Bud Shootout Notes
Written by John Davison · February 13, 2005
Here are some collected notes and quotes from various drivers and crew following Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout. The 70-lap race, held at Daytona, opened the NASCAR season with Jimmie Johnson holding off 19 other pole winners and past Shootout winners for the top prize.
LAP 20 - 10 MINUTE INTERMISSION RUNDOWN:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: “Chad Knaus and this Lowe’s team have put together another great race car. We’re out there having some fun. It’s nice to be out here without any points on the line. It’s just awesome.
(WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SO FAR ABOUT HOW YOUR CAR SUCKS UP IN THE DRAFT AND HOW THAT WILL PLAY OUT IN THE LAST 50 LAPS?) “Our car sucks up pretty well. I was able to come from the back and get to the front. We’re learning a little tonight about what we’ll see in the (Daytona) 500. The temperatures are cool and there’s a lot of grip in the track. But the cars are pretty forgiving right now and I think we’ll put on a good race. But it’s really all about staying on the bottom and not getting out of line.”
(YOU’LL OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO COME DOWN PIT ROAD DURING THE LAST 50 LAPS. DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY?) “Get gas when we need to and win the race.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: (WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?) “We don’t know yet. It was cutting out there one time and then it quit and I ran back up through there in the middle a little bit and then it started doing it again. We just lost a lot of power. We’re going to try to figure out what it is and change everything we can change.”
(WHAT KIND OF HANDLING DID YOU HAVE ON THE CAR BEFORE THAT HAPPENED?) “We were going to the front.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: “Jimmie just got a run on us there. We’re having fun out here. This Home Depot Monte Carlo is good right now. We’re just going to make a couple small changes. We’ve got a good car. It’s just a matter of getting up there where we need to be now.”
(WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE GOODYEAR TIRES IN THE FIRST 20 LAPS?) “We aren’t having any problems with them. I think the stuff that was going on yesterday, they did a real good job of isolating the problem and making sure we don’t run into that situation tonight. We thank Goodyear for doing a good job on that. We aren’t having any problems right now.”
(DO YOU AND GREG ZIPADELLI HAVE ANY WAY OF KNOWING EXACTLY WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO COME IN THIS NEXT 50 LAPS?) “Oh, what we were taking about was who was buying dinner tonight. I bought last time and I think over the off-season he’s forgotten that it’s his turn to buy dinner. I think he already knows what he wants to do. He hasn’t even told me about it but he’ll tell me as it goes.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - RACE WINNER: “That’s a great way to start the season. It’s my first plate win. It’s not the Daytona 500, but we’ll see if we can’t come back and do that again on Sunday. That race tonight really shows all the hard work that goes into these race cars at Hendrick Motorsports - our engine shop, these bodies, and everything. Everybody has worked real hard all season long.”
(HOW MUCH OF THOSE LAST TWO LAPS WERE YOU LOOKING OUT THE WINDSHIELD AND HOW MUCH IN YOUR REAR VIEW MIRROR?) “If they would have gone down through the grass, I was going to go there because I wasn’t looking out the windshield. I was all in the mirrors trying to use the brakes and use the guys behind be in a way to keep them back there and keep myself up front. Greg (Biffle) did a good job. He had a strong car and really, that pit stop meant everything. Whoever came out first was going to win the race and my guys really did a good job.”
(DID YOU SEE TONY STEWART COMING?) “I saw two guys coming. I saw some smoke back there. I saw the No. 16 (Biffle) sideways once as well. So I know those guys were trying hard. I know I was choking them down with the brakes and trying to keep them bottled up behind me.”
CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: “This is my first win here at Daytona and I’m pretty excited about it. It was that pit stop that got us all the way.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 4th: “Jeff Gordon had a good car and we got together there finally. We got him through one of the holes and then I got stuck in a hole. We got separated. But my buddy, Dale Jr., got me one more spot at the end there and gave me a real good push and that’s how I was able to get up to fourth. We had a good car. We just kind of got hung out there at the beginning. We got such a good run with Jeff and me, and then we got into Turn 1 and I went to the outside and those guys stopped and Jeff went down to the bottom. So it just stopped us and put us all the way to the back and it was hard to work our way back forward.”
“You know, that’s the thing with this type of racing. You’ve got to run so hard with each other. With the windshield, I was trying to give everybody a lot of room. It wasn’t just Casey (Mears). Casey did a good job. This was his first Bud Shootout. I thought he did a good job. I thought everybody had a good night. Nobody really had any huge moments out there. It’s fun when you can take 20 of us like that and go out there and run a clean race like that.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished third: (IT LOOKED LIKE IT MIGHT BE A ONE-TWO FINISH OUT THERE) “Yeah, I was really hoping for that. I thought we could stay right there together. And certainly I was going to try to make a run on him on that last lap but wait just as long as I could. But it was everything I could do to hold those guys off behind me. I thought the No. 16 (Biffle) car was the strongest car out there. But Jimmie did a great job of blocking and running his line out there tonight. He had a good handling car. I wanted to be one-two, but we came up a little bit short with the DuPont Chevrolet tonight. But I’m really happy. We’ve got a really good car for tomorrow and the rest of this week should be fun.”
(YOU GOT A HUG FROM TONY STEWART WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF THE CAR) “Yeah, I was surprised by that because he went wide up there in (Turns) one and two and I just wanted to stay in the middle. I didn’t want to go to the outside and I had to let him go out there by himself. I wanted to go with him but he had the momentum and I didn’t. But we were bumping and banging all over the place. That’s a sign of a true racer when you get out of the car after bumping and banging and smile and shake hands like that.”
JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 11th: (HOW DID YOU DAMAGE YOUR CAR?) “It was the last lap. Everybody was battling out there. We kind of got bogged down in one and two in the last lap. The 9 car got a run on us. I was coming off the corner and all the sudden it was three wide. It should have been a big wreck. We just tore the sides off our car. I don’t know what happened there. It’s just part of racing. I made it back around and finished 11th. I’m disappointed with that. We had a much better car than that.”
(HOW WAS YOUR CAR UP UNTIL THAT LAST LAP?) “The Army Chevy was good. So much is about track position now. It seems like they took that restrictor plate away and took that little bit of horsepower away. Now it’s so hard to pass. You only had two leaders. That only happened under pit stops. It’s just really hard to go. Last year you could make moves and pass guys. Now you can’t do it. We’ll take it. We got a good driving car. We’ll fix her up for a back up. They’ll take it back home, put a side on it and get it ready to go.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR, NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Finished 7th (WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR CAR IN THE FIRST SEGMENT?) “We changed the boxes and a bunch of stuff and it must have cleared it up because it ran really well after that.”
(DO YOU HAVE YOUR WORK CUT OUT FOR YOU THIS WEEK?) “I thought we ran pretty good. There were some really good cars that kind of got shuffled. You know, the car we had tonight was the worst car we had in the test, so I think we’ve come a long way with it. I know the 500 car is better. I was pretty happy tonight and had a lot of fun. Mark and I kind of worked up there. It seemed like the outside line could get to third and that was it. The bottom line was just jumbled up. You had a choice: you could either get down there and beat on each others’ bumpers or get in the top and struggle.”
(WAS THE CAR HANDLING POORLY?) “No, the motor. There were a couple times where I thought it was handling again in the second segment. The handling of the car was great. It was really, really good in the corner. In practice yesterday I was really happy with the way it ran, except for that tire deal. I was running around there sideways, which I like. Normally we push really bad but we ran the right rear out-I was a little nervous about that tonight because I was really sliding that right rear in the second segment. All in all I was really pleased with the car. I could pass, I could race, I just needed more time. We kind of got near the front there.
“We were kind of moving up there on the last couple of laps. Three wide is tough. It’s a chess game and I played good tonight I guess.”
(IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO PASS THE LEADER) “Yeah, it’s been that way for while. Not totally impossible, obviously as in last year. It’s hard. That car was really that good to be able to do it by itself. The field from first to last is a lot slimmer that it used to be, so yeah, when the cars are all even, it’s like an IROC race. So they’ll have to put a bunch of blades on them to make it where you can blow each other away and keep passing each other. I had a good time. You saw the last couple laps where the bottom worked, you could push people to the leader. The guy in the third, when he pushes the guy in second to the leader, the leader is going to block the bottom, the guy in second is going to go to the top, the guy in third is probably going to push the leader back in front of you to see if he can get that push. It’s a revolving door. It isn’t that hard to pass but second, third and fourth have to work together well. It’s tough. You have to have a lot of friends out there and everyone is tired of losing, I guess.”
(YOUR TEAM DIDN’T GET FRUSTRATED) “Yeah, I told you they were laid back. Pete was worried about the issue but he did a good job keeping his cool and he changed what we could and what we were allowed to change. We were going to go back out there and if it was still having a problem we were probably going to have to park it. But, it was fixed and that was good because we were able to get up there and race a little bit. I’m telling you, when we unloaded that car in that test and even when we got to drafting practice on the last day, I couldn’t even hang on to anybody. We got in an eight-car pack and I was just tagging on the rear. It was terrible. So they’ve done a lot of good work to that car. Our 500 car was the best car in the draft, I thought, so we’re not really running that good by ourselves with it. But when they put them all out there, I’ll be the strongest.”
(YOU DIDN’T LEAD A LAP) “We kept having problems getting good track position. We changed the transmission, which put us in the back. It’s hard to get in that top 3.
“The top 3 seems to stay consistent, for a while, at least, until they get racey. But the top 3 is hard to get into. Once you get there, the lead is even harder to get. Then we had a problem with the motor and we started in the back again. We just got to beating around and tried all kinds of way to get up there. We had a lot of good runs and had a lot of good partners helping me but we just couldn’t make it work.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS (LATE IN THE RACE, WOULD IT HAVE MADE SENSE FOR YOU TO GO WITH GREG BIFFLE?) “No, I would have never gone with him. I was more concerned with me just giving him a big enough push to get beside Jimmie. I really didn’t want him to get beside Jimmie and have a shot to let somebody else stack up there and give him a push. There were one or two times when I got a good run and I gave him a big push. He had the momentum but he was smart where he felt like it was too early to make that move and he stayed in line. After that, that’s when I just started working on Biffle trying to get by him. If he would have gotten midway inside or outside Jimmie, I would have definitely gone with Jimmie.”
(HOW IS THE TIRE SITUATION?) “I thought ours were good. Everything looked good. We had no issues. I’m not sure who had a problem. So far from what I’ve seen, all of us looked good. I think the wear is a little bit more than what we’ve had in the past and handling is a little bit more of a premium. We’re lucky right now we have the fuel cells that we have that keep us in short stints because the tire is so soft we couldn’t run a whole lot further that what we’re running right now.”
(ON WHY THERE IS SUCH A PREMIUM ON LEADING?) “Anytime you take away power from the cars, the way we do with restrictor plates, then it makes it that much harder to get momentum and to get the push from behind to get inside or outside of the car. It’s always been a premium leading. Every since they went to restrictor plates, it’s been a premium. There’s sling shot moves and all of that stuff where it hadn’t been the case. When we had the roof rails and punching a big whole like that, it didn’t matter where you were at, you could pass. If you’re up front, it’s almost a bad thing. With these rules, I like it like this. I think these are great rules. You saw how much bumping and banging went on tonight. If we were with our old rules, we’d just be spinning one another out. They got to do something to slow that momentum down a little bit. What it does do is make it a little bit tougher to pass that leader.”
(ON HOW THE 1/64th DIFFERENCE IN THE NEW PLATE AND HOW IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE) “It’s about 15 horsepower. We may have gained a little bit of that back. It just drops the power down. I think it’s pretty self explanatory.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, CHAD KNAUS, AND RICK HENDRICK - NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS: (ABOUT THE MOMENTUM COMING OFF A STRONG ‘04 SEASON) JOHNSON: “I certainly think so, but you have to look at past history of the entire season and our team has been strong through all types of racing and all sizes of tracks. This is a great shot in the arm. There has been a lot of hard work that’s gone into these race cars over the off-season. All the guys in the shop are going to be working with smiles on their faces during those extra hours because we got a car to Victory Lane today. There is a little bit we learned carrying over to the 500. The track is going to change a lot between now and then.”
KNAUS: “If anything, what it did is elevate the new players on the NO. 48 team and made them feel like more a part of the team. Whenever you get new players on your team, they always feel like a little bit of an outsider until you get out there and do something substantial - whether it be a top five or a victory or something along those lines. For those guys coming on board early this year, it makes them feel at home and will help us next week in the 500.”
(DO YOU LIKE GETTING DIRECTIONS TO VICTORY LANE?) JOHNSON: “That’s my first trip to Victory Lane and I wanted to save the motor. That’s our back-up car. I didn’t want to tear it up doing any burnouts or anything. Who knows what’s going to happen in the Duals. I waved to the fans on the way by and I wanted to see my guys in the pit stall. But after that, I didn’t know where to go. I could see some lights burning behind some grandstands here but it took several officials to get me pointed in the right direction?”
(DO YOU ACCEPT THAT PRE-SEASON LABEL THAT EVERYBODY IS GIVING YOU?) JOHNSON: “We accept it. Being the pre-season favorite is a result of what happens the year leading into this one. We hate that we weren’t the champions.
“We worked real hard but came up short. There’s a lot of racing between now and Homestead. It gives us all confidence on the race team. We’re proud that everyone feels we are a treat for the championship. But we’ve got to go out and do it. Until you have that trophy sitting at your house, it doesn’t mean much.”
HENDRICK: “I’d much rather be the pre-season favorite than to come here and have you guys ask me what’s wrong.”
(HOW DO YOU SELECT YOUR CAR FOR THIS RACE?) KNAUS: “We had this car planned to run in the Bud Shootout before we ever got to the race track. It’s basically based on the wind tunnel numbers and previous history of this car. We haven’t raced it a whole lot. We raced it in the Bud Shootout last year and we tore it up a little bit and didn’t get the finish we wanted. We raced it at the first Talladega race last year, but didn’t get the end result we wanted. So it’s kind of been a back-up superspeedway car. We cut it up last year and changed almost the complete body. But it just didn’t have the drag number I was looking for compared to the car we’re going to use next Sunday in the 500 and that’s why it became the Shootout car.”
(ON THE ADDITION OF DOUG DUCHARDT TO HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS) HENDRICK: “I have to give Mike Mulhern credit. Doug and I hadn’t even talked until Mike said I’d hired him or tried to hire him. So Mike, if you’re listening, thank you a lot. You got it started and Doug called me and we started talking and thought it might be a good idea since Mulhern said it. So, he’s the one who got it cranked. Randy Dorton was an unbelievable talent and visionary person who could see the future and really look toward the future. Doug is a lot out of that same mold. Doug brings youth. With his experience worldwide in the racing community, I think he’s going to be a great addition to support our organization. We’re thrilled to have him.”
(DO YOU SEE ANY WEAKNESS IN THE NO. 8 CAR?) JOHNSON: “To be honest, I wasn’t really around him tonight. I expected to see him up in the front. The No 16 and the No. 97 were pretty strong - especially the No. 16. I thought the race was between our car and the No. 16. I didn’t see the No. 8 too much, so I really don’t have a good idea of what they’re capable of. I expect to see him up in the front in the 500.”
(HAS PIT STRATEGY GONE TO A NEW LEVEL NOW?) KNAUS: “I guess. I’ve always played the pit strategy game and tried to put ourselves in a position to where we could do something a little different. That’s a combination effort between what we’ve got on the team and what Jimmie does on the race track that enables us to force other people to do their hands at certain times. We try to be just a little bit different. That keeps everybody else on their toes and maybe guessing a little bit. If you always do what the Jones’ do, you’re only going to be what the Jones’ are. So we want to be what the Johnson’s are, I guess.”
(HOW DO YOU FEEL HAVING CHAD KNAUS AS YOUR CREW CHIEF?) JOHNSON: “Without a doubt, I feel I have an advantage with Chad Knaus as a crew chief and driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Chad takes advantage of all the resources we have to give us the best strategy. Chad takes advantage of them. He’s shown that since the first time we were on the race track back in ‘02. We’re honest with each other and we’re honest with the team. It’s been a great ride and hopefully we are able to keep it going.”
(ON HAVING AN UP AND DOWN RACE WITH THE BLAKE FEESE RUNNING IN THE ARCA RACE AND THE PROBLEMS HE HAD TODAY) HENDRICK: “He had a great car and that’s why we ran him in that race to get him some experience. He didn’t see the pit sign. We had a similar situation a year or two ago. But anytime you can get a guy on a superspeedway and give him some lap times you learn and benefit. It was disappointing because the guys had worked hard. But we’re not in a points race and it’s a good series for that. If I had to have a problem, I’d rather have it in that race than tonight. Bobby Gerhart is a great guy and we have a great relationship. If you don’t win but you’re competitive, I can live with that. Tonight was a great lift.”
(WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE ON THURSDAY?) KNAUS: “I don’t think Thursday is going to be quite as aggressive as what you saw tonight because everybody knows that the car they’re racing in the 150 is the car they’re going to race in the 500. There’s not a lot of time to get the car fixed or repaired, but it’ll be rough and tumble, but I don’t think it’ll be near as bad as it was tonight.
(ON HIS FIRST VICTORY AT DAYTONA) “JOHNSON: We’ve been building on a plate win with the #48 team. Jeff (Gordon) obviously has had a lot of success on this track and at Talladega. It’s not a points race, but still, victory lane is victory lane and Gatorade puts a lot of money up for this. I was very proud and honored to be the winner of the race. We had a great race car. We started 17th and worked our way up to 2nd. We tried to get a couple runs on Biffle but our cars were really equal. I knew we had a pit stop coming and we were just kind of waiting for it to cycle out after that. And I came to pit road and my guys put in an incredible pit stop and it put me out in front of him and from there, the Hendrick car and Hendrick power did its job and off we went. We kept the guys bottled up behind me and I just kind of did my job and had an uneventful finish.”
HENDRICK: “Our guys put a lot of effort into Daytona and our guys worked hard on the restrictor plate. I think that the momentum stays there. I think all the cars are pretty equal but I give Jimmie a lot of credit for his ability to work the draft, coming from the back. And Chad always seems to give him a good car. The guys try to work together and you can see how equal the cars are. When Jeff and Jimmie got together I thought we could breath a little easier and then you just get rooted out of the way. I think it was a tremendous amount of effort at Daytona.”
(WHAT WAS YOUR STRATEGY FOR THE FINAL LAPS?) KNAUS: “The car was really good. We were really pleased with it when we were down here testing earlier last month. Tonight was the pit call that we wanted to try to be in the top 2 and force everybody else’s hand when it was time to pit.
“That’s what Jimmie and I talked about earlier and we wanted to pit early in the pit window. Four tires was going to be the way to go as far as we were concerned. Once Newman took two and he kind out got out there in front of everyone else, he was kind of a sitting duck. He was going to get passed, it was a matter of whether or not he was going to get back up there.
“I’m really happy with the car. The crew did a great job with their pit stop. Jimmie did a really good job considering that he hasn’t had a race under his belt in a while. He’s been working in the off-season really well.”
(ON PASSING) JOHNSON: “In a test it’s really tough to get enough cars out there to really understand the draft and what it’s going to do. I think (with) rules changes, there is some experience there that we know with a smaller (restrictor) plate, it’s harder to close up. With a smaller plate it’s slowed down the closure rate on everybody. It honestly made the bump draft more important and I think that’s why you saw so many guys out of shape. Because once you had a run, you just had to take advantage of it and hit the guy in front of you just to get your lane moving and get some energy built up in that lane and try to get that lane cycling around.
“I think you play the game with the plates and the sizes. The smaller the plate, the less close-up you’re going to have. The bigger the plate, the more passing opportunities you’re going to have.”
(DID YOU SEE THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN BIFFLE AND GORDON?) JOHNSON: “I saw a lot behind me. I wasn’t paying attention to colors. I did notice the #16 one time out of the tri-oval. It was completely sideways and the reason I noticed him because I could read the #16 in my mirror. I saw a lot of tire smoke. You saw a lot of guys bouncing around. There were a few things playing into that: 1) when you had a run you had to hit the guy in front of you to shake up your lane and 2) I just wanted to keep everybody bottled up. If I kept them side-by-side, two and three wide.”
KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Go ManGo! Dodge Charger) – Finished 9th “We had a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. It was a wild race and a wild ending. We definitely needed four tires on the pit stop. The car was pretty tight, so we definitely needed the four tires. The Charger is a better piece than we had last year. It drafts up much better. We need to work on the 500 car a little more to get it to turn a little better, and I think we can have a decent 500. Tony tried to help me there a little bit, and I tried to help him when I could. It’s just wherever you get in position and if you’re fast maybe you can get some help. At times I thought we were crashing, so I guess ninth is pretty good. We got shuffled back a few times, but we managed to come back through. I think the Charger is going to be a good car, and I think our 500 car will be better than this one by next Sunday.”
RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Charger) – Finished 2nd “We didn’t have anybody to work with, so we couldn’t stay out front. The 19 took two tires, too, but they got penalized. We came down pit road the last second, too. We were able to pull it off and got second. That’s our best run here for sure. Doing it the way we did it was good, not having the same tires as everyone else. Matt (crew chief Borland) and everybody did a good job. We had a good pit stop and it was a pretty good debut for our Dodge Charger.
“I knew they were catching me. I asked Matt how fast they were catching me, and he said about seven tenths a lap. OK? I said, ‘no, it’s not OK, but I understand.’ It was one of those situations where we had to run as hard as we could. Jimmie did good to get by me the first time without shaking me up. I got a hole there. If I had got a hole further back I don’t think I could have made it back up as far as I did. As the way it turned out, it wasn’t too bad for us. That was our best run here in quite awhile.
“Tony came up and gave me a good shove, but when he did it I shoved the 48, too, at the same time. I couldn’t get a good run on Jimmie. Jimmie did a good job. When he was out front and had to take both lines when we were fighting over second, that was probably his toughest part of the race and he did a good job.
“I don’t think anybody was hanging around. I came off turn two about three laps in a row and saw tire smoke behind me. I don’t think anybody was just hanging around. It was a real good debut for the Charger. I wish we could have got it in victory lane, but we were second best and we learned some things. I hope we can carry it over to Thursday and into the 500 on Sunday.
“Casey Mears gave me a real good push. The 97 and 16 got to battling, and I think they just choked up. I just held it to the floor. I had to check up in the tri-oval because I was pushing so bad. I feel real good to run as well as we did, especially on two tires.
“It was definitely eventful, but I was happy to see everybody stay going in the right direction. It was a good run for us in our brand new ALLTEL Dodge Charger, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of Speedweeks. There was a little tire strategy there. (We took) two tires. That was Matt’s call, and I think it was a good call. We got out front and put ourselves in the right position.
“I don’t think I had a really good shot at winning the race until the No. 97 got the No. 16 loose there in the tri-oval. I had Casey Mears pushing me pretty hard. We got up through there and finally got up by the No. 16 car. I thought I had a really good shot and then I saw Stewart coming up. I thought he’d give me a pretty good shot, and he kind of did, but when he did it allowed me to push the No. 48 – just the air on the No. 48 up ahead of us. And I never really got a good run at him to try. Jimmie did a great job of defensive driving, which you have to do when you’re up front. I’m not satisfied with second, but I’m happy to have our best finish here so far in a stock car.
“That’s kind of a good question because we don’t plan on racing this car the rest of the time down here, barring any kind of situation with our 500 car. So, we’ll have to adapt the things that we’ve learned from this car and put it on the other car if it’s capable of doing that. We’re really happy with this car, this engine and everything else. So, thank-you to everybody back at the engine shop for doing what they’ve done and having a good car to get in that position to be able to finish second.”
JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Top Banana Dodge Charger) – Finished 18th “Things didn’t turn out quite like we hoped today, but now we’ve got a race under our belts in the new Dodge Charger. The car was good, we just couldn’t seem to make things work. Our tires were OK, so Goodyear made the right choice on those. We’ve got some work to do, but our 500 car is better than this one so we should be OK.”
JOHN FERNANDEZ (Director, Dodge Motorsports Operations) “It was exciting to finally see the Dodge Charger return to NASCAR competition. We’ve been working on the car a long time. We’re pleased with the debut of the new Dodge Charger. It was pretty good in the draft. We’ve made a lot of progress on the car, but we’ve still got some work to do. Ryan Newman and Casey Mears had good cars, and Ryan had a chance to win. This race gives us some direction on what improvements we need to make for the Daytona 500. I’m sure all the teams learned something from tonight, and we look forward to getting back out here for the Daytona 500.”
GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Finished 5th) - “It was nice to see Kurt come up there behind me. I was looking for Kurt and he really gave me a good shove. The one positive thing about tonight is my 500 car is better than this Bud Shootout car, so that’s pretty exciting for the whole National Guard team. We’re looking forward to the 500. We know we’ve got a really, really good car. It was fun working with those guys out there. I didn’t think I left the 24 enough room on the bottom there to pass me without going below the yellow, but I must have left him just enough and he snuck in there on me. It’s tough to pass the leader here. You’re gonna have to make a big run and get two or three guys lined up to try and pass the leader here at this track.”
IS THAT WHAT YOU WERE TALKING TO JEFF ABOUT AFTER THE RACE? “Yeah, I shoved him coming back to the stripe here. I shoved him through the short stretch pretty hard and shot him out there. We would have made a little better run across there, but I figured he was a little bit loose and couldn’t keep the throttle down. It was a lot of fun. There was a big save on the frontstretch there. I don’t know what happened. I’ll have to watch the tape and see how the car got loose, but I’m just excited to bring this home and get ready for the 500 for tomorrow.”
DID YOU LEARN MORE IN THE SECOND SEGMENT BECAUSE YOU LED VIRTUALLY THE WHOLE FIRST? “Yeah, absolutely. I felt what my car was like. The car handled really, really good. It was turning on the bottom like I needed it to. It did everything I needed it to do. We were a little bit off on speed, but my 500 car is better.”
ARE YOU HAPPY OR DISAPPOINTED? “I’m really pretty happy to kind of get my feet wet and get back in the race car. We wanted to win that. We wanted to win the Bud Shootout, but we want to win the 500 and we’ve got a better car for the 500.”
KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Crown Royal Taurus (Finished 6th) - “We really made a great effort on building this car and driving it to what I thought it was capable of. It just seemed like it would drive right to the front. It would get to fifth place, fourth place or third place - right in that bunch - but I just couldn’t break through that threshold. It might be inexperience on my part as far as what to do, but it was a great Crown Royal Ford. It was a great debut for the car. Anytime I made a big mistake and got in trouble, the car would find its way back to the front. I just couldn’t break through to lead.”
YOU WERE BEHIND BIFFLE RUNNING IN FOURTH AND THEN GOT SHUFFLED BACK. WHAT HAPPENED THERE? “I was trying to help Biffle move forward and when you get that close on old tires the 97 has gotten the 16 loose before in the tri-oval and I wanted to push him going down into one so we could get a nice draft, but it didn’t turn out. The cars were a bit loose and we were all sliding for life. We just didn’t quite have the inside lane where the cars were more stable.”
DID YOU LEARN A LOT FOR NEXT WEEK? “Definitely. This was a car that we didn’t know we were gonna run up until we tested here because our B car was so bad, so we had to bring this car back and it did great.”
THERE ARE A LOT OF SMILES ON PIT ROAD AFTER THIS RACE. “There are a lot of smiles because we didn’t wreck and everybody has their car to show for it is my guess. But the way that the race played out, it did get very anxious at the end, which is normal for the Bud Shootout, and just the way that teammates worked together it was what it was meant to be for the first race of the year.”
MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Kraft Taurus (Finished 8th) - “I would have liked to have watched it because it should have been a good show. I want to thank Kraft for their support of this thing and Ford and my race team - Pat Tryson and everybody at Roush Racing. We had a giant motor under the hood and I guess we did good to finish eighth. We had a flat tire in that first segment and really were lucky that it didn’t tear the car all to pieces and we stayed on the lead lap. There were a couple of times when I had a chance to get up there and get in the mix, but I never quite got into position where I got enough good cars behind me that they would wind up staying behind me. Each time I got near the front I would wind up at the tail end of the line on the outside. I had to do all my business on the outside and I just didn’t have enough pals back there.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED THERE WAS NO BIG WRECK? “Yeah, that was dangerous.”
DID YOU LEARN SOMETHING FOR NEXT WEEK? “I’ve been coming here 20 years and I didn’t learn anything tonight that I hadn’t already learned five times over. It’s the same old Daytona and everything is the same to me. The thing I look forward to is we’ve got some big engines under the hood and we’ve got a great race team on pit road there for us, so I look forward to racing.”
RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Finished 12th) - “We were getting in a real good position to do something well and I followed Bobby. I guess I’d run with Bobby for part of the day and we kind of got going up through there. I don’t know how far up we got. It was just side-by-side racing and then we finally got some daylight and I got greedy. I tried to go up through the middle with Bobby and Bobby was going but all of a sudden he stopped. I don’t know how he got sideways because I didn’t see it, but we lost momentum and everybody went by us on both sides. That killed the end of the race for us. I got up to sixth and I was going for third, but when I got greedy and went for third that’s when I went up through the middle. I had been doing that, but Bobby stopped. I don’t know what happened to Bobby. He might have had something going wrong, but all of a sudden he just stopped. I had gotten up to fourth or fifth in that line and then went all the way back to last when Bobby stopped. I don’t know what happened to him.”
WHAT ABOUT THE 500? “It looks like a lot of even race cars to me. It just depends on where you come out on the race track is where you run. It reminded me more of Talladega than it did Daytona. Usually Daytona is separated with the handling, but with these small fuel cells you’d run out of tire grip - Goodyear has done a good job on the tires - you’d run out of tire grip right about the time you needed fuel, so I didn’t see anybody with really any major handling issues.”
DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Finished 15th) - YOU WERE TIGHT ALL NIGHT? “We just couldn’t get it out. It didn’t drive a lot different than it did last year, we just got ourselves in the right position last year. But we were tight. We made some adjustments and as I got around cars and obviously we were in a pack all night, trying to get a run off the corner it just killed our momentum. There’s only so much speed we could carry there and we just fought that. Everytime time I’d make a little headway, I’d use up the tires a little bit and it would start pushing off the corner again. It wasn’t a total loss tonight. Hopefully it gives us an idea of some things we can try before Thursday.”
IT’S A DIFFERENT CAR FOR THE 500 SO IS IT SOMETHING YOU CAN GET OUT OF THAT CAR? “Yeah, Mike and I were just talking about some ideas that we have and what we might do because we feel like we’re gonna fight some of the same stuff. It’s a different race track during daylight hours, but you’re still gonna fight a little bit of that same thing, so it did at least give us the chance to see and feel what may happen. That way we can be thinking and preparing for our first practice on Wednesday.”
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