NASCAR Cup
Chicagoland: GM teams qualifying quotes
Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Drivers Occupy Front Row For USG Sheetrock 400 Chicagoland Speedway *** JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS POLE WINNER I'll be honest with you, I don't know if that's going to do it ...
Published: Jul 8, 2006, 5:31 PM
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Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Drivers Occupy Front Row For USG Sheetrock 400
Chicagoland Speedway
***
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS
POLE WINNER
I'll be honest with you, I don't know if that's going to do it but that's all we had today. I know the track's going to get faster. But we're happy. Everyone on this team's been doing such a great job and we got a great qualifying in, which we've been waiting for all year long. It's a great thing because I'm not good at it. The car really drives well and a feel proud for all our guys.
THIS TRACK IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT THAN ALL OF THE OTHER MILE-AND-A-HALFERS: "It really is. It's developed over the years into a really fun racetrack. As the track has gotten older, it's gotten better, which is typically what happens. I expect on Sunday to see a really good race. This garage is full of really good race teams and there's a tremendous amount of desire and dedication. Everybody's here to beat each other so that's what it takes to have a good race."
***
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS
QUALIFIED 34th
ON YOUR QUALIFYING LAPS: "Not too good, the car was better than I was. Just messed up. We've proven we can start last here and finish in the top five so we're not too worried about it. We made a mistake coming from the Busch car back to the Cup car and just driving it a little bit like the Busch car. Just made a driver error, it was my fault."
DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING TO GET OUT OF THE GRANDSTANDS LAST SATURDAY? THE FANS WERE LOVING YOU. "It didn't matter to me, I didn't care how long it lasted. I was up as long as they were going to be up. It was a lot of fun."
WAS THIS THE LAST FLAGSTAND CLIMB? "No, that's not the last one by any means. I don't know where that rumor started. I must have said something that got misunderstood. I said if it's going to kill me I'll have to stop sometime but as long as the fans enjoy it like they did that night I'll keep doing it."
CAN YOU COMPARE THIS YEAR TO LAST YEAR? "Well, it's hard to believe it's going to be exactly like that and it hasn't been. It's just a matter of just going out and doing are job. As much as we want to do exactly what we did last year, it's a different year and we have to treat it as such."
HOW HAS RACING AT THIS TRACK CHANGED SINCE 2001? "It just keeps getting better and better and that's the great thing about it. Everybody was really harsh on the place when we first came here. But as every year that goes by the group moves up higher and higher and you can race on this track now. In practice we all run around the bottom. When the race starts we start moving up and down the race track and we do a lot of passing."
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO HAVE TWO WINS AT THIS POINT? "I think the most important thing is not so much the wins, it's just how we're running. Knowing that we're capable of winning races at this point in the season is the most important thing right now. Whether you get stats in the 'win' column or not, I'd rather have more top-fives than I would wins right now.
"We had one good week at Daytona last week so you have to take it a week at a time right now. This is obviously a stretch of tracks that we look forward to but there's no guarantees it's going to be like last year and after a bad race at Sonoma and a bad one at Michigan, Daytona was what we needed but there's no guarantee that it's going to be good here this week."
***
ROBBY GORDON, NO. 7 JIM BEAM CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS
QUALIFIED 30th
ON YOUR QUALIFYING LAPS: That should keep us somewhere around 20th. We worked on race setup most of the first practice and spent about 15 minutes on qualifying. That's kind of been our motto lately. We've been trying to focus on having good races on Sunday. It's a decent qualifying. Anytime you qualify somewhere around Tony (Stewart) you should be happy because he always races good; we ought to be able to follow him to the front."
***
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO SS
QUALIFIED 5th
ON YOUR LAP: "It wasn't perfect. I was very committed to the lap but I just didn't get through the corners as smoothly as I needed to. Still a great effort by the Lowe's Monte Carlo SS and now I'm looking forward to Sunday."
WHAT'S THE SECRET TO STAYING ON TOP IN THIS RACE? "It's really the same stuff. A good starting spot always gets the right track position. Good pit stops. Track position is really important with mile-and-a-half tracks and above. The track position is key but you have to have a good car to stay up there as well."
-gm racing-
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