>From NASCAR Public Relations and Chevrolet


     
Friday, April 19, 1996. Martinsville Speedway. First-round qualifying 
Goody's Headache Powders 500. Chevrolet notes, quotes. 


KEN SCHRADER (No. 25 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"I ran over something and the rear wheels started hopping. I'm 
not hurt, but I know I've made a sudden stop recently. I got in a contest 
with Ricky Rudd to see who could make the longest black marks going up 
to the wall and stop right before you hit it. Neither one of us 
successfully stopped before we hit it, but I didn't hit as hard as 
Ricky, so I believe I should win. We had a little trouble when we first 
went out today. The guys did a great job getting the backup car ready to 
go. That's probably not going to be the front row, but we're going to be 
able to see the front row from there. We didn't get a lot of practice 
laps with the backup. but we got enough."

TERRY LABONTE. (No. 5 Kellogg's Corn Flakes Monte Carlo)
"It's nice knowing when we go out that we're a real contender 
and not just struggling to make the race all the time. Richard Petty is 
someone I've always admired, and he's done so much for our sport. To me, 
it's an honor to be mentioned in the same article with Richard Petty. 
This is a tough track. A lot of beating and banging always goes on up 
here, and it'll be a great place to break Richard's record. I just wish I 
was breaking some of his other records. At least we made the race today, 
and we'll get to pit on the front straightaway. Our car had been pretty 
good, and that's about as quick as we had run in practice. We picked it 
up a lot on the second lap. I really wasn't trying to run that hard on 
the first lap. I just wanted to try to get everything warmed up and turn 
in a flood lap for the second one. I thought we might have picked it up 
a little more, but that's OK."

JEFF GORDON (No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"We slowed down about a tenth from what we practiced. I don't 
know what was wrong. We just couldn't make it go. This is probably the 
toughest place around for me to qualify. I don't think anybody getup a 
perfect lap here. It just ends up with whoever slips and slides the 
least."

DALE EARNHARDT (No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"We feel pretty good about our lap. We ran just a tick faster 
in practice. Maybe we'll end up in the top five or 10, but it's real 
competitive right now. We went out on stickers, and the fastest laps we 
ran today were on stickers, so I think that was the way to go."

DARRELL WALTRIP (No. 17 Western Auto Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"We're better than we were last week, but we're still not where 
we need to be. We picked up just a tiny bit from practice. This is a 
brand new car, and we tested it here. We couldn't make up our mind if we 
wanted to race it or our old car. I've always had good luck here with 
new cars. Just about every race I've won here has been in a brand new 
car. I didn't want to break tradition."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 4 Kodak Film Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"We came up here and tested and ran a 20.27 with this car. We 
just couldn't get it running all day, We changed motors and changed 
gears right before we qualified. If we'd had time to work on the 
chassis, we might have been a little better, but I hope that gets Its on 
the front straightaway. We didn't get any practice with the new motor, 
but 
it was a lot better."

DAVE MARCIS (No. 71 Prodigy Chevrolet Monte Carlo)
"It s amazing what goes on in qualifying these days. This is the same car 
and same engine we had last week, and we didn't make the race last week. 
We just couldn't get it hooked up last week. We did our own thing this 
morning, and what worked for us is the way we went. I wasn't sure where 
that would put us, but I was sure it would put us in the race, and that 
s all I care about right now."

BOBBY LABONTE (No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet)
"We really needed that run. we were about 35th fastest in 
practice. We changed the motor right before qualifying. We had a little 
doubt about the engine, so we rallied around and changed it. We really 
didn't have anything to lose. We came up here and tested, and that's 
about what we ran in practice."

         
Jack Durbin                                   indy500@freenet.tlh.fl.us
Motorsport News International                      jackd@motorsport.com
(Moderators for "rec.autos.sport.info")
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