NASCAR drivers talk about upcoming Chase for the Cup
With five races left to determine the series' top 12, teams are looking for points.
Before each NASCAR Sprint Cup race, the series' top drivers chat with reporters, often in the garage behind the giant trucks that transport their stock cars from coast to coast.
Today's interviews were at the Watkins Glen International road course in New York, where qualifying was rained out ahead of Sunday's race.
Much of the talk centered on the upcoming NASCAR Chase for the Cup title playoff. Only five races remain to determine the top 12 drivers who will fight for the championship during the season's final 10 events. Drivers with wins this year also start the Chase with bonus points for each victory.
After Watkins Glen, the series moves to Michigan International Raceway on Aug. 17, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway on Aug. 23 and then Auto Club Speedway, the two-mile oval in Fontana, for the Pepsi 500 on Aug. 31.
The final race before the Chase is Sept. 6 at Richmond, Va.
Besides the Chase, however, the interviews today covered a range of other NASCAR topics, and here's a sample from the race teams' transcripts:
* Kevin Harvick, on whether he looks back at his accident -- and near fist fight -- with Juan Pablo Montoya a year ago at Watkins Glen:
"That's a year removed. We don't dwell on those things, you guys do."
* Reigning champion Jimmie Johnson, on how he approaches the last five races before the Chase:
"I just try to keep things as simple as possible. I try to lead a lap to get the [five] bonus [points], and try to lead the most laps if I can, and try to finish as good as I can without sticking it in the fence."
* Points leader Kyle Busch, on the importance of the Chase bonus points for wins:
"Fortunately we have been lucky enough to win seven races. We can only hope that we win a couple more and try to get further ahead of the competition when the Chase starts."
* Dale Earnhardt Jr., on whether some have "delusions of grandeur" about how good NASCAR used to be:
"Yes, I think so. I think a lot of it might have been not so much the competition itself, but the personalities . . . the Dale Earnhardts, the Darrell Waltrips, the Bobby Allisons and others.
"We have a lot of great personalities now, but the sport itself has become a whole lot more corporate and a lot less personal in that respect. You have to be a whole lot more stale [today] than you want to be.
"The racing was different but I personally don't think it was better then. I think actually if you laid down two races side-by-side, what we have today and what they had then, I think you would sell more tickets to what we have today [but] I think if you ask the fans what lot of drivers they would prefer, they might say the old guys. I would."
* Denny Hamlin, on whether he favors the Cup series racing in the rain as NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series did last week in Montreal:
"I wouldn't like to see it done, just by watching the race last week . . . there was really no passing unless someone ran off the racetrack."
* Tony Stewart, on his opinion of the Nationwide race in the rain:
"I thought Goodyear did an excellent job of showing how prepared they were for that" with rain tires. "I'm their biggest critic at times, but I'm the first guy that when they do things right, I'm going to praise them too."
* Carl Edwards, with four wins this year and who is third in points, on knowing he's likely to make the Chase:
"All I have to do is try to win the race. I don't have to worry about points. I've got no stress. It's just go out and have fun, and that's a real rarity in Sprint Cup competition."
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