Jason DiSalvo (#40 Yamaha Racing, second quick at 1:35.590):

Q Jason DiSalvo has been having his best year ever. Last year he finished ninth in Superbike points, and currently sits fourth. He's a nine-time winner in AMA racing, and he's looking for his first Superbike win. Jason, tell us about qualifying.

A I had no clue I was a nine-time race winner in the AMA, just for the record. Good stat.

The qualifying lap was good. I just put my head down. I was kind of bumming around the track a little bit, looking for a tow from whoever was willing to give one. So in the middle of the session, I was just that vagabond rider, creeping just off the race line, waiting for a fast guy to come by. But I couldn't really pick up a tow. Then I finally saw as the time started to dwindle down, and I said, "I better just go ahead and try to do this on my own." I came in and got a three-lap scrubbed tire, a little bit lower laps than the one I was running on. I went out and gave my head a good couple quick shakes at the pit exit to psych myself up, like Mat does. Just went out and put my head down and rode the wheels off the thing. It was a good lap, though. The Yamaha was handling really well. I'm really happy to be here. Just happy to be here.

"You're always trying to take the team in behind you. More than anything, it's a whole team effort. Certainly Jason's done a good job here recently. His performances have been motivating for the whole team, including myself. So definitely trying to get up there and bridge that gap and go racing with him." -- Eric Bostrom

Eric Bostrom (#32 Yamaha Racing, fourth quick at 1:35.901):

Q Eric Bostrom is a 15-time Superbike winner on three different brands, looking for his first Superbike win on a Yamaha. Eric, tell us a little bit about qualifying today.

A We made some pretty good changes to our bike in the last test at Miller. We're just seeing, now, the balance. The bike goes up and down together now, where all year it's kind of been more pitching back and forth, and difficult to ride. So I'm really happy with the direction of the bike. It makes it a lot more fun to ride. It's a lot more fun coming to the races when the bike puts a smile on your face. I'm pretty happy with the qualifying session. I didn't put together the last bit like I needed to. It seemed like I put together the first part of the track pretty good, and I knew it, so I kind of tensed up and blew the lines through the last section. That happened to me on three different occasions. I'm going to have to work on that. But I'm pretty happy with the bike setup. It's real important to get a good start here at Sonoma, with the passing situation being difficult here, you've really got [inaudible] to pass. So looking forward to getting off the line good and try to go racing with these boys.

Ben Spies (#1 Rockstar Makita Suzuki, pole position at 1:34.732):

Q Ben had nine poles last year and 18 in his career, and this is his second pole this year. Ben, you weren't able to beat the lap record yesterday, but you got it today. What made it different?

A Definitely, the track was just a bit faster. We made some pretty big changes to the bike last night. Definitely, the problems we were having, I hope are gone. Basically, it was just half the session, or three fourths of the session, was all on race tires. We got down to going pretty quick. The first couple laps I saw my time, and I didn't really know what was going on, but it just felt good, and I kept going and stayed pretty consistent. Hopefully it'll work like that in the race today. I came in, in the end, and put a softer rear on, and went for it, and got a pretty good time.

Q Ben, you said you made some changes to the bike overnight, and those obviously paid off today. I think the cooler temperatures helped you a little bit. Are there any more changes you're going to make to the bike? And, you looked like you were on a flyer on that last lap, but it didn't quite beat the lap that you had turned earlier. What happened there?

A I just kind of messed a couple corners up. Just didn't have quite the grip left in the rear tire that we were on. That kind of answers the question on what our race tire is, for sure. So that was good. It was an okay lap, but not much quicker than what we did on the old tires earlier in the session.

Q Ben, what did you do to the bike - the changes you made, what did you make it do differently?

A We just made a few little changes here and there. Made the front end of the bike a little more comfortable for me. That's kind of what we've been struggling with here. Might go a little bit more in that direction. But I'm going to keep it pretty close to what we had in qualifying, for the race.

Q Jason, you're pretty good at this stuff. When's the last time Ben and Mat weren't 1 and 2 on the Superbike grid?

DISALVO: [pause] A long time ago. [Laughter] I don't know. That guy knew how many wins I have. I didn't even know that. So maybe you would know.

ANNOUNCER: We'll be investigating. [Laughter]

DISALVO: How many races have I run in the AMA? Do you know that? [Laughter]

Q You mentioned trying to catch a tow. How many bikes are there out there that you can catch a tow off of?

DISALVO: Say if Eric went by, that'd be okay. But even Miguel. If I could get Miguel a couple seconds ahead, just give me something to chase. That usually does it for me. But I was happy that I could do it on my own, because I've struggled with that in the past a little bit. So that was good. But just any bike. That was always the hot ticket. Find a slower rider at the long tracks and get them so you just time it so you come up on them on a main straight and get a draft. It helps a lot.

Q Eric, Jason's obviously turned it up this year. Is that any added motivation for you?

BOSTROM: Yeah, definitely. You're always trying to take the team in behind you. More than anything, it's a whole team effort. Certainly Jason's done a good job here recently. His performances have been motivating for the whole team, including myself. So definitely trying to get up there and bridge that gap and go racing with him.

DISALVO: My inspirational DVD will be out later this season.

BOSTROM: As long as you're wearing tights.

DISALVO: Of course. Doing jumping jacks.

Soup Wrly Notes: this question asked by Spies' PR man, Larry Lawrence Q Ben, you've tied Doug Polen for second on the all-time poles list. How does it feel to get there and snatch the record from a fellow Texan, a guy that you idolized growing up?

SPIES: I didn't even know Doug was a Texan. I thought he had lived in California his whole life. Yeah, he's one of my heroes. It's another step. I didn't really even know. It's good, but right now, there's no time to really celebrate pole position records or passing people up on the wins list and stuff like that. We've got enough on our hands trying to crawl back in this championship and win races right now. That's all we're focused about. Just trying to walk out of here and try to get a couple wins, that's what we need to do. It's going to be really tough. It's going to be a hard race today. Just try to get a win.

Q Ben, are you surprised at the gap between you and Mat in qualifying?

SPIES: Well, obviously, he's not very comfortable. We're usually never that far apart. He hit the deck a couple of times yesterday - no big crashes, but due to maybe a problem that he's not liking. I'd like to think I could still be faster, but obviously he's not dealing with something. He's definitely - that's happened before, and he's turned it around in a couple of laps and been there right for races or in the next practice session. Just because of yesterday, and not the qualifying session, probably, I wouldn't count him out in the race by any means. But it's just—I don't think he's too comfortable right now.