Bristol: Ford Racing qualifying quotes

RICK MAST-90-Duke's Mayonnaise/Sauer's Taurus

"The car felt fast. We adjusted on it, it felt like it was pretty good through the turns and we were actually just a tick slower than we practiced. I thought we were running a tenth or so quicker."

BUT YOU ARE IN THE RACE THIS WEEKEND. "That's true, but golly, starting position is so important at Bristol. I've been on both ends of this race track and the closer you are to the front the better off you are. You just don't want to start at the back here."

ELLIOTT SADLER-21-Motorcraft Taurus

"I tried to do D.W. said to do; I had a great first lap and I really tried to hang it out on the second one. I got too aggressive, but I'm pretty happy with that. The Motorcraft Ford Taurus has been driving good all day, and it's the same car we had last year. So, if we're somewhere in the top six or seven, we'll have a shot at it."

MORE ON HIS QUALIFYING LAP. "Hopefully that will be somewhere in the top 10. That's where we wanted to start, somewhere in the top 10, to kind of get ahead of everybody and stay out of trouble, so hopefully that'll be in the top 10. The car was driving good. We were really fast on old tires, even this morning."

SO THIS IS THE SAME CAR? "Same car as last year, just made it a little bit stronger in the front end, so it should be a little bit better. We'll see what happens."

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE RACE? "I'm ready to go. I really love this race track, so hopefully it will work out good for us."

MORE ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT. "We've really been working hard on our qualifying effort, and the guys today really gave me a great race car - a perfect race car, really - just the driver messed up on my second lap. It's a shame, but if we get a start in the top 10 we got a good shot a winning again. That's the main thing. The car's driving good, the Motorcraft pit crew's ready to go, so I'm looking forward to Sunday."

RICKY CRAVEN-32-Tide Taurus

"It was another great effort by the team. I needed some help out there and they made some good adjustments. It should give us a respectable start."

RYAN NEWMAN-12-ALLTEL Taurus

"We worked on it really hard. Matt Borland did an awesome job, just trying to figure out what we needed to attack this race track. It's a really cold day, we didn't come here and test, and it's just a good opportunity for us to go out there and make the best of a not-so-good situation after practice, there."

THIS LAP WAS BETTER THAN EXPECTED? "Better than expected from where we practiced."

RUSTY WALLACE-2-Miller Lite Taurus

"Had a pretty good lap. My car was a little too loose. I up in the corners and that's what cost me some speed. Just not tight enough off the corner. But other than that, it was a fairly solid run. It's about a tenth off of what I wanted to be, but we'll have to take it now and get after it."

RICKY RUDD-28-Havoline Taurus

"Wished it was better. It wasn't that it was a bad lap, we just needed maybe one more lap. We had more grip, the second lap was better than the first, and I think a third lap would've been better than a second one. I'm not sure, might've missed it just a little bit maybe on [air] pressure."

MATT KENSETH-17-DeWalt Tools Taurus

"Yeah, that was really good for us. Qualifying's not our strong point, usually, and I think right now we're the top Ford. That's great. That was a great lap for us, great effort for us. The best we've ever qualified before was like 22nd, I think, so it was good."

DOES THE COLD WEATHER HAVE ANY EFFECT? "Not really. You had to be maybe a little more careful on real cold tires and give 'em some time to warm up until they get some traction, but other than that, it really doesn't matter."

JEFF BURTON-99-Citgo Taurus

"We had a bad break. In practice we bent an A-frame and we didn't know it until after practice was over and we kept adjusting the car and adjusting the car with the A-frame on it, so we were making the wrong adjustments. So, we changed the A-frame before qualifying and just took a guess at the set-up, and it was just a lot looser than I needed it to be, but it's just one of things that happens at Bristol. It's tough place, it's hard on equipment and it was hard on us today."

-ford-