JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (qualified 4th) – “That’s good. I grew up just a couple of hours from here, so it’s really important to be able to run well here. We ran a little bit different set-up stuff, and it seemed to have worked. The 6 car had pretty good speed in practice, and then we ran a pretty good lap there, so that’s pretty good.”
BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion (qualified 16th) – “I’m telling you, Len and Eddie Wood have done an awfully good job. We keep learning and keep getting better. That first lap, if I just knew what I had and I didn’t want to overdo it, but I’m proud of the guys.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (qualified 17th) – “That’s a good lap. We picked up four-tenths of a second from practice, almost a half a second – that’s pretty big.”
PAUL MENARD – No. 98 Zecol/Menards Ford Fusion (qualified 20th) – WAS THE WIND AN ISSUE FOR YOU? “Not really. It’s been pretty steady the way it’s blowing, so it makes it tighter in one and two, and little bit freer in three and four, but, like I say, it’s kind of stayed the same. We made quite a few good adjustments on the car. We unloaded not very good, made a lot of adjustments in the right direction and got a lot better, so I’m looking forward to race practice tomorrow.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (qualified 23rd) – “I guess I’m good with our speed, overall. It drove pretty good. I didn’t do the best job of getting everything I could get out of it – the wind was a big variable there – but overall I was happy with the speed.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (qualified 25th) – “It’s windy out there. You can tell that you’re getting pushed around, but the good thing is that it’s the same for everyone, you know, it’s not like that for just one of us. You just have to give yourself a little extra breathing room here and there to just make sure that you don’t run across the apron or get pushed in too hard. But, our UPS Ford is pretty fast, and hopefully that’ll be pretty good.”
YOU WERE GOOD IN PRACTICE, TOO. DID YOU MAKE A LOT OF QUALIFYING RUNS? “About half and half. We did some race runs, just trying to get a jump-start for tomorrow. And then qualifying is important. These races are tough to pass, so hopefully we can build on it tomorrow.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M/Sherwin Williams Ford Fusion (qualified 31st) – “The track’s got a lot of grip, but the car was just too loose and the wind is blowing the cars around bad. I had a great second lap, probably a flat, and it just stepped out on me down there with the wind. I hesitated to make sure and then I went ahead and went, and the car had a lot of grip. I could’ve stayed in it, but, you know, it’s tough – I mean the wind is blowing hard and you don’t want to wreck. That lap will be all right. We’ll see.”