GM RACING NOTES & QUOTES--POCONO QUALIFYING

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GM RACING WINSTON CUP NOTES & QUOTES; QUALIFYING; PENNSYLVANIA 500; POCONO RACEWAY; JULY 25, 2003TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 33rd: "I didn't shift today. We're so slow today we didn't need to shift. We don't need that extra gear to go fast. We're just a little bit off today."

JOHN ANDRETTI, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 5th, tying the best start of the season for the Haas CNC team. "We changed everything. [Crew chief] Tony Furr and I got together and talked about some changes. We made some changes, didn't think they were serious changes but we knew they would help the car. Hendrick Motorsports turned that motor up. I didn't do as well as I would have liked. If I had been here all year, I could have gotten a little more, but I wanted to get a clean lap. I think that's going to get us near the front and hopefully we can stay up there all day. I know that some pretty big bullets have already gone, some guys that beat us in practice. If we can beat some of those guys, we'll obviously be better than eighth. That would be a great start." WHAT'S IT BEEN LIKE WITH THIS TEAM? "I knew the car and the team were more than capable. I think that every situation has to work for everyone. I work really well with Tony Furr and he works well with me and we click together. We can do things and accomplish a lot. We accomplished our first Winston Cup victory, and that's been some time ago. I'd like to get that going again. We'd just like to have 500 miles on Sunday. That's all I'm asking for.

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 39th, will start 37th after taking a provisional starting spot. "We just couldn't go. We practiced OK today. I just couldn't get it up to speed. But we'll have time to look at some things tomorrow, then see what we can get out here Sunday. It's going to be tough but we'll see what we can do."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 25th: "A lot of other guys picked up more than we did and I thought we could too. We have been real loose all day long and we finally got it tightened up. Right there, the car was much tighter and I got off the Tunnel Turn and had to squeeze out of the throttle a little bit to scrape the wall. It cost us a little bit of time but we have a really good race car. I don't think we're real good for today's qualifying."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 17th: "We were shooting to pick up seven tenths, that was the goal. I got loose coming to the green, and when you do that you know you really have to hustle the rest of the lap to make up for what you left behind. We came out here and our car wasn't right. We got it tuned up and if we had one more run on it like it was we might have had something for them today. We had a great car here last year but we weren't very good in the spring, so we have a whole new setup on the car."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 4th, his ninth top-10 start of the season in 20 races. "We ran a lot of race practice early on and had a lot of trouble because the track was under caution for a long period of time. We really didn't get a lot of laps, and that put us behind for a qualifying run. When we did, we still weren't very good so we threw some stuff at it and tried it." IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO PULL ONE OUT LIKE THAT. HOW MUCH OF THAT IS DRIVER AND HOW MUCH IS TEAM? "The only driver part of it was the input that I had in the changes. It's kind of hard because you don't know exactly what it's going to do when you change a lot because the balance changes and all of that. We talked about it, made the right changes and picked up a second."

STEVE PARK, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 16th: "We are satisfied. The AOL Chevrolet was 20th in practice and we made a bunch of changes. We wanted to make about five changes, but we're all so new working together that we only made three or four. We made another change right before qualifying and it worked out good. It was a little tight down in Turn 1, good in Turn 2 and good in Turn 3. My hat's off to this whole AOL team. This is our eighth or ninth race together, so me and Mike are starting to work good together. We had a great finish last week, a good qualifying run this week and I'm looking forward to a great race on Sunday."

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S/got milk? CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 6th: "It was a good run for us. We picked up a little bit, made a few changes between practice and qualifying. The guys did a great job on the car, put a good engine in it and it was a good run. The team has done a great job preparing the cars, and we're hoping that the second half of the year is a lot better than the first half was."

JEFF GREEN, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 38th, will start 38th after taking a provisional starting spot. "The car was better than it was in practice. I think we got a bad set of tires and it kind of spooked me when we made our banzai qualifying run. We're still a second off of what we ran for speed. I don't know where we're lacking on that. I feel like I'm getting all I can out of the race car. The good thing is that next time on the track, I'll be racing, not qualifying."


JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 29th: "We picked up about four-tenths of a second over our best practice time so there's something to be said for that. We still don't have the Valvoline Pontiac like we want to get it. It went from one extreme to another in practice and [crew chief] James [Ince] made a bunch of changes for qualifying. We still have a lot of work to do before Sunday. Tomorrow will be pretty important. We know we will have our work cut out for us on Sunday. But it is a long race."


JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 2nd, his 11th top-10 start this season and fourth in as many races at Pocono: "It's a very good run for the whole team. We've been able to come here and qualify here this year. I wish we'd have been able to come and put that second lap up there on the first lap. We'd have had a little bit more speed in the car. I had a great lap, and I thought everything was fine and then I heard I was third. I stood on it a little harder and picked it up a little bit more. To be on the front row here at Pocono is a big feat. Track position is pretty important everywhere we go. You have to have track position. Another thing that worked here in the spring to get track position was fuel mileage, so there's a lot of creative things going on down here from cars that start mid-pack so they can have track position at the end of the day when it's important. Being up front, sometimes you have to run the race the leader does, and hope that the guys don't get clever mid-pack. It worked good for a lot of guys last year, but we'll take starting up front."

"I just wanted to make sure that I got a solid lap in there and didn't make a mistake. That's easy to do here. I got a good one in and I really thought that the way all my shift points laid out, that it was going to be real close to the pole if not the pole. If I would have driven the second lap on the first lap while the tires were fresh, it might have been a different story, but that's the shoulda, coulda, woulda for you."

HIGHLIGHTS OF JIMMIE JOHNSON'S POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE:

"It was a great effort by the Lowe's team to come back here and be as competitive as we were in the spring for the pole. It was different roles this time. Ryan got the pole and I'm second, I'm looking to improve on the race run we had here in June. I think I finished 12th, but it wasn't a very good day for us on a whole. We're looking forward to Sunday's race and we're trying a whole new setup, a whole new package. One thing I'm excited about for my race team is that at this point in the year, we're starting to hit our peak and be more and more competitive. Last year, we peaked out real early and struggled at the end of the year. It was more of a struggle than we want to give credit to or think about. To be able to win last weekend and have a great car all weekend long, starting off here good and running well at Chicago, I'm very excited for the rest of the year and hopefully we can collect some more points and do better than we did last year."

IS FUEL MILEAGE GOING TO BE A BIG FACTOR THIS WEEKEND? "I think everywhere we go, every weekend, that's going to be a factor. The only thing that changes that is the long cautions. Our goal every weekend is to be the first to put tires and fuel in the car and ride it out from there. That's the way the strategy is everywhere except I think Darlington or Rockingham."

YOU'VE BOTH DONE WELL HERE AND AT INDY. IS THIS AN INDICATION OF HOW YOU'LL DO AT INDY? "Both race tracks have long straightaways and tight turns. Not everything will cross over, the track is a lot rougher here than what Indy is, but if you can find the balance with enough straightaway speed and also handling, you're going to run well. That 

applies both here and at Indy. I feel like we learned a couple of things at Indy that are going to help us with our race setup tomorrow in practice. That's what we're hoping for."

DO YOU THINK THAT RACING HAS BECOME MORE ABOUT STRATEGY AND FUEL MILEAGE THAN 'MY CAR IS FASTER THAN YOURS?' "If you think about races that we go to where there's three or four groups and you see people running all over the place, you don't hear about aero push as much and the other issues. Michigan, Atlanta, Las Vegas, California, Chicago is starting to open up. When you see those big groups, there's only one corner here where there's a second groove and that's Turn 1. So, fuel mileage, track position, all those things are going be that much more important here than it would at those other tracks. It's always going to be important because the competition is so close. The biggest gaps between the teams right now are fuel consumption and pit stops. On the track, everything else is closed up. There's only tenths to be gained out there, and there's still a lap or a second to be found in the pits. That's why there's so much emphasis on what is happening, aside from the typical racing on the race track."

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