Dodge Pocono post-race quotes

Sunday, June 17, 2001
Pocono Raceway
Pocono 500

JOHN ANDRETTI (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I don't know what happened. Everybody started crossing in front of me. I slowed down, but I had been hit so much in the back that I didn't stop. I should have just stopped, and that would have been good enough, but I didn't and got involved in another deal."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We just got run into from behind. It's unfortunate, but that's what happens when you're running in the back of the pack. Something happened to the 11 car up front, and we just got drilled from behind. The car wasn't very good before all that. We were good in practice Saturday, but it wasn't going very good today. We usually have a better handle on things here."

JASON LEFFLER (No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I'm fine. We were in that first wreck, and it screwed the fenders all up. It wasn't driving right, but it wasn't terribly bad. Buckshot was pushing out to the wall and he just turned it away from the wall. He hit me when I was going underneath him. We'll try to patch it up and get back out there."

BUCKSHOT JONES (No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I got up off the turn and the car got tight. It got loose. It was pushing so much, the 01 just got in the back of us. It was more of a racing deal than anything, nobody's fault. I'm fine. It's the first time we've been here and it looked like we were headed toward a pretty decent finish."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We had a great run. Being within four or five car lengths of the 24 and 88 up there, and we had a good run with 'em. Obviously we had an easy top 10 car and maybe a top five. I was just being real easy with the car there at the end, taking care of the brakes and blew the motor up. We twist these motors here pretty good, and you've seen a lot of engine problems here in the past. Sammy Johns and Patrick Donahue and the guys changed some things this morning, and it was running great. We ran in the top 10 most of the day and I felt like we had a real shot at a top five. We'll just have to get 'em with this Dodge Dealers Dodge next time. We've been struggling with the tires, but we did some testing here, and we definitely figured it out here. Maybe we've learned some things that will help us somewhere else, too."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Marlin's fourth-place finish matches his best ever at Pocono. He won the pole and finished fourth in June 1999 and also finished fourth in June 1995.

"My hat's off to all the guys on the race team. Thank Coors Light and Dodge and Goodyear for a good tire. We kept adjusting on the car and kept getting it better. We were a 20th place car when the race started and hit the fence on the first lap. We were pushing, but we kept working on it all day and freed it up. We weren't too bad at the end. I'm real proud of the team. They're a great bunch of guys and I'm tickled to death. We have a good car week after week, and we had a top-five car today at the end. It was terrible at the start, but we kept working on it and made it a top five car.

"It was a little frustrating to finish third last week because we had a car that could have won the race and probably would have won if those last caution flags hadn't come out. From what we had going on today, a fourth-place finish is great. We were too tight at the start and got into some early trouble.

"I'm not going to eat any more lobsters before a race, that's for sure. I ate one right before the race started. It didn't taste right, and I only ate a few bites and threw it away. I felt pretty rough the last hundred laps.

"We're happy with another top five. Those 28 and 88 teams are strong, and you can't ever count out Gordon. We've just got to keep working on our stuff and get it a little bit better."

DAVE BLANEY (No. 93 Amoco Ultimate Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"The team got me some track position with a two-tire stop. The car was pretty decent all day, just a little on the loose side. On the last run, it got really good, the best we'd had it all day. We were a little off on the gearing, but we got what we could get out of it, and we're pretty happy with it. I think we learned a lot today that will help us next time. We'll definitely use a little different gearing, and you learn how to drive the track a little better. If you watch how the good drivers drive, you can't help but get a little better."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"Something finally happened to the motor. I'm not sure what went wrong, but the car hadn't been very good all day."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"I did a little agricultural driving today. Everybody spun out and I didn't have anywhere to go. The grass was my only option. It didn't really hurt the car. It messed the air dam up a little bit. What hurt it worst was cutting that left front tire down. I think we would have been OK. I ran with the 18 and 20 a lot of the day, but it doesn't matter now because we finished 27th."

STACY COMPTON (No. 92 Kodiak Dodge Intrepid R/T)
NOTE: Compton scored a career-best 23rd-place finish Sunday at Pocono. He was overheated after the race and received oxygen. According to a team spokesman, when Compton cooled off, he felt much better.

-Dodge Motorsports-