Dodge Bristol Qualifying, Kyle Petty Feature

Kahne Leads Way as Four Dodges Crack Top Five at BMS;

Kyle Petty Offers Intriguing New Wrinkle for Points' System

 

 

Bristol Motor Speedway
Sharpie 500 Qualifying
Friday Aug. 27, 2004.


 

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) - Qualified second

"In practice we were pretty good. We were a little bit tight picking the
throttle back up from the center off. We went over some notes and talked
about it all. I don't know how you can do it any quicker, but Jeff
(Gordon) did it. It felt good. The car went through the corner real
nice. I felt like maybe I messed up on each lap, but not a whole lot. It
felt like a good lap. I think we might could have gone a little quicker,
not much. We ran a pretty good lap. The car turned great and handled
good.

 

"It's a good starting spot, the outside of the front row is going to be
a great spot. We'll have to get to the bottom pretty quick. Getting down
there to the bottom will be the fastest spot, especially at the
beginning of the race. It really helps you get a good pit. We'll get one
of the best pits for the whole 500-lap race and that'll mean a whole lot
throughout the race. The stalls are tight here at Bristol.

 

"I think I just need to get out on the racetrack and run more. I think
Jeff would have been just as quick in my car as he was in his. Our car
was really good. He's got a knack for this place. He's always fast in
qualifying and in the race, so I think Jeff Gordon is a good driver
here. I have an awesome car, and hopefully we'll keep working on it and
have a chance to win the race.

 

"I'm pretty comfortable here. I enjoy racing here. I've raced three or
four Busch races here. It's just a matter of being perfect here. I don't
think I was perfect in qualifying. I think I was pretty comfortable.

 

"You can't make mistakes. It's going to be one of those races where
everybody is going to want one position. This has always been an
exciting, fun race for the fans. Anything can happen. We need to be
smart about what goes on and make the right decisions. Tommy and our pit
crew will do a great job in the pits, and Tommy will make the right
calls to keep us up front. Hopefully we'll be there at the end of the
race. He's always run well here with his drivers. He likes this place a
lot, and I think Tommy is going to do a lot for us tomorrow night.

 

"It's going to be a tough couple of races (Friday night and Saturday
night at Bristol). It's going to be hot and not a lot of air moves
around in this place. I'll just drink a lot of fluids, and try to drink
all night tonight and be ready for tomorrow.

 

"I think you'll need some luck on your side tomorrow night, lapped
traffic or just racing for positions, restarts, a crash up in front of
you, it's hard to get slowed down here sometimes and people get in back
of you when you do slow down for wrecks. That's when you need luck, and
this is a place where you need more than most."

 

"It's important to start up front and get a good pit stall. It's good.
On a track like this you need to be up front. I know you can pass cars,
but starting up front is a lot better than starting in the back of the
field and hopefully the car will be in a lot better shape toward the end
of the race.

 

"We really want to do whatever we can to get in that top 10, but once
the race starts we do whatever we can to get up in front and when it's
all over you look at the points and see where you're at. During the
race, we just try to get every spot we can and stay out of trouble."

 

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge) - Qualified third

"Bristol is one of my favorite short tracks, and it's my home state. I
always try to do real good here. We changed some stuff on the car right
before qualifying. We made race runs most of the day. I was pretty
decent in practice with the one banzai run we made. We took half of what
the 42 was running and half of what the 41 was running and threw it on
my car and it worked out for us.

 

"Our car had good grip. We just ran one lap. That's all we wanted. Two
cars in front of us ended up in the fence, but everybody looked a little
loose. Some cars looked good, but it was normal qualifying here at
Bristol.

 

"We finished fourth here in the spring and had a good racecar. It's one
of my favorite tracks. Hopefully we can get one of them big ol' Bristol
trophies. Like I said, it's my home state and it's really important to
do well here.

 

"We ran race runs all day. We changed a few things before qualifying and
it all worked out. It was a good run. We took half what the 42 had and
half what the 41 had and threw it at it and things worked out pretty
good. It's always good to start up toward the front here at Bristol.
Maybe we can finish a little better than we start and end up parking the
Coors Light Dodge in victory lane."

 

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge) - Qualified 13th

"That wasn't as good as I thought, but it's just so hot and slick out
there right now. It's 10 degrees hotter than it was when we all stopped
practicing. That's not a bad lap for sure. It's hot out there. If the
clouds come in, we're in trouble. If it stays out and sunny, we'll be
OK."

 

COMMENT ON SON STEVE AFTER WEDNESDAY NIGHT CRASH AT BMS "He's fine. He's
in good shape. He's on his way to watch the race here tonight. There's
no broken bones. He's just black and blue. He hit hard. I got here that
evening and met him at the hospital and took care of him. I went back
the next morning and took care of him and got him home. He's a tough
kid, but it was a hard hit.

 

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge) - Qualified 22nd

"It was just too tight in the center. The track heated up. We were a
little bit tight in practice, and I thought if we left it alone it would
be right. Every time I'm here in qualifying we get loose, but it was too
tight in the center. It was OK. Hopefully it'll get us a decent spot. I
had a lot of wheel in it when I came up off the corner on the second lap
and it got sideways. We were lucky we didn't hurt the car."

 

JEFF GREEN (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge) - Qualified 27th

"That was pretty good. I messed up and hit the apron in one and that
probably messed me up half a tenth on the first lap. Maybe it'll get us
in the top 20, so that'll be a decent starting spot."

 

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) - Qualified 9th

"We made a lot of changes before qualifying. We changes springs and
shocks. We did all race stuff in practice. We made a couple of
qualifying runs, and it wasn't that good. We changed a bunch of stuff,
and it worked. I'm real proud of these guys. The car felt great. That
shows how our chemistry is working. We were able to make changes like
that and still qualify fast."

 

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge) - Qualified 5th

"We weren't far off, and we picked up from practice, so I'm pretty happy
about it. I think that'll be a top five or top 10, so we're real happy
with it."

 

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge) - Qualified 4th

"Hopefully that'll get us a top five starting spot. All we can do is
keep doing what we're doing. It was a little loose getting in and a
little tight in the middle. I got a little higher in one and two than I
wanted to as well as three and four and that gave up a little speed. I
think if we had the car balanced perfectly, but Gordon laid down a great
lap."

 

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Engines & Transmissions Dodge) -
Qualified 17th

"We were a little too loose and I was trying to get all we could. I got
loose going into three and I couldn't catch it. We're going to see if we
can't get it fixed and keep this Dodge for the race. It's a good one."

 

 

Kyle Petty Comes Up with New Wrinkle on Points

 

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge) - Qualified 31st

NOTE: Everybody is talking about the race for the chase, but no one
bothered to ask Kyle Petty what he thought about it all. Consequently,
the 44-year-old driver from Randleman, N.C., came up with the following
ideas on his motorcycle trip to Bristol.

 

"I don't care if 10 or 15 cars are in it, but I think they should
eliminate one every week and get down to the last three or four and have
those guys have a shot for the championship with four or five races
left. The last four races of the year should be a short track, a road
course, an intermediate and a superspeedway. You make sure that's the
way the season ends, so whoever wins the championship in the last four
races has to run Talladega, Sonoma or Watkins Glen, Bristol or Richmond
and then an intermediate like Atlanta. It's a warped mind thing I came
up with. Actually, it's a motorcycle trip. It's riding a motorcycle and
not having a snowball's chance of being in the top 10. I'm out of it, so
I can make fun of it. It's riding around thinking about good ideas. An
idea that superior, you can pick up on the way to Bristol. You can do
that in two and a half hours."

 

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NASCAR READS THIS AND DECIDES TO DO IT? "That's fine
as long as I get 10 percent off of it. I just want my cut. You think the
powers that be ever talk to me? Only when I say something wrong and it
gets in the papers (said with laughter), something like this. Then
they'll call me. Print it."

 

WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU CHANGE? "I don't know. The whole point is to make
people watch. Why do they watch Big Brother or Survivor or Who Wants to
Marry a Millionaire or Donald Trump and his show. They watch to see who
gets eliminated, not who survives. They just want to see who gets
eliminated. I can't tell you anything about any of those shows. They're
in all the papers all the time. I've never seen Big Brother. I watched
the Donald Trump show one time. I've never seen Survivor. I forgot about
American Idol. My daughter watched that, so I watched it with her, plus
the girl who won was from High Point."

 

IS IT FAIR FOR BRISTOL TO BE ONE OF THE LAST RACES TO DECIDE THE TOP 10?
"Oh yeah. Why not? Here's the deal. I think everybody loses this. When
would you have this race? This race counts the same amount of points
whether you run it the first of the year or in the last three. What
you're saying is they're so close this race could make a big swing, but
if you run good here every time you come here, it's a no-brainer. It's
like losing a points battle at the end and say I came up three points
short in the last race. It wasn't the last race. It was all year long.
You had a lot of opportunities to make it up. If you thought Bristol was
going to be a bad place and you stood a chance, then you'd better be
kicking butt at Michigan and Richmond and California and everywhere else
to give yourself a little cushion. Jimmie Johnson was almost three races


up, and now he's in second. He could miss the next three or four races
and still be in the top 10, so he doesn't care about Bristol. He's going
to be in the top 10. They're all going to even out and he's set, him and
Jeff and three or four others. Now you look at Dale Jarrett and those
guys, it could be a huge race for those guys. For Ray's two cars, Kasey
and Jeremy, they could fall to 14th or 15th. There could be a big swing
there, but you can't blame it on Bristol."

 

DO YOU SEE ANYONE GAINING MOMENTUM AS WE GO ALONG? "The 20 car is
gaining momentum. Even when he doesn't run first or second, he runs
fourth or fifth. He's the guy right now that's there. You've got to say
the 48 has lost a little momentum. Finishing last three weeks in a row,
that tends to stall your momentum a little bit. That's going to be the
big kicker. It's not going to be who was strong the first 26 races. It's
who's carrying that momentum. It's kind of like baseball and basketball.
You can start the season and be 2-20 and end the season and be 20-5 and
end up winning the pennant and going to the World Series. From that
perspective, Tony is strong and I think Jeff Gordon is strong. The 18
has struggled a little bit under their new structure. They have a good
race and then they have an OK race. To be where they're at, seventh,
eighth or ninth, you can't afford an OK race. You've got to have good
races and great races to maintain when you're seventh, eighth and ninth.
It's just like the 9, 19, 42, 6, 88, they can't have good races. They've
got to have great races. They've got to put together three great races,
and they've got to play every race like it's the last race of a
championship. The pressure is on those guys, and it's on the guys that
are eighth, ninth and 10th. It's played out like we talked about at the
shop. Jeff, Tony, Jimmie, Kenseth, those guys have been in the top five
the last four or five years. What made you think they weren't going to
be in the top five this year? Guys like myself, who have been 25th-35th
or 40th, we're still in the same place. Look in the garage area. We're
still parking in the same place. Those guys like Rusty Wallace who
finishes eighth one year and 12th the next year or Terry Labonte
finished 10th one year and 14th the next year, there's a group in there
of about seven or eight cars that the point system affected. That's the
heart and soul of the points system. Even when you get down to 10 races
to go, I don't see anybody getting in and being the 10th place guy and
coming from 10th to win the championship - not with Tony Stewart and
Jeff Gordon and those guys who have put together 26 races. What makes
you think they're not going to put together 10 more races?"

 

DO YOU THINK WE HAVE 15 TOP 10 TEAMS? "Well, the way NASCAR does
numbers, you could have 15 top 10 teams. I think you've got 15 teams
that deserve a shot at it. I do think the way this year has played out
that 15 teams deserve a shot at the championship. The only thing that's
kept those guys out of it are DNFs. The guys up front haven't had DNFs,
and when they did start having DNFs, like Jimmie Johnson, they were so
far ahead it didn't make any difference. When you're struggling to catch
up and 

have a DNF it hurts. You could look at it this year and say 15 teams
deserve a shot at the championship. We may get down to say next year
only eight teams deserve a shot at it."

 

DO YOU SEE ANYONE GETTING WITHIN 400 POINTS OF THE LEADER AND NOT BEING
IN THE TOP 10 IN THE NEXT THREE RACES? "The back guys haven't closed up.
The front guys have fallen. When Jimmie Johnson was 300 points ahead,
that eliminated that 400-point number. Now that he's back flush, that
400 number comes back into play or closer to it. If you take the 8, 48,
20 and 24 and all of a sudden they fall out early in the next two races,
that 400 number might come into play. The back guys are not going to
catch up. The front guys have to falter to make the 400 number come into
play."

 

DO YOU SEE THE BRISTOL RACE BEING ANY WILDER BECAUSE OF THE POINTS? "No,
not really. Surprisingly, this is not a place where you can make a lot
happen. You can be 20th and beat and bang your way to 15th, but you
ain't going to beat and bang your way to first. You can be 15th and beat
and bang your way to eighth or ninth, but that's as far as you're going
to go. You can also beat and bang your way to 15th and tear yourself up.
Do you take 18th or do you try for 15th? I'm going to take 18th and go
to the house and try to make it up next week. There's going to be a lot
of conservative racing here. I don't think it's going to be as wild as
you think. You've just got to be careful. This place, all you're going
to do is get in line and run for awhile. It's kinda like when you're
running down the interstate. You're running 70 and the guy in front of
you is running 60. He's blocking you and finally he pulls over. You get
off the interstate and pull up to the stoplight and look into the mirror
and there he is right behind you. What did you gain? You didn't gain
anything. You're at the stoplight at exactly the same time. At this
place, even if you pick up two or three positions, you look in the
mirror the guy is still right there with you. You didn't gain anything.
You didn't go anywhere. Until it gets down to the end of the race, when
you lap people you've got to be really careful unless your car is just
phenomenal like Kurt Busch's has been up here before where you can pass
on the inside and outside. If you're a little bit off you've got to be
careful."

 

DO YOU STILL GET PUMPED UP FOR BRISTOL AT NIGHT? "Yeah, everybody does.
This is the only race I'm going to bet you if you took a survey of the
drivers, this is the only race that if a driver falls out he won't go
home. He'll just go up on the top of the truck and watch the race. He
enjoys watching the race as much as being in it because this is a good
place to watch. Take me to California. Yeah, I enjoy being in the race
but I ain't going to stick around and watch it. Last week at Michigan, I
ain't going to hang around and watch the race at Michigan. I'd probably
stick around and watch at Daytona. Teams used to fall out here and would
go sit up on the grass bank and watch the race. With about 15 or 20 laps
to go, they'd get in the van and leave to beat the traffic."