“If the thing has eight holes, it will run a mid-80 as we saw in qualifying.” —Wilkerson on his raceday prospects after securing the number-one starting spot

“It’s more than just wanting to win a race. We find ourselves in a situation where now is the time that we have to really step up at the plate and perform. As a driver, it’s the kind of pressure that I really like and it’s the kind of pressure I think that our team will thrive under.” —Bazemore after qualifying 5th, on the need to perform if his team retains any hopes of capturing the championship

“We knew a 5.0 wasn’t going to cut it, so we stepped on it a bit and overpowered the track.” —Arend describing the outcome of his race against Force

“Usually you figure a team overpowered the track when they smoke the tires, but that was not the case. We were actually down on power, and the car just got all out of balance and never really got up on the tire and running. It finally just kind of fell on its face enough to break the tires loose. I can’t tell you yet why it chose that run to mysteriously be down on power, it just did. I’d like to yell at the car, but I don’t think it would hear me and I know it wouldn’t care.”  —Marc Denner, co-crew chief for Burkart, after his driver went up in smoke against a similarly afflicted Tony Pedregon in the opening round

“I couldn’t see what they saw, so I was hoping we could still stage it and launch it just to see what happened. But my dad knew it was too dangerous, and he told me to shut it off. It was so hard to push those fuel levers off, but it was the right call. Had we run it, I might be commenting now about how we blew up, caught on fire, and hit the wall. I couldn’t believe it when I saw my dad give me the signal to shut off. I still don’t believe it. It was unreal. I used some other choice words at the time, none of which I would repeat here.” — Worsham on the oil leak that forced him to cancel his first-round match against Capps before it even began

“Going out in the first round was certainly not what we had planned for the day and the race. The car was set up to go quicker than that and it didn’t. We kind of know a little bit about what went wrong. It’s just the way it goes sometimes.” —Bazemore on his loss to Tommy Johnson Jr.

“These cars are very temperamental, but I think we’re just an adjustment or two away from where we need to be. We had a little glitch during the service after the first round. The time we lost during the trouble shoot was very valuable. It didn’t allow us to fine tune a couple of things —it probably made the difference in that run.” —T. Pedregon on smoking the tires in his loss to Force in round two

“On our second pass we were looking for a mid to high 4.80, but we’re having trouble with the thing putting a hole out. I don’t quite understand what it’s up to all of a sudden, so we’ll have to figure why it’s doing that. We’ll get to the bottom of it, maybe, I guess. And if we don’t we’ll just keep doing it. It seems that it does it to us when we’re working on a lot of blower speed and that’s what we’ve got now with the 85 percent thing.” —Wilkerson after losing a cylinder and losing the second round to Capps

“We know what happened on that one —and it’s something that definitely won’t happen again. The camshafts in these cars are different and it wasn’t in its proper place. We made a lot more horsepower than we intended.” —C. Pedregon explaining why he lost traction in his second-round loss to Scelzi

“This is the first time since the switch to the 85-percent nitro rule that we ran the way we should. We got our power curve back this weekend. Our tune-up is back to where it was before the rule change.” —Johnson Jr. finding solace despite a second-round loss to rookie Eric Medlen

“It just feels good; I mean, he’s the 12-time champ and he’s the one everybody fears. We raced him smart and that’s what we’re trying to do each time. We’re trying not to put any more effort into racing him than anybody else. We’re just trying to do what we need to do to win and let the chips fall where they may.” —Scelzi on winning with a holeshot against Force in the semi-finals

“I didn’t see Scelzi for a while, then I saw way too much of him, then we started catching him and by the time I got to the lights, I didn’t know who had won. I know it was close. If hope had anything to do with it, I might have edged him right there.” —Medlen describing his final-round win over Scelzi

“It didn’t really hit me that I won my first race until the crew guys got out of the (return vehicle) at the other end. We’ve been through so much over the years and they’re the closest people to my heart. When you look in their eyes and see the joy in there, it hits you. And then dad (crew chief John Medlen) came up and the tears came. All my life I’ve just wanted to be part of whatever he was doing and now we’ve won a race together and that’s forever.” —Medlen again, on the emotional impact of scoring his career-first victory

“I’m really proud of Eric. I always knew he could do the job and now I think he knows it, too.” —Force on his rookie teammate