NASCAR Cup

All-Star: Ford teams Showdown qualifying quotes

Qualifying was canceled with four cars remaining due to rain. The quotes below were obtained from drivers after their qualifying lap. *** DAVID RAGAN - No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion "We picked up almost half-a-second from practice, so I don't know if ...

Published: May 22, 2010, 4:21 AM

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Qualifying was canceled with four cars remaining due to rain. The quotes below were obtained from drivers after their qualifying lap.

***

DAVID RAGAN - No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion

"We picked up almost half-a-second from practice, so I don't know if that's the temperature cooling down or if we made our car a little better. Our UPS Ford was OK in practice. We made a few changes and, ultimately, it's got to be good from lap 20 to lap 40 in our race. It doesn't matter much what that first 20 laps is going to be. We've had the car to beat before in the first 20, but fell off in the second. It'll be OK for tomorrow. This is always a fun weekend and it's a chance to go out and drive your heart out and, hopefully, get the UPS Ford in."

***

KEVIN CONWAY - No. 37 ExtenZe Ford Fusion

"I'm really excited about tomorrow night just to have the opportunity to be involved in the whole All-Star weekend. It's awesome for the whole ExtenZe racing team and it's fun to be able to go out and not have to worry about points and not have to worry about any of that. It gives us an opportunity to really just run a little bit harder and not have to worry about staying in the top 35 and all of those things. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night. In practice we were really, really tight all day long - plowing tight. We made some drastic changes and right there we were extremely loose, so I think by the time we untape it and make a few more adjustments with the impound procedure they'll allow us to do that I think we'll actually be pretty good. We're gonna be starting in the back, but I'm really excited. I love this race track. We had a top-five finish going in the Nationwide car last year and got a pit road speeding penalty, which was my fault, and cost us a great finish. I really, really love this race track. We've run well in the ARCA car here and the Nationwide car and taken to it well in the Cup car, so it's just trying to make the most of what we have to work with."

***

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 3M Ford Fusion

"That was a go or go home lap right there. I gave it all I had. We were pretty good in practice, but we're fighting with four or five cars for that transfer spot I think. I was up on the wheel for qualifying and I'm just gonna do all I can do tomorrow night in the race."

***

PAUL MENARD - No. 98 Menards Ford Fusion

"It was a big pick-up. We had a good test here. We tried to improve on that and we came back. We were off, so we kind of reset and went back to how we ended the test and picked up a lot of speed by doing that. It was a big pickup from practice. It was a lot cloudier and I think it's a little cooler and the track just had more grip."

IS THIS YOUR KIND OF RACE TOMORROW? "It's gonna be fun and exciting for sure. I don't know if it's my type of race, but I know we have a good Serta Mattresses Ford and it should be fun."

WHAT WILL WE SEE IN THE SHOWDOWN? "The same thing you always see - lots of action. I don't know if there will be fender banging early, but you'll see that when it comes down to the last few laps. It's gonna be exciting. This track has a lot of grip and these cars are dialed out pretty good. They've got a lot of speed in them right now."

***

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 19 Stanley Ford Fusion

"We struggled in practice a lot and we just couldn't get the car to really do much for us, so we leaned on the 98 car a lot. We didn't make a mock qualifying run to really know what our car was gonna do, but that's a decent lap for us. I really want to thank the 98 for helping us out today and getting us some information. That's what teammates are for."

***

TRAVIS KVAPIL - No. 34 Long John Silver's Ford Fusion

"It was OK. We were too loose. I felt pretty good about the car in race trim. This is a new car for us and we got one lap of qualifying practice in earlier and the car was loose then too, so we needed to take a bigger step for tonight. It's tough with impound stuff because typically you tighten your car up quite a bit more. If you're happy with your car in race trim, you're kind of limited with how much you can go without sacrificing for 30-40 laps tomorrow night, so we were too free. I'm disappointed with that. We were hoping to qualify in the top 10 to even give us a chance at advancing tomorrow night, but we'll race like heck and see if we can do it."

***

DAVID GILLILAND - No. 38 Taco Bell Ford Fusion - (Quote during rain delay)

"We struggled with our Taco Bell Ford Fusion in practice. We weren't as good as we'd like to be. We fought being tight. But Randy (crew chief Randy Seals) and the guys found a couple problems with the car that we felt we could work on to make the car a lot better. I was excited to qualify and see what we had because we didn't do a qualifying run in practice. But it looks like we're going to have to start dead last by qualifying draw. When the draw came out, last sounded great. I think to qualify here, you want to go last because the track cools down. But if they start by your draw, then you don't want to be last. But it's just one of those things. Looks like it's going to be an exciting race and we'll just take it as it comes."

-source: ford racing

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