Catchfence

With 10 Races Remaining in the Season, Chevrolet Leads Manufacturers’ Cup Standings

Richmond, VA – Mark Martin, No. 5 Kellogg’s/CARQUEST Impala SS, finished fourth in the Chevy Rock and Roll 400 to secure the top-seed heading in to the final 10-races of the 2009 season.

With four wins this season, Martin leads a six-car Team Chevy contingency in 12-car battle as the 2009 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field was set tonight at Richmond International Raceway.

Tony Stewart, No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Impala SS and Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS, sit second and third in the standings after 26-races. Johnson, the defending and three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) champion, finished 11th tonight while two-time champion Stewart took the checkered flag tonight in 17th place.

Four-time NSCS champion Jeff Gordon brought the No. 24 DuPont/National Guard Wounded Warrior Impala SS, to the finish line third tonight and secured sixth place in the Chase standings.

Ryan Newman, No. 39 US Army/NCO Impala SS, secured 10th place in the Chase order with a 10th place finish in the Rock and Roll 400.

Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Impala SS, secured 11th in the standings to make the Chase for the first time in his NSCS career. Montoya posted a 19th place finish in tonight’s race.

Clint Bowyer, No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Impala SS, finished sixth in the 400-lap/300-mile race. Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Impala SS, scored ninth tonight to give Team Chevy five of the top-10 finishers tonight.

Denny Hamlin (Toyota) won the race. Kurt Busch (Dodge) and Kyle Busch (Toyota) completed the top-five finishers.

In addition to the six Team Chevy drivers, completing the 12 driver roster in the Chase battle are: Hamlin, Kasey Kahne (Dodge), Kurt Busch, Brian Vickers (Toyota), Carl Edwards (Ford) and Greg Biffle (Ford).

The Chase kicks off September 20 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET IMPALA – Finished 19th, Seeded 11th:

KERRY THARP: We are joined by Juan Pablo Montoya, who drives the number 42 Target Chevrolet. This is his first time in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Your thoughts about how it has unfolded and the opportunity now to contend for the championship.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: It’s weird. We work all year for this and today we run pretty conservative, pits were pretty slow but we did what we had do to get in. It’s kind of weird, because I should be really pumped up and excited and right now I’m just thinking about, we need to run better every week.

We are pretty close. We have been pretty good every week. So, I don’t know. We’ll see. I think three races into the Chase, you’ll know where you are and see what happens.

Q. How do you look at New Hampshire, as the first race in the Chase, and do you like it?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I wouldn’t mind if it was a mile and a half. I run pretty good on mile and a halves. This year in the first New Hampshire race, we run like six or seven when the rain came.

I don’t know, we should run good there. We have a new car for there. Hopefully runs a little better than before. So, we’ll see.

Q. Your crew chief had such a plan for the first 26, and all his focus was on the first 26, getting you in. Number one, does he have a plan for the final ten, did he think that far ahead? Number two, the plan was to be consistent and smart and sort of Top 10 your way into the Chase. Can you Top 10 your way into a title?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: We might. You know, the 48 is not running as strong as it was. I think right now, it’s anybody’s game.

I think you’ve got to finish every race. I think a bad result is going to be a tenth place if you want to win the championship and a good result is going to be like the last couple of weeks for us that we’ve been fighting for wins. That’s the only way to do it.

Q. Your plan?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: My plan? The initial plan is to do the same thing we are doing, maybe a little more aggressive on changes. Like we had a good car but fell way behind on the changes. Tried one side, go back and changed it and that didn’t work there so we just kept falling back but that’s okay.

Q. You’ve had some great success earlier in your career in other forms of motorsports. Does this rank with that or do you feel that you’re not quite there yet? You’ve still got ten races to really make it there.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: It’s like everything, one on one, the big races; great, we won or great we made it, but right now it doesn’t matter.

We made it, we were good enough to be there and we showed everybody we had the potential. At this point I think we have got a car fast enough to go far. We’ll see. You know, we’ll see.

Q. You have won car titles, you challenged for Formula 1 World Championships; does it give you any satisfaction that now you are in the thick of it for a NASCAR title?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: You know, when I came here, at least myself, you can’t come here thinking you are going to run like crap. You know, you can’t. You know, if I came here thinking I’m going to run 20th every week, I shouldn’t even think about making the move.

You know, I came here thinking I can win and I knew where the team was when we got here, and between Brian, myself and everybody back in the shop, we worked really hard with Chip and everybody to make sure we raised our game. We have done what we had to to prove people wrong and I think we have.

I think when the merger happened at the beginning of the year, I don’t think anybody expected us to be as competitive as we are. So it’s nice to see.

Q. We were talking to Chip and finally he was like, people can get off my back; could you just talk a little bit about how this really rounds out his whole thing, too, to be able to go for this championship?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I don’t know, you know, I think that his IndyCar team, some years they win, some years they don’t. Some years they win races and they dominate and they are right there with Penske every year. For him to come here, I know at the beginning when he came in, he was pretty strong and then he went away; I think it’s nice. I think for me to have Target here and being back with Target, to put Target in the Chase was huge. It’s nice. It’s what we needed.

Q. When you came into NASCAR, you seemed to have an aggressive style but it worked for you and it seemed like you fine tuned your style and your patience and you still have the aggressiveness. What happened during your time here as far as to improve and fine tune your style?

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I think I learned that actually in Formula 1, that you have to be aggressive when you have to be aggressive and you have to be smart when you’ve got to be smart. When it’s restart and it’s time to go, you have to go and when it’s time to save the car, you have to save the car. Saving the car and the brakes and the tires, I’m not used to that. I was like flat shot all the time and here, you have to look a lot of people are giving you advice, don’t use the car so hard; try to go at fast as you can without abusing the car. There’s weeks where it really clicks and you wonder, why am I passing people so easy and I’m not even trying here. But if you try, you probably run slower and kill the tires. It’s really weird. It’s a really fine balance between being really good and really balance.

KERRY THARP: Juan, my final question to you, for the Hispanic media and fans, if you could talk about your excitement about being in the Chase. (Laughter) Thank you, Juan. Congratulations.

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS – Finished 11th, Seeded 3rd:

KERRY THARP: Jimmie Johnson has joined us on the podium, number 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet and comes into the Chase seeded second with 5,030 points. He finished the first 26 in points before the seeds in third, but now he moves up to second and obviously, Jimmie, in the Chase every year, going for your fourth consecutive championship. Your thoughts?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Looking forward to it. The Chase with Matt not making it will be the only one in the Chase, that’s a stat I’m proud of and the team is proud of. The last two races have not gone as we had hoped and we have some good tracks coming up for us. We’ll have to see.

To start a Chase, this is probably one of most interesting starts we are going to have. I think it’s anybody’s championship right now. Guys that have been kind of locked in, including Stewart, myself, Jeff, we have been running decent, but maybe not scoring the most points and you look at the guys around the bubble Mark and they have probably been scoring the most points.

So I think it’s really tough to really give this to anybody and really pick a favorite at this point. So we just need to buckle down put in ten good ones and work really hard.

Q. Do you kind of feel like you are entering this Chase with still a big target on your back because you are the three time defending champion?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Maybe other people view it that way but I live by the thought that that’s last year, and right now, Denny won the last race, and you go to Atlanta and it was Casey and we haven’t won since Indy. Stats are great and all that stuff .

That was last year. If we take last year’s set up to the tracks we’ll run 15th. It’s what’s going on right now. And nobody has had a clear advantage. I’m optimistic and feel we have a very good chance. We led a bunch at Michigan and didn’t get it done. Bristol we were fast and had troubles. Last week we started off good and felt like a couple nights early at Atlanta. Felt like Eldora. We have the speed. I look at what’s coming up tomorrow and what we have done in the past.

Q. When you are talking about the championship, the Chase being wide open, one of the people the most outspoken being the guy to watch is the guy on your right. Are you worried about Denny and what have you seen from him?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: You could at least ask me this when he’s not sitting next to me because now I have to say nice things. (Laughing).

I think the fact that he has made a lot of noise, shows what he’s capable of and his team. They are a very good organization and Denny is one on track that has been able to balance aggression and patience at the same time. It’s no surprise to me and I think that he’s going to be very competitive in the Chase. It’s going to be a big battle. I think you are going to have five or six cars that are really fighting for this thing.

Q. Humility is nice, but I can’t believe what my ears just heard. There’s a quote from you that says, “I’ve never felt this good about starting the Chase in the past. Our cars are spot on. I’m the best I’ve ever been.” And the other day you said it’s about performance and you don’t see yourself as the favorite. Are you just like, posturing? Which one of those is your view?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Came off a shitty race, basically. With all that in mind, I’m just not in a very good mood and just not happy how I ran tonight. I guess I made those comments Friday and was in a much better mood and tomorrow I’ll be in a better mood. But right now I’m just not happy with how we ran tonight, and, you know, we’ll go on and see what happens.

But again, it’s going to be a tough Chase, and I guess that’s it. Ran like shit.

KERRY THARP: Thank you, Jimmie.

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE IMPALA SS – Finished 17th, Seeded 2nd

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS – Finished 3rd, Seeded 6th:

KERRY THARP: We have Tony Stewart, driver of the number 14 Office Depot Chevrolet; Jeff Gordon and driver of the number 24 Dupont Chevrolet. Tony, let’s hit you first. You have been up top all year. Talk about being seeded second.

TONY STEWART: It’s better than 12th. I’m excited about that. The system I think is a good system. You know, it’s not devastating to leave here and be second in the points after leading for so long. I mean, we all knew what the system is going in. It’s a fair system. It’s an exciting system.

So, you know, we are not leaving here with our heads down because we are now second in the points by any means. We are right there in striking distance and if we can put together ten great weeks, then we will be the champion. If we don’t, then we didn’t deserve it.

But as a driver tonight, I’m kind of like where Jimmie was. I’m disappointed with my effort tonight. I made mistakes as a driver that I normally cuss people for doing, and from an ownership standpoint, I’m ecstatic to have us locked in and for Ryan and everybody on the U.S. Army Team and Tony Gibson and those guys to get themselves locked in, I’m extremely proud of those guys. This is a hard night to run when you have to fight your way into the championship Chase. It seems like there’s so many ways you can screw yourself up and only a few ways to ensure that you’re going to be in. So I’m really proud of their effort and I’m proud of my guys’ effort, too.

None of us on our team and none of us at Ryan’s or anybody at Stewart Haas know the meaning of quit. So we are excited about ten great weeks coming up.

KERRY THARP: Jeff Gordon, your thoughts about getting ready for the Chase. You certainly had a good run tonight. Your thoughts about making the Chase.

JEFF GORDON: I’m excited. We had a great year. We really had to rebound from last year’s effort. We just were kind of a non factor. And this year, I think has shown the effort the effort has really shown in the results. I felt like the first ten races we are were on our game and were strong and had a shot to win some races, like at Texas which is something I never thought I would do and then lost a bit of momentum, and Tony came on strong and Mark and Jimmie. It was a little bit disappointing.

But I feel like the last five or six races we have really been able to get some things turned around and I feel like we are really well prepared for the next ten races and I feel like tonight was something that really proved to a lot of people, including ourselves, of what we are capable of doing. We had a great, great run tonight and best car I’ve had here in a long time and as strong as Denny was for anybody to battle with him, I think was really saying something. And we battled with him a good bit. So it was a great night for us, and a little bit of momentum for us going into the Chase.

Hate to have a deficit, but like Tony said, sixth is better than 12th, of the final ten races, a lot is going to happen, and I think we have a great shot at it.

Q. Denny’s confidence has been soaring; as someone who knows him a little bit, do you think he’s a legitimate title contender?

TONY STEWART: Definitely. I think nights like tonight prove that, and they have been strong. They have been strong consistently.

You know, I don’t think you can count anybody out. I mean, there’s obviously drivers that are bigger favorites than others, but the reality is there’s 12 great teams that made the Chase and there’s reasons they all got here. You can’t count anybody out.

But for sure, somebody that’s starting the Chase off of a win has got a lot of momentum on their side. You look at him tonight, he’s on cloud nine. He just won his first race at his home track leading into the Chase. So I don’t know how you could have more momentum on your side than what he’s got right now.

Q. The emotion you felt when you won at Indianapolis; can you talk about what he’s feeling winning here?

TONY STEWART: I think he’s happy. Rocket science. (Laughter).

JEFF GORDON: You have to clarify things.

TONY STEWART: Well… (Laughter).

Q. When you woke up on Sunday morning before the Daytona 500, would you have imagined you would be second and seeded for the Chase?

TONY STEWART: Oh, dude, you have to see some of my dreams. (Laughter) That doesn’t even scratch the surface of my wildest dreams. No, it’s not even close to my wildest dreams. (Laughter).

Q. Your less than wildest dreams. You’re seeded second, both of you are in the Chase; do you really think that there’s anybody that can beat the Hendrick teams right now?

TONY STEWART: I think we just answered that. Anybody that’s in the Chase is a contender. You know, we have seen so many things since the Chase has been here. You know, you can go to Loudon next weekend and this thing can be totally upside down and you can have half the field of the Chase almost eliminated from it in one week. We have seen weird things happen and it’s one of those deals that you can’t predict what’s going to happen in this Chase. Every year, it’s been different for any other year.

Would we have bet on this at Daytona? No way. To get one car in the Chase; but to have both cars, we are ecstatic. I can’t wait to get to the shop on Monday and shake their hands and pat everybody on the back and say, thank you, to everybody. That’s what I’m looking forward to the most. I’m not looking forward to the day off tomorrow. I want to get to the shop and thank these guys. And Jeff knows this because he’s been a car owner, too.

This is a tough series, and to get two cars in a Chase is unbelievable. I mean, I’m very humbled by it. But I’m very thankful that we have got the group of guys that we have. And I’ve always been surrounded by good people at Gibbs but there’s something different when it’s your own deal. There’s a greater sense of pride when you know you have had a hand in making it be successful and that’s why I can’t wait to get to the shop on Monday.

Q. Is Loudon a really good place to kind of start off the Chase? It’s kind of a racer’s racetrack where handling and everything comes into play and some of a lot of the tracks in the Chase will be mile and a halves. Is that a good place to get started at?

TONY STEWART: I like starting there. I feel like it’s one of our better tracks. We don’t all win there but we always consistently run really well there. I’m kind of excited about starting there and hopefully get a good run there and get a good start in the Chase.

I like it. I agree with that. It is a handling track. It is a driver’s track to where you can help yourself out from the driver’s standpoint and move around. It doesn’t seem like you can move around a lot but from the steering wheel you can move around a lot and help yourself out.

But it is, it’s a fun place to start the Chase, and you know, as we have seen in the past, that can be a place that can either get your Chase hopes off to a great start or they can be wiped out in one week.

JEFF GORDON: It’s a good place for us to get the Chase started. There’s a great fan base up there. I think we have seen some exciting races there, and so, yeah, I think it’s a good place to start it off. There are a lot of mile and a halves, so I think it’s good to mix it up.

Q. Yesterday I asked you the position you were in the Chase, were you pushing the envelope or were you actually going hard, still aggressively? You said you were going to push the envelope. You started off strong, a few mishaps. How do you think this propels you as far as winning the championship this year?

JEFF GORDON: We pushed hard. Unfortunately Clint Bowyer pushed a little too hard down in turn one and almost pushed us out but we caught our way back up to third. I did exactly what I expected us to do as a team. Our goal was to win, and we went into it as hard as we could to win. We had great pit stops. We had the best car I’ve had here in a very long time. I pushed hard when I felt like I had to on the restarts, the double file restarts, and I think we had a second place car and we finished third.

I think it propels us very nicely to go into the Chase, actually.

Q. Does it concern you at all that your highest finish in the last few races is 19.5?

TONY STEWART: No, because they are not going to give a championship trophy off the last four weeks, so, no, I’m not.

KERRY THARP: Thank you very much.

MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 KELLOGG’S IMPALA SS – Finished 4th, Seeded 1st

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 U.S. ARMY IMPALA SS – Finished 10th, Seeded 10th

KERRY THARP: We are joined by Mark Martin, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch. Congratulations to all three. Mark, you are seeded first in the Chase with 5,040 points. Kurt Busch, you have 5,010 points seeded 7th and Ryan Newman, you’re seeded 10th. Your thoughts heading into the Chase with the No. 1 seed in.

MARK MARTIN: Well, that’s certainly cool. I’m certainly going to enjoy that for a week here. I feel like a whole new person, huge weight off my shoulders. It’s just like I said before, to make this thing is the icing and now we get to go race for the cake.

Of course, I’m living in it now, but to me, this is certainly the best year of my career, the most fun, and since Chicago, some of that fun has been sort of smothered out by all of the pressure. We are in, we are out, we are in, all that. But the thing that I’m excited about is our race team has been so strong since Chicago. The cars have gotten better and better on the racetrack, and Chicago, Indy, Bristol, Michigan, and here, I don’t think we ever ran outside the Top 5, and those are the kind of race cars and the kind of effort that you have to give to be a championship contender. So we’ll see how things fare here.

But anybody in this Chase can win this Chase. Every team that’s in it is capable of putting together a ten race row. That’s all it takes is the magic ten races, and anybody can win it.

KERRY THARP: Ryan Newman, your thoughts about getting into the Chase your first year with Stewart Haas Racing. Congratulations.

RYAN NEWMAN: Thank you. It’s a dream come true, to think back to Daytona going through basically three race cars and make it to Richmond here and be in this position, it says a lot about the hard work that Tony Gibson, Tony Stewart and everybody at Stewart Haas Racing has put into this effort.

People say it looked like a risk to leave Penske Racing but to me it looked like an opportunity. Yeah, there was risk associated with it but it was an opportunity. I’m extremely gratified to be in this position. Everybody is going to be working their hardest to do it and only one can win it. We will do what we have to do and I’m so proud to represent U.S. Army and knowing that I’m driving for over a million solders fighting for our freedom and this is a win for them, too.

Q. What’s the overwhelming feeling right now? You ran in the Top 5 all night. Were you thinking something might jump up and hit you?

MARK MARTIN: I was happy about that but we did the same thing at Atlanta and the same thing at Bristol and we did the same thing at Michigan. But now, you have to remember, at Michigan, we ran out of gas at the end, and that took our cushion that we were building up; we did the same thing at Indy, as well.

So that kind of performance is really exciting. And when we started off the year, we were running sixth and seventh and stuff like that, and I was really pretty excited about that. But you know, we needed to make our stuff a little bit better
and we managed to do that. And the cars were better everywhere we are going now, we are making them handle better.

Make no mistake, Alan Gustafson is the reason we have had all of the success that we have had this year; I am not. It’s Alan.

RYAN NEWMAN: Maybe a little bit, Mark.

MARK MARTIN: Our chance, our opportunity to work together, is really coming together. And I trust him to make decisions on that race car that I don’t check behind and I don’t ask questions. I just strap in and mash it.

Q. How much better can you get performance wise?

MARK MARTIN: I don’t know. How would I know that? We’ll keep working and see. We’ll see what happens.

Q. With your team early in the season, consistency seemed to be a bit of a factor and like you said, you talked about since Chicago, for the most part you guys have been pretty strong. What have you seen in the development or the progression in the team to where you are building on that consistency which everybody thinks is going to be the key for the Chase?

MARK MARTIN: You use the term consistency, but it’s not fair. We didn’t run bad; we broke. We didn’t blow engines, we blew a tire. We fixed our engine issues, two different issues at two different racetracks and we fixed those. I can break a nail in the sand bed, Yates figured that out and Jack figured that out and Yates figured that out when I started running their stuff and it has to be pretty bulletproof for me to not break it. We got through all that stuff.

And then we got caught up in a couple of wrecks and performance has been consistent and gotten better. So can I guarantee you I won’t have flat tires and run out of gas, or whatever, or wrecks? I can’t tell you. That’s what the Chase is all about. We’ll go out here and we’ll race and we’ll see who does what. But I can tell you this; in my opinion, we can go racing next week and know that we can have a bad day and still have a chance. If I had a bad day here, we wouldn’t have a chance. And that’s the difference.

Q. How hungry are you for this championship, because this looks like this might be your best chance at getting it finally after all these years; just how hungry are you?

MARK MARTIN: Well, I don’t know how to answer that right now. I’m not really thinking about it. It’s not something that defines my career. I didn’t take this job to win the championship. I took this job to drive a fast race car and hopefully win a race. And you know, I don’t think you can will your way to scoring points. I tried that, for 19 years. I tried to will my way, will more points than we were scoring on the racetrack, and it never worked. And it was very frustrating.

So what we will do and what I will do is do my very best, I’m a really intense person, I’m really competitive, and I will give every ounce that I have at it just like I do every time. And we’ll see how it turns out. You know, I’m proud to be driving for this race team. Alan Gustafson is the key to all of the success I’ve had this year.

Q. Was there one defining moment in the first 26 races, something that just kind of turned the season around that? Hendrick thought it might have been at Darlington.

MARK MARTIN: Darlington was nice. I thought Phoenix was overwhelming, the realization of a dream; how long it had been since a won a race. A lot of people questioned whether I would win another race. I certainly questioned it myself.
I don’t know. I thought that Phoenix win was pretty special myself.

KERRY THARP: Thank you very much.

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