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NASCAR WCUP: Cracker Barrel 500 Post-Race Notes and Quotes, Jeff Burton

13 March 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
JEFF BURTON --99-- Exide Batteries Taurus (Finished 43rd) -- "I'm OK actually. I'm pretty happy to be OK. That's about as hard as you can hit here when you're going into the corner and something happens. There's no time to get slowed down or anything, so I hit real hard. It's a real shame. We had a great race car and we came from a long way back. We had great pit stops, the car was really fast, it's a real shame."

ANY INDICATION THE TIRE WAS GOING DOWN? "No, it just went. I was sitting there driving away from the 31 and pretty much driving away from everybody else and there was no sign at all that anything was gonna happen. I must have run over something because it went so fast. After a caution sometimes things get on the track and we probably ran over something and there's nothing you can do."

WHAT HAPPENED? "We must have run over something. These tires just don't fail like that unless you do run over something, so, obviously, there was something on the race track. I never saw it or never felt it, it just went so fast. There was never an indication, it just turned around. There's nothing you can do but hang on and hope you don't hit too hard."

HOW WERE THE TIRES THROUGHOUT THE RACE BEFORE THAT? "I think a lot of people are making a bunch about the tires, but the fact of the matter is that we all have the same tires and getting them to work is what it's all about. My car turned well, it had good forward bite and it was doing everything I wanted so I can't complain about the tires a bit. I thought they were in the race track really well and, even if people don't like the tires, they're equal because we've all got the same tires. To me, it's a safer tire, it's a better tire, it's a sturdier tire, we just ran over something and had some bad luck."

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