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NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES: PEP BOYS AUTO 500

September 6, 2009

HAMPTON, GEORGIA

KERRY THARP: We're going to go ahead and roll into your post race interviews for tonight's race. Our race runner-up in tonight's race, Kevin Harvick. Kevin, congratulations on a good performance tonight. You had a good weekend. Your thoughts about how your team performed out there this evening?
KEVIN HARVICK: We had a great car tonight. The guys did a great job preparing the car. I knew we were in trouble there at the end because it took our car 15 or 20 laps to get going. But, hey, that's a long ways from where we've been. We led a bunch of laps tonight, something we haven't been able to do in a while.
I'm happy. Obviously you want to go out and win. But from where we've been this year, I think tonight feels like a win. We'll just take this momentum and hopefully keep it going.
KERRY THARP: We'll take questions now for Kevin Harvick.

Q. Kevin, it looked really squirrelly out there. What kind of loose conditions were there and how difficult was it to control the cars? Was it like driving on ice?
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, it was basically like driving on ice. The cars were hard to drive. But the good thing about this place is you can move from the top to bottom to the middle and find yourself somewhere to run. It's a fun racetrack. It's a full night's work, to say the least. But still a fun racetrack to race on.

Q. Kevin, this was a two-day show. You didn't get any night practice. Next year coming here, would you like to have the practice at night?
KEVIN HARVICK: No, I think the teams enjoy the shorter schedule, especially on a holiday weekend. You get to spend another day at home. The track conditions really didn't change that much for us. We changed very little from practice to the race. The car drove good all night.
I think the conditions were fine. Conditions were fine yesterday. I think the more days we can give these guys at home, the better off we'll in the long run, letting them spend more time with their families.

Q. We saw a lot of guys go from the front back to the mid pack. When you got up there, you were one of the consistent guys. Was there anything about your setup? What was it about your car that allowed you to stay up front?
KEVIN HARVICK: My car was good halfway through the run to the end of the runs. I would give up five, six, seven spots at the beginning of the run. That didn't pay off for us in the end. Like I say, it was a good night. That was the thing that we tuned our car to, was to be consistent and good to drive lap after. Didn't have a lot of speed at the beginning of the runs, but it was consistent. I can manage it all night.

Q. Kevin, what does your performance this weekend do for your own confidence in the racecar? How do you look at this weekend?
KEVIN HARVICK: Well, our cars have run fairly well for the last seven, eight weeks. We just wind up wrecked or something stupid happening for the last little while. Seems like everything that's been happening has just kind of piled on. You know, any momentum is in a good -- in a good direction is a positive thing for us. It lets us know that we do remember how to race, just overcome a lot of things and hopefully keep it going.

Q. Lane choice for the last restart, did you still think you could catch Kasey?
KEVIN HARVICK: No, I knew I wasn't going to catch him once he got guy. He went by me like he was making qualifying laps. He did that three or four times during the night. So I knew I was in -- the car didn't fall the right way. We didn't give up. Went as hard as we could and came up one short.
KERRY THARP: Kevin, thank you very much. Good job this weekend.
Also joining us up here right now is our third-place finisher with a very strong performance, Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan, you moved up a spot in the points standings. You're now eighth. Certainly that's something you wanted to accomplish. Talk about your performance out there this evening.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I think it's great. I think everything on the Target team did an amazing job. Last race in Bristol I thought we had a chance of winning. We had a flat tire. It cost actually a lot in points.
Two races with flat tires, we come here, lost a bunch of points, it's always kind of worrying. Every restart you go, Please, nobody slide into me, things like that. It was nice to see that Kasey and Kevin and myself were the three fastest cars by a mile. Once you got in line, after the first corner, you knew you were fine.
I thought I had a shot. That 9 car in the last run was incredibly fast.
KERRY THARP: Questions now for Juan Pablo Montoya.

Q. Obviously you made progress tonight points-wise. Does that change your approach next week at all?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: No. But it just makes life easier. Apart that we're eighth in points, we got 88 points in or something. I think it's just big. They got to have a very good day and we got to have a terrible day. It still can happen. In the position we are in right now, it's just about go there, we have a great car for there, just be smart, get a top 10.

Q. What is it like in this Chase right now? As soon as you're out of the car, you were looking at a screen.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: As good as you want to look at the screen this race, as bad as I was in Bristol. We were not sure we had the flat tire, we were running eighth, so we decided let's stay out. Actually it cost us a lot. But you come out of there and you think I'm going to be 14 in points. You lost only two places.
If you really look at the bigger picture, we're pretty good. We're in good shape right now.

Q. I think maybe you touched the wall at some point.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Once.

Q. What happened there?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I ran out of talent (laughter).
I don't know. Just one more and one more. In one and two, right against the fence, there's some little bumps. Right when you're probably within two inches of the wall. I was doing that every time. Once the car slide, I'm like, This is not going to be good. It's good. I didn't hit it that hard. Made the car a little bit tighter.
It's crazy. We were like average great one run, horrible the next. We just kept working at it. We're learning that we just got to keep working on the car every day, every stop, everything. We're getting there. If we keep running like this, we might even have a shot at the championship. That is nice to see.
KERRY THARP: Thank you, Juan.

End of FastScripts

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