Indy 500: Post race quotes.

Greg Ray: "Driving race cars, period, is fun, but winning is a lot more fun. I've got mixed emotions."

Sam Hornish Jr.: "We had a real fast car. It's kind of tough on the nerves passing the same race cars all day long and not getting anywhere. We were pretty loose all day long, but it was a good run. When it was overcast, is when the car handled the best. Things were going good. I learned a lot of stuff this year and am ready to come back next year. We actually got a couple of laps back when we were penalised."

Jon Herb: "The car was working fine. We weren't going to have to make any changes. We were just running the pace early, wanted to stay out of trouble and save the car for the end. Then after the halfway point, I saw the rain coming in, and we decided to pick it up a bit. I made a clean move inside of Davey Hamilton in Turn 1 but then came upon Greg Ray, who seemed to be off the pace. Running into him put us in the wall, and we lost the suspension. It's too bad because we had plenty left in that car to put us up front. In fact, I can't say enough about this Tri Star team and Larry Curry for the job they did giving me such a great car, as well as EPSON, who came on board here in the last couple of days for our Indy run."

Eliseo Salazar: "I'm happy because of what a terrible month we had. A couple of days ago I didn't know if I was going to race; I had a 102 temperature."

Felipe Giaffone: "It's a pretty good finish, but it's been a tough month. The Hollywood Treadway-Hubbard team did a great job with race strategy. The car was pretty good, and we ran pretty quick all day. I think we could have finished a little better, but we got a big plastic bag stuck under the car for the last 10 or 15 laps of the race, and it hurt the car's handling. We might have been able to pick up a position or two. Still, we've finished in the top 10 in each of the races this year, so I feel pretty good about that. I should still be in pretty good shape in the IRL points race, as well.

Physically, the race was not bad for me. I didn't have any trouble with the length of the race. I'm a little sore in the right leg, so I think that I have to work on my throttle pedal. At the end of the race, it is just like any other race. It's pretty cool to see all the fans and all the pre-race activities, so many people. It's just amazing. But, once you get racing, it's just like any other race. The hard part is the two or three weeks before the race. That is the toughest part, and it definitely wears on you mentally. Now we are on to Texas. I'm going to rest with my fianc?e and family the next few days and be ready for the rest of the season. I think the next nine races are going to be exciting."

Robbie Buhl: "It's satisfying for me and my guys to know that we were contending for the win. We had a car that could've won. The Infiniti power was great. We had the car geared right. We didn't miss a beat. We were running second at the time, and we didn't want to run second. We wanted to lead. There was some traffic in front of us (Buhl and Castroneves). I laid down a gear just trying to get a run on Castroneves, and it got loose. I wasn't trying to stay in the position we were in. There was a slower car in front of Castroneves, and I thought I could get a run on him if he got caught up by the slower car.

When I spun out there, I didn't spin trying to hold on, I spun trying to go for the lead. I don't have any regrets for that. That's why we were there, to get in the lead and win the Indy 500."

Mark Dismore: "We put together some of the fastest race laps. It was too easy. That's the thing - it was too easy. I guess today in a lot of ways, we were lucky, but I don't feel very lucky. I lift my hat to Roger Penske, but I think we could have done a lot for Tom Kelley. I think everyone is way past the CART/IRL thing. It's a bunch of guys driving race cars."

Tony Stewart: "I hurt us. We took too much downforce off the car in the end, and that cost us. We were fairly reasonable in traffic as long as we had the downforce on it, but as soon as we took the downforce off, which was my call, I was hoping for the shootout at the end and hoping to go fast at the end. I gambled and lost today. My legs are bothering me some, but we can fix that before we get down there (Charlotte, N.C.). We have a whole hour to work on it. They'll get it fixed up. It's easy to see why this team won last year. They had a driver that made too many mistakes today, so it's my fault."
Jeff Ward: "The car was perfect at the start of the race. I was running the car flat out, and I was catching the leaders. This is the best package I've ever had at Indy, and today was unfortunate. This car could have won the race, but we'll be back."

Robby Gordon: "I'm a little disappointed. We showed we had speed with de Ferran early. I had a pace that I thought I could cruise, and the motor just let go around Lap 75."

Jimmy Vasser: "You come here to win, and it's disappointing when you don't. We had some problems. We lost fourth gear. We were just too far back there at the end to make much of a charge."

Bruno Junqueira: "Normally I'm only happy if I win a race, but today I'm really happy with a fifth-place finish. This is my second oval race and first 500 miler. I have never experienced a race like this before. This was a big experience. The first half of the race I was just learning, and I learned a lot. This was a long, hard race. You have to be 100 percent just to finish. I wasn't suppose to even be here today so I'm really very happy with fifth."

Eddie Cheever: About the start of the race: "It was just like 1992 when it was cold. It wasn't really slick, it was just cold. Everybody should have just held their horses. You cannot ask the car to do something that it can't do when the tires are not warm enough. If you're not paying attention, this place can be very mean, indeed. It's very frustrating. It has not been a very good month for us, much less a good race. We're not sure what our problem was, but it was something electrical. We did a lot of work, and the #51 Excite@Home car was good. It's very disappointing because we were running well, and everyone has worked a lot of long nights for a long time.

You have to remember that this Infiniti 35A engine is just three months old. The guys on the Excite@Home team and at Infiniti have put a lot of effort into this. We ran well at Atlanta, and now we just have to pick up the pieces and head to Texas. I'm very sorry that Scott (Goodyear) got caught up in that accident at the beginning because I think he would have had a great race. But this is racing, and you have to take the good with the bad. Right now, we just have a big chunk of bad. I want to thank all the fans who came out here today. It's really special to race in the 500, and they're the ones who make it as good as it is."

Donnie Beechler: "We found out that it was an oil fitting underneath, so it was hard to get to. By the time we found it and fixed it, the damage had already been done. It broke the engine. We went back out and stayed out as long as we could. We didn't make it to the end, but we made it to Lap 198. I met a lot of great guys on A.J.'s team. A.J. was very kind to give me a chance. Dick Simon's crew was great on pit stops, so I gained a lot of good friends. You know, there is a lot more to racing than just finishing the race."

Buddy lazier: "Well, I just think that we ran 500 miles on seven cylinders. So, we ran the whole race dead in the water. Our motor was junk. We were going down the straightaway 201 (mph), 202 (mph), when we normally are running 220 (mph). We just felt like we threw our race away. It was just a miserable day. We left last year real hungry. We came in three or four times that first yellow. The guys realized that we couldn't fix it. It's incredible the motor ran 500 miles like that."

Billy Boat: "I think overall the CURB Records team has to be pretty satisfied with a top-10 finish, having gained some 23 positions. We weren't great all day, but we were pretty steady. I really have to thank CURB Records and Firestone, Tom Chastain and Miller-Eads, Royal Spa and Bob Dapper and Turner Woodard and the Stutz Development. All our sponsors did a great job for us this month.

My team really helped me during the race with great pit stops. We never made any mistakes, and I really think that's what contributed to our good finish. We would've like to been up higher, but when you start in the back it's awfully hard to stay on that lead lap, and once we got a lap down we were pretty much just racing everybody on that lap. I'm very happy because this finish is going to enable us to keep this team going over the next races and hopefully finish out the entire rest of the season."

Davey Hamilton: "Something in the cam drive broke. We didn't have the fastest car, but we were stable all day. We were definitely good for a top-10 finish. We're in good shape for the season. It's just a matter of time."

Sam Schmidt: "The strategy was working well. We were running first in class and were in a great position for a top-10 finish. We had the fuel to go the distance, and it's just disappointing. It appears that the valve train in the engine is what gave way, but we've proved that we are capable. We knew where we were, and it all came together at the right time.

We were a lap down, and I just kept telling Davey (Hamilton) to keep digging. The strategy worked to put us back on the lead lap at the right time. Davey did a nice job today, avoided some potential day-ending incidents, and I just hate it for Davey and the crew. We really needed the finish, but we will look forward to Texas from here. I genuinely appreciate Mi-Jack for stepping up to the plate for the event, and I am glad that we ran solid all day. It's again, just disappointing to be running so well and to miss it at the very last."

Robby McGehee: "It was a tough field this year. My excitement of the race was battling Arie Luyendyk, considering he was my mentor last year. The car was good, but the last set of tires had a real big push. I was trying to dial it in with the weight jacker. The team did a great job. If we hadn't had so many weather interruptions, we might have been able to tune the car better. I didn't have the radio for the first quarter of the race. I have to apologize to someone, because I about banged wheels with them because I didn't know they were there."

Cory Witherill: "It was pretty exciting. Everything's going well. I tried to stay out of trouble and ran well. I came off (Turn) 4, felt like a tire went down and it just did a lazy slide. Fortunately it stayed off the wall. The car was good until the red flag, then it was nervous. I tried to work with it, but it was just nervous. I just stayed focused. It didn't affect me that much. It was my first Indy 500. It went by a lot faster than I thought. I guess that might have been because everybody told me how unbelievably long it would be. I guess I was expecting the worst, but we stayed smooth and had a good day."

Jacques lazier: "When we were running up front, we had a gearbox failure. We're still not sure what happened. We'll have to take the car apart and check it out. The second lap after that happened, the car went loose all day. It stayed that way until the end when we had a car I could drive. That kind of show is not what this team can and will do. It wasn't a good representation. We're capable of consistent top-10s. We'll get 'em at Texas."

Airton Dare: "After the run we had last year, we expected better than eighth. But if you think of the conditions we had this year, we got bumped on the last day and had to requalify, eighth isn't so bad. We were the second Indy Racing League car so it will move us up in points. Handling was the problem of the race. We didn't get a good feel. The car had a lot of understeer, a lot of push. You can't make big changes here. You have to go step by step. We put a full three turns into the front wing (throughout the race), which is a lot. The first two stops, we didn't change anything because we ran into debris, and I didn't have a good feel for the car. On the third stop, we made a full turn; on the fourth we made another full turn. Then on the fifth stop, we put in a half turn, and another half turn on the sixth."

When did you get rid of the push?: "The last 10 laps. Toward the end of the race we picked up an oversteer. There was no way we could catch Salazar, so we leaned out the fuel and just brought it home."

Robby Gordon:"We had a good race car, and the Conseco team did a good job. Our fuel mileage was off, but the car was comfortable and fast. We were as strong as anyone when the car was running right. It was a big disappointment that we couldn't hang on. We were trying to nurse it to the finish. But I want to thank A.J. and Conseco for the opportunity they gave me this month."

Buzz Calkins: "I think we were chasing the car kind of the whole time, and when the weather changed we lost a little bit. Overall the car was pretty good. I think we just got stuck out on some pit strategy somewhat. We should have made some stops when we didn't and shouldn't have made some when we did. We just didn't get the lock on our setup."

Did you attempt to adjust the car to the weather?: "Definitely, we did a lot to try to adjust for the bar. We usually seemed to do a pretty decent job in the first half of the race, but the second half of the race we struggled a bit to keep up with it. But, I think everyone was, to some extent out there.

About his feelings on the day: "Pretty bad. I'm pretty disappointed. We brought it home in one piece, but overall I'm very disappointed. It's not what we had actually intended."

Jeret Schroder: "The car at the end of the race was the car that we had at the beginning minus the gearbox. At the end we were running as fast as the leaders. If the gearbox had worked the whole race, we would've been up front somewhere. All the guys on the crew worked really hard. We had good fast pit stops minus having to change the (gear) box, of course. Again we had a really good car. The car was fast at the end of the race. I wish we would have had that the whole race. The car was great. We had a really good balance on the car. The car was working extremely well. The most I ever had to do was play with the sway bars one or two clicks from where we started. I never had to touch the weight jacker or anything.

At the end of the race there, I stiffened up the rear bar a couple of notches. PDM (Racing) did a great job. It was extremely disappointing. We had gone out knowing we were going to have a good race car. We proved it at the end of the race. But to have the problems that we did and go as many laps down as we did, and get stuck in 20th place, we should definitely have been a lot better than that. It's disappointing for the crew and my sponsors. It's just those little things that hold you back and put you in a position where people forget about you."

About all the cautions and rain delays: "No big deal really. It actually helped me stay a little bit more calm because starting as far back as we did, I knew that we were moving up quickly without having to use the car any or without having to wear myself out any. It was a blessing in disguise for us."

Was there a lot of debris on track?: "No, the safety crew did a really good job cleaning everything up. This is actually the cleanest track I've seen in the three years I've been here."

Arie Luyendyk: "Obviously, it was not the day we were hoping for. I just couldn't do anything in traffic. I couldn't get close to anybody in traffic. The car was pushing, and we couldn't get that push out of the car even though we put downforce into the car on pit stops. I could tell right from the start, when those guys pulled away from me (at the start), that I didn't have the car. I had a big problem with the clutch. I stalled twice (first pit stops in two years, since 1999 Indy 500), and the guys had to give me a big push to get out of the pits. That hurt us, sure, but I just didn't have the car today. We also had an oil pressure problem. So, it was one of those long days you can have there sometimes."

About the start: "I missed Scott's (Sharp) driveshaft by this much (holds fingers three inches apart). If he had come off the wall hard, I would have been in trouble."

About coming out of retirement: "Oh, sure, I'm glad I was here. This is still a great event, and a fun event, but it's only fun if you are competitive, and we really weren't competitive today."

About racing at Indy next year: "I don't think it's fair to make a decision about the future based on one bad day. We all have bad days. I still enjoy the challenges of the "500", and we had a lot of those today."

Scott Goodyear: "I'm a little sore, but other than that I don't feel bad. I was very pleased with how the #52 Thermos Grill2Go Infiniti was running. The car was sliding a little bit through the turns at the beginning, so I was just waiting for the tire temperatures to come up. Unfortunately, when the No. 15 car spun in front of me, I had nowhere to go except into the wall. It's a shame because everyone on the Thermos Grill2Go Infiniti team has done a tremendous job all month. I was very confident that we would have been there at the end of the race."