Elliott Heads 'Home' to Atlanta

Bill Elliott, driver of the No. 94 McDonald's Taurus and a native Georgian, will be hoping for a solid performance this weekend in front of his hometown fans. Elliott tested at Atlanta Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago and spoke about how things went and his hopes for next season.

BILL ELLIOTT --94-- McDonald's Taurus -- YOU TESTED AT ATLANTA A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS GOING INTO THE LAST RACE OF THIS SEASON? "As far as Atlanta I'm kind of glad because that means the year's over and you can sit back and regroup to try and get organized a little bit better for next year. We've had some good runs and bad runs and I think now we just need to regroup and go from there."

DO YOU GO INTO THIS RACE FEELING THERE'S NOTHING TO LOSE AND BE MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN NORMAL? "I think we've kind of been experimenting the last two or three races because we don't have a whole lot to lose at this point in time with where we're at, but we tested at Atlanta the other week and it'll be quite a bit different than the past. I'm sure we'll find something that's pretty off the wall and run it to be different and see if we can make it work."

WHAT HAS CHANGED ABOUT THE TRACK? "The race track has gotten more age on it. It's slicker and times will fall off a little quicker than they did in the past. It used to be that you could start and run and pretty much be in the 29-second range for a long time and now it falls off pretty quick."

THERE'S ALWAYS TALK ABOUT THE SPEEDS AT ATLANTA. WILL THEY BE DOWN THIS TIME AROUND? "The speeds are going to be down some. I still liked the racetrack the way it was versus the way it is now. Atlanta was unique the way it was. We've been decent there, but not that great. We had a pretty good finish there a couple of races ago, but it's so different than before."

WILL YOU BE HAPPY WHEN THE YEAR IS FINALLY OVER? "Yeah, because of things aren't going exactly right, I mean there's so many things that can happen that are totally out of your control. I'll give you a prime example. At Dover we were running seventh and Nemechek hits the wall and a piece comes off his car, goes under my car, and busts the radiator hose. I mean, the freakiest deal that I've ever seen. We've had a lot of that little freakish stuff. It's always been some little something that has knocked us out of at least a decent day and there's a lot of that stuff you can't control. I don't know how you do it. That's what gets so frustrating about this sport. You can have the best group of people, but when you have bad luck you can't control it."