'Geritol Gang' ready to ride for MB2 Motorsports

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Bill Elliott's the elder statesman of MB2 Motorsports' trio of drivers competing in Sunday's Daytona 500 but neither he nor his veteran teammates, Sterling Marlin and Joe Nemechek, are feeling any of age's effects.

Elliott, 50, and Marlin, 48, have each won a pair of Daytona 500s while Nemechek, who's the baby of the group at 42, is a former Daytona pole and Busch race winner.

On the eve of the 48th edition of the Great American Race, Elliott, who's driving the No. 36 Chevrolet; Nemechek, who pilots the No. 01 Chevy; and Marlin, who'll debut in the No. 14 Chevy sat down to discuss how they feel about the great age debate and a few other hot topics around the Nextel Cup garage.


Q: People are making jokes about you guys' ages, but I'm sure that, to you it's just a number and age is just a state of mind, isn't that so?

Nemechek: I'm not 50 -- Bill's the damned old-timer. To me, it's just a number and I don't even look at it. I feel like I'm about 30 right now, and I know Sterling feels like he's about 30, too.

Marlin: I think it's something the press likes to bring up, because it just gives them something to talk about.

Elliott: Pretty much, it is just a state of mind. At least I think so. I mean, (Ken) Schrader's older than I am, by six months. I think what it is, is that a lot of these guys started a little later and they're hanging around a little longer.

I think it gets to a point where it ain't how you feel; you just kind of get tired of the aggravation, more than anything.

Q: What do you guys do to relax during Speedweeks, since it's kind of a goofy schedule?

Marlin: We used to race every day. Now, I went home for two days and worked on some real estate stuff and came back, and we've usually got something to do or somewhere to go every night.


There's a lot of slow time. We used to practice in the mornings, like, four hours a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It's just real slow now, but you've got to be here, so you just hang out here at the track.

I just go over to the Busch garage or stay here.

Nemechek: We had six hours of practice leading up to qualifying and two hours of practice for the race. So things are a lot different since I started coming here.

We used to practice something every day. But I've got double duty this week, running the Busch car, so I've got more stuff going on than Sterling does.

Q: How would you sum up your Speedweeks so far?

Marlin: We've all had fast cars, but we don't have anything much to show for it, so far.

Nemechek: It's very encouraging, but disappointing at the same time is probably the right word for it. Our cars have been fast and we qualified right there -- 13th and 14th for Sterling and myself.

We ran extremely well in the (Gatorade Duels) 150s. Heck, I was holding my own out there by myself in the outside lane in trying to make a pass, and I know Sterling worked the high lane by himself for a long time.


We've got fast cars; we just don't have any results to show for it.

Elliott: I'd say excellent. Our goal was to get into the Daytona 500. And I felt like our 500 car was better than our Shootout car but our Shootout car actually drove better in the race -- it just didn't run as good.

So now we need to get the car back to where we can go better on the long runs, and so hopefully we can get that squared away before Sunday.

Q: In the Gatorade 150, do you feel like that was the biggest shortcoming you had, getting a consistent long-run car?

Elliott: Yeah, and not being around it in a while -- because I haven't run the 500 for the last couple years -- we're just a little bit behind in getting where we need to be.

But we're good. We've got ... all day Sunday to work it out.

Q: In the 150, people who were sitting there watching didn't necessarily understand the strategy, since you were in the race and by finishing ahead of Mike Skinner, you knocked him out of the 500. But were you just trying to race and get the best possible starting position?

Elliott: That's correct -- that's all that it is. If I put one guy out, I'm putting somebody else in, so now I put the guy on speed (Kirk Shelmerdine) into the race by me racing my way into it.


So there are certain things you can't help. You can't control everything in life and you're going to do the best that you can do and that's all you can do.

Q: Seems like every Speedweeks there's a buzzword, and in 2006, it's "bump drafting." What's your take on all that and how have you experienced it.

Elliott: It seems like it's harder to get to the guy's bumper, for most of the guys, than the last time I was in this deal.

So I don't know. And now NASCAR's got the 'no bump zones' so that makes a difference, too -- or, I guess, out of bounds or whatever you want to call it.

Nemechek: Everybody was pretty cool and calm and collected out there (in the 150.) I got hit a couple times and I pushed people a couple times.

I mean, it's just common sense and you don't do it in the corners, and then you're fine. You hit somebody when they're straight, you don't hit them when they're crooked so you get them crossed-up.

It's all common sense and it shouldn't be a NASCAR deal, but it's the small percentage of drivers who have ruined it for everybody.

Q: Is there any concern over how NASCAR might enforce that?

Elliott: Well, there's always a concern whenever anybody gets involved. Is it my perception that he moved up on me or did I come down on him? What's the perception, and then how are you going to rule on that?


So you might have an instant replay, but I've never seen them in a race really change the judgment or what they did as far as a call or whatever. It's just too hard to do and too hard to figure out.

Q: The cars aren't out of control, so when these things occur, is it the drivers' fault?

Marlin: In the first (Duels) we got three-deep after the first deal and it was pretty wild with guys crossed-up and sideways and that cost me four or five spots, because I had to lift.

(Martin) Truex (Jr.) liked to have wrecked all of us and he nearly put me in the fence. I gave up a lot of spots, but it's hard when you try to go three-deep. I hope it's 85 degrees Sunday so that will get the track slick and you can't be three-deep.

Nemechek: That's what I was hoping for (in the Duels) and that's what we were geared up for, was the hot sun. I didn't even know it was supposed to rain so hopefully it'll be hot on Sunday and, if that track's slippery, yeah, you don't want to be getting three-deep -- at least not for long.

Q: Speedweeks obviously is a different animal, so as you come out of Daytona what are you looking at as you go to California?


Marlin: When we tested at Las Vegas, I wasn't real happy with my car because it didn't really have a lot of grip, which was a problem for a lot of guys.

What I saw with our car, was that we slowed down eight-tenths of a second a lap over 20 laps -- and a lot of guys slowed down as much as a second-and-a-half in 20 laps.

But our car just didn't have any grip. So we'll carry a different car back there that will have a little more downforce so it should be a lot better. And Joe's team is building him another one, too.

Nemechek: Yeah, you're just trying to make as much downforce as you can. That's why they call it a test. We had a plan going in there and we worked at our plan.

I don't think we got everything accomplished that we needed to -- but we got a good direction on what we needed to do for our bodies and chassis stuff -- and that's what it's all about.

We left here last year and went to California and I dominated the race until we broke a motor. So I'm looking for the same thing to happen this year.

I think the rules are much tighter, now, and I think all the teams have got much more equal equipment so I think it's going to be a tougher race.

Q: Joe, for you with a new Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS with a new nose and tail, how close was the setup you tested versus what you ran last year?

Nemechek: What was interesting last year was that we dominated the race in the spring and then in the second race we didn't run that good.

So we saw that things changed, even between races. I think that putting a new nose and tail on there has helped the downforce numbers a little bit. I thought we had a pretty good package in '05 and I think it's a little bit better in '06.

I think all of the teams have worked really hard over the winter to get more downforce so I think everybody's pretty equal.

Q: Sterling, you mentioned how much your car dropped off on a long run at the test, so would you rather have a car that started off a little slow but was more consistent over a long run, rather than drop as much as a second-and-a-half?

Marlin: Oh yeah. You can give up a little bit. In the first five or six laps, you can give up a little bit, but you've got to run 60 more laps before you've got to pit and you'll make it all back up.

Nemechek: You'll make it all back up plus a little bit more.

Q: Sterling, in the little time you've had in the Chevrolet, how would you compare it to the 2005 Dodge Charger, which a lot of teams had trouble with, particularly in traffic?

Marlin: Well, I really haven't driven the Chevrolet in race traffic much. But my car drove really great (in the Duels), the motor run great and it handled great. It was the best car I've had here in a long time.

But it's not like getting out of one car and you're getting in another car an hour later to see what you've got. But still, it seems like it's a lot better than last year.