BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Tire & Auto Ford Fusion (qualified 9th) – “We’ve been lucky, I’m telling you. We’re fortunate enough in one respect: We unload and we just concentrate on qualifying. I got to hand it to these guys. They do an awesome job. For Quick Lane coming on board this race, and what Ford does, and Motorcraft, and all the guys, Len and Eddie, that believe in me. You know, last year I was ready to quit and this year I’m ready to go on. I still wish I could re-live three there, because, man, I just really massacred three.”
WHAT ABOUT THE LAP? “It was good. I got just a little bit off there going into three and I kind of messed my lap up a little bit there. I mean, my hat’s off to these guys. They do just awesome job. Len and Eddie still believe in me and we’ve really worked hard to turn this program around. Last year they were running out of a couple of sponsors and they decided, hey, we’re going to run a limited deal, and they asked me to drive again this year. I said, ‘Well, I don’t know if I did you any good last year,’ but, I’ll tell you what, it seemed like after Charlotte this year, we just turned a light on. Everything we’ve done, we’ve gone to the good direction. There’s good communication between David Hyder and all the guys on the crew, and that’s what’s made the difference. That communication and what we’ve done and be able to work with the car and continue to work through some stuff, that’s what it’s all about.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (qualified 17th) – HOW MUCH DOES CLOUD COVER AFFECT THIS RACE TRACK? “Cloud-cover effect is pretty huge. It’ll be a couple of tenths faster with a cloud. You know, you’ll be out there running and a cloud will come over, and the next lap by you’ll pick up a tenth and a half, so the clouds mean a lot. The engines run better and it gets better grip. We just hope that that big cloud moves off and it stays kind of sunny for all of these guys.”
IT’S ALSO PRETTY BREEZY HERE. DOES THAT HAVE AN EFFECT? “A little bit. With this kind of breeze, you don’t really feel it; when it gets more gusty, then you’ll feel it.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED AT WHERE YOU WERE IN PRACTICE, AND HOW DOES THIS LAP STAND UP AGAINST THAT? “It’s not really a surprise. We knew our car was fast and we felt like we could run pretty fast. But, we struggled a little bit in qualifying trim. We kind of got off our routine. We normally spend a lot of time in race trim; this time we tried qualifying for quite a bit of time, and couldn’t get it going in qualifying trim. That lap, I think, is decent. We’ll see how that holds up. The sun has got to stay out, though. Right now, the next five guys that go are going to have a big advantage. That cloud is just barely moving. ”
JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (qualified 19th) – “I sat on the pole here the first time I came here in a truck, and since then qualifying has been really a struggle for me, so I don’t ever expect a ton in qualifying when we come here, and I’ve worked really, really hard on, like, watching tapes and really trying to work on my line to get it better. And so, that’s not stellar by any means, but it’s significantly better than when I’ve qualified here in the past. I thought that this morning in race trim that our car was better than decent – not that it was great, but it was pretty good. So, it’s been a tough month for Roush, in general, and it’s encouraging that we’ve maybe hit on something small here.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (qualified 37th) – “It was just really tight for qualifying. We made a few changes before qualifying that certainly were going in the right way, but we just didn’t get a good lap in. We unloaded in the top 10 and I felt like we had a legitimate shot at a top-10 qualifying spot. So, certainly not as good as we hoped. But this is a track we can pass at and we should be fine on Saturday, and we’ll just have to have a good race on Sunday.”
