NASCAR WCUP: Driver Quotes, Richmond Qualifying
6 May 2000
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (7th):
"This is going to be a lot better than we've been the last five weeks in
a
row. It's probably going to be decent from that standpoint. I think
we'll
be lucky to stay in the top six with that. But I do think it will be good
enough to get into the top 10. That will be a pretty good starting spot
for
us tomorrow night. We've got the exact same package that we had last
year.
That's the thing that's helping us. All the variables are exactly same
form
when we were here last year."WARD BURTON, NO. 22 CATERPILLAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (13th): "The car feels good. Even the first time out we were 14th (in practice) and I told Tommy (Baldwin), 'I don't really care what that time sheet is saying because the car feels good.' If we can start out tomorrow morning something like the way this car is feeling and work on it, I really think we've got a good opportunity for a good run here at Richmond tomorrow night."
BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (9th): "I thought I screwed up pretty bad. I was real high up in the corner and I thought it was real slow. It felt like about a 22.20 (seconds) and we ran a 21.80, so I've already apologized (to the team). They said, 'No, it's a little better than you thought. It's a 21.80,' so I said, 'Oh, OK. Well then never mind.' We've been struggling in qualifying the last few weeks, so it's better than we have been. It's a good job by the guys working on it. If you keep working hard, things will come out for you. Maybe we'll get back on track."
JOHN ANDRETTI, NO. 43 STP/CHEERIOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (12th): "That was a great lap. I'm really happy with it. That's the best lap we ran by far all day. I'm really happy with the lap. I came by and saw we were seventh and figured somebody was joking because I took Kyle's advice and didn't try to overdrive the car, and the car ran perfect." (COULD HE BE A DARK HORSE TO WIN THE PONTIAC EXCITEMENT 400) "I always hate to be a dark horse. I'd rather be a shining white horse, but we'll take it anyway we can get it. I think if we run good like we should, then yeah. There are a lot of Pontiacs up front there. It would be nice for one of the Pontiacs to win the race for Pontiac."
JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 LYCOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (23rd): "We're real happy with the time. It's just...man, we've been struggling all day. The guys probably worked harder here this weekend than they have all year just trying to get this Lycos Pontiac to run a little bit better. We've been struggling. But we made some changes, got a little better, made some more changes, got a little bit better, and even then we were like 35th on the sheet. But we thought we'd be OK for qualifying. I just had to drive the crap out of it and see what happened. Of course going late helped us. We're real happy with that."
KEN SCHRADER, NO. 36 M&M'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (34th): "It was better than we had run. But, boy, it wasn't good. It was just tight. It didn't want to turn. It was real tight. Like I said, it was better than we had run, but it wasn't what we were looking for - not that we thought we were going to be 'killer' but we thought we could run a 21.90 (seconds).
MIKE BLISS, NO. 27 VIAGRA PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (40th): "We've just sucked since we unloaded. We've been loose in, pushing off. That isn't going to do it. It's too bad. We've been working hard. But we didn't get a chance to test here. We didn't have enough cars and it's killing us."
DAVE BLANEY, NO. 93 AMOCO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (32nd): "That was about the same we ran in practice. If you hit a real good first lap you can kind of go for it on the second. I missed it a little bit on the first so I had to be a little cautious and just try to get a good lap the second. That's not bad. The team needs to have a good race here this weekend. Hopefully we can get it."
RICK MAST, NO. 14 CONSECO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX (39th): "For whatever reason the car was a little bit tight when we qualified. We started out as one of the slowest cars here, the guys kept working and we ended up about mid-pack by the end of practice. We're kind of disappointed. We thought we had more speed than that. But we'll take it and go with it."
Text provided by Al Larsen
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