Monte Carlo Race Notes - Texas - April 8

Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson take top
finishes for Chevrolet (2nd and 6th, respectively), while Terry Labonte
scores his first top 10 finish of the season at his hometown track. Johnson
continues to move up in the point standings and is now in 3rd place.  Gordon
skips from 10th up to 6th. Post-race comments follow:

TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 1

Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo - sidelined due to
a crash on lap 185 - "It wasn't that bad.  But once you get turned around
here, you're going to hit the wall real hard, there's no way around that.
It's a shame. We had a good car. I think Shawna (Robinson, No. 49) might
have got into me a little bit. I'm real disappointed. But she's a good
racecar driver. I don't know. They need to get her in a better racecar so
she can be more competitive -- but it's hard to dodge her every 15 laps. I
went down in the corner and I thought there was plenty of room down there,
but she just didn't get to the bottom around the corner. I'm not real upset
about it. There isn't much you can do. We're wadded up and we're going to
take a shot in the point standings and here we've got Martinsville next week
so it hasn't been a good week for us."

(Are you okay? It looked like you were favoring your arm when you got out of
the car.) "I bumped it on the roll cage, but it'll be all right. It wasn't
that bad of a hit actually. I stood on the gas to try to keep the car from
shooting up the race track. We had a good car and we were trying to finish
in the top 10 to get the points, but we got taken out."

TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 2

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet Monte Carlo - made his 300th
consecutive career start without taking a provisional starting spot -
finished 2nd: "The car was great. We just needed to get track position. We
adjusted on it a little bit all day, but there at the end, Robbie (Loomis)
made a great call to just take on two tires. Unfortunately, we couldn't beat
Matt (Kenseth, winner), but we got there in second and gave him a run for
his money.

"I just thank God for so many things he's blessed me with a great team and a
bunch of guys who are awesome to work with. We've had to overcome a few
things here lately and get our focus on getting consistent and on our
qualifying. It helped us here in the last couple of races, but it didn't
help us today. We became a great team throughout the day and I think this
run right here is going to do a lot for the Dupont Chevrolet to get a
second."

(Was there any chance of catching Matt Kenseth if you'd had more laps?)
"Unless it was a really, really long run. My car was good on very long runs.
We put two tires on to get track position.  The guys on this team did a
great job making great calls and great pit stops all day. We had to overcome
getting a lap down there one time, too, so I wasn't so sure about the two
tires (decision), but you've got to believe and trust in those guys. When
you see the whole picture, they made a great call.  We're very grateful to
have a second place finish. I wish I could have had more of a shot at Matt,
but it was just so hard to pass."

Terry Labonte, No. 5 Kellogg's Chevrolet Monte Carlo - finished 10th: (This
is obviously one of your favorite tracks) "Yes it is. We felt like we should
have had a couple of top 10's, so it's nice to finally get one. Nothing went
wrong. We got behind a little bit a couple of times, but we made our laps
up. So that was good. Overall, it was a really good day. Like I said, I'm
glad we finally got our first top 10. I felt like we should have already had
a couple, but we let those slip away.  We finally got one, so we'll just
keep building."

(What stands out in your mind most about the race today?) "Our car was
pretty good. We could have been a little bit better. We were too tight in
traffic. We didn't take advantage of the new rule for the Chevrolets. We
still ran the old configuration. We're going to work on that.  But this was
definitely a good run for us today and a good solid weekend. We can work
from this. This is one of our new Chevrolets that we built this year and we
ran it at Atlanta and finished 16th there.  So building new cars is helping
and I think we can take this one and make it even better.  It was a good
day."
TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 3

Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo - finished 6th and was
highest finishing Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate:

"It's an awesome feeling to compete as we have. I race people how they race
me. I don't believe you need to turn anybody sideways to pass them.
Sometimes it happens, and it does, but you just file that away in the back
of your head and remember what happened and apply it when when needed.

"Today, it was frustrating a little bit with the single groove racing. You'd
get trapped behind a lapped car that was trying to get their lap back and
was fast enough to cause problems for you.  You'd use up your tires and
couldn't go anywhere with it.  But all and all, it was a great performance
for the Lowe's Monte Carlo."

Chad Knaus, No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It seems like every time
we pit under green, the caution comes out. If we could ever get all that
squared away, we're going to be just fine. The car was really fast. Jimmie
is doing a great job.  It's been a good day for the entire Lowe's team."

More post-race comments from Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson in the Media
Center:

Jeff Gordon:
"We were good all day - it was (again) that dreaded track position that you
hear about. We were good on the real long runs all day. Through a lot of
hard work and just never giving up, we just kept fighting throughout the
whole day. We kept gaining positions every time. We made one mistake where
we got into the pit box a little bit too deep and I thought our day was
over.  But we got our lap back and after that, it seemed like things really
started coming around our way. The car was really good. Robbie (Loomis) made
a great call there at the end to take two tires. So, second was the best
we'd been all day. We were very thankful to get that. I thought I might have
a shot at Matt, but he was out in clean air.  As long as I ran his line, I
couldn't pass him. It's no different than when Mark (Martin, finished 3rd)
caught me he couldn't pass me even though he was a little bit faster."

(Did the rules changes for the Chevrolets help you in traffic?)
Jeff Gordon: "It's hard to say. In my mind, you'd have to push it back and
then go run the race and then push it back out and compare the two. My car
was good, but then we've been good the past three races.  We just haven't
shown it because we haven't finished where we should have. I was happy with
my car, but I still was not happy with it in
TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 4

traffic. But it looks like most guys are fighting the same thing, not just
Chevrolets. I know I fought it pretty bad a couple of times today where I
just couldn't do anything.  I just couldn't pass anybody. I think if you had
the car set up real loose at the beginning of a run, you could make some
passes.  Jimmie (Johnson) could pass really good.  I saw him a couple of
times just turn and go under a couple of guys.  I don't know what happened
to him in the end, but I couldn't pass. I had to wait a really long time."

Jimmie Johnson: "Yeah, it's hard to tell a difference. When you're running
in clean air, your call turns real well and you come in (to pit) and you
call for no adjustments and you get back in traffic a little bit and pretty
soon you can't turn the car.  Then you're screaming 'tight'. That was one
thing that bit us. When we got our lap back, we were the first car on the
track and we ran away. The car was extremely balanced.  It was awesome. Then
we came in and put tires on and we were stuck in traffic and we should have
picked the trackbar up a couple rounds or something to free the car. We put
four tires on it in the end when everybody else put two on and raced our way
back up to sixth."

(How proud are you of Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team's success so far
this year?)
Jeff Gordon: "Oh, we're very excited for a number of reasons.  When Jimmie
and I first started talking about this, we were both excited.  We sat in
those meetings with sponsors and trying to tell them how great a driver
Jimmie is and what a great team we were going to put together and not
knowing what the heck was going to happen when it all came about.  It's nice
to see the smiles on everybody's faces and see how it's coming together.

"I think Jimmie is the first to say how important it is to be a part of an
organization like Hendrick Motorsports. That's why my career has been the
way it has been.  I think it's awesome for a guy who is as talented as
Jimmie is to be a part of that.  I'm thankful to be a part of it too.  He's
fun to watch. He might have told you he's learning from me, but I feel like
I've been learning more from him lately. And that's the way I wanted to
structure the deal so that we could learn from one another. He's been having
more good days lately than I have, but we've both been running good and
today's the first sign of us being able to turn things around."

(How were the speeds, the groove, and the overall track today?)
Jeff Gordon: "I always said the speeds are fine unless you hit something.
Ward Burton probably has a different opinion on it than I do. I thought the
track was great. I passed a couple guys on the outside there towards the end
and it didn't have a great outside groove, but it had a little one working.
TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 5


"I'm real anxious to see what it's going to be like the next couple of times
we race here. I didn't think there would be any kind of outside groove
today, but there was.  Goodyear brought a great tire here too. Tire wear was
good. I saw very few problems with tires and that was very promising. The
track is smooth as glass, that's for sure.

"The only thing is that the bottom groove still seems to be the best groove.
When you follow the leader like that, you can't pass. I'd come up on
somebody and be three-quarters of a second faster and not be able to pass.
But we're finding that everywhere. With the downforce that we have in these
cars and softer springs and all these things that are getting the cars down
to the track, it's going to happen.  We're going through the corners so much
faster than we ever have before. That's where this aero push and all this
stuff you hear about is coming from.  A track like this that's so fast
doesn't allow you to run side-by-side and make passes the way you'd like
to."

(Does this finish leave all the bad luck at Texas behind you?)
Jeff Gordon: "Well, yeah, if you base that off of finishes. If you look at
the numbers, it's not too good. But look at how fast we've run here. I think
the first year we were leading when some lapped cars got together and I got
caught up in that. Another year, we were running second or third and blew a
right-front tire. So, we've actually run pretty good here.  The problem is
I've qualified poorly in the past and got caught up in some wrecks, but this
is the type of track we actually run pretty good at.  We just haven't had
good luck."

(How do you make the aero push less of a factor?)
Jimmie Johnson:  "More Atlantas.  Wider race tracks where we can run top to
bottom.  The biggest thing is to have multiple grooves to race on. On a new
surface like this, there isn't a penalty to run on the bottom.  You can set
the car up to run there all day long and keep the right front on it so
there's no need to go to the top - just to pass lapped cars.  As the race
went on, the second groove came in from the middle off. It wasn't too bad.
But on the entry, there wasn't any way you could get up there and really
sail it in and get to somebody's quarter panel into the turn. If you did in
the center, you could have position on them coming out to the wall on the
exit and get the pass done."

Jeff Gordon:  "We could talk about this for a long time because everybody's
got a lot of theories on this. I think that's the most obvious, is having
racetracks with more than one groove so you can get into clean air. It's all
about getting fresh, clean air to the nose. But I think the corner speeds
have increased and the downforce in these cars has increased so
TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 6

much that unless you slow the corners down somehow..... We saw what happened
with the Busch cars. They've got less horsepower and were almost running
faster than we were because they had less horsepower.  I think NASCAR is
looking into some big greenhouses and things to change the way the air and
the downforce is on these cars. It doesn't make them a lot of fun. When you
have a lot of downforce and you take it away like we did with the five and
five rule, the guys aren't having a lot of fun out there. But I think it
does help that follow-the-leader aero push a little bit.

"I heard something this weekend that New Hampshire has changed their
banking.  I don't know exactly what they're doing, but they're trying to do
is something I would love to see. They've got to invent a new machine to do
it, basically -- some type of paving machine that does a concave track where
the middle and top groove has a lot more banking than the bottom groove.
Because the only way you're going to be able to go fast around the top at a
lot of these tracks is to have more speed and more grip.  The only way
you're going to do that is to have more banking - or less banking at the
bottom of the track.  But it's got to be a smooth transition. It can't be
one lane and than another lane and another lane.  That won't work. We'd have
a lot of wrecks. I'm interested to go to New Hampshire and see what they've
done there and see if it works. They certainly need to do something there,
but I don't know if that's going to work or not.

"We've found so many ways to make more downforce in these cars these days.
Somebody told me a statistic the other day that we have twice as much
downforce today as we had five years ago.  That's unbelievable. We used to
just go in small increments.  We've gone in huge jumps. That's why the
racing at tracks like this - where it's really fast around the bottom - we
don't put on quite as good a race as we do at Darlington or Richmond or
Michigan or places like that."

(Will going to a two-tire change late in the race for track position with an
aero push become almost standard?)
Jeff Gordon: "It will on tracks that don't use up the tires. You can't put
two tires on at Darlington or Rockingham. Those don't really change. We just
look at the tire wear and evaluate it as the day goes on. You don't make a
two-tire stop early in the race. I think Robby Gordon tried to do a two-tire
change today early, and it cost him a lap. But when there are 20 laps to go,
at the end, it is a no-brainer.  Track position is so important and the
competition is so incredible. You can't imagine what one or two positions
can do for you. Anything you can do to get it - even taking no tires - can
be a big payoff."


TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Samsung/RadioShack 500 Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Monday, April 08, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Texas Motor Speedway (727) 784-8465
Page 7


(On the clean racing today):
Jeff Gordon: "It looked like a lot of guys used their heads.  If they poked
their nose in there, there was a lot of give and take. I think the outside
groove was better than it was in the past, which was surprising. I think
that helps. If you can maintain a certain speed on the outside, then you
don't have guys turning left and fighting their way down to the bottom, and
that causes a lot less wrecks. The racing that I saw, even when it jammed
up, seemed like a lot of guys were using their heads. That's good.  When
you're going as fast as we are around this place, we'd better have that. I
hope we all remember this a couple weeks from now when we all go to
Talladega."

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