“I feel like it was a huge success this weekend, even though we didn’t get past the second round. In the big picture, our car has speed for the first time this season and we’re running in the 3.60’s for the first time all season. We finally got the car to run in the 330 miles per hour range in Sonoma and we broke speed records three times this weekend. I feel like we finally have a car that is competitive, it’s just a matter of getting a handle on it and reeling it in when the conditions aren’t ideal. We’ve been in the opposite scenario all season, just trying to spur the thing to go faster. We’ve been struggling with it and found a couple things that have been holding us back. I am glad that we finally found them and it’s honestly at the right time. We’d like to have three or four events before the start of the Countdown, but at the same time, at least we found it. Better late than never, so we will get ready for the biggest race of the year in Indianapolis.” – Tony Stewart
“I was really happy to have Andy Ross from American Rebel out here this weekend. It’s a great opportunity for him to continue and grow his brand. He’s a great guy and it’s nice having him around. He’s been to four races and we’ve advanced to the Finals in each of them and won two of those. We need to keep getting him out to the track. My guys did a great job this weekend. We missed it a little bit and qualifying, but they dug deep and worked hard. The more runs Dickie (Venables – Crew Chief) got, the more the car came around. My team did everything right this weekend and I let them down in the Final when I red lit up there. It’s a tough deal when you watch your guys work hard all day to get there and you mess it up as a driver. I wasn’t going up there pressing or doing anything out of the ordinary. The lights seemed long and the foots they go. I guess it is one of those things that happen, but it’s not a great excuse. It’s kind of a rookie mistake and I haven’t done that in a while. Obviously you’re pretty hard on yourself because of all the work the guys did to get there. We had the car to run with them (Blake Alexander) or beat them. We have some test sessions coming up tomorrow, so we’ll try to learn some more as we get ready for Indy and then the start of the countdown. This just continues to show that we can work through a lot of adversity during the weekend. We haven’t been qualifying the greatest, but we seem to really race well on Sundays. Congratulations to Blake. He and his wife are going to have another baby in the next week or two, so maybe it wasn’t meant to be my day today. Thank you to Andy Ross for all he has done to support us.” – Matt Hagan
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