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NASCAR WCUP: John Andretti Quotes from Winston Cup Preview

10 January 2001

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43) Cheerios

We're going to kick things off this morning with Mr. John Andretti - he's going to be one of the new Dodge boys this year driving the 43 Cheerios - it's hard to say Dodge he was with Pontiac so long with Petty Enterprises. Maybe he'll give us an update on the shake down on the Dodge right now and how we're looking going into Daytona 500.

The last time I drove a Dodge was at Charlotte and I drove a couple of different cars, were mostly during at that point it was a lot of engine, a lot of liability stuff and I tested at Homestead a Dodge versus one of our Pontiac and then this will be the first time I'll be back in a Dodge tomorrow and as a matter of fact, everybody will be in a Dodges tomorrow out of Vegas, so we've got a lot of programs coming along. It's just as hard to say Dodge as it is to say Cheerios when you've been used to saying Pontiac so Cheerios and Dodge you might as well change everything at time so I think we're going to be alright.

It's like a totally new start with Buck Shot coming on board with Petty Enterprises this year. Your outlook - you finished 23rd in the points last year maybe a little disappointing - disappointing for you...

No, no I'm excited about 23rd in the points. I don't ever look at the points. I mean I think that Winston Cup Championship. It doesn't really matter what the points are. I think that the wins are what's important and we were no where near that last year. I mean we had a couple of good races but we just -we really struggled last year for a lot of reasons and you know I think that we spent more time in the wind tunnel with this Dodge that we've ever done with any of our Pontiacs ever if you put all the time together. And our new program I think has come a long way in a short period of time with the Dodge so we got a lot of different people on board like different ideas and a lot o things going around but all the guys who are working on the Dodge on the body, you know Ray got - we worked really well with Ray Everham and Bill Davis Racing and I think a lot of people identify Ray as being the guy behind the Dodge program, but Petty Enterprises had a lot to do with it. And a lot of our people were involved in it and it pooled a lot of our resources away from our existing programs. I mean I ran the same cars for every race because for one, I wasn't crashing but two, you know were we just didn't have time to do much else. I mean we were really focused on what was coming because rather than have two half way mediocre teams, you might as well have one bad one and then gear for the next one and hopefully last year was the bad one.

How about the Dodge test this weekend?

Well we're taking four cars out to Vegas and the fourth one will be Grissom and he's going to be doing nothing but reliability stuff and we've done a lot of reliability runs. We've done 500 of 600 miles on engines consequently just do it and rebuild it and do and so I have feel pretty good about it but now we're trying to push harder to make more power and then when you try to make more power you start losing your reliability but that hasn't been the case with us so far.

What about the Daytona Talladega restrictor plate engine program?

That's a good question. You know that's coming from a different place and we're doing different things with that but that I have very little knowledge about because we haven't spent near as much time because our main thing - we did run you know they've obviously run at Daytona and Talladega with it so it's not like we're just starting today but I haven't done any of those tests and my concern is that the majority of races although I'd love to win the Daytona 500, but I'd rather win 32 other races and I think people would be more impressed with that although I'd be real impressed with it. I'd be really impressed with anybody who did that.

Are you working with other Dodge teams?

I think it goes more along the lines of our people talked with each other and we share wind tunnel time with them and if they can come to our wind tunnel stuff that Dodges is supporting and we go to theirs and we trade a lot of information although they have different ideas from what we have sometimes and when it comes right down to it, I mean ultimately you have to make your own programs so there again probably last month or so we've sort of gone ... everybody's gone more their own way although we do share information on reliability and things like that because what's good for one is good for all. If we find something and don't share with them then they're going to find something and not share with us and if we can come out of the box and be reliable that's going to be the most important thing to start with because if you don't run any races you can't figure out what you need to do to get better.

Have you done any testing on the hard tires or hard compound or has it all been on the ones of the past? Everybody's saying it's going to slow these cars down. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Well, I look at it that we're going to be testing the first time at Vegas because we'll have this year's tire at Vegas. It's going to be on the current tire. From what I understand there's no sense in going to Vegas and testing it if you're going to be on last year's tire. I haven't done any other running on the tire up to this point and I don't know if anybody else has except for maybe if they've had some other teams out there testing it but anytime you take away grip it's going to slow us down you know. I'm all for having a mechanical grip and taking error away because it's gets to be like Formula One if you've got nothing but aerodynamics and you got less mechanical grip.

What should the new tires accomplish?

It's like going with tires through Formula One and more digital task I think going harder -tires is going to make it more difficult as well. It's going to accomplish a lot because it's going to slow down the corner speeds but the tires is the easiest way to do it. I mean in all honestly, because not only do they make the tire I think safer but you know they can do that just regular compound so it's a much quicker fix than saying ok this is what we're going to do and I think that's what they're looking at is ok let's get started and then we'll work on other things. Just like Talladega this year I mean that was a pretty radical change for the second race and I see probably a lot more of that thinking in the future.

When was it that you tested both the Pontiac and Dodge at the same time and how close were they?

I did that at Homestead and Bobby Labonte came over because he was in - everybody was in Homestead - they could have started a race we were all going to throw a hundred bucks in and start a race. I think that Bobby came over and he said so how does it compare to Pontiac? And I said I don't know let me drive yours. And so that's - it's hard to say because it's apples and oranges for us at that point because we'd spent a lot more time with the Dodge than the Pontiac and we've gotten a lot more support from Dodge than Pontiac at that point obviously for obvious reasons. I mean one's come in and one's going out and Pontiac's been great to us but you know when you're leaving the house you know.....

Two part question if I might...many, many years ago Richard had such success with Dodge I have just have to wonder can anything carry over from the things he used to do so long ago with so much success and secondly your inner feelings about going with Dodge. You have to be excited because it seems like it's going to be a successful program with their attitude.

I think Dodge has always been successful in racing; all the manufacturers have in a way. I think that they're known as you know as being pretty aggressive and some of the manufacturer's are more conservative than others. I think Dodge is more on that aggressive side for performance. And as far as Petty Enterprises you know Richard Petty and his success with Dodge, I've been trying to tell everybody don't expect 200 wins out of the next 300 races you know. I mean I think that a lot of Richard's fans have really high expectations for us and it's going to be very difficult...I mean we're coming into this program and I think if we can win a race I would really happy if we won 2 and I would be obviously happy and it goes on and on. I don't know that any Dodges are going to be running for the championship this year but we're not in that mode. We're in the mode that we went under a sort of reorganization and there's the man who can tell you all about that but you a lot of other things you know so we're in the mode of trying to win races rather than you know the big picture is for the down the road.

What do you expect out of the Daytona testing. Now you got the Fords and Chevrolets going to be down there and Pontiacs first I guess to give you some speed lines. Are you expecting Daytona testing to be just like a search for qualifying speed or is anybody going to do any work on actually getting ready for the race or is going to be just another exercise and just buy you enough speed to win the pole?

It's all just a speed deal. Because you got 16 billion hours before you race and then you gotta race before you race, so you got it made from that stand point so you go down and you just want to have a really quick qualifying speed so if you get in the 125 like I think I have in the last four or five years, and something happens you've got something to fall back on and you want to be sure to begin the Daytona 500 - you can't win it from watching it you know. Todd calls it the circle. You've got to be in the circle on Sunday.

How's the new baby and how are you going

The new baby's great. Amelia is coming right along. She's never been very tall so she hasn't grown much, but you know that's an Andretti thing, but other than that she's sleeping through the night although I didn't know that when she wasn't, so you know things haven't changed much for me other than she eats a lot more so you know Dad's got to drive a lot harder. You know baby food's not cheap. We need to get Gerber on the side of the cars.

Text Provided By Marie Mason

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