Goody's Headache Powder 500 Post Race Quotes from Chevy Drivers
25 August 1997
NASCAR Winston Cup Series Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes Goody's Headache Powder 500 Bristol Motor Speedway August 23, 1997 BRISTOL, TN - The following provided by Chevrolet Motor Division, General Motors Corporation Public Relations: JEFF GORDON (#24 DuPont Automotive Refinishes Monte Carlo) - Started 2nd, finished 35th - Gordon was involved in an accident with Jeremy Mayfield on lap 245. NOTE: Gordon was shooting for his 13th straight top-four short track finish. Gordon had won six of the last 11 (54.5 percent) NASCAR Winston Cup short track races with an average finish of 1.73. He'd also won four of the last five short track races with an average finish of 1.6 in those events. Beginning with Gordon't 1995 championship season, he had an average finish of 4.37 in 19 short track races with seven wins, 15 top-fives, 18 top-19s and only one DNF prior to Saturday night's race. - "That's what happens on a track that you can't pass on. First the 7 (Geoff Bodine) came in and drilled me in the left rear. I let him go by and I think the 88 (Dale Jarrett) went by. I got hit again, and we got hit pretty bad. It was just typical Bristol. The lapped cars are trying so hard to get back on the lead lap. First the 7 tried to knock me out. I don't know if I came down on him or he came down into me or what happened. I got hit off (turn) two. I don't know who it was. It's pretty bad. You think the best place to be here is out front, and it normally is except on those restarts. Those guys are wild. It's hurt bad. It's hard to wreck at this place and not hurt it bad. When I hit that wall, I knew it was going to be pretty tough. The right rear is hurt pretty bad. It looks like it's going to need some trailing arms. I think I might have got the right front a little bit, too." RAY EVERNHAM (Crew chief, #24 DuPont Automotive Refinishes Monte Carlo) - "You've got to take the good with the bad. I can't believe that people won't use their heads. That bothers me more than anything. You blame it on the race track, but it ain't the race track." JOE NEMECHEK (#42 BellSouth Monte Carlo) - Started 27th, finished 38th - Nemechek spun in turn three on lap 83 and hit the wall. - "It was just one of those Bristol things. Tony Glover (crew chief) gave me an awesome car. I was just trying to get past some lapped cars and somebody got impatient. We'll be back." DALE EARNHARDT (#3 GM Goodwrench Service Plush Monte Carlo) Started 34th, finished 14th - Earnhardt was involved in the multi-car accident on lap 258. - "The car was a little loose at the beginning, but I think we were going to be all right after adjusting on it a little bit. Then we got in that wreck and busted the radiator. The crew did a great job changing it, but we lost three laps and it's tough to make up laps here at Bristol. I guess that old monkey is still on our backs. Maybe we can shake it off next week at Darlington. I know they switched the track around down there, but I think I'll be able to figure out how to get around it without much trouble." TERRY LABONTE (#5 Kellogg's Monte Carlo) - Started 19th, finished 7th - "We could have been a little bit better. We weren't as good as we needed to be. Lining up sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th all night with all those guys a lap down, the leaders could jump out and take off. Our lap times weren't bad, but we could never get to the front. We gambled and stopped for four tires on that last caution and we shouldn't have. We lost a spot by doing that. We didn't beat the 90 car (Dick Trickle) back out and that hurt. We moved up on the 24 (Jeff Gordon) and lost points to the 6 (Mark Martin) and 88 (Dale Jarrett). We've got 10 races to go, so we've got out work cut out for us." RICKY CRAVEN (#25 Budweiser Monte Carlo) - Started 14th, finished 13th - "We had a lot of potential, but I screwed up early on the first pit stop. We recovered from that and had a flat. You never know when that's going to happen. That really cost us. We would have been on the lead lap and in the hunt. Our car was good. It's frustrating. That's a decent finish, but we've got to get better." KEN SCHRADER (#33 Skoal Bandit Monte Carlo) - Started 6th, finished 6th - "The right front fender caved in. When I was bouncing off the 99 (Jeff Burton) and the 41 (Steve Grissom) was bouncing off me, that's when it happened. I was looking for third and the 41 was looking for fourth. It was getting a little exciting. There was enough room, but we didn't want to go three wide. We stayed up there all night. The worse we ever got was 12th. We just missed it a little bit. It looked like an all Ford show still except for Jeff Gordon. The air is doing a lot here when you're running 140 (mph). Darlington had been our best run until today. Darlington has always been good for me. That was the first place all year we actually qualified good and ran good all day. We're working together and we really want to get in the top-10. I think we can do it, but we've got to get some consistency. At last we ended those 11th and 14th place finishes. We done that for five races. Sixth is a lot better than that, but when we were finishing 11th and 14th, we thought that was a hell of a gain from those 25ths and 30ths." STERLING MARLIN (#4 Kodak Monte Carlo) - Started 7th, finished 10th - "It was a hard night. I thought we got our lap back. Any time I've been around, you race the leader back to the flag to get your lap back. We beat him back to the line and they came back and said we had already taken the caution and we couldn't race him back. I don't know how we took the caution before the leader did. I've never heard that. It's just one of those rules. We were real tight early and then got the car pretty good. We had a top-six or seven car. We got in that wreck and skinned up the front end a little bit. It wasn't too bad, but we had to play catchup the rest of the night. It was a pretty good run here in front of the home folks. Cars were going everywhere out there when they had that red flag. It didn't hurt our car too bad, but we lost a couple of laps. We lost a lap sitting on pit road. That might have been as hard as I've ever worked for a 10-place finish, but that's the way it goes here at Bristol."
