Chevy Qualifying Notes, Rockingham
CHEVROLET NOTES & QUOTES
NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES
SUBWAY 400 QUALFIYING
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
February 21, 2004
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "We picked up but I think we needed to get a little bit more than that. It seems like everybody's picking up. The sun is going behind the clouds now and the track is getting cooler so it's going to pick up a bit. I think you're going to see everybody pick up speed from what they practiced."
(HOW IS THE CAR HANDLING COMPARED TO THE RACE LAST FALL?) "I don't know. I try to forget about last October. We weren't the best of cars here. It's not bad. It's still the same Monte Carlo we drove here last year. The set-up is a little different with this new construction tire, so I think it's going to be a lot of fun to race this car. It seems like it's going to drive good in the race."
KEVIN LEPAGE, NO. 4 YOKE TV.COM CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I am really happy with the YOKE TV.com Monte Carlo today. The team rebounded from a provisional start last fall to a solid start in Sunday's race. It is a credit to how hard this team has worked together over the winter. Tim Brewer and I are communicating well. I look forward to racing this Monte Carlo on Sunday."
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: We've made some awesome gains from practice to qualifying. I thought the car was good. We just needed to get the balance a little bit better. The last few times we've been here we've been too loose to qualifying and we couldn't pick-up our speed to qualify and today we picked up a bunch. The car was great. It's Rockingham and you only one run on a set of tires and you make your final adjustments for that last run - the one that counts. It kind of reminds me of Rockingham and this team of old when we'd go out there and pick-up two or three tenths from practice and today we picked up four-tenths. So that's an awesome effort. The guys are together and everybody is really focused. Everybody is hungry and pumped and it really showed right there.
"We've raced so well here the last few times - really we've always raced well here -- but we just haven't started well. It's such a fight. It's a battle to work your way from the back to the front here. You use the tires up and it gets your strategy out of whack. We really wanted to come here and focus on qualifying up front and get the weekend started off right."
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: "I missed the entry on Turn 3 and that's kind of why I botched it there and lost a little bit of time. I might have been able to get us a shot at the pole there. But we have a good car that will hopefully be just as good on Sunday."
BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: (YOU PICKED UP FOUR-TENTHS FROM YOUR PRACTICE LAP. ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THAT?) "That wasn't too bad. It's always better to pick up than to lose. That part of it was good. I wish we could have gone a little bit faster, but I'm really in a little bit of a funk as fat as trying to get any more speed out of it right now for qualifying. Not that it matters right now. But we learned a little bit and hopefully we'll figure something out and get better for the next time we qualify next go around."
(HOW DOES IT LOOK FOR SUNDAY'S RACE?) "I think it'll be all right. I didn't make any long runs like a few guys did, but I think we're in the ballpark where we can work on it and make it better if need be. I think we've got enough adjustment built on our race car that we can do that."
BRIAN VICKERS, NO. 25 GMAC CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO (WHAT KIND OF CHANGES DO YOU NEED TO MAKE TO THE CAR?) "The car was pretty loose. It changed a little bit on us from practicing to qualifying. It was real loose on exit. It was probably hard to see that on the racetrack. The GMAC guys did a great job. We're striving for a good starting spot. Our main focus right now is getting this car better for the race. We need to get this set-up better for the race because that's what counts is the last lap."
