"They gave us a racecar this week and man, the Kodak boys performed. Shane [Wilson, crew chief] did a good job of getting us in and out, strategy-wise, and the end I just tried to drive the wheels off it. We had a racecar and it feels so good to have one. I got Kodak a top-10 and man I wanted a top-five. I didn't care about the Chase for the Championship. I wanted to give Kodak another top-five this year and gave it all I could."

THINGS GOT WILD AT THE END OF THE RACE. "I saw everybody fan out and I go 'Hey, let's go for second.' I was going to get as far us as I could. I drove into turn 3 and just over-drove and pushed up and at that point everybody fanned back down and settled back down. I just wanted to get fifth. I was wanting a top-five and I tried my hardest. Congratulations to Kurt Busch the champion and to Kasey Kahne, the Raybestos Rookie of the Year. They deserve it. Thank you for a racecar at the end of the year, I appreciate it."

DID YOUR CAR GET BETTER AT THE END OF THE RACE? "We started doing a lot better once the clouds came over. When that cloud came over we really started to pick up speed and as it got later we were getting better. Shane did a two-tire stop but then backed it up with a track bar adjustment because you know it's going to tighten you up. It was a dead-on adjustment and it rotated [in the corners] and it went."

IS THIS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW MUCH YOU'VE LEARNED, BEING ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THE TRACK LIKE YOU DID? "You finally have a racecar that you can keep up with the track instead of trying to fix it. When you're struggling all day to fix you don't keep up with weather. When you've got a good racecar, then you can try to keep up with weather."