NASCAR Cup

Watkins Glen: Ford teams qualifying quotes

KEN SCHRADER - No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (Qualified 23rd) "I just screwed up on the lap a little bit during my shifting. We hit our marks and stuff and the car feels good, but I didn't get into third quick enough going up through the esses.

Edited: Aug 12, 2006, 2:37 AM

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KEN SCHRADER - No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion (Qualified 23rd)

"I just screwed up on the lap a little bit during my shifting. We hit our marks and stuff and the car feels good, but I didn't get into third quick enough going up through the esses. I just got confused on where I needed to shift and went brain dead. That cost us a couple of tenths, which I don't know how much difference that will make, but it'll be solid."

SINCE FATBACK HAS COME BACK AS CREW CHIEF THINGS SEEM TO HAVE PICKED UP A BIT. "Fatback's got a lot of experience calling the races. The two races that we ran together, we were off from our testing at Indy, which (David) Hyder and I did there along with Fatback and everybody. Those were two races where we already had everything set, but he's just got a ton of experience calling the races and stuff so it's been fun."

***

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Qualified 21st)

"I think we should have been faster. We ran that fast in race trim earlier, but I noticed everybody has slowed down a little bit. We changed some stuff around on our brakes and I wasn't quite sure how it was gonna go, so I was a little too cautious into one and I tried to make up for it in two and that didn't work out, so, hopefully, it'll end up maybe in the top half of the field. I don't know. I think we've got a great race car. I had a blast in practice."

WHY HAVE SO MANY SLOWED DOWN? "I don't know. I know for me, maybe one thing would be just sitting around for a while and thinking about it. I think if I had a second lap it would be a lot quicker. This is one of those places where, for me, it's really hard to find the line between not trying hard enough and trying too hard. It takes a lot of practice."

***

ELLIOTT SADLER - No. 38 M&M's Ford Fusion (Qualified 12th)

"I think that's pretty good for us because we didn't really make a qualifying lap. I'm really proud of all the guys. I think we've got a great car for race trim, so I'm pretty happy with that. I'm not the best road course guy in the world, so if we can get us a good top 12, top 15 starting position, it's gonna be good for this whole race team."

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR WITH THIS TEAM? "I've got such a lot of great friends on this race team, I just want to run good for them. I would love to try and somehow get these guys a victory. That means so much to me. The last three-and-a-half years have been awesome working with these guys, so that would mean more to me than any paycheck, anything else - to try and get these guys back in Victory Lane. That's 100 percent my goal between now and Homestead."

***

MARC GOOSENS - No. 90 Citifinancial Ford Fusion (Qualified 27th)

"I don't know if that was good or not. It's looking more and more likely that we made the race. We made a little change to the car from this morning and it was completely different. At least we know the cars are reacting to the changes that we're making. I'm hoping we can do a good job for Robert Yates Racing and try to get a good result. I hope we make it to the race and can have a good test day tomorrow before we get into the race on Sunday."

***

GREG BIFFLE - No. 16 National Guard Ford Fusion (Qualified 49th)

"It just got away from me. I just got a little bit loose up through the esses. It's so tight up through there that there's just no room for error. The car just got out a little bit in the back and I got off the gas. These road race cars, with bars in the front and back, are real sensitive and the thing just started sliding and I couldn't quite get it back. It's unfortunate. I felt we would have been in the top five again here, but I'm real confident in our other car. It's the car we ran fourth at Sonoma with and it's the sister car to this, so I feel really good about it."

HOW HARD WILL IT BE TO PASS STARTING FROM THE BACK? "I don't think it's gonna be hard at all. This track is easier to pass than Sonoma. Like I said, we run very well here, so I'm confident. With as fast as our car was running in practice in race laps, I feel pretty good about being able to come through the field with another car pretty easily."

***

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Qualified 20th)

"That's probably what we could expect. The car wasn't really a hot-rod today. We've got an hour-and-a-half tomorrow and we usually get around here pretty good. I'm hoping we'll figure some things out. It isn't bad, it just doesn't have the speed that we need. It doesn't do anything spectacular and if we can find a thing or two that will do spectacular for us tomorrow, it'll be OK and be good on Sunday."

***

BORIS SAID - SoBe No Fear Ford Fusion (Qualified 15th)

"I just wanted to make sure we got in. I don't know if we had a car for the pole, but second or third maybe. I just had to hold back and make sure we got in and not do anything stupid. Now we can work on our car tomorrow. I feel real relaxed now. Last year we came from last to third, so starting in the top 15 will be pretty good."

WAS IT AN ADDED BENEFIT TO GO SO LATE IN THE SESSION? "Just from what all the other guys ran we knew what we had to run. I took it real conservative in the esses and real conservative under braking going in. I drove it a lot harder in practice. That's not my style. If they ran three laps like the Busch Series, I would have got one easy one and then run the hell out of it, but they don't. I'm in the show and I'm real happy about it."

-credit: ford racing

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