Dodge NASCAR WC Rainy Day Notes from Darlington

Friday, Aug. 30, 2002
Darlington Raceway   
Dodge notes and quotes.                               

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)

NOTE: Burton is the defending champion of the Mountain Dew Southern 500. He also won the 2000 spring race at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval. The 2002 Daytona 500 winner, Burton also won this season at New Hampshire in the Bill Davis Racing Dodge. He holds the qualifying record of 173.797 mph at Darlington set March 22, 1996. Burton finished 37th  Saturday night at Bristol and ranks 27th  in the NASCAR Winston Cup Standings with 12 races remaining on the 2002 schedule.

"It's been a real rocky and inconsistent season. It all started, and we know how momentum gets us going in this sport. When we won Daytona, obviously we had a huge amount of momentum. Then we had some driver errors and we had some things unfortunate happen and we had 11 mechanical errors. The mechanical failures not only didn't give us decent finishes but we didn't get to learn during the race because we were in the garage. I think the combination of all those things got us behind. Just like last weekend, we know we can run well. We can run anywhere from Sears Point to Daytona to New Hampshire. We've just got to work hard in some areas. At some tracks that have normally been our cup of tea, like Michigan or Charlotte or California, places we run fast, have been the places where we've been struggling. That's where we've really got to work hard.

"This will be the year the 22 Cat team won the Daytona 500 (when looking back at 2002).

"Jeff (brother Burton) hadn't been in Halifax County since last Christmas, so he hasn't seen my (Daytona 500) trophy. Jeff has obviously been successful in this sport. I hope when we finish racing we get accused of being successful, too. I'm happy for all his successes, and I'm equally happy for ours. I've got 42 other guys to compete against and not just Jeff. If I can't win, I don't want to see anybody win. Past that, I want my brother to do good.

"Kenny Wallace has been around longer than I have. He had Birdie (Steve Bird) as crew chief when I first started racing against him in the Busch Series. Him and Bobby Labonte and Steve Grissom and guys like that are who we had to beat. I think Kenny brings a lot of expertise in some areas and I think he brings a lot of hunger as well. This is a good shot for Kenny. We've talked about it, and I told him there's no question he's going to have every single thing the Cat car's got. At the same time, I think it's a good deal for Bill Davis and our race team down the road. At the same time, obviously, I'm feeling for Hut (Stricklin) as well, so right now I've got mixed emotions about it. We're hoping it's 




going to be something that works out good down the road and I don't think there's going to be any problems with my personality and Kenny's meshing just like it wouldn't be with Tommy Baldwin and Philippe's (Lopez) meshing because they're about as night and day different as Kenny and I are.

"This track is always important to get a lot of practice time on. But not even NASCAR can control Mother Nature. So we'll do with it the best we can. Hopefully it will stop raining later this evening or tomorrow morning so we can get going.

"As you're sitting there driving the race car or watching the car, you can see the car get a lot of grip in the nose for a couple of laps. Then sometimes that car will lose that grip and a car that didn't run as quick at the start will come on. That just shows the characteristics of that particular car. This track and Rockingham, I guess because of the soil being so sandy and the wind blowing and the weather, it gets the tar between the rocks and gravel and it starts to disappear and it makes it really course. It's actually a quarter inch or more you can see down below those rocks and that's where the tires eat up so much, but it adds to the challenge to Darlington of course.

"Obviously I had some pretty high emotions. In life it doesn't matter if you're a race car driver or doing anything else, the experiences you have obviously we learn by them and wish we could go back and handle them differently. Last weekend was last weekend and I'm real focused on this weekend on concentrating on getting the best finish we can for the Caterpillar Dodge team. Hopefully we'll have the car handling well enough and be there in contention fighting for the win at the end of the race.

"I've been on both spectrums. It seems like this year and most of last year, when there was a wreck and I was involved I was the one that got wrecked. I'll give you an example of something that happened with Dale (Earnhardt Jr.'s) daddy back at Talladega a few years ago. I instigated a big crash and it was my fault. They went through an 18 or 20-car crash at Talladega and I was on the phone Sunday night to Richard Childress and called Dale on Tuesday and acknowledged it was my fault and also to see how he was doing. I have not heard from Dale (Jr.) and I feel like it's his place to call me. What happened last week obviously, we're trained in this country to seek justice. To be honest with you I thought about it. I've have a lot of time to think about it all week and that single word - justice - comes to my mind every single time. Ya'll know as well as I do if I go seek justice Sunday, what's going to happen to the 22 car. So, I've got to try to leave what happened last weekend in the past. I have not had the opportunity to speak to Dale, but 





that Dale won't seek me out when he has the opportunity to see me and we'll discuss it or go from there, but I feel like it's his place to open up the dialogue about what happened last weekend. I wrecked Johnny Benson up here in turn one two years ago. I didn't mean to hit him. It was a very similar incident to what happened to me the other day at Bristol. He was irritated about it. He was mad. I talked to him and his crew chief about it the following week and they were both still mad and I couldn't blame 'em, but that's the way I handled it. Dale will have to handle it the way his conscious tells him to handle it.

"John Darby and I were talking about it this morning. He and I had some time to reflect on it. I think as much as the sport has grown in just the last couple of years, there's a lot of people riding in that race car with me, not to mention 140 guys that work on my car, my family, our sponsors, everybody that makes this sport go on a weekly basis is riding in that car. I feel like most of these guys are my allies, not my enemies. You're going to see the best and worst of those emotions come out, particularly as big as this business has got. In the heat of battle, if you could go back and have time to reflect on it and react differently, definitely what I did Saturday night by walking up in the race track and throwing my heat shields and saying the wrong word instead of throwing, shooting, I would undo all those things, but I can't. I think most of the time I'm very aware that children look at us like Batman and Spiderman and Super Heroes and we want to be good role models and keep that on their mind all the time.

"I didn't handle myself good when I walked up the track, and that's what I got fined for. I think they should have fined me. They need to stop me and anybody else from doing that. As much as NASCAR as done to try to make us safe, that would have been horrible for me or anybody else to get up there and get run over. That was dumb on my part. I thought I did a pretty good job of not saying the things I wanted to say during the interview, but at the same time I did say one word that I shouldn't have said and I didn't mean it the way it sounded. It is tough right in the middle of the incident to handle it correctly, but we don't get time to cool down. There's either a radio or live TV right there at the moment. We know that, and we know that going into it. It's our responsibility to handle it the best we can. Like I said, parts of it I handled well and parts of it I would like to do over."







STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Marlin will start in the No. 1 position for the Mountain Dew Southern 500 because Friday's rain washed out time trials and the field will line up by rankings in the NASCAR Winston Cup Standings.

"It's a good spot for us. This spring we started last and won the thing. It takes a good handling car at Darlington, and it doesn't matter if you start in the front or in the back. If the car drives good you'll be OK, but it's a plus to start up front.

"We brought the same car we won with in the spring, and we've got the same shock, springs and swaybar and everything up under it. We'll start Happy Hour tomorrow, hopefully we'll get Happy Hour in, and we'll start right there tomorrow and see what we've got.

"I've been harassing the boys a little bit in the truck, and fixed the bolt holes in the door, standing around mostly, watching the Outlaw Josey Wells, that's about it.

"I've seen a lot of things and done a lot of things, but Bristol seems to be one of the tracks that tempers really get out and Martinsville. It's close, tough racing and somebody gets into somebody and takes out two or three cars. Everybody gets pretty upset."


KENNY WALLACE (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"You should start judging me right away. I don't want any time. This is a performance-oriented sport. We're here now so Philippe (crew chief Lopez) and I can get some time together. We don't want to start next year cold turkey. I'm a big boy. I'm the same guy who jumped in the 1 car last year at this race with no practice and started dead last and was running 10th by lap 30.

"I'm a good race car driver. I think the reason they wanted me was because I was performing at that given time. I've always put the numbers on the board. It's just how long does it last? I love the hell out of Steve Park, but I was heart broke when he came back because that was a perfect situation for me. I was running in the top 10 every week. That was a hard situation to come by.

"My confidence takes a beating, but I'm the type of guy when my confidence takes a beating I resurge on my own. I don't need a therapist. I don't need my wife telling me anything. I end up justifying everything on my own. I make my own philosophy. I sure would like to sit down and talk with Bill Elliott and see what he was thinking those years when everybody said he couldn't do it. Even the late great Dale Earnhardt went through some problems there, but those guys have something over me. They went through it in Winston Cup. I've done it in all other series. I've got three second-place finishes in Winston Cup and three poles and two entires in the No Bull, but you've got to get the consistency. I feel like all the talking is over. I felt like when I got out of the Pennzoil car everybody knew. I think what everybody wants to know and they don't ask it right, they want to know if I can do the same thing with this team that I did with the 1 team. They don't mean do you have the ability. They know I have the ability. They want to know if I can do the same thing here that I did over there with the 1. I'd be a fool to say I couldn't. This team has everything it needs. It's just all about people right now. We will be on the right wave length. I will make sure of that. Father Time is not on my side right now. I just turned 39 and that's young, but three years go by in a heartbeat. I signed a two-year deal.

"I would have to say that this is the very first opportunity I've ever had to be with an established team. Filmore Racing with a start up team. Felix Sabates Dirt Devil was a start up team, Andy Petree's was a start up team. This isn't. I'm thinking everything is in place, and I'm going to be treated equal. I will capitalize on it. Period. I will perform. I feel fortunate, humble that I'm with a team that has all the tools to go fast. Now it's up to me and the crew chief and the motor man and the car owner and the pit crew to put it all together. I've watched this team closely. It runs very good in the races. It's been between 10th and 23rd. They've had a lot of bad luck. They've wrecked a lot and they've been 
wrecked. That's just something that we've got to try to overcome and prevail. Qualifying needs to be better, and we all collectively know that and we're going to work on that right away. We've got two tests left and we know we'll use one of them at Homestead at the end of the year. We're going to try to figure out what we need to do. It's better to let everyone know up front what we expect. We're not going to weasel out of this deal. We know we've got pick up the pace. As long as everybody knows that up front, we'll be all right.

"I said three years ago when I was 36 years old that it was probably my last shot. Then I get in these other Cup cars and haul the mail and figure out it might not be my last shot. This is where I want to end my career, and I mean that. I don't want to change teams any damn more. If I can keep this team competitive, then this is where I'm going to be. If I can't keep this team competitive, then fire me.

"I've raced here so much. Go back and look at my stats here at Darlington, they're pretty impressive. I've got some top 10s. We all want to go through practice. Hopefully we'll get one practice Saturday and we'll be OK. I can't wait to get into the car. The seat is fitted good, and I'm ready to go. 

"I'd really like to get a pole this year and a handful of top 10s. If I position myself like that, the win I've been striving for will come. I'm not going to leave any race track this year finishing 18th and saying it was a pretty good run. That's just not me. I really want to get a pole and get the car in the Bud Shootout. I want to get it out of 34th in car owner points and get it back in the 20s and get a good garage spot for Daytona. I'm going to drive 10 of the 12 races. I won't drive it at Talladega and Martinsville. I signed to drive with Andy Petree at Talladega and the Busch schedule interferes at Martinsville.

"Felix Sabates fired me at the end of 1993. It totally sucked and I hope I never have to go through it again. Barbara Walters had a special on called Turning Point. A lot of great people were on there. Whether it was Michael Jordon being turned down by a college team or whatever, when I watched that show it helped me deal with the problem. When Felix fired me it was kind of like, 'you don't understand. I'm Kenny Wallace.' That's the way I felt. He can't fire me, I'm good. I always got the job done. It disappointed me. It killed me. I'll never forget that as long as I live. I don't think you could go to college and learn that. It's in your heart. It's not in your brain. In the long run, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, but I never thought it was going to take me that many years to get back in the deal."


 "Darrell Waltrip said it best back in his prime in 1984. He told me NASCAR racing is nothing but a chess game. Everybody is trying to fight for his position to make it a successful team. I know for a fact that we all have a lot of respect for each other as race car drivers. That's the nature of the beast. This is the position I want to be in now. I don't want to do anything else but be with Bill Davis Racing. I've known Bill Davis since I was 13 years old. When I first met Bill Davis he was Julian Martin's friend in the truck industry. Mark Martin had just started ASA and my brother and Mark raced against each other in Arkansas. His shop was about four hours south of St. Louis. Never in a million years did I think Bill Davis would be where he is right now. Bill Davis has got a successful trucking company. He and Gail have made it in Winston Cup Racing. I've got a ton of respect for him because I saw where he came from. Just like anybody who saw me 15 years ago when I was driving the hauler at 4 in the morning while my brother Rusty and Paul Andrews were sleeping the back. They'd say I was a racer, and that's exactly what I think of Bill Davis.

"The Dodge program is impressive. Straight from the first time they went to Daytona with their advertising program and because I'm a kid and because there is a Chrysler factory outside of St. Louis where they built the minivans. That Chrysler logo has always been embedded in my brain. I went past that factory every day. To see the program turn around and see Dodge prosper and get back in the sport, I think it's really cool. It almost brings back the Richard Petty era. It's good for the sport. We need factory backing in our sport. The way they came in about it was impressive. I can remember when Dodge was down and out and to see them come back and get back in racing the right way ..... One thing my dad always taught me, if you ain't going to do it right, don't do it. My dad was always a winner. He won every damn week. It's just very impressive what Dodge has done in such a short time back in Winston Cup."