MODERATOR: Firestone Indy 200 winner, Alex Barron has picked up
his first career Indy Racing League victory. Alex, this year was
also the co-rookie of the year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,
where he finished fourth at that event. He has been in front in many
of our races. Alex, congratulations on this much-deserved first win.
ALEX BARRON: It's a great feeling. Blair Racing has been working
really hard all year. We've shown a lot of speed throughout the
year. We've had a few things happen to us to hold us back a little
bit, that is what shows a sign of a really good team. Even in this
race we had a few things happen to us out of our control, the team
kept fighting and kept fighting on and off the track and showed at
the end we had everything come back to us. Got it back neutral, we
showed a lot of speed at the end of the race.
Q. Larry Blair is one of the car owners, with the Rayovac team.
This is a brand-new team, you have to be tickled to death with
success so quick.
LARRY BLAIR: It is a something to be here in the winner circle
with Alex and the whole team. Fundamentally, it is a new team but
there are experienced, mature players throughout the whole
organization, most notably, Tom Gloy here, who helped call a great
race because we did have some adversity in the beginning. But we
overcame all of that with Alex's great drive.
MODERATOR: Tom, you made a great call in this race. The call in
the Indianapolis 500 was also awesome. Almost got you into victory
lane, if we could have maybe finished under green, you might have be
in victory lane at that point. You, yourself, were a great racer.
Congratulations on your fine run.
TOM GLOY: We have been together about seven-and-a-half months
now. Everybody works awfully hard, and Alex leads the charge for us,
without a doubt. Super day. We had a regulator fail at the first pit
stop. We went from third or fourth to dead last. Alex hung in there;
he is just a fighter. We came back from the failure and got on to a
strategy that looked like it might work, and it did in the end. I
will tell you what, those last four or five laps, I will give those
to Alex, 100 percent, absolutely flat stick, it was unbelievable.
Q. Tom, you might want to refresh or Alex, whichever one: On the
first stop you came in with the leaders, you were in the fifth
position, you went back out and had to come back in one more time.
Did you have to come in two times in the first yellow-flag pit stop?
A. We had a failure of the ... the air line that raises the car.
The air jack failed, we had a regulator failure. It took us forever
to get out, get the car out, get the tires changed. We came back in
because we decided we would start on a fuel strategy, so we had five
or six laps of yellow, came in filled it up again and went on to a
new strategy.
MODERATOR: Open it up for questions.
Q. Alex, what were your emotions as you were coming down for your
first Indy Racing League victory with several laps to go?
BARRON: Actually, I was a lot more calm than I was when I was
behind Scott (Sharp) because I knew if we could get out front going
into Turn 1, I could get flat out until the end of the race to
finish the race. When you are behind somebody, if somebody turns in
early, it is really hard to get a run on them because you lose the
front wing. I knew that it was hard, too, because he was behind me,
and he was gauging me, so I gauged him when we punched off. I knew I
was at a little bit disadvantage of that. But, you know, I was
actually calmer being in front than I was behind. Once it went
green, the car handled beautifully, we were flat out to the end and
showed some really good speed at the end of the race.
Q. In regards to your past with Scott Sharp for the lead going
down into the corner, it looked a little hairy going down in there.
BARRON: Scott's car got really wide. It was only a few laps until
the end of the race, Scott was trying real hard to win. He was on
the inside, I ran out to the outside of him, his car pushed up, I
had to lift, when I did that, I just dropped down low and got back
on the throttle real quick. At that point he lost his front end a
little bit, and I was able to come back underneath him on the exit.
I had a lot of momentum on Turn 3, and I was able to overtake him.
At that point, I knew our car was good enough again. If we got by
ourselves, we'd run real strong.
MODERATOR: The question is team achievement and great run at
Indianapolis got a little lost in the controversy after the event.
Does that maybe give the team some of the notoriety and some of the
happiness that you guys deserve?
BARRON: I believe it is more mental than it is physical. When a
team wins like this, it makes them try that much harder. It shows
them there is light at the end of the tunnel. If you keep working
like you do, you'll achieve your goals. This team, just like any
other team out there, this team works really hard. A short time to
put a lot of things together. Tom and Larry have been working real
hard to put together the right package. The got us there. I'm just
real happy it came here in the middle of the season, and we got a
good result for everybody.
Q. What point did Alex realize in the race that, hey, we got a
shot to win this thing?
BARRON: I knew it because of the way they held me out on the last
stop. They made me pit. I was actually getting up to speed when it
went green. I knew if it went green enough, the other guys would
have to pit, and I would move us up forward. Once we got up toward
the front, there wasn't a lot of dirty air. That is where the car
was running really strong. At the end of the race, we ran our
fastest lap of the race. There was a lot going on. There was quite a
few wrecks. There is only one line, one-and-a-half lines around this
track. I went up high on a couple of restarts, tried to overtake, I
just missed the wall. I was backpedaling for a couple of hundred
yards, some of the guys weren't lucky enough to pull that off; I
was. Scott Sharp, he almost hit the wall two or three times in Turn
2. In fact, I thought he did. He ended up running strong at the end
of the race. There is only one groove. I thought that played a big
part of what went on in the event. We were just real fortunate to
get out in front at the end of race and run strong laps.
MODERATOR: Some of Alex's last few laps were at 201.5 miles an
hour. Quite quick at the end of the event. We have a question here.
The question is: Can you play the guitar?
BARRON: I can move the strings. No, I can't play it. That is
something I have always wanted to do. A lot of my friends play it.
Sometimes when I was a young kid I would go over to a couple of my
friends’ house. They were a little older than I was. They played
guitar. That was something I always wanted to do. A couple of guys I
know started a band – they actually race cars. It is definitely an
interest for me. I think the guitar is a beautiful instrument. I
hope I get some time to take lessons.
Q. The question is: Alex has had so much potential, now that he
is with a very solid team with Blair Racing, what does this do for
your future to head into?
BARRON: I haven't won a car race since ‘97. In ‘97, I was
with a really good team called Lynx Racing. In '97, rookie of the
year, we won the (Toyota Atlantic) championship, I haven't won
anything since. I have been on teams for a short amount of time, as
soon as the chemistry comes, things have changed. It’s been really
hard for me. When I first moved up to this level, I got a
development program. It was hard on me mentally. I really had to dig
down the last couple of years. And this is the breakthrough for my
career. It hasn't just happened in a year, it’s been
three-and-a-half years now. It’s been really tough. I've run a lot
of races. I have had a lot of things happen at the end of the race.
I have been four laps from the end leading a huge race and have had
something happen. This has been a really big breakthrough for me,
mentally. I knew I could always do it, but this helps a lot, and I
hope we can build on this, as myself and the team at the same time.
Q. Larry, a lot was made during the season that Roger Penske was
making the jump from CART. How has the transition gone and tell us
about the competition that you have seen in the Indy Racing League.
BLAIR: We knew that the competition was very stiff here at the
Indy Racing League, and we made no assumption whatsoever. We knew we
had to earn the right to win here. It was a total team effort. There
was a lot of experience that we had to gain here. The good,
old-fashioned 80/20 rule really applies. You can be 80 percent fast,
but the last 20 percent, you really have to work hard at. The
testing we did here last week, the discipline and maturity of John
Dick, our chief engineer, in collaboration with Alex and so forth
really helps to demonstrate all of that.
MODERATOR: Last couple of questions. Go ahead. The question is
for the entire team or Alex. Having ran against Team Penske the last
few years, is it intimidating when you look in your rearview mirror
and see those red-and-white machines heading toward you?
BARRON: I look at every driver and team as a competitor. This
sport is really mental. If you do that, you put a lot of pressure on
yourself that you don't need. When you cross the finish line that is
when you really enjoy it. To beat Roger Penske, Gil de Ferran and
Helio (Castroneves), those are really successful people. That is a
good feeling. We have a lot of respect for all the competitors. I
think it’s been a long time coming for us, and to beat a team like
that, it feels really good.
Q. How is the feeling of this victory compared to a fourth place
run with ... ?
BLAIR: It was actually Max Wilson in CART. Actually, this is a
bit of a fairy tale. It is a moment I have actually dreamed about
for about two years now. To actually have it come true is a pretty
phenomenal experience and one that I will cherish forever. It is
very special.