“Right now I'm gonna’ take a page out of Eric Medlen's book and go out and eat a little ice cream tonight and enjoy this win.” — Robert Hight referring to his friend and teammate, Eric Medlen, who was killed in a testing accident early this year at Gainesville, FL, after beating temporary teammate Phil Burkart Jr. in the final round at Pomona
“No, there's no way; not with the temperatures as we expect them to be. We're going to try to win the race; we're not going to try for a national record. There's still $100,000 out there and after second place the rest of it doesn't matter. The money falls off the cliff.” — Gary Scelzi on the likelihood of setting a new NHRA record on the way to winning the race, the only way he could’ve passed Tony Pedregon for the championship—and that was only if number-16 qualifier Pedregon lost in the opening round (which he did)
“Once we ran the 4.78, I wasn't thinking in terms of holding on to the top spot, I was just relieved because I was 99 percent sure that run would make the show. When you've got the Force cars, the Schumacher cars, and all these other great teams here, you kind of expect some of them to burst your bubble, but apparently that was a heck of a lap because no one could beat it.” — Jeff Arend on earning his second number-one start with his first qualifying attempt on Thursday afternoon
“Don't know who we race, don't care, because they're all tough. Want to close on a positive note. Time to win. Period. Exclamation point. Done.” — Jack Beckman after qualifying 2nd for the 5th time this season
“The queer thing about the right lane is that it drags you to the centerline. It has a crown in it about 400 feet and you get out there and it will try to suck you in there. It does it every time.” — Tim Wilkerson on track conditions after qualifying in the number-4 position
“It's going to be interesting tomorrow because it's the end of the year and a lot of people's mentality is to go up there and kind of let it all hang out since the championship's already wrapped up. We're feeling the same way.” — Ron Capps on Saturday night after earning the number-8 starting position
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“It actually had problems near the finish line, and would probably have been a 4.79 or 4.80 had the motor not started banging and clanging and trying to destroy itself at about 1,000 feet.” — Del Worsham on his 4.821-seconds pass in Saturday’s first qualifying session that held up to place him 12th on the list for raceday
“It was running right on top of our 4.78 qualifying run and I got the car a little bit to the inside and got out of the groove with one tire and it smoked the tires. Real narrow groove here. I've been OK throughout the weekend, but for whatever reason it just got away and drove them off.” — Gary Scelzi on smoking the tires in his first-round pairing against Hight