UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Qualified 13th) - "Everything was pretty good. We didn't work much on qualifying stuff today, so we made kind of a guess at it as far as what we needed to do. The car has been a little bit on the loose side, so that's what we've been working towards and made it better. As the day cools off these cars are gonna go a lot faster. I'd like to blame it on an early draw, but the fastest guy here went right before me, so you can't blame it on that." RYAN WAS PRETTY FAST. "When you go around Ryan you don't have much of an excuse. When he goes out and puts down that fast lap you can't blame it on the track not being exactly right, but we made a pickup there and that part of it's good. I think we learned some things for race setup today, so hopefully that'll all work out for us. It was a reasonable effort, but it's gonna keep getting cooler here and these guys are gonna go faster and faster. But we'll take that and do what we can with them on Sunday."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 IRWIN/Sharpie Taurus (Qualified 5th) - "We've talked about how Newman goes into ludicrous speed before and mine was ridiculous speed. I drove off into one more than I ever have before. These new tires allow you to stick a little better and I wanted to test it. I was starting to see three 7's line up, but we came up a bit short. We had a cherry mixed in somewhere." WHAT ABOUT THE RACE ON SUNDAY? "I've always done OK qualifying at this place, but in the race we usually burn a right-front off. With these new tires you have to be that much more careful, so this will help us back off our setup and run for the full 400 miles. Usually we're too aggressive, so this should help."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 2nd) - "I think that was a pretty good lap. My guys gave me a great race car. Did I think we could run that fast? I didn't think we could run an oh-something, I thought I could run a 30 or a 40, but my guys surprised me again. I wanted to give Doug and Robert Yates a pole so much. They work so hard in the engine shop, but we just came up a little bit short. We'll have to try to get the guys on Sunday, but that's a great starting position for us - a great effort. Man, we really wanted a pole and want to be in that shootout next year in Daytona, so we'll try to go get 'em next week in Atlanta." HOW WAS THE LAP? "I wouldn't want to run it again. You can nit-pick a lap to death about where you thought you might have lost it or not, but, I swear, I ran a good lap for me here. To run that close is almost heartbreaking to miss it by six one-thousandths. It's a great lap. Maybe I need some more kickout. Maybe I should have put some more tape on the front valance and maybe kick out a little more. I should have done something, but, hey, it's a good lap for us. I'm not gonna nit-pick it. He just cut a little bit better lap than we did. We're just gonna have to go try to outrun him Sunday." HOW DOES THIS HELP FOR SUNDAY? "I think it's gonna help us. We tested very well here in Vegas when we came here a month ago and we did all race runs. My guys are so awesome. They brought me another good car and we've got a bunch of them lined up at the shop. We just want to prove to everybody that last year wasn't a fluke. We're here to stay. We're gonna be a part of that chase again this year."

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Qualified 19th) - "I'm disappointed in myself. I should have told these guys and should have identified this thing in January. We'll do a great job with it in Sunday and get us a top 10 and go to Atlanta with both barrels blazing, but this car is just not got the potential that some of our cars do and that we should. We'll struggle along with this thing here on Sunday and get us a top 10."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Qualified 33rd) - "I'm not real super happy with it, but it was better than we ran in practice. At least we didn't slow up. We've been sort of struggling since we've been here and we came here the other week and worked on nothing but race trim. The track is hotter now and I wish we would have qualified better. I think we'll be OK racing. I think it's gonna race well because that's what we worked on for two or three days."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Taurus (Qualified 8th) - IS IT GOOD TO COME BACK TO A PLACE YOU RUN SO WELL AT? "Yeah, we've been running good this year we just don't have the finishes. We had something break at Daytona and we got a fender knocked off and I got a flat tire at California, but we ran good. We had a real competitive car at Daytona and led laps at California, and I feel like we'll run real good here this weekend too. We've got a lot of work to do between now and Sunday, but I'm real confident about our chances. I think we've got a real good car here. It's the same car we had at California and, hopefully, we can get the finish this week." WHAT IS IT ABOUT ROUSH HERE? "Some of it is probably luck. I think a lot of races you can sit and watch and the fastest car doesn't necessarily win the race. We've been real fortunate to have the fastest car the last couple of years and Mark and Jeff Burton have had the fastest car a few times and not had any misfortune or have anything go wrong. They've executed well on pit road and had good pit strategy and all that - right place at the right time. So there are a lot of things that go into it. We've had good cars, but we've had good fortune also."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Qualified 3rd) - ARE YOU FRUSTRATED? "Oh yeah. I feel bad for the guys. It almost brings tears to my eyes. I had an awesome race car there, but I just got too loose down there in three and four. That was definitely a pole run. It would have been on the pole for sure. It's a great race car for Sunday, I hope. We haven't had it in race trim yet, of course that's an unknown so no predictions this time, but it was a great, great run there. The guys had the car perfect. I told them not to touch it, but I was just a little too loose down here." THIS TEAM HAS TURNED THE CORNER HASN'T IT? "It has. The National Guard, the whole Roush team, Doug and Bobby and all the guys - we've got a few new guys on the team this year and everybody is working really hard. If I can just be calm as a driver and not make mistakes, I think we'll get there."

GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE - YOU MUST BE FEELING PRETTY GOOD RIGHT NOW. "Actually, truth be known, I feel terrible. I had a car to qualify on the pole here and any driver is disappointed when he doesn't live up to what he thinks he can do and what the car can do, but I'm really happy to start third here I guess. I'm still kind of beating myself up and probably will half the night because of that small mistake I made over there. Ryan said he was watching on TV and I had him beat until I got right over there (in turn three). I got a little bit loose in the center and probably was trying too hard. I was trying for too much. I should have slowed it up just a little bit more getting in that corner and I had it. Hey, I can't complain with third. The National Guard team is working really hard and they've given me great race cars. Now it's my turn to live up to driving them to the front and keeping them there." ROUSH HAS WON 5 OF 7. IS IT YOUR TURN SUNDAY? "I hope so. Las Vegas hasn't been good to me in a Nextel Cup car. I qualified eighth last year and twentysome laps in we lost an engine, but we're hoping to have a better run here on Sunday. We think we can for sure. We don't think we're as fast as we were at California, but, of course, it's a different format. Happy hour is tomorrow, so I don't know how my car is in race trim. I know in qualifying trim it's pretty decent. I feel it's the fastest car here, so we'll see tomorrow afternoon." THIRD HERE TODAY, BUT DOES IT MAKE YOU THINK BACK TO THE FIRST TIME YOU CAME HERE IN A CUP CAR? "It's something I think about all the time - that our team just failed to provide a good enough car to make the field with. It's just what it boils down to. This is Kyle Busch's first time here in a Cup car and he qualifies fourth. It's not the driver, it's the equipment you're driving and we were just unprepared when we came here in 2003, and we're prepared now." DID YOU FIND SOMETHING IN PRACTICE TO GIVE YOU SOME OPTIMISM FOR A TOP 5 ON SUNDAY? "I'd like to answer that the best I can, but that question is really for Doug. After we tested poorly here, which 15th or 20th, I don't know where we were at because timing and scoring wasn't working, but we weren't the fastest car. They went back to the drawing board back at the shop and worked hard on why we weren't as good as we were. We found some stuff that Mark Martin was doing that we felt would help our race car some. We found some stuff right at the end of the test that made our car turn better in the center that we didn't get a chance to really do some more testing with because it was right at the end of the day. So they worked hard on some of those things and brought it back and it's a lot better. So, yes, we did find some things that I feel we might be a top 5 car now, but the telltale is tomorrow in race trim. Where do we stack up. This car feels like it's backing up faster. What I mean by that is one lap it's fast and the next lap it's not so fast and the next lap it's kind of slow. The California car didn't do that. It was fast, fast, fast lap after lap. Qualifying and racing are so different still when you're in this format. You don't really know until tomorrow what I've got for Sunday." WHERE DID YOU BOBBLE? "Down there in three and four. I probably carried a little bit too much speed in it. Elliott and I were talking about it out there on the grid before we went out and qualified the Busch car that the track picked up a lot of speed. It cooled down a bunch and there was a lot of grip and we got across one and two so much faster that we were going down the backstretch two or three miles an hour faster than we had been. I tried to carry that speed into three and four and it just didn't work." HOW MUCH WERE YOU BACKING OFF IN THREE AND FOUR? "It's what we call roll the car across the center, so the less brake I use and the longer I stay on the throttle and the slower I come off the throttle, obviously, the faster I'm gonna be going when I'm turning down in there and trying to go across the center. It's within a mile an hour or two of speed that the car will stick or won't stick, so you just have to know what that threshold is and be right there, but not be over it and not be too far under it to where you say, 'Gee, I wish I would have went a little bit faster,' and missed the pole by a little bit."

ELLIOTT SADLER PRESS CONFERENCE - "It's great. It's a great job by my guys. Wow. We came here and tested and were very fast all week. All we did was race runs and to come back and qualify this good, my team never ceases to amaze me each and every week. We're working on things. We didn't have the best week that we should have had at Daytona. We didn't blow anybody out at California. We had a great top 10 car, but that was about it. We kept working on it and working on it and there's a never quit attitude that has never been brighter than it is right now on our team. To come here and qualify second and to be that close to Ryan and run that much faster pretty much than anybody else, it was a great day for everybody on our team." IS THE BUSCH CAR HELPING YOU OUT? "I think so. That's why we're doing it. I've got great sponsors. M&M's is so open-minded. They want to win so bad on Sunday and be a championship contender that whatever we can do to make that more possible, they're with. We decided to start our own Busch team this year and I'm running probably 15-16 races and DJ is running six or seven and it helps. It definitely helps to get out of that Busch car and get in that Cup car. You feel like you're already warmed up. You're ready to go when you get in the car and you kind of know what to expect. That's why I'm glad to run 'em. I wish I was running every companion event, but I think it's definitely gonna help our team at some of the tracks that we've been struggling at in the past - to go run that Busch car at and go test it there - do things like that to help our Cup program." DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE RULE WITH THE FULL FUEL LOAD? "That's new this year. My team knew about it because I wanted to come here with a light fuel load and they showed me the rule. I didn't know it. Actually I was telling my brother what he should do as far as weight and fuel and things like that that we did all last year and then when I got here I was told about the fuel in the tube and all of that - you've got to qualify full of fuel. So that was new to me when I got here. I didn't really know that, but my guys already knew that because we already came in prepared that way, so I guess that's just a new rule for 2005." DID YOU THINK BIFFLE WAS THE ONLY CAR LEFT TO KNOCK YOU OFF THE FRONT ROW? "Yeah, I thought him or Jimmie Johnson. And then when Jimmie didn't run such a great lap to his standards, of course I was looking for Biffle. I have no idea how we ran that lap. I've got to be the first to say that when Ryan Newman ran his lap I was sitting in the truck with Robert and Todd and I went, 'Wow, nobody is gonna get even close to that today.' And then we go out there and only miss it by six-thousandths of a second. When you go out there and hit a good lap anything is possible and anything can happen. I just want to get a pole for Doug Yates so bad. He works so hard on our engine program and it showed today. I think we've got four Fords in the top nine and I really want to get him a pole real bad. Just to miss it by that much is almost heartbreaking. I ran my lap and I was like, 'Man, that felt good.' And I crossed the start-finish line and my number was delayed. It didn't come up on the pylon and I went, 'Man, that wasn't as good as I thought. Maybe my feel is not as good as it used to be. I'm getting old. I don't know what to think.' And then Todd came over the radio and I could tell in his voice how close we were and then he told me. It's a great run. I'm not gonna sit here and try to dissect my lap and where I could have run seven-thousandths faster. It was a great lap. I probably couldn't run it again in 100 years, but for today it worked out great for us."