Bill Elliott Daytona 500 Post-Qualifying Press Conference

BILL ELLIOTT --94-- McDonald's Taurus -- "To me, it was pretty much uneventful from my standpoint, versus the way the cars the used to be with the soft springs and stiff shocks and the way we had to qualify them last year. I've gotta hand it to the guys I've got right now. They've really worked hard and put in a lot of effort. I've said that over and over again this week, but they've put together a lot of hard nights and that's a lot of dedication to what's transpired this week. We unloaded off the truck and have been in the top 10 just about every practice. I knew they tuned the car up. Tony Santanacola came over from the 98 car and is helping Ernie with the engines and his superspeedway stuff seems to be awful good and it showed here today. A lot of the stuff we put together and worked through throughout the winter has really paid off here today and the main thing we've gotta do is get through what we've done here today and then worry about the 125s come Thursday."

DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD STICK ON THE OUTSIDE POLE? "I knew it'd be close. I knew what he had run earlier today and knew it would be good. I had a feeling I'd be third-fourth-fifth along in there depending on what a couple of cars ran. Rusty ran a little bit slower than what I thought he'd run, but he was pretty much in the ballpark. Skinner came up and ran good there at the end and that was a little bit of a surprise, but, still, until everything gets done and gives their best stab at it, it's hard to tell where you're gonna end up at the end of the day."

IS IT HEARTBREAKING TO MISS OUT ON THE OUTSIDE POLE? "It is in one aspect, but at least it gives you a good start come Thursday. Regardless of what happens you'll be in the race and that's one thing we've gotta look at. You come down here and you put a lot of effort into it, you know you'll have a good start to start the 125 and that's really, other than if you've got the pole or the outside pole, if you run well in the 125 you're gonna have a good starting spot for Sunday anyway."

YOU RAN 210 HERE AT ONE TIME. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES NOW? "I think of all the accomplishments I've had throughout the years, I think running 210 here was among the greatest highlights, especially qualifying. I can remember when Cale ran just over 200 here and then the second lap he crashed up off turn four. I can remember leaving pit road that day wondering if I was gonna make it back because back then you do anything you wanted to with the spoilers and we would lay them down to whatever you could stand. You would get to the corner and hold your breath and hope it made it through because back then we did it on bias-ply tires, which, if you ran that today on radial tires, the radial tires seem to roll the corner quite a bit freer than the bias-ply, so there's no telling what we'd run today."

HOW MUCH DOES QUALIFYING TRANSFER TO THE RACE? "It says a lot because I believe this is one of the best cars I've had coming down here in a long time. Probably the next best was '97 and I'm not saying where we'll end up compared to '97 because we ran strong throughout the whole time we were down here then, but I think we'll learn more when we see come Monday and Tuesday when we draft. I haven't had any drafting time at all with this 2000 Taurus. I'm not in anything tomorrow, so I'll have to kind of watch it closely to see where the cars are."

ARE THE SHOCKS AND SPRINGS NOW CLOSER TO THE LATE EIGHTIES OR EARLY NINETIES? "It was so much different than back then anyway because you had to run enough spring then to hold the car up because you were running so fast through the corner. You had to run a lot of spring in the car and a lot of shock to control the spring back then just because the g-load in the corner made the car bottom out real bad, so you had to put a lot of spring in it to hold the car up."

HOW FAR BEHIND WERE YOU WHEN THE NEW GUYS CAME ABOARD? "Light years and I think that's an understatement. Really, as we came into Atlanta in the fall of last year I was kind of at a crossroads where I was gonna end up. Eddie (D'Hondt), my general manager went to work on putting some things together and we started putting some real good people together that came in and it's really turned the program around. Then Ernie got Tony to come in and help him on the motor side, which Ernie has done an excellent job throughout the years, but, still, having different ideas helps in a lot of different areas. Between all of that, it's really turned my program around. Those guys have really busted their rear ends and I'm sure all the guys have, but I'm just saying that's a part of what this business has come to. We did it in the eighties and it'll continue to happen on down the road."

ARE YOU GOING TO DRIVE A DODGE NEXT YEAR? "Right now I've got a long way to go before I ever cross that bridge."