SAM HORNISH JR.:

“It was rough for sure but we didn’t have that great of a car but we just kind of did what we needed to do today. We adjusted on it and made it better and looking at the scoreboard there to be the top finishing of the teammates that’s the first time that’s ever happened. I’ve got to look at that and be a little bit happy. I know that Kurt and Ryan both had problems today and it didn’t work out that good but even that can make me feel a little bit better right now. I was just real happy. I’ve said in the past that we didn’t feel like we were keeping up with the track. We were tight at the beginning and we couldn’t make enough adjustments to keep it from getting more tight. Today we kind of kept up with the track. We didn’t go on the good side but we kept up with the track so I was real happy with that. Hopefully we’ll build on this and continue to move forward and get some better finishes in the future.” WAS IT KEEPING UP WITH THE TRACK IN TODAY’S RACE AS TOUGH AS YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE? “I think it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be because there was so much rubber on the track to start out with so it didn’t feel like the cars were that good at first and then it went back and you had to come back. It was sliding around and actually the track picked up a little bit of grip but not much. I ran my fastest lap on the third lap and a lot of guys ran their best laps in the first part of the race. That just shows that the track didn’t get better. It was a little more consistent and gave you more lines to run instead of just having to be stuck in one place.” THE NEXT RACE IS AT TALLADEGA. YOU HAD THE BEST FINISH OF THE SEASON IN THE OTHER RESTRICTOR PLATE RACE AT DAYTONA. “The big thing for me coming into these races when we got knocked out of the top-35 there leaving Martinsville was knowing that Talladega, the restrictor plate races, while we raced very good there, qualifying wasn’t our strong suit so I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened we were in the top-35 going into that so there’s a big load off of my shoulders because I know there’ll be more cars that show up there that showed up this weekend. To go home from there knowing how good we can race on the restrictor plate tracks would be pretty disappointing.”

CHRIS CARRIER, CREW CHIEF, No. 77 MOBIL 1 DODGE:

“I couldn’t believe it, how smooth his lap times were, and he said ‘I’m saving gas, I’m saving gas.’ Just an incredible job for him to do that this many races into his Raybestos Rookie season. I’m sitting on the box thinking this is pretty easy. When you have great people around you it’s easy to do your job good. Just like a head coach of a football team, when you’ve got really good players it’s pretty easy to look pretty good most of the time and our guys did a really good job tonight. This team responded well. We were best finishing Raybestos Rookie, top 20, built some cushion there in the points deal which is huge going into the next two races being impound races at Talladega and Richmond. To me it’s the most critical time of this season for guys in our position. I’m very happy. We’re very blessed. The good Lord was good to us tonight. I’m just really proud of this team, proud of our guys and I’m proud of my driver. I’m just really tickled with him. I know he wants to be winning races and people that want to win races will end up someday winning races. I’m sure that he’s going to get there, probably not as quick as he wants to because it’s not going to be tomorrow [laughs].” HOW CLOSE WERE YOU ON FUEL? “Close. I would say more like about two laps. But we started talking to him really early. Our engine turner did a super job on this Dodge engine getting the fuel mileage out of it. They have been head over heels trying to find power and fuel mileage and performance and they did a great job tonight in that and I’m real proud of them. Our team engineer gathered the information. He used his experience and he told me 10 laps into the run after the last pit stop. We figured there’d be another caution. Then along the way it’s looking like man, everybody’s pretty smooth here. There may not be another caution. And he says ‘We’re going to make it.’ I said ‘Are you sure?’ With 20 laps to go he looked at me and said ‘Not real sure [laughs].’ He just laughed and said we’re going to make it. When you’ve got good people around you it’s just easy to make good, solid decisions. We felt like this was one time that the potential for gain was a whole lot better than the potential of risk of loss. If we had run out we still would have been okay as far as the top-35 in points. We had that figured so we thought, okay, the big picture is still going to be a success for next week. But we thought, man, if we can about 10 more spots here that makes maybe the next week easier and would allow us to at least be a little more aggressive at Talladega. We just started coaching Sam. He knew the situation. We told him the deal. He took care of it and I’m real proud of him for that. A great team effort. These boys worked hard. Our pit stops were good. They really picked up tonight. Tonight was a big plus going into the off-week. We’re going to take a few days off. We’re not going to test. We’re going to get ready for Talladega. Guys at the fab shop have been working hard on getting us a good piece for that. We ran 15th at Daytona and we want to be the one coming across the line first this time.”

DARIO FRANCHITTI, No. 40 WRIGLEY’S JUICY FRUIT DODGE:

“Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you’re unlucky and tonight we got unlucky. We came to pit road about three laps before that yellow came out and that put us an extra lap down and that was that. We were two laps down instead of being one. We were running top-15 times pretty much all night but we just got put those two laps down and that was it. Really proud of the team; really, really proud of the team and the job they’ve done this week coming back, the way they worked qualifying. Three cars on the team came together and really helped us out and that’s what we need. We keep doing this and we’ll be going forward. We’re closer to the top-35 than we were going in. We can qualify Talladega and we’ll just keep on pushing. These guys did a good job adjusting on it. The track was changing and we were keeping up with it. As I say I just did what I could. Frustrating with that yellow coming out but there’s definitely been times in my career that I’ve had yellows come out at the right time so we’ll just go to Talladega like I say. We’ll do some testing between now and then and it’s a really good team effort this week.”

PATRICK CARPENTIER, No. 10 LIFELOCK DODGE:

“I’m really happy. I’m not happy where we finished. We raced a lot harder than we ever did this year and finished further back. But I’m happy because I’m starting to run with the guys. I stayed there on the restarts and I really stepped it up this weekend after the qualifying and practice yesterday. For me I really made an improvement in the race and that’s all that counts. Everybody is coming together. I made a few mistakes in the pits with the speeding there. I don’t know what happened. I was honest to God way below 4,700 [rpms] but we got caught speeding somewhere. I think the LifeLock team did really good so we’re improving.” ARE YOU GETTING MORE COMFORTABLE MAKING ADJUSTMENTS TO THE CAR DURING THE RACE? “If it’s starting to be on the edge a little bit but that’s how I want it. Before I was like ‘No no no. Make it tight, make it tight.’ Now I want it more like that. It’s faster and you smooth it out.”