NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Quicken Loans 400

Topics:  Quicken Loans 400

Tony Stewart
June 17, 2012

BROOKLYN, MICHIGAN

KERRY THARP:  Let's roll right into our post‑race for today's 44th annual quicken loans 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race here at Michigan International Speedway, and our second place finisher is Tony Stewart, he drives the No. 14 Office Depot Mobil 1 Chevrolet for Stewart‑Haas Racing.
And Tony, certainly, got here Thursday, tested Thursday, tested Friday, changed tires Saturday, you had a heck of a car out there today, and were racing for the win and congratulations.  Just talk about how things played out for you here today.
TONY STEWART:  I'm really proud of our guys.  You know, we did the Bristol test on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we have been in a track 11 out of 12 days in a row.  So I've got a bunch of tired crew guys and a tired crew chief and I'm a tired driver but I'm really proud of the effort they put forth in the last week and a half.  They did an awesome job at Pocono.  We had a fast car all week until the happy hour session last night, and you know, we just couldn't get ahold of the racetrack.
But I'm really proud of Steve Addington and our engineers.  They did a great job overnight and we started the day pretty much toward the front and never really lost that track position all day.  We had a pretty good car that we could pass with.  It was hard to pass, but it wasn't impossible.  But like I say, I was really, really proud of our guys.

Q.  How were the tires out there today?  And can you sum up your feelings for Dale Junior in winning that race?
TONY STEWART:  I thought the tires were, you know, they were pretty hard.  It was hard to run two‑wide through the corner.  You didn't see too many guys stay side‑by‑side by the corner.  Dale had the fastest car all day.  He could run pretty much the same pace the whole run.  We could do it for about the first half of the run and then we would lose pace.

Q.  Inaudible.
TONY STEWART:  No different to anybody else that does it.  It's not a national holiday, guys.  This morning, they were celebrating his fourth anniversary of his last win, so I guess we are all in a state of mourning now because he's broke that streak now, so I don't know what we are all supposed to think.

Q.  What's your sense what will happen in the second race in August?  Will they go back to softer if they get the blister problem figured out?
TONY STEWART:  I'm not sure what will happen.  Obviously the more age that gets on this track the better it will get.  The one thing that I think we need to give 100% credit to Goodyear for this weekend.  I mean, what they had to do yesterday was a really hard decision‑‑ or Friday night, I guess, it was a hard decision to make.  It was for the betterment of all of us as drivers and teams and for the sport.
So every one of us need to walk through the garage and stop at good year and stake every one of their guy's hands, because there were a lot of guys that worked really hard yesterday just getting the tires inside the track, they had to load them in, in the back of pickup trucks because they didn't get here before qualifying started.  They were trucking in tires, literally in the back of pick ups to get them in, and there was a lot of Goodyear texts that were mounting and dismounting and balancing a lot of tires.  Without those guys' effort, we would not have had the show that we had today.
KERRY THARP:  Congratulations and good luck out there at Sonoma.