Dodge NASCAR Winston Cup Qualifying Quotes- Friday PIR

Friday, Nov.  8, 2002		
Phoenix International Raceway   
Checker Auto Parts 500 Qualifying                                                                   803-466-9085
Dodge Notes and Quotes. 

                                                                                                                                    
JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I thought we were going to run faster. We didn't get a shot to make a banzai run in practice. We probably had a lot more than that. We probably should have scuffed 'em some more.laps. It seemed like the tires didn't come in. I don't think the truck race made a lot of difference, but it felt terrible. It didn't have any grip. I was hoping we could run a .20."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It's a long race on Sunday, so we'll see what happens. I wish we could have been a little faster, but we'll take what we got and get ready for the race."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That was a decent lap. We'll just have to get ready to race now. I think we'll be in pretty good shape."

KENNY WALLACE (No. 23 Hills Bros Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That was a good lap. We had been good in practice, and we backed it up and that's always good. This is the same car we ran at Richmond and Loudon, and we had some problems there and didn't get the finish we should have. These guys are working hard, and we've been to some tests and are learning what it takes to work together. We'll keep on digging and try to get a good finish here Sunday."

SCOTT WIMMER (No. 27 Siemens Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That's a little quicker than we practiced, and you're always happy when you do that. Bill Davis Racing built me a brand new car, and it's a great one. Hopefully we'll have a good run on Sunday."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We made some changes after practice, and I wasn't sure what we were going to do. To come back and run exactly what we ran in practice, I'm happy with that. This is probably the best car I've ever had here. I thought we had a shot at the pole, but we missed it a little bit. These guys have done a great job with this Dodge. I'm real proud of them. It ran good off the truck, but we never backed up our fast lap in practice. I was concerned about that, but we got two good laps in for qualifying and got a good starting spot."
                                                                                                                                    
JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Intrepid R/T)
 Qualified second fastest.

"Some guys gave me a dollar a couple of years ago before I went out to qualify and I won the pole. They skipped a year, and then last year they gave me a dollar and I qualified second. This year they gave me a dollar and I took it and ended up second again.

"I knew Ryan would be tough. He's been really tough in qualifying. I'm just glad we're close. Petty Enterprises needs a pole. I guess you can drive in so far in the corners here and that works for me. Ryan asked me what I was going to run, but more importantly I needed to know what he was going to run. He's a qualified fiend. It was a great qualifying effort for us. I love Phoenix. Petty Enterprises won here with Bobby Hamilton a few years back. Maybe it's my turn now. I'd like to be the guy who wins again for Petty Enterprises. Last year we qualified second and were horrible in the race. We're not going to do that again this year. We're going to do all the right things in practice and make it right. I gave us a little bit today going into turn one. Usually I try to take more than I should. Overall, it wasn't a bad run."

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI (No. 44 Georgia Pacific/Brawny Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We had a lot of problems this morning. I really did one run and that was it. I came into qualifying knowing I wasn't 100 percent prepared for qualifying. Testing here last week helped us a little bit. I'm quite happy to be in the show in a real competitive way and not being in the show with a provisional. It's going to happen, there's no doubt about it. In my NASCAR career, I'm going to have those things happen when things aren't going my way and I'll get in with a provisional, but I'm happy to qualify this way for my first race. Jumping from one car to the other isn't helping a lot. I only ran race stuff in the test. When I started qualifying stuff, I did one run and then I had a small problem. I touched the wall coming off turn two. This morning, I started open and I did four laps in a row to get used to it. After that we didn't run any more because we had a clutch problem. We had a semi-fire under the dash and that really killed us."