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Auto Club 500 - Dodge Qualifying Quotes
"These guys just keep working together and communicating and trying to work things out. You unload and you're off in one direction and they keep working on the car. It's a heck of a group of guys. They work really hard. I don't think it's going to be a disadvantage at all going out early the way the weather conditions are. If this thing gets windy and the sun comes out, it may be an advantage.
"I was tickled to death with what we ran. I knew Steve was quick and had the car to beat. Unfortunately we didn't put it all together. We were close. Right now my main concern is to come in in the morning and get it where we can run well Sunday afternoon. That's my main goal. Last year I couldn't even see the front from where I started. At least I can now.
"I think it's now becoming more driving style than it is any particular brand. Finally I felt like I got the feel of what I liked from Michigan to here, and I've always been pretty good at Michigan. Give or take or whatever, I don't know that the brand really mean anything any more than particular driving styles and somebody having it right for that particular moment. Now we'll get down to who's going to be the best in race conditions.
"Any time I get beat I get frustrated whether it's fuel mileage or otherwise. I've been on both sides of that shoe before. If you're on the right side of it it can be a good thing. Over the years you win and lose in a lot of different ways. Regardless of how you win, that's more important than the circumstance it comes down to.
"I don't think they'll ever make 'em equal. I don't care how hard you try. There's too many things different to make 'em equal. As long as different drivers give different input and come up with particular things, and you've got some awful good engineers working on these things today. Somebody will figure it out. You take the DEI cars at restrictor plate races. Is that equal or is that not equal? I'm just asking a question, but you take that one for instance. You'll get somebody here, if they get hooked up, they could dominate the field just like we've seen some of the races in the past.
"It can't do nothing but get better I hope. It's been a tough season. We've had a lot of little problems, just knick-knack stuff. As competitive as the cars are today, if you have any problem, then you're normally finishing bad. It just makes it a little harder go. We've had some people who've moved around within the team, plus we lost some guys over the winter, and I think that hurt some. I think now we're just starting to get back on track and get to some of the race tracks I like and fit my driving style. Hopefully we can get through here and get a good go going and get the season turned around. I didn't feel that bad at Martinsville, but I kind of dug a hole when I qualified bad. I felt like we ran pretty decent most of the day. Texas was really good. We just had some motor problems there. Atlanta wasn't bad, and we had some motor problems there. We've been on both sides of the fence.
"I don't know if it's the Dodge nose that's gone away. I think all our setups, we kind of concentrated on those kind of race tracks (flat tracks), here, Michigan, Pocono, Indy, Kansas, Chicago. Look at Texas. We were clearly a good car at Texas. We just ended up having some motor problems. There again, it all depends on if you hit everything right that particular day. You can put it all together and we did last year at Indy and Pocono.
"We can joke about this a lot, but Steve (Park) has been through a lot, and I'm really proud of what he did here today. He's had a tough year. I can look at my season and say I've had a lot of ups and downs. I have won a lot of poles. We came from a long way from where we practiced and where we qualified. I'm proud for him for what he's done."
"As much as I've been disappointed the past few weeks, this run should put us back in line. We'll get to pick a pit stall for a change. They've been just giving them to us. I'm a little disappointed in myself. I thought the car had more in it, and I drove it a lot harder than I thought it was going to give me. It gave me that much more, so the race track must have been better. The car stuck, and it was a good run. We've had bad luck here with our motors in the past, but that's not going to happen this time."
"We had a better time than that in the heat of the day. We changed some shocks before qualifying, and we'd run 'em one time before. We thought they were pretty good, but we didn't get real good grip. Everybody picked up, but we didn't. I don't know what's wrong. We can't get going in qualifying. We'll start about 30th again. We'll take out time and get up to the front. We've done it before."
"I'm not sure what happened. The motor was laboring real bad. I suspect it might be a head gasket. It's definitely unlike our motor group because they have some very reliable motors. It wasn't our day. We thought we'd made some good changes. We felt like we could pick up from practice, but we'll never know now."
"I've really got to give the guys a hand. They did an excellent job. I think we changed everything before qualifying because we were so bad in practice. I was real tentative on the first lap. I didn't know exactly what it was going to give me. I got a little more out of it on the second lap. I'm really happy with the changes the guys made to the car. We all (Ganassi teams) kind of struggled in practice, but Jimmy Elledge (crew chief) did an excellent job on deciding what changes to make for qualifying and it all worked out."
"All in all we had a good day. I'm really happy with it. We couldn't ever get the car exactly right in practice. We kept working on it and made some changes and got us close to the top 10."
"I messed up getting into turn three and that cost us some time. The lap should have been better. I just screwed up a little bit. I just didn't get what I wanted. I guess that happens every once in awhile, but I wish it hadn't happened today because we had a good shot at the pole. It was a good effort for the team. This is a good track, and I'm really looking forward to Sunday."
"I'm proud of my team. We hadn't been very good in practice. We made some changes before qualifying. We're still not where we need to be, but it's a lot better than what I thought we had. We worked on our front fenders a little bit, trying to get the car a little better. I hope we'll be in the top 36. We don't need to use a provisional, but we'll just have to wait and see and then get ready for Sunday."
"We picked it up a little bit. It was pretty good, just a little too tight there in the last corner and that cost me a little speed. I'm pretty happy with it. That's faster than we ran in practice. I want to win this race bad, and we're going to do everything we possibly can to win. I feel pretty good about my chances. This car is running good. Those two practices sessions are going to be the key to getting everything right. In fact, I'm looking forward to running a practice after the guys run a race. That might let me get a little better adjusted to the race track. I've won here before, so I know how to do it. We've just got to do it again now."
"We struggled in practice. That was a pretty good pickup for us, but we needed a little bit more. I'm a little bit under the weather. The Busch car was terrible all morning. We just couldn't get a handle on it. I think we were in provisional land in practice with the Cup car. Maybe we'll end up in the top 25 or so. The guys really pick it up for qualifying, and they expect the driver to pick it up, too. We had struggled all morning with both cars, but we picked up half a second from practice with the Cup car, and I don't think too many people are going to do that. I'm pretty satisfied with it since it's my first time here."
"It could have been a lot better. We've been having a lot of problems with the front end bottoming out. We've got it as high as we can get it. We qualified well with this car at Vegas, and the guys have been working hard. We just haven't been getting good finishes. We're not going to start where we want to start. We just need to get some luck on our side. We'll keep working on it, and we'll be running in the top 10 on Sunday."
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