Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Dodge Qualifying Quotes

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) – Qualified Second

“It felt pretty good. You need to go faster on your first lap, and we did it on our second lap. If we do lose, that’s why. We were a little free on the first lap and couldn’t get the lap I wanted. I didn’t get back in the throttle hard enough. The track is a little slicker than it was in practice but not too much. We were good all practice. The car really feels great this weekend.

“It’s hotter out. We did our fastest lap this morning when it was cooler. I don’t know if that’ll hang on or not. Ricky Rudd is really fast and a couple of other guys are really fast, but it was really a good qualifying effort for our Dodge Dealers team. The track always changes some on race day, and you’ve just got to work on it all day long. That’s the fun about a 400-mile race. You get a lot of opportunities to work on the car. Tommy and the guys do a great job with that. Hopefully we can be up front at the end of the day.

“It’s a little bit cooler, and Joe went a lot faster. That was a great lap for them. Tommy and I were worried about him. We had him circled as a guy who could beat us. Mayfield got close, too, but we knew Nemechek would be good. This track is a lot like Chicago. It’s a cross between Chicago and Las Vegas and we were good at both of them. I like this place a lot, and I think we’re going to have a real good car. Time is running out to get that pole award. We needed this one to stay in it. We’ll see what happens. It’s close. We’ve got some good tracks coming up for qualifying – Atlanta, Charlotte, Homestead, Phoenix. Count us out at Martinsville, but we’ll be contenders at the others.”

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge)

“We did all race run stuff this morning. I thought we were going to do a little quicker. They do all the cool stuff to the motor and typically when you get 30 minutes to think about stuff you can go a little faster. That was a pretty good lap for us. I don’t know how good it’s going to be, but it should hold up for a top 15.

“When they put the soft walls up in three and four, it’s definitely made it a bigger challenge to getting into the corner. You can arc the car like you want to. Three and four is really good. I think for some reason at all mile and a half tracks, I get through three and four better than I do one and two. We’ll work on that for Sunday.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge)

“We haven’t qualified real good here in the past. I think we’ll have a good racecar. Our ALLTEL Dodge bottomed out a little bit in three and that cost us some time. We’ll put her in race trim and see how it goes. It’s definitely more challenging in qualifying because you hold it so close to the edge. Turn one is a little goofy. It’s got a little different entry to it. We’ll get used to that and see how it is in race trim.”

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Dodge)

“We were a lot better than that. Something happened. The racecar was awesome, and we had a shot for the pole. That’s a bummer. Every time we have something good we end up blowing it. We’ve got some sort of carburetor problem or something. We’d get to the end of the straightaways and it’d lean out. I’d look at the fuel pressure gauge and it was down to four. Something got caught in the carburetor and starved the engine for fuel. The Penske/Jasper Dodge horsepower is usually pretty good. We’ll get it fixed up for Happy Hour tomorrow.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) – Qualified 3rd

“I don’t know where that speed came from. We’ve been like that all day. My first lap was always slower than my second, and I think Kasey did the same thing. We should be good in the race. We’re taking care of our Goodyears. It’s good to see our Hemi Dodge in the top three. We need a big shovel (to dig out of the hole), but we’ve got a great race team and great cars. We’ve got a long way to go, but that’s the way it’s been all year. We’ve always had to dig ourselves out of the hole. We’ve got a strong team, and I can’t say enough about my Hemi Dodge. It’s a great car. The engine is running great and it’s a cool car.

“In practice we weren’t as good as we thought we should have been and we struggled a little bit at the beginning of it. We were making changes on our Hemi Dodge. The paint scheme we’ve got is pretty cool, and we just kept making changes on it. We went out for qualifying and it was pretty wild. The only two cars that were faster on their second lap was me and Kasey, so evidently we’ve got something going on there helping us. I’m not sure what it is. My first lap I was 19th, and that’s a pretty good number, but the second lap we ended up third. It was a pretty good day for us.

“We’ve been looking forward to Kansas. Not only is it one of our favorite racetracks, but it’s a track we thought would be our turning point for the last 10 races. We knew Talladega was going to be tough. I don’t know what happened at Loudon. As far as the last 10 races we know what happened, but I don’t want to talk about that. Getting through Talladega we were just going to try to survive and we didn’t survive. Coming here is a breath of fresh air for us. We love the racetrack and everything that goes along with it. It’s definitely one of my top three favorite race tracks. The only reason it isn’t my first is because I won Richmond. Now it’s the first right now.

“Now I’m going to get a shirt that says you all need to stay far, far away from me because I don’t know what’s going to happen. We changed it because it’s a cool car. It’s kind of deceiving. It changes colors so you don’t know who it is. I’m real proud and honored to be here at Kansas with the Hemi paint scheme on the car. That’s a lot of tradition and history that goes back with that. I’m proud to be a part of that.

“A year and two or three months ago I was snake bit. You’ve got to take the good with the bad and keep it all balanced and in perspective. I’m not saying it’s hasn’t been tough. It has been. Really, it’s something we know that hasn’t been in our control. I was racing last week’s race like the 88 and 20 did, all the guys up front. We were waiting until the end of the race and then we banzaied up front to see what would happen. I had no idea I’d be where I was last week with the 02 got into the 43 and turned right in front of me. That does make you stop and ask what’s going on. The good side of things is we’re here in Kansas and this is one of our favorite places. We knew going into Talladega you never know what’s going to happen. Coming out of there I’m about as happy as I’ve ever been just to get away from there and be here.

“All day today during practice our first lap would be slower than our second lap and it felt better. I feel like if I could have run another lap it would have been better yet. Then Kasey went out and qualified and he did the same thing. There’s something with our cars that they were better today on the second lap than the first. Maybe the air pressures or shocks or something were a little different from the other guys, but usually that’s a good sign of a great racecar when you can run that fast on the second lap. That means it’s going to be good on tires and you’re not abusing anything. Really a lot of guys slowed down on their second lap, so we’re excited to have a car that picks up on the second lap.

“I think our setup is pretty close to what we had last year. It may vary a little bit just from things we’ve learned from a year ago. The right rear spring is something we were doing this time last year, so that’s not new to us. Everybody has caught on to that now, putting more spring in it, but we came back close to what we had. We took a few things we learned from Chicago and similar to this track and the tire we run.

“I’m unbelievably excited about race trim. I’m real happy with the way I feel like the car is going to be tomorrow. If we had qualified 10th today I was going to be happy with that. We knew we had a great racecar and a great race setup coming our way. We tested this car at Kentucky a couple of weeks ago and had an awesome test. Things we learned in race trim that will apply tomorrow that will help us. Our qualifying setup is about the same but our race setup is going to be quite a bit different, and I feel pretty good about that.”

“Let’s say it was a dream world and I’m Mike Helton right now. I’d probably put the top 10 in their own points race like if something happened to Tony and myself at Loudon it wouldn’t be that far behind. It would keep things tighter than what it is. You’d be racing the other guys in the top 10. That’d be the first thing I’d do. Then I’d move a lot of them around – Talladega, Martinsville and Loudon. I think I’d have Kansas, Chicago, Darlington, I’d even bring Rockingham back, California, Charlotte, Phoenix, Homestead and I’d run two Richmonds. You can go around and get all the drivers personal preferences for racetracks. I betcha wouldn’t see any Talladegas except Junior. He’d be the only one there and we’d all be somewhere else. You wouldn’t see Loudon or Martinsville, but I bet Kansas would be there. Michigan is great. California is great. Pocono, we’d run two or three Poconos and Darlington. It’d be Pocono, Richmond and California would be the only ones we’d run. That would be about all I’d change, and I don’t know if I would take points away for cussing. Every once in awhile I let one slip, and I don’t want to lose 25 points.”

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge)

“We picked up a little bit from practice, but we were too tight. We worked on race setup all day and just ran out of time. We were tight on our banzai run and tried to free it up and we were still too tight. We were good on our race runs, but we were too tight in qualifying trim.”

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge)

“I don’t know what the heck caused that. It was real good in practice and in qualifying it was so loose right there that it turned dead sideways in both corners. I don’t know what’s wrong. The tire pressure showed real loose just then. It hadn’t been that way all day. The track changed and heated up and that was it.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge)

“The A-frame hit the frame and got real tight. I’m not happy with it at all. It should have been a lot faster. It was like running on a solid left front. I think we’ll be all right. This car won the pole at Indy and we’ve got a lot of our top 10s with it. We’ve got a shot at getting it right for the race. We had a car that could have either sat on the pole or qualify where we did because of what happened.”