Monday, 11th February 2008

Defending champion thrilled with '500 pole.

"Obviously there is a lot of emphasis when you come to Daytona 500 to sit on the pole," he said. "It is a neat thing; you are guaranteed a front row starting spot. It is a week and a half that you can kind of walk around with your chest puffed up instead of just a day like a normal qualifying effort, so it is kind of cool.

"The guys at Hendrick Motorsports, everybody from the body department to the chassis department to our engine department, we came down here with really a car that we didn't have any prior track knowledge about. The car actually to right now only has a total of twelve timed laps on it on the race track, relatively unproven. We took a bit of a chance and we thought the car was going to be good. All of the data we had at back home was right. It is cool, I am really enjoying it."

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