Ernie Irvan #28 Texaco/Havoline Thunderbird
"Childress said Earnhardt's ignition went out. Something happened off four. I thought he pushed real bad and I came up on him and I lifted, and then it looked like, 'OK, now he's going again,' and about right here at the start-finish line, it was like he shut the switch off. I hit him and then somebody hit me from behind. Oh, well. You've got to worry about things you can change. It's not like there's anything you can do, you know?"
YOU, JEFF GORDON AND RUSTY WALLACE - ALL PRE-SEASON TITLE FAVORITES - HAVE HAD PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF TODAY'S RACE. ANY THOUGHTS?
"Well, you know, when a guy has a problem, you'd rather the guy who had the problem be the one who suffers, but there's nothing you can do. It's part of it. I'd rather be out there racing wide open, but they'll try to fix it and we'll go back and just run for some points."
Derrike Cope #12 Straight Arrow Thunderbird
"I was fighting a real bad push. It's a common problem for everybody today. The car wouldn't turn. I had it (the steering wheel) turned all the way to the left. Cars get underneath you and that causes a lot of problems. I don't know what happened. It just wouldn't turn coming off the corner (four) -- I'm not sure if it was a tire going down or a push. I got off the gas but still couldn't turn it. I brushed the wall and I couldn't keep it from turning around. The car drove so good in practice the past few days I thought we were in real good shape. But in the draft the car just started pushing.
John Andretti #37 Kmart/Little Caesars Thunderbird
"We got a little behind after that one pit stop -- I had a loose right rear tire -- and when we came back out we needed to get ahead of him (leader Bill Elliott) and get a yellow. Unfortunately we ended up being the yellow. It's unfortunate. We've got to throw this one (car) away but we've got some more purple ones back at the shop. I thought we had a real good shot at it. It just depended on us getting back on the lead lap. We just needed to climb back through. We had been a little bit loose off the corners. I don't know if I got loose first or I got touched first -- it really doesn't matter.
The end result isn't a good one. You get off the lead lap, you lose all your friends. This is what you need to do every race if you're going to have a chance of winning any, and we intend to win some with Kmart and Little Caesars some time throughout the year. It would have been nice to start with the Daytona 500. We had a real strong car. It's unfortunate, but we have next weekend.
Mark Martin #6 Valvoline Thunderbird
"I'm tickled to death. I didn't have a real fast race car and I had a couple of boys try to wreck me pretty hard and I dodged a lot of big bullets today. I had some good cooperation from Ted and Jeff and all three Roush cars came home in the top-10. We'll take that. We didn't have anything like the speed the 88 and 28 had today."
KEN SCHRADER SAID YOU AND HE HAD A PLAN TO OVERTAKE THOSE TWO UP FRONT
"Well, yeah, but we just couldn't do it. We didn't have enough speed. Kenny was real strong and I had Jeff Burton there behind me and Jeff was pretty good and we were looking good, but there was so much blocking going on by that black car than Kenny never got a chance to go. It got pretty wild there that last lap. It was going to cause a wreck if Kenny had decided to go. We'll take a fourth-place finish today."
Ted Musgrave #16 Family Channel/Primestar Thunderbird
"The new rules sure keep things tight, don't they? I don't know what it's like for the fans, but for the drivers, it's more nerve-wracking than anything, because you're always bunched up. That's OK, if the drivers use a lot of patience. More patience than ever has to be applied out there, and I think everybody kind of realizes that, because there wasn't a whole lot of wrecking, like there could have been. I actually think the guys did one heck of a job under the new rules and conditions we ran in. As long as the guys don't lose that before we go to Talladega and back here again, we'll be all right. It's good for competition and it looks good for keeping the excitement going. As long as the drivers keep their patience and keep calm and run like they did, we'll be OK."
Jeff Burton #99 Exide Batteries Thunderbird
"I'm real happy the way we ran. The car was good all day long. This is the best Winston Cup car I've ever had, no doubt. Patience really was important. You had to stay with the right person. The cars were so equal it was hard to pass. Usually, you think about making your move with a lap to go. Here, you need (to go with) two to go so you can get enough momentum. The driver got the car to the front but the driver also got the car to the back. Three months ago we had no people, no tools, no cars. I don't think anybody's come as far as we have.
Jack Roush Car Owner of #6, #16 and #99 Thunderbirds
"I'm really proud of everybody. They all did real solid jobs on their cars, good solid engines. The guys raced smart all day. Our pit stops have a little ways to go, but everybody's due this early in the year. We'll go on to Rockingham from here. That's pretty good for us in the Daytona 500, figuring we don't usually do well down here. "
Wally Dallenbach #16 Hayes Modem Thunderbird
NOTE: It was announced on that Hayes Modem has signed a season-long deal to sponsor the Bud Moore Engineering team.
"I knew if I could get with a good outfit, that we could do this. I begged Bud and Ford Motor Company, everybody that got me into this situation. I feel we're communicating really well together, and that's 90 percent of it.
"HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FACT YOU HAD A CHANCE TO WIN TODAY'S DAYTONA 500?
"Well, I think there's only one guy here that's not a little bit disappointed and that's Dale (JARRETT). He did a great job. I wish we could've stayed in line, stayed a little bit tighter the last few laps. We kind of got broken away the last lap or two. Coming off a finish like this, we're not going to hang our heads about that."
DID YOU FEEL LIKE A LONGSHOT?
"I knew we had a chance at winning, sure. Anything can happen, and we had a good race car and it was drafting well. Now, we're in it for the long haul, hopefully, to get into every race and go for the championship. This team's got a good short track program. That's going to be good for me. And we're looking forward to getting to some of these other race tracks. We know we've got a good road course program and a good superspeedway program. It's those races in the middle we've got to see what we've got."
Bud Moore Car Owner of #15 Thunderbird
"This was a helluva day: getting our sponsor to sign on for the year this morning and start the race and run as good as we ran today -- I'm just really proud of Wally. We got th car adjusted for him toward the end. On the deal with Earnhardt and the 28 car, that bent the front of the hood and knocked a big hole in the front of the car. It bent the hood down and caused the car to push too much. We never got got it right, but we got it better and we're really pleased to finish sixth.
Bill Elliott #94 McDonalds Thunderbird
"We shouldn't have changed four tires on that last stop. I had to race every guy up through there three or four times. I'm surprised we finished where we did. But, the car ran good and handled really good. I could go anywhere I wanted to go. That's the most fun I've had in a long time. From where we were here a year ago, we've come a long way. We had a much better car today, but we came up a little short. I mean, that's the breaks. We survived, and that's a big plus for us. We can go into Rockingham and feel pretty good about things. At least we can get out of this restrictor plate racing for a while. "
Michael Waltrip #21 CITGO Thunderbird
"Well, Cheeser-Cheeser spun out and I was right on him and hit him. It was obvious the Wood Brothers have been here for about a hundred years, because they got my car fixed. I mean, it was a wreck, they got it tuned up, and I was running in the top-five late in the race. With that cosmetic damage, I was just kind of at the will of the people around me. Mark and his teammate decided to hook a left and when they went under me, they all went by me. We didn't have that fast of a car, especially after the wreck. The tire was rubbing and it was starting to push, so I guess we should be thankful for what we got, because we sure looked like we were out of the race for a moment. But the Wood boys gave us a second chance. It was real gratifying to get back up there. I just hate we got shuffled out, but it's pretty hard to beat those teammates - even if they're providing us our engines."
Ricky Rudd #10 Tide Thunderbird
"We were real good at about the halfway point, but chassis got away from us a little bit. I didn't "want to put any spoiler on it. We finally got it right at the end of the race, but we couldn't get any track position out of it. All things considered, when all the smoke clears, that's not too bad. We had a better car than that, but I'm sure everybody in the garage probably feels the same way. What hurt us was the middle part of the race, and then the track position at the end of the race. I didn't exactly choose the right line a couple of times either, but that's not too bad to have a top-10 and go to Rockingham with it."
Rusty Wallace #2 Miller Thunderbird
"It means a lot to finish the damn thing, I'll tell you that, because a lot of the guys we'll have to race for points had problems today. It feels good to get this behind me. We need to work harder on our engines. And we got the whole right side of the car torn off in a wreck early, and I'm sure that had to hurt it aerodynamically, but it handled perfect today. It handled real good."
ABOUT THE ACCIDENT
"I just kind of slid around in the grass, got back on the track and that was it."
Geoff Bodine #7 QVC Thunderbird
"I ran out of gas earlier and got a lap down. It was my fault because I just stayed out too late. (On accident coming off turn four.) I was just trying to save gas and make it till the end. Coming off the corner we all got jammed up, I bumped into Lake Speed -- I don't know if he got sideways or came up in front of me or what -- and caused a helluva wreck! That was a hard hit. The only good thing about wrecking at this time of the race is beating the traffic home. It's not a very good way to start out (the season). We'll get rolling next week.
Morgan Shepherd #75 Remington Thunderbird
"The car was good sometimes and sometimes it wasn't. We had a bad pushing problem, that's why I was backing up. (On accident coming off turn four with Nos. 7, 9, 33, 44, 43, 97.) That's what happens with restrictor plate racing -- nobody gives and everybody takes.
Jimmy Spencer #23 Camel Thunderbird
"It was pretty eventful the whole day. This was the most competitive Daytona 500 I've ever seen. There was a lot of give and take but some of the guys in the spotters' stand were not paying attention. We were two or three cars wide all day out there. Nobody wanted to go with me. Maybe they will, eventually. I'm happy with where we finished but we really were better than that.
Lake Speed #9 Spam Thunderbird
"It was a day of adjustments for us. We had to work on the car all day long to keep it in the lead draft. We have a new crew chief, new engine program, new team members -- so to come away with this kind of a run is kind of beyond my expectations. The Lord kept us out of serious trouble today. On that one (Turn four with Geoff Bodine), I thought I had him cleared but I must not have because all of a sudden I was turning around. I had just made a real aggressive move to the bottom to pick up a couple positions. You had to take them when you could get them today. We got a good finish out of it.
Brett Bodine #11 Lowes Thunderbird
"Each time we had a misfortune, the guys (Bodine Racing team) brought out a better car. It's a great group of guys. I knew they'd give me a car that would get me to the front. We just made a mistake and I lost a lot of track position. People figure that they can run three-wide. That's what causes a wreck. I wish they'd learn. The speeds are down but the draft is strong and it sucks 'em up (into each other).
Mike Wallace #90 Heilig-Myers Thunderbird
"The top of the race track stacked up so I went to the bottom. I kind of had a little run there but when I got into the middle of the corner I got loose. (causing accident that involved Nos. 18, 19 and 11). When I got it gathered back up it felt like a tire was flat or something. Then, everything started happening. It's a shame we took some other cars out with us. That's the worst part of it.I tried to be patient, but I guess I wasn't patient enough.
Loy Allen #19 Healthsource Thunderbird
"A car got sideways in front of me and I got pinned against the wall. I couldn't get away from it. When you have 30 cars in the lead draft and everybody is so equal if somebody has a problem you're bound to get caught up in it. We showed today we can run with them. Nobody's to blame, we were all just racing really hard and really close.
Dick Trickle #63 Purina Hi-Pro Thunderbird
"We've got something wrong in the ignition. We put a new motor in this morning and we were real excited about the possibilities. It's a short day for us.
