GREG BIFFLE – No. 3M Ford Fusion (qualified 5th) – DOES THE CONCRETE TRACK REACT AS MUCH TO THE CLOUDS AND SUN? “Absolutely. Yes. The engines will run a lot better. You know, it’s weird. Sometimes a little bit of heat like this will make the car go faster because the tire will get just a little bit of grip, for some reason. But, you just don’t know what’s going to happen. It depends on the ambient temperature, it depends on whether the guy cuts a good lap. So, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 Ford. Drive one Ford Fusion (qualified 7th) – “Our Ford. Drive one Fusion is driving good. We were really happy with it in practice. We’re pretty satisfied there. We think that’s going to give us a decent starting spot for Sunday’s race, and hopefully we can bring home a good, solid day. We just need a good finish on Sunday. We’ve had great race cars lately and just haven’t had the results to show for it – just getting caught up in other people’s stuff lately. So, our main focus this weekend is to bring the Ford. Drive one Fusion in a good, solid, respectable finish. And, I think we have the car to do it.”
THERE ARE SOME BIGGER CLOUDS, BUT ALSO STRETCHES OF SUN DURING THIS QUALIFYING SESSION. IS THE EFFECT HERE AS MUCH AS THE OTHER TRACKS? “This track in particular changes the least of any track we go to. So, I feel good about our lap there, and hopefully we’ll have a good day on Sunday.”
JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 IRWIN Ford Fusion (qualified 9th) – “We’ve had really good cars for a while now, just the last couple of weeks, we had poor pit strategy at Richmond and I got caught up in a wreck at Loudon, but we started off a good weekend here. I don’t think that will that great for qualifying, but our car is really fast again, so it should be another good weekend.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 28 Hitachi Power Tools Ford Fusion (qualified 15th) – “It was alright. It was about what we had in practice, just a pretty good car. Just a little bit too free to go much faster. That’s what it needed, it just needed to be a little bit tighter and we could’ve had a pretty good lap. But, overall, we’re happy. We had a pretty good car here in the spring and I think we’ve got a great car here for today and Sunday, as well.”
DOES THE CONCRETE TRACK REACT AS MUCH TO THE CLOUDS AND SUN? “Not as much as asphalt, but anytime it’s cooler you always get grip, so hopefully the sun will come out for the rest of these guys. We’re happy we got our lap in under the clouds.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (qualified 22nd) – ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? “No, I thought it would be faster. That’s the way it goes. I just thought it would be a little faster. It seems like everybody kind of slowed down just a little, so far. You never know, but hopefully that will be a top-10. That’ll be good enough. We’ve got a great car.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (qualified 29th) – “I knew the car was good in practice, so you just don’t want to mess up. I underdrove it just a little bit, but I’m really pleased with that.”
YOU HAVEN’T HAD MANY RACES ON AN OVAL WITH THIS CAR. “This track actually feels better for me. The COT seems to like more banking and the more banking you get the better they feel. At Michigan, Loudon and California I had my hands full, but here I feel much more comfortable with the car.”