NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Crown Royal presents the Curtiss Shaver 400

Topics:  Crown Royal presents the Curtiss Shaver 400

Carl Edwards
Joey Logano
July 28, 2012

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

KERRY THARP:  We're going to start with our post‑qualifying for tomorrow's Crown Royal Presents the Curtiss Shaver 400 at the Brickyard Powered by Big Machine Records, and we're going to go ahead and start.  Our second fastest qualifier for tomorrow's race is Carl Edwards.  He drives the No.99 Fastenal Ford for Roush‑Fenway Racing, and our third quickest qualifier is Joey Logano, and he drives the No.20 Dollar General Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Carl, I heard you out on pit road talking about all the effort that everybody has put in the last few days, and just talk about how that played out here today with a good qualifying effort.
CARL EDWARDS:  Yeah, this is huge for us, and I think it's a testament to our whole team and everybody at the shop, the ability to rally around a cause.  After Loudon we were all scratching our heads.  We met on Monday, and Bob was‑‑ he finally let us in on all the stuff he was struggling with, and we realized two things about him, just how tough he is, and he was able to perform through everything that he'd been going through the last year or so, and then second, I learned how humble of a guy he is, to be able to say, hey, look, the best thing is to have Chad going forward, and however I can help is how I want to help, and that's pretty amazing for a guy to be able to do that.
To come here two weeks later and have a qualifying effort like this I think says a lot about Bob, Jack, Chad, all the engineers, everybody who's put their effort into this.  It's a great lap for us.  I know it's just one lap; anything can happen in the race, but it's really good.  And I also have to say Scott Borchetta from Big Machine Records, he came down and talked to me a little bit before qualifying, so I'm going to have to ask him to do that each week now.  He's good luck, and he's letting me introduce Justin Moore for his concert tomorrow before the race, so I'm pretty excited about that.  I get to go on stage introduce my buddy before he plays for everybody.  Just a fun weekend, and glad I got started this way.
KERRY THARP:  Joey Logano, certainly an outstanding qualifying effort for the No.20 Toyota.  Talk about it.
JOEY LOGANO:  Yeah, our guys did a really good job between the first and second practice.  We unloaded today not very good.  I think we were about 30th on the chart or worse, and we were really struggling.  They made some good changes in between practices.  We focused pretty hard in qualifying making five qualifying runs and got our car pretty good.  I think we were third in the second practice there.
Felt like we had a shot at the pole.  Didn't feel like I hit my lap as good as I needed to, and our car was just a little bit too tight.  But either way, we definitely made some big improvements, and we were able to go back to race trim and make some gains there, too.
We're improving as the weekend goes.  We did the same thing with our Nationwide car.  We didn't unload good there, either, and we're slowly making improvements there, so we'll see what happens when the races start.

Q.  Can you just talk about the importance of really qualifying well here just in terms of track position, just the long straightaways and just overall the setup coming up here?
CARL EDWARDS:  Yeah, I don't know.  I don't think I've ever qualified well here until now.  Seems like it would help, though.
JOEY LOGANO:  Yeah, same thing.  I've blown up in practice here twice and had to start in the back, and I know it's really, really hard and it takes all day to get up there.  So starting towards the front is going to be‑‑ I think it's more important here than probably anywhere we go.  So it should help.

Q.  Carl, just observing you in the media session in here today, it seems as if you're looser, maybe more relaxed.  Has the change maybe helped and it's just a clean sheet of paper for the entire team and you guys maybe just didn't think about how the season has gone to date and just went out there and did well?
CARL EDWARDS:  Maybe.  It might just be that we had an off weekend.  I don't know what the different levels of‑‑ it's like you're in denial, then bargaining, finally acceptance.  I think we accept that we've just got to do it.  There's nothing really to say.
So part of that, I think, is just that this is all kind of new.  Somebody asked me, What's it like working with Chad?  What's he like?  I said, I don't know; I don't even know him.  We're just going and racing.  And so yeah, that might make us a little looser to know that we're throwing it all on the table.  We don't really have anything to lose at this point, and maybe that‑‑ maybe you are overanalyzing it, but maybe there is something there, I don't know.

Q.  Talk about what went into today's run.  What made it happen for you?  How did you achieve success?
CARL EDWARDS:  That's a good question.  It starts at the shop, and I think that today specifically was just what we talked about earlier, the fact that all the guys got together and worked towards this common cause.  You know, Jack Roush, by Monday at noon, we knew what our plan was going into this weekend as far as who was going to be working where.  Everybody has worked really hard for the last 12 days or however long that is to make this happen, and it's just one lap.  Anything can happen.
But this is the first step towards our comeback to make the Chase, and I think everybody did a good job.  But it's about people.  Jack Roush is a guy that's not afraid to work and not afraid to make change, and I'm just really happy that this is going well so far.
KERRY THARP:  Carl, Joey, thank you, and good luck tomorrow.