“I knew I liked night racing.”  -- Johnson Jr. after his 4.905 put him right behind Bazemore after two rounds of qualifying

“We struggled on the two most important runs, which are the night-session runs. If you don’t get in on the night runs, you have to work extra hard to run better during the day.” —Capps after qualifying 16th, on going up in smoke on both Friday and Saturday night

“I definitely enjoy racing Force, but prefer racing him in the later rounds.” —Cruz Pedregon on his first-round foe after qualifying 10th

“If it happens one time, that’s racing. Twice, maybe we’re just having an off day. But right now he’s got his hands full just keeping this car in the lane and Phil’s way too good of a driver for that to be him. I’ve seen him save runs many times, but he can’t save some of these and I’m sure we’re going to find some issues with the front end of the car. We’ll check the toe-in, and we’ll put it on the scales to check the pre-load. We’ll give him a car

ADVERTISEMENT

he can steer tomorrow.”  -- Chris Cunningham, co-crew chief for Burkart, on the handling troubles his driver encountered on his way to qualifying 11th

“We hoped for a little more on the final run, but I’ll take good, consistent runs over one stellar run that just gets you in the show. The consistency will go a long way on race day.”  -- Johnson Jr. after making 3 of 4 qualifying passes in the 4.90s and starting from the 8th spot

“Usually, as the eighth and ninth [qualified] cars, you end up as the last pair because no one else wants the minimum time between rounds. Here, the rest of the pack threw us out there first, because no one had much of a clue what we were in for, running right in the middle of the afternoon.”  -- Del Worsham after his opening-round win over Johnson Jr., and referring to NHRA’s rule that allows the highest qualified teams to get first choice for their pairing slots

“We wanted to go smokeless. We didn’t want to give the race away by smoking the tires.” —Capps getting in a sly plug for his sponsor after falling in the opening round to Bazemore

“The guy’s a 12-time champion and he was up in the seat for that one.” —Scelzi expressing his respect after losing to a holeshot by Force in round two

“I needed that. I’ve made some (driving) mistakes lately and I sure didn’t want my guys to starting losing faith in me.” —Force on his victory over Scelzi.

“I thought we might have won this one, but when we came around the corner at the end of the track, they pointed Gary toward the ESPN crew and pointed me to the other side. That was my tip-off that we didn’t win. I’m pretty sure that’s the closest loss I’ve ever had in a Nitro Funny Car.” —Burkart on losing by just 4-thousandths to Gary Densham in round two

“At the beginning of the season our goal was very obvious, to win the championship, and we’re not going to beat around the bush. It would be very easy for us to come out and say that we’re hopeful for a top-five finish. And that’s the safe route. But a top-five finish doesn’t motivate us and when you state your goals publicly, you open yourself up to a little bit of ridicule because your successes or failures are very public.” —Bazemore after a second-round loss to Worsham, his 7th early-round exit in the last 8 races

“The track and the weather were a huge challenge, and today the heat was sapping the energy out of the guys and the cars.” —Worsham after coming up short against Wilkerson in the semis

“Wish we could’ve done a little bit better against John there. I was the only guy to be undefeated against him in the finals, and that was kind of a cool thing to be, you know. But there’s a reason why John’s the champ. He does a great job.” —Wilkerson expressing his own admiration for the champ after falling in the final round to Force

“It’s not over, but I feel a lot better than I did coming in (to Memphis). We just have to keep the pressure on. Those are good race teams. They’re not going to just give it to us.” —Force on his points lead over Scelzi, Bazemore, and Worsham with just 6 races left on this year’s schedule