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Pepsi 300 - Post-Race Quotes SHANE HALL-63-Lance Snacks Ford Taurus - WHAT HAPPENED? "We had a good run on the 66 off of Turn 4 and coming down the front straightaway I jumped down the outside of him, went into Turn 1 and gave him plenty of room, but he couldn't keep his car down in his lane or something and got into the left rear of us and put us in the fence. This is the second race in a row that this has happened so we've got to see if we can't catch some luck." KEVIN LEPAGE-71-State Fair Brand Corn Dogs Ford Taurus - "I'm pretty happy with the overall finish, but I'm disappointed on why we finished 15th. We had a miscue in the pits, at one point we had two rears tires swapped and had to come into the pits under green and that cost us. But, the guys never gave up in the pits, I never gave up in the car and we salvaged a 15th-place finish. The way the car ran at the end, we thought we would be in the top 10, but it wasn't our day so we'll get them at California." IT SEEMED LIKE IT WAS TOUGH TO MAKE A SAVE ON THIS TRACK ONCE YOU GOT IT LOOSE? "I was involved in three wrecks right in front of me. All someone had to do was get into you a little bit and you were gone. That's just this track. It has no grip when you try to beat and bang against each other. Guys weren't doing it on purpose. They'd go in and try to get position, slide the nose just a little bit, touch somebody and then they take two or three cars out. It's going to be a nice facility, I just don't know what they need to do to get more grip in the corner." IS THE TRACK READY FOR A WINSTON CUP DATE? "Not right now." ELTON SAWYER-98-Starter/Hot Tamales Ford Taurus - "We had a really good race car. It was pretty good on short runs, but when we ran, it got tighter and tighter. The guys did a great job, we had great pit stops. I got into the fence there behind the 60 car and knocked the toe out with about 30 laps to go, so that didn't help matters, but it was still a good day for us." WAS TURN 2 AS SLICK AS SOME SAID? "I think that if your car was handling good, it was still slick, and if your car wasn't handling good, I imagine it could be a handful, but Ricky (Viers) and the boys did a great job. I had a really good shock package, the engine ran well and at least we could see the checkered flag at the end." WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE NUMBER OF CAUTION FLAGS? "No. It's a new track, so that's understandable. It's a good facility, though, and they've done a marvelous job and I'm looking forward to coming back next year." DID THE OFF WEEKEND HELP YOU REGAIN YOUR COMPOSURE? "We all did. We went to the wind tunnel and tested, and I'm going to tell you, this is a group of guys here, I don't care how far we get down, they won't give up, or they better not." JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus - "It was just a great day for us, Albertsons, Ford and everybody involved. I knew we had a good car after Happy Hour and made a point of being patient and that put us up there. The guys had great pit stops and great strategy all day long. It's just a real great day for us and I'm proud to be part of this ppc Racing team." DID YOU THING YOU HAD ANYTHING FOR BIFFLE? "Well, I knew at the end that if I could get up to him that I had a chance. We were just a little bit off and I didn't read the car like I needed, but second place is second place and we ran real good all day, in the top five all day, and that's what we needed." JEFF GREEN-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus - YOU FACED SOME ADVERSITY TODAY AND MANAGED TO FINISH IN THE TOP 10. "I've been running Roush motors for two-and-a-half years and hadn't had a problem until today. We broke a valve spring, I guess, or something in the carburetor and just had a miss. We were running off of seven-and-a-half cylinders, it would come and go, but we had a car good enough to challenge for the lead, and that's what makes me upset. I blew it the last couple of weeks, so my hat's off to my guys, they did a great job with my Nesquik Taurus. It was handling good enough to stay in the top 10, but it just wasn't running good enough." HOW WAS TURN 2? "It was all right. My car was just awesome through there. It was a little tight at first, but we got it freed up at the end and it was pretty awesome. You just can't go down the straightaways, the straightaways are way too long to give up that much." HOW WAS TIRE WEAR ON THE CONCRETE SURFACE? "It was awesome. Goodyear had a great tire. We could probably run a whole race on a set of tires, that's how good they were and that's how great the track is. The great is great, but it's still a one-groove race track still. It's working into two grooves, and I'm sure in the future it will be a two-groove track." THERE WERE REPORTS THAT YOU HAD THE WRONG TRANSMISSION ON RESTARTS? "We needed a change for the initial start, but there were a lot more caution starts than initial starts, so we were pretty good on that. We just needed eight cylinders." DID YOU EXPECT THAT MANY CAUTIONS? "I expected a few, but not that many, but every once in a while something happens. I don't know the track was giving guys fits or they were running into each other. I don't know. Where I was it was pretty exciting, so I'm sure the guys were laying on each other in the back." STEADMAN MARLIN-95-Sadler Racing Ford Taurus - "We had some bad luck. The air gun jammed up on us, that happens, but the car was fine, it just had a little bit of push." HOW WAS TURN 2? "It's been slick the whole time, but I think the more you ran on it, it got itself worked in. It wasn't intended to be as slick as it was , but if you got anywhere out of the groove, it was gone and you we're going to have to fish it out." YOU SAID YOUR GOAL WAS TO FINISH THE RACE. "I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, it was an eight. It was pretty good and I'm happy with it." IS THERE A DIP IN TURN 2? "Where they sanded the concrete off, they kinds got it humped up a little bit. You can tell when you hit it; it would knock the rear end sideways on you." YOU DID A LOT OF RACING THIS WEEKEND. "Yeah I was kind of glad to see it get here, and then I ain't. I had a great time this weekend jumping from car to car and drove the wheels off of them. I'm just tickled to death for the boys because we did this with less guys than most of these team out here." HOW WERE THE TIRES? "Goodyear did a heck of a job with the tires. I really never slicked and oddly enough it pushed all day. Coming out of the turns it was like a dump truck, you couldn't turn it. After a while you could get in the second groove, once you got some laps on the tires and once it ran green for a bit." WHERE TO YOU GO FROM HERE? "We're running both the ARCA and Busch races at Charlotte." RANDY GOSS-Crew Chief-Grainger Ford Taurus - "I don't know what to say. I'm just glad that we've got this one under our belt. We've been pushing kinda hard this year in the Grainger Ford Taurus, and I'm just real happy for all the guys. We've wrecked some stuff this year, and the guys have been working real hard, so this a great accomplishment." JASON KELLER PRESS CONFERENCE "We ran good all day long, and you Chevrolet guys complain about these fast Fords, and I hope that NASCAR doesn't listen to that. It was just a nice day for us. I knew in Happy Hour that we would be pretty good. We made some changes on our pit crew in the off weekend and it seemed like that worked good. It was just a good day for us, we're getting closer to giving Albertsons their first win, we just didn't show it today." YOU FEEL PRETTY COMFORTABLE RUNNING ON CONCRETE AND SHOWED IT LAST YEAR AT DOVER. "As far as I'm concerned this is the best, new race track that I've been to in a long, long time. It's a race track of the future. I've loved the Fairgrounds, I loved racing at the old Fairgrounds, but when you see the crowd we had today and where the future of this sport is going and where the Busch Series is going, you have to have facilities like this. I like concrete race tracks and I think that I would love any race track if it was this nice. I seem to read the concrete surfaces better than I do the other ones, and as far as I'm concerned, it was great when we unloaded off the truck on Thursday." DID YOU HAD HOPES OF HOLDING BIFFLE OFF? "Yeah, at the time my car was a little free on entry and he stuck his nose up there and did what he needed to do. He didn't do anything wrong. He got me a little bit loose and pretty much after he got a little bit of a lead, we ran tit-for-tat with him. We didn't have anything to go up and blast by him, but we had a great day. We're inching up on this thing. We want to stay in the points battle all year long, I know it's early in the year, but not a lot of people are taking us serious in the points battle. They're only focusing on the Big 3, but there's another ppc driver out there that's going to give them a run for their money." YOU WENT THREE-WIDE ON THE BACK STRAIGHTAWAY. "I thought the 36 had drifted high off of (Turn) 2 and we got by him. I probably won't have made that big of a move had I known that we were three-wide. But, it got me five points, let me lead a lap, so in hindsight it was a good move. It was probably a little bit more daring than I needed to be, but that's what it's all about." TALK ABOUT RESTARTS AND LAPPED CARS. "Those guys were just racing hard. I have a little bit more of a problem with the guys we were lapping. I thought that once you got 10 laps down, you'd start going up the race track and let us go by on the bottom, the preferred line. It's a new race track, and I'm sure when we come back next year it will be better. They can lay more rubber down and keep plugging away at it. The lapped cars were tough. With four or five to go, I got caught between a lapped car and then I just lost any hope. I don't think I could have got back up to Biffle; that pretty much sealed the win. That was a good day for us. I just got a new car owner this week, he just walked in this week, and hopefully he'll keep me around for a little bit." TALK ABOUT THE MOVE GREG MADE WITH 40 LAPS TO GO. "At that time I was a little loose getting in, I think he saw an opportunity and took advantage of it and drove on by me. We tried to loosen the car up all day long, and on the last stop we got it too loose on entry, and I tried to do some under the caution to help that. I don't think he got into the back of me, he got up to me and it was one of those things. Even if he did, it wasn't one of those things that I was a little free getting in and he got by me. It's fun when the spotter doesn't have to call the restarts and I can see that. It was just a real fun day, and hopefully the fans liked it because it was a fun day for me." IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE RACE TRACK? "I was told when we got here that they had ground the surface between 1 and 2. You could feel that, where it would change texture, it would loose a little bit of grip, but I don't think the shaped oval surface of the track is an excuse to say that was the reason for wrecked race cars. We ran into a situation years ago with a new track that started tearing apart, and that's maybe a reason to blame a track for a tearing up race cars, but we're professionals. Yeah it's a harder turn than 4, but to me this race drove a lot like Richmond, it's just a bigger Richmond. The cars that win the race run on the bottom and they cars that didn't slid up the race track. I finished second today, you're not going to hear me say anything negative about this place." GREG BIFFLE PRESS CONFERENCE "It was a great day for the Grainger Ford. Right off the green flag we were really good, just a little bit loose until the tires warmed up and then a little tight. I think a lot of guys were fighting that today, but overall, it was great run for us. We had good pit stops, which we struggled with in the past, but today we had really great pit stops. We put a spring rubber in on the last put stops and made a track bar adjustment on the first pit stop to get the car freed up to where it needed to be. It was quite a bit tighter at the end of the race than I would have like it to. The 57 was putting pressure on me and I just needed to watch what he was doing. He was running along the bottom and I moved down against the bottom with 15 to go and took his groove away. These cars get aero-tight behind each other and I saw he was gaining a little on me on the bottom. I thought back to earlier in the race when I was trying to get by him, what it took, and I moved down there and took his groove away and he fell back a little bit, probably ran the right-front tire back. It was a great day for us. I'm so happy to be in Victory Lane for the first time in the Busch Series, and I just hope that it's not the last for us this season. I'm just excited to be back in Nashville racing." YOU SEEM TO BE COMFORTABLE ON CONCRETE RACING SURFACES. "Probably my first impression of the track was that it was real nice, but green. It was brand new and never raced on, and that had a lot to do with some of the problems that some of the guys had. Goodyear needs to be cautious when we come to places like this that they don't bring a tire that blisters or has problems like that, so they go on the conservative side as well. You put together a fairly hard tire and a brand new race track, and it takes a little bit for those two to come together to where there's consistent grip every lap. Towards the end of the race they was a great racing groove. The one really opened up down there, there were basically two grooves and I made a pass on the outside down there on the 98 and in Turns 3 and 4 there was a lot of grip all day. The surface is nice, but you'll see that the more races it gets, the better it's going to be. I think this tire here will be the tire to run in the future." YOU'RE IN THE HUNT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP. "I felt that we might be a top-5 contender coming in. I knew that we were going to have good equipment, I knew that we were going to have Mark Martin and Jeff Burton for help, Matt Kenseth has been a big help, so I felt that we would be decent. Once we got testing everywhere, we were running about the same times as Jeff Green and Kevin Harvick and some of the other top guys and I thought, 'Wow, we're going to come out of this pretty strong.' Then we had some really strong runs right off the get and I shifted my focus to maybe a top 10 and win a couple of races like Kevin and Hornaday their first year and maybe win Rookie of the Year. Now, maybe we shift possibly to a points championship. Kevin is running really strong all over the place, and maybe him having to start at the back of the field for a couple of races may hinder his ability to be strong all season. But definitely you can't count out Jeff Green and Jason Keller. There's just a big group of guys up there. I'm just happy to be third in points and to be running up front and my first win." YOU SAID YESTERDAY YOUR STRATEGY MIGHT BE TO FOLLOW THE VETERANS. WHEN DID YOU CHANGE IT? "After Happy Hour. The car was so strong after Happy Hour. In 15 to 20 laps it drove away from the 2 and 10 probably half a straightaway. It was just an unbelievably fast race car, it just didn't qualify as fast as we wanted it to. I was pretty excited after Happy Hour. I was a little restless sleeping last night because when you have a good car, the only thing you can do is make a mistake or mess it up. That's what we didn't want to do today, make a mistake, and I'm thankful we didn't. Jeff Green, I could pull up on him, and he moved down and let me lead a lap and I felt like I needed to return the favor. He could probably see that I was better at that point, but I felt a deal's a deal. After a period of time, I said we really needed to get going out in front of him because I felt like we could put distance and I could run better out by myself. I watched and learned for at least the first 30 laps." WITH 50 LAPS TO GO YOU GOT THREE-WIDE ON THE BACKSTRETCH. WERE YOU SURPRISED? "No, that's racing. The 57 got great grip off of the corner and had a really good run and it's a pass for the lead. If I'm running fifth or sixth I might not have made that move, but you knew that three-wide wasn't going to last forever and we certainly weren't going to go into that corner three-wide or even two-wide. But, the 57 moved down and gave me room going into the corner and I tried to get in behind him, but the 98 dove in there and got me in the left-rear corner and got me going sideways, probably not on purpose, I didn't know he was there. After that, I just fell back in line and knew to take car of the car. When you have a car that fast, you don't need to fight for positions like that when you can flat pass them and go. You just need to take care of your stuff. I expected racing like that." YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE A LOT OF CHANGES AFTER QUALIFYING. WAS THAT THE CASE? "Yeah, that's the case. We changed three springs and added a spring rubber to the spring that we didn't change. We changed the front sway bar and the track bar height, moved the fenders. That's a lot of the common things that everyone does, but our spring changes were drastic compared to qualifying. That could have been perfectly possible why we weren't as quick as other guys when we qualified." WHEN YOU CAME INTO THE SPORT YOU SAID YOU HAD A THREE-STEP PLAN. ARE YOU ON COURSE "This is what every driver dream about, doing good in the trucks and winning a championship, the most wins in a season and setting a lot of records and then come to the Busch Series and be as competitive as we are, third in points and our first win 10 races in. That's exciting. And if we can win a points championship this year then I'm ready to go Winston Cup racing, but that's kind of a stretch. We're a little bit behind those guys and we go to a lot of race tracks that we haven't been to before in a Busch car that these guys have experience at. We have Talladega coming up and the Ford struggles areo-wise on the superspeedways, we're working on making that better, so next week is out of our hands. Restrictor-plate racing is hold it to the floor and hope for the best at the end of the day and then we go to California. It's a different place and we're not sure what to do. So the guys have two to three seasons on us at places like that, we'll just do the best we can." ANY CLOSE CALLS? "I created a couple myself. At the beginning I was trying to catch the 10, I put the left-front tire on the apron in 3 and 4 and got the thing sideways. And then, I was doing late apex, high entry into Turn 1 and the thing got away from me pretty big and it was quite bit to get it back under me. I had some real estate behind me and in front of me at the time, I was in second, so I was able to get it together and calm down. Those were really the only close calls. That and when the 66 shoved me into the gray area on the restart when the 57 went by. I was a little concerned about that." IS THERE ANY SIGNIFICANCE TO THE FACT THAT YOU GAVE JACK ROUSH HIS FIRST WIN THIS YEAR? "I never really thought of that stat. Yeah, it's exciting for us to do that and be where we are in the points and being as successful as we are. We definitely have pride in that, holding the Roush flag up like that." TALK ABOUT THE MOVE YOU MADE WITH 40 LAPS TO GO? "I was just a lot better than the 57 at that point and these cars, if you're even four inches apart, it takes the air off of you. It kind of makes him tight and takes the air off his wing. I just got a good run off of 2 and was on the 57's spoiler running down in the corner and hooked the yellow line to keep it right on the bottom and just got as close to him as I could without touching him. When he went back to the throttle he got a big wiggle and had to check up and that's what got me the position coming off of the corner. Similar to a lot of passes you saw today, you just get so close and you get the left front out in open air underneath the guy, it just moves him out of the way." WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU THINK THE TRUCK WILL HAVE HERE? "I think it's going to be great race. The trucks are going to run well at this race track. This track was built for those types of trucks, and I'll tell you, they will run extremely well here and you'll have a heck of a race. I think the hotter temperature might help with the rubber transfer quicker, and if we didn't get that rain between the four hours of testing and the next day, the track would have been extremely different yet. The track being brand new is just going through those learning curves like a team would. Being later in the year and warmer with the sun out, it's going to be a great race." HOW DISTRACTING WERE THE EARLY CAUTIONS? "It's a little distracting especially when you have 25 car lengths of room behind you. Now the guy gets start all over again right behind you, and he's putting pressure on you and all that. I wasn't that good off of restarts, it took about five laps for my car to come in real good. I was just praying for no caution flags with five to go. I was hoping there wouldn't be anything, but I felt I could hold the 57 off. It just gets you off your game a little bit." DO YOU THINK LACK OF EXPERIENCE HAS HURT YOU ANYWHERE THIS YEAR? "Yeah, I think it put us at a disadvantage at the very first race of the year at Daytona. We were running ninth with 20 to go and pit stopped and finished 22nd because we couldn't get any track position back. That was a valuable lesson. At Atlanta, Nemechek short pitted us and put on tires about six seconds before we did, gained a lot of track position and we sort of lost the race that way. I tired to make it up, but hit the wall with 10 to go and couldn't catch them. Every where you look, we learned a lesson. At Darlington, I wrecked a good car on the second lap and at Bristol we had a terrible pit stop, we went from sixth to 26th and wrecked five laps later."
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