ward burton wins richmond pole; dodge qualifying notes, and quote s from richmond

Friday, May 3, 2002
   

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Burton won the pole with a record lap of 127.389 mph. He broke Jeff
Gordon's record of 126.499 mph set on May 13, 1999. This is Burton seventh
pole in 261 career starts.
"It was a great effort on behalf of the Cat team. This is the first short
track in-house chassis that we've built. We can win here. We've just got to
take one moment at a time and not get too rushed with our decisions. I've
got to keep the car out of trouble and be there at the end. It's fun to be
able to wake up at home this morning and be able to drive to the race track.
I've got a lot of friends and family in my home state.
"We're usually not a very good qualifying team. We usually see how many cars
we can pass on Sunday. I'm pretty happy with this team effort. It's a brand
new car. When the Busch cars practiced, the race track changed for all of
us. I don't think it changed as much for us as it did for some of the
others. I think it's going to work out good, and I think the groove will
move up higher after the Busch race tonight.
"The track changed a lot from our practice to when we qualified. It lost a
little grip, but it was good enough to get the job done. This is a brand new
car. It's the first in-house short track car that we've built from bottom to
top. It's their effort and the car they gave me that allowed me to get the
pole.
"The track definitely lost some grip. If your car was balanced to the front,
you lost front grip. If it was balanced to the rear, you lost rear grip. I
think everybody out there lost some grip.
"I've been fortunate that we have made very minor adjustments since we got
here. I haven't been able to tell any difference in the tire from when we
were here last time. When you're that close chassis-wise, little things
don't make as much difference.
"Sitting next to Matt Yocum, with 18-20 cars left to qualify, he was telling
me green-red, green-red on the screen where it said they were going to win
the pole or not win the pole. I don't know if I'm going to have Matt with me
in that situation again. I really didn't expect to get the pole. I was just
trying to run what I was capable of running, a good, clean lap. I knew that
if I got everything right, it was possible we could get the pole. I was just
really trying to get a good starting spot for our team.
"We felt like in-house we could have better quality control, and we can
develop more in-house than have someone else develop for us. Why it's taken
this long, there were times with our organization that we didn't have the
people with the know-how to make those kind of steps. If we had, it would
have taken away from the overall program. Now, we've got a good indepth R&D
program. With Caterpillar's support and other support the race team gets, it
allows Bill Davis to be able to do those kind of things for us.
"There's really no big changes, but to keep up with this sport, you've got
to change and be innovative and do some R&D work. That's something that's
increased a lot. I'd say the reason that it's increased  the most the last
year or so is because of Dodge's support. 






 "There's no question about that. What we need to do as a team and what we
continue to do is question where we can be better and where we can better
ourselves. What we may be trying to do this month, in bringing this type of
car, we might run all these cars down the road. We'll be doing a lot of
stuff by this time next year and the months to come to improve our
performance.
"We're going to start the (race) setup not far from where it's at right now.
One thing about Richmond, the qualifying setup here is not night and day to
the race setup like it is at a lot of tracks. We're not going to change a
great deal, but I'll be able to tell you a lot more about that in an hour
and a half.
"It feels great. I've got some work to do in about 15 minutes. That's fine
right now, and I'm excited about it, but I'm starting to already focus on
getting in that car and tomorrow night is obviously more important than
today. This is something that's fabulous for myself, my family and my race
team to be able to do it here where my family and friends and a lot of fans
come from and where my roots are that I hold very dear. It's very special.
"I imagine it's going to happen. I hope I'm not one of the ones involved.
There's no perfect race car driver out there and every driver makes
mistakes. It's interesting sometimes when tempers flare. It seems like
sometimes it's all the same people who are blaming somebody else. All of us
have something to do with it. My philosophy is to try to drive everybody the
way I want to be driven, but at the same time I'm not perfect, either.
Hopefully, we'll have a good, clean race for the race fans and a hard one as
well. You know that's going to happen with the bunch of guys that are
driving these race cars tomorrow night."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"The race track is a little bit different. Listening to what those guys
said, Earnhardt Jr. said he wished he had got more heat in it. Steven Lane
(crew chief) came running down there and said to put as much heat as I could
in the tires. I buzzed the tires leaving, but you couldn't get enough heat
in them. The car has been good since we got here. Steve Grissom had a good
test up here, and it worked out good for us. I owe this to Steve Grissom and
his team. We had some awesome Ege engines, and this is a good qualifying
effort for our team."

STEVE GRISSOM (No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I can't say enough for the guys on the team. They did an excellent job. We
were just a little too tight for qualifying. I'm sure everybody else would
like to go back and try again, but we'll take it and get ready to race from
here."







   
STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We slowed down a whole lot. They ran the Busch cars in Happy Hour and it
freed the track up a lot. I got loose off four coming to the white flag and
that killed the second lap. We'll get in handling good for the race and
we'll be OK. We've got a good team put together and it's been working out
good for us. We've had a lot of luck and we've got a couple of wins. We hope
we can keep it going." 

HUT STRICKLIN (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"The race track is a good bit slicker after the Busch Happy Hour. We were a
little bit tight and a little bit loose. We were too tight in the middle and
too loose off the corners. I got on top of it but I couldn't get any grip. I
was hanging on for dear life. It was just a little greasy."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It just didn't run good. I felt like the car was decent, but it just didn't
go anywhere."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We slowed down a little bit from practice, but it looked like everybody did
a little bit. The track changed. The car was tight and it hadn't been tight
all day. We'll work on it and try to get it better for the race."

JIMMY SPENCER (No. 41 Target Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I was unhappy with that. We made some changes before qualifying to go
faster and we went a lot slower. We live by the sword and die by the sword
and today it got us pretty good. We were real tight in practice. We made a
calculated adjustment, but it was calculated the wrong way. We'll recoup and
get ready for Saturday night."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"This is a good race car. It's probably the best one I've ever had here. I
think we're going to be real good in the race. I feel real good about it.
Everybody slowed up in practice and I really don't understand that. It's not
that we got tight or loose. We just slowed up a little bit."