Dodge Martinsville II qualifying notes

DAVE BLANEY (No. 93 Amoco Ultimate Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We're real happy with that. We were progressing this morning in practice, and then we kind of stalled out and couldn't go any faster. We made some gains and had a nice smooth lap. It's important to start up front here. I wouldn't know because I never have. This car has felt good to me all morning. It's been good under braking, good under throttle. I'm excited about Sunday with it. It looked like everybody slowed down a tick in qualifying, so if we could gain any, I was going to be happy. I was thinking we could go faster in qualifying because we never got a good lap in practice. Hopefully we'll end up in the back half of the top 10."

WARD BURTON (No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid R/
"We picked up a little bit. I was a little bit tight in the middle of the corner, but the Caterpillar team has made a huge improvement from where we were here in the spring. The car feels really good. I'm real excited about Sunday. I thought we could have picked up a little bit more. We were a little bit tight in the center of the corner. We had a really good forward bite. We tried a lot of stuff today and learned a lot. It was a productive day for us. This place has been up and down for us. We were really horrible here last time. It just shows how much the team has progressed, not only understanding the tire but getting the motor combination better and having a better aero package. Everybody is still pumped up after Charlotte. This is the closest track to home, but I don't know if I would classify it as my home track. Obviously, I've got a lot of friends and family and a lot of great race fans that pull for our team here. This would be a real nice place to have a good day."

BUCKSHOT JONES (No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We've struggled since we got here, and we're still struggling. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Obviously it wasn't as good as we needed it to be."

CASEY ATWOOD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"That's not what we were looking for at all. The car just got loose."

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We had run a .30 in practice and thought we could do it again. We had a sway bar bound up when we made our banzai run. We fixed it, so we must have hurt it. I guess we need to bind it back up. We ran some race runs this morning, and we're pretty happy with the car in the race runs. We'll start in the back like we normally do at Martinsville, but we'll be OK when they start the race. We should have won five or six short track races already, but we haven't. We should have won two or three here. We've had some good runs at Bristol and Richmond. We had never won at Charlotte until last week, either, so we'll get to work and try to get us another one."

BILL ELLIOTT (No. 9 Dodge Dealers Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"It's so tight here. If you mess up just a little bit it makes a hard day. This race track, when it cools off, it's so hard to get hooked up to. You've got to keep the car hooked up. I slipped down there where that new section is in turn four. I never could get it back."

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Sprint Dodge Intrepid R/T)
"We slowed up a little bit from practice, but there's just no room for error. If you don't hit it exactly right, you could be in trouble. I didn't think we'd be fast enough to make it on speed."

-Dodge Motorsports-