Driver Quotes Following Darlington's Lone Practice Session

Kurt Busch has had a rough last few weeks; using back-up car Saturday.

KURT BUSCH ON HIS EVENTFUL PRACTICE TODAY? “We ended up blowing a right-front tire that sent us straight into the fence on the last lap of practice. It’s funny how things work out sometimes with the way that this week has gone. It’s been a productive week. There’s been a lot of movement behind the scenes with re-structuring, moving some things around and getting a general idea what some of the actual issues are instead of just talking about them; we’re acting to it. Just a tough day. We had a great plan in place to go out there early in practice and post a lap that put us third overall. If qualifying got rained out we’d be third on the grid. With a back-up car, we have to go to the back and dig our way out of that hole from there. No holes were (not) use to getting out of and digging.”

KURT BUSCH RESPONDING TO THE QUESTION REGARDING HIS RADIO OUTBURST LAST WEEK AT RICHMOND: DID IT TAKE SATURDAY NIGHT FOR PEOPLE AT PENSKE TO FINALLY LISTEN? WOULD IT BE INACCURATE TO SAY THAT YOU’VE BEEN CARRYING THE CAR THIS SEASON? “There’s times when things are absorbed and times when I think that things are just bounced off the wall and I have to continue to shovel it back in there. We know we can be a better team. Communication is what does that. That’s what I preach when I get a chance to go talk to different college teams or high school events to pump people up. It’s all about communication. To say that I’ve been carrying the car, I’m doing the best that I possibly can. I want to win. I don’t want to finish 15th or 22nd like I did last week and say that we did our best. No, we didn’t because we would have got a top-five or had a chance at winning. For me, Brad (Keselowski) hasn’t beaten me all that much at Penske. I didn’t get beat all that much by (David) Stremme. I didn’t get beat much by Sam (Hornish Jr.). The last time that I felt equivalent was when (Ryan) Newman was there and that was in 2007.”

Stewart likes his car this week

TONY STEWART TALKING ABOUT HIS CAR IN PRACTICE: “Well, we only ran 15 laps, but I think we’re all right. We didn’t get out right away. We didn’t really run more than about four or five laps at a time so I’m not sure we really know 100 percent yet; but at least it looks decent on the sheet right now. So far I’m pretty happy with it. It seems pretty balanced. We’re just trying to figure out a couple of little things to try to anticipate what we think it’s going to do on the long runs. We didn’t really get a chance to do a long run so far today. But I think we’re okay.”

TONY STEWART TALKING ABOUT MOTHERS DAY: “I feel like I have the sweetest Mom in the world to be honest. A lot of people look at me and say what happened because they know it wasn’t her. She has been very supportive of everything that we’ve done with the racing and she has worked for us at our office. She runs our foundation. I feel pretty lucky that I get to keep her close that way.”

KYLE BUSCH ON HOW HE LIKES HIS CAR FOLLOWING PRACTICE: “Car is not bad. The Doublemint Camry seems to be pretty good thus far. We just brushed the wall a little bit there behind somebody in traffic kind of and didn’t hurt it too bad. So, they’ll fix it up and get it ready to go. A lot of tire wear and a lot of rubber being put down. Kind of good, but it will be interesting for Saturday night.”

KYLE BUSCH WITH A MOTHERS DAY STORY: “I won here a couple years ago on Mother’s Day weekend with the 18 car, which was really good and it was cool to give her a win on Mother’s Day weekend. I’ve also won — I think it was Mother’s Day weekend at Kentucky when I ran Kentucky ARCA back in 2003 when I was just coming up. There has been a few good weekends that I’ve had on Mother’s Day — those are the most memorable ones. When I was a kid I just remember going with my Dad and picking out some cheesy gifts and stuff like that and giving her stuff like that, which was pretty much useless. She still said she liked it.”

Edwards became a Father this week

CARL EDWARDS ON HOW ITS GOING AFTER BECOMING A FATHER: “It’s going great. It was amazing. Kate is an amazing woman. We had a healthy young boy. His name is Michael Edwards and he’s doing great, so it’s just a great week. It was unreal. We had a lot of fun. Annie is really excited about her little brother. I don’t think she quite understands what is going on, but we’re all doing really well, so it’s good.”

CARL EDWARDS ON THE GRIP POSSIBLY GOING AWAY ON THE NEW SURFACE OF DARLINGTON: “I was pretty excited and anxious to see what it looked like. I was telling the guys that rode with me down to the race that this track was so different before they paved it, and I’m hoping it gets back to that. It seems like it has aged quite well, I think, over the last year. It took a lot of rubber about three-quarters of the way through the Nationwide practice and that changed the grip level a little bit. It seems like the tires are falling off a little bit, so I think it’s good. I think the track is going really well, and I think that’s good for the racing.”

CARL EDWARDS ON HOW BIG AN ISSUE IT WAS WITH RAIN WASHING OUT MOST OF PRACTICE: “We’re gonna look good or not here based on whether or not it stops raining because Bob and the guys forecasted right when it was gonna rain. We got some race trim in, we got qualifying practice in, and if it continues to rain, then we might have messed up because we should have spent more time in race trim, but if we do get qualifying in, then I think we did the right thing. It’s really difficult to decide what to do because it’s not just about whether it rains, it’s how quick does it dry off, are we gonna get more race practice. It’s a tough call. I’m hoping that we get qualifying in, just so we can make use of all that practice we had.”

KEVIN HARVICK'S FAVORITE MOTHERS DAY STORY: “Well I think my mom has a lot of responsibility about me just being here to be honest with you because I was kind of at a cross roads in my racing career and in my life, whether I should go and try to finish college or take a chance on my racing career and she was the one who said you need to go take your chance on your racing career and see how it works out because if it doesn’t school will still be here when you get back. I guess it all worked out okay.”