We did what we needed to do and I thought it turned out well, ... I just came up a bit short on Jimmie Johnson.

With a little bit of racing luck and a little bit of staying on top of our game and not let the big picture get away, we could do the same thing we did last year.

There's no more important test than Vegas. We've got quite a bit of guessing to get through the next part of the season, and that's why this test is very important.

That's what makes our sport so unique. You can sit there and watch it on TV, and you get more of the perspective of the pit strategy and the way the guys are passing each other out on the track. Then when you come to the race, you lose a little bit of that, but you can still see live what's going on, and you can get a scanner and hear the teams and what transmissions go back and forth. And you have the smell, you've got the sight, the feel. When cars come by at 200 miles an hour, it blows you away.

This is something we've been looking forward to for many races -- Richmond. We wanted to get a good finish because it has bit us so many times.