Sunday Post-Race Comments

HOW WAS THE RACE FOR YOU TODAY?
"It was good. I’ve got to go find out what’s wrong with Ryan Newman, but I guess a bunch of other guys do, too. We had a heck of a run going there. The car was so good on new tires that I just wanted to get up there and get a shot at Jimmy. I don’t know if we could have won there or not since we had some tires issues there where we fell off. I had a great run and I felt like I passed Ryan pretty good. We were being aggressive and everything and I don’t know, he just drove down into the back of me."

IT SEEMS LIKE THIS IS A DAY WHERE YOU REALLY EARNED YOUR FINISH
"Yeah, I’m just proud for the team. You know, we went back and forth every time we were up in the top-five. Somebody would take two tires and we’d have problems or something would happen. We’d get shuffled back. It was just a great effort on the car because we just kept tuning to make it better and better. I wanted to get up there and give my teammate Jimmie Johnson a run for his money and also Kyle Busch, what a great run for him today. I hate what happened to Brian Vickers today, if he hadn’t have had his trouble he might be up there today. The overall effort for Hendrick Motorsports is a nice bounce back from Fontana. I had a little trouble with Ryan Newman there so I have to find out what that’s about. But, it costs us a shot at getting a win. I don’t know if we could have gotten up there with Jimmie or not but it certainly took all of our chances away."

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND RYAN?
"I worked on him, worked on him and worked on him. I raced him clean, he kept fighting me and I was doing everything I could to get by him. I finally did get by him. He got a big push from behind him and got a pretty good draft going into Turn 1 and I just took my normal line in there. And, he got on me and got me loose and then he just hit me. I’m just fortunate…I feel fortunate that we’ve got a car in one piece and a top 5 finish."

IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S SHAKEN OUT TO BE BETWEEN HENDRICK AND ROUSH HERE IN THIS PART OF THE SEASON
"Yeah, definitely. In winter testing that looked to be the case as well. I’m really happy with the way things are going. We’ve got to qualify a little bit better, but other than that we’ve got a great race team and great race cars. The Roush cars do as well."

Sunday Pre-Race Comments

HOW IS YOUR CAR?
"We’ll find out really soon. I think we’re better than where we qualified at. I’m really proud of this team, they’ve been performing on race day and in the pits and communication and chemistry is there. You know, we want to redeem ourselves a little bit from the tough luck we had with the engine in California. I feel very confident that we’ve got that all behind us and I look forward to putting it out there."

HOW IS THE WIND A FACTOR HERE?
"The biggest issue is it looks there might be a bit of a crosswind down the middle of turns 1 and 2. It is going to make it challenging for us to get the car turned in the middle of the corner. It really helps us going into turn 3 because it’s a headwind and we can drive in there really deep, really hard and just use the wind to brake the car and turn the car as well. We should be in good shape there. Other than that the wind is not that much of a factor. It’s really all about track temperature more than anything else."

Saturday Comments

HOW DID FINAL PRACTICE GO FOR YOU TODAY?
"I was pretty happy in the first practice. I though the balance was good. We knew the track temperature was going to warm up for the second practice and the track was going to be a bit slicker. And it did. That definitely threw us off. We’ve got a lot of notes to go over and we’ll put our heads together to get better. I think we’ll be in good shape tomorrow."

YOU’VE GOT SOME GOOD TRACKS COMING UP, WITH ATLANTA AND MARTINSVILLE. WHAT ARE YOU THOUGHTS ABOUT WHAT WE’LL SEE AT ATLANTA?
"Jimmie Johnson went testing with Goodyear there. He said it was a handful, so I’m expecting Atlanta to be one of our biggest challenges with these new rules. It’s one of those places where it’s hard to go there and test to get good information from. I think that you’re going to see a lot of people struggling there and hopefully we’ll get it figured out."

HOW ARE YOU FARING OFF THE TRACK IN VEGAS?
"I’m faring extremely well and I usually do because I don’t go to the tables when I’m here, so I know I’m going to leave with all my money."

Friday Press Conference

IS THIS A TRACK A LOT OF FUN FOR DRIVERS?
"I think everybody is a big fan, not only of the town but also of the race track. It just seems to be a popular venue for obvious reasons. But at the race track, I think they did a great job of designing it so we put on a good race here. I think that this is a destination for a lot of people to vacation and come and have fun. I think having a Cup race here is a perfect match. For the competitors, you don’t see every single team testing here in the off season for no reason."

SOMEONE ELSE SAID THEY MIGHT HAVE FOUND A COMMON THREAD IN THE ENGINE PROBLEM FROM LAST WEEKEND. ARE YOU CONFIDENT?
"Yeah, I think we’re real confident. I feel like we know where the issue was. We did a lot of testing on the dyno and stuff, here in this past week and a half. I was in the engine shop before I went on vacation and I know that they feel confident and I feel confident that we’ve got it figured out. Jimmie’s motor would have only gone maybe one more lap if that. So, we’ve had a better way to diagnose what was going on there because it didn’t tear up all the parts and pieces. But, yeah, I feel good."

WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM AT FONTANA?
"Well, I don’t want to give all the technical terms because I’ll mess it up. But from what I’ve heard it was a retainer. It was a part that we had tested, maybe not quite under the same RPM range because of the new gear rule. We may have gotten ourselves caught with that a little bit. But, you know, we’re back to a proven product that we ran last year and we should be fine."

HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU FOR THIS WEEKEND?
"I feel that we’ve got the best engine department there is out here. They guys work so hard that when we do find a problem, we diagnose it and fix it. I feel like we’re going to be in good shape engine-wise this weekend. I just approach it just like any other engine, it’s not an issue—it’s just about making sure we get the power out of it and making the car work well."

IS IT ALMOST BETTER THAT A PROBLEM LIKE THAT WOULD MAKE ITSELF EVIDENT EARLY IN THE YEAR RATHER THAN LATER?
"Definitely. Every race is crucial, I feel like. But I’d much rather have it happen early in the season or in the first 26 races than in those last 10."

HOW DO YOU FEEL IT AFFECTED YOUR MOMENTUM AFTER COMING OUT OF DAYTONA WITH A VICTORY?
"I feel like we had a great run going at Fontana. We started deep in the field and worked our way up there. We got ourselves into second, pit stops were really coming on strong there. So, we’re still carrying momentum. We had a good run even though we didn’t finish it out."

YOU’RE ONE OF ONLY TWO NON-ROUSCH GUYS TO HAVE WON AT THIS TRACK, ARE YOU SURPRISED AT ALL OR DO YOU EXPECT THAT OUT OF A TEAM LIKE THAT?
"Well, they’re good. They’re going to be good this time around as well. They showed how strong they are at Fontana. I think they’re going to show again this weekend. When it comes to a 36-race schedule or a 26-race schedule if you kind of want to look at it that way, you’ve got to look at the ones you’re best at and do your best to make up ground in the ones you’re not. And those guys are good here, we know they are the cars to beat and it’s our job to catch them or beat them. And then we need to take advantage of the tracks where we feel are our best: Atlanta, Texas, tracks like that."