MARK MARTIN - No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Finished 5th) - "This team, thank goodness, they put it all together tonight. They were awesome on pit road. They made one adjustment with two runs to go and we were actually really steamy and could run with them. Heck, we just got up on the wheel and got it done there. It means a lot to me. I was sure since May that we were gonna fall out of the chase when it got so close, but this is a good one for us tonight. We had to run good and in the middle of the race we weren't running good enough to get it done."

HOW MUCH PRESSURE IS OFF AND HOW MUCH MOMENTUM DO YOU HAVE? "I'm not worried about the championship. We might get lucky or something, but just to be in the chase with all these great, young drivers is a big deal to me. I was really dreading missing the chase because I was gonna feel like I lost and from here on out these last 10 races I'm gonna have fun. I promise."

WHAT'S THE OVERRIDING EMOTION YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW? "Relief, and I'm very, very grateful."

WHAT DOES IT SAY WHEN THE DEFENDING CHAMPION DOESN'T MAKE THE CHASE? "I knew that somebody that deserved to be in it wasn't gonna make it and that's unbelievable. Last year's champion, two-time champion, Tony Stewart - the greatest race car driver of this era, in my opinion - missed the chase."

YOUR THOUGHTS. "I'm relieved. I just want to thank all the fans out there for all the 19 years, but especially for this year and the overwhelming support. I can't describe what it means to me. It was a great night for our AAA Fusion team. Pat Tryson and all the guys on pit road, they redeemed themselves for sure and I got up on the wheel. Halfway through the race I really thought we were done for and we made one last little adjustment that I never dreamed would have made any difference with two runs to go and it just set the car on fire. I hate it so bad for such a great champion and probably the greatest driver of this era, Tony Stewart, didn't make the chase, but somebody wasn't gonna make it that deserved to be in it and we're glad to be in."

WAS THERE A POINT YOU EVER FELT COMFORTABLE THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE OK? "Yeah, it got to be looking really good with about 30 to go, but a caution changes everything. These cautions are just horrible nightmares with double file restarts and people gouging and it can all go up in smoke on one of these crazy restarts. My car had not been good on long runs earlier in the night and that last run it kept getting better and better and better. I was like, 'Man, this is perfect. If it'll go green all the way it's gonna be like falling off a log.' We were fixing to get Junior in another lap or two. Our car was really good at the end of the race. I just want to thank Jack and our team and our sponsors - Pennzoil and Kraft and all the folks that have supported us. I promise I'm gonna have fun the last 10 races."

WHAT HAVE THE LAST FEW WEEKS BEEN LIKE FOR YOU? "It's been awful. I've been everything but sick and maybe even sick for about six weeks now. I've wanted it that bad. We've had some tough times and there's been a lot of pressure and we stepped up to the plate tonight and got it done. We might really put on a charge and make this thing exciting and we might not, but we're in it and I'm proud of that. Sixteen of the lat 19 years in that 6 car we've been in the top 10 and I'm proud of that record."

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard Ford Fusion (Finished 6th) - "It wasn't bad. We wanted a top five, but my car fell off quicker than I wanted it to in the long runs. I just did the best I could. I couldn't get it together there on really long runs. I was really fast on the short runs, but just lost a spot coming to the line with Mark, but it was a good run for us."

YOUR THOUGHTS ON SEEING MARK GET IN AND HAVING TWO TEAMMATES IN THE CHASE? "Yeah, I think it's good for the team. It's a pretty humbling sport. There are some big guys that didn't make it too, and some guys that came close by having brake troubles. It's high drama."

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Finished 8th) - "I didn't think we were every really that great. When we led up there early we weren't too bad. The 5 was better than us and the 9 coming through there and I thought we were OK. I thought we were gonna be top five and then after that the car just got away from us and we could never get it."

YOUR TEAM HAS HIT ITS STRIDE. "Yeah, we've been doing good. The guys have been giving me good cars and good stops overall. Tonight we didn't really have it. We couldn't quite get this car just right. It was kind of one of our older cars and we could never get it as good as the good guys, but we ran up front for a little while and kind of faded back, but we still got a good finish out of it. I'm excited to go to Loudon with the point lead. Our good short track car is sitting at home all ready to go to Loudon, so, overall, I'm pretty happy with the season and hopefully we'll keep it up."

WERE YOU SURPRISED AT THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF THE RACE? "I didn't see a lot of stuff that went on, but the cars that were good, I wasn't totally surprised. Congratulations to Todd Berrier and Kevin Harvick, they've been doing a great job this year and have been solid and won the race yesterday too. I expected them to be strong. I expected the 5, really, to be the car to beat. He was really strong on the outside. He had his car real loose and that was good for a long run."

MARK IS IN THE CHASE. "Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad Mark made it in and I figured that he would. I wish the rest of my teammates would have made it again too, but we're here because of all the help they gave us last year when we were struggling a little bit. It's pretty cool. I feel really good for Jeff Burton, too. This is his first year in it since they started (the chase), I believe, and he's turned that thing around good and they've been running well too, so it's good to see him in there as well."

DO YOU FEEL THIS TEAM HAS THE MOMENTUM YOU WANT GOING INTO THE CHASE? "Yeah. Tonight we had a little off night on pit road for some reason. I wish that would have been a little better, but overall it was good. Our cars have been pretty good. This is our second-oldest car and it still ran decent, so I feel all right about it."

JACK ROUSH, Car Owner - Roush Racing Ford Fusions - "It wasn't the year that we hoped for, but it was the night that I had hoped for. Mark got up on the wheel and did what he did tonight and moved into seventh place tonight, I think, and Matt is secure in first place going off to Loudon. He's only got five points over second and 45 points over 10th, but we'll work with that. That will be fine."

WHAT EMOTION DO YOU HAVE TOWARDS MARK MAKING IT? "I saw it pass when the race track and/or the car slipped away from us a little bit there in the middle of the race - I saw that distinct prospect because there was a brief period of time by my calculations Mark was 11th, but as the race developed and Pat and the guys got the car better and the fellas on pit road were just awesome tonight. They did a great job. The engines didn't break. The engines made good power like they've done all year and didn't let us down, so it just worked out. At the end of the day, of the cars fifth through 11th, we only had to beat one car and as it worked out, we were able to do much better than that."

YOU HAVE TWO CHANCES THIS YEAR AT THE TITLE. HOW DO YOU SIZE IT UP? "I think our odds are one in three and I thought that's what they were last year. I think they're as good this year as they were last year. It's a jump ball. We've got enough people crowded around it to be able to make a good accounting of ourselves and if we can focus our resources and continue to have at least average luck on the things that happen on the race track - when you run over something or get caught in a wreck that wasn't your fault - if we can be at least average on that, I think our odds are one in three. The Fusion has been a great car this year. It was an improvement over the Taurus. The guys at FRT (Ford Racing Technology) did a great job making that available to us and I appreciate it. We couldn't have done it without them."

KEN SCHRADER - No. 21 U.S. Air Force Ford Fusion (Finished 7th) - "We were just a little too tight all night, but we got it better. We got it tight like we wanted it, but obviously got it good. We started 17th and never made the big fall back. We gained a couple and then pit calls, along with pit stops, allowed us to just keep gaining. I thought when he said, 'Don't pit.' I said, 'That's good. We're not gonna fall back to ninth or 10th.' It all just worked out."

WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR THE TEAM? "It's just another night. It's no big deal, but it's just the fact that I think it's five out of the last seven that have been real solid. Last week we missing practice cost us, but we've just been solid."

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE

"It feels good leading the points. It's five points, but it's still five points. I feel good about that. My team has been doing a great job this year and we've been able to steadily pick away at Jimmie's lead a little bit here and there and was able to finally get it last week. It feels good to get it, but the main thing is to try and not give it back. I'm happy with what we've done the first 26, but the ones that count are coming up now."

DO YOU HAVE TO DRIVE DEFENSIVELY AT LOUDON SO YOU DON'T FALL OUT RIGHT AWAY? "No, it's the same as any other race. First of all, you can't get eliminated in the first race of the chase. It's impossible, and not just mathematically, it's just impossible. If you finish last in the first race of the chase and have a good last nine, a good solid run in the top five every week, you're still gonna have a shot at the championship. Kurt finished 42nd or something in Atlanta during his run, so you don't have to perfect every race, you've just got to go out and do the best job that you can do each and every week - go out and try to win, try to lead laps, get the best finish out of your car and team and everybody will allow you to get each and every race. I don't look at one race being more important than any other. I got to every race to try to win and gain as many points as you can."

CAN YOU HANDICAP YOUR COMPETITION FOR THE CHASE? "I can't even really do that. Any of the 10 could get on a roll. It would be easy to look back and look at the season and say, 'It could be this guy. He's not running good enough, but this guy is on a tear right now.' It's just hard to say. There are 10 weeks and 10 different kinds of race tracks and you just don't know. Three weeks ago you didn't think Kasey Kahne was gonna be in the chase, and now he won a couple of races and has been running up front and is right back in it and is on a hot streak. So you've got somebody like him that could come in and stay on that streak and be the guy to beat. You just don't know. I guess the easiest one to say would be the 48 is one you'd worry about beating because every year for the last three or four years they've been the guy, I think, to beat and has been leading. But everybody in the top 10 right now has been performing the last couple of months. If you really look back at it and think about it, all of those guys have been performing. Jeff Burton has been sitting on poles and leading tons of laps and being right next to winning. All of those guys have been running up there, so I think all of them got an equal shot today."

IS IT SIGNIFICANT TO BE IN FRONT AT THIS POINT? "It's important. I mean, who knows how many points are gonna decide the championship at the end of the year. Who knows? It could be two and it could be 200. Who knows? When you look at the point standings right now before they reset them, but from fifth to 11th it's not very much - it's maybe 30 or 40 points, something like that - and I think eighth, ninth and 10th is like three points. So ask those guys how important five points is here and five points there. It all adds up and that's in 26 races, so in 10 I think that every point is gonna be important."

THOUGHTS ON TONY GETTING KNOCKED OUT? "I don't really know what all went on in the race, really, so I don't know if they just didn't run good. I don't really know what happened. Tony started the year off real strong and I thought he was gonna be the guy to have to beat for the championship again for sure. They started off like that. With him getting hurt at Charlotte and having some other problems here and there, I didn't even really think of it until the race was over to be honest with you because when you think of Tony, you think of him winning championships and being in there. I haven't really watched the points close enough the last few months to know it was that close up through there. I knew Kasey had a shot at it, but I thought he was the only one mathematically possible, so when everybody was kind of talking about for something to talk about, I didn't really realize it was quite as close as it was or one of those guys was gonna have that much trouble."

HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE LAST 10 RACES? "Just try to keep it going. I think the important thing is not to over-analyze. I know that's what we all try to do, but if you look at how Tony won it last year. I don't know how many races, he won four races or something during the season, and then in the last 10 he didn't win one but he was really consistent. They ran up front, didn't make mistakes, didn't drop out, didn't break parts and do all that stuff, so I still think you've got to do the best you can every week. You can't drop out, you can't make mistakes, you can't do all that, but it's not really that different than what we've always done. You just have a shorter period of time to recover from a mistake, but it's still about taking that 10 races and being the guy who finishes highest on average in them 10 races. That's what we've got to do is just go out there and try to finish as high as we can every week."

DO YOU PLAN ON ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH MARK? "I don't know, what would we talk about? I don't really know what you do to help each other or really hurt each other. I don't really know. Everybody talked about last year the five of us being in there, but it might be more productive to have two in there. I don't know. The helping each other goes on during the week. It goes on when you get to the track, sharing information, sharing car builds, sharing wind tunnel information, working together talking about your setups during the weekend - that's when the teammate thing helps. It doesn't really help on the race track. You're still out there to get the best finish that you can. You're not gonna give up a position to give your teammate one, that's not the way this sport works. So the teammate thing is really during the week. We're still gonna work together with everybody the same, regardless of where we are in points. Me and Greg - all five of us work really good together, but we're still gonna work together and race together and work on our cars the same as we always would."

IT'S THE THIRD STRAIGHT WEEK A DRIVER HAS WON THE BUSCH AND CUP RACE. DOES IT HELP THAT MUCH? "I don't know, but I'm gonna keep running them Busch races and try awfully hard. I don't know. That's pretty cool. Katie told me that when I got out of the car and I didn't really think about it. That's pretty cool. I think it's just a coincidence. I don't think it's any more than that. Harvick's won, it seems like he's won half the Busch races this year, so if he wins a Cup race you've got a pretty good chance that he won the Busch race, too. I think it's kind of a coincidence. The cars are enough different and it was an impound race this week, so running the Busch race it's not like you learned something about, 'Well, I raced that set of shocks and it worked great, let's put it on the Cup car.' It's an impound race, our car has been locked down before the Busch race anyway, so it's probably more coincidence than anything else."

SHOULD WE MAKE ANYTHING OF THE MANUFACTURER BREAKDOWN? "Not really, I don't think. I think that all the manufacturers are honestly pretty even. I think there are more Chevys in it because there are more Chevys in the garage. There aren't a lot of Fords in the garage today. I think with the common templates and all the stuff they've got going, really the only thing different are some character lines and the nose piece and the tail piece - and the tails aren't enough different to even talk about, so it's really just the nose piece and some looks and, obviously the engine, so I feel good about the Ford. I think the Fusion is a great car. I'm very happy with the balance and all the stuff it does. I know some of the Dodge teams have been struggling with this model, but then there have teams like Kasey that have had it nailed more times than not, so I think they're all really pretty even."

DO YOU HAVE AN EDGE HAVING BEEN IN THE CHASE ALL THREE YEARS? "I hope so, but probably not, but I hope so. I don't know. All of those guys that made it are good. You look, Jeff didn't make it last year and he made it this year and he's won four championships, so I'm pretty sure he knows how to get it all done. It all starts with having fast cars. You can make the chase, but if your car will only run 15th or 18th every week, you're probably not gonna win a championship. If you make it and your car is running up front and you've got good pit stops and you don't have many problems, you might have a shot at it. So I think it's still more about that than anything else."