Hamilton, Mcclure Loudon notes

BOBBY HAMILTON (No. 4 Kodak MAX Film Chevrolet Monte Carlo) NOTE: Hamilton and team owner Larry McClure discuss Friday's announcement that the two would split at the end of the 2000 season. "There's been a lot or rumors. It's ironic that all the rumors out there are completely wrong. I think people will see that down the road. Larry and I just talked. The progression we were making, and both of us got frustrated a couple of times, but we had been working hardly jointly to try to fix it all. I came up with a plan that I think a three-year deal is bad except for a chosen few. It seems like after two years you might as well get ready to make a change unless you're winning a ton of races. It just seems to go bad. What we do is a performance sport. It has to work. It's only fair to people like Kodak and your crew members and people like that, and it hadn't been happening. We felt like for both of our businesses, it would probably be best for both of us just to go do something else. We did it on real good terms. In this business you cross paths a hundred times. So it needs to be on good terms, but I think it'll be good for both of us. "It wasn't like we were giving up. We were still working as hard as we ever had. To be honest, you've got 55 or 60 people who work for you. They work as hard as they can to build real nice race cars. We change chassis people. We change body people. The motor people step up and tried different combinations. You still keep having problems. You bring a new crew chief in, and he wants to do things different. You bring another body hanger in and he wants to do things different. We were trying the whole 100 percent of making it better, but then you have to learn all this stuff over again. It wasn't necessarily a setback, but when all those people have to learn stuff all over again, it gets frustrating for them, too. Sometimes a little finger pointing goes on, and it happens even on the top end of the garage. You see it every week. We've seen in a hundred times. "All this happened yesterday morning. Everybody says this happened by design of two or three weeks back or a month back, but we walked in yesterday morning and it just happened. We said let's just go ahead and do it. About 100 percent of the time when this happens, race teams take off and start running good. The pressure gets off and everybody can go back and get at the job at hand and then go their separate ways at the end of the year. "We were definitely going to talk about it. I don't know which one would have initiated it, but it's funny. It just came up in a civil conversation about what we could do to make the race team better. It just happened, and I'm glad it did. It's ironic. We always unload since the start of the year, and every now and then we'll be decent, but most of the time, like New Hampshire is one of my best race tracks and in the spring we weren't that good. In other races prior to this, we haven't been that good. We've raced good, but we haven't qualified good. We left here 11th quickest on the board yesterday. We unloaded fourth quickest or something like that. Something happens. I was talking to Kenny Wallace. He said when they made their announcement they started running good. I've seen it happen a hundred times. It just seems to happen that way. I don't know if it does something mentally or your frustration is gone or what. I didn't want to sit here and tell Larry let's work on this and then what would happen if we didn't get it going? If things happened out of my control and Larry's control, the sponsor gets to saying, 'we can't do this any more.' I felt like it was healthy to keep the sponsor happy to get some new blood in here and try to help him get going and let me go elsewhere, too. "Larry McClure is probably the best owner I've ever raced for. Winston Cup racing is a big business. They get high-dollar sponsors. We've got some owners who look at it to make a living off of it. I know from the motor problems he's had this year and all the changeovers, he's poured every nickel he's got from Kodak into this thing. That's a racer. When I start looking for car owners, I'm going to be looking for a racer. "Earnhardt will cuss me out, but who cares. He probably cusses when he goes home at night, so what's the difference. I like it (restrictor-plate motors at Loudon). I was surprised. I thought we'd be dead in the water to do any passing or whatever, but I like it. The cars always drive good, but it seems they drive a lot better and you can hustle 'em a lot harder. I think you can actually race harder at a place like this than you could before. It ain't going to be a problem to pass. You watch and see. If they had had a one-inch plate on at Indianapolis, you would have seen the best races you'd see anywhere. It always gets strung out there. I don't know if you'll ever see that, but I know we don't need to see speeds in the upper 190s. I know that's not healthy for NASCAR, but if this works good, maybe we'll see it at more places. I don't really know that I want to, but it doesn't bother me any. "I want to win the man a race. All I'm concerned about right now is one person and one company, that's Kodak and I want to win Larry McClure a race. I don't give a rat's butt about anybody else. I think I owe it to him. I think he's the only one who's been 100 percent focused in this deal. I probably haven't because I got frustrated with it. I just stopped away at times, but that's not me. I never give up. Then I'd come back and regroup and hit it again. It would just tickle me again. It'd be almost like winning my first race for Richard Petty as a car owner. "It could happen. We're going to a lot of good race tracks for this race team. Also, with this one-inch plate, that caters to them (Morgan-McClure Motorsports). It brings them back to where they were three or four years ago. I feel good about going to Talladega. We were running second at Talladega when we broke this year. There's a bunch of races we could have a shot at.

COMMENT ON INTERNET REPORT THAT YOU'VE ALREADY SIGNED WITH ANOTHER TEAM "I hope they choke on the money they make because it doesn't do any of us any justice. It's funny how they ride on the coattails of people who are trying to make the sport bigger and better. They take it and tear it down by writing all that crap. It's just like the deal about me being signed and going to the 7 car. I think the quote was to my PR girl, 'just face it, it's reality.' Well, I'm going to show somebody reality when I make my announcement. We'll see how proper they are."

LARRY McCLURE (Car owner No. 4 Kodak MAX Film Monte Carlo) "We've changed everything but our race car driver. I'm a loyal person. He's a great race car driver, but there's just things you can't put your hands on. We couldn't get the momentum working. One week we'd race good and the next week we wouldn't. It's not fair for Bobby Hamilton for us to keep going, and it's not fair to me. When I make a decision, I've got to make it for the team. It's not just for Larry and Bobby. It's for the race team. "It's my race team. I'm going to do everything like I want to do it. It may not be right. Maybe I'm the guy who needs to be changed, but that's not going to happen. Hopefully we can get the right mix here. We'll be glad to talk to any drivers available. I haven't talked to anybody. Usually when you go through a driver change, things aren't real good, but I'd do anything in the world for Bobby. Maybe in these next nine races we can win some races. "I promised him a restrictor plate win. After an hour and a half practice yesterday, we're good enough to win this race. It's a restrictor-plate race. We'll have to wait and see. We've got a great race team. We've got a good engine program. My people have stepped it up. I put enough pressure on 'em, and they stepped it up. Bobby's complaining has made them step up. They didn't like it. They've got big egos. They didn't like it, but they stepped up. It's going to pay dividends. Maybe in the next nine races, Bobby will want to come back here and I'll want to keep him, but you've got to perform. Sometimes after two or three years, like Bobby says, maybe you know each other too well. Things have been said and circulated. You just don't forget. You can forgive people for anything that's happened, but you can't forget it, and maybe you don't forgive them, really. "I hope some great race cars drivers are out there. I haven't looked. People say you need to be prepared. Well, I'm not the boy scout on this deal. I really wasn't prepared. If things had kept going like they were going, it didn't matter how much I think of Bobby or how much talent he has or how much ability he has or how I think maybe we can get the job done. If you don't get the job done, you've just got to perform. I owe it to my sponsors and to my race team and to all the people who depend on Larry McClure. The Good Lord has blessed us. We've been successful, and we're going to be successful again. Whoever comes over here, we're going to be successful, and I'm going to support them. "This is a tough deal over here. First of all, you've got to get in races. If you get a talented guy, you may have to stumble a little bit, but I don't think you've got to fall. I think you can be successful with either or. Somebody who's been here three or four years would be great because they know what goes on and you don't go through that part of the learning curve, but we've seen people come Busch and the truck leagues and come up here and be successful. I think that can happen. "I've got aspirations of a second car if we can put it all together, but to attract a second team -- look at Dale Earnhardt. He's successful. He's competitive. He started out with one team, got it competitive and then got another team and now another team. The better you're doing, the more you attract. You've got to have sponsorship in order to do it. You've got to have good people. The better you perform with the first team, the more attractive it becomes for a second team. "I'm intelligent enough to see I want to look and see what's available and make a choice as soon as possible. The longer I wait, well, there's some good race teams out here who don't have drivers signed for next year. We've got a few ideas. We'll see how it works out."