All-Star Race: Post-Race Notes
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET - FINISHED 15TH:
ON THE NEXT TO THE LAST RUN, YOU GUYS SEEMED REALLY FAST. HOW WAS IT GENERALLY TONIGHT?
"Our car was awesome. I think we made some huge improvements for sure to be able to keep up with the guys that have been so fast on the 1.5-mile tracks, the No. 99 (Carl Edwards) and the No. 17 (Matt Kenseth). I still think we've got a little bit of work to do. I don't know what happened on the pit stop. All of a sudden my guys were just thrown up on the right front. I thought I overshot the pit, but I don't think I did, so I guess they got hit. So that took us out of it for sure. I mean my re-start didn't do us any favors so that was a bummer. But as far as a race car, man, we had an awesome race tonight. You know, the closer we got to the front, the better it got, which was obviously pretty normal. And that's exactly what we needed. So, we'll make a few adjustments and we'll be ready to rock and roll for the 600 next week."
DID ANYBODY HAVE ANYTHING FOR THAT NO. 99 CAR?
"Gosh, he was impressive you know. One time I got in front of him and we actually pulled away from him, I was impressed. But my car was pretty tight at that time and I didn't think I was going to be able to stay in front of him for long. But we didn't get to find out because I messed up the restart. But he was really strong. Even not taking tires, his car just really rolled. All the Roush cars to me roll in the middle of the corner better than we did. We made big gains and we've just got a little bit of work to do to get where they're at."
CAN YOU TELL US JUST WHAT YOUR STRATEGY WAS FOR THE DIFFERENT SEGMENTS?
"Well, the only thing that we really changed up is we didn't pit for that third segment, which was a great call by (crew chief) Alan (Gustafson); and I questioned it but we got a good restart and got up there. I more questioned just how good our car was going to restart. And we restarted really well and got up to second and man, I was happy about how the car was driving and we were in great shape. And even with me messing up the restart we still ended up sixth, so it was a great call by Alan to do that. And I think we were in great shape there but we had a problem on a pit stop where couple of my guys I think, got ran over."