Sears Point Ford Driver Quotes

June 28, 1998 Save Mart/Kragen 350 Sears Point Raceway, Sonoma, California JEFF BURTON -99- Exide Batteries Taurus -- "We had a great race car, using a lot of patience. I never rubbed him (Jarrett). I never did anything. I cleared him clean and he didn't like it." "I'm fine. The car's hurt pretty bad. It's a shame, the Exide Ford was really fast. I was driving what I thought was a smart race. The car in front of me got under him (Jarrett) and I got under him also. We came off the corner side-by-side and I guess he decided that he didn't want to give me any room and, basically, he turned into me and spun me out. I hate when people race like that. It's a shame. I feel bad for my whole team. It ain't the first time I've had trouble with him, it probably won't be the last. "He's (Jarrett) a really good race car driver. That right there was uncalled for. That's not racing right there, that's just wrecking somebody. The only person I hit all day long was I rubbed Mark Martin when he cut his tire and then Dick Trickle was a lap down and I kind of touched him going by him. Other than that, I raced everybody with a lot of respect. I never touched anybody and I didn't get that in return." TOM HUBERT -19- Bradford White Taurus -- "I was coming through the gears coming out of (turn) eleven and I think the rear-end came out of it. It's just a shame. The Bradford White Ford Taurus was having a great day. I think we had a decent finish coming out of it. I was a little hard on the tires at first when we were getting used to what I needed to do and it's just a shame. We'll take that and go somewhere and try again." DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING? "Oh yeah. These guys ubeat up on the new guy pretty easy. It was fun. We learned a lot. Hopefully next time we'll have a little more for them." RUSTY WALLACE -2- Miller Lite Taurus -- "We made up a lot of positions and it was a real tough day all day long because there were a lot of cars that pitted early. It had me pretty confused for awhile. I thought I drove the thing clear up to 11th and I said, `Where am I running at,' and they said `30th.' I said, `How did that happen.' "I just had to run hard all day long. The track was definitely different from track position because I got around it so much faster. There are guys that stopped, that I passed, and put tires on and came all the way from the back and passed us. Tires were very, very important." MARK MARTIN WAS FAST AT THE END, WHAT DID HE SAY AFTER? "Mark was fast today. He had new tires and I had wore out tires to nothing. He thought I blocked him off a little bit too much, but that's racing. I understand his feelings. He's a hell of a racer, I'll tell you that. I finished fifth and he got sixth." GEOFF BODINE -7- Philips Taurus -- "The rear brakes locked up and I ran into Ricky. I'm sorry. It was my fault." RICK MAST -75- Remington Arms Taurus -- "We spun out and then got back going. Then Ernie (Irvan) blew a right front tire right inside of me and I had to go up the drag strip. So I went up there, stopped and turned around and came back. That's what got us so far behind. Then we were able to stay out in front of everybody on that one restart and get our lap back. Then, Dave (Charpentier) made a good call to come on in early because we thought it was gonna be a long caution. We weren't in the window to finish with gas, but they had that concrete to replace, so we came on in and got our tires and fuel. They kept running under caution, so we knew we were gonna make it. Then, everybody else pitted in behind us. "We got off a little bit with the chassis after that. The one thing we fought yesterday in Happy Hour and today was we couldn't keep the back end hooked up after about 12 or 13 laps. Before that it was good, but after that we had trouble." MARK MARTIN -6- Valvoline Taurus -- "We had an awful good car. We did everything we could to make up what we lost on Friday and we lost a ton more today. I'm disappointed to run sixth and I'm happy to run sixth. It didn't hurt us that bad in the points. I didn't think we could come back from thirtysomething in 25 laps to top 10. We had an awesome car. If I would have drove better, we might have won the race but I overdrove this weekend." JOHNNY BENSON -26- Cheerios Taurus -- "We struggled all day. Maybe I just can't road race. I thought we were gonna end up OK, but that's all we had. It was going the best we could and getting turned around down here didn't help us at all. I didn't want to stall it and I wanted to keep going and I think I took off too much rubber trying to get turned around. It just cooked the rear tires and I was just hanging on from that point on." RICKY RUDD -10- Tide Taurus -- "I got Bodined I guess. I don't know where he was going. It was a stupid mistake on his part. He just got in there way too deep and he couldn't get stopped. He didn't come in there trying to hit me on purpose, he just drove in there way too deep and couldn't get his car stopped. If I hadn't been there, he would have ended up in a suite somewhere I think or in one of those tents." YOUR STRATEGY WAS WORKING TO THAT POINT WASN'T IT? "It was gonna work out real good, a good top five finish. I hate to predict a win because we had eight more laps on our tires, but our car ran pretty good on old tires."

"SLUGGER" LABBE, Crew Chief -28- Texaco Havoline Taurus -- "We spun out twice and were lucky to overcome it. We had some good pit strategy and got lucky and made a good call. Everything worked out good for us. That's all we wanted to do was finish in the top 10 and get the best finish we possibly can. Kenny, he's a driver, man. Those tires were wore off that car at the end of the race, but he's gonna be someone to contend with. Maybe when we go to some of these tracks for the second time this year we'll have something for them." JEREMY MAYFIELD -12- Mobil 1 Taurus -- "We had a good and bad day. This hasn't really been a good place for me in the past. We knew it was gonna be a critical point in our season and we did the best we could. A lot of circumstances happened to us today. I got off the track one time and then everybody got mixed up on their pit sequence, but to come home 18th and in the top 20 again for the Mobil 1 team is all we can expect. We wanted to do better, but to come out of here 18th for us is pretty good right now." DID YOU LEARN A LOT? "I learned a lot. We feel like we kind of got off track of what we've been doing all year with our car. Maybe we shouldn't have done that. Maybe we should have stayed with exactly what we've been running most of the season and we'll do that next time. But, hey, I'm still proud of these guys. They really gave me the best they had all day and I gave them the best I had. That's all we can do week-in and week-out. That's not gonna bother us a bit. We're gonna go to Daytona and do the best we can there."