Winston Teleconference with No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T driver and series points leader Sterling Marlin and crew chief Lee McCal l

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Tuesday, May 7, 2002					              Ray
Cooper
Dodge notes and quotes.
Golin/Harris International
Highlights of Winston Teleconference.
803-466-9085


     STERLING MARLIN  (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     NOTE: Marlin leads the NASCAR Winston Cup Standings by 132 points over
Matt Kenseth after 11 of 36 races this season. Marlin has led the standings
since his second-place finish to Kenseth at Rockingham on Feb. 24, 2002. The
44-year-old driver from Columbia, Tenn., has two wins, four top fives and
eight top 10s this season with no DNFs. He has 550 career starts with 10
career victories and 11 career poles. 

     "I haven't really planned much (for Mother's Day weekend). I've got an
appearance in Jackson, Tenn., on Saturday and I'll pretty much take Sunday
off. I'll catch up on all the stuff around the house. It's a never-ending
deal. I felt like we'd be in real good shape (this season). With the
momentum we closed up with last year, the last three races we had three top
fives and two seconds. I felt like we could keep the momentum going through
the winter and get started and have some good luck the first four races we'd
be in good shape. We've had a good year going so far.

     "Really before the season started last year, we'd done a lot of testing
prior to the 2001 season. I felt like with the team they'd put together and
the personnel and Ernie (Elliott) and them guys doing the motors, if we had
some good luck we could wind up with a couple of wins and finish in the top
five in the points. Sure enough that's what happened to us. Going into this
year, I felt like we had a real good shot at winning the championship. It's
a credit to all the guys at the shop and Chip (team owner Gannasi) and
everybody for putting all the parts and pieces together.

     "I'm just glad to be in a car that's real competitive week in and week
out. When you've got that you can run up front. The young guys are really
coming on good. Ryan Newman, I knew he was going to be good last year.
Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch and them guys are really going good. Us old
guys are going to have to step it up a little bit, but we'll try to hold our
own with them. I'm 44, so I still feel young. I'll take 'em on in football
anytime.

     "We're just trying to race week to week. We're going to Charlotte and
we've got a chance to win a million bucks. We'll focus on winning the race,
and if we can't win the race, we'll try to pull out a top five. If we can't
get a top five, we'll shoot for a top 10. That's the approach I'm taking.
You can't get to looking real far ahead. Talking to Lee McCall yesterday,
the crew chief, our short track stuff hasn't been where we needed it. We've
had some tough breaks on it, but I think we've got two tests left. We're
going to try to go back to Richmond and Martinsville because toward the end
of the year we need to pull out some top fives at those tracks.

     "I was always interested in history in school. Where I live, a lot went
on around my house and up in Franklin, Tenn., and down here in Pulaski,
Tenn. They camped and fought along the main road down here (in Civil War). I
went with a buddy of mine about 12 years ago to do some relic hunting and
right off the bat found some bullets and stuff. It kind of intrigued me
because it was something that's been in the ground 130 something years. You
pick something up in your hand that's been in the ground that long, it's
pretty neat that you're the first one to pick it up. I've been to Gettysburg
and Chickamoga. There's not much battlefield left in Franklin, Tenn. Shiloh
is not far from the house and I really haven't got time to go. Whenever I
quit racing I'm going to try to check 'em all out. We took a trip six or
seven years ago when we went to Gettysburg. You want to do a lot of things
when the season starts and you never get to do it. I'd like to take off on
Monday or Tuesday in the motorhome going up to Pocono and just stop at all
the battlefields up through Virginia and up toward Pocono. Something always
comes up and you've got to go do something. You can't really plan ahead.

     "You kind of keep an eye on all of 'em. Roush has really turned his
teams around this year. I heard they've found a lot more horsepower. All the
Roush cars are running good. Matt is an excellent driver and Kurt Busch. You
can't count out Tony Stewart. It seems like their season starts late in the
year or at Richmond. Ricky Rudd was running good and he got wrecked Sunday.
You've got to keep an eye on all them guys. If we can come back and be
leading the points when we go back to Richmond in the fall, I think we've
got a good shot at it. We try to go at it week in and week out and try to
win the race. If we're leading in September, we've got a good shot at 'em. I
think we're going to sell all his stuff (son Steadman). He wants to
concentrate on his Busch stuff. It'll save be a thousand dollars a week, so
I'm all for it.

     "Before Chip came along, Felix sat down with me in March or April of
2000 and he was talking about maybe selling out and getting out of racing.
Within a week or two, I was going to start looking for another ride. All of
a sudden, boom, here comes Chip along and he gets details worked out with
Felix in a couple of weeks and the rest is the best year and a half I've
ever had in racing, so Chip was a racer and that's all he thinks about.
That's what it takes to make all this work.

     "I've been doing this since I was 15 years old. When we do get a week
off, I about go nuts. You want to go somewhere or do something. It doesn't
bother me a bit. It's probably hard on the crew guys, but it's no big deal
for me to go every week to a race track. This weekend, I may go to Nashville
and watch Steadman run. It's something I've always done and you never get
tired of it, at least I don't. When the off season gets here, it's like we
need to go test or go do something after four or five days at home. I'm
pretty much always ready to go. Me and her (mother Eula Faye) were best
buddies. We lost her in '88, but she was always behind me in whatever I did.
I remember in football, she was always fussing. You could hear her in the
stands yelling for me to pull my socks up. She wanted me to be a doctor or
lawyer or something, but she saw I was determined enough to be a race car
driver. When she saw that she was behind me 100 percent.

     "I don't think so (drive differently when racing for points). It may be
a deal where you could make it three deep if you had a fast car. Enough
sense creeps in to hold up a lap and let 'em get straightened out and then
pass 'em. That may come with experience. Sometimes it works and sometimes it
doesn't. I saw some stuff at Richmond Sunday that was kinda uncalled for. If
they'd just wait a lap and let everybody get organized and straightened out
and then pass, but you've got to driver smart, but you've got to drive hard,
too. Just like at California, we qualified way back but we knew we had a
fast car. We adjusted on it and came from 25th to second. We had a top
three-car and then we got stuck in the fence with 50 to go. It dinged it up
pretty good, but we still came back and finished seventh. You've got to
drive smart, but you've got to drive hard, too.

     "'I really haven't read that much about it. I saw a picture of the soft
walls. At Indy on the exit in the corners you run so close to the wall I
guess they stopped 'em before they ran right into the fence, but I think
it's a good idea. A guy had a pretty bad wreck yesterday at Indy and if it
wasn't for the soft walls it may have really hurt him. I think it's a good
deal.

     "You're going to try to win every segment (of The Winston), but you
know the fans are going to vote to invert 10 cars. Do you try to win the
second segment or do you try to finish sixth or seventh so you've got a good
start in the last 20 laps? I'm glad to see they extended the last segment
from 10 to 20 laps. It gives you a little more time to get to the front and
if someone gets a jump on the start and gets out there, you've got a little
more time to try to run 'em down. I wish they'd run 40 laps for the last
segment. That would let the best handling cars to come to the top, but I'm
just glad to be in it and be a part of it.

     "We had to change an engine at Darlington and started in the rear and
managed to win the race. I think Stewart and them did the same thing (Sunday
at Richmond). If you've got a good car, you just need to be a little patient
at the start and you can work your way through traffic and get back to the
front. I don't own a car, but it would have to save a little money on the
qualifying motors. They were getting pretty exotic on some stuff, so I'm all
for it.

     "I probably tore up my fair share of cars early in my career, but
you're wanting to go to the front and you're wanting to lead. I think it
probably comes with more experience. You see some deals where you could make
it three wide and you've got a 50-50 chance of getting through. You've got a
fast car. You can just check up and hold up a lap or two and let everybody
get sorted out and then make your pass. They (younger drivers) haven't
really come by (for advice), but any time they want to, they're more than
welcome.

     "The deal at Richmond, they had sealed the track and it was basically a
groove and a half track. I think you can look back at Richmond, typically
they don't tear up that many cars at Richmond, but everybody was kinda
fighting for the bottom groove and when you get a one-groove track it makes
passing tough. I think the next race at Richmond you'll see, if they don't
seal it again, you'll see a cleaner race. Everybody was wanting the same
piece of real estate and some of them got took out and some tempers flared
up.

    "I know Chip and Felix have put together a great race team. There's a
great bunch of people working on 'em. The support that Dodge and Coors Light
has given us has just been tremendous. It's been a big year for us so far."


     LEE McCALL (Crew chief No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     "We have a lake house down in Greenville (S.C.) and we're going to go
down there and enjoy the weekend and take the kids out on the lake and we've
got a golf tournament coming up and we're going to try to button that up.
I'm just going to really relax and try to spend a lot of time with the kids
and family this weekend.

     "You always want to think that and obviously we had a great year last
year and we knew if we dotted all our I's and crossed all our T's we'd be in
the hunt this year. We've made that move. It's a little too early to be
worried about that, but we're compiling all the points we can right now to
challenge these guys at the end of the year.

     "I think as a person, it makes me work harder and to push my guys to
work harder also. When you're on top, you want to work even harder to keep
the guys down behind you. We're working as hard as ever to do that. We're
treating each and every race the same. We're going to go out there and
compile as many points as we can. If we have an off day like we did at
Richmond, we're going to come up with an 11th place finish or whatever our
car is capable of doing. When you can turn a bad day into a good day like
that, you felt like you've done something for that day.

     "Chip and Felix have put some great people in place here and have put
together a championship organization. I felt like when I was at the 12 car,
I felt like there were a few people there capable of doing that. Right now,
we have 100 people working here and each guy's goal is to reach the same
thing. It's a credit to what these guys put together here. Tony is a great
teacher and I need that at this point in my career. He's done a great job,
giving me a lot of support, not only Tony but Andy and Felix and Chip. It's
all about chemistry and right now those guys have put together a great race
team to build a lot of chemistry.

     "It's a communication factor and chemistry.... Sterling and I think
alike. We kinda act alike. We're both laid back. We don't get excited about
things. When you can show your emotion without showing your emotion and
keeping it inside you know lots of times that's great for the guys on the
race team. I think I do that quite well. Sterling and I talk sometimes two
and three times a day, at least once. We reach deep down in each other's
heart and brain and try to pick everything we can out. Obviously, 90 percent
of the time we hit on the same thing and that's what it takes to have a
successful relationship. We did a test at Lakeland, Fla., last winter and I
knew right off the bat we were going to get pretty close real quick and
figure out each other fairly fast. We did that by winning the 125s at
Daytona. From there to this day forward, we feel a pretty large
relationship.

     "Any time you can get a weekend off and spend time with your family,
that's great. We only have a few of those a year. If you're a racer and if
you eat, breath and sleep it, it doesn't matter if you run 50 races a year
or 20. When I came into this sport and saw what it took to live in this
sport and want to stay, I knew it would be grueling and tough, and I knew I
had to adapt to that. My family has adapted to it. Obviously you want to
spend more time with 'em, but it's not always there.

     "We'll continue a five-day work week. The road guys who go early will
have a four-day work week and take a long weekend and come back refreshed
next week because before long we start our 20-race stretch and the guys
really need their time off also. I think so with the way we've got this
thing structured, I totally concentrate on my race cars and my race team.
The things that come above and beyond that, we have people here who handle
it. I don't have to worry about if we have a room this week or where we're
going to stay next week. We have people here who deal with the sponsors, and
that really takes a load off the crew chief and things they used to do. To
be able to totally concentrate 100 percent on the race cars is really a big
plus now. We're pressing on. We've got our car fleet built up. We have one
more brand new car to build, and that will give us 14 race cars to finish
the season with. To have everything sitting here lined up and painted is
obviously a credit to everybody here and this organization. We're
approaching it just like we did last year. We had great success toward the
end of the year and hopefully it'll turn out the same this year.

     "Your guys kinda feed off your emotions. I try to set a good example
for our guys. I'm laid back and I don't show a lot of emotion. I think if I
was running around wide open and showing a lot of emotion, it would get our
race team stirred up. Our guys are pretty laid back. They feed off their
leaders. I try to set a good example for those guys. We've got a great group
of guys on this Coors Light Dodge team. I'm real proud of them. Every team
tackles their objectives differently. We have our philosophy and I'm sure
they look up to us and say those guys are lazy. We approach each and every
week the same. If you once stray away from that, you kinda disrupt your race
team. We meet each and every day of the week with the road crews and go over
our week's projects and talk everything out. We have a pretty good idea of
our work week and work load. I think that's why you see our guys so laid
back.

     "It's a big puzzle here, and I'm just honored to be a small piece of
it. We have a great motor program, and we really got going quick on that. We
have a great aero program and we really worked around the clock to stay on
top of it. That's what it's all about in this sport. You can't ever quit.
You've got to keep raising the bar. Our guys work hard here to stay on top,
not only for the Dodge teams but for the other teams in Winston Cup racing.
They do an awful good job with that.

     "Quite a few Dodges had some good runs last year, but they didn't have
the finishes to show for it. It's all about chemistry. We built that from
day one betwe. en myself and Sterling. We continue to build on that. I've
probably said it a hundred times, but it's all about chemistry and
attitudes. I really work hard on that and preach that to our guys. That's
what makes the race team, and Ray Evernham is a living example of that. I
don't' think we were doing anything different than anyone else. We were just
a little bit ahead of everybody else on the chemistry end. We put that in
place early and hit on some stuff right off the bat.

     "If you're not getting along at the shop or your driver and crew chief
isn't getting along, you're going to have total chaos. It might take it
awhile to show and build, but eventually it'll tell on you and at the end,
your performance is going to show you have a problem between communicating
and chemistry. I think they had that up at the 12 car, and I think it turned
out better for Jeremy to part ways. This whole sport is about people and
chemistry.

     "When we went to Daytona for Speedweeks, we had six of our downforce
cars sitting here ready, painted and had already done a test or two. Daytona
is obviously the biggest race of the year, but you can really lose focus
early on your short track program and your high speed intermediate program.
If you don't attack that throughout the winter time. We did that and had a
great fleet of cars sitting here ready when we went to Speedweeks. We
continue to build that. We've built three more new cars and we've won with
one of them twice and raced another new one at Fontana. We continue to build
new cars and in another week or so we'll have our fleet built up and have 14
hot rods sitting here in the floor. We'll start working on our 2003 program
hopefully in August.

     "Our short track program last year was off a little bit at the
beginning but we improved on it at Loudon and Richmond and Phoenix at the
end of the year. Our finishes didn't show for it, but we finished third at
Loudon at the end of the year and had some great runs at Phoenix and
Richmond but we had some problems. We're going to focus on our short track
program and our road course program. We felt like those two types of tracks
were our downfall. We're going to do some testing coming up pretty soon and
really put a lot of focus into that and hopefully improve our performances
at those places. Sterling obviously does a great job for us, but he knows he
could be a little better on the road courses, and we're going to go road
course testing and see if he can't figure out some things -- not only
himself but myself. We're really working hard to beef up the whole
organization's performances at those tracks."


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