These guys aren't having fun anymore. They have a lot of pressure on them. They have to perform and they have a lot of people they have to beat. When I was running, we had just a few people that we had to beat. You could have a bad day and still finish sixth or seventh. Now, if you are off a little bit, you finish 37th.

The IRL needs guys like us to help tell their story, because they've got a good one to tell. Rusty will be good, and I'm happy for him because this will help get him ready for (2007).

Understand that the sponsors are the people that are making this sport happen. It's not the purses; it's the sponsors. The sponsors want to be in Texas, they want to be in California, they want to be in Las Vegas.

With a $16 million purse, it's pretty damn important. Just a few years ago, we only had a handful of big races that paid big money that you really wanted to win. It was Daytona, the Charlotte 600; they threw Indianapolis in there and the Southern 500. They paid you a $1 million bonus if you won three of those races. Those are the ones you set your sights on when the season started. Now, everything pays $1 million, and that has diminished the value of some of our bigger races.

We could have had media day in a pup tent. You came down here to race and you went in the garage and worked on your car. They tried to hype it up and add TV. There wasn't the intensity that you have in the sport now. People are getting pulled in so many different directions; it's hard to have fun.

NASCAR logic isn't always logical,