Subway Fresh 500 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Scotts Taurus (qualified 11th) - "I'm okay with it. I didn't drive as well as I could've. I left about two-tenths on the table and that's frustrating for me. The car was awesome, though. That gives me a lot of confidence about tomorrow. We changed a lot of things. I feel really good about the car. Hopefully, it'll hold for a top 20. When the conditions change, it makes it a little difficult but we just changed a lot on our setup and I didn't want to be too aggressive, and I was a little too conservative."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (qualified 3rd) - "That was a great lap for the Subway car. We hadn't been that good since we showed up but that was a great lap for us. They did a lot of work on this race car and I feel excited for the race tomorrow night that I got that good of a car in qualifying." YOU'RE ON A RUN RIGHT Now. "The guys are working so hard, I've worked 'em to death here at Phoenix. It looks like we found a little bit of speed. I don't think it will hold up for the pole, but it's going to be a decent run for us."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 IRWIN Industrial Tools Taurus (qualified 2nd) - "It's very surprising, with clouds and the overcast today it gives the track quite a bit of speed. It was an anxious moment when you make your first lap to know how fast to go and then you trust it on the second lap. So far, we've done the best. I hope it sticks to get the pole." TOMORROW, WOULD YOU PREFER THESE CONDITIONS AS OPPOSED TO THE GLARE THAT WAS THERE YESTERDAY? "It's going to be tough. When we race here in the fall we stare at it straight down the front straightaway. Right now, I noticed it out of turn four, so hopefully that'll calm down a little bit, but we're going to start at 5 o'clock, hopefully we can have some clouds and put some tape on the windshield and we'll be all right."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 U.S. Air Force/Motorcraft Taurus (qualified 38th) - "We knew that the race setup but the qualifying setup wasn't very good yesterday. Some of the things that make us good in race setup will obviously hurt us in qualifying setup." TOMORROW SHOULD BE OKAY THEN? " I'm basing it on how we ran on the track in long runs. We figure we were somewhere around seventh-, eighth-best car on the track yesterday on long runs. I'm not super concerned because we did run good and we ran with some good cars and passed some good cars yesterday in the practice."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (qualified 33rd) - "That's a pretty tough qualifying effort. It was just really way too loose for us to really get a good lap out of it. I just kind of hope to stay out of trouble tomorrow and just hope to get a good race and get some points under our belt."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Taurus (qualified 17th) - "It was okay. The time was okay. From the seat I wish it would've been a little better. We were just a little too tight."

Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle press conferences...

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 IRWIN Industrial Tools Taurus - ON QUALIFYING TODAY AFTER PRACTICING TWICE YESTERDAY. "This is definitely an odd schedule with the way we're impounding cars at some race tracks and qualifying them just on a Saturday. I've asked NASCAR about what direction they want to go with with these impound races versus regular races and just get a mixed answer. I think they're trying a few different scenarios and seeing which one works the best. For us to come out and practice last night around 6:30 or 7 o'clock and then to come out today and qualify at 4 in the afternoon, we expected extreme, dramatic differences, and what we got was overcast skies today with cooler temperatures so the track was about the same. So, from a driver's standpoint it worked out. From NASCAR's perspective I'm sure it worked out as well. It's just a different type of schedule. It reminds me a little bit of Indianapolis, where you practice one day and then come out and just rip off a qualifying lap on the next. So, that was the mindset that I took. Watching the speeds, everybody was very fast so I pushed my car as hard as it could go, and we ended up just a bit short. It's a great start, though, outside second row. Normally, I don't get to talk to you guys on preliminary days, it's usually Sunday after the race." WHAT SCHEDULE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE NASCAR GO TO? "I enjoy the two days when we're at the track, such as a Richmond or a Bristol in the fall, where we practice and qualifying on the preliminary today and then we race on the big day, whether it's Saturday night, whether it's Sunday. A two-day schedule is cool. When we were in Vegas, they did a three-day schedule where we qualified our qualifying setup, then we practiced for a race setup. That worked out all right. This qualifying and race setup is somewhat odd, but I see it as a direction of our sport, so I'm for it over time, once we get more races under our belt. But, two-day shows are cool when we run Richmond in the fall and Bristol in the fall for two days." WHAT'S THE SCHEDULE FOR YU AND YOUR TEAM TONIGHT? "With the schedule being so odd, we looked at different things to do as a team. In the past it was easy to go out to a bowling alley and put some in with the team, but I can't do that now with the recognition that I've received from racing. So tonight we've got a special plan. We're going to Bank One Ballpark to see the Diamondbacks play the Padres, but it's a chance with Nextel. They're giving us a suite there, we're going to cater to the team, and during the fifth inning we're going to be recognized as national champions of our sport. So, it's unique to blend the two together and my team will definitely have a moment to shine tonight, and they're getting all dressed up and they're getting their best denim out for it, I can tell you that." ARE YOU GETTING ANY FEEDBACK FROM NASCAR AS TO SETTING THE TRACK SCHEDULES, AND IT THE TRACK THE MAIN FACTOR IN HOW THE SCHEDULE IS SET? "When we speak about it, they have their process they've already set forth, because they've met with team owners, they met with the track operators. I think the track operators dictate the schedule as a core, and then you go from there. Whether the track has lights, you can do different things. Whether it's all the way across the country, you've got to schedule things a bit differently. And then as a driver, we want to see things, but I'm not an owner and I'm not one that owns cars in the Busch Series, where tires are a factor, getting crew guys to the race track is costing X amount versus X amount. We're going through a weird schedule phase right now, and it's something to where it'll definitely be better in the long run because I know we will find a stronger core way of practice and qualifying and race as we go. So, we just have to sort it out now and it will be better later." WOULD EVERYTHING BE OKAY IF THE SCHEDULE WAS CONSISTENT? "Everything is okay now because we know we're trying sort out which would be the best scenario for practice, qualifying and race. So, we know that we've got to go through a tougher road right now, but once we get to the final verdict, then it'd be easy to understand and then it'd be better to stick with that. But right now we have to sort out all the different angles on which way is the best procedure."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus - CAN YOU TALK ABOUT ANY SPECIAL PROBLEMS THAT COULD COME ABOUT WITH A TWILIGHT START? "The sun in your eyes, it makes it difficult for a period of time, but usually, like I said earlier today, that period of time is about 20 minutes where it's real critical, and then it's down behind the grandstands or before that it's above it. And it depends a lot on what end of the race track the sun sets on. This particular race track has those condos and grandstands, so it's not as bad as some of the other places we race."

KURT BUSCH-"It's fun to race night races. The problem is you can't race night races on the west coast because of time differences and TV. And so the drivers and the fans have to look at the sun for a little bit and then we'll be off into the darkness with the lights on the race track. We have experienced a little bit of that last fall at L.A. and at Darlington. It's a little bit of a problem when you race, but everybody's out there racing together, so you deal with it and then the nighttime falls. I mean, we've done it for 100 years at Charlotte. When did they put lights up there, 1992? That's about 100 years."

GREG BIFFLE-HOW IMPORTANT IS CONFIDENCE? YOU WON LAST WEEK, AND QUALIFIED THIRD THIS WEEK. "That's pretty much a miracle, right there, qualifying third. You know, we were definitely not that fast yesterday. The guys worked really hard on the race car. I made a little bit of a mistake qualifying the Busch car. Went out fourth and the track didn't have enough grip. I got the apron a little bit down there in three and four on my fast lap, and so it kind of screwed up a little bit, so I kind of had a second chance at it with the Cup car. I really had my focus on what I needed to do. And, probably gave up, seeing how tight it was, probably gave up the pole down there on my second lap when I got sideways like Ryan Newman did. But that's what happens when you ask a lot of the race car and trying to do all you can, and Jeff Gordon was a guy that did that today. So, we're happy to be up there starting in the top five." BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CONFIDENCE CARRYOVER? It has some confidence carryover. The worst car I've driven this year was the first three laps of practice, so the weekend didn't start out real stellar for us, but we're starting to gain momentum."

KURT BUSCH-HOW ARE YOU FEELING, AND WAS TOO MUCH MADE OF RICKY CRAVEN BEING IN YOUR PITS LAST WEEKEND? "The toughest thing was obviously the physical side of it. Racing Texas, it's tough for 500 miles. And to have that blow in the IROC race, it's something you don't expect, your body's not prepared, really, for a tire blowout in an IROC race. I closed my eyes when it blew out and I said to myself, 'I hope you wake up.' I felt the impact and was wide awake right afterwards, and just didn't feel all that hot, especially after the week before. We blew a tire at Atlanta a couple of weeks before that. Even had a problem at Bristol; I ran into a parked car. The body needs time to build its strength back up after each of these impacts, and I wasn't all that up to running 500 miles at Texas. It felt as if that was the first time I could ever, now I'm getting into the meat of really why I brought in Craven, is that I didn't feel 100 percent going into the Texas race, and so I called up Craven, and to share the story with you, he was, 'I don't really want to jump in your car if you're going to blow another right front, either.' We made it through. To run up front all day, my body felt a bit better. To know we had a shot at trying to beat Biffle, we just hung in there all day and ended up with a seventh-place finish. It wasn't blown out of proportion. I did need Ricky Craven there, he just didn't feel up to putting the driver's suit on."