NASCAR ALLSTATE 400 AT THE BRICKYARD KICKS OFF IN INDIANAPOLIS

STEPHEN LEICHT – No. 90 CitiFinancial Fusion – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE THE RACE AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY? "It’s Indianapolis, the Brickyard. I grew up watching this race, watching Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt and all them guys run here. It’s just cool to be here. I’m just soaking it all in, and hopefully we’ll make the race Saturday and go out and see all the fans in the stands, to walk down the frontstretch and see all that. It’s very exciting to be a part of Robert Yates Racing at this time, and glad to have our sponsors on board. CitiFinancial’s doing a great job, and glad to have them with us. Just glad to be here, and hopefully just go out and run a good-enough lap to get us in. Hopefully, we’ll get a good draw."

WHEN YOU TESTED HERE EARLIER, HOW DID IT FEEL THE FIRST TIME YOU CAME TO THIS TRACK? "The first lap I took here, I don’t think I took a breath until after I took about three or four laps – just getting around my surroundings. Here’s kind of a funny story: I was sleeping in the van when we pulled in to test and I woke up and I got out and I saw trees and I saw the buildings, and I said, ‘Are we at the track?’ They said, ‘Yeah, we’re inside right now.’ It’s a pretty neat deal. We were able to go through the garages where those guys go when they do the Indy 500 testing and racing, and got to use those garages when we tested here. Being on the frontstretch and seeing everything, it’s a pretty neat deal. Obviously, this is pretty much one of the biggest races of the year, if not the biggest. I know a bunch of drivers, I know Tony Stewart thinks this is his biggest race of his career, a lot of people think the Daytona 500 is. And I won’t know until I run both, and I’ll let you know. But this is definitely one for the books as far as my racing goes."

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR 2007? "I’m not really focused on that, I’m focused on this year, this weekend, hopefully this weekend making this race, and the rest of the Busch races. I’m very excited to be a part of Robert Yates Racing and whatever they do have in store for me next year, and I would be very pleased to have CitiFinancial back with us. Right now, just pretty much taking it a race at a time, and see how it goes."

WHAT IS THE MOOD LIKE AT RYR THESE DAYS? "I think everybody’s got a very good attitude at Robert Yates. Obviously, they’ve made a bunch of changes here recently and we’re trying to catch up. We’ve been behind. Remember last year, Childress had tough times. They were struggling week-in and week-out, and it took them time but they figured it out. I know Robert’s a very smart guy and everybody that works for Robert Yates Racing and they’re both going to figure it out. It’s just going to take some time."

MARK MARTIN, driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion, heads into this weekend’s race in sixth place in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup points standings with six races before the Chase for the Championship. Martin met with reporters behind the team’s hauler prior to today’s first practice session.

MARK MARTTIN – No. 6 AAA Fusion – HOW DO YOU RATE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY IN TERMS OF PRESTIGE, PLACES YOU’D LIKE TO WIN? "It’s right up there. It’s right up there behind the Daytona 500. Different reasons make this race, to me, different heights on the stick there. One is, this race track has more history than anything we get involved in. From a NASCAR, stock car, point of view, the Daytona 500 carries a little bit more, so one has a little bit more of one thing and the other has a little bit more of something else."

SIX RACES BEFORE THE TOP 10 IS SOLIDIFIED. DO SENSE THAT DRIVERS ARE STARTING TO SCRAMBLE MORE AND DRIVE A LITTLE BIT MORE DIFFERENTLY? "No, I think that everybody’s been racing pretty hard all year."

AND THAT WILL KEEP UP? "It’s always the way it is in NASCAR. There’s a lot of competition and we have a lot of great drivers and a lot of great cars and we have a number of young drivers that are very optimistic about what they can do, so it makes it interesting out there."

WITH SIX RACES TO GO, YOU’RE IN THE TOP 10 RIGHT NOW, BUT FROM HERE OUT WILL YOU BE CONSERVATIVE, AGGRESSIVE? "We’ll race. The same. The same as I’ve been doing for 30 years. Try to win ’em all. We give everything we’ve got every time we get within 100 yards of a race car."

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL ON THIS TRACK. THIS TRACK IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT… "This race track is a lot different, but, really, at the end of the day, if you throw out the restrictor-plate races, it’s the same as everywhere else as far as being competitive. You’ve got to go these corners really fast. It’s a given that you have to have a great car to do that, and you have to have great engines to pull ’em down these straightaways, but that’s a given, too. You would have to have, I would say, great equipment, but at the end of the day you just have to go through the corners faster than everybody else if you want to put a whuppin’ on ’em."

THERE’S TALK OF CHANGING THE CHASE FOR NEXT YEAR. DO YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS ON HOW IT SHOULD BE? "The only thing that I really see – I really believe that it should be the top 10. I think for the fans, which I probably be one of next year, I think the point system after the Chase starts should be 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Plain as that, for those guys that are in the Chase. I, personally, don’t think there should be huge bonuses for winning or anything else. If we want to make this things a show, and it’s all about show business and everything else and I’m going to get to be watching instead of participating, then I want to see them go into Homestead at the last race with at least five of the 10 having a shot at the championship."

YOUR OLD TEAMMATE JEFF BURTON IS HAVING A REALLY GOOD YEAR. EVERYONE SAID THAT HE DIDN’T FORGET HOW TO DRIVE THIS YEAR. IS IT A MATTER OF RCR GETTING ITS STUFF TOGETHER OR IS THESE SOMETHING MORE TO IT? "The driver can help the equipment or the equipment can help the driver, but in today’s age, out here, you have to have both. And there are no drivers out here that can’t get it done. And there is some equipment out here that has all the resources to get it done, but can’t get it done in the form that it’s in. And that goes in cycles, no matter if you’re Richard Childress or Jack Roush or anybody else – your equipment sometimes is very potent and sometimes it’s not, for a lack of resources or people who are working or talent or anything. It’s just where you are in that cycle."

ARE YOU HAPPY TO SEE HIM DO THAT WELL? "I’m real happy for Jeff. I believe that he’s going to win real soon and I’m going to be cheering."

HOW IS ROUSH’S EQUIPMENT RIGHT NOW? GREG BIFFLE SAID THAT IT’S LOST A LITTLE BIT OF ITS DOMINANCE FROM LAST SEASON. "Our stuff was superior last year and our stuff is real good this year, but it’s not superior as it was last year. For us, this year, we have to be on target. If we want to have a great showing we have to be a little bit more on target than we did last year."

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DRIVER AND HIS CREW CHIEF? "In this business today, there are no crew chiefs, I don’t think, currently here in the garage, that can’t get it done. As well as drivers. But different combinations get different results, and as frustrating as it might be, that’s just how it is. Once you get a combination that’s working, if you can keep that relationship strong and solid, then you’re going to have a good run for a long time. But sometimes that gets derailed and sometimes you’re able to get it back on track and sometimes you need to change the combination up some."

DOES THE SUCCESS OF THAT RELATIONSHIP DEPEND MORE ON PERSONALITY OR KNOW-HOW OF THE DRIVER AND CREW CHIEF INVOLVED? "It’s both, but the know-how is knowing how to make a marriage work or make a relationship work or communication or knowing how to play well with others. There’s a lot of things that are involved there. It’s just human beings working together, and that’s just like a marriage or anything else. Sometimes it gets strained and sometimes it really goes well."

WOULD YOU SAY THE BREAK-UP RATE BETWEEN DRIVERS AND CREW CHIEFS IS HIGH IN NASCAR? "I think it’s just normal. I don’t think it’s high. I certainly don’t think it’s low. I think when you’re in a competitive business like this you have to do whatever you need to do to try to continue to be at the top of your performance. And it’s a performance-based business."

WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT GOOD BEHAVIOR ON THE TRACK, THE QUESTION IS WHAT WOULD MARK MARTIN DO? WHEN YOU RETIRE, WHICH DRIVER WILL THEY TEN BE TALKING ABOUT? WHICH DRIVER WILL SET THE STANDARD FOR WHAT’S APPROPRIATE? "Jeff Burton comes to my mind right away, not only on the race track but off the race track. Jeff Burton sets a great example for everybody in NASCAR. From the drivers’ standpoints to anyone involved in this sport can look to him and pattern their thought process and their actions, really, after Jeff Burton."

WHEN YOU CAME INTO THE CIRCUIT WAS THERE ANYBODY THAT YOU PATTERNED YOURSELF AFTER? "No, not really. Not in that respect. I certainly did admire a lot of drivers, but I never really – there was less focus on that at that time and I tried to keep my focus on race-track stuff and working well with the media, because I knew that was going to be important, and those kinds of things."

WITH INCREASED COMPETIVENESS AND INTENSITY THESE DAYS, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO REMAIN POLITE ON THE TRACK OR TO NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BECAUSE OF BEING POLITE ON THE TRACK? "I don’t see a lot of taken advantage of going on. But it is real competitive and it is a real frustrating business. It’s all I can do from time to time to control my emotions, and I may have more control than some. But it still takes everything that I have from time to time to keep things in check. The thing that I’ve found is keeping ’em in check sometimes after all the dust settles, I find that the whole situation didn’t look like I thought I saw it, and that I was wrong, and I had I not kept myself in check would’ve been even more embarrassed of what I had done and how I may have reacted based on things not really being as I thought they were."

HOW ARE THINGS GOING WITH YOUR SON, MATT? "Matt’s doing good. I think he’s racing next weekend at New Smyrna with a Super Late Model. He’s 14 years old and he’s getting a chance to drive some pretty fast cars."

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, is second in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings going into this weekend. He spoke about this weekend prior to practice.

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – HOW BIG OF A DEAL IS THIS FOR YOU? "It’s cool. It’s one of the biggest races of the year for sure and it’s always cool to come to Indy. It’s a big race for us and, hopefully, we can do something decent."

HOW DOES IT RANK TO OTHER BIG RACES IN NASCAR? "When I think of it for the year I think it’s in the top three or four for sure as far as races that you’d like to do good in, so I think every driver is a little bit different. There are certain races that are probably more important to them for other reasons, but certainly the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard and I think the 600 in Charlotte are definitely three of the biggest races."

ARE YOU JUST TRYING TO KEEP YOUR NOSE CLEAN FROM HERE ON OUT OR ARE YOU TRYING TO GET EVERY POINT YOU CAN? "It’s still five points a place and everybody thinks we’re in, but I don’t think we’re really locked into the chase. You’ve seen what happened to Junior a couple of weeks ago and how fast things can change, so I think we need to make sure we keep doing our job and try to operate at a championship level and hopefully gain some points on the 48. Our goal is to be leading the points going into the chase, so hopefully we can do those things and get up front. We’ve had a few mediocre finishes the last two weeks. Hopefully we can get back on track and start getting some top fives and challenging for some wins again."

DO YOU WORRY ABOUT GETTING CAUGHT UP WITH THE GUYS FIGHTING TO GET IN? "No, I don’t think it really has that much. I think things have changed a little bit through the points with things happening, but I think the racing is about the same as always. It’s intense every week. I don’t think it matters where you are in points, it’s intense every week and you’re trying to go out and get the best finish you can all the time."

ARE YOU MORE LIKELY TO SETTLE FOR A TOP FIVE OR BE AGGRESSIVE TO WIN? "No, I know this thing is always a big story with everybody, but everybody races every week to win, I think. That’s what it’s all about is winning races. Everytime I look at it, you get the most points to lead the most laps and win the race. That’s what you try to do every week. You try to take what you’re given that day and do the very best job you can with it and finish as high up front as you can with it. If you’ve got a winning car, hopefully you can win with it. If you don’t have a winning car, you finish with what you’re capable of doing on that day."

WHAT IS THE KEY TO THIS TRACK? "You’ve got to be able to turn good and get off the corners really good. They’ve got long straightaways so everybody thinks about horsepower, but it’s really about getting through the corner the fastest and that will help carry you down the straightaway. You need a little bit of everything here. You need a good motor, but you’ve got to be turning good off the corner to be able to drive under people off the corner to be able to make passes."

YOU WON A TITLE UNDER THE OLD SYSTEM. HOW MUCH WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO IT UNDER THIS ONE? "I think you’d like to win it under any system. It’s a really competitive sport. It’s hard to do it the old way and it’s hard to do it the new way, so I don’t really see it as really that different. If you can get into the final 10 races, it’s still about being consistent. The 20 last year was consistent through the last 10 and didn’t win a race, so it’s about being consistent and getting the good finishes and not having problems in the last 10 just like it’s always been."

DO YOU FEEL LIKE A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM? "I felt really good about the whole season, but the last few weeks we’ve made a couple of mistakes and got taken out of one race. We just didn’t do good at Loudon and didn’t run very good at Pocono, so the last few weeks we’ve lost a little bit of momentum, which I think is very important to get that back before the chase, but up to that point we’ve been leading laps, we’ve been up front, and we’ve had a lot of top fives. We’ve had a lot of chances to win races and only finished two of them off, but we’ve been in position a lot, so I feel like they’re operating at a high level right now. I think we need to step it back up a notch before the chase starts, which, hopefully, we can do. It’s a long season. Now you’re kind of in the middle of the summer and you’re done with all your off weekends. There’s a lot of racing through the end of the year, so we’ve got to figure out how to keep this thing rolling."

HOW VALUABLE WAS THE WEEK OFF? "That’s a good question. I don’t feel a whole lot different than what I did. I was actually really busy last week, but hopefully for the team it gets everybody rested up and ready to go for the last 16 or 18 or whatever it is. Hopefully, everybody is ready and got their batteries all charged up because it’s a long stretch to the end."

YOU’RE NEXT TO JEFF BURTON IN THE GARAGE. WHY DO YOU FEEL JEFF HAS REBOUNDED? "They’ve got their cars better. Jeff has always proven that he’s a great race car driver and a championship contender all the time. You can only go as fast as your cars can take you. We’ve seen that with everybody in this sport, including Jeff Gordon a couple of years ago. They had an off year or off time where they haven’t run up to his capabilities, so it’s about everybody doing their job at a top level to be able to win these races. It’s not just about drivers, it’s about pit stops and the whole deal. Jeff is awesome. If we couldn’t win it, I’d love to see him win it. He’s been running great all year and it’s cool to see him back in that form gain and I’m sure they’re gonna win some races here pretty soon."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TONY STEWART TAKING IT UPON HIMSELF TO BE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE OUT THERE? "I don’t have any comment on that."

HE SAID IT’S ABOUT HOW SOME OF THE GUYS RACE EARLY IN THE RACE AND HE JUST REACTS TO IT, BUT IT COULD CAUSE GUYS TO GET CAUGHT UP IN SOMETHING YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH. "I still don’t have any comment on that."

Dale Jarrett, driver of the No. 88 UPS Ford Fusion, is a two-time winner of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. Jarrett spoke about returning to Indianapolis and the current situation around Robert Yates Racing before Friday’s first practice session.

DALE JARRETT – No. 88 UPS Ford Fusion – YOU HAD AN INTERESTING START TO YOUR DAY. "We got the opportunity to go to the Indianapolis Colts training camp this morning (Dale, Penny Copen – PR rep, son Zachary and one of Zachary’s friends). We watched them go through their morning session and met Coach Dungy after practice was over and then Peyton Manning and Dallas Clark came by and had some conversations with them, so it was a pretty fun day."

DO YOU LIKE YOUR CHANCES TO WIN THIS WEEKEND? "I’d like to stand here and be really positive, but our goal right now with the way that we’ve run is getting back to running respectably. We haven’t done that at all. I haven’t even looked back at how long it’s been since we literally could race ourselves in the top 15 – back early in the year. We’ve had a lot of changes here and to think that you’re just all of a sudden because you come to a place that you’ve won, I’ve been at those places too and we didn’t run very good at those – at Pocono and Michigan – so we’ve got a lot of work to do here, but we have a group that’s ready for the challenge and, hopefully, we can get something that will allow us to race and run well. Then if we can put ourselves in position, anything can happen. But to think that we’re just all of a sudden going to leapfrog 20 or 22 of these teams that have been working just as hard as we have, that would be kind of crazy on my part to even stand here and try to tell you that and make you believe it."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CREW CHIEF CHANGES THIS WEEK? "Robert and Doug decided that they wanted to look at doing something different and I assume that this was done in getting prepared as much for next year as anything and that’s the change they decided to make."

DESPITE YOUR STRUGGLES IS IT STILL EXCITING TO COME HERE? "It’s still exciting to come here. Just the opportunity to race here is exciting enough in itself. I still believe in my heart, even with what I just told you, you still want to believe that you can get in the race car and I can make a little bit of a difference here and you still have some kind of chance. But just racing here, regardless of how bad the season has been to this point, being able to come here is still quite a thrill."

WHAT KIND OF REACTION HAVE YOU GOTTEN FROM FANS ABOUT YOUR DECISION? "You’ve had fans react in different ways for the most part. Of course, I hear mostly from fan club members so they’re sticking with us pretty good, but it’s been both sides. There are a lot of people that certainly understand and are sticking with me as the driver, but then you have the diehard Ford fans that think I’ve totally fallen off my rocker and can’t understand why I would do something. Then I have people question loyalty and things like that. We don’t even want to get into that conversation because I could go down a whole list of facts of people that want to talk about loyalty, so we won’t even get into that. But you understand that people are gonna have their opinions, but, for the most part, I think we’ve heard a lot of very positive things about the move and what could take place there. As I tell all of those people and as I’ve told people yesterday at two different appearances I was at, my main goal right now – even though that’s kind of my moonlighting job is to make sure everything is getting prepared and helping Michael and that group get as well prepared as they possibly can for next year – my main focusing job as I’ve always said is whenever I either retired or was leaving, which now it’s I’m leaving here, is that I want this race team to be in as good a shape as what it’s been for the majority of the time that I’ve been here in racing and that’s to where they could plug someone in and we could go win. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to make that happen."

HOW ARE PEOPLE AT THE SHOP REACTING TO ALL THIS CHANGE? "It’s certainly a little unsettling for the guys on the race team, but I think Robert and Doug have done a good job in communicating with the race team and making them understand why they’re making the changes and why Elliott and I may have looked at our decisions. They’re trying to go forward now. These guys realize that there’s gonna be a race team there and they’re gonna race hard. It’s just a matter of how long it’s gonna take them to move themselves back into the top 10 of these teams, but they’ll do that because those of us who know Robert and Doug know that there’s a strong will there and they’re gonna make all of that happen. We keep trying to reinforce to the guys on the race team that now is when they look at people and decide who they’re gonna keep in their organization. The ones that are gonna work hard during these difficult times are the people that you want around, not the people that may want to think about giving up just because we haven’t run well and they’re making all of these changes. Now is when people can really solidify their jobs by working extremely hard and being a positive influence on everybody within this race team."

IS THERE A SENSE IT TOOK YOU LEAVING TO GET THEIR ATTENTION THAT CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE? "I don’t know that. If I were in Robert and Doug’s shoes, you always think that you can fix things and you can go about doing that. There were a lot of things here that we’ve talked about for a number of years. We kind of started down that path a few times and then we kind of made a u-turn and came back around and didn’t quite get there. I think if we would have ever just made that full commitment to get there, then a lot of this might not have happened. You don’t know, but I think that they’re smart people and they’re gonna realize exactly what they have to do and make it happen. Unfortunately, it took a lot of different circumstances for that to come about, but they’ll right the ship and everything will be fine."

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO GO THROUGH THE LAST 10 RACES IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE CHASE? DO YOU FEEL IGNORED? "I don’t know about that. I didn’t feel that way. We won a race in those last 10 last year, so I think you keep battling hard. Certainly the attention is on those 10 and well it should be – they’ve earned and they deserve that right for that to happen, but I think it’s an opportunity to show what you’re made of and what your team is made of that you keep working through that and trying to get better until that last lap is finished at Homestead. I look at every week as an opportunity. This is a chance that you have, you don’t take for granted just the opportunity to race in these races. You don’t just go and say, ‘Well, we’ve got 10 more to go, let’s just go finish this off.’ That’s not in my make up. I still believe that we can get better and we can draw attention to ourselves. We have an obligation to our team and to our sponsors to give it everything that we can. Just because it didn’t work out that we were a part of the chase, then I think that’s motivation to go work harder."

DOES IT CHANGE HOW TEAMS LOOK AT THE REST OF THE YEAR? DO THEY LOOK TOWARD THE NEXT SEASON? "I think you start doing a lot of things in preparation for that and it gives you that opportunity to do that. There will be a lot of teams that will start that process of focusing on their upcoming season and whether that’s making changes or just trying some things that maybe they didn’t want to get involved in before the chase cutoff, I think it gives them that chance so you see a little bit more of that."

Ken Schrader, driver of the No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion, posted the fastest speed (180.321 mph) during Friday’s first practice session and was fifth-fastest in the second session (180.908 mph). Wood Brothers Racing had a successful test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last month, but the team brought a different car, the one that finished 15th at Pocono Raceway last week, to the track this week.

KEN SCHRADER – No. 21 Little Debbie Fusion – "We came, we tested, we had a good test. We were solid, we came back and were solid. A lot of guys aren’t throwing everything at it yet. We’ll just have to see. We shouldn’t embarrass ourselves too bad."

WERE YOU FAST RIGHT OFF THE TRUCK, AND IS THAT IMPORTANT AT THIS RACE TRACK? "It sure doesn’t hurt, but this isn’t the car we tested with. We came back with a different one. The stuff that we learned at the test, we think, we did it at Pocono and it seemed better there and it seems to be working here, so far."


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