UAW-Ford 500 - Ford Qualifying Quotes

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus (Qualified 3rd) - "Today is about guys back in the fab shop and the car that they gave us. It's a brand new race car and the adjustments Todd and these guys did to get me ready to make two laps today, so my job starts tomorrow - getting it ready for the race. I'm looking forward to that. I think we've got a really good car here and Sunday should be fun."

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RACING AT DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA? "It's kind of like night and day now. It used to be a lot of the same things, but the cars are different and obviously the drafting here and a lot more three and four-wide racing here. You've got your hands full all day long and, hopefully, you're in the right spot at the right time towards the end of the race to make a move and try to get to the front."

HOW DOES A GOOD QUALIFYING RUN TRANSLATE TO RACE DAY? "It doesn't matter. I'm gonna go with the guys that may not qualify that good and tell you that it literally doesn't matter. It does give you a chance early in the race to see how you stack up with the other guys who have fast race cars, and it gives you a chance to give you those five bonus points if you can be up front, but in the overall scheme of the whole race it doesn't make a whole lot of difference."

HOW HAS IT BEEN WITH TODD? "Things have gone really well. We had a good weekend last week even though we didn't run as well as we wanted to. It was still fun communicating with Todd. And then this week we had a day at Kentucky and that went extremely well. A lot of the talk we've have about the upcoming races and cars we were gonna take, you just see that focus in Todd. He wants to make sure that each and every track that we go that we're as well prepared as we can possibly be and that's the kind of leadership we've really been missing with the 88 car and it's nice to have it."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Taurus (Qualified 12th) - "I don't know how I managed that. That was pretty surprising, I think, for all of us including Robbie. Those guys tuned the car up because the drivers don't really have anything to do with qualifying here today. It's all about the team and the car and getting it through the air and down the straightaway, so they did a good job tuning the motor up and getting the car to run a good lap."

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET BACK ON TRACK THIS WEEKEND? "I think there are 10 races once you start the chase and, really, every race is equally as important. Obviously, you'd like to keep momentum and get as much back as you could this week, but every race is equally important. We just have to go out and do the best job we can every week."

KEVIN LEPAGE - No. 66 Peak Fitness Taurus (Qualified 38th) - "That's kind of disappointing, really. We ran a .40 in practice with a clean lap and I don't know if we just got the oil too hot and that got the water real hot because when we got to the white flag it was already 240 and these things don't run after 225 - 230 is max. I ran the whole last lap at 240, 250, 260 and it was 265 at the line. We somewhat backed up practice, but I think we could have run a .10 or a .20 if we hadn't got any heat in it, but we're in the show. Now we'll just race on Sunday."

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 1st) - "We've got a lot of bullets yet to come out. I know Scott Riggs and those guys have been fast, so we'll see what happens. All in all, my guys have done a great job. Robert and Doug Yates put a lot of effort into coming down here to Talladega. We want our speedway program to run good and we've got a lot of people from M&M's here, so we wanted to come up with a good showing. So far, so good. The car is driving good. I'm proud of my guys for their hard work - everybody in the engine shop. Kevin did a great job last week and he might have his first pole this weekend as a crew chief so we'll see what happens."

TODAY IS ALL ABOUT THE CREW, RIGHT? "Yeah, today the driver's got it pretty easy. This all goes back to everybody at the fab shop and everybody at the engine shop. Doug Yates and his guys have done just a remarkable job. I've got to thank everybody on the 38 team. They've prepared another great, great race car for me and I'll try to keep this one on the ground this weekend and see if we can get a checkered flag. We'll see what happens."

KURT BUSCH - No. 97 Sharpie Taurus (Qualified 22nd) - "It was good. We didn't quite pick up like we thought we would. We dropped a little bit actually, so there's probably something wrong with the car. We'll check it out, but in race trim the Sharpie Ford usually sniffs its way towards the front. We'll see what we can do to team up with Dale Jr. or Jeff Gordon. Those guys are usually pretty quick here and we'll just give it our best run. We've had some bad luck the last two weeks and now it's time for some good luck."

HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU GET WITH 8 TO GO? "It's business as usual. You can't get too aggressive at Talladega because the guys are just so tightly compacted together. You just don't want to step out of line. You want to have a good finish and we hope that we've got the Yates power to go and do it."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard/Subway Taurus (Qualified 9th) - "To be honest with you, I wasn't really looking forward to Talladega. I was nervous about this race. We don't predominantly run as good here in qualifying, so to come here and run 12th off the truck, we were super-excited. The big thing is will the car back it up, and the car definitely backed it up with a 50.85. We're really happy. The guys just prepared this car perfect. If we can finish during the race, we'll be all set."

HOW HAS YOUR PLATE PROGRAM PICKED UP AND WILL YOU HAVE A BETTER SHOT TO WIN? "We do. They took the thing to the squat rig and checked the travels and did all they could to get the thing to travel as best they could. The did a few updates in the wind tunnel. We got in a little bit of a wreck here with it last time, so we were able to change some body parts. We think our restrictor plate program has come along good and we'd like to add Talladega to my restrictor plate win list."

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 World Financial Group Taurus (Qualified 11th) - "That's my crew right there. We've struggled coming to these restrictor plate races. Bob Osborne and the guys cut the body off the race car. I mean, I did most of the body work at Daytona in that wreck, but they spent a lot of time working on it and it really showed. I think that's 11th right now, so even if it's 12th or 13th at the end of this thing that's an awesome day for us in qualifying at a superspeedway."

WHAT'S YOUR MINDSET FOR THE RACE? "This whole race is pretty much kind of a controlled disaster. That's why they're so much fun to watch and why there are so many grandstands here full of people on Sunday. I think, for me, the biggest decision I have to make, and I think all of the other drivers face the same thing, is is it worth racing up to the front early to try to be in the front, or is it best to kind of hang back and do your best to defend your race car for most of the day. I think this qualifying effort will allow us to have a little bit more of an opportunity to be in the front and if we can be up there in a somewhat orderly fashion in the top of the field for most of the day it will be an awesome day for us."

DALE JARRETT PRESS CONFERENCE

"We worked extremely hard on this part of our program. For a lot of years it was kind of our bread and butter and then we seemed to fall off a little bit, so we've been working extremely hard on that. Hopefully, we can find that things that we've done, you know we've qualified well before, but it seems that when we untape these Fords that it becomes a little bit of an issue and we have a hard time leading laps. Elliott led a few here in the first race, so we tried to duplicate a car like he had here and, obviously; they did a good job with that. The engine room always works hard, so the guys are to be commended for the hard work and effort that they've made to try to get our program back. I hope when we get in drafting practice tomorrow that the car drives as good as it did today and that we can have something that we can race with and have a lot of fun with on Sunday."

FORD IS LONG OVERDUE TO WIN A PLATE RACE. "It's been a dry spell for the Fords. That's a long time going at a race track without a make of car winning a race. I don't know like it's been that close for anybody. I know Kurt Busch has had some success here and Elliott has had a couple of good runs here and there, but we've just had a hard time leading. These guys know that in these other cars, so that makes it more difficult then to get the drafting help that we certainly need, but I think we've made gains in that direction. Yeah, it would be nice, especially since Ford is a sponsor of the race. I think that was part of the plan that maybe we could somehow move some magic over here to help the Fords. It'll be interesting to see if it works."

IS YOUR CREW CHIEF SITUATION INTERIM, TEMPORARY? WHAT'S THE DEAL? "We're always trying out. I don't know that there's a secure job over there. We're all auditioning all the time. We're just trying to find something, there again, as we said last week - trying to find and exhaust all the opportunities within our organization right now because there are no opportunities that you're gonna go out and get the person that you may want, if indeed we do need someone else at this point in time during the season so we need to exhaust that and see if the combination of Todd and myself and some new engineering, if that can be something that could work. Todd and I have a good relationship and it would mean a lot to me if we could make that work for these next couple of years, but, again, we're all fighting for our job."

EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE NOT IN THE CHASE THIS IS PROOF YOU HAVEN'T GIVEN UP. "It's never been any different than any other year. If you were outside the top 10 or wherever you were in years past, you don't give up. We get paid to race and race hard, regardless of the circumstances. We're fighting all the time to try to make things better and I know we haven't won a race in a while, so we're gonna use this opportunity if we can possibly do that to try to get ourselves back to Victory Lane."

DO YOU FAVOR A STRICT INTERPRETATION OF THE NASCAR RULE BOOK WHERE THINGS ARE EITHER YES OR NO, OR DO YOU THINK NASCAR IS RIGHT TO HAVE A COMMONSENSE APPROACH WHERE THEY ALLOW THEMSELVES SOME ROOM TO TRY TO FACTOR IN LOGIC TO MAKING A DECISION? "I'm glad you asked the question because if that was gonna be the last question I was gonna ask you all why the week before at Loudon when everything went on that's all you read in newspapers, that's all that you heard on TV. It didn't make any difference. I think it was on the Oprah show. I'm not positive about that, but that was such a big story of how we're so out of control as drivers, and then an issue comes up where the first two cars last week are so obviously doing something on the race track that is of benefit to them, the roll through inspection, they don't pass inspection, they're allowed to sit there and jump up and down on their cars and whatever they need to do to get it, and I'll be damned if everything I saw was either on the back page or the next-to-the-last page. So I'm sorry, I'm not understanding what you all are doing here."

ON THE FACT THE CAR THAT WON LAST WEEK HAD ALREADY BEEN THROUGH THIS ISSUE. "Yeah, both of the cars. I think at Las Vegas were they not both? You talk about rules, if you're gonna have height sticks and requirements that you have to have, you roll through there - I didn't realize they had a 24-hour period they could wait for these damn things to settle down. I'm fired up about this. I don't understand it. I wanted to say a lot more on the TV show yesterday, but I wasn't allowed to. Not that it does any good. I'm just venting right now. My wife and kids have heard this all week, so now you all have to."

UNTIL WE GOT HERE TO TALK TO NASCAR PEOPLE WE COULDN'T GET ANYBODY TO CALL US BACK? "So does that tell you what sells tickets now? They feed you all the information you wanted the week before about fines and all of that. No, I do think that we need rules. We've got to have rules. We've got to go by that. Hey, don't get me wrong, I applaud them for the ingenuity and for being innovative there to find out what they needed to do that they could certainly take advantage of all the aero rules that you could possibly do, and what they were doing, there's nothing illegal about what they did. I don't mean to say that. There was nothing illegal as far as that goes as long as they pass inspection after the race is over. Again, to those guys that was pretty cool. I'm sure they couldn't see out their back window - not that they needed to because there wasn't anybody close (laughter). You have to applaud them for that, but I think you still have to pass inspection when it's over."

ELLIOTT SADLER PRESS CONFERENCE

"First of all, I'm very, very happy to be on the pole here. Doug and Robert Yates put a lot of emphasis on coming to these restrictor plate races and trying to get a pole, so to get a pole here is pretty cool to see that from their point of view. It's also my first pole for Kevin (Buskirk) as a crew chief in only his second race, so I'm very happy for those guys. They put a lot of hard work and a lot of hours into this restrictor plate car and this motor and everything that's in this 38 car this weekend and it's pretty cool to come in here and sit on the pole."

WHAT ABOUT YOUR CREW CHIEF CHANGE? "I think Kevin's done a great job. He's been the man behind the scenes now for two years and everybody has really rallied behind him the last few weeks and we really felt like we had something to prove going to Dover. We ran good, led some laps, finished sixth - which is our best finish in a long, long time. And then to come here and sit on the pole again, my guys are just really working hard. We're working really good as a team. We've got eight races to go. We're racing against some great, great race cars for 11th spot, and I can't think of a better way to start a weekend than on the pole, so we'll kind of see what Sunday brings us."

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINISH 11TH? "It's very important. No matter, I think, what we do we're still gonna be frustrated as far as not being in the top 10 in points. We really felt like we're a strong enough team to be a part of the chase for the Cup, but circumstances kept us out. We're not gonna cry about it. We're gonna go try to finish 11th. We're racing against some great race teams and anytime you're racing against Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett and Kevin Harvick and Dale Jr. and Jamie McMurray. I could go on and on. I think if we can finish 11th and beat some of these great teams, it would definitely mend some of the wounds that maybe we've gotten from not being part of the chase. But our number one goal, and it's gonna start here Sunday, is to try to get a victory. We had a lot of success last year as far as getting wins and we really want to try to get one before the end of the season comes, and I think we've got a great chance here on Sunday. I think we're gonna have a good car and, if we play our cards right, we'll see what happens."

WHAT ADVANTAGE DOES STARTING ON THE POLE GIVE YOU? "I think the biggest advantage is pit selection. Here there are so many cars on the lead lap, if you're pitting with somebody in front of you or behind you circumstances are gonna probably show in one of the pit stops while you're pulling in somebody is pulling out, or while you're pulling out somebody is pulling in. And with these restrictor plate motors and the high gears we run in them, if you get bogged down on pit road, you're gonna lose a few positions. Or if it's a green-flag pit stop, you're gonna lose a few seconds and then you've got a chance to lose the draft. So I think qualifying is important as far as I've got an opening now in front of my pit stall, so I don't really have to worry about getting out of my pit stall. I can get out clean and I should be OK. So, for us, qualifying up front, I think, is an advantage because of your pit selection."

IS THERE A CHANCE KEVIN COULD STICK AROUND FOR NEXT YEAR AS CREW CHIEF? "I think Kevin is definitely gonna stick around next season. If you talk to Kevin, though, I don't know if he wants to be the crew chief or not. I think he loves playing the support role. He's our head engineer. Of course, he might start liking the crew chief job. I don't know. We haven't talked about it yet. As of now, we're definitely looking for a top-notch guy to come in and be our crew chief for next year. We feel like we've got one of the best support groups that we can put around a crew chief to come in and Kevin is definitely leading that support group. But if we keep running good, who knows? But, as of right now, we're still looking. Kevin just means so much to my team and he does a lot of things for the 88 also, it would be kind of hard to put him in one role where he's not helping the whole organization. It would be tough."

IS A FORD READY TO WIN? "Yeah, I hope so. I think they've won 13 straight races here and that's a lot. Ford has done a good job with the new Ford Fusion, I think, as far as competing next year on restrictor plate race tracks. It's gonna be tough to win here on Sunday for a Ford, I think. I think we have to work together good. We've also got to try to keep the 24 and the 48 away from each other. We've got to try to keep the 8 and the 15 separated. Those guys work together so, so good that it makes it tough to beat them when they gang up on you. We'll see what happens. I had a chance to win this race two years ago in the fall and got flipped on the backstretch. I think I had one of the best Fords here that day and I think my car this weekend is just that good, so we'll see what happens. I would like to say, 'Yeah, we can go out there and beat them,' but until we do so I'm not gonna say that. I think we just need to go out there and work hard and make some good decisions and we'll see if we can run with those guys on Sunday."