CLAUSON: “The guys gave me a great car all day. We started off and I think we over-adjusted from our tightness in practice. We were a little free at the beginning so we kind of tried to fall to the back of that lead pack and just kind of ride. We kept tuning on it and kept tuning on it and that next to last pit stop we hit it. I just kept telling ‘em if we can get some help or get wedged in between some good cars we can do some business. And luckily there at the end I was able to get hooked up with the 17. I don’t know who was behind me but they were pushing the crap out of me and I was trying to do the same. It was a lot of fun.” YOU RAN AMONG THE TOP-15 ALL DAY. “Our Texaco/Havoline Dodge was just incredible all day. All the guys back at the shop that hung the body to our motor shop. We give them a lot of grief sometimes just kidding around. They did a heck of a job this weekend giving us such a great car. I think that last lap I hit the wall like three times [laughs] but we just stayed in it. We were able to keep our momentum up and keep going.” YOU MUST BE HAPPY ABOUT YOUR SIXTH-PLACE RUN. “If you would have told me I’d have ran sixth here my first trip here to Daytona with as many Cup guys as they had in the field I’d have told you that you were crazy. Everybody at the shop and on the Texaco/Havoline Dodge team did an incredible job all weekend getting me a good car. We started off a little free but we were able to adjust back to it the second pit stop and from there we were pretty good, just trying to get wedged between the right cars and find the momentum those last few laps.” WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? “I learned all kinds of stuff. The biggest thing was learning a lot about momentum racing, getting to follow Cup guys for 120 laps. You can’t explain how much you learn just doing that. Watching guys like Dale Jr. lead the pack and make big moves was definitely a big learning day for us.” HOW MUCH MOMENTUM DOES THIS GREAT RUN GIVE YOU? “It gives us a ton going into California next week. We’ve never been there before so any momentum you can gain going into there is definitely big. First time out here with a new team, a new crew chief for myself, it’s incredible to do what we did today. Hopefully we can run top-five out in California and get our scheduled a little bit increased. I just can’t say enough about the guys. They did such a great job on the car. That was fun Nationwide racing right there.” IS THERE A WAY YOU CAN RESPECTFULLY RACE HERE? “You know, a little bit. I think the biggest thing I tried to do today was not make any of those huge moves and try to just stay in line and push and stay out of trouble. You get yourself in so much trouble when you do the big zig and zag and start moving around and guys won’t want to go with you. If you kind of stay in line and help push and gain a little respect and kind of do it the right way there at the end you’ll get some guys to help push and you’ll find your way to the front.”

CLAUSON PRESS CONFERENCE
“We started off the race a little loose and kind of fell back there and was kind of having a hard time holding on so we just decided to try and fall back to the back of the lead draft and kind of wait it out a couple of pit stops until we got it right. The next to last pit stop we kind of hit on something and found the right adjustment and we were able to kind of start positioning ourselves for the end there. Fortunately enough on that restart we picked the right guy to go with in Matt Kenseth and we just kind of tried wedge ourselves between a couple good cars and push ‘em as far as we could.” HOW DOES DOING WELL TODAY HELP YOUR CONFIDENCE? “It’s a big confidence boost. Any time you can run well with as many Cup guys as there was in the field today it’s a big boost going into California next week. It was a great run for us. We really needed a good run. We had Texaco/Havoline on board this year and we’re still searching for sponsorship the rest of the year. This race was a big, big race for us in trying to get some momentum going into California and beyond.” WHAT WERE YOU THINKING DURING THE CLOSING LAPS? WERE YOU TRYING TO IMPROVE YOUR POSITION OR STAY OUT OF TROUBLE? “I was thinking ‘Whoever is behind me, push [smiles].’ Our car was really good at the top all day so we kind of hoped that we get enough guys out there that we could kind of go there. That was sort of our plan pretty much all day: just ride around the top and hopefully we’d get enough guys there at the end that we’d be in position to push a couple of guys there on the top lane. We were able to get behind Kenseth and we really worked good behind Kenseth there. We were a little tight behind a lot of guys but we got behind Matt there and for some reason it seemed to work right so we were able to get up behind him and push and get that top lane rolling. Luckily we were able to kind of clear everybody there and make a run at the finish.” WHAT WAS YOUR APPROACH TO THIS RACE? “Obviously the number one goal was to finish and get laps and kind of gain respect. But we knew we had a good car so it was a little bit of both. The first half of the race we wanted to stay out of trouble and try and gain some friends as much as we can with that yellow stripe down the back of the car. We kind of wanted to sit in a good position keep ourselves out of trouble and come 10, 15 to go we were going to save our stuff until then and then once that time came around get ready and go.” WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT RESTART EARLY IN THE RACE WHERE YOU FELL BACK IN THE PACK? “I think we just picked the wrong line. And early on in the race we were really loose. It was a learning day all day. There were several time I kind of hung myself out to dry going to the bottom trying to make moves that really weren’t there. It was a big day for us gaining patience and just kind of sitting back and watching Dale Jr., Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth and how they approached the race and trying to learn from that and come up with the best finish that we could.” THIS IS YOUR BIGGEST RACE OF THE YEAR AND YOU FINISHED IN THE TOP-10 WITH SO MANY SPRINT CUP DRIVERS IN THE FIELD. “It’s awesome. I told the guys as much as I loved running sixth I’d have like to have won. I was ready to do a burnout if they’d have let me [smiles]. It was big day for us. Like we talked about earlier, just getting momentum going into California and have as good of a weekend as we did here and kind of gain the respect that we did this week was really big for us.” WERE YOU SURPRISED AT HOW FAST TONY STEWART WAS ON THE BACKSTRETCH AT THE END? “To be honest, I was so far back for most of the race that I couldn’t really see Tony. I knew both Tony and Kyle were going to be good. They qualified good and usually that’s a good sign of how they’re going to be out front. We were just doing our best to try to get to Tony and push our lane by him but it didn’t work out for us.”

DARIO FRANCHITTI, No. 40 FASTENAL DODGE: “I learned a lot. I’m just getting used to the feeling of the car sliding around. I definitely turned right more than I turned left just chasing the car getting used to that feeling. We tightened the car up and we made it a little bit too tight. But again, just trying to learn the draft and get used to that.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET 300 MORE MILES OF EXPERIENCE TODAY BEFORE THE 500? “Obviously the cars are different but I think it’s so important to finish the races right now and that’s what we did. We didn’t take any chances. There were a couple of times I could have kept my foot in the thing and could have gone three-wide but as I say I was being just a little bit cautious today. Hopefully we can continue that into tomorrow.” CAN YOU RACE RESPCTFULLY HERE? “I was trying to be respectful and I think most people were actually. There were only one or two small incidents that I saw. Most people, I thought, were being very smart today.”

CALE GALE, No. 77 RHEEM CHEVROLET: “We just started off tight. Pretty much the whole race we were just tight. Couldn’t really get it freed up. I think the track was slick more than anything. We’ll see. We’ll see what we can do at Talladega and hopefully we can make our stuff a little better.” HOW IMPORTANT IS GAINING EXPERIENCE HERE AT DAYTONA? “I feel like it’s pretty important. That was the main thing that I wanted was to go out there and finish the race and we did that. We did that on the lead lap. I learned a lot but I know Kevin Harvick Inc. will fix our problems and we’ll get it a lot better.” WHY DID YOU START AT THE REAR OF THE FIELD TODAY? “We just had a little bit of an infraction there at NASCAR didn’t like after qualifying. It wasn’t anything intentional. They let us take it to the tail end of the field and fix it before the race.” WHAT IS YOUR NEXT RACE? “We’re going to Atlanta and will be sponsored by Rheem in the No. 77.”