MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 59 KINGSFORD FORD: “We’ve turned a corner, there’s no doubt. I feel like I’ve arrived somewhat holding Harvick up there at the end. The front right tires were showing cords so we used everything up there. Good strategy, good teamwork, good team, good race. I’m really proud of the guys. I’ve got to thank Mark Martin because he jumped in our 47 car in practice yesterday when Jon Wood got sick. Caught on to a couple things, we copied it, and look where we are [smiles].” YOU WERE RACING SOME OF THE BEST DRIVERS IN NASCAR IN THE CLOSING LAPS. THAT MUST BE QUITE A LEARNING EXPERIENCE AND GIVE YOUR CONFIDENCE A BOOST. “I’m kicking myself a little. I got a bit excited on the first restart. I overshot both corners and let a couple pass. After that I just knuckled down and focused on just trying to stay as close to the bottom as I could and make it hard for them to pass me and here we are.” YOU DIDN’T PIT LATE IN THE RACE AND GOT TRACK POSITION. “Yeah, we were 15th or something before that and stayed out. You know, we were running great lap times, just had a bit of trouble in the pack. My inexperience, too, not knowing how to pass. I’m just really pumped. I think it was great strategy for us and it’s paid off. That’s my best result so far. It’s our third top-10 of the year. I feel like we’ve turned the corner. We’ve had a structural change which has allowed us to have some freedoms, some responsibility on our own deal and I think it’s paying off.” IS THIS A NEW CAR? “No, we used this at Bristol and I crashed it so no secrets there [smiles].”

GREG CONNER, CREW CHIEF, No. 59 KINGSFORD FORD: WAS THIS THE BEST RACE THIS TEAM HAS PUT TOGETHER ALL SEASON? “Without a doubt. A great qualifying effort, we were worried about falling back and he just stayed right there all day. Matter of fact, we figured he only got passed four times. We just kept killing him in the pits. First time we stopped we lost seven, second time we lost seven, and then there at the end we left him out on 40-lap tires and he held off Harvick and a lot of them guys. That was by far the best race that we’ve had all year long. I’m very proud of ‘em.” HOW TOUGH WAS IT TO MAKE THE DECISION TO NOT PIT LATE IN THE RACE? “Well, I thought it was going to be a good idea, because Kenseth was actually slower than us. I said ‘Hey, if nothing else maybe we can get by him and lead a lap and then worst case finish 10th to 15th. Then right when the restart happened two guys passed us like in one lap and I’m like ‘Uh oh, that was real stupid, Greg.’ Well then, as the cautions crashed, and where they were wrecking actually is probably where we would have been, so we felt a lot better and we said okay, worse case maybe we’ll finish 10th and right there at the end he took a 10th-place car and drove it up to sixth.” DID THE CAUTIONS AT THE END OF THE RACE HELP YOU? “Without a doubt they helped a lot. What they did was let our tires cool down, especially that red flag and that let us pick up about a half a second from where we were running back to within a tenth of what they were doing. So any of them that raced together and with our tires cool then there was not that big of a difference so it worked out great with the cautions.” HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOUR LITTLE TEAM? “Oh, I think it’s great. It’s just a morale booster. We’ve been working the last three or four weeks we’ve changed a bunch of personnel, we’ve changed the way we build the cars, setup the cars. This was the second race of that and it just kind of shows everybody what they’re doing is good. Everybody is on the same page now and I think Marcos’ confidence running with those guys there at the end, that’s going to be worth a couple tenths now every week. I’m just really proud of him and the whole Kingsford team.”

BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 23 MACTAC CHEVROLET: “The track bar bolt or fell out, I’m not sure, and as soon as that happened put me right in the wall. It’s one of those deals. I can’t really get that mad. It happens but it killed a top-15 easily. It’s how it goes. The speed is definitely there. I don’t know if we can’t catch a break or if we’re doing it to ourselves. I don’t know. Either way it’s happening. We’ll move on, fix it, and go next week.”

KYLE KRISILOFF, No. 14 CLABBER GIRL FORD: “We showed up and we were actually pretty decent. We made the car a little bit worse in practice and then I wrecked it but not too bad. I did some body damage but I’ll tell you what man, I don’t know if it’s voodoo or what, but the car just never felt the same. We just rode around all day and didn’t get into any trouble. It’s disappointing. We just want to run better. I wouldn’t car if I finished 10th. I want to get our cars faster and be more competitive. We’ve got a car that we did a lot of wind tunnel work with that we’re taking to Nashville and we’ll see if that helps. Hopefully we can keep making our cars better because we need to.” STAYING OUT OF TROUBLE IN A RACE THIS WILD WAS NO SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENT. “I think everybody knows when you’ve got a bad day and a bad car the least you can do is make sure that you don’t put yourself in a bad situation. A lot of times out there I didn’t pull up or I didn’t really go that hard on the restart, especially there at the end, because I knew this is a tough place and people are trying to get all they can get. Sometimes they run out of room and sometimes they run out of talent. You never know. We’ve got a car and we can take it home and I guess that’s a good thing.”