Ford Kansas qualifying notes and quotes

Protection One 400 Qualifying
September 28, 2001
Kansas Speedway

DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus (Qualified 18th)
"That's about what I had been running most of the time after it got warmed up in practice. I think the second lap could have been a little better. I just got in the corner a little bit hard and high in one and that kind of blew that lap, so the car is good. We're gonna be starting back a ways, but we just have to be patient on Sunday."

WHAT IS YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE TRACK?
"It's a good racing surface. It's awful fast, but right now there is just one groove there and if you get out of it there's no margin for error. You've got to be pretty precise, so, hopefully, we'll get another groove in there and make it fun to race."

RICKY RUDD --28-- Texaco Havoline Taurus (Qualified 8th)
"The car was just real tight, I'm not really sure why. It pushed really bad on the first lap and I gathered it up a little bit and went after the second lap. Still, the car was just too tight and I'm not really too sure why. We debated on going stickers or scuffs and I think two weeks in a row we probably should have gone the other direction. We put on the car what we had run our fastest with and that was stickers earlier, so it just didn't work out. Maybe the track sat and got hotter in the afternoon and I couldn't get it to turn when I got in the corner."

BRETT BODINE --11-- Ralphs Supermarkets/RedCell Batteries Taurus (Qualified 39th)
"I don't know what's wrong. The thing handles great and that's the best we've been through the corner all day. I just hope the race track slows up. We maintained our practice speeds, but, hopefully, we can get in on time. If not, hopefully we can get a provisional."

ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Motorcraft Taurus (Qualified 32nd)
"We can't get this thing to run a lick today. I don't know. We had a pretty good car yesterday, but today we're struggling pretty bad. Hopefully, we'll make some changes and get ready for the race. We know we're not gonna have a good qualifying spot, so we know we're gonna have to come up through the field. Maybe we'll find something tomorrow."

ANDY HOUSTON --96-- McDonald's Taurus (Qualified 16th)
"That's not bad. We actually did run a little better than that in practice. I think the track has slowed up somewhat, but we'll take it. I feel like that will be in the show solid and we'll just try to run hard on Sunday. This is my last race with PPI and with McDonald's and we're gonna try to go out swinging."

DERRIKE COPE --57-- CLR Taurus (Qualified 30th)
"I'm really happy for CLR and all the guys. They've worked so hard. We struggled all day and we made some good choices here not to get crazy and we didn't panic. I just tried to hang on and put four corners together. Fortunately, it looks like we're in this thing and barring any unforeseen things, hopefully, we can have ourselves a good run and get a race under our belt and go from here."

I GUESS YOUR FOX PARTNERS WILL HAVE SOME FUN WITH YOU SUNDAY MORNING.
"Yeah. I kind of gave them my pick already. I picked Gordon to win, so I know they're gonna be all over me. Hopefully, I'll get to do it live from here and I'll have a lot of fun with it."

RUSTY WALLACE --2-- Miller Lite Taurus (Qualified 11th)
"That's a decent lap. That's not at all what I hoped for. I thought we could get in the 50s or 40s or something, but I hit the apron down there in turn one and got the car loose on the first lap and that killed me."

WHAT ABOUT THIS TRACK?
"It's beautiful. The weather here is beautiful, the track is great and I think we're gonna have a super-good race here. I really do."

KURT BUSCH --97-- Sharpie/Rubbermaid Taurus (DNF)
"I'm standing up against the problem (tires). I'm looking at four Goodyears that don't seem to get into the race track the way they need to. The only place they seem to wear out is Darlington and that's where we got our pole and ran real well at. These tires aren't abrasive enough. They're not getting into the race track and we made an air pressure change that ended up going the wrong way."

MIKE WALLACE --7-- NationsRent Taurus (Qualified 29th)
"I'm thrilled to death. The guys made a really good educated decision on the chassis setup and the car drove really well. It just scooted the nose in three and four a little bit and I had to kind of double-pump the gas pedal. I wanted to stay in it, but I had to roll back out of it. Our goal now is to just get in these races so we can run every week. I think that's a pretty good time for us. We're happy for all the guys at NationsRent and I've got to thank the guys at Yates engines for doing a great job."

JEFF BURTON --99-- Citgo SUPERGARD Taurus (Qualified 26th)
"We've been slow all day. That's the best we've run. We keep picking up when we go to qualify, which is a good thing, but we just started too far back. We were pretty good yesterday, but we unfortunately never made any gains today. That's a good bit slower than what we ran yesterday and I don't know what the difference is. We just don't seem to have any speed today."

MARK MARTIN --6-- Pfizer Taurus (Qualified 23rd)
"The car felt real good. I had hopes of doing a little bit better than that. I expected to be a able to do a little bit better than that. I didn't get the first lap quite like I wanted and I'm not a second lap guy, I'm a first lap guy. I was able to run as fast on the second lap as the first lap, which meant I didn't do a good job on the first lap. I just didn't get it the first lap. I was a little apprehensive of it being slick and I didn't hit right where I needed to be on the race track. I pushed and then I had to wait on the gas off of four. The second lap was incredible and that's why I was able to run as fast that second lap."

MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Qualified 13th)
"That's really good and should get us somewhere in the top 15. That's the farthest we've been up since sometime last year, I think, so that was a great run for us. We made a lot of progress on our car and it'll be nice to start the race and at least be able to be somewhere in the vicinity of the leaders and not have to have the first pit coming down pit road."

YOU DIDN'T TEST HERE WHILE YOUR TEAMMATES DID. DID YOU USE SOME OF THEIR INFORMATION?
"Yeah, it helped a lot. We went off of Kurt Busch's stuff, at least for race setup and that seems to be real close. And then our qualifying setup we did some of his stuff and then kind of went on our own with some stuff that we learned from Indy when we raced this car. That seemed to work for us too."

JIMMY SPENCER --26-- Kmart Taurus (Qualified 14th)
"We didn't really run well all day, but Donnie (Wingo, crew chief) made some changes. I wanted to change the shocks and he sort of talked me out of it and I'm glad he did. That's why he's the crew chief. He does a great job for me. The power was great. We didn't miss it by a whole lot because I bobbled a little bit in one and two and that was a tenth or so. All in all, it was a really good lap considering everything the Kmart team has been through today. We were a little worried that we weren't gonna be that good and anytime you're up there in the top 15, or wherever we end up, that's pretty good compared to where we were last week in Dover."

TODD BODINE --66-- Route 66/Kmart Taurus (Qualified 27th)
"The car was real good in one and two, but I almost spun out in three and four. I got loose on both laps. We were tight in practice and then we put a set of tires on it and it was loose. We'll just take it where it is."

RICKY CRAVEN --32-- Tide Taurus (Qualified 9th)
"I feel that should be top 10 and that just gives us a better opportunity Sunday, especially under these circumstances. I really enjoy it here. I like the place, but coming from the rear would be a very difficult way of doing things."

YOU DIDN'T TEST HERE, SO DOING WELL TODAY SAYS A LOT FOR THIS TEAM'S PROGRESS DOESN'T IT?
"That's a good point. Yesterday, we worked on race runs exclusively and we didn't even think about qualifying until this morning. That's very respectable for the guys."

JEREMY MAYFIELD --12-- Mobil 1 Taurus (Qualified 44th)

HOW DO YOU FEEL?
"I feel good, I really do. I was a little stiff earlier yesterday and as time has gone on I feel really good. I'm just fortunate to be here and happy to be here. I'm kind of confused right now because we're looking for some speed. We can't seem to find it. I don't know, we'll have to figure it out."

RYAN NEWMAN --02-- ALLTEL Taurus (Qualified 17th)
"I'm satisfied after qualifying. It was very important for us to just make the top 36 and to be 17th we bettered ourselves by 50 percent. That's just a lot of good, hard work by all of Penske Racing. There were guys over here from the Mobil 1 and Miller Lite teams -- everybody that could help came over and helped us and we appreciate that a lot."

WHAT HAPPENED IN PRACTICE?
"It just snapped on me. I think what really happened was I was tight and I had too much wheel lock on it and the right-front tire finally caught up and it just stuck and spun the right-rear around. I stayed in the throttle and was hoping to spin it down through the grass, but that didn't work either."

THIS IS THE CAR YOU RAN HERE IN THE ARCA RACE?
"Yeah, it's PRS-31. It's a good car. It doesn't make the greatest downforce compared to some of our other cars, but it's definitely a good car and I think it showed that today."

-Ford Racing-