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Gordon and Montoya swap cars at Indy
- Thread starter cmarsh90
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Not bad from what I saw like him or not. IMO he is one of the few NASCAR drivers with enough talent whom could convert to roadracing and do ok at it.
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by how well Gordon did and Montoya genuinely looked like he was having fun in the Cup car. Not being a big NASCAR fan, but realizing Gordon as one of their best road racers, I gotta say I was impressed with how well he did. 1 second away from qualifying in last year's USGP - not too shabby.
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As the announcers admitted, "Was a good publicity stunt", but pretty entertaining nonetheless. Both drivers adapted very well, Gordon surpisingly well! Only one minor mistake apiece.
I haven't seen the swap yet but Gordon grew up as a Road Racer and he usually wins the road course races on the NASCRAP circuit.
Not that I watch that stuff...
Not that I watch that stuff...
Funny the perception many in the sportscar world or sections of the country have of these guys. Regardless of what people say about NASCAR you gotta have a pretty big set of nuts to do what these guys do.
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For immediate release
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA/JEFF GORDON
SPEED DEMONSTRATION PRESS CONFERENCE, JUNE 11, 2003
MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. We are here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My name is Mike King. I'm the anchor of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network, and I'll be your moderator. Juan is here, and we're only waiting on Jeff. I would like to ask, if you would, all check your cell phones or your pagers and turn those off if you would, please. That'd be great, or at least turn them to stun, whatever it is where we don't hear them while they're talking. We'll have about 15 or 20 minutes to spend with the guys, don't count on one?on?ones afterward is what I'm being told, so I want to try to get whatever we can. Here they are now. Jeff, good to see you. Juan, nice to see you. I would like to introduce some special guests that we have with us. From Hendrick Motorsports, Ken Howes, who is here, he's the director of competition, along with Jim Perkins, the CEO, the COO and the president of the Hendrick Automotive Group. They are with us here today, as is Robbie Loomis. Robbie is going to join us, as well as the crew chief of Jeff's No. 24 Dupont Chevy; and Mario Theissen, the BMW Motor Sports director is also here with us, as well, and so they will all be available following today's press conference if you'd like to speak with them.
Gentlemen. Juan Pablo, you went out first in Jeff's car, why don't we get your reaction first. What was it like?
MONTOYA: It was really good, actually. When we did the picture at the start/finish line, I took the car around, and I started quite slow. And I was wondering, ‘Oh, this must (inaudible) a lot,’ and afterward when you get up to speed it'd be fine and it was very stable, a lot of power. And they said to me you got to brake like 250 meters or something. I'm like, ‘No, it can't be.’ And when I first braked there, I nearly missed the corner. On my third lap, I missed the corner. You know, your foot is on the brakes and it's like, slow. But, you know, it handles quite well in the corners. It's really good, especially in the higher-speed corners because it moves around a lot, and you can really play with it. You know, if you could put better brake into it, it would go a lot quicker.
GORDON: I tell them that every weekend.
MODERATOR: Jeff, when you shut down the engine there on the FW24 after your runs there at speed, you let out a pretty good yee?haw. You looked like you were pretty happy.
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GORDON: I think that this should be considered the first annual Tradin' Paint session and we should do it every year, but not right before I get to go to Sears Point, though. I'm going to go to Sears Point in a couple weeks and not know what hit me. I can't even describe it. Juan and I talked about this before. It's like everything is opposite where, you know, he had to brake at the 250 and was like ‘Whoo’. I was like, you know, went to the 100, you know, down in there and, like said, I can go so much further, you know, and I just couldn't get on the brakes hard enough. And the corner, I think the biggest thing once I started getting a little bit of speed going was that the corner comes up so fast because you can drive in so deep because of the braking power, and the first couple times that I actually tried to drive in there, I about missed the corner because it came up to fast. When you drive in there and you stand on that brake, you better be ready to down shift and turn, and that was something. I'm so used to, you know, brake, wait a little bit, downshift, downshift, OK, now it's time to turn, and it's the same. It's like a slot car almost. The more and more I drove it, you know, obviously the more fun that I had because the more comfortable I was with it, but I can't even describe. It's amazing. It's just like point and shoot. You just drive in there, stop, turn and just go to the throttle as hard as you can. He told me that, but I didn't believe him. I was like maybe you can do that, but I don't know if I can do that, and I found that just getting back to that throttle with the traction control and all that. And then, being able to do the launch there off the start-finish line, I'm thankful that the weather held out because to me it was just an awesome day, and I'm really thankful to get the opportunity. I know who got the better end of the deal.
MODERATOR: You know, these guys race here in September. You'll miss the race obviously, you're racing that weekend.
GORDON: I think we're in Kansas City, and we've talked about coming over. I'd even like to jump up to Canada this weekend on Saturday, but I don't think I'm going to be able to. But I've never seen them in person. I watch them on TV all the time, thank goodness for the SPEED Channel, and now when I watch them I'm just going to have a much greater appreciation because it's a very demanding car. You have to really push the limits, and then once you start, fine-tuning it, you know, we didn't really make any adjustments, but I can't imagine just the amount of thought that goes in and feel that goes into just fine-tuning it to get the balance where it needs to be. I'm sure they had it set up tight for me so I didn't back it into anything, which I was thankful for.
MODERATOR: We will have mikes on each side of the room. I want to remind you that Jeff and Juan Pablo represent four victories here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Jeff won the Brickyard 400 in 94, '98 and again in '01, and Juan Pablo won the 2000 Indianapolis 500. Deb's on this side. I'm on this side. Please wait for the microphone, once we get it to you because this press conference is being transcribed.
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Q: Jeff, you look pretty good out there, you seemed to acquaint yourself very well. Any thoughts that you may have missed your calling? Would you like to have another serious shot at this?
GORDON: I'd like to have some more laps out there. I made some mistakes and did some things that I was happy with, but I think that a good race car driver adapts himself to the conditions, and I was ?? that car is so well prepared by the Williams-BMW guys that it's easy to get in there and get comfortable, and luckily our seats matched up fairly well. I mean I fit in the car well. You know, but pushing the limits of the car definitely I could see where it takes a lot of experience behind the wheel of that thing and all the different courses and things that they go to. I have far too much respect and appreciation for what these guys do, you know, to know that Winston Cup is where it's at for me and that path is sort of chosen for me, and I'm very thankful for that. But to get the opportunity here today to do this fulfills really every desire and dream that I had. I can now say I've driven a Formula One car, which I couldn't say that yesterday.
Q: Juan, an IndyCar driver once said that a stock car doesn't accelerate, and it doesn't turn other than that it's a race car. After driving something so precise, did it take you a little bit of time to get used to something that was so heavy?
MONTOYA: No, it didn't actually. I was pretty amazed with that. I went out, and the only thing that really you got to learn is how far you can brake and how deep, how long you can stay on the brakes and everything. But, you know, cornering and everything, I built it up and it was like right there. You know, of course you can fine tune, all the guys in the Hendrick team came and changed the car for the second time I went out, improved the car. The car was very reactive to the changes. Something that really amazed me is you really got to do it, in the first lap it's built up. After that, you know, it just dies. It's amazing, you know, the first lap it really feels like it's got a lot of grip, you can really push it, and the second time you go through the same corner and you try the car at speed and it's like ?? it's something that I thought was really cool. In the F1, especially around here, all the far corners are floored easily, they're not a big deal. Whereas in the NASCAR you go in and it's like you go, you go and you got to lift and, you know, the visual effect that in a way you're not feeling going that quick because the speed they corner through the F1, but the car is like moving and something I really like the car gave me a lot of feedback. You know, like in the oval you have to be here what you call tight. That is just a bit of push and if the rear goes you're in the wall. Where this one, on one of the laps I went through Turn 1 and it's like, ‘Oh,’ and start sliding, but it's like ‘Oh, you know, you can keep it there a little bit.’ I like that.
Q: Question for Jeff. When you did a little bit of lawn mowing there, what was going through your mind?
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GORDON: Well, I think it was due to Chris Economaki because he told me if I didn't go off or spin out, then I wasn't pushing hard enough, so I wanted to make Chris happy. But down that back straightaway, and it was actually one of the first laps that I made, and it sort of going back to me talking about the corner coming up really fast. It's not that I drove in super deep. I just didn't slow the car down fast enough, and so I realized that I carried a little bit too much speed in there and I went back to the brake and there's a little bit of a bump as you turn that corner to the left, and I sort of did all that stuff at the wrong time, and it just popped the back end around, and I just corrected and had to go off in the grass. They are great on the pavement. They're not very good in the grass. My car will kill that thing in the grass, OK. So, you know, I was just really, really glad, I learned a very valuable lesson right from the beginning, and then from then on I never even had a problem in there. I realized that I just had to use the brakes so much harder than I could ever imagine and get the downshifts, you know, right away. Like I say, it's just about being prepared. When you go to the brakes, you better be prepared for that thing to slow down in a hurry and to turn whatever way that corner is.
Q: You guys were roughly I guess unofficially about a second off each other's time as far as Juan in the stock car and you in his car. Are you impressed with that, A, to be able to just hop in that thing and be that fast; and, B, do you think you could excel in each other's series?
GORDON: I mean I think that well-prepared teams and cars have a lot to do with it, but we're –
MONTOYA: Drivers.
GORDON: Yeah, we're race car drivers that we obviously have gotten to the level that we're at for a reason, and I think Juan's one of the best road racers out there, and I think that the teams that we have today are two of the best out there, too, in their own field, so in some ways I was expecting him to be faster than me in the stock car.
MONTOYA: You're crazy.
GORDON: I didn't know what to expect with the Formula One car. I think that that last second in a Formula One car and the last second in a stock car is the big difference.
MONTOYA: Normally when the car is well prepared, you know, they said to me, they asked me how close it's going to be. I said easily within two seconds he's going to be because to get to that point the car is so predictable and for me it was the same thing. I went out understand straight away I was within, you know, two seconds.
GORDON: We were at 39 something the first time, so.
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MONTOYA: And, you know, it wasn't that difficult. Because the car was good, and when the car is good, the cars are so well prepared it's not like you get into a ?? doing this with a new car that they don't even know how to run it. These cars are well prepared, probably the setup is in my car is what I raced last year. It's the same car I raced last year here.
GORDON: I would make two comments to that and that, that's one is getting that extra speed to really be competitive has got to be a lot of time and experience, but being out there just like being out there with 42 other stock cars, I can't imagine being out there with 15 other guys in a F1 car driving down into Turn One and everybody's three wide trying to outbrake one another. That's where I could see the difference really, really coming in there for me. I mean being able to get a feel for the car, that came fairly quickly, but taking it to that next level and being out there with other cars ?? I'm just glad I was able to do what I did.
Q: Whose idea was this ride and, in review, your comparison between your expectations from what you thought and your respective rides?
GORDON: Do you know whose idea this was?
MONTOYA: No.
GORDON: All I know is Rick Hendrick called me one day, I know that he's friends with some folks at BMW, and this was last year when we were talking about doing this last year and it just didn't work out with our schedules. And it was a lot to put together, and then I forgot about it basically, and all of a sudden somebody said, ‘Hey, you know, this year’ they said, ‘You still interested in doing it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And I was just thankful that Juan and the Williams BMW team could put it together, and that Dupont and Hendrick and everybody were wanting to put it together, too. So when there's a will, there's a way, and somebody had a great idea and talked to Indianapolis about hosting it, putting it together, so I'm not sure who those people were.
MONTOYA: They told me, ‘Well, you want to do this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, let's do it.’
Q: I'm Roy Oliemuller with BMW North America with the communications group. Just to let you know, actually it came about in a conversation that our COO Tom Purvis had with Rick Hendrick approximately a year and a half to two ago, and it was just a thought to see if we could have some fun with this, make some greater awareness for the Formula One drivers in a comparison to the Winston Cup cars. And, as Jeff said, we tried desperately to pull this off last August, but we got them here.
MODERATOR: Say the name again.
Q: First name is Roy, last name is Oliemuller, O?L?I?E?M?U?L?L?E?R.
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MODERATOR: Thank you.
Q: Jeff, from your experience today, would you say that a young American who has aspirations for Formula One is wasting his time in a Midget Sprint car and a Silver Crown car?
GORDON: If he wants to go to Formula One, absolutely. I think at a very young age they can start there, but in my opinion, I think that you ?? even if you're American, European, it doesn't matter where you're from, you have to be over there growing up racing on those types of tracks, some type of car that's similar to that. I think a great race car driver can make it, but I think in order to be recognized and to get in that type of experience on those tracks, in those types of cars, absolutely. I think you have to be over there. Juan would know a lot more about it than I would, because he made it work through the CART series and got there. But I don't see how an American driver can be over here racing on ovals, you know, and then all of a sudden go over and be somebody that a Formula One team wants to hire for the road courses.
Q: In your experience today what's your appetite for a possible open?wheel drive in the future?
GORDON: You know, lately I've been a lot more open to getting behind the wheel of different types of cars. You know, I did the rally race over in Spain last year, had a blast with that, and I think since then it's opened my mind to just get the chance when it makes sense and I have the time to do it, and I was going to make time for this. You know, that's why I'm so glad that it happened, but anything besides this, I don't know. If the right opportunity came, you know, Danny Lasoski is asking me to get out there and drive his sprint cars somewhere when he's testing. I'd love to do that, too. It's been a while since I've driven a sprint car. Other than that I'm so busy with the Winston Cup and everything that we do, I'm pretty happy and content there.
MODERATOR: Guys, there was a second part to this lady's question.
Q: We wanted to know about your expectations coming into today. Was this just a day to have some fun or did you have realistic expectations either of you are what you could ?? just comparing, if you could.
MONTOYA: For me, you know, I came and I didn't know what to expect from the car. Something that I was very clear is that I was going to go out there, you know, drive a car I've never driven and just have some fun. And I think today was go out, push a car you've never driven in your life, nothing close to it and just push it around as hard as you can. As drivers, we are always going to go out and push as hard as we can. We're not going to go out there and just cruise. We want some action. When I went out, I was going for it. And I think that was ?? they told me how you be careful when you drive the car. Yeah, yeah, right. And I was like, you know, I don't know if I'm ever going to get an opportunity to drive a car like this again. It was a lot of fun to drive for me and you're not going to waste the opportunity, you know. You got to go for it.
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MODERATOR: What about you, Jeff?
GORDON: My goals coming in were just to go out there, and I wanted to push the car enough to feel what it was capable of and feel good about myself that I didn't just go out there and drive around, that I actually, you know, drove the car at speed enough to really much and get a feel for it, and I'm happy with that. I didn't know what to expect. I think the car probably exceeded my expectations in its braking capabilities and accelerating and just everything that it was able to do. My neck is going to be so sore tomorrow, I've certainly got an appreciation for him holding his head up in that car. You know, running at Bristol for 500 laps, I know what that feels like, but this is a totally different experience because it's pulling in every direction, forward, back, left, right, and I certainly didn't expect some of those things. But the car just has such a tight feel to it, it's just so stuck, and he told me, he did, you're not going to notice the acceleration as much as you think. I don't know what he was talking about. I put my foot to the floor of that thing the first time and I went, ‘Whoa,’ you know. It got my attention in a hurry. And then once I realized about the traction control and some of those things I realized that you really can lay into it. But I try not to have too many expectations because I knew that it was just a fun experience. I didn't want to hit anything, and I wanted to say that I feel good about how hard I pushed the car.
MODERATOR: Given your credentials as a race car driver in this country ?? and this might be silly to ask, but then again maybe not ?? was there ever a thought in the back of your mind saying I don't want to embarrass myself in this car?
GORDON: Yeah. I didn't want to embarrass myself, one, by crashing it because I mean –
MONTOYA: That would be bad.
GORDON: That would have been bad. One is, that regardless, that's an expensive piece of machinery. He can wreck my car, you know, and it wouldn't take too much money to fix it. That thing would take a lot to fix.
MODERATOR: I hear some rumblings from your crew behind me.
GORDON: The embarrassment would have been big, but I think I would have been more embarrassed if I'd not pushed the car. I think I'd have been more disappointed in myself than anything else, and that's the thing I think I'm most proud of is that I watch Juan drive that thing down in the 50 mark and I was like ‘OK, I'll be happy if I drive to the 75.’ And I think I almost got to the 50 one time, you know, so I can't be disappointed with anything that happened out there.
Q: You both are in the media spotlight and public spotlight nonstop 24/7. How does it feel to just come out and have fun in a race car for both of you?
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GORDON: That's what's so refreshing is to be able to do something that's more for fun. We're so caught up in competition all the time and having to be faster than every guy out there and having to push the limits, push the limits, today I knew I had no pressure on me. I didn't expect to outdo any lap times or do any particular lap times. I didn't even know what lap times the F1 cars ran and, you know, I just wanted to go out there and really enjoy myself. And I honestly can say it was one of the most enjoyable experiences and days I've ever had behind the wheel of a race car.
MONTOYA: And for me it works in the same way. Everyone, we do a lot of testing, you know, we test every week after a race, we spend three or four days testing, we drive the car and you got to be methodical. In a race we can just stay focused, what do you do, what do you do, where here you just sit down and just drive the wheels of it. That's a lot of fun. You don't have any pressure that you got to go quick, you don't have any pressure of anything. You just kind of go out there and have fun.
GORDON: You didn't want to wreck that thing either, right?
MONTOYA: No, you don't want to wreck it, I do agree. I was going through Turn 1 backward, and it's like ?? and he's like, oh, no, you wouldn't want that.
Q: Could each of you tell us how you used your feet differently in the two cars?
MONTOYA: Same.
GORDON: No difference really. Just a different feel in the pedals. The Winston Cup car is a long travel on the throttle and probably the brakes a little bit spongier. But most of it's just the cockpit is narrower and angles are different. But I know when Juan put the steering wheel on my car on the first time, he is like, ‘What is this thing?’ He was laughing. This big steering wheel and it was right in his face and he was like, ‘I need it out there and up here.’ And it's similar to me, you know. I got in there and I was like this (indicating), so it's certainly a new experience there. But no, in the Winston Cup cars now with the transmissions we have, we left-foot brake and, you know, downshift. The only thing I don't have to match any RPMs with the F1 car where you know we had to with the NASCAR Winston Cup.
Q: That was my question, just about moving the steering wheel for both of you guys because, Jeff, can you imagine road racing like that? Juan?
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MONTOYA: The first time I got in, he said, ‘Oh, I like the steering wheel low.’ And I was like, ‘Low?’ The steering wheel was against my legs, I'm like, ‘Right.’ So they pushed it a bit away, and that was OK. I think the biggest difference I really felt on the braking was that the F1 the amount of pressure you put and bite you get is very direct. You know you press harder, you get more here. You get to the point if you press harder you smoke the tires. It's like, that's it, you know, pull a parachute or something.
Q: Juan, a lot of F1 purists tend to look down their noses at other forms of racing, particularly stock cars, but how impressed were you by what Jeff did? How well did he actually do in your opinion?
MONTOYA: I think he did really well. I'll we honest with you, I wasn't expecting any less from him. I got to say he's a very good driver. He's done really good things. If you look at his background, anything he's driven, he's won. And he's like, you know, I got in the car, and I was comfortable with it straightaway. And it's the same thing, you know. I think we're both drivers, to get to where we are, we've driven through a lot of things. And when you're a good driver you probably drive anything, from a tractor to a F1 or, you know –
GORDON: He thought he was driving a tractor there.
MONTOYA: No, I didn't. I was going to say I was very amazed with the power. That's ?? it's like I revved the first time to like six, seven thousand, I was like, ‘That feels OK.’ Then on the backstretch I went in the first gear all the way to nine thousand, I was like, ‘This is pretty good.’
Q: You know all that, but most people (inaudible).
MONTOYA: I think it's two different things I think. In a F1, it's all about technology and the leading edge on anything, yeah. You know, where like here the tires are stuck, same tires for everybody. For us each race tires are three or four?tenths quicker. You look at the lap times how they drop over the last three years, it's been crazy. The cars are a bit quicker, but most of the time it comes down to the tire, and that's the way it happens. Everything is the ultimate in F1. Where I think Winston they look at a way to have more even racing. They're not ?? they probably put apart a little bit the performance. The organizers put the performance side away to try to get a closer racing performance where you can see two, three side?by?side racing for I don't know how many laps. You know, you look at the small ovals where they race, that's crazy, you know.
GORDON: We need to take him to Bristol. Then you'd have some fun.
Q: Jeff, how disorienting was it to come down the front stretch in the opposite direction?
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GORDON: I can say it wasn't as disorienting as it was after I stepped on the brakes the first time and the blood rushed out of my head. The front ?? you know, I did it in the stock car the very first time and it was unique driving to the right. But the road course cars are so set up to turn right, they're better to the right than they are to the left, actually, and so it wasn't that big of a deal. But, you know, every once in a while I'd come down the straightaway and I'd go, ‘Hey, this is cool, I've never driven this direction on purpose down this straightaway.’ So, really, my day was all about getting in that F1 car, and I really didn't pay a lot of attention to driving backward down the front straightaway as I did what was going to happen when I got to the end of the straightaway.
Q: Just a quick follow?up. You run at Watkins Glen, you run at Sears Point. What's your thoughts on the way this road course is here?
GORDON: I don't know what the opinion of the Formula One drivers is of this course. But it's a beautiful course, they did a great job, the curves are nice, and the paving is awesome. It's very, very flat for us. You know, for a stock car to not have some kind of banking, to have a little bit more grip and also bit more speed, you know, that's why we do so well at Watkins Glen and why they've made so many changes at Sears Point for us is to make the track much faster and more banking in areas that we possibly can because we need to be able to be ?? to get more aggressive and feel the grip. Where this track is so flat you're hardly even on the gas, you're just kind of sliding, sliding, sliding and then there's a couple straightaways that you actually get after it and brake. But I think that we would have a little bit of trouble here as flat as it is, but ?? that doesn't mean that it's not a great course. I do think it is a nice course.
Q: Did you meet each other before this?
GORDON: We have a mutual friend, Andy Graves, that worked with him when he was in the –
MONTOYA: When I actually won Indy. He was running the team when I won Indy.
GORDON: And I remember talking ??
Q: You never saw each other before?
GORDON: Never met until today, no. But through Andy I heard really good things about Juan, so I thought that today would be a good ?? it's awesome to have a guy like Juan to be able to come in and have fun with it and just be relaxed about it and not say: ‘Oh, why are we here? Why is he driving my car? And I've got to get in that thing.’ You know, it seemed like he was as excited about it as I was, which is very cool.
Q: And, Juan, last year you couldn't make it, it was problem with Jeff's schedule ??
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MONTOYA: It was timing, it was the week of the race or something.
GORDON: It sort of came up last minute, too. It was fairly quick put together last year, and I think it was worked out better to plan in advance further like we did this year.
Q: How much of each other's worlds did you guys know about and did you start paying a little more attention once you realized, Jeff, you were going to get a chance to drive an F1 car and, Juan, did you start paying more attention to NASCAR once you thought you might get a chance?
MONTOYA: I basically paid attention to a lot of racing. You know, you watch CART, IRL, you know, the Winston Cup sometimes and the Busch Series, the trucks, you know. I love racing, that's why I do it. I always say the day I get bored of this, I quit. Because this I think you need to have a lot of patience for it, you need to really be on it all the time. And the only way to be on it is if you're enjoying it. If you stop enjoying driving, then it's not going to work. Your motivation is going to go down; your patience is going down. So I do follow quite a lot of racing. You know, you ask my wife, she hates that because we got a weekend off, and I just stay in bed watching races all day.
GORDON: We're all the same, man, I tell you. For me it's the same way, you know, I mean I watch F1 every chance I get. If I can't watch it, I Tivo it because the times are off a little bit, but I like all different type ?? I like motorcycle, you know, GP racing and all that stuff.
MONTOYA: That's pretty cool.
GORDON: Yeah, very cool. We should get some bikes out here and try it. But you know I actually got a chance to drive Juan's car before, you guys don't know this. It was Saturday night in Pocono, because I had the F1 on my Play Station, and I drove Juan's car in that to try to get familiar with the track. I didn't know this track at all, never been around it before in anything and so I thought, you know, hey, let me get the latest F1 game. It's fun, one, it was absolutely ?? the game is actually pretty realistic, and the track was very realistic. I'm driving it running so flat out, and I'm like, you know, it can't possibly be like this, but I would say it was much closer than I thought it was going to be. Although I think I ran a 1:08 on that. And I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon. Maybe when he comes back to qualify.
Q: Jeff and Juan, this is for both of you. You'll both be back here later this year. Jeff, you have a chance to join Foyt and Al and Mears as a four?time winner here, and you have the chance to become the first driver to win on both surfaces. Each of you talk about that.
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GORDON: I can't compare myself to Foyt and Mears and these guys in the Indy 500, them being four?time Indy 500s to the Brickyard. To me it's a real thrill to come here and race at this facility. As a kid growing up watching Indy 500s and being here for Indy 500s just to get the chance to race here is incredible, and I can't believe I've won three, you know, Brickyards and excited about trying to get four. But even if we get to four, I don't think that you can really put us in the same category as those guys winning Indy 500s.
MONTOYA: I think for me it'd be very special. The only other driver really can do that is Jacques (Villeneuve) at the moment, and I think I got a quite a bit better car than him, so I can't complain. I think we've been getting stronger and stronger. Our first year here we had a really good chance of winning and we broke down. Last year I ended up crashing with my teammate into Turn 1. You know, racing, but we had ?? sadly enough we had a good chance of winning that one, and I think this year we should be really strong. I like the track and it seems to suit the car quite well. I think we should be quite competitive.
Q: Jeff, you spoke of the launch. Can you give yourself a grade on how well that went, and I'd like Juan to rate his launch, given that it was the first chance at it?
GORDON: There's no grade because it's the easiest thing that they probably do. It's all in the mechanics of the car. It's like hit a button.
MONTOYA: And that's it.
Q: You didn't have nothing to do with that?
[check message length]Options: Automatically parse URLs: automatically adds and around internet addresses. Email Notification: emails sent to you whenever someone replies. Only registered users are eligible. Disable Smilies in This Post GORDON: And hit another button, it's that easy. I mean the technology these guys have is pretty amazing. I'd like to just be able to have just this much of some of that stuff on our car. It's cool to watch and cool to do, but none of it had much to do with me other than a guy in my ear going, ‘OK, push this button, push that ?? oh, there you go.’
Q: Jeff, you haven't mentioned the word nervous at all. At least when you pulled out, were you nervous?
GORDON: Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. I mean I was nervous about stalling it, just leaving the pits.
MONTOYA: No, you were lucky. We got an anti?stall system in there.
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GORDON: Oh, yeah, I forgot. You weren't supposed to bring that up. I mean how crazy is this thing. It has an anti?stall system. What is that? I mean and it does. You like start to stall and it just kicks it into neutral. It is the craziest thing. But you know what, when I first got here it was ?? so many emotions, it was like just, ‘Man, this is cool, this is exciting,’ but I'm like, ‘I'm nervous.’ I had no idea really what this experience is going to be like, other than I knew ?? just the fact of me getting in the car and driving around the track, right there, that was it for me. But then once I actually got into driving the car, I didn't think about the nerves or any of that stuff, but they were definitely there before I went out on the track.
Q: Juan Pablo, when you made your switch from CART to form Formula One, how long did it take you to get completely comfortable in your Formula One car?
Show Signature: include your profile signature. Only registered users may have signatures. Attach file:Maximum size: 100000 bytes Valid file extensions: gif jpg png txt bmp jpeg wav Forum Rules:You may post new threadsYou may post repliesYou may post attachmentsYou may edit your posts HTML code is ONvB code is ONSmilies are ON code is ON Topic Review (Newest First)Tom LarkinsFunny tMONTOYA: It wasn't that difficult to get comfortable in it because I was a test driver before. My first test drive I was quite competitive, as well. I think I was second quickest in my first test ever, so it was good. I said to Jeff, you'll see how good the car is that it's just sometimes you are at the limit. You go through a corner and say, ‘Oh, I can go quicker, I can go quicker, I can go quicker.’ It's a matter of just quicking it up. I think it's a shame he didn't get more time in the car because I'm sure with more time he'd be as competitive as any of us in the F1. The last half-second, the last second, is really hard, but then you start working with the car to make it comfortable for you, then you should be OK. I think this track in a way I think was good for both of us because it ?? apart from Turn 1 for the NASCAR race, is a bit of a lift. In the F1, there's not much really fast corners that it could really upset you. You know, you lose a car in a fast corner, you're in big trouble in an F1, and I think that helped a lot.
MODERATOR: Guys, before we finish up, if we could get a little history on the cars. Jeff, I believe that Robbie told me that the car you ran today you last ran 2001 at Watkins Glen; is that right?
GORDON: Yeah, that's the car that we won all the races with. I think that we may have.
MONTOYA: If I would have crashed, you wouldn't be very happy.
GORDON: It is an older car that's more of a backup car for us now, but it is the car that won I think it was six wins, yeah, and it was the car that was just amazing there for like three years straight, we were like unbeatable. And we know that in order for us to get better and get closer to the competition we have to build, you know, newer cars, and so we do have a new car that we're going to be running in Sears Point in a couple weeks.
MODERATOR: Juan Pablo, this car you last drove at Malaysia; is that right.
MONTOYA: I think even after that. End of last year. Probably a couple of (inaudible) with that car.
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MODERATOR: OK.
GORDON: We weren't going to bring a slouch, and when I got here I realized that they weren't like ?? not that they have backup cars –
MONTOYA: That's the thing, you know, how many cars a year do you –
GORDON: Well, the thing is, we only have about three or four road-course cars, but we have 15, you know, or so cars. I don't know how many cars they have, but I doubt whether they just have, you know, show cars that they take out –
MONTOYA: No, we've got, what, six to eight cars a year, for both drivers, so four per driver per year.
MODERATOR: Juan Pablo, when was the last time you drove a car with a roof over your head.
MONTOYA: Years ago, it's like '93, '94.
MODERATOR: Strange feeling or you didn't even notice it?
MONTOYA: It was hot. Organizing the belts, I'm like, ‘Whoa, I never sweat so much in my life.’
Q: '94 was the last.
MODERATOR: '94 was the last.
MONTOYA: Yeah.
MODERATOR: The last one with a roof over his head in Mexico. So we got some history out of the way. Are you the Juan Pablo Montoya historian?
Q: I was there. He won his first race the pole. He didn't win because he had his low teammate, co?driver, his co?driver was very, very jealous of Juan Pablo.
MONTOYA: There were some endurance races and some prototypes in Mexico, and they invited me to race, and I made the pole, and they were saying give the car to him ??and I'm like ??
MODERATOR: Guys, we've gone over our allotted time. Thank you so much for what you did today. Media, I want to let you know that the two?seater is out. Any members of the media here today that want to do two?seater rides you just need to go to the Yard of Bricks and sign your release forms and you can do that. Jeff, Juan, thank you very much. We enjoyed it.
...IMS2003...
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA/JEFF GORDON
SPEED DEMONSTRATION PRESS CONFERENCE, JUNE 11, 2003
MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. We are here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My name is Mike King. I'm the anchor of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network, and I'll be your moderator. Juan is here, and we're only waiting on Jeff. I would like to ask, if you would, all check your cell phones or your pagers and turn those off if you would, please. That'd be great, or at least turn them to stun, whatever it is where we don't hear them while they're talking. We'll have about 15 or 20 minutes to spend with the guys, don't count on one?on?ones afterward is what I'm being told, so I want to try to get whatever we can. Here they are now. Jeff, good to see you. Juan, nice to see you. I would like to introduce some special guests that we have with us. From Hendrick Motorsports, Ken Howes, who is here, he's the director of competition, along with Jim Perkins, the CEO, the COO and the president of the Hendrick Automotive Group. They are with us here today, as is Robbie Loomis. Robbie is going to join us, as well as the crew chief of Jeff's No. 24 Dupont Chevy; and Mario Theissen, the BMW Motor Sports director is also here with us, as well, and so they will all be available following today's press conference if you'd like to speak with them.
Gentlemen. Juan Pablo, you went out first in Jeff's car, why don't we get your reaction first. What was it like?
MONTOYA: It was really good, actually. When we did the picture at the start/finish line, I took the car around, and I started quite slow. And I was wondering, ‘Oh, this must (inaudible) a lot,’ and afterward when you get up to speed it'd be fine and it was very stable, a lot of power. And they said to me you got to brake like 250 meters or something. I'm like, ‘No, it can't be.’ And when I first braked there, I nearly missed the corner. On my third lap, I missed the corner. You know, your foot is on the brakes and it's like, slow. But, you know, it handles quite well in the corners. It's really good, especially in the higher-speed corners because it moves around a lot, and you can really play with it. You know, if you could put better brake into it, it would go a lot quicker.
GORDON: I tell them that every weekend.
MODERATOR: Jeff, when you shut down the engine there on the FW24 after your runs there at speed, you let out a pretty good yee?haw. You looked like you were pretty happy.
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GORDON: I think that this should be considered the first annual Tradin' Paint session and we should do it every year, but not right before I get to go to Sears Point, though. I'm going to go to Sears Point in a couple weeks and not know what hit me. I can't even describe it. Juan and I talked about this before. It's like everything is opposite where, you know, he had to brake at the 250 and was like ‘Whoo’. I was like, you know, went to the 100, you know, down in there and, like said, I can go so much further, you know, and I just couldn't get on the brakes hard enough. And the corner, I think the biggest thing once I started getting a little bit of speed going was that the corner comes up so fast because you can drive in so deep because of the braking power, and the first couple times that I actually tried to drive in there, I about missed the corner because it came up to fast. When you drive in there and you stand on that brake, you better be ready to down shift and turn, and that was something. I'm so used to, you know, brake, wait a little bit, downshift, downshift, OK, now it's time to turn, and it's the same. It's like a slot car almost. The more and more I drove it, you know, obviously the more fun that I had because the more comfortable I was with it, but I can't even describe. It's amazing. It's just like point and shoot. You just drive in there, stop, turn and just go to the throttle as hard as you can. He told me that, but I didn't believe him. I was like maybe you can do that, but I don't know if I can do that, and I found that just getting back to that throttle with the traction control and all that. And then, being able to do the launch there off the start-finish line, I'm thankful that the weather held out because to me it was just an awesome day, and I'm really thankful to get the opportunity. I know who got the better end of the deal.
MODERATOR: You know, these guys race here in September. You'll miss the race obviously, you're racing that weekend.
GORDON: I think we're in Kansas City, and we've talked about coming over. I'd even like to jump up to Canada this weekend on Saturday, but I don't think I'm going to be able to. But I've never seen them in person. I watch them on TV all the time, thank goodness for the SPEED Channel, and now when I watch them I'm just going to have a much greater appreciation because it's a very demanding car. You have to really push the limits, and then once you start, fine-tuning it, you know, we didn't really make any adjustments, but I can't imagine just the amount of thought that goes in and feel that goes into just fine-tuning it to get the balance where it needs to be. I'm sure they had it set up tight for me so I didn't back it into anything, which I was thankful for.
MODERATOR: We will have mikes on each side of the room. I want to remind you that Jeff and Juan Pablo represent four victories here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Jeff won the Brickyard 400 in 94, '98 and again in '01, and Juan Pablo won the 2000 Indianapolis 500. Deb's on this side. I'm on this side. Please wait for the microphone, once we get it to you because this press conference is being transcribed.
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Q: Jeff, you look pretty good out there, you seemed to acquaint yourself very well. Any thoughts that you may have missed your calling? Would you like to have another serious shot at this?
GORDON: I'd like to have some more laps out there. I made some mistakes and did some things that I was happy with, but I think that a good race car driver adapts himself to the conditions, and I was ?? that car is so well prepared by the Williams-BMW guys that it's easy to get in there and get comfortable, and luckily our seats matched up fairly well. I mean I fit in the car well. You know, but pushing the limits of the car definitely I could see where it takes a lot of experience behind the wheel of that thing and all the different courses and things that they go to. I have far too much respect and appreciation for what these guys do, you know, to know that Winston Cup is where it's at for me and that path is sort of chosen for me, and I'm very thankful for that. But to get the opportunity here today to do this fulfills really every desire and dream that I had. I can now say I've driven a Formula One car, which I couldn't say that yesterday.
Q: Juan, an IndyCar driver once said that a stock car doesn't accelerate, and it doesn't turn other than that it's a race car. After driving something so precise, did it take you a little bit of time to get used to something that was so heavy?
MONTOYA: No, it didn't actually. I was pretty amazed with that. I went out, and the only thing that really you got to learn is how far you can brake and how deep, how long you can stay on the brakes and everything. But, you know, cornering and everything, I built it up and it was like right there. You know, of course you can fine tune, all the guys in the Hendrick team came and changed the car for the second time I went out, improved the car. The car was very reactive to the changes. Something that really amazed me is you really got to do it, in the first lap it's built up. After that, you know, it just dies. It's amazing, you know, the first lap it really feels like it's got a lot of grip, you can really push it, and the second time you go through the same corner and you try the car at speed and it's like ?? it's something that I thought was really cool. In the F1, especially around here, all the far corners are floored easily, they're not a big deal. Whereas in the NASCAR you go in and it's like you go, you go and you got to lift and, you know, the visual effect that in a way you're not feeling going that quick because the speed they corner through the F1, but the car is like moving and something I really like the car gave me a lot of feedback. You know, like in the oval you have to be here what you call tight. That is just a bit of push and if the rear goes you're in the wall. Where this one, on one of the laps I went through Turn 1 and it's like, ‘Oh,’ and start sliding, but it's like ‘Oh, you know, you can keep it there a little bit.’ I like that.
Q: Question for Jeff. When you did a little bit of lawn mowing there, what was going through your mind?
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GORDON: Well, I think it was due to Chris Economaki because he told me if I didn't go off or spin out, then I wasn't pushing hard enough, so I wanted to make Chris happy. But down that back straightaway, and it was actually one of the first laps that I made, and it sort of going back to me talking about the corner coming up really fast. It's not that I drove in super deep. I just didn't slow the car down fast enough, and so I realized that I carried a little bit too much speed in there and I went back to the brake and there's a little bit of a bump as you turn that corner to the left, and I sort of did all that stuff at the wrong time, and it just popped the back end around, and I just corrected and had to go off in the grass. They are great on the pavement. They're not very good in the grass. My car will kill that thing in the grass, OK. So, you know, I was just really, really glad, I learned a very valuable lesson right from the beginning, and then from then on I never even had a problem in there. I realized that I just had to use the brakes so much harder than I could ever imagine and get the downshifts, you know, right away. Like I say, it's just about being prepared. When you go to the brakes, you better be prepared for that thing to slow down in a hurry and to turn whatever way that corner is.
Q: You guys were roughly I guess unofficially about a second off each other's time as far as Juan in the stock car and you in his car. Are you impressed with that, A, to be able to just hop in that thing and be that fast; and, B, do you think you could excel in each other's series?
GORDON: I mean I think that well-prepared teams and cars have a lot to do with it, but we're –
MONTOYA: Drivers.
GORDON: Yeah, we're race car drivers that we obviously have gotten to the level that we're at for a reason, and I think Juan's one of the best road racers out there, and I think that the teams that we have today are two of the best out there, too, in their own field, so in some ways I was expecting him to be faster than me in the stock car.
MONTOYA: You're crazy.
GORDON: I didn't know what to expect with the Formula One car. I think that that last second in a Formula One car and the last second in a stock car is the big difference.
MONTOYA: Normally when the car is well prepared, you know, they said to me, they asked me how close it's going to be. I said easily within two seconds he's going to be because to get to that point the car is so predictable and for me it was the same thing. I went out understand straight away I was within, you know, two seconds.
GORDON: We were at 39 something the first time, so.
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MONTOYA: And, you know, it wasn't that difficult. Because the car was good, and when the car is good, the cars are so well prepared it's not like you get into a ?? doing this with a new car that they don't even know how to run it. These cars are well prepared, probably the setup is in my car is what I raced last year. It's the same car I raced last year here.
GORDON: I would make two comments to that and that, that's one is getting that extra speed to really be competitive has got to be a lot of time and experience, but being out there just like being out there with 42 other stock cars, I can't imagine being out there with 15 other guys in a F1 car driving down into Turn One and everybody's three wide trying to outbrake one another. That's where I could see the difference really, really coming in there for me. I mean being able to get a feel for the car, that came fairly quickly, but taking it to that next level and being out there with other cars ?? I'm just glad I was able to do what I did.
Q: Whose idea was this ride and, in review, your comparison between your expectations from what you thought and your respective rides?
GORDON: Do you know whose idea this was?
MONTOYA: No.
GORDON: All I know is Rick Hendrick called me one day, I know that he's friends with some folks at BMW, and this was last year when we were talking about doing this last year and it just didn't work out with our schedules. And it was a lot to put together, and then I forgot about it basically, and all of a sudden somebody said, ‘Hey, you know, this year’ they said, ‘You still interested in doing it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And I was just thankful that Juan and the Williams BMW team could put it together, and that Dupont and Hendrick and everybody were wanting to put it together, too. So when there's a will, there's a way, and somebody had a great idea and talked to Indianapolis about hosting it, putting it together, so I'm not sure who those people were.
MONTOYA: They told me, ‘Well, you want to do this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, let's do it.’
Q: I'm Roy Oliemuller with BMW North America with the communications group. Just to let you know, actually it came about in a conversation that our COO Tom Purvis had with Rick Hendrick approximately a year and a half to two ago, and it was just a thought to see if we could have some fun with this, make some greater awareness for the Formula One drivers in a comparison to the Winston Cup cars. And, as Jeff said, we tried desperately to pull this off last August, but we got them here.
MODERATOR: Say the name again.
Q: First name is Roy, last name is Oliemuller, O?L?I?E?M?U?L?L?E?R.
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MODERATOR: Thank you.
Q: Jeff, from your experience today, would you say that a young American who has aspirations for Formula One is wasting his time in a Midget Sprint car and a Silver Crown car?
GORDON: If he wants to go to Formula One, absolutely. I think at a very young age they can start there, but in my opinion, I think that you ?? even if you're American, European, it doesn't matter where you're from, you have to be over there growing up racing on those types of tracks, some type of car that's similar to that. I think a great race car driver can make it, but I think in order to be recognized and to get in that type of experience on those tracks, in those types of cars, absolutely. I think you have to be over there. Juan would know a lot more about it than I would, because he made it work through the CART series and got there. But I don't see how an American driver can be over here racing on ovals, you know, and then all of a sudden go over and be somebody that a Formula One team wants to hire for the road courses.
Q: In your experience today what's your appetite for a possible open?wheel drive in the future?
GORDON: You know, lately I've been a lot more open to getting behind the wheel of different types of cars. You know, I did the rally race over in Spain last year, had a blast with that, and I think since then it's opened my mind to just get the chance when it makes sense and I have the time to do it, and I was going to make time for this. You know, that's why I'm so glad that it happened, but anything besides this, I don't know. If the right opportunity came, you know, Danny Lasoski is asking me to get out there and drive his sprint cars somewhere when he's testing. I'd love to do that, too. It's been a while since I've driven a sprint car. Other than that I'm so busy with the Winston Cup and everything that we do, I'm pretty happy and content there.
MODERATOR: Guys, there was a second part to this lady's question.
Q: We wanted to know about your expectations coming into today. Was this just a day to have some fun or did you have realistic expectations either of you are what you could ?? just comparing, if you could.
MONTOYA: For me, you know, I came and I didn't know what to expect from the car. Something that I was very clear is that I was going to go out there, you know, drive a car I've never driven and just have some fun. And I think today was go out, push a car you've never driven in your life, nothing close to it and just push it around as hard as you can. As drivers, we are always going to go out and push as hard as we can. We're not going to go out there and just cruise. We want some action. When I went out, I was going for it. And I think that was ?? they told me how you be careful when you drive the car. Yeah, yeah, right. And I was like, you know, I don't know if I'm ever going to get an opportunity to drive a car like this again. It was a lot of fun to drive for me and you're not going to waste the opportunity, you know. You got to go for it.
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MODERATOR: What about you, Jeff?
GORDON: My goals coming in were just to go out there, and I wanted to push the car enough to feel what it was capable of and feel good about myself that I didn't just go out there and drive around, that I actually, you know, drove the car at speed enough to really much and get a feel for it, and I'm happy with that. I didn't know what to expect. I think the car probably exceeded my expectations in its braking capabilities and accelerating and just everything that it was able to do. My neck is going to be so sore tomorrow, I've certainly got an appreciation for him holding his head up in that car. You know, running at Bristol for 500 laps, I know what that feels like, but this is a totally different experience because it's pulling in every direction, forward, back, left, right, and I certainly didn't expect some of those things. But the car just has such a tight feel to it, it's just so stuck, and he told me, he did, you're not going to notice the acceleration as much as you think. I don't know what he was talking about. I put my foot to the floor of that thing the first time and I went, ‘Whoa,’ you know. It got my attention in a hurry. And then once I realized about the traction control and some of those things I realized that you really can lay into it. But I try not to have too many expectations because I knew that it was just a fun experience. I didn't want to hit anything, and I wanted to say that I feel good about how hard I pushed the car.
MODERATOR: Given your credentials as a race car driver in this country ?? and this might be silly to ask, but then again maybe not ?? was there ever a thought in the back of your mind saying I don't want to embarrass myself in this car?
GORDON: Yeah. I didn't want to embarrass myself, one, by crashing it because I mean –
MONTOYA: That would be bad.
GORDON: That would have been bad. One is, that regardless, that's an expensive piece of machinery. He can wreck my car, you know, and it wouldn't take too much money to fix it. That thing would take a lot to fix.
MODERATOR: I hear some rumblings from your crew behind me.
GORDON: The embarrassment would have been big, but I think I would have been more embarrassed if I'd not pushed the car. I think I'd have been more disappointed in myself than anything else, and that's the thing I think I'm most proud of is that I watch Juan drive that thing down in the 50 mark and I was like ‘OK, I'll be happy if I drive to the 75.’ And I think I almost got to the 50 one time, you know, so I can't be disappointed with anything that happened out there.
Q: You both are in the media spotlight and public spotlight nonstop 24/7. How does it feel to just come out and have fun in a race car for both of you?
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GORDON: That's what's so refreshing is to be able to do something that's more for fun. We're so caught up in competition all the time and having to be faster than every guy out there and having to push the limits, push the limits, today I knew I had no pressure on me. I didn't expect to outdo any lap times or do any particular lap times. I didn't even know what lap times the F1 cars ran and, you know, I just wanted to go out there and really enjoy myself. And I honestly can say it was one of the most enjoyable experiences and days I've ever had behind the wheel of a race car.
MONTOYA: And for me it works in the same way. Everyone, we do a lot of testing, you know, we test every week after a race, we spend three or four days testing, we drive the car and you got to be methodical. In a race we can just stay focused, what do you do, what do you do, where here you just sit down and just drive the wheels of it. That's a lot of fun. You don't have any pressure that you got to go quick, you don't have any pressure of anything. You just kind of go out there and have fun.
GORDON: You didn't want to wreck that thing either, right?
MONTOYA: No, you don't want to wreck it, I do agree. I was going through Turn 1 backward, and it's like ?? and he's like, oh, no, you wouldn't want that.
Q: Could each of you tell us how you used your feet differently in the two cars?
MONTOYA: Same.
GORDON: No difference really. Just a different feel in the pedals. The Winston Cup car is a long travel on the throttle and probably the brakes a little bit spongier. But most of it's just the cockpit is narrower and angles are different. But I know when Juan put the steering wheel on my car on the first time, he is like, ‘What is this thing?’ He was laughing. This big steering wheel and it was right in his face and he was like, ‘I need it out there and up here.’ And it's similar to me, you know. I got in there and I was like this (indicating), so it's certainly a new experience there. But no, in the Winston Cup cars now with the transmissions we have, we left-foot brake and, you know, downshift. The only thing I don't have to match any RPMs with the F1 car where you know we had to with the NASCAR Winston Cup.
Q: That was my question, just about moving the steering wheel for both of you guys because, Jeff, can you imagine road racing like that? Juan?
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MONTOYA: The first time I got in, he said, ‘Oh, I like the steering wheel low.’ And I was like, ‘Low?’ The steering wheel was against my legs, I'm like, ‘Right.’ So they pushed it a bit away, and that was OK. I think the biggest difference I really felt on the braking was that the F1 the amount of pressure you put and bite you get is very direct. You know you press harder, you get more here. You get to the point if you press harder you smoke the tires. It's like, that's it, you know, pull a parachute or something.
Q: Juan, a lot of F1 purists tend to look down their noses at other forms of racing, particularly stock cars, but how impressed were you by what Jeff did? How well did he actually do in your opinion?
MONTOYA: I think he did really well. I'll we honest with you, I wasn't expecting any less from him. I got to say he's a very good driver. He's done really good things. If you look at his background, anything he's driven, he's won. And he's like, you know, I got in the car, and I was comfortable with it straightaway. And it's the same thing, you know. I think we're both drivers, to get to where we are, we've driven through a lot of things. And when you're a good driver you probably drive anything, from a tractor to a F1 or, you know –
GORDON: He thought he was driving a tractor there.
MONTOYA: No, I didn't. I was going to say I was very amazed with the power. That's ?? it's like I revved the first time to like six, seven thousand, I was like, ‘That feels OK.’ Then on the backstretch I went in the first gear all the way to nine thousand, I was like, ‘This is pretty good.’
Q: You know all that, but most people (inaudible).
MONTOYA: I think it's two different things I think. In a F1, it's all about technology and the leading edge on anything, yeah. You know, where like here the tires are stuck, same tires for everybody. For us each race tires are three or four?tenths quicker. You look at the lap times how they drop over the last three years, it's been crazy. The cars are a bit quicker, but most of the time it comes down to the tire, and that's the way it happens. Everything is the ultimate in F1. Where I think Winston they look at a way to have more even racing. They're not ?? they probably put apart a little bit the performance. The organizers put the performance side away to try to get a closer racing performance where you can see two, three side?by?side racing for I don't know how many laps. You know, you look at the small ovals where they race, that's crazy, you know.
GORDON: We need to take him to Bristol. Then you'd have some fun.
Q: Jeff, how disorienting was it to come down the front stretch in the opposite direction?
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GORDON: I can say it wasn't as disorienting as it was after I stepped on the brakes the first time and the blood rushed out of my head. The front ?? you know, I did it in the stock car the very first time and it was unique driving to the right. But the road course cars are so set up to turn right, they're better to the right than they are to the left, actually, and so it wasn't that big of a deal. But, you know, every once in a while I'd come down the straightaway and I'd go, ‘Hey, this is cool, I've never driven this direction on purpose down this straightaway.’ So, really, my day was all about getting in that F1 car, and I really didn't pay a lot of attention to driving backward down the front straightaway as I did what was going to happen when I got to the end of the straightaway.
Q: Just a quick follow?up. You run at Watkins Glen, you run at Sears Point. What's your thoughts on the way this road course is here?
GORDON: I don't know what the opinion of the Formula One drivers is of this course. But it's a beautiful course, they did a great job, the curves are nice, and the paving is awesome. It's very, very flat for us. You know, for a stock car to not have some kind of banking, to have a little bit more grip and also bit more speed, you know, that's why we do so well at Watkins Glen and why they've made so many changes at Sears Point for us is to make the track much faster and more banking in areas that we possibly can because we need to be able to be ?? to get more aggressive and feel the grip. Where this track is so flat you're hardly even on the gas, you're just kind of sliding, sliding, sliding and then there's a couple straightaways that you actually get after it and brake. But I think that we would have a little bit of trouble here as flat as it is, but ?? that doesn't mean that it's not a great course. I do think it is a nice course.
Q: Did you meet each other before this?
GORDON: We have a mutual friend, Andy Graves, that worked with him when he was in the –
MONTOYA: When I actually won Indy. He was running the team when I won Indy.
GORDON: And I remember talking ??
Q: You never saw each other before?
GORDON: Never met until today, no. But through Andy I heard really good things about Juan, so I thought that today would be a good ?? it's awesome to have a guy like Juan to be able to come in and have fun with it and just be relaxed about it and not say: ‘Oh, why are we here? Why is he driving my car? And I've got to get in that thing.’ You know, it seemed like he was as excited about it as I was, which is very cool.
Q: And, Juan, last year you couldn't make it, it was problem with Jeff's schedule ??
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MONTOYA: It was timing, it was the week of the race or something.
GORDON: It sort of came up last minute, too. It was fairly quick put together last year, and I think it was worked out better to plan in advance further like we did this year.
Q: How much of each other's worlds did you guys know about and did you start paying a little more attention once you realized, Jeff, you were going to get a chance to drive an F1 car and, Juan, did you start paying more attention to NASCAR once you thought you might get a chance?
MONTOYA: I basically paid attention to a lot of racing. You know, you watch CART, IRL, you know, the Winston Cup sometimes and the Busch Series, the trucks, you know. I love racing, that's why I do it. I always say the day I get bored of this, I quit. Because this I think you need to have a lot of patience for it, you need to really be on it all the time. And the only way to be on it is if you're enjoying it. If you stop enjoying driving, then it's not going to work. Your motivation is going to go down; your patience is going down. So I do follow quite a lot of racing. You know, you ask my wife, she hates that because we got a weekend off, and I just stay in bed watching races all day.
GORDON: We're all the same, man, I tell you. For me it's the same way, you know, I mean I watch F1 every chance I get. If I can't watch it, I Tivo it because the times are off a little bit, but I like all different type ?? I like motorcycle, you know, GP racing and all that stuff.
MONTOYA: That's pretty cool.
GORDON: Yeah, very cool. We should get some bikes out here and try it. But you know I actually got a chance to drive Juan's car before, you guys don't know this. It was Saturday night in Pocono, because I had the F1 on my Play Station, and I drove Juan's car in that to try to get familiar with the track. I didn't know this track at all, never been around it before in anything and so I thought, you know, hey, let me get the latest F1 game. It's fun, one, it was absolutely ?? the game is actually pretty realistic, and the track was very realistic. I'm driving it running so flat out, and I'm like, you know, it can't possibly be like this, but I would say it was much closer than I thought it was going to be. Although I think I ran a 1:08 on that. And I don't think that's going to be happening any time soon. Maybe when he comes back to qualify.
Q: Jeff and Juan, this is for both of you. You'll both be back here later this year. Jeff, you have a chance to join Foyt and Al and Mears as a four?time winner here, and you have the chance to become the first driver to win on both surfaces. Each of you talk about that.
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GORDON: I can't compare myself to Foyt and Mears and these guys in the Indy 500, them being four?time Indy 500s to the Brickyard. To me it's a real thrill to come here and race at this facility. As a kid growing up watching Indy 500s and being here for Indy 500s just to get the chance to race here is incredible, and I can't believe I've won three, you know, Brickyards and excited about trying to get four. But even if we get to four, I don't think that you can really put us in the same category as those guys winning Indy 500s.
MONTOYA: I think for me it'd be very special. The only other driver really can do that is Jacques (Villeneuve) at the moment, and I think I got a quite a bit better car than him, so I can't complain. I think we've been getting stronger and stronger. Our first year here we had a really good chance of winning and we broke down. Last year I ended up crashing with my teammate into Turn 1. You know, racing, but we had ?? sadly enough we had a good chance of winning that one, and I think this year we should be really strong. I like the track and it seems to suit the car quite well. I think we should be quite competitive.
Q: Jeff, you spoke of the launch. Can you give yourself a grade on how well that went, and I'd like Juan to rate his launch, given that it was the first chance at it?
GORDON: There's no grade because it's the easiest thing that they probably do. It's all in the mechanics of the car. It's like hit a button.
MONTOYA: And that's it.
Q: You didn't have nothing to do with that?
[check message length]Options: Automatically parse URLs: automatically adds and around internet addresses. Email Notification: emails sent to you whenever someone replies. Only registered users are eligible. Disable Smilies in This Post GORDON: And hit another button, it's that easy. I mean the technology these guys have is pretty amazing. I'd like to just be able to have just this much of some of that stuff on our car. It's cool to watch and cool to do, but none of it had much to do with me other than a guy in my ear going, ‘OK, push this button, push that ?? oh, there you go.’
Q: Jeff, you haven't mentioned the word nervous at all. At least when you pulled out, were you nervous?
GORDON: Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. I mean I was nervous about stalling it, just leaving the pits.
MONTOYA: No, you were lucky. We got an anti?stall system in there.
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GORDON: Oh, yeah, I forgot. You weren't supposed to bring that up. I mean how crazy is this thing. It has an anti?stall system. What is that? I mean and it does. You like start to stall and it just kicks it into neutral. It is the craziest thing. But you know what, when I first got here it was ?? so many emotions, it was like just, ‘Man, this is cool, this is exciting,’ but I'm like, ‘I'm nervous.’ I had no idea really what this experience is going to be like, other than I knew ?? just the fact of me getting in the car and driving around the track, right there, that was it for me. But then once I actually got into driving the car, I didn't think about the nerves or any of that stuff, but they were definitely there before I went out on the track.
Q: Juan Pablo, when you made your switch from CART to form Formula One, how long did it take you to get completely comfortable in your Formula One car?
Show Signature: include your profile signature. Only registered users may have signatures. Attach file:Maximum size: 100000 bytes Valid file extensions: gif jpg png txt bmp jpeg wav Forum Rules:You may post new threadsYou may post repliesYou may post attachmentsYou may edit your posts HTML code is ONvB code is ONSmilies are ON code is ON Topic Review (Newest First)Tom LarkinsFunny tMONTOYA: It wasn't that difficult to get comfortable in it because I was a test driver before. My first test drive I was quite competitive, as well. I think I was second quickest in my first test ever, so it was good. I said to Jeff, you'll see how good the car is that it's just sometimes you are at the limit. You go through a corner and say, ‘Oh, I can go quicker, I can go quicker, I can go quicker.’ It's a matter of just quicking it up. I think it's a shame he didn't get more time in the car because I'm sure with more time he'd be as competitive as any of us in the F1. The last half-second, the last second, is really hard, but then you start working with the car to make it comfortable for you, then you should be OK. I think this track in a way I think was good for both of us because it ?? apart from Turn 1 for the NASCAR race, is a bit of a lift. In the F1, there's not much really fast corners that it could really upset you. You know, you lose a car in a fast corner, you're in big trouble in an F1, and I think that helped a lot.
MODERATOR: Guys, before we finish up, if we could get a little history on the cars. Jeff, I believe that Robbie told me that the car you ran today you last ran 2001 at Watkins Glen; is that right?
GORDON: Yeah, that's the car that we won all the races with. I think that we may have.
MONTOYA: If I would have crashed, you wouldn't be very happy.
GORDON: It is an older car that's more of a backup car for us now, but it is the car that won I think it was six wins, yeah, and it was the car that was just amazing there for like three years straight, we were like unbeatable. And we know that in order for us to get better and get closer to the competition we have to build, you know, newer cars, and so we do have a new car that we're going to be running in Sears Point in a couple weeks.
MODERATOR: Juan Pablo, this car you last drove at Malaysia; is that right.
MONTOYA: I think even after that. End of last year. Probably a couple of (inaudible) with that car.
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MODERATOR: OK.
GORDON: We weren't going to bring a slouch, and when I got here I realized that they weren't like ?? not that they have backup cars –
MONTOYA: That's the thing, you know, how many cars a year do you –
GORDON: Well, the thing is, we only have about three or four road-course cars, but we have 15, you know, or so cars. I don't know how many cars they have, but I doubt whether they just have, you know, show cars that they take out –
MONTOYA: No, we've got, what, six to eight cars a year, for both drivers, so four per driver per year.
MODERATOR: Juan Pablo, when was the last time you drove a car with a roof over your head.
MONTOYA: Years ago, it's like '93, '94.
MODERATOR: Strange feeling or you didn't even notice it?
MONTOYA: It was hot. Organizing the belts, I'm like, ‘Whoa, I never sweat so much in my life.’
Q: '94 was the last.
MODERATOR: '94 was the last.
MONTOYA: Yeah.
MODERATOR: The last one with a roof over his head in Mexico. So we got some history out of the way. Are you the Juan Pablo Montoya historian?
Q: I was there. He won his first race the pole. He didn't win because he had his low teammate, co?driver, his co?driver was very, very jealous of Juan Pablo.
MONTOYA: There were some endurance races and some prototypes in Mexico, and they invited me to race, and I made the pole, and they were saying give the car to him ??and I'm like ??
MODERATOR: Guys, we've gone over our allotted time. Thank you so much for what you did today. Media, I want to let you know that the two?seater is out. Any members of the media here today that want to do two?seater rides you just need to go to the Yard of Bricks and sign your release forms and you can do that. Jeff, Juan, thank you very much. We enjoyed it.
...IMS2003...
I watched the first half of this event. I loved it when Gordon came into the pits punching the air and clapping. I could almost feel his enthusiasm. It got me so inspired that I decided to go for a spirited drive in the NSX....and I missed the remainder of the show. 
.
Publicity stunt or not, it was a great way to raise awareness of both types of racing.
.Publicity stunt or not, it was a great way to raise awareness of both types of racing.
I love it! thanks for the post!!!
Aaron
Aaron
I'll take the open wheel car anyday !!
I enjoyed reading that, thanks Number 9.
Paul
Paul
Following recent "dead thread" revivals:
Another entertaining read involving Montoya. Sent to me by Jan who sold me my NSX. Second half of the interview talking about "real world" driving was a pretty fun read.
https://www.autoweek.com/article/20130815/NASCAR01/130819888
Another entertaining read involving Montoya. Sent to me by Jan who sold me my NSX. Second half of the interview talking about "real world" driving was a pretty fun read.
https://www.autoweek.com/article/20130815/NASCAR01/130819888
