NASCAR WCUP: Jeff Burton Post Race Quotes, California 500
3 May 1999
JEFF BURTON -99- Exide Batteries Taurus -- DID YOU JUST RUN OUT OF LAPS? "We don't know that he was running as hard as he could run. I suspect that he wasn't. All day long we were pretty much equal to him and you don't just all of a sudden, unless they're running poorly, start picking up three or four tenths a lap. That tells me that he wasn't running as hard as he could to pick up a half a second. Then I started doing the math in my head and I said, 'There's not enough time,' so I backed off and sure enough, the lap that I backed off he picked up like four-tenths. I don't know how we would have been with him. Our car was good at the end. It wasn't as good at the end as it was about halfway through the race. I thought the thing that hurt us the most was -- obviously getting a lap down hurt us a great deal -- but what really hurt us the most was when we made our lap up, on the next-to-last set of tires I asked to take two rounds of bite out and make a change to make it looser and I got it too loose. The 24 and the 18 drove away from us because I got it too loose. The 24 drove away from us and we never had a caution again to move us back up. Once he got half a straightaway in front of us we were pretty much done." EARLY ON YOU SEEMED TO HAVE A REALLY GOOD CAR. "Yesterday in Happy Hour we were the third-fastest car, but we weren't the third-best car by any means. After about 15 laps our car was really bad. We had to make huge improvements to the car if we were gonna compete with the 24, especially the 24. The 24 yesterday was the class of the field. We made some changes on our car this morning and last night that put us in the hunt to win this thing and I'm real proud of that because that's a real difficult thing to do. I'm proud that we did that and certainly after four laps of running I felt we had a much better car than we did yesterday, so I'm real proud of Frank for making those decisions. Had I known the car was gonna be that good, I would have run it a little harder early in the race and the 88 and the 18 may not have led a lap. I was real cautious early because I thought we'd be real loose and we weren't." WERE THERE A LOT OF GROOVES TODAY? "It's turning into a multi-groove race track for sure. I still think the bottom is still the best. If you can get hooked up and run on the bottom, you're gonna be the fastest there, but I suspect next year when we come back probably about halfway up the race track is gonna be the best. This race track, like most tracks, the groove gets wider as it gets older. My car was better on the bottom and I think Gordon's car was better on the bottom too, but a lot of people were making decent time in the middle. Compared to the first race here that was an improvement." WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN YOU GOT CAUGHT A LAP DOWN? "It was really disappointing, but I knew at the same time that we would come out ahead of the 24. I knew we'd come out in front of the 6 because we would be on the tail-end of the lead lap and I knew the 24 wasn't just gonna march up there and pass us with ease. He was gonna have to race us to pass us, so I didn't think our day was over by any means. It was disappointing, but I didn't think it was a devastating blow that we couldn't overcome." DID THE RAIN ON FRIDAY CHANGE STRATEGY? "Well, we qualified on the pole. If we hadn't been rained out we probably would have qualified 30th. Practice on Friday has so little to do with what the race is on Sunday. Friday is a wasted day as far as I'm concerned because all you do is get ready to qualify. You learn so little about what's gonna happen on Sunday. We got the appropriate amount of practice on Saturday that was important for the race and, really, that's all that matters. As long as you get that practice on Saturday everyone's good to go." YOU LOST A LAP, BUT GORDON WAS IN THE PITS WHEN THE CAUTION CAME OUT AND DIDN'T, IS THAT JUST BEING UNLUCKY FOR YOU? "That's how this sport goes. Last week at Talladega, the 24, the 99 and the 2 were together when there was a wreck. The 24 and the 2 got in it and we missed it, so he was fortunate not to get a lap down in the pits, but he would have been in the same boat we would have been in. He would have still had the chance to win the race, however, he would have been closer to us and that's what we would have needed." ABOUT THE 6 CAR. "I was really disappointed to see the 6 blow his engine. I have a great deal of reverance and respect for Mark Martin and that whole race team. If we can outrun the 6, we take pride in doing that because we think they're the best in the business, but we want to outrun them because outrun them and not because of an engine failure."
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