"This team is here to win the championship, and that's all that really matters." — Grubnic, teammate to final-round opponent D. Kalitta, after coming up short for the third time in the three finals he's contested this year

"It's great for our whole team that it was two Kalitta cars in the final. I wish we could do this every time." — D. Kalitta after defeating teammate Grubnic in the final to earn his third event title of 2004

"I love this place. It's definitely one of my favorite stops on the tour and that hasn't changed this year. I got my first win here in 1998 and then we won it three times in a row. I wouldn't mind if we ran all the races here. Really, any of these good tracks are good for this team. I guess our tune-up just wants a place where we can pound on the track." — D. Kalitta again, on his rich history of winning at Sonoma

FUNNY CAR

"Everybody thinks Austin Coil is a mad scientist, but he's not. He's conservative. When you race on your own money like he did back in the days of the Chi-Town Hustler (when Coil was both crew chief and co- owner of a car driven by Pat Minick), you learn to conserve parts and protect your pocketbook." — John Force before the race, on the tactics of his legendary crew chief

"Finally, now I can say I've been to every racetrack. Up until I joined Team CSK last year, I'd never driven a car that had enough budget to do the whole tour. I'd never done more than eight races in a season, actually, and if you're watching your dollars you don't go on the swing." — Phil Burkart on making his first on-track appearances on the NHRA's three-race Western Swing

"I've always said we were a lot better team than we were on paper or on the track." — Jerry Toliver on his team's lingering inconsistency after a promising start this year

"When you get to the final race of the Western Swing, it turns into survival of the fittest. It's who can keep their game at such a high level. It's a tough three-race swing. A lot depends on the crew and how well we do at Denver and Seattle. It's very mentally draining on

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everybody because at this time of year the races are so far apart. You really have to keep up the crew guys morale." — Tommy Johnson Jr. on the extra challenge the teams face out west

"At one point I wanted to crush my teammate and establish some dominance in the team. And obviously now that we're in our second year together on the Don Schumacher Racing team, we've become better friends and it's a good relationship. I certainly want him to do well and have success, not necessarily at our expense, but if we're struggling like we are, then we want those guys to be the ones that set the pace and rise to the occasion." — Whit Bazemore on the rivalry he shares with teammate Gary Scelzi after Bazemore lost in round two and Scelzi made it to the semis at Infineon

"That was ugly." — Del Worsham after Friday's qualifying sessions left him 15th

"That was the most difficult run I've ever made in my career—-as far as visibility was concerned. I was really just driving off of instincts. I felt I was going straight and I knew the car was on a good run. I felt it move over to the centerline, so I instinctively moved it back. I really had no idea where I was out there. I used my different impact helmet—that had a clear visor. I thought we were going to be making a night run, so I didn't use my helmet with the dark visor. It just happened that the sun was setting in the West, as we were driving into it. I thought we were going to run a little later, but they ran us about 20 minutes earlier than first thought. Luckily, I kept it between the lines and we made a good run." — Cruz Pedregon on what it was like to drive into severe glare at 311.56 mph during his second qualifying attempt