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Racing to win, not just riding around
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Any time you get in a race car or go on a race track, there's danger, and the unexpected could always happen. We're all pretty confident and comfortable when we go to Martinsville. I know the track. I've raced there so much through the years and run the truck there the past few years. I feel very confident.
At 59 years of age, I'm not getting any younger, and it's hard to stay in shape and keep up my enthusiasm unless I know I'm going to get to race. Knowing that I'm going to get to race, I've been in the gym. I work out a lot and try to maintain my weight. It's really good for me physically to get in a car or truck and race occasionally. It gives me something to look forward to. I'd run the truck or race something every week if my family was OK with it. I can still git 'r done.
I'll keep racing until I realize that I can't do it anymore. There's going to be a time in my life when I'm going to say I just don't feel like racing. But as long as I still have that competitive fire burning inside of me, and I'm physically able and mentally sharp, I'll keep going to these race tracks. I tested at Caraway Speedway on Tuesday, and I'm as fast as anybody there. I get around the race track better than anybody else. I've still got my skills.
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I'm convinced that I can go to Martinsville on Saturday and win the race. If I get the car right, and the pit stops and strategy are good, I'm going to outrun Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle and that whole crowd. I can do it. I'm not going up there just for fun. I'm going to race. I've got a new car. The team has done a great job. Ray Evernham built me a good engine. I'm not going up there to ride around. If I'm up there and not competitive, it's not because I won't be trying. It'll be because we didn't get things right. I'm going to be as serious as I was the first time I showed up there in 1975.
Michael's car is 16th in owner points and the top 30 are locked into the race so we're good to go. I don't have the pressure of cutting one good lap. All of the Busch events are impound races so you qualify on your race setup. The car has been a little slow in qualifying, but it's raced really well. My Craftsman Truck driver, David Reutimann, has had three top 10's in it. Michael was 12th recently. When the car finishes the races, it's been in the top 10 pretty much every week so I'm not really worried about qualifying. I'll just work hard on race setup. Getting the car really consistent will get me up to the front eventually.
With this car, this team and my experience at Martinsville, a top-10 finish would be well worth the effort, and everybody is trying to give me that opportunity. We've got all day Thursday to tune up the car and dial it in like it needs to be. I don't think I'm being overly optimistic to say that I can run in the top 10.
| Ask DW |
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If I win this race on Saturday, the party will continue well into Sunday. We've already talked about what kind of celebration we would have, and I'm a little bit behind on burnouts and backflips. I'm going to try to do every one of them. There are a lot of things that I've never done so I'm going to do them all. I hope I've got plenty of gas left in the tank, before and after.
The Aaron's ad campaign has been going on about three years now. I've had to clean windows, caddy, mow yards and deliver furniture. I've been pretty much abused every way that my brother could think of. In every good ad campaign, somewhere there's got to be a payoff. You can't continue to do the same things over and over again if there's not a payoff, and this just turned out to be a great opportunity. And this race makes it that much better because after I get to drive it once, I'm probably going to want to try to drive it again somewhere.
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