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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Q.
Are you upset this could have been taken away from you, the win?

RYAN NEWMAN:
How?

CASEY MEARS:
That, I don't know.

RYAN NEWMAN:
The rules are the way the rules are. Jimmie was put to the back of the Gatorade Duel. I mean, he finished his car passed inspection from that point on. There's no questionability as far as that.

Q.
Casey, there was a lot of talk leading into the season, people expecting you to have a breakout season this year. You won in the Rolex race. You finished second/third here. Can you talk about the momentum that builds and explain you're not driving the same car next week, a completely different kind of track, are you confident you guys will be good on the intermediate tracks, too?

CASEY MEARS:
What's exciting about that is those are the places we were most competitive at last year, the intermediate tracks. The test that we had in Vegas, if it's indicative if the California track is anything like the Vegas track, which it's very similar, I feel pretty good about going into it.

You know, we'll just have to wait and see. The California race is totally different than what we just got done doing. It was great to win the 24 hours, it was great to have a good finish here. I'm very confident that we can have a good finish at California. We just got to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and do it right.

Q.
With the bump drafting being such an issue all week, what were your thoughts today with the zones and everything that has been going on?

RYAN NEWMAN:
I'll take this one. Just to reword your question a little bit, I don't think it was necessarily an issue as it was more of a question, you know, as far as how it was going to be enforced, the questionability of the judgment call.

All in all, obviously there was a couple, at least one that I know of, penalties throughout the race. There was definitely aggressive driving up towards the front in order to stay up front. That's part of this package.