JEFF GORDON HIGHEST-PLACING CHEVY IN ROCKINGHAM, IN FIFTH

CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES
Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400
North Carolina Speedway
Rockingham, N.C.
Round 34 of 36
NASCAR Winston Cup Series
Sunday, Nov. 3, 2002

POINTS BATTLE CONTINUES AMONG SEVEN DRIVERS

Jeff Gordon, in the No. 24 DuPont Chevy Monte Carlo, finished fifth today,
as the highest-placing Chevrolet Monte Carlo driver.

With Ford driver Mark Martin coming home in second, Pontiac driver Tony
Stewart finishing 14th, and rookie Jimmie Johnson, in the No. 48 Lowe's
Chevy Monte Carlo, ending up 37th after replacing a hub, the battle for the
championship continues among seven drivers. Only the top seven drivers in
the current point standings (Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan
Newman, Kurt Busch, Rusty Wallace, and Jeff Gordon) have a mathematical
chance at winning the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup championship. All others have
been eliminated.

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVY MONTE CARLO (fifth): "I¹ll take it. It was
a good top-five for us. We come charging up through there and it was pretty
good. We were making adjustments while the track was changing and we kind of
went backwards there a little bit when we got up front there. We made some
more adjustments and freed the car back up and maybe we freed it up a little
too much; it was a little bit too loose there. Then my deal with Rusty
(Wallace), I don¹t know what the heck the deal was. We were battling there
and he was a lap down and I was trying to get by him, and he was just
holding me up. I tried to pass him clean, he just chopped me off. We got
into it on the back straightaway and he let me go by and then he just tried
to wreck me down the front straightaway. That cost us a bunch of positions
and I think we could have been up a little further there at the end.

"It wasn¹t anybody I was battling for position. Me and Rusty got into it a
little bit out there. He wasn¹t real happy with me; I wasn¹t real happy with
him. Anyway, it cost us a couple of positions. We had a pretty good car. We
drove up to the front there to the top five. We didn¹t have anything for
those top two or three guys and Bobby Labonte came on strong and then the 10
car was real strong there at the end. We got a little bit loose, but we¹ll
take a top five; a good day for the DuPont Chevrolet."

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AOL CHEVY MONTE CARLO (led 70 laps of 393, finished
10th): "It was up and down. We had a great car, we just never could get it
turning good and we had a bad pit stop, and got us back there in that trash.
We needed to really turn good then and we just never could get the set of
tires like we wanted to be able to motivate around those guys. We were as
good as those guys, but just couldn¹t get up there. I¹m proud of my guys;
they do a great job each and every week. It¹s unfortunate. We had a good
enough car to win today, I think." TIRE WEAR? "I don¹t know. My car didn¹t
really give up that much. Mark (Martin), Kurt (Busch) and myself, we were I
guess the class of the field. Johnny come from nowhere, I reckon. It was a
good day, I can¹t complain about running up front in these Winston Cup
Series races. It¹s pretty exciting for me to be able to do that. I¹m still
young at this racing and we look forward to a lot of wins yet." IT SEEMS YOU
COULD HAVE WON IF YOU DIDN¹T HAVE THE PROBLEM IN THE PITS: "Well, I don¹t
think we were good enough at the end to win. We just never could get our car
turning like I wanted to and it was just too tight through the center and
made me too tight up off. Johnny was right there with me on one of those
restarts so he got his car turning good enough. We never could get it quite
right to be able to motivate around those guys and be able to pass those
guys. Getting back there didn¹t help, but I don¹t think we still had
anything for Johnny at the end." YOU HAVE TO BE PLEASED: "We¹re pleased.
Running up front and being competitive. That¹s what we need to do each and
every week and if we can do that we will win races."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA PARTS CHEVY MONTE CARLO (19th): "It¹s just a
bad day, but we kept plugging; nobody gave up, we didn¹t do anything dumb or
make any mistakes. We were able to get a top 20 out of it, but certainly
struggled, but we definitely got better at the end. I¹m thankful for that, I
feel like we learned a lot." A BAD DAY FOR DEI? "I know it wasn¹t for M.W.
And DEI. I don¹t know what happened to the other guys."

CHAD KNAUS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVY MONTE CARLO: A BAD DAY AT THE
OFFICE (Jimmie Johnson finished 37th): "We had a wheel come loose again. And
it¹s part of it. These guys are under a lot of pressure to do some fast pit
stops. That stuff happens. There¹s not a lot we can do about it. Luck didn¹t
come into play or anything like that. Everybody says, Oh, bad luck. Well,
it¹s not bad luck; we did it. It¹s just like anything else, if you have
mechanical failure more than likely it wasn¹t bad luck; it was lack of
preparation or something else that was done. You make your own luck in this
sport and we¹re making a lot of our own bad luck." YOU CHANGED THE HUB? "We
came in and ended up changing the hub and everything was fine after that."
DISAPPOINTED ABOUT THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "I¹m disappointed in it, but here¹s the
deal: We¹re a rookie team and we make mistakes and if we weren¹t in the top
five in points you guys (media) wouldn¹t really even care; you wouldn¹t even
be here talking to us. It¹s all part of it. We¹ll pack up, we¹ll go out to
Phoenix. Jeff Gordon had a real good test out there with the DuPont
Chevrolet. We got some good information for the Lowe¹s car and hopefully we
can go out there and run well and then I feel like at Homestead we can go
out there and win that race."

PETER SOSPENZO, CREW CHIEF, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVY MONTE CARLO (Joe
Nemechek finished 28th): "Not as good as we had hoped for. We just got too
loose in the beginning of the race and then just got too far behind and
couldn¹t get it back. With all the green flag racing it¹s tough to get any
laps back. Then we had to come in for a splash of gas at the end. Or if we
would have been able to stay out we probably would have had at least a 15th
place finish. That¹s the way it goes; we were about 10 laps short. I wish we
would have just stayed out and let it run out of gas and see what would have
happened."WAS TIRE WEAR AN ISSUE? "It wasn¹t that bad; they just wore out
quick. We had good tires every time, but the tire wear wasn¹t bad at all. We
had no concerns about tires; they were wearing good."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVY MONTE CARLO (11th): "We fought
a tight condition with the Cingular car most of the day today. Once we got
going on a set of new tires, we were pretty good, but the car didn¹t handle
that well on fresh rubber. We had a good car. We lost a lap at one point and
made it up on the track. The guys worked hard today to get the car handling
better. We weren¹t great in Happy Hour, but they put their heads together
and put something together. We got a lot better near the end and decided to
gamble on the fuel mileage. I think we were holding our breath on the fuel,
but we made it and pulled out a good finish. We needed it."

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 4 KODAK FILMS CHEVY MONTE CARLO: "We had a good car today;
it wasn¹t perfect. But, Man, what a gain that we¹ve made. This is probably
one of my worst race tracks and it¹s Chris Carrier¹s probably best race
track. I couldn¹t get him a win, but we got a top-10 out of it for him, and
it¹s the first one this year. I told Larry (McClure) and everybody in our
meeting this week, Boy, we¹ve got to have more to build on going into next
year than what we¹ve got so far. Today was a great example of everybody just
doing their job, the team was really focused today; they did an awesome job.
I¹ve been saying this for the last four weeks, What a game-on engine. The
only car I saw out there that totally outmotored us was the 12 car. We could
run with anybody; we had a great engine today. It ran all day." HOW
IMPORTANT IS THIS MOMENTUM FOR 2003 WITH TWO RACES LEFT? "It¹s got to do a
lot for the driver and the team mentally. I don¹t think that I was in a
situation where my job was in jeopardy, so I wasn¹t like in a must-do
situation. We¹ve been in a must-do situation all year. My attitude was no
different today than it was when I went to Daytona in February; it¹s been
the same all year. I¹m going to continue to do the very best I can do every
week and if everybody pulls together and nothing bad happens, and we (don¹t)
run out of gas again... But, fortunately it was right at the checkered flag.
Chris (Carrier, crew chief) told me I had to save gas; I knew our car wasn¹t
very good at the end; I started letting off at the flagstand, not touching
the brake pedal and slowing it down in the corner and it worked out really
good for us."

CHRIS CARRIER, CREW CHIEF (first top-10 with Morgan-McClure): "Ninety-nine
point nine percent good because we¹ve had an up-and-down, mostly down, year.
Every time we had a glimmer of light in the year to have a good finish,
which was probably seven or eight times or so, it seems like something would
malfunction or fall apart or unravel or something would take a dive. I¹m
sitting there for the last five or six laps, thinking, OK we don¹t think we
can make it on fuel; here we go again. We¹ve had a top-five car all day long
and we¹re going to run out of gas and (not) finish in the top 10.
Thankfully, we sucked enough fumes to get across the start/finish line. So,
it¹s good. Everybody with this team has worked way hard enough to deserve
this. It¹s good for them. I had a little empty feeling when I walked by
Victory Lane, though, remembering last year and seeing somebody else in
there. But that¹s part of this business and that just makes you want to work
harder. Up until last year, I want to be honest with you, I kind of dreaded
coming to this track because it had not been a very good one for me
personally. I just hadn¹t had any luck at all. We¹ve done just about
everything over here. We led some races years ago, but never had won
anything. And never had very good luck, and even had a kidney stone here one
time. Most of my memories were dark until last year and  now I kind of like
it. All I can say, is four races from now we¹re going to be right back here
with the 2003 Pontiac, which we know will be better and we want to put one
of them bodies on this here car. That¹s a big plus for next season for us.
Everybody worked hard for this. We¹ve got a good race team and we¹ve got a
race team that could be doing this every week if we can just put a few more
pieces of the puzzle together. We¹re working on it."

POINT STANDINGS:

1. Tony Stewart, Pontiac            4549
2. Mark Martin, Ford                4462
3. Jimmie Johnson, Chevy            4330
4. Ryan Newman, Ford                4324
5. Kurt Busch, Ford                4301
6. Rusty Wallace, Ford            4283
7. Jeff Gordon, Chevy             4282