Carl Edwards, qualified in second position, starting on the pole for 2012 Brickyard 400.

Here is a post-qualifying interview with Edwards:

Q. I heard you out on pit road talking about all the effort that everybody has put in the last few days, and just talk about how that played out here today with a good qualifying effort.
CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, this is huge for us, and I think it’s a testament to our whole team and everybody at the shop, the ability to rally around a cause. After Loudon we were all scratching our heads. We met on Monday, and Bob was — he finally let us in on all the stuff he was struggling with, and we realized two things about him, just how tough he is, and he was able to perform through everything that he’d been going through the last year or so, and then second, I learned how humble of a guy he is, to be able to say, hey, look, the best thing is to have Chad going forward, and however I can help is how I want to help, and that’s pretty amazing for a guy to be able to do that.
To come here two weeks later and have a qualifying effort like this I think says a lot about Bob, Jack, Chad, all the engineers, everybody who’s put their effort into this. It’s a great lap for us. I know it’s just one lap; anything can happen in the race, but it’s really good. And I also have to say Scott Borchetta from Big Machine Records, he came down and talked to me a little bit before qualifying, so I’m going to have to ask him to do that each week now. He’s good luck, and he’s letting me introduce Justin Moore for his concert tomorrow before the race, so I’m pretty excited about that. I get to go on stage introduce my buddy before he plays for everybody. Just a fun weekend, and glad I got started this way.
Q. Can you just talk about the importance of really qualifying well here just in terms of track position, just the long straightaways and just overall the setup coming up here?
CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever qualified well here until now. Seems like it would help, though.
Q. Carl, just observing you in the media session in here today, it seems as if you’re looser, maybe more relaxed. Has the change maybe helped and it’s just a clean sheet of paper for the entire team and you guys maybe just didn’t think about how the season has gone to date and just went out there and did well?
CARL EDWARDS: Maybe. It might just be that we had an off weekend. I don’t know what the different levels of — it’s like you’re in denial, then bargaining, finally acceptance. I think we accept that we’ve just got to do it. There’s nothing really to say.
So part of that, I think, is just that this is all kind of new. Somebody asked me, What’s it like working with Chad? What’s he like? I said, I don’t know; I don’t even know him. We’re just going and racing. And so yeah, that might make us a little looser to know that we’re throwing it all on the table. We don’t really have anything to lose at this point, and maybe that — maybe you are overanalyzing it, but maybe there is something there, I don’t know.

Q. Talk about what went into today’s run. What made it happen for you? How did you achieve success?
CARL EDWARDS: That’s a good question. It starts at the shop, and I think that today specifically was just what we talked about earlier, the fact that all the guys got together and worked towards this common cause. You know, Jack Roush, by Monday at noon, we knew what our plan was going into this weekend as far as who was going to be working where. Everybody has worked really hard for the last 12 days or however long that is to make this happen, and it’s just one lap. Anything can happen.
But this is the first step towards our comeback to make the Chase, and I think everybody did a good job. But it’s about people. Jack Roush is a guy that’s not afraid to work and not afraid to make change, and I’m just really happy that this is going well so far.
Courtesy of NASCAR/ FastScripts by ASAP Sports