KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

NOTE: Kahne captured his fourth pole of the season, beating Jeff Gordon by a whisker.

“Our Dodge Charger was really good today. That was a great run, and we’ll be starting out front on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it. This will be a great track to keep those Chargers up front. It’s so close to Detroit. It should be a lot of fun. I was worried when Jeff Gordon went out. He always qualifies well and I’ve seen him get the pole here before. It ended up close, but we were able to get it. I was sweatin’ for sure. We were a little free in turn three and then I got right back in the throttle. It carried a lot of momentum and stayed right where I wanted it on the track. It was better than it was in practice. I was happy Kennis Francis and the guys made a few adjustments, and it went the right way. It was a good run for us. When you see the 24 going last and the 16 and 18 and a lot of good cars going late, but the track had stayed really close. I was hoping the sun wouldn’t go down or anything like that and it didn’t. It was really a pretty fair test for all of us. I was waiting on Jeff. It was maybe he will and maybe he won’t, but I was definitely nervous.”

THIS IS THE CHARGER YOU’VE WON WITH THREE TIMES THIS SEASON. WHY IS IT SO GOOD? “I don’t really know. They built it during the off season, the guys at Evernham Motorsports, and we’ve just had some great runs with it. We’ve been up and down in all of those races. We’ve probably fallen back to 20th or in that area in all of those races and fought our way back. It’s very sensitive to being off. You can get it off, but you can also get it right back. Small adjustments really work on the car. If you can keep it in that area, that good side of things, it’s fast. That’s what we’re looking for on Sunday. We should have a great starting spot, and we’ll just make fine-tune adjustments throughout the race and hopefully we’ll be there at the end and have a shot.”

HAVE YOU PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON QUALIFYING? “We really haven’t. We made one run today, one lap in qualifying trim during practice. We worked on our race setup the entire time and got the car comfortable. We wanted to keep working on it, but we ran out of time. We figured out the changes we needed to put us in the ballpark when it came to qualifying from where our car was in race trim. We made one run and ended up on top and ended up on top in qualifying. It’s a really good group of guys.”

COMMENT ON POINTS RACE “When I came into this season, I put down some things I was going to work on, and I gave it to the team. One of them was to bring home the cars in one piece and the other was communication with Kenny Francis and my guys on the team. So far we’ve been able to do a good job with that. We’ve been able to make the cars better every weekend and bring most of the cars home. If we keep doing that we should end up in the top 10. If we get sidetracked or I start wrecking cars, we’ll probably miss it. We’ll just keep trying to do the same things we’ve been doing.”

COMMENT ON ROAD COURSE RACING “I tested last week with Boris Said one day, and I feel like I learned some things. I feel like we can run in the top 15 and keep the car on the course. That will be the big thing. I don’t feel like personally I can go there and win the race. I don’t think that I’m good enough road course driver yet to do that, but I’ve made gains. I think we can finish in the top 15 and with a little luck maybe better than that. The key will be to keep it on the road and bring the car home in one piece.”

COMMENT ON YOUR CONFIDENCE IN THE TEAM “It goes back to preparation, and my team has done an awesome job ever since we hit on some things in off season testing. We’ve been able to fine tune and come back to them. I think the communication is there and as long as we keep doing that stuff we should keep showing up with great racecars.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger)

COMMENTS IMMEDIATELY AFTER QUALIFING RUN “That was a great lap. The guys made some pretty good adjustments to my Dodge Charger, and I’m happy with it. The track is pretty free, and I think everybody out here is battling that. We were able to put the throttle down a little harder than the other guys. Hopefully we can end up in the top five today and keep it up there all day Sunday. I think we can. It should be a fun race. We made some adjustments and the car was better than it was in practice. I hope it hangs on. I’d like to win another pole. We won two of the other poles with this car this season and it won all three races. It’s fast. We take it to the tracks we know it will carry some momentum on, and that’s what we need to do here. This is the first two-mile track it’s been on. We’ve had our ups and downs here, but it’s a good track for Evernham Motorsports.”

BOBBY LABONTE (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Charger)

“We were too loose. It had some really good grip in the front, but it was a little too loose in the rear. I think that will be good for the race. I felt like in practice we were loose, but we got better at it. To go that much faster and still be loose I didn’t think would be comfortable and it wasn’t, but I guess it rolled the center good enough, but I like a little more in the right front than that. I’ve been going back and forth between the Cup car and the truck today, and it’s been a long time since I’ve done that, so it got me a little out of sequence. It’s been a good day for us. We’ve got a good starting spot for Sunday.”

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

“We had a decent lap. I was hoping we could end up in the top 10, but I don’t think that’s going to quite make it. I thought we could pick up at least a tenth from practice, but the car was really loose. We’re on a different tire than the trucks are on, and that’s the biggest question in my mind. What does that do to the track? How does this rubber compare to that rubber? It was OK. This is a great track for racing because it is so wide and you can move around the track and find the right groove for your car. This is the same Charger we won the pole with at Charlotte, so hopefully we’ll be able to dial it in even better tomorrow.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger)

“From what I see we’ve got four flat tires. The tire guy showed me the tire belts and they were all zero. We just got loose. I was trying to push real hard. We did one qualifying run in practice. We weren’t that good, so we freed it up a little bit and I think we went too far with the things we changed. I look forward to getting it back in race trim. Matt (Borland) said we were .14 up (on pole speed) coming off turn two before I spun, so the speed was there. We’ll get it balanced out and keep me from spinning out. This is the best racetrack for passing cars and coming to the front. This is the best racetrack we come to all year as far as racing and getting three, four and five-wide in the corners and drafting down the straightaways. I look forward to the challenge, especially after going to Pocono and sticking it into the fence about the fourth lap, going to the back and running up through. That was a lot of fun there. There was a lot of luck saving the car, spinning at the right place and doing the right things. It was unfortunate. We saw Jimmie Johnson do it at Dover and that required half the luck his did. It was disappointing from the qualifying standpoint, but knowing we were up speedwise gives me something to look forward to Saturday and Sunday. The team is happy I didn’t tear up the car, but they could be a lot happier. Let’s just put it that way.”