Ford Qualifying Results:
1st – David Ragan
6th – AJ Allmendinger
9th – Matt Kenseth
10th – Carl Edwards
18th – Greg Biffle
21st – Marcos Ambrose
25th – Trevor Bayne
34th – Scott Speed
37th – David Gilliland
39th – Andy Lally
42nd – Mike Bliss
43rd – Terry Labonte
DNQ – Travis Kvapil, Erik Darnell and J.J. Yeley
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion – “It was just a good, solid lap. I always critique myself and think I could have gotten more, but I don’t really know. The UPS Ford was fast. It did what I needed it to do. Maybe if I would have gone a little harder it might have jumped out from underneath me, but I’m really proud of our guys. They built this brand new race car to come here. The first lap it ever saw on the race track was on Friday, so it’s really amazing to bring a brand new car here, tune on it and be successful.”
QUOTE AFTER WINNING THE POLE: “We need to get that win for Ned (Jarrett). He’s been a great ambassador to this sport and we couldn’t be more proud to have his colors on our UPS Ford this weekend. I’m looking forward to a good race on Sunday. Our Ford has been fast. A lot changes between now and the race on Sunday, so we’ve got our work cut out for ourselves, but we look forward to the challenge.”
THE FORDS HAVE BEEN FAST HERE. IS IT THE FR9 ENGINE? “Yeah, the motors mean a lot here. Doug Yates, Robert Yates, Jack Roush have really done their homework – Tom Ghent. I can remember being here seven or eight years ago when Elliott Sadler and DJ were up front for this thing just hoping I could drive one of those Roush Yates engines and here we are. You’ve got to get through the corners. Drew Blickensderfer and our whole team did a nice job working on our car, but it just makes life a lot easier when you press the throttle and you go fast.”
MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – “It’s Indy. You want to do really well and want to get the pole and I just didn’t get it done. I’m disappointed in myself, really.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – “I just screwed up. We’ve got a great car and I just turned in the corner too early in turn one and made the car loose. I got the left-front down too low and didn’t set me up good for turn two. I got off turn two pretty good and I said, ‘OK, I’ve got to recover a little bit,’ so I went into turn three and really nailed it with more speed than I probably should have had. I tried to kind of make up a little bit and I got tight and had to come out of the gas on the short chute because I was gonna get in the fence. And then in turn four I nailed it. It took me three corners to get one right, but you’ve got to perform when the pressure is on and I didn’t right there. I’ve got a good car for tomorrow. I’m ready for 400 miles here.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – “I think we’re pretty happy with that. We’re in the race. Had we been in on points I probably could have pushed it a little bit more. I think I could have probably got a .30 out of it knowing what I left out there, but also going back and forth from Lucas Oil Raceway to here kind of messes with you a little bit, so I didn’t get all of it there, but I’m really excited with this run. The Wood Brothers have been behind me from the beginning and they’ve been behind me all weekend and we’ve picked up everytime we’ve hit the track and that’s all we can ask for. Now we’ve got 400 miles to pick up some more on Sunday, so I’m glad we’re in the race. It’s awesome for Ford, Motorcraft and Quick Lane. It’s a cool deal to be here and be out here on the Indianapolis Speedway for the first time.”
ANY PLACE YOU COULD HAVE DONE BETTER? “I would have carried more speed into one and three. I think I could have definitely used a little bit less brake and carried it in and turned in earlier. I’ve been at the short track, so I’m used to turning fast with a fast steering box and then I got here and it didn’t turn quick enough. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to beat the wheel to this thing,’ so I just got down a little bit sooner and carried more speed into one and three.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS PLACE? “I like it a lot. It’s intimidating from the infield because you can’t see anything and you don’t know what to expect. You’re kind of going out there blind, but once you get on the track it’s just a driver’s track. I think you can figure out a lot and manipulate your car and make it good. You just have to make sure you can get off the corners and we’re having a good time.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion – “I was disappointed just because the car didn’t drive like I wanted it to, like I thought it should. We worked on qualifying awfully hard. We had a lot of speed in our cars, as you can see with David and us with our practice speeds, so it’s disappointing that we missed the setup by that much where we didn’t get the speed out of the car that it was capable of.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion – “I’m happy but I threw away turn four. I think we were on the pole until turn four, but I just didn’t want to get too tight off of four, so I decided to try to drive it in until I saw Jesus and I overshot the corner (laughing). I’m just proud of the guys. Greg Erwin and I and the whole team are trying to gel together. It’s tough to do in a day or two and feel like you’re competitive, so I feel like slowly each session got better. We’re still not quite where we want to be, but we have plenty of time to keep working on that. We have to keep working on the car in race trim, but it seems like every time we went out there we got a little bit better so hopefully we do the same tomorrow.”
HOW ARE YOU IN RACE TRIM? “We’re OK. We definitely need some speed. I’m not gonna sit here and lie to you. I think we made the car on each run a little more comfortable, but we definitely need a little more speed out of it. I’m happy with the effort so far.” HOW IS IT WITH GREG? “He’s engineering based, so he’s always got a lot of ideas. He’s never thrown a ton of stuff at the car, so we’re always trying just little stuff each run, so I feel like I can get a good idea of what the car does that run compared to the next run, so he’s just real easy to work with so far. I guess that’s always the first week, everything is nice the first week, but he’s got a great background and a lot of experience and that just helps me.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Ortho Ford Fusion – “I’m happy with it. I’ll take it. I’ve qualified really, really poorly here. We’ve got very fast Ford race cars. Congrats to David Ragan. That’s huge for UPS, for David and for everybody. That’s a huge pole. Everybody has worked really hard the last two days to have a shot at that and for him to win it is big. I’m jealous of him. He did a great job, but my guys have done a great job as well. I could have drove the car a little bit better, but we’ve got 400 miles here on Sunday. I’m gonna run over to Lucas Oil Raceway tonight. I’m excited about that race. We’ve got a fast Fastenal Mustang, it should be good, and then we’ll be here tomorrow racing. This is gonna be good.”
SCOTT SPEED – No. 37 Max Q Motorsports Ford Fusion – “It’s a great weekend for us so far because we unloaded terrible and with such limited resources and such a small group of guys, it’s really hard to turn that around and we did great. We were super strong in practice and we could have bit off more, but we were able to make it in the race with a conservative setup, with a conservative lap and that’s the way you want to be able to get into races like this I think.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion – “I don’t feel like that’s gonna make the show, unfortunately. We thought we finally hit it on the very last run of practice. We got some good speed out of it. We didn’t really do much. Obviously, the track is a little hotter than it was earlier and I was hoping for some clouds to give us some grip. The car was just too loose right there. I never could pull on the wheel and get to the throttle like I needed to. I had to be really tentative and hesitant and with these long straightaways if you have to play with it a little bit it really compounds.”
ANDY LALLY – No. 71 Interstate Moving Services Ford Fusion – “We just made the Brickyard. Man, what an effort between TRG Motorsports and Ford and all these guys that have just gotten behind this program and helped the new guy out. Yesterday was the very first laps I ever turned here and to have the pressure of the next day and having to qualify to put it in the show on time was enormous, especially against the quality of drivers we race against week-in and week-out. All I can say is it’s an honor. I’m privileged to get an opportunity to do this with TRG Motorsports. We had some great Ford horsepower under the hood there and I’m sure that helped make the difference.”
DAVID RAGAN PRESS CONFERENCE – “It’ll be cool to lead the pack tomorrow. People will notice our bright blue car a little easier up front than back in the middle of the pack, but I knew we had a shot at the pole when we unloaded in qualifying trim on Friday. The car was fast. We spent a little extra time today in race trim because I didn’t think we were that great and didn’t really know what to expect for qualifying today. Drew made a few small adjustments and I just tried to hit my marks and not do anything crazy. I knew we had a shot at a top five or top 10 run for sure, so I just wanted to be a little conservative. I hit my marks and everything did what it needed to do and we wound up on top. It’s an honor to be here and to be the fastest guy at Indy. This is a great track. Any type of accomplishments you get here is cool and I couldn’t be more happy to have Ned here sitting beside me. I’m glad we lived up to what I told him. I told him we were gonna be good this weekend, so I’m glad we were able to step up to the game and do it.”
NED JARRETT – “It’s truly an unexpected bonus as far as I’m concerned coming here this weekend and being honored by David and the UPS crew and the No. 6 Ford and he goes out and win the pole. It’s those white wheels and the blue color. That’s what did it.”
DAVID RAGAN INTERJECTS: “That’s what did it. Maybe we’ll talk them into keeping this car for next week.”
NED JARRETT: “Yeah, that sounds good. I won a few poles in a car of that color but they were on dirt tracks most of the time and not on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”
DAVID RAGAN CONTINUED – ANY EXTRA MOTIVATION WITH NED HERE? “We can’t try any harder than we’ve been trying all year, but absolutely. We want to do well for all the Ned Jarrett fans and all the NASCAR Hall of Famers that are represented in not only this year’s class, but in years to come. I think this is something that UPS and Ford and the NASCAR Hall worked together to make happen and I’m glad we can give it a good run. That’s what we’re here to do and it makes it extra special to have Ned here – a little something different and I have high expectations for tomorrow as well, so it’s good to get that pole today, but our focus is on tomorrow.”
DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING FROM STARTING ON THE POLE AT TEXAS THAT YOU’LL THINK ABOUT TOMORROW? “I’m not gonna change lanes before the start-finish line. That’s the first thing I’m not gonna do, but I realized how good it is to have that good, clean air from the get-go. At Texas we started off the race and we weren’t that great, but we were able to run in the top five all night long just because we had the number one stall and we had good, clean air. That’s kind of unfair that a guy running 15th may really have a better car than us, but because we’re up there, we can stay and we can fight, so it gives us encouragement tomorrow that when they drop the green flag, even if we lose five spots at the beginning of the run we’re still gonna be fifth, so that gives us some extra confidence. It gives my pit crew confidence that they can be aggressive on pit road, that I can come in the box hard and I don’t have to worry about leaving and passing people on pit road, I can just shoot straight off, so there are so many pros that come with having that nice, clean air. Yeah, you lead the field to green and you know what you’ve got to do from the front row, but it gives you a little extra confidence just saying, ‘Hey, even if we struggle tomorrow, we still have a leg up on every one.”
WHAT CLICKED THAT HAS MADE THIS YEAR SO DIFFERENT FOR YOU? “We have better race cars and Drew Blickensderfer and I knew how to work on them to get them to where they were comfortable. It’s the same thing we had at the end of ’07 and ’08. I wasn’t mature enough and made too many mistakes my first couple of years when I was 19 and 20 years old that kept us from winning races, and then I was ready to win some races in ’09 and ’10 and our cars weren’t as good, our engines weren’t as good and I was forced to overdrive. I made more mistakes. We went through a couple crew chief changes and then finally Drew and I were together at the end of last year and we see things in the same direction. All the Roush Fenway cars have the new FR9 engine. We’ve got better race cars and it’s just a world of difference.”
DAVID RAGAN CONTINUED – HOW DID YOUR LAP FEEL? “It was a good lap. I didn’t make a mistake and I wasn’t as aggressive as I wanted to be, but I told myself we had a good car. We had a shot to sit on the pole at Vegas and I wound up backwards on the back straightaway and I didn’t want to let that happen again, so I knew that if I just hit my marks and ran a conservative lap I could be in the top five, so it was just a good lap. Maybe I’ll remember that for next time. Maybe that’s the trick of getting around here, but I hit my marks, I was on the throttle hard. I could feel the engine pulling hard off the corners and was happy. The car did everything I wanted it to do, so they did a nice job adjusting on it.”
HOW DO YOU KEEP FROM LOOKING AHEAD AT THE PROSPECT OF BEING IN THE CHASE? “Yeah, I think about that and I want to get happy, but then I look to my left and I see Bowyer and I look to my right and I see Greg Biffle and Montoya and this one in the garage and that puts me back down to reality pretty quick. There are a lot of good race car drivers around me, a lot of good teams and we can’t get confident that we’re just gonna get in because we’ve got a win or we’ve been running well because, guess what, those guys are running good too. We’ve got to keep working hard. This is the kind of thing we need to do to make the Chase. We can make the Chase, no doubt about it, so we’re prepared for the fight and can’t wait.”
NED JARRETT CONTINUED – WHAT IS YOUR FEELING WHEN YOU COME HERE TO INDY AND SEE STOCK CARS? DO YOU WISH YOU COULD HAVE RUN HERE? “Yes, I do wish I would have had an opportunity to race here. Of course the opportunity for anyone to race here in NASCAR didn’t happen until long after I had already quit driving race cars, but this place has such tradition and so many great drivers have done good things here and it’s good to see David have his name among those good drivers now. He’s got a pole position and I expect him to go out and win tomorrow, and I think he will. Honestly, when they wanted to do this this weekend, to honor me and the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the 6 car was chosen with UPS and Ford, I could not have been more pleased to have them carry my name and colors for this particular race. Even though I never got to race here myself, I haven’t been this happy, really, since Dale won here a number of years ago, so I really appreciate it David. Thanks so much for lifting me up again.” DAVID INTERJECTS: “I’m glad you didn’t tell me that before. That might have scared me.”
NED JARRETT CONTINUED – WHEN THE WOOD BROTHERS PITTED JIMMY CLARK IN 1965 WAS THAT AN INDY 500 YOU LISTENED TO? “Absolutely. I paid a lot of attention to it. We knew how good they were in NASCAR and for them to be asked to come here and pit that car and then go on and win the race, I thought it was a good shot in the arm for NASCAR racing because it brought something here that apparently had not been before. I was not that up to date on the differences in the pit stops that they made and how different it was to other teams that were doing it for so many years, but I thought it was good for our sport. I was very interested. I listened to it on the radio.”
DAVID RAGAN CONTINUED – THIS RACE HAS A HISTORY OF CHAMPIONS WHO WIN WHILE QUALIFYING HAS MORE SURPRISES. ANY THEORY WHY? “I think you’ve got to be fast to sit on the pole and to win the race you’ve got to be fast 400 miles worth, you’ve got to be good throughtout the afternoon when it’s hot and slick and rubber builds up and you have to make changes. There’s a lot more that goes into winning a race than just being fast. You have to have a good pit crew. You can’t make mistakes on restarts, but leading the first lap is certainly a start to that. I’m not saying we’re the number one contender for the championship, but if we were to go out and win tomorrow, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.”
DAVID RAGAN CONTINUED – WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE ON THE POLE HERE? “I’m hot right now. I feel hot, but it’s cool. You obviously look at a Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch – guys that are pretty dang good up here and my car was really good. I don’t feel like I drove as well as maybe I could have, but it’s a good feeling. Like Ned said, anyone that is just a race fan thinks a lot about this race track and to be able to come up here and be fast, obviously sit on the pole, that’s big. It’s big on Friday and it’s big on Saturday, but when they drop the green flag tomorrow it doesn’t really mean anything. We’ll enjoy it tonight and we’ll talk about it and talk and laugh at how much fun it was and how fast it was and all that good stuff, but then in the morning when we wake up it’ll be all business.”
DO YOU FEEL THE AUTOGRAPH SESSION EARLIER TODAY CAN HELP BRING THIS EVENT BACK TO THE GLORY IT ONCE HAD? “Absolutely, not only this event but every race track, every stop that we go to. I think that’s what makes our sport and continues to make our sport so great is the fans approach to the drivers and the crew chiefs and the team owners – the celebrities of the sport. I think by having those autograph sessions, by having Q&A sessions at the Sprint stage, spending time with UPS customers tomorrow, that’s what makes everyone interested in coming out and enjoying a great race. I think we should do it week-in and week-out at different race tracks. Obviously, every race fan can’t go to every race track, so my vote – I don’t know how the other drivers would like it – but my vote is to have one at every single race track. We’ve got to remember where we’re at. We’ve got a lot of competition out there in this world with so many sporting activities and fun things to go and do and all kinds of entertainment, so we’ve got to go the extra mile to show appreciation to our fans and my vote would be to do it every single week.”
NED JARRETT CONTINUED – “That’s why I’m so happy to have him carry my name and colors on his car.”
DAVID RAGAN CONTINUED – HAVE YOU TALKED TO JACK? “I haven’t. I guess he may be over at the short track already, so I haven’t talked to him. Jack’s gonna see me and he’s gonna say, ‘That’s what you should have done. Good job.’ And I’ll say, ‘Thanks, Jack.’ And then he’ll start talking about fuel mileage and what we’ve got to do tomorrow. Jack’s proud of us and proud of our team and Drew. That’s a brand new race car. It’s unbelievable, and Ned can attest to this, driving into turn one at any race track with a car that I don’t even know that it has seen daylight before. It’s been in our race shop and having the confidence it’s gonna stick in turn one, so that’s what I’m proud of.”
IS JACK EAGER TO GET TO VICTORY LANE HERE? “I don’t think Jack really talks about stuff like that because he is a little more level. He expects to be fast and he’s concentrated about the problems that we face in front of us, but deep down Jack wants to win here at Indy. He wants to win at Daytona and likes winning at Michigan. He did let us know that the Kentucky race track is the closest to where he grew up at and where his hometown was and none of us got him a win up there, so he thinks about that. That would be absolutely amazing to win for Jack and I’m sure all the other drivers would say the same thing. We’ve got as good a chance to win tomorrow’s race – all four of us – as we’ve had here since I’ve started coming here about three or four years ago.”
