NASCAR Winston Cup Series NAPA 500: Post Race Quotes (Pontiac Drivers)
17 November 1997
NASCAR Winston Cup Series Pontiac Race Quotes NAPA 500 Atlanta Motor Speedway November 16, 1997 HAMPTON, GA - The following provided by Performance Marketing Group: KYLE PETTY (#44 Hot Wheels Grand Prix) - Started 20th, finished 6th - "We had a good run. We started really strong, but the car was loose. That's why we kept pitting and going to the back. We made our adjustments early. Bobby Kennedy made some good calls in the pits. We had a good day. We had a good year. Bobby Labonte was the class of the field. He gets around this place, and I know it's a new race track, but he kicked butt here last year, too. I think this race shows Pontiac is getting better. I didn't even make this race last year and finished sixth this year. Derrike Cope went out on a high note. Pontiac ended the year on a real high note, and all its drivers did, too. "It was a pretty treacherous race track. It reminded me while I was out there running of watching an IRL race on TV. You've got some cars out there running 20 miles an hour faster than other cars, and you're catching them and you're always in the wrong place. That's what made it bad. It's only a groove, groove-and-a-half race track. It's not a two-groove race track. BOBBY HAMILTON (#43 STP Grand Prix) - Started 40th, finished 7th - "It's seventh, but I'm really disappointed. I wanted to end things on an even better note. I thank the team for doing such a good job on our backup car in order to get a top-10 finish. We got tight, and we couldn't get a caution in order to get a rubber out of the right-front. It would literally fly when it was free. We just couldn't take a chance of losing too much track position by taking the time to take it out. It's a top-10, but we could have contended for the win." WARD BURTON (#22 MBNA Grand Prix) - Started 2nd, finished 9th - "We can take a lot of positives out of this. We led some laps, and had a good car for much of the race. We really came on strong late in the race to get that top-10. We want to build on this and have runs like this on a consistent basis next year."