I knew I had to save my tires, because we were on the verge of real soft. I waited until we hit lapped traffic because I knew I could run the bottom.

verge of a breakthrough

It?s a dream to win a race at Knoxville.

I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you

Somebody was laying something down on the track. I knew the tires were getting bad. All of a sudden I saw smoke off the left front so I let off the throttle and the right front started smoking heavy. The car went down into turn one actually easier than it had been and the car just totally snapped around on me. Somebody must have been putting something down on the track. That's what they were saying.

He's been here, he loves the surface, it's soft. We knew we were going to get the lead. I was hoping to get like a :23 and change [the first quarter].