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Dover Qualifying Quotes DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE THAT FAST? "No, not after I came off turn four. I got up there in the middle of four and just kind of took off there and had to feather back a little to get through. The track doesn't seem like it changed a lot in one respect, but if you get a little bit off your line or whatever, it just seems to be pretty slick out of where you need to be. I got out a little bit and I said, 'Well, I better just squeeze back a little bit and save it,' but it was still a good lap. We got through one and two pretty well." YOU WERE AFRAID RUSTY MIGHT STEAL YOU THUNDER AND HE DID. "He did. Rusty has been good in practice and he always gets around this place pretty well. I felt like up in four I slid out just a little bit there I gave up a little bit of time, but if I went back and did it again I don't know if I could have done anything better. You've got to look at this thing as just giving it all you've got and you end up where you end up. These guys have put a heck of a car under me every week and I'm so proud of those guys it's unbelievable. They're the ones that deserve the credit, not me."
Dover Post-Qualifying Press Conference HOW ABOUT YOUR RUN? "I was very pleased. I knew Rusty would be one of the cars to beat. He was good in practice, the only problem is I'm a Wallace sandwich for the start of Sunday. But Dover has been pretty good to me the last two races. Last year we were running good the second race, better than the first race, and we had a piece of metal come through the radiator and we fell out of the race. These crew guys, Mike Ford, Barry (Swift), Kevin (Cram), all the guys -- Eddie (D'Hondt) -- have done just a heck of a job on this team. I mean, I can't say enough about what they've done. They've made it easy for me." HOW DO YOU LIKE DOVER? "I used to not, but I'm getting to where I like it pretty well. Really, prior to the two races last year, I hadn't come here and qualified or run very well, but since I kind of got qualifying out of the way last year and got to where I could figure this place out a little bit I like it pretty well. I think when they came in and laser-ground it, it really made a lot of difference here and it didn't upset the car near as bad as it did prior to them doing that, but I'm looking forward to it." A THIRD THROUGH THE SEASON, HOW ARE THINGS LOOKING? "I think they've progressed quite a bit. We've made a lot of crew changes toward the latter part of last year, we had a lot of people left and we got some new guys in there. It's come together quicker than what I thought. Ray (Evernham) is helping a little bit in the background. He's still off doing his own thing, but what help he can put in the deal and then what help that these guys have brought to me that do it week-in and week-out have been the biggest asset we've got." IS IT A DIFFERENT BILL ELLIOTT THIS YEAR TO LAST? "Mike Wallace asked me a race or two back what driving school I went to over the winter and I said, 'I don't know.' It's just been one of them deals -- we're just going in the right direction. Like I told some of the guys earlier this afternoon, it's a progression. We ran good in The Winston, we came back and qualified and ran well in the 600 until we fell out and then we came here and we qualified well. If you can get that momentum ball rolling in this sport, that's 90 percent of the game." WITH THE MOMENTUM, HOW CLOSE ARE YOU TO WINNING? "That's another hard question to answer. I felt at Charlotte we had a pretty decent car. This car is the same car I ran here last year but with a new 2000 Taurus body on it, but still you've got to be in the right place at the right time and have some awful good luck because there are an awful lot of good cars as has already been seen to this point." WHAT ABOUT 400 MILES AS OPPOSED TO 500. HOW DO YOU RUN DOVER? "You pretty much run Dover the same. It's a typical mile wide-open race track. I mean, you've gotta run hard all day long or you'll get lapped. That's always been the problem in the past. A guy gets hooked up really well and if you don't start out well, they can put you a lap down here in a hurry because it don't take but 20 some-odd seconds to run here around the race track. If you get off three or four tenths, a guy can eat your lunch in a hurry, so that's the biggest key is start well and stay consistent all day so you can put yourself in position. Still, the 100 less miles psychologically makes it easier on the driver." CAN YOU TRANSFER ANYTHING FROM WHEN THIS WAS ASPHALT? "No. It's like when they concreted Bristol and they came here and concreted this place. Concrete takes a whole different setup than what the asphalt did. It's like you come to these race tracks when they used to be asphalt and then they put concrete on it and you have to re-learn 'em. You've gotta learn what it takes to get around the race track. They've worked really hard on this car. This car is the one I ran at Bristol and they've worked really hard on the concrete surface for these particular race cars and we've finally got the car working well -- plus you change your setup for the concrete." ABOUT YOUR IMPROVEMENT TODAY? "We gained about a tenth in qualifying. Some guys stayed about the same. We just adjusted the car and the guys did the rest. The team guys -- Tonycola (Santanicola) and Ernie on the motor side did a heck of a job -- and the crew guys put the suspension parts together and made it all work from that end."
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