THIS IS ONE OF YOUR BEST TRACKS, BUT THE NO. 48 (JIMMIE JOHNSON) AND THE NO. 11 (DENNY HAMLIN) HAVE BEEN BETTER RECENTLY. HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT THAT THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT OPPORTUNITY EXCEPT FOR THOSE GUYS?
“Yeah, you know it’s just the cycle with the way things go in racing. It doesn’t matter how good you were the last race or in the past, it’s what you’re doing currently in putting up those numbers. While we still come here and lead laps and at certain parts of the race I feel like we’ve got the best car; it seems like the second half of the race we haven’t been as strong as the guys you mentioned like Hamlin and Jimmie. We’re always taking notes and trying to come back stronger and address those things.
“So far we’re just kind of business as usual here at Martinsville and tomorrow we’ll focus on some things. One thing that’s difficult is to mimic exactly what the track does during the race because this track lays rubber in the middle part of the race towards the end and it never does that in practice. So, you’re working around it. In the race I’m having to change my line and change the car and in practice we are never having to deal with that. So it’s hard to try to find out exactly what we need to be better in that situation. And it seems like some of our competitors have done a little bit better job of that.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON
“Yeah, you know we are excited to be back at Martinsville. Martinsville has been a great track for the 48 team over the years and there is a certain rhythm to this track that took me a while to figure out but once I found the rhythm the results have been really good for me here and its just a fun place to race. It can be frustrating at times and there is no doubt about that but when you get in the right rhythm and things are clicking off like you would hope you can have a lot of fun on this race track. It’s cool and I am glad to be back and we will just see how the weekend unfolds.”
YOU AND DENNY HAMLIN HAVE WON BETWEEN YOU THE LAST 8 RACES AT MARTINSVILLE. DOES ONE OF YOU HAVE TO RUN WELL AND ONE OF YOU HAVE TO HAVE A TOUGH DAY TO CHANGE MOMENTUM?
“Yeah, I know there is a lot of hype coming into this race but at the end of the day there are four more races left and there are so many points to be won and lost in those four races and I still can’t stress it enough that Talladega can equal this whole thing up and its an eight car race or a ten car race for the championship so at this point its really about doing the best job I can do here as possible and if that’s eighth, then so be it. We did all we could and we finished eighth and we have to go to Talladega and do our best there. But I am not going to get caught up in just worrying about one guy. Its just not worth it at this point.
“After we get out of Talladega there will be more of a clear strategy kind of unfolds and we know who we really need to race and what to do from there. Hopefully we are in a position to protect. That’s the position I want to be in. I want to leave here with a win, there is no doubt about that. But I want to go to Talladega and win that race, but you just don’t know. I just want to keep a realistic approach to all this and score every point I can and then after Talladega, I know what I need to do then.”
No comments:
Post a Comment