YOU’VE GOT TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT TOMORROW NIGHT’S RACE
“It’s exciting. We unloaded this morning and it was a bit of a headache getting the car to run at the beginning. It was dragging a lot. When we finally got it rolling, we actually felt like we had a pretty decent race car. It’s always hard to judge. But we figured out we’ve got a decent car. In qualifying trim, it was really good. We actually did three runs in the second practice and the first run was horrible; the second run was good and the third was really good. To come here and get it done was exciting.”
HOW DID IT FEEL TO GET THE POLE POSITION TODAY? HOW CLOSE TO THE BOUNDARIES WERE YOU PUSHING?
“You push as hard as you can. You drive your car as hard as you can. I went into Turn 1 actually and over shoot a little with the braking. I wanted to run the bottom but I didn’t, but I managed to get a really good exit at the corner. At Turns 3 and 4 it was really good. The car was really good. It was kind of weird. I was expecting the car to be a little bit tighter on basic practice. I asked a couple of people and everybody said they had the same balance and mine was a little looser in qualifying than practice. So I was expecting one thing and it did another, but we managed to still get a good lap.”
YOU WERE THE ONLY DRIVER IN THE LAST BUNCH TO ACTUALLY PICK UP ON YOUR PRACTICE TIME. WHAT DID YOU FIND IN PRACTICE THAT ALLOWED YOU TO KNOW WHAT YOU NEEDED TO DO FOR QUALIFYING OR TO MAINTAIN THE SPEED THAT YOU SET IN PRACTICE?
“Our strategy was in the first two hours of practice to dedicate it completely to race trim and not do any qualifying runs. And second practice to just focus on qualifying trim. We had two new sets of tires so we went stickers, scuffs, stickers and made a couple of adjustments and the car felt pretty good. And for qualifying, going out late always helps; the track is faster and I thought we did a good job. We performed well, so it was exciting.”
HOW MUCH OF THIS CAN YOU CARRY OVER GIVEN THE FACT THAT IT’S A NIGHT RACE?
“I hope a lot (laughter). It’s nice because when it cools down, the tires don’t drop as much so you don’t slide around as much and you tend to pick-up a lot of grip. So, it should be exciting. For us, right now, we’ve got to run smart and keep doing what we’ve been doing. Being on the pole always helps. And if the car runs somewhere near what we ran in practice, we might have a shot at winning. That would be exciting.”
THIS IS YOUR 7TH POLE, BUT IT IS YOUR FIRST AT A SHORT TRACK. PEOPLE SAY THAT DRIVERS HAVE MORE INPUT ON SHORT TRACKS
“I don’t know. What’s the difference between here and New Hampshire?”
NEW HAMPSHIRE IS A MILE. THIS IS THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILE. I CAN SEE WHERE WE’RE GOING; THIS MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO YOU. BUT THIS IS YOUR FIRST POLE ON A TRACK LESS THAN A MILE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU?
“I think if you compare this with Talladega, I would say something that might make sense and I have a couple of Talladega poles. I’ve got to thank (crew chief) Brian (Pattie) and all the guys for those ones. The difference is that you do have to drive the heart out of the car but I feel you’ve got to drive the same way on a mile and a half, do you know what I mean? I actually find it harder on a 1.5-mile than a shorter track. On a shorter track, you do slide around and everything (but) the chance of losing the car is smaller. Do you know what I mean? If the car steps out on a 1.5-mile, you’ve really got to get out of the gas or you’re probably going to hit something. Where here you can hustle the car a little more.”
DO YOU THINK IT HELPED BRIAN PATTIE TO HAVE A WEEK OFF?
“I don’t know. We’re good, you know. We’ve been running really good. We’ve been on the same page today. It’s funny; it was frustrating as hell in the beginning and I wanted to scream on that radio and I didn’t. I was very proud of myself (laughter). It’s hard because we’ve got to make sure we stay together and work together and we’re doing a really good job on that, we both are. You could see how frustrated he was as well. It was exciting.”
WE KNOW YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THAT FIRST OVAL TRACK WIN. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, THE SHORT TRACKS, INTERMEDIATE TRACKS, OR SUPERSPEEDWAYS?
“Whatever gives a nice trophy (laughter). I really don’t care; do you know what I mean? To be able to go for the championship, and that’s our goal to make the Chase and go for the championship, you’ve got to run well everywhere. So I think once we break that, I think we can get it at quite a lot of them.”
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