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Q. Jeff, you’re a guy that’s got a pretty wide marketing base. Did you watch what Dale Jr., has done to prepare for next year? Do you see him broadening his marketing base and what he’s done so far? And can you see him sharing a Pepsi sponsor with you next year?
JEFF GORDON: I think anything’s possible, you know. I mean, this guy has so much potential, especially in the marketing world. And I think, you know, really the only thing that he hasn’t accomplished, so far is a championship. He’s won the Daytona 500. He’s won at short tracks like Richmond. And, I’m looking forward to us putting him behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports car and team and putting the best people in place there and just seeing him go out and get comfortable with being there, and get over all the hoopla and all of the criticism and whatever it may be, and just go racing. And I know that we can put a championship caliber team underneath him. I look forward to battling him for those championships, hopefully. And I think the sky is the limit, on the marketing and what he wants to do and what we’re capable of pulling off at Hendrick Motorsports. I think that, as far as who it’s going to be and all that, nobody knows. There are just so many things to work through that Rick’s the master at, and I’m leaving it in his hands.
Q. A follow-up, too, on Kyle. Jimmy said on his radio show last night that he could see problems escalating as the year goes on with him being a teammate. Do you see that possibly happening?
JEFF GORDON: I think it’s in Kyle’s hands. I think he’s got the utmost support from me. I showed him that before and these moves happened. I had a meeting with him, and you know, he and I have been texting one another back and forth. He’s going through some of the tough things that happened from the All-Star event with his brother. And you know, I was just giving him some advice. Throughout this whole thing, you know, I’ve told him hey, I’m going to support you, race with you hard, but be your teammate at the same time. I plan on continuing to do that, because it is in our best interests. Because that 5 Team is such a solid team. Alan’s done such a great job, and we want to see that team continue to do well. And, have a lot of things to be excited about going into next year, you know, even though there’s going to be a driver change.
I think that it’s really in Kyle’s court. Because he is the one that’s going to control it, and how he handles things. And he’s got a lot on his plate, I’m sure. He’s a young guy, he’s vibrant. He gets excited, and sometimes he the heat of the moment gets the best of him. Those are the things that I talked to him about. Always try to take the high road. Don’t let those moments effect what you say and your decisions that you make, and you’re going to be a lot happier moving forward.
Q. I wanted to ask you a little bit about if you could kind of remember last year when you won down at the Chicagoland speedway? You know, toward the end of the race you kind of bumped Matt Kenseth a little bit in the back. It seemed like the fans down in the Chicagoland Speedway kind of reacted with a little bit more emotion than maybe some people expected. What kinds of things are you expecting from the fans this year? Do you think they’re going to remember that race as clearly as maybe some of us in the media do?
JEFF GORDON: I wouldn’t doubt it. Everywhere I go, when I see fans and I’m doing questions and taking questions from fans and answering them and things, it’s fairly common for things like that to be brought up. Because what the fans remember more so than just the bump is, you know, what happened at Bristol, and kind of is there a rivalry among me and Kenseth. Matt and I have been getting along really well. We’ve been racing really hard and clean on the racetrack. We’ve been trying to set a precedent from Chicago last year moving forward, to let him know that, hey, I’ve got, you know, no grudge, no nothing. It’s just we were battling hard and then an accident happened. All he can do is, you know, take what I say and all I can do is hope that he knows that it was an accident.
We’ve been racing good and clean since then. I can’t always control how the fans are going to react to that, but certainly something that I remember as a great victory. But it was overshadowed by, you know, by that spin. And, I felt bad about it, and I didn’t want to win the race that way. I wanted to win the race by making a pass clean and going on to victory.
Hopefully we can make up for that this weekend, and maybe Matt will be leading, closing us when we go there and make a nice clean pass on him and win another race and kind of earn that respect back.
Q. So far, you know, this season has been just really going beyond successful for you so far at this point. What do you think has been a couple highlights? Maybe a couple races that really stand out in your mind as a turning point for you?
JEFF GORDON: Oh, I mean, there are so many things that have been going great for us this year. I mean, I think that a lot of it was just the fact that we’ve been building on this team for, you know, over a year and a half. Trying to just improve and get better, find all the areas that we were weak in. Trying to make our cars better, our pit crew better, our communication. I think Steve Letarte really deserves a lot of credit for really elevating this team up to the next level and making them a championship caliber team on a consistent basis.
And, obviously, he’s made some great calls as well that have gotten us into victory lane. So we’re missing a little bit of that chemistry and momentum that was built with him. We’re going to try to maintain it as best we can over the next four weeks and keep this team strong. Hope that when he comes back, we just jump right back into things and really get ourselves set-up and prepared for the chase.
Because, you know, we’ve had a great year. We’ve had some great wins. You know, and I guess Darlington’s probably one that stands out the most to me as just a fun and a great victory of how things are going for us this year. We had a great car, but we made some great calls and had fortune on our side, too, that the engine made it. But, it’s so important now with the Chase that you have your momentum and everything going your way in those last ten races. So I hope we didn’t use it all up to this point in the season. I don’t think we have, and we’re going to find out here soon.
Q. Last question, I know it’s been difficult not having Steve there with you because of the suspension. How have you guys been able to adjust to that?
JEFF GORDON: Well, I think he’s a great communicator. And he touches base with me frequently during the week. He’s at the shop working, in the 7 Post, and also, just trying to look ahead. And he’s giving guys like Jeff and me the ability to step up, as well as a lot of other guys, and take responsibility. But he’s guiding them through it. He’s helping them all the way until they get to the racetrack. And yeah, we might talk on the phone on Friday or Saturday, but on Sunday, you know, it’s all in our hands. And I think that it really, truly shows how good and how strong our team is when, you know, Steve steps away. We need him. I mean, I want him there, And we’re definitely missing something by him not being there. But it shows how strong our team is that when he’s not there, we’re still being competitive.
Q. Jeff, is the jury still out, maybe, on whether that tremendous Hendrick streak of dominance early in the season has cooled or leveled off? I mean, yeah, you guys had the great run at New Hampshire, but those wins like Darlington, like Pocono, the sort of win-by-a-thread kind of thing haven’t been there lately. Is it too soon to tell whether some more of that dominance can come back this year? And when you get to Chicagoland, as the classic mile and a half track, is that going to be a place where you get a lot more gauge on where Hendrick stands, vis-a-vis the other teams?
JEFF GORDON: Well, I’ll tell you what happens is throughout the season, things change. You are constantly learning and evolving to stay, you know, up with the competition. Trying to, you know, make your cars better all the time and your team stronger. And your competition is doing the same thing, that’s why you’ve got to do it.
And so number one, the thing I want to point out is while we were winning races, we weren’t the dominant car. We were dominant in the win column, which is fantastic, you know, and great to see things going our way. But you really want to be the dominant car. You know, so that when the time comes, like I said in the Chase that you’re on top of your game. And hopefully things also you can learn from maybe what didn’t get you to victory lane.
And that’s why I looked at the Gibbs Team as really the teams to beat. Because they really, truly have been the dominant car. Now here in New Hampshire, they weren’t, the DEI cars were. Certainly Truex. And yet Hamlin and those guys made a call like what Steve made for us early in the year that won him the race.
Yeah, I think that it’s constantly evolving. Your cars are constantly trying to get better. Your competition’s getting better. You’re learning from each race on what strategy to use, and what’s working, what is getting you to victory lane? What is getting other teams to victory lane? And you’ve got to keep moving forward with it.
So you go through different swings. Yeah, I think we’re still on a consistent basis, the strongest team out there. But, you know, we’ve got to have all those things going in our favor in the same direction when we get to these last ten races. And that’s why I think momentum and chemistry is so important throughout the year. It can’t stop. It’s got to continue to grow and move forward.
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