GM RACING NOTES & QUOTES--SYLVANIA 300 QUALIFYING

GM RACING WINSTON CUP NOTES & QUOTES; QUALIFYING; SYLVANIA 300; NEW
HAMPSHIRE INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY; SEPT. 12, 2003

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified
38th, will start 37th (provisional):  "This car hasn't been able to take a
set all day, for whatever reason. I don't have too much grip, and maybe I
have too much front brake and the rear brakes are too heavy. I thought I
could have backed it in there, and if I didn't think I would hurt myself,
maybe that might have been the thing to do."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 6th:
"It's not an advantage to have an early draw. Everybody would love to go as
late as they possibly could because there's all the cars out there running
around. We might have went up on air pressure a little too much; the car was
pretty chattery on the first lap and that's the lap we had to get up and go.
But it's better, way better than we've ever been here before in qualifying.
I'm just happy to get a good starting spot. It's real important to start up
front anyway. It takes a lot of the work out of it when you don't have to
drive up through the field. I don't care where we start. I know the car is
going to be good and we'll get to the front whether it takes all day, or
just a few laps."

JOE NEMECHEK, NO. 25 UAW-DELPHI CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 25th: "The
track has changed a little. We were a little loose in practice and still
struggling with that same little bit loose. I think the track set between
when the Trucks finished and we started. It's just a little bit slippery."

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 22nd: "It's
the normal slipping and sliding for me. I normally don't qualify all that
well here. We'll have to wait and see where we end up. It's definitely a lot
slower than we practiced, and we were 16th in practice. It may stay in the
top 20. There's a couple of guys out there that I thought we'd beat and we
did. We'll see where the Valvoline Pontiac ends up at the end of the day."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 17th: "We did
the same thing here last time, and if you overdrive the car on the first
lap, you don't have much tire left. What we tried to do was save the car as
much as possible on the first lap and improve on our second lap, which we
did. I thought we'd be a little better than that. I thought we'd run an .80
or a .90, something like that. We stayed about the same. A lot of the guys
dropped off and our intent was to pick up and run something close to what
Dale Jr. ran. This is going to get us in the show good. These cars handle a
lot better when you're at the front of the pack. We'll take it as it goes."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 32nd: "It
sucked, basically."

MICHAEL WALTRIP, NO. 15 NAPA CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 5th: NOTE:
Waltrip eclipsed teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. to take the top spot and held
the pole for a while until Ryan Newman knocked him off. Had he kept the
pole, it would have been his first since 1991. "The car really came in. The
first lap, it was out of control. I'd been wanting to be free all day long,
but Slugger [crew chief Slugger Labbe] reminded me that we have a tendency
to get loose when qualifying starts. We kind of compromised, and I was a
little bit loose, but not too bad, and I hung on. We're first so far, and I'
m proud of that. We'll start good." DID YOU NEED A GOOD RUN AFTER THE THREE
STRAIGHT UNFORTUNATE EVENTS YOU'VE HAD? "We had three bad runs and we need
to put together 10 good ones to climb back up in the points and finish the
season the way we started. I want to tip my hat to Mr. Bahre [track owner
Bob Bahre]. Bob and his crew here. The track is great shape. I think we saw
the best race ever here in July, and the fans in New Hampshire are the best
in the whole country and I know Mr. Bahre is real proud to give them a good
track. Thank y'all."

RICKY CRAVEN, NO. 32 TIDE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 21st: "It's pretty
easy to be disappointed. It's more difficult to be realistic. We didn't run
that well in practice, we improved and that's probably all we should expect.
The competitor in you wants to be on the front row, but we're missing a
little bit. We have all day tomorrow to find it." HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR
YOU TO PUT ON A GOOD SHOW FOR THE FANS HERE? 'It's really important. I get
two chances a year, and honestly, at least in Winston Cup I haven't
delivered like in the Busch North Series and the Busch Series. We're
determined to get a win here and spend a week celebrating."

JOHHNY SAUTER, NO. 4 KODAK PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 30th: "That's a lot
better than we were in practice. We struggled a little bit, but just couldn'
t find out what was wrong. We found out that we had thr wrong gear in the
car, and got that straightened out. We pretty much made a guess at it, but
it was a pretty good deal for the Kodak Pontiac and all the guys. It looks
like we're going to be in the show and I'm pretty stoked about that. This is
the first weekend I've raced the Winston Cup car and haven't had to run a
Busch car or a Truck, so it's pretty cool. We'll race our ass off. We were
really good here in the spring, and we have a lot of what we had in the
Busch car here when we ran from the back to the front, so I'm pretty
confident about it. This is only a 300-lap race, and a lot of these Cup
races are a lot longer than that, so it's close to what a Busch race is. We
learned a lot for what we needed chassis-wise. We had a little more time to
apply what we had in the Busch car to this car. My only fear was making the
show, and it looks like we're in. I know we're going to be awesome on long
runs."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 8th: "That
wasn't a bad lap for us. We didn't have a chance to qualify here in the
spring, so the setup we used for the race worked well for us, as we were
able to win. We worked it over into our qualifying setup today and it's been
in the top five for us. Hopefully, we'll be able to stay in the top five or
seven and have a great starting spot for the race on Sunday." WHAT DOES IT
MEAN TO WIN THE FIRST RACE OF THE SEASON AND THEN COME BACK FOR THE SECOND?
"It can work either way for you. If you come back and you aren't running
well, it can be pretty frustrating. The team has done a great job and I have
to thank everyone on the Lowe's team for working as hard as they do to give
me great race cars. At Dover, it worked well for us to win the spring race
and come back and win in the fall, and we just hope we can carry that
momentum on this weekend."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 7th: "I can't
complain too much about that. We picked up just a tiny bit from practice and
a lot of guys weren't able to back up what they ran in practice. I'm pretty
happy with it, but at the same time, you look at what the 12 car ran and
say, 'man, where are we? We're a long way off those guys," so we have a
little work to do there. But it was a real solid day for the DuPont
Chevrolet. Hopefully, we can make up for what we lost here last time."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified 13th:
"As the sun goes down, the track tends to lose a little grip, so the cars
that were tighter in practice will probably pick up a little bit more. Our
car was a little loose, so we weren't able to get the throttle all the way
down up off the corner. Still, it was a pretty good lap for the GM
Goodwrench car. Qualifying is not my strongest suit, so if we're anywhere in
the top 15, we're good to go." DO YOU LIKE THIS TRACK? "Yeah, especially
since they brought in the new pavement. You don't have a bunch of sealer
built up and you can make a mistake and get out of the groove a little bit
and recover instead of just wrecking. I apppreciate everything the Bahre
family has done. It makes it a lot of fun to come to the track and they've
done whatever it's taken to this point to make the track right."

TERRY LABONTE, NO. 5 KELLOGG'S/got milk? CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Qualified
2nd: "It was a good run for us. We picked up a little from practice, but we
really haven't done anything since we unloaded. We haven't adjusted on it
any. It was good right off the truck. We just practiced a little bit there
and we had a great run." MORE LABONTE TO FOLLOW

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 14th: "I left a
little bit on pit road. I got everything there was to have out there on the
track from the U.S. Army Pontiac. I made a decision to put another pound of
air in the right side tires. We kept going up earlier in the practice, and
that made it a little better, a little better and a little better. I just
stepped over the line a little bit. The car got exceptionally loose getting
in and coming off. It was just a little too free everywhere. You can't get
the pole ever week, but at least we have one [last week at Richmond]. THIS
TEAM HAS MADE BIG STRIDES THE PAST FEW WEEKS. "It's just a matter of
jelling. They don't know me and I don't know them. Ryan and I are starting
to learn each other and learn the shock program a little bit. We don't have
a book of knowledge together. We're just starting to acquire that book of
knowledge. It's like anything when it gets started. It doesn't just click
right away. Hopefully we'll race a little better every week. We raced really
well last week. We got a couple sets of tires that were a little off from
what we had been running, but that's racing. We weren't the only ones that
had that problem That will give us a good starting spot and we'll race them
from there."

HERMIE SADLER, NO. 02 goteamva.com PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Qualified 36th: "We'
re disappointed with how we ran. We ran quicker than that in practice, and
for some reason we seemed to have gotten loose right there.

TERRY LABONTE POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE:

Labonte qualified second for Sunday's Sylvania 300, his best start at New
Hampshire International Speedway. His best previous start was fifth in July,
1993. He is currently ninth in the Winston Cup point standings and is coming
off a victory in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

DESCRIBE YOUR LAP FOR US. "It was a good run. We were pretty good off the
truck. We didn't do much to the car. We were like 6th fastest in practice
and we just got it ready to qualify. We got a good lap in."

WILL THE TRACK BE ANY DIFFERENT THIS TIME AS OPPOSED TO JULY? "It'll be
about the same. I don't see why it would be any different. It should be like
it was the first race here. Our Kellogg's/got milk? team has been doing a
great job bringing really good race cars to the track and we've been
unloading good. I think we've got a lot of good tracks coming up for us, we
have good cars lined up for those events and this is one of them. We've been
here before and run pretty well and been here before and run terrible. It
seems like if you're good when you unload off the truck, you stay good all
weekend. When you're off up here, you're off all weekend. I think we have an
awful good car and the guys have done a great job. I was really happy with
that run. We'll just work hard tomorrow to get it dialed in and have a good
race on Sunday."

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN THE SETUPS YOU RUN HERE? "Actually, it doesn't make
any difference, because I don't know what kind of setups we run anyway. It
doesn't matter."

DID THE TRACK CHANGE BETWEEN PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING, AND HOW IMPORTANT WAS
IT TO BE LATER RATHER THAN EARLIER IN THE DRAW? "I was a little bit looser
qualifying than I was in practice, so it might have gotten just a little bit
looser, but it cooled off a little bit when I went. I kind of went a little
late, and it probably got a little hotter at the beginning of qualifying. It
was probably different for the guys at the beginning than it was for the
guys late. For me it was real close to the same. I just didn't think I had
my tires scuffed in quite enough the first lap."

HOW HAS THIS TEAM TURNED AROUND FROM LAST YEAR? "The biggest difference is
the cars. We have new people putting the bodies on our cars this year and
they've done a great job. Jim and Alan, our team engineer, this is the
second year they've worked together and the second year I've gotten to work
with Jim. Everything has just kind of jelled for us. It's all started at the
shop. We're able to bring good cars to the track and unload them, you can
make them work. If you don't have good equipment when you get here, it doesn
't matter what springs and shocks you have in your truck, you're not going
to find any that are going to make that car work. All of our success goes
back to our shop and what has been done there in preparation for coming to
these events. That's been the biggest difference. We started off on the
right foot with this model change and that's helped us a lot, and we've
gotten better with the cars."

HOW IMPORTANT IS TRACK POSITION HERE? "It is important, but the most
important part is your strategy during the race and your track position,
whether you get two tires, four tires, no tires.that's what it comes down
to. That's the biggest difference in the racing today versus a few years
ago. Now, when we get far enough to make it on gas, they tell you, 'OK, you'
re not coming in. You're going to stay out.' Years ago, if a caution came
out with 10 laps to go, you come in a get four tires and everybody would
race like heck to the end. You don't do that anymore. It's changed a lot.
Track position is very important, whether you get that through pit strategy
or qualifying good or whatever. Just because you qualify well doesn't mean
you're going to make the right calls in the pits on Sunday. Sometimes you
come in first or second, you don't know what those guys behind you are going
to do. You're going to get four, they're going to get two or gas or
whatever. It's a real mess sometimes on pit road."

HOW IS THE TRACK? "I think they did a good job repaving the track. Everybody
was concerned about it the first race up here, it was pretty warm, but it
held up good. Of course, this weekend is cooler than it was, so they should
have no problem with the track."

'One thing I've learned, and this is my 25th year, and that's the fact that
you're not going to be on top all the time. You can walk through the garage
and look at all the different teams and nobody can do it. You just can't do
it. The competition is just too tough. Sometimes you're on the top,
sometimes you're on the bottom and you spend a lot of time in the middle.
You don't do anything different. You just continue to work and try to figure
out how to get better."