Pontiac Excitement 400 - GM Qualifying Quotes

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 EAGLE ONE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"I'm not real excited about that (lap), but I think the Eagle One Pontiac will race really good tomorrow night. I really believe this thing will run really good. I think we'll be able to run in the top five and hopefully give us an opportunity to win this race."

JERRY NADEAU, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"The guys did a great job. I'm happy with this U.S. Army Pontiac. We ran a '38' in practice; we ran a '44' here. The track was a little bit slicker than it was in practice.

"I'm looking forward to the race. This is a great race car. As soon as we unloaded it (today) we were in the top five and we pretty much stayed in the top five or top 10 in practice. The car really turns great and it's really comfortable to drive, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's race. It should be a lot of fun."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"That wasn't bad. We were a little bit off there, I probably didn't get the best lap, the car pushed a little bit and you throw all that together and we're off a half a tenth. The guys did a really good job. These cars are really good. Everybody back at the shop is doing a great job on these engines and bodies and chassis, so I'm really proud of everybody.

"We had a good car in practice and that's a good speed for us."

(ON THE TEAM COMING TOGETHER) "It really is neat. Michael [McSwain] is great to work with - all the guys here. We've had a great first third of the season. We've had some good runs. We've had some bad finishes, but it seems like we run good week in and week out. That's exciting for them and for me, too. It's a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can just continue that."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"That wasn't as quick as we wanted, but the track sometimes gives up a little grip. Sometimes in gains grip; sometimes it gives up grip in qualifying and today seems to be one of those days it gave up a little bit."

(DO YOU FEEL ANY PRESSURE FROM THE FACT THAT PEOPLE SAY THAT YOU'RE THE GUY TO BEAT HERE?) "No. I like them talking that way. That means they're worried about us. We'll just do what we can."

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 25 UAW/DELPHI CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"It was a good lap. We unloaded really quick off the truck. We made quite a few changes today. We made a lot of runs. Every change we made, it seemed to make the car faster. The car was very repeatable. The car drove the same in my qualifying lap. My first lap was my fast lap and the second one I didn't drive it quite hard enough to go any faster. But, that is one of those things you do here. If you drive it too hard sometimes you go a lot slower.

"It's a good day for our whole UAW/Delphi team. It's a good starting spot. If that thing drives that good in the race we're going to be good there, too."

(WHY WAS YOUR FIRST LAP FASTER THAN YOUR SECOND?) "That was me. I didn't take advantage of my second lap like I should have. And, it was almost the same time and I knew it. After you don't do it you know it real quick. That's just part of it."

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

"We had a real good car all day in practice. In qualifying, I was just a little bit too loose getting in the corner. We were just a couple hundredths from getting the pole and I think I could go back over my lap and know exactly where I lost it. Just getting down into turn three on my second lap I was just a little too loose to be able to turn the wheel down and get the car to the bottom. I kind of went through there about three or four feet off the bottom of the track. I didn't really lose time, as far as speed was concerned, but made the track that much longer. That's probably the difference."

(ON THE TEAM BEING SO CONSISTENT THIS YEAR) "We've just had good race car. If the car is good I can drive it to the front and that's what we've had every weekend pretty much, except for Rockingham. That's the only track we went to where we really didn't have a chance in hell. Other than that, it's been good.

"I'll tell you one thing that is a pleasure this year and that is that Tony (Eury) Jr., ain't changing tires. He's on that pit box and he's not doing five different things at once. He's able to do one or two jobs really good, instead of five or six jobs 'as best he can.' We don't argue hardly as much as we used to. It's a real pleasure talking to him over the radio during the race. He kind of sees a little more of what I'm doing and what's going on in the race, instead of having his head in what's going on with the tires or whatever back behind the pit box and all. That has really helped us a lot. Our pit crew is a lot better. I'm confident when I come down pit road that we're going to have decent stops. We still make mistakes, but there is a lot of youth on that 'over the wall gang.' My uncle Danny - he's got a couple more years, he says, and he's going to have to hang it up. But, most of them guys are in their 20s, so we've got speed and youth over the wall and we've got brains, determination and experience up on the pit box. I think the combination is awesome, as far as that goes. We're making good changes in the pits during practice and stuff. Every week we've always been able to improve on the car, where before we hadn't ever been able to do that.

"Really what we rolled off the trailer is what we raced. We'd try like hell to change and make it better, but we just never really could improve on what we already had. This year we're able to do things. It's always funner when you run better. It's easy to point where all the great (stuff) is happening, but in just in a matter of a couple of weeks it could be all to hell again. We're just trying to keep the momentum we've got, keep doing what we're doing and stay positive, stay focused.

"We've had some things happen, like the qualifying in Atlanta. We really messed up there and we started in the back. And, we've done a few things with some motor changes that started us in the back. In years before, we'd just be all tore to hell about it and be upset at each other and just be in a bad mood going into the race. We've all been able to stay positive and stay cheered up and cheer each other up about things like that happening to us."

(DOES IT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON YOU IN QUALIFYING WHEN YOU ARE THE FASTEST CAR IN PRACTICE?) "It really puts a lot of pressure on the driver when you go out there and put a lap down in practice that is the fastest. The team wants you to go back out there and repeat that. I told them the car was good enough to do it. I just made a few mistakes. I knew the car was loose in, but I still should have been able to get to the bottom and cut the corner off like I could have or did in practice. I was a little disappointed because we could have gotten the pole and didn't. But, third is a real good starting spot here. We'll get us a good choice of pit. Pit is very difficult here. We'll be able to get us a good choice of pit."

(WHAT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS HERE?) "We've run in the top five five times out of seven races here, I think - something like that. We just always run good here and it's always with the same setup. Every time we try to improve or think we're going to improve we never really do. This is kind of a baseline setup that we've had for a while and it's always really worked good for me. When you keep putting that in there that's just experience showing that you're able to really have confidence in that setup. Pit stops, things like that - you've got to have a good car, but there's really not much to running good here. You're got to have your car driving good, make no mistakes on pit road. Other than that, if you have those two things you can stay in the top five all night. You can't be running into people and knocking the fenders off of it. You've got to sit there and kind of fall into position. It takes a lot of discipline to be like that all night long. But, if you play your cards right you can get you a good finish out of here and we're expecting to be able to do that."

(ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH MATT KENSETH) "Believe it or not, me and Matt still are good friends. Between mine and his personality it's real possible - even in this business - to stay good friends. When we weren't racing each other - over the past two years - we talked less. I think we talk more now than we have over the past two years. When we get into situations that are similar we always get together and kind of joke about it and pick on things. We like picking on everything." (MORE EARNHARDT, JR., TO FOLLOW...)

"We've been talking a lot about how our cars have been driving - just normal stuff - and kind of trying to run into each other off of the racetrack. We've got a Sunday off coming up. We're going to try to meet each other out on the lake and stuff like that. He's a good guy, good attitude, good friend of mine and I'm really excited that we're battling each other. Hopefully, that will be the way it is all year long. We'll be up front together. He's got to be one of the top three drivers on the circuit right now and when I outrun Matt, I feel like I've beaten one of the best in the series at this time, so I like racing him for that reason, but also just because he is a good friend of mine."

(ON DOMINANCE IN THIS SPORT) "This sport changes so much over the years that it's really hard to be dominant. We are a good team. Politics and a lot of other teams intervene and move people around. You get people hired away from you all the time because of success and politics. It's really hard to keep the total package for anybody, I think, in the garage. It's hard to really find that sheer consistency that you're running up in the top 10 and the top five every week, for any team - even the veteran teams. Over the past three years I didn't really put a big emphasis and winning the championship or trying to win the championship because I didn't feel like we had all the potential that we needed. We didn't have the full package that we needed. There were just some things that I knew were going to bite us. But, this year we've got a good opportunity. I think you start out every year with either that in mind or without it. I don't think we're sitting here looking at the Bud team starting out this year and doing really well - say we do win the championship or battle for it or whatever - that don't mean we're going to go on a five-year tear. That depends on how much money you've got in your pocket these days. If you can afford to really get what you need and get the best stuff, then you can stay on top or have the ability to stay on top. But, it's tough. It's tough to keep people inside the gates these days."

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO - Pole-Sitter: NOTES: This is his 27th Career pole, his 2nd Bud Pole at RIR, and it is the 11th Hendrick Motorsports pole at RIR. This will be Labonte's 54th front-row start of his career - his 5th at Richmond. His last pole was at Texas on March 31, 2000. Last Bud Pole at Richmond was March, 1996. His has four wins at Richmond (including a NASCAR Craftsman Truck win).

(DID YOU MAKE A LOT OF CHANGES BETWEEN PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING?) "No, we really didn't. That was pretty much how we practiced. It's kind of unusual for us to pick upa little bit from practice. It was a real good run for us. Our car was good right off the truck there."

(ON RACING AT RIR) "This is one of my favorite tracks. If I were to pick a place that is one of my favorites, this is definitely one of them. We've had some good runs here. We've won some races here. We've come close other times. It's just one of those places I think where we have a pretty good combination. Our Chevrolet Monte Carlo is running pretty good. Our car has been running pretty good lately. The guys have done a good job. We were pretty fast right off the truck."

(WAS WINNING THE POLE TODAY UNEXPECTED?) "Yeah, probably as much (for me) as it was for you all. We've actually been running pretty good. Last week in California, we unloaded off the truck and we were the fastest for like an hour in practice. I kept looking at the board and was thinking I didn't know what to do - it's been so long since we've been in this position. We came out here and were pretty good off the truck. I think we were 13th or 16th in practice. We made some adjustments on the car and picked up a little bit. It's so close when you're up there in the top 10. Just a tenth of a second one way or the other makes a big difference. We did a real good first lap and then the second lap was better. It was good enough for the pole. We're excited. I would have been happy with a top 10. So, we're even happier."

(ON ALL FOUR HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS DRIVERS QUALIFYING IN THE TOP 10) "The new cars have really let us get back to even - equipment-wise. The cars are probably built closer together than they have been in the past. With the new bodies, are cars are closer aero-wise than they have been. The four crew chiefs all get along good and they all talk to each other. We've been able to share some information with each other. Sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you can't run the same stuff. At Talladega, you'd think we'd all be able to run the same set-up. We couldn't run the same set-up in all four cars for qualifying. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't."

(WHEN YOU HAVEN'T WON A POLE FOR A WHILE, DO YOU GET SKEPTICAL OF YOURSELF?) "No, I wasn't really worried about it. After I qualified, I thought that could be a top 10. Then after a while, I thought it might be a top five. Then I got kind of nervous at the last two (drivers) and thought I would be kind of mad if these two guys would have beat us. It's so close up there, like I said. A lot of times a tenth of a second really shuffles things around. We made a few adjustments on our car and it picked it up a little bit. I'm sure everybody did. The track was better early. I figured it was going to be better late. But we had a good lap and a good time and came out on top."

(WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN AT RICHMOND? BRAINS, DETERMINATION, OR EXPERIENCE?) "It really helps if your car works good. The times that I've been to victory lane, that's what I had. I can't say anything about the rest of those things. But if your car handles good all night and you stay out of trouble, you have a good chance to have a good finish."

(ON BEING FASTER ON THE FIRST LAP OR SECOND LAP IN PRACTICE AND THEN IN QUALIYFING) "Some of the guys laps in practice were faster on their first lap. Some were faster on their second lap. We had been faster on our first lap in practice. We made a little air pressure adjustment and we ended up faster in our second lap. But I really didn't start watching it until it got down to Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch late in the field that I thought had the best shot at beating us. But I kind of expected some of the other guys to be close. Qualifying is the toughest part of the weekend."

(ON THE TEAM'S IMPROVEMENT) "We started the year and didn't do that well at Daytona. It was nothing anybody did; we had an ignition failure during the race. But we really didn't run that good at Rockingham. After that, we started getting better. We actually only tested one time other than Daytona. We tested at Texas. When we left that test, it seemed like things started clicking a little bit better for our team. We got our car working better. We were able to try some things we hadn't been able to try. The other thing is that we've probably run five or six different cars and we've run well with all of them. A year ago, every time we ran good, we only had one car and it was the same car all the time. Our equipment is much more consistent than it has been in several years. That's been a big key."

(ON QUALIYFING DURING THE DAY FOR A NIGHT RACE) "Well, we've got to go through Happy Hour here and get our car as good as we can as far as working real good as far as handling. This is a tough race track sometimes. The guy who wins is got a car that handles really good in short runs and really good in long runs. It's a pretty tough track. Just because we've won here before, we don't have an advantage. It's always different. This particular car that we have here is a car we've never run here before. We'll just look at the set-up and see how it does in the first practice and go from there. The key is handling here at Richmond.

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I'm a little frustrated. I left some out there and I know that I did but I'm not sure why. We slowed down a little bit. I think we definitely have a great race car to get the good finishes, we just haven't gotten there yet. I was hoping that we'd go a little faster and get closer to what we did in practice. It was a good lap for us. We'd been in that speed bracket for most of the day. I just make a couple of small mistakes out there and I didn't get the lap we needed. But it will be a great start for the Lowe's Monte Carlo and we'll be good tomorrow night. The track does change, but it's reminding me a lot of what we saws last spring here. I think it'll be very similar to there."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I'm real happy to see my teammates Terry Labonte and Joe Nemechek up there in front. And, Jimmie Johnson did real good too. So it will be really nice to see all the Hendrick cars up there in the top 10 starting spots tomorrow night."

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