SMITH: “We were smart all night and used our head. I know how races go here and how dirty they get and how ridiculous they get. The car was good in the beginning, real good in the beginning, and we just got off a little bit there. About halfway through we got a little bit off and we struggled to get it back and I felt like we got it back at the end but it was too late at that point.” YOU WERE SIDEWAYS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BIG CRASH IN TURN 3. “It was a bad break that we were involved, it was a good break that we didn’t hit nothing. There were a lot of guys behind me that were involved that hit stuff. I’ll take what happened to us over that. I couldn’t see, but in a wreck like that everybody checks-up and you can’t help it. We’ll just go with it.” THIS IS SOMETHING POSITIVE THAT YOU AND THE TEAM CAN BUILD ON. “We can and hopefully we’ve got a little bit more of a gap in the points there. I don’t know where everybody else finished but I saw the 22 right there around us. You’ve just got to keep building, man, keep fighting, keep getting a gap around that points thing. That’s all we can do right now.”

DOUG RICHERT, CREW CHIEF, No. 01 STEAK-UMM BURGERS CHEVROLET: “It was a real good night. Would we like to run better, sure. We were good at points there and then we got off a little and got decent there at the end. It’s typical short track: a little loose in, won’t turn in the middle and too loose off. That’s the hardest thing to fix but we managed to dodge the wrecks, the ‘big one’ as they say. We missed that and that was fortunate that we didn’t have any more damage on that and come out of here in 21st which is a good run. I think that’s probably going to put us 33rd in the points and hopefully a little bit bigger cushion behind us.” THIS IS THE SAME CAR YOU RAN AT MARTINSVILLE. HAVE YOU LEARNED SOMETHING WITH THIS CAR? “All of our cars are the same. You know, with this COT program a lot of the cars are the same. It’s just how you set the cars, the bump stops, no bump stops, big springs, little springs, shock combinations. You’ve got a lot of speed here compared to Martinsville and it’s a lot different animal but we had a lot of the same setup as the 8 car coming here. It was a lot of effort put into that by guys at the shop and all our guys to purposely be like that. Mark obviously had a little bit better run than we did but it’s a start. We’ve got to keep building on it.” ARE YOU PLANNING TO RUN THIS CAR MORE? “As soon as we get the body fixed on ‘er and getting to fit all the templates, sure, we’ll be taking her to the next place [smiles].”

SAM HORNISH JR., No. 77 MOBIL 1 DODGE: “We didn’t have that great of a car. We just pretty much stayed out of trouble. We only had one incident. We got hit by a car that was coming off the wall but it was okay. I’m real happy that we made it to the end. We did everything that we needed to do. The car was pretty good towards the end of the race. We just needed to get it better at the beginning and not go a lap down that early. I’m real proud of all the guys on the Mobil 1 Dodge. Pit stops were pretty good tonight. Every time we stopped we gained something on a couple of people, kind of a heads-up thing back and forth. I was just real happy that we made it to the end in one piece. I don’t know what it does for the points but it couldn’t have hurt us too bad.” HOW MUCH DOES THE LAPS HERE TONIGHT HELP YOU? “It’s a ton of help, being able to run the Nationwide race last night and getting 250 laps in that. All those things are little benefits that are going to help us out in the long run. I‘m glad that we’ve got a team that’s willing to take the time and learn with me. Hopefully we’ll all get there together.”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 00 AARON’S DREAM MACHINE TOYOTA: “We got caught up in that big pileup 30 laps earlier there when they red flagged it. We got tore up quite a bit there but the Aaron’s Dream Machine guys worked on it on the pit stop and we didn’t lose any more laps. I believe at that point we were just a lap down. We just worked hard and got back out there and we were trying to run and salvage what we could. I guess the 84, AJ, he lost the brakes and he got in there way too hot and had no brake pedal and got into us pretty good. I went over there and spoke with him. I’m good friends with AJ and knew he wouldn’t try anything crazy like that and just wanted to see what happened. It’s just a real shame for us because we need points and we were running real strong there. I think we were pretty close to being the highest running Raybestos Rookie as well. We’ve been really close to being the top rookie in all these races and circumstances keep taking us out. At Phoenix we got bad gas mileage and had to make that last stop and gave up some spots there. Ran out of gas and lost three or four laps. At Martinsville I got spun there with three to go and lost three more laps. Once we put it all together we’re going to be just fine. We had a stint there where we were restarting in the inside line and we ran up in the top-10 just one lap down and we had a pretty decent car, and we just needed to get that lap back and get plugging away. These guys worked really hard tonight. It’s short track racing and I’ve got to qualify better so we’re not running 25th and get wadded up in these deals. That’s going to be a matter of more confidence and getting more time in these cars qualifying. I know we can do it. It’s just a matter of putting it all together now.”