NASCAR Trucks: Driver quotes, O'Reilly Auto Parts 300, Texas
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
June 9, 2001
RICK CRAWFORD-14-Milwaukee Electric Tools Ford F-150 (Finished 20th) - IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD ANOTHER STRONG TRUCK, BUT LUCK WASN'T ON YOUR SIDE. "We did. We beat ourselves again. Ray Stonkus and the whole Heavy Duty crew are doing a tremendous job, and you come away last week with your head up a little bit because you led the most laps but your head's down because you made a mistake in the pits. It seems that fate is doing it again; we made another mistake tonight. We're a stronger team than that and we can beat these guys if we don't keep shooting ourselves in the foot." YOU WERE ONLY A BREAK AWAY FROM GETTING BACK ON THE LEAD LAP. "We had it one time and we couldn't get a caution. I was driving to hard and scraped the wall one other time. Things happen."
TERRY COOK-29-K Automotive Ford F-150 (Finished 13th) - "Fuel mileage cost us tonight. We had third place locked up and we had second place in our gun sights. We had a great truck all night and the longer we ran the better we got. We needed that thing to stay green for a while and it did and we led a bunch of laps. In the ensuing caution after that we were only able to take on two tires, just rights, and it wasn't as good as when we took on four under green. We drove back up to the front and if we had it all over to do again, we would have done the same thing. We were going after the win, but we came up two laps short. You have to hand it to the K Automotive Ford, we struggled all weekend, we struggled through practice, we struggled through qualifying. It was a blessing for us that we went off of the point standings. We never gave up and we knew that we had a great race truck all day and it's unfortunate that we weren't able to get the third-place finish that we basically had sewn up." DID YOU THINK THIS WOULD BE A FUEL MILEAGE RACE? "We actually ran out of fuel under green when we were leading, and we knew we would be marginal at the end, and it was a call we made. We decided that if the thing would go under caution for just two or three more laps, we knew we would be comfortable, but it went back to green too quick and we just didn't have enough fuel. That's a tough one to take, we've had a rough couple of races here in a row. I thought we had third place locked up and we were running down second place at a high rate of speed, but it just wasn't meant to be." DID THE RULE CHANGE BRING THE DODGES BACK DOWN TO EARTH? "I don't know if it really hurt them as much. The 2 truck was again the class of the field, but he went out early in a wreck. We were obviously better than the 1, but unfortunately we didn't have enough fuel."
NATHAN HASELEU-99-Roush Performance Ford F-150 (Finished 10th) - YOU TIED YOUR BEST FINISH IN THE TRUCK SERIES. "We had a better truck than 10th place. Communication on the pit stop wasn't very good. I couldn't hear the crew chief for some reason; we've got to work on that. We had a left-rear tire going down at the beginning after the first pit stop, and we kind of fell back and got behind the rest of the day. We had a pretty decent day, the truck came back in one piece, and we'll take a 10th place. The Roush Performance guys, we're getting closer. We're having competitive trucks now, so I'm looking forward to going to Memphis in a couple of weeks." DID YOU PLAN ON THIS BEING A FUEL MILEAGE RACE? "There at the end, we were able to stay out and we made it on fuel, but on that last pit stop on lap 103 we knew we had to keep the fuel going. We talked about in the trailer, but here at Texas we thought there would be some more cautions." DID THE DRAFT HELP CONSERVE FUEL? "Maybe a little bit, but you never know for sure. I tried whenever I could to tuck up behind somebody, and I guess that's all I could do."
RICKY SANDERS-19-TruckTrix.com Ford F-150 (Finished 24th) - "This is respectable for where we wound up at the end of yesterday. We felt pretty good about it yesterday until qualifying. We finished 16th here last year, so I was pretty confident heading into the weekend. We just freed it up too much in qualifying and lost the first truck and had to pull the backup out. This is the one that we had at Daytona. NASCAR let us in here an hour early today to work on it and we got it put together to where it passed inspection. We did the best we could with it. It wasn't a perfect piece, we just made the best of what we had." WAS YOUR GAME PLAN JUST TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE? "Pretty much. That was our main deal. We knew we didn't have a shot at running up front, but we did want to run better than what we did. We don't have a scratch on the truck and we finished the race, so for us this weekend, that was the main thing."
TRENT OWENS-49-Dickies Ford F-150 (Finished 18th) - YOU IMPROVED ONE SPOT BETTER ON YOUR FINISH AT PIKES PEAK. "That was one spot better. We came here and it was in NASCAR's hands for a little while as to whether they were going to let us run this race or not. We had to drive a safe race and we knew that coming in. The truck was real loose getting in when we got around other trucks, so it was real difficult to run in a pack of trucks and be comfortable. We hung in there and got 18th. I'm real happy, the crew is real happy, but I know we'd all like to do better than that but we'll get there, this is only our second race. If we're not on the race track then we're not learning and that's our main focus: to get out there and learn and to make laps. We're going to Kansas City, that's our next race, and we hope to do good at that new facility. It's even odds there, none of us have been there."
CHUCK HOSSFELD-Eldon Ford F-150 (Finished 27th) - YOU MADE CONTACT TO THE TURN 2 WALL. "I'm not too sure what happened. I think the left-front tire touched the apron and it sent me up towards the wall. You just hate this when you know you have a strong truck. We knew that in qualifying, but we never had a shot at seeing where we stacked up. We had a fast truck in Happy Hour and thought that if we stayed up front, we would have a shot at a good finish. We've got to learn from this, put it behind us and look to rebound in Memphis."
Text provided by Greg Shea
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