Inside the Garage: No. 5 crew chief Alan Gustafson (cont'd)

Q: With Michigan and California being intermediate tracks in these last four before the Chase, have you selected your cars for each race, and do you have different cars or are you going to try to re-tread them, if you will?

Gustafson: We've got a car that we've had quite a bit of success with, and we've re-skinned it -- put a new body on it -- and kind of made it our next version of the old car. We had it in the wind tunnel and it was really good. So it's going to Michigan, and the plans are, if everything goes according to plan, we'll run well at Michigan and turn around and take it to California.

We're going to have another new car going into the Chase, so we're kind of rolling out our next version of cars that we think have a little bit better downforce numbers and things, so we're trying to get geared up, get in the Chase and have a little bit of an advantage.

Q: What's your key for a Michigan setup to have the best performing car you can have?

Gustafson: The key to Michigan, which is a real slick track that really gets hot in the summer, is you've got to turn the center of the corner and you really have to get off the corner well and that's the key -- to really put the power down onto those long straightaways.

We were decent there the last time we were there, but we really weren't where we wanted to be because we lacked some grip. So we're going to work real hard on getting the car to turn through the middle of the corner and to be able to use all the power onto the straightaway.

Q: Strategically, what's the key at Michigan and will you look at this race any differently than you would have considered the Michigan event in June?

Gustafson: Yeah, at Michigan, I think the first thing that comes to mind with everybody is fuel mileage. That racetrack, with the amount of laps and the configuration of the track, fuel mileage always comes into play.

They've changed the fuel cells, to a smaller one that's 18 gallons everywhere, and different things happen and it's always a fuel-mileage race. So you look at that and you look at being real good on a long run. And I think we actually gambled a little bit on fuel in June -- we took a risk. And I'm not sure we'll be as quick to take that kind of a risk now, as tight as it is [in the points].

But we've prepared for all that and we've prepared for a hot, slick track and we've got to be good on long runs. It's a fun place to race and we've got to get Chevrolet back in Victory Lane up there.

Q: When you have the car where you want it, do you cover it up, or is it the tendency to keep working, even if you're risking losing track of where you are?

Gustafson: I think you're always working to get it better. When I first came into crew chiefing this car, three years ago, you'd get to a point where you thought you were pretty good and you were like, 'Aaah. I think I'm just going to leave it. I think we're good and we've got a chance to win.'

Then you'd go out there and you run 10th and everybody's caught up to you and passed you a little bit. So I learned pretty quick you can't ever sit back -- even in the race. Richmond was a big lesson, last fall. We led 250 laps of a 400-lap race and finished second to [Kevin] Harvick when we got beat with two laps to go.

So you can never, never rest -- you always have to try to get better.