Dodge NASCAR Winston Cup Quotes- PIR
Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002 Ray Cooper
Phoenix International Raceway Golin/Harris International
Checker Auto Parts 500 803-466-9085
KENNY WALLACE (No. 23 Hills Bros Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Wallace finished 11th Sunday at Phoenix and had the highest finishing Dodge for the second straight race. He finished 13th last week at Rockingham.
"On the last restart with 40 or 50 something to go somehow we all got wadded up down there. I'm not going to complain about lapped cars. That's just part of racing. Somebody shoved Jeff Green up in front of me. It smashed the left front fender. I saw Kurt coming out of the pits on that first deal. Usually your spotter tells you half a lane. He just walloped me. I didn't know if he got into my left rear tire or what. I'm happy it happened there (in side of driver's door). That didn't hurt me as much as the left front fender. That just killed us. That cost us a top 10. We had the best Dodge for the second straight week, so maybe they just need to start looking at Sweet Daddy a little bit more (said with laughter).
"Rusty did a good job. I've got to give him credit, but he's been with that team forever. This is a new deal for me, so I'm proud of my guys. We've come a long way. We've been in the top 15 for the last couple of weeks with two different types of cars at two different race tracks, so we're working on it. I'm a little concerned about next week. We were going to take Scott Wimmer's car to Homestead. That was a new Bill Davis type Dodge and I was really looking forward to running it. Maybe we need to take this car. We'll put a new door and fender on it and it'll be ready to go. It seems like all the Dodge teams have one car they like. Sterling had that one car, and Bill Elliott had one car. I'm not saying we've just got one car, but I really like this car. It makes we feel good we're a top 20 car every week. You've just got to race and make all the pit stops. I'm excited, but I'm humbled. When I run good, I don't want it to be a surprise. Eleventh is what we got today, one spot away from that inevitable top 10. All in all, it was a great day."
WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We made a lot of gains on it from yesterday. We definitely weren't happy with it yesterday. We've got a couple of areas to work on. The guys can do some excellent pit stops. We didn't have some really good ones today. Some silly stuff happened. That hurt us and probably cost us getting a lap down. Frankie and the guys worked hard. We didn't get a DNF. That's what I'm sick of, having all these idiots running over the top of us. We made some gains. It's the best we've run here the past couple of years. It's not where we want to be, but it's something to build on for next time. We're looking forward to next week at Homestead, but I'm ready for what's after Miami. It's been a long season. Winning the Daytona 500 in February seems like a long, long time ago. I'm not sure it was February of 2002."
JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We didn't get all the fuel on one stop, so we had to come back in. We didn't have a car that could win, but we had a car that could run up front. We stayed on the lead lap thanks to Kurt, so we had a pretty decent day. It wasn't a great run, but it was a decent one. I think Christian did a pretty good job today for his first race. I haven't talked to him yet, but I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about it."
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI (No. 44 Georgia Pacific/Brawny Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I really don't know what happened. We were a couple of laps down and ran out of fuel. I was trying to finish the race. The No. 7 hit me from behind. My spotter told me that he was on the inside, and I gave him enough room. I don't know what happened. Maybe he wasn't looking, but it was a pretty big hit. The first half of the race we were looking not exceptional but not bad. It was a different kind of racing. I just wanted to run, run, run, run. We lost a couple of laps when we ran out of fuel. We had a radio problem."
JASON LEFFLER (No. 7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We just struggled with some track conditions. I probably got the team off on some adjustments a little bit. We went right back after a couple of our stops and the car would repeat itself. We got into Christian there at one point. I was just racing with him, and I midjudged I guess. He didn't give me a lot of room, but I didn't mean to do anything. That was on the fastest part of the track. The track slowed down a little bit since the truck race on Friday. It got a little greasy out there and gained a lot of grip. It was fun joining the Sirius guys this weekend, and I'm excited to get out there and have a better run next weekend at Homestead."
