NASCAR WCUP: Elliott Sadler Interview: Going for the No Bull Bonus Money

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

September 6, 2001

Elliott Sadler, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus, will be gunning for a one million dollar bonus this weekend in the Monte Carlo 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Sadler is one of five drivers eligible for the Winston No Bull Five bonus, which consists of the top five finishers from the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in July.

ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Motorcraft Taurus -- CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HAVING A CHANCE TO RUN FOR A MILLION DOLLAR BONUS WITH FOUR OTHER GUYS? "I'm sure if it gets down to the end of the race and some of us are in position it's gonna get pretty hairy, but it's probably gonna be a normal race. That's the way we're gonna look at it at the beginning of the race until you get down to the end -- maybe the last 100 laps. If we're still in position on the lead lap to maybe get a shot at the win, we might do something out of the ordinary by not pitting or pitting for two tires or four tires. We'll just have to wait until that time comes, but I'm pretty sure if you get down to the last 20 laps and one of us five are up there running for the lead it's gonna get pretty hairy. I know I'm gonna try to make it hairy if it happens."

WHAT IF YOU'RE IN SECOND AND NEED TO PASS? "At Richmond you use up a lot of brakes. Here lately, like at Bristol, a lot of guys had their brakes fail near the end of the race and they ran into the back of people. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but you never know." IS RICHMOND HARD ON BRAKES? "It is. We're hard on the brakes more at Richmond than at a lot of places. Richmond and Martinsville are by far the worst because you're carrying so much speed. It's half speedway and half short-track, so you're running pretty fast going down the front straightaway and use a lot of brake getting into turn one. You can usually sit down in the corner, even during the Busch race, and see a lot of guys with their brakes glowing pretty hard during the whole race. Richmond is pretty tough on brakes, so for 400 laps you've got to manage everything and try to save it and, hopefully, have a little something left at the end."

A TEST SESSION WAS CANCELLED THERE BECAUSE OF SOME PROBLEMS WITH THE SEALER. DID THAT DISRUPT ANY OF YOUR PREPARATION? "We're out of tests, but the way they did the sealer is they sealed some parts of it and didn't seal other parts and some of the guys aren't real happy about it. My brother (Hermie) went over there and tested and said that they had been dragging tires around with sand on them trying to make the track a little bit better and he said it's a lot better than what it was a week ago."

THE LAST TIME YOU HAD SUCH HIGH HOPES WAS WITH THE VIRGINIA TECH PAINT SCHEME LAST YEAR AND YOU ENDED UP IN AN ACCIDENT EARLY ON. IS THERE MORE INTENSITY AT THE START OF THIS RACE? "It's a two-groove race track. You can get on the inside or the outside. There's a lot of side-by-side racing and sometimes that gets you in trouble there. That's what happened to us. We were on the outside of somebody that got loose and got in the back of us, so it's a tough race track. If you don't qualify good, if you're in the back, usually Rusty or somebody up front sets one heck of a pace at the beginning of the race and you're gonna get lapped pretty quick. That adds the element of panic in there too if you start in the back, so you really need to qualify good there. That's a place where you need to try to be in the top 15 or top 20 and try to stay out of trouble the first half of the race so you can be in position at the end."

YOU SAID BRISTOL WAS YOUR FAVORITE TRACK, BUT WHERE DOES RICHMOND FALL? "Richmond is probably second because we don't run as good at Richmond. I used to go to Richmond when it was the old half-mile. I was there the time when, as soon as the race was over, they started digging up turn four to make it the three-quarter mile. I was there to watch that race and stayed afterwards like many fans did to watch. It used to be cold. I used to go there in February when it was the third race of the season -- usually the first weekend in March -- and it was cold. One time it even snowed. It was unbelievable. It was the most snow we've ever had in my hometown (Emporia, Va.), I think so I've been going to Richmond for a long time. It's cool because it's close to home. It's only 50 miles from my house and a lot of family and friends or people that work for my dad and are from my hometown go up and show a lot of support, so it puts a lot of pressure on me to go there."

YOU ALSO GET TO EXPERIENCE THIS NO BULL FIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME AND THE HYPE THAT GOES WITH THAT. "I think it's pretty cool. I'm pretty happy to represent Ford in the No Bull Five at Richmond. I'm kind of a lone wolf out there, but we feel privileged to get into it. Our team is just happy as we can be. We've never raced for a million dollars -- I haven't and they haven't. I think that's why they went ahead and built a brand new car -- to try to get it as light as we can, as slick as we can and get the center of gravity low to the ground so we can have a good shot at it. We built this car just for Richmond, so, hopefully, it'll work out good for us."

Robert Pressley, driver of the No. 77 Jasper Engines Taurus, was involved in an accident with less than 20 laps to go in Sunday's Mountain Dew Southern 500. Pressley, whose car hit the inside retaining wall on the passenger side before spinning around and getting his right-side tires off the ground, was taken to an area hospital with back and lower abdominal pain. He was released Sunday night when all of the tests came back negative. He spoke about the accident and updated his condition Tuesday afternoon.

ROBERT PRESSLEY --77-- Jasper Engines Taurus -- I GUESS THE FIRST QUESTION IS, HOW ARE YOU FEELING? "I'm doing pretty good. They checked everything from my toes to the top of my head. They told me I was a little smarter than they ever thought I was, but there are no broken bones or anything like that. I don't have any problems with my head, neck, shoulders or ribs -- no problems like that, so everything is good. They released me Sunday night. We got out of there about nine o'clock and spent the night in Darlington before coming home yesterday (Monday). They did all the tests pretty much as a precaution and everything is good. I'm just sitting around taking it easy this week and getting ready for Richmond. We're gonna go up there and get back on track."

SO YOU'LL BE IN THE CAR THIS WEEKEND. "Yeah. I think everything in the car did what it was supposed to do, so we're really happy about that."

IS THAT AS HARD OF A HIT AS YOU'VE TAKEN? "No. I've hit a lot harder than that, but anytime you hit the wall it hurts. That one there was a hard thing, but with all of the safety stuff we've done to our car it wasn't that bad."

WHAT DO YOU FEEL HELPED YOU INSIDE THE CAR TO COME AWAY WITH JUST SOME SORENESS? "I haven't seen the car, but I think what should have helped out was the HANS device. I think that played a big part in it because that helped take a lot of the blow away from the neck and the shoulders. We have a window net now on both sides of the car and that helped a whole lot, too. It doesn't help as much with a head-on accident, but it definitely helped on this sideway hit. The seat and the belts and everything, changing those things to better fit the body, worked too. I think everything we've done over the last 18 months helped in this case."

WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THE ACCIDENT? "We were coming off four and Terry (Labonte) had a heck of a run going and I guess he didn't allow for the speed he was running and just kind of got underneath me and sent me sailing down the straightaway. If it would have been in the corner it wouldn't have hurt nearly as bad."

WERE YOU JUST TRYING TO BRACE YOURSELF AT THAT POINT? "Yeah, I knew I was gonna hit the wall. There was no way of avoiding that, so it was nothing I wasn't expecting. The only thing is that I wasn't sure if I was gonna hit head-on or towards the side. I think it was more or less a good, flat pancake-type of hit on the right side, but, like I said, I haven't seen the car but in talking to Ryan (Pemberton) he said it looked like everything absorbed the blow like it should have."

YOU GOT UP ON TWO WHEELS FOR A MINUTE. DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING OVER? "That was the last thing I thought before the car sat back down. I thought we were gonna go over, but then I felt it come back down. After that I just wanted to make sure it didn't go back up in the line of traffic."

YOU SEEMED TO GET OUT OF THE CAR QUICKLY WITH THE HANS DEVICE. "Yeah, that was quicker than I guess we had ever gotten out of the car before with the HANS on. When I hit the wall it just knocked the breath out of me really bad, so I wanted to get some air and probably got out of the car quicker than I needed to. I guess it knocked all of the panels out of the back and when the car was up on its side it got smoke inside the car. I thought we had a little fire going, so I wanted to get out of there to keep that from playing any role in it."

NOW YOU CAN LOOK AHEAD TO RICHMOND. "Yeah, we had a great race car at Bristol and couldn't capitalize on it, and then I believe we had our best race car at Darlington the other day. Unfortunately, we got into it there with Elliott Sadler when he wrecked and when we spun there that messed us up a little. It's time these places start paying us back now and, hopefully, Richmond will be the place."

Text provided by Greg Shea

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