MARTINSVILLE

JIMMIE JOHNSON AND CHAD KNAUS, NO. 48 LOWE'S IMPALA SS, AND RICK HENDRICK, OWNER OF HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS ~ ALSO INCLUDED ARE DENNY HAMLIN, NO. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS IMPALA SS AND JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS.

ON TODAY'S RACE:

>> JIMMIE: "I couldn't be more proud of the start that Hendrick Motorsports is off to. This is the fourth win for Rick this year. We have had a very strong current car program and the Impala SS program has been good for us. Kyle (Busch) won last week and this weekend's success with three cars in the top-four. All-in-all, just very proud of the effort that has gone in to it. It has been a lot hard work that has gone in to this. Our guys worked countless hours this week getting things prepared to come up here and then the race weekend we worked through some big changes as well to get the 48 car to where we needed it to be. I can't thank my guys enough for their hard work. A one-two finish out of the 24/48 shop is a huge accomplishment for us."

>> CHAD: ON TODAY'S RACE:

"It was really just typical Martinsville. It played out very similar to the way the race has in the past. Obviously there was a new element with the Impala SS, but our Impala ran really well. I was really happy. When we unloaded we weren't even close to where we needed to be. But thankfully we have great teammates, in the No.24, the No. 5 and the No. 25 for that matter. We were able to take the No.24 car setup and put it under our car and it really switched it on. It was great."

>> RICK: ON START THAT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS HAS HAD TO THE 2007 SEASON:

"It is kind of one of those starts that you dream about. You would like to be in that position to take advantage of the cars running well. We have got a lot of momentum, everybody is working well together and the breaks have kind of gone our way. Like Chad and Jimmie said, a lot of hard work and I am real proud of these guys with their three wins already this year. We want to just keep building that momentum and get ready for the Chase."

>> JIMMIE: ON THE LAST FEW LAPS BATTLING WITH JEFF: "It is very special for me, from before I started racing, I looked up to him. He was a guy that came from open-wheel dirt racing in general which was my background as well. So to race in a battle like that with Jeff Gordon, it was something that was really cool and I will always look back on.

"The race the way it kind of developed, it was a little bit better than me through the center of the turn and once every two or three laps, he could get there and give me a shot and the race went on, the shots got a lot harder and harder. But he couldn't really get position up along side of me off the corner. He got along side of me a few times in the braking zones, I held my own on the outside and was able to clear him again coming down the straightaway and then went back down to the bottom and defended my position.

"Hard racing and as Jeff may have said, I don't know how he could have hit me much harder. The way these bumpers line up, I just literally put my head up against the head rest and just wait for it because it was coming and it was coming really hard. Just good short track racing and think we really put on a good show for the fans. "

>> RICK: ON SAYING ANYTHING ON THE RADIO TO THE DRIVERS ABOUT NOT WRECKING EACH OTHER:

"Yes, I got on the radio to the drivers and was talking to the crew chiefs telling them to be patient. The cars were running together all day. You don't have to say much, I think everybody in the organization realizes that if we have a situation where one of the cars takes the other guy out, it is going to unravel a lot of hard work we have put in to this year. So you just cross your fingers and hopes every body keeps them straight."

>> JIMMIE: ON WHETHER BUMPERS WERE BIGGER FACTOR IN THE RACE THAN PREVIOUS RACES:

"When it comes to the end of the race, I don't think you could race much harder than we did today. I don't see anything changing. If it was the other car, I think it would have been a very similar race, the No. 24 and the No. 48 up towards the front. Between Jeff and Tony (Stewart) and our car, we have won a lot of races here over the last few years. I think it would have been easier for Jeff to move me with the bumpers the way they match up, the bottom line is Jeff couldn't get inside of me up off the turn. He could hit me in the center of the turn, but he couldn't get next to me. He got along side of me a few times in the braking zone and I was able to rally around the outside and clear him back on the straightaway and then defend the bottom. I don't know how you could race much harder.

"I can tell you this, I don't think I would have him as hard as many times trying to get by. He certainly was being aggressive and we did a good job for hanging on."

>> JIMMIE: ON BEING NERVOUS ABOUT WHAT JEFF MIGHT DO:

"Regardless of who is behind me. I don't really look at who is behind me in the teammate situation. That is Jeff Gordon and he wants that Grandfather clock and so do I and that is just what it boils down to. I don't race anybody out there in a negative way and rough people up and handle people that way. So if it is Jeff Gordon, if it is Tony Stewart, any of those guys, I race the same way. Believe me I was nervous up there. I wasn't sure if I could hang on especially as hard as he was hitting me in the center of the turn. But he could never get position, so I kept doing my thing."

>> RICK: ON WHAT HE WILL SAY TO JEFF:

"That happens when you run one-two out of the same stable. Once everybody thinks about and get home, I have learned to stay away from them for a little after it is over other than Good Job, Good Racing Everybody and Thank You. It is disappointing, these guys want to win. Nobody wants to run second to anybody and I think that is a good thing. I think you see these guys want to race clean with everybody. Like Jimmie said, we will look at the points and say it was a good weekend."

>> JIMMIE: ON DIFFERENCES OF HOW CAR DROVE IN TRAFFIC VERSUS OUT FRONT:

"I didn't really feel like I had a chance to run with the No. 8 car or win the race right before the rain red-flag. Once again, Chad had amazing pit strategy to get us track position and get us up front. Once we were up front, I picked up a lot of time. And then the guys that were leading like Junior had to come through traffic, just didn't have the speed and one reason is, it is really tough to pass here. It does seem like you do lose a little bit of front grip in traffic as you racing people. Clean air does help these cars a lot."

>> JIMMIE: ON IF PREVIOUS CARS COULD TAKE THAT HARD OF A HIT:

"I would have been wrecked with the other car with hits that hard. The shape of the nose if real round on the old cars, and it like a wedge driving in to the back of the car and just lifts the rear tires up. These bumpers really hit square and solid. There is no lift, there is just a straight shot in the butt."

>> CHAD: ON STRENGTH OF THE BUMPERS COMPARED TO OTHER CAR:

"It is a definitely a lot closer together height wise when you look at the front fascia versus the rear fascia compared to last years car. There is some added structure that NASCAR wants us to use in the back of the car. In the fronts of the cars, they are actually relatively weak, which we saw at Bristol last week and it is easy to cave in the grill area. So we are working on developing some things to make that a little bit better so when we do get to these short tracks, it doesn't mess up your air lines and things of that nature. It is different, a lot different and it is solid in the back, it can take a pretty good shot."

>> JIMMIE: ON IF GUYS WILL LEARN HOW TO MOVE SOMEONE OUT OF THE WAY TO GET BY OR WILL THEY STILL HAVE TO WRECK YOU:

"I am not really sure. It seems like the cars are more forgiving right now to contact. I think that is a good thing. Because in the past, if you think back to Charlotte a few years ago, I think it was the No. 15 when Michael Waltrip was in it, coming down the front stretch and he came to bump draft Junior if I remember right and spun him out. That won't happen now. You don't have the bumpers lining up in a different way so where you can use the bumper more often on bigger tracks and then on the short tracks. It is a good things because you can't just run in there and knock the guy in front of you out of the way. You actually have to drive and try to pass the guy."

>> JIMMIE: ON THINKING OF TALLADEGA LAST YEAR:

"My hands were full, I was trying to hang on and win the race."

>> RICK: ON THINKING OF TALLADEGA LAST YEAR:

"I had fears of Martinsville several years ago when (Kenny) Schrader and (Ricky) Rudd were running one-two and took each other out coming off of two and I was in the middle of the pit crews fighting. I remember that real well and remember the meeting we all had the Monday after that and we talk about that situation a lot."

>> CHAD: ON THINKING OF TALLADEGA LAST YEAR:

"I wasn't concerned about it. We really operate as one team and I know that Jeff isn't going to wreck us. He is going to rough him up and beat Jimmie up. Going to the backstretch the last lap I told Jimmie 'He is going to hit you Bud, be ready' and he did. That is short track racing and anybody that has ever watched 1/2-mile, 5/8-mile, 1/4-mile racing, that is what it is about and that is what Martinsville has always been about."

>> CHAD: ON TURN AROUND TEAM MADE FROM BEING 43RD IN FIRST PRACTICE FRIDAY TO WINNING TODAY:

"We struggled, there is no doubt about it. I think that it was a group struggle. I was off a little bit, Jimmie was off a little bit on how to drive the car. Our geometry package, our springs, our shocks, everything was off and we just couldn't not seem to get it right. We legitimately lucked in to a 20th place qualifying effort because Jimmie drove very very hard. Midway through the first practice session I went to Steve (Letarte, crew chief No. 24) and said 'Buddy, I need your setup'. Literally every nut, bolt, degree, camber shim, trailing arm position, I mean everything that the No.24 had at that point in time, we put in to the No. 48. Basically told Jimmie he had to go out there and lay it down. Jeff was fast and we needed him to figure it out. He went out there for about 20 laps, got it figured out and we came in, started to fine tune it a little bit, found some things that were clicking and you see the result, both cars were just running phenomenal."

>> JIMMIE: ON PERSPECTIVE INSIDE THE NEW CAR:

"I just get in it and go. The perspective sitting in the car, you can tell the roof and the halo bars are much taller. I have never driven or even sat in a Craftsman Truck, so when I first climbed in it, my response was "Wow, I guess this is what a Truck is like." But once you are on the track, it is really tough to tell the parameters of the car are any different. On seat location, we have done a really good job of where our seats are located in the old car and I don't think out seat location is much different going in to the Impala SS, we have worked real hard to get us all the way over. So that reference hasn't changed for the Hendrick drivers."

>> JIMMIE: ON ANY AWKWARDNESS WITH JEFF AFTER GETTING HIT BY HIM TODAY:

"The bumps were getting progressively stronger and stronger and the last few may have set off an air bag in a street car. Last one just moved me clean up the track in three and four. I will certainly leave here and there will probably be a message on my phone from Jeff and we've been in this situation of hard racing before, he has the utmost respect as I do for him and it is certainly something we will work out. The reason he is upset is because he is a competitor and he wanted to win and he had the better car but he couldn't get by me. Once again, I respect him and it will all be sorted out and be fine."

>> JIMMIE: ON BEING HIT HARD AND WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE THE NEXT TIME HE TALKS TO JEFF:

"The bumps were getting progressively stronger and stronger and the last few may have set off an airbag I think the street car (laughs). The last one moved me clean up the track in three and four. Certainly (when I) leave here, I'm sure there's a message on my phone from Jeff and we've been in this situation before racing hard throughout the years. He has the utmost respect for me, I do for him and it's certainly something that we'll work out. The reason he's upset is because he's a competitor and he had the better car but he couldn't get by me. Once again I respect him and it will all be sorted out and everything will be fine."

>> CHAD: ON IF THERE IS ANY FRUSTRATION WITH SHARING BETWEEN THE CREW CHIEFS:

"Actually we've been in situations before where roles have been reserved where the 24 car has had to come to us for advice and then they've gone out there and beaten us and it happens. It's painful, it's going to be painful for Stevie, it's going to be painful for Jeff but when you sit back and look at it and look at the grand scheme of theme of things and what we're trying to accomplish at Hendrick Motorsports there's nothing better. There's nothing better to see the crew chief interaction, the team interaction and what we've got right now is far superior than any other company out there and it's great but it stings a little bit. There's no doubt about it but that doesn't mean that the books are going to get closed or the doors are going to get shut, that won't happen. I won't let that happen, Mr. Hendrick won't let that happen. That's not the case, that's not the way we operate. It's an open book policy for everybody and we're glad to see our teammates run well."

>> RICK: ON HIS TEAMS BEING CONTENDERS TO WIN:

"I thought that Kyle, he had better tires, I thought he might get up there and get in it. It's great to have them run like that but it's also kind of a nail biter because not only do you have the drivers, you've got sponsors and you've got crew members that have to work on the same car and again I think the proof is that when you struggle, and you're going to struggle no matter who you are, you're going to show up a race track and you're going to need someone that you can believe in and we've got that now. So we just have to keep that big picture in mind. We ran down to the wire in the championship and this way and I remember it with Terry Labonte and Jeff and we had a meeting before Atlanta and we talked about it and we said 'Look, we've got a shot to win this and run first and second' and we did. But the team has to believe in the concept and I think they see the results. It doesn't mean that you've got crew chiefs and drivers and teammates team players. Actually the 24 and 48 guys out there today on pit road worked on Jimmie's car as much as they worked on Jeff's car so it's a tough deal for them but I'd rather have that problem with the three of them or four of them battling each other than to be strung out in the back of the pack trying to figure out how to catch a guy that seems to be hitting on all eights. I think that's what they keep in mind and I think that's what's made it work."

>> JIMMIE: ON CHAD'S PIT STRATEGY AFTER THE RED FLAG:

"After the red flag we came in with just a few cars, took fuel and tires and were right on the edge on making the distance on fuel. I guess 10 laps later another caution came and we restarted 15th or 16th or however many cars were on the lead, got by a couple of guys caution came out right away, the rest of the guys hit pit road and we were then left with the question do we pit or not and we elected to stay and thankfully a lot of guys did stay out and it was pretty far back in the pack before somebody came in for tires."

>> RICK: ON FOUR WINS IN A ROW FOR HIM SINCE 1998 AND IF IT REMINDS HIM OF SEASONS WHERE HE HAD MULTIPLE DRIVERS GOING FOR TITLES:

"I hope so, I think we won the championship that year. I think we've done it, somebody told me today we've done it three times - four in a row. I hope that we can maintain the momentum. It's going to be competitive and everybody would like to win the championship and have a shot so the first priority is to be in the top 12 and get there and try to get wins to get points going into the Chase. It feels good but you've got to be a realist too. Tony Stewart had trouble at Bristol and things can happen and there were cars that could probably have won a couple of races in the middle of all this so we just have to be thankful that we've got the brakes and we were good enough to be up front and hopefully we can make it five."

>> CHAD: ON DRIVERS HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE FOAM IN TWO CARS:

"We haven't seen anything as of yet but no I haven't had a chance to inspect the race car obviously after this race. Once thing that's very important is these race cars get very hot on short tracks obviously. The brake heat multiplies the engine temperature and multiplies the frame rail temperature and so on and so forth so we don't know exactly what's happened yet. We haven't seen anything thankfully but I can guarantee we'll go through every precaution we possibly can to make sure it doesn't happen."



JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT IMPALA SS - FINISHED SECOND

ON TODAY'S RACE: "Well, we had an awesome race car. We had one problem there early that put us back and that kind of got us a little bit behind the rest of the day. I'm not exactly sure what went on there, just seemed like maybe a piece of rubber or something fell off the car and got on the tire and it caught it and the car shoved out on me in one but we fought back from that. I had an awesome car. The tires had everything but track position and probably didn't need that last caution, you know just prior to that we had a couple runs on Jimmie and I think his tires were getting a little older and I was just trying to figure out where his weaknesses were and get some runs on him. He was driving extremely hard and aggressive as he should have and it was making it obviously pretty difficult for me and we had to wait til the end to start roughing him up and I didn't want to wreck him so that's why we're second, not first."

ON THE FRUSTRATION OF FINISHING SECOND AND THIRD THE LAST TWO WEEKS AND BATTLING TEAMMATES AND HOW HARD IT IS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVE A BETTER CAR:

"Well last week I was just happy to finish third, we didn't have a better car. This week we had an awesome car and I'm really, really upset you know that I'm sitting here talking to you in second. I feel like we should be getting another one of those grandfather clocks but we didn't get it done. Like I said, without wrecking him there was no way I was going to get it done. It's one thing to move a guy and use your bumper and a little bit of it is getting experience with these bumpers. You've got to really nail the guy and you've got to get him in a really bad position like going into the corner, because you can't keep up with him on the exit and on the entry I was trying to get underneath him but to out brake him the car was just losing grip so we're second. I'm happy about the beginning of the season that we've had and leading the points but I wanted to win and that's that."

IF THE CAR YOU WERE RACING AGAINST WAS OWNED BY ANY OTHER MAN THAN RICK HENDRICK, WOULD YOU HAVE WON THIS RACE?

"I had hit him hard, I hit him really hard and got him way out of shape. It was one of those things where I knew I had to wait til the last lap because without putting him all the way up into the wall, I couldn't get clear enough of him where he wasn't going to come back and run into the back of me and that's not how I want to race my teammate. I felt like he did really what he needed to do but I think (if) anybody else had been in second but me, he probably wouldn't have won the race."

ON IF HE WAS BEING CAUTIOUS WITH THE NEW IMPALA SS ON THE LAST FEW LAPS:

"I'm not complaining about the car, we've been good but you can't race the same way that you used to be able to, you can't dive in as deep, you can't get in the gas as early. Hey, we say a great race but it's because I had fresher tires, a better car at that time and basically ran into him as hard as I could into his rear bumper to get just up beside him so I'm really interested to see what happens when we get to Darlington, when we get to Phoenix and some of these other places. This is a one groove race track, maybe one a half today, and there was no way you're going to pass a guy that's just a couple tenths slower than you without roughing him up here at place like Martinsville."

WHEN YOU SAID YOU'RE UPSET, IS SOME OF THAT TOWARDS JIMMIE? IN REGARDS TO YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT IT BEING INTERESTING RACING GOING FORWARD, DOES THAT MEAN YOU'LL RACE JIMMIE DIFFERENT IN THE FUTURE?

"I race everybody the way they race me. Like I said, he did what he needed to do and if roles were reversed obviously I'm going to do what I've got to do to protect that spot as well. He'll probably one day be sitting in here and not happy about it either but we race hard, we race clean, we've been racing one another for years. I can't say we've ever had a battle quite like this down to the finish and we've never had issues on the race track where I didn't feel like we could laugh and talk about it the next day and move on. We're out here to win a championship and by wrecking him or myself or both of us trying to go for that win which Rick Hendrick has seen before and I've heard about those Monday morning meetings and I don't want to be a part of that but I did everything I feel like I could to win the race and in the future if the roles are reversed I'm going to do everything I can to protect the lead."

ON BEING SO CLOSE TO TYING DALE EARNHARDT'S WIN RECORD AND HOW THAT MAY DRIVE HIM TO GET THAT WIN AND THE EMOTION SURROUNDING THAT:

"You know what, there's absolutely zero. I use that as zero motivation. Other than getting asked the question from time to time, I don't even think about it. Once it happens, if it happens then we can talk about it and it'll be cool but there was not at point in my career where a race win or a championship was all about trying to match somebody else or break a record with somebody else. It's always just a motivation to win every single time we're on the track and that's what I use as motivation."

IF NASCAR WERE TO GIVE MORE POINTS FOR WINS, ARE THERE ANY NUMBER OF POINTS THAT YOU MAY RACE HARDER?

"It's got to be enough to offset whatever, however many races later when that guy wrecks you, so how does that work? They can put a million points on winning and it doesn't matter because you can't race people like that and just knock 'em out of the way. You can race hard, you can bump, you can bang, we're trying to win and trying to put on a heck of a race and we got that today. I'm sitting here mad about it because I'm second and I wanted to win but it was still a heck of a race and a battle and I don't think that anybody thought that I didn't try as hard as I possibly could, understand I'm racing my teammate. But I'll be honest, had it been anybody else I don't know if I could have hit him any harder so I don't know if it would have turned out any different really. Maybe me and Jeff Burton are softies, I don't know. But we're up in the points, we're doing what we need to do and until it gets down to the Chase for the Championship, to me having some bonus points for winning right now is not what it's all about. I'm more motivated just to want to win. I think we're too good, everything is going so awesome with this race team and I know we're going to win and that's got me really excited and that's about the only good thing I'll take with me out of here - a great run and potential to win more races."

ON WHAT HE'LL SAY TO JIMMIE ABOUT THE WAY THIS RACE FINISHED:

"Well I'm going to congratulate him and tell him he did exactly what he needed to do and jokingly say something to him about good thing I was behind him (laughs). There's not going to be a whole lot that's going to be said. I'm mad but I'm not really mad at him. He didn't do anything wrong. Had I hit him any harder and wrecked them then the blame would have been put on me and we would have had an issue. We don't need that as teammates, we don't need that as competitors going forward trying to win a championship and I just hope we get our share of wins by continuing to race the way we've been racing."

ON IF HE CAN GET CARS IN FRONT OF HIM SQUIRRELY AND GETTING COMFORTABLE IN THE IMPALA SS AFTER THE FIRST TWO SHORT TRACK RACES AND THE UPCOMING IMPALA SS RACES:

"We're wasting our time even trying to comment on the Car of Tomorrow at Martinsville and Bristol. You can't tell anything really about this car right now until we go to those race tracks. Yeah, it was a little bit harder to pass. Yeah, I couldn't drive in as deep but those are all the things you expect with this car. We just got to get used it. I was still able to pass certain guys but just wasn't able to pass the leader. Honestly most of the passes I made today, guys gave me the pass, maybe some lapped cars in traffic a little bit. Most of the passes I made to day, a guy saw me run him and down and when I got to him I put enough pressure on him that he just let me go. I didn't really feel like the air was moving the cars around a whole lot but we're not going fast enough here to really feel that anyway. When we get to Darlington, we definitely. We learned nothing about Bristol and Martinsville from the Darlington test but we did learn something about this car, the Impala, at Darlington and that's about it."

ON HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS SUCCESS THIS SEASON AND WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO HAVE THIS SUCCESS:

"I think we're just building on momentum from last year's success - Jimmie winning the championship, three of us being in the Chase. I think as far as losing people and change within the organization and we're still working on the Car of Tomorrow at a very early stage and I think we're just doing our homework. We're taking advantage of the people and the resources that we have and I think the driver crew chief combinations are very strong right now. I can't wait to get Casey Mears and Darian Grubb A little bit more experience and get the cars working the way they want them to because I think they're capable of being right up there too but it's going to take some time. I think we've seen it throughout the history of this sport, when you get a group of guys together that work well together and you keep them together they usually continue on to have success and I think that's what we've done so far."

ON HIM SHARING INFORMATION WITH JIMMIE AFTER THE FIRST PRACTICE ON SATURDAY AND IF HE REGRETS IT:

"No, that's what we do as teammates, we share information. This is one of my best tracks. I think that they recognize that. We were running good and they were off a little bit, no different than other places that we've gone. It doesn't always work for you, it doesn't always transfer but in this case it did and they did the most with it. We had the car to beat until we had that problem going into one and once we lost that valuable track position that to me is where the race is really lost not really there at the end."

ON PLANS FOR OFF WEEKEND:

"We're going to test at Richmond for a couple of days, have a little fun there and then head down to somewhere in the Caribbean and enjoy what will probably be Ingrid and I's last vacation before we have an addition to the family. We're going to enjoy the time together and look forward to the upcoming races and the baby on the way."

IF THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN THE OLDER CAR, WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO EASILY LIFT HIM UP OFF THE ROAD?

"Easier, you know with the way the bumpers matched up before you get underneath the rear bumper and it lifts the back of the car up. With this car the bumpers are pretty squared up, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, it's probably a good thing. We saw a lot of guys get wrecked with the old bumpers and it was definitely easier. If you just got close to the guy and just gave him a little nudge, it picked the back of the car up and you could do it right in the center of the corner and he's just holding on trying to save the car, slide up the race track and you go on. It's not the case with these bumpers. We don't know what's going to happen on the bigger tracks. Other than Michigan last year and early tests, I haven't run really nose to tail with anybody on a faster track to see what that's going to do aerodynamically."


DENNY HAMLIN, NO. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS IMPALA SS, FINISHED 3RD:

ON THE RACE TODAY:

"We had a really good car there the first half of the race. Then we had a pit road issue where we lost 10 or 12 spots. I think the car fell off the jack or dropped the jack too soon. We spent the rest of the day trying to get it back. It was so hard to pass out there. We put ourselves in a pit strategy at the end of the race that we really didn't want to do but that is how it goes. Still a third place finish is good for us."

ON CHALLENGES OF YOUR DAY WITH TACK NEEDLE FALLING OFF:

"When our tach broke, I didn't have any way of checking pit road spot and that was kind of a challenge because the No.24 would kill us on pit road because he knew what speed to run and I really didn't. I have never seen a needle fall off a tach before, but ours sure did it today. I was kind of relying on the No.24 to push me down pit road to know what pit road speed was. That was kind of frustrating then when we dropped the jack too soon and then a lugnut fell off, all of that compounded to really a tough day. We put ourselves in a strategy there at the end that we had to short pit, of course we had older tires. We were coming back to those guys at the end. We were good on really really long runs. But I felt that the No. 19 raced me and the No. 24 a little harder there in those last 20 laps than what was really needed to."

ON BATTLE BETWEEN JOHNSON AND GORDON THERE AT THE END:

"It looked like the NO. 24 had a lot of runs getting in the corner on the No. 48. They were just enough around the corner that I couldn't see a whole lot. I am sure there was a lot of crowding going on for sure but how else you going to win the race. It is just so hard, when you have a car that is just a tenth faster than the guy in front of you, you have almost got to rub them to get around them. He just came up short I guess."

ON BUMPERS LINING UP SO YOU CAN'T BUMP SOMEBODY OUT OF THE WAY:

"I do like that aspect of it. It doesn't really pick the back end up of the car in front of you when you do hit somebody. It kind of pushes them forward, so I like that part of it. It is kind of getting guys to open their eyes and realize they can run in to each other more, but you know, it will be interesting when we get on the bigger tracks to see if there is now bump drafting on the mile and a half tracks. There probably will be."

ON WHETHER HE THOUGHT JOHNSON AND GORDON WOULD TAKE EACH OTHER OUT:

"If it was any other set of teammates, maybe. Not really those two. They have got enough experience to know how to handle other cars."

ON WHETHER IT MARTINSVILLE AS USUAL OR WAS TRACK POSITION MORE IMPORTANT WITH IMPALA SS:

"Maybe it was a little bit harder than usual. But there really wasn't that much difference. I know myself and Jeff got in the back that one time and he was able to get through the traffic a little bit better than I was but I think at that stage, his car was a little bit better than mine was. He was able to make it back through, I think Kyle was, I think it was pretty much Martinsville as usual."

ON CONFIDENCE EARLY IN THE RACE THAT IS MIGHT BE HIS DAY:

"I was pretty confident. It seems like our car was good for five laps then was bad for 25-30 laps then would come on again at the end. That was kind of the tone it was all day long. We just could not get going on the short runs. Definitely liked that we ended the race on older tires, that kind of played in to our hands, but I was fairly confident. But I knew this track was going to go through a lot big changes through the course of the race, it always does. But it seemed like the track also changes quite a bit after that rain delay. It kind of set us back to where we were at the beginning of the race.

"The rain really didn't change anything. We were pretty much on the same strategy as everyone on the lead lap. The cautions were timed out enough to where everyone would come in and take four there when the rain was coming. For the most part I think it was pretty much set in stone what we were going to do."

BumpsNotes

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