With Friday's on-track activity rained out at Pocono, the drivers had ample time to chat it up with the press. Here's a few of the more interesting "behind the hauler" sound bites that came out of the day's washout.How does Jimmie Johnson bide his time during a rain delay? “Days like today are really actually relaxing. At home there’s a lot going on. At the track, I usually catch up on emails and phone calls and catch up with friends and stuff like that. I’ll just sit around and hopefully not eat too much.” Hey Jimmie, if you get too bored, I could always use a pool boy. Love that Jimmie.
Ryan Newman on which turn he sets up for at the Tricky Triangle: “You make the car as good as you can and then as a driver you manipulate it the way you need to so if you’ve got to run the bottom of three or the top of one or the way you enter turn two that’s what you do as a driver. That’s why they put the steering wheel in there." Hear Hear! More drivers need to quit yappin' about setups and manhandle the dang car.
Rain delay an advantage for Mark Martin: "I view it as the less time on the track the better. I feel like for our team, for us we usually hit the track running and the longer we run the more the competition has a chance to catch up." Sounds like the old man's got it all under control. Maybe I should pick Martin to win Sunday's race ...
Jeff Burton surprised that the restart rule changed so quickly: “I’m shocked that we are doing this this year. I have become very used to the shipliner analogy about how it is hard to turn a ship real quick." Is there a fan who ISN'T thrilled about the new restart rule? Here's to more shootout-style racing.
Kasey Kahne gives a glowing review of this week's tire test at Indy: "The tire drove as good as any tire that we’ve had there with this car. It actually probably drove the best that we’ve had with this car. They (tires) didn’t blister. They didn’t cord. They looked really good. I was real pleased." I hope he's right. Another Indy race like last year and Tony Stewart won't be the only one on a tirade.
Jeff Gordon stops just short of calling Kyle Busch an instigator: "It's hard to create your own rivalry. I think Kyle is a little bit involved in that. He’d like there to be one. I don’t think Junior is really as involved with that as Kyle is. That’s cool, if it materializes on the race track. To me, rivals really are the guys who are battling on the race track that have sort of unique fanbase to themselves. And that is definitely true among Junior and Kyle because I’m pretty sure Kyle’s fans aren’t the same as Junior’s fans. " You can say that again.
