Chevy Notes - CA Speedway Advance, Feb. 25

 
CHEVROLET NOTES & QUOTES
NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 500 ADVANCE MATERIAL
CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY
February 25, 2005
 
DOUG DUCHARDT, VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT, HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS - MEDIA Q & A HIGHLIGHTS:

 

(HOW DID THE OPPORTUNITY COME ABOUT TO LEAVE GM AND JOIN HMS?)

Well, I really enjoyed my job at General Motors. Being the director of GM Racing is a special opportunity and it was a job I worked for my entire career there. Rick approached me and asked me to help him and we talked it through. I just weighed out the opportunity from a professional and personal standpoint and just felt like it was the right thing for me and hopefully, for Hendrick Motorsports. I think one of the things that I liked about my old job were the programs that we had more control over, like the Corvette and Cadillac programs. Those are ones that we would kind of call 'company cars,' where you could help on the technology, the driver selection, the tire selection-all those types of things. Being closer to the racing was something that I was enjoying and I think that opportunity's here at Hendrick. It's a wonderful organization and obviously talented and I just hope I don't screw it up."

 

(WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AT HENDRICK?)

"Ken Howes and I are working together to manage the competition side. I guess, simply, I'm working on engineering, chassis and body and Ken is working with the crews. The key is that, with me being new, Ken and I are in lockstep together; working to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Obviously, Ken's been there, shouldering a lot of the load and it's mainly Ken teaching me right now. Of course, Jeff Andrews and Jim Wall have been running the engine shop since October and doing a good job of that."

 

(WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LEARN COMING INTO THIS POSITION?)

"In my position at GM, I understood a lot of things but I wasn't in the nitty gritty of how a car gets built. When I say that, I mean what kind of inputs come into the chassis shop and the body shop to build a car, etc. A lot of it is understanding the processes they use to do that. It's the same way on the engine side. I wasn't specifically working with Randy Dorton on what cams and heads and whatever; it was more big picture stuff. I am getting some of those details and drinking from the fire hose right now, trying to figure out how everything works out. I think we'll get our legs under us really quickly and be able to address issues."

 

(WILL YOU DO R&D OR IS THAT FOR KEN HOWES?)

"Really, they interact because a lot of the R&D is driven from ideas from the teams. But they've got to race 36 weeks a year so how do you go execute those new ideas? That's what Ken and I have to work closely on. Those guys are giving a lot of ideas, we have people there to execute those and test those and that's what we're going to do. So, that's how Ken and I are working together."

 
(WILL YOU GO TO ALL THE RACES?)

"In the short term, I'm going to continue to work back at the shop and understand Hendrick Motorsports as best as I can. Ken's been handling the race track for a long time. I imagine about mid-season I'll be showing up frequently. But right now until June I'll probably be infrequent."

 

(HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GM THAT YOU'RE WITH A TOP FLIGHT TEAM?)

"In my move, I tried to be as open with General Motors as I could. Just to reiterate, there is no ill will there. I was not dissatisfied with my job. I loved my job. The point is that GM looked it as they were happy I was going to a Chevrolet team, I don't think they had any team that they wanted me specifically to go to. I'm staying in the family-in the extended family-and I've been a GM guy my whole career. And I'm proud we won the Daytona 500 for Chevrolet. Hopefully we can win a bunch more for them."

 

(COULD YOU IMAGINE GOING TO ANY OTHER GM TEAM IN THE PADDOCK?)

"I never imagined I would get this opportunity. You get offers throughout your career and you evaluate each one of those as they occur. Obviously, if I had my druthers, Rick would not have needed to call me. I would have continued on with my old job and been happy with that. But that's not how it happened, so Rick called me and we talked and I weighed it from a professional and personal standpoint. And here I am."

 

(YOU HAVE A UNIQUE SKILL SET THAT IS RARE. HENDRICK NEEDED SOME KEY PEOPLE AND YOUR SEEMED LIKE THE PERFECT FIT)

"I tell everyone about my job and the thing I say is: do no harm. This is a team that won 13 races last year. They powered 14 winners, counting Nemechek. You know, we had two guys that went down to the last lap at the last race for the championship. This is a very capable race team. They don't need a whole lot of fixing. So my goal is to understand everything first. It's continuous improvement and that's what this garage has always been about. We're hoping that we can continue to ride this cycle where we think we've been pretty competitive. I think that there is a hugely talented core there that just needs a little bit of help."

 

(IT SEEMS LIKE THERE STILL REMAINS A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF DEPTH AND PERSONNEL AT HENDRICK)

"And that's the credit to Jeff Turner and Randy Dorton and John Hendrick that they had that vision that knew they needed to have those backups. Out of all the discussions about how we need to improve at Hendrick, the one thing that never comes up is that we need different personnel. It's really interesting and it's very exciting. We have two excellent veteran drivers and we have two young drivers that really, I think, are on the cusp of doing a phenomenal job. We're focused on, and Rick is focused on, getting those other two cars up there. And we stand there with Terry Labonte running this week and he had an excellent test out here so I can't wait to see how it goes with him. I know it's early in the season and obviously after winning the Daytona 500 we feel good, but there's a lot of enthusiasm."

 

(SO, ARE YOU OVERSEEING MORE OF THE NO. 5 AND NO. 25 TEAMS?)

"No, those crews will continue to report into Ken. I think the key is that with Brian Whitesell over there-and that was a great decision made before I got there-is that you have a conduit between the #5 and #25 and the #24 and #48. The processes and the knowledge -- all that is going back and forth. Obviously, on the engine systems, those are all of the same bullets going into all those cars. On the chassis and body side, there are good processes in place to gain learnings as we build each car. So, I feel confident that the cars we have here are very close and we have processes in place. It's just started. We have one race here with Brian as sort of the head of the #5 and #25. As we go on this year, I think we will see more strength from those guys."

 

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 7 HARRAH'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

 

(CAN YOU COMMENT ON QUALIFYING FOR THIS WEEKEND?)

"Everybody's pretty aware of.we're starting to learn this top 36 thing. What there's trying to do is protect people that compete with them week in and week out. Unfortunately we got hung out on that down in Daytona. It's not that we weren't competitive and didn't make the show. We ran third for 25 or 30 laps of the 150, finished 7th and we loaded up our stuff and went home. To be honest with you, as tough as it was, when we missed the show there, the guys went straight back and started getting ready for here. We came out and we tested Las Vegas and California and had very good tests at both those places. I believe we were about seven tenths off the quickest time here at California and Menard Engineering has gone back to work and we're bringing 55 more horsepower here than we had before. So, we're pretty confident that we'll be in good shape. I could have won either one of these two California races last year driving the #31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet for RCR, and obviously I paid attention to what they did, what we did, and still have a lot of that stuff that we can build on. We can be competitive when we roll out here in a couple of hours."

 

(CAN YOU ADDRESS SPECIFICALLY THE ISSUE OF QUALIFYING SETUP FOR YOUR CAR?)

"I did miss that a little bit. And when we were here testing, we worked on race setup. And, we just put tape on it and made our one-turn-at-each-corner adjustments that we could, and that's what we ran when we were here testing. 

            
"So, we did that a lot in the Busch Series last year, which was the Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet. We won races and were very competitive with that. We're used to this rule already and we found things that we can do to make the car comfortable when you put tape on it, and then pull the tape off and have it still be comfortable in race trim. You know, they allow you.I think it's a one and one in each corner. Or one in each corner and one and a half in the rears and one in the fronts. You can raise the trackbar two rounds, you can do air pressure and you can pull tape off. The biggest thing is that when you go from race setups into qualifying setups, you put tape on it and the thing usually gains a lot of front downforce. So, it's just trying to find out where the wedge is and how to get the car comfortable so you can get through the corner. But then, be able to change back with just a few adjustments to be a race car as well. That will help us, being in a Busch car that did those type of things last year. I think we impounded at five events that we competed in last year in the Busch Series, so we've got a little bit of a head start on that."

 

(YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL GETTING LARGE SPONSORS WHILE SOME TEAMS STRUGGLE TO GET A SPONSOR FOR THE SEASON. DO YOU SELL YOURSELF CHEAP?)

"I think the first thing, when we go to sell sponsorship, like the situation with Harrah's, there's a certain expense that we have to operate and compete at the top level. And I can tell you, the sponsorship from Harrah's and the ones that we're going to announce next weekend, and then we're going to announce another one in a couple more weeks. We have about five or six big companies that support us, and we are not cheap. You get what you pay for and that's the way when we go out to sell these things, we present it to the sponsor (like that) as well. One thing about it, any way you look at it over the past three years, we've been able to generate a lot of exposure. We've been a top-seven guy for the past three years in exposure ratings and performance; we've won races and been competitive. And John's been doing a good job of getting me all teed up. When I step up to the plate I can knock one out of the park." 

 

(CAN YOU ADDRESS THE PENALTY YOU GOT FOR THE INTAKE MANIFOLD?)

"The intake manifold penalty was really why we missed the whole Daytona 500. When we got that intake taken away, the heads were made to a spec that matched that intake manifold and when we had a legal one that we tried to put on, there was not a smooth transition under the heads. And we missed it by maybe 10 horsespower with the non-smooth transition in there. I was fortunate enough that Dale Jr. and the guys at DEI helped me out and got me a motor that was very good. I can look back at it and say that I had an opportunity to win the 150, but I was content running third, I was so happy that we were just able to stay there and stick to Jeff Burton like we did. I never anticipated to be getting loosened up in the middle of the corner and have to save the car. 

            
"And that's all it took, three laps from the end, he got to my back bumper, moved me up the race track, when you move up the race track, the line closed up on the bottom, I couldn't get moved back down and I finished seventh. I think the team's good, I think the cars are good and we'll find out in the next three weeks when we start heading to different race tracks besides speedways."

 

JIMMIE JOHNNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - MEDIA Q&A'S

 

(ON THE NEW RULES AND IMPOUND PROCEDURE) "I think it's a good idea - especially if it allows us to stay home and have another day at the shop and let the crew guys have another day off the road. I think it's very important to have it on restrictor plate races. There is no need for us to spend the time and money we do to run two laps at Daytona or Talladega. We could save all the teams a lot of money - or some huge number - if we started the impound process there. I'm hopeful of seeing it there. I think we need it on the plate races more than anything and if we see it thoughout, I think it's good. It keeps us focused on the right thing and it's going to raise the level of competition. Everybody is going to have more of an opportunity to work on their race set up and qualifying isn't as important in that respect. You've got to worry about race. I think it's a good move."

 

(DO YOU THINK THIS WILL BE AN ADVANTAGE FOR YOUR TEAM?) "I don't know. I think so. I don't think it'll benefit anyone too much. When I was a rookie, I wished I had more practice time to work on the race. That was the important thing. I think that would help the rookies coming in and the under funded teams. But at the same time, the experienced drivers and the well-funded teams want to work on things as well. I don't really know what to make of it."

 

(ON THE GROWTH OF NASCAR IN THE WEST) "It's definitely growing. I'm happy to see it. I can remember trying to find a NASCAR race to watch on television when I was growing up. Now there are all these races on the west coast. It's a great thing. There is a huge racing audience out there on the west coast. They all know about dirt racing, but very few of them know about asphalt racing."

 

(ON NIGHT RACING AT PHOENIX AND CALIFORNIA) "It's good. I really enjoy it. Hopefully it's a true night race. Starting a race late in the afternoon and racing through the sunset is really hard on us. Here at Fontana it's virtually impossible to see. I had my spotter spotting in front of me going into the turn just to help me find the corner because I was totally blinded. As long as it's a true night race I think it's better for everyone. The fans love it and the drivers love it."

 
(ON CHANGING THE DAYTONA 500 TO A 5PM START TIME) "I don't have any objections with that. I think Daytona is a great place to have a night race. Some of the races we saw there like the Shootout at night when the track was a little more forgiving was some of the better racing we had. I don't have any objection. The 400 is always a good race there (in July) at night. We all have to get as much exposure as we can. Our sport is growing so much that none of us want to see it flat line. So if it means we have to start at 5p.m. to get the best audience, then that's what we should do."
 
(ARE YOU AND TONY STEWART OKAY WITH EACH OTHER?) "Absolutely. It's amazing. We're racers. We're out there working our tails off and we're not always going to agree with each other. This is how it is - especially when we're coming to the checkered flag and we get out of the cars immediately after that. We all deal with it. It happens five or six times during the race. But at the end of the race when the cameras are running and we're climbing out of the cars mad without having a chance to cool down, it makes for great television. But that's all it really is. We went into the trailer and spoke our differences and started laughing after a while and came out the back side (of the NASCAR trailer). We talked about holding hands coming out just to give a good media shot for everyone (laughs). It's great that we have the exposure we do. But I just don't want to see our sport have too much controversy. But we're real people with real emotions and we're not always going to be happy. As long as we can keep it in prospective, that's the best thing."