SORENSON: “I think we had a pretty good car throughout the day. We had a horrible car in practice and made a lot of changes this morning. It was a good top-10 car, I think. There at the end we were either running 10th or 11th, I think. We didn’t cheat our way up there or do anything like that. We raced up there. We were running 11th I think and we pitted and took two tires. We started out first and was hoping that the rain would come.”

SORENSON PRESS CONFERENCE:

“We had a pretty good car overall. We were horrible in practice and had a decent qualifying run and made a lot of changes to the car this morning and got it a lot better. I think right before we did that two-tire stop at the end we were running 11th. Obviously you take two tires at the end hoping that the rain would come and take a chance on getting a top-five and it worked out pretty good for us.” WHAT DOES A TOP-FIVE DO FOR YOUR TEAM? “When we took the two tires and went out we didn’t really plan on winning it. We planned on running at least 10 laps there holding them off what we could. We’ve had a 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th this year and I haven’t gotten that top-five yet so it’s a good run for us. It’s nice to get our points and get the car up front. We had a good car today. That was the main thing.” DOES IT AMAZE YOU HOW FAR YOU’VE COME IN SUCH A SHORT TIME? “Definitely. Obviously, last year was my Raybestos Rookie season in a Busch car and didn’t really plan on moving up this soon but that’s what we had to do. We’re just trying to make the best of it right now and everything is going pretty good. The Cup car has been pretty consistent everywhere we’ve been and we’re getting better every weekend. We’re pretty happy with the way things are going.” WAS FATIGUE A FACTOR IN THE BUSCH RACE LAST NIGHT AND INTO TODAY FOR YOU? WHEN YOU HAVE TO FLY BACK AND FORTH DOES THAT WEAR ON YOU? “No. I mean I feel pretty good. Every time I’ve gone back and forth it’s been pretty easy the way they handle the flights and everything like that. I got plenty of sleep every night so it hasn’t been too bad.”

JIMMY ELLEDGE, CREW CHIEF, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “It was awesome. We didn’t really have a good car in practice but made a lot of changes on it last night. We had a good car today. If it had went the distance and everybody was all out of sequence trying to get to lap 100 so I think that’s why you’ve seen the field jumbled around. Dang, I just wish we’d have caught that rain about maybe five, six or seven minutes sooner we maybe would have won the race. But still, a top-five is awesome. That’s really what we need to start getting some momentum and get rolling.” WAS THIS A DIFFICULT TO CALL, RACING THE COMPETITION AND THE THREAT OF RAIN? “I just tried to make sure that I kept my mindset on keeping and eye on the radar. I told myself coming in here that I hadn’t been doing a very good job of calling these races as far as being aggressive enough. I made my mind up before I got here that I was going to do what I had to do to be aggressive and get our car up to the front. I just tried to do that and stay focused on the weather and when it was coming and lap 100. It worked out good. Everybody did a good job. I still think we had a good car. It wasn’t like we finish fifth by default. I think we still had a top-10 car today.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 LONESTAR STEAKHOUSE DODGE: “That’s not bad. We were a lot better than where we ended up but it could have been worse, it could have been better. The biggest thing is for the organization we made a lot of improvements throughout this weekend. We keep doing that we’ll get a lot better.” WAS TODAY ANOTHER SMALL BUILDING BLOCK FOR THE TEAM? “This was pretty big today for a lot of us. I thought things were pretty good. It was definitely a lot better. We’ll keep working on stuff and see where we end up and go to Milwaukee.” DID YOU BUILD UP YOUR CONFIDENCE A LITTLE BIT TODAY? “Oh yeah. Like I said, we were better than at least six or seven cars in front of me. We could have ended up with a good top-15, top-10 even. We just needed long runs and it wasn’t happening today.”

DENNY HAMLIN, FEDEX EXPRESS CHEVROLET: “If you would have told me we could leave with a 12th-place finish this morning I would have took it in a second. We fell back there to the 20s. We were just struggling with the car and we had just got our car dialed in there on that very last run. We were coming to the front and I felt like we had a sixth, seventh-place car. We got to 12th and that’s all we could do in the time that we had.” COULD YOU HAVE MADE THE CAR BETTER IF THE RACE HAD GONE THE FULL DISTANCE? “Oh yeah. I really think we had a to-10 car. It seemed like Mike [Ford, crew chief] just kept making the car better and better every single run. It’s just one of those things. But it is a solid run for us. We didn’t get caught in the pits with it raining or anything like that. I’m very proud of the whole crew. They did a good job. We’ll take 12th and head to Sonoma.” DID YOU EVER KNOW THERE WAS A THREAT OF RAIN? “I didn’t know that it was so close. I knew it was close. They said it was a few miles out but I didn’t realize that it was that close. Had we known, of course we would have took two tires or something like Reed and those guys did. It’s just one of those things where we couldn’t afford to gamble. We had to make the smart move and take four tires and luckily we were able to drive up to 12th. I’m still proud with that 12th-place finish.” WHEN YOU THINK THE RACE WILL NOT RUN THE FULL DISTANCE, DOES THAT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON YOU TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION ON EVERY STOP? “You don’t know what to do because if you make the wrong decisions it’s going to end up burning you late in the race. On the other hand, had we gone back green, the 41 car was in bad, bad shape. They made the right call and we didn’t. It’s one of those deals where not everything can work out just right. But still, it’s a great run.”

KEVIN MANION, CREW CHIEF, No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “We had good track position and could hold our own. Actually the best that the car was there, of course, was right at the end for us. We were catching the 5 and the 12 and we just passed the 25 and the caution come out. We finally got some grip in it. We were too loose at the start and then we got it too tight and then we got it about right and then the rain came. For sure we would have liked to have run the whole thing. We kind of knew the rain was coming but, how long has it been here and the sun is out. I’m not sure what the 41 did but they come out with the lead there and for sure if we would have done that it would have went green to the end and we would have been three laps down [laughs]. We played it safe and took four tires and gas and come out 18th and drove up to 16th the few laps that we ran. All in all, I’m fairly happy with it. Our teammate ran third so we’ve still got some improving to do. We get the same opportunity they get to run. We get the same motors, same chassis so we’ve still got some improving to do but I’m pretty happy with it.”