T
TonyB
Guest
Dang - mistyped - Should be "Noted and Quoted" not "Noted and Quotes."
edit: fixed it for you, TonyB
Note scroll down for the Busch and Truck series
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Noted and Quoted: Nextel Cup Brickyard Post-race
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#24 - Jeff Gordon - started 11th; finished 1st
Quoted: "It feels amazing. I don't know. I can't compare four times in a stock car to my heroes like Rick Mears and AJ Foyt and those guys did here. It's just a very special day for this entire team. What an amazing year these guys are having. I've just been having so much fun behind the wheel of this DuPont Chevrolet all year long. These guys make it so special. Hendrick Motorsports is on top of it right now. This one is for Papa Joe. I'll tell you what, it's been a tough month for the Hendrick family and days like today help. There's just no feeling in the world like winning at this speedway."
#88 - Dale Jarrett - started 17th; finished 2nd
Quoted: "We share all of our information, I don't know what they do over there. They have a great organization over at Hendricks but it would be hard to imagine they have anything better than what we have here. I know those two guys are pretty close, but I can't imagine anything closer than my teammate and I. He's having a great, great season. He had another good points day. He's got himself solidly in the top 10 now, and we're working our way towards there."
#38 - Elliott Sadler - started 3rd; finished 3rd
Quoted: "To come in here and run as good as we just ran, to finish third, run in the top three or four all day long - it says a lot about our race team, says a lot about the character. I love racing my teammate like that. It's great for the whole Robert Yates organization. One car was better than the team today. The 24, they had a great race car, my congratulations to Jeff Gordon. But, I'm really, really proud of my race team right now."
#9 - Kasey Kahne - started 12th; finished 4th
Quoted: “To finish in the top five the first time here is a great feeling. I think we had the best car here. Coming through the field we cut a left front and got into the wall. We got a lap down, got it back and still got a top five. For the first time here it was a great finish, but you can’t help thinking about what might have been if it wasn’t for that cut tire."
#20 - Tony Stewart - started 24th; finished 5th
Quoted: "It wasn't a fifth-place car, by any means. But the guys kept working and we just kept digging and got a fifth out of it. That's as good as a victory for the way this thing drove all day. But these guys worked their tails off all day yesterday. They worked really hard at the test after I crashed a car here. The car not driving well wasn't due to a lack of effort. I mean these guys changed everything they could change on it. It's just that we couldn't get it right."
#16 - Greg Biffle - started 35th; finished 6th
Quoted: "Man, I tell you what, where we pitted wasn't good. I don't know why they were beating us so bad, but everytime we pitted we lost probably a minimum of 4-6 spots each time. The guys were doing good stops, but pit road was all jumbled up with traffic and it just wouldn't work out for us. The National Guard Ford was decent. It's a backup car. Our primary car was better than that, but that's the way it goes."
#42 - Jamie McMurray - started 8th; finished 7th
Quoted: “My car was terrible at the beginning. We ran so well here last year. We were good in Happy Hour yesterday, and we thought we’d run good here today. We just missed it. We made some huge adjustments and we got way behind at one point, so I’m pretty happy with the finish. I don’t know what that did for us in the points. I quit paying attention to the points anyway. Every time I keep up with them we blow up or something, so I just quit paying attention to them. When we get to Richmond we’ll see where we are.”
#29 - Kevin Harvick - started 32nd; finished 8th
Quoted: "We struggled with our car a little bit. We decided to pit there at the end and it really paid off for us and those last few re-starts and got ourselves back up to eighth. We never could get the balance quite right on the car. We never got great track position but we got up there to seventh or eighth. That was about as far as we could get. All in all it was a good day for the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet."
#91 - Bill Elliott - started 18th; finished 9th
Quoted: “I didn’t have anything to lose. I was just trying to hang in and have a good day. That green-white checkered worked, but it worked at the expense of some good race teams. The sad side about it is that the race teams have got to pay for it. I never could get the nose of the car under me. We struggled with it all day long. We were pretty good Saturday in Happy Hour, but the track was pretty green and it got hot and slick today. I just couldn’t keep the nose under it.”
#97 - Kurt Busch - started 15th; finished 10th
Quoted: "We survived the whole day, but when Stewart spun I somehow got a left-rear flat from that and that put us in the back all day. We were coming up through and the car wasn't handling right, so we gave up our position and worked on the car again. We got up as high as I think 11th at one point and had to go all the way to the back again with Harvick running over my right-front fender on pit road. It was just one of those days where nothing fell into place except for the finish and we're very thankful for that. I saw the 19, the 9 and the 88 had a good day, so a lot of guys right around us in the points we finished with. It's not the day we wanted. We had a top-five car and just never got there because of all the circumstances and all the hurdles we had to overcome."
#19 - Jeremy Mayfield - started 13th; finished 11th
Quoted: “My car wouldn’t take off all day. We didn’t need all those cautions. I think I lost one spot on the green-white checkered deal. It was a good day for us, but we’d get up there and then fall back. I guess we gained a few points on 10th place, so it was a good points day. That’s the first time we haven’t been in the top 10 in awhile, but 11th is about as close as you can get. We’ve just got to keep the momentum going and we’ll have a shot for the championship. That’s why we’re all out here.”
#99 - Jeff Burton - started 19th; finished 12th
Quoted: "I thought we had an eighth to 12th-place car and that's pretty much where we ran most of the day. On that big wreck on the front straightaway during the restart, they all got bottled up and I got in the back of Rusty. That got the right-front fender tore off of it and we had to go all the way to the back, but we worked our way up to 12th. We had some help there at the end to finish 12th, but weren't quite as good as I thought we were gonna be, for sure. We can work with that type of car, though. We have some confidence in what we're doing with the bodies and stuff now, so we're gonna take those and keep improving and getting better and better."
#2 - Rusty Wallace - started 29th; finished 13th
Quoted: “We had to work pretty hard for that 13th place finish. The crew did a great job keeping us on the lead lap, and I think we could have had a decent finish if we hadn’t got in that deal on the track. It’s always a lot of fun to run well at the Brickyard. We kept fighting back all day, and we left here knowing we gave it all we had.”
#43 - Jeff Green - started 14th; finished 14th
Quoted: “The car wasn’t too bad. We never could make it turn off the corner like we needed to. We started 14th and finished 14th. The last set of tires was pretty good. We had the car adjusted, but the cautions really hurt me. For the way our season has gone, this is definitely a plus for us. The motor ran good all day, but we never could get the Dodge handling up off the corner. That’s where the fast cars were beating us.”
#18 - Bobby Labonte - started 39th; finished 15th
Quoted: (Anything good?): "No, not really. We just didn't hit the right combination today."
#17 - Matt Kenseth - started 23rd; finished 16th
Quoted: "I feel good that we ran good, but I'm real frustrated we didn't get to finish. It's disappointing, but we've had a couple years of pretty good luck and that's just something that happens that's bad luck."
#01 - Joe Nemechek - started 4th; finished 17th
Quoted: "We fought it until the end. We missed the setup early and that cost us valuable track position. The U.S. Army/USG Chevrolet started to respond as the race was winding down, but we just ran out of green-flag laps to gain more positions. We finally had the right balance to make a move but it was too little, too late."
#4 - Jimmy Spencer - started 33rd; finished 18th
Quoted: "Not bad. We had a fuel problem or something that messed us up. We just didn't have the straightaway speed. We had a top-10 car and ended up 18th."
#49 - Ken Schrader - started 31st; finished 19th
Quoted: "We started out real bad, and we kept getting the car better and better. We never got it quite where we wanted it. We got it good enough where we could hang on and be up there when something happened to try to take advantage of it. So we wound up 19th, so we'll take it."
#15 - Michael Waltrip - started 28th; finished 20th
Quoted: "We didn't qualify particularly well and we didn't race all that well either. We couldn't get the car handling like we needed it to. We fought the car in the corner and off the corner and never got where we wanted to be. On a positive note, I had a great engine. I thought the engine we had in Pocono was the strongest engine I had ever raced with, but the engine we had in Indy topped that."
#30 - Dave Blaney - started 38th; finished 21st
Quoted: "The car ran great. I couldn't ask for a better-handling race car. The guys did great with it. We just got a penalty on pit road, and we lost a lap, and then had a flat left front and lost a lap, so we were just playing catch up all day. We could never get back up to the front."
#31 - Robby Gordon - started 20th; finished 22nd
Quoted: "We moved up steadily. We had one bad pit stop that put us back to 20th again. We moved all the way up to third. With Kenseth having a problem, the car would have finished at least second. We really had something for Jeff (Gordon). On the real long runs we were really good. It seemed like we could catch him but he'd get away from me on short runs. It's disappointing. I thought we were going to get a Brickyard 400."
#45 - Kyle Petty - started 26th; finished 23rd
Quoted: "I'll tell you what, my crew worked their butts off all day long. I got in a wreck, and they did a really great job. They got me in and out of the pits. But more importantly, when I got in the wreck, they kept working, they kept hammering, they kept jacking, they kept fixing. They showed that we might be 50th in points. but we're not a 50th-place team."
#32 - Ricky Craven - started 37th; finished 24th
Quoted: "It was not very eventful for us. It was very, very frustrating. I don't know what was causing the cut tires. We had one, but I don't know what the problem was. There's not a clear indication of it. In practice, there were a few cars with problems. I know the 19 cut one down yesterday, but it certainly was an issue today."
#6 - Mark Martin - started 16th; finished 25th
Quoted: I just wanted to have a chance and we did. It was a great effort by the Viagra team and we ran awfully good. Things just didn't go our way today. We ran good today, but, unfortunately, things set us back. I'm awfully proud of this team and it's an honor to drive for all these guys. They put their hearts in this stuff and they give me some great race cars, especially today and last week - every week. We just had a little bad luck."
#41 - Casey Mears - started 1st; finished 26th
Quoted: "We were horrible at the beginning, real loose in and tight off. We’ve got a lot of work to do to get the racecar right. We can qualify, but I feel like we’re a little off on the setup. I’m upset. I wanted to run better. About middle way through the race I thought we were getting a handle on it, but at the end everything went wrong. We probably should have stayed out at the end, but that’s a tough call to make. You just can’t pass here. It’s just so hard to pass here. I had a left front tire go down and that put us further in the back, so I think we should have had a top 15 finish.”
#8 - Dale Earnhardt Jr - started 5th; finished 27th
Quoted: "It's a hell of a heartbreak to have a tire cut down on the last lap. We had a real good run going, sitting there in sixth place and trying to make it to the end and leave here with a top-10. My car was the best it had been all day 20 laps earlier, but those last few laps it got real tight again, it was bottoming out in every corner, and I knew something bad was happening. I could just feel the car leaning on that left-front. It's tough, man, but it was a good run for us. I'm proud of the guys."
#21 - Ricky Rudd - started 40th; finished 28th
Quoted: "It was bad or worse. It just wasn't good, it never did get good. At one time we were maybe a 20th-place car, that was probably our best shot. That's nothing to brag about. They adjusted and tried to work on it. We gave up track position all day long, trying. You know, that hurt us some. We were giving up all that track position to try to get the chassis dialed in."
#25 - Brian Vickers - started 6th; finished 29th
Noted: Brian has started in the top 10 in 15 of his 26 career Cup races.
#23 - Tony Raines - started 36th; finished 30th
Noted: Tony has failed to finish both of his Cup starts in 2004.
#12 - Ryan Newman - started 7th; finished 31st
Noted: 31st matches Ryan's wrost Brickyard finish - Ryan also finished 31st in his Brickyard debut in 2001.
#22 - Scott Wimmer - started 34th; finished 32nd
Quoted: "I'm sure glad that they've got the safe walls up here. I blew a tire getting down into one and when I did that I lost all my brakes and kind of went straight for the wall. We were trying to salvage a day out of it. We had a little problem on that restart and banged the left front fender up pretty good and thought we had it all fixed. We kept cutting left fronts but it seems like everybody was having a little problem. It looked like it was going to turn out all right and then it ended pretty poorly."
#40 - Sterling Marlin - started 10th; finished 33rd
Quoted: “We cut a left front tire down, and I couldn’t get slowed down to get in the pits. We got her hot and melted her down. Everybody is running a bunch of camber in the left front, and it’s kind of hard on ‘em. You hit the curb here trying to get them to turn and our car drove terrible from the get-go. It was real loose to start, and all of a sudden it tightened up. The tire is OK. It’s just got too much camber in ‘em. I saw some flames come up and I figured it was time to abandon ship. I was trying to get back without losing a lap, but we needed to stop and work on it anyway. We’ll get back out and see what we can do.”
#00 - Kenny Wallace - started 22nd; finished 34th
Noted: It has now been 32 races since Kenny recorded a top 10 finish in a Cup race.
#77 - Brendan Gaughan - started 30th; finished 35th
Quoted: "I feel bad for the Jasper guys. We're at the Brickyard, their home track. We had our first Penske chassis. Shane Wilson [crew chief] made a great call to give us two tires and get us up there. Kahne came up there with all that metal sticking out of the edge of it and just left rear tired us and gave us a flat right before we could do anything. We got lucky to come out OK. Thanks to the rest of the field for missing me as I came back across the track with no steering."
#48 - Jimmie Johnson - started 9th; finished 36th
Quoted: "It just let go coming off of Turn 4. But that car was just so loose into the corners. I spun out once and had a few more good saves. But it's just one of those bad days that you have. Last week we were good and today, we definitely weren't that. It's just unfortunate."
#10 - Scott Riggs - started 27th; finished 37th
Quoted: "That's the kind of luck we've been having. We've not been qualifying where we want to but the last two weeks we've worked our way up to the front and made great adjustments. We stopped a couple times early in the race and got some serious adjustments done to the car. I know that everybody says that they were good but every time you dropped the green flag I was passing four or five cars every time. That was feeling pretty good to me I wish we could see it to the checkered flag."
#5 - Terry Labonte - started 21st; finished 38th
Quoted: "We're done for the day. It's too bad. Our Chevy kept getting better and better. I hate for it to end this way."
#0 - Ward Burton - started 2nd; finished 39th
Quoted: "I saw the No. 10 car at the very last moment. I thought the No. 15 had just pulled out and we were going to get a run. There was just too much momentum going and there was a wreck in front of me. It was a bad deal for the NetZero Chevrolet. We had an alternator cut out on me, but we were starting to get the car back in shape. It's just one of those things that takes it's toll."
#98 - Derrike Cope - started 43rd; finished 40th
Noted: Derrike hasn't finished on the lead lap October on 1998 - a string of 62 consecutive races.
#50 - Todd Bodine - started 41st; finished 41st
Noted: Todd has only been running at the finish in 1 of his 11 Cup races this year.
#09 - Scott Pruett - started 42nd; finished 42nd
Noted: This was Scott's first Cup start on an Oval since Atlanta in November of 2000.
#60 - Jason Leffler - started 25th; finished 43rd
Noted: Jason's DNF end a streak of running at the finish of 15 consecutive Cup starts.
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Noted and Quoted: Busch Series IRP Post-race
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#5 - Kyle Busch - started 8th; finished 1st
Quoted: "It was not necessarily a difficult night but it was definitely a fun night. We were actually good in the beginning of the race and we kind of got tight there and Lance [McGrew, crew chief] and myself decided to make some changes to it. It made it a little bit worse and then we came back in there on the second stop and actually made it a lot better so we were able to capitalize on our pit strategy and I was actually thinking about second-guessing him but I thought about last night again and I was like 'Never mind. We're coming in and we're getting tires.' It was an awesome night by the Lowe's team."
#27 - Johnny Sauter - started 1st; finished 2nd
Quoted: "I wish I would have had a caution with ten to go and I could have gotten pass Kyle. On cold tires I was good but on warm tires I wasn't able to get around him but it was a good night over all."
#00 - Jason Leffler - started 5th; finished 3rd
Quoted: “This was such a long day. This Busch team is our main focus. Running the Brickyard was supposed to be fun. We thought that we would qualify well there and when that didn’t happen it just made the rest of the day miserable. This third place finish was just what we needed to end the day on a high note. I just can’t say enough for these guys. I wrecked the primary car and they were able to fix the backup in time for a few laps in practice and get it so that it would be competitive. These guys worked so hard today, I couldn’t have done this without them. I think that things are looking up for us. With our third consecutive third place finish and a good gain in points I think this team is going to fight to the end."
#8 - Martin Truex Jr - started 2nd; finished 4th
Quoted: “First off, I always thought that when the green flag waved you were supposed to go. Apparently there are others that don’t know about that, though. It was great to get a fourth-place finish, but we could have done better than that.”
#60 - Greg Biffle - started 7th; finished 5th
Quoted: “This was fun tonight! We tried a slightly different pit strategy tonight but it didn’t quite work out as well as it did last week. Having the newer tires in the end definitely gave us an advantage, but we needed one more caution with about 15 or so laps to go because the field got pretty strung out while I was racing back up through there. I don’t know if we had enough for the win, but we would’ve given them a run for the money. "
#25 - Bobby Hamilton Jr - started 4th; finished 6th
Quoted: “We’ve been tight here the whole time. A couple of times during the race we were tight, and at the end I just couldn’t run with them. I was scooting the right front so bad. I guess it’s another solid top-10. I’m just so tired of not winning a race; it gets frustrating. But, all we have to do is keep trying.”
#20 - Mike Bliss - started 16th; finished 7th
Quoted: " The guys really put together a good car for me tonight. It doesn't want to seem to qualify well but car handled really well in traffic. This place is all about track position. You saw several different strategies and they all played out differently. We were in a good position to finish in the top three, I just wore the car out trying to get it back up there."
#14 - Casey Atwood - started 17th; finished 8th
Quoted: “The car was really good there at the end, and I was closing in on the 20. We’re on the right track.”
#23 - Kenny Wallace - started 22nd; finished 9th
Noted: This was Kenny's 21st career 9th place finish in the Busch Series - a Busch Series record. 2nd place on the all-time 9th place list is Elton Sawyer with 18.
#37 - David Green - started 10th; finished 10th
Quoted: “There’s no doubt we had a top-three car tonight. There was no one as good as we were on long runs, but eventually our tires just wore out. I’ve got to admire Jason (crew chief Ratcliff) for making the call he did. Last week, we saw a car that pitted out of sequence win the race… so we thought we would try it out for ourselves this weekend. You’ve got to play the hand that is dealt to you, and tonight we just fell a little short. I can walk away knowing that we had a legitimate shot to win this race, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for.”
#32 - David Stremme - started 9th; finished 11th
Quoted: "At the end of the night I know the guys on the TRIMSPA Team felt a little disappointed. We came here with high expectations. But I will take an eleventh as a bad day anytime."
#38 - Shane Hmiel - started 6th; finished 12th
Quoted: “We had a great car today, and everyone on this team did a great job getting it ready. We got wrecked in practice today, so we had a limited amount of time to get the backup car ready before qualifying. We only got three laps of practice in before qualifying, and we were still able to qualify sixth. That says a lot about these guys on this team and how hard they work."
#41 - Reed Sorenson - started 3rd; finished 13th
Noted: This was Reed's Busch Series debut.
#46 - Ashton Lewis - started 19th; finished 14th
Noted: Ashton led laps in a Busch Series race for the first time since Pikes Peak in July 2003.
#55 - Robby Gordon - started 25th; finished 15th
Quoted: "We did not qualify as well as we had hoped. We took two tires early to gain track position which put us up there. We hung in there all-night and stayed out of trouble. We ended up with a good solid finish for the Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet. We will take the 15th place finish and move to Michigan for our first victory."
#1 - Bobby Hamilton Sr - started 14th; finished 16th
Quoted: "The truck race gave me a good feel for where to put the car on the track for Busch qualifying and the race. It's all about track position. This track is tough, but the car was handling good." said Hamilton. "These guys did a great job and I was glad we ended on the lead lap."
#21 - Clint Bowyer - started 15th; finished 17th
Noted: Clint has been running at the finish in 9 of his 11 career Busch Series races.
#59 - Stacy Compton - started 21st; finished 18th
Quoted: “The guys made some good calls, but we could just never get going like we needed to. We stayed tight the whole night and I’m a little disappointed. We’ve always run so good here, and I think this is the worst that I’ve ever finished running. It’s a little frustrating, but, still, the Kingsford Ford was OK, but we still have some work to do.”
#22 - Jason Keller - started 12th; finished 19th
Quoted: “Something cut the right rear and I couldn’t tell if it was actually down or just stuff on the tires when it went back to green. It’s kind of the way our luck has been all year and it’s a bummer. We had the strategy down right. We did everything right, but have a little luck on our side tonight.”
#11 - Paul Menard - started 26th; finished 20th
Quoted: “Of all the tracks we race on, this has to be the one that seems to change the most during the course of a race night. It’s extremely sensitive. We definitely were running our best laps of the race at the end of the race, which once again is a real credit to (crew chief) Tony Gibson and the whole team. We started out extremely loose and maybe over-adjusted on our first stop. We also had a problem in the pits that cost us track position and ultimately led to our going a lap down during the next run. It was a learning experience for all of us. We’re still a very new team and there are going to be growing pains in the early going. The guys are getting used to working with each other. Tony and I are learning more and more about each other every day. One thing I can say for sure is that our day will come.”
#4 - Mike Wallace - started 30th; finished 21st
Noted: Mike has lead 29 laps this season - the most in any season for Mike since 1995.
#47 - Robert Pressley - started 27th; finished 22nd
Quoted: “We were like Stacy, we just couldn’t get the front end to stick at IRP. It’s something everyone on both teams are working on, and hopefully we’ll get some more answers during our test at Michigan. The good thing is, we didn’t lose any ground in the standings. A top-10 finish is still well within reach.”
#43 - Aaron Fike - started 20th; finished 23rd
Noted: 23rd is Aaron's career best finish in 5 starts.
#35 - Shelby Howard - started 29th; finished 24th
Quoted: "I was very excited about my debut with Team Rensi Motorsports in front of my hometown crowd. We stayed out of trouble and finished the race. The team worked well together and I look forward to racing at Michigan."
#56 - Tim Sauter - started 37th; finished 25th
Noted: 2 starts and 2 DNF's for Tim in 2004.
#99 - Michael Waltrip - started 11th; finished 26th
Noted: After finish on the lead lap in 11 of his first 14 Busch starts in 2004, Michael has now failed to finish on the lead lap in 5 consecutive races.
#57 - Stan Boyd - started 36th; finished 27th
Noted: Stan was running at the finish for only the 3rd time in his 10 career Busch races.
#24 - Steve Grissom - started 43rd; finished 28th
Quoted: “We never could get the car to turn in the middle like we needed to. We were too slow in the middle off the corner, which meant we could never get enough speed in the straightaways to pick up some more positions. But, we were able to stay in the race and finish and that’s what counts.”
#0 - Kertus Davis - started 33rd; finished 29th
Noted: This was Kertus' 10th career Busch race.
#74 - Tyler Walker - started 35th; finished 30th
Noted: This was Tyler's 2nd career Busch start.
#72 - John Graham - started 40th; finished 31st
Noted: This was John's Busch Series debut.
#49 - Mark Green - started 31st; finished 32nd
Noted: Mark has failed to finish on the lead lap in his 11 races this year.
#87 - Blake Feese - started 39th; finished 33rd
Noted: This was Blake's 2nd career Busch Series race.
#12 - Tim Fedewa - started 18th; finished 34th
Quoted: “Sometimes you just have to keep at it, things weren’t perfect in there early on but the guys stayed with it, and we found ourselves in a good position late in the race... Of course it’s disappointing, because we were right there, and it wasn’t at all easy to get there. But we’ve had a few bumps in the road the past two weeks so maybe a break will help.”
#2 - Ron Hornaday - started 23rd; finished 35th
Noted: Ron has been running at the finish of 62 consecutive races.
Quoted:
#202 - Lowell Bennett - started 24th; finished 36th
Noted: All 6 of Lowell's career Busch series starts have been on tracks of 1 mile or less.
#10 - Gus Wasson - started 41st; finished 37th
Noted: 21 of Gus' career 41 Busch series starts have come in 2004.
#63 - Shane Wallace - started 38th; finished 38th
Quoted: “We just lost a cylinder and that pretty much was the end. We were fighting a real tight race car but we had made a few pit stops to make some adjustments on it. We were starting to gain on it but then the motor issue ended our night a little early.”
#88 - Jeff Fuller - started 14th; finished 39th
Noted: Jeff has now recorded DNFs in 25 consecutive starts.
#39 - Tina Gordon - started 42nd; finished 40th
Noted: Tina has now recorded DNFs in 4 of her 8 careers Busch Series starts.
#28 - Shane Hall - started 32nd; finished 41st
Noted: This was Shane's wrost finish of the season.
#40 - Brian Tyler - started 28th; finished 42nd
Noted: Brian has yet to finish on the lead lap in his 8 career Busch Series starts.
#02 - Hermie Sadler - started 34th; finished 43rd
Noted: This is the first time in Hermie's 248 Busch Series races that he has finished 43rd.
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Noted and Quoted: Craftsman Truck Series IRP Post-race
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#18 - Chad Chaffin- started 5th; finished 1st
Quoted: "Well I did drive hard all night, but that Dickies Dodge was great. What happened on that last lap, I thought that Bobby was going to get me for third, and I thought I was going in fourth. But, I got a good run off of turn four and the No. 43 and No. 24 hit. It opened up the outside groove and I just shot the gap, and it paid off."
#43 - Johnny Sauter - started 6th; finished 2nd
Quoted: "I knew I was pretty much a sitting duck out there in our Curb Records Silverado with a lot of those guys on fresher tires than me when we had there on lap 192. I think we could have held them off if that hadn’t happened but this is still an awesome run for this team, sometimes the best truck or car doesn’t win."
#4 - Bobby Hamilton - started 2nd; finished 3rd
Quoted: “Well we’re trying to look at the big picture. We had a tire that was working up on us, and we took our time on it and we were able to get set. You get to where you can’t win the race, so you sort of points race a little bit. But that was still a lot of fun.”
#24 - Travis Kvapil - started 3rd; finished 4th
Quoted: “It’s great for the overall picture, but it sucks to have a victory that close. You get that close to a victory and can taste it and know it’s just a matter of time before you could win the race. I’ll have a sick feeling in my stomach for a while. I feel terrible. I lost the race for my team. We had a lot better truck than Johnny Sauter’s No. 43 at the end. I was trying to race him clean, and he used up all three lanes of the race track – and I still tried to pass him clean. He summed it up right when he got out of his truck and approached me on pit road and said, ‘too bad you don’t know how to take somebody out to get the win.’ I was just going to tell him good job. That’s not how I race. I don’t just wreck someone for the win. I thought he was man enough to race me like a man. I guess I’ll have to remember that the next time we race together.”
#99 - Carl Edwards - started 8th; finished 5th
Quoted: "Going even into turn three on the last lap I thought, 'Man, we could still win this thing.' That was as wild as it gets. I never thought I would have so much fun running fifth in my life. That was cool. I wish we could have gotten one for Superchips, but I'm just glad to be a part of a race that good."
#15 - Shane Hmiel - started 14th; finished 6th
Quoted: "Good job for the guys to have this as a top 6th. We had a terrible truck from the start and we had some good pit strategies and some excellent stops. It was a fun night overall. To finish 6th and not have our truck beat up it was great. I think the guys did a great job on the Chevy Silverado."
#6 - Matt Crafton - started 18th; finished 7th
Quoted: “We just fought all night long with our GM Goodwrench Silverado. On the short runs, our truck would just not go. After about 50 laps, the truck would finally start rolling. It was pretty good on the longer runs but the truck would push the nose so bad center off on the shorter runs, we couldn’t go anywhere. But our guys kept working on it all night. They just didn’t give up, I didn’t give up and we ended up with another top-10."
#14 - Rick Crawford - started 28th; finished 8th
Quoted: "I hate where we started and had to play defense all night long. There at the end there weren't but a few trucks on the lead lap and we were one of them. We had to let it run there at the end and it got a little crowded. But, we made it, and a top-10 is what we need as a team. Now we can look at top fives and we'll win one here pretty quick."
#88 - Tracy Hines - started 26th; finished 9th
Quoted: "We had the best pit stops we have had all year. It all just came together for us tonight. Track position would have helped us. The bad qualifying hurt us, and got us out of the leaders sequence. I think if we could have got in the top five pack, we could have run with them there. I think my being so familiar with IRP really helped us. You know in the NCTS we don’t do a lot of pit stops, so we tend to have long runs and are on our tires forever. You have what you have but with the way my truck was handling and the experience I have here, I was moving around on the track to find where I could help make it turn when it needed to turn. I am just really happy for this whole team that we had a good night at my home track.”
#03 - Denny Hamlin - started 7th; finished 10th
Quoted: “These guys on this Joe Gibbs Silverado never gave up. We had a really tight truck to begin with but they kept working on it. We got a lap down but got the lucky dog pass and got back on the lead lap and we came back through there. I can’t say enough for everyone with this team, Steve May, Curtis Markum and all the guys from Joe Gibbs Racing and EJP put a lot of effort in this truck. For our first truck race, I couldn’t be happier with our finish. They all put a lot of time and investment in me and I can’t say enough for them.”
#47 - Kyle Busch - started 16th; finished 11th
Quoted: "The Acxiom Chevy Silverado was awesome, Randy did an awesome job today, and the guys got me out great in the pits to gain spots. I thought it was a really good day; the truck drove in the center really well. It kind of fought off the corner on long tire runs, but we ran really well. I really would love to do it again. “
#46 - Dennis Setzer - started 13th; finished 12th
Quoted: “It was just a disappointing night. Our Silverado was pretty good, we probably didn’t have anything for the 43 (Johnny Sauter) but we were going to have a good second place finish. We just didn’t need that last caution cause the guys that pitted and had better tires caught us and were by us pretty quick. We gave it our best shot, we just came up way too short.”
#42 - Mike Skinner - started 4th; finished 13th
Quoted: “Overall, we had a good truck. But we just didn’t run enough air in our tires. That’s why after about 50 laps into a run, my truck was really good. I was disappointed with the race but definitely not disappointed with our performance. We were fast. We’ve been fast at mostly all of the races this year. At one or two race tracks, we’ve been way under par. But everywhere else the 42 has been fast. So I’m not disappointed with our performance as a team – there just always seems to be something happening to this team, and normally the caution flag is the instigator.”
#10 - Terry Cook - started 20th; finished 14th
Quoted: "We have just not been good since we unloaded. We went down to Greenville, S.C., and tested all day on Wednesday and we're doing everything it took to capitalize on a good run here today, but we were terrible from the first lap on the track to the checkered flag. I don't understand it and I don't know exactly what happened, but we'll go back to the shop, reanalyze it, we'll go test it somewhere else and we'll get our short-track program back on track. We have just struggled on the short tracks this year, but it's not from a lack of effort."
#21 - Hank Parker Jr - started 22nd; finished 15th
Quoted: “Man, what a race. The zMAX Toyota was really tight most of the race, but we never gave up. The guys worked real hard in the pits. They made some real good adjustments, and they picked me up a spot when I needed it on that last pit stop. I think we learned some things tonight that will help us at Bristol in a few weeks.”
#75 - David Starr - started 31st; finished 16th
Quoted: "My Spears Chevy Silverado wasn’t real good at the beginning of the race, just tight in the center, sort of shoved the nose at the start since we were already in the back. Even though we were already in the back, McCarty and the guys kept trying to fix it on pit stops and it kept getting better and better… We were trying to get close to a top ten, and then we got a lap down, and we thought we were going to get the lucky dog, didn’t get it. Then the caution came out and it was less than 10 laps to go and we still didn’t get the lucky dog. We gave it our all, just tight off and tight in the center.
#17 - David Reutimann - started 10th; finished 17th
Quoted: "We were just kind of on both ends of the deal. It would be tight in the center and loose off. We were kind of all over the place with it. We really, really felt that it was going to be a whole lot better than what it was but it wasn't to be."
#16 - Jack Sprague - started 1st; finished 18th
Quoted: “I don’t know what to say, we lost a cylinder on the eighth lap. Our Chevy Trucks Silverado was as close to perfect as I could ever want. Even on seven cylinders we were faster than most everyone. Then we started to get tighter and tighter and started dropping back. The guys did all they could to free it up but it didn’t help much. Then we lost another cylinder and that was it for the night really."
#2 - Andy Houston - started 30th; finished 19th
Quoted: “There at the end we made a little bit of a call and stayed out during the caution. Everybody behind us came out and got tires. We were out of tires at that point in time, and we were just banking on some track position. Those new tires were just too much for us. We gave up about five spots there in just the last two or three laps. That kind of hurt. All in all, everybody’s working hard and from where we started today we moved forward. That’s the biggest part of racing. We were somewhat competitive. We’ve just got to keep working hard, and hopefully we can turn this thing around.”
#38 - Brandon Whitt - started 17th; finished 20th
Quoted: "It's always good to bring the truck home in one piece. Tonight the Warner Ladder Ford was running real good at the beginning of the race and then toward the end we came in and made a pit stop and we lost a lot of track position in the pits. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it up but all in all it was an OK night."
#07 - Shane Sieg - started 33rd; finished 21st
Quoted: "I thought we were going to qualify a little better than that but we didn't. I knew we were going to race good because we practiced well. I knew something was wrong on the first run when we got lapped. People were driving away from me and I was like 'What the heck is going on?' So we came down and we had a flat tire and we put another set on and we were flying but we just ran out of time."
#62 - Steve Park - started 25th; finished 22nd
Quoted: “The truck just wouldn't turn. I have no idea what is wrong with it. It is just like last week at Michigan. We had trouble all night. We adjusted and adjusted and didn't gain anything. At the end the 17 truck hit me, and I spun. We have a lot of work to do. We will evaluate everything back at the shop. We have a couple of testing dates soon, so hopefully we will learn what the problem is at the tests.”
#12 - Robert Huffman - started 21st; finished 23rd
Quoted: “This truck was just unbelievably tight all race. The guys made what we thought were good adjustments, but the truck just wouldn’t respond. We’ve got some work to do on our short track program, but I’m positive we’ll get it worked out.”
#20 - Butch Miller - started 27th; finished 24th
Noted: This was Butch's first CTS race since February of 2002.
#1 - Ted Musgrave - started 9th; finished 25th
Noted: Musgrave has been running at the finish of 33 consecutive races.
#23 - Johnny Benson - started 32nd; finished 26th
Noted: 26th is Benson's second worst career CTS finish in 14 career races. His worst was 34th at Memphis in 1997.
#50 - Jon Wood - started 11th; finished 27th
Quoted: "We haven't figured it out yet, but there is something definitely wrong. There is no reason we should have run that bad. We were just tight, extremely tight. No matter where I was on the track, the truck wouldn't hook up."
#11 - Darrell Waltrip - started 29th; finished 28th
Noted: 29th starting position was Darrell's worst CTS start since 1995.
#59 - Mark MacFarland - started 23rd; finished 29th
Noted: Mark has finished 1 or more laps down in 5 of his 9 career CTS races.
#13 - Paul White - started 24th; finished 30th
Quoted: "We were fighting a greasy race track all day and the race truck was loose from the beginning. We kept trying to tighten it up and tighten it up before qualifying, but because we didn't have a provisional we had to set the truck up to be fast in qualifying. But because the trucks were impounded following qualifying, it left us pretty far off when the sun went down and the race started. We tried to make some adjustments on the truck during the race, but it just didn't seem to get any better. So we were forced to just ride around and make laps all night. We avoided some wrecks during the night and I had to make some pretty quick decisions on which line to take. At one point I had to avoid the 22 truck and all I could do was grab a gear and go. Overall it was just disappointing to not be able to be more competitive tonight, but next week we head to Nashville and we tested there earlier this season. It seems like a pretty good track and maybe we can get another good run like we had at Gateway."
#22 - Bill Lester - started 19th; finished 31st
Noted: Bill has been running at the end of 4 consecutive races which matches his season high.
#8 - Chase Montgomery - started 34th; finished 32nd
Quoted: “This race kind of reminded me of Milwaukee. We also had a rare and unusual mechanical failure there and once back on the track we were one of the fastest trucks. We took some positive things away from that race and I think we will do the same from this weekend. Myself and this first year team have made some tremendous progress throughout the season thus far and we have taken situations such as these failures and learned from them – I expect the same this time."
#29 - Deborah Renshaw - started 36th; finished 33rd
Noted: Worst start and finish for Deborah in her 3 CTS races.
#52 - Ken Schrader - started 12th; finished 34th
Noted: Ken has recorded 23 DNFs in 51 career CTS races.
#67 - David Ragan - started 35th; finished 35th
Noted: Worst start and finish of David's 5 career CTS races.
#33 - Michael Waltrip - started 15th; finished 36th
Noted: This was the first time in Waltrip's 7 CTS races that he has finished last.
edit: fixed it for you, TonyB
Note scroll down for the Busch and Truck series
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Noted and Quoted: Nextel Cup Brickyard Post-race
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#24 - Jeff Gordon - started 11th; finished 1st
Quoted: "It feels amazing. I don't know. I can't compare four times in a stock car to my heroes like Rick Mears and AJ Foyt and those guys did here. It's just a very special day for this entire team. What an amazing year these guys are having. I've just been having so much fun behind the wheel of this DuPont Chevrolet all year long. These guys make it so special. Hendrick Motorsports is on top of it right now. This one is for Papa Joe. I'll tell you what, it's been a tough month for the Hendrick family and days like today help. There's just no feeling in the world like winning at this speedway."
#88 - Dale Jarrett - started 17th; finished 2nd
Quoted: "We share all of our information, I don't know what they do over there. They have a great organization over at Hendricks but it would be hard to imagine they have anything better than what we have here. I know those two guys are pretty close, but I can't imagine anything closer than my teammate and I. He's having a great, great season. He had another good points day. He's got himself solidly in the top 10 now, and we're working our way towards there."
#38 - Elliott Sadler - started 3rd; finished 3rd
Quoted: "To come in here and run as good as we just ran, to finish third, run in the top three or four all day long - it says a lot about our race team, says a lot about the character. I love racing my teammate like that. It's great for the whole Robert Yates organization. One car was better than the team today. The 24, they had a great race car, my congratulations to Jeff Gordon. But, I'm really, really proud of my race team right now."
#9 - Kasey Kahne - started 12th; finished 4th
Quoted: “To finish in the top five the first time here is a great feeling. I think we had the best car here. Coming through the field we cut a left front and got into the wall. We got a lap down, got it back and still got a top five. For the first time here it was a great finish, but you can’t help thinking about what might have been if it wasn’t for that cut tire."
#20 - Tony Stewart - started 24th; finished 5th
Quoted: "It wasn't a fifth-place car, by any means. But the guys kept working and we just kept digging and got a fifth out of it. That's as good as a victory for the way this thing drove all day. But these guys worked their tails off all day yesterday. They worked really hard at the test after I crashed a car here. The car not driving well wasn't due to a lack of effort. I mean these guys changed everything they could change on it. It's just that we couldn't get it right."
#16 - Greg Biffle - started 35th; finished 6th
Quoted: "Man, I tell you what, where we pitted wasn't good. I don't know why they were beating us so bad, but everytime we pitted we lost probably a minimum of 4-6 spots each time. The guys were doing good stops, but pit road was all jumbled up with traffic and it just wouldn't work out for us. The National Guard Ford was decent. It's a backup car. Our primary car was better than that, but that's the way it goes."
#42 - Jamie McMurray - started 8th; finished 7th
Quoted: “My car was terrible at the beginning. We ran so well here last year. We were good in Happy Hour yesterday, and we thought we’d run good here today. We just missed it. We made some huge adjustments and we got way behind at one point, so I’m pretty happy with the finish. I don’t know what that did for us in the points. I quit paying attention to the points anyway. Every time I keep up with them we blow up or something, so I just quit paying attention to them. When we get to Richmond we’ll see where we are.”
#29 - Kevin Harvick - started 32nd; finished 8th
Quoted: "We struggled with our car a little bit. We decided to pit there at the end and it really paid off for us and those last few re-starts and got ourselves back up to eighth. We never could get the balance quite right on the car. We never got great track position but we got up there to seventh or eighth. That was about as far as we could get. All in all it was a good day for the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet."
#91 - Bill Elliott - started 18th; finished 9th
Quoted: “I didn’t have anything to lose. I was just trying to hang in and have a good day. That green-white checkered worked, but it worked at the expense of some good race teams. The sad side about it is that the race teams have got to pay for it. I never could get the nose of the car under me. We struggled with it all day long. We were pretty good Saturday in Happy Hour, but the track was pretty green and it got hot and slick today. I just couldn’t keep the nose under it.”
#97 - Kurt Busch - started 15th; finished 10th
Quoted: "We survived the whole day, but when Stewart spun I somehow got a left-rear flat from that and that put us in the back all day. We were coming up through and the car wasn't handling right, so we gave up our position and worked on the car again. We got up as high as I think 11th at one point and had to go all the way to the back again with Harvick running over my right-front fender on pit road. It was just one of those days where nothing fell into place except for the finish and we're very thankful for that. I saw the 19, the 9 and the 88 had a good day, so a lot of guys right around us in the points we finished with. It's not the day we wanted. We had a top-five car and just never got there because of all the circumstances and all the hurdles we had to overcome."
#19 - Jeremy Mayfield - started 13th; finished 11th
Quoted: “My car wouldn’t take off all day. We didn’t need all those cautions. I think I lost one spot on the green-white checkered deal. It was a good day for us, but we’d get up there and then fall back. I guess we gained a few points on 10th place, so it was a good points day. That’s the first time we haven’t been in the top 10 in awhile, but 11th is about as close as you can get. We’ve just got to keep the momentum going and we’ll have a shot for the championship. That’s why we’re all out here.”
#99 - Jeff Burton - started 19th; finished 12th
Quoted: "I thought we had an eighth to 12th-place car and that's pretty much where we ran most of the day. On that big wreck on the front straightaway during the restart, they all got bottled up and I got in the back of Rusty. That got the right-front fender tore off of it and we had to go all the way to the back, but we worked our way up to 12th. We had some help there at the end to finish 12th, but weren't quite as good as I thought we were gonna be, for sure. We can work with that type of car, though. We have some confidence in what we're doing with the bodies and stuff now, so we're gonna take those and keep improving and getting better and better."
#2 - Rusty Wallace - started 29th; finished 13th
Quoted: “We had to work pretty hard for that 13th place finish. The crew did a great job keeping us on the lead lap, and I think we could have had a decent finish if we hadn’t got in that deal on the track. It’s always a lot of fun to run well at the Brickyard. We kept fighting back all day, and we left here knowing we gave it all we had.”
#43 - Jeff Green - started 14th; finished 14th
Quoted: “The car wasn’t too bad. We never could make it turn off the corner like we needed to. We started 14th and finished 14th. The last set of tires was pretty good. We had the car adjusted, but the cautions really hurt me. For the way our season has gone, this is definitely a plus for us. The motor ran good all day, but we never could get the Dodge handling up off the corner. That’s where the fast cars were beating us.”
#18 - Bobby Labonte - started 39th; finished 15th
Quoted: (Anything good?): "No, not really. We just didn't hit the right combination today."
#17 - Matt Kenseth - started 23rd; finished 16th
Quoted: "I feel good that we ran good, but I'm real frustrated we didn't get to finish. It's disappointing, but we've had a couple years of pretty good luck and that's just something that happens that's bad luck."
#01 - Joe Nemechek - started 4th; finished 17th
Quoted: "We fought it until the end. We missed the setup early and that cost us valuable track position. The U.S. Army/USG Chevrolet started to respond as the race was winding down, but we just ran out of green-flag laps to gain more positions. We finally had the right balance to make a move but it was too little, too late."
#4 - Jimmy Spencer - started 33rd; finished 18th
Quoted: "Not bad. We had a fuel problem or something that messed us up. We just didn't have the straightaway speed. We had a top-10 car and ended up 18th."
#49 - Ken Schrader - started 31st; finished 19th
Quoted: "We started out real bad, and we kept getting the car better and better. We never got it quite where we wanted it. We got it good enough where we could hang on and be up there when something happened to try to take advantage of it. So we wound up 19th, so we'll take it."
#15 - Michael Waltrip - started 28th; finished 20th
Quoted: "We didn't qualify particularly well and we didn't race all that well either. We couldn't get the car handling like we needed it to. We fought the car in the corner and off the corner and never got where we wanted to be. On a positive note, I had a great engine. I thought the engine we had in Pocono was the strongest engine I had ever raced with, but the engine we had in Indy topped that."
#30 - Dave Blaney - started 38th; finished 21st
Quoted: "The car ran great. I couldn't ask for a better-handling race car. The guys did great with it. We just got a penalty on pit road, and we lost a lap, and then had a flat left front and lost a lap, so we were just playing catch up all day. We could never get back up to the front."
#31 - Robby Gordon - started 20th; finished 22nd
Quoted: "We moved up steadily. We had one bad pit stop that put us back to 20th again. We moved all the way up to third. With Kenseth having a problem, the car would have finished at least second. We really had something for Jeff (Gordon). On the real long runs we were really good. It seemed like we could catch him but he'd get away from me on short runs. It's disappointing. I thought we were going to get a Brickyard 400."
#45 - Kyle Petty - started 26th; finished 23rd
Quoted: "I'll tell you what, my crew worked their butts off all day long. I got in a wreck, and they did a really great job. They got me in and out of the pits. But more importantly, when I got in the wreck, they kept working, they kept hammering, they kept jacking, they kept fixing. They showed that we might be 50th in points. but we're not a 50th-place team."
#32 - Ricky Craven - started 37th; finished 24th
Quoted: "It was not very eventful for us. It was very, very frustrating. I don't know what was causing the cut tires. We had one, but I don't know what the problem was. There's not a clear indication of it. In practice, there were a few cars with problems. I know the 19 cut one down yesterday, but it certainly was an issue today."
#6 - Mark Martin - started 16th; finished 25th
Quoted: I just wanted to have a chance and we did. It was a great effort by the Viagra team and we ran awfully good. Things just didn't go our way today. We ran good today, but, unfortunately, things set us back. I'm awfully proud of this team and it's an honor to drive for all these guys. They put their hearts in this stuff and they give me some great race cars, especially today and last week - every week. We just had a little bad luck."
#41 - Casey Mears - started 1st; finished 26th
Quoted: "We were horrible at the beginning, real loose in and tight off. We’ve got a lot of work to do to get the racecar right. We can qualify, but I feel like we’re a little off on the setup. I’m upset. I wanted to run better. About middle way through the race I thought we were getting a handle on it, but at the end everything went wrong. We probably should have stayed out at the end, but that’s a tough call to make. You just can’t pass here. It’s just so hard to pass here. I had a left front tire go down and that put us further in the back, so I think we should have had a top 15 finish.”
#8 - Dale Earnhardt Jr - started 5th; finished 27th
Quoted: "It's a hell of a heartbreak to have a tire cut down on the last lap. We had a real good run going, sitting there in sixth place and trying to make it to the end and leave here with a top-10. My car was the best it had been all day 20 laps earlier, but those last few laps it got real tight again, it was bottoming out in every corner, and I knew something bad was happening. I could just feel the car leaning on that left-front. It's tough, man, but it was a good run for us. I'm proud of the guys."
#21 - Ricky Rudd - started 40th; finished 28th
Quoted: "It was bad or worse. It just wasn't good, it never did get good. At one time we were maybe a 20th-place car, that was probably our best shot. That's nothing to brag about. They adjusted and tried to work on it. We gave up track position all day long, trying. You know, that hurt us some. We were giving up all that track position to try to get the chassis dialed in."
#25 - Brian Vickers - started 6th; finished 29th
Noted: Brian has started in the top 10 in 15 of his 26 career Cup races.
#23 - Tony Raines - started 36th; finished 30th
Noted: Tony has failed to finish both of his Cup starts in 2004.
#12 - Ryan Newman - started 7th; finished 31st
Noted: 31st matches Ryan's wrost Brickyard finish - Ryan also finished 31st in his Brickyard debut in 2001.
#22 - Scott Wimmer - started 34th; finished 32nd
Quoted: "I'm sure glad that they've got the safe walls up here. I blew a tire getting down into one and when I did that I lost all my brakes and kind of went straight for the wall. We were trying to salvage a day out of it. We had a little problem on that restart and banged the left front fender up pretty good and thought we had it all fixed. We kept cutting left fronts but it seems like everybody was having a little problem. It looked like it was going to turn out all right and then it ended pretty poorly."
#40 - Sterling Marlin - started 10th; finished 33rd
Quoted: “We cut a left front tire down, and I couldn’t get slowed down to get in the pits. We got her hot and melted her down. Everybody is running a bunch of camber in the left front, and it’s kind of hard on ‘em. You hit the curb here trying to get them to turn and our car drove terrible from the get-go. It was real loose to start, and all of a sudden it tightened up. The tire is OK. It’s just got too much camber in ‘em. I saw some flames come up and I figured it was time to abandon ship. I was trying to get back without losing a lap, but we needed to stop and work on it anyway. We’ll get back out and see what we can do.”
#00 - Kenny Wallace - started 22nd; finished 34th
Noted: It has now been 32 races since Kenny recorded a top 10 finish in a Cup race.
#77 - Brendan Gaughan - started 30th; finished 35th
Quoted: "I feel bad for the Jasper guys. We're at the Brickyard, their home track. We had our first Penske chassis. Shane Wilson [crew chief] made a great call to give us two tires and get us up there. Kahne came up there with all that metal sticking out of the edge of it and just left rear tired us and gave us a flat right before we could do anything. We got lucky to come out OK. Thanks to the rest of the field for missing me as I came back across the track with no steering."
#48 - Jimmie Johnson - started 9th; finished 36th
Quoted: "It just let go coming off of Turn 4. But that car was just so loose into the corners. I spun out once and had a few more good saves. But it's just one of those bad days that you have. Last week we were good and today, we definitely weren't that. It's just unfortunate."
#10 - Scott Riggs - started 27th; finished 37th
Quoted: "That's the kind of luck we've been having. We've not been qualifying where we want to but the last two weeks we've worked our way up to the front and made great adjustments. We stopped a couple times early in the race and got some serious adjustments done to the car. I know that everybody says that they were good but every time you dropped the green flag I was passing four or five cars every time. That was feeling pretty good to me I wish we could see it to the checkered flag."
#5 - Terry Labonte - started 21st; finished 38th
Quoted: "We're done for the day. It's too bad. Our Chevy kept getting better and better. I hate for it to end this way."
#0 - Ward Burton - started 2nd; finished 39th
Quoted: "I saw the No. 10 car at the very last moment. I thought the No. 15 had just pulled out and we were going to get a run. There was just too much momentum going and there was a wreck in front of me. It was a bad deal for the NetZero Chevrolet. We had an alternator cut out on me, but we were starting to get the car back in shape. It's just one of those things that takes it's toll."
#98 - Derrike Cope - started 43rd; finished 40th
Noted: Derrike hasn't finished on the lead lap October on 1998 - a string of 62 consecutive races.
#50 - Todd Bodine - started 41st; finished 41st
Noted: Todd has only been running at the finish in 1 of his 11 Cup races this year.
#09 - Scott Pruett - started 42nd; finished 42nd
Noted: This was Scott's first Cup start on an Oval since Atlanta in November of 2000.
#60 - Jason Leffler - started 25th; finished 43rd
Noted: Jason's DNF end a streak of running at the finish of 15 consecutive Cup starts.
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Noted and Quoted: Busch Series IRP Post-race
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#5 - Kyle Busch - started 8th; finished 1st
Quoted: "It was not necessarily a difficult night but it was definitely a fun night. We were actually good in the beginning of the race and we kind of got tight there and Lance [McGrew, crew chief] and myself decided to make some changes to it. It made it a little bit worse and then we came back in there on the second stop and actually made it a lot better so we were able to capitalize on our pit strategy and I was actually thinking about second-guessing him but I thought about last night again and I was like 'Never mind. We're coming in and we're getting tires.' It was an awesome night by the Lowe's team."
#27 - Johnny Sauter - started 1st; finished 2nd
Quoted: "I wish I would have had a caution with ten to go and I could have gotten pass Kyle. On cold tires I was good but on warm tires I wasn't able to get around him but it was a good night over all."
#00 - Jason Leffler - started 5th; finished 3rd
Quoted: “This was such a long day. This Busch team is our main focus. Running the Brickyard was supposed to be fun. We thought that we would qualify well there and when that didn’t happen it just made the rest of the day miserable. This third place finish was just what we needed to end the day on a high note. I just can’t say enough for these guys. I wrecked the primary car and they were able to fix the backup in time for a few laps in practice and get it so that it would be competitive. These guys worked so hard today, I couldn’t have done this without them. I think that things are looking up for us. With our third consecutive third place finish and a good gain in points I think this team is going to fight to the end."
#8 - Martin Truex Jr - started 2nd; finished 4th
Quoted: “First off, I always thought that when the green flag waved you were supposed to go. Apparently there are others that don’t know about that, though. It was great to get a fourth-place finish, but we could have done better than that.”
#60 - Greg Biffle - started 7th; finished 5th
Quoted: “This was fun tonight! We tried a slightly different pit strategy tonight but it didn’t quite work out as well as it did last week. Having the newer tires in the end definitely gave us an advantage, but we needed one more caution with about 15 or so laps to go because the field got pretty strung out while I was racing back up through there. I don’t know if we had enough for the win, but we would’ve given them a run for the money. "
#25 - Bobby Hamilton Jr - started 4th; finished 6th
Quoted: “We’ve been tight here the whole time. A couple of times during the race we were tight, and at the end I just couldn’t run with them. I was scooting the right front so bad. I guess it’s another solid top-10. I’m just so tired of not winning a race; it gets frustrating. But, all we have to do is keep trying.”
#20 - Mike Bliss - started 16th; finished 7th
Quoted: " The guys really put together a good car for me tonight. It doesn't want to seem to qualify well but car handled really well in traffic. This place is all about track position. You saw several different strategies and they all played out differently. We were in a good position to finish in the top three, I just wore the car out trying to get it back up there."
#14 - Casey Atwood - started 17th; finished 8th
Quoted: “The car was really good there at the end, and I was closing in on the 20. We’re on the right track.”
#23 - Kenny Wallace - started 22nd; finished 9th
Noted: This was Kenny's 21st career 9th place finish in the Busch Series - a Busch Series record. 2nd place on the all-time 9th place list is Elton Sawyer with 18.
#37 - David Green - started 10th; finished 10th
Quoted: “There’s no doubt we had a top-three car tonight. There was no one as good as we were on long runs, but eventually our tires just wore out. I’ve got to admire Jason (crew chief Ratcliff) for making the call he did. Last week, we saw a car that pitted out of sequence win the race… so we thought we would try it out for ourselves this weekend. You’ve got to play the hand that is dealt to you, and tonight we just fell a little short. I can walk away knowing that we had a legitimate shot to win this race, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for.”
#32 - David Stremme - started 9th; finished 11th
Quoted: "At the end of the night I know the guys on the TRIMSPA Team felt a little disappointed. We came here with high expectations. But I will take an eleventh as a bad day anytime."
#38 - Shane Hmiel - started 6th; finished 12th
Quoted: “We had a great car today, and everyone on this team did a great job getting it ready. We got wrecked in practice today, so we had a limited amount of time to get the backup car ready before qualifying. We only got three laps of practice in before qualifying, and we were still able to qualify sixth. That says a lot about these guys on this team and how hard they work."
#41 - Reed Sorenson - started 3rd; finished 13th
Noted: This was Reed's Busch Series debut.
#46 - Ashton Lewis - started 19th; finished 14th
Noted: Ashton led laps in a Busch Series race for the first time since Pikes Peak in July 2003.
#55 - Robby Gordon - started 25th; finished 15th
Quoted: "We did not qualify as well as we had hoped. We took two tires early to gain track position which put us up there. We hung in there all-night and stayed out of trouble. We ended up with a good solid finish for the Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet. We will take the 15th place finish and move to Michigan for our first victory."
#1 - Bobby Hamilton Sr - started 14th; finished 16th
Quoted: "The truck race gave me a good feel for where to put the car on the track for Busch qualifying and the race. It's all about track position. This track is tough, but the car was handling good." said Hamilton. "These guys did a great job and I was glad we ended on the lead lap."
#21 - Clint Bowyer - started 15th; finished 17th
Noted: Clint has been running at the finish in 9 of his 11 career Busch Series races.
#59 - Stacy Compton - started 21st; finished 18th
Quoted: “The guys made some good calls, but we could just never get going like we needed to. We stayed tight the whole night and I’m a little disappointed. We’ve always run so good here, and I think this is the worst that I’ve ever finished running. It’s a little frustrating, but, still, the Kingsford Ford was OK, but we still have some work to do.”
#22 - Jason Keller - started 12th; finished 19th
Quoted: “Something cut the right rear and I couldn’t tell if it was actually down or just stuff on the tires when it went back to green. It’s kind of the way our luck has been all year and it’s a bummer. We had the strategy down right. We did everything right, but have a little luck on our side tonight.”
#11 - Paul Menard - started 26th; finished 20th
Quoted: “Of all the tracks we race on, this has to be the one that seems to change the most during the course of a race night. It’s extremely sensitive. We definitely were running our best laps of the race at the end of the race, which once again is a real credit to (crew chief) Tony Gibson and the whole team. We started out extremely loose and maybe over-adjusted on our first stop. We also had a problem in the pits that cost us track position and ultimately led to our going a lap down during the next run. It was a learning experience for all of us. We’re still a very new team and there are going to be growing pains in the early going. The guys are getting used to working with each other. Tony and I are learning more and more about each other every day. One thing I can say for sure is that our day will come.”
#4 - Mike Wallace - started 30th; finished 21st
Noted: Mike has lead 29 laps this season - the most in any season for Mike since 1995.
#47 - Robert Pressley - started 27th; finished 22nd
Quoted: “We were like Stacy, we just couldn’t get the front end to stick at IRP. It’s something everyone on both teams are working on, and hopefully we’ll get some more answers during our test at Michigan. The good thing is, we didn’t lose any ground in the standings. A top-10 finish is still well within reach.”
#43 - Aaron Fike - started 20th; finished 23rd
Noted: 23rd is Aaron's career best finish in 5 starts.
#35 - Shelby Howard - started 29th; finished 24th
Quoted: "I was very excited about my debut with Team Rensi Motorsports in front of my hometown crowd. We stayed out of trouble and finished the race. The team worked well together and I look forward to racing at Michigan."
#56 - Tim Sauter - started 37th; finished 25th
Noted: 2 starts and 2 DNF's for Tim in 2004.
#99 - Michael Waltrip - started 11th; finished 26th
Noted: After finish on the lead lap in 11 of his first 14 Busch starts in 2004, Michael has now failed to finish on the lead lap in 5 consecutive races.
#57 - Stan Boyd - started 36th; finished 27th
Noted: Stan was running at the finish for only the 3rd time in his 10 career Busch races.
#24 - Steve Grissom - started 43rd; finished 28th
Quoted: “We never could get the car to turn in the middle like we needed to. We were too slow in the middle off the corner, which meant we could never get enough speed in the straightaways to pick up some more positions. But, we were able to stay in the race and finish and that’s what counts.”
#0 - Kertus Davis - started 33rd; finished 29th
Noted: This was Kertus' 10th career Busch race.
#74 - Tyler Walker - started 35th; finished 30th
Noted: This was Tyler's 2nd career Busch start.
#72 - John Graham - started 40th; finished 31st
Noted: This was John's Busch Series debut.
#49 - Mark Green - started 31st; finished 32nd
Noted: Mark has failed to finish on the lead lap in his 11 races this year.
#87 - Blake Feese - started 39th; finished 33rd
Noted: This was Blake's 2nd career Busch Series race.
#12 - Tim Fedewa - started 18th; finished 34th
Quoted: “Sometimes you just have to keep at it, things weren’t perfect in there early on but the guys stayed with it, and we found ourselves in a good position late in the race... Of course it’s disappointing, because we were right there, and it wasn’t at all easy to get there. But we’ve had a few bumps in the road the past two weeks so maybe a break will help.”
#2 - Ron Hornaday - started 23rd; finished 35th
Noted: Ron has been running at the finish of 62 consecutive races.
Quoted:
#202 - Lowell Bennett - started 24th; finished 36th
Noted: All 6 of Lowell's career Busch series starts have been on tracks of 1 mile or less.
#10 - Gus Wasson - started 41st; finished 37th
Noted: 21 of Gus' career 41 Busch series starts have come in 2004.
#63 - Shane Wallace - started 38th; finished 38th
Quoted: “We just lost a cylinder and that pretty much was the end. We were fighting a real tight race car but we had made a few pit stops to make some adjustments on it. We were starting to gain on it but then the motor issue ended our night a little early.”
#88 - Jeff Fuller - started 14th; finished 39th
Noted: Jeff has now recorded DNFs in 25 consecutive starts.
#39 - Tina Gordon - started 42nd; finished 40th
Noted: Tina has now recorded DNFs in 4 of her 8 careers Busch Series starts.
#28 - Shane Hall - started 32nd; finished 41st
Noted: This was Shane's wrost finish of the season.
#40 - Brian Tyler - started 28th; finished 42nd
Noted: Brian has yet to finish on the lead lap in his 8 career Busch Series starts.
#02 - Hermie Sadler - started 34th; finished 43rd
Noted: This is the first time in Hermie's 248 Busch Series races that he has finished 43rd.
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Noted and Quoted: Craftsman Truck Series IRP Post-race
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#18 - Chad Chaffin- started 5th; finished 1st
Quoted: "Well I did drive hard all night, but that Dickies Dodge was great. What happened on that last lap, I thought that Bobby was going to get me for third, and I thought I was going in fourth. But, I got a good run off of turn four and the No. 43 and No. 24 hit. It opened up the outside groove and I just shot the gap, and it paid off."
#43 - Johnny Sauter - started 6th; finished 2nd
Quoted: "I knew I was pretty much a sitting duck out there in our Curb Records Silverado with a lot of those guys on fresher tires than me when we had there on lap 192. I think we could have held them off if that hadn’t happened but this is still an awesome run for this team, sometimes the best truck or car doesn’t win."
#4 - Bobby Hamilton - started 2nd; finished 3rd
Quoted: “Well we’re trying to look at the big picture. We had a tire that was working up on us, and we took our time on it and we were able to get set. You get to where you can’t win the race, so you sort of points race a little bit. But that was still a lot of fun.”
#24 - Travis Kvapil - started 3rd; finished 4th
Quoted: “It’s great for the overall picture, but it sucks to have a victory that close. You get that close to a victory and can taste it and know it’s just a matter of time before you could win the race. I’ll have a sick feeling in my stomach for a while. I feel terrible. I lost the race for my team. We had a lot better truck than Johnny Sauter’s No. 43 at the end. I was trying to race him clean, and he used up all three lanes of the race track – and I still tried to pass him clean. He summed it up right when he got out of his truck and approached me on pit road and said, ‘too bad you don’t know how to take somebody out to get the win.’ I was just going to tell him good job. That’s not how I race. I don’t just wreck someone for the win. I thought he was man enough to race me like a man. I guess I’ll have to remember that the next time we race together.”
#99 - Carl Edwards - started 8th; finished 5th
Quoted: "Going even into turn three on the last lap I thought, 'Man, we could still win this thing.' That was as wild as it gets. I never thought I would have so much fun running fifth in my life. That was cool. I wish we could have gotten one for Superchips, but I'm just glad to be a part of a race that good."
#15 - Shane Hmiel - started 14th; finished 6th
Quoted: "Good job for the guys to have this as a top 6th. We had a terrible truck from the start and we had some good pit strategies and some excellent stops. It was a fun night overall. To finish 6th and not have our truck beat up it was great. I think the guys did a great job on the Chevy Silverado."
#6 - Matt Crafton - started 18th; finished 7th
Quoted: “We just fought all night long with our GM Goodwrench Silverado. On the short runs, our truck would just not go. After about 50 laps, the truck would finally start rolling. It was pretty good on the longer runs but the truck would push the nose so bad center off on the shorter runs, we couldn’t go anywhere. But our guys kept working on it all night. They just didn’t give up, I didn’t give up and we ended up with another top-10."
#14 - Rick Crawford - started 28th; finished 8th
Quoted: "I hate where we started and had to play defense all night long. There at the end there weren't but a few trucks on the lead lap and we were one of them. We had to let it run there at the end and it got a little crowded. But, we made it, and a top-10 is what we need as a team. Now we can look at top fives and we'll win one here pretty quick."
#88 - Tracy Hines - started 26th; finished 9th
Quoted: "We had the best pit stops we have had all year. It all just came together for us tonight. Track position would have helped us. The bad qualifying hurt us, and got us out of the leaders sequence. I think if we could have got in the top five pack, we could have run with them there. I think my being so familiar with IRP really helped us. You know in the NCTS we don’t do a lot of pit stops, so we tend to have long runs and are on our tires forever. You have what you have but with the way my truck was handling and the experience I have here, I was moving around on the track to find where I could help make it turn when it needed to turn. I am just really happy for this whole team that we had a good night at my home track.”
#03 - Denny Hamlin - started 7th; finished 10th
Quoted: “These guys on this Joe Gibbs Silverado never gave up. We had a really tight truck to begin with but they kept working on it. We got a lap down but got the lucky dog pass and got back on the lead lap and we came back through there. I can’t say enough for everyone with this team, Steve May, Curtis Markum and all the guys from Joe Gibbs Racing and EJP put a lot of effort in this truck. For our first truck race, I couldn’t be happier with our finish. They all put a lot of time and investment in me and I can’t say enough for them.”
#47 - Kyle Busch - started 16th; finished 11th
Quoted: "The Acxiom Chevy Silverado was awesome, Randy did an awesome job today, and the guys got me out great in the pits to gain spots. I thought it was a really good day; the truck drove in the center really well. It kind of fought off the corner on long tire runs, but we ran really well. I really would love to do it again. “
#46 - Dennis Setzer - started 13th; finished 12th
Quoted: “It was just a disappointing night. Our Silverado was pretty good, we probably didn’t have anything for the 43 (Johnny Sauter) but we were going to have a good second place finish. We just didn’t need that last caution cause the guys that pitted and had better tires caught us and were by us pretty quick. We gave it our best shot, we just came up way too short.”
#42 - Mike Skinner - started 4th; finished 13th
Quoted: “Overall, we had a good truck. But we just didn’t run enough air in our tires. That’s why after about 50 laps into a run, my truck was really good. I was disappointed with the race but definitely not disappointed with our performance. We were fast. We’ve been fast at mostly all of the races this year. At one or two race tracks, we’ve been way under par. But everywhere else the 42 has been fast. So I’m not disappointed with our performance as a team – there just always seems to be something happening to this team, and normally the caution flag is the instigator.”
#10 - Terry Cook - started 20th; finished 14th
Quoted: "We have just not been good since we unloaded. We went down to Greenville, S.C., and tested all day on Wednesday and we're doing everything it took to capitalize on a good run here today, but we were terrible from the first lap on the track to the checkered flag. I don't understand it and I don't know exactly what happened, but we'll go back to the shop, reanalyze it, we'll go test it somewhere else and we'll get our short-track program back on track. We have just struggled on the short tracks this year, but it's not from a lack of effort."
#21 - Hank Parker Jr - started 22nd; finished 15th
Quoted: “Man, what a race. The zMAX Toyota was really tight most of the race, but we never gave up. The guys worked real hard in the pits. They made some real good adjustments, and they picked me up a spot when I needed it on that last pit stop. I think we learned some things tonight that will help us at Bristol in a few weeks.”
#75 - David Starr - started 31st; finished 16th
Quoted: "My Spears Chevy Silverado wasn’t real good at the beginning of the race, just tight in the center, sort of shoved the nose at the start since we were already in the back. Even though we were already in the back, McCarty and the guys kept trying to fix it on pit stops and it kept getting better and better… We were trying to get close to a top ten, and then we got a lap down, and we thought we were going to get the lucky dog, didn’t get it. Then the caution came out and it was less than 10 laps to go and we still didn’t get the lucky dog. We gave it our all, just tight off and tight in the center.
#17 - David Reutimann - started 10th; finished 17th
Quoted: "We were just kind of on both ends of the deal. It would be tight in the center and loose off. We were kind of all over the place with it. We really, really felt that it was going to be a whole lot better than what it was but it wasn't to be."
#16 - Jack Sprague - started 1st; finished 18th
Quoted: “I don’t know what to say, we lost a cylinder on the eighth lap. Our Chevy Trucks Silverado was as close to perfect as I could ever want. Even on seven cylinders we were faster than most everyone. Then we started to get tighter and tighter and started dropping back. The guys did all they could to free it up but it didn’t help much. Then we lost another cylinder and that was it for the night really."
#2 - Andy Houston - started 30th; finished 19th
Quoted: “There at the end we made a little bit of a call and stayed out during the caution. Everybody behind us came out and got tires. We were out of tires at that point in time, and we were just banking on some track position. Those new tires were just too much for us. We gave up about five spots there in just the last two or three laps. That kind of hurt. All in all, everybody’s working hard and from where we started today we moved forward. That’s the biggest part of racing. We were somewhat competitive. We’ve just got to keep working hard, and hopefully we can turn this thing around.”
#38 - Brandon Whitt - started 17th; finished 20th
Quoted: "It's always good to bring the truck home in one piece. Tonight the Warner Ladder Ford was running real good at the beginning of the race and then toward the end we came in and made a pit stop and we lost a lot of track position in the pits. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it up but all in all it was an OK night."
#07 - Shane Sieg - started 33rd; finished 21st
Quoted: "I thought we were going to qualify a little better than that but we didn't. I knew we were going to race good because we practiced well. I knew something was wrong on the first run when we got lapped. People were driving away from me and I was like 'What the heck is going on?' So we came down and we had a flat tire and we put another set on and we were flying but we just ran out of time."
#62 - Steve Park - started 25th; finished 22nd
Quoted: “The truck just wouldn't turn. I have no idea what is wrong with it. It is just like last week at Michigan. We had trouble all night. We adjusted and adjusted and didn't gain anything. At the end the 17 truck hit me, and I spun. We have a lot of work to do. We will evaluate everything back at the shop. We have a couple of testing dates soon, so hopefully we will learn what the problem is at the tests.”
#12 - Robert Huffman - started 21st; finished 23rd
Quoted: “This truck was just unbelievably tight all race. The guys made what we thought were good adjustments, but the truck just wouldn’t respond. We’ve got some work to do on our short track program, but I’m positive we’ll get it worked out.”
#20 - Butch Miller - started 27th; finished 24th
Noted: This was Butch's first CTS race since February of 2002.
#1 - Ted Musgrave - started 9th; finished 25th
Noted: Musgrave has been running at the finish of 33 consecutive races.
#23 - Johnny Benson - started 32nd; finished 26th
Noted: 26th is Benson's second worst career CTS finish in 14 career races. His worst was 34th at Memphis in 1997.
#50 - Jon Wood - started 11th; finished 27th
Quoted: "We haven't figured it out yet, but there is something definitely wrong. There is no reason we should have run that bad. We were just tight, extremely tight. No matter where I was on the track, the truck wouldn't hook up."
#11 - Darrell Waltrip - started 29th; finished 28th
Noted: 29th starting position was Darrell's worst CTS start since 1995.
#59 - Mark MacFarland - started 23rd; finished 29th
Noted: Mark has finished 1 or more laps down in 5 of his 9 career CTS races.
#13 - Paul White - started 24th; finished 30th
Quoted: "We were fighting a greasy race track all day and the race truck was loose from the beginning. We kept trying to tighten it up and tighten it up before qualifying, but because we didn't have a provisional we had to set the truck up to be fast in qualifying. But because the trucks were impounded following qualifying, it left us pretty far off when the sun went down and the race started. We tried to make some adjustments on the truck during the race, but it just didn't seem to get any better. So we were forced to just ride around and make laps all night. We avoided some wrecks during the night and I had to make some pretty quick decisions on which line to take. At one point I had to avoid the 22 truck and all I could do was grab a gear and go. Overall it was just disappointing to not be able to be more competitive tonight, but next week we head to Nashville and we tested there earlier this season. It seems like a pretty good track and maybe we can get another good run like we had at Gateway."
#22 - Bill Lester - started 19th; finished 31st
Noted: Bill has been running at the end of 4 consecutive races which matches his season high.
#8 - Chase Montgomery - started 34th; finished 32nd
Quoted: “This race kind of reminded me of Milwaukee. We also had a rare and unusual mechanical failure there and once back on the track we were one of the fastest trucks. We took some positive things away from that race and I think we will do the same from this weekend. Myself and this first year team have made some tremendous progress throughout the season thus far and we have taken situations such as these failures and learned from them – I expect the same this time."
#29 - Deborah Renshaw - started 36th; finished 33rd
Noted: Worst start and finish for Deborah in her 3 CTS races.
#52 - Ken Schrader - started 12th; finished 34th
Noted: Ken has recorded 23 DNFs in 51 career CTS races.
#67 - David Ragan - started 35th; finished 35th
Noted: Worst start and finish of David's 5 career CTS races.
#33 - Michael Waltrip - started 15th; finished 36th
Noted: This was the first time in Waltrip's 7 CTS races that he has finished last.