MONTOYA: “When the car was good we would have been okay. The 84 hit us and hit us and hit us again and then I went in there behind him. I let him through and he went in really slow so I went for the bottom. As soon as I went for the bottom he checked-up and run into the back of him and damaged all the front. And then the 40 in the pits, I don’t understand in between teams you can wreck a car in the pits. It just makes no sense to me.” DID YOU GET IN THE WALL WITH AJ ALLMENDINGER? “I just got into the back of him. I never got into the wall with him. We had a tight racecar and it just made it hell-tight. From there on you’re just hanging on. At least we brought the car home and stayed out of trouble and took some more points.” YOU MUST BE REALITIVELY SATISIFIED WITH A 23RD-PLACE FINISH. “Yeah. It’s what I said to Wingo, if the car had been in one piece we’d have finished 15th, 18th maybe. We didn’t have more and that’s what we need to work on.” WAS STARTING SO FAR BACK A DISADVANTAGE? “Oh yeah, a little bit. But I put it in the wall and paid for it I guess.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA TRAVEL FORD: “We bit ourselves in the foot with some unfortunate events. We cut that tire down under green, lost a lap. The first time that I got down on pit road I didn’t get enough out of it leaving and we lost that first lap and I’ll take responsibility for that. From there on out it was just hard racing all day. Our car was tight at the beginning of the run and loose at the end of the run. I just couldn’t find a happy medium but we finished. I wish we would have been up there in the top-20 where we should have been. I just wish we were coming back here in a few weeks. I feel like I got it figured out now.” EARLY IN THE RACE YOU AND BOBBY LABONTE WERE RACING HARD FOR THE LUCKY DOG AND YOU ALMOST GOT YOUR LAP BACK. “Shoot, I don’t know where the scoring loops are. I was ahead of him getting into 3, side-by-side in the middle of 3 and 4 and the caution come out and he pulled in front of me coming out of 4. There must be a scoring loop at the exact moment he pulled ahead of me because we were there. When our spotter told me caution we were in front of him but I guess the next loop he was there. That set us back a little bit but it was just a long day. We’ve just got to learn to race ‘em smarter.”

DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 DOMINO’S TOYOTA: “We just struggled all day. This place is hard enough as it is. We worked at it and worked on it and tried to make it better and made it better at times and then the motor got hot. I pretty well cooked it and that’s pretty much what killed it in the end.” YOU HAD A STEADY RUN GOING BEFORE THAT. “At the middle point of the race we made adjustments and made the car decent and we could run along there. The guys made good changes and we improved the car. The sun came out and the track got warm and we kind of over-adjusted at some point and then it got hot. It wasn’t happy after that [smiles].”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: “Well my first experience at Darlington was definitely interesting. I was hoping we could get a top-25 out of the day. That was our goal. I am proud of the crew for making adjustments all day that got us up to where we needed to be to get our lap back. Unfortunately, we blew a right-front tire and hit the wall. The guys did a great job of making repairs and getting me back on the track. I think we only ended up losing around 20 laps. I’m disappointed because I really wanted to get a good finish for the team. The cut tire was out of our control. It was just one of those days.”