Driver Quotes From Thursday's 2011 NASCAR Media Day at Daytona

Kurt Busch during pre-season test at Daytona 

KURT BUSCH ON WHO HE LIKES TO DRAFT WITH:
"Those are the guys that have been running a few years on the circuit. I know that when I first started, there wasn’t one guy that chose to stay with me and I got ousted so to speak. It’s just an unwritten law that when you’re a veteran, you don’t really work with the rookies. You go through those hard times; you want to give those hard times back. Guys like me, Kahne, Vickers, Montoya, and Newman – of course, we’ve worked well. I’ll really be counting on (Brad) Keselowski this year. He’s a good plate racer. He’s smart and we’re expecting to team up when we can. You find those guys that you can work with. I’d like to say that I’d work with the Hendrick guys, but I more or less use those guys when I need them because I know they won’t work with me in the end when it counts.”

CARL EDWARDS ON HOW CONFIDENT HE IS THAT HE CAN START 2011 LIKE HE ENDED 2010:
“I’m confident, I’m real optimistic, but I’m also realistic. In 2005 we finished the season very strongly and had a poor 2006. In 2008 we did the same thing with 2009, so I don’t want to get too far out there, but if you look at the way things have gone for us, we won three races in the chase. Greg won Kansas and we won Phoenix and Homestead. I feel like we can win at Daytona. We’ve got a team that works well together. I feel like we can win at Phoenix. I feel like we can win at Vegas. If I start going down the list of tracks, I’m very excited about it, but I don’t want to get over-confident or jinx myself of get lazy. I want to stay hungry and go out here and try to win.”

MATT KENSETH ON THE NEW RULES WITH SIX MEN OVER THE WALL AND IMPACT:
“I think it depends on the track. You still need so much fuel to get to the end of the race. You are still going to have to pit. At a track like this it will be way more about fuel than tires. I don’t foresee any tire wear or problems here. I think you could run the whole race on a set of tires with this pavement. Tires will be more important than fuel, but fuel will be important. Our fuel mileage is going to be a little worse with the FR9 and it takes a little longer to fuel the cars.”

KEVIN HARVICK ON WHETHER JIMMIE JOHNSON GETS ENOUGH CREDIT AS A DRIVER:
“That is a tough question. I think as you look at what they’ve accomplished, I think you have to respect what they’ve done as a race team. You look in sports history in general, you have to understand what they’ve done and as competitors we do. I think the hard part for them is they have a lot of fans but the fans haven’t embraced what he’s done as a race car driver and what that team has done as a team in general. So when the fans don’t embrace that you don’t get as much credit as you should.”

BOBBY LABONTE ON HOW DIFFICULT THE LAST FEW YEARS HAVE BEEN:
“It was — there were definitely times of should I stay home or not if you’re not going to do what you set out to do. That was very difficult. I look back on it now and I can say there were a few races in particular where I could say there was no sense in going in my mind. But if I hadn’t, I don’t know if that would have gotten me to today, if I would have quit, stopped. So, I look back on that today and I think if I didn’t have that perseverance on it, I probably wouldn’t be here today. Hopefully, that made me a better person and a stronger person. Knowing what I went through, this is a good opportunity.”

Logano finished 7 of the last 10 races in the top-11 

JOEY LOGANO ON HOW MUCH HE LEARNED OVER THE FINAL 10 RACES LAT SEASON:
“I think the biggest thing is that it was a big confidence builder — not just for me, but for my whole team. It’s huge. I told everyone when we came down here for the test a few weeks ago, just looking at the faces on all my guys — how excited they were just to be back at the race track, the confidence they brought over — that’s huge. That’s telling me already that it’s already transferred over to this year. Everyone is pumped up about starting this year just because of the way we ended last year. We just have to be able to do that throughout the season to make the Chase. If we keep running in the top-10 and top- five, eventually that win is going to come and we just have to be consistent and not put ourselves in positions to wreck. That was the thing that happened last year. We had a lot of good runs, we had plenty of top-10s, but we had too many wrecks and too many outside of the top-20 finishes. We have to work on that consistency and we honed in on that toward the end of the year. We did a good job with that so we just have to keep doing that.”

MARCOS AMBROSE ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT THE 2011 SEASON:
“I’m one of 43 drivers who think they’re gonna in the Daytona 500 and think they’re gonna win the championship. What makes us different? I think, for me, 2011 was all about change. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to work with a new group of people and shake things up and try to get the most out of myself and we’ve done that. I’m looking forward to driving for Richard Petty Motorsports. We’ve got great sponsorships with Stanley and DeWalt to partner up with in 2011, so we’re fully funded. We’ve got a great technical partnership with Roush Yates and the engine program over there, so we’ve got a lot of really good stuff going on. Todd Parrott, he’s a championship crew chief and he’s won the Daytona 500, so I feel really good about the situation just hope I can make the most of it.”

KASEY KAHNE ON WORKING WITH BRIAN VICKERS AND OTHERS DRAFTING DURING THE PRE-SEASON TESTING:
“We just worked a lot on how to work together well and how to do things quickly out there. I thought that was good. We were able to talk a lot about it and get better. I thought we were really good at it — we know where we’re a little bit off and where we need to make some gains coming into the (Daytona) 500, which is good. I felt like myself and (Dale Earnhardt) Junior were pretty good together and myself and (Joey) Logano. I would imagine if I was with Denny (Hamlin) or something, we would have been alright, too. We all kind of worked pretty well together and the cars were quick together. That was at a test. When we get here in the race that will all change.”

PAUL MENARD ON WHAT HE'S LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS SEASON:
“Running fast race cars. I have seen how fast all three RCR cars were last year. To start this year with four teams and everything has been going so well in the off season, we are very prepared. We got to do quite a few tests this off season. We have the learning curve of me learning a new car. Me back in a Chevrolet, that learning curve is very small. It has been really good. Looking forward to firing off in Daytona. We are as prepared as we can be for Phoenix and Las Vegas.”

DAVID RAGAN ON WHETHER EDWARDS LATE SURGE IN 2010 IS GOOD NEWS FOR HIS TEAM:
"Absolutely. We had top-10 cars the last five races of the year. We could have and did finish in the top five or top 10, so we had some good runs and that gives everybody motivation in our chassis shop and body shop. For two years we’d been digging ourselves out of a hole, so it’s mentally and physically tough working on Saturdays and 60-hour weeks. Those guys are putting in that effort, so it’s good to see some trophies come back home, see some top 10s and see some good runs. I think that was just kind of a breath of fresh air that allowed everybody to keep working hard through the off-season.”

JEFF GORDON ON HIS POPULARITY COMING SOMEWHAT ORIGINALLY BECAUSE OF DALE EARNHARDT:

Gordon-Earnhardt rivalry fueled NASCAR to the next level

"Absolutely there’s no doubt I wouldn’t have been as popular, and this is something we talk about today with the sport, with a guy like Jimmie winning five in a row, there just isn’t that rivalry. It wasn’t made up. It just happened. Here’s this young kid from California growing up in modern day motorsports, just growing up being interviewed on ESPN and all those things, to old-school, hard-knocks Dale Earnhardt. It was just black and white, just two total opposites in a way, even though later, as Dale and I got to know one another, we weren’t as opposite as maybe it was perceived from the outside. Still, that’s the way the fans thought of it and the way the media thought of it. It heightened the excitement of those races, those championship battles."

"Dale was just one of those kind of guys that it worked really well for him to have a rival. He had several throughout his career and he thrived on it. You know, that was never really my style. I didn’t ever feel like, Hey, you know, Dale’s not here, now I’ve got to take over that role. It was, We all have our personalities, our jobs, and let’s do them the best that we can. He helped build this sport to a level we’re proud of and need to keep going."

"I miss that. We need it. We can’t create it. It’s going to happen. I mean, I think that’s some of the excitement about Kyle, is he brings a uniqueness that people either love or hate. You get Kyle battling for the championship with somebody like Jimmie or myself, it’s definitely going to stir that up."

KYLE BUSCH ON HOW RELATES TO OTHER ATHLETES WHO AREN'T FAN FAVORITES:
“It makes me relate to them and it makes me like them. Like a Barry Bonds for instance. He’s a great baseball player, you can’t deny that from him, although there might be some speculation or whatever you want to call it there late in his career that kind of hurt his image a little bit. Overall, the guy did a lot for baseball and a lot for the sport and was very good at what he did. Tom Brady, a lot of people don’t like Tom Brady. Why? He’s good at what he does. He’s very good at what he does and he’s very young and very good at what he does. Same thing with (Ben) Roethlisberger, same thing with now Aaron Rodgers –he’s really good. There’s a lot of athletes that I can relate to that are kind of under the same scope that I am and I like all those guys. I like people that are good at what they do and it’s not that they know that they’re good at what they do, but they are accomplished and they know how to accomplish what they want to.”