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BNS: Watkins Glen: Dale Quarterley Friday notes

Dale Quarterley wins Bud Pole award for Saturday's Mohegan (Watkins Glen, N.Y.) - Dale Quarterley got his weekend off to a good start on Friday when he was the fastest qualifier for Saturday afternoon's Mohegan Sun 150 Presented by Pepsi, a NASCAR ...

Edited: Dec 22, 2003, 5:59 AM

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Dale Quarterley wins Bud Pole award for Saturday's Mohegan

(Watkins Glen, N.Y.) - Dale Quarterley got his weekend off to a good start on Friday when he was the fastest qualifier for Saturday afternoon's Mohegan Sun 150 Presented by Pepsi, a NASCAR Grand National Division, Busch North Series race which is the companion event for this weekend's Winston Cup race at the 1.54-mile Watkins Glen International road course.

Quarterley, driving the Bully Hill Vineyards Chevrolet, won the Bud Pole Award with a lap time of 74.873 seconds (117.799 MPH). His last pole was earned in this event last year.

"The car's been pretty quick from the time we unloaded," he said. "But we're really like a half a second off of where we should be. But we can't seem to find it to make it handle a little better. This is the first time out for this car, which was built specifically for road racing. Everybody's getting so competitive, and the circle track guys are caught up to the road racing guys, so we decided we needed a designated car just to go road racing and this is it."

Quarterley's two most recent Watkins Glen races showed he had a dominant car, but a cut tire kept him from winning in 2001 and his running out of gas when the race's distance was extended due to Busch North's rule that a race cannot end under yellow, but instead be extended to run to a green-white-checker finish, took him out of the lead in last year's marathon.

"Last year we basically showed up with the idea that we'd win practice, win qualifying, and lead every lap of the race," he said. "If we wound up winning, great; if we didn't, we had done everything we could do. On the third green-white-checker caution, I just got through saying that if it didn't go green this start, we were definitely going to run out of gas, and no sooner had I said that and we ran out of gas on the back straightaway.

"In road racing, you're really racing the track rather than racing the other cars," he continued. "And you need to pit under green, if you pit under caution and everybody else has already made their pit stop, you're going to come out of the pits having gone from first to thirtieth and you'll never get back to the front. If you wait too long and pit, and caution comes out, that's what's going to happen. You want to be the first one to pit before the caution happens but when you get three green-white-checker restarts, you can't predict the fuel mileage to compensate for that."

Quarterley will lead the 35-car field to the green flag at 1:00 P.M. on Saturday. The race will be taped by Speed TV and broadcast on August 23rd.

-ajc-

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