Dodge Loudon qualofying notes

DAVE BLANEY (No. 93 Amoco Ultimate Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We've been struggling all day. We were way slow in practice and just pushed, pushed, pushed. The last practice run we changed a lot of stuff and got loose. I was still too loose in qualifying and killed my first lap. I ended up killing both laps. It wasn't very good. We struggled all day, but maybe we can get it better in race trim. It's a different tire, and it's hard to tell if that's the difference here or not. The track seems fine."

JASON LEFFLER (No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I just overdrove the first lap. From then on, I backed myself off for the second lap and didn't drive hard enough. I just got into turn one too hard on the first lap and got it pushing up the track. It got loose, and it's just part of the short track stuff here. I thought I'd learned that, but evidently I didn't."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We were loose. We were quite a bit better than that in practice. The track was just a lot slicker by the time qualifying rolled around. We were pretty decent in practice, so we didn't change anything on the car. We just got loose out there. The track was real loose and greasy."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"This track is hard to figure out. I damn sure hadn't got it figured out. The tires or something just didn't match the setup."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We made a shock change. It was good when it was cool, but it got hot and made the car too loose. I almost spun in one and two on the first lap. I decided to take it easy on the second lap and got through one and two pretty good and then it took off in three and four. You've got to make it back. We just had a real loose set of tires, and the weather changed on us. Now we've got to take a provisional and the last time we did that we ended up getting in big trouble at Texas. That's the way it goes. We'll have to get ready to race now and work our way up through the field as quick as we can."

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I went out in practice on stickers and the guy parked halfway out in the race track. That blew that whole deal. We went out again, and a guy was scuffing tires and just pulled out right in front of me. I was wide open. I don't know how I didn't hit him. It was real disappointing we didn't get to try a banzai run in practice, but a bunch of changes for qualifying because we didn't know what to try to do. We just guessed at it, and we came pretty close. I ran pretty conservative laps. I'd rather be in the race than try to win the pole and get in big trouble. That's a decent starting spot. I think we could have been a little better, but we'll take it and get ready for the race now."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Elliott had the fastest Dodge in time trials with a lap of 130.711 mph. He picked up more than three tenths from practice and will start 12th in Sunday's race.
"The crew did a great job getting the car ready for qualifying. I was one of the lucky ones I suppose. I had a lot of cloud cover when I got out there. That's all that saved me. I can always go the other way, so it was good to pick it up from practice. I've got mixed emotions about it. This place has been kind of a tossup for me. I've been more bad than good. I'd like to hope this weekend will be better, but it's hard to say. I'll get through practice tomorrow and evaluate it a little more. I haven't had a decent package here in awhile, but we'll put our heads together and see what we come up with."

-Dodge Motorsports