Quotes of the week
"That's the first law of Disney at work–wishing will make it so. Using ethanol for fuel is like electing the dumbest kid in school as class president. As for plug-in electrics, they're just not plausible right now. Lithium-ion batteries are too expensive by at least an order of magnitude. They're not energy-dense enough. And we generate a lot of our electricity from coal. I don't think Shai [Agassi, of Better Place] is being disingenuous. I think he really believes what he's saying. I see it all the time from those Palo Alto types. They think the whole world is like a computer company, and they're always trying to recreate the dot-com economy. You see exactly the same mind-set with Tesla. It's all going to work out. It worked out with eBay. It worked out with SAP. But transportation is a different world. I mean, Shai's bragging about driving an electric RAV4 with a seventy-mile range. How many of your friends are going to buy that car?" Bill Reinert of Toyota talking about the state of the auto industry as it tries to go "green."
"I don't trust anything NASCAR does, anything Dr. David Black does, never have, never will. Black is the administrator for NASCAR's drug-testing program. And they picked the wrong woman [Mayfield's stepmother] to use against me because that (expletive) is trash and has got nothing on me but lies. She's tried everything she can do to get money out of me. I won't help her, so I guess she found a way to get money from NASCAR by giving them an affidavit full of lies. She don't deserve the Mayfield name. She's hated me since my dad got killed because I won't give her any money. She goes on the Internet and blogs lies about me and Shana (his wife) and everything you can imagine. She's broke, and I guess she got NASCAR to give her some money." Jeremy Mayfield, NASCAR driver, Mayfield Motorsports, commenting after testing positive for another methamphetamine test. "Brian France talking about effective drug programs is like having Al Capone talking about effective law enforcement. They're playing this high school s-, they better be ready. I'm coming after them in a big way. I'm prepared to go all the way and have the backing to do it if it takes everything I've got. I'm not going to back down for something I didn't do." Jeremy Mayfield "You have to follow the money in my mind. And what I’m seeing here is — I’ve got to ask myself, Why? Why would Jeremy, if he flunked the drug test, and NASCAR comes to him and says, ‘Look you flunked the test.’ And they have what they call a road map. Here’s your road map for getting back and reinstated. He chose not to do that. Here’s the only reason, the only conclusion, I can come up with. He’s got a judge decide with him. He’s saying he’s passed all the other tests, other than NASCAR's. His career is ruined. He’ll never be able to drive a car in NASCAR again. What would you say he would probably want? He would probably want a settlement. And I believe he’s trying to leverage all of his side of the story against NASCAR's side of the story, and maybe they will pay him to go away. That’s the only way I can make this all come together and work in my mind." Darrell Waltrip, FOX Sports and SPEED NASCAR Analyst, commenting on Jeremy Mayfield's substance abuse case "They are very close friends and worked very closely together when Jean [Todt] was at Ferrari and Max [Mosley] at the FIA. But that can also turn out to be a handicap. You need a new star, you need an independent person who represents change. The fact that he has FIA support may somewhat distort the situation, but I'm not worried. When the wind starts changing, it does change. I'm not dethroning Jean – there's an opening. If I can resume my campaign in one way, something that Jean successfully applied to various disciplines and teams: If you want to win, take a Finn." Ari Vatanen, 1981 World Rally Champion, announced prior to the German GP that he would be running for the presidency of the FIA. He has criticized outgoing FIA president Max Mosley for recommending Jean Todt to succeed him. "I feel badly for Seb [Sebastien Bourdais]. I know how talented he is, after all, he won 4 championships for our team in 5 years. I also know that he will use this experience to learn and get back to the greatness he was within himself." Carl Haas, co-owner, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing IndyCar team "I'm not surprised he's got the boot. The guy was a misery even when he had the best car and was winning everything, so I guess he's been pretty unbearable this last 18 months. He's a great driver but I bet his attitude didn't exactly encourage the team to solve his problems. I'm in two minds about this; I'm dreaming of the day that I'm able to give Bourdais the gears again but I will be mightily p***** if he walks back into a deal when I've been working my tail off – doing promotions and helping to sell tickets for race organizers – and don't get a full-time ride." Paul Tracy, IndyCar driver, KV Racing Technology, commenting on Sebastien Bourdais getting fired from the Toro Rosso F1 team "We've got enough whiners over here. We don't need him [Bourdais] back." Robin Miller, Veteran Open Wheel Analyst, commenting on the possibility of Sebastien Bourdais returning to American open wheel racing."
"We didn't want to see that last yellow. We had a great strategy that kept us out front and our car was good enough to win. So it was a great day. Scott [Pruett] drove really clean and it looked like he was a little quicker, so I was really happy about that. I'm really happy for everyone at GAINSCO and that we can fight it out these last four races." Alex Gurney, Grand-Am driver, GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing, commenting after he and teammate Jon Fogarty won the race at Barber Motorsports Park
“We started in the middle of last year; not only do we have a steep learning curve in sports cars, but we started a team from scratch. We are just over a year old, and we really used these last two months to our advantage. I am quite happy about the evolution of the team. We had a little good fortune today. But it was good. We had a good race." Gil de Ferran, ALMS driver and team owner, de Ferran Motorsports, commenting after winning the race at Lime Rock Park with co-driver Simon Pagenaud