With the NASCAR 2005 season officially closed with the four hour banquet in NYC,
I was searching for an article to post. One of my favorite NASCAR writers has,
once again, come to my rescue.
Monte Dutton, of the Gaston Gazette has come up with a compilation of quotes
from the last year that I thought was worth sharing with you.
The bold faced quotes are my favorites.
Some are insightful. Some are humorous. Some are wacky and inexplicable. For a
variety of reasons, following is a collection of remarks made during the season
just completed:
“I had a blast.” – Carl Edwards, after, well, almost everything.
“That’s baloney, man. That’s what’s wrong with America now. Every time somebody
screws up, we tell them it’s all right. You don’t pay your bills? You can file
bankruptcy. You kill somebody? Spend 10 years in jail, and we’ll let you out.
That’s what’s wrong with society now, man. If you do the crime, do the time. If
you had the guts to do it, have the guts to take your punishment.” – crew chief
Michael McSwain, telling the Richmond Times-Dispatch he was tired of hearing
competitors whining after being caught cheating.
“I just want to thank you guys because you’ve written some really nice things
about me … and I know it won’t always be good. There’ll be times when you have
to write bad things about me, and I’ll be grateful for that, too.” – Carl
Edwards, astounding the media by praising them.
“I wouldn’t bet against Carl Edwards on anything. He can be as good at this as
anyone’s ever been.” – Jack Roush
“It takes guts to keep your right foot down.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Well, if you’re racing around him, normally you’re doing pretty good.” – Dale
Earnhardt Jr., on Jeff Gordon
“What he did early on was recognize the fact that I knew nothing.” – Kurt Busch,
talking about owner Jack Roush.
“I still want to buy the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association), and they want me
to buy it. They just don’t know it yet.” – O. Bruton Smith
“Mine was unintentional and his was intentional, and that’s all I’m saying.
NASCAR can do what they want with it.” – Ryan Newman, after clashing with Dale
Jarrett at Bristol.
“For some guys, anger can work out. It’s a good thing for them. They use that to
help them focus. For others, it ruins their concentration. They are too busy
playing ‘The Fugitive’ and getting the one-armed man or whatever than they are
on winning the race. … Sometimes you have to fight to get your emotions back in
check but, unless you’re one of the ones anger helps, you had better do it in a
hurry.” – Kyle Busch
“You know, when Arnold Palmer came on TV with an old tractor and told me to buy
Pennzoil, I bought that, and when Dale Jarrett advertises UPS, I can go along
with that, too. But I don’t think having an 18-year-old, somebody who’s probably
gotten five packages in his life and they were all ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos,
tell me what delivery service I should use would have much effect on me.” – Kyle
Petty
“I don’t know. I’ll finish either negative one or zero according to your
records.” — Tony Stewart (left), after a reporter noted that he had finished
third, second and first in his previous three trips to Chicagoland Speedway.
“When you grow up in the Midwest racing Sprint cars and Midgets, you race hurt
and you race with black eyes and bloody eyes, and you just do what you’ve got to
do.” — Stewart
“If a car is tight, I can only drive it as fast as it will go. If it’s loose, I
can drive it as fast as I want to go, and usually that’s faster.” – Mark Martin
“He’s certainly the best gymnast.” – Jack Roush, asked what he saw in Carl
Edwards.
“That’s all we’ve got in Cup anymore. These races are just a series of short
squirts.” – Mark Martin, bemoaning the increase in crashes and caution flags.
“These cars are always hard to drive. If they were easy to drive, you and
everybody could do it.” – Tony Stewart
“If a driver isn’t bright enough to figure out that they need to take care of
themselves when every economic incentive will disappear if they don’t, then
we’ve got the wrong kind of drivers.” – Roush Racing president Geoff Smith,
nearly six months before one of his driver, Kurt Busch, encountered trouble with
the cops in Phoenix.
“I don’t think speed has a lot to do with racing, and I know that sounds
stupid.” – Kyle Petty
“A lot of racing is common sense, but sometimes it doesn’t come into effect.” –
Sterling Marlin
“Either way you look at it, it equivalates to money.” – Jeff Gordon,
creating a new word when asked why so many Cup drivers also race in Busch.
“We always work these races backward. You really don’t pay attention to how many
laps you’ve run. You pay attention to how many laps you have left.” – Tony
Stewart
“The more you stay in the throttle here, the faster you’re going to go.” – Joe
Nemechek, making a point that is hard to dispute.
“I don’t think anyone is wishing us bad luck, but in the back of their minds, if
it happens, they’re not going to be disappointed.” – point leader Tony Stewart,
during the Chase.
“I say if the race is too boring, stay home.” – Mark Martin
“You’ve got guys like Mark Martin … who try to be as fit as we can, and you’ve
got guys like Tony Stewart who admittedly exercises by changing the channels on
his TV. Mark and Tony are both fast. They go about it different ways.” – Carl
Edwards
“Basically, what we’ve got is a beautiful golf course, but the putts aren’t
going exactly where we want, so we’re smoothing out the greens.” – Lowe’s Motor
Speedway president H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, announcing his “levigation” project.
“I love this kind of racing, (but) these guys sure change their personalities in
race mode. They’re like Doberman pinschers with a hand grenade in their mouths.”
– road racer Boris Said
“Even a blind squirrel finds nuts sometimes.” – Kyle Busch, after his first
victory.
“We just need to win, and where we win has little impact.” – Jeff Burton
“I think it was a total disaster to take Rockingham off the schedule. For me, it
would be a bigger disaster to have Rockingham come off than Darlington,
although, to me, both really have a place in our racing. But you’re talking
about a guy who would go broke if I was in charge. I know that, so I’m not the
king of commercialism, by any means.” – Mark Martin
“I stepped on that big motor, and it was like stepping on a cat’s tail, and it
went right around.” – Mark Martin, describing a spin.
“There have been so many changes that I’ll be honest. I don’t know what
tradition is anymore. The way the schedule is now, there is no comparing the old
with the new. Everything is new. I personally miss the Labor Day race at
Darlington. I think, if I had to give one up, I wouldn’t give up the Southern
500.” – Ricky Rudd
“It was his euphoric mania that caused him to recover.” – Jack Roush, after Greg
Biffle narrowly avoided crashing en route to victory at Dover.
“He’s not happy unless he’s sideways, and he was … several times.” – Biffle’s
crew chief, Doug Richert, after the same race.
“It’s been way too long since any of these drivers have had to fix one of these
race cars.” – Mark Martin
“As soon as you have a caution, then you have a wreck. Then you have a wreck,
and one of the cars in that wreck has something fall off it. Then that causes
another yellow flag. Cautions breed cautions.” – Martin
“At some point in every race, he gets pit-bull mad. I just backed off and waited
until I could get by him.” – Jimmie Johnson, referring to Tony Stewart, at
Dover.
“I only second-guess myself. I don’t tell anybody.” – Rusty Wallace
“Until you sit in our seats, you have no idea what is going on.” – Dale Jarrett
[b]“That’s the way racing is nowadays. It’s crazy. Everybody’s going all out.
Anybody could get wrecked on any lap. You get through something like this and
you just yell ‘woo-hoo!” – Michael Waltrip, after winning a qualifying race at
Daytona. [/b]
“These guys are going to start retiring early. We’re the last guys coming along
doing this, and it just so happens that not only am I in the last batch that’s
going to run until they’re 45 or 50, but I’m probably going to be in the last
batch that’s ever going to own and drive, too. When I quit, it’ll take two
categories out of the equation.” – Kyle Petty
“He’s certainly not the milkman’s son, is he?” – Mike Skinner, on Dale Earnhardt
Jr.
“This isn’t anything like practice. The guys are a lot nuttier in a race.” –
Boris Said, after the Daytona 500.
“It knocked me in the air like I was getting hit in the butt with a rubber
ball.” – Rusty Wallace, describing a Daytona crash.
“I’m nocturnal. The time didn’t bother me. I’m an old sprint-car guy. Usually,
at this time of night, I’m loading up the car and heading to the Waffle House.”
– Tony Stewart, after winning the night race at Daytona.
“You can have only one winner out of how many cars, 43? In golf, they start out
with 150 players, and only one at the end of the week is the winner. It’s tough.
In football, we’ve got two teams, and one is going to win. If it’s an even game,
you’ve got a 50-percent chance. So this is a much tougher sport, when you have
just one winner out of so many competitors.” – University of South Carolina
football coach Steve Spurrier, visiting Daytona.
“To tell the truth, I just screwed up because I was having fun. I asked the crew
for a mulligan, and they gave it to me.” – Tony Stewart, after spinning at
Richmond.
“This caution really doesn’t change the complexity of the race.” – Fox analyst
Larry McReynolds, apparently meaning to say “complexion.”
“Give me a lead with the end in sight, and you’ll never get a better fight than
what you’ll get from me.” – Mark Martin
“They’ve put a lot of loads of pig iron on my back before, and we’ll truck this
one just fine, too.” – Jack Roush, responding to NASCAR intentions to limit the
number of teams one owner can have.
“I’m a big component of having a day off.” – Biffle, apparently meaning to say
“proponent.”
“I’m not a new Tony Stewart. It’s a smarter Tony Stewart. – Stewart
“The reason I retired when I did was to go out on top.” – Rusty Wallace
“In 1986, I was working with the Buick people. They put their thumb up on the
side of the Buick Le Sabre and decided to give it to us as a race car. After two
weeks, we decided if we cut the body off and put it on backwards, it would run
faster.” – Larry McReynolds, on how the sport has changed.
“For me, I wouldn’t say that we’re going to go out there and set the world on
fire right away. We just have to work on our P’s and Q’s and start crossing our
T’s and working on dotting our I’s.” – Kyle Busch, maniacally mixing his
metaphors.
“I hate fuel-mileage races where the fastest car doesn’t win.” – Dale Earnhardt
Jr.
“Just like they’ve always said, the best offense is a good defense - or was it
the best defense is a good offense? What the heck, what we have is working and
old Larry couldn’t be any happier right now.” – Larry Carter, Rusty Wallace’s
crew chief.
“At the end of the day, what we do is competitive, exciting to watch and it
borders on craziness. That’s why it’s fun to watch.” – Jeff Burton
“I run my car as fast as I think I can get away with it all the time, and that’s
rarely 100 percent. … The rest of the time I sense things and feel things and
I’m always trying to make my car better.” – Mark Martin
“He’s an idiot. It’s no wonder Kevin Harvick’s wanted to kill him for so long.”
– Tony Stewart, on Greg Biffle
“When you get to this point in your career, you’re not exactly sure when that
last victory is going to be there, so you learn to cherish each one.” – Dale
Jarrett, after winning at Talladega.
“See if Mr. Pessimist ever predicts another win.” – Mark Martin, after finishing
34th at Martinsville.
“I guess that’s evidence that life isn’t fair.” – Jack Roush, on why Mark Martin
hasn’t won at Pocono in 38 tries and Edwards won his first race at the track.
“The track is about as unique as it gets. Last month (in the Pocono 500), my
spotter kept saying ‘turn four,” so, after about the third or fourth time he
said ‘turn four,’ I finally asked him, ‘What track are you looking at?’ Of
course, he was talking about the final turn, which is usually turn four, but
there aren’t four turns at Pocono. There are just the three.” – Ken Schrader
“No matter what, you’re going to have some barn burners and you’re going to have
some snoozers.” – Mark Martin
“When you’re a driver, and you’re struggling in the car and trying to get your
car handling right, you’re looking for God to come out of the sky and give you a
magical answer.” – Rusty Wallace
[b]“I’ve been criticized enough where y’all can’t hurt me. You can’t write
anything that’s going to make my day any worse. And you can’t all of a sudden
tell me I’m smart and great and make me feel any better. Because I didn’t
believe you when you said I sucked and I’m not going to believe you when you say
I’m great. I’m just going to keep on being me.” – Michael Waltrip [/b]
“The good thing about night races is that I get to sleep in in the morning.” –
Tony Stewart
“When we go to Sonoma (Calif.) to race, everybody wants to go out there, and
everybody does the vineyard tours and it’s really interesting. That wasn’t the
case 10 or 15 years ago. People went to the vineyards because the wine was free
… not because they wanted to go try it.” – Jeff Burton
“The seasons to me seem very similar.” – Jimmie Johnson
“I don’t claim to have any answers or know the answers. We pay good money for
good people to come in and build these things, but I can tell you when it don’t
run, and I can tell you when it does run, and that’s my job and I’ve tried to do
it.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Yeah, it’s a big track, and it’s actually easier to drive around than Daytona.
At Daytona, you actually have to drive a little bit. Here it feels like it’s 99
percent car. Like in the old days when they sent a chimp up to fly a rocket
around the world. I feel like the chimp. I’m sitting in a really good car that
was prepared by really good people with a good engine.” – Boris Said, on
Talladega.
“These guys are going to wreck. You can bet your butt on that. You’ve just got
to make sure you’re not around when they do.” – Dale Jarrett
“You’d be surprised what air does at 200 mph.” – Brian Vickers
[b]“The world’s right, no, it’s wrong, it’s right, it’s wrong again.” – Michael
Waltrip, describing what it’s like to flip end over end at Talladega.[/b]
“I’ve always said that, when I’m an old man, I’m going to bore my grandkids to
death with racing stories, and I’ll tell them once a week how I shocked
everybody my rookie year by winning the Texas race. They’ll probably be, like,
‘You told us that yesterday.’” – Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“It’s the same for every track: a good-handling race car.” – Dale Jarrett,
on what it takes to win.
“The last thing we’re going to do is buckle under some pressure.” – Carl Edwards
“Qualifying at superspeedways is probably the most boring thing I’ve ever done
in my life.” – Brian Vickers
“When he (Tony Stewart) crossed the finish line, I knew he’d won.” – Rusty
Wallace, at Watkins Glen.
