MA:
I actually sort of half thought about it. If NASCAR was going to give Robby an extended hold, I was gonna pick up the phone and see if he wanted a driver for it.
RG:
I was gonna stick him in it.
MA:
It’s just worked out good. Great minds think a like, and I’ve got to thank the fan whoever wrote in to suggest it because it’s a good idea.
Q:
Do you think NASCAR’s penalty was their way of admitting they were wrong because there were no points and it wasn’t like $100,000 or something like that.
RG:
I don’t think NASCAR is ever gonna admit doing wrong things. It’s a judgment call. There are a lot of ways to look at this. I think there’s a hole here in the rulebook that they need to take a look at and I’ve voiced my concerns with both Joe (Balash) and with John Darby about the yellow flag situation. I was pretty confident that he didn’t turn me on purpose because as soon as I made the pass, I looked up out of the corner of my eye and I saw the yellow flag. I was like, ‘Oh man, did I get it done before the yellow or after the yellow?’ The first thing I thought of was, ‘lift, slow down to a cautious speed,’ and then all of a sudden I’m going backwards. From that point on, the rest of the day was set from the stage that happened right there that was a judgment call. Unfortunately, I got put in a position to do things that I probably wouldn’t do next time around and wouldn’t do what I did. But I had mental emotions at the time. ‘OK, if I’m going to appeal this thing, how are you gonna appeal it if you don’t win the race?’ That’s basically what I went through at the time and, obviously, looking back at it that was the wrong thing to do. As far as running Marcos in a car as well, I had to consult with my sponsors to make sure they were cool with it because we’re running Verizon Wireless in the Busch car and we’re gonna run Jim Beam in the Nextel Cup car this weekend with the #7 car, and this is a good opportunity for us to pull into Victory Lane with our first Nextel Cup win as an owner and a driver. When I approached it with Jim Beam they’re like, ‘Man, that shows true character that you’re willing to put him in a car and go to one of your current sponsors with Camping World and say, hey, are you guys up for this?’ And Marcus from Camping World too, he was great. He’s like, ‘I think that’s a great idea. I’m in. Count me in.’ I’ve got to be honest, on Monday night I didn’t sleep all night long. It’s like, ‘Alright, we’ve got to make sure that we can get engines. We’ve got to make sure that the Wood Brothers are gonna be cool with it.’ I went through all the scenarios all night long on Monday because I was actually kind of excited about giving him an opportunity to go out here and perform and compete against the best racers in America.
Q:
What about the probation clause about actions detrimental to stock car racing?
RG:
I’ve obviously seen some of the emails that have come and things like, ‘Oh, Robby put people at risk.’ Well, I can tell you that at no point at anytime did I ever lose control of the car, except for when I was spun out. I’m sorry to say that, but all the rest of the time I had perfect control of my race car. I’m a professional at driving these race cars and I have control of my car all the time, so it wasn’t a risk thing. It was such a huge disappointment. I’m sure his team is looking at the same thing because we hear it from the media everyday. ‘How does a single-car team compete? The day of the single car teams competing against the super teams isn’t gonna happen.’ Well, when you look in the Busch Series, the super teams actually win the Busch races too. With Kevin Harvick winning the race, both of our teams were in a position to beat that big super team. Ray Evernham had cars in the race. Jack Roush had cars in the race. We can compete and we can compete at the level against the best teams out there. Now, because we’ve only got one car doing it and not four cars, it’s harder for us to get our team into Victory Lane, but it is possible to do so. I think maybe this weekend if I don’t get the opportunity to, I hope that Marcos will get the opportunity to put our car in Victory Lane.”
Q:
How close are you to becoming a two-car team?
RG:
When you pulled in the driveway you probably saw that we are expanding our building. We’re in a position now where a lot of our policies and procedures are in place. Everybody says, ‘What do you mean by policies and procedures?’ I’m talking about just the basics. When you go to hire an employee, now we can hand an employee a book and say, ‘Here, this is what your job is gonna be. This is what your job is gonna be. Here’s how you do it here at Robby Gordon Motorsports.’ And having something like that allows us to grow. For the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve been just building our books, building our policies and building our procedures. I’ve got to be honest, if I would have brought on another car, that would have put me in the hole longer because we wouldn’t have had our I’s dotted and T’s crossed. I think we’re organized as a race team now to be able to run a Busch car and a Cup car on the same weekends. This weekend is gonna push us. As a team it’s gonna push us, but, like I said, I went to my sponsors and they were good with it because they felt it was the right thing to do.”
Q:
Your sponsors have always stood behind you.
RG:
The only reason any of us have sponsors today in this day and age is because of performance, popularity, etc. It’s about marketing. It’s about promotions, etc. If you go down and you do searches on drivers, we continue – even though I’m 29th in points today whereas I was 25th last week, we lost some points – we continue to be a top-10 rated driver. However you want to rate your driver as far as popularity. I’ve been able to do that time and time again, and I think that’s how we’re able to keep ourselves in a position to have the sponsors that we do.”
![Marcos Ambrose - Kingsford Charcoal/Wood Bros Ford [pic credit: BAM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/292515.jpg)
