Dale Jr.'s Chevy wins 3 in a row in Talladega

CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
EA SPORTS 500
TALLADEGA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
NO. 30 OF 36, NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES
TALLADEGA, AL.
SUNDAY, OCT. 6, 2002   Contact:  Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501

DALE EARNHARDT JR. WINS HIS THIRD STRAIGHT TALLADEGA RACE IN NO. 8 BUDWEISER
CHEVY MONTE CARLO.


DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVY MONTE CARLO (third win a row in
Talladega): "Well, I don¹t know. Tony (Stewart, second) and them guys had a
good enough car to pass me, but the thing was the pack kind of thinned out
down to four or five cars. It¹s hard for just three or four cars to push one
guy by the leader. You kind of need a whole pack back there really pushing.
My hat¹s off to Tony Stewart for being a friend there and helping me out,
sticking behind me. He¹s a great race car driver, true competitor. Good job
for the Bud team for the car they put together. I¹m just holding the wheel
back there, Man. I ain¹t really doing much, just turning left every once in
awhile. That car¹s got to go and the Bud team makes it go, and that¹s why we
run good here." DID YOU DO ANYTHING TO SAVE FUEL? "Well, we already had good
gas mileage, but I lifted a lot, especially the last half of the race. Tony
(Eury) Jr. and them don¹t want to talk a whole lot about the car on the
radio and stuff, just kind of keep things to themselves and make their own
game plan. My guys started figuring out what we were dong there about midway
through the race, (I) started lifting a lot, just made sure that we saved
(fuel). I ran out coming down pit road here, so that¹s how close it was."
DID THEY ADVISE YOU EARLIER THAT THERE WOULD BE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HAD TO
PIT AND YOU WOULD BE OUT THERE WITH ABOUT SEVEN? "I didn¹t have any idea,
but I was sitting on the bus before driver introduction and I was figuring
an average would be 38 laps, which is about how we could run, and most of
them guys said they couldn¹t go to 31 or so, so I was really surprised they
didn¹t get good gas mileage. As good as our motors run not to use that much
gas. It just shows you how much power we¹ve got. If we really put the fuel
to it I¹d hate to see what we¹d do with it." ON WINNING THE WINSTON NO BULL
5 MILLION: "I¹m real happy to do that two times now. It¹s a lot of pressure,
I tell you. It¹s really a good feeling when you can pull it off. I hope that
she really enjoys it."

Polesitter JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVY MONTE CARLO (NO. 48 finished
37th), was hit by second-place Mark Martin on the pace lap, causing damage
to the right front of Jimmie¹s Monte Carlo. Johnson pitted on the first lap,
came out still on the lead lap, but was passed by the field on the third
lap.

CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF: "The damage is pretty extensive right now. Hopefully
we can get a caution and get a chance to work on it a little bit. Jimmie¹s
doing a great job. He¹s really learned how to draft pretty well. It¹s
unfortunate that a mistake made by the 6 car there, whether it was a
steering wheel (that) came off or whatever happened, cost us a chance to win
this race. It¹s a terrible thing. I hate it for all the Lowe¹s
employee/owners out there because they pour their hearts and souls into it
just as much as what we do. It¹s just sad."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVY MONTE CARLO (42nd finisher), dropped to the
back of the field and pitted on lap 126, with a valve-train problem. He is
out of the race.

GORDON:  "Lost a retainer in one of the valve springs and dropped a valve,
and probably some more things went from there. That was probably the first
thing to go. I felt it lose power there and drop some rpm; it didn¹t seem
the same. That thing was pretty strong; I was having a lot of fun. I could
go to the back and come right back to the front. Man, I was just having a
ball. My guys were just cranking out great stops, but that¹s unfortunate.
That¹s been our misfortune all year long. We can¹t seem to get back-to-back
great finishes and wins and kind of carry the momentum. This is a big bummer
today."

"It seems like once we get something going our way we can¹t back it up.
Either a problem or a crash. When the fortune¹s there, we¹re going to be on
topŠI hope this doesn¹t knock us too far out of the (points)."

TONY EURY SR., CREW CHIEF, NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVY MONTE CARLO, ON LAP 171:
CAN YOU MAKE IT ON FUEL? "Yeah. Dead on it. Computer says we¹re going to run
out when we take the checkered flag. I feel sure it will make it. We ran
that far all day. We figured it up this morning what we had to do; we
figured we could stop one time less than the rest of the guys. Richie
Gilmore and all those guys did a great job on the engine this week. We
thought we were beat yesterday in practice; we had some fast cars out there.
The ones that were beating us are all in the garage right now. Hopefully
ours will make it to the end. We¹ll make some woman up there a millionaire
today. We¹re just hoping we¹ll go caution free here."

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AOL CHEVY MONTE CARLO (fifth): "We had an awesome AOL
Chevy. Just got beat around by the 97, when we made a run on 97 there for
third or fourth; he pushed me all over the wall, about wrecked. That¹s what
he¹s supposed to do. I don¹t like this kind of racing. It¹s just very
mentally draining; it works on your mind too much. When you¹ve got a great
race car like this you can¹t let the guys down; we had to go for it. We got
close to getting that million. We¹re up again for Daytona; so we¹re happy
about it." YOUR OPINION ON THE FUEL CELL: "I don¹t think it did anything.
Well, I don¹t know, it might have split them up a little bit for the first
couple or three stops, it didn¹t do nothing. We got great gas mileage with
this Chevrolet so that worked in our benefit today." WHY SO CLEAN A RACE
TODAY, NO YELLOWS, NO WRECKS? "I think everybody was cautious with what they
were doing. Every body allowed everybody enough room. That¹s what it takes.
That¹s what these Winston Cup guys are all about. They know they¹ve got to
get to the end; that¹s what we did today." YOU HAVE TO THRILLED FOR YOUR
TEAM: "I¹m pretty happy. They give me great race cars every weekend. It¹s up
to me to take care of them. They did that today. Just got great fuel mileage
and the car handled well all day and the motor ran really good. My hat¹s off
to RCR and AOL. Everybody gives me this opportunity; I couldn¹t do without
them."

STEVE PARK, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVY MONTE CARLO (sixth): ON THE FUEL CELL: YOU
GOT TO ENJOY SOME OF THAT DALE JR. RESTRICTOR-PLATE SUCCESS: "Yeah. It was
great. I¹m just real happy for Junior, he did a great job. It¹s good to see
Dale Jr. win, he was going for the million bucks. He had a strong car. I
don¹t know what happened to Michael; he had a strong car too."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELSS CHEVY MONTE CARLO (12th): YOU WERE
LEADING, WHAT HAPPENED? "Nothing happened. We just knew we were going to
pit, so we could afford to stay on the left side, the bottom groove, and we
stayed there for a long time. Probably pitted one or two laps early the time
or two before. We had a good car. The guys worked hard all weekend, led the
race for a while. Just didn¹t get enough fuel mileage." WHAT ABOUT THE FUEL
CELL? "I don¹t know. I think it made it kind of interesting; there wasn¹t
any wrecks, maybe that made it interesting for the fans as well. Strategy
was different there; when to pit, not to pit. I had fun for a while."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA PARTS CHEVY MONTE CARLO (eighth): "We had it
going on today. We¹re really proud of our effort and we¹re just prepared
when we get here. They throw a new rule in, with the fuel cells, and we¹re
able to take advantage of it to get as good gas mileage as anybody. And
that¹s the key to being able to win the race today. We¹ve just got a great
team that is right on top of everything." IS THE FUEL CELL DEAL MORE OF A
PAIN FOR YOU? "I didn¹t really see where it made any difference. It was
pretty cool, though, pitting more often. As good mileage as we¹re getting
with these restricted engines I think that it was a good deal." WHAT
HAPPENED IN THE PIT STOP? "I don¹t know what happened. I stopped, did my
normal deal and it fell off the jack. We¹ll just have to try to figure that
one out."