WHAT ABOUT YOUR CAR IN TRAFFIC?
“It’s always rougher in traffic. It’s always going to be the best in clean air. It’s always going to feel worse in traffic and it was that way when I started too. All race cars that you drive are that way. They’re always not going to feel best when they’re not out front.”
YOU’VE GOT A GOOD EYE FOR TALENT, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TREVOR BAYNE, HE’S KIND OF COME IN LIKE A BALL OF FIRE IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES AND ON THE OPPOSITE END OF THE SPECTRUM WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT A GUY LIKE MORGAN SHEPHERD?
“The little bit I’ve seen of Trevor he’s done a great job so far. He came into the deal right away and was fast. It’s hard to teach guys how to go fast, or it’s not hard to teach guys to go fast that’s something that it comes more natural then you’ve gotta teach him to race smart. He seems like he’s got both so I think from that side he’s going to be in good shape.
“The thing with Morgan is you’ve got to applaud him every week. The guy does it with absolutely nothing. He has no help and he is his own crew basically. He has some guys that help but he has to pretty much watch everything that’s going on and that’s something it would be easy just to walk away from that scenario and he still plugs along and still make the effort to be here every week. He’s not missed a race as far as showing up for every race on the schedule so you want to see somebody like him be successful because of the effort he personally puts into it.”
JUAN (PABLO MONTOYA) WAS IN HERE EARLIER SAYING THAT HIS GOAL WAS THE NEXT THREE RACES WAS TO LOSE AS FEW POINTS TO JIMMIE JOHNSON AS POSSIBLE, DOES IT FEEL BECAUSE JIMMIE HAS BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL HERE AND MARTINSVILLE THAT HE’S STILL SORT OF THE GUY TO BEAT?
“I don’t know it’s hard to take away anything from those three guys in front of us and a couple of guys behind us. I don’t feel like that’s the only guy we’re worrying about. I feel like we’ve got to worry about Mark (Martin) just as much and Juan just as much. Right now we’ve got a bunch of guys that are consistent every week. You can’t just narrow it down to one right now.”
HAVE YOU NOTICED ANYTHING SINCE THE CHASE HAS STARTED THAT’S DIFFERENT IN JUAN (PABLO MONTOYA)?
“No clue but he’s been good. With the way he ran at Loudon was awesome. He had the best car all day there. I don’t know what it’s due to. I mean they’ve found something obviously that timing wise was perfect for them but they hit on something that’s working for them right now and most likely it will work all the way through the Chase.”
I REMEMBER TOWARD THE END OF LAST YEAR THAT YOU THOUGHT DAVID RAGAN WAS ALMOST THE DRIVER OF THE YEAR, HOW SURPRISED ARE YOU WITH THE ROUGH TIME HE’S HAD THIS SEASON?
“I have to admit, I’ve been kind of surprised by that. Especially by the growth that he had last year in this series I thought we would see a lot more out of him than what we have this year. It’s been kind of a shock and I have no idea why they’ve had the trouble they’ve had but it’s been kind of consistent all year. They really haven’t had any races where they’ve really shined that I can remember but I don’t see him doing anything wrong on the race track that’s keeping that from happening. There is just something that’s just not clicking over there right now.”
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