Dodge Charlotte II qualifying notes

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It felt really good. We were a little bit tight. I think I was scrubbing a little bit too much speed off. It was an OK lap. I thought we could have picked up a little more from practice. It's really cool now. I don't think it's going to be as big of an advantage to go last as we thought at first. I like the track. I've never had much success here. It's a fun place. This is it right here. Everybody wants to run good here, so you've got to like it."

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"Everybody is picking up, but that was as fast as we could go. We tested here and every time we test, Kyle gets on the track and spanks us all day long. It makes me feel good that we can give him a good setup. If we make the race, we've to thank Kyle. I beat Kyle a little bit, but Charlotte is supposed to be my track, not Kyle's."

CARL LONG (No. 85 Noopco Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"This is a brand new car. It's the first new car I've ever driven. Kyle and them started talking about putting this together in May. I was just trying to ask for guidance. He said his engine program needed some help. He said if I could get a car put together than he'd let me do some R&D work with their engine stuff. The guys at Travis Carter's team are still helping me. They're helping me with the shocks. Kyle's guys are helping me as well, so I had a choice. Norman Negre put the car together in his shop. I've got a piece like everybody else's. The engine is better than anything I've ever ran. This will be my second Cup race. I've always had little stuff bite me before, but it didn't bite me tonight. I was supposed to run ARCA, Busch and Cup. All the people are still here that volunteered to come, and now I've only got one car for them to work on. They're doing a great job."

@! STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I thought we could have run faster, but we didn't get a chance to make a banzai in practice. We kind of went in cold turkey, but that's by far the best I've qualified here in a long time. This is the same car we had at Michigan, Indy and Kansas. It's finished first, second, third and fifth, so maybe we can get another top five with it Sunday. I've run good here, but something always seems to happen."

JASON LEFFLER (No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We slowed up a little bit. We were a little loose in three and four. Most of the other cars are picking up, so we'll just have to see where we end up." DAVE BLANEY (No. 93 Amoco Ultimate Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I wrecked the primary car in practice again, and we didn't get any practice with this car. It's the one we ran in Chicago (finished 12th there in backup role). We almost made it on speed, and that would have been quite an accomplishment."

STACY COMPTON (No. 92 Levi Garrett Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"The guys have done a great job all week with this car. We were good in practice, but we didn't get to make a banzai run. We got bottled up trying to get out. When we got out for the banzai run somebody pulled out in front of us. If we would have, I think we would have realized that we were going to bottom out. Is this not the coolest race car you've ever seen? I love the yellow. My hat's off to my guys. It's another good qualifying effort. It wasn't what we were hoping for, but we'll take it. I think it'll put us in the top 25, and we'll go on and get 'em Sunday."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That was pretty good. That's all we had when the sun went down. I don't know what else we could have done to it. We were hoping to pick up a little more, but we'll just take it and go from here."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It wasn't good enough, but it could have been worse. It felt pretty good. The car seemed to be pretty decent, but we just couldn't get any speed out of it."

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