GM Racing - Daytona Test - Jan. 14

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI, NO. 33 APR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Fastest in
afternoon test session - 49.040, 183.561mph. - (ARE YOU FEELING PRETTY
COMFORTABLE IN THE CAR?) "Yes, definitely. Actually, believe it or not,
although people say it's pretty easy for you to go flat around this place
and indeed it is - especially when you're running by yourself. But I had
zero experience around this place and the more I run, the more I'm learning.
So I'm learning a little bit about the bumps. I'm learning how close to the
wall you can run - especially on your first lap. I'm learning how to bring
the car up to speed as quick as possible. We can't forget that I'm competing
against people who have done this for an average of 10 - 15 years. In a way,
I'm 10 to 15 years behind them and I have to try and play catch-up the best
way possible."

(ON GIVING FEEDBACK TO THE TEAM): "As far as the problems in the car, that
is pretty straight-forward. The more I run these cars, the more I understand
them. What was very difficult for me last year was running these cars one
day and running my type of cars for two months and then coming back over
here and running these cars. It was hard - especially when you needed to get
up to speed as quick as possible and you're competing against guys that are
very competitive."

(ON THE PRECISION DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CART AND NASCAR RACE CARS) "Every motor
racing vehicle out there has a soft spot to them. No matter what you're
driving, there's always an optimum that you want to run that machine in and
that is what we try to do with these cars. They're big and they're heavy.
You can't really compare them to a single-seater, you just try to optimize
exactly what you have."

(ON THE EASE OF WORKING WITH ENGINEERS IN NASCAR): "I haven't heard anyone
say anything about that, but that makes my transition a lot simpler or a lot
more normal in a way to what I'm used to. In that aspect, it's a bonus to
me. On the other hand, I'm running against people who have been doing this
for a long time. Up to a certain point, nothing beats experience. I wish
that one day, when I'm 45 or 50 years old I had my body of a 20 year old kid
and the experience of a 50 year old guy."

(ON THE CAR HE WAS DRIVING TODAY): "This is definitely not the one I was
driving here last week (in the test session). We came in last week and we
knew the car didn't have a lot of speed. Actually I went out to eat with
Andy (Petree) before the testing started on Monday evening and he told me
not to get frustrated if we didn't go fast and that this was the first car
they built for this year, which was built in October.
"And he said we were here for me to learn about the track and for them to do
some other tests. When we come back for the race, you'll see that everything
is going to fall into place. I guess I just trusted Andy because I'm in
no-man's-land. This is all completely new to me. I guess I just have to sit
in the car and strap myself in and drive the car."

(IS THIS THE CAR YOU'LL BE USING IN SPEEDWEEKS?) "It's definitely one of
them. I have to admit, on the other hand, that there was maybe a little bit
of a small draft when I did my quickest lap because someone came out in
front of me and he was about a half a straightaway ahead. But that really
doesn't matter for me because even if it wasn't for that, we have a solid
top-four car. So when I did my quickest lap, maybe I had a little bit of
help. But the most important is that you're consistent out there and that
you do it outing after outing. I think it's going to be really good for the
race."

(DO THE BRAZILIAN MEDIA PAY ATTENTION TO YOU AND NASCAR?) "They know that
last week we were testing and this week we were testing. But at the same
time, everything is completely new to the Brazilian motor racing culture.
Everyone down in Brazil is used to Formula I - especially when you go back
to when my uncle was racing in the early '70's. In a way, it translated to
Indy when Emerson and all the other drivers came over here. And now,
basically, maybe we could be starting something new in NASCAR. But it's
going to be a learning curve because the people don't understand 100 percent
yet how NASCAR racing is. NASCAR racing is very particular compared to all
the other racing in the world."

(HOW DOES NASCAR COMPARE TO OTHER FORMS OF RACING) "What amazes me is how
close it is. On any given weekend you see a half a second between them.
That's really close for 43 cars. Second, is that the races are very long. It
almost seems like all the stars have to align themselves for you to win a
race. You have to stay out of trouble and you have to be quick. No matter
where you start in the race, there's always that attitude that maybe you can
win it today. In other types of motor racing - because of the car difference
and because of the nature of the race and the tracks - if you don't start in
the first three or four rows, forget it. You're only going to do the race
and you're going to hope that you can collect a couple of points. It's
different over here because on race day it's absolutely wide open and anyone
can win it. Some guys have a bigger chance to win but anyone can go to bed
on Saturday night and dream about winning on Sunday."


JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DU PONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Highlights of Q&A's with
the media:

(ON HIS EXPERIENCE GUEST-HOSTING SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) "It was awesome. It
was a neat opportunity to be able to do that. They'd asked me to do it one
other time, but I didn't have the guts to do it. I didn't have the time in
the schedule to do it. They asked me when we were up there at the banquet.
The only way I wanted to do it was to go through the entire six-day routine
and rehearse and go through the skits and all that. They made it an awesome
experience and treated me like gold. They allowed me to have input in
everything. When you see all that's put into that show, it's pretty
impressive. It's something I'll never forget. I was able to do things I
never thought I'd do in front of a mirror - let alone on TV. It's pretty
neat when you put a wig on and some facial hair and a costume - it allows
you to be somebody else for a change. It was fun. I enjoyed it."

(WHAT WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT?)  "It was something you're nervous
about but excited about at the same time. There was a skit that I read for
the first time and I just laughed. I said no way was I going to do that.
Just doing the Ricky Funk thing was probably the most fun thing I had a
chance to do."

(IS IT HARD NOT TO LAUGH?) "Well, you rehearse things a couple of times so
you kind of know what's going to happen. It just depends on the reaction of
the other actors. There were times they were really cutting up during
rehearsals that you would just die laughing at when they start ad-libbing
and doing things. I had such a blast, but I didn't want to screw-up too bad.
There were times when I was laughing on the inside a lot and just trying to
remember what my cue was and my lines and all that stuff. There were plenty
of laughs, that's for sure."

(AFTER FINISHING IN THE TOP 10 LAST YEAR WHILE THINKING IT WAS AN OFF YEAR,
WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS YEAR) "That's why I'm excited about this
year. I look at things that we did last year.  To come on strong toward the
end of the year and finish fourth....   There was one point there - at
Talladega -- where we went from leading the race with a chance at taking
over the points lead to falling back to fourth in points by the time we left
Talladega shows what an up and down season it was. There were so many little
things that I think really kept us out of it that are fairly easy to fix or
prevent from happening this year. But you're going to have those things. If
it's your year, it's your year.

JEFF GORDON Con't.
"We made some improvements in our pit crew to speed them up a little bit.
Track position is everything and we're focusing on that. We've got a great
new race car in the Monte Carlo. I don't know how well we're going to be
able to qualify here. We seem to be struggling a little bit with speed here,
but we've got a long way to go before we come back here to qualify. We've
been here before where we haven't qualified well, and we've raced real well.
I'm not too worried about that. I'm extremely excited. We've had a great
off-season. I've gotten a lot of rest. The team carried some momentum from
the end of last year in knowing that we finished fourth in points and really
didn't have the best of years. And yet I think we're still a championship
caliber team with a few minor things that we could have done different. We
have a lot of things to look forward to this year."

(DO YOU THINK THE 2003 CHAMPION WILL HAVE SIX DNF'S AS PART OF HIS RECORD?)
"You never know. Some years are like Bobby LaBonte years where you are so
consistent with very few dnf's and maybe not a ton of wins. And then you've
got some years that are like mine in '98 where you've got a ton of wins and
the guy doesn't win the championship. It's hard to say. These days, it's so
much harder to win races because track position is so important that it
gives a lot of different teams that opportunity to pull off that win by not
coming in and taking tires - or by taking two (tires) - so consistency is
still important. Getting those top fives or top 10's is extremely important.
Last year, Tony Stewart was bound to win the championship. He's talented.
He's got a great team. You look at his first half of the season and nobody
took advantage of that. Everybody went into the season knowing Tony was a
threat to win the championship and when he was basically out of it, nobody
capitalized on it.

"During the second half of the season when he started putting races
together, nobody could answer back and really do anything spectacular. Each
championship - even mine - have been won differently. You still approach it
the same way. The results can sometimes come different than you expected."

(WAS THAT A REAL SNAKE ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE?) "Yeah, that sucker was real.
I hate to admit this but I used to have a snake when I was in Busch. I had a
boa constrictor. I don't have a problem with snakes. I love animals. When I
read the script and it said a snake, we debated whether it was a real snake
or a rubber snake. We went out there and saw the box and saw the person
grabbing it out and I thought, 'Real snake.'

JEFF GORDON Con't.
"I threw it around my neck. The first time was weird because it was pretty
strong in moving around. But for the show, if a snake is cool it moves
slower. So they know how to do things with snakes for television. I guess it
must not have moved much because everybody thought it was fake."

(ON HIS CONVERSATION WITH JIMMIE JOHNSON AFTER LAST WEEK'S TEST SESSION) "I
tried to tell Jimmie that I've been coming down here a long time. I've been
the fastest car and I've been one of the slowest cars. Both times I felt
like I've had a shot at winning the race. You can't put that much into
testing. Even though we put a lot into preparing for testing, you can't put
too much into it if you don't have the time and speed that you really want
because you've still got to race. Getting the car to drive good and draft
good is still important.

"But we did take a lot from that test and took notes and they made some
suggestions at Hendrick Motorsports. We know how good Chad (Knaus) and
Jimmie are at the speedways and with them not running well, we certainly had
some concerns. We tried to incorporate that into some stuff we have here.
We're still not much better. I think we had a better first day than their
first day. But overall, they were still a little bit faster at the end of
the session.  We'll see what happens over the last couple of days. We're
certainly not as fast as we'd like to be here. We did not cut up any cars,
but we made up some new pieces to try out."

(DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE THINGS UNDER CONTRL FOR 2003?) "I think you go into
every year thinking that you have everything under control. I feel like at
Hendrick Motorsports one thing we do very well is look back at previous
seasons and try to work on things during the off seasons. I feel like we've
paid attention to those details and made gains in a lot of those areas. I'm
certainly excited about getting the season started. I always look at the new
season as that you never know who is going to break out and come to life.

"There are about five or six guys that you know are solid drivers and that
these guys are going to be a threat for the championship. And then you've
got to throw in the five or six that maybe weren't a factor last year. And
then you've got to think about the guys that maybe came on strong last year
like a Kurt Busch or a Ryan Newman or a Jimmie Johnson.  It's always an
interesting time of year. Anybody who says they can predict the championship
I think is just crazy. There's no way you can predict."

JEFF GORDON, Con't.

(DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE ANOTHER ROOKIE BATTLE THIS YEAR LIKE WE HAD IN 2002
BETWEEN RYAN NEWMAN AND JIMMIE JOHNSON?) "Absolutely. There are some good
solid teams behind them (rookies for '03). The more downforce you put in
these cars, the more strong talent you're going to see. It makes a guy like
me have to work harder. The more aggressive you are and the harder you drive
in the corners, the better that car goes. It doesn't fall off. It used to be
that you could charge really hard like that for a few laps and then it
started to fall off but you'd better hold on tight and learn how to control
a car that's not stuck to the race track. That's why I think we can see
these young guys showcase their talents - especially when they're with good
teams. The harder they charge, the better they go."

(ON STRIKING A GOOD BALANCE BETWEEN HIS PERSONAL AND BUSINESS LIFE)  "Racing
is such a big part of my life that it's probably the main constant that I
have been able to sink my teeth into and get involved with and have fun
with. I'm dedicated about that and I need to stay focused on it. I love
that. It's challenging, I'm dedicated and it's rewarding and frustrating -
it offers a lot of good things. I've had my first Christmas I've had in
years with just me and my family - my mom and my dad and my sister and my
step-brother and their kids - it was wonderful. I enjoyed that a lot.
Between those things, it's allowed me to find a lot of happiness in my life.
I've been able to not been as reserved in some ways. I think that Saturday
Night Live certainly proves that. I would never have done that two or three
years ago. I'm enjoying life. I'm having a great life. I feel like I'm
finally in a position to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that
I've been given and to enjoy them.  Sometimes, instead of taking those
opportunities and enjoying them, I've found myself sheltering myself or
hiding from them."