dodge cup quotes from saturday at bms

Saturday, March 26, 2004.
Food City 500 Advance.
Bristol Motor Speedway.

 JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge)

NOTE: McMurray qualified sixth on Friday in a backup Dodge after his
primary car failed to pass inspection Friday morning. Currently ranked
19th in the series standings with two top fives and two DNF's this
season, McMurray talks about Friday's problems and his outlook for
Sunday's Food City 500.

 

"Donnie (crew chief Wingo) acted like it wasn't even close. I asked him
at a place like Bristol why wouldn't NASCAR look past it? Aero is not
really a big deal here. They tried all they could to make it fit and it
wasn't even close. They've got to do that. You can't play favoritism. If
they let it go for us, they'd have to let it go for everybody at other
tracks. I guess they'll keep the car and we'll have to go down and cut
the body off and get our car back later.

 

"I don't think that Donnie or Andy (Team Manager Graves) know how it
happened. The car goes through two or three different lines at the shop,
and it's supposed to get measured. Apparently it either didn't or it was
mismeasured. They went back and have all kind of notes that show where
the body is supposed to be located, and it all looked good on the notes.
I don't know how, but it slipped through somewhere."

 

WERE YOU SURPRISED YOU QUALIFIED SO WELL IN THE BACKUP CAR?

"Well, the backup car is the backup car. It's still a good chassis, and
it's got a good body, but we changed a lot of stuff with the brakes.
We've updated all of the cars except the backup cars. That's something I
complained about a lot last year. We've worked hard to get the brakes
better, but we still have all the stuff we raced last year in the backup
cars. We never really intended on using it, but they drove up this
morning with all new stuff so we could convert this car over to be like
one of our new ones. We raced this car last year, and I was a little bit
worried that we wouldn't get enough practice, but I ran an .07 in
practice and qualified with an .04, so I knew the car would be good. We
were pretty quick with it the first lap out in practice, so I wasn't
really concerned. We had to change engines, and that's something we need
to get to. We need to have engines in all our backup cars so the guys
don't wear themselves out getting the car ready. I think it's wonderful
that we were able to unload the backup car at about 8 a.m. and get it
ready to go. You don't need that many practice laps here. That's about
all we ever run on Friday morning. It's not that big a deal. If you
unload and have a problem and can't get your car balanced right then you
might be concerned, but we were pretty good on our second lap. I like
this track, and of all the places we could unload a backup car, I'd
rather do it here than one of the bigger tracks."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU HAD TWO GOOD FINISHES HERE LAST YEAR "Yeah, I finished third and
11th. I really enjoy coming here. I struggled here in a Busch car, not
because we weren't fast. I seemed to always get caught up in someone
else's mess or get run into when a caution came out. Last spring we got
spun out by Ward Burton under a caution deal. In the fall race we ran
good. We finished third and had a good car."

 

YOU'VE HAD YOUR SHARE OF BAD LUCK IN THE FIRST FIVE RACES

"Yeah, we haven't had many breaks. Of all the races, even Daytona, I
thought we had a car that could win. As long as we keep having good
cars, our luck will change. I've already forgot about Darlington and
Atlanta. When you come to a new racetrack you worry about that and
forget about everything else. I forgot about Rockingham and Las Vegas,
too. We didn't have the fastest car at Rockingham, but we put ourselves
in position to win the race. At Vegas with 40 laps to go we had one of
the best cars. At Atlanta when the motor broke we had one of the best
cars. At Darlington we had one of the best cars. Something has bitten us
each week. Hopefully we've got all that stuff out of the way. As long as
we keep running well, that's the most important thing."

 

ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE POINTS YET? "If we can get within the 400
points, the way it's looking now we're running well enough we just can't
seem to buy a break. If we can get down to the last 10 races, we've got
a team that's most capable of winning the championship. I really feel
like we'll be in the top 10 when it's all said and done. We've run well
at every track so far. If we can just get through the superspeedways and
not get caught up in the wrecks there, and we're going to go test at
both road courses. If we can survive that, it seems like we're running
well enough at the other tracks. It shouldn't be a huge problem if we
can just have a little luck."

 

WHAT'S THE SECRET AT BRISTOL? "You've got to be very lucky and hope that
when there's a wreck somebody doesn't run into you. This place is so
fast and things happen so quick it's hard to get out of the way and not
get in trouble. I just go out and do my thing and that's worked in the
past. I think I'd hate to be the guy leading on the last lap."