Ford 300 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Finished 41st) - WHAT HAPPENED? "It's a disappointing way to end my year really. You guys saw what happened, somebody hit me from the rear. I don't know. It's pretty bad. I hate it for all of the guys. We worked too hard to end the last two races like this." MORE RIGGS. "I just got run into. I just hate it. That's not what we deserve as a team as far as this entire year. Somebody was just a little too impatient that's all. It was a pretty hard hit there a couple of times, but I just hate it for the guys. We made mistakes this year to put us in fifth place in the points race, but these guys did a good job, they put their hearts out there right on their sleeve. They did a great job and this is definitely not the way we wanted to end the season the last two races."

KASEY KAHNE-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - "That's a long day. It's a good team effort. Great Clips, Deka Batteries and everybody who helps us out did an awesome job. We made the right calls in the pits. I stopped early. I thought I had a flat tire, but it was really so much rubber built up on my tires that I never felt that. I screwed up there, but we got it back after that, and pit strategy got us back in the front and that's where we belong." WHO MADE THE CALL ON LAP 35 TO JUST PIT FOR FUEL? "Wes Ward. He's the crew chief and he's made all of the calls this year. He does a great job and he won us the race today by the calls he made. Even on the final pit stop he freed the car up just enough that it was really fast." YOU HAD TO DO A LOT OF PASSING TO GET TO THE POINT. "It was tough. The top four or five guys to pass, maybe only three, you get so aero tight, but this Ford works pretty good. It got through the traffic, it was just a matter of getting by a fast car and that was tough. All of the other traffic, there's plenty of race track. Miami did an awesome job here at the Homestead track and it's a great place to race."

JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Finished 24th) - "I'm just glad this stretch is over with. I wish I had an excuse for our performance today, but I don't." YOU CAME IN FOR AN EXTENDED PIT STOP TO CHANGE SHOCKS. WHAT CAUSED THAT? "It actually had something go bad in it. It was bad deal. We had a deal where the tire started to blister." WHAT CAUSED THE TIRE TO BLISTER? "I guess the shock was bad and it was actually blistering the tire. I'm just glad there's not another week, maybe we would have finished outside the top 10 if there was. It's pretty discouraging to go from battling to just holding on to fifth. It's pretty discouraging." YOU CAME IN AND CHANGED THE LEFT-FRONT SHOCK. DID THAT REMEDY THE PROBLEM? "It helped some. Then we changed the right front and it helped some, and by that time you're a lap down and then two laps down. You just battle from behind. I'm ready for it to be over."

JON WOOD-15-U.S. Air Force Ford Taurus (Finished 22nd) - YOU WERE INVOLVED IN AN INCIDENT ON THE FIRST LAP, AND HAD TO FIGHT BACK TO FINISH 22ND. "I would have been good if we could have come in for tires on that second stop but we couldn't. We caused that wreck at the start of the race, and I feel bad for that, and we couldn't really overcome that. We had a good car, a really good car, but I messed up on the start and we just couldn't overcome it." YOU FACED MORE ADVERSITY IN YOUR SECOND BUSCH SERIES START THAN YOU DID LAST YEAR AT IRP. IS THE BUSCH SERIES MORE DIFFICULT THAN YOU ORIGINALLY THOUGHT? "I never thought it was easy. Any type of racing is hard especially if you only do one a year, you can't really expect much out of it. I guess we'll just have to wait and do it again some time."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR.-25-Team Marines Ford Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "We did exactly what we needed to do, we got another top five. Like I said before, our whole realistic goal was to get to fourth and we did that. Congratulations to Brian. You can tell it was their year because the stuff they went through at the beginning of this race and won the championship. We'll take a fourth and it's something to build on and we'll get them next year."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR. PRESS CONFERENCE

"The track was great. The biggest thing was figuring out tires, what they like, what they didn't like. Everything that we did last year on the other tires, these tires didn't like. That was the biggest puzzle, figuring those out. Overall, where we ended up, we were a third-place car. I started making a run on those guys and just used my stuff up and ended up fourth in points, and in all reality that was the goal we set. If we were going to race for the championship those guys were going to have to have some major problems, and even if we finished 43rd today with the way the season went, four wins and all of the top 10s and top fives, the team and myself are tickled to death."

WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE IN YOUR END-OF-SEASON RUN AT THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "I think it was the momentum we had, and Harold Holly is one of those people that just keeps building you up and putting you on pedestals and makes you believe you can't fall down. That's the way he's got those guys believing, that's the way he's got me driving. Just everything. Everything we had from the side of the Marines coming back with us, all of our associate sponsors, the Yates program picked up, Ford stepped their whole program up with us. Everything that we needed to do what we did we had. We had Harold Holly, who has won championships and tons of races, so we had tons of notes to go off of. We had great aero stuff. We had everything we needed to win races, so to end up where we were, it's a surprise because we made up so much points, but in all reality considering what we had, it was what we should have done."

YOU WERE STRONG EARLY IN THE RACE WHILE THE OTHER CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS SEEMED TO STRUGGLE. DID YOU THINK YOU HAD A CHANCE TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP AT THAT POINT? "I never once asked where they were or where we were as far as points because as soon as I did you fall right in the same boat they were in, you'd blow a tire or something. That's why I didn't even want to know. We were going to our deal. We got in front and I tried to get where I could lead the most laps, but the 1 car was just too strong for us. At the very, very end I was trying to look at the scoreboard to see if the 2 was around or look in mirror and see if I could see the 37, or the 10 or 57 because those guys were in reach. From where we were at to fourth was in reach, so that's what really in my mind I was racing."

WITH THE WAY YOU ENDED THE SEASON, DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A FAVORITE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP NEXT YEAR? "I don't know about the favorite. The 8 car, he's always stout when he runs. I don't know what their plans are. Every time he runs he's good, but definitely, we can carry this momentum. Like I said, the Marines are back with us. Everything, there's nothing changing. We even stayed in the same shop. Everything is still the same as it was in the middle of this year. All we're going to do is build different race cars, some more race cars to get us more prepared and go after it. We've kept the same guys and the pit coach has really turned those guys around. There's no need changing any of that stuff. We have everything staying the same. I don't consider myself as one of the favorites, but if we can go out and do the same thing that we've done the last half of this year, I think we'll be OK"

KASEY KAHNE PRESS CONFERENCE

"It feels great. To do it here, this new facility is awesome. It's a great race track and I'd imagine it'd only get better as races go on it. It's really exciting for myself and this whole team, we've been working real hard all year. We had as good a car as anybody today. There were a few cars in the front that were real hard to pass because they were about the same speed and you'd get real tight behind them, but other than that, our car was awesome. In the open it was really good."

SUM UP YOUR SEASON. "It was a good year. It was much better than last year. I learned a lot last year, and coming into this year I've been with a better team, better sponsor, better owner. It's been awesome. It's just really worked out good for myself to learn things and we've had a lot of good races and a lot of bad races and we ended the season on a good note, so hopefully that will carry into next year and we'll have a lot of momentum going into next year."

CAN YOU CLARIFY WHO IS YOUR ENGINE SUPPLIER? "We've had Pro Motors all year long. I've seen a few different times, there's been articles and different posters or magazines that say Robert Yates engines, but it's been Pro Engines all year and they've done an awesome job. We've had really good horsepower, especially on a lot of tracks similar to this."'

YOU SEEM TO ADAPT TO NEW TRACKS QUICKLY, WINNING ON YOUR FIRST TIME OUT. "That's what I did in '99 when I moved to the Midwest and raced Sprint cars. We pretty much raced all over the place and every track I went to basically was new. I think it was real cool to come here this weekend; there isn't anybody here who has more laps than I have. Nobody knows this track more than I do. I think it helps myself and helps our team. It's something we've been doing all year long because this team hasn't had many notes, so we pretty much get our own notes when we get to the race track. Some races we've taken off real quick and other races it's taken us a while to get where we want to be. This is big for nobody to be here and be the first race."

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO WIN YOUR FIRST RACE ON A DAY WHERE MOST EYES WERE FOCUSED ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "It feels good. It's the last race of the year and our team has got as much momentum as any team going into next year and everybody will be real excited all winter long preparing cars and building new cars for next year. It feels real good, and Brian Vickers and that whole team, they deserve that championship, they deserve everything that is going on out there. That's cool that they were able to do that, and that's good that we won to go out on a good note."

WHY DID YOU PIT EARLY IN THE RACE AND TALK ABOUT WORKING YOUR WAY THROUGH THE FIELD. "I thought that I had a tire going down. This track, for some reason, our tires picked up a bunch of rubber, more rubber than I've ever picked up on a tire under caution. And, I was going back and forth and just felt like there was nothing there so I thought that I had a tire go down, but it was just a bunch of tire buildup. It did it the rest of the race, but I got them cleaned off better the rest of the race. I screwed up there. We passed a bunch of cars, but then we had real good pit strategy to take no tires just fuel on that stop 35 laps in and that got us back in the front where we belonged."

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU FEEL YOU COULD WIN YOUR FIRST RACE? "The last month or so, every race that I went to I felt hat we could win. After practicing here on Tuesday and practicing again on Thursday I knew that we had an awesome race car. Every time when I got back into it it was just as good as when I got out of it and that's not always the case. I felt pretty good going into the race today."

WAS TIRE WEAR EVER A CONCERN? "Yeah, Wes Ward told me about 35 laps till we pit, and I think that was about 70 or 80 laps on those tires, and I was like, 'Man, I'm trying to take it easy on that right front.' That was when we were running third. I wasn't too nervous because we've had really good tire wear all weekend, but other guys haven't, and it was about building a lot of tire heat. I was a little bit nervous, but the tires felt good and never started shaking and nothing ever happened. They felt real good."

WITH GUYS POINTS RACING, WAS IT EASIER TO EXPERIENCE SUCCESS HERE TODAY? "I think it might have been a little bit. I was wondering at one point in the race, David Green, I don't why they were a lap down, but David Green was a lap down, Brian Vickers was a lap down and you never see that. I was kinda thinking back, it was under a long yellow, I was thinking back, man, I remember Tony Stewart last year here when he was racing for the championship, he was a lap down and he just had to beat Mark Martin by so many positions, and I think they really had a lot of pressure in them coming in, so I doubt that they drove their cars as hard as they could every single lap like I could. It didn't matter as much for us, we were just going for a win, that's all we wanted."

WHAT YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU SAW OR HEARD THAT MATT KENSETH WAS FALLING BACK? "I was kinda happy at the time. It happened and we were faster than him. I would get to him and then I would get tight and start getting tight and my car would slow down a little bit because I would heat my right front up a little bit, so I would fall back and then I could reel him back in if I wanted. It was just a matter of passing him. It was a good car like that, and Matt was running the track. Matt actually taught me a little bit of where I needed to run if somebody caught me at the end of the race. I was remembering that just in case the 8 or somebody did catch me. When Matt slowed up there in one and two, it was kinda nice to be out in the open and my car was way faster after I passed him."

HAS IT BEEN TOUGH TO CONCENTRATE ON RACING WITH ALL OF THE RUMORS ABOUT NEXT YEAR? "I knew this would come up sooner or later. Really, when I'm in the race car, even thinking about racing, I don't think about all of that other stuff. The only thing when I was leading, that was probably the longest 20 laps of my rain career. I was just really focusing on hitting my marks and running as fast of a lap as I could every lap and we were running pretty consistent."

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR? "My situation, I really don't know now. Seriously, I wish I knew more. It's been the same thing I've been saying for the last month and a half, and it's kinda getting old. I wish I knew exactly what I was doing but I don't. I definitely want to be in the Great Clips car next year in the Busch Series."

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