Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 - Dodge Qualifying Quotes

KENNY WALLACE (No. 23 Stacker2 Dodge Intrepid)

"It was loose and slow, and that's about all you can say about it."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid)

"We were really struggling trying to figure out what the car needed in practice. We were really loose, and then we'd make it really tight. The car just wasn't in the race track in the rear, but that's the most positive change we've made. It picked us up about three tenths, and the track is probably a little bit slower than it was this morning."

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Intrepid)

"You get around here pretty quick. That's going to be a pretty tough lap to beat (191.417 mph). I think a couple of guys can do it, but I'm pretty happy with that run right there. The ALLTEL Dodge is running pretty good. I just hope it holds up for us.

"It's amazing how little you breathe when you're running that fast. The faster you run the less you've got to breathe because the sooner it gets over with. We came here and tested, so hopefully that'll pay off. It's going to be another deal like Las Vegas where it's another down force track in reference to speed and track position and everything else. Come Sunday you'll see what the real deal is.

"Qualifying is a totally different race than race trim. Once you untape these things and change the setup around a little bit, it becomes a different race car.

"It makes you clinch up a little bit. It's definitely fast out there, and it's fun. After you get through with qualifying you can go on with a different type of race. It's a different animal when you tape these things up on a track like this. I hope it's going to be good enough. I think the 18 car is going to be a good benchmark. We saw that at Las Vegas. I think the 25 and 2 are definitely contenders, but hopefully we can stick it out. It would definitely be nice to have both of those Penske Dodges on the front row."

"It's kind of cool because it's a flip from last year. Bill was first and I was second. I'm proud of the ALLTEL guys and Dodge having the front row. It was great teamwork. We worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. We were fast off the truck, but it was pretty neat to be fast on the track. We went out there and did the best we could, and it was good enough today.

"There's always satisfaction when you're on the pole. It doesn't matter who you beat as long as you beat everybody in my mind. It was one of those things where I'm just happy to be on top.

"It's always important to be up front, no matter where you are. You're one step ahead. You don't have to worry about getting to the front because you're already there."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid)

"That's not what we were looking for in qualifying, but we'll take what we got and get ready to race on Sunday. We usually race pretty good here, but it's a different story when it comes to qualifying."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid)

"We're happy with it so far. I thought it would get us in the top 12 or 15, and that was our goal. We backed up what we ran in practice, and we feel real good about that."

JIMMY SPENCER (No. 7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge Intrepid)

"The guys have been working hard all winter long. I think it's showing off. The guys have worked hard in the shop building new cars. This is the car we had at Vegas last week. We've had a lot of little problems this year, but I think as long as they keep their heads up, we'll keep running good. I didn't hold my breath all the way around. I took a breathe in the straightaway. It was a good lap, but it was free. Tommy (crew chief Baldwin) made a good call with the tire pressures. The guys are awesome. I can't say enough about my guys. They really believe in Tommy and me. That's what it takes, and Tommy and I are getting better and better all the time. Qualifying well is important. The harder we keep working, it's going to show up, and they're not going to back down on their work. We had a brand new car that we were going to bring here. They took it to the wind tunnel, and it wasn't as good as the one we brought here. We got this car fixed from Vegas, and I think they made the right decision."

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge Intrepid)

"The lap was OK. It's been loose since we got here, but the best it's been was during qualifying. I don't know if that's because of the weather or the changes we made to the car. I didn't grit my teeth and go for it, but the car could have handled it."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid)

"We didn't know where the new body would be, and we feel like we've learned some things the last few weeks. We need to get started on a good season. I might be getting too old for this. I can't hold my breath that long any more. You just get all you can get, but you wish you could have got a little bit more. At least we're up toward the front, and that's a good sign for us. We had an idea what the track was going to do. Jeremy had run, and we got some feedback from him. We watched other cars go out, and it did cool down a little bit for us. Ryan busted off a good lap, and that's what it takes.

"I've very proud of the guys. We just need to get a little better with race preparation. We've been off a little bit this season for whatever reason. Now we just need to turn the season around a little bit and get going. I don't think you can do it (hold it wide open here), especially in one and two. One and two is so much different than three and four. It's a tighter and harder corner. You can't run one and two wide open here. You've got an opportunity in three and four. If the surface was newer you could probably do it.

"As the race track gets age on it, it gets more raceable. It becomes less of a one groove race track. We saw it at Chicago and we saw it at Kansas City. To me, any time they repave these race tracks, I feel like it's a negative to the racing on Sunday. They've got to build the tires so hard, the speeds get faster and it becomes so one lane. The way the surface is today, you'll get in a good lap qualifying but as we saw in practice, the times when you went out the second, third and fourth times fell off almost a second for some guys. That goes to help put on better racing. As the times fall off, some of the guys aren't so good to get their cars working well and get in position they need to be in. I guess I've always liked going fast. It's been more relative to my driving style I guess. As long as you can keep it between the ditches, you've had a good afternoon.

"I wish they would have never changed it. To me, they're making these cookie cutter race tracks. The old Atlanta had a personality about it, the way the corners were banked. When they came back and redid it, they banked the lower corner a little bit more, and it became a little bit quicker. The old speedway, it was a little less banked at the bottom and you could gain a little bit more at the top. You could run anywhere around here. I really enjoyed running the old race track. It had a personality of its own."

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Intrepid)

"On the first lap I touched the apron too much in the middle of one and two and got the car wiggling. I had to back out of the throttle just a little bit and that hurt me. If not for that, we might have been right there with Ryan. It was a good run, and I'm happy with it. The Dodges are qualifying good and they raced good last week. I'm happy with them."

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Intrepid)

NOTE: Newman won the pole for Sunday's race with a lap of 191.417 mph. It was his eighth career pole in 48 attempts and his fourth pole in the past nine races.

"I finally paid him (Bill Elliott) off. I've been working on him about a year now. He let me win this one. The bottom line is we had a real good race car today. The ALLTEL Dodge was running really good. I think that was just a tribute to the fact we came here and tested. I've got a real good feel for the race car and the race track, the new bodies, the new body location as well as the switch from Ford to Dodge.

"Personally I wish I could have had a chance to run here with the old configuration after watching on TV so many times. It looked like it was always a great race. I'm not saying it's not a great race now, but the opportunity calls for the change was just the speed itself. It is fast. It can be a little bit twitchy, but once we get back in race trim and the cars slow down and the tires fall off, it's good racing. It's fast racing, but it's good racing.

"If you're going to put a lap down, you've got to be on edge, and that's the bottom line. Wherever you go you've got to be on edge of being tight and being loose. I guess that's part of it. If you have a race track where you run that much faster, you've got to be that much more on edge. It's probably the fastest race track, here and Michigan are pretty similar. In fact, the speeds are so high and the tires fall off. It's good wide open racing, and wide open meaning two or three grooves, not wide open all the way around the race track. Texas is the fastest race track now at 194 mph in qualifying. It is what it is. This is a better race track than Texas in my mind until Texas actually starts to age a little bit.

"I didn't hold it wide open. The last I heard of anybody holding it wide open was when they had the old Busch rules here. Nobody in Cup now does or in Busch does unless they're off the pace. If you're a fast race car down the straightaways you have to let off in the corners. In the race on Sunday, it'll probably be more down force than it is engine, but a good hunk of both. I'm talking 55 percent down force and 45 percent engine. You have to go down the straightaways and you have to have the speed to pull the drag for the down force. I think the reliability of the engines have been pretty good and the performance of the cars have been good. I was worried the first 100 laps at Vegas about that, but after we turned it around and got the car handling pretty good I was pretty satisfied with the package we have and are working with right now."

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