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NASCAR BGN: Ward Burton crashes while leading in final laps of Auto Club 300

30 April 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

WARD BURTON, NO. 22 POLARIS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(ON HIS CRASH WHILE LEADING) "I'm not really sure (what happened). I don't know if I lost it or what. (Crew chief) Tommy Baldwin jus told me that he thought the axle might have broke. I'm not really sure. Either way it's pretty disappointing for us. I was a little loose all day. It came around real quick and I thought I had it saved for a minute, and then it flipped around on me. I feel real bad for Polaris. They are a great sponsor for us on the '22' Busch as well as the '22' Winston Cup car. We were giving it everything we had. We'll do better for them next time. I don't know if we had it won. But we maybe had a good opportunity for it."

(ON GAINING CONFIDENCE FOR TOMORROW'S RACE) "We adjusted on it all day. We'll use some of what we learned today for tomorrow. We've got a really good piece for tomorrow. We'll be ready to go for tomorrow."

(ON TWO-TIRE STOP STRATEGY TODAY AND TOMORROW) "You're going to see some two-tire - oh yeah. It looked like the two-tire (strategy) worked good for awhile and then the four-tire (strategy) came on a little bit later. It's all how your car is set up."

DAVE BLANEY, NO. 20 AT&T PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"We wanted to run good and I thought during 'Happy Hour' we had a car that could run up front. The first run during the race we ran up to about 10th from 28th and the car was going good. Then we just got so loose throughout the whole middle of the race, and then that last stop we got tight again. We just got real loose and I couldn't run the thing hard enough. At the end we got back good again. We just missed it. I haven't driven the car any and we didn't know what to do. But it was a pretty good day though."

Text provided by Al Larsen

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