HAMLIN: “It’s a great day for us. I really was worried there. When that motor started cutting out my heart sunk. We’ve had this problem so many times before, not this specific one, just mechanical failures and stuff and I just knew it was going to happen. I knew it. And when it did I was just down in the dumps. Mike [Ford, crew chief] and the guys got me back up. They said ‘We’re going to figure this thing out.’ The raised the hood and found out it was a plug wire. Had we had one more caution there at the end we had the tools to fix it and probably moved up. It was just one of those situations where it was still a great day for us. I think we’re going to come out fifth in points if we had ran third, anyway. The field is set now and we’re ready to go.” IS THIS THE BIGGEST DAY OF YOUR CAREER? “To win the pole here was a big deal. That was really big. It’s amazing that we’re in this place right now. Now we’ve got a clean slate and hopefully we can go for this championship.” THE CAR WAS APPEARED TO BE DRIVING WELL THROUGHOUT THE RACE. “It handled really well. On old tires, seven cylinders, it doesn’t hurt you too bad but on new tires guys would just kill me. It’s unfortunate that plug wire burned through. It’s one of those bad luck but good luck days.” YOU HAD SOME PROBLEMS UNDER THE HOOD TONIGHT. WHAT HAPPENED? “We had a piece of rubber somehow get into the motor and burn a sparkplug wire through. It’s very unfortunate. We were running third at the time. I would have liked to have run a little bit better in front of the hometown crowd but to hear these people cheer for me during driver intros it makes emotions that you really can’t explain. I’m proud to be in the Chase from Richmond, Virginia.” CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE THE CHASE? A FEW YEARS AGO YOU WERE RUNNING AT LOCAL SHORT TRACKS AND NOW YOU’RE RUNNING FOR THE NEXTEL CUP TITLE. “I really can’t. To finish 15th and move up a couple spots and get us to fifth is amazing, especially when you finish sixth last week and we ended up going backwards. It’s just amazing that we’re in this place right now. We’ve just had a great season. I saw it all flash before my eyes when that sparkplug went out. It’s one of those things where it was bad luck but good luck.”

MIKE FORD, CREW CHIEF, No. 11 FEDEX GROUND CHEVROLET: “Tonight was an event. We’ve gone with a pretty good streak and then we had an issue here today and was still able to overcome it and if you can do that then you deserve to be in the top-10. The crew did a great job but it isn’t just this one race. It’s a full season, a lot of things that you could say you should be here, you shouldn’t be here but in the end you overcome problems. And if you can do that you’re a championship caliber team.” THIS TEAM HAS COME A LONG WAY SINCE IT WAS FORMED TWO YEARS AGO. “It’s a veteran group. There’s no question whether the team can function or not. The team’s very strong, a lot of veterans. There’s no question there at all and they all work well together. In the whole scheme of things over the last two years with what’s gone on with this team has never been the individuals on the team. You have good equipment and good communication now. We’ve got the right people in place, the right driver in place and we’ll just move forward.” ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE MORE RISKS IN THESE FINAL 10 RACES? “The last few weeks the only thing that really honestly could take us out of contention is problems. I wouldn’t say conservative, but a little more guarded to obstacles that could come, the unforeseen things. We’ve been protecting ourselves and there have been instances where we could possibly go for a race win and stretch things and opted to take the safe route to not have it backfire on us. More or less just race a little smart and not put your neck on the line to try and win races when it could go the other way. If that’s conservative, that’s conservative but I think that’s the smart thing to do when you could take yourself out of contention.” ANY STRATEGY FOR THESE LAST 10 RACES? “Run as hard as you can go. The bottom line, that’s it.” WHAT IS IT LIKE TO GET THROUGH THIS STRETCH? “If you had told me before the race that we would have come out of here fifth in points I’d be happy but the way we did it, I’m pretty steamed about it because we had a top-three car and had an issue with the header fire. A piece of rubber on the header caught fire and melted a spark plug wire. You can say there isn’t a lot you can do about that but I guarantee you when we go to Loudon we’ll make sure that isn’t going to happen. It was a bit nerving this one race. Like I said earlier, it’s not the one race that gets you in or out: it’s the 25 prior to this. Today we had a little bit of luck going our way and happy about that but had a top-three car and finished 15th with it.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “It was a good night for the Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet. It was a little too loose there at the end but overall it was a good night. Everybody did a good job on pit road. It was a great night for Jeff and Kevin both, getting both those guys in the Chase. It was a good recovery from qualifying. We struggled a little bit early on being able to get to the gas soon enough to be able to run with them up off the corner. It was just a little too free at the end.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 IMITREX CHEVROLET: “It was kind of like last night. The car felt really good until the very last run. And the same tonight as last night: the car just got really tight there. We did some adjusting and we lost too much forward bite. The forward bite was probably hurt us the most. I got racing around there real hard with the 10, 07 and the 42. It was a heck of a race. We all raced real clean. It was fun. I just wasn’t fast enough off the get-go to hold them off. There at the end I think me and Clint were both faster than the 42. It was very difficult to pass but I had a lot of fun.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 NICORRETTE/TARGET DODGE: “It was a long night. We got down a lap there twice and got the lucky dog so that helped out a bunch. We just made a bunch of adjustments. The car was so loose we just made some adjustments to tighten it up and it got a lot better. It was a little tight in the center at the end.”