Carquest Auto Parts 300 - Ford Post-Race Quotes

MATT KENSETH-17-Aleve Ford Taurus (Finished 1st) - WHAT WERE YOU THINKING HEN YOU SAW THE 87 TAKE TWO TIRES ON THE LAST PIT STOP? "I felt like it was Christmas. I couldn't believe it really. They probably thought most of the guys would get two tires for track position. I don't have that much experience here, but I have enough to know that I definitely needed four tires on my tires. Two tires would have never held it. The Aleve Ford, these guys did a great job. When we started we were nowhere near good enough to win the race. Through Michael Waltrip dropping out, obviously he was the class of the field, all the adjustments we made, they had it right at the end."

SCOTT RIGGS-10-Nestle Nesquik Ford Taurus (Finished 3rd) - "We were just a little bit too tight for some reason on that last set of tires. I couldn't quite catch back up after fighting all of the lapped cars, which were ridiculous the way they were running so hard the last couple of laps there. I couldn't quite get up there to run for second or first. Kenseth had a great car and I don't know what happened to Kevin, he had a good car too. I'm just proud of all of these guys on the Nesquik Ford Taurus; they did a great job. Doug Randolph came on board and everything is really working right now. I'm just proud of all of the guys; they did great pit stops. The chemistry is just clicking so well. We always keep our heads high and keep thinking together as a team and try to figure out what the best scenario is and we did that pretty much all weekend. We just kept trying to figure these tires out. It was a little bit different tire compound and it always throws you a little bit of a curve ball. Even though we qualified well we weren't very happy with it. We kept working on it all day and had great pit stops. We gained positions every time we came into the pits. My hat's off to all of those guys for doing it. I'm proud of everybody. It's just clicking right now."

GREG BIFFLE-9-Uh-Oh! Oreo Ford Taurus (Finished 12th) - WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU AT THE END OF THE RACE? "I think that the 20 car just got the air off of me. I had a really good car and the 92 was blocking the whole time at the end getting sideways making guys get out of the throttle. He took two tires with 17 laps to go and he didn't give the faster cars any sort of courtesy. I burned my right-front off trying to avoid hitting him. The car was just too tight all day. We couldn't free it up. We worked on it all day and never got it freed up."

BOBBY HAMILTON, JR.-25-Team Marines Ford Taurus (Finished 13th) - "A lot of the Cup guys didn't work with us too good. The 87 let off to give us our lap back and the 17 was trying to race him back to the flag to try to get him a cheap one. That just kept us a lap down. The change that everybody thought was going to hurt, it was probably the best we've had at Charlotte, and it showed. We were able to run with all of the Cup guys today, so we were tickled with it."

KASEY KAHNE-38-Great Clips Ford Taurus (Finished 6th) - "I'm happy for the team, they did a great job. We had good pit stops and worked on the car all day. It started out just alright and it stayed alright most of the day and we were just good. We got it a little better towards the end, which was good, and we got some good track position by pit stops. They did a good job. We worked all day on that car and slowly got it a little better. We struggled with that thing. That was our worst car all year that we finished good with. It was good for the team to prove that we can run in the top 10 on a bad day. Track position was huge. That's why our pit stops paid off all day. We finally got some good ones, consistent stops all day long and I've got to thank those guys. Our goal is top 10 in points. We've just got to finish races and this is a good way to start -- to finish with bad race car."

JASON KELLER-57-Albertsons Ford Taurus (Finished 17th) - "We just ran bad. I wish we had excuses. I know we had to go to a back-up car, but this car should have been as good as our primary. We just missed the setup and when we had that long green at the start, it put us down in a hurry and we could never recover. We have to do something. We haven't been running good lately. I thought we were digging our way out a couple of weeks ago, but we just can't ever find where those good finishes are right now."

MATT KENSETH PRESS CONFERENCE

TALK ABOUT YOUR DAY. "It was a great day at the end obviously. We got it to where we needed to. Michael was the class of the field. Even when he wasn't leading, I think he was trying to put on a good race and hanging out. He was the class of the field. He was just really, really fast. I don't know if we could have run with him at the end or not. We started off and our car was quite a ways off. We were expecting the sun today and different track conditions. Our car was way off and I honestly didn't think we had a prayer of running with the leaders; I thought that we could run seventh to 10th. We were able to make good adjustments and actually bring the car around. We had just enough cautions and just enough pit stops to change the things that my car needed to be able to make it do the things I wanted it to do. Three pit stops from then we hit on something and the car was quite a bit better. The second to last pit stop we hit on it and the car was as good as I could make it, and then it was good from then on out."

WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU SAW KYLE BUSCH TAKE TWO TIRES WITH 30 LAPS TO GO? "First of all, I'm kind of a pessimist or a realist, and I don't count my chickens until they hatch. I wasn't real excited, but when I did see it I sort of felt like it was Christmas. We still came out of the pits in second. If he would have gotten two tires and we would have come out of the pits in eighth and there would have been seven cars that got two tires, I would have been worried. Really, as many times as we've raced here and as many times as I've done that, I would never gamble on two tires with the way the track conditions were, the way my car was running. When I saw that he had two, I knew that four were going to be way faster than two and I was just hoping to get a good restart and not have a caution at the end. That was all of our tires, we had lefts left but I don't think that mattered. When I saw him get two, I was really surprised that they did it, but I was really happy they did it because if you put four tires on that car with him driving it and put him in front of me, he could have been a handful to beat. When I saw that he had two I knew we were in good shape."

TALK ABOUT THE PASS YOU MADE ON THE 87 CAR? "What happened, I think the 5 and the 86 stayed out and they were both on the tail end of the lead lap from not pitting. The 86 started on the outside front row and the 5 was on the inside. Then it was the 87 and me, so I was looking for a hole on the bottom to slide in there because I wasn't real comfortable with what was going on up there. There were two cars with old tires side by side on the front row and then there was a car with two tires right behind them that I knew was going to be anxious to get a good start. I was back there with four tires so I kinda held back a little bit. I saw a hole on the bottom, my spotter told me I had a hole there, and I just slid in the hole in the bottom and kinda waited to see what would happen. The inside lane went right by the outside lane and I pretty much had him. I was three wide with him in the middle of the backstretch but I think I had cleared him pretty good by the time we got to the end. I just figured the bottom would be the place to be. It usually is in one and two. Three and four is pretty wide, but one and two, the bottom is better. I knew that with four tires that was the place that I wanted to be at."

YOU'VE BEEN CONSISTENT IN BOTH THE BUSCH AND CUP CAR LATELY. IS THAT A PRODUCT OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ROBBIE REISER? "I don't know. I will say that since we had the common templates and since we've switched our Busch cars to Fords, which in the past had always been Chevys. In the past, absolutely none of the information related and now the stuff relates a lot more than it did. I can't run the same setup in my Busch car that I can in my cup car. Vegas for instance, when we tested our Busch car at Vegas I learned a lot of stuff that I used in my Cup car when we came back there. It works a little bit both ways. The cars are definitely more similar than they have ever been in the past and they take closer to the same setups than they ever have. They still drive different, but they do take closer to the same setups than they ever have. I hope that we can stay consistent. We've always had great Busch cars at Reiser Enterprises and it's always a lot of fun to drive them."

SCOTT RIGGS PRESS CONFERENCE

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THIRD TODAY? "I'm satisfied with it right now. It was a good points day for us. We were consistent and stayed close to the top five all day. I was happy with the car after qualifying and then once I left you guys and went out there and got in my car for Happy Hour I was pretty disgusted with it. We were still struggling with the front end. No matter what changes we made, nothing really worked. We had to really do some different things. We thought about it hard last night and we had to do some things today that were out of the ordinary as far as adjustments on the car to really make these new tires work here. I don't know if we would have had some Winston Cup help we might have caught on to it a little sooner, but we kept working on the car all day. Every time that I came into the pits, they guys made up positions in the pits and I couldn't be more proud of the guys. All of the guys on the Nesquik Ford keep their chins up and they never give up and we'll go away from this race third and we'll go next weekend and keep trying to plug away those top fives."

WHAT DO YOU CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR RECENT STRING OF TOP-FIVE FINISHES? "The new crew chief, Doug Randolph, brings an entirely different mental aspect to the game. He really put a good leadership role model in front of the guys. He really knows how to make the guys work the hardest that they've ever worked before. They're very focused and they're all striving to be better and they continue to work closer and closer together as a team. The closer that they pull together as a unit, the more focused that they become. It just keeps getting better and better, and it's fun to have such great chemistry with myself and Doug Randolph and all of the team. It makes it fun on race day when you can have good race cars every week."

TALK ABOUT KYLE BUSCH TODAY. "I had a chance to race with his brother, of course, in the trucks series for an entire year. I saw a lot of Kurt. He drives really hard and gives a lot of respect to other drivers. The little bit that I had to race with Kyle in the truck series a few races before they made the rule change, he showed the same kind of qualities - very respectful, hard driver, hard-charger. I think that as long as he keeps his head the way he has it and keeps his focus in place, he will be a great race car driver and move up through the ranks pretty quickly. He has a great opportunity and he has a great role model in his brother to learn from. He had a great car, but when he took two tires and we took four, I thought that we would be able to mow him down pretty quick. We struggled so bad with the lapped cars that thought they were racing on the lead lap. I'm not going to even comment much on that. It was just frustrating. You lose so much track position and track distance to Kyle and then really try to mow him down and I saw him get sideways a couple of times and really start to get close to him. I might have been able to get to him, but I don't know if I could have gotten around him, but I think I could have got to him until the caution came out. Not taking anything away from those guys, they did a great job, just like my guys. I takes not just being lucky but you have to be good at this level to be competitive and finish in the top five."

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