RAGAN: “At lap 50 of this race I was ready for this race to be over, man. My car was loose as a goose [smile]. It was a handful out there and I don’t know if we just got a couple bad sets of tires or something but there the last two runs we were on the tight side. And the last run we freed it up a little more. It was still a little snug. I couldn’t run the bottom like I wanted to but I don’t think nobody could. Everybody on the bottom just seemed to get bottlenecked up. I got stuck in the middle with about three laps to go and we surged to about 10th and then I fell back a little bit and I feel like if something goofy would have happened certainly we could have been turned around backwards on the back straightaway like we were today in the Busch race. But everybody did what they were supposed to do. This is a lot of fun when we can run a full restrictor plate race. I feel like I drove my heart out and don’t have any scratches on the car.” THIS IS THE SECOND CONSECUTIVE NEXTEL CUP RACE AT DAYTONA THAT YOU’VE BEEN IN THE LEAD DRAFT WITH A CHANCE TO WIN. “Yeah and that’s all you an ask for. Anything goofy can happen at Daytona and I don’t know from experience. I just go from talking and watching races from over the years. But if you’re in the top-10 in the last five laps anything can happen and it seems we got in the right line the last couple of times. We very easily could have wound up 20th but we were in the right line. The car was turning when I needed it to turn. A good solid night.” YOU RAN 655 MILES TODAY. HOW DO YOU FEEL? “I feel good. I was a little hungry at the end of the race [smiles]. I know some of these guys talk about they eat a candy bar or something. I don’t know. I need to find out what they eat. Other than being a little hungry I was good to go. I mean it helps when you’re running good. If we were back there struggling in 35th with a beat up race car it would have been the longest race of my life but if you’ve got a good car and it’s in one piece and you’re having fun you can get out there and drive all day long.” COMMENT ON ROUSH RACING TEAMMATE JAMIE MCMURRAY WINNING TONIGHT. “That’s a big win for everybody at Roush Fenway Racing. I guess we had all five teams in the top-12 I guess. I hate I had to bring up that. I wish I could have beat at least one of ‘em [smiles]. Other than Matt, you know, and Carl, all of us have been kind of hit and miss all year so it’s good to see the 26 get back in Victory Lane. I know that team works hard. Jamie’s a good driver and certainly Larry Carter is working hard. That’s good for everybody. But don’t count us out too long. I feel like we can win one of these things sometime this year.” DOES THIS GOOD RUN GIVE YOU AND THIS TEAM A BOOST OF MOMENTUM? “It’s good to run well at any NEXTEL Cup race. These races are tough. When you see guys have just a handful of top-fives and top-10s, I mean this is tough racing. So to finish 15th or 10th at any race is a big run for us.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS/PITTSBURG PAINTS CHEVROLET: “We knew we weren’t going to race very good because we came in a qualifying mindset, not a race mindset, so we gave up a little bit on the body and gearing. Actually it drove real good when the sun was out then as the sun went down it got really tight. We made some adjustments, got in a pit road accident, and I think it actually helped free the car up when we pulled the fender out. It was a long night but we’ll take it. Today is nothing to brag about but it’s solid. A lot of guys had worse days than us. Next week is a totally different deal. It’s go back to racing, not just waiting to wreck. We’ll actually go racing next week.”

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 BURGER KING TOYOTA: WHAT HAPPENED IN TURN 2 WITH BOBBY LABONTE AND JUAN PABLO MONTOYA? “I was coming off the corner and somebody was right behind me. The car got loose and when it got loose I got sideways and I got up into the fence and when I did everybody had to check-up behind me and just caused a wreck. I hate that it happened like that. Nobody was underneath me. They were behind me and when I hit the fence and slowed up so much those guys didn’t have much of a chance. Finishing is good but where we finished is not so much. Just kind of struggled all night. It was a weird night. Radios quit working and the thing was tight, just a bunch of stuff, you know. It ended up okay. We didn’t destroy the thing although it don’t really matter because it’s not really good for anything anymore I guess. It’s all COT races now. We did okay and we’ll go on to the next one.”

DONNIE WINGO, CREW CHIEF, No. 42 TEXACO HAVOLINE DODGE: “I don’t know what happened. I mean we had a real fast car to start with and then it just went away. We kind of got into the 29 a little bit then after that we just couldn’t go nowhere so I don’t know what happened.” WHAT HAPPENED ON THE ACCIDENT IN TURN 2 WITH DAVID REUTIMANN AND BOBBY LABONTE? WAS THAT JUST RESTRICTOR PLATE RACING? “Yeah, I mean, that deal on the backstretch they just all checked-up and they all piled in there.”