DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 Discount Tire Ford Fusion (qualified 26th, finished 9th) – “Not bad. Just bounced around. We ran around a little bit in the top 10. The car was just real tight all night, it didn’t have any grip. Overall, the car was just sliding around a lot. And that’s typical racing here at Daytona. It’s a shame we couldn’t get it a little bit better in practice. We just kept fighting and had good pit stops, and just made the right decisions there the last few laps. I’m glad we caught that caution to get some tires and get back in contention. I think we were equal on new tires as some of the other guys were on old tires. So, we were just a little bit off on chassis setup, and it’s a shame we didn’t get any more laps that second practice on Thursday. But, we’ll take it, compared to what could’ve been. We salvaged something decent. And, we still just got to keep working.”
CONSIDERING WHERE YOU WERE RUNNING, IT LOOKED LIKE YOU GOT THE MOST OUT OF THE CAR THAT YOU COULD. “Yeah, sure. We were probably a 10th-place car and we finished ninth. I think there were a few cars that were stronger than us, but we just made good decisions and just were smart on the race track and it paid off. I think taking four tires there at the end, picking the right lane a few times, we very, very easily could’ve been 15th or 18th. So, to finish ninth says a lot for how good this team is. Even on a not-so-perfect day we can still can a decent finish.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 60 Scotts Ford Fusion (qualified 9th, finished 11th) – YOU WERE UPSET WHEN YOU GOT OUT OF THE CAR. WHY IS THAT? “Yeah, real upset. When Colin Braun wrecked on the back straightaway, I was 100 feet in front of Clint Bowyer and then on the restart, because I drove through the grass, I didn’t go through their timing loop there, so they scored me behind Clint, which was very frustrating. I felt like we had a chance to win. And then on the restart, it just didn’t work out for us. Very, very frustrating. Congrats to Denny and those guys, they did a great job, and I hope the fans enjoyed the race tonight. It was a lot of fun out there on the race track.”
KELLY BIRES – No. 47 Clorox Ford Fusion (qualified 24th, finished 16th) – “We had a better car than what we finished. That last restart with the 60, I don’t know what happened where he came back and it really broke our momentum on the green/white/checkered. But, overall it was a good day. We probably had a top-10 car, if not a top-five car if we would’ve had better track position there. But, we’ve just got a little bit too loose on the last run, and it hurt us a little bit. But, all in all, it was a solid race car and we made it better each stop, and we came out of here in one piece. That was a good thing.”
ON HOW THE CAR HANDLED. “It was a handful. It would start loose, and then it would go good, and then it’d be tight, and then when you’d get tight, you’d get loose at the same time. You just had to basically set up loose and then just turn to the right the whole race – at least we were. It was the only way we could make our car fast.”
COLIN BRAUN – No. 16 CitiFinancial Ford Fusion (qualified 3rd, finished 35th) – FIRST TIME ON A TRACK THIS BIG? “I ran the ARCA race in Talladega and I ran the truck race here. Tonight, we had, I thought, a car that was pretty decent at the start of the race and then we just ended up getting a little tight that first run, a short run. And then we just started getting freer and freer and freer. But we made a few adjustments on it during the pit stops. My crew chief, Eddie Pardue, did a good job making those adjustments. We had a little trouble on one of the stops and it kind of put us behind, and then after that we were just trying to play catch-up and stay in the draft. I don’t know what happened there at the end. It was real weird. We were almost coming straight up off the corner, and then it just snapped sideways on it. I’m really not sure what happened.”