Koolerz 300 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

STANTON BARRETT-60-OdoBan Ford Taurus (Finished 41st) - WHAT HAPPENED? "I was just racing side by side with Vickers trying to get around him; I think we had a little better car. He got me real loose or somebody behind me got me real loose of 4. He was just running real close to me in the corner and that kind of got the air off of my car and it sucks you in and got me loose. I was off the gas for a long time and on the brakes. I barely clipped him. I feel bad for him, especially since he hit so hard. I don't ever try to intentionally take somebody out, especially here where it's so dangerous. It's an unfortunate situation for us and the OdoBan Ford."

SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Finished 31st) - YOU WENT DOWN A LAP EARLY AND IT SEEMED LIKE NOBODY WANTED TO WORK WITH YOU AFTER THAT. "It's hard when you're down a lap like that. I had a pretty good car and I don't think anybody wanted to work with anybody that was a lap down; they kept hanging me out. I really think that I had a good enough car that if somebody would have worked with me, I could have pushed them up there to win the race. We couldn't get any help and we couldn't get any breaks. We got hit in the rear and got a lap down, and there at the very end, we almost stopped to miss the wreck and still got caught up in it somehow. Maybe a bad Daytona will mean a good rest of the year."

KASEY KAHNE-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus (Finished 8th) - "It was definitely a learning experience. We had an awesome car. Akins Motorsports built us a great car for this race. I'm excited to go to Rockingham now. I learned a ton about the draft today. You can't beat experience. We got all of the laps in and I gained a bunch of experience for the next one." WERE YOU SURPRISED BY SOME OF THE CARS THAT DRAFTED WITH TODAY AND ALLOWED YOU TO STAY IN THE TOP 10 MOST OF THE AFTERNOON? "I just tried to get behind a couple of guys that I knew at the end, like the 25. I got behind him, another Ford car, and we gained a coupe more spots. The guys that did help me, I'll have to thank them. Stacy Compton worked with me a lot, too, today. We were actually really good early in the race with Compton."

MATT KENSETH-17-Bayer Ford Taurus (Finished 2nd) - "It was a great run for the Bayer Ford Taurus. It is the first day for Bayer as a sponsor and we had a great effort today. The last few laps, I was going to stay to the bottom and I figured Junior would have protected the bottom and he went high with the top guys and they all got around me. The 1 and somebody got together here on the frontstretch and I got back by them and the 4 car pushed me up there to second. It was a good run, but I needed somebody to give me a big push to get by that 8; he was pretty fast." YOU GOT BY THE 21 CAR PRETTY EASILY. DID YOU PLAN TO DRAFT WITH HIM TO GET BY THE NO. 8 CAR? "I was going to push him and I think his car was real tight today because I was going to get back behind him to push him and his car started leaving the bottom of the race track and he left me a hole to go underneath him and I passed him. I was going to push him up there, but he slid out of the way so I just passed him instead and tried to get second." IT SEEMED LIKE YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE RIGHT HELP AT THE RIGHT TIME TO WIN TODAY? "it was a great day for our Bayer Consumer Care Ford. It was the first day for Bayer on board so I'm real happy we finished second. In the 125s, I tried a lot of stuff and everything I did was wrong; I tried going to the outside and it never worked. Today, I decided I wasn't going to go tot the outside. At the end the caution, we got back to fifth or sixth and was able to get back to second. But, Dale Jr. had a real strong car and we would have had to had a real big push to get around him."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR.-25-Team Marines Ford Taurus (Finished 7th) - IT WAS A WILD FINISH. "The Marines Ford Taurus should have got in it. The one thing I learned here about these superspeedways, when they get turned around they go to the top and I was on the bottom so I figured that was the safest place. I cracked the throttle a little bit and let him go and he hit. They told us in the drivers' meeting that if we got a yellow flag after lap 115 they were going to end it under yellow, so we were already clear and we knew we had a top 10. We just want to go to every race and try to pick up from what we did last year. We finished 30th last year, so this is the kind of start we needed." THE CAR SEEMED TO BE CONSISTENT ALL DAY. "We could suck up pretty good. The car would just close up so fast that if we didn't have any help I didn't want to take the chance to lose all the spots. It was just a great day. I've got to thanks all the Marines fighting in the sandbox right now. We love them and we're thinking about them."

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE
IT SEEMED LIKE YOU NEED A FIVE-CAR DRAFT TO MAKE A MOVE, BUT NOBODY LINED UP. "A lot of people don't want to take the risk to do it. You can pass the leader if you have the right people behind you, but at the end of the race there, the last 20 laps, I wasn't going to try to drive outsize Dale Jr. and have everybody behind me turn left and follow him and lose 15 spots. I was stupid enough on Thursday; I wasn't going to do that again. Everybody tries to stay up front. If you think you have a top-five car, you want to win and if you get a big push you'll make a move on somebody. But, if you're flat on the floor, behind the guy in front of you, there's not a lot you can do and your best bet is to hang out and get the best finish you can. It all depends on the draft. If he's a single car and he goes up the track and you get just the right run and turn under him and everybody behind you goes with you and they're close to you where they can posh you right away then you can pass them. It's difficult to get everybody lined up on the same page to get the perfect run that you needed. Some people are better at it than others, and I must not be that great at it because I could never get a run on the 8."

TALK ABOUT THE MECHANICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A BUSCH AND WINSTON CUP CAR. "Daytona is different from the rest of the tracks because here they mandated the springs that we run in Winston Cup and the Busch Series. The cars drove a fair amount different because of that. My car doesn't drive much like my Cup car does for some reason. Winston Cup cars are easier to drive for some reason. They drive down the road like a Lincoln. These drive a lot better since they changed the rear shock rule, but they still don't drive quite as good. They're a little twitchier I think."

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU DECIDE TO STAY IN LINE AND NOT TRY TO MAKE THE PASS AROUND THE NO. 8 CAR? "I didn't necessarily decide that on purpose. The problem with passing the leader is that I was wide open. If I would have the gas, I wouldn't have caught back up to him and get a run by myself. I was just flat on the floor was a car length and a half behind him; that was all I could do. It wasn't a matter of giving up and saying, 'I want to run second today.' If you can't pass him and you don't have a good enough run and you know you're not going to pull up alongside of him, there's no reason to pull out of line. There's times when you're running as fast as you can and unless he messes up and gets out of the groove or somebody faster comes up behind you and gives you a big push to get a run on him, a lot of times it's tough to do that."

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