Anyway, I really just read something that was from Chad to the crew today, just telling them to do their best job, just the normal stuff to give everybody a shot in the arm, get them excited, get them fired up for the race, something from his side saying, "I believe in you guys, I've trained you well, do your job today," and everybody did.
MODERATOR:
Crew chief Darian Grubb and team own Rick Hendrick. Gentlemen, could each of you let us know how you're feeling.
DARIAN GRUBB:
I just wanted to thank Chad for building this team the way he has. This job is very hard. I don't want to kid anybody on that. Chad always has done a great job, but he has trained me very well. I've worked with him for three years straight. I think I've learned everything I've ever learned from him.
This is unbelievable. I mean, first time out, win the Daytona 500. I think the only other person that batted a thousand was Randy Dorton. Those are some huge shoes to fill. Very honoured and very happy to be given the opportunity to do this.
RICK HENDRICK:,/B>
Well, every one of these things is sweet, and this one was kind of double sweet. You know, I just really don't know. You work so hard for Daytona. It's such an important race. You never know you're going to win it until the last lap and the chequered flag. A lot of things can happen. I've been disappointed down here a lot. It's been really good to us and we've been lucky enough to win six of these things.
Just proud of the organisation. Jimmie drove a smart race. Darian did a super job. We're just happy to be here, happy to be in this position.
Q.
Rick, you know as we go forward this week there's going to be a lot of questions about what happened last week, this happening in light of it. Jimmie already answered the question, so I'll ask it of you. Do you believe that it's fair to say this has any kind of a taint or black mark or cloud over it because of the fact that the car that was going into the Daytona USA last week was found to have some kind of rules violation on it?
RICK HENDRICK:
It had a template - it didn't meet the templates. The car, the window, back glass, was changed. I think it's a non-issue. As far as we're concerned, we went out there and we had to start in the back of the 150, raced our way to the front. We've been through inspection I don't know how many times. It's not the first time a template didn't fit, and I don't see that, it's kind of a non-issue. When NASCAR did what they did, and we came back, went through inspection with the car, then went out and ran a race, then two races, I think that was history. That's the way I look at it.
Q.
Jimmie, last year in restrictor plate races, you were often the focus of attention for maybe the wrong reasons from both your point of view and our point of view. It looked like it might start out that way again this week with what happened on Sunday. Is it vindicating that you can kind of fly under the radar in this race, sort of come up late, take a win like that, not have all the normal controversy?
JIMMIE JOHNSON:
You have no idea how proud I am to be sitting here as the winner of the Daytona 500. There's been a lot of hating on the 48 team over the last year with some restrictor plate issues and an that issue I caused at the second Talladega race. There was some stuff before that that I didn't think was unfair, a lot of criticism on this team, me personally for driving the car, and then what took place this week with this team.
![Jimmie Johnson (Lowes/Hendrick Motorsport Chevrolet) celebrates his win in the 2006 Daytona 500 [pic GM Media/Dorsey Patrick]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/194780.jpg)
