Q&A: Mears, Newman, Bowyer.

Tuesday, 21st February 2006

They may have come up a little short in NASCAR’s biggest race, but Daytona 500 runner-up Casey Mears, third place finisher Ryan Newman and top rookie Clint Bowyer still had plenty to smile (and talk) about after the race.

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The next stop, we didn't make as big of an adjustment to free the car up as we should have 'cause we thought that out of balance wheel was maybe the biggest problem. Fought a really tight car throughout the middle of race. Kind of got caught in the back, there were a lot of guys just kind of riding. It was hard to move forward. You'd try to give the guy a shove, try to work with somebody, they were just content to ride in the back. So it was hard to break that first wave of guys in the back row. Once you get beyond those guys, you could start making some progress.

A great day for us. Right there at the end, got to thank Elliott Sadler for giving me a heck of a shove. Thought about going with Newman there for a little bit. As soon as he pulled out, the 38 had a big run on me, I had to stay at the bottom. Gave me a good shove to cross the start/finish line.

Q.
Casey, describe if your car was variable during the day or did you feel like you had as good a car throughout the 500 as you did at the end?

CASEY MEARS:
No, I had a better car at the end. Donnie did an excellent job tuning the car. We made some pretty drastic changes to free the car up. It was really, really tight towards the middle. I could get through three and four really good. But one and two, it was really slick.

I think a lot of the reason for that was the wind was blowing down the front stretch from turns three and four towards one and two. That mist was in the air the whole time. I think the mist was catching on the banking over there in one and two. It wasn't in three and four. The car worked great in three and four. I would go into one and two, it would be so tight, I couldn't get through the corners.

Kind of the fought that. That was something that everybody had to fight. You know, what a good day for us. I don't even know what to say. This is my career best finish. Just couldn't be happier with the way we started this year off.

Q.
Clint, you're the top finishing rookie, but also the top finishing guy from Richard Childress Racing. That says a lot here at Daytona.

CLINT BOWYER:
Yeah, it's going to be a strong rookie class. It's going to be a fight all the way to the end in that thing. You know, as far as RCR goes, never could really find each other. I tried to help Burton for a little bit. They were both running, they were content on the bottom. I was just too tight, or for whatever reason, my car wouldn't go down there. I had to keep it up high.