Probably two more corners and we would have got him. We had the fastest car all day. We stuck to our strategy. We only got six laps of practice, and we didn't have a good fuel mileage number. |
The Wood Brothers' car and ours are the only one-car teams in the top 25 (in points), and I'm very confident that we'll be able to stay there. It's not about how many cars you field that determines where you'll finish, it's how well prepared each of those cars are, and I believe we're as well prepared as most. |
This is an incredibly large and confusing area of the earth; it's very easy to trust your racing instinct instead of the route book and your navigator ... I won't make that mistake again. |
Tony got everybody started, and bam! - they all ran. You get one egg and, before you know it, you've got chickens everywhere. |
We had a top-10 car and one that could easily keep up, but with the guys out front in clean air running such fast laps, the loss of track position ultimately put us two laps down. Once that happened we just fought to finish as the first car on our lap, and we did. |
We were really looking forward to this stage, as we knew this would be our first chance to let our Hummer stretch its legs in the desert terrain for which it was designed. |
We worked really hard today. I can say one thing: there isn't anyone in this garage that has worked harder than we have to be competitive. For a one-car team to be able to run with these guys, I'm proud of my guys and proud of what we're doing. I'm just disappointed with the result we got today. |
We're not just thinking of the Daytona 500. We've got cars finished all the way through Atlanta right now. So our race team is a lot better race team and we've got a lot of confidence in our guys. We're getting our structures and processes and procedures and all that stuff in place where a year ago, we didn't have that. |
We've got a good race car that we think we can take to the front on Thursday, and there are also four other good cars that could help us out if they run well. It's not a lock, but I'm happy with our effort. |
You run those types of races all year long, you find yourself sitting here right in the thick of the Chase. |