Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 - Ward Burton Notes

"We had a great run in Atlanta last fall. Ward did a phenomenal job driving the CAT Dodge. He drove the car like it was hooked to a rail, even though the car had been de-wedged and any normal guy should have put it in the wall. But, Ward kept the car on the track and salvaged a respectable finish even though we should have finished in the top 10." - Frank Stoddard, crew chief of Caterpillar Dodge

ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
MBNA BASS PRO SHOPS 500

BURTON ON ATLANTA.
"Certainly, we were a good car last fall but we had a problem with the spring and it changed the handling of the car drastically. It felt good to have a handling car, but we were all disappointed when it went away toward the end of the race. We just need to go back there and run well like that, but this time we need to get the finish that we deserve. We had a top-10 car at Rockingham, but the car got away from us at the end and we didn't get the finish we should have. I am looking for the CAT team to run good and finish the day good. That's all we need to do and we can turn things around for the CAT team."

STODDARD ON LAS VEGAS.
"We had a tough weekend last week in Las Vegas. We didn't get the car right for Ward at the start of the race. It was way too loose for him to drive getting into the corner, so we worked on the handling of the CAT Dodge and then we lost a battery - for some reason the alternator stopped working. We had to change the battery during one of our stops and keep adjusting on the car. We finally got the car tightened up for Ward and he was able to run laps competitive with the 10 fastest cars. In the last several miles, Ward raced with the 15 and the 8. We just ran out of time. I wish we could have had the car handling better for him at the beginning of the race and then we may have had a chance at getting it better and running in the top 10.

"We'll take what we learned last week in Las Vegas and hopefully learn from it. We're taking a different car back with us, the same one we ran last fall. I think we'll have a much better starting point than we had in Las Vegas. Ward and I worked together in Atlanta to get the setup right for him and that will give us something to work from. I believe we can get our season turned around for the season, starting this weekend. We have some tracks coming up that Ward has run well on and I think we have some good finishes ahead."

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