NASCAR WCUP: Post Race Quotes, Pennzoil 400, Ted Musgrave
15 November 1999
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
TED MUSGRAVE --75-- GameWorks/Ford Racing Zone Taurus (Finished
42nd) -- "It started skipping right away from the start of the
race. It just kept getting worse and worse. We weren't getting anywhere
with it like that, then it started skipping pretty bad and when it started
skipping so bad like that we're getting in the way, so I thought pretty
soon it was just gonna detonate and burn a piston up, so we better park it
and save the motor for everybody's sake. That's the best thing to do."
WHAT PUT YOU OUT? "What really put me out was the ignition deal. Every race we go to it seems like something happens. We switched boxes early on and it lost a little power there because the boxes are different, and then it started skipping pretty bad and I didn't want to burn the motor up, so we parked it. I tell you, it's been a jinx all year, so, I tell you what, one more race to go maybe we'll put somebody else in the car and see if they can turn the luck around. Maybe I'll stay home and have some good luck that way."
ARE YOU FRUSTRATED TO THE POINT YOU WANT TO QUIT? "I can't lie to you, yeah. It's been the most ridiculous season of my whole career. I think even back when I ran ARTGO and stuff, this is the worst season of my career with things going wrong and things not being done right to go and win races. We don't do any wind tunnel time, we don't do any track test time, and you've gotta do all that stuff to be competitive. You can't take people in cars like this to a race track and run against these professional teams and do good. I mean, all you're doing is working against luck and maybe you get lucky. I'm sick and tired of just trying to be lucky out there, it just doesn't happen any more. You've gotta be prepared and we just aren't prepared, so I'm just gonna quit this deal and do something that's really supposed to be right for racing here."
SO WHEN THIS TEAM GOES TO ATLANTA NEXT WEEK, YOU WON'T BE DRIVING? "No, I'm too frustrated right now. We've been frustrated throughout the season and it's finally gotten to the point right now that I can see no light at the end of the tunnel. It's been that way for quite a while, but I hung in there to try to be good, but there's absolutely no hope and that's making everything look bad, it makes me look bad, it makes the team look bad, so I'd rather just sit back and watch somebody else go downhill."
AT THE START OF THE YEAR THERE WAS SUCH OPTIMISM. WHERE DID IT GO WRONG? "If you look back throughout the whole season, you'd have to go back through our notes and look what we had. There have been a lot of things that went wrong every race, every race things went wrong either mechanically or adjustment-wise. But really we haven't had the tools that we needed to make a good race car. We've been absolutely terrible on the superspeedways, we've been just so-so on the intermediate tracks. We've absolutely done nothing to improve the team all year. We haven't hired the help that we needed, we haven't done anything that we needed to be competitive. I mean, you can pick every little thing. I know Wally (Dallenbach) is coming next year and I know the first thing he said is, 'There's a lot of work to be done,' and Wally, yes, there's a lot of work to be done."
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