DERRIKE COPE – No. 64 Gunselman Motorsports Ford Fusion (Finished 27th) – “Our car was tight. We were on used tires so it was tight and I just had to be committed to the high side. They got together or blew a tire down there and turned sideways in front of us. I thought I had the 32 below me because he had been running the bottom, so I just tried to get by it on the high side the best I could and ran out of room.”
IT WAS A BIG HIT. THE SAFETY EQUIPMENT DID IT’S JOB? “Yeah, I bit my tongue and chipped my tooth, but, other than that I’m now worse for wear.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 1st) – WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ON THE RESTART WHEN YOU SAW WHAT TRANSPIRED? “I just spun the tires a little bit and I knew the guys with two rights would have a little bit better grip at the beginning, but kudos to Drew and our whole UPS team we love logistics car. It was good on the long run. We thought we may have some cautions there at the end and once Brad and I got out I knew that I probably had a little better car than he did, and I just tried to stay on the bottom. I would have been happy with second for a little while, but when we got that close, I said, ‘Hey, let’s go win this thing.’ But I feel like I just ran 600 miles, though, but I’ll have a drink of Coca-Cola and get ready for the next one.”
NOW YOU HAVE A SHOT AT THE BIG PRIZE. WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT RACE? “I think we saw the track did what we thought it would, it freed up a little bit and gained a lot of grip, so maybe that was a good test session for our UPS team. We made a few small adjustments, but we’ve got to go learn the rules for this All-Star Race. It’s all gonna be fun from here. Whatever happens from here on out is just gonna be a bonus. We’ve got a shot to win this next one.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd) – “It was great that Edsel Ford stood on my box. I’ve got Ford blood in my body, but that stings finishing third and chance for a million bucks to win the big race. We’ll take a lesson out of this and be better the next time. We were the fastest car at the end, so we learned a lot. We were just unlucky. We seemed to have the wrong starting lane each time and I just had to keep fighting back through spots. We got there, but not fast enough. It was a real shame for us.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion (Finished 4th) – “It was a good effort by the Best Buy team. We’re a lot better on the mile and a half tracks than we used to be, but we just got pinned on the restart and ran out of time.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Fusion (Finished 7th) – “Our car was a little too tight, but we finished seventh and I’m proud of that. We beat some good cars and we qualified well. The car had good speed in qualifying, so I’m excited. We did learn some stuff, a little bit of what to do and what not to do, so that pit stop helped us. We came in and did some adjustments pit stop-wise, so that really helped us. We’ve got a direction for next week.”
DAVID RAGAN PRESS CONFERENCE – “Clean air was everything. I felt like those restarts was gonna determine who was gonna win and who wasn’t. I think if you would have thrown a guy running sixth and seventh in the lead, I think they would have had the speed to stay up there, so I was just fortunate we were able to get through those restarts and not lose a lot of ground. Our car was pretty good there at the end, so it was cool to get the win. There for a little while I was just gonna be happy running second, but my car was just a little bit better than Brad’s and it feels good.”
WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR YOUR CONFIDENCE? “It does a lot for our confidence for myself, for the team, for the competitors that we race around. We’ve been so close to closing the deal and just haven’t been able to do it. There for a few laps tonight I thought that we were just gonna have to run second, but we kept fighting. Everything is a lot easier if you’ve got a fast race car, so I just tried not to make any mistakes those last few runs. It’ll give us some extra confidence just to be out here in this All-Star Race. This is race that we’ve had to watch the last three years and it’s been pretty tough to go back home and watch it, so it’ll give us some confidence being out there. I’m more proud for my team to be a part of it. They’ve been working hard. We didn’t get a chance to go down to the Pit Crew Challenge, so I’m really happy for my guys. It means a lot to them.”
