RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) – Wins Pole

NOTE: Newman captured his first pole since last year at Texas, breaking a string of 14 races without a pole. He’s won 36 career poles in 165 career starts.

“The guys did a great job, and I’m just happy to be going in the right direction. That’ll lead to a good pit selection and a good start for a 400-mile race. That’s definitely important for us.

“I’m glad NASCAR hung on and got it in. It’s a good thing for radar because I think without it they would have been called. I’m happy we were able to finish it out, and I’m glad we got to go when we did. We had a fast lap, and I’m glad the track didn’t pick up a bunch of speed after the rain delay.

“It means something to win the pole. Atlanta was a little disappointing, getting beat by whatever it was. This is a sign of better things to come. It’s something we haven’t been able to do all year, and we were able to get in a little qualifying practice today, so I think that paid off.

“You’ve got to stay out of trouble first of all, but staying out of trouble on pit road is one of the biggest problems we have here. It’s a really tough transition on pit road, but once you’re on pit road it’s usually it’s usually stop and go bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that’s no way to make positions. When you have that No. 1 pit stall it helps out a lot. We’ll be in a good position from that point we just need to have a fast Alltel Dodge.

“A lot of good things happened today. We were able to get a few qualifying laps in in practice. That definitely helped having a better effort for qualifying. We had a good lap As it turns out it was a pretty good qualifying draw so we didn’t have to be a question mark if the rain was going to make the track better or worse. I don’t have an answer for that.

“I have to commend NASCAR and the racetrack or the combination of the two to get the track dried off in fairness to the whole field for the people who needed to qualify on speed. Mother Nature worked out for us getting a little sunlight and drying the track out pretty quick.. I was definitely a little bit nervous. I was sitting on the computer going through e-mail looking at old cars and old racecar parts and stuff like that.

“I think speed wise (the new tire) is maybe a tick slower, but it feels real good. I think the most we did was 24 laps in race trim, but the tire wear looks real good. This track always gets better as we go, as the rubber gets built up on the racetrack four or five grooves wide in the corners. It always gets better, and I’m looking forward to that.

“We talked about it after Charlotte. The pit selection here is more important than where you start the race. It’s easier to pass on the racetrack than it is on pit road. It’s very sensitive to losing spots on pit road because of how tight it is. Pit selection was very important. That led to our efforts to put a little more emphasis on qualifying based on what we’ve done this year. With the way the potential weather pattern is for tomorrow, not knowing if we’re going to get in race trim, we definitely had to do some race trim runs. We talked about it, more than we have the entire year about race trim versus qualifying trim. I think it paid off – great strategy.”

DAVID STREMME (No. 40 Lone Star Steakhouse Dodge Charger)

“We didn’t do anything different from practice. The track just loosened up that much. We’re going to run some Happy Hour stuff, so I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m disappointed. I thought we would have been better, but we’re in. We just didn’t stay on top of it and some other teams did.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

“We got real loose coming to the green, and I thought for sure we were going to wreck. I think the track just loosened up on everybody quite a bit. I just got on the gas early and kept getting looser. I almost lost it. I gathered my thoughts and got in a good second lap. We have to get better. We’ve got to step it up. We don’t have a choice. I’ve got my engineer Josh Brown with me now. He’s been with us the past three or four weeks, and he’s helped bridge that communication gap. I really feel confident with what he’s done and what he’s done with me in the past. We’re all working together well. It hasn’t shown yet. Last week we were better than where we finished. We had a spring collapse last week at Charlotte and it cost us some points, but I’m not worried about points now. We’ve just got to worry about making races now and getting high enough in the points not to miss them. I’m proud of these guys.

“I know if I had got my first lap we would have beat him (Ryan Newman). If we were just a tick tighter we would have been all right. This is my racetrack. I like it and Ryan likes it. It’ll probably be a good race for us Sunday.

“I’m not frustrated about the points anymore. I’ve over that. I’ve crossed the hump on being frustrated. It’s been a weird year for me. It’s been terrible. We keep hammering and you get tough. It’s like ‘bring it on. Is that all you’ve got?’ That’s our attitude right now. We had trouble in the all-star race and came back with a good car last week and had some trouble there. Hopefully we won’t have any trouble this week. If we don’t have any trouble we’ll have a good finish.

“I felt something going in the race (Coca-Cola 600). It made our car really tight. I thought a spring had collapsed on us, and that’s what happened. That’s what you’ve got. The springs we run these days can’t physically hold the car up. We had that trouble at Darlington and it cost us a lot there. We got it fixed. We’ve just got to not let that happen to us again.”

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Wells Fargo Dodge Charger)

“We didn’t do in qualifying runs in practice. We did everything in race trim. We were faster in race trim than qualifying trim. We were worried about rain, so we decided to get ready to race.”

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)

“We’re happy because it’s fastest so far, but we might get beat after awhile. This team is ready to go to work now. We had a bad Speedweeks in Charlotte. We were tight and loose. I’d just jumped out of my Busch car, so we’ll see how it holds up. It’d be nice if it would hold up. It would put a smile on everyone’s face. If the sun peaks through that would be nice.”

SCOTT RIGGS (No. 10 Valvoline/Stanley Tools Dodge Charger)

“We really haven’t put more emphasis on qualifying. We’re just trying to get our car driving well and get the most out of it we can. When you’ve got a car that can pass and go to the front, that’s when it’s fun. They’re using this Valvoline oil and lubing all the squeaky parts and using those Stanley tools to dial this car in. They’re doing a good job. Everyone has pulled together and they’ve got a good attitude. We were pretty bad in practice today, but nobody said anything about it. We knew we had to make some big changes and we’ll probably end up in mid pack. We were close to the 9 and 19 in practice. We were having the same kind of problems they were having. Ours was just a little more severe. We were different on some things, so we made wholesale changes. It’s not as good as we wanted to be, but it wasn’t next to last like it was in practice, either.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger)

“That wasn’t a perfect lap, but it was a good lap for our Alltel Dodge. I hope Mother Nature lets it hold up. Concrete race tracks don’t usually change that much, but I’m just glad we picked up from practice. I love the racetrack. It’s No. 2 to Darlington for me. We finally got to work on qualifying setup a little bit in practice instead of just race trim. It definitely paid off for us. Hopefully it’ll hold up. It’d be nice to start on the pole again. It’s been awhile.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger)

“It was way too loose, not even close. We were the same way in practice, so we’ve got some work to do.”