Brickyard Chevy Notes-Tues. Indy Test No. 2

CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
NASCAR TESTING
TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2002

JIMMIE JOHNSON SIXTH, QUICKEST OF THE GM CARS AT TUESDAY INDY TEST

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (49.8353/180.595):  "I
know NASCAR's trying really hard to work on a lot of areas.  We had a
meeting the other night where they walked through all the changes and stuff
that they've been able to science out and understand.  There has been a
large focus on the driver cockpit areas; we've learned a lot about that.
Also, what we can do with the race cars.  On top of that, the walls.
There's been a lot of research, a lot of studying going on to figure out
what we need for Winston Cup cars and for open-wheel cars.  They're making
some great gains.  I'm glad that we're here with the soft walls up and I
hope this technology can apply to a lot of other race tracks.  The radius of
the outside walls poses a challenge for these engineers to find the right
density in different types of materials they need to use for the cars to
take the hit.  I'm very pleased with the way things are going and we're
learning a lot in a lot of different areas of safety."  WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT
THIS RACE COURSE TO YOU?  "It's got four distinct, different turns.  You've
got to approach each corner a little bit differently.  You make one small
mistake it's going to cost you a lot of time, so it's frustrating in some
senses, because it's such a long lap around and if you mess up you gotta
wait 50-plus seconds to come back and get another try at it.  It's a very
demanding track, and I think it's going to be really hard to race on."  WILL
JEFF'S (GORDON) SUCCESS HERE HELP YOU?  "Definitely.  We've been able to
show up with his baseline setup to work from there.  The technology and the
way these cars want to perform, it's been changing continually over and
over. We had a great starting point, refined our race setup, and got me a
lot of experience, and then started on the qualifying stuff today, and it's
worked really well for us."  DOES THE NEW DIAMOND GRINDING PROVIDE GRIP?
"Everyone speaks of the grip.  I don't know any better; I've never been here
before, so this is my first time to be on the race track.  There is a lot of
grip at times, but the sun really heats the track up and you lose grip.
I've been fighting a real tight condition and I could imagine it's only gong
to be worse in the race in traffic.  It's a fun track; it's very demanding
on you.  I think without the banking and the flat track for these big heavy
cars we still need more grip or can use more grip to be faster, but this is
still going to be a good race."  AS AN OWNER, HAS JEFF PUT A LOT OF PRESSURE
ON YOU TO DO WELL HERE?  "No, there's no pressure.  We just try to go out
and perform each week and do all we can.  It's been real lucky for us in
this rookie year.  We haven't had any pressure on the performance side of
things; fortunately that stuff's come pretty easily for us.  I shouldn't say
easily, but it's come early for us.  We've been able to back it up often.
Luckily there is no pressure there yet."

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (50.0027/179.990):  HOW IS THE
TEST GOING?  "It's going pretty good.  We learned a lot of things yesterday,
I think, for race stuff and we've been working on qualifying this morning.
I think we learned quite a bit this morning too.  We're running pretty good;
we're kind of pleased with that."  DID YOU NOTICE THE SOFT WALLS?  "If I
didn't know they were there I would have never noticed them, because where
you exit off the corner there they end before you really get out to the
wall.  I realize what they're trying to do and I think it's the greatest
situation.  It doesn't come into play at all when you're on a normal lap.
If you don't spin out and hit them you'll never know they're there."  ON THE
DIAMOND GRINDING:  "It's awesome.  it's lots, lots better than it was last
year.  We have the same tire we had last year; it's just like we got a
better tire than we did last year.  I never thought it was very rough
anyway, so I guess it's a little bit smoother and it gives us a lot more
grip."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO
(50.9751/176.557):   ON THE DIAMOND GRINDING: "They've done a nice job with
that process.  It has given the cars more stability in the turns.  Stable is
good."  DOES THE LUSTER REMAIN COMING BACK TO THIS TRACK AGAIN?  "This is
special.  The Daytona 500 is our biggest race.  I've been going down there
since I was 12 years old to watch my brother race in the Daytona 500.  So
luster is not about how many times you have been there, it's about the event
and the spectacle of the event."  ON THE SOFT WALLS:  "A wall's a wall and a
soft wall is better than a hard one.  I don't want to hit either one, if
I've got a choice."  DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL SAFER?  "You just appreciate the
effort.  After all that we've done and learned in the world of safety lately
we know that that's certainly an improvement and a step in the right
direction, so, yes, it makes you feel a lot better about what you're doing."
ON TEAMS SWITCHING CARS, LIKE PONTIAC TO CHEVY:  "It doesn't matter.
Everybody's got to do what's best for their team, and I don't really have an
opinion on it.  We're not switching."  WITH GIBBS, DOES IT HELP COMING TO
CHEVY?  "It doesn't hurt.  It's just another quality team on our side.  I
think the best teams are the Chevy teams, with Hendrick Motorsports, with
Richard Childress and with DEI.  We have a lot of knowledge and resources
there already, and they'll just add to that."  IS IT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE
THERE OR THE CHEVROLET? "It's the people that developed it, the innovative
minds that work on them in our garages."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (50.4672/178.334):  ON
TESTING HERE, HAS IT CHANGED?  "They've done some grinding on the track, so
the track's got a lot of grip, so we're just trying to see how things have
evolved for our cars, the tires and also with the track, so we're learning
quite a bit."  HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE RACE?  "I think the speeds are going
to be really fast.  I'm hoping that we do have a little more tire wear than
we had at most places, because that way it won't come down to a fuel mileage
deal.  It will come down to putting new tires on.  Not a whole lot of an
outside groove, because of all the rubber build-up that's been thrown out
there.  It's going to make it interesting.  There's more grip out there.  I
just don't know if we'll be able to make the groove wide enough."  ON THE
SOFT WALL TECHNOLOGY:  "We're excited to have it there.  None of us want to
use it and find out how well it works.  It's nice to know that they're
taking extra measures to make the race track safer for all of us.  I think
it's a good thing."  YOU KNOW HOW TO WIN HERE:  "Sometimes it's liking the
track, sometimes it's putting a good setup under the car and sometimes it's
just getting some good, lucky breaks.  We've had all those things fall in
our favor when we've been here in Indianapolis, and we hope we can do that
again this year."  ON THE WINLESS STREAK YET HIGH IN POINTS:  "Just because
we're not winning doesn't mean we won't be a threat for the championship,
but we would certainly like to do it in winning fashion."

KEN HOWES, DIRECTOR OF COMPETITION, HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS (Jimmie Johnson,
No. 48 Lowe's Chevy Monte Carlo, and Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Chevy Monte
Carlo, No. 25 UAW-Delphi Chevy Monte Carlo - 50.0446/179.840):  "Jimmie's
really accomplished what we'd hoped.  He spent yesterday learning the track
and just really running around with race setups on the car and started to
make some qualifying laps today, and he's pretty good.  We're very pleased."
JEFF?  "I think Jeff's done enough to know what he needs to know.  I think
they'll go home and when he comes back he'll be charged up and ready to go."
JOE? "Joe is doing a good job too.  He ran some good times this morning in
qualifying trim.  They've been concentrating on race setup later today, and
things are going well."  THAT'S A LOT OF MILES THIS TEAM HAS RUN PER CAR
SINCE THURSDAY:  "400 miles in Chicago in the race, 100 miles in practice
and qualifying there, and 100 miles here.  That's a lot."

BOBBY LABONTE, TESTING PONTIAC GRAND PRIX AND CHEVY MONTE CARLO FOR JOE
GIBBS RACING (Monte Carlo: 51.8930/173.434):  HOW MANY LAPS ON THE MONTE
CARLO TODAY?  "Probably 45-50 laps."  FIND ANYTHING?  "We found a little
bit.  We're still not as happy as we'd like to be.  But we're not happy with
either car, so it's an Indy test.  We've been here before, we struggled like
you wouldn't believe and came back to run good.  It's nothing new for us,
but we're not very satisfied with that either."

GREG ZIPADELLI, CREW CHIEF, NO. 20 PONTIAC AND CHEVROLET FOR JOE GIBBS
RACING:  IS IT A CHALLENGE TO TEST TWO DIFFERENT BRANDS AT ONE TIME (Monte
Carlo time - 50.5679/177.979)?  "What happened was we really didn't give
either car a hundred percent. That's what happens in a situation like this.
Track time is so limited because there are so many cars.  It takes so long
to get in and out of here (the garage area) and around that we didn't make
anywhere nearly the runs that we kind of anticipated and the things we
wanted to go through on the Monte Carlo.  We got our Pontiac driving awesome
and (we're) probably going to bring that car back here.  The Monte Carlo ran
good, but we never got it to drive where he was really comfortable in it.
That's our fault, or my fault.  I just didn't get the right springs and
shock combination.  We had it close a couple of times and we went into
different directions to try to get some feedback because if we did bring it
back I wanted to have some feedback from him of changing some things of what
it did.  It's going to react a little different than what we have here
(Pontiac).  We need to spend some more time working on it.  It showed a lot
of promise.  It drove good, straightaway speed was good.  It drove really
good yesterday and this morning.  This afternoon it didn't drive like we
wanted it to, the track got hot.  And we started to try and go in some
directions that we were searching, and it wasn't right and we couldn't get
back on track quick enough to feel comfortable to say that we brought it
back."  DO YOU GET CONFUSED BETWEEN THE TWO CARS?  "Sometimes.  Trying to
keep notes and track of shocks and springs and everything going into
different directions.  That made it a little bit difficult.  We didn't spend
anywhere near the amount of time that we normally do like working on our
Pontiac that we did last year with two of them.  You kind of spend the first
half day just getting a feel for them and then we usually pick a car and
then concentrate on the next day and a half on it.  We didn't get that
opportunity today.  That last run was extremely, extremely strong with our
Pontiac.  We just made a 35-lap run.  It was far superior to anything we saw
and better than that."