NASCAR Cup

Dodge this - John Fernandez press conference

Tuesday, July 29, 2003 DODGE THIS Teleconference John Fernandez, Director, Dodge Motorsports Operations "I want to congratulate both Ryan and Brendan on this weekend's victories. You guys were awesome, in fact you've been awesome for a few weeks ...

Published: Jul 30, 2003, 1:00 PM

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003
DODGE THIS Teleconference

John Fernandez, Director, Dodge Motorsports Operations

"I want to congratulate both Ryan and Brendan on this weekend's victories. You guys were awesome, in fact you've been awesome for a few weeks here, so keep up the good work. We also had two victories in ARCA by Casey Mears, so I want to congratulate Casey. Also, J.J. Yeley, I understand, won his 19th victory in a Dodge sprint car this weekend, so a great weekend for Dodge."

COMMENT ON TONY STEWART RUMORS

"Actually we've got a great lineup of drivers that we're working with today, and I don't know if Tony is under contract with Joe Gibbs right now, so we're not pursuing Tony at this point in time. We're very happy with the lineup of drivers we've got."

WHAT'S THE FUTURE FOR BRENDAN GAUGHAN?

"I think Brendan has done an outstanding job in NASCAR Craftsman Trucks, and certainly if he continues to do that we'd be looking as I know the Orleans team would be looking to maybe move Brendan up into Busch or possibly even into Winston Cup. It's the team's choice in terms of what they want to do. We as Dodge Motorsports people would certainly support what they're trying to do, but ultimately it's their choice as to where they want to go next."

COMMENT ON EGE ENGINES, PETTY ENTERPRISES

"We haven't added any support there. The Ege deal is between Petty Enterprises and their engine builder. We support Petty Enterprises as a team in terms of technical support, but between them and their engine builder that's between Kyle and Richard. We help all of our teams the same, basically. Our factory teams, we have a technical committee, and we really run all of our technical operations and what we do and the priorities we do them in through that committee. They're part and parcel of that just like Penske, Ganassi and Evernham are."

COMMENT ON DODGE'S 2003 WINSTON CUP EFFORT

"Certainly we would like everybody to be winning races. Ryan has done an outstanding job this year with his car, and quite frankly in the beginning of the year he was running into a lot of bad luck as you well know. That's turned around now and he's really on a roll. Conversely, in the Ganassi camp and also in the Evernham camp, we've had some great drives. We just haven't been able to get up front and win a race yet. We've got a couple of poles from those teams, but unfortunately we haven't won a race yet. We still have almost half a season left here, and things are looking up for both of those teams. They're starting to get some top 10s and top fives. I'm hopeful both of those teams can break through with a win here."

ANY FUTURE PLANS TO MAKE CHANGES TO THE INTREPID?

"I think the common template has really evened the playing field. We struggled a little bit at the beginning of the year with the balance of our cars with the new template rules, and I think we're over that situation now. I'm sure that NASCAR, whether it's a new car coming, whether it's a Taurus or not, is still going to have that template there and we're all going to that template. I don't think there's going to be any major differences because of the template rules."

Dodge this - Ryan Newman press conference
Dodge this - Brendan Gaughan press conference

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