Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Texas:
Hamlin 6th
Bowyer 14th
Stremme 17th
Sorenson 19th
Yeley 26th
Truex Jr. 34th

MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET: “That’s about what we ran in practice. We were a little bit quicker in practice but going out early, the track’s been sitting so it’s a little bit cooler, probably. And we went faster on our second lap so that kind of tells us that everything cooled down. It was a good run. It’s about all the car had all day long. It’s not really, really fast but I think it will be good for the race. We did some race trim this morning and it was pretty good in longer runs. That’s what we’ll bank on for Sunday. We ran really well here in the spring. This is probably our best race up until the last few months. I’m looking forward to the race. This is a car that we haven’t run for a while. I really wanted to run that car I had last week here but it got tore up when we had the problem with the wheel bearings. I don’t know if it’s quite as good. It doesn’t feel quite as good as that one did last week but we’re going to make the best of it and hope to have a good run with it.”

REED SORENSON, No. 41 TARGET/KRAFT DODGE: IT LOOKED LIKE YOU HAD TIRE SMOKE COME OFF THE CAR DURING YOUR RUN. “I think it was just the left-front rubbing a little bit on the fender. No big deal.” ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? “Yeah, we hit the rev limiter, didn’t have the chip set up high enough so that hurt us. I hit the chip going into 1 about four or five times but the car drove great. We think without that chip we probably could have ran about a .90 which would have helped out quite a bit but that’s okay.” WAS THE CAR BETTER IN QUALIFYING? “The track’s just faster. The track is unbelievable. When the Busch cars go out it’s going to be really fast.”

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FEDEX KINKO’S CHEVROLET: “That’s a pretty decent pickup for us. I was pretty happy with that. Hopefully that will get us in the top-10. That’s going to be borderline top-10.” HOW MUCH HAS THE TRACK CHANGED TODAY? “I don’t know that the track has really changed, just picked up a little bit. That was a good run for the FedEx Kinko’s Chevy and I think we’ve got an even better race car.” HOW WAS THE BUMP IN TURN 1? “It was a bump. It almost feels like a speed bump that you have to run over at 200 miles per hour. It kind of has that effect on the car. Hopefully in years to come they fix that a little bit [smiles].” DO YOU HAVE TO SET UP, CHASSIS-WISE, FOR THE BUMP? “Yeah, we allowed for it a little bit and I think we got our car a little bit better because of that. Our pickup in speed is we were more comfortable.”

CLINT BOWYER, No. 07 JACK DANIEL’S CHEVROLET: “That was all it had. It was just a little too tight there up off the corner to go any harder, push any harder. That was all but flat-footed right there through 1 and 2. That’s all she had. YOU RAN WELL AT ATLANTA AND QUALIFIED WELL HERE TODAY. “We’re running good. I’m not disappointed with what we’re doing whatsoever. Circumstances haven’t gone our way. Call it bad luck or whatever. Things just haven’t swung our way and until they do, just keep digging and trying as hard as you can and it will turn around for us. We’ll start getting the finishes that we deserve.”

J.J. YELEY, No. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES CHEVROLET: ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED WITH THAT? “I am just because it drove so good. We were decent in our mock runs earlier and we were pretty close to what Denny and Tony ran. We made a couple of changes, fought being a little bit too tight in 3 and 4. This is a brand new race car and man it drove really good. I know just a little bit is pretty big here. I guess I probably need to pick the throttle up a little earlier coming off of 4 coming to the checkered. I thought it was a pretty good lap.” DID THE DRAW WORK TO YOUR ADVANTAGE? “I’m sure it didn’t hurt by any means. There’s some guys that have picked up a fair amount from what they did in practice. It’s been a pretty cool day today. I’m sure it’s nowhere near as big as it was in the spring race when it dropped 15, 20 degrees. I think there’s a point where it’s cool enough that even though the sun is out, the track temperature is still cool enough, it’s low enough that it’s going to have maximum grip.”

DAVID STREMME, No. 40 LONESTAR STEAKHOUSE DODGE: “Not bad. We could have been a little bit better but it’s good for our team. We’ve been solid every week. We’ve been able to qualify, except for Kansas. But this same car run at Kansas. I just feel again that we’re getting a lot better. We unloaded off the truck pretty good. We’ll just keep digging.” YOU ONLY MADE ONE LAP. “Unless you screw up you’re only going to get one so that’s what I chose to do. I couldn’t really run any better than that. It drug a little so I knew that was nothing that I could fix. But other than that, it will be pretty decent.” YOU WENT OUT LATE IN THE QUALIFYING ORDER. DID THAT HELP YOU? “Maybe a little. It might have helped a little. I think it’s been so cool all day it really hasn’t affected it that much.”

POST QUALIFYING NOTES: