Dodge NASCAR CUP TRACK NOTES Coca-Cola 600

     JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     NOTE: Mayfield will celebrate his 33rd birthday on Monday.
    "We got loose early and couldn't seem to get it tightened up. I lost it and hit the wall pretty good and then we went down and smacked the water barrels. The guys kept working on the car and got us back out, but it's really disappointing. I thought we had a good shot at it today."

     WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
     "It felt like the right front tire blew, and we hit the wall pretty good. I'm fine. I'm disappointed. We started off the first lap and had a bad skip in the motor. We couldn't locate it, and then we blew a tire going into turn one and hit the front straightaway wall and then bounced and hit the middle of one and two. We're going to bounce back. We've got a great team. We just haven't got a lot to show for it the last couple of weeks. I'm all right. I'm just sick and tired of all this bad luck."


STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It was loose-tight, loose-tight, loose-tight and it didn't drive like we needed it to. We'd be tight one time and try to free it up and we'd get sideways. We'd tighten it back up and we'd be too tight. They changed the tire, and there wasn't anything wrong with the tire we had here I didn't think. That's cool that Mark Martin won. I guess the old men still know how to do it."

HUT STRICKLIN (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I was having trouble down there anyway in the middle of three and four. I don't know if I checked up a little early. I'd been getting loose there anyway, or I don't know if he (Jimmie Johnson) just hit me. It was just one of those things. Luckily, we didn't hit anything and we were able to go on. It could have been bad. We learned a lot tonight. We had a great race car. We tried some things that were kind of off the wall, and we feel like we can apply them on down the road and it'll help us a lot. I was kind of leery about doing it for 600 miles, but we took a gamble and it paid off. We just never got any track position and we had a problem on one or two of those pit stops that cost us a little bit. I'm proud of everybody. Everything held together and we were able to finish."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We went from one side to the other. We went from loose to tight, loose to tight. We got a good set of tires and made up a lap and then the last set of tires was in incredibly loose and we got lapped at the end of the race. Steve Lane made some great calls in the pits, and everything worked good. We had a real good day. We ran the same car we ran in The Winston last week, and we thought we were pretty good last week. We were that close today. We started off and wanted to run somewhere between 15th and 25th. We feel like we need to be running somewhere between 10th and 20th right now, and that's where we're at. The 43 car had a good day. The 44 car didn't have the day we wished it would have had, but John and those guys had a good day and they needed one. I'm looking forward to going to Dover, especially when you can run like this here. If you can run like this here, we feel like we've got a good shot at Dover. I like that place."

JIMMY SPENCER (No. 41 Target Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We started off OK. I was just loose getting in the corners, but we were moving up through the field. Then we developed a really bad vibration in the car. I had to bring it in early and we found that the screws that hold the rotor backed off on the left rear. I'm glad we brought it in when we did because it was only going to get worse. The car was still loose, but we did what we could. At the end, we were able to catch the 26 car on the last lap and got the position. We'll just see what we can do at Dover next weekend."

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We were good in the day light, but when the darkness rolled in we couldn't seem to do anything to make it better. We were loose in and tight off, and everything we did to fix it made it a little bit worse. It was a good run for us. We stayed in there all day and finished good."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We started 17th and finished 17th. I guess we had a 17th-place car. That's our best finish of the season, so that's encouraging. We'll keep working hard and try to keep improving."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That last caution hurt us. I think we could have stayed out and made it the distance. That's racing and we got out of the longest race of the season with a top-10 finish, so that's not all bad. We're happy. We moved up to the top 10 in points, so we'll just keep trying to get better and get 'em next week at Dover."











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