I finally got on the brakes, and he turned me completely sideways. I didn't spin out but I went all the way to the wall. He went with me. We both went all the way up to the wall. I thought, man that was dumb. Lost both of us however many positions. I was really angry.
About a month later we were testing at Indianapolis, and somebody came and brought me a picture. They had the picture, they had it from turn three looking through my windshield. And you could see Dale in through the back windshield, you know, in the car. And I mean, you could just tell he was so far up underneath my rear bumper. We were both, you know, sideways with the wheel. I said, I've got to have that.
I rushed down to his truck immediately with that picture, and I went in there. 'Cause we had already talked about how he, you know, got me loose. He's like, "No, it wasn't me, I didn't do anything." So I had proof. I said, "I told you." I was like, "Man, you were six inches underneath my rear bumper." I had him autograph the picture. It's the only autograph I've ever gotten from a driver, you know, that I've raced against.
Q.
How do you like the new Monte Carlo?
JEFF GORDON:
New Monte-Carlo. Monte-Carlo SS, by the way. It was good. You know what I mean? There's very slight differences in the body change. We didn't expect there to be just this huge difference. We knew pretty much in the wind tunnel what we had. We made slight improvements to the car. We felt pretty good about it.
It's hard to tell gauging against the competition out there just where we stacked up, but felt at times really good and other times felt like we really had some work to do.
Q.
On being criticised when having an off-year
JEFF GORDON:
Right. Yeah, I think the criticism's come a little bit stronger, you know, come more often. For me, I understand why. We've won four championships, a lot of races. We've prided ourselves on being competitive every year and battle for the championship. When we're not, we recognise as well as everybody else we're having an off year.
![Jeff Gordon addresses the media in Las Vegas. [Pic Credit Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/192824.jpg)
