Harvick Press Conference
CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES TROPICANA 400 CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY JOLIET, ILL. NO. 18 OF 36 EVENTS NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2002 KEVIN HARVICK PRESS CONFERENCE CONT'D: that point ŠIt hurts the momentum of any race team when you get knocked out. We still were just lacking some chemistry and lacking some things on that race team. I actually seen it going into the end of last year and we talked about some changes then and we decided we¹d roll on this year a little ways and right now Robby Gordon, Kevin Hamlin, everybody¹s working together for one organization. And I think it¹s going to pay off for all of us." CHILDRESS: TALK ABOUT KEVIN¹S DOWN ON THE APRON MOVE. DID THAT BRING BACK MEMORIES? "I think race drivers today, to win, have to be bold at times. And I think the moves that Kevin¹s made todayŠLast year I remember the move he made going into 1, I think it was Jimmy Spencer down thereŠthat¹s what it takes to win races and he knew what he was doing and I have seen Jeff Gordon make some of those same moves before and end up winning races. You¹ve got to remember those things." ON THE GRID AFTER THE RACE, ZIPADELLI SAID THE BEST THING ABOUT THEIR MOVE TO THE CHEVY IS THAT THEY HAD NOBODY TO COMPARE THEMSELVES TO AND NOW THEY CAN COMPARE THEMSELVES TO GUYS LIKE YOU? "We had Joe Gibbs¹ organization in Chevrolets before. It¹s a great organization and I don¹t think Tony was there at the time. They¹re fun guys to work with and I think it¹ll just complement the whole GM program and were all excited about having them back in it, and the competition, we welcome it." YOU AND THE 30 CAR AND CAME IN AND TOPPED OFF AND GORDON TOPPED OFF. WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT MORE CARS DIDN¹T TRY IT? MARTIN: "I was real surprised. The next thing I was surprised on when we didn¹t come in right there when everybody came in at the end and we stayed out. Nobody else got tires. We had a big sigh of relief on that, too. Being out front was everything and I think that everybody thought that maybe some more cautions would come out and they just played the odds. Being out front was everything so we had to pit early and make sure we had plenty of fuel. I¹m glad they didn¹t." GIL, THIS IS YOUR FIRST WINSTON CUP WIN. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU? MARTIN: "This is my second one. Luckily, we won a race at the end of the year last year with Robby and, I was just telling Kevin, it¹s going to be hard for me to catch up with him. He¹s got three and I¹ve got two. We¹re going to keep going and I¹m gong to be one behind him all the time. I hope we can be 30 and 29. I¹d like to see that. Everybody at RCR is working so hard as far as Kevin Hamlin, Todd Barrier, the other two teams. They¹re going to come around and win a race real soon too. The way everything looked today, all three RCR cars were running up front and very strong. I think Robby got into the wall a little bit and messed his car up some, but Jeff (Green) ran strong all day long, and I think that¹s a sign of things to come." HARVICK: WITH THE SEASON YOU¹VE HAD SO FAR, WITH SUSPENSION, ETC., DOES IT KEEP YOU FROM BEING TOO AGGRESSIVE? "I think the biggest thing (is) I¹ve learned a lot through these situations and you have to come back and gain a little bit of respect. It¹s not about that I can¹t be aggressive, it¹s just that you can¹t retaliate with your vehicle as a weapon, basically. That¹s the biggest thing that I learned. We¹re out there racing and there¹s going to be a lot of things that happen and (you) just have to understand those circumstances and those situations and really try and step back and realize what¹s going on. I think that that week after that Martinsville incident really made me realize what was going on and what I needed to do and what I needed to change and learn. I told you guys from the beginning that the way I drive wasn¹t going to change. Just some of the things that I do might be a litlte bit different. I¹ll still tell you how I feel. I¹ll still tell you everything that I think. It¹s just the fact thatŠthere are just three or four little things that I did that pushed it over the limit. Just need to take those and learn by them." HARVICK: ON FUEL SITUATION, THE LAST FIVE LAPS OR SO, FUEL PRESSURE GAUGE, LOOKING IN REARVIEW MIRROR AND SEEING JEFF BACK THERE: "Gil¹s really good on the radio. He told me, Come in, we can make it from here. That¹s all he said. Either he was really confident in it or he wasn¹t going to get me all stirred up. At one point he came across the radio and this is Gil¹s way of telling me that I need to slow down. He said, Now look, you don¹t need to race any of those guys in front of you, just kind of take your time. I got the message. I said, OK, he wants me to save some fuel here. So I stayed behind Sterling, and Bobby and then just let off the gas and let it roll. I think that might have helped us out in the end because I got to do one little burnout out there. God knows if it would¹ve kept running. I might¹ve blown the thing up. It was pretty close and they¹ve done a good job. And Gil probably was a little nervous Œcause we picked up eight tenths and also got out in the lead. What he figured was 31-30 and we were running 30-60. He was probably a little more nervous than he was letting me know." COMPARE TRACK LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR: "Everybody was terrified to go off of the bottom last year. We came to the tire test here and the IROC cars were here testing and they spent one whole day and all¹s they did was run around in the second groove. My car was really good in the second groove today. I think I did a lot of my passing on the high groove early and moved back down at the end. The IROC people are the ones that we really need to thank for making the racing in Chicagoland a lot better this year because they spent a day or two and even when they came back this time. So, they spent two full days just making sure that the second groove was really good." HARVICK: DID YOU HAVE ANY CHICAGO CONNECTIONS BEFORE A YEAR AGO AND IS CHICAGO YOUR KIND OF TOWN? "I¹ve actually never been to the town of Chicago, so this is as much I know about the town of Joliet. Obviously it¹s become a pretty special place for us to go and just and race, because we¹ve had a lot of success here, we had a lot of success in the Busch car before I broke the rear end gear in the pits last year. We ran good in the IROC race. This place, for some reason, just fits the way I drive. I¹ve been pretty fortunate to come back with good race cars and a positive attitude on everything that¹s going on." WHAT¹S THE UP SIDE FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. HAS THE TEAM GOTTEN THAT GOOD? "I think so. When we switched everything around, Gil told me, he said, Look, you guys just give me a couple of weeks here, we¹ll get everything going in the right direction and we ran really good anyway at Pocono and the thing popped out of gear and blew up and we didn¹t finish good. We came to Michigan and pitted and we got caught in the pits but we ran with the leaders all day, so as a team and an organization we could see that things were going better. Just by the performance on the race track. We weren¹t getting lapped on the race track anymore or finishing bad because we ran bad, we were just having some dumb racing luck. Like I said, we¹ve been really to ourselves. And just anybody that¹s not wearing silver and black just doesn¹t understand what we¹re thinking or what we need to do. And as a team and as a company at RCR and GM Goodwrench and all the people that surround us we knew that everything was going a lot better and there were some positive things that were happening. Our main goal was to take the top 15, take it to the top 10, to the top five and put ourselves in position to win. When you¹ve got race cars like we had today we can win races. Heck, we won at Loudon last year. We should be good at Loudon this week. Our goal was to take those first couple of weeks and when we got to Daytona act like nothing had ever happened, start over, and go from there. We¹re doing pretty good so far." ### MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO, is out of the race on lap 138 with an engine failure. He did not hit the wall; he just pulled up against the wall out of the racing groove. WALTRIP: "Something happened under the hood; I¹m not sure what. It started missing a little bit and then it blew up. What a great effort for Slugger, Richie Gilmore and all the boys that put my NAPA Chevy together. I¹d rather break running good than run all day long and run bad. We¹ll just take from this, learn from this. A great setup in our car. We¹re going to Indy tomorrow and test good. And hopefully get back into victory lane before much longer." "I didn¹t hit the wall. We blew up. It¹s unfortunate, but, Man, Richie Gilmore and those guys let us lean on these engines and we got a lot of power out of them. Every now and then something¹s goIng to break. I¹m not disappointed about what happened to it, just ecstatic about how we ran. We were as good as Tony (Stewart) all that run right there, then just needed to get caught back up after being really loose at the start. This year I¹m smart enough to wait. Have been so far until it comes in and when it comes in, go. And we were going good. Unfortunately something broke under the hood." ON POINTS: "It¹s disappointing, but I¹ve had a lot more than I ever had at this time of year, with this team, so I¹m pleased." ###