Chevy Race Notes - NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Tropicana 400

Chevrolet Notes and Quotes
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Tropicana 400 - Race Notes
Chicagoland Speedway
July 11, 2004

Tony Stewart, No. 20 The Home Depot Chevrolet (Winner)
"What an awesome day. It wasn't as exactly as smooth as we would like to have had. I still don't know what happened on that re-start with Kasey (Kahne). I got a really good jump, got past the 40 and got back in line. I don't know if it was his shift pattern or what as far as when he was supposed to shift or what. All the sudden he checked up. We got in the back of him and turned him around. It could have taken us out just as easy. I'm surprised it didn't tear up the car any more than it did. I hate to do that. I hate to have something like that happen. We had such a good car it wasn't going to matter anyway. We didn't need to turn him around to get to victory lane. We were going to win this race no matter what."
 
(DID YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES THROUGHOUT THE DAY?) "We just kept making small changes. Zippy (Greg Zipadelli) and I kept talking about it. We kept trying to be conscious of how the thing was on a long run as far as how the car was handling on the front side, the middle and the end of a run. We were just trying to make sure that any scenario we got in toward the end that we'd be prepared for it."
 
(ON THE RACE TODAY AND THE CONTROVERSY) "The controversy was pretty uneventful. We took two tires on the first stop and got the lead because of it. We had a really strong car even with two tires. We knew track position was going to be important. As far as the deal with the 9, I'm waiting for somebody to tell me what happened. I got a real good run on the restart, got by the 40 car and got back in line behind him and didn't even try to pass Kasey. As we came up to the wall, his car wiggled for some reason before I even got to him. I don't know if he was shifting or missed a shift or what happened, but I had already stopped my momentum of catching up and all of a sudden, he backed up to us and we ran into the back of him. It was my fault that I ran into him, but I don't know why he backed up. I don't know what caused him to check up. It could have tore us up easily than it tore him up in all reality. So, it's not something I was expecting by any means. He had a pretty good run. He had pulled away from the 40 car. Somebody said the 88 got pinched or something. I haven't seen the tape of it see what happened. Something happened that broke his momentum. When he had the break in his momentum we were right on his rear bumper when it happened."
 
(WOULD THIS ALL HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF THE FIRST PLACE CAR GETS TO START FIRST PLACE?) "It's hard to say. Even in that case we could have been third or fourth. I don't know exactly what happened so it's hard to say. Everybody that I talked to said there was something that happened up there and nobody seems to know what it was. I got around him and got to the back of Kasey and slowed down and was going to follow him through one and two. At that point all we needed to do was be with him at that point of the race. We weren't in any big hurry. I just got a big run on the 40 car and that's why we were able to get by him. At that point in the race staying in the top two is where we needed to be. We're not going to start a whole media thing of this is what the next rule change needs to be. It seems to be fine the way it is. Look what happened to Sterling (Marlin) later in the race. Sterling missed a shift and crashed a bunch of cars. For whatever reason it happens sometimes."
 
(WHY NO VICTORY LAP OR BURN OUT?) "I didn't need to. It's late enough in the day. I'm ready to go home. I got the next two weeks off. The sooner I get done the sooner I get out of here. I'm not going to burn up the motor or transmission or anything else. The race was over and I came in." 

(ON THE SECOND GROOVE HERE) "I was really surprised about it to be honest. I think we had an indication of that happening after the Busch race yesterday. I got up there a couple of times to see what it was going to be like and it had a lot of grip. I think now both Chicago and Kansas have it, since Kansas had a second groove develop last year. It got real wide today. You could run three wide in one and two and three wide in three and four.  I think this place is finally come into it's own and now we'll have good races here for the duration." 
 
(ON FANS BOOING HIM) "You hear them. I could see it when it happened. It's hard for them to see in the grandstands when there's a concrete wall there to see if a guy checks up. All they're going to do is assume they know what happened. I don't know what happened. I was closer to it than they were and I still don't know what happened. They're going to form their opinion off what they see and at that point of the race that's what they saw."

(ON EVERNHAM'S COMMENTS) "To be honest, I'm not even interested in looking at them. We didn't need the accident with him to win the race. We had the strongest car. That wasn't going to make the race or break the race for us. I'm sure he's frustrated, I'm sure his whole team is frustrated, but I'm over that stuff. It doesn't really matter to me. The race is over now and we race in two weeks. To me, I really don't care what he said."

(DO YOU THINK IF THAT SITUATION HAPPENED TO ANY OTHER CAR THERE WOULD BE AS MUCH CONTROVERSY?) "Nope, only when we're involved. And it's understandable. We've been the hot topic of discussion about this topic all year, but I'm pretty much a black and white guy. If I make a mistake, I tell you guys I make a mistake. A lot of times I'm not proud of it and proud of what I do, but whatever happened today, I didn't do it. I was there, I was right behind him and all of a sudden, his car slowed down. For what ever reason, I don't know. I can't control all 43 cars out there. I can only control mine."

(HOW DID THE BACK UP CAR HANDLE?) "This is actually the car that we got the pole with here last year, the car that we won the race with today. The car we had on Friday was going to be a really good car. I think we ran a half to three quarters of a hard lap before our session ended before qualifying. To have that trust in Zippy and take the information I gave him and make the changes he did and make it that fast. I feel like we could have been in the top rows instead of tenth. We worked with it yesterday all day and tried a little different package than we what we ran here last year. There was just one thing that was a little bit off. We made one pretty big change in it yesterday. We talked about it in the happy hour. It was exactly the change we needed. It was fast all day. We never really made any big changes to the car - air pressure and just a little bit of wedge adjustment."
 
(DID YOU THINK YOU COULD DOMINATE WITH THE BACK UP CAR?) "It's hard to say.  
 You never know what is going to happen. The good thing about Joe Gibbs Racing is our back up cars are just as good as our primary cars.  In this series just about everybody's teams are that organized and that professional so they're not bringing something that is three or four tenths off. This was proof of it. This car was just as good as the car we started with on Friday. You hate to have to go through what we did to get to here. Is it surprising? Yeah. I didn't expect with the first car we'd have the dominating weekend like we did. We learned the combination. When you make really small adjustments and you can feel the car respond to it, you know that you're in that realm that the car likes. I knew that we had a good car for the whole day."
 
(DO YOU THINK TOMMY BALDWIN, KASEY KAHNE'S CREW CHIEF SHOULD BE PENALIZED?) "I got penalized for going and trying to talk to a guy after a race. I wasn't upset until after the guy provoked me down there. If I should get penalized for it, then he should get penalized for it. I'm just happy we won a race today. That wasn't the winning factor in the race. Passing Jeremy Mayfield for the win was much more important than you guys talking about a fight down here. The last time I checked, we were doing auto racing, not boxing."

(SHOULD YOU BE SUSPENDED?) "Not at all, because I didn't do anything wrong. If I did something wrong today, I can understand worrying about it. I'll be shocked if anything happens because I didn't do anything wrong. It was just a racing incident today. He could have crashed us just as easy as it did him. It did surprise me because I didn't expect him to check up. That's not a spot you want to have a tangle with somebody."
 
(IS WINNING A RACE AT THIS POINT STILL AS IMPORTANT WITH THE CHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?) "We're not really paying attention to how far we are away from the leader as we typically would.  We feel like the way we ran this year, the last two weeks have been important to us to gain momentum and get ourselves in the position where when the last 10 races start, we feel like we got ourselves on the right track again and we can be in the top five consistently. With ten races you can't have a mistake."
 
(WERE YOU AWARE OF THE SCUFFLE AT THE END OF THE RACE?) "Not at all. I knew it was an unfortunate deal that happened. Listening to you guys I realize it was a much bigger deal than I thought it was after talking to Zippy. Only Kasey and I know what happened. I haven't talked to Kasey. Kasey is really the only one that truly knows what happened. None of us will know until we talk to him."
 
(WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR THE CRITICS TO GET TO KNOW THE REAL TONY?) "I've kind of given up, to be honest. I think the thing I've learned from this sport  in the last couple of years is they like a good guy and they like a bad guy and my past has stuck with me. I mean, nobody will let my past go away. Until the deal at Sonoma, I hadn't had any incidents for two years. We kind of blended into the woodwork with everybody else. But the stuff I did in 2000 still gets printed. I guess the way I look at it, I quit reading the papers and quit watching TV because none of what anybody says matters to me anymore. It's one-sided, it's their side. The only thing that matters to me is I'm going home tonight, my friends are going to be there, and as long as my friends and family and girlfriend and our dogs and our monkey is happy, as long as everybody is happy with that -- I mean, the people I deal with, they're the ones I care about -- if they're down on me, then I've got something I need to worry about. But I think that's part of what caused a lot of my frustration up to this year, just trying to please everybody. You can't please everybody. Somebody's always going to dislike you or get an opinion from you from one incident that they see. As stressful as our lives are in this sport, it's made it a lot easier for me just to not worry about what everybody said. The main thing is we won a race today. We worked hard. Our team worked hard all weekend. That's all I'm worried about."
 
(ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH KASEY) "He said some pretty harsh things at Talladega. He came and apologized to me. It isn't a problem. If he ever needs anything, he can still come to me on it. We went together and did a charity event in Wisconsin for the Tony Stewart Foundation. I don't feel like there is a rift there. He's one of the last guys I'd want to get in an incident with. I think the kid is doing a great job this year. I sat at Ray Evernham's trailer for an hour with him about Kasey Kahne. If I didn't like Kasey I wouldn't be the one convincing Ray he's the guy he needed to hire let alone get in a scuffle with him. I respect Kasey. Today's the last thing I wanted to happen."
 
Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet (Finished 2nd)
(ON THE INCIDENT WITH TONY STEWART) "I didn't have a very good vantage of what took place even though it was right in front of me. I think it'd be unfair for any of us to comment on it unless we saw what took place. Evidently Ray (Evernham) is mad. I don't think Ray just goes around saying quotes like that over something minor. I'll have to watch the video and see what happens. He's definitely upset. I really don't know what took place."
 
(DID THE RE-START SEEM SLOW?) "I think everybody took off up to speed good. I think I was three or four cars back. I saw Tony (Stewart) move to the outside. He had a run on someone. From there it was chaos. That start was fine. There were some other starts with serious brake checking taking place at the start of a re-start. It caused the incident with (Brian) Vickers and the 16 from brake checking from when the 20 was re-starting the race up front. I think a lot of us were complaining on the radio about the brake checking. They're supposed to maintain the pace car speed and take off without brake checking. That didn't have an outcome in the race and kind of a moot point. That's just the one little gripe I had on re-starts."
 
 (ON TODAY'S RACE) "It was a solid effort for us. There was one segment where we had the car to beat. It was probably two pit stops from the end. I was hoping that was the sign for the finish of the race. Unfortunately it just didn't work out. I think the 20 car was the strongest car all day long. It deserved to win the race. He had the speed and obviously a little controversy to go with it. We had a solid effort. Once again the Lowe's team continues to put forth great race cars, great handling cars and cars that stay together so I can go out there and drive my butt off. I had some fun passes on the outside of the 19 to get the second. I definitely had to work hard for that second place today but that's what I loved to do."
 
 (ON RAY EVERNHAM'S COMMENT THAT TONY STEWART HAS BEEN WRECKING DRIVERS ALL YEAR) "I just caught the end of it. I saw more of the guys rolling around on the ground with the fight than anything. I wish I could give you guys an opinion on it but I haven't seen it to say anything. When stuff happens to you like that you're upset. We all can imagine putting ourselves in that situation as Ray is in with two cars just outside the top ten in points and Kasey so close to winning so much. I think he probably had a run in earlier in the year with the 20 and this again. I don't think it was necessarily intentional. It's hard to believe at the re-start of a race where it would have crashed the 20 if it was something that was intentional. Maybe he was just too aggressive at that point. I'm just speculating. I'm just glad we didn't get caught up in it. We'll have something to talk about next week I guess."
 
(DO YOU GIVE TONY STEWART EXTRA ROOM?) "No, actually he's been one of the better cars I've been able to race with personally. I haven't had any difficulties with him this year. A lot of other people have but it's been good racing for us so far."
 
(SHOULD TONY STEWART BE DISQUALIFIED?) "I know you're looking for a good juicy quote and I don't have one. We know NASCAR. They won't take a win away from anybody. You can throw punches and have different fines that come down. I'm sure Monday or Tuesday we'll hear something come out if there is going to be some type of penalty or something to take place."
 
(HOW MUCH MORE IMPORTANT ARE THESE TOP FIVES WITH THE CHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?) "I think it's really important to have momentum on your side for the mental standpoint for your race team and for myself as a driver knowing that we're doing the right things leading into the final ten. The dynamics change this year for the championship. I think finishing up strong now before that final ten starts will give our team the momentum and confidence to walk into that without feeling pressure. I think that is important.  Hopefully we can close out after race 26 as the champion and start up front and hopefully hang on to it. It obviously means less this year to be the points leader right now mathematically. Emotionally I think there's still a lot more riding on it."
 
 (ON COMPETING WITH THE 20 CAR) "We wanted to obviously be better than he was. I knew following him that I wasn't going to be able to follow him on the bottom. I really stuck to trying to make the top work especially in turns one and two. That's how I was finally able to get past him on the one segment where we took the lead from him. I got a good run on him on the outside and was able to sweep by him. My strategy was really to find a line on the track that he wasn't using and set my car up for it. We got it right for that one segment but unfortunately didn't have it when the checkered dropped." 
 
Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet (Finished 4th)
"What a great battle. We had a lot of fortune on our side. Something happened to the car. We took off there and I was pretty good. All the sudden I got super loose. We tried everything in the world and it didn't tighten the car up. When you do that you know something is wrong there. These guys brought it back to life there at the end. The cautions fell at the right time and we had great pit stops. It's an amazing coming back. I'm so proud of this DuPont Chevrolet team to finish fourth today."
 
(IS TODAY WHAT WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IS ABOUT?) "It is if we were in the last ten races. It doesn't mean much today. It just shows what we're made of. It's good practice for us."
 
(ON WHAT HAPPENED TODAY WITH TONY STEWART) "I didn't see a thing. I was so far back and had my own problems. I didn't see it so I'd hate to comment on it."
 
(ON NOT WINNING BUT A GREAT RUN) "It feels like a win right now. There was a time in that race that we were in serious trouble. We went a lap down and luckily the caution came out. We were getting ready to go another lap down and caution came out. We had luck on our side. We can't have those problems happen anymore and certainly not in these last ten races. We'd be in big trouble. We stuck through this one today and it's a great finish for us."

Joe Nemechek, No. 01 USG Sheetrock Chevrolet (Finished 8th)
"We made a nice recovery after dropping to the back of the field early in the race. We made a wrong decision with the setup at the start but we battled back to get a pretty good result. I was really hoping to pick up a few more spots on the last run but the car got tight. This USG/U.S. Army car was a top-10 performer all weekend and we earned what we got. Let's just say with a 10th-place finish in Daytona last week and eighth today, the second half of our season has begun. We've been knocking at the door and it's starting to open."
 
Kevin Harvick, No. 29 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet (Finished 10th)
"We gave it all we got. These guys worked hard all week and to come back from a lap down and finish 10th is pretty impressive. I don't know what happened with that second set of tires. I had the worst vibration and I couldn't handle it so we decided to pit early to fix it. We caught a break on that next caution because we had just got our lap back. That got us back into the race, but we never could go anywhere being stuck back in traffic with a tight racecar. The GM Goodwrench Chevy just didn't have enough motor to make the pass most of the time.  We really need to go back and work on that."
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet (Finished 22nd)
"The car was pretty good. We missed pit road then I sped off on pit road. It cost us a lap. We spent most of the day a lap down. We finally got it back at the end. We were involved in that crash a little bit but not bad. It knocked the ball joint around in the right front I think. The car was good. We gained a lot from yesterday. We weren't good at all yesterday. I wasn't confident. When we started the race I drove right up there to about 15th or so. I was pretty happy with my car. Things just didn't all go our way but I was pretty happy with how the car drove today."

Dave Blaney, No. 30 America Online Chevrolet (Finished 37th)
(ON WHAT HAPPENED AT LAP 126) "I saw the 99 in front of me just stop quick. I ran into him. The guy behind me ran into me. We just got piled up."
 
(ON BEING NINTH AT THE TIME UNDER TIGHT CONDITIONS) "It was tight but we were still OK. We could still hang on real well and run some pretty good laps around some pretty good cars. I thought Kevin (Hamlin - crew chief) was playing the tire game just right. He got us new tires and got us track position where that was going to make or break you later in this race. I felt we were looking good."