dodge teleconference. bobby hamilton and chad chaffin

Tuesday, April 13, 2004.
Dodge Teleconference
      
Kroger 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

 

 

BOBBY HAMILTON (No.  4 Square D Dodge Ram)

NOTE:  Hamilton ranks third in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Standings after two races in 2004. He won the last race at Atlanta Motor
Speedway with a thrilling finish against Mike Skinner and is only 20
points behind series leader Travis Kvapil heading into Martinsville.
Chad Chaffin, who drives the No. 18 Dickies Dodge Ram for Bobby Hamilton
Racing, finished ninth at Atlanta and ranks ninth in the series
standings. Hamilton and Chaffin discuss the series and outlook for
Martinsville.

 

WHAT'S THE OUTLOOK FOR MARTINSVILLE? "Martinsville has always been a
good racetrack for me, and coming off the win at Atlanta and ending the
season the way we ended it (victory at Homestead) we're pretty pumped
up. We started doing our own in-house chassis at Homestead last year and
were able to win. Our next in-house chassis we won with at Atlanta, and
we're carrying another new in-house chassis to Martinsville. We've got
some cool things going on and some engineering things going on with the
folks at Detroit, so right now we're not focused on anything. Everybody
says, 'what about the championship?' We're not talking about that. We
just want to win a lot of races this year."

 

HOW'S THE TEST GOING AT GREENVILLE-PICKENS TODAY? "It's raining like
hell right now, and it always does when we come over here. We talked the
promoter into letting us have the racetrack tonight. For some reason
when the sun goes down it quits raining around here, so we're going to
try to test tonight if we can."

 

DO YOU LIKE RACING AT MARTINSVILLE? "It's been a good track for us. We
won a truck race there and a Cup race there. I probably won about every
truck race there without mechanical failure or stuff because before I
started driving for my team full time I'd try a lot of experimental
stuff. It's a real good racetrack. I don't necessarily like it that
much, but for some reason I always run good there. I'm easy on brakes,
but to me I think they hurt the racetrack when they ground it. They said
you can go back and run on the outside, but every race I've run there or
won there I raced on the outside. It's made it a better race for the
fans."

 

DISCUSS TRUCK ONE-RACE-A-MONTH SCHEDULE TO BEGIN SEASON

"It's not hard for the teams. What it's hard for is the sponsors. We've
talked to NASCAR about this, and they're well aware of it. I think we'll
see some changes for next year with some new venues they've talked
about. The sponsor works its tail off going into Daytona, and with my
sponsor, Square D, you're building excitement internally with the
employees more or less and a few customers. You run Daytona and then
you're off a month. You've got to work real hard to get the excitement
built back up again, and then you're off for another month. That's the
kind of hurdles we're having problems with right now."

 

WHAT'S YOUR IMPRESSION OF NEW MANUFACTURER IN TRUCK SERIES? "I think the
title is wide open. I might be fooled. This is not manufacturer talk.
This is just looking at the teams and drivers that are good at
Martinsville. I think the deck is stacked against them (at
Martinsville). I'm not saying they won't win, but I think it's stacked
against them. A lot of times you can win a race at Martinsville with pit
strategy. A lot of aero stuff doesn't come in, but it takes a lot of
motor with a lot of low end torque and a driver with a lot of
discipline. Travis (Kvapil) has got that. Travis is a threat at about
any kind of track, and he is in a Toyota, but I just don't think....
They ran awful good at Atlanta. They had a low drag piece that makes the
thing run down the straightaways but it wasn't that good in the corners.
I just don't think they're exactly up to date yet with what they need to
do, but they're coming. It's just a matter of a couple more races that
we've got to fight real hard to keep them off of us."

 

DISCUSS BUILDING YOUR OWN CHASSIS "It's a pretty neat deal because I'm a
motorhead anyhow. I think it's cool when you build it from the ground up
and we're not having to buy stuff. We originally had all our stuff from
Laughlin and had a new Hopkins trucks. Ronnie (Hopkins) has probably got
the coolest stuff, but it's hard to get stuff from him because so many
people order from him. We got on the stick last year and decided to
try... We actually ran our own snouts, front clips. Then we built one
(chassis) and it turned out nice and went through tech good. Then we
went to Homestead and really dominated the race all day. We said it was
a new track and no one had a lot of time on there. Then we built one for
Atlanta and it ended up doing the same thing. You hire your people to do
a job and you sit back and watch them all get together and come up with
a lot of ideas. We do everything in house, bodies, transmissions,
chassis and gears, brake stuff, everything except the motors and that's
furnished by Dodge. Joey Arrington does that, so for somebody that
started five years ago with a two-car garage behind our house it feels
pretty good."

 

DO YOU SEE A HAMILTON CHASSIS AVAILABLE TO OTHER DRIVERS? "That's
actually going to happen. Chase Montgomery wants one right now, but we
need a little more time. I've got to get Chad (Chaffin) one done. He'll
have one at Ohio, and after that, that'll give both teams one, and I
think we're going to put one with Chase. I think there might be a day,
but not as long as I drive it. I'm really, really funny if I come up
with something. I shroud it pretty good. I don't give it out to nobody,
and I think as tough as it is these days you can't afford to. The good
thing about being in Nashville, if I do stumble across something, I
don't think I have anything that special right now, but when I do get
it, it's going to take people awhile to get it. We've seen that with
Bill Elliott when he was in Georgia.

 

"Say Ray Evernham had one that Bill Elliott had at Vegas or wherever. He
could sell that chassis to Childress and I promise you within two weeks
every race team in the country would know about it if it's in the
Mooresville or Charlotte area because everybody sits around and drinks
beer at night and talks about stuff. That's what I like about being in
Nashville. If I do stumble across something, I've got it to myself."

 

WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT MIDDLE TENNESSEE DRIVERS? "I think it's just the
racetracks themselves. Everything we have here is pretty high speed,
high banked and they get slick after 25 laps. I think you see those same
drivers shine at Darlington or Rockingham, any track that gets slick.
The Nashville area gets the credit for David Green, Michael Waltrip,
Jeff Green, drivers that come from Owensboro, Ky., to Nashville to run.
It's one of the few short tracks that has average speeds at the 121 mph
mark. For a local racetrack that's pretty fast. The closest thing you
get to that is Bristol."

 

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR YOUNGER DRIVERS AT THE LOCAL TRACKS?

"Yeah, I've got my eye on a couple, but I'm not going to mention any
names. I did that last year and I couldn't stay at home. I don't mean
that bad. It's good that they're that eager, but I'm just watching from
this point. I have to go down there every off Saturday now because
NASCAR and Kodak teamed up and I'm part of that diversity deal they're
doing. I've got an 18-year-old African-American kid that runs a Dodge
sponsored by Kodak right now. He's done really well down there. I've got
my hand in a little bit of everything right now. We know at my age and
Chad's age that it's just a matter of time. I'm really working hard by
next season by have a program and start running teenagers as much as I
can, if not, just out of the teenage years, so we're pretty aggressive
with that right now."

 

DO YOU SEE DIVERSITY PROGRAM GROWING? "I think NASCAR should have
stepped up, and I think they know this now, and I don't mean it in a bad
way. They've got an awful big business they have to run. When Dodge
started off with it they needed help the whole time, and they went way,
way beyond the call of duty to be a company that just decided to do it
for one year. They did it for three years, and I know the kind of money
they spent. I think somebody could have stepped in and gave 'em some
help on that deal. I think when it went away NASCAR stepped in and said
they had to do something. I really like the way they're doing this deal
because they've got six or seven guys throughout the country and they've
got good team owners running it for them and starting them out at local
tracks and watching it grow instead of throwing somebody to the wolves
like they did Willy (T. Ribbs) and Bill (Lester). I think they're doing
it the right way now."

 

WHAT DO YOU LIKE AND DISLIKE ABOUT MARTINSVILLE? "The thing I like is it
makes you a better driver as far as being disciplined. You're at a
half-mile race track and they holler at you to take care of the brakes
and don't tear the nose up. How are you supposed to do that at a place
like that? I like that kind of racing. It is a big challenge. What I
don't like is it's the type of track that wears tires a lot and you
can't win it by staying out. A lot of times the fastest car doesn't win.
The race I won there with the 4 car, I led 397 laps of 500 and started
on the pole and lapped 'em up to fifth place. We lapped Jeff Gordon with
five to go, and Jeff Gordon is the king of Martinsville, so very rarely
does the fastest car win at Martinsville. We saw Harry Gant do it one
time and I'm sure there's been a couple of other times, but most of the
time pit strategy wins it. I don't really like that on a short track. I
like to see jam up short track racing. Another thing I don't like about
it is the way they ground the racetrack. I wouldn't because I had a good
handle on it before. I'm probably thinking Rusty Wallace don't like it
since he was so good at Martinsville. I think it made it harder on him.
I think a real good race track sometimes needs to be left alone. If
you've got one or two people who can run up on the outside and nobody
else can, I'm a firm believer if one race car can do something and you
really do your homework that race car ought to be able to do it. If it
can't, then usually it's the driver who can't do it."

 

DISCUSS SHARING INFORMATION AMONG MANUFACTURERS "I know it doesn't look
like it to the public, and Dodge is a little irritated with it at this
point, and I think I can speak on their behalf at this point. It's
nothing major. We all get along fine, but we feel like there needs to be
more of a one-team concept. That's our saying. We have a one-team
concept. We're sitting at Greenville-Pickens, both of my race teams and
both of Jim Smith's race teams, and the engineering team, but we're
parked like miles away from one another. That's to keep each other from
seeing each other's stuff. I think that's healthy to a certain point,
but we could be better at what we do, and we are getting better. It's
hugely different than it was a few years ago. We're getting there. We
just need to get there faster. I don't have to tell you guys that it's
way past time for Dodge to win a championship in the truck series. For
us to do that, we need to work tighter and tighter together as one team,
and then when we roll into the race track we can park away from one
another. It's headed in that direction. I don't know the time span it's
going to take to get where it needs to be. I know my bunch is working
real hard to work with everybody like we need to."

 

WHAT'S THE RENEWED INTEREST IN TRUCK SERIES? "I know we're sitting here
on a Dodge conference call, but there's no bones about it that Toyota
has struck a lot of interest to the truck series. It's helped all of us.
It's brought a lot of national attention to it. I think Mike Skinner and
Jack Sprague coming back have been huge for us. I don't necessarily like
it because it's just that much more competition, but I enjoy it when we
have a race like we had at Atlanta. I think people know you're going to
start seeing finishes like Mike and I had at Atlanta."

 

WHAT WOULD BE A PERFECT TRUCK SCHEDULE? "For me, the perfect schedule
would be to run Daytona and instead of a month maybe three weeks maximum
or two weeks and have two weeks off in between. A moth is just too long.
Let me say this. It helped us all as owners this year because of the
common template rule. For the next two or three years we ought to be
able to tighten the schedule up some. I'm talking about leaving the
number (25) like it is, no more than one more race. With the sponsorship
money you get in trucks at this point, you need to keep it around 25 or
26 races. If they've got a good market area that wants to come on, and
they've got one that's not so good, then we just lose one and gain a
couple."

 

 

CHAD CHAFFIN (No. 18 Dickies Dodge Ram)

WHAT'S BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IN TRUCK SERIES FOR YOU?

"When I was racing in the Busch cars, we were racing with teams that
knew they didn't have a shot to win races. The emphasis was on
qualifying good to make sure we made the races. Now that I'm with the
truck series, the fun part is we're going to the tracks and trying to
sit on poles and lead laps and win races and establish ourselves as one
of the top teams. We finished last year 10th in points, so we're trying
to move up and be a top-five team and a consistent winner."

 

WHAT'S YOUR OUTLOOK FOR MARTINSVILLE? "I'm real excited about going to
Martinsville. This year Bobby Hamilton Racing has made even a deeper
commitment along with Dodge and Dickies. I'm seeing a new focus, not
that we weren't focused last year. But last year Bobby had three teams
and that's a lot to have under one roof. We had different challenges
with Bobby trying to run for the championship and we were trying to get
Bill Lester competitive. It  kinda left the 18 team in limbo sometimes.
Now there's a real commitment for us to win races. We've got new trucks
and a lot more engineering and a lot more development is going into both
teams. We're sharing a lot of information. I'm excited. I think we can
be a winning team everywhere we go. The next race is Martinsville, so
we're going there and try to win it."

 

DO YOU LIKE TO BEAT THE BOSS ON THE TRACK? "Bobby Hamilton is probably
one of the best drivers in NASCAR. I've known Bobby a long time, and he
literally came from nothing. He's a very competitive person, but he's
also my owner. He wants me to win. He wants us to do good, but when they
drop the green flag, he wants to beat me just as much as anybody else
out there. He has to wear two hats. When they drop the green flag, he's
all driver. When the race is over, he's a truck owner again. I know in
victory lane at Atlanta one of the things he wanted to know was how I
finished. I like to beat Bobby, but that's not really the goal. My goal
is to win the race and do the best I can for my team."

 

IS MARTINSVILLE A TOUGH TRACK? "It has very long straightaways and very
tight corners. It's really a finesse track. You can't attack it like you
can some higher-banked tracks. We ran well there last year. That was the
first time I'd raced there, and we led 80 some odd laps in the Dickies
Dodge and had second place in hand and ran out of fuel with three laps
to go. You don't see that a lot at a short track. We went back in the
fall and didn't run quite as good. It's just one of those tracks where
if you get everything right you can run around there real smooth and
fast. If you're a little bit off, you'll struggle."

 

TALK ABOUT SATURDAY'S BUSCH DEAL AT NASHVILLE FOR YOU "Obviously, I
probably didn't do myself any favors by doing that, but that 77 car was
my first Busch ride and it's crew chiefed by Jimmy Means. Jimmy called
me to try to help them out. The team had been struggling. He knew I had
done well in that car in the past and had won the pole at the last
Craftsman Truck race at Nashville. They desperately needed me to try to
qualify that car for the race. I took it as a challenge. Unfortunately,
in our sport, the whole racing world is watching, and you've got to be
careful when you stick your neck out like that. We still got that car
fast enough to make the race. We had to be the first car out for
qualifying. When the ARCA series qualified they laid down all the
Hoosier rubber, and two types of rubber don't mix real well. Me being
the first car out on the Goodyears, I had to go out there and kinda
clean the groove out for everybody else, and I think it cost us from
making the race. Our car was fast enough in practice. I think it was
just a bad luck draw to have to go first. I'll chalk it up to that and
go on. We lost half a second from practice to qualifying. It's really
hard to lose half a second if something doesn't happen to cause that."