USG Sheetrock 400 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (qualified 28th) - "It was about what we ran in practice. We didn't really do anything different from what we did in practice. Some guys are picking up and some guys are slowing up. We didn't slow up from practice anyway. That's kind of a plus. Sometimes I have a habit of doing that."

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Taurus (qualified 21st) - "The Office Depot Ford was really good in practice. We listened to Greg [Biffle] on the radio and he said it was a little freer, and we tried our best, but mine was just too free. That was pretty wild. I had a good time; it was sideways there once." YOU'VE BEEN DESCRIBED AS A STUDENT OF THE GAME, AND YOU JUST MENTIONED THAT YOU WERE LISTENING TO YOUR TEAMMATE ON THE RADIO. HOW MUCH EVALUATION AND PREPERATION DO YOU DO DURING THE WEEK SO YOU HAVE A GOOD FEEL FOR TRACKS THAT YOU'VE NEVER BEEN BEFORE SO YOU CAN BE READY ON FRIDAY WHEN YOU GET THERE? "If I have extra time during the week I use it to study up for the race. That's what I'm here to do is to try to win these races, so I do everything I can."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus (qualified 4th) - "We've had a good day. We unloaded in race trim and I was pretty happy with our car. We made some changes to it, kind of off of what we did to our Busch car, and it seemed to respond to them really well. And Robbie [Reiser] changed a bunch of stuff on this car before we got here and it seems like he did a good job with that. Overall, it's been a good day. We qualified better than what we expected, ran faster than I thought we were going to run, and it's been handling good in race trim, too, so I'm pretty excited for the weekend. We got our USG car, and they're sponsoring the race and our car, and I think this is probably the best engine we've ever had. Doug Yates and those guys have really been working hard, and we've got tons of horsepower, so we just have to keep working on the car and hopefully we'll be there on Sunday." YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS TRACK? "We've had some okay runs here. We definitely have never had any spectacular, we've never been a contender to win - here and Kansas for some reason, they're sister tracks, but we struggle a little bit at both tracks for I don't know what the reason is. I think we're better this time. We ran really well at Michigan and I think we learned a lot there. You run the same type of package here, pretty close, similar set-ups and same type of cars, and the tracks drive pretty similar. So, I've got a good feeling about this weekend." ON HIS LAP. "That was good. Whenever we can pick up from practice, that's a great thing. I'm really looking forward to Sunday. We've got our USG Sheetrock car racing in the USG Sheetrock 400, so I think Robbie's done a good job with the car. It's had a lot of speed since we've been here. It was really good in race trim this morning, and it was fast in qualifying trim, too, so I'm looking forward to it."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 Combo's Taurus (qualified 23rd) - "It's pretty disappointing. We've been struggling a bunch this year on qualifying, and kind of steadily continuing to do that. We're just missing it somehow. We're not adjusting which way the track's going, but I've got to do a better job with that. So, that's a very disappointing lap. That's not anything that we had in mind. We'll just have to fight from the back again. These guys have done it all year, and I really want to give them better pit selections than what we've been doing. But, we've got a good race team and we know this car usually runs good in race trim, so we'll just have to get 'em on Sunday."

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (qualified 8th) - YOU'VE BEEN ON A ROLL LATELY, AND IT'S CONTINUED WITH TODAY'S QUALIFYING EFFORT. HOW HAS THAT BEEN FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM? "It's been nice for us, to get a little consistency about us. We came here and had a good test last week before we went to Daytona, so we were pretty excited about coming back here. We didn't do any qualifying stuff while we were here, so we had no idea about what today might bring for us, but we felt like we learned some things for our race set-up, and that's what we've got to do is perform these next nine races. This is a very important race for us. We're going to say that every week, but certainly these next three or four, trying to keep ourselves positioned to stay around this top 10 are going to be pretty big for us."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie Taurus (qualified 19th) - YOU PICKED UP QUITE A BIT FROM PRACTICE. "We were just struggling with the car just hitting the race track, so we just had too soft of springs in it, and then once we got it up off the race track, then the car was really tight. And then we made our fast run of the day and it was really loose, so we never got to go fast. And so you sit down and you calculate all the different things we did today, and we just put them out on a board and we said, 'We need to go here.' And that experience is Jimmy Fennig and our engineer, and being able to put together the right combination so that we can go and make a fast lap. We're top 20, but we're off still. We still have to do more work."