Ford Racing Brickyard race quotes

2002-08-04

BRETT BODINE --11-- Hooters Taurus (Finished 42nd)

"It looks like he cut a right-front tire or something. He just turned directly right coming off turn two over there. And when I seen him go right, I went to the left and tried to get by him, but he ricocheted off the wall awful quick and caught me in the right side of my car, spun me around, and I backed into the wall in the back straightaway."

THERE SEEMS TO BE PLENTY OF DAMAGE TO THE CAR. CAN YOU GET IT BACK IN THE RACE? "I doubt it. We're going to look at it and see what happened there, see what's all bent up. But it looks pretty bad right now."

KURT BUSCH --97-- Rubbermaid Taurus (Finished 41st)

YOU HIT THE SAFER BARRIER. "It seems that it did its job and I'm able to walk away from a 200 mile an hour hit."

DO YOU THINK SPENCER DID THAT ON PURPOSE? "Yeah, it was a tough way to go. I shouldn't have been back there in the first place. We should have just qualified steadily up front and that wouldn't have put us with that decrepit old has-been."

DOES IT BLOW YOU AWAY THAT HE WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT? "No, I'm not. It's completely expected from Jimmy."

WERE YOU CONCERNED WHEN YOU WALKED BACK ON THE TRACK AND GESTURED TO HIM? "No. I'm in complete control of my actions. I don't believe Jimmy is."

A FRUSTRATING WEEKEND? "It's all right. We'll bounce back. We moved ourselves up to fifth in points and we'll probably drop to 10th after this. Jimmy Spencer doesn't know the first thing about points racing, so there's nothing to be concerned about. We'll be all right."

ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE SPENCER BATTLE? "Really, he's so hard-headed. Unlike the soft-wall that I hit, there's nothing you can really say or do about his type of thinking. It's pretty bad when he goes and calls out that he's gonna smash back and then does it at a 200 mile an hour race track, when there is a lot of points and a lot of money at stake. If that's the option he wanted to take, then so be it. I mean, we're race car drivers out here -- all except for the 41 car and I feel real bad for Chip Ganassi."

WHY WERE YOU CALLED INTO THE NASCAR HAULER? "I'm called into the hauler because there's probably gonna be a discussion between the 41 car and the 97 car and we're gonna discuss what needs to happen. They think that there's an issue here. I didn't think there was much of an issue after Bristol. You can ask every race fan out there and every official out there and every crew guy and every anybody that has to do anything with racing, and see that there wasn't an issue with Bristol -- except for Jimmy Spencer's mind because he's got the brain of a peanut."

WHAT DID YOU SEE AS FAR AS THE INCIDENT GOES? "I shouldn't have cleared him getting into turn three, that was the issue. Obviously, we're coming up through the pack and he's going backwards. That's what old decrepit has-beens do like Jimmy Spencer is and it's unfortunate that we cleared him getting into turn three, which made us vulnerable and he dumped us."

WHAT MESSAGE WERE YOU SENDING ON THE TRACK? "I wanted to see him black-flagged. I pointed to my butt and wanted him sent to the rear. That's what they do in Saturday night short-track racing."

GEOFFREY BODINE --09-- Miccosukee Taurus (Finished 40th)

"I'm really not sure what happened other than the car got loose getting down into turn one. It just spun around. Once you get loose going that fast into these flat corners, you don't have a chance of saving it. We slammed up into the outside wall and went to the inside wall and finally came to a stop, thank goodness. I'm OK. It's just a shame for the Miccosukee Ford. This was our effort really on a non-restricted race track and we wanted to be better than this."

IT LOOKED LIKE A BAD HIT. "I've survived all those bad hits that you've seen. I have a really good, safe seat and that's really protected me through a lot of crashes and it today also. Hitting backwards in the car is a lot better than hitting with the front or the side, so that was a good impact. Even though it was hard, it was still good to hit that way."

COULD YOU TELL ANY DIFFERENCE HITTING THE SAFER BARRIER? "I wish I could tell you I could feel a difference, but it felt pretty darn hard. We'll look at the car and see if we can tell any difference there with the crash. I think I almost missed the soft part of the wall, so maybe it didn't even come into play."

RUSTY WALLACE --2-- Miller Lite Taurus (Finished 2nd)

"It was a really great second place. We went from 35th up to 10th in nothing flat. We four-tired it and got way in the back -- two-tired it and got back up front. I fought a real tight car all day. We two-tired it and took a bunch of bite out the last stop and the old hot-rod took off then. We took the lead and I really thought we were gonna win it, but I got a little loose up off of two and Elliott got me."

DID YOU THINK THE AERO-PUSH WAS GOING TO PLAY INTO YOUR FAVOR WHEN YOU WERE LEADING? "Yeah, I did because the aero-push was horrible. Oh my God, when you got behind a car you could just feel the whole front end of the car lift up. It was unbelievable."

DID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET PAST BILL ON THE FINAL RESTART? "No. I tried. I was worried about the 17 getting past me and making it three wide going into one. I was gonna bog it down and take off and get a good run on Bill, but it never happened. I couldn't do it."

WAS BILL THAT GOOD OR DID HIS 4 TIRES MAKE A DIFFERENCE? "I knew when he was only three or four cars behind me and he had four tires it was gonna be hard to hold him off with my two, but I did for a long time. I'm happy to get second after qualifying so bad out there. I was embarrassed again with our qualifying run, but the Brickyard has always been kind to me. We laid out a good run for our fans and our sponsors today."

HOW DID YOU HOLD UP? "It was very hot. I've never fell out of a car from heat exhaustion yet, but, boy, it was sure uncomfortable in there I'll tell you that."

WHEN BILL PASSED YOU DID IT BRING BACK BAD MEMORIES OF BOBBY LABONTE PASSING YOU? "Yeah, it brought back bad memories because I wanted to win this race so bad for Roger Penske. He won the Indy 500 and it would have been great to win the Brickyard 400 and we damn near did."

RYAN NEWMAN --12-- ALLTEL Taurus (Finished 4th)

"We just kept chasing the balance. We were tight all day. Every run we were tight, tight, tight and we just kept working with it. It was just a matter of time before we got track position back. There at the end I think we might have been one of the fastest cars, but that number 9 Dodge was awful strong."

DID THE LAST RESTART PLAY INTO YOUR HANDS? "That was just luck of the draw. I mean, we wouldn't have gotten by either Harvick or the 20 car if the yellow had not come out, but that bunched things back up. I was happy to get the opportunity to get a couple spots, but we could have lost a couple spots just as easy."

IT'S NICE TO DO WELL IN FRONT OF THE HOME FANS. "Yeah, it was really cool. It's Indiana. An Indiana boy didn't win this time, but we tried our hardest."

ANOTHER TOP FIVE. "It feels really good. That's four top fives in a row and for a rookie team, that's awesome. Overall, we've got to keep knocking them out. We go to our second road course of the year next week at Watkins Glen and that's the first time there for me, but we've got to do the same thing there."

HOW HOT WAS IT? "My crew chief finally gave me a cool box and my head stayed cool all day. I got a little hot a couple times there at the 41 car, but, overall, it was a good day."

MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Finished 3rd)

"It was a good day. We handled pretty good all day. We struggled a little bit in the pits compared to what we're used to, but at the end when we needed it, we got a good pit stop and got some track position back. From where we were, we were anywhere from a second to fifth-place car depending on our track position, so it was a good day for us."

DID YOU THINK YOU HAD SOMETHING FOR BILL AND RUSTY ON THE LAST RESTART? "No. I was hoping to get past Rusty because I knew he was on two, but I couldn't get Bill. He was way stronger than we were all day. We weren't even in the same league as him."

WHAT ABOUT YOUR RACE? "It was pretty hot, but it was good day for us. Everybody works really hard to come to Indianapolis. Our DEWALT guys did a great job preparing the car. We had a real fast car. We weren't in the same time zone as the 9, but everybody else I felt like we could run with, so that's pretty good."

JEFF BURTON --99-- Citgo Taurus (Finished 29th)

"We certainly had a top 10 car. Mark broke his engine down the back straightaway and we broke ours in the short chute on the same lap. I don't know, maybe we pulled too much gear. The 17 pulled a little less gear. I don't think that made the difference, but we've broken several engines this year. Everybody is trying real hard and working real hard and that's the third one we've broken this year. But it isn't from a lack of effort. They're all working their butts off trying to build horsepower and trying to build reliability. We're on 'em hard about building more horsepower and when you ask them to build more horsepower, stuff is gonna break from time to time. So, it's just disappointing. I thought we ran well. We didn't run great, but we ran well. If we keep building on it and making our team better and stronger, we'll capitalize on it one day."

WAS IT HOT? "I felt great. We worked real hard last night and this morning on getting the car cooled down and my guys did a great job. I wasn't hot at all."

DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus (Finished 10th)

IS A 10TH-PLACE FINISH ANY CONSOLATION AT ALL? "Not right now, not when you've got a car that should have finished, at the worst, second. Could we have beaten him? We'll never know. We were taking the chance of two tires and getting out front in clean air. The two tires had worked great on our car before that. Could we have held him off? I don't know. But we were in the position. We got out in front of the guys that counted and I would have liked to have seen that. You can't make any mistakes. Just like we said, it takes a perfect day here and Bill and those guys had a perfect day. We made a mistake, but those things happen."

WAS IT A TWO-TIRE STOP ALL THE WAY? "Yes, it was a two-tire stop all the way. We planned it that way. There may have been a little miscommunication with our people thinking that we needed a lot more fuel than what Todd thought we needed. Todd was ready after the first can for me to go and that's when I took off, so it was just a miscommunication."

IS THERE ANY TRACK THAT HAS GIVEN YOU MORE JOY, YET MORE HEARTBREAK THAN THIS PLACE? "Oh, I don't know -- probably not. That's just part of the game. You like to think that it all evens out. The last time we had something like this happen, we came back the next year and won so we'll look forward to that chance."

RICKY RUDD --28-- Havoline Taurus (Finished 18th)

"We missed it totally this weekend. The car wouldn't handle and it wouldn't go down the straightaways. Another thing is that the air conditioning unit didn't work right, so it was awfully hot in there. It was just a bad day."

ELLIOTT SADLER-21-Motorcraft Taurus (Finished 35th)

"Just a very frustrating day. First, we had alternator problems, motor problems all week. We had a really good race car, then we finally ran over something, blew a right-front tire, messed up the front end, broke a sway bar, and we just couldn't continue, we couldn't run fast enough. So, it was a very frustrating day here at the Brickyard, not what we wanted to do, but that's the way it goes sometimes."

HOW BAD WAS THE HEAT? "It wasn't too bad. I was pretty surprised. The guys kept some ice water and some ice packs ready for me, and with the wind circulating, not too bad."

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