Ford 300 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Qualified 20th) - "I think the track has changed a lot, the same as it did on test. All day that morning it was loose, and the further into the day we went the tighter the track got and the faster the speeds got. This morning, for some reason, we were way loose. We kept making adjustments to tighten the car up and we finally got it pretty good, snug to where it was comfortable and I could start driving it hard. I felt like we needed to free it up a little more for qualifying, so we freed it up a little bit and it was way tight. I don't know." THERE ARE A FEW TEAMS IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE THAT BROUGHT EXTRA TEAM CARS THIS WEEK, INCLUDING PPC RACING. HAS THE EXTRA TEAMMATE HELPED? "I didn't see where it was going to help to be honest. All it does is put another car on the race track, but it's not like they had any extra information or extra resources to draw from to learn anything more than we did." ARE YOU SURPRISED TO SEE SO MANY EXTRA TEAM CARS THIS WEEK? "Not really. I think they feel that's the thing to do to try to help their driver the most. I guess it's better to have them than not, but I don't see a big help."

KASEY KAHNE-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus (Qualified 3rd) - "We lost a little bit of time from practice, but that was to be expected given the track temperature. The track was real tight. We were loose this morning, but now we were just too tight to get the pole and we didn't get the RPMs we were looking for and didn't get off the corner quite as well as we wanted to." DID THE LATE QUALIFYING DRAW HELP YOU TODAY? "I think it helped us out a lot. Everybody here complained of being tight and I chattered my tires through the whole corner just like everybody else said. I imagine the sun being down helped, but we had the same characteristics with the car as everybody else did." HOW MUCH HAS THE TRACK SURFACE CHANGED SINCE TUESDAY? "It's changed a lot. You can still run the same lines that we ran the other day, but the track has definitely changed. The fast way around is on the bottom. I expect it to still be about how it is for the race, but it will probably just keep gradually tightening up more and more." WILL TIRE WEAR BE AN ISSUE FOR THE RACE? "I don't know how bad they will wear, but they'll get hot. Some guys were getting to the cords when we practiced here Tuesday and they're not quite as bad today. I think you'll have to watch them during the race, but I don't think there will be any problems."

JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Qualified 30th) - ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO FIND THE HANDLING YOU NEED AROUND HERE? "I haven't been able to find anything, I can tell you that. It's pretty much embarrassing. I wish I had a better scenario but I don't. We've pretty much run bad since we've been here. I'm searching for a feel, but I can't get it out of the race car either, so I'm not real sure." ARE THE CHANGING TRACK CONDITIONS MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO FIND A LINE AROUND HERE? "I'm so far off that I can't worry about what the race track is doing right now. I'm really out to lunch right now."

JON WOOD-15-U.S. Air Force Ford Taurus (Qualified 23rd) - "That's not bad given what we've got. ppc has great cars and everything, but it's just tough to throw together a team at the last minute. It's been good so far and I think we'll make the race." WAS QUALIFYING FOR THE RACE THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE FOR YOU THIS WEEK? "That's the first thing we had to do. We have some points for a provisional so that takes off some of the pressure. We were just really focused on making the race, and if we can concentrate on Happy Hour tomorrow and be pretty good, I think in the end we will have a good car." WITH SO MUCH AT STAKE IN QUALIFYING ON THE BUSCH SIDE TODAY, DID THAT TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR TRUCK EFFORT? "No. You have to give more attention to the Busch car, but overall focus, no. It's kind of hard to explain really. It's good that I've gotten to do both of them because now I'm starting to learn things I can do in the truck that I didn't necessarily know before when I had never driven a Busch car." WILL ONE SIDE BENEFIT MORE FROM YOU PULLING DOUBLE DUTY THIS WEEKEND? "Racing in the truck will help me in the Busch car. If we could race the Busch race first and then the truck race, it'd been even more of a benefit, but that's not the way it works."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR.-25-Team Marines Ford Taurus (Qualified 2nd) - "It was just a little bit tight after taking the first day of practice we had here and changing like it we have. We really caught up to the tire a lot. It was throwing us for a tailspin including crew chiefs and drivers. Hopefully that will be in the top five. We're just trying to stay on our game, do the same thing we've been doing the last six to seven weeks." YOU CAME CLOSE TO MAKING IT TWO HAMILTONS ON THE POLE TODAY. "It would have been cool, but it wasn't supposed to be. We've done all we can do. Maybe I can join him in victory lane." DID THE LATE DRAW HELP YOU TODAY? "It cooled off a little bit and I don't know where it will end up. Overall, compared to the very first day we had, we can't complain because we really weren't all that great on the very first day. We just kept working on and learned a lot off stuff about the tires. Just a lot of help from the Robert Yates bunch, and Elliott Sadler running our second car really helped us out because they were doing different deals and we were doing different deals. Everything just worked out good." ARE YOU SEEING THE ADVANTAGE OF A TWO-CAR TEAM? "Oh yeah. We want to and what better teammates to have. Elliott is a Winston Cup winner and Robert Yates is a Winston Cup owner and a champion. We now have all the knowledge we need and we're trying to stay on this horse an ride it out."

ELLIOTT SADLER-35-Pioneer Services Ford Taurus (Qualified 15th) - "It's been a couple of years since I've been in a Busch car, but we're just having a frustrating day right now. We really can't get the handling we need to qualify, so we didn't qualify like we wanted to. We were very fast in race trim. We were one of the fastest cars in race trim, so we'll be all right. It doesn't matter where you start, we have a long race. We'll be in good shape come time on Saturday." YOU WEREN'T IN THE CUP CAR TODAY, BUT DID YOU NOTICE ANY CHANGES TO THE TRACK SURFACE SINCE YESTERDAY? "It's changed. The more rubber that is put down, the tighter it's getting and the less grip we're having in the front. That's going to continue to go in that direction the more we run. We just have to compensate for it."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR. PRESS CONFERENCE

"We've always run strong here, but it's a totally different animal now. With the different track and the different tire there are all kinds of puzzles to try to figure out before Saturday. Overall, from the very first open practice we weren't that good and we kept digging trying to figure out the tire and the track. What the track wanted from tire and what the tire wanted from the track, all kinds of different puzzles. It just worked out good for us."

"Overall, in all reality, you can get to about fourth. Those guys in front will have to have a little bit of bad luck and we're going to have to win the race or something. In all reality we're just trying to get to fourth place because there are 19 points from fourth to where I'm at. But the same deal, we can't fall back, we can't lose a spot, all we can do is gain a spot so we're going to try to go out and lead as many laps as we can and try to keep the guys from leading laps. Do everything we can to keep them from gaining points on us. Other than that, do our same deal, try to win the race and let the points fall where they may fall."

"I think we all know what it might have been. You want to think that way because once we got with Harold (Holly) it's been so easy to even screw our car up and still finish in the top five. That's what I told them before, a bad day is a top-10 finish with us right now. I wish we could go back to the very first Daytona, but I've got him for a while now, so I can continue this on to next year and try to get it next year."

"I've learned a lot driving Harold's cars and he's learned so much from Ford. They've been stepping up their program with us as far as aero stuff. Right now our body stuff for '04 is really looking just incredible. We're back with Robert Yates with strong horsepower and all of our sponsors are back. Everything that we've been doing right now probably in the last 12 weeks has been using the rest of this year as experimental for next year, and it's also been working for this year, too. Even the stuff that we're trying is working on these new tires. We're definitely looking forward to next year and trying to get eight wins, whatever we can do. We've seen what we can do and if we get on that right path again, and hopefully we do it times two."

"He's (Hamilton, Sr.) made his share of money and he doesn't live a crazy life like you hear some people do, and I'm the same way. I get a little bit of money, pay my bills and put the rest of it in the bank, just do what I have to do to get by. Just nothing crazy because at one in point in time you can be out of business. That's just how I live. Taking a chance on the race track is a big enough edge for me. I don't want to do it on my personal life. I just learned a lot from him as far as the business side, all the way to taxes to money, everything. If I'm getting ready to buy property or something, I call him first, anything. He's been down that road. He knows what a bad deal is, what a good deal is. He's a friend when it comes to all of that stuff. If you've got somebody that's not going to lie to you or try to do you wrong, it's a pretty big step."

KASEY KAHNE PRESS CONFERENCE

"We started out pretty slow the other day, but by the end of practice on the test day we were pretty good. We weren't bad again this morning in race runs, and then we switched to qualifying and we were real loose. We went to qualify right there and we were pretty tight. It was probably good that we were loose earlier today. Just two good laps. We were just a little bit tight and missed it by a little bit."

"That's something that myself and my crew chief talked about earlier this week that could be a benefit to us coming here. I have as many laps on the track as Bobby or any veteran type of driver that has raced a lot more. Yeah, I thin it definitely helps being able to test on Tuesday and nobody having a whole lot of lap time."

"I've learned a lot as a driver driving each race track, what the car is looking for, but I've also learned a lot about the cars themselves. My background is I came from building Sprint cars and working on Midgets and doing that, and these cars are completely different so it's been nice this being the second year of actually learning the race cars. It makes it that much easier to get them set up right and drive. You can kinda figure out what you're looking for easier and what you need to change to get that feeling."

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