Q. Jeff and Kurt, how has the test been the last day and a half?
JEFF BURTON: I think it’s gone really well. Everybody is happy with the surface. The tire combination seems to be really good. It’s going to be a Talladega style race for sure versus what we’ve seen at Daytona. I think it’s going to be an exciting Daytona 500. You’re going to have to change your mindset a little bit about how to do the Daytona thing. I think it’s gone really well.
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, it’s an impressive surface. There’s been a lot of hard work done. Lesa and the France family and Brian France, everybody should be proud of what they’ve accomplished to resurface it, give it a new look.
It’s just a new attitude. This is what 2011 will bring to start off our Sprint Cup season. Big, exciting time. I’m proud to be able to say I got a chance to race on the surface when it was redone.
Q. Can you say how fast you’re going and have you seen any changes with the new nose?
KURT BUSCH: The speeds are comparable to where we were before. We’re not sliding around. It’s very controllable. It’s very similar to Talladega, when that track had its repave. Again, it’s Daytona. It’s only three lanes of traffic, where Talladega is six lanes of traffic. That’s the biggest mindset and biggest difference between the two tracks.
There’s going to be small things that you learn each and every practice session when you go back out on the track.
JEFF BURTON: We’re, what, 196, 197, in that range? Pretty consistent. But we’re doing it with a smaller restrictor plate than we had here. So it’s just going to be doing the same speed, but you’re doing it in a completely different way. You don’t even think about having to lift unless you’re trying to keep from wrecking. In the past it was quite a bit of throttle control to keep your car going around the racetrack. Same speed, but basically it’s governed by the restrictor plate.
Q. I know it’s been a relatively short amount of time on the track, but can you talk about the type of racing, the show we’re going to see in February?
JEFF BURTON: I think it’s going to be a helluva race. We’ve had some great Daytona 500 finishes the last several years. The end of the race has been great. We’ve seen separation of cars because of the handling issues during the race. You’re not going to see that this time. There’s going to be a constant pack. I don’t know how you could get separated. Bad pit stop, something like that, a guy get out of gas, the field leaves you. Short of those things, you’re not going to lose the draft.
It’s going to be a big pack all the time. You’re still going to have that exciting finish. I think all the way up to the finish is going to be more exciting than what you’ve seen because everybody is going to be in one big pack.
As Kurt alluded to, three-wide here is work. Four-wide is a wreck. Because the mentality at superspeedway racing, there’s going to be effort to go four-wide because of trying to pick up positions. When that starts happening, it’s going to get hairy.
KURT BUSCH: I think each race will have its own identity, like it always has. With the Shootout, you have the best drivers, the ones taking the biggest risks, because there’s no points involved. Then you settle into the practice zones, you get into the 150s where guys have to race their way into the show. We’re still going to see big packs, big action. The asphalt is the great equalizer. When you have a car that wasn’t handling well in the past, you could work by them after 15 or 20 laps. You won’t have that option anymore. Everybody is going to be fast down to when there’s the last drop of gas in the tank.
Q. I’m sure you will agree it will be different racing. Guys said it still had some character to it that carried over with the new track. Would you say, is there still some Daytona character to the track?
JEFF BURTON: I think they did a lot like what happened at Darlington. When they redid Darlington, they kept Darlington. They kept it wide, didn’t change the transitions. They kept the character of the racetrack. I think the same thing happened here. It’s much smoother, has a tremendous amount more grip, but it’s still Daytona. They didn’t try to change the banking from the bottom to the top, do all that stuff. They just kept Daytona and put pavement on it. I’m glad that’s what they did.
Daytona is a track, it has its own history, its own heritage. It’s entrenched in what our sport is all about. So keeping Daytona Daytona was a hundred percent the right thing to do. But it has a whole lot more grip.
The thing about the new asphalt is it’s going to keep that grip for a long time. Think about Darlington. The first time they paved Darlington, I think the second time we went back there, it was about a second slower. It’s not like that anymore. Darlington is going to stay fast. This place will stay with a lot of grip for a long time.
You’re going to see the kind of race you see in February, you’ll see that for several years.
KURT BUSCH: The thing I was going to add was just how much time and effort NASCAR and (indiscernible) has put into their venues to get them not necessarily up to date but just to continue to put the best face forwards with repaves at Talladega, here at Daytona, Phoenix is in the works, and you hear things about other tracks. They’re doing a tremendous amount of work for our race fans to enjoy when they come to the track. It’s exciting to listen to them talk and be part of this time.
Q. Can you talk about the new pit road and how it looks coming off of four. Is it going to make life a lot easier for you guys, it being wider and the concrete pad there?
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, absolutely. This pit road was the most treacherous of all the pit roads we race on. The old surface, the oil from all the sports cars, the pit boxes for a superspeedway car didn’t seem to be the right size. It looks like Green Acres out there. It’s really a safer place on pit road. The environment for the crew guys will be much better. You won’t have to necessarily worry as much about getting the fender dings, wrecks on pit road with the amount of area that’s out there paved. So I’m excited about it.
JEFF BURTON: It’s a big change. I don’t know if it’s the widest pit road on our circuit or not, but it has to be in the top 10. It’s exceptionally wide. That’s a great thing for safety.
The fans and the media and us included, we kind of take for granted those guys jumping over the wall, you go jump in front of a 3500-pound vehicle, it’s pretty hairy. This will make it better for them and safer for them. That’s always a good thing.
Q. Will there be a fatigue factor with all this grip? Do you think you’re going to be more fatigued at the end of a race with so much more grip?
JEFF BURTON: I’d venture to say that’s a non-issue. If anything, you would have less fatigue. I think the old surface was a lot of work. You were up on the wheel from start to finish. It really required a tremendous amount of work.
This is more of a chess game. This is going to be, when do I get aggressive, when do I not get aggressive. A lot of times on the old surface your car dictated when you could and when you couldn’t. What’s going to dictate that this time is how many laps are left. I think the workload is actually going to be less.
I’m not sure fatigue is going to be any issue whatsoever. I think your brain will be tired, but I don’t think anything else will be tired.
Q. Jeff, with the speeds where they are, with the grip as it is, with the teams coming back for three days in January, do you anticipate there will need to be a plate change in February or not?
JEFF BURTON: You know, I don’t anticipate one. I think if we get—if everybody got out there at one time and the pace was greater than what we thought, I guess there’s the possibility.
You know, you never say ‘never.’ But I don’t anticipate one just based on the speeds we’ve seen today. If there is one, it will be minimal. I have a hard time believing there will be a plate change.
Q. Kurt, you raced sports cars on that track. Do you think there will be any effect on the 24 this year with the new surface?
KURT BUSCH: I thought about that when I first went out on the grip level out on the banking. With the way you set up a sports car, you’re setting it up for the least amount of drag that you can for the straightaways and the long oval section.
With the resurface done to the infield last year, that’s when we saw quite a bit of speed gained for those guys. That’s when we saw track record-type speed. The oval won’t have much to do with the sports car side of it. The braking zone probably getting down into turn one when you’re on the tri-oval surface, there will be more grip for those cars.
It does nothing but add to the excitement of the oval side, the road racing side, and the look. Again, I get back to how fresh the place looks. Looks like it got a great facelift.
One note that I’ve noticed, that drivers notice, there’s only one seam on the racing surface from the bottom of the racetrack to the top. A lot of racetracks you see four to five seams where you have chances for cracks and for water buildup. They definitely went out of their way to find a unique paving process to make sure this was top quality and make it right.
You look at it and you smile going, Hey, they did the best job they could, we got the best product out there, now let’s go and race.
Q. To expand on what Bobby and Jamie were talking about, the odds, how this increases or lessens the odds of a mass situation out there on the track, the big one.
JEFF BURTON: It’s increased. I don’t know the percentages, but there’s no question that the more cars that are in one bunch, the more cars that are trying to position themselves to be where they need to be, the better chance for an accident.
What’s interesting about Daytona and Talladega is a lot of the wrecks happen on the straights. Everywhere else we go, the wrecks happen in the corners. A lot of our wrecks here happen on the straightaways. The reason for that is people are just trying to position themselves. They think they’re clear, they’re not, they make a move. The more people that are bunched up, the more there’s a chance that’s going to happen.
I kind of forgot about it, but Kurt mentioned it. The Shootout is going to be crazy. It’s going to be nuts. It’s going to be wide open every lap, every time. When you decide to go, what hole you decide to go into. Yeah, I’m not going to say you’ll have more wrecks because you never know, but the possibility to have more big wrecks is certainly looming.
KURT BUSCH: It definitely is increased. Like what someone asked about the physical side or the mental side. Mentally you’re going to have to be that much sharper, that much more precise. If you think you have a hole, you definitely need to be in it. Somebody is going to take it that much quicker. Reaction time is going to be that much quicker. There’s going to be bigger consequences when things are chosen in the wrong fashion.
Q. With what you’ve seen with this tire, assess the performance and what you think it will do for late-race strategy as far as the tires go.
KURT BUSCH: Anytime we see a fresh repave at tracks, we have to be smart with the tires we choose to put on, A, a good show, B, to be safe, of course, and C, to be on Goodyear tires that moms and pops want to buy. They want to see the performance of them. With that we’re going to be on the conservative side. That’s just what happens with fresh repaves and it will change the strategy at the end of the race, whether it’s a two-tire call or fuel only. I think you’ll see a lot of that play out as Speedweeks develop. We’ll see what trends are but it will definitely change the outcome of how the race is going to be. You’re not going to come in and put two tires on as you have in the past.
JEFF BURTON: The other thing is the new fueling system. That will dictate some of your track position choices on what to do for tires.
You’re not going to need tires to win the race. You’re going to need track position. So that’s going—to me, that’s going to be what matters. You guys have heard me say this before. This past year is Goodyear’s best year ever in racing. Goodyear stepped up to the plate and has done an incredible job of building us better tires. You’ve seen that on the racetrack. They’ve had a huge impact on the quality of racing from a performance standpoint. The cars drive a lot better than they did and Goodyear deserves a lot of credit for that.
They’ve really done that with no sacrifice in safety. If anything, they’ve gotten better on safety. Goodyear just really stepped up and made some major investments to make our sport better. A lot of that you’re seeing. They came here with a tire. They told me what tire they were coming with. That didn’t make any sense. Right off the bat it worked. They made a big investment in technology and manpower. That’s really had a major positive impact on our sport, in my opinion.
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