Ford Qualifying Results:
4th – Greg Biffle
13th – AJ Allmendinger
23rd – Carl Edwards
26th – David Ragan
27th – Matt Kenseth
29th – Marcos Ambrose
32nd – J.J. Yeley
33rd – David Gilliland
38th – Travis Kvapil
40th – Mike Bliss
41st – Josh Wise
42nd – Scott Speed
43rd – Andy Lally
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 Ford40mpg.com Ford Fusion – IS IT THE FORD FUSION THAT GETS 40 MILES PER GALLON? “Yeah, it is. This car, we figured it out, 783 laps I could run without stopping. That’s what we’re hoping for on Sunday, but the guys did a great job with this car. I left a little bit out there in turn two. We’ll see how many of these guys beat us here at the end, but it’s a great car and I’m real excited about Sunday.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL HERE? “It’s a fun race track, really flat, really technical, you’re on the edge. I heard Denny Hamlin say earlier you’re on the edge all the time and it’s either chattering the front or chattering the back or sliding or doing something and you just have to manage that all the time. This race track is really challenging, but a lot of fun.”
YOU WOULD LIKE THE LAP OVER AGAIN? “Yeah, you just don’t know. You’re so on the edge and the car chatters a little bit and you’re just sneaking the gas to it, so I cautiously pushed it down off of turn two and it didn’t even wiggle, it just stuck into the race track way too good. I only missed the poll by a hundredth so far, somebody could definitely go faster, but you always come back and critique your lap, but it’ll be good top five or six starting spot.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 DeWalt Ford Fusion – “We just kept working on it. My DeWalt team has done a great job to bounce back from a really tough practice. I just thank them for sticking by me. Nobody got their heads down, so now we’ll just keep working at it and keep trying. We’re hopefully gonna gain a few spots and be somewhere in the top 20. I had no idea what the car was gonna do in qualifying, but it was better. We went nearly four-tenths faster on that lap than what we did in practice, so that’s a good thing. We’ll just see how it plays out.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – “That was a small pickup from what we ran in practice and really didn’t know what to expect. We spent the last part of practice in race trim and didn’t get a chance to run many more qualifying runs. You always want to go faster, but this is not one of our strongest tracks. Hopefully, it’ll stay in the top 15 or so. It wasn’t a great lap and it can always be better, but we’re looking forward to Sunday.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ford Fusion – “We came here to win, but we’ve got some work to do. In practice the car felt okay, but I was just telling David (Ragan) that our lap felt really good but it’s two-tenths slower than Kurt. We’ve got to pick it up a little bit and figure out where we’re missing some things. Bob and I tried some stuff this morning, some different things that are outside the box, and I think we’re gonna be able to use some of that for the race, but I was really hoping for a better lap than that. If it rains, we’re gonna be in big trouble because we’ll start 24th or something. Maybe that will stand up for a top 10 or 12, I don’t know.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Fusion – “We picked up from where we were in practice and made some air-pressure adjustments and ran real close to what our teammate ran with the same setup in the car. They were really good here last time in the race, so we came with what they had and with it looking like rain we did some qualifying stuff in practice. All in all it wasn’t bad. I think we’ll be fine. The car drives really well and I haven’t had a car that drove good here in a long time, so I’m looking forward to it.”
J.J. YELEY – No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion – “It was pretty good. I think we gained from what we had in practice, but I don’ t know how much of that might have been the race track. We were still a little too tight in the center, so that kept us from cutting a really great lap, but, all in all, it was comfortable and smooth. You couldn’t ask for much more than that.”
