Ron Lewis photo

: The COT has been on the track for one year, now. How has it been for you – good, bad, or whatever?

JG: The one thing I really give NASCAR a lot of credit on is that a lot of teams and drivers said we need to change this, we need to change that, we need to do this, we need to do that. Everybody was giving their opinions on what needed to happen with this car and they stuck to their guns saying we believe the more time that the teams spend in competition and testing, seven post, wind tunnel all those things that they are going to get this car to do what they need it to do. I think that we’ve gotten about 80, 90 percent of that out of it. That they were right on that. But there’s that other 10, 15, 20 percent that I think we are kind of strapped and limited on and one of them is the right-side weight. We couldn’t even make the minimum right-side weight. They had to raise it. I just think there’s a way to get some of the mechanical grip back in these cars with tires, but the only way we can do it is to lighten the car up. I think that’s the only thing I don’t like about the car, it’s too heavy. Of course, you don’t like the center of gravity being higher once you go from a car that has a lower center of gravity but we’re getting used to that. I think we can make the car a little sexier looking, but I’m getting used to that too. I think the wing and the splitter are very cool. I feel the car is safer from a structural standpoint, in side impact, as well as the amount of room inside the car. I feel safer and I think they are safer. Didn’t really change my impact that I had at Vegas much, that impact with the old car would have been similar I believe. There’s good things that come out, I think the racing has been surprisingly good because I thought this car aerodynamically wouldn’t really be able to make as many passes. The first time I drove this car at Michigan I was like oh boy, we got our hands full here. Just by working on the car, driving the car more we’ve made big improvements so hopefully we can continue down that same path and continue to make this car what it needs to be. All I care about is putting good racing on out there. If it drives great, doesn’t drive great, if we’re putting good racing on and we’re competitive that’s what matters most to me.”