SAM HORNISH JR., No. 9 Medallion Bank Ford Fusion – “Our Ford Fusion was a little better in qualifying than what we had in race practices. I feel like we made some positive changes. The big thing for us is to continue the chemistry. We made the car better for the second run of qualifying there. We were in for a second but were too close to the edge to feel like we are comfortable. The big thing for us is to feel like we go into tomorrow’s race and make good changes throughout the race and just continue to build upon it. This week isn’t a throwaway by any means but we also know we are up against it this week with all the things going on. It is a great learning session and hopefully we have a real good run on Saturday night’s race and we get it in.”
GREG BIFFLE, No. 16 Cheez-It Patrick Star Ford Fusion – “We just got a little better speed in our car and this racetrack has been pretty good for us. We barely made the first round and barely made the second and then I just drove it – over drove it. I just said I was going to go for it. I didn’t care what happened. I was 11th so I kind of had nothing to lose and that is a hell of an improvement and a great accomplishment. The fact is though that we have to find that speed for the race now and we are celebrating a seventh and three years ago we would be mad right now. I am excited we are seventh and not 27th but at the same time we will keep our head down and keep improving on it. The real thing is going to be where we end up tomorrow night at the end of this thing. If we end up in single digits or low double digits I think we will be happy with that because that is an improvement and shows we are headed in the right direction. We will keep working on it.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., No. 17 Zest Ford Fusion – “We made the second round and have been more consistent lately which is good. We are still trying to figure out what we need to do to continue to get better in this second round. We have been talking about that here a little bit. We are paying attention to what other guys are doing down pit road and just trying to get better. I think we are on to some things. We didn’t really get it done this round obviously but the Zest Fusion is something to work with I think. We don’t have a winning car right now but I think we have a car that can run up decent hopefully through the field. We are starting 20th, starting in the first half of the field, so that is good.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 43 Farmland Ford Fusion – “We only made qualifying runs in practice on stickers and never made a second run on the same set of tires. We played a little bit of a guessing game for that second run there and we maybe over adjusted the car just a little bit. All in all it was a good day for us. The car has been really fast all day long and it is a lot better starting spot than we have had here in the past. The past nine weeks I think we have averaged like a 27th place starting spot. We will take a 14th and get ready for the race.”
