 |
 |
| Winston Cup Series |
 |
|
Silly Season | Newsletter | Racefan's Rave | In the Pits | Fire and Ice News and Results | Point Standings | 2003 Schedule | 2003 Teams | 2002 Schedule and Results
Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 - Dodge Qualifying Quotes
"This is a good racecar. It's done a lot of great things for us this year, and the guys have done a great job. I'm just the guy who gets to sit behind the wheel and steer it. To me winning 11 poles in a season means a lot from a driver's standpoint. It ties second for all-time most poles in a season. To me, that's a great feat. There's definitely a lot of great drivers in that category.
"He (Brian Vickers) is doing a great job. I told everybody that last week in the media center. He's obviously a talented young individual who's doing great things. Their team is working good together. They've had a great opportunity to do a lot of testing. I think that's definitely paid off.
"To me it is what it is. We can't manipulate the point system in any way. We've had our failures this year, and that's taken a lot of points away from us or however you want to word it. To me to be a Winston Cup champion you've got to have everything.
"Qualifying to me is no different than the race itself. I can wheel the car, and I do a good job doing it. The guys do a good job setting up the car. We've got to have a good engine. You put it all together and you get great results. I think that's what it's all about. It's not just me and Matt (crew chief Borland). It's everybody on the team.
"I didn't watch (qualifying). Brian had a great lap, but ours was good enough.
"It's not just Bill Elliott. It's Darrell Waltrip and maybe Pearson or Bobby Allison. It's a great honor to be in the history of Winston Cup and be second for all-time (poles in a season). It's a great effort. I'm not going to wear the jacket myself. It's the team that's given me this opportunity. That's the way I look at it. It's an honor.
"I don't think the short tracks, but I can think of three or four DNF's off the top of my head, Daytona, California, Talladega, that resulted in crashes, and they're far from short tracks. Michigan engine failure in the first race, and those four races ended up in DNF's and that turned our season around. I remember saying engine failures last year resulted in DNF's and I sat up here last year saying shoulda, woulda, coulda, too.
"We're here to win races and beat the competition. Beating the competition could mean two different things. It could mean winning on Sunday or getting the most points for the Winston Cup championship. It's all how you look at it."
"That wasn't very good at all. We were really, really loose. I couldn't put the power down at all. It's probably one of our worst qualifying efforts of the season. Things haven't changed a whole lot since February. We were pretty loose in February. We tried to change it after practice and tighten it up. We're fighting the motor not running a little bit. We lost the first part of practice changing the manifolds, carburetors and things like that. We made a run and we were way too loose. We tightened it up and we didn't want to go too far. It was still way too loose."
"That wasn't too bad. I got a little loose in one and two. It wasn't really loose as much as it was just really free. You couldn't get after the throttle like you wanted to, so you have to part throttle it in one and two. I killed three and four. It was really good over there. I ran a second lap just to make sure I didn't do anything wrong in one and two and it did the same identical thing. We were a lot quicker than we practiced. I hope it'll hang around that top 10. It would really be nice if we could do that. I didn't really think about it until we came in and somebody else mentioned that this is the last fall race at Rockingham. To me it's one of the best races they have all year long. It's really wide and it's not really a superspeedway. I call it a speedway, and it's a lot of fun racing here. We haven't had any luck lately. Last week at Phoenix was another bad day for us luck wise. We're not going to give up. We've got a good car here. We had a really good car here in the spring and ran out of fuel. Hopefully we won't have any problems Sunday and hang around the top 10 and be a factor in the end. I want to be in a Cup car next year. I'm looking forward to driving for Jimmy Smith and all my guys again. We're working hard on trying to find a sponsor. My guys say they're staying. I'm staying. We'll be back."
"That's terrible. That's about all I can say about it. We picked up two tenths from practice, but I don't think that's going to be very good."
"I figured we'd end up in the top five. That was a pretty good run. I'm very proud of my guys. The car is driving real good. The Busch car is driving good. We're third over there. It feels real good. The team got both of these Dodges running good. It seems like things are going our way. If we can win one of these last two races we'll be in good shape. This is a big accomplishment for both races here. After we resigned it was just a confirmation of the whole deal. These guys have come a long way with me and tried to give me what I wanted. They've done a good job with that, and I really appreciate it."
"We changed a lot of stuff, and we don't have the right package under it yet. This is one of my favorite tracks, and I'd really like to park the Coors Light Dodge in victory lane Sunday. You've got to save your tires here because the track is so rough on tires, but the key is to get your car handling good for the long runs. That's what we're going to try to do."
"That's the fastest we've run, but we've struggled since we've been here. We tested here last week for half a day. It kept raining, so we did race stuff mostly and gave up on qualifying. Obviously we should have worked on qualifying. Greg Steadman and I were within two days of working together before. Robbie Loomis left. When Robbie left, I moved Greg back with the 43. This is the first time we've worked together. Hopefully it'll work out."
"We went to make our qualifying run (in practice) and blew an engine, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Our Dodge has been running good here lately. Hopefully we can make Rockingham another good weekend. Finish out the season is our realistic goal, and we'll worry about the rest of it from there. Obviously we'd like to finish in the top 10, but with two races to go and as tight as that battle is, we'll have to see what happens. We're going to give it our best shot, there's no doubt about it."
"We worked on it a lot. We changed camber, right front shock, wedge, left rear air pressure, lead. It calmed it down a lot. It was out of control. We weren't even in the right hemisphere. I couldn't get in turn three the way I wanted. I know I left a tenth down there, but that's the best we could do. I'm proud of that run compared to what we were up against."
Home | Winston Cup |
Busch Series | Photo Gallery | Forum
©Copyright 2003 Race 2 Win |
