JON WOOD – No. 21 Air Force Ford F-150 – (qualified 4th) – “I haven’t had a large enough media outlet to explain to everybody what it is we’re doing and the reason behind the lesser than stellar performances for the past couple of weeks. We’ve decided that the overall spring package that we’ve got isn’t cutting it. We’re doing more with what we learned with the Cup car. It’s been a huge plus for me to be able to run both because I felt a change in the Cup car from bad to good and then I was able to explain that change and correlate it to our truck. It’s taken a little while to get there. It’s taking a little while through trial and error to get the right combination that’s fast but all along we’ve been improving, but it’s been in such minute amounts that it doesn’t show up, but now it is.”
RICK CRAWFORD – No. 14 Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150 – (qualified 5th) – “We have a top-five starting position for the Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150, it’s a good start. Everybody should go out and drive one of these things and have as much fun as I am. They’re always performing and always comfortable to drive, especially this weekend here in Dallas. We need to keep Ford and the F-Series pick up the number one pick up in Texas. This is my favorite here. The Circle Bar guys worked hard and brought a special truck because this is a special race for Tom Mitchell [owner] in Ozona. We want to get the checkered flag for him tomorrow night and I’ll drive it and the trophy to Ozona on Saturday. If Brendan wins in the MAXX Force Diesel by International F-Series pick up, I’ll drive his trophy down there.” ON THE WIND AFFECTING QUALIFYING. “It affects everybody about the same. I was expecting maybe a little bit cooler temperatures being as we’re 6 o’clock, 6:30 or so. That was a good run for us. It ran about that speed when we unloaded today and we’re still hitting it, so we haven’t out-tuned ourselves yet.”
BOBBY EAST – No. 09 Zaxby’s Ford F-150 – (qualified 13th) – “I honestly think that the gust of wind that you can get can really help you out in qualifying. My truck drove better right there than it did in our mock qualifying run earlier today. We went a little faster than we did in our mock qualifying run, but I think we were expecting a little bit better time than what we ran. I don’t know where we could have gotten it because my truck handled perfect.” YOUR CREW CHIEF MENTIONED YOU HAVE A SOLID RACE TRUCK. “Yeah, we were pretty decent on the lap tracker all day and I think we’ve got a pretty decent truck in race trim. We got in a little bit of traffic today and it handled decent. We’ll see. With all the wind today, I don’t think it will be nearly this windy tomorrow. Everybody on the Zaxby’s team did really great. The Roush Yates engine ran excellent all day today and in qualifying. We’ll just see how it goes tomorrow night.”
COLIN BRAUN – No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 – (qualified 20th) – “All the guys from the No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 truck did a really good job. We made a lot of changes today and really worked hard. Those guys did a great job. I’m a little disappointed with the qualifying effort there. Everybody did a great job. We ran two laps, flat out, wide open and that’s all she had. We’ll have a good race truck for tomorrow night. I know that. We always do. Like we’ve always said, we always build our trucks with a little bit more downforce in them than a lot of other people do, so I think it will show up tomorrow night during the race. I think if you put the right kind of lap together with the right kind of wind, you can make a lot of things happen. I don’t think the wind went our way that time. It was a pretty big surge down the front straightaway a few times and I guess that’s the way it goes.”
BRENDAN GAUGHAN – No. 10 International MAXX Force Diesel Ford F-150 – (qualified 21st) – “That was the best lap we had all day. Bryan [Berry, crew chief] and the guys did a great job. We had a bad set of tires in practice and it slowed us down. It’s not going to set the world on fire getting any poles, but it’s a good race truck now and I feel a whole lot better about going into tomorrow’s race now.”
P.J. JONES – No. 63 Dave Porter Truck Sales Ford F-150 – (qualified 30th) – “I really didn’t get to practice because we had a tire blow in the third lap of practice and spent all practice fixing it. We came back out and ran wide open, pretty easily and get the truck in the show. The guys did a great job working on it, we just had some bad misfortunes in practice and got us way behind. It seemed like we weren’t too bad. The wind didn’t seem to make much difference to me. I just felt like we were velocity wise, we’re a little bit slow. We need to realistically pick up four or five tenths, and that could be the difference of really noticing where the wind was. I was a little tight. I didn’t notice it that much. Obviously it will be a lot easier to do when there’s no wind.”
ERIK DARNELL – No. 99 Northern Tool + Equipment Ford F-150 – (qualified 22nd) – “We didn’t run as well as we did in practice. It’s frustrating to get an early qualifying draw like that especially when it’s as warm as it is today. I think as the track cools down, you’re going to see times get a little bit quicker. Our Northern Tool + Equipment Ford was good in race trim. Our mock run during practice wasn’t that great either. It’s a frustrating way to start the weekend, but hopefully we’ll race good tomorrow night.”
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