Chevy practice & happy hour notes-Talladega

CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES
AARON¹S 499
ROUND 9 OF 36
2002 NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES
TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY
SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2002

PRACTICE NOTES

STEVE PARK, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVY MONTE CARLO, crashed in morning practice,
which resulted in severe damage to the front of the car.  Park reported that
he ran over debris, which he believed to be the top of a shock from the No.
30 car.  This caused the right rear tire to fail, which caused the crash.

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AMERICA ONLINE CHEVY MONTE CARLO, opted not to run Happy
Hour.  "It seems to be real good in the draft and I¹m really happy with it."

BOBBY HAMILTON, NO. 55 SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC CHEVY MONTE CARLO, was involved in
an incident in morning practice with his Andy Petree teammate MIKE WALLACE,
NO. 33 PREEN CHEVY MONTE CARLO:  "The 33 was spinning in front of me so I
went high.  There was a car up there, so to miss him I ducked down low to
try to get away from him.  The 33 came across the track at that time.  I saw
him hit the brakes to try to stop.  He just clipped the whole side of the
car.  It was a really hard hit."

ANDY PETREE, TEAM OWNER, NO. 33 AND 55: "That¹s just the way it goes
sometimes.  This sport can really beat you down.  It¹s not a very good day
for us, but none of the drivers got hurt; that¹s the main thing.  We try to
keep all this in perspective.  (Compared to) what Jack Roush is fighting
today, our problems are pretty minor.  WHAT HAPPENED WITH WALLACE?:  "What
happened was Mike cut a tire.  He had just come out of the pits and he was
running in front of that group, the big group that was out there and
evidently ran over a piece of debris.  I think there was something on the
track, because I think the (No.) 1 car ran over something earlier too.  I
guess we ran over it and it blew the left rear tire out and when it did it
just went around, hit the wall and unfortunately the whole group was coming.
I really feel lucky that Mike didn¹t get hurt because he spun in front of a
whole bunch of people.  Unfortunately it was Bobby that hit him.  Everybody
is OK, we¹ve got the backup cars out, we¹ll race Sunday, and hopefully be
safer than the practice session was."

Both the 33 and the 55 teams will run backup cars.

HAPPY HOUR NOTES:

JERRY NADEAU, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVY MONTE CARLO (23rd in Happy Hour):
"The car was pretty decent.  Not as fast as I want it to be, but it drives
good and there¹s a lot of good, fast cars out there.  We¹re not one of them,
but I think we got a pretty decent car."  DOES THE CREW CHIEF CHANGE AFFECT
YOU?  "Not at all."

KEN HOWES, DIRECTOR OF COMPETITION AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND NO. 25 CREW
CHIEF AFTER TONY FURR LEFT THE TEAM THIS WEEK:  "It¹s a little more work.  I
still have my day job, I¹m just having a bit of gun on the weekends.  It
won¹t do me any harm.  I want to work with Jerry for a while to see if we
can help him out until things settle down.  I¹m responsible for all the race
teams, so I still have that job for the time being, and I¹m also Jerry¹s
crew chief on race weekends."  ON HAPPY HOUR:  "We¹re decent, but you know
how this business is, you always want to be better, but I think we¹re pretty
good."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVY MONTE CARLO (21st):  ON HAPPY HOUR:
"Happy Hour was good.  We made some changes that really woke the car up.
This is the second time this year in a Cup car in a restrictor plate race,
but I feel we¹ve got a better car than we had in Daytona -- in the draft and
some adjustments we made to make the car pull up to other competitors to
pull of the pass and still have power to run on by people.  It was a really
good Happy Hour for us."  YOU HAVE ANY CONCERNS ABOUT THE INCIDENTS THIS
MORNING?  "Yes, I was real close to all of them.  Tony Stewart and I were
going down the backstretch and we were going into turn 3 and he was down in
the apron.  I didn¹t know he was down there and when we clipped the apron he
came back up the track and we touched a little bit, so that was a scary
moment.  But then the 33 car wrecked off of turn 4 right in front of us and
I was leading a pack of about 20 cars and I didn¹t know where he was going
because of the smoke and as I turned down to the inside of the track to miss
him, he shot down in that direction.  My only choice was to go down pit road
at 180 mph with everybody standing around out there and they were lining up
the Busch cars on pit road.  It wasn¹t a fun moment." ON TOMORROW¹S RACE:
"It¹ll be a long day.  There¹s going to be people trying awfully hard and
being greedy.  As long as we try not to end up with that mindset I think
we¹ll survive and be very strong at the end."

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