Shelby American Qualifying Quotes
BORIS SAID – No. 26 Southern Pride Trucking Ford Fusion (Qualified 44th) – “We qualified in race trim. I’ve never run here, so I need to get laps. We’ve got an old motor, but the chassis feels great and I’m feeling more comfortable every lap. That was the best lap I’ve run, so we’re moving in the right direction. I’m looking forward to racing on Sunday.”
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 19 Stanley Ford Fusion (Qualified 37th) – “We’ve had a tough day today. We just can’t figure out what the car wants, so it’s been a frustrating day. We’ve got a lot of work to do. This is one of my better tracks, and we’ve just missed it somewhere. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, but hopefully it won’t because we definitely need some more practice and make some gains on it before Sunday.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Qualified 18th) – “That was a good pickup for our UPS Ford. I always wish we could have gotten one more run in practice and maybe we could have gotten a little better lap in qualifying, but I think that will be an OK starting spot for Sunday. I still think we’ve got a little work to do in race trim, but hopefully the weather will be nice on Saturday and we can get some laps, but it was a nice pickup.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Qualified 12th) – “Annie is doing great and Kate is doing really well. I just talked to her and maybe that’s what I needed right there. That’s the best performance our Aflac Fusion has had for a long time. That might end up12th or something like that, but it’s still a huge improvement. My car felt good. It was a whole different vehicle from practice, so my guys did a great job.” YOU WERE DOWN ON THE SPEED CHART IN PRACTICE. “We picked up over a second and I was not in race trim. That was qualifying in practice. We tried and I thought we were gonna be in deep, deep trouble, but the guys really did a good job. David Ragan in his UPS Fusion came on the radio and gave me a couple of little hints right as I was pulling on the race track. I went and thanked him. He said he shouldn’t have helped me because I finished right in front of him, but hopefully that will be a good spot.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 34 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion (Qualified 25th) – “Obviously, we’d like to go a little faster, but considering where we started today’s practice – it seemed like we were quite a ways off. That lap there is pretty decent and a big pickup from where we were in practice. I’m just excited for what’s to come with this team. We’re starting to build a little bit of a notebook. We’re only two weeks into it together, but we’re starting to understand what I want in these race cars and the team is starting to give me what I want after just a couple of weeks. I’m excited about it.”
PAUL MENARD – No. 98 Moen/Menards Ford Fusion (Qualified 26th) – “I would have liked to have gotten another quarter of a second out of it, but I drove below the bumps in one and two because they were messing me up in practice. That kind of screwed up the center of one and two for me, and I was a little free on exit so I should have gotten more out of it.” DRIVERS ARE NEVER SATISFIED UNLESS THEY GET THE POLE. “Yeah, that’s what we’re all here for. We don’t want to be 10th, we want to be first and I feel like I let the guys down a little bit right there.” ARE YOU IN GOOD SHAPE FOR SUNDAY WITH RAIN POSSIBLE TOMORROW? “Yeah, we did all race runs basically. I think we did one qualifying run at the end. The guys worked hard. We got a lot of runs in over a short amount of time and made some good gains on the car. If it rains tomorrow, I think we got more runs in than a lot of guys, so we’ll be sitting pretty.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Qualified 11th) – “We worked more on qualifying this week, but we still emphasized race trim a lot today. We think it’s gonna rain tomorrow, but we did make two mock-up qualifying and it didn’t run very well. The guys went to work and made some really good adjustments and got the car a lot better for that run.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 7th) – “I bounced up the race track a little bit trying real hard, but you just never know. Should I have gone around the bumps or drove a little bit lower? My car was really, really loose in qualifying trim. I had a real struggle with it, so I wasn’t sure what to expect there, but it was pretty good.” HOW MUCH QUALIFYING WORK DID YOU DO IN PRACTICE TODAY? “We made two runs, so that just makes all the difference because it gave us an idea of what to expect.”
