JIMMIE JOHNSON:

“That was a great lap for us. I thought with the wind it might slow the car down a little bit. The guys worked really hard to give me a car that we could come down here and race with and also contend for the pole with so I am very proud and happy with this effort. Great engine, great body, great car. We saw what we could do last night with a backup car, so I couldn’t be more proud of all my guys and all of Hendrick Motorsports.

“They keep giving me great race cars, unfortunately in my rookie season I didn’t have a clue what to do out there, I think I finished 15th or something. I had a lot more car than they had driver. Now I understand the draft a lot more and I can take advantage of these great cars they give me.

“After qualifying, I restarted the car on pit road because I was just trying to get the water temp down. I ran the fan on the cool down lap. As it cools off, the volume of water that is in the radiator needs to be cycled through to get hot water back to the radiator. We do it quite often. It was a little warm getting back on pit road; I thought it was the engine we were going to race with so I was concerned about it. The guys said thanks for treating our equipment nice, but we aren’t using this in the 500.

“I didn’t have a clue I would be here now. But I am having as much fun as now as I did then which says a lot about the company work for and drive for and the guys that work on these race cars. It lets me go out there and be a kid again and go out there have my fun and be myself. I am very thankful for that.

“Today it didn’t have a lot to do with the driver. I can only mess up a few things, my guys really put the speed in that car and I can’t thank them enough.”

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MICHAEL WALTRIP:

Did you expect to sit on the front row for this year’s Daytona 500?

“I did not expect to sit on the front row. I knew we would have a chance, but what I hoped, and this was all I was bold enough to hope, was that we could be the fastest car with a star beside it (required to qualify on time). That’s the case and we’ve got another car that’s one of the fastest, so it’s a very, very successful day for our team. There’s much relief for everybody. There were questions over the summer whether we would even make it to the end of last year and we not only start 2008 with a solid team — we’re a lot better team than we’ve ever been before. We expect to perform week-in and week-out and testing has shown us that we’re fast. It’s nice for the whole world to get to see it now.”

How much pressure does this take off your race team?

“It’s a three-pronged organization — we’ve got NAPA, UPS and Aaron’s, two of them are going to be happy and one of them will say, ‘Hey, what about us? We need to get in this race’. Dale Jarrett has to get in on Thursday — Kurt Busch is a guy I’ll be pulling for, but mainly I’ll be pulling for Dale Jarrett to be able to race his UPS car up through the middle of it and have a good race on Thursday. I think he learned a lot last night — he learned that even though his car wasn’t right, it was fast enough to keep up and be in the middle of things. Dale Jarrett’s a racer and he’ll take that type of car, adjust it and I feel real confident about what he’ll accomplish on Thursday.”

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JOE NEMECHEK:

“Awesome day. Anybody not locked in the top 35, this is an awesome day. To end up third, that is what we are sitting around here talking about, man, what could we have done differently to go just a little bit faster. Congratulations to Michael Waltrip for getting second and Jimmie Johnson for getting the pole. I didn’t know Michael would go that fast, I figured the No. 22 would be a little bit faster.

“Have to thank Hendrick Motorsports for an awesome engines. Everybody that works on this car. This team is based out of Denver, Colorado. Logistics are tough. There are a lot of challenges they have to overcome. But the team is good; we have some good people in place. Good leadership and that is what it is about.

“You look at it, we are a single car team. You look at the teams that we beat today, multi-car teams. It just says a lot for these guys, they work hard. The guys we have in place are doing their jobs, they are smart and they think. You have to be careful in that box that NASCAR gives you, it is pretty small and you get in trouble. You have to be smart about what you do. I am looking forward to this year. This about the best prepared Furniture Row Racing has had their Chevrolets in the three years they have been open.”

“This is just huge for this team and huge for me. I am really looking forward to the 150s and then the race.”

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