KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 GM GOODWRENCH MONTE CARLO - Qualified 3rd:

This is a lot of fun. I used to race Southwest Tour cars and Winston West
cars and ran here a lot. It's nice to come here every year see some people
you haven't seen before and have a lot of fun. Our GM Goodwrench Chevrolet
has been good since we unloaded and had a good lap there, and that usually
goes a long ways on Sunday.

***

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 11th

"I was real, real loose and I was just trying to carry as much speed as I
could. I'd given up quite a bit through the whole lap and was trying not to
give too much more up. I got a little sideways coming down the hill out of
the esses and I didn't think I was going to go that wide. It went wider and I
got into the dirt. Instead of turning away from it, I turned into it and we
took all four into the grass and then just brought it home. Real, real
unfortunate for these guys on the DuPont Chevrolet, they gave me a good car.
I wasn't trying to set a blistering speed but I didn't hold up my part of the
deal, and I'm a little disappointed right now."

***

ROBBY GORDON, NO. 7 MENARDS MONTE CARLO - Qualified 14th:

"Obviously we're a little disappointed. We thought we had a legitimate shot
at the pole. We had no grip compared to where we were in practice. The only
thing I can point to is the West cars that run with a different tire, and the
luck of the draw, drawing No. 2. I'm not making excuses. We'll go work on our
car for tomorrow during Happy Hour. I'm confident we'll get a handle on it
for the race, but I'm a little disappointed in qualifying."

***

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 26th:

"That's not the best lap in the world obviously, but from where we were
earlier in the day, we were struggling really bad. We had some front-end
geometry stuff we had never tested before and it took the whole practice to
get that off the car, so we didn't get a chance to practice a lot. We went
back to what we had last year and just went out there and ran a decent lap
and tried not to make any mistakes. I left a lot out there in the corners,
getting in and getting off the corners. I didn't know what I had. Not a bad
lap, we just need to pick up about half a second to be where we were last
year at this track. We were really fast last year and really happy with the
car. I think by tomorrow we will have done that.

"This track definitely hasn't given me the results that I anticipated. We had
a really fast car last year and I was anticipating running in the top 10,
maybe the top five - and I broke a transmission on the first lap. The year
before that we were a top-10 car. I just need to not make any mistakes. I
think I've wrecked a lot here and made a lot of stupid mistakes. You're so
nervous about getting run over from behind you overdrive every corner to keep
that from happening, and a lot of times wreck yourself. That's sort of the
thing I've fought."

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