GM RACING NOTES & QUOTES--BRICKYARD 400 QUALIFYING

GM RACING WINSTON CUP NOTES & QUOTES; QUALIFYING; BRICKYARD 400; INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY; AUG. 2, 2003

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Nemechek was the first driver out for qualifying on Saturday morning and promptly shattered the track record held by Tony Stewart. His lap of 49.061 seconds at 183.445 miles per hour held up for three more drivers, however, as it was bettered by Bill Elliott. "It's for the whole UAW-Delphi Chevy team. Peter Sospenzo, all these guys that build these cars, build the engines, everybody does so much work and puts in so much extra effort. It's cool to come here and run fast. I hope it holds up. I don't know if it will, but there're pretty optimal conditions here right now. We've had a little bit of luck going our way and we just hope we can continue it." HOW MUCH DID TESTING HERE HELP YOU? "Anytime you can come here and make laps.this place is about going as fast as you can and at the end of the straightaway you have to make that 90-degree corner. There's quite a few guys who will have a shot at it. You just have to do it all at the right time. I didn't make any mistakes. It was very, very close to a perfect lap, but I was just a little bit snug on my car."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I have mixed emotions right now, because we were way off yesterday. We picked up a ton. To run that fast today.I know the track's faster and has good grip, but we still closed the gap on these guys a whole lot. I'm real happy. The track has a lot of grip right now, and we drew an early number. Hopefully we can take advantage of that. I need the clouds to go away and this track to warm up a little bit. We were real good on the balance, just a little bit free. We're happy right now."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Harvick shattered the track record set moments earlier by Ryan Newman with a lap at 48.822 seconds, 184.343 miles per hour. "That was an awesome lap. I saw Bill [Elliott] and Ryan [Newman] put up some pretty good laps, so we knew we had to go for it. This is a brand-new car, new body package, so we came with a good piece. So far, so good." THE SUN IS PEEKING OUT, WHICH SHOULD BE GOOD FOR YOU. "I hope it just glares down. It would be fun to sit on the pole here." MORE HARVICK TO FOLLOW

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "It went well, but that's the hottest the race track has been. It was 106 degrees. Our Army Pontiac drove really good. I got loose in Turn 1 yesterday making a mock run, and doggone if I didn't do it again. I think I left a little too much on the table in Turns 3 and 4. I didn't want to make a mistake at both ends of the race track. Maybe I was a touch conservative down at the other end of the track. When I came back, I said, 'let's hustle it here and see if we can't pick up on the second lap.' There just isn't enough in the tires to pick up much unless you totally screw up the first lap. I'm happy for our Army team and I think that will get us a starting spot. We'll come back and work on it in Happy Hour and make it good for the race."

JEFF GREEN, NO. 1 PENNZOIL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "It was pretty good, I thought. I don't think I could have made my Pennzoil Chevy any better, driving-wise. It's not good when you have to depend on the weather to help you. Those guys going out early really got a good benefit from it. Usually, the Pennzoil car gets an early draw, not a late one, so it kind of hurt us today. It was still a good effort for us, and it'll give us a good starting position."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I left a little on the table on my first lap, and my second lap was faster, so it's just hard to drive into Turn 1 and know exactly what you're going to have and what you're going to need. I've torn up a lot of race cars, especially the last year, from over driving it. That's one thing I've really tried to do this year is make sure that the car we bring to the race track is the one we start the race with. It could have been a little better, but it's just a great starting spot for us compared to where we started last year, when we took a provisional. To come back and pick up two seconds from where we were last year compared to today. I'm very happy with that. Kevin [Harvick] put up an awesome lap, and that's impressive. For them to unload just after a cup of coffee in the morning and go out and run a 48-second lap around this race track is pretty amazing."

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 AARON'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "The track had pretty good grip. The car was pretty good in Turn 1 and Turn 2, and I screwed up a little bit in Turns 3 and 4. I was hoping to run about a 49.5, and we're close. We'll just have to see what it does." WHAT HAS YOUR FIRST BRICKYARD EXPERIENCE BEEN LIKE? "I'm still nervous and I'm not even on the track. We obviously wanted to qualify well, but it's going to be tough. The track has changed and there's clouds and whatnot. We picked up, we should be all right, and we're working real hard to get in it for Aaron's. It would mean a lot, being from Indiana. The team has worked really hard, we built a car to come up here with. We had a good test, we have Aaron's on the side and I want to make the race for them and for all my friends and family that are here."

JASON LEFFLER, NO. 0 NETZERO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "It was a good lap. Those were laps five and six for the weekend. I missed a shift yesterday and blew the engine and didn't get any practice. The guys changed the engine in an hour and 15 minutes, rear-end housing and 

everything. If I had more laps, the car has a lot of potential. I think we could have run a lot faster. I just couldn't get the arcs the way I wanted into the corner. All in all, it wasn't a bad lap."

RICKY CRAVEN, NO. 32 TIDE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "A little cloud cover would have gone a long way. We improved the car and then we had sun when we went out. You can't even put that into perspective. It's very temperature-sensitive. You're only guessing, but I would have liked to have had that cloud cover as opposed to any change I could have made to the car."

HERMIE SADLER, NO. 02 TNA WRESTLING PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "The track is great, and the car drove well. We just didn't get the speed that we wanted. There's a lot of things that go on here that we're not up to speed on. We drove well. We gave it the best effort we had. It just doesn't seem like we can get the speed that we need. So we're a little disappointed."

DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "The car didn't handle good. It just didn't drive good, didn't feel good. It was just uncomfortable. It wasn't set up good enough, I guess. I don't know. I just drove into the corner and didn't have the grip I needed and couldn't cut a faster lap. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH CAR FOR TOMORROW? "Yeah, it's 400 miles. It's a long race. There's plenty of race to make it happen. It just depends on how cautions fall and if you can use things to your advantage. But your car's got to be handling to get to the front. No matter where you start, you have to be handling good. If we don't get it handling good, then we'll have our work cut out for us."

STEVE PARK, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "It was decent, just for the time of day. It's the luck of the draw. We went out 35th or so and the temperature went up quite a bit from the early part of qualifying [track temperature was 107 degrees when Park went out, compared to 97 degrees when Kevin Harvick took the track]. It kind of hurt a little bit on speed. We picked up seven tenths from practice, and the guys that went out early picked up a second. Not a bad effort. It's the luck of the draw when you go out. Kevin went out fifth or sixth and he's on the pole. We're solidly in the field with a top-20 spot. We're good. We can concentrate on racing and we're going to have a lot to do on Sunday."

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S/got milk? CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "The weather didn't make muchof a difference. It was probably pretty close to what everyone else had."

DAVID REUTIMANN, NO. 04 KODAK EASY CAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "Horrible. Horrible would probably be an understatement. That's the best way I can sum it up. It's not from lack of trying. It's not from lack of effort. It's not from lack of good people. It's just off a little bit, and you can't be off at this stage of the deal. You have to be 100 percent or you're not going to make it. And we didn't make it."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "It worked out good for us, because on most days it would be hotter than this, so it helped us out. We had a pretty decent lap. We ran better than we did yesterday, so we picked up on it, and that's good. Our qualifying speed is indicative of the weather. You can't really control that."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "It was solid. I just overdrove the entry to Turn 1 pretty bad. I was hoping for the big grip and went down into 1 and didn't get the grip I was looking for. It wasn't because of the car, it was because the driver made a mistake. It made it through and it's still a reasonably decent lap. We just didn't pick up as much as I would have liked." WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE SPEEDS TURNED IN BY HARVICK AND SOME OF THE OTHER GUYS? "Not at all. The biggest variable here on qualifying is the weather, because of the track being so flat and having four corners. It makes it very important. The cooler the track, the better the grip is. You have to rely on the grip of the track as opposed to the physical handling of the car. You have to have both, but this place gives up a lot of grip for every degree of heat you get in the surface temperature, so to do what we did at the time of day we did, I'm somewhat satisfied with that."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: NOTE: Harvick earned the pole for the 10th running of the Brickyard 400. It is his second career pole position, his first pole of the 2003 season and his first since July 4, 2002 when he won the pole for the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. It is Chevrolet's 11th pole in 21 races, the first since Chicagoland on July 13. It is GM Racing's 12th pole this season [Boris Said won the pole at Sonoma in June].Harvick's lap of 48.822 seconds, 184.343 miles per hour shattered the previous record of 49.191, 182.960 mph by 1.383 miles per hour. "It gives us a lot of confidence, that's for sure. I'm not the greatest qualifier in the world, and to get a lap like that and sit on the pole at the Brickyard is pretty cool. The guys are all pumped up. We struggled a little bit in Happy Hour, at the beginning of it, but we got our car really good at the end. We're looking forward to tomorrow. You can't get any better track position than what we've got at the start of the race. We'll try to lead a lap early and get those five points, because right now that means a lot. Trying to put ourselves in position to win the race is the ultimate goal."

THIS HAS BEEN AN UNCHRACTERISTICALLY QUIET SEASON FOR YOU SO FAR. IS THAT BY DESIGN? "It's too much work to cause a lot of commotion. We just have to take all the energy that I have and channel it toward the right things. I'm racing a lot more this year in the Busch car and I'm fortunate to have the IROC car and I've raced my truck a few times. I've just learned how to enjoy my everyday life, not to focus so much on one thing. I just focus on what I need to focus on during the weekends and don't dwell on things during the week and really just try to live my life during the week. It's really important to me what happens on the weekends, but it doesn't make my life stop during the week. That's the main thing I've tried to focus on this year."

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE STATURE OF THE BRICKYARD 400 VERSUS THE DAYTONA 500? "It's pretty much the same emphasis we put on the Daytona 500. For myself and the guys, to sit on the pole here is a total team effort. I had nothing to do with sitting on the pole at Daytona and Talladega. Those were strictly race cars and power and tricks here and there. When you come and do something here and you know everybody has put as much emphasis on this race as they do for Daytona or anything like that, it really makes you feel like you've really accomplished something. I grew up being an open-wheel fan, and being from Bakersfield, I grew up a Rick Mears fan. I always thought I was going to race Indy cars and my father said no. He wouldn't even let me drive a midget. So he focused on stock cars and that was the direction I headed in. It's right there. Stock cars always have a small advantage at the Daytona 500, but it's close."

IS YOUR CAR THAT GOOD FOR TOMORROW, AND HOW DO YOU TRANSLATE THIS POLE TO TOMORROW'S RACE? "The biggest thing that translates from the pole is track position. The whole day is trying to decide between two tires and four tires and really trying to be able to keep that. Our car was terrible at the beginning of Happy Hour and we made two little, small changes and man, did it take off. I'm excited about the race tomorrow, just for the fact that our car is running good and we were able to adjust on it in Happy Hour. We haven't raced this car since Las Vegas and I think it's on its third body and we've never even taken it to the track. It's the same chassis we raced here last year and had a lot of success with, and we won Chicago with this car last year. The chassis itself has always done us good and it's just working out the small characteristics of the body."

COMMENT A LITTLE MORE ON HOW BEING ON THE POLE WILL HELP YOU IN THE EARLY PART OF THE RACE. "The biggest thing I'll capitalize on is leading a lap right off the bat and getting that out of the way. Obviously, pit stalls come into play and getting a pit stall, either the first stall or the one in the middle. When you start up front it makes your day. Usually, it makes your day a lot easier unless you have problems. If you're off a little bit during one or two runs, you usually fall back to seventh or eighth. If you're starting 25th or 30th, it seems like it takes forever to make up three or four spots. We need to make sure we capitalize on it all day." 


WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT TWO TIRES, HOW DOES THAT AFFECT THE CAR AS OPPOSED TO TAKING FOUR TIRES? "The biggest thing is it usually tightens the car up, makes it not turn as well. If you make a real long run and you have 10 or 15 laps on your left-side tires, it's probably going to fall off more than it would with four tires. Timing is pretty key on when you put two tires on and how many laps you have on the left-side tires. If you have to put a second can of fuel in, there's no reason not to put four tires on. If you can come in before most of the field, you can usually put four tires on and come out ninth or 10th. Sometimes it's worth it."

SO MUCH OF TODAY SEEMED TO BE WHAT PART OF THE DRAW YOU WERE IN OR WHETHER THE SUN POPPED OUT. IS THAT A GOOD THING OR A BAD THING? "Today is probably the best I've seen in the three years I've been here. The clouds came back over at the end of qualifying, and in the middle the sun popped out a little bit. I was hoping it would just stay out. The clouds came back over and the breeze picked back up. The first year I was here, the sun came out, it got really hot and the guys at the end didn't have a chance. Part of it is the luck of the draw, but we've had a lot of things not go our way this year, and for one thing to go right feels good."

WHAT DO YOU AND TODD BERRIER TALK ABOUT REGARDING STRATEGY FOR TOMORROW? "The main thing is to keep the car in front, with track position. If our car is off, we're going to have to make some adjustments. Is it worth making the adjustments on the race car and losing two or three spots in the pits pulling a spring rubber out or something like that. Those are the things we'll kind of have to kind of weigh out. If we knew how the yellows were going to fall, we could plan it right out, but it's kind of trial by error as you go through the race and see how it all falls. We can map it out if it goes green all the way, it's pretty easy. But if there's yellows, you just kind of have to adjust."

THE POLE WINNER HAS NEVER WON THIS RACE. IS THERE ANY REASON FOR THAT? "As much as track position is important here, that sounds kind of funny. I don't like that stat. You shouldn't have told me that. I don't know why that is. Usually if you can get yourself positioned in the front of the pack, that's where we need to be, in the clean air. I hope that ends tomorrow. I don't have a logical answer for it."

DID YOU AND CASEY MEARS GROW UP TOGETHER, SINCE YOU'RE BOTH FROM BAKERSFIELD? "We grew up racing go-karts, myself, Casey and Clint [Casey's brother]. Roger [Casey's dad] was doing the off-road stuff at the time and Rick was racing Indy cars most of the time. Most of my time was spent around Clint and when Rick and Roger would come to Mesa Marin and race late models, my dad would work on one or the other. I think. That was a long time ago. I have a tough time remembering what I did yesterday. We did grow up around each other, not a lot, but we did race around each other for a few years there."