Volume IX, Issue 10, Page 129

“These are all professional teams. Imagine the New York Yankees not going to spring training with any players and then pick from the players that are left in the league and come out and fight with the other teams. You are way behind, even if you had the players, you still aren't in shape or ready to go. I'm proud of this team. The car performed like a bracket car this weekend. We made it down the track on five of our six laps within three-hundredths of a second.” — Toliver after losing to Hight in round two, on the long, slow process it’s taking to become a contender again

“As a driver, I just flat out made a rookie mistake. He was in deep, my stage light had come on, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his top light blink. When we left the starting line I kind of said to myself, ‘Good try, Phil.’ He's got to do what he's got to do in that car. Apparently it did bug me, because my light was a .110 and that's pretty sub-par for me. It's a little better than I was in qualifying. I was pretty consistent qualifying at .120s. Race day is a different deal for all the drivers. And everybody knows the game up there. I never let those things get to me. I've really worked hard on never letting them get to me, but obviously it happened and it's just something you can't do.” — Ron Capps after losing to a holeshot by Phil Burkart in the opening round

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“One second you're strapped in the car waiting for the lights to flash, and two seconds later your day, your race, and your season is over, done, finished. This sport is pretty cruel like that. It's just over. There's no chance to spend the next hour picking up the ground you lost. You're done.” — Worsham after going up in smoke about half-track against Ashley Force in round one

“We are absolutely intent upon being completely ready to come out of the box ripping next year. By tomorrow morning, we'll be tied for first place.” — Worsham again, looking to the future

“It went out there, moved toward the centerline just enough to spin the tires, and that was probably the difference in the race.” — Beckman after losing to Mike Ashley by just .002 in round two

“Now, that was a good ol' drag race. I didn't know who won, because he was right beside me the whole time.” — Ashley with his view of the win over Beckman

“I knew it dropped a hole at the hit, because it was sluggish and it went left right out of the gate. I got it straightened out, and then the cylinder caught again, I guess, because the next thing I knew my sluggish race car was blowing the tires off. It did hook up, but I saw him out there and we didn't have enough race track to catch him. Boom! It's all over.” — Arend on his second-round loss to Burkart

“It's a little bumpy in the right lane. It was the better lane, but it just bumped a couple of times and put the hole out.” — Wilkerson on losing a cylinder and then the race in his semi-final match against Burkart

“We put out a hole out on that run against Robert which cost us the round. The track had come back and was able to handle more clutch than we gave it, and that was the difference.” — Ashley on his semi-final loss to Hight

“Winning the race didn't make it a great year (because) earlier this year we lost our teammate. In fact, there's not much that would have made this a good year because we'll never have Eric back. I miss him, miss him like you can't believe. This winter's going to be really tough, 'cause Eric and I worked a lot together in the winter.” — Hight remembering Medlen in his post-race comments