DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 DOMINOS.COM TOYOTA: “That was a good lap, by far quite a bit quicker than we were in practice. I’m just glad that it’s over with, man [smiles]. Fridays are tough days and once you get through ‘em it feels like you’re about a hundred pounds lighter. I’m glad that we got in and I’m glad that Mikey got in. It’s on to Sunday and that’s the exciting part there.” THIS PLACE WAS GOOD TO YOU IN JUNE. “It was. We definitely had our best finish, although 15th is not something that you jump up and pound your chest about. But as much work as we’ve been putting into this deal it’s starting to see a little bit of return. I’m happy the effort that my guys put forward. Everybody is doing a good job at the fab shop and just proud of everybody. I’ll be glad to get in the top-35 at some point and start living life like a regular guy [smiles].” COMMENT ON YOUR LAP. “I definitely drove it in as deep as I could get it and just a little bit free off. I had to use a lot of racetrack. I didn’t have to breathe it any but had to use a lot of racetrack and that slowed us down some. But all in all I feel like it was a really solid effort. I’m not going to sit back in the motorcoach tonight and think about what I could have done different. I’m just glad that I’m in [smile].” YOU START GOING BACK TO TRACKS FOR A SECOND TIME BEGINNING WITH BRISTOL NEXT WEEK. DOES THAT HELP? “I think it does, although I missed the race earlier this year at Bristol but just a little bit. The bottom line is that I enjoy going back to some of these places. I do have some notes and something to fall back on so I don’t feel like quite a rookie. I’m a Raybestos Rookie, obviously, but at least I know where the restrooms and stuff are when I go to the racetrack now so I’m good to go.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR YOU ON SUNDAY? “Another top-15 I think would be a good day and try to run up front and show the guys at the shop that all the work that they’ve been doing is paying off. That would be a good day. I want to get the Raybestos Rookie of the Race award. I haven’t gotten one yet and those other guys have been beating me so if I can get the Raybestos Rookie of the Race award, that’d be a good day.”

DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 AAA INSURANCE FORD: “Yeah, I’m happy with that. That’s certainly a pickup from what we had in practice. We always unload in race trim and we just spend 90 percent of the first practice in race mode. We usually get one qualifying run at the end of practice where some of these other guys unload in qualifying trim. We don’t have to qualify on the pole. Certainly it’s cool to be fast but we just wanted to get a nice, solid top-20 starting spot, top-25. We always seem to race a little better than we qualify so that’s what important now.” ROUSH FENWAY RACING ALWAYS SEEM TO RUN WELL HERE. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOU THIS WEEKEND? “It gives us a little bit of extra confidence. We know that certainly the Gibbs and the DEI and the Hendrick cars have stepped their program up a lot here recently. I can remember four or five years ago seeing all of Jack’s cars one through five just driving away and it’s not like that anymore. We certainly have our work cut out for us but we’ve got great engines. We’ve always had good horsepower, good aero package and that’s what it takes to run well here at Michigan.” HOW MUCH OF A RELIEF IS IT TO RETURN TO AN OVAL? “For me it’s a lot. Like someone asked me ‘How do you feel? Montoya is kind of taken some leaps and bounds over the past month.’ I told ‘em if we go to some south Georgia short tracks where I grew up racing legends cars I think I could make a little stretch here [smiles]. It’s been fun the last few weeks. The one bad thing is that once I somewhat feel comfortable at a road course we don’t see another one for a year. That’s the only bad thing. We’ve got to sit back and wait for another year to come when now, if we had two more road courses, I feel like we’d be more competitive. That’s my number one goal over the off season is to get a little better on the road courses where I feel we struggled a little bit. But this year was the first time I’ve ever run a big car on a road course period. We’ve done a little better than some people thought but we’ve still got a long ways to go to where we want to be.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 15 MENARDS CHEVROLET: “Today has been a struggle. Our Busch car is really good and our Cup car, we can’t really get it down to the racetrack. We picked up from practice, which is always a good thing, but still I don’t think it was enough. Our draw hurt us. It’s going to get faster as it cools down. The nice thing about being locked in is we can do some race runs right away Friday morning and kind of get a feel for what the car does in race runs. We’ve got a pretty good game plan for what we want to try tomorrow in Happy Hour.” DOES THE EXTRA LAPS IN THE BUSCH CAR HELP THE CUP EFFORT? “Yes and no. It kind of takes away some of your concentration on the Cup car. That’s probably the only downfall, really. The upside is obviously more laps and more track time. The tires are the same so you can play with air pressures and stuff like that and try to find the sweet spot in that. Setup wise their front ends are really similar. The rear springs you have to do some different things because the Busch cars have got a big, big spoiler and the Cup cars don’t so you have to compensate for that. There’s good and bad.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, No. 84 RED BULL TOYOTA: “I honestly don’t know what to say. The car was tight on the qualifying laps. I know I always say this but it isn’t for lack of effort from my crew that we didn’t make the show. I have one of the hardest working groups of guys in the garage area. We will just have to pick ourselves up and try again next week in Bristol. That is where I made my first race back in March so I have good memories there.”