NASCAR Cup

Las Vegas: Sadler qualifying interview

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 2nd) "It's great. It's a great job by my guys. Wow. We came here and tested and were very fast all week. All we did was race runs and to come back and qualify this good, my team never ceases to ...

Edited: Mar 14, 2005, 5:13 AM

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ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Taurus (Qualified 2nd)

"It's great. It's a great job by my guys. Wow. We came here and tested and were very fast all week. All we did was race runs and to come back and qualify this good, my team never ceases to amaze me each and every week. We're working on things. We didn't have the best week that we should have had at Daytona. We didn't blow anybody out at California. We had a great top 10 car, but that was about it. We kept working on it and working on it and there's a never quit attitude that has never been brighter than it is right now on our team. To come here and qualify second and to be that close to Ryan and run that much faster pretty much than anybody else, it was a great day for everybody on our team."

IS THE BUSCH CAR HELPING YOU OUT?

"I think so. That's why we're doing it. I've got great sponsors. M&M's is so open-minded. They want to win so bad on Sunday and be a championship contender that whatever we can do to make that more possible, they're with. We decided to start our own Busch team this year and I'm running probably 15-16 races and DJ is running six or seven and it helps. It definitely helps to get out of that Busch car and get in that Cup car. You feel like you're already warmed up. You're ready to go when you get in the car and you kind of know what to expect. That's why I'm glad to run 'em. I wish I was running every companion event, but I think it's definitely gonna help our team at some of the tracks that we've been struggling at in the past - to go run that Busch car at and go test it there - do things like that to help our Cup program."

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE RULE WITH THE FULL FUEL LOAD?

"That's new this year. My team knew about it because I wanted to come here with a light fuel load and they showed me the rule. I didn't know it. Actually I was telling my brother what he should do as far as weight and fuel and things like that that we did all last year and then when I got here I was told about the fuel in the tube and all of that - you've got to qualify full of fuel. So that was new to me when I got here. I didn't really know that, but my guys already knew that because we already came in prepared that way, so I guess that's just a new rule for 2005."

DID YOU THINK BIFFLE WAS THE ONLY CAR LEFT TO KNOCK YOU OFF THE FRONT ROW?

"Yeah, I thought him or Jimmie Johnson. And then when Jimmie didn't run such a great lap to his standards, of course I was looking for Biffle. I have no idea how we ran that lap. I've got to be the first to say that when Ryan Newman ran his lap I was sitting in the truck with Robert and Todd and I went, 'Wow, nobody is gonna get even close to that today.' And then we go out there and only miss it by six-thousandths of a second. When you go out there and hit a good lap anything is possible and anything can happen. I just want to get a pole for Doug Yates so bad. He works so hard on our engine program and it showed today. I think we've got four Fords in the top nine and I really want to get him a pole real bad. Just to miss it by that much is almost heartbreaking. I ran my lap and I was like, 'Man, that felt good.' And I crossed the start-finish line and my number was delayed. It didn't come up on the pylon and I went, 'Man, that wasn't as good as I thought. Maybe my feel is not as good as it used to be. I'm getting old. I don't know what to think.' And then Todd came over the radio and I could tell in his voice how close we were and then he told me. It's a great run. I'm not gonna sit here and try to dissect my lap and where I could have run seven-thousandths faster. It was a great lap. I probably couldn't run it again in 100 years, but for today it worked out great for us."

-ford racing-

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