Harvick Takes Daytona Pole in GM Goodwrench Monte Carlo
CHEVROLET/TEAM MONTE CARLO NOTES AND QUOTES PEPSI 400 DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. NASCAR WINSTON CUP SERIES RACE 17 OF 36 FRIDAY, JULY 5, 2002 POST-QUALIFYING PAGE 1 KEVIN HARVICK TAKES POLE IN GM GOODWRENCH CHEVY MONTE CARLO KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (pole position); "We ran a 48.40 when we came down to the 500; and it¹s obviously a lot hotter. We didn¹t really know where we were going to be and you never can tell with these RCR guys, how much they¹ve got sitting in the tank and how much is left. It¹s been a tough first half of the year and I think the last couple of weeks the finishes haven¹t shown how much better things are and how good everything is really going. The GM Goodwrench team is here and we¹re going to win races this year and there¹s no reason to talk about it, we¹ll just show them." IS THIS CAR AS GOOD AS THE ONE AT THE 500? "Right now it¹s good. When we get out there and draft and see how it is behind other cars we¹ll just go from there and adjust on it. It just feels good to be talking to you guys. I want to thank all the fans for sticking behind us and for sticking up for this GM Goodwrench car because we¹re here and they¹ll know it. It¹s really cool. The guys have worked really hard. Right now they¹ve done everything they can do and I went out and drove it around and didn¹t have much to do with it. The guys have done a great job and worked real hard on everything with the Goodwrench car and right now we¹re proud of them." ON BEATING JEFF GORDON FOR THE POLE: "There¹s a lot that goes into this stuff; the wind could have been blowing. The car actually got a little hot at the end of the run; it might have been able to go a little bit faster. Anything that was 100th better, a thousandths better than his we were taking." ON CONFIDENCE GOING INTO TOMORROW NIGHT: "We¹re confident. We¹ve been confident for some time now. Ever since everything¹s changed everything¹s been really good. We¹re just been kind of laying low and been concentrating on our programs and really trying to make them as good as possible. The only way you an do that is with a lot of hard work and the whole organization at RCR has been working hard and these guys on this GM Goodwrench car have been working as hard, if not harder than they¹ve ever worked. It¹s refreshing to see everything that¹s going on. I¹m as pumped up as I¹ve ever been coming to a race track this week. Hopefully, it pays off." JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (third): "Man, I was wheeling it, wasn¹t I? Steve Bergh and Dean Ellis. These guys have worked so hard for this. The 48 car has been on the pole the last couple of races on a superspeedway. Nobody does it better than our guys at Hendrick Motorsports, but these two guys, they wanted this thing so bad. I know it¹s not over yet, but that¹s an awesome lap, we¹re really, really proud and it¹s going to be a good track position for us. The effort between these guys, man, we owe them a lot. You see them sweating right now. They¹ve been sweating five times that at the shop. These guys have worked hard, they¹ve been rubbing, massaging." What an awesome effort put out by everybody at Hendrick Motorsports and the engine shop and especially our guys in the body department. They just do a phenomenal job. They really rubbed and worked hard, they wanted to come here to Daytona. We¹ve got a million dollars on the line for us, a million for a fan. We¹ve got this DuPont Pepsi car this weekend celebrating the Fourth of July. There¹s a lot of effort put into this, So far, it¹s certainly paid off, but we¹ll see what the end results are. We know we¹re going to be up front somewhere, and that¹s what really counts. These things don¹t come easy. These superspeedways are tough deals and you gotta put a lot of hard work and effort into it and nobody worked harder than my guys did and to be able to come here, have a No Bull deal on the line, and the paint scheme with the DuPont Pepsi car out there, it¹s going to be a fun weekend; we¹re excited about it." GOOD SESSION LAST NIGHT. YOU SHOULD BE CONFIDENT WITH THIS CAR: "We are real confident with this car from February and when we were in Talladega the car just drove really well. We just didn¹t qualify as well as we would have liked to have. The guys just massaged on it, found a little bit of speed for qualifying. The guys in the engine shop found some speed there. It¹s a total effort. It¹s massaging and looking at every detail and they certainly did that and it¹s worked out so far." IS THIS YOUR BREAKOUT RACE? "We¹ve been so close and we¹re knocking on the door. And we¹re doing what we need to do for the championship and we¹re doing what we need to do to win races but it¹s all got to work out. And, so far, it just hasn¹t. We¹re just going to the next race, approaching it the same way, and working hard, and communicating and if that¹s our day, then it¹s our day. If it¹s not, then we do the same thing for the next one." ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (fourth): "It was really good. You know, Kevin Hamlin and everybody here on the Cingular Wireless car does a great job. I gotta give a lot of credit to the body shop and the engine shop. These guys worked really hard the last couple of months getting ready for this race. Also I want to congratulate Harvick; a good run." MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (seventh): "I¹ve got a real competitive car. Anytime you can be that close to the fastest car, that¹s what it¹s all about in a plate race. You got to have a fast car in order to be successful, and we obviously have that, and it¹s pretty cool. I feel great about it. We feel like we could win the race. We thought we could get the pole, so that will just make me a little more determined to win the race. There¹s not a whole lot You can do once you get here. You¹re going to run pretty much what you brought. You can change things, but nothing really will pick it up that much. You gotta have a good body, which is done at the shop, and you gotta have a great engine, which is done at the shop, and the driver¹s pretty much out of the equation. I think an intoxicated orangutan could do what I just did." MICHAEL WALTRIP, continued: ON RACING WITH DALE JR.: "No, I¹m not tired of pushing at all. It just worked out the last couple of times that his Budweiser Chevy has been a little better than my NAPA car. Hopefully we¹re faster than he is and he¹ll be forced into the pusher role. It¹s hard to pass without the aero package anymore, it¹s almost impossible. So when a guy¹s got a fast car to get to the front, it¹s hard to do anything with him. Hopefully, I can shuffle out on top and he¹ll push me home this time." STEVE PARK, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (eighth): "Just not enough for the pole, but this Pennzoil ChevroletŠ I mean, DEI, they do a good job, supplying us with great race cars. I want to thank Richie Gilmore and all the guys back at the engine shop, and all the guys in the fab shop that put this Pennzoil Chevrolet together. We just hold on. Like Michael said, we¹re just on for the ride. It all goes to the hard work back at the shop and all the guys. I know the race fans are tired of hearing that, but it¹s really true here in Daytona. You have to have a good car, a good engine and also qualify well." ACTUALLY, MICHAEL SAID EVEN AN INTOXICATED ORANGUTAN COULD¹VE DONE WHAT HE DID: "I don¹t know about an intoxicated orangutan, but Michael¹s been around a lot longer than I have, so maybe he knows best." JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE¹S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (16TH): "We did too (expect to go quicker). We¹re not exactly sure. It looks like when we came in the tape covering the air opening into the radiator had blown open. Michael Waltrip pointed out that we went so fast we blew the tape off the hood of the car and that couldn¹t have helped. We focused more on the race coming back. I think we have a great race car for Saturday night, and that¹s the most important thing." WHAT¹S DIFFERENT FROM THE DAYTONA 500? "We ended up 15th, which wasn¹t too bad. We went to Talladega, finished seventh. As a driver I learned a lot more about strategy, the thing to do, what not to do. I think I have also earned some respect from these guys where they will run with me, and draft with me. Hopefully I won¹t cause a big pile-up. I gained some more confidence with them, so we¹ll see what happens." MIKE SKINNER, NO. 4 KODAK FILMS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (23RD): "Our Kodak Max Films car has been really just about five or six tenths slower than the good cars. We really think that we picked up some. We¹ve got a new body on this race car and hopefully we¹ll race a lot better and draft good. In the past two speedway races we¹ve been really slow when you¹re turning the car. This car didn¹t actually really lose any rpm; I don¹t know if we lost much at all when we were turning, so I look for this car to race good." YOU¹VE BEEN CLOSE TO VICTORY LANE HERE, CAN YOU DO IT TOMORROW?: "We certainly hope so. I¹ve tried everything you could do. I figuredŠ I got in the line I could be in a couple of times, and that was wrong. So we came here one year and the line I thought I should have been in, I jumped to the other one, and that was wrong. We¹re just going to do whatever we need to do and hopefully have a little bit of luck." TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG¹S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (36TH): "That was a little bit slower than we practiced last night. We¹ve been off a little bit ever since we unloaded. We have a little work to do." ON GOOD FINISH AT SEARS POINT, SECOND HALF OF SEASON: "I think the second half should be pretty good. I think we have some good tracks coming up for us and we have some really good cars lined up for them, I was a little disappointed. We didn¹t have a chance to take this car to the wind tunnel or test it or anything. It¹s always run good in the past, but we wreck every time we run a restrictor-plate race. It¹s hard to take them home and wipe them off, you have to put a new body on them." ###