MONTOYA: “That was good. The car was good. And maybe we had a little bit more but it was just too tight at the end. We didn’t want to change the car because it was too free for me. We didn’t put any fuel in it. It just got too tight at the end.” YOU SAID AFTER MEXICO CITY THAT YOU WANTED TO WIN A RACE ON AN OVAL. YOU ARE GETTING CLOSER EVERY WEEK. “For me this is probably bigger than winning in Mexico City. Honestly, it’s huge.” WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AFTER YOUR FIRST RACE HERE AT ATLANTA? “It was great. The car was amazing. It started a little tight. I’ve been complaining a lot to Brad Parrott saying I want a tight car and it’s the first time actually I told him ‘You need to free me up a little bit.’ And step-by-step it just got freer. The last run we didn’t have any tires. We had scrubs and it was just a little bit too tight. I think for me this is probably bigger than winning Mexico, honestly. Mexico, yeah, it was great and everything but you know we do two road courses a year and 34 ovals so I think this is a big step forward for the team.” COMMENT ON HOW WELL YOU’VE DONE ON THIS OVAL. “This is huge. It’s exciting. This track and the other racetracks that we’ve run it was very edgy, the car. At Vegas we had the wrong car. This car was meant to be the Vegas car so we had a different car and it was just awful. When it was stepping out it wasn’t sliding a little bit it was really getting out of shape. I have to just hang in there with a tight car and I was never comfortable and today I was just sliding around and I was happy doing it and I think that’s a big step forward.” DO YOU SEE YOUR SUCCESS TODAY TRANSFERRING TO THE CUP CAR FOR SUNDAY’S RACE? WILL YOU SEE THE TIRE PROBLEMS TODAY TRANSFER TO TOMORROW? “I think the tires, you’re going to see the same thing, people wearing the tires down and stuff. But I think the driver needs to play a little bit of a hand in tire management. It’s the same for everybody, whether one thing or another. I didn’t think we were going to be as fast as we were today. I think tomorrow is going to be a little bit hotter. The Cup cars are a little bit more edgy so we’ll see. Our goal for the first five races is hopefully to get inside the top-20 and if we can do that it’s good for the championship. Once you are in a good position for the championship, you don’t have to worry about qualifying, then you can start really focusing on making your car more competitive.” IN THAT VEIN, HOW DO YOU RATE YOURSELF? “It’s come a long way. It’s funny because they say that one of the hardest things is to run on the top and I kind of struggled more running the bottom. Every time I got to the bottom the guy beside me tried to run very close to me and it get really loose and I don’t get that comfortable where running outside there’s just a wall and there’s nothing else there. I’m a lot more comfortable running the outside. I think we’ve still got a long way to go, myself and the team. We’ve shown we can go in the right direction but I don’t think we’re there yet.”

BRAD PARROTT, CREW CHIEF, No. 42 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “We had a real good day. The whole Texaco/Havoline Dodge team did a great job. How ‘bout Juan Pablo for his first time at Atlanta? But you’ve got to have a good racecar and that’s something I haven’t given him at Fontana or Vegas. The crew did a great job in preparing this racecar this week. Last Monday was a bad day for me at the shop but hopefully I can redeem myself this Monday. Great job by everybody. We just got a little too tight there. He’s got to learn to drive these things a little looser and he’s doing that. We had to free it up all day long and we knew we came here tight and it showed in qualifying with a top-10 qualifying run and top-10 finish. That’s our best downforce finish this year.” MONTOYA DID A GOOD JOB ON AN ABRASIVE TRACK SURFACE. “We had some right fronts cording up a little bit but tire management, he’s got to learn that for Darlington. What a better place to start than here at Atlanta today. I’m just real proud of everybody on this team.” ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE PROGRESS OF THE TEAM? “Definitely happy with the progress. Like I said, I haven’t given him good race cars and today I gave him something he could halfway drive and we showed it.”

MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 59 KINGSFORD/BUSH’S FORD: “We just couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. We weren’t great, we weren’t terrible; we were just in the middle there. We went a lap down, stayed out too long hoping for the caution. We were the car that was going to get the Lucky Dog for about 10, 12 laps. We had trouble with the right front tire and had to come in and two laps down, that was our day done.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 DISCOUNT TIRE FORD: “We run 24th last weekend with a crazy handling car, all over the place, and to run 20th this weekend with an average car, I haven’t figured out yet. The Discount Tire team on pit road did an excellent job picking me up positions every time. I feel like I let them down a little bit on the racetrack. It’s a work on progress. This was a car that we moved some of the body pieces around a little bit just trying some things and certainly I’ve got to get better telling the crew chief what I need to go faster. This is going to be a learning process but this is a step in the right direction where maybe the last couple of weeks were a step backwards this is another step forward.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 23 OKLAHOMA CENTENNIAL CHEVROLET: “We had a strong car today and had a problem. Something broke down on the car and we lost three laps fixing it. We made one of them back on our own, no help, no Lucky Dog. That’s how strong we were and we finished the day strong. We got all we could get. I’m just really proud of everybody. They gave me the best car I think I’ve had in a long time.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO RACE ON AN ABRASIVE TRACK LIKE ATLANTA? “There’s something about these tracks and the Busch cars that suits me well and I really feel comfortable. I can’t really give you an answer on why we did well today. We didn’t get the finish that we deserved, there’s no doubt about that. It doesn’t hurt that the Cup guys have all that extra practice but I got to run the truck race and that helped me a tremendous amount and I felt more prepared.”

SAM HORNISH JR., No. 12 PENSKE TRUCK RENTAL DODGE: “I felt pretty happy with how we ran today. Definitely think we could have been better but had that small problem, the speed violation. That’s really my first green-flag pit stop in these kind of cars and it takes some getting used to. I’m just happy that Penske Truck Rental came on and helped us out this weekend. It’s nice to be able to put the car in the trailer in one piece and not a bunch of bent up sheet metal. It makes us look forward to coming back and trying it again.” HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO PIT HERE? “It’s a little bit difficult. It’s more difficult than what we have with IndyCars. Of course, we drive it in there a lot harder with IndyCars and get slowed down quicker but you have the pit speed limiter. Unfortunately, the problem there was I was driving in too quick and couldn’t get it slowed down. It was minimal. It was real close but I knew there might be an opportunity to get black flagged there. It was unfortunate. I think we had a top-10 car pretty easily but to be able to go a lap down and come back here late and get back on the lead lap and give ourselves an opportunity to move up in the top-15 was good. It’s the best finish we’ve had so far so we can’t be too disappointed.” WHAT IS YOUR NEXT BUSCH RACE? “I think we’re looking at Nashville. It’s up in the air yet. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”