1on1: Bill Elliott (cont'd)

Q: A lot of the smaller teams feel like they're fighting an uphill battle, don't they?

Elliott: Take Roush, for example. Roush has got his five [car] deal, and he's got a piece of that 28 and 38 [the cars fielded by Yates Racing]. I mean, Ray Charles could see that. It just makes it tough.

There is so much information there, and there is so little time. As a single-car entity, you can only do so much. If you go out and even if you test all day -- let's say you make three runs an hour, and you make three 10- or 15-lap runs an hour with your changes, where you come in and make changes in between and then go back out and you run. In an eight-hour day, that's 24 runs for a single-car entity. Well, you multiply that by four or five or six teams, they've got so much information on you just in one day that you can never catch up.

Fast facts

What	Pep Boys Auto 500
When	2:20 p.m. ET Sunday
TV	ABC, 1 p.m. ET
Radio	PRN (Sirius Ch. 128), 1:15 ET

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Q: Then they also have so many more people who can sift through that information and try to figure out what it all means ...

Elliott: That's one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is you've got so many different minds thinking about doing different things. How much does that add to it? You've got one crew chief saying, well, he looks at it one way; then you've got another crew chief saying, well, maybe we ought to look at it another way. There are things you don't even think about in that respect.

It's just a part of it. It's kind of David and Goliath. Some days you can beat the giant, but then some days, more than likely if you go day in and day out, he's gonna beat you.

Q: Do you think that's good for NASCAR, or do you think they're going down a path they should go down?

Elliott: Well, it's done set. It's done gotten too far. And the point is, what are you gonna do about it now? There is going to be a select group of people -- because this is a sport where you gotta have deep pockets. Even if you have multi-car teams, if you have one car or two that's maybe lacking total sponsorship, and then you've got one or two more, maybe they can cover it -- where you can subsidize and spread it out over the three, four, five, six teams. You look at the Ford deal, and there's Roush's deal along with Yates and then there is the 21 car. And that's it.

Q: You really think you'll be able to step out of the car for good at the end of this season? What if the Wood Brothers come knocking on your door again to maybe run a few more races for them again next season?

Elliott: At this point in time, I don't know. I think I'm just going to look at the next few races and see if I can help 'em out maybe, but it would just be a short-team deal. A few and that's it.

I think right now they're trying to sell stuff, and they don't really have a whole lot else going on. If we can turn around and get something going here -- and keep it going -- that's one thing. If it's gonna go and turn around and change directions on you, then no, I don't want to do this anymore.

It's just like when I look back on Ray [Evernham's] deal, and when I decided to stop runnin' full-time. I had been with Mike Ford a long time and he and I had been very successful together and he was leavin'. And man, it's just hard to start over. We've been through some changes [at Wood Brothers Racing] and now we've kind of turned the corner a little bit. But there again, unless they can put several deals together, it's gonna be tough on them boys anyway. You never can predict the future.

As far as me ever runnin' a full-time deal again? No, never. Would I run a couple first off? Yeah, maybe. But that would be it. And if they could find something to fill the void before the first of next year, I wouldn't even do that. What I'm saying, I guess, is let's get through the next few races -- and then what they find out and what they come up with will be the determining factor.

Q: Getting away from the track, is your driver development program still in full swing?

Elliott: Well, right now we're strugglin' with it. We're tryin' to find sponsorship, and we've had a very difficult time. It's another thing that we need to try to get going. We haven't really been able to put anything together. (Continued)