They’ve got big hearts, and a whole lot of horsepower. Brave souls and the will to win. They’re the local heroes. And they LIVE for Saturday night.” --Dave Despain
“It’s like taking a girl on a first date. You gotta keep playing with her to see how far she’ll let you go.”
--Keeping driver name quite LOL---Said before driving a new car for the first time
"USAC style racing can teach drivers a tremendous amount of car and throttle control and patience. Let's face it, if you're not patient in an open wheel car or a sprint car you end up upside."
-Ray Evernham-
"I think it's a joke anymore. It just happens that for a couple weeks in a row we got into it with people. Heaven forbid we accidentally have accidents. If you can't touch anybody and you've got to worry about it every race, I might as well quit this sport and go back to running Sprint cars, where there's none of this stuff.
"At least you're allowed to race there. You don't have to worry about people hacking you in the media every time you touch somebody."
--Tony Stewart May 15th 2004 After Richmond--
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." - --Mario Andretti--
"You have to take it over a the edge a few times to find it"
--Rich Vogler--
"I might be as good of a B.S’er as everybody else, but I'll get it done on the track."
-JJ Yeley-
Lauren Besecker Interview with Jack Hewitt
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Lauren: Okay, so since we're on the subject, Hewitt, what do you think about the Todd Kane/Jay Drake deal that happened at Eldora a few weeks back. (For those who don't know, Jay Drake accidentally misjudged a slide job, putting the leader of the heat race, Todd Kane, into the wall. Todd Kane, a winged driver, with "old school" values, had a lot to say about it and seemed willing to fight it out with Drake.)
Hewitt: Here's the deal, I like Jay Drake, I really do, but I have to say he had that one coming. USAC probably stepped in and threatened to fine Kane or whatever. See, back in the day, when I got into with Steve Butler...and I'm not knockin' Steve, because we're buddies now, but when I got into with him, Roger McCluskey called me and said, "We're (USAC) gonna have to fine you $500 for hitting Steve Butler".
I said, 'kiss my a$$', I told him that I'll just go run winged shows, it didn't matter to me any, because back then it was 50/50.(winged/non winged). McCluskey told me that they would put me under a $500 bond, and if I fought again, it would cost me $500. I told him I'd go along with that. We got along fine after that, because there was a common sense line there. See, Steve wasn't a bad racer, he was just always in a crash because he's a hard racer.
"Clayton climbed the wall in 3&4 then climbed the wall in 1&2 but it bit him there and he rolled over. I do believe Daron never lets off the gas even if his wheels aren't on the track..."
--I know it was from someone providing live updates, but cannot remember when...I'm thinking Hoseheads was updating from Eastbay, but not sure--
"I don't know driving in another way which isn't risky. Each one has to improve himself. Each driver has its limit. My limit is a little bit further than other's." --Aryton Senna January, 1989--
"Fear is exciting for me." --Aryton Senna 1991--
The quote of the weekend was Bryan Herta at the Indy Racing League race in Kentucky on Sunday. During the drivers meeting, Bryan raised his hand and asked "Is row 6 going to be 4 abreast"? Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher started next to each other in row 6 if you didn't know!
"I've been racing for 30 years, and I've won 13 championships, and I've been on fire from here to Australia, and nothing could prepare me for having daughters."
-John Force-
OK!!!! Who ****** up on Dustin's car and made him go fast.............
--Chris Martin-- (Said to me after a good night..I worked on the car)
"Aw, man, there I go again, ranting about sprint cars. I can't help it. They're just the most bad-ass cars in the world. Believe me." --Jack Hewitt--
"He went into turn 1 and 2 as a pro and then left turn 3 an a*shole!!!”
--Steve Kinser--
"The problem with being spectacular is that; you usually crash a lot of race cars" --Brain Paulus--
“The one thing I am proud of is when I did crash, they were wadded up so bad you could’ve put them in the back of a pick-up. I always thought that if you were good, they’re totally destroyed when you crash, and if you’re a stroker, you can roll them onto the trailer and fix’em. When I crashed’em. I trashed’em.”
--Doug Wolfgang--
“Alcoholics can get help with their addictions. Drug addicts can also get help with their problems. But sprint car racing is an addiction for which there is no cure." --Tom Chalk--
” It amazes me how people want to make more out of it than what it is, It’s a fascinating sport, and it always boils down to one thing: trying to be faster” --Tony Stewart--
"The walls are white, the track is grey, the grass is green, and the sky is blue...your job is to keep them all where they belong." --Johnny Rutherford--
"Its like driving 150mph into a closet."
--Cris Esh on driving into turn 1 @ Flemington--
"F##K the G##DA#N wing...turn this F##KING car over"
--Steve Kinser upside down at the grove still strapped into the car--
"Get out of the car Joey and take it like a man"
--Jack Hewitt-- (I actually got this from someone talking about it on IOW)
"Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog."
--Damon Hill--
"Davey D proved once again that he is smoother than a 40 year old scotch. I smiled during one caution when Smoke(Stewart) pulled along side of Dave just to let him know who was there...Dave waved first."
--Someone on IOW said this about Darland and Stewart--
"We're dirt racers with pavement jobs." --Tony Stewart talking about J.J.Yeley and himself--
On the Car of Tomorrow
Tony Stewart has called it a "basket of junk"
"DEI without Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a museum," said Stewart.
"If I had a billion dollars, I'd build me another daggone Bristol and put me 160,000 seats in it like Bruton did -- and laugh all the way to the bank. But they're not smart enough to do that."
--Tony Stewart--
"People knew I was clean, but if you did something dirty, I wasn't going to wait two or three laps."
--AJ Foyt--
"To be truthful with you, I was thinking, 'This is for big men and not little kids like me."
--AJ Foyt on arriving for his first Indy 500 in 1958--
"I can't remember a race I run in that at one time or another I didn't scare the crap out of myself."
--AJ Foyt--
Foyt called Stewart to chastise him for bumping Matt Kenseth off the track during the 2006 Daytona 500, asking him if he was a "drug head."
You will tow an old racecar home 9 times out of 10 mad........... It`s that 1 time out of 10 that keeps you going back
"When you first start racing all you can see is your hood......going on to say when you've been racing for a long time you see everything and it's coming at you in slow motion."
--Doug Wolfgang--
"If your going to run the bottom,you might as well get a real job."
--Jack Hewitt--
"The crashes people remember, but drivers remember the near misses."
--Mario Andretti--
"Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an *****, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac."
--Cristiano Da Matta--
" Danny doesn't like to run this fast... If he can't handle it, maybe he should just park it." --Sammy on Lasoski at Bristol, 2001--
"I'm kind of kinky and have some fetishes but driving 1000 miles to get spanked by 60 men is not one of them."
--Dave Enders, describing why he sat out the ultra-competitive IRA vesus K'ville Challenge that year.--
"You can't let one bad moment spoil a bunch of good ones!"
--Dale Earnhardt--
At this years Chili bowl, JJ Yeley was asked what he was going to do at the start of the race. He said " I'll probably put Stewart in the wall, he's already mad at me, I stole his French fries.
He's talking about how fast the Sprints are and then says to Rager "I'm such a chicken I wouldn't even drive one of "those" cars" (pointing at a pure stock parked next to Roger). Rager's reply? "Neither would I, without a tetanus shot".
One night at Huset's Speedway years ago, Doug Wolfgang had just beaten a young rookie driver in a heat race. The rookie tried to hold off the persistant charges of Wolfgang by blocking him for about (2) laps. After the race the rookie came over laughing and proceeded to tell Wolfgang how he almost beat him in the heat race. Wolfgang, not amused, replied, "...If you would have blocked me one more time, I was gonna shine your bumper..."
"In the meantime this morning, I almost hit turn two. They had to evacuate the suites twice because they thought I was going in."
--PJ Jones--
Q: Do you think Robby Gordon should have been fined or had points deducted for the incident at Loudon?
Again, where do we stop all this madness? We're driving race cars. I think they should deal with it like we used to deal with it in every series I grew up running on my way to the Cup Series.
You used to get out and fistfight with the guy if you disagreed with something he did. And then you'd help the guy load his car up and you guys would go eat dinner together.
That's the way it used to be handled in the real world. Now we're in fantasyland up here and things have to be dictated by the All Mighty now instead of the drivers handling it themselves.
--Tony Stewart--
Driver1: Man, how did you make that slidejob stick, sliding from the bottom all the way up to the top and not lose any momentum?
Driver2: I just have a lot of laps around this place.
Driver1: Someday you need to teach me how to do that.
Driver2: I just did.
--After a race at Eldora--
