NASCAR NOTES & QUOTES--SUBWAY 500

WINSTON CUP NOTES & QUOTES; WINSTON CUP; SUBWAY 500; MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY; OCT. 19, 2003

 

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "We might have dropped a valve first. We thought we broke a valve spring, but when we took the cover off the valve spring wasn't broken. It ended up that we broke a piston. It wasn't meant to be. Our car was pretty good today. We got tangled up there one time, had to stop to miss a wreck and lost a lot of track position. It was back and forth, back and forth. The car was pretty good and the guys did a good job. We just had another motor failure. Something happened in the top end and went down to the bottom and broke the piston. It locked up. We need to fix this problem if we're going to be a contender, and I'm sure they will back at the shop."

 

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S/got milk? CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 6th: "It was a good run for us today. The car ran well all day and the guys had great pit stops. At least we got us another top-10. I was going for a top-five there. We came close. It was a good day in points for us. We're in quite a battle for 10th place back there. The points are a lot closer back there than they are up front/" YOU WERE SAYING THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT TO PASS TODAY. "It's really hard to pass. It's real slick down in the bottom groove and you can't get ahold of the track very good. Ryan and I were running the same line. I couldn't pass him. I couldn't get him on the outside and I couldn't get him on the inside. I just had to follow him and hope he slipped, but he didn't."

 

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We just missed it on the nose weight today. I've won here three times, I guess, in late models and trucks, and I've led here and run well in Winston Cup cars, and I've always run a lot higher percentage of nose weight. We had to put it back because usually that makes the car turn better, but we really missed it. WE left the fuel out of the car on that last run, got our lap back and we were in really good shape, but our official never told Ryan that I couldn't pit. I got stuck out there at the tail end with all the traffic and no tires. I hate it for these guys. I really wanted to get out of here with a real good top-five finish. The engine ran well, the car was good, nothing fell off of it and the crew did an awesome job. I'm going to really miss this MB2 Motorsports team and this Army car. I'm going to miss driving this Pontiac. I've been in that family since 1995, and I sure would like to pick up a couple more rides for the end of the year."

 

STEVE PARK, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "From where we started to where we finished, it was a really long day. I'm real happy for AOL and the whole team. The pit stops were great and I got track position. The car kind of got beat up, and I think I used up everything to get a 12th-place finish. I'm about worn out."

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd: "Man, I can't believe this, to finish second today, a 1-2 for Hendrick Motorsports. I know that Rick Hendrick and everybody at DuPont and Lowe's were hoping they'd see this one day and to do it here is pretty amazing. I thought it would happen on a 1.5-mile or something, because I struggle here. To be able to pull it together today.it was a great team effort and I am so proud of this whole Lowe's team. This is one of the weaker tracks we had left on the schedule this year and to come out of here with a second today, it really looks good for us in the points battle." HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH THE FIELD AFTER STARTING 26TH? "I started 26th, got spun out, had a bunch of wild stuff going on. It boiled down to being patient and going when you could and good pit stops. It was a total team effort." MORE JOHNSON TO FOLLOW

 

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 4th: "My car was real good. The last couple sets of tires weren't quite the best sets for the day. Congratulations to Jeff [Gordon]. Man, I'm just tired. It was a long day. I love this race track, it's fun as hell, but damn, it'll wear you out." DO YOU HAVE TO EARN THIS TRACK'S RESPECT? "Yeah, you've got to respect it. We have four top-fives in a row now. I'm just real tired, I want to go home."

 

TONY STEWART, NO, 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 3rd, his fifth straight top-five finish. "That was pretty good, compared to where we were yesterday morning with the Home Depot Monte Carlo. Yesterday, I was praying that the throttle would hang up and we could stick it in the fence and get the backup car out. Zippy and all the guys did a great job of making adjustments and we just used two sessions yesterday and the car was even better today. I told Zippy that he and Jason Shapiro get the stars for the day, Zippy with the setup and Jason, our brake specialist, has been working on our brake packages and he just keeps making it better and better. Man, I've never had brakes last that long in a day. They were just awesome today." MORE STEWART TO FOLLOW

 

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 1st, his second victory of the season and 63rd of his career. It also broke a four-race streak of 5th-place finishes. "I tell you what, I wish we could race at Martinsville every weekend. What a great day for us, a great weekend. This team is on top of their short-track game so well, and really all together are on top of their game the last five races. I really hate that we had that August and part of September like we did. I'd love to be up there battling for that championship, but that kind of took us back a little bit. We're just fighting back as hard as we can to win races 

and finish the season on a positive note, and this will certainly help do that." WHAT CHANGES DID YOU MAKE? "We just needed to be out front. In clean air, it was a rocketship. It would just take off. We were out front the first part of the day, and we came in and took two tires. It wasn't so much the two tires, I got knocked up into the marbles between Turns 3 and 4 and lost about three or four positions and never could get them back. We stuck with it, though. That's what makes a great team is to fight hard through those moments in the race. We did. They put four tires on, made adjustments, made great stops the rest of the day. I was able to drive by some guys on new tires and once I got into the lead there was no giving it up. I didn't know if that strategy was going to pay off or not, but I sure am glad we stayed out. I felt like I needed about 60 or 70 laps with about five or six cars ahead of me because we were so good on new tires if I was going to come in and get four tires. Robbie said, 'if Junior comes in, follow him.' I looked in the mirror and saw he was coming, but I saw there weren't many others that were. I said, 'I'm sorry, I can't do it. Not enough guys coming.' He said, 'OK, it's all up to you. You have to take those tires all the way to the end. We have plenty of fuel.' I just tried to be smooth as I could and keep that lead. It was awesome. I need to thank DuPont, Quaker State, Pepsi, Fritos, Haas, GMAC and everybody else who helps make this Chevrolet what it is." MORE GORDON TO FOLLOW

 

TONY STEWART POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE:

 

HOW WAS YOUR DAY TODAY? "If you came here yesterday morning and asked me how I felt we'd be today, I would have been trying to figure out how many laps down we were going to be. We went from the first 45-minute session to the second one yesterday, and we talked about wholesale changes. Zippy changed everything but the steering wheel and the driver's seat. They changed basically everything on that car. We went out for that second 45-minute session and the car was a ton better and today it was even better yet. I'm really proud of Zippy and Jason Shapiro, who is our brake guy. He has worked so hard on trying to get a brake package that would last 500 laps here and not fade. I never had one ounce of brake trouble today. It makes it a lot easier to go fast when you don't have to worry about that center pedal in the car."

 

THERE WERE A LOT OF CAUTIONS TODAY. DID YOU HAVE ANY CLOSE CALLS? "There were a couple of them early, but for the most part, we didn't really have any dramas. We never even slid into anybody. In one of the wrecks, we had to check up and got hit from behind. For the most part, that car doesn't have a scratch on it, which is very good for here. With the way the first run went, I thought we were going to have a pretty quick day here, I didn't think we were going to have any cautions at all because it went so long right off the bat. 

Normally, we'll get two or three really quick cautions early in the day and then everything smooths out. It was a typical Martinsville where you have a lot of cautions."

 

WINNING AT CHARLOTTE, A THIRD-PLACE HERE TODAY, THAT MUST MAKE YOU FEEL PRETTY GOOD GOING INTO ATLANTA. "Yeah, Atlanta's always a big weekend for us with Home Depot's headquarters being down there, and Coca-Cola's headquarters being down there. It's a big weekend for us. It's where I got my first 500-mile win and I have a lot of friends down there. It's a track I like, it's a driver's track even though it's 1.5 miles and fast. It's still one of those places where tires give up, which is good, and it gives us a chance to move around on the race track and actually race each other."

 

HOW DRAINED ARE YOU AFTER 500 LAPS HERE? IS THIS THE TOUGHEST TRACK YOU RACE ON? "I don't think it is. It's not really physically demanding. There's not enough banking here to put a lot of g-loads on you physically. You can mentally wear yourself out here during the day, but physically, you could run 1,000 laps here and not be worn out as long as it's not hot."

 

SEVERAL OF THE TOP DRIVERS STAYED OUT ON THAT CAUTION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RACE AND THEY COMPLAINED THEY DIDN'T SEE THE FLAG. DID YOU SEE IT? "I saw the flag. I didn't see when it came out, but I did see the flag and told them I was coming. Two or three cautions before that, we had run a lap or two before the pits would be open and that was the first time we came around that the pits were open. It caught me off guard and I'm positive it caught the top three guys off guard, but it worked out for us."

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE:

 

WHAT A DAY FOR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS, FINISHING 1-2 HERE. "To have a 1-2 with the 24 and the 48, being housed under the same roof, and Jeff being an owner and mentor to me and Robbie [Loomis] and Brian Whitesell being mentors to Chad Knaus and this whole team, it was a special day, a very special day. I've been struggling this entire weekend. The fastest I was all weekend was 24th or 25th on the board, and to be able to get things figured out and sorted out on how to drive the track and finish second is such a cool accomplishment. It means a lot to me. This is one of the places that is hardest mentally to drive, and even after being spun out and all kinds of crazy stuff happened to us today, we still ended up with a good finish."

 

YOU FOLLOWED JEFF THE LAST PART OF THE RACE. WHAT WAS DIFFERENT ABOUT HIS CAR AND YOURS? "I think if the track position had worked out a little differently, I don't know if he would have been able to get by me. He was a little better getting off the corners, but you have to be so much faster than somebody to pass them on the inside, especially as the tires go away. I don't know how the cycles worked out, but I guess he was in front of me all day long and then I caught up to him. If I had been able to get by him sooner, I think I could have held him off at the end. It was a great performance, He's the master. Everybody knows how many victories he has here and how successful he's been here, to run second to him.I hate running second, but I'm going to run second to him here."

 

YOU MENTIONED THAT JEFF HAS BEEN YOUR MENTOR. DID HE HELP YOU GET AROUND HERE BETTER? "We definitely talked about what we look for inside the car, but a tenth of a second here, you're a hero or a zero. A half a tenth, you're going forward. A half a tenth slower, you're going backwards. To actually pull the information out of him to find that half a tenth that I needed to be competitive today and attempt to race for the win, I was doing the same things, telling them the same things and I just couldn't get it. It took me getting into the race today for me to figure out what I needed to do. On top of that, we put his setup in the car, so to have that luxury, to fall back on Jeff Gordon's setups, helped me a lot on that front. This is a hard place to get any help from anyone when there's such little margin between first and 30th."

 

WERE YOU WORRIED THAT YOU'D NEVER FIGURE THIS PLACE OUT? "No. I was running in the 20s and we broke a rear end my first time here. I wish I would have been able to stay in and learn more about it. When I came back the second time, I think I qualified in the top 10 and finished in the top 10. These cars are so heavy and so big and you can upset them easily with the brake. The more experience you get, you don't realize how much you're maturing. I think this finish today.it took me a while to figure it out, but the end result was from another year's worth of experience and another four or five months worth of experience when we ran here earlier in the year."

 

THOSE LAST 40 OR 50 LAPS, DID YOU THINK ABOUT STEPPING UP THERE AND BEATING ON THE BOSS AND MOVING HIM? "I knew that question was coming. Of course I want to pass him. Of course I want to put a bumper to him. I wouldn't have wrecked him, but that's what I'm out there to do. That's what we're all out there to do, race for the win. I'm racing him for points. I wouldn't have wrecked him, but I wish I could have gotten inside him and put on a good show and ended up the winner. That's all I had. At the end I had the 

brakes pretty hot and mad at me. I was afraid of blowing a right front, so I just kind of settled in with four to go and brought it home."

 

IN TALKING WITH JEFF THIS WEEK, DID HE GIVE YOU ANY INDICATION THAT HE THOUGHT THIS WAS THE WEEKEND HE'D WIN AGAIN? "I know that every week he feels he has a shot at winning. This week, being at this track, I think his chances and his confidence is probably higher. As a teammate and a friend, I can tell you he doesn't get rattled by much, and by everything we've seen with his personal life and his career, you can't get inside his head and that's one of the big strengths Jeff Gordon has. As for him being under pressure, I don't see it. I haven't seen it. He's Jeff Gordon. He doesn't crack under pressure and sometimes when you count him out he steps back up,"

 

TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN TURN 4 WHEN YOU SPUN? "It just got bottle-necked and we were all trying to stop. I was going around the outside of the 42 and somebody tried wedging themselves between Jamie and the car that was spinning. We were essentially four or five wide and got clipped and turned around from that."

 

OF THE TOP SEVEN IN THE POINTS, SIX OF YOU FINISHED IN THE TOP SEVEN TODAY. AS A GROUP, ARE YOU TURNING UP THE HEAT? "I think it's been pretty progressive here lately. Since the midway point, I think the top 10 in points has really been the way we've been finishing on the track and it's been pretty competitive. From my standpoint, I'm looking in the mirror behind me and I see Ryan Newman and Dale Jr. I think, 'oh great, I'm ahead of them and I'll gain a couple of points.' But in front of me is Jeff and I lost some to him, and I guess we're slowly chipping away at Matt's lead, but the top five or six in the points keep finishing that way on the track. I think it's going to continue to be like that. The final results in the championship are going to boil down to who doesn't make a mistake in the end. Everyone is too close in speed and too competitive to really run away with anything and make up a lot of ground on anyone."

 

JEFF GORDON POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE

 

DID YOU TAKE TRACK POSITION OVER TIRES ON THAT LAST CAUTION? "I can hand the microphone over to Robbie and let him tell you. He had the bigger picture. He kind of left it in my hands. He said, 'watch those guys behind you, especially Junior. You've only got 23 laps on the tires.' He didn't think they were going to be coming that time, thinking that if there 

was a caution 15 or 20 laps later, maybe they would come. I looked in my mirror and I saw Junior going toward pit road, but I thought he was just trying to fake me and get me to go down there and then he was going to come back. Plus, he was the only car behind me that was going down there, so I just stayed out. He went in, and I just said, 'Guys, I'm sorry. I can't do it. I didn't see enough cars coming.' Robbie said, 'all right, it's up to you. You're going to have to stay out there, there's nothing we can do now. You're going to have to ride it out.' I knew being up front and in clean air that the car was really good, and unless those guys on new tires or unless I made a mistake, one of those guys behind me would get me if we did that, but if we didn't I thought we were going to be in good shape."

 

ROBBIE LOOMIS, CREW CHIEF: "I'm sitting there and I can see the big picture. I knew there were a bunch of guys that weren't going to pit. I think with 110 laps to go, I told him to keep an eye on his mirror if a caution came out, and he made the right decision. You'll have those days and I feel very grateful he did."

 

YOU DROVE THE WINNING CAR AND THE CAR YOU OWN WAS SECOND. IS THAT A REAL WIN-WIN SITUATION? "It doesn't get much better than that. We like to get 1-2, but he's got a few more wins under his belt this year than we have, so hopefully he didn't mind finishing second to us today. We were strong all weekend, and Jimmie struggled most of the weekend, but he was great today, and I knew he would find his rhythm and find what he needed once he got into the race and they did. Don't think I wasn't concerned about him, because I saw how his car came on strong there late in the race and I didn't know if we were going to be able to hold him off or not. I just tried to get a good jump on the green flag and get some distance between us and just be real smooth, not spin the tires and not make mistakes." 

 

TALK ABOUT THE FRUSTRATION WHEN YOU STRUGGLED A COUPLE MONTHS AGO AND FELL OUT OF THE POINTS RACE? "I think there are different types of frustration levels. The type of frustration we went through was being in situations that we weren't always in control of, like at Bristol. Schrader blew a tire in front of me. I had just went around Matt Kenseth, he let me down in front of him and then Schrader blew a tire. Matt didn't see it and he hit me, spun me out and put me into the wall. I got into a deal with the 77 car at Pocono. Running out of gas, those are the two things that were the biggest frustrations, where I feel like we could say that we weren't getting the fuel mileage we should have been getting or we should put more fuel in it. Those were the toughest days, but I don't think we blamed anybody or anything. We just said, 'hey, we learn from that and we have to go on and make sure we don't do 

that in the future.' I can tell you right now that Hendrick Motorsports is focusing a lot on fuel mileage, because that's been one thing that has hurt us this year. Performance-wise, looking at the whole year, we've been good enough to win the championship, I think. But you have to have fortune go your way and you have to have good calls. I can only think of a couple of things where we made mistakes that I feel like were either my fault or someone else's fault on the team. Other than that, I feel like we've been real strong, real solid, and you can't put your finger on exactly why those things happen when they did but they did and I'm just proud of the team to fight through that because it was intense. What makes it even worse is, within the team you're fighting hard to get it back, get back on track, go to the next race and say, 'oh, man, come on, anything but a wrecked race car, anything but running out of fuel.' Then it doesn't happen and you go to the next race and then you get rumors that this is going to happen, this change is coming, this person is out, that person's out, and that makes it even tougher for that team to fight through that time. I'm just proud we were able to."

 

WAS THERE ANY REAL DECISION AT ALL TO GIVE UP THE LEAD THERE, BASED ON WHAT YOU'VE SEEN ALL YEAR? "Unless a bunch of those guys were coming down pit road, I think the bigger gamble was to come down pit road, not to stay out. All those things were going through our heads at that moment, but I knew I had a good car. It's different when you're out there and your car is fading and you know you're not going to win the race, then you might want to come in and get tires. Maybe that's why Junior did what he did. Maybe his car was starting to fade, maybe Jimmie was putting some pressure on him, and he probably said, 'hey, I know we're not going to win if we stay out, so maybe we need to come in.' That could have been the situation. For us, we had a good car, we had the position, and so it wasn't that difficult a call, especially when I looked in the mirror and he was the only one coming."

 

WHAT DO YOU FEEL WENT RIGHT FOR YOU THAT HAD NOT IN PREVIOUS RACES? WHAT DID IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE BACK IN VICTORY LANE? "It felt great. It was awesome to see the look on Robbie's face and the guys on the team and how excited they were. You can have all the pep talks in the world and pat one another on the back and you can even pay them a bunch of money, and nothing is like getting to Victory Lane, whether it's here or Charlotte or Daytona or wherever. A win is a win and it feels great. Both Robbie and I, when we got the Victory Lane, we both took a deep breath and let it out, that kind of sigh of relief after getting that first one earlier in the year and now getting another one. We can say we have multiple wins this year. Pretty much everything went right except for that two-tire stop. It wasn't the two-tire stop as much as it was a lapped car knocked me up high in 3 and 4, got me 

out of the groove and a bunch of cars got by me and we couldn't make it up. The reason for the two tires was to maintain track position. As soon as we lost track position, we were in trouble, but once the tires got old, we weren't bad and actually passed a couple of cars and maintained pretty decent position. Then we came in and got four after that. It was a great handling race car, great pit stops, we had maybe one where a lug nut hung up, and I had a car that was able to pass really well. A lot of guys struggled passing today and it wasn't easy, but we were able to get inside cars and drive by them. A couple of spins in front of us, we were able to stay away from them."

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON SUGGESTED POST-RACE THAT MAYBE YOU DIDN'T GIVE HIM THE WHOLE SETUP TODAY. COMMENTS? "[Laughing] I don't know where he came up with that. We were parked right next to one another, and we couldn't have given him any more than what we had. I could see the frustration on his face Friday and Saturday. I did everything I could to talk him through it and try to figure out if there was maybe something I was doing different. One time during practice yesterday, he followed me to see what his car was doing versus my car or what I was doing versus what he was doing. All I can say is that his car looked as good or better than mine at the end of the race, not on cold tires or new tires, but on long runs."

 

ROBBIE LOOMIS: "We share everything. We hardly ever go into a race where our setups are exactly the same, but Chad and I have a great relationship. When one's hurting, we'll go over and say, 'you're not going to be as bad as you think it's going to be,' and you kind of open your books up and let them look at everything. Chad is very knowledgeable and a great crew chief, and he comes in with his own plan and we go race."

 

HOW CLOSE WAS THIS SETUP TO THE ONE YOU HAD HERE LAST TIME, AND WAS THIS THE SAME CAR? 

 

LOOMIS: "It was definitely the same car, 2446. We love that car. The setup was similar, but it has its differences. The track seemed to be a little tighter this time than it was even on Friday, so we knew coming in on Saturday that it was going to take a little different setup to get the car to turn better in the middle. I don't think we had as a good a drive-off probably this race as we did last race, but we had the car turning in the middle pretty good."

 

THERE WAS SOME CONFUSION TODAY ABOUT WHEN PIT ROAD WAS OPEN. WHAT IS YOUR INTERPRETATION? "I was far enough back at that time.I was running sixth but I had lapped cars between me and the leaders. I saw the green coming off Turn 2, as soon as I got on the back straightaway. I just thought those guys chose not to pit, but I couldn't really tell when it came out or where they were when it came out. I will say that in the past, I have been the leader and basically be driving by him and out of the corner of my eye I'll see him put that flag up, and I think that's not right. There's no reason you can't wait another lap to put it out, I don't know if that's what happened today, but I think there's no reason why we can't run one more lap before we come in to pit. I don't think they should be cutting it that close, in my opinion."

 

WAS THE 8 CAR THE ONE YOU WERE WORRIED ABOUT THE MOST AT THE END? "Junior can be real aggressive, and I was more concerned with me slipping and making a mistake and letting him get to me. He certainly showed he didn't mind bumping me earlier in the day. But I was equally as concerned with Jimmie as I was with Junior. I actually thought Jimmie had a little better car than Junior did there at the end. I had pulled away from Junior that last time he was out there behind me, pulled away from him pretty good, and felt pretty good about things right then. Even the time before that when we had the long run and were going through traffic, I felt like we had a little bit better car. I saw Jimmie come on real strong the time before that and on that run. I was pretty concerned with him."

 

WITH THE NUMBER OF CAUTIONS, WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING CAUGHT ON A RESTART? "I wanted to see a lot of cautions. When you make the call that we made, where we have to stay out, you want to see as many cautions as you possibly can, because the race starts to wind down and lines them all up double file, and it makes it that much harder for a guy like Junior who is trying to make up positions for him to do that. I didn't mind seeing the cautions. My car was good on new tires. If you have enough cautions, you're going to give a lot of guys a lap back so that line can get smaller on the bottom. I liked seeing that really long caution. That put a smile on my face, and then there at the end I was kind of happy to see it go green, because we had distanced ourselves and I didn't see a red 8 car or any other car on new tires coming."

 

DOES THIS TRACK TAX YOU MORE MENTALLY OR PHYSICALLY? "It's much more mental than physical. It was cool today. I think the carbon monoxide and some of that might bother you. I have a headache right now, and some of that stuff will dehydrate you more than anything else. I feel like we have one of the best systems out there, but I felt pretty fresh out there for the most part. Not a lot of air moving around, so it's hard to keep cool in the car. Mentally, I think it's a much more difficult race track than anything else."

 

YOU'VE SAID THAT ROBBIE KEEPS YOU CALM DURING THE RACE. DID HE DO THAT TODAY? "Oh yeah, he did a few things to soothe me and a few things to pump me up today. He got on me. I was shocked! There was one time I was complaining a little too much, and he stepped up and put me in my place. I was like, 'you go, boy.' I was proud of him."

 

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO GET HARD WITH HIM, ROBBIE? "Not very often. Jeff has been a great supporter. We've been through a really tough time and the outside world looks at things different than inside and we sat down a month ago and talked. Every now and then, I like to make sure he hears me, but I didn't know if he heard me today because he got real quiet for a long time."

 

GORDON: "You know he got my attention when I get quiet. Just shut up and drive. I don't know what he told me, I just know it wasn't nice and that I need to just shut up and drive."

 

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