NASCAR Truck Notes from NHIS

Saturday, July 20, 2002
New Hampshire International Speedway
Dodge notes and quotes. New England 200.

TED MUSGRAVE (No. 1 Mopar Performance Dodge Ram)
"I'm a little happier today than I was yesterday, but there's only so much we can do. The Fords are going to dominate. We need the downforce, but at least we were first in class today. The Mopar team needed that. It's another top five, and we've got to keep knocking them down. We can't change the rules. All we can do is change what we do on the racetrack. There's no way a Dodge can win the race. All we can try to do is finish in the top five. Maybe after Ford wins about 23 in a row, they'll wake up. Jason's truck was a little better than mine. You've got to have your eyes open all the time, but it was just unfortunate for Jason. My truck was OK. It was just a little off, but you've got to work hard until the last lap. It's going to be hard to keep the points lead like the rules are. I don't want to be a crybaby, but they've got to look and see what's happening here. It's not right. We ran out of gas on the frontstretch and we lost a lot of time, but thank goodness we didn't get a lap down. We fought hard all day long, and we did the best we could with what we had. The way the rules are, it sucks. We've just got to try to get top fives. We get in the middle of traffic and there's no front downforce on these Dodges. All you can do is slide around. All you can do is push people out of the way. If they don't give us the rules, we'll just have to race dirty."

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 62 NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Ram)
"I just followed the best driver in the series. When you get behind a guy with as much experience as the old Muskrat (Ted Musgrave), you stick with him. He's a Dodge teammate. I knew he was fast. We were working on traffic the whole time. I figured I'm not going to give up on him. On the last lap I gave him a little bump out of turn four. I figured I had to give it a try. I wasn't going to be totally intimidated by the old man. He's taught me a lot. Sometimes you've got to follow the guy with experience. We've got a great race team, and we'll try it again next week at Michigan. I drive what they give me. It's my job to make it as good as possible. Are they damn difficult to drive? Do I think we have the best drivers? Hell yeah. I'm just going to drive whatever I've got."

JASON LEFFLER (No. 2 Team ASE/Carquest Racing Dodge Ram)
"We had a great truck and nothing to show for it again. I didn't have a problem with anybody. I was alongside the 03 all the way down the back straightaway. I figured he knew I was the leader and he was going to give me some room. He drove down in the corner like I wasn't there. We hit and I spun out. He spun out and it cost us the race. It was a great truck. It's hard to stay up like this. We haven't won a race, and everybody is doing everything they can do. We were 25 laps from the end and to have that happen is disappointing. It was a very good truck, and now we've got to fix it."

ROBERT PRESSLEY (No. 18 Bobby Hamilton Racing Dodge Ram)
"We got into Carlos a little bit there on the last lap. It messed the nose up, and then on the green-white-checkered, we got into the 50. I misjudged where we were and it sent us in the wall. I guess we gained one and lost one. It wasn't what we wanted. I thought before we started the race we had something for 'em, but the longer we ran, with the sealer coming off, the worse we got. Winston Cup cars are going to tear up some race track tomorrow. It ain't coming up, but the sealer is coming up. You get in it and you'll go for a ride. The Cup cars with 800 horsepower, they get in there, they'll rip that sealer up in a hurry. It could be a nice one."

CARLOS CONTRERAS (No. 43 Hot Wheels Dodge Ram)
"We had a problem in the first laps when I changed the ignition box. The truck was pretty fast, but I think we need more power in the engine. Every single lap we had were the same times. I would like to finish in the top 10, but we finished 15th. We need to start where we left off in Michigan."

BILL LESTER (No. 8 Dodge Motorsports Dodge Ram)
"We just keep getting snakebit. I hate to keep saying if and but, but Good Lord. Our whole downfall today was coming together with the 50 in the pits. I saw him back there, but I didn't know where he was pitted. I thought he was coming out of the pits from way back. I didn't see him cutting in on me. My instructions as I understand them are that when the jack is dropped you go. That's what I did. As soon as I turned the wheel, we hit. It tore up the truck bad. The aero was terrible after that. It was tight coming off. We were so excited at first. We knew our qualifying effort wasn't indicative of how we were. We knew we had a top 10 truck, probably a top five truck. We were trying to make up for qualifying. We don't know what went wrong in qualifying. We were going to pick 'em off. We started out well, being smart, knocking them off one at a time. I knew were in for at least a top 10. We're pretty disappointed about it, but we're all very excited about going to Michigan. I think you're going to see big things from our race team."

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