■ 24 April 2009 | 2:26 PM
Notes and quotes from Talladega on Friday. Childress explains his moves, Goodyear has more work to do and Kahne looks toward his future and says he's due a slight attitude adjustment.
# Car owner Richard Childress on changing the 07 and 29 teams after this weekend's race at Talladega.
In today’s environment you can’t wait sometime half-way through the season. With the point structure like it is you’ve got to make changes to make the Chase. We only have so many races before the Chase. I originally started looking at Bristol where we were at with our race teams. Four of our best race tracks were Bristol, Texas, Martinsville and Phoenix. When I went to Montana I made up my mind out there that right after Texas I was coming back and making the changes and we started the motion right after Texas and it took some time. Mike Dillon and Will Lind both worked through this with me and we made a decision of what we were going to do. We owe it to our sponsors and our fans to run better than we are and I felt these were the two teams right now that were the weakest.
ON MOVING THE TEAMS INSTEAD OF JUST A CREW CHIEF CHANGE: “Because of the relationship and the strength of both of these race teams is very strong, the engineering relationship and the pit crew relationship with the crew chiefs and everything. Each one of them has their own team and they’re both very successful race teams so you don’t need to break the racing teams up. We just needed to make the change and we’re
not doing it just to make a change, we have a lot of other things. This isn’t the only change at RCR we’re making right now. We’re making a lot of other changes as well.”
HOW HE'LL MEASURE IF THIS IS WORKING AND WHAT ABOUT ANY FUTURE MOVES: "Well what I did is I had a meeting with our whole organization. Everybody that works on the four race teams and explained to them that we would make more changes if we had to and we were going to do what it took to make these cars competitive. I’ll be watching it and I’ll be monitoring it. I was supposed to have been turkey hunting for the last three days and I’ve been working. I came back with an attitude that we knew we had to make changes.”
# Goodyear going back to Indy
Goodyear will go back to Indy on Wednesday to continue the tire test from this past week when rain kept teams off the track most of the time. Reed Sorenson, Matt Kenseth, Brian Vickers and Ryan Newman tested this past week. The plan is to try to get all four back for this week's test. (Goodyear has further tests scheduled, including a test in mid-June that could have a dozen or so teams)
Kenseth on the test:
IF HE WAS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT TIRES AFTER THIS TEST: "I was optimistic after October's test, that day they kind of knew what they did wrong and they found a tire that was soft enough where it would rubber up the track. This (past) Wednesday, I didn't see that tire. We ran a tire that acted a lot like last (race) where it turned into dust and didn't really rubber the track up and wore out in 10-12 laps. The stuff that we had last October seemed to pretty good. They're going back to work. I'm sure they'll get it.''
# Kasey Kahne on his future
There's been some media speculation on what could happen with Kasey Kahne. He says his contract goes through the 2010 season and is set to honor that deal.
Friday at Talladega, Kahne was asked about his future
HOW CLOSE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE AND IS TEAM MAKING STEPS TO BE COMPETITIVE: "I think we're about the same as we were last year. As far as right now. I feel like our consistency and our performance is really similar. I'm pretty sure I raced in the top 10 in points maybe 20 some races until the Chase. I think I was out of the top 10 four races before we got to the Chase and we missed the Chase and everything. I would say that we're real similar to right there. The last couple of years I feel like we've been good from about 12th to 15th on an average weekend. I feel that's about where we are right now.''
IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU LOOKING AT YOUR FUTURE: "I don't know. I like to win. I know that much. I want to have an opportunity to win each week. Just being in a position as a driver if I make all the right decisions and a team, a crew chief, and the calls on pit road, if everything just goes your way that day, everybody has a perfect race, you're in position to win. We're not there right now as far as doing that consistently. I think we have our shots, two or three times a year where we are that team and we have those shots to win.
SO THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH: "I just think it's still a ways away from having to do a whole lot, making decisions about that stuff. I like what Jimmie Johnson does. Kurt Busch has been better at times this year. I like what Kyle Busch does. Tony Stewart has been really consistent as far as being in those top five, top-10 spots and being able to make your car better throughout a race and not necessarily making it worse every time you touch it regardless of if you make the right adjustment. What those guys I would like to do, now whether I can or not, that's the question. that's waht I would liek to do. When our cars have been good, we've been one of those teams that can adjust and can make it better throughout the race.''
HOW FRUSTRATED DO YOU GET WITH PERFORMANCE: "I work hard to make sure I do the best I can each week. what gets to me when you start getting happy with running 12th or 14th. That's not where I want to be. At times right now I leave the track and finish 13th and I'm a litlte upset but that's better than it could have been. I don't really like that attitude. That's kind of what I've been the last couple of years. I think you get that way by being where you're results are and where you are racing. I want that drive and that Adrenaline to be a top-five guy.''
Subscribe to this blog
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
