HAMLIN: “Honestly, I was just hoping to get in the 53s on high side and we picked up a second and half. I don’t know where it came from. It’s got to be all car because I know I didn’t do much different. My whole FedEx crew, those guys, it’s amazing how good that they are and how much credit that they deserve for the success that I have. It’s not all me. It’s a team effort and I’m proud to be with the team that I’m with.” YOU ARE DOING DOUBLE DUTY THIS WEEKEND WITH THE BUSCH CAR AT NASHVILLE. “I’ve got J.J. riding with me and of course our spotters and a couple of other guys. I’m looking forward to the double duty. It looks like there’s a very minimal chance of rain at Nashville so that’s good news. Hopefully we can get all of our races in and go for Raybestos Rookie of the Year the rest of the year.” HOW DO YOU RUN SO FAST? “I really don’t know. I was hoping for them to say something like a 54-flat or 53.90 or so and when they said ‘.05, p-1’ I didn’t know what to say. I had never been in a situation before where I knew that I really didn’t have a shot at the pole and it turned out that we did. We’re probably still not going to end up on the pole but I’m happy. It should be a top-five effort for us.” WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF POCONO? “I love the racetrack. I made two laps around it and I said this is one of the coolest racetracks I’ve ever been around. We weren’t really fast and the reason that I was saying that is that the layout of the racetrack is flat and kind of fits my driving style. If we run good here we know we’re going to run good at Indy so I’m pretty excited about that.” CAN YOU COMPARE POCONO TO ANY TRACK YOU’VE BEEN TO IN THE PAST? “It’s just something totally different. I’ve never been to a racetrack that’s been that different in so many different aspects. This is a very unique racetrack. Hopefully I’m here for years and years learning every year.” HOW DIFFICULT IS PASSING GOING TO BE HERE? “That looked like it was going to be the hardest thing is trying to pass. But there’s multi grooves in 1 and 2 so we’re going to be moving around. Tomorrow I’m going to try to get behind Mark again and that’s all I did the first practice. Every time Mark got on the racetrack I got our right behind him and tried to figure out this racetrack. I think it took about runs and then we were passing him. I was like ‘Man, we’ve actually got a pretty good car here’ so I’m pretty excited.” WAS THAT A PERFECT LAP? “No, I thought we slowed down way too much over in 3, but I’m not going to nitpick. That was a great lap and hopefully it holds up.” DID YOUR QUALIFYING DRAW HELP YOU? “I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference. I think the guys that went out in the first five it probably hurt. I think from here on out the weather is going to stay about the same. Hopefully the rain holds off.”

MARTIN TRUEX JR., BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? “Heck yeah, real happy [smiles]. Practice was a little bit of a struggle for us. It wasn’t too bad for us. It goes fast. An hour and a half at a track that you’ve never been to is not much time to get in race runs and qualifying. We weren’t sure if qualifying was going to get rained out so we did a lot of race trim stuff, which was good for me to get used to the racetrack. I went out, made about four laps, came in and felt pretty good about the car right off the bat. And then we went out the second time and got a flat so that put us behind. Just small changes on the car trying to get used to the track makes it difficult to say ‘Well this is what I need and that’s what I need.’ I was really unsure about which part of the track I needed to work on so I had some guys do corner times to try to figure out where we were losing it and where I needed the most help. And we made some changes toward the end of practice, did a qualifying run, and we weren’t really happy with it at all. We made some more changes before qualifying and it really helped. The car was way, way better. We’re real happy with that run.” IS THIS PLACE LIKE NAZARETH? “No, not even close. The shape is similar but that’s it. I don’t know why they are even in the same state [laughs]. I’m real happy. That’s a good run. The guys are working hard and this is the kind of thing we need. We need to get some good finishes. We’ve been running decent lately; just a lot of things that we’ve been messing up on, pit strategy and getting caught a lap down at the wrong time and stuff like that. That last month and a half has been real tough on us. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.” HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO QUALIFY WELL AT A TRACK YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE TODAY? “Well, qualifying well is important every week because it’s so hard to pass. It’s so hard to come up through the field. For some of the guys like Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, the guys that have really got a handle on every racetrack and seem to run really well every week and are always fast, it’s not a big deal so much for them. But for guys like us that are mid-pack, 10th-place car sometimes, it’s tough. You’ve got to get everything you can get all the time. If you slip in qualifying or in the first run or on one pit stop, it’s really hard to make it up when you’re doing all you can do to run 15th. It’s important to qualify good. It seems like when we do that, we race really well and hopefully that will be the same this weekend.” WHERE DO YOU PASS HERE? “I’m not sure. I haven’t really raced with a lot of guys. As with anywhere, wherever you’re better than the next guy. Hopefully our car will be good in all three corners and we can have a good run on Sunday.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 COORS LIGHT DODGE: “It’s not bad but I thought we could run a little bit better. I screwed up a little bit there in 1 and 2 but for the most part we were okay. I need more laps here. That’s why we’re running that ARCA race. We’re doing whatever we can to help this program out here. I think we’ll be all right in the race. We wanted to make sure we got in all right.