CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Qualified 38th) – THE GOOD NEWS IS YOU’RE ON THE POLE FOR THE NATIONWIDE RACE. “Yeah, that’s good. We did the best we could over here, but we’re missing something. Something is not right and that’s just the best we could do. We’ll just see what happens.”

GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 1st) – CAN YOU KEEP THE POLE? “I hope so. We’re real confident, but there are still a lot of cars left to go. The sun is going down a little bit and the track temperature is dropping dramatically right now, so I don’t suspect that will hold up for the pole. If we would have beat Junior by maybe a tenth or two I would have thought maybe we’d have left some room, but there are a lot of fast race cars here. We just have a great 3M Ford Fusion car. The guys did a great job. We spent a lot of time in race trim and feel like we have a really, really good car for tomorrow night. We hope it holds up for a front row start or a top five start. We’ll be extremely happy with a top five start.” ARE WE MAKING TOO MUCH OF THIS NEW SURFACE? IS IT HARD TO FIGURE OUT? “It really is. The biggest thing is we’re two-and-a-half-seconds faster than we had been and it’s just the margin for error. Darlington has always been right on the fence. That margin for error hasn’t gone anywhere other than we’re so much faster that it bites you so much quicker and easier now. It’s almost tougher now with the speeds we’re running.”

TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 28 Lafayette Ford Fusion (Qualified 24th) – “We were a top 10 car all weekend and I don’t even think I was really trying that much harder, but I just drove into one like I had been and it didn’t stick this time. It just kind of slid up the track and I got in the wall a little bit. I’m pretty disappointed in myself. The guys gave me a great car all weekend. I don’t know. It’s a bummer. I know we’ll really race great tomorrow night, I was just hoping we’d qualify a little bit better. We’re gonna have to work our way up through there. In race trim we were able to have a fast car and were able to drive our way up and pass guys, so I feel like we’re gonna be fine tomorrow, I’m just disappointed in my effort right there.”

DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Qualified 15th) – “Considering what we went through today and not getting a lot of practice – beating the right side of the car back out from that first practice – it was a nice pick up. We’ve got a fast car, it’s just a matter of fine-tuning on it. Qualifying and practicing here in the day and racing at night, we just have to make sure we make the right decisions going into tomorrow night. It was a decent lap. If I would have known the car was gonna stick that good, I probably could have gotten a little more out of it. Everybody always says that, but when you’re here at Darlington, just about the second you think you’ve got this place figured out and everything is under control, it’ll bite you.” A LOT OF GUYS WERE IN THE WALL TODAY. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR TOMORROW? “I don’t know. There are a lot of unknowns about where’s the best place to pass and where can you afford to overdrive a little bit, and what part of the track is gonna save you if you overdrive. Hopefully, running the Nationwide race tonight will help a little bit with my passing lanes and how the restarts are and how getting on pit road is, but there are just a lot of unknowns about a new track surface, a new tire and a new car at this track, but that’s what makes this sport so great. Somebody is gonna get it figured out.”

BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion (Qualified 20th) – “I held my breath enough. It got through one and two real well, but I got loose on the second lap. I didn’t feel I did as well getting through one and two on my second lap and then I got into three and I was trying to pinch it down a little bit too much and got it out from under me, so I just aborted.”

GREG BIFFLE POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE

“Certainly everybody has talked about the track is really fast and it’s the same old Darlington. It will bite you just the second you let your guard down and even faster now with the speeds being two seconds a lap faster than we’re normally going. You can get in trouble in a hurry and I’ve been close a couple of times to having that stripe and the thing about it is the stripe has gotten a lot meaner because of the speed we’re running. It’s knocking the bumpers off and flatten the right side a little bit, so you just have to be careful. I’m gonna try to run a smart race tomorrow night. It was a great lap. (Greg) Erwin and all the guys have done a great job getting ready for this event. All through this testing we’ve played it really smart and have worked on our car and got our car driving really good. I’m just extremely happy with it in race trim and can’t wait for tomorrow night.”

IS IT ANY SURPRISE YOU’RE ON THE POLE – A GUY WHO ENJOYS RACING HERE AND WON RACES HERE? “Yeah, it’s kind of weird because the place is so different now than it has been in the past – that we’re still have able to be successful here says a lot. I’m really, really happy and excited with how hard our guys have worked back at the race shop – our engineering group and actual team that comes to the race track, it’s been a big effort to try and get our cars fast. It’s easy to drive and look like a hero and put your car on the front row when it drives really good, and I went out there and it drove really good, but we’ll see about tomorrow night. I’m excited. I can’t wait.”

DID THE FACT YOU WERE PART OF THE TIRE TEST HELP YOU GET UP TO SPEED? “It certainly was helpful getting up to speed. We recognized that in the first and second practice session when we were near the top of the sheet, but we were really surprised to see some of those other cars right at the top of the sheet, in fact faster than us. All of the Gibbs cars were faster than we were, so it didn’t take them long to get the track under their belt. I think if you look at the last practice session, we’re somewhere in the high twenties on speed and we really didn’t get a good crack at a qualifying effort. We had all that practice and still came up short because we switched over with about 30 minutes to go and then a lot of people had accidents and they closed the track two or three times and never got going again, so that was my first attempt at a qualifying run since we’ve been here – that lap – so I was a little nervous going off into one. But I knew I had a great car and I knew it was gonna stick, and once I got the feel of it – about halfway around one and two, I knew that three and four was gonna be a good corner as well.”

IS PATIENCE GOING TO BE THE KEY TOMORROW AND HAS EVERYTHING YOU LEARNED ABOUT THIS TRACK OUT THE WINDOW? “Yeah, it really has. One thing that’s gonna be interesting and exciting tomorrow night – keep in mind that with all this practice we’ve done, we haven’t been side-by-side yet in a group of cars. So when that green flag flies tomorrow night, it’s gonna be the first time that we’ve gone around here at speed side-by-side 10 deep or 20 deep. Track position is super-important, I think, and I’m thankful that I was able to get my car at the front of the field to start this race. I think a lot of people fear whether we’re gonna see a lot of passing or not. I think you’re gonna see some passing, but it is gonna be difficult to get side-by-side. You’re gonna see cars slow down a bunch when they do get side-by-side. You’ll see a guy probably close in half a straightaway in a lap or two if he’s having to fight with another car. When you get beside another car, your speed will slow down so fast. You can go from running a 28-flat to a 28.60 just by having to slow up a little bit or not running the line you want to, so that’s gonna make it really interesting tomorrow night and tonight for the Nationwide cars.”

ARE YOU CAREFUL ON WHO YOU COME UP ON AND WHO IS COMING UP ON YOU? “Yeah, you really do and the problem is these cars and tires that we’re on, and a new surface like this, is sometimes a little bit unpredictable because sometimes you enter the corner and it will kind of take off sliding. I’ve actually slowed down and decided to run the bottom just to see how the car handles and I almost thought I was gonna hit the fence, and I entered the corner a lot slower than I normally would, so it does weird stuff. It is gonna be difficult to be side-by-side, but when they throw the green flag, there’s gonna be 43 of us side-by-side and there’s gonna be passing. But for guys to try to race each other lap after lap side-by-side, that’s probably not gonna be the smartest move you could make.”

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A WEEKEND WHERE THIS MANY GUYS HAVE GOTTEN INTO THE WALL? “The fatality rate is fairly high. I walked through the garage and everybody I’m parked around the side is wiped off a little bit, but that’s the nature of Darlington, for one. Two, a brand new surface and a brand new tire – it’s gonna happen. There are two ways to look at it – it’s almost good that it happens because then you know where the limit is and you know where the edge is and you can say to yourself, ‘Well, I’m not gonna do that again,’ or, ‘I’m not gonna get that high,’ or ‘I know what I did wrong,’ and you learn from it. If you do that in practice, you can learn from it and fix your car and not do it again. I don’t know if it puts the guys that don’t have a stripe at a disadadvantage necessarily, but I kind of know where the limit is because when I tested here I had my eyes covered a couple of times and came out of it OK, so I kind of know where that limit was in tire testing. But it is surprising to see all of those guys. You know it’s tough when the 48 wrecks twice. That just tells you how tough it is. This place is tough. It’s always gonna be tough and it’ll never get any easier.”

ARE TIRES NO FACTOR NOW AND WILL THE OLD CHARACTERISTICS COME BACK? “I wish I knew the answer to that. We tested Charlotte the other night and I feel like the track is starting to give up grip a little bit and the car is starting to slide a little bit and it’s kind of halfway predictable. I think if we go one step softer on the left side tire for Charlotte, I think it’s starting to get back into that normal race track – the way it used to drive – so that’s good for this facility, which is similar pavement and a similar surface and a similar tire. We have the same right side tire as Charlotte here, so I think with years to come – I really don’t know. I don’t know if tire wear will ever be an issue like it was before the re-pave. I can’t answer that question because the technology and the pavement has gotten so much better that I don’t know if the surface will end up looking the same as it did, and that is what will dictate tire wear is how the surface looks.”