Catchfence

Tony Stewart - (Photo Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Long Pond, PA – Tony Stewart knew he had a good race car, he wasn’t sure how good until he took his qualifying run for Sunday’s running of the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. When he got to turn one on his first lap, he radioed his crew to let them know it was very good.

The two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) champion put the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet in the number one starting position for the second time in his career at Pocono Raceway. It was his second pole this season and the 12th overall.

Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet, will start alongside Stewart to make it an all-Chevrolet front row.

In total, Team Chevy drivers captured four of the top-five and eight of the top-10 starting slots for Sunday’s 200-lap/500-mile race.

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet, a four-time NSCS champion, will roll off fourth in the 43-car field.  Ryan Newman, No. 39 US Army Chevrolet will start in fifth position.

Four-time defending NSCS champion Jimmie Johnson will start the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, in the sixth starting place.

Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet, was eighth fastest followed by last week’s Brickyard 400 winner Jamie McMurray, No. 1 AXE Twist Chevrolet in the ninth starting position.

Mark Martin, No. 5 Hendrickcars.com/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, rounds out the top-10 starters.

Denny Hamlin (Toyota) completes the top-five starters for the 21st race of the season.

The race is scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. EDT with live broadcast coverage from ESPN TV, MRN Radio and Sirius NASCAR Radio.

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2ND

POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS:

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER

HOW WAS YOUR RUN TODAY?: “Man, it felt good.  It felt good enough through turn one that I got on the radio after we got on the exit there and told them we were good so far on the start of it.  Then we got through the tunnel and felt like we made good time through the tunnel so I just keyed it again and told them we were good through two (turns) at least.  I didn’t know how it was going to be through turn three, but I felt like I might have lost a little bit of time there, but got through there pretty good too apparently or better than I thought I guess.  Got to the line and he told me the time and it was a good lap.”

HOW HAVE YOU GOTTEN TWO POLES IN THE LAST YEAR AND NONE IN THE PAST FOUR?: “Tell me about it, I’m afraid the sky is going to be falling when I go outside so I’m a little surprised by it myself.  I’m not a qualifier, I admit, that has always been my weak suit.  Man, if you’re going to pick a place where you want to have good track position, this is it because it’s really important here at Pocono.  If I don’t go out like I did last year and crash the thing in happy hour then we’ll have a good starting spot.”

DO YOU NOTICE THAT JACK ROUSH IS NOT IN THE GARAGE THIS WEEKEND?: “Yeah and I’ll be honest, we were in the owners meeting the other night when we got word of what had happened so Robbie Reiser was there on behalf of Roush and kind of gave us all the update of what was going on.  When I saw the pictures of it, I saw the picture of the plane first and that was pretty disturbing, but to see him, even though the picture was bad of him getting out of the plane, the fact that he was walking out of the plane on his own was a good sign.  There’s no doubt that he is the ‘cat in the hat,’ he’s definitely a man with nine lives. I don’t know how many he has left, but he’s definitely used up a couple of them already.

“It’s a scary thought of that happening.  He’s a guy that won’t back down at all.  I guarantee that as soon as he gets a chance, he’ll be flying again and that’s the great thing about Jack (Roush) is that he’s a tough competitor and he’s not going to let anything stand in his way and he’ll get back after it so we wish him well.”

DOES YOUR CAR FEEL THE SAME AS IT DID IN JUNE?: “I don’t know, I think it’s a little different actually.  I think it felt like our car was a little better today.  I think it’s a little cooler today so it probably felt better to everybody.  The qualifying run, for sure I am hoping is a glimmer of hope of what the rest of the weekend is going to hold for us.”

CAN INFORMATION TRANSLATE BETWEEN INDIANAPOLIS AND POCONO?: “I think with the old car it used to a lot more than the new car.

“The difference is Indy is a lot smoother than Pocono is.  Pocono just has a lot of age to it.  Indy, they’ve ground on it and done a lot of things, but it seems like with these cars and the sensitivity of the bump stops in the front and splitter heights and all that, that it’s a little harder to get what you do at Indy to work here at Pocono now so I think it’s separated it a lot more now than it used to be.”

WHICH CORNER GAVE YOU THE TIME TO GET ON THE POLE?: “I felt like it was in one and two.  I felt like both of them I made really good corners.  I wasn’t sure in three.  Sometimes it’s hard to read how you get through turn three because it’s such a big, sweeping corner and such a momentum corner that it can feel slow and be really fast.  Then there’s times that I thought I was fast through there and didn’t carry speed through there.  Three’s kind of misleading, but I guess, according to Darian (Grubb, crew chief) he said we made time in one, we were only like six-hundredths faster in the tunnel and we made time in three.  He didn’t say how much, but apparently we made better time through three than I thought during the runs.  Apparently one and three were the corners that we really made up time.”

DOES THE NEW STRIP OF PAVEMENT STILL AFFECT THE RACE TRACK?: “It’s aging in and it’s definitely getting harder to see because color-wise, it’s blending in a lot more so you definitely have to look for it.  It’s the difference between that patch and the older surface is starting to get closer together, but it’s still the fast way around right now.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 2^ND

TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN OUT THERE THIS EVENING, IT WAS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE. “It was, surprisingly I’d say.  I think we were about eighth in practice or something.  I thought not the last run, the run before the car felt really good.  I didn’t get all of it out of the car.  I don’t know, when I came across the line, it was like I’m waiting for the guys to say ooh, P15 or something and it was P1.  I asked them, ‘Are you serious or are you joking with me?’  I’m kind of happy I guess.  We changed the car a lot.  I know it’s kind of crazy because last week we ran so good but overall on the other tracks we haven’t really run as good as we need to in the big tracks.  In the small tracks we run really well.  We’re trying a little bit different approach on the car and it seems to be working.”

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO GET OVER THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF LAST WEEK?“A couple minutes.  It’s kind of weird because I didn’t really want to talk to the media because I was just pissed off and when you’re angry you’ll say something dumb and you’ll regret it.  As a team we win together, we lose together and actually in a crazy way with myself hitting the fence helped the team win the race.  It’s one of those deals where you never really know who you’re working for.  It benefited the team.  It’s one of those deals where I think if I would have taken two tires, everybody else would have taken four and we probably would have got beat anyways.  I don’t know.  We’re not allowed to speed in the car again.  It’s better than telling the guys I’d rather have 20 of those than run 15th every weekend and have good finishes.  It sucks, we’re nowhere near the Chase, does it really matter?  Somebody actually said I threw the car in the fence because I was mad and I was just trying to keep it up.”

DID YOU HAVE TO TALK TO BRIAN AT ALL BECAUSE HE SEEMED DOWN IN THE DUMPS ON SUNDAY? “I sent him a text, it did.  We’re in this together.  You gave me an awesome car.  Being if it wasn’t for you guys we wouldn’t be in this position so don’t worry about it.  We’ll move on, there’s another one next Sunday.  One of these days that race will go into our hands.  It sucks that we’ve been so fast three years in a row with one I blew, the other one was a call that wasn’t ideal.  You know last time I screwed up there Brian (Pattie, crew chief) didn’t say anything to me.  He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’  At the same time, do I gain anything by getting mad?  No.  It sucks that in traffic we couldn’t do anything and I was actually pretty loose getting into the corners by myself and when the 99 (Carl Edwards) dive-bumped me, I kind of turned right a little when I came back.  As soon as I turned right, I knew I wasn’t going to come out of that corner pointing the right way.”

DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE EITHER GOING TO WIN OR WRECK BECAUSE YOU HAD LED SO MANY LAPS? “No, hell no.  I was sixth.  I restarted and stayed in line and actually the 16 (Greg Biffle) got me loose in turn two.  I said just do what you can.  It was kind of weird because I was trying to slow down early enough and just in traffic it was so different.  I made a couple of mistakes in traffic and a couple of guys passed me and I was okay with it.  As soon as we restarted and I went into turn two, I knew that winning the race was very unlikely.  It would have been nice to take some decent points.  I had the 99 (Carl Edwards) beside me and I just tried to run around the outside, but as soon as I started turning, they said ‘inside’ and I gave him the room and when I turned back in it just, I knew I wasn’t.  I was either going to spin and get T-boned or hit the fence and I hit the fence.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU LEARNED LAST WEEK YOU CAN TAKE HERE BECAUSE IN THE PAST BEFORE YOU GOT TO THE SERIES, WE’D RUN THIS RACE BEFORE THE BRICKYARD AND THERE WERE THINGS THAT WOULD TRANSFER FROM THIS TRACK AND VISA VERSA? “I don’t know where people get that.  I haven’t figured it out yet, honestly.  If there’s anything similar between the two places, I haven’t seen them.  Honestly, this fricken place is bumpy as hell, the seams are slick, you know what I mean?  It’s hard, it’s unpredictable and Indy for me is so straight forward, I wish this place was that way.  This place actually has always been a place, and I hope I don’t jinx it by saying this, we never ran that well but (crew chief) Brian (Pattie) makes really good calls and we always end up with really good finishes, somehow.  We always luck in by calls.  We have speed, but we never had track position.  Hopefully we can stay somewhere near the front on Sunday.  We’ll see.  We’re trying different things and I told him, we need to make sure something that is nice is by not being in a position of making the Chase, I think as a team we’re going to try a lot of different things and make sure and use what happened last week as a learning experience.  Like knowing when to take two tires.  Maybe not the right call, but it happens.  Like at Phoenix for example, we were running top-three all day, five guys took two tires and neither of the three guys won.  We were half a lap ahead of the field and somebody else won.  You just have to learn when to take two tires.  But to win some, you have to give some away and I don’t think we have given ourselves enough opportunity to win races.  Some day it will come.”

OUT ON PIT ROAD AFTER TONY STEWART RAN HIS LAP YOU WENT OVER TO HIS CAR AND SAID SOMETHING TO HIM, WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION LIKE? “He actually came before I was going to take my lap and said, ‘Dude, don’t worry about that last week.  You’re fine.’  He was trying to pump me up that it was nice.  When I finished the lap I said, ‘You screwed me.  I did exactly the same you would have done.’”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WATKINS GLEN AND WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT GOING BACK THERE? “I’m so excited. (LAUGHTER) I’ll tell you, it’s so weird because if I could drive anywhere near what I could drive an open wheel on a road course, we’re good.  But this thing doesn’t drive like an open wheel, nowhere near.  Turn one you can’t touch the brakes, it rolls over.  It’s not agile; it doesn’t do anything right on a road course.  I can drive really good on a road course and I’ll drive it as fast as it will go, but we always are like Sonoma.  We’re there but for some reason we haven’t figured out our cars to be good enough and I think the best example is Jamie (McMurray) has been on pole there for a million times and he qualified like 20th or something with our car there.  I don’t know, it’s once a year so I don’t pay too much attention.  Like any cup driver I think.”

AS AN ORGANIZATION, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO HELP JAMIE MCMURRAY MAKE THE CHASE? “Not really.  He’s got his group of people; we have a group of people.  I think as a team, we’ll always work together and we always build the best race cars we can.  I think if we can bring something faster to the race track, it would mean we haven’t done a good enough job.  We bring every week our fastest cars and our best equipment.  That’s all we got.”

WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN JUST AS MAD AS LAST WEEK IF IT WAS AT ANY TRACK OR WAS IT BECAUSE IT WAS AT INDIANAPOLIS? “Not really, I don’t care.  That’s what I told him before the race, I’ll take a win at either Martinsville or Indy, I don’t have anything against Martinsville but it’s the opposite.  You know what I mean?  When I race I never pay attention to, ‘Ah, this is Indy, this is the one to win.’  I don’t do that.  When I won Monaco, after Monaco I was really excited because that was the race as a kid I always wanted to win was Monaco.  (Aryton) Senna used to dominate and I was a huge fan of him and it was always fun to watch.  That was a huge goal for me to try to get a win in Monaco.  It would be cool to win at other places.  As a driver, you just want to run as best as you can every week and we need to make ourselves better to give ourselves more shots at winning and see what happens.”

WITH THE SEASON YOUR TEAM HAS HAD, IF YOU AND JAMIE MCMURRAY DON’T MAKE THE CHASE, DO YOU THINK IT’S STILL A SUCCESSFUL YEAR FOR GANASSI RACING?“It’s kind of crazy.  Last year we made the Chase and we didn’t have anywhere near the speed we have this year as a team.  We had a lot of wrecks and everything that can go wrong had gone wrong.  I don’t know.  It’s frustrating, yeah but move on.  To be honest with you, I just go every week to get in the car and do the best we can and at the end of the year you see what happens.”

About Chevrolet: Chevrolet is a global automotive brand, with annual sales of about 3.5 million vehicles in more than 130 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. In the U.S., the Chevrolet portfolio includes: iconic performance cars, such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long lasting pickups and SUVs, such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers, such as Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including the Cruze Eco and Volt, both arriving in late 2010. Cruze Eco will offer up to 40 mpg highway while the Chevrolet Volt will offer up to 40 miles of electric, gas-free driving and an additional 300 miles of extended range (based on GM testing; official EPA estimates not yet available). Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security, and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response, and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models, fuel solutions, and OnStar availability can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

- Team Chevy, Press Release