Dodge Quotes from Thursday at DIS. Ryan Newman, Jeremy Mayfield and Jamie McMurray

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005
Ray Cooper

Daytona International Speedway
Clear!Blue

Day Three 2005 Testing.
704-975-3232

 

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Charger)

DO YOU PLAN TO DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT THIS SEASON WITH THE CHASE FORMAT?
"Racing is still racing. The way it is now it's just more luck in the
last 10 races. In my opinion Kurt did a good job and his team did a good
job, but he was the luckiest guy. I think he spun out more than anybody
in the last 10 races. Jimmie Johnson won four times, and I think Kurt
spun around four or five times and didn't hit anything and kept going
and got good finishes out of it. You look at the Homestead did. You
don't break a right front wheel and not hit the wall, come in and hit
the right front tire and misses nailing the wall. That's luck. That's
the kind of luck we didn't have, situations like that. The last 10 races
are about performance, don't get me wrong. I don't think the
championship is determined by 10 races, and you can say it's not. He's
got to get in those 10, but still, the champion is determined by those
last 10 races. The bottom line is you've just got to do your best, go
for the win and focus on getting the best finish you possibly can. For
us, that's no change."

 

HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED SINCE YOU'VE BEEN IN CUP? "Personally I see a
little bit more give and take. With me specially, I know I'm as
aggressive as I've ever been, but I'm a little more forgiving at the
same time as far as racing each other so I get the same respect back.
I've learned a little bit of that. Mark Martin is the ultimate when it
comes to that situation. Race wise, I think the cars back in 2001 and
2002 were super aero sensitive. I'm not saying they're not now, but it's
kind of a different situation. You used to hear aero push, aero push.
Now it's more about clean air. I think that's a little transition we've
been going through. I think with getting more downforce off the cars
we're going to have a learning curve through 2005. I still think the
best thing NASCAR can do is to keep taking downforce off the cars to
create a better race environment for the drivers and the fans. We did
one test last year for NASCAR at Bristol which is probably the least
effective place, other than Martinsville, for testing the spoiler. It
was still something they wanted to do. I didn't notice much difference.
We were slower, but the car was still drivable. I think the ultimate
thing is we're going to have to work balancing the car out making the
spoiler change because we're making rear spoiler changes and we're not
making front valance changes as far as taking the front downforce away.
We're going to have to try to balance it out and maybe go to NASCAR and
say, 'hey, help us out here.' "

 

COMMENT ON RELATIONSHIP WITH TEAMMATE RUSTY WALLACE

"We're just peachy. It's OK. It's going to be a big season for Rusty.
You can't always expect teammates to get along. Even Tony Stewart gets
into Mike Bliss every once in awhile. It's just something I deal with
and he deals with. I've said this before. I'm in a difficult situation,
and Rusty is in a difficult situation. We're not teammates in the way
Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte are. Tony Stewart doesn't own part of
Bobby 

 

 

 

 

Labonte's car. It's kind of a conflict of interest in two different
ways. Not only does Rusty own part of my car, but he competes against me
and we're supposed to be teammates. Usually teammates in any kind of
sport don't compete against each other, and that makes it super
difficult. When you mix in egos and attitudes and theories behind that
you can have a very big source of conflict. That's something we've tried
to deal with and sometimes the best way to deal with it is to just
ignore the whole thing."

 

COMMENT ON FIRESUIT "I haven't experimented with firesuits. I've
experimented with the underwear I wear underneath it.... I don't have an
elaborate testing facility. I just take a torch up and hold it and see
what the burn characteristics are and make sure it doesn't flame up.
That's pretty much it. That's the results I've gotten. Other products
out there are equal to it, but it's just what I started using."

 

COMMENT ON HANS DEVICE "I'll honestly say I've become more adapted to
the HANS device than I did two or three years ago when I tried it for
two reasons. We're worked with the people who supply seatbelts for our
racecars and they've created a new over/under belt. It's a belt that
goes over your shoulder and then the HANS device goes on and then
there's another belt on top of that. Before the HANS device was
underneath your main seatbelt. In my position, I never felt like it was
tight. I felt like I was too easily movable if I were to be in an
impact. That's one of the reasons I chose not to use the HANS device.
One of the other reasons is I've got a pretty short neck, as Kenny
Wallace usually points out, and it's hard to turn the wheel because your
shoulder raises up. I had to learn to work with it. There is no perfect
device out there for head and neck restraint. The HANS device is great
for front impacts, but we have more than frontal impacts in what we do.
I'm trying to come up with some ideas on what I feel is a perfect device
that we can do some testing with. If you put me in a pair of high heels
I might yell and scream, but I can still wear them. I'm not saying me.
I'm just saying if those are the shoes you've got to wear that's what
you've got to do."

 

IS IT MORE IMPORTANT TO WIN RACES OR RUN FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "If you
win races the championship comes by itself if you win the right races.
If you're in those last 10, but the bottom line is you still have to not
have the DNFs we had last year. That's a big part of winning the
championship. You could have nine DNFs in the first 26 races and no DNFs
in the last and as long as you're in the top 10 and have a top five
points run. That's part of racing luck and part of having the right
effort going into a program. Our ultimate goal is to always win the race
everywhere we go and hopefully that puts us in a position where we can
use our talent to win a championship."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IF YOU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP AND DIDN'T WIN A RACE WOULD YOU BE
SATISIFIED? "In a way, yes. It's kind of like getting to home base
without going to the other three."

 

WHAT WOULD WINNING DAYTONA MEAN TO YOU? "It seems to be one of the more
difficult races for our team. When we came here as a rookie we finished
seventh and had a great race and could have been in the top five very
easily. As a rookie I got shuffled out as easily as possible. Other than
that, our team has struggled here for some reason. We've struggled to
get speed. I don't know if our cars are too straight up or what it is.
We can come to Daytona and struggle to qualify and go to Talladega and
be a top 10 qualifier. We just try to understand the different parts of
what happens here at Daytona, but from a competitive standpoint it would
definitely mean a lot to win the Daytona 500. I don't mean this is a bad
way, but Michael Waltrip has kinda made a career of his two Daytona 500
wins. That's cool. It also means how important the Daytona 500 is."

 

WAS LAST YEAR A BUST FOR YOU? "We've had the punches, but we've also got
punched a few times. Last year was the first year we didn't struggle
through April and May. We basically struggled last year through the last
10 races. We had our bad points throughout the season, but we haven't
put together a complete 36-race dominance which we need to do to be able
to be contenders, similar to what Kenseth did two years ago or what
Johnson almost did last year with the exception to some of his engine
failures. That's just what we have to do. We've looked super strong at
some points. I think we had five top-five finishes in a row and lots of
other great things happen to us, but you have to put 36 together."

 

IS THERE A WEAK SPOT IN YOUR PROGRAM? "Aside from finishes we were the
most dominant car in the last 10 races. We led the most laps. We led a
lap in every race except Darlington where I was getting ready to pass
Kurt Busch and blew a right front tire. We had a good, dominant racecar
the last 10 races. I crashed the car at Kansas. We had a hose clamp
break at Loudon. We dominated Dover. We were en route to winning at
Homestead. We came from a lap down three times at Darlington to come
back on the lead lap only to blow a motor when we were running fifth. So
many things happened to us in those last 10 races. Talladega is a crap
shoot for anybody except Junior. We put it together sometimes and
struggle to put it together sometimes. That's the part we've got to work
on, the part we struggle at."

 

 

 

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005
Daytona International Speedway
Day Three 2005 Testing.


JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

COMMENT ON NEW LOOK AT DIS "I'm still getting lost. The garage area has
a whole different look. You get used to visual places in your career as
far as the racetracks and going out every morning it looks like a whole
different racetrack. It's pretty neat. It's great to see the things
they've done to it. It should be great for the fans. I really haven't
had a chance to sit back and look at everything that's been done, but I
do know the garage area is different and the way we get in and out of
the racetrack is different and it's pretty neat."

 

COMMENT ON DAYTONA 500 "We definitely want to win the Daytona 500. Rusty
Wallace is probably the best driver who's never won the Daytona 500.
He's come close. That's something you want to get over early in your
career so you don't have to worry about it, but the Daytona 500 is
probably the biggest race we go to and the race we all want to win. For
us it's the Super Bowl. You play your whole career and don't win the
Super Bowl it's a different. If you've been there and have never won it
you get frustrated. It's where it all started and where it's all
happening. You talk about the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard, there's a
lot of big races, but there's nothing like the Daytona 500. That's why
it's so important because it's so hard to win. Dale Earnhardt won it one
time and it took him a long time to do it as good as he was here and at
Talladega. It's a hard race to win for some reason and a lot of things
have to go your way. Things have to be right to win the thing. It's hard
to do."

 

HOW IMPORTANT WILL TESTING BE AT CALIFORNIA AND LAS VEGAS? "We can't
wait to get there. We're not for sure about the new body styles and the
new rules. A lot of things have changed. Aero is important because of
the new body style. We're not sure how it's going to react. This test is
important, but there's so many non-restricted races that we run. It's
going to be very important to us and we're going to try to learn all we
can to jump-start the season."

 

DISCUSS THE PRESSURES AND DEMANDS OF THE SPORT "It's changed a lot since
I've been in the sport. I can imagine what Rusty's seen, and I came in
about the time Jeff (Gordon) did, so we've seen all the little different
changes that have happened over the years. It's got so demanding but yet
we get a couple of weeks off and I'm ready to go back it again. I think
it's a lifestyle we've chosen to do and love to do. I hear a lot of guys
complain about it, but I love it. I want to keep racing another 10 or 15
years. I definitely don't want to go out because the demands are too
high or we've got too many fans. That's a good thing, and I don't want
that to be the determining factor. When I quit racing I want it to be
because I can't do the job anymore on the racetrack, not off the
racetrack."

 

IS THIS THE YEAR FOR EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS? "When I first started with
Ray he looked at the big picture all the time. He's looking so far out.
I know that's said more than you can imagine, but he looked so far out
that it took me awhile to figure that out. He looked so far down the
road, and I wanted to run good now. That's what's wrong with a lot of
race teams. They're hit and miss. They run good this week and bad next
week, but Ray is very good about putting the right people in the right
places. Believe it or not, people say he likes to have control of this
and control of that and he's got to be involved in it. That's really not
true. The Ray I know now is a huge leader and his control is putting the
right people in the right places and let them have control. I think he's
done a great job of that. We finished in the top 10 last year and that
was just the beginning. I feel like that's the great thing. You see all
the things he's done since he started the team and the things we've done
the last six months and the things he's doing for the future. We're
working for the future. All we worry about is racing now, but so many
things are going on that's going to help our race team as a whole for
the future. You won't see that until a couple of years down the road.
I'd give anything if I had a little bit of his leadership and skills and
handle all the stuff he takes on. It's just amazing, but I'm very
excited about the future of Evernham Motorsports and I'm hope I can
retire (at Evernham Motorsports)."

 

COMMENT ON MAKING COMMENCIALS "Most of mine end up being funny. You hear
cut, cut, cut and they end up using it. What is funny the guys that
drive racecars really don't know a whole lot. All we know how to do is
drive a racecar pretty much. Unless you're Ryan Newman. He's an engineer
and he knows about numbers, but we don't know all that. It's pretty
tough to do a commercial. It looks like you just memorize your lines and
say them, but it's hard to do that. You know that a little bit of it is
not really you. The best ones you can do is something about your sport
or something that fits your personality. When I pulled up, I forget what
they wanted me to ask the girl that jumped into my car, but it was
something like, 'oh yeah, I like it.' That really wasn't me so I said,
'oh yeah.' They used it. We had a deal at Dodge and only the dealers got
to see it. It was Kasey and I. We were at Michigan talking about the
Charger. Kasay was driving and me and one of the head guys that designed
the car were sitting there watching the car go around the track. I was
on the radio and they had the camera on the car and a camera on me. I
was messing with him (Kasey) on the radio and he flips me off and we're
having fun. We saw it a couple of months ago and I thought they were
going to edit it. I see it and I'm cussing and Kasey is flipping me off
and everybody is laughing. To be out there screwing around and then have
them use it, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."

 

ARE YOU GOING TO BOX ANY WITH RAY and HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING THE
SENIOR MEMBER OF EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS?

"I probably won't be boxing with Ray. He's asked me to come over to spar
with him. I'm in a no win situation. If you do go over there and unless
he just whips the you know what out of you, you've lost. Then when he
does that, Ray has a bad habit of going back to the shop and telling
everybody. The best thing for me to do is not to show up. To turn the
tables, if I went over there to box and got in a lucky shot and broke
his nose or something, that would be big. I'm going to stay away from
boxing with Ray.

 

"As far as being the senior guy, it's been a lot of fun. It's been fun
watching Tommy and Kasey and all those guys. The good thing about our
race team, there's a lot of teams out here and teammates will come in
here and tell you they're going to work as teammates or whatever. Most
of it is bull. That's something I can tell you. I like working with
Kasey. Our teams work together as one. Being the senior member, if I was
insecure about my job then it would be easy to happen that way. The
young guy comes in and outruns the senior guy. I've been in that
position, too. I'm not going to let that happen, and Ray's not going to
let it happen. Don't want it to happen. We've got a great deal going
on."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005
Ray Cooper

Daytona International Speedway
Clear!Blue

Day Three 2005 Testing.
704-975-3232

 

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger)

 

COMMENT ON TESTING AT DIS "We have to come in and do this test every
year. Just talking to all the other drivers it's a pretty boring place
to test, but it's something you've got to do to get ready for this race.
It's a huge race for us. I think all of us are looking forward to
getting out and doing the drafting part of it. The qualifying practice
is about as boring as it gets in a car."

 

YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NEW DIS INFIELD "It's pretty, but I don't
understand all of it yet. It's new and it looks good. It just needs a
couple more roads in it and a couple more doors."

 

TALK ABOUT YOUR SURFING TRIP TO HAWAII "Fox does all the pre-race shows,
and they thought it would be interesting to take a couple of drivers to
Hawaii and let them surf with the best surfers in the world. We got to
go over, Kasey Kahne and I went. We got to go to Hawaii and they have
one of the biggest surfing competitions in the world. I think 40-foot
waves were there when we went. They teamed me up with Kelly Slater, the
six-time world champion surfer. They compare him to Dale Earnhardt,
saying he's the best there probably ever will be in surfing. He's kinda
a unique guy. They put Kasey, because he was a rookie last year, with
their rookie of the year surfer. The guys took us out and painted up our
surf boards like our racecars and taught us how to surf. It was a lot of
fun. It was something different, and one of the coolest parts of doing
what we do is getting to meet all the other celebrities and other
athletes. Those guys were a blast. It was fun to hang out with them. The
surfing life is quite a bit different than the racecar driver life. It
was cool to experience that for a week. I think it's the pre-race for
the 500."

 

DO YOU HAVE TO START THINKING ABOUT THE CHASE AT DAYTONA?

"For my team, just leading a lap in three other races would have put us
in or finishing one spot better and we would have made it. I think so. I
think that's our mentality, to go out and lead as many races as we can
to get those bonus points. If you have problems, don't give up. We had
that same mentality last year, but when you go through what we did it
makes you think about it a little more. For our team, I think our
performance is good enough. We just need to work on finishing more
races. Our weakest point right now is superspeedway races. I don't mind
coming to these. I enjoy the racing part of it. I don't know if I put
myself in a bad position, but I always seem to get caught up in the
wreck. I think that's a big focus for us. Last year it was road course
races and we finished second at Sonoma. We really tried hard at those
and tested all of them, so we're going to try to do the same thing at
the superspeedways this year."

 

 

COMMENT ON WEARING SMALLER SHOES DURING THE RACE AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP
WITH STERLING MARLIN "I got that from Casey when he ran open wheel cars.
The cockpit is so much smaller even than what we have. When you put a
tighter shoe on you just have a little bit more room and you can feel
the car a little bit better. The downside of that is if you have to make
the long walk down pit road it's a little bit uncomfortable. As far as
being in the car, you just try to wear shoes that are a little bit
smaller than what you would normally wear, not totally uncomfortable,
but tighter than you'd wear for everyday shoes.

 

"As far as Sterling, when I was put in the position of driving his car
in 2002, he had led the points for most of the season. I was just a kid
running a Busch car. I didn't even know Sterling, so I was a little bit
intimidated. From that time on, Sterling has been great to be around.
He's been very warm to me. He's a nice guy. Everybody knows him. He's as
nice of a guy as you can get. He's probably one of the last good ol'
boys of our sport. He's a good friend, and he's a great guy if you have
some questions to turn to."

 

DO YOU PRIORITIZE YOUR TEST SESSIONS? "Last year we tried to test at our
weakest racetracks. We'll probably continue to do that this year. I
joked around about Mark Martin somewhere. I can't remember where we were
at, but it was somewhere Mark Martin had won a lot of races. I said,
'why would he want to come here and test? He's won so many races here.'
They said when you get to be at his level when you run well everywhere
sometimes you go to your best racetracks to test and hope you can win
the race. For our team right now, it's about going where we feel like
we're weak and trying to get better at those tracks. I think the
majority of the teams are going to Las Vegas and California. I think
we're testing four days in a row. That's going to be really important.
Obviously we have a new car and they cut an inch off the rear spoiler.
Casey has tested it a little bit, but the cars don't drive as good as
they did last year. I look at that, and I think last year they cut
three-fourths of an inch off and we went to Vegas and tested and the
first day everyone in the garage was mad at NASCAR wanting to know why
they cut the spoilers off because you couldn't drive 'em. The cars were
loose and wanted to spin out. Then two or three races into the season it
wasn't even an issue. It's going to be important to go there and just
try to get good balance. The fact that test is going to be so close to
the race date and then we come straight to Daytona pretty much when you
leave that test, if you have a good test there you pretty much know when
you go back you're going to race well. Guys are not going to have time
to go back and cut up cars and try to do something different. Those
first two tests for the majority of the teams are going to be very
important."

 

WHY ARE YOU HERE TESTING? "I think probably the most important reason is
because we have the fanfest here this weekend. We haven't been around
you guys (press) for a month, 30 days I think they said. We came back
and I've done a lot of appearances and got to knock out a bunch of
interviews that we might do over the phone but it's better to do them in
person. Then we did the fanfest last night. As far as the racing part,
it's very boring for drivers and we probably don't make any difference.
When you come here this is pretty much an engineering and horsepower
test. That's what it is for qualifying. We just had a team meeting and
from what we've seen so far we don't have a shot for the pole. We're not
necessarily going to work on speed. Obviously you're still going to go
as fast as you can, but we're going to get our car where it will drive
really well. It's so important here than what it is at Talladega. Last
year I finished third here in my 125 and we thought we had a real good
car for the 500 because it drove well. For us, it's probably somewhat
important for me to be here right now to go out and do the drafting
practice and learn what I can."

 

WHAT DOES CHIP GANASSI EXPECT OF YOUR TEAM THIS SEASON? 

"It's hard for me to speak for him. I was just at his IndyCar shop last
week getting fitted for the 24-hour car. He has a picture up for every
one of his IndyCar wins. I don't know how many there are, but there are
a million pictures in this room. I think he won four CART championships
in a row and then won the Indy 500 and then won the IRL championship
last year. He's very used to winning. He understands it isn't going to
happen overnight. They had a lot of success with Sterling in 2002 and
realistically had a shot at winning the championship then, but this
sport is an up and down deal. Sometimes everything goes your way, and
sometimes it doesn't. For our race team, we started a Busch team last
year. They changed our cars around completely from what we ran in 2003.
We moved into a new building. We had a lot going on last year, and I
don't know if that set us back but it definitely didn't let us move
forward the way we needed to. This year the Busch team is established.
All of our cars are way ahead of where they were last year, and we're in
our new building. Right now we're doing a lot of research and
development and making our cars better. Everybody thinks their season is
going to be better, but our team is going to be better. One of our
weaknesses last year was pit stops, not only for my team but for all
three teams. They have taken that program in and hired a lot of new
people and they feel like that's going to be a big difference this year.
As much as we did last year it was hard to move forward. The fact we're
all moved in right now, we're moving forward and we should get better."

 

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM RUSTY WALLACE? "I didn't even know Rusty
Wallace until I started driving his Busch car last June. It amazes me
when we go out and eat dinner how many people know Rusty Wallace and how
many Rusty Wallace fans there are. They are very loyal, and there's a
good reason behind that. The thing I've learned from him is when I would
go out and eat dinner at a race and a fan would come up and want an
autograph, I've been around some drivers who would get upset about it.
When the fan would walk away there wasn't anything good that came out of
it. I kinda got that mentality last year of maybe not appreciating what
you have. When I got around Rusty, we'd be at dinner and a fan would
walk up and he would talk so much the fan would try to get away and he'd
be pulling the guy back. There's a reason he's got all those fans. The
other thing he does that's really cool that I've learned from him is
with sponsors. When sponsors bring those 200,000 VIPs to the racetrack
each weekend, it's fun to sit back and watch him. He's nice to everybody
and there's a reason that when you look at Rusty's uniform there's
hundreds of sponsors on each sleeve that aren't Penske's. They're
Rusty's. I've learned more from him in six months than I have in racing
I think in my whole life. It's just incredible. It's fun to talk to
Rusty about setups because he's so intense. I really enjoy that. That's
kinda what hit if off for us when I drove his Busch car. We'd sit in his
motorhome and talk for hours about springs and shocks and kinda put
everybody else to sleep in there. It's nice to sit back and watch how he
deals with fans."

 

WHAT'S YOUR FUTURE WITH GANASSI? "I didn't pay a lot of attention to
that last year. I go home every night and I get on the internet and I
read NASCAR.com and I read Jayski. I want to see what's going on with
everybody else. When all that was going on I had just moved and I didn't
have the internet. The only thing I read was from the guys in the garage
area. I'd just go do my thing and try to make the least amount of
comments I could on it, like I am right now and just kinda went on."

 

COMMENT ON THE DAYTONA FAN ZONE "It's going to be cool for them. I
noticed yesterday as I sat in the car, you get to sit in the car 15
minutes between runs as they cool it down, I noticed all the fans.
They're packed to that window trying to get in and look. At first I
thought that was going to get old quick, but I looked at the other side
of it and I remember the first time I came to one of these races. When
you get to get that close and see the guys working on the cars, they
really don't get to do that at any other racetrack. There's always pit
boxes in the way and they kinda pick around the corner, but it's going
to be cool for them and hard for the drivers to adjust to. Maybe when
you're not having a good day it's going to be a little frustrating. I
like to watch 'em try to stick their head through that window. It's not
quite big enough for a head, but they'll try it and that's kinda
comical. I think you'll see a lot of pit boxes parked in front of that
window. It's hard. Yesterday I was standing at a table talking to my
engineer and 50 people were looking at you. What are they looking at?
They're all taking pictures through the glass. It's going to be tough."

 

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