KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH MONTE CARLO - Qualified 3rd:

This is a lot of fun. I used to race Southwest Tour cars and Winston West cars and ran here a lot. It's nice to come here every year see some people you haven't seen before and have a lot of fun. Our GM Goodwrench Chevrolet has been good since we unloaded and had a good lap there, and that usually goes a long ways on Sunday.

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 11th:

"I was real, real loose and I was just trying to carry as much speed as I could. I'd given up quite a bit through the whole lap and was trying not to give too much more up. I got a little sideways coming down the hill out of the esses and I didn't think I was going to go that wide. It went wider and I got into the dirt. Instead of turning away from it, I turned into it and we took all four into the grass and then just brought it home. Real, real unfortunate for these guys on the DuPont Chevrolet, they gave me a good car. I wasn't trying to set a blistering speed but I didn't hold up my part of the deal, and I'm a little disappointed right now."

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 7 MENARDS MONTE CARLO - Qualified 14th:

"Obviously we're a little disappointed. We thought we had a legitimate shot at the pole. We had no grip compared to where we were in practice. The only thing I can point to is the West cars that run with a different tire, and the luck of the draw, drawing No. 2. I'm not making excuses. We'll go work on our car for tomorrow during Happy Hour. I'm confident we'll get a handle on it for the race, but I'm a little disappointed in qualifying."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 26th:

"That's not the best lap in the world obviously, but from where we were earlier in the day, we were struggling really bad. We had some front-end geometry stuff we had never tested before and it took the whole practice to get that off the car, so we didn't get a chance to practice a lot. We went back to what we had last year and just went out there and ran a decent lap and tried not to make any mistakes. I left a lot out there in the corners, getting in and getting off the corners. I didn't know what I had. Not a bad lap, we just need to pick up about half a second to be where we were last year at this track. We were really fast last year and really happy with the car. I think by tomorrow we will have done that.

"This track definitely hasn't given me the results that I anticipated. We had a really fast car last year and I was anticipating running in the top 10, maybe the top five - and I broke a transmission on the first lap. The year before that we were a top-10 car. I just need to not make any mistakes. I think I've wrecked a lot here and made a lot of stupid mistakes. You're so nervous about getting run over from behind you overdrive every corner to keep that from happening, and a lot of times wreck yourself. That's sort of the thing I've fought."

POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE:
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH MONTE CARLO QUALIFIES 3RD:

ON HIS RUN It was a good run, obviously. The car has been good since we unloaded it. It's hard to qualify here just for the fact that you don't really know. Last year we under drove it and this year we probably over drove it a little bit. It's a fine line. But I enjoy coming here and have a lot of fun and I enjoy road racing.

DID THE TRACK GET BETTER TOWARD THE END OF THE DAY? I think the track definitely got better. As the session went on and as hot as it was today -- this place is pretty weather-sensitive -- in the mornings and the evenings it seems to be a little better. Usually we don't qualify like that. Usually they wait and try to make it as fair for everybody as possible. I think the guys at the beginning probably suffered a little bit.

DOES THIS QUALIFYING EFFORT CHANGE YOUR PLAN FOR TOMORROW? HOW MUCH PRACTICE TIME WILL YOU PUT IN TOMORROW? We're going to practice the first session. You sound like Clint Bowyer -- he was trying to talk us into staying for the second session tomorrow (laughs). We made a plan a couple weeks back and looked at all the schedules and it's just going to be better to stick to our plan. We'll run the first session and as soon as it's over, we'll head out. That gives us some time in case we have some problems.

HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR CAR WILL RUN ON SUNDAY? I know just by watching practice, that this place is going to be slick. This place is pretty notorious for getting slicker as the weekend goes forward. That's our main focus is to make sure that the car goes straight and to work on forward bite.

ON DAVID GILLILAND'S BUSCH WIN AND MAKING THE CUP RACE HERE: All I would tell him is to ride the wave and enjoy it. They've run a few races and have done a good job every week, pretty much, that they've been in a race. They've had trouble in the pits or a few things go wrong, but nobody has really paid attention -- that wasn't the first time that they'd run good. They've done a good job with the stuff they have. They have a good group of people over there working on the car. To do what they did last week is great for the sport and for David --- just for the fact to know what he did growing up and that he came from the west coast and worked on his own cars and crew chiefed his dad's car and did a lot of things out here. So it's great to see and hopefully he can take it further.

ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT KURT BUSCH TOOK THE POLE AND THAT THE TWO FAVORITES, TONY STEWART AND JEFF GORDON, WERE NOT UP THERE CLOSER TO THE FRONT? I don't think so. We went to VIR and tested and he (Kurt Busch) was a second faster than everybody there. His car was really good there and we knew coming out here that his car was going to be fast. Rusty always ran really well on the road courses and I think with the guys they have working on those cars that the crew chiefs are a little bit more road-course educated than a lot of guys in the garage.

IS THERE A REASON WHY WE'RE SEEING MORE WEST COAST DRIVERS IN THE SPORT? I think there are a lot of good racers out here and it seems like an untapped market and I think there is that group of guys who are 25 - 30 who kind of got overlooked when all the 18 and 19 year-old guys were coming up through there and there's been that gap. Now, it's that generation right there of age group and I think the owners are taking notice because there is such a short amount of good drivers. There seems like there are more good cars than drivers it seems like. That generation and age group is looked at now.

AS A VETERAN OF THE WEST SERIES, WOULD YOU RATHER BE RACING OUT HERE TOMORROW THAN GOING TO THE BUSCH RACE? I'd be out there if I didn't have to go to Milwaukee. Next year, if they run them out here, we'll run the race.