TACH Speed Channel - Chevy Happy Hour Notes: Watkins Glen

CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO @ THE GLEN
NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2002

HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS TEAMS TO REMEMBER DAN LOHWASSER ON RACEDAY

Each Hendrick Motorsports car, driver and crew member (Nos. 24, 48, 5, 25)
will wear a decal on raceday in memory of Dan Lohwasser, who lost his
lengthy battle with cancer on July 31 at the age of 53. Lohwasser was the
Marketing Director for Hendrick Motorsports.

Before joining Hendrick Motorsports in 1998, Lohwasser was a reporter for
the Raleigh News and Observer, UPI and the Charlotte Observer. In 1986 he
joined Muhleman Marketing, where he worked closely with Rick Hendrick, who
was a client and a personal friend.

The decal says: "In Loving Memory ­ Dan Lohwasser ­ From your Hendrick
Motorsports Family."

**

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 4 KODAK FILMS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (spun into the sand in
this morning¹s first practice; helped work to repair the car): "Our Kodak
Monte Carlo was handling really good and we just couldn¹t seem to get the
speed out of it, so I was driving further and further and further in the
corners, and I finally went into the chicane over there and hit the brakes.
The brake pedal had been fading on me and I was having to pump it. When I
hit it the brake pedal went down and when I pumped it it slid the front
wheels. There was no turning into that thing (the chicane). We went across
it instead of around it, and got in the sand a little bit. We were real
fortunate. I got the thing turned around backwards and powered it to where
it didn¹t end up in the big foam barriers and tore it all to pieces. We just
bent the nose a little bit on it, so I felt if I could help tear it up I
could help fix it. It¹s one of those things. We¹ve only got a few minutes in
between these practices and every able-bodied man (was welcome to help). If
there¹s anything I could do to save them a little bit of time I felt like it
was a plus. I think we¹ve got a pretty good race car this week. There again,
just like Sears Point, we just can¹t get the speed out of it. The thing's
driving pretty respectable. I think we hit all our marks real good
yesterday; we just ended up 22nd. I think that¹s just the best we were.
There were a couple of places I felt like I could have done a little bit
better, but I don¹t think we were a threat for the pole. The car isn¹t bad
and I love road racing; I like Watkins Glen. Came awful close to winning
this race a couple of years ago. I would like to see that happen again for
this race team."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (ninth in Happy
Hour; will start in the back after changing an engine damaged in this
morning¹s practice session): WHAT HAPPENED? "I missed a shift and it started
vibrating, so we had to change it. I was going from third to fourth and I
must have just pulled over on it a little bit and it went into second."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (third in Happy Hour): GOOD
TIMES IN HAPPY HOUR, MORE OPTIMISTIC THAN YESTERDAY? "We were optimistic
yesterday, we just didn¹t qualify very good. We went from the slowest car in
the first practice to one of the fastest cars in the second practice. It¹s
interesting how your day can go. We had a few new things in the car when we
came here. We pulled some of those things out and went back to the basics
and brought the car right back. We¹re real happy." BRAKES HELD UP? "The
brakes are great." RECONSTRUCTION IN TURN 1, NEW PAVEMENT? "Yeah, they¹ve
done something down there; I can¹t explain what it is. All I know is that we
used to really come across there and throw some dirt up on the track, and
there¹s a curb. Now we¹re still throwing dirt up on the track, but there¹s
no curb." TWO CARS HAD ENGINE PROBLEMS: "These road courses are places where
there are so many opportunities to get yourself in trouble, shifting,
braking, turning left, turning right. There¹s a lot of obstacles out there.
To me one of the big reasons why we¹ve had a lot of success here is 1, we
have stuff that doesn¹t fail, and 2, I¹ve worked on being real smooth and
trying not to make mistakes and I think the guy that wins here is usually
the guy, the entire team, that makes the least amount of mistakes." WHEN YOU
ONLY RUN TWO ROAD RACES A YEAR, HOW EASY IS IT TO SHIFT FROM FOURTH TO
FIRST? "If you go from fourth to first that¹s a huge problem. Not only does
it break things but it usually spins you out and sends you off into the
sandpit. I didn¹t know those things happened to those guys. I don¹t know
why. I¹d have to know more." ARE YOU CONCERNED WHERE YOU¹RE STARTING? "I
know we¹ve got a great car; I¹ve got to put yesterday behind me. It doesn¹t
do me any good to be upset about it today or tomorrow. It¹s something that
we¹ve got to overcome. I think I¹ve got a pretty good idea today why we
didn¹t run better than we did yesterday; that¹s why we¹re running good
today. All we can do now is focus on our race package and work our way to
the front and get some track position. It¹s not going to be easy to do, but
I think we¹ve got what it takes to do it. It¹s just that we have a lot of
work ahead of us." HOW DO YOU WORK YOUR WAY TO THE FRONT FROM THE MIDDLE OF
THE PACK? "One car at a time. You look at your opportunities. There¹s
basically three opportunities on this track to pass on. You try to make
clean passes and if it takes you all day to do it then it takes you all day
to do it. You can¹t do it all in the first corner, you can¹t do it all in
the first lap. If the car¹s good enough, and our team is performing well
enough, we ought to be able to do it between on-track performance and
pit-road performance; we ought to be able to work our way to the front."  DO
YOU HAVE THE CAR TO WIN? "I think we do. I think we¹re as fast as anybody
else out there. Being as fast as the other guys is one thing, passing guys
to get there to them and passing a leader, whatever, is a little bit
different. We¹ll just have to wait and see tomorrow."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (17th in Happy Hour):
"The car is good. Unfortunately, we lost an engine two or three laps into
the practice the other day so we¹re going to have to start in the back,
regardless. We¹ve got a good car, it Œqualified¹ well, and it¹s been in the
top 15 on all the speed charts. We¹re looking good. This track¹s been a
little bit better for me than Sears Point as far as road courses are
concerned Œcause I¹ve had two years here in a Busch car before. It¹s helped
me out and I think we¹ll hopefully have some things work our way in the race
and get some track position and have a good day with the Lowe¹s Monte
Carlo." STRATEGY ON STARTING IN THE BACK? "We¹ve been crunching a lot of
different ideas, but with how few stops we need to make it¹s really hard to
work out a different strategy. We¹re just going to hope that we can pass
some cars and try to get our fuel and tires on the car as soon as possible
and just stay out from there and go to the end." WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH
THE ENGINE? "In fact, it happened to me on throttle going up through the
esses, when the motor let loose. It¹s just some freak failure. (We) solved
what it was on our car and knowing that we don¹t have that problem on the
other three Hendrick cars and then also our backup motor we know is correct.
It¹s just a small thing that unfortunately has cost us a lot." DO YOU TAKE
EXTRA CARE IN SHIFTING? "You know you¹re being abusive with the winding it
out as hard as you do, and on the downshifts when you pull it into a lower
gear, the rev limiter can¹t stop that high rpm spike. So you have to be
really careful on your downshifts, especially to not wind the thing up to
96-9700 rpm, which is really easy to do. You¹ve just got to be smart all day
long."