|
ADVERTISEMENT 
|
||
|
“Force's run was a masterpiece, and I feel bad for him since he didn't make the show here, but it was really pretty impossible to run better than a 4.82 (bump) out here today.” — Worsham on the high temperature and hot track that greeted racers for Sunday’s last-chance qualifying opportunities
"You talk to the other Funny Car drivers and they'll tell you he's the guy that you have to have your act together for at the starting line. And it just makes it that much worse when we know how good a run that was for us. It would have given us lane choice for the second round (against Hight).” — Capps on Kenny Bernstein after the revitalized veteran strapped a holeshot win on him in the opening round of eliminations
“Man I was pulling on that brake handle with all my might. It was everything I could do to keep the thing from rolling through the lights. I went in so deep I turned out the top bulb. Deep staging is one thing, but to red light by not being able to get the binders to work would have been embarrassing. Thank goodness that didn’t happen, but by doing that, it did manage to mess with the numbers.” — Gary Densham on experiencing brake problems after the burnout for his first-round pairing against Ashley
“We didn't get the results we wanted. It's not because of the effort, it's not because the car's running poorly. I've chalked this one down as just one of those unfortunate things.” — Scelzi on coming up 35-thousandths short of Worsham in round one
"We just overpowered the race track. It's tough. The track temperature was a very hot 127 degrees. Mike Ashley had lane choice, and we knew we had to lean on the car to run with him.” — Beckman on his second-round loss to the eventual race winner
“I felt very in control when it smoked the tires, even pedaling it and getting a little sideways. I never felt that is was doing anything I didn’t want it to. That is a good feeling to have in these cars. The tough part is getting experience pedaling.” — Ashley Force after losing a tire-smoke filled contest to Worsham in round two
"When it gets as hot as it was today, you start to worry about lane choice really being a big issue, and it finally got to that point after the first round today. We lost in the semi-finals, but the truth is we were pretty much toast after the first round, although it was through no fault of our own. We ran great in the first round, one of our best laps of the year, but Ashley Force was our second-round opponent and she laid down an incredible number in her first-round race. That put us over in the right lane, and even though we were able to pedal through the second round, we were stuck back over there again in the semi.” — Worsham after falling to M. Ashley in the semis, on the pitfall of losing lane choice early in eliminations
“This is a great car. This car knows how to get to the final round. This is its fifth final round this year. I haven’t been to a final round with another car this season.” — Hight showing confidence in his ride even after it shut off unexpectedly at half-track, eliminating the chance to defend his race title against Ashley
“We DNQ'd in Englishtown and won the next race in Norwalk. And then we DNQ'd in Reading and won here in Indy. I think that says so much about how we run this car—we swing for the fences with every pass. Sometimes you strike out—like in Reading—and sometimes you hit a home run, like we did here today at Indy.” — Ashley on the pattern his team seems to have entered this season
"It was very, very emotional and I knew when I decided to do this tribute car that it would add a bunch of pressure to the day. I just wouldn't allow myself to think about what it all meant too much.” — Ashley again, on running a special tribute body for the Eric Blake Faulkner Foundation at Indy, in memory of good friends Donnie and Holly Faulkner's baby son, Eric Blake, who passed away earlier this year. Ashley’s race-winning ride will be auctioned off at the Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction next January, with all funds raised going directly to the Foundation to support the Perinatal Loss Program at the St. Vincent Health System Hospital in Little Rock, AR