Dale Jr. Wins Richmond Nexcup - Notes and Quotes from Chevy

Chevrolet NOTES & QUOTES

NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES

CHEVY AMERICAN REVOLUTION 400 RACE NOTES

RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

May 15, 2004

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - (WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT LAST RUN?) "We got a little loose there and I got into Jeff (Gordon) and I'm sure Darrell (Waltrip) and those guys up there (in the booth) are lobbying for me to get suspended for life from NASCAR. But that's the only incident we had all night. We had a pretty clean night. There were a lot of guys with body rubs and stuff tonight. If contact gets you a suspension for a race or two, we'll only have about 18 cars next week. That would be pretty interesting. I had a top three night until I ran into the No. 24 car and I know he's (Jeff Gordon) mad at me. I just got down into Turn 3 and got loose. We made a change and that's probably what made it loose - not to mention all that oil dry down there.

"But I'm pretty happy. Zippy has been sick for two days. You can barely understand him on the radio. I had a migrane (headache) right before Happy Hour and I told him (Zippy) that's why we get the money we paid. There are no substitutions. There is nobody who can do his job. There is nobody who can do my job for him. We both got up on the wheel today. He was a trooper up on the stand and kept working on the car. I'm just really happy. We had some executives from Home Depot here tonight.

(ON THE TRACK) "I'll be honest, I didn't think it was going to be this good. Obviously there were two grooves and almost even three grooves. Whoever they contracted to do the job here did an excellent job. Right off the bat, it's a racing race track."

(WERE YOU TIGHT OR LOOSE AT THE END?) "We were a little bit tight on the green flag stop when we went back out. We came back in and took four tires on and we were real free on entry. So we just kept working on it and making it better and we got back into the top five and that's the main thing."

(WHEN MICHAEL WALTRIP WAS IN THE LEAD AND YOU WERE BEHIND HIM, WERE YOU INTENTIONALLY BEING CAREFUL TONIGHT?) "Well you've got to keep in mind I've got his brother up in the booth and he's been carrying a hatchet on me the last couple of weeks so we don't dare touch his little brother out there for fear that he's going to crush me with the media. There wasn't any reason to get physical with Michael at that point in the race anyway. I think that was probably some of the best racing of the night for the fans. I thought we put on a pretty good show with it."

(YOU WERE HONEST WITH DARRELL WALTRIP IN THE BOOTH) "I think it's a joke anymore. Look at how many people touched people tonight out there and I can guarantee you he's not lobbying for any of those people to get parked for a week. It just happens that for a couple of weeks in a row we got into it with people. Heaven forbid we accidentally have accidents. Like tonight, I'm sure Jeff (Gordon) thinks I tried to take him out. I went down there and it wasn't very clean down there when I got there and I just loose and got into him. But if you can't touch anybody and you've got to worry about it every race, I might as well quit this sport and go back to running Sprint Cars where there's none of this stuff is there. At least you're allowed to race there. You don't have to worry about people hacking you in the media every time you touch somebody. It doesn't focus on the important things in this sport.

"I've learned not to read what anybody is writing in the papers and not to turn on the TV shows. The only people that matter are my sponsors and my team and my car owner and my girlfriend and my dogs at home. Every time I see all those people, they're smiling and happy to see me. So as far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters."

(IS RICHMOND USUALLY THE START OF A GOOD STRETCH FOR YOU?) "Yeah, I'm excited about this run. We tested at Charlotte. We tested here. I honestly didn't think we had as strong a car as we had tonight. We tried a new approach tonight."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(ON THE INCIDENT WITH TONY STEWART) "We're seeing it every weekend and you think a guy getting abuse by the media and the drivers would start thinking a little bit more. He had a much faster car, fresher tires, got inside of me and the position was his and he just drove straight into me and put me in the wall and about put himself in the wall. It's unfortunate, it cost us a top five. It was a good effort. We came from way back to finish 6th, so I'm pretty happy with that. We were never right. We were always a little bit off. To finish 6th I'm happy that we led a lap."

(ON THE TRACK) "It was all right. It was typical Richmond. It came to a two groove race track. It was pretty hairy up there at the top groove at the beginning of the race and at the end the bottom really went away. For the most part it was a good race. You could race, you could pass, you could run side by side. You got to be happy with that."

(WHY DID YOU STAY OUT THERE ON TIRES RATHER THAN COME IN?) "We had about 26 fresher tires than those guys. We needed the track position. We should have finished fifth. If Tony (Stewart) hadn't been a bonehead, we would have."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(AFTER THE SPIN EARLY ON, DID YOU THINK YOU'D GET THIS FINISH?) "As you are crashing you are doing damage control. l knew I didn't hurt anything suspension wise. I knew we were going to be OK. I just needed green flag running.

"We were really loose for the first 20 to 30 laps. The longer it went the better the car was. Fortunately we ended going through a full green flag pit stop and I was able to make my way back to 8th, cycle through the pits and make my way to 4th. I really felt like I had something for Junior. At the end we were about three tenths better than that group of cars in front of me. Once we went under caution and went back out and Junior just took off. He flat off was on it and drove away from us. I was trying to hang with him and I was making mistakes and Bobby (Labonte) was catching me. At that point I had to defend the position I was in."

(ON SONOMA BEING THE ONLY TRACK HE DOESN'T HAVE A TOP 10): "I wasn't aware of that stat but I do know Sonoma is probably the biggest hurdle I have ahead of myself in the season. Everywhere else I feel good about. Rockingham, Infineon and here have been my three worst tracks.

(ON PREPARING FOR SONOMA) "We're going to do a two day road course test. Brian and I are going to stop at Bondurant on the way out to Sonoma and beat up somebody else's equipment for a couple of days and have some fun there. I'm trying to take all the necessary steps I can and do some training with road course experts and try and improve our road course program. I can't seem to drive Jeff's set up on a road course. He really likes a car that rolls around a lot and has a lot a movement in it an he's been very fast with it. I can't make it work for me so we're trying got find out what I need."

(ON ROCKINGHAM BEING CUT FROM THE SCHEDULE IN '05)

"After finished second there to Bill in the fall of last year I was excited to go back. In the spring we were real slow and ended up being wrecked. You want to go back to a place and overcome that and that's what I have been able to go do at Martinsville. Rockingham I'm on my 5th year, 10th time driving there and still haven't figured that out. It doesn't hurt my feelings that much to see it gone."

(ON DEBATING ON PITTING WITH 50 LAPS TO GO) "We knew what we were doing to do. If the leaders pit, we come in and put rights on and try a two tire stop. At that point we were running our best laps. We were running our tires on about 30 laps our so. We were running our fastest laps at that point We were really happy with the set up of the car and felt we were in the right position to win the race. Unfortunately when they dropped the rag they had other things to do with that."

(WAS IT SURPRISING THAT DALE EARNHARDT JR COULD PULL AWAY WITH OLDER TIRES?) "We noticed it in our tests that they don't wear out. It didn't surprise me that he was able to stay strong. I saw early in the race the #18 do a gas only stop so I knew the tire wear must have been pretty good for him to try it. I was behind him at that point and he was really fast coming into the filed. It' just a matter of getting the balance right on these short tracks. You have to hustle the cars so much now and drive every lap like a qualifying lap."

(WAS THE RACING SURFACE WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE?) "The racing surface made us all look like a bunch of liars in the garage area. From the drivers and crew chiefs we all swore it'd be a single groove race track. It ended up tonight with two grooves and very good racing. They did a great job paving it. I really thought it'd be a single file race. To all of our liking it wasn't. My complements to every body involved with that. They did a great job."

BRIAN VICKERS, NO. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(ON HIS BEST SERIES START AND FINISH) "It feels like you think it would - it feels very good. The GMAC Chevy team did an awesome job all weekend. We obviously had a great car in qualifying and came away with our first pole. The race went pretty good today. We did have the mishap on pit road that set us back with a loose tire. That sent us back to the back of the field, but we got back up to the front and our car seemed to get real tight there at the end - center off.

"We made a couple of adjustments and they weren't quite enough. But we still came away with a top-10. Right now we're just focusing on growing this team and building it at a good steady pace that will make it a good championship team in the long run."

(HOW WAS THE NEW SURFACE?) "It was a great race tonight. I was very, very impressed with the new track. They did a great job repaving it. I've never seen a new track turn into a three-groove track that quick."

(WHAT DOES THE SUCCESSFUL WEEKEND DO FOR YOUR CONFIDENCE?) "This weekend really helps our confidence. We're really looking forward to going to Charlotte. This team is really coming into its' own. We got our first pole, our first top-10 and we're all excited about it."

SCOTT RIGGS, NO. 10 VALVOLINE CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"I can't say enough about all the guys at Hendrick's and giving us awesome horsepower every week. Every once in a while you're going to have something happen like that. I can't say enough about the guys on Valvoline Chevrolet. They did a great job of staying with us. We were real loose at the beginning and we worked our way right back up to the lead lap. We were making gains and kept adjusting on the car. I had a car that I could really run with tonight. I hate that we had something go wrong and take us out. I think we're just starting to show our potential of this team and I can't thank Hendrick's enough for the help they've given us."

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(YOU WERE MOVING INTO SECOND PLACE ON LAP 201 WHEN YOU AND JAMIE MCMURRAY GOT INTO EACH OTHER BETWEEN TURNS 1 AND 2. WHAT HAPPENED?) "The U.S. Army Chevrolet was awesome and it was time for me to go up there and lead the race. I got up underneath him fair and square. From my perspective I went down to the yellow line and he came down on me. Heck, when you're all the way underneath somebody you're not supposed to chop him. I did not anticipate him coming down. If I wanted to be overly cautious, I would have backed up, let him go and worked on him again. But heck, I had a fast car and it was ready to go to the front. I got all the way beside him fair and square. I guess it's one of those racing deals.

"I was giving guys tons of room all night. If they were getting underneath me I gave them the room -- it was too early in the race to do anything crazy. It's really frustrating because we had the equipment. And as I said, it was time for me to go up there and lead the race, but I didn't finish the job."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO., 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "We sure didn't start out good tonight. We were just way too tight at the start of the race and got a lap down there early. But the guys just kept working on the car and we kept getting better and better as the race went on. We got our lap back and kept moving toward the front. We had great pit stops tonight so it was a pretty good night for us. I just want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing.

"The guys did a good job on the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet. It was a real good run. But we sure didn't start real good that's for sure. The guys worked real hard. We got a lap down and the car was way too tight at the beginning of the race. The guys had some good stops and made some good adjustments on the race car to get it balanced back around. That's why we finished in the top-five."

BOBBY LABONTE CONT - POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

"We probably ought to start with yesterday. We didn't have a good qualifying run. We fought most of the final Happy Hour with a fuel pick-up problem. We weren't getting enough fuel pressure and really didn't get as much practice as we needed. We thought we were pretty good for a few laps and made a couple of adjustments for today that we thought were a pretty good educated guess.

"We started off the race by running a few laps and then got real tight. We just went a lap down because we were too slow. We caught that caution there right after the leaders got by us. We had a good pit stop. The guys did a good job of adjusting on it. We took off under green and the car worked really good. We got by Kurt Busch. He had something go wrong. We stayed out in front of the No. 48 car (Johnson) and got a caution. We got back around and the guys kept adjusting on the race car. We kept getting caught back up a few times.

"We got some track position toward the end and were not just quite good enough to pass the No. 48 and the 8 (Earnhardt Jr.) there at the end. But we were a lot better then we were the first run and were still good enough to finish third. We just had a good night after that first pit stop. It was just a matter of getting some good pit stops."

(ON THE TRACK SURFACE) "I didn't come up here to test. Tony (Stewart) did. The track was super-fast from what I heard. I heard the groove was on the bottom and I just anticipated that it was going to be like that all night. If you got off the groove you were going to go toward the fence. I heard they put some stuff down on the race track before we got here. Between the Busch race last night and practicing above the cones I think NASCAR made a good decision on that. The pavement was better than I thought and we had a two-groove race track out of it. I thought that was really good for the first time of a re-pave."

(WHOSE DECISION WAS IT TO PIT AND DO YOU AGREE WITH IT?) "It was more my decision, really. When Tony (Stewart) came in, it made good sense to me. My car was giving up a little bit there at that point in time. I figured with 40-something laps to go by the time we got back to green that we'd probably run 20 laps pretty good. It would depend on whether we got a good cycle on the tires. We didn't have enough knowledge on them tonight. So we made the call to come in. When the No. 20 (Stewart) and the No. 24 (Gordon) got together just a little bit, I was able to get by them. I had a little vibration there toward the end so I couldn't really make any hard efforts there the last 10 laps."

(ON HIS SEASON TO DATE) "It started off and it wasn't very consistent. We could go back to Daytona, but I don't think we have time for that. But it's been pretty good the last few weeks and I'm pretty excited about that. The guys have really come around pretty good as far as just putting things together. It's not really anything different than we've been doing the first part of the year. It's just that crazy things aren't happening like they were in the first part. But I'm real happy. We were in the top 10 in points before tonight. We shoulda-woulda-coulda finished second two weeks ago in Fontana and we finished third tonight. So we've really had two top fives. It could have been two top three's in a row. We've had some good consistent runs the past few weeks and that's real exciting. Hopefully we can continue this. We've got some good race tracks coming up."

(HAS IT MADE ANY DIFFERENCE WHETHER OR NOT JOE GIBBS HAS BEEN AT THE RACE TRACK?) "I think everything is running along really good. I always enjoy when Joe is here. Our good friend, Oliver North, was here tonight. That was pretty cool. He comes up to this race quite a bit. He came to the truck and we talked for a while. But to have both of us finish in the top five tonight and to have Joe here was really good for us and good for him. But having JD (Gibbs) running the shop has been like business as usual. He seemed pretty relaxed tonight."

DALE EARHNARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I was real loose on new tires. But it turned and didn't get tight. We really like this place. We've won five or six races here. This is a good car. This is a good set-up. We like the track and the new pavement. We could run up top. It was great. It's fun to win, it really is."

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

Note - Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins his 12th career Nextel Cup victory, third this year.

(ON HIS PERFORMANCE) "It was a great race. They did a great job paving the track. We were able to run side by side. We run well here. We won 3 or 4 Busch races here. We usually have a good car every time here. I felt real confident about coming back here and having a good finish this weekend and hold onto the points lead.

"We decided under the caution with 50 laps to go, we thought about pitting with Tony. I knew a lot of guys were going to pit. My car was really loose with new tires. A lot of time at these races you get cautions at the end. It thought staying up front was a good choice. It was about as good as it was going to get. We kept putting a little bit of time on Jimmie (Johnson). He kept getting smaller and that's what you want to see - less and less of your competition." My car was handling great. I was turning real good.

" I really like the line you run here to be competition. It really suits my style. We didn't have the best car but over a long run we had a car that was real stout. I was just trying to conserve my car. My brakes were giving me some problems. I was real worried about my brake rotators flying off the car into the fence. I took it easy on the brakes and saved the car for the end of the race."

(IS THE TEAM HUNGRY TO WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP?) "We're as hungry as every other team in the garage. There's no argument that within 500 miles of this place that we're not a contender this year. We have a real good team. They were talking about us bouncing back after a bad run last week and if that shows signs of a championship team. I think it shows signs of a team missing a few pieces. We need to run better at Kansas and Homestead to be able to win the championship. Right now we don't know how to get around those places. We've got to get better at those tracks to win a championships. We're still learning and still needing to improve a few areas but to come here and get a win is important."

(ON THE TRACK) "We were running a second faster tonight than we normally do run here so it'd definitely be harder to pass. I was really worried they'd catch a lot of hell for repaving the track. Everybody should count their blessings. Never have I seen a track get paved and come in produce that kind of race right off the bat. It's a real good track, it's got the whole package."

(ON THE LAST 40-LAP SEQUENCE) "Tony Jr. actually told me to pit but I didn't hear him. We stayed out. I thought I'd have Jimmie Johnson on the inside of me for the rest of the race trying to pass me. We just drove away. It took a long time for me to get comfortable for me to drive it hard and fast. My car was at its best with 40 or 50 laps on the tires. That was the best case scenario for us to be leading with 40 lap tires on."

(ON RUSTY WALLACE RACING HIM HARD AT THE END) "Rusty is a fierce competition. You have regular Gatorade and you have fierce Gatorade - Rusty fits in the fierce Gatorade catEgory. He'd be the blue ice or whatever. If I wanted to get by him I would have."

(ON HAVING FUN) "It's fun to be a part of racing at this time. I feel real confident in the people running this sport that they have everyone's best interest in making changes likes that. Just to jump out side of Jimmie and race side by side. Me and him had a lot of fun racing together. I really do find the enjoyment in it. We're move than just drivers nowadays. It's still comes down to getting paid to do something that you probably shouldn't get paid to do. I used to get so nervous and wonder if that would ever go away. Now I just go out there and have a good time. I feel great right now to have so much fortune come my way."

(ON HIS APROACH TO WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP) "I'm curious to what the future holds and my appeal the fans if and when I win a championship. What kind of pros and cons is that going to be on the other side of the fence. The more I contend I see the gray area is less visible. It's a little more black and white of who like and me who don't in the grandstand. There's a backlash to everything. You just got to roll with the punches. My dad never really let it bother him and he got booed plenty of times."

(ON RUNNING THE BUSCH SERIES IN MEXICO IN '05) "I'm really excited that one day the Nextel Cup series will be more international. I look forward to the day we race in Canada, Mexico and maybe South America. I don't know if we will ever be overseas racing but you never know. It would be cool to race in Europe and see what kind of reaction from the fans we'd get."

(ON THE RACE TRACK) "I've always liked running here. This was a neat place before it was reconfigured. This was one of the first races I came to when I was a kid. I look forward to racing in new areas. I'm curious to see how many people show up and their reaction to the sport. I'm looking forward to the new venues and spreading the sport more evenly across the state."

(ON THE UPCOMING RACES AT CHARLOTTE) "It's a great race track. I have a good friendship with Humpy. He represents our sport in a different in a light that a lot of the other race tracks do. Whether I live there or not I think it'd be the same feeling. It should be a lot more exciting for the fans to have a larger field at the end of the race track for the win. It's a tough race but I'd like to put my brother's name in the hat for the race. I hope either Kerry Earnhardt or Carl Long gets voted into the All Star race."

(ON HIS FATHER) "There's never too many times where I've liked to have compared myself to my dad. I've always kind of been favored to my grandfather Ralph in terms of my driving style and what not. I jumped out there on the outside and Jimmie and go the lead. I'm normally not that aggressive with the car for just a second I felt like my Daddy. It was kind of neat. I don't know if it really had come over me before. For that moment we raced and I finally got into position and it was some good racing and the fans were enjoying it. You don't see a whole lot of that in the sport anymore, the side by side racing for a couple of laps. It was great."

(WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR CHARLOTTE?) "We're limited on practice for the All Star race. That afternoon practice will be quite tricky for setting your car up for a nice race. You take the All Star race as a good test session for the 600. I'm just looking forward to getting laps on that track. We've always run good at Lowe's and hopefully having a good run the next couple of weeks."

(ARE YOU PLANNING TO TEST IN KENTUCKY NEXT WEEK?) "I have no plans to go.