Saturday Notebook: Junior critical of TV
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
April 1, 2006
05:23 PM EST (22:23 GMT)


MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't mince words at Martinsville when asked about a curse word that made it onto FOX Sports' broadcast of last weekend's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

"They're spending million of dollars on it on the TV program and they can't even keep that from happening," Earnhardt said. "That is ridiculous. Somebody is a real moron."

Two years ago, Earnhardt received monetary and points penalties for saying the same "s-word" in a Victory Lane interview that his Dale Earnhardt Incorporated teammate, crew chief Kevin Manion, let fly on an in-car radio transmission to driver Martin Truex Jr. that was inadvertently broadcast by FOX.

"You can air my radio conversations anytime you want but Martin Truex is already out of his racecar when that aired," Earnhardt said. "That's not Martin's fault, obviously. I mean please, everybody has to know that."

Earnhardt said that whether or not his radio transmissions are being monitored makes no difference to him.

"I don't think about it," Earnhardt said. "When you're on the radio, you're not thinking about your language. If that's the case, I may as well not even take any points any week -- [NASCAR can] just keep my points [and] I'll race for a paycheck.

"That is ridiculous. It aired and Martin was already out of his car. It's somebody else's job [to monitor it]."

Sadler: Pit road for losers

Martinsville's pit road is acknowledged as one of the toughest on the Nextel Cup circuit, and Elliott Sadler said why on Saturday.

The Robert Yates Racing No. 38 Ford will start seventh in Sunday's DirecTV 500 and Sadler said maintaining that would be his primary goal.

"Track position here is more important than anything," Sadler said. "You can have the fastest car in the world and if you get caught back in the pack, you're not gonna have much luck.

"Every little bit helps here at Martinsville. We think we've got a good pit selection for Sunday and we're gonna try to use that to our advantage and try to keep track position and go from there.

"This is a tough pit road ... because you're in the corner so long. It's hard to see out the A-post, where all the guys are running out with the jack handles and things like that and it's very, very narrow.

"This is by far the toughest pit road we go to, but I'm glad NASCAR keeps the speed limit pretty low on us here because it's a pretty dangerous pit road.

"It's hard for a driver to win a race here on pit road, but it's definitely easy for them to lose a race here on pit road, so you just have to use your head and not try to be too aggressive."

Vickers pressuring himself

Third-year driver Brian Vickers says neither owner Rick Hendrick nor sponsor GMAC have put any pressure on him to win in Cup, which was expected after he won the 2003 Busch Series title; and again after rookie teammate Kyle Busch won twice last season.

Vickers answered "yes and no" to a question about pressure to win, after he was fastest in both Saturday practices.

"Rick [Hendrick] hasn't put any pressure on me, neither have my sponsors," Vickers said. "The most pressure is coming from myself. I want to win a race as bad as anybody but as long as we run top-10, top-five every week like we need to be doing ...

"I know we can and we always do and we're finding the problems, whether it's our own or bad luck. We always do run in the top five or top 10. As long as we do that every week, the win will come."

Busch: No rivalry with Stewart

At least, so says Kyle Busch, who explained his continued conferences with defending Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart -- after on-track altercations at both Daytona and Las Vegas -- helped defuse the potential situation.

"What develops a rivalry is a tough question," Busch said. "You can have a rivalry brew out of just something from Bristol. You can have a rivalry brew out of something from Daytona or Las Vegas or California or wherever it may be.

"It's whether or not you let it escalate that far. If you go up and talk to a driver and try to get it settled and out of the way, then you can have a good time racing around the guy and it's all fine and dandy.

"But if you let it brew into something that it shouldn't, that's when you have problems."

Kenseth says no Jarrett talk-to needed

At Martinsville, Matt Kenseth said he had not talked to Dale Jarrett about an incident at the end of the previous week's Bristol race in which Kenseth felt Jarrett held him up, allowed Kurt Busch to catch him, bump him out of the way and win the Food City 500.

Kenseth said his feelings had mellowed in the interim and he saw no need to pursue his fellow former champion.

"He definitely had a right to be there," Kenseth said. "There's no question of that. The only thing I would say is that there's a bit of common courtesy, usually, to get out of the way of the leaders with 10 to go, but there's nothing that says you have to do it.

"He's racing for position and he has as much right to that space as I do. I don't really feel a need to talk to him [because] he didn't really do anything wrong.

"It's just that the last race he won I drafted with him and pushed him to the win when I could have chose anybody. With 10 to go if he was on my bumper I'd get out of the way because he didn't have anything to gain by not getting out of the way.

"I was just hoping for a little room, but there's nothing that says you have to give room or you have to get out of the way or any of that.

"I wasn't a lap down and as we've seen, a lot of these races end under green-white-checkered and there is no free pass in the last 10 laps," Jarrett said. "I've got to try to stay in front of the leader to try to make sure I give myself a chance to earn as many points as I possibly can.

"If the leader of the race, and that was Matt at the time, would have gotten close enough to me that I was holding him up, I know Matt well enough that he would have given me that signal with his front bumper for me to get out of the way and he never got that close.

"That's all I'm saying about that."

Kahne: Boys will be boys

Kasey Kahne might be a relative newcomer to Nextel Cup racing, but the second-place point man proved again at Martinsville he can dispense sage advice beyond his lack of years in the sport.

"I think one thing people don't realize is that even the best drivers make mistakes," Kahne said when talking of some hectic action last weekend at Bristol, and a forecast for more at Martinsville.

"It's really difficult at a place like Bristol, or Martinsville, where there are so many cars in so little space. People watching on TV think it's one guy taking another guy out, when it really isn't.

"On the other hand, though, we're in the cars, and a lot of times, we see it the same way. We think another driver spun us out or ran over us, and he really didn't.

"There's really no room for error at these small racetracks, and you've got to be patient and careful and concentrate, and even if you do all those things, it might not be enough."

Labonte eyes 'new look' Gordon

Veteran Bobby Labonte was one competitor at Martinsville who scoffed Friday at the news that Jeff Gordon was projecting a new, more aggressive image.

"I was pretty amazed by that comment," Labonte said. "We'll just have to wait and see. It's kinda hard to change from one week to the next. We'll see how it goes.

"I kinda laughed at it. I talked to him a little bit after the [Bristol] race was over, and I could see his point. I could see everybody else's point, too.

"It'll be interesting to see if he grows his hair longer to go along with the whole new deal. Do you have to change your whole look?"

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