Dale Jr. Press Conf. Highlights-Richmond

DALE EARNHARDT JR.:  "I'd like to say that I want to thank Budweiser for
continuing this special scheme for the baseball car next year.  We had a lot
of fun with it last year.  It was really a success.  We ran the car in
Bristol as well and then went to Daytona and won with the car shortly just
before the game was to be played the next week.  That was a lot of fun, a
fun deal.  I got to go to the game and do a lot of neat things, play batting
practice and stuff, meet some of the players, some of my heroes.  It was
definitely a lot of fun and a program that I'm glad to see continue and
hopefully we'll do it for many more years.  I think it's a good-looking car,
it's definitely going to be hard to top the one we ran last year.  To win
with that car...it became kind of a special scheme to me and a lot of my
fans as well, and hopefully we can take that car to victory lane and do the
same thing.....

YOU TOOK A PRETTY HARD LICK LAST WEEK, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?  "Pretty good.
That was definitely the hardest lick I've ever had in a race car.  I really
didn't think it was that big of a hit until I heard the stuff they got from
the black boxes was pretty astronomical.  I was real sore for a couple of
days.  I thought I'd hurt my foot pretty bad, but apparently it's kind of a
stinger.  But I was still kind of on the gas when I hit the wall and my foot
slammed into the brake pedal.  The brake pedal doesn't go anywhere when that
happens.  We went to Lakeland to test; we'd already planned to go to
Lakeland a couple of weeks ago to test for this race track and we went there
to test and I felt fine in the car.  It was about 103 degrees, so we didn't
really learn nothing as far as bringing anything back here.  It was still
good to get in the car, just for everybody...It's real hard sometimes to
know whether you've got a concussion.  And I think I suffered a concussion
from it 'cause I've suffered one before back in the Busch Series.  (I get)
Kind of dizzy symptoms and stuff like that when I lay on my back or look up
at the sky.  That lasts for a couple of days.  In the car I'm fine, and I'm
looking forward to this weekend."

"As far as the Budweiser team; I'm pretty happy.  I wish we could go back to
Vegas.  Definitely last week in California, I was kind of disappointed we
didn't run better there.  We went to Michigan and tested for two days to try
to see if we couldn't learn something and make it work in California and we
wasted the entire first practice and ended up having to borrow Michael's
setup for qualifying.  We just were behind from the word go when we got to
California and we definitely made a lot of mistakes there as a team and I
think we learned a lot from it.  We just didn't have a good car in the race
or anything.  I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have a better effort
there, but as far as some of these other tracks where we're running good at
that we normally don't run good at it's been a great confidence builder for
the team.  We seem to go to the tracks like Texas and places where we think
we're going to run good; California we ran third last year in a backup car.
We're going to these tracks and we're not getting the finishes that we want.
If we can try to see how we can piece that together, we're we've run good in
the past and where we're starting to run good now, it would be a great
season for us.  Hopefully we can get that done before the end of the season
(and) we can put ourselves back up toward the front.  It seems like we have
great weeks and then bad weeks.  We're never right in the middle.  It's
either great or not good at all.  It's kind of tough mentally, but we just
keep trying."

ON THE RUMOR ABOUT ELLIOTT SADLER GOING TO DEI:  "It's not the truth until
you hear from us or him.  I don't know why everybody has to believe stuff
like that.  It's kind of funny.  I don't know if we're looking at Elliott;
we're just looking at ways to improve our team.  I look at the teams myself
individually as if they were stock, and we have to continue to raise the
value of the team and try to improve the team as far as members, crew
members, any area that we see needs to be improved.  We either try to take
this guy and help him along or try to improve him or give him the things
that he thinks that he needs to succeed or we make a change.  That's the
nature of the beast.  As far as Elliott, I wouldn't worry about posting
anything until you hear it from us."

ON RACING AT RICHMOND:  "I'm pretty excited about Richmond. We run real good
here, we always qualify good here in a Busch car and run real good here in
the races, and one of my proudest moments of my career was passing Mark
Martin on the outside and win the Busch race here.  We come here with the
Cup car, we finished 10th in my rookie season and we won the next year.  We
always run good here.  It's always a place when I come here and try to think
points and try to finish well.  Tony Stewart's going to be tough to beat and
I was surprised that we were running third to Kevin (Harvick) and Ricky
(Rudd) last year.  But that's the way this race track is and that's the way
it happens that sometimes right at the end two or three guys will get it
together and make it work for them.  I love coming here because I feel real
positive about getting a good finish.  That's what we need for the rest of
the year."

ON THE NEW YOUNG DRIVERS:  "It's pretty amazing what some of these guys have
been able to do this year, especially Jimmie Johnson.  He has really
surprised a lot of people with his consistency.  This guy is doing things in
the sport it takes some teams years to accomplish and that's running up
front and having a shot every week.  He's definitely probably at the top of
the list as far as those guys go.  Kurt Busch is a great race car driver.
And we knew that from the truck series.  They had a lot of changes there at
Roush.  And that's improved his team dramatically.  These are the guys that
we're all going to be racing for years and years.  A lot of these guys maybe
have five more years left, maybe less than that, and they're already looking
at retirement or trying to plan in that direction.  These are the guys that
are going to make the bulk of the field in the future."