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NASCAR WCUP: Watkins Glen Post Race Notes, Pontiac Drivers

14 August 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

MIKE BLISS, NO. 27 VIAGRA PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(ON WHAT HAPPENED) "We just lost a motor. It's the first time all year. We were running awful good and getting better and better. We were really good on long runs. We were killing them up the hill. This Pontiac would really hunt up the hill. It's just like every car I've ever run for Barry (Dodson) here. They handle all the same and they are real good. It was real fun to race out there."

(ON WHY HIS TWO BEST PERFORMANCES HAVE BEEN ON ROAD COURSES THIS YEAR) "I'm not a road course specialist. I just want to race. It's just that our road race stuff is awful good and I just have a lot of fun."

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"We had a good race car. Really the '20' car (Tony Stewart) deserves a lot of credit because they came up and tested, and it was a lot different set-up than we ran here last year. Being limited practice, we took what they had and made it work.

"This Interstate Batteries Pontiac ran good all day. I just tried to be careful and yet, be aggressive at the same time. That's kind of hard to do. It was a lot of fun. We had a good day here. We ran up front all day, which is what we needed. Track position was important."

(ON NOT GETTING OFF TRACK TODAY) "That's how you keep good track position is to stay on the track. We did that all day. The tire was really good and it stuck all day. We ran laps there at the end as fast as I ran at the beginning.

"It's just good that we finished ahead of the '88' and the '3' car had trouble. We notched a top five and that's what we needed to do. This is one bullet that I wanted to dodge."

(ON HAVING A GOOD RUN ON A ROAD COURSE) "It was a real good run for us. We needed a good run and it was a good top five run. Both road races this year we've finished in the top five, so that's good. We needed that. I can't say enough about the guys. They prepared a great, brand new race car for Sears Point. We finished fourth out there and fifth here, so hey, it's a good day."

(ON NOT KNOWING WHAT TO EXPECT TODAY) "With limited practice, it was kind of hard to tell. I didn't know what we were going to do. I felt like it was going to be pretty good, but we had a new tire and we didn't test here. With limited practice, you just didn't know it was going to do after 10 or 11 laps."

(ON THE POINTS BATTLE) "It was a good day for us, no doubt about it. We just know that we've got to keep doing that no matter where we go. There could be a day when we don't expect it that something could happen. Any day you finish in the top five I think it's good, especially for me on a road course."

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 AARON'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"We just struggled all day. I think the car was good. We just fought brake problems all day long. I thought they were cured, but then one time I just didn't have any front brakes and it got me off the racetrack. I couldn't stop and that hurt us. But all in all, I think everybody did a good job. I think the car is good. We've just got one area we need to work on."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"It's too bad we had the incident with the '24' car (Jeff Gordon) on the second lap because I know we had a great car. I thought I had given him enough room, but I guess I didn't. I didn't hurt the car too much, but enough to keep us from staying near the front all day.

"The crew gave me great pit stops all day and really gained us a ton of track position. Considering we had to come all the way from the back, sixth isn't a bad finish."

WARD BURTON, NO. 22 CATERPILLAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We needed a run going like that. The last couple weeks we hadn't run like we wanted. Since Daytona we haven't gotten some good finishes. We've stumbled. We've made some of our own mistakes, but we'll had to Michigan and get it turned around."

RICK MAST, NO. 14 CONSECO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(DID THEY MAKE THE MOST OF THEIR OPPORTUNITY TO RACE AFTER STARTING BY VIRTUE OF QUALIFYING DRAW) "Yeah, probably. We didn't get as much out of it as we wanted to. But the car was tight all day. It was tight in practice yesterday. We couldn't ever get it freed up enough. We changed it before the race this morning, it still wasn't good enough, changed it during the race and still didn't get it free enough. But we'll take it."

KEN SCHRADER, NO. 36 M&M'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"That was nothing to write home about. We just survived. We were having a little bit of a brake problem - not bad, but enough. I threw away four spots at the end, but that's all we had."

Text provided by Al Larsen

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