GM RACING NOTES & QUOTES--SOUTHERN 500 POST-RACE

 

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 BACE MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Raines was involved in the lap-5 crash in Turns 3 and 4 among Rusty Wallace, Michael Waltrip, Jason Leffler and Christian Fittipaldi. "It looked like the 43 [Fittipaldi] was having some serious problems. I don't know whether Jason got into him and turned him or what. We were all stacked up there and everybody was trying to be calm. The track just doesn't have a lot of grip, even for slowing down, and everybody got stacked up. It's kind of aggravating, to be honest. I don't think it was intentional. Maybe somebody was trying too hard. This happened to us here in the spring. I had a pretty good car and we got torn up early in the race. Darlington hasn't been that good to me."

 

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: For the second straight week, Waltrip was involved in a major crash early in the race with Rusty Wallace. Jason Leffler, Dale Jarrett and Christian Fittipaldi were also involved. "I just saw Christian spin out. I don't know if somebody spun him out or what. The track gets real narrow in the corner, and I started hitting people ahead of me and people started hitting me from behind. It's unfortunate. We were right. I think it was going to be a fun day, but it got over way too soon for our NAPA Chevrolet."

 

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: NOTE: Skinner crashed on lap 100, hitting the wall while running in front of the leaders. "Well, I hate to say it, but it was driver error. The car was really tight all day. I'd been clipping the apron all day, just really stopping getting into the corner and clipping the apron to make it turn, then sliding the car coming off the corner. That time there I just couldn't get it to the bottom. That happened two or three times, but that time, it hit hard enough to hurt it."

 

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: NOTE: Benson was involved in a crash near halfway that also eliminated Jeff Gordon. Benson was trapped in the middle and his car nearly flipped, but he crashed down the banking and was able to drive to the pits. WAS THAT A WILD RIDE? "Yeah. I didn't see any of it, but it was wild from where I was sitting. I just got creamed from behind. The 41 [Casey Mears] put the 24 [Jeff Gordon] in the wall up there, I don't know why. We got caught in it."

 

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Gordon was pushed into the wall by Casey Mears near the halfway point of Sunday's Southern 500. WAS 

SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE CAR? "Yeah. Something was bad wrong. We're very frustrated right now with the way things are going. We were having a frustrating day anyway, the car wasn't working well. Casey Mears is a good friend of mine, but he needs a spotter. I don't know what he was thinking. I was on the outside of him, he was a lapped car and he just turned right, right into me. There wasn't anything broke on the car then, but there's a whole lot broke now." IT'S BEEN A ROUGH DAY ALL THE WAY AROUND? "It's been a rough month. It hasn't been a lot of fun out there lately, and it's beyond frustrating. I can't wait to get August over with and get to September. Casey sort of went low and I went to the high side, and he just turned into me. I don't know if the spotter didn't say anything to him or if he even knew I was there. We tore up a lot of cars."

 

RICKY CRAVEN, NO. 32 GIVE KIDS THE WORLD/TIDE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 8th: "We definitely could have gotten the car better, but it would have taken a day to do it. Whatever we did, we couldn't get the push out of it getting in the corner. But the key is that we fought all day. The pit stops were exceptional. That's pretty rewarding when you battle back. It was a great effort and great show of courage. Everybody just stuck in there." HOW ABOUT TERRY LABONTE WINNING THE LAST SOUTHERN 500 ON LABOR DAY? "If you were going to write a script on the last Southern 500 on Labor Day, it would be appropriate that either Terry Labonte or Bill Elliott win, and doggone if they both weren't there."

 

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 25th: "The problem we had was the left rear halfshaft came disengaged and that's why I rolled to a stop down there. We jacked it up and replaced it, and I was just as fast after that as I was before. I even like Darlington a little bit now. We made up some laps out there."

 

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd: "Terry and I were pretty much the same speed. When the 12 got up in the wall.I don't know what those guys were doing, but when I hit the 12 I got that much farther behind. I'll tell you what, if there's anybody that's going to win the last Southern 500 on Labor Day, it's Terry Labonte. He's one of the great legends of our sport. I'm proud to have him here. He's pretty awesome." YOUR GUYS WERE AWESOME IN THE PITS. "We had a great day in the pits. We'd gain two or three spots and come out first or second. We were really trying to take it easy. Yesterday I annihilated the car in the first 20 or 25 laps. Today we tried to take it the first 50 laps and just be patient." MORE HARVICK TO FOLLOW.

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 3rd: "It was a great run for us today. This track is so tough. You can be a little tight, but by the end of the run, this track is so abrasive that you just run the right front off it. It's the same with being loose. If you're a little loose, at the end of the run you've just killed the right rear. We were just back and forth, tight to loose, tight to loose, but at the end we got it pretty consistent where we could stay in the top five. We had a great stop at the end and came out third. I'm very happy, but I just can't say enough for Terry Labonte and the whole 5 team. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports works so hard, and I'm glad they had a great day and also a great day for the Lowe's team." MORE JOHNSON TO FOLLOW

 

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S/got milk? CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Labonte's victory was his first since March 28, 1999 at Texas Motor Speedway and his first at Darlington since he won the Southern 500 in his rookie year of 1980. It was the 22nd victory of his career. It was also Chevrolet's 12th in 25 races this season. WHERE DOES THIS VICTORY STACK UP IN THE 22 CAREER VICTORIES YOU HAVE? "I think this is the biggest one right here. It's been a while since we've been to Victory Lane. We've been working hard this year, and these guys have been doing a great job. The guys in the fab shop have been building me great cars and the whole Kellogg's team has been doing an awesome job at the track. We felt like we were close enough that we could think about winning a race. The pit crew was awesome and that made the difference. It's so hard to pass today. We got clean and checked out on them." THAT LAST STOP WAS 13.1 SECONDS. SITTING IN THE CAR, COULD YOU TELL HOW QUICK IT WAS? "I knew it was pretty fast. These guys have done some quicker than that. They're awesome on pit road. They earned this one here. This was their win today. We adjusted it one way or the other. We were a little tight or a little loose. It was a great day for us." HOW SPECIAL IS IT TO WIN THE LAST SOUTHERN 500 ON LABOR DAY? "It's really special for me. I was running there with Bill Elliott and I thought to myself, 'Man, I hope one of us wins it, because we appreciate this place maybe more than some of these young guys do.'"

 

KEVIN HARVICK POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS: 

 

Harvick's second straight runner-up finish propelled him to just 26 points behind second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the NASCAR Winston Cup driver's standings. It was his ninth top-five finish of the season.

 

"I was sitting back there in second, thinking "Man, if I pass Terry Labonte these people are going to hate me." It was pretty awesome to see him win the last Southern 500 on Labor Day with all the great tradition we've had here. I'm extremely happy to see Terry Labonte win. He's a legend and he's helped make the sport what it is today. I think anyone who isn't happy doesn't have true respect for our sport."

 

YOU HAVE HAD QUITE A RUN THE PAST FIVE OR 10 RACES. "This is our third second-place finish, and we're getting a little frustrated that we're not winning, but that's greedy. This is sport is very tough. It's very hard to run in the top 10, let alone the top five. To be on the 

run that we've had, and we were pretty fortunate to have won the Brickyard.we've just had a great three months. I'm really proud of RCR, Richard Childress for putting all the people in place and all the guys on the teams for doing what they had to do to make our organization a really top-notch competitor. It's a lot of fun to be in the race cars right now. Todd [Berrier] and Gil [Martin] are doing a great job putting everything together. I just get in and drive them, and do everything I can because I know they are doing everything they can."

 

YOU AND ROBBY GORDON ARE RUNNING WELL WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT. HOW DOES THIS COMPARE TO LAST YEAR? "We haven't done anything a whole lot different. Our routine has changed a little bit. Now that Todd is in place, we have a better handle on our bodies and engines and things like that. This sport is really weird. Richard had so much to relate to. I don't remember what year it was now, but he was telling me, 'you know, Dale and I won the championship back in '94 or '95, whatever year it was, and we had the same race cars and the same people. We came back the next year and didn't win a race.' The smallest things can set your team off."

 

YOU CUT OFF A BUNCH OF TERRY'S LEAD THERE IN THE LAST FEW LAPS. IT LOOKED LIKE YOU COULD RUN WITH HIM ALL DAY. DID LAPPED TRAFFIC PLAY A ROLE? "I got involved in the eight-laps-down race for the win. Ryan hit the wall and came down and hit the side of me. That's just part of it here at Darlington and part of racing, part of the sport. I got a little bit behind. We ran good all day, in the top five all day, led some laps and did what we had to do. I'm sure Terry was taking it a little bit easy toward the end there. He's not stupid. He knows this place can jump out and grab you at any second."

 

HOW TOUGH WAS IT IN THE CAR TODAY? "I worked a lot harder to finish 40th, I'll tell you that much. When your car is good, it makes the day a lot easier. It really wasn't that bad in the car today compared to what I thought it was going to be from yesterday. They worked really hard and put some extra hoses and things on the seat. It may have looked like we had too many hoses in the car, but I always felt 10 degrees cooler at the end of the race, that's another few points you can pick up."

 

WAS IT EASIER TODAY KNOWING THAT YOU WOULD TAKE FOUR TIRES EVERY TIME AND NOT WORRY ABOUT PIT STRATEGY? "I've heard a lot about this lately, and strategy has always been a part of our sport. I've used this 10 times, but Smokey Yunick didn't drive off when they took the fuel cell out of his car because he wasn't worried 

about gas mileage. Gas mileage has always been a part of our sport. Tires have been a part of our sport. You know at Darlington that you're going to have to put on four tires every time you come in. All the people that are complaining about the strategy, that's as much as a part of our sport as having a fast race car. It's been that way for a long time. I think the racing is as good as it's been. Especially when you come here, you know you're going to have to put on a little different state of mind."

 

YOU'RE LESS THAN 30 POINTS OUT OF SECOND PLACE NOW. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? "It's not over. It's a long shot [to win the title], but we've been a long shot before and overcome the odds and done things they said we couldn't do. If they think it's over, just tell them to quit showing up and we'll keep racing. We just have to keep doing the things we're doing. We can't control Matt's fate. We can't control his destiny. We can't control anything he does. All we can do is control ours. Alan Kulwicki came back to win from 270 points down with just six races left, so I don't think it's out of the question."

 

DID YOU THINK YOU HAD A SHOT AT TERRY AFTER THE LAST PIT STOP? "I really thought we did have a shot at him. I thought the 8 and the 12 would cut the first four or five some slack, but once I got behind them I was getting farther and farther behind, the chances were becoming less and less. There's really only one groove here, and you can whine about them being in the way or complain about them getting out of the way. That's just the way it goes."

 

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE RESPECT IN THE GARAGE AREA FOR TERRY LABONTE? "I think he's one of the most well-respected guys in the garage. He's been here through two or three generations and seen the sport evolve into what it is today. He's been there when there wasn't anything but show up at the race track with your box dinner and open trailer. To me, there's a great respect factor there from me to him, that I see toward him, and I think everybody in the garage sees that. To see him win today, I don't know how many races it's been since he won, but we're just proud of him."

 

JIMMIE JOHNSON POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

 

Johnson's third-place finish was his third top-five finish in the last four races. He is now 70 points behind Harvick in fourth place in the driver points.

 

TALK ABOUT WHAT TERRY'S VICTORY TODAY MEANS TO YOU AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS. "It's very exciting to be on the same team with him and to work with such a nice, good guy. The entire team works their butt off and they've been really making big strides. I think everyone has been able to see it. The communication between Jim Long and Terry and the whole team, it's been neat to see their spirits come up just in the short time I've been at Hendrick Motorsports. Last year and this year, you can just see the competitive fire in their eyes. Today showed that. At one of the longest races we run, on the hardest track to get ahold of, Terry kicked all of us young guys' butts today and did it in good fashion. I'm very proud of those guys and also proud of the effort the Lowe's team put up today. It was a great day for all of Hendrick Motorsports."

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO FINISH IN THE TOP THREE IN THE FINAL SOUTHERN 500 ON LABOR DAY WEEKEND? "I have to be honest, just moving back to the East Coast not too long ago and being fairly new to the sport, I probably don't understand the heritage of the Southern 500. Before the year started, Chad [Knaus] asked me what races I wanted to win. I said, 'the Southern 500, the Coca-Cola 600 and a race at Martinsville,' In my eyes, those are the hardest tracks to get around, so to be able to finish third here in the last race.I wish I would have been the last one to hold up the trophy here for the Southern 500, but I'm very glad that Terry did it."

 

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CONTACT WITH THE LAPPED CAR OF MICHAEL WALTRIP. "The caution was out, so I let off going down the backstretch. There was a lot of debris across the race track and the 15 just locked up the brakes because there wasno clear spot to go through. By the time I realized what was going on and saw I didn't have an option to go around-there was a big bumper bar lying in the way and that would have damaged my car if not put me in the wall. I had no other choice but to try and follow him through. He kept slowing down more and more, and at the last minute, I thought, 'I need to go up and around this,' but by that time, Dale Jr. was trying to get a lap back and was on the outside of me. I was pinned behind the 15 and slid into the back of him. I hope I didn't look like a total idiot doing that today. There's all kinds of race track and I ran into the back of him."

 

WAS THAT THE TURNING POINT AS FAR AS YOU WINNING THE RACE? "No. It was too early in the race and it didn't do any damage to the car, It just scared everybody and looked kind of funny. It gave the fans something to check out on TV. It really didn't affect us. At 

the end, the last two pit stops really set the tone for the finish of the race. The second to last stop was OK for us. We lost one spot but held our own for the most part. The last stop, I think we picked up five spots and that's where we finished. At the end, I really think the stops played a key in it. Terry was running strong, but came out with the lead and then checked out and ran away from everybody."



THERE WERE A LOT OF EQUAL CARS OUT THERE TODAY. TALK ABOUT THE PIT ROAD SHUFFLE ALL DAY LONG AND HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS. "There were a lot of really good cars out there today. I'd say probably eight or 10 cars all day long could have won the race. I think that's good to see, especially here, because it seems like there's a couple of guys that run away with it. It was a very competitive race. The pit road played a huge part in it. It's nice to be at a track where you have so many chances to pit and there's no second-guessing if you're going to stay out on tires or if you're going to come in for fuel or not. I think it's fun. It breaks the race up for me as well as everyone else. It's nice to come down pit road and get the fresh tires and a fresh drink of water and be on your way. The thing I thought was more impressive on the track was how the top 10 cars really worked with each other and played the give-and-take game. It was probably the best example I've seen of it all year long. I had a lot of fun racing with these guys and once you got inside them, they let you have the spot and it really made for an easy day."

 

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO GET TO KNOW TERRY LABONTE WHEN YOU WENT TO HENDRICK? "You all know Terry is a pretty soft-spoken guy, so I can't really say I truly know him today. Just at different functions we have, that Rick puts on, interaction at the track. There is a bond because we are all teammates and we all interact and explain what our cars are doing and talk about setups and the crew chiefs as well. I don't have a lot of time to see Terry, but my first reaction when I first came in was, 'here's a champion who has seen the sport and knows what's going on and can really give me an overview of what's going on in Winston Cup. He has a little different look at it than Jeff Gordon does, so it's good to help paint that overall picture for a young guy coming in to understand how things used to be and how to apply it today."

 

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO START UP FRONT HERE? "It's real important. I had some motor changes this year. At Chicago, I started last and came to the front and finished in the top three or four. At the Coca-Cola 600, we won that. It's not impossible to do, but on those days I had a lot of close calls. Here, it's even harder. You really only have one opportunity to make pass a lap, which is coming off Turn 4 and getting position on somebody going into Turn 1. Your 

options are limited and you can really abuse your car trying to make those passes and you're out of tires and going backward. It was at a premium today. I don't know where Jeff Burton started, but before long he was up there. There's guys that made their way through and they did a good job with it, but it's still very tough and you have to have a good car to do it."

 

TERRY LABONTE POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

 

Labonte's victory came 23 years almost to the day of his last Southern 500 triumph in 1980. That also was his first career NASCAR Winston Cup victory. It also ended a 156-race winless streak dating back to Texas Motor Speedway in 1999. It was his third top-five finish of the season and puts him 11th in the points, a single point behind Tony Stewart.

 

WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND THE LAST FEW LAPS AS YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO WIN THE LAST LABOR DAY SOUTHERN 500? "I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about how long those last few laps were. With about 15 to go, I thought those were the longest 15 laps I'd ever run. It was just a great win for us. The team did a great job, Jim [crew chief Jim Long] and all the guys in the pit crew. We beat them off pit road and that made the difference. We've seen track position make the difference. We got out front and were able to pull away. It was a great day for us. Bill Elliott and I were running together in fourth or fifth, and I thought to myself, 'I hope one of us wins it. It would mean a lot more to us if one of us won it than maybe some of the guys that haven't run here as long and didn't kind of know the history and tradition of Darlington Raceway.' It's a thrill for me to be able to win the last Southern 500 on Labor Day because it's also where I won my first race."

 

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOU'VE BEEN IN VICTORY LANE. DID YOU EVER WONDER IF YOU'D EVER WIN ANOTHER ONE? "That's true. Even though you think you still can and you're capable of winning, it all has to fall into place. You don't ever know. It's true for everybody. It's awful nice to end the losing streak from hell."

 

DID YOU FEEL LIKE KEVIN HARVICK COULD HAVE PASSED YOU IN THE LAST RUN? "I don't know. It's hard to say. Our cars were about the same the run before the last yellow came out. They worked on the tires a little bit and got it geared up for a shorter run. That made a big difference in the car. It kind of came to life with that last set of tires. You don't ever 

know. It's still awful difficult to pass. Our cars were really pretty close. I was able to pull away from him pretty good."

 

DID YOU MAKE YOUR CAR BETTER AS THE DAY WORE ON? "Yeah, we definitely did. We adjust all day on it, back and forth. We'd be a little loose to start with, a little tight, we got loose again, then we got tight again and we kept adjusting the car. Every pit stop we made some kind of adjustment. It cooled off a little bit and that made the track a little tighter, so we had to work on it on the pit stops. I think our car was a little bit better when it was hot. When it cooled off I thought a lot of guys who were real loose, it helped them. Our car got a little tight and we had to adjust on it a little more."

"

WHEN DID YOU SEE THE TIDE TURNING HERE? "As far as I am concerned, I really felt like the spring race here in Darlington was probably the race where we kind of turned the corner here. We had our car working good. Jim and everybody just have done a good job in these races. They've been bringing great race cars that qualify good and race well and we've had some good runs. We've been a lot more consistent than we were last year and you have to be able to be consistent and run that way to win a race. I felt like we were getting closer and closer all the time. I actually told some of the guys on our team that if we could just win a race, it would give us a lot more momentum so we could go into next year and really start off strong. Hopefully, this will do it. We've got some good race tracks. If you had asked me yesterday where I thought my best place to win a race was, I wouldn't have picked Darlington. I'd have picked Richmond. We'll go to Richmond next weekend. During the past two years, we have had some good races. Not many of them, but we have had some good ones."

 

WHEN YOU FIRST WON HERE IN 1980, YOU SAID IT WAS TOO SOON. WHEN YOU WON HERE TODAY, DO YOU THINK IT WAS TOO LATE? "I never will forget the first race I won up here. We came here and Billy Hagan came up to the press box-he was a pretty bold guy. We had just won our first race, and he stood up and said, 'in five years you're going to win the championship.' In 1984, when we did, I looked at him and thought, 'I guess he's a little smarter than I thought.' It was a pretty bold statement that he made."

 

TALK ABOUT YOUR EMOTIONS WHEN THE FANS WERE STANDING THE LAST FEW LAPS AND AGAIN AT THE CHECKERED FLAG. "I saw the fans all standing down the back straightaway. The flagman told me, 'the next time you win the race, I'll give you the 

checkered flag and you can take it around the track.' He couldn't get down there to give it to me, but he threw it down and some of our guys came down and gave it to me. It was pretty cool."

 

THAT LAST STOP WAS 13.1 SECONDS. COULD YOU FEEL HOW FAST IT WAS? "Sure you can. It all depends on the right side. When the car comes down fast on the right side you can be pretty sure that it's going to be a pretty good stop. It seems like the right side is the key."

 

HOW HAVE YOU AND JIM EVOLVED FROM THE OLD-SCHOOL RACING TO THE NEW SCHOOL RACING WITH ALL THE ENGINEERS? "Our team engineer has a laptop computer and he knows everything about that car. Jim and I, coming from the old school and doing things the old way.everybody puts their heads together and it works real good. A lot of things that the computer says don't work. A lot of things that Jim and I want to try, Alan shakes his head and says that won't work. It's just a good mix."

 

AFTER WINNING YOUR FIRST RACE HERE, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO COME BACK HERE AND WIN THE LAST LABOR DAY RACE HERE? "To me, the Southern 500 on Labor Day, that's just part of tradition here. The old speedway, back when we raced on Monday and everybody went to Myrtle Beach on Sunday. It's always been a pretty special place to me just because of the fact that I won my first race here and I hate to see it leave. I hate to see the Southern 500 leave Labor Day weekend. It's the oldest speedway we run at, and there's nothing like this. Still, I think tradition is worth something."

 

DOES THIS RANK NO. 1 ON YOUR VICTORY LIST? "I think the last one you win is always No. 1."

 

WILL THIS VICTORY MAKE RETIREMENT EASIER WHENEVER THAT TIME COMES? "I'm not saying anything, but I'll tell you I won't have a losing streak that long again. [laughter]"

 

DURING THE LOSING STREAK, DID YOU EVER THINK YOU MIGHT JUST SAY THE HECK WITH IT? "Not really. I never quit anything or gave up. You don't ever know, but you have to have that belief if you're ever going to go anywhere."