DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Travel Ford Fusion (qualified 6th) – “I’m pretty excited. We never made a qualifying run with our AAA Ford. We really concentrated on race runs yesterday in our practice. So, we had absolutely no expectations going into today’s qualifying. But, that’s great for everyone on our AAA team, for Jimmy Fennig, all the guys. It’s all about the car and all the particulars this weekend. So, it feels good to know that these guys are looking out for me. Five hundred miles on Sunday is a long race, but I think we’ve got a good car.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED BY THAT LAP? “I wouldn’t say surprised. Certainly, we’re delighted to run a fast lap. But, surprised? No. We know we can do it if all the things work out right, and they did today. We made the right adjustments and they did the right things to the race car this morning. It’s all about the particulars here at Talladega, just massaging on the car, and I think we’ve got one of the best in the garage in Jimmy Fennig doing some small stuff like that – and it shows. You can see that there are a couple of Fords up there in the top 10. That’s a good feeling, got some good horsepower, I think. We’ve got good handling cars for 500 miles on Sunday.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Office Depot Ford Fusion (qualified 11th) – “I don’t feel like we qualify well here, but I’m really proud of my guys. This Ford Fusion is so fast. It’s nice to come here and qualify well and have a fast race car. This is really the only measure of how fast your car is. In practice, you can’t really tell because of the draft. It’s going to be a fun race. The track is so smooth and you can put the cars wherever you want. If we can just make it out of this with a good points finish, maybe fight for a win here, it would be cool to put a Ford in victory lane.”
MORE ON THE RACE. “The reason why I say points is because it’s 500 miles, and you can hurt yourself in so many ways here. But, I’m telling you what, that last lap is always exciting. The last time a Ford won here, I believe it was Dale Jarrett, and I was going down the back straightaway, and that was really a big day for everyone, so hopefully, we can do it again.”
JON WOOD – No. 21 Little Debbie Snack Cakes Ford Fusion (qualified 12th) – IT LOOKS LIKE YOU AND THIS TEAM DID WHAT YOU HAD TO DO. “So far. It’s unfortunate going out this early for the nerves’ sake, you know, because you have to sit and watch all the other guys. But then again, at least I know that I’ve completed all I can do and there’s nothing left; it’s just hoping that it’s fast enough.”
ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP, AND THEN GOING TO KANSAS FOR THE TRUCK RACE. “The way I’ve been looking at it, if the day didn’t go well I could at least say, ‘I’ve got Kansas to go to.’ Hopefully, I’d have a good day out of one or the other, but this is obviously the important thing. I believe that we did – they did what they needed to do, all I did was just drive. I think that’s going to be fast enough. We’re the fastest, so far, of the go-or-go-homers, and there’s still the rest to go. We just need to beat one more, and I think we’ll be fine.”
SOME THOUGHT THE GO-OR-GO-HOMERS WOULD BE FASTER STILL. ARE YOU AS FAST AS YOU THOUGHT YOU’D BE? “I hope that I would’ve thought that I would’ve run about a 51-flat, but if you look at the times from yesterday, that’s all we had, that’s what everybody had. It’s not about sitting on the pole, it’s about making the race.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (qualified 13th) – “My Dad could run the same speed here. Everybody just holds it wide open, and anybody can do that. So, qualifying has absolutely zero to do with the driver here. I just held it wide open and whatever it ran what it ran. I know we were a little bit slower than some of our teammates, and I think we were a little bit quicker than some of them, so it’s probably okay.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 28 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford Fusion (qualified 14th) – “I think we’re okay. Yates Racing always brings pretty good cars to the superspeedways. This is the car we ran at Daytona in February, so we knew it had some decent speed in it. This is, by far, the least handling race track we go to. You just get it to high gear and hold it on the white line. The driver doesn’t have too much going on today. But, tomorrow is going to be a whole different ballgame – it’s pretty much all in the drivers’ hands. These cars are all really pretty equal, so it’s a matter of putting yourself in the right place at the right time and just making the right moves and being there at the end.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M/American Red Cross Ford Fusion (qualified 34th) – “I thought we’d be a little better than that. I thought we’d be a little closer to our teammate. It was not as fast as we wanted to be. We’d like to be a little faster than that for the race. We’ll see.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 freecreditreport.com Ford Fusion (qualified 44th, in on owner’s points) – “We’re ready for tomorrow. I’m a little disappointed with our qualifying speed. I thought we’d run faster than that. Just lost some speed somewhere, so I’m a little concerned about that, but overall the car drafted really good and that’s the most important thing come Sunday. To get a good finish, it doesn’t really matter where you qualify here.”
