KEN SCHRADER – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (qualified 21st) – PRETTY GOOD FRIDAY, SO FAR? “We’ve had worse. It’s been fun, but we don’t need it to get cooler, but it will. We need to draw a number someday.” THE LAST FEW WEEKS THERE HAS BEEN A MARKED IMPROVEMENT WITH THIS TEAM. IS IT A CASE THAT THE TEAM IS STARTING TO FIND ITS STRIDE? IS IT ANYTHING TO WHICH YOU CAN POINT? “A lot of it goes back to a really good Indianapolis test. A lot of stuff that David Hyder (former crew chief) did up there, and then the switching we did. Fatback (McSwain, new crew chief), he’s been a pleasure to work with so far. It’s been fun. It’s been a big improvement. There’s not any one reason, I think. Our Indy test is the biggest thing.” IS THIS A SPORT WHERE YOU CAN BUILD MOMENTUM FROM WEEK TO WEEK? “Most definitely, if I didn’t hurt us too bad last week at Watkins Glen, yeah.”

DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 M&M’s Dark Ford Fusion (qualified 26th) – “It’s a dream come true. After we won that race at Kentucky, a lot of great opportunities came our way, and we just kind of took our time and sorted through them and this was an opportunity that I definitely couldn’t pass up – M&M’s as a sponsor, they’ve been the sport a long time, they’re looking to be in the sport a long time, which is very important to me. It’s a fun sponsor, I’ve got kids, it’s just a great fit. And Robert Yates Racing, they’re a championship team, they have what it takes to win races. And bringing Todd Parrott back here, too, he’s a champion and that’s what I want to be, so I’m going to surround myself with as much champions as I can and try to be like them one day.” HOW WAS THE LAP? “It was loose. It was loose in the center at both ends, but we still ran a 39.10, which isn’t bad, but we had to wait a long time to get back on the gas. It’s good, you know what I mean? It’s my first time, so we’re learning. We’re not going to be last, it looks like, so we’re excited, we’re really excited. Looking to have a great weekend.” YOU WERE NEAR THE TOP DURING PRACTICE AND RAN A NEARLY INDENTICAL TIME DURING QUALIFYING. HOW IMPORTANT WAS THAT? “Very important. It’s very important for M&M’s as well as Robert Yates. I know that they’re going to get a lot of criticism for picking me as their driver, kind of an unknown, everybody’s got their opinions on everything, and hopefully this will help back up some of their feeling on why they picked me and their belief in me. It’s real exciting. It’s meant a lot to me to have those guys behind me as much as they’ve been, and to have M&M’s sign up through next year, to be behind me, to drive their cars, is a dream come true. I’m just looking to try and make everybody proud.” FOR YOU, HOW SOON WILL SUNDAY, AND YOUR FIRST RACE WITH THIS TEAM, GET HERE? “I am really looking forward to it. It’s something that I’ve worked and dedicated my whole life to is racing and trying to make it to the Nextel Cup level, and we’re here now and we’re going to give it all we can and hopefully put together some good finishes. I haven’t run races this long, so it’ s going to be a little bit different, but just looking to learn – that’s what I’m here to do. I couldn’t ask for a better teacher in Todd Parrott and Doug Yates and everybody over here.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Subway Ford Fusion (qualified 6th) – “It was a really good lap for us. I didn’t think it was going to be that good after I went across one and two, felt like I left a little bit there. I made kind of a mistake, I got a little high coming off of two. I have to go back and watch the tape and see where I could have improved a little bit. But overall we were really happy with that. That was a great lap for us.”

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (qualified 3rd) – “It was a great lap, the track was in really good shape when we were there, the clouds were out, so if we can get the sun out we might have a shot to hang on. It was a great lap, they made great adjustments and we picked up a lot of speed. So, the car did was it was supposed to do and the engine did more than it was supposed to – these engines that Doug Yates and them guys are doing are running really great.” BECAUSE THERE ARE A NUMBER OF GROOVES HERE AT MICHIGAN, IS STARTING UP TOWARDS THE FRONT LESS IMPORTANT AS FAR AS THE RACE IS CONCERNED? “I don’t think it’s ever less of an advantage to start out front. Certainly, this is one of the better places we race at as far as running the race in different grooves and being able to pass, so it doesn’t really matter in 400 laps where you start, unless there’s no cautions, and really, in this day and age you know there’s going to be a caution. You always used to worry about not starting up front here because it would go green sometimes. But it’s easy to pass here, it’s always fun to start up front and this should get us pretty close.”

TODD KLUEVER – No. 06 3M Ford Fusion (qualified 38th) – THE FIRST LAP JUST GOT YOU INTO THE FIELD, AND THE SECOND ONE LOCKED YOU IN. WHO MADE THE DECISION TO RUN A SECOND LAP? “Frankie (Stoddard, crew chief) told me on the radio, he said, ‘I’m going to tell you on the first lap if you’re in for sure, and if not you got to do another one.’ I heard him say .53 on the first one and I knew I had to run a .51 to be locked in the show. I tried, just a little bit more and thank God it worked out. What a nightmare day for my guys. I crashed the primary car right at the and of practice. They had to switch motors, pull out a car. This is a car that’s got a different chassis construction. The body’s not updated. Man, we really didn’t know what we had. I’ve never even sat in this car. They put one of my seats in it and I never even got a chance to sit in it to make sure it was right. But I can’t say enough about those guys. Some of the guys from the Wood team, Len Wood was over and helped us change motors in the car and Mike Messik and all these guys at the Roush-Yates engine shop were over there digging and all my guys on my 3M team, man, I can’t thank them enough.” EVEN MAKING IT DIFFICULT TODAY, YOU’RE NOW 2 FOR 2 IN MAKING CUP RACES. EVERYBODY EXPECTS THEY’RE GOING TO BE SUCCESSFUL, BUT CAN YOU PUT IN PERSPECTIVE WHAT YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED IN MAKING YOUR FIRST TWO CUP RACES? “It’s so tough. Honestly, coming into doing this, I didn’t think it was going to be as tough as it is. It’s so tough to come here, because you have no points, you’re the last one to get through tech, so that automatically cuts 10 or 15 minutes out of your practice – no matter how good your car gets through tech, just because there’snot enough time. Then you go out and the first lap you turn is in qualifying trim. There’s no time to be in race mode and set-up and then put in the qualifying trim. Luckily today I got to run my Busch car first or I would’ve come here cold turkey and tried to run a qualifying lap right away. It is so tough. I can’t even stress how tough – it’s way tougher than what I expected coming into this situation, that’s for sure. But I couldn’t be more proud of my guys. Like I said, we had one car that the 6 guys built for us and that’s the one I crashed earlier today. This is one that Carl’s team gave us just to have as a backup. I’m actually excited – we’ve got some new cars coming. We’re going to get back that car that Boris ran at Indy, and that’s going to be one of my cars. So I’m really excited, that was a brand-new car. We’ve got some new stuff coming. All in all, we’re two for two and this is just learning, man, this is just me trying to gain as much experience as I can. I made a mistake at Chicago that put us behind, but I’m a little bit smarter this time and hopefully we can have just a good solid race.”

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion -- TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN OUT THERE. “It was good. I thought we got everything out of it that I could. I was just off maybe a hair in one and two but certainly not enough to run what Jeff Burton, the qualifying fool ran. There’s no way I could have ran that. It was a good lap; I don’t know, I don’t think I could have ran what Elliott [Sadler] ran. I got everything I could out of it. The adjustments we made to the car were right. The motor is running awesome this weekend, and I’m pretty encouraged. The car is driving good. This has been our good car all year and I killed it in Chicago in the last lap and we fixed it and you never know if it is going to be the same and so far it’s driving good, so that makes me have hope.”

WHEN ELLIOTT KNOCKED YOU OFF THE POLE, WERE YOU KIND OF SCRATCHING YOUR HEAD SAYING ‘COME ON, THIS IS ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?’ “No, I mean I honestly thought that we were going to get beat by a couple cars. The track, when it was cloudy, was pretty fast and we caught a cloud right before we went out and Elliott went out early this morning and it was the first lap ever in that car and he was on top of the sheet by a lot, so I knew he was going to be one of the cars. Honestly, I really did think that the 31, the 19, 29, 48 and them guys going out later probably had a shot. I mean I had a really good lap, but if they had the car just a little better, I thought we could get beat. We picked up nine-tenths of a second from practice and some of our guys were a little closer on their mark up and were probably going to get a little more out of there cars. It didn’t really surprise me that much, I was hoping to hang on, but it didn’t surprise me that someone went faster.”

YOU TRADITIONALLY RACE BETTER THAN YOU QUALIFY. HOW DOES A GOOD QUALIFY TRANSLATE TO THE RACE? DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING? “You know it’s always good to start up front. It’s hard to find a disadvantage about it. But one thing that’s a little more difficult sometimes for me when we start up front is to stay on top of your race car the whole day and keep adjusting your car and stay on top of the track. Because sometimes if you’re out front and your car is good enough to lead, there might be a guy running towards the back a little farther that keeps adjusting his car better and comparing to the leader. If you happen to be up front and get your car running good, sometimes you can get caught up not adjusting it enough because if you think your leading or running second or third you’re judging everybody, but sometimes you’re not. Sometimes there’s a sleeper back in the pack and we’re kind of used to coming from the middle or the back and kind of adjusting our car and working all day. So that’s just one thing that we’ve got to stay on top of. You know, your car works even if your not the leader, if you’re in second, third or fourth or fifth, your car will work a lot different up there being up there in relatively clean air than it will in 20th. So that’s always a little bit concern if you get yourself behind, you’re car might not be adjusted to get through traffic.”

WHAT’S IT TAKE TO WIN ONE OF THESE RACES? “Well I’ve been really happy this season. We certainly could have won more races. We’ve been in the position to win more races. I’m thankful that we’ve won a couple of them. At least two of them, three of them we came up short, we were leading with five to go and we didn’t have the best car at the end and that’s what got us into that situation. We’ve had cars run us down in three of them races and we ended up getting beat in all three of ’em. We’ve just got to get our stuff; our stuff has been really good on the short runs sometimes when we’ve been out front, but it slows down at the end of the run. That’s what kind of bit us in those races. I feel like our luck has been pretty even this year. I don’t think we’ve had extremely good luck and I don’t think that we’ve had extremely bad luck. I think it’s been pretty even and I’m pretty happy with the season. It feels good to come here and be competitive, we just ran competitively at Indy and hopefully we can run good these next three races and get some momentum going for the final 10.”

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. YOU CAME IN HERE LAST YEAR FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE TRYING TO GET INTO THE CHASE AND THIS YEAR YOU’RE IN A MUCH BETTER POSITION. HOW DOES THAT CHANGE THE WAY YOU DRIVE, THE STRESS LEVEL YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH. IS IT A WELCOME RELIEF COMPARED TO WHAT YOU WERE GOING THROUGH A YEAR AGO? “Yes and no. Honestly it’s not a lot different. Maybe a little more relaxed knowing there are only a few races to go and we’re pretty good in the points to where if we had a mechanical failure or had something go wrong, we would probably still be okay to get in. I’m just a big believer in momentum and being running good and we approach every race the same. You know, really, honestly no matter where we are in the points and what’s going on, we want to go out and try and lead laps and be competitive and try to figure out a way to win. And that would be our goal right now if we were 14th in points or if we were first in points. We would be trying to do the same thing and figure out how to win some of these things.”

IF YOU HAD TO GIVE ADVICE TO KASEY OR GREG OR KURT AS THEY ARE ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN WITH FOUR RACES TO GO, WHAT COULD YOU TELL THEM FROM WHAT YOU LEARNED LAST YEAR THAT MIGHT HELP THEM GET THEMSELVES INTO THE CHASE THIS YEAR? “I mean really I just said it. You just can’t do anything different. You can only try as hard as you can. There’s been times in my career during races where I tried harder than that and the end result is never good. You’re already doing everything you can and if your car is not that good that day and you’re running eighth and if that’s all you can do, then that’s all you can do. When you try to do more than that is when you have a disastrous finish. That’s when you have the big mistake or have the wreck or have whatever happens because you went over the edge. You just have to do whatever your equipment will give you and get the best finish you can and hope for the best. You’ve just got to run as hard as you can run.”