dodge quotes from first segment of The Winston

Saturday, May 18, 2002				
The Winston                   				                            Golin/Harris International
Dodge notes and quotes.                                                                          803-466-9085

     STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Original Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     "I guess Ward (Burton) wanted to win more than we did. He just ran right into the back of us and turned us into the fence. It was a good car. We were going to bring it back next week. It was car 115, and that's the car that won some races and had a bunch of top five finishes last year. We'll bring No. 203 back next week, and that's the Dodge we won with at Darlington. I don't know what Ward's problem was. I guess you'll have to ask him. We were minding our own business down the back straightaway and he just got against us and turned us head on into the fence. It was pretty uncalled for. We were a little loose on the start and then all of a sudden it started getting tight. We were going to pit. I had my hand out waving and I was still in the gas and Ward hit us in the rear."


     WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     "I couldn't tell if Sterling was trying to block me or if Sterling had a problem, but I pulled down low and he tried to block my line. You cannot block in Winston Cup Racing. I don't give a damn who you are. Some of my guys told me he was having a problem. If he didn't have a problem, he was trying to block me. I was already there. I already had the momentum going. You just can't block. I was already making a move down low. I was racing him, obviously Sterling and I have raced each other clean for years. He's a great driver, and I wouldn't have wrecked him for anything in the world, but I was racing him for position and going down low. You can't signal a guy unless I'm behind him and have got position to see his signal. I'm a little bit ticked off. Our strategy pitting was wrong. We had a bad pit stop. We pumped the air pressure up to get the car to stop bottoming out and that made the car handle like junk. We'll come back and see what we've got in the 600 next week."