NASCAR WCUP: Dale Jarrett Post Race Notes, Primestar 500
29 March 1999
DALE JARRETT PRESS CONFERENCEDESCRIBE TERRY'S PASS. "We kept pushing more and more as we would get some laps on the tires, but I still thought that maybe if I could use up enough race track I could keep Terry behind me, but the lapped cars were wanting to stay on the lead lap, I guess. As I caught one of them in three and four, my car pushed up as I tried to get back in the throttle and that hurt me then. Terry just got up high and got a run to the outside and there was nothing I could do after that. I think if we could have just raced around, it could have been interesting and maybe got exciting before the end, but he probably had the better car today. We had a great pit stop that got us out in front of him and, there again, when I could go on my fresh tires I had some lapped cars that wanted to go too and I just couldn't get by, so I couldn't stretch out my lead like I wanted to there. But, it was a good day for us. We weren't the best car. We kept working on it. We made some type of adjustment every single pit stop and we just never got the push out of it. The problem is not something that we can adjust in the pits, and I'm not sure how much of it we can get out. It's an aerodynamic problem that we have that the nose of these cars isn't making enough downforce for us and that's creating an aero push. But it was a good day. Some of the guys in front of us had trouble in points and we made some gains there."
YOU, ALONG WITH BOTH LABONTES HAVE COMPLETED EVERY LAP IN THREE YEARS HERE AT TEXAS. IS THERE A REASON? "I'm sure the three of us would like to say it's because we're good, but I don't know that that's really the answer. I think we have good race cars and this is the type of race track that suits our driving style a little bit. We've been fortunate enough to miss the wrecks and make good calls in the pits, and I think that's what's enabled us. Again, I think it suits our style a little bit. Some of these guys that were blowing tires and things, I don't know if it they were getting low air pressure or driving the car into the corner and heating up the right-front tire so much, but that's not as much Terry's, Bobby's and mine's style and it's worked for us for three years now."
"We had the opportunity there at the end to win. When you're leading the race with less than 15 to go, you think you've got a chance to win, but, there again, we weren't the best car today. We made some good adjustments and we made a great pit stop and I was fortunate to get in and out of the pits really good. When I came back out of the pits I had a really clear race track for a little bit until the 77 car came out in front of me and then that created a little bit of a problem for me, but we had a good day." WHAT ABOUT THE TIRES TODAY. "They were telling me they were OK. They know not to tell me that unless it's the truth, but they said we were always OK. We weren't as low on air-pressure as some of those guys were. We know that created a problem for a few people anyway, so we were giving up a little bit on the longer runs by not starting out with the air pressure as low in the right-front tire. That's gonna create a problem sooner or later if you continue to do that."
"Instead of dropping that and realizing we could create a problem, we kept putting air in the right-rear tire and taking air out of the left-rear, which is not as big a problem as taking it out of the right-front, so we were trying to make our car work a little better in other directions besides that right-front." LAST YEAR AT RICHMOND YOU AND TERRY BUMPED. DID THAT CROSS YOUR MIND TODAY? "No, Richmond is gone and over. If I could have gotten to him it wouldn't have been because of Richmond, it would have been because I wanted to win Texas. Terry had a good car. He made a smart, clean pass. I knew I had my hands full with him behind me. I thought a couple of times I might get away a little bit, but I think he was just kind of getting back. I think his car pushed when he was behind me really close, so he could get back and get a run. That's exactly what happened. I got away a little bit when I got besides the 97 and that broke my momentum and Terry had a lot of momentum going, but that (Richmond) wouldn't have had any bearing on it."
"I wasn't gonna catch him if the caution wouldn't have come out. I wasn't gonna get him. I needed him to have a similar type problem with a lapped car to get a run. Then it was gonna be awful tough with my car pushing off the corner. I only had one place that I could really go. I had to be really careful getting off the corners and I was doing everything I could not to go as fast as I could and not hit the wall coming off both two and four, so he would have had to encounter some lapped traffic that would have really held him up." DID THE SIX-LAP DIFFERENCE IN PIT STOPS BETWEEN YOU AND TERRY HAVE AN EFFECT? "I'm not sure that it made any because that's probably what enabled me to get out front and lead for awhile there because I had the fresher tires at the beginning while he was still out there on the older tires, so I was making quite a bit of time then. I don't know that the six laps really mattered at the end. Terry had a good car all day. His car was good on long runs and I knew that was gonna be the case again."
"The windtunnel showed that the Taurus has more drag than either the Pontiac or the Monte Carlo and that they make more front downforce than what we do, which is natural. If we could make some changes, which are the changes that Robert Yates Racing suggested before we ran the Taurus for the very first time in 1997 that all the other Ford teams said they didn't want to do then, and then NASCAR said we weren't gonna change it, if we could make those changes that's exactly what the Taurus needs to be in the same league aero-wise with the other two makes."
"They certainly made the track a lot better. I mean, much more raceable, and the other thing was is as the day went on we pretty much worked a second groove in. You didn't want to go in there wide-open or anything on that second groove, but you could use it a lot and you weren't scared to death of getting up there and losing it. So we got some rubber down and this race track is just gonna continue to get better each year that we race on it. Just like we saw today, I think this was probably the best race that we've had down here and you're gonna see next year's race be a little bit better yet."
"It's a tough race track physically. You're going so fast and you work really hard in the corners and, because you're not out of the gas very long, it puts quite a strain on you physically. I know Bobby (Labonte) said his neck was sore and hurting, mostly because of his injury, but I could feel the strain on my neck toward the end of the race too, just because of the g's that you get in the corner. You're back in the gas way before you get to the center of the corner, so you're getting a lot of g's there and a lot of force. Mentally, you've gotta be on top of it all the time. There's not much time to rest and not think because you'll get yourself in trouble because you're traveling such a high rate of speed and usually you're in traffic and around cars which creates a strain mentally."
"I think you're disappointed that you don't win, but then again, I'm not sure we didn't have the best car. We were gonna be a little bit lucky at the end if we would have been able to pull that off. We would take them any way we can get it, but we're happy with second. We led some laps, we haven't been doing that so we're getting much more competitive. The pit stops are good. Some guys in front of us had trouble. If you look at the big picture, this second place was good for us."
ABOUT BOBBY LABONTE "I know his injury and this isn't to downplay that at all, but I'm not surprised because I know how tough Bobby Labonte is and what a strong will he has to stay in the car and get the job done. That's one of the reasons that Joe Gibbs wanted him and that's why they're gonna keep him for along time. He's got that determination and that desire. It just shows how strong of a mind some of these athletes have to be able to go through and handle situations like that. That's a real testimony to his fitness and his mental strength that he has."
"It's nice to have a week off. I'm going on a little vacation with Kelley and the kids and I'm looking forward to that. We need a week off before Bristol. You always do that."
"That's also $7,500 for the Komen Foundation with the program that we announced yesterday. I was hoping we might have $10,000 coming to them, but that's $7,500 and, hopefully, we'll keep adding to that throughout the year."
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