MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Fusion (qualified 25th) – “That was the good part of it, we did run a lot better than we practiced. I was pretty encouraged with that, but I didn’t do a real great job with the lap. I didn’t get through turn one very good – that cost us a lot of time. But that was a lot better than what we ran. We worked on race set-up a lot to try to be good for Sunday and really didn’t worry about qualifying as much as we could have.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Fusion (qualified 40th) – “I hit the curb there, that’s why I messed up there. Just hit the curb, almost wrecked.” BUT YOU PROVED LAST YEAR THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO QUALIFY WELL TO FINISH THE RACE WELL. “It won’t matter that much. We could start last. If you have the fastest car here, you can usually, I think, get to the front pretty well.”

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 AAA Fusion (qualified 20th) – “I’ll take it. I was hoping for a little bit better than that. But that’s not really that bad. Usually we qualify better than that. The car feels really good in race trim. I know we’ll be good in the race, and we’re due a little bit of luck on pit road, so this will be a good one for us.”

ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 Mega M&M’s Fusion (qualified 13th) – “That’s a good lap for us. We usually qualify pretty well here. We’ve got a lot of Robert Yates horsepower, and I’ve learned a lot from my teammate, Dale Jarrett, about getting around this place in qualifying. It all worked out for us today. We got good cloud cover. That should be in the top 10. We just need as a race team a good weekend. We qualified good last week at Dover and had some problems, and had some problems at Darlington and Charlotte, so we just need a good weekend of no problems and no set-backs and run all 500 miles here and try to get our season around.” IS THE STRUGGLING WEARING ON THE TEAM A LITTLE BIT? “It’s wearing on me. I’m just frustrated because we’ve got so many great fans that support us and M&M’s has so many associates that want our team to do well. So, it’s been tough on me because I want to carry the load and I want to put on a good show for all the guys that support us and all the sponsors we have. The last month and a half has been tough, but we’re got going to quit digging. We’re going to keep going in the right direction hopefully, and just need a good weekend. If we can just get two weekends in a row where nothing happens, we can kind of right the ship and at least try to get back into things and try to make a good run for the Chase.” YOU IMPROVED BY ALMOST A FULL SECOND FROM PRACTICE. CAN YOU HOPE FOR THAT MUCH OF AN IMPROVEMENT? “This is a place that you can do it at. Pocono is a place that is long enough and corners enough that if the driver hits his marks then you can take a second off. I’m happy that we did take a second off and we didn’t lose a second. We should be in the top eight or 10, hopefully, and get us a good starting spot for Sunday.”

DALE JARRETT – No. 88 UPS Fusion (qualified 27th) – “This is just such a difficult place to go run fast, and we didn’t get a chance to do that – and it’s my fault this weekend because my daughter [Natalee] graduates Hickory High School on Saturday and I’m not going to miss that. That’s only going to happen once in her life, and so I’m going to be there. We talked about this since the beginning of the year where we knew we were going to be in this situation, and so we had to work just on race set-up. We didn’t get a chance to do any qualifying stuff. And I was pretty happy. Elliott [Sadler] and Tommy [Baldwin, No. 38 crew chief] helped us a little bit set-up-wise, and then you go out there and you’re not exactly sure what your limits are, but you try to reflect back on the past. So, we picked up a lot and are pretty happy with that.”

JAMIE McMURRAY – No. 26 IRWIN Industrial Tools Fusion (qualified 8th) – “After practice I thought we’d run like seven-tenths to a second faster. My banzai lap wasn’t very good. They adjusted on the car, and things have gotten just so much better here. It’s very exciting to be able to take a car that’s not very fast and work your strategy out and make it good. It’s very promising.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 National Guard/Subway Fusion (qualified 7th) – “I didn’t think we were going to be that good. They did a great job with the car. And we got a late draw and that helped us. It was a really great lap for us. We weren’t where we needed to be but we certainly qualified well.”

KEN SCHRADER – No. 21 Little Debbie Fusion (qualified 29th) – “It’s what we ran in practice. We just need it to be a little bit tighter.”