dodge nascar winston cup qualifying quotes from talladega

Friday, April 19, 2002					               Ray
Cooper
Talladega Superspeedway					Golin/Harris
International
Aaron's 499 Qualifying. 		803-466-9085


HUT STRICKLIN (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T)
 "We've made giant strides since Daytona. We keep getting better every week.
Hopefully that will be good enough for a top 20. I feel real good about our
car for the race. It's the same car we had at Daytona, but we had a brake
problem in the 125. It cost us a chance to run in the 500. It was fast the
whole time down there, but we just didn't have luck on our side that day. I
like drafting when I've got a good, fast car. I don't like it when I have to
hang on for dear life. It's a lot of fun, and a lot of strategy. There's a
lot of thinking going on, but it still takes a good car to do it right. You
can't really plan strategy. You can talk to whoever you want to talk to and
try to plan. It never works out that way, or it hasn't with me.
	"I'm satisfied with that lap. We backed up practice. I can't say
enough about all the guys at Bill Davis Racing. They've done a great job for
me. I keep saying every week we're getting better, and I think this shows
that. Terry Elledge and all the guys at the engine shop have done a great
job. We had a good run last week at Martinsville, and hopefully that will
carry over to Talladega. We've been making gains the past three or four
weeks, and last week at Martinsville we were able to put together a finish
that showed a little bit of what we were capable of doing. We feel like this
is going to be a good weekend. We've got a good race car and hopefully we'll
leave here Sunday with a good finish.
	"I was looking forward to running with Ward (teammate and Daytona
500 winner Burton) in the 125. We had just got up to him in the 125 when we
had our brake trouble. I feel like having a teammate here Sunday will be
important. That's not a guarantee, but you feel like at least you've got
some connection out there. We feel like that's going to be a plus. Plus, it
never hurts that your teammate won the Daytona 500. It's just too bad he
doesn't have the same car for Talladega. He's got a new car that the guys
built in-house, so it's going to be a good car, too. You can't ever tell.
This race is full of surprises. If we can keep our nose clean all day and
stay up toward the front, you never know what might happen toward the end."

	JIMMY SPENCER (No. 40 Target Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"There's not a whole lot you can do. We were out of tests and
couldn't test down here. It's a brand new car. We didn't have a good run at
Daytona by any means.  We sure didn't run good here today. We're pretty far
off, there's no question about it. We'll get it better. I love this race
track, and our team has worked really, really hard. We've had a top 10 car
everywhere we've been so far, so I don't feel any differently here at
Talladega.  We'll get this thing handling good and we won't ever give up
because you never know what's going to happen."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"It'll give us a decent starting spot for Sunday, and we're going to
get out there and see if we can't do something with this Sirius Dodge. We
thought we could run faster earlier, but the track got really hot. I think
that may have hurt us because we felt like we'd gained on the car a little
bit. We were pretty good in practice, and we ran the same speed in
qualifying, so we think we've got a pretty good piece for Sunday. It's the
same car we ran in the Daytona 500. We got in that big crash down there, and
it's got a whole new body on it. I think Daytona and Talladega are pretty
similar. Talladega is a little different, but you're still going to see 43
cars deep three wide. We're going to keep our hopes up. It's like starting
all over again with new people, and it's going to take a little time to get
everything turned around. Once we do that, we'll be up there."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	NOTE: Burton's Dodge qualified fifth fastest for Sunday's race and
was the only Dodge qualifying in the top 10.	
"Our team has done an awesome job. That's by far the best qualifying effort
we've had at Talladega in a long time. I would say our best piece is still
at Daytona (Daytona 500 winning Intrepid on display in Daytona USA). I got
hurt at Texas and didn't even get to be involved in the test here. That
shows how much driver input you need down here when you're testing. Tom
Hubert tested for us. It's not a whole lot a driver can tell you, really.
This is all team, and that's all it is. It has nothing to do with the
driver. My mom, if she wanted to run here, could run the same time as I just
did.
	"Compared to what everybody is running, I'm real happy with our lap.
We've never had a shot at the pole at Talladega. A lot of hard work and
sacrifices went into being as good as we were in qualifying. The last time
we were here we didn't run that well, so let's hope we can run a little
better.
	"I'm real happy with the team's effort. Hopefully we'll start
somewhere in the top 10. The team has been working on this car ever since we
left Daytona. I'd probably have a little more confidence going into Sunday
if this was Daytona, but you've got to stay out of trouble here and you've
got to have good strategy. You've got to be there at the end of the race.
Right now, the speeds we're running, 43 of us could win this race."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"I don't know what happened. Really, nothing happened. We just
slowed down. That's life. There's nothing I can do about it now."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"It's tough today. By the time you got here and got two hours of
practice, and you try to make your qualifying runs, you only get three or
four runs. You've got to hit the ground running. It was close. All of our
cars are new. The 43, 44 and 45 are all new cars. The guys in the fab shop
did a great job. We're a lot better than we were at Daytona, and it's all
fab shop stuff. We were OK at Daytona, but I think we're going to be better
here. We backed up what we did in practice, so we're pretty pleased. At
Talladega, you're as good as anybody else. That's the way it is. That's a
fact of life. You can start dead last and win this race. We've seen 'em
start last and win other races this year. We stand a pretty good shot at
coming out of here with some good runs." 

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"That's kind of the way it is at Talladega. Whatever you come off
the truck with is kind of what you've got. You see a lot of cars out here
struggling.  We're struggling on our speedway stuff for some reason. We'll
just have to figure it out and hopefully we'll race good."

STEVE GRISSOM (No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"We had run an .18 in practice and an .11 in qualifying. At least we
didn't lose anything. It's hard to complain about that. We've been testing,
so I've been in the car a lot. Racing anywhere is good, but it's always
better racing here. We just wanted to get in the show. Now we'll try to get
the car driving good and have a good run on Sunday."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
	"I ran as hard as I could go. Here it's just motor and body. There's
nothing on it. That's all we've got.  We wanted to be a lot better than
that. This is the car I think we qualified second with here last year. We
never qualified no worse than fourth. We've got some work to do. It's the
same car we had at Daytona. We'll get the race started and see what we've
got."

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