Ford Racing Atlanta II qualifying notes

Originally-From: DanZ@campbellco.com

TODD BODINE --66-- Blue Light Special/Kmart Taurus (Qualified 14th) -- "That's the best we've been by a long shot. I thought it was a whole lot faster lap than that, but it wasn't. The car was pretty good and it really didn't do anything wrong. I can't figure out why it wasn't any faster."

MARK MARTIN --6-- Pfizer Taurus (Qualified 2nd)
MAKING A BID FOR THE POLE TODAY? "I don't know with that draw. I don't think we're near fast enough, but that was really a sweet run. We had a car with the potential for the pole and a good car for practice. In our mock run we needed one adjustment and we made that adjustment and got everything we could get today. That should be a top 10, but that was more than I thought. We needed a spring change and made it, but the track is quicker now than it was in practice. When you put all of that together, it picked us up a half-second. That was a very nice run and I wouldn't want to try to beat it with that piece right now. I got an awful pretty lap and I don't think I could do any better if I had another chance at it."

RICKY CRAVEN --32-- Tide Taurus (Qualified 13th)
"It came apart (the engine) on the second lap. I'm not sure I could have beat the first lap. The first lap was good, but I couldn't match the 6. It actually started to tighten up through three and four, so we gave up some there, but even with the engine leaned out and starting to tighten up it's a monster. Yates has done such an awesome job for this team all year, I wouldn't trade them for anything."

MIKE WALLACE --12-- Mobil 1 Taurus (Qualified 31st)
"I don't know what the story is. Some of those other guys ran phenomenally fast times. We ran a .60 and thought it was pretty good. We were a little loose off the corner, but that's the best we've been all day."

BRETT BODINE --11-- Ralphs Supermarkets/RedCell Batteries Taurus (Qualified 18th)
"We kind of duplicated our practice lap. I'm not so sure that when the 32 blew up that he didn't put something down because the cars right after him just slowed up. I was the first one to even come close to duplicating my practice speed, so I think we just got caught up in a bad draw when the 32 blew up and put something down."

JEFF BURTON --99-- Citgo SUPERGARD Taurus (Qualified 34th)
YOU PICKED UP ON THE SECOND LAP. "That's probably not a good thing. I don't know why I picked up on the second lap, but we needed to get all we could on the first lap. The car just doesn't feel good to me on the first lap and it doesn't feel that great on the second, but it felt a little better. I don't know. We really fight here for qualifying. There are a lot of good cars that have qualified poorly. I hope we don't have a problem getting in the race. It's gonna be tight."

MATT KENSETH --17-- DEWALT Power Tools Taurus (Qualified 23rd)
"It felt like a lot better lap than that from the seat quite honestly. I thought I was gonna look up and for sure be in the top five because I hit the corners good and felt it was pretty decent from how we ran in practice."

ALL OF THE EARLY DRAW CARS ARE UP FRONT. HAS THE TRACK GOTTEN SLICK? "I think the track is gonna be fast early and then again at the end. It seems like the first few cars that run on it get good grip, and then later on when the shade comes in it should be decent too."

DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus (Qualified 33rd)
ANY IDEA WHY ALL OF YOU GUYS WHO HAVE QUALIFIED IN THE MIDDLE HAVE SLOWED COMPARED TO THE EARLY CARS? "I think it's just a case of the better cars went out early. I don't know that the race track conditions have that much to do with it. I can't imagine it got any hotter as we went on. I felt like I had more grip there than what I had earlier, but I haven't had much all day. It's not fair for me to talk about what might have changed, but it's hard to say. I think the guys that went early were gonna run good whenever they went."

RICKY RUDD --28-- Texaco Havoline Taurus (Qualified 48th)
"I think it (the motor) might have been going a little bit sour before I took the checkered flag, but it finally shook real bad and I just shut it off. I'm not really sure what broke, if it was something in the valve train or what. We definitely weren't on a pace to sit on the pole by any means, but I think we would have had a decent lap. We got one lap in, but I noticed it didn't seem like it wanted to run at the end of the straightaway. I got down into turn one and started to come up the backstretch and it was just about getting ready to hand grenade and I shut it off."

KEVIN LEPAGE --7-- NationsRent Taurus (Qualified 7th)
"We unloaded this NationsRent Taurus and it was off just a bit, but Buddy (Barnes) and myself and Scott (Lepage) and all the guys just worked real hard to come up with what I wanted in the car to be comfortable and put up a good lap. Right now we're seventh and maybe that will be lucky. I've got two more races with these guys and then I'm going away, but the team will be here. Maybe we can put one on them this weekend and try to get a job for next year."

ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Motorcraft Taurus (Qualified 15th)
"This feels great. I made a big choice on Tuesday and decided to go with a different car than what we were gonna bring. The car we were gonna bring, I didn't have much luck with it the last race I ran with it and I really like this race car. We've only run it twice this year, but in both races I felt comfortable in it. We put all of the old suspension stuff on there like we ran at the beginning of the year. I think we ran a lot better at the beginning of the year than we have at the end of the year, so a lot of corporate decisions were made this week and so far it's paid off. This is a great qualifying effort and it's good to see everybody smiling. Maybe that will give us a big boost to run good this weekend."

THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD CARS TAKING PROVISIONALS. "You never know. This is a hit and miss deal. You can be a little bit off and you're gonna start in the back. That's just the way this sport is, but I think the late draw helped us and I was pretty pumped up. I talked to myself the entire lap about just going after it and I'm just so happy. I'm happy Hermie's in the race too, so we're having a good day for the Sadlers."

-Ford Racing-