ALLMENDINGER: “Just a great job by everybody at Team Red Bull. They’ve worked hard. The guys back at the shop, my guys here. They’ve stuck behind me. They could have easily said that I didn’t have the experience and maybe went a separate way but they’ve been behind me every week. We’ve been fighting together. This is a team sport. You’re going to win, you’re going to lose together and I think the biggest deal was just being able to get in that Busch car and just run this morning because the track was so hot, so slippery, that I really think if I had just went out there in my Cup car I’d have thought either I sucked or the car sucked. That’s how bad it was, just how slippery. But coming from the Busch car it was like I knew the track wasn’t going to be good whether we were fast or slow. It just gives me confidence. I feel good getting in. It’s the same thing with the truck last weekend at Bristol. I always keep saying is that I just need laps. Thank you to my team and everybody at Red Bull for giving me the opportunity to run the Busch car and Toyota and the Chip Ganassi guys for putting me in it because that’s probably the biggest reason why I made the race.” MOST CUP GUYS SAY THEY CAN’T LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE BUSCH CAR TO THE CUP CAR. “Well, most of ‘em didn’t come from Champ Car and sitting in a closed roof car for the first time this year. It obviously showed good for Juan and it helped him and that’s why he’s been doing so well. Hopefully it’s my turn. Toyota, they were great because they know that they don’t have the capacity right now for Busch cars. So instead of holding me back they know that I need time and Red Bull, everybody there pushed for it, and it’s great to know that because by me running the car even though it’s not a Toyota in the Busch Series, I’m only going to help the Toyota car that I’m in when it comes to the Cup Series.” DO YOU HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH CHIP GANASSI? “I’ve spoke to him here and there a little bit but it really kind of formed between my business manager, Tara Ragan. She’s known Chip for a long time back in the Champ Car days and when they said they were going to close the 42 car down, kind of called and inquired about it. The Red Bull guys, they supported it completely and it came together Tuesday night. This is just me trying out to learn and get some more races under our belt in this Cup car.” YOU WENT OUT LATE AND GOT A LITTLE CLOUD COVER. “We’ve been screwed a lot by early draws this year. We had some good one and we’ve screwed ‘em up ourselves. The cloud cover came out pretty early, I think after about the first 15 cars, so you could see everybody getting faster. All in all, it was just a good car. Like I said in the radio, probably the best mile-and-a-half qualifying car I’ve had so far. I just didn’t want to screw the lap up. Maybe a little bit more there but I’d rather have left a little on the table than go try to find all of it and wreck.” IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE TO GET LAPS IN THE RACE? “Of course and you know, we say it every week when we make the races that we run better for the most part than what we finish. Bristol, perfect example, we went down a lap early starting last and the car was great once I finally figured out the right line to run and I was running down the leaders. We had a problem the lug nuts came loose and had to pit early, the yellow came out and then got wrecked after that. Kind of the same thing at Michigan. We’ve had a lot of bad luck in the races but hopefully it’s turning around. It’s a good car and go work on it tomorrow and get it ready for Sunday.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/JOHNS MANVILLE CHEVROLET: “First off, the draw really helped us, I think. I kind of under-drove it. It stuck pretty good. A little bit tight in the middle of one and two, had to wait out on it a little too long but once I committed to throttle it was good off there. Real good through three and four, just got tight on exit there. Pretty solid lap though.” HOW MUCH DID THE CLOUD COVER CHANGE THE TRACK? “A ton more grip from earlier in the day. I don’t think there was a cloud in the sky when we were practicing and now you see nothing but clouds. And our draw helped, too. I think the clouds rolled in and the track cooled off about 10 degrees and that’s always free speed there.” HOW BIG OF FACTOR IS THE HEAT GOING TO BE HERE ON SUNDAY? “For the race, I think it’ll make for a better race. When it’s cool you have so much grip that you’re just locked down right at the bottom and you can’t really wiggle the car. When it’s hot, you slide around a lot more and it makes for better racing. Physically, I think it’ll be fine. We’re all in pretty good shape and drink a lot of water so we’ll be alright.”