Q: Any resolution to Sprint Cup restrictor plate racing?

Kahne: Everybody goes for it and with the drafting and trying to get runs on other cars, you’re going to have that. It’s part of Talladega, it’s part of Daytona. Coming down to the end, people bump. You’re going to have that. It’s part of that type of racing, and we ended up getting underneath Kyle’s car (at Daytona on Saturday). We just drove right through him pretty much and that was the way our race finished. We still finished decent, had a pretty good points night. It’s just that type of racing. We got by Mark Martin (in the points) and we’re sitting in a pretty good spot right now. We’ve had, I’d say the last seven or eight weeks, we’ve been right there in the top 10. We’ve been right there each week, so I feel like we’ve had great cars and the team is doing awesome and we’ll just keep working on building on that and figuring out how to make ‘The Chase.’

Q: What will it do for your confidence now that you’re back in ‘The Chase?’

Kasey: I think that it doesn’t really mean anything because you have to be in there when it comes down to Richmond. That’s when you want to be in ‘The Chase.’ The last couple years we’ve been right there and then we’d fall out right at the end. So I’d like to be a little more comfortably in ‘The Chase,’ but there’s a lot of good cars, good drivers and teams. We just need to be competitive each week and get the most points we can and hopefully we’ll be part of ‘The Chase’ at the end of the year.

Q: Are you excited about Indianapolis?

Kasey: I’m actually looking forward to a lot of these tracks — Chicago, Indianapolis — that’s one of the top races that we go to each year. Our cars have been awesome lately, so I’m looking foward to everywhere we’re going. The Allstate 400 is a great race to win, so we’ll keep building and try to get better and better.

Q: How important is it to do races like this and connect with the fans?

Kahne: I’ve always been into short-track dirt racing, I just love it. It’s a huge part of where I came from and what I still really enjoy being a part of. I like coming out and mingling with the fans, racing and enjoying ourselves at these tracks and trying to win. It’s hard to win these races and I haven’t won a dirt race in a long time. The more we do it the better you get at it, so I’ll keep working at it and try to win.

Q: Same question for “Smoke.”

Stewart: It’s big for us. Kasey owns short-track teams, I own short-track teams and 3 racetracks. It’s very important to us because that’s what we’re passionate about. It’s not just for us to come out just to come out. We come out because we’re very passionate about short-track racing, especially dirt tracks. It’s something we enjoyed growing up and you enjoy going back to that, so it’s a great chance for people that don’t get a chance to come to the Cup races on the weekends to be able to come out and see their heroes up close. It gives us a night to get closer to them.

Q: What’s been the key to your season?

Stewart: Just good people. We’ve got really good people doing their jobs and with that we are getting really good results. (At this point a media member joked, “You told me it was the driver”). That’s what I wanted you to believe, but I just told them the truth (laughs). It’s been a great year, obviously. I mean, anytime you make a big change like we did it’s an unknown variable and you can be either really good or really bad, and we’ve been very fortunate that it’s gone very well.

Q: What’s been the biggest difference about being a car owner?

Stewart: It hasn’t been that much different, other than I can be late to team meetings and I don’t get yelled at like I used to. (laughs). We’ve been really fortunate. Our deal is a little different than situations like Michael Waltrip and Robby Gordon and some of these guys, in that they started from square one and started from scratch. We were able to come in from an existing organization.

Q: How much of a battle is there between Kasey and Tony with their World of Outlaw teams and their drivers Joey Saldana and Donny Schatz always running up front?