I noticed a lot of guys were not slamming into each other. Everybody was nudging a little bit until we got to those no-zones.

We had a lot of contact tonight, but you know what? I'm not going to hang my head. These guys worked their butts off all year long but we didn't make the Chase. The world's not over with. The main thing is that we need to go and win a race. I think that would be good for all the guys.

We've kind of swept that under the rug a little bit, but it's still in the back of my head a little bit. If that happened again, especially here at Richmond, I think I might act a little differently. That's definitely behind us but I will react a little differently if that happens again this year.

In our position, you just can't mess up. (The pressure is) just amplified a little bit. But that's part of racing. For my team, the word points is not even going to come out of our mouths when we get to California. We're going there to win the race because we had so much fun there last year in victory lane.

I think you're going to have a lot of cautions, ... and not all because of the racetrack, [but also] because the guys racing so close in the Chase right now don't want to give an inch.

It's ungodly, I think, the pressure we get as drivers, not only from our sponsors but our car owners. I think the Chase last year, people recognized how much recognition the top 10 guys got by being a part of the Chase. Every sponsor wants to be a part of it, every driver, every team, but there are only so many pieces of the pie.