NASCAR WCUP: Tony Stewart pleased with Charlotte qualifying performance

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

May 25, 2001

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(ON YOUR RUN) "I'm pretty happy with that. But, it's so hard because you just don't know how hard you can really run, to be honest. You know you can pick it up, but you just don't know how hard to go in there without going too hard. The car drove really good. I'm really excited about it."

(DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE DRIVEN A LITTLE HARDER THAN YOU DID?) "I probably could have gone a little bit harder, but I don't think I was going to get two-tenths. We might have been able to pick up a little bit more. It's just hard. I was just judging off of what everybody else had done. I talked to Jimmy Makar and Bobby's team and they said the track had a lot of grip in it. But, saying it has 'a lot of grip' -- how much is 'a lot?'

(HOW DO YOU FEEL RIGHT NOW?) "I feel good. Everything I've been eating has kept me from being fatigued no matter how rough the days have been so far."

(DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT BOTH THE INDY 500 AND THE COKE 600 AT THIS POINT?) "I'm real confident right now. We've got good race cars for both events and that helps you physically, too. If you've got good driving cars at both places, you can relax in the race car and conserve energy that way. I'm real excited about a good weekend right now."

(ON STILL FOCUSING ON QUALIFYING DESPITE KNOWING THAT YOU'LL PROBABLY START AT THE REAR OF THE FIELD ON SUNDAY DUE TO MISSING THE DRIVERS MEETING WHILE YOU RUN THE INDY 500) "We still wanted to run good and run strong today, even though we know we're going to have to go to the back. The first thing is just to get in logistically, so we didn't have to use a provisional. But you want to do more than that just to get a better pit selection. We worked really hard today just like everybody else did."

Text provided by Al Larsen

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