CARPENTIER: “It’s tough but we keep working. They keep me in the car all the time. I’ve been testing all the time. I’ve been testing every day and racing. It’s been good and it’s getting better and better. Mike [Shiplett, crew chief] did a good job today. We locked it in with Lifelock and I’m pretty happy. I’m trying to smooth it out but be aggressive. At Phoenix I just pushed too hard. I was too aggressive and sideways too much and it didn’t work out. In Phoenix when we qualified there I just tried too hard and it didn’t go well for us. This weekend I just want to be smooth and give what the car could take. Starting up front I won’t see the leaders so soon now so that’s good [laughs].” ARE FRIDAYS GETTING ANY EASIER FOR YOU? “No they don’t. No sleep on Thursdays but at least so far I get to sleep on Friday night so it’s been pretty good. The guys did an amazing job. I mean, that car was really hooked up. I just wanted to take it easy, take it smooth and push it hard at the same time. It worked out well. I think we had a good race car. What a joy. This is fantastic. I love this sport and it’s great to be here.”

CARPENTIER PRESS CONFERENCE

“The car was really good. The car was really hooked up and went around the track and I was really happy about it. In Phoenix I was trying too hard and pushing really hard and missed a couple of corners and didn’t end up as well and was lucky to make the race there. I never expected that we were going to end up fourth today so for the first time I won’t see the leaders coming by me so quickly, hopefully [smiles]. It’s tough being with these guys up there but hopefully we get to stay there for a while in the race and enjoy it a little bit. But today the guys did a great job. Lifelock is in the race once again and hopefully we get a bit more points. We got behind last week at Talladega, lost some points and hopefully we catch up and get some more points and get that car back in the top-35.” WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE? “Everything’s a challenge [smiles] from once you step in the race car until you step out. To do one lap and make the car and do one lap, we seem to be able to do that not too bad but to keep it up with these guys for 60, 80 laps, whatever the laps are, on the tires, that’s what’s hard. These guys are so smooth and they can keep the same pace for a long time and I would say for somebody coming in for us we didn’t have that in Indy cars. You’ve got so much downforce on the car that the car is always the same lap after lap until you change tires. But with these things, they go away and you’ve got to be really smooth and sometimes change lanes, use different lanes, different places and with traffic that’s been by far the toughest parts to stick with these guys for many, many laps.” HOW FRUSTRATING IS IT QUALIFY ON TIME WEEK AFTER WEEK? “What was frustrating was last week. We struggled a little bit last week, lost a lap from the get-go and had problems down pit lane and then after that we couldn’t get back to it. We lost like 50 points. It took us like four races to get those 50 points closer to the top-35. We were at 150 and now we’re back to 200 so that was hard and we had a talk with the team and with Mike and my chief mechanics this weekend. We said we’re going to have to go different ways about it. We’re going to have to start trying to get better in everything. Get better in qualifying and hopefully stick with these guys. And often we’ll qualify like 35th, 40th at the back and you get lapped very quickly. These guys come by you within 15-20 laps. Then you lose a lap and then after that if you try to race ‘em which normally everybody gets pissed off and you just not get the pace and it gets pretty hard so hopefully this weekend, I’m hoping I don’t see the leaders so quickly [laughs]. But if I can stay there I’d be pretty happy.”

MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 00 AARON’S DREAM MACHINE TOYOTA: “It was good. I think we have a pretty good race car. We were too free there for qualifying but I think that will play out there in the race tomorrow night. I’m a little bit disappointed. It’s just tough when the track cools off and it picks up six or seven tenths and it’s your first time here. It’s just hard to know how much to get. I’m a little bit disappointed but I think it’s going to be like that for a while. It’s a lot of fun. The Aaron’s Dream Machine was really good in practice. We felt really good on long runs. We’ll see where that stacks up. I think we’ll start somewhere in the top-25. I don’t think any of the places are easy to get around, especially when you push this hard to try to be competitive. You’ve got to push it pretty hard and finding that limit without going too far.”

REGAN SMITH, No. 01 STEAK-UMM BURGERS CHEVROLET: “I don’t know where that puts us but definitely wanted to run better than that. Didn’t pick up as much as some guys did but we picked up. We’ll see what we’ve got in the race. I felt like we were decent in practice so we’ll see what we’ve got in the race.” WAS THERE AN ADVANTAGE TO GOING OUT LATE IN THE SESSION? “I don’t think it helped as much today and it usually does. The sun’s really not down that far yet. I know the guys that went early will probably say it is so who knows [smiles].” HOW IS YOUR CAR GOING TO BE WHEN THE RACE STARTS? “I felt pretty good about it earlier today so we’ll see what we’ve got.” DOES THAT THROW YOU A CURVE WHEN YOU HAVE TO QUALIFY ON RACE SETUP? “No, not really a curve. I mean, a lot of us have done it in the Busch Series getting to this point. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what we need to do.”