ROBBY GORDON (No. 7 MAPEI/Menards/SPEED Energy Dodge) SINCE WE LEFT HOMESTEAD, HOW MUCH RACING HAVE YOU DONE? “The 150 (qualifying race on Thursday) next week will be my 17th race of 2012. That’s counting Dakar – every day being in the race, about 500 miles every day. We had a lot of fun with Dakar. Our cars were very fast.”


YOU RACE IN ALL FORMS OF MOTORSPORTS; IS ROAD RACING A PREFERENCE? “I love racing. I’m fortunate enough I get to race in world-wide events because of the Dakar, but in America, NASCAR is the Dakar in America. It’s the big event. When you come to the Daytona 500, it’s the event that shows up on the radar screen for the season. Ten years ago, it was the Indy 500 that showed up on the radar screen, maybe 15 years ago. Now, in American motorsports, it’s all about the Daytona 500. Obviously, we competed against the factory programs in the Dakar and now we want to and try to compete at Daytona. Last year we were running third, I ran with Trevor (Bayne) all day long, I led laps (seven) in the race and ran in the lead pack. I know I led Talladega which was the last restrictor plate race (hooked up in tandem) with Trevor again. The two of our cars work really well together. This is the same car that I had last year at Daytona; it’s the same car I did have at Talladega.”


YOU JUST SHOOK HIS (TREVOR BAYNE) HAND HERE AT MEDIA DAY; DOES THAT MEAN YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF DEAL THIS YEAR? “I consider him a friend. There are things that went on at Talladega; he lost the draft and I went back and got him. That’s part of being a good teammate. I think we’ve got that relationship. I really don’t know how it’s going to play out this year with the front bumper because I wasn’t here for testing because we were at Dakar. Also, what NASCAR is going to allow and not allow us to do? I think this two-car tandem has been around forever. I think we weren’t smart enough five years ago to understand if we just touch the brakes a little bit, we could keep this guy connected to us. So, this isn’t something new that just happened. It’s been here. We just weren’t smart enough as race team engineers, drivers and operators to understand when you get there, don’t hold it wide open any more. In the day, when you would hold it wide open, you would get away from the guy and the guy couldn’t get back to your bumper. Who would have known what we know now where you do a light lift getting into one and a light lift off of two, the cars would have stayed connected five years ago as well.”


WILL TANDEM RACING CONTINUE? “It’s inevitable. It’s not going to go away. Obviously, they’ve (NASCAR) cut the air off. But that’s just going to make the splits (changing position) a little bit more different which is probably going to cause a bigger one more. Race teams are very smart, methodical. We analyze everything. When there’s a rule in place, we’ll go and take that rule and chew it apart until we figure out how to make it better.”


WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU, THE RACE TEAM, SPEED ENERGY, SPONSORS IF YOU WON THIS RACE? “I think it would elevate. Obviously, it would help SPEED Energy. SPEED is an associate with MAPEI and Menards for this race. It’s a MAPEI/Menards car like we ran at Montreal last year. It’s the blue car. I feel good about it. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun. I don’t think we’ll be rocket fast in qualifying, but I think we will be plenty strong when it comes time to go racing.”