Reed Sorenson finished second in the first Duel.

On the race:

Reed Sorenson: The track was quite a bit slicker today than it was on Saturday for the Shootout. I think it’s going to be hotter on Sunday, so that means it will even be worse.Tire management I think is going to be the biggest thing for the 500. The car is pretty good. It seems to be balanced well. It just gets really slick after about 20 laps. Just really happy with the way the car was today, and I feel like we got a good race car for the 500.

Is your success attributed to the car or do you like this driving style?

I haven’t had that much luck with this type of racing. I’ve had a lot more fun this past week, restrictor plate, than I think I ever have. Both the cars have the same setup. They seem to handle really well on old tires. I would say that we have a little bit of advantage on car setup right now compared to what we’ve had in the past. Just real happy with the way the car is on old tires. Everybody is slipping and sliding. It’s just who can keep it wide open after it starts sliding around.

I think our cars just seem to be pretty consistent from one car to the other. When the car ran good in the Shootout, we put the same setup in it and it ran good today.

Do you know what happened to Ryan Newman there at the end?

“Yeah, I pushed the 88 car all the way through one and two. When you get two of these cars stuck together, they really move fast. Right after we crossed the start/finish line, when I was still in second gear, I was on the bumper of the 88. All the way through fourth gear, through one and two there, just really gave him a good push. Spotter said clear about six or seven, and we stayed like that pretty much all the way to the end.

These cars are really weird. When you get two of them stuck together they really gain a lot of speed. That’s what did that right there.

How do you share your emotions with the team?

I mean, obviously this isn’t the big race. This is a qualifying race. But it’s still good to learn a lot and run good in this race. We had a good run in the Shootout. We had another good run today. It makes everybody on the team excited about going into the 500. We’re optimistic about it. It gets everybody in a good mood. Everybody is energized, ready to go. It’s always good to have a good finish here in the 500 to get some momentum gained for the rest of the season. It’s always good to run good here. We’ve done well so far. Just need to do good in the 500 and we’ll be good to go.