Chevy Rock & Roll 400 Post-Race Quotes:

Jimmie Johnson (Race winner, 1st in The Chase, 5060 points): "Man, we just had a solid effort all night. In parts of the race, especially the first two-thirds of it, we had a good car, maybe not the fastest car. We kept working on it and got the car right. We had great stops at the end that got me the track position I needed and we were really able to set sail there at the end. I can't thank these guys enough; never giving up, fighting all night long. We were probably a third or fourth placed car until the end when we made the adjustments and got this victory. First of all, those three (Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Tony Stewart) behind me had me nervous on that last restart. They are all real tough. This is a great race track for all three of them. I could hear that they were racing side-by-side and I knew that that was good for me. I was trying to take care of my tires in case we caught a late caution. Luckily it stayed green and we could stretch it out and get this Lowe's Impala to victory lane. The momentum means a lot. It really does. We've seen that time and time again with different race teams and we're happy to be hitting our stride right now. We had a great 26 races. Now it's about the last 10 and we'll see what we can do."

Jeff Gordon (4th in the race, 2nd in The Chase, 5040 points): "We got off just a little bit there. We were making some adjustments trying to free the car there in the middle. I thought we really hit on it. The 8 car and the 48 took off there, but we were able to run the 8 car down. Finally, I made a couple efforts to get inside him. I thought I was faster when I got in front of him. But I couldn't get away and he was all over me. I don't know if I wore the tires out. I was way too loose, especially with him behind me. I wish we were battling up there for the lead. Jimmie and those guys made the right adjustments. We were the car to beat, the first part of the race. If you're not the car to beat at the end, it doesn't matter."

Tony Stewart (3rd in The Chase, 5030 points): "Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon were having so much fun, I felt like I was missing out on a party, so I wanted to get involved in that. It worked out good for us. I had those guys racing real hard and wearing each other down. We were about 10 laps behind that cycle when we got up there. I think Dale had the better car of the three of us. It was fun racing. It's fun when you race around guys like Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr. that you trust that you can run that close to and not have any problems. I'm excited about The Chase. I feel like we're not exactly where we want to be, but we're as close as anyone else is. We just have to do what we do best, which is make a charge at the end of this thing."

Kevin Harvick (6th in The Chase, 5010 points): "It was definitely an eventful night for me. I got the grill work filled with grass and our car started overheating. All in all, everybody did a great job. We did what we had to do. We had a good car. It just stinks having to race with one eye on the scoreboard and one on The Chase. That's not really my style. We were able to pick it up there at the end and race the 11 pretty hard. I saw how much carnage there was and how many cars were tore up. There at the end, I figured, what the heck, I'll go for it and race."

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (13th place, out of The Chase): "I don't really know, we haven't taken it apart yet. It just started locking up on the back straight away. We were having a great race here for second with Tony (Stewart). I was having a whole lot of fun, racing with him and Gordon. At the end, I thought we had a good enough car, if we could have got by Tony, we could have raced the #48 a little bit. But we broke another motor. They seem to come apart when we plug them into my car. I don't know what it is about it. We've had great power all year long. It's just really frustrating. I'll get over it. But my guys worked hard all weekend. To see that thing go up in smoke, they are very disappointed. Congratulations to all the guys who made The Chase. We'll try to get in there and spoil a couple races and win some. We're going to have a lot of fun. We'll race hard, no matter who we're racing."

David Ragan (3rd in the race): "It was a nice solid run for the AAA Ford Fusion. We had a great night on pit road. The AAA Ford was handling well. When you have a good car, it just makes everybody's job a lot easier. I got back in the back after getting squeezed into the wall by the #25 car about half way through it. We rebounded pretty nicely. Probably one of our best races of the year. It's good to get another top 5. After getting that first top 5 in Daytona, I thought these things were easy to get. But here in NEXTEL Cup racing, they're pretty hard to come by. We're excited. It's pretty cool to be racing with (the likes of Gordon, Stewart, Johnson, Earnhart, Jr.) them. They're racing for The Chase and a championship. One day, hopefully we'll be up there. We've got to give them some extra courtesy on a night like tonight. When you have a good car, it just makes everything a lot easier."

Rick Hendrick (Team owner): "This is unbelievable. I grew up about 60 miles from here. It's unbelievable. I'm excited

Martin Truex Jr. (11th in Chase; 5010 points) - "We have a lot to look forward to the next ten weeks, We're real excited and real happy about this deal all year, It's a shame Junior couldn't be in [the Chase] with us. He had a little too much bad luck. Hopefully we can hold up the better for DEI and give them a run for the money.

Denny Hamlin (6th in Chase; 5010 points) - "For the Chase, we can't have a bad race. We just have to not make any mistakes, and we'll be alright."

Carl Edwards (4th in Chase; 5020 points) - "My hat's off to Jimmie Johnson. They've been doing a great job. We're really excited about going to Loudon. I was really pumped about running this race, I was running so great there, I hated to see us blow an engine there. It's going to be a great chase."

Kurt Busch (5th in Chase; 5020 points) - "It was great; we had to work hard and stay on our toes, because we weren't locked in. It feels good now. To do it for Roger Penske, very happy about that. We had an anxious moment when Newman spun with smoke everywhere, and the way we had to get through that was to stop. We got hit from behind, and we were lucky enough that it didn't give us too much damage, and we hung on from there. We didn't have to work on it, maintained our track position, and low and behold, we're in the Chase. I think we're going to have a great start. New Hampshire is a good track for me; Dover will be interesting. Our week spot will be Talladega; you never know what's going to happen with the COT there. And I got to get through Charlotte. All in all 8 out of 10, we're looking pretty good. "

Jeff Burton (9th in Chase; 5010 points) - "We didn't get done tonight what we wanted to. We experimented a little bit and it didn't work out for us. We're proud that we have all three teams in the Chase. It's Game On now, it's time to get going. We need to find a way to step it up a little bit if we're going to beat some of these guys, I have a tremendous amount of confidence in what our team can do. We're going to go out there and mash the gas and see what happens. Nobody is picking us to win, which is fine. We'll be persistent, and try to make something happen.

Matt Kenseth (7th in Chase; 5010 points) - "I've went into it before and thought about your favorite tracks, couldn't wait to get there, showed up there, and ran bad; then showed up and some of our bad tracks and ran great there. I don't really know; I think you take it one week at a time and bring your best stuff, work hard at it, and see how it turns out."

Kyle Busch (8th in Chase; 5010 points) - "Tonight was one to forget, definitely. We definitely ran our worst here tonight, and didn't have a very good showing. Those kind of performances won't do you well in the Chase, so we have to turn something around and see what we can do to run better next week. It's a bad day for us, and hopefully, when we start up next week in Loudon, we'll be where we need to be.

Clint Boyer (12th in Chase; 5000 points) - "With a good race team that do a good job, and give me great race cars, of course I can believe that I'm in the Chase. I'm just kind of bummed out. I promised the team that I'd go for it when I showed up here tonight. I just went a little too hard."