Post race notes/quotes - Dodge/Save Mart 350.

"That's a bunch of crap right there. Anybody who races back under caution like that, I don't know where his mind is. He [Robby Gordon] did a great job. He won the race fair and square, except for that move right there. I don't care if they call it a gentlemen's agreement or not, what he did, especially to his teammate, is absolutely ridiculous. If he can be proud and satisfied with himself to go out there and do what he did today, and he's sitting over there in Victory Lane because he knows he passed his teammate under caution, then by all means have it." - Jeff Gordon

BORIS SAID, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 6th: NOTE: Said, who started on the pole, led the first lap and finished sixth. He finished 2nd in the Trans-Am Series event immediately following the Winston Cup event and 2nd in the NASCAR Southwest race on Saturday.
"We were really good, but we lost track position when that yellow came out [on lap 73] and that killed us. I just burned my tires coming through the field."

DID YOU JUST LET ROBBY GO AFTER LEADING THE FIRST LAP?
"Yeah.

"Our goal coming in was to get a top-10, but this U.S. Army car was better than that today - it was an easy top-three car. We just got caught up with the yellow on the second pit stop. It came the lap we were going to pit and that knocked us back to 26th place instead of fourth or fifth. Had the yellow come 10 seconds later we would have been fighting for the win at the end. I hope Jerry (Nadeau) was watching at home. I want to thank him for letting me drive his car -- it was great and I can't wait for him to come back. I was patient all day and really didn't make any mistakes. From a driving and finishing standpoint, it was the best Winston Cup race for me. Today was a blast -- the most fun I've ever had racing. I wish I could do this every week."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DuPONT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 2nd: NOTE: Gordon moved into second place in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings, 174 behind leader Matt Kenseth. Missed out on a fourth NWC win at Infineon by less than half a second
"It was just a great day all the way around for us. The cautions fell right for us and the pit stops were great. I made a couple of mistakes out there, but there at the end, we had the best car. I drove up through there and I was surprised I got past Harvick. My hat's off to him. He did a great job today and I'm really impressed by his efforts. I got up there to Robby and he was doing everything he needed to do, but he was good in the areas where you could pass, off Turn 10 and going into Turn 7. He got the track position by passing his teammate under caution, and I think that's obviously not my problem I was pretty surprised by that. I'm happy to come home second. It was a great points day for us."

YOU'RE SECOND IN THE POINTS NOW.
"We were hoping to gain on those guys. Kenseth, I'm telling you, he's feeling it He's getting up on the wheel when he needs to and it's going to be tough to run those guys down."

YOU CAUGHT UP TO ROBBY, BUT IT WAS DIFFERENT STORY ONCE YOU GOT THERE.
"Yeah, this is a difficult track to pass on, there's no doubt about that. He wasn't very good compared to us, but he was good in the right places. Where he was the best was coming off Turn 6 going into Turn 7 and then coming off 10 and going into 11. If you can't get a run on a guy there, if you just drive off the track, you're not going to pass him.

"It's frustrating, because I knew we had a much better car, and I was working hard to get by him, but I gave it everything I had. I ran Robby down, and I came close to making a move on him, and I just saw kind of what he was doing, how he was driving. I said to myself, 'we've got a points battle on the line here. If I get a really clean shot at him, I'll go for it, but if not, it wasn't going to be worth risking it.' I ran as hard as I could to get a run on him, but it just never really materialized. One time I got to the outside of him and thought I had him, but I just couldn't get to the outside in the turn.

"I didn't know how strong Robby was. I ran him down right away, and I said, 'aw, man, we've got this.' He was all over the place and he finally calmed down and stopped watching his mirror, and he started being smooth enough for me not to really be able to get by him. I got all over him trying to get him to make a mistake, and I saw Kevin come into third place. I started backing off a little bit to cool things down in case Kevin caught us. I wanted to have something hopefully for Robby and Kevin.

"I was real proud of Kevin. I saw him drive a lot today and he did a great job, made very few mistakes. He was an awesome road racer today. I thought he had the car. When he got by Robby, that was a pretty bold move right there. I thought that he was going to be the guy to beat. If Robby was as fast under green as he did under caution that one time, he'd win a lot of these things."

IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION ASKED OF HARVICK CONCERNING GORDON'S PASS UNDER YELLOW ON LAP 71
"That's a bunch of crap right there. Anybody who races back under caution like that. I don't know where his mind is. He [Robby Gordon] did a great job. He won the race fair and square today, except for that move right there. I don't care if they call it a gentlemen's agreement or not, what he did, especially to his teammate, is absolutely ridiculous. If he can be proud and satisfied with himself to go out there and do what he did today, and he's sitting over there in Victory Lane because he knows he passed his teammate under caution, then by all means have it."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT PASSING YOUR TEAMMATE UNDER THE YELLOW?
"To me, that makes it even worse. If my teammate and me were racing out there and he raced me harder getting back to the caution than he did under green and he actually passed me, I tell you what, we'd have a little discussion somewhere. That said, I should probably shut up and not say anything, but I could not believe it when I saw it. I said to my crew on the caution before that, 'can you believe he's trying to pass his teammate under caution?' Then the next time, I saw where he beat him back to the caution, and I said, 'you've got to be kidding me! Did he really pass.' After that, I was like, 'watch out for these two ' You never knew what was going to happen. But that's really what won him the race."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 12th:NOTE: Was running eighth when he spun at turn seven on lap 82 and dropped to 29th. Moved from 26th to 12th after the final caution period
"We weren't very good at the beginning of it, but we got better as the race went on, obviously. The 12 car [Ryan Newman] was a little faster than us, but instead of passing us clean, he turned us down there in Turn 7."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 3rd: NOTE: Recorded his best finish since Talladega. Lost track position to RCR teammate Robby Gordon as they raced back to the lap 71 caution flag.
"It was good hard racing except for that chicken move under yellow."

YOUR BEST FINISH HERE, IT HAD TO BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU.
"Yeah, it was a good day for the GM Goodwrench car. We had a great strategy and a really fast car, and things worked out pretty good."

WHAT HAPPENED WITH ROBBY, AND WHAT DO YOU THINK NEEDS TO HAPPEN NOW?
"I think Jeff [Gordon] said it best."

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: Finished 30th:NOTE: Benson led 10 laps in the middle stages of Sunday's race, but ran out of fuel on the final lap.
"Sure, we are disappointed to run out of gas on the final lap, but it was a gamble worth taking. We got to lead some today and had the Valvoline Pontiac out front. We would have finished about 30th if we hadn't gambled and that's where we ended up. But we tried. We will keep working. Like I said, leading 10 laps was a lot of fun."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 31 CINGULAR CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO: Finished 1st, led 81 laps. NOTE: Sunday's victory in the Dodge/Save Mart 350 was Robby Gordon's second career NASCAR Winston Cup victory and it came in his 114th career start. His first victory came at New Hampshire International Speedway in November 2001, 52 races ago. He took the lead from Johnny Benson on lap 80, nine laps after passing teammate Kevin Harvick as they raced back to the caution flag. He is the 13th different race winner in 16 races this season, and his victory is Chevrolet's eighth of the season. He led 81 of the 110 laps and vaulted from 16th to 13th in series points.

YOU'VE SAID YOU LET ONE SLIP AWAY HERE IN 2001, BUT YOU DIDN'T LET THIS ONE SLIP AWAY.
"I'm going to date it all the way back to 2000. We've been the quickest car since about then, and we haven't pulled the car into Victory Lane. In 2001, we came real close, and then last year, I was running second to Tony [Stewart] and we stuck with Tony's strategy and we knew at that point that we made a mistake we were never going to be able to recover from and we finished 11th. Track position is key here, and we had to use every obstacle we could to gain as much track position as we could and our fuel mileage to make it run full distance."

YOU SAID YOU HAD A PLAN YOU WERE GOING TO EXECUTE. HOW DID THAT GO?
"Our plan was to come in between laps 26 and 36, to make our first stop. We dictated our stops under green strategy and we didn't come in under any yellows. We knew that would take us to lap 68, and if we could get to lap 68 and be the first car on the road we could run from there home. We lived by that strategy and that paid off for us. We just had a really good car all day long."

JEFF GORDON SAID THAT YOU WON THIS ONE BY PASSING KEVIN HARVICK UNDER YELLOW.
"I sat and asked [NASCAR], and it was very obvious in the driver's meeting today, I asked 'are you sure we can pass under the yellow?' They said, 'yeah, you can race back to the line, just like every weekend.' Kevin Harvick may be mad at me, but it is what it is. To be honest with you, when he got by me, he wasn't going to make the corner if I didn't move out of the way. He would have wrecked me. Ron Fellows got under both of us there. He took a shot at risking it, and I paid him back under a caution."

YOU HIT THE TIRE BARRIER UP THERE. WHAT HAPPENED?
"I was just using the whole race track. I knew that was foam and I knew it wasn't going to hurt me. The biggest thing here is we had to save our tires and pace ourselves. I actually paced myself off Jeff Gordon. There was no damage, other than a little wrinkle on the left front. On a road course, we don't go fast enough to make much downforce difference. Every lap I tried to miss it [the barrier] by an inch, and I was an inch off one time."

JEFF GORDON CALLED YOUR MOVE RIDICULOUS.
"You really think I care what Jeff Gordon says, honestly? The guy has won enough races. I don't know why he's so sore about it. I guess he doesn't like it when someone comes in and rains on his parade a little bit."

DID YOU ALMOST FEEL THAT THIS WAS YOUR RACE TO LOSE?
"Not only here, we've been strong many times this year. The team has been good and we were in the top 10 a couple weeks ago. We knew if we put back the last couple of weeks, we could probably jump ourselves back up toward the front again. We knew we needed to come here-I think I said it three weeks ago in Charlotte-we were going to come here and score maximum points. That was our game plan. We just missed it by one spot in qualifying back to the flag."

TALK A LITTLE MORE ABOUT RACING BACK TO THE YELLOW FLAG.
"Jeff Gordon sat in the same driver's meeting I did. I asked the question three times and disrupted the driver's meeting because I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what they were saying. They said, 'under waving yellow, you can race back to the line until you take the yellow. After you take the yellow at the start/finish line, that's what it is.' I can't help that I understood exactly what the rules were and took advantage of it. Racing here at Sonoma, it's very hard to pass. You hear about on all the ovals the aero push, and you get it here too. I knew if I could get track position, we were definitely going to be the car to beat. If Jeff was so mad at me, why didn't he spin me out?"

ON THE RADIO DURING THE RACE, YOU SAID YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD A TIRE GOING DOWN. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH THAT?
"I got a little nervous, because under the caution, we were conserving as much fuel as possible because we stuck to our lap-68 plan. I didn't scuff my tires because it takes energy to scuff tires. So I probably got some buildup on my tires and it just slid around for two or three laps on the tires. The key was, I didn't want to run out of fuel later, and I probably should have scuffed them a couple of turns before we went back to green. But I thought that saving fuel was more important at that point."

JEFF GORDON SAID YOU WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE ONCE YOU TOOK THE LEAD WHAT IS YOUR THOUGHT?
"Like I said, I paced myself off Jeff's front bumper. It really bums me out that he's sore about it. He has no reason; it has nothing to do with him. He obviously didn't see what happened between Kevin and me earlier, so I don't know why he's sore about that one. What I did after that point was dictate how close I was going to let Jeff Gordon get to me. One time, he got an opportunity to get down to me in Turn 11, and from that point on I paced off his front bumper with my rear bumper. I didn't have to run any harder than we needed to to win the race."

HOW ABOUT DOWN HERE WHEN YOU WENT FROM FIRST TO THIRD?
"When Kevin outbraked me going into Turn 1, if I wouldn't have moved out of the way, we both would have wrecked. There was no way he was going to hit the apex of the corner. I don't know why he should be sore at me passing him back, because I thought that was a little bit of a cheap shot earlier, especially since we were teammates. To be honest, I was in ride mode. Richard [team owner Richard Childress] had just got off the radio and said, 'OK, Kevin is going to ride right behind you and race with you, race you clean. Protect the inside and be good to go.' I wasn't anticipating him taking a shot and diving down the inside. When he dove down the inside of me, Ron Fellows got by both of us. So I don't see why Jeff Gordon should be disappointed about this issue. It had nothing to do with Jeff Gordon."

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT NASCAR CAN DO TO MAKE THIS ISSUE LESS OF A GRAY AREA?
"I asked it three times in the meeting today. I laughed when they said this is the way the rules are. I said, 'OK, are you guys sure?' I knew I was going to use it to my advantage. He said it's always been that way and you can race back as much as you want."

JEFF WAS PRETTY MUCH ON YOUR BUMPER FOR THE LAST 15 LAPS. WAS HE MAKING YOU RUN A LITTLE FASTER THAN YOU WANTED TO?
"I actually backed my car up to his front bumper, because what I didn't know was, at the pace we were running, if he was saving his tires and was going to make a last-lap run at me. I paced off his front bumper. I knew if I kept about three or four car lengths between us going into the hairpin, there was no way he could actually get to my bumper and knock me loose going into Turn 11."

HOW NICE WAS IT TO GIVE KEVIN HAMLIN SUCH A WONDERFUL ANNIVERSARY GIFT?
"It was great. Kevin has been working real hard getting this program turned around. He's had some stressful times the last couple of years, and it's just great that I could put a car in Victory Lane for the second time this year with him and prove that he's still a good crew chief. What Kevin has been doing is, he's been allowing Chris Andrews, my engineer, and myself to get a little bit on the wild side as far as setups and his experience keeps us back inside the lines. The three of us have been working real well on getting involved in the car and he had a plan this weekend where he let me and Chris worry about the setup on the car and he would worry more about how the strategy was going to work out and help us in that fashion. I think it really worked out well. If we continue in this direction, we're all going to be in real good shape."

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JEFF GORDON AFTER THIS?
"I'm cool with Jeff. I have no idea why Jeff would even comment on the issue because it had nothing to do with him. If I had passed Jeff Gordon under the caution, I could see why he might be concerned. As far as I'm concerned, he should mind his own business."

WILL YOU HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH HIM?
"He's not big enough to have a discussion with me."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid) -- finished 4th.NOTE: Equaled best finish of the season and moved into equal season-best 19th in the overall standings.
"I almost got another spot there at the end, but I tried not to get too excited. I'm proud of these guys. It was a good run for the Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge. The Dodge camp needed that awful bad. We had a good racecar. We just couldn't get in the right position. A couple of cautions helped us get to the end, but I'm proud of what these guys have accomplished. We ended up with a little strategy. We've worked hard, and the last three or four weeks have been a struggle. To come out and have a good day like this makes us all feel good.

"It's been me some, but it seems like we just hadn't hit the combination. I've been nursing this foot along, and everything has gone well, but we needed this for the second half of the season. It'll give us the inspiration we need to get the second half started right. I need to get this foot better, but we had a good, dependable car today and that's what we need.

"I had a lot of close calls today. Guys were moving around pretty good out there. The foot didn't bother me today. When you're running well, it doesn't bother you at all. Nothing bothers you when you're running well.

"I enjoyed it. We had a good afternoon. The car held together, we got good gas mileage and got track position and I'm ready to go home now. I'm tired."

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Intrepid) -- finished 5thNOTE: Newman has finished ninth, second and fifth in three road course races in his NASCAR Winston Cup career. It was also his third top-five finish in his last four starts.
"The team gave me a good car, and this ALLTEL Dodge was pretty good today. It's all about car control, and Matt (crew chief Borland) and the guys did a good job giving me a good car today. Road course racing is all right. It's not really good racing. You've got to out brake people and things like that. It was a good run for the ALLTEL Dodge, and hopefully we can carry the momentum into the second half of the season. We passed a few cars today, and we got passed, but it was just a long day at the races."

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Intrepid) -- finished 8thNOTE: Spun twice, once on lap 63 after contact with Jeff Burton and again on lap 99
"I wanted to bring it home third because I didn't think Kevin Harvick could get around me. I went into the turn and hit the brake pedal and it went all the way to the floor. I wheel hopped the thing and about spun it out and got off course. We ended up finishing eighth, and for two big disasters that was a pretty good finish. It's good to come out of here with a top 10 finish, but I'm upset at myself because I was driving the car too hard. The brakes were real good all day long, but I was really hustling the car at the end and messed it up. I thought I was at least going to get a third-place finish after that last restart. We had a really good car. The driver was about 80 percent today.

"We ran 47 laps on fuel and the only thing that saved us was those two caution flags. The same thing happened to me at Watkins Glen last year. There were so many caution flags, and that's what got me in trouble. We just pulled up to the gas pumps and that baby held 21.8 gallons, so there wasn't much left in it. We got lucky and brought it home eighth. I made some mistakes today that I don't usually make, but at least we brought it home."

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Intrepid) -- finished 10th
"It seems like we're getting better and better every week. We've raced on several racetracks now that we struggled on in the past. We're learning more about each other and we feel like the last three weeks that the chemistry has really come together on this team. We were real conservative at the start today, but as the race went on we started taking more chances. At the end, we were giving it all we had. Kenny (Francis) made some great calls in the pits. The team effort is there, and that's pretty cool. I feel real good about our speedway program, and I'm ready to go to Daytona. I'm sure our engines are going to be good. Our speedway program has been good in the past, so we're going to go down there and try to qualify up front and stay there."

HIDEO FUKUYAMA - No. 66 Kikkoman Taurus - finished 43rdNOTE: Brought out 2 caution periods, one for stopping in turn seven with a mechanical problem on lap 50 and again on lap 89 with another car problemWHAT HAPPENED?
"Something to do with the differential. Maybe a broken gear. At first, I thought it was driveshaft, but maybe broke a gear."

BEFORE THIS, HOW WAS YOUR FIRST WINSTON CUP RACE ON A ROAD COURSE? "I was having a hard time because the ball of the shift lever broke off. I have been driving with the rod."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus (finished 15th)NOTE: Was defending Infineon Raceway winner and recorded best finish since Martinsville
"The ball broke off the top of the shifter at the start of the race, and I got several blisters there. (on his hand). That didn't make things easy. That's not an excuse there, it just hurt like hell all day. What really messed things up for us, we had good track position - we were eighth, 11th, something like that - and I had a big pileup right in front of me with Burton and all of them, and I was in it and got fender damage, but I didn't know how bad. The green flag stayed out. So I came down to the entrance of pit road and I put on the brake and it snatched the wheel out of my hand and locked the right front up, so I thought I had a flat, so I dove in. And that's what got us out of sequence and ultimately killed our day."

IT WAS A VERY GOOD RECOVERY, THOUGH.
"Yeah, they made another good call at the end."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus (finished 14th)NOTE: Lost a tyre tread on lap 35 and dropped to 24th. Lowest finish since Martinsville
"It was okay. We weren't ever great. We were probably always a 10th- or 15th-place car, and just some wrecks and some stuff happened. At times we had good track position, but I never thought them guys could make it as far as they made it on fuel or we would've pitted earlier and had a chance to be up there, too, but it didn't work out that way. But yet I'm satisfied with 14th. That's a lot better than we've ever done here before."

YOU LOST A TIRE EARLY. HOW DID YOU GET BACK IN IT?
"I had a flat. We were running in the top 10 and thought we could've kinda stayed there all day. I thought I had a flat, but I wasn't sure, and I should've ducked in the pits right away and I waited a lap and you can't wait a lap here. The whole thing came off the wheel. I just lost a bunch of time, so that was my mistake."

IT HAPPENED BY PIT ROAD?
"It didn't happen there, it happened the lap before. I should've gone into pit road. It happened through the esses the lap before. I felt it get real loose. I didn't know if it was gravel on the track or if I had flat. So I got a flat and they said, 'Pit,' and I was just by the edge and I went another lap. That's when it came all the way apart. And that's how I cost myself all those positions."

YOU WERE 24TH ON THE LAST RE-START. DID YOU JUST DRIVE HARD?
"Yeah, we all were. Me and Junior and the 48 and the 20 all had new tires and were picking on the guys who didn't have new tires. So it was fun driving up through there out of control. That was pretty fun."

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 Citgo Taurus (finished 38th)NOTE: Had eventful day. Pushed Rusty Wallace into a spin on lap 50, spun in turn seven on lap 66 when he, Scott Pruett and Kurt Busch tried to run three-wide through the corner. Then spun trying to pass brother Ward at final hairpin before finally losing time for good after hitting the wall in turn ten.
"We were really fast. We had a great car. I got into Rusty. He had a problem, I don't know what happened. I got into him, and that was my fault. And then they made it three wide in turn seven. I got spun out there and went all the way back, and then drove back to eighth. And then I just screwed up. I just got into 10 a little too deep and it came around on me. I let our team down today, and I hate that more than anything. Guys worked so hard, and I let 'em down."

AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAME BACK, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU RAN TWO RACES TODAY?
"We passed a lot of cars."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (finished 19th)
"We got in an accident on the first lap and it knocked the front-end out of line a little bit, so we just had a hard day's work in front of us there."

AFTER THAT DID YOU AVOID ALL THE BUMPING?
"We got spun out, we got back up, decently, middle pack, and got spun out, so that didn't help us, either."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (finished 22nd)
"It was kind of an up-and-down day. I spun out all by myself at the beginning of the race, put us way back in track position, but I had a great car. Came back to, like, 13th or 14th and the 23 car just ran into the side of us, don't really know where he was going. But that just killed us, and we fell all the way back to 22nd at the end. So, it was an up-and-down day. Same old road course, everybody bumping all into each other. But I'm glad we got through it, the car's in one piece and we'll get ready for Daytona."

TONY RAINES, NO. 74 BACE MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET - Finished 31st:
"It started with a flat tire and I got a little help from somebody and got spun out. It's just a rough day at the road course. I tire went flat and we had to drive all the way around and I lost a lap early on and with the single file restarts there is nothing that you can do. It just make a long day longer. I learned a little bit out there today so hopefully when I get back here next year we'll be a little better off."

WHAT HAPPENED TO CUT THE TIRE? DID YOU RUN OVER DEBRIS?
"The spotter said I ran over something and the 24 ran over it and kicked it off the track. As I went into turn three it just turned around. It was flat before I got there. It's just my luck."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 41 TARGET DODGE - Finished 26th:NOTE: Spun Mark Martin out
"It wasn't too bad, considering the kind of rough qualifying that we had. This place is tough, no doubt. It's something that I definitely have a little bit to learn here. I think our third run out there we were really good. The car was really good and then the track sickened up on us a little bit. I think we had a little too much rear spring in it so I know coming back here I'll know a little bit better what to do. Our power down was horrible the whole race but we had a good solid run. I got into it with a couple of guys. I was trying to stay out of trouble as best I could but I got into a couple of guys. Other than that, I feel pretty good about it. We got a finish, gained us some spots in the points, I think. We keep trucking along and hopefully we'll get better and better."

GREG BIFFLE, NO. 16 GRAINGER FORD - Finished 37th:NOTE: Was running in top 20 when he ran out of fuel with three laps to go
"We just ran out of gas. We had a good car before the race started but it went downhill on us. Nothing went away on the car. The car was still running strong. I think I got spun out in turn 11, but I'll have to watch the tape and see what happened. I can't really say much about that until I see what I did or what happened. And then we just run out of gas.

JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 42 HAVOLINE DODGE - Finished 20thNOTE: Was best finishing rookie for 6th time in 2003, increased RotY points lead to 8 over Greg Biffle
"I would say it was a successful day. I think we had a better car than where we finished. The way the pit strategy works out it's a struggle to time that out and we do not get good gas mileage. The caution where we had to pit really hurt us, put us way at the back. I think Donnie (Wingo, his crew chief) made a good call with putting tires on there with 19 laps to go. We were able to pass a few cars. We pretty much rode around all day and then raced the last 20 laps."

JACK SPRAGUE, NO. O NETZERO PONTIAC - Finished 39th:NOTE: Lost time on lap 58 when Kyle Petty span in turn seven and drove across the track into Sprague's car, damaging the front end
"I was trying to be patient and not make any mistakes. We got a little screwed up in the pits on our first stop and got blocked in, but we were coming back from it. The NetZero Pontiac was tight in and loose off but we probably had a top-25 car. Kyle (Petty) came out of nowhere and just tore up our front end. I don't know what happened. I guess he didn't see me. After that, it was over."

MICHAEL WALTRIP: No.15 NAPA Chevrolet - Finished 13thNOTE: Moved into top five in overall points
"Overall, I am happy with our finish," Waltrip explained. "We had a 20th-place car in all the weekend practice sessions and we qualified 20th. We think there was just too little front bar or too big of a bar in the rear; we'll take 13th and a step up in points. I went into the race with two goals: not to hit anything and to stay on the road. I accomplished my goals, just didn't have enough tire toward the end."

DALE EARNHARDT JR: No.8 Budweiser Chevrolet - Finished 11th
"We worked hard for that 11th-place finish. This is a track where we knew we had to improve, and I think we showed that we're here to stay as a championship contender. I wanted a top-10 sooo bad, and we had the car to do it. I want to thank the guys for a car that was the best I've had on a road course. We came, we conquered, we kicked some butt. That was a knock down drag-out, and I had some fun!

"I was taking it easy early on, just chillin and saving the car as much as I could. The 99 car (Jeff Burton) got into the 2 car (Rusty Wallace) right in front of me. I was trying to whoa it down, and the 97 car (Kurt Busch) plowed right through me. I would have only lost a few spots, but I couldn't get the engine re-fired. I just sat there hoping that thing would fire. We all did our best to stay calm and get as many spots back as we could. We had an awesome car in the last 20 laps. Man, I was haulin past some cars!"