MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 9 Stanley Ford (Qualified 7th) “That was huge pickup for us. You think that one lap won’t make or break your season but Pocono is really tough. We had a tough Kansas and a tough practice yesterday and our team just dug deep. The car was fantastic. I guessed the shift points correctly and here we are. I am really proud of my guys. I have to thank Stanley and DeWalt and everybody for believing in me. Richard Petty too. He is my boss and I have to make him happy.”
DO YOU HAVE AN ADVANTAGE WITH THE SHIFTING? “I didn’t yesterday. I don’t know. We just had a tough day yesterday all the way around and we took the night to reassess the situation and the boys did a great job. This place is really tough to qualify at and that is the fastest I have ever been around Pocono.”
MATT KENSETH, No. 17 Affliction Clothing Live Fast Ford (Qualified 27th) “It didn’t handle very good out there. We didn’t seem to be too bad in race trim. We weren’t necessarily the fastest but we were consistent so that is good. We were just slow in the qualifying trim and the car didn’t handle well. I am optimistic about tomorrow though because we were at least consistent in race trim yesterday.”
DAVID RAGAN, No. 6 UPS Ford (Qualified 11th) “I think this is a really tricky track to hit a perfect lap on. I think I probably left a tenth or two on the table. I think we have a car that can win the race on Sunday and hopefully we can stay in the top 10-12 with that effort. Drew and the guys did a nice job and it is tough to predict what the car is going to do. We have 25 degrees difference in air temperature and clouds and the time of day. I think we picked up over a second or something, so they did a good job of adjusting the car. It was a good lap and I think we will have something for them on Sunday.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 3M Ford (Qualified 37th) “We were just too darn loose out there. The car has been like that since we got here and we just haven’t been able to fix it. That was the big issue there. We were just too loose and unfortunately we struggled with that in race trim as well, so we have some work to do for tomorrow.”
CARL EDWARDS, No. 99 Kellogg/Cheez-It Ford (Qualified 6th) “It was an okay run but I was just telling Bob and the guys that that is the fastest our car has been through three and four. I knew we got through one and two really well. The timing was a little shaky and we got a little loose. All I could think was, ‘man, this is a screaming lap and don’t overdrive three.’ I drove in there a little bit soft and this thing stuck. It had so much grip and I knew right then that I gave something up. I tried to get into third gear and get on the gas as early as I could. That is a pole winning car right there. I just needed to drive a pole winning three and four. I am excited about the race. It is nice to be disappointed about a sixth place qualifying position. It should be a really good run for us.”
SAM HORNISH JR., No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford: (Qualified 26th) “We had good speed. We picked up almost a second and three-quarters from yesterday. It was still tough to know where we needed to be. The car was looking free yesterday and we tightened it up, and for the track conditions we probably went a little too much. So, we did put more speed in the car but we just had to make sure we made it in the race. I’m just really looking forward to tomorrow. I think with what we were able to do in second practice yesterday, and if we have a clean, smart run, we’ll be able to get out of here with a decent finish.”
DAVID GILLILAND, No. 34 Taco Bell Ford: (Qualified 30th ) “We were pretty good. The track definitely picked up a lot of speed. But we ended up hitting our splitter a little coming through the Tunnel Turn, which cost us some time. We’ll get it tuned up for the race. The pace will slow down a bunch in the race and we won’t have that problem. It’s definitely a lot cooler out here this morning — I think the track temperature was like 40 degrees less. So there was a lot of grip out there and a lot of speed.”
