Jamie McMurray led Ford qualifiers with a fourth-place run in preparation for Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Carl Edwards will start 16th and Greg Biffle 19th in the 500-mile race.
JAMIE MCMURRAY – No. 26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion (Qualified 4th) – “I left a fair amount out in turns three and four, but we ran a lot faster than we did in practice, so, hopefully that will hold up for a decent spot. They’ve given me really good cars the last few weeks and in race trim at the beginning of practice today I thought we had one of the better cars again, so it should be a really good weekend for us.”
GOOD TO SEE THE SUN ON A FRIDAY? “Absolutely. It’s so nice to know that you’re just gonna qualify and there’s no chance it might rain because that’s so mentally draining.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion (Qualified 16th) – “I’m glad we were able to get this in just to be able to spread the guys out in the chase. It’s not the best qualifying effort for us, but I hope it’ll be a top-15 so we can get a good start. We’ve got a great race car.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Qualified 18th) – “It was a good lap. I think after every qualifying run I always think that maybe we could have gone a little faster, but usually with more speed comes a little more risk for something bad to happen. We feel like we’ve got a good AAA Ford. It’s been a while since we qualified and we’ve been good on the mile-and-a-halfs lately, so if that’s in the top 15 or 20, I think we’ll be able to race them. We always put a lot of effort into our race trim on Fridays, so that’s nothing new, but it feels like it’s a good car and something good to work with. We should be good tomorrow.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 19th) – “I think we got it a lot better than earlier today. I didn’t think it would be that tight getting into turn three and it just ran up the hill and I had to wait on it. If I had two corners like one and two, I’d be on the pole because it was great across there, but I just missed the bottom of three and four. I was carrying so much speed and I didn’t think about the wind blowing that way. I thought about it as I was going to get into three, but once I got in I forgot, so that probably made the difference. I probably needed to back it off just an ounce to make sure I got it to the bottom of three and four, but from where we’re at to fourth is only five-one hundredths of a second. I left at least a tenth out there, so I would be a solid third. It’s just tough because that might put us in the twenties by the time it’s over and we could have been in the top 10.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion (Qualified 6th) – “It was pretty good. I’m happy with it. The car drove good, I just didn’t quite get everything out of it in three and four, but the car was pretty good.”
DID YOU HAVE TROUBLE GETTING THE CAR DOWN IN THREE AND FOUR? “The wind has been blowing that way all day and it kind of let off a little, so I probably could have done better there, but I made sure I got to the bottom. I slowed up a little early there and drove sort of straight at the corner and that probably cost me a little speed up off the corner, but I didn’t want to miss the bottom. I knew if I missed the bottom it was gonna be at least a tenth or two penalty, so I wanted to make sure I got slowed up and got it stuck down in there.”
