RICK MAST (#1 Hooters Pontiac Grand Prix):
"This car hasn't run since we've been here. It hasn't run good at all. We did some crazy stuff this morning to the chassis to try and get it to respond. Basically what happened is that we got the car all out of whack. We got it real soft in the back, kind of like a qualifying setup, and it had the nose in the air too much. It just flat, flat pushed bad the whole time. It ran about two laps ok and then it started pushing real bad. I had to get out of the gas exiting the corners. Other than that, the car was real stable. We wanted to try some shock deals during halftime. We adjusted the shocks.
"We had such a weird spring combination underneath this car just trying to get it to run. The car has got plenty of down force, it's plenty stable. We were just way off on our balance on this car.
"There's a whole lot of potential here (with the new Pontiac). As bad as we had the car out of balance trying to get it to run we still stuck to the race track good, so I know if we get it right it will be good, like my 500 car is going to be.
"I'm pleased. I'm very pleased. As bad as I had the car chassis-wise you could still drive it. We basically had a qualifying type spring setup under it. Everybody knows you use real soft stuff here to qualify. The car hasn't been running so we just tried that to see what it would do. Shoot, you could drive it good. If we had it handling like the 500 car we would have been good.
"I think so far this car (Pontiac) feels better than what I had last year (Ford). Yeah, without a doubt. I'd say we're going to be a force to be reckoned with. I really believe that. This particular car we had some things wrong with it and we couldn't fix it while we were here. It wasn't up to speed. We did some weird things to the chassis. It was kind of like a qualifying deal to make it run good. What it basically did was upset the balance of the car. It's got a terrible push in it because the air was getting too much under the front there. Even with that, the car was awful, awful stable. I've never had a car that was handling as bad as this car that you could still drive it and stay wide open with it.
"I expect to win with that car (Daytona 500 car). That car is awesome. I think if we do the right things with the 500 car, I think we will be a force to be reckoned with because that car is fast. We'll know more after we draft with that car. That car is a lot better than this car, and this car wasn't that bad although I kept getting shuffled back. It wasn't that bad."
KEVIN HAMLIN, crew chief (#1 Hooters Pontiac Grand Prix):
"That was the first time we'd ever had the new car in a race and we don't feel this car is as good as our other one (500 car). We tried some weird things on it to make it perform, and we learned a lot from it today I hope. I hope we learned a lot from this race here that will help us Thursday in the 125. Thursday we'll learn again, hopefully, for the 500. He says it has a lot of potential. As bad as it was pushing and with what he was having to do, he said it drives super.
"Being in this race probably puts us a little ahead for the 125s. You usually run a different setup in this deal because you're only running 10 laps at a time, but you can still learn a lot for Thursday's deal.
"We're hoping that we have too much down force in the new car and that will really help us in the race. Maybe some of these guys will have to bump their spoiler up a little bit whereas we can leave ours at 40 and still run good. We'll just have to play it out a little bit. It looks like it's going to be a real good car."
