Stewart Climbs the Flagstand and Eanrhardt, Jr. Takes Third at Pepsi 400

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Stewart Climbs the Flagstand and Eanrhardt, Jr. Takes Third at Pepsi 400
By Nancy Wager, GM Racing News
Jul 3, 2005, 22:11 PST

ŠDorsey Patrick

Stewart Wins Pepsi 400 at Daytona, Earnhardt Jr. Takes third place

Post Race Press Conference Notes

TONY STEWART, GREG ZIPADELLI, AND JOE GIBBS, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:
STEWART (ON THE WIN): "Let's cover the flag stand thing first. I'm way too old and too fat to be doing that. But once I started, I was committed and I wasn't going to let the fans down. But I think I'm officially - well it's unofficial until it's verified I guess - but I think I'm unofficially the first guy that's gone all the way to the top and over and onto the flag stand. So (Helio) Castroneves has some work to do now. When did I have that dream? I don't know. It was probably one of my nightmares that had that mixed in with it. If you guys could see some of the crazy dreams I've had, you'd have plenty to write about for the next 10 years and never have to go to another race."

ZIPADELLI: "We've run well at plate races. We've got a lot of top fives. But for someone like myself growing up in New England racing small race tracks and dreaming about being able to come here and go to victory lane for a real points race. The Dual 150's and a couple of Shootout races that we've won were cool. But this is awesome."

GIBBS: "I'm proud of our guys. Zippy represents the whole race team. Tony told me the motor and car and everything was great. It's rare that you get a car like that. We really appreciate all the hard work by everybody back at the shop. I'm just proud to be a small part of it. It's a thrill to be here at Daytona. Love it. Theirs is nobody else we wanted in the car other than Tony there at the end. He did great and the whole team did and we're proud of the Home Depot group. We're proud and it's a big night for us."

STEWART (HOW DID IT FEEL TO HAVE A CAR THAT STRONG?) "I didn't know it going into the race that we were going to be this good. Everybody was pointing at us last night saying we were the team to beat. I didn't see it in practice. Zippy and I never even really talked about how strong we felt like we were. It's so hard to tell in a practice session when you're not in a pack of more than 12 to 15 cars at a time. The one thing that was different that Zippy pointed out is I never complained about the car yesterday morning in practice. Normally in July, we're all fighting grip and being loose or tight or drifting up the race track. We really never had a complaint with the race car. We just kept working on trying to make it faster. Normally I'm screaming and yelling and telling him it's the biggest piece of junk that I've ever driven when we come here. I never complained once about it. We were a little tight yesterday and a little tight tonight actually. But you know you've got a car that's close when you make the changes that we made and the car was responding to it. You know you've got a car that's balanced on a night like tonight when you can make the small adjustments and feel the response."

ZIPADELLI (HOW CAN THE NO. 20 BE SO GOOD AND THE NO. 18 AND NO. 11 BE SO POOR ON THE SAME TRACK?) "Well, the No.18 (Labonte) didn't have an opportunity by losing a motor a couple of laps in and he didn't have an opportunity tonight being in one of those first wrecks. We all work very closely together and have the same tools to work with. The No. 11 (Leffler) car ended up okay. They started extremely loose and salvaged a decent finish out of it. We all came here with the same things to work with. I've got Tony and you couldn't ask for any more than that. We qualified well and that's a big part of running up front tonight. We were able to dictate and stick to our strategy."

ŠDorsey Patrick

STEWART (ON HAVING A STRONG CAR WHILE FIGHTING YOUR WAY BACK LATE IN THE RACE) "A lot of times when you're leading, you're put in a position when you've got to pay more attention to what's going on behind me than in front of you. Tonight I did some thing different than what I did in February. After February, there was only one thing that came to mind about doing anything different and I did it tonight and it worked (but I'm not going to talk about it here). Hopefully that's something we can tuck in our pocked. That car doesn't have a scratch on it. Dale Jr. was trying to put one on it after the race was over. That's because he was excited for us. If it's up to me, that car won't even go to Talladega in the fall. It's going to go back to the shop and put a cover on it and put it on the stands and give it a bath and give it a little fresh up and bring it back in February. With a car like that, you want to protect that combination."

STEWART (IS THIS TEAM IN A ZONE NOW WITH TWO WINS IN A ROW?) "It's two o'clock in the morning and I'm zoned out right now. We've got a lot of momentum, but I don't know if we're in the zone by any means. It's a pretty cool compliment to Zippy and Joe and all the guys on the team to win in Sonoma and then come here six days later and win at a superspeedway at night. That's a pretty cool feeling, but at the same time we're all pretty realistic that we've got to go to Chicago next week and that's a topic that brings back two big names and that's Roush and Hendrick. We've got momentum on our side and momentum goes a long way in this series.

"With the way we ran at Michigan, hopefully we can take some of those things to Chicago next week and have a similar run and if not, still have a strong run. We've had three great weeks even with running second in Michigan and we just have to keep building on that momentum and hope we don't have any disasters in the next nine weeks and we can stay up there in the points and try to win a championship."

JUST WONDERING, IF YOU KIND OF HAD AN INKLING OR AT WHAT POINT DID YOU THINK THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE YOUR NIGHT FINALLY? IS THIS THE TRACK WHERE YOU CAN NEVER COUNT ON ANYTHING EVEN AS DOMINANT AS YOU WERE?

I woke up today and just vibrated off the bed and thought "that's odd, this might be our night." I don't know, I mean, you don't just wake up and think things like that. I didn't know when I got in my car that this was going to be our night. I didn't know if it would even be tonight; I thought it was going to be tomorrow morning. No, you don't just wake up all of a sudden and think "this is my day." If it were that easy I'd be a bookie in Las Vegas making millions of dollars betting on these races instead of driving in them. If there ever was a feeling like that I promise you I would start betting on races.

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS TEAM IS IN THE MODE THAT IT WAS WHEN YOU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP WHEN YOU WON IN 2002?

I feel like we're in a better position and better mode than we were then. Even in 2002 when we won I was running us all through some turmoil at the same time so this year we're all having fun and we're all getting along. We're probably getting along as good if not better than we were in '99 when we didn't have a care in the world. At that time there wasn't any pressure on us, we were just out there having fun as a young race team and I think we've been able to over the off-season kind of recapture that. To not put pressure on ourselves and go out and race. If we have a bad day, it's a bad day. There's a lot of guys out there having bad days. Seems like the worst thing that can happen is to let it get to you and get you down and that's something that Zippy has worked really hard on-with all the guys and me as well. Now the morale of the team is up even when we have a bad day. It doesn't mean we accept losing better, but we don't let it dictate the rest of our week or the following weeks after that. We just shrug it off and say "okay, now we have to work on next week and try to find something to make us better than the week before." I just feel like we have a really strong group of guys. We've had the same core group of people for so long, I mean, it's hard to have a combination like that. There's not very many teams out there that are still like that. You take a team like Jeff Gordon's team. You have new guys coming in and out of there. I'm really proud of the group of people that Zippy's assembled and there's always new people getting added to it but you don't see a lot of people going away from us and that's something I think is making us a stronger team every year.

ŠDorsey Patrick

(FOR GREG) DID YOU HAVE A MOMENT WHEN TONY WENT FOUR WIDE WITH ABOUT 16 TO GO?

I had a feeling that he wasn't going to waste much time. That's one thing that Tony's good at; he just goes for the opportunity. There was an opening, he had a run. The longer you run, you get laps on your tires and everyone gets in single file or side by side racing. It's a lot harder to pass. So that was cool.

TONY, YOU SAID THIS PLACE OWED YOU; YOU WANTED TO WIN IN FEBRUARY INSTEAD OF TONIGHT. DO YOU STILL FEEL THAT WAY?

No, I said it doesn't owe me. But if it were to, I would have loved to have taken it in February. The last two years we've led enough laps to outright win the Daytona 500 so if there were ever a situation where you felt like it owed you I guess the one request that I would have is that we get it in February. No racetrack ever owes you anything. I've heard that from drivers; Michael Andretti was one that straightened a lot of people out. He said that all those years that he led laps at Indy 500s and didn't win; it's a place that you have to earn victories. They're not given to you. This was a nice way to come back, and this gives us some momentum.

COMMENT ON THE MOVE WHEN YOU WENT FOUR WIDE.

When I made my move it was two wide at the time and then I made it three wide. Then I heard the spotter go "four wide." We weren't there very long; that's not a position I wanted to be in. For the duration of time we were there three wide wasn't very long and it was even a shorter amount of time we were four wide. Jamie McMurray gave me the push from behind and gave me enough of a run that when we got out there I got four wide and I could clear it.

THAT FOUR WIDE MOVE, DID IT COME NATURALLY? IT WAS PRETTY SPECTACULAR.

I didn't know that it would be four wide but with the head of steam I had and the push that I got we were able to get through without an issue.

DID YOU EVER HAVE A CAR IN YOUR CUP CAREER WHERE NO ONE HAS PASSED YOU UNDER GREEN WHEN YOU WERE IN THE LEAD?

The only time I can remember was my first win in Richmond when we led 333 laps of the 400. We were a young team and we didn't have the best of pit stops at the time; when we got back out after pits we were fourth or fifth but we came back and never got passed once we got in the lead. That's why tonight was great-I'm taking this car back to the shop and saving it for February. This is the same car from Daytona and Talledega.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes third

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
#8 Budweiser Chevrolet
3rd position

PRESS CONFERENCE

Yeah, we had a pretty good car. The race track was real, real tight with all the rain. And, we were working on the car to improve and it got a lot better as we went. The track got even better once we got some rubber on it. You know, at the start of the race the top was the place to be because the bottom was real tight and you'd have to lift for everyone on the outside row, so you couldn't get anything going. And as everybody adjusted their cars and the track improved, the bottom was the place to be. You were almost nervous to get up top and get left up there by yourself. We fought real hard all night and got better track position as the night went on. And, got a lot of help from all our friends. Some unexpected help from one of my most fierce competitors right there at the end. I was telling everybody before that restart, that I don't think Rusty's ever bump drafted me in my career. He's always trying to pass me because we were such competitors, corporately. He decided to tell me, from spotter to spotter, that he would help me. So, that was awesome at the end. We both gained spots there, working togther. Ended up with a good finish. To be able to get a third-place finish.

ON YOUR CAR, DURING THAT EARLIER INCIDENT, WAS THEIR DAMAGE BETWEEN YOU AND THE #17
I ran into the #17 with the right front and I said if you want to know about the damage I got, look at his door. And if he's got a lot, I've probably got a lot. I didn't get to see it, nor did I get a look at it after the race. They apparently, if anything is wrong, fixed it. I heard them hammering on it a little bit. But, they towed it out. They strung the toe on it on one of the stops and it was fine. Didn't do anything suspension wise or knock the toe in or anything. It was a hard hit. Everybody started wrecking and I went low. The guys on the inside stayed straight and Matt and I were both going low. It was Jamie, so Jamie was already under the commitment line going on pit road and Matt and me were both coming toward down to him and I was just meeting a sandwich. I had to hit one of them, so I hit Matt.

COMMENT ON STARTING SO LATE AND ENDING SO LATE
What time is it? It don't make no difference.

DOES THIS OFFER SOME PROMISE FOR A BETTER SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON
That was a good run by the team. I don't need it. I mean, I'm ready to go. My team's working hard. It's not like they needed a kick in the butt. They were going hard all year, even during some of the harder times. So, hopefully, if anything, they say you carry momentum. I don't know if that's a possibility or not. But, we'll see what we can rack here in the next couple of weeks and try to close the gap on 10th place. This obviously helps and more runs like this would help. But, I understand this is Daytona and there aren't any more Daytonas and Talladegas before the Chase. We have to work really hard to gain ground on these other tracks we haven't had success yet this year.

COMMENT ON TONY'S WIN TONIGHT?
I had a feeling the only way I was going to beat him was to beat him to the front, and if I got a push to try to go around like instead of pushing him like we normally do-we always had worked together-I think the only way to beat him was to get out in front of him before he got to the front. By the time that thought even entered my mind, he was already leading. His car was real strong all night. And it was fun, kind of, to see him run like that. I've had a couple of cars here like that. He's always been lending some drafting help in some of the races I've won here. And, so I'm glad that he got to experience what it's like to have a car as dominating as he did tonight. Because it's a lot of fun when you have those kind of cars and I know Tony loves to drive race cars, no matter what kind. It's good to see him have such a dominant car.

RE: RUNNING WITH JEFF GORDON TONIGHT. BOTH YOU GUYS SEEMED LIKE YOU NEEDED A BUMP - DID BOTH YOU GUYS GET THAT?
Jeff's not out of it by any means. They are a strong race team. Us, on the other hand, we're on the bottom of the rope, just hanging on. And, we don't have much further to slide before it's over with. We had to dig pretty deep here to see if we can't make some gains in the next couple of races. You never know. There's a couple years-before the Chase was around-there were a couple years I was racing in the Cup series where you didn't think that anybody wanted to win the thing, because it seemed that whoever got the lead would have a couple of weeks of trouble. And it kept, you know, racing pretty tight. You never know what's going to happen with the guys in the top 10 and what kind of season they might have and it might be enough bad luck and unfortunate circumstances for enough people and run good enough where we might get in it. We'll just have to see. We'll just have to keep trying until numerically we're not in it anymore.

IN FEBRUARY YOU SAID YOU SQUEEZED THE MOST OUT OF A THIRD-PLACE CAR THAT MIGHT HAVE NOT BEEN A THIRD-PLACE CAR
When did I say that? I didn't mean that. If you drive it up there, it's good enough to get there, I guess. I didn't really fall into a third place finish in February or tonight. And I don't want to insinuate at all that my guys aren't giving me cars good enough to run up front. So, you know, they'll be the first to admit it when it's not. But I think tonight they deserve enough credit for a third-place finish as I do, so you know, because of that. There's nothing special that drivers do out there, some of us are just smarter than others. You know, we can all hold it to the mat and turn left. But some of us can make moves and do things and make passed better than others. I'm fortunately one of them. I'm pretty happy with how we finished. I think my car was a third place car. I mean, it was a second place car. If I was in front of Jamie I don't know if he could have passed me. But, you never know.

Scott Riggs
#10 Valvoline Chevrolet

Note: Multi-car accident took place on lap 35, involving Riggs. His car is currently in the garage for repairs.

WHAT HAPPENED? MARK MARTIN SAID THAT MAYBE YOU WERE LOOKING TO PIT AND CHANGED YOUR MIND
No, I just didn't see anyone use any hand signals out there. When they checked up, I tried to check up and squeeze by them. I think Mark was already committed to the outside of me and got into me and turned me into the wall. I just hate it. We're going that fast, you're supposed to use hand signals. I knew we were about to pit in two laps and I was already planning where I had to use my hand signals to make sure everyone saw them. I don't know if those guys just decided at the last minute to pit. No hand signals-just didn't see it

Michael Waltrip
#15 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet

Note: Accident on lap 72

I had a flat right rear tire. When I got going, I started realizing it and tried to pull over. And, Jeff Burton was bump drafting me to get me going and it wrecked me.

I'm just upset for my team. Tony Jr. and them deserve so much. They put Dale Jr. on the map, he's a good enough race car driver to take advantage of it. I hope I am, too.

Bobby Hamilton, Jr.
#32 Tide Chevrolet

Note: Hit the wall on Lap 101 after suffering a flat tire.

WHAT HAPPENED?
I was going through the tri-oval when it blew the right front and it just shot me to the side. Right side, put us into the wall. It's pretty bad. I don't think we'll be going back out there. It took a shot.

Kyle Busch
#5 Kellogg's Chevrolet

Note: Involved in multi-car accident on Lap 146

It's the end of the race and everybody just wants to go. It's the kind of a deal where you have to go through here in Daytona. I went through it last night and I almost caused a big old wreck. I ended up getting in Carl and I hated it for him last night. Three wide. There wasn't quite enough room there. There was at the time, and then it just ran out. Harvick and the #31 came together and squeezed the #99. Nowhere I could go. I was freewheeling through the grass like Free Willy or something. Crazy.

Jeff Burton
#31 Cingular Wireless Chevrolet

It's pretty wild. We had a great car tonight. Ran well all night. Got caught up in that big wreck there at the end. Just kind of lost us some spots, so we'll take what we can get. We restarted 25th or whatever and got back to 11th.

TELL US ABOUT THAT RESTART
It was pretty wild. Didn't think I was going to catch up, but I did.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND THE #29 THE THREE-WIDE SITUATION OUT THERE?
No, I really can't, to be honest. I know we came off the corner and felt something in my quarter panel and next thing I know I was turning left, bouncing off of people. I really didn't know what happened. I really need to see the replay, I just don't know.

Brian Vickers
#25 GMAC Chevrolet

Note: Involved in late pit-road accident that put him back in the field

I just hate it for the guys on the GMAC Chevy. Especially the guys on the team that work so hard to build these cars. We had such a good car. It was the best speedway car we had so far. Back to the front a couple of times, we ran in the top 5, top 10 most of the night. For something stupid like that to happen on pit road.

WHAT HAPPENED ON PIT ROAD?
Well, we finished our pit stop and were coming down pit road and the #12 car decided to go. Got three lanes, just decided to. I don't know. We were coming down pit road and the #12 car tried to make it three lanes across pit road for whatever reason. I just talked to his guys and his crew chief said that there was somebody in front of him that wrecked, so that's why he had to do that. Either way, it still sucks for the guys. They had such a good car.

Jimmie Johnson
#48 Lowe's Chevrolet

HOW WAS YOUR RACE TONIGHT?
Real good. I feel like how you come out of the pits is really going to dictate the race. And we had the advantage but we got bound up in some traffic and Stewart had such a good car and came around from the outside and got to the front and kind of kept it from there. So, great for the Lowe's Monte Carlo. Brand new race car, good day in the points, so all in all good day.

WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU COULD HAVE HAD FOR THE #20 TONIGHT?
No, the #20. I tried for a few laps. We were better off running wide open and not playing games because we could get a four or five car breakaway. The early part of the race that was kind of my goal. Keep bump drafting and try to get us away and out of the big one. And then, at the end, I was hoping to have a shootout with him but it didn't work out for me and I ended up sixth.

Jeff Gordon
#24 DuPont Chevrolet

YOU HAVE ABOUT 15 SPOTS IN THE LAST 20-SOME LAPS. HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO DO THAT?
We were making a lot of adjustments so we were coming in losing positions because we wanted to really get the car tightened up. At the start of the race we were awesome; one of the best cars. All of a sudden on the second stop from-there on we were just dead-sideways; loose.

HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THAT?
We fought through it and got it tighter, then there at the end. it helped that it was a short run. Under these hot conditions the track is really slick and it's a real handful so it's hard to keep the car underneath you. Half the battle is just keeping the car going straight and staying out of the other guys and half the battle is getting out in front.

AFTER THE WAY THE LAST SIX RACES HAVE GONE FOR YOU HOW DOES THIS COMPARE?
I'm extremely happy. After the last restart I think we were like 14th or 15th. Anywhere from here forward I'll be very happy with the way things are going. Just having the race car in one piece-we missed some wrecks by inches tonight and we're very fortunate to do that, let alone do this.

HOW DID YOUR ENGINE PERFORM?
The motors are great; the motors have been fantastic. That's the least of our worries. Pretty consistent.

Mike Wallace
#4 Lucas Oil Chevrolet

HOW WAS YOUR RACE?
We finished eight there; everything was pretty good. We needed help to draft with; we were very fortunate because we had a flat left rear tire right after one of the cautions came out. We had some luck on our side. We missed a wreck on the front straightaway; I think Harvick was involved. It all went pretty simple really. I was just really happy. We were outside the top 35; our main goal was to get back in there. Stayed out and led a lap to get even with Leffler. He stayed out and got five ahead of us-at the end he was not too far behind us. I'm racing 11 and trying to get the best finish I can. Everything was good; we had a sixth-place run going and then the 48 and the 24 came and I couldn't afford to give up the bottom to try to block him. The 17 and 49 were also coming. It was a great run for our team; it's the best finish for us in a few years, I believe. The Chevrolet Monte Carlo ran great. Thanks to Lucas Oil, Kodak, Wide Open energy drink, we had the best finish of the year so far. I'm looking for more of them to come.

HOW WAS YOUR CAR HOLDING UP?
When we qualified our car we had to put it in qualifying mode. We ran thin oils and everything else. All the guys in the engine shop, Big Mark and Larry. This is Larry McClure's baby, these speedways. For some reason it didn't run fast by itself but it did draft well and as long as I could get a push and a suck it would go pretty good. It would run through the middle of the corner pretty well; through the bottom of the racetrack and the middle. It went right through the middle of the corner; it rolled really well. We had luck on our side when the flat tire came. When the first wreck happened I hit pit road and flat-spotted the right front tire and blew it out; ran around for a lap; had three or four good things happen for us.