Veteran Bobby Labonte has much justification for his celebration. Bobby, who has been racing since the 1960’s, and who has been around the Winston Cup scene since 1984, finished a much overlooked top-ten season with a lucky victory at the Ford 400. While overshadowed by the immense success of other Chevy drivers Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Bobby Labonte put together a very respectable season.
With one lap to go, Labonte flew by his nearest points rival Bill Elliot to take the final checkered flag of the season. It was a bum deal for Elliot, who was in more dominant form than in his victory the previous Sunday, as he had led roughly two thirds of the laps at Homestead. This last-second pass had no effect on the overall standings, but it did sweeten the deal for Bobby. The 2000 Winston Cup champion is especially happy as he finishes nine spots better than last season.
Just two victories light up Bobby’s season, but he did score twelve top-five finishes, including three second place finishes in a row in late April/early May, which he extended to five straight top-five finishes. Bobby did almost all of his damage early on in the season, starting out hot more like Matt Kenseth than his late-peaking fellow Monte Carlo drivers. Now he can look forward to listening to some Jimmy Buffet while fishing near home in Trinity, North Carolina, when he’s not testing and preparing to show he’s still got it takes to run up front in 2004.
Older brother Terry did not fair so well this season, but yet it is he who rounds out the top 10 for 2003. He did break his three season winless streak at Darlington in late August, and thus recorded only one less victory this season than his younger and faster brother Bobby. But he was not so close by other means, as evidenced by his 215-point deficit at season’s end. Terry as still a strong driver, definitely capable of battling any other NASCAR competitor. We’ll look forward to seeing him back in action in February.
Kevin Harvick held on for a fifth place finish. Harvick followed Gordon up one spot in the points standings, after Fuel Mileage King Ryan Newman took a two-spot tumble on Sunday. The 2000 Busch series Rookie of the Year/2001 Busch Series Champion/2001 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year had an awesome season, which grew into a hot points chase that fell apart just a little too soon, and finished solid enough as he gained a spot due to his second-place finish in the Ford 400. “Happy” sure has a lot to smile about, and this is one season he’ll love to look back to, one he’s far enough away to feel the pain of his late-lost championship hopes.
Jimmie Johnson followed Harvick home with a third place finish Sunday. After all the shifting in the top 5 the past several weeks, Jimmie Johnson’s healthy habit of finishing in the top-5 helped him finish second overall on the season – just ninety points shy of Matt Kenseth! Of all the Chevy Monte Carlo drivers fighting for spots two through six at the end of the season, the young El Cajon, California native and his solid crew certainly came out on top. A flurry of top-five finishes through the end make this one hot driver, who should stay hot as he comes out the gate next February in Daytona.
Although he does not get to take the Winston Cup champion’s trophy home this winter, he will get to sleep on large piles of money - $5.5 million worth – and he gets the bragging rights of having the biggest earnings of any driver this season by about $300 grand.
Jimmie has finished in the top-5 overall twice in as many seasons (in his only two full Winston Cup season!), having finished fifth last year. Not only has he improved his points standings, but also he has gotten a leg up on Ryan Newman, to whom he lost in last year’s Rookie of the Year title. With his fifth place in points last year, and second this year, there seems to be only one place for the this young stud to go…
For the tenth season in a row, Jeff Gordon has finished in the top ten. And, with four Winston Cup Series Championships in the last decade, as well fourth place overall finishes this year and last, Jeff Gordon has spent more than half of that decade in the top five. He sure hasn’t left much room up top for anyone else; but there are some of finishers six through ten this season who might want to do something about that come 2004.
Ryan Newman, midget racer from Indiana turned NASCAR Fuel Mileage King, has finished sixth in points for his two seasons in Winston Cup, and looks to be a strong contender next year. As more teams have improved their skill at playing the fuel mileage game, Newman may not be able to rely on that as much. But with his abundant driving skill he will still be a title contender in 2004.
Tony Stewart, who is as hot-tempered as he is heavy-footed and skilled behind the wheel, also laid out a blistering end of the season. His end of the season was sweeter than most, as he had struggled to finish in the top ten through the first half of the season. His long string of top-five’s in the last eight weeks helped him secure a seventh spot overall – not bad at all, though certainly not up to the standard of his 2002 championship season.
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| Photo credit autostock |
And then of course there’s our champion. Matt Kenseth is the final ever Winston Cup champion. This is, however, probably the first of multiple championship seasons for the young man from Cambridge, Wisconsin. The 2000 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year has paid his dues and fought the good fight, struggling through a tough sophomore slump in 2001 and coming back strong to finish eighth in points last year. Mr. Consistency has mostly finished inside the top ten...except, ironically, for his last-place finish today, due to a blown engine. One solid team behind an excellent driver saw the DeWalt Ford finish every lap of all but five races on the Winston Cup circuit this year. They’re stoked. Read and look below to see so for yourself.
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| The sun sets on the Winston Cup, and on Matt Kenseth's 2003 championship season. Photo Credit autostock |
And thus ends the 2003 Winston Cup season, and thus ends the title sponsorship of a tobacco company. Next year NASCAR's premier series will join the ranks of many others with a high-tech sponsor as it begins its 2004 Nextel Cup season.
And yes, that means no mroe Winston girl in Victory Lane...can we hope for a Nextel Girl?
So before you check out the awesome photos and driver's quotes, it's time to make your voice heard (or your email read) in the 2003 MotorSportsCenter.com Winston Cup awards!
To do so, email nascar@motorsportscenter.com, and type the name of the award (“up and comer,” “heads up,” “level headed,” “hard luck” or “lead foot”...no dashes or other puncuation marks) in the subject line of your email, then put your vote for the driver you pick for each award in the body of the email.
For example, if you want to nominate Robby Gordon for the 2003 Lead Foot Award, email nascar@motorsportscenter.com, enter “lead foot” in the subject line, and then type Robby Gordon in the body of the email.
Here is the description of each award:
- Lead Foot Award: not necessarily the fastest driver, but maybe the one who waits the longest to lift off the gas near an accident or when drafting a little too close...
- Level Headed Award: for the wise, composed driver, both inside and outside the racecar
- Savvy/Heads-Up Award: someone who knows best how to work the draft; who knows how best to cause the driver in front to make a mistake so they can get by; generally someone who knows how best to take advantage of a given situation on the track
- Hard Luck Award: the driver who has had the most bad luck, whether it be frequent problems in the pits, or the driver who far too often seems to get swept up in crashes that are never their fault
- Up and Comer: the most promising young driver form this season, who seems to have put everything together late in the season this year, and who should come hot out of the gate next year. This doesn’t just have to be your rookie of the year pick, it could also be a second or third year driver who is just now picking up the draft.
So email in your votes to nascar@motorsportscenter.com. Check out the NASCAR link on the left side of your screen for all the races we have covered this season. And, if you need a complete list of drivers, email nascar@motorsportscenter.com with “drivers list” in the subject line.
BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Winner: “Honestly, I had just told Fatback the lap before that, ‘man, he [Bill Elliott] is just playing with us. He can go wherever he wants to.’ He was fast all day, and it was just bad luck on his part. I’m not sure what happened. Either he ran out of gas like Michael said, or a tire was going down or something like that. He just started wiggling and I just started screaming on the radio. It was a gift. It was way cool for us to win a race. We’ve been a long time without it, since Atlanta the first race, so we just had a good day, a good car all weekend and we had a lot of fun.”
WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX YOUR CAR EARLY IN THE RACE? “They just talked to me and that fixes it, uisually [laughter]. At the start of the race, the car was just terrible. We ran over the debris when the 97 wrecked, so we battled back. It was one of those fun days. Sometimes you can’t do that. This is a great race track and you are able to do that here. Your tires will give up enough and you can set your car up for a longer run. It was a good race for us because we were able to counter back and get something out of it.” MORE LABONTE TO FOLLOW
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd: “The GM Goodwrench Chevrolet was good all day. I hate that I was passing Ryan and those guys and got loose, but I guess that’s part of it. What a way to end the year. I hate it for Bill Elliott, man. He means a lot to our sport, and I want to congratulate Matt Kenseth and his entire crew on everything they did this year. They deserve to be champions.”
TALK ABOUT THE SEASON. “We’ve had a great season. I hate that we had to have a wreck down there and for the most part it was a great season for us. These GM Goodwrench Chevrolet guys have done a great job all year, and to come back from what we were last year, it should mena good things for next year.” MORE HARVICK TO FOLLOW
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 3rd: “When we got the lead early, I knew it was too easy. Something had to come up. We had a problem with the left rear tire or something on the left side, and we had to come in and pit. We had to fight to get our lap back, but we had such a great race car and such good work on pit road that we were able to advance and then on top of that, we had a fast race car. We got our lap back and were able to finish third.” MORE JOHNSON TO FOLLOW
JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 4th in his final ride in this car, and he was the highest-finishing Pontiac: “It was a great drive. I really have to thank Valvoline, MB2 and Hendrick Motorsports for giving us the opportunity to go and run this car. I hate that they’re breaking it up. It’s a great race team, and Jay Guy has done a tremendous job. We had a semi-bad year. We had some changes throughout the year. James Ince has done a tremendous job with this team and he needed to take a leave. I hate it. I think we all suffered from it, them wanting to make a change. I’m not going to complain. We had 15 top-5 finishes and a win for the team, and that’s great. They can’t take that away from me and no one can take it away from them either, so that’s cool.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 5th: “It certainly was an awesome finish for us. We had a bunch of top-5s, a couple wins in the last few races and I couldn’t be happier with the effort we put out today. We didn’t have the best car, we got real tight and we just couldn’t get it freed up enough. It seemed like the track kept getting tighter and tighter. We were adjusting and adjusting. The guys in the pits had a great last stop. I just have to thank everybody on this entire team and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. They just put so much effort into us having competitive cars all year long and having a car to battle in the points all year long like we did. I also have to thank Winston for all their support over the years. I have had the pleasure to benefit from a lot of that support and I’m very thankful for what they do. I wish Matt Kenseth congratulations on his championship.”
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 7th: “It was a pretty uneventful day other than the start of the race. It was pretty exciting having a bunch of race car parts lying in the middle of the race track. I ran over a spring real hard and tore the front end up. The guys did a great job getting it put back together. The car was never quite as good as it was yesterday. We ran good all day, so I can’t complain too much.”
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: “We should have run better. We wanted to run better, but the car wasn’t good enough. We had a good year, had a lot of fun. I just want to go home and take some time off.”
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| Photo credit autostock |
TODD BODINE - No. 54 National Guard Taurus (Finished 11th) - "We had a great car. Gary made some changes before the race that clearly worked, that thing was awesome right off the bat. But, it kept getting tighter as the race went, and we really didn't find anything that freed it up. I think the track just lost grip and we need a little help on the front end with the Ford, so I think that's what it was because we couldn't find anything. But it was a great day for National Guard, last race for them with us as a team. We were just glad to do a good job for 'em." MANY SEEMED TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH TIRES TODAY. NO SUCH TROUBLE FOR YOU? "No. When it started pushing I started taking care of it because I knew that was going to be a potential problem. I was babying it pretty good when it started pushing so we didn't have that problem." EVEN SO, YOU WERE VERY CONSISTENT. YOU DIDN'T FALL BACK AT ALL. "Yeah. We were consistently eighth-to-twelfth all day. That was really good for us." LOOKING FORWARD, WHAT CAN YOU TAKE OUT OF THIS RACE? "We learned an awful lot. We think we figured out the things we've been doing wrong, and we corrected them and that's what made us better in the race. But, hopefully, leading into next year, it'll make us a lot better."
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| Photo credit autostock |
JEFF BURTON - No. 99 CITGO Taurus (Finished 14th) - "Really looking forward to next year, that's the best I can tell you. We just got behind on the body stuff and the engine stuff, and next year we hope to be better. We got a lot of stuff in play for 2004 already. We made something out nothing today. We managed the race really well and I'm proud of that. We weren't fast enough to get a top-five, but we managed the race and I finished 14th. Made something out of not much." NO TIRE PROBLEMS FOR YOU TODAY? "We were just real safe. Maybe that was one the reasons we weren't very fast. We were real safe on the right front." EVEN SAFE, YOU WERE CONSISTENT. YOU REACHED 15TH AND STAYED CLOSE TO THERE. "We got about 15th and that's where we stayed. Once we had gotten there with all our problems, that's what we had."
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| Champ 1 and Champ 2. CART World Series Champion Paul Tracy spends some quality time with Winston Cup champ Matt Kenseth. Photo Credit autostock |
MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus - POST-RACE
MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 43rd) - "Real disappointing for the DeWalt team. This is the same way it ended last year. We blew an engine in the last race last year, too. It didn't really give us any indication, something just broke. It's real disappointing. We had a pretty good car, you probably couldn't really see it, but I think in a long run we were going to be real good, and hopefully be a factor at the end."
THE CHAMPIONSHIP IS ALREADY SECURED. AS FAR AS THE TEAM IS CONCERNED, WHEN DOES NEXT YEAR START? "About two months ago. We started building cars and started getting ready already. So, we've got three or four 2004 cars done, and been to the wind tunnel and have been working on them. So, we're already working on it. But, this is a disappointing way to end the day."
HAS IT SUNK IN YET? "A little bit, but it's just really awesome to be part of this group of guys that are standing up here. I'm just really honored to be driving for this team and really honored to be up there with all of those really great Winston Cup champions. I'm just so appreciative for all the opportunities that I've had."
HOW WAS IT TO HAVE RICHARD PETTY A PART OF THIS CELEBRATION? "That's beyond cool. Richard Petty is the first Winston Cup champion and it's amazing to think we're the last Winston Cup champion. It's just a huge honor to even get to talk to the King and somebody that you idolized growing up as a stock car racer. I'm just so happy to be here."
WHAT DID YOU CONCENTRATE ON THIS YEAR? "Just to try to do a better job with the things we lacked last year. Last year, we struggled at certain tracks. This year, we were better at them. Last year, we had too many DNFs. We tried to minimize them this year, if we could. We just tried to make the bad days better."
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| Jack Roush's DeWalt crew couldn't be happier. Photo Credit autostock |
MATT KENSETH CHAMPIONSHIP PRESS CONFERENCE - "Overall, if you look at our year as a whole and not think about today's race or pick out one or two races, it's been a really great year for us. We've been able to run up front. We've been very competitive. At the beginning of the year, especially, we had lots of chances to win races. We were only able to win one, but we had a lot of opportunities. We put ourselves in position to win and led some laps and ran real good. We've been able to take days that looked like they were gonna be bad days and we had trouble like flat tires and stuff like that and turned them into top 10 runs. I think that's what a championship team is made of. I'm really proud of Robbie and all the guys for rallying around. Even last week it looked like we were gonna run 30th and we got a fourth-place finish out of it because of the job they did in the pits and the job they do on the car. I'm just really proud of my team. I think they did a great job of figuring out last year what we lacked as far as trying to run for a championship and did a good job of improving our weak areas. Robbie and our team, along with everybody at Roush, we had some failures last year and we didn't have as many this year. We fixed some areas where we had problems in and that helped us a lot."
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| Photo Credit autostock |
JACK ROUSH, Car Owner - THERE WERE NO FORDS IN THE TOP 10. WHAT DOES THAT SAY? "My expectation for success this year wasn't as great before the year started as it had been previously. Our car is dated and our engine is not cutting edge today in 2003. NASCAR has given us a new set of templates - a new nose and new tail for our Taurus configuration for next year. I knew we weren't gonna have that this year. We hadn't expected it and we didn't ask for it. It wasn't our turn and our engine has issues. Anyway, we made it through on the strength of the team - consistency and a good year. We were lucky not to lose tires or run over debris and lose the air in our tires at a bad time. We didn't have the problem we saw today of having right-front tires give out on tracks that are hard on right-front tires, and the pit stops were just awesome all year. Matt, in the early part of the year before the Chevrolets and the Dodges with their new configurations got their legs under them, we won our races and we led our races and it was wonderful. That was a surprise to me. Where we are today is pretty much where I expected we would run. Ricky Rudd had an engine problem and Matt had an engine problem today. Those aren't characteristic. We've got to go back and find out what happened, but the fact is - considering this was kind of a free race for us - we did some things to our engines for the 21 and for the 17 that were different than what we were running all year and that may be why we had trouble or it may not, but we need to know about that. We'd done the bench testing and it looked like it was OK and we took a chance. Everybody held hands when we did that because we've got to get better for next year. Given the fact we've got a new cylinder head from NASCAR going into next year and we've got a better tail and better nose for the aero function, my prospects and expectations for next year is that we will run as a five-car team better on average next year than we did this year and I think Fords will generally run better, too. If you look at the number of Fords that have qualified on the pole this year and the number of laps led in the second half of the year, it's real clear that something changed and what I think changed was the Chevrolet and the Pontiac and the Dodge really figured out how to capitalize on what they had in terms of aerodynamics and they did a better job with the engine than we did. We've been constrained with a 1992 cylinder head and everybody else has got something newer. We've got the same architecture to work in next year as far as cylinder heads are concerned as everybody else, so next year will be a no excuses deal for us. We'll make the power and we'll have a body that I think will be competitive at every place we go."
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| "We are the Champions, my friends..." Matt Kenseth and car owner Jack Roush, along with Dan Davis, let everyone know who's #1. Photo credit autostock |
ROBBIE REISER, Crew Chief - DID IT ALL EVEN OUT TODAY - FINISHING 43RD? "Basically, we were fortunate to be in this spot. We came here being in that position and we were able to try something new and, obviously, it didn't work. But it's helping us learn for next season and that's what we used this race for. I think being in the position we were in, why not?"
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - DID YOU GET TO DO THE HONORS OF SPRAYING MIKE HELTON WITH CHAMPAGNE? "I want you to know that I had several half-full bottles of champagne offered to me and I did not pick one up and didn't do anything. On the other hand, this guy to my right here (Reiser), there's gonna be people looking for him from now on (laughing). He did some really bad things (laughing)."
ROBBIE REISER CONTINUED - "All I can say is I went for the biggest bottle (laughing)."
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| A burnout worthy of a champion. Photo Credit autostock |
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED - YOU'VE COME FROM THE BACK SO MANY TIMES THIS YEAR. IS THAT SKILL OR LUCK? "I've learned two things today. I've learned we finished last and I've learned I'm a pretty bad qualifier (laughing). If anybody else has any bad news, go ahead (laughing). I think, honestly, a lot of racing from the back - I'm certainly not gonna say it's an advantage because it's not - but there are certain times where I think it helps us to a certain extent. We worked on the car a lot to work in traffic and we're racing around other cars so we know what our car is gonna handle like in dirty air in that type of situation. If you do get behind toward the end of the race, it might help us a little bit. But I think learning how to race in the back came a lot from racing up in Wisconsin because when you qualified good up there, you had to start in the back. In the south, when you qualified good, you'd start on the pole and you could maybe lead every lap, but up there you had to learn to pass cars and race with traffic and I like racing with other cars. I'd rather start on the pole and lead all the laps, don't get me wrong, but I do like to race with other cars, especially when our car is handling good. We can kind of size up the field a little bit more and see what's going on." WHAT ABOUT THAT BURNOUT? "I'm kind of like Jeff Burton in one way in that I don't usually like to tear up Jack's equipment or tear off quarterpanels because the way Robbie and I grew up, we had to fix our own stuff and pay for our stuff. So I've never been big on that. I was in there getting ready and all my guys pushed the backup car down there and were like, 'Are you gonna tear it up or do some burnouts or melt it down or something?' I was like, 'Ah, I don't think so. I think it's kind of overrated.' They said, 'You know what you should do is go nose that thing up against the wall. I can't remember who was telling me that, but they said just ease the nose against the wall and just do a big burnout against the wall. Nobody's ever done that.' I said, 'Well, if nobody's ever done it, I guess I'll do it.' So I figured I'd make a little smoke that way. I couldn't move the wall either." YOU ARE THE LAST WINSTON CUP CHAMPION. WHAT WILL BE GAINED AND LOST WITH NEXTEL? "I think what they'll gain is simple, they'll be able to advertise to more markets. You'll be able to advertise to kids. You'll be able to market the sport in ways that Winston probably couldn't market it being a tobacco product. What we're gonna lose are great friends and sponsors and people that you've seen in the garage area every weekend that have been a big part of this. Winston has sponsored NASCAR Winston Cup racing longer than I've been alive and just in the little time I've been here, they've done tremendous amounts for this sport. They've sunk tons of money into it. They've marketed us. Like I said, they've become friends. They've done things to get along with you and make it really fun at the same time as trying to grow the sport. I'm really gonna miss those guys and I'm sad to see them go."
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOUR ENGINE BLEW? "I was thinking about one word (laughing). What can you really say? Darn, you're done. I mean, it goes so fast. You don't really sit and think about it. It's not like a long drawn-out drama thing. You're ready to go in the corner, there's a teenie vibration and there's smoke and you shut it off and coast back to the garage. Whenever something like that happens, you know you can't fix it. That's disappointing early in the race because you know you're out. When you have a flat tire or something else happens there's a little more drama to that because you've got to figure out how to fix it and how to put your fender back on and still be competitive and not lose a lap. But when you break something that's terminal, it's just over for the day." WERE YOU THANKFUL AFTER IT WENT? "Right now I'm thankful, but at that moment I wasn't thankful. At the moment you're frustrated because you're in it for that race and you're putting all your energy into that race, but, yeah, once it went I mean, overall, we've had two engine failures this year. I'm sure Jack and I and everybody wishes we'd had zero, but, still, it was a good year for us. Those were the only two mechanical failures of any kind we've had all year, so, sometimes it's gonna be your turn." WHAT WENT INTO THE PROCESS TO ROLL THE BACKUP CAR OFF? "I have no idea. You'd have to talk to a different department."
JACK ROUSH CONTINUED - CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS THE SATISFACTION OR VINDICATION YOU FEEL? "I don't feel vindicated and I'm not satisfied. I guess I'm a little humbled and a little relaxed. It is a big thing. I am honored and when I came to NASCAR, I asked Les Richter for an entry and in 1998 he gave me an entry. That was huge because that meant on that day if I could go fast enough, which was for the 1988 Daytona 500, if Mark could go fast enough, we were gonna have a chance to race in front of 180,000 or 200,000 people that come down to watch a race. I felt that he gave me 1/43rd of an opportunity to be the focus of 1/43rd of that energy. Anybody that hasn't ridden on one of these trucks that hauls the drivers around, that hasn't been in a race car when the race has started or been where I've been - behind the pit wall when the races start and felt that energy - if there's another species of things that are alive someplace else in the universe there's probably a burst that goes out that's like a sun spot. If they've got equipment that they can pick up, it's just awesome how much energy goes with that thing. I remember I stood at the Charlotte race the first time they had that race at night and all the flash bulbs lit up keeping pace with the cars when they went around the race track the first time. That was awesome. That was really tremendous. Anyway, I feel humbled by the thing that I'm a part of. I'm appreciative of what Winston partnered with NASCAR to do and what they allowed me to come in and share and to bring some of my own small energy to and to share in all of that is bigger than me. It's bigger than my frustration and it's bigger than the competition that has been associated with it. It's just large and right now I'm kind of in awe."
ROBBIE REISER CONTINUED - IS IT POSSIBLE TO IMAGINE WHAT YOU'VE DONE IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME? "I think you look back at a lot of things you do in life, but to this day I think we've always looked forward. I don't think we look back. The time we went down to Daytona we had no sponsor and we didn't know if we were gonna race the next week. I don't think we ever looked backwards, we looked to what we were gonna do. There weren't a whole lot of choices. He could drive for somebody. He could have went and drove for a couple of guys and I don't understand why he didn't, but somehow we hung together. The way this sport is where a lot of people don't hang together, we're getting a pay back for that. I think not only when you look at Matt and myself, but you've got to look at our whole team. Our whole team is a lot like that. We've got a lot of guys that hung in there. Russ Strupp and Todd Millard and Jeff Vandermoss are all back from our days back in Wisconsin.
ROBBIE REISER CONTINUED - "It's a tribute to all those people that this whole thing worked. We were fortunate to have fathers that had racing backgrounds and understood this deal and hung in there with us. Without that, I don't think any of this would be possible."
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED - IS IT POSSIBLE TO IMAGINE WHAT YOU'VE DONE IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME? "It's a people sport. There's a lot of people that have been with Robbie and I since we started. Since we started that five-race deal with Jack in '99, there are a couple of people Jack moved around within the organization that are still there, but I think there are maybe only two people or three people at the most that aren't with our group anymore. We might have moved some people and changed positions and this and that, but they have all stuck it out. Even when we had a terrible, awful year in 2001, the crew chief didn't get fired, the driver didn't get fired. We didn't do any of that. We all, as a group, worked on it together and tried to figure out what was wrong. That's a testament to Robbie. It's a testament to Jack - to everybody - for not giving up on that. I know Jack has a lot of people that have been with Roush Industries for a long, long time, too, and this is a big payback for those guys because without the equipment and without the personnel and without all the people behind you like we have, there's no way you'd ever be able to accomplish this. I guess when I think back about the people and stuff, the more I think about the people that have been on my crews through the years, the people that let me drive their cars through the years. The people that I raced against and the people that sponsored the cars. Anyone who got us enough money and gathered it up where we could go race because me and my dad could only afford to race so much. I had a guy's car that I'd drive on Thursday nights and then I had another guy's car that I would drive on Saturday nights somewhere. I had two or three different owners at one time just so I could race as much as I could. I think about all those people being a step in the ladder and without any of those steps, I don't think you'd ever get to the top."
ROBBIE REISER CONTINUED - WHAT IS IT ABOUT WISCONSIN DRIVERS? "I think the biggest thing is it's probably a family sport up there. All of the guys that do a lot of racing up there, their fathers raced, their kids raced - that type of thing. All of us had to build equipment from square one. We had to pay for it. We had to race it. We had to work on it. That's how you did it up there. We could race so many race tracks. I raced against Matt. We probably raced against each other Thursday through Sunday every weekend and then we went and ran specials on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday we raced against each other. You could run probably 70 shows, I think, from April to September and you'd run on all different type of race tracks. Flat tracks, banked tracks - and the competition was pretty fierce. Everybody knows Dick Trickle and that legendary program there. We raced against those type of competitors every night and that's what built this thing for Wisconsin racing."
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED - HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT BEING THE LAST WINSTON CUP CHAMPION? "Not really. I haven't thought of my place in history yet because I hope I have a lot more to make. I haven't really looked back at it that way, but I have sure felt honored to be part of the group that have been Winston Cup champions and for our team to be part of that. There aren't many people that even get the chance to race at this level let alone be successful and drive for a championship team. It was a really special today when I got to do that victory lap with Richard Petty being the first Winston Cup champion in '71, I think it was, and then we're the last one. It's kind of an end of an era there with Winston being part of this sport. It was pretty cool to be able to put the flag up there with my name on it with all those other champions. It's a really special thing and it's pretty unbelievable."
MATT KENSETH CONTINUED - HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITIES YOU'LL HAVE AS A CHAMPION? "I'm looking forward to going to New York and doing all that stuff. When we finished eighth last year, I wasn't really looking forward to going up on stage and giving a speech and doing all that, but this year I'm really looking forward to it. I think when you do stuff like that, it's all what you make of it. If you go into with a positive attitude, you're gonna have fun doing it. I think the coolest thing is we'll be able to do stuff that we never, ever in our whole lives would have gotten to experience if it wasn't for what we accomplished this year - like meeting the President and going on some of those TV shows and doing some of those things. That's something I'm really gonna enjoy and that's something I'm really gonna enjoy. That's something I'm really gonna look forward to and think of that week as a big celebration for my team and for Jack and for my teammates and everybody that's been able to accomplish this." YOU'LL HAVE A LOT OF FUN THINGS TO DO. "Yeah, it'll be cool. I'm looking forward to doing all that kind of stuff. It's cool to be able to do all that, especially in the off season before we get back to racing real hard and testing and doing all that stuff. I'm looking forward to going up there."
POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON BILL ELLIOTT AND THE LAST LAP? “It's one of those deals where you shake your head for a guy who dominated a race like that. I've been there. It's probably the worst feeling in the world. It's never over until it's over, that's for sure. That's why most of the people stay in the grandstands and that's why our sport is so exciting to watch because it isn't over until the checkered flag falls.”
DID ANYTHING HAPPEN TO YOUR CAR AS A RESULT OF THE LAP 5 SITUATION THAT MAY HAVE AFFECTED YOUR CAR LATER ON? “I don't think so. I think we got really lucky where the impact was on the side and it just caved the side in and not damage the hood or the front fenders. We were pretty fortunate in that whole mess.”
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS YOU'LL BE WORKING ON DURING THE OFF-SEASON? “Well, Phoenix and Atlanta we were obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were running in the top 10. But we've just got to get going at the beginning of the year. That's our main focus. We've got to come out of the box strong. We've got to do what we did in the second half of this year in the first half of next year because that's the reason Matt Kenseth was the champion this year. He came out of the box strong. He was consistent all year long and did what he had to do to run in the top 10 and the top five.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:
CAN YOU SUM UP THE SEASON AND THE RACE TODAY AT THE NEW HOMESTEAD MIAMI SPEEDWAY? “It was just a great year for the entire Lowe's team. I never in my wildest dreams expected to have six wins, The Winston, all the poles, and a fifth place finish last year and a second place finish this year. But we're here and it's been a reality to be this competitive through the midway point of last year. I'm just getting all I can every day every lap and so are Chad (Knaus, crew chief) and the entire team. We have a great relationship, great equipment, and great sponsors. You hear everybody saying that stuff. But it really is the truth. Our sport is about people. The top teams all have the same equipment. It's all about people. I'm so fortunate to have the crew that I do. They've made a sophomore finish 2nd this year.”
CONSIDERING THE POINTS CHASE FOR THE TITLE AND TODAY'S RACE RESULTS, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE NEW BREED OF DRIVERS? “Maybe in the last few years, the speed has been with these younger drivers but maybe not the consistency. Everybody out there is very smart race car drivers in learning the do's and don'ts and how to be consistent and not get into wrecks and have problems. I think the young faces you see will continue to be there. But at the same time it's not about look at Bill Elliott. He's been strong for the last three months. It's about communication and it's about people. It's going to be exciting for NASCAR next year with the new sponsorship with Nextel and what they're going to be able to do with regard to marketing and advertising of the sport and the young faces and even veterans of the sport. It's going to be even more competitive next year.”
FINISHING SECOND, HOW FAR OFF WAS THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “Being the first loser doesn't bother me too much. I didn't expect to be in this position. Of course I wanted to win the championship this year. I wanted to win it last year and do something that no one's ever done. It doesn't mean that we're not putting in everything that we can. But we're in a position where we don't need to put any additional pressure on ourselves. If you look at history, it usually takes three, four, or five years to get the driver and the team into championship form. Maybe next year will be that special year for us. It takes a lot of luck. If you look at Matt Kenseth's year, he's been fast and done all the great things but he's had flat tires at the right point in time and only been caught up in one or two wrecks and blown one engine. That's hard to do. We'll give it one hundred percent next year and see what happens.”
HOW BAD WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE TALLADEGA BACK? “Oh, there are a few of them. Talladega, Michigan - where we ran out of gas, Dover - where I was doing just fine but got greedy and tore my car up. So you look across the board and there are a lot of those out there. At the end of the year, the guy with the shortest list of 'what ifs' will be the champion. The competition is too close. Everybody is going to win. Everybody is going to win poles. Everybody is going to be up front. It's that 'what if' category at the end of the year.”
DID YOU EXPERIENCE ANY TIRE PROBLEMS AND DID GOODYEAR WARN YOU AHEAD OF TIME? “Based on yesterday's race, the left fronts were blistering on the Busch cars. I was trying to take care of that while I was on the track today. But the only problem we had was one right rear started to chunk up on the longest run that we had. I didn't pick up a vibration or have any problems from it. I noticed that we needed to scuff to sort out which tires were tighter and which set was looser so we'd know how to put them on the car and not tune ourselves out of the race. But this race track is so fast, you're in the gas 70 percent of the time around here in race trim, if not more, in race trim. That's just pushing the race cars into the track and tearing the tires up and building a ton of heat and you're going to see things happen from that. Fortunately we didn't have any problems and I knew when I was making the tires mad and I laid off them a little bit to save my stuff at times.”
HOW WAS THE RACING ON THE NEW HOMESTEAD MIAMI TRACK? “For a first race with the new asphalt to have as many grooves as we did out there, this is going to be a very exciting track for years to come. When it gets a summer or two on it, it's going to start to lose grip on the bottom and you're going to see that top groove with the extra banking coming into play. Typically, new tracks are single-file racing around the bottom. It's a parade. I don't think that was today's case. I went to the back three or four times and worked my way through there. I think they've done a great job. The only thing I would like to see happen is for us to use the race track to come into the pits and not the access road. Unfortunately we didn't have to pit under green because we would have had cars spinning and sliding up the race track.”
CAN YOU ADDRESS WINSTON'S CONTRIBUTION TO THIS SPORT? “With only having two years in the Winston Cup Series, I've gotten to know the faces but I haven't really been able to see what they've done. When they entered into the sport, I was just a twinkle in my mom and dad's eyes. I wasn't even here (laughs). But I can say that I've wanted to race in Winston Cup all my life. Good or bad, I didn't realize that it was a cigarette brand. I thought it was just what NASCAR called it. That's all that I've ever known. That's what I've wanted to do and it's more popular than ever now. But they've done a lot for the sport and some of the veterans can speak better to that than I can. I'm thankful for everything that they've done.”
BOBBY LABONTE POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE: NOTE: Sunday’s victory in the Ford 400 was the second of the season for Labonte and the 21st of his career. It was also the 19th for Chevrolet this season, more than all the other manufacturers combined. He finished 8th in the final Winston Cup point standings.
HIGH DRAMA HERE IN THE DEBUT OF THE NEW HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY. TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY TODAY. “Anybody know how much I won? It’s usually a high-paying race and I want to make sure it stays the same after the repaving [laughter]. Our day was definitely up and down, or down and then up. Our race car was noit very conducive to the track early on. It just seemed like we couldn’t get a hold of the race track. It was really greasy. I’m not sure why the first caution happened, but there was a big wreck on the back straightaway. I don’t know what started it and things like that, but we ran over some stuff, had to come in and fix the nose a little bit, put some tires on it and get back going. On that restart, we were second-from-last. We had a good race car after that, it just seemed like at the start of the race there wasn’t any grip. We took off, and then we had an air wrench break on us and we dropped back after getting to 7th. We came back up there, fought hard all day and Michael McSwain made some good adjustments to the car. I hope I gave him some good feedback. The track kind of came to us, our race car got better. On the last lap, it looked like I was going to finish second unless something happened to Bill Elliott, and lo and behold, it did. He had a dominant race car. Did he lead every lap? It looked like he should have or did. He pulled away from me a lap or two before that happened off Turn 2, and he came off Turn 2 and that thing started getting loose. I thought, ‘man, I hope he isn’t running through oil because I’m going to run through the same thing.’ But evidently his tire started going down and we were able to get by him. You can see my emotions on that last lap went from low to high pretty quick, because I didn’t think we had any chance to beat him. I couldn’t believe it after that happened, but his misfortune was our good fortune.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY TIRE PROBLEMS? “Yesterday in practice, we didn’t have any problems. Our car was pretty comfortable, I thought, and it wasn’t the fastest but it felt pretty good. The temperature wasn’t going up and we didn’t see any blistering or chunking, so that was pretty good. I don’t think there was much problem today, although there was a cut tire on Bill
Elliott’s car, probably, and Michael Waltrip might have had a problem. Our car was pretty good and I thought we had a good hold on it. We didn’t want to be too aggressive because it is a pretty fast race track and you can get in trouble if you do that.”
TALK ABOUT THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN YOU AND MICHAEL AT THE END. “That restart, my car was probably a little bit better on the end of the restarts than it was, obviously, at the beginning. We ran a few laps there, probably at the same speed, he might have pulled me a little bit and I might have gained on him half a tenth and he’d pull me a tenth and I’d gain on him a half a tenth. The last two laps before that, he just ran through the bottom of Turns 1 and 2, and he hadn’t been doing that. I was like, ‘whew, he can just get down there and go.’ His car has been good for 10 weeks in a row, now. It wasn’t like it was the first time. He was good all day, and he led 189 laps, in case you don’t know that. He was just motoring away. With two to go, I said, ‘I want this win more than he does, maybe, but his car is really good right now.’ There’s no way, unless something happened, that I was going to pass him. He just pulled away that last little bit off the corner, and as a driver you can feel that and see that. I saw it. I was going into the corner, getting on the gas as fast as I could and trying to get it turned as much as I could and he was just pulling me. His stuff was going.”
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT IN 2004 WITH SO MANY GUYS CAPABLE OF WINNING A TITLE? “It’s good to finish on this note. I’ve won the last race three of the last seven or eight years. I won Atlanta twice the last year and I won this race here. It’s always cool to win the last race because you can celebrate the offseason just a little longer than the next guy. I think that will be good for our team. Next year, you see guys like Ryan Newman, Jimmie Johnson, we don’t know what Bill Elliott’s going to do, you have Tony and myself, hopefully, and you have the guys that finished in the top 10 this year and others that were knocking on the door of the top 10 and guys that are coming up that could be in the top 10 too. It’s no different than last year, but there’s a few different names. If those guys do their jobs right and don’t have any bad luck throughout the year, there’s going to be a lot of good cars. It’s just going to come down to who is the most consistent again, and who doesn’t have the bad luck to go along with the misfortunes that other people might have. Matt Kenseth only won one race, and the top-fives and top-10s are what you shoot for that is the key. A lot of guys can do that.”
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A POSITION LIKE TODAY WHERE THE ROLES WERE REVERSED? “I don’t think on the last lap, like that. I’ve had it happen with a few laps to go, but not the last lap. At Michigan in a Busch race, I had a half-straightaway lead and ran out of gas with 12 laps to go or something like that. I was out the tunnel by the time the race was over, and my wife is like, ‘what are you doing?’ I said, ‘I quit, it was my last race anyway. I wasn’t running for points.’ I’ve had similar situations, but not that close to the finish. That’s got to be tough. Bill is such a great guy, and he had the car to win. For that to happen, that has to be upsetting. I’d say there’s not anybody better to handle that than him, because he’s pretty laid back. He’s not going to go in there and scream and holler. He’s been around long enough to see what’s going to happen. His decision, for what’s going to happen in the future, I hope that doesn’t make it any different. But if he’s going to be that good, I don’t know. He’s getting better. He shouldn’t give up or quit.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO MATT KENSETH IN TERMS OF REPEATING? “You just try to tell him to do what he did this year. It’s easier said than done. We tried the same thing. We were talking the other day, and Rusty Wallace said, ‘man, I thought when I won my championship I was going to win 10 more.’ It’s just so hard after that, it seems like. You have a lot of momentum on your side until today and then you have to start over again. If you’re second in points this year, you have No. 1 to go for. When you’re first, it’s a different type of thing to stay there. You just have to do the same thing they did this year, but they somehow think they’re going to do better. You have to actually have to do better, because everybody else is doing better. You can’t let it get to you.”
DO YOU HAVE TO BE SMOOTH TO WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP OR IS IT MORE LIKE RYAN NEWMAN? “I don’t know. Things have changed. Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, some of those guys have put a little different twist on things this year. Matt Kenseth won one race this year, but he was still competitive week in and week out. It’s not like he didn’t try to win races, but he tried to finish in the top 10. Ryan and those guys tried to win races, and it got them caught some times, but they tried. It’s not like Matt tried to finish 10th, but he finished 10th. It does put a different spin on it. I said last year that when the 12 car gets its act together and can run the whole race as fast as they do for 12 or 15 laps, they’re going to be hard to beat. They were this year. That does make us all aware of what we have to do. They hit upon the right combination, the right balance. They wear the tires out evenly through the run, and that’s a big
deal now, especially when they don’t wear out. My car doesn’t get it. Not saying my car, but if my car doesn’t wear tires as well as theirs does, they’re getting better use out of their stuff than we are. We have to get better use out of our stuff. We have to be more chancy on pit road, take two tires or gas or stuff like that. It does change the way you think about things.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE NEW TRACK? “Did you look at the lap times? Holy cow. It was really fast. They did a great job here making a race track that was great to race on. We’ve gone to a lot of tracks for the first time in the last five or six years and it’s single file, single file single file, and you never get a groove up there. This thing had a groove when we got here Wednesday when we showed up and I heard it had a groove on Monday and Tuesday. It had more than one groove, in the middle, down low and mid high. I think they did a great job. It was a great track to race on, real fast and it reminds you of Charlotte, Atlanta, Michigan and California. It has its own uniqueness, because it doesn’t have a quad-oval, tri-oval type of deal. It will only get better. I’m sure it won’t be as black when we come here next year because of the sun here.”
THE RACE TODAY SET A RECORD FOR NUMBER OF CAUTIONS AND LAPS. DID THE NEW TRACK CONTRIBUTE TO THAT? “With a track like this, you want to run two-wide. You have a lot better chance of getting into an accident running two-wide than you do running single-file. I think it just happened that way. A lot of times, the number of cautions today is with the lucky dog thing, because it takes them an extra laps or two to get things sorted out. The flags today, there were some crashes, some debris things, a couple of blown engines. A lot of guys were racing hard.”
JIM CAMPBELL, MARKETING DIRECTOR, CHEVY RACING: “This was indeed a championship weekend for Chevrolet in many ways. We captured drivers’ championships in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with Travis Kvapil and the NASCAR Busch Series with Brian Vickers, and we captured the Manufacturers’ Championship in the Winston Cup and Busch Series. Bobby Labonte certainly put an exclamation point on our championship weekend with his victory in the Winston Cup race, and four Chevrolets came home in the top five. We’re proud of all the Chevrolet Monte Carlo teams for a great season. Monte Carlos won 19 of the 36
races this season, and earned Chevy its 23rd Manufacturers’ Championship of the modern era. It’s been a great year.”
DOUG DUCHARDT, DIRECTOR, GM RACING: “What a weekend for GM Racing. When we came into this weekend, the Craftsman Truck Series championship was undecided and the Busch Series championship was undecided. We earned both of those championships with Travis Kvapil [Trucks] and Brian Vickers [Busch Series], we won the Manufacturers’ Championship in the Winston Cup and Busch Series, and GM Racing cars, both Chevrolet and Pontiac, won more races in Winston Cup than all the other manufacturers combined. That gives you some idea of Chevrolet’s dominance of the Winston Cup season in 2003. Bobby Labonte earned the victory on Sunday, there were four Chevrolet Monte Carlos and one Pontiac Grand Prix in the top five and Terry Labonte worked his way into the top 10 in the final point standings, giving us seven of the top 10 drivers in Winston Cup. It was a great weekend for GM Racing and it capped a great year for Chevrolet.”
MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Waltrip was eliminated when a tire on his Monte Carlo cut down. “The right front cut down on me. Experience told me that I was fixing to get hurt, but I went up there and hit that nice cushiony wall and I didn’t get hurt. We had a really strong car and I need to thank NAPA, DEI and Chevrolet. It was a really good year, but this isn’t the way we wanted to end it.”
BRIAN VICKERS, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Vickers was also eliminated when a right front tire went down on his car on lap 122. “Thanks to Homestead and ISC for the soft walls. That hit was a lot easier than it could have been. I don’t really know what happened. It felt like it just cut down. Goodyear did a great job with this tire for the little time they had to get it ready, since the track wasn’t paved until very late in the game. I can’t wait for Daytona to get here.”
KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Rubbermaid Taurus (Finished 36th) - "I was running three wide and the cars came up into me. There's a lot of things you do at a brand-new track at the beginning of a race just to try to get going. I needed to finish in the top 10 in points and we didn't get that this year. It's a real bummer. I really commend the group that works with me all year with this Rubbermaid team, but we just never had any luck. Never."
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RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 31st) - "I was hoping to end on a high note. We changed a lot, cars, crew chief, everything, and we didn't test. There really wasn't time for it. We sort of gambled and figured we didn't have a lot to lose. The points deal was sort of over for us a long time ago, so it was probably a good call that we went and used these last two races as a test. We were pretty decent at Rockingham, and obviously we missed the handle on it pretty good today." WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR? "I think Ford's getting some new stuff. They're getting a little bit different body style, so that'll help, and, I guess, new cylinder heads. Fords, in general, I didn't see them much leading laps today. So, all the Fords can use some help, we'll take that."
MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Finished 33rd)- "We got too racy there with Ward. Ward and I were racing real hard and we got together and went around. We had a pretty fast car, and I was pretty happy with it. It was certainly a top 10 car for sure. I was really great on long runs. I wish I would have had some race cars like that this year because that thing was awesome."
GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 Grainger Taurus (Finished 35th) - "It looks like people are having troubles with right-front tires. I'm not sure what the problem is. It's definitely not air pressure because we talked to Goodyear and when the first one blew out we came back up on air pressure. I don't believe there's other cars out there more aggressive with right-front camber than we are. So, it looks like it could be a problem, could be a serious problem, blowing right-front tires, especially some of the faster places we're gonna go next year. If this is the new tire, I'm a little concerned about it." SOME HAVE SAID GETTING OUT OF THE GROOVE AND COLLECTING SOME OF THE MARBLES COULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAUSE. "It's possible. I never got out of the groove at all. I felt it go down at the end of the straightaway. The crazy part about it is it's going down and it doesn't have a load on it or it's all bound up. I'm not sure. It seems like that's a worse spot for it to go down, going into the corner at a hundred and about ninety miles an hour. It's unfortunate. We had a pretty good car. We just had that earlier flat, right-front tire, and had to come in and work on it. If there is a problem, they're obviously not gonna find it out because it pretty much killed the car. Nothing was dragging on the tire, we came up on pressure per Goodyear's recommendation, but it didn't fix it. It's unfortunate, let's hope nobody else gets hurt today." YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRACK? "It's really good. I like the race track. We kind of got our car going pretty good there, but were having right-front tire troubles and that's not good for us. But, I like the race track. It races really good, and puts on a god show, I think." ARE YOU OKAY? "Yeah. I hit my head pretty good, but I'm alright."
