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Ford Qualifying Quotes

Darlington, SC

DALE JARRETT -88- Quality Care/Ford Credit Thunderbird - Qualified 3rd.

That was car and engine there. We came down here to test last week and it's a good thing we did. We learned a lot while we were here and this thing just keeps getting better and better. That's an awesome lap; it a takes awhile to get your breath back after one like that around this place. That's breath-taking.

This place wasn't made to go 28.50-something. I don't know what I could've done differently. There are some guys that can run faster than that. The 24 and the 22 can run faster than that. I believe. But I don't know what I would've done differently. I'm just glad to be the first to run down in the 28.50s. Let them go after it now."

AFTER GETTING BEAT:

"Well, I expected to get beat, but I didn't think it would be by that much, I thought it would be the .40s. That's pretty awesome, I don't know how they could run that fast,"

"We did a lot of testing at two different tracks and we took everything we learned at those tracks and put it together and everything worked for us. We needed a shot in the arm today. Since I've been racing, I haven't had this bad of a start. Things just haven't been happening for us. We've seen it happen to other guys; heck, it happened to Jeff Gordon the first couple of races. You know how things can go. These guys are working hard to turn it around."

"That's great, and it's so much better than we ran here last fall. That was when I almost crashed off of turn two over there. I'd been running good but I couldn't get hooked up when I qualified. Today the best we've run is like a .90 or .95, and Mike asked if I had anything left, and I said, 'Yeah, I believe so.' So we worked on it and worked on it and it hooked up pretty good. The tires are just so much better this time. They've come out with a new tire and it's good."

When you qualify, you nearly bust your tail, doing everything you can do. I've always been taught not to do that in practice, so if I do it, it's going to be in qualifying and not practice. This is a place where you've got to hold everything for qualifying.

You don't want to unload a back-up car before qualifying here. We ran 28.95 , picked it up and ran a 28.68."

"Well, no poles for a Ford yet. Just goes to show the rules are still really bad lop-sided. All you can do is keep telling everybody the rules are lop-sided and maybe someone will wake up and look at it. That's no surprise to me whatsoever, I know all the wind tunnel data, and they've still got that much better car."

"That's as fast as we've been all day. These guys sure are doing a good job. All I do is drive the thing, and it's easy to do that today as good a car as they've given me. That was a good lap, best I've had all day, but I sure didn't know it was a 70. There are a lot of other guys running fast here, Gordon and some others, so we'll have to see where that stacks up, I feel like we've got a good car for Sunday, It's a better race car than it is a qualifier."

"My hat's off to Mike Hill and everybody on this team, That's pretty good, We came here and tested and it's obviously paid off. We couldn't be happier. I guess I'd be a little happier if we were announcing a sponsor, but that's about the only way."

"It pleases You any time you come home at Darlington with a good run. We've not been qualifying real well lately and the guys haven't been down an Jimmy Spencer. I've probably been down on myself more than anything. This is the same car we ran at Rockingham that ran so well in the race, and I'm excited about this race track, We had a good run here in the fall, so I'm really looking forward to this one."

"I'm disappointed and happy. I did pit on the back stretch here last time. I sure didn't like that much. We will get a frontstretch pit spot this time and a reasonable starting spot. I felt like we had better times than that in practice and I thought we'd qualify in the top- five easy -- easy enough. Obviously I can't do that. Goodyear has a great tire here, period, I think it's going to work well here."

"That's a pretty good lap. We're getting better, You know, we had a pole last week at Homestead in the new F-150 truck and that was a lot of fun, and to run this good today shows that we're gaining with this team."

"We had a couple Of spark plug wires crossed and I had to come back in a get those Switched around, but as soon as they did that, we went back out and made a lap. I guess I'm pretty happy with that."