Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Viagra Taurus, was the Nextel Wake-Up
Call guest this morning in the infield media center. Mark,
who has four career victories at the Monster Mile, heads into Sunday's
race in 12th place in the points standings, just 18 points out of the
top 10 and only 36 points out of eighth place. Additionally, he won
the Nextel All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
Question:
DO YOU THINK WE'LL GET THE EVENTS IN THIS WEEKEND?
Mark:
"Oh, we're going to get the race in, for sure. I'm not so sure about qualifying. I'm not very good about predicting weather, but it sure seems wet out there right now. We're going to have a great racing weekend here, a wonderful, couldn't ask for better than that—the truck series, the Busch series, and the Nextel Cup all in one weekend. It's a lot of fun."
Question:
YOU STOPPED OFF FOR SOME COLD PIZZA THIS MORNING?
Mark:
"It was good. It was great to check those guys out and talk to a different audience than usual and get to share a little bit of the exciting things that we're working on, things that are coming up. The Salute to You Tour has been going fantastic. And we have some things that I'm pretty excited about that we're sharing with the fans, and it's been met with great enthusiasm, and that's what I really wanted to do this year is be able to do some things that would get them involved and have some neat prizes and great opportunities for them to share in the great career that I've had."
Question:
TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY. AT NOON TODAY ONMARKMARTINSWEEPS.COM THERE WILL BE A "SALUTE TO YOU" SWEEPSTAKES PRESENTED BY VIAGRA.
Mark:
"This is one of the real exciting programs that we didn't have all together to announce earlier in the season, but this is part of our plan of the Salute to You Tour. They deserve it. An awesome website. It's really neat, exclusive behind the scenes video, a lot of stuff with Pat Tryson and the team and the car, the garage, the shop, and some stuff from me as well, but, really neat insight for the fans to be able to get involved. Of course, there's a lot of prizes, a lot of really neat prizes, but the Grand Prize is a Mark Martin Signature Series Ford F-150, so some fan is going to be driving a $50,000 really, really cool F-150 truck come November. So, I'm excited about that. I think that the fans are going to have a really good time. The information on the website is going to update regularly. Every week there's going to be new stuff in there, and it's stuff that you don't get to see on TV or anything else. It's behind the scenes, really, what's going on with our race team, with our cars and everything, so it's a neat website."
Question:
YOU MENTIONED YOUR TEAM A MOMENT AGO. HOW ARE THEY EMOTIONALLY HANDLING YOUR FINAL SEASON?
Mark:
"They're doing really good. I'm the kind of person that never likes to let anybody down, and sometimes at appearances I almost feel sad because my fans talk about how they're going to miss me and they don't know what they're going to do. But the response has been fantastic. The win in the All-Star race was overwhelming. The Victory Lane was right there on the front straightaway. The fans just went crazy. My team was so excited. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of enthusiasm, the excitement. You know, these guys stayed together. I asked each and every one of them personally last year because we had a championship-contending year in 2004, will they please stay with me for one last shot at this thing, and to see them get that win and all the festivities and champagne baths that we all took was really special. Another exciting part of that, on markmartinmerchandise.com we have All-Star memorabilia, autographed pieces and a bunch of neat things on there for the fans as well. So, I feel like we're really on track.
Question:
THOUGHTS ON THIS SEASON.
Mark:
"Two thousand five is going really great. The Viagra car is awesome on the race track every week. Pat and the guys are doing a killer job on pit road. We haven't missed all the wrecks this year, unfortunately, but that's not a problem with the Chase like it is all we have to do is make that Chase and we're still in the hunt to race for the championship, and we can certainly do that if we can start missing the wrecks going forward in the next 10 races. I couldn't be happier. I'm just so excited about 2006 and opening a new chapter. It's just really exciting."
Question:
YOU HAVE FOUR WINS HERE. WHAT ARE YOUR CHANCES OF MAKING IT FIVE ON SUNDAY?
Mark:
"I think the chances are excellent. This is a race track that's good for us. You know how hard it is to win these races, and you know that I'm never going to expect to win, but I expect to run good. We have a great car here. It's the car that we ran fourth with at Darlington just a few weeks ago, and so this is a great place for us. It's a great place to be racing. I can't think of a better place to be this weekend than the Monster Mile."
Question:
WITH THE SHORTER SPOILER, WILL SHORTENED OR ELIMINATED PRACTICE TIME BE AN ISSUE?
Mark:
"If we get a little bit of practice, I think everything will be fine. We only get an hour and a half of race practice per race weekend anyway, so I would expect to get that tomorrow, regardless. But if we weren't able to get that it would only out the teams that tested here at an advantage. You obviously wouldn't roll up exactly up under there what you had last time here. You'd have to make some educated adjustments on that and check with the people that did test. It would be interesting if there were no practice at all, but if they have any practice at all it just doesn't take that long to get in the ballpark."
Question:
YOU WERE IN THE PRESS BOX FOR QUITE SOME TIME AFTER WINNING THE ALL-STAR CHALLENGE. DO YOU COVET VICTORIES MORE NOW THAN IN THE PAST?
Mark:
"Oh, it's just unbelievable. Ten years ago, that was all just a pain to me, because I thought it would never end, you know? I didn't realize in 1995 that it would ever come to an end. Or it never occurred to me that that could be the last time that I ever won. And then I went through a season '96 where it was a winless season, I don't think I got a win in '96. I ran second week after week after week behind Jeff Gordon and this guy and that guy and new guys that were coming on so strong and I thought at that time I may never win again. So when we started winning races again in '97, each and every one was important to me and people looked at me like I was crazy each time I won I said, 'This could be the last time I ever win.' And even young drivers should think about that because, obviously, for example, Carl Edwards certainly has many more wins out in front of him—except what if something happened where he wasn't able to continue? I mean, it is possible that every time, no matter how successful a driver is, it is possible, every time, that he might not win another one of these things for some reason that we don't know or understand right now.
”I learned a lesson in '96 to never take 'em for granted, and now I really realize that each time I win a race it is very close to the last time, especially in a Nextel Cup car, for example. So, I savor 'em the best I can. But when the head hits the pillow, it's over. The next day that feeling is gone, and it isn't about what happened yesterday. It's about what's gonna happen this coming weekend and the focus shifts to that. Yeah, it was about 1, 1:30 before I got to bed on Saturday night there, the All-Star race, but I didn't have a bit of problem with that. That's quite a bit past my bedtime, but I really didn't have a problem with it."
Question:
WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE IN THE TRACK BETWEEN THE ALL-STAR RACE AND THE 600? I COULD TELL THAT YOU WERE FRUSTRATED BECAUSE YOU NEVER REALLY GOT A CHANCE TO RACE IN THE 600 BECAUSE THERE WERE SO MANY CAUTIONS.
Mark:
"There were a couple of differences. First of all, the track did change. I told the guys on Saturday that the track was I felt, quite a bit different and it was playing with our setups, we were having to adjust our setup and working with our car. You couldn't just run exactly what you had in the All-Star race and have it work just exactly, because it didn't work exactly the same. But that wasn't the problem of all the cautions. One of the things in the All-Star race was we had half the number of cars, which helped us not have as many cautions. That was the biggest thing. We had twice as many cars, we had an accident or two early on in the race and we had cars running out there that parts were falling off of, we had enormous amount of cautions for debris and the guys were just, you know, they were running over one another. Whatever you want to say about that. Why is that? Well, I don't know. All I can say is I didn't run over anybody, but there was a lot of that going on. It was more difficult to race on that surface and stay away from one another or off of each other than it was the old surface, which I knew that the first time I went out on it in the test. I came back and said, 'This is not going to be good.' I said, 'This is going to be hard to race around other cars. This is not going to be good.' But after the All-Star race, I thought maybe this is going to be okay, maybe I was wrong. I watched the Busch race and I was sick from the time the Busch race was over until when we started the 600, I knew that we were going to see tat kind of race, and that's just not racing to me. It's very frustrating because I'm an old-school guy and I believe you're supposed to go out and you're supposed to race for long periods of time. Wrecked running five laps at a time is just not racing to me. It's not what I've done throughout my career, and certainly if that's the way racing's going to be in the future than I'll have to take a different approach to setting up cars and strategies and everything else."
Question:
TO FOLLOW UP, ARE DRIVERS FEELING MORE PRESSURE TO PRODUCE? DO YOU FEEL PRESSURE TO PRODUCE?
Mark:
"Enormous pressure to produce from everyone. But, and I'm going to say this lightly; everybody should get a laugh out of this, but this is the truth. It's been way too long since any of these drivers had to fix any of these race cars. It wouldn't matter how much pressure was on these guys— if we had to fix these race cars that we're wrecking, the next time there's a wreck, the fight would go down. You know what I'm saying? I mean, seriously. There's so much pressure out there and we're so far removed from what it is that we're really doing and how much trouble we're causing the teams and everything—I don't think it matters if the cars are harder to drive or not. Just because they're harder to drive doesn't mean you go out and wreck 'em, that means you go out and give each other more room so that you don't wreck. That's how it is. That's how it was when we were building these cars—we, meaning the drivers. The veterans aren't out there running over each other, because the veterans used to build these cars, or help build them, or help fix 'em or whatever, and we give each other the amount of room we think we need to keep from causing havoc out there. That's part of it. And I'll tell you another part. NASCAR throws a yellow flag for a whole lot less than they used to. They throw a lot of yellow flags now for debris that it used to they didn't throw a yellow flag for. And then as soon as you have a caution, now you're probably gonna have a wreck afterwards. And then as soon as you have a wreck, then probably a car's gonna have something fall off of it, and it just snowballs. So, once you get it started... At Charlotte we started off with no problems.
"We had a caution or two and then we had a green-flag run and a green-flag pit stop and all that. And then it started to hit and once it started you just couldn't stop it. That's what you see. Cautions do breed cautions."
Question:
DO YOU HAVE A REACTION TO WHAT HAPPENED TO SHANE HMIEL?
Mark:
"I'm shocked. I just can't believe it. I don't know the great details so I shouldn't comment specifically about things. I'm a huge Shane Hmiel fan. He's a major, fast and on the gas, and out there making a lot of excitement and had a very bright future. I looked forward to seeing Shane mature as a driver and get more experience and get his skill and ability rounded up and really being a great driver in NASCAR, and this is obviously a major setback."
Question:
WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF ABOUT THE MANDATORY DRUG POLICY, BOTH FOR RECREATIONAL AND OTHER, AND DO YOU BELIEVE THAT DRIVERS SHOULD HAVE A THIRD CHANCE?
Mark:
"First of all, I don't have any problem with drug testing of any kind. Obviously, you're speaking to an old-school driver who certainly can't imagine a professional NASCAR driver ever having any problem with any of that. As far as the third chance, my first response would be, ‘yes’, I think he should, but I haven't had a chance to think about that a whole lot. I think that people make mistakes. I certainly would be very careful about making the same mistake twice. But it wouldn't be inconceivable to me that someone could make a mistake twice, and couldn't recover from that and move on. So, I'd like to see that happen if someone was willing to do that. I don't know. I don't think there's going to be very much problem in NASCAR, there never has been in the past and there's not going to be very much in the future. It's just not a sport that seems to lend itself to people who participate in that kind of stuff. It's a very clean sport. It really is. And it's a self-policing kind of sport because it is such an elite group that get the opportunity race in NASCAR that you just don't have a lot of that. Because there's not that many NASCAR seats. There's not that many opportunities to drive, so there are probably thousands out there that would like to be doing this, but it sort of bowls its was down or the cream seems to rise to the top and only the really the best and only the really the most driven with the most desire and the most incredible work ethics and all wind up getting the opportunity to drive here."
Question:
CAN YOU ADDRESS THE RUMOR REGARDING YOU AND RUSTY WALLACE SHARING A RIDE NEXT YEAR?
Mark:
"That is not what I'm interested in doing, that's not where my heart is, that's not me. I'm excited about 2006 and racing Jack Roush's truck in the truck series, full schedule, we don't have a sponsor signed for that yet, although we're just starting to work on that, but I'm sure that's going to work out. That's what I want to do. From now on in my racing career, I'm going to do want I wanna to do, not what is the best business or anything else. It's going to be about having fun. I look forward to be in the driver's seat for many years to come, but I don't expect it to be Nextel Cup."
Question:
DO YOU THINK THE SPOILERS ARE THE REASON FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE WRECKS THIS SEASON, AND WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IT CHANGED?
Mark:
"I'll revert back on that to if the cars, let's say the cars don't handle as good with the shorter spoiler, let's just say that. That doesn't mean we need to wreck more, that means we need to be aware of that and keep our cars under control. In other words, drivers need to have the judgment, and so if we're talking about having wrecks than I think the wrecks are stemming from a lack of respect for one another out there, a lack of respect for the equipment and from the high pressure that is put on from the owners, the media, the sponsors, the whole thing, that the drivers are letting the pressure of wanting to be up front overcome their judgment on how to drive these cars.
"When we race places where the cars handle terrible—I've been to Daytona in July before, years ago, when the cars were so hard to drive and so out of control it was unbelievable. And you didn't want to be within 25 feet of another race car. And you were wrecking every inch of the way. And do you realize those were the races with the fewest cautions? And the reason being is because you couldn't hardly drive the things. You couldn't hardly control them. You wouldn't get close to one another. You wouldn't get close to them in a car because you were about to wreck. And those races, where it was the slickest, and the cars were the most out of control were the ones that we got the least cautions in. So, I don't believe that it's the spoiler's fault. I believe that it's the drivers' fault and the pressure. And I also believe that we have yellow flags today for things that we didn't have a year ago."
Question:
WHY THE TRUCK SERIES?
Mark:
"I'm a race fan, first and foremost. And from watching, it looks like the best racing in NASCAR, to me. That may be biased. Second of all I'm interested in the schedule, the way their schedule is, when they race—they race on Fridays, they race on Saturdays, they have shorter events. They have 13 less races than Nextel Cup. They race one time on Sunday, as of 2005. It looks like fun racing. Every driver that I talked to that races that series loves it, and so that tells me that it must be fun, and that's what I want to do."
Question:
HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF, AND DOES THAT HAVE RELEVANCE TO WHETHER THE TEAM IS SUCCESSFUL?
Mark:
"I can't tell you how bad it feels to be the driver of a race car and know that your crew chief or your guys, or both, don't believe in you. That is impossible to get performance on the race track when you're in that condition. I haven't been in that situation since 1988, hooking up with Jack Roush, but I have been in that situation before, and it's impossible. It won't happen. You won't be successful like that. And, on the flip side of that, if the driver doesn't believe in the crew chief and the crew, then it is very difficult, it is possible to get a good performance, but when it comes down to crunch time you're always second-guessing or you're expecting the worst. It's real important to have good chemistry, and it is really awesome if you can have great chemistry. You can do things on pure energy and enthusiasm sometimes that shouldn't have worked and wouldn't work if you did it again. But you can get by a lot of times if you're all believing one another and you're all holding hands, sometimes you can get through some things that you shouldn't be able to get through and come out with a win or with a great performance on a day that you shouldn't have gotten that."
Question:
WHAT DO DRIVERS DO WHEN IT RAINS?
Mark:
"Today, I'm talking to you guys, TV guys and everything else. This is my lucky day. I kind of like this. It's a nice change from getting sweaty and loud noise and everything. It's nice and quiet in here. Usually sit around and eat, talk about racing, go find somebody who wants to tell stories about when they did something or tell a racing story or something like that. That's usually what I do, anyway."
Question:
WHAT WOULD'VE BEEN SOME OF YOUR BEST AND WORST EXPERIENCES IN NEXTEL CUP RACING?
Mark:
"I really hate to re-live any of those worst experiences. I try to stay out of those so much that I couldn't answer that real quick, but I've had some very miserable experiences. Some of the losses, one comes to mind. I always ran good here. I should've won here it seems like a thousand times and I blew tires out 'til I turned purple in the face, and I came here in the mid-'90s and was leading with six laps to go, no way I could lose the race and the right-front tire blew out and I ground to a stop right here on the front straightaway. So, I still hadn't won at this place. There was one. Jack Roush's accident was one that comes to mind. The sickness that I felt in 1990, coming up 26 points short, based on everything that had happened that year. I don't think about those things much.
"The great things was the day that I was sitting in Jack Roush's office, which was the size of this square right here, in 1987, September 7, 1987, and he was telling me his plan for NASCAR racing, what he was going to do, how much money he was going to spend, what he was going to do for his engines, what he was going to do for cars, what he was going to do for people, how he wanted to test and all those different things, and me not asking him how much did the job pay, but telling him that if he would give me a chance that I'm sure that everything would work out. All I wanted was a chance. And standing up and shaking his hand and getting light-headed because I knew I finally had a chance. And calling my wife from the Detroit airport on the way home and telling her that I got the ride. I remember that. That was big. I don't remember much about the first win. That wasn't a big deal, in 1989, to me, other than saying my life was fulfilled, because I had spent my whole life trying to achieve that.
”But the win at Vegas in '98 was a big deal. I thought I'd made the biggest mistake of my life leaving a championship-contending team in 1987 and starting a new team in a new shop in a new area and winning the third race out was the biggest relief of my life, thinking that it was okay, that I hadn't made the biggest mistake of my life. That was a huge win. Winning the No Bull 5 race in 2002 at Charlotte was giant, making a fan a millionaire. Sharing that with my team was awesome. Arlene and Matt were there. Matt winning a Bandalero at the Summer Shootout just a few weeks later right thereat Charlotte definitely solidified Lowe's Motor Speedway as the greatest place in my lifetime for motorsports. And then being able to win the All-Star race the other day was bigger than all. It was bigger than all. Because we are so close to the end of that Cup career, nothing that great probably will happen again. It's really special, and Arelene and Matt were there for that, to share in that. If I could just figure out a way to put that in a capsule and hold on to that, the only thing that I have is I'm going to get the picture there of the Victory Lane celebration blown up big and put it on the wall and try to glance at that periodically and try to remember what that was like because the opportunity may never happen again."
Question:
WHEN YOU ENTER THE TRUCK SERIES, ARE YOU LOOKING TO WIN A TITLE OR ARE YOU LOOKING TO WIN AS MANY RACES AS YOU CAN?
Mark:
"I'm sure that to Jack Roush and to Ford and to our sponsor, a championship will be really important. I'm sure our program will be sold as a program that will have that in the crosshairs. I'm not going to get caught up in that, because it doesn't matter to me. I don't think anybody who knows me would think that I would ever go out to race to ride around. I'm going to be a fierce competitor, and I'm going to put more into it than I wish I would, because that's how I am. I really want to focus on having fun, and being happy. It's really important to me to have fun and be happy. And obviously I can't have fun running around in the middle of the pack. So performance will be a high priority, higher than I wish it would be, because I know how I am. But I'm not going to be hell-bent to win a championship—or to have that in some way take the place of what I haven't accomplished in Nextel Cup. That's not what it's about. It'll be a great program, very exciting for everyone—for me, for my sponsors. I hope to bring some additional excitement to what I think the best racing in NASCAR is already. I want to be a part of it."
Question:
CAN YOU COMMENT ON GAMBLING IN NASCAR?
Mark:
"I can't because I'm pretty shallow and I don't know much about what goes on in the world, other than I can tell you what springs and shocks and weight-distribution and sway bar and how much downforce my car makes and anything you want to know, I can tell you, numbers most people in the garage would have to go look up, I could tell you off the top of my head.
"I'm oblivious to that world. I'll be honest with you. To that world, that's outside of what I really know about and so I couldn't really comment on it with any intelligence."
Question:
THERE SEEMS TO BE A NUMBER OF DRIVERS IN THE TRUCK SERIES THAT ARE STARTING TO RETIRE. INSTEAD OF THAT SERIES BEING A STEPPING STONE, DO YOU SEE IT ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE?
Mark:
"What I'm gonna do with Roush Racing is be the benchmark for figuring out the hardware, having a really strong, awesome program so that there's no question that the young driver or two that are there, Roush Racing driver that is there, there's no question about the equipment. We'll have a better evaluation of the guys that we're mentoring and make it a much better place for our young guys, our rookies and kids that we're bringing in, it's actually going to be a better situation because when they come in, if they're not running good, we're gonna know the equipment's right, the setup's right, and that this kid is not quite ready yet or whatever. Whereas right now there's some question as to whether we have them in the right equipment or whatever. And hopefully the program won't get tore up and left sort of behind.
”See, that happened with Biffle's truck team. It wasn't fair to the boys that went in the truck behind Greg because Greg's whole team moved. And so it was a whole new team, so the young driver that went in there didn't have the same opportunity—the expectations were for the same performance, but that wasn't fair because they didn't have the same benchmark for equipment, So hopefully we straighten that out and actually make that better so that it's a blend of veterans who are backing down and even better way to evaluate the new guys coming up."
Question:
YOU HAVE A GREAT RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR ENTIRE TEAM. DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE A ROLE IN SELECTING WHO IS GOING TO FOLLOW YOU?
Mark:
"I do. Jack is just starting to really ponder what my role might be. He has held out. This is the first week, he called me on Tuesday night. Picture this: He's watching the race, he's on the treadmill and he's on the cell phone with me—on the treadmill. This is Jack. It's been our real first conversation of what I might do as far as my role with Roush Racing, beyond the truck thing, which is really where my heart is. I've thought about it a lot and I've thought about it since our conversation, and I'm even more excited about going that direction the other things. I will be there for anything for Jack Roush, whether it be an injured driver, whether it be a situation where they need help in a technical area that I might be able to help in, or sponsor area that I might be able to help them and help work with them. But I am not interested in taking a job there. I'm not interested in going to work there every day and coming to the race track every weekend and battling it. So I'm not interested in a position that would be that demanding on me. I'm more interested in having ball and it looks to me like truck racing is perfect for that. Right now one of things for me is helping position the sponsorship thing for the 6 car and helping them land a driver in that that is perfect. And I've actually had conversations with more than one driver about that already. It's still early in the season and just not a lot happening right there right now."
Question:
SO, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO PUT IN THE 6 CAR?
Mark:
"I'll tell you exactly who I would put in the 6 car in a heartbeat. Joey Logano turned 15 a few days ago, and if NASCAR would let me I would make Jack Roush let us put him in the 6 car, because he's ready already. He is the man. But, obviously, that's not going to happen. He's my first choice and that one's shut out, so it's really early, and we just really haven't gotten into that very much. Our focus has really been on trying to make this Chase and do all those things. As you know, a lot of drivers are under contract that are out there already, so we're waiting to see what transpires.
"We're actually waiting for some movement to see what happens, because, gosh, it looks to me like most of the great drivers in the garage are under contract. It would be typical of Jack Roush to find someone who really wanted to do it really bad and really needed the opportunity and hadn't had that kind of opportunity before. That's the kind of guy that I think that you'll find will fill that seat. One of those guys. That would be more like the Jack Roush style. Jack Roush is a guy who is enabled, I like to say he's made so many people's dreams come true, but to be honest, all he's done is enabled people make their dreams come true, like myself, and so many others—Robbie Reiser, who's a champion crew chief, Jack Roush enabled Robbie to make his own dreams come true, and so many others. Matt Kenseth. That's Jack Roush's way and I wouldn't guarantee it but I would expect something like that to happen."
Question:
CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT JOEY LOGANO?
Mark:
"I don't talk to Joey, I talk to his dad. I don't talk to Joey weekly on the phone, put it that way, but I talked to his dad quite a bit. His very first Hooter's Cup race, he's been waiting to do this since February because he's too young, they wouldn't let him until he turned 15, he was fourth-fastest in qualifying with about five cars to go, and it rained out qualifying so he had to start last. The pit crew made an error in pitting right before the green flag came out because he was in the back anyway so he was going to pit and do some stuff and the green flag came out while they were in the pits. So he came out a lap and a half down. He passed the whole entire field and made his lap up and was working his way back from the back of the pack when he got caught up in an accident.
”I am high on Joey Logano because I am absolutely, 100 percent positive, without a doubt that he can be one of the greatest that ever raced in NASCAR. I'm positive. There's no doubt in mind. I know it. I've watched him race and there's no question about it. I'm more sure of it than I was sure of Matt Kenseth. I'm more sure of it than anybody I've ever seen turn a wheel. It doesn't matter what they race, the first time they go they are a top-five car. They don't know anything about that kind of racing. They don't know how to build a car. They just get the best equipment they can and they go there and he just does it. He can do it. He has one of my Cup cars and he came to Florida testing in January and I'm telling you he can do it. I went to the race track with him, Lakeland, we tested my car and his car, I watched him work all day. I know what I'm talking about. That's what I said about Matt Kenseth. Everybody wanted to know, ‘How'd you know about Matt Kenseth?' I don't know. I watched him for a little while and I knew that he could do it. I don't know. It's what I do. It's like answering the question about gambling: I don't know. But I do know about springs and shocks, I know how much camber's in the right front, I know all that. It's what I do, and I don't do a lot of other things. I just know they have never had a learning curve. Everything's he's ever gone and done he could do the first time. And that's how really the best guys, the most-talented race-car drivers, like Kyle Busch. You put Kyle Busch in one of these NASCAR rigs, and he goes out there and he's a teenager, and he drives the car and you watch him and you think, 'He looks like he's been doing that for 10 years.' He didn't have to learn. It's like he already knew how. And that's how I think really the greatest ones of all... Kurt Busch was the same way. He didn't have to get used to it. He just did it. You asked, that's the best I can explain to you."
