GM RACING NOTES & QUOTES--INFINEON RACEWAY POSTRACE

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GM RACING NOTES AND QUOTES - DODGE/SAVE MART 350 

INFINEON RACEWAY; June 22, 2003


BORIS SAID, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 6th: NOTE: Said, who started on the pole, led the first lap and finished sixth. He was slated to start fourth in the Trans-Am Series event immediately following the Winston Cup event. "We were really good, but we lost track position when that yellow came out [on lap 73] and that killed us. I just burned my tires coming through the field. DID YOU JUST LET ROBBY GO AFTER LEADING THE FIRST LAP? "Yeah."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd : NOTE: Gordon moved into second place in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings, 174 behind leader Matt Kenseth. "It was just a great day all the way around for us. The cautions fell right for us and the pit stops were great. I made a couple of mistakes out there, but there at the end, we had the best car. I drove up through there and I was surprised I got past Harvick. My hat's off to him. He did a great job today and I'm really impressed by his efforts. I got up there to Robby and he was doing everything he needed to do, but he was good in the areas where you could pass, off Turn 10 and going into Turn 7. He got the track position by passing his teammate under caution, and I think that's obviously not my problem I was pretty surprised by that. I'm happy to come home second. It was a great points day for us. YOU'RE SECOND IN THE POINTS NOW. "We were hoping to gain on those guys. Kenesth, I'm telling you, he's feeling it He's getting up on the wheel when he needs to and it's going to be tough to run those guys down." MORE JEFF GORDON TO FOLLOW.

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 12th: "We weren't very good at the beginning of it, but we got better as the race went on, obviously. The 12 car [Ryan Newman] was a little faster than us, but instead of passing us clean, he turned us down there in Turn 7." 

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 3rd: NOTE: Harvick surrendered the lead under caution to Richard Childress Racing teammate Robby Gordon. "It was good hard racing except for that chicken move under yellow." MORE HARVICK TO FOLLOW

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 30th: NOTE: Benson led 10 laps in the middle stages of Sunday's race, but ran out of fuel on the final lap. "Sure,we are disappointed to run out of gas on the final lap, but it was a gamble worth taking. We got to lead some today and had the Valvoline Pontiac out front. We would have finished about 30th if we hadn't gambled and that's where we ended up. But we tried. We will keep working. Like I said, leading 10 laps was a lot of fun."



BORIS SAID, ADDITIONAL QUOTES: "Our goal coming in was to get a top-10, but this U.S. Army car was better than that today - it was an easy top-three car. We just got caught up with the yellow on the second pit stop. It came the lap we were going to pit and that knocked us back to 26th place instead of fourth or fifth. Had the yellow come 10 seconds later we would have been fighting for the win at the end. I hope Jerry (Nadeau) was watching at home. I want to thank him for letting me drive his car -- it was great and I can't wait for him to come back. I was patient all day and really didn't make any mistakes. From a driving and finishing standpoint, it was the best Winston Cup race for me. Today was a blast -- the most fun I've ever had racing. I wish I could do this every week."

RYAN PEMBERTON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "Boris did an awesome job. Had the yellow flag come 10 seconds later for our second pit stop, there was a good chance he would have won his first Winston Cup race. He might have been celebrating in Victory Lane. I should practice what I preach. I didn't stick to my game plan and ran an extra lap I can't say enough about Boris...as far as I am concerned he won the race and we lost it for him. I want to apologize to him I lost the biggest race of his career to him. We got 20 spots back, and he ran a great race.".

JEFF GORDON, PRESS CONFERENCE: YOU CAUGHT UP TO ROBBY, BUT IT WAS DIFFERENT STORY ONCE YOU GOT THERE. "Yeah, this is a difficult track to pass on, there's no doubt about that. He wasn't very good compared to us, but he was good in the right places. Where he was the best was coming off Turn 6 going into Turn 7 and then coming off 10 and going into 11. If you can't get a run on a guy there, if you just drive off the track, you're not going to pass him. It's frustrating, because I knew we had a much better car, and I was working hard to get by him, but I gave it everything I had. I ran Robby down, and I came close to making a move on him, and I just saw kind of what he was doing, how he was driving. I said to myself, 'we've got a points battle on the line here. If I get a really clean shot at him, I'll go for it, but if not, it wasn't going to be worth risking it.' I ran as hard as I could to get a run on him, but it just never really materialized. One time I got to the outside of him and thought I had him, but I just couldn't get to the outside in the turn."

WHEN YOU PASSED RUSTY WALLACE, WHAT WAS GOING THROUH YOUR MIND? "That was a good place to be in, obviously. I didn't know how strong Robby was. I ran him down right away, and I said, 'aw, man, we've got this.' He was all over the place and he finally calmed down and stopped watching his mirror, and he started being smooth enough for me not to really be able to get by him. I got all over him trying to get him to make a mistake, and I saw Kevin come into third place. I started backing off a little bit to cool things down in case Kevin caught us. I wanted to have something hopefully for Robby and Kevin. I was real proud of Kevin. I saw him drive a lot today and he did a 

great job, made very few mistakes. He was an awesome road racer today. I thought he had the car. When he got by Robby, that was a pretty bold move right there. I thought that he was going to be the 

guy to beat. If Robby was as fast under green as he did under caution that one time, he'd win a lot of these things." [IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION ASKED OF HARVICK CONCERNING GORDON'S PASS UNDER YELLOW ON LAP 71] "That's a bunch of crap right there. Anybody who races back under caution like that.I don't know where his mind is. He [Robby Gordon] did a great job. He won the race fair and square today, except for that move right there. I don't care if they call it a gentlemen's agreement or not, what he did, especially to his teammate, is absolutely ridiculous. If he can be proud and satisfied with himself to go out there and do what he did today, and he's sitting over there in Victory Lane because he knows he passed his teammate under caution, then by all means have it." YOU MENTIONED YOU HAD ONE SHOT AT ROBBY. WHERE AND WHEN WAS THAT? "When I got the outside of him going into Turn 11. It looked like he [R. Gordon] kind of locked the brakes up there. I had a run anyway, and I knew he was going to block the inside and so I just tried to get to the outside. I got the outside really, really good and he started slipping the tires and I just missed getting to outside of him. If I could have gotten position on him down that part of the straightaway I think we could have had it. It would have been a heck of a battle or a heck of a wreck." WAS THAT THE ONLY TIME YOU HAD A SHOT TO THE OUTSIDE? "He was good off 10 and he was good off whatever that turn is where we are all over the curb and going into 7. He was good in those two areas, the only two braking or passing areas that there are. Other than that, I ate him up pretty much everywhere. You couldn't get underneath him there. It's hard to outbrake Robby, he was driving in there and locking the brakes up all the time. He did exactly what he needed to do to win that race." WHEN ROBBY BRUSHED THAT STYROFOAM BLOCK OUT THERE, DID THAT CAUSE YOU TO BREAK CONCENTRATION? "No. I knew that was nothing. You can clip those things all the time and they crumple away pretty good. Other than breaking my concentration a little bit, it was nothing. He ran into the dirt one time and locked up the inside tire one time, and those were the things I was trying to capitalize on. When the tires are that old, it's hard to get that aggressive." WHY IS IT THAT THE ROAD RACERS WHO COME IN ARE NEVER THERE AT THE END? "I don't know what happened to Ron Fellows today, but I thought he was going to be the guy to beat when he got that lead. His car looked good. All I do know is one time that he got out of synch with the pit stops. The rest of us came in before that caution came out and we were sitting perfect. He was way in the back because he came in under caution. I never saw him again, so I don't know what happened, but prior to that he was the guy." WAS WHAT ROBBY DID WORSE CONSIDERING THE DISCUSSION YOU HAD THIS MORNING IN THE DRIVER'S MEETING? "That was totally not the same situation. What that [discussion] was, was a waving caution on one corner if there's debris or something on the track where it's not a full-course caution, you can pass if you happen to be making a move on a guy and you complete it through that area. In most road-racing situations, you aren't allowed to do that, but NASCAR said today it wasn't that big a deal. But that's not what happened. I 

saw what happened. I might not have been right behind him, but I saw what happened because he about did it the caution before that. What happened was, the full-course caution came out and just like any other weekend-just because it's a road course doesn't make it any different-we maintain our position and work our way back to the caution. You don't know what's on the track. There's a caution for some reason. What I saw was Robby became an animal as soon as that caution came out because he thought that was his one golden opportunity to get by him. He was all over the place on Kevin, and I'm sure Kevin was looking in his mirrors wondering, 'what the heck is going on here?' I don't know how he actually got by him, but he obviously got on the inside of him going into Turn 11. That's just unheard of, I'm telling you. It doesn't surprise me, but it's unheard of in our sport. You rarely ever see that unless it's coming down to the checkered flag or the white flag or with five to go, but not at that point in the race." CONSIDERING WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR HERE, HOW SATISFYING IS IT FOR YOU TO FINISH SECOND? "I'm real happy to finish second. We needed a strong run here. I'm not saying this because I didn't win the race, but I feel more for Kevin than anything else. I'm very pleased with our run today, our whole effort. To come out of here with a gain in the points and a strong finish like that, it was exactly what we were hoping for. With these road courses, anything in the top five you have to be happy with. We got a whole lot more than that today." WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT PASSING YOUR TEAMMATE UNDER THE YELLOW? "To me, that makes it even worse. If me and my teammate were racing out there and he raced me harder getting back to the caution than he did under green and he actually passed me, I tell you what, we'd have a little discussion somewhere. That said, I should probably shut up and not say anything, but I could not believe it when I saw it. I said to my crew on the caution before that, 'can you believe he's trying to pass his teammate under caution?' Then the next time, I saw where he beat him back to the caution, and I said, 'you've got to be kidding me! Did he really pass.' After that, I was like, 'watch out for these two ' You never knew what was going to happen. But that's really what won him the race." WHAT IS THE RACING PROTOCOL HERE? "That's the thing here. There are no rules. This has nothing to do with a rule book or black and white or anything like that. What he did can be done and it is and he's sitting in Victory Lane. Give him that. But I'll tell you what, there's not going to be too many guys who are going to have much respect for him. It doesn't matter who it is, you don't do that. You don't pass the guy under caution and then tell NASCAR that's something any different. What this does is set a precedent. The reason we don't race back to the caution is for safety reasons. NASCAR says, 'we're not saying you can't do it, but don't put it in our hands to have to make that call.' That's the gentlemen's agreement. It has nothing to do with letting guys back on the lead lap. If you look at what happened in Texas, I passed Matt Kenseth because guys were trying to get their lap back. If you remember, I let him go right back by me. I didn't want to pass Matt Kenseth, I just didn't want certain people to get their laps back. From what I saw today, that didn't have anything to do with it." WHAT IS YOUR FEELING ON THE NAME OF THE SERIES CHANGING FROM WINSTON CUP TO NEXTEL CUP? "We're really proud of where the sport has come to and we give a lot of credit to Winston and R.J. Reynolds, but I think if you look at the way the sport is growing and moving forward and the markets we're moving into, the lack of limitations that a company like Nextel has versus Winston, I think is awesome. I think everyone is excited. It's kind of a wait-and-see thing, but for the most part everybody is pretty happy and excited about it. We're going to miss R.J. Reynolds a lot, but I think great things are coming and we're certainly excited about that."

KEVIN HARVICK, PRESS CONFERENCE: NOTE: Harvick won Saturday's NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series event at Infineon Raceway and finished third in Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350. The result Sunday was Harvick's best career finish at Infineon. YOUR BEST FINISH HERE, IT HAD TO BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU. "Yeah, it was a good day for the GM Goodwrench car. We had a great strategy and a really fast car, and things worked out pretty good." WHAT HAPPENED WITH ROBBY, AND WHAT DO YOU THINK NEEDS TO HAPPEN NOW? "I think Jeff [Gordon] said it best."


ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: PRESS CONFERENCE: NOTE: Sunday's victory in the Dodge/Save Mart 350 was Robby Gordon's second career NASCAR Winston Cup victory and it came in his 114th career start. His first victory came at New Hampshire International Speedway in November 2001, 52 races ago. He is the 13th different race winner in 16 races this season, and his victory is Chevrolet's eighth of the season. He led 81 of the 110 laps and vaulted from 16th to 13th in series points.

YOU'VE SAID YOU LET ONE SLIP AWAY HERE IN 2001, BUT YOU DIDN'T LET THIS ONE SLIP AWAY. "I'm going to date it all the way back to 2000. We've been the quickest car since about then, and we haven't pulled the car into Victory Lane. In 2001, we came real close, and then last year, I was running second to Tony [Stewart] and we stuck with Tony's strategy and we knew at that point that we made a mistake we were never going to be able to recover from and we finished 11th. Track position is key here, and we had to use every obstacle we could to gain as much track position as we could and our fuel mileage to make it run full distance." YOU SAID YOU HAD A PLAN YOU WERE GOING TO EXECUTE. HOW DID THAT GO? "Our plan was to come in between laps 26 and 36, to make our first stop. We dictated our stops under green strategy and we didn't come in under any yellows. We knew that would take us to lap 68, and if we could get to lap 68 and be the first car on the road we could run from there home. We lived by that strategy and that paid off for us. We just had a really good car all day long." JEFF GORDON SAID THAT YOU WON THIS ONE BY PASSING KEVIN HARVICK UNDER YELLOW. "I sat and asked [NASCAR], and it was very obvious in the driver's meeting today, I asked 'are you sure we can pass under the yellow?' They said, 'yeah, you can

race back to the line, just like every weekend.' Kevin Harvick may be mad at me, but it is what it is. To be honest with you, when he got by me, he wasn't going to make the corner if I didn't move out of the way. He would have wrecked me. Ron Fellows got under both of us there. He took a shot at risking it, and I paid him back under a caution." YOU HIT THE TIRE BARRIER UP THERE. WHAT HAPPENED? "I was just using the whole race track. I knew that was foam and I knew it wasn't going to hurt me. The biggest thing here is we had to save our tires and pace ourselves. I actually paced myself off Jeff Gordon. There was no damage, other than a little wrinkle on the left front. On a road course, we don't go fast enough to make much downforce difference. Every lap I tried to miss it [the barrier] by an inch, and I was an inch off one time." JEFF GORDON CALLED YOUR MOVE RIDICULOUS. "You really think I care what Jeff Gordon says, honestly? The guy has won enough races. I don't know why he's so sore about it. I guess he doesn't like it when someone comes in and rans on his parade a little bit." DID YOU ALMOST FEEL THAT THIS WAS YOUR RACE TO LOSE? "Not only here, we've been strong many times this year. The team has been good and we were in the top 10 a couple weeks ago. We knew if we put back the last couple of weeks, we could probably jump ourselves back up toward the front again. We knew we needed to come here-I think I said it three weeks ago in Charlotte-we were going to come here and score maximum points. That was our game plan. We just missed it by one spot in qualifying back to the flag." TALK A LITTLE MORE ABOUT RACING BACK TO THE YELLOW FLAG. "Jeff Gordon sat in the same driver's meeting I did. I asked the question three times and disrupted the driver's meeting because I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what they were saying. They said, 'under waving yellow, you can race back to the line until you take the yellow. After you take the yellow at the start/finish line, that's what it is.' I can't help that I understood exactly what the rules were and took advantage of it. Racing here at Sonoma, it's very hard to pass. You hear about on all the ovals the aero push, and you get it here too. I knew if I could get track position, we were definitely going to be the car to beat. If Jeff was so mad at me, why didn't he spin me out?" ON THE RADIO DURING THE RACE, YOU SAID YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD A TIRE GOING DOWN. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH THAT? "I got a little nervous, because under the caution, we were conserving as much fuel as possible because we stuck to our lap-68 plan. I didn't scuff my tires because it takes energy to scuff tires. So I probably got some buildup on my tires and it just slid around for two or three laps on the tires. The key was, I didn't want to run out of fuel later, and I probably should have scuffed them a couple of turns before we went back to green. But I thought that saving fuel was more important at that point." JEFF GORDON SAID YOU WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE ONCE YOU TOOK THE LEAD. WHAT IS YOUR THOUGHT? "Like I said, I paced myself off Jeff's front bumper. It really bums me out that he's sore about it. He has no reason; it has nothing to do with him. He obviously didn't see what happened between Kevin and me earlier, so I don't know why he's sore about that one. What I did after that point was dictate how close I was going to let Jeff Gordon get to me. One time, he got an opportunity to get down to me in Turn 11, and from that point on I paced off his front bumper with my rear bumper. I didn't have to run any harder than we needed to to win the race." HOW ABOUT DOWN HERE WHEN YOU WENT FROM FIRST TO THIRD? "When Kevin outbraked me going into Turn 1, if I wouldn't have moved out of the way, we both would have wrecked. There was no way he was going to hit the apex of the corner. I don't know why he should be sore at me passing him back, because I thought that was a little bit of a cheap shot earlier, especially since we were teammates. To be honest, I was in ride mode. Richard [team owner Richard Childress] had just got off the radio and said, 'OK, Kevin is going to ride right behind you and race with you, race you clean. Protect the inside and be good to go.' I wasn't anticipating him taking a shot and diving down the inside. When he dove down the inside of me, Ron Fellows got by both of us. So I don't see why Jeff Gordon should be disappointed about this issue. It had nothing to do with Jeff Gordon." IS THERE ANYTHING THAT NASCAR CAN DO TO MAKE THIS ISSUE LESS OF A GRAY AREA? "I asked it three times in the meeting today. I laughed when they said this is the way the rules are. I said, 'OK, are you guys sure?' I knew I was going to use it to my advantage. He said it's always been that way and you can race back as much as you want." JEFF WAS PRETTY MUCH ON YOUR BUMPER FOR THE LAST 15 LAPS. WAS HE MAKING YOU RUN A LITTLE FASTER THAN YOU WANTED TO? "I actually backed my car up to his front bumper, because what I didn't know was, at the pace we were running, if he was saving his tires and was going to make a last-lap run at me. I paced off his front bumper. I knew if I kept about three or four car lengths between us going into the hairpin, there was no way he could actually get to my bumper and knock me loose going into Turn 11." HOW NICE WAS IT TO GIVE KEVIN HAMLIN SUCH A WONDERFUL ANNIVERSARY GIFT? "It was great. Kevin has been working real hard getting this program turned around. He's had some stressful times the last couple of years, and it's just great that I could put a car in Victory Lane for the second time this year with him and prove that he's still a good crew chief. What Kevin has been doing is, he's been allowing Chris Andrews, my engineer, and myself to get a little bit on the wild side as far as setups and his experience keeps us back inside the lines. The three of us have been working real well on getting involved in the car and he had a plan this weekend where he let me and Chris worry about the setup on the car and he would worry more about how the strategy was going to work out and help us in that fashion. I think it really worked out well. If we continue in this direction, we're all going to be in real good shape." WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JEFF GORDON AFTER THIS? "I'm cool with Jeff. I have no idea why Jeff would even comment on the issue because it had nothing to do with him. If I had passed Jeff Gordon under the caution, I could see why he might be concerned. As far as I'm concerned, he should mind his own business." WILL YOU HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH HIM? "He's not big enough to have a discussion with me." 

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