From The Horses Mouth: Terry Labonte And Jim Long Talk Richmond

Terry Labonte, driver of No. 5 Kellogg's Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Jim Long, No. 5 Crew Chief

Labonte's stats:  Two top-10 finishes this year, currently 15th in points,
three career wins in Richmond.

LABONTE:  ON TESTING AT RICHMOND AND THIS WEEKEND: "I think everybody who
has tested at Richmond is a little concerned.  Right now it's really a
one-groove race track.  The tires that we have this time don't seem to have
quite as much grip maybe as the ones we had a year ago.  Something seems to
be a little bit different.  The track people were concerned about it and
trying to come up with ways...they've been dragging tires on it; it did not
seem to be getting any better.  I don't know.  It's hard to say, after the
Busch race (after) those guys run on it whether or not the second groove
comes in, we'll have to wait and see.  Normally, it always does in Richmond;
usually it's very competitive up there.  But in the testing sessions it was
definitely just a lone-lane race track, which was a little bit different
than we've seen in the past."

TALK ABOUT YOUR SEASON:  "I really feel good about our team and where it's
going.  We stubbed our toe a few times; we did last week in California.  But
overall I think we're really happy with the progress that we've made.  It's
been really difficult.  Jim's come on board after the season ended last year
and is really trying to get things organized, build some new race cars,
continue to race every weekend.  It makes it hard, trying to build new cars,
get things where you need them and you still gotta race also.  Of course, we
tore up a car in Daytona, we tore up a car in Talladega, so that's put you
behind.  But overall I'm really happy with it and I think we've got a great
team and I think we're going to just continue to improve as the year goes
on.  We've been having good pit stops and everything just seems to be coming
together for us, and I'm really happy about that."

IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYBODY LIKES RICHMOND BECAUSE IT'S SUCH A RACY KIND OF
PLACE:  "I know it.  That's one thing I think everybody that has tested up
there is a little bit concerned about.  Just not knowing if that second
groove is going to come in.  What normally happens is the sealer actually
wears off the lower groove.  The sealer has so much grip, so the groove
moves up.  I don't know if that's going to be the case this time or not."

WHAT IS THE SEALER? WHAT DOES IT DO?  "It usually adds some grip to the
track.  The sealer they've had there in the past has always worked well.
Real dark color, where normally the track probably at that age would not be
near as dark.  It makes it look like it's asphalt every time you go, but
it's really the sealer that is that color.  Normally it has a lot of grip
and it seems to have pretty good grip in the groove.  But once you slip up
out a little bit, then you're kind of in trouble."

IT DOES SEEM LIKE THE CONCENSUS (AMONG DRIVERS) IS THAT RICHMOND IS THEIR
FAVORITE RACE TRACK.  "It's a great track.  I hope this works out OK, where
the groove does move up like it normally does there.  I don't see why it
won't, but it seems like people have had more trouble testing there than
they have in the past."

WHAT ABOUT THESE YOUNG DRIVERS?  IT'S THE FOURTH STRAIGHT YEAR THAT WE'VE
SEEN A ROOKIE WIN A RACE, WHICH IS UNHEARD OF:  "You know, it really is.
The biggest difference today is you see young drivers that come in that have
really an opportunity to be with top-notch teams right from the start.
Jimmie (Johnson), he had a great run in California; they've run good all
year.  He's got a lot of Jeff's (Gordon) cars that he won races with last
year that he's driving.  Normally years ago when rookies would come in they
would be with teams that aren't on top of the list as far as the equipment
and everything else like that.  Things are a lot different today.  A lot of
times for young drivers who come in and of course they're able to take
advantage of that.  Jimmie did a great job; he's done a great job all year
long.  The team has come in there and been awfully strong."

ON COMMUNICATION BETWEEN YOU AND CREW CHIEF:  "I knew Jim (Long); I'd never
worked with him.  I knew who he was; I'd seen him around.  But I never even
probably spoke to him, maybe hello once or twice.  But we'd never worked
together.  When we interviewed him, I was very impressed.  I could tell real
quick that Jim was a very organized type of person.  He seemed like a real
people person.  That's what we needed.  He came on board after the season
ended last year, so we kind of got a late start trying to rebuild this thing
and get it back on track.  He's come in there and just done a fantastic job.
We're not where we need to be yet; there's no question about that, but we're
definitely a lot closer than we were a year ago, and I think we're
definitely going in the right direction.  He's really done a good job,
showing us some things that he felt like we were doing wrong and kind of
getting us going in the right direction.  It's been fun working with him.
He's really an intense guy, he thinks all the time, he's like a machine.
When you go into the truck in the morning he's got a plan for every day and
everything.  It's been fun."

WHAT DID HE SHOW YOU YOU WERE DOING WRONG?  "As far as looking at our cars
and some things he felt weren't quite right on them.  Our chassis probably
were not what he thought we needed as far as they weren't the same as some
of the teams in our complex.  They build their own cars, we build our own
cars here at Hendrick Motorsports.   That can be good or it can be bad.  The
crew chief can determine how he wants those cars built.  Our cars were
probably a little bit different than the others.  They were a little
different from the others.  We're trying to get them closer to those guys.
We left a couple of them the same and we had to run them earlier in the
year, and they didn't work quite as good as the new cars are.  That and some
stuff on the bodies he showed us that he didn't think like we were doing
quite right.  He's just kind of looked at every little thing that we do and
tried to make everything better.  You can't just come in and...a lot of
times you don't just make one mistake.  You're making maybe...you're off a
little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here.  We worked on
everything, from pit stops, to chassis, to setups, everything.  And our pit
stops are fantastic.  We've got the same pit crew that we've had for the
past 10 years.  We could beat people out of the pits today.  I just gotta
say, Hey this is Jim, he's the guy that's getting these guys organized and
making things happen."

THERE ARE SO MANY CHANGES ON THE CARS, IT'S NOT EVEN SOMETHING THAT THE
VETERANS CAN GET USED TO.  DOES THAT MAKE IT MORE OF AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD
WITH THE YOUNG GUYS?  "A little bit, maybe.  Today it seems like aero is
more critical than it has ever been.  You hear people talk about that during
the race.  You pick up that aero push and things like that.  Everything is
very important.  The tires that we have today are not like the tires we ran
a few years ago.  That could maybe help a young guy coming in, because he
never got used to the old tires.  I don't know; it's hard to say.  Those new
guys have got great teams.  Ryan Newman, the Penske team there; that's an
unbelievable team they got.  Of course, Jimmie, teaming up there with Jeff.
Most of his cars are Jeff's old cars.  I think the car that he won with
Jeff's won a couple of races with a year ago.  They've got really good
equipment, good people."

SHOCK CHANGES, CHANGES IN THE BUMP STOPS, IS IT TAKING VETERANS LIKE
YOURSELF FINDING THE RIGHT SETUP?  THE YOUNG GUYS HAVE NOTHING TO GET USED
TO SO THERE IS NO LEARNING CURVE?  "I don't know if it's... they've all done
very well.  I don't know, I don't have a really good explanation other than
I've said.  They've all got good teams, got good cars.  They all came in
there and picked up well on it."

IF YOU HAD COME ON BOARD WITH RICK HENDRICK WHEN YOU RAN YOUR FIRST RACE IN
DARLINGTON A FEW YEARS BACK, WOULD IT HAVE BEEN EASIER TO BE A PART OF THE
ESTABLISHMENT QUICKER?  "I don't know.  I know when I ran my first race in
Darlington I set the car up myself and drove the truck down there.  Most
guys don't have to do that today.  But that's how years ago when everybody
was starting out, that's how most people started out.  There weren't the big
teams.  There were only a few top teams that won the races and had the
established drivers and everybody else was kind of in the same boat.  Things
have changed.  It's just different today than it was then."

WHAT KEEPS THE COMPETITIVE DRIVE OF GUYS LIKE YOURSELF AND SEVERAL OF THE
OTHER VETERANS GOING IN W.C. SERIES:  "I tell you what, once you've won
races and once you've won championships, there's not a better feeling than
when you leave Sunday afternoon and you've come back and you've won the race
or you had a great run, and been competitive and had a shot to win the race.
I think just the desire to be back on top again, the desire to win that next
race again, to win that next championship, that's what it's all about.
That's what we work for.  It's a very tough accomplishment to win the
championship.  That's hard to achieve that.  That's what drives me, anyway,
the desire to win another championship, a desire to win the race this
weekend or next weekend, or the Winston, or whatever.  That's what keeps you
going."

DO YOU FEEL YOU STILL HAVE A LOT OF RACING LEFT IN YOU?  "I think so.  I
definitely feel like I do.  And I think that I feel good about our team and
the direction it's headed in.  I think that we've got a team that
realistically can win a race or two this year and finish in the top 10 in
points.  That's not our goal.  Our goal is to win the championship, but if
we win a race or two and we finish in the top 10, we've really got something
that we're building on for next year.  You're constantly always working hard
to get better for the big picture, which is you want to win the
championship."

JIM LONG (seven-year veteran crew chief, teamed up with Terry and Hendrick
Motorsports back in December):  THE CHEMISTRY BETWEEN YOU TWO; IN SHORT TIME
YOU'VE GELLED QUITE EASILY:  "Yes, things are going really well.  I didn't
know what I was going to be up against when I came over here back in
December and we're a little bit hit-and-miss right now. We had some good
races, some bad races.  But I'm starting to learn what Terry needs and we
can talk openly about, Hey we need to go in this direction or that
direction.  It's been going well.  It's getting better and better every
race."

WHAT DID YOU BRING AS CREW CHIEF TO THE ORGANIZATION AND TERRY?  "I think
one of the big things probably is a new face.  Every time somebody new comes
into an organization as a crew chief or a driver change or forming a new
team, there seems to be new life and I think I brought some of that new life
into them.  The attitudes have been getting better.  These guys will work
their butts off trying to get whatever we need or any direction we want to
go in.  I've been working on getting more and more like the 24 and the 48
and the 25 cars so we can share information, and that's been really
helpful."

HAVE YOU FOUND THAT OPEN LINE OF COMMUNICATION EXISTING AMONG ALL FOUR
TEAMS?  "Yeah, oh, yeah.  People think, Well, Jeff Gordon gets the best of
everything here, especially his performance over the last few years.  I'll
tell you there's not a day that I can't walk up into Robbie Loomis' office
or Chad's (Knaus) or the 25 car shop and just copy their notes.  We can
share anything we want to share.  Wind tunnel data, engine date, everything,
shocks, the whole nine yards.  We did quite a bit of that.  I get a sheet
every week of everybody's setups, how they're going to qualify; they're
starting point, anyway, and they get mine.  I've got more information than I
know what to do with."

THE RESOURCES AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS ARE SECOND TO NONE.  DOES THAT MAKE A
CREW CHIEF'S LIFE THAT MUCH EASIER?  "I didn't know what I was missing.
I've been on single-car teams for so long as a crew chief and when you get
lost or you struggle a little bit, you have to guess which direction to go
in to make it better, or make that style track better.  A good example is
this weekend.  We struggled a little bit this weekend, but Jimmie Johnson
wins the race.  We can go and say, Hey, this is what we had.  Oh, I see the
differences between the two setups or the cars or whatever.  It helps a lot,
especially when you get turned around and you're not going in the right
direction."

HOW HAS THE JOB DESCRIPTION CHANGED SINCE 1994:  "It changes every day.  I
probably spend more of my time compared to 1994, '95.  I spend the majority
of my day doing overall planning about what's going to happen six months
from now.  That goes to our cars, to our aero and the chassis, and setups
and just different things.  You are only as good as the people you surround
yourself with.  And the people when I come to this team are so talented it
amazes (me) that I ever competed against them.  I delegate a lot of
authority,  I say, This is your department, you can handle it, this is what
I'm looking for; in each one of the areas, whether it be fabrication or
mechanical.  These guys have taken the ball and run with it."

IS YOUR PREFERENCE TO WORK WITH A DRIVER WITH EXPERIENCE OR WITH A YOUNGER
DRIVER YOU CAN MOLD YOURSELF?  "I've worked with probably one younger
driver, Buckshot (Jones), back when I was with Stivola and we were on a
limited schedule.  Terry is an extremely talented driver.  And he has still
got the drive, he's still got the urge, and it is kind of neat to be with
drivers like Terry because they can tell you...they have a little bit more
feedback.  They can tell you how they like a car to feel.  It's just a
little bit nicer situation.  I've not really had the opportunity to work
with that many young drivers, so I don't know what I would be up against if
I did have that opportunity."

WHAT ABOUT THE YOUTH MOVEMENT? FOUR STRAIGHT YEARS THAT A ROOKIE HAS WON A
RACE.  THAT'S UNHEARD OF:  "Yeah, that's pretty amazing.  Things are a lot
different even I mean the last five years they were...they're a lot
different.  If you look at all those teams that got young drivers that are
performing right now, they are multi-team, big operations.  And when they
bring those young drivers in, they've already set the playing field for
them.  They've got cars built, this is the direction we're going in.  So
they're more prepared than they used to be five or 10 years ago, so they've
got better equipment right off the getgo.  If you look back 10 years ago
usually a new driver... the only chance he'd have an opportunity of breaking
into this field would be to a single-car team that was starting up from
scratch with no resources.  And they'd bring him in and if everything was
just right he'd remotely have results.  But now they're coming into
multi-team organizations like Childress' and Roush and Penske and here with
Jimmie Johnson.  They come in and they've got the latest and greatest of
everything.  The transition is a lot better now than it used to be."

JIMMIE WON THIS WEEKEND.  AS PART OF THE HENDRICK GROUP, DO YOU FEEL A SENSE
OF PRIDE?  "I do, I don't know if I'd put it exactly like that, but yeah,
I'm really proud to see any one of these guys win.  Really.  Whether it be
Terry, Jeff or Jerry or Jimmie.  And part of that (is) you give them
information, they give you information and we're all helping each other.
Even, like I told somebody earlier, we struggled a little bit his weekend
and they won the race.  I can take what they've done and build it into my
program and make my program better.  And it goes the other way around.  We
finished good in Martinsville and some of the teams struggled in
Martinsville and they can take what I learned there and build from."

A LOT OF THESE YOUNG DRIVERS HAVE YOUNG CREW CHIEFS:  "There's always new
talent coming into this business.  Like I've told you...they're coming into
organizations that they have veteran crew chiefs, veteran drivers that have
built a notebook for these race tracks.  And they have taken all the good
from everybody that's in that organization and made their deal work.
They're definitely talented, there's no doubt about that.  I don't think
they're any more talented than Terry is, and if you give Terry the right
situation I'm sure Terry can win a race.  that's our plan."

YOU'RE FROM THE TOLEDO AREA.  IS IT MORE DIFFICULT TO COME FROM THE
NORTHWEST OHIO AREA THAN AROUND THE CAROLINAS AND BREAK INTO NASCAR RACING?
"I've been in this business a long time.  It's probably harder today than it
was back when I got into Winston Cup racing.  I don't know exactly how to
answer that.  You would not believe the resumes that I get everyday.  We get
stacks and stacks of them.  We put them in a computer.  People are trying to
get into this business, they want in this business.  Back then I was just at
the right place at the right time, and that's usually how you end up getting
in this business."

WHEN YOU'RE WORKING WITH AN OLDER DRIVER SET IN HIS WAYS, DO YOU HAVE TO
GENTLY INTRODUCE CHANGES TO THE CAR THAT YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART WILL MAKE IT
MORE COMFORTABLE FOR HIM TO DRIVE?  "Well, it depends on the driver.  In
Terry's case he's won races and championships.  I'm not trying to get Terry
to do anything different than he's done over the years.  It's just trying to
find the little thing that makes him better and just making the cars like
the other teams' cars has made him better right off the getgo.  And that's
really all I've done."

THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY CHANGES WITH SHOCKS, SPRINGS, ETC., IT SEEMS TO HAVE
TAKEN SOME OF THE VETERANS LONGER TO ACCLIMATE TO THE NEW RULES:  "I think
if you look back through the last 10 years or so of racing, Goodyear has
made a lot of changes to their tire to try to make it better, more safer,
comfortable, and they've done a good job.  Every time they do a tire change
or they do a new body aero change somebody in that camp, whether it be
Chevrolet or Ford, or older drivers or younger drivers, start struggling. I
don't think you can put a blanket over it and say this is the reason they're
struggling.  I think it has too much to do with the team, too much to do
with how good their cars are, how good their motor program is.  Look at
Roush.  The whole Roush camp is... out of the blue they made changes, and I
don't think it's the crew chief changes that really made them better.  I
think it 's probably ....they probably made a lot more changes we don't know
about.  I don't think you can just say yeah, a new tire, and the older
drivers are struggling.  Some of them are, some of them aren't."

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