FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES
Good Sam RV 500 Qualifying
August 6, 2011
Pocono Raceway
Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Carl Edwards 9th – Greg Biffle 15th – David Ragan 20th – Matt Kenseth 24th – David Gilliland 27th – Marcos Ambrose 29th – AJ Allmendinger 34th – J.J. Yeley 35th – Erik Darnell 39th – Travis Kvapil 40th – Scott Speed 43rd – Jason White 45th – Andy Lally
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – “Hopefully that will end up in the top 15. We thought we had a legitimate shot of a pole run or top-five run, and I think the track is a little bit warmer now than it was maybe 20 minutes ago, but I missed my marks a little bit through the tunnel turn. The car got a little bit tight, but, other than that, it was a pretty solid lap. I think our race car is gonna be close for Sunday. We’ve got some little adjustments to make to try and make it better. It’s an OK lap. You’re never completely satisfied unless you’re on the pole, but I think that will give us certainly something to race with. It’s a lot better than 25th.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “That’s not what we wanted. When you’ve only got one lap it’s hard to really know what you’ve got out there. I tried, but I just got a little loose off of one and lost a lot of momentum.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “That’s a relief. It was really good and it’s really good to see it brightening up out here. I was a little unsure of the grip level, so I probably didn’t take full advantage of what was out there. I got about seven-eighths of it. In one and two I probably could have got the gas down a little bit sooner and could have carried a little more speed through the tunnel, but in three I think I was right on the money.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – “I went down in turn one and Bob said, ‘Man, that was a little scary,’ so there’s a lot of grip out there. I’ve got to give Ryan Newman some trouble. I actually beat Ryan Newman in qualifying here at Pocono, so that’s huge. I’m proud of my lap. I’ve got to say that Joey Logano’s lap was a very, very fast lap. Mine felt amazing, so he did a really good job and now we’ll go race. It’s gonna be great. We’ve got Ortho, Aflac, Ford, hopefully we’ll get them a win.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Fusion – “We found some setup stuff yesterday that we tried and the car just drives like a whole different car now. I’m excited about having a good day this weekend, but I’m more excited about what we’ve learned to help us keep progressing throughout the rest of the year. I feel like we’ve made some great progress and great strides as far as getting the car to where it drives and feeling more in the race track. There’s speed when you can get them driving like that, so I’m pretty excited.”
ANDY LALLY – No. 71 Interstate Moving Services Ford Fusion – “We didn’t do a single mock qualifying run in practice. We worked on our race setup, so that was my first time out there aired up this weekend and really going for it. The guys made the car better from practice, we were just a little bit short of making a real big gain there. We’ve got the race to look forward to now. We’re in and I’m not gonna go sweat over the timing and scoring right now. We’re just gonna go get it ready for tomorrow.”
DID YOU GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP KNOWING YOU WERE GUARANTEED A SPOT IN THE RACE? “The last three nights have been just great since we’ve been here and knowing we can just work on race setup. I was a little concerned when we weren’t gonna do a qualifying run just because ego-wise you want to go throw up a time on the board, but, in reality, you’ve got to look at the big picture. We’ve got this Ford running pretty good here and now we’ll just keep trying to gain points.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 38 Long John Silvers’ Ford Fusion – “Last week was a huge letdown for us. Indy and Pocono have similar characteristics, but they’re completely different race tracks. I really enjoy coming to Pocono. It’s a unique place and I’m just proud of my guys. We rebounded and brought a good setup. We had good speed off the truck yesterday and so far it’s been a good, solid weekend. Hopefully we can pick up the pieces we left behind last week and have a good run tomorrow and keep inching our way back up toward that top 35. It seems everytime we get close, we falter and fall back so, hopefully, we can get it done this week.”
