Q&A with Derrike Cope

"There were a few races where I would hurt my shoulder again only a little bit. In most races, it really didn't bother me. Sometimes I'd try to do something and there'd be a little twinge, but in the car I really didn't feel it. I didn't feel like I was in as good a shape as I should have been in. The injuries were such that I couldn't work out. I really couldn't do anything while I healed. I put some weight on and I wasn't happy with that. I'm working hard on my conditioning, working out and trying to lose weight. I feel a lot better. I feel like I'll be in good shape by the time the season begins. My sternum and ribs no longer hurt. I won't have any difficulties."

Looking back, should you have stepped out of the car for a few races in order to fully recover?

"I think with the injuries I had I shouldn't have been driving a race car right away. But you do what you have to do to protect yourself. At the end, I think you make decisions based sometimes on pride instead of evaluating what the body needs. I should have taken about four weeks and sat out of the car. If I had done that, I probably would have come back and finished stronger. But with a new team you're trying to run well and keep the guys motivated. They want you to drive and if you think you can, you do it. I did that, and whether it was right or wrong, it didn't work out the way we hoped it would and we got ourselves in a hole that we never really got back out of. It was just one of those years where we could never really get on top of things."

Was it your toughest season?

"It was pretty much uncharted territory. I'd never been hurt before to that degree. We also had a lot of key personnel leave. That alone got us in a hole, and combined with my injuries, we were never able to recover. It was a difficult year. I can't say I've been through a tougher one. I've been through tough ones in regard to other problems. Internal strife, funding, things of that nature. At the Allisons, I wouldn't get paid until the guys would get paid. That was stressful in a different way. This was about my body hurting and I was trying to give more of myself. Maybe I couldn't do it physically, but I was still trying mentally."

Describe your workout regimen during the offseason.

"My wife and I work out together. It's about an hour and a half program. We work out at Bahari' at night when there's nobody there. That's because we have busy schedules. My wife has to go out early each morning and feed our horses. I typically have a lot of business stuff to do, so it works out better for us to work out in the evening. We work out at eight o'clock or so, and by the time we leave it's quarter to 10. I started out on the treadmill for about 20 minutes. It varies with the programs I run. I keep trying to progress. I started out at 20 minutes and now I'm up to 45 minutes. I hope to be up to an hour by the time Daytona rolls around. I'm staying on that pretty well and enjoying that. I'll ride the bike a little bit. I'm working with weights and doing some leg work. We go about every night. I do upper body stuff and weights and the next night work the legs. We do a lot of various things with free weights. Renee a number of years back was Miss Winston and she worked out regularly and she had a certain regimen. We've taken that and continue to work with it a lot. It's nice because I have somebody to spot me and I can spot her. It's a nice deal where we can come up to the shop and spend some time together."

What are your goals for 1999?

"I've been 15th in points before and I know we're capable of that. I honestly believe that. We're certainly capable of having a number of top-fives. If we don't have two or three top-fives I'll be disappointed. We'd like to get five-to-eight top-10s or so. If we can do that, then we'll be in position to win some races, and I think we're capable of doing that. That's the effort I'm looking for. I think the year we're coming off of and the amount of changes we've had, you can't go out and make a lot of boastful predictions. I'm going into it with an open mind and no preconceived ideas as far as what we can and can't do. We've got to go out and put ourselves in position to do the right things. If we do that our performance has to get better."

What are your thoughts on working with a new crew chief?

"Dan has some different thoughts on things. I'm looking forward to seeing how those things react. That's how it was with Jimmy Fennig. Jimmy had his own way of doing things. I just adapted to some things he wanted and it seemed to work real well there. We're going to try some different things, and I'm game to trying anything he thinks we need to do in order to be productive."