinsville race from 2008 and we didn’t have double-file restarts and I forgot how difficult it was at the end of the race to have a shot at winning. So double-file is really good for our sport and given guys a chance to win the race. And I guess if you look at Bristol, if I would have started fifth in line, there is no way we would have gotten there. With all that in mind, the double-file starts are really good. I think that here, for me at least, they seem more intense. You can hit your marks and do your thing, but other guys can really affect you. And they can on the bigger tracks (too), but here it’s so easy to make contact with someone and not have a huge problem. The people take that opportunity; they are more aggressive and not afraid to use the bumper. And if you’re going back to the gas and a guy hits your bumper at the right time, it’s going to bust the tires loose and you’re dead in the water. So, there is a lot more stress at the end of a race here. On top of the fact, you’re just expecting. So it all feeds itself. You just know if it’s green-white-checkered, the rear bumper is going to be knocked off, the doors are going to be caved in, and it’s going to be pretty rough and tumble.”

ON RACING AT TEXAS WITH THE NEW SPOILER

“I think the test (at Charlotte) went well. It was useful for all the teams to go out and work on set-ups and collect some data. The drivers got a feel for the spoiler versus the wing. All that said, we never really raced each other. I don’t think I tried to pass a single car the whole time. I certainly didn’t run side-by-side with anybody. We have a lot to learn. Texas will be a huge measuring stick to where this spoiler fits into things and where things are. NASCAR has thought this through well and they’re doing a good job of introducing the spoiler at this track and then Phoenix and then at a big track so we all have some time with it. But what I kind of predict is that the car is going to be more difficult to drive in traffic. I’ve heard a lot of people mention that’s going to make for better racing. And I’m just not buying that as of now. The end plates on the wing allowed the car to get really far sideways and then it would catch you and straighten you back up. And that’s the limiting factor you have in traffic.

”You push until the car moves around and then you know you’re at your limit and that’s all you’ve got. I think it might create more spins and more wrecks. If you remember back to when the wing was first introduced, we’d see cars totally sideways and like how did he save it? And with the old car there’s no way. And we’re going back to that set-up. So there’s a chance there will be more cautions because of that; because you don’t have the end plate of the wing to catch you when you get really crossed up. But again, we’re all throwing opinions out and Texas will be the weekend when we find out what’s up.”

EARLIER THIS MORNING, KYLE BUSCH SAID THAT HE CAN ONLY DRIVE AS GOOD AS HIS CAR IS. THE IMPLICATION WAS THAT IF 10 GUYS HAD CARS AS GOOD AS YOURS, THINGS WOULD BE MORE COMPETITIVE. IS THAT WHERE WE ARE NOW, OR DO THE OTHER DRIVERS NEED TO STEP THINGS UP A NOTCH?

“Yeah, I think it boils down to people and not just saying that a driver needs to step it up. It’s the whole organization. When you look at the racing we have today and the cars that we have today, the box is so tight. The cars are so equal. It’s more equal than it has ever, ever been. So I can’t say a lot of blame goes into the cars, because you can only be so far off now. There is no doubt that the people that work on this No. 48 team work really, really well together. We’re prepared and we find the small, small details. But there are no big changes between organizations, between teams; and my teammates for that matter have all the access to all my set-ups and run my set-ups and we’re all running the same equipment, the same engines the same cars, and same bodies. But the people on this No. 48 team, as a unit, work really well together and we’ve been taking advantage of opportunities. We haven’t been the best car in the three races we’ve won, but we’ve left with the trophy. And that’s because the people on our race team are making it happen when it counts.”

AFTER THE BRISTOL RACE, KURT BUSCH GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND SAID, ‘ANYBODY BUT THE 48′. WHEN YOU HEAR THINGS LIKE THAT FROM OTHER DRIVERS, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

“It made me smile. I was getting ready to do my victory interview and I could hear that. Man, I’ve always wanted to be that guy that frustrated the field, frustrated the garage area. I was fortunate enough to watch (Dale) Earnhardt do that during his run and (Jeff) Gordon during his. And you ask any driver in the garage area. They want to be in my shoes. They want to be that guy that is referenced when someone loses and they say ‘anyone but’. They all want to be in my shoes. So I’m pretty excited to be here.”

NOW THEY’LL ALL DENY THAT YOU’RE IN THEIR HEADS, BUT DO YOU THINK THE NO. 48 TEAM HAS GOTTEN INTO THEIR HEADS?

“Just in his (Kurt Busch’s) comment alone? Absolutely, we’re in his head. Maybe not everyone’s. Everybody deals with things differently. But if you go through and read any press remarks or interviews, if someone talks that they’re not worried about us, it’s already in there; which is great.”

ON THE DANGERS OF OVERDRIVING AT MARTINSVILLE, TALK ABOUT HOW YOU LEARNED AND THE BEST WAY TO GET AROUND THIS TRACK

“You can’t tiptoe around the race track. There are certain areas where you really have to attack to turn a fast lap and they don’t come natural for the majority of the drivers. It took me a few trips and I was in a position where I was being lapped by the race leader, who was Tony Stewart at the time. To follow him and visually see where he was attacking, I had it all wrong. And we’ve all talked about it, but there is a certain rhythm that the track requires for you to run a fast lap time. And on top of that, a fast lap time is maybe a tenth of a second better than a slow one. So there are really, really small adjustments that you have to make. And it’s been well discussed where you can’t overcharge the entry; and then the forward bite up off onto the straightaways is really important. But there is a combination of the three sections of the turn from entry to the center of the corner to the exit where you have to compromise in two of the areas but be really aggressive in the center of the corner and try to play that rhythm lap after lap, and hopefully you’re on the right side of the tenth bracket that you need to be on.”

HAS THE DOUBLE-FILE CHANGED CHAD’S ABILITY TO MAKE DIFFERENT OR RISKY CALLS AT THE END OF THE RACE BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS SAME OPTION WITH WAY RESTARTS ARE NOW STRUCTURED? “I have to say to it has probably been a win for the majority of the field. I would say the first maybe two or three cars have a little more pressure on their shoulders as we all see, whatever the leader does, the majority of the field does the opposite just to try to gain an advantage. So if you are first or second, third possibly, it may be a little more difficult for you then. But in general, I think it has opened a lot of possibility. The fact that you are racing the cars that you need to. Sometimes you aren’t in the right lane over the course of a season and over restarts, it all balances itself out. Some days you are in the right lane, some days you are not. In general, I think it has been a very very good change for our series. It has given us more opportunities as drivers and it has put a better product on the track for the viewing audience.”

HOW MUCH IS IT JUST THE CHANGE OF THE LOOK OF THE CAR WITH THE CHANGE FROM THE WING TO THE SPOILER? “We won’t really know until we get to Texas. At the end of the day, here, at Phoenix we will learn a little bit more about it, but the speeds aren’t high enough here to have an affect. The balance of the car in a straight line in a wind tunnel it provides more rear down force than what we are used to, what we had with the wing. NASCAR intentionally overshot that number a little bit to give us something to work with. But when you are in traffic, a spoiler is less efficient than a wing so with that in mind, at high speeds your lose efficiency, you are going to lose down force in the back of the car. On top of that, we had more side force with the end plates on the wing itself which was a security blanket in some respects, it kept us from spinning all the way around in traffic. I’ve seen a lot of people who have said it is going to make for better racing and not many pointing out these other difficulties with the spoiler versus the wing and I just have a feeling it’s going to make it more difficult. When we get on these faster tracks, it is going to make it tougher to close that gap and to get someone’s bumper and put a pass together.”

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ANOTHER GRANDFATHER CLOCK? “We have to go earn that clock first. We’ve worked very hard to put ourselves in this position. It didn’t happen by accident, we didn’t luck in to it. It has been a lot of hard work for nine seasons and the last four years have gone extremely well for us, but, in general, I feel very fortunate because the people that work on this team, we all came together at a young age and had a common goal. We still have a lot of great years left in us of working and being committed to this sport. To have us all peak, if you look at Chad’s career and where he is peaking. Myself. Ron Malec, Greg Ives, our tire changers. You go through the list and break it down, everybody is the best they’ve ever been and the best at their position. We are very fortunate to have that team together right now and it has led to the success that we have had.”

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE PRESSURE? “I’ve always had pressure and all driver do coming up through the ranks. At a young age I found a way to deal with the pressure, maybe it is just my personality. It has worked very well for me over the years. As time goes on, the more I am prepared, the more calm I am. At home, during the week, whatever work stuff I have to do then also here at the track. I walked through the tunnel today knowing I came in here as prepared as I could be physically and mentally. I know the team has. We’ve had plenty of meetings to discuss our setups and where we are going and what is going on. So in the end, preparation helps me deal with a lot of the stress leading up to it. Then in the car, during the race, I can’t explain why, but I think it is one of my best assets, is the fact that pressure doesn’t affect me as much as it does others. It certainly does, my heart rate picks up and all the things that come with pressure enter my mind and my body but I don’t seem to make a lot of mistakes in that moment. That’s something I have been very proud of and as I reflect back on my career, there have been key moments just to keep a job that I had to go out and perform that weekend and did all the way to this level now to where we have been able to win four championships, still when the pressure when it has been on, I’ve been able to keep my composure and do a good job.”

DO YOU HAVE ONE CAR YOU LIKE MORE THAN OTHERS AND THAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU GET TO THE TRACK? “You know from Chad’s perspective and the guys at the shop, they’re more aware of that and have little reasons. As simple as how easy a seat bolts in or how easy the car is to scale, there are little differences that the notice because they are with the cars all the time. But truthfully any more, the cars are all the same. Yes, ideally a restrictor plate car is different than a down force car but we finishes second or third in the Bud Shootout in our short track car two years ago when we all crashed and we had to go to our third backup. So, man, it is really tough to say a driver has a favorite car anymore because they are all the same from and aerodynamic standpoint and a chassis standpoint. But there are cars that are more friendly to work on for whatever reason. They all come off the same fixtures. They are all built the same, but some cars respond a little easier to the scales and shocks and different things like that the guys like.”

HOW DO YOU SEE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE SEE HOW DALE, JR. AND THE TEAM HAVE BEEN ABLE TO PUT THEMSELVES BACK IN THE TOP-12 AND HOW IT HAS IMPACTED DALE? “From my perspective, he has always walked in to meetings and applied himself and has been in a positive mood. I tend to hear more outside of our environment about lack of confidence than what I see for myself. I can also say with the changes made and really combining the No. 88 and the No. 5 cars, the shops, the setups, the cars and all the stuff, I think it has been good for him to have that mark, literally Mark (Martin). That car to follow and chase and adapt and come out of his comfort zone in some ways. I saw where Lance jumped on him in the race last weekend. I think he is letting people push him and he is pushing himself in areas that are not comfortable and that’s helping him a lot this year. Lance, I don’t know the exact words, I know Lance jumped on him about ‘buckle down, don’t lay down on me’ and being pushed like that, that pressure sparks things in people. He kept his composure, stayed up on the wheel, drove up and got a top-10 finish. I think it is good to be pushed and Chad does it to me. He’ll drive me freakin’ crazy telling me to let off; I’m using the brakes too much. Do this, do that. As much as it annoys me and I hate to hear it, it is good to have that pressure. I think that this year he has put more pressure on himself, the fact that the two cars are the same now, there is more inherent pressure through that and I think Lance is also applying more pressure. It is helping him continue down the road and develop and fall in to our system better.”