No 36 Big Red / Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet

The Big Red team worked on the No. 36 Big Red Chevrolet right off the truck. Blaney posted the 41^st-fastest time in first practice and the 46^th-quickest time in the second and third practice sessions. Blaney picked up over a second in his qualifying run and posted the 33^rd-fastest time of 50.021 seconds.

Blaney took the green flag of the Brickyard 400 presented by Golden Corral on ESPN from the 33^rd position. He worked up to 31^st before radioing on lap 11 that the Big Red Chevrolet was tightening up. He continued that the car was really good at the beginning but quickly grew tighter and it hurt him in the corner.

Crew Chief Phillipe Lopez called for Blaney to drive down pit road for the first pit stop of the day on lap 27. As he came in for the green-flag stop, the front right tire blew. Blaney nursed the Chevrolet to the pit stall, and the Big Red team changed four tires, made a trackbar adjustment and put Barebond over the right-front damage. After inspecting the tires, the team found that the wear was good and there was a flat spot on the tire.

Blaney continued to run 32^nd until the first caution flag waved on lap 35 for debris. The team put on four scuff tires and put a rubber in the right rear of the No. 36 Big Red Chevrolet, while they worked on the damage with more Barebond. Blaney returned to pit road on the next lap to allow the Big Red team to continue to fix the damage. Once he got back out on track, the Hartford, Ohio native radioed that the car had a big shake and was concerned that the lugnuts were not all tight. Still under yellow flag conditions, the team chose to change four tires again to try to fix the problem. Lopez radioed that because of the quick turnaround that air pressure on the new set of tires was not exact.

Once the field restarted, Blaney worked up to 27^th before the second yellow flag flew for an incident in turn three. The Big Red team utilized this caution flag to stay out and lead a lap. After leading lap 52, Blaney drove down pit road for a four-tire pit stop. The team did not make any adjustments, as the No. 36 Big Red Chevrolet’s lap times were good. The field went back to green on lap 55 with Blaney in the 32^nd position.

Five laps later, Blaney radioed that the car was really good at the beginning of the run but tightened up quickly. Backup spotter and owner Tommy Baldwin and Blaney discussed that the car was handling well in turn one but had a push in turns three and four. The Big Red team utilized a green-flag, four-tire pit stop on lap 83 to make a wedge adjustment to work on the tight condition. By lap 85, Blaney radioed that if the car stayed the way it was they were going to have a good run.

The third caution of the day flew on lap 95 for debris. Blaney pit for four tires but was penalized for speeding exiting pit road so he started on the tail end of the field. Two laps after the green flag waved, he moved from 32^nd to 30^th position. On lap 103, the Big Red driver radioed that the car initially turned well but really lost the handle. A debris caution on lap 115 allowed the team to make another four-tire pit stop.

Blaney returned to green flag racing on lap 118 in the 31^st position. On lap 120, Landon Cassill and David Ragan spun. While trying to avoid the incident, Blaney drove under a spinning Cassill and got a lot of grass on the front grill, which caused the No. 36 Big Red Chevrolet to start overheating. The overheating forced the team to pit for fuel, a shock adjustment and to clean the grill. Debating on whether to top-off on the one-to-go lap, the team played it safe and stayed out, opting to pit under green conditions when they knew they would be able to finish the 400-mile race.

Blaney restarted on lap 127 in 19^th and came back down pit road with 28 to go. The Big Red team topped off the No. 36 with fuel and cleaned off the grill. By lap 142, Blaney radioed that handling-wise the car was the best it has been all race. With five laps to go, he radioed that the car was a half-click tight in 30^th position. The No. 36 Big Red Chevrolet finished in the 31^st spot.

The 31^st-place finish kept the No. 36 team in the 32^nd position in NSCS Owner Points. The team is 66 points out of 31^st and 50 points ahead of 36^th. Blaney held onto the 31^st position in NSCS Driver Points. He is 69 points behind David Gilliland in 30^th and seven points ahead of Casey Mears in 32^nd.

“Unfortunately, we got damage early from the blown tire,” explained Blaney. “We were a bit tight, but it seemed everyone was struggling with that. It seemed like we were loosing ground on the straightaway because of the damage. By the end, the car got a lot better. Sometimes you gamble and it works and sometimes it doesn’t. We decided not to gamble, and it looks like it bit us. We continue to make gains as a team. We’ll go to Pocono and see what we can do there.”

Blaney will return to the track next weekend for the Good Sam RV Insurance 500 and pilot the No. 36 Golden Corral Chevrolet in the second stop at Pocono Raceway this season.

About Big Red, Inc.

Big Red, Inc. is one of the top-10 beverage companies in North America with a history dating back to 1937. Along with Big Red, recognized as the number one selling red soda, Big Red, Inc. also markets beverage brands Diet Big Red, Big Blue, Big Red Vanilla Float, Big Peach, Big Pineapple, Big Punch, Big Honey Lemonade, NuGrape, and Nesbitt’s products. Distributed widely throughout the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Independent Bottlers and Pepsi Bottling Group, consumers across the country enjoy Big Red, Inc.’s beverages.

About Tommy Baldwin Racing:

Tommy Baldwin Racing was formed in 2009 by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Crew Chief Tommy Baldwin. Baldwin utilized a slumping economy to open a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team with a stringent budget. The team competed in two full seasons with multiple drivers behind the wheel of the No. 36 Chevrolet and improved in the standings each year.

Based in Mooresville, N.C., TBR will compete in the full NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule in 2011 with NASCAR veteran Dave Blaney piloting the No. 36 Golden Corral Chevrolet. Looking to improve on-track performance, TBR found success early in the 2011 season with partners Golden Corral, Big Red and Accell Construction. TBR’s driver development program, Heinke-Baldwin Racing, will also compete in various NASCAR series in 2011.

For more information on Tommy Baldwin Racing, visit tommybaldwinracing.com or follow us on Facebook, facebook.com/TBR.HBR, and Twitter, twitter.com/TBR_Racing.

- Tommy Baldwin Racing, Press Release

2011 NSCS Regan Smith - Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

DENVER (Aug. 1, 2011) –

Smith, who is coming off an impressive third-place finish in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is looking forward to the 60-feet, 6-inch throw.

“I’ve been fortunate to participate in many neat things throughout my career and throwing out the first pitch at a Rockies game is going to rank right up there,” said Smith. “I am really excited about this opportunity and hope I can throw a strike.”

Smith and Furniture Row Racing are enjoying their best season, which was highlighted by a victory in early May at the historic Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

The next Sprint Cup race for Smith and Furniture Row Racing is Sunday (Aug. 7) at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa.

- DMF Communications for Furniture Row Racing, Press Release ]]> http://www.catchfence.com/2011/sprintcup/08/01/regan-smith-to-throw-out-first-pitch-wednesday-at-colorado-rockies-game/feed/ 0 http://www.catchfence.com/2011/sprintcup/08/01/kasey-kahne-brian-vickers-2011-nscs-brickyard-400-post-race-recaps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kasey-kahne-brian-vickers-2011-nscs-brickyard-400-post-race-recaps http://www.catchfence.com/2011/sprintcup/08/01/kasey-kahne-brian-vickers-2011-nscs-brickyard-400-post-race-recaps/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:48:57 +0000 Press Release http://www.catchfence.com/?p=81547 more»]]>

2011 Red Bull Racing Teammates Brian Vickers & Kasey Kahne - Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

+ LIFE’S A BRICK!:

INDIANAPOLIS — Rule No. 1 at Indianapolis: Don’t run out of fuel along the 10th fairway at Brickyard Crossing, because it’s a long way back. Rule No. 2: Gain and maintain track position at all times during the Brickyard 400.

Red Bull Racing Team’s number crunchers covered the first. As for the second, Brian Vickers gained a lot of it; Kasey Kahne couldn’t keep it.

After starting 31st, Vickers clawed his way to a 15th-place finish in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But Kahne, driving a dominant car that led a race-high 48 laps, ended up a disappointing 18th.

“We started off really good,” Kahne said.

“The Red Bull Toyota was really fast. We made some adjustments there early and stayed fast. The first time we got four tires … slow stop and gave up a bunch of spots there. Battled from there on. Just had a hard time betting back up there.”

Under the second yellow flag that waved on lap 50, Kahne entered the pits in first and left in 10th, with Vickers on his tail in 11th after taking two tires. That restart position was Kahne’s first taste of traffic at a track where clean air pretty much means everything, but the No. 4 still was its stout self and climbed back into the top five.

The race’s fourth yellow flag wave for debris on lap 114, and tire strategies started to unfold. Kahne and Vickers restarted 16th and 18th, respectively. Two laps later, Landon Cassill’s No. 51 went spinning in turn three, forcing Kahne and Vickers to take evasive maneuvers through the grass. After cleaning up the No. 4’s nose, Kahne returned to the race in 24th. Stuck in traffic, the best he could do was 18th at the checkered flag.

“I knew I was going to go through the grass, thought the 51 was coming (down),” Kahne said. “I went through the grass and kind of spun and ended up further back. It ended up being a tough Brickyard 400 for us. But we were definitely one of the best cars. Out in clean air, we were definitely one of the best.”

Vickers held his own after taking two tires early for track position and moved into the top 10. He, too, went through the grass when the No. 51 spun — “Sorry guys, there was nowhere to go. I had to swerve through the grass to miss him.” — and pitted for tires and fuel. “We are planning to go long and gas only,” crew chief Ryan Pemberton told Vickers. “We have to do something different than everyone else.”

He cycled to as high as second, but knowing they’d be eight laps short Vickers pitted for two tires and a splash with 17 laps to go. He restarted 23rd and moved to 15th at the finish for his third top 15 at Indianapolis.

Kahne slid to 15th in the driver standings. He’s 55 points behind 10th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. and still needs a win or two to enter the Chase wild-card race. Vickers also dropped a spot. He’s 27th — 83 points out of 20th.

+ UP NEXT: Brickyard 400, Sunday, July 31, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis

- Red Bull Racing Team, Press Release

The No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing - Photo Credit: CIA Stock Photography

In an up-and-down race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a tenacious Tony Stewart made sure he finished Sunday’s Brickyard 400 on the upswing. The driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) rallied from as low as 32nd to finish sixth, securing his eighth top-10 finish of the season and lifting him into the top-10 of the championship point standings.

“We just fought all day and I’m really proud of Darian Grubb (crew chief) and the guys on this Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevy,” said Stewart after notching his ninth top-10 finish at Indianapolis and his eighth of the season. “They kept fighting and I fought for everything I could get all day.”

The day got off to an inauspicious start when after rising to 16th after starting 24th, Stewart was assessed a pass-through penalty for hitting the commitment cone as he entered pit road during a lap-25 pit stop, which came from Stewart avoiding a rapidly slowing Kevin Harvick.

“Kevin lifted earlier than I did coming off of turn four and instead of running into him, I went to the outside of him, and when we got to the cone there, I was in the wrong spot,” Stewart said. “It was just one of those things. You’re trying to get everything you can get. It was either hit the cone or run over the guy in front of me, so I chose to hit the cone. We got the penalty for it. I’m proud of our guys for working from behind and getting us where we got at the end.”

Stewart served the pass-through penalty on lap 29, which consisted of driving down the length of pit road at the mandated speed limit of 55 mph while his counterparts zoomed past on the racetrack at 200 mph. When Stewart came off pit road, he was 31st but still on the lead lap.

With a fast, but tight-handling racecar, Stewart began a charge to the front. The charge was stout – so much so that Indianapolis’ 2.5-mile confines couldn’t contain Stewart. He slapped the turn four wall enough to scrape his car’s paint but not enough to do significant damage.

Stewart worked his way up to 26th when the yellow caution flag waved on lap 49. He and Grubb took the opportunity to come to pit road for the requisite four tires and fuel, but also so crew members could look at the damage and determine for sure that nothing was awry.

Although the encounter with the wall did nothing to hurt the Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevy, its tight-handling condition persisted, especially whenever Stewart would get back in the throttle through the track’s sweeping, flat corners.

Grubb made a myriad of changes to the car, going so far as to raise the track bar three rounds and add a round of wedge to both rear corners during a pit stop on lap 81.

The tight-handling condition persisted, and when the caution flag waved again on lap 95, Stewart and Grubb took advantage by making another trip to pit road. But just as Stewart was turning into his pit stall, Kyle Busch – who had taken two tires in the pit stall behind Stewart – pulled out and ran into Stewart. The result was a dinged left-front fender for Stewart and bashed right-front fender for Busch. Both drivers had to return to pit road on the next lap so their respective pit crews could fix the damage.

“It’s a long pit road, but it’s a narrow pit road,” Stewart said. “I feel bad for Kyle and those guys because they had a good day going at that time, too. Just a rough day, but we fought for everything we could get.”

The fight continued after that pit road miscue left Stewart deep in the field, this time in 32nd when the race resumed on lap 118. At this point in the race, however, fuel mileage was becoming an issue, and teams like the No. 14 SHR squad could roll the dice.

Stewart needed track position, but he also needed at least another splash of fuel to make it to the full, 160-lap distance. Grubb keenly brought Stewart to pit road during the race’s final caution on lap 122 for a fuel-only stop. The strategy kicked Stewart up to 12th with 33 laps of green-flag racing remaining. But there was a catch – Stewart was a lap-and-a-half short on fuel under even the most optimistic scenario.

As other drivers pitted for fuel under green, Stewart worked his way up the leaderboard. He cracked the top-10 on lap 129 and then busted into the top-five on lap 132. With 27 laps to go he was third, and on lap 134 he was second. By lap 135, Stewart was in the lead for the first time.

The two-time Brickyard 400 winner paced the field for 10 laps and opened up a margin of nearly 14 seconds over his nearest pursuer, Brian Vickers. But even as Stewart worked to save fuel, the pace of the race and deeper calculations by Grubb hinted that Stewart was actually three laps short on fuel.

With 31 drivers on the lead lap, the gamble to go the distance was not worth it. Grubb called Stewart into the pits on lap 145, whereupon right-side tires were changed while precious gallons of fuel were added to Stewart’s tank.

The considerable lead Stewart had built prior to his pit stop paid off, for he returned to the track in 16th, still ahead of some drivers who had pitted under green before him.

Able to go all out while many ahead of him had to slow down and conserve fuel, Stewart again marched up the leaderboard. In the race’s last five laps, Stewart went from 15th to sixth as drivers in front of him either pitted for fuel, ran out of fuel or ran a pace so slow to conserve fuel that Stewart was able to blow by them.

“We ran those last 10 laps as hard as we could,” said Stewart, who won the Brickyard 400 in 2005 and 2007 and hails from nearby Columbus, Ind. “Come to find out we were three laps short, and there was no way we could make up three laps. A lap-and-a-half I think I could’ve done, but there was no way we could make up three. We inherited the lead anyway because we stayed out and everybody else in front of us came in, so we knew it was a borrowed lead. But it sure was nice to lead here at Indy again. We had to fight from the back a couple of different times to get up there.

“We just had a long, long hard day. To get almost a top-five out of this thing – running sixth was a good day for us. We did the right thing when we pitted and it paid off for us. We’ll take it.”

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for SHR and fellow Hoosier, as he grew up in South Bend, Ind., finished 12th to score his 12th top-15 finish of the season.

Paul Menard won the 18th annual Brickyard 400 to notch his first career Sprint Cup victory, and in doing so, became the fourth first-time winner of 2011, joining Trevor Bayne, Brad Keselowski and David Ragan.

“I’m really happy for Paul Menard,” Stewart said. “Paul’s been around this place (Indianapolis) for a long time. He’s been here since he was a kid. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy. That is a pretty deserving win, right there. I’m happy for him getting his first one that way.”

Jeff Gordon finished .725 of a second behind Menard in the runner-up spot, while Regan Smith, Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five. Stewart, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Keselowski and Busch comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were five caution periods for 22 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish.

With round 20 of 36 complete, Newman leads the SHR duo in the championship point standings. He remained eighth and now has 618 points, 64 markers back of series leader Carl Edwards and 31 points ahead of 11th-place Denny Hamlin. Stewart gained two spots to climb to ninth. He now has 609 points, which puts him 73 points behind Edwards while giving him a 22-point cushion over Hamlin.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Aug. 7 Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

- True Speed Communication for Stewart-Haas Racing, Press Release

2011 NSCS No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry (driven by Casey Mears) - Photo Credit: Getty Images for NASCAR

Speedway, IN (July 31, 2011) –

While Mears and his #13 GEICO Camry got off to a slow start in practice on Friday, landing 38th on the speed chart, they would quickly turn the corner and wow the fans as the day wore on. During the second practice session, Mears hung out in the 20’s on the charts, but after a brief meeting with crew chief Bootie Barker and engineer Scott Whitehead during a trip to the garage, Mears re-entered the GEICO Camry for a final run.

With just seven minutes remaining in practice, Mears took to the famed speedway and drew a roar from the crowd when he instantly shot to 2nd on the speed chart. He would ultimately end up 4th when the session ended. Final practice saw more of the same from Mears and the GEICO Racing team, as they sat 18th at its conclusion.

Having set the IMS track qualifying record in 2004, Mears appeared confident as he calmly climbed into the #13 GEICO Camry and directed his car onto the racetrack for two laps of qualifying. Mears’ success was audible, as the crowd cheered loudly when he wheeled around the historic 2.5-mile speedway in just 49.444 seconds, at a rate of speed of 182.024 miles per hour, landing him on the provisional pole. Mears resided on the pole for 17 cars until his close friend Jimmie Johnson bumped him down to 2nd. When qualifying ended, Mears and the #13 GEICO Camry found themselves in the 11th position, their best qualifying effort of the 2011 season.

When raceday arrived, it was met with bright sunshine and blazing heat, which would take its toll on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series field, as well as the fans in attendance. Mears’ brought a taste of home with him, as his father, Roger, a four-time off-road racing champion, would be his spotter on the frontstretch for the afternoon, while Jason Jarrett would cover the backstretch duties.

Starting 11th, Mears radioed in on lap three: “On the run down the straightaways I’m getting killed.” He would free-fall through the field and eventually land in 28th, but he rebounded quickly and by lap 27 he found himself in the 12th position.

Unfortunately, as cars got three wide on Lap 40, grass would fly up from the apron and attach itself to the grill of the #13 GEICO Camry, forcing Mears down pit road for an unscheduled green flag pit stop on Lap 41. As temperatures rose, it became necessary to clean the grass from the grill, causing Mears to fall back to 34th position.

Lap 49 saw David Reutimann take a hard hit into the wall, causing the caution flag to be displayed. Mears was in the 30th position and took advantage of the opportunity to visit pit road for four tires, fuel and adjustments. On lap 62, Mears radioed to Barker: “I’m still getting beat on the straights, but the car feels much better.” He cracked the Top 30 on lap 72 and entered the Top 25 on lap 78 when he moved into the 24th position.

A lap 94 caution once again allowed the Germain Racing pit crew the opportunity to continue working on the handling of the #13 GEICO Camry. After entering pit road in 30th, the GEICO crew turned Mears around quickly and returned him to the racing surface in the 25th position, netting five spots during his visit.

Mears and the #13 GEICO Camry climbed back into the Top 15 by lap 122, but as the race began to wind down Barker notified his driver that he would be five laps short on fuel, a dilemma facing much of the field. With just 27 laps remaining in the advertised distance, Mears brought his #13 GEICO Camry down pit road amid green flag conditions to take on the necessary fuel to ensure his completion of the race.

When the checkered flag was displayed late Sunday afternoon, Mears and the GEICO team recorded a 29th place finish in the Brickyard 400. Mears’ effort helped to widen the gap in the owner standings and Germain Racing now sits 43 points inside the coveted Top 35.

“This GEICO team has been working so hard and they gave me a good car today, but we struggled down the straightaways, which hurt us,” a sweaty Mears said after climbing from the #13 GEICO Camry. “What a great weekend though. We come out in practice and sit fourth and then we qualify 11th, so we’re obviously moving in the right direction. We’ve had a pretty good month when you think about how well we ran at Daytona and then we had a decent night at Kentucky. Our hard work is really paying off and I’m excited about moving forward.”

To learn more about the GEICO Racing program, please visit: www.geicogarage.com

You can also follow GEICO Racing on Twitter: www.twitter.com/geicoracing

Please visit the Casey Mears Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/caseymearsracing

- Player Management International, Inc., for GEICO Racing/Germain Racing, Press Release

2011 NSCS No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane/Wood Bros. Racing Ford (with driver Trevor Bayne) Pit Stop

Three times during the running of the race, the first coming after just six laps, Bayne had to make an unscheduled pit stop to have grass removed from the grille of his car or risk ruining the engine from overheating. But all three times, he and his Motorcraft/Quick Lane team were able to bounce back, and as the laps wound down, Bayne found himself running fourth.

Once again, he had to head to pit road – this time for fuel – and he wound up 30th at the finish. He said having to turn onto pit road with seven laps to go, when he was running just a few car lengths behind eventual race winner Paul Menard Jr., was a hard move to make.

Bayne went on to say that the earlier, unscheduled pit stops, were a bigger factor in the final result.

“We had a few times where we had to pit when we didn’t want to with grass getting kicked up into our grille a few times,” he said. “When you get back in the pack like that those things are going to happen.”

“We were just unfortunate to have it happen to us three times and have to pit so many times.”

Bayne had the misfortune of finding himself running just behind drivers who veered off into the grass, with the splitters of their cars clipping the grass and sending it blowing across the speedway to be picked up by oncoming cars.

But he and the team hung in there and had a strong run at the finish, even if the final result didn’t reflect it.

“It was a hard-fought day for a 30th-place finish,” Bayne said. “It doesn’t feel like that, but we learned a lot.

Team co-owner Eddie Wood said he’s confident that Bayne did gain a lot of knowledge about racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one of the most demanding tracks in all of motorsports.

“This race was a learning experience, and we got through it,” Wood said. “We came here to run 160 laps, and that’s what we did.”

Wood also said that the team’s decision to stop under the green flag to clear grass from the grille was the right thing to do.

“There’s no need to take chances that early in a race, it doesn’t take but a couple of laps to burn an engine down.” he said.

Bayne and the Wood Brothers team will rejoin the Sprint Cup Series at Michigan International Speedway on the weekend of Aug. 21, where the No. 21 Ford Fusion will carry the colors of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which is the charity of choice for Ford’s Customer Service Division and its Motorcraft and Quick Lane brands.

- Wood Brothers Racing, Press Release

Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas Racing/Haas Automation) - Photo Credit: Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR

Ryan Newman overcame nearly 100-degree temperatures and tough track conditions on Sunday to score a respectable 12^th-place finish in the 18^th running of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) spent much of the 160-lap race trying to find clean air so his car would handle better. His efforts in that regard were made harder as he started in the middle of the field in 23^rd.

Newman spent much of the race between the 17^th and 23^rd positions as he and crew chief Tony Gibson attempted to work on the car’s handling via track bar, wedge and tire pressure adjustments. But while the car gradually became better throughout the day, track position was still incredibly vital. And while Newman’s car was fast and handling well, he found it difficult to pass other cars as the air coming off their respective machines would make Newman’s car unstable – a trait all the drivers in Sunday’s race dealt with at one point or another.

Knowing a race victory was going to be extremely difficult to obtain as the laps wound down, Gibson and Newman decided to score the best finish they could. With 29 laps remaining, Newman headed to pit road for three seconds worth of fuel, ensuring that his Haas Automation Chevrolet could make it to the finish.

Other drivers opted to gamble on fuel, and while some ran out and others had to slow way down to conserve, Newman could operate at full strength. With 10 laps to go he cracked the top-20, and with five laps remaining Newman was up to 15^th before crossing the line in 12^th at the conclusion of the 400-mile race.

“When you get back in traffic, it’s tough,” said Newman, who scored his 12^th top-15 finish of the season. “We never could get to the front and get clean air. We rallied to finish 12^th and that will help us in the points, but I wish we could’ve had a better day with our Haas Automation Chevrolet.”

“It’s hard to adjust on a car when you’re in the middle of traffic like that,” said Gibson. “There’s no air back there. You can over-adjust way too easy, so we just tried to tinker with it. We just knew we were sucking that air and there wasn’t much we could do. The balance was going to change. We just did damage control today. We just tried to finish the best we could without killing ourselves in the points and it worked out well. The No. 14 (Tony Stewart) finished ahead of us and everybody else that we needed to outrun, we did today. That’s what we’ve got to do right now. We’ve got that win, so now we’ve got to just manage our points.”

Stewart, Newman’s SHR teammate and driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala, finished sixth to score his ninth top-10 finish at Indianapolis and his eighth of the season.

Paul Menard won the 18^th annual Brickyard 400 to notch his first career Sprint Cup victory, and in doing so, became the fourth first-time winner of 2011, joining Trevor Bayne, Regan Smith and David Ragan.

Jeff Gordon finished .725 of a second behind Menard in the runner-up spot, while Smith, Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five. Stewart, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were five caution periods for 22 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish.

With round 20 of 36 complete, Newman leads the SHR duo in the championship point standings. He remained eighth and now has 618 points, 64 markers back of series leader Carl Edwards and 31 points ahead of 11^th-place Denny Hamlin. Stewart gained two spots to climb to ninth. He now has 609 points, which puts him 73 points behind Edwards while giving him a 22-point cushion over Hamlin.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Aug. 7 Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

- True Speed Communication for Stewart-Haas Racing, Press Release

Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 NIBCO/Menards Chevrolet, celebrates on the bricks after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 31 in Indianapolis, Ind. - Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

It is the third trip to the IMS Winner’s Circle for team owner Richard Childress who scored wins in 1995 with Dale Earnhardt, Sr. and 2003 with Kevin Harvick.

Pit strategy and a smooth throttle to conserve the needed fuel propelled the Wisconsin native to not only his career-first win, but at a track where his family has a storied history of 35 years of competition in open wheel racing.

With the victory, Menard becomes the first driver eligible for the Sprint Summer Showdown $3 million payout. He moves to 14^th in the NSCS standings and is in position for a wild-card berth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

With Menard’s victory, Chevrolet has now tallied nine wins in 20 races this season and continues to lead the NSCS Manufacturers’ Cup standings.

It was a great day for Team Chevy at the Brickyard with Bowtie drivers capturing the top-four finishing positions and six of the top-10 finishers. A total of seven Chevrolet drivers remain in the top-12 in the NSCS standings.

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, crossed the finish line in second place. The four-time NSCS champion and four-time BY400 winner started eighth in the 43-car field and led four times for a total of 36 of the 160 laps. Gordon remains seventh in the standings with two wins on the season with just six races remaining until the start of the Chase.

Regan Smith, No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, was third at the stripe. It is the Darlington winner’s second top-five and fourth top-10 of the season.

Last year’s BY400 winner Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet, finished in fourth place for his third top-10 of the season.

Two-time NSCS champion and two-time BY400 winner Tony Stewart brought his No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet to the checkered flag in sixth place. Stewart jumped two positions in the standings to ninth place.

Mark Martin, No. 5 Quaker State/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, finished in eighth place. Martin is 18^th in the standings.

Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet, remains second in the standings with one victory on the season. The five-time defending NSCS champion 19^th after late race contact with the wall slowed what was a very fast Chevy.

Kevin Harvick moved up to third in the points order after brining his No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet to the finish in 11^th place. Harvick has three wins to-date in the 2011 season.

Ryan Newman, No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet, finished 12^th and remains eighth in points with one win so far this season.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet, sits 10^th in points after finishing 16^th in today’s race.

Clint Bowyer, No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet, was 13^th at the finish and remains in the 12 points position.

Matt Kenseth (Ford) was the fifth place finisher.

Next on the Series’ schedule is the August 7, 2011 at Pocono Raceway

PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 NIBCO/MENARDS CHEVROLET – RACE WINNER

SLUGGER LABBE, CREW CHIEF

RICHARD CHILDRESS, TEAM OWNER – RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING

JOHN MENARD, SPONSOR & FATHER

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

KERRY THARP: Well go ahead and start. We have our team owner Richard Childress and crew chief Slugger Labbe. Winner of today’s 18th annual Brickyard 400 is Paul Menard.

Slugger, just talk about the ebb and flow of this race. A lot of strategy towards the end. Heck of a Brickyard today that we witnessed. Talk about getting that 27 car to Victory Lane here.

SLUGGER LABBE: It was a neat day for sure. We pitted on lap 35, pit road penalty. Tire changer didn’t get the tire back, fell down, penalized us. From this point on we really stretched our fuel. Went 34 laps then to stretch our fuel. Caution came out later. We were fortunate enough to stay out and understand what our car was going to do.

Saturday we made a 22 lap run in practice. Knew where we were going to be at with fuel mileage. We knew with 35 it was a gamble we were willing to take.

We had a good meeting on Monday, myself, Richie Gilmore and all the guys, and said, Look, guys, if we’re going to make the Chase, we’re going to have to get risky.

Seems to be a trend in the Cup Series, that people take gambles on pit road. It was our turn to get aggressive. I told Paul he had to support me. He supported me a hundred percent today. Three times he had an occasion where he could have said no, I don’t want to do that, but he did. Fortunately it worked out.

We left pit road running third. Got penalized, running 38th. That was a big emotion. Just to work our way through it and not lose our cool and to come up with a big plan and win the race is very fortunate.

KERRY THARP: Team owner, Richard Childress. Certainly a big win for your racing team and organization. Paul has moved up to 14th in points. With the win and the new wildcard berth, if we set the Chase field tonight, he would be in the Chase.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I’m just so proud of that whole Menard team. I caught a lot of flack back early last year when we decided to go with four teams. I’ve been watching Paul ever since he won the Nationwide race. He doesn’t tear equipment up. He’s consistent. He’s really good. Got a cool head on him in all situations.

I knew if the right situation come along, we’d win. To get Slugger to come over, John Menard support us, get Slugger, a couple of the engineers, that was a big jump going in on a fourth team.

Couldn’t be prouder of everyone at RCR or ECR Engines. Ran great today. Got fuel mileage. Got chewed out last week for not getting fuel mileage. Got the fuel mileage today, proud of ‘em. Couldn’t be prouder for the Menard family. John has been here for many, many years.

I think we even had a car here one year at Indy. I think Robby drove it, if I’m not mistaken. For him to win, to win here at Indy, to win with his son, I couldn’t be prouder.

KERRY THARP: I might ask John Menard, I think these folks would like to hear from you, as well. Certainly you’ve done a lot for the sport. Your thoughts about the victory today.

JOHN MENARD: Well, I wonder where that kid of mine is. Probably still doing interviews. He took the money and ran, I think (laughter).

This is just great. I mean, it was Paul’s day. But in a way, our whole family has been at the Speedway for so long. We all tried very hard. Paul came down here as a very little guy. I remember smuggling him into the garage because he was too young to be in there. He would be sitting on the workbench back there behaving himself. He had to be quiet or the yellow shirts would throw him out. He was there, always interested (laughter).

He wanted to be a racecar driver. You know, I’m just a proud father right now. I just have kind of elapsed back to him, of thinking of him as my little boy, but he’s a full grown man, one I’m very, very proud of.

I can’t say how proud I am to be associated with Richard, with Slugger, with the whole Childress organization. I’ll tell you what, guys, you did this. It’s wonderful. I just thank you very, very much. I think this is a good win for the Speedway, for the town of Indianapolis. By God, I hope we’re back here next year sitting right here again.

KERRY THARP: While we’re waiting for Paul, we’ll take some questions.

Q. Richard, in the ’80s and ’90s, the guy sitting right next to you was trying to get an American made engine to win the Indianapolis 500. How much did you follow what he tried to do?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Well, I mean, he has put up a great, great effort to win here at Indy. I think, John, didn’t we have a car together one year with Robby?

JOHN MENARD: Run a little short of fuel, though (laughter).

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I’ve known John for many years, his family, the passion he has for the sport. To win today was just unbelievable for the Menard family. To have Paul pull it off, like you said, he was one of the young kids around watching, had a dream, and today his dream came true.

Q. John, all those years you invested into the Buick V6, won some poles, whatever happened, how satisfying is it to finally claim a win here?

JOHN MENARD: It’s really satisfying to have one that doesn’t blow up (laughter). We have to thank everybody at the engine shop for that. We worried about that here. It’s really satisfying to see Chevrolet, General Motors in the winner’s circle. You know the success we didn’t have with those. But, by God, we were fast.

KERRY THARP: Let’s hear from our race winner, Paul Menard. His first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win, at none other than at the Brickyard 400.

Paul, talk about the significance, your emotion of winning one of the biggest events in our sport.

PAUL MENARD: Man, I’ve been coming here for a long, long time, but not nearly as long as my dad. To be the first one after all those years of trying to win him a race at Indy, very special.

1989, I think was my first year here. Spent 14, 15 years in a row just hanging out in the infield being a fan. 2007, I got to race here. It was definitely the highlight of my career up until that point. Here we are in Victory Lane. It’s unbelievable.

KERRY THARP: Open it up for questions again.

Q. A couple weeks ago you said if there was any place you could win, first time win aside, this was the place. Talk about your childhood here, what your dad accomplished, Tony’s championship, making the move with Slugger, why that was the right decision going to Childress.

PAUL MENARD: A lot of great drivers have driven for my dad, Johnny Rutherford, Herm Johnson was the guy that got everybody started in racing, back in the ’70s. A lot of great drivers. He’s had a lot of great friends through the years from Indy. One of them was Richard. Robby and Richard, you know, came up and met. I was in a meeting; we were at a little pizza shop or something in Eau Claire. They wanted to put an IndyCar program together. Kept in touch ever since.

The time was right in 2011 to pull the trigger and get it done. You can’t thank Richard enough for kind of going out on a limb with me and allowing me to bring Slugger with. Slugger is a great friend, works as hard as anybody in this garage. He’s won a Daytona 500 and now he’s won at the Brickyard 400.

Q. Paul, growing up here, being around from the time you were a kid, why did you chose to drive stockcars rather than IndyCars?

PAUL MENARD: That’s pretty easy. Grew up in Wisconsin. There’s no feeder series for IndyCars. You can’t race IndyCars being in Wisconsin. There’s a lot of short tracks, a lot of legends, late models. Go kart thing. 15, 16, started racing legend’s cars. Hooked up with Bryan Reffner. Actually brought out Richard’s truck team. He was selling his truck team. Brian came in to buy that. Let me drive his car. We won a heat race, finished fourth.

Got a late model, started racing that. At one point we were racing three or four nights a week. That’s Wisconsin short track racing.

Q. Paul, you get a lot of flack because of your sponsorship. Slugger said earlier, That’s not fair, he’s not a kid with a silver spoon in his mouth, he wants to be good at this. Does this make that more gratifying to you?

PAUL MENARD: I mean, we’re winners in Sprint Cup. That’s the big deal. To do it at Indy, even bigger deal.

Can’t change people’s opinions. They’re going to say what they want to say. That’s fine with me. We’ll celebrate this. We’ll enjoy it. We’re going to work hard for Pocono, try to make the Chase.

Whatever they say, they say. Can’t control it. I know what I’m capable of. I have total belief in Richard, Slugger and everybody. I think we can win a couple more.

Q. I was fascinated to listen over the final 10 laps. Slugger seemed to be the only one talking. You were totally silent. Crossing the finish line, everybody erupts in celebration. You’re like, That’s the checkered, right?

PAUL MENARD: I didn’t see it. I was looking at my fuel pressure (laughter).

Q. We know you’re quiet by nature. What does it take to excite you?

PAUL MENARD: That’s probably about as much emotion as you’ll see out of me. I’ve always been kind of a low key guy. Doesn’t make it any less special. It’s very special for me. It’s just something that we work hard for, something that Richard expects us to win. He’s won a lot of races. Just really gratifying that we could pull it through.

Q. Has anyone seen any kind of emotion from you?

PAUL MENARD: My dad has.

JOHN MENARD: I’ve got him mad a few times.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: He’ll get fired up on the radio occasionally.

PAUL MENARD: I think I yelled at you today, didn’t I (laughter)?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Probably did.

Q. How soon after the race did you find your dad? Do you remember the first thing you said to him? How much fuel did you have left?

PAUL MENARD: I’m not sure about the fuel.

I saw my dad as soon as we pulled into Victory Lane. He came up to the window, said something like, 35 years of trying here, here we go, this one’s for you. Definitely for him. He’s been trying to put a lot of time and energy into winning at Indy. It’s just a big deal.

Q. Paul, how confident were you those last 10 or 20 laps that you were going to make it to the end and be able to hold everybody off? Also, you mentioned earlier at the end of the race that you were here for the inaugural Brickyard 400. What were you doing at that time?

PAUL MENARD: Sitting up in a suite at turn four for the inaugural one. Saw Rick Mast win the pole. I think I was here the whole weekend. The Skoal car won the pole. I think Harry Gant was second.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I think we were second. I think we hit the wall coming off the corner trying to lead the first lap with Earnhardt.

Q. How confident were you in the last 10 or 15 laps that you had enough to make it to the end and that you were going to hold him off?

PAUL MENARD: As soon as the jack dropped, we took out of pit road, Slugger said, Save me fuel, long gears.

So under caution, had another lap, I think we were going green, caught up, killed the motor, coasting as much as possible. The restart, you got to go. Passed a couple of cars. Once I kind of got cycled out, just started trying to maintain some kind of lap time being easy on the throttle, easy off, earlier than normal, easy on.

Once it got really strung off, I mean, I was lifting at the 250 mark when normally you drive to the 1, just trying not to use any brake, but trying to use the tires to keep your roll speed fast. Probably about a 15 lap, maybe 20 lap run or span where I wasn’t even wide open. Just get it up to like 8500 rpm. If I would see Mark catch me a little bit in my mirror, I would give it more. If I saw him back off, drop it back. Watching in the mirror, trying to maintain some kind of lap time and gap with the cars behind me.

Obviously we kept track Slugger kept telling me where Jeff was, the 24. When he got to two, three seconds behind us, he said, take off. The car was really good. Clean air is so important. We had it right there. The car is awesome in clean air.

We got behind early. Wasn’t as good. But played strategy to a T.

Q. Paul, you really took a big step toward making the Chase today with that victory. Talk a little bit about that.

PAUL MENARD: Yeah, I think we’re 14th now with the wildcard.

Yeah, I mean, it’s great. We got five or six races left. We got a lot of work to do. We have Richmond and New Hampshire Richmond before the Chase starts. Those are two of our worst tracks honestly. We have a lot of work to do. We’ll rely on our teammates a lot. They typically run well at the short tracks. Got to get that program figured out. We have a couple intermediate tracks, have a couple of those, looking forward to that. We have Atlanta for a million bucks.

KERRY THARP: You’re eligible for the Sprint Summer Showdown and also the 2012 NASCAR Sprint All Star Race.

PAUL MENARD: That’s right. Forgot about that.

Q. Also the fact that today was a perfect example of guys who were prepared to make bold moves. Slugger might want to answer also. How much can we expect to see some other guys between now and Richmond making win or go home type of gambles to try to get in as a wildcard?

PAUL MENARD: You’re going to see it. Anytime fuel mileage comes into play, you’ll see guys run out, probably guys going to win the race. The Sprint Cup Series is just so competitive, so hard to pass, everybody runs so close together, you got to gamble. Very rarely do you see a car just check out and win the race. A lot of strategy, a lot of clean air. You’re going to see it happen the next few races.

SLUGGER LABBE: For us, I mean, I think we still got to be pushing. We’re 14th in points with a win. That doesn’t guarantee you a thing. There’s a lot of things that could happen. Ryan Newman is currently in the top 10. Could fall out; take a spot away from us. We have to keep pushing, be aggressive, make it that way, not rely on this victory today.

Q. Slugger, you’ve been really high on this team all year. I know you wouldn’t trade your first win being the Brickyard. Are you surprised it took this long?

SLUGGER LABBE: Well, we had big shoes to fill. When we started the Monday after Homestead, we didn’t have a truck, trailers, racecars, nothing. To be a first year team and win a race is just short of amazing to me. We had great people at RCR. Nobody bellyached. They opened their arms, receptive people. Don’t tell Richard, but this is our 15th new car this year.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I see it in the financials.

SLUGGER LABBE: They didn’t give us hand me downs. Richard let us hire the people we needed. Got a great pit crew. He let us do our job. We run the race teams like we own them, manage our money, try to make sure we don’t waste money. But we take what we need to be successful, and today was living proof of that.

Q. Richard, what do you make of first time winners in the races this year?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I think it just shows how competitive this sport is. This car is so equal, you got to have the right people, the right driver. Everything has to come together to win in today’s sport. You’re not going to see anybody just take off and run away with it.

Today you saw Jimmie Johnson sitting there running second for quite a while, then gets back in traffic, it’s hard to go. Like Slugger says, Paul can tell you, track position is everything.

Q. Paul, in this room about 45 minutes ago Regan and Jeff got asked more about you than they got asked about their own performances. They were thrilled to talk about you. They both said you’re a highly respected driver among drivers. I know it’s an awesome day for you, but what does it mean that other drivers are genuinely happy for you today?

PAUL MENARD: I hope Regan would say that. I’m in his wedding (laughter).

But for Jeff to say that, we’ve had run ins on the track, everybody has. But for a guy of his caliber to say that, it means a lot. He came to Victory Lane, Regan came to Victory Lane. I didn’t realize that Regan finished third. Really happy for him, too.

I watched Jeff win the inaugural Brickyard 400. To have him come down in Victory Lane after finishing second to us, very special. I’ve always gotten along great with Jeff, and Regan obviously.

Q. John, after more than three decades in racing, what did it mean to you to finally get Paul in a position with an organization where the money you had invested, and you invested in so many different disciplines throughout motorsports, but to see that money put to optimum use to give Paul the kind of opportunity he deserved to have?

JOHN MENARD: Well, first of all, a lot of investment we made in motorsports over the year has been good for our business. I think it’s really a good form of advertising. I believe it’s a good form of promotion. I think that motorsports promotions are underrated a lot by some of the people in advertising.

If you look at what you can buy a sponsorship for of a race team versus some golf or some of the ball and stick type sports, motorsports is a pretty good buy. From a business standpoint, I’d say that investing in motorsports is a fairly wise investment.

From investing in motorsports teams, there are some that give you a better return, let’s say, for your investment than others. Richard’s team gives a very, very good return because he takes the money and he puts it back into the cars, the people, the research, the engines, the things that you need to win.

If there’s anybody in motorsports that knows how to do it, it’s Richard. I’m proud to be associated with him. I’m proud that Paul can do what he does. By God, guys, you’ve done a great job. Money well spent.

Q. Richard, you were in Victory Lane three times. Talk about being a three time winner, how important it is for you to win this race.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: David told me earlier it’s eight years from 2005 to 2003 [sic], and eight more years till today. It doesn’t seem like we’ve been coming here 18 years. I remember coming in here the first time I think in ’93 to do our test with Dale. The first time the cars ran down that front straightaway, thought, Man, would it be cool to win at Indy.

To be here again 18 years later and win, to win with Paul, Slugger, this whole group, to win for RCR, I couldn’t be happier. Kind of got to pinch myself.

I hope it ain’t eight years more before we win it. I’ll be an old man by then.

Q. Paul, when you were having the battle with Kenseth for the lead, when he got around you, that looked pretty close to not only winning the race but maybe losing the racecar. How close a call was that?

PAUL MENARD: Yeah, I didn’t hear him. My spotters say that Matt was inside me. Stevie is my primary spotter. He was on the backside of the pagoda. We had Jeff on the front side. I don’t know if he didn’t talk loud enough or what, but I had no idea that Matt was there.

I felt it kind of get loose. Looked at my side mirror, saw his nose was in there. Matt and I are great friends. Luckily he let me go. He could have laid in there a bit more. I had to check up and he passed us.

But, yeah, it was close. I heard the tires squealing. I had flashbacks from Montoya last year with kind of the same situation.

Q. Paul, the fact there weren’t too many cautions today, do you think that helped you?

PAUL MENARD: You know, I mean, again, our mileage has been really good. We run better on long runs. It seems like historically we’ve had great long run racecars. You know, today we just had a great racecar overall. But it comes down to track position. Restarts, so many things can happen. If you have a great racecar, you can get a fender tore up; we had a little bit of damage on pit road, nothing major. A lot of things like that happen with all those restarts.

I enjoy races that have long runs. You can analyze the car, relay information and work on the racecars.

Q. Richard, you’ve done the four team deal now. How gratifying is it to see these guys make it to Victory Lane?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: For a first year team to come out like this, it’s very gratifying. They work hard. I mean, Slugger is as hard a working guy as you’ll see around the shop, the racetrack. The first time with the four car team, I don’t think we were as prepared coming in. I said we’ll be more prepared, we know the mistakes we made, and we’re sure not making them now.

And Jeff, don’t call it luck, whatever you want to call it, it and because of a fourth team, I can’t figure it out. We’re working very, very hard.

PAUL MENARD: He was probably the best RCR car most of the day today.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Then the ignition went out. I keep telling him, it will turn as fast one way as it does in the other in this sport. I’ve been on many ends of the stick I haven’t been on.

Q. You said back in 1994 you were sitting up watching Jeff win. What were your thoughts when 17 years later you’re told over the radio that, Here comes Jeff Gordon after you?

PAUL MENARD: Is he a three or four time winner?

Q. Four.

PAUL MENARD: He’s trying for five and nobody’s done that before.

Yeah, he was fast all day long. Front straightaway is obviously really long. You can look at the pylon, see where everybody is at. You saw him up front a lot of the day. He had a solid racecar.

But, again, it comes down to clean air. Him catching us would have been one thing, but him passing us would have been another thing because we had a really strong racecar.

Again, to beat Jeff Gordon at Indy, big deal.

Q. Richard, if I asked you this morning which of your four race teams was going to win this race, what would you have said?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: You know, I thought all of our cars was really good. I told Paul before the race, I went over and I leaned in the car, I said, This will be your day, good luck.

I think one of the things, the reason I knew his car was really good, all of them were good, Jeff was really good, but they did a 20 lap run, and he ended up at a 51.65 and kept hitting the 65, 65. When you could do that, and he was really strong in traffic, when I went and talked to him, he said, A little loose, but we can really pass. That’s what you really want here. Although it’s really hard, the car looked good Saturday.

Q. Paul, a lot is made of guys from Indiana Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman wanting to win the Brickyard. None of them put the time you did in the garage at this place. Do you think it means more to you because your family invested so much at winning in this place?

PAUL MENARD: Right on par with them. I’m not an Indiana native son, but Wisconsin is not far away and I spent a helluva lot of time here as a kid. I probably been here more days than probably all three of them combined, honestly. Special place for us.

KERRY THARP: Congratulations to the No. 27 car, Richard Childress, Slugger Labbe, Paul and John Menard.

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2ND

REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 3^RD

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

KERRY THARP: We will roll into our post-race for today’s 18th running of the Brickyard 400. Finishing third in today’s race is Regan Smith. Not only was this an outstanding showing by Regan today, third in the Brickyard, let’s take a look at some of the things he’s done in 2011.

Coming into 2011, he had had no prior top 10s. This year alone he’s won the Southern 500, he finished third here at the Brickyard, he finished seventh at the Daytona 500 and eighth at the Coca Cola 600, certainly some of our sport’s biggest races.

You perform on the big stage. Did it again here today. Talk about your run.

REGAN SMITH: We just got to figure out how to perform on the rest of the stages, we’ll be in shape.

The Chevy was good today. It was probably a top 10 car, ninth or 10th place car. Didn’t have track position for a long time. When the 51 car wrecked, played our hand for us, didn’t have a choice but to come in and clean the grill off because we were overheating right away almost immediately. Cleaned the grill off, looked at the fuel strategy, and said, you know what, let’s top it off. We had nothing to lose. We got to start in the back of the pack anyway.

They kept pulling me back, pulling me back about saving fuel. We’ll see how much is left in the tank after all is said and done. I felt like I had a little bit to go a bit further.

But certainly can’t be disappointed with third, and in particular when somebody like Paul wins, I have very many close friends on this circuit, that’s one of them. He was at my victory celebration; I plan on being at his tonight or tomorrow or whenever it is.

KERRY THARP: We’ll take questions for Regan.

Q. You talked a little bit before you came in about the fuel mileage races, absolutely hating them. Could you expand on that a little bit.

REGAN SMITH: I think it’s pretty simple. I hate ‘em. I don’t care I don’t think they’re fun racing. I don’t think there’s anything good about them. I’m certainly sure there’s cars that ran up front, led a lot of laps, that ended up 10th or 12th. I don’t know who was up front most today, I was just worrying about our race and what we had to do to get track position.

It’s a product of how we’re racing right now. I think every week we know it’s going to be a fuel mileage race and we try to plan for that, to work around it accordingly.

That’s what we’re doing. Even when it’s races that aren’t necessarily fuel mileage races, they still play a part in how much track position you can get, who can pit sooner so you have that track position.

It’s here to stay. It’s not going to go away. We’ll learn to like it and to adjust to it. I guess I should be happy for it today because we had a good day and Paul won. So, you know, I’ll take back that statement. I love fuel mileage races right now (laughter).

Q. You won the Southern 500. Running top three at Indianapolis. I know you’re kind of busy in the car, but did you let your mind wander to think you might be able to win Indy and Darlington the same year?

REGAN SMITH: Hell, yeah, I did. I saw Jamie do it last year with the Brickyard and the 500. I certainly thought we had a shot to do that.

The thing that was going to hurt us, if I would have pushed a couple laps earlier to catch the lead pack, we would have had to pass four guys. If I would have pushed a little bit sooner to do that, we would have used up too much fuel, maybe run out. If we wait till they go, we’re going to have that same gap no matter what. Unless I got the most incredible restart in the world, passed 10 cars right away, that was what we were going to have to do today, accept a third place finish and be happy with it.

We tried doing this at Loudon. Had a good car. Did the fuel mileage there, ran out way short. So this meant a lot to me to be able to save it and actually be able to make it to the end of this one.

Q. Can you talk about the balance that you’ve got to strike over the next six races?

REGAN SMITH: Well, from my team’s standpoint, I don’t think we’re looking at the top 20 right now. We’d have to win out at this point to have a shot at getting back up there. Certainly we’d love to do that. The reality is, this is such a tough series, it’s going to be really hard to do.

We’re going to focus on winning races. If it puts us in position to get top fives, great. If we can sneak up there and maybe get top 20, and the right things play out, then cool. If not, we’re working hard to make sure we can do this every week next year and this just isn’t a thing we did a few times this year.

Q. Regan, you mentioned how thrilled you were that if you couldn’t win it, that Paul won it. What do you think it means to his dad in particular to put so much into winning here?

REGAN SMITH: Well, Jeff can probably speak better to that than I can, being from Indiana, being up here as much as he was. I just know what it means to Paul. I know how hard he’s worked. One of the really good close friends that I have on this circuit, always go to if I have a question or need something.

He always talks about coming up here. He always talks about how much he loves this place. I know if he had to highlight one race to get his first win, I’m sure he’ll tell you in a minute he couldn’t be happier.

It’s cool. You only get one chance to get your first win. It’s a special thing, especially when you do it here.

KERRY THARP: Jeff Gordon has joined us at the podium. Finished a strong runner up today. Jeff has moved up to seventh in the points, with two victories on the season.

Jeff, you were coming like a locomotive at the end of that race. Talk about your effort today.

JEFF GORDON: It was awesome. What a fun race for us. From the time we got here, probably even prior to getting here, I felt really positive about the effort that was put into our racecar. The guys were really fired up about getting here. But you still never know until you get out there on the track.

The first couple laps on that track, it just had that feel, you know, it had a great feel. Struggled a little bit getting ready for qualifying, but qualified better than I thought we would.

When they dropped the green, I knew we had a car that could win this race. It was a lot of fun. Kasey Kahne looked to be one of the best. He had some issues. We got up there and were able to kind of control the race.

It was just a lot of fun. It’s been a while since we had a car like that here at Indy. Just a flawless effort by the team. The pit stops were fantastic. I thought Alan called a great race. When we came off pit road the last time, we were able to get ahead of Harvick, I thought that was a huge moment for us. That put us in position to win.

I knew that shortly after that, there were some guys that were going to try to stretch it on fuel and all I could do is run as hard as I could to put pressure on them and hope that I got there in time.

We got there just a little bit short. But Paul did a great job saving fuel because when I got there, even Regan and other guys, they were still pretty much checking up when I got there. It was easy to get by them. But Paul had saved enough to where he could go back to a full pace. By that time, my car was just too tight behind him.

Back to what Regan said, you know, I don’t know Paul as well as he does. But I was with him the other day. I thought it was pretty cool. We were talking about him coming here as a kid with his family I think from like, I don’t know, late ’80s or something all the way to 2000, some ridiculous thing where every year he was here for the 500, knowing what his dad has done here in IndyCars. I don’t think there’s anybody that could appreciate a win, even if it is his first win.

I think he’s in awe right now. I went and saw him. His eyes, he’s like a deer in headlights. I’m so happy for him, I think a lot of people are. It’s one thing to get your first win here, but it’s another when you can appreciate how special it is to win here. I think Paul certainly has that.

KERRY THARP: We’ll continue with questions.

Q. Jeff, I guess second kind of sucks, but what does this weekend and effort today say about your team’s championship drive?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, it says a lot. Obviously we wanted to win this race, but we also wanted to make a statement. I think we certainly did that. You know, this team is for real. We showed that today. You always hear about people talking about, you know, the team that wins here at Indy, their chances for the championship.

While we didn’t win, I think we definitely showed that we’re a championship caliber team. We’ve been knocking on the door, getting closer every single weekend, won a couple races. For me this is going to be a huge boost for this race team and hopefully a bit of a statement to the competition as well that we’re serious about our efforts at a championship this year.

If we can run like we did today here at Indy, you know, I know we’re capable of winning just about anyplace we go.

Q. Jeff, do you have any theory as to why out of the four major races, three have been won by first time guys this year?

JEFF GORDON: Well, Daytona’s different. The type of drafting that you do. So I don’t know if you can necessarily you got to kind of put that in its own category.

But when Regan won at Darlington, I mean, that was a risky move that they made, kind of like what Paul did today. But he drove the wheels off that thing to keep Carl behind him. So you got to give him a lot of credit.

I’m not sure which other one? The 600?

Q. The 600.

JEFF GORDON: I don’t even know who won the 600.

Q. Harvick won the 600.

JEFF GORDON: So three of the four. Got you. It was a good thought (laughter).

Q. Regan, you mentioned Paul being one of your closest friends out here. How did that develop?

REGAN SMITH: I think the same thing, we came into the circuit the same time, around each other a lot, a lot of different appearance, stuff like that. You start seeing guys more and more, get comfortable with them, just like that.

We’re both kind of similar personalities, quiet, a little bit shy if you want to call it that, keep to ourselves a little bit.

But he’s been knocking on the door for a while. Had some really strong racecars. Certainly happy for him.

Q. Jeff, you won the first Brickyard here. You know how you felt. Compare it with what you think he feels today.

JEFF GORDON: I think the comparison’s probably very similar. I think, you know, it was a dream come true for me just to get a chance to race at Indy. That first event, you know, was unbelievable. I was definitely in shock that we won that race. That race changed my life forever, certainly my career has never been the same since.

I think Paul is going to experience that same thing. This will be a big boost for his confidence. But, you know, those guys have worked hard to come into Childress and put together a good, strong team and put Paul in a position to be able to be competitive enough to win. And they’ve been competitive this year, they really have. They’ve been strong.

This is not just a fluke. They took a big risk. But they had to beat a lot of other guys that were trying to save fuel. There at the end, you know, I couldn’t have passed him.

Again, just because he’s been here so much as a kid experiencing Indy, he knows how special it is to compete here, let alone win here. So I think the feelings are probably very similar. He probably has a greater appreciation for it than I did in ’94, because while I was watching from a distance and my heroes were Indy 500 drivers, I wasn’t in the garage like he was. So he could probably appreciate it even more.

Q. Jeff, you’ve won a couple times, basically locked into the Chase. In these next six races, where is your team’s focus going to be? Business as usual, R&D?

JEFF GORDON: Man, we’re going to try to put the same kind of effort we just did today and just keep building our team up to be able to be championship caliber when the Chase comes around. I think we’re very close.

Alan and I, it took us a little while to get to know one another, how to communicate with one another, what I need in the car. He’s been really giving me great stuff to drive. It’s been a blast.

Today was just solid pit stops, no mistakes, a lot of confidence in his calls, in his adjustments. I thought today we were a complete team. We’ve got to continue to do that week in and week out. I think there’s definitely more tracks that we can win at. But it’s really about building ourselves up to be strong when the Chase comes around.

Q. Jeff, when is the last time you’ve been this happy to finish second?

JEFF GORDON: Well, this is Indy, you know. I guess I’m happy because we ran so good today. We haven’t run this good in a while. I know what it means to run good here at Indy. This is a tough place. There’s no coincidence that teams that have won here in the past several times have gone on to win the championship because it shows who has the complete package.

I think that we showed we got a great package. While we came up short, I guess too because I’m happy for Paul. If you’re gonna get beat, it’s pretty cool to get beat by somebody that can really appreciate this win.

I don’t like finishing second. I was disappointed. When I came down the front straightaway, I was pretty upset. But that quickly turned into my thoughts about how great we ran today and how cool it was for Paul.

Q. Matt said he thought when you got around him as Burton was coming into the pits, that was probably the pass for the lead. Did you have that same thought?

JEFF GORDON: There was two big moments I thought that happened for us. That one, when we got by Matt. I was better than Matt, but I couldn’t pass him. He was good enough to keep me behind him. If we didn’t get in front of him, then he very easily could have won this race. So when I got by him there, you know, I thought that was big.

Then the next big moment was when we came off pit road. I thought this was where Alan was genius today. I don’t know how it worked out. But when we came in for that last pit stop, we rolled off there and I could see him coming down the front straightaway, and I ran really hard through one and two on that access road to try to get ahead of him. I just squeaked ahead of him by the time we got to turn three and pulled away. That was Harvick and Kenseth.

Those two moments were key moments to put us in position to win. Had those guys had to come in, we had the position. We did everything we could to put ourselves there to win this race.

Q. How much more time do you think you needed to catch him?

JEFF GORDON: I’ll be honest with you. You know, I used it all up getting to him. There were a couple cars that were saving fuel when I got to them. They didn’t make it real easy on me, which you can’t blame ‘em. But that held me up a bit.

And then when I got to him, I got tight. He could run a good enough pace where even if I had gotten closer to him, I don’t think I could have passed.

Paul was pretty good all day today actually. I ran with him earlier in the race. It was going to be tough to pass him then. There at the end, where I give him a lot of credit, he saved enough fuel to where at the end he went for it. The tires are not too burned off because he didn’t push the car too hard. He saved enough fuel that he could run a good enough pace that I don’t think I could have passed him.

I used it all up getting to him. But another lap, I was hoping he was going to run out (laughter). I was hoping it was going to be an easy pass.

Q. Regan, we know how you feel about Paul and the friendship you have. Now we know what Jeff thinks. Among other drivers, do you sense that a lot of them echo Jeff’s feelings about Paul, that he has a lot of respect?

REGAN SMITH: Yeah, I think so. A lot of people know what the Menard’s name has meant to racing, what the family meant to racing. Certainly I didn’t come to this place as a kid and didn’t have my roots around this track, and he did, like Jeff said.

The other thing is Menard has built a lot of engines and cars to bring to the 500 year after year. I think pretty much everything has been said. It’s just really cool for him to do that deal, to win here.

Part of me’s happy, part of me’s mad. Maybe these two could have run into each other and then I could have won this thing. That’s what I was hoping for. Afterwards I said, That’s okay (laughter).

Q. Jeff, is there any master plan for the fueling system that you can come out with enough fuel to finish big races like this?

JEFF GORDON: Well, it seems to me like what a lot of guys are doing now to save fuel, used to be a big track like this, if you were one lap short, you better come in, you’re not going to make it unless you get a bunch of cautions.

Now what’s happening is guys have figured out how to stretch it and get incredible fuel mileage even under green by pushing on the clutch, shutting off the engine, doing a bunch of things that they can stretch it four and five laps now, even on a big track like this. Used to be impossible to save that amount of fuel. But these days guys are figuring it out.

That’s about the only thing. There’s not a whole lot you can do to the tank. There’s not a lot you can do to conserve fuel with the carburetor. Little tiny things. But other than that, even just checking up early isn’t going to save you a whole lot. You have to get the rpms down. It’s something that a lot of teams have been working on. Things to in car cameras, we’ve seen other guys, how they’ve done it, and now we work on it.

I will say, you know, I really enjoyed there at the end being in a position to not have to conserve. It was a lot of fun to run hard and try to chase these guys down, even though we came up short. It’s the position everybody prefers to be in. Doesn’t mean you’re always going to win the race that way.

Q. Regan, after winning Darlington, everybody was saying that the wins may start to pile up for you. While wins haven’t come, you’ve had four top 10s this year. Finishing third here is a big deal. Is this further validating your career and your team’s ideology being based out of Denver and proving that model can work for you guys?

REGAN SMITH: I think we’re going to continue to prove that that model can work. It’s a model nobody else has tried in a long time. For the longest time, everybody thought you had to move to the Charlotte area to race. We’re trying to dispel that theory.

I think the times have allowed us to do that, technology has allowed us to do that. We can be on a live active database back to North Carolina and see different things going on from Denver also. Certainly with some of the teams having the troubles they’ve had in the past years, we’ve been able to get really good people to complement the people we already got in Denver.

You know, I think as we continue to grow and move on, yeah, I hope we can keep validating it and maybe open up some other teams’ eyes to say, Let’s try moving to another city.

One part that we see in Denver that nobody else really sees that doesn’t come to Denver a lot, from a media standpoint, they’ve almost adopted the team as their franchise team. It’s been interesting for me to see the past two and a half years out there where that’s going, kind of the direction it’s taking.

Who knows, it’s something cool. The people of Denver really rally around the team and myself, too, which is really neat. I’m not necessarily the biggest names in this garage, there’s no hiding from that, but I go to Denver and feel like I am one of the big names.

KERRY THARP: Jeff and Regan, congratulations. Great show out there this weekend. Thank you.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

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PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 NIBCO/MENARDS CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER-HIS FIRST CAREER NSCS VICTORY: WHAT IS THIS MOMENT LIKE?

THIS MORNING I TALKED TO YOUR CREW CHIEF SLUGGER LABBE AND HE TOLD ME THE ONE THING THEY HAD GOING WAS THIS FUEL MILEAGE AND IT ENDED UP WORKING IN YOUR FAVOR, WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN HE TOLD YOU YOU’RE FREE GO FOR IT? “I was saving a little bit and maintaining with the No. 5 and No. 1 and I started backing up a little bit more and they kind of kept backing up with me. I knew that we saved plenty of fuel. I was more worried about the guys that pitted for fuel and coming hard. Slugger had told me where Jeff (Gordon) was and how fast he was coming. The car was really good. Clean air was so important. We stayed out one caution, no tires, took off. Finally got in the back and couldn’t do anything so clean air, ECR horsepower, NIBCO is on the hood. Menards and my dad have been coming here for 35 years and its Indianapolis.”

WE TALKED TO YOUR DAD UP ON THE PIT BOX, HE’S SO EMOTIONAL, WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOUR FAMILY? “It’s big you know. My first year here was 1989 that I can remember anyway and I think I was here when I was like three or four years old, just spent a lot of time in the garage area. I didn’t miss the Indy 500 from 1989 to 2003, I was here for the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994. Just a really special place for my family and myself. Thanks to all the fans. Indianapolis, this is the greatest race track in the world, we’ve got the best fans here too.”

WHEN YOU SIGNED WITH RCR WHAT WAS THE REALITY THAT MAYBE YOU WOULD HAVE THE CHANCE OF MAKING THE CHASE BECAUSE NOW YOU ARE A WILD CARD. “We are a wild card. We’ve had an up and down year. We’ve had fast cars just struggling to put the deal together, be consistent week-to-week. It’s not the lack of effort. Slugger, he’s in the shop seven days a week, when he’s not at the track he’s in the shop. All these guys just bust their tails. Beautiful race cars, ECR horse power is fantastic and we got great fuel mileage thanks to ECR.”

IF YOU COULD PICK YOUR FIRST RACE TO WIN, I CAN IMAGINE YOU CAN’T THINK OF A BETTER PLACE THAN THE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: “This is the one I wanted to win. My family, my Dad has had IndyCars here since the late 70s, 35 years or so. For 35 years he’s been trying so giving him his first win here after all those years of trying is pretty special. Can’t wait to kiss the bricks. We’re the inaugural Sprint Summer Shootout winner. That’s cool. Man, it’s Indy.”

WHAT WAS YOUR FEELING WHEN SLUGGER (CREW CHIEF RICHARD LABBE) TOLD YOU TO GO FOR IT AND YOU STARTED PULLING AWAY IN THOSE FINAL LAPS? “Knew we had to save fuel, we were two and a half laps short and once we got strung out there, we started backing up a little bit. We were racing the No. 5 (Mark Martin) and the No. 1 (Jamie McMurray) there and as I backed up the No. 1 backed up with me. So happy that Regan (Smith) finished third. He is a really good friend of mine and I was so happy for him to win the Southern 500 at Darlington. He’s a great friend. But that last restart we started backing up more, a little bit more and everybody backed up with us. I knew we had several laps of fuel, I knew the No. 24 (Jeff Gordon) was coming hard, but the car was really fast. Jamie was trying to push me a little bit to make us run out of fuel there when he passed me and I passed him back. I knew we had saved enough. It was kind of a cat and mouse game. We were better than Jamie all day speed-wise. We were worried about the No. 5, we were worried about the No. 1 and we were worried about the No. 24 but we won Indy.”

HOW DID IT FEEL TO SEE THE CHECKERED FLAG HERE? “I was hoping we weren’t going to run out of fuel, I was checking the fuel pressure guage. ECR gave us great horsepower and great mileage. Everybody at RCR builds awesome race cars. It is a thrill to drive for Richard Childress and I can’t wait to go kiss the bricks.”

JEFF GORDON, DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2^ND:

WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE IT WAS GOING TO BE? “The biggest key to me was when we came out of the pits ahead of Harvick. I thought that was huge, so Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) did an awesome job. First of all what an incredible Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet. Right from the drop of the green flag this was a lot of fun day and I had a blast driving. The car was awesome. So when we got in front of Harvick I thought okay, I thought that was the guys we were going to race and then when Alan told me there were guys that were going to try to stretch out fuel mileage all I could do was drive as hard as I could. I was a little bit loose at the beginning and we got in some traffic and the car finally tightened up and then we were really clicking off some laps. Every time I got to a car that was saving fuel they kind of held me up a little bit and made it a little more difficult for me to pass so I knew were weren’t going to quite get to Paul (Menard), it was really about him running out of fuel. We tried as hard as we could to put pressure on him and I’ve got to say as disappointing as it is to not win this race it sure was great to run that good and I’ve got to congratulate Paul Menard. I don’t think there is anybody in this garage area that appreciates a win here at the Brickyard more than Paul. He grew up here as a kid and I think that’s pretty special, pretty cool.”

HOW BAD DID YOU WANT IT ON THAT LAST LAP KNOWING YOU WERE THAT CLOSE?

“Well I wanted it really bad you know leading up to that but on the last lap I knew I was too tight behind him and if he didn’t run out I wasn’t going to get him. I needed a few laps to work on him, well I guess I needed a few more laps for him to run out of fuel too.”

ANOTHER LAP OR TWO AND YOU MIGHT HAVE HAD IT

“Oh my goodness what a day. What a day. I am so proud of this Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet team. I mean they were just flawless. What an awesome race car we have had all weekend long and we showed it, just how strong it was, throughout the whole day and I tell you Alan called a perfect race to get me out front of Harvick there……….it was huge. And then we had a great car you know and we had fresher tires and we had a long way to make up and you know, all we could do was run as hard as we could to put pressure on those guys and hope they would run out. I passed all of them but one and when I got to Paul he had enough left that he could get going and by that time I had really worn the tires out and I was pretty tight behind him. I can’t think my guys enough for this effort and I got to say that as disappointing as it is to not win this race, I couldn’t be happier for Paul Menard. I don’t think there is anybody in this garage that could appreciate a win here anymore than Paul. He grew up here as a kid with his family and I know how much it means to him and its pretty cool.”

REGAN SMITH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW RACING – FINISHED 3RD:

YOU KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE TO WIN FOR THE FIRST TIME AND CAME VERY CLOSE AGAIN TODAY

“Yeah it was a great run for the Furniture Row Chevy and my guys worked their butts off all weekend. This is not a great track for me, so I am happy and if I couldn’t win man the guy in victory lane is my best friend on the circuit and I can’t wait to get down there to congratulate him.”

THIRD-PLACE HERE TODAY AT THE BRICKYARD, HOW DO YOU PUT HAT INTO PERSPECTIVE? “Well, that is the most bitter-sweet third-place of all time because you can see the leaders. I saw the No. 27 and I knew he was on the same strategy as us and I wanted to go and he went and we decided to pull the reigns back a little bit hoping some more of them would run out of fuel and then I saw the No. 24 come and I thought we are in trouble now because he doesn’t have to save at all so that kind of made our decision for us. The bitter-sweet part is because I’m so happy for Paul Menard down there. I know what this race means to that family and to him in particular. I can’t wait to get to victory lane and congratulate him, that’s a really cool deal.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THIS TEAM TO HAVE THE KIND OF YEAR YOU HAVE HAD, NOT JUST THE WIN BUT THE STRIDES YOU HAVE TAKEN? “Well we needed to. We felt like we were a team capable of taking strides. We had a top-10 car today, that’s what we had. If things played out correct we were going to finish right around ninth or 10th. The strategy was played out for us when the No. 51 car wrecked. We got our grill covered up in grass and actually had to pit and clean it off and go to the tail end. We pitted right before the green came out and it worked out perfect.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET – FINISHED 4^TH:

A FOURTH PLACE RUN, HOW CLOSE WERE YOU TO GETTING IT DONE?

“They said we were a couple laps short on fuel so all of us were saving gas there at the end and I wanted to be the guy out front because I felt like it was going to be hard to pass when we all decided to go. I felt pretty comfortable with the 27 car because they have ECR engines and they tend to race similar and I just wanted to be ahead of him and I tried to go one corner and my car pushed so bad he got back by me. So from that point on I was just conserving.”

HOW CLOSE WERE YOU ON FUEL? “It was really close. I was confused because initially I thought he said two laps then I thought he said half, I just wanted to know if it was half or two and how much I needed to save. I got by the No. 27 because I wanted to be leading the race. I knew it was going to be easier to defend than it was going to be to try to pass when everyone decided to take off. We got a little bit lucky today but really happy. We’ve had a tough year and a lot of things go wrong and a lot of bad luck and its very nice to have good luck. We had Johnny Morris here form Bass Pro Shops today and the folks from Lift Master. Had a good Chevy and had a good finish.”

YOU MADE A PASS ON THE NO. 27, A FEW LAPS TO GO, THE NO. 24 IS IN YOUR MIRROR, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? “When he said the No. 24 was two seconds back I was honestly thinking I would rather lead this and run out of gas than finish second and have enough left and think you could have won again. It’s so hard here and the Daytona 500, its so hard to put yourself in that position, you just don’t want to ever give them the chance. Certainly congratulations to Paul Menard. He’s a really good guy and his crew chief Slugger, all those guys, that’s really cool to see someone like that win.”

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/OFFICE DEPOT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6^TH: HOW MANY BATTLES DID YOU HAVE TO WIN TODAY TO FINISH 6^TH? “We had the problem on the first pit stop there, the green flag stop, getting on the outside of (Kevin) Harvick and hitting the cone. That was hard to take. But we just fought all day and I am really proud of Darian Grubb and these guys on this Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevy. They did it, I didn’t do it. I just fought for everything I could get all day. We didn’t have the best car by any means, they fought hard and ended up getting something.”

YOU GUYS MADE SO MANY CHANGES ON PIT ROAD, DID ANYTHING SEEM TO HELP THE CAR AT ALL? “Clean air, that’s the only thing. As famed as this place is and as much history there is, it’s one of the hardest places to race guys because it is just one groove and the corners are short corners to try to make a run on somebody and you can’t run on the outside of them. It makes it really hard and you’ve really got to plan your run on guys and figure out where to pass and how to play the track position game. Whatever you get here, you appreciate it because you had to earn it. You don’t get anything free here.”

YOU WERE LEADING WITH 20 TO GO AND THEY SAID MAYBE A LAP AND A HALF SHORT ON FUEL, DID YOU THINK ABOUT GOING FOR IT? “I was trying to roll the dice and go for it. They said a lap and a half but it was three laps I found out from Darian when I got back to the trailer so there is no way we could have saved that kind of fuel and done anything productive on the race track. It is like he said, give me everything you can give me. We ran that last 10 laps as hard as he could.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SIXTH TODAY? “That is a long day at the office. Thanks for giving me the time to cool off, I appreciate that. That is a hard way to do it man. We had to fight from the back a couple of different times to get up there.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT JOHN MENARD’S SON WINNING TODAY? “I don’t care about John Menard, but I am really happy for Paul Menard. Paul’s been around this place for a long time, he’s been here since he was a kid. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy, that is a pretty deserving win right there. I’m happy for him getting his first one that way.”

WHAT HAPPENED THERE ON PIT ROAD WITH YOU AND HARVICK? “It just was what it was. Kevin lifted earlier than I did coming off of turn four and versus running into him, I went to the outside of him and when we got to the cone there, I was in the wrong spot. It was just one of those things, you are trying to get everything you can get. It was either hit the cone or run over the guy in front of me so I chose to hit the cone. We got the penalty for it. I’m proud of our guys for working from back and getting us where we got there at the end.”

HOW DID YOU FINISH SIXTH THROUGH ALL OF THAT? “Man, I don’t even know. It was a lot of hard work by Darian Grubb and the guys on this Mobil 1/Office Depot team. We just had a long, long hard day. To get almost a top-five out of this thing, running sixth was a good day for us.”

COMMITMENT CONE PENALTY, YOU GET BANGED AROUND BY KYLE BUSCH, YOU STAYED IN IT: “It’s a long pit road, but it’s a narrow pit road. I feel bad for Kyle and those guys because they had a good day going at that time too. Just a rough day, but we fought for everything we could get.”

COULD YOU HAVE MADE IT AT THE END IF YOU HAD STAYED OUT? “No, we were three laps short. We did the right thing when we did and it paid off for us. We’ll take it.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO HEAR YOU WERE SHORT ON FUEL? “Come to find out we were three short and there was no way we could make up three. A lap and a half I think I could have got him, but there is no way we could have got him three laps. We inherited the lead anyway because we stayed out and everybody else in front of us came in so we knew it was a borrow lead. But it sure was nice to lead here at Indy again.”

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET – FINISHED 12^TH:

“When you get back in traffic, it’s tough. We never could get to the front and get clean air. We rallied to finish 12^th and that will help us in the points, but I wish we could have had a better day with our Haas Automation Chevrolet.”

TONY GIBSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 39 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET – FINISHED 12^TH:

WERE YOU CHASING THE BALANCE ALL DAY:

“Just traffic. Track position in clean air was perfect. It was good. It’s hard to adjust on a car when you’re in the middle of traffic like that. There’s no air back there. You can over-adjust way too easy, so we just tried to tinker with it. We just knew we were sucking that air and there wasn’t much we could do. The balance was going to change. We just did damage control today. We just tried to finish the best we could without killing ourselves in the points and it worked out good. The No. 14 (Tony Stewart) finished ahead of us and everybody else that we needed to outrun, we did today. That’s what we’ve got to do right now. We’ve got that win, so now we’ve got to just manage our points.

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET – FINISHED 16^TH:

YOU CAME HOME WITH A 16TH-PLACE FINISH AFTER LEADING OUT THERE AND AT THE END YOU WERE ON A GOOD FUEL STRATEGY, HOW DO YOU THINK IT WORKED?

“We run 16th, I don’t know if that was the best strategy out there. Congratulations to the No. 27 and that gang. Slugger and Paul they are a good racing group and they work hard. We had a good run. Our car drove pretty good. We cycled around and didn’t have the track position at the end and that is all it was. Everybody was on a lot different strategies too. We lost a little track position there on one of the pit stops. I come down behind this guy. I got out of my stall and I should have come off of pit road around fifth or third, we came in third.and I came out of my stall and this guy was going really slow all the way down pit road so I lost 10 spots just waiting on this guy to go into his stall which he was way down there and just cost us a lot track position there and you can’t get it back. Track position is tough at this place. We didnt’ have a good enough car and I wasn’t wheeling it good enough to run like a couple of them were. Some of those guys could get up there pretty good but our car was struggling in traffic.”

WHEN DID YOU GUYS PIT THE LAST TIME?

“As soon as we got inside the fuel window.”

YOU RESTARTED, THEN YOU PITTED

“Yeah.”

YOU PITTED REAL EARLY

“Yeah; well, not as early as some guys. A couple after the No. 29 (Kevin Harvick) and the No. 39 )Ryan Newman).”

ON THE DAY OVERALL:

“We did okay. We had a pretty good car. Track position was everything like I thought it would be. You couldn’t pass. You could run as fast as the guys in front of you were running and that was it.”

FOR A WHILE THERE, IT LOOKED LIKE WHEN YOU GOT GRASS ON YOUR GRILL IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS GOING TO TURN AROUND YOUR WHOLE DAY

“It was running hot; yeah. It was running over 300 degrees on the oil and the water temp.”

DID YOU EXPECT THIS RACE TO BE TREATED LIKE THAT WHERE IT WAS ALMOST LIKE A ROAD COURSE FUEL MILEAGE RACE

“Yeah, because you can’t pass. It’s just like on road courses that’s the reason we do the road courses like that because you can’t pass on them. So you don’t want to be hanging around out there on the race track when everybody else is already inside a fuel window. So yeah, I can understand why it turned out like it did. Even if I had new tires or better tires, I couldn’t pass people.”

SO ONCE YOU CAME OUT OF PIT ROAD THAT LAST TIME, YOU PRETTY MUCH KNEW WHERE YOU WERE GOING TO FINISH?

“Yeah, behind whoever was in front of me (laughs); as long as he had enough gas! I caught the No. 4 (Kasey Kahne) by a lucky break. He got bound up behind a guy who was running out of fuel and I got a spot there, but otherwise I didn’t go up through there. Some guys did. Now the No. 2 (Keselowski) ran up through there pretty good. I don’t know if he had different tires or put tires on, but some guys were fast enough to get up through there and some of us weren’t.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD A BETTER CAR THAN WHERE YOU FINISHED TODAY?

“Yeah, I think so. I do. We played it out and that’s the result we got. I don’t really know if I was to be too angry about it, what to be angry about. So.”

ARE YOU GOING TO LOOK AT THE POINTS AFTER THIS OR TRY TO NOT WORRY WHERE YOU’RE AT?

“We’ll try not to worry about it. We’ll go to Pocono and try not to let that overwhelm us or consume us and try to focus on the next race track. We’re going testing next week and try to go to Pocono and do better than we did last time and we had a pretty decent finish there and we’ll try to do better.”

WHAT’S YOUR REACTION ABOUT PAUL MENARD WINNING THE BRICKYARD?

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. He’s been running great all year long. He’s a good talent. He’s got a really, really good crew chief in Slugger and it’s a matter of time. He had been doing well in the points earlier in the season and like us, had some ill fortunes and he’s done great. It’s a good program for him.”

ON THE RACE OVERALL

“Well, we had a pretty good car as long as we had track position. I thought we were maybe a fifth place car all day. And we just couldn’t pass anybody. We was too tight behind people. I just couldn’t even get to them; if I was a little bit quicker I just couldn’t get to them. It was like this invisible wall keeping me back from getting there. My car would just get real tight with no air. We got to the checkered at least. I haven’t done too well the last few times I’ve been here.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET CHEVROLET – FINISHED 28^TH:

AS MESSED UP AS THE RACE WAS AT THE END HOW DID IT PLAY OUT FOR YOU GUYS?

“It sucks when you run good all day but I think Jim Pohlman and all the guys did a really good job all day. We unloaded really bad and at the end we were a really competitive car.”

DOES IT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON YOU FOR WINS?

“No, we have to work really good with Jim and understand each other and if the wins come, good, if they don’t they don’t you know? Right now its all about looking at the future and long term I think its pretty good.”

OVERALL HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS TODAY

“It was good. We had the fastest car but when we could see the front it seemed like I could get a little more out of the car and I was pushing really hard. We tried to go longer on the lefts and that didn’t work but it’s okay.”

JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET – FINISHED 35^TH:

HOW WAS YOUR FIRST RACE TODAY WITH LUKE?

“We had a little miscommunication on pit road and the radios blanked out and I couldn’t hear him and I drove by pit road and it put us in a hole the rest of the day but we were fast and it was just the same old deal we just had a lot of crap go on and had an ignition problem there at the end and we had a fast race car and this weekend went as smoothly as we could have asked for we just……..that thing on pit road was just……….the radio blanked out and I didn’t hear anything for like three seconds and by then I was past the pit box.”

EVERY ONE OF THESE RACES IS COMING DOWN TO THE LAST PIT STOP AND GAS, WHY?

“You have got to really be in a position with not a lot to lose. I mean you look at like the top guys and they are guys that if they finished 35^th it’s not the end of the world but if they won, it’s a huge gain. And if you look at three of the top-four that is the position they were in so they were all in a position to gamble and we were just a little bit off in fuel mileage today to do that. We wanted to do that, but we just couldn’t. “

About Chevrolet: Founded in Detroit in 1911, Chevrolet celebrates its centennial as a global automotive brand with annual sales of about 4.25 million vehicles in more than 140 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. 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 Spark, Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including Cruze Eco and Volt. Cruze Eco offers 42 mpg highway while Volt offers 35 miles of electric, gasoline-free driving and an additional 344 miles of extended range. 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 can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

- Team Chevy, Press Release

Toyota Motorsports Logo

Camry drivers Brian Vickers (15th), Bobby Labonte (17th) and Kasey Kahne (18th) also earned top-20 finishes at the historic two-mile speedway.

Kahne started on the outside of the front row in today’s 400-mile race and led a race-high 48 (of 160) laps.

Other Toyota drivers in the field included Martin Truex Jr. (24th), Joey Logano (25th), Denny Hamlin (27th), Casey Mears (29th), David Reutimann (36th), Michael McDowell (37th), Joe Nemechek (38th), Mike Skinner (40th) and T.J. Bell (42nd).

Busch gained one position and is now fourth in the unofficial NSCS point standings and is 16 points behind leader Carl Edwards, and Hamlin ranks 11th in the standings.

Other Toyota drivers in the top-25 in the unofficial point standings after 20 of 36 NSCS races include Kahne (15th), Logano (19th), Truex (23rd) and Reutimann (24th).

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 10th

Were you surprised with your finish? “Characteristically, for us here and for the damage and everything that we had today on the M&M’s Camry — certainly. Definitely had no idea that the day would be so ugly, but yet come out of it smelling like a rose I guess. All in all, the guys did a great job. We worked our butts of this whole weekend trying to get something out of nothing. Just could never get the car to be fast off the beginning. The first couple laps of a run — that kind of hurt us qualifying a little bit and marred us back in traffic. Got up front and on one of those pit stops there, I didn’t know the 14 (Tony Stewart) was coming around me. I guess I should have seen his pit board. We collected into the 14 on pit road and tore up the car and were salvaged back in traffic the rest of the day. Then had a pit strategy there at the end to try to make it on fuel and we did. Commend Dave (Rogers, crew chief) and the guys for giving me good fuel mileage and the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) engine shop did a nice job today. We’ll take 10th and go on to Pocono.”

What challenges did you face in the race? “We fought track position the whole day and once we did get it, we were up front and running top-10 much of the day. Then on that pit stop there where Tony (Stewart) was coming in and I was coming out — we made contact. It was our fault — the 18 car. We should have waited for Tony to come in, but I didn’t know he was coming. I have to rely on Dave (Rogers, crew chief) to tell me that. All in all, we salvaged along from there and then we got back in traffic. We knocked the nose in and it was an ugly way to salvage a 10th-place finish, that’s for sure.”

Is Indianapolis a race track that you find difficult? “Indy has never really been one of my favorite places anyways just because it’s so hard to run around here and gain track position or even pass. If you could pass people, sure, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. You can get stuck behind a guy for 50 laps and not be able to make a move on him. That’s just frustrating, but it’s the same for everybody. A lot of guys are better at it than others and I would say that I’m not very good at making track position here. Like I said, we did the best with what we had.”

How much fuel did you need to save in the closing laps? “We had to save two to three (laps) — whatever that means. What surprised me really was that those guys that were running up front that were running hard and making it. Like the 27 (Paul Menard) made it — the 78 (Regan Smith) made it. Those guys, I expected them to run out. They must have had just enough. By our calculations already, we figured out that was it. We barely made it back into the pits according to what the paper says.”

BRIAN VICKERS, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Finishing Position: 15th

BOBBY LABONTE, No. 47 Huggies Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Finishing Position: 17th

KASEY KAHNE, No. 4 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Finishing Position: 18th

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA Platinum Filters Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position: 24th

JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 25th

How was your race car today?“We started off terrible — kind of like we expected. I hate that we finished 25th. We got the car pretty good. The guys kept getting the car better. Got to the point that at least we had decent speed in it. We couldn’t make it on fuel — we don’t get good fuel mileage and that’s a problem. That’s what we get for not getting good fuel mileage — we finish 25th. We did a good job getting better, but it’s frustrating — getting the car better and being better and then having a fuel mileage race. Seems like anyone can win these things these days — you have to get lucky these days more than anything.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Finishing Position: 27th

How do you feel about your finish? “It was a disappointing finish for us. We found ourselves in the top-10 for most of the day. We’re hoping something gave up in the front end. We had the characteristics of two different race cars once we had that second to last stop. Disappointed in our effort. I felt we would be a little bit better than this today, but just wasn’t there.”

Was the heat a factor? “It wasn’t a factor for me. It might have caused the front end to give up in our race car. That is something we have to check out. We’ve been fighting that here on these hot race tracks. These cars are just giving up too much speed. Towards the end of the day we just didn’t have a good car.”

CASEY MEARS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 29th

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Finishing Position: 36th

How do you feel after hitting the wall? “I’m okay. Just disappointed. We actually had a really good Aaron’s Dream Machine — I know everybody says that. Really moving forward one car at a time and having to do some stuff on track position to get ourselves track position to show how good we could be. I just cut a right front tire or something getting into (turn) three. Probably can’t pick a worse place for it to happen. When the right fronts down it won’t turn. Unfortunately, hit the wall pretty hard. But, you know, you don’t hit stuff soft anymore — you’re going pretty fast. Hats off to everybody at Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota Racing Development — a great motor today. Just didn’t get it finished. Qualified bad, but we were moving up through there and just didn’t get a chance to show what we could do.”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 66 HP Racing LLC Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Finishing Position: 37th

JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 AMFMEnergy.com Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Finishing Position: 38th

MIKE SKINNER, No. 60 Big Red Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 40th

T.J. BELL, No. 50 Green Smoke Toyota Camry, Gunselman Motorsports Finishing Position: 42nd

- Toyota Motorsports, Press Release

Dodge Motorsports

BRAD KESELOWSKI (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished Ninth

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE GAMBLE NOT TO PIT? “We knew that we had to do a one-stop at the end. I thought Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) made the right move. We need to gamble a bit to get that second win, but we also have to be conscious of earning points. I was really surprised that so many cars were able to stay out there as long as they did. It kind of caught me off guard and we just weren’t able to run that long and not pit. We were fast at the end and it was fun.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT A POINT’S DAY IT WAS FOR YOUR TEAM? “It was for sure. Mark (Martin) had a good day, but it looks like we beat some guys who we’ve been battling in points. This place is so tough and to come out of here with a top 10 is really cool. It’s a battle. We want wins, but we also need to get inside that top 20 to have a shot at the wild card. It was a solid day for us for sure.”

PAUL WOLFE (crew chief, No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)
“It was up and down for us today. We started off the race really tight and fell back a bit. We lost our track position and we were just trying to work on our car all day. Once we got stuck in the back, we just couldn’t go anywhere. We got aggressive on the one call not to pit to get our track position. We got the track position back while working on our car and felt that our Miller Lite Dodge was going to contend for a win. Some guys in front of us just got really aggressive. We talked about coming in and topping off on the last caution; we’re going to have to gamble because we need to win another race. We got a solid point’s day out of it and we needed that after how we ran at Loudon. We’ll just keep moving forward. We’re making progress. As a team, I think we’re getting smarter each week. We just need to continue to get better.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 21st
“The car was tight most of the race; when we put on right-side tires only, that’s when our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge came to life. We lost track position when the 51 crashed and we had to go through the grass. We had to come down pit roads three times. The temp was pegged. That put us the last car on the lead lap, but it had us close to our fuel window. Hitting the grass did extensive damage underneath the car and it got tighter and tighter. We were fortunate that we had the fuel to make it to the end, but with the damage, we just couldn’t maintain track position. Our car was good in practice, we qualified well and we were making changes that helped the handling. We didn’t need to get caught up in that mishap.”

ROBBY GORDON (No. 7 SPEED Energy Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 43rd
“Just a bummer. The motor felt like it misfired a little bit in qualifying and it looks like we may have lost an engine early. I’m not sure what to say. I’m really bummed out. I love racing at Indy. I’m disappointed. This is really going to hurt us in the top 35 in the owner point standings.”

- Darnell Communications for Dodge Motorsports, Press Release

Ford Racing

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion –

IT WAS A GOOD RUN. “Yeah, we ran really good. We were probably the second-best car most of the day. I think the 24 had the field covered, so I’m happy for Paul Menard being a first-time winner. It’s kind of a shame that Jeff didn’t win. I thought we had the fastest two cars and I was hoping we were gonna be able to duke it out on performance to the end and try to race for that thing, but that’s just the way the racing is these days. We’ll still keep trying to bring fast Crown Royal Fords to the race track and hopefully we’ll have some more chances this year.”

WHAT ABOUT PAUL MENARD WINNING? “It is a huge win for him. I’m happy for Paul, although I was irritated after the race since he ran me off the race track on that restart, but I’m happy he got the win. I wish it wouldn’t have come down to fuel mileage, but I’m glad that he got the win. He’s been running awfully good this year and he deserves a good win.”

YOU WORKED THROUGH SOME THINGS TO STAY IN CONTENTION. “We didn’t really have a lot of setbacks today. We did a good job on pit road and everything went good, except for the 31 was on pit road there and I didn’t know it. That cost us a few seconds which cost me position with the 24, but, other than that, we had a pretty good day. Our car was pretty strong all day.”

WHAT ABOUT THE HEAT? “I just drank more Gatorade.”

ARE YOU SURPISED AT HOW THE STRATEGY PLAYED OUT? “Well, no I’m not surprised the race went down to fuel mileage. That’s all we’ve been talking about for three months. It happens so much this year, especially, so I’m not surprised with that. I was a little surprised they ran that many laps, but Paul had a pretty fast car, too. He had a top 10 car probably, so he could still run fast and save gas. Some of the guys that were saving gas were so slow you were gonna beat them anyway, but Paul had a reasonably fast car and, of course, he had fuel mileage.”

YOU HAD A STRONG DAY TODAY. “We had a great car. Jimmy and the guys did a great job on the Crown Royal Ford Fusion. I thought it was us and the 24 probably had the two best cars overall through the day, so it’s a shame one of us didn’t get the win, but we ran really good. Hopefully, we’ll keep putting ourselves in position like this and there will be more races that come down to performance at the end of the race and we can be in the mix of things and have a shot at some wins.”

YOU HAD A PASS ON PAUL ON THE INSIDE AND THEN YOU WERE FOUR-WIDE AT ONE POINT. “On Paul we took the restart and the inside groove is so much superior that I expected to get some room starting on the outside and I went into one and he ran me right off the race track. He ran me right up in the marbles and slammed my door and I lost a couple spots there. When I got to him I wanted to pass him, but I never hit him down there. I got a run off of three and he blocked me, which I kind of expected especially being for the lead and just with the air of the car kind of got him sideways and I just had to stay in there and get to him fast because I knew he wasn’t gonna give me any extra room, which you shouldn’t because he’s the leader trying to stay out front.”

FOUR WIDE. “The four-wide thing Jimmie and I raced really good early today and I pushed him by a couple of guys, instead of putting him three and four-wide, so, to be honest, I got a run under Jimmie and almost had him cleared and I expected him to get behind me and push me by those guys, and then I saw him go outside the 51 three-wide and, as you can see when it gets singled out, you don’t have time to waste, so I just hung a left and went four-wide by those guys and had enough momentum and a lot of power to get in that spot.”

SO THE GUYS WHO PITTED EARLY DIDN’T EXPECT THOSE GUYS TO MAKE IT? “I’ve got to honest with you, I’d have to watch it and tell you. I don’t know. We had four tires on and had five or six laps on tires, but we were like eight laps short to the end if we would have pitted then, so we knew we needed about 15 laps of fuel. Everybody must have pitted on one to go or something and that would have put us four or five laps short and Jimmy didn’t think we could make that without slowing way up, so we just ran fast and hoped to have a shot.”

HOW WAS YOUR RUN? “We had a great ride. Our Crown Royal Ford was really fast. I thought between us and the 24, on average, it seemed like we had the best cars. I’m really disappointed to be fifth. I thought me and the 24 were gonna have a shot at racing for the win, but I’m happy for Paul. He’s been running really good all year. You didn’t know who was gonna win the race until the checkered flag fell, so it was real exciting to the end. It’s good to see all the fans out here today and I look forward to trying again next year.”

THIS SEEMS LIKE A POPULAR WIN IN THE GARAGE AREA. “Yeah, it’s not like Paul runs around 25th every week and lucked into the race. Paul’s been running good all year. They’ve been really strong and you knew it was a matter of time before they got a win, so it was pretty cool for him to be able to win the Brickyard.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “The fuel mileage kind of worked out for us today. We got in that wreck and then kind of had to come down and pit and that set us up for making it to the end, but we were off just a little bit. I don’t think we were off that much. We just couldn’t get any track position. We had a pretty good car, but I was just stuck back there.

TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion –HOW HARD WAS IT TO COME DOWN PIT ROAD WITH 4 TO GO AND GIVE UP 4TH PLACE? “That was awful. I wish we would have just pitted five laps into the run with everybody else so I didn’t feel so sick to my stomach having to pit there. We had a few times where we had to pit when we didn’t want to with grass getting kicked up into our grille a few times. When you get back in the pack like that those things are gonna happen. We were just unfortunate to have it happen to us three times and have to pit so many times. It was a hard-fought day for a 30th-place finish. It doesn’t feel like that, but we learned a lot. I was glad to be here, but I definitely want to be running better than that.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ortho Ford Fusion – “I thought I had engine issues, but if I did they went away. The thing ran great. It would run out of power a couple times and I think in the end it was the wind. I think I was feeling the wind buffet the car a little bit and I was thinking it was the engine. I think the engine was fine.”

YOU PLAYED THE FUEL MILEAGE GAME DOWN THE STRETCH. HOW DID IT GO? “We got forced into that by me wrecking the front end of the car and it ended up working out better than it would have otherwise, so it was alright.”

ANDY LALLY – No. 71 Interstate Moving Services Ford Fusion – “It was unbelievable how long we went with that Ford engine and made all that mileage. It was a great day. We bumped ourselves back into the top 35 in points and that’s been the mission from the beginning of the year is to get ourselves in the top 35 and we did it today with a huge points swing. We can go into Pocono now real comfortable and work on race setup for once, instead of doing a couple qualifying runs here and there. That’s good because we struggled with our race setup a little bit at Pocono, but I’ve got to thank these guys today at TRG Motorsports. They made the right call. Doug Richert on the box and our new engineer, Mark, Kevin – everybody working together – and it was absolutely great. We had a bunch of people from Interstate Moving Services on board with us at the track here today and on pit lane. Running up front as high as we were near the end was pretty neat. I knew we were gonna go backwards there a tick, but this Ford ran great all day.”

- PCGCampbell for Ford Racing, Press Release

Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 NIBCO/Menards Chevrolet, celebrates on the bricks after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 31 in Indianapolis, Ind. - Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Following Menard and Gordon to the drop of the checkered flag were Regan Smith finishing in third, Jamie McMurray fourth and Matt Kenseth finishes in the fifth position.

Rounding out the top-ten finishers were Tony Stewart finishing in sixth, Greg Biffle seventh, Mark Martin eighth, Brad Keselowski ninth and Kyle Busch finishing in tenth.

Carl Edwards, who finished in 14th, heads to Pocono with a 11-point lead over Jimmie Johnson.

RACE NOTES: 

Average Speed: 140.762 MPH
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 50 Mins, 30 Secs.
Margin of Victory: 0.725 Seconds
Lead Changes: 22 among 13 drivers
Cautions: 5 for 22 laps
Attendance: 138,000

Unofficial Top-Ten in the Point Standings: 1. Carl Edwards – 682 (Leader) 2. Jimmie Johnson – 671 (-11 Points Behind the Leader) 3. Kevin Harvick – 670 (-12) 4. Kyle Busch – 666 (-16) 5. Matt Kenseth – 666 (-16) 6. Kurt Busch – 664 (-18) 7. Jeff Gordon – 630 (-52) 8. Ryan Newman – 618 (-64) 9. Tony Stewart – 609 (-73) 10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. – 606 (-76).

Next Up: Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Ponoco Raceway on Sunday, August 7th, with ESPN beginning their (pre-race) coverage at 12:00 PM (EDT).

2011 NSCS Brickyard 400 Race Results

(i) Ineligible for Points in this Series
# Denotes Rookies

2011 NSCS Jimmie Johnson Standing on Pit Wall - Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR

INDIANAPOLIS (July 30, 2011) –

A total of 16 Team Chevy drivers will start the 18^th running of the 160-lap/400 mile race, three in the top-10. In addition to Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet, will roll off in the seventh starting spot. Four-time NSCS champion Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, will start in the eighth starting position.

David Ragan (Ford) was the pole winner. Kasey Kahne (Toyota), Kurt Busch (Dodge) and Brad Keselowski (Dodge) complete the top-five qualifiers.

The Brickyard 400 is scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. ET with live broadcast coverage on ESPN TV, IMS Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/KOBALT TOOLS CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 3^RD

THE MODERATOR: Let’s roll into our post qualifying press conference for tomorrow’s Brickyard 400. Jimmie Johnson is our third quickest. He’s our five time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion. He’ll start third tomorrow.

Jimmie, you said starting up front here in Indianapolis is key. You’re able to do that. I’m sure you’re looking forward to trying to get to Victory Lane here again tomorrow.

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Yeah, so much importance is on qualifying. Doesn’t matter the track. Some are a little bit more important than others. This track falls in that category of being more important.

Proud of the efforts. When we unloaded in first practice yesterday, we were in race trim, and even in race trim we knew we had some work to do.

It hasn’t been an easy couple days here. But we’ve covered a lot of territory and really improved our racecar from when we unloaded to where we’re at.

I know my guys are tired, they’re spent, it’s hot. Their brains have been spinning in circles trying to engineer a better mousetrap. I hope we all get a good night’s sleep and I know we have a good baseline to start off with tomorrow. We’re off to a good start with a top three qualifying effort.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll take questions for Jimmie.

Q. Jimmie, as important as qualifying is, why do you think the pole winner has not had as much success here?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: I don’t have a clue. Didn’t realize that stat was there. I would have thought that it would show being up front, maybe from the top five or something, it would show more promising.

The only thing I can attribute that to is the format we always have had here is it’s not an impound style race. So maybe certain team’s qualifying setup is great for that one lap, but when you get into a fuel run, it doesn’t add up. There has to be something there in that.

Q. Jimmie, the two guys who ran faster than you did so at the end of the day. How much did the track change? How much did the weather affect what you were able to do and what they were able to do?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: I think it stayed pretty consistent today, to be honest with you. The sun really never was out for a long stretch of time. Then throughout the afternoon, the clouds were coming and going.

I feel like with this later time, it worked very well this year. In the past we’ve had an early morning qualifying session. Going early was definitely the way to go.

If the sun didn’t come out all day today, I think the position I was in with a slow first practice session, going out early, would have been bad. You’d think things would have cooled down as the day went on. I don’t know, it’s so humid and stuff, maybe I’m wrong.

Either way I think today was very consistent across the board. I left some time on the table off of turn four. I know I got three of the four corners right. It was a 10th and a half that I left over there. That would have put me up where I should have been.

Great lap. Got three of the four corners right and we’ll take it.

Q. Jimmie, when it comes to track position, does track position at this racetrack mean more than any other track?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Well, yeah, I think so. I think it is the most difficult track because there really is one lane. It’s speed. Run a fast lap, there’s one line around here. There isn’t much banking. It really leads to a single file race. Track position then is really, really important.

I can remember last year and in years past closing up a big gap on a car. I would get five, six car lengths back from them. You’re stuck. It’s just aerodynamics. Not much we can do about it. Without a real wide racetrack, progressive banking, you just run the one line. So I think this is the most difficult track for us to pass on and track position is most important here.

It’s tough to pass. If you have someone in front of you that’s smart, can drive a little bit wider car, is smart with cutting the air off in certain ways, keeping you in that dead space back there, they can make it impossible to pass.

Q. Jimmie, Chevy has won I think eight of the past races here and 12 of 17 overall. It seems like the Fords are a little bit better this year. Are those guys closing the gap on Chevy? Are you missing something?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: I look at it a lot from an organization standpoint. Because of the rules, the manufacturers are all kind of held to a common ground. Ford did get a new engine package which seems to be helping them some. But we’ve been working real hard on our side, too. I think our Chevys are plenty strong under the hood. It’s not in that department.

Look at a year ago, where the Roush organization was, where they are today. There’s something big that went on in their company to make their cars faster. I don’t think it was all the engine. They talk a lot about the simulation program being off, leading them down the wrong road for setups. I look at more the organization side of it and think that different teams seem to find speed.

We’ve been searching some at Hendrick Motorsports to get what we needed. We started this year with a whole new car, working on setups, and we’re getting there. Hopefully by the time the Chase gets here, we’re right.

Q. Jimmie, from what you’ve seen through practice and qualifying, is there anybody out there that you’re kind of keeping your eye on that you think are one of the guys you’re going to have to beat tomorrow?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: I didn’t look at Lap Tracker today. But yesterday, the guys in race trim yesterday, the 29 looked good, the 4 looked good, the 24 looked good, and he was really happy in our team debrief. I’d say those would be the three that come to mind first.

Q. How would you describe David Ragan now? Is he a different person, especially after the win? Does he seem like he appears on the track and in the garage that he finally seems like he might be getting it?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: I wouldn’t say post win. I feel like this year has been a good year for him. The cars are under him more. I think he’s been able to drive at a hundred percent to get the results instead of stepping over that line. It’s real easy for all of us to do. When you’re trying to make up the difference, walk on the wrong side of the line too long, you’re going to bust up your butt, tear up cars, and make mistakes. I think more this year I’ve seen a change in him than since his win.

But I do know what a win does for a driver’s and team’s confidence. It’s only going to make him stronger. Any type of success you experience, even a pole here, it’s such a big event, that’s going to help him evolve, be more confident with the things he does in the car, what he’s asking from his team.

Q. Jimmie, this race has a history, there aren’t fluke winners. I don’t want to call David a fluke pole sitter. You’re more likely to have a surprise in qualifying than the race. Why are both of those things the case do you think?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Qualifying, I would say maybe because of the draw in years past. But that doesn’t stand here today. I think qualifying was really equal from the start. Maybe from about the fifth or tenth car, once we worked some of the oil out of the track, I think it was consistent there on.

Race wise, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I think that this track is clearly unique and we don’t race on anything else like it. When you get it right, you have an advantage. I think that past history at other tracks and what you’ve done, how you’ve been performing don’t really apply, because we don’t race on anything like this.

I think there’s probably something in that, where it’s a unique track. If you get it right, it’s on, you have a ton of speed.

Typically, I remember a while back there was a stat showing race winners here went on to championships. I think that stat speaks to your point there. That good teams, teams that can work on the fly, we only have so much track time here, it’s such a different racetrack, you have to be on your game to really navigate through different sets of tires, adjustments you make.

I like that stat, where it shows guys winning championships, because it’s such a demanding track. If it’s your year, you can win here; I think you have stuff working well for you.

Q. Success here, experience on this track, how much does track positioning mean in a 200 lap race like this where you’re concerned?

JIMMIE JOHNSON: It’s everything. From pit road pick to on the racetrack, it’s everything. The race starts on Friday in qualifying trim. You can make such an easier weekend for yourself if you qualify well. We have not been qualifying well. We had some good finishes. But I think we had race winning cars. I look at New Hampshire. I know we had a race winning car. Qualified terrible, a spin, a variety of other problems, we end up fifth. The race weekend really starts on Friday in qualifying.

THE MODERATOR: Jimmie, thank you. Good luck this weekend.

JIMMIE JOHNSON: Thank you.

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