Qualifying Quotes from Phoenix

KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Light Ford Fusion – “It’s been a good day for us.  All we concentrated on was qualifying and obviously we had some good adjustments to the car right there at the end and I was actually able to drive the car without screwing it up.  It was definitely a good lap for us and came at a good time.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT ADJUSTMENTS YOU MADE?  “No.”

HOW DIFFERENT WAS IT WORKING WITH TONY GIBSON TODAY?  “Everything went smooth.  I think as you guys are quickly figuring out it’s more about people than it is about cars, so we’ve got a lot of good people and obviously a lot of experience with Tony and those guys did a great job filling the roles.  You can’t drive a slow car fast and you can’t beat good people.”

DO YOU TAKE SOLACE KNOWING YOU’RE AT ISM THIS WEEKEND WHERE YOU’VE HAD SO MUCH SUCCESS?  “No, I just deal with the facts.  I know where we are.  I know what our plan is and we don’t look back.”

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT THE PENALTY THIS WEEK?  “I just drive.  That’s my job.”

DO YOU PERFORM BETTER WHEN YOUR BACK IS AGAINST THE WALL?  DO YOU RISE TO THE OCCASION?  “I try to, but it’s been good for us to have challenges, so it’s fun.”

DO YOU REALLY MEAN IT’S FUN?  WHAT MAKES YOU STEP UP IN TIMES LIKE THIS?  “Fast cars and good people.”

RODNEY STATED THE ISSUE AND FELT IT WAS AN INSIGNIFICANT TYPE OF ADVANTAGE.  PEOPLE STILL SUGGEST THAT WAS A GREAT THING THAT HELPED YOU.  IS IT FRUSTRATING OR BOTHERSOME THAT IF IT’S SOMETHING THAT MIGHT BE INSIGNIFICANT OR A MINOR THING THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT GIVING YOU GUYS AS MUCH CREDIT OR PEOPLE ARE LOOKING DOWN UPON YOU GUYS?  “Look I don’t need credit.  I don’t care about credit.  I don’t care what people think.  I don’t build the cars.  I couldn’t tell you what’s on the car.  What’s good.  What’s bad.  That’s their job and I drive it.  I show up and do the best that I can and obviously you’ve seen the statements and the things from Stewart-Haas Racing and the best thing that shows up are results on the race track.  I drive and try to do the best that I can and we go from there.”

ONE OTHER THING IS JOEY LOGANO SAID HE’S THE FAVORITE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP.  WHAT’S YOUR FEELING ON THAT?  “I’m just worried about Phoenix.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Fusion – DESCRIBE YOUR LAP ON THE TRACK.  “We were just off.  The car had speed in practice, but the balance was just not quite right.  I was definitely looking for a little more and then right there we were just still off in the balance.  The times are so close and so tight that you’ve got to be so precise and my car just struggling to get the grip I need out of it to go make lap time there, so we’ll get ready for tomorrow.  This is an interesting race.  A lot can happen and we can still win coming from 18th.”

DID YOU GET INTO THE WALL ON YOUR LAP?  “I took a little bit of the decal off, that’s all.”

RACE TRIM TOMORROW WILL SET THE STAGE FOR SUNDAY, SO WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE REST OF THE WEEKEND?  “Today is important.  You want to qualify up front and give yourself a good pit selection and good opportunity to control the race and start up front and do all the things you need to do to get track position and all those things, but we missed it.  We just weren’t as good as we needed to be there, so we’ll have to drive from 18th and try and pass a lot of cars.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 PPG Ford Fusion – “That’s not bad.  We got better each round, which is good, so that was nice, but we just didn’t quite have the speed and obviously not pole speed, but it was good.  We got faster each round and played around with a lot of stuff, so hopefully our car is better in race trim tomorrow.  We’ll see.”

PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Menards/Cardell Ford Fusion – “We just have been struggling on entry.  It seems like as the grip comes up and you try to charge the corner a little bit harder I just got looser in, so the last round wasn’t our friend.  I’m proud of our guys though.  We have a decent starting spot and good pit selection and we’ll make a day out of it.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Fusion – “It was OK.  I think we were like 15th in practice and we qualified ninth, so we got our car a little bit better.  I was pretty good down in the one and two area, but in three and four I think I lost it all down there.  This hasn’t been our strongest track the last couple of years, so I guess that’s a little progress.  We’ll see how it is tomorrow in race trim.”

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 2nd YOU DIDN’T SOUND TO HAPPY WITH YOURSELF COMING IN, BUT YOU DID A GOOD JOB ENDING UP SECOND “Yeah, unfortunately not good enough. The guys brought me a great NAPA Chevy this week and one of these days I’ll figure out how to qualify on a non-plate track, maybe. I had a car to do it today, and I didn’t get it done. So, we’ll go to work on Sunday.”   WHAT’S THE DAY BEEN LIKE WITH THE TRACK SORT OF FLIPPED AND HAVING TO MENTALLY CHANGE HOW YOU APPROACH SOME THINGS HERE? “Yeah, it’s just kind of awkward not having the Start/Finish line over here like it’s always been. But the track is still the same. The same guys are still going to be good and it’ll be the same crowd on Sunday to beat, so I’m looking forward to it   ON HIS QUALIFYING EFFORT: “Just had a great car really all day. We were lucky not to have to make a ton of adjustments and was in a good place. Just didn’t get through my lap as good as I had hoped. I had a plenty good enough car to do so, unfortunately, but plenty good enough starting spot for Sunday. It’s a long race and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”   THE LAST THREE WEEKS YOUR QUALIFYING EFFORTS HAVEN’T BEEN GREAT… “That is an understatement.”   AND THEN YOU COME OUT TODAY AND QUALIFY SECOND. WHAT WERE SOME OF THE IMPROVEMENTS YOU FELT LIKE YOU NEEDED TO MAKE AND DID TODAY COMPARED TO THE LAST THREE RACES? “Yeah, to be honest with you, I don’t know. Just for whatever reason the last few weeks qualifying has been really tough. Yeah, I mean I look back to Martinsville and even times where we have qualified well, I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything different. Speed sometimes comes easier than it does other days and things click for you when it comes time to qualify and push that extra little bit and for whatever reason that has been difficult for us these past few weeks. We obviously need to do everything good this weekend and it was nice to have a good Friday. We will see what Saturday and Sunday bring.”   ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 5th ON HIS RUN: “Yeah, it’s not bad. I think the last three times we have been here together we have been first, fourth and fifth, something like that, you always want more, but we have been pretty far off here the last couple of weeks and good to see the No. 9 (Chase Elliott) close to the front and good to be closer to the front than we have been.”   WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED TO HAVE A RUN AT THE POLE? “That last round we kind of just got split. I was free in (Turns) 1 and 2 and tight in (Turns) 3 and 4. So, our balance is close. We just didn’t have a lot of raw speed there. I’m interested to see how it is in race trim tomorrow though. I feel like this is a place where I know what I need and lead the team in the right direction.”   KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 DC SOLAR CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 8th WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED TO BE AMONGST THE TOP RUNNERS THERE? “I messed up my fast lap in (Turns) 3 and 4 here. I started wheel hopping and got up the track. Lost quite a bit of time I felt like there. I don’t even know what the pole speed was, but I probably didn’t have anything for the pole, but I could have been better than eighth. So, just been fighting a little bit of wheel hop issues today, so hopefully we can resolve those for the rest of the weekend.”   AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 AMERICAN ETHANOL E15 CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 15th YOU HAD A LOT OF SPEED IN ROUND 1 BUT WAS NOT ABLE TO TRANSFER THAT INTO THE TOP 12 AND THE FINAL ROUND. WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED? “Well, I don’t know. We ran two (laps) and most of those guys ahead of us ran one (lap). We really didn’t have the first lap speed, but we ran a .00 again and that is about all the car had is an .07 and an .09. Big pick up from practice we gained five spots from 20th to 15th, so I’m proud of what we’ve done and that next little spot of speed is just something we’ve got to work on at the shop, at RCR to get to that next level.” 

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