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Chevrolet Motorsports - Rockingham Qualifying Quotes

Rockingham, NC

TERRY LABONTE -5- Kellogg's Corn Flakes

"I knew we were pretty good in practice. You never know if you can do it when it comes down to qualifying. Just one slip somewhere can make the difference between first and 10th. I knew we had a good shot at it (pole), but it was a good lap. Every time we go to qualify, our main deal is that we want to be on the main straightaway.

Qualifying is pretty tough, and if we qualify in the top 10 we're pretty happy. It was a great run for us today. We were fast right off the truck. It's a brand new car, a brand new qualifying engine. The bottom line is the guys at Hendrick Motorsports have done a lot of work. Gary DeHart (crew chief) and the guys have built some new cars. The car we ran last week at Daytona was a new one, and it ran great. They've put in a lot of long hours, and it's paid off for us.

"From the few races I've run, it seems like your equipment has a lot to do with it. We've got a great engine program. You can be close a lot of times and never win a pole. We were close a couple of years ago several times and finished second or third. It's tough to win a pole just because the competition is so close.

"Everybody always looks forward to going to Daytona. They put a lot of effort into that and spend a lot of hours and go down to Daytona and test and test and test. You always look forward to going there and then before the week's over, you look forward to getting out of there, too. It's nice to come to other race tracks where things are a little different.

"I've been racing for a long time, and I've never heard of this happening, but we picked up a plastic bag off the race track and it got on the back of the air cleaner. It cut the air off to the engine. There was nothing wrong with the engine. There was nothing wrong with the car. We just picked up a piece of trash off the track. They found it when they took the air cleaner off. At that point, we were four laps down. There was no point trying to get back even one lap. I knew we couldn't make up four. We just rode around after that.

"It's kind of hard to say you're going to have good luck in just one race, but I think the bottom line is that we've got a great team. We came down here and tested. We're probably the only one that came here and tested. We put a lot of effort in Daytona, but we don't feel like we were overlooking the other places."

JEFF GORDON -24- DuPont

" I didn't think we'd get that close, but these guys fought back hard from Daytona. I'm real proud of 'em. To be sitting on the front row with that good of a time, I'm real proud of the team. This team never gets down. We had a lot of confidence last year, and there's no reason why we shouldn't this year. Two Chevys are on the front row, and that means we can run good for one lap. I don't know what's going to happen when we have to run a lot of laps. We've been working on our motors and I think we're better than we've been in the past. I just don't know what's going to happen on the long runs. It's going to be a real tight race.

"It's hard to be disappointed with a qualifying lap like that but we don't like anything less than the pole. We got spoiled last year. Terry was a little bit faster than us all day, but we've got to keep these Chevys up front. I don't know how good we're going to be on those long runs Sunday."

"The motor worked real good today, and it was a real good lap for me. Usually I don't get in a good qualifying lap here, but that's about the best one I've ever had here. I helped Terry out a little bit. I told him what to do. He's running a lot better in his Busch car than I am, so maybe he'll help me out over there. We had a good rally after Daytona. John Wilson and all his guys worked real hard. This is the car we ran at Phoenix last year, and that was about as hard as I could qualify. We'll take it, work on Sunday's setup and hope it's pretty good."

"We picked up a little bit from practice, but not nearly enough. We'll probably have to try again on Saturday."

"We haven't been able to find it yet. We'll change shocks and springs and see if we can gain on it some."

"That's faster than we practiced, but I don't know what else we can do with it. It's going to be bad on those long green-flag runs in the race."

"We lost some time in the first and second turns. We picked up from our best practice run, but we were just a little too tight. I wish we could have been a little faster, but Ray (Evernham) has us on a program. He wants us to qualify in the first round and get some top 10's for awhile. That was a good lap. It'll make the first round safely, so we're OK."

"The car was good right off the trailer. I've got to take my hat off to Bill (crew chief Ingle). We made a little adjustment after our last practice, and it sure worked. We were a little loose in practice, and we picked up about two tenths in qualifying. When it got time to go, we were ready. "

"This is the same car we had here last fall when we qualified in the top 10. We didn't make the top 10 today, but we're real happy We're handling good and running good. We've just got to rebound after Daytona like a lot of other guys."