"I couldn't see the track out there on that
last run. That's only happened to me one time
before. During the qualifying time in that car,
the sun was right in my eyes. It really didn't
get bad until about half-track. I literally
had zero vision. Fortunately the communication
between my self and (crew chief) Dickie (Venables)
is really good. He told me that most of the
cars had a tendency to move towards the inside
of the track. From about 700 feet, I was literally
driving by memory and feel. Because of what
Dickie told me, I favored the car to the left
and it was just enough to keep the car from
going over the center line."
Tony Pedregon agreeing with his brother and
teammate's assessment of Friday's final qualifying
session
"Our emphasis today was to try to make it go
without doing something wrong, because last
weekend on our 88 and 90 passes, it was on the
edge of doing something wrong. It was shaking
and shuttering and doing all kinds of funky
stuff." Tim Wilkerson
on the conservative approach that had him 3rd
when Friday night's activities were over
"This track is so tricky, you have to be ready
for tire spin on every run."
Burkart after qualifying in the 9th position
"We've been fighting some handling problems
with the car the last few races, and after we
took the car to the scales we found out we were
a lot further off than we realized. That's
ADVERTISEMENT
|
one
of the problems when you start racing part way
through the season because you don't have a
chance to go over everything really well. Now
that we've fixed the handling the car is definitely
a lot easier to drive. And just like everything
else we're getting all of the bugs worked out
and everything is going much better."
Jeff Arend after qualifying 10th
"After we messed up yesterday, I thought it
would go right down there in the first session
today, and it did get past half-track before
spinning. It got far enough that my brain switched
from waiting for the spin to getting to the
other end, and then it surprised me when it
blew the tires off down there."
Worsham on his continuing troubles in qualifying
after winding up 15th
"We could run the thing down a dirt road the
way the thing's running right now. It's unbelievable
how nice it goes one to one."
Wilkerson on the handling of his car after earning
the 3rd-place qualifying spot
"All I can say is that the cool conditions
were different from qualifying and we were the
first pair of cars to hit the track."
Johnson Jr. after losing traction in round one
against C. Pedregon
"Our problem had nothing to do with Tony Pedregon.
Our problem had to do with being behind the
curve all the way through qualifying. That's
what got us in a hole, the 15th spot, and that's
what matched us up with a car that was fully
capable of outrunning a 4.89."
Worsham after losing to T. Pedregon with an
e.t. that would have been good enough to win
over the likes of Bazemore, Force, and Wilkerson,
all first-round winners in different match-ups
"It's bittersweet. You hate to lose, but I'm
happy with the way the car is running."
Ron Capps after Bazemore's 4.871 beat his 4.881
in the first round
"I didn't see him until probably the 1000-foot
mark and then he drove around me. That was our
best run of the weekend so we were happy with
that." Arend finding
encouragement in the 4.933 he ran in a losing
cause against Eric Medlen in the opening round
"From a driving standpoint, I feel I'm where
I need to be. My job is to go out there and
leave on people. I've been able to do that.
The temperature kind of crept up on us out there.
(Crew chief) Wes (Cerny) tried to address it,
trying to slow things down on the clutch, but
it wasn't quite enough."
C. Pedregon after shutting it off early in round
two against Scelzi
|