“The goal is to finish this season strong. Everyone on the team, including me, has stepped up to work better together. We’ve been doing everything we can this year to get a win and to be consistent, and we’ve had the consistency the past several weeks. Obviously Hendrick Motorsports has been so dominant at Martinsville, so there’s a little extra pressure to make it to Victory Lane there.”
Kasey Kahne
“Everything is a challenge for me at Martinsville. It has been a rough going every time I have been. I’m definitely going to look into it a lot this week before we go back, and running the truck race there on Saturday should help, too. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on it from the first race we ran this year as to what I want to do different going back and to try to just rethink that place. I didn’t have many short tracks that were similar to Martinsville in shape and size growing up short-track racing. A lot of the places were a little bigger, didn’t have quite as tight of a corner and not quite as heavy of braking. A lot of that stuff I’m just trying to sort through and trying to get an idea what I need to do to improve. I have some great teammates and I’ve tried to talk to the guys who have dominated that place over the years – especially Jeff (Gordon) and Jimmie (Johnson). I’ve spent a ton of time with each of them talking about Martinsville and trying to walk through some of the things that they do, some of the things they look for. I think, especially Jeff, the success he has had there last fall for instance; I’ve tried to talk to him as much as I could about that place. Both of them have been just as open as they can be about the things they look for, how they attack the track and the things they think that they are going to fight throughout a race. I just haven’t quite been able to put that together on the racetrack yet. I think if I focus on trying not to get too ahead of myself and focusing on the things that you focus on to short-track race – especially keeping that longevity in your race car over a long run -- will help. Making it to the end and running all 500 miles is obviously the most important thing, but I think just short-track racing in general you just want to try not to get too far ahead of yourself. I’m looking forward to trying to improve on that.”
Chase Elliott
“Martinsville has been such a great racetrack for us in the past but the last few trips there we have been an OK car – not a dominant car. We would like to become a dominant car again and use that to cash our ticket to Homestead-Miami early in this round. We’ve had a lot of success there because Martinsville is one of those consistent tracks that doesn’t change too much. I know my Lowe’s team is working hard in the shop this week on our Chevy – it’s an important race for sure.”
Jimmie Johnson
“You kind of like to leave a place with a win and I definitely don’t want to mess that up, but it’s also a track that I like and feel confident at. I don’t see why we couldn’t go there and contend for a win. We won there last year and I don’t think a lot has changed. The question is, ‘Were we the best car there?’ To me, I think we’d have to be a little bit better than we were last year to be in that position.”
Jeff Gordon