NASCAR Cup

Monte Carlo Ponoco qualifying notes

Bobby Hamilton, No. 55 Square D Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It's not going to be good enough, we can see that right now. We didn't just want to take a spot. Both of our cars ( ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

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Bobby Hamilton, No. 55 Square D Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It's not going to be good enough, we can see that right now. We didn't just want to take a spot. Both of our cars (#55 and #33) have been struggling since we got here today."

Steve Park, No. 1 Pennzoil Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "Of course we're disappointed. We've been struggling since we got here. The car's been handling good, we just can't get any speed out of it."

Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "That was the fastest we've been all day. I got a little bit loose out there, but other than that, it was a good lap. We came into this event really trying to pick up a little from where we qualified last time. The guys on the Dupont team certainly did that today. We picked up about a half-second faster than we were. We'll take it."

Michael Waltrip, No. 15 NAPA Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It wasn't great. We had faster times than we did a month ago. I had pretty close to a perfect lap here then. But I had nothing compared to those other cats."

Joe Nemechek, No. 33 Oakwood Homes Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "This is a good track for me. We sat on the pole here in 1997 and we normally are in the top 10 in qualifying. Just missing that first race here (due to injury) on these Goodyear tires it's hard to tell exactly what the car's going to do when you get out here. I'm just going to have to adapt a little bit. But we made some changes on the Oakwood Chevy and we were a little bit better there. That was a good lap for us."

Robby Gordon, No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo (subbing for Mike Skinner): "We tested this week and that helped to get adjusted to this team. But unfortunately we've had a tight here all day. We made some pretty drastic changes here before qualifying and we have to work on the car for the race."

Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "We did the same thing here last time, we picked up about half a second in qualifying. I'm surprised. We're really comfortable with the car. We're still a little loose off (the corners), but I think we're going to race good. Track position is real important."

Kevin Harvick, No. 29 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "We really didn't know what to expect in qualifying. We've been struggling a little bit in practice and we've just been trying to find the balance that we needed. We changed a spring, a sway bar, and they did a heck of a job tuning the motor up. It was quite an improvement and it'll help us on Sunday."

On his weekend schedule for competing at both the Busch race in Pikes Peak and the Cup race at Pocono

"After qualifying, we'll head out to Pikes Peak. We'll start in the back and race out there tomorrow and fly back as soon as we're done there tomorrow night. It's not that busy, it's just a really long flight."

-GM Racing

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