Notes: Stremme, Busch both see the positive

FONTANA, Calif. -- David Stremme sees a silver lining from what could have been a dark cloud for his No. 40 Dodge.

Despite losing co-sponsor Lone Star Steakhouse at the beginning of the season, Stremme said Saturday "it's all good."

According to Stremme, the private firm that purchased Lone Star bought out its contract with Chip Ganassi Racing, allowing the No. 40 Dodge team to resell the sponsorship.

"Coors Light will be filling in some of the other spots," he said. "We also may have Tums coming on board. In fact, this may work out better."

Busch bristles at being behind

Wrecking out of the Daytona 500 while fighting for the lead stings. But for Kurt Busch, being 140 points behind Kevin Harvick hurts worse.

"You want to win Daytona, but the points season starts now," Busch said. "We're behind. We've got some work to do but we've got a lot of time to do it."

Busch spoke with Tony Stewart earlier this week and said he's put the accident behind him.

"Talking to Tony helped and looking at the tape and talking with Roger Penkse about everything, we definitely had a lot to be proud of after the week was over," Busch said. "It was one of those Daytona 500 deals where you're there to win the race and you're either first or last."

Please leave a message at the tone

David Gilliland has the same cellphone number, which meant a lot of voicemail since winning the pole at Daytona.

So did former Anaheim Western High School teammate Tiger Woods call? How about President Bush?

"Everybody but," Gilliland said. "That's one of the special things about coming back here to California. A couple of the guys I used to race for have motorhomes in here this weekend -- being able to go see them, eat dinner with them and just being to able to relax and hang out."

Turning the other cheek?

J.J. Yeley said making the transition from driving on dirt in a sprint car to the heavier stock car on asphalt is all about seat-of-the-pants feel, literally.

"I think the biggest thing you learn from sprint cars is that you're taking a car that weighs 1,100 pounds, that has 850 horsepower, and you have to do your best to get all that power to the ground," Yeley said. "You don't do it with traction control, you do it from the seat -- the feel in your butt and the way you work the throttle pedal.

"What comes down to it is that a stock car is a big old heavy race car. They don't exactly respond very well sometimes. The name fits the car sometimes."

Boredom is a state of mind

California Speedway has the reputation of being a boring race for fans. From his point of view, Jeff Burton disagrees.

"Every race track we go to has the tendency to put on good races or be boring," Burton said. "If somebody gets hooked up, then off they go. It isn't boring for me, I can assure you that.

"I don't pay a lot of attention to the conversations of whether it is boring or not."