BRICKYARD 400: Tony Stewart Interview: Just missing the pole
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
August 4, 2001
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
(ON YOUR RUN) "We had a shot at the pole today, but we just missed it. We were really loose in that run. But we can go out and win this things on Sunday."
(HOW WILL THIS AFFECT YOU FOR TOMORROW?) "We'll get it fixed. Qualifying is over now. There is no point in worrying about what we did just now. We'll just get ready for the race now."
(DO YOU HAVE A GOOD SHOT AT WINNING TOMORROW?) "I think so. The car drove good here in race practice when we tested here a couple of weeks ago, so we'll just put this behind us and see what we can do. It's not a bad qualifying run, but we really had a shot at the pole. The car drove good this morning. We slowed down over a half a second. That's a lot here."
(IS THE TRACK CHANGING A LOT?) "I don't know. I didn't run on it 10 minutes before I went out. All I know is that I was just loose this time versus the run before [in practice]."
(WHAT ARE THE PLANS FOR 'HAPPY HOUR?') "We'll just get the race setup on it and try to make sure the race setup is good. There is nothing we can do about our qualifying run now. We've still got a good enough car to win this thing."
(DID YOU HIT YOUR MARKS IN THE CORNERS?) "No, I didn't. If I had hit my corners we'd have been on the pole. The car has been quick enough to be on the pole today and we were second quick in practice by eight thousandths [of a second]. If I went out and hit my marks and if we were tight enough, we were going to be on the pole, but we were too loose."
(ANY PROBLEMS IN TURN FOUR?) "I had problems all the way around."
Text provided by Al Larsen
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