BORIS SAID – No. 60 Sobe No Fear Ford Fusion (Qualified 4th) – “I just love coming here. This track is so good. I skipped practice in the Winston West car – the Federated car – because I didn’t want to be used to my car. I just love coming here with all the fans and all the Said heads. It’s so nerve-wracking when you don’t have any points to fall back on. I keep saying that and sounding like a broken record, but I think we’re in the show with our Sobe No Fear car.” YOU’VE DRIVEN A LOT OF DIFFERENT STYLES OF CARS ON ROAD COURSES. HOW DOES THIS ONE FEEL? “It’s funny, it feels like a Grand-Am Cup car with a lot more horsepower. That’s exactly what it feels like.” ANY PROBLEMS OR CHANGES AS FAR AS BRAKING POINTS OR THINGS LIKE THAT? “No, I was pretty conservative on that lap in a few spots. I didn’t want to go too hard and make a mistake with no points to fall back on. That’s not gonna be a pole run, but if we get in the top 10 or 12, I’d be pretty happy.”

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Qualified 15th) – “It’s alright, it’s just real slick. We were way too loose when we were in the right-hand corners, so I was just trying to take it easy. It was just a slow lap for us. We ran a half-second faster in practice, so it’s kind of frustrating but it’s gonna be a fun race.” YOU’RE NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR LAP. “I was just a little too aggressive. That rubber was noticeably different from practice. I think guys are gonna pick up a ton. Our Office Depot Fusion is really fast and I think it’s gonna race well, so we’ll just see what happens.”

ROBBY GORDON – No. 7 Monster Energy Ford Fusion (Qualified 2nd) – “We worked hard on our car for the whole time. We had a very good test. I’m gonna say I left a half-second out there on the table and that’s disappointing because I locked up the left-front coming through turn 10. It really, really upset the car and lost a lot of speed through there. I’m excited to be running the Monster car this weekend. We’re gonna try to do everything we can to make sure we put ourselves in position to win the race. Qualifying is important, but we came here to win the race.” DID YOU GET EVERYTHING OUT OF IT? “Yeah, I got a little bit and then some. I don’t know, I’m gonna call it turn 10, I locked up the left-front and I’m gonna say we lost a half-second there. Hopefully this will hold up.” WHAT ABOUT YOUR CHANCES SUNDAY? “We focused today on qualifying and we’ll worry about the race tomorrow. The most important thing is putting yourself in a position where you can win the race. The last couple of years we’ve given up qualifying to focus on the race and last year I got together with Boris Said trying to pass him and knocked the toe out of it and that was the end of our race. So if we can position ourselves to start up front and drive at a conservative pace most of the way, we’ll have a whole race car for the last 20 laps.”

BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (Qualified 7th) – “It didn’t feel as good as it ended up being. I just wanted to unplug the radio because I didn’t know what I ended up running. Somebody drove all over the gravel down through the esses and I came down through there and I was sideways on the left-hander and I was trying to get it back and gather it up to come through the right-hander – 8 and 8A – to get back to nine and just come together for a decent lap. I’m just proud of these guys. Eddie Wood and Len and all the guys who have worked so hard. This is a good race team. There’s no doubt about it and they just need a little bit of luck to get their deal turned around. I’m just so proud of the guys. All of them work so hard. They’ve put a lot of effort behind me and that makes me want to drive that much harder.” YOU HAVE A LOT OF ROAD COURSE EXPERIENCE. “Well, I’ve had a lot of road course success. I’ve not been the world’s greatest, but I’ve not been the world’s worst. There again, this is a whole different era and to come here after being out for two or three years – I ran Watkins Glen last year in Ray’s car and we didn’t have a very good race at all. For us now, we just need a good, solid run Sunday. Our first goal was to get that thing in the race today and hopefully we get it there, and then worry about the rest of the stuff and go from there.”

RICKY RUDD – No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion (Qualified 28th) – “I’m disappointed. That’s about the slowest lap we’ve run. We talked about it in practice and ended up making a little air-pressure change and, evidently, it wasn’t the right way to go.” THE DAY STARTED WITH THE WALL OF FAME, BUT WAS KIND OF DISAPPOINTING WITH QUALIFYING. “It wasn’t always a disappointing day. I think we were like 19th in practice and knew we needed to be better. We talked about it and sometimes I think we outthink ourselves a little bit and made an air-pressure change. That hurt us over a half-second from what we ran in practice. We’re not real pleased with that, but it’s been a good day though. The Wall of Fame ceremony was a pretty cool deal.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Qualified 1st) – “We’d been really loose through all of the high-speed corners and made up a lot of ground, so it was a good run for the Crown Royal Ford Fusion. We had a great qualifying run here last year and I ran off in turn one and made for a long day for us, so, hopefully, we’ll end up with a top five out of that. We made four or five laps in a row in practice earlier and it drives really good, so the guys did a good job today.” WHAT ABOUT SUNDAY? “This race comes down to fuel mileage it seems like every time. It seems like someone always crashes right about the time the caution should come out and if guys will take that chance and pit early, then they get track position. This is just like any other type of road racing where track position is huge, but we’ll have a good car.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Dish Network Ford Fusion (Qualified 17th) – “I don’t know why I was so nervous today. I think because there are so many chances to make a mistake. I was probably more nervous today qualifying than I have been all year and just made some small mistakes and probably wasn’t aggressive enough. I was watching TV and listening to those guys for too long say, ‘better to under drive than over drive,’ and I under drove it for a lot of it and then over drove it in a couple spots that cost me lap time. I was a little too easy in spots and I missed in two spots. I almost felt like I was sliding the front tires and kind of backed off on the brake and ran the corner long. I saw so many people sliding the front tires and I thought, ‘I don’t want to do that,’ and it might have cost me a little bit.”

DAVID GILLILAND – No. 38 M&M Ford Fusion (Qualified 38th) – “Today was just one of those days. We were guaranteed a spot in the race and we have been fighting our car a little bit all day. We just can’t get the back end into the race track and we’ve been struggling with that. I got off the track in practice, so we made some more changes and went out there and it’s still not where it needs to be. We’ll keep working on it and try to make it better. Ricky is kind of fighting the same thing, but he’s in a little bit different direction rear setup-wise than we are, so we always have something to go to there. We’ll see. It’s good to be back here in California and at a track that you’re familiar with, we just need to do a little bit more work on our M&M’s Ford Fusion.”

ROBBY GORDON PRESS CONFERENCE – “How do you say it? The lap was pretty good. I think turn 9 I gave up some there. I locked up the left-front getting into turn 10 and had to wait for it a little while and once it turned it got sideways on me so we gave up a little bit. We had a good car right out of the box. All race car drivers have excuses, right? And we got beat by the luck of the draw today, period. When Jamie went out, it was 25 degrees cooler. When Dale went out it was 35 degrees cooler than when we went as far as track temperature, and it just makes a big difference. We do a graph every week and you get to watch it and it’s just that luck of the draw. It makes a difference at places like this, Indy and other places just because of track temperature.” DO YOU WORRY ABOUT BUSTING THE SPLITTER AT ALL? “He’s done the first half of what it takes and that’s run toward the front. If you can qualify inside the top 10, you can ride along and save your equipment and save something for the end of the race. If you qualify back in the twenties, you use your stuff up getting there and that’s what kind of happened to us last year. We got together with Boris trying to get by him and knocked the toe out and we were done from there. Qualifying was an important part of it for us. Now we took a bigger effort at it and it’s gonna pay off, I’m sure, come late in the race. As far as the splitter, like Dale said, from the middle of the corner the car rides back up and the other thing is we have, what I’ll call bump stops, on the shocks, so we can control where that ride height is, so you just take into consideration the angle of the curbs. I ran over the curb in turn 6 all the way – probably four tires on the other side of it like I always do and it didn’t seem to hurt us and it’s not torn up.” YOU HAVE TWO TOP ROAD RACERS STARTING FROM THE BACK, INCLUDING A FIVE-TIME WINNER. DO YOU WORRY ABOUT THEM OR JUST RACE THE TRACK? “Obviously Jeff and Tony, for the last three to four years here as we’ve raced at Sonoma, have been our toughest competitors to win the race – maybe even five years or seven years back – those are the two toughest and Tony’s not that far back. Jimmie, obviously, his results on the road course – he’s fast, but I think Jeff is the one it’s gonna penalize more than anything as far as an opportunity to win. But, as I’ve said, I’ve blown these things so many times by pit strategy or not pit and a caution comes out and everybody pits and I find myself sitting 30th. I’m pretty confident that when it comes down to the last 10 laps of the race that Jeff Gordon will find himself to the front of the pack again.” WHAT HAPPENED AFTER YOUR LAP? “I spun on purpose. With our cars, yes, by design, but with our cars if you put steering angle into them that much and try to do a u-turn like that, what’s the right word, it gets into the brake ducts and sliding sideways just isn’t a big deal for me, so it’s easier just to clutch it and slide around.” IS THERE ANYTHING GOING ON WITH THE FORD’S BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO BE GETTING CAUGHT UP TO THE CHEVY’S WITH THE NEW CAR. “I have my own reasons why I think it is and I think road courses power doesn’t come into play quite as much. Chevrolet has that new engine out now and I think when you go to qualify on an oval race track, I think they might have us on horsepower right now because they do have a new spec engine. The Yateses I’m sure are working hard, but the lap times show up more on new tires than they do any other time. Once the tires are worn off like they were at Michigan, heck, you were almost all the way straight on the straightaway before you could even mash the gas pedal. I think the horsepower issue shows up for qualifying more than racing. I don’t think they struggle. We get good gas mileage. They drive good. The drivability is good with them, it’s just that optimum peak power for qualifying for one lap.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY PRESS CONFERENCE – “Qualifying here is tough because when you make your mock-up run, you get to run the whole race track and get your brakes warmed up and your car warmed up. It’s a challenge when you pull out on the backstretch to have all that stuff ready to go. I was a little bit nervous. The first few times you qualify here it’s a struggle because the car just loses a lot of grip, but I got through one and all the slow corners really good. I was really happy with my car. We struggled a little bit through the high-speed corners and we adjusted on it for qualifying and still didn’t hit on it, so I was a little bit nervous. I felt like somebody could definitely run a 117.20 and we only ran a .50, so I thought with Ryan and Juan going out as late as they did that I didn’t really think it would hold up. I kept telling everybody I didn’t think it was gonna hold up because everytime I think it holds up, I get beat, so I just went in the trailer and didn’t pay attention.” WERE YOU SURPRISED WITH YOUR SPEED? “No, from my rookie year we’ve run really well at the road course, we just haven’t been like a Jeff Gordon or a Tony Stewart. I was up early this morning and looking at stats of Tony and Jeff and it’s incredible what those guys have been able to do. We definitely haven’t been at that level, but I really like coming to the road courses. These are the two races, I really look forward to it. I’m a fan of Formula One and I watch that every weekend when it’s on. I bought some go-karts recently to do more of this because I really enjoy it. I genuinely like the road racing, so I look forward to coming here and I think that’s a big deal. When I woke up this morning my heart was beating fast because I was excited about coming here. If you had to run the same race track every week or the same type of tracks, it gets old. It’s the same thing, but when you get to come somewhere new it’s fun.” WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU SEEN WITH THE COT ON THIS COURSE? “As strong as what the Hendrick and Gibbs cars have been with the car of tomorrow, Jack has been a little bit vocal with the amount of testing and everything that they’ve done and he’s put together a test team and an engineering team and Boris did all of our testing. He tested four or five times getting ready just for this race and the package that we have with the springs and swaybars and shocks, it’s all based on our engineering program and Boris’ feedback. When we unloaded here, I ran my first four or five laps and I’m like, ‘The car feels great,’ and it had a lot of speed built into it. Most of our work, like a lot of the other teams, it was done before we ever got here. You just can’t do it unless you have your test team going on and guys developing new stuff for you.” DID YOU TALK TO BORIS AT ALL? “I haven’t seen Boris this weekend. Actually, I saw him on the way to get my trophy (laughing). Boris was one of the guys that for my very first time to road race in a stock car, Boris road in the passenger seat of like a two-man car like he does for everybody else and talked me through a lot of that. Boris has helped just about everybody in this series learn the fundamentals of road racing. He’s an incredible teacher and an amazing driver, so he’s helped me in a lot of ways.” IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOUR LAST WIN. HOW WILL BEING ON THE POLE HELP BREAK THAT STREAK? “It’s been frustrating not to be able to get back to victory lane. When I moved to Roush, I thought with the success that they had in 2005 – with the amount of races that they won and how many laps they led – that that’s what I needed and we had just a horrible year last year. It was my worst year since I started racing in Cup, so this year with Larry and pretty much a new team, we kind of started over. It’s been different this year. Our cars are so much better than what they were last year, and a great team and, like I say, I kind of feel like we’ve started over. We’ve run really well this year. We haven’t really been a threat to win a race, but you hope every weekend when you show up you try something new, you’re trying a new geometry or you’re trying different types of springs or shocks. You think that’s what you need to get to that next step. Someone asked me this morning when I woke up did I think I was gonna be on the pole and I said, ‘Yeah,’ because if you don’t wake up every single morning and think you’re gonna be on the pole and think you’re gonna win, you’re not going to. This sport is so mental that if you don’t feel that way, then you should find something else to do.” IS THIS A REPRIEVE AFTER LAST YEAR’S FIRST LAP? “Yeah, I spun out going into turn two last year and went all the way to the back – the last car basically in the pack – and then I got to turn 7 and I was involved in another wreck and then about five laps later I was involved in another wreck. I thought, ‘Damn, if you could just get me on the track, I promise I won’t run off again and I won’t hit anything else.’ I was like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Jack reminded me this week in our team meeting that I ran off in turn two on the first lap after qualifying. We were talking – me and Greg and David Ragan and having our team meeting and he was giving David pointers and I happened to be one of the things that you didn’t do. He said, ‘If you’ll stay on the track all day, you’ll run in the top 10, just ask Jamie.’ So, yeah, certainly it feels great to get to be on the front row. I might run off in another corner, but I will not run off in turn two this year.”