Daytona 500 - GM Wednesday Quotes

JEFF GREEN, NO. 30 AOL CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO:

(HOW IS THE CAR HEADING INTO YOUR QUALIFYING RACE?) "I think if you ask everybody that's been around me and our AOL Chevy, it's pretty fast. I tried a few things this morning and tried a few things yesterday to try to put myself in some situations that I know we're going to face tomorrow and Sunday, and the car was able to pull out of it, so we're pretty happy with it. It's the darn-best car I've ever had here at Daytona. It's as fast in race mode as it was qualifying.

"There are going to be tough times and you can still have the fastest car and not win with it. But, hopefully I'll do the right things behind the wheel and Mike [Beam] will do the right things on pit road to keep us up front. Hopefully, we can stay there until the end of the day."

(DO YOU STILL FEEL LIKE YOU'VE GOT 'THE FIFTH ACE' - LIKE YOU DID BEFORE QUALIFYING?) "I feel that way. But, again, you have a lot more variables up against you in the race. We'll just have to see what plays out. We're really fortunate. Tomorrow we just have to play it safe, not take any chances on tearing our AOL Chevy up and make sure we've got that race car for Sunday. That is our main focus. If we're able to hang out front and able to hold those guys off, then we're going to stay there. But, if not - if we get ourselves in any situations - we're going to bail out. That's just what we've got on our mind. There is no need to take any risks because you've got way too good a race car for the Daytona 500."

(IS THERE ANY 'CHECKLIST' FOR TOMORROW - SITUATIONS YOU NEED TO EXPERIMENT WITH?) "I think we've already put ourselves in those situations. Other than the fuel mileage or two tires versus four, that's probably really the only thing we really haven't answered yet - how that is going to play out. That is really the only thing we're probably concerned about, more than our race car. I think our race car is solid and I feel like it will be able to hold its own against other cars."

(HOW HAS LIFE BEEN SINCE WINNING THE POLE ON MONDAY?) "It's been cool. It's been a lot of interviews and a lot of people taking notice of AOL, Chevrolet, Jeff Green, Mike Beam and everybody involved with RCR. That is the coolest thing about it. We kind of slipped up on a lot of people. A lot of people didn't realize that we were here racing and I think they now. Hopefully, they'll know a little more after Thursday and after Sunday."

(HAS IT BEEN HARD FOR YOU OR THE TEAM TO STAY GROUNDED AND FOCUSED?) "Not at all. Mike got everybody pumped and knowing their job before we ever came down here. We knew we had a shot at having a good run in qualifying before we ever came to Daytona, after our testing we had. Everything we learned there was really, really positive. Those guys know exactly what we've got to do.

"Monday was for the pole. Thursday and Sunday is to try win that trophy over there in victory lane. They're giving it away, so we're going to try to win it."

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