Post race quotes - Golden Corral 500.

Feathers were ruffled up and down pit road before the conclusion of the first of 325 scheduled laps in Atlanta on Sunday and by the end of the day, every one of the 43 starters knew they had been in a tough race.

CARL EDWARDS - Finished 1st
"I have to thank my sponsors first because if it wasn't for them coming on board, I wouldn't be driving the car this year. Scotts, World Financial Group, AAA and Office Depot. I thank Jack Roush for giving me this opportunity.

"As far as the race is concerned, my pit crew got us off pit road, I believe, first on that last pit stop and that was unbelievable. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have been in position to win.

"As far as the race, I just drove as hard as I possibly could trying to figure out a way to get by Jimmie, which is just about impossible, and it just worked out at the end. I can't believe it worked out."

JIMMIE JOHNSON - Finished 2nd
"The whole day was a lot of fun. But at the end, the No. 99 (Carl Edwards) was really strong. I thought that his car was going to give up like it had throughout the other runs and that I was going to be in good shape.

"But as the laps wound down, he started searching around the race track and found some grip on the top of Turns 3 and 4 and had me thinking about it. So when I went into Turn 3 coming to the white flag, I moved up a little bit to see what was out there. I guess I didn't go up far enough. I went in the middle of the track and it was pretty slick. When I came off of Turn 4, all I could see was windshield, so I knew he was coming.

"I came back around the next time and I knew I needed to get back there on the top so that the momentum down the front stretch would carry me by even if he got inside of me, I was willing to give it up. I just wanted to slingshot by at the start/finish. He still found a little spot out there next to the wall and got a run around me and then the momentum carried him past me coming to the start/finish."

GREG BIFFLE - Finished 3rd
"I just got beat out of the pits. These cars go aero tight and it's so hard to pass. I just got stuck behind my teammate and the 48. I was better than them, but I was too aero tight. With the aero package you just can't pass.

"It's the worst day of my life. We had a great racecar and we were in position to win. We could beat the 48 for sure and Carl got up there and blocked enough air. With two racecars in front of me I couldn't do anything. I felt like I could beat the 48. I'm pretty confident I could beat the 48, but I couldn't beat Carl. I mean, I didn't plan on him being there, so that's the way it goes."

MARK MARTIN - Finished 4th
"I worked pretty hard today and so did all of my Viagra team. We had this Taurus pretty hooked up, but it wasn't good enough to pull it off there at the end. It was a good run and I'm awfully proud of all these guys. Our Roush-Yates Engines, Kraft, Pennzoil and everybody that supports us. I'm ready for some Gatorade."

KASEY KAHNE - Finished 5th
"It was a good day. We had to fight pretty hard at the end there. We always run pretty well here, so that's a good thing. We changed some things this week Everybody at Evernham Motorsports worked real hard to change some things we had going on. The new Charger is a good car. We've just got to figure it out, and it's going to take a little time. I think we learned a lot about it today. We needed a little momentum going into Bristol. That's a tough racetrack and then we've got Martinsville after that. We'll take a week off on the Cup side and get ready for those two short tracks coming up."

BRIAN VICKERS - Finished 6th
"It's awesome how well everyone has come together. This new #25/5 shop is working out great, Brain Whitsell heading that, all the people involved. You know, Rick has done a great job of getting us what we needed. I'm happy to have the GMAC/ditech.com Chevy back. I really, really have a good feeling about this year. I think we have a good chance."

MICHAEL WALTRIP - Finished 7th WHAT DOES THIS 7TH PLACE FINISH MEAN FOR YOUR TEAM?
"It means a lot. We're working really well together. Respect...it just makes me so happy. I've been on both sides of the fence. These guys just trust me believe in me and know that we can be successful together. It just feels so great. The NAPA team is right on par. We liked one little notch today to be exactly where we needed to be, and that little notch was right in the corner. Once I got in there, I could run with everybody. We're going to Texas to test this week and I have a lot of confidence with this team."

DAVE BLANEY - Finished 8th
"I'd like to thank everybody at Snap-On and Jack Daniels and at RCR and everybody - this has been a really solid day for us. We're trying to take little steps forward to get better. We thought we had a pretty solid weekend in Vegas and an even better weekend this weekend.

"We've been solid since we unloaded here on Friday until the end of the race. We had good pit stops and a good race. I'm proud of all my guys. The car was really good. We just kept having to free it up and free it up. It was really good when it was the sunniest and hottest. And then we just couldn't get it freed up enough to run really good once it got cloudy and cool. At the end it was the same way. Man, if we'd had some sunshine and it was a little hotter I think we would have been a factor."

SCOTT RIGGS- Finished 9thWHAT HAPPENED ON THE FIRST LAP?
"I saw the No. 41 and the No. 0 go up there and get real close and I think it took the air off of Casey and he got loose. As soon as I saw it I jumped out of the gas and got on the binders pretty hard and backed up away from it and was lucky enough to miss it all."
SO YOU NEVER MADE CONTACT WITH THE NO. 41?SR "Oh no. I was probably three feet behind him the whole time."

JAMIE McMURRAY - Finished 11th
"We didn't have a very good car, but we kept adjusting on it and the best we had it was at the end. I'm not thrilled. We've still got to work on our stuff, but we turned a bad day into an average day.

"Elliott Sadler always races me really clean, and it was a lot better than I was at the end. You run so fast here. You race people the way they race you. It would have been nice to get into the top 10, but if the roles were reversed Elliott would have done the same thing.

"We were loose at first and made huge adjustments. We just got our car out of balance and just never could get it back. We usually run better at the short tracks, so we've got two of those coming up and I'm looking forward to it. We jumped up to 10th in the standings today and that's cool. Now we've got to figure out a way to stay there and move up to the top five."

KYLE BUSCH - Finished 12th
"They just kind of went off what the 24 [Jeff Gordon] had because his body was pretty much exact the same to this. We started of really, really loose and I fell behind early and then kind of worked on it all day long. We got it back a little bit in order to come back through there. It's just a hard day's worth of work and we got it back."

JEREMY MAYFIELD - Finished 13th
"Man, it was one of those up and down days. At least we ended up on the up side, not like we have the last couple of weeks. It was a pretty good finish for our Dodge Charger. It gives this team a lot of confidence that we needed. We're starting to get a handle on the Charger, and the guys really worked hard last week to improve their teamwork and how to make adjustments on the car during the race. Maybe our bad luck is behind us and we'll keep getting better as the season goes along."
RYAN NEWMAN - Finished 14th
"We struggled all day. It just seemed like we couldn't get a handle on it. We made a lot of changes, but we didn't have any grip all day. The guys didn't give up. We kept making changes and finally got the Lucky Dog. We ended up on the lead lap somehow. That's the first time we've finished on the lead lap in the first four races. I'm proud of the guys and we'll put this one behind us and go on to Bristol. We're up to sixth in the standings, and that's cool. It'll be even cooler if we can stay there and keep moving up the ladder."
JEFF BURTON - Finished 15th
"We ran great at times and it just gets away from us. This is the third race in a row that we've been worse at the end of the race. We're working real hard and trying hard. This is a good car. We've just got to keep digging and get a little better."

TONY STEWART - Finished 17th
"I think I wore the steering box out of that car. That thing felt like it pushed down the front stretch."

MIKE BLISS - Finished 18th
"Luckily we managed to stay out of most of that mess right there in the beginning. It was an interesting race. We went from loose to tight to neutral and then back to tight all just about within the first half of the event. Bootie and the guys made good changes to the car to adjust the handling but then the track started to change and that got thrown into the mix too.

"By the end of the race the car was pretty good. I kept waiting for a yellow flag in the last 25 laps or so, so we could get our lap back, but it never came. It wasn't a bad day at all, we just missed it a bit at the start and had to play catch up for a while, but the team did a good job today and we'll take 18th place and get ready for Bristol."

CASEY MEARS - Finished 19th
"Right on the start we were really loose. I went down into turn one and almost wrecked getting in. I had to let up a little bit and I'm getting through the centre, trying to maintain with everybody. The 10 car had a big run on the outside because I had to lift getting in. When he went around the outside of me it took all the air off and I lost it. I felt pretty good and it was real free.

"I thought I could make it through, but as soon as he got on the outside of me it just took off. It didn't hurt the car too much. I feel bad for everybody that got caught up in that. I hate to be the cause of something. It was definitely our fault, but it was just a mistake. I've never had that happened to me.

"I picked up a bad vibration later and the car got real loose. I thought I had a tyre going down. We came in and that's what put us a lap down. Then on the restart I lost third gear. We could have easily got our lap back but on every restart after that we lost too much ground going from second to fourth. It just wasn't meant to be."

BILL ELLIOTT - Finished 22nd
"We were really too tight at the start of the race. We kind of jacked around and went a lap down, but we didn't let ourselves get another lap down. We were OK, but we need a little bit.

"We didn't test for here, and we didn't run a lot of laps at California, so this was really like our first test. Since we don't run every week and this group doesn't work together each week, we have to work twice as hard when we do run. We'll get it going. We're testing before Texas and we'll get it together and be good there. It's always great to be back in Atlanta and race for the hometown folks."

DALE EARNHARDT JR. - Finished 24th
"I'm proud of the effort my team gave today. We were really loose for most of the day, and at times it was hard to drive. But we had a car that could've finished a lot better than it did, and that's my fault.

"I was going too fast exiting pit road, and we fell two laps down and could never recover. I can't knock anybody but myself - I knew it when it happened that I was probably going too fast. I feel pretty bad about that.

"Pete and the guys kept digging, which makes me feel good. I can sleep well at night knowing we gave it everything we had. I drove my heart out today. I'm about as tired as you can be after a 500-mile race, but I'm going to drive just as hard every time as long as my team's busting their ass like their doing right now."

RUSTY WALLACE - Finished 27th
"We got a little damage on that first-lap deal and ended up losing a lap getting everything fixed, and then we lost another lap changing a shock. We were tight and loose, loose and tight. We kept working on it and never could get our laps back. We lost a little ground in the standings, but we're still in the top 10 and we're headed to Bristol, so I feel pretty good about that."

MATT KENSETH - Finished 31st
"Somebody wrecked way up front and we just got collected in it. The rest of the day all we could do was make some laps, burn some gas and wear out the tyres. There's nothing you can really do."

KURT BUSCH - Finished 32nd
"There's nothing you can do. We weren't that aggressive on right fronts, but we kept blowing them. We got involved in that accident on the first lap and then poked a hole in another right-front tyre, so it was just a bummer day."

RICKY RUDD - Finished 33rd
"It's pretty frustrating. We've had good racecars every week, we just haven't had a chance to show it. Today was the longest we ran without having some trouble. It was kind of a freak deal with the wheel bearing or something. I don't know. I think we got up to fourth or fifth and Fatback was just tweaking the car and tweaking the car. I think we would have had something there at the end."

JOE NEMECHEK - Finished 35th
"I don't know what to say except our finishes do not reflect our performances. We've been strong every race but can't seem to get to the end. The incidents that stymied us in the last three races were beyond our control. We should have had top-five finishes in each of those races. This is difficult to accept, but we'll fight through it."

BOBBY LABONTE - Finished 37thWHAT HAPPENED?
"Well, you know, like I said I just don't know. I watched a little bit of it on TV, there. You know, a couple of guys already got into two guys. Two cars got into two other cars off of Turn 2. It's 500 miles. That's all I can say. It's 500 miles, not one lap."

JEFF GORDON - Finished 39thWHAT HAPPENED?
"Well, we're trying to figure it out. There was some contact with the #41 and a couple of other guys, you know-turned sideways and once that happened, just caused a big wreck. I thought I was going to get through there. I saw smoke but then they all turned down in front of me.

"Unfortunately, a short day for the DuPont Chevrolet and a lot of other guys. I'd like to see a few more angles and go back a little bit further and see how it all started. I'm not exactly sure what went on there. But we're going to fix it as best we can and get out there. It's not going to be a fun day but it's going to be a long one."

TRAVIS KVAPIL - Finished 42nd
"I almost got through it. I tried to drive under it and somebody got me in my left rear and got me turned around into the inside wall. That was a hard hit. I'm glad they've got these safer barriers up. The worst thing is these Kodak guys built me a great racecar.

"I thought we had a top-10 car. We were good in practice. We were good when we tested here, but that's part of it. That's why we race 500 miles. We've got to try to get back out there and make a few laps and get a few points. It was a brand new racecar. It was fast, and now it's all torn up. We'll just go get 'em at Bristol."