Allmendinger Leads Ford With Seventh-Place Pocono Qualifying Effort
Allmendinger Leads Ford With Seventh-Place Pocono Qualifying Effort
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Qualified 25th) – “I like this race track a lot. It’s a lot of fun and the fans are great. I don’t think that was the best qualifying lap for me, but the race here is really long. I feel like if our car is good, we’ll end up where we belong. Victory Lane here is a great place, so I’d love to end up back there with our Aflac Fusion.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Qualified 18th) – “Maybe the early draw won’t hurt that much here because it is fairly cool. We picked up a lot from practice. We really changed a lot on our UPS Ford during practice and it was a good lap. I don’t think it’s gonna be in the top five or top 10, but this has been one of the tracks we’ve really struggled at for just speed. Once they drop the green flag, we usually seem to have a pretty consistent car. If we could just start in the first half of the field, that would help.”
KEVIN CONWAY – No. 34 ExtenZe Ford Fusion (Qualified 43rd) – “We qualified a lot better lap time-wise than the first time here, but it’s kind of funny because now that we’ve got the place figured out a little bit, it’s a lot harder to get the car dialed in because we’re going faster. I was just really, really tight right there. We’ve been tight throughout practice and we’re still really tight in qualifying, so we’ll use our two practices tomorrow to get our ExtenZe Ford Fusion turning a little bit better and, hopefully, have a better Pocono the second time around.”
KASEY KAHNE – No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion (Qualified 16th) – “We felt like we made some gains from practice. I felt like the car was better and it actually drove pretty good, but it was just hitting the track too hard on the front. Minus that, it seemed like a pretty good lap. We need to work on it tomorrow, but with what we just did today, I think some of that will translate to tomorrow and we’ll be better.”
PAUL MENARD – No. 98 Menards Ford Fusion (Qualified 23rd) – “It was okay. We picked up some and probably didn’t have the best draw. The sun was out for a while and then right as we finished our lap a cloud came over, so it was just luck of the draw. We picked up quite a bit, so we’ll see how it stacks up. We’ve been fighting a vibration, so we’ve got to find that tomorrow.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Insignia/Best Buy Ford Fusion (Qualified 7th) – “It’s not too bad. Qualifying is definitely where we’ve probably been a lot worse this year. We had the one pole and I don’t think we’ve been inside the top 10 other than that. We knew we had a decent draw and were pretty good in practice, so I just wanted to get a solid lap in. I probably gave up a little bit in turn three. I’ve been really struggling today with the car, line, everything in turn three, which is pretty funny because that’s always been my best corner, so it’s kind of flip-flopped. That will get us in the top 10 and it’s a long race, so track position is key but starting up front makes it a good start to the weekend.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Qualified 12th) – “I really didn’t know what I was gonna have. I was super-tight on the first qualifying run and way loose and could have had to abort the second qualifying run, so we didn’t really know. We had a good idea that we were gonna be in the middle of those, but we were just a tiny bit tight with the extra speed and the sun was out. Still, it’s a little cooler than when it started, but I’m happy with that. It’ll be a top-15 starting spot. I think we’ve got a good car and track position is important. It could have been a little better, but not bad.”
