Dodge Nascar Winston Cup notes and quotes from New England 300

Sunday, July 21, 2002					         
New Hampshire International Speedway                	          
Dodge notes and quotes.                                      
New England 300.  

BURTON WINS SECOND RACE OF SEASON, FOURTH FOR DODGE  
Ward Burton scored his second victory of the 2002 season in the No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T and the fourth overall for Dodge in 2002. Sterling Marlin, who leads the standings for the 18 straight week, has won the other two races for Dodge. Burton's victory Sunday was Dodge's first win since Marlin won at Darlington 13 races ago.

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
  "I knew if we could stay out of trouble we could have a decent run. Obviously I didn't expect this. The Cat team kept working with the chassis and kept getting better the longer we ran. On older tires, we were really good. I don't know what happened to Matt Kenseth. He was obviously a little bit better than I was. You've got to be in position to win 'em, and we were in position. My hat's off to the team. We ran all day. We didn't break, and that's what's been killing us this year. This gives us some great momentum heading to the next couple of races. Tommy Baldwin (crew chief) and all the guys worked on pit strategy. You could pass cars, but you had to work hard to do it."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We made up four laps, but that doesn't matter. We had problems, and we've got to overcome them. We had a decent piece, but we need to keep working on it."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We've got to look up the definition of track position in the dictionary on Monday. That's all I've got to say."

HUT STRICKLIN (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I'm really not sure what happened there at the end. Dale Jr. spun out off turn two and all of us checked up. We made it through the smoke and the 28 car just came from nowhere and caught me in the left front and drove me into the wall. I don't know what happened. I guess I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. We're going through some rotten luck right now. The cars are getting really good. We had a great race car. It's a shame. That's two weeks in a row we've had good cars, but that's the way our luck has been going all year. We just can't seem to put it together when it counts. I was glad to see Ward run good. I knew his car was a little better than mine, but we weren't bad. It's good to see both of those Bill Davis Dodges running up front where they belong."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I'm looking forward to going to Pocono. The last couple of weeks we've had good cars. I feel like things are going good. They're starting to turn our way. We've got a little bit of work yet to do, but we're definitely getting there. At least we're racing hard, not riding around in the back. We worked hard on this Dodge Dealers Dodge all week. It was tough out there. You definitely couldn't drive in that second groove. The track just turned in to typical New Hampshire. It just got real real slick, but we came out of here with some good momentum."

JIMMY SPENCER (No. 41 Target Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We got spun out real early. We made an adjustment there at the end that might have taken us out of the top 10. The team never gave up. We had some excellent pit stops, but it was a terrible day on the track. There was a lot of pushing and shoving. The track was terrible. There was a lot of rubber built up on the outside. We never got a second groove worked in. We really wanted to finish in the top 10 and we almost did, but we didn't quite make it."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I'm always leery about starting this race because you know it's tough to keep the fenders on the car. You've got to really look ahead to about 250 laps down the road and then race hard those last 50 laps. We were in the back of the pack. We were in the front. We were back to back, we got to the front. We probably did that three or four times. I told Tommy (crew chief Baldwin) yesterday, I said, 'you know, do what you've got to do to get me track position.' That's what he did and our car was a lot better on older tires than it was on new tires. The setup and everything just complimented our strategy. We were lucky enough to stay out of trouble and take advantage of the 17's mishap at the end, but we had to be in position to take advantage of it. It was just a great day for the Cat team and all of Bill Davis Racing.
"Matt got a lot of bite on that restart coming off two and put a little distance between myself and him. I had put a little distance between myself and the 88. I didn't really have a threat. It took me three or four laps to get going on the restart. About the third lap, I saw Matt get loose off two and we gained on him. I saw him get loose again off turn four. We gained a little bit more. I just figured his tires were a little bit cold. We went into one and he got extremely loose and that's when I figured there was something going on with his tire. We were able to get around him really quick. That kind of bottlenecked the rest of the field up when they caught him it seemed to me. It was our race to lose at that point.
"Jeff has owned this track. I know back in '98 and '99, after Happy Hour, which was always late, about 5 o'clock or so, I would get Jeff to take me around in the pace car. I couldn't figure out how to get around the track and couldn't figure out how to get the car to go around the track. It wasn't until Bill made some changes with the team, and our short track program has come a long way. In that, they've gotten on me about some things that I was doing wrong that was not helping the car, either. I think we both improved a lot. Our short track program, just like when we left Richmond, we had the car to beat until we broke. It's similar to our speedway program at the mile and a halves or better. Those tracks are where we're off now, and the short tracks are where we're on. We're trying to figure out now how to regroup for the high speed places.
"Last year, or the year before, it wouldn't have surprised us that much. Right now, this is just what the doctor ordered. We needed it. We came out of the box and won the biggest race of the year. Since then we've had some struggling times and our points kind of reflect that. To be able to leave here and win a Winston Cup race and win two in one season, what more could you ask for? We just need to work on our consistency, but we're not telling you anything you don't already know. We just needed this. This is great for our guys back at the shop who work hard to give us cars to do what we did today.
"I was talking to Tommy Wednesday and we both made the comment to each other that it wouldn't surprise us if we unloaded off the truck the fastest thing here or the slowest thing here. We're not really sure what's making us fast or what's making us slow. We're dissecting everything, myself included. Some of the mechanical things have been us trying to stretch it to the limit. Terry Elledge today, hats off to him. We need to able to run the gear we ran today. We tacked almost two more rpm's than we did here back in the fall when we blew the motor. Those guys have worked their butts off. It ran all day, and I truly believe that played a big part in us winning the race today.
"I didn't get in the wall. We came close a couple of times. Actually I think lap 70 is when we got up high in three and four. We were lucky there wasn't any more on the track than it was or I would have gone straight into it like the 20 car.
"I just didn't have a lot of grip on restarts and that one taught me a lesson to be more careful.
"The fresh pavement made a lot of difference. It increased the size of the groove. There were times we were two or three tenths quicker than the guy in front of us and we literally couldn't get around them unless we hit 'em. And if you hit somebody here, you wreck 'em. There's just such a small groove, there's nowhere to pass. I screamed about it I don't know how many times. I told Tommy and them we just had to ride it out until they made a mistake and most of the time we passed somebody they were making a mistake.
"Sometimes I felt like we were about the only car out there that was making passes or the car was really working good quite a few segments. It's not narrow. It's just treacherous. If you get out of the groove, you're hitting and you're hitting a ton.
"When I came here Thursday, it (track) was at the bottom of the totem pole. Right now, it's at the top.

BILL DAVIS (Car Owner Bill Davis Racing Dodge Intrepid R/Ts)
"We needed this after the year we've had. We're real excited about Caterpillar signing back up with us for the next five years. They're the nicest people we've ever had to work with. I'm really proud to represent a company like Caterpillar. 
"We deserve more respect than that. Stuff hasn't fallen off our cars. We've had some real unusual failures, driveshaft, transmission wise. We've had some real good race cars. We've had some races we could have won. We've got a real good race team that's had a really bad year. 
 "If you got up there, obviously it was a tough deal. They had just blown off the track, and Ward managed to keep it off the wall and survive.
"Right now, this is my favorite track.
"The 23 had an awfully strong day. I hate they got caught up in that deal over there because they need a strong day, too. Both of our teams need to run well. I think the 23 car has helped our short track program. It has grown by leaps and bounds. We used to really struggle at these places. We had a great car at Richmond and a great car today. This might be my favorite type track now.
"Ward and I have been together now a long time. We've had good times and bad times. It's a love-hate relationship certainly like any other relationship that's gone on this many years. At the same time, I think we both respect each other and given the right circumstances we can win these races. That's what it's all about. You don't have to be best friends to be successful in this garage. That's been proven a lot of years. Not that we're not good friends. We've got a good working relationship. Ward's managed to grow the same as the program has. We've grown together. He came to our place when we had probably 10,000 square feet and 14 or 16 employees. Now it's 60,000 square feet and 125 employees. We've grown together. Caterpillar has been a great sponsor. It's been a great fit for both of us. It's the kind of people we want to be associated with that we can relate to and deal with. Dodge stepped up and commissioned Caterpillar to start building our engine blocks. They've done it, and that's probably the first race we've won with one of them. We thank them for doing a good job.
"Bob Bahre is one of the greatest promoters we race with. He's a wonderful man. He's a generous man. He's done everything he possibly can to make this the best destination we go to. I really mean that. He's a great guy."