YOU'RE 102 BACK. WHAT ABOUT THE RACE AND NEXT WEEKEND?

"It was a great race for us today. I couldn't ask for a better race car. The guys just gave me a fantastic race car to drive. This is our last race with Post-It 3M on the race car and I really wanted to get them a win. It's funny, we won a lot of races with Post-It on the car this year. I think three of the five wins were with them and I was hoping that might have been what we were gonna have today, but it was pretty close. It seemed like we kind of had it under control and this tells you how the complexity of this sport and these races can change so quick. Pit stops, people stay out and people come in -- two tires, four -- we ended up 14th there and got back up to the top five and pitted again, then a lot of guys took two again. We had to race our way to the front. It wasn't handed to us today and there at the end, the 5 didn't really have a lot to lose. They were a lap down, I believe, and got their lap back. I think they were, but they played the right pit strategy and got themselves up there in position. Even though it's a one-mile track, it's really aero-sensitive. My car was just a little bit too loose and just kind of sliding the nose at the end. I just couldn't get the gas down with Kyle right on my bumper. I think if I could have got two car lengths in front of Kyle, I could have drove away from him, but just because the cars are so aero-sensitive. He would have been in dirty air and I would have been in clean air and that's what I needed. That's how I had my car set up to run. I had been out there a lot of the day, but I just couldn't pull it off. Then when he finally cleared me and got in front of me and got two or three car lengths, then I had such a time trying to get to his bumper or trying to get inside of him again. Once I got there I knew I was pretty much cooked. The tires were done."

CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT'S GOING THROUGH KYLE'S MIND WITH KURT'S SITUATION AND YOU AS A TEAMMATE, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

"I don't know what all happened. I just heard a bunch of stuff through the garage area. It's neat for Kyle to win. Both of those guys have a wonderful amount of talent driving ability and it was kind of funny -- the race in the spring was exactly the same only I was chasing Kurt the whole night and he was just that much better than me and I couldn't beat him. I was wondering to myself if he was here today if I would have been doing that same thing because I was out there by myself kind of. I had the best car for a major part of the day, but I don't know what happened. I suppose I'll get filled in with all the information when it comes to."

DO YOU KNOW WHAT CAUSED THE CAR TO GO AWAY?

"I really don't. Sets of tires will be just a little bit different. I had a couple sets there in the middle part of the race that were just unbelievable. As the race progressed, I lost a little bit of turn with the front tires down in one and two, and in three and four. I took a little bit of wedge out of it to get it to turn a little bit better, well that just made it loose on the throttle when I put the gas down. So I didn't really get that turn back. Kyle's car was extremely loose as well and the track kind of came to them and kind of just barely went away from us right there at the end. Like I said, I came from 14th and passed a bunch of lap cars. I fought all the way back there, drove up to his bumper and just ran him down. That just used up so much of the tire. You're punishing the tire when you're trying to do that and catch guys and run that much faster to catch them. It takes the goodie out of the tire and just didn't have enough left when I got there."

DO YOU THINK YOU STILL HAVE A SHOT TO WIN THE TITLE?

"No, we needed to do what we did today -- lead the most laps and finish second or win, but those other guys would have had to have bad days in order to put us in the hunt. We're certainly not in it anymore. I kind of counted myself out last week, but wanted to keep hopes up that we might have an opportunity. The reality is that next year we're gonna go after it again."

YOU'RE THE DEFENDING RACE WINNER AT HOMESTEAD. DOES THAT GIVE YOU SOME HOPE?

"If we run like we did here today is a little bit of hope. I thought three-quarters of the way through the race I might have a chance to win the last two, but Kyle came up there and spoiled the fun. We're taking the same car back to Homestead that we ran with last year, with the updated body and stuff. We won earlier in the year with that car one time, so we feel really good about that race car and going back there."

WHICH RACE DID YOU WIN WITH THAT CAR?

"That car we won at Michigan with."

DO YOU HAVE ANY SYMPATHY FOR KURT?

"You'd have to. I think you'd have sympathy for anybody if you put yourself in that position and get taken out of the race car. But, like I said, I don't know any of the details at all about what happened, what went on, and that's about it. I don't know anything about it other than I was told this morning that he wasn't gonna drive it. That's the first I had heard of anything."