HAMLIN: ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE LAP? “No, not at all. I’m happy with the position we’re in but I know there was a lot more potential for this race car out there. I felt like when I crossed the line I was going to be 20th or so. To know that it had that much more left in it and we’re still that close, I’m pretty happy.” IS THE ONLY STRATEGY HERE TO GO WIDE OPEN FROM THE DROP OF THE GREEN FLAG? “You know, if you don’t you’re going to get run over or you’re going to get freight-trained. I do, I drive every lap here as hard as I can and see where I end up.” DOES THE BUSCH CAR HELP YOU HERE? “It hurts a little bit. The two drive so differently that you really can’t take one from the other. I do think it hurts.” IS THERE ANY ADVANTAGE TO STARTING ON THE INSIDE LINE HERE? “Yeah, there’s a huge advantage. I’m hoping that the 31 will beat us or somebody. If that happens, that would definitely be good for us.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “I think I should have gone faster. We ran like a .48 and I think I could have run around a .40. I just got loose in. that hurt a little bit but once it got loose in, I wasn’t as confidence on exit as I should have been and it drove really good off. I just didn’t quite get enough off there. I don’t think we’re going to be bad. I think we’ll be about 10th. That’s a good starting spot for Bristol. It’s better than starting 30th.” HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS TRACK? “I love it. That’s the first time that I’ve ever actually qualified here. Every Busch race I’ve been here it’s rained or something. This is the first time that I’ve actually got to qualify. I felt like if I could do it again right now I’d be a little better at it. It’s part of learning.” IS THE TRACK HERE VERY DIFFERENT AT NIGHT VERSUS DAYTIME? “I don’t know yet. I’ll tell more today because most times I’ve been here it’s been overcast during the day and we raced at night. I did run the day race here on the Monday that time that we had to run it. The track wasn’t a whole lot different. It may have been a little bit slower but as far as the balance of the car, it was the same. It was just a little bit slower.” YOU GET A LOT OF PRACTICE IN THE DAYTIME BUT YOU RACE AT NIGHT. “I tried to watch the truck race to kind of see what those guys were doing as far as their trucks and they looked a little bit loose to me, which is sometimes the opposite. But you’ve got to find out for your own car. Each car does something different.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 COORS LIGHT DODGE: “We haven’t been real good since we unloaded. We’ll just keep working on it. We didn’t put a lot of emphasis on qualifying. It might hurt us a little bit but we’ll see.” IF YOU DON’T HAVE TROUBLE YOU WILL HAVE A GOOD FINISH HERE. “I just want to get it driving right and just make it comfortable for me because then it will make my night a lot easier. You’ve just got to try to stay out of trouble.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: “Steve [Addington, crew chief] made some good calls. He tightened the car up. The car drove really good. Like I was telling him, I think I was just a little too cautious. I could see that a lot of guys were loose. I didn’t want to overcharge the corner and get myself and cost myself a bunch of time. Track position is definitely critical here. It just takes a little bit and you can gain a bunch of spots. I picked the throttle up real good into 1 and just rolled out just a little bit and get pointed again. The car is driving good. We were running in the top-10 before we got wrecked here in the spring so hopefully things can improve from that and we can finish in the top-10.” IF YOU STAY OUT OF TROUBLE YOU CAN HAVE A GOOD DAY HERE. “That’s generally the problem here is you can be having a great day and someone five cars ahead of you or 10 cars ahead of you do something stupid and someone behind you not be paying attention and you ruin a good day in a heartbeat. This is just racing at Bristol. I’ve watched plenty of races on TV here and it’s almost more exciting to watch on TV than it is to drive out there. Hopefully we keep all the fenders on and keep it in one piece and rebound from a couple bad weeks.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “We made it a little better from practice but we’re still not where we need to be. I’m having a real hard time getting in the corner. My teammate’s fighting the same thing so I don’t feel so bad [smiles].” CAN YOU GET THE CAR BETTER HERE WITH MORE LAPS ON THE TRACK? “Yeah, absolutely. We kind of ran out of time today. We ran a lot of race trim and we went to qualifying trim with only like 10 minutes to go thinking that we would be OK and we weren’t. We kind of ran out of time working on our qualifying stuff. It kind of caught us off guard how bad we were. We were just real, real loose getting into the corner. We’re never really fought that here before. The guys did a good job getting it better. We just probably should have started on it a little bit earlier. We’re not really where we need to be.” IS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN THE WAY THE CUP CARS AND BUSCH CARS DRIVE HERE? “No, not really. The problem with these cars is that it’s a lot harder to get them to drive the way you want them to. They are real, real finicky to adjustments. Sometimes you change 10 things and you won’t touch the problem and sometimes you’ll change just one little tiny thing and it will be gone. It’s just a matter of figuring out what it wants and hitting on the right combination.”