Q&A: Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Jarrett's Ford may have come out on top of the season-opening Budweiser Shootout at Daytona over the weekend, but Chevrolet drivers completed the top three, with Dale Earnhardt claiming second and last lap leader Kevin Harvick third.

Q:
How was your race tonight?

Kevin Harvick:
In restrictor plate racing, you can go from the front to tenth in about a hundred yards it seems like - maybe a half a mile, but it seems like a hundred yards. We put ourselves in position all night. I was really calm in the car. All you can do is ask yourself to be in position and have a chance to win with the way the racing is at these places. I had a lot of fun and we had a really good race car. I know we've got a lot better race car for the 500. This is the car we raced last year in all four [restrictor plate] races. We gave ourselves a chance to win but just came up a little bit short.

The real action was there at the end for me. We were fortunate enough to have a strong enough car to position ourselves at the front of the pack all night. I don't know that we ever fell back further than fifth or six. That's a tribute to our team. But it was pretty wild there at the end.

Q:
How important is it to use your mirrors to check out which lane is moving the fastest?

KH:
It is hard to drive [looking] backwards when you're trying to go forward. But it's really a key part of what we do with the bump draft and who is pushing and shoving the best. But we came down into the tri-oval and I saw Rusty [Wallace] was coming and, by the time we got out of the tri-oval, I has chosen the wrong one.

Q:
Does the way the race panned out bode well for the car in second place going into the final lap of the Daytona 500?

"I hope so. The racing is the best its been for the past two years. It looked pretty good tonight - at least is was from the driver's seat. The high groove was working and you could run side by side. It was a lot of fun. Cars suck up really good and you could push and shove all you wanted.

Q:
Did you make any changes to your car during the 20-lap break?

KH:
No, we worked on handling in practice - the two Shootout practices - and on just making sure we stayed in the pack and ran our tyres off because we know that's what we're going to have to do next Sunday. The car was a little bit free all night and we never had to crack the throttle one time in the pack or anything like that. We've got a good handling race car and we gave ourselves a shot at being in the right position.

Q:
Were drivers reluctant to work with Dale Earnhardt Jr?

KH:
I saw him in about five laps and he came up there and was immediately in the thick of things. So I didn't really see that. He was beside me and that's all I saw. You'll have to ask him.

Q:
What does a strong finish tonight mean for Daytona 500 qualifying tomorrow?

KH:
It gives us more confidence going into Sunday than anything else. We're happy with our car for tomorrow. You just never can tell what everybody's got until its time. I spent most of the day taking a nap, so I don't really know what everybody else was doing.

Q:
Dale, what happened out there tonight?

Dale Earnhardt Jr:
We didn't really have the right set-up under the car. After talking to Tony Eury Sr after the race, we had some things we probably could have done different that would have helped us out. The car was just real loose most of the race.

On brand new tyres, I was okay. That's why I was okay there at the end. We ran that first run and then Jimmie [Johnson] jumped in the middle and he had a pretty fast car, so I followed him up through the middle and we got up to third or fourth on the outside. And then it was just like you flipped a light switch. The car just wasn't drivable. I couldn't even stay full throttle around the whole track. I had to lift quite a bit in the corners just to keep the car underneath me. We made some changes and got the car a little bit too tight on the next run. And then the last run wasn't really long enough even wear the tyres out.

I could push people real good. But I couldn't seem to get anybody to close up behind me when I needed it except at the end, when Mark [Martin] was behind me. He'd get a massive run on me and I'd have to make sure he didn't try to pass me. I'd have to take whatever shot he'd give me and I could go up there and help [Dale] Jarrett.

Q:
Do you reckon Jarrett had the best of it at the end?

DE:
That top line is where it's at when it comes down to the end of the race. When I was on the bottom line in the first run, guys were crowding the right side of the car and they'd give you about a foot in between you, the apron, and them. And you had no room for air and you'd have to lift a little bit to keep from sliding up the track into them or spinning out on the inside. The outside is where it's at. You've got all the room in the world to move around and race. You don't have to lift too much. That's where I needed to be at the end of the race to have a chance to win. I just wasn't leading on the outside line. Jarrett was. He's been a good friend to me on and off the race track. I figured I'd stick with him to push him into the lead. Once he got the lead, it was his job to keep it.

Q:
Did your team put the wrong set-up on the car tonight?

DE:
It wasn't the wrong set-up. You're limited so much with what you can do to these cars. Basically, you've got two front springs and a front bar. That's basically all you fool with - plus the trackbar in the back. The characteristics of the car as far as it being loose and hard to drive when other cars got around it, we've seen before. We look back over when that happened and we look at what we did to the car at that time and it's very similar to what we're doing now. You can't just sit on top of whatever runs good all day long and just think you're going to keep going fast everywhere you go. They're closing the gap on us as you saw tonight. It was pretty much anybody's race to win. So you've got to keep trying stuff. What we had under the car just wasn't what I needed. We took some bar out and that just wasn't the right move. But we got an advantage in running that race tonight as far as what to expect on Sunday for the Daytona 500.

Q:
You looked to have a car on the outside that was running well?

DE:
I knew, at the end of the race, that the outside line was the one to be in. Unfortunately, we were behind Jarrett, and all we could do was push him and get him out front and try to make a move on him. Congratulations to Dale. He had a rough season last year and this is a great start to a new year for him. Hopefully, we've got a better car in the 500. It's a brand new car. We've got to work a few bugs out of it, and we'll be all right.

Q:
It looked early on that you could have use the help of a team-mate like Michael Waltrip. Did you have much help out there in the draft?

DE:
My car was real good at pushing everybody else to the front. But, for some reason, I couldn't get people to pull up behind me. I don't know how we need to work on that aerowise. Yeah, it was tough out there. There was a bunch of them teaming up, doing this and doing that. But, coming home second, I'm pretty happy. It didn't seem like a second place car to me.

Q:
Are other teams catching up to you guys?

DE:
I'd say so - just by the results of tonight's race. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and moving around. It was exciting out there if you were in my car. Some ended up in the fence and crashed their cars up a little bit. Once you weed those guys out you can get up there and have some pretty civilised racing after a while.

Q:
Do you feel like other guys were hanging you out more than normal - or was it just the car?

DE:
Yeah, I didn't want to use that as an excuse, but I'd go with that [laughter]. I was pushing people up front. As soon as they would get an opportunity, they would ditch me. I really didn't ever have a really strong car behind me that was committed to me. When Jamie [McMurray] was behind me, he would push me a little bit, but you could tell in the attitude of how he was driving that he wanted by me, and he was going to take any hole I left open. So, when you're blocking, or watching somebody, you're not gaining on anybody in front of you.

That was a brand new car. We tested here with two cars - the one we've always run and the one we won last year's Shootout with. We didn't like the second car. We went home and built a new car and we didn't run it until tonight. Maybe we should have run that other car. But I'll bet you the car that won here last year in the Shootout is a better race car. And I wish we would have had it tonight. But we got second place and we didn't wad it up in the fence and we learned a lot about the tyre.

Q:
Do you sense a new dedication in older drivers like Dale Jarrett?

DE:
Well, in the three days that I've been here, I don't know if I can access that. Maybe, in a couple of months, I can get back to you. I think Dale Jarrett did a good job tonight. He's been pretty upset about how his season went last year. I don't know if you can get any more determined than that when a man is upset with how his performance is going. I pushed him as hard as I could push him. I'm glad he won if I didn't win. It would have been nice if Elliott were up there helping us.

That would have made it a lot more fun. But I'm pretty happy with second. I think the cars are getting a little bit better. Maybe the softer tyre compound is more suitable to the older-style tyres they used to run years ago. I don't know, I can only guess.

Q:
What can you say about Jarrett's win?

DE:
I was real happy to see him win. I'm one of only a few drivers in the sport that hasn't bought an airplane or a helicopter - and nor will I as long as I've got friends like Dale Jarrett, who are hauling me to places like Martinsville and back. I push him to the lead every once in a while, or sign autographs for him at his dealership during his open house, or whatever to return that favour. I was real happy. It was better to push him to the lead than a lot of other guys in the field that I don't have that relationship with. I was glad I could help him.