Dave: Hi John.
John: Hey.
Dave: How are you doing?
John: Great.
Dave: We have a little special deal going on tonight we have Big Joe here of course….. and uh Matt.
John: He is like a sore that never goes away.
Dave: Teri Stacy also joins us.
Teri: Hi John, how are you doing.
John: I am doing OK.
Teri: OK good. Big fans.
John: Thanks.
Dave: Tell us what happened. You had a pretty good car on race day.
John: The car was super fast. We started 40th of course, because I drove it like Matt in qualifying (laughing)
Matt: Wow.
Dave: That’s pretty bad.
Matt: It must have been.
John: It was pretty bad. I did not even make $40 like he did.
Matt: What happened?
John: I drove it like a girl, a little girl.
Matt: Why, what do you mean by that?
John: I had a pretty good car and at Martinsville it is so easy to make a mistake in qualifying. You either lock the right front tire or lock the rear like Dale Jarrett did and hit the wall. Or just plain miss your marks. I hit all my marks but, I was doing them about 100 mph slower than I should have been. I wasn’t worried, because I knew in the race we would be OK. So, I started in the back and drove all the way up to 15th. Came in got 4 tires and not everyone did, some guys got two. I got back up to 15th and blew a left rear tire. We did that right away and in 40 laps I was back up there. We came in and blew a left rear tire, which this happened all under green. Everyone else who blew left front tires ummm…. What I think is there you run pretty low tire pressure and for what ever reason not had a problem before. I wasn’t the only one, but the other guys spun to bring out a caution and I did not spin. I just drove around to the pits. After that I thought we were still OK, because the car was really fast and at that point I had already passed everyone on the track at least once. On the restart I passed Dale Jr. who was leading the race and drove away from him when I blew another left rear tire. I think the bead was just coming off the wheel. Then I was five laps down and there is no luck dog pass when you are that far down, you are not going to get that lap back. With 60-70 laps to go we restarted at the back, because that is our Phoenix car. I just eased my way through, and at the end of the race we were still running laps a few tenths quicker than Gordon. He was driving pretty hard to keep Jimmy Johnson behind him. We passed everyone though at least once and it is by far the best car I have driven in a long time. We had a pretty good car at Richmond this year and felt like we had a shot at winning with that one. In this one I felt like if we finished top five we should have our heads down because it was that good.
Dave: You must be communicating well with this new team then.
John: I think that going back to non areo tracks, the short tracks that we do better, because we are not fighting we cannot see. Where everyone does their bodies different you cannot see, like they have different balance. We have right now CSI Martinsville working on finding Matt Hibblin for shooting out my left rear tires.
Matt: I am sure I have an alibi.
John: I am sure you do, drunk on a floor somewhere.
Dave: Get the CSI from Miami he is mean!
John: We like the guy from Vegas better.
Dave: Yea he will be able to track him down, as long as he ends up in jail.
John: We have CSI Martinsville though, those guys are tough.
Dave: Are you kidding those Morgan County CSI guys?
John: I am talking about Virginia, they come with a gun.
Dave: No kidding, well we will keep our fingers crossed for you this weekend. Good luck Where are you at again this weekend?
John: Atlanta
Dave: Atlanta?
John: Atlanta, Phoenix, Rockingham, and Homestead.
Dave: Hang in there and we are looking forward to an announcement about next year still.
John: I am looking more forward to pushing Matt out of an air plane.
Matt: Yea yea yea. The plane has been warming up for over a month.
John: He’s getting a little confident isn’t he?
Dave: Yea.
Matt: Every week I am going to get a little more mouthy.
John: Man, I don’t know how that could ever happen.
Dave: All right John, Good luck buddy and we will talk to you next Tuesday.
John: Thanks a lot I appreciate it.
THE END