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Michigan II: Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch early out quotes

Jeff Burton, No. 31 Cingular Wireless Monte Carlo SS Note: Jeff Burton goes to the garage on lap 20 and retires from the race. WHAT HAPPENED? "I don't know. I have to say the guys have done a great job. Our reliability has been incredible. But ...

Jeff Burton, No. 31 Cingular Wireless Monte Carlo SS

Note: Jeff Burton goes to the garage on lap 20 and retires from the race.

WHAT HAPPENED? "I don't know. I have to say the guys have done a great job. Our reliability has been incredible. But here the day got us. I think it gets everybody all the time and today was our turn. We won't use this as an excuse. We have three races to get our business done and we're going to go get it done."

YOU JUST GOT YOUR TEAM IN A HUDDLE LIKE A FOOTBALL TEAM. WHAT DID YOU JUST TELL THEM? "I just wanted to remind everybody that this a good race team and this happens to everybody. Today was our turn and we're not going to get down about this. This is nobody's fault. We're all in this together. We've got great race cars. We break engines. We mess up from time to time. We'll just keep fighting and we'll come back and try to win some races."

LOOKS LIKE AN ENGINE PROBLEM. "Yeah, broken engine. But we've had great reliability with our engines and today we didn't. We're in a disappointing race but that just makes it that much more exciting for us and we just have to bring it to the next three races and just do a good job. I'm not down at all; I think this is a great race team. We will overcome this and we'll be fine."

ANY INDICATION THAT THERE WAS A PROBLEM? "No, we just took off there. We were really loose and the car started coming and we were in really good shape. I was really happy with the way the car was driving right until the time it broke. You know, this stuff happens and we'll go to Bristol.

"This happens to everybody and right now we're in the heat of the point race, but stuff's happened to everybody all year long. It was just our turn today. We've had some great fortune and our engine program has been extremely reliable and today it wasn't. But that's no excuse for not getting our business done in the next three weeks."

IS IT MORE DISSAPOINTING SINCE YOU WERE ON THE POLE? "No, sitting on the pole doesn't mean you're going to win a race or finish last. It just means you did a good job on qualifying on Friday and like I said, we come to race and qualifying went good but we're here to race."

WHAT EXACTLY WAS IT? "I don't know. Maybe a broken valve."

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT YOUR POINTS CUSHION? "As I've said all along, I don't think we have a cushion. I don't think anybody has a cushion. We have to keep fighting and bring it to the race track every week. We can't afford to get into wrecks, we can't afford to break motors. but when we do, we just have to fight and overcome it and we'll do that."

IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU HAD TO END IT THIS EARLY. "Everybody has. I've had to do it and it's not a fun feeling but again, life goes on, the sun's going to come up in the morning and we've just got to go back to work on Monday and keep doing what we've been doing. We're not going to change what we've been doing, we've been doing a really good job. We're just going to keep doing it."

***

Kyle Busch, No. 5 Kellogg's/Delphi Monte Carlo SS

Note: Kyle Busch brings his No. 5 Kellogg's/Delphi Chevrolet to the garage on lap 43.

WHAT HAPPENED? "Typical Michigan luck, I guess. We can go up there. We can lead the race from the beginning of the race. We can have a great race car, a fast race car for that. I must have had a right front tire going soft or something like that because it went off into Turn Three and fenced itself the first time unexpectedly for no reason and then a couple of laps later it finally let go and blew out and killed the fence. So it's a touch break for all the Kellogg's/Delphi guys. They worked their hearts out. To have this predicament this early in the race is pretty harmful but we'll just have to go on to Bristol and see what we can do there."

-credit: gm racing

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