NASCAR Winston Cup Post-Race Dodge Quotes from Richmond

Richmond International Raceway                                	                          Golin/Harris International 
Dodge notes and quotes.                                                                                      803-466-9085



WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 13th, Finished 8th
"The car was really good. I don't know if it was sidewall construction or what. The air pressure was the same. We had a time with a couple sets of tires. Man, we were lucky. We bashed the nose in. We were lucky not to wreck the 10 car. We went down pit road to miss the wreck and we had a couple of other real close calls, one particularly with the 45. It was a good night for us. The team worked hard. It's the same car we ran here last time. We're getting ready to load it up and go to New Hampshire. Impatience is the only word for it (early accidents). We had a vibration and to be honest with you, we had gone up with air pressure and we had the most laps on our tires then because we didn't pit the time before. We worked pretty hard all night. We were lucky to stay out of trouble. The spotter did a good job for me. The team kept digging. Pit stops weren't quite as good as they were last week. They'll kick butt this coming week. If you've got something to drive, it's easy to drive your butt off. When you're struggling just not to wreck, that's when you have to be too easy with it. The team has been doing a good job. That's the most we've ever tached the motor and it ran all day. Everybody is working hard and it's paying off."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 21st, Finished 10th
 "The team did a great job tonight. We made a lot of changes yesterday and got better in practice. I'm really happy with it. We got a lap down one time and fought our way back up. This team has really come together the past few weeks. We ran good all night. We stopped for fuel. Our fuel mileage wasn't that good. If we could have had a few more laps we would have been in really good shape.We did the best we could. We'll take our Dodge home and fix it up and take it to Loudon next Sunday. I'm happy with that tonight. This team needed a top 10. We're on the edge of being good. We just missed it a little bit tonight, but we'll get there."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 36th, Finished 17th
"I didn't know he was there. I probably came down on him. I didn't even know there was anybody down there to tell you the truth. Since everybody was screaming at each other for running into each other at Bristol, this wasn't his (97 car) fault. I didn't know he was there. I spun and got a lap down. Matt let me have my lap back, I guess because I let him at the front of the line one time tonight when he was a lap down. I made a lap up and got a lap down again. We ran decent the rest of the night. We weren't great, but the car drove pretty good. We had some good pit stops and Lane made some good calls in the pits."

 
KENNY WALLACE (No. 23 Hills Bros Coffee Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 33rd, Finished 14th
"We had to pit for fuel there at the end. We didn't want to, but that's what the chart said. We were about 15 laps short. The car was tight in the center. It was good on the long runs, but we couldn't run as fast as the 17 and those cars on the first 20 laps. We had two hundred lap runs and we were as fast as the leaders. We picked up 11 spots from last week. We're going in the right direction."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 7 Sirius Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 34th, Finished 24th
"The Sirius Dodge was awesome tonight. We had a top 10 car, no doubt in my mind. We got a lap down when we pitted and some of the cars stayed out. We couldn't make it up. Some of them did, but they were further up in the line on the restart. We ended up getting caught up with that other car and spun out. When it got backwards, I just turned it and slammed on the brakes. It went back around, and I popped the clutch and got it started back up. I was pretty proud of that myself. I wanted them to throw a caution. That would have helped us out a bunch. I flat-spotted the tires real bad and it was bouncing like basketballs when I got back going green. I was a little worry that it was going to blow a tire. We didn't get the finish we wanted, and we didn't get the finish we deserved for the car we had, but we had a car that could run up there and everybody knows it. I was running high here all night. It was a lot better tonight as far as two-wide racing. You could run up high most of the night and if somebody took my line away, I could come to the bottom. It was a good track tonight. I'm just covered in bad luck right now. Every time we've got a good car.... We got taken out at Bristol. We had a top 10 car here and got caught by the caution. It's got to start turning our way before long."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid R/T) Started 19th, Finished 16th
"We had a decent finish and that's about all you can say about it. The points really tightened up tonight. With 10 races to go, I'd say you've got about 10 cars that have a shot at the championship. We'll just get our stuff together and go to New Hampshire and try to do the best we can up there."