JEFF BURTON Preseason Thunder Interview

Here's some insider news from one of the many press interviews held at Preseason Thunder at Daytona last week:

Jeff Burton will be driving the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing racing this year.

They're pretty excited about the upcoming year though like everyone else, still holds a bit of reservation with the no testing rule. Despite that, they feel their engine program has improved and they feel good about coming to Daytona, despite the unknowns.

He touched on how though we've been hearing about the proving grounds in relation to questions about the testing ban, it's was interesting to hear that the proving grounds are nothing new to the major players (teams) and that teams are headed to Rockingham and anything else they can do to get some testing under their belts.

And as I've observed and about to mention, he put out there that this is not a literal testing ban, but it's more a testing restriction. So teams will still be testing, but it's just seems so much more apparent due to the lack of track time the fans are used to seeing at Daytona.

Burton also noted how other facilities are looking to update their tracks with the intent of now being usable as a testing area.

The one thing Jeff sees as to what the team needs to improve on is speed. They need to lead more laps and be in the position to win more races.

He added it's not just about throwing money at the car, but it's also in the hands of the driver as "The drivers have a huge play in how fast our cars go, so we have to be willing to look at ourselves and try to find a way to be better, as well."

This in my mind would equate to how aggressive or not one would be hitting the corners, coming out of the corners, the meticulous approach to ones line. They all play a factor. It's been my experience that the less aggressive one is at the front of a fuel run, and you get to run without a yellow interrupting your fuel run, then there is a slight reward at the end of the fuel run as far as how much your tires have fallen off. It's not the most aggressive approach, but it has it's merit. This is just one example I can think of off the top of my head.

On Carl Edwads winning the championship this year: "The question is from a competition standpoint, have other people narrowed the gap, have they become complacent? Carl is going to drive hard and drive very effectively, but this sport is a moving target. You know, it's hard to go into a year and pick a team, but if you had to pick a team, the 99 team would certainly be one of those that you would pick."

Another insightful conversation with Jeff Burton folks.

source: nascar media; photo: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Casey Mears Press Conference At Preseason Thunder

Casey Mears will be driving the No. 07 Jack Daniels Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing in 2009.

With a new team and new situation, here's hoping he can kick in gear and make it work! Considering how well the team performed, he's got mildly big shoes to fill.

Like everyone, he noted how they're not in the car as much with the new testing rules, though they have done some testing "here and there".

He knows he's landing in a great organization and he wants to continue the cars success it had from last year. He feels he's a good fit into the RCR team. He said that not only did the team gel quickly, but some of their test showed they were pretty quick on the track too!

When asked about how the teams are skirting the "no test" rules on NASCAR sanctioned tracks, obviously NASCAR left the "out" on the sanctioned track part, but he feels there might be better ways to approach this testing ban to get it in the right direction because he feels it's not fair to the rookies coming in.

He almost made a good argument for the test ban here at Daytona. Noting that sometimes you can make a ton of changes for 1/10th of a second. But in the process, you'd go out on track, test, make changes, then sit on pit road for 30 or 40 minutes to get back out there and test the changes. Heading off to the GM proving grounds like they did, it was a different fashion of testing.

I keyed in on how the sponsor guys from Jack Daniels are a great bunch of guys to hang around. Dang, I'd like a Jack Daniels sponsor on my blog! I'm thnking product samples! Hmm.. might mess with the writing though!

He also pointed out that though he's not racing on the same team as his good friend, Jimmie Johnson, he said once you get to the track, that's all moot. It's business in the office so he doens't necessarily miss his bud while on-track.

As far as any inclinations of pondering his going into IndyCars, he said the best racing is right here in NASCAR and when you beat NASCAR drivers, you're beating the best.

GOOD LUCK TO Casey Mears for the 2009 season from NASCAR Bits and Pieces.

Do you think he can take the Chevy to victory lane this year? And make a repeat appearance for the No. 07 in the chase year? Chime in and let me know!

NASCAR Media
Photo Cr: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson At Preseason Thunder

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series reigning champion Jimmie Johnson has been battling a cold, but says he's ready to get back into race mode during a news conference during Saturday's Preseason Thunder Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway.

(Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)







Jimmie Johnson said the break was odd because he hasn't been in a race car in a while and he's happy to be in the 24 hour race. He really enjoys that event. He is looking forward to trying to get a fourth championship. Notice has been served people!

As far as how much time it will take to get the feel back, he thinks with all the on-track activity, everyone will be pretty much up to speed pretty quickly. That said, he noted this is a restrictor plate race and that once everyone gets to California, that may be another matter all together.

Of course, one of the first questions that really was of importance was his ever-developing beard. Will it be permanent? He doesn't know. He said "I typically grow it out in the winter and just decided to kind of stick with it a little longer."

On his over-the-wall team: It is a team sport, and what those guys contribute on Pit Road is a huge part of their success. He feels lucky to have these guys on his side. Chad has made some little tweaks to things over the years to keep it fresh.

In regards to Mark Martin coming on board, he feels Mark will be a great asset to the team and that he's very intrigued by the man. He's curious about how Martin can drive a car as loose as he likes his cars to be. He thinks he can learn something from Martin. If that's the case, Johnson's gonna probably walk with even more titles!

On the idea of branding, Johnson said that most drivers think about that making themselves a brand, but at first it takes success. The on-track success some of the drivers have is the key ingredient to their potential brand success. He feels that 2009 will bring him the opportunities he's been looking for to expand on his brand.

Jimmie feels that this year, the threats to his success are the No. 99, 24, and 18 cars for sure.

Someone asked him about the adage if it ain't broke, don't fix it as far mucking with the car setups to generate their success and he made an interesting observation. His three championships started with the older car, the 2nd one was the mixed season with the old and new cars and last year was the COT. They did it across these three differentiating season. So there is nothing they can say they've consistently used across the three years.

According to sources, his off-track behavior is much different than his polished look on-track. He's known to be able to cut it up pretty good. He says he doesn't make an effort to seperate the two, but his in-car persona is his focus and once away from that, he is who he is. As he put it, "Off the track I'm usually leading the charge to something that could lead to trouble, in a good way. I love to have fun, golf cart surfing, as long as you don't hurt yourself you're fine. I love having fun, I really do, and I have a great group of friends and have plenty of fun off the track. This winter has been pretty hard on me. My liver is not proud of me right now. It's kind of hating me to be honest with you, but it's what you've got to do when you win three in a row."

With that said, I think I just might look at the man a little differently. He parties pretty hard it seems, married hot, and makes the bucks. Oh a day to be in his shoes.

Jeff Gordon Interview From PreSeason Thunder

Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet, explains to the media how three men -- Dale Earnhardt, Rick Hendrick and his stepfather -- have had a big impact on him. Gordon met with the press and fans during Saturday's Preseason Thunder Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

The press got a chance to chat with Jeff Gordon, the driver of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet. They touched on the off season, looking forward to speedweeks, his other team, Mark Martin and his creating his own brand and the testing ban and how that's actually helped.

Let's get to it, shall we?

See the transcript of this article over on NBaP's new spot, under Jeff Gordon's Interview

Kyle Busch at Preseason Thunder Fanfest

Press Interview with Kyle Busch at Preseason Thunder:

Being joined by KYLE BUSCH for the NASCAR media group, he answered a few questions posed to him. Let's get right along to it:

On the confidence levels of coming into the Daytona 500: Because they had such a strong restrictor plate program last year, he's coming into this years 500 with a bucket load of confidence.

On Running both the Sprint Cup series and Nationwide, full schedule. He will be running the full Nationwide and the full Cup schedule. At least that's the plan. On top of that they looking at 12 to 14 Camping World Truck Series races and about 10 to 12 late model races of my own team.

On getting over the last 10 races of the year last year. Did it take long to get over it?: "Not really. Pretty much as soon as it was over, it was over. I was glad it was over."

On generating a different outcome than last year: Granted, the first two thirds went really well. Looking back at Loudon, they shouldn't have made the changes on Sunday morning that we did, the change in the length of the sway bar arm and the length that the angle of the dangle didn't fit together, it ended up pulling apart.

They couldn't do anything different about Dover. They never figured out the carburetor problems they had at Kansas and the rest of the season was a little bit good luck and bad luck. They've been working on braking and being able to turn the car at flat tracks with a little testing at New Smyrna, and have a test planned at Rockingham.

Does he have names for the cars that don't perform? They're cut up and thrown away or made into show cars. (Sounds like a vengeful take on his losing cars if you ask me!)

On what, if anything he learned from last season:
"When you lose luck it just changes everything it feels like. The biggest thing that we learned was just for me to work on the bad days. He says he just can't accept running bad, can't accept stuff falling apart and not being able to challenge for a win every week." (Like we didn't notice the fits!)

On what might keep him from running a full Nationwide season:
"Same thing as last year, just right at Milwaukee, Infineon, doing that trip. If you're too far behind in the Nationwide schedule, just skip out on it, forget about it. We've got some leeway in there. There's a couple races that I think J.D. didn't sell that we're just going to put like Gibbs Racing Oil on it or something like that that's our own sponsor, so we've got some room that we can play around with if we want to."

On possibly dealing with fewer wins this year and maturity, what kind of a challenge will it be to deal with less than what you accomplished last year?
He says this will be his biggest challenge and all they can do is work their hardest to continue to perform.

He was asked AGAIN about how he'll be different (Emotionally) this year on the racetrack compared to the past? I found this funny: He was honest and said he didn't know but is hoping that hopefully Tony Stewart with his new team can make it exciting, or Carl Edwards, or anybody else out there that wants to get down and dirty and grind up on each other.

On a possible scenario of running smaller fields while weathering the tough spell:
There is no rule that says there have to be 43 Cup cars, 43 Nationwide cars or 36 trucks but we'd be sacrificing better racing. He says the Truck Series will have 10 trucks that have legitimate chances to win every week. A higher number of cars in the Nationwide Series and the Cup series, even more. With all the folk that are looking for jobs, he thinks that some of the Cup guys available could go to Nationwide teams, helping them get better, mixing up the competition.


Source: NASCAR press relations

Dale Earnhardt Jr. At Preseason Thunder

NASCAR SprintCup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. at a news conference Saturday at Preseason Thunder Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)





The press was joined by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and they chatted about the Daytona 500 and your 2009 season with the No. 88 Chevrolet.

DALE EARNHARDT, JR. is looking forward to going into the season 2009 season and pragmatically has the same perspective I do about things when he said that "It will get here when it gets here," because we still have a few weeks and a Super Bowl to watch. He too is curiously wondering how the testing ban will affect everyone though he feels it won't really affect his team / organization.

With no testing, he basically indicated that "That really only takes a couple laps really to get reacclimated," and "it should just be like an old shoe, you know, your favorite pair of slippers or whatever."

In regards to comparing the old car to the new car, he was asked "How is the new car different here to rate in the draft strategy wise?" and Dale said that "This car is a little bit more difficult to move through the pack." The new car punches a bigger hole when two or three cars get lined up which effectively eleminates the the center lane which used to be an option in the past. The center lane effectively makes it harder on the car to "get any grip out of the car." due to less downforce.

He did say the reason the racing is so much better at the end of the 500 is "The great thing about the 500, though, is it starts in the daytime and ends at night, so when the sun goes down the temperature goes down, the grip comes up a little bit, so the racing right at the end of the race it's a whole lot better than what you've seen all day long."

Dale was asked about a lifetime supply offer of BBQ from Memphis barbecue and his reply kind of cut to the quick, at least for Memphis BBQ:

Basically he said those kind of deals get under your skin because even though he hasn't been there in quite some time and probably won't be in the area for any time soon, they use his name to try to sell tickets and get a "plug for no damn reason." But the Rendezvous dinner was his favorite and that Memphis has great barbecue ribs

He was asked if he evernamed any of your race cars: "Yeah, just for fun. We used to name them all the time. I built some street stocks. My granddaddy Robert G. used to name his race cars all the time. I had the Mach 5 and the car I raced at Myrtle Beach and the late models I built from the ground up, we called it Wild Eyed Crazy Mary." A Pearl Jam song name.

In regards to his first year with Hendrick or his take on the DEI Ganassi merger, he was real happy how the season started but the 2nd half of the season was a bit of a disappointment. As far as the merger is concerned, "I'm pretty happy, I think, for them." Dale says no one can get a word out of Mark Martin about it... "He's like talking to a rock."

"I don't know what they're doing, but I hope that it's good. Merging has always been pretty decent for everybody that I've seen it happen to. Chip has some real strong views, and he's a tough, tough, tough competitor. He's got a reputation, and I think that will be good for them because he's certainly visible at the racetrack, and that's good as an owner for them, and Teresa didn't really like coming to the track and didn't want to be around the racetrack. So now they've got one of the owners that will be at the racetrack. A driver has questions and he needs to talk to an owner sometimes on a Friday night or a Saturday, so that will be good."

When asked about all the people he's met, who is the one person you've come across that you were really surprised to find out was a NASCAR or a racing fan? His take was that he really appreciated LeAnn Rimes for being so kind to me and her husband was a big fan, and she, too, is a big fan, and they're just really really she was always just really pleasant.

Dirks Bentley is a big fan and that was great and they've become pretty good friends. But there are a lot of different people.

He was asked the inevitable about the Car of Tomorrow what he thinks it will take to win Daytona this year. Dale Earnhardt Jr said he's got to be fast, like the 18 and the 11 were last year and you need to handle good.

It's all about making the right choices near the end of the race but that every battle for position is a potential battle for the win.

When asked about the Bud Shootout this year and NASCAR's expanding into 28 entries Dale was hoping to avoid this particular question, but he said:

"I don't like the new format. You had a race for guys who won poles, you had a race for guys who won races in the middle of the season, and now neither one of those are hardly recognizable. I haven't asked NASCAR why they changed it, so I don't feel like I can rightfully say much without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves for their reasons. But apparently there were some reasons they changed it, and it's obviously better for the manufacturers with this new format for the Shootout. But it's less about why the race was started in the first place.

It just sucks because I'm such a historian of the sport, and I just like all the history and I like all the cool things about the history, and I like looking back on the guys who were in this race in the '80s and '90s and why they were in it and how they got in it and who missed it the next year and made it the next year. I don't know, just sort of things change. Maybe there's nothing wrong with this new format. Maybe I just hate change. I like the old format.

On Aric Almirola having no guarantees after Daytona and the 8 car being in question for the rest of the season he says he's emotionally connected to the number and he hopes the No 8 can run all year. As far as Almirola, because he's had to put off this season. He's been pretty excited the last couple of years looking forward to this season and now it's up in the air.

"So much has changed in the last six months in this sport, in the last 18 months a bunch has changed, and I just hope we can get all settled down somehow and start having a little bit of order around here and start rebuilding, everybody getting some stability financially to where we can have more expectations than we have questions."

That wraps up some of the material he touched on yesterday in Preseason Thunder! Hope you enjoy