NASCAR WCUP: Pontiac drivers discuss their day at Texas Motor Speedway
1 April 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
WARD BURTON, NO. 22 CATERPILLAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"I'm so proud of this race team. They do a hell of a job for me." (CAN HIS BACK-UP CAR WIN ON SUNDAY) "Oh hell yeah. This car is awesome. This car is just as good a car as the one that's going in the truck right now that I tore up. Those guys just went back and changed a little bit of what messed me up in the other car. I'm not blaming them. I was the one driving it. But I learned from that and that is what got us in the top 10 today. I'm real proud of this team. I'm just lucky to be a part of it." (HOW HE FEELS PHYSICALLY) "I'm fine. That made me feel a lot better."
KEN SCHRADER, NO. 36 M&M'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"We just cannot get it qualified. And it doesn't feel bad. I thought it was quicker and they said our corner speeds were good. But, man, I'm struggling with qualifying. We haven't traditionally struggled qualifying, so I don't know. It felt better. It felt better than we ran."
BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"That's the best we've run since we got here and we struggled to get to that point there. Right now I've got my hands full with it. I can't really put my finger on it. It's just not quite what we want. But it could be a lot worse, I guess."
JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 LYCOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"Slow. I'm kind of surprised. That wasn't even close to what we ran in practice. It just didn't come in like we thought it would. It just felt like it was sliding all over the track. We'll just have to see where it ends up."
JEFF FULLER, NO. 27 VIAGRA PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
(ON BUSCH EXPERIENCE HELPING HERE) "I really think it helped a lot. The 82 car (Sabco Busch entry) wrecked yesterday in practice and they brought the back-up car out. This morning I went out and did like 10 laps in their car and got me acclimated to the track.. The first out, I think we were fifth quick or so. It really helped a lot." (ON THE LAP) "That was a pretty cool lap. It just got a little bit loose on me. I think I got back to the gas just a little bit too quick there. I just had to just ease out of it a little bit - not all the way out - but just get out of it a tiny little bit. It cost us a little. If that hadn't been we might have been up for a pole. I'm proud of the guys. They've got an awesome car. This is the car we ran at Atlanta. Man, it's a nice car. This is real nice because I need to concentrate a little bit on our race set-up and this will give us that opportunity to not have to worry about going second round. If we need to put a whole bunch of laps on and just see what I need at the end of a fuel run or at the end of a tire run or whatever, we can do that. That's where we've been struggling a little bit. This is a big plus."
DAVE BLANEY, NO. 93 AMOCO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"It was a little better than we ran in practice but I just couldn't get the car to turn good enough in turn three and it just killed me. I don't know if that will be good enough to get into the race or not. It's not like we're way off. We're just off little bits. But there are so many car so close it hurts you. Experience will help."
RICK MAST, NO. 14 CONSECO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"We kind of struggled all day today. The guys changed engines and we picked up a lot from where we practiced. But I don't know if it was the speed of the car going that much quicker or if the track changed, but the car way, way, way too tight. The bad news is we didn't run as quick as we would have liked to. The good news is there is a lot of speed left in that car yet. That's the good part. If you qualify like that and you're maxed out, then you are really concerned. The good part is there is a lot more speed there yet." (ON HIS FIRST DAY WITH THE TEAM) "It's been pretty good. Everybody worked hard. A.J., Waddell, everybody is right in the middle of this thing. We took a car that wasn't fast enough there to begin with and got it to at least a respectable speed. I wish it could have been faster, but we know what we kind of did wrong a little bit so we can make it better. It's just a matter of getting after it now."
Text provided by Al Larsen
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