"I'm OK. Thanks to NASCAR and the SAFER walls. They still hurt when you hit 'em but it does take some impact out. I feel bad for the Jasper guys. We're at the Brickyard, their home track. We had our first Penske chassis. Shane Wilson [crew chief] made a great call to give us two tires and get us up there. Kahne came up there with all that metal sticking out of the edge of it and just left rear tired us and gave us a flat right before we could do anything. We got lucky to come out OK. Thanks to the rest of the field for missing me as I came back across the track with no steering."

IT LOOKED LIKE A HARD HIT. "It didn't hurt. Like I said, with all the safety stuff that NASCAR has done recently and if you use that stuff correctly, it all works pretty well. I've had some of the harder hits in NASCAR and you always walk away when you end up working out, going to the gym and using the stuff correctly. I feel bad for the boys. That was our first Penske chassis. The car just came by us and it doesn't look very good so thanks to Kasey for ruining our racecar and just getting impatient."

YOU HAD A PRETTY GOOD CAR TODAY. "The car was getting better. We were a little loose for a few laps. Shane and the guys made an adjustment and got it to where it was just fantastic. We passed about six guys and we were faster than guys but this is just a tough place to pass on. We made the call of the day: two tires. I passed a couple of guys on the restart and we were quick, man. We were going to be fine and we bunched up with everybody. It was just impatience."

WERE YOU SURPRISED HOW WELL THE CAR RAN WITH TWO TIRES? "We knew that we were a little free before. Two tires normally helps and we had just snugged it up and Shane made a track bar adjustment and two tires and I said 'You know, I think that might not be bad.' We only had about three laps on it but we were fast enough to stay up there."