JIMMIE JOHNSON:

“I’m looking forward to it. It’s one of the more intimidating tracks and one of the better tracks to race on. The high speeds and the old surface make it a lot of fun for our cars. I really love the challenge. So I’m excited after our Las Vegas win and really looking forward to getting to Atlanta. “Atlanta is such a challenging track, I don’t think many guys are comfortable getting into that race track. Personally, that’s one of the best tracks we run on. The old asphalt is abrasive. We race from the top to the bottom and it’s rougher than pretty much any track we go to. I hope they leave that place alone and never touch it and never think about resurfacing it. I think it puts on a great show.”

JEFF GORDON:

“Racing here is how I’d like it to be every weekend. We’ll be using the regular fuel cell in the regular car and we’ll have long green flag runs. The tire wears out but doesn’t seem to blowout, and there are multiple grooves we can run. “Everything I love about this sport is what is going to happen in Atlanta.” “This DuPont team is preparing great cars and we’re having a lot of fun – no matter where we start in the field,” Gordon said. “Steve has really stepped up as a leader. “Having great cars, great communication and great runs make it fun for a driver.”

DALE EARNHARDT, JR:

“We always look forward to Atlanta. It’s bad-fast, fun to drive, and we seem to find ourselves near the front most of the time. We’ve been in the top-five in almost half of our races there. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things: Tony Jr. (Eury, crew chief) and the guys always give me great cars, I love driving there, and we’ve won there. We even have a Bud Pole, which for us isn’t very common. All of those things add up. It’s like having momentum on your side when you pull into the garage. You hold your head a little higher and you mash the gas a little harder. “We’ve had three top-fives in a row at Atlanta and it’d be great to get a fourth so we can keep moving up in the points. We’re pretty pleased to be back in the top-30, and we can move a lot higher at Atlanta.

TONY STEWART:

“As soon as the green flag dropped, The Home Depot Chevrolet drove exactly like it did at the end of Happy Hour. That’s real uncommon, whether you’re at Atlanta or anywhere else. I knew we had something good to work with. It was just a matter of fine-tuning all day. I don’t think we ever made any big adjustments. We just kept making small adjustments all day and trying different combinations to find exactly what the car liked to do in long runs. We got up front early and had good track position all day. The guys had good pit stops. At the end, track position was really huge because everybody was really fast with the cool temperatures. I was really proud of my guys and of Zippy (Greg Zipadelli, crew chief) most of all for making the call to come in and get four tires on our last stop. He let me know that we had lost six tenths of a second between our first lap and our 10th lap on our 10-lap run before the caution came out. We needed to come in and get tires. I just didn’t know how many he was going to put on. He made an awesome call putting four tires on. From there, it was just a matter of pacing ourselves. At Atlanta, you can really hurt your tires early if you try to overrun them too soon. So it was just a matter of running the pace we needed to run to keep the interval that we had.”

KASEY KAHNE:

“We’re excited Atlanta is the next stop on our schedule. It’s one of my favorite tracks. It has multiple grooves, so you can run high, low or in the middle. I like to move around on the track during the race, searching for a different and faster line. The track is wide and fast. It’s the perfect place for our team to get back on track and challenge for our first win of the season.”

MATT KENSETH:

“Atlanta has always been one of my favorite tracks. It’s really fast but has enough room to move around and try to find some different lines around the track. The pavement has aged enough to where your car will start to slide around over the course of a run, which makes tire wear important. “We’ve come close at Atlanta several times before but we’ve never been able to seal the deal. We’re bringing the same car we drove at Fontana and at Las Vegas. It was real good at Fontana and we managed to scrounge out a top-five finish at Vegas, so hopefully we can muster another top five this weekend.”

GREG BIFFLE:

“We’ve always run pretty well at Atlanta and in the last couple of years there were a couple of times when I really thought we had a car to win. It’s one of the fastest tracks on the circuit and you’ll see a lot of good racing there. We haven’t been ecstatic about our performances so far this year but I think we could turn that around in Atlanta. These guys ran well there with Mark and I think we should be able to run up front this weekend. The points are so close right now and a top five might put us in a much more comfortable position.”

DAVID RAGAN:

“I am pretty excited to go to Atlanta and race in front of, what I consider to be, my hometown crowd. We had a rough race in Las Vegas so we are looking forward to hopefully having a better finish this weekend. I have great resources at my disposal and high expectations for myself as do Jack [Roush] and Jimmy [Fennig] and a lot of other folks so my plan is to not let them or me down.”

JAMIE MCMURRAY:

“After our run last weekend in Vegas, I’m really looking forward to Atlanta this weekend. We are taking the same car that we ran last weekend, however, with a different paint scheme. This is our first weekend with IRWIN Industrial Tools back on the car in 2007. Atlanta is a really fast racetrack, maybe the fastest racetrack we visit. I enjoy running at Atlanta and I’m certainly looking for another run like we had last weekend. It just seemed that everything came together for us - we ran well, had great pit stops and avoided the wrecks around us. If we can do the same thing in Atlanta, it’ll be a good weekend for the No. 26 guys.”

CARL EDWARDS:

“There is a lot of history for me at Atlanta. I got my first (NASCAR) Busch and (Nextel) Cup wins there and for the most part I have always been successful there. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well at Atlanta, because I know I am capable of it. This weekend will be no different. I am expecting a great run and will be disappointed with anything less.”

RICKY RUDD:

“We’re not running like we want to run, but to be honest, the biggest concern I have during these first five races is that we don’t take a huge hit in the point standings. This track has multiple grooves and that’s a big plus. You have plenty of racing room at Atlanta and that’s what I like about coming here. I have mixed emotions in regards to Atlanta because if you’re good, then you can have a great day, but if you’re off, you could have a miserable one. I’ve been on both sides of the fence there. Our car for this week looked really good in the wind tunnel but we have no idea what to expect for this weekend. We haven’t run enough races this year to really figure a pattern out yet.”

ELLIOTT SADLER:

“We ran very well at Atlanta last year. Kasey has won there. We’ve got a good intermediate program at Evernham Motorsports. We’re looking forward to Atlanta this weekend. It’s a fun racetrack. You can run on the bottom, middle and top. There’s never any disappointment at Atlanta. Some of the best, closest races we had have come at that speedway. We always look forward to going there. We’ve got a lot of horsepower and our intermediate program is very well stocked at Evernham’s. We expect the No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger to be very strong this weekend.JEREMY MAYFIELD:

“Last weekend was a tough one. The season has been a tough one, but last weekend we were really disappointed in the outcome because we never gave ourselves the opportunity to make the race. There are over 50 full-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup teams that show up every weekend now, and it’s tough enough when you get beat fair and square by them, but when you show up and beat yourselves, that’s when you can’t help but angry and disappointed in yourselves. The good news was, of course, that our 360 OTC Toyota Camry was quick enough to make the show, so all is not lost. We know what the problem was last week, and we know it’s not going to happen again. We’re aware of what we are struggling with and what we can do to fix it. The No. 22 team has been strong in qualifying and our teams work really well together, so when we get to Atlanta this weekend we know that we have just as good as shot of being there to race on Sunday as everyone else.”

DAVID REUTIMANN:

“Atlanta Motor Speedway is fast, and I like the way you can run on the bottom or the top at Atlanta, making it a fun track to drive. That’s probably why you see so many exciting finishes at Atlanta. “I have had some good runs at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, including us sitting on the pole there in 2004. That was my first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole and the first for Toyota, so I would love to repeat that this weekend for them in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series.”