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NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES: POCONO 400June 8, 2014Steve LetarteLONG POND, PENNSYLVANIA KRISTI KING: We are joined by crew chief Steve Letarte with the No.88 National Guard Chevrolet team. Steve, this is the second victory of 2014 for Dale Jr. This is also the second victory, actually first multiple wins for Dale Jr. since 2004. Talk a little bit about your strategy this season, your going‑away season. A lot of things going on with the team this year. Just talk a little bit about what it means to be sitting here at Pocono with two wins this season. STEVE LETARTE: It means the world to win races. That's why we all got into racing in the first place. We talk a lot about the Chase and points and all those different things and they're very important, but when you start as a little kid in racing you learn that you want to win. That's why you do it. Racing is a very difficult sport, 500 seasons don't really exist like they do in stick‑and‑ball sports, so wins are usually fewer and farther between than in other sports. You really appreciate them when they come, and today was a great day. We had a good car most of the day. I don't think we had the best car but we were very efficient on pit road. I thought we had a pretty efficient pit strategy. Dale drove a great race, made very few mistakes and then I think we had a little luck on our side at the end, but you have to put yourself in this position to have that luck fall your way. We've had some races fall the opposite that we thought we could have won, and this one probably fell our way from second, and we'll take it. KRISTI KING: This is your second Pocono win. Your first came with Jeff Gordon here in June of 2007. Talk a little bit about that and what it means here at Pocono. STEVE LETARTE: The first one was a rain‑shortened race, that we kind of got a little lucky on that one, too. We had a good car, but it really fell our way that day. So this is a good race for a crew chief to kind of hang your hat on. There's a lot of strategy that goes into this. It's a very difficult race track to pass on and to get the advantage on pit road because everybody has the same idea, and with about 30 to go we were actually very pleased with our position. We thought we had the best fuel, and in second position, which was a good strategy for us. And then the cautions started coming out, which made it a little bit more stressful, but in the end it worked out our way. Q. Steve, obviously a piece of paper played a big role in today's outcome. What are the dynamics of that at a track like this? Is it inevitable that Brad's engine would blow in three, five, seven laps, or how do you look at that? STEVE LETARTE: I think for Brad's engine you probably have to call Doug Yates to get their opinion on it. Yeah, we have that information on what's too hot, how long we feel it will run there, what the calculated risk is at running at that temperature, you can look at the paper, it was definitely hurting his motor but helping a ton on the downforce, so it definitely was a big advantage as far as downforce goes to be the leader with paper on the grille. We had that at Daytona for the 500, so it was probably helping the handling, hurting the straightaways, and then they have to manage it as they see fit. It says a lot about a race team that can manage that and talk about it and make a decision that ultimately perhaps costs them the race if we weren't able to go by them the other way. I think it says a lot about Paul. I respect him tremendously in the garage. I think he manages a race very well and stays calm under pressure and I think you saw that again today. In the end you have to make it 400 miles. It's not a 395‑mile race. Earlier in the race, we had paper on our grille, had to fall back. Luckily, the timing of that was about lap 5 or 6 of the race so it didn't really affect the outcome, but it's a lot like the concrete last week and when you have tire issues at places or whatever it may be, there's adversity thrown at everyone, and that's what makes racing one of the cool, true reality TVs in the world, because no one really has any idea how it's going to end up. Q. In one of his interviews after the race, Dale Jr. said, I'm having the best time of my life. I think the rest of the crew could say the same. Is that an accurate assessment, and is there something more to it than just winning two races? STEVE LETARTE: Well, I mean, you have to ask Dale why he made that statement. I can't really speak for him. I know the race team, we're having a blast. We're having fun.  We go to the racetrack expecting good results because of the momentum and the hard work and the race cars we've brought. That's a good problem to have, to have high expectations. You have to be very careful. They can become fragile very quick and you have to manage them when they don't come your way. Finishing 43rd at Texas was a perfect example of you learn more about your race team finishing 43rd at Texas than you ever will winning Pocono. It's emotionally easy to win races, it's difficult to lose them. I think we're having success. We're running well. We're winning races, and we enjoy each other's company. I don't think we have any internal issues within the race team. When you take a group of 10 or 15 guys and travel all over the country 38, 40, 42 times during the year. I mean, just this week, we raced wherever we were at, Dover, left Monday night for Loudon, spent two days in Loudon, went home for‑‑ the joke was when I got to the airport on Thursday, is two of my guys looked at me and said, wow, it's good to see you. It's been 15 hours. I was getting worried about you. That's how much time we spend time together, so to see some results for all that hard work really makes it worth it. I'm having a blast, as well, so I'm glad he is. Q.  Can you explain how Dale has changed as a driver since you took over as crew chief? Obviously this is his first multi‑win season in 10 years. STEVE LETARTE: Well, I worked very hard at not forming an opinion at what Dale Jr. was before I became his crew chief. That was one of my goals, is when Rick told me, I rode up to his house, we sat down, we started talking, even though I knew we knew each other to say hello, we obviously worked at the same company, we kind of re‑introduced one another and started laying out the groundwork for what we needed to do to run well, and I think he's a tremendous talent behind the wheel with a tremendous amount of desire to run well, and then you have to throw the world's expectations on him that no one in this room nor myself could measure or believe we understand, and I don't try to understand it. Maybe that's why him and I are such good friends, because I might be the only one in the world that doesn't wonder what it's like to be Dale Jr. He's a normal guy, he's a great guy, he's a great talent. I don't pretend I have any idea what it's like to be him. I can't really fathom the idea. But he handles it with grace, and much like winning, he handles it with even more grace when it's not going well, and I think that says a lot about him, and then when you get to win races with him and see him put on that genuine smile and have a good time, man, it's a blast. Q. You guys are really in a groove this year and you do have a lot of momentum. How hard is it going to be leaving this team at the end of 2014? STEVE LETARTE: Well, you guys only get to see the great stuff, which is a win at Daytona and a win here, but Saturday of Kansas my little girl had her first communion and I was in Kansas. When moments like that happen it reaffirms why I made my decision. I love my job. I've loved my job for 20 years. I love the people I work with. I consider Dale and some other guys on this team my best friends in the world. The best man in my wedding is on my race team. This is my life. This is how I was raised. But I chose nine years ago, 10 years ago, 11 years ago now to have a family, and when I made that decision, that was not a casual decision, that was a decision for the next‑‑ forever. You know, I feel as much as I love my job, they have to come first. Six‑and‑a‑half days a week I think I'm really going to love my job, my new job, and there's four hours on Sunday I have no idea how I'm going to replace it yet, so I'll have to find a hobby, I think. Q. Steve, a couple things. What kind of a threshold is it to win multiple wins in a season, and second, why now do you feel like you guys are winning or can win multiple races? You've had some good seasons and had good streaks but couldn't get those wins, so why are they happening now? STEVE LETARTE: I don't know if it can be measured. Racing is a very finicky sport, and it's the difference between first and fourth is almost immeasurable in most of these races. It's a moment in time during 400 miles that a talented crew chief might see or a talented driver, but the normal fan or even the media has no idea that that was the change of the outcome of the race. They happen all the time. I don't mean the big monumental ones. It's the very simple ones that we as experts, the crew chiefs and drivers in the sport, we see them, and sometimes you get done with the race and you didn't see it, and you have to go back and review it and try to be better. To answer that question is next to impossible because your success on the racetrack has so much to do with everyone else's input, not your own, not your race team. If the 4 car has a better day today, I don't know if we outrun them on the racetrack. So we don't do anything different. We run the same race, make the same calls, drive the same laps and run second to the 4 car. Those are the opportunities. I would say if we had an Aquafina bottle of more fuel at Las Vegas, Brad Keselowski doesn't win there. So it's so hard to measure how you win multiple races, and how you do it is you have consistent speed, consistent opportunity, and you have to kind of play the odds that if you deserve to win races long enough, surely some have to fall your way, and I think that's what happened today. You see the same with Jimmie Johnson. I know it feels great to share a building with Chad Knaus, and seeing their success and to know that our building has won the last three races says a lot about our group of guys. We've been testing last week, we have the 48 testing next week at Chicago, we've been doing a lot, so I'm proud of that group, and I think they have as much to do with us breaking through with a multi‑win season as anybody. KRISTI KING: Steve, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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