BIFFLE LONE TOP 10 FORD QUALIFIER AT RICHMOND

May 14, 2004

DALE JARRETT – No. 88 UPS Taurus – “I just lost a lot of grip. Mike and I talked about that very thing this morning. This place loosens up whenever you get ready to go qualify, but we didn’t know with the new asphalt if it would do that, but it did. We freed the car up just a little too much there and it was too loose. We’ll just see what we can do tomorrow night.” WHAT’S THE KEY TOMORROW? “The biggest thing that has to happen to make this a good race is that, hopefully, the Busch guys will help out tonight and get us a second groove out there and it will be back to the old Richmond, which always produces great racing. That’s what we’re looking forward to doing to where you’ve got two or three grooves to race in and get our car to handle through the corners. That’s the main thing.”

RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Rent-A-Center Taurus – “The track is real slick. We were real disappointed and I think everybody is probably disappointed. We had run pretty good in practice and that’s probably half-a-second or three-quarters-of-a-second slower than we had run, but the track just has no grip right now. The later draw cars, I’m sure, will get better. This kind of reminds me of New Hampshire. They repaved it and if the track sat a while, it would get greasy. Once you get running on it, it would come back and I think that’s what we’ve got going on here today.”

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus – “I’m a little bit disappointed. The track just really got hot here with the sun and we weren’t on the money. I sure did try really hard, but it’s a good run. It’s just that I think the track will get faster and faster and we’ll wind up in the middle of the pack with that. It’s a great run and I’m so proud of this team. These guys are just awesome. It’s an honor for me to drive the 6 car right now. These guys, I believe, are really gonna show something this summer. This is the sixth anniversary for Viagra and this team is committed to trying to get some wins here this summer so we can celebrate.”

ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Taurus – “Going out that early, the track is pretty slick right now. We were just way too loose. That will probably be around 19th or 20th and it’s ashame to have a fast car like that and I just gave up a lot in three and four going out this early. Hopefully, we’ll have a good car for tomorrow night.” HOW WILL IT BE TOMORROW NIGHT? “I think it’ll be all right tomorrow night in the night once the track temperature cools down. It’s just tough going out that early. The luck of the draw just killed us. You’ll see a bunch of guys go a whole lot faster near the end of the line. Going out that early just kind of puts us behind the eight ball.”

JEFF BURTON – No. 99 Roundup Taurus – “We watched qualifying and it looked like everybody was loose and we made a change – we pushed. We made too much of a change. It’s really disappointing. It’s good to be disappointed with wherever that’s gonna be, but we were a lot better than that. We thought too much about it. We should have just gone with what we knew had worked in practice and that’s as much my fault as anybody’s, but it’ll be OK.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus – ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THAT? “I’ve got to be, I guess, but really, absolutely not. I had a really good lap. It stuck so good in turn one and two. Unbelievable. I just tried for a little bit more in three and four and it got a little bit out from under me and I had to wait on it. We definitely had a pole run. We definitely had a car to be on the pole today and I screwed it up just a little bit. It looks like we’re gonna start inside the top 12, so you’ve got to be happy with that I guess.”