MBNA America 400 - Ford Saturday Quotes

Elliott Sadler, driver of the No. 38 M&M's Taurus, was 11th-fastest in happy hour and will start fourth in tomorrow's MBNA America 400. He spoke about his hopes for Sunday after practice.

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus - IS THE IDEA TO JUST REMAIN CONSISTENT? "I think the last two months our team has been the model of consistency. We're running good every week. We're qualifying good. We just need to run every lap that we can run. We need to see all 400 laps tomorrow. We've got a really good race car. I was really happy with the car this afternoon and I think we're gonna be in good shape, so we've got high hopes for tomorrow. We think if we get in here and get us a top five and keep it close to go to Talladega, we should be in good shape." THE STATS SHOW YOU HAVEN'T DONE WELL HERE. "You know what's funny about that, people said the same thing before we went to Indy and we finished third, and they said the same thing before we went to California and we won the race, so I hope everyone keeps talking like that this weekend. There have been a lot of tracks that we haven't run good at in the past, but that's why it's in the past. I think my driving style and my confidence this year is above anything it's ever been and I think I'm with the best race team I've ever been with and we're jelling right now. We know exactly what I'm looking for every week, so we're not looking at the stats. We're looking at, 'Hey, we finished eighth last week and we need to make it better this week.' Those are the kind of stats we're going off of. If we don't run in the top five tomorrow, I'll be very disappointed with how good our car is right now." HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE RACE? "We've got a good race car. We think it's real good on long runs, so we should be in good shape. I think the 6 car is probably the best right now and the 17, and those are two guys we're racing. We've got to make some good calls in the pits and keep some good track position and, hopefully, we'll be OK. We've got a good race car. We should be around all day long. If the track changes a little bit, we should be fine so I can't wait to get this race started." WHAT IS THE KEY TO THE RACE? "I think you've got to finish the race here at Dover. You cannot fall out of this race and get a DNF going to Talladega knowing that there's a great possibility you can get another DNF there. That's two DNFs and you're done in this championship, so tomorrow's race at Dover is just another race you need to finish and run all the laps. Then you try to get to Talladega and get away from there as quick as you can and get ready for Kansas City."

Eddie Wood has been coming to Dover ever since 1972 when David Pearson won the Delaware 500. The Wood Brothers went to victory lane their first three times at Dover and finished first or second 10 of their first 15 time. In addition, they started in the top 10 the first 22 times they came to the speedway. Wood spoke about what the racing was like at that time and how it's changed.

EDDIE WOOD, Car Owner - No. 21 Keep It Genuine/Motorcraft Taurus - "We didn't come up here for the first couple races, but once we got here we found it just suited what we had. I remember we knocked the fender off of the car early in the race and still won, but back then the track was asphalt. It was still the same type of racing here - they've always had good races here. One thing that used to happen that doesn't happen now is that you could get a lap lead on everybody here. They would have long greens and, if you were good, you would lap people, especially if you had a decent pit stop - you could build up a pretty good lead. I remember one race here with Neil Bonnett, we had a three or four lap lead on second place, which was Cale (Yarborough) at the time. We broke. He broke, and then (Junie) Donlavey won the race. It was 500 miles too, so at the end of the day people would have problems. If you didn't, you would get a pretty good lead on people, but those things don't happen anymore."