Catchfence

Daytona Beach, Fla – Tony Stewart, No. 14 Burger King Impala SS, will start on the pole for Sunday’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola as rain forced qualifying to be cancelled. The field at Daytona International Speedway will be set by provisions set forth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rulebook.

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Impala SS, will start alongside Stewart on the front row with Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS rolling out third.

Ryan Newman, No, 39 U.S. Army/Haas Automation Impala SS, will start seventh. Mark Martin, No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Impala SS, will roll of 11th and Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Impala SS, will start 12th.

A total of 16 Team Chevy drivers, more than any other manufacturer, will be in the 43-car field for the Sunday’s race.

Race No. 18 of the 2009 season is scheduled to start at 8:00 p.m. with live coverage on TNT TV, PRN Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 BURGER KING CHEVROLET IMPALA SS – Starts on Pole:
WITH QUALIFYING CANCELLED CAN YOU JUST TALK ABOUT HOW YOUR CAR WAS IN PRACTICE YESTERDAY AND YOUR THOUGHTS HEADING INTO THE RACE?
“I’m excited about it and I think handling is always a big issue here at Daytona so that is what makes racing here so much fun is because it’s a handing issue and it’s not just necessarily strategy of being in the right place at the right time as much as you have to have a good, balanced car to get to the front and stay at the front.

“So I am excited about it and we have got different colors with the Burger King paint scheme on the car this weekend and I am excited to get out there tomorrow.”

DALE EARNHARDT JUNIOR CAME IN HERE A BIT AGO AND HE SAID THE REASON THAT HE LIKES THE 400 VERSUS THE 500 IS THE PAGEANTRY AND EVERYTHING WITH SPEEDWEEKS JUST SEEMS TO GO ON FOREVER, AND THIS ONE IS WHERE YOU JUST COME IN AND RACE. DO YOU AGREE?
“It’s like a typical weekend. It’s no different than any other weekend really and it’s only the Daytona 500 where we have ten days in here so that does make Daytona in February different than here in July obviously but it’s still three days here and you still spend the same amount of time you do at any other race track but it’s nice. I mean the format of today of just qualifying on Saturday and being able to impound is nice and we got all of our work done last night and we all come in and we’re supposed to qualify today and race tomorrow so it kind of gives us all a day to kind of relax and get ready.

THIS IS YOUR THIRD POLE IN THE LAST FIVE RACES AND ALL OF THEM BY RAIN. DOES THIS ONE MEAN LESS THAN POCONO AND NEW HAMPSHIRE?
“I don’t know how to answer that honestly. It’s still a pole due to rain so we’re still going to start the race on the pole tomorrow.”

BUT MEANING IT’S EASIER TO GO UP AND BACK AS OPPOSED TO POCONO.
“I don’t know that it would matter that much here then if it’s that much easier. It really doesn’t matter anyway. I mean if you have got a good enough car then Pocono is an example that at a Cup race that if your car is good enough to get to the front then you can do it from dead last and it doesn’t matter if you start on the pole or not. I mean the advantage is it gives us a good pit selection and that is what helps. Other than that it’s really not an issue.”

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS – Starts 2nd:
TALK ABOUT HOW YOUR CAR WAS IN PRACTICE AND GOING INTO TOMORROW NIGHT’S RACE.
“Obviously we are in a great position in the points and starting where we are starting is certainly going to make a big difference. I felt like yesterday in practice we tried to run in traffic a lot more because we were anticipating that we weren’t going to qualify well with the impound. And then this kind of happened so we feel like it’s going to be a really intense, exciting race tomorrow with the double-file restarts and starting outside front row is a really great place and a great pit stall and we are going to try and take advantage of it because we felt like the car wasn’t quite as good as we were hoping but I felt really positive about some of the changes we were making in the last couple of runs we made there last night.”

HOW IS THE RUBBER THAT THE GRAND AM CARS ARE GOING TO PUT DOWN ON THE TRACK BEFORE YOUR RACE TOMORROW NIGHT GOING TO AFFECT THE RACE?
“I haven’t really thought about it a lot to be honest with you. It’s a good question but we won’t know until tomorrow. You know this track is always pretty hot and slick and those guys run pretty much around the bottom and I don’t know, I don’t think they are going to lay a ton of rubber down. So, I don’t think it’s going to be a big issue but we’ll find out once we get out there.

“You know this place is kind of strange for putting rubber down on the track anyway it’s not like most tracks because the radius of the corners is so big and its fairly abrasive and what wears tires, I can’t really say that it lays a lot of rubber down and if it does, it won’t take us long to get the Goodyear rubber laid in there.”

DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRE ISSUES IN PRACTICE YESTERDAY OR DO YOU KNOW IF ANY OF YOUR TEAMMATES DID?
“Well we had a failure on a tire and it was the tire that delaminated on the right rear. We didn’t have any wear issues or anything like that and we felt really confident about stuff like that. We did the tire test here and I didn’t drive it, but Mark Martin did but our team did and worked through all the issues we had in February and we feel really confident about that. And that was a right front issue that we had then so we feel pretty confident about all that and yesterday we had a right rear tire that just had the right rear where the inside corner of it delaminated and we got fortunate that it happened where it did and didn’t tear anything up but there is little things here and there which is common for first practice at Daytona with front tires like we were seeing things on the left front. But it was nothing that we felt really concerned about.”

DO YOU KNOW WHAT LAP YOU HAD THAT ISSUE WITH THE TIRE, AND SINCE WE HAVE A NEW TIRE SOME PEOPLE ARE SAYING IT’S A LOOSER FEEL AND SOME ARE SAYING IT’S MORE GRIPPY.
“I felt like it had a little more grip the first couple laps but it does seem to fall off pretty quickly. And yesterday with the first practice it was like twenty-five degrees hotter with the track temperature than when they tested here so I think everybody was slipping and sliding around a lot and I don’t think it’s this track I think it’s just in hot conditions. We are going to go back a little bit more to things we have done in the past but still keep an open mind around the issues we have had with the left front and right front tires in the past and try to be conservative in those areas but the car felt decent and it wasn’t as well balanced. I was tight most of the practice yesterday and I heard some guys were loose and some guys were tight. You know, until you can compare it in the same conditions tire to tire it’s really hard to know whether it’s just the tire or the track conditions.

“The track temperature is so much higher here during July, obviously. You just really slide around a lot and that’s why I’ve always felt like July is much more of a handling race than the February race. You can come from just about anywhere in the field in February and in July, I think a good starting position is going to be important. And so obviously starting up front is a big plus for that.”

SHOULD THE QUALIFYING FORMAT CHANGE FOR DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA? AN EXTRA DAY TO GET IT IN?
“I tell you what I will say about the 2.5-mile tracks. I don’t understand why we’re doing two-lap qualifying. It’s not necessary. We can go out there and get up to speed in three-quarters of a lap that we run. Run one lap. That would cut back on the amount of time it takes. One of the problems we have here is that they look at it and say well, we need 3.5 hours to qualify all the cars. That’s just crazy how long it takes. I don’t think the outcome would be a whole lot different. So I would just like to see us at here and Talladega just go to one-lap qualifying. The extra days, you’re starting to get into a lot of other things with hotels and travel and a lot of things. Right now in this economy, adding extra days is not going to happen. Whether or not we could come back tomorrow morning and qualify and things like that, I think ever since we went away from the second day qualifying and all that it just seems like it’s been the constant here lately where if it rains out, we pretty much move on and set the field.

]”Mother Nature. You can’t control Mother Nature. That’s what’s been biting us. It’s not so much the schedule and everything else, it’s the weather.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS – Starts 3rd:
WITH QUALIFYING BEING CANCELED DUE TO RAIN, CAN YOU JUST TALK ABOUT HOW YOU WERE IN PRACTICE AND YOUR THOUGHTS LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW’S RACE
“We weren’t going to be in third. I know that much. We’re just working on a lot of other things. Just like everybody else is saying, handling is so important. We didn’t even make a qualifying run. We didn’t want to disappoint ourselves and sleep on it all night long. So it’s definitely going to help our starting position. I feel that the car is going to drive really well. We got off to a slow start yesterday in practice and had a lot of ground to make up. But by the end of practice, we sorted out the package that we needed and felt real good about it. So, we’ll take the track position. It’s as important here as just about any race track we go to, oddly enough. Just with the track aging and the roughness of the track. It is so important where you start and where you’re running on the track. So, hopefully we can take advantage of that all day long and be on the right tire strategy and I can make the right decisions to keep us up front and we can have a good race.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SINGLE LAP QUALIFYING AT DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA?
“At moments like right now in trying to take care of the guys who needed to qualify in on speed, we can come up with ideas, but we need consistency in my opinion. And to have it work at some tracks and not others, I think would just confuse us all the more, and the fan, for that matter. And then at some tracks you’d wish that it would work and why is it only on superspeedway. Pocono there’s an argument. It takes a long time to get around that race track. So I just think it would confuse things. But, yeah, you’d like to see us qualify, especially when the sun starts to come out and it’s too small of a window of sun to get it in. So I see where the thought comes from, but I just think it would be tough.”

SO IT’S IMPORTANT WHERE YOU START ON A RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACK?
“It’s important. And it’s changed really in the last few years. And in my opinion, with this car, it’s becoming more and more important at Daytona. At Talladega, it does not matter. Track position is not as important or really has no importance because you can run three and four and five wide. And here, just in practice yesterday, two to three laps into the run you needed to let out of the gas and start lifting; where at Talladega, you’ll run an entire fuel run wide-open and never let off. So as soon as you need to lift, it makes it single file. And then single file means track position is super important. And if the race was when the sun was out, I think the race would be really boring and single file. Luckily, it’s a night race. The grip will be higher. We can run side-by-side a little easier. It still gets strung out from time to time, especially on old tires, but it’s a handful out there. In yesterday’s practice, none of the cars were driving good (laughs). It was really exciting from sitting in the car and watching other guys try to handle.”

WILL THE DOUBLE FILE CHANGE A LOT OF THAT?
“It will. I think there was some strategy that you used to either get a gap on the guys, like if you’re running along and the gap developed in front of you on a restart, you could use that pocket of air to run up into and create a pass. If somebody was slow on the restart, you could time it right and get inside of them at the start/finish, or the outside, depending on what type of blocking that guy would try to do. You had an option. So I think the double-file will eliminate those options. You can’t pass ’til the start/finish and if you do have a run, I’m not really sure where you’re going to go (laughs) with it two wide. So it will change that strategy some, but I think it will keep it entertaining still because we’re all up there racing for the positions that count and the positions that are important. I think it will probably have less of an effect here. I did not benefit from the double-file restarts at Loudon. But there was a lot of good racing as a result of the double-file restarts, I thought. At Sonoma, it went my way. I passed 15 cars on restarts the way it worked out. I was in the right lane and off I went. So you’ll win some and lose some. But I think here, it’s going to be tough to see a big difference.”

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- GM Racing Communications, Press Release