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NASCAR Teleconference With Robby Gordon

Robby Gordon faced the media Tuesday via a teleconference. Here, thanks to NASCAR, is a transcript of the questions and his answers.

NASCAR NEXTEL Teleconference Transcript - Robby Gordon

Our guest today is Robby Gordon, driver of the No. 31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet and the defending champion at Infineon. Robby has two top-five and three top-10 finishes thus far in 2004, with his best finish to date a fourth place at Darlington. He had posted four top-14 finishes in his previous six races prior to a first lap mishap at Michigan last Sunday that relegated him to a 35th-place finish following a fine fifth-place qualifying effort, his best of the season.

Robby is currently 20th in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings, 293 points behind teammate Kevin Harvick, who is in 10th place. Drivers who are in the top 10 in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings and those within 400 points of the leader following the Sept. 11 race at Richmond will advance to the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup and a run at the 2004 title.

Robby is also 13th in the NASCAR Busch Series point standings.

Robby has three top-10 finishes in his last four races at Infineon. He led 81 of the 110 laps raced there last year during his victory, the most laps led by a race winner at Infineon. He has two other NASCAR premier series wins to his credit, at Watkins Glen last year and at New Hampshire in the fall of 2001.

Robby joins us from his native California this morning. Robby thanks for getting up a little early to be with us today. You had improved your finish in each of your last 4 races prior to Michigan and qualified really well there before that bad luck hit you on Sunday in that first lap. Now you come to Infineon as the defending champion and you’re recent finishes there have been just outstanding. Are you feeling pretty good about this weekend?

Robby Gordon: I do feel good about this weekend. I’m also disappointed about last weekend because I shouldn’t of put myself in a position like that. We had such a good race car and shouldn’t have tried to slide up into the hole behind Brendan Gaughan. It’s unfortunate, but hopefully we can start building back points again this weekend and try to climb into the top 10. We were definitely on a roll and it hurts us bad to loose those valuable points.

You had a great stretch following your win last year at Infineon. You had 7 top 10 finishes including another road course win, of course, at Watkins Glen, in that stretch. Are you looking forward to that same stretch of races this year to put that 31 team as you say back in contention for the Chase for the Nextel Cup?

Gordon: Yeah, we are, we were on a roll up to the last 6 races. We were the 6th best car and to let the points slip away like we did last weekend or I did at Michigan. It hurts us, we need to have a good result at Infineon. A year ago we said we were going to go there and score maximum points. It’s going to be harder to do that now just because everyone’s gunning for you, they know what the goalpost is. We obviously went there and tested and were very pleased with our Cingular Wireless Chevrolet when we tested. I think were about a second under the track record. Because the track was repaved there were a lot of guys under the track record. I think we were one of the quickest cars there and we’re looking forward to going back.

TWO QUESTIONS, ONE INVOLVES FINISHING THE RACES UNDER CAUTION WHICH NO MATTER WHAT WE TRY TO EXPLAIN PROBLEMS ON THE TRACK AND CLEARING DEBRIS; IT SEEMS THE FANS AND DIALING AND CALLING ABOUT IT. MAYBE NOT LOOKING AT IT IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE RACE CAR, THAT’S THE FIRST QUESTION. DO YOU FEEL LIKE THEY COULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING ELSE?

Gordon: It’s really hard to understand what’s going on up there in the booth when they’re calling those races. I think when you look at Pocono we were running 8th and I was like, ‘why aren’t they going back green?’ I had no idea there was stuff going on with Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth back in the back and there was gravel on the racetrack and things like that. When your fans obviously want to see the races finish under green and you want to see exciting races. But, what happened about every time they go green, as aggressive as everybody is out there right now, and as competitive as the sport is, you normally have another caution on all the restarts. Especially when you get to the last 20 laps of the race.

THE SECOND QUESTION IS YOU HAD SOME QUESTIONS AT THE DRIVERS MEETING ABOUT THE BUSCH RACE. I HEARD TWO DRIVERS IN THERE SAYING THAT THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE BUSCH RACE. TODAY I TALKED TO A COUPLE PEOPLE ABOUT IT. DID YOU GET YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND WAS IT CLEAR TO YOU?

Gordon: Actually the questions were very clear just because were going through a system of changes right now between how the caution falls, when the field is frozen, there was no way we were a lap down last weekend. We should have won that race there. But it’s okay, the way I look at it the last three weekends we’ve been in a position to win the race with the Fruit of the Loom Busch car and we haven’t won. The key is if you’re in a position to win, then you know you’re going to win coming down the road here real soon. We’re not too worried about it. We’re really excited about our race team and we know if we keep working hard at it we will pull into victory lane and it might be at the 4th of July race at Daytona. We were very strong in Talladega with the Busch car we lead a lot of laps there and I think we will be equally strong when we go back to Daytona.

ROBBY, YOU TALKED EARLIER ABOUT THIS WEEKEND AND HOW YOU’RE THE ONE THAT EVERYONE IS SHOOTING FOR AND CERTAINLY IS THE CASE AT WATKINS GLEN. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU THAT YOU ARE ‘THE GUY’ THIS WEEKEND AND OTHER WEEKENDS IT MIGHT BE SOMEBODY ELSE. YOU ARE ‘THE GUY’ EVERYBODY IS LOOKING FOR THIS WEEKEND.

Gordon: Well I appreciate everybody thinking I’m ‘the guy.’ We were on our game last year at both road course races. We capitalized on that. We’ve worked real hard, we’ve came out and tested, we did a one day test at Sonoma and we do get into a hot stretch here in the middle of the season. We were really strong at Indianapolis and some of the other race tracks. I think that’s a compliment that everyone is gunning for me and that probably makes it harder. When everybody knows that that car is going to be the toughest car to beat, they seem to put that car in as many awkward positions as you can. Last year we weren’t the car to beat and that was our first road course win. We were fortunate enough to follow it up at Watkins Glen as well.

HOPE YOU’LL BE AT WATKINS GLEN RUNNING THE GRAND AM CAR. HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THAT YET?

Gordon: I have not, but I did have a lot of fun when we ran the Grand Am car this year at the 24 Hours. I’d love to do it again. We’ll se what happens here in the next couple of months.

I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT HOW WE TREAT YOU GUYS. 24/7. YOU KIND OF LIVE ON THAT LITTLE BUBBLE, YOU’VE MANAGED TO MAINTAIN AN IDENTITY AND IT SEEMS LIKE OTHERS HAVE RESTRAINED THEIRS CONSIDERABLY. I THINK THAT’S ONE OF THE COOL THINGS ABOUT YOU, BECAUSE YOU HAVE THAT STREAK OF INDEPENDENCE. I DON’T MEAN THAT IN A DEROGATORY MANNER WHATSOEVER. YOU’LL SHOW UP AT INDY AND YOU’LL DO SOMETHING AT INDY AND THERE ARE THINGS THAT ARE REALLY NEAT. BUT WHEN YOU LIVE UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF MEDIA, DOES THAT BUG YOU? HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT ON DAY TO DAY BASES, WE’RE LOOKING AT YOU THROUGH THAT MICROSCOPE THAT WE HAVE ON YOU ALL THE TIME?

Gordon: Well being a race car driver you are judged by the day in things you do and might be used against you unfortunately. I’m fortunate enough that I love what I’m doing still. I feel very fortunate to be here in NASCAR and have great sponsors like we have with Cingular Wireless, Fruit of the Loom, Red Bull, and everybody we’ve had with our program. Meijer and Coca-Cola did a lot. I think the neat thing is we get to do all those other things. We’re fortunate enough that we were able to build our little company and be able to go to Indianapolis and compete and go to Baja and compete. I have a lot of fun doing it. Obviously the most important thing that I do all year long is the Cingular Wireless Chevrolet, but I have a team owner that is pretty cool and allow me to race the Busch car and go to Indianapolis and Baja and stuff like that. I’m having a lot of fun, unfortunately we have not pulled into victory lane, no RCR (Richard Childress Racing) cars have pulled into victory lane this year and that’s got us frustrated a little bit, but at the same time you have to look at the big picture and we are competitive and we were 18th in the points a week and we fell to 20th. We’ve had some bad luck, I think if we get on a hot streak here we could get ourselves back in the top 10.

WHEN YOU WENT FROM 18TH TO 20TH AND THE MEDIA STARTS KNOCKING ON YOU FOR SOMETHING WRONG.

Gordon: Oh I’m sure, I’m probably the next one getting let go, you know that’s just the way it is. Every weekend we get behind the wheel and try to do the best job we can. I’m very disappointed in my actions last weekend. The TV analysts might say that Brendan checked up, but I look at it more like I put myself in that position for Brendan to check up. We were finally about to get on a roll and we were climbing back towards the top 10 and we didn’t need a bad race like that. I needed to be smarter. I think that is probably going to be the wake up call of the summer and we have to be on our game and on my tip toes from here on out and make sure that I don’t put myself in those positions. Especially at this weekend at Sonoma or Watkins Glen or places that we can win races. We were really strong last year, we actually the last couple of years at Indianapolis. We were going to two races that are good for us so hopefully we can climb back in there.

WHAT BESIDES EXPERIENCE WHICH YOU HAVE A GOOD AMOUNT OF LEADS TO AN OUTSTANDING ROAD RACER? THE WILLINGNESS TO HANG IT OUT?

Gordon: No, because I don’t hang it out. Actually it’s really weird because when I drive the road courses I put everything in like slow motion, I don’t spin the tires, I don’t do anything fast, I’m sure a lot of you guys will watch the in car cameras, a lot of the media will and you will probably be very surprised how I drive that car. It’s all very slow, non quick movements and the biggest thing is not spinning them (the tires) and not locking them up and not flat spot them and stuff like that. Some of the things that we’ve done the last couple of years, this car that we race is a car that we built in 2000; as far as the geometry and front suspension. It breaks and turns good. We don’t seem to lock up tires like a lot of other people do. Straight line, break real well, I don’t know why we count on the road courses so big, but obviously the road courses are more difficult to drive than the ovals and you have to be real smooth to do that. I don’t know why we’re not as competitive as we are on the ovals. I look at it as our whole house right now. We have to climb the ladder in Richard Childress Racing and everybody is working really hard to get us cars and bodies and engines to let us compete week in and week out with all the top teams in the series.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT RICHARD THAT YOU THINK HAS GELLED SO WELL IN YOUR PARTICULAR PERSONALITY?

Gordon: If you look at my whole Richard thing, I mean I’ve been with three different crew chiefs there; we’ve changed things around every year. That’s probably the biggest thing is Richard is not afraid of change. He took a chance with me when guys weren’t taking chances with me in Cup and should have won two of those first 10 races we raced together and we didn’t. We ended up winning one of the first 10 and it was at Loudon. We’ve been very competitive week in and week out. I have a new crew chief Chris Andrews who I really like and we’re gelling well. RCR’s qualifying efforts and the way we’ve been racing have been really good. Obviously Chris and I are communicating really well and Richard is letting us do what we want to do to make our car fast. It’s getting fast, a lot of times you have to judge where you’re at in your own camp and then try to climb the next ladder. This is the 6th week in a row that we’ve been the fastest RCR car in qualifying and the 1st RCR car in most of the races lately too. Unfortunately I put myself in a position this weekend that we came back with a big goose egg. I’m mad about it and obvioulsly Chris and Richard are mad about it as well. I’m still frustrated I put myself in that position. It doesn’t matter who checked up or what happened. I put myself in the position to get wrecked and that’s what I’m mad about.

WAS YOUR FIRST YEAR AT INDY ‘93 OR ‘97?

Gordon: ‘93

IS YOUR DAD’S NAME BOB?

Gordon: Yes. We started racing BMX and then Motorcross and then off-road.

IT SEEMS LIKE EVERY TIME YOU GET MAD AT YOURSELF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE PUT YOURSELF UP AGAINST THE WALL. THAT’S WHEN FOR SOME REASON YOU TEND TO STEP OUT AND ALL OF A SUDDEN TURN EVERYTHING AROUND. IS THAT A FAIR ASSESSMENT AND WHY IS THAT IF I’M RIGHT ABOUT THAT?

Gordon: I think the biggest thing is that I am very focused. I’ve worked on everything and have a competitive package again that we started out the season with, probably not as a competitive package that we all would like. We work through it and I don’t know why, I guess it’s a can do attitude and I like what I’m doing and I have a lot of fun at it. When the tough gets tough and you don’t give up. I am disappointed about Michigan, obviously, we had an opportunity to probably move all the way to fifteenth. I think we easily had a top 10 car there. A lot of guys around us had trouble and we could’ve climbed the ladder but instead we took two steps backwards.

WHEN YOU GET TO A TRACK LIKE INFINEON, SEARS POINT, AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE SO GOOD THERE, MENTALLY, DO YOU TRY TO PUT OUT THE FACT THAT YOU ARE SO GOOD SO YOU CAN STAY ON YOUR GAME OR DO YOU FEED OFF THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SO GOOD THERE?

Gordon: I think success reads success and the confidence that you go in that race with. There are guys in NASCAR that are very good on the road course. Obviously, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart have won Infineon before. Rusty Wallace wasn’t that bad when they went testing. The team mentality, going to Infineon, being as competitive as we’ve been the last couple of years, it didn’t matter what car it is, has all of us jacked up and we’re excited about it. Hopefully we don’t go there too conservative on engines and stuff like that. We did blow one up there testing and I hope we don’t go back and say well we’ve been so good here we don’t need the extra. As competitive as NASCAR is today, you have to have every tool you can have in the toolbox to go compete.

I WANTED TO ASK YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE RACE LAST YEAR AT INFINEON. OBVIOUSLY THERE WAS SOME CONTROVERSY THERE, AND IT MAY HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE FACTORS OF NASCAR CHANGING THE RULE ON RACING BACK TO THE YELLOW. IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, DIDN’T YOU ASK IN THE DRIVER’S MEETING BEFORE THE RACE EXACTLY IF A DRIVER CAN CHANGE POSITION IN RACING BACK TO THE YELLOW? WASN’T THAT SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO CLARIFY AT THAT MOMENT BEFORE THE RACE?

Gordon: Unfortunately, everybody looks back and says well Robby messed up this whole caution thing. Trust me, I feel bad about it because in racing, rules are rules. You try to position yourself to be right on the edge of those rules. We pushed the rules to the limit and that probably gets underneath some of the top officials at NASCAR’s skin, that we do push them to the maximum. But, I did ask at the driver’s meeting, all the drivers looked at me like I had three eyes. I think after the race, they realized what I had asked. You know, everybody thinks that we won Infineon because I passed under the yellow. We didn’t win that race because we passed on the yellow last year, we set the fastest race laps. We easily controlled the race and when I passed Kevin Harvick under the caution, he was running fourth and I was running fifth. Jeff Gordon was so mad, but he was running third and I didn’t pass him under the caution. I passed him when it went green again. So, I agree with some people or some of the drivers being a little disappointed. At the same time, I did ask the question twice and got a very clear answer from Mike Helton. If I didn’t get as clear answer as I received from that, I might have gotten a stop and go penalty. But the key is that I asked the question twice, I understood what the rules were, and I played those rules to my advantage.

ROBBY, ISN’T THAT THE PROBLEM NOW? YOU GUYS JUST LAST WEEK AT MICHIGAN, YOU GO IN THE MEETING, YOU ASK THE QUESTION AND THERE’S NOT ALWAYS A YES OR NO ANSWER THERE.

Gordon: There’s definitely some gray areas and I don’t want to get on the beating wagon of NASCAR because, well I’ll be honest with you, I wouldn’t want to have be the one up there in that room. We were in a position last weekend to easily win the Busch race, twice. Once I didn’t jump the restart, but I got a stop and go penalty for jumping the restart, which I didn’t do if you look at the tape very clearly. Unfortunately, you can fight those rules. Then later on, I got caught in pit lane once we’ve made my lap back up and we we’re running fourth, I got caught in pit lane when a caution came out. But then again, I was rolling and those rules weren’t very clear. I really do believe that they need to work on their timing and scoring systems and they need to have it accessible to everybody, including the pit lane speed. There’s no reason that they couldn’t pop up on everybody’s screen in our pits of what your segment time is between each box. If you happen to be, let’s call it a 60 mph speed limit, well let’s call it 50, and you’re 54 at the first one. You should be able to slow down to 46 the next one if you make it up. You shouldn’t have to really come back in because we don’t have speedometers in the cars. We’d all put speedometers in the cars if they were legal, I’m pretty sure they’re not legal.

SPEAKING OF THAT, WITH WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT JUST NOW WITH SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT WERE ASKED IN THE MEETING, IS IT GETTING A LITTLE FRUSTRATING WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF THE RULES AND IS THERE MORE PRESSURE ON THE DRIVER BECAUSE OF THE NEW POINT SYSTEM TO GET READY FOR THE SHOOTOUT?

Gordon: The second part of your question first, and that question’s yes. When you have a sponsor like Cingular Wireless, they want to be in the game for the last ten races. We are pushed to the limit to be competitive week in and week out. That’s probably got the aggressiveness up in NASCAR that we have today. We’ve got guys like Matt Kenseth reacting like you’ve haven’t seen Matt Kenseth ever react before because it is so competitive that you have to take advantage of every situation and you’re not going to let somebody push you around. Back to the first question, it is a new rule and it’s not clear. It might be clear to somebody but it’s not clear to me yet. I’m trying to take everything into consideration to understand it better. I’m trying to do the best job I can, to adapt and understand the rules. The rules are the rules and we have to play by those rules. Unfortunately, things have happened over the last couple of races that sitting in the racecar, I don’t see everything else. To be up in that booth and have to make the call on all these things that go on, there’s 43 cars out there, there’s 7 guys over the wall, you look at all those guys. With 300 hundred you’re trying to pay attention to and it gets very difficult. I would not want Mike Helton’s or John Darby’s job. It would be a very tough role.

CAN WE STEP BACK FOR A BIT AND DISCUSS THE BUSCH SERIES. CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOU’RE NASCAR BUSCH SERIES SEASON IN THE NO. 55 FRUIT OF THE LOOM CHEVROLET FROM THE STANDPOINT AS AN OWNER AND A DRIVER. IS OWNERSHIP POSSIBLY IN YOUR FUTURE AFTER YOU’RE DRIVING CAREER IS FINISHED?

Gordon: I think it’s in my future even as a driver as I grow older and gain more experience. I’m very excited about our Busch car. The Busch car runs good for a lot of different reasons. We race in the top five every weekend we’re there. We’ve missed two races and we’re still sitting in thirteenth in the points. We would definitely be a lot higher up than that and obviously Richard Childress helps us a lot. We don’t get any technical support from RC or the gang as far as shocks and springs and set-ups, but engines are a big role that we do get help from Richard. We’ve been bouncing back and forth between Richard Childress Racing engines and Team Menard’s engines out of Indianapolis. The race at Dover when we we’re leading and broke our panhard bar, that was a Menard engine. At Talladega, when we led most of the race, that was a Richard Childress engine. So, we’ve been competitive with both engine packages are we are a good team, but it’s been a lot of fun. It’s great to have a new sponsor with Fruit of the Loom in the sport and they’ve done a really good job building their brand and getting their brand back up front in front of the NASCAR fans. If you think about it, most NASCAR fans wear a T-shirt of some sort of their favorite driver at the race track and that’s exactly the fit that Fruit of the Loom is in.

WHEN I SAY THE NAME FIREBALL ROBERTS TO YOU, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF?

Gordon: He was a winner. He was on it too. He was a legend of the sport for sure.

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