KEVIN HARVICK:

“I can’t believe it. We were 30-something there with 15 laps to go and we came up through there. I’ve just got to thank Richard (Childress) and everybody for an awesome race car,” said the happy winner. “I just held the pedal down and hoped for the best. It was the last lap of the Daytona 500 and you have to go (for it). It was take all you can, and there was no giving up. I caught the side draft (from Martin’s car) that I needed and that carried me by Mark (Martin).”

MARK MARTIN:

“Well, we saw him up there. We were just doing everything we could, you know. It was the Daytona 500 man. I just want to thank Bobby Ginn and especially the U. S. Army team. I’m so proud to be a part of this team. They gave me a chance at the Daytona 500 and that’s all I ever asked. I really hate that I let them down. I gave it what I would, but I didn’t get it done. I really thought they were going to throw the caution. I was still ahead; then they were wrecking behind. If they would have thrown the yellow, it was in our fingers. But they waited and waited and they waited and I didn’t have any pusher there at the end and he was in the preferred for second back forward. But I just want to thank everybody for all their support. I wanted to win that thing and they were going to have to pry it out of my fingers, man. I was looking back to see if we had any help, but I didn’t see any back there. It was just short.”

TONY STEWART:

“Not completely sure what happened out there. All of a sudden it took off on me. I haven’t seen it on film, so I am not sure what happened. Pretty impressive to go all the way to the back and come up all the way to the front of the field like that. I was really happy about that. The Home Depot Monte Carlo was awesome today. We fell back and came back. We were kind of in a bad position that one pit stop, when Robby Gordon was coming and I stalled it trying to get out ahead of him. Then him and the 38 get together and wreck on pit road and I was just in a hurry to get out of there and wasn’t paying attention to pit road speed. That was my fault and I got us behind.”

KURT BUSCH:

“We had a good week until about 50 or 60 laps to go. We were running behind Stewart and I got him aero loose. He checked up in front of me, and I bumped into him. It looked awful, but I did all I could to stay off of him. It ruined both of our chances to win the Daytona 500. I feel bad for him. He’s been a good ally on the plate tracks. I feel bad for my team and my sponsor Miller Lite and Dodge and everybody that’s involved. We led the most laps, but we don’t have much to show for it. We’ll get some big shovels and dig out of this hole. We go to California next week and we’ll look to be strong there. “You always hope you’re in position to win one of these things, and today I was in position. It was one of the best shots I’ve ever had to win the Daytona 500, but I took myself out of position. You’ve got to get to the end. We (20 and 2) were definitely the class of the field, but when you wreck and a couple of other fast cars wreck it opens it up for somebody else to win.”

DALE EARNHARDT,JR:

“We struggled today, and we didn’t have a car that could really challenge at the front. We didn’t bring the right bullet to the fight. We didn’t have the speed like we used to here, but I can’t blame it all on the car. Late in the race, everybody was three-wide and I couldn’t seem to make the right moves. I was indecisive, and the guys that were decisive were passing me. I seemed to pick a line and then it wouldn’t move. This is a 500-mile race, but the first 400 miles are almost an after-thought. You know it’s going to get wild at the end, so you try to do things that will get you to the front. But, when you’re boxed-in by traffic, you can only do so much.”

JEFF BURTON:

“I had my eyes closed the whole time from the restart! Man, I tell you, it was crazy out there. It was two wide, three wide, four wide, my car looks like we were at Martinsville. I am really, really happy for Kevin Harvick and that whole team and every one at RCR, but as happy as I am for him and his team, I disappointed for Mark Martin. He is a great guy that deserves to win the Daytona 500. He is a class act, one of the greatest drivers the sport has ever seen. So disappointed for him, but the same time really elated for Kevin. “Great finish for our team, to come out of here with a good solid finish and for everyone at RCR.”

ELLIOTT SADLER:

“That’s an unbelievable finish for the week we’ve had. I’m so proud of my guys and how hard they worked this week. Ray made some great calls on the pit box, especially the call for two tires at the end. We worked and worked and worked on our car and by the end of the race we had it handling a little better. Our key today was just avoiding all the wrecks. We stayed out of trouble until the end of the race and put ourselves in a spot to bring home a top 10. The guys on this team did a great job. I’m not sure what happened there at the end. It looked like the No. 5 got spun then I had to go to the right to miss it. I couldn’t really tell what was going on. I’ll have to go back and watch the replay. We’re just going to put this week behind us and head to California. We had a great test at Vegas and that’s the car we’re taking to California. We’re ready for a good race out there.”

MATT KENSETH:

“Yeah, I did the best I could. I wrecked Jamie and caused that big wreck. It gets crazy at the end. I mean, you try to do everything you can, but nobody’s perfect.”"I was cheering for Greg Biffle or Mark Martin to win, obviously. Mark is my mentor and got me where I’m at. Obviously, I wanted him to win and if he couldn’t win, I wanted to Greg to win because he’s a teammate, but it didn’t work out that way. If there are cars on both sides, there’s only so much you can do. I was on the outside and Mark was on the inside, so I really couldn’t do anything.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON:

“Yeah, that’s definitely disappointing. These guys worked so hard at Hendrick Motorsports. I can’t thank them enough for the race cars they give me. Unfortunately we crashed today. We got loose from the center. I thought I had it saved but it snapped back to the right. A disappointing day. This was a hard hit, but everything did its job inside the car and I’m fine. “It was certainly disappointing to lose control of the car like that and then getting caught up in that wreck and cause that big pile up. We were trying to come up through the center and make up some time. I got lose in the center and fought it for most of Turn 2 and unfortunately lost control in the exit and got in the wall and took us out.”

DAVID GILLILAND:

“I thought we had it. Guys started wrecking and it kind of came away and we were going through the middle. I was in front of Harvick at the time and it just closed in on me at the end, but an eighth-place finish with all we went through today, we’ll take it.”

RICKY RUDD:

“At the end we just got in that mess. They were bouncing off each other and off the walls. I don’t know who finished the race without any scrapes, but what a day. I was really pleased with the pit stops. Our car was really good on long runs. Right there at the end some of the guys were putting on two tires and no tires and that jumbled it up. You had guys at the front of the pack that didn’t really need to be there and guys at the back that needed to try to come to the front and it was just jammed up. You couldn’t go anywhere.” We came out of here banged up, but the other side of it was the pit stops were excellent today. I think we got up to second or third one time just by the way the stops worked out. We didn’t two-tire it or anything to do that, we just did it with four tires and got up there, so I’m really optimistic about what I’m seeing.”

GREG BIFFLE:

“It was a 200-mile, the biggest race of the year. You wait until there’s 10 to go, and you go. That’s what I did. I just took care of my car all day and when it came time I put the pressure on it. It was a good race car. I don’t know if I could’ve won, but I wish I wouldn’t have got wrecked.”

REED SORENSON:

“We came in and taped the hole up in the radiator. We came back up to 15th and we had to come back in and put some more water in it for the green-white-checkered. I went all the way up to the top in three and four and I guess we passed about 10 of them and ended up 13th. One car was flipping and one was spinning. One was hitting the wall. It was crazy, but I kept going. Then I saw the 38 coming back across. I went the opposite way, and I think he hit Stremme. I had a good time. If we had finished 20th or something, I wouldn’t have been happy, but I’m glad to get out of here with a decent finish. We’ll go to California with high hopes and go on with the rest of the year.”

RYAN NEWMAN:

“We broke the radiator and that probably cooked the motor. When we shocked it with the water it probably broke a cylinder or blew a head gasket or cracked a block or something. We had a great car all day and consistently ran in the top five. That would have been a great start to the season but being in the garage early isn’t. We had a great run here last year, and I thought we had a shot at the win on the last lap, but we ended up third. I thought we had a great shot to repeat that, but it didn’t happen. Everybody was patient early today except for the accidents. That’s just the way it works out. I thought it was good racing. We had a good racecar. We had grip for the long run, and I thought it was paying off, but we didn’t make it to the end.”

KASEY KAHNE:

“Outside, middle, bottom — the middle started moving and I would get in there. When I got three wide on the outside we just had no, every time I went to a line the other one was moving quicker and we could just not get past 15th. I got a car that’s in one piece and that’s tough to do at these races, so yeah, I’m happy we got a car in one piece we can work on and take to Talladega in a couple months. “I was just trying to finish. I didn’t know where to go. That last deal there, there were cars everywhere and Kole did a good job out there just kept telling me to stay high, there were cars wrecking so I put on the breaks and as soon as they cleared out I floored it got by a couple more cars and ended up not wrecking. We just got really lucky. We needed to make up some points that we lost and we’re still going to be behind in points, but we made up some ground. Go to California — I look forward to that I can’t wait to get out there. I’m glad we are out of here and we are going to the next one and we can start having some fun.”

DAVID STREMME:

“We were strong all day. Our team was really good. I just thank all the safety equipment because that was a hard lick I took with the 38. I saw Clint on his roof and it was just nuts. You have this hard a tire and it comes down to the end you’re going to have a problem. The whole first part of the day was really great. I was running in the top 10 most of the day. At the end, all of a sudden, people were coming from everywhere, going places they shouldn’t be going and driving like they shouldn’t be driving. It was causing a lot of problems. We got our front end tore up a couple of times just trying to stay out of trouble. It was crazy, but it didn’t surprise me a lot at the end. Somebody hit me off the corner, and I just about lost it. “I’m proud of all my guys. I think this shows that we can have a pretty good year. We took four tires at the end and we should have taken two. It’s a little disappointing because we had a really good car. That’s just the way it is at Daytona. We had a good test at Las Vegas, and we’re going to California next week. I’m really looking forward to getting the season going. “We had a strong car all day, but certain guys wouldn’t work with me. It was crazy. They stacked up on that green-white-checkered and it was going to happen. There was no doubt about it after seeing the restart before. The 41 helped me out a ton. We had to go to the pits and get our stuff fixed. I think we restarted about 28th and ended up 10th. I guess I should be happy with that. It tore up the car pretty bad, but I think they’ll be able to fix it.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA:

“Stock car racing is good. Here, it’s easy. You just get a good handling car and put yourself in the right position to move forward. That’s all you can do. The way it played out we missed every wreck was good. It started really bad. We were really tight, and we were struggling. The car was so bad, and I don’t know what happened. We didn’t change the car at all from the 150, and it just got tighter and tighter and tighter. Once we started running good we got to the pits and my crew chief told me to go to reverse. When I went to get out of gear and it got stuck between two gears and it broke half the gearbox. We’re not even going to run and Tony (team manager Glover) is like ‘drop the clutch.’ I put it in fourth gear and said ‘Guys push me back, push me out and let’s go.’ The transmission had second, and when I went to third it just broke it in pieces, got fourth and that was it. I was lucky to get a good run on the last restart. It’s a shame. I think everybody at Texaco/Havoline Dodge and Chip Ganassi Racing did an amazing job. We had great motors here. A top-20 is kind of what I wanted to do here.”

SCOTT RIGGS:

“We had a transmission break on us, and it probably happened when I had to back up in the pit stall. I am really proud of all the guys for getting the Valvoline/Stanley Tools Dodge back on the track so quick. We only lost about 20 laps and that helped us pick up about five positions. It was not the result we were looking for. But our guys are leaving here with our heads held high because they did a great job all weekend. We know we have some of our best tracks coming up on the schedule. “I overshot my pits on the first pit stop and put it in reverse and backed up and the guys got it changed. We got the tires changed on the pit stop fine and never saw anything wrong. We probably put some kind of stress on a bearing and it started coming apart there. I wanted to come in and get if fixed before it did more damage. ”

DALE JARRETT:

“We got strung out when the sun was out - it wasn’t a bad car and it handled pretty good. We were kind of making our way along. As it got cooler and there were cautions and it bunched everybody up - we weren’t as good. The car wasn’t bad. There are a few areas that we’ll work on. For our first race - not too bad. There was just stupid racing at the end, that’s all that’s good for - the green-white-checkers are terrible and tear up bunch stuff. We managed to come out of it unscathed, get us a few points - that’s what we have to do here for the first five or six weeks.”

MICHAEL WALTRIP:

“It’s been fun. Building these cars and putting all three in the Daytona 500 has been a fun experience. We didn’t expect last week to be what it’s been, but I’m real thankful that people believe in me and I can show that this is just a stumble out of the gate. This is the Daytona 500. There’s no limit to what you do to win this race. We just have to bear down. We’re going to try and persevere understand that we have it stacked up against us, but if we can go into California and run good down the road, we can put this behind us. The thing that I didn’t want to do is damage the credibility of my team. I want people to believe that we plan on planning by the rules. I can earn the money back and earn the points back. I just don’t want to lose the integrity that people have put into my organization.”

DAVID REUTIMANN:

“I’m just disappointed. As bad as we were early, Frankie (Kerr, Crew Chief) and the guys got the car fixed and got it driving good. We were running hot and I think we hurt the motor a little bit. We took some more tape off of it and we were going to be okay and have a pretty decent finish. I just hate it for Domino’s Pizza and everybody at Michael Waltrip Racing. They did a good job and we’ll just go to California.”

DAVID RAGAN:

“We’ve had an up-and-down week here and certainly to come out with a top-five finish was remarkable for everyone at AAA and Roush Fenway Racing. We just too it easy the first 250 miles, a little too easy at times because I could hear Jimmy Fennig get mad in the pits and he told us to get with it with about 40 to go and it just worked out perfect. When I was on the top line, it was moving. When I was on the bottom line, the bottom line was moving. It was nothing that I did, my crew and everyone put me in great position to go out and I just tried to hang on and with help, Mike Wallace stuck through the race with me through thick and thin. I’ve got to give a little credit to him and we had a great top-five finish for the AAA Ford Fusion. We’re just ready to go to California.”

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