Goody's Headache Powders 500 Post Race Quotes from Ford Drivers
25 August 1997
NASCAR Winston Cup Series Ford Post-Race Quotes Goody's Headache Powder 500 Bristol Motor Speedway August 23, 1997 BRISTOL, TN - The following provided by Ford Motorsports Public Affairs: MARK MARTIN (#6 Valvoline Thunderbird) - Started 5th, finished 2nd - "They threw the caution right after I got passed. It's kinda unfortunate. It had been on the race track for 10 laps or so and I was just trying to be careful there. If I had known they were going to throw the caution I would have probably stepped it up. We had a good car. Unfortunately the cautions didn't play out in our favor. The 88 (Dale Jarrett) was faster than us for a long time. We needed that whole 100 laps toward the end to go green in order to win. Otherwise, we didn't have a winning car. Nobody probably had anything for Jeff Gordon here tonight, but he had trouble and we closed up. We had to finish the thing. We would have loved to have won it, but we didn't. The oil had been on the track for about 10 laps, and I needed to finish this race. I didn't need to wreck. It was more important for me to keep from wrecking than it was to win the race at that point. Then they threw the caution right after I got passed. They got the track cleaned up, then we didn't get a good restart. That's the way it goes. We needed to finish this race to close the gap on Jeff Gordon and put a little more heat on those guys. "It was a good run for us and that's what we needed to do. We gave it our best shot. We had a great shot and a great run. We had a third-place car all day, and the first-place car had trouble. We had a shot to win it, but we had to have a long, long green to do it, and we didn't get that. I'm just real thankful we didn't get wrecked tonight. This was a crashfest. Points are points. There is a lot of racing to go and a lot of bad luck in store for all of us this year. I was pretty lucky tonight. I missed all the stuff. Unfortunately the lapped cars trying to make their lap up got Jeff Gordon. There wasn't anything that he could do. But if he's in the garage, that's how we make our points. We had a great week last week and gained 10 points. That's not going to do it. If you spend some Sundays in the garage, that will do it. We spent a bunch in the garage already this year, and we're probably going to spend some more. And he may too. It's a long race yet." BRETT BODINE (#11 Close Call Phone Card Thunderbird) - Started 40th, finished 31st - Bodine was involved in the multi-car accident on lap 258 which sent David Green to the hospital with a broken shoulder. - "I came off of (turn) 4 and those guys got together and I saw the 96 (David Green) car up on its top on the side of the wall. We were just coming off there wide-open. There was just no chance to get checked up in time. You slow down, but the guys behind you can't and they put you right into the wreck. It's just one of those deals. It was a typical big wreck at Bristol." JEFF BURTON (#99 Exide Batteries Thunderbird) - Started 4th, finished 3rd - "We were slipping and sliding pretty bad. NASCAR is pretty reluctant to believe you sometimes when you are crying about oil, because you might have a problem that you want to get fixed. But there was oil on there this time, for sure. Mark (Martin) slipped and the 88 didn't and Dale got by him. That's just Bristol man, and you've got to be ready for 'em. We're happy with this. We have struggled at Bristol. I don't think we've had a top-20 finish at Bristol, so to finish fourth, we'll go to the house and be happy. "It was real close. I don't know how I didn't wreck. It was real close. I was wrecked and just didn't hit nothing. Somebody was putting oil down for five or six laps before they threw the caution." JEREMY MAYFIELD (#37 Kmart/RC Cola Thunderbird) - Started 18th, finished 30th - Was involved in accident on lap 245 that sent Jeff Gordon to the garage for more than 100 laps. - "Bristol's Bristol. That might not sound like much, but believe me, anybody who knows anything about this place knows that. For this team it seemed like every kind of bad luck we could have we had. We lost two laps when that caution came out five laps after we had pitted under green. Then the crash put us behind the wall for a bunch of laps. We fought handling problems and broke a valve spring the rest of the way. The way this night went, I'll probably trip walking up the banking to my car. All we can do is regroup for Darlington. Maybe we've used up all our bad luck in one night."
