ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 38 M&M’s Taurus (Qualified 1st) –
“My whole body is shaking right now. This is such a fast track that Humpy and these guys have created. That’s not out of the gas much. That’s a great lap for us. I think that will be somewhere in the top two or three. I hate missing the pole last week, so we came out here and we wanted to try to get it again here in our hometown. I’m proud of everybody at M&M’s and for everybody standing behind us. We’ve got a lot of great guys in the shop that came out to the track tonight to watch us and it’s pretty cool to lay down a fast lap like that here tonight. It was very nervewracking, but very fun altogether.”
YOU COULD HAVE HELD YOUR BREATH ALL THE WAY AROUND. “I think I did. I tell you, this is a tough place to qualify because a driver can just get up on the wheel and manhandle it a lot here and make up for a lot of it. That’s why Ryan Newman has like five poles here in the last nine races, so to run anywhere close to him we know we’re gonna be somewhere near the front. It’s pretty neat for him to go out and lay down a fast lap and then me kind of go after it because I know what kind of a competitor he is and how hard he had to drive. So for us to go out there and be able to back it up, my guys just gave me a great car and it was fun.”
IS IT ALMOST TOO FAST AS FAR AS PROVIDING JUST SINGLE-FILE RACING? “Well, yeah. I’m kind of scared on how much grip is out there right now. It’s too much grip for this race track. I liked it better two years ago when you slide around a lot, but by running a Busch race tomorrow night and maybe we’ll have a hot day Saturday. Maybe that will get the track nice and greasy for us so we can move around a lot, so we’ll see what happens. One thing I do like about Humpy and his guys is they keep on working and keep on working at it, but we need a lot of heat and a lot of rubber laid down tomorrow night to make it a good race Saturday night.”
MARK MARTIN – No. 6 Viagra Taurus (Qualified 6th) – “It’s gonna be a good qualifying effort. It wasn’t perfect, but the car was so good that it’s gonna be a great start for us. The car has been really good in practice and I’m looking forward to the race.” IT’S FAST. “The track is real fast. Our car is awesome. It was great in practice and I didn’t get as good a lap qualifying as I did on average, but with such a great car it’s not gonna matter. It’s still gonna be a decent starting spot.”
KEVIN LEPAGE – No. 66 Peak Fitness Taurus (Qualified 17th) – “It’s just another great effort for the whole Peak Fitness race team. It’s the same car we had last week, just a little different result. All day long the car just kept dragging on the race track. Greg and all the guys just kept working on it trying to figure out what we could do and we got what we got. It’s not a great race car as far as these mile and a halves, high-banked, high speeds, but it was a good little race car last week. It’s a solid effort. That will probably end up somewhere 20th to 25th, but we picked up three-tenths from practice. What can you do? These guys are digging hard. Yates-Roush horsepower, you can’t beat it.”
RICKY RUDD – No. 21 Motorcraft Genuine Parts Taurus (Qualified 31st) – HOW MUCH DID THE OIL AFFECT YOUR RUN? “It’s not a good thing to have happen. They did the best job they possibly could to clean it up, but, like I told Fatback, we need to look at segments. I was really good at this end (three and four) and I went down to this end (one and two) the car wouldn’t stick. It wasn’t like you were gonna wreck, but the car just wouldn’t stick. It was like you went in there and just hit marbles or something and it just wouldn’t stick. You were out of the gas longer, it took longer to get back in the gas and then you lost more momentum. I was surprised it ran as good as it did when I saw Hamilton go in front of me and I saw dust flying up. What can you do? It’s not a good draw right then. We weren’t that fast in qualifying trim in practice, but they did some things to the car that helped it. I felt like we left two-tenths on the table, which would have put us down in the .15s or .20s, which would have been pretty good.”
KURT BUSCH – No. 97 IRWIN Taurus (Qualified 7th) – “I thought I did a .93, which would have put us on the pole. The car was perfect. I was in the gas as hard as I could, as soon as I could. That’s all it had, so I guess that means it’s a good race car because it was a lap the car didn’t have to stress real hard to do and I went after it. Seventh, that’s OK.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Scotts Taurus (Qualified 8th) – “I didn’t expect to have that great of a car. The car was awesome. We were just a little loose in one and two, and a little tight in three and four, so I can’t ask for anything better. The guys did their job. If I just had one more crack at it, we would be a little faster but that’s the way it goes. That’s a great spot. As fast as our car is that will be an awesome starting spot.”
ELLIOTT SADLER PRESS CONFERENCE –
“We’re definitely on a roll. Kevin and those guys are just amazing – how good they’re working together. We’re so pumped up right now. We’re just finishing each other’s sentences and we’ve really been working so good together the last few weeks. We just did miss it last week to have three poles in a row and to come back here to Charlotte and do it at home is a great, great feeling. I started second here twice – once to Newman and once to Jimmie Johnson, so to outrun two class acts like that tonight and actually get the pole – kind of flip the script a little bit – is a great accomplishment. This is a pole that I really, really wanted. We have a lot of guys from the fab shop that come over and are able to watch this race and are able to watch qualifying, so it’s pretty cool to do it here of all places.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR LAP? “I can’t hold my breath for two laps like some of these guys can. I’m one and done all the time. I always tell Doug that – if I can’t get it the first lap I’m sorry because usually I scare myself half to death and I’m not gonna do it the second lap. Yeah, that was the plan from the get-go – to go out there and run one lap and run it as good as we can, as hard as we can. I held it wide open coming to the green, so I knew I had a lot of momentum coming to the green. I tried to hold it wide open in one and two and slid up a little bit and maybe gave up something, but really got through three and four very good. I was shaking pretty bad. My shaking meter usually tells my guys how good I’m gonna run and when I came in that was the first thing they checked. I got all I could out of that race car. We’ve had so much fun today. We’ve had a good car and we just tuned on it a little bit here and there. It was a great day for us.”
WHAT ABOUT THE TRACK? “It is very fast. I’m amazed at how much we’re in the gas all the way around. I hope we have a really hot day on Saturday. I hope the Busch cars put down a lot of rubber tomorrow night and make this track slick. We’ll see what happens. We had a lot of cautions here in the spring and Humpy re-did the track a little bit to try to create side-by-side racing and I hope we do, but there’s a lot of grip out there right now. Hopefully, it’ll get a little more slick by the time we run tomorrow and the Busch race tomorrow night will have some good side-by-side racing.”
CAN YOU TAKE US AROUND YOUR LAP? “What I did learn tonight was don’t ever sit in your bus and watch it on TV. Now I know why they don’t put speedometers in our race cars. I didn’t know we could actually run that fast down the backstretch here. It’s just a pretty cool lap. We used to be really slick and really bumpy and now Humpy has taken away all of that. Now we can run really stiff shocks in the front so the car is bouncing pretty good around the race track – just a little bit. It’s just smooth. You just try to hold it out. I call it the Mark Martin groove – hold it out all the way to the last minute and then dive down to the bottom. If you can get your car to do that without putting a lot of wheel in it, you’re usually gonna be pretty fast. That’s a normal lap around Lowe’s Motor Speedway.”
IS THERE ANYTHING NORMAL ABOUT RUNNING 197 IN A CORNER HERE? “That tells you how much grip they’ve put in this thing by grinding it. That’s the only thing that scares me about the race Saturday night is there’s so much grip in the track and it’s so fast. We’re not out of the gas hardly at all, which creates hard passing. You can’t really gain speed on people if they’re wide open and you are too, so I’m scared of that. That’s why I’m hoping for a hot day Saturday and some rubber to be put down tomorrow night. This track tonight reminds me of Texas the first race. This track tonight reminds me of Atlanta when they first re-did it – how much grip is in the asphalt. By the way they ground it, they have put so much grip in this race track you’re just not out of the gas. I do want to say one thing. I’m proud of Humpy because he got criticized really bad the first week of testing here. We lost a lot of race cars and things like that. Instead of really throwing their hands up in the air, they came and drug tires and did different things to try to make the track safer and more grip for us to be able to come here tonight and run, so I’m glad the track did do that.”
THOUGHTS ON THE 48 SUCCESS HERE AND WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO BEAT THEM. “It’s gonna take a lot to beat him here Saturday night. I think the Hendrick shop is only a mile down the road. They put a lot of emphasis coming here. I think Jimmie Johnson is the best race car driver at this race track. He’s got a beautiful line. He knows what his car needs. I mean since he’s been a rookie coming here he’s always been fast here, so that’s gonna be the team to beat. Before it’s all said and done, we’re gonna have to outrun them. No matter what they’ve run the last few races in the chase, I think anytime you come to Charlotte you’ve got to outrun the 48. So to outrun them tonight, to sit on the pole, is a great feeling because they always go for that too. That’s gonna be the team we’re gonna have to beat Saturday night also. We’ve got one up on them right now and we’re gonna try to get the car as good as we can, as best we can, and see if we can’t go out there and run with them all night.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD DO AT THIS TRACK FOR NEXT YEAR? “I don’t know. I wish they could put it back like it was two years ago, but I don’t think it can get much faster than what it is now. I think you could come and repave it. Some people think you can put asphalt down here that doesn’t have as much grip as it does up here and stuff like that. I still think new asphalt is new asphalt. It’s gonna be fast. It’s gonna take a couple of years for any track to cure. That’s just a part of this sport.
Hopefully, we’ll see a great race Saturday night. I think it’s gonna be tough to pass because the guys are gonna be right around the bottom and running fast and not out of the gas much. I wouldn’t know what to tell the guys right now. They usually do great on situation and decisions and I wouldn’t know what to tell him. I would not want to be in that situation right now.
I heard him say the other day on TV he was thinking about repaving it and knowing him he’s gonna try to do something to it to make it where the outside groove has more grip than the bottom groove or what have you to create two-wide racing, which that’s good. That’s what we want to show the fans – great racing. I love racing Atlanta. I love it. But what makes Atlanta Atlanta is that it’s old. It’s got old asphalt on in it, but tonight reminds me of Atlanta when they first repaved it, which is tough.”
HOW WILL THE CHANGES AFFECT THE RACE AS FAR AS CAUTIONS? “I think one thing Humpy and the guys have done to help this track is they ground the bottom of turn two. A lot of the wrecks were caused in the bottom of turn two because you were so loose and the guy on the outside had so much grip. I think you’re gonna have a lot of cautions here Saturday night, not because all of the race track, I think because the guys racing so close in the chase right now don’t want to give an inch. This is a fast, fast race track and you can get loose besides people pretty fast. I just think that’s the nature. It’s getting down to chase time. You’ve got six or seven guys still in it, so I think you’re gonna see a lot of cautions Saturday night.”
