NASCAR Winston Cup Miller 400 -- Post Race Quotes from Pontiac Drivers
16 June 1997
NASCAR Winston Cup Series Pontiac Post-Race Quotes Miller 400 Michigan Speedway June, 15, 1997 BROOKLYN, MI - The following provided by Performance Marketing Group: NOTE: Derrike Cope earned his best finish of the season with his eighth-place run. That means all eight of Pontiac's teams have earned top-10 finishes this year. DERRIKE COPE (#36 Skittles Grand Prix) - Started 42nd, finished 8th - "The crew found some problems right after our qualifying effort. We just didn't run very well there. But after the last practice I knew we had a good race car. The guys battled back. We had a problem on one pit stop, and the guys battled back. We went right back to the front. It was a good effort today. It feels good to run in the top-10. This is a new team we started from scratch, and we've been very methodical in getting better each week. The last five or six weeks we've been pretty productive. It was awful fun racing with Earnhardt. He's really good. I tried to set him up a couple of times. I was real loose getting in turn three. I knew I had to get him in one. He just got back underneath me on the frontstretch and took the air off me, got me slowed down, and got back around me. It was real fun. He's really good and I learned a lot. The last practice I knew we were good. I knew that after the last practice at Pocono, too (where he finished 11th). Our Pontiac was real good, real smooth, and fast. I knew today that if I could be patient and not cause any grief for myself we could get through there and have a good effort. This car has been one of our best cars in the race, not qualifying. We're trying to sort out all our cars and learn their tendencies. We'll make better judgments and take them back to tracks where they will be the most productive. This car has raced well about everywhere we've gone this year, but we'll probably bring this ol' girl back out there (to California). It's the same kind of race track. If we can have the same kind of effort out there we'll be looking further up in the points." KYLE PETTY (#44 Hot Wheels Grand Prix) - Started 39th, finished 26th - "We just didn't run. We haven't run since we've been here. We didn't run here and we didn't run last week. We've got a problem somewhere. We've got to figure out what it is. We have a different Pontiac for California. "They gave the Fords the spoiler and they were dominant. They took it away and they were just another race car with a bunch of crybabies driving them because they all whined about it. Then they gave it back to them and they're all heroes again. I'm no more concerned about California than I am Watkins Glen, Charlotte, Rockingham, Darlington, or anyplace else because they're going to dominate everywhere else, too." CHAD LITTLE (#97 John Deere Grand Prix) - Started 23rd, finished 25th - "The car was not as good in the corners as it could have been, but we did improve it all day. That's especially important here since we're going to California next week. We learned a lot of things that might help us out there since the two tracks are so similar. I'm especially happy with our pit stops. We've been really focusing on that lately, and our times showed a lot of improvement. We're just happy to get 400 miles in without anything bad happening on the track. That's really important for us right now, making races and finishing them." JERRY NADEAU (#1 R&L Carriers Grand Prix) - Started 32nd, finished 36th - "We lost a gear early on. The car ran good. It was actually tight most of the day. We kept freeing it up and freeing it up, and it actually got better. I thought it was a good day. We learned a lot. The only laps we lost really was when we had to come into the pits. Other than that, we didn't lose that much on the race track. We're not really sure what Pontiac we're going to run at California. We made a lot of improvements to this car. We're going to go back to the shop to get our backup car and try to go to California with two good cars. I had a good time. These guys are really good to race for. It was a lot of fun running with a bunch of pros."
