Greg Zipadelli Quotations

We did it with a whole lot more fun. And I think that (speaks) a lot to Tony's maturity.

We didn't win as early as we should have last year. But this year, everybody's doing a good job, is focused on the little things we need to pay attention to, and hopefully we can carry this momentum through the end of the year.

What I'm proudest of this season is how we've battled throughout every weekend,

I think it's definitely a step in the right direction to make the bump drafting minimal.

I think a lot of it just goes back to having respect for each other, racing people like you want to be raced.

We can't even think about getting complacent. My attitude after last week is we've got to work even harder. I want to win more than I did last weekend because it's the following weekend.

We'll race the way that got us here, and hopefully we can lead some laps, win some races and not make mistakes,

We got together. I called him down ... to sit with the guys and talk to him. They basically explained how some of the things he did and the ways that he acted affected their lives. That kind of opened his eyes to how big this family is and what they go through when he has a bad day.

The pressure isn't on those kids, and that makes a difference. When you've got the pressure of expectations, it works on you. Working for Jeff Gordon is like a no-win situation - if you do good, well, you're supposed to do good with Jeff Gordon, and if you don't, well then it's your fault. And our deal is the same way.

We didn't really find anything when we got home,

This sport is mental. We've been through a lot of adversity in the last seven years. But as a group we've been able to put things behind us and believe in ourselves and in our driver.

We unloaded off the truck, and this thing is awesome. We've got to keep the intensity, keep the pressure on ourselves to perform, not slip up, not sit back and let our guard down.

We'll just go until we can't go anymore, I guess. If you stop you're going to get run over in this sport, as much as things are changing and as much as we've got going on at the shop.

We were waiting to see who was going to pit. We wanted to know who didn't pit and who was going to go for it. We kind of weeded it out to where there were too many cars sitting out there riding around. We kind of played it safe. We didn't really think we could make it on fuel. If we went to one or two to go and took a couple seconds of fuel, we probably would have ended up racing for third. Instead, we put tires on and got a top-five out of it. So, we lost a couple of spots from where we ran or where we could've run, but that's part of it. Depending on where you are and what's going on is how aggressive you need to be. We just kind of played it on the safe side.

This Tony Stewart is a lot more fun to be around. He's a happier person.

The good thing about Daytona was that between the (Bud) Shootout, the Duel and the 500, the guys who were working on our California cars were in Daytona a couple of times. We were all able to get together and talk and know where we were with everything. We were able to communicate one-on-one about some of the issues that we've had in getting these cars ready for California.

We'll just run the car here (Charlotte) wide open.

What difference does it make what cars they take? It's Joe Gibbs Racing that took cars out there.

What's going to happen is that with these cars, the noses are so sensitive, specifically the air inlet and that radius, if you damage that, your car's going to run hot. The way the noses are mounted on these cars, they're so high that keeping the engine cool is a hard thing to get mastered anyway. If you hurt that radius, you're going to just make yourself a real long day. I think everybody's going to have to be aware of that, and hopefully it will help the situation.

We are capable of taking bad days and making them into OK days or even great days.

I've always just kind of worked on my stuff, whatever I was doing at the time, and just been wrapped up in that.

As good as we've been in the past, we've never been as good as this.

As good as we've been in the past, we've never been anywhere near this. But we need to keep our chins up and not get complacent just because everything is going so well. We know everybody is gunning for us.

The bottom line is that we're here because we did what we needed to do.

That's what they saw, and we took our lumps, came in and went back out. I mean, it is what it is. They warned us, they did it to other people, so it's not a big deal. As long as they stay consistent and keep doing it that way, I'm all right with it.

It's the most relaxed I've ever seen him in seven years. It's the first time in seven years I've seen him that he can enjoy himself and realize what he's capable of and enjoying his accomplishments.

That'll come back around. Next week at Pocono, I guarantee you nobody gets a lap back if we're leading.

This is like a fantasy. I hope it lasts. Smoke has been just fired up. I haven't seen him this focused in the seven years I've been around him.

It's real easy to say, 'Hey, we're in this thing. We're OK. We've got to keep the intensity, the pressure on ourselves to perform, not slip up, not sit back and let your guard down.

It's real easy to say, 'Hey, we're in this thing. We're OK, ... We've got to keep the intensity, the pressure on ourselves to perform, not slip up, not sit back and let your guard down.

I'm 39 years old, but in dog years I'm really 55 or 60,

I owe it to those guys to win the championship.

I hope not. I just want to go out and do it.

You can't work on a race team without (people) but there are days when you wish you didn't have any of them, as the old saying goes. In a lot of ways it's fun, but it can also be pretty trying. It's one of the things that I like the most but I hate the most. And sometimes it's so overwhelming that I feel like I haven't done as good a job as I would've liked worrying about my race cars.

The difference is that he lets things roll off his back and keeps looking ahead instead of worrying about what happened yesterday or last week,