JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT/PEPSI IMPALA SS met with members of the media
at Auto Club Speedway and discussed racing at Auto Club Speedway, being
in Southern California and other topics.
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT COMING BACK TO AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY?:
"I'm really excited. It's a big weekend for us
because our sponsor, Pepsi, is sponsoring this race -- the Pepsi 500.
We've got a special DuPont/Pepsi paint scheme this weekend so
it's definitely a big weekend. Had the big premiere Wednesday and
the Speedway-Pepsi party on Wednesday so it's been a great week and
it's a big weekend for us. We ran so well here earlier in the year
that certainly it has us excited about coming back and hoping that we can
duplicate that performance and maybe pick up the results by one."
WHAT COULD A BIGGER TIRE FROM GOODYEAR DO FOR THE SPORT AND FOR THE
DRIVERS?: "I've got to get up on the latest scoop. I
hadn't had a chance to talk to anybody about the test. I
don't even know what their goal is other than I would think that
they're just trying to figure out a way of getting the compounds to
such where we have a little more grip in the car mechanically and it
doesn't abuse the shoulder of the tire as much is my guess. I
really haven't had a chance to talk to them about what
they're trying to accomplish there, sorry. I'll find out
though and get back to you on it."
WHAT MAKES HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS SO SUCCESSFUL OVER THE LAST DECADE?:
"I think the attention to detail and your people are the most
important part of it. Obviously, we have a great owner in Rick
(Hendrick), he's our leader and he sets a great example as to how
to be successful. He just recognizes how to put the right people
together. Success sort of breeds more success and we've been able
to go on a path through the multi-car team process -- started at two,
went to three and now four.
"We've just found a way to really capitalize on that and make it
work well by sharing information seamlessly and really having people that
communicate well with one another to not only make their own individual
team better, but make the whole organization better and it's worked
very well."
CAN A DRIVER FEEL MOMENTUM AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE GOOD THINGS
COMING IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS?: "You sense, not necessarily prior
to, but I think you have certain tracks that you feel confident about as
a driver and a team and then if you back up those results then you start
to feel a little of that momentum. By feeling momentum, you just feel a
positive ness within the team. In how everybody is getting along when
you're working through all the changes through the weekend in
practice and qualifying and preparing for the race. It just seems like
there's nothing you can do that's going to rock the boat or
shake things up. That certainly is something great to build on because
half of this sport is about people having confidence in one another.
"We don't have computer data on the cars so the information the
driver gives to the crew chief and the team and the information that the
crew chief gets from the engineers -- if you have confidence in what one
another is saying and ideas then that allows you to make better choices
and decisions and that's what makes a strong effort and strong
team. A strong team and good results are what build momentum. We had a
good result last week, it was a pretty tough path to get to that result
so I can't say that we've really got momentum on our side
right now. I think we had a great result from a tough day and that this
is a good track for us. What last week showed me was what fighters we
are as a team and that we never give up and we just continue to push no
matter what's happening out there on the track. To me, that
definitely is a positive going into each and every weekend."
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU ENCOUNTER ON PIT ROAD?: "The
biggest challenge is at the early stages of a race when there are a lot
of cars on the lead lap and the caution comes out and you come down pit
road. I have a little diagram that the team draws for me that we put on
my dash that gives me the cars that are pitting in front of me and behind
me. I had a slight issue in New Hampshire several years ago where I
turned into my pit stall and didn't realize that Michael Waltrip
was actually in the stall before me and I drove over a lot of pit crew
members. Ever since that incident, to try to avoid that from happening,
we put that diagram up there to help me get in and out of the pits.
Steve (Letarte, crew chief) counts me down, 'Five, four, three,
two, one,' into the stall and he'll usually clear me out.
Under green flag situations, that's the toughest thing about this
track is attacking the pit road entry. Once you get on pit road,
it's pretty simple, it's a big, wide with big stalls pit
road."
DO YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON WHO THE FIRST FIVE INDUCTEES SHOULD BE INTO
THE NASCAR HALL OF FAME?: "I've got a couple ideas, but
I'm excited to see it. I've seen it in downtown Charlotte
where they're building the facility and it's something to be
really proud of. I think it's a great way to really start off this
Hall of Fame and its history and those people that have built the sport
to what it is today. I think it's a hard choice to narrow it down
-- what it is five? I think it's a tough choice, but I think there
are a couple that are clear like Bill France and those. I think
I'm as anxious as everybody else to see who those five are and who
the next five are and the next five. It's something that's
very excited for the sport."
HOW DO YOU DO YOUR PREPARATION BEFORE AND AFTER A RACE WEEKEND AND IS IT
SIMILAR TO HOW JIMMIE JOHNSON DOES HIS LIKE WATCHING THE RACE VIDEOS?:
"I don't do it that way. I think sometimes you can spend
too much time analyzing too many details. To me, what I do is I analyze
what the car is doing every time I'm on the track and try to give
the most valuable information back to the team that I possibly can.
That's what I do throughout the whole weekend. When I'm
driving the car, I try to drive it the best that I possibly can and make
the car go as fast as I can. While you're trying to make it go as
fast as you can, you're also trying to take in that information
that you can give back to the team to make it go faster.
"The other time that I spend is just really keeping my mind clear and
relaxing, eating well, fluids -- all the things that I feel like I need
to get through Sunday's race. I don't know, I kind of keep
it simple because there's never been a race I've seen where
another race went exactly like it. So I try to keep an open mind as to I
don't have any idea when that green flag drops as to whether that
car is going to be awesome or it's going to be terrible. And I
don't go either way with it, I do everything I can to play my part
in how the car is going to be and then you have the leave the job up to
the rest of the team to prepare it and we work together, but when it all
comes down to it, Steve (Letarte, crew chief) make the calls and the
engineers and they spend so much time going over the data and the details
based on everything that I give them. Then you have to have faith in
them and when the green flag drops, if it's great, you drive the
wheels off of it and don't say a whole lot and hope that you can
keep up with the track.
"If you're not, like we were last week, you scream and yell and
then you finally calm down and you give good information to try to make
the car better. Last week I didn't think we could ever start any
worse than we did and we finished second. That's why I go into it
without putting a whole lot of effort into paying too much attention to
the details because too many things can change."
DO YOU THINK YOUR ROUTINE IS BETTER THAN JIMMIE JOHNSON'S ROUTINE?:
"Everybody I'm sure has a different way of doing it and when
you're having success out there then it's easy to say,
'Well, that's the right way to do it.' But
that's the way I've always done it and that's the way I
continue to do it and I try not to change that up. When everything is
going right and the car is right and the pit stops are there and
I'm driving well -- we're capable of winning any race. What
makes all those things come together and happen, if I thought that
watching video and doing other things would make that happen then I would
do it. I've done it all over the years, but I've found a
routine that works best for me."
HOW HAVE TO SEEN DALE EARNHARDT, JR PROGRESS FROM A KID TO A MAN AT AGE
35 TOMORROW?: "I'm really proud of him. He takes a lot of
heat as well as gets a lot of praise from his support group and fans.
It's tough to be Dale Earnhardt, Jr. A lot of people look from
the outside and go, 'Ah, man I would like to be him, he's got
it so good,' but it's not necessarily the case. I think he
puts a lot of pressure on himself to be a great driver, but he also does
a great job not trying to live within his Dad's shadow and he wants
to be his own person and driver.
"He is at one of the best organizations and he feels that pressure being
at the organization like the rest of us do and when the results
aren't there he beats himself up like the rest of us do.
He's a normal guy, he just has different situations that he has to
deal with that are sometimes pretty extreme and I give him a lot of
credit for handling it the way that he does."
HOW MUCH IS THE OUTCOME OF THE CHASE GOING TO BE ABOUT THE CREW CHIEFS
MAKING THE RIGHT CALL?: "The crew chief is as much a part of the
team as a member of the pit crew, as the driver, as the engineer --
it's the total team effort that really makes it happen.
There's days when the driver makes a great move and he gets the
praise and, 'He won the race.' But he couldn't have
done it without a car capable of doing it, he couldn't have done it
without the pit crew putting him in position. It's the same thing
with the crew chief. If the crew chief is getting good information from
the driver then it helps his decision making. If you're in seventh
or eighth place coming in the pits, sometimes that makes your decision
easier. If you're coming in first, that is probably the hardest
position to be in and sometimes that's just a roll of the dice as
to which one you should do -- two tires, gas and go or four tires or stay
out.
"To me, what makes a great crew chief is a guy that uses all the
information and the people around him the best that he possibly can and
he makes the call and he lives with that choice. He says that he made
the best call that he could at that time. Sometimes they work out and
sometimes they don't, but you have to stand by it and learn from it
and go to the next one. I feel like that's where Steve (Letarte,
crew chief) is so good. I really like the calls that he makes, just like
last week. He made a four tire call and it was the right call and we
hadn't been second really all day and it gives us not only a shot
at second, but it gave us a shot to win so it was a great call. So yeah,
there's going to be days it's going to come down to pit crew,
there's going to be days it comes down to the crew chief and some
days it comes down to the driver, but it's still the best team
that's going to win the Chase and the championship."
HOW MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE IS THERE FROM THIS RACE IN LABOR DAY TO NOW AND
WHAT ARE YOU ABLE TO DO IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WHEN YOU'RE HERE?:
"You asked about three questions there so I am going to try to get
to all of them. The time difference and the date difference in the race,
I mean certainly this used to be a night race and now it's a day
race and certainly this time of year is the perfect time of year for us
to be here weather-wise. You just can't beat this weather. Track
temperature and everything is just perfect for the race cars. Anytime
that we come out on the west coast, the teams are happy to have a day
race because that means we get back home at a fairly decent hour instead
of a day later and doesn't shorten our week up.
"Other than that, it doesn't matter when we race here and what the
conditions are as long as it's the same for everybody. It was
pretty extreme last year and I think that would have made a difference
from the fans standpoint and choosing to come out here. I don't
know why the sales are sometimes flat here. Its southern California, I
think I made more of a comment about NFL franchises can't seem to
make it work in this area so that tells me that it's a tough
market. We have a great fan base out here, but is it big enough to
handle two races at a facility like this? I don't know, only time
will tell. I love coming out here. I love all the things there are to
do, not just in L.A. and near the beach, but just in this surrounding
area there's a lot of cool things to do.
"I enjoy this track very much and plus we've had good success on
the track. If I said anything, I would totally be speculating, I
don't have all the poles and the stats and the data that NASCAR and
ISC has as to why fans come, why they don't and whose coming and
whose not and whose interested in NASCAR and whose not or what other
things are going on. That's their profession, mine is to drive the
car the best I can."
IS THERE A CHANGE IN YOUR STRATEGY IN THE CHASE WITH TALLADEGA LATER IN
THE SCHEDULE?: "The bottom line is that it still comes in the 10.
You still have to deal with the same situation. The crash is going to
happen it's just whether or not you are going to get caught up in
it or not. Whether it comes early in the race or late in the race. I
don't know, I think what's going to happen is there's
going to be a little more pressure on the guys that are really in the
heat of the battle for the championship and whoever they are, I hope
I'm one of them, that's what's going to make you decide
how you approach that race. You can go into Talladega being aggressive
or you can go into Talladega being extremely conservative and both ways
can be good and both ways can be bad. I've never found any real
set way of making it work.
"Things are changing at Talladega, we saw that this last race with the
bump drafting and these guys pushing one another around, being able to
take two cars and drive to the front and be able to settle it between
themselves. That's only going to grow this next time and possibly
change the outcome of the race and how it's run this time. The
fact that Talladega is in the final 10 is the biggest unknown factor
there is so it's not necessarily when it comes in the Chase."
HOW WILL THE DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS AFFECT THE RACING AT AUTO CLUB
SPEEDWAY?: "I think that's going to be a huge plus for this
race track and this race. We've definitely seen the cars get
spread out here pretty quick. It's a big, fast race track and I
think a double-file restart is going to keep us bunched up together,
it's going to raise the intensity level and it's going to
cause a little bit more excitement. I think it's been a positive
everywhere we've gone and I think this is a track where it will
continue to be a big positive for."
DO YOU HAVE A FITNESS PROGRAM AND HAVE YOU ACCELERATED IT DURING THE
CHASE?: "I can't say it's accelerated for the Chase.
I think that most of when it gets accelerated is during the off-season
when you have more time to spend at the gym or I like to get out riding
my bike. I think that I've just been trying to maintain as much
fitness as I can during the season. It's tough, that's the
biggest challenge I've always had with it is that you get into a
regiment and the season starts and all of the sudden you're having
to fly to a city to do an appearance or you're going somewhere else
to do a production day and all of the sudden you worked out one day that
week instead of three and now all of the sudden you get off of your
routine. For me, the most important thing is just trying to maintain a
routine and I thank Blackberry because with Blackberry I have my schedule
right in front of me, I can put it on my calendar, I can't have any
excuses that I didn't see the calendar -- it's right
there."
DO YOU WORK OUT AT THE RACE TRACK?: "I don't work out at the
race track. Some guys do, I don't. The only thing I do is
continue to do things for my back where I'm stretching. I do work
with a chiropractor to do some adjustment and I do what they call Stem.
I don't know how exactly it works, but it send electric current
through the muscles to contract and release them that helps loosen
everything up. That's what I do on the weekends."
-credit: gm racing
