JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS IMPALA, FINISHED 3RD:
DESCRIBE THE WAY THINGS LOOKED OUT THERE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE:
“It was pretty wild at the end, but that is what it is all about. The Shootout is a lot of fun and they eliminated the bump-drafting zones, we shoved each other all the way down the backstretch. I assume that is what caused the wreck with the No. 16 being on old tires. It is so easy when you have new tires on, your car has grip to want to shove those buys. It was a good night for the Bass Pro Shops Chevy, it is certainly a good way to start our relationship. I’m in a backup car. We really didn’t change anything from the setup we unloaded with. Good stuff.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA
WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON GETTING TOGETHER WITH GREG BIFFLE IN THE END?
“Oh, man, just a green-white-checkered flag race and the DuPont Chevrolet was good. I got myself in position there a couple of times to where I really thought we might have a shot at it. And then I got shuffled back. I was pretty disappointed. But right there, Steve (Letarte, crew chief) made the right call and we got a great run down the back straightaway. Matt Kenseth was pushing me. I got to Greg and I was just pushing and pushing and pushing; almost had to move to the inside of him; he kind of closed the door there and I was just pushing. We went into the corner and he just spun right out. I don’t know if he had a tire go down of just the fact that he was on old tires and couldn’t take that kind of a push. They said that bump-drafting is okay now so that’s what it’s going to take to win the race. He was thanking me for the push and I was trying to push him up there to win the race or finish right there behind him anyway.”
HE SAID HE THOUGHT HE MIGHT HAVE HAD A TIRE GOING DOWN. BUT WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS AFTER SEEING HOW THIS RACE PLAYED OUT, HOW ARE THE DUELS AND THE 500 GOING TO BE NEXT WEEK?
“I think guys are going to be a little smarter in the Duels. That’s your 500 car. You can’t really do much bump-drafting in here at Daytona. You can do it down the straightaways on a two-or-three lap shootout like that. So I would think if there’s a caution with a few laps to go, you’ll see it. Once we get to the 500, that’s a totally different deal. Man, it’s the Daytona 500 and everybody is going to be going for it and you’re going to see a lot more risk being taken and for good reason. That’s an important trophy that we all want. You’ll see plenty of action and plenty of bump-drafting.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE BIGGER PLATE?
“The cars were pretty out of control, which was fun at times. You know, you had to really drive them. But we’ve got to get our car handling maybe a little bit better and the plate was good though. I liked the plate.”
DID YOU NOTICE THE FIN AT ALL?
“No, no. I don’t think you really notice that until you start to spin out. You can ask somebody that did that. I didn’t quite do that. It didn’t seem to help Greg a lot (laughs). But it kept him on the ground, so that’s a good thing.”
HAD BIFFLE SLOWED UP AT THAT POINT, OR WERE YOU JUST PUSHING HIM?
“No, I just had so many guys stacked up behind me, pushing me, and I was just pushing him. It’s hard to say really in that situation without seeing it on camera whether he had a tire going down or not. He made it through Turns 1 and 2 okay and we were pushing him real, real hard. And the fact that they stayed out of there on old tires was definitely going to make his car not handle quite as good. At that point, you don’t have a choice. They’re pushing you from behind and you’re pushing the guy in front of you and when that’s the situation, you hope that in Greg’s position that you get in there and the car sticks; and in that situation it didn’t stick for whatever reason.”
HE THOUGHT HE HAD A FLAT TIRE OR JUST OLD TIRES. HE DIDN’T PUT IT ON YOU AT ALL.
“It came around in a hurry, that’s for sure. I was wanting to push him; I wasn’t wanting to spin him. I hit him real hard one time and it made him go up the track down the straightaway and I almost got to the inside of him. If I could have done that, I think we might have had a shot at the win.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA
“We were not very fast in practice with this car, and it was not very strong in the race. We’ll just try to bring a better chassis to the next Shootout.”
HOW WAS EVERYTHING WITH THE BIGGER PLATE?
“It was fine. Everything was fine there. You can’t really tell with that shark fin is doing. I don’t know what it’s doing back there so it’s fine how it is. We were all driving up to the top of the race track and hanging on and sliding around. Nobody was really full-throttle there on the long runs. It was a lot of fun. We were driving them, you know. We were driving them more. There were just a lot of big bumps out there that upset the cars. Other than that, it was fun having that extra speed driving off into the corner and being able to use that a little bit. That second segment, around lap 60, I was really happy with my car. I had nothing to get up there and win the race but I was going to get up there in the top five if I could. I felt like we might be able to do that.”
WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN SOMETHING FOR THE DUELS?
“Yeah, I think so. This car here is not as good by no means. The chassis is not as good by no means as what we’re racing in the 500. So, I feel pretty good about what we’re going to use there and we learned a little bit on our front end. You kind of pick and choose and try to figure out what’s the best right-front spring and all this good stuff and how the bump-stops need to work. And I think we learned a little bit tonight.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OLD SPICE/OFFICE DEPOT IMPALA, FINISHED 9TH:
ON HIS RACE:
“I wouldn’t say we were a very strong car, we just got good track position. We had to be in clean air, we got really tight even if we were second in line. We have a lot of work to do this week. That is what we have the week for to do. We have the qualifying races and practice to work on our stuff. We are going to take advantage of every minute we get.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET IMPALA, FINISHED 10TH:
WAS IT CRAZY OUT THERE?
“It was actually pretty calm. I thought practice was worse to be honest. It is hard because you can only really run two wide, so when people went three wide on the last lap, that didn’t come out too good. But it is ok. We learned a lot. I think we have a really good car. I got screwed right before the last caution, running top-five, one of those deals, but it is ok.”
| 
|