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NASCAR WCUP: Daytona 500, post race notes and quotes, Bill Elliott

21 February 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

BILL ELLIOTT --94-- McDonald's Taurus -- "It turned out great for us. I was tickled to death to come home third after about halfway in the race. I got behind. My car got pretty tight and I couldn't do anything and I got to running a good bit of temperature. I said, 'Man, I've gotta get out of this.' So, we made a stop and gained some spots. Then we came back in and changed two tires there at the end and that's what put me in position to run third."

IF IT STAYED GREEN DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR THEM? "I don't know. It depended on who helped you. It was one of those situations that whoever went if they'd go with you you'd be OK, but if they didn't go with you you were dead. That's just like what we did to the 10 car."

WHAT ABOUT THE TWO-TIRE STOP? "I finally got my car handling halfway decent and I felt really good about what I had. I said, 'Guys, we can't take four tires, we've gotta do it with two.' Man, that thing could still run on the bottom, so that's what we needed to do."

DID THE CAR ACT DIFFERENT AFTER TAKING TWO TIRES? "No, but we didn't run long. We were pretty short on time, so it worked out well."

YOU MUST BE HAPPY AFTER FALLING BACK? "I'm tickled to death. It was one of them days."

WERE YOU HOPING TO MOVE ON JEFF BURTON WHEN THE CAUTION BIT YOU? "I was hoping to. I was either gonna try to move on Jeff or help Jeff move on Dale, but it was one of them deals if somebody didn't go with you and help you, you couldn't do it by yourself. You just help the car in front of you just enough that you couldn't get by them, but I'm just tickled to death for where we ended up. This McDonald's crew worked late last night and re-did this car after getting into Dale in one and two and I'm just tickled to death to come home third today."

WHY DID YOU FALL BACK? "I got a little bit tight and I was running a little bit of temperature and I could never catch back up. We just worked on it as time went on and finally we got some cautions and were able to pull back up through the pack a little bit."

Text provided by Ford

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