Monte Carlo 400 Race Notes - RIR, Sept. 7

TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Monte Carlo 400 with The Looney Tunes - Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Saturday, September 7, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Richmond International Raceway (727) 784-8465
Page 1

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "There's a bad spot
there where the spotters really can't see. There's really a blind spot
there. I don't know if Tony was up under me or not but I guess he was. I
guess we'll load up and go home a little early."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I think we're done. I
think we broke a camshaft. It's unfortunate. We've been on a streak of races
where we finished (56 consecutive races without a DNF), which says a lot
about Hendrick Motorsports and the engine department and everybody on this
team. It's just real unfortunate. We're going to have to fight real hard
next weekend. This is not going to be a good points night for us, that's for
sure. But I'm real proud of the way these guys handled themselves with the
(Happy Hour) crash yesterday and how well this car was coming tonight. We
were coming - we were coming strong."

(ON THE POINTS RACE AND STERLING MARLIN BEING SIDELINED EARLY) "We weren't
concentrating on the points. We were just trying to get to the front." Note:
Gordon got back into the race on lap 207.

TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Monte Carlo 400 with The Looney Tunes - Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Saturday, September 7, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Richmond International Raceway (727) 784-8465
Page 2

JEFF GORDON Update - What was originally thought to be a broken camshaft on
the No. 24 DuPont Monte Carlo turned out to be a failure in the valve train.
The car retired on lap 239.

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I checked up and
somebody didn't from behind. The restarts are hectic and you understand
that. You've got to make sure you watch ahead, and I was and somebody else
wasn't."

(WERE YOU GOOD ENOUGH TO HOLD THEM OFF AND MAYBE WIN THIS THING?) "We think
so. We had some pretty good times on our old tires compared to the leaders
on theirs. We were pretty optimistic on our chances."

GREG BIFFLE, RELIEF DRIVER FOR BOBBY HAMILTON, NO. 55 SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC
CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "The car just got a little bit tight coming off of
turn 2. We had to get up out of the throttle and I guess the No. 97 (Kurt
Busch) was right on my bumper and probably didn't have time to react and ran
in to the back of me and got me into the wall. I don't think it was
intentional. It's just too bad for these guys. They gave me a really good
car tonight and I think we could have finished in the top 10 or 15. But
maybe next week in Loudon."

TEAM MONTE CARLO Contact: Nancy Wager
Monte Carlo 400 - Post Race Notes nmwager@aol.com
Saturday, September 7, 2002 GM Racing Communications
Richmond International Raceway (727) 784-8465
Page 3

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (finished 3rd): "It was a great
night for our AOL Chevy tonight. We just could never get it just right to
get up there with Matt (Kenseth, winner). I don't know what happened to
those guys - I guess they ran out of gas, I don't know. But we were going to
have about a fourth or fifth place spot, but ended up third here at
Richmond. That's a great night for us."

(HOW MUCH WERE YOU SLIDING AROUND THERE AT THE END FOR NOT HAVING BEEN ABLE
TO PIT AND GET NEW TIRES?) "It's just a slick race track. These Goodyears
are great race tires but this old track is pretty rough on them. And this
horsepower is pretty rough on them too."

(ON THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE RACE) "I don't know how down we were. We were
pretty up all night. We had a great race car. We got down on that one stop
where a few cars stayed out and that put us a lap down. Really, that put us
behind. We were in the top 10 most of the night until then, and then we had
to fight back. Basically we fought back to the top five. I take my hat off
to Matt (Kenseth) and those guys. They do a great job week after week. To
cut two tires down and still be on the lead lap - I don't know how that
happened. I'm proud of him and glad for him, but if I had been second I'd
have been pretty mad."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (finished 4th) "It
was pretty exciting tonight. It took a lot of patience, really, to sit there
and wait to get your lap back. We never really got our lap back. But we had
a good enough car there at the end and we kind of picked them off one at a
time. We were really fortunate. A lot of guys ran out of gas, but we had
great gas mileage thanks to Richie Gilmore and his motors.  It was a good
car - there at the end, it was almost as good as last night's car (won the
Busch race)."