NASCAR WCUP: Post Race Notes and Quotes, Pepsi 400, Dale Jarrett
2 July 2000
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
DALE JARRETT --88-- Quality Care Service/Ford Credit Taurus
-- "First I want to congratulate Jeff Burton who did a great job
there. He really knew what to do with his car there. It was fast through
the corners and he blocked the race track like he should. Congratulations
to him and his team. We had a great car. Everything was going just as
planned. We had trouble with a lugnut and things are gonna happen. We got
back there, but worked our way back up. We just couldn't get anybody to
give you that little push that I needed to maybe try to make a run at
Jeff, but his car was awful strong. It was a really good run for us. I'm
really proud of this team that they could build another car like that one
sitting over at Daytona USA. At least we made a run at it. We didn't quite
get three in a row, but we made a run at it." DID YOU NEED A PUSH? "I thought I had it at one time, that Rusty was gonna give me that on the restart there. I got a really good run, but it just wasn't quite enough. I started to jump out of line, but I just couldn't do it because I was afraid I was gonna lose too much there and it wasn't the time to try to do it. The car drove great. We adjusted on it very little. We had a little bit of tightness behind cars, but we adjusted most of that out. It's another good finish for us. We had to gain some points and that's another good thing."
WHAT ABOUT COMING THROUGH THE PACK? "You've gotta catch the traffic right and get a little bit of help up through there. I had to be patient. I had plenty of time and I just had to work my way there. By the time I got there the tires were pretty well worn, but I just couldn't quite make a run at him."
DID YOU HAVE PLAN TO MOVE ON HIM? "The plan was whenever I got a good push. You can't do it by yourself. It's not like I can just say, 'OK, I'm gonna go right now.' You've gotta wait until you get a good push from somebody and I just never really got that. It looked like Earnhardt's car went away from him some and he couldn't stay up on me enough to push me and then when Rusty got there we just didn't have enough time to do it."
Text Provided By Ford
Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos
and art, visit
The Racing
Photo Museum and the
Visions
of Speed Art Gallery.