NASCAR Cup
Richmond Pontiac Friday Notes
Note: Tony Stewart was unable to come to the media center following his qualifying run because he is spotting for Jason Leffler tonight. TONY STEWART (No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac Grand Prix): “That was about all we had today. I maybe ...
Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM
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Note: Tony Stewart was unable to come to the media center following his qualifying run because he is spotting for Jason Leffler tonight.
TONY STEWART (No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac Grand Prix): “That was about all we had today. I maybe tried a little bit too hard and shoved the nose a little bit on both ends. It was still a great lap for us. Both laps seemed about the same to me. I get beat by the guy that goes right behind me. That’s the nature of the business. All of us wish we could go out last each week when we know we have a shot at the pole. Now we’ll try and get our Pontiac driving as best as we can in practice tomorrow. The hard thing about being a rookie is that you don’t exactly know what you want the car to feel like in happy hour to be good all night. We’ll just take our notes form last time here and hope they apply to this time. The car pushed a little bit on both ends, but I’m still happy with the lap. I would have liked to have had a couple of hundredths. But it’s so much better than what we did in the spring.”
BOBBY LABONTE (No. 18 Interstate Batteries Pontiac Grand Prix): “That was a great lap. These guys did a great job. We unloaded today and we really haven’t had to do anything to the car. Three weeks in a row, we haven’t done that. We changed everything. We started out good today. I had no idea if it was going to hold up. Tony was awfully fast in afternoon practice. There were 25 other guys that could have ticked off a good lap, too, as close as the field is here. We were just hoping to start somewhere up towards the front tomorrow night. It’s over with now and we had a good lap. We’ve got a great Pontiac Grand Prix for this weekend. We haven’t had to touch it hardly. Everything we’ve touched we’ve put back. The motor worked great. Everything is good. Some weekends go like this and other weekends, say like Michigan, we can’t qualify that good and throw everything at it before qualifying. This was a good day for us. We didn’t have to work that hard on it.”
WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Pontiac Grand Prix): “That’s a lot faster than we ran in practice. I’m happy with the changes they made on the car. It definitely hurt us going out so early. It’s always faster when you go later in the day. I’m real excited about things. I didn’t leave anything out there, I can tell you that.”
JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 STP Pontiac Grand Prix): “I was real loose in one and two and real tight in three and four. I didn’t know what to expect. I think our Pontiac is going to be really good in the race. We always race good here. Our qualifying effort has been less than stellar the last two weeks. I’m just glad there’s no back straightaway pits here. The first two cars went out in the shade and then Bobby Labonte went out in the sun and he cut a quick lap, so that’s the quickest we’ve run all day, so I’m not going to be too disappointed.”
TODD BODINE (No. 30 Jimmy Dean Pontiac Grand Prix): “That was pretty good for going out early. The race track was slick. It sits there in the sun and the oil comes out. Our Pontiac is fairly balanced, there was just no grip. That’s the price you pay for going out early. We were just a victim of our early draw. We were definitely looking for more than that. We’ve struggled a little bit all day. That was still the best the car has been all day, so at least we’re gaining on it.”
KYLE PETTY (No. 44 Hot Wheels Pontiac Grand Prix): “I got chicken. I made them change something back and we ran it on the safe side. That was a safe lap. We probably could have run a bit quicker, but I chickened out.”
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