NASCAR WCUP: Fontana Qualifying Notes and Quotes, Pontiac Drivers
29 April 2000
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
WARD BURTON, NO. 22 CATERPILLAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
"That could have been a lot better. The guys have done a super on the
car.
We got the car better all day. We just bottomed out real bad down there
in
turn one. I drove it in a little bit harder like I always do to try to go
fast. That probably cost us at least two tenths, maybe more. But that
ought to give us a good starting spot. We've got a great race car. I'm
really excited about our chances on Sunday."RICK MAST, NO. 14 CONSECO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We were slow off the truck and we've been slow all day. We've gained on it some, and then right before qualifying (crew chief) Philippe (Lopez) and the guys threw a lot of stuff at it. But we went a little bit too far. The car bottomed out real bad in (turn) one. In fact, for about 200 yards I believe the front tires weren't even on the racetrack. That cost us some time. Then that made me not get into (turn) three as hard as I needed to, so we left speed out there. But at least we helped it. That's by far the best we've run all day."
JOHN ANDRETTI, NO. 43 STP/CHEERIOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "I'm real happy with that. We didn't get to do a qualifying run (in practice) because one car crashed and then another car spun in front of me. We were trying a lot of different things. We were doing our test in those three hours. This was the best lap the driver did all day. The car probably has some more in it."
JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 LYCOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "When we were doing our practice run for qualifying, Dave Blaney spun out there. The guy (spotter) yells, 'Oh there wrecking in four. Well, never mind it's clear,' but by then I was all over the brakes going into three at the time. So we really didn't get to run. Actually we thought we were going to be a little bit quicker than this. It should have been quicker as much as it scared me."
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We're not happy. But it's not because we're all not trying. We're all working as hard as we can, and we're just struggling right now. We'll just have to do better tomorrow. There are a lot of things different this year than last year. Hopefully the people that follow us know that there are a lot of variables that are different than last year. It's just frustrating. It's real frustrating when we had the year that we had last year. We really had high expectations. I had high hopes this year. So far, it seems like Friday is the worst day of the week for me. Saturday gets better and Sunday gets even better than that. We just try to get through each Friday and hopefully the weekend gets better from there."
KEN SCHRADER, NO. 36 M&M'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We feel good about it. But I don't know. We've struggled. Either I have forgotten how to qualify or we're just missing something. It's more important to be racing right, but we've got to work on our qualifying some more. It's not like we're not trying. That should be a first round start, and that's a couple weeks in a row - well not quite in a row. But it's at least a couple of good weeks."
BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We started off kind of tight and we made some changes. Now it's just awful loose."
MIKE BLISS, NO. 27 VIAGRA PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: (ON HIS PRACTICE CRASH) "It's frustrating. I feel bad. I don't care about myself. It's those guys working on it that I feel bad for. They've got enough junk at the shop at the shop right now to repair. I'm sore, but I don't car about myself right now. I just want to make the show."
Text provided by Al Larsen
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