by SPEED Channel,

David Hoots, Nextel Cup Series race director: Crew chiefs, this is very important. I want you to listen to this, and listen to it carefully. The tire pressures will be monitored. I want you to cooperate with the NASCAR inspectors. Make sure your tire guys understand this for real, and they're not to play any games with the inspectors. The penalty really is simple if you don't honor this, you're not coming out of the pits. So just take care of it, and we'll have a great afternoon.

John Roberts: Let's remember guys what happened in Charlotte. They started having the tires blister. NASCAR came out with the minimum air pressure that everybody had to follow. Now after some of the guys jacked the air pressure up, that was when their trouble started, was it not?

Jimmy Spencer: Not necessarily, J.R. I think that we can't... First of all, NASCAR is the best organization in the world, especially running motorsports, and what they're doing is going to protect us, the drivers. They're going to put a race on, Kenny. We all know that. But the thing is at Charlotte, it was the track was ground. It had a tremendous amount of grip. The tire was the wrong tire for it. It just was a bad situation. The opposite is going to happen today.

John Roberts: So why mandate air pressure today?

Kenny Wallace: You know, that's a good question, and I was getting ready to talk about that J.R. That's a great question, and that's what I say. You know what, why? Why? What's going on here lately? We can understand Charlotte because it was levigated. It was ground down. We were running over a second and a half quicker at Charlotte. I understand that, but why all the tire problems right now could be because of these new chassis setups. Very soft front springs. Very quick camber gains.

Jimmy Spencer: It's bottoming out.

Kenny Wallace: People not being able to control their right front camber gains, and like Mark Martin said, wearing the inside edge of these Goodyear tires out and abusing them like they've never been abused before.

Mears' crew chief's new addition

Jimmy Spencer: Casey, a lot of things happening today. What are some of the things that you're looking at today. I know there are some changes going on today for you.

Casey Mears: First of all, I just want to say congratulations to (crew chief) Jimmy Elledge and Kelley back home. They just had a baby (girl), and Jimmy's back home right now. (He's) going to miss the race this weekend, but fortunately had practice with him. Brian Pattie is going to be filling in for a day. I just want to say congratulations to them.

Bob Dillner: You're going on top of the Casey Mears box today. Why?

Brian Pattie: Jimmy and Kelley had their baby (on Saturday), Kennedy Dale, and everything is doing good at home so he's helped me out the last six to eight weeks so the least I could do is help him out today.