Pontiac Excitement 400
Richmond International Raceway

Top Ten at Richmond
May 6, 2000 - All in all, a good day for Bill Elliott and the Drive Thru Crew at Richmond. Despite a few mishaps on pit road, Elliott scored his fifth top-ten of the 2000 season.

"We never could capitalize on anything," said Elliott. "We had some pit errors and a lot of little stuff. We had a great night. I mean, all in all, as good as we've run."

Elliott turned in a very solid qualifying effort on Friday, giving the 94 Ford the 10th starting spot for the Saturday evening race.

Once the green flag flew, Elliott slipped a few spots and was running 13th by the first caution on lap 43. The Drive Thru Crew made quick work of the pit stop and Elliott would restart the event right where he left off, in 13th.

The second caution flag, on lap 62 would find Elliott 12th. This time, Elliott and the crew decided to put a spring rubber in to help the handling on the car. The extra time spent with the spring rubber would regulate Elliott to restart in the 22nd position.

The next time that Elliott would pit, a costly error would occur. On lap 172, Elliott came into the pits 19th, changed four tires and made an adjustment. The problem was that when Elliott sped away from pit road, the crew had left the wrench in the car. Elliott had to return to the pits to have the wrench removed. This placed Elliott 28th on the grid.

Elliott then started working his way back toward the front, making it to 13th when the caution flag flew on lap 262. This was very important for Elliott and the crew, the leaders chose not to make a pit stop, while Elliott and others did.

Only 12 laps later, the caution flag would fly again, this time the leaders had to make pit stops, while Elliott and the cars that had pitted just a few laps earlier stayed out. Elliott would restart the race in the second position. Elliott was now in a position to contend for the win.

"Well, I knew I couldn't beat the 20 car, but at least have maybe a top five or top six finish because I got by Burton and got to fourth," said Elliott. "I was able to hold my own there, but then the caution came out."

The caution that Elliott spoke of happened on lap 361, with the McDonald's Ford solidly in the fourth position. This time, a bad pit stop would cost the team nine spots on the grid and restart the race 13th.

Elliott then charged his way into the top ten, where he would finish in the ninth position. Cha-Ching, the name of the car that Elliott was driving, has now scored a top ten in all three races that the car has appeared (Las Vegas, 4th; Martinsville, 8th; and Richmond, 9th).

"To come out of here and run as good as we did, I'm very pleased," said Elliott. "I hated to see that last caution come out. I believe on a real long run the 5 wasn't that good. I believe I could have run him back down, but on short runs when you get in the back you can't do that."

Elliott moves to 12th in the Winston Cup point standings with 1300 points, 301 points behind leader Bobby Labonte.

Richmond Qualifying Quotes
"I don't know where it came from. It's these guys. They put it all together and just kept digging. We changed a bunch of stuff on the car. We really didn't get a fair assessment from the second practice because we went pretty early on that set of tires and we made quite a few changes because I wasn't really happy with the car. The track cooled down, which helped us. I'd been really loose on entry and they changed a lot of stuff and it helped the car. I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it was good enough that the car did what I wanted it to enough that we ran a good time. I still feel like I could have gotten a little bit lower, but still all in all, the car ran a good time and that's what it's all about."

Richmond Notes