"Normally, after an oildown, the lane that the Safety Safari works on is 100-percent better. I, along with a few other crew chiefs, visually checked both lanes and we all agreed that the right was the better of the two lanes -- thus the change. If I had it to do over, I don't think I would have done anything different. After looking at data, we can't blame it on anything. I just made a bad call in hindsight but it would have probably done the same thing in either lane. We didn't make the right call for the track we ran on at the time we ran on it.” -- Todd Smith, crew chief for number-two qualifier Cory McClenathan, on choosing the lane Novelli had oiled down right in front of them and then watching his driver lose traction almost immediately off the hit

“I wanted to be on the safe side and grabbed the brake a couple of times, probably too many. It was trying to rattle the tire a little bit and I think that slowed the car down just a little too much.” -- Morgan Lucas after losing a close one against Doug Herbert in the first round

"There was a distinct difference in the lanes today and we didn't have lane choice against Kalitta.” -- Schumacher explaining his tire-smoking loss to championship rival D. Kalitta in round two

"The car left well and then it started rattling and it was all over then. Most of the time lane choice doesn't make or break a race, especially late in the weekend, but today it seemed like it was more important.” -- Herbert after falling to Dixon in the semis

FUNNY CAR

"He (Force) said I should be going in deep on him. Heck, he pays me to win, so that's what I tried to do. I did everything I could think of, talking on the radio right up until the end, whatever it took. I got the little gold man, and that's all that matters.” -- Eric Medlen again, on the holeshot win over teammate and team owner John Force that successfully defended his 2004 win at Brainerd

“Our car’s back where it should be but we need to do a little work on the driver, that’s all.” -- Force after losing in the 25th all-Team Force final, but the first between him and Medlen

“We had some drama on the burnout, which made it a little stressful. As I backed up I could tell something was screwy with the brakes, and then I saw the guys picking up bits of metal on the track. I knew it was a brake issue, and at some tracks you'd shut the car off if the brakes weren't 100 percent, but here the road course curves around to the right at the end of the track and if you have to you can coast for about a mile, so I let them know on the radio that I wanted to go.” -- Del Worsham on his Friday-night qualifying attempt that netted a 4.884-secs pass

“We didn't hurt a thing, it came back clean as a whistle, and that always makes me happy.” -- Tim Wilkerson at the close of Friday’s second qualifying session

"I'm still not real pleased that we only went down the race track once. That's not a comforting feeling going into first round tomorrow. Mike [Neff, crew chief] doesn't seem to be concerned. We've been here before, but I think we were just trying to cut too low an ET. We need to get over that and just get down the race track.” -- Gary Scelzi after going a track record 4.770 at 328.70 mph in Saturday’s first qualifying session, but posting 5.758, 8.821, and 6.476 in his other attempts

“In each session you didn't know what was going to happen. The poor crew chiefs had either cloud cover come over at the last minute or have it clear up when there was already cloud cover out there. That's a nightmare for a crew chief.” -- Ron Capps after qualifying 4th for raceday

"During the early run, it was clearly a home run session and we came up there with a Wiffle Ball bat. I really don't know what the deal is with the clutch right now, but we have certain runs where it just does what it wants instead of what we want.” -- Worsham on his tire-smoking third qualifying attempt that left him 14th on the list before jumping to 6th with his final attempt