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September 28, 2014
DOVER, DELAWARE
THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by the crew chief of the No.24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet, Alan Gustafson. Congratulations on a great performance today. Talk about your strategy coming into this race.
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, we knew this was going to be a pressure‑packed race and really tough track. Dover is always‑‑ even when you're good here, it's a difficult racetrack to navigate, tight pit road, difficult conditions. The track rubbers up and then conditions change.
We knew we had to be on our game and we had to be focused, and we had to come together as a team and really work towards having a good run to transfer through, and I think all that kind of came to fruition here and we were able to win the race. Really good Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet, which was one of the best three cars, and I think for us the long run was what we needed at the end, and we got that and fortunately were able to hold off Brad and get the victory.
Q. Alan, how much information did you guys glean from the 4 car for the setup over the weekend? I talked to them earlier and they said there might have been a little bit of information sharing going on there.
ALAN GUSTAFSON: I mean, we look at all the information possible. Whatever we can use to get an advantage, we do. I wouldn't say that the information we got from them was any more than normal. They're obviously very fast, and it's nice to be able to play off them, and we were able to do that some this weekend. Obviously we've got a really good teammate with Jimmie Johnson. He's okay around here. We leaned on him a little bit. It's just kind of normal. At the end of the day, we've got a lot of resource, and we've got to take advantage of it.
Q. Alan, obviously you're not going to celebrate this win too much so I'm going to go ahead and look ahead and put the heat on you immediately. Obviously Penske and Hendrick have won all the mile‑and‑a‑half tracks. You've got a track coming up where you won at next week, you've got another track in Charlotte where the organization is strong. What needs to happen the next two weeks? How important are those two weeks to not have to worry as much about pressure situation at Talladega?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, I mean, absolutely, they're very important. You know, every race is important, but those two are as important as any that we run. Nobody wants to go into Talladega having to make something happen. I think that's leaving yourself to a lot of circumstances in not having a lot of things in your control.
I think we all feel like going to Kansas and Charlotte, those are racetracks that more of our finish and the outcome of the race is going to be in our control, and we want to take advantage of those two tracks, and ultimately the goal is to win one of those two tracks and you don't have to worry about going to Talladega.
At the end of the day, Talladega has always been a factor in the Chase. It's going to continue to be a factor in the Chase. Whoever has won the championship has had to navigate that track, and I don't think that's going to be any different. The two guys who are able to lock in at Kansas and Charlotte are going to go there in a lot better mood than the rest of the competitors.
Q. Also another point, can you sympathize, if that's the right word, with a guy like Rodney Childers? They've been fast so many times this year and only having the two wins, certainly could have won several races and potentially someplace like today. What's that like to go through something like that, or have you had any kind of experience that even kind of mirrors that? I don't think you have, have you?
ALAN GUSTAFSON: Yeah, it's a very humbling sport. I've had a lot of circumstances‑‑ you always feel like you should have won the race when you have a car that fast, and there's plenty of times in my career that I've had the fastest car and not won the race, and it's happened a lot. That's just the way the sport is. You have to continue to put yourself in position and kind of play the odds, and eventually you're going to get your wins and get your opportunities to win. If they run the way they're going to run, it's going to happen to them for sure, and it's not like they've finished 30th every week. I mean, they've still finished very, very well.
Rodney is a good friend of mine, and I wish him nothing but the best. I hate to see him have those problems, but I'm not going to lose any sleep at night over it. I'll worry about my stuff.
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Thanks a lot, Alan.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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