NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Subway 500 Chevy Race Notes

Chevy Race Notes
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Subway 500
Martinsville Speedway
Oct. 24, 2004

Kevin Harvick (Finished 8th)
"We had a great car today, but just lost it there at the end. I was
loose up off and my rear tires were spinning so I couldn't get going
towards the end of the race. When I was up front leading my car was
handling great and it would stay on the curb perfectly. It was tough out
there today because there wasn't a second groove which made it hard to
pass. My guys gave me great stops all day which helped me to stay up
front. I just hate that we couldn't capitalized on all the laps I led
today with a victory, but we will definitely walk away from here happy
with 8th."
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. Budweiser Chevrolet (Finished 33rd)
(ON WHAT TOOK HIM OUT OF THE RACE) "It was mostly out of our control. It
wasn't really a stupid mistake any of us made. You can't do much about
it. We had a good car yesterday in practice. Just during the race it had
been really tight and hadn't ran good, hadn't turned good, didn't drive
good. We worked real hard to try to get it to turn. We changed a lot of
things during the pit stops and nothing helped. We finally had a bunch
of vibrations. I thought Kyle (Petty) was staying low but he spun.
That's just an insult to injury really. It's just a tough day. We
couldn't really do much about it. It was one thing after another."
 
(IS THIS YOUR ONE MULLIGAN FOR THE POINTS DEAL?) "It's number one. I
hope there ain't any more than this. I think that a guy can win a
championship with not having any problems. We didn't really need this. I
don't you think you can go ahead and say 'yeah we're going to have one
and this is it.' We didn't need this. This is a track we run good at."
 
(HOW ARE YOU DOING TO REBOUND?) "Well we can go to a race track and
drive it real good. That's the only thing you can do. That's a pretty
generic question with a generic answer."
 
(DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH NOT ADJUSTING TO THE NEW TRACK?) "We were
good at practice yesterday. We weren't up on the sheet but my car ran
19.90s like twenty laps in a row. I didn't see anybody that could do
that. When you put the sheet down and look at everybody's times, I was
happy. I don't know why I was tight. Maybe that gear was messed up and
made us pull in the rear end or something. The car was awful and it fell
apart out from under me today."
 
(ON THIS TEAM DOING WELL WHEN THEY ARE DOWN) "Hopefully we'll go to
Atlanta and win and do good. I think we'll have a good run next week. We
usually do this kind of thing - go have a bad week then have a good
week. It's unfortunate about the championship with the points. Hopefully
those guys don't gain too many more slots and it won't be a terrible day
for us. It could have been a lot worse."
 
(ON THE FIRST INCIDENT THAT TOOK HIM TO THE GARAGE) "We just never
really got the car to turn all day long. The rear wheel was skipping all
day. Then finally we took it in and get it out of it. I don't know.
Every once in a while you just get a bad batch of parts or something
like that. We normally don't have these type of problems. We weren't
that good anyways. We tried to get the car to turn. We just never really
could. We were just real tight all day."