Brickyard 400 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

JEFF BURTON - No. 99 Roush Racing Taurus (Qualified 19th) - "It was a couple of tenths better (than yesterday's practice session). I don't know how the track is. The 8 picked up a ton, but he worked on race stuff all day, so it's hard to know where he really was. We'll just have to wait it out and see. We were tighter than we needed to be. The car drove well, but we were just tighter than it needed to be to make us knock off a real fast speed. But, we'll just have to wait it out and see what happens."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie/IRWIN Taurus (Qualified 15th) - "It wasn't a bad lap. I believe our car's better for the race run, and going out early is going to help us start up towards the front, and that alone will give us a better opportunity to make better calls throughout the race." WAS IT TOUGH TO ADJUST TO QUALIFYING IN THE MORNING AFTER PRACTICING YESTERDAY AFTERNOON? "This is the most unique qualifying session we have all year. Normally, we're in a car for two hours, we have a couple-hour break and then we're right back it. This is in late afternoon where we practice and then come back the next morning and go cold turkey, so it's a bit different, it's good challenge." APPARENTLY YOU HIT ALL FOUR CORNERS PRETTY WELL. "Not too bad. I think I left some in every corner, and just didn't slide the tires just right. I felt too comfortable." THAT WAS A PRETTY GOOD LAP FOR YOU, WASN'T IT? "Not bad at all. It just felt like I didn't slide the tires in each of the corners, felt like it was almost too secure, and left a few tenths out on the table. But, it's a great effort by Dale, Jr., and Ward Burton. There's going to be some other guys that bust the track record as well."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 Smirnoff Ice/DeWalt Taurus (Qualified 23rd) - "It was good in three and four, it just wasn't that great in turn one or turn two, it just wasn't great, but the track's getting hotter. It's just so lopsided the way they do qualifying here. We got a decent draw, so I think we'll still end up decent. We're running about what everybody else is running around this time period."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Qualified 17th) - IT'S GETTING TO BE A TOUGH TIME OF DAY TO QUALIFY. DOES THAT MAKE YOUR TIME A LITTLE STRONGER? "A little bit, although there's a few cars running faster than us around that time. We're okay. This hasn't been a car that's been extremely fast, but it drives really good, and that's what's going to count tomorrow. We're pretty happy with that. Sure, we'd like to start a little further up, but we're pretty happy."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Keep It Genuine Taurus (Qualified 40th) - "I'm not really sure. We weren't real good yesterday, and we sort of picked up where we left off yesterday. They made some changes overnight, picked it up a couple of tenths, but not what we needed, for sure." WHAT ABOUT THIS CAR IN THE RACE TOMORROW? "It seems to be pretty stable. The car's going to probably race good if we hit the right set-up. Not really sure about the qualifying deal, but we came here a couple of weeks ago and didn't do nothing but work for race runs for two days, and I got pretty confident that racing-wise we're a lot more competitive in a race mode than we're in a qualifying mode, obviously. But, I'm a little baffled right now."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 3rd) - IT'S BEEN A GOOD WEEKEND SO FAR. YOU WON THE GOLF OUTING YESTERDAY AND NOW A GOOD QUALIFYING LAP. "Life is good right now in Indy. To win the golf tournament yesterday and that's not the pole, so I was a little disappointed being that close, but we can see 'em. We're gonna be close enough to see 'em and as good as we were here in testing and race runs, man, I'm pumped up. I think we've got a good shot at this race. They brought me a lot of horsepower. We don't care anything about the points this weekend. It's all about kissing those bricks and they brought me a great race car. My crew chief, Todd Parrott, has been very good at this race track in the past and I think we've got a good race setup for these boys Sunday and I can't wait." DID THE EARLY QUALIFYING POSITION HELP? "I'm sure the early starting position helped us, but you've still got to go out there and make the lap and make every corner. They gave me a very, very comfortable race car. They made a few changes this morning and it panned out for us. It's pretty cool." YOU LIKE YOUR CAR DON'T YOU. "We had two great days of testing when we came. I ran a lot of miles and learned a lot about this place. I've got the best teammate in the world and he's helped me so much at this race track. He's been very successful here and my crew chief, Todd Parrott, has been very successful here and it's paying off. We have a fast, fast race car for Sunday. I really think we're gonna have something for these boys. They're gonna have to talk about us. They're gonna know we're gonna be here come Sunday, so I can't wait for the race to get started." ANY PROBLEMS OUT THERE? "No, I clipped the apron a little bit in turn two just being safe and making sure I had plenty of room to get out to the wall. I made just a little bit of a mistake, but I don't think it was enough to cost me the pole."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Qualified 16th) - "We really got bad loose, especially in one. It would have been OK to have been loose, but in the first turn I didn't realize I was that loose so I got it sideways and had to let off. That killed us. I went back down to the other end and made up some ground, but had I gotten turn one right - even being loose - we would have been a couple tenths better and that would have made us real respectable. We're incredibly disappointed with that. We had a lot better car than that. We were tight on the last run yesterday and made our best judgement as far as adjustments and it's a different day with a different set of tires. I don't know what happened, but the car overreacted to the change that we made. I'm certainly disappointed with that by a lot because we had a better car than that, but you can check with a bunch of guys behind us and they'll be saying the same thing. This is very hit-and-miss qualifying session based on the track's mood swings and this being a different day with no morning practice session. We'll take it. We're disappointed because we had a better car than that. We're gonna start in the middle of the pack and that's no worse than last week."

ELLIOTT SADLER PRESS CONFERENCE

CASEY'S LAP WAS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE. "It was amazing. Casey has been doing a great job. To sit on the pole two weeks in a row at two entirely different driving styles of race tracks is pretty impressive. His guys are doing a great job and for him to run that fast is amazing. I didn't leave much on the table and for him to run a 48.31, 186 miles an hour is pretty impressive for him. I send my congratulations to his team and also Ward Burton's team with his new crew chief Bill Ingle. There are a lot of feel good stories to write about here today on qualifying day." HOW WERE YOUR LAPS? "I really felt like I had a good lap coming to the green. The car was really good. I got through turn one better probably than I ever have the whole weekend here testing and all. I messed up a little bit in turn two and got on the rumple strips a little bit, but not enough to hurt me that much and it probably wouldn't have made that much of a difference between second or third. I had a good corner in three and four. Altogether it was a great lap. I would not want to get back out and try to run it again. I think the qualifying draw helped us going out 14th and I just felt like I put a pretty decent lap together and I think it's gonna race good. Track position is gonna be very important, so I was really, really happy with the lap that we had." HAVING A GOOD CAR MUST INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE. "It does. I'm such a lucky guy right now. I feel like our team is hitting on all cylinders. I feel like we're flying under the radar. Nobody is really talking much about us. We're one of only like four teams that have been in the top 10 all season long. We've been qualifying good all year long. We've been racing good. We've had some little problems here and there, but we've been very consistently around the top 12 or 13 every single week and that's how you build on a championship-type team. Todd Parrott is absolutely amazing. He's got this team working so hard. Every time we get to the race track on Fridays we're just so fast and it's so much fun to drive for these guys. M&M's has been so supportive and Robert and Doug in the engine shop working their butts off. Man, it's just been great. I'm living the time of my life right now. We're just having a good time with each other. My pit crew is leading the McDonald's Pit Crew Challenge, so we've got a lot of good stuff going on and we're still under everybody's radar. It's been a lot of fun, which has taken a lot of pressure off us. We're just doing the job we think we need to do and we want to be in that final 10. When we get to that point, it's pretty much take the gloves off and let's go after it." WHAT WILL WILL RISK TO WIN TOMORROW? "Points, and I'm probably the worst points racer there is, I mean, I really pay attention to it a lot. Every Sunday night or Monday morning after a race I know exactly how many points I'm ahead of the next guy and how many I'm behind the next guy and how many positions I need to finish in front of him. I do all the math. I'm bored on Monday, so I've got to do a lot of math to figure out what's going on. This weekend I could care less about points. We came to kiss the bricks and that's pretty much our motto this week. When we built this car, we built it for this race and for this race track - Todd did. He's won a couple times here with DJ and points are just no matter. We're gonna turn the motor whatever rpm we feel we need to turn to be competitive. We're gonna put whatever setup we need to put in the car to be competitive and we'll worry about points on Monday for next week at Watkins Glen. But this race is so prestigious to so many different sponsors and teams and there's so much history here at this race track and with the George family that we want to win this race no matter what it takes." HOW DID YOU DO IN THE GOLF TOURNAMENT YESTERDAY? "I've had a great week so far here at Indy. I was able to win the golf tournament yesterday morning that the speedway put on and then to qualify third for the race, things are going good. I kind of might stay in Indy for a little while if things keep going this way. That was the first time I actually got to play the golf course. I got to play it Thursday and then I got to play it again for the shootout and was able to win. I got to play with Darren Manning, who drives, I think, Ganassi's car on the IRL circuit and he's a great guy. I definitely have a new friend and a new person to pull for in the IRL Series, so I definitely enjoyed playing golf with him yesterday. We had a good time, so it's been fun." WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BEING UNDER THE RADAR? "There's no pressure really. The only pressure that's on our race track is put on by ourselves and not really the media or anything like that. You all are so busy talking about the same two cars all year long that we're just kind of hanging out and racing and doing what we need to do. I think it's fun. We're working hard and that makes us more determined to be a factor in every race that we go to and it's been good. I've got the best crew chief in the world as far as being competitive and keeping our guys fired up and on the same page. Before Casey Mears ran today and sat on the pole I thought it would be funny that two slowest talking guys from Virginia would have been on the front row today. I thought that would have been cool." CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR HOMETOWN IN VIRGINIA? "I think it's great. Ward and I grew up about an hour and 40 minutes apart and we both kind of cut our teeth at South Boston Speedway and Orange County in the late model stock cars and kind of knew the same people growing up. I think we learned a lot racing at those tracks. South Boston was probably one of the toughest places to race and, instead of running 25 and 50-lap features, we were running 150 and 200-lap features, so you had to learn how to drive your car on old tires. A lot of great drivers have come from that area and I remember watching Ward drive the 12 car there many times going to watch those guys race. It's just a great area to come from. Him and his brother, and people like Ricky Rudd have set a great path for Virginia drivers to come up through. A guy last night in the truck race made his debut. Denny Hamlin is from that same area and I think he's gonna be another one to look out for, but we've got some great drivers in that area and they're kind of following the lead of Ward and Jeff and Ricky and it's been cool to really come up through that part of the country." DO YOU STILL LIVE IN VIRGINIA? "Yeah, I'm still living in Virginia. I have an apartment or whatever in Charlotte, but I still live in Virginia. I love being around my family. I love being around where I was raised at and kind of the same reasons Ward does, we both like the outdoors so much. We're both pretty much outdoorsmen and do a lot of hunting and fishing and stuff during the winter time in our time off and you can't really do that in downtown Charlotte. I love my family a lot. I love being around my mom and dad. I love being around my brother and my sister and my four nieces mean more to me than anything. If I live in Charlotte, that's time that I can't spend with them so that's why I still live at home in Virginia." TRACK POSITION IS BIG HERE. ANY OTHER GUYS IN THE BACK YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT? "Track position is very important and track position is the number one thing to help you win a race and there's no better way to start that than on Friday or on qualifying day any weekend. Now we don't have to really probably take the chance on pit strategy some of the other guys might have to take to try to get ourselves up to the front because we're already there. The guys that I'm looking at, the 9 and the 19 are running good the last few races. The 48 and the 24 and the 17 - no matter where they start at - the 97 - those guys are coming to the front. Certain guys are gonna use different types of pit strategy - probably two tires the first stop and things like that to get track position, but you're gonna have the same old guys running up front that I think you had last week and, hopefully, we'll just be one of them to be consistent and stay up front and see what happens."