KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) – Finished 2nd, 17th in points, 177 out of 10th

“It was definitely an interesting day to race today with the cool temperatures. My car didn’t seem to run good at the beginning, but it didn’t seem to fall off at the end, so a nice, solid pace all day. We didn’t pass many cars because they kept me out front most of the day. The last stop was a 12.3, 13-second stops all day. They turned a top-five car into a second-place finish. It was tough to compete with Denny (Hamlin). He was good. He was solid. He even had a problem and came back from all of that, so congratulations to him. That was sweet to see. I think the moral of the story is we need to play more video games. He was fast, and he took it to us. We’re happy with our Miller Lite Dodge. We finished second. All our associate sponsors, a great group of people here in Pennsylvania were with us. We’ll take this type of setup and things we learned, because we had some different things in the car today, to Michigan next week and see how we do there.”

COMMENT ON FINAL GREEN-FLAG RESTART “We knew it was going to be a five-lap sprint to the end and the first lap was going to be to see who could slide through the dirt the best. I’ve got Stewart behind me and he’s probably the best dirt track racer in the group. Denny Hamlin, a Cowboy in front of me. He’s going to go for it. I hope I can stick and make it through. Sure enough the track was fine. NASCAR did a good job getting the green in and race to the end. That’s what the fans want to see. That’s what it’s all about. I didn’t have much for him. I knew we were good enough to finish second and hold Tony off. Any longer and these guys would have got us.”

WHAT DOES THIS FINISH MEAN TO THE TEAM? “We had a good weekend. I really enjoy racing at Pocono. We had solid practices, and I was bummed we didn’t quite get the pole, but now I feel better about it. Denny definitely had the car that was capable of sitting on the pole and winning the race, and we were second best to him. That’s more of a win for our group because of our recent struggles up and down. I finished 16th last week. We struggled at Charlotte with that real hard tire. This was a nice, solid car. It turned when I needed it to. It stuck with the rear end when I needed it to. We changed a couple of things in it, and we’ll just take that to Michigan and see how we do. These are two good tracks to try to get ourselves back on track. I really enjoy running at Sonoma. I finished third there last year. The 400 at Daytona is any man’s race and we feel like we’ve got solid restrictor plate cars. We’ve got a good stretch of tracks coming up, and I really hope we’re able to put some impact in as far as our finish to gain some points.”

CAN YOU BUILD ON THIS FINISH? “I think it builds a solid foundation in being able to know the team put me back out front when we came in leading. They felt that adrenalin of running up front. This is a whole new group of guys, a new crew chief, everybody over the wall is in different spots. We might have one guy the same. Just to have that overall feeling to know we can do it… We won at Bristol earlier this year.

We’ve been on poles before. We’ve just had a string of bad luck, initiated by cars not handling well. Then you put yourself in position in the back where things happen. This is a nice, solid run. Some of the setup we learned today and this whole weekend will help us at Michigan. We tested at VIR. We felt like we were fast. I just think it’s a great group of tracks coming up for us. I’ve always struggled in May if you look at the history. I’ve won at Richmond. I’ve done well at Charlotte, but just in May it’s a tough month. Now we’re back in June and we’re ready to rock ‘n roll.”

DOES RUNNING WELL AT POCONO IN JULY MEAN YOU’LL BE FAST AT INDY? “I won the July race here last year, and I’m like ‘I’m on it. I’m ready for Indy.’ Everybody says you do good at Pocono you’re ready to rip at Indy. I think I finished 18th, just hanging on. The setups seem to be very different of late. A few years ago that worked, but I think recently things have changed so dramatically from track to track. If you get dialed in at Pocono it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed of a good, solid finish at Indy. Indy is its own animal. It’s very different. It’s a dream come true for a guy like Tony to win there, as well as all the rest of us. We put that much emphasis and we hope we can do well this time around. It doesn’t hurt if we do good here, but I don’t think it’s the key at Indy.”

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger) – Finished 7th, moved up to 5th in points, 279 behind leader

“We had a good comeback, but we just had to battle all day. We never could hit on it. We were tight and loose, tight and loose and then tight and loose and never hit on it. Then we had that flat right rear and lost a lot of ground. We had one run that was awesome. We were the fastest car on the track, but then that was it. I think the tires changed a lot throughout the day. The tires were different and we never figured them out. I thought we could run 10th (after starting 14th on final restart). I didn’t think we could run seventh, but that was a good deal.”

SCOTT RIGGS (No. 10 Valvoline/Stanley Tools Dodge Charger) – Finished 8th, moved up four spots to 21st in standings, 277 out of 10th

“We had to overcome a pretty bad handling racecar in the beginning. I got into Casey Mears in the beginning. I really apologize to him. We got into him just being too loose and took him out of the race on the first lap and I hate that. The guys did a good job staying confident, believing in me and me believing in them. We got the car pretty good and came through there and got a decent finish. I car was tight in one and three and loose across the tunnel. We had to chase it a little bit. We probably could have held onto a seventh-place finish if that last caution hadn’t come out. That would have been one spot better. Maybe we could have gotten those other two guys. We were running the 25 and 17 down pretty hard there at the end. We picked up four spots in the standings and we’re 21st now. We’ll just keep plugging away and see how much higher we can climb.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger) – Finished 11th, 18th in standings, 232 out of 10th

“We didn’t come in for tires on that last caution, so we really didn’t know if we could maintain our position on that final run. We were seventh on the final restart and ended up 11th so that wasn’t too bad considering all the cars that did stop for tires. We ran in the top 10 most of the day, and I really think the Alltel Dodge was a top-10 car today. That’s a decent finish and we moved up a spot in the standings. We need to start finishing in the top five if we’re going to make up the points to qualify for The Chase again. Hopefully we can gain some ground next week at Michigan.”

BOBBY LABONTE (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge Charger) – Finished 12th, 23rd in standings

“We were OK today. We kept getting a little better as the day went on. We had a flat there one time and had to put under green. We caught that caution with a few laps to go and got some tires on it. The tire going down hurt us because we didn’t get a caution until it was too late. We got going good there at the end, but we just ran out of lap. We passed a couple of cars at the end. I didn’t think we’d be able to, but we did. We finished 12th and that was a solid day.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger) – First out, dropped to 15th in standings, 161 out of 10th

“I didn’t know if someone was directly behind me or not, but I knew the 10 was on the inside of me, and I think he may have got loose and hit my left rear. I was just in cruise mode. A lot of times on the first laps around here you get two wide until you get things sorted. I was just cruising. It’s real bad. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back out or not. I’d need to see a replay to know exactly what happened. The last I saw the 10 car was on the inside of me and he must have got loose. I feel like we had a pretty good car, but obviously we didn’t get a chance to see what it would do. We made some changes that I felt were going to be in the right direction. I don’t even know what to say. I’m so disappointed. We didn’t even make a lap. Things happen, and I’ve been in those scenarios on the first lap where I took out a bunch of guys. It’s hard to get too mad, but we’re sitting here in the garage. Any time something like that happens you can say too aggressive too early, but he may have gone in there way easier than he’s gone in there all weekend and just gotten too loose. It’s very disappointing because we didn’t get a chance to even turn a lap.”