BOWYER: “That was a good turnaround. Gil [Martin, crew chief] and all the guys did some homework and got a little bit better car for me. I know in practice I was fighting real, real loose and we got it better. I think that will be good for us.” YOU’VE BEEN A LITTLE BIT OFF IN RECENT WEEKS. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO RUN WELL HERE TODAY? “Oh, very important. Gil had a good meeting this week and got things turned around. We’ve had the speed, we’ve shown the promise; we just haven’t got the result. We have the speed. We have all the tools that it takes. It’s always the little things that bite you and unfortunately, it has been here lately. But we’re going to come back after them and get our ducks in a row here and get a couple good finishes in a row and get back in this thing.” HAS THE CAR BEEN LOOSE OR TIGHT TODAY? “It’s real loose and we’ve been loose since we got here but they’re getting it better and it will be all good.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “I’m ninth right now and I don’t know how many are left but that’s a good run. Junior was fifth and I thought I could run about what he did but I was just too loose. We’ve been fighting loose all day. We only got about four or five laps of practice because we came here with some experiments in the front end and it didn’t work so we took all that out and got about two or three laps of practice. We were loose every time we ran so the guys did a good job of throwing some stuff at it. We could have went further if we’d know but it was a good run for us.” DO YOU LIKE THIS PLACE? “I’ve always ran good here in the Busch car, but it’s a lot different this weekend. The track seems a lot slicker than it’s ever been and like I say, we’ve been fighting loose ever since we got here. That’s a big improvement right there. The guys did a good job and I’m looking forward to the race, as usual.” IS FORWARD BITE THE KEY HERE ON SUNDAY? “Forward bite is not really and issue on tracks like this where you’re going so fast. You just need to be able to turn the wheel. I was loose all the way through the corner and you lose so much time when you can’t get back to the gas. So that’s what we fought, not being able to run low enough and keep the wheel on the car. It was just too loose. I had to really baby it around and it ran what it ran.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: “It wasn’t bad. Thankfully Steve [Addington, crew chief] and the guys tightened the car up a bunch from our previous qualifying attempt. I got through 1 and 2 really, really good and was kind of excited going down the back straightaway. Just as I rolled into 3 I started turning the wheel and the car got a little bit free. It was nothing major but it was enough that kept me from turning the wheel and picking up the throttle and trying to get that momentum to the checkered flag. All in all, a pretty decent run. This is one of my favorite racetracks of all the places so I definitely want to do good here. It was just a little it free and I know that originally when we drew that there might be some kind of advantage maybe to going out late. But with most of these cars doing only one lap, qualifying didn’t take nearly as long as it probably should have at this place. I’m not so sure that the track temp might have been a little bit cooler for the first cars than what it was here in the afternoon. I know it normally gets hotter up until about 4:30 or 5 o’clock. No advantage going out late, just a little bit too free.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET DODGE: “We were loose all day but got a lot better. We were really, really loose in practice. We did a bunch of stuff and it got a lot better. I think I could have went faster if I had known that it was going to be there. I was just so worried about it being loose. It was actually really good. I think we could have done a little better than that if we had maybe got it like that at the end of practice so I could tell what it would drive like but it was a lot better. As fast as you go here it’s not really fun to be that loose.”

GIL MARTIN, CREW CHIEF, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “Circumstances have bitten us the last couple of weeks. Last week, having the mud thrown on us right there, that kind of hurt us at the end of the race. We’ve actually run really, really well the last three weeks. Our finish hasn’t been indicative of how we’ve run because we’ve been pretty strong every week. We’ve just got to put our finishes together. To finish up front you’ve got to start up front so we accomplished that much this week. Hopefully we can continue on and we’ll finish up front when the weekend is over.” HOW IMPORTANT IS QUALIFYING WELL HERE AT MICHIGAN? “I think it’s important anywhere we go now. When you’ve got a good racecar, you can come from the rear and get to the top-15 but it’s hard to break through from right there. I think starting up front you can be a little bit more conservative on some of your pit calls. You don’t have to gamble so much and you can run with the leaders all day long. It’s important everywhere you go and especially here.” WITH CLINT RUNNING THE CUP AND BUSCH SCHEDULES, HAS THAT PUT MORE EMPHASIS ON YOU GUYS TO BE WELL PREPARED? “As far as preparation, we haven’t changed anything. The cars are prepared the same and our plan is the same. I think on his part, he’s got to really sit down and focus on what he’s doing because of the travel and the cars and going back and forth. And we do a lot of communicating back and forth even with the Busch guys, wherever they are. I think it’s going really well. Will Lind has done a great job from the Busch shop as far as getting it prepared. He did it three years ago with Harvick and so because of that we learned a lot and we were successful doing it. We’re really going to be looking forward to this double duty because I think we’re prepared for it.”