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JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S IMPALA SS – Finished 6th:
YOUR POINTS LEAD IS NOW 187. ARE YOU OKAY WITH THAT?
“I am good with that. That is a good number. Hopefully we’re sixth with the way this thing is scored. I know some guys at the end were trying to make up some spots when the yellow was out which wasn’t cool but we made it. I really have to give Chad (Knaus, crew chief) credit for coming in and pitting and putting fuel in the car. That’s what set us up for this great finish. To be far enough ahead on the race track that I wasn’t caught up in that big wreck.”
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?
“No, I can’t. I was really concerned under the red flag for (Ryan) Newman’s crash and was like what do I do? How do I get to the front? Chad said these guys might run out of gas and I didn’t want to believe too much in that because we’re 25th and I don’t want to hope for some of that to take place but they started running out of gas. There’s another car then the No. 24, then the No. 5 hits pit road and I’m like man this isn’t Halloween this is an early Christmas present. So we got through here well. Did not expect that. With the green-white-checker restart I thought we were 20th at the best and we came home with a top-10.”
MARK MARTIN, NO. 5 POP TARTS/CARQUEST IMPALA SS
ARE YOU OKAY?
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT DID YOU SEE?
“Nothing.”
SKY AND ALL KINDS OF THINGS, WAS IT TYPICAL TALLADEGA?
“It was just a wreck. I hope everybody enjoyed the show there. I don’t know what it looked like. It looked pretty exciting from my view point. I don’t have a clue. I don’t know what happened out there. So, I don’t know. Congratulations to Jamie McMurray and that’s about all I know about the whole race. I’ll find out later I guess, I don’t know.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 TARGET IMPALA SS – Finished 19th:
“Not too crazy. It was actually really quiet. It made it a lot more quiet than normally you could bump all the way through the corner until something happened. I think that is why you saw so much single-file racing because you couldn’t make anything happen.
“You couldn’t do anything. You tired and then every time you would get in to someone’s bumper, then you would life and you would lose that contact and half of a car length and the whole pack slows down. I wanted to run up front but you couldn’t do anything.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR. NO. 88 AMP ENERGY GET ON THE 88/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS – Finished 11th:
“If they have to slow us down and run around these tracks at slower speeds, they have to make a smaller motor, make us run a smaller motor but be able to open it up so there is throttle response. Then slow the cars down with a little more drag or something. Them old cars in the 80s’ didn’t cut the wind like these things do. We have got them in ground and everything else advantage-wise to make it smooth and sleek and now we are having to trim the motors back to make the cars slower. It is probably the opposite of what needs to be going on. Probably need to open the motors back up and slow the cars down with the air.
“We have sort of out-engineered this race track somehow. You know what I mean? We over-engineered and the technology has sort of passed what they were trying to accomplish here when they built this place. But what we are doing now, is ok, but I don’t think it is the best solution.
“We are going to go to Daytona and for two days. I don’t know if NASCAR will get a shot to work on some new ideas. The race is pretty safe up until the end. You knew that. I don’t think anybody wants to be out there and involved in what happens at the end. Dodging cars, seeing people flip upside down. Obviously there is something else that needs to be thought about. I am sure NASCAR will figure it out. They are pretty hard headed over there, don’t like to admit they wrong sometimes.”
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR IMPALA SS – Finished 5th:
“It’s nice to finally get back in the top five. Luckily, our Caterpillar Impala SS was not involved in the incidents in the last few laps. Things are bound to happen in restrictor plate events and luck was on our side today.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL CHEVROLET – Finished 21st:
“We had a really good Chevrolet today and the Shell-Pennzoil guys did a good job on pit road. We led a bunch of laps and its fun to race like that when you have a fast car. We just got too far out in front there and then got shuffled back towards the end. We were trying to working our way back up to the front and all it took was one car to spin and end our bid for a good finish. That’s been pretty typical of the year we’ve had in regards to luck.”
REGARDING THE WRECK WHEN RYAN NEWMAN’S CAR FLIPPED AND LANDED ON THE FRONT OF THE NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL CHEVROLET:
“I saw Ryan got hit from behind and then he came across the nose of our car. Then, he flipped in the air and the back end landed on my hood and windshield as it was upside down. I’m just glad he’s okay. It was pretty calm out there until that point.”
CASEY MEARS, NO. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET IMPALA SS – Finished 25th
“Our Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet was fast today. We worked well in the draft and had some help from Kevin Harvick to get us the lead early on. It was unfortunate that we had the speeding penalty on pit road and then we had no place to go on that last accident. All in all, it was a solid day for us and we’ll try to build on this momentum next weekend.”
