NASCAR WCUP: Jeff Gordon Post Race Notes, Food City 500, Bristol

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

March 26, 2001

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet Monte Carlo (finished 4th): "I guess Tony (Stewart) didn't realize I was underneath him down the back straightaway, 'cause it's pretty obvious to me. We were just racing real hard. I got a heck of a run and he slipped up coming off of (turn) two. I had my nose in there, and I guess somebody didn't tell him I was there because it was pretty obvious. I did everything I could to keep from hitting him. I was sideways too, and he just came down. I don't want to come to the last lap like that, but if you've got a position and you've been working on it for a long time, you're going to do it and your going to take everything you can all the way to the end. I thought that it was pretty clean.

"It was a great effort for us today. I'm just real proud of this entire Dupont Chevrolet team. They've done an excellent job. We got caught with track position there that hurt us. We were really good. We just needed to be up front. Unfortunately some of those guys made some great calls by not pitting, and that hurt us.

(How about Tony Stewart's retaliation in coming back at you, is that okay?) "That didn't surprise me one bit."

Bobby Hamilton, No. 55 Square D Chevrolet Monte Carlo (finished 8th): "It's still early. We're just trying to, and succeeding in, building a real solid race team. All the guys on this Square D Chevrolet have been working real hard. With the exception of Vegas, we've had good races. We got penalized in Atlanta, and other than that, we'd be fourth or fifth in points right now. We just done it like Darlington. We raced the race track and didn't try to race nobody 'til the end of the race, you know. That's sort of the way you have to do this place. You seem to be very consistent lately. Does that help?) "Consistency is what it's all about. You'd like to win, but if we just keep doing what we're doing, it's just going to fall in our lap one day. We'll get one."

(It looked like you had a really strong car today) "I haven't had a bad racecar all year, so I don't care really. All our racecars are identical; it really don't make any difference. Chevrolet's got us to where we share a lot of information with DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) and Childress (Richard Childress Racing) and that helps us along quite a bit. It cuts the learning curve in half. I don't think we have a bad car in the stable right now. We had a real good racecar. We just raced the racetrack all day. At times we was as fast as the leader. But we're not getting antsy yet. We still need to build this thing up points-wise in the next four or five races and try to keep us in the top 10 in points and use the second half (of the season) from what we learned the first half."

Text provided by Nancy Wager

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