Running Their Mouth: 2008 Bud Shootout at Daytona

Welcome to the first 2008 edition of Running Their Mouth! Each week, we’ll go through media reports, interviews, PR and all our own stuff to find the best quotes from the Nextel Cup race, capturing the story of how the weekend unfolded. It’s the most original commentary you’ll ever find: the truth, coming straight out of the mouths of the drivers, crew members and the car owners themselves.

This week, here’s a sneak peek at what a select few were thinking following the Bud Shootout at Daytona International Speedway:

“This is exactly what we needed coming out of the gate. We’ve had such a long offseason, and this really made it worth it.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr., Shootout winner

“On the racetrack, I think, they are going to go back to letting us run over each other it looks like… so just get ready. I’m going to walk around with my dukes up all day long. Be ready, I’m telling you – you got to watch both hands!” – Earnhardt Jr., in response to the aftermath of the Tony Stewart – Kurt Busch incident

“I’m pretty happy with that because it’s hard to beat Dale Jr. He’s one of the best restrictor-plate drivers there’s ever been. He learned a lot from his dad, and I’m not sure he’s not better than his dad now, in all honesty.” – Stewart, finished second

“My car drove pretty good. If it stays single-file, everything is fine, but when they get two- and three-wide, everything gets hairy. You have to stay on top of it all the time and with the track slicker during the day, it will be more so.” – Kasey Kahne, finished 10th

“It was fun. That’s probably the most fun that I’ve had on a restrictor-plate race that’s for sure, but I just want to thank everybody. I had a great time tonight. I don’t really know if I had friends or didn’t make friends but I did the best I could. I pushed whoever was in front of me and had a great time.” – Reed Sorenson, finished fifth

“We had a great car tonight. There was one mistake that I made late, letting the No. 2 car [Kurt Busch] squeeze me into the middle which cost me a chance at the race. What a car, though. If that’s how our car is going to run, we have a lot to look forward to this week.” – Dave Blaney, finished seventh

“Once I could get to the front, the speeds picked up and my car was really, really loose – I just couldn’t hang on to it. Then, there at the end I thought I had an opportunity to push Tony [Stewart] on the last lap but by choosing to push him it caused me a lot of spots.” – Denny Hamlin, finished ninth

“We were alright. We just don’t quite have the speed. When we had Jamie pushing, that helped a lot. I worked real well with Kurt and then he spun out, but I’d say at the end that Kurt was our hope, just to follow him up through there, but we just couldn’t go any faster. That was it.” – Carl Edwards, finished 12th

“Our car wasn’t that good. We tried kind of a little out of the ordinary setup and it didn’t work. The car didn’t handle very good. I wish we wouldn’t have done that. I wish we would have stuck with the old faithful setup, which we had run in both Shootout practices.” – Greg Biffle, finished 20th

“I’ve never wrecked so many racecars in my career, much less come here and do this. There was something wrong with the front end and I was just trying to ride it out. I ended up just causing the tire to blow out, but that’s the way it goes.” – Bill Elliott, finished 23rd