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2001 Schedule and Results
MBNA America 500 - Ford Qualifying Quotes
MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Qualified 32nd) -- "That's not very good. We practiced pretty good with our DEWALT Taurus and something happened to the engine in qualifying. It started losing power a little bit and it just about died on my off of turn two, so I had to shut it off and stop running a second lap. I'm pretty disappointed with that. I thought we could of gone out and run a .15 or .20 at least, but I guess it wasn't meant to be today."
RYAN NEWMAN --12-- ALLTEL Taurus (Qualified 2nd) -- "You've got to have a great race car to get around this place. We came here and tested, but it was 35 degrees when we came here and tested so we had our work cut out for us trying to get this thing to handle in 70 degree weather. It's amazing how much this race track will change with five degrees, but when you get 35 degrees that makes it even tougher. It's just fun to be able to run that fast. I felt when I got through one and two I had a pretty good race car. I knew coming off turn two on that first lap I was on the minus side of things, so I was just hoping to get a good three and four and I'm happy we got the run in that we did. It will be up front someplace."
DAVE BLANEY --77-- Jasper Engines Taurus (Qualified 24th) -- "I don't know. If I wouldn't have known, I would have thought it was a really good lap. I couldn't believe how slow it was when they told me, so I don't know where we lost it at."
RICKY RUDD --28-- Havoline Taurus (Qualified 44th) -- "This Havoline Taurus, we haven't really quite been up to speed since we've been here. We've been gaining on it, but we did not test here so we're like two days behind. That tends to hurt you more in qualifying trim than it does race trim. We've got tomorrow to get it dialed in on race setup, but the speed definitely wasn't there today. It's been awhile since we've qualified good here. I'm not really sure, but this is not one of our better race tracks but we thought we'd do better than what we've done."
RICK MAST --90-- Duke's Mayonnaise Taurus (Qualified 29th) -- "The car didn't unload really good, but this is the first race with Mark Tutor and I'm so proud to have him with us. We worked on the car and kept getting it better and better. That lap was the best I've run, but the problem was the car bottomed out so hard in one that I shot up the race track and lost all my speed there. I was really surprised we ran as fast as we did. If it hadn't bottomed out on us so hard, we would have had a heck of a lap, but we'll take that and go."
RICKY CRAVEN --32-- Tide Taurus (Qualified 6th) -- "The Tide Ford ran so fast last fall and we had a transmission problem that didn't allow us to finish the job. This was a great effort by the team again. They did the same thing for me last week. Qualifying in the top 10 is pretty important in terms of the big picture and how well things go on Sunday and this kind of played right into our hands. I'm pretty excited about the race on Sunday."
ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Motorcraft Taurus (Qualified 16th) -- "I can't complain with that the way we've been qualifying this year. A lot of hard work went on this week at Texas Motor Speedway and this is the same car we tested there. We're pretty happy for the Wood Brothers, Motorcraft, the Air Force and everybody behind us. The car was a little tight, but I'm not gonna complain. I'm not gonna get greedy."
DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus (Qualified 7th) -- "It's hard to really go full bore in practice because you know what the lap is gonna be like, so everybody saves a little bit here. We made some changes with the car and that helped a lot and we got some cloud cover and that all helped. When you put all of that together, it turned out to be a good lap." DID YOU KNOW IT WAS A GOOD LAP? "Yeah, you know when you go fast around here because it takes your breath. You know if you get through one and two really good you're gonna be carrying a lot of speed into three and I was able to do that. My car stuck good. I knew I was only running one lap. That was enough for me." DID YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH? "I can't really tell you what I'm doing. I'm concentrating so hard trying to keep this thing going in the right direction that I really don't know what I do, but you're breathing awfully hard when you come back so, apparently, I might be holding my breath."
JEFF BURTON --99-- Citgo Taurus (Qualified 30th) -- "That was a good lap. We were 40th going into it and we're gonna be 30th, so we did good. We've got a handicap here in qualifying and that's me. I've never been good at qualifying here and I struggle here more than anywhere. We're in the field. That certainly wasn't a pole run, but we're in the show. We'll just keep working and keep pounding away everytime we come and try to get better. Maybe one day we'll know how to do it. It's me. I'm just not real comfortable qualifying here for some reason. I want to hold it wide open to go around here, I just can't seem to make it do it. I can do it myself, but I can't make my car do it and I don't know what to tell them to do to make it right, so we tend to go slow because of that."
KURT BUSCH --97-- Rubbermaid Taurus (Qualified 4th) -- "Bill did an awesome job. That's Awesome Bill from Dawsonville. He took it down in there real nice and I thought I could pick up a lesson or two from that, but the car never did take a solid set. I had to drive it conservative that second lap and conservative was an .06, so I feel real confident in these guys on Sunday. That's the boost that they've given me. It was an all-around team effort. The tires were there, the engine was there, the body was there -- just a little bit more knowledge about race tracks and a little bit more of this or that and we would have been fine, but fourth isn't bad." HOW IS THIS LAP COMPARED TO OTHERS AT DIFFERENT TRACKS? "You've got this place and you've got Texas. These are the two that really bring it out and what you've got your car knocked to as far as drag and the way you've got the springs in the car to keep it balanced." WHAT ABOUT SUNDAY? "We're not gonna practice that much. We're gonna keep it conservative. We tested here and that's what we're gonna go off."
RYAN NEWMAN PRESS CONFERENCE -- IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD THE POLE. "Yeah, Bill had an awesome lap. I watched it on TV, but to come up from 18th in practice for qualifying to second is a great effort by the ALLTEL crew. I guess that's two weeks in a row now we've been beaten by a thousandth-of-a-second, but, nevertheless, it's just an honor to be able to start on the front row here in Atlanta in my first Winston Cup start. It would have been nice to have my second pole in my second start here -- one in the Busch Series and one in Winston Cup, but I guess that would be getting greedy." IT'S A GOOD STARTING SPOT. "Yeah, the guys did an awesome job working and focussing on the weather change. When we tested here it was 35 degrees and cold and the wind was blowing pretty good. We come back and it's 70 degrees and even though the wind isn't blowing quite as hard, I think the temperature change was just enough to help Bill out there a little bit at the end of the qualifying session. It's still an honor to be able to qualify second to somebody like Bill here in his hometown and his home track. That will be a good start for us and a good pit position and, hopefully, we'll have a good race on Sunday."
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN BILL WON THE POLE? "My dad punched me in the arm and said, 'He got you.' There are such highs of highs and lows of lows doing things like this. You go out there and you're nervous and you run as hard as you can for one lap and try to get in a second lap. I got a little tight off turn two and you don't know what could have been. Maybe my second lap could have been better and then he goes out and knocks off a great first lap and backs it up pretty good with the second lap. We'll just go on with it. We'll go onto practice and happy hour tomorrow." WHAT ADJUSTMENTS DID YOUR CREW MAKE CONSIDERING THE CHANGE IN WEATHER? "When we came here and unloaded off the truck we had the same setup and everything as what we had tested. That's the reason you test, but before qualifying we had three different springs in the car and two different shocks that we had not even practiced. We made quite a few changes and did some other things on top of that to qualify, so you do things like that and it's a gamble. Like the first question before that, sometimes you don't know what to expect so you just go out there and run as hard as you can and today we finished second." ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THE SPEED YOU GO HERE? "It's kind of a yes and no thing. I mean, yes, you're comfortable when you're out there qualifying but the good thing is that Goodyear brought a tire here that falls off a pretty good amount after the first 10 laps or so. As the car slows down, you've got to use a little bit of brake and let off the throttle, so that eases up the use on the motor and that's a good thing for 500 miles. I guess to more directly answer your question, yes, it's cool to be able to go that fast, but sometimes when you get racing real close with other cars you don't necessarily want to be going that fast. You wish you were doing about 45 so you could just not have any of the aero effects and things like that." HOW CLOSE TO WIDE OPEN WERE YOU ON THAT LAP? "Not as close as Bill was. You get pretty close. We tried it here in really good ideal conditions in testing and it doesn't pay off. You've got to let the car work through the corners and try to manhandle it and just hope that you can hold it wide open." HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO QUALIFY UP FRONT HERE? "It's important for getting a good pit position, but at the same time you get a fast race track like this at the start of the race, you'll see a couple of cars break away. Hopefully, that's me and Bill. But you want to get out front and get in the clean air and go and get some cars a lap down. That's a benefit from us compared to the guys who are starting in the back." WHAT'S THE KEY TO YOUR QUALIFYING SUCCESS? "It's just a lot of good teamwork, I think. My crew chief Matt Borland does and excellent job understanding what the car needs to qualify and he understands what I want the car to do to qualify and, luckily, those two are pretty close to being on the same page and we can go out and be comfortable everytime we unload off the truck and go to qualify." YOU'RE SECOND IN POINTS. "Yeah, I'm just honored to be in the position we are. Like I said before we ever started this year -- to be a part of Penske Racing and have a teammate like Rusty Wallace and owners like Don Miller and Rusty Wallace and Roger Penske. These are just the first three races and it's not even 10 percent of the year. We need to focus on the fact that our mentality for the first three races has gotten us to second, but what can we do to make ourselves better to be able to have that mentality to get us to first and stay there throughout the whole year. We can't be too overconfident at this point I guess is what I'm saying." WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM RUSTY? "We tested here and Rusty didn't, so when he unloaded he unloaded from the truck with our setup in the car -- everything identical just because we were fast here in testing and we had a good baseline to start from. Rusty drives a little different than I do, so he's gonna tune the car a little different, but he's confident enough to put my springs, my shocks, swaybars and things like that in the car and go out there and run 195 miles an hour going into a corner. That's a lot of respect and confidence in a teammate, I think."
IS CONTENDING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP A REALISTIC GOAL? "We wouldn't have unloaded off the truck if we didn't think it was. We've got a great start, we just need to keep building on it. We don't want to get too overconfident and too cocky. It's great to be able to qualify second today, but the race is 500 miles on Sunday and that's two days away."
2001 Schedule and Results
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