HAMLIN: “It’s a good run for us. Every time we got loose we went backwards so I just told them to tighten the heck out of it for that last run and it was just too much. It would be better to maintain our position than go backwards because we were too loose. I had good car there towards the middle of the race and thought we had a winning car. At the end of the long runs we were one of the best cars. We missed on it just a little bit but the whole FedEx Chevrolet team was great. In the pits everybody did their job. We just executed today. We did what we had to do to get another top-10. We’re on a roll.” IT LOOKED LIKE ONCE YOU GOT IN CLEAN AIR THE CAR TOOK OFF BUT IF YOU WERE IN TRAFFIC YOU HAD YOUR HANDS FULL. “It’s just part of it. It just seems like whoever could get our front could just take off, other than the 9 car. He could pass. It’s so hard to pass out here because the tires are so hard everybody is just running the same speed. Hopefully when this track ages a little bit and hopefully we come back with a little softer tire and we can have a little bit better race.” HOW WAS YOUR FIRST 600-MILE RACE? WAS IT AS TOUGH AS EVERYBODY SAYS? “It is. About the 550 mile mark I was like ‘You know, I feel pretty good’ and the next thing you know, with a few laps to go, I’m like ‘Man, this thing can’t end fast enough.’ I’ve got great trainers in Joe Gibbs Racing. They stretched me out, I had a lot of fluids and I was ready to go all day.” DID THE TIRES GIVE YOU ANY TROUBLE? “No, we didn’t really have any tire problems. It’s just that they’re so hard it’s so hard to pass. There wasn’t a lot of passing out there because you have a single-groove racetrack anyway and then you go add hard tires and it just makes it really, really hard. Your car has to be exceptionally better. With age this track is going to get better.” DID THE CAR DRIVE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT WHEN YOU WOULD CHANGE TWO TIRES VERSUS FOUR OR WHEN YOU TOOK GAS ONLY? “It seemed like every gas-and-go we did the car got a little bit tighter than it did the previous runs. We were really, really loose on new tires and that’s where we’d lose most of our ground. Luckily we had a long run there at the end and that’s what we needed and we were able to get our third straight top-10.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “I’m real happy. It was a long day. We had a lot of ups and downs and had to fight to get our lap back there when we pitted under green and got caught in the pits when the yellow came out. That was nice to be able to stay out in front of the leader there. We finally got our car right there at the end. We had some problems with the right front jack bolt coming out and finally got it right at the end. The last 100 miles the car was really good.” HOW MENTALLY TOUGH WAS IT TO MAKE ALL THOSE PIT STOPS AND NOT SPEED ON PIT ROAD? “Usually I’m pretty good about that. I don’t take a lot of chances. Some places I do, but tonight we just tried to take the conservative route.” HOW BIG IS IT TO HAVE A GOOD RUN HERE? “To be 11th at Darlington and 10th here, it’s a lot of momentum. We needed top-10s to get going here and got 11th and 10th so that’s pretty close. This is my first 600 and I felt like we did a pretty good job.” COULD YOU TELL THAT THIS RACE WAS MORE PHYSICALLY DEMANDING? “Yes, a little bit. I think that Darlington was probably the worst, though.”

MIKE FORD, CREW CHIEF, No. 11 FEDEX FREIGHT CHEVROLET: “We’re pretty happy with a top-10. We went both side of the fence during the race. We moved forward and moved back. Ninth is about middle of the road for where we were most of the night so we’re happy to finish there and get a top-10 with Denny here for his first time in the 600. It’s a long race and I think we have something to grow on.” DID YOU TRY A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING TONIGHT FROM FOUR TIRES TO TWO TIRES TO GAS-AND-GO? “We never did two tires. We did no tires and four tires were our changes. We never tried two. It depended on where you were on the track as to what worked. We learned some of that the hard way, what didn’t work. We seemed gathered up at the end and we were moving back forward so it was a good night.” WAS THIS A DIFFICULT RACE FOR YOU AS A CREW CHIEF TO CALL? “Absolutely. It was the most difficult race I’ve had in a long time to call. It takes you back to the day where we ran had tires all the time and you had two tires, four tires scenarios and then the small fuel cell made it easier in some ways because you know if the caution came out you’re coming for fuel and you just had to make your mind up on what you wanted to do with tires. So in one aspect it made it more difficult but in another it made it easy.” HOW CRITICAL WAS TRACK POSITION? “When we were running there in the top-five we could do no wrong but get back in traffic, 10th, 11th or 12th, you could do no right. Track position was very critical. A lot of lap time involved with good track position.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO RUN WELL IN THE 600? “It’s always a boost when you can run in the top-10 with a Raybestos Rookie the first time in the 600. As long as this race is, it’s a confidence builder knowing that you can run the long races and still not fall off at the end. I’m very confident in that and we’ve got another long, hard race next week at Dover. That’s going to difficult for us and Pocono is coming up where Denny has never run before. We’ve got a couple hard weeks coming up. Not that this was an easy week but we know that in the hard weeks we can still get top-10s. We’re looking forward to the summer months. It’s my favorite time of the year. You get your races at Indy, Pocono, and Michigan, the high-speed stuff. It should be interesting.”

HAMLIN PRESS CONFERENCE
“We were pretty good when we were out front. Kasey went by us, but after he went by us we were able to maintain with him. But as soon as we got back further than about third position our car just pushed real bad. Then we would loosen it up and I’d be so loose that we were losing a second a lap we were so slow. I just told them to tighten the crap out of it for that last stop and hopefully we would just maintain where we were at. Don’t worry about gaining any positions; let’s just worry about not losing any. This is three straight top-10s for this team and it’s pretty good. We’re knocking on the door for a top-10 and getting in that Chase.”