Catchfence

Team Chevy - GM Racing

THE MODERATOR: Let’s roll into our championship Ford 400 season finale here at Homestead Miami. We’re joined up at the podium right now by today’s race runner-up. That’s Jeff Burton. He drives the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.
Jeff, congratulations on a strong finish. You had a strong finish last night in the Nationwide Series. Your thoughts now as you build towards 2010.

JEFF BURTON: Certainly we’re happy with what we did tonight. We weren’t ecstatic about what we did; Denny and those guys did a little better job than what we did at the end. Just a little too loose, but I think that’s a little bit of me and Todd getting to know each other a little bit better. Again, we’re playing catch-up. We’re not 100 percent sure what we need to be doing to the cars, and the speed that we have right now we’re not 100 percent accustomed to it. So we’ve got to get familiar with it and understand what we need to do with our cars, and that’s as much about me telling him what I want as much as anything.

Hopefully we can continue to improve this winter because I know a lot of our competition is, and we can come out and be strong next year.

Q. Jeff, I think it was you, somebody at RCR said a while back that you guys built your cars to start the season and realized that you had gone in the wrong direction with them, and basically had to rebuild a fleet. You’ve now finished second two weeks in a row and three top 5s in the last four weeks. Was it simply a matter of you had the cars wrong and getting them right, or are you guys feeling like you’re back to where you need to be?

JEFF BURTON: Well, I think it’s more than that. I think obviously you’ve got to bring good hardware to the racetrack, and we did push the wrong buttons this winter and played catch-up obviously. With Todd coming on board, we’ve gotten together pretty quickly and had fast race cars pretty much all four weekends, and that’s certainly — we’ve put a different group of people together, a real strong group of people, and I think that’s helped us, as well.

So I think we’ve gotten — we’re certainly gotten better cars, but also I think we’ve done a nice job of putting together a really, really strong race team.

Q. Jeff, I know it’s a little early to look ahead, but you take an effort like this, and are you already thinking about what you have to work on in the off-season, what you have to do with these cars? I mean, do you feel encouraged coming out of this?

JEFF BURTON: Well, I certainly think that all of us at RCR are encouraged. I think it’s important to understand that we’re not where we need to be, and if we were, one of us would be over there where Denny is right now.

You know, we’ve made up a lot of ground, but I think it’s — we can’t take the approach going into next year that we’ve got it, you know what I mean, okay, we’ve got it figured out, because I guarantee to that our competition will be working really hard to be better, and if we bring the same stuff that we have here today to California, we won’t run very well.

So we’ve got to find a way to continue to improve, which is what we didn’t do last year, and we have to be on full alert to not let that happen again. I think we made a lot of mistakes last year that we can learn from going into this coming year, and hopefully we don’t make those same mistakes again. I don’t think we will. I think that we’ll be much smarter and do the right things.
But certainly I think all of us are fairly encouraged.

THE MODERATOR: We also have tonight’s third place finisher. That’s Kevin Harvick. He drives the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Certainly, Kevin, good way that you finished up here this evening. Your thoughts about tonight’s race.

KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, it was a good night for us. Obviously like Jeff said, we wanted to win the race. We got off a couple runs there in the middle of the race with a flat right front tire and over-adjusted it for the second run and kind of lost some track position.
But good weekend. It’s been a good last several months. Really since Sears Point, I think the cars have shown the speed that they needed to. We’ve crashed a lot and made a lot of mistakes from all angles to kind of screw that up when we had good cars, so from the driver’s seat, from a lot of different angles. But the speed has been there, and now we just need to get the consistency back and do the things we’ve always been known for as a company, and that’s being consistent and making decent days out of bad days.

You know, happy with the turnaround, and we’ll go forward.

Q. Gary just asked this to Jeff and I’m going to ask you, Kevin, we’ve seen teams have momentum at the end of seasons and not carry it over to the following season. We saw that with Carl last year; he won two out of the last three races and didn’t really carry it over. What changes do you need to make sure that you carry this momentum over to 2010 and keep this going? I also have a question for Jeff. Just wanted to clarify your contract. Are you in the same boat with Kevin that you’re up at the end of 2010, or are you signed for a couple more years?

KEVIN HARVICK: The biggest thing is we just can’t sit on our hands. We have to push forward. You have to figure stuff out. We figured a lot of stuff out in a short amount of time while we’re still trying to race, and that’s hard.

I would assume that they have a good plan going into the off-season as far as the things that we need to work on. And the biggest thing when it comes down to it is depth of your cars and your fleet. We’ve been building these cars, and we don’t have a lot of them, and we’ve figured some stuff out suspension-wise, so we’ve just got to keep pushing forward, and you’ve got to get ahead, and once you get ahead, you can’t stop, you’ve got to keep pushing.

JEFF BURTON: I think I have two years left. I think. Not real sure.

Q. Jeff, as the elder statesman of the group up there at that table, I was just wondering if you could possibly kind of put into context what this win by Jimmie, the fourth in a row, means. Can we call him the greatest driver of this generation?

JEFF BURTON: Well, everybody wants to make history when history has not been made yet, if that makes any sense. He’s not done. You know, it’s hard to — it’s hard when you’re racing against a guy to say he’s the best. That’s hard to do. But hey, four in a row, and consistent race winner, consistent five top, consistent pole sitter, how in the world can you not put him on the list?

You know, I have a great deal of respect for the work they put into it. The thing that interests me is I think sometimes I hear the fans say it’s coming easy to him. I suspect they work really hard. I suspect nothing comes that easy to anybody, and I’m sure that Chad and Jimmie and everybody works exceptionally hard. I know that I’ve had the privilege to work with Mark Martin, and I know if you’re going to run as well as he does, you’re going to have to work your ass off, and I’m sure that Jimmie does that.

I can’t put Jimmie in history because he’s not done yet, and I don’t think that we — I think it’s premature to try to do that. But anybody that doesn’t respect what they’ve done isn’t being fair to them. I understand pulling for somebody else, I get all that. I don’t really like the Cowboys very much, but I really think that I should respect what they’ve done, because it’s been an incredible — if you would have told me four years ago that somebody would win four championships in a row, I would tell you you’re crazy because 29 cars finished in the lead lap tonight. That’s how competitive it is what we do.

To win four championships in a row, I didn’t think anybody would be able to do that. Never in 100 years did I think somebody would be able to do that.

Q. Kevin and Jeff, tonight the 42 and the 14 had a few incidents. The 42 got black-flagged for two laps, last night Keselowski and Hamlin. Kevin, when you were going through stuff like this, I know fans liked it, the media liked it, it was very exciting. Does the sport need that kind of stuff? Do fans want to see that? Is it unnecessary? Does it add an exciting element?

KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I think there’s a lot of different ways you could approach it. I think that the consistency from 2001 to yesterday is probably a little different, and I think that if you’re going to make those calls consistently, then you need to keep them consistent now. We just need a consistent pattern.

This garage has a very good way of taking care of its own problems, and usually if you cause the most problems, you’ll have the hardest time. It’s pretty simple. It’s self-teaching. I went through that whole road. A lot of times you can fix things by not doing it in a race car.

I didn’t see what happened tonight, but you have your moments where you lose your mind and lose your temper and you want to just run over the top of somebody. If turnabout is fair play and it’s penalized, then it needs to be penalized. We just all need to know the rules. But I think there’s probably a lot better ways of handling it.

JEFF BURTON: Like I told you last night, what this sport needs is good racing. It doesn’t need running that mouth. I think running that mouth is not what it’s all about. I think good, hard racing is what the fans want to see. There’s a certain portion of people that want to see people yelling at each other, but I think the general population is really better off just watching good racing.

KEVIN HARVICK: Good hard racing is going to create its own accidents, it’s going to create its own moments, it’s going to create everything that the fans want to see. Good side-by-side racing will — that stuff is going to happen regardless. There’s not too many of us that are — I don’t want to get out anymore and fight with somebody. I don’t know, you just grow out of that, I guess, as you get older, and there’s not too many people in the garage that want to handle it that way.
Q. Jeff, I think the 48 team has only had one DNF during their championship run in the Chase. Can you speak a little bit to how their ability to avoid failures, not put themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time has contributed to their success?
JEFF BURTON: I think it speaks for itself. It’s not that they just finish races, they win races, too. If you look at the number of races they’ve won in the Chase, obviously it’s a big number. So not only do they not have problems, they finish really well, too.
It’s more — it has to be more than just not having problems.
THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you very much. We enjoyed watching you race this year. We appreciate everything. Take care.

MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 KELLOGG’S/CARQUEST IMPALA SS – Finished 2nd in series standings

THE MODERATOR: If I could have your attention, please, we have tonight our 2009 runner up in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and that’s Mark Martin. He drives the No. 5 Kellogg’s CARQUEST Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.

Mark, I can’t say enough about the type of season you had. I know you gave it everything you possibly could and certainly put on a great show for all the fans and the competitors that follow this sport. Your thoughts about how things unfolded this evening and maybe this entire season for you.

MARK MARTIN: Well, there’s a little bit of a dark cloud over it all because the boss and the family in Charlotte. I’m sorry that he wasn’t that he needed to be there. We made history in multiple ways tonight at Hendrick Motorsports, and for me it’s just incredible, just incredible to have had a chance at it.

We were the only team in the garage that had earned a chance in the last race at it, and that’s quite an accomplishment.
And just what the fans have done and what the competitors have done means so much to me. I don’t have one of those trophies, so I don’t know what one of those things would mean to me. But I can’t imagine it meaning any more than the feeling that I felt from so many people, competitors and fans.

Q. I just wanted to ask you the same question I asked Jeff about trying to put this victory by Jimmie into context in terms of where he might belong.

MARK MARTIN: Jeff told you the same thing. It’s very difficult when it’s happening to make statements, and I don’t want to offend myself or any of my other old timers by making statements right now. Let’s just let it play out. He’s not done yet.

I look at that a little bit like that old question, are drivers athletes, and I say, who cares, because the race is still on whether we are or not, and we love racing, right? I look at that a little bit the same way. It’s like, what’s the argument? I mean, the numbers speak for themselves, and I don’t think they’re done yet.

Q. Congratulations on a great season coming back. Reflecting back to where you were at the start of the year with the goals you set for yourself and what you’ve accomplished, what’s your dominant emotion now? What are you feeling right now? Is it pride at what you’ve accomplished? Is it frustration at not

MARK MARTIN: There’s no frustration, man. I know you’d love it. I know y’all would love it, but there’s no frustration. There’s none. I’m very proud of what we accomplished.

I’m very proud of what we accomplished, and on top of all that, I had more fun than anybody. So how could you what else can you say, man? I had a blast. It’s been an honor and a privilege, and I didn’t leave nothing. I never left anything anywhere.

We got beat, and we got beat under any scenario that might have happened. I didn’t leave anything out there.
My race team dug as hard as they could dig, and we accomplished more than anybody else in the garage this year except for the 48. That ought to be enough to make you proud.

Q. In a lot of ways, your story has kind of made you like a beloved figure among your competitors in the garage. Do you think that is more fulfilling to you than any championship could have been?

MARK MARTIN: Look, I don’t have one, so I don’t know. That’s what sure, I can say that because I don’t have one. But when you’re young, it’s all about you, at least it was for me. And when you get older, you know, things look a little bit different, at least they do to me.

I am one of the luckiest guys in the world to have done what I’ve done and worked with the people that I’ve worked with and earned what I have earned.

Q. Rick has said this a couple times and said it when he was in here again on Friday. He felt like he needed to say something to you at the beginning of the season when he had talked you into coming back and you had a couple engine failures at a place where you probably never expected to. Just what were your thoughts at that point? Did you have some second thoughts at that time? Alan said that he had tried to keep he had to keep thinking, not looking at the hard numbers but looking at the potential.

MARK MARTIN: Well, it was bad luck, and it was a little gloomy. But we were running good. So it would have been so much worse if we’d have been running bad and all that stuff would have happened.

We just had to dig in, roll our sleeves up, and we made a tremendous year out of it. I’ve got enough experience, and I might use the word mature. I’m mature enough to realize that there’s more to this sport than four races, the first four.

Q. You were in a situation a couple years ago with Roush where all five cars made the Chase. Now you’ve been a bigger part of history with Hendrick finishing one, two, three in points. What did this situation have this year? You’ve been at Hendrick a year now; what gave Hendrick a little bit more of an edge to get you guys to that next level and be as dominant as you guys were this year, compared to Roush?

MARK MARTIN: I don’t know, we were pretty strong that year that we did that at Roush’s. The level of your competitiveness is cyclical; it don’t always you’re not always on top, you’re not always on the bottom and not always in the middle. And Hendrick does a good job of getting knocked off the top a little less than most.

But it’s still a moving target, and we’ve got our challenge on our hands for next year.

Q. Enough of this gloomy. There have been times when you were a little bit younger man when it seemed like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. How do you think you’re going to feel when next season starts?

MARK MARTIN: Happy. I’m going to be happy. You know, this is the first time in in as long as I can remember that I’m not glad it’s over with. I’m fine. I’ve had a blast all year, and I do look forward to starting with a clean slate. But other than that, I’m a happy guy.

Q. Again, on a lighter note, about five years ago at your first retirement lunch, you told us Joey Logano, you’d hire him. What have you seen from him in the last five years, and where do you predict he’s going to be five years from now?

MARK MARTIN: It’s always nice to say I told you so, isn’t it? (Laughter.)
I guess that was obvious, blindingly obvious, what a great he was going to be. And will be. He’ll be fun to watch.

Q. We haven’t heard anything about the race. How did this thing go? Were you chasing the car, or what

MARK MARTIN: Yeah, our car didn’t work well today. It didn’t work well, and we really struggled with it. And as the sun went down and we went to the back, we came in and pitted and tried to do some work on it to try to improve it, and it didn’t really improve it a whole lot, so then we were stuck with sorry track position on top of not having a great race car. We just fought and fought and fought, and actually the last adjustment perked it up, and we drove from 21st to 10th, and then right at the end a couple of the guys got the high line going and got me back.

It was a great run, that last run. I mean, it wasn’t good enough. I mean, if we’d have been with that all day, then we were a top six car maybe, like that, but we would have needed to be like that the whole race and not just the last run.

We’ve got our work cut out for us to make our cars better for here. It didn’t work well.

You guys would just write it in the paper if I told you. How about I just say congratulations. I wanted to see him and Chad and all those guys who did a superior job. It’s incredible. What they’ve done is incredible. Ask anybody trying to beat them.

Q. As the night wore along and as it became semi obvious what the reality of the outcome was going to be, how much does it make you I don’t know if proud is the right word or not, that you were able to hang onto second for the season?

MARK MARTIN: I was concerned when I was very concerned when we made the stop and worked on the car, went to the back, because the car wasn’t good enough to drive back up through there. You know, and I wanted to when you’re third, you want to be second (laughing). And I had the third and the fourth place guy race me for it, as hard as they could go. But we made a great adjustment on the last stop, and we drove up through there pretty well. I was very pleased with the car the last run versus the way it had been all night.

Thank you guys for everything all year. You guys have been awesome. It’s been fun. Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Mark. We certainly enjoyed watching you race this year.

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