NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
DAYTONA SPEEDWEEKS
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
WEEKLY TOP 12 DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE
February 11, 2009
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/AMP ENERGY IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway and discussed not feeling well the last few days, racing at Daytona, condition of the Speedway, entering second year with Hendrick Motorsports and other topics. Full transcript:
TALK ABOUT NOT FEELING WELL THE LAST COUPLE DAYS: “I got a sinus infection Sunday night and lay in bed all day Monday, Tuesday -- which I was going to do anyways. I’m feeling better getting in the race car -- getting sweaty helps you feel better.”
“I really ain't took a pole, man. I just know I’ve got some medicine and its making me feel better. I should be all right. Yesterday was the worst -- I feel way better today.”
“What everybody else does -- just lay there and complain, cuss out everybody who comes around you.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN PRACTICE THIS MORNING? “My car’s real good. We’re a little tight -- we’re going to work on that and try to get a little better for the second practice here today. Man, on a straight-away, we’ve got plenty of power -- really, really good horsepower. It’s the same motor we had in our car for qualifying, obviously I was real happy with it then. I’m pretty excited. We tore the right-front tire up pretty bad, real bad so we’re going to work on getting it turning in the center and we’ll be all right.”
DO YOU EXPECT PEOPLE TO BE PRETTY ‘RACY’ TOMORROW? “The way tires are tearing up, you have to be careful.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR TIRE? “I tore a tire up just now -- that’s all I know.”
WHAT IS YOUR GOAL FOR TOMORROW? “Just don’t tear my car up -- that’s probably the first thing. No banging around, hitting the walls, hitting people, spinning out. Other than that, just have some fun, make a cool pass for the lead a couple times, but I like finishing around the top-three if I can’t win it.”
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE BUMPS IN THE TRACK? “This car and the way we set them up is different than the old car. We coil bound with the old car, which is real similar to bump stops, but not quite. We had the coil binding down to a science to where the spring and the coils would actually collapse inside the spring to you never were actually solid. When you see it on TV and they show you what coil binding is and they have that spring that’s all welded together -- that’s not exactly what it looks like. It actually collapses inside itself so its never really harsh. It was a little smoother and more comfortable.
“With these cars we’re riding on the bump stops and the bump stops are real solid, but you have to get your car down and that’s fast. The track is old, I don’t know when they paved it last -- anybody know? 1978 -- that’s a long, damn time ago. It’s a terrible time to ask anybody to pave a race track. If anyone needs it -- its probably Daytona.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW RESTART RULE? “It will just change it up a little bit. It wont be different really on the restarts. They are just trying to keep people from waiting way, way long before the flag stand. They are trying to keep people from making it confusing for everyone else, not only the other drivers on the track, but the fans and everybody else. They gave us a little window and now we all know when to go.”
IS THE RACE TRACK UNSAFE AND NEEDS TO BE RE-SURFACED? ”It’s not unsafe. It just don’t put on a good show. I like the bumps. You’re going to ask guys in here and they’re going to say the bumps are cool -- they are cool, but they’ll be back. Hell, every track -- when you pave a track the earth underneath it always settles and it will create new bumps. ’78 was a long time ago, man -- 30 years. Highways get paved more often than that and they are only going 55 or 65 down them. I’m sure if I owned a race track I would pave that damn thing at the last minute because it costs a lot of money to pave it. I can understand why it doesn’t happen more often -- paving a race track, but they did pave Talladega and that got great reviews. Everybody was real happy about it -- its real smooth, puts on good races I think. Maybe we’ll get this thing paved before I retire.”
WHAT MAKES KURT BUSCH GOOD ON THE PLATE TRACKS? “At a lot of races that I’ve run good in -- ’01, ’03, ’02 -- Kurt was always there for the win. It takes a certain mentality I guess because it always is the same people. Certain people are good at it and you know that by the regularity of them being in the top-10 and finishing in the top-10 all the time. Kurt is definitely a good plate guy. Jamie McMurray is real good -- a little erratic and a little crazy sometimes, changing lanes a lot, but he’s fast and he knows how to get his car up through there and work the draft real good.”
CAN YOU GAUGE YOURSELF AGAINST THE COMPETITION? “I need more practice. It’s early.”
IS IT TOUGH TO GET IN THE CAR FEELING BAD? “No. Getting in the car will make you feel better -- sweating it out. I tried to put on more clothes and sleep under the covers last night to try to break a fever, but its hard. I have to drive a race car and we don’t drink alcohol the night before a race. Not even Nyquil. Getting it the car and getting sweaty and stuff helps you a lot, a whole lot -- makes you feel way better.”
ARE YOU EXPECTING BIG THINGS THIS YEAR OUT OF YOUR CAR AND TEAM?
“Absolutely.”
WHO DO YOU RESPECT IN THE DRAFT? “Me and Tony (Stewart) work well together. Jimmie (Johnson) -- all my teammates probably. There’s a handful of drivers, I could sit here all day and name a bunch of them. Kurt’s (Busch) good, Mike Wallace. The guys that are really good and finish up front and have been around for a long time are normally the ones that know what to do and know how to help you and help themselves at the same time. A lot of people wont help you because they thing they’re going to get screwed, but if you know what you’re doing, you can help a guy and help yourself at the same time and there are some people out there that know how to do that.”
DO YOU FEEL ANYTHING ABOUT THE DEMISE OF DEI? “None. I guess me and you could probably sit in front of a psychiatrist and they could explain it, but I don’t know why -- I don’t. It don’t bother me. I’ve got my own little life going on, my own problems that I deal with that keep me pretty damn busy. Really busy -- I just don’t think about it. A lot’s changed, people come and go. I learned a long time ago when I was racing late models that when you meet somebody you like and you’re working with them and you’re having fun -- you just assume they’re going to be there forever and they’re not. Two years later they’re going to work for somebody else and that’s the way the damn thing goes. People come and go in your life and you don’t always get things the way you want them and that’s just another case of it.”
ABOUT FEMALE ON THE RACE TEAM, KATIE MUIR. “She’s been on our team, she came from the Hooters Pro Cup Series, she was building shocks for the whole series and just wanted to move up and wanted to do better. She works her butt off so we put her in a position to where she’s excelled and she’s got a lot of tough competition around her in the shop, but she hangs in there.”
DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE SAFETY MEETING?“I wasn’t there today. Why the hell would you have a meeting at nine o’clock on a Wednesday? I didn’t even know about it till I got here. I was glad it was only for the Nationwide Series. I would have a harder time explaining why I didn’t know there was one for the Sprint Cup.”
HOW MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE ARE YOU THIS YEAR? ”I feel good. I’m ready to work. I have good bosses and they feel comfortable. My teammates are excited. We’re all getting along good and having a good time. Everybody’s confident and it feels good. The team seems confident. They’re kind of a quiet bunch, but they seem like they’re ready and they talk about how well put together all the cars are and how ahead of schedule they are this year compared to last year in the shop. I’m looking forward to it -- I feel real comfortable.”
WAS DEI MISSING AN OWNER PRESENCE AT THE SHOP?
”I think you all know just as well as I know what that was like and what was going on over the last several years. I don’t care to really comment about it and get my name in that article about it. Chip (Ganassi) will provide Martin (Truex Jr) and Martin’s team with something they haven’t had in a while and that’s definitely a race owner and a guy that’s in tune with what’s being done and what changes are being made and what direction they’re going. Teresa (Earnhardt) -- it’s not a knock on her. She had that thrown in her lap and its up to her and only her what she wanted to do with it and how involved she wanted to be. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks or how everybody else feels about her either being at the track or not being at it. If she don’t want to be there -- its her life and her decision. You cant get too critical of her on that. It was tough for Martin (Truex Jr) and his team to see Richard Childress and other owners and how they were compared and think that would be nice. He’s got that this year and I am excited for them.”
DO YOU ENJOY HAVING A NEW ORGANIZATION? “Oh yeah, it’s awesome. Rick (Hendrick) knows everything about what’s happening with my race tam. I can go up to him and ask if he heard about ‘such and such’ and he was part of making that decision two weeks ago. It’s just awesome. It’s really good and a really good feeling because you know when you’re discussing your career and your contract and how well you’re doing or how well you’re not doing -- you know the guy’s going to shoot you straight and give you a sincere answer because he knows what’s going on because he know everything about the team and whose fault it is when it ain’t running good.”
From GM
