JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Qualified 2nd) - "It was good. We had a good car in practice, but the race track has just picked up a lot of speed. We felt like we had made our car a little bit better, and with all of that combined, it was a little bit faster. I just love coming to Richmond. This is a place that I really love coming to and it shows." YOU HAD A LATE DRAW, BUT WERE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE RACE TRACK? "No, a late draw was a benefit. More than anything it was confidence for me. I knew that other guys had already been out there making qualifying runs. A late draw helps here anyway. Even if we qualified at four o'clock, it would have helped us." YOU WENT AROUND THE TRACK IN THE PACE CAR DURING THE DELAY. WHAT DID YOU SEE? "The race track was definitely showing a little bit of water coming through it. They said it rained really hard here last night. I didn't get here until this morning, so I don't know how bad it rained. Hopefully they got it fixed so that we can get through the weekend. It was just seeping really. In the cracks it was running down the race track a little bit. It probably didn't show up too much in practice because there were a lot of cars running on the race track. When we had that hour-and-a-half break, it showed up a little bit. Whatever they did, it's fixed for now. Hopefully it's fixed for the weekend, but whatever they did, they fixed it because there wasn't anything out there." YOU'RE THE DEFENDING RACE-WINNER HERE. WHAT WILL BE THE BIGGEST KEY TO GETTING BACK TO VICTORY LANE? "Getting this happy hour in. That's going to be important. We feel that we have a really good setup. Now we don't practice halfway through the day, we practice all at night. This last practice is going to be really big."
JASON KELLER PRESS CONFERENCE
"We had a late draw, which I think that late draw would have even helped if we qualified at four o'clock. Things went well for us. The Albertsons guys, they're just excited to come here. When a driver tells you all year long that his favorite track is Richmond, and then we come back here, the guys get pretty pumped up and I do as well. I'm just really, really looking forward to this practice in a little bit, and hopefully we can get our car dialed in for tomorrow."
DID YOU DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT FOR QUALIFYING SINCE IT WAS DELAYED? "No. We couldn't change a whole lot on the car; NASCAR wouldn't let us. A lot of times you look back on your lap and say you may have done something different, but I just got beat a little bit tonight. I hit all of my marks and just was a little bit off the pole. It's still a good starting spot. More than anything, pit road is a little tight here, so we get a good pit selection as well. Hopefully all of that will add up tomorrow night."
"No, not at all. I actually watched the first couple of cars qualify and didn't notice anything at all. It's got good grip off of two. We run right along the bottom so I don't know what it was up above that. As far as what I experienced, it was really good. Actually, the race track was so cool it actually felt better because the race track was cool."
"I didn't. In defense of that, the race track was 30 or 40 degrees hotter as well, so it was pretty slick. This place gets pretty slick during the day. We're kind of used to that anyway. As far as any spots on the race track, I didn't notice anything in practice. We were just trying to get the car dialed in and I didn't notice anything."
"We've had a lot of rain delays this year anyway; I've gotten accustomed to it. There again, I go back to what I said earlier - we were lucky to have a late draw. A late draw helped me and my confidence. Some guys really clicked off some fast laps, so I knew the speed was out there, I just had to go out there and find it. Now, if I had been Mike McLaughlin or some of those guys that had to go right out there, it's hard. NASCAR can tell you all they want to that the race track is OK, but until you go out there and feel it yourself, you don't know. Actually, I did hear Harvick say that the race track was in pretty good shape, so that kind of gave me some confidence. Even the guys early were saying that the race track was in pretty good shape. Until you go out there and feel it yourself, you don't know. It was just a real good run for us tonight."
STANTON BARRETT-60-OdoBan Ford Taurus - "My confidence was down after practice and I was a little timid because it can get away from you so fast that you want to be careful of what you're doing. It felt like it was underneath me in the last corner and picked it up some. It wasn't quite there the first lap, but we made big gains from this afternoon. We're trying and giving it all we can do." YOU WERE FORCED TO A BACK-UP CAR BECAUSE OF AN ACCIDENT IN PRACTICE. DID IT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SEEPAGE PROBLEM EARLIER? "I have no idea. I doubt it. I probably should have come in and made a change and I was just trying to figure out what I needed to do to drive the car and I just screwed up probably. These guys worked their butts off, so I'm happy we could come back and be as fast as we were. These guys give me good stuff every week, it's just a bummer that I had to tear one up."
KASEY KAHNE-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus - "It was a real good lap. My tires didn't come up to heat quite as quick as I wanted them to - nobody's probably did. I got a little loose on that first lap and that probably set me back a little bit for the second lap. I didn't get after it quite as much as I needed to. That's basically what it was." DID THE TRACK CHANGE DRASTICALLY BETWEEN PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING? "It changed a fair amount. I think whatever the 99 ran was a real good lap. For us, there's a little bit of a trade-off. We definitely need Happy Hour to help us in the race, and we didn't need to get qualifying in. We've got a good starting point for the start of Happy Hour and we'll just work on it in race trim."
SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus - "It wasn't bad. We thought we had a shot at the pole there; we were just a little bit too tight. We were a little loose on the last run we made in practice and free every time we made a qualifying mock-up run in practice, so we decided to tighten it up a little bit. But, with so much time that elapsed by the time we did get to make our run, the track had cooled off so much and we probably tightened it up a little too much. A top 10, we're all right." HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO GET IN ALL OF THE DAY'S ACTIVITIES? "It's a late night. It's hard to sit around for that many hours just sitting and waiting and not knowing what's going to happen. I wish they could have made a quicker decision. If they waited that long, I'm glad that they got it all in. I would have been mad if they waited that long and didn't get it in. I think it's definitely going to be better Happy Hour conditions for everybody to see what their cars are going to do in race mode."
