Pontiac Racing quotes - Winston Cup qualifying, Las Vegas
3 March 2000
NOTES AND QUOTES; WINSTON CUP QUALIFYING; MARCH 3, 2000; BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "It's just a deal where I finally figured out what was going on. I've been kind of lost all morning trying to get a good feel for the racetrack and haven't really gotten to drive my line like I want to or maybe the line that I need. We've got us a good race car. It's the same one we had at Homestead, although they were all good. It didn't matter where they were. We'll just keep working on it and make it better. We got a little more out of qualifying than we thought we'd get. I was worried before I went out. I didn't think I had any left. I figured I was about tapped out on possibilities here to go faster. But the track has cooled off some and we did make one change to the car between last practice and this run, so maybe that helped a little bit. We're just trying to get off in the right direction. We just haven't really been that good since we got here. But we've been working at it and working at it, and we got better as we went. Thank goodness. I was afraid we wouldn't be in the top 25, so I'm kind of surprised. I guess it's kind of stupid now that I thought that. But that was a great effort by all the guys. It really was." JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 LYCOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "I'm still scared. We were watching in the truck and everybody was picking up six tenths, seven tenths, and I said, 'You've got to be kidding me,' and (crew chief) James (Ince) said, 'You can do it. They put fences around here to keep you inside, so just go for it.' That's what we did. I'm still shaking. I went to lift into three and I went back to the floor with it and said, 'Man, I hope it sticks,' and it did. I was pretty fortunate. This was one heck of a job by all the guys on this Lycos Pontiac. We certainly didn't expect that time. When we unloaded we thought we were going to be pretty good, but then our times just didn't show good and didn't show good. And then everybody starting picking up six tenths and it was making me nervous. But we felt the car was going to be pretty good. Like I said, I went to lift going into three and it started to come off the floor, and I put it back down there for another 50 feet. I probably shouldn't have, but I did and it ended up sticking. I was pretty happy for that." TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "That is as fast as this Home Depot Pontiac has been all day. All the guys just kept working. I started out the day pretty bad. I was one of the slowest guys on the racetrack. They were patient with me in letting me get caught up. We were one of very few teams that didn't come here and test, so it hurt us probably more than it hurt anybody else. If we can stay in top 20 and get through this first round...we had a pretty good race car here last year so I'm pretty confident we can put a good race package under it." JEFF FULLER, NO. 27 VIAGRA PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "That was a (31.) '79' which is a little more than sixth tenths quicker than we've been all day. I just drove it into the corner. The last thing I wanted to do here was wreck something before qualifying. We've usually always picked up a little bit in qualifying - not quite that much. I don't honestly know where all that came from. We always leave a little bit of insurance, but I don't know about all that much. That was as much as I could get out of it." KEN SCHRADER, NO. 36 M&M'S PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "I've got the feel that I like. I'm just not getting the speed that I like. But we've going to be in a lot better shape than we were last week, but it sure ain't where we wanted to be." (ON SUNDAY) "I don't think you really pick where you are going to want to run. But when we were out here testing we were one of the very best cars in runs, and I never could make a qualifying lap of any significance. I've got no reason to believe that we won't be good." WARD BURTON, NO. 22 CATERPILLAR PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We're not really good on our qualifying set-up right now. We'll be good on Sunday, though." (PICKING A LINE TO RUN ON SUNDAY) "Some guys like the bottom and some like the top. I'm going to reveal which one I like Sunday during the race." DAVE BLANEY, NO. 93 AMOCO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "I was loose - loose enough to hurt me. I hope it's good enough to get in. I don't know. It will probably be close. It was mostly three and four that hurt me. I was loose a little bit all over, but it was three and four that hurt me the most as far as being out of the throttle. I don't know. I just couldn't get going any better. We were way off." JOHN ANDRETTI, NO. 43 STP/CHEERIOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: (ON BLOWING HIS ENGINE DURING QUALIFYING) "I knew it was happening. All you can do is get down out of the groove as quick as you can, and that's about all you can do. We'll go on from here. We'll change motors and get her on out tomorrow." KYLE PETTY, NO.44 HOT WHEELS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We've had some tough breaks. Right now we're not positive what it is, and why we've had continuous engine problems. There's nothing we can do but keep digging until we find what has been missing. It's a hard blow to the team. We'll pull together and figure it out. That's what this team does." MIKE BLISS, NO. 14 CONSECO PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: "We hurt a motor in practice and we hurt a motor in qualifying. Evidently when we hurt the motor in practice there must have been something left in the oil line. It felt like it lost a cylinder and we lost a cylinder in the other one, so we've got something wrong somewhere."